Thorne Guy
The Air Pirate

CHAPTER VII THE CURIOUS FIGHT IN THE RESTAURANT

"It is a good deal to ask, Sir John," said Danjuro briskly, "but, for the moment, will you place yourself entirely in my hands?"

"I am perfectly content to do so."

"Then permit me to press the bell." He did so.

"I left a black bag in the hall," Danjuro said politely when Thumbwood came in. "Would you please let me have it?"

The bag was brought. Danjuro placed it on the table and opened it.

"You are very well known, Sir John," he remarked. "Major Helzephron and his friends have either seen you at some time or other, or have certainly seen the numerous pictures of you that have appeared in the newspapers during the last few days. It is imperative that you change your appearance at once. I foresaw that and have brought materials."

I am afraid I whistled with dismay. The idea didn't please me in the very least. "Is it really necessary?.."

"Absolutely. But it will not inconvenience you. Will you go into your bedroom and clip off your moustache with scissors, afterwards shaving the upper lip clean? You see, the man who leaves London to-night must not in the least resemble the Chief Commissioner of Air Police."

I went and did it. I had to. When the operation was over I shouldn't have known myself, it made such a difference. I never knew that I had such a grim and forbidding mouth!

I returned to the sitting-room. Mr. Danjuro did not make the least comment, but he removed my collar and tie with the deftness of a barber and fastened a towel round my neck. Then he sponged my skin all over with some faintly pink stuff out of a bottle. When he had done that, he began on my hair with something else, and finally my eyebrows.

"May I ask what you are doing?" I said after a time.

"I am dyeing your hair black, Sir John. The dye can be removed at any time. The appearance is absolutely natural. The drug I am using is not generally known. I procure it from a friend in the Honcho Dori at Yokohama, and also the liquid which has already changed your skin from blond to swarthy. I will treat your hands in a minute."

I suppose I was three-quarters of an hour under his ministrations before he stepped back and looked at me critically. "Part your hair in the centre, instead of at the side, wear a low collar instead of a high one, and spectacles – they can be of plain glass – and you need not have the slightest fear of recognition. In fact, Sir John, as far as outward appearance goes, you have already ceased to exist!"

There was a mirror over the mantel-shelf. I stood up and looked. It was marvellous! It was uncanny, too. A dark-haired, dark-skinned stranger leered out of the glass at me, and I turned away with mingled feelings of amazement and disgust.

"Do you drive an automobile?" the Japanese asked.

I jumped at the suddenness of the question, for my thoughts were far away. "Yes, I have a touring car of my own in a neighbouring garage."

"It will be better not to use it. We shall take one of Mr. Van Adams' cars. It is ready."

I laughed. "I've a lot to hear yet, you know, Mr. Danjuro, though I have placed myself in your hands without reserve. But you made very sure of me beforehand, didn't you?"

"It is Mr. Van Adams' command," he answered simply, and I reflected that here, indeed, was a man with a single soul.

"We shall leave London at midnight," he went on, "and drive through the whole of the night. I, also, am an expert chauffeur, and we can relieve each other."

"Thumbwood can drive, too. Of course we take him with us?"

"He will be of the greatest assistance. Now, Sir John, if you want to take a little sleep, now is the time. I should like to consult with your servant, if I may, and have a chat with him. We shall have a good deal to do with one another."

Strangely enough, I did feel drowsy, despite my excitement. A couple of hours' sleep would refresh me wonderfully, and I knew it.

"Very well; I think it is a good suggestion. Say for two hours."

"By all means. I will carry out some other arrangements meanwhile. You shall have full explanations later on, and I thank you sincerely for the confidence you have reposed in me."

While we were talking we had left the room and crossed the hall.

"A pleasant sleep," he said, politely opening the door for me. "We will go and have a look at Major Helzephron later on."

"What?" I shouted.

"He is in London. I have never seen him and I must certainly do so."

"In London?" I cried, a dozen conflicting thoughts crowding and crushing into my mind.

"… It is the reason that we leave London to-night."

Then he had shut the door on me and was gone. I had known him less than two hours. I was a man accustomed to rule, whose whole life was spent in giving orders, and I lay down on my bed like a lamb without a further question. And, what is more, I did exactly as Mr. Danjuro had said. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

At a little after eight Mr. Danjuro and myself sat at dinner at the Restaurant Mille Colonnes. Most people know that expensive and luxurious home of epicures, with Nicholas, its stout and arrogant proprietor, and M. Dulac, its famous chef.

