The Phantom Detective: Tycoon of Crime. Robert Wallace
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Number 1, directly behind the closed-off pilot’s compartment, a thin man in a black Homburg hat leaned out across the aisle. He had a scrawny, pallid face, its leanness accentuated by the tension that etched it. The cords of his neck stood out like whipcord. His eyes, in which all the personality of the man seemed concentrated, were dark, burning. He clutched a black briefcase in his arm as he spoke.
“I tell you, Garth, I feel nervous,” came his low whisper, lost in the vibration of the motors. “Why did you insist on our taking this plane?”
Max Garth, a chunky man, muffled in a great-coat, from which his hatless head, large, square, and with a shock of greying, reddish hair spoke without leaning from the opposite seat. He wore thick-lensed glasses which gave his eyes a hard, concentrated stare.
“Cool down, Truesdale!” His low voice had a hard, brittle terseness, as if emotions were something he neither understood nor tolerated. Those who knew Max Garth — and he was famous in his profession of geology — knew him to be one of those cold men of science whose brains work only in cold, logic, without sentiment. “You know it was a break — getting on this plane! Now nothing can go wrong. The whole affair will turn out as we expected. Why the trip’s almost over.” He was reasoning as if with a child. “What is there to worry about?”
And like a child, David Truesdale relaxed a trifle. He, too, was a scientist; one of the country’s foremost mining engineers, who had done noteworthy work in ventilating mines. But his work had become a shell into which he retired from worldly life, and he displayed that naïveté which is so bewildering in men otherwise brilliant.
“Guess you’re right, Garth. It’s just nerves.” He passed a blue-veined hand nervously over his pallid face.
“And don’t hug that briefcase so,” Garth said sourly. “Maybe you’d better give it to me!” His voice had an edge in it as it dropped still lower. “You don’t want to attract attention.”
TRUESDALE’S CLUTCH TIGHTENED on the briefcase as these words seemed instantly to bring back his fear. His eyes were burning, bright. “What’s the use?” he began fearfully. “If someone knows — and he must know —”
“Are you going to bring up those threats again?” Garth’s glasses seemed to glare. “Are you going to take the phone call of some crank seriously?”
“But if you had heard that voice over the phone!” Truesdale said shakily.
“I did,” Garth returned coolly.
“What?” The eyes of David Truesdale went wide. “You mean, he — he threatened you too, this person who calls himself —” His voice was a frightened whisper. “— the Tycoon of Crime?”
Garth stiffened a little at that title; but his voice was contemptuous.
“Yes,” he conceded. “He called. And gave me the same time limit. Nine o’clock tonight.”
“But you never said a word about it.”
“Because there’s nothing to say, except to the police, when we get to,New York.”
Abruptly Garth broke off. He had turned in his seat, and his glare-glassed eyes caught sudden sight of pretty Nancy Clay, the stewardess, standing directly behind the two seats with her coffee tray. She was staring at them both, her lips half parted.
Garth darted a warning look at Truesdale who seemed oblivious of her presence. He spoke to Truesdale in a tone momentarily harsh:
“Well, forget about it! It’s all a joke of no importance.”
But the stark, haunted fear in Truesdale’s eyes did not lessen. He started to speak again, then gulped and shut his lips tightly. Only then did he seem to become aware of the stewardess, as she came forward.
“Coffee, gentlemen?”
Garth shook his head. Truesdale growled a shaky: “No thank you, Miss.”
“Come, come,” she insisted. “It will warm you up. Make you feel fit for the landing.”
“When do we land, stewardess?” Garth demanded.
She flicked around the wrist of the hand gripping the tray to look at her watch.
“Little more than three-quarters of an hour now,” she said. “We’re scheduled to land at nine-forty-five. It’s now exactly two minutes to nine.” She smiled, glancing at the closed partition in front of the two seats. “And if I know our pilot, we’ll make that schedule!”
On the other side of the partition, his strong young hands gripping the Dep-wheel, Pat Bentley turned to his co-pilot.
“You can take over soon, Bill. I want to tell Newark now that everything’s okay.”
His eyes glanced through the oblique windows in the nose of the ship, at the dim mountains growing less precipitous ahead and below. Visibility was fairly good now. Not far ahead, Bentley saw the Balesville beacon funneling upwards, blinking like a white tentacle in the sky.
Yet, in the light from the myriad-instrumented dashboard, the young ace pilot’s rugged, wind-swept face was etched tense. His broad shoulders were braced as if against some invisible foe. Veteran of thousands of flying hours, the big Douglas was a placid baby in his skilled hands — and yet, somehow, he did not feel right tonight.
A grim responsibility weighed him down. This was a maiden flight — for a big airline. Important people were in this plane; and there was important cargo too. Bentley had seen the armored truck come up on the Chicago field, seen the strong boxes being loaded into the great plane. Exactly what they contained he didn’t know. But he did know he was carrying a fortune of some kind.
His keen eyes narrowed, thinking about the passengers. Two of them had acted queerly when they went aboard. The pilot had overheard a few words, tense words. Now that he thought of it, he realized that was what had created the uneasiness in him.
Garth and Truesdale. Two big scientists. Working, just now, Bentley knew for the Empire and Southwest Railway line. He grinned crookedly. That railway was in a slump: the growth of airline travel hadn’t helped it any — Why had Truesdale looked so frightened when he climbed into the plane?
And why had Garth looked so icily cold?
Bentley cursed himself inwardly. He well knew just what part of his nature made him so curious about things like this. Once a newspaper man —
Yes, he had worked for a paper, a big New York paper. For several years he had been a flying reporter, and a radio news commentator. His voice had become as famous for its rapid-fire reports as Floyd Gibbons. He had covered many “exclusives,” but now his real love, flying, had claimed him again and he had welcomed the job of piloting this new transport.
“It’s just nine, Pat. Better call in Newark.” The voice of the young co-pilot held the proper amount of respect for his “skipper.”
“Right!” Quickly Pat Bentley snapped out of his reverie. “Take her, Bill.” And added, listening to the neutral sound of the radio compass. “She’s right smack on the beam now.”
HE RELEASED the Dep-wheel and rudder bars in precise synchronization with the moment that his co-pilot took them in control. Adjusting earphones under his trim visor-cap, he picked up the radio microphone.
“— Number One calling Newark — Number One calling Newark.”
“This is Newark,” came the prompt answer. “Go ahead, Number One.”
“We’re passing Balesville now. Visibility okay at eight thousand. How’s the weather ahead?”
“Ceiling nine thousand. Visibility good.”
“We may still beat the schedule,” Bentley stated, hopefully, then broke off.
A buzzer had sounded in the little glass-windowed compartment in the nose of the big ship. It rang once, then again — imperatively. The copilot jerked up his head.
“Someone