The RIDDLE of LOCH LEMMAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 289, 5 December 1936, Page 10 (Supplement)

The RIDDLE of LOCH LEMMAN

by CAPT. A. O. POLLARD, V.C., M.C., D.C.M.

(Author of "The Havenhurat Affair," "Fire Eater," "Rum Alley," "Death Flight," etc., etc. )

CHAPTER XXIV. Berserga or Genjiro? Group Captain Whittinghain-Hailey smiled cynically. "I've heard of a good many of these things before, niv boy. They are splendid in theory; they look well on paper; their description is a poem calculated to bring tears to the eyes. But getting them to leave the ground is a different | matter altogether." He had listened patiently to Leach's explanation of the radio 'plane. ■\s chief technical adviser of the Aii Force it was his duty to investigate thoroughly everything which might be of possible benefit to the service. But he had no intention of wasting his time on something which had not proved its ability to do what was claimed for it. Leach leaned forward. "But I told you, Group Captain, tins thing's altogether different. Its motive power has proved satisfactory over a ran»e of a thousand nnles. As I nave in st been explaining, the machine which it is intended to fly. may Ibe of a revolutionary design, but its absolutely dead right according to theory. He pulled forward a piece of papei and drew a rough sketch. "Could anything be simpler than that?" he demanded. The group captain laugnea. "What makes you so badly gone on it, Leach? You're usually a level-headed sort of chap; not the type to get tangled up with new ideas." Leach felt slightly embarrassed. Nobody knew about Adrienne, though they soon would. But however miioli he was in love with her ne realised, not for the first time it would IV such 16 a n® C 4ortant P Stio 0 n W 'a a he l°o. Although she'had several times protested against it, he was fully deter mined that he must resign the service. Now, faced with the group captain» direct question, he must either tell the whole truth or find a suitable explanation of his interest which could not afterwards tie construed into an evasio . "I happen to know the person who owns it," he asserted deliberately. But ? don't want that to be taken into account. I've seen this machine, Group Captain, and I'm convinced itll do what s claimed for it. That s why Im J en o you considering it solely on its Whittingham-Hailey raised his eyeliked Leach and he was prepared to help him if possible. He drummed idly on the table the tips of his fingers. "Have you, yourself, ever seen it fly. he asked, intending to make Leach s denial his reason-for turning it down. Leach guessed what was in his superior officer's mind. He must persuade him to give the machine a trial. What a damned nuisance it was that he could not produce the plans! j He answered Whittingham-Hailey s question with another. "Did Wilbur Wright see his machine fly before he tried it himself?" he countered. "Look here, Group Captain, I m sorry I've not been able to bring the plans with me and I'm sorry I've not the machine here to show you what it'll do. I'll "o back to Loch Lemman to-morrow and I, myself, will fly the radio 'plane to Ballantrae. Will that satisfy you when you see it land at your feet?" Whittingham-Hailey felt lie could not refuse. "Now you're talking," he said heartily. "I'm not going to promise it'll satisfy me, but, at any rate, I shall feel more warmly disposed towards it. You re a fellow whose judgment I would back implicitly in your own sphere, but that sphere is not experimental aircraft. However, since it's you, carry on and do your worst. Only wire me if it won t take off, because I don't want to waste my time." Leach swiftly followed up his advantage. "Thank you very much, sir. I'll go one s!ep further. If you get a wireless message that the machine is in the air over Loch Lemman and on its way, will you, for your part, get the Chief of the Air Staff, the Air Minister and as many members of the Air Council as you can get hold of to fly up here to see it?" Whittingham-Hailey laughed again. "That's a pretty tall order, Leach. All the same, since you seem so keen on it, I'll agree." He took out his notebook. "I want to hop across to Leucliars whilst I'm in Scotland. Test your machine to-morrow. Jf it leaves the ground and makes a reasonable performance, send me a wire. The following day you can come down here and I'll have the whole 'bag of tricks' to see you. But remember, I don't want to be made a fool of. I rely on your discretion absolutely. If the thing happened to be a frost I should never health© end of it. But since you seem so convinced of your new toy's serviceability I'm prepared to back you." Leach was overjoyed with the success of his mission. He had promised Adrienne that the machine should have a show and he had managed to arrange it. If WhittinghamHailey had proved "sticky" he meant to approach the Chief of the Air Staff himself, putting liis past record in the scales towards the favour of a test being granted. After leaving Whittingham-Hailey he went in search of Hamilton to tell him the news. The adjutant expressed his congratulations in guarded terms. "It'll be fine if it comes off," he asserted. "But are you quite sure that you're wise to trust yourself in it until someone else has tried it first? " Leach chuckled. "Who are you going to suggest, old fellow? Yourself?" Hamilton refused to smile at the thrust. "No, not myself, wing-commander. What about the inventor, or—Vbetter still —that smooth-faced Jap who was here the night the cinema was opened?" Leach shook his head. "Neither of them is available, I'm afraid. Berserga, the inventor, is dead. He. committed suicide yesterday. The other chap, Genjiro, has to be on the ground in charge of the control station. shall be quite all right, don't you worry." Hamilton looked serious. "That's just what I was afraid of," he remarked. "I don't trust that fellow, wing-commandor I didn't from the

