As the Automaton crashed its way into the room all sprang back
terrified, aghast.
For this monster, they had felt sure, was now nothing but an inanimate
shell of armor, since Balcom was dead.
Yet here it was, stalking toward them and evidently as bent on
destruction as ever.
What did it mean?
In an instant Locke had helped Eva through an open window and turned to
assist Zita. But Doctor Q forestalled him and had already taken her in
his arms and had fled with her into another room.
For the moment Locke was surprised to see that the Automaton totally
ignored him. Instead, it stalked to the door and wrenched it open.
There, cowering in the hall, in abject terror, was De Luxe Dora.
How and why she had come there was a mystery. But the Automaton did not
hesitate. It raised its hands and, as it did so, long flashes of blue
flame leaped from the steel finger-tips toward the unfortunate woman.
Once she shrieked, then crumpled and fell dead.
The monster then turned its attention to Locke, striding toward him with
a menacing gesture. But the diversion due to Dora had given all just the
time they needed to make good their flight. Locke threw a chair to
impede the progress of the monster, and then, as he saw that all the
others were safe, he lightly vaulted out of the window himself, to find
them waiting for him in the little yard below.
"What do you make of it now--father?" asked Locke of Doctor Q. "Balcom
is dead. Who is now in the iron man?"
Doctor Q shrugged. It was a mystery to him as much as ever, and he
seemed unable to throw any light on it.
"But De Luxe Dora," queried Zita. "What had she come for? Why was she
struck down--first?"
Again Doctor Q shook his head.
From the yard they could hear the Automaton's heavy tread in the room
and, as there was nothing to be gained by remaining, they left the yard
and hurried away out of the neighborhood.
They had not gone far, however, when Doctor Locke came to a full stop.
"I must go back," he exclaimed.
For a moment all thought he had again taken leave of his senses. Yet he
was obdurate.
"Miss Brent--Eva," he explained, "you know that a grievous wrong has
been done your father through me. He lies ill of that most terrible of
diseases, the laughing madness. I alone possess the antidote, and it is
in the laboratory that we have just left. I pray that that iron beast
has not destroyed it."
At the mere words Locke turned as if to go back for it.
"No, Quentin," remonstrated his father. "You must remain to guard Eva."
"Then I will go," insisted Zita. "I am not afraid now. Even when the
monster carried me off I overcame my fear, watched my chance, and
escaped from his den, where he left me. I will go."
Finally Doctor Locke agreed that Zita might return with him, remain
outside, and give the alarm if anything happened to him. Thus, after
many remonstrances, it was agreed, and Eva and Quentin went on to Brent
Rock.
No one had molested Brent in the mean time. The terror caused by the
explosion, as well as the loss of Balcom, for the time, at least, had
evidently cowed the emissary band.
While Eva made Brent comfortable, Locke went immediately to the
laboratory, where he had something which he considered very important.
"Quentin," remarked Eva, as she joined him, "your father spoke the
truth, I believe, when he said that it was Balcom in the Automaton, But
if that was the case, who is in it now?"
Locke shook his head dubiously. "I give it up," he replied. "It's too
deep for me. But whoever it is, he won't trouble us long, I'll wager.
I've been perfecting a special gun and an explosive-gas bullet. No one
can shoot the monster. Nothing seems to stop it. But this weapon, I
think, will at last prove a match for it."
Eva, who had always had the deepest interest in Quentin's work, listened
attentively as he explained in detail the working of the new weapon.
"And now we come to the actual loading of these asphyxiating-poison
bullets," concluded Quentin. "I really must ask you, Eva, to go into
another room, for it is dangerous work and you must not risk your life
here."
"But, Quentin," remonstrated Eva, "we've risked our lives so often
together that I have ceased to be afraid of anything."
Quentin was insistent, and finally Eva agreed.
As Doctor Q and Zita neared the former's laboratory, they saw that all
the lights in the house were out. Doctor Locke, against Zita's advice,
insisted on going in, and told his daughter to wait outside. It was then
that Zita disobeyed her father for the first time, for she flatly
refused to be left behind.
"No," she insisted. "I found a father to-night and what we must risk we
risk together. It is no worse than the peril from which I once escaped."
There was no reasoning with Zita, and they let themselves into the
little yard and went up the back steps. When they came to the door of
the laboratory they listened intently.
