Chapter Four. The Sorcerer of Soho.

“Unless we can solve this terrible mystery in the course of a few weeks, it is hardly too much to say that England is doomed.”

The speaker was the white-haired Professor Durward, the distinguished head of the Royal Society. He sat facing the Prime Minister in the latter’s room at 10, Downing Street. Round the long table were grouped the members of the Cabinet. They were men who had lived through stormy and troublous times and had met stories of disaster without flinching. But, as they admitted afterwards, none of the terrible tidings of past years, when the fortunes of the Empire seemed to be tottering, had affected them to the same extent as the few brief words with which the distinguished savant summed up the long deliberations on which they had been engaged. They seemed pregnant with the very message of Fate. Almost they could see the writing on the wall.

“But, Professor,” asked the Premier, “do you really mean that nothing whatever can be done to check or prevent this terrible malady?”

“Nothing, so far as I am aware,” was the reply. “As you know the most distinguished men of science in England have been at work on the problem. We had a very full meeting last night, and the unanimous verdict was that the disease was not only absolutely incurable, but that nothing we have tried seems capable of affording even the slightest alleviation. The deaths reported already amount to nearly half a million; though the truth is being carefully concealed from the public in order to allay panic, yet practically every community in which the disease has appeared has been virtually wiped out. Curiously enough it does not seem to be spread by contagion. In spite of the rush of terrified people from districts in which it has appeared, no cases have shown themselves except in towns or villages where the mysterious violet cloud has been observed. That phenomenon has been the precursor of every outbreak.”

A month before, in the tiny village of Moorcrest, buried in the recesses of the Chilterns, an unoccupied house had suddenly collapsed with a slight explosion. No one was in the house at the time, and no one was injured. As to the cause of the explosion no one could form an idea. Nothing in the nature of the remains of a bomb could be discovered, and there was no gas laid on in the village.

But the few villagers who were about at the time spoke of seeing a dense cloud of pale violet vapour pouring from the ruins. On this point all observers were agreed, and they all agreed, too, that the cloud was accompanied by a powerful smell which strongly resembled a combination of petrol and musk. That was all the evidence that could be collected. No harm seemed to follow and the matter was speedily forgotten.

Very soon, however, the incident took on a new and sinister significance.

A week later a similar explosion took place in Ancoats, a poor and densely crowded suburb of Manchester. In every respect this incident duplicated the happening at Moorcrest. Naturally, it created something of a sensation, and the papers, recalling the Moorcrest mystery, made the most of it.

During the next fortnight similar explosions, all bearing the same distinguishing features, occurred in various parts of England. Sometimes there would be three or four in a single day in the same, or closely adjoining, areas. The public became excited. Not a single person was injured, the damage done was apparently trifling, since all the houses destroyed were of the poorest class. It looked like the work of a maniac—purposeless and without the slightest trace of a motive. People spoke of Bolshevists and Communists. But what Bolshevik or Communist, others asked, would waste time and effort to inflict such absurd pinpricks on Society?

They were soon to be undeceived. An enemy of Society was indeed at work armed with a weapon of a potency which far outstripped the paltry efforts of the Terrorists of old, to whom the bomb and the revolver were the means of world regeneration.

The explosion at Moorcrest took place on May 2nd.

Twelve days later, on May 14th, Doctor Clare-Royden, who was in practice at Little Molton, a village about four miles from Moorcrest, received an urgent message from an old patient summoning him to Moorcrest.

Doctor Royden, jumping on his motor-bicycle, answered the summons at once. A terrible surprise awaited him.

Practically every inhabitant of the village, about a hundred people in all, were in the grip of a fearful and, so far as Doctor Royden’s knowledge went, wholly unknown malady.

Its principal symptoms were complete paralysis of the arms which were strained and twisted in a terrible manner, fever which mounted at a furious speed, and agonising pains in the head. Many of the victims were already in extremis, several died even while the doctor was examining them, and in the course of a few hours practically everyone attacked by the disease had succumbed. The only ones to recover were a few children, too young to give any useful information.

