idea that their idol had been born inBerlin. Isaac Temple, the mild-mannered press-agent whom she employed,had always presented her, both to press and public, and sent thoseartistic photographs of hers to the Sunday illustrated papers, asdaughter of a London barrister who had died suddenly, leaving herpenniless. Thus had the suspicious connection with Drost been alwayscarefully suppressed, and Ella lived very quietly in her pretty flat inStamfordham Mansions, situate just off the High Street in Kensington.
Her father--her English mother, whom she had adored, being long agodead--lived a quiet, secluded life in one of those rather large houseswhich may be found on the south side of the Thames between Putney andRichmond. Pastor Drost had, it was believed by the Dutch colony inLondon, been a missionary for some years in Sumatra, and, on more thanone occasion, he had lectured upon the native life of that island.Therefore he had many friends among Dutch merchants and others, who allregarded him as a perfectly honest and even pious, if rather eccentric,man.
At times he wore big round horn-rimmed glasses which grossly magnifiedhis eyes, giving him a strange goggled appearance. The world, however,never knew that Pastor Drost's only daughter was that versatile dancerwho, dressed in next-to-nothing, nightly charmed those huge enthusiasticaudiences in the popular revue, "Half a Moment!"
Until three months after the outbreak of war Ella had regarded herfather's idiosyncrasies with some amusement, dismissing them as theoutcome of a mind absorbed in chemical experiment, for though none saveherself was aware of it, the long attic beneath the roof of her father'shouse--the door of which Theodore Drost always kept securely locked--wasfitted as a great chemical laboratory, where he, as a professor ofchemistry, was constantly experimenting.
After the outbreak of war, by reason of a conversation she one dayoverheard between her father and his mysterious visitor, Ernst Ortmann,her suspicions had become aroused. Strange suspicions they indeed were.But in order to obtain confirmation of them, she had become moreattached to her father, and had visited him far more frequently thanbefore, busying herself in his domestic affairs, and sometimes assistingthe old widow, Mrs Pennington, who acted as his single servant.
Two years prior to the war, happening upon that house, which was to besold cheap, Ella had purchased it, ready furnished as it was, and givenit as a present to her father as a place in which he might spend his oldage in comfort. But until that night when she had overheard the curiousconversation--which she had afterwards disclosed in confidence to herlover, Lieutenant Seymour Kennedy, Flight-Commander of the Naval AirService--she had never dreamed that her father, the good and piousDutchman who had once been a missionary, was an enemy alien, whose planswere maturing in order to assist a great and desperate conspiracyorganised by the secret service of the German Fatherland.
On a certain well-remembered November evening she had revealed toKennedy the truth, and they had both made a firm compact with eachother. The plotter was her father, it was true. But she was a daughterof Great Britain, and it was for her to combat any wily and evil plotwhich might be formed against the land which had given birth to heradored mother.
She loved Seymour Kennedy. A hundred men had smiled upon her, bent overher little hand, written to her, sent her flowers and presents, anddeclared to her their undying affection. It is ever so. The popularactress always attracts both fools and fortunes. But Ella, level-headedgirl as she was, loved only Seymour, and had accepted the real,whole-hearted and honest kisses which he had imprinted upon her lips.Seymour Kennedy was a gentleman before being an officer, which couldnot, alas! be said of all the men in the services in war-time.
Ella Drost was no fool, her dead mother had always instilled into hermind that, though born of a German father, yet she was British, anargument which, if discussed legally, would have been upset, because,having, unfortunately, been born in Berlin, she was certainly a subjectof the German octopus. At the time of her birth her father had occupieda very important position among professors--half the men in theFatherland were professors of something or other--yet Drost had beenprofessor of chemistry at the Imperial Arsenal at Spandau--that greatimpregnable fortress in which the French war indemnity of 1870 had beenlocked up as the war-chest of golden French louis.
How strange it was! And yet it was not altogether strange. Ella, whoseheart--the heart of a true British girl trained at her mother's knee--had discovered a curious "something" and, aided by her British airmanlover, was determined to carry on her observations, at all hazards, tothe point of ascertaining the real truth.
