ifwe were chased on the ground--or in the air, for that matter--if we werespotted. We might fly over to-night and chance getting caught. Ofcourse, I have my pilot's certificate, and if we were caught I couldeasily explain that I was making a night flight and my compass had gonewrong. It wouldn't be a very serious matter the first time as, ofcourse, we should have nothing contraband. If we got over safely wecould take the chance of coming back loaded."
Yvette had become suddenly radiant.
"Why, Dick!" she cried, "that's the very thing. We simply can't becaught. And when we land anywhere we can be ordinary motorists. It'swonderful--wonderful!"
"Don't be too sure," replied Dick grimly. "The Air Police are prettywide awake. However, it's worth trying. Now, shall we go to-night?There's a train from Liverpool Street at six-twenty. We shall get downto Fenways by nine. We shall have five miles to walk to the shed whereI keep the machine--of course, we daren't drive out--and we must manageto reach Paris about dawn. If we are too early I cannot land in thedark, and if we are late people will be about and we shall run the riskof being spotted."
Yvette promptly produced a small but beautifully clear contour map.
"There's your landing-place," she said, pointing to a large clearingsurrounded by thick woods. "It's about fifteen miles from Paris, and myown aeroplane is pushed in under the edge of the trees. It is quite alonely spot in the forest a little to the north of Triel. Of late yearsthe forest has been very much neglected and very few people go there.An old farmer, who lives quite alone, grazes a few sheep in theclearing, and I have, of course, had to arrange with him about mymachine. He thinks I am an amateur flyer, and I have told him I ammaking some secret experiments and paid him to keep quiet. I flew themachine there myself when I bought it from the Francois Freres, ofBordeaux. Of course, I had my papers all in order when I bought it."
"All right; that will do well enough," said Dick. "We will go overto-night. Jules can go by the boat train."
A few hours later Dick and Yvette were standing in the shed beside thestrange motor-car, Dick rapidly explaining the system of converting themachine into a monoplane.
"We must get off the ground as quickly as possible," he said. "Peoplego to bed early in these parts, but there is always a chance of some onebeing about, and I don't want to be caught while we are making thechange."
At a suitable spot on the road, the change was made. It occupied Dick,with Yvette's skilful help, just twenty minutes.
"We can do it in fifteen," he declared, "when you are thoroughlyaccustomed to it."
As a matter of fact they did it in less on one memorable occasion someweeks later when their pursuers were hot on their heels.
Soon they were speeding swiftly southwards. Dick had set the monoplaneon a steep, upward slant, aiming to reach ten thousand feet before hedrew abreast of London. Thanks to the clinging mist, they were soonutterly out of sight from below, and Dick had to steer by compass untilthey sighted thirty miles ahead, and slightly to their right, the greattwin beams of light which marked the huge aerodrome at Croydon.
Then Dick veered to the south-east, flying straight for Lympne and theFrench coast. After all, he argued, the bold course was the best. Noone would expect an aeroplane on an illicit errand to venture rightabove the head-quarters of the Air Police, and should any machine beabout on lawful business the noise of their engines would prevent thedetectors picking up the throbbing whirr of the propeller, which, ofcourse, could not be absolutely silenced.
Fortune favoured them. As they drew nearer to Lympne, swinging in fromthe slightly easterly course he had set, Dick caught sight of thenavigation lights of the big mail aeroplane heading from London toParis. His own machine, bearing, of course, no lights, was far abovethe stranger, the thunder of whose big engines came clearly up to them.A couple of red flares from the big plane signalled her code to theaerodrome, the searchlight blinked an acknowledgment, and the mail planetore swiftly onward. Dick could not match its hurtling speed, but hefollowed along its track, confident that he would now be undetected.
They swept silently above the brilliantly lighted aerodrome, then acrossthe Channel, and just as dawn was breaking detected the Triel forest,and dropped lightly to earth almost alongside Yvette's machine. Byeight o'clock the machine, now a motor-car, was safely locked up in adisused stable in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, and Dick, Jules, andYvette were soon in deep consultation.