We sat in the south gallery, at the extreme end, against the wall. The electric lights in the roof above us had been extinguished, and our table was lighted by candles in red shades. Indeed, we sat in a sort of darkness which must have made us almost invisible to the other diners, most of whom sat in the longer arm of the gallery at right angles to our own.

We, on the contrary, could see everything. We could look over the gilded rail into the hall of the restaurant below, and every detail of the gallery on our own level was clear and distinct, though there was such a towering erection of flowers and ferns in the centre of our table that it obscured what would otherwise have been a perfect view.

I wore a low, turned-down collar and a dark flannel suit. Danjuro, also, had changed his clothes, and, in some real but indefinite way, his appearance. He wore a flannel suit and a straw hat, and also a necktie which I suddenly spotted as that of my old college, Christ Church, Oxford. But the extraordinary thing about him was that he seemed fifteen years younger.

He had promised to explain at the "Mille Colonnes." As we began upon the salted prawns and the stuffed olives he did so.

"You are now Mr. Johns, an Oxford tutor, Sir John. I am a young Japanese gentleman, my own name will serve, whom you are coaching. We are going into the country with this disguise. It is one which will easily account for your being in the company of an Asiatic gentleman, and which you will have no difficulty in sustaining."

It was, indeed, a simple and excellent plan for avoiding undue curiosity. I said so, and then: "Now perhaps you will tell me where we are going. I have my ideas…"

"We are going west," he answered gravely. "To Cornwall."

My heart beat fast. It was what I wanted him to say. "To the home of Helzephron?"

"Yes. For it is there we shall be in the very centre of the web. In those far western solitudes, despite the recent opening up of the Duchy to tourists, there are still vast spaces of lonely moorland and unvisited coast where one may walk for half a day and meet no living soul. There is a great Hinterland between the little town of St. Ives and the Land's End that for all practical purposes is unknown and unexplored. Later on, I will show you certain maps… It is in one of the remotest spots of all that Major Helzephron has his house. I tell you, Sir John," he continued, with a sort of passion, "that in those lost and forgotten solitudes, where England stretches out her granite foot to spurn the Atlantic, strange secrets lie hid to-day! On those grey and lonely moors, where the last Druids practised their mysterious rites, and which are still covered with sinister memorials of the past, lies the explanation of the terror which is troubling the world! There, and there only, shall we discover the secrets of the air, and – if human skill and determination are of any avail – Miss Constance Shepherd!"

An obsequious waiter came with iced consommé. He was followed by the great Nicholas himself, bulging out of his buttoned frock-coat – Nicholas never wore evening dress – who bowed low and had a whispered confabulation with Danjuro.

I remarked on this unusual honour. "I do what I wish here," the Japanese replied. "It is, of course, through Mr. Van Adams. I hold this place in the hollow of my hand – as you will presently see!"

He gave one of his rare and weary smiles, and then said quietly: "Please do not get up or move. Major Helzephron has just come into the gallery!"

I could not have moved. His words turned me to stone.

"I felt sure," he went on, "that for a day or two Helzephron would show himself in London. Knowing what we know – or at least suspect – such a move was a certainty. He is in the habit of coming here. He booked his usual seat at this restaurant, and his usual box at the Parthenon Theatre – and for reasons obvious to you and me, if to no one else in the world! I confess to an anxiety to look upon this man."

"You have had this corner darkened?" I said quickly. "No one can see us here?"

"Not clearly. And Helzephron would not know who we are if he did see us. But, as he is sure to come upon us in Cornwall, it is better to take no risks. To that end I have had a little device arranged for us which proved of great service to me once in Chicago."

He bent forward to the mass of ferns and flowers in the centre of the table, disarranging the greenery at its base. At once a green-painted tube became visible, and then a slanting mirror, the size of a postcard.

"What on earth is that?" I whispered.

"An adaptation of the periscope!" he replied, taking a magnifying glass from his pocket, adjusting it, and bending over the mirror. "The lens is focussed upon Helzephron's table. With this magnifier I enlarge the image in the mirror. Ah! So that is the honourable gentleman!"

