Von Herrnung demanded:
"But did you not receive a letter containing a business proposal? A communication from Rathenau, Wolff and Brothers, Aeromotor Engineers of Paris, 200, Rue Gagnette? I happen to know that it was posted, and the date being that of the Paris trial, Herren Rathenau and Wolff certainly possess the prior claim!"
"Their communication reached me in Hospital, three days later than the French War Office cable," Sherbrand answered. "It had been forwarded from the makeshift hangar I rented at Drancy--a mistake in the address being the reason of the delay!"
"That fellow Lindemann is a _Dummer Teufel_," said von Herrnung, shrugging.
"My German landlord.... Why--do you know him?" asked Sherbrand with a look of surprise.
"No, certainly. But you--you said the fellow's name was Lindemann. Not so? No?--then I am mistaken," said von Herrnung with another shrug. He hurried on as though to cover a mistake with a spate of sentences:
"Of course, with Rathenau and Wolff I have nothing to do. Save as an old customer, of whom they have asked a favour--you understand? Indeed I--you will pardon me!--do not your hoverer regard as an original invention. In 1912 our German Ministry of Marine completed a gun-boat fitted with a gyroscopic stabiliser to prevent rolling--you understand--in stormy weather. The device was hellishly effective."
"So effective," rejoined Sherbrand, without the quiver of a facial muscle, though there was laughter in his eyes, "that it broke up the ship."
"_Es mag wohl sein!_" returned von Herrnung, covering discomfiture, if he felt it, with his imperturbable shrug and hard blue stare.
Sherbrand went on, straightening his wide shoulders and clasping his hands loosely at his back as he talked:
"I don't claim that my patent is an absolutely new invention. Far from it. But it is a new arrangement of some old ideas, and limited though its use may be--it works. You have seen it working. You agree that it justifies its name?" He waited for the assent, and went on: "Possibly if I had described it as an aerial drag-anchor, I should have explained its uses more clearly. It is no good at all when your machine isn't flying level--of course you understand that? If you were ass enough to try to dive without cutting out the power that drives the horizontal screws you would drop to the ground like a plummet and break into a million of little bits--or dig a hole in the earth big enough for a Tube Station. But--keeping an even line of flight--when you switch it on it pulls against the tractor just sufficiently to give you--not immovability--but poise. Sufficient to take a photograph or drop an explosive with a good deal of accuracy."
The small boy lying outstretched on the warm turf near them, thought dolefully:
"_Dummer Teufel_ meant 'stupid devil' in German. But this talk is dreadfully business, I can't stow away much. Man alive! I wish Roddy Wrynche or some other fellow with a top-hole memory had got this job to tackle. And yet the Chief trusted it to _me_!"
All this, while Sherbrand was explaining.
"M. Jourdain declared himself completely satisfied. His observer said that I maintained poise and stability for five minutes longer than the stipulated twenty-five. He looked at the altimeter and said I should receive a definite answer within a couple of days.... Unlucky brute! Someone must have run over him!"
The shrill yelp of a hurt dog had evoked Sherbrand's exclamation. The sufferer's plaint came from the Collingwood Avenue, on the other side of the fence. Thrice the excruciating sound ripped the ears, then died out in a sobbing whimper.... _That was for me!_ Bawne told himself, as von Herrnung went on:
"Still, you are not pledged. There is no definite understanding. In the interests of the wealthy firm I am asked to represent--solely as a matter of courtesy, because they have been immensely civil to me in business,--you would not refuse me a test?"
Sherbrand said, drawing off his left glove and showing blood oozing from under bluish-looking finger-nails:
"I found it uncommonly parky to-day at 10,000 feet. There was a nor'-east breeze, a regular piercer. Found myself spitting blood rather badly, and to be candid, I was uncommonly grateful that the French Consul declined my offer, in case he was not satisfied, to do the thing again. The fact is, the operation, slight as it was, has weakened me a little. I wouldn't care to repeat the performance without a good night's rest to buck me up."
