_The Furry Mime_
"Listen, boys," said Dr. Tyler, after he had removed the skin of the
ape, and for a few brief seconds had examined the brain, to shake his
head in astonishment. "I've an idea that may help you. It would be
impossible for you, Bentley, to play the ape well enough to fool this
mad Mind Master. But a hitherto unknown type of ape has just been
discovered in Colombia. I read the story of it in a scientific journal
to-day. The ape is more manlike than any other known to science. You
shall be that ape, brought in during the night by a famous returned
explorer. There will be great interest in you now that the story of
Saret Balisle's kidnaping has broken. With the attention of New York
upon you, certainly your presence will interest Caleb Barter."
Tyler senior rummaged in a pile of papers on his desk and brought
forth the story he referred to, which also carried a picture of the
Colombian ape.
"It would be impossible for me to change your shape and add to your
size sufficiently to make you a real giant anthropoid. You'd have to
be twice as deep through the chest; you'd have to have bowed legs as
big as small tree trunks; you'd have to have a sloping forehead. No,
it's impossible, for I'd have to equip you by padding to an impossible
degree, and a scientist would only need to touch you to know you as an
imitation ape. But if you are made up as the Colombian ape--"
Bentley quickly interrupted.
"The idea is excellent. I was dubious before about my chances of
success, but as an ape of a new species I have a far better chance,
and my inevitable human behavior won't be so noticeable."
- - -
Dr. Tyler measured Bentley as carefully as a tailor, proud of his
skill, measures a particular, wealthy customer.
"You will almost suffocate," he said, keeping up a running monologue
as his inspired hands worked with forceps and scalpels, "but I can
make plenty of air vents in the ape skin which will allow the pores of
your skin to breathe. If they are hidden under the hair they will
scarcely be noticed, unless of course Barter sees what we are doing
here and suspects from the beginning."
"I can stand the discomfort for as long as may prove necessary," said
Bentley grimly, conquering a feeling of terror as he already saw
himself in the role of an ape, a role previously played in which he
had suffered the torments of the damned, "and anything is preferable
to the wholesale carnage which Barter is doing. In seventy-two hours
he has wrecked the morale of Manhattan. I shall try to get it back.
Tyler, will you make every effort to guard the other eighteen men
named on the Mind Master's original list?"
"Of course," but Tyler said it dubiously. Barter had proved it almost
impossible to outwit him. In their hearts both Bentley and Tyler knew
that Barter would make good his boast to take the eighteen men he had
named. It seemed a grim price Manhattan must pay to be finally rid of
Barter's satanic machinations.
When Bentley, stripped naked, quietly announced his readiness to take
his place on the operating table, Tyler senior took a deep breath,
like a diver preparing to plunge into icy water, and looked
questioningly at Bentley.
"I'm ready, sir," said Bentley quietly. "Let's get on with the task."
Dr. Tyler set to work with amazing, uncanny speed. He had never been
more skilful in closing sutures of the flesh in any of his myriad of
operations. He was a man inspired as he labored on the task of
changing Lee Bentley from a normal human being to a Colombian ape.
- - -
While the surgeon worked his son telephoned to the Colombian explorer
whose return from Latin-America had been mentioned in the day's news.
He couldn't explain anything over the telephone, he said, but would
Doctor Jackson come at once to the private offices of James Tyler,
surgeon?
Doctor Jackson grumbled, but the urgency in the voice of Tyler
convinced him that the thing was important. He promised to be on hand
within an hour. It then lacked a few minutes of three o'clock in the
morning.
Next at Bentley's suggestion--and he talked quickly and eagerly to
keep his mind off the ordeal he knew he was facing--Tyler got the
curator of the Bronx Zoo out of bed and asked him to wait upon Doctor
Tyler immediately.
At four o'clock Doctor Jackson and the curator entered the room where
Surgeon Tyler had performed a miracle.
Doctor Jackson stepped back in amazement when he noted the manlike ape
which leaned with arms folded against one wall of the operating room.
His eyes were big with amazement.
He studied Bentley for several minutes, while no one spoke a word.
It was the curator who broke the strained silence.
"So this is your Colombian ape," he said. "I read the news story, but
I understood that the ape you had found had been killed in the attempt
to capture it."
Surgeon Tyler spoke easily.
"That news story," he said, "was to prevent Doctor Jackson from being
annoyed by visitors eager to see his find. As a matter of sober fact
Doctor Jackson captured the Colombian ape alive and is now about to
turn it over to the zoo. Understand me, Doctor Jackson?"
- - -
Still the explorer said nothing. For a moment longer he stared at
Bentley; then he walked over to him.
"The hair is different," he said as though talking to himself. "The
Colombian ape's hair is of a slightly finer texture. But that
could be explained away as I allowed only the merest bit of
information to the reporters to-day. I can add a supplementary
story in the next newspaper which will explain that the coarse fur
of the Colombian ape is the only thing about it which makes it
resemble a giant anthropoid."
Jackson had walked to Bentley without fear and ran his fingers through
the hair as he spoke.
"I know it's a man, and some surgeon has performed a miracle," he
said. "Just what is it you wish me to do?"
"You've read the stories relating to the Mind Master, Doctor?" asked
Bentley suddenly. How strangely his voice came from the body of an
ape!
"I've read some of them," answered Jackson. "Is this a scheme whereby
you hope to trap the Mind Master?"
"Yes."
"Then depend upon me for any assistance I can render. As a scientist I
understand fully the power for evil of a mad genius of our class. This
Mind Master should be ruthlessly destroyed."
"Thank you," said Bentley, stepping forward. "You know, perhaps, how
the Colombian ape behaves, enough that you can coach me how to walk,
how to gesture?"
