Adventure, June 1911 — page 50: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

236 to Algy Brett, who was next to him, with the brief comment, ‘‘ Bombs, I suppose!” Algy read the posthumous message with his brain working rapidly and ever circling round the one man—Ostermann. Oster- mann had been balked of the papers he had kidnapped Darien to get hold of. Oster- mann had ordered the wholesale “sowing” of “‘Seeds of Destruction” in revenge, be- sides the brutal murder of Densham’s secre- tary. What did he mean by “Seeds of De- struction?” Bombs? Schlesinger thought so. Bombs! Could it be? Were his allies from across the Channel already steaming toward England with the pennant of war flying in defiant triumph, or had the loss of the despatches delayed them? Were the “Seeds of Destruction” purely and solely a holocaustic revenge on Ostermann’s part and entirely independent of the threatened invasion? Bombs? Bombs? But if they were bombs something would have hap- pened before this! London could have been wrecked in the time which must have elapsed between the writing of the blood-stained little note and now. Now it was almost one o'clock. An hour after that fatal midnight! An hour since St. Stephen’s had boomed out Carlile Darien’s death-signal! In an hour something would have happened? And yet that warning, written by a hand that was barely cold in death! It was impossible to disregard it! And then, in a flash, light came to him. It was as though a voice breathed in his ear —the chill, wraith’s voice of the murdered Darien! He flung round in a frenzy of excitement, the blood flaming in his face, his eyes snapping. “The late edition of the Westminster Gazeiie?”’ he cried eagerly. monds hand it to you, uncle.” He searched among the papers on the desk and found it. It was a midnight edi- tion on the Parliamentary crisis. He turned in awkward haste to the stop-press news and read a short three-line sentence out loud. A van-driver was killed late this evening in Fleet Street by a meteorite. It struck him with such great force that it was found imbedded in his brain on arrival at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Brett flung the paper down before Schles- inger. ‘““A meteorite?” he said, his voice shrill ‘S} .saw Kd-=— Adventure ‘A meteorite, or a ‘Seed of Which?” with meaning. Destruction?’ iil THE dawn found Algy Brett return- ing from a laborious, systematic search which had resulted in his possessing three peculiarly round, peculiarly similar, dead-white, lead-heavy stones. One he had ‘picked up in an area of the new War Office buildings, one in the yard of ‘St. Paul’s Cathedral, and one he had been per-- mitted to secure from St. Bartholomew’s, spotted red with its victim’s blood. ~ - He took them straight to Schlesin Schlesinger looked at them almo ‘girs lessly and tossed them on to a side table. ‘“‘Bombs—deadly bombs!” he said shot tly. That: ‘“‘Bombs, but devilishly ingenious! little lot of three must alone have cost. &. pretty big sum, and the,man who is “re: sponsible for their being where you “fidund: them must either be a lunatic or an enemy more than ordinarily vindictive and cruel.’’- Brett received the big detective’s verdict~’. without moving a muscle. That the eyilly. ” pallid things were bombs of some sort of © other he had guessed—it would be absolute foolishness to attempt to think otherwise— _ és and he also realized that, whatever their ultimate purpose, at present they were harmless. So he watched Schlesinger toss them on the side-table with the composure of a war veteran. “We guessed that at one o’clock this morning!” he said coolly. ‘We only wanted to authenticate Darien’s message that they were sowing what they facetiously called seeds! What I now want to know is what will send them off? That they are intended to go off at a certain time is obvious —but when! That’s the mighty question? When? And another mighty question is, How? It’s a certainty. that Ostermann, when he has finished ‘placing’ the beastly things, isn’t going to spend some more time hunting ’em up and setting ’em off! That isn’t likely, is it? Especially if there’s a daisy little fleet of men-of-war twiddling their thumbs outside there waiting for Lon- don to be blown to eternity so they can then rush in and sing ‘We’re “King of the Castle’ at long, long last?”’ “T should say it was not at all likely; Mr: ie The things | wit. -go Off -by | theni- - Brett. selves in due course.” COMICMOOKS (C@