The DESTROYING ANGEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 831, 27 November 1929, Page 5

The DESTROYING ANGEL

BY

LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

(Copyright by Public Ledger.)

CHAPTER XXlll.—Continued. At the same time the bow of the boat swung off and the shadow slipped away to westward—toward the Fiske place. A wondering apprehension of some nameless and desperate enterprise, somehow involving the woman who obsessed his thoughts, crawled in Whitaker's mind. The boat—running without cruising lights!—was seeking the next landing-stage. Those in charge of it had certainly some reason for wishing to escape observation. Automatically Whitaker turned hack, let himself down to the beach, aid began to pick his way toward the Fiske dock, half running despite his stiff ankle, and following a course at once more direct and more difficult than the way through .he woods. That last would have afforded him sure footing, but he would have lost much time seeking and sticking to its meanderings in the uncertain light. As it was, he had on one hand a low concave wall of earth, on the other the wash of crisping wavelets: and between the two a yard-wide track with a treacherous surface of wave-smoothed pebbles largely encumbered with heavy bolster-like rolls of seaweed, springy and slippery, wasted up by the recent gale. But in the dark and formless alarm that possessed him, he did not stop to choose between the ways. He had no t me. As it was, if there were aoytling evil afoot, no earthly power could help him cover the distance in time to be of any aid. Indeed, he had not gone half the way before he pulled up with a thumping heart, startled beyond expression by a cry in the night—a cry "f wild appeal and protest thrown out violently into the turbulent night, and abruptly arrested in full peal as If a hand had closed the mouth that uttered it. Ard then, ringing clear down the wind, a voice whose timbre was unmistakably that of a woman: “Aux secours! Aux secours!” Twice it cried out, and then was hushed as grimly as the first incoherent scream. No need now to suess at what was- toward: Whitaker could see it all clearly as though he "as already there; the power-boat at the dock, two women attacked as 'hev were on the point of entering their rowboat, the cry of the mistress suddenly cut short by her assailant, the maid taking up the appeal, in her fright unconsciously reverting to her native tongue, in her turn being forcibly silenced. . . . All the while he was running, heedless of his injured foot —pitching, clipping, stumbling, leaping—somehow making progress. By now the moon had lifted above the beach high enough to aid him somewhat with its waxing light; and. looking ahead, he could distinguish dimly shapes about the dock and upon it that seemed to bear out his most cruel fears. The power-boat w as passably distinct her white side showing plainly through the ternPored darkness. Midway down the dock he made out struggling figures—two of them, he judged: a man at close grips with a frantic woman. And where the structure joined the land a second pair, again a man and a woman, strove and swayed. . . .

And always the night grew brighter wirh Hie spectral glow of the moon *nd the mirroring waters. For ail his haste, he was too slow. He was still a fair 30 yards away "hen the struggle on the dock ended abruptly with the collapse of the

woman. It was as he thought, her strength had failed all in an instant —as if she had fainted. He saw the man catch her up in his arms, where she lay limp and unresisting, and with this burden step from the stage to the boat, and disappear from sight beneath the coaming. An instant later he reappeared, standing at full height in the cockpit. Without warning his arm straightened out, and a tongue of flame jetted from his hand. There was a report. . In the same breath a bullet buried itself in the low earth bank on Whitaker's right. Heedless, he pelted on. The shot seemed to signal the end of the other struggle at the landingstage. Scarcely had it rung out ere Whitaker saw the man lift a fist and dash it brutally into the woman’s face. Without a sound audible at that distance, she reeled and fell away, while the man turned, ran swiftly out to the end of the dock, cast off the headwarp, and jumped aboard the boat. She began to sheer off as Whitaker set foot upon the stage. She was 20 feet distant when he found himself both at its end and at the end of his resource. He was too late. Already he could hear the deeper resonance of the engine as the spark was advanced and the throttle opened. In another moment she would he heading away at full tilt. Frantic with despair, he thrashed the air with impotent arms—a fair mark, white garments shining bright against the dark background of the land. Aboard the moving ooat an automatic fluttered, spitting ten shots in as many seconds. The thud and splash of bullets all round him brought him to his senses. Choking with rage, he stumbled back to the land.

