Thou Shell of Death Read Free Page A

Authority always has been a red rag to him—he didn’t give a damn for orders. Went too far, finally. After the war, when his flight was out East, he was ordered to bomb some native village. He didn’t see why the natives should have their village blown to pieces just because some of them hadn’t paid their taxes, so he made his flight loose off their bombs in the middle of a desert and then flew low over the village, dropping one-pound boxes of chocolates. The authorities couldn’t overlook that—he took full responsibility, of course—so he was politely asked to resign. It was soon afterwards that he did his flight to Australia.’
    Sir John sat back, looking faintly ashamed of his unwonted verbal exuberance.
    ‘So you’ve fallen under the spell, too,’ said Nigel, with a humorous cock of the head.
    ‘What the devil do you mean …? Well, I suppose I have. And I’ll lay ten to one, young man, that you’ll be eating out of his hand by the time you’ve been at the Dower House for a couple of hours.’
    ‘Yes, I dare say I shall.’ Nigel got up with a sigh and began to prowl with his ungainly, ostrich-like stride round the room. This leather-padded, sporting-print-decorated, cigar-and-good-breeding-redolent ‘sanctum’, into which nothing more violent than a
Morning Post
leading article could ever have entered —how utterly remote it was from the life he had just been hearing about, the world of Fergus O’Brien, of dizzy tumblings amongst the clouds, of meteoric exploit and topsy-turvy values: a world where death was threadbare and familiar as Herbert Marlinworth’s study carpet. And yet between Lord Marlinworth and Fergus O’Brien there was no more original difference than the excess or deficiency of some little glands.
    Nigel shook himself out of these dreamy moralisings, and turned to his uncle again.
    ‘One or two more points I should like to clear up. You said at tea that there were reasons why the press should have been induced to keep quiet about the exact locality of O’Brien’s ‘retreat.’
    ‘Yes; besides practical flying, he has interested himself a good deal in theory and construction. He is now at work on the plans of a new plane which, he says, will revolutionise flying. He doesn’t want the public poking about just now.’
    ‘But surely there is a possibility that other Powers may have got wind of this. I mean, oughtn’t he to be having police protection?’
    ‘I think he ought,’ replied Sir John in a worried way; ‘but there’s his blasted cussedness. Said he’d throw all his drawings in the fire if he got so much as a smell of police surveillance. Says he’s quite able to look after himself, which is probably true, and anyway that no one else could make head or tail of his plans until they are much further advanced.’
    ‘I was thinking there might conceivably be a connection between these threatening letters and his invention.’
    ‘Oh, there might. But there’s no use getting preconceived ideas into your head.’
    ‘Do you know anything about his private life? He’s not married or anything, is he? And he didn’t tell you who was coming for this house-party, did he?’
    Sir John tugged at his sandy moustache. ‘No, he didn’t say. He’s not married, though I should think he must be pretty attractive to women. And, as I told you, nothing is known of him before 1915, when he joined up. It all contributes to the newspaper Mystery Man publicity.’
    ‘That’s suggestive. The newspapers would have been all out to rake up facts about his boyhood, and he must have had some pretty good reason for keeping them in the dark about it. Those threats might be some of his prewar wild oats come home to roost.’
    Sir John threw up his hands in horror. ‘For God’s sake, Nigel! At my time of life the system can’t stand mixed metaphors.’
    Nigel grinned. ‘Now there’s only one other point,’ he pursued. ‘Money: he must be well off to be able to rent the Dower House. I