"Neither did I," admitted the flight-lieutenant.
"Then how——" began the battleplane's inventor, surprised at the confession and at a loss to understand why the pilot of the monoplane was able to report on the former's progress.
"I'll let you into a secret," rejoined the young lieutenant laughing. "Last Friday at a quarter to nine in the morning that weird-looking 'bus," and he nodded in the direction of the battleplane, "ascended from a shed at a spot roughly twelve miles south of Shrewsbury, and proceeded in a south-westerly direction. Quite a short flight, out and home. Now, am I not correct?"
Almost dumfounded, Blake had to admit that the airman's information was correct.
"How did you know that?" he asked.
"Simply that instead of your being ten thousand feet above me I was that height above you," was the astonishing reply. "The Intelligence Department is not so sleepy as some people would have it believe. We had orders to try to locate a mysterious battleplane that was propelled by means of movable wings. I happened to be the lucky one to spot you, so you see we are not exactly strangers."
"And let us hope," added Desmond Blake, extending his hand, "that we shall be pals."