 The Horror of the Heights, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The idea that the extraordinary narrative which has been called the Joyce Armstrong Fragment is an elaborate practical joke evolved by some unknown person, cursed by a perverted and sinister sense of humor, has now been abandoned by all who have examined the matter. The most macabre and imaginative of plotters would hesitate before linking his morbid fancies with the unquestioned and tragic fact which reinforced the statement. Though the assertions contained in it are amazing and even monstrous, it's nonetheless forcing itself upon the general intelligence that they are true and that we must readjust our ideas to the situation. This world of ours appears to be separated by unexpected danger. I'll endeavor in this narrative which reproduces the original document in its necessarily somewhat fragmentary form, to lay before the reader the whole of the facts up to date, prefacing my statement by saying that, if there be no question at all as to the facts concerning Lieutenant Myrtle R. N. and Mr. Hay Connor, who undoubtedly met their end in the manner described, the Joyce Armstrong Fragment was found in the field which is called Lower Haycock, laying one mile to the westward of the village of Whitham upon the Kenton Sussex border. It was on the 15th September last that an agricultural laborer, James Flynn in the employment of Matthew Dodd, farmer of the Chantry Farm, Whitham, received a briar pipe laying near the footpath which curts the hedge in Lower Haycock. A few paces farther on he picked up a pair of broken binocular glasses. Finally among some nettles in the ditch he caught sight of a flat canvas-backed book which proved to be a notebook with detachable leaves, some of which had come loose and were fluttering along the base of the hedge. These he collected but some, including the first, were never recovered and leave a deplorable hiatus in this all-important statement. The notebook was taken by the laborer to his master who in turn showed it to Dr. J. H. Atherton of Hartfield. This gentleman at once recognized the need for an expert examination and the manuscript was forwarded to the Arrow Club in London where it now lies. The first two pages of the manuscript are missing. There is also one torn away at the end of the narrative though none of these affect the general coherence of the story. It is conjectured that the missing opening is concerned with the record of Mr. Joyce Armstrong's qualification as an erinoth, which can be gathered from other sources and are admitted to be unsurpassed among the air pilots of England. For many years he has been looked upon as among the most daring and the most intellectual of flying men, a combination which has enabled him to both invent and test several new devices, including the common gyroscopic attachment which is known by his name. The main body of the manuscript is written neatly in ink, but the last few lines are in pencil and are so ragged as to be hardly legible. Exactly in fact as they might be expected to appear if they were scribbled off hurriedly from the seat of a moving aeroplane. There are it may be added several stains both on the last page and on the outside cover which have been pronounced by the Home Office experts to be blood, probably human, and certainly mammalian. The fact that something closely resembling the organism of malaria was discovered in this blood and that Joyce Armstrong is known to have suffered from intermittent fever is a remarkable example of the new weapon which modern science has placed in the hands of our detectives. And now a word as to the personality of the author of this epic-making statement. Joyce Armstrong, according to the few friends who really knew something of the man, was a poet and a dreamer as well as a mechanic and an inventor. He was a man of considerable wealth much of which he had spent in the pursuit of his aeronautical hobby. He had four private airplanes in his hangars and he devised it. And it said to have made no fewer than 170 cents in the course of the last year. He was a retiring man with dark moods in which he would avoid the society of his fellows. Captain Dangerfield, who knew him better than anyone says that there were times when his eccentricity threatened to develop into something more serious. His habit of carrying a shotgun with him in his aeroplane was one manifestation of it. Another was the morbid effect which the fall of Lieutenant Myrtle had upon his mind. Myrtle, who was attempting the height record, fell from an altitude of something over 30,000 feet. Horrible to narrate, his head was entirely obliterated, though his body and limbs preserved their configuration. At every gathering of airmen Joyce Armstrong, according to Dangerfield, would ask, with an enigmatic smile, and where the prey is Myrtle's head. On another occasion, after dinner at the mess of the flying school on Salisbury Plain, he started to debate as to what will be the most permanent danger which airmen will have to encounter. Having listened to successive opinions as to air pockets, faulty construction, and over banking, he ended up by shrugging his shoulders and refusing to put forward his own views, though he gave the impression that they differed from any advanced by his companions. With remarking that after his own complete disappearance, it was found that his private affairs were arranged with a precision which may show that he had a strong premonition of disaster. With these essential explanations I will now give the narrative exactly as it stands, beginning at page 3 of the Blood Soak Notebook. Nevertheless, when I dined at Reims with Coselli and Gustave Raymond, I found that neither of them was aware of any particular danger in the higher layers of the atmosphere. I did not actually say what was in my thoughts, but I got so near to it that if they had any corresponding idea, they could not have failed to express it. But then they are too empty vanglorious fellows with no thought beyond seeing their own silly names in the newspaper. It's interesting to note that neither of them had ever been much beyond the twenty thousand foot level. Of course men have been higher than there's both in balloons and in the ascent of mountains. It must be well above that point that the aeroplane enters the danger zone, always presuming that my premonitions are correct. Aeroplaning has been with us now for more than twenty years, and one might well ask, why should this peril be only revealing itself in our day? The answer is obvious. In the old days of weak engines when a hundred horsepower gnome or green was considered ample for every need, the flights were very restricted. Now that three hundred horsepower is the rule rather than the exception, visits to the upper layers have become easier and more common. Some of us can remember how in our youth Garros made a worldwide reputation by attaining nineteen thousand feet, and it was considered a remarkable achievement to fly over the Alps. Our standard now has been immeasurably raised, and there are twenty high flights for one in former years. Many of them have been undertaken with impunity. The thirty thousand foot level has been reached time after time with no discomfort beyond cold and asthma. And what does this prove? A visitor might descend upon this planet a thousand times and never see a tiger. Yet tigers exist. And if he chanced to come down into a jungle, he might be devoured. There are jungles of the upper air, and there are worse things than tigers which inhabit them. I believe in time they will map these jungles accurately out. Even at the present moment I could name two of them. One of them lies over Pau-Beret's district of France. Another is just over my head as I write here in my house in Wiltshire. I rather think there is a third in the Homburg-Wiespaden district. It was the disappearance of the airmen that first set me to thinking. Of course, everyone said that they had fallen into the sea, but that did not satisfy me at all. First there was Verrier in France. His machine was found near Bayonne, but they never got his body. There was the case of Baxter also, who vanished, though his engine and some of the iron fittings were found in a wood in Leicestershire. In that case, Dr. Middleton of Amesbury, who was watching the flight with a telescope, declared that just before the clouds obscured the view, he saw the machine, which was at an enormous height, suddenly rise perpendicularly upwards in a succession of jerks in a manner that he would have thought to be impossible. That was the last scene of Baxter. There was a correspondence of the papers, but it never led to anything. There were several other similar cases, and then there was the death of Hay Conner. What a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air, and what columns in the hipney papers, and yet how little was ever done to get to the bottom of the business. He came down in a tremendous wall-plane from an unknown height. He never got off his machine and died in his pilot's seat. Died of what? Heart disease, said the doctors. Rubbish! Hay Conner's heart was as sound as mine is. What did Venables say? Venables was the only man who was at his side when he died. He said that he was shivering and looked like a man who had been badly scared. Died of fright, said Venables, but could not imagine what he was frightened about. Only said one word to Venables which sounded like, monstrous. They could make nothing of that at the inquest, but I could make something of it. Monsters! That was the last word of poor Harry Hay Conner, and he did die of fright, just as Venables thought. And then there was Myrtle's head. Do you really believe—does anybody really believe—that a man's head could be driven clean into his body by the force of a fall? Well, perhaps it may be possible, but I for one have never believed that it was so with Myrtle. And the grease upon his clothes all slimy with grease, said somebody at the inquest. Queer that nobody got thinking after that. I did, but then I'd been thinking for a good long time. I've made three ascents. No danger field used to chaff me about my shotgun, but I've never been high enough. Now with this new light-pulled veronet machine, and its one-hundred and seventy-five robber, I should easily touch the thirty-thousand to-morrow. I'll have a shot at the record. Maybe I shall have a shot at something else as well. Of course it's dangerous, if a fellow wants to avoid danger it best keep out of flying altogether, and subside finally into flannel slippers and a dressing-gown. But I'll visit the air-jungle to-morrow, and if there's anything there I shall know it. If I return I'll find myself a bit of a celebrity. If I don't, this notebook may explain what I'm trying to do and how I lost my life in doing it, but no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please. I chose my Paul Verenier monoplane for the job. There's nothing like a monoplane when real work is to be done. Beaumont found that out in very early days. For one thing it doesn't mind damp, and the weather looks as if we should be in the clouds all the time. It's a bonny little model, and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse. The engine's a ten-cylinder rotary roboire, working up to one hundred and seventy-five. It has all the modern improvements in closed fuselage, high-curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds worked by an alteration of the angle of the planes upon the Venetian blind principle. I took a shotgun with me and a dozen cartridges filled with buckshot. You should have seen the face of Perkins, my own mechanic, when I directed him to put them in. I was dressed like an arctic explorer with two jerseys under my overalls, thick socks inside my padded boots, a storm cap with flaps, and my talc goggles. It was stifling outside the hangars, but I was going for the summit of the Himalayas and had to dress for the part. Perkins knew there was something on and implored me to take him with me. Perhaps I should if I were using the biplane, but a monoplane is a one-man show. If you want to get the last foot of life out of it... Of course I took an oxygen bag, the man who goes