Chapter 3

FIGHTING MEN

DOC HAD charged forward. expecting to meet danger. So he was alert. Twisting aside, he evaded the first torrent of bullets.

But nothing in the library offered shelter. He doubled back. His speed was blinding. His bronze figure snapped into the laboratory before the wielder of the machine gun could correct his aim.

The gunman swore loudly. He dashed across the bookfilled room. Deadly weapon ready, he sprang into the laboratory. Murderous purpose was on his pinched face.

His eyes roved the lab. His jaw sagged.

There was no bronze man in the lab!

To a window, the gunner leaped. He flung it up, looked out.

No one was in sight. The white wall of the skyscraper lacked very little of being smooth as glass. Nobody could pull a human-fly stunt on that expanse. No rope was visible, above or below.

The gunman drew back. He panted. His pinched face threatened to rival in color the white shirt he wore.

The bronze giant had vanished!

Fearfully, the gunman sidled about on the polished bricks of the laboratory floor.

Two half circles of these bricks suddenly whipped upward. They were not unlike a monster bear trap. The gunman was caught.

His rapid-firer cackled a brief instant. Then pain made him drop the weapon. Madly, he tore at the awful thing which held him. It defied him. The bricks which had arisen were actually of hard steel, merely painted to resemble masonry.

Before the would-be killer's pain-blurred eyes, a section of the laboratory wall opened soundlessly. The mighty bronze man stepped out of the recess it had concealed.

The giant, metallic form approached, taking up a position before the captive.

"Lemme out of dis t'ing!" whined the gunman. "It's bustin' me ribs!"

THE BRONZE man might not have heard, for all the sign he gave. One of his hands lifted. The hand was slender, perfectly shaped. It seemed made entirely of piano wires and steel rods.

The hand touched lightly to the gunman's face.

The gunman instantly slumped over.

He was unconscious!

He fell to the floor as the bronze giant released the mechanical trap which held him. The trap settled back into the floor — become a part of the other bricks.

Like an arrow off a bow, the bronze man whipped into the library, then to the outer office.

The gunman had never moved after striking the floor. Yet he breathed noisily, as though asleep.

In the outer office, the bronze man saw Victor Vail was gone!

A DRIBBLE of moist crimson across the floor showed the single shot which had sounded had damaged some one. The red leakage led to an elevator door. The panel was closed. The cage was gone.

Doc Savage glided down the battery of elevator doors. The last panel was shut. His finger found a secret button, and pressed it. The doors slid open. A ready cage was revealed.

This car always awaited Doc's needs at the eighty-sixth floor. Its hoisting mechanism was of a special nature. The cage went up and down at a speed far surpassing the other elevators.

Doc sent it dropping downward. For a moment or two he actually floated in the air some inches above the floor, so swift was the descent

The cage seemed hardly to get going before it slowed. And with such an abruptness did it halt that only great leg muscles kept Doc from being flattened to the floor.

The doors opened automatically. Doc popped out into the first-floor lobby of the skyscraper.

An astounding sight met his gaze.

Directly before the elevator door stood an individual who could easily be mistaken for a giant gorilla. He weighed in excess of two hundred and sixty pounds. His arms were some inches longer than his legs and actually as thick as his legs! He was literally furred with curly, rust-hued hair.

A more homely face than that possessed by this anthropoid fellow would be hard to find. His eyes were like little stars twinkling in their pits of gristle. His ears were cauliflowered; something had chewed the tip of one, and the other was perforated as though for an ear-ring except that the puncture was about the size of a rifle bullet. His mouth was very big.

This gigantic individual held three mean-eyed men in the hooplike clasp of his huge arms. The trio were helpless. Three guns, which they had no doubt held recently, lay on the floor.

The gorilla of a man saw Doc. His knot of a head seemed to open in halves as he laughed.

"Listen, Doc!" he said in a voice surprisingly mild for such a monster. "Listen to this!"

His enormous arms tightened on his three prisoners. As one man the three howled in agony.

