The Air Pirate Part 8

CHAPTER VI

MR. DANJURO, THINKING MACHINE, EXPLAINS HIMSELF

"Won't you sit down?" I said foolishly. The little j.a.panese bowed politely and did so.

I was at a loss what to say. My mind was in a whirl. I wanted to laugh, to call Van Adams back, but my dominating sensation was one of supreme annoyance. So this natty, commonplace little Asiatic was the millionaire's "familiar spirit"! He was unique, was he! I cursed myself for several kinds of fool to have saddled myself with this amazing stranger at the beginning of my work. At any rate, I reflected irritably, as I sat down opposite, I could easily send him off on some wild-goose chase or another....

Yes! I was never more annoyed in my life, and my annoyance lasted for exactly sixty seconds. Without the slightest embarra.s.sment of any sort, and with no preliminaries at all, Mr. Danjuro plunged into business. His voice was clear and low. He had no accent of any kind, though his English was a trifle pedantic and scholarly. He spoke as impersonally as a gramophone.

"... I am entirely with you, Sir John, in your opinion that it is not in the United States of America, but here--in England--that we shall solve the mystery surrounding this dark business."

"But I never said ..."

He smiled faintly, almost wearily. "And since I have the great honour to be a.s.sociated with you, I trust you will allow me to suggest a plan of campaign."

"I was going to try and think one out to-night."

"It is a privilege to a.s.sist. I have come in contact with many crafty and malignant criminals during the last thirty years, but here one detects a master. It will be a pleasure indeed to hunt him down. Have I your honourable permission to smoke?"

With one hand he produced a square of rice paper and a pinch of tobacco from his pocket, and rolled a cigarette on his knee like a conjuring trick. He had not raised his voice, but a sudden gleam came into the oblique black eyes which suggested the deep but hidden ferocity of his race.

He resumed. "From all I have gathered, and I have talked much with Captain Pring, Mr. Rickaby and the pa.s.sengers of the _Albatros_, we have to look for a man who is (1) an aviator in the first rank; (2) an inventor and mechanical genius, or able to command the services of such; (3) a person of some wealth or able to procure money."

I followed him completely and said so. From what we already knew these deductions were perfectly fair ones.

"I thank you. Now we come to the man himself. I believe him to be a person of education, and one who has held a good social position. He is also desperate in his circ.u.mstances, and a person to whom material pleasure is the highest good."

"Rickaby said that the men who came aboard the _Albatros_ spoke like educated people."

"Yes. Our field of search already begins to grow narrower. Am I right in saying that every aviator in this country must pa.s.s an examination and be licensed before he is allowed to fly?"

"It is so. All aviators, professional or amateur, must have a licence from the Air Police. This is registered. I have already had the records for the past ten years searched at Whitehall. But this has yielded no result. There is no one who could possibly be our man."

"It was well thought of, Sir John, if I may say so. But in my opinion we shall have to go back a good deal further than ten years. We now come to the question of the pirate airs.h.i.+p itself and its peculiar qualities.

Let us fix upon one--the silence of its engines. I am aware that the constructors of motor engines have been busy upon this problem for years."

"And with little result. The problem has not been solved."

"Except by our unknown friends. I have already examined all the recent patents of silencing devices at your patent office here. I spent yesterday morning there, and found nothing. The significance of that is obvious. Any ordinary inventor who had discovered something of such importance would protect it at once. We can therefore make up our minds that in no regular motor-engineering works throughout this country has the complete silencer been evolved. It would be impossible for the most brilliant inventor to keep such a thing entirely to himself."

"Again the field shrinks?"

"Yes, Sir John. We now have a man of the character already indicated, who, as he has undoubtedly constructed silent engines, must have done so in secret. He must have had private engineering works in order to make an important part of his machines. The point is, where? On the Continent? I think not. He would be watched far more carefully than in this country. America is still more unlikely. Let us a.s.sume England.

Having done so, we can, I think, safely deduce that for obvious reasons this man and his confederates--for we know he has them--would endeavour to build his pirate s.h.i.+p as near as possible to the place he intended to use as the base of his operations. And that base--if your experience bears me out--is certainly somewhere or other on the coast?"

"Of course, one would say that it must be so, Mr. Danjuro. And yet it seems impossible. The whole coast of England is patrolled by the coastguards. For all practical purposes England is no bigger than a pocket-handkerchief. I thought of Scotland and the Northern Isles. I thought of wild places on the Irish coast. I have had a fleet of airs.h.i.+ps surveying and photographing these places for the last two days.

No hangar bigger than a motor-shed could have escaped their notice. All the land police of the villages round the coasts have been interrogated by Scotland Yard. Nothing, nothing whatever has been seen."

I spoke with some pa.s.sion, for I felt it. The sense of impotence was maddening.

The j.a.panese rolled another cigarette. As he did so the door opened and Thumbwood came in.

"I delivered your note, Sir John, and the editor's compliments and thanks."