for the altitude racket without one will either be frozen or smother, or both. I had a good look at the planes, the rudder bar, and the elevating lever before I got in. Everything was in order as far as I could see. Then I switched on my engine and found that she was running sweetly. When they let her go, she rose almost at once upon the lowest speed. I circled my home field once or twice just to warm her up, and then with a wave to Perkins and the others I flattened out my planes and put her on her highest. She turned her nose up a little, and she began to climb in a great spiral through the cloud bank above me. It's all important to rise slowly and adapt yourself to the pressure as you go. It was a close warm day for an English September, and there was a hush and heaviness of impending rain. Now and then there came sudden puffs of wind from the southwest, one of them so gusty and unexpected that it caught me napping and turned me half round for an instant. I remember the time when gusts and the whirls and air pockets used to be things of danger before we learned to put on overmastering power into our engines. Just as I reached the cloud banks with the altimeter marking 3,000, down came the rain. My word, how it poured, it drummed upon my wings and lashed against my face, blurring my glasses so that I could hardly see. I got down on to a lower speed for it was painful to travel against it. As I got higher it became hail and I had to turn tail to it, one of my cylinders rising steadily with plenty of power. After a bit the trouble passed, whatever it was, and I heard the full deep-throated purr, the ten singing as one. That's where the beauty of our modern silences comes in. We can at last control our engines by ear. How they squeal and squeak and sob when they're in trouble. All those cries for help were wasted in the old days when every sound was swallowed up by the monstrous racket of the machine. If only the early aviators could have come back to see the beauty and perfection of the mechanism which had been brought at the cost of their lives. About nine-thirty I was nearing the clouds. Down below me all blurred and shadowed with rainly the vast expanse of Salisbury plain. Half a dozen flying machines were doing hack work at the thousand-foot level, looking like little black swallows against the green background. I daresay they were wondering what I was doing up in Cloudland. Suddenly a gray curtain drew across beneath me and the wet folds of vapours were swirling round my face. It was clamily cold and miserable. But I was above the hail storm, and that was something gained. The cloud was dark and thick as a London fog. In my anxiety to get clear I cocked her nose up until the automatic alarm bell rang, and I actually began to slide backwards. My soft and dripping wings had made me heavier than I thought. But presently I was in lighter cloud and soon had cleared up the first layer. There was a second, opal-coloured and fleecy at a great height above my head, a white unbroken ceiling above, and a dark unbroken floor below, with the monoplane laboring upward upon a vast spiral between them. It is small water-birds that went past me flying very fast to the westwards. The quick whir of their wings and their musical cry were cheery to my ear. I fancy that they were teal, but I'm a retro-duologist. Now that we humans have become birds, we must really learn to know our brethren by sight. The wind down beneath me whirled and swayed the broad cloud-plane. Once a great eddy formed in it a whirlpool of vapour, and threw it as down a funnel I caught sight of the distant whirl. A large white biplane was passing at a vast depth beneath me. I fancy it was the morning mail-service between Bristol and London. Then the drift swirled inwards again, and the great solitude was unbroken. Just after ten I touched the lower edge of the upper cloud stratum. It consisted of fine, diaphanous vapour drifting swiftly from the westwards. The wind had been steadily rising all this time, and it was now blowing a sharp breeze, twenty-eight an hour by my gauge. Already it was very cold, oh my ultimately, only mark nine thousand. The engines were working beautifully, and we were droning steadily upwards. The cloud-back was thicker than I had expected, but at last it thinned out into a golden mist before me, and then in an instant I had shot out from it. And there was an unclouded sky and a brilliant sun above my head, all blue and gold above all shining silver below. One vast glimmering plane as far as my eyes could reach. It was a quarter past ten o'clock, and the barograph needle pointed to twelve thousand eight hundred. Up I went and up. My ears concentrated upon the deep purring of my motor. My eyes busy always with the watch, the revolution indicator, the petrol lever, and the oil pump. No wonder aviators are said to be a fearless race. With so many things to think of there is no time to trouble about oneself. About this time I noted how unreliable is the compass when above a certain height from the earth. At fifteen thousand feet mine was pointing east and a point south. The sun and the wind gave me my true bearings. I had hoped to reach an eternal stillness in these high altitudes, but with every thousand feet of ascent the gale grew stronger. My machine groaned and trembled in every joint and rivet as she faced it, and swept away like a sheet of paper when I banked here on the turn, skimming down wind at a greater pace perhaps than ever a mortal man has moved. Yet I had always to turn back again and tack up into the wind's eye, for it was not merely a height record that I was after. By all my calculations it was above little Wiltshire that my air jungle lay, and all my labour might be lost if I struck the outer layers at some further point. When I reached the nineteen thousand foot level which was about midday the wind was so severe that I looked with some anxiety to the stays of my wings, expecting momentarily to see them snap or slacken. I even cast loose the parachute behind me and fastened its hoop into the ring of my leather belt, so as to be ready for the worst. Now was the time when a bit of scamped work by the mechanic is paid for by the life of the aeronaut. But she held together bravely. Every cord and strut was humming and vibrating like so many harp strings, but it was glorious to see how for all the beating and the buffeting she was still the conqueror of nature and the mistress of the sky. For surely something divine in man himself that he should rise so superior to the limitations which creation seems to impose. Rise too by such unselfish heroic devotion as this air conquest has shown. Talk of human degeneration. When has such a story has this been written in the annals of our race? These were the thoughts in my head as I climbed that monstrous inclined plane with the wind, sometimes beating in my face, and sometimes whistling behind my ears. While the cloud-land beneath me fell away to such a distance that the folds and hummocks of silver had all smoothed out into one flat shining plane. But suddenly I had a horrible and unprecedented experience. I have known before what it is to be in what our neighbors have called a tourbillon. But never on such a scale as this. That huge sweeping river of wind of which I had spoken had, as it appears, whirlpools within it which were as monstrous as itself. Without a moment's warning I was dragged suddenly into the heart of one. I spun round for a minute or two with such velocity that I almost lost my senses, and then fell suddenly, left wing foremost, down the vacuum funnel in the center. I dropped like a stone and lost nearly a thousand feet. It was only my belt that kept me in my seat, and the shock and breathlessness left me hanging half insensible over the side of the fuselage. But I'm always capable of a supreme effort. It's my one great merit as an aviator. I was conscious that the descent was slower, the whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and I had come to the apex. With a terrific wrench throwing my weight all to one side, I leveled my planes and brought her head away from the wind. In an instant I had shot out of the headies and was skimming down the sky. Then shaken but victorious, I turned her nose up and began once more my steady grind on the upward spiral. I took a large sweep to avoid the dangerous spot of the whirlpool, and soon I was safely above it. Just after one o'clock I was twenty-one thousand feet above the sea level. To my great joy I topped the gale and with every hundred feet of a cent the air grew stiller. On the other hand, it was very cold and I was conscious of that peculiar nausea which goes with rarefication of the air. For the first time I unscrewed the mouth of my oxygen bag and took an occasional whiff of the glorious gasp. I could feel it running like a cordial through my veins, and I was exhilarated almost to the point of drunkenness. I shouted and sang as I soared upward into the cold, still outer world. It's very clear to me that the insensibility which came upon glacier and, in a lesser degree, upon coxwell, when in 1862 they ascended in a balloon to a height of thirty thousand feet, was due to the extreme speed with which a perpendicular ascent is made. Doing it at an easy gradient and a customing oneself to the less than barometric pressure, by slow degrees there are no such dreadful symptoms. At the same great height I found that even without my oxygen inhaler I could breathe without undue distress. It was bitterly cold, however, and my thermometer was at zero Fahrenheit. At 130 I was nearly seven miles above the surface of the earth, and still ascending steadily. I found, however, that the rarefied air was giving markedly less support to my planes, and that my angle of ascent had to be considerably lowered in consequence. It was already clear that even with my light weight and strong engine power there was a point in front of me where I should be held. To make matters worse, one of my sparking plugs was in trouble again, and there was intermittent misfiring in the engine. My heart was heavy with the fear of failure. It was about that time that I had a most extraordinary experience, and whizzed past me in a trail of smoke, and exploded with a loud, hissing sound, sending forth a cloud of steam. For the instant I could not imagine what had happened then I remembered that the earth is forever being bombarded by meteors stones, and would be hardly inhabitable were they not in nearly every case turned to vapor in the outer layers of the atmosphere. Here is a new danger for the high altitude man, for two others passed me when I was nearing the forty thousand foot mark. I cannot doubt that at the edge of the earth's envelope the risk would be a very real one. My barograph needle marked forty-one thousand three hundred when I became aware that I could go no farther. Physically the strain was not as yet greater than I could bear, but my machine had reached its limit. The attenuated air gave no firm support to the wings, and the least tilt developed into a side slip, while she seemed sluggish on her controls. Possibly had the engine been at its best another thousand feet might have been within our capacity, but it was still misfiring, and two out of the ten cylinders appeared to be out of action. If I had not already reached the zone for which I was searching, then I should never see it upon this journey. But was it not possible that I had attained it, soaring in circles like a monstrous hawk upon the forty thousand foot level, I let the monoplane guide itself, and with my manheim glass I made a careful observation of my surroundings. The heavens were perfectly clear, and there was no indication of those dangers which I had imagined. I have said that I was soaring in circles it struck me suddenly that I would do well to take a whiter sweep and open up a new air-track. If the hunter entered an earth-jungle he would drive through it if he wished to find his game. My reasoning had led me to believe that the air-jungle which I had imagined lay somewhere over Wiltshire. This should be to the south and west of me. I took my bearings from the sun for the compass was hopeless and no trace of earth was to be