"Don't they sing pretty huh?" the anthropoid man chuckled. He squeezed the trio again, and listened to their pained howls like a singing teacher.

Across the lobby, two more mean-eyed men cowered in a corner. They had their arms wrapped tightly about their faces. Each was trying to crawl into the corner behind the other.

The cause of their terror was a slender, waspish man who danced lightly before them. This man was probably as immaculately clad a gentleman as ever twirled a cane on a New York street.

Indeed, it was with a sword cane that he now menaced the pair in the corner. A sword cane which ordinarily looked like an innocent black walking stick!

This man was "Ham." On the military records, he was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks. He was one of the leading civil lawyers of the country. He had never been known to lose a case. But there was no sign of poor blind Victor Vail.

DOC SAVAGE addressed the grinning gorilla of a man.

"What happened, Monk?"

"Monk!"

No other nickname would have quite fit the homely, long-armed, and furry fellow. The highly technical articles he occasionally wrote on chemistry were signed by the full name of Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair.

There apparently wasn't room back of his low brow for more brains than could be crammed into a cigarette. Actually, he was such a great chemist that other famous chemists often came from foreign countries to consult with him.

"We were coming in the door when we met our friends." Monk gave his three captives a squeeze to hear them howl. "They had guns. We didn't like their looks. So we glommed onto 'em."

Reaching forward, Doc Savage placed his bronze right hand lightly against the faces of each of Monk's three prisoners. Only Doc's finger tips touched the skin of the men.

Yet all three instantly became unconscious!

Hurrying over, Doc also touched lightly the pair Ham menaced with his sword cane.

Both fell senseless!

Ham sheathed his sword cane. He twirled the innocent black stick which resulted. He was quite a striking figure, sartorially.

Indeed, tailors often followed Ham down the street, just to watch clothes being worn as they should be worn!

"You didn't see more of these rats dragging a white-haired, blind man, did you?" Doc asked.

"We saw only these five." Ham had the penetrant voice of an orator.

Neither Ham nor Monk seemed the least surprised by the way in which their prisoners dropped unconscious at Doc's touch.

Ham and Monk were accustomed to the remarkable feats of this mighty bronze man, for they were two of a group of five men who worked with Doc Savage. Each of the other three was a master of some profession, just as Monk was a fine chemist and Ham a great lawyer.

The five men and Doc Savage formed an adventuresome group with a definite, although somewhat strange, purpose in life. This purpose was to go here and there, from one end of the world to the other, looking for excitement and adventure, striving to help those in need of help, and punishing those who deserved it.

Doc suddenly went outside. He moved so effortlessly he seemed to glide. He had been seized by a suspicion. Either Victor Vail was still in the skyscraper, or he had been removed by way of the freight elevators.

Hardly was Doc on the walk when a bullet splashed chill air on his bronze face.

Two sedans were parked down the street, near the freight entrance of the giant building.

One machine lurched into motion. It ran rapidly away. Doc did not get a chance to see whether Victor Vail was in it!

Doc flashed over into the shelter of a many-spouted fire hydrant. The hydrant had couplings for several hose lines. It was nearly as large as a barrel.

Down the street, the driver hopped out of the sedan which remained. He was a big man, very fat. He wore a white handkerchief mask.

"Git a hump on yer!" he howled.

The cry was obviously directed at some of his fellows who were still in the skyscraper.

Monk and Ham popped out on the walk. The shot had attracted them. Monk held a pistol which, in his hairy paw, looked small as a watch chain ornament.

The sedan driver leveled a revolver to fire again. Monk's fist spat flame.

The driver jumped about wildly. like a beheaded chicken. His spasmodic actions carried him into the street. He caved down finally and rolled under the sedan.

Three or four evil heads poked out of the freight entrance. Another red spark jumped out of Monk's paw. The heads jerked back.

Suddenly, Doc's low voice reached Monk's ears. Doc spoke half a dozen staccato sentences. Silence followed.

When Monk glanced at the fire hydrant a moment later, Doc Savage was gone!

