“True, but besides being hot and uncomfortable—I think we shall have to try and improve those suits, Gaunt—it is very clumsy in the event of the wearer being attacked with a knife. And though I anticipated from what I had heard that they proposed to use your poison, one has to allow for all eventualities. Also there was that mystic vein in them which I wanted to impress.
“Behold me then, my dear fellow, apparently as I am now, striding alone and unarmed to their quarters. For a moment they stared at me dumbfounded—my sudden appearance had cowed them. And then one of them pulled himself together and discharged a syringe full of the liquid at me. It hit me in the cheek—a most nervous moment, I assure you. I apologise deeply to you now for my qualms; I should have trusted your skill better.
“Nothing happened, and the men cowered back. I said no word; but step by step I advanced on the miscreant who had dared to try and rob the world of one of its chief adornments. And step by step he retreated till he could retreat no further. Then I took his hand and laid it on my cheek. And that evening we tied him in a weighted sack, and buried him at sea.”
He smiled thoughtfully and studied the ash on his cigar.
“It was most successful. Rumours about me vary amongst these excellent fellows. The one I like best is that I am a reincarnation of Rasputin. But there has been no further trouble.”
He rose from the table and swept the jewels carelessly into the suitcase.
“Not a bad haul, my little one. We shall have to be very careful over the disposal of the Shan diamonds: they’re notorious stones.”
They both walked over to one of the windows together, and …
[At this point the narrative breaks off abruptly. Evidently Gaunt was interrupted and crammed the papers hurriedly into his pocket. And the only other document—the most vital of all—was scrawled almost illegibly on a torn scrap of paper. Whether it was written on the airship or at Black Mine will never be known. Of how he got back to the mine there is no record. Who were the men alluded to as “them” is also a mystery, though I have no doubt that one of them was Wilmot. Possibly the other was Helias.]
I heard them today. They didn’t know I was listening. The Megalithic with thirty of the gang on board. Attack by night. The bigger game. He will succeed: he is not human. … Hydrogen not helium. … Not changed. … Sacrifice ship. … Fire. …
That is all. Those are the papers that we read, sitting on the edge of the cliff with the writer beside us staring with vacant eyes over the grey sea below. Those were the papers, stumbled on by the merest accident, on which we had to base our plans. Was it true or were we the victims of some gigantic delusion on the part of Gaunt? That was the problem that faced us as the first rays of the early sun lit up Black Mine on the morning of September 8th.
XII
In Which the Final Count Takes Place
How much of it was true? We had confirmation of a certain amount with our own eyes. We had seen the pipe, lowered over the cliff: we had seen the mysterious signal from the sea. Above all we had seen Wilmot’s dirigible actually filling up with the poison. So much, therefore, we knew. But what of the rest?
What of the astounding story of the Hermione? Had we discovered the solution of the yacht’s disappearance, or had we been wasting our time reading the hallucination of a madman’s brain? Had Gaunt—having read in the papers of the loss of the Hermione—imagined the scene he had described?
Against that theory was the fact—as I have mentioned before—that neither in the writing nor the phraseology could we detect any sign of insanity. And surely if the whole thing was a delusion, traces of incoherence and wildness would have been bound to appear.
So we reasoned, and still could come to no conclusion. It seemed so wildly fantastic: so well-nigh incredible. And if those epithets could be used in connection with the Hermione, what was to be said concerning the amazing fragment about the Megalithic? Even granted for the moment that the description of the loss of the Hermione was correct, were we seriously to imagine that the same thing could be done to a great Atlantic liner?
From the very first moment Drummond made up his mind and never changed it. I admit that I was sceptical until the last damning proof came to us, but he never hesitated.
“It’s the truth,” he said quietly. “I am convinced of it. The mystery of the Hermione is solved. And with regard to the Megalithic it is the truth also.”
I suppose he saw my look of incredulity, for he then addressed himself exclusively to me.
“Stockton, ever since the time in Ashworth Gardens when that woman recognised me, I’ve known that we were up against Peterson. I’ve felt it in every fibre of my being. Now it’s proved beyond a shadow of doubt. Whatever may or may not be true in that diary of Gaunt’s, that fact is obvious. Wilmot is Peterson: nothing else could account for his asking Gaunt if he knew me.”
He lit a cigarette, and I was struck by the gravity of his face.
“You’ve asked once or twice about Peterson,” he went on after a while. “But though we’ve told you a certain amount, to you he is merely a name. To us, and to me particularly, he’s rather more than that. That is why I am certain in my own mind that that scrawled message about the Megalithic is true. And the principal