seen. Nothing but the distant silver cloud-plane. However I got my direction as best I might and kept her head straight to the mark. I reckoned that my petrol supply would not last for more than another hour or so, but I could afford to use it to the last drop since a single magnificent vol-plane could at any time take me to the earth. Suddenly I was aware of something new. The air in front of me had lost its crystal clearness. It was full of long, ragged wisps of something which I can only compare to very fine cigarette smoke. It hung about in wreaths and coils, turning and twisting slowly in the sunlight. As the monoplane shot through it I was aware of a faint taste of oil upon my lips and there was a greasy scum upon the woodwork of the machine. Some infinitely fine organic matter appeared to be suspended in the atmosphere. There was no life there. It was inchoate and diffuse, extending for many square acres, then fringing off into the void. No, it was certainly not life. But might it not be the remains of life? Above all, might it not be the food of life, of monstrous life, even as the humble grease of the ocean is the food of the mighty whale? The thought was in my mind when my eyes looked upward and I saw the most wonderful vision that every man has seen. And I hope to convey it to you even as I saw it myself last Thursday. Conceive a jellyfish such as sails in our summer seas. Bell-shaped and of enormous size, far larger I should judge than the dome of St. Paul's. It was of a light pink color veined with a delicate green, but the whole huge fabric so tenuous that it was but a fairy outline against the dark blue sky. It pulsated with a delicate and regular rhythm. Some at there depended two long drooping green tentacles which swayed slowly backwards and forwards. This gorgeous vision passed gently with noiseless dignity over my head, as light and fragile as a soap-bubble, and drifted upon its stately way. I had half turned my monoplane that I might look after this beautiful creature when in a moment I found myself amidst a perfect fleet of them, of all sizes, but none so large as the first. Some were quite small, but the majority about as big as an average balloon, and with much the same curvature at the top. There was in them a delicacy of texture and coloring which reminded me of the finest Venetian glass. Pale shades of pink and green were the prevailing tints, but all had a lovely iridescence where the sun shimmered through their dainty forms. Some hundreds of them drifted past me, a wonderful fairy squadron of strange unknown arguses of the sky. Creatures whose forms and substance were so attuned to these pure heights that one could not conceive anything so delicate within actual sight or sound of earth. But soon my attention was drawn to a new phenomenon, the serpents of the outer air. These were long, thin, fantastic coils of vapor-like material which turned and twisted with great speed, flying round and round to touch a pace that the eyes could hardly follow them. Some of these ghost-like creatures were twenty or thirty feet long, but it was difficult to tell their girth, their outline was so hazy that it seemed to fade away into the air around them. These air snakes were of a very light gray or smoke color, with some darker lines within, which gave the impression of a definite organism. Some of them whisked past my very face, and I was conscious of a cold, clammy contact. But their composition was so unsubstantial that I could not connect them with any thought of physical danger, any more than the beautiful bell-like creatures which had preceded them. There was no more solidity in their frames than in the floating spume from a broken wave. But a more terrible experience was in store for me. Floating downward from a great height there came a purplish patch of vapour, small as I saw at first, but rapidly enlarging as it approached me, until it appeared to be hundreds of square feet in size. Though fashioned of some transparent jelly-like substance, it was nonetheless of a much more definite outline and solid consistency than anything which I had seen before. There were more traces, too, of a physical organization, especially two vast shadowy circular plates upon either side, which may have been eyes, and a perfectly solid white projection between them which was as curved and cruel as the beak of a vulture. The whole aspect of this monster was formidable and threatening, and it kept changing its colour from a very light mauve to a dark, angry purple so thick that it cast a shadow as it drifted between my monoplane and the sun. On the upper curve of its huge body there were three great projections which I can only describe as enormous bubbles, and I was convinced, as I looked at them, that they were charged with some extremely light gas, which served to buoy up the misshapen and semi-solid mass in the rarefied air. The creature moved swiftly along, keeping pace easily with the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey which is waiting to pounce. Its method of progression, done so swiftly that it was not easy to follow, was to throw out a long, glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of the writhing body. So elastic and gelatinous was it that, never for two successive minutes was it the same shape, and yet each change made it more threatening and loathsome than the last. I knew that it meant mischief. Every purple flush of its hideous body told me so. The vague, goggling eyes which were turned always upon me were cold and merciless in their viscid hatred. I dipped the nose of my monoplane downward to escape it as I did so. As quick as a flash there shot out a long tentacle from this mass of floating blubber, and it fell as light and sensuous as a whiplash across the front of my machine. There was a loud hiss as it lay for a moment across the hot engine, and it whisked itself into the air again, while the huge flat body drew itself together as if in sudden pain. I dipped to a volpeak, but again a tentacle fell over the monoplane, and was shorn off by the propeller as easily as it might have cut through a smoke wreath. A long, gliding, sticky, serpent-like coil came from behind and caught me around the waist, dragging me out of the fuselage. I tore at it my fingers sinking into the smooth, glue-like surface, and for an instant I disengaged myself but only to be caught round the boot by another coil, which gave me a jerk that tilted me almost onto my back. As I fell over I blazed off both barrels of my gun, though indeed it was like attacking an elephant with a pea-shooter to imagine that any human weapon could cripple that mighty bulk. Yet I aimed better than I knew, for with a loud report one of the great blisters upon the creature's back exploded with the puncture of the buck-shot. It was very clear that my conjecture was right, and that these vast clear bladders were distended with some lifting gas, for in an instant the huge cloud-like body turned sideways, writhing desperately to find its balance, while the white beak snapped and gaped in horrible fury. But already I had shot away on the steepest glide that I dared to attempt. My engine still full on, the flying propeller and the force of gravity shooting me downwards like an arrow-light. Far behind me I saw a dull, purplish smudge, growing swiftly smaller and merging into the blue sky behind it. I was safe out of the deadly jungle of the outer air. Once out of danger I throttled my engine, for nothing tears a machine to pieces quicker than running on full power from a height. It was a glorious spiral volplane from nearly eight miles of altitude, first to the level of the silver cloud bank, then to that of the storm cloud beneath it, and finally in beating rain to the surface of the earth. I saw the Bristol Channel beneath me as I broke from the clouds, but having still some petrol in my tank, I got twenty miles inland before I found myself stranded on the field, half a mile from the village of Ashcombe. There I got three tins of petrol from a passing motor car, and a ten minutes past six that evening I elated gently in my own home meadow and devise it. After such a journey as no mortal upon earth has ever yet taken and lived to tell a tale, I have seen the beauty and I have seen the horror of the heights, and greater beauty or greater horror than that is not within the ken of men. And now it is my plan to go once again before I give my results to the world. My reason for this is that I must surely have something to show by way of proof before I lay such a tale before my fellow men. It's true that others will soon follow and will confirm what I have said, and yet I should wish to carry conviction from the first. Those lovely, iridescent bubbles of the air should not be hard to capture. They drift slowly upon their way, and the swift monoplane could intercept their leisurely course. It's likely enough that they would dissolve in the heavier layers of the atmosphere, and that some small heap of amorphous jelly might be all that I should bring to earth with me. And yet something there would surely be by which I could substantiate my story. Yes, I will go, even if I run a risk by doing so. These purple horrors would not seem to be numerous. It's probable that I shall not see one. If I do, I shall dive at once. At the worst there is always the shotgun, and my knowledge of— Here a page of the manuscript is unfortunately missing. On the next page is written, in large, straggling writing, Forty-three thousand feet I shall never see earth again. They are beneath me, three of them. God help me! It's a dreadful death to die. Such in its entirety is the Joyce Armstrong statement. Of the man nothing has since been seen. Stories of his shattered monoplane have been picked up in the preserves of Mr. Bud Lushington upon the borders of Canton Sussex, when a few miles of the spot where the notebook was discovered. If the unfortunate aviator's theory is correct that this air-jungle, as he called it, existed only over the south-west of England, then it would seem that he had fled from it at the full speed of his monoplane, but had been overtaken and devoured by these horrible creatures at some spot in the outer atmosphere. Of the place where the grim relics were found. The picture of that monoplane skimming down the sky with the nameless terrors flying as swiftly beneath it and cutting it off, always from the earth, while they gradually closed in upon their victim, is one upon which a man who valued his sanity would prefer not to dwell. There are many, as I am aware, who still jeer at the facts which I have here set forth. But even they must admit that Joyce Armstrong has disappeared, and I would commend them to his own words. This notebook may explain what I am trying to do, and how I lost my life in doing it. But no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please. End of The Horror of the Heights by Sir Arthur Cullen Doyle, recording by Mike Harris. In The Virginia Room by Arlo Bates. