Air

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ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS
AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE

AIR

RGL e-Book Cover^©

First published in Flynn's, 27 Sep 1924

Reprinted in Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, 6 Sep 1925

Collected in "The Fourteen Points,"
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-01-25

Produced by Art Lortie, Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

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Flynn's, 27 Sep 1924, with "Air"

"The Fourteen Points," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

Illustration from "Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine."

Wally Knight staggered out with Adora, almost overcome, in his arms.

KENNEDY handed the powerful field-glasses to me. I focused them on what had been to my naked eye not even a little speck up in the sky.

With the glasses now I picked out by the red, white, and blue concentric circles and the number painted on the wings what I knew must be Wallace Knight flying a Curtiss plane in the New York Star contest for altitude while carrying a passenger.

I thought of the cheer for Wallace Knight when he had taken off against Harper in the De Haviland, a cheer quite as much also for Henry Gaines, his passenger.

It was Adora Gaines, with us, who made the exclamation, hands clasped tensely, peering eagerly up at the descending airplane. Adora shivered as if a sense of premonition had swept over her. She clutched my arm.

"If anything is wrong," she almost whispered, "it's Henry.... The plane is coming down too smoothly for Henry to be guiding it."

I tried to reassure her, although I have long since ceased to scoff at women's intuitions.

Our college classmate, Henry Gaines, had married a splendid girl, Adora Hollister, of Westbury. Kennedy had known the Hollisters for years. Adora was only a child, very small, with big blue eyes that scintillated. She was one of the most graceful girls in the dance that I have ever seen who was still an amateur.

Gaines loved with an intensity of feeling. Solidity, a sense of security, prevailed when he was around. It was that that had first attracted Adora Hollister. When she had been with Henry she had a good time—and knew there would be no come-backs afterward. He was square, on the level. She had loved him and married him.

Wally Knight was the type of athlete. He had been active in all sports and it was with the greatest zest he had taken up aviation as the king of them all. Wally was a singularly-handsome fellow, of a long, rangy type, one of the born bird-men. Today he had been wonderful, at times like a knight of old in his helmet drawn closely about his face emphasizing his clear-cut profile; at other times an intensely modern figure, one of the few who could affect with ease the slouch of sport apparel.

Henry Gaines was of a quite different type, quiet, reserved in nature. Wally had been among the unsuccessful suitors for the beautiful Adora Hollister. He had taken it like the sportsman his friends found him. He had been the "runner-up" in the love-game. Henry had won. Wally had accepted it.

It was a wonderful afternoon for such an event The hanging on of summer in the early part of October, with its warmth, had lured many people to the fields of Belmont Park. There must have been fully thirty thousand. Acres of parking space had been reserved for the cars, cars that totaled millions of dollars in value.

To me the crowd had been quite as interesting as the event. Beautiful girls in sport-clothes were everywhere, low, trained voices, musical laughter, the swish of silks, whiffs of strange perfumes, as we mixed in the throng.

Up—up—up the planes had risen in long spirals, climbing, climbing, climbing—until they were lost to the eye in the gray blue.

"Too bad! Wally couldn't stay up long enough even to make a good try for the record!"

He was sweeping down now in long spirals as he had climbed, now volplaning to earth.

It became a silent, waiting crowd. Both Henry Gaines and Wally Knight were of them, at least of that portion who had, through my paper, the Star, helped promote and finance this meet for the prestige of aviation in America, the country where it was born.

Society was interested in this aviation meet, and especially in the altitude contest. It almost made me think of the polo games. Many of the same people were there. I must confess that I was consumed with a newspaperman's sense of delight in mingling with so many of the best known. Through the Star and Kennedy I found myself on good terms with most of them that were worth-while....

They were frankly disappointed. All the faces showed it. There were murmurs of apprehension, too, as well as of annoyance. The De Haviland was still far beyond our unaided vision.

Knight rounded one of the pylons, swerved his machine dangerously toward a section of the paddock where about ten thousand people had gathered, then out over the field, down and running along the turf as three or four attendants ran after to catch up with him.

His propellers droned to a quick silence and we could see Wally rise, waving his arms frantically. He cupped his hands and shouted.

Kennedy broke from the crowd, over the fence, and ran toward him. I followed with Adora.

As I came nearer I could make out Henry Gaines, pale with an exaggerated pallor, sprawled in his seat in the machine. A thin trickle of blood from his nose had already began to coagulate.

"How high did you get?" he asked, speaking rapidly as he made a hurried, thorough examination.

"Traces of pulmonary hemorrhage," muttered the doctor to himself. "Rapid breathing because of lack of oxygen in the rarefied air.... Heart didn't keep pace...."

As he turned he did not need to say anything. I knew that Henry Gaines was dead—strapped in his seat in the airplane!

For several moments Adora Gaines stood stunned. White and shocked, she looked helplessly at her husband. I hovered near, ready if she fainted. But it was not necessary.

She stood stunned, waited until they took him from his seat. Doctor Nesmith and Craig lifted him on a stretcher that had been hurriedly brought forward. I don't think that even then Adora accepted the doctor's verdict.

