by Harold Ward
The dissolution ray! What was it? How was it generated? Scientific men debated the subject for days, advancing theories in the papers that in normal times would have seemed preposterous. But Doctor Death’s sinister plans got attention.
Chapter XXI
The Dissolution Ray
THE watchman at the great Undermill Air Craft plant had finished his lunch and, feet upon the desk, was smoking a final pipe preparatory to making his rounds.
The telephone rang. Dropping his feet to the floor with an angry bang at being disturbed, he removed the pipe from his mouth. Pulling the instrument closer, he lifted the receiver from the hook and bellowed a stentorian “Hello!” into the mouthpiece.
“Is this the Undermill Aircraft plant?” a harsh voice demanded.
“It is,” the watchman retorted. “What do you want and who the divil are yez to disturb a man when he’s resting?”
“This is Doctor Death,” came back the answer over the wires. “I have no quarrel with you. You are a poor man—a member of the working class. I am warning you, therefore, that I will commence wrecking your plant inside of five minutes. I—”
“Like thunder you will!” the watchman bristled. “Not while I’m on the job.”
“Unless you want to be buried under a hundred thousand tons of brick, mortar and machinery, you will leave the building,” the voice went on gratingly. “You will, therefore, quit your post at once.”
There was a click. The watchman jiggled the receiver, but failed to get a response from the operator. The line was dead.
“Doctor Death!” he growled to himself. “The man the papers are full of. As if the old devil would stoop to warning the likes of me, the dirty—”
He stopped suddenly as a bit of mortar fell upon his shoulder. He turned his eyes ceilingwards. The plaster was cracking in a thousand places. Even while he looked, a huge chunk dropped, missing him by inches. The walls, too, were commencing to give way. A partition tumbled as he turned and, face white and blanched, rushed through the door and down the wide hallway to the street.
Stones were falling around him like rain by the time he reached the exit. He scampered across the roadway like a mad hare to where the fire alarm box was located halfway down the block. Smashing the glass, he pulled the lever and let it leap back into place. An instant later he heard the wild shriek of the sirens as the first apparatus left the nearby station.
He turned to the building again. A terrific crash greeted his ears. The entire front had fallen in. Even as he watched, one of the side walls buckled outward and fell with a force that rocked the earth.
By the time the first apparatus arrived, the building was a total wreck. Under the huge search lights of the fire department, they saw the huge pieces of masonry crumble like chalk and disintegrate into dust.
Machinery—great lathes, drill presses, woodworking mechanism of all kinds—masterpieces of iron and steel were dissolving into atoms. Finished ships, one of them the huge, fifty-passenger biplane that was being constructed for transatlantic travel—half a hundred smaller craft in various stages of completion—crumpled and disintegrated.
Then, out of the bleak and somber sky, came a whirling, spinning cloud blacker than the surrounding atmosphere. It had the shape of a man—a legless man whose head was in the clouds. It whooped and shrieked in hellish glee as it bore down upon the doomed factory, leaping high in the air, touching the ground at infrequent intervals. Wherever it touched death and disaster followed.
The surrounding buildings went down before its onslaught like paper houses before a gale of wind. The air was filled with the shrieks of the injured and the moans of the dying. From every side police cars raced to the doomed area. In their wake came the ambulances.
It struck the spot where, half an hour before, a great factory had stood. Twisting, doubling, it bent over and sucked up the crushed and pulverized stone at a single breath as a vacuum cleaner lifts the dirt from a carpet. It shrieked fiendishly, howling and whistling like a mad thing. With the tail of its flapping garment of cloudlike vapor, it picked up a huge piece of fire apparatus and, carrying it through the air, hurled it through the top of a ten-story building.
Then, suddenly, it disappeared. And where the great buildings of the Undermill Air Craft plant had stood there now remained only cellars—a solid block of brick and masonry carried away almost in an instant.
The papers were filled with the story of the disaster. Edition followed edition as rapidly as the huge presses could turn them out. Business was stagnated. Dawn found the streets filled with milling, wondering people. Inspector Ricks, recuperating from his injuries, seized the first paper that came into the hospital and, reading, swore lustily.
Bellowing for his clothes, he hastily attired himself. In spite of nurses and doctors, he staggered to a taxicab and hastened to the Central Detective Bureau where already a vast crowd was congregating, demanding action on the part of the police, cursing official inefficiency.
The story of the night watchman was told and retold. His picture, pipe in mouth, appeared on the front page of every newspaper in the city. The press associations ceased sending out any other news in order to load their wires with this, the culminating horror of all.
Then came a new sensation:
DOCTOR DEATH SENDS DEATH THREAT TO THE NATION
Thus did the Sneed papers play up the letter which followed the latest outrage.
The letters appeared in five-inch wood-type across the front page of all of them. Every other sheet followed suit as the presses were again set in motion and editors, reporters, copy-readers, linotype operators and pressmen, weary after a gruelling day, started again on what was the biggest sensation of all. Death’s latest letter read:
My patience is exhausted. I have given repeated warnings, none of which have been observed. When next I strike, it will be not at any particular spot, but at the nation is a whole.
