The Bomb-Makers

by William Le Queux

herfellow-workers.

  Arrived at the station, she followed the crowd of workers to the hugenewly-erected factory close by, a great hive of industry where, throughnight and day, Sunday and weekday, over eight thousand women made bigshells for the guns at the front.

  At the entrance-gate each girl passed singly beneath the keen eyes ofdoor-keepers and detectives, for no intruder was allowed within, itbeing as difficult for strangers to gain admission there as to enter thepresence of the Prime Minister at Downing Street.

  The shifts were changing, and the day-workers were going off. Hencethere was considerable bustle, and many of those lathes drilling andturning the great steel projectiles were, for the moment, still.

  Presently the night-workers began to troop in, each in her pale-brownoverall with a Dutch cap, around the edge of which was either a red orblue band denoting the status of the worker, while the forewomen weredistinctive in their dark-blue overalls.

  Some of the girls had exchanged their skirts for brown linen trousers.Those were the girls working the travelling cranes which, moving up anddown the whole length of the factory, carried the shells from one latheto another as they passed through the many processes between drillingand varnishing. Ella was among these latter, and certainly nobody whomet her in her Dutch cap with its blue band, her linen overall jacketwith its waistband, and her trousers, stained in places with oil, wouldhave ever recognised her as the star of London revue.

  Lithely she mounted the straight steep iron ladder up to her lofty perchon the crane, and, seating herself, she touched the switch and began tomove along the elevated rails over the heads of the busy workers below.

  The transfer of a shell from one lathe to another was accomplished withmarvellous ease and swiftness. A girl below her lifted her hand assignal, whereupon Ella advanced over her, and let down a huge pair ofsteel grips which the lathe-worker placed upon the shell, at the sametime releasing it from the lathe. Again she raised her hand, and theshell was lifted a few yards above her head and lowered to the nextmachine, where the worker there placed it in position, and then releasedit to undergo its next phase of manufacture.

  Such was Ella's work. In the fortnight she had been there she hadbecome quite expert in the transfer of the huge shells, and, further,she had become much interested in her new life and its unusualsurroundings In that great place the motive force of all waselectricity. All those whirring lathes, drills, hammers, saws, cuttingand polishing machines, cranes, everything in that factory, as well asthe two other great factories in the near vicinity, were driven from thegreat electrical power-station close by.

  Now and then, as the night hours passed, though within all was brightand busy as day, Ella would give a glance at the woman working the craneopposite hers, a thin-faced, dark-haired young woman, who was none otherthan the mysterious friend of the man Cole, and whom she held in greatsuspicion.

  While Ella worked within the factory in order to keep a watchful eye,Seymour Kennedy watched with equal shrewdness outside.

  The days went past, but nothing suspicious occurred until one nightCole, who was again living at the temperance hotel, joined themunition-workers' train, being followed by Ella, who found that he hadbeen engaged as an electrician in the power-house.

  Next day he met the thin-faced young woman, who was known to herfellow-workers as Kate Dexter, and they spent several hours together, atlunch and afterwards at a picture-house. But, friends as they were,when they left the Central Station they took care never to travel in thesame carriage. So, to their fellow-workers, they were strangers.

  One afternoon, at half-past two, Kennedy, who was at the Central Hotel,called at Ella's lodgings and explained how he had seen her fatherwalking in the street with Cole.

  "I afterwards followed them," he added, "and eventually found that yourfather is at the Grand Hotel."

  "Then mischief is certainly intended," declared the girl, her cheeksturning pale.

  "No doubt. They mean to execute the plot without any further delay.That's my opinion. It will require all our watchfulness and resource ifwe are to be successful."

  "Why not warn the police?" suggested the girl.

  "And, by doing so, you would most certainly send your father to a longterm of penal servitude," was her lover's reply. "No. We must preventit, and for your own sake allow your father a loophole for escape,though he certainly deserves none."

