The cuffs tore at Louis’ face and continued on down through the flesh. Louis fell like a stone, his features a raw, gory pulp. Gruen was still standing there immobile, stunned and baffled by the sudden unwonted attack, at loss for its explanation and believing: it almost preternatural. But Bull Morgan was more practical.
Bull whirled to meet Trevor, his beastlike fists curled into miniature stones. He lashed out at Trevor’s face, but Trevor ducked the wild swing and brought his own fist around in a haymaker. Bull weaved his head and Bart’s fist ploughed through empty air.
But Bull had forgotten the dangling handcuffs on that fist. They swung out into space as Bart’s fist missed its mark and the lock of the manacles caught Bull Morgan directly under the eye. Trevor saw it happen, but he never quite understood what really took place. The next thing he knew. Bull was standing there cursing and screaming in horrid agony, and Trevor felt sick when he saw that the cuff had sliced the flesh beneath the eye socket wide open and had popped the eye right out of Morgan’s head.
Morgan continued to scream and shriek for several seconds. Then as the inhuman pain devoured him, he uttered a low groan and sagged down limply into welcome unconsciousness.
Trevor stepped back over the prostrate body of Louis, who was writhing around on the floor, moaning and clawing at his injured face. Gruen—the Murder Master—had moved to action. He fell against the table, his features contorted into animal rage, and hurled the bottle of vitriol right at Trevor’s face.
Bart never even saw the vitriol flying towards him. He dove at that same split second for the ugly automatic which Louis had dropped to the floor when he fell. The vitriol scuttled through the air right over his stooped body and landed with a crash right next to Morgan, the acid bursting up into a fine spray as the bottle splintered into thousands of sharp pieces, and fell down on top of the unconscious Bull, splattering his face and burning into his unresisting flesh.
Bart Trevor fired at Gruen twice, but he did not seem affected by the slugs. He hurled himself forward! Bart cursed. Gruen was wearing a bullet-proof vest, of course! There was only one place for a slug then. Right between the eyes.
Trevor fired from the hip, jerking the pistol up. But there was only a metallic click. The gun was void of bullets. Louis had used some and the last two that Trevor had fired had depleted the supply. The gun was useless.
Frantically he flung the automatic in Gruen’s face as the Murder Master grappled with him, catlike claws searching fiendishly for Trevor’s throat. Trevor jabbed Gruen behind the ear and sent him whistling to the floor. Gruen tried to rise, shaking his head at the numbness which Bart’s blow had caused.
Trevor dashed over to Ruth Walsh and unstrapped her just as the door opened and Droone and the man Gruen had called Joe rushed in.
“Ruth,” snapped Trevor, “get into that next room. Use water on that vitriol. It’ll dissipate ction of the acid!”
Ruth Walsh nodded fearfully and scurried through the open door into the room from which Bull Morgan had procured the vitriol previously.
Walter Gruen had risen to his feet. He was swaying unsteadily, his eyes red with pain and rage.
“Get him!” he roared furiously, “Get him!”
Harry Droone and Joe came on. Droone skirted the table and charged like a bull at Trevor, who lithely eluded the rush and sprang agilely around the other side of the table and ran to meet Joe at the doorway. His fist hit Joe like an express train. The man fell. Trevor went through the door like a bolt of lightning.
Droone and Gruen went after him. Droone was in the lead, a grisly .45 revolver in his hand.
Trevor lit down the stairs three at a time. Crack! Droone fired the big blue-steel gun once. Trevor heard the slug buzz angrily past his ear. He reached the front door safely. For the moment, he was out of sight of the others in the delitescence of the hallway. He opened the door and slammed it.
But he did not leave the house. Instead, he cut back into the ebony shadows of the hallway and crouched there like a cornered panther while Droone reached the doorway, went through, looked around for a few seconds and came right back.
Droone said, “He’s gone, chief! He got away!”
Trevor could hear Gruen cursing like a maniac at the top of the stairs.
“Want me to try and chase him?” Droone asked.
“No, you fool!” Gruen cried sharply. “He’s miles from here now! He’s gone to raise every cop within blocks for a raid on this place! We’ve got to clear out of here—leave no identification marks! It’s Trevor’s word against ours. He can’t prove anything. Hurry up!”
