_The Opening Gun_
"That list, Tyler," said Bentley, after he had somewhat calmed the
fears of Ellen Estabrook and had returned to the task of tracing
Barter, "is headed by Harold Hervey, the multi-millionaire. I know
Barter well enough to know that he'll go down the list methodically,
taking each person in turn. We'd best take immediate precautions to
guard the old man's home. For Barter, if not entirely ready to take
drastic steps, must be almost ready, else he couldn't issue his
manifestoes and take a chance of some slip-up before he could get
really started."
"Why do you suppose he named Hervey on the list?" asked Tyler.
"Because Hervey is a financial genius. Barter wishes not only to carry
out his plan of creating a race of supermen, but wishes at the same
time to maintain personal control of them. And to control Manhattan,
from which he logically hopes to extend his control to the whole
United States, then to the whole world, Barter must also control the
money marts. Hervey is the shrewdest financier in the world."
"But won't we frighten Hervey's family if we take steps now?"
"Better to frighten them now than to be too late entirely. However, we
can place his house under surveillance without the knowledge of the
family for the time being. And you'd better send a couple of men to
his office in the Empire State Building to see that nothing happens
to him on the way home this evening. I talked to him by telephone and
he pooh-poohed the whole thing. Hard-headed business executives have
no imagination."
Bentley and Tyler rode uptown in the back seat of a speeding police
car driven by one of the best chauffeurs Bentley had ever ridden
behind. He edged through holes in the traffic where Bentley could
scarcely see any holes at all. He estimated the speed of cars which
might have collided with the police vehicle and slipped through with
inches to spare. In his way the man was a genius. But Bentley was yet
to see the driving of a master genius....
- - -
Far out in the residential district the police car came to a
stop. Other police cars arrived at intervals to disgorge men in
plain clothes who immediately entered upon their guard duties as
unobtrusively as possible. If Hervey's family noticed at all they
would scarcely attach any importance to the arrival of cars and the
discharging of passengers who seemed to have nothing to do except
dawdle on the sidewalks.
But all the way uptown a hunch had ridden Bentley. He had the feeling
that no matter how fast the police car traveled, no matter how
skilfully the chauffeur inched his way through the press, they would
be too late to save Hervey. The feeling became an obsession. Many
times he called through the speaking tube.
"Faster, driver, for God's sake, faster!"
Now near the home of Harold Hervey, Bentley found himself unable to
walk slowly, with the air of nonchalance, which the other police
officers wore like a cloak.
"Something's happened," said Bentley, "I'm sure of it. I feel that
Barter is so close to me that I could touch him if I knew in which
direction to extend my fingers."
Suddenly a speeding car, with horn bellowing, came crashing up the
street toward the Hervey residence. It was traveling at great speed,
careening from side to side like a ship in a storm at sea.
"There comes Hervey's car," said Tyler. "And something has happened to
make him travel like that. Old man Hervey doesn't allow his chauffeur
to go faster than twenty miles an hour."
- - -
Tyler and Bentley were near by when the car squealed to a stop before
the Hervey residence and a hatless, disheveled man leaped out almost
before the car stopped rolling.
"That's not Hervey," said Tyler. "That's his private secretary.
Something's up. It's time we took a hand in things."
Tyler and Bentley grasped the young man by the elbow.
"What's up?" demanded Tyler.
"It's Mr. Hervey, sir," panted the secretary. "It just happened. He's
been kidnaped!"
The secretary was a slight man, but fear had given him strength. He
almost dragged Tyler and Bentley off their feet as he strode on up the
walk leading to the home of Hervey.
"You'll scare his family half to death!" said Tyler.
"It'll have to come sometime, Tyler," said Bentley. "It might as well
be now. They'll have to know. We'll have to sit inactively from this
moment on. Tyler, there's nothing that can be done for Hervey. Barter
has scored. We couldn't catch him now to save ourselves from
perdition. But his next step will involve the Hervey menage. We'll
have to wait there for his next move."
Tyler and Bentley entered the vast gloomy structure of the
old-fashioned Hervey domicile on the heels of the frightened
secretary. Mrs. Hervey, a faded woman of sixty or so, met them at the
door. Her head was held high, her lips grimly drawn into a straight
line.
"So," she said evenly, "they've got Mr. Hervey. I begged him to take
those threats seriously. He's been either killed or kidnaped."
"Kidnaped," said Bentley, continuing brutally because of the courage
he saw in the old woman's face. "And that means he'll be dead within
the hour, if he isn't dead already. We've got to stay here for a few
hours, to await the next move of the madman calling himself the Mind
Master, in the hope that we can trace him when he makes his next
move."
Mrs. Hervey lifted her head still higher.
"We'll place no obstacles in your path, gentlemen," she said, "if you
are from the police. The family will confine itself to the upper
floors of the house."
- - -
Tyler and Bentley took possession of the living room. Outside a dozen
plain-clothes men were to patrol the grounds during the hours of
darkness.
Other men were at every adjacent street corner. A rat could not have
got through unobserved.