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ginger Kukalo. In The Virginia Room by Arlo Bates. Childless was the word which she murmured in her heart. As she entered the building which had once been the presidential mansion of Jefferson Davis, and now is a Confederate museum. Why the thought of her estranged daughter flashed upon her as she came to do honor to the memory of her long-dead husband, Mrs. Desbara, could not have told, but so overwhelmingly was the sadness of her mood that she could hardly wonder if this bitter memory took advantage of her moment of weakness to obtrude itself. She set her lips tightly and put it determinedly into the background. She would not think of the daughter who was lost to her, today, and here no thought but should go back in loving homage and passionate grief to the hero whose name she bore. She went at once to The Virginia Room, bowing quickly but kindly to the custodian of the museum, and as she pushed open the door of the sad place, she thought herself alone. The heavy April rain which was drenching Richmond outside kept visitors away, and the building was almost deserted. In her yearly visits to this spot, those pilgrimages which she had made as to a shrine, she had once before had The Virginia Room to herself, untroubled by the presence of strangers. And now, with a quick sigh of relief, she realized how great had been the comfort of that solitude. To her sensitive nature, it was hard to stand before the memorials of her dead, and yet to be aware that strange eyes, eyes curious if sympathetic, might be reading in her face all the emotions of her very soul. To preserve the calm necessary before the public had always seemed to her almost like being untrue to the memory she came to consecrate. And today, it was with a swelling sigh of relief that she threw back her heavy widow's veil with a free, proud motion which belonged to the women of her race and time, the women bred in the south before the war. She was an old woman, though not much over sixty, for pain can age more swiftly than time. The high-bred mean would be hers as long as life remained, and wonderful was her self-control. Again and again she bad-felt unshed tears burn in her eyes like living fire, yet had been sure that no stranger had had reason to look upon her as more than a casual visitor to the museum. But to be able to let her grief have way seemed almost a joy. She felt the quick drop start at the bare thought. Life had left her no greater blessing than this liberty to weep undiscovered over the memorials of her dead. At the instant a man came from behind one of the cases so near that she might have touched him. Instinctively she tried to take her handkerchief from her chateau-line, and in her confusion detached the bag. It fell at the feet of the gentleman who stooped at once to pick it up. As he held it out she forced a smile to her fine old face. Thank you, she said. I was very awkward. Not at all, he responded. Those bags are easily unhooked. The tone struck her almost like a blow. To the disappointment of finding that she was not alone in this solemn place was added the bitter fact that the intruder had come upon her was not of her people. An impulse of bitterness from the old times of blood and of fire swept over her like a wave. The room had carried her back as it always did to the past, and after almost two score years she for the first time broke through the stern resolve that had kept her from hostile speech. You are a northerner, she exclaimed. The words were nothing but the tone she knew was hot with all the long pin-up bitterness. She felt her cheek flush as almost before the words were spoken she realized what she had said. The stranger, however, showed no sign of resentment. He smiled, then grew grave again. Yes, do not northerners visit the museum. I suppose nobody came to Richmond without coming here. She was painfully annoyed and felt her thin cheek's glow as hotly as if she were still a girl. To be lacking in politeness was sufficiently humiliating, but to seem rude to one from the north to fall in living up to her traditions was intolerable. I beg your pardon, she forced herself to say. To come through that door is to step into the past, and I spoke as I might have when a yank you in the house of President Davis would have required explicit explanation. The stranger finished the sentence, she knew not how to complete. Even in her discomposure she appreciated both the courtesy which spared her the embarrassment of being left in the confusion of an unfinished remark and the adroitness which gave to his reply just the right tone of lightness. He was evidently a man of the world, her instinct not to be outdone in politeness, least of all by one of her race, made her speak again. I was rude, she said stiffly. Today is an anniversary on which I always come here and I forgot myself. Then I must have seen doubly obtrusive. He returned gravely. He was certainly a gentleman. He was well groomed moreover with the appearance of quiet wealth. One of his hands was unglued and she noted appreciatively how finely shaped it was, how white and well kept. The North had all the wealth now. She reflected involuntarily while so many of the descendants of old Southern families were forced to earn their very bread by occupations unworthy of them. They could not keep their fine hands, hands that told of blood and breeding for generations as could this stranger before her. His attractiveness, his air of prosperity were offensive to her, but because they emphasized the pitiful poverty of so many of her kin whose forefathers had never known what want could be. The museum is open to the public, she replied with increasing coldness. She expected him to bow and leave her. Not only did he linger, but she seemed to see in his face a look of pity. Before she could resent this pity, however, she met his eyes with her own and the look seemed to her to be one of sympathy. Will you pardon my saying that I too came here today because it is an anniversary? An anniversary, she echoed. How can an anniversary bring a northerner here? It isn't mine exactly, it is my son's. His mother is a Virginian. So highly strung was her mood that she noticed almost with approval that he had said is and not was. He had at least not deprived his wife of her birthright as a daughter of the sacred soul. She began to be aware of a growing excitement. She could hardly have heard, unmoved any allusion to a marriage which had taken from the south a woman born to his traditions and to its sorrows. She felt a fresh impulse of anger against his prosperous son of the North who had carried away from a Virginia mother, a daughter, as she had been robbed of hers. The cruel pang of crushed motherhood which ached within her at the remembrance of her own child. The child she had herself cast off because of her marriage was so fierce that for a moment she could not command her boys. She could not shake the question which was in her heart but she felt that with her eyes she all but commanded the stranger to tell her more. We live in the North, he explained. But she has long promised the boy that when he was eight he should see the relics of this Virginian grandfather which are in the museum here. Unfortunately when the time came she was not well enough to come with him and as she wished him to be here on this special day I have brought him. The southern woman felt her heart beating tumultuously and it was almost as if another spoke when she said in a manner entirely conventional. I trust that her illness is not serious. If it were I should not be here myself, he answered. She collected her strings which seemed to be leaving her and forced herself to look around the room. She could not have told what she expected or whether she most hoped or feared what she might see. But your son, she asked, the man's face changed subtly. My father, he replied, was an officer in the Union Army. I wish to see this place first to be prepared for Desperous questions. It isn't easy to answer the questions of a clever lad whose two grandfathers have been killed in the same battle fighting on opposite sides. The name struck her like a blow. She leaned over for support against the corner of the nearest case and fixed her gaze on the pathetic coat of General Lee behind the glass which showed her as a faint wrath, a reflection of her own face. Despera had been her husband's name and this the anniversary of his death she felt as if the dead had arisen to confront her and that some imperative call in the blood insistently responded. Yet she could not believe that her son-in-law was before her regarding her with that straightforward, appealingly honest gaze. She said to herself that the name was merely a coincidence that every day in the year was the anniversary of the death of some Virginian hero and that this could not be her daughter's husband. Have you decided what to tell your son? She heard her voice strange and far off asking amid the thrilling quiet of the room. The stranger regarded her as if struck by the note of challenge in her tone. His serious eyes seemed to her to be endeavoring to probe her own in search of the cause of her sharpness. I can do no more, was his answer, than to tell him what I have always told him, the truth as far as I can see it. And the truth which you can tell him here, here before the sacred relics of our dead, the sacred memorials of our lost cause, she could not go on but stop suddenly that he might not hear her voice break. He has never been taught anything but that the men of the South farp for what they believe, and that no man can do a nobler thing than to give his life for his faith. She became suddenly and illogically sure that she was talking to her son-in-law, although the ground of her conviction was no other than the one she had just before rejected. The whole thing flashed upon her mind is perfectly simple. Her daughter knew that on this day she was always to be found here and had meant to meet her with the little son bearing his grandfather's name. The question now was whether the husband knew. Something in the air, something half propitiatory, something certainly beyond the ordinary deference offered to a lady who is a stranger, gave her a vague distrust. She was not untouched by the desire for reconciliation, but she had again and again resisted that before. At least of all, could she tolerate the idea of being tricked? The possibility that her son-in-law might be feigning ignorance to work the more surely upon her sympathy angered her. Do you know who I am? She demanded abruptly. I beg your pardon, he answered, evidently surprised, but I have never been in Richmond before. If you are well known here or are the wife of some man famous in the South, I am too completely a stranger to recognize you. Yet you seem to wish to explain yourself to me. Why? I don't know. He began hesitatingly, searching her face with his straightforward gray eyes. Then he flushed slightly and broke out with new feeling. Yes, I do know. You came just as I was going away because I could not endure the sadness of it. When every one of these cases seemed to me to drip with blood and tears. That sounds to you extravagant, but the whole thing came over me so tremendously that I couldn't bear it. I do not understand, she returned tremulously. You have such collections at the north, I suppose. But here it came over me that to all the sorrow of loss was added the bitterness of defeat. I felt that no Southerner could come here without feeling that all the agony that this commemorates had been in vain. And the pity of it took me by the throat, so that when I spoke to you, you were a sort of impersonation of the South, of the Southern women. And I wanted to ask for pardon. She drew a deep breath and raised her head proudly. Not for the war, he said quickly, with a gesture which seemed to wave aside her pride and showed her how well he had understood her triumph at the admission seemingly implied in his words. I am a Northern man, and I believe in my whole soul that the North was right. I believe in the cause for which my father died. Only I see now that if he had lived in the South, the same spirit would have carried him into the Confederate army. But for what should you ask pardon if the North was in the right for myself, for not understanding, for being so dull all these years that I have lived with the wife faithful to her heart, to the South, and too loyal to me to speak? We in the North have forgiven, and we think that the South should forget. It has come over me today how easy it is for the conquerors to forgive, and how hard that must be for the conquered. You do not understand even now, she said, her voice low with feeling. Because we are conquered, we can forgive, but we should be less than human to forget. The room was very still for a little, and then, following out her thought, she said as if in wonder, and you, a Northerner, have felt all this? He shook his head with a little smile. It is, perhaps, too much to ask. Returned he, that you Southern women should realize that even a Northerner is still human. Yes, yes, but to feel our suffering to see, it has always been facing me. I understand now, in my wife's eyes, the immeasurable pathos of the people beaten in a struggle they felt to be right. But she had been so happy otherwise, and never spoke of it. In the heart of every Southern woman, she said solemnly, though now without