Civilization as it now exists must cease. I have said this before. I say it again. The world must either go back to the simple life of its own accord or I will destroy it. The world knows I possess a power such as no man has enjoyed. I have been given a mission to fulfill. I intend to fulfill it.
Here, then, is my message to the world: The wheels of industry must stop. Scientists must cease their work. All patents in the United States Patent Office must be destroyed. The vast plants of trade and industry must be shut down and the machinery allowed to rust and crumple into dust. The cities must be emptied and men must return to the soil. Eventually I intend to wipe out all cities as I have destroyed this great plant of the men who, disobeyed my commands. To do so now would cause the deaths of many innocent people. And I have no quarrel with the common man. I intend, therefore, to give the cities time to purge themselves before I level them into the dust.
I have demonstrated my power in other ways. Last night I tried, for the first time, what you have called my dissolution ray. I have the brain with which to create this great engine of destruction. I will create further weapons of destruction.
Two weeks from today, on August 24th, unless I see that steps have been taken to carry out my commands, I strike again. The national capital will be crumpled into dust and the dust scattered to the four winds of heaven. Following that, another respite of two weeks will be given. Then I strike for the last time. When I have finished, not a plant of any consequence, not a machine, not a building of importance will be left on this side of the Atlantic.
At the same time the minions under my command will commence the work of wholesale slaughter. The so-called great men of our nation will die—just as John Stark and Munson and Spafford and Henworthy died.
I have commanded.
Doctor Death.
Chapter XXII
The Master Commands!
THE world was to be destroyed. Doctor Death had decreed it. Oddly enough, a majority of the people believed his statement. In some quarters, the news was received with rejoicing. Men were to be reborn on a common level; everyone
was to start afresh. The wealthy would be brought down to a plane with the common men.
Doctor Death, over night, became a national hero with the working classes. Doctor Death clubs were formed with a Death’s head as their emblem. Soap box orators sang his praises on street corners. The police broke up mass meetings of demonstrators in every large city.
It was a certainty that from these clubs and demonstrations Doctor Death was recruiting a small army. Already there was a feeling of tension in the air. It was whispered that mankind was to be destroyed with the exception of a certain few and that from this selected group a new race was to be started.
But Death himself, the head and brains of this impending disaster, was still a thing apart. Once he was in their power, the police knew that they could handle his followers. To this end the men of the Secret Service and Detective Bureau combed the city. Thousands of sympathizers were arrested, only to be freed for lack of evidence.
It was Doctor Death they wanted. And Doctor Death could not be found.
The very life of the government was at stake, regardless of how great or small the peril might be to the general population. In the life of every nation, as in the lives of its people, come moments which because they are so colossal, so overwhelming, are beyond comprehension. Such was the case of the United States. A few thousand men—leaders of science, industry and government—recognized the terrible danger which threatened the world at large. These men were helpless.
Over them all, leaving no stones unturned in the effort to seize the diabolical fiend who had made this all possible, was the Secret Twelve with the President of the United States at the head and Jimmy Holm as the managing director.
IN a gloomy old house set down at the edge of a lake close to New York City, Doctor Death sat in moody silence, his deep set eyes wearing a strange, far-away look as he listened over the radio to an impassioned oration made by a high official of the United States. As the words died away, the old man leaned forward and turned the machine off. Then, settling back in his chair he touched a button on the table and, lighting his battered pipe, dropped back against the cushions and closed his eyes in thought.
It was typical of the man that he should select such a place for his lair after being chased out of his subterranean fortress.
There was something about his makeup that required darkness—stygian gloom. Like a fungus growth, he flourished best far from the light of day.
The building was huge and rambling. It stood far back from the main road; the lane which led to it was weed-grown and filled with ruts. A wall and a vast grove of spruce and fir trees shielded it from the pavement. The masonry was cracked and ruinous, covered with creeping vines and a peculiar growth of moss. The windows were tightly boarded, giving the place the appearance of being uninhabited.
The interior, in spite of the richness of its furnishings—for Doctor Death did not believe in stinting himself—was as dark and gloomy as was the outside. It was filled with rambling corridors, worn stairs, bleak, tunnel-like hallways and crumbling plaster. The suite of rooms used by the sinister Doctor were brilliantly lighted. The remainder of the place was as dark as a cavern, unfurnished and bleak.
Doctor Death made no movement as the door opened and Nina Fererra entered. She dropped into a chair with a defiant attitude, her eyes sweeping his gaunt, emaciated form insolently.
“You rang?” she inquired.
Her gaze met his with a merciless, searching intentness.
“You are still in an evil humor,” he chuckled. “It was time that you were taught a lesson. You have evidently not been punished sufficiently.”
“I am not afraid of death,” she said simply.
“You misunderstand me,” Doctor Death said coldly. “I have no intention of killing you. You are necessary to me—more necessary now than ever before, even though you have ceased to assist me in my experiments. One man stands in the way of my success. You can aid me in outwitting him. Need I mention his name?”
“Jimmy Holm?” she said in a low, hushed voice.
Death nodded.
