The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret HistoryLe Queux, William
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The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History
Le Queux, William
War stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
"Then you don't suspect that she has purposely disappeared--eh?" I
asked quickly.
"Well--after all--I don't know," was his hesitating reply. "Something
belonging to her has been found which rather leads to that supposition."
"What has been found?" I gasped eagerly.
"This," he answered, and he placed upon the table a gold chatelaine
which I at once recognised as belonging to Roseye--for. I had given it
to her. It formed a jingling bunch. There was a chain-purse, a
combined match-box and cigarette-case, a powder-box with its little
mirror in the cover, and a card-case all strung upon thin gold chains
which, in turn, were attached to a ring--so that it could be carried
upon the finger.
"Wherever was that found?" I asked, turning pale at sight of it.
"It was discovered this morning by a platelayer engaged in examining the
rails in the long tunnel just beyond Welwyn Station on the Great
Northern Railway."
"In a tunnel!"
"Yes. The two tunnels which are quite near to each other have, at our
request, been thoroughly searched by the local police and the
platelayers, but nothing else has been found. My first fear was," added
the inspector, "that there might have been a tragedy in the tunnel.
Happily, however, there is no ground for any such suspicion."
"But there may have been a struggle in the train!" I suggested.
"Possibly," answered the inspector. "It's fortunate that the cards were
in the case, for when the chatelaine was handed to the sergeant of
constabulary at Welwyn, he at once recognised Lethmere as the name of
the lady whose description had been circulated by us. Therefore the
constabulary sent it up here at once."
I took it and found that in the purse were the four Treasury-notes, as
the maid Mulliner had described, together with some silver. Three of my
own particular brand of Russian cigarettes remained in the case, while
among the cards which I opened upon the table was one of my own upon
which I had, only a few days previously, written down the address of the
makers of a new enamel which I had advised her to try upon her machine.
The tiny powder-puff and the small bevelled mirror were there, though
the latter had been cracked across in its fall in the tunnel.
"Seven years bad luck!" I remarked to the inspector, whose name I had
learned to be Barton.
I was turning over with curiosity that bunch of jingling feminine
impedimenta which I knew so well, when the door suddenly opened, and a
red-tabbed captain in khaki entered.
"This is Captain Pollock," Barton said, introducing him. "He wished, I
believe, to ask you a question, Mr Munro."
I looked at the new-comer with some surprise, as he bowed and, in rather
an authoritative manner, took a chair at the big leather-covered table
at which I was seated with the inspector.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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