moment I saw him. There's something fish}' about him. Besides, personally, I'm quite convinced that it was he and not the Italian who committed that murder." He went on to tell Leach about the inquiries he had made and the result of tliem. Leach was very interested in the medical report of the post-mortem 011 Joe Williams. "You say it was prussic acid administered by a prick from some instrument like a needle?" he repeated. "That fastens it 011 Berserga fairly conclusively." Hamilton was surprised. "Berserga?" "Yes. The Italian fellow who invented the radio 'plane. I {old you. He committed suicide yesterday. He'd stuck a needle in his throat which had been dipped in prussic acid. The poison bottle was on a table by his side with the cork out." Hamilton bit his lip. This seemed to upset his theory altogether. "I wonder?" he mused. "I suppose y° u " Dash it! It was rather difficult to say. "I mean, sir, I wasn't there, of course, and all that. Perhaps you'll think it's infernal cheek on my part to say it. Still I'm only trying to help. Are you absolutely certain the whole suicide wasn't staged t" Leach looked at him through narrowed eyelids. The adjutant was only voicing a thought that had been in his own mind. Genjiro was a puzzle that he would give a lot to solve. He had behaved queerly at the time Williams was killed —turning up unexpectedly in the cinema and all that. He had also stolen the seaplane from Ballantrae, only he been forgiven for that since he saved Leach's life. Aleo he had stated quite openly that he would secure the plans of the invention if he could. On the other hand was his apparent devotion to Adrienne. He had turned up to rescue her at Loch Lomond. Yesterday he flew her to Leach's help when he was ambushed. At Loch Lemman. he had carried out everything he was asked to do straightforwardly and with diligence. It was a deuced problem. His idiosyncrasies might be due to his Oriental upbringing. He might be perfectly honest according to his own light. After all, if he had murdered Berserga and staged a suicide, he would surely have hung on to the plans when he had them. It would have been so easy for him to have made it appear that Berserga had disposed of them. A man with his brain would have devised an artistic touch like a pile of ashes, for instance. A fragment of charred blue paper would have supplied a conclusive inference that Berserga had destroyed them before taking his own life. "Am I absolutely certain?" he echoed slowly. "No, Hamilton, I'm afraid I'm not. All I can say definitely is that Berserga is guilty on circumstantial evidence. When all's said and done, Genjiro didn't enter the cinema until after the dead body was found, did he 1" Hamilton clenched his teeth. "No. I admit that's the weak link in my chain. I've questioned the orderly who was on the door until I've had him going round in a flat spin. All I can get out of him is that he didn't see the man in the mac very clearly. It was apparently Berserga, but"—he paused to add weight to his utterance —"It is possible it might have been Genjiro in Berserga'a clothes." Leach laughed heartily. "I'm afraid that's too big a stretch of the imagination, my lad! Why! it wouldn't have been possible —well, hardly possible. He would have had to be as nippy as a quick change artist. Besides, if you remember, the orderly said Genjiro only arrived in the first place after Berserga had left the camp for good. No, no, Hamilton. I appreciate your trying to make good your case, but it won't wash. Even though neither of us cares very much for the Jap we must give him the benefit of the doubt." But, though he dismissed the suggestion so conclusively, he kept turning Hamilton's report over in his mind, the way back to Loch Lemman. Genjiro was an enigma. CHAPTER XXV. The Test. For the first, .time since the building was erected, the doors of the hangar which housed the Wtdio 'plane stood open. Under Genjiro's direction, a crowd of men wheeled it in the direction of the loch. It moved easily on a specially constructed trolley which could be discarded at the slipway. This arrangement was purely a temporary one for this first experimental machine. Later, when world-wide services, which Adrienne had visualised, were under way, each 'plane would be brought from its hangar under its own power. It would not be necessary for them to be handled at any time. It was a weird-looking monster, unlike any vehicle which had ever before "been constructed. With a woman's finesse in such matters, Adrienne had had the hull painted a royal blue, set off with stripes of silver. Its appearance was extremely smart. ' But that was a secondary matter compared with its efficiency. Would it rise from the water? That was the question which was in everybody's mind. The inventor, the one man who had been sure all along that it would, was dead; killed by his own hand. Everyone else, except Adrienne, was slightly sceptical about its performance. Leach was not so much worried about how it would act as he was about the man who would be in control of it. Hamilton's insinuations would keep recurring in his mind. If the machine failed to rise, that would be the end of the matter. It could not be helped. It would merely add another to the long list of experimental failures in aviation. But, if it were successful; if it carried out all tests according to plan; it would only add fire to the desire of those who longed to own the rights of it. At Adrienne's request she and he were to make the trial attempt alone. Genjiro would be in sole command on the ground. If he so pleased, whilst they were helpless at a height of several thousand feet, with a turn of the wrist, he could, shut off the current which kept them aloft. They would fall to earth like a stone. With the radio plane waiting for them at the slipway, he and Adrienne went to visit Genjiro in the control