As they started to take him to one of the little rooms near the grandstand, Adora glided forward.

She acted as if she knew her love to which Henry had always responded would call him back to consciousness. We could do no more than let her satisfy herself. I heard Wallace murmur, "Let's humor her. I know how she loved him."

She knelt on both knees by her husband, took his limp white hand, raised him up and said: "Henry—look at me—dear!"

Wallace could not stand her grief as she bent over her husband. He left our party and looked over airplane without seeing.

"I can't believe that he left me alone here.... It is all too sudden. Where is Wallace?"

"Adora," he cried huskily, "I wish I had gone in his place. I feel—terrible.... I—I shall never fly again!"

"How did you know, Wallace? What did he say last?" Adora leaned forward tensely in utter tearless grief.

"I heard a cough. I knew then he must be in trouble. I couldn't leave the controls. I started back, down. I looked. I know as I watched hi? lips that he was saying, 'Adora!'"

"While I laughing, gay, down here with you," she exclaimed looking solemnly at us, "Henry was dying and calling mr up there. I didn't know it.... I want to go home. Craig—to mother's."

IT was the day after the funeral—the most agonizing time of all, when the emptiness of things is so appalling and the future seems so long.

I had not liked the burning wistfulness of Adora's eyes. Such grief kills. There was always a ghastly question in those eyes. Why had this thing come to her, just when she was so happy in Henry's love?

"Walter, we ought to go around to see Adora," remarked Kennedy thoughtfully. "She needs help."

"That's right. She'll brood and worry herself ill, alone in that big house Henry built for her."

"Later, I'm going to get the young people here to urge her to join in some quiet things, things that will keep her outdoors. Outdoors is what she needs. Nature has so much of death in the fall of the year that there has been something provided as an antidote, as it were. It's in the air. Adora needs it to overcome the melancholy. She may not want golf at the Country Club; but a good horse—a new car—anything—even breaking a few speed laws, would get her mind on something else."

We motored around to the Gaines house. As we entered the big hall, a maid handed Adora a huge bunch of white chrysanthemums. Adora looked at the card hastily and laid it down. As we followed her into the living-room, I saw that the card was from Wally Knight.

Adora Gaines was still not much more than a child. She was only nineteen when she was married.

"I know," he answered, his voice lowering. "That is why we have come to see you."

Suddenly she betrayed great agitation. She had been leaning against a big chair when a pitiful moan escaped her. She gripped the chair.

"Henry's chair! Oh. Craig, I can't bear it. The flowers are beautiful; my friends are so kind; you have been just what I would expect of one of my oldest friends. But none—compensates for the loss.... Oh, help me, Craig. You are so dependable. I think that is one reason why Henry cared so much for you." Somehow the girl could not cry.

She wanted to be alone. We knew it. Craig shook hands with her gently. I was too full of emotion to do anything but keep silent. That was best. Sometimes it conveys more than words. We left the room quietly. But before we had closed the hall door we heard sobs—the blessing of tears.

IT must have been several weeks later, when the clicking of steam in the radiators, the falling of white flakes from the dull gray skies and the newspaper headlines about the shortage of anthracite impelled Kennedy to gather Southern hotel literature.

"Good heavens, Craig, those pictures of open verandas, sunshades, bathing suits!" I dug my hands into my pockets. I had been feeling that uncomfortable chill along the spine that one has with the coming of a cold. "Br-r! How can you look at them?"

Kennedy looked at me. "What you need is a ticket to the sunny South. I'm going to get the tickets. I leave it to you to arrange with the Star Syndicate to cover that aviation meet down at Fort Myers and take a little vacation at the same time. Be ready to leave to-night."

"Palm Beach first," nodded Craig as we boarded the train, "and no cases or copy to think about for a week."

I was skimming over some stuff about the aviation test to be held in Florida when an item caught my attention. "Harper is going to fly the De Haviland again, Craig," I informed.

"So? I don't suppose you read the society notes." He put his finger on an item. "The list of guests at the Royal Poinciana includes Adora Gaines and her mother."

"Is that so? We'll see her then. I suppose she went there hoping the change of scene would make her more able to bear up. It would be mighty fine down there, if that aviation meet on the other side of the state doesn't bring back memories."

WHEN we called on Adora the morning after we arrived, we found that she had gone to the bathing beach with some friends. Craig and I strolled around by the beach to see her.

What was my surprise to find Reggie Harper among the party. It was easy to see that Harper was doing his best to attract Adora and make her forget. But his mere presence must have been a constant reminder.

We strolled along the white sand while Adora took a dip. Out on the float we could see Harper with her again. Craig paused to watch as Adora stood up on the float, slim and straight in her plain black bathing suit. Some one was counting, "One! Two! Three!" They dove off together. There was scarcely a splash as Adora's body slipped into the water. A few seconds and she rose to the surface. They were off to the buoy.

Like a water creature herself she made her course direct for the mark. I could almost see the easy smile on her face. Harper reached the buoy about the same time. But returning to the float Adora was several strokes ahead.

