The Devil—With Wings (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

The Strange Visitor

P
ATRICIA
W
ESTON
lay upon her bed in the Imperial Hotel, her face buried in the graceful curve of her white arm, her dark brown hair shimmering dully in the moonlight which streamed in through the window.

Her shoulders shook from time to time as she fought to regain control of her nerves. She had felt very sick for an hour and then, gradually, her young strength had fought off the weakness.

She had killed a man.

She had not even seen his face, but she had heard his voice. And if her rage and her desire for vengeance had not been so great she might have stopped herself in time.

Now she was worse off than before. Her bill was unpaid and the manager was becoming distantly polite. She had not eaten since the day before yesterday. Maybe the dizzy faintness of hunger had driven her to do the thing she had brooded upon for so long.

She was deeply ashamed of her temper, amazed at the depths she had suddenly found in herself, still unwilling to believe that she had done what she had done.

Yesterday she had started to pawn the pistol. If she only had! But she had been afraid of the police and she had wanted…

She pushed her face deeper into the bed, shaken again by the retrospect of the searing fire she had loosed into a human being.

The moonlight fell in a trapezoid upon the thick rug, broken only by the corner of the bed it touched. And then the moonlight was barred by a blurred shadow which swung slowly over the sill.

Patricia lifted her head, still striving to throw off the memory which shook her. She braced her chin on her hand, staring at the rug, brown hair framing her face.

Abruptly she realized that something lay there which did not belong. Her gaze widened. She was staring at a shadow which lay upside down. The shadow of a round-headed thing which stood upright beside the window.

She threw herself hastily back with a small squeal of terror and stared upward at the man who stood there.

He looked like a demon out of another dimension. All black from boots to cap. Two enormous eyes fully three inches across. Great shining eyes, staring steadily at her.

She scrambled back further.

Forsythe did not move. His gauntleted hands were knuckled to his hips. A strange smile was on his mouth.

She was as far away from him as she could get. Their stares locked. Only the moonlight, reflected up from the floor, showed her to him.

She was dressed in bright blue pajamas, collar and belt in silver, and Forsythe, though he could not see them, knew that her eyes were also blue and dark and growing stormy.

Her voice was vibrant with swiftly rising indignation.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Forsythe took another step toward the edge of the bed. “If I were a fortuneteller, Miss Weston, I would say that you were going on a long, long journey.”

She recognized his voice with a start which sent cold shivers racing over her. She tried to slide sideways toward the door. She tried to cry out for help.

“Do not shout,” said Forsythe. “You are too kindhearted to want to see your room-boy die as he comes through the door.”

“They call you…”

Somehow Forsythe hated to hear her say it.

She clutched at her creamy throat, terror freezing her. “The Devil—With Wings. I…I believe it.”

“Don't upset yourself,” said Forsythe, trying to be gallant. “I could not call and leave my card, you know. Fifty thousand would be a fortune to a hotel manager—especially when all he had to do was phone Captain Shinohari. Come. We are wasting precious time. Dawn is not three hours away.”

“But…but I killed you! At that distance I could not miss!”

“You didn't,” Forsythe assured her. “Come now, be a good lass and climb into some clothes. You will have a long journey—”

“If you think I'm going anywhere with you, you're crazy!”

Forsythe shrugged. “You're crazy to stay here. No money, you owe the hotel, you haven't eaten.… Oh, no, you haven't. I've been hungry too often myself not to recognize the sign of it. Tonight you were hysterical. Only hunger and grief could drive a woman to those lengths. Or perhaps love. Quickly now. You can't take very much. You'll overload the ship as it is.”

She did not move, but crouched at the head of the bed watching him move easily toward her bureau and lean against it to light a cigarette.

When the match flared she saw that the “eyes” were huge goggles, and when she saw him blowing out smoke in a very human way, she suddenly relaxed. She had felt so bad about killing him that now she was glad to behold him still alive.

“If you don't mind,” said Forsythe, “hurry it up a little. It will be light soon enough and I have no liking for antiaircraft fire—especially with you in the plane.”

“I'm not going anywhere—and besides, how can I get dressed with you standing there?”

Forsythe smiled and paced back to the window. As he sat down on the sill and looked out across the rooftops, she saw moonlight strike three metal bulbs which dangled from his wide black belt. They shone brightly as they swung and she knew they were hand grenades. She noted the low-slung holster and saw the protruding dark rectangle of the .45 butt, to which a black lanyard had been hung.

She examined his back curiously, standing slowly up and staring, her small face intent, her head cocked a little on one side.

“Ching has food,” remarked Forsythe without turning. “Hot coffee and hot ham sandwiches. It will be cold if you don't hurry.”

