‘Say, Mr. Lavendale, there’s just one thing I ought to have warned you people about. You don’t want any spectators to this show. There ain’t no one on this earth has seen what you are going to see.’
Lavendale was conscious of a queer flash of premonition. They three—the girl, the crazy little American and he himself—at this critical moment seemed to have come once more together. What was the girl doing out here? Could her appearance really be fortuitous? The little man’s warning became automatically associated with this unexpected glimpse of her. Then, with a returning impulse of sanity, Lavendale brushed his suspicions on one side.
There’ll only be farm labourers within sight, anyway,’ he remarked. ‘You see, no one could I have known that we were coming here.’
‘That may be so or it mayn’t,’ Mr. Hurn replied dryly. ‘Anyway, I guess this is the boss coming along.’
An open touring car, driven by a man in khaki, drew up at the lodge gate. General Bembridge descended briskly and came towards them, followed by Captain Merrill.
‘Glad to see you are punctual, Mr. Hurn,’ he said. ‘Now, if you please, I am at your disposal for a quarter of an hour. What is it that you have brought to show me?’
‘That’s all right, General,’ Mr. Hurn replied affably. ‘You don’t need to worry. I’ve been taking my fixings round here. Just step this way.’
He shambled along across the turf. The others followed him, the General walking by Lavendale’s side.
‘Hasn’t your friend brought any apparatus to show us?’ he inquired irritably. ‘What’s he going to do?’
‘Heaven knows, sir!’ Lavendale replied. ‘He has told me nothing. If it weren’t for those letters he showed you, I should have thought he was a lunatic.’
Mr. Hurn assembled the little party about twenty-five yards ahead of a fringe of trees which bordered the road-side and terminated after a slight break in a compact little spinney. He turned to Captain Merrill.
‘Say, young man,’ he suggested, ‘you just hop round the other side and make sure there’s no one about.’
Merrill, in obedience to a glance from the General, hurried off. The latter turned towards Mr. Hurn.
‘You are leaving us very much in the dark, sir,’ he remarked. ‘What is it that you propose to attempt?’
‘I propose to accomplish on a small scale,’ Mr. Hurn said grandiloquently, ‘a work of destruction which you can repeat upon any scale you choose. See here.’
With the utmost solemnity he drew from his pocket a schoolboy’s ordinary catapult and a pill-box. From the latter he selected a pellet a little smaller than a marble. He fitted it carefully into the back of the catapult. Captain Merrill, who had completed his tour of the spinney, returned.
‘There is no one about, sir,’ he announced.
Mr. Hurn had suddenly the air of a man who attempts great deeds. His attitude, as he stepped forward, was almost theatrical. The General had become very stern and was obviously annoyed. Lavendale’s heart was sinking fast. He was already trying to think out some form of apology for his share in what he felt had developed into a ridiculous fiasco. Nevertheless, their eyes were all riveted upon the strange little figure a few feet in front of them. Slowly he drew back the elastic of the catapult and discharged the pellet. It struck a tree inside the spinney and there was immediately a curious report, which sounded more like a slow muttering of human pain than an ordinary detonation. Mr. Hurn pointed towards the spinney. There were great things in his attitude and in his gesture. A queer, very faint, grey smoke seemed to be stealing through the place. There was a sound like the splitting of branches amongst the trees, the shrill death cries of terrified animals. The General would have moved forward, but Mr. Hurn caught him by the belt.
‘Stay where you are, all of you,’ he ordered. ‘The place ain’t safe yet.’
The wonder began to grow upon them. The various shades of green in the spinney seemed suddenly, before their eyes, to change into a universal smoke-coloured ashen-grey. Without any cause that they could see, the bark began to fall away from many of the trees, as though unseen hands were engaged in some gruesome task of devastation. The little party stood there, spellbound, watching this mysterious cataclysm. Mr. Hurn glanced at his watch.
