Title: The Men Who Smiled No More
Author: Kenneth Robeson
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Language: English
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Date first posted: July 2006
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The Men Who Smiled No More
Kenneth Robeson





Chapter I. TONY QUITS LAUGHING

"SMILING TONY" TALLIANO was the first to quit laughing. That was only
about an hour before he committed the murder. A murder of cold-blooded
horror. A murder which had less than one slow second of premeditation.

When Smiling Tony quit laughing, a bronze giant of a man was seated on
the stone coping of a downtown Manhattan park. Smiling Tony was
shining this man's shoes with an extra flourish and snap to his
polishing rag.

Other shoe shiners along the row looked upon Smiling Tony with envy.
The bronze man's hair was only slightly darker than his skin. It lay
upon his head like a smooth, metallic mask.

The shoe shiners of the row knew the man was Doc Savage.

Doc Savage's own eyes of flaky gold were observing the artistic
industry of Smiling Tony. Therefore he was first to see the change
coming over the swarthy Neapolitan face.

For the famous smile of Smiling Tony had suddenly become a grin. It
was a fixed and frozen expression. It gave him suddenly the appearance
of a death's-head. Then it became a horrible, vacant leer.

The expert hands of Smiling Tony slowed in their task. He did not
speak. He did not look up. He finished the shining of the bronze man's
shoes mechanically. It was as if he had abruptly become the subject
for a slow-motion picture.

Doc Savage's eyes roved swiftly. He sought for some logical cause for
the sudden, sinister change in Smiling Tony. There seemed to be no
reasonable explanation. Of the shoe shiners in the row along the park,
those not busy were watching only the bronze man himself.

No person had paused. None had spoken. The evening stream of
pedestrians flowed unbroken toward the elevated stairways near by, or
toward the subway entrances.

Yet the bronze man lingered a moment after he had left a quarter in
Smiling Tony's hand. The leering grin was still fixed on the face of
the shoe shiner. Always before this, an expansive smile had
accompanied the completion of Smiling Tony's task.

Now he only mumbled, "T'anks, Mr. Savage," and stared into the
springtime park with his black eyes as cold as ice.

Doc Savage was due in a few minutes at an important meeting of
directors of a shipping line.

Before the bronze man there had been other customers. One had been a
multi-millionaire. He had handed Smiling Tony a gilt-banded cigar from
the half dozen in his pocket. This had been his almost daily habit.

The man of wealth would have been amazed to know these were not the
same cigars he had purchased at his favorite stand. In a subway crush,
adroit fingers had removed the original cigars. These were
substitutes.

This man was due at the same directors' meeting Doc Savage was on his
way to attend. Smiling Tony had immediately stuck the cigar between
his white teeth. He was smiling then.

The man of bronze made a note mentally. His interest in humanity was
broad. Tomorrow he would drop by and discover if the shoe shiner he
had known for years had recovered the smile that had given him his
name.



BUT Doc Savage was to see Smiling Tony again only after a thousand
witnesses had seen the sudden murder on the elevated tracks.

More than ten thousand windows around the park square took on a
pinkish, sunset glow. The air was mellow with the new season. The
pockets of Smiling Tony jingled with an unusual amount of silver.

Smiling Tony should have been happy. But a well-dressed customer
paused and glanced at him. This customer was an old one. He was about
to take the seat on the white stone. Suddenly he seemed to have
changed his mind.

"Never mind," he mumbled quickly. "There's a fella I gotta see."

As he moved on, the customer shot a look over his shoulder. The eyes
of Smiling Tony followed him. The shoe shiner expressed no particular
emotion. He just stared after his departing customer.

But Smiling Tony's lips had thinned out over his teeth. His dark jaws
were set and rigid. His dark eyes held something unfathomable. Except
for his sleek, black hair, Smiling Tony's head might have been only
the skull of a dead man.

Trade abruptly fell off at Smiling Tony's shoeshine box. Prospective
customers glanced at the rigid, forbidding face and moved on. This
should have aroused some outward emotion. Smiling Tony came of an
expressive race. But he only stared fixedly at those who paused,
changed their minds and departed.

The dusk on the ten thousand windows of the park square changed the
mirroring panes to purple. Crowds surged up the stairs of the elevated
railway. Trains rumbled like the rising of a slow thunderstorm. The
ground shook with the rolling of subway cars. Manhattan was beginning
to move homeward.



FOR more than an hour, Smiling Tony had shined no shoes. This
cessation of business apparently failed to excite him. He did not so
much as give one shrug of his shoulder. He only stood, staring at the
slowly darkening windows.

Sam Gallivanti came along. Sam was a friend and neighbor of Tony's.
Sam swung his shining box jauntily by a strap. He jingled coins in his
pocket. His stand was a block from Tony's.

"Hiya, Tony!" he greeted blithely. "You ready we go home now?"

"I guess I'm-a ready," said Smiling Tony. "Yes, Sam, we go home now."

Smiling Tony was looking straight over Sam's head. His grin had become
a death's-head leer. His swarthy cheeks seemed to have taken on a
grayish cast.

"Wassa matt'?" said Sam. "You seek, Tony?"

"I don't feel-a seek, Sam," replied Tony. "She's what you call-a
nothin'. I don't feel nothin'."

Smiling Tony gathered up his polishes and rags. He stuffed them
haphazardly into the foot-rest box. Sam stared at him. Smiling Tony
usually was the soul of order. He always put away his implements with
the greatest of care. Now he just pushed them into the box and put the
box over his shoulder.

The shoe shiners were jostled together in the crowd ascending the
elevated steps. They were on the side where they would take the train
to the East Side.

Sam turned with a wide grin. As they pushed through the turnstile gate
where a nickel must be dropped, Sam generously supplied the extra
nickel.

Smiling Tony's expressionless face failed to indicate any appreciation
of his friend's gesture. Sam might have only been rubbing the sore
spot of his friend's lost business of the late afternoon. It did not
seem so.

One train slid its doors shut and pulled out before they could make
it. But at that hour, the human stream continued flowing through the
turnstiles. Several hundred persons crowded the platform.

Another train followed the departing string in less than a minute. Sam
stuck close to Smiling Tony. Now and then, he glanced at Tony's face.
Then he shivered in spite of himself.

"When you get-a home, maybe you call-a da doc, Tony?" Sam queried
sympathetically.

Smiling Tony did not reply to this. He was looking straight across the
elevated tracks into an open window. This window was on the third
floor of a vast building of steel and stone. The tracks of the
elevated were slightly below the third-floor level.

Smiling Tony could see the head and shoulders of one man inside the
window. The shoe shiner gave no evidence of recognizing the man as Doc
Savage, the last man whose shoes he had shined that day.

Doc's wide shoulders filled almost all of the window space. The
upright head glistened oddly in the last glow of the setting
springtime sun. It much resembled the head of a golden statue.

Though Smiling Tony did not seem to know it, the man of bronze was
studying him closely. Doc's flaky gold eyes had singled him out in all
that black mass of humanity packed on the elevated platform near the
edge.

For after the bronze giant had entered the ship line directors' room,
he had seen the same death's-head grin upon the face of another man.
The association of the double occurrence was of somewhat weird
significance.

For the other man was the multi-millionaire whose shoes Tony had
shined less than an hour before. And this man of wealth was as much
noted for his jollity and his laughter in his own circles, as was Tony
for his ready smile among his customers.

Doc Savage was now giving Smiling Tony's countenance a more thorough
reading. Just as his keenly trained vision could read words on lips at
a greater distance than other men, so he could also interpret emotion.
Smiling Tony's face lacked all emotions.

And this same vacuous expression had replaced the usual hearty humor
on the face of Simon Stevens, shipping line president.



THE long string of the elevated train roared closer. The motorman
peered straight ahead. His eye ran along the platform and took in all
of the jostling crowd. Passengers were jockeying for positions from
which to rush the doors when they slid open. Perhaps the first persons
in would find seats.

Sam Gallivanti kept on talking. Though his friend's face was possibly
frightening to others, Sam had known him for years. Now Sam dug an
elbow roughly into Smiling Tony's ribs. It was a violently delivered
blow, though it was meant only as a jest.

"Snap outta da dream!" joked Sam. "You look-a like-a da funeral,
Tony!"

Smiling Tony's expression did not change. His eyes only turned slowly
upon Sam Gallivanti. His right hand reached to the strap attached to
his heavy shoeshine box. The box was hung over his shoulder.

Smiling Tony uttered not a single word. His movement was as if he were
merely acting to return in kind the poke in the ribs Sam had given
him.

Sam screamed once.

"Tony! You no hit-a--you--"

The words of the scream were lost in the wilder crescendo of a shriek.
The higher scream echoed and communicated itself to the tongues of a
hundred women. The motorman of the elevated train jammed on the air
brakes with such force he hurled passengers in the cars from their
feet.

The motorman was too late.

Smiling Tony's shoeshine box flew over and downward. Its arc caught
the skull of Sam Gallivanti. Probably it was merciful that the
screaming of many women and the hoarse oaths and shouts of many men
submerged the horrible grinding of bones and flesh under the wheels of
the train.



GUARDS slapped open the doors of the train. Several hundred passengers
had heard the screaming. Men and women thrust themselves onto the
platform, adding to the bedlam. Those who a minute before had been
eager to catch a train, now were rushing back toward the stairs.