Out of the water she drew herself, up the steps of the ladder. She accepted the scattering applause naturally. She had always been a swimmer. It came to her easily. Harper seemed to enjoy his defeat, too. But I wondered at Adora. The excitement of the contest over, she almost seemed to forget him. He was no more than any of the others.

Even back on the sand Harper did not take this indifference as well as he had taken the defeat. He was inclined to frown and sulk. I fancied even he concealed now a hostility to Craig, perhaps to me, too. But Adora's attitude made her entirely oblivious to Harper's ill temper.

I had been telling Adora how suddenly Craig and I had decided on our trip. Harper interrupted, sitting down on the beach with us. "You'll let me take you out on my yacht this afternoon, Adora?" he asked. "A number of your friends will be aboard."

Adora herself seemed puzzled for a minute, then finally explained with a little nervous laugh, "I can't tell you. You wouldn't understand."

Harper was silent and perplexed. A party down the beach called to him. He excused himself to Adora, nodded coldly to us.

I fancied I saw a look of relief flit over her face as he went down the beach. She caught me watching her.

"Walter," she confessed, "his attentions annoy me. When we are alone he has talked about Henry to me, oh, so sympathetically. But somehow I feel the sympathy doesn't ring true. I don't know. I try to be polite to him and as kind as I can, and distant. But he doesn't leave me alone. Do you know, he has sent me a message in some way nearly every day since the—Dr—accident? I am just a little bit weary of him. I thought perhaps by beating him in that race around the buoy I might make him angry. But it seemed to have the opposite effect. Then if I'm interested in anyone else he gets offended." She looked out over the sea. "He's so infernally chesty, too, about holding the world's record for altitude—35,525 feet, wasn't it?"

Kennedy nodded but neither of us said anything. Finally Adora drew her knees up and clasped her hands about them. She looked up at Kennedy. "Craig," she said slowly, in half a whisper with a far-away look in her eyes, "do you suppose Reggie Harper had anything against Henry and Wally? He won't let me talk of that meet at all...."

"They're having some kind of meet or test or something in a few days at Fort Myers," she continued. "I don't know much about it, didn't want to know. But I hear there is something they believe the Germans have discovered, some invention or other, about bringing down airplanes. Reggie is to fly, they tell me, and Steele Porter will be there. Do you know anything about it?"

Kennedy disclaimed any knowledge and I saw that it was my cue also to change the subject.

HARPER left the following day, Adora toward the end of the week to visit some friends at Pinehurst. That left us free to journey over to Fort Myers where I could write my story which was my own only legitimate excuse for being down in Florida at that time at all.

My story in the Star attracted considerable attention. It was one of those things illustrated by pictures that really did not illustrate the subject of the story yet caught the eye and went with the heading: "Mystery Ray Wrecks Enemy Planes."

I may as well give briefly a bit of what I wrote, here, for what it may be worth:

This problem has been worrying the English and especially the French general staff. Now it is worrying American flying men and has been the subject of long investigation in secret at Fort Myers, including tests the results of which are being carefully guarded.

For some time it has been whispered that some secret means discovered by Germans have caused damage to airplanes in flight. This is believed to be the explanation of nearly thirty forced landings made by French airplanes on German territory in the last eight months.

Wireless experts are advancing the theory that by some wireless ray, known only to the Germans, the magnetos of the engines of airplanes are put out of action.

Another group of wireless experts advanced the theory that rays which affect certain metals used in vital parts of the airplane are directed on it by reflecting mirrors. As Germany confiscates all machines making forced landings on her territory, it has so far been impossible to find out under what circumstances the airplane engines have been damaged.

It is common gossip about the flying station here that there is a former German flier from whom the Government has come into possession of new and amazing secrets about a mystery ray that wrecks planes flying over Germany and that, after being held in New York some time, this German airplane expert finally obtained the ear of our authorities, whereupon these tests were undertaken with the utmost possible caution and privacy.

I HAD a story, but I had mighty little fact. Among others I had the statement of a pioneer in wireless who had conducted wide researches into the transmission of power through the air who expressed the opinion that "it might be possible by strong oscillations to excite surgings in the metal of an airplane so that sparks might occur at wrong times and thus stop the engines."

Another scientist wrote for me a statement that "investigators were working on a means by which they might send in the form of oscillations through the air a force which on coming in contact with a metal would generate heat. If this force could be concentrated and made sufficiently powerful the metal of the airplane could be melted and the machine brought down, provided it could be directed along a certain path in the same way as the beam of a searchlight is directed."

Kennedy helped me a great deal in the phrasing of my article, but as far as he was himself concerned maintained a very non-committal attitude. He would not deny the possibility; nor yet would he affirm his belief in the existence of such phenomena. He vexed me a great deal as scientists usually do when they will not let their imaginations run riot to make an instructive news feature.

My own opinion was, of course, of no value in the face of the experts in aeronautics and wireless that I quoted. There was one incident that leaked out which impressed me, though why, or what its implications might be, I did not venture to guess. It had not so much to do with this mythical or mystical ray as with the thoughts that now were surging through my superheated brain as if some force were projecting them. Steele Porter, flying in a small air-boat, fell in the waters of the Gulf. Porter also, to me, stuck absolutely to the explanation that it had been an accident.