A faint hissing noise came from him. His face stiffened into fixed and horrible intentness as he stared through his magnifier at the little oblong of mirror.

"Shi-ban, Go-ban, hei!" he muttered. "There are two, then. I expect the younger man is the Honourable Herbert Gascoigne, of whom we have heard!"

The hissing noise continued, the ecstasy of attention did not relax for two or three minutes.

At last Danjuro looked up. His face, which had seemed carved out of jade, relaxed.

"Will you take my seat?" he said politely, handing me his reading-glass. "A little drama will commence in a few minutes. It will interest you!"

I gave him a glance of interrogation as we exchanged chairs.

"We shall be in Cornwall to-morrow, and in advance of our friends," he whispered. "But, in order that we may carry out our preliminary inquiries quite undisturbed, I have thought out a little plan by which, if all goes well, Major Helzephron will be detained in London for a day or two – you will see."

Trembling with eagerness I stared down at the mirror.

The periscope was perfectly focussed. The addition of the reading-glass made everything perfectly clear.

Two men in evening clothes were seated at a table. Their heads were close together, and they were talking earnestly. One was a tall, handsome boy of two-and-twenty, with a fair complexion and a reckless, dissipated cast of face. Young as he was, evil experience had marked him, and his smile was that of a much older man.

But I scarcely cast a glance on him as I stared at the coloured, moving miniature of "Hawk Helzephron." The man's face was deeply tanned; above the brows a magnificent dome of white forehead went up to a thatch of dark red hair – the forehead of a thinker if ever I saw one. The face below was seamed and lined everywhere. The thin nose curved out and down like that of a bird of prey. The mouth was large, well-shaped, but compressed, the chin a wedge of resolution. And, as he talked, I saw a pair of slightly protruding eyes, cold and fierce. The whole aspect of the man was ferocious and formidable to a degree.

"Watch!" whispered Danjuro.

I watched, and this is what I saw.

Into the picture came a thick-set, brutal-looking man, with a blazing diamond in his shirt-front. He was passing Helzephron's table when his dinner jacket caught a wine-glass and swept it to the floor.

The hawk-faced man looked up with a scowl and said something just as the portly Nicholas and a waiter appeared in the background, as if passing casually by.

The thick-set man bent down till his face was close to Helzephron's. He said something also, with an unpleasant smile.

Instantly Helzephron leapt up and drove his fist full into the other's face.

The fight that followed ended very speedily. The thick-set man took the blow calmly. Then, without heat, and in a fashion which instantly told me the truth of the matter, he set about Helzephron, hitting him where and when he chose, until a shouting crowd of guests and waiters separated the combatants and a policeman and commissionaire hurried them away from the gallery.

During all the tumult Mr. Danjuro sat quietly smoking a cigarette.

"That was Mr. Wag Ashton, the pugilist," he remarked. "Honourable Nicholas and the waiter saw that the honourable Helzephron struck him first. I think the Major will be resting for a day or two before Mr. Ashton summonses him for assault."

I felt faint with surprise and amazement.

"So you, you arranged …"

He interrupted me. "Now let us finish our dinner in peace," he said. "Some river trout, meunier, are coming."

An hour afterwards, with myself at the wheel, a huge sixty horse-power limousine, loaded with luggage and with Messrs. Danjuro and Thumbwood inside, was rolling down the Piccadilly slope.

To Penzance.

CHAPTER VIII
THE HUNTING INSTINCT IS STIMULATED BY A PROCESSION

The big car rolled down Piccadilly. She was a beauty to handle, as I discovered in the first two minutes. The very latest type of electric starter, a magnificent lighting installation – every convenience was ready to my hand. I was in an extraordinary state of mind as I steered the car through the late theatre and restaurant traffic, purely mechanically and without conscious thought about it.

The predominant sensation was one of immense overwhelming relief at the prospect of action. Mere office activities, the planning of guard and patrol ships, conferences with pilots and officials, had been quite powerless to calm the terrible fever of unrest within me. It was commanding other people to do things, not doing them myself. I knew all the time that I should have been happier piloting one of the war-planes over the Atlantic. Now, at any rate, I was doing something real. I was actually setting out, in my own person, upon a definite quest. It might be all moonshine. I was well aware that many hard-headed people would have laughed at this expedition, considering the slender evidence I had. They would have talked about "circumstantial evidence," the folly of pure assumption, and so forth. "Behold this dreamer cometh!" would have been their attitude.

