The Bomb-Makers

by William Le Queux

room which the solicitor from Tunbridge Wellsoccupied occasionally through the week-ends.

  "Mr Anderson-James keeps this place as a hobby. He's retired frompractice," the woman went on, "and he likes to come here for fresh air.When you've rested I'll show you round the houses--if you're interestedin a dairy-farm."

  "I'm most interested," declared the girl. "I don't want to rest. I'drather see the farm, if it is quite convenient to you to show it to me."

  "Oh, quite, miss," was the woman's prompt response. She came fromDevonshire, as Ella had quickly detected, and was an artist inbutter-making, the use of the mechanical-separator, and the managementof poultry.

  The pair went out at once and, passing by clean asphalt paths, went tothe range of model cowhouses, each scrupulously clean and well-kept.Then to the piggeries, the great poultry farm away in the meadows, and,lastly, into the white-tiled dairy itself, where four maids in whitesmocks and caps were busy with butter, milk, and cream.

  Ranged along one side of the great dairy were about thirtygalvanised-iron chums of milk, ready for transport, and Ella, notingthem, asked their destination.

  "Oh! They go each night to the training-camp at B--. They go out intwo lots, one at midnight, and one at two o'clock in the morning."

  "Oh, so you supply the camp with milk, do you?"

  "Yes. Before the war all our milk went up to London Bridge by traineach night, but now we supply the two camps. There are fifty thousandmen in training there, they say. Isn't it splendid!" added the woman,the fire of patriotism in her eyes. "There's no lack of pluck in thedear old country."

  "No, Mrs Dennis. All of us are trying to do our bit," Ella said."Does the Army Service Corps fetch the milk?"

  "No, miss. They used to, but for nearly six weeks we've sent it inwaggons ourselves. The camp at B--is ten miles from here, so it comesrather hard on the horses. It used to go in motor-lorries. Old Thomas,the man bending down over there," and she pointed across the farm-yard,"he drives the waggon out at twelve, and Jim Jennings--who only comes ofan evening--does the late delivery."

  "But the road is rather difficult from here to the camp, isn't it?"asked the girl, as though endeavouring to recollect.

  "Yes. That's just it. They have to go right round by Shipborne toavoid the steep hill."

  Five minutes later they were in the comfortable farm-house again, and,after a further chat, Ella went forth to see how her companion wasprogressing.

  The repair had been concluded--thanks to the coal-hammer! Ella took itback, thanked the affable Mrs Dennis, and, five minutes later, the pairwere on their way to London, perfectly satisfied with the result oftheir investigations.

  On that same evening, while Kennedy and Ella were having a light dinnertogether at the Piccadilly Grill before she went to the theatre, theelusive Ortmann called upon old Theodore Drost at the dark house atCastelnau, on the Surrey side of Hammersmith Bridge. He came in a taxi,and accompanying him was a grey-haired, tall, and rather lean man, whocarried a heavy deal box with leather handle.

  Drost welcomed them, and all three ascended at once to that long attic,the secret workshop of the maker of bombs. The man who posed as a piousDutch missionary switched on the light, disclosing upon the table anumber of small globes of thin glass which, at first, looked likeelectric light bulbs. They, however, had no metal base, the glass beingnarrowed at the end into a small open tube. Thus the air had not beenexhausted.

  "This is our friend, Doctor Meins," exclaimed Ortmann, introducing hiscompanion, who, a few minutes later, unlocked the box and brought out alarge brass microscope of the latest pattern, which he screwed togetherand set up at the further end of the table.

  Meanwhile from another table at the end of the long apartment old Drost,with a smile of satisfaction upon his face, carried over very carefullya wooden stand in which stood a number of small sealed glass tubes, mostof which contained what looked like colourless gelatine.

  "We want to be quite certain that the cultures are sufficientlyvirulent," remarked Ortmann. "That is why I have brought ProfessorMeins, who, as you know, is one of our most prominent bacteriologists,though he is, of course, naturalised as a good Englishman, and is ingeneral practice in Hampstead under an English name."

