Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The Gay TriangleThe Romance of the First Air Adventurers.By William Le QueuxPublished by Jarrolds, Lonodn.
The Gay Triangle, by William Le Queux.
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________________________________________________________________________THE GAY TRIANGLE, BY WILLIAM LE QUEUX.
CHAPTER ONE.
THE MYSTERY OF RASPUTIN'S JEWELS.
From a derelict shed adjoining a lonely road which stretched for milesacross the Norfolk fens, a strange shape slid silently into the nightmist. It was a motor-car of an unfamiliar design. The body, ofgleaming aluminium, was of unusual width, and was lifted high above thedelicate chassis and spidery bicycle wheels that seemed almost toofragile to bear the weight of an engine.
Noiselessly the strange car backed out of the shed. There was nofamiliar _teuf-teuf_ of the motor-engine; so silent was the car that itmight have been driven by electricity, save that the air was filled withthe reek of petrol.
Swinging round on the grass of the meadow, the car headed for thegateway, turned into the road, and sped along silently for a few miles.
It halted at length at a point where the narrow roadway widened somewhatand ran along an elevated embankment evidently constructed to raise theroad above flood-level.
As the car came to rest, two leather-helmeted figures descended from thetiny cockpit in the body of it. One was a slim young fellow oftwenty-five or twenty-six; the other, despite the clinging motorcostume, showed feminine grace in every movement. It was a young girl,evidently in the early twenties.
The two set busily to work, and in a few minutes their strange car hadundergone a wonderful transformation.
From each side shot out long twin telescopic rods. These, swiftlyjoined together by rapidly unrolled strips of fabric, soon resolvedthemselves into the wings of a tiny monoplane. From a cleverly hiddentrap-door in the front of the car, appeared an extending shaft bearing asmall propeller, whose twin blades, hinged so as to fold alongside theshaft when not in use, were quickly spread out and locked into position.A network of wire stays running from the wings to the fuselage of thecar were speedily hooked up and drawn taut.
Then the two mysterious figures climbed again into the transformed car.There was a low, deep hum as the propellers began to revolve, themonoplane shot forward a few yards along the road, then liftednoiselessly, and, graceful and silent as a night-bird, vanished into theshrouding mist.
The adventures of the Gay Triangle had begun!
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Dick Manton, lounging idly in the Assembly Hall of the little town ofFenways, in the centre of the Norfolk Broads, watched with eyes halfcritical and half amused the throng of dancers circling gaily to thestrains of three violins and a tinkling piano which did duty for anorchestra when the youth of Fenways amused itself with a dance.
Dick was wholly and entirely a product of the war. The lithe, slimbody, hatchet face, and keen, resolute eyes stamped him from head tofoot with the unmistakable _cachet_ of the airman. He smiled, as hewatched the dancers, in acknowledgment of the gay greeting flung to himby a score of laughing girls who, with the joy of youth, were givingthemselves unreservedly to the pleasures of the fox-trot.
Dick was a general favourite, and more than one pretty girl in the roomwould have been only too glad to arouse something more than a passinginterest in the young airman, whose dare-devil exploits above the Germanlines in France had brought him the Flying Cross, whose brilliant careerhad been cut short by a bullet wound, received in a "dog-fight" aboveBethune, which had rendered him unfit for the continual hardships ofactive service. He had been offered a "cushy" job in acknowledgment ofhis services. But Dick could not bear the idea of being "in the show"and yet not of it, and had accepted his discharge with what philosophyhe could muster.
His chief asset was his amazing knowledge of motor-engines. They hadbeen his one absorbing craze. While in the Army he had studied intentlyevery type of engine to which he could gain access; he had read everybook on the subject upon which he could lay his hands, and even amongthe expert pilots of the Air Force he was acknowledged as a master ofengine craft.
It was this knowledge of engines which had sent Dick into the motorbusiness. He knew, of course, that he could have obtained a good postwith one of the big companies had he chosen to stay in London. But hisnerves were still tingling from the stress of war, and he was still weakfrom the after effects of his wounds. So, for the sake of peace andfresh air, he had invested a part of his capital in a small motorbusiness at Fenways. If he was not making a fortune he was at leastliving, and the keen Norfolk air was rapidly bringing him back tohealth.
At times the longing for the old life, the rash and whirl of the city,came upon him with almost overwhelming force.
Suddenly a cameo of his days in France leapt into his mental vision. Hefound himself once again staring, as in a mirror, at the slim figure ofa half-fainting French girl stealing through the dusk towards theBritish lines. A crackling volley of shots from the Boche linesfollowed her, but by some miracle she came on unhurt. Dick had beensent up to the front to supervise the removal of a German plane of a newpattern which had crashed just behind the trenches and had wandered intothe front line (where, of course, he had no business!), and it was hewho caught the exhausted girl in his arms as she dropped into theBritish trench.
He had often wondered since what had become of Yvette Pasquet. She hadstayed on in the little town where Dick's squadron was stationed, andthey had become good friends. Dick had thus learnt something of hertragic history.
An Alsatian, French to the finger-tips, Yvette had lived in London forsome years and spoke English well. But she had seen her father andmother shot down by the Germans on the threshold of their home, and sheherself had only been preserved from a worse fate by a young Germanofficer, who had risked his life to save her from his drink-maddenedsoldiers. Sweet and gentle in all other respects, Yvette Pasquet was amerciless fiend where Germans were concerned; her hatred of them reacheda passion of intensity which dominated every other emotion.
How she had managed to get through the German lines she never quiteremembered. Her father had been well-to-do, and before her escape afterthe final tragedy, Yvette had managed to secure the scrip and shareswhich represented the bulk of his fortune, and had brought them acrosswith her safely concealed under her clothing.
From that time forward she had been the brain of a remarkableorganisation which had devoted itself to smuggling from the occupiedregions into France gold, jewellery, and securities, which had beenhidden from the prying eyes of the Hun.
After his wound Dick had lost sight of her. For many months he had laindangerously ill, and when he had recovered sufficiently to write, Yvettehad disappeared.
Dick's reverie was broken at length by a light touch on his arm. "Apenny for your thoughts!" said a soft voice at his elbow.
Dick came to earth with a jerk. The voice was that of Yvette herself!And when he turned he found her standing beside him, smiling into hisface with the light of sheer mischief dancing in her brilliant eyes.With her was a tall young Frenchman, obviously her brother.
"Yvette!" Dick gasped in sheer amazement. "What on earth brings youhere?"
"I came to look for you, my friend," was the quaint but sufficientlystartling reply in excellent English. "But let me present my brother.Jules--this is Mr Manton."
Dick, his head in a whirl, mechanically acknowledged the introduction
.Yvette had come to look for him! What could it mean?
"We came down from London this evening," Yvette explained, "and arestaying at the `George.' We soon found your rooms, and hearing you werehere decided to give you a surprise."
"You have certainly succeeded," Dick rejoined. "But how on earth didyou learn I was in Fenways?"
"Well," said Yvette, "it's no mystery. I happened to meet Vincent quiteby accident in Paris, and he told me where you were." Vincent was anold flying colleague, and one of the very few people with whom Dick hadcared to keep in touch.
"I have tried several times to find you," went on the girl, "but evenyour own War Office didn't seem to know what had become of you after youleft the Army, and my letters were returned to me."
Then her manner changed.
"Dick," she said seriously, "I came down to see you on business--important business. I can't explain here. I want you to come back toTown with us in the