The Bomb-Makers

by William Le Queux

Lambert, the understudy, wasdressing to go on and fulfil her place in the final scene.

  Her car took her home to the pretty flat in Stamfordham Mansions, justoff Kensington High Street, where she lived alone with Mariette herFrench maid, and there, in her dainty little drawing-room, she satsilent, almost statuesque, for fully five minutes.

  "Is it possible?" she gasped. "Is it really possible that such adastardly plot is being carried out!" she murmured in agitation.

  Her little white hands clenched themselves, and her pretty mouth grewhard. She was sweet and charming, without any stage affectations. Yet,when she set herself to combat the evil designs of her enemy-father shewas not a person to be trifled with--as these records of her adventureswill certainly show.

  "I wonder if Seymour can have been misled?" she went on, rising from herchair as she spoke aloud to herself. "And yet," she added, "he isalways so level-headed!"

  Mariette--a slim, dark-eyed girl--entered with a glass tube ofsolidified eau-de-Cologne which she rubbed upon her mistress's brow, andthen Ella passed into her own room and quickly dismissed the girl forthe night.

  As soon as Mariette had gone she flung off her dress and took anotherfrom her wardrobe, a rough brown tweed golfing-suit, and put on aclose-fitting cloth hat to match. Then, getting into a thickblanket-coat, she pulled on her gloves and, taking up a small leatherblouse-case, went out, closing the door noiselessly after her.

  At nine o'clock on the following evening Ella Drost descended in thelift from the second floor of the Victoria Hotel, in Sheffield, and,wearing her blanket-coat, went to the station platform and bought aticket to Chesterfield--the town with the crooked spire.

  Half-an-hour later she walked out into the station yard where she foundher lover, the good-looking Flight-Commander, awaiting her in a big greycar. He no longer wore uniform, but was in blue serge with a thickbrown overcoat.

  "By Jove, Ella!" he exclaimed in welcome, as he grasped her hand. "I'mjolly glad you've come up here! There's a lot going on. You wereperfectly correct when you first hinted at it. I've been watchingpatiently for the past month. Hop in; we've no time to lose."

  Next second, Ella was in the seat beside her lover, and the powerful carmoved off down the Arkwright Road, a high-road running due eastward,till they joined another well-kept highway which, in the pale light,showed wide and open with its many lines of telegraphs--the road toClowne.

  On through the falling darkness they travelled through Elmton and up thehill to Bolsover, where they suddenly turned off to the left and,passing down some dark, narrow lanes, with which Kennedy was evidentlyfamiliar, they at last pulled up at the corner of a thick wood.

  "Now," he said, speaking almost for the first time, and in a low voice,"we'll have to be very careful indeed."

  He had shut off his engine and switched off his lamps.

  "We ought to make quite certain to-night that we are not mistaken," shesaid.

  "That is my intention," was her lover's reply, and then she flung offher coat and crossed the stile, entering the wood after him. He had apocket flash-lamp, and ever and anon threw its rays directly upon theground so that they could see the path. The latter was an intricateone, for twice they came to cross-paths, and in both cases Kennedyselected one without hesitation.

  At last, however, they began to move down the hill more cautiously,conversing in low whispers, and showing no light until they at lastfound themselves in the grounds attached to a large, low-built countryhouse, lying in the valley.

  "Ortmann is living here as Mr Horton," Kennedy whispered. "They toldme in the village that he took the house furnished about three monthsago, from a Major Jackson, who is at the front."

  "But why is he living down here--in a house like this?" she asked.

  "That's just what we want to discover. Many Germans have country housesin England for some mysterious and unknown reason."

  Kennedy, glancing at his luminous wrist-watch, noted that it was nearlytwo o'clock in the morning. From where they stood at the edge of thewood the house was plainly visible, silhouetted on the other side of awide lawn.

  No light showed in any of the windows, and to all appearances theinmates were asleep.

  As the pair stood whispering, a big Airedale suddenly bounded forth,barking angrily as a preliminary to attacking them.