bitterness, is always the anguish of our lost cause. We cover the surface, we accept, and God knows we have been patient, but each of us has deep down a sense of the blood that was poured out in vain, of the agony of the men we lost, of how they were humiliated, humiliated, and of the great cause of liberty lost, lost for long, bitter years. She had not spoken, even to our nearest friends, as she was talking to this stranger, this Northerner. The consciousness of this brought her back to the remembrance that he was the husband of her daughter. Has your wife no relatives in the South who might have made you understand how Southern women must feel? She asked. He grew instantly colder. I have never seen her Southern relatives. Hardened the curiosity of an old woman, she went on watching him keenly. May I ask why? My wife's mother did not choose to know the Yankee her daughter married. And you? I did not choose to force an acquaintance or to be known on sufferance. He answered crisply. I was aware of no wrong. And I did not choose to ask to be forgiven for being a Northerner. She knew that in her heart she was repeatedly accepting this strong, fine man, alien as he was to all the traditions of her life. And she was not ill-pleased at his pride. But have you even ever considered what it must have cost the mother to give up her daughter? Why need she have given her up? Marriages between the North and the South had been common enough without any family breach. She was utterly sure that he knew neither to whom he was talking nor what had been the real cause of her separation from her daughter. She experienced a sort of wild inner exaltation that at last had come the moment when she might justify herself, when she might tell the whole dreadful story which had been as eating poison in her veins. She raised her head proudly and looked at him with her whole soul in her eyes. If you have patience to listen, she said, feeling her cheeks warm. And will pardon my being personal. I should like to tell you what has happened to me. My husband was a colonel in the Confederate Army. We were married when I was seventeen in a brief furlough he won by being wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness. I saw him in the four years of the war before he fell at five-fourths, less than a dozen times and always for the briefest visits. Poor scraps of fearful hapless torn out of long stretches of agony. My daughter, my only child, was born after her father's death. Our fortune had gone to the cause. My father and my husband both refused to invest money abroad. They considered it disloyal and they put everything into Confederate securities even after they felt sure they should get nothing back. They were too loyal to withhold anything when the country was in deadly peril. She paused, but he did not speak and with swelling breast and perching throat she went on. At five-fourths my husband was killed in a hand-to-hand fight with a northern officer. He struck his enemy down after he had received his own death wound. I pray God he did not know the day was lost. He had gone through so much. I hope that was sped him. On the other side of death he must have found some comfort to help bad. God must have had some comfort for our poor boys when he permitted the cause of liberty to be lost. She pressed her clenched hand against her bosom and she did so her eyes met those of her companion. She felt the sympathy of his look but something recalled her to sense that she was speaking to one from the north. It is not the cause of liberty to you, she said. I have forgotten again. I have not spoken of all this for so long. I have not dead. But today, today I must speak and you must forgive me if I use the old language. He dropped his glance as if he felt it intrusion to see her better emotion and said softly, I think I understand. You need not apologize. After the war she went unheardly and abruptly. I live for my daughter. I work for her. She was like her father, she choked but regained the appearance of composure by a mighty effort. When she was a woman, she was still a child to me over 20 but I was not twice her age. She went north and there she fell in love. She wrote me that she was to marry a northerner and when she added his name, it was the son of the man who killed her father. It is not possible, the other exclaimed. You imagined it, such things happened in melodramas. She put up her hand and arrested his words. This happened not in a melodrama but in a tragedy in my life, she said. I need not go into details. She married him and I have never seen her since. Did he know? No, it was my wedding gift to my daughter that I kept her secret. That was all I had strength to do. You think I was an unnatural mother of course but she saw that his eyes were moist as he raised them in answering. I should have said so yesterday without any hesitation. Today, today she echoed eagerly as he paused. Today, he answered, letting his glance sweep over the pathetic memorial so thick about them. Today at least I understand and I do not wonder. She looked at him with all her heart and her eyes trying to read his most hidden feeling. Then she touched his arm lightly with the tips of her slender black glove fingers. Come, she said, she led him across the room and pointed to a colonel's sash and pistols which lay in one of the cases under a faded card. Those were my husbands. Those, he cried. You, Louise's, his mother. It is impossible. It may be impossible but as I said of the other thing, it is true. The other thing, he repeated, what do you mean the thing you said that my father and he, that cannot be true. I should surely have known. It is true, she insisted. At the moment it happened, they were surrounded by our soldiers and his own men probably did not realize just what had happened. But I know every minute of that fight. One of my husband's staff had been at West Point with them both and he told me. He saw it and tried to come between them. Your wife married you knowing you to be the son of the man who killed her father. The northerner passed his hand across his forehead as if to wipe away the confusion of his mind. His eyes were cast down but she saw that their lids were wet. Poor Louise, he murmured, seemingly rather to himself than to her. How she must have suffered over that secret. Poor Louise, you come here, Mrs. Despera went on feeling herself choke at his words but determined not to give way to the warmer impulse of her heart. And even you are moved by these sacred relics. What do you think they are to us? She was half conscious that she was appealing to the memorials around her to strengthen her and her purpose not to yield, not to make peace with the son of the man who had slain her husband, her hero, her love. She felt that in harboring for an instant such an impulse she was untrue to the cause which though lost was for her forever living with the deathless devotion of love and anguish. These relics do move me. Her son-in-law said gently, they move me so deeply that they seem to me wrong. I confess that I was thinking before you came in that if I were a southerner with the traditions of the south behind me and the bitter sense of failure to embitter me they would stir me to madness that I should feel it impossible ever to be loyal to anything but the south. The war is over. The south at last is understood. She is honored for the incredible bravery with which under crushing odds she fought for her conviction. Why prolong the inevitable pain? Why gather these relics to nourish a feeling absolutely untrue? The feeling that the union is less your country than it is ours. Because it is just to the dead, she answered swiftly because it is only justice that we keep in remembrance how true they were, how gallant, how brave, how noble, and, oh, God, that we make some poor record of what we of the south have suffered. He shook his head inside. She saw the tears in his eyes and did not attempt to hide her own. Would you have it forgotten? She demanded passionately that the grandfather of your son, the father of your wife, was one of God's noblemen. Would you have him remembered only as a beaten rabble? I tell you that if we had not gathered these memorials, every claw that was wet with their blood would cry out against us. In the north, you call these men rebels. There is no battlefield in the south where the very rustle of the grass does not whisper over their graves, that they were patriots and heroes. And this, poor though it be, and she waved her hand to the cases around them, is the best memorial we can give them. He made a step forward and held out both his hands impulsively. She did not take them and they dropped again. He hesitated and then drew back. It must be as it is, he said sadly. Even if I blamed you women of the south, I could not say so here. Only, he added, his voice falling. Can you forget that the women of the north have suffered too? I grew up in the shadow of a grief, so great that it sapped the very life of my mother, and in the end killed her. Do you think I could visit that upon the innocent head of Louise? I did not mean, though, to speak of myself now that I know who you are. I will not intrude on you, but my little son, with your husband's name and his mother's eyes, is certainly guiltless. I will not come with him, but may I not send him with my man to see you this afternoon, so that I may say to Louise that you have kissed him and given him your blessing? Sorrow has taken away his other grandmother. It seemed to her that she could not endure the speaking of one syllable more. Her whole body trembled, and she raised her hands in an impulsive gesture which implored him to be silent. All the old mother loved for Louise, the passionate crying of her lonely heart for this unseen grandson with the blood of her dead husband warm in his veins, the grief of black years and fidelity to old ideals warred within her and tore her like wolves. She cast a glance around as if to find some way by which she could flee from this position which it was too terrible to face. Then she saw her companion look at her with infinite pity and sadness. Then, he said, I can only say goodbye. But she sprang forth as if she burst from chains and threw herself upon his breast, the agony of the long bitter past gushing in a torrent of hot tears. Oh, my son, my son! She sobbed. End of, In the Virginia Room, Recording by Ginger Cuckalo. The Lost Special by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Mike Harris. The Lost Special by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Confession of Herbert Dalernac, now lying under sentence of death at Marseilles, has thrown light upon one of the most inexplicable crimes of the century, an incident which is, I believe, absolutely unprecedented in the criminal annals of any country. Although there is a reluctance to discuss the matter in official circles, and little information has been given to the press, there are still indications that the statement of this arch-criminal is corroborated by the facts, and that we have at last found a solution for a most astonishing business. As the matter is eight years old and as its importance was somewhat obscured by a political crisis which was engaging the public attention at the time, it may be as well to state the fact as far as we have been able to ascertain them. They are collated from the Liverpool papers of that date, from the proceedings at the inquest upon John Slater, the engine driver, and from records of the London and West Coast Railway Company, which have incuriously put at my disposal. Briefly, they are as follows. On the 3rd of June, 1890, a gentleman who gave his name as Mr. Louis Carattale desired an interview with Mr. James Bland, the superintendent of the London and West Coast Central Station in Liverpool. He was a small man, middle-aged and dark, with a stoop which was so marked that it suggested some deformity of the spine. He was accompanied by a friend, a man of imposing physique, whose deferential manner and constant attention showed that his position was one of dependents. His friend or companion, whose name did not transpire, was certainly a foreigner, and probably from his swarthy complexion either a Spaniard or a