That was the last seen of Baxter.  There was a correspondence in the papers, but it never led to anything.  There were several other similar cases, and then there was the death of Hay Connor.  What a cackle there was about an unsolved mystery of the air, and what columns in the halfpenny papers, and yet how little was ever done to get to the bottom of the business!  He came down in a tremendous vol-plane from an unknown height.  He never got off his machine and died in his pilot’s seat.  Died of what? `Heart disease,’ said the doctors.  Rubbish!  Hay Connor’s heart was as sound as mine is.  What did Venables say?  Venables was the only man who was at his side when he died.  He said that he was shivering and looked like a man who had been badly scared. `Died of fright,’ said Venables, but could not imagine what he was frightened about.  Only said one word to Venables, which sounded like `Monstrous.’  They could make nothing of that at the inquest.  But I could make something of it.  Monsters!  That was the last word of poor Harry Hay Connor.  And he did die of fright, just as Venables thought.

“And then there was Myrtle’s head.  Do you really believe—­does anybody really believe—­that a man’s head could be driven clean into his body by the force of a fall?  Well, perhaps it may be possible, but I, for one, have never believed that it was so with Myrtle.  And the grease upon his clothes—­`all slimy with grease,’ said somebody at the inquest.  Queer that nobody got thinking after that!  I did—­but, then, I had been thinking for a good long time.  I’ve made three ascents—­how Dangerfield used to chaff me about my shot-gun—­but I’ve never been high enough.  Now, with this new, light Paul Veroner machine and its one hundred and seventy-five Robur, I should easily touch the thirty thousand tomorrow.  I’ll have a shot at the record.  Maybe I shall have a shot at something else as well.  Of course, it’s dangerous.  If a fellow wants to avoid danger he had best keep out of flying altogether and subside finally into flannel slippers and a dressing-gown.  But I’ll visit the air-jungle tomorrow—­and if there’s anything there I shall know it.  If I return, I’ll find myself a bit of a celebrity.  If I don’t this note-book may explain what I am trying to do, and how I lost my life in doing it.  But no drivel about accidents or mysteries, if you please.

“I chose my Paul Veroner monoplane for the job.  There’s nothing like a monoplane when real work is to be done.  Beaumont found that out in very early days.  For one thing it doesn’t mind damp, and the weather looks as if we should be in the clouds all the time.  It’s a bonny little model and answers my hand like a tender-mouthed horse.  The engine is a ten-cylinder rotary Robur working up to one hundred and seventy-five.  It has all the modern improvements—­enclosed fuselage, high-curved landing skids, brakes, gyroscopic steadiers, and three speeds, worked by an alteration