Tyler and Bentley took seats at a table facing the door. The police
car in which they had arrived stood at the curb, with the chauffeur at
the wheel, the motor humming softly.
"Timkins," said Bentley, addressing the private secretary who stood in
the most distant corner of the room, his eyes fearfully fixed on the
street door, "how was Mr. Hervey captured?"
"I was accompanying him to his car, sir," replied the young man, "when
a dapper fellow in a chauffeur's uniform confronted us on the
sidewalk. He stood as stiff and straight as a soldier. He didn't say a
word. He just looked at Mr. Hervey. Mr. Hervey stopped because the man
was blocking the sidewalk. I looked into the chauffeur's eyes. They
seemed utterly dead. I shivered. I'd have sworn the man had no soul,
now that I look back at it. Suddenly he lashed out with his fist,
striking Mr. Hervey on the jaw. Mr. Hervey started to fall. The man
caught him under the arms and tossed him into the tonneau of a
limousine at the curb. The car was away before I could summon the
police."
Bentley nodded.
"Which way did the car go?" he demanded.
"Downtown, at top speed," replied Timkins.
Bentley turned to Tyler.
"The Stuyvesant exchange is downtown," he said. "Now Timkins says that
the kidnaper's car went downtown. And the naked man was killed in the
Flatiron Building, which is well downtown in its turn. Tyler, fill all
the area covered by the Stuyvesant exchange with plain-clothes men.
Telephone Headquarters to see whether a stolen limousine has been
reported from somewhere in the area. Barter wouldn't have cars of his
own for fear they could be traced. He'll use stolen cars when he uses
cars at all. And he had his puppet pick up the limousine close to his
hideout."
- - -
Tyler nodded and quickly spoke into the telephone on the table at his
elbow.
The telephone reminded Bentley of Ellen Estabrook.
When Tyler had finished issuing pointed instructions Bentley called
the residence of the Estabrooks in Astoria, Long Island.
Carl Estabrook answered the telephone.
"Is Ellen all right?" asked Bentley. "May I speak to her?"
Carl Estabrook's answering gasp came plainly over the wire.
"Are you crazy, Lee?" he asked. "Not ten minutes ago you telephoned
Ellen and told her to meet you near the arch in Washington Square. I
asked her if she was sure the voice was yours, and she was...."
But Bentley, white-faced, had already clicked up the receiver.
"Tyler," he said, "Ellen Estabrook, my fiancee, is walking into a
trap. It's Barter again. He'd know how to imitate my voice well enough
to fool Ellen. It would be simple enough for a man like him. He
probably had that long conversation with me at headquarters to make
sure he hadn't forgotten the timbre and pitch of my voice ... and to
hear how it sounded over the telephone. Please have plain-clothes men
pick up Ellen in Washington Square. And that, Tyler, if you'll notice,
is also downtown."
Bentley felt that he would go mad with anxiety as he awaited some news
from the plain-clothes men Tyler had ordered to look for Ellen
Estabrook.
He had asked Tyler to issue rather unusual instructions to the
plain-clothes men around the Hervey residence. They were to make no
attempt to halt anyone who might approach the house, but were to
permit no one to depart. It was a weak plan, but knowing the supreme
egotism of Barter, Bentley felt that the old scientist would
deliberately accept such a challenge. He wouldn't mind risking the
loss of a minion.
- - -
"He controls his puppets from his hideout, Tyler," Bentley explained,
"and won't hesitate to send them into danger since it can't touch him.
And he watches every move they make, too. He's made some television
adaptation of his own. I'll wager, if he so desires, he can see us
sitting here right now, even perhaps hear what we say. I can fancy
hearing him chuckle, and Tyler...?"
"Yes?"
"I can see old man Hervey on an operating table with Barter bending
over him, working fiendishly. Behind Barter are cages of apes."
"But how could he transport apes to his hideout?"
"He could manage to smuggle anything anywhere. Money paves the way to
any accomplishment, Tyler. We needn't concern ourselves with how he
does it, but with the fact that he must surely have apes in his
hideout."
There came suddenly an imperious ringing of the doorbell.
Bentley and Tyler leaped to their feet, their hands streaking for
their automatics which they had placed within easy reach on the table.
Side by side they sprang for the door, and flung it open.
A chill of horror ran through Bentley.
"Mother of God!" cried Tyler.
"Mr. Hervey!" shrieked Timkins. The secretary, noting the figure which
toppled so grimly into the room, fainted. The thud of his body
followed the thud of the old man's body to the floor.
In that first moment of overwhelming terror, all three men noted that
Hervey's skull-pan was missing.
"Look after details here, Tyler!" cried Bentley, quickly recovering
himself. "I'm after whoever brought the old man home."
Bentley was racing down the path for the street, where a man in
chauffeur's uniform was hurling himself into a limousine, while
bullets from half a dozen plain-clothes men, racing to head him off,
sang about his ears. But the stranger gained the driver's seat and
the limousine was away like a shot. The police car was rolling as
Bentley leaped upon the running board, then eased in beside the
driver.
"Don't stop for anything!" cried Bentley. "Keep that car in sight!"
The car headed downtown at breakneck speed.