‘You can follow me now,’ he directed. ‘With this strong westerly wind you won’t need respirators, but breathe as quietly as you can.’
They followed him to the edge of the spinney. There was not one of them who was not absolutely dumbfounded. Every shred of colour had passed from the foliage, the undergrowth and the hedges. Flowers and weeds, every living thing, were the same ashen colour. The ground on which their footsteps fell broke away as though the life had been sapped from it. There were two rabbits, a dead cock pheasant, the glory of his plumage turned into a sickly grey, and a dozen smaller birds, all of the same ashen shade. Lavendale kicked one of them. It crumbled into pieces as though it were the fossil of some creature a thousand years old.
‘The pellet which I discharged from the catapult,’ Mr. Hurn announced, in his queer, squeaky voice, ‘contained two grains of my preparation. Shells can be made to contain a thousand grains. I reckon that this spinney is eighty yards in area. I will guarantee to you that within that eighty yards there is not alive, at the present moment, any bird or insect or animal of any kind or description. Just as they have died, so would have any human being who had been within this area, have passed away. The rest is a matter of the multiplication table.’
‘But will your invention bear the shock of being fired from a gun?’ the General asked eagerly.
‘That is all arranged for,’ Mr. Hurn replied. ‘I have some trial shells here. The powder, which is my invention, is of two sorts, separated in the shell by a partition. They are absolutely harmless until concussion breaks down that division. This little matter,’ he added, waving his hand upon that scene of hideous desolation, ‘is like the bite of a flea. A dozen boys with catapults could destroy a division. With two batteries of guns, General, you could destroy ten miles of trenches and a hundred thousand men.’
They walked around the spinney, still a little dazed with the wonder of it. Suddenly Lavendale gave a little cry. Out in the field on the other side lay the motionless body of a woman. They all hurried towards it.
‘I thought you came round here, Merrill!’ the General exclaimed.
‘I did, sir,’ the young officer replied. ‘There wasn’t a soul in sight.’
Lavendale was the first to reach the prostrate figure. Almost before he stooped to gaze into her face, he recognized her. There were little flecks of grey upon her dress and she was ghastly pale. Her eyes, however, were open, and she was struggling helplessly to move.
‘I am all right,’ she assured them feebly. ‘Has any one—any brandy?’
She tried to sit up, but she was obviously on the point of collapse. Mr. Hurn pushed his way to her side. From another pill-box which he had withdrawn from his pocket, he took out a small pellet and forced it unceremoniously through her teeth.
‘I invented an antidote whilst I was about it,’ he explained. ‘Had to keep on taking it myself when I was experimenting. She’s only got a touch of it. She’ll be all right in five minutes. What I should like to know is,’ he concluded suspiciously, ‘what the devil she was doing here, anyway.’
The recovery of the young lady was almost magical. She first sat up. Then, with the help of Lavendale’s hand, she rose easily to her feet. She pointed to the spinney.
‘What on earth is this awful thing?’ she faltered.
No one spoke for a minute.
‘What were you doing round here, young lady?’ Mr. Hurn asked bluntly.
She looked at him with her big, innocent eyes as though surprised.
‘I was motoring along the road,‘she explained, ‘when I saw you stop,’ she went on, turning towards the General. ‘I remembered that I had heard there was to be a review here. I thought I might see something of it.’
There was
a silence.
‘Perhaps,’ Merrill suggested, ‘the young lady will give us her name and address?’
She raised her eyebrows slightly.
‘But willingly,’ she answered. ‘I am Miss Suzanne de Freyne, and my address is at the Milan Court. I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?’
‘Nothing at all,’ Lavendale assured her hastily ‘It’s we who feel guilty.’
‘But what does it all mean?’ she demanded, a little pathetically. ‘I was just walking across the field when suddenly that happened. I felt as though all the strength were going out of my body. I didn’t exactly suffocate, but it was just as though I was swallowing something which stopped in my throat.’
