called. 'I know,' he went on sympathetically. 'I know how deeply devoted you were to her. But alas! we must be brave and face facts in this critical situation in which we all find ourselves to-day.'
For a moment I did not reply. I had frankly told him of that mysterious message found in Roseye's card-case, and he had followed every channel of my inquiries with eager interest, paying most of the out-of-pocket expenses and having one or two confidential interviews with Inspector Barton.
Like myself, and like Teddy also, he would not hear of any allegation against his daughter. That cryptic message he regarded as the work of the Invisible Hand which, since August 1914, had been raised against our dear beloved country.
Once or twice Lionel Eastwell had called upon me in Shaftesbury Avenue and sat beside my fire, discussing the war, the Zeppelin menace and the apparent apathy in certain quarters to deal firmly with it. At that moment the popular Press were loud in their parrot-cries that we had no adequate defence. In a sense, they voiced the public demand. But those papers which were now loudest in the denunciation of the Government were the selfsame which, before the war, had jeered at any suggested progress in aviation, and had laughed to scorn any prizes offered to aviators as encouragement in designing machines, or in flying them.
The Invisible Hand was, even in those days, laid heavily upon the Press, who laughed at Zeppelins, and declared that on that night long ago, when they had been seen hovering over Sheerness,