It would be useless to trace or describe the excitement which followed, even though the Press, at the instigation of the Government, was silent upon the matter. Help was rushed to Moorcrest, the dead were interred and the living helped in every way. The Ministry of Health sent down its most famous experts to investigate. One and all admitted that they were completely baffled.

On May 21st Ancoats was the scene of an appalling outbreak of the disease. People in the densely packed areas died like flies. But there were some remarkable circumstances which drew the attention of the trained observers who rushed to the spot to inquire into the phenomenon.

Ancoats had been the scene of the second explosion twelve days before. It was not long before a health official noticed the coincidence that the outbreaks at Moorcrest and Ancoats occurred exactly twelve days after the explosions in each place.

The coincidence was, of course, remarked upon as somewhat suspicious, but it was not until it was reproduced in the terrible outbreak at Nottingham that suspicion became a practical certainty. It was speedily confirmed by repeated outbreaks in other parts of the country. In each case the mysterious malady broke out exactly twelve days after the appearance of the violet vapour. In all cases the symptoms were precisely alike, and the percentage of deaths was appalling. Neither remedy nor palliative could be devised, and the best medical brains in the country confessed themselves baffled.

By this time there was no room for doubt that the terror was the deliberate work of some human fiend who had won a frightful secret from Nature’s great laboratory. But who could it be, and what possible object could he have?

Leading scientific men of all nations poured in to England to help. For it was now recognised that civilisation as a whole was menaced; the fate of England to-day might be the fate of any other nation to-morrow. France and the United States sent important missions; even Russia and Germany were represented by famous bacteriologists and health experts. International jealousies and rivalries appeared to be laid aside, and even the secret service, most suspicious of rivals, began for once to co-operate and place at each other’s disposal information which might prove useful in tracking down the author of the mysterious pestilence.

On the day of the meeting of the British Cabinet, two men and a pretty, dark-haired French girl were keenly discussing the terrible problem in a small but tastefully furnished flat in the Avenue Kléber, in Paris.

“I know only three people in the world with brains enough to carry the thing out,” said the girl. “They are Ivan Petroff, the Russian; Paolo Caetani, the Italian, and Sebastian Gonzalez, the Spaniard. They are all three avowed anarchists, and, as we know, they are all chemists and bacteriologists of supreme ability. But I must say that there is not a scrap of evidence to connect either of them with this affair.”

The speaker was Yvette Pasquet, and there was no one in whom Regnier, the astute head of the French Secret Service, placed more implicit confidence.

“If the doctors could settle whether this poisoning is chemical or bacteriological it would help us a great deal,” said Dick Manton. “If it is chemical, I should be disposed to include Barakoff; he knows more about chemistry than all the others put together. But in any case, there is as yet nothing we can even begin to work on.”

A fortnight went past. The death-roll in England had assumed terrible proportions, and apparently the authorities were as far off as ever from coming to grips with the mystery. But a clue came through the heroism of a London policeman.

One night Constable Jervis was patrolling a beat which led him through some tumbledown streets in the lowest quarter of Canning Town. Suddenly he caught sight of a man rushing from a small empty house. At once Jervis started in pursuit of the man, who was running hard away from him. As he did so, there came the sound of an explosion, and the house the man had just left collapsed like a pack of cards. At the same time the odour of the dreaded violet vapour completely filled the narrow street.

The Terror had attacked London, and Jervis knew that to cross that zone of vapour meant certain death.

He did not hesitate. Muffling his face with his pocket handkerchief as he ran, he dashed at full speed after the stranger, whom he could just discern. He crossed the zone of death, almost overpowered by the curious scent of petrol and musk that loaded the still air, and a moment later was in pursuit, blowing his whistle loudly as he ran. A moment later a second policeman, hearing his colleague’s whistle, stood at the end of the road barring the way. The desperado was trapped.

Snatching out a revolver, the man backed against the wall and opened fire on his pursuers who were rapidly closing in on him. But both the policemen were armed, and both opened fire. Jervis’s second shot killed the man on the spot.

