The engine ceased abruptly, and he realised they had reached the yacht. Leaning over the side were some of the guests, and as he and Ted lifted the body of the Professor up the gangway a chorus of excited questioning broke out, a chorus which was interrupted by the amazed ejaculation of an elderly man.
“God bless my soul,” he cried incredulously, as the light fell on the Professor’s face, “it’s old Goodman’s double!”
“Not exactly,” answered Drummond. “It’s Professor Goodman himself.”
“Damme, sir,” spluttered the other, “I was at his funeral a week ago. He was blown up in his house in Hampstead doing some fool experiment.”
“So we all thought,” remarked Drummond quietly. “And as it happened we thought wrong. Get him below, Ted—and get him to bed, or we really shall be attending his funeral. He’s swallowed most of the English Channel as it is. Though I can assure you, sir,” he addressed the elderly man again, “that he possesses a vitality which turns Kruschen salts a pale pink. Within the last week he’s been blown up; his remains, consisting of one boot, have been buried; he’s been bounced on a white-hot electric furnace to keep his circulation going; he’s had his breakfast doped; and last, but not least, he’s gone backwards and forwards under Ted’s motorboat. And now if someone will lead me to a whisky-and-soda of vast dimensions, I’ll—My God! what’s that?”
It was very faint, like the boom of a distant heavy gun, but he happened to be looking towards the Needles. And he had seen a sudden deep orange flash, in the water against the sky—the flash such as in old days an aeroplane bomb had made on bursting. The others swung round and stared seawards, but there was nothing more to be seen.
“It sounded like a shell,” said one of the men, “What did you think it was?”
He turned to Drummond, but he had disappeared, only to dash on deck a moment or two, later with Ted behind him.
“Every ounce you can get out of her, Ted. Rip her to pieces if necessary—but get there. That infernal devil has blown up the yacht.”
The motorboat spun round, and like a living beast gathered speed. The bow waves rose higher and higher, till they stood four feet above the gunwales, to fall away astern into a mass of seething white.
“I’ll never forgive myself,” shouted Drummond in Ted’s ear. “I knew he was going to blow her up, but I never thought he’d do it so soon.”
Quivering like a thing possessed, the boat rushed towards the scene of the explosion. The speedometer needle touched—went back—touched again—and then remained steady at fifty.
“Go to the bows,” howled Ted. “Wreckage.”
With a nod Drummond scrambled forward, and lying between the two black walls of water, he slowly swung the headlight backwards and forwards over the sea in front. To hit a piece of floating wreckage at the speed they were travelling would have ripped them open from stem to stern. Other craft attracted to the spot loomed up and dropped back as if stationary, and then suddenly Drummond held up his hand. In front was a large dark object with two or three men clinging to it, and as he focused the headlight on them he could see them waving. The roar of the engine died away, and timing it perfectly Jerningham went full speed astern.
The thing in the water was one of the large wooden lockers used for storing life-belts, and they drew alongside just in time. It was waterlogged, and the weight of the men clinging to it was more than it could stand. Even as the last of them stepped into the boat, with a sullen splash the locker turned over and drifted away only just awash.
“Yer’d better mind out,” said one of the men. “There’s a lot of that about.”
“Go slow, Ted,” cried Drummond. Then he turned to the men. “What happened?”
“Strike me pink, governor, I’m damned if I know. We’ve had a wonderful trip, we ’ave—you can take my word. Fust a ruddy madman jumps overboard with another bloke—and they both drowns. Then half an hour later there comes the devil of an explosion from below; the ’ole deck goes sky ’igh, and the skipper he yells, ‘We’re sinking.’ It didn’t require for ’im to say that; we all knew we was. We ’eeled right over, and in ’alf a minute she sank.”
“Anybody else saved?” asked Drummond.
“I dunno, governor,” answered the man. “There wasn’t no women and children on board, so I reckons it was everyone for himself.”
“Any idea what caused the explosion?”
“I ’aven’t, governor—that’s strite. But I knew as no good was a-going to come of this trip, as soon as that there madman went and drowned hisself.”
Drummond stared silently ahead. In the dim light he had no fear of being recognised, even if any of the three men they had saved had seen him. And his mind was busy. He had not the slightest doubt that Peterson had caused the explosion; he had even less doubt that Peterson, at any rate, was not drowned. But why had he taken the appalling risk of doing such a thing in so populous a waterway?
He went back to the stern and sat down beside Ted, who was nosing the boat gently through the water. Masses of debris surrounded them, and it was necessary to move with the utmost caution.
“What made him risk it here, Ted?” he whispered.
“Obvious, old man,” returned the other in a low voice. “He thought your bodies would be washed ashore; he had no means of telling when. He knew they would be identified; he further knew, that
