by Sapper
“Are you prepared to put your cards on the table?” Drummond looked at him questioningly. “I know something: I may say I know a good deal. But there are still many gaps. And since I am in your power…”
“You would like your curiosity gratified? Certainly, Captain Drummond. I will pay you the compliment of saying you deserve it. And perhaps you, too, will gratify mine over one or two points that are not quite clear to me.
“We must go back nearly two years,” he began, “if we are to get the matter in its true perspective. It was then becoming evident to everyone who knew anything that the situation in Europe could not remain as it was. I am not going to bore you with a dissertation on international politics, but it was obvious that, within the next few years, matters must come to a head. Every big power was arming feverishly, with the exception of England, who seemed fundamentally incapable of appreciating the situation. Strange, too, for she must have known…
“It was at this stage of the proceedings that I was called in and given carte blanche. England – or rather her Empire – was the prize, and the problem that I had to solve was the simplest method of obtaining it. There was no urgency: the time was not then ripe. But, as you can imagine, a matter of such magnitude could not be solved in a few weeks.
“To start with I dismissed at once any idea of a war à outrance like 1914. Not only was it a clumsy proceeding, but because that war had proved almost, if not quite, as damaging to the victors as to the vanquished. Besides, in anything of the nature of drawn-out proceedings, your country has always shown an amazing power of recovery. And so I concentrated on something in the nature of a coup d’état, where a smashing blow could be delivered before the war began. In fact, I still hope that we shall avert war altogether, which will be most satisfactory financially.”
Menalin lit another cigarette.
“I regret I cannot offer you one?” he said, “but, from what I saw of your fighting capabilities, I fear your arms must remain bound. To continue, however: I happened to be staying with a friend of mine in Milan, when an act of sabotage took place in a factory in which he was interested. A discontented workman had managed to get hold of some explosive, and with it had wrecked a large and costly piece of machinery. And though there was nothing novel in that, it gave me the germ of an idea. For the thing that struck me was the very small amount of explosive that was required to do almost irreparable damage, if it was applied at the right spot in the machine.
“As I say – there was the germ: from it grew my present scheme, which you have by now, doubtless, grasped in its main outline. If so much damage could be done in one factory, what would be the result if it occurred simultaneously all over the country?
“There were, of course, difficulties – serious difficulties. The first was to devise some method by which explosive could be delivered to a large number of different places in safety. The second was to get it introduced into the factories without it being spotted. The third was to ensure that it would be fired successfully. And it was at once obvious that something in the nature of a time bomb was the only solution.
“It was the second of these points that decided us in our choice. Any form of tin would have been good enough for one and three, but, in order to comply with two, we decided to use a tin that apparently contained food. No one would then say anything to a man taking it in for his dinner. In addition it gave us a standard size, a point of value which you have also, doubtless, appreciated. We could now decentralise our work. By the way, do you like Burton?”
“I do not,” said Drummond grimly.
“No more do I. But he has been very useful to me. I met him first some years ago, and he is efficient. He will do anything for money, and in addition, for some reason, he dislikes this country intensely. And so I installed him in England to do the preliminary spadework at this end. I must say I have no fault to find with the way he has done it.
“It was he who first hit on Maier – the Swiss. Incidentally, was it you that night, Captain Drummond?
“It was,” said Drummond.
“Dear me! It seems to me that you must know much more than is good for you.”
“I admit,” remarked Drummond calmly, “that up to date you have told me very little that I hadn’t guessed. Why did your men kill Maier?”
“He was foolish enough to try blackmail.”
“I thought it was something like that. However, please go on.”
“Or perhaps you would like to continue for me?”
“If you prefer it,” said Drummond calmly. “The machine made by Maier was some form of time fuse which fits into the top of a Petworth fruit tin. These tins, having been emptied of fruit, are filled with explosive and resealed in that island. In due course they will be despatched all over the country, and at a previously arranged time they will be exploded in different works.”
“Capital,” cried Menalin. “Capital. And perfectly correct. One refinement, however, I would like to point out to you, which was Maier’s pride and joy. According to the distance which the opener travels round the tin depends the time it takes for the bomb to explode.”
“And what of those tins that are not fitted for a fuse?”
“You note everything. In many cases more explosive – ammonal incidentally – than can be contained in one tin, is necessary. So there are some tins full of plain explosive. One of these lashed to a fused tin increases the charge.”
“A pretty plot,” said Drummond slowly. “And you really believe that that will bring this country to her knees?”
“Good God! No!” laughed Menalin. “That is only half the entertainment. The other half I made myself personally responsible for. And upon that side of the scheme I doubt if you are quite so well informed. No mention of it was contained in the papers that blew into Major Latimer’s possession. And that is another thing I have often wondered. How much did he tell that woman, Madame Pélain.”
Drummond smiled.
“We will leave the ladies’ names out of it, Mr Menalin, if you don’t mind.”
