It was not the younger man now who talked brilliantly and forcibly. Theydon, frankly abandoning the effort to twist the conversation to that enigma which, the more he saw and heard of Forbes the more incredible it became, listened enthralled to one who spoke with the conviction and earnestness of a prophet.
"Don't imagine that I am framing an indictment against Christianity," went on Forbes passionately. "The Sermon on the Mount inspires all that is great and noble in our everyday existence, all that is eternally beautiful in our dreams of the future. But why this din of war, this smoke of arsenals, this marching and drilling of the world's youth? Nature's law appears to have two simple clauses. It enforces a principle in the struggle for existence, a test in the survival of the fittest. Great heavens, are not these enough, without having our ears deafened by powder and drumming? That is why I am devoting a good deal of time and no small amount of money to an international crusade against the warlike idea, and I see no reason why a beginning should not be made with the airship and the airplane. We are too late with the submarine, but, before the golden hour passes, let us stop the navigation of the air from forming part of the equipment of murder. Surely it can be done. England and the United States, Italy, France and the rest of Europe—the founts of civilization—can write the edict, with all the blazonry of their glorious histories to illuminate the page—There shall be no war in the air!'"
Theydon was carried away in spite of himself.
"You believe that the airship might develop along the unemotional lines of the parcel post?" he inquired.
Forbes laughed.
"Exactly," he said. "I like your simile. No one suggests that we Britons should endeavor to destroy our hated rivals by sending bombs through the mails. Why, then, in the name of common sense, should the first—I might almost say the only use of which the airship is commonly supposed capable—be that of destruction? Don't you see the instant result of a war-limiting ordinance of the kind I advocate? Suppose the peoples and the rulers declared in their wisdom that soldiers and war material should be contraband of the air—and suppose that airships do become vehicles of practical utility—what a farce would soon be all the grim fortresses, the guns, the giant steel structures now designed as floating hells! Humanity has yet time to declare that the flying machine shall be as harmless and serviceable as the penny post. I believe it can be done. Come now, Mr. Theydon, I think you've caught on to my scheme—will you help?"
Help! Here was a man expounding a new evangel, which might, indeed, be visionary and impracticable, but was none the less essentially noble and Christian in spirit, yet Theydon was debating whether or not he should give testimony which would bring to that very room a couple of detectives whose first questions would make clear to Forbes that he was suspected of blood-guiltiness!
The notion was so utterly repellent that Theydon sighed deeply; his host not unnaturally looked surprised.
"Of course, such a revolutionary idea strikes you as outside the pale of common sense," he began, but the younger man stayed him with a gesture. Here was an opportunity that must not be allowed to pass. No matter what the cost—if he never saw Evelyn Forbes or her father again—he must dispel the waking nightmare which held him in such an abnormal condition of uncertainty and foreboding.
"Now that your daughter is gone I may venture to speak plainly," he said. "I told you that, I felt the need of a brandy and soda at Waterloo. As a matter of fact, I did not leave the Brooklands track until six o'clock, and, as Innesmore Mansions, where I live, lie north, and I was due here at 7:30, I had my man meet me at the station with a suitcase, meaning to change my clothes in the dressing room there, and come straight here. Guess my astonishment when I found Bates—Bates is the name of my factotum—in the company of two strangers, whom he introduced as representing the Criminal Investigation Department."