Two days later the Berliner Tageblatt told how the famous scientist, Professor Zingler, had perished in a fire which had destroyed his laboratory at Spandau. The fire was attributed to an explosion of petrol on the professor’s aeroplane which had set light to the office. Unfortunately, the paper added, all the professor’s valuable papers and books had been lost.
The secret of the Zingler aeroplane had perished, and the seven dots were never heard again.
Chapter Four.
The Sorcerer of Soho.
“Unless we can solve this terrible mystery in the course of a few weeks, it is hardly too much to say that England is doomed.”
The speaker was the white-haired Professor Durward, the distinguished head of the Royal Society. He sat facing the Prime Minister in the latter’s room at 10, Downing Street. Round the long table were grouped the members of the Cabinet. They were men who had lived through stormy and troublous times and had met stories of disaster without flinching. But, as they admitted afterwards, none of the terrible tidings of past years, when the fortunes of the Empire seemed to be tottering, had affected them to the same extent as the few brief words with which the distinguished savant summed up the long deliberations on which they had been engaged. They seemed pregnant with the very message of Fate. Almost they could see the writing on the wall.
“But, Professor,” asked the Premier, “do you really mean that nothing whatever can be done to check or prevent this terrible malady?”
“Nothing, so far as I am aware,” was the reply. “As you know the most distinguished men of science in England have been at work on the problem. We had a very full meeting last night, and the unanimous verdict was that the disease was not only absolutely incurable, but that nothing we have tried seems capable of affording even the slightest alleviation. The deaths reported already amount to nearly half a million; though the truth is being carefully concealed from the public in order to allay panic, yet practically every community in which the disease has appeared has been virtually wiped out. Curiously enough it does not seem to be spread by contagion. In spite of the rush of terrified people from districts in which it has appeared, no cases have shown themselves except in towns or villages where the mysterious violet cloud has been observed. That phenomenon has been the precursor of every outbreak.”