  It was an exciting moment. But in that instant Ella recognised the barkas that of her father's dog.

  "Jack!" she said, in a low voice of reproof. "Be quiet, and come here."

  In a moment the dog, which Drost had evidently lent to his friendOrtmann as watch-dog, bounded towards his mistress and licked her hand.

  It was evident that the occupiers of the lonely place did not desireintruders.

  Fearing lest the barking of "Jack" might have alarmed the inmates, theyremained silent for a full quarter-of-an-hour, and then again creepingbeneath the shadows of the hedges and trees, they managed to cross thelawn and the gravelled path, until they stood together beneath the frontof the house.

  "Listen!" gasped Kennedy, grasping the girl's arm. "Do you hearanything?"

  "Yes--a kind of muffled crackling noise."

  "That's a wireless spark!" her lover declared. "So they have wirelesshere!"

  Creeping along, they passed the main entrance and gained the other sideof the house where, quite plainly, there could be heard the whir of adynamo supplying the current.

  But though Kennedy's keen eyes searched for aerial wires, he coulddiscover none in that dim light, the moon having now disappearedentirely. So he concluded that they were so constructed that they couldbe raised at night and lowered and concealed at daybreak, or perhapseven disguised as a portion of wire fencing.

  "As the wireless is working--sending information to the enemy without adoubt--then our friend Ortmann is most probably at home," whispered theflying-man. "As the motor is still running it will drown any noise, andwe might get inside without being heard. Are you ready to risk it?"

  "With you, dear, I'll risk anything that may be for my country'sbenefit," she declared. Then he pressed her soft hand in his, stoopingtill his lips met hers.

  As they stood there in that single blissful moment, there came the soundof a train suddenly emerging from a long tunnel in the side of the hillin the near vicinity, and with the light of the furnace glaring in thedarkness it sped away eastward. Its sound showed it to be a goodstrain--one of the many which, laden with munitions from the Midlands,went nightly towards the coast on their way to the British front.

  Only then did they realise that the railway-line ran along the end ofthe grounds, and that the mouth of the great G--Tunnel was only fivehundred yards or so from where they stood. Kennedy took from his pocketa small jemmy in two pieces, which he screwed together, and then beganto examine each of the French windows which led on to the lawn. Allwere closed, with their heavy wooden shutters secured.

  The shutters of one, however, though closed, had, he saw by the aid ofhis flash-lamp, not been fastened. The dog, Jack, following hismistress, was sniffing and assisting in the investigation.

  Examining the long window minutely, they saw that it had been closedhurriedly and, hence, scarcely latched. The room, too, was in darkness.

  Suddenly, just as Kennedy was about to make an attempt to enter, theelectric light was switched on within the room, and the pair had onlytime to slip round the corner of the house, when the French windowopened, and four men stepped forth upon the lawn, conversing in whispersas they walked on tiptoe together across the gravel on to the grass.

  "I wonder what's up!" whispered Kennedy to Ella. "Let us follow andsee."

  This they did, keeping always in the dark shadows, and retracing theirfootsteps to the edge of the wood close to where the railway ran.

  As they watched they saw that, having crossed the lawn, the four menentered a meadow adjoining, and they then recognised the figures ofDrost and Ortmann with two strangers. They all walked straight to thecorner where stood an old cow-shed, and into
this they all fourdisappeared.

  For a full half-hour they remained there, Kennedy and his well-belovedcrouching beneath a bush in wonder at what there could be in thecow-shed to detain them so long.

  The shed was at the base of a high wooded hill. Away, at some distanceon the left, the railway-line entered the great tunnel which pierced thehill, and through it ran one of the most important railways from theMidlands to the East Coast.

  The reason of their long absence in that tumbledown cow-shed wascertainly mysterious. The lovers strained their ears to listen, but nosound reached them.

  "Very curious!" whispered Kennedy. "What, I wonder, should detain themso long? There is some further mystery here, without a doubt.Something of interest is in progress."

  Suddenly, all four men emerged