eppelin Crashes

ome time ago Baron Von Lodge was the head of a small country near Switzerland known as Lilliland.

Early one morning, while the Baron was having a cup of coffee with Lady Angela on the second floor patio overlooking Castle Lake, he heard a strange noise. He saw a large German zeppelin on fire and crashing into the lake.

A rescue party was sent out and luckily all of the survivors were found alive and splashing around in the water. They were all brought to shore and treated for any problems they might have received from the crash. The zeppelin was pulled out of the water and placed on several barges. The cause of the crash was a mystery. The zeppelin was on route from Berlin to Rome and it carried a member of the German royal family. Since Germany was at peace with every country, he was welcomed in Lilliland. The crew and passengers continued on to Rome by train, but the Duke from Germany stayed on at the castle as a guest of the Baron’s. The Duke was missing a case of diamonds, so divers were sent down to the bottom of the lake to see if they could locate it. They found it, and after the Duke requested evaluation by a local jeweler, found that the diamonds were all fakes. Someone had substituted the case of real diamonds for the case holding the fake ones. It was probably planned that the crash in the lake would render the diamonds lost forever. The person who made the substitution would now have a case of very valuable real diamonds. The Duke’s enemies had planned that he was to be killed in the crash.

The Duke was under the protection of the Baron and it was determined that the person who substituted the case of phony diamonds must have been a member of the ground crew at the zeppelin air base in Berlin.

The German police found the man who later admitted switching the diamonds and sabotaging the engine of the airship so that it would crash while climbing over the Alps.

The guilty person said that he lived in South Africa and felt the diamonds were illegally taken from the company he worked for. He could have been right but he lacked any proof to support his claims. Besides, that was not a reason to attempt to kill the Duke.

After a brief stay, the Duke left Lilliland to return to his home.

The Baron concluded that no one had been hurt and the diamonds were returned to their rightful owner. “Now I can go back to enjoying my morning coffee on the patio with Lady Angela and enjoy the day.”