_Grim Anticipation_
A numbing fear began to grow upon Lee Bentley as the ordeal of waiting
began.
Naturally he could not eat the food given usually to apes and of
course he could not be seen calmly eating bacon and eggs with knife
and fork. And because he couldn't eat he was assailed by a dreadful
hunger, which, however, he managed to fight down partially. He smiled
inwardly as he looked ahead and understood that despite the warnings
not to feed the animals, children of all ages, from four years to
sixty, would surreptitiously toss peanuts and walnuts into his cage.
He felt a little hopeful about it. They would at least allay his
hunger.
But no, he could not do that, either. Nobody had thought to ask Doctor
Jackson how a Colombian ape manipulated his food. Even a certain
clumsiness in that respect might start questions which would cause the
public to doubt the authenticity of Jackson's find.
Bentley decided to sulk. The ape he was supposed to be could
reasonably be expected to resent captivity and would probably go on a
hunger strike. He would do likewise and be in character if he
starved.
He crouched in a far corner as the first comers began to arrive. They
were fathers and mothers with their children, and the older people
carried, usually, newspapers under their arms. Bentley wished with all
his soul that he could see one of the papers close enough to read the
headlines.
However, when the crowd was not too thick, Bentley waddled nearer to
the wire mesh which separated him from the curious crowd and through
lids which were half closed as though he slept, he managed to glimpse
a few excerpts from the paper:
"Police department redoubling their precautions to prevent Mind Master
from capturing eighteen intended victims."
"Hideout of Mind Master still undiscovered. When will the public be
delivered from the stupidity of the police?"
"Doctor Jackson returns from Colombia, bringing a living specimen of
an ape hitherto unknown to civilized man, but more like him than any
ape hitherto known. Visitors may see the creature to-day in the Bronx
Zoo."
- - -
That was the story which had brought out the visitors who were
forming, moment by moment, a bigger crowd before Bentley's cage.
Bentley managed a glimpse of a woman's wrist-watch after what seemed
an age of trying to do so without his intention becoming plain to the
too bright children who crowded as close to the cage as attendants
would permit. It was ten o'clock. It would be at least twelve more
hours before Bentley could reasonably expect any action on the part of
Barter. Barter would now be concentrating on his plans to kidnap the
eighteen men he had first named.
Bentley tried to make the time pass faster by imagining what Barter
would be doing. By now his labors must be titanic. He must have
separate controls for each of his minions, and there were many times
when he must control several at one time, thus making his task akin to
that of a man trying to look two ways at once, while he rolled a
cigarette with one hand and shined his shoes with the other.
Certainly the concentration required was enormous.
Yet, no matter how complicated became his puzzle, Barter was its
master because he was its creator, and Bentley hadn't the slightest
doubt that, until someone actually penetrated Barter's stronghold, he
would not be stopped.
Bentley knew that at the very first opportunity he would destroy Caleb
Barter as he would have destroyed a mad dog or stamped to death a
deadly snake. The life of one man would rest lightly upon his
conscience, if that man were Caleb Barter.
Perhaps, though, he could learn many of Barter's secrets before he
destroyed him. Properly used they might prove boons to mankind. It was
only the use Barter was putting them to that threatened to fill the
world with horror and bloodshed.
- - -
"Mama, why don't he eat?"
"Hush," said a woman, as though afraid the Colombian ape would hear
and become angry; "don't annoy the creature. He looks fully capable of
coming right out at us."
But the child who had been admonished began to juggle a bag of peanuts
which he managed to throw into the cage. Bentley stooped forward,
sniffing suspiciously at the sack, while a wave of hunger made him
feel weak and giddy for a moment. He just realized that he hadn't
eaten for almost twenty-four hours. His time had been so filled with
action and excitement that there hadn't been opportunity.
"I hope," he said to himself, in an effort to drive away thoughts of
food, "that Tyler will take every precaution to prevent Ellen from
doing something foolish."
Knowing that he could no longer communicate with her, could no longer
be absolutely sure that she was still out of Barter's clutches, he
suffered agonies of fear for her safety.
"If Barter places a hand on her I'll tear his skin from his carcass,
bit by bit!" he said, unconsciously clenching his fists.
"Oh, look, mama, he's shuttin' his fists as though he wanted to fight
somebody! I'll bet he could whip Dempsey, couldn't he, mama?"
"Perhaps he could, son. Hush now, and watch him. There's a good boy!"
It brought Bentley sharply back to his surroundings and proved to him
that he must not allow his mind to go wool-gathering if he did not
wish to give himself away. What if, in an access of anger, he happened
to speak his thoughts aloud? He could imagine the amazement of the
crowd.
- - -
The day wore on.
At noon a strange horror seemed to travel over the Bronx Zoo, and
within a short time every last visitor had precipitately departed.
Bentley could now safely approach the wire mesh and look out and
around over a wider radius.
Right under the wire mesh was a newspaper someone had thrown away.
By pressing tightly against the mesh Bentley could see the headlines.
"Mind Master successful on all counts!"
So that's what had turned the crowd to stony silence with very fear?
They had all fled, wondering who would be next. Bentley had heard the
shouting of the extra on the distant streets, but it had been so far
away he hadn't heard the words. One solitary newspaper had appeared
among the Bronx crowd and the story it carried under startling
scareheads had passed from brain to brain as though by magic ... and
the crowd had fled.
Bentley stared down at the newspaper in horror, a horror that was in
no way mitigated by his having fully expected Barter to succeed.
Mutually, with no words having been spoken to express the thought,
Tyler and Bentley had conceded to Barter the eighteen victims he had
named.
Nothing could be done to stop him. His brains were greater than the
combined wisdom of the city of New York.
What else was in that paper?
Bentley stared at it for an hour, and finally a vagrant breeze, for
which he had hoped and prayed during that hour, whipped across the
park and stirred the paper. He read more headlines.
"Lee Bentley disappears! Believed kidnaped or slain by Mind Master!"
How had that story got out? Surely Tyler would have kept that from the
press. Following on the heels of the Colombian ape story, Barter would
almost surely put two and two together to arrive at the proper total.
- - -
Bentley read on:
"Ellen Estabrook, fiancee of Lee Bentley, disappears mysteriously from
her hotel room. Guarded by a score of police, not one has yet been
found who knows anything of her disappearance or saw her leave. Nobody
seems to have seen anyone go to her room or leave it. Our police
department must have fallen on evil days indeed when twenty crack
plain-clothes men cannot keep one woman under surveillance."
Something was radically wrong, but Bentley could not piece the whole
story together, simply because he had been out of touch for so many
hours that the thread of it had slipped from his fingers.
Suddenly Bentley noticed that a solitary man was watching him
curiously, a dawning amazement in his face. Bentley roused himself and
saw that he was standing against the mesh, fingers hooked into it
above his head, his weight on his left leg, his right foot crossed
over his left, his head thoughtfully bowed.
To the amazed man yonder the "Colombian ape" must have looked
remarkably like a condemned man clutching the bars of his cell,
awaiting the coming of the executioner.
Bentley recovered himself and sat down on the floor of the cage in the
loose easy manner an ape would have used.
He forced himself to sit thus until evening, when the last curious one
vanished from the park and darkness began to fall.
Then excitement at the approach of a hoped for denouement began to
rise in his heart like a rushing tide.
Would Barter fall for the ruse? Or did he already know that the
Colombian ape was Lee Bentley?
In either case, Bentley thought, the Mind Master would take action
during the first hours of darkness. Bentley was gambling desperately
on what he knew to be characteristic of Caleb Barter.