CHAPTER XXIV. PURSUIT! On the narrow beach, near the dock, a small flat-bottomed rowboat lay, its stern afloat, its bows aground—as it had been left by the women surprised in the act of launching it. Jumping down, Whitaker put his shoulder to the stem. As he did so the other woman roused, got unsteadily to her feet, screamed, then catching sight of him, staggered to his side. It was—as he had assumed —the maid, Elise. “M’sieur!” she shrieked, thrusting a tragic face with bruised and bloodstained mouth close to his. “Ah, m’sieur madame ces canaillesla “Yes, I know,” he said brusquely. “Get out of the way—don’t hinder me!” The boat was now all afloat. He jumped in, dropped upon the middle thwart, and fitted the oars in the rowlocks. “But, m’sieur, what mean you to do?” “Don’t know yet," he panted—“follow —keep them in sight ” The blades dipped; he bent his back to them; the rowboat shot away. A glance over his shoulder showed him the boat of the marauders already well away. She now’ wore running lights; the red lamp swung into view as he glanced, like an obscene and sardonic eye. They w’ere, then, making eastward. He wrought only the more lustily with the oars. Happily the Fiske motor-boat swung at a mooring not a great distance from the shore. Surprisingly soon he had the small boat alongside. Dropping the oars, he rose, grasped the coaming and lifted himself into the cockpit. Then scrambling hastily forward to the bows, he disengaged the mooring hook and let it splash. Jumping back into the cockpit, Whitaker located the switch and closed the battery circuit. An angry buzzing broke out beneath the en-gine-pit hatch, but w r as almost instantly drowned out by the response of the motor to a single turn of the new-fangled starting crank which

Whitaker had approved on the previ ous morning.

He went at once to the wheel. Half a mile away the red light was slipping swiftly eastward over silvered waters. He steadied the bows toward it, listening to the regular and businesslike chug-chug of the motor with the concentrated intentness of .a physician with an ear over the heart of a patient. But the throbbing he heard was true if slow;. already the boat was responding to the propeller, resisting the action of wind and water, even beginning to surge heavily forward.

Hastily kicking the hatch cover out of the way, he bent over the open engine pit, quickly solved the puzzle of the controlling levers, accelerated the ignition and opened the throttle wide. The motor answered this manipulation with an instantaneous change of tune; the staccato drumming of the slow speed merged into a long, incessant rumble like the roll of a dozen muffled snare drums. The Trouble leaped out like a live thing, settling to its course with the lieet precision of an arrow truly loosed. With a brief exclamation of satisfaction, Whitaker went back to the wheel, shifted the ignition from batteries to magneto; and for the first time since he had appreciated the magnitude of the outrage found him self with .time to think, to lake stock of his position, to consider what he had already accomplished and what he must henceforward hold himself px’epared to attempt. Up to that moment he had acted almost blindly, swayed by’ impulse as a tree by the wind, guided by unquestioning instinct in every action. Now . . .

He had got the boat under way with what in retrospect appealed to him an amazing celerity, bearing in mind his unfamiliarity with its equipment. The other boat had a lead of little if any more than half a mile; or so he gauged the distance that separated them, making due allowances for the illusion of the moon-smitten night. Whether that gap was to diminish or to widen would develop before many minutes had passed. The Trouble was making a fair pace; roughly ten miles an hour. He suspected the other boat of having more power, but this did not necessarily imply greater speed. At all events (he concluded) twenty minutes at the outside would see the end of the chase —however it was to end; the eastern head of the bay was not over five miles away; they could not long hold to their present course without running aground. He hazarded wild guesses as to their plans; of which the least implausible was that they were making for some out-of-the-way landing, intending there to transfer to a motor-car. At least, this would presumably prove to be the case if the outrage were what, at first blush, it gave evidence of being; a kidnapping uncomplicated by any fouler motive. . . .

And what else could it be? . . . But who was he to say? What did he know of the woman, of her antecedents and circumstances? Nothing more than her name, that she had attracted him—as any handsome woman might have—that she had been spied upon within his personal knowledge and had now been set upon and carried off by force majeure. And knowing no more than this, he had without an instant’s thought, of consequences elected hjmself no ■ champion! Oh, headlong and infatuate!

Probably no more severe critic of his own chivalric foolishness ever se; himself to succour a damsel in distress. Withal he entertained not the shadow of a thought of drawing back as long as the other boat remained In sight; as long as the gasoline and his strength held out; as long as the Trouble held together and he retained the wit to guide her —so long was Whitaker determined to stick to the wake of the kidnappers. A little more than half-way between their starting point and the head of the bay the leading boat swung sharply in toward the shore, then shot into the mouth of a narrow indentation. Whitaker found that he was catching up quickly, showing that speed had been slackened for this manoeuvre. But the ad vantage was merely momentary, soon lost. The boat slipped out of sight between high banks. And lie, imitat ing faithfully its course, was himself compelled to throttle down the engine, lest he run aground.

For two or three minutes he could see nothing of the other. Then he emerged from a tortuous and constricted channel into a deep cut, perhaps fifty feet in width and spanned by a drawbridge and a railroad trestle. At the farther end of this tide-gate canal connecting the Great West Bay with the Great Peconic, the leading power boat was visible, heading out at full speed. And by the time he had thrown the motor of the Trouble back into its full stride the half-mile lead was fully re-established, if not improved upon. The tide was setting in through the canal —otherwise the gates had been closed —with a strength that taxed thn Trouble to surpass. It seemed an interminable time, before the banks slipped behind and the boat picked up her heels anew and swept out over the broad reaches of the Peconic like a hound on the trail. The starboard light of the leader was slo/wly becoming more and more distinct as she swung again to the eastward. That way, Whitaker figured, with his brows perplexed, lay Shelter Island, Greenport, Sag Harbour (names only in his understanding) and what else he could not say. Here he found himself in strange waters, knowing no more than that the chase seemed about to penetrate a tangled maze of islands and distorted channels in whose intricacies it should prove a matter of facility to lose a pursuer already well distanced.