“What about the dame?” Droone asked.
“We’ll take her with us,” said Gruen. “We’re not through yet, Harry. If those papers ever get to John Walsh, the whole ring is sunk. Trevor can’t turn them over. We have Ruth Walsh. I’ve got a fine plan. It just came to me. We’ll hold the girl as hostage. Either Trevor gives himself up to us or we kill the girl!”
“But suppose Trevor don’t, chief? Suppose he gets those papers to the D. A.?”
“Then we’ll tell Walsh that unless he resigns at once, his daughter will be murdered. That’ll put Jim Block into the D. A.’s chair.”
Droone laughed happily. “I get it,” he said. “Jim Block belongs to the Gruen organization! He’ll get those papers and turn them back to you.”
“Exactly,” said Gruen. “Come on. Get that girl all wrapped up for delivery. We’ve got to travel tonight and right away. There’s no telling where that fool Trevor has gone!”
Droone nodded and ran back up the stairs to the second floor. He did not know it, but almost in his shadow, another figure crept up the stairs after him. Trevor was afoot again. He paused in the dark hallway and watched Droone disappear after Gruen into another room. He heard a scream. Ruth’s voice.
Trevor went taut. Then relaxed. They would not harm her here. They expected the police to come swooping down on the place. They were taking her with them. Trevor slithered up to the room where the chaotic mèlée had but recently transpired. He peered in cautiously. Louis was still there, rubbing his face dazedly. The man called Joe had disappeared. Bull Morgan lay on the floor. The vitriol had already left its macabre mark on the fellow. He was dead.
Trevor crept into the room. He had to take the risk. He frisked Morgan’s pockets while Louis, his back turned to the shamus, rubbed his mauled features. Trevor felt the welcome grip of a pistol in Morgan’s back pocket. He pulled it out, reversed and leaped onto Louis. One short blow, and Louis fell forward on his face unconscious.
Then Trevor went to the room into which Droone and the Murder Master had disappeared. He could not try the knob. He grabbed a rickety chair in the hall and placed it against the wall to one side of the door, the pistol in his hand. He looked into the room through the transom.
The transom was painted. It should have been opaque, but time had worn the paint and left a hazy transparency across the glass. Droone and Gruen were in the room all right. But what a room it was!
There were huge generators and electrical cabinets in the place with controls and volume dials replete across the face of the panels. A wired microphone was on a small table in front of these radio panels. Gruen was sitting down in front of the microphone. Droone went to the control board and switched on the juice.
“Want police calls?” Droone asked.
“No!” snapped Gruen. “Give me a short wave length of 211. That’s the length I used on the receiving set I planted in Herrick’s skull. The corpse may still be at the morgue. And there’s just a bare chance that Trevor may go back to headquarters to that fool friend of his, Inspector Brandt. I’m going to try a message through the corpse again. It worked once.”
At the open transom, Trevor was amazed at the whole layout. The mystery of the whispering corpse had bothered him greatly. He had not been able to see how any one could have fixed up the morgue with a receiving set. But he saw now. Gruen, the man-devil, had had Robert Herrick slain, fearful of Herrick�
�s disclosing tongue. Then Herrick’s skull had been trepanned and a small short-wave receiving set had been thrust into the brain cavity, the brain and other organs having been removed. The skull was then replaced and the body cast into the street where the police found it and took it to the morgue for autopsy. The Murder Master had called Trevor through the set in Herrick’s dead head and was now trying to reestablish communication.
“Bart Trevor,” whispered Gruen weirdly. “Bart Trevor.…”
Through the loudspeaker across the room, Bart could hear some one gasp and then a voice cry, “Gott in himmel!”
He had to smile. Poor old Karl Topeka was being frightened out of his wits again in the morgue. This was all damned clever. They also picked up the sounds at the other end like a telephone.
Gruen frowned at Droone and said, “I don’t think he’s there. I’ll leave the message for him anyway.” He returned to the microphone and said. “Tell Bart Trevor that Ruth Walsh will be murdered unless he returns to the spot where she is alone and gives himself up. Tell him that. Tell him to act immediately,”
Gruen cut the mike off.
