And the tabloid newspapers ranted at the cops for not telling their reporters what was happening. The police were keeping secret Doc’s connection with the sudden epidemic of death among criminals, at his request.
Doc now locked himself in his laboratory. He retrieved from the bottom of the microscope, where he had hidden it, the tiny capsule which had held the Smoke of Eternity. With all the resources of his great laboratory and his trained brain, he set to work to learn the nature of the strange metal.
It was nearly midnight when he came out of the laboratory.
"You fellows stick here," he told Monk, Ham, Renny, Johnny, Long Tom and Oliver Wording Bittman.
He departed without telling the six men whence he was bound or what nature of plan his profound mind had evolved.
* * *
Chapter 11. DOC SPRINGS A TRAP
THREE o’clock in the morning!
A black ghost of a night seemed to have sucked the city into its maw. There was fog, like the clammy breath of that night ghost. Out on the bay, a night-owl ferry to Staten Island hooted disconsolately at some fancied obstruction in its path.
The financial district was quiet. The silence in Wall Street was like that among the tombstones in Trinity Churchyard, which lies at the uphill end of the street.
The big feet of occasional policemen made dull clappings on the deserted sidewalks. Periodic subway trains rumbled like monstrous sleepy beasts underground.
Things more sinister were impending around the bank, the vaults of which held the gold coin that tomorrow was to go to the aid of hard-pressed Chicago financial institutions.
The watchman didn’t know it, as yet. He was a thick-headed chap, honest, but inclined to do things suddenly and think about it later.
"When I see somethin’ suspicious, I shoot and ask questions afterward," he was wont to say. He was proud of this. So far, it had miraculously failed to get him into serious trouble. The only people he had shot were those who happened to need it.
The watchman noted a strange grayish haze which seemed to hang in the bank. He passed this off as fog. He would have thought differently, had he seen an enormous hole which gaped in one wall of the building. But he failed to see this, because most of his attention went to the doors and windows, where crooks usually tried to enter.
Nor did the watchman see a ratty man who slid out of the gloom of a cashier’s cage. This marauder raised an air pistol. He pointed it at the man’s back.
Suddenly a mighty bronze form flashed from the adjacent cage. A powerful hand clipped upon the air pistol. Another terrible hand covered all the ratty man’s face, drawing the loose skin, lips and nostrils into a tight bunch from which no outcry could escape.
There ensued a brief flurry. The air pistol went off with a dull chung!
Only then did the watchman wake up. He spun, instinctively tugging at his hip pocket for his gun. His jaw fell in horror.
The ratty man had taken the missile from the air pistol. The fellow lay on the floor. That is — his upper body lay there! His legs had already dissolved in a grisly grayish smoke, shot through and through with weird electrical flashes.
The air pistol slug of Smoke of Eternity had hit the man in the foot. The discharge of the thing was an accident.
Over the dissolving form towered an awesome man-figure that looked like solid, tempered bronze, it was such a figure as the watchman had never seen.
The watchman went wild. He tried to put into effect his shoot-first-and-question-later creed. He got his gun out.
But about that time, a ton of dynamite seemed to explode on his jaw. He never even saw the great bronze fist which had hit him.
Doc Savage swept the watchman up. He glided silently across the floor. The gloom behind a vice president’s desk swallowed him and his burden.
* * *
INTO the bank now came more than a dozen furtive men. They carried automatic pistols and submachine guns.
One man alone had an air pistol. "C’mon!" he snarled. "Kar’s orders was to push this right through!"
"Hey, Guffey!" called one. "Didja fix the watchman?"
When there was no answer from their companion, they muttered uneasily. Then they advanced.
"Gosh, look!" a man choked.
On the floor, just turning into the horrible gray vapor, lay a human head.
"It’s Guffey!"
For a moment, it looked like they were going to flee. The sight of the fantastic thing happening to Guffey’s head drained whatever courage they had.
