Produced by Greg Weeks, Dan Horwood and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from "Astounding Stories" January and
February, 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The original "What has gone before" recap section from the
second part (February edition) has been removed from this
combined version.
Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
Author's punctuation style is preserved.
Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=.
Typographical problems have been changed and are listed at the
end of the text.
]
* * * * *
[Illustration: Front cover of "Amazing Stories"]
The Mind Master
_Beginning a Two-Part Novel_
By Arthur J. Burks
[Illustration: _A sequel to "Manape the Mighty"_]
CHAPTER I
_The Tuft of Hair_
"Let's hope the horrible nightmare is over, dearest," whispered Ellen
Estabrook to Lee Bentley as their liner came crawling up through the
Narrows and the Statue of Liberty greeted the two with uplifted torch
beyond Staten Island. New York's skyline was beautiful through the
mist and smoke which always seemed to mask it. It was good to be home
again.
[Sidenote: Once more Lee Bentley is caught up in the marvelous
machinations of the mad genius Barter.]
Certainly it was a far cry from the African jungles where, for the
space of a ghastly nightmare, Ellen had been a captive of the apes
and Bentley himself had had a horrible adventure. Caleb Barter, a mad
scientist, had drugged him and exchanged his brain with that of an
ape, and for hours Bentley had roamed the jungles hidden in the great
hairy body, the only part of him remaining "Bentley" being the Bentley
brain which Barter had placed in the ape's skull-pan. Bentley would
never forget the horror of that grim awakening, in which he had found
himself walking on bent knuckles, his voice the fighting bellow of a
giant anthropoid.
[Illustration: _A bullet ploughed through the top of the ape's
head._]
Yes, it was a far cry from the African jungles to populous Manhattan.
As soon as Ellen and Lee considered themselves recovered from the
shock of the experience they would be married. They had already spent
two months of absolute rest in England after their escape from Africa,
but they found it had not been enough. Their story had been told in
the press of the world and they had been constantly besieged by the
curious, which of course had not helped them to forget.
- - -
"Lee," whispered Ellen, "I'll never feel sure that Caleb Barter is
dead. We should have gone out that morning when he forgot to take his
whip and we thought the vengeful apes had slain him. We should have
proved it to our own satisfaction. It would be an ironic jest,
characteristic of Barter, to allow us to think him dead."
"He's dead all right, dear," replied Bentley, his nostrils quivering
with pleasure as he looked ahead at New York, while the breeze along
the Hudson pushed his hair back from his forehead. "He had abused the
great anthropoids for too many years. They seized their opportunity,
don't mistake that."
"Still, he was a genius in his way, a mad, frightful genius. It hardly
seems possible to me that he would allow himself to be so easily
trapped. It's a reflection on his great mentality, twisted though it
was."
"Forget it, dear," replied Bentley, putting his arm around her
shoulders. "We'll both try to forget. After our nerves have returned
to normal we'll be married. Then nothing can trouble us."
The vessel docked and later Lee and Ellen entered a taxicab near the
pier.
"I'll take you to your home, Ellen," said Bentley. "Then I'll look
after my own affairs for the next couple of days, which includes
making peace with my father, then we'll go on from here."
They looked through the windows of the cab as they rolled into lower
Fifth Avenue and headed uptown. Newsies were screaming an extra from
the sidewalks.
"Excitement!" said Bentley enthusiastically. "It's certainly good to
be home and hear a newsboy's unintelligible screaming of an extra,
isn't it?"
On an impulse he ordered the cabbie to draw up to the curb and
purchased a newspaper.
"Do you mind if I glance through the headlines?" Bentley asked Ellen.
"I haven't looked at an American paper for ever so long."
- - -
The cab started again and Bentley folded the paper, falling easily
into the habit of New Yorkers who are accustomed to reading on
subways where there isn't room for elbows, to say nothing of broad
newspapers.
His eyes caught a headline. He started, frowning, but was instantly
mindful of Ellen. He mustn't show any signs that would excite her,
especially when he didn't yet understand what had caused his own
instant perturbation.
Had Ellen looked at him she might have seen merely the calm face of a
man mildly interested in the news of the day, but she was looking out
at the Fifth Avenue shops.
Bentley was staring again at the newspaper story:
"An evil genius signing his 'manifestoes' with the strange
cognomen of 'Mind Master' gives the authorities of New
York City twelve hours in which to take precautions. To
prove that he is able to make good his mad threats he
states that at noon exactly, to-day, he will cause the
death of the chief executive of a great insurance company
whose offices are in the Flatiron Building. After that, at
regular stated periods, warnings to be issued in each case
ten hours in advance, he will steal the brains of the
twenty men whose names are hereto appended:" (There
followed then a list of names, all of which were known to
Bentley.)
He understood why the story had startled him, too. "Mind Master!"
Anything that had to do with the human brain interested him mightily
now, for he knew to what grim uses it could be put at the hands of a
master scientist. Around his own head, safely covered by his hair
unless someone looked closely, and even then they must needs know what
they sought, was a thin white line. It marked the line of Caleb
Barter's operation on him that terrible night in the African jungles,
when his brain had been transferred to the skull-pan of an ape, and
the ape's brain to his own cranium. Any mention of the brain,
therefore, recalled to him a very harrowing experience.
It was little wonder that he shuddered.
Ellen noticed his agitation.
