“Eight-y-four e-lev-en S S Mor-en-ci-a. Be read-y off Am-brose light. Watch sky for sig-nal. Hook will be low-ered.”
Here in this short message the second “project” of the Octopus was revealed. The Agent listened while the message was repeated. It told plainly that the Octopus had a man designated as 84–11 on the Steam Ship Morencia. Told that a mysterious signal was to flash from the sky when the ship arrived off Ambrose light, that a hook was to be lowered.
The Agent switched on his directional aerial and radio-beam compass. These showed, an entirely different location for the broadcast now. No need even to speed from Chicago to obtain a paralax. The message must be coming from a powerful, short-wave station located on some type of aircraft. By the time he reached the spot his instruments designated, the craft would be miles away.
But, in a frenzy of activity, the Secret Agent began packing up his equipment. In less than an hour he was bound by fast plane for New York City.
Chapter XXIII
JUST at sundown the next evening an autogyro took off from an air field on Long Island. A rich young sportsman, who gave his name as Musgrave, had arrived at the field that morning and bought it. He had paid spot cash. A bill of sale and a Department of Commerce license had been rushed through.
Musgrave stated that he was flying down to his home in the South. He appeared to have a flare for mechanics. All afternoon he had worked over the gyro inside a hangar. At the last he tossed some bulky luggage into the forward pit.
The craft climbed like a wide-winged moth into the orange and red sky. It mounted steadily, till it was no more than a black dot over New York. Then it disappeared behind a cloud.
No one guessed that Musgrave was not the pilot’s real name or that his inconspicuous features formed another brilliant disguise of Secret Agent “X.”
A few brief inquiries in New York made by Jim Hobart had brought to light facts about the steamship Morencia. She was scheduled to arrive at quarantine about midnight. She carried on board five million dollars in gold from the Bank of France, part payment of an inter-Allied debt to America.
The news of this golden cargo explained the Octopus’s interest in the ship. It explained the reason for one of the Octopus’s paid representatives, No. 84–11, being on board. That a spectacular, daring raid on the ship was planned was certain in “X’s” mind. That it would take place in the air was also a foregone conclusion.
He had paid off the faithful Hobart after his investigating work was done. From now on “X” knew that he must work alone. Hobart was unaware of the sinister forces that existed. “X” could not take the young man completely into his confidence; for to do so would be to reveal his own identity. And he refused to bring Hobart under the shadow of unseen death as he had McCarthy. He must go up against the Octopus single-handed. But Jim Hobart had proven his courage, loyalty and dependability. The Secret Agent, if he lived through the battle before him, planned to use the ex-dick in other great manhunts.
Light of the setting sun fell on the autogyro’s wind vanes. It had risen high above a piled bank of cumulus clouds. It seemed to float along in a world devoid of any living thing.
The Agent reached forward, pulled a wire attached to a device which he himself had installed. The thunder of the engine was reduced to no more than a hollow rumble as a special, triple-expansion muffler deadened its explosions. More moth-like than ever now seemed the strange sky craft. It was a ghost moth far above the world, its wings touched with the orange flame of the sunset.
Twenty-five miles down the coast Agent “X” descended to a lonely field. The gyro floated down out of the sky with the silence of a wraith. It dropped out of the clouds, descended with the whirling vanes into the small field which was sheltered by barriers of high trees. There it rolled to a stop.
Under cover of the fast-falling darkness Agent “X” got out his radio set again. He wasn’t expecting a message from the Octopus. Twenty minutes of experimental tuning and he had picked what he wanted out of the ether. This was a ship-to-shore telephone conversation from the Morencia.
A placid American business man was telling his wife that the ship was on time. He was saying good night to his children, telling what a gay time he had had on the Continent, promising a more detailed account when he reached shore.
The Agent smiled grimly. This good husband and father didn’t know that the ship carried a passenger who was in the pay of a dread criminal corporation. He had no inkling of the exciting events that were to take place before the Morencia reached port.
Listening in on a code radio message, Agent “X” verified the fact that the ship was running close to schedule. By ten thirty she should be somewhere off Ambrose channel.
UNTIL night shrouded the coast, Agent “X” waited beside his gyro. Then he started the motor again, took off out of the small field. The gyro sailed off up over the tops of the trees, climbed into the black sky. Muffled, it slipped through the darkness with a steady swish of the great wind vanes, like some huge night-flying bird.
Agent “X” headed out over the open sea. The lights of the New Jersey coast were far below him. Still he climbed. Three thousand, four thousand, five thousand feet showed on the altimeter. He was up above the clouds now, up where the wind blew a cool, steady gale. The craft was so stable that she could practically fly herself alone.
“X” reached into the forward pit, drew an object like an old-fashioned talking machine horn from a box. There was a set of ear-phones attached to it by a black, flexible wire; also a powerful battery. He clamped the earphones to his head; cut the gyro’s motor and let the craft glide downward. Now the sighing of the gale in the vanes was the only sound.
The Agent listened tensely. The horn in his hand was another type of sound amplifier. It was a modification of the “electric ears” used to detect aircraft during the World War. Such instruments had warned Paris and London of approaching air raids.
No sound came except the mournful hoot of a steamer far out at sea. Faint starlight fell upon the clouds below “X.” The gyro was gliding down into them.
Twenty minutes passed and the white arms of the ghostly mist flashed by the descending craft. It burst through the clouds at last. “X” had glided two thousand feet lower, and still no sound of another motor in the sky.
Once again he started his own engine and mounted till he was far above the clouds. Seven thousand feet this time, and he cut his engine dead again. The silence of the night was like an oppressive, brooding presence. Agent “X” was in a lonely world of cloud, and air and infinite space.
Then abruptly he leaned sidewise over the coaming of the gyro’s pit. The muscles of his face grew rigid. His eyes narrowed and he made a grab for the slack controls.
He had heard no sound — but directly below him, not fifteen hundred feet distant, a great black monster was rising up out of the mist. Clouds broke from the monster’s back as white foam might break from the back of a whale.
The outlines became clearer now. The thing was a huge blimp. She was not only rising. She was moving ahead under the thrust of her propellers. And, in that instant, the Agent realized that the blimp’s motors were muffled so perfectly that not even his sensitive amplifier could detect the throb of their exhausts.
He snatched the phones from his head, started his own muffled engine. Gently he pulled the gyro’s elevators up, climbed slowly, traveling above that great shape below. His pulses were hammering. The light in his eyes had become like that of a questing eagle. His patience, the infinite pains he had taken during the past week were at last rewarded. Below him, there in the night-darkened sky, with the dim white sea of clouds as a background, was the sinister moving hideout of the Octopus.