South American. One peculiarity was observed in him. He carried in his left hand a small, black leather dispatch box, and it was noticed by a sharp-eyed clerk in the central office that this box was a fasten to his wrist by a strap. No importance was attached to the fact at the time, but subsequent events endowed it with some significance. Monsieur Carrettele was shown up to Mr. Blan's office while his companion remained outside. Mr. Blan struck the electric bell, summoned Mr. Potter Hood, the traffic manager, and had the matter arranged in five minutes. The train would start in three-quarters of an hour. It would take that time to ensure that the line should be clear. The powerful engine called Roachdale, number 247 on the company's register, was attached to two carriages with a guard's van behind. The first carriage was solely for the purpose of decreasing the inconvenience arising from the oscillation. The second was divided, as usual, into four compartments, a first-class, a first-class smoking, a second-class, and a second-class smoking. The first compartment, which was nearest to the engine, was the one allotted to the travellers. The other three were empty. The guard of the special train was James McPherson, who had been some years in the service of the company. The stoker, William Smith, was a new hand. Monsieur Carattel, upon leaving the superintendent's office, rejoined his companion, and both of them manifested extreme impatience to be off. Having paid the money asked, which amounted to 50 pounds five shillings at the usual special rate of five shillings a mile, they demanded to be shown the carriage, and at once took their seats in it, although they were assured that the better part of an hour must elapse before the line could be cleared. In the meantime, a singular coincidence had occurred in the office, which Monsieur Carattel had just quitted. A request for a special is not a very uncommon circumstance in a rich commercial centre, but the two should be required upon the same afternoon was most unusual. It so happened, however, that Mr. Bland had hardly dismissed the first traveller before a second entered with a similar request. This was a Mr. Horace Moore, a gentlemanly man of military appearance, who alleged that the sudden serious illness of his wife in London made it absolutely imperative, that he should not lose an instant in starting upon the journey. His distress and anxiety were so evident that Mr. Bland did all that was possible to meet his wishes. A second special was out of the question, as the ordinary local service was already somewhat deranged by the first. There was the alternative, however, that Mr. Moore should share the expense of Monsieur Carattel's train, and should travel in the other empty first-class compartment if Monsieur Carattel objected to having him in the one which he occupied. It was difficult to see any objection to such an arrangement, and yet Monsieur Carattel, upon the suggestion being made to him by Mr. Potter Hood, absolutely refused to consider it for an instant. The train was his, he said, and he would insist upon the exclusive use of it. All argument failed to overcome his ungracious objections, and finally the plan had to be abandoned. Mr. Horace Moore left the station in great distress after learning that his only course was to take the ordinary slow train, which leaves Liverpool at six o'clock. At 4.31 exactly by the station clock, the special train containing the crippled Monsieur Carattel and his gigantic companion steamed out of the Liverpool station. The line was at that time clear, and there should have been no stoppage before Manchester. The trains of the London and West Coast Railway run over the lines of another company as far as this town, which should have been reached by a special rather before six o'clock. At a quarter after six considerable surprise and some consternation were caused amongst the officials at Liverpool, by the receipt of a telegram from Manchester, to say that it had not yet arrived. An inquiry directed to St. Helens, which is a third of the way between the two cities, elicited the following reply. To James Bland, Superintendent, Central LNWC, Liverpool, special passed here at 4.52, well up to time. Duster, St. Helens. This telegram was received at 6.40. At 6.50, a second message was received from Manchester. No sign of special as advised by you. And then 10 minutes later, a third marble-wildering presumed some mistake as to propose running of special. Local train from St. Helens timed to follow it has just arrived and has seen nothing of it. Kindly wire advises Manchester. The matter was assuming a most amazing aspect, although in some respects the last telegram was a relief to the authorities at Liverpool. If an accident had occurred at the special, it seemed hardly possible that the local train could have passed down the same line without observing it. And yet, what was the alternative? Where could the train be? Had it possibly been sidetracked for some reason in order to allow the slower train to go past? Such an explanation was possible if some small repair had to be affected. A telegram was dispatched to each of the stations between St. Helens and Manchester, and the Superintendent and Traffic Manager waited in the utmost suspense at the instrument for the series of replies which would enable them to say for certain what had become of the missing train. The answers came back in the order of questions. Which was the order of the stations beginning at St. Helens End. Special passed here, five o'clock, Collins Green. Special passed here, six past five, Erlstown. Special passed here, five, ten, Newton. Special passed here, five, twenty, Kenyon Junction. No special train has passed here, Barton Moss. The two officials stared at each other in amazement. This is unique in my thirty years of experience, Mr. Bland said. Absolutely unprecedented and inexplicable, sir. The special has gone wrong between Kenyon Junction and Barton Moss. And yet there is no sighting so far as my memory serves me between the two stations. The special must have run off the metals. But how could the 450 parliamentary pass over the same line without observing it? There is no alternative, Mr. Hood. It must be so. Possibly the local train may have observed something which may throw some light upon the matter. We'll wire to Manchester for more information and to Kenyon Junction with instructions that the line be examined instantly as far as Barton Moss. The answer from Manchester came within a few minutes. No news of missing special. Driver and guard of slow train, positive no accident between Kenyon Junction and Barton Moss. Line quite clear and no sign of anything unusual. Manchester. That driver and guard will have to go, said Mr. Bland grimly. There has been a wreck and they have missed it. The special has obviously run off the metals without disturbing the line. How it could have done so pass as my comprehension. But so it must be and we shall have a wire from Kenyon or Barton Moss presently to say that they have found her at the bottom of an embankment. But Mr. Bland's prophecy was not destined to be fulfilled. Half an hour passed and then there arrived the following message from the stationmaster of Kenyon Junction. There are no traces of the missing special. It is quite certain that she passed here and that she did not arrive at Barton Moss. We have detached engine from Good's train and have myself ridden down the line. But all is clear and there is no sign of an accident. Mr. Bland tore his hair in his perplexity. This is rank lunacy, hoard, he cried. Does a train vanish into thin air in England in broad daylight? The thing is preposterous. An engine, a tender, two carriages, a van, five human beings and all lost on a straight line of railway. Unless we get something positive within the next hour I'll take Inspector Collins and go down myself. And then at last something positive did occur. It took the shape of another telegram from Kenyon Junction. Regret to report that the dead body of John Slater driver of the special train has just been found among the Gorse bushes at a point two and a quarter miles from the junction. Had fallen from his engine pitched down the embankment and rolled among the bushes. Injuries to his head from the fall appear to be cause of death. Ground has now been carefully examined and there is no trace of the missing train. The country of course was, as has already been stated, in the throes of a political crisis and the intention of the public was further distracted by the importance and sensational developments in Paris. Where a huge scandal threatened to destroy the government and to wreck the reputations of many of the leading men in France. The papers were full of these events and the singular disappearance of the special train attracted less attention than would have been the case in more peaceful times. The grotesque nature of the event helped to detract from its importance for the papers were disinclined to believe the facts as reported to them. More than one of the London journals treated the matter as an ingenious hoax until the coroner's inquest upon the unfortunate driver, an inquest which elicited nothing of importance, convinced them of the tragedy of the incident. Mr. Bland, accompanied by Inspector Collins, the senior detective officer in the service of the company, went down to Kenyon Junction the same evening and their research lasted throughout the following day, but was attended with purely negative results. Not only was no trace found of the missing train, but no conjecture could be put forward which would possibly explain the facts. At the same time, Inspector Collins's official report, which lies before me as I write, served to show that the possibilities were more numerous than might have been expected. Inspector Collins writes, In the stretch of railway between these two points, the country is dotted with ironworks and collieries. Of these some are being worked and some have been abandoned. There are no fewer than twelve which have small gauge lines which run trolley cars down to the main line. These can, of course, be disregarded. Beside these, however, there are seven which have or have had proper lines running down and connecting with points to the main line, so as to convey their produce from the mouth of the mine to the great centers of distribution. In every case, these lines are only a few miles in length. Out of the seven, four belong to collieries which are worked out, or at least two shafts which are no longer used. These are the red gauntlet, hero, sloved spawned, and heart's ease mines, the latter having ten years ago been one of the principal mines in Lancashire. These four sidelines may be eliminated from our inquiry for, to prevent possible accidents the rails nearest to the main line have been taken up, and there is no longer any connection. There remain three other sidelines leading, A, to the corn stock ironworks, B, to the Big Ben Colliery, C, to the Perseverance Colliery. Of these the Big Ben line is not more than a quarter of a mile long and ends at a dead wall of coal waiting removal from the mouth of the mine. Nothing had been seen or heard there of any special. The corn stock ironworks line was blocked all day upon the 3rd of June by sixteen truckloads of hematite. It's a single line and nothing could have passed. At the Perseverance line, a large double line, which does a considerable traffic, for the output of the mine is very large. On the 3rd of June this traffic proceeded as usual. Hundreds of men, including a gang of railway plate layers, were working along the two lines in a quarter, which constituted the total length of the line. And it is inconceivable that an unexpected train could have come down there without attracting universal attention. It may be remarked in conclusion that this branch line is nearer to St. Helens than the point at which the engine driver was discovered, so that we have every reason to believe that the train was past that point before Ms. Fortune overtook her. As to John Slater, there is no clue to be gathered from his appearance or injuries. We can only say that so far as we can see he met his end by falling off