"Aw, get next to yourselves, you mugs!" sneered the man who carried the only other air pistol. "You don’t see the watchman around, do you? Guffey just had a little accident. The Smoke of Eternity dissolved both him and the watchman."
After a few more mutters, the explanation of the watchman’s absence and Guffey’s demise was accepted. The men set to work. They advanced on the vault. The man with the air pistol fired it at the vault door.
Instantly, the thick steel began dissolving into the strange smoke.
Over in the shadow of the vice president’s desk, Doc Savage’s sensitive bronze fingers explored the air pistol, the slug from which had finished Guffey. He was disgusted to learn it held no other capsule cartridge of the Smoke of Eternity.
Doc recalled the words of the man dying from a lopped-off hand aboard the Jolly Roger. The fellow had said that Kar never gave one of his men more than a single cartridge of the Smoke of Eternity. Kar feared, probably, that his men would launch out on a robbery campaign of their own if supplied with a quantity of the stuff.
The dissolving of the vault door had now ceased, the potency of the missile of Smoke of Eternity exhausted.
Kar’s men were reluctant to go near the opening, at first. They were like boys playing with a mad dog. They didn’t know but what the fearsome dissolving substance might do them harm.
But one finally entered the vault. The others followed. In a moment, they reappeared weighted down with sacks of clinking gold coin. Gone was their hesitation now. The gold had affected them like potent liquor. They were drunk with the thought of such wealth.
In the shadow of the desk, Doc’s mighty bronze form remained motionless. The numskull guard slept silently at his feet. Doc was letting the robbery go forward!
But it was for good purpose. He wanted to trail the loot to Kar!
The thieves were stacking the swag near the hole they had opened in the bank building.
Doc’s golden eyes missed no move. He reasoned they would haul it away in one or more trucks. Two million dollars in gold weighed a great deal.
His reasoning was right — just as right as had been his guess that Kar might try to get his hands on this gold without waiting for it to leave New York by train. For Kar was clever enough to realize the train plot might have been overheard by Doc.
A large truck rolled up in the dark side street beside the hole in the bank wall. Into this, the thieves heaved sacks of gold coin.
At this point, the watchman began to revive. With his first move, he was pinned helplessly by hard bronze arms. He could not have been held more solidly had he been dressed in a block of solid steel. Nor could he cry out, or use his eyes.
The last bag of gold was hoisted into the truck by tired arms that were very unused to anything that smacked of work. The truck was large. It held all the gold.
The thieves piled in. The truck rolled away.
* * *
DOC’S impressive voice throbbed against the ear of the helpless watchman. It was pregnant with command.
"Call the police! Tell them the bank was robbed by Kar’s men. They will know who is meant by Kar’s men. Do you understand?"
The watchman started to swear at Doc, but desisted quickly when he felt the power of those great bronze fingers.
"I understand," he mumbled.
"You are to tell them nothing else until they arrive," Doc continued. "Then you can tell them of me. Tell them Doc Savage was here. They will keep it out of the newspapers.
And, most important of all, you are not to tell the newspapers of me, understand?"
The watchman snarled that he did. Doc had saved his life, but the man was far from grateful.
Doc Savage glided for the door.
Instantly, the watchman made a dive for his gun, which lay on the floor near the spot where the body of Guffey had dissolved. The man’s fingers clenched the weapon.
But when he lifted the muzzle, no bronze man could be seen. This reminded the watchman of the horrible dissolving of a human body he had witnessed. He got an attack of the jitters. His knees shook so he had to sit down on the floor and recover his nerve.
Doc Savage followed the truck. He had expended only a few minutes with the watchman. The truck had rolled slowly, so there would be less noise. Three blocks only, it had covered.
Doc ran. He haunted the gloom next to buildings. The truck headed uptown. Doc kept pace easily.
After fifteen blocks or so, the big bronze man hailed a nighthawking taxi. His physical condition was so perfect that he was breathing no more swiftly than normal when he entered the taxicab.