In spite of herself she licked her lips hungrily. She wondered if she could trust him to stay turned away, and then, seeing the way his shoulders were hunched forward and sensing more than seeing the ripple of animal strength under the black jacket, she snatched up a tweed Shetland wool suit and kicked her shoes ahead of her into the closet.

She left the door open an inch so that she could watch him. He did not turn. He seemed very calm.

Abruptly she was annoyed with him. He had no feelings whatever. Why…why, not even a bullet could dent him!

She stepped back into the room and shrugged into her marten coat. She stepped to the mirror and powdered her nose by moonlight. It had not occurred to her to throw the electric switch.

“Remember,” said Forsythe, “you go of your own free will.”

“I do nothing of the kind,” she snapped hotly. “If I resisted, a murderer of your practice would probably strangle me so that you could get away. And…and I see no use in getting some poor Chinese killed. You have not heard the last of killing Robert Weston.”

“I suppose not,” sighed Forsythe, getting up. “All ready?”

“No. Wait. I can't go. It would be dishonest. I owe…” She stopped and felt cheap. He was slowly reaching inside his jacket and inside his shirt. She heard snaps pop and then crack as they were put back.

Dull yellow discs glowed in his hand.

He dropped them carelessly in a small shower on the bed.

Her eyes were wide, “Sovereigns!”

“What did you think they were? Cough drops?”

He leaned out of the window and looked carefully down into the street below. The regular tramp-tramp-tramp of a Japanese patrol came around the corner and passed out of sight in another street.

She was still staring at the money. Three coins in the lot had deep dents in their soft metal. He had taken them from a belt about his waist and she had fired at the bright silver buckle of his belt.

“Come on,” ordered Forsythe for the tenth time.

She was angry with him again. He took his luck so casually!

She moved nearer to him and he suddenly reached out and stood her up against the window. He whipped a line from nowhere and lashed a harness around her.

He leaned out and whistled shrilly and then guided her on her way.

A moment later she was standing on the roof beside Ching, breathless from dangling over dizzy space. Ching looked appraisingly at her.

“Yes, sir,” said Ching with decision. “A lot of broads hung around Yale, but you got them beat from the start.”

“You'd better lower that line to your Devil With Wings.”

“Sure,” said Ching, abashed under the cold scrutiny she gave him.

As he helped Forsythe up over the edge, Ching knew definitely that he hadn't
ever
seen a girl like her. She had nerve enough…

“You promised sandwiches?” said Patricia.

“That's better,” replied Forsythe, giving Ching a signal.

“What's better about it?” she cried with fury. “Just because I'm hungry enough to eat with pigs is no sign I
am
one!”

Forsythe smiled at her fondly but his goggles made the grin gruesome. She backed away from him, biting at a slice of ham.

Forsythe hurried them down the fire escape, cautioning them to silence. She was not interested in silence or anything in the world that moment but the feeling of food between her small white teeth.

They dropped one by one to the street and Forsythe helped her into a car on which the Rising Sun was emblazoned.

“But this is a staff car!” she said with sudden alarm.

“Of course,” said Forsythe.

“It's Shinohari's car,” said Ching with pride. “I stole it myself.”

“Get going,” said Forsythe.

CHAPTER FOUR

Betrayal

T
HE
staff car pulled to a stop on the edge of a flat field outside Port Arthur. The expanse, dun and common by day, had the appearance of an enormous silver lake under the rays of the waning moon.

The buildings stood in a shadowy, self-effacing huddle, only one white line of light showing between the shutter bottom and a windowsill.

A door opened and spilled an orange flood across the yard. It banged shut and hurried footsteps grew louder. The scarlet of the Rising Sun on the door was not bright in the hazy shimmer of moonbeams. But it was plain.

Panting and frightened, a Chinese with furtive eyes and a thin, cunning face came to an abrupt stop beside the running board. He had come so swiftly from the lighted room and he was so sure of the Rising Sun on the door that he did not give the dark interior before him more than a glance.

“Captain! He is coming here tonight—”

The Chinese stopped his rush of words and took a swift backward step. He was paralyzed by what he had done. Too late he saw the shining crystal ovals which he knew to be the goggles of The Devil With Wings.

Leisurely, Forsythe stepped out of the rear door. Carefully he closed it behind him. Ching stepped to the ground and casually shut off the lights.

“And so,” said Forsythe coolly, “Wong Teh-shui has a different color to the lining of his coat.”

The singsong language did not mean anything to Patricia but she felt herself shivering and she could not look away. A cup of coffee and a Thermos bottle in her hands tipped slowly, unattended.

Wong Teh-shui's shifty eyes sought a way out as he gathered the shreds of his courage.

“I was playing Shinohari for you,” said Wong nervously. “I have been giving him false leads—”

“False? Anything from you would be false.”