Von Herrnung shrugged and agreed:
"That it is cold at 10,000 I can credit easily. I have had the oil in my own gauges frozen at 7,000 in midsummer. _Da ist nicht zit strassen_. Haemorrhage and dizziness are the chief enemies of the aviator. One's stomach betrays one also, the cursed beast!--after a good hearty meal!"
"I don't give mine the chance!" Sherbrand returned, "but stave off the pangs of appetite with milk-tablets and meat-lozenges. Do all my flying on these and chocolate. Keep a little store of the things and a Thermos of hot coffee, in a _cache_ I've made for them, under the map-desk on the left of the instrument-frame, facing the pilot's seat. If you will come over to the Bird I'll show you, and explain the working of the gyroscopic hoverer." He added, looking squarely at von Herrnung: "Of course the cutting of the double screw is the chief thing about the invention. I've registered every way I know and got a trade-mark. They tell me at the Patent Office that my international rights are secure!"
"They should be, if you have those precautions taken. It does not do to trust," said von Herrnung, "too much! The monkey proverb is law for most men." He shrugged. "It comes, by the way, from Namaland in German South-West Africa. '_Nuts in your pouch are nuts in mine!_'"
The freemasonry of their calling had established a degree of friendliness between them. They were laughing over the monkey's philosophy as they went over together to the Bird. The small boy who had been idly sprawling on the hot turf near them, with his tilted hat shielding his face from the westering sun-rays, got up and trotted after them like a collie pup.
"Coming too, young man?" Sherbrand said, glancing back and smiling. The boy nodded in answer, and thence-forward kept close at the heels of the men, his ears industriously drinking in their conversation, while his eyes were glued on the brown leather satchel depending from the German's gloved left hand. Both men, now leaning over the side of the pilot's cockpit, examined the gearing of the hoverer, protected by a transparent casing set in the tough ash, copper-riveted planking of the fuselage. Then with the aid of sulky Davis they tilted the Bird, and inspected the pair of thin circular plates of toughened steel with flanged edges that, revolving at high velocity in different. directions, constituted the horizontal screw.
"Driven from the engine, as you see, by an endless chain-drive arrangement. By manipulation of levers, you can throw the tractor out of gear, and hover, under favourable circumstances and in still weather, by means of the horizontal screw alone. But as a rule you keep the tractor working, and the screw acts in one as a lifter and floating-anchor. That's about all it amounts to!--I've said I don't pretend to hang immovable in the air like the albatross and the condor, not to mention the gull and sparrow-hawk and dragon-fly! While I hover I am making way--but way to an inappreciable amount. One of these days we shall find out the big Secret of Stability. Until then we must rub along as best we can!"
Von Herrnung returned:
"I am hellishly interested in your invention. It now occurs to me that as you happen to know my flying record"--he shrugged his great shoulders and smoothed his tight red roll of moustache with a well-manicured finger-tip--"that it is possible you would have sufficient confidence to allow me to test your gyroscopic hoverer myself?" He laughed again pleasantly as he finished: "Whatever else I may do, I give you my word of honour I shall not pile up your machine. Will you consent? It may lead--supposing you do not close with the French offer--to big business--done with my friends!"
Sherbrand had looked doubtful, only for an instant. Before the twelve-year-old eavesdropper had recovered from the shock that had set his brain spinning and his heart thumping, the situation had been accepted by the owner of the Bird of War. He held out his left hand, and von Herrnung gripped and wrenched it, noting with inward amusement that his grip had brought fresh lines of blood creeping about the edges of Sherbrand's finger-nails.
"You shake hands with the left," he commented, smiling. "Not for the first time have I noticed the peculiarity in Englishmen of the younger breed."
"It is a custom," Sherbrand answered, "with--members of an organisation to which I had, and still have, the honour to belong."
His eyes, in speaking, went to the bright-haired boy in Scout's uniform standing near them, but von Herrnung's glance had not followed his. The boy was staring wistfully at the round-faced clock on the front gable of the cafe restaurant--ten minutes to the half-hour and no sign of the Chief's returning. Bawne's courage began to ooze away at the ends of his fingers and toes.