‘Capital!’ Mr. Hurn exclaimed, his face beaming. ‘Most interesting! Perhaps, after all,’ he went on complacently, ‘if we may take it for granted that the young lady’s presence is entirely accidental, her experience is not without some interest to us.’
‘But will no one tell me what it means?’ she persisted.
There was a silence. Lavendale was suddenly oppressed by a queer foreboding. The General took Miss de Freyne courteously by the arm and led her on one side. He pointed with his riding whip to the gate where the limousine was standing.
‘Young lady,’ he said, ‘Captain Merrill here will take you back to your car. You will confer a great obligation upon every one here, and upon your country, if you allow this little incident to pass from your mind.’
She laughed softly. Her eyes seemed to be seeking for something in Lavendale’s face which she failed to find. Then she turned away with a shrug of the shoulders and glanced up at Captain Merrill.
‘I am not a prisoner, am I?’ she asked. ‘Let me assure you all,’ she declared, with a little wave of farewell, ‘that I never want to think of this hateful spot again.’
They watched her pass through the gate and enter the car which was standing in the road.
‘Does any one know her?’ the General inquired.
‘She was at the next table to Mr. Hurn here when I spoke to him at the Milan,’ Lavendale observed thoughtfully. ‘She was listening to our conversation. It may be a coincidence, but it seems strange that she should have been on our heels just at this particular moment.’
The General passed his arm through Mr. Hurn’s.
‘The Intelligence Department shall make a few inquiries,’ he promised. ‘As for you, my dear sir, our positions are now reversed. My time is yours. I will find another opportunity to inspect these troops. Will you return with me to the War Office at once?’
‘Right away,’ Mr. Hurn assented. ‘And, General,’ he went on, swaggering a little as he shambled along by the side of the tall, alert, military figure—queerest contrast in the world—‘give me a factory—one of your ordinary factories will do, all your ordinary appliances will do, but give me control of it for one month and you can invite me to Berlin to the peace signing.’
* * * * *
At about half-past eight that evening, after having waited about for some time in the hall of the Milan Grill-room, Lavendale handed his coat and hat to the vestiaire and passed into the crowded restaurant. A young man of excellent poise and balance, he was almost bewildered at his own sensations as he elbowed his way through the throng of waiters and passers-by. At the corner of the glass screen he paused. The girl was there, seated at the same table, with a newspaper propped up in front of her. Her black hair seemed glossier than ever; her face, unshadowed by any hat, a little more pallid and forceful. A fur coat had fallen back from her white shoulders. She seemed to be wholly absorbed in the paper in front of her.
‘A table, monsieur?’ a soft voice murmured at his elbow.
Lavendale shook off his abstraction and glanced reluctantly away.
‘I am dining with Mr. Hurn, Jules,’ he replied. ‘He said eight o’clock, but I can’t see anything of him.’
Jules pointed to a table close at hand, evidently reserved for two people. There were hors d’oeuvres waiting and a bottle of wine upon thes ice.
‘Mr. Hurn ordered dinner for eight o’clock punctually, sir,’ he announced. ‘I have been expecting him in for some time.’
The girl, as though attracted by their voices, had raised her eyes. She looked towards the unoccupied table by the side of which Jules was standing. The three of them for a moment seemed to have concentrated their regard upon the same spot, and Lavendale was conscious of a queer little emotion, an unanalyzable foreboding.
‘The gentleman ordered a very excellent dinner,’ Jules observed. ‘I have already sent back the cocktails twice.’
Lavendale glanced at the clock. Almost at the same time his eyes met the girl’s. There was a quiver of recognition in her face. He took instant advantage of it and moved towards her.
‘You are quite recovered, I trust, Miss de Freyne?’
She raised her eyes to his. Again he felt that sense of baffling impenetrability. It was impossible even to know whether she appreciated or resented his question.
‘I am quite recovered, thank you,’ she said.
‘You have seen nothing more of our queer little friend?’