BACK again in New York after the quiet winter in the Carolinas and Florida, Adora Gaines, now that the first bitter shock was over, sought desperately, often despairingly, to find again some part of the happiness she had lost.

"Steele Porter. You know he lives in Westbury. He gave me the low-down on most of the Wheatley Hills folks."

I nodded. "Adora seems to be taking her place in society again—about as well as anyone could hope after her loss—goes in for charities, has taken up some of her old friends, quite the thing, the most intelligent, most substantially fixed and, I gather, the most moral."

"Many would like to be, according to Porter. Wally Knight is one of the most attentive, he says. I asked him about Reggie Harper. He says he was a visitor, too, then he smiled a peculiar smile when he said Wheatley Hills was a community of sisterly love and the Gaines house was the shrine where they all worshiped. I gather that it is all in their heads; Adora looks on them all as brothers; nothing more."

Kennedy went into a brown study. "Nothing very strange in all that... Everybody knew that Wally Knight could hardly wait to get home from college that June two years ago. It seems quite natural for him to try to win her again." Craig paused. "Only he doesn't come up to Henry Gaines."

"All I know is what Porter told me. Knight gets the choicest flowers, the latest books, almost before the ink is dry. She doesn't go out much where there are many people, keeps quiet. But the young folks flock to her. She understands them so well, those who have troubles, you know."

"Yes. That confession lets me out. You know I wouldn't wear my heart on my sleeve even to you. Yes, I am dreaming of her—because I want that little girl to be happy—because I loved Henry Gaines—and because I have known her since she was almost a baby."

I felt an intense sorrow for Adora. I sympathized with her, but I believed that she would be misguided if she ever sought happiness with either Reggie Harper or Wallace Knight. They were not the type of Henry Gaines, not her type.

The next thing I observed, as the spring advanced into summer, was a conflict between Wally Knight and Harper. Up to the time of the altitude meet in October they had been very good friends. In fact, I had heard that they had even gone into perfecting an invention together. Now, with Adora, there had been noticeable a growing coolness between them which finally broke into open hostility. I knew it was over Adora. Outwardly it as over the ownership of a patent taken out on their joint invention, a claim on the part of each as to work done and hence for a greater proportionate share in the invention.

It did not come to the actual point of court action, but there was considerable gossip about it and it interested both Craig and myself when we learned that the dispute was over ownership of a new turbine supercharger, or engine oxygen-booster.

They had worked on and perfected the thing, hiring at times the expert assistance of Porter, in an effort to make it possible to establish the absolute limit for airplanes in altitude. That Wally Knight had given up flying after the accident did not prevent him from keeping his interest in aviation in general. In fact, I gathered that he had an even keener interest in this oxygen booster than before, although I think that if it had ever come to a matter of testimony in court Harper would have been able to show more work done on the perfection of the thing before the Star contest of the previous fall.

The booster, I may say, was now designed and built specifically for extreme altitude operation. It was rated to feed sea level atmospheric pressure air to an engine at a height of 35,000 feet which was a great deal more than the rating of the supercharger used in the contest. It was a small contrivance mounted just back of the propeller blade of the plane on the front end of the Liberty motor. It was operated from the red-hot exhaust from the airplane motor which ordinarily goes to waste. It weighed about a hundred and forty pounds, which might have been considered a handicap in altitude flying but for the fact that at 35,000 feet its operation would increase the power of the motor by at least two hundred and eighty horsepower.

Looking into it, I found that the atmospheric pressure at 35,000 feet is about one-fourth and the density about one-third that at sea level. The temperature is 58 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. To supply the airplane engine its normal air at sea-level pressure, the supercharger was designed to compress about 2,200 cubic feet of atmosphere a minute. The supercharger was rated at thirty-three thousand revolutions a minute, the outer end of the blade of the thing traveling 1,800 feet a second, almost as fast as an army bullet. Ordinarily 21,000 feet altitude was considered the ceiling, because of rarefied air. Not only would this invention carry a plane easily above that, but it would enable heavy bombing planes to attain altitudes nearly three times what they ordinarily could reach. It was important, for, in war, the plane which can hover over the other is usually the victor.

At any rate the dispute between the joint inventors, or rather adaptors, of the supercharger had begun to wax hot at the close of the summer, as their suit for Adora's favor grew keener.

It was a situation fraught with discomfort if not danger, at least to Adora, still gloriously oblivious to it, and I was delighted when, early in September, I heard that Harper had been given a most flattering commission in the air service at the great new British Singapore station. I was pleased, the more so when I also heard that an attorney, a mutual friend of the two, had brought the rivals together on one point at least and that Wally Knight, now engrossed in some financing which his banking house handled for the British government, had agreed to relinquish any claim to the supercharger in favor of Harper. I felt that it was fortunate. It was magnanimous, I felt, on Wally's part, too. Yet when I thought of the heat of the contest for Adora, I could not help having a feeling that Singapore was a long way off, that it looked as if Harper were running away from a fight.

THUS it came about that before I realized it, a year had passed from the tragedy of the flying field. Without a thought of it, with Craig I accepted a week-end invitation to visit the Ingrahams out in Westbury.

