the Memphis herself because I studied her layout so carefully that I am sure I got the radio apparatus and the operator on my first, dive. But there he was. He came down in a long power dive and circled above the Memphis as she struck the water. He was, probably, hoping to find some survivors.”
“Were there any?” Duncan asked.
“Not a one,” Murphy said, and there was no trace of regret in his expression. Rather, it was one of elation.
“And then?” Duncan said in his maddeningly cool way.
“He was too much for us,” Murphy said. “That man is without a doubt the greatest aerial fighter who ever lived. He is astonishing and he has the luck of——”
“His record doesn't sound as though there was any luck about it,” Duncan said. “How did it happen he didn't get you?”
“I don't know,” Murphy said frankly. “I learned my lesson in two encounters with him. No one can stand against him in the air. That is why I decided to leave him alone, at least in the air. There
“He shot down Chamberlain and Lorenzo?”
“He tore them and their ships to bits with his 37mm. cannon,” Murphy said. He wet his dry lips with his tongue. “I was next.”
“You're here,” Duncan said, a smile flitting across his face.
“Only by the grace of God,” Murphy-said. “I admit that Barnes is my superior in the air now. But he won't always be. My day will come. ... He came at ire head-on, and I used a trick I learned from diving falcons. I have a room in my New York apartment where I train and watch them attack their prey. While I was getting ready for that combat with Barnes I learned that just before they strike their prey, after their dive with their wings wide and their talons spread, they swerve in to add force to their strike.
“I practiced the trick, keeping my ship out of line of fire of my opponent until just before we pass, when I swerve in to the left with my guns firing. At the last moment I zoom above him and then straighten out.”
“You used that trick on Barnes over North Carolina?” Duncan asked.
“Yes, and I used it again today.”
“Then what happened?”
“Barnes hung his ship on its props and took it upstairs,” Murphy said. “So far upstairs I couldn't follow him. I began to wallow at 35,000 feet and I didn't have any oxygen so I started for the Irish coast.”
“With Barnes following you?”
“Yes, but I lost him in a wall of fog just before I struck the coast. It was fortunate it was there or everything might have been different.”
“Yes,” Duncan said. “You would, probably, not be here. Barnes must have recognized that falcon trick and identified you. Either that or he didn't want to kill you because he wanted to know who you were. It might be either one. Does he know who you are?”
“He knows me only as the Saver of Souls,” Murphy said. “He has tried to find out who I am before. That is why I decided to leave him alone for a while. I was afraid he would learn.”
“What did you do with the fighter you were flying after you landed?” Duncan asked. His eyes were worried now. As the head of International Airways, a competitor of Transatlantic Transport in the flying of passengers and cargo from Europe to the Americas, he could not afford to be mixed up in any way with the villainous plot he had brought to Mordecai Murphy to execute.
Like a host of other men all over the world, he was indebted to Mordecai Murphy, the man who called himself the Saver of Souls. And like those other men whom Murphy had snatched out of jails and dungeons and the jaws of death, Wetherby Duncan had learned that Murphy did not do his saving for humanitarian reasons. Instead, he had learned. Murphy had saved him, as well as all the rest, to serve in his astounding mill of evil.
“I did what I had planned doing with all three ships,” Murphy said. “I bailed out after I had locked the controls so that it would dive into the Irish Sea off Maughold Head. Sneed was waiting there in a car to bring me down to Castletown.”
“You're sure you lost Barnes?” Duncan asked anxiously.
“Certain,” Murphy said. “But how did he happen to be there? If he had been engaged to convoy the Memphis across the Atlantic we never would have got a crack at it. He would have been on us before we could fire a gun. There is a chance that he just happened to be flying above the North Atlantic and picked, up an S.O.S. from the Memphis. But if he did that why didn't the shore stations get it? The only word that has come out about the Memphis up to now is that the land stations suddenly lost contact with her. After so many hours destroyers and planes were sent out to look for her, but the theory is that for some reasons her radios went bad.”
“They'll know better after Barnes talks,” Duncan said.
Murphy leaned over and snapped a button on a small radio that was built into a bookcase. He twirled the dials for a moment as he looked at the watch on his wrist.
“——interrupt our program,” a voice said through the loudspeaker, “to bring you further news about the Airliner
Murphy clicked off the radio and a little smile curled the corners of his mouth. “They'll have to do a lot of searching,” he said. “A few things that wouldn't sink may have escaped the fire, but not many. They'll find, patches of oil and come to the conclusion that something caused an explosion and that she was lost with all hands aboard.”
“Until Barnes talks,” Duncan said dryly.
“But he hasn't talked yet,” Mordecai Murphy said. “And I don't think he ever will. He doesn't like publicity and he works as a lone wolf a great deal of the time. He only has four flyers working with him since Hawkins and Henderson were lulled. You see, he has a pretty big interest in Transatlantic Transport himself. If the stock begins to toboggan because of the loss of the Memphis it is going to hurt him. He will have enough sense not to talk until he has proof of his story. He knows his story will be discredited because he is a large stockholder in Transatlantic. He knows the newspapers would laugh at him if he said that he just happened to be flying the Atlantic and saw the ship shot down in flames. A thing like that could happen only to a man like Barnes. But people wouldn't believe it unless he has conclusive proof. That's why he isn't talking yet.”
“But he will talk,” Duncan said. “If he recognized you by that flying trick you spoke of they'll comb the earth for you and they'll find you. This isn't any little personal fight between you and Barnes. It's an international incident. It's like those mysterious submarines that were sinking shipping in the Mediterranean that aroused the whole world and brought half the sea power of the world there. You don't seem to realize that it is a big incident. It——”
“Sh——” Murphy Said, extending the palm of one hand outward. “You talk too damned much, Duncan. I told you I did not believe Barnes would ever talk. I'll tell you why: I have a dozen agents waiting to inform me where Barnes has landed, in both Ireland and England. Sneed, my secretary, made contact with them as soon as I landed this afternoon and gave instructions.
“I am expecting to have word from one of them at any minute. When I know where Barnes is I will take steps immediately to seal Barnes' lips forever. I would rather do it myself, in the air. But that is not feasible now. I'm not asleep, Duncan. I have never been caught napping. If I had been I would be dead or in jail. And,” he added as an afterthought, “so would you.”
Duncan's face became even more florid than it had been and it took no little effort for him to hold back the words that sprang to his lips.
“I see,” he said finally. “We'll both hang if you don't succeed. He has got to be silenced.”
“He will be silenced. And International Airways will have the bulk of the Atlantic trade. Transatlantic will never be able to recover from the blow.”
“That was our idea,” Duncan said quietly. He got to his feet, crossed the lounge and picked a book up from a