‘Nothing at all,’ she told him.
‘He invited me to dine with him,’ Lavendale explained, ‘at eight o’clock punctually. I have been waiting outside for nearly half an hour.’
She glanced at the clock and Lavendale, with a little bow, passed on.
‘Perhaps he meant me to go up to his room,’ he remarked, addressing Jules. ‘Do you know his number?’
‘Eighty-nine in the Court, sir,’ the man replied. ‘Shall I send up?’
‘I’ll go myself,’ Lavendale decided.
Jules bowed and, although Lavendale did not glance around, he felt that the girl’s eyes as well as the man’s followed him to the door. He rang for the lift and ascended to the fourth floor, made his way down the corridor and paused before number eighty-nine. He knocked at the door—there was no reply. Then he tried the handle, which yielded at once to his touch. Inside all was darkness. He turned on the electric light and pushed open the door of the sitting-room just in front.
‘Mr. Hurn!’ he exclaimed, raising his voice.
There was still no reply,—a strange, brooding silence which seemed to possess subtle qualities of mystery and apprehension. Lavendale had all the courage and unshaken nerves of youth, and yet at that moment he was afraid. His hands groped along the wall for the switch and found it with an impulse of relief. The room was flooded with soft light—Lavendale’s hand seemed glued to the little brass knob. He stood there with his back to the wall, his face set, speechless. Mr. Daniel H. Hurn was seated in an easy-chair in what appeared at first to be a natural altitude. His head, however, had fallen back, and from his neck drooped the long end of a silken cord. Lavendale took one step forward and then paused again. The man’s face was visible now—white, ghastly, with wide-open, sightless yes…..
The valet, who was passing down the corridor, paused and looked in at the door.
‘Is there anything wrong, sir?’ he asked.
Lavendale seemed to come back with a rush into the world of real things. He withdrew the key from the door, stepped outside and locked it.
‘You had better take that to the manager,’ he said. ‘I will wait outside here. Tell him to come at once.’
‘Anything wrong, sir?’ the valet repeated.
Lavendale nodded.
‘The man there in the chair is dead!’ he whispered.
2. THE LOST FORMULA
Table of Contents
THE two young men stood side by side before the window of the Milan smoke-room—Ambrose Lavendale, the American, and his friend Captain Merrill from the War Office. Directly opposite to them was a narrow street running down to the Embankment, at the foot of which they could catch a glimpse of the river. A little to the left was a dark and melancholy building with a number of sightless windows.
“Wonder what sort of people live in that place?” Merrill asked curiously. �
�Milan Mansions they call it, don’t they?”
The other nodded.
“Gloomy sort of barracks,” he remarked. “I’ve never seen even a face at the window.”
“There’s a new experience for you then,” Merrill observed, pointing a little forward—“a girl’s face, too.”
Lavendale was stonily silent, yet when the momentarily raised curtain had fallen he gave a little gasp. It could have been no hallucination. The face, transfigured though it was, in a sense, by its air of furtiveness, was, without a doubt, the face of the girl who had been constantly in his thoughts for the last three weeks. He counted the windows carefully from the ground noted the exact position of the room, and passed his arm through his friend’s.
“Come along, Reggie,” he said.
“Where to?”
“Don’t ask any questions,” Lavendale begged. “Just wait.”
They left the hotel by an unfrequented way, Lavendale half a dozen paces ahead. Merrill ventured upon a mild protest.
“Look here, old chap,” he complained, “you might tell me where we are off to?”
Lavendale slackened his speed for a moment to explain.
“To that room,” he declared. “Didn’t you recognise the girl’s face?”
Merrill shook his head.
“I scarcely noticed it.”
“It was the girl whom we found unconscious, half poisoned by that fellow Hurn’s diabolical invention,” Lavendale explained. “She wasn’t there by accident, either. I caught her listening in the Milan grill-room when Hurn was talking to me, and the day after the inquest she disappeared.”
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