Our ride out took us through Wheatley Hills. The brilliant colors of the autumn foliage by the side of the road and on the arching trees above us challenged the grim white season to come.

"I never go through this part of the country, Craig, without thinking of the tragedy at Belmont Park," I remarked. "Do you remember that ride back with her to Westbury? I expected Adora to collapse any moment. She never complained; there was not a tear in her eyes; only that fixed stare. Her heart was broken."

We peered through a white-pine hedge as we rolled past the Gaines estate on the country road.

"Do I remember? I shall never forget Adora Gaines that day. Here's the driveway. Let's turn in and see her."

A quick twist of the wheel and we nosed up the white shell road to the charming place set in a locust grove.

Sitting on the lower step of the wide porch, in the warmth of the sunshine, bending over the face of a little boy asleep, Adora smiled up at us as we approached, with a quick move of her finger toward her lips.

She waved toward some chairs on the porch. "Do you mind waiting? He was so tired and I took him on my lap. I sang a little song to him and he fell asleep. I don't like to disturb him." She looked down at the child, then raised a pair of the saddest eyes I ever saw. Her soul was in those eyes.

For several minutes her eyes had that fixed stare at the distant violet lights in the sky to the west.

A sigh escaped her. I studied her profile, eager to see how her grief had affected her. A trifle thinner, more subdued in manner, she seemed like some rare thing purified in the fire of sorrow.

It was then that I noticed Craig looking at another car just around the turn in the driveway. It was a snappy roadster.

"Were you going for a ride?" asked Craig. "We just stopped for a moment to see how you were and—"

The door from the living room of the house opened. Wallace Knight paused for a moment and I rather imagined our presence did not fit in with his plans, for I caught a shade of annoyance which quickly gave place to his usual easy debonair manner as he strode forward to greet us.

"How are you, Kennedy? Jameson, mighty good to see you! What do you think of Adora? I promised to take her for a ride—left the office in charge of incompetents, and came out here. Just before I arrive, this kid falls asleep on her lap and he must not be disturbed. He's tired. So am I. It's a long nap. She won't go until he finishes it. Can't you give him a pinch—just a little one?"

We laughed at his impatience. Adora smiled gently, too. "Wally's so kind—but this baby has privileges. I think that is the trouble. He's envious." She leaned over and kissed the child lightly, then smiled at Knight, teasingly.

"I should say he had privileges! Adora, you have the advantage. This boy gets for nothing what I am afraid to take."

A big St. Bernard bounded around the corner of the house and before she could stop him poked his cold wet muzzle between her and the child's face.

The boy was wide awake, ready for a romp with the dog. He wriggled off her lap and she followed him with a wistful glance. She said nothing, but the plaintive look meant as much as words, as if she had said, "I love children and Henry's son would have meant so much to me!"

Wally Knight was uncomfortable. I knew that he was very much in love. He hated to see her in this mood. He knew she was unhappy and this particular unhappiness pained him. He had been quietly urging Adora to marry him at the end of the year. He loved her and wanted all of her—even her memories.

"Well," he exclaimed to Craig, "that's the first time that dog ever did anything to please me."

"He's chased that blooming kid away.... Now my two rivals can beat it together."

Adora smiled quietly. "Wally, you shouldn't say that. You are just a big selfish boy."

"Besides," she wont on, "I love that dog. He was nothing but a pup, all legs and head, when Henry brought him home to me."

"Well, Walter, we must be going, or we'll be late at the Ingrahams'," put in Craig "Knight has had enough interruptions."

I was thoughtful. It is painful to see a splendid woman with all the attributes for perfect motherhood denied that privilege by the sudden passing of one she loved.

"It looks to me, Craig, as if Adora hopes still to gain in the love of Wally Knight some of the happiness she lost when Henry Gaines died."

SUNDAY morning at the Ingrahams found the other guests headed for the links. Kennedy preferred a ride in the glorious country and I agreed with Craig.

It was a perfect day for a canter and Craig and I were enjoying ours to the utmost.

"Walter, did you ever see anything more beautiful than the play of the muscles of this mare I'm riding? Perfect co-ordination. She's a beauty." Craig straightened up in the saddle and looked down at her admiringly.

"She's showing off for you!" I retorted. "Now, this horse of mine has nothing to be ashamed of, either. Look at his sleek coat!"

I couldn't help leaning forward and giving his side a soft pat. Evidently he interpreted it as a wish to go forward quickly. I was quite unprepared for the sudden break and grabbed the reins tensely.

It was rather disconcerting to hear a girl's laugh. I thought it sounded familiar, and when my horse settled down to good behavior, I swung about. I could hear Craig exchanging greetings with some one who had come down a lane. It was Adora and Wally Knight.

As I rode up, Adora dismounted lightly, holding the reins in her hand. She shook her crop at me admonishingly.

"You can't ride them and love them at the same time. You'll come a cropper if you do. That horse of yours isn't a tabby by the fireside."

Wallace laughed easily, but I thought it was induced by the belief in his own superlative qualities. He knew; he was handsome that morning. He felt happy because Adora had almost consented to set the day for their wedding.