“Divine One!” cried Wong, trembling. “This unworthy associate has done nothing which should be punished!”

“Ching,” said Forsythe sharply.

Ching stepped slowly to Wong's side and with sudden fury ripped open the man's purple shirt. Wong tried to fall back but Ching held him while he probed into the pockets.

One by one Ching drew out rolls of bills. He dropped them contemptuously into the dust where the wind stirred them and mixed them up into a splotch of green and brown.

“Yen!” said Ching, spitting into the paper at his feet.

“This may account for some of the leaks we have noticed of late,” said Forsythe wearily. “You sold the Imperial Advisor Shu-sen out to us. I could expect nothing less in turn. The Japanese have been warned already?”

“NO! NO! I swear they have not!”

“You would swear to anything. For money. Is the plane ready?”

“Please! There is no gas. I did not—”

“Silence,” said Forsythe.

“They do not know! I have given them no inkling of why you are trying to unseat Pu Yi—”

“So you sold that, too,” said Forsythe. He turned slowly and looked into the car at Patricia.

“I am sorry, Miss Weston. This fellow was an agent and evidently the Japanese know we are to be here tonight. Because of slight haste…”

He shrugged and turned away.

Wong's voice was climbing up the scale with terrified breaks. His knees were getting weak and he began to sag against Ching.

“Please, Divine One! Spare me this! Please…I did not…”

Patricia felt herself grow very cold. The coffee spilled unnoticed from her cup as she unknowingly let it slide from her nerveless hand.

Forsythe had drawn his .45. He carefully took off the safety catch. The metallic click of it was loud all out of proportion to Patricia.

She sensed some titanic struggle here. She knew that Wong was a pawn on the board—a worthless traitor. But even so, the swiftness of the trial, the smallness of the evidence…

Everything was hazy in the moonlight as though she saw it through a thick, gauzy curtain of unreality. The tall man in black, the shuddering Chinese now on his knees begging, the impassive Ching.

The trio swam in Patricia's sight. She heard the .45 explode. The shot had been muffled as though something was up against the muzzle. There was no light from it.

A sickish, sweet odor rose up to mingle with the acrid fumes of powder.

Forsythe calmly replaced the empty in his clip. He turned with a weary face to Patricia and opened the door to help her out.

She cowered back from him, shivering, eyes abruptly blazing with untamable fury.

“Please,” said Forsythe. “We have but little time. I should not like to have you witness the execution of Ching and myself.”

“It would be a pleasure!” she cried wildly.

His hand stabbed inside and caught her wrist. His strong grip would leave fingermarks like a brand on her white flesh. But she gave no sign of pain. She let him drag her out of the car and suffered him to hurry her toward a low building.

Ching slid back what had appeared to be a wall. A big two-seater fighting ship came to view. It was like a hovering vulture in the shadowy hangar. Moonlight gleamed on the metal
cowl
and upon the twin snouts of machine guns there.

Patricia saw other machine guns on a ring around the rear cockpit. She suddenly stepped back, rebelling.

“Open the hood,” said Forsythe.

Ching mounted the stirrup and threw back the bullet-proof glass gunner's hood. The cockpit was large, as a gunner needs room to fire.

She struggled furiously but he only gripped her more tightly.

“I won't go!” she screamed. “You can't do this! I won't!”

His hand was close beside her face. Savagely she sank her teeth into his hard brown wrist. He snatched it away and loosed her and stood back.

She faced him defiantly, feeling she had won.

For seconds they glared at each other, wills bared and clashing.

She stood to the full advantage of her height, chin uptilted, hands thrust defiantly into her pockets. She was daring him to touch her again. Every line of her graceful body showed the taut resentment which flamed within her. Her blue eyes were like twin jets of acetylene and her mouth was a scarlet patch of fury.

Gradually some of the chill of the moonlight began to seep in upon her, shredding the haze of anger which had dropped before her glance to obscure the reality of the world about her.

Slowly she began to see Forsythe in hard, black relief against the eerie light of the silvered field. She felt the effect of the lenses of the goggles. They were twin ovals, blankly facing her, impersonally studying her. Some of the panther strength of the tall outlaw before her began to spread like a sheet of ice into her being.

She dropped her chin ever so slightly. The hands in her pockets were suddenly restive. Her shoulders slowly inched downward as the fire went out.

She was terrified and overawed, facing an unknown, unbending will which had received all her wrath without giving the least sign. There was something ghastly in the inexorable way he stood there, regarding her, seeing straight through her with those impersonal lenses.

Suddenly she felt as though she was unclothed to the cold blast of the
Manchurian
night. She was alone and weak and helpless, in the grip of a maelstrom of such force that her small strength could avail nothing in its battle against it.