“What now?” asked Droone.
“Quick!” said Gruen. “Switch me in on the police short-wave length—215 meters!”
Droone snapped a dial around and tuned in again.
“Calling Police Headquarters.” said Gruen. “Calling Police Headquarters!” There was a short silence. “Tell John Walsh that these are the kidnapers of his daughter. If he has not resigned his office by midnight, his daughter will meet a horrible death. Relay that instantly.”
Droone cut him off again. “What about the hideout, chief?” he said. “Hadn’t you better let the boys over there know we’re coming? You’re going over to Long Island, aren’t you?”
“Tune me in,” snapped Gruen. “Wave length 200.”
Droone worked the dials again. He turned on volume and waved to Gruen.
Gruen said. “Calling Hempstead Station. Calling Hempstead Station.”
A metallic voice replied over the loudspeaker, “Okay, chief, we’re listening.”
“This is the Murder Master. We are coming out there directly by speed boat. Keep well under cover. Police may be wise. Signing off.”
“That’s got it!” exclaimed Droone. “But what about Trevor? He’ll come here if he gets your message and we’ll be gone!”
“I’m leaving Louis behind,” said Gruen. “He’ll wait for Trevor in case there’s a police trap. Well leave the other launch for Louis and Trevor. Louis can handle it all right. Come on.”
“How about all this?”
“Leave it!”
Bart Trevor, who had watched the whole thing, slunk back into the shadows of the hallway and watched Gruen and Droone leave the radio room and enter the room where Ruth had previously been tied. He followed them and peered in. The man called Joe had Ruth bound hand and foot. Louis had recovered and was wildly gesticulating and telling that some one had slugged him from behind.
“You’re crazy!” snapped the Murder Master. “That crack Trevor gave you makes you see things. You’re staying here, Louis, to wait for Trevor. He’ll probably be back, but there won’t be any fighting. He’ll go along with you peacefully. Take him in the launch out to the Hempstead hideout up the Sound. Joe, Droone and myself are taking the girl in the speed boat.”
Louis said, “Right, chief.”
Joe and Droone packed up Ruth, whose mouth was covered with a piece of heavy white adhesive tape and carried her out, Walter Gruen following them.
Then Trevor, gripping the pistol he had taken from the corpse, followed the group silently down the stairs. They did not stop at the first floor, where the street entrance was, but continued on down into the cellar of the house. Trevor followed them cautiously, careful not to make any sound.
He descended the cellar stairs in their wake and heard the faint dull sound of slapping water. Where was this house? He didn’t know. He had not been outside of it. And he had not seen how he had gotten there. Evidently it bordered a river—no doubt the East River since the men had spoken of riding up to Long Island across the Sound.
Suddenly, Trevor heard a guttering roar as a gasoline engine turned over, caught, and thundered staccato bursts in grinding cadence. There was a whine to the motor and a quick rush of power. Dreading the fact that he was too late, Trevor leaped down the stairs.
There was a flash of white boiling water, a swift vision of the stern of a motorboat, and Gruen and his killers were gone.
Trevor was too late! His quarry had flown!
CHAPTER IV
DEATH RENDEZVOUS
One thing that immediately impressed Bart Trevor as he stood there feeling beaten and helpless was the marvelous layout of this under-house mooring ground. It was the cellar of the place above. And this cellar was nothing but East River. The steps ended where a narrow pier began under the house. The river water came right in and washed the small pier. There were two mooring places. Trevor saw, swiftly, another launch, a bigger one. Yes, it was bigger, but it was also clumsier and it had only an outboard motor. Chase would be futile. A telephone on the wall caught Trevor’s eye.
He leaped to it, lifted the receiver and listened for the voice of the operator.
“Number, please?”
Trevor snapped the number, got hold of Inspector Brandt and hastily told him what had happened. Brandt almost cried at the sound of Trevor’s voice. He gasped out what had been happening. Police h.q. and the city in general were in an uproar over the abduction and threatened death of Ruth Walsh. Trevor told Brandt to warn the Long Island police that the hideout was on the waterfront at Hempstead.