He proved to be a well-known member of a Russian anarchist group which had its head-quarters in the slums of Soho. The gallant Jervis had faced certain death—as a matter of fact he was among the hundred or so victims when the epidemic broke out twelve days later—but he had done his duty in accordance with the splendid traditions of the force to which he belonged.

The source of the mysterious epidemic was now, to a certain extent, localised. It needed no great acumen to guess the motive and origin of the fiendish plot. But to discover the master-mind which held the full solution of the mystery was another matter.

The first step was a general round-up of known members of the Anarchist Party. They were arrested by dozens, and very soon practically all who were known were under lock and key.

To the intense surprise of the police, one and all acknowledged that they were fully familiar with the scheme. Many of them had actually taken part in its execution. The secret had been well kept!

The explosions, it was learned, were caused by small bombs about the size of an orange. These were placed in the selected houses and timed to explode in a few hours. Evidently there was some defect in the mechanism of the one sent to Canning Town, and the man who placed it there must have seen that it was likely to explode prematurely and rushed in panic from the house.

But of the source of the bombs one and all of the men professed complete ignorance. They were, it was asserted, received by post from different places on the Continent. It was evident that the crafty scoundrel at the head of the terrible organisation took elaborate precautions to prevent their sources of origin being discovered.

But to have traced the outbreak to Anarchist sources was a step of the first importance. Immediately every branch of the secret service of the western world was concentrated on the problem.

A hint from one of the men captured, who collapsed under the cross-examination to which the known leaders were subjected, put the police in possession of one of the bombs. It had arrived by post the day before, and the miscreant to whom it was sent was caught before he had time to make use of it.

It was now possible to prove definitely that the disease caused by the bombs was chemical in its origin. Upon analysis the powder with which the bomb was filled was found to consist of a series of, apparently, quite harmless chemicals. A small portion fired by the detonator found in the bomb gave off dense clouds of the pale-violet vapour, and animals exposed to it were speedily killed, exhibiting every symptom of the terrible disease. Unhappily the secret of the detonator used defied discovery. The one found in the bomb had been used in the only experiment that had been made, and too late it was discovered that no fulminating material known would explode the apparently harmless powder.

“That seems to narrow it down to Barakoff,” said Dick Manton a few days later when Regnier brought them the news. “I don’t think either of the others is equal to research work capable of producing such results. Do you know where Barakoff is now?” he asked in French.

Regnier shook his head.

“He was in Moscow a year ago,” he replied, “and after that we heard of him in Prague, in Rome, and lastly in Madrid, but he disappeared suddenly and we have not been able to pick up his tracks again. He is a short, powerful, thickset man with a rather hunched back, but nothing else peculiar about his appearance.”

Next day, however, Regnier came to the adventurous trio in great excitement.

“Barakoff is in England!” he declared. “We have just had word from Gaston Meunier who saw him in Brighton a week ago!”

“But how on earth did he get there?” asked Jules. “You know every one has been looking for him for months past. He could not possibly have got through by any of the ordinary routes.”

“I’m as puzzled as you are, monsieur,” was Regnier’s reply.

“Well, if he is there we’d better go over,” said Dick. “Yvette can go with me in Mohawk II and Jules by the night boat. I shall fly the Mohawk to my old shed in Norfolk; I have kept it on in case of emergency, and it is quite safe.”

An hour later Dick was in close talk with a young Russian named Nicholas Fedoroff. He had been an active member of a circle of dangerous anarchists in Zurich, but had dropped out and was now living in Paris. By good fortune Dick had saved his baby girl, at imminent risk of his own life, from being killed by a motor-van in Paris, hence Fedoroff was impulsively grateful.

“Look here, Nicholas,” said Dick bluntly. “I want you to tell me anything you can about Barakoff.”

They were seated in a small café in the Rue Caumartin, which was Fedoroff’s favourite haunt. The Russian glanced round fearfully.

“Hush!” he said in broken French and in evident horror. “I—I can’t tell you! He has agents everywhere. If I were heard even speaking his name I should never get home.”

