Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/124

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124
THE ZEPPELIN DESTROYER

those summer afternoons upon the lawn where the little tea-tables were set, and where some of the worst girls in the smartest and most daring of costumes sat with some of the best girls in the neatest to sip the innocuous beverage and to nibble cakes with the best and bravest young fellows in all England.

That strange, daring little world of flying-men—knew it, but they were level-headed and, keeping themselves to themselves, gave the cold shoulder to the unknown ones who drifted in from nowhere to display their brilliant raiment, and to watch, in a bored way, such feats as looping the loop, and other exercises which have proved such splendid training for our flying-boys to-day.

I did not trust Eastwell. Both his actions and his attitude puzzled me. An intimate friend of Sir Herbert, he was often at Cadogan Gardens, telling his host and Lady Lethmere that he firmly believed that Roseye was still ill, and still unidentified.

Purposely I avoided him. Teddy and I were in full agreement over this. A man who had been ill in bed and in pain, with no prospect of getting about for some days, and yet could go and dine merrily at Hatchett's that same evening, was, I argued, not to be trusted further.

All that Captain Pollock and Inspector Barton had told me served to increase the amazing puzzle.

They said that Roseye was a spy of Germany, but I defied them. I declared that they had lied.

'My own opinion, Munro, is that my poor girl is dead,' Sir Herbert declared one afternoon when I