Part 3 (1/2)

”COLD-BLOODED PIRACY IN THE HIGH AIR”

Pilot-commander Pring was a tall, lean, lantern-jawed officer, who, though of English nationality, had spent most of his life in America.

His face was still pale and grim with pa.s.sion and mortification as I closed the door of my private room at the A.P. Station on him, Mr. Van Adams, the multi-millionaire, and Mr. Rickaby, second officer of the _Albatros_.

”Now, gentlemen, sit down, please,” I said. ”And I will ask Captain Pring a few questions. Sir Joshua Johnson has given me the main facts, but I want details. I won't detain you long, but I felt I ought to see you before anyone else.”

”Oh, quite!” said Mr. Van Adams, a fleshy man, with a watchful eye and a jaw like a pike.

”This is an extraordinary affair, Captain Pring,” I went on. ”But, thank goodness, you haven't lost your s.h.i.+p, or any lives. I know what you feel about the _Albatros_.”

”She is father, mother, brother, sister, hired girl and dog under the waggon to me!” said Pring, and then he blazed up into fury. I disentangle the few words I can. The majority were too overdressed for respectable society.

”... His Majesty's Mails! First time in history of flying, and it's happened to ME! Cold-blooded piracy in the High Air! They'd have blown us to pieces as soon as look at us! When I get hold of that slime-lapping leper, the pirate skipper, I won't leave him hide or hair to cover the wart he calls his heart! ...” and so on, for a good two minutes by the office chronometer.

I let him rip. It was the quickest way. It's dangerous to throttle down a man like Pring.

”The Captain is, naturally, furious,” I said.

”Oh, quite!” answered Mr. Van Adams.

Then we got to business. ”The strange airs.h.i.+p, Captain Pring. Let's begin with that. She approached you flying _West_, I understand?”

”She did, Sir John. Does that put you wise to anything?”

”It would appear that she was coming from Europe. But that was probably a trick. She might have been waiting about for hours.”

”Curious thing, then, that all the s.h.i.+ps in the air during the last thirty hours that were within fifteen hundred miles of the American and Canadian coast never saw anything of her. The Air Police of the U.S.A.

have questioned every registered boat, Transatlantic and coastal trade, and not one of them sighted her. And, as you know, Sir John, from Cape Race to Charleston in summer weather the air's as thick with craft as gnats over a pond. Ain't that so, Mr. Van Adams, sir?”

”Quite, Captain Pring.”

”I see your inference. Well, we'll leave that for a moment. I understand that there were some peculiar features about this s.h.i.+p. What were they?”

”She's the fastest thing in the air, bar none. That I can swear to. A pilot of my experience can't well be deceived, and if that s.h.i.+p--she's one of the very few I've seen with four propellers--can't do two hundred and forty miles an hour, _without a following wind, mind_, then I'm a paretic!”

I whistled. Such speeds had been dreamed of but never known. ”Nearly three times hurricane velocity!” I said.

”She'd race the dawn, Sir John! and that's my honest belief. There's never been such a flying boat before. And she don't carry a crew of more than twelve or fifteen men, in my opinion. The rest's all engines and petrol. She ain't more than twice the size of one of your patrol s.h.i.+ps, all over.”

This was talking! Each moment the affair grew more tense and interesting.

”That narrows our field of search no end,” I remarked. ”A boat like that can't be built anywhere in the world without leaving traces.”

”It colours the cat different, sure,” said Captain Pring. ”Now, here's another point. Gum! I'm going to startle you some more, Sir John, but, as G.o.d sees me, I'm speaking truth. Here's Mr. Rickaby here as'll swear to all I say....”

He looked at the second officer, a good-looking, brown-faced lad. ”It's all gospel, Sir John,” he broke in.

”Of course,” I said impatiently, ”I know you couldn't be mistaken, Pring, and I won't insult you by thinking you'd pull a Chief Commissioner's leg over an affair of this importance. What's number two?

Let's have it!”