Several times in the next minute guns roared in the gloomy street. The reports echoed from the man-made walls on either side like satanic laughter.

The driver of the sedan abruptly appeared! The fellow still wore his mask. He hauled himself laboriously to the sedan door. Getting it open, he fell limply into the machine.

This seemed to embolden the fellows in the freight entrance. They launched a volley of bullets at Monk and Ham. The pair were driven out of sight.

A tight group, the gunmen sprinted from the freight entrance to their sedan. They made it safely. They piled in, trampling the prone, white-masked form of the driver.

"T'row de stiff out!" snarled one man, seizing the driver. The driver kicked the man who had grasped him.

"I ain't no stiff, damn yer!" he cursed. "Dey jest winged me!"

"It's a lousy deal, us goin' off an' leavin' our pals in dat buildin'!" growled a gunster.

"What else could we do?" retorted another. "Dey was saps to go bargin' out wavin' our rods. If we hadn't heard 'em squawk, we'd have been caught, too."

"Dry up, you mugs!" snapped the man who had taken the wheel.

The sedan rolled down Broadway. It veered into a side street many blocks downtown.

The street became shabby. Smell of fish permeated the air. Ragged derelicts of men tottered along the thoroughfare. Men in seamen's clothing were plentiful. Raucous music blared out of cheap honkatonks.

It was the water front district — a region of sailor lodging houses, needled beer, and frequent fights.

"De others got here first!" growled a gunman. "Dere's de car dey was drivin'."

The machine the man indicated was the first sedan to pull away from the uptown skyscraper.

THE EVIL fellows left the two sedans parked close together. "Honkey," the former driver, staggered out, but nearly fell.

"Help 'im, you guys!" directed the man who seemed to be the straw boss.

Honkey was half carried across the walk. This side street was very dark. They did not bother to remove the white mask Honkey still wore.

"Gosh, but he's heavy!" complained a man helping the driver.

They mounted a stairway. The rickety steps whined like dogs when they were stepped on. There was no light, except that from a match a man going ahead had struck.

Into a lighted room, the group went. Several other men waited here.

Still there was no sign of Victor Vail.

"Put Honkey on de bed in de nex' room!" commanded the straw boss.

The two thugs hauled Honkey into an adjacent chamber. It was a slatternly looking place. Wall paper draped from the walls in great scabs. The one bed was filthy.

The pair prepared to lower Honkey.

At this point, Honkey's hands came up with apparent aimlessness. The finger tips touched each man's face.

Instead of Honkey dropping upon the bed, both thugs collapsed upon it! They made no sound.

Honkey now stumbled back into the other room. The gang assembled there eyed him in surprise.

"Yer'd better go ter bed, Honkey!" snarled the one who had been giving orders.

"Aw — I ain't feelin' so tough." Honkey muttered.

"Well, take dat crazy mask off, anyway!"

"In a minute," mumbled Honkey. "Soon's I find me a chair."

He weaved among the gangsters. He seemed very unsteady on his feet. To remain erect, he clutched the persons of such men as he passed. Always, his finger tips touched some portion of bare skin.

He came in contact with six men on his way across the room. The six sat in their chairs with a strange rigidity after he had passed.

The gangster who served as straw boss watched. Curiosity rippled over his face. Then came ugly suspicion.

He shucked two big automatics out of his clothing. He covered the reeling driver.

"Stick 'em up!" he snarled.

There was nothing the driver could do but obey. Up went his arms.

At this point, the six gangsters he had touched fell out of their chairs. They made a succession of thumps on the floor. They were unconscious.

"Whew!" gritted the gunman. "Keep dem hands up!"

He advanced gingerly. With a quick move, he plucked the mask off the driver.

"I t'ought so!" he hissed.

The features revealed were not those of Honkey, the driver.

They were the bronze lineaments of Doc Savage!

Chapter 4

THE BLIND-MAN HUNT

BEWILDERMENT GRIPPED the assembled thugs. They could not comprehend that the bronze man had taken the place of Honkey, back at the uptown skyscraper. It was too much for them to believe that any one could be such a master of voice imitation as to fool them by emulating Honkey's hoarse growl.