As for Adora, she was beautiful. In her trim black habit, her little tricorne fitting snugly about her pretty face, she was a picture. To me there is nothing more beautiful than a handsome woman on a splendid horse.

"Don't you love these country roads?" she was asking. "Some are just bridle paths; no wider. You should go up that lane—nothing but maples—a glorious yellow shower."

"We were going by your place to make a call," nodded Kennedy. "This is better, however."

"Yes," she agreed, thinking only of the circumstances. "It's exhilarating. I used to ride a lot with Henry. He loved horses—and rode well, too; sat his saddle like an Arab."

Again I saw that slight frown on Knight's face. If Adora would only stop those reminiscences I They made him ill at case.

"Wally, you have much to be thankful for. You are physically fit. You can do everything."

Adora had been watching him earnestly. "Everything," she repeated, her eyes far away. Her voice fell into wistful cadences. "Do you remember, Wallace, the time he went to be examined by the insurance doctor?... Henry just laughed. He said he didn't believe anything he heard and only half of what he saw. Don't you remember? Weren't you at the house that night when he came home and told me?"

Knight was about to reply when his horse shied at some falling leaves and started down the road.

"Good-by, Craig and Walter! I'm off, too! Come around soon. I must catch Wally, now. His horse is faster than mine!"

A light leap into the saddle and she was off, galloping down the quiet lane in the direction in which we had just come.

At last we came out on the main road with its dirt border and rode along it, past the pretty little stone church in Westbury. It was where Adora and Henry had been married. I remembered it well. It was one of those spots a writer always keeps in mind. If ever I write a movie story, I had often told myself, I would have a wedding take place in this church. It was a "location."

My mind ran on—about weddings. I supposed Wally Knight was dreaming of leading Adorn to the altar of this pretty little stone church....

Everything, it seemed, built up my sympathy for Adora. Yet, I often asked myself why it was that I felt that intense dislike for Wallace Knight. I had nothing personally against him. If I had asked myself frankly, I am afraid I would have had to admit it was merely that he rubbed me the wrong way. There are some men so confident of their own superlative adequacy that they do not even need outright hostility or even downright superciliousness to antagonize you. To me he was like Dr. Fell:

"The reason why I cannot tell,
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like you, Dr. Fell."

THE day had been a busy day. After a few hands of bridge Craig and I decided to retire.

"It seems strange," remarked Kennedy to the Ingrahams, "but the amount of energy expended in play seems to me to have a more tiring effect than what must be a greater amount of energy expended in the labor and hazards of solving a crime. I suppose the elements of mystery and danger fool one."

My room had been darkened some time when I waked suddenly to the realization that I was hearing something quite unusual. Through the open windows the sound came again. It was the siren blowing weirdly in the night. I could hear the roar of the motors of the fire apparatus. In the direction of the turnpike I could see a glare in the sky, getting more vivid by the minute. I called Craig.

Through the house we heard others. We hustled into our clothes. A fire in the country is an event. Everybody goes.

There was a general exodus of cars from Rolls-Royces to flivvers. We were first to swing past the lodge. "It's the Gaines house," shouted the lodge-keeper. "Central just told me."

The way Craig covered that road would have done credit to the advertisements of the stock car he was driving. He got more out of the engine than I had ever believed possible.

Turning up the private road we had a clear view of the fire. The flames were now licking up through the roof, it seemed from every side. Nothing could possibly save it.

"I hope everybody is out." Craig let the car roll off the road on the lawn, jumped out among the growing crowd of firemen and residents. "Where's Adora Gaines?" he shouted.

"No one's seen her. Wally Knight was among the first to get here," answered one. "He's gone in to find her. Neither has come out!"

Everything was confusion. One stream of water was already on the house; another line of hose almost laid. A ladder had been run up to the roof and a volunteer was hacking at the shingles in an effort to open a way to pour a stream in on the furnace of the attic. More cars were arriving every minute.

On the lawn the servants had gathered each with a little bundle of treasures picked up in a hasty flight. The housekeeper with clasped hands was calling for her mistress. Little Henry was sobbing, frightened, clinging to his mother's skirt.

Craig strode through them all, amid the smoke and stifle and falling embers, up on the porch. He flung open the door. Just as he did Wally Knight staggered out with Adora almost overcome in his arms. His own strength was nearly gone as he choked and panted.

Kennedy lifted her as Knight almost fell in my own arms. Adora's life had been saved. Everybody was willing now. The chief difficulty Craig had was keeping them back so that she could be restored. They fell back and she sat there wide-eyed, staring broken-hearted at the destruction of the link that had bound her life so closely still with Henry Gaines.

Again it seemed the question, "Why?" came to her lips. Even her loving memories must be destroyed.

Wally Knight came over to Adora and stood silently by her. He was splendid, I must admit, standing there, his dark eyes shining with excitement, his hair hanging damp over his forehead, his clothes scorched. The crowd regarded him with a certain awe. Adora heard him and looked up.

"Wally, how can I thank you? But for you I would still be in there." She shuddered and hid her face in her hands. "It was awful when I thought no one could come to help me."