And although I was driving the big car up Park Lane for Oxford Street and the road to the West, I did feel as if I were in a dream. My whole life had been altered by the events of the past few days, ruined for ever it might be. To-night its stream was violently diverted from its course. Everything with which I was familiar had flashed away, and I was on the brink of the fantastic and unknown. There was not a man in London setting out upon so strange an errand, under circumstances so unprecedented, as I was this night. We slid by a huge white house, set back from the railings, and with all its windows looking out over the Park. It was the London palace that Mr. Van Adams had built for himself during the last five years, and the strangeness of my affair was intensified at the sight.

Only a few hours ago the great man had been sitting in my chambers, and introducing the enigmatic figure that sat behind me in the car. Here was a dream figure indeed! It was impossible to think of Danjuro as a human being. He was just a brain, a specialized force, devoted to one object, and probably, as Van Adams had hinted, the supreme force of its kind in existence. Already I had placed myself in his hands, and not only my personal interests, dear as those were to me, but my responsibilities to the State as well, and that was no small thing for him to have achieved in so short a space of time. The unique detachment and concentration that was sitting behind me had an almost magical effect upon one's mind and will. With such help, surely, I could not fail?

I fell to thinking of what the Japanese had already achieved, the quiet and masterly skill of his analysis, the cold audacity of his plot to keep Helzephron in London, the neatness and finish of his operations as witnessed by the periscope upon the dinner-table at the "Mille Colonnes." Surely, Helzephron, or whoever was the master-criminal, was a doomed man with Danjuro on his track?

We were running out of Ealing now, and traffic was almost gone in the long, straight westward road among the acres of market gardens and glass-houses that fringe the western approach to the metropolis. I let out the powerful engines, and as the car leapt like a spurred horse, my heart leapt up into anger at the name Helzephron.

Connie – poor, lost Connie – had told me herself how the man had pestered her, and I had seen him at Paddington with my own eyes. The investigations at the Parthenon Theatre by Thumbwood and Danjuro had put the details in the picture, and an ugly one it was. The man, V.C. as he was, had a bad reputation enough. I had watched him that very evening, marked every line upon the hawk-like, cruel face, and thrilled when the vulgar pugilist attacked him. It was the next best thing to thrashing him myself! Yet – I record this as an interesting point of my psychology at the beginning of the enterprise – I was disgusted with and loathed the man only. I did not hate him, for I found it, even now, impossible to believe that he was the abductor of my girl.

Understand me if you can. Danjuro had convinced my intellect, but not my heart. My state was the reverse of the ordinary state in such a situation. Plenty of people believe in anything – a religion for example – by faith, and cannot justify their faith intellectually. Their belief is always confident and strong. I believed intellectually, but had no faith, which was why this quest seemed shadow-like and a thing in a dream. No doubt, the long night drive and my curious companion – I was always conscious of him – intensified the impression of unreality.

About three in the morning Danjuro spoke through the tube and insisted on relieving me. I stopped the huge car in a dark, tree-bordered road, where the moonlight lay in pools and patches of silver, and exchanged seats with the little man. As I stood on the road and stamped with my feet to restore the circulation, the night-breeze rustled in the leaves, and far away I heard the nightjar spinning. Never was such a still and solitary place. Danjuro's face in the moonlight seemed as immobile and lifeless as one of those Japanese masks of wax with eyes of opalescent glass that you can buy in the Oriental shops.

I got inside and, suddenly weary, sank back in the luxuriously cushioned seat. The car started again, and Thumbwood switched on a light in the roof. He produced a Thermos flask of hot soup, which I found delicious and refreshing.

"How have you been getting on with Mr. Danjuro?" I inquired.

"Very well, thank you, Sir John. He knows everything, I do believe. If there's one thing where I should detect a man who was talking through 'is 'at, it's 'osses. Stands to reason. But this gentleman knows 'osses like a blooming trainer, sir. And as for the games of the crooks in the ring and on the course, he's wide to every one of 'em. I generally carries a pack of cards in my pocket, sir, and I've got one with me now. The things 'e showed me passes belief. I've seen a good deal of that sort of work, but Mr. Danjuro's an easy winner. I wouldn't play poker with 'im, no, nor 'alfpenny nap, for a fistful o' thick 'uns!"

