"I think not," was his prompt reply. "My reason briefly is because I have discovered that two Germans stayed at the Blair Arms Hotel, at Blair Atholl, for six weeks last summer, and then suddenly disappeared—probably taking with them the plans of the airship about which there has been so much secrecy."
"I don't quite follow you," I said.
"No, there is still another fact. A month ago there arrived in England a man named Karl Straus, a lieutenant of the Military Ballooning Department of the German Army stationed at Düsseldorf. He paid several visits to our friend Hartmann in Pont Street, and then disappeared from London. Now, why did he come on a special mission to England? For one reason. Because of the failure of Germany's hope, the Zeppelin airship, combined with the report that our new Kershaw aeroplane is the most perfect of the many inventions, and destined to effect a revolution in warfare. The Kershaw, which was only completed at South Farnborough two months ago, is now being tried in strictest secrecy. Vera was told so by an engineer officer she met at a dance at Chatham a short time ago."
"And it is being tried here in the north somewhere," I added, as together, seated in a "forty-eight Daimler," we ascended Glen Garry from Blair Atholl—which we had left a couple of hours before—and sped along over the wild, treeless Grampians towards Dalwhinnie. The March morning was bitterly cold, and snow covered the ground, rendering the Highland scenery more picturesque and imposing. And as we preferred an open car to a closed one, the journey was very cold.
Our inquiries in Blair Atholl had had a negative result. In the long, old-fashioned Blair Arms Hotel Ray had made a number of searching inquiries, for though two officers of the Ballooning Department lived there, and had been conducting the experiments in Blair Park, it was plain that the machine had never yet taken flight. So the pair of mysterious Germans, whose names we discovered in the visitors' book, had either obtained the details they wanted or had left the neighbourhood in disgust.
It was at my friend's suggestion that we had hired the car from Perth, and had now set out upon a tour of discovery in the wildest and least frequented districts of the Highlands—some of which are in winter the most unfrequented in all Great Britain. Something—what I know not—had apparently convinced him that the tests were still in progress.
"And where the trials are taking place we shall, I feel certain, find this inquisitive person Karl Straus," he declared. "From Berlin, through a confidential source, I hear that it was he who obtained the German General Staff photographs and plan of the new French aeroplane that was tried down in the Basque country last May. He's an expert aeronaut and engineer, and speaks English well; our object is to discover his whereabouts."
In pursuance of this quest we visited the various hotels on our way north. The "Loch Ericht" at Dalwhinnie we found closed, therefore we went on to Newtonmore, and by taking luncheon at the hotel there ascertained that there were no visitors who might be either British military officers or German spies.
In the gloomy, frosty afternoon we, a month after the affair down at Maldon, sped up the Speyside through dark pine forests and snow-covered moorland till we found ourselves in the long grey street of Kingussie, where we halted at the Star Hotel, a small place with a verandah, very popular in summer, but in winter deserted.
Leaving me to warm myself at the fire, Ray crossed to the telegraph office to despatch a message, and afterwards I saw him enter a small shop where picture post-cards were sold. For a quarter of an hour he remained inside, and then went to another shop a few doors further down.