While he tried to straighten the puzzle out Sandy interrupted him twice.
Each time he was told, unceremoniously, to “Shut up!” Now Sandy could stand it no longer.
“Hey, Bill!” he said. “I think you're right about that being the Saver of
Souls. You know he jumped me over
Chesapeake Bay. I remember that swerve in to the left just before he tripped his guns. He was coming in on my starboard side, out of line of my guns. Just before we passed he kicked his ship around so that his bullets would slash right across my nose.
He underestimated his speed or he would have knocked my head off. Then he zoomed as I stuck my nose down.”
“That's right,” Bill said.
“But I don't understand what this is all about Bill. I can't put it together. What—”
“Listen, kid,” Bill said. “Don't ask me any questions. I don't know any more about it than you. That's why I'm going to stay on his tail and find out.”
“You want to be careful he doesn't lead us into a trap,” Sandy advised with all the wisdom of his seventeen years.
“
I'll watch that,” Bill said, “while you see if you can pick up Tony Lamport on the radio.”
Sandy worked with painstaking care while Bill held the Lancer on the tail of that dun-colored ship. He tried to get Tony on both of their secret wave bands without success. Finally he gave up.
“We're out of range Bill,” he reported.
At the same time Bill became aware of the cloud wall ahead. At first it was almost imperceptible. But as they neared the Irish coast the little amphibian ahead became a mere dot in the damp, swirling fog that engulfed it.
Bill tried desperately to stay on its tail, hoping the front would break before he lost it entirely. He plunged the Lancer into it, holding the same airspeed and course, flying entirely blind. When he came out on the other side the dun-colored ship had disappeared.
He cursed softly as he reached for the master tuning control on his radio panel and picked up the radio operator at Foynes, near the mouth of the Shannon. He got the direction and force of the wind and learned that he would have unlimited ceiling.
Forty-three minutes later he took the Lancer into the Irish air terminal for a workmanlike landing.
The manager of the terminal and the superintendent of operations met him on the apron. Behind them were a score of “tin knockers,” mechanics, grease monkeys and inspectors. They were there to get their first glimpse of Bill Barnes and his famous Silver Lancer. He killed his power plant to avoid injuring them as they swarmed toward him. He waited until the manager had cleared a way for them, then he and Sandy dropped over the side.
In the manager's office Bill tried to keep the excitement out of his voice as he casually asked about the Memphis.
A worried expression fastened itself on the big Irishman's face. “We're worried about her, Barnes,” he said. “I thought perhaps you'd have some word about her. I thought you might have picked her up on your radio out over the Atlantic.”
“What's the matter?” Bill asked, quickly, to forestall a possible question he didn't want to answer.
“We don't know,” the manager said. “When she was three hours out we suddenly lost contact with her. She reported she was making good progress through a fog area. After that there was silence. We have made contact with steamers in her urea but they haven't been able to give us any information. Unless something went wrong with her motors she may be on the way back here. We're going to wait another half-hour before we send out an alarm. It may be only her wire-less that is out of order. We expect to hear from her at any time. But we can't help worrying. You must be worrying about her, too, being a large stockholder in Transatlantic.”
“I am,” Bill said. “I wonder if it is possible for me to get a telephone call through to the Duke of Malbury at Arunway Castle in Malthrop, England?”
“We can try,” the manager said, reaching for the telephone. “Ill start our operator working on it. You want to speak to the Duke of Malbury personally?”
“That's right. Have them try to locate him if he isn't at Arunway.”
Bill kept up a constant conversation while he waited for his connection to be made. He avoided answering direct questions about the Memphis a half-dozen times. He didn't want to tell this man about the things he had seen because he didn't know how the other would handle the situation. Bill realized he must get to the foundation of the thing and find the men who were responsible for the destruction of the Memphis if he was to save Transatlantic Transport. He knew it would be the death of the line if he could not tell the story and then prove it; He remembered quite distinctly how a ban had been put on the ships of a certain company after several unexplained mishaps. The company had disappeared into oblivion. And there was nothing he could do for the Memphis, her passengers or crew. They were beyond help.
He started nervously as a telephone bell clanged.
“Here's your party, Barnes,” the manager said. “They located him in London.”
Bill's hands were shaking as he took the instrument. “Hello, Mace,” he said into the mouthpiece to Norman Edward Chatagnier Eliott. Mace, the seventh Duke of Malbury, whom he had saved from death while he was excavating in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings in Egypt.
“Are you there, Barnes?” Norman Mace answered with his precise British accent. “This is delightful.”
“No, it isn't,” Bill said, hoping Mace would get the idea. “I'm at Foynes on the Irish coast, as you know. I'm going to hop to Croydon within a few minutes. Can you meet me there?”
“I say, Barnes, what's up?” the Duke of Malbury asked.
“Ill tell you when I see you at Croydon in—about an hour and a half. Right?” Bill said.
“Right,” Mace repeated. “I'll be there, Barnes. And I repeat it will be delightful. Cheerio.”
Bill put the instrument in its cradle and immediately began a great fuss and bustle about getting away. He didn't want to be asked any more questions.
As he took the Lancer into the air, a man who was a visitor to the air terminal approached the manager on the apron. He was a small man with an olive skin and dark eyes. He might have been a native of any one of several countries of southern Europe.
“Wasn't that that American chap, Barnes?” he asked the manager in excellent English.
“That's right,” the manager said, admiration shining in his eyes. “Bill Barnes.”
“That is a great ship he has there. What is he doing over here?” the small man asked.
“I don't know,” the manager answered. “He's on his way to Croydon.” He looked down at the little man as Bill's ship became a mere speck in the air to the east. “Why?” he added.
The small man shrugged his shoulders with a true Latin gesture and moved away without answering.
VII—SPY SYSTEM
LONDON was a great mass of blurred lights through the fog hanging over it as Bill cut south to pick up the steady beacons of Croydon. He circled the great airport twice as he received landing instructions from the radio control tower, then took the big ship in with a precision landing that was characteristic of him.
He climbed out and saw the lean, tanned face of the man he had first known in Jogam as Colonel Mace, and later in Egypt as the Duke of Malbury, coming toward him. He noticed that his hair was a trifle whiter and his military mustache more closely clipped than the last time he had seen him. And then they were shaking hands. They were genuinely glad to see one another. When Malbury had finished with Bill he turned his attentions to the grinning Sandy.
“Are you still reading those books that teach you how to be the master of your fate?” the Duke of Malbury asked Sandy.