  The German professor, smiling, took up one of the hermetically sealedtubes, broke it, and from it quickly prepared a glass microscope-slide,not, however, before all three had put on rubber gloves and assumed whatlooked very much like gas-helmets, giving the three conspirators a mostweird appearance. Then, while the Professor was engaged in focussinghis microscope, Drost, his voice suddenly muffled behind the goggle-eyedmask, exhibited to Ortmann one of the glass bombs already prepared foruse.

  It was about the size of a fifty-candle-power electric bulb, and itstube having been closed by melting the glass, it appeared filled with apale-yellow vapour.

  "That dropped anywhere in a town would infect an enormous area," Drostexplained. "The glass is so thin that it would pulverise by the smalland almost noiseless force with which it would explode."

  "It could be dropped by hand--eh?" asked Ortmann. "And nobody would bethe wiser."

  "No, if dropped by hand it would, no doubt, infect the person whodropped it. The best way will be to drop it from a car."

  "At night?"

  "No. In daylight--in a crowded street. It would then be moreefficacious--death resulting within five days to everyone infected."

  "Terrible!" exclaimed the Kaiser's secret agent--the man of treblepersonality.

  "Yes. But it is according to instructions. See here!" and he took upwhat appeared to be a small bag of indiarubber--like a child's air-ballthat had been deflated. "This acts exactly the same when filled, onlythe case is soluble. One minute after touching water or, indeed, anyliquid, it dissolves, and thus releases the germs!"

  "_Gott_!" gasped Ortmann. "You are, indeed, a dealer in bottled death,my dear Theodore. Truly, you've been inventing some appalling thingsfor our dear friends here--eh?"

  The man with the scraggy beard, who was a skilled German scientist,though he posed as a Dutch pastor, smiled evilly, while at that momentthe man Meins, who had his eye upon the microscope, beckoned both ofthem forward to look.

  Ortmann obeyed, and placing his eye upon the tiny lens, saw in thebrightly reflected light colonies of the most deadly bacilli yetdiscovered by German science--the germs of a certain hitherto unknowndisease, against which there was no known remedy. The fifth day afterinfection of the human system death inevitably resulted.

  "All quite healthy!" declared the great bacteriologist from behind hismask. "What would our friends think if they knew the means by whichthey came into this country--eh?"

  Drost laughed, and, crossing to a cupboard, took out a fineRibston-pippin apple. This he cut through with his pen-knife, revealinginside, where the core had been removed, one of the tiny tubes secreted.

  "They came like this from our friends in a certain neutral country," helaughed.

  From tube after tube Meins took and examined specimens, finding all thecultures virulent except one, which he placed aside.

  Then, turning to Drost, he gave his opinion that their condition wasexcellent.

  "But be careful--most scrupulously careful of yourself, and of whoeverlives here with you--your family and servants. The bacteria are soeasily carried in the air, now that we have opened the tubes."

  "Never fear," replied the muffled voice of Ella's father. "I shall beextremely careful. But what is your opinion regarding this?" he added,showing the professor one of the tiny bags of the soluble substance.

  Meins examined it closely. Obtaining permission, he cut out a tinypiece with scissors and placed it beneath his powerful microscope.

  Presently he pronounced it excellent.

  "I see that it is impervious. If it is soluble, as you say, then youcertainly need have no fear of failure," he said, with a benign smile.Then he set to work to reseal the tubes he had opened, while Drost, witha kind of syringe, sprayed t
he room with some powerful germ-destroyer.

  Ten minutes later the pair had descended the stairs, while old Drost hadswitched off the light and locked the door of the secret laboratorywherein reposed the germs of a terrible disease known only to theenemies of Great Britain--a fatal malady which Germany intended to sowbroadcast over the length and breadth of our land.

  For an hour they all three sat discussing the diabolical plot whichwould disseminate death over a great area of the United Kingdom, forGermany had many friends prepared to sacrifice their own lives for theFatherland, and it was intended that those glass and rubber bombs shouldbe dropped in all quarters to produce an epidemic of disease such as theworld had never before experienced.