"What is it, dearest?" she asked softly, placing her hand in the crook
of his arm.
- - -
He was about to answer her, desperately trying to think of something
to say that would not alarm her, when their taxicab, with a sudden
application of the brakes, came to a sharp stop. Bentley noticed that
they were at the intersection of Twenty-second Street and Fifth
Avenue. The lights were still green, but nevertheless all traffic was
halted.
And for a strange reason.
From the west door of the Flatiron Building emerged a grim apparition
of a man. His body was scored by countless bleeding wounds which
looked as though they had been made by the fingernails of a giant. The
man wore no article of clothing except his shoes. Apparently, his
clothing had been ripped from his body by the same instrument which
had turned his body into a raw, dripping horror.
The man staggered, half-running, at times all but falling, toward the
traffic officer at the intersection.
As he ran he screamed, horrible, babbling screams. His lips worked
crazily, his eyes rolled. He was frightened beyond the comprehension
of ordinary mortals. His screams began and ended on the high shrill
notes of utter dementia, and as he ran he pawed the air with his
bleeding hands as though he fought out on all sides against invisible
demons seeking to drag him down.
"Oh, my God!" said Ellen. "Even here!"
What had caused her to speak the last two words? Did she also have a
premonition of grim disaster? Did she also feel, deep down inside her,
as Bentley did, that the nightmare through which they had passed was
not yet ended?
Bentley now sat unmoving, his eyes unblinking, as he saw the naked man
stagger over to the traffic officer. The color drained from his face.
He looked at his watch. It was exactly noon.
Even without further consideration Bentley knew that this gruesome
apparition had some direct connection with the newspaper story he had
just read.
- - -
Unobtrusively, trying to make it seem a preoccupied action, he folded
the newspaper again and thrust it down at the end of the seat cushion.
But Ellen was watching him, a haunting fear gradually coming into her
eyes.
She quickly reached past him and snatched the paper before he realized
her intent. The item he had read came instantly under her eyes because
of the way he had automatically folded the paper. She read it with
staring eyes.
"So, Lee," she said, "you think there's a connection with--with--well,
with _us_?"
"Absurd!" he said heartily, too heartily. "Caleb Barter is dead."
"But I have never been sure," insisted Ellen. "Oh, Lee, let's get away
from here! Let's take the first boat for Bermuda--anywhere to escape
this terrible fear."
"No!" he retorted harshly. "If our suspicions are correct, and I think
we're unwarrantedly keyed up because of our recent experiences, the
officials of New York may need my help."
"Your help? Why?"
"I know more about Caleb Barter than any other living man, perhaps."
"Then you _do_ have doubts that he is dead!"
Bentley shrugged his shoulders.
"Ellen," he said, "drive on home without me. I'm going to drop off and
find out all I can. If we're in for it in any way it's just as well to
know it at once."
"You'll come right along?"
"Just as soon as I can make it. And I hope I'll be able to report our
fears groundless."
Bentley stepped from the cab. He ordered the chauffeur to turn right
into Twenty-second Street and to proceed until Ellen gave him further
directions.
Then Bentley hurried through the congestion of automobiles toward the
traffic officer who was fighting with the naked man, trying to subdue
him. Other men were running to the officer's assistance, for it could
be seen that he alone was no match for the lunatic. Bentley, however,
was first to arrive.
"Give me a hand!" gasped the officer. "I can't handle 'im without
usin' my club and I don't wanna do that. The poor fella don't know
what he's a-doin'."
- - -
Bentley quickly sprang to the patrolman's assistance. Between them
they soon reduced the stranger to a squirming bundle and dragged him
to the sidewalk; another officer was phoning for an ambulance. The
stricken man was now mumbling, babbling insanely. Blood trickled from
the corners of his lips. The sight of one eye had been destroyed.
Bentley watched him, sprawled now on the sidewalk, surrounded by a
group of men. The man was dying, no question about that. The talons,
which had scored him, had bitten deeply and he was destined to bleed
to death soon even if the wounds were not otherwise mortal.
Bentley noticed something clutched tightly in the man's right
hand--something that sent a chill through his body despite the heat of
a mid-July noon. The officer, apparently, had not noticed it.
Soon a clanging bell announced the arrival of an ambulance, and as the
crowd stepped aside to clear the way, Bentley bent over the dying man.
The man's lips were parted and he was trying with a mighty effort of
will to speak.
Bentley put his ear close to the bleeding lips through which words
strove to bubble. He heard parts of two words:
"...ind ...aster...."
Bentley suddenly knew what the man was trying to say. The half-uttered
words could mean only--"Mind Master."
Bentley suppressed a shudder and extended his hands to the closed
right hand of the dying man. Carefully he removed from between the
fingers three tufts of thick brown hair, coarse and crude of texture.
There was a rattle in the naked man's throat.
Five minutes later the ambulance intern hastily scribbled in his
record the entry, "Dead on Arrival."
Bentley, more frightened than he had ever been before, entered a
taxicab as soon as the body had been removed and the streets cleared.
He stared closely at the tufts of hair in his hand. Maybe he had been
wrong in taking them before detectives arrived on the scene, but he
had to know, and he felt that these hairs proved his mad suspicions.
Caleb Barter was alive!
The hairs came from the shaggy coat of a giant anthropoid ape or a
gorilla.