"Follow that truck," Doc directed. He noted the taxi driver had an honest face and frank manners. He displayed a bill.
The denomination of the bill made the driver gulp.
"This can’t be honest money!" he grinned.
"Stop and take aboard the first cop you see, if you think it’s not honest," Doc invited.
"You win!" the driver chuckled.
The hackman knew his business. He drove ahead of the truck, haunted side streets parallel to its course, and remained behind, where he might arouse suspicion, only at rare intervals.
Keeping to the East Side, where fish trucks were already beginning to rumble on the streets, the thieves drove far uptown. Near the northern end of Manhattan Island, they turned west and crossed the isle. Then they came down the other side. They had simply gone out of their way to mislead the police, should the officers get a description of the vehicle.
The thieves’ destination was the Jolly Roger!
The truck pulled down the bluff from Riverside Drive on a rutty old road used by dump vehicles.
Doc dismissed his taxi at the top of the bluff. The shadows gobbled him up. He reappeared near the ancient corsair craft, to lurk in the shelter of a tangled bush.
He watched the thieves consign the bags of gold coin to a hiding place. The simplicity of that hiding place surprised him.
They merely dumped the gold off the ramshackle wharf!
* * *
THE spot they chose for the dumping was out in deep water, near the stern of the Jolly Roger, but between the hull of the old craft and the wharf.
"Drop it close to the hull, you fool!" Doc heard one of the thieves order another. "Be sure it lands on the shelf fastened to the hull!"
So that explained it!
Far enough beneath the river surface that no one would ever notice, there was a shelf affixed to the Jolly Roger. Considering that the police now knew Kar had used the old corsair ship, it was a daring move to conceal the loot here. But perhaps the safer for that! Searchers would hardly suspect so prominent a spot.
It was far from what it seemed — this old buccaneer vessel.
Doc waited patiently for some sign of Kar.
Another man appeared unexpectedly, running from the direction of the bluff. He made a good deal of noise in the darkness.
Guns were clutched uneasily. Then the thieves hailed the newcomer as one of their number. "We nearly let you have it!"
Conversation followed, the new arrival speaking rapidly. The words were pitched too low to reach Doc, who was some distance away.
Then tones were raised.
"All but four of you clear out!" commanded the late arrival. "That’s Kar’s orders. I’m to take the four who stay to Kar."
Several loud grumbles wafted to Doc’s sharply tuned ears. But whatever the dissension was, the thieves accepted to the command of their leader. Probably they were complaining about leaving the gold unwatched.
The last of the coin plunked overside to land on the shelf fastened to the Jolly Rogerhull. All but four of the looters got in the truck. The big machine rumbled away.
The four who had remained stood on the wharf with the man who had brought them their orders. Several minutes passed. Noise of the truck died away.
"C’mon!" said the messenger loudly. "I’ll take you to Kar now!"
The man turned toward the old pirate ship.
"Kar is on the Jolly Roger?" ejaculated one of the gang.
"Sure! What’d you think?"
The men disappeared aboard the corsair vessel.
Little more than a darker blur in the murk, Doc’s bronze figure flashed to the Jolly Roger. He scaled the rail with a catlike leap.
Shuffling footsteps located his quarry. They were aft. Down a companion, they went. Doc trailed. He had not visited this part of the craft, despite the number of times he had been aboard. The weird vessel was a labyrinth of narrow passages and tiny cubicles. Evidently every old-time pirate had had to have his individual cabin.
The police, Doc knew, had searched the Jolly Rogerfrom stem to stern when they removed the bodies of Kar’s mobsters to the morgue. Had Kar been hiding aboard, they would have found him.
Doc kept only a few yards behind the five he followed. He entered the third of a series of cramped passages.
A door slammed behind him, barring the passage.
He flung forward. But even his marvelous fleetness could not get him to the passage end before that, too, was blocked by a closing door.
Then the entire ceiling of the passage descended with a crash upon his head!