  Old Theodore Drost, installed in his comfortable dining-room again,opened a long bottle of Berncastler "Doctor"--a genuine bottle, be itsaid, for few who have sipped the "Doctor" wine of late have taken thegenuine wine, so many fabrications did Germany make for us before thewar.

  "But I warn you to be excessively careful," the professor said to Drost."Your daughter comes here sometimes, does she not? Do be careful ofher. Place powerful disinfectants here--all over the house--in everyroom," he urged; "although I have plugged the tubes with cotton woolproperly treated to prevent the escape of the infection into the air,yet one never knows."

  "Ella is not often here," her father replied. "She is still playing in`Half a Moment!'; besides, she is rehearsing a new revue. So she,happily, has no time to come and see me."

  "But, for your own safety, and your servant's, do be careful," Meinsurged. "To tell you the honest truth, I almost fear to remove my mask--even now."

  "But there's surely no danger down here?" asked Drost eagerly.

  "There is always danger with such a terribly infectious malady. It isfifty times more fatal than double pneumonia. It attacks the lungs sorapidly that no remedy has any chance. Professor Steinwitz, of Stettin,discovered it."

  "And is there no remedy?"

  "None whatsoever. Its course is rapid--a poisoning of the wholepulmonary system, and it's even more contagious than small-pox."

  Then they removed their masks and drank to "The Day" in their Germanwine.

  Six nights later Stella Steele had feigned illness--a strain while onher motor-cycle, and her understudy was taking her part in "Half aMoment!" much to the disappointment of the men in khaki, who had seatedthemselves in the stalls to applaud her. Among the men on leave manyhad had her portrait upon a postcard--together with a programme inthree-colour print--in their dug-outs in Flanders, for Stella Steele was"the rage" in the Army, and among the subalterns any who had ever mether, or who had "known her people," were at once objects of interest.

  In the darkness on a road with trees on either side--the road which runsfrom Tonbridge to Shipborne, and passes between Deene Park and FrithWood--stood Kennedy and Ella. They had ridden down from London earlierin the evening and placed their motorcycles inside a gate which led intothe forest on the left side of the road.

  They waited in silence, their ears strained, but neither uttered a word.Kennedy had showed his well-beloved the time. It was half-past one inthe morning.

  Of a sudden, a motor-car came up the hill, a closed car, which passedthem swiftly, and then, about a quarter-of-a-mile further on, came to ahalt. Presently they heard footsteps in the darkness and in theirdirection there walked three men. The moon was shining fitfully throughthe clouds, therefore they were just able to distinguish them. The triowere whispering, and two of them were carrying good-sized kit-bags.

  They came to the gate where, inside, Ella and Kennedy had hidden theircycles, and there halted.

  That they were smoking Kennedy and his companion knew by the slightodour of tobacco that reached them. For a full quarter-of-an-hour theyremained there, chatting in low whispers.

  "I wonder who they are?" asked Ella, bending to her lover's ear.

  "Who knows?" replied the air-pilot. "At any rate, we'll have a goodview from here. You were not mistaken as to the spot?"

  "No. I heard it discussed last night," was the girl's reply.

  Then, a moment later, there was a low sound of wheels and horses' hoofsclimbing the hill from the open common into that stretch of roaddarkened by the overhanging trees. Ella peered forth and saw a dim oillamp approaching, while the jingling of the harness sounded plain as thehorses strained at their traces.

  Onward they came, until when close to the gate where the three men layin waiting, one of the latter flashed a bright light into the face ofthe old man who was driving the waggon, and shouted:

  "Stop! _Stop_!"

  The driver pulled up in surprise, dazzled by the light, but the nextsecond another man had flung into his face a mixture of cayenne pepperand chemicals by which, in an instant, he had become blinded andstupefied, falling back into his seat inert and helpless.