Two men had seized Smiling Tony. The shoe shiner still held his box by
the strap. Polishing rags dribbled out of it. The men dragged Smiling
Tony roughly back into the crowd.

A uniformed traffic policeman from under the elevated was the first
cop to lay hands on Smiling Tony. Others were arriving. Already the
elevated employees were at work trying to recover the body of Sam
Gallivanti.

Of all the persons the arriving police pushed back to form a ring
around Smiling Tony Talliano, none was as unexcited as Smiling Tony
himself.

"What happened?" demanded a copper. "Why'd you give that other guy the
works?"

"I no geeve 'im the works," said Smiling Tony calmly. "Sam, he's my
friend. He push-a me in da ribs. I smack 'im with the box. It is all
good-a fun maybe."

Smiling Tony was grinning at the policemen. That death's-head grin. He
did not shrug his shoulders or gesture with his hands. His black eyes
looked straight ahead. His lips were thinned to a leer over his white
teeth.

"Holy saints!" exclaimed one of the policemen. "He knocks the guy
under a train because he got a poke in the ribs! An' he calls it good
fun!"

"Something's wrong," said the copper who served as traffic policeman
at this intersection. "I know this fella, Tony Talliano. He ain't ever
been in trouble, an' he's worked that one spot for years. Everybody
likes the guy.

"Tony, listen! Why'd you smack Sam like that?"

Smiling Tony looked at the copper calmly, fixedly.

"He push-a me in da ribs," he repeated. "So I push-a 'im back!"

"Good grief!" ejaculated the traffic man. "Just like that! It looks
like he's gone off his nut!"

Smiling Tony looked at him and said, "I'm not-a crazy in the head. I
know all about it. I'm all-a right!"

The shoe shiner meant every word of it. He was all right, as he felt
about it. He must have been feeling no emotion whatever. The horrible
death of his friend, the certainty he would be accused of murder, left
him wholly unaffected.



Chapter II. A MILLIONAIRE QUITS LAUGHING

SIMON STEVENS was a hearty, roaring, rollicking man. His many millions
had never made him smug or dignified. When he laughed, his big body
rocked with his humor. And he nearly always was laughing.

Not that he wasn't shrewd. No man, regardless of how often or heartily
he laughed, could have acquired Simon Stevens's fortune without being
canny and shrewd. Nor could any man without a full supply of the
keenest brains have been head of the World Waterways Shipping
Corporation.

Simon Stevens had been president and controlling stockholder of the
World Waterways line for more than twenty-five years.

And no matter how serious the directors' meeting, Simon Stevens could,
and did, take time out to regale his associates with the latest in
funny stories. The World Waterways directors could afford to listen to
these stories, for the past years had not affected the shipping line's
splendid profits.

Today, Simon Stevens had not told a single story. When the directors
convened, their president was less hearty, less good-humored than
usual. He was smoking one of the fat cigars which had been so adroitly
changed in his upper pocket. One of the directors quickly noted the
millionaire's apparent absent-mindedness.

Simon Stevens's deep voice had not roared once with laughter since he
had entered the third floor room where the directors met. For once,
the shipping line president appeared to be somewhat preoccupied.

When he entered the board room, he sat down immediately in a big chair
at the side. He stared reflectively at his feet. They were, like all
of Simon Stevens, ample.

And the millionaire's shoes had been newly shined. For it had been
Simon Stevens who had sat on the white stone coping of the park fence.
It was he who had left the generous cigar in the grimy hand of Smiling
Tony Talliano.



THIS directors' meeting was more important than usual. Recently, the
affairs of the World Waterways line had reached somewhat of a crisis.
Some Oriental freight contracts had been cancelled because of trouble
in China. European affairs had disturbed shipments to the
Mediterranean.

Simon Stevens sat, rather somberly for him, looking at his newly
polished shoes. It was disturbing. The eleven other directors, or at
least ten of them, felt that the crisis might be more serious than
they imagined. If so, why hadn't Simon Stevens roared his way into the
room as customary?

The eleventh director observed the president of the board more closely
than the others.

For this director was Doc Savage. The man of bronze held some stock in
the World Waterways, as he did in many other enterprises. This was
especially useful to the noted adventurer. For the World Waterways
line owned a small group of islands in the South Pacific.

These were the Domyn Islands. Doc Savage's interest, as usual, was
humanitarian. In his many encounters with criminals, the man of bronze
caused them to be treated at his sanitarium in up-State New York.
Doc's vast surgical knowledge had developed a minor operation on the
brain which caused criminally warped minds to heal.

After becoming good citizens, with their criminal careers forgotten,
many of these former criminals were left without homes or occupations.
The Domyn Islands had become a haven of refuge for the rehabilitation
of these men. There they had been given well paid employment in the
nitrate mines.



DOC SAVAGE did not often attend meetings of directors. His time was
nearly always engaged in some enterprise of much more excitement and
danger. Yet in this apparently prosaic meeting of shipping line
directors was to arise a situation of the most astounding
consequences.

Doc Savage must have felt this, for he took up his position beside an
open window. From this place, he could look directly down upon the
tracks and platform of an elevated railway station.

One of the lesser directors coughed apologetically.

"Mr. President," he offered, "I expect we ought to get underway and
have it over with. All of us know why we are here."

"Yes," replied Simon Stevens, "we know why we are here."

His voice fell oddly flat, without expression. Indeed, one might have
said he was merely a curious bystander without great interest in the
proceedings.

The one who had spoken prefaced his next remarks with another cough.

"The idea seems to be that we will save ourselves from heavy losses by
retiring about half the ships of the freight fleets," he said. "Our
dividends probably will be reduced somewhat. But we can carry on and
still show a profit."

"Yes," said another director, "that's the general idea. It's much
better than attempting to maintain the whole organization at a loss.
We are lucky in having the Domyn Islands. The big boost in nitrate
prices brought on by national armaments ought to keep our net
operations about up to the usual figures."

Simon Stevens said nothing.

A director pulled them over the embarrassing lull.

"Well, then I suppose all of us here favor the retirement of as many
of the ships as necessary?" he suggested. "Then perhaps we should
concentrate on the operation of the Domyn Islands. I would favor
doubling our output, or employing more men there."



DOC SAVAGE spoke for the first time. He was watching Simon Stevens
closely.

"I had hoped that might happen," said the man of bronze. "As usual, I
would like to pass my own dividends to help place more men at work in
the islands."

Simon Stevens lifted his eyes to meet the flaky gold orbs of Doc
Savage. Doc noted then that the millionaire's face seemed wholly
lacking in expression.

Simon Stevens spoke. His words were drawn from some deep well of
effort. But his tone was colorless. His announcement was to strike
into that luxurious directors' room like a bolt of lightning. He was
about to blast a shipping line organization that had been foremost in
its earnings over a period of three generations.

Yet his speech was calm, most casual.

"The Domyn Islands?" he said. "Oh, yes. I just now recalled. I sold
the Domyn Islands yesterday."

For a full thirty seconds, Doc Savage could clearly hear the ticking
of watches in the room. There was one deep, indrawn breath for ten
pairs of lungs. At the end of the half minute came the released gasp
of all the directors.

"Sold the islands?" spoke one, as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"Fifty per cent of all our stock is wrapped up in the islands!"
ventured another. "It's never been mentioned--never even proposed. You
couldn't have done anything like that! This board wouldn't stand for
it!"

Simon Stevens must have heard. But he did not glance at his fellow
directors. He was looking at his polished shoes. The shipping line
president was entirely unaffected by the amazement of his colleagues.

Doc Savage spoke quietly.

"If the president wanted to sell the islands, it was not necessary to
consult any of us," he said. "A vote by the board is no more than a
matter of form. Of course, this is a time when a handsome price would
be offered. Several nations would like to have control of the nitrate
supply."



SIMON STEVENS looked at Doc Savage. Usually, the president's jowls
were shaking with some inward mirth when he wasn't laughing aloud. But
the big, rounded face now had assumed lines as stiff and hard as
granite.

"Just thought of a good one," he said unexpectedly, and without
referring to his own momentous announcement. "Did you ever hear the
one about--"

A pointless story rambled along aimlessly for several minutes.
Afterward, a director couldn't hold himself any longer.

"Well, if you sold the islands, chief, does it mean we are getting out
of business temporarily?" he asked. "Our ships could only operate at a
loss. There would be a melon of at least fifty millions to cut from
the islands. What was the price?"

"I accepted half a million dollars for the whole outfit," said the
shipping line president. "I signed the sales contract at once. We now
will vote on the sale of the Domyn Islands. All in favor say, 'Aye.'
Those opposed, 'No.'"

"No! No! No! No!!!" shouted ten directors.

Doc Savage was silent. He was watching Simon Stevens.

"The motion is carried," said Simon Stevens, without raising his
voice. "The Domyn Islands are sold."



TEN amazed, unbelieving minority stockholders surged from their
chairs. For the minute they forgot they were only holders of minority
stock in the World Waterways Shipping Corporation. Forgot they were
conservative, middle-aged business men. At this instant, they were a
mob of ten, cursing, bitter men.

The director nearest to Simon Stevens was a tall man. He so far forgot
himself as to brandish his fist under the president's nose.

"You dirty double-crosser!" he shouted. "Nearly all I've got is
wrapped up in World Waterways! You can't sell me out!"

His fist whipped out. Simon Stevens was a bigger man, if he was an
older one. The tall director's knuckles rasped across the president's
bulging jowls.