The man’s agitation was so pronounced that one or two men in the café glanced at him curiously. Dick saw that the mere mention of Barakoff’s name had thrown the Russian completely off his balance.

“Come to my flat,” he said quietly, “you have got to tell me.”

They drove in a taxi to Dick’s flat, where a stiff dose of brandy pulled the Russian together. Yet he still trembled like a leaf.

“How did you know that I knew Barakoff?” he asked.

Instantly Dick was keenly on the alert. He had no idea that Fedoroff had been associated with the notorious criminal; his appeal to Fedoroff had been a chance shot. Evidently he had stumbled on a matter of importance. But he was quick to take advantage of his good luck.

“Never mind how,” he said. “I do know, and that’s enough. You have got to tell me. I believe Barakoff is at the bottom of the trouble in England. I know he is there, and I want to know where he is and how he got there.”

The Russian’s agitation increased.

“You must not ask me; I cannot tell you,” he gasped.

“Then a few words from me in a certain quarter—not the police,” Dick suggested.

The Russian collapsed.

“No, no, I will tell you,” he moaned. “He is in England, but I don’t know where. He flew over.”

“Flew over!” echoed Dick in utter amazement. “Nonsense, he couldn’t have got in that way. Every aerodrome in England has been watched for months.”

“But he did,” the Russian asserted. “He has his own aeroplane. It makes no noise, and it goes straight up and down.”

Here was a surprise indeed! The secret of the helicopter with its almost unlimited power for evil was also in the hands of one of the most desperate ruffians in the world! There was indeed no time to be lost.

Fedoroff could tell Dick little more. What the secret of Barakoff’s influence over him was Dick could not fathom. He would say nothing, but evidently was in deadly fear.

One little item Dick did indeed extract and it was to prove valuable. Fedoroff knew that Barakoff had associates in Soho. And that was the only clue they could gain to his possible whereabouts.

That evening Dick, Yvette, and Jules crossed to England, and with official introductions from Regnier, Dick lost no time in getting into communication with Detective Inspector Buckhurst, one of the ablest men of Scotland Yard’s famous “Special Department,” a man whose knowledge of the alien scum which infested London was unrivalled. To him Dick told all he knew.

Buckhurst looked grave.

“I know of the man, of course,” he said, “but I have never seen him and I don’t think any of my men have. We have combed Soho out pretty thoroughly, but no one answering to Barakoff’s description has been seen.”

The position was very grave. If Fedoroff’s information was correct—and Dick saw no reason to doubt it—here was a desperate scoundrel lurking in England armed with an aeroplane of unknown design and power, and in possession of a terrible secret which, unless his career was brought to an end, threatened the entire population of the country. But where was he hiding, and, above all, where was his machine? Could it possibly be hidden, Dick wondered, in the very heart of London? The idea was almost incredible, but Dick knew Barakoff’s undoubted genius and his amazing daring.

A remarkable feature of Yvette’s personality was her wonderful influence over children. They seemed literally to worship her. She would get into conversation with the half-tamed gamins of the streets and in a few hours they would be her devoted slaves. She now proceeded to enlist the ragged battalions of Soho in a fashion that caused Buckhurst much amusement.

“Find out for me all the hunchbacked men you can,” was all the instructions she gave them.

“But, mademoiselle,” said Inspector Buckhurst, “it will be the talk of Soho, and our man if he is there will slip away.”

Yvette was unmoved.

“Just think a minute,” she said. “Who can go about all day and all night without being suspected? The children. Who can go into dens where your men hardly dare to venture? The children. Who know all the hidden haunts of which your men are utterly ignorant? The children. And finally, who are the most secretive people in the world? Again the children. Do not fear, Monsieur Buckhurst, they will not talk except among themselves, and that will do no harm.”

Buckhurst was far from satisfied, but he had gained such a respect for Yvette that he did not venture to override her. At the same time, he told her plainly that he should keep his own men busy. Yvette only laughed.