England was at war at the battle-front--and she, a mere girl, was at warwith the enemy in its midst.
Three-quarters of an hour later Ella--whose comfortable car was waitingoutside the dingy little place--had driven her father home, but on theway she expressed her decision to stay with him, as it was late and herFrench maid, Mariette, had no doubt gone to bed.
As they stood in her father's large, well-furnished dining-room, Elladrew some lemonade from a siphon and then, declaring that she wassleepy, said she would retire.
"All right, my dear," replied the old man. "All right. You'll findyour room quite ready for you. I always order that it shall be keptready for you. Let's see! You were here a week ago--so the bed willnot be damp."
The girl bent and imprinted a dutiful kiss upon her father's white brow,but, next instant, set her teeth, and in her blue eyes--though he didnot see it--there showed a distinct light of suspicion.
Then she switched on the light on the stairs, loosened her furs, andascended to the well-furnished room that was always regarded as hers.
The room in which Ella found herself was large, with a fine doublewardrobe, a long cheval-glass, and a handsome mahogany dressing-table.The curtains and upholstery were in pale-blue damask, while the thickplush carpet was of a darker shade.
Instead of retiring, Ella at once lit the gas-stove, glanced at herwristlet-watch, the face of which was set round with diamonds, and thenflung herself into a deep armchair to think, dozing off at last, tiredout by the exertion of her dancing.
The striking of the little gilt clock upon the mantelshelf presentlyaroused her, and, rising, she switched off the light and, creeping upontiptoe, slowly opened her bedroom door and listened attentively.
Somewhere she could hear the sound of men's voices. One she recognisedas her father's.
"That's Nystrom again! That infernal hell-fiend!" she whisperedbreathlessly to herself.
Then, removing her smart shoes and her jingling bangles, she creptstealthily forth along the soft carpet of the corridor, and with greatcare ascended the stairs to the floor above, which was occupied by thatlong room, the door of which was always kept locked--the room in whichher father conducted his constant experiments.
From the ray of light she saw that the door was ajar. Within, the twomen were talking in low deep tones in German.
She could hear a hard sound, as of metal being filed down, and more thanonce distinguished the clinking of glass, as though her father wasengaged in some experiment with his test-tubes and other scientificparaphernalia which she had seen arranged so methodically upon the twolong deal tables.
"What has Ortmann told you?" asked Theodore Drost's midnight visitor,while his daughter stood back within the long cupboard on the landing,listening.
"He says that all is in order. We have a friend awaiting us."
"And the payment--eh?" asked the man Nystrom, a German who had beennaturalised as a Swede, and now lived in London as a neutral. As aprofessor of chemistry he had been well-known in Stockholm and, being abosom friend of the Dutch pastor's, the pair often delighted in dabblingtogether in their favourite science.
"I shall meet Ernst on Friday night. If we are successful, he will paytwo thousand pounds--to be equally divided between us."
"Good," grunted the other. "We shall be successful, never fear--that isif Ortmann has arranged things at his end. _Himmel_! what a shock itwill be--eh, my friend?--worse than the Zeppelins!"
Theodore Drost l
aughed gleefully, while his daughter, daring to creepforward again, peered through the crack of the door and saw the pairbending over what looked like a square steel despatch-box standing uponthe table amid all the scientific apparatus.
The box, about eighteen inches long, a foot wide, and six inches deep,was khaki-covered, and, though she was not aware of it at the time, itwas of the exact type used in the Government offices.
Fridtjof Nystrom, a tall, dark-haired man, with a red, blotchy face,rather narrow-eyed and round-shouldered, was adjusting something withinthe box, while old Drost, who had discarded his shabby black pastor'scoat and now wore a dark-brown jacket, took up a small glass retortbeneath which the blue flame of a spirit-lamp had been burning, and fromit he poured a few drops of some bright red liquid into a tiny tube ofvery thin glass. Then, taking a small blow-pipe, he blew the flame uponthe tube until he had melted the glass and
The Bomb-Makers Page 2