No emotion whatever appeared in Simon Stevens's countenance. His eyes,
half hidden in rolling wrinkles of good-natured fat, remained as cold
and unperturbed as those of some fish. Only his big hand went
methodically to a heavy inkstand of carved silver beside him.

The hand went up with the inkstand. The thing weighed enough to have
brained an ox. And the millionaire shipping line president was putting
the weight of a beefy arm behind the swing. The tall director was off
balance. The inkstand could not have missed his skull.

None could have told how Doc Savage had whipped across that room. The
bronze giant had lifted to his toes. He was moving with incredible
speed, as the inkstand went over Simon Stevens's head. One immense
bronze arm became a swiftly shooting steel piston.

The inkstand descended with a crash. The tall director went off his
feet. His lanky body flew half the length of the room before he
collapsed. But the blow that had caught him was delivered by Doc
Savage's fist. It was lucky for the director that Doc had picked out
the tall man's shoulder as a target.

Taking the full straight-arm from Doc Savage would not have been much
of an improvement over being brained by a carved-silver inkstand.



SIMON STEVENS sat down. Even now, he showed no emotion. Instead of
hurling a murderous inkstand, he rolled the fat cigar with his teeth,
chewing its end calmly.

Doc Savage was looking directly into the man's eyes. What he saw there
was not pleasant.

But the bronze man said to the other directors, "Perhaps we should
talk this over more calmly. I am convinced you will feel differently
when we know more of the circumstances. Simon, no doubt, has not
informed us of all to be told in connection with selling the Domyn
Islands. I have as much interest as any of you. We will listen."

The directors resumed their seats. Doc Savage returned to his chair
beside the open window. For probably two minutes, there was the
shuffling of men a bit ashamed of giving away to their emotions.

Doc was looking from the window. He saw a swarthy man with a shoe
shiner's box over his shoulder. Even at that distance, the fixed,
horrible, death's-head grin on the man's face was clear to Doc. His
eyes, like the rest of his senses, had been trained from childhood to
excel those of other men.

Doc whipped his glance back to the face of Simon Stevens. The pair of
faces--that of the multi-millionaire who apparently had just
accomplished his own ruin, and that of an East Side shoe shiner--were
strangely similar.

One of the directors made talk.

"Then, if I might inquire," he said, with some sarcasm, "who has been
lucky enough to buy the Domyn Islands for half a million? That's
hardly bird seed!"

Simon Stevens rubbed one hand over his big round chin. His voice
indicated he hadn't even an office boy's interest in the fate of the
Domyn Islands.

"I signed a contract of sale," he said, casually, "but it's funny I
can't recall offhand who I sold the islands to."



DOC SAVAGE heard these strange words. But he was looking down upon the
platform of the elevated railway. The other directors let out amazed
gasps for the second time that afternoon. The bronze man was gliding
from the room toward the building corridor. He gave no word of
explanation.

That announced itself through the open window. Piercing screams of
women came from outside. A crowd on the elevated platform was roaring.
The World Waterways directors crowded each other at the open window.

One man let out a choking oath. He pulled his eyes from the scene
below. He had seen a man's hand stick out from under the truck wheels
of a train coach. The fingers of the hands were still writhing. They
seemed to be reaching for something that might pull the victim from
under the ruthless iron and steel.



Chapter III. WITHOUT EMOTIONS

DOCTOR BUELOW T. MADREN pursed his small, round mouth in puzzlement.
When he shook his head, the electric light shone on it as on a
polished billiard ball. His hairless skull and the pudgy roundness of
his face gave Doctor Madren a cherubic, angelic appearance.

But his eyes were deepset and glowed brilliantly. There was deep,
probing intelligence there which belied the contour of the rest of his
countenance. For half an hour, he had been asking casual and seemingly
meaningless questions.

Smiling Tony Talliano showed no disposition to evade replying to any
question he understood. The sudden killer of the elevated platform had
been brought to the observation prisoners' ward in the psychopathic
section at Bellevue Hospital.

The presence of Doctor Buelow T. Madren, eminent psychiatrist, was to
be expected. He was a regular visitor to the psychopathic wards of New
York's big hospital. There seemed to be few vagaries of the human
brain with which Doctor Madren was not familiar. Yet now he appeared
to be plainly stumped on a diagnosis.

Smiling Tony had replied normally to questioning. Yes, he understood
that his friend, Sam Gallivanti, was dead. Yes, he knew Sam had fallen
under a train when he had hit him with his shoe-shining box.

But what of it? This seemed to be the attitude of the swarthy man with
the death's-head grin.

Doc Savage had been listening to this examination for many minutes.
Three other physicians, all devoted to psychology, were in the ward.
One of these spoke to Doctor Madren.

"Well, what do you make of it, doctor? I've seen some funny cases come
and go, but I've got a theory of my own for this one that I'd be
afraid to express."

Doctor Madren smiled at the Bellevue physician. His intense blue eyes
twinkled some.

"I'm not a mind reader, doctor," he said, "but I'm willing to venture
your theory agrees with my own opinion."



DOC SAVAGE also had formed his theory. In the first few minutes of the
examination of Smiling Tony, he had arrived at an amazing deduction.
But the man of bronze seldom expressed an opinion. And he never did,
unless the proof was irrefutable. He was interested in knowing what
the trained minds of these psychologists had brought out.

"We'll write down our opinions," suggested the Bellevue psychologist.
"Then there won't be any thought of either of us merely deferring to
suggestion of the other."

Doctor Madren produced a gold-headed pencil. He scribbled on the leaf
of a notebook. The Bellevue physician followed suit.

A third physician smiled and read the results aloud. The wording was
almost the same.

"It is my opinion this man is not insane," Doctor Madren had written.
"Perhaps it would be better for him if he were. He is suffering from
the complete loss of all emotions. In his present state, he could not
have murdered in anger, because he would not become angry. Neither
could he become joyous, nor sad, nor disturbed in any way by outside
influence. While in this condition, he can neither laugh nor cry."

In only slightly different words, the Bellevue physician had given the
same opinion. They summed up to the same thing.

Smiling Tony Talliano was held to be a sane man. And as such, without
any emotion whatever, he had killed his friend. He could not now feel
the emotion of grief or regret. Soon he probably would cease to
remember the death.

"So, he is a sane man without emotions," announced Doctor Madren. "And
as such, he is unique in the annals of psychotherapy. He could, and
would, kill his best friend without feeling any reaction whatever."

The man of bronze now knew Smiling Tony was not a unique case.

Simon Stevens, multi-millionaire shipping man, a respected, trusted
citizen, a man who had been filled with jollity, a love of life, had
only missed by the fraction of a second becoming exactly that kind of
a murderer.

Doc's analytical brain was beginning to evolve some amazing theories.
The bronze giant never overlooked the smallest trifle.



THE bronze man knew what the pronouncement of the eminent Doctor
Madren would mean for Smiling Tony Talliano. The emotionless shoe
shiner would be declared sane. As such, he would be tried and
convicted of killing Sam Gallivanti.

The case was made doubly amazing by the queer conduct of Simon
Stevens. Doc Savage could not ignore the strange coincidence of the
cases. He had almost immediately determined that Smiling Tony, the
shoe shiner, and Simon Stevens, the World Waterways president were
victims of the same dire influence.

And the bronze man felt this influence must have come from some
external source. It was impossible to believe that the brains of two
men so far apart in life could have been affected thus by mere chance.

Doc Savage was out of the hospital before the others realized it. He
went directly to the crowded public square in which Tony worked. Well
directed inquiry developed that Simon Stevens always had his shoes
shined by Smiling Tony Talliano. The bronze man had no means of
knowing about the cigars the millionaire and shoe shiner had smoked.

The man of bronze was given instant attention at the nearest police
precinct station. There they had the unusual murder weapon. It was
Smiling Tony's box of shoe-shining equipment. The inspector in charge
of the homicide detail was courteous.

Doc asked for and was given samples from the polish in Smiling Tony's
shoe box.

As Doc Savage was leaving the precinct station, he recalled that
"Monk" was at this time carrying on a technical chemical experiment.
He was isolated somewhere far out on Long Island.

Monk was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. Monk didn't look
as if he had a spoonful of brains. But he was one of the world's
leading industrial chemists.

Doc Savage attempted to get in touch with Monk as soon as he reached
his own working headquarters. This was a set of offices occupying all
of the eighty-sixth floor of the most impressive skyscraper in
downtown Manhattan.

Doc failed to make immediate contact with the chemist of his group.
The housekeeper at Monk's isolated cottage was difficult to
understand.

Next, the man of bronze learned that Simon Stevens, the shipping line
president, had gone to his summer home at Southampton. This was also
far out on Long Island. The millionaire's associates on the shipping
line board of directors were still angry and puzzled.

Doc learned they had confirmed the statement of the sale of the Domyn
Islands, by Simon Stevens's secretary. But the identity of the
purchaser was still a mystery.



DOC had taken samples of Smiling Tony's shoe polish to his laboratory.
He worked far into the night analyzing samples.

At this time, not far distant in another skyscraper, Henry Hawkins, a
night watchman, finished his midnight lunch. Then he recalled leaving
his pipe in another room. The watchman found the pipe lying where he
had left it.

As he puffed a smoke with his coffee, Henry Hawkins had no means of
knowing other hands had recently tampered with that pipe.

The watchman became suddenly alarmed. Near him a bell was ringing
noisily. It was the burglar alarm.

