real. He recalled that the car was smaller and of less horse-power than the one which had brought him up from Dartmoor. It was not the same motor. Nor had there been “H.M.S.� plates on its trunk rack.
The roar of the city confused him as he waited. It was possible that he had but reflected his own thoughts when he heard the warning. He dismissed the matter and started to turn toward the river. His chin had described half a circle when there flashed across his vision the true warning of coming danger. It had taken him many years of training to act as he did. He ducked, stepped aside and sprang out and away from the stone rail.
A hurtling form, bunched and aggressive, crashed past him and rebounded from the stone. A bitter oath cracked the night. A man straightened and jabbed with a long dagger. Fay backed and held his hand in a warding position. It was Dutch Gus who faced him. The German crook had missed his prey by the scant margin of an eye flash.
Fay acted with the lightning dart of a professional wrestler. He knew the mettle of the man he faced. Dutch Gus was over-burly. He lacked the fine points of the thoroughbred. He held the knife like a bayonet—before him, with no chance to recover if he missed the stroke.
The jab missed by narrow inches. The crook stumbled from the force of his wasted blow. Fay twisted his head, stooped down, grasped the German about the hips, and flipped him over his shoulder. Dutch Gus crashed against the stone rail and hung there.
Fay reached and swiftly opened his little black bag. From this he drew the revolver and held it against the German crook’s head. He cocked the trigger. He waited. He thrust the man further outward. A coward’s cry sounded as Fay pressed Dutch Gus over the rail and down toward the murky flood of the Thames.
A splash was followed by silence. The ripples widened and merged with the pall that hung over the river. Out of this murk there rose an arm, and then the blond head of Dutch Gus. He treaded water and then sank.
“Curse you!� said Fay, clasping the weapon and waiting for a sight. “Curse you, Dutch Gus! I wonder if that’s your end?�
Fay turned, backed against the rail, and searched the gloom on the Surrey side. He waited grimly for other evidences of the ambush. He saw none, although it was hardly possible that the German had acted alone.
It came to him, as he uncocked the automatic, that in some unknown manner the German had gotten wind of the project to Holland. It flashed through his brain that, after all, there was a reasonable answer to the attempt on his life. Dutch Gus had followed Saidee Isaacs. It was no coincidence then, that she had called from the tonneau of the black car and her trailers had discovered his presence. The thing worked out. He pocketed the automatic, picked up his bag, glanced at the river, then started toward London Bridge Station. It was seven o’clock.