* * *
THE dropping roof would have crushed the life from a body a whit less like springy steel than Doc’s. The mass of monster timbers must have weighed a full ton. The innocent-looking up-and-down beams at the passage sides formed guides upon which the ugly trap operated.
Doc caught the tremendous weight on broad, arched shoulders. He put forth gigantic effort. He broke the deadly force somewhat. But the shock bore him to hands and knees.
Instantly, the door in front of Doc opened. A flashlight sprayed blinding luminance into his golden eyes.
"Got him!" chortled the man who had brought the message to the thieves. "We outsmarted him slick as could be!"
An air pistol snout poked into the flash beam. It leveled at Doc’s perfectly formed bronze features.
Chung!
It discharged.
The flashlight promptly went out as the man who held it leaped back. Obviously, he was fearful some of the ghastly Smoke of Eternity would be splashed upon his person.
From a distance of several yards, the men waited.
"How did Kar get wise the bronze guy was followin’ us?" one asked the messenger.
"Simple," was the chuckled reply. "The watchman at that bank telephoned the morning newspapers a big bronze bird had attacked him and robbed the vault. Guess he phoned the papers before the police. Probably wanted to see his name in print.
"Anyway, it caught the newspapers just at the deadline. They came out with it on the front page. Kar has men watching every paper to grab the editions as they hit the street. He does that to keep track of things. Sometimes the papers have news ahead of the police. Anyhow, the minute Kar got his dope, he reasoned the bronze guy was trailin’ the loot in hopes it would lead him to the chief’s hangout."
"So he sent you — "
"So he sent me here to make that loud talk about leadin’ you guys to him." The speaker laughed nastily. "Kar knew Doc Savage would follow us right into this trap!"
"Kar is pretty slick," said one of the group, smitten with evil admiration.
"You said it! Slickest of all is how he keeps anybody from ever seein’ him, or even of learnin’ what his real name is."
"We were in luck that the watchman called the papers!"
The flashlight spilled glare onto the passage deadfall.
Vile
gray smoke had made a sizable smudge. Eerie electrical sparks played in a pronounced fashion.
The heavy timbers of the deadfall were dissolving!
"That," leered one of the men, "fixes the bronze guy!"
But, whether the bronze man met his end or not, his companions were still at his office headquarters; while Doc was out on his errand, they were waiting for the next move.
* * *
Chapter 12. THE TERRIBLE DESTROYER
IN Doc Savage’s skyscraper office, six men were waiting the night out, obeying Doc’s command to wait as he made his hurried exit the previous night.
Dawn was not far off. Over on the Sixth Avenue Elevated, trains were beginning to rattle past more often. In another hour, the city would awaken in earnest.
On a table in the office lay the last edition of a morning newspaper. Emblazoned in scare type on the front page was the story the stupid watchman had turned in. The scream heads read:
MYSTERIOUS BRONZE MAN ROBS BANK
"
I wonder if we should do something about that?" Johnny, the geologist, murmured anxiously, wiping his glasses with the thick left lens.
"Doc knows what he is about!" declared Long Tom, who had his nose buried in a highly technical pamphlet on advanced electrical research. "Shut up and let me read."
"Yes, do shut up!" Ham echoed. "I want to listen to this remarkable music!"
Monk and Renny, with the innate calmness of men huge physically, were sleeping. Monk snored. His snores had the peculiar quality of no two sounding remotely alike.
Ham, the waspish, quick-thinking lawyer, sat near Monk, listening with great interest to the variety of snore noises in Monk’s repertoire. His sword cane was between his knees.
"Can you imagine!" Ham jeered. "Not only is Monk the homeliest bird on earth, but he makes the awfulest noises!"
Of the six men present, only Oliver Wording Bittman betrayed nervousness. He got up from his chair often. He paced the floor.
"Aren’t you worried about Doc Savage?" he inquired wonderingly. "He left near midnight. Now it is almost dawn, and no word."
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