I got to a gate, skirted a hedge, and gained the main road. With difficulty I walked to the nearest town, a distance of about four miles, without meeting a soul, and to my surprise found myself in Hitchin. The spectacle of a man entering the town in evening dress and hatless in broad daylight was, no doubt, curious, but I was anxious to return to London and give information against those who had, without any apparent motive, laid an ingenious plot to poison me.
At the old Sun Inn, which motorists from London know so well, I learned that the time was eleven in the morning. The only manner in which I could account for my presence in Hitchin was that, believed to be dead by the Baron and his accomplices, I had been conveyed in a motor-car to the spot where I was found.
A few shillings remained in my pocket, and, strangely enough, beside me when I recovered consciousness I had found a small fluted phial marked "Prussic acid--poison." The assassins had attempted to make it apparent that I had committed suicide!
Two hours later, after a rest and a wash, I borrowed an overcoat and golf-cap and took the train to King's Cross.
At Judd Street Police Station I made a statement, and with two plain-clothes officers returned to the house in Burton Crescent, only to find that the fair Julie and her friends had flown.
On forcing the door, we found the dining-table just as it had been left after the poisoned snap-dragon of the previous night. Nothing had been touched. Only Julie, the Baron, the man-servant, and the guests had all gone, and the place was deserted.
The police were utterly puzzled at the entire absence of motive.
On my return to Guilford Street I at once telephoned to Ray, and he was quickly with me, Vera accompanying him.
I related the whole of the circumstances, while my friends sat listening very attentively.
"Well," Ray said at last, "it's a great pity, old chap, you didn't mention this before. The Baron de Moret is no other person than Lucien Carron, one of Hartmann's most trusted agents, while Julie's real name is Erna Hertfeldt, a very clever female spy, who has, of late, been engaged in endeavouring to obtain certain facts regarding the defences of the Humber estuary. She was recalled to Berlin recently to consult Hirsch, chief of the German Intelligence Department. You evidently came across her on her way back, while the old man whom she met at the Gare du Nord was Josef Gleichen, the spy whom I told you was in association with Barker up at Newcastle."
"Ah! I remember," I cried. "I never saw him."
"But he had evidently seen you, and again recognised you," Ray replied.
"It seems that he must have followed you to London, where, having told Lucien Carron, or 'the Baron,' of your return, they formed a plot to avenge your action up at Elswick."
"Then I was entrapped by that woman Julie, eh?" I exclaimed, my head still feeling sore and dizzy.
"Without a doubt. The spies have made yet another attempt upon your life, Mr. Jacox," Vera remarked.
"But why did they take me out in a motor-car to Hitchin?"
"To make it appear like a case of suicide," Ray said. "Remember that both of us, old chap, are marked men by Hartmann and his unscrupulous friends. But what does it matter if we have managed to preserve the secret of our new gun? We'll be even with our enemies for this one day ere long, mark me," he laughed, as he lit a fresh cigarette.
CHAPTER X
THE SECRET OF THE CLYDE DEFENCES
A curious episode was that of the plans of the Clyde Defences. It was a February evening. Wet, tired, and hungry, I turned the long grey touring car into the yard of the old "White Hart," at Salisbury, and descended with eager anticipation of a big fire and comfortable dinner.
My mechanic Bennett and I had been on the road since soon after dawn, and we yet had many miles to cover. Two months ago I had mounted the car at the garage in Wardour Street and set out upon a long and weary ten-thousand-mile journey in England, not for pleasure, as you may well imagine--but purely upon business. My business, to be exact, was reconnoitring, from a military stand-point, all the roads and by-roads lying between the Tyne and the Thames as well as certain districts south-west of London, in order to write the book upon similar lines to _The Invasion of 1910_.
For two months we had lived upon the road. Sometimes Ray and Vera had travelled with me. When Bennett and I had started it was late and pleasant autumn. Now it was bleak, black winter, and hardly the kind of weather to travel twelve or fourteen hours daily in an open car. Day after day, week after week, the big "sixty" had roared along, ploughing the mud of those ever-winding roads of England until we had lost all count of the days of the week; my voluminous note-books were gradually being filled with valuable data, and the nerves of both of us were becoming so strained that we were victims of insomnia. Hence at night, when we could not sleep, we travelled.
In a great portfolio in the back of the car I carried the six-inch ordnance map of the whole of the east of England divided into many sections, and upon these I was carefully marking out, as result of my survey, the weak points of our land in case an enemy invaded our shores from the North Sea. All telegraphs, telephones, and cables from London to Germany and Holland I was especially noting, for would not the enemy's emissaries, before they attempted to land, seize all means of communication with the metropolis? Besides this I took note of places where food could be obtained, lists of shops, and collected a quantity of other valuable information.
In this work I had been assisted by half a dozen of the highest officers of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, as well as other well-known experts--careful, methodical work prior to writing my forecast of what must happen to our beloved country in case of invasion.