During the next forty-eight hours dozens of hunchbacked men were reported. Many of them were people whom not even the police knew. They were, of course, mostly harmless, but Buckhurst opened his eyes when one of them proved to be a notorious forger for whom the police had been looking for some months, and who had all the time been hidden under their very noses! Buckhurst began to feel a growing respect for the amazing French girl, who had beaten his smartest detectives on their own ground. But, unfortunately, none of the hunchbacks was the man they wanted, and at last they began to suspect that Fedoroff’s information was at fault.

Then came a dramatic surprise. One of Yvette’s small assistants, a sharp little Polish Jew boy, came to her with a strange story. He had been wandering about the night before and had seen a hunchbacked man let himself out of the side door of a big building half-way between Greek Street and War dour Street. The man had walked a considerable distance in a northerly direction into a part of London the boy did not know at all, and had entered an unoccupied house, stayed a few minutes, and come out again. The lad had shadowed him all the way, and had followed him homewards, until he again entered the building in Soho.

Dick, Jules, and Yvette turned out at once. The boy pointed out the building to them. It was a tall structure which dominated all the others in the vicinity. It was apparently a big shop with storerooms above. On the facia over the windows was the name “Marcel Deloitte, Antique Furniture.” There was nothing to indicate that it differed in the slightest degree from dozens of other shops and buildings in the neighbourhood. Yet Dick felt suspicious.

“We can do nothing till I get the Mohawk handy,” said Dick. “I will bring her down to-night.”

And he paused.

“I wish you would keep out of this, Yvette,” he went on wistfully. “It is going to be very dangerous, I am convinced.” The French girl was growing very dear to him, and he shuddered at the idea of her being mixed up in the coming struggle with a desperado of Barakoff’s type.

But Yvette shook her head.

“I’m in this to the finish, Dick,” was all she said in her pretty broken English, and Dick knew he could not move her. But he was full of fear.

That afternoon another explosion of the pale-violet vapour occurred in North London not far from Finsbury Park Station. Dick rushed to the spot with the boy who had followed the hunchbacked man, and the lad recognised the place without hesitation. The house destroyed was, he was confident, the one the hunchback had entered the night before.

Barakoff was located at last! But how was he to be captured? The problem was not so easy.

It was vital that, if possible, he should be taken alive. They knew what would follow the explosion at Finsbury Park, and there was a chance at least that if Barakoff were captured the secret of the disease, and possibly the antidote, might be wrung from him. If they could succeed in that hundreds of lives would be saved.

Together the three worked out a careful plan for the coup they intended to bring off next morning.

Very early a dozen street arabs were playing innocently close to the two entrances of the mysterious building. They were chosen specimens of Yvette’s band of ragamuffin detectives, and she knew that if Barakoff tried to escape he would have no chance of eluding their keen eyes. All the approaches were blocked by detectives, but Yvette insisted that none should approach the house itself. It was essential to the success of their plan that Barakoff’s suspicions should not be aroused.

From the roof of a big building half a mile away, Dick made a careful examination of what he was now convinced was Barakoff’s hiding-place. But he could see little. The roof was flat, but it was surrounded by a parapet practically breast high. There was obviously plenty of room to conceal a small aeroplane, but Dick could see nothing.

Dick and Buckhurst together saw the proprietor of the building from which Dick had made his observations. He readily consented to Dick’s plan, and towards evening placed a trusty commissionaire at the foot of the flight of steps leading to the roof with instructions that no one was to pass on any account whatever. Soon after dark the Mohawk dropped silently on to the flat roof. They were ready now to catch their bird!

In the morning Yvette, under the pretence of wishing to buy some old furniture, entered the shop. So far as she could see there was nothing suspicious. There was a manager, evidently a Russian, and two assistants.

Asking for a Jacobean chest which she did not see in the shop, Yvette was at length invited to the upper floors. These she found to be full of furniture.

Climbing the stairs to the third floor, accompanied by the manager, Yvette found herself in a large room divided in the centre by a wall, and with a door in the middle. Opening this door the manager bowed to her to precede him, and Yvette, quite unsuspectingly, obeyed. Next second the door crashed to, and she heard a key turn in the lock. She was trapped!