“As you will. Though I can assure you no harm will come to her. I know he got the map of the bomb distribution, and one sheet of the general instructions. To refer, however, to the second half of the programme.
“You, of course, fought in the last war, when doubtless you sampled from time to time the unpleasant effects of gas. Starting in its rudimentary method with chlorine, various products such as phosgene, mustard gas or yperite and others were involved. But the war came to an end before some of the more advanced compounds were used. And it was to them that I naturally turned in my researches.
“There was one invented by an American chemist, to which was given the name of Lewisite. It is a pale yellow liquid, which smells faintly of geraniums, and is made, if it interests you, from acetylene, arsenious oxide, and sulphur chloride. It is extremely poisonous and, under good conditions, sixteen hundredweight of the stuff would be sufficient to give a blanket of lethal gas twenty feet high, over an area of one square mile. Or to take another calculation, a hundred bombers, each carrying five thousand pounds of Lewisite could poison an area of three hundred square miles. No wonder it is generally known as ‘The Dew of Death’.
“Starting with this as a foundation Freystadt, whom you have seen, tells me that he has evolved a formula which is fifty per cent more powerful. But, even if he is optimistic, the figures I have given you should be good enough for my purpose – which is the simultaneous knock-out of certain strategical spots, of which, naturally, London is the first. The liquid will be dropped in hundreds of thin containers which will burst on hitting the ground. Then the gas is given off, and, since it is heavier than air, there is no escape in the streets of a city. And, if a few machines are hit, it does not matter in the slightest. The gas will be disseminated just the same when the plane hits the ground. Even in an open district, such as Aldershot, the effect should
be considerable, though not so deadly as in a confined space.”
Drummond was gazing at him speechlessly, and Menalin smiled.
“You may think,” he continued, “that I am trying to harrow your imagination; possibly that I am exaggerating. My dear sir – why should I? In a few hours you will be dead, so what could be my object?”
“But what is your object in such a devilish scheme?” shouted Drummond.
“The finish of England as a world power,” said Menalin, and though he spoke calmly his eyes were gleaming. “For centuries you have taken what you want, and done what you want; for centuries you have ridden roughshod over anyone who crossed your path. And now you have been so amazingly foolish as to cut down your fighting forces, when the countries who loathe and detest you have increased theirs. True you are thinking of increasing them again; but, my friend, it is too late. And I can imagine nothing more dreadful and humiliating to an erstwhile great power than the position you have recently found yourselves in. Egged on by wild theorists, both lay and clerical, your government has brandished a stick which, when its bluff was called, turned out to be a paper wand. And the utterly incomprehensible thing, to me, is that you must have known what the result was going to be before you started.”
“Let’s cut that out,” said Drummond harshly. “Who are flying these planes?”
“The…of course.”[1]
“And are they doing this bomb business also?” continued Drummond.
“Not entirely. One might almost say that that is cosmopolitan, though many of your own countrymen are involved in it. You must surely be aware, Captain Drummond, of the immense number of people who in the old days were called Anarchists, and now disguise themselves as Communists or Workers of the World. But a rose by any other name… And when it comes down to brass tacks the main plank of their creed is destruction of the capitalist. You’ll find a cell of them in every big works, and all we have done is to harness their activities to our own ends.
“Naturally,” he went on, “great care has been necessary in dealing with them. Even now the vast majority of them will only receive their orders at the last moment when they are actually issued with the tins. So that, if mistakes have been made, and some of them communicate with the police, it will be too late for the authorities to do anything.”
Drummond sat staring at him dully, and it was Algy who suddenly spoke.
“What do you get out of it, you bloody swine?” he said.
Menalin swung round and stared at him.
“I’d quite forgotten the village idiot,” he remarked. “Though I must really congratulate you on the way you played the role. Tell me – how did you hear of the island of Varda?”
“It gave you a bit of a jolt didn’t it, hog hound? Why – everybody knows of it, you poor fish.”
Drummond gave him a quick glance; Algy was no fool and it was a possible line to take up.
“That,” said Menalin calmly, “is a lie. But evidently somebody does.”
“And so,” continued Algy, “it has really been most entertaining listening to your ridiculous scheme. We realise that you can kill us with some ease, but I don’t think murder will make it any better for you when you’re caught.”
“Please don’t relapse to the idiot level, Mr Longworth,” begged Menalin. “It hurts me when you do. Can you really imagine that we have not guarded against the possibility of the island being discovered?”
He lit another cigarette, and Drummond made an urgent sign to Algy to signal him out of action. The man’s overweening conceit might make him speak.
“Every good general,” continued Menalin, “has a line of retreat. And this old house with its marvellous facilities for our purpose, was not quite safe enough as it stood. There is, of course, nothing incriminating in this house at all; everything is in the island. But it was obvious that we might come under suspicion, in which case we had to allow for the possibility of the police doing what you gentlemen have done tonight. And so, to obviate that risk, we mined the part of the tunnel that goes under the sea. Fire that mine – and it is fired electrically from here – and a seal of water, eighty yards long, forms between the island and the mainland…”
“Jolly for the birds on the island,” drawled Drummond. “And for all the pretty fruit tins which would seem to lose some of their efficacy.”