  Then Ella and Kennedy, creeping up unnoticed by the three in theirexcitement, saw that they had mounted into the waggon, which was loadedwith milk-churns--the waggon driven nightly from Furze Down Farm to thegreat camp at B--, carrying the milk for the morning.

  Upon these chums the three set swiftly to work, opening each, droppingin one of those soluble bombs, and closing them. The bombs they tookfrom the two kit-bags they had carried from the car.

  They were engaged in carrying out one of the most dastardly plots everconceived by Drost and his friends--infecting the milk supply of thegreat training-camp!

  Kennedy was itching to get at them and prevent them, but he saw that, byknowledge gained, he would be in a position to act more effectively thanif he suddenly alarmed them. Therefore the pair stood by until they hadfinished their hideous work of filling each chum with the most deadlyand infectious malady known to medical science.

  Presently, when they had finished, the old driver, still insensible, waslifted from his seat, carried into the wood, and there left, while oneof the conspirators--who they could now see was dressed as a farm-hand,and would no doubt pose as a new labourer from Furze Down--took hisplace and drove on as though nothing had happened, leaving the other twoto make their way back to the car.

  When the red rear-light of the waggon was receding, Kennedy and Ellafollowed it, for it did not proceed at much more than walking pace.

  They walked along in silence till they saw the two men re-enter the car,leaving their companion to deliver the milk at the camp. Evidently afourth man had been waiting in the car for, as soon as they were in, theman who drove turned the car, which went back in the direction it hadcome, evidently intending to meet the second waggon, which was due tocome up an hour afterwards. No doubt the same programme would berepeated, and the fourth man would drive the second car to the adjacentcamp.

  As soon, however, as the car had got clear away, Kennedy and hiswell-beloved ran to their motorcycles, mounted them, and in a short timehad passed in front of the milk-waggon ere it could get down intoShipborne village.

  Putting their motors against a fence, they waited until the waggon cameup, when Kennedy stepped into the road, and flashing an electric lamp onto the driver's face, at the same time fired a revolver point-blank athim.

  This gave the fellow such a sudden and unexpected scare that he leapeddown from the waggon and, next moment, had disappeared into thedarkness, while Ella rushed to the horses' heads and stopped them.

  "That's all right!" laughed Kennedy. "Have you got your thick gloveson?"

  "Yes, dear."

  "Well, be careful that not a drop of milk goes over your hands or feet.There's lots of time to pitch it all out on the roadway."

  Then climbing into the waggon the pair, by a pre-arranged plan, began toopen the chums and turn their contents out of the waggon until the wholewet roadway was white with milk, which soaked into the ground and raninto the gutters and down the drains: for, fortunately, being nearShipborne, the footpaths on either side were drained, and by that anychance of infection later would, they knew, be minimised.

  Each chum they turned upon its
side until not a drain of milk remainedwithin, and then, leading the horses to graze on the grass at theroadside, the pair sped swiftly back along the road in the direction thecar had taken.

  About five miles away they found the conspirators' car upon the side ofthe road without any occupant. They were waiting for the second waggon.

  Without ado, Kennedy mounted into it, started it, and drew it out intothe middle of the road, which at that point was upon a steep gradient.

  Then, taking a piece of blind-cord from his pocket, he swiftly tied upthe steering-wheel and, jumping out, started the car down the hill.

  Away it flew at furious speed, gathering impetus as it went. For a fewmoments they could hear it roaring along until, suddenly, there was aterrific crash.

  "That's upset their plans, I know," he laughed to Ella.

  "We'll go and investigate in a moment, and watch the fun."

  This they did later on, finding the car turned turtle at the bottom ofthe hill, with three men standing around it in dismay.

  Kennedy inquired what had happened, but neither would say much.

  Yet, while they stood there, the second milk-laden waggon approached,passed, and went onward, its sleepy driver taking no notice of the fivepeople at the roadside.

  For half-an-hour Kennedy and Ella remained there in pretence ofendeavouring to right the car, until they knew that the waggon, with itscontents, was well out of harm's way.

  Then they remounted and returned to London, having, by their ingeniousinvestigations and patient