“Thanks,” Bill said. “Have a fast car ready for me when I come down in a few minutes. Did the starter know who the man was?”
“We know him as Mr. Mordecai Murphy, an American, sir,” the captain said.
“Thanks again!” Bill shouted, slamming down the receiver.
His mind was a seething mass of emotions as he made a connection with Croydon and gave instructions to warm up the Lancer. He could hardly believe what the bell captain had told him.
Mordecai Murphy! The Saver of Souls! They were one and the same! The mystery man who was reputed to be a munitions king, an international banker, a fomenter of human misery and suffering.
“Hurry like hell, kid!” he shouted at Sandy. “We have a real job on our hands!”
X—FINAL TRICK
“DO YOU believe the Saver of Souls is Mordecai Murphy?” Sandy asked Bill as their cab raced toward the great airport south of the city.
“I do,” Bill said. “The part fits him perfectly. No one has ever been able to explain Murphy. He is known to have his finger in things all over the world. He has been accused of a thousand crimes in the press. But no one has ever been able to prove anything against him. He is a cunning, shrewd manipulator.”
They saw the twin, three-bladed props of the Lancer idling on the apron as they stepped out of the cab. At the same instant they saw Mordecai Murphy, alias the Saver of Souls, alias Sir James Aird, climb into a low-wing monoplane; he blasted the tail around and jockeyed down across the field.
In that instant it came to Bill how close he had come to letting Murphy bluff him out. He knew that in another few hours he would have been at Croydon for an entirely different reason than he was there now. He would have been making preparations to fly the Lancer back to America. And he knew that he would have left his self-respect behind him in England.
He raced across the apron with Sandy at his heels and dove into the forward cockpit of the idling Lancer. The low-wing monoplane with Mordecai Murphy at the controls was streaking away to the south as Bill hung the Lancer on its props in pursuit.
“Get your swivel gun out, kid,” Bill said into his telephone. “I'm going to get him this time. He's going back and he's going to talk. I should have had enough sense to know the British Air Ministry would never send Sir James Aird to me with any such orders.”
“You going to shoot him down. Bill?” Sandy asked.
“No,” Bill said. “I'm going to force him down. I don't know where he's heading. I want to stop him before he gets over the Channel.”
“Do you think his ship mounts any guns?” Sandy asked.
“No,” Bill said. “I don't think so. But be ready. That bird may pull anything out of his hat. I'm going above him and trim off his nose to force him lower.”
The great chalk cliffs of Beachy Head were under their wings as Bill got the nose of the low-wing monoplane under his telescopic sights. The next instant his finger clamped down on his 37mm. cannon. He fired a burst of five shells that were all tracers just above the nose of the speeding plane.
He saw Mordecai Murphy's upturned face as those five shells danced above his head. Then he banked the Lancer around on its right wing tip as the monoplane flipped its tail into the air in a diving turn that brought it closer to the choppy waves of the Channel three thousand feet below.
Again Bill stuck the nose of the Lancer down to fire a burst as they raced westward along the coast. This time the face of the Saver of Souls was white and strained as he gazed up and back at the man who rode his tail so relentlessly.
Bill knew that now he had his enemy where he wanted him. The other was unarmed and flying a plane that was in no way a match for the Lancer. For the first time Bill was engaged with him with the odds on his side. He resolved that if he could not force him to land he would shoot away his controls and force him to bail out.
Then the crumbling promontory of Culver Cliff on the Isle of Wight flashed under their wings and they were above the rolling hills and tranquil villages of the “bowl” at the southern end of the island,
Bill opened the throttles of the Lancer and raced ahead of the low-wing monoplane. Then brought the nose up and around in a climbing turn to race back at it with his Brownings yammering. He was trying, desperately to force it back above the rolling country-side where it could make a landing. He lifted the nose of the Lancer to keep his bullets from driving into the cockpit of the little monoplane.
He was only fifty yards away from the little ship when he saw Murphy lift the nose and heard the staccato chatter of a machine gun that was not his own. At the same instant he felt bullets drumming into the metal surface of the Lancer and felt it buck from the impact. He yanked the stick back into his stomach and heard Sandy's scream of warning as Murphy's bullets drove up through the belly.
As Bill leveled off he looked back and down and saw the machine-gun trough along the engine housing of the monoplane, and he cursed at himself for not having noticed it before. It was only a single .30-caliber gun, but in the hands of Murphy it was equal to a half-dozen weapons. He poured soup into his power plant and brought the Lancer up and over on its back and rolled it level.
Murphy had dropped the nose of his little ship and was racing away to the northwest.
Bill's face was a grim mask of determination as he eased the stick of the Lancer forward and gunned his engines. Ahead the precipitous cliffs of Fresh-water Bay climbed out of the Channel into the gorse and heather of the downs. Everywhere the cliffs were cleft by jagged ravines and glens, cut under by the sea and hollowed out into waterside caverns. Bill knew that no one could survive a forced landing at the base of those cliffs where deadly under-tows raged.
Back and forth from Blackgang Chine to The Needles along one of the most rugged and lofty coasts of England raced the two ships. A half-dozen times Bill could have blown the low-wing monoplane out of the air with his explosive shells, but he wanted to take Mordecai Murphy alive. He was entirely convinced now that Sandy was right. That the man was Moredcai Murphy and also the Saver of Souls.
Suddenly, the black monoplane was zooming up underneath him with its single machine gun spewing burst after burst. Lead chewed through the leading edge of his port before he could slam the Lancer out of range.
The monoplane roared upward until it almost stalled, then flipped over and came down on Bill's tail as he started a sweeping turn to the left.
Bill heard the chatter of Sandy's 80-caliber machine gun as he half-rolled out of that deadly hail of lead. The next moment they had leveled off again and were roaring at one another with terrific speed. Bill's fingers clamped down on his gun trips, only to have Murphy slip the monoplane away. He came up and around in a lightning like chandelle and dived on the speeding black ship. But when he clamped down on his trips the monoplane crabbed out from under his sights as though some unseen hated had flicked it out of danger.
Bill shook his head in disgust as he realized that he had underestimated the skill of Mordecai Murphy again. Because he knew the Lancer was superior to Murphy's ship he was hot bearing down hard enough. He was letting Murphy slip away from him, knowing in the back of his mind that he could shoot him down at any time if he wanted to. But he was trying to puncture his tanks instead of wounding him. He wanted him alive to tell his story.
Then they were roaring at one another again with their guns vomiting fire and death. And this time Mordecai Murphy swerved his little black monoplane in to the left for a death-dealing burst of fire just before they passed. Bill kicked the Lancer off to his right to avoid the monoplane as it zoomed upward.
They came up and back, each in a flashing chandelle, and now Murphy seemed determined to stay in the fight instead of running away. He was handling his ship with uncanny skill as they roared at each other again at terrific speed.