Before she could recover from her astonishment there was a rush of feet behind her, and she found herself seized in a grip which, as she at once recognised, it was far beyond her strength to shake off. She struggled frantically, but in vain. She was hopelessly overpowered and swiftly bound, and laid, gagged and helpless, on a sofa in the corner of the room. Then for the first time she caught sight of her captor. She recognised him at once. It was Barakoff himself! Worse still, he knew her!

The man was mad with rage, his face convulsed and his eyes blazing with fury.

“So, Mademoiselle Pasquet! We meet at last!” he snarled, stooping over her until his face was within a foot of her own and she could feel his hot breath upon her cheek. “But it is for the first—and last time!”

Accustomed as she was to danger in many forms, Yvette could not repress a shudder. In the power of a ruffian like Barakoff! She knew, of course, that at any moment Jules might become suspicious of her long absence and come in search of her. But how long would he be and what might happen in the meantime?

Barakoff set swiftly to work and fixed inside the doors heavy bars which, as Yvette realised with a sinking heart, would effectually shut out anyone trying to gain admittance, until either the door was reduced to splinters or a hole was knocked in the wall. Then he picked her up without an effort and carried her into the adjoining room. This, to Yvette’s intense surprise, was elaborately fitted up as a chemical laboratory, with all kinds of strange instruments and apparatus. It was evident that it had long been used for this purpose.

With an evil sneer Barakoff took from a cupboard what Yvette had no difficulty in recognising as one of the poison bombs! This he placed on a table and attached to it a short length of fuse. Then he began to busy himself with what seemed to be preparations for leaving, packing a few articles of clothing in a small bag and laying it down with a heavy coat beside it.

“When night comes, I go,” he said. “But you—you will remain. But I shall leave you in good company, mademoiselle,” and he pointed to the deadly bomb. “You will not feel dull. And after I am gone you will die—very slowly—of the twisted arms.”

For a few minutes the miscreant sat silent, smoking a cigarette and regarding Yvette with a look of triumph she found even harder to bear than the consciousness of her terrible danger.

Jules, on watch below, had at length become uneasy. He entered the shop and asked one of the assistants if the lady was still there.

“Yes,” replied the fellow readily, “she is upstairs with the manager looking at some furniture.”

Jules, his hand on his pistol in his pocket, and feeling strangely uneasy, started up the stairs. There was no one in the building. What could have become of Yvette and the manager?

On the third floor he noticed the door through which Yvette had gone. He seized the handle and tried to open it. But the door was locked and there was no key.

Not daring to raise an alarm for fear of the consequences to Yvette, Jules hastened down the stairs, and signalled to one of the Scotland Yard men. In a low voice Jules told him what had happened.

“We must be ready to break down that door at once,” he said.

With swift efficiency help was summoned, including a couple of men of the salvage corps, armed with powerful axes which would make short work of any ordinary door.

While the shop assistants were kept under surveillance, Jules and his helpers mounted to the third floor. They tried the door, and knocked. There was no reply, but inside they heard the hasty scurry of feet.

“Break it down,” said Inspector Buckhurst, who had been one of the first to arrive.

The salvage men sprang forward, and one on each side of the door began a furious attack with their axes.

Instantly a shot rang out. Splinters flew in showers, but the door, heavily barred and plated with iron, for a time defied all their efforts. At last it gave way, and headed by Jules the police party rushed in.

Their first discovery was Yvette, lying unconscious and bleeding profusely from a wound in the shoulder. Barakoff had fired at her as he hurried from the room when the thunderous attack on the door began. But in his blind haste his aim had been bad, even at such short range, and she escaped with comparatively slight injury.

But where was Barakoff?

Rushing out on to the flat roof Jules looked hurriedly round. To the southward a queer-looking aeroplane was just vanishing into the thin mist. But behind it, going “all out,” sped the Mohawk in furious pursuit. Dick Manton was taking a hand in the game of which he was a master! There could be but one end to that, Jules thought, with a sigh of relief as he turned to look after Yvette.