Henry Hawkins knew there was a considerable fortune in jewels and gold
in the two safes of the inner office. The jewels were of several
varieties. The gold was used by the watchman's employer for the finest
of craftsmanship.

Henry Hawkins abandoned his midnight lunch. With his huge unwieldy
revolver, the watchman made his way swiftly toward the inner office.
He sucked at the stem of his pipe, tightly gripped in his teeth.

The door of the office containing the safes had been locked. Henry
Hawkins tried the knob cautiously. It yielded. The door had been
unlocked. There was no light inside this office. But against the
square of a window, the watchman thought he saw the movement of a
shadowy form.

"Put up your hands!" ordered Henry Hawkins. "Whatcha doin' in here?"

The watchman had never shot a man. Probably his hesitancy was a
mistake. Something happened to Henry Hawkins. The old revolver
exploded twice with a booming roar.

No other shot had been fired. But--Henry Hawkins lay down wearily on
the floor. In the meantime, the same burglar alarm that had lured the
watchman into a trap was ringing loudly in a Park Avenue apartment.

The alarm brought Harris Hooper Perrin from his bed. He seized the
telephone and called the police.

Harris Hooper Perrin was an excitable, highly emotional man. He was
nearly fifty years old. But he still chewed his finger nails.

Harris Hooper Perrin was a skilled workman. He was one of the best
lapidaries in New York. He could produce more finished value from
uncut diamonds and other stones than any other man.

"Thieves!" he squawked into the telephone. "Thieves in my office! Get
the police there at once!" He gave the address.



POLICEMEN were already in Perrin's offices when he reached them.
Perrin looked around. Henry Hawkins was sitting in a chair. The
watchman bore no outward evidence of having been injured. He still
nursed the huge revolver in a gnarled hand.

"What's this? What's this, Henry?" snapped Harris Hooper Perrin.

"Hello, Mr. Perrin," said Henry Hawkins. "Somebody must 'a' called the
police. I haven't finished my midnight lunch."

Perrin grabbed at his lock of gray hair. He changed his mind and bit
into a favorite finger nail.

"You haven't finished your lunch?" gasped Perrin. "Here, officer,
what've you found?"

The door of one of the safes was open. Perrin began moaning. It seemed
there had been forty diamonds of great value, among other gems, in
this safe. These were uncut stones. Perrin moaned out they had been
consigned to him by a customer.

"They'd have cut more'n ten hundred carats!" groaned Perrin. "Ten
hundred carats, I'm tellin' you! And I'm ruined! It'll cost me
everything I've got--my reputation--my--"

The lapidary pulled his tormented eyes from the interior of the looted
safe. But a detective directed Perrin's gaze to the floor. In front of
the safe was a drying pool of blood. It had spread on the rug. There
could not have been less than a quart, perhaps more.

"If the guy was alone, he's holed up around here by this time," said
the detective. "If there was a pair of 'em, the other one'll be
grabbed gettin' away with the fellow that's plugged."

Perrin twisted his gray strand of hair.

"You saw 'em, Henry?" he shot at the night watchman. "What'd they look
like?"

"Who did I see, Mr. Perrin?" replied Henry Hawkins. "Do you suppose I
could eat my lunch now?"

The watchman's face was expressionless. He showed no visible effect of
his encounter with cracksmen. Apparently Henry Hawkins was only hungry
and he wanted his lunch.

The night watchman expressed no evidence of having felt fear.



PERRIN was raging with excitement. The arrival of an inspector named
Ryan found the lapidary frothing.

Henry Hawkins evinced little interest in his employer's excitement.
His pipe had fallen unnoticed to the floor.

"Maybe he got a bump on the bean," suggested Inspector Ryan.

He was facing Henry Hawkins, studying him. Then the inspector thought
of something.

"Well, I'll be darned!" he exclaimed. "He looks like that shiner who
bumped off his pal up on the el last night! Say, do you remember
shooting somebody in here?"

"Maybe I did--well, I guess I did," said the watchman. "I didn't get a
chance to eat my lunch and I'm hungry. I wasn't in here when the safe
was opened. Mr. Perrin knows I wouldn't do it."

Henry Hawkins had not been accused. There was a possibility he might
have been, if there had not been the pool of blood on the floor. One
of the detectives was digging a soft chunk of lead out of the wall
near the window.

"He done some shootin', all right" said the detective "But something
knocked him cuckoo."

Perrin had a death grip on his lock of gray hair.

"What'll I do--what'll I do?" he moaned. "Those stones hadn't been
insured! I was to make an appraisal, but I hadn't done it!"

Inspector Ryan was a very smart copper.

"We'll do all we can to get them back, Mr. Perrin," he said. "But
there's something screwy about all this. I think we'll trot your
watchman up to Bellevue for a once-over. There's only one man who
might give you some information. I don't know why, but Doc Savage has
been digging into that shoe shiner's case. If anybody can find
answers, the big bronze guy can do it. I'd talk to him, Mr. Perrin, if
I were you."



LESS than an hour later, the lapidary arrived at Doc's address.

Harris Hooper Perrin gave many gasps of surprise. These began with his
admission to Doc Savage's headquarters. A door bore small, simple
letters. These were in bronze. They read, "Clark Savage, Jr."

Doc admitted him. The first thing the lapidary noticed was the
library.

The library contained thousands of volumes. Many of these dealt with
precious stones and valuable minerals. Doc Savage knew more about gold
craftsmanship than did Harris Hooper Perrin.

The bronze man also knew more about Harris Hooper Perrin himself than
the lapidary could have imagined any one discovering.

Perrin stood in the middle of the immense laboratory. He fiddled with
his lock of wiry hair.

"I don't see how you can help me much," said Perrin. "But my night
watchman seems to have gone crazy. And I think maybe I'll go crazy,
too! One of my safes has been cleaned out. A man was shot and my
watchman don't even remember doing it. They've got him up at Bellevue,
under observation."

Doc's flaky gold eyes flickered with the tiny whirlwinds in their
depths. He was thinking. Smiling Tony, the shoe shiner. Simon Stevens,
the shipping president. Now a humble watchman by the name of Henry
Hawkins?

And Perrin was pouring out his trouble.

"First of all, you might sit down over here," directed Doc. "Are you
interested in tropical fish? I have nearly a hundred varieties in this
tank."

"For Heaven's sakes!" gasped Perrin. "I'm telling you I've been robbed
of ten hundred carats in diamonds that aren't insured! I'm a ruined
man! I'll never get any more work!"

"Yes, I understood all of that," said Doc, quietly. "You are working
yourself into an extremely nervous state. If you will sit here and
look at the fish, I would like to make a telephone call. I may be able
to help you."

"I'll pay you anything--anything you ask!" moaned Perrin.

Doc Savage merely smiled and said nothing.



OUTSIDE in his other office, Doc made a telephone connection.

"The case is so unusual, coming immediately after the strange affair
of the afternoon, I thought you might be interested in seeing this
Henry Hawkins, the watchman," said the man of bronze to the party at
the other end.

The man he had called from bed replied, "Yes! Yes, indeed! It was
thoughtful of you, Mr. Savage! I'll go up to Bellevue and see the man
at once! This queer mental condition may be only temporary, but I hope
to get at its origin!"

"I'm sure you do," said Doc Savage. "And doctor--there is another
strange case I believe to be the same as this one, a case in which I
am greatly interested. The victim is Simon Stevens, the shipping
magnate. He, too, was attacked this afternoon, but has since gone to
his Southampton home. I would appreciate if you would attend him,
also."

Excitement whipped into the other man's voice. Then he said, "I'll go
to Bellevue, and will then leave immediately to drive to Southampton."

Doc Savage returned to the laboratory. The man he had called was
Doctor Buelow T. Madren.

Having been left alone, Harris Hooper Perrin had composed his nerves
somewhat. Perhaps the brilliant, flashing colors of the tropical fish
swimming in the nearly transparent tank had a soothing influence.

Perrin could not know this tank of fish was in itself merely a blind
for one of Doc Savage's secret exits.



Chapter IV. ANOTHER FROZEN BRAIN

HARRIS HOOPER PERRIN hopped up when Doc Savage returned to the
laboratory.

"You called somebody?" he said. "Maybe the police? What did they say?
Have they found out anything?"

"I did not call the police," advised Doc. "I believe more may be found
in the brain of your night watchman than elsewhere. We will have to
await developments. Have you ever seen a better collection of tropical
fish?"

"Good grief, man! I'm ruined--ruined! You keep on talking about fish!
And some of them are poison! I want to know what I can do to get back
the jewels that are uninsured?"

"Yes, some of the fish are poison," said Doc. "You can see them, those
with the sharp spines, if you look closely."

A sign over the tank read, "POISON FISH."

But Perrin walked over and peered closely into the fish tank. Doc
stood beside him. The fish flashed in myriad colors around what
appeared to be one of those ornamental underwater castles to be found
in large fish bowls.

Doc said suddenly, "We'll have to await results. However, before
daylight sets in, I want to visit your watchman at Bellevue.
Immediately I'll come to your office. I would like to go over the
scene of the robbery."

When Perrin had departed, Doc Savage returned to his laboratory. His
movements seemed as irrelevant to the matter in hand as had his
apparent determination to interest the excited lapidary in his
tropical fish.

Doc reached into the fish tank. The bronze hand and his forearm were
magnified for a moment in the clear water. He did not seem to fear for
any poison the fish might transmit. Some of the spined variety brushed
the smooth bronze skin. They left no mark.

