The Land of Terror ds-2

by Kenneth Robeson

  A gasp of evil pleasure swept the group. Mean eyes glittered greedily.

  Although Squint had proclaimed that Kar was letting them in on a great deal, they actually knew nothing but the existence of the Smoke of Eternity and the fact they were to rob a gold train.

  Who Kar was — they had no idea. Should these men fall into the clutches of the law, they could help the police little even if they told all they knew. True, the gold robbery would be thwarted. But the master villain would still be free.

  * * *

  A FAINT buzz came from the secret phone. Squint hurried to the instrument. He received more orders from Kar. His thin, repulsive face was worried as he hung up and closed the hidden panel.

  "Damn!" he groaned. "Kar has another job for us to do before the gold train thing!"

  The others stared at Squint. They could see he was frightened.

  "That big bronze devil who gimme such a lot of trouble!" Squint muttered. "Kar says we gotta get him like we did Jerome Coffern! The bronze devil’s name is Doc Savage. Kar is plenty mad because I let Doc Savage get on my trail. He says it’s the worst thing that coulda happened."

  "One guy can’t give us much trouble!" sneered the thicknecked thug.

  "You wouldn’t be so cocky if you’d seen this bronze man work!" Squint whined. "He ain’t human! He moves quieker’n a tiger! He popped off my four pals just like you was snappin’ your fingers."

  "Baloney!" snorted the burly one. "Lead me to ‘im! I ain’t never seen the man I couldn’t lick."

  Squint passed a hand over his forehead.

  "Beat it, all of you," he directed. "Go to wherever you live an’ stay there. Kar knows where to get hold of each of you. I told him. Wait for orders from him, or from me."

  As they started leaving, Squint added an afterthought.

  "Remember, Kar has got guys besides you an’ me workin’ for him. I dunno myself who they are. But he’s got more. And if one of you squawks to the cops, he’s sure to be bumped off."

  Then the villainous assemblage melted away. None of them would squeal.

  Squint remained behind. When left alone, he went to the secret phone.

  "I carried out your orders, boss," he told Kar.

  Suddenly there impinged upon the ears of Squint a weird, soft, trilling sound, like the song of a mysterious jungle bird. It was a note without equal anywhere else in the universe, melodious, but possessing no definite tune. It had a unique quality of emanating from everywhere, as though the very air in the shabby room was giving birth to it.

  The trilling sound struck terror into Squint’s evil soul. He whirled, not knowing what he would see.

  An awful scream tore through his teeth.

  For the rickety window had lifted noiselessly. Equally without sound, the shabby curtain had moved aside.

  There, poised like some huge bronze bird of vengeance upon the window sill, was Squint’s doom.

  "Doc Savage!" the rodent of a man wailed. Convulsively, Squint clutched for the revolver he had secured aboard the pirate ship.

  Doc’s powerful bronze hands seized a table. The table drove across the room as though impelled from a cannon mouth.

  Striking Squint squarely, it smashed his worthless life out against the wall. The man’s body fell to the floor amid the table wreckage.

  Doc Savage glided to the secret phone. The receiver came to his ear. He listened.

  From his lips wafted the weird trilling sound that was part of Doc — the tiny, unconscious thing which he did in moments of absolute concentration. The strange note seemed to saturate and set singing all the air in the room.

  Over that secret phone line cracked what sounded like a gulp of terror and rage. Then the receiver banged up at the other end.

  It would probably be a long time before the evil Kar forgot that eerie, trilling sound! It was a thing to haunt the slumber hours!

  * * *

  Chapter 5.. JEROME COFFERN’S FRIEND

  DOC SAVAGE replaced the receiver of the secret phone. He closed the hidden panel. Silently, he quitted the room as he had entered — through the window. He made his way to the street.

  The crowd had thinned. Squint’s scream had not been heard. Doc did not go near his roadster, although his sharp eyes detected no sign of Kar’s men watching the machine.