his engine, though why he fell or what became of the engine after his fall is a question upon which I do not feel qualified to offer an opinion. In conclusion, the inspector offered his resignation to the board, being much netted by an accusation of incompetence in the London papers. A month elapsed, during which both the police and the company prosecuted their inquiries without the slightest success. A reward was offered and a pardon promised in case of crime, but they were both unclaimed. Every day the public opened their papers with a conviction that so grotesque a mystery would at last be solved, but week after week passed by and a solution remained as far off as ever. In broad daylight, upon a June afternoon in the most thickly inhabited portion of England, a train, with its occupants, had disappeared as completely as if some master of subtle chemistry had volatilized it into gas. Indeed, among the various conjectures which were put forward in the public press, there were some which seriously asserted that supernatural, or at least preternatural, agencies had been at work, and that the deformed Monsieur Carrethal was probably a person who was better known under a less polite name. Others fixed upon his swarthy companion as being the author of the mischief, but what it was exactly which he had done could never be clearly formulated in words. Among the many suggestions put forward by various newspapers or private individuals, there were one or two which were feasible enough to attract the attention of the public. One which appeared in the Times over the signature of an amateur reasoner of some celebrity at that date, attempted to deal with the matter in a critical and semi-scientific manner, and extract must suffice, although the curious can see the whole letter in the issue of the 3rd of July. It's one of the elementary principal's practical reasoning, he remarked, that when the impossible has been eliminated, the residuum, however improbable, must contain the truth. It is certain that the train left Kenyon Junction. It is certain that it did not reach Barton Moss. It is in the highest degree unlikely, but still possible, that it may have taken one of the seven available sidelines. It's obviously impossible for a train to run where there are no rails, and therefore we may reduce our improbables to the three open lines, namely the corn-stock ironworks, the Big Ben, and the Perseverance. Is there a secret society of colliers, an English Camora, which is capable of destroying both train and passengers? Well, it's improbable, but it is not impossible. I confess that I am unable to suggest any other solution. I should certainly advise the company to direct all their energies toward the observation of those three lines, and of the workmen at the end of them. A careful supervision of the pawnbrokers, shops of the district, might possibly bring some suggestive facts to light. The suggestion coming from a recognized authority upon such matters created considerable interest, and a fierce opposition from those who considered such a statement to be a preposterous libel upon an honest and deserving set of men. The only answer to this criticism was a challenge to the objectors to lay any more feasible explanations before the public. In reply to this, two others were forthcoming. The Times, July 7 and 9. The first suggested that the train might have run off the metals and be lying submerged in the Lancashire and Staffordshire canal, which runs parallel to the railway for some hundreds of yards. This suggestion was thrown out of court by the published depth of the canal, which was entirely insufficient to conceal so large an object. The second correspondent wrote calling attention to the bag, which appeared to be the sole luggage which the travellers had brought with them, and suggesting that some novel explosive of immense and pulverizing power might have been concealed in it. The obvious absurdity, however, of a supposing that the whole train might be blown to dust, while the metals remained undinjured, reduced any such explanation to a farce. The investigation had drifted into this hopeless position, when a new and most unexpected incident occurred. This was nothing less than the receipt, by Mrs. McPherson, of a letter from her husband, James McPherson, who had been the guard on the missing train. The letter, which was dated July 5, 1890, was posted from New York, and came to hand upon July 14. Some doubts were expressed as to its genuine character, but Mrs. McPherson was positive as to the writing, and the fact that it contained a remittance of a hundred dollars in five-dollar notes was enough in itself to discount the idea of a hoax. No address was given in the letter, which ran in this way. My dear wife, I have been thinking a great deal, and I find it very hard to give you up. The same with Lizzie. I try to fight against it, but it will always come back to me. I send you some money which will change into twenty English pounds. This should be enough to bring both Lizzie and you across the Atlantic, and you will find the Hamburg boats, which stop at Southampton very good boats, and cheaper than Liverpool. If you could come here and stop at the Johnston House, I would try and send you word how to meet, but things are very difficult with me at present, and I am not very happy finding it hard to give you both up. So no more at present, from your loving husband, James McPherson. For a time it was confidently anticipated that this letter would lead to the clearing up of the whole matter. The more so as it was ascertained that a passenger who bore a close resemblance to the missing guard had travelled from Southampton under the name of Summers, in the Hamburg and New York liner Vistula, which started upon the 7th of June. Mrs. McPherson and her sister Lizzie Dalton went across to New York as directed, and stayed for three weeks at the Johnston House without hearing anything from the missing man. It's probable that some injudicious comments in the press may have warned him that the police were using them as a bait. However this may be, it's certain that he neither wrote nor came and the women were eventually compelled to return to Liverpool. And so the matter stood, and has continued to stand up to the present year, 1898. Incredible as it may seem, nothing has transpired during these eight years, which has shed the least light upon the extraordinary disappearance of the special train which contained Monsieur Carrethal and his companion. Careful inquiries into the antecedents of the two travellers have only established the fact that Monsieur Carrethal was well known as a financier and political agent in Central America, and that during his voyage to Europe he had betrayed extraordinary anxiety to reach Paris. His companion, whose name was entered upon the passenger list, says Eduardo Gomez was a man whose record was a violent one and whose reputation was that of a bravo and a bully. There was evidence to show, however, that he was honestly devoted to the interests of Monsieur Carrethal and that the latter, being a man of puny physique, employ the other as a guard and protector, it may be added that no information came from Paris as to what the objects of Monsieur Carrethal's hurry journey may have been. This compromises all the facts of the case upon the publication in the Marseilles papers of the recent confession of Herbert de Lernac, now under sentence of death for the murder of a merchant named Bonbalot. This statement may be literally translated as follows. It is not out of mere pride or boasting that I give this information, for if that were my object I could tell a dozen actions of mine which are quite a splendid, but I do it in order that certain gentlemen in Paris may understand that I, whom I am able here to tell about the fate of Monsieur Carrethal, can also tell in whose interest and at whose request the deed was done, unless the reprieve which I am awaiting comes to me very quickly. Take warning, messieurs, else before it is too late. You know Herbert de Lernac, and you are aware that his deeds are as ready as his words hasten, then, or you are lost. At present I shall mention no names. If you only heard the names, what would you not think? But I shall merely tell you how cleverly I did it. I was true to my employers then, and no doubt they will be true to me now. I hope so, and until I am convinced that they have betrayed me, these names which would convulse Europe shall not be divulged. But on that day, well, I say no more. In a word, then, there was a famous trial in Paris in the year 1890 in connection with a monstrous scandal in politics and finance. How monstrous that scandal was can never be known saved by such confidential agents as myself. The honour and careers of many of the chief men in France were at stake. You have seen a group of nine men standing, also rigid and prim and unbending. Then there comes the fall from far away and pop, pop, pop. There are nine pins on the floor. Well, imagine some of the greatest men in France as these nine pins, and then this Monsieur Carrettelle was the ball which could be seen coming from far away. If he arrived, then it was pop, pop, pop for all of them. It was determined that he should not arrive. I do not accuse them all of being conscious of what was to happen. There were, as I have said, great financial as well as political interests at stake, and a syndicate was formed to manage the business. Some subscribed to the syndicate who hardly understood what were its objects, but others understood very well. And they can rely upon it that I have not forgotten their names. They had ample warning that Monsieur Carrettelle was coming along with or he left South America, and they knew that the evidence which he held would certainly mean ruin to all of them. The syndicate had the command of an unlimited amount of money—absolutely unlimited, you understand. They looked round for an agent who was capable of wielding this gigantic power. The man chosen must be inventive, resolute, adaptive, a man in a million. And they chose Herbert de l'Ernach. And I admit that they were right. My duties were to choose my subordinates to use freely the power which money gives, and to make certain that Monsieur Carrettelle should never arrive in Paris. With characteristic energy I set about my commission within an hour of receiving my instructions, and the steps which I took were the very best for the purpose which could possibly be devised. A man whom I could trust was dispatched instantly to South America to travel home with Monsieur Carrettelle. Had he arrived in time the ship would never have reached Liverpool, but alas, it had already started before my agent could reach it. I fitted out a small armed brig to intercept it, but again I was unfortunate. Like all great organizers I was, however, prepared for failure, and had a series of alternatives prepared, one or the other of which must succeed. You must not underrate the difficulties of my undertaking or to imagine that a mere common place assassination would meet the case. We must destroy not only Monsieur Carrettelle, but Monsieur Carrettelle's documents and Monsieur Carrettelle's companions also. If we had reason to believe that he had communicated his secrets to them, and you must remember that they were on the alert and keenly suspicious of any such attempt, it was a task which was in every way worthy of me for I am always most masterful where another would be appalled. I was already for Monsieur Carrettelle's reception in Liverpool, and I was the more eager because I had reason to believe that he had made arrangements by which he would have a considerable guard from the moment that he arrived in London. Anything which was to be done must be done between the moment of his setting foot upon Liverpool quay and that of his arrival at the London and West Coast terminus in London. We prepared six plans each more elaborate than the last. Which plan would be used would depend upon his own movements. Do what he would if we were ready for him. If he stayed in Liverpool, we were ready. If he took an ordinary train, an express, or a special, all was ready. Everything had been foreseen and provided for. You may