That evening, just as dusk was falling, a half-drunken coachman sprawledlazily on a bench set against a wall in the deep courtyard of the "Batond'Or," a quiet hotel located in aback street in the market quarter ofParis. By his side was a bottle of _vin blanc_. Before him, harnessedto a dilapidated carriage, stood his horse, a dejected-looking animalenough.
Directly over his head, at a window of a room on the third floor, twomen stood talking. One of them was Otto Kranzler.
Two rooms away, on the same floor, a curious little drama was beingenacted.
Lounging on a sofa near the door was Dick Manton. Yvette, on a chairdrawn near the window, faced him.
Yvette rang the bell, and the two were talking when a chambermaidappeared.
"Coffee and cognac for two," Yvette ordered.
A few minutes later the girl reappeared. She crossed the room with atray and set it on the table in front of Yvette.
As the maid turned Dick's arm was slipped round her, and a chloroformedpad was pressed swiftly over her face. Taken utterly by surprise, thegirl was too firmly held to do more than struggle convulsively, and in afew moments, as the drug took effect, she lay a limp heap in Dick'sarms.
Snatching from a valise a chambermaid's costume and cap, Yvette swiftlytransformed herself into a replica of the unconscious girl. Thenpicking up the tray and its contents she silently left the room, havingpoured a few drops of colourless liquid into each of the glasses ofbrandy.
Kranzler was evidently in a bad temper.
"I tell you," he said to his companion, "there _must_ be a way out.That infernal--"
There was a knock at the door, and a chambermaid entered with coffee andliqueurs. It was Yvette!
"Would the messieurs require anything further?" she asked as she setdown the tray.
"No, that's all for to-night," said Kranzler in a surly tone, as hepicked up the brandy and drained it with obvious relish. His companionfollowed suit.
Dick was sitting beside the unconscious girl as Yvette re-entered theroom.
"She's quite all right," he said, as he watched her narrowly for signsof returning consciousness, "but I must give her a little more just aswe are leaving. How did you get on?"
"Splendidly," said Yvette; "they noticed nothing, and I saw them bothdrink the brandy as I left the room."
Ten minutes later Yvette re-entered Kranzler's room. The two men hadcollapsed into chairs. Both were sleeping heavily.
Without losing a second Yvette tore open Kranzler's waistcoat and passedher hand rapidly over his body. A moment later she had slit open theunconscious man's shirt, and from a belt of webbing which ran round hisshoulders cut away a flat leather pouch.
From her pocket she took a reel of strong black thread. To one end ofthis she fastened the pouch, and, crouching by the open window, pushedthe pouch over the sill and swiftly lowered it into the darkness.
A moment later came a sort of tug at the line, the thread snapped, andYvette let the end fall. Then, with a glance at her drugged victims,she snatched up the tray and returned with it to her own room.
Lying on the sofa, the chambermaid stirred uneasily. She was evidentlyrecovering. While Yvette swiftly discarded her disguise Dick againpressed the chloroform to the girl's face.
A few moments later "Mr and Mrs Wilson, of London," were beingescorted by the hotel porter to a waiting taxi-cab.
They never returned.
In the semi-darkness of the courtyard the drunken coachman had stiffenedand leant back against the wall as a small, dark object lightly touchedhis shoulder. His arm, twisted
behind him, felt for and found a slenderthread. Held against the wall behind him was the flat leather pouchwhich Yvette had lowered. A moment later it was transferred to acapacious pocket, and the coachman, staggering uncertainly to his horse,mounted the carriage and drove noisily out of the yard. No one paid theslightest attention to him; no one realised that that uncouth exteriorconcealed the slim form of Jules Pasquet, his nerves quivering withexcitement at the success of the Gay Triangle's first daring _coup_.
An hour later the Paris police took charge of an old horse foundaimlessly dragging an empty carriage along one of the boulevards. Aboutthe same time, from a forest clearing fifteen miles away from Paris, atiny monoplane rose silently into the air and sped away in the directionof the French coast.
Kranzler left Paris the