There was a blur of light, a form hurtling through the air.
The pilot of the plane leaped from his ship. There was something familiar in his build—in his stride. When they reached Dugan he was beyond help and Tim stared across the body of the daredevil into the hard eyes of Kurt Blandin.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Later in the day Kurt Blandin stalked into the News office and went directly to Tim’s desk.
“Too bad about Dugan,” he said, but there was no pity in his words. “I didn’t see him until we struck. I’d thought of bringing the air circus back here, but I’m not so sure about it now. The accident will give us kind of a black eye.”
“You don’t seem to be very sorry about what happened to Dugan,” snapped Tim, his eyes steely and his lips drawn in hard lines. “And Blandin, I don’t think we want you around here. There are a lot of things you are going to have to explain. I’ve got a few suspicions about you that aren’t very pleasant—Sky Hawk!”
The last words fairly ripped between Tim’s lips. Tensed, the flying reporter watched their effect on Blandin. The head of the Ace air circus swayed like a slender reed in the wind, but there was no change in the mask-like expression of his face. Perhaps his eyes shifted slightly, but that was all. He laughed, a cold, nerve-chilling laugh that shocked Tim’s finer sensibilities.
“You’re crazy, Murphy,” replied Blandin and before Tim could reply, turned and hurried from the room.
For half an hour Tim remained at his desk, mulling over the events of the last months. Only a few hours before he had been so near the solution—so near to learning the identity of the Sky Hawk. If Dugan could only talk, but Dugan’s lips were stilled forever.
The daredevil’s words about the German ace came back to him and he went into the library in the News building and sat down before a large file. Slowly he thumbed through the orderly stack of pictures with their descriptive stories attached. Back through the years he went as he rejected first one picture and then another.