l had set
themselves to refute such damaging allegations.

To that quiet little fishing village had come some of the greatest
aviation experts, world-famous pilots, and representatives of that
select body whose dictum in all aviation is law--the Royal Aero Club.
And all were there with one object--to decide as to the reason of the
sudden collapse of the naval Bleriot.

The coroner sat in a stuffy little room, the windows of which were open.
Nevertheless, with the place crowded the atmosphere was oppressively
hot. The inquiry was long and tedious, for after evidence had been given
as to the lieutenant's departure, and eyewitnesses had described his
fall, there came a quantity of highly technical evidence put forward by
the Admiralty with the object of proving that the machine had been in a
perfectly satisfactory condition. The Gnome engine was of 80
horse-power, the monoplane had been thoroughly overhauled only four days
previously, and the flights which Barclay had made in her from
Eastchurch proved that there had been no defect which could have been
detected.

Curious it was that that inquiry was being held in the same hotel where
Ralph Ansell and Jean Libert had taken their tea.

One man alone knew the terrible truth--the man who, on that fatal
evening, had crept under the hedge unseen, and substituted the small
steel bolt with one of wood with such an expert, unerring hand--the man
who had stood up in the cab and calmly watched the awful result of his
evil handiwork without the slightest sign of pity or remorse.

He had hurled Noel Barclay to his death with as little compunction as he
would have crushed a fly. And yet little Jean, with the neat figure and
great, dark eyes, in her innocence and ignorance, loved him so dearly
and so well. She never dreamed the truth, and therefore he was her
ideal, while she was his affianced wife.

In that small, over-crowded room, clean-shaven experts stood up one
after the other, each expressing a different theory as to the cause of
the accident.

When poor Barclay had been found, the engine was lying upon his chest,
his neck was broken, his face battered out of all recognition, and both
arms were broken. So utterly wrecked was the machine that it presented
the appearance of a mass of splintered wood, tangled wires, and torn
strips of fabric flapping in the wind.

All had been examined carefully, piece by piece, after the mangled
remains of the unfortunate pilot had been e