The sobbing growl of the motor wailed up to an eldritch shriek as the ship slashed through the air. Down and down; with a wind greater than anything in nature slapping his face and plucking at his goggles, while the transport plane curled away in a startled bank and Renway twisted after it. Down and down, in the maddest plunge of that fantastic combat. Fingers cool and steady on the stick, feet as gentle on the rudder bar as the hands of a horseman on the reins, every coordinated nerve and muscle holding the ship together like a living creature. Bleak eyes following every movement of his quarry. Lips parted and frozen in- a deadly smile. Down and down, till he saw the bulk of the Imperial Airways monoplane leap upwards past the tail of his eye, and realized that Renway had shot down past his mark without scoring a hit. Downwards still, while Renway flattened out in a slow turn and began to climb again.
Finish it now--before Renway got in another burst which might be lucky enough to score.
Down . . . But there wasn't a civil aeroplane built which could squat down out of a dive like that without leaving its wings behind. It would have to be fairly gentle--and that would be bad enough. As coolly as if he had been driving a car at twenty miles an hour, the Saint judged his margin and felt the resistance on the stick. For one absurd instant he realized that Renway's cockpit was coming stone-cold into the place where the sights would have been if the Moth had been armed. . . .
Crash!
The Moth shuddered under him in an impact like the explosion of a big gun. The painted map whirled across his vision while he fought to get the ship under control. He glanced out to right and left--both wings were still there, apparently intact. The nose of the machine began to lift again, steadily, across the flat blue water and the patchwork carpet, until at last it reached the horizon.
Simon looked down.
The Hawker was going down, five hundred feet below him, in a slow helpless spin. Its tail section was shattered as if a giant club had hit it, and tangled up with it were some splintered spars which looked as if they had belonged to his own landing gear. He had glimpses of Renway struggling wildly in the cockpit, wrestling with the useless controls, and felt a momentary twinge of pity which did not show in his face. After all, the man must have been mad. . . . And even if he had killed and tried to kill, he was not going to the most pleasant of all deaths.
Then Simon remembered the bombs which the Hawker was supposed to carry, and realized that the end might be quick.
He watched the Hawker with a stony fascination. If it fell in the sea, the bombs might not go off. But it was very near the cliffs, bobbing and fluttering like a broken grey leaf. . . . For several seconds he thought it would miss the land.
And then, in one of those queer freaks of aerodynamics which every airman knows, it steadied up. For an instant of time it seemed to hang poised in the air. And then, with the straight clean swoop of a paper dart it dived into the very rim of the surf which was creaming along the foot of the white cliffs. There was a split second of horrible suspense; and then the wreckage seemed to lift open under the thrust of a great tongue of orange-violent flame. . . .
Simon Templar tasted his sherry and lighted a cigarette.
'It was fairly easy after that,' he s^id. 'I did a very neat pancake on the water about fifty yards offshore, and a motorboat brought me in. I met Teal halfway up the cliff and showed him the entrance of the cave. We took a peek inside, and damn if Petrowitz and his crew weren't coming up the steps. Renway had crashed right on top of the underwater exit and blown it in--and the sub was bottled up inside. Apparently the crew had seen our scrap and guessed that something had gone wrong, and scuttled back for home. They were heading for the last round-up with all sail set, and since they could only get out one at a time we didn't lose any weight helping them on their way.'
Patricia Holm was silent for a moment.
'You didn't deserve to come out of it with a whole skin,' she said.
'I came out of it with morejthan that, old dar-ling,' said the Saint, with impenitent eyes. 'I opened the safe again before I left, and collected Hugo's cash box again. It's outside in the car now.'
Hoppy Uniatz was silent somewhat longer. It is doubtful whether he had any clear idea of what all the excitement had ever been about; but he was able to grasp one point in which he seemed to be involved.
'Boss,' he said tentatively, 'does it mean I ain't gotta take no rap for smackin' de cop?'
The Saint smiled.
'I guess you can put your shirt on it, Hoppy.'
'Chees,' said Mr. Uniatz, reaching for the whisky with a visible revival of interest, 'dat's great! Howja fix it?'
Simon caught Patricia's eye and sighed. And then he began to laugh.
'I got Claud to forget it for the sake of his mother,' he said. 'Now suppose you tell your story. Did you catch Wynnis?'
The front doorbell rang on the interrogation, and they listened in a pause of silence, while Hoppy poured himself out half a pint of undiluted Scotch. They heard Orace's limping tread crossing the hall, and the sounds of someone being admitted; and then the study door was opened and Simon saw who the visitor was.
He jumped up.
'Claud!' he cried. 'The very devil we were talking about! I was just telling Hoppy about your mother.'
Mr. Teal came just inside the room and settled his thumbs in the belt of his superfluous overcoat. His china- blue eyes looked as if they were just about to close in the sleep of unspeakable boredom; but that was an old affectation. It had nothing to do with the slight heliotrope flush in his round face or the slight compression of his mouth. In the ensuing hiatus, an atmosphere radiated from him which was nothing like the sort of atmosphere which should have radiated from a man who was thinking kindly of his mother.
'Oh, you were, were you?' he said, and his voice broke on the words in a kind of hysterical bark. 'Well, I didn't come down from London to hear about my mother. I want to hear what you know about a man called Wynnis, who was held up in his flat at half-past eight this morning -----'