She was recovering consciousness and they were just about to carry her out, when one of the policemen with a loud cry dashed to the table. He had caught sight of a thin thread of smoke rising from the fuse of the bomb!

Luckily he was an old bombing instructor and knew what to do. A moment later the fuse was cut and the bomb’s detonator removed. It was harmless now. Half a minute later it would have exploded.

Watching keenly from his roof Dick Manton had seen Barakoff’s aeroplane rise swiftly and silently into the air. He had some slight trouble in starting the Mohawk, and the Russian was a mile away before the Englishman had started in pursuit.

Crouched in the driving seat of the Mohawk, Dick kept his eyes glued on the machine in front. He soon realised, to his dismay, that the Russian machine was much the faster and was leaving him behind. By the time they had gone ten miles and were out over the open country, he could only just discern the fugitive as a mere speck in the distance, and he realised with a sinking heart that a fleck of mist would enable Barakoff to escape.

Suddenly he discovered that the Russian machine had descended very low. A moment later it appeared to rise vertically, going up to a great height.

Instantly Dick followed and to his surprise found himself gaining rapidly. Then the Russian seemed to slip ahead again.

Several times this was repeated, and Dick at length divined the reason. The Russian could not run his elevating and driving propellers simultaneously. He travelled in a series of swoops, coming down very slowly as the machine drove forward, and then being compelled to stop the driving propellers while he gained the necessary height to continue his flight. No doubt this was explained by the fact that the planes were too small to keep the machine up without the elevating propellers.

Dick saw that he held a big advantage. The Mohawk, though slightly slower, could rise and go forward at the same time under the influence of both propellers.

As they sped over Kent, Dick began to realise with joy that he was gaining. Slowly the poison-fiend began to come back to him.

Then came the critical moment. Five hundred yards ahead and a thousand feet below, Barakoff, close to the ground, must rise soon to gain the elevation he required.

That was the moment for which Dick had been waiting. He called on his machine for the last ounce of effort he had been holding in reserve.

The Mohawk shot forward. A few seconds later Dick was directly above the Russian. So far as air tactics went he had won; the Russian was entirely at his mercy.

Then began surely the strangest aerial combat ever witnessed. To and fro the machines dodged, Barakoff striving to gain height and succeeding for a moment only to find his pursuer above him again and bullets whining round him; Dick striving to force the Russian down to the ground where he must either land or crash. For fully half an hour the machines flitted backwards and forwards around the town of Ashford. Dick had no fear of the result; his only risk was whether he could send Barakoff down before dusk came. Unless he could do this there was every danger that the Russian would escape under cover of darkness.

At last the end came.

Dick had forced his antagonist so low that, as a last desperate resort, Barakoff had to leap upward to clear a big group of elms. He miscalculated by a few feet, his machine touched the upper branches and went smashing to earth. Three minutes later Dick was standing beside the body of the death-dealer.

Barakoff’s machine was a complete wreck and was blazing furiously. The man himself had been flung clear and lay in a crumpled heap, stone dead.

There is little more to tell.

The formula for the powder with which the bomb was charged was found in Barakoff’s laboratory, and with it, in Russian, a prescription which, on being tested, proved to be a complete cure for the disease. It was found just in time to save those who would otherwise have been the victims of the explosion at Finsbury Park.

It was evident that Barakoff must have maintained his laboratory in Soho for months. Obviously the manager of the shop was one of his accomplices, and apparently he had recognised Yvette and deliberately thrown her into Barakoff’s hands. Then realising that discovery was inevitable he had slipped out of the building, probably by a window as neither of the assistants had noticed him leave. He was never found. The assistants themselves proved to be respectable young fellows who had been employed only a few weeks and who clearly knew nothing of the nefarious conspiracy.

Nothing but the Mohawk had prevented Barakoff’s escape! And Dick Manton received later on the official thanks of the British Government for his daring exploit.