  Doc strode eastward. He reached the edge of Central Park — that rectangle of beautiful lawns and shrubbery two and a half miles long and half a mile wide which is New York’s breathing place. Neat apartment buildings towered along the park.

  An old woman held out, hopefully, a bundle of the late newspapers. She was almost blind. Her clothing was shabby. She looked hungry. Doc stopped and took one of the papers.

  He looked at the old woman’s eyes. His expert diagnosis told him their ailment could be cured by a few great specialists. He wrote a name and address on a corner of the paper, added his own name, and tore this off and gave it to the crone. The name was that of a specialist who could cure her ailment, but whose fee was a small fortune. But at sight of Doc’s name scrawled on the note, the specialist would gladly cure the woman for nothing.

  Doc added a bill he took from a pocket. For a long time after he had gone, the old, nearly blind woman stared at the bill, holding it almost against her eyes. Then she burst into tears. It was more money than she had ever expected to see.

  The little incident had no bearing on Doc’s troubles with Kar, except that Doc wanted the paper to see what had been published concerning Jerome Coffern’s weird death — which proved to be nothing he did not already know.

  It was such a thing as Doc did often. It was part of his creed, the thing to which his life was devoted — remedying the misfortunes of others.

  It was a strange thing for a man to do who had just dealt cold and terrible justice to five murderers. But Doc Savage was a strange man, judged by the look-out-for-yourself-and-nobody-else code of a greedy civilization.

  Doc turned into one of the largest apartment houses on that side of Central Park. He rode an elevator to the twentieth floor.

  Here Jerome Coffern had lived alone in a modest three-room apartment which was filled almost entirely with scientific books.

  The locked door quickly yielded to Doc’s expert wielding of a small hook which he made by bending the tongue of his belt buckle. He entered. He paused just inside the door, bronze face grim.

  His golden eyes noted a number of things.

  Jerome Coffern thought a great deal of his books, and he had a habit of arranging them just a certain distance from the rear wall of the bookcase. Yet they had a different arrangement now.

  He kept chemicals on his library table, also arranged in a certain fashion. Doc knew the arrangement well. To one who didn’t know Coffern, they might look orderly now. But they were not in the right order!

  The apartment had been searched!

  Swiftly, Doc made a circuit of the place. His nimble fingers, his all-seeing eyes, missed little.

  He found the evidence on the typewriter! Jerome Coffern had installed a new ribbon on the machine before starting an extensive document. The machine had written the complete length of the ribbon, then back a considerable distance. But where it had not overwritten, the lettered imprint of the keys was discernible.

  Doc read:

  STATEMENT TO THE POLICE.

  In view of a recent incident when a bullet came near me, I have come to the conclusion an attempt is being made to murder me. Furthermore, I suspect my alleged assailant of being guilty of at least one other murder. I realize I should have gone to the authorities earlier, but the very fantastic, horrible, and ghastly nature of the thing led me to doubt my own suspicions.

  Herewith is my story:

  Nearly a year ago, I went on a scientific expedition to New Zealand with Oliver Wording Bittman, the taxidermist, and Gabe Yuder. From New Zealand, a trip to Thunder Island was —

  And there, to Doc’s disgust, it ended. The rest was illegible. But Jerome Coffern had obviously written it.


  Doc continued his search. Jerome Coffern had been a man of few intimate friends. In his personal papers was no reference to any one called Kar.

  Oliver Wording Bittman, Doc recalled, was a taxidermist who made a specialty of preparing rare animals for museums. But the name of Gabe Yuder was unfamiliar.

  Doc knew the address of Oliver Wording Bittman. It was an apartment house two blocks southward along Central Park.

  Doc Savage, unable to find anything else of interest, hurried to interview Oliver Wording Bittman. There was a chance Bittman might have heard of Kar, through Jerome Coffern.

  As Doc rode up in an elevator of Bittman’s apartment building, he mentally assembled what he knew of the taxidermist.

  The material his memory yielded was all favorable to Oliver Wording Bittman. The man’s name was not unknown. He had a sizable display of rare animal life in the Smithsonian Institution. Walls of several famous clubs and hostelries were adorned with trophies he had mounted.