“I said a line of retreat, Captain Drummond. There is another exit from the island on the side looking out to sea. Impracticable, it is true, when it is rough, but feasible when calm. It would be a nuisance to have to use it, as it entails boats and a ship, instead of transport by lorry. But it is there just in case of necessity.”
The door flung open and Stangerton returned.
“It’s taken me all this time to get through,” he cried. “However – it’s all right. Mr Burton is starting at once.”
Menalin glanced at his watch.
“So he should be here about nine tomorrow – or rather this morning. Well,” he continued, getting up and stretching himself. “I think I shall retire to bed again. I have enjoyed our chat immensely, Captain Drummond, and I shall doubtless see you once again. You had better leave a couple of armed men on guard, Stangerton. I have a wholesome respect for these young men.”
He yawned, and went up the steps.
“Good night to you all: good night.”
The door closed behind him and Stangerton went to the entrance of the tunnel.
“Come in here,” he called out, and the men who had lashed them up in the first instance entered. “I leave them in your charge,” he continued. “And don’t let there be any error.”
“Trust us,” said the man with the broken jaw, kicking Drummond in the ribs. “There ain’t going to be no perishing error.”
Stangerton followed Menalin, and silence fell on the room. At the table – their guns in front of them – sat the three guards smoking. Peter still sprawled unconscious on the floor: Drummond and Algy, arms and legs lashed, leaned uncomfortably against the wall. Once in a while came an involuntary grunt of pain from Algy, for his arm was hurting abominably: otherwise there was silence.
Nine o’clock in the morning: could nothing be done before that? Ceaselessly the problem went round and round in Drummond’s brain. He had tried the lashing behind his back, and given it up. An expert in the art himself, he recognised another expert’s handiwork. And even if he did get his arms loose, what was the good? His feet would still be lashed, and he couldn’t undo them unseen.
Nine o’clock! Ginger Lawson would not begin to be uneasy until the whole day had gone by without receiving a wire. Under no circumstances could he be there until the following day. And that would be twenty-four hours too late. By that time they would be dead and their bodies dumped two hundred miles away. If there was only some way of getting the information through. Even a clue…
God! What a scheme! Out-Vernes Jules Verne. And Jimmy Latimer had known nothing about the gas! Moreover – and there lay the appalling side of it – the thing was practicable. A few bombs might go wrong: a few aeroplanes might crash – what did it matter? There would be a trail of death and destruction over England beside which the devastated areas of France in the last war would have appeared as smiling fields. And suddenly he gave a short laugh…
“Glad you find it funny,” sneered one of the men at the table.
“Frightfully,” said Drummond.
He had just visualised the scream of merriment with which the whole story would be greeted at the Golden Boot… Or in his club…
He could hear the remarks.
“My dear fellah – fancy resurrecting that old fable. Why, the damn’ thing came out of the ark with Noah.”
And yet it was practicable: the more he turned the scheme over in his mind the more did he become convinced of that fact. Even if the results were not all that Menalin expected, the ma
terial damage inflicted would be enormous, apart altogether from the ghastly loss of life. Even if they were able to fight on, and the blow was not an absolute knock-out, the dice would be hideously loaded against them.
At length he fell into an uneasy doze. He was utterly exhausted: not even his magnificent constitution could last for ever. The fight on top of the doings of the last few days had temporarily finished him. And when he opened his eyes again a dull grey light was filtering through a grimy, cobwebbed window high up in the wall. Day had dawned, and with it full recollection came flooding back.
The three men still sat at the table: the electric bulbs still shone in the smoke-laden air. And in the distance the thump-thump of the machine proclaimed that work on the island had started again.
He looked across at Algy, who was muttering deliriously to himself: he looked at Peter who still lay unconscious on the floor. And for those two things he gave thanks. They, at any rate, would be spared the hours of waiting for the inevitable end.
Footsteps sounded on the floor above: the house was awake. And he wondered apathetically what the time was. How long was there to go? How long before Burton arrived?
Like most people he had often wondered what were the feelings of a man in the condemned cell when he woke on that last fateful morning. And now he was in the same position himself. Fear? No, he was not afraid. His principal emotion was one of rage at his helplessness. If only he could get free, even for one half-minute… And in a fit of almost childish fury he strained at the rope round his arms; strained till the veins stood out on his forehead…
Suddenly the door opened and Stangerton came down the steps.
“All right?” he asked. “Given no trouble?”
“None at all,” said the leader of the guard. “The guy with the wounded arm has gone a bit queer, and the big feller has been asleep.”
“Is the other one dead?”
“No. He’s breathing. But he hasn’t moved since I hit him.”