Ten minutes later the pair had descended the stairs, while old Drost had switched off the light and locked the door of the secret laboratory wherein reposed the germs of a terrible disease known only to the enemies of Great Britain--a fatal malady which Germany intended to sow broadcast over the length and breadth of our land. For an hour they all three sat discussing the diabolical plot which would disseminate death over a great area of the United Kingdom, for Germany had many friends prepared to sacrifice their own lives for the Fatherland, and it was intended that those glass and rubber bombs should be dropped in all quarters to produce an epidemic of disease such as the world had never before experienced. Old Theodore Drost, installed in his comfortable dining-room again, opened a long bottle of Berncastler "Doctor"--a genuine bottle, be it said, for few who have sipped the "Doctor" wine of late have taken the genuine wine, so many fabrications did Germany make for us before the war. "But I warn you to be excessively careful," the professor said to Drost. "Your daughter comes here sometimes, does she not? Do be careful of her. Place powerful disinfectants here--all over the house--in every room," he urged; "although I have plugged the tubes with cotton wool properly treated to prevent the escape of the infection into the air, yet one never knows." "Ella is not often here," her father replied. "She is still playing in `Half a Moment!'; besides, she is rehearsing a new revue. So she, happily, has no time to come and see me." "But, for your own safety, and your servant's, do be careful," Meins urged. "To tell you the honest truth, I almost fear to remove my mask-- even now." "But there's surely no danger down here?" asked Drost eagerly. "There is always danger with such a terribly infectious malady. It is fifty times more fatal than double pneumonia. It attacks the lungs so rapidly that no remedy has any chance. Professor Steinwitz, of Stettin, discovered it." "And is there no remedy?" "None whatsoever. Its course is rapid--a poisoning of the whole pulmonary system, and it's even more contagious than small-pox." Then they removed their masks and drank to "The Day" in their German wine. Six nights later Stella Steele had feigned illness--a strain while on her motor-cycle, and her understudy was taking her part in "Half a Moment!" much to the disappointment of the men in khaki, who had seated themselves in the stalls to applaud her. Among the men on leave many had had her portrait upon a postcard--together with a programme in three-colour print--in their dug-outs in Flanders, for Stella Steele was "the rage" in the Army, and among the subalterns any who had ever met her, or who had "known her people," were at once objects of interest.