They looked at the six of their comrades huddled senseless on the floor. A near-terror distorted their ugly faces.

The bronze man slowly pushed Honkey's cap off his head. The cap was none too clean. It was as though he didn't wish to wear it longer than was necessary.

For a brief instant. his finger tips probed in the bronze hair that lay down like a metal skullcap.

"Keep clawin' fer the ceilin'!" snarled the gang chief.

Doc's arms lifted obediently. His hands nearly touched the ceiling, indicating what a really large man he was.

"Search 'im!" ordered the leader.

Gingerly, four of the thugs advanced. They frisked Doc with practiced fingers. They found some silver coins and a few bills which had belonged to Honkey. These they appropriated. But they unearthed no weapon.

"De umpcha ain't got a rod!" they muttered. The fact that Doc wasn't armed seemed to stun them.

Their leader eyed the six limp hulks on the floor. He moved to the bedroom door. He whitened perceptibly when he saw the two sprawled on the bed.

"I don't savvy dis!" he shivered. "What messed dem guys up like dat?"

Suddenly his mean eyes narrowed.

"Hunt in his sleeves!" he commanded his men.

They did so — and brought to light a small hypodermic needle.

The leader grasped the needle fearfully between thumb and forefinger. He inspected it.

"So dis is what laid 'em out!" he leered.

The other villains stirred uneasily. They didn't fancy weapons such as this. A gun was more their style.

"Croak 'im!" they suggested.

But their boss shook his head violently.

"Ixnay!" he snapped. "Dis guy is just de umpcha we need. We're gonna make 'im tell us where old Victor Vail is!"

A marked interest now registered on Doc Savage's bronze features. He was obviously surprised.

"You mean to say you haven't got Victor Vail?" he asked.

The remarkable power of his great voice held the gangsters speechless for a moment. Then their leader spoke sneeringly.

"D'you t'ink we'd be askin' where de guy is if we had 'im?" he demanded. He scowled blackly. "Say, whatcha drivin at — askin' us if we got 'im?"

"Victor Vail was seized," Doc replied. "I naturally supposed you fellows had him. That is why I am here."

The thugs exchanged angry glares.

"Dat damn Keelhaul de Rosa crowd got 'im first, after all!" one grated.

This morsel was very interesting to Doc Savage. "You mean to say your outfit and Keelhaul de Rosa's outfit were both after Victor Vail?" he asked.

"Button de lip!" rasped the leader of the thugs. "I t'ink yer lyin' ter me about anybody gettin' Victor Vail!"

"Den why would he come here?" put in another fellow. "Don't be a nut! Dat's what the shootin' upstairs was. Yer remember we heard a typewriter turn loose. Dat's what scared us off."

Doc Savage gave the tiniest of nods. He understood now why the five captured by Monk and Ham had come dashing out of the elevators with their guns in hand. They had heard the machine-gun fire upstairs, and had become terrified.

"I wonder how Keelhaul de Rosa got ahead of us at de skyscraper?" mumbled the leader.

"He tried to grab de blind guy from under our snozzles at de concert hall, didn't he?" asked the other thug. "He drove off mighty fast in dat taxi, but he could've circled back an' followed de blind guy to dat skyscraper just de same as we did, couldn't he?"

Doc listened with interest to all this. These fellows must have arrived at the concert hall in time to witness the street fight. And they had been cunning enough to keep out of sight.

The leader swore loudly. "Cripes! Yer remember dat guy in a cab who had a trick mustache? De one dat was puffin' a cigar? He followed de roadster to de skyscraper, den went in right after dis bronze guy an' old Victor Vail. I'll bet dat was Keelhaul de Rosa!"

"What we gonna do?" growled a man. The leader shrugged. "Ben O'Gard will wanta know about dis. I'll go an' have a talk wit' 'im!"

This apprised Doc of another fact. These men were hirelings of Ben O'Gard!

