Chapter 1

THE COMMISSIONER OF AIR POLICE FOR GREAT BRITAIN RIDES TO PLYMOUTH IN
GOOD COMPANY

Nearly two years ago a leading London daily newspaper said: "The
Government have assured us that all danger from present and future air
piracies is now over, and that the recent events which so startled and
horrified both this country and the United States of America can never
recur. For our own part we accept that assurance, and we do not think
that the Commissioner of Air Police for the British Government will be
caught napping again.

"In saying this we do not in the least mean to imply that Sir John
Custance could either have foreseen or prevented the astounding
mid-Atlantic tragedies. Sir John, though barely thirty years of age, is
an official in every way worthy of his high position, an organizer of
exceptional ability and a pilot of practical experience. Press and
public are perfectly well aware that it is owing to his personal
exertions that our magnificent Transatlantic air-liners are no longer
stricken down by the Night Terror of the immediate past. And in saying
this much, we have both a suggestion and a request to make.

"The inner history of the piracies is only fully known to one man. It is
a story, we understand, that puts the imagination of the boldest writer
of fiction to shame. Such parts of it as have been made public hint at a
story of absorbing interest behind. The bad old days of censorship and
secrecy have vanished with the occasions that made them necessary. We
suggest that a full and detailed 'story' of the first--and we trust the
last--Air Pirate should be written, and given to the world. And we call
upon that most popular public man, Sir John Custance, to do this for us.
He alone knows everything."

At the time that it appeared I read the above to Charles Thumbwood, my
little valet, as I finished breakfast, in my Half Moon Street chambers.

"Not _quite_ correct, Charles. You know almost as much about it as I do.
To say nothing of a certain friend ..."

"I wouldn't say that, Sir John," said Charles, brushing my light
overcoat. "Though I rode part of the course alongside of you; to say
nothing of Mr. Danjuro." Thumbwood was a jockey before I took him into
my service. "Are you going to write it all down, Sir John?"

"That depends on several things, and on one person especially. I must
think it all over."

Think it over I did as I drove to my offices in Whitehall--the Scotland
Yard of the Air--and I discussed it afterwards with a certain lady....

Which is how the following narrative came to be written, though I did
not complete it until the best part of two years had elapsed.