We breakfasted at Exeter, and I had the opportunity of a shave and a bath. I remember that when I was half-way up the hotel stairs a horrid thought struck me, and I hurried down again to consult Danjuro.

How would the stuff he had put on my skin stand hot water and soap?

He reassured me, however. Nothing would remove the beastly stuff but a preparation he carried with him, and I bathed in peace.

It was a beautiful morning when we started again, and for many miles our route lay close to the smiling Devon sea. The waves were sapphire blue, framed in the red sandstone rocks, and the sky resembled a great hollow turquoise. It was a bright morning, and one side of me rejoiced in it; but the thought of my girl was always there, a constant sullen pain, for which the morning held no anodyne.

Thumbwood drove on this stretch of the journey, and Danjuro sat inside studying innumerable maps, and now and then making notes in a pocket-book. I wondered what thoughts were seething and bubbling behind that massive dome of skull.

Apart from the scenery, there was plenty to interest a Commissioner of Air Police. The sky was speckled with small private planes, converging upon Plymouth or Exeter from many a pleasant country residence. There was no longer any need for the professional man or the prosperous tradesman to live within a very few miles of his place of business. Men flew to their day's work, and from considerable distances, and as a matter of course. A mile or two out at sea one distinguished the large steady-going passenger airships by which England was now ringed, and occasionally the Royal Mail boats cut the sky like javelins. More than once I spotted one of my police patrols. It was curious to remember that I, who sat here with a stained face and shaven lip, bowling along the Devon roads at a miserable forty miles an hour, had supreme control of all those aerial argosies.

There were few cars upon the roads at this early hour. Contrary to general opinion fifteen years ago, the popularity of flying had by no means killed the automobile. It had lessened their numbers in an appreciable degree, and made the roads more pleasant. I should, of course, have preferred to reach our destination, or, at any rate, to have travelled the greater part of the way towards it by airship. The system of registration and the police regulations – framed by myself – would have given too much away. My actual identity and purpose might not have been discovered, but we should have been easily traced, and Helzephron – if he was what we suspected – would be the first to hear of a private aeroplane making its appearance in the solitudes where he lived.

Towards midday we were approaching Plymouth, when I began to feel uneasy. The agony I had endured there a day or two ago, when Thumbwood burst into my bedroom with news of the Atlantis disaster, clouded my memory. I felt that I never wished to see the pride of Devon again. This, though, was merely weakness which I crushed down. More practical considerations occurred to me. I made Charles stop the car and got inside with Danjuro.

"Look here," I said, "hadn't we better run straight through the town and get on into Cornwall? We can lunch at St. Germans or somewhere."

"You have some special reason for avoiding Plymouth, Sir John?" Danjuro asked politely.

"Well, it's the air-port for America. One of my largest stations is there. Dozens and dozens of people know me. I've always been a familiar figure in Plymouth, and never more so than lately, of course."

The Japanese gave his little weary smile. "I do not think you realize the alteration in your appearance," he said. "I assure you, and I am an expert in these matters, that no one at all would ever recognize you. I had proposed to stop in Plymouth for at least a couple of hours."

"Why, exactly?"

"For several reasons. One is that I shall be able to purchase some local Cornish maps and a directory or two, which I need, and found no opportunity of procuring in London. But that is not all. Here we are in the very centre of air matters, as far as the Atlantic is concerned. The place is still seething with excitement. Nothing else but the piracies is spoken of. The town is packed with correspondents of the principal European newspapers. It is in a ferment. I much wish to go about with my ears open for an hour or two. I do think, Sir John, that it would be unwise to neglect this opportunity, for you as well as myself. There is no knowing what we may pick up."

"You're certain about my disguise?"

"Perfectly certain. You will not, of course, enter into long conversations with anyone who knows you well, as your voice would betray you. Otherwise you may rest secure."

"Yes, that's the weak point," I replied. "I've always heard that, however perfectly a man may be disguised, you cannot disguise his voice."

He rolled a cigarette with the quick snatching movement of his fingers that always struck me as a miracle of dexterity.