imagine that I could not do all this myself. What could I know of the English railway lines? But money can procure willing agents all the world over, and I soon had one of the cutest brains in England to assist me. I will mention no names, but it would be unjust to claim all the credit for myself. My English ally was worthy of such an alliance. He knew the London and West Coast line thoroughly, and he had the command of a band of workers who were trustworthy and intelligent. The idea was his, and my own judgment was only required in the details. We bought over several officials, amongst whom the most important was James McPherson, whom we had ascertained to be the guard most likely to be employed upon a special train. Smith, the stoker, was also in our employ. John Slater, the engine driver, had been approached, but had been found to be obstinate and dangerous, so he desisted. We had no certainty that M. Chiaretel would take a special, but we thought it very probable, for it was of the utmost importance to him that he should reach Paris without delay. It was for this contingency, therefore, that we made special preparations, preparations which were complete down to the last detail, long before his steamer had cited the shores of England. You will be amused to learn that there was one of my agents in the pilot boat, which brought that steamer to its moorings. The moment that Chiaretel arrived in Liverpool, we knew that he suspected danger and was on his guard. He had brought with him as an escort a dangerous fellow named Gomez, a man who carried weapons and was prepared to use them. This fellow carried Chiaretel's confidential papers for him, and was ready to protect them, either them or his master. The probability was that Chiaretel had taken him into his councils, and that to remove Chiaretel without removing Gomez would be a mere waste of energy. It was necessary that they should be involved in a common fate, and our plans to that end were much facilitated by their request for a special train. On that special train you will understand that two out of the three servants of the company were really in our employ, at a price which would make them independent for a lifetime. I do not go so far as to say that the English are more honest than any other nation, but I have certainly found them more expensive to buy. I have already spoken of my English agent, who is a man with a considerable future before him, unless some complaint of the throat carries him off before his time. He had charge of all arrangements at Liverpool, while I was stationed at the Inn at Kenyon, where I awaited a cipher signal to act. When the special was arranged for, my agent instantly telegraphed to me and warned me how soon I should have everything ready. Be himself, under the name of Horace Moore, applied immediately for a special also, in the hope that he would be sent down with Mishuk Kachetal, which might under certain circumstances have been helpful to it. If, for example, a great coup had failed, it might then have become the duty of my agent to have shot them both and destroyed their papers. Chiaretel was on his guard, however, and refused to admit any other traveller. My agent then left the station, returned by another entrance, entered the guard's van on the side farthest from the platform, and travelled down with McPherson, the guard. In the meantime, you will be, of course, interested to know that my movements were. Everything had been prepared for days before, and only the finishing touches were needed. The sideline which we had chosen had once joined the main line, but it had been disconnected. We had only to replace a few rails to connect it once more. These rails had been laid down as far as could be done without danger of attracting attention, and now it was merely a case of completing a juncture with the line, and arranging the points as they had been before. The sleepers had never been removed in the rails, fish plates, and rivets were all ready, for we had taken them from a siding on the abandoned portion of the line. With my small but competent band of workers we had everything ready long before the special arrived. When it did arrive it ran off upon the small sideline so easily that the jolting of the points appears to have been entirely unnoticed by the two travelers. Our plan had been that Smith, the stoker, should chloroform John Slater, the driver, so that he should vanish with the others. In this respect and in this respect only our plans misguided. I expect the criminal folly of McPherson in writing home to his wife. Our stoker did his business so clumsily that Slater and his struggles fell off the engine, and through fortune was with us so far that he broke his neck in the fall. Still he remained as a blot upon that which would otherwise have been one of the most complete masterpieces which are only to be contemplated in silent admiration. The criminal expert will find in John Slater the one flaw in all our admirable combinations. A man who has had as many triumphs as I can afford to be frank, and I therefore lay my finger upon John Slater and proclaim him to be a flaw. But now I have got our special train upon the small line, two kilometers, or rather more than one mile in length, which leads, or rather used to lead, to the abandoned heartseed mine. Once one of the largest coal mines in England, you'll ask how it is that no one saw the train upon this unused line, and I answer that along its entire length it runs through a deep cutting, and that unless someone had been on the edge of that cutting he could not have seen it. There was someone on the edge of that cutting. I was there, and now I will tell you what I saw. My assistant had remained at the points in order that he might superintend the switching off of the train. He had forearmed men with him so that the train ran off the line. We thought it probably because the points were rusty. We might still have resources to fall back upon. Having once seen it safely on the sideline he handed over the responsibility to me. I was waiting at a point which overlooks the mouth of the mine, and I was also armed, as were my two companions. Come what might, you see, I was always ready. The moment that the train was fairly on the sideline, Smith, the Stoker, slowed down the engine, and then having turned it on to the fullest speed again, he and McPherson, with my English lieutenant, sprang off before it was too late. It may be that it was this slowing down which first attracted the attention of the travellers, but the train was running at full speed again before their heads appeared at the open window. It makes me smile to think how bewildered they must have been. Picture to yourself your own feelings if, on looking out of your luxurious carriage, you suddenly perceived that the lines upon which you ran were rusted and corroded, red and yellow with disuse and decay. What a catch must have come in their breath, as in a second it flashed upon them that it was not Manchester, but death which was waiting for them at the end of that sinister line. But the train was running with frantic speed, rolling and rocking over the rotten line, while the wheels made a frightful screaming sound upon the rusted surface. I was close to them and could see their faces. Cannot tell was praying, I think. There was something like a rosary dangling out of his hand. The other roared like a bull who smells the blood of the slaughterhouse. He saw us standing on the bank, and he beckoned to us like a madman, and he tore at his wrist and threw his dispatch box out the window in our direction. Of course his meaning was obvious. Here was the evidence, and they would promise to be silent if their lives were spared. It would have been very agreeable if we could have done so, but business is business. Besides, the train was now as much beyond our controls as theirs. He ceased howling when the train rattled round the curb, and they saw the blank mouth of the mine yawning before them. We had removed the boards which had covered it, and we had cleared the square entrance. The rails had formally run very close to the shaft at the convenience of loading the coal, and we had only to add two or three lengths of rail in order to lead to the very brink of the shaft. In fact, as the lengths would not quite fit, our line projected about three feet over the edge. We saw the two heads at the window, Cannot tell below, Gomez above, that they had both been struck silent by what they saw, and yet they could not withdraw their heads the sight seemed to have paralyzed them. I have wondered how the train running at great speed would take the pit into which I had guided it, and I was much interested in watching it. One of my colleagues thought that it would actually jump it, and indeed it was not very far from doing so. Fortunately, however, it fell short and the buffers of the engine struck the other lip of the shaft with a tremendous crash. The funnel flew off into the air. The tender, carriages, and van were all smashed up into one jumble, which with the remains of the engine choked for a minute or so the mouth of the pit. Then something gave way in the middle and the whole mass of green iron, smoking coals, brass fittings, wheels, woodwork, and cushions all crumbled together and crashed down into the mine. We heard the rattle, rattle, rattle as the debris struck against the walls, and then quite a long time afterwards there came a deep roar as the remains of the train struck the bottom. The boiler may have burst where a sharp crash came after the roar, and then a dense cloud of steam and smoke swirled up out of the black depths, falling in a spray as thick as rain all around us. Then the vapors shed it off into thin wisps, which floated away in the summer sunshine, and all was quiet again in the hard seas mine. And now having carried out our plans so successfully it only remained to leave no trace behind us. Our little band of workers at the other end had already ripped up the rails and disconnected the sideline, replacing everything as it had been before. We were equally busy at the mine, the funnel and other fragments were thrown in, the shaft was planked over again as it used to be, and the lines which led to it were torn up and taken away. Then without flurry, but without delay, we all made our way to the country, most of us to Paris, my English colleague to Manchester, and a McPherson to Southampton once he emigrated to America, that the English papers of that date tell how thoroughly we had done our work and how completely we had thrown the cleverest of their detectives off our track. You will remember that Gomez threw his bag of papers out of the window, and I need not say that I secured that bag and brought them to my employers. It may interest my employers now, however, to learn that out of that bag I took one or two little papers as a souvenir of the occasion. I have no wish to publish these papers, but still it is every man for himself in this world, and what else can I do if my friends will not come to my aid when I want them? Monsieur Elles, you may believe that Herbert de Lernac is quite as formidable when he is against you as when he is with you, and that he is not a man to go to the guillotine until he has seen that every one of you is all out for new Caledonia. For your own sake, if not for mine, make haste. Monsieur de Blanc and General Blanc and Baron Blanc, you could fill up the blanks for yourselves as you read this. I promise you that in the next edition there will be no blanks to fill. P.S., as I look over my statement there is only one omission which I can see. It concerns the unfortunate man MacPherson, who was foolish enough to write to his wife and to make an appointment with her in New York. It can be imagined that when the interests, like ours, were at stake, we could not leave them to the chance of whether a man in that class of life would or would not give away his secrets to a woman. Having once broken his oath by writing to his wife, we could not trust him any more. We took steps therefore to ensure that he should not see his wife. I have sometimes thought that it would be a kindness to write to her and assure her that there is no impediment to her marrying again.