  Best of all, Doc recalled his father had once spoken favorably of Bittman.

  The taxidermist himself opened the door.

  Oliver Wording Bittman was a man nearly as tall as Doc. But he was thin — so very thin that he looked like a skeleton and a few hard muscles. If a prominent jaw denotes character, Bittman had plenty. His jaw was strikingly large.

  Bittman had dark, determined eyes. His hair was dark. His skin had been burned by the wind and sun of many climes. He wore a brown, well-cut business suit. Lounging mules were on his bony, efficient feet.

  The only jewelry he wore was a watch chain across his waistcoat front. One end of this secured a timepiece. To the other end was fastened a small implement which at first glance looked like a penknife. Actually, it was a razor-edged taxidermist scalpel for skinning specimens.

  Bittman twirled this scalpel about a forefinger.

  "You are Doc Savage!" he greeted Doc instantly. "I am indeed honored."

  Doc admitted his identity, but wondered how Bittman knew him. Bittman must have guessed the question.

  "You may wonder how I knew you," the taxidermist smiled. "Come into the library and I will show you the answer."

  They moved through the apartment.

  Oliver Wording Bittman certainly considered his own work decorative. And in truth, the fellow was an expert in his line. Many scores of rare animal trophies adorned the walls. A great Alaskan Kodiak bear stood in a corner, astoundingly lifelike. Skin rugs made an overlapping carpet underfoot. The workmanship on all these was fine.

  They came to a large picture framed on the wall. In the lower left corner of the picture reposed a portion of a letter.

  The picture was of Doc Savage’s father. The resemblance between parent and son was marked.

  Doc stepped nearer to read the letter.

  It was a missive from his own father to Oliver Wording Bittman. It read:

  To you, my dear Oliver, I can never express my thanks sufficiently for the recent occasion upon which you quite certainly saved my life. Were it not for your unerring eye and swift marksmanship, I should not be penning this.

  Before me as I write, I have the skin of the lion which would surely have downed me but for your quick shooting, and which you so kindly consented to mount. It just arrived. The workmanship is one of the best samples of the taxidermist art I ever beheld. I shall treasure it.

  I shall treasure also my association with you on our recent African expedition together. And may the best of the world be yours.

  Sincerely,

  CLARK SAVAGE, Sr.

  The note moved Doc Savage deeply. The death of his father was still a fresh hurt. This had occurred only recently. The elder Savage had been murdered.

  It had done little to assuage the pain when Doc himself took up the trail of the murderer, a trail that led to Central America, and ended in a stroke of cold justice for the killer, as well as perilous adventures for Doc and five friends who had accompanied him.

  Doc offered his hand to Bittman.

  "Whatever debt of gratitude my father owed you," he said feelingly, "you can consider that I also owe you."

  Bittman smiled and took the hand in a firm clasp.

  * * *

  IN a very few minutes the conversation got around to Oliver Wording Bittman’s acquaintance with Jerome Coffern.

  "I knew Coffern, yes," said Bittman. "We went on that New Zealand expedition together. You say he is dead? What a shock! His murderers should be made to suffer!"

  "Five of them have already done that," Doc replied grimly. "But the master mind who ordered Coffern’s murder is still at large. He must pay the penalty!

  "He is a man I know only as Kar. I was hoping you might yield some information. Or if not, perhaps you can inform me where Gabe Yuder, the other member of the expedition, can be found."

  Oliver Wording Bittman toyed with the scalpel on his watch chain. His eyes were veiled in deep thought.

  "Gabe Yuder!" he muttered. "I wonder — could he be the man? He was an unsavory chap. I have no idea what became of him after our return. He remained in New Zealand — intending to return here later."

  "Will you describe Gabe Yuder?"

  Around and around Bittman’s finger flew the scalpel. He spoke in clipped sentences, giving an excellent description.