Doc lifted out the small underwater castle. It came apart in his
hands. Inside was a small black box. From this Doc extracted a black
plate. He slid a photographic negative into a developing bath.

A few minutes later, the man of bronze exposed a print to a dim red
light. It did not look as if he had much of a picture. Something might
have gone wrong. All that appeared on the plate was a pair of eyes.
The rest of the face was a gray blur.

But the eyes were greatly magnified.

Doc slipped the print and the plate into a steel filing cabinet. He
seemed very well satisfied with what he had accomplished.



A FEW hours later, Doc Savage's interview with Harris Hooper Perrin
was a very strange one, in the light of Perrin's pronounced views a
short time before in getting back his diamonds. For now, he refused
Doc all information necessary about the stolen gems.

At first, Doc was puzzled, but a direct gaze into the eyes of the
lapidary told Doc the secret of the change in character. For Perrin,
too, had the look of Smiling Tony, of Simon Stevens, of Henry Hawkins,
the night watchman.

In the mechanical way of those afflicted with this unknown physical
disability, Perrin answered a few of the questions put to him by the
man of bronze. Doc gained from him the list giving descriptions of the
stolen diamonds. This Doc imprinted on his mind. The stones were
African diamonds, forty in number.

But the names of the owners, Doc could not get Perrin to reveal.

After this unfortunate interview, Doc left the office of the lapidary
and returned to his headquarters office. By telephone, he got in touch
with the estate of Simon Stevens, at Southampton, Long Island. The
millionaire's son, James Stevens, replied.

Doc inquired as to the condition of the shipping magnate, then said,
"I've sent the noted Doctor Madren to see your father."



Chapter V. THREAT IN THE NIGHT

DOC SAVAGE had failed to make contact with Monk. Though it was the
middle of the night when Doc had called his cottage in the Shinnecock
Hills on Long Island, the homely chemist was having troubles of his
own.

Rather, the troubles rightly belonged to a pig. This representative of
the porcine species was an Arabian hog, but he didn't look it. No
piney woods razor-back could have touched the hog, Habeas Corpus, when
it came to looks.

Habeas Corpus was four long legs, two long ears and a pair of mean,
but intelligent eyes. His body wasn't much of anything but a
repository for food. The hog's appetite was enormous.

At the moment Doc Savage had called Monk's cottage, there was
considerable disturbance in the darkness of a swampy pond at the foot
of a hill. Ducks were quacking in terror. Hundreds of ducks. They were
scattered over more than two acres of muddy water.

Habeas Corpus had been having the time of his life since Monk had
moved to the cottage on Shinnecock Point near Ponquogue. The pig had
discovered the duck farm. It contained hundreds of the birds and they
were easy prey.

"Dag-gonit!" squealed a voice in the darkness of the muddy duck pond.
"Dang your measly hide, Habeas! You come outta among them ducks or I'm
goin' to turn you over to Ham! That's what I'll do to you!"

The squealing voice could have come only from Monk. Though he was
covered with red hair as stiff as rusty finishing nails, and his
weight was around two hundred and fifty pounds, Monk had the voice of
a child. Also he had a low, sloping forehead, gristly eyebrows and
arms that hung below his knees.



STANDING in the muddy pond up to his waist, Monk was a horrific
object. His threat to turn Habeas Corpus over to "Ham" might have been
understood by the pig.

Ham was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, the brilliant legal
light of Doc Savage's group.

Ham's pet hate was the pig, Habeas Corpus. Ham's greatest ambition
seemed to be to see the day when Habeas Corpus would be divided up
into stringy pork chops.

Monk, in the pond, yelled again.

Habeas Corpus only grunted with delight. He had just snipped the head
off another white duck.

A pair of long legs, without any body attached, seemed to come walking
along the pond.

This was because a tall man was carrying an old-fashioned lantern. The
oil light swung beside his legs and transformed them into gigantic
shadows.

"Hey, you consarned thief!" he croaked harshly. "I hain't tellin' you
ag'in! You git that thar hawg out'n thar, or I'm goin' to fill his
hide full o' buckshot this time sure!"

"Dag-gonit!" squawked Monk, "I'm gettin' him out if I can catch him!
Don't you do any shootin' if you know what's good for you! You hurt
that hog an' I'll cut you up an' feed you to your own danged ducks!
How much you want this time?"

The man with the lantern held it before his face. The face had the
appearance of a badly drawn cartoon. It was long and it dished in
toward the middle. The chin stuck out to a point. The head was small
and bobbed on a neck that might have been designed for a water turtle.

"Reckon I hain't takin' no less'n a tenspot this time," drawled his
twanging voice meanly. "You climb out'n there an' pay up or I'm
pepperin' that blasted imitation of a pig!"

Monk slopped through the muddy pond. He grunted and fished out some
money.

John Scroggins, the man who owned the ducks, got more than a tenspot.
Habeas Corpus had poked his long snout closer, sticking up his ears.
Monk saw his opportunity, dropped some bills and dived upon the pig.
He secured the squealing shoat by one long ear and splashed back
through the pond, toward his cottage.



"DAG-GONE you, Habeas!" complained Monk. "This time he can keep his
dead ducks, an' from now on you're stayin' home!"

For more than a week, Monk had been buying ducks--the ducks that
Habeas Corpus had killed. The pig did not care for duck meat. Neither
did Monk, much. But his housekeeper, a worthy and economical woman,
had insisted the ducks must not be wasted.

Monk had quit bringing the ducks home. Some he had buried. Tonight he
decided to end this duck business.

"You're bein' shut up, you dag-goned bunch of spareribs, an' you ain't
gettin' out again!" he promised Habeas Corpus.

The pig grunted companionably. He didn't believe Monk. And the pig was
smart. He had figured out ways of escaping from the pen Monk had
contrived at this isolated cottage.

Monk ambled along awkwardly, still dragging Habeas Corpus by one ear.
If the homely chemist had been informed the elusive pig had been
captured by strange hands earlier in the night and later released, he
would not have believed it. Yet this was true.

Habeas Corpus had been snared in the darkness. Shadowy figures had
seemed to give special attention to the pig's ears. Perhaps they knew
of Monk's favorite hold.

The spot Monk had selected for chemical experiments in the Shinnecock
Hills was ideal. Few spots within a hundred miles of Manhattan were
less populated.

The Shinnecock Hills were a series of rolling eminence covered with
stunted trees. They lay on the narrow neck of land separating Great
Peconic Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The main highway of these hills
passed on into Southampton, a millionaires' summer resort. From there,
it went on to the famous Montauk Point.

Monk's cottage was situated on the point of land about half a mile
below the duck farm. The big chemist followed a twisting, narrow path
toward it. On the highest near-by hill was the only other house in
that section. This was a rambling, barnlike structure. It was
deserted. Its windows were closely shuttered.

The path Monk was following ascended a short distance toward the
deserted house. Then it turned abruptly down the hill to the chemist's
cottage. Monk reached the highest point along the path.

Here Habeas Corpus suddenly came to life. His satisfied grunts changed
to quick vicious squeals. He squirmed and his ear slipped from Monk's
hand.

Remarkably enough, Monk seemed to have relented in his purpose to make
the pig a prisoner. The big chemist was standing still. He was staring
up the hill at the deserted house. Brush crackled near by, but Monk
apparently did not notice this.

Habeas Corpus rubbed his razorlike body against Monk's legs.

No more than a minute later the pig, Habeas Corpus, was rushing down
the hill. The hog was fleeing as if he had seen some porcine ghost.
His long, thin legs carried him at surprising speed. He did not stop
until he had pushed his long snout through the screen of the kitchen
door at Monk's cottage.



DURING Monk's absence, two visitors had arrived from New York. One of
these was a waspish figure of a man, with a keen, narrow face. This
man was wearing the latest in spring togs turned out by Fifth Avenue.
He was a picture of ease and sartorial elegance.

For Theodore Marley Brooks, or Ham, was noted for being a Beau
Brummell. He always stayed about two jumps ahead of all that should be
worn on Park Avenue.

The bronze-haired young woman with Ham might have been a beautiful
model from some exclusive gown shop. Her hair resembled that of Doc
Savage himself. And it was somewhat of a family trait, for the
attractive young woman was no other than Patricia Savage, Doc's
cousin.

Known as Pat, she conducted an exclusive beauty salon and gymnasium on
Park Avenue. Frequently she had joined with Doc and his companions in
their adventure.

Pat and Ham were drawn to the screen door of the kitchen.

"You might have known it would be that cross between a polecat and a
hog," said Ham. "Hey! Get away from me before I trim off your ears!"

This threat was inspired by the peculiar actions of Habeas Corpus.
Usually the pig kept a safe distance from the peppery lawyer. But now
he acted as if he had suddenly found a friend. He rushed between Ham's
elegantly clad legs and rubbed against them.

Dried mud and duck feathers ornamented Ham's trousers.

This ludicrous scene drew a low laugh of delight from Pat Savage.

Ham backed away suddenly. He did not want to swear before Pat. But he
gritted his teeth and kicked violently at Habeas Corpus. The hog might
be scared, but he was an expert at protecting his ribs. He dashed to
one side, squealing. His bony body caught Ham's foot. The lawyer sat
down suddenly in a very undignified position.

But Pat Savage didn't laugh. She was looking at Habeas Corpus. The pig
had whirled around, facing the kitchen door. The stiff hairs on the
back of his neck were standing straight up.