Victor Vail had mentioned a strange feud between Ben O'Gard and "Keelhaul" de Rosa on the arctic ice pack. It was evident that this old feud still continued.

But what was back of it? Did Victor Vail's unconsciousness at the time of the disaster to the liner Oceanic, and his awakening with a queer smarting in his back, have anything to do with this mystery?

The leader of the thugs came over and confronted Doc. He looked small and unhealthy before the mighty bronze man. He held up the hypodermic needle.

"What's in dis?" he questioned.

"Water," Doc said dryly.

"Yeah?" sneered the man. He eyed the unmoving forms of his fellows on the floor, shuddered violently, then got hold of himself. "Yer a liar!"

"There's really nothing but water in it," Doc persisted.

The thug leered. His hand darted like a striking serpent. The hypo needle was embedded in Doc's corded neck. The implement discharged its contents into his veins.

Without a sound, the giant bronze man caved down to the floor.

"So it was only water in dat t'ing!" snorted the gangster straw boss. "Dat needle is what got our pals!"

He gave orders. The big bronze man was turned over, kicked a few times, and soundly belabored. He showed no signs of consciousness.

"Dat guy is harder'n brass!" muttered a thug, blowing feverishly on a fist with which he had taken an overly hard swing at the limp, metallic form.

"Watch 'im close!" commanded the leader. Then he pointed at a telephone on a stand against one wall. "I'm goin' to talk wit' Ben O'Gard in person. I'll either give you mugs a ring about what to do wit' the bronze guy, or come back myself an' tell yer."

The man now departed.

The other gangsters expended some minutes in seeking to revive their unconscious fellows. However, they had no luck.

They smoked. They muttered to each other, and one of their number took a post outside in the hallway as lookout.

Suddenly a shrill voice came from the room where the two thugs lay senseless on the bed.

"C'mere, quick!" it piped. "I got somethin' important!"

A number of gangsters rushed into the room. Others crowded about the door.

For a moment, not an eye watched the bronze figure of Doc Savage!

"Dat's funny!" declared a man, examining the pair on the bed. "He must've gone back to sleep! They're both out like a light now!"

"I never heard either one of dem guys talk in a shrill voice like dat," another fellow said wonderingly.

They came out of the bedroom, a puzzled group of villains.

Not one of them glanced at the telephone. So none noticed that a match had been jammed under the receiver hook, holding it in a lifted position!

The strong lips of Doc Savage began to writhe. Sounds came from them. Clucking, gobbling sounds, they were absolutely meaningless to the listening thugs. The sounds were very loud.

"What kinda language is dat?" growled a man.

"Dat ain't no language!" snorted another. "De guy is jest delirious an' ravin'!"

The gangster was wrong. For Doc Savage was speaking one of the least-known languages in existence. The tongue of the ancient Mayan civilization which centuries ago flourished in Central America! And his words were going into the telephone!

When all the gangsters looked in the bedroom, they had given Doc sufficient time to call Monk at his skyscraper office. The thugs had been too excited to hear him whisper the phone number.

Doc was a ventriloquist of ability. He had thrown his voice into the bedroom to get the attention of his captors.

It would have surprised the absent leader of the thugs to know the hypodermic needle he had used on Doc had actually contained nothing more harmful than water! Doc had chanced to have the needle on his person. And he had slipped it up his sleeve for the purpose of deceiving the villains.

It was not the needle with which Doc made his enemies unconscious so mysteriously.

DOC SAVAGE continued to speak Mayan. The lingo sounded like gibberish to the listeners in the shabby room.

To homely Monk in the uptown skyscraper, however, it carried a lot of meaning. All of Doc's men could speak Mayan. They used it when they wanted to converse without being understood by bystanders.

"Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny should be there by now," Doc told Monk in the strange language.

The three men he had named were the remaining members of his group of five adventuresome aids!

"Tell Johnny to get the contents of Drawer No. 13 in the laboratory," Doc continued. "The contents will be a bottle of bilious-looking paint, a brush, arid a mechanism like an overgrown field glass. Tell Johnny to bring the paint and brush here."

