Chapter Nine.
Contains More Curious Facts.
One afternoon a week later, when out at Hendon, I heard accidentally from a man I knew—one of the instructors at the Grahame-White Aviation School—that Eastwell was very queer, and in bed.
The weather proved bad for flying, therefore I sent Theed off and returned to town. Teddy had gone down to the naval air-station at Yarmouth to see the test of a new seaplane, so I went along to look up Lionel at his rooms in Albemarle Street.
His man, a thin-faced, dark-haired fellow named Edwards, who admitted me, said that his master had had a bad attack of something, the true import of which the doctor had failed to diagnose.
I found him lying in bed in his narrow but artistic bachelor bedroom, looking very wan and pale.
“Hulloa, Claude!” he cried with sudden joy, as I entered. “Awfully good of you to come in, old chap! I’ve been horribly queer these last three days, but I’ll be fit again in a day or two, the doctor says. Well—what’s the news? How are the boys out at Hendon?”
“All right. I was there this morning. Harrington had rather a bad smash yesterday afternoon, I hear. Came down outside Ruislip, and made an unholy mess.”
“Not hurt, I hope?”
“Tore his face and hands a bit—that’s all. But his biplane is in scraps, they say.”