He waited until she was quiet. Somehow, to me, he seemed too self-controlled, too deliberate. But I considered. That very quality of his was what made him such a successful aviator.

Adora was facing a sudden emotional crisis. She knew just as well as if Wally had spoken what was the manner in which he expected her to thank him. She read the question in his ardent eyes. She looked from his eyes to the burning house. Everything that belonged to Henry was being destroyed—everything but her thoughts. The world did not expect her to stop living.

Evidently God had not intended it. Had she not been rescued by the very man who was urging her to mate with him?

Just then the roof fell in with a crash. In spite of the heroic work of the firemen the house had been doomed. Adora saw the sparks and embers, the dust and smoke filling the air about the house. It was a strange likeness to her own life. Henry's death had been the crash of her own romance; this fire was the carrying heavenward of the dust and embers of her beautiful memories. She must go on. Henry would understand. It was the severing of last cords, material cords.

A light touch on her shoulder caused her to turn and look up. It was Wally Knight. He was waiting for her answer.

I had been standing near. But I withdrew. It was Adora's and Wally's moment. But Wally had forgotten the crowd, the fire. He saw only the woman he wanted.

"Adora... you asked me how you could thank me. Please give me the life I have saved. I love you. I want you. Will you?"

The fire blazed as fires do with redoubled fury. The light shone on Adora's face. A twinge of pain flitted over her beautiful features. Her eyes closed as if in communion with another soul, opened slowly, with a smile. "Yes," she murmured.

"Wednesday—at the little church?" Another twinge as of pain and another smile. "Yes!" Wally lifted her to her feet gently and kissed her.

At the moment motherly Mrs. Porter claimed Adora. "Adora stays with me to-night," she bustled. "A fire and an engagement are enough for any girl in one night. You'll come with me, dear?"

Adora gave her hand to the older woman with a quiet nod. The older woman's arm slipped about her. But as she was going to the car I noticed the girl's face was turned wistfully toward the burning building, not toward Wally Knight.

MONDAY and Tuesday, Kennedy was restless, almost morbid. I was very busy myself on the Star and did not see much of him.

"I am thinking Adora's second wedding day will not be as bright as the first," I observed. "It looks like rain."

"Maybe it will hold off until after the ceremony. We'll have to hurry," remarked Kennedy, who had come into our apartment in a great bustle, late.

The sun was hidden and there was a chill in the air that to me did not suggest orange blossoms. I tried to throw the feeling off. In spite of his haste, Kennedy was moody, overwrought.

I could not forget the happy face of the little bride in white of not so long ago when she came down the aisle with Henry Gaines. What must be her thoughts at this ceremony? One thing I knew. What Adora felt was her duty she would do thoroughly and truly. She would make a faithful wife to Wallace Knight.

It seemed that a myriad of cars were drawn up on every road and far down the roads about the pretty little stone church in Westbury. As we drove up we had to wait a long time before we were even able to enter the church. Many people, tradesmen and servants, were standing outside waiting for a glimpse of the bride.

Inside, the assemblage was one of wealth and fashion. Beautiful girls and beautiful gowns vied in the display of charm. It was an eager, sympathetic group of friends, too. Everybody loved Adora Gaines, wished her years of unbroken happiness. Everybody came who knew her.

The usher led us to seats. I gazed at the altar banked with beautiful palms, ferns, and masses of white dahlias. Soon the little church was overflowing its capacity. The ribbon and flower-decked aisle was cleared for the bride and her party.

From the side of the church, back near a door leading out to the pulpit, came the groom and his best man. Wallace Knight was not the sort of man to be eclipsed even by a bride. He was handsome, proud of himself, proud of having won Adora. The world was his and he was satisfied with it.

The music played on softly. There was a ripple of conversation, an animated moving of heads, a whisper, "Here comes the bride!"

She was beautiful. Adora was a symphony in gray, shimmering gray satin, with rare old lace sleeves and lace panel, ending in a slight train, a large gray velvet picture hat softened with its graceful, fluttering plumes, and a flower muff of purple pansies. She was wonderful, queenly.

Wallace smiled as he watched her coming up the aisle. He was so happy he could hardly wait to carry her off in the little roadster on the start of the wedding trip. He could see himself and Adora visiting all the quaint, unusual places on the continent, picking up treasures here and there to be brought back to their new home.

At the altar they met. A smile of possession was on Wally's face. Adora's gaze was in his direction, but seemed to me to be searching through him—beyond him.

The rector began the service. I could see Adora's lashes fluttering nervously over her beautiful eyes. The excitement of the moment had darkened them. They seemed black, so intense were her glances.

"If any man knows any reason why this couple should not be joined in holy wedlock, let him stand forth and speak—or forever hold his peace!"

All heads turned. A murmur ran over the startled throng. I think some in the gathering would have liked to have had Craig put out immediately. Nothing like this had ever taken place in that conservative little church before. The dignified dowager in the seat ahead of me turned. "The man must be crazy! Can't you—get him out?"

The rector stood very quiet—listening. He had asked the question, invited it, even though it was a form. He must listen.