There was no sound. Then they mustered up courage and cautiously entered
the room. For a long time they stood quite still, not daring to move.
Finally Doctor Q suddenly lighted a match.
The room was in terrible confusion, as though cyclone-swept.
Doctor Locke turned on an electric bulb and the room was flooded with
light.
Everywhere there were traces of the Automaton. But the monster itself
had left the place. Doctor Locke crossed to the other door. There was a
sight that made them shudder. The body of De Luxe Dora was still huddled
in a heap on the floor. She was quite dead.
But Doctor Locke had no time now to waste. Moments were precious. At any
instant they might again be attacked. Feverishly he began to search for
the bottle containing the antidote.
At last he found it, carefully hidden, and in a bottle fortunately not
broken.
They left everything as it was and hurriedly left the place, on their
way to Brent Rock.
Meanwhile, in one of the worst quarters of the city, down in the cellar
of a huge warehouse, a mob of emissaries were gathered. They were
discussing the things that had led up to the explosion in the
Automaton's den, Balcom's death, and the arrest of their three pals.
Plans for the future they discussed, but, with their leader gone, these
hardened men were still as helpless as children.
Suddenly above the din of voices a strange, familiar sound was heard, a
sound as of clanking chains, and the blood froze in the veins of every
man present. Then with wild shouts of terror they scattered in every
direction, for the Automaton was stalking toward them.
Balcom, the man who had given the iron man life, was dead. And yet the
Automaton was among them!
That night, in the holds of many vessels and on the brake-beams of many
trains pulling away from the city, emissaries who once were slaves of
the Automaton were fleeing the city in every direction.
When Zita and her father arrived at Brent Rock, Locke was still working
at his new gas-gun. Eva was in the library, but when she heard the
voices in the hallway she ran to welcome them.
"Oh, I'm so glad you've both returned safe," she cried. Then, unable to
withstand the suspense longer, she asked, "Have you brought it--the
antidote?"
When Doctor Locke told her that the bottle that contained it was safely
stowed in his pocket Eva sank, overwrought, into a chair and cried with
simple relief and joy.
In a moment, however, she had gained control of herself, dashed the
tears from her eyes, and almost seized the bottle from Doctor Locke.
"Bring him down here, my dear," cautioned the doctor, still holding the
bottle. "You would not know how to administer it."
Eva ran to her father's room, stopping only long enough to summon
Quentin, then together they led Brent down-stairs.
Brent's condition was still pitiable. His mind was a total blank. These
people--Doctor Q, Zita, Quentin, even his own daughter--meant nothing to
him. He lived and breathed. But no ray of light entered the poor brain.
They guided his halting steps into the library as if he had been
something less than a child, and placed him in the same big armchair on
which he had sunk the fatal morning that the fumes from the candles had
overcome him.
Doctor Q drew out the bottle and, telling Zita to bring a glass of
water, measured out a few drops of the antidote, pouring them into the
glass. Then he moved over to Brent and tried to get him to drink it. For
a long time Brent merely clenched his teeth, but, once he was induced to
taste the mixture, he drank it eagerly.
For ages, it seemed to those watching, Brent sat as before, vacantly
gazing straight ahead of him--so long, in fact, that a terrible fear
entered Eva's heart that, perhaps, after all, the antidote would fail
and that her father would remain without reason until the day of his
death.
Then slowly a change was noticeable in his eyes, and all leaned forward
with overpowering intentness. What they were watching was like a
miracle. Slowly, very slowly, they saw the soul creep back into those
poor, mad eyes.
Brent had been staring directly at his daughter as she watched him
anxiously. Now a puzzled look came over his face and, raising a hand, he
rubbed his forehead.
Then a wonderful light seemed to shine from his eyes and he held out his
arms to Eva.
With a sob of excited happiness Eva rushed to embrace him.
As Locke stood behind him, Zita and Doctor Q walked to the other end of
the room, turning sidewise to the group.
Suddenly Brent turned his eyes away from Eva and noticed Doctor Q for
the first time.
"Who is that?" he asked Eva.
"Why, father, that is--"
At the sound of voices Doctor Q had turned around.
"You!" gasped Brent, as he sank back into his chair.
The look on his face was strange, perhaps half fear, half shame.
Doctor Q came no nearer for a moment, while Eva hastened to explain what
had happened. Then unsteadily Brent rose and walked over to the doctor.
