There was no revolution in Galdavia. With the damning evidence of the film and the phonograph record the Allies acted promptly, and with the traitor Mestich dead the plot went to pieces. King Milenko rules to-day over a contented, happy and prosperous people, and his early follies laid aside has become a capable and popular ruler. Fédor they never saw again; he was killed in a motor smash a week after they left, and the secret of his wonderful invention died with him.
Chapter Three.
The Seven Dots.
In a cosy little house at Veneux Nadon, near Moret-sur-Loing, in the great Forest of Fontainebleau, Dick, Yvette, and Jules were seated in earnest conversation. They made a remarkable trio. Dick was unmistakably English, Yvette and her brother as unmistakably French—the girl dark-haired and dark-eyed, and with all the grace and vivacity which distinguish Frenchwomen of the better class. Her brother, quiet and dreamy, lacked his sister’s vivacity, but there was a suggestion of strength and iron resolution in the firm mouth and steely eyes.
“It will be terribly dangerous, Dick,” said Yvette, with an altogether new note of anxiety in her voice.
“I suppose it will,” replied Dick, “but,”—and his voice hardened as he spoke—“I don’t see what else we can do. We cannot run the risk of seeing a perfected helicopter in German hands. It would be too fearful a weapon. We must get hold of the plans and destroy the machine, whatever the risk may be.”
Strange stories had come through the French Secret Service of a new and wonderful type of aircraft which was being tested with the utmost secrecy somewhere in the neighbourhood of Spandau, the great military town near Berlin. Of its precise character little was known or could be ascertained, and even Regnier, the astute and energetic head of the French Secret Service, had at length to confess himself utterly beaten. His cleverest agents had been baffled; more than one was in a German prison, with little hope of an early release. In the meantime the mysterious machine flitted about the neighbourhood of the great garrison, always at night, appearing and disappearing under circumstances which proved conclusively that it must be of a type which differed widely from any yet known to the public.
“We must go, Dick,” said Yvette, “and Regnier is extremely anxious that you should help us. His trouble is that while he has dozens of capable men at his command none of them has a really expert knowledge of aviation. He thinks that if you once got a good look at the machine you could form a complete idea of what it really is.”