CHAPTER VI
_High Jeopardy_
Ellen Estabrook was almost in hysterics when Bentley reached her. Shehad been immediately picked up by plain-clothes men and had thoughtherself captured by minions of Barter. She had been panic-stricken fora moment, she told Bentley, and it had taken her some little time tobe persuaded that she was in the hands of police.
But Bentley's heart was filled to overflowing with gratitude that hehad been able to safeguard Ellen against Barter. He never doubted ithad been Barter who had telephoned her. And even now he fancied hecould hear Barter's chuckle of amusement. Barter was watching, perhapseven listening. Bentley felt that the madman was just biding his time.Barter could have taken Ellen in this attempt, but hadn't triedgreatly, knowing himself invincible, knowing that he could take her atany moment if it was necessary. And he might take her even if it werenot necessary, since he had warned Bentley she must be removed.
The police car raced back uptown so that Bentley could inform himselfof any new developments in the Hervey case. Ellen snuggled against himgratefully. "You'll have to stick close to me," said Bentley, "untilsomething happens, or until the exigencies of service draw me awayfrom you. Then it will be up to Tom Tyler to look after you."
"I can look after myself," she retorted spiritedly. "I'm over age andnot without brains...."
"Yet you went to Washington Square," said Bentley gently. "Didn't iteven seem strange to you that I would have selected such a place as arendezvous?"
- - -
Ellen turned away from him and her lips trembled. His gentle thrusthad hurt her.
"But I would have sworn it was your voice, Lee," she said. "And--Istill think it was!"
"I tell you I didn't phone you to meet me in Washington Square!"
"But you told me you had talked with Barter for a long time on theheadquarters phone, didn't you? Remember that you are dealing with thecleverest and maddest brain we know of to-day. What if he had merelytalked with you to get a record of your voice? Suppose a voice werecomposed of certain ingredients, certain sounds. Suppose thoseingredients could somehow be captured on a sensitized plate of somekind! Edison would have been burned as a sorcerer a few centuriesbefore he invented the wax record. Twenty years ago who would havethought of talking pictures ... voices permanently recorded oncelluloid?"
"But the talkie films merely parrot, over and over again, the words ofactual people. When I talked with Barter this morning I certainly saidnothing about meeting you at Washington Square."
"But the tone, the timber, the frequency of your voice! Lee, supposehe had gone a step further than the talkies and had found a way tobreak the voice apart and put it back together to suit himself...?"
"Good Lord, Ellen! It sounds crazy ... but if you would have swornthat voice was mine, then mine it may have been, speaking words withmy voice that I never spoke personally. But wait until we find out forsure. We're just guessing."
But the idea stuck in his mind and he believed in it enough to tellTyler, upon arriving at the Hervey residence, to warn every man namedon the list of the Mind Master to make no appointments over thetelephone, no matter how sure they were of the voices at the other endof the wire.
It sounded wild, but was it?
- - -
That night Ellen and Bentley occupied rooms which faced each otheracross the hall in a midtown hotel, and plain-clothes men were on dutyto right and left in the hall. There were men on the roof and in thelobby, in the garage, everywhere skulkers might be expected to lookfor coigns of vantage from which to proceed against Ellen Estabrook.Bentley knew quite well that Barter would not drop his intentionagainst Ellen, especially since he had failed once already.
Tyler and Bentley sat in Bentley's room drinking black coffee anddiscussing their plans for the next day. The latest paper hadcontained another manifesto of the Mind Master! the second man on hislist was to be taken at ten o'clock the next day. The man waspresident of a great construction company. His name was Saret Balisle;he was under thirty, slim as a professional dancer, and dark as agypsy.
"But what does Barter want with all these big shots?" asked ThomasTyler. "Just what is the point of his stealing their brains andputting them into the skull-pans of apes, if that's what you think hehas in mind?"
"The Barter touch," said Bentley grimly. "At first he probablyintended to kill just any men and make the transfer, and then use hismanapes to send against the men he wished to capture, and through whomhe intended to gain control of Manhattan. Then he decided, since hehad learned to control his manapes, by radio I suppose, that it wouldbe an ironic touch to make virtual slaves of the "key" men he hadchosen for his crusade."
"But why the transplantation at all, even if the man is mad? Hereasons logically. Only his premises are unthinkable ... and he buildssuccessful ghastly experiments on top of them...."
- - -
"He claims he wishes to build a race of supermen," Bentley answered."His reason for the brain transference is therefore plain. Ananthropoid ape has a body which is several times as hardy, durable andmighty as that of even the strongest man, but the ape has not thebrain of a civilized man. A specialized man, one with a highlydeveloped brain, generally has a very weak body. He's constantly putto the necessity of taking exercise to keep from growing sick.Therefore the ape's body and the man's brain would seem, to Barter, anideal combination. That nature didn't plan it so troubles him not atall. He will make a fool of nature!"
"I wonder if we'll get him. Nobody knows how many lives have been lostalready."
