The Bomb-Makers: Being Some Curious Records Concerning the Craft and Cunning of Theodore Drost, an Enemy Alien in London, Together with Certain Revelations Regarding His Daughter EllaLe Queux, William
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The Bomb-Makers: Being Some Curious Records Concerning the Craft and Cunning of Theodore Drost, an Enemy Alien in London, Together with Certain Revelations Regarding His Daughter Ella
Le Queux, William
Germans -- England -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Short stories; Spy stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- England -- London -- Fiction
One afternoon, at half-past two, Kennedy, who was at the Central Hotel,
called at Ella's lodgings and explained how he had seen her father
walking in the street with Cole.
"I afterwards followed them," he added, "and eventually found that your
father is at the Grand Hotel."
"Then mischief is certainly intended," declared the girl, her cheeks
turning pale.
"No doubt. They mean to execute the plot without any further delay.
That's my opinion. It will require all our watchfulness and resource if
we are to be successful."
"Why not warn the police?" suggested the girl.
"And, by doing so, you would most certainly send your father to a long
term of penal servitude," was her lover's reply. "No. We must prevent
it, and for your own sake allow your father a loophole for escape,
though he certainly deserves none."
Ella had once travelled in the same train as the woman Dexter, but the
latter had not recognised her; nevertheless, from inquiries Kennedy had
made in London, it seemed that a month before the woman had been living
in London, and was a close friend of Cole's. She had only recently gone
north to work on munitions, and had, like Ella, been instructed in the
working of the electrical cranes.
For three days Theodore Drost remained at the Grand Hotel, where he had
several interviews with the electrician Cole, and while Ella kept out of
the way by day and went to the works at night, her lover very cleverly
managed to maintain a strict watch.
More than once Ella had contrived to pass the door of the great
power-station with its humming dynamos which gave movement to that huge
mass of machinery in the three factories turning out munitions, and had
seen the man Cole in his blue dungarees busily oiling the machinery.
Once she had watched him using thick machine-oil from cans exactly
similar to those she had seen stored beneath the table in her father's
laboratory.
Night after night Ella, working there aloft in her crane, waited and
wondered. Indeed, she never knew from hour to hour whether the
carefully laid plans of the conspirators might not result in some
disastrous explosion, in which she herself might be a victim.
But Kennedy reassured her that he was keeping an ever-watchful vigil,
and she trusted him implicitly. As a matter of fact, one of the London
detectives watching the place was a friend of his, and, without telling
him the exact object of his visit, he was able to gain entrance to the
works.
Naturally the detective became curious, but Kennedy, who usually wore an
old tweed suit and a seedy cap, promised to reveal all to him
afterwards.
About half-past one, on a wet morning, Ella had just stopped her crane
when, at the entrance end of the building, she caught a glimpse of some
one beckoning to her. It was her well-beloved. In a few moments she
had clambered down, and, hurrying through the factory, joined him
outside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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