Abandoning the forward wheel in favour of that at the side, near the engirfe pit, for a time he divided his attention* between steering and tinkering with the motor, with the result that the Trouble began presently to develop more speed. Slowly she crept up on the leader, until, with Robins Island abeam (though, he knew it not by name) the distance between them had been abridged by half. But more than that she seemed unable to accomplish. He surmised shrewdly that the others, tardily observing his gain, had met it with an equalising demand upon their motor —that both boats were now running at the extreme of their power. The Trouble, at least, could do no better. To this he must be resigned. Empty of all other craft, weird and desolate in moonlight, the Little Peconic waters widened and then harrowed about the flying; vessels. Shore lights watched them, now dim and far, now bright and near at hand. Shelter Island Sound received them, slapped their flanks encouragingly with its racing waves, sped them with an ebbing tide that tore seaward between constricted shores, carried them past high-wooded bluffs and low wastes of sedge, past simple cottage and pretentious country home, past bobbing buoys—nun and can and spar—and moored flotillas of small pleasure craft, past Sag Harbour and

past Cedar Island Light, delivering them at length into the lonelier wastes of Gardiners Bay. Their relative positions were unchanged; still the Trouble retained her hard-won advantage. . But it was little comfort that Whitaker derived from contemplation of this tact. He was beginning to be more definitely perplexed and distressed. He had no watch with him, no means of ascertaining the time even roughly; but unquestionably they had been upward of two hours if not more at full tilt, and now were braving wilder waters; and still he saw no signs of anything resembling a termination of the adventure. In fact, they were leaving behind them every likely landing place. “Damn it!” lie grumbled. “What are they aiming at—Boston?” CHAPTER XXV. AGONISING HOURS Near the forward wheel of the Trouble a miniature binnacle housing a compass with phosporescent card, advised Whitaker from time to time, as he consulted it, of the lay of their course. They were just then ploughing almost due north-east over a broad expanse, beckoned on by the distaui flicker of a gas buoy. But the information was less than worthless, and every reasonable guess he might have made as to their next move would have proved even more futile than merely idle; for when they had rounded the buoy, instead of standing, as any reasonable beings might have been expected to, on to Fisher’s Island or at a tangent north toward the Connecticut littoral, they swung off something south of east —a course that could lead them nowhere but to the immensities of the sea itself. Whitaker’s breath caught in nis throat as he examined this startling prospect. The Atlantic was something a trifle bigger than he had bargained for. To dare its temper, with a south-wester brewing (by every weather sign he knew) in what was to all intents an open boat, since he would never be able to leave the cockpit for an instant’s shelter in the cabin in any sort of a seaway ! He shook a dubious, vastly troubled head. But he held on grimly in the face of dire forebodings. Once out from under the lee of Gardiner’s Island, a heavier run of waves beset them, catching the boats almost squarely on the beam, fortunately a sea of long, smooth, slowshouldering rollers, as yet not angry.

Now and again, for all that, ore would favour the Trouble with a quartering slap that sent a shower of spray aboard her to drench Whitaker and swash noisily round the cockpit ere the self-bailing channels could carry it off. He was quickly wet to the skin and shivering. The hour was past midnight, and the strong air whipping in from the open sea had a bitter edge. His only consolation inhered in the, reflection that he bad companions in his misery; those who drove the leading boat could hardly escape what he must suffer; though he hdped and believed that the woman was shut below, warm and dry in the cabin. Out over the dark waste to starboard a white light lifted, flashing. For a while a red eye showed beneath it, staring unwinkiugly with a steadfast and sardonic glare, then disappeared completely, leaving only the blinking white. Far ahead another light, fixed white, hung steadily over the port counter, and so remained for over an hour. Then most gradually the latter wore round upon the beam and dropped astern. Whitaker guessed at random, but none the less rightly, that they were weathering Block Island to the south with a leeway of several miles. Indisputably the Atlantic held them in the hollow of its tremendous hand.

The slow, eternal deep-sea swell was most perceptible; a ceaseless impulse of infinite power running through the pettier, if more threatening drive of waves kicked up by the wind. Fortunately the course, shifting to northeast by east, presently took them out of the swinging trough of the sea. The rollers now led them on, an endless herd, one after another falling sullenly behind as the two boats shot down into their shallow intervals and began to creep slowly up over the long grey backs of those that ran before. (To be Continued Tomorrow.)