"Ham, something has happened to Monk," announced Pat. "The pig is
trying to tell us something. Be quiet! Somebody's coming up the path!"



SLOW, dragging feet were coming along the path. They sounded as if
they belonged to a man who was very tired, or perhaps hurt. Ham and
Pat could hear deep, whistling breaths.

Ham scrambled to his feet. Habeas Corpus backed clear over to the
farthest wall. The pig's eyes blinked and he shivered on his long
legs. The man outside arrived at the screen door. The light struck
across his woeful, disheveled figure.

Monk was hardly a handsome object at the best. Now he was literally
caked with black mud. The coarse hair that looked like red fur around
his ears and face was plastered with it. The small eyes under the low
forehead looked straight ahead. Apparently he had rubbed some of the
mud across his mouth.

Monk fumbled the door open. He entered without speaking. Then he
stopped in the middle of the floor and looked at Pat Savage and Ham.

Ham looked at Monk and saw no visible evidence of physical injury.

"We couldn't expect much more from you," said Ham in a jeering voice.
"Pat and I drop in to give you a pleasant surprise, and, as usual,
you're a fine mess. I always knew you were mostly ape, but I didn't
expect you to revert to the primitive and begin eating raw ducks."

Monk's furry hands and huge forearms were smeared with dried blood.
Duck feathers clung to his clothes and the matted hair.

"Hello, Ham," he said in his childlike voice. "Hello, Pat. I will call
the housekeeper to show you to your rooms. Let me see, the
housekeeper's name is--I kind of forget, but I'll call her."

"Be yourself!" snapped Ham. "Don't try to pull any crazy stuff, you
big ape! Who could forget a name like Mrs. Malatkas! Whose ducks have
you been stealing?"

"Yes, that's her name," repeated Monk in a cold, small voice. "Mrs.
Malatkas. She keeps house for me and she wants to cook all the ducks,
but I'm burying them. There are a lot more dead ones. I have to dig
some holes for them."

"Stop it, you hairy insect!" rapped out Ham. "What are you trying to
do--scare Pat? What's the matter with you?"

"Scare Pat?" repeated Monk. "You know I wouldn't want to scare Pat."

Ham started another sarcastic sentence. Pat interrupted him.

"Don't, Ham!" she commanded. "I believe Monk is sick or something has
happened to him. What is it, Monk?"

"No, I'm not sick," said Monk, without any emotion. "I think I'm
hungry, but I don't want to eat any more ducks. I'll call Mrs.--Funny,
I can't remember her name. She's the housekeeper."

Ham and Pat knew nothing of the weird, emotionless feelings that had
come over the three men in New York, that had produced a state of
utter lack of desire to do anything unless a forceful suggestion was
made to them. Neither did they know that those men, because of their
peculiar lack of emotions, could kill as easily as a wild animal and
feel as little remorse.

Seemingly, Monk had been stricken with this same lack of feeling of
emotions.



ON the surface, Ham and Monk were the bitterest of enemies. But that
was only verbal. Underneath, they were the greatest of friends. Ham
stepped over to the chemist's side. He ran one slender hand over
Monk's hairy head.

"Perhaps you got conked out there, Monk?" he suggested. "Did somebody
knock you out? I don't find any marks."

"Why, nothing happened," said Monk, without raising his voice. "I
remember now. I paid for the dead ducks. Now I've got to bury them. Do
you and Pat expect to stay--well--yes, I guess you wouldn't want to go
back tonight? It's kind of late. I'd call the housekeeper, but somehow
I can't remember her name."

Ham pulled Pat to one side.

"This looks serious," he whispered. "I don't think he's putting on a
show. Something queer has happened! Monk must have had some terrible
shock out there. I'm going to have a look around. Maybe you had better
call Mrs. Malatkas."

Habeas Corpus had been standing rigidly in one corner. The pig looked
as if he expected something to come through the door from the
darkness. If Monk did not remember seeing anything out there in the
blackness, Habeas Corpus evidently had seen something.

Whatever it was, the smart pig hadn't liked it a bit.

Monk moved mechanically at Pat's suggestion. He washed the dried blood
and feathers from his hands and arms. Mrs. Malatkas responded to a
summons. She came in, gabbling excitedly.

Ham walked over and picked up the slender black cane he always
carried. This looked like only an added affectation on the part of the
sartorially perfect lawyer. But it was much more practical.

The black cane concealed a razor-sharp blade of the finest steel. The
point of this sword was tipped for several inches with a dark-colored
chemical. A mere prick through the skin would make another man
instantly unconscious.

"I think I'll call Doc," suggested Pat. "He ought to know about this.
I haven't seen him for several days. He must have been busy on
something."



PAT was clicking the receiver hook of the old-fashioned telephone of
the summer cottage. In a few seconds she came back into the kitchen.
Her attractive features were pale and her mouth was set in a worried
line.

"Ham, we're cut off!" she said excitedly. "The line hummed all right
when I picked up the receiver. Then there was a man's voice. It must
be a country party line. The man said, 'We've got the first one, and
before we're through this smart Doc Savage will learn he can't--' Then
there was a ripping sound. The wire went dead. I jiggled the receiver,
but I'll bet the connection has been cut. Maybe some one heard me get
on the line."

Mrs. Malatkas was wringing her fat hands.

"Dot Yon Scroggins vass a bad man!" she gabbled hysterically. "His eye
vass evil! Aboudt dose ducks he vass mad some awful! He's no good, dot
Yon Scroggins!"

Pat said, "But this must be something much more serious than a
squabble over ducks. That voice on the phone wasn't like that of a
countryman who raises ducks. It sounded more like some man from the
city. Do you suppose, Ham, he means Monk is the first one?"

Monk, having washed his hands, stood braced on his short legs. Though
the big chemist was one of the homeliest men alive, yet he was one of
the most intelligent. But now he seemed to have little or no interest
in what was transpiring.

"Are you and Ham staying here a while?" he asked Pat, as if he hadn't
discussed that before. "Mrs.--well, the housekeeper here will show you
to your rooms. She will get us something to eat. I'm hungry. Would you
like a cold duck sandwich? I don't like ducks."

Ham said in an undertone to Pat.

"You're right, this is serious. Some one has done something to Monk.
And the idea is to get at Doc. I'm not informed myself on what Doc
might be doing. There must be another phone in this duck man's place.
Anyway, he'll probably let me use it."

"Ham, perhaps he won't," said Pat. "It might be he's the one was
talking, after all."

"Well, I'll soon find out about that," declared Ham, flourishing his
cane. "You'd better take Monk's superfirer, until I get back. I'll
hurry and--"

The pig, Habeas Corpus, interrupted his speech. The pig dashed between
Ham's legs and through the kitchen door into the night.



Chapter VI. HAM'S BLIND TRAIL

NIGHT over the Shinnecock Hills was of that opaque density only the
lightless countryside and a fogged sky can produce. Ham could hear
Habeas Corpus clattering along the path winding around the hillside.
This led directly to the edge of John Scroggins's muddy duck pond.

Ham did not know he would have to follow the slippery edge of the pond
to reach the duck man's shack. The still dapper lawyer swore a little
under his breath. He was forced to use the pencil ray of his generator
flashlight to follow the pig.

The lawyer could hear the pig. He wondered if Habeas Corpus might be
leading him toward the menace that seemed to have overtaken Monk? No
light showed ahead. The shack of the duck man was in darkness. Once
Ham thought he saw a point of light twinkle on the high hill above
him, but it might have been only an illusion.

Habeas Corpus had a strange sense of danger. But apparently the pig
was too much of a pig to remember that he had been scared. For Habeas
Corpus headed straight for his beloved duck pond. Suddenly, ducks
started quacking loudly. One or two squawked.

"Damn that hog!" muttered Ham.

Ham's light failed to show him an impediment to his feet. He caught a
toe. His hands flew up and the flashlight fell. Ham took a header over
a low, steep bank. With a mighty splash, he went into the muddy duck
pond.

It was well for the pig that he was built on agile lines. If Ham had
caught him in the next two or three minutes, Habeas Corpus probably
would have become sliced bacon.

A squawking duck escaped from the pig and flopped onto the shore. The
frightened bird half ran and half flew up the hill. The duck was
heading in the direction of the ominous-appearing, barnlike deserted
house topping the ridge. But Ham did not know this.

Still telling the world what he would do to that pig, the dripping Ham
climbed from the pond. He was using language that had never been heard
in any court of law. Without his flashlight, he could only follow the
sound of the pig's chase after the duck.

Suddenly, Habeas Corpus seemed to lose interest in slitting the throat
of that particular bird. The hog stopped so abruptly that Ham fell
over him.

"I'll make pork chops out of you for that!" grated Ham.



BUT instead of using his sword blade, Ham froze to silence and
listened. Habeas Corpus did not seem to be afraid of Ham. Instead, the
pig all at once appeared to be desirous of closer companionship. He
stood close to Ham. The bristles on the pig's neck were rising. The
pig was looking up the hill.

Small stones were rolling from under the crunching feet of a man. It
looked to Ham as if a pair of long, unattached legs were coming down
the hill. This was because the oncoming man was swinging an old-
fashioned oil lantern.

As the light came close, the loose-jointed, ungainly figure of the man
was revealed. The lantern showed a dished-in face with a long-pointed
chin. The angular jaws of John Scroggins were working with rage. The
light rays fell upon the stiffly rigid Habeas Corpus.