"Certainly. It will take perhaps an hour to prepare you to fill your
role creditably."
- - -
Jackson's face flushed with enthusiasm. He was launched on a task
which fired his interest. He was an authority on apes and anything
relating to them inspired him.
"Seat yourself on a chair," said Jackson. "The Colombian ape sits
upright like a man."
Bentley seated himself as Jackson had bidden him.
"Now spread your legs apart awkwardly, with the knees straight. The
Colombian ape doesn't exactly sit on a chair or a rock or a tree, he
leans against it in a _half_ sitting position."
Bentley quickly assumed the awkward strained position suggested by
Jackson.
Jackson stepped up to him and placed Bentley's arms, unbent, so that
his fists hung down outside his wide-apart knees, and cupped his
fingers so that they seemed perpetually in the act of closing on
something.
"You can't possibly take the proper position with your toes," went on
Jackson, "for it's beyond a man's ability to curve his toes as he does
his hands. The Colombian ape's toes are prehensile."
"Can't you say in your next news story, Doctor," suggested Bentley,
"that the Colombian ape, the nearest animal relative of man, seems to
be in an advanced stage of evolution. Can you not say that the
Colombian ape is by way of losing the use of his toes?"
"Many scientists know that to be untrue," said Jackson, "but perhaps
we can help you through your scheme before they begin denying details
in the newspapers. Too bad we can't send secret suggestions to all
anthropologists that they remain discreetly silent until the mantle of
horror is lifted from Manhattan. But of course we can't, since we'd
betray ourselves. Our only hope, then, is to work at top speed."
"I am as eager as anyone to finish a particularly horrible task," said
Bentley.
- - -
Under Jackson's instructions Bentley walked up and down the
room. His shaggy shadow on the several walls as he turned, marched
and countermarched at Jackson's commands, filled Bentley with
self-loathing. He found himself repulsive. His body perspired
freely impregnating the ape skin with a harsh odor that was
biting and terrible in his nostrils. It was sickening. He tried to
close his mind to the repulsiveness of what he was doing.
He walked with a swaying, side-to-side gait, something like a sailor's
rolling walk, while his arms swung free at his sides as though they
merely hung from his body. The Colombian ape walked like that, Jackson
said.
"How about the intelligence of the Colombian ape?" asked Bentley.
"We shot the only specimen so far seen by man before we could discover
any facts bearing on his intelligence," said Jackson.
"Then you can safely say that he possesses intelligence far beyond
that of known apes," said Bentley quickly, "somewhere, let us say,
between that of the lowest order of mankind and civilized man."
Jackson nodded his held dubiously.
"It seems," he said unsmilingly, "that I arrived in the United States
at exactly the right time! You would have failed signally to convince
the Mind Master in the role of an African great ape."
Bentley managed a short laugh. How horribly it came from the lips of
an ape!
"I'm not overly superstitious," he said, "but I regard this as a good
omen. I feel we're sure to succeed in what we are planning. I think
Barter will surely wish to experiment with me if he thinks I am in
reality a great ape from Colombia. He'll welcome the chance to examine
any ape which so nearly resembles man. I'm an important link in his
plan to create a race of supermen. At least that's how we must hope
that Barter will estimate the situation when my story is told in
to-morrow's papers."
- - -
An hour before dawn Doctor Jackson, weary from his arduous instruction
of the equally exhausted Bentley, pronounced Lee a satisfactory
"ape."
"Now here's where you come in," said Bentley tiredly to the curator.
"I'm to be taken now to a cage in the Bronx. During the rest of to-day
you will quietly instruct your attendants that their guard to-night at
the zoo must not be too strict. I must be in position to be stolen by
the minions of the Mind Master."
Now the full significance of the desperate expedition upon which
Bentley was embarking came home to them all. Their faces were white.
Bentley shuddered under his ape robe. His mind went catapulting back
into the past to the time when he had been Manape. This was much like
it, save that all of him was now encased in the accouterments of an
ape and he did not suffer the mental hazards which had almost driven
him insane when he had been Manape, with the perpetual necessity of
keeping close watch over his own human body which had held the brain
of an ape.
He stiffened. "I'm ready," he said.
Immediately upon arrival the curator had been asked to have a closed
car, quickly walled with a mixture of lead and zinc--which Bentley and
Tyler hoped would thwart the spying of Caleb Barter--brought to
Tyler's door.
Three or four zoo attendants entered with a cage when Bentley
pronounced himself ready. They stared agape at Bentley and their faces
went white when he strode toward them upright, like a man.
Bentley would have spoken to reassure them, but Tyler signaled him to
keep silent. The zoo attendants might talk and entirely spoil their
scheme.
- - -
Two hours later, long before the first crowds began to arrive at the
Bronx Zoo, Lee Bentley was driven from his small cage in the car, into
a huge cage at the zoo. From a dark corner, in which he crouched as
though overcome with fear, he gazed affrightedly out across what he
could see of Bronx Park.
"When I used to feed the animals here," he said to himself, "I never
expected that the time would come when I myself would be caged--and
one of them."
The curator had ridden out with the cage. But, save for making sure of
the fastening on the big cage, he paid no heed to Bentley. He treated
him, of necessity, as though he were actually the Colombian ape he
pretended to be. From now on until he succeeded or failed, Lee Bentley
was an ape from the jungles of Latin-America.
Just before the crowds could reasonably be expected to begin arriving,
curious to see this strange thing Doctor Jackson had brought from
Colombia, an attendant arrived with a freshly painted sign.
"Colombian Great Ape," it read, "Presented to Bronx Zoo by Doctor
Claude Jackson."
It seemed to close entirely behind Lee Bentley the vast door which
separated the apes from civilization. Miserably he crouched in his
corner and awaited the coming of the curious.