Dazed, I watched them all. Everyone was agitated and waiting. What did Craig know? Something he must have found out this forenoon, when he had seemed to me so dilatory about leaving the city, starting for Westbury. Now I recalled how he had told me he was waiting for someone to get back from a trip. It must be. He knew something—and was forced to tell it.

I saw Adora's mother turn white-faced from the pew nearest the wedding party. Her hands were outstretched toward Adora and there was a beseeching look in her glance toward Craig as if she would say: "Spare my little girl! She has had enough to bear!"

Craig saw it, He paused only a fraction of a second as if sweeping away a last scruple. Craig had a message to deliver and he was going to the bitter end.

Impressively he stretched forth his right hand. At first I did not appreciate the direction in which his forefinger pointed.

"A year ago on yonder flying field that was not an accident!... That was murder!"

It seemed that a wild light leaped in Adora's eyes. She stiffened, listening tensely for the rest. Every murmur in that edifice ceased. The ticking of a clock could have been heard. Her mother paused suddenly, too, about to speak.

"Be careful!" the rector found voice to interrupt, "This is an awful accusation at such a time, in such a place!"

Craig was resolute. Adora's face now wore a ghostly pallor. But she was quiet. I saw she was not going to collapse. The nerves of this frail girl were of steel. Her eyes seemed to say, "Go on! Let me hear the worst! I can stand it!"

The smile had long since died on the face of Wallace Knight. At the first interruption he had turned on Craig, taken a step forward, Their eyes had met. He had seen not a flinch in the cold steel-gray of Craig's, Wallace Knight had seemed to freeze. The half formed words, "Fling him out!" had died on his lips.

She started to speak, then changed her mind. It was as if she would have said, "Craig, why didn't you let me know before? This is not the place to tell such a thing." She had checked it because intuitively she must have felt that there was some reason why it was necessary, why it must be done then, before it was too late.

"I know.... This is a frightful thing I am doing." Craig paused, speaking slowly as if answering the question he read in her face. "But it would be a far more frightful thing if I did not do it. How can I face myself through life, how can I face my God—knowing what I now know—and having remained silent?"

"It was only this forenoon, late, that the medical man in the Great Western returned from the insurance convention on the coast. It was only this forenoon, late, that I received from his files and from his lips the true story of what it was he told Henry Gaines. And it was only this forenoon that I learned from him what I suspected, that you, Wallace Knight, within a few days after the examination of Henry Gaines, applied for insurance in the same company, for examination by the same doctor, and guardedly questioned him, a flying man yourself, as to what would happen to you, granted that the test showed you had certain physical and physiological deficiencies—which you already knew Henry Gaines had!"

"A normal heart would have adjusted itself up to the fifteen thousand feet, whatever it was, or higher, with the apparatus used in that altitude flight. There is, in high altitudes, more and mare rapid respiration because there is less and less oxygen to the cubic foot of air. It puts an added strain on the heart. All the apparatus, the oxygen, and so on will not overcome that.

"Henry Gaines's heart could not pump fast enough. And in such a case much would have depended on the length of time taken and the rapidity of the ascent, for adjustment of heart and lungs. That ascent, as I remember it, was rapid, very rapid. His heart was not able to adjust itself.

"Doctor Macgregor, the insurance doctor, had told Henry Gaines that his heart was all right—but not able to stand sudden strains. He might live to his threescore and ten and beyond. But there were some things of which he must be careful.... Doubtless he never considered sitting still in an airplane among the violent exercises—"

"It's all a lie!" Now Wally Knight found words to sneer. "He wants her himself.... Let me get at him!"

Kennedy resumed slowly. "It was Henry Gaines himself—Adora—with the report of the insurance doctor—who unwittingly gave you the idea, Knight," pursued Craig relentlessly. "There was just one thing that Henry Gaines could not stand—rarefied air, lack of air, less than or more than normal sea level air pressure."

Kennedy turned to Adora. "Wallace Knight knew it, knew it when he set to work, as his dearest friend, to persuade Henry Gaines to agree to fly with him as passenger in the contest in which he said he hoped for the altitude honors of the flying world against the expert Harper."

Craig swung about, towering. "Like men of your class, Knight, you can be fearless, play the hero—as you did at the fire—to gain and to keep that for which you had murdered. That docs not excuse; that merely explains. And I know, too, the reason for and source of Harper's appointment. It came as your work in the international banking firm with which you are connected. You removed one possible, one powerful rival, one who might have surmised your dastardly trick, too.

"Clever criminals to-day resort to the refinements of modern scientific poisons—synthetic murder, as it were. By their very refinements they leave circumstantial evidence against themselves. The successful murderer is still one who strikes in the dark—and flees, unseen—elemental murder. You, Knight, are elemental. You wanted this woman with an elemental passion. And you took an elemental way to get her—with an element—air."

As Kennedy's words seared into his mind, it seemed that Wallace paled and cringed.

"You took Henry Gaines up, with murder in your heart.... Knight, you did not swoop down for a doctor. You swooped down for the widow!"

THE END

"The Fourteen Points," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE

AIR

THE END

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE ELEMENTS
AIR—WATER—EARTH—FIRE