“What, exploring already?” he said. “It’s no good at this hour, as you have doubtless discovered. Come inside and I’ll see you are made cosy for the night. You must want sleep, surely.”
I followed him in without a word. Passing into the chamber he pressed a spring in the wall, and a concealed door flew back revealing a dark recess. He struck a light, and there became visible a comfortable berth with the usual appurtenances of a homely cabin such as one would occupy in the second-class saloon of an ordinary ocean-going steamer.
“By the way,” I said, “you have not told me what happened in the park; I am dying to know.”
“It is easily told. When you fell, the two detectives were up in a moment. I turned round meaning to shoot, but before I emptied a barrel, crack, crack, crack, came a series of reports from aloft, and both men were settled, one spinning right across you—see, your coat is covered with blood. The explanation is that thirty feet up between the alleys of the trees floated the _Attila_, and Hartmann and Schwartz were indulging in a little sport. I very soon climbed up the ladder which was swinging close by the tree we were to have come to, and you were shortly afterwards hauled up in a carefully tied sheet. Why did we take you on board? I am surprised at your asking. We could not stop, and the idea of leaving you stunned, and in the compromising company of dead men, was not arguable. Would you have relished the idea of a trial as murderer and anarchist? You meant well, you see, by me, and the captain was strong in your favour. Some of the men know of you, and no one had a bad word to say—save that your theories were rather Utopian. But you may change.”
For awhile I was silent. I thought of my Utopian project. Then I said, “So far as my theories go, I will confine myself now to one remark. An air-ship may be used as well as abused.”
Burnett laughed. “That’s better! Don’t forget, however, to define your view of us to the captain. Hallo! I must be off on watch!” An electric bell tinkled sharply in the outer chamber. “Good-night.”
Just before turning in I looked closely at the basin of my wash-hand stand. It was of the same silvery grey colour which I had noted on the walls of the cabin, and which, indeed, seemed ubiquitous. A sudden thought struck me. I emptied out the water and lifted it up. Its weight seemed so absurdly small that I could hardly believe my senses. But one thing was clear. The mystery of the thin silvery grey plate was explained. It was out of such materials that the body of the _Attila_ was fashioned. The riddle of Schwartz previously half brushed aside was at last solved completely.