"You are alive!" he exclaimed. "You have come again into my life so that
at last I can make restitution. My daughter has explained to me all that
you have suffered. Believe me it was through my own weakness. It seems
incredible that any man could be so infamous, so utterly without moral
scruples, as was Balcom. I believed the villain implicitly. That is, and
can be, my only excuse."
The doctor placed his hand on Brent's shoulder.
"I can understand only too well," he remarked, "for I, too, believed in
Balcom. You were a reticent man and so my dealings were all with him. I
was gullible, an inventor, not a business man. I should have come to you
before I fled the country, I suppose. Say no more about it, for I
forgive you from the bottom of my heart."
But Brent insisted on explaining that at least he had had a desire to
right the great wrongs.
"I can remember it all now," he continued. "I was about to make
restitution when a man connected with the company--I am sure now that he
was an adventurer, a crook, in the pay of Balcom, although Balcom
probably tried to hide it--came to me. His name, as I remember it, was
Flint. I was about to write a letter that showed that it was my
intention to right a wrong, when--something interrupted me and--the rest
I can't remember."
Quentin, who had been standing behind the chair, now drew from his
pocket a piece of paper which he handed to Brent.
"Yes--that is it," cried Brent, excitedly, taking it, and spreading it
out before them. "See!"
It was a note addressed to Quentin Locke and read:
I have done you a great wrong about which you know
nothing, but for which I will make amends--
"It was broken off," exclaimed Brent, making a sad effort to recollect
what had happened. "I don't remember how. But this Flint had been
telling me something about an iron monster. He had a model--said he had
seen the real thing in Madagascar, that it had a human brain, that it
walked and fought, that it had strength and life--but no conscience. He
hinted that the thing would do me harm if I persisted in a course that I
had determined for myself of giving back to inventors we had robbed the
things of which we had robbed them. I did not believe him. I thought the
thing absurd, and started to write the note, going a step farther than I
had ever threatened Balcom."
Quentin, Doctor Q, and Zita exchanged glances as Eva's father resumed
his narrative.
"Then I felt a choking sensation at my throat. I remember the effrontery
of Flint's laughing at me, in a maudlin sort of way, and then--a blank.
The next I recall was just now--Eva gazing at me with a worried
expression in her dear eyes. I called to her and kissed her, tried to
comfort her. Then I saw you, Locke, and Zita."
Peter Brent, from the time he and Flint had been overcome by the fumes
from the candelabra until he received the antidote and recognized his
daughter, had not known a thing!
As they talked there were many matters the two aged men discovered while
they pieced together the happenings of years.
Each had been duped by the same man. Each had suffered great trouble
through this man's machinations and duplicity.
As they talked, the attention of both turned to the younger Quentin
Locke, who seemed overjoyed at the recovery of his former employer.
Brent had a very great feeling of affection and respect for the younger
man, for had he not really brought him up?
As all questioned one another, they asked Brent much about the past, and
he told them all.
He told how he had become finally suspicious of Balcom, of how he
insisted upon instituting a search for the doctor, his wife, and
children. He told how Balcom had opposed him up to the last moment. Then
he described his sailing half the world over in search of them, how at
times he found a trail, only to lose it again.
Finally he told how at last he had found that the mother had been lost,
but the children saved.
"I was in Bombay," he continued, "in despair that I would ever find any
of you. At that time I was an old man before my time, for my conscience
gave me no rest. I went down to the quay to purchase a ticket for my
return to New York, and, true to the habit I had formed, I asked the
ticket-seller if he had ever heard anything of the survivors of the
steamer _Magnifique_.
"'Do I know anything of it?' repeated the ticket-seller. 'No, but
there's a man working on this dock now who never talks of anything else.
He was a sailor on the ship and one of the few who survived.'
"You can believe me when I tell you that I ran down that dock and found
the man. He remembered you all well, remembered you children when you
were taken up with some other survivors, and he said he thought that
some family had taken you to Hong-Kong.
"I canceled my passage to Liverpool and immediately sailed for China.
Still, my troubles were not over, for it was weeks before I finally
located you babies, Quentin and Zita.
"I won't burden you with the difficulties I encountered before the
English family, the Danes, with whom I found you, would consent to give
you up. Nor will I take time to tell of our return to New York through
San Francisco.
"Let it suffice for you to know that we arrived safely after I had
completely circled the world. I sent you to good schools, and when Zita
was old enough I made her my secretary so that I could watch over her.