  "Gabe Yuder was a young man, under thirty. He was robust, an athletic type. He had a red face. His mouth was big. The lower lip was cleft by a knife scar. His eyes were always bloodshot. They were a pale gray. They reminded you of a snake’s undersides. His hair was sandy, a sort of mongrel color.

  "Yuder had a loud, coarse voice. He had an overbearing manner. His knuckles were scarred from knocking people about. He would strike a native at the slightest provocation. And he was a combination of chemist and electrical engineer by trade. He went along with us to prospect for petroleum."

  "He Does sound rather villainous," Doc admitted. "Can you tell me anything about this Smoke of Eternity?"

  "The Smoke of Eternity? What is that?" queried Bittman, looking puzzled.

  Doc debated. There was no reason why he should not tell Bittman of the terrible dissolving compound that had destroyed Jerome Coffern. Besides, Bittman had been friend to Doc’s father.

  So Doc explained what the Smoke of Eternity was.

  "Good heavens!" Bittman groaned. "Such a thing is incredible! No! I can’t tell you the slightest thing about it."

  "Did you note anything suspicious about Gabe Yuder’s actions on the New Zealand expedition?"

  Oliver Wording Bittman thought deeply, then nodded.

  "Yes, now that I think of it. Here is what happened: Our expedition split in two parts when we reached New Zealand. I remained in New Zealand to gather and mount samples of the island bird life for a New York museum, Yuder and Jerome Coffern chartered a schooner and sailed with Yuder’s plane to an island some distance away."

  "A plane?" Doc interposed.

  "I neglected to tell you," Bittman said hastily. "Yuder is also a flyer. He took a plane along on the expedition. Some American oil company was financing him."

  "What was the name of the island to which Yuder and Jerome Coffern went?" Doc asked.

  "Thunder Island."

  * * *

  THUNDER ISLAND!

  Doc’s bronze brow wrinkled as he groped in his memory. There were few spots in the world, however outlying, upon which he did not possess at least general information.

  "As I recall," Doc continued, "Thunder Island is nothing but the cone of an active volcano projecting from the sea. The sides of the cone are so barren they support no vegetation whatever. And great quantities of steam come continually from the active crater."

  "Exactly," corroborated Bittman. "Jerome Coffern told me he flew over the crater once with Yuder. The crater was a number of miles across, but the whole thing seemed filled with steam and fumes. They brought back specimens from the cone, however. Jerome Coffern turned them over to the largest college of geology in New York City."

&
nbsp; "We’re getting off the trail," Doc declared. "You said you noted something suspicious about Yuder’s actions. What was it?"

  "After he and Jerome Coffern returned from Thunder Island, Yuder was surly and furtive. He acted like he had a secret, now that I think back. But at the time, I thought he was in an ill temper because he had found no oil, although he scouted Thunder Island the whole time Jerome Coffern was there gathering specimens."

  "Hm-m-m," Doc murmured.

  "I’m afraid that does not help much," Bittman apologized.

  "It’s too soon to say."

  Doc thought briefly. Then he nodded at the telephone.

  "May I make a call from here?"

  "Of course!"

  Arising hastily, Bittman left the room. This politeness was to show he had no desire to listen in on Doc’s phone talk.

  Doc called a number.

  "Monk?" he asked.

  A mild, pleasant voice replied, "Sure thing, Doc."

  That mild voice was a deceptive thing. A listener would not have dreamed it could come from the kind of a man who was at the other end of the wire. For the speaker was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair.

  He was a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound human gorilla. He was one of the roughest and toughest and most likable and homely men ever to live. Monk was also one of the few chemists in the world who could be considered a greater expert in that line than poor, unfortunate Jerome Coffern.

  Monk was one of five men who accompanied Doc Savage on his amazing jaunts in pursuit of adventure. These five, like Doc, were giving their lives to traveling about the world and righting wrongs and handing out their own brand of justice. Whatever excitement turned up in the course of that pursuit — and there was always plenty — they gobbled up and liked it. How they liked it!

  "Monk," Doc suggested, "could you take on a little trouble right now?"

  "I’m on my way!" chuckled Monk. "Where do I find this trouble?"