"Charles," I said, "this gentleman here is Mr. Danjuro. He is going to help us. Mr. Danjuro is "--I hesitated for a moment, really it was difficult to describe him!--"is one of the foremost detectives in the world!"

Thumbwood's hand went up to his forehead in the stable boy's salute.

Then, as he saw my guest full-face, he started. "I saw you this morning, sir," he said. "You were talking to old Mrs. Jessop, the dresser at the Parthenon Theatre. It was in the 'Blue Dragon,' just round the corner by the stage-door."

"And you were with the stage-door keeper. A curious coincidence," Mr.

Danjuro replied, with his weary smile, and at a look from me Thumbwood, very puzzled indeed, left the room.

"I spent part of this morning at the Parthenon Theatre, Sir John. Your servant apparently thought of doing the same thing. A man of considerable ac.u.men?--I imagined so. To proceed. Now that we have cleared away a few preliminary obstructions, we arrive at a point which I regard as of great significance. You are engaged--I speak of intimate matters, but purely in my character of a consultant--to Miss Constance Shepherd, a young lady of beauty and celebrity."

... Confound the fellow, he spoke of Connie as if she were a fis.h.!.+

"That is so," I told him.

"That young lady was kidnapped by the unknown airman. From among all the pa.s.sengers she and her maid were singled out. Now that fact--upon which you must have already pondered considerably--is a key fact. Was it done for the purpose of holding this lady up to ransom? I see the suggestion has been made in the Press. I answer no. In the first place, it would be altogether too dangerous a game, and the attempt would certainly lead to discovery. Secondly, there were other people on board who would have been more profitable prey. The Duke of Perth, for instance, or the cinema actor who receives sixty thousand pounds a year.

Now it is extremely improbable that in the rush and excitement of the attack and robbery of the _Atlantis_, the pirate leader was suddenly struck by a pretty face. Indeed, we know from accounts of the pa.s.sengers that Miss Shepherd was deliberately searched for. That indicates with certainty that the pirate knew she was on board, and had a design of capturing her. In its turn, this predicates a former acquaintance, and, undoubtedly, a repulse in the past. Hence my inquiries and my interview with the theatre dresser this morning."

I astonished that little man. It was the first and last time. Leaping up in my chair, I believe I shouted like a madman. At any rate, Thumbwood was inside the room before I could find words to speak.

Something had flashed upon me, white-hot and sudden, as an electric advertis.e.m.e.nt flashes out upon one at night. It was something that I had entirely and utterly forgotten until now.

"There was a man," I gasped, "a scoundrel who had been annoying Miss Shepherd for a long time. He wanted to marry her. She told me of it.

_And he was once a celebrated flying man!_"

"Long ago, in the Great War," said Danjuro calmly. "Major Helzephron, V.C. I was aware of it."

"And one of the boys if ever there was one, sir!" Thumbwood broke in.

"Warned off the course everywhere. I've got a bit of information too!"

I stared at them, trembling with excitement. And then reality, like a cold douche of water, brought me to my senses. Of course, it was impossible. The thing was a mere coincidence. Why, while the first s.h.i.+p--the _Albatros_--had been attacked, this man, Helzephron, was in London! He had travelled west in the same train with me and Connie.

"May I ask exactly what you know, Sir John?"

... I told Danjuro precisely what had happened at Paddington and how Connie herself had explained it.

He listened to me in attentive silence. When I had finished, I saw that a small leather pocket-book had appeared in his hands--everything that the fellow did had the uncanny effect of a clever trick--and he was turning over the leaves.

"So far," he began, "in the consideration of this problem we have been eliminating impossibilities, or improbabilities so strong that they amount to that. This has left us with a small residuum of fact, unproved fact, but sufficient to work from. One thing emerges clearly. It is the nature and personality of our unknown friend. It is not too much to say that he MUST be very like what we have imagined him to be. A certain person appears dimly on the scene--this Major Helzephron. Let us see how his personality squares with the personality we have been deducing. Mr.

Thumbwood has apparently collected some information. I have done so, too. Let us pool results!" He looked at Charles, who blushed.

"Out with it, Charles; you've done splendidly," I said.

"Well, Sir John, I found out that this gentleman is a pretty bad wrong-'un, judging by the company he keeps. And he used to annoy Miss Shepherd something chronic. He'd wait at the stage-door and try and speak to her when she got into the car after the performance, and he was always leaving notes and flowers with the stage-door keeper. Miss Shepherd would never take them. She always sent them back from her room.

It got so bad at last that she complained to the stage manager, and he had a plain clothes man from Vine Street there one night. Major Helzephron was told off pretty plainly, I hear. He used to come very nasty sometimes, and once or twice he was fair blotto! And Mr. Meggit, the commission agent, knows him well. He's done a lot of racing in his time, and no open scandal. But he knows how to work the market, and the best men won't lay him the odds no more."