“Very well,” said Dick, “we will look upon it as settled. We must work out a plan.”
For many months Dick Manton had been working steadily and secretly at Veneux Nadon under the auspices, though not actually in the employ, of the French Secret Service. He had offered the plans of the Mohawk to the British War Office, only to be met with a reception so chilly as effectually to discourage him from proceeding further in the matter. Regnier, however, was a man of a different stamp from the British bureaucrat—keen as mustard and with the saving touch of imagination which is characteristic of the best type of Frenchman. He had unbounded faith in Yvette, who had for some time been one of his most trusted lieutenants, and when, angry at the attitude of the British War Office, she had given him a hint of what the Mohawk could really do, he had offered Dick the fullest facilities for continuing his work. Under the circumstances Dick had felt that to refuse would have been absurd.
Veneux Nadon was a lonely little spot. Here Dick, though only thirty miles from Paris, found himself in complete seclusion, with a well-equipped workshop in large grounds completely buried in the lovely forest, and thoroughly screened from prying eyes. Regnier had put the matter to him quite plainly.
“You are an Englishman, Monsieur Manton,” he had said, “and I will not ask you to sell your secret to France. But we are willing to bear the expense of perfecting your invention on the distinct understanding that when the time comes England shall have the option of sharing in it to the exclusion of all other countries except France. When you are ready we will officially invite the British Government to send a representative and will give them the opinion of coming in on equal terms. I do not think we can do more or less.”
So it was settled, and for many months Dick and Jules had toiled on the building of a new Mohawk whose performances far surpassed those of the machine lost in the Adriatic. It was now completed and its preliminary tests had satisfied them that they had forged a weapon of tremendous potency.
The machine was of the helicopter type. The idea, of course, was not new, but Dick had solved a problem which for many years had baffled inventors whose dream it was to construct a machine which should have the power of rising vertically from the ground and remaining stationary in the air.
Driven upward by powerful propellers placed horizontally underneath the body, the Mohawk was capable of rising from the ground at a tremendous speed. Once in the air the lifting propellers were shut off and the machine moved forward under the impulse of the driving screws placed in the front and rear. These screws were the secret of Dick Manton’s triumph. They were of a new design, giving a tremendous ratio of efficiency. In size they wore relatively tiny, but possessed far greater power than any propeller known. The machine itself was nearly square. The body was completely covered by the big, single plane, measuring about twenty feet each way. This was the outside size of the machine and so perfectly was the helicopter controlled that Dick had repeatedly brought it to earth in a marked space not more than thirty-two feet square.
Fitted with the new silencer which Dick had discovered and applied to the old Mohawk with such signal success, the engine was practically noiseless. At high speed the tiny propellers emitted only a thin, wailing note, barely audible a few yards away. Time and again Dick had sailed on dark nights only a few feet above the house roofs of Paris and had found that the noise of the ordinary traffic was amply sufficient to prevent his presence being discovered.
To ensure absolute secrecy the various parts of the machine had been made in widely separated districts of France, and had been brought from Paris to Veneux Nadon, where Dick and Jules had carried out the erection of the machine alone. The very existence of the new aeroplane was utterly unsuspected by the few villagers who lived in the neighbourhood.
Keenly interested in his work Dick had thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful life in the depths of the beautiful forest. He and Jules had become the closest of friends, and with Yvette, whose winning personality seemed to bind him to her more closely day by day, they made up a happy house party. They were looked after by a capable old peasant woman who was the devoted slave of all three, but whose admiration for Yvette seemed to rise almost to the point of veneration.