“They’ve got a fast launch,” Trevor breathed. “Or I’d go after them. You’ll need some boat to catch them now. But the Long Island cops can nab the whole bunch when they land at Hempstead.”
“Nuts,” said Inspector Brandt. “The L. I. boys aren’t going to take the credit for this case. Where are you!”
“Somewhere on the East River,” said Bart. “About 20th Street, I think. I see a familiar sign over in Brooklyn there.”
“My God!” Brandt cried. “You’re right near the city police plane. Have you got a boat? They’re at Seventeenth!”
“I have a boat.”
“Then tear down to the police pier where they have the plane moored. Captain Kerry is in charge there. I’ll phone ahead and fix it up for you. Good luck!”
“Thanks,” said Trevor. He hung up.
Untying the hawser of the launch, he leaped into it and straddled to the stern, where the outboard motor was. He whirled the disc with a short piece of rope. The motor caught, and the launch under his guiding rudder nosed out of its pier into the river.
Trevor headed south. The launch went faster than he thought it would. In several minutes, a long amber finger shot out from one of the piers on the waterfront and lighted on him. A voice billowed out fantastically across the waves.
“Trevor?”
“Yes!” he yelled back.
“Turn in here. Police plane is waiting!”
Trevor stabbed at the rudder and shot the launch around vertically. The searchlight illumined his way and picked out a mooring place at the pier. He leaped out, shutting the motor off.
He heard a peculiar stuttering rhythm. He glanced over the side of the pier. Nestled there was a huge Sikorsky amphibian, riding the water easily, its twin engines turning over.
“Right here, Trevor,” said a man next to him. “Hop in. Captain Kerry is waiting for you!”
Bart leaped down into the cabin of the Sikorsky. It was a spacious place with lounge seats along each side of the fuselage. Captain Kerry was up in the control cockpit, just forward of the cabin. Another man was with him at the controls. Kerry leaned out and called back. “Trevor?”
“Yes, captain.”
“Good work. Trevor. I’m taking off. Hempstead, isn’t it?”
“Yes, captain,” replied Bart. “They’re in a speed boat and they’v
e quite a start!”
“We’ll get ’em,” said Kerry. “Sit tight.”
In twenty minutes, Trevor could see the silvery stretches of the Sound beneath him. Off to his left was New Rochelle and the Westchester suburbs. Ahead loomed the dark coastline of Long Island. But he could see nothing of the speed boat in the semi-darkness.
Presently Kerry snapped, “Speed boat below us! I’m dropping a magnesium flare. Look sharp!”
Trevor clung to the window of the plane’s cabin and stared down overside. He discerned the speed boat and its occupants swishing through the water in a nebula of flying spray.
“That’s it!” he cried loudly. “There’s Gruen at the helm. And there’s Ruth Walsh in the stern with those other two rats! Go down on them, captain!”
A man next to Trevor in the cabin jammed something into Bart’s hands. Trevor gazed at the object. It was a Thompson sub-machine gun.
“But we can’t use an m. g. on them!” Bart protested. “Ruth Walsh is down in the boat with them!”
Captain Kerry sent the Sikorsky down in a shallow dive, nevertheless. Below him in the boat, Trevor could see a stuttering flame leap from the boat into the air. Then he heard a ripping sound and watched a line of holes bite into the doped linen of the wing.
Kerry banked the plane away. “They’ve got a machine gun on board!” he cried. “We’ve got to fire on them, regardless of the girl!”
“You can’t!” protested Trevor. “It’ll be murder. Ruth Walsh—” He was gazing down as he spoke. He gasped suddenly and went stiff as steel. “She’s overside!” he roared. “Ruth Walsh just went overside. She jumped! My God, she’s all tied! She’ll drown.”
“She knew we couldn’t attack with her in the craft,” said Kerry. “Great girl! She went over to let us pot the others!”
“But she’ll drown!” Bart shrilled.
“No,” said Kerry. “Look there!”
Behind them, where the faint white splash showed the spot where Ruth Walsh had hit the sea, a searchlight lit upon the place and the vague gray outline of a boat sliced through the sea towards her.
The Adventure Megapack Page 52