"Gol dang yuh!" whanged the duck man's voice. "You've been into them
thar ducks ag'in! This time, I'm fillin' your hide so full'r shot you
won't be able to git away!"

John Scroggins had been coming from the direction of the deserted
house on the hill. He was carrying his shotgun.

Before Ham could emerge into view or speak, the duck man had set down
his lantern. The double-barreled shotgun over one arm erupted fire
from both muzzles. Fine shot slapped into the bushes.

Habeas Corpus squealed and shook his long snout. The pig's hide was
well peppered with the shot. But that hide was like walrus skin. The
shot did not penetrate deeply. Fortunately, all missed the pig's eyes.

Ham must have forgotten his many threats to annihilate Habeas Corpus.
His waspish form reared up in front of the gaunt, big-boned duck man.

"I'll teach you to be trying to murder an inoffensive pet that never
did anything to you!" rapped Ham.

"Who be yuh?" growled John Scroggins. "Hain't you smart city dudes
been l'arned agin' trespassin' on private prop'ity?"

The duck man had glanced apprehensively over his shoulder. The
direction of his eyes had been toward the deserted house. Rather, one
eye had looked that way. The cocked orb still roamed freely.

Ham's sword blade was swishing in a circle around his head.

"Hey, consarn your hide, doncha do that!" twanged the duck man's nasal
voice.

He lifted the shotgun. The fine steel of the blade rang on the coarser
metal. John Scroggins parried several of Ham's thrusts with surprising
skill. Ham had quit talking. The heavy gun barrel swung again at his
head.

Because the duck man was not expecting it, Ham prodded him with the
drugged tip of the sword. John Scroggins immediately lost interest in
the strange duel. The shotgun clanged on the rocks of the hill. The
duck man sighed and sat down. He rolled over and was asleep before his
head touched the ground.



DESPITE the hide full of shot, Habeas Corpus was excited over
something more than the encounter of the two men. The pig was moving
slowly up the hill. He was following a trace of a pathway that led
toward the barnlike structure above.

Ham caught the pig by one ear. This was Monk's favorite hold. Habeas
Corpus apparently resented this familiarity. He tried to bite Ham. The
lawyer swore and kicked at him.

The ground trembled. It might have been a single stick of dynamite far
underground. Or a small cannon fired in some deep cave.

Habeas Corpus promptly began a retreat. The pig headed back in the
direction of the duck pond. A second muffled explosion followed the
first.

Ham got a better idea of the direction of this one. If he had not been
guided by his ears, a momentary flash of light from a lower window of
the stark house on the hill was unmistakable.

Concerned over Monk's queer condition, and the later voice on the
telephone, Ham decided to investigate.

Having lost his flashlight, Ham picked up the oil lantern and started
up the hill.

When he came close to the old house, Ham saw that its foundation of
unfinished stone arose ten feet or more above the ground. In this wall
were set small windows. Those openings had been covered by loose
boards. The windows higher up were heavily shuttered.

Ham concealed the oil lantern in the bushes. Approaching with infinite
caution, his sword blade ready for instant action, the lawyer detected
the faint twinkling of a light through the cracks of one of the
basement wall windows.

It must have been this light he had seen while on his way to the duck
pond. After several minutes listening, Ham carefully pried a board
loose. His slim body went through easily. Inside was a narrow,
tunnellike passage. It had the dank, musty odor of a place long
uninhabited.

But there was something else. It was a sharp acrid odor.

A faint light glowed beyond a turn in the passage. Ham cat-footed in
that direction.



HAM might have been wiser if he could have seen around the bend in the
tunnel passage. While he could hear no movement, this was because the
small group of men in a cavern-like room were fully aware of his
approach.

Yet they were listening to the slow approach of the intruder without
evincing the least excitement. Nor did it seem they were prepared in
any way to molest this stranger. None of the men had a weapon. But all
were watching the turn in the tunnel around which Ham might appear at
any second.

A voice spoke quietly. It could not have been more than a few yards
away. Ham may have heard its murmur. If he did, he could not have
interpreted either the words or the meaning. If he had, the lawyer
would have scuttled into a retreat.

Ham did not retreat. His hand gripped the handle of the sword blade.
Now for the first time since he had handled the pig, Habeas Corpus,
Ham's left fingers rubbed slowly across his lower lip. It was an
unconscious gesture in the tenseness of the moment.

Whatever happened, Ham did not afterward recall the exact incident.

For without realizing how he had come to be outside the strange,
deserted house, Ham was plunging down the hill. And he was calling
Habeas Corpus. His mind must have picked up where it had left off some
time before. He came back to the recumbent figure of the unconscious
duck man.

Habeas Corpus again was splashing around in the duck pond. And a
couple of minutes later, Ham was wading after the pig. This time, he
captured the duck killer and started for the shore. A dead duck
floated near by. Its throat had been slit by the bloodthirsty Habeas
Corpus.

The keen intelligence had left Ham's countenance. He acted as any
child might have done, on the impulse of the moment. His face was a
stony mask with a ghastly fixed smile. The dead duck floated to his
hand. He seized it by the legs.



DRAGGING Habeas Corpus by one ear and holding the dead duck by the
legs, Ham started along the pathway leading back to Monk's cottage.
All of his elegant appearance had been lost. He was dripping with
filthy water and plastered with mud.

And Ham had left his sword cane somewhere. This in itself was the
strongest evidence that Ham was not himself.

Pat Savage had never been known to scream. She was too closely akin to
Doc Savage to give away audibly to any terror she might feel. But Pat
came as close to a scream as she ever would, when Ham appeared in the
kitchen doorway of Monk's cottage.

"Oh!" she gasped. "You, too!"

Ham came in slowly. He was still dragging Habeas Corpus. The dead duck
dribbled blood in Ham's other hand. Monk was sitting in a chair. He
looked at Ham, and he made no comment whatever.

"Did you meet the owner of that duck farm?" Pat Savage forced herself
to say. "Was there a phone and did you call Doc?"

She was merely making conversation, trying meanwhile to think what she
must do.

"I met some man with a shotgun and he didn't like me much," said Ham,
tonelessly. "I guess that must have been the duck man. I'll have to
take a bath and put on some other clothes."

"Oh!" gasped Pat. "You met him then! And there must have been a fight?
What did you do with your sword cane?"

"Well, maybe I left the sword sticking in the man with the shotgun,"
said Ham, without change of expression. "Sure. That was it! I ran the
sword through his neck, I guess. I forgot to pull it out."

Pat Savage almost screamed then. She shivered. Mrs. Malatkas was
gabbling to herself and making violent gestures with her hands, as if
to ward off some unseen evil.

Just then, a slow, rumbling blast shook the walls of the cottage.



Chapter VII. MURDER ON THE HILL

PAT SAVAGE possessed one great asset. Like the others of Doc Savage's
group she knew nothing of the meaning of fear. That was a quality that
seemed to emanate from the bronze adventurer. Courage was the
foundation of this hardy, super-intelligent group.

So it was not fear that gave speed to Pat Savage's movements. It was
grave uneasiness. Something that was suddenly beyond all human
understanding. She was more than ever in need of reaching Doc.

Pat whipped through the blackness of the Shinnecock Hills with the
lightness of a fleet-footed deer. Behind her in the cottage, neither
Ham nor Monk had seemed to give much heed to her intentions.

Pat had slipped from the cottage. She was armed with the superfirer
machine pistol she had taken from Monk. This weapon was unwieldy for
her delicate hands, but she had a hunch it might be required.

The thickness of the foggy wilderness night was somewhat appalling. It
was not fear that made Pat hasten her steps. It was the terrible
uncertainty of not knowing what this was all about, of what ghastly
thing had struck both Monk and Ham, had seemingly affected their
brains.

With a flashlight she had picked up in the cottage, Pat followed the
pathway toward the duck pond.

Pat had hoped the duck man would have a telephone. Ham had been unable
to say if he had even attempted to reach such an instrument.

The low door of the duck man's shack stood partly open. Pat shivered
as she penciled the ray of the flashlight over the interior. It
appeared to be the typical shack dwelling of an uncouth man.

But there was a telephone instrument on a shelf. Pat conquered her
repulsion and tiptoed across the room. With a quick hand, she picked
up the receiver. The wire gave forth that low humming which told it
was open. Pat jiggled the receiver hook.

If she could only raise an operator and make connections with Doc's
headquarters--

A voice spoke. It was a man's croaking tones. They sounded as if the
man were talking from behind a wall or through a blanket.

"I got him before he reached the high--"

As on the phone in Monk's cottage, the sentence was bitten off. It
ended with a little crackling snap. The wire had gone dead.



PAT felt suddenly sick and cold. She forced herself to be calm long
enough to make sure the connection had been definitely broken off.

Some one on that wire must have heard her come on the line, she
thought. Now the phone was dead. Perhaps they could trace her
location. Pat hooked the receiver and ran from the duck man's shack.

Again she ran around the duck pond. The ducks quacked sleepily. They
were quick to forget the killer that had been among them. Pat suddenly
halted. From near the duck man's shack she had just left, floated a
laugh. It was a hoarse cackling note.

Had some one been spying upon her while she was at the telephone?

Then Pat thought of Ham's car in which they had come to Monk's
cottage. Why hadn't that come to her before? Ham had been forced to
leave the car beside the highway some distance from the cottage. The
car was equipped with a short-wave radio set.