"We'll get him, Tyler. I'll bet anything you want to name that yourmen have walked back and forth across his hideout. I'll bet thatdecent, respectable people live within mere yards of him and donot know it. We'll get to him the second he makes a mistake of anykind. Maybe he'll make his first one when he tries to get SaretBalisle--Good Lord, I forgot something. Tyler, phone again and askHeadquarters if the coroner found anything strange about the head ofthe men I chased down Fifth Avenue."
Tyler phoned.
"Yes," he said, clicking up the receiver, "he had bits of metal whichlooked like aluminum in his scalp; but the autopsy shows that it camefrom outside somewhere."
"It's part of Barter's radio control," muttered Bentley, "it _must_be! It has to be ... and I didn't think of looking for it at thetime."
- - -
Long before sunrise Bentley and Tyler repaired to the office of SaretBalisle, letting themselves in with keys which had been furnished themlast night. It had been decided that Balisle would not try to run awayfrom the threat of the Mind Master, but would be in his office asusual. If he ran, and got out of touch with the police, Barter wouldget him anyway and nobody would be the wiser.
Balisle had grinned and shrugged his shoulders, but the wanness in hischeeks showed that he didn't take the threats lightly, consideringwhat it was thought had happened to Harold Hervey.
"I wonder," said Tyler as they walked through the cool of the morningto the Clinton Building on lower Fifth Avenue, where Balisle had hisoffices, "how Barter keeps his apes with men's brains from trying tobreak away from him when he has to divert his mental control to otherchannels?"
Bentley hesitated, seeking a logical answer. It seemed simple enoughwhen the answer came to his mind.
"Suppose, Tyler," he said, "that you wakened from a nightmare andlooked into a mirror to discover that you were an anthropoid ape? Thatyou were incapable of speaking, of using your hands save in theclumsiest fashion? When it came home to you what had happened to you,would you rush right out into the street, hoping that the people onthe sidewalks would understand that you were a man in ape'sclothing?"
"Good Lord! I never thought of that!"
"You would if you'd ever been an ape. I know the feeling."
"Then Barter's manapes are more surely prisoners than if they weresentenced to serve their entire lives in the deepest solitary cells inSing Sing! How horrible--but still, they yet would have a way ofescape
."
"Yes, simply break out and start running, knowing that the crowd wouldsoon take and destroy them. Right enough--but even when one knowsoneself an ape it isn't easy to destroy oneself."
- - -
They entered the offices of Saret Balisle and looked about them. Itwas just an ordinary office. They looked in clothes closets and inshadowy corners. They took every possible precaution in their surveyof the situation. They looked for hidden instruments of destruction.They looked for hidden dictaphones. They were extremely thorough intheir preliminary preparations for the defense of Saret Balisle.
At five minutes of ten o'clock Balisle was at his desk, pale of face,but grinning confidently.
There were men in uniform in the hallways, on the roof, in the windowsof rooms across the avenue. Bentley and Tyler should have felt surethat not even a mouse could have broken through the cordon to reachSaret Balisle. But Bentley was doubtful.
He went to the window nearest Balisle and looked out. Sixteen storiesdown was Fifth Avenue, patrolled in this block by a dozen blue-coatsand as many more plain-clothes men. Saret Balisle seemed to beimpregnable.
But at ten o'clock exactly, a blood-curdling scream came from the roomadjoining Balisle's, where some insurance company had offices. Thescream was followed by other screams--all the screams of women....
For just a moment Bentley and Tyler whirled to stare at the doorgiving onto the hall, their hands tightly gripping their automatics.
"God Almighty!" It came in a choked scream from the lips of SaretBalisle, simultaneous with the falling of a shower of glass in theroom.
- - -
Tyler and Bentley whirled back.
A giant anthropoid ape stood on the window sill, and the brute's lefthand held tightly clasped the ankle of Balisle, holding him as a childholds a rag doll.
The ape swung Balisle out over the abyss.
Tyler flung up his automatic.
"Don't!" shouted Bentley. "If you shoot he'll drop Balisle!"
Bentley felt sick and the bottom seemed to drop out of his stomach asthe anthropoid, still holding Balisle as lightly as though he didn'tknow he held extra weight at all, dropped from sight.
Tyler and Bentley leaped to the window, looked down. The ape haddropped safely to the ledge of the window just below. He held oneasily with his right hand while Bentley and Tyler swayed dizzily. Theanthropoid still held Balisle by the ankle.
A head looked out of the window to the right. A frightened woman.
"God!" she choked. "That beast came out of the clothes closet. We'vebeen wondering why we couldn't open it. He must have been inside,holding it."
A hundred men, all crack shots, stood helpless on roofs, in windowsacross the street, in the street below, while the anthropoid apedropped slowly down the face of the Clinton Building toward thestreet.
How would Barter lead his minion free of this tangle when, as wasinevitable, the brute reached ground level?