“I think not,” said Drummond quietly. “I’ve made out a rough timetable, and this is how I see it. He plans to attack her somewhere off the south coast of Ireland, probably in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Long before that the guests will have realised that something is wrong. The instant that occurs he will show his hand, and matters will come to a head. One way or another it will be all over by eleven o’clock.”
“My God! it’s an awful risk we’re running,” I muttered.
“And an unavoidable one,” he answered. “There’s not a human being in England who would not believe us to be absolutely crazy if we told them what we know. So that any possibility of preventing people going on board that airship tonight may be ruled out of court at once.”
It was half-past five when we arrived, and we found Algy Longworth waiting for us at Drummond’s house.
“Done everything you told me, old lad,” he cried cheerfully. “They thought I was mad at the War House. Great Scott!” he broke off suddenly as he saw Gaunt, “who’s your pal?”
“Doesn’t matter about him, Algy. You’ve got the antidote?”
“A bucket of it, old boy. Saw Stockton’s pal—one Major Jackson.”
“And you’ve got four tickets for Wilmot’s dirigible this evening?”
“Got ’em at Keith and Prowse. What is the fun and laughter?”
“Peterson, Algy. Our one and only Carl. He’s Wilmot.”
Algy Longworth stared at him incredulously.
“My dear old bird,” he said at length, “you’re pulling my leg.”
“Wilmot is Carl Peterson, Algy. Of that there is no shadow of doubt. And that’s why you’ve got four tickets. We renew our acquaintance tonight.”
“Good Lord! Well, the tickets are a tenner each, including dinner, and I got the last. So we must get our money’s worth.”
“You’ll get that all right,” said Drummond grimly. “Have you brought everybody’s clothes round? Good. Get changed, you fellows: we start at six.”
And now I come to the final act in the whole amazing drama. Though months have elapsed, every detail of that last flight is as clear in my mind as if it had happened yesterday.
We started at six, leaving Denny in charge of Robin. Each of us had in our pockets a pot of the antidote and a revolver; and no one talked very much. Drummond, his face set like granite, stared at the road in front of him. Algy Longworth polished and repolished his eyeglass ceaselessly. In fact, in sporting parlance—I don’t know about Drummond, but as far as the rest of us were concerned—we had got the needle.
The evening was calm and still as we motored into the aerodrome. Great flaring arc lights lit up everything with the brightness of day: whilst above our heads, attached to the mooring mast, floated the graceful vessel, no longer dark and sinister as we had seen her the night before, but a blaze of light from bows to stern.
She was due to start at seven o’clock, and at ten minutes to the hour we stepped out of the lift at the top of the mast into the main corridor of the dirigible. Everywhere the vessel was gaily decorated with festoons of brightly coloured paper and fairy-lights. And in the first of the big cabins ahead we caught a glimpse of a crowd of fashionably dressed women gathered round a thickset good-looking man in evening clothes. Mr. Wilmot was welcoming his guests.
“Is that Peterson?” I whispered to Drummond.
He laughed shortly.
“Do you mean—do I recognise him? No, I don’t. I never have yet, by looking at his face. But it’s Peterson all right.”
Drummond was handing his coat and hat to a diminutive black boy in a bright red uniform, and I glanced at his face. A faint smile was hovering round his lips, but his eyes were expressionless. And even the smile vanished as he strolled towards the group in the anteroom: he was just the ordinary society man attending some function.
And what a function it proved. It was the first time that I had ever been inside an airship, and the thing that impressed me most was the spaciousness of everything—and the luxury. Even granting that it was a special occasion, one had to admit that the whole thing was marvellously well done. The lighting effect was superb; and in every corner great masses of hothouse flowers gave out a heavy scent.
“It’s Eastern,” I said to Drummond. “Oriental.”
“Peterson has always been spectacular,” he answered. “But I agree that he has spared no pains with the coffin.”
“I simply can’t believe it,” I said. “Now that we’re actually here, surrounded by all this, it seems incredible that he proposes to sacrifice it all.”
“There are a good many things about Peterson that strike one as incredible,” said Drummond quietly. “But I wish I had even an inkling of what he’s going to do.”
Suddenly the eyes of the two men met over the heads of the women. It was the moment I had been waiting for and I watched Wilmot intently. For perhaps the fraction of a second he paused in his conversation and it seemed to me that a gleam of triumph showed on his face: then once again he turned to the woman beside him with just the correct shade of deference which is expected of those who converse with a Duchess.
Drummond also had turned away and was chatting with someone he knew, but I noticed that he continually edged nearer and nearer to the place where Wilmot was standing a little apart from the others. At last he stopped in front of them and bowed.
“Good evening, Duchess,” he remarked. “Why aren’t you slaughtering birds up North?”
“How are you, Hugh? Same thing applies to you. By the way—do you know Mr. Wilmot?—Captain Drummond?”
The two men bowed, and Jerningham and I, talking ostensibly, drew closer. I know my hands were clammy with excitement, and I don’t think the others were in much better condition.
“Your last trip, Mr. Wilmot, I believe,” said Drummond.
“That is so,” answered
