Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/55

 'Exactly,' I laughed. 'And an inter-departmental committee of the red-tabbed might be charged with the due execution of the regulations—all offenders to be shot at sunrise following the day whereon any breach of the Defence of the Zeppelin Act were committed.'

'Really you're too bad!' declared Eastwell, laughing heartily as he held his glass poised in his hand.

'Well,' I protested. 'Here we've had Zeppelins killing people. Surely something must be done! Either regulate the Zeppelin traffic, or else fight them.'

'I'm all for the latter,' declared Roseye.

'So am I,' was my remark.

'And I also,' declared Eastwell. 'But how?—that's the question!'

Roseye exchanged glances with me, and I wondered whether he noticed them.

Somehow I had just a faint suspicion that he did, for I detected a curious expression upon his lips—a look such as I had never seen there before.

He made no remark, but busied himself with the excellently-cooked snipe before him.

Fortunately Lionel Eastwell was not aware of our secret—the secret of that brown deal box which we were so rapidly perfecting.

Only on the previous day Roseye had been up in the air with me across Hampstead, Highgate, and out as far as Hatfield and home to the aerodrome, making a further test of the potent but unseen power which we had been able to create, and which must, if further developed, be our strong arm by which to