"It is not true," he remarked. "I have invented five methods, three mechanical and two medical or chemical, whichever you like to call them. When we have leisure I will show you. But there is no need for anything of the sort in your case. It will give you confidence, Sir John, to test the completeness of your new appearance. If you will go to the Royal Hotel and lunch there – keeping awake to hear the general talk – I will join you about three."

"Very well," I replied, though with some reluctance, "and the car?"

"Mr. Thumbwood has been with you at the 'Royal,' and he is not disguised. It would be better that he should not approach the hotel. We will put you down a short distance away. I will remain in the car and direct Thumbwood where to go."

Nothing escaped this little man! He seemed to foresee and provide for everything, and when I alighted five minutes afterwards, some two hundred yards from the hotel, I felt fairly secure in my new character as Mr. Johns, the don of Christ Church, Oxford.

Immediately I was in the street I became aware – you know how one does? – that the Japanese was right, and Plymouth was in a ferment. London is too vast for anything but a national calamity to make any alteration in the outward appearance of things, and even then it takes a sharp eye and a man well versed in the psychology of crowds to detect anything unusual. Not so a big provincial town.

As I walked along the classic façade of the theatre and turned the corner to the main entrance of the hotel, I saw one thought on every face and heard one single topic of discussion. The streets, always so gay and cheerful with military and naval uniforms, seemed more crowded than their wont, and there was a definite electricity in the air. I know that I felt stimulated, encouraged to persist, and as I ascended the massive steps of the hotel, my clean-shaven lips smiled to think with what interest I should be regarded if anyone had but an inkling of whom I was and upon what mission.

And then I had a shock.

Standing in the big lounge-hall, and talking to a man in a black morning-coat and a silk hat, was my second in command – Muir Lockhart, Assistant Commissioner of Air Police! He was in uniform, a special uniform that we both wore upon ceremonial occasions only.

"Yes," he was saying, "I'm down here representing the Chief."

I dared not stay to listen, but I walked towards them as slowly as I could. Muir Lockhart has a somewhat high, penetrating voice.

"When did you come down?" asked the other man.

"Arrived half an hour ago, flew down from Whitehall this morning," said Muir Lockhart.

"Then Sir John Custance isn't coming?"

My assistant shook his head. "Utterly impossible," he said. "Sir John cannot leave town just now. He must be at the head of things; can't possibly be spared. I saw him this morning before I left; he had been working all night and was nearly dead. 'Explain my position to them,' he said; 'nothing but strict duty would keep me away from Plymouth to-day.' So, you see how it is, Mr. Mayor?"

"Oh, quite, quite! Well, I must be getting round to the Guildhall. You will march up your men at half-past one? Thank you."

The man in the silk hat, who I realized must be the Mayor of Plymouth, hurried away. I was left face to face with Muir Lockhart.

He stared at me, not offensively, but in such a way that he could not have missed a detail of my appearance; he always was an observant beggar. Then he passed by without a sign of recognition. Good! I reflected, if my own colleague, who saw me for several hours each day, did not know me, no one else would. It seemed a good omen, and I blessed Danjuro in my heart.

And what a splendid liar Muir Lockhart was! He knew that I had gone away on my own, and he hadn't the least idea in the world where I was! It was a temptation to discover myself, but I refrained.

I was very puzzled. What on earth was he doing here in uniform, and talking to the Mayor about? I hadn't a suspicion of the truth even then, and I had a curious sense of being out of things, forgotten and on the scrap-heap! The long drive had made me hungry and I thought about lunch. Before going into the coffee-room I wished to remove the stains of travel, so I went down the corridor to the lavatory.

When I entered a man in his shirt-sleeves was bending over one of the basins and sluicing himself with many splashes. As I was washing my own swarthy hands he emerged from a towel and gave me a casual glance.

It was Mr. Van Adams!

I could not repress a violent start, the thing was so sudden. What did this gathering of the clans mean? He noticed my movement at once, and looked at me with inquiry in his eyes. The lavatory was quite empty save for our two selves, and my decision was taken at once.

"Mr. Van Adams?" I asked.

"Sure!" he replied. "You have the floor – shoot!"

"You don't know me?"

"Not from the great Lum-tum, though your voice is kind of homey."