“Why, what I call the Invisible Hand,” was my reply. “The Invisible Hand was established in our midst in about 1906, when the Kaiser sat down and craftily prepared for war. He saw himself faced by the problem of the great British power and patriotism, and knew that the Briton would fight every inch for his liberty. Therefore the All-Highest Hun—the man who will be held up to universal damnation for all time—proceeded to adopt towards us the principle of dry-rot in wood. He started a system of sending slowly, but very surely, his insect-sycophants to burrow into the beam of good British oak which had hitherto supported our nation. That beam, to-day, is riddled by these Teutonic worms—insects which, like the book-worm, are never seen, yet, directed by the Invisible Hand, are only known by their works.”
“Then you think there really are spies at Hendon?”
“Of that I’m quite certain,” was my reply. “We all know that there are spies at every aerodrome—while in the higher ranks those who control our air-services, though patriotic enough, seem to suffer by reason of the still higher control which divides responsibility.”
“Have any spies been lurking about here to-night?” asked Roseye very anxiously.
“That is my firm conviction,” was Teddy’s reply to her. “I believe that there have been two strangers here. One was, perhaps, gazing through his glasses at the pole and, seeing in the darkness the sparking over the insulators set in the steel guys, ejaculated the natural expression of surprise that I overheard. But they got away noiselessly, and all my search failed to discover them.”
“Well—we must be very wary, my dear Teddy,” I repeated. “They must not get at this secret of ours, otherwise from the gondola of a Zeppelin they will be able to use the invisible force against any of our aeroplanes in a stronger and greater degree than we could ever hope to do it. Then we ourselves would be destroyed by the secret power we have invented.”
“They shall never know the secret from me,” was my friend’s fierce reply. “Only we three know it—while Theed has, of course, learnt something. That could, not be helped.”
“We must not forget the words I read out to you the other day from the Berliner Tageblatt,” I replied. “That paper said: ‘The fires and devastation caused by our Zeppelin squadron in England represented a victory greater and more important than could be achieved in a single battle.’ That,” I added, “is the triumphant boast of Major Moraht, Germany’s most prominent military critic.”
“Yes, and it went further,” exclaimed Teddy, turning to Roseye. “The paper declared that if the Germans were as brutal as they were accused of being, their naval airship squadron could long ago, in memory of the Baralong, have set London afire at all four of her corners.”
“That’s just what we intend to prevent,” I declared very emphatically. “That is what, notwithstanding the efforts of prowling strangers who are seeking to know in what direction our experiments are being conducted, we intend to achieve. To-night, Roseye, we have made one great and astounding discovery—a discovery which has placed within our hands a power which Germany, with all her science and investigation, little dreams. We now know the true secret which will eventually prove the undoing of the Kaiser and his barbarous hordes.”