Doc gave the address of the dive where he was being held.

"There are two sedans parked outside," the bronze man went on in the gobbling dialect. 'Tell Johnny to paint a cross on the top of each one. He is to bring his car which is equipped with radio. He is to wait in a street near by when he has finished the painting.

"Long Tom and Renny are to take the overgrown field glasses and race to the airport. They're to circle over the city in my plane, Renny doing the flying, while Long Tom watches with the overgrown glasses. The glasses will make the paint Johnny will put on the sedan tops show up a distinctive luminous color. Long Tom is to radio the course of the sedans to Johnny, who will follow them.

The gangsters were listening to the clucking words. Evil grins wreathed their pinched faces. They didn't dream the gobble could have a meaning!

"You, Monk, will visit the police station where the thugs who attacked Victor Vail and myself outside the concert hall were taken." Doc said. "Question them and seek to learn where a sailor called Keelhaul de Rosa would be likely to take Victor Vail.

"Ham is to remain in the office and question the rat you found unconscious in the laboratory, also seeking to find Keelhaul de Rosa and Victor Vail.

"If you understand these instructions, snap your fingers twice in the telephone transmitter."

Two low snaps promptly came from the wedged-up telephone receiver. They were not loud. Not a thug in the room noticed them.

DOC SAVAGE now became silent. He lay as though life had departed from his giant form.

"Reckon he's kicked the pail?" a crook muttered.

Another man made a brief examination.

"Naw. His pump is still goin'."

After this, time dragged. The guard outside the door could be heard. Once he struck a match. Twice he coughed hackingly.

A gangster produced two red dice. The men made a pretense at a crap game, but they were too nervous to make a success of it. Seating themselves in the scant supply of chairs, or hunkering down on the filthy floor, they waited.

Doc Savage Was giving his men time to get on the job. Johnny would have to daub the luminous paint on the sedans. Renny and Long Tom would have to arrive over the city in the plane. Twenty minutes should be sufficient time.

He gave them half an hour, to be sure. Indeed, his keen ears finally detected a series of low drones which meant the plane was above. Doc's plane had mufflers on the exhaust pipes. Renny was evidently cutting the mufflers off at short intervals to signal his presence to his pals.

Doc rolled over. He did it slowly, like a sleepy man. He now faced the hallway door.

The thugs tensed. They drew their pistols. They were as jittery as a flock of wild rabbits.

Doc imitated the raucous voice of the guard. He threw it against the hall door.

"Help!" the voice yelled. "Cripes! Help!"

The guard outside heard. He might have recognized his own tone. Maybe he didn't. He wrenched the door open, at any rate.

The instant his ugly face shoved inside, Doc threw words into his mouth. The guard was too astonished to say a word of his own.

"De cops!" were the words. "Dey're on de stairs! Lam, youse guys!"

Pandemonium fell upon the gangsters. They rasped excited orders. They actually squealed as though they were already caught.

One man saw the giant bronze figure of Doc Savage heave up from the floor. He fired his pistol. But he was a little slow. Doc evaded the bullets. He reached the light switch, punched it.

Darkness clapped down upon the room.

"De cops are inside!" Doc yelled in the guard's voice. "We gotta lam, quick!"

To make sure they fled in the right direction, Doc glided over and kicked the glass out of the window.

"Dis way out!" he barked.

A thug sprang through the window. Another followed. Then a succession of them.

Standing near by, Doc darted his hands against such faces as he could find in the black void. Three men he touched in this manner. Each of the three instantly dropped unconscious.

The others escaped from the room in a surprisingly short space of time.

Doc listened. He heard both sedan engines roar into life. The cars streaked away like noisy comets.

INTO THE room where Doc Savage stood there now penetrated a weird sound. It was low, mellow, trilling. It was exotic enough to be the song of some strange bird of the jungle, or the eerie note of wind filtering through a jungled forest. It was melodious, though it had no tune; it was inspiring, without being awesome.

This sound had the peculiar quality of seeming to arise from everywhere within the shabby room, rather than from a definite spot.