  Ella had once travelled in the same train as the woman Dexter, but thelatter had not recognised her; nevertheless, from inquiries Kennedy hadmade in London, it seemed that a month before the woman had been livingin London, and was a close friend of Cole's. She had only recently gonenorth to work on munitions, and had, like Ella, been instructed in theworking of the electrical cranes.

  For three days Theodore Drost remained at the Grand Hotel, where he hadseveral interviews with the electrician Cole, and while Ella kept out ofthe way by day and went to the works at night, her lover very cleverlymanaged to maintain a strict watch.

  More than once Ella had contrived to pass the door of the greatpower-station with its humming dynamos which gave movement to that hugemass of machinery in the three factories turning out munitions, and hadseen the man Cole in his blue dungarees busily oiling the machinery.

  Once she had watched him using thick machine-oil from cans exactlysimilar to those she had seen stored beneath the table in her father'slaboratory.

  Night after night Ella, working there aloft in her crane, waited andwondered. Indeed, she never knew from hour to hour whether thecarefully laid plans of the conspirators might not result in somedisastrous explosion, in which she herself might be a victim.

  But Kennedy reassured her that he was keeping an ever-watchful vigil,and she trusted him implicitly. As a matter of fact, one of the Londondetectives watching the place was a friend of his, and, without tellinghim the exact object of his visit, he was able to gain entrance to theworks.

  Naturally the detective became curious, but Kennedy, who usually wore anold tweed suit and a seedy cap, promised to reveal all to himafterwards.

  About half-past one, on a wet morning, Ella had just stopped her cranewhen, at the entrance end of the building, she caught a glimpse of someone beckoning to her. It was her well-beloved. In a few moments shehad clambered down, and, hurrying through the factory, joined himoutside.

  "Did you travel with that woman Dexter to-night?" he inquired eagerly ina low whisper as they stood in the darkness.

  "Yes."

  "Did she carry her attache-case?"

  "Yes. She always does."

  "She did not have it when she went home yesterday morning, for she leftit here--the case which your father prepared," he said. "She broughtthe second of the cases with her to-night."

  "Then both are here!" exclaimed Ella in excitement.

  "Both are now in the power-house. I saw her hand over the second one toCole only a quarter of an hour ago. Let us watch."

  Then the pair crept on beneath the dark shadows through the rain to thegreat square building of red-brick which, constructed six months before,contained some of the finest and most up-to-date electrical plant in allthe world.

  At last they gained the door, which stood slightly ajar. The othermechanics were all away in the canteen having their early morning meal,and the man Cole, outwardly an honest-looking workman, remained there incharge.

  Together they watched the man's movements.

  Presently he came to the door, opened it, and looked eagerly out. Inthe meantime, however, Kennedy and his companion had slipped round thecorner, and were therefore out of view. Then, returning within, Colewent to a cupboard, and as they watched from their previous point ofvantage they saw him unlock it, displaying the two little leatherattache-cases within.

  Close to the huge main dynamo in the centre of the building there stoodon the concrete floor six cans of lubricating-oil which, it was provedafterwards, were usually kept at that spot, and therefore were in no wayconspicuous.

  Swiftly the man
Cole drew a coil of fine wire from the cupboard, theends being joined to the two attache-cases--so that if the mechanism ofone failed, the other would act--and with quick, nimble fingers hejoined the wire to that already attached to the six inoffensive-lookingcans of "oil."

  The preparations did not occupy more than a minute. Then, seizing a canof petrol, he placed it beside the cans of high-explosive, in order toadd fire to the explosion.

  Afterwards, with a final look at the wires, and putting his head intothe cupboard, where he listened to make certain that the clockworkmechanism was in motion, he glanced at the big clock above. Then, infear lest he should be caught there, he ran wildly out into the darknessere they were aware of his intention.

  "Quick!" shouted Kennedy. "Rush and break those wires, Ella! I'llwatch him!"

  Without a second's hesitation, the girl dashed into the power-house andfrantically tore the wires from the cupboard