Dejectedly she turned and slowly placed her slippered toe in the stirrup under the rear cockpit.

Ching helped her up and eased her into the wide seat.

Forsythe's tones were casual. “Check the gas, Ching. The fellow was lying, of course.”

Ching stepped up on the catwalk and stabbed a flashlight at the fuel gauges. “He wasn't lying! They're
empty
!”

Forsythe stepped a pace ahead and raked the light-splotched interior with anxious eyes. He paced deeply into the hangar, pausing to pick up and shake cans.

Ching cried, “We'd better abandon the plane! Shinohari will be here any minute!”

Forsythe probed deeper into the shadowy corners. He knew that no Chinese would have the courage to waste hundreds of gallons of gasoline.

He felt soft earth under his black boot and instantly knelt to scrape at the floor. Something glittered beneath the covering and he pulled it out to triumphantly hold aloft a full gas tin.

Hurriedly he dug the others out and Ching began to race with them toward the ship.

They gashed the heads with a heavy wrench and spilled the acrid, gurgling fluid into the greedy maw of the tank.

From afar came the throb of an engine, more felt than heard. Ching shot a startled glance at Forsythe and they worked faster.

Forsythe hurled the last tin clattering to the floor and gave Ching a thrust toward the gunner's pit. Black and crouched as a jungle cat, Forsythe stood listening and watching.

The car was coming closer.

Forsythe flung himself into the forward cockpit and threw the switches. The
inertia starter
began to wheeze and bark and with a chattering, protesting blast, the engine caught and raced into a jangling fanfare of strident sound.

Across the moonlit field a shadow hurtled into sight and skidded to a stop. Other, smaller shadows detached themselves hurriedly and raced toward the hangar.

“Get him!” shrieked a shrill Japanese voice.

Forsythe looked worriedly at his gauges and saw the engine was still too cold. He stood up and unbuckled a grenade from its belt.

Nothing could be heard above the roar of the clanking engine. The shadows swiftly deployed across the open. Lances of orange fire streaked the darkness. Death shrieked close beside Forsythe's head and, cheated, went whining away.

With the slow overhand motion of a softball player, Forsythe looped the grenade into the hazy silver of the field, straight at a close huddle of hurrying soldiery.

The scarlet flash was like a physical blow. Men were silhouetted for an instant against the violence of it and then there was nothing but hovering dust and moonlight.

The firing doubled outside.

Forsythe hooked another grenade far out into the field. It spewed its flame and blast over a wide area. It had been thrown too far and it did no damage.

Forsythe threw himself down into the seat. He unlocked the brakes and struck the throttle with the heel of his hand. A thousand horses beat the air into hurricane ferocity.

The ship lunged through the entrance and charged with red flaring exhausts down the runway.

Shots racketed up from the ground. Holes were magically black in the metal wings.

Ching was standing in the bucking pit, leaning into the kicking recoil of his Matsubi .50-caliber machine gun. Pompoms of blazing vermillion battered the earth.

The huge, glittering empties from the weapon streamed in a hot smoking line not five inches from Patricia's frightened white face.

The attack plane hurtled skyward, nose jabbing toward the cold moon low on the horizon as though the still-spinning wheels could find traction upon the wide path of the silver beams.

The attack plane hurtled skyward, nose jabbing toward the cold moon low on the horizon as though the still-spinning wheels could find traction upon the wide path of the silver beams.

Then, at an angle which would have meant suicide to any other pilot than Forsythe, the attack streaked upward at the zenith. The dwindling earth fell swiftly back. The flame of shots below was like flashing bulbs on a switchboard of steel.

As casually as though he stood up naturally instead of standing something less than horizontal, Ching raked the departing world with one last savage burst and then, contemptuously, he clicked the Matsubi's butt into its retaining brackets, sat down, buckled his belt and pulled the hood over the rear pit.

The ship whipped over the hump and level, two thousand feet high, scudding westward to race the first pale streamers of the glowing dawn.

Ching picked up the inter-cockpit phone. “Are we hit anyplace?”

Forsythe's cold tones came back through the receiver. “Not that I can see. The wings. Did you pot the captain?”

“I doubt it.”

“Then there's word on the way to squadrons ahead of us. We fight again before we rest. Keep your guns unlimbered!”

“You bet,” grinned Ching. “We'll burn us a couple
Nakajimas
for breakfast.”

“Don't get cocky. Our luck can't last forever.”

Ching's smile widened, showing up three gold teeth in his lean face. “Aw, there ain't a Japanese alive that could whip you.”

“Trying to dare the little jinxes?”

“Naw, but…”

“Entertain the lady and let me fly.”

“Okay. I'll keep my peepers peeled for the squadrons.”