“Exactly, my dear. I know that you love this cub. Youth is pliable, flexible, bending under pressure. Had I killed him when I had the opportunity, I would be in control of the nation at this minute. Instead, I foolishly allowed myself to be swayed by you. I should have put an end to him. By this time you would already have forgotten him.”
He smiled cynically, noting that her face was working with poignant emotion.
“Never!” she burst forth.
“It has been a battle between my magic and your magic,” he went on. “As a result, you have restored to Jimmy Holm that which I took away from him—his memory. I need him now—need him because, without his leadership, my foes will be reduced to a state of confusion. Ricks knows only ordinary police methods. There are scientists—yes. But they are not policemen. Even by pooling their knowledge, they can get nowhere without this one man. Jimmy Holm must again be captured and his fangs plucked. This done, you may have him. It is through you that I must seize him. Will you accept the task willingly?”
“No!” she interrupted defiantly.
The sinister old man rose to his full height. Her face blanched as he leaned forward, his cavernous eyes glaring into her own.
“The time has come for a showdown!” he snarled. “For a long time now you have defied me—dared me because of this man—”
“I love him,” she said simply, turning away.
“Love! Bah!” he snapped. “What is love? A mere matter of passion—here today, gone tomorrow. Do you think, girl, that I would allow an affair of the heart to interfere with my plans?”
“Were you never young?” she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“That has nothing to do with the matter,” he answered. “Frankly, I have forgotten, so busy have I been during my allotted span. But we are getting away from the subject. You must be disciplined—humiliated. Look at me, girl! Gaze into my eyes!”
“No! No! Not that! Not that!” she said with a shudder.
“We will exchange bodies,” he went on relentlessly. “But since I dare not let you into this old shell of mine, your soul—your ego—must roam the world of space until I restore your body to you...”
“God, no!” she shrieked.
His glance, swift as lightning, seized upon her frail body. It blinded her, half stunning her, sending her reeling back against the table. She grasped it for support.
“Sorcerer! Necromancer!” she screamed. “You cannot...”
She was crouching on the floor now, her face buried in her slender hands, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. He took a step forward and bent over her, touching her white flesh with his bony fingers.
“Look at me!” he commanded.
“No! No!” she shrieked.
Yet she turned her face upward and gazed at him out of wet eyes, her mouth quivering with emotion.
“Jimmy!” she sobbed.
“Your soul belongs to me!” be snapped.
“Jimmy!”
He was working rapidly now, every faculty alert as he bent forward, his gaunt arms outstretched toward her. His brow was covered with great globules of sweat. His deep-set eyes glittered like burning coals. She shrank back. She screamed... once. Then there was silence.
AN aura surrounded her—a thin, vaporish fog. Her eyes turned to Death pleadingly. For a moment the gossamer-like vapor hung over her, seemingly attached to her by a sort of umbilical cord. Then slowly, as if reluctant to leave, it separated itself and floated in the air like a tiny cloud of smoke.
Doctor Death chuckled sardonically.
With a peculiar shrug of his thin shoulders, he pointed dramatically to an adjoining room. The smoke-like cloud drifted slowly through the door and lost itself in the darkness.
For an instant only Doctor Death stood there gazing down at the beautiful form of the girl upon the rug. Then, drawing himself to his full height, he shook himself. His whole body writhed and
twisted like that of a soul in torment.
Suddenly he staggered back, seizing upon the back of a chair for support. His gaunt form seemed to contract like a rubber balloon that has been deflated.
From him emanated the same fog-like aura that had been extracted from the body of the girl. It rose to mid-air, leaping, bounding, cavorting like a mad thing.
Then, as his bony frame collapsed in a little heap upon the floor, the foggy substance settled over the still form of the girl. For a moment it hung suspended. It dropped until it covered her body...
Slowly, it dissolved into the slender form. The languorous eyes opened. She stretched herself and yawned. Then she leaped to her feet.
“I am Doctor Death!” she chuckled, gazing at herself in the long mirror. “I am Doctor Death!”
She burst into a peal of shrill, fiendish diabolical laughter.
Chapter XXIV
Holm Turns Devil
THE nation had one more week to live. Seven days remained of the two weeks allowed by the sinister Doctor Death in his letter to the newspapers following the wiping out of the Undermill Aircraft plant by the now famous dissolution ray.
Jimmy Holm had reached a point where he was little more than a bundle of nerves. Night and day he was on the job giving orders, receiving reports, handling his gigantic army of detectives and Secret Service agents like the general an army on the battlefield, barely allowing himself time to eat and sleep. No stone was left unturned, no clue too small to be run to its source.
From a thousand cities and hamlets scattered from Maine to California came reports of the sinister scientist’s alleged activities. Each one had to be investigated, even though the officials were almost certain that they were untrue; all had to be tabulated and filed. A small army of clerks was kept busy.
The Secret Twelve had come out of hiding, now that the time was limited. Daily—sometimes hourly—conferences were held. The President had, for the nonce, quitted the White House and, taking over an entire floor in one of the largest New York hotels, was conducting the business of the nation from the metropolis in order that be might be in constant touch with the situation. The newspapers printed little other news than that devoted to the search for the most dangerous criminal the world had ever known.