Quentin, being older, I had not dared to have around at first. I feared
he might question me too closely. And what answer could I give him?
Could I tell him that International Patents had driven his father into
exile, that I had been partly the cause, the indirect cause, it is true,
but still the cause of his mother's death? I never found the courage to
do that and so I sent him to a preparatory school and later to college.
Years wiped out his childhood recollections and when he came here he
came as a stranger employed in the company's laboratory. I make no
defense, but I assure you all that my own sufferings have atoned for all
the wrongs I have done."
Brent broke down and was almost weeping, when Quentin and Eva moved over
to his side and reassured him.
As soon as Brent had recovered from his weakness he wanted to know all
that had happened since he had been unconscious under the drug, and as
he listened he was aghast at the Automaton and Balcom's villainy.
"I've something here that will stop him, though," added Quentin, as he
showed the new gas-gun he had invented and explained its deadly
properties. "Bring him on again--I'm ready."
"Quentin--please don't joke about that terrible monster," shivered Eva.
"It has injured us so often--I don't even want to talk about it--or
about the government that asked you to come here and set things right.
Let us forget--now that all is right."
Quentin smiled at her and his quick mind saw that the time had come to
guide the conversation into pleasanter channels. He moved close to
Brent.
"It looks, Mr. Brent," he said, quietly, "as though we all were at about
the end of our troubles. But there are two of us here who are not quite
happy--yet. Mr. Brent, I am going to claim a reward."
"Anything, my dear Locke, anything I have is yours."
"Then I may as well tell you that Eva and I love each other and I want
your consent to our marriage."
Brent beamed.
"That, Quentin, is the dearest wish my heart can have."
Quentin turned to Eva to take her in his arms when there was a terrific
crash of glass in the conservatory, the splintering of wood, and the
Automaton, arms swinging like flails, charged like a mad thing into the
room.
Its terrorizing eyes were agleam, its one desire destruction. A large
table stood in its way and it demolished it as though it were matchwood.
The interruption came so abruptly that Brent, who in his right mind had
never seen the fiend and was now seeing it for the first time, was
paralyzed with horror. He tried to rise from his chair, but in his weak
condition fell back, helpless.
Quentin made a flying leap over the demolished table and placed himself
directly in front of Brent and in the path of the monster. Doctor Q,
Zita, and Eva started for Locke's side, but he waved them back
frantically.
Locke reached into his pocket and drew out his gas-pistol. The Automaton
was almost upon him when he raised his arm and fired.
There was a blinding flash and a dull report. The Automaton stopped in
his tracks and, raising one mighty hand to its chest, staggered
backward. Again Quentin fired, and the Automaton slowly crumpled,
sinking to one knee. There was no need to fire again, for suddenly the
monster crashed to the floor and lay still.
Locke started forward, but Eva shrieked for him to stand back. She had
not forgotten that once she had thought the monster dead and it had
suddenly seized her and almost crushed out her life.
There was, however, nothing to fear this time. Quentin reassured her
that the gas fumes had passed away, then knelt by the iron terror. He
tried to remove the steel headpiece, but before he could accomplish it
the doctor came forward and in a moment had unfastened the bolts.
As they were doing so a thick voice from inside could be distinguished,
muttering words about the capture of Brent and Zita just before Balcom
was killed, the escape of Zita, the rescue of Brent, the killing of
Dora, who had evidently come to betray something in jealousy. It was all
incoherent and Doctor Q and Quentin hastened to uncasque the man within.
They lifted off the helmet and there was the contorted and dying face of
Paul Balcom, who had, in desperation, taken his father's place in a vain
hope to secure the fortune for himself.
The poison was too strong, and as the girls turned, sickened, away, the
evil features froze, more evil than ever they had been in his evil life.
* * * * *
A few days later a brilliant wedding took place at Brent Rock, which
itself was a present to the bride and groom.
After the guests had thinned out, Quentin and Eva strolled into the
garden, no longer in fear of attack from the steel Automaton.
Eva glanced at her ring, musing.
"After all the things from which you have escaped, dear," she murmured,
a bit timidly, "I am afraid nothing in the world can hold you."
Quentin drew her into his arms, while her hand rested on his shoulder,
and kissed the little golden ring that encircled her finger.
"Nothing but that band of love," he smiled.