The newspapers had referred to my long journey of inquiry, and often when I arrived in a town, our car, smothered in mud, yet its powerful engines running like a clock, was the object of public curiosity, while Bennett, with true chauffeur-like imperturbability, sat immovable, utterly regardless of the interest we created. He was a gentleman-driver, and the best man at the wheel I ever had.
When we were in a hurry he would travel nearly a mile a minute over an open road, sounding his siren driven off the fly-wheel, and scenting police-traps, with the happy result that we were never held up for exceeding the limit. We used to take it in turns to drive--three hours at a time.
On that particular night, when we entered Salisbury from Wincanton Road, having come up from Exeter, it had been raining unceasingly all day, and we presented a pretty plight in our yellow fishermen's oilskins--which we had bought weeks before in King's Lynn as the only means of keeping dry--dripping wet and smothered to our very eyes in mud.
After a hasty wash I entered the coffee-room, and found that I was the sole diner save a short, funny, little old lady in black bonnet and cape, and a young, rather pretty, well-dressed girl, whom I took to be her daughter, seated at a table a little distance away.
Both glanced at me as they entered, and I saw that ere I was half through my meal their interest in me had suddenly increased. Without doubt, the news of my arrival had gone round the hotel, and the waiter had informed the pair of my identity.
It was then eight o'clock, and I had arranged with Bennett that after a rest, we would push forward at half-past ten by Marlborough, as far as Swindon, on our way to Birmingham.
The waiter had brought me a couple of telegrams from Ray telling me good news of another inquiry he was instituting, and having finished my meal I was seated alone by the smoking-room fire enjoying a cigarette and liqueur. Indeed, I had almost fallen asleep when the waiter returned, saying:
"Excuse me, sir, but there's a lady outside in great distress. She wants to speak to you for a moment, and asks if she may come in." He presented a card, and the name upon it was "Mrs. Henry Bingham."
Rather surprised, I nevertheless consented to see her, and in a few moments the door reopened and the younger of the two ladies I had seen at dinner entered.
She bowed to me as I rose, and then, evidently in a state of great agitation, she said:
"I must apologise for disturbing you, only--only I thought perhaps you would be generous enough, when you have heard of our difficulty, to grant my mother and I a favour."
"If I can be of any assistance to you, I shall be most delighted, I'm sure," I answered, as her big grey eyes met mine.
"Well," she said, looking me straight in the face, "the fact is that our car has broken down--something wrong with the clutch, our man says--and we can't get any further to-night. We are on our way to Swindon--to my husband, who has met with an accident and is in the hospital, but--but, unfortunately, there is no train to-night. Your chauffeur has told our man that you are just leaving for Swindon, and my mother and I have been wondering--well--whether we might encroach upon your good nature and beg seats in your car?"
"You are quite welcome to travel with me, of course," I replied without hesitation. "But I fear that on such a night it will hardly be pleasant to travel in an open car."
"Oh, we don't mind that a bit," she assured me. "We have lots of waterproofs and things. It is really most kind of you. I had a telegram at four o'clock this afternoon that my husband had been taken to the hospital for operation, and naturally I am most anxious to be at his side."
"Naturally," I said. "I regret very much that you should have such cause for distress. Let us start at once. I shall be ready in ten minutes."
While she went back to her mother, I went out into the yard where the head-lights of my big "sixty" were gleaming.
"We shall have two lady passengers to Swindon, Bennett," I said, as my chauffeur threw away his cigarette and approached me. "What kind of car have the ladies?"
"A twenty-four. It's in the garage up yonder. The clutch won't hold, it seems. But their man's a foreigner, and doesn't speak much English. I suppose I'd better pack our luggage tighter, so as to give the ladies room."
"Yes. Do so. And let's get on the road as soon as possible."
"Very well, sir," responded the man as he entered the car and began packing our suit-cases together while almost immediately the two ladies emerged, the elder one, whose voice was harsh and squeaky, and who was, I noticed, very deformed, thanking me profusely.
We stowed them away as comfortably as possible, and just as the cathedral chimes rang out half-past ten, the ladies gave parting injunctions to their chauffeur, and we drew out of the yard.
I apologised for the dampness and discomfort of an open car, and briefly explained my long journey and its object. But both ladies--the name of the queer little old widow I understood to be Sandford--only laughed, and reassured me that they were all right.
That night I drove myself. With the exhaust opened and roaring, and the siren shrieking, we sped along through the dark, rainy night up by old Sarum, through Netheravon, and across Overton Heath into Marlborough without once changing speed or speaking with my passengers. As we came down the hill from Ogbourne, I had to pull up suddenly for a farmer's cart, and turned, asking the pair behind how they were faring.
As I did so I noticed that both of them seemed considerably flurried, but attributed it to the high pace we had been travelling when I had so suddenly pulled up on rounding the bend.