SKY-HIGH TERROR

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21052, 2 March 1940, Page 15 (Supplement)

SKY-HIGH TERROR

A etc Serial Story

—By— RALPH TREVOR (Author of “The Ghost Counts Ten,” “Murder for Two Pins.”

CHAPTER 111. (continued) Mather made a moue sufficiently suggestive that if he were not in a subordinate position Burke would be presented with a fruity rejoinder. “I suppose,” continued Mather, deciding to ignore the sally which had been quite unexpected from Burke, in view of his gloom, “that being in love with Mr Peter Chiltern she would be ready to invent any sort of tale that might carry enough conviction to prevent his making the flight tomorrow.” "But why should she?” questioned Curtis Burke. “Haven’t I already told you that she’s a first-rate pilot, and that it’s not as if she was scared of the air or, perhaps, more particularly night flying!” “Isn’t there a certain attendant risk in this case?” Mather postulated. “It’s the first time the machine will have left the ground, and you know what an apparently precarious job an aeroplane tester’s job is. Most likely Miss Pentland knows the risks he will be running, since she’s known them herself. She knows, too, that there are many new and highly experimental instruments in the machine. Anyone of these might go wrong at any moment. In fact the hazard is approximately doubled from what it is normally with overage machine flying. What more natural that she should invent that story about the men in the cafe in order, perhaps, to try to persuade Chiltern from going up? I suppose, too, that old Sir Arthur got the breeze up and—here we are, Mr Burke, looking for aliens and finding them not.”

* it might be as you say, Mather,” Curtis Burke conceded. “On the other hand I’ve an idea somewhere at the back of my mind that we’re looking for a big man with broad shoulders. You remember the fellow who landed at Croydon—the one with the beard, and whose papers were all in order—when there was that schemezzle over the other bunch who were sent back? I wonder what became of him. I can’s just think of his name.” Had the pair but known it, Kantarf was flying, at an altitude of twenty-thousand feet, a smtell-span-ned, narrow-winged aeroplane that appeared to possess magnificent powers of endurance. CHAPTER IV. Tuesday Night at Rendclshaw Tuesday night! Calm, cool, February night. Just the merest breath of a wind. Stars flickering silver away out in the eternities of space. An ideal night for Peter Chiltern and that mammoth produce of his ingenuity, The Mendip Mark VII to take the air—to test out an almost bewildering variety of things that, if successful, were destined to revolutionise aircraft design not only for use in war but for the necessities of peace time as well. Rendelshaw itself was like a subdued murmur. Despite the secrecy which had been preserved regarding the machine’s departure on her night test trials, the flight appeared to have been common gossip in the town for at least a week. Tonight people congregated in clusters. Some of them on street corners conveniently adjacent to the factory; others on the outskirts of the town holding the belief that away from the street-lighting they would be able to see the ’plane better with its port and starboard lights, and perhaps its headlamps as well. Inspector Curtis Burke, accompanied by Sergeant Peter Mather, had left The Feathers shortly after six o’clock. They had promised to meet Sir Arthur Chiltern and his son Peter at the factory not later than seven-forty-five. Burke had been informed that morning that Peter Chiltern, accompanied by his expert engineer and mechanic, Robin Scholes, would make a start not later than eight o’clock, but that prior to the departure it had been decided to permit a small party of Air Ministry experts, who had travelled down from London specially for the occasion, to have some of the new features of the machine explained to them before its departure. Burke and his assistant elected to walk the ten-minute distance between the hotel and the factory rattier than avail themselves of Sir Arthur’s offer to send one of the firm’s fleet of cars around for them. As Burke explained to Mather, the walk wouldn’t do them any harm in any event.

They sensed rather than saw the excitement and the tension among the knots of people standing here and there en route. As they approached the factory gate the crowds were heavier—packed more closely together. “You see,” Burke remarked to his companion, “everyone knows.” Mather grunted, and acknowledged that it certainly seemed so. “If there does chance to be any plot against the machine it will have been highly organised,” he decided. “You can’t wait for a last minute rumour in a thing of this kind.” Permission to Enter They reached the gate and rang the bell. The door was opened to , them by a constable of the local force. Burke explained who he was. The constable had heard of Curtis Burke’s visit to the main police office some days ago, but he had never seen him. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, sir,” he apologised, “while I get Sir Arthur on the ’phone. You see,” he explained in extenuation, “I’m not permitted to allow anyone into the factory without the okay from Sir Arthur Chiltern.” Burke grimaced. He felt for a moment that an acute injury had been done to his pride, forgetting that he was not as well known in Rendelshaw as he was in the Metropolitan Police Districts. “Quite right, constable,” he acknowledged, yet conscious that there was an ironical quality in his tone. “You won't keep us waiting long, I hope.” “I’ll be as quick as ever I can, sir.” (To be cominued)