tion>E. Phillips Oppenheim
The Zeppelin's Passenger
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664613745
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
“Never heard a sound,” the younger of the afternoon callers admitted, getting rid of his empty cup and leaning forward in his low chair. “No more tea, thank you, Miss Fairclough. Done splendidly, thanks. No, I went to bed last night soon after eleven—the Colonel had been route marching us all off our legs—and I never awoke until reveille this morning. Sleep of the just, and all that sort of thing, but a jolly sell, all the same! You hear anything of it, sir?” he asked, turning to his companion, who was seated a few feet away.
Captain Griffiths shook his head. He was a man considerably older than his questioner, with long, nervous face, and thick black hair streaked with grey. His fingers were bony, his complexion, for a soldier, curiously sallow, and notwithstanding his height, which was considerable, he was awkward, at times almost uncouth. His voice was hard and unsympathetic, and his contributions to the tea-table talk had been almost negligible.
“I was up until two o'clock, as it happened,” he replied, “but I knew nothing about the matter until it was brought to my notice officially.”
Helen Fairclough, who was doing the honours for Lady Cranston, her absent hostess, assumed the slight air of superiority to which the circumstances of the case entitled her.
“I heard it distinctly,” she declared; “in fact it woke me up. I hung out of the window, and I could hear the engine just as plainly as though it were over the golf links.”
The young subaltern sighed.
“Rotten luck I have with these things,” he confided. “That's three times they've been over, and I've neither heard nor seen one. This time they say that it had the narrowest shave on earth of coming down. Of course, you've heard of the observation car found on Dutchman's Common this morning?”
The girl assented.
“Did you see it?” she enquired.
“Not
