Zeppelins had flown over the coast towns and hurled bombs upon its defenceless inhabitants. Each raid had been more and more audacious in its range, and in its general scheme. London and the cities of the Midlands had been, more than once in sight of the enemy's airships. Yet a certain section of the Press were still pooh-poohing the real significance of the attempt to demoralise us at home. Out in St James's Square--on the cab-rank which the Club had taken for its own--I jumped into my car and drove away down to Gunnersbury, beyond Chiswick, where, in a market-garden, I rented a long shed of corrugated iron, a place wherein, with Teddy, I conducted the experiments which we were making into the scientific and only way by which Zeppelins could be destroyed. While the world had been wondering, we had worked, and in our work Roseye constantly assisted us. It was hard and secret work, entailing long and patient study, many experiments, and sometimes flights necessitating much personal risk. Failures? Oh! yes, we had many! Our failures were, indeed, of daily occurrence. More than once, when we thought ourselves within an ace of success, we found that we were faced with the usual failure. Many, alas! were the disappointments. Yet we all three had one goal in view, keeping it ever before us--the fighting of the Zeppelin. Little did we dream of the strange, dramatic events which were to result from our secret scientific investigations, undertaken in all our enthusiasm. Could we but have foreseen what the future held for us--or the power put forth against us by the Invisible Hand! CHAPTER THREE. THE BROWN DEAL BOX. Six days had gone by. The weather having continued bright and fine, with a high and steady barometer, all of us at Hendon, quirks and pilots alike, had been up on many occasions. In secret, I had placed upon my machine--a Breguet monoplane with a 200 horse-power Salmson--another new invention which, with Teddy's aid, I had devised, and was testing. We were keeping the affair a profound secret. Nobody knew of the contrivance evolved out of my knowledge of wireless, save we two, Roseye and my mechanic Harry Theed. Carefully concealed from the eye it was carried in a large locked box, while, as further precaution, after testing it each time, I put it on my car and took it away to my chambers with me, for we were not at all anxious for any of the mixed crowd at the aerodrome to pry into what we were doing, or to ascertain the true direction of our constant experiments. One afternoon down at Gunnersbury Teddy, in mechanic's brown overalls, was busily engaged repairing a portion of the apparatus which I had broken that morning owing to an unfortunately bad landing.