“Where are we driving to at this rate, Carl Peterson?” said Drummond.
“There’s some mistake,” muttered the other.
“No, Peterson, there is no mistake. Tonight you were going to do to the Megalithic what you did to the Hermione—sink her with every soul on board. There’s no good denying it: I spent last night in Black Mine.”
The other started uncontrollably, and the blazing hatred in his eyes grew more maniacal.
“What are you going to do, Drummond?” he snarled.
“A thing that has been long overdue, Peterson,” answered Drummond quietly. “You unspeakable devil: you damnable wholesale murderer.”
He slipped the revolver back in his pocket, and picked up his own liqueur glass.
“The good host drinks first, Peterson.” His great hand shot out and clutched the other’s throat. “Drink, you foul brute: drink.”
Never to my dying day shall I forget the hoarse yell of terror that Peterson uttered as he struggled in that iron grip. His eyes stared fearfully at the glass, and with a sudden stupendous effort he knocked it out of Drummond’s hand.
And once again Drummond laughed: the contents had spilled on the other’s wrist.
“If you won’t drink—have it the other way, Carl Peterson. But the score is paid.”
His grip relaxed on Peterson’s throat: he stood back, arms folded, watching the criminal. And whether it was the justice of fate, or whether it was that previous applications of the antidote had given Peterson a certain measure of immunity, I know not. But for full five seconds did he stand there before the end came. And in that five seconds the mask slipped from his face, and he stood revealed for what he was. And of that revelation no man can write. …
Thus did Carl Peterson die on the eve of his biggest coup. As he had killed, so was he killed, whilst, all unconscious of what had happened, the navigator still drove the airship full speed towards the west.
And now but little remains to be told. It was Drummond who walked along the corridor and found the control cabin. It was Drummond who put a revolver in the navigator’s neck, and forced him to swing the airship round and head back to London. It was Drummond who commanded the dirigible till finally we tied up once more to the mooring mast.
And then it was Drummond who, revolver in hand to stop any rush of the crew, superintended the disembarkation of the guests. Lift load after lift load of white-faced women and men went down to the ground till only we six remained. One final look did we take at the staring glassy eyes of the man who sprawled across the chair in which he had sat to entertain Royalty, and then we too dropped swiftly downwards.
News had already passed round the aerodrome, and excited officials thronged round us as we stepped out of the lift. But Drummond would say nothing.
“Ring up Inspector MacIver at Scotland Yard,” he remarked curtly. “Leave all the rest of them on board till he comes. I will stop here.”
But, as all the world knows, it was decreed otherwise. Barely had we sat down in one of the waiting-rooms when an agitated man rushed in.
“She’s off,” he cried. “Wilmot’s dirigible is underway.”
We darted outside to see the great airship slowly circling round. She still blazed with light, and from the windows leaned men, waving their arms mockingly. Then she headed northeast. And she was barely clear of the aerodrome when it happened. What looked to me like a yellow flash came from amidships, followed by a terrible rending noise. And before our eyes the dirigible became a roaring furnace of flame. Then, splitting in two, she dropped like a stone.
What caused the accident no one will ever know. Personally I am inclined to agree with Drummond that one of the crew, realising that Wilmot was dead, decided to ransack his cabin to see what he could steal. And in the cabin he found some infernal device for causing fire, which in his unskilful hands exploded suddenly. It is a possible solution: that is all I can say for it. Anyway the point is immaterial. For twelve hours no man could approach the wreckage, so intense was the heat. And when at length it was possible, the bodies were so terribly burned as to be unrecognisable. Two only could be traced: the two in evening clothes. Though which was the red-faced man who had drunk and which was Wilmot no one could say. And again the point is immaterial. For when a man is dead he’s dead, and there’s not much use in worrying further. What did matter was that one of those two charred corpses was all that remained of the super-criminal known to the world as Wilmot—and known to Drummond as Carl Peterson.
XIII
In Which I Lay Down My Pen
I have finished. To the best of my ability I have set down the events of that summer. At the outset I warned my readers that I was no literary man: had there been anyone else willing to tackle the job I would willingly have resigned in his favour.
There will be many even now who will in all probability shrug their shoulders incredulously. Well, as I have said more than once, I cannot make any man believe me. If people choose to think that Gaunt’s description of the sinking of the Hermione is a madman’s delusion based on what he had read in the papers, they are welcome to their opinion. But the Hermione has never been heard of again, and it is now more than a year since she sailed from Southampton. And I have, at any rate, put forward a theory to account for her loss.
What is of far more interest to me is what would have happened had the attack been carried out on
