Flying Death (Balmer)/Chapter 5
I steered so as to come to a stop nearly in the center of the lake which proved to be an ellipse of deep water about half a mile long and a couple of hundred yards across.
The fact of coming to a stop, after our flight, brought a certain relief in itself, regardless of the situation about us. The rush of wind, at the rate of three hundred miles an hour, was ceased; the airscrew was silent; we had the feeling of firm water below us; and communication between Pete and myself, impossible when we were flying, suddenly existed again.
Pete let himself down, as he looked around; once more, as when we had been at sea, he stood upon my float.
"Quite a place," he said to me. "Quite a place." And he took off his goggles to have a better view of it.
"That wasn't the girl," I said to Pete. "You saw what it was?"
He nodded, without looking at me.
"Her in wax. What a scheme; what a scheme!"
"Radio control," I added, needlessly. Of course he had made out all that I had.
"Somebody made a neat change of cars," he replied, and gave his particular attention to the three blue monoplanes.
They rested in a row upon a bit of beach a hundred yards away on our right, which was to the east. No one attended them; no one stood by on the beach. The cockpits of the three were equally empty.
"They've taken out the dummy," said Pete.
Beyond the beach rose a rank of trim white painted hangars for housing a dozen machines. To the right was a run of lawn leading to the green sward which I had seen from the air and which was broad and flat enough for a landing field. Further back, the ground sloped and there was a large, square-sided, practical-looking building, with many windows, which might be a workshop. Back of this were trees and a hill.
Trees and hills ringed the ellipse of the lake around to the west where, at the water's edge and abruptly above it, towered a tall broad rock upon which was built a great gay mansion.
It was of white stone with smooth, round towers topped with lofty, graceful, conical roofs. Copper sheathed the cones; copper, gleaming in the sun, formed the surface of the slopes of the main roof. Tall, mullioned windows, in pairs and tiers, looked out from the walls and pierced the towers. It was like a French chateau; definitely, indeed, it reminded me of the great mansion known as the "water-lily"—Azay-le-Rideau. Someone here had raised a replica of the water-lily mansion for his summer dwelling.
In the calm and quiet of this warm, sunny forenoon, it brooded above the lake as though it had always been there.
People appeared on the terrace before it. From a chimney in the rear, a vague haze spoke of kitchens preparing a midday meal.
The ripples from the splash of our pontoons reached the rock, and, in the stillness, voices returned to us. Our voices, we realized, likewise would run to them over the mirror of the lake. So Pete and I exchanged our ideas in whispers.
"The place appears to be all under one management," said Pete.
Plainly, indeed, the mansion and the opposite beach, with the three blue monoplanes and the sheds and workshop, must be associated. I traced, through the trees, the sheen of a white road circling the lake from the square building on the east to the great house opposite. I caught the flash of a motor-car scurrying between the trees.
"Headquarters," said Pete, "seem to be at the big house. They're on the way to report. Suppose she's in the car or at the house, waiting for them—and for us?"
I shook my head which could form no clear picture of her place here.
"Shall we try to go up again?" I asked Pete. "We've a quart of gas, maybe."
Women appeared on the terrace; women's voices floated over the water; a girl's laugh rippled to us. Hers, I wondered? I did not think it hers; I did not like to think it hers. Pete was perfectly willing to suppose it hers; though he knew, now, that not she herself but her effigy had attacked him, yet he completely accused her.
"Let's play out the string here," he said; and we drifted, swinging slowly with the slight current in the lake.
The staccato of a motor cracked over the water; and a small white launch emerged from a cove on the side by the beach. A crew of two, in white ducks, manned it. They were servants, we saw, as they approached and slowed beside us.
"Want a tow, sir?" one asked me, respectfully enough, offering a line.
"Toss," bid Pete; and he caught it, whereupon he inquired, "Which side you taking us?"
"Which side, sir, do you want to go?"
"Take us to the house," said Pete and made fast the line.
The little launch towed; and from the terrace, a girl descended by a stairway to a slab of the living rock, nearly on the level of the water, which had been fashioned into a sort of pier. She came out to the end to meet us.
"There she is," said Pete, to me but never taking his eyes from her.