tower. They found him in a glass dome fifty feet above the earth. From here he could overlook every part of the works. On a table before him stretched a map of Scotland. It showed not only the coastline, but every feature of the landscape. Mountains were marked in relief, with their heights clearly marked on them. The sea was charted to a distance of three hundred miles from the shore. Later, when the American service was in operation, a similar map would take in the whole of the proposed route. It was constructed of an alloy of platinum; its sides were insulated. By the turn of a switch the whole surface was included in the circuit of the current operating the machine. By an intricate mechanism, devised 111 Berserga's extraordinary brain, the position of the machine was exactly shown during every moment of its flight. Genjiro turned the switch. The surface of the map immediately assumed a greenish tinge. A tiny dot in the approximate position of tliei slipway coincided with where the radio plane was waiting. In the centre of the room a huge knob corresponded with the wafinsta-t installed in the machine. This was the heart of the whole system. Under its gentle manipulation the 'plane would presently rise gracefully from the water. The needle of a meter in front of it would move, clocking its altitude. In conjunction with the dot on the map, the 'plane could be headed in any desired direction. Amongst the many other instruments, there was a loudspeaker and a microphone for direct communication with the pilot. Nothing had been overlooked. Adrienne issued her instructions. "For this first test, Genjiro, we'll rise directly to 5000 ft.. Then we'll fly across to the Butt of Lewis." She pointed with her finger on the map. "When we reach there—" "If we reach there," thought Leach cynically listening. "When we reach there, I want you to relay * message Wing-Commander Leach will give you for Ballantrae.' She turned to Leach. "We may as well go directly down there, don't you think, Stanley? Even if all the big wigs have not arrived they will be the more surprised to see us there before them." Leach shrugged his shoulders. His enthusiasm for the project was clouded by his anxiety. "Just as you like, dear. It's your show. I'm quite ready to do anything." "I don't suppose we shall stay at Ballantrae very long, Genjiro, but if all goes well we shall come back with a load of passengers, who will seal our triumph. Wing-Commander Leach has arranged for everyone who means anything in British flying to meet us. I'm quite sure that when they see the machine and realise what it can do they'll all want to go up in her. By the way, after we leave the Butt of Lewis I want you to give us full speed. It'll be interesting to know just what she's capable of." The Jap listened impassively to all she had to say. His attitude was the perfection of restrained interest in their undertaking. Although Leach watched him closely the whole time, he could see no signs that the man was other than delighted to help them to success. By the eagerness with which, he explained just what he would do, by the unconscious delicacy with which he fondled the wafinstat, he conveyed that he was wholehearted in his assistance. (To be continued Saturday next.)