Pat knew how to operate the broadcaster. She could get hold of Doc
that way, if he happened to be at his New York headquarters or
somewhere in one of his cars. All of Doc's radios were operated on
their own special wave length.

But it would be better to leave a message by telephone, if she failed
to reach Doc. So Pat stumbled on up the hill.

When she stopped abruptly she was halfway between the duck pond and
the deserted house. Her sudden halt carried her to her hands and
knees. This time, Pat had the greatest difficulty repressing the
scream that would have been forced from the lips of any other woman.

She had fallen over a body.

Pat's movements then were instinctive. She sprang away from the awful
thing on the ground. Her hands trembled as she shot the pencil ray of
the flashlight toward the corpse.

Sightless eyes were wide open. Their death glaze did not keep them
from having the look of horror that would come to a man knowing death
was about to strike. Pat was holding one hand tightly over her mouth.
Her white teeth clenched in her own flesh until the blood trickled.

The dead man's throat was one awful gash. Blood had drained out and
the face was gray and hard.

"I knew it, oh, I knew it," whispered Pat. "He didn't know what he was
doing! Oh, he did kill him!"

For she was looking down at the slender, bright blade of a sword. This
lay beside the dead man's head. Near it was the hollow black cane
which Ham always carried. And Ham had said he had "run the sword
through the duck man's neck."

Pat was sure now this was the owner of the ducks. The sword blade was
stained with the scarlet fluid. The man's body was lying partly on the
sheathing cane.



PAT SAVAGE came as near to panic as she ever had.

It was only too apparent that Ham must have killed this man. Pat
picked up the sword blade. With a shudder, she pulled the black cane
from under the body.

Then Pat realized she was a target for whoever might be lingering in
the murky night. She turned off the flashlight.

She was none too quick about this. As darkness shrouded her and
mercifully shut out the ghastly face of the corpse, heavy feet
crunched on near-by rocks.

What she intended doing about Ham's sword, Pat did not then have clear
enough thought to decide. She did not even know she was running away
from Monk's cottage toward the main paved highway.

In a few seconds, she paused breathlessly to listen. The feet crunched
again. She was being followed.

On the highway less than a hundred yards away, a motor throbbed.
Headlight beams sent two stabbing rays around a curve. They swept the
side of the hill, bathed Pat's slender figure briefly and passed on.

Pat was looking behind her. Her eyes were fixed on the spot where the
feet had been crunching. The car's beams flashed across this spot. Pat
saw the face of a man. It seemed in that uncertain light like a dead
mask, without any emotion of a living man.

Monk and Ham both looked somewhat like that.

The owner of the face was tall. He had flaming red hair. There now was
no doubt but that he was pursuing Pat. He was looking directly toward
her as the speeding car shot on down the highway.

Pat cried out loudly once, if the driver of the passing car could have
heard her, probably he would not have paused.

The red-headed man was mumbling, but Pat could not catch his words. He
was coming toward her. Pat felt he must not reach her, touch her. The
man's speech became incoherent. From his hand shot the beam of a
flashlight.

"Oh, there you are!" he cried, as the luminance brought out Pat's
swaying figure. "I thought I'd find you!"



THE man moved with a rushing quickness of his feet toward her. Pat was
still carrying Ham's stained sword cane. She must not be caught.
Monk's pistol was loaded with mercy bullets. They would not kill, for
they were only shells containing an anaesthetic drug. But they would
stop this seemingly crazy red-headed man.

Pat aimed at the flashlight and held the superfirer with both hands.
It hummed for two seconds like a giant bullfiddle.

The flashlight winked out. The red-headed man pitched forward. His
body rolled over and over down the hill. The unconscious man lodged in
a clump of bushes above the highway.

Pat did not regret having used the pistol. Her own automatic would
have killed. She did not want to kill any one. Now she feared this
red-headed man had not been alone. Thrusting Ham's sword blade into
the cane, she tied it quickly under the light evening coat she was
wearing.

Then Pat ran along the highway. It had become more important than ever
to reach a telephone.

This stretch of highway had scanty population. Hidden here and there
in the knobby Shinnecock Hills were many thrusting gables. But none of
these could be seen in the darkness. None of these summer homes had
been built directly on the highway.

Pat was almost sobbing with effort, after she had gone perhaps half a
mile. Then she heard another car coming. It was being driven at high
speed.

Pat decided she might be able to bring the driver to a stop. She was
wearing a gown under her coat with a brilliant red sash. Holding a
strip of the red sash over the flashlight, she flicked it on and off.

The driver of the oncoming car saw the danger light of red winking at
him as he rounded a curve. His brakes took hold. Pat stood in the
middle of the concrete. She did not realize the apparition she must
have been to the startled chauffeur. The car was of the low-slung
limousine type. It was a classy model. There was a neat gold monogram
on the door. A man and woman occupied the rear seat.



PAT walked from the pathway of the headlight. The man in the rear seat
switched on the car's inside lights. This revealed the flushed,
attractive face of Pat close to the door.

"Sorry, but I have to ask your help," said Pat. "It is most important
I reach a telephone. Our own has gone dead and a friend of mine is
very ill."

"Why, I'm a doctor, but perhaps not the kind of a physician you would
want," he added. "I'm Doctor Madren, Buelow T. Madren. I am hurrying
on a call to a patient in Southampton. You see, I'm a psychiatrist."

"I'm afraid my friend needs a different kind of treatment," Pat
stated. "Would you take me as far as a telephone?"

"Certainly; Miss--I didn't catch your name?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Pat hastily. "I'm--Miss Holcomb."

Pat said this because she was thinking of Ham's bloodstained sword
blade under her coat. No one must get in on this. Not even the
benevolent-appearing psychiatrist, until Doc had been reached.

"All right, Miss Holcomb," said Doctor Madren. "Get in. You can call
from my patient's home. My chauffeur will bring you back. Oh, yes,
this is Miss Clarke. She is one of my nurses."

Pat slipped into the seat beside the doctor's woman companion. Miss
Clarke was gray-eyed, plain of face, but cool and competent-looking.
She acknowledged the introduction. Also she was looking intently at
Pat's left hand.

Pat slid her hand hastily under her coat. She shuddered a little. This
was the hand marked with the murdered man's blood. She had almost
forgotten it. Miss Clarke said nothing. But she continued to watch Pat
from the corner of her eye.

Doctor Madren chatted about small matters, as his limousine rolled
into the elm-draped avenue which forms the main street of Southampton.
He was still talking when the car entered the spacious grounds of an
immense summer home.



WHEN they were admitted, there were voices coming from a near-by room.
A tall young man appeared. He had a worried frown.

"Yes, Doctor Madren, I was informed that you were coming," said the
young man, his gaze wandering from the plain-faced Miss Clarke to the
flushed and vivid Pat Savage. "I've kept dad up. Rather, he hasn't
wanted to retire. He has been in the bar all evening."

Pat learned the young man was Jim Stevens. He showed the best of
breeding. He did not inquire the reason for Pat's presence.

"This is--Miss Holcomb," pronounced Doctor Madren, slowly. "She wants
to call the city. A friend has been taken ill. So I brought her here
from the Shinnecock Hills. I will send her home when she has used the
telephone."

"Glad to know Miss Holcomb," said Jim Stevens. "I was--well, I had an
impression I had seen your photograph somewhere, Miss Holcomb?"

Pat shivered. Her picture had appeared in newspapers. This Jim Stevens
looked like he would be difficult to deceive.

Then Pat received a more terrible shock than the mere suspicion Jim
Stevens might be guessing her identity. A big man entered the room.

"Here's dad now," said Jim Stevens. "Dad, Doctor Madren has come down
for some fishing. I met him in the city. He will stay for a few days."

Simon Stevens said, "I'm glad to have any friend of yours, Jim."

But his voice was flat and lifeless.

Pat controlled her emotions with difficulty. Cold, chilling horror
seemed to fill her veins. For this big man, Simon Stevens, was another
one. His emotionless face appeared to be covered with the same icy
mask she had seen on the faces of Ham and Monk.

Pat was conducted to a telephone in a huge library. Jim Stevens
courteously closed the door. In two minutes, Pat heard Doc's voice on
the wire.

Pat had intended to explain the strange situation. She had desired to
apprise Doc of all that had transpired. But as she started to speak,
she distinctly heard a faint click of a lifted receiver in some other
room. Some one was listening on an extension.

Doc knew Pat's voice. So all she said was, "Ham and Monk. They need
you at once. It can't wait until morning."

She knew this would be sufficient for her bronze cousin.

"I shall come by plane," Doc replied.

His own keen ears had heard the tell-tale click of that extra
telephone receiver in the house of Simon Stevens. He knew instantly
the trouble must be serious or Pat would not have called at that hour.



DOC had been considerably baffled by the events in the city. The
connected and disconnected cases of lost emotions, of the murder, of
Simon Stevens's action and of the Harris Hooper Perrin jewel robbery
and his strange acting when Doc had gone to interview him at the
office, had become somewhat confounding.

But the man of bronze already had begun to suspect a well directed
menace covering all of these cases. Thus far, its source had been
invisible, wholly untraceable. But Pat's tone, rather than what she
had said, led Doc to believe the paralyzer of emotions had struck
directly at his own group.

Pat hurried from the library. Jim Stevens was standing in the hallway
outside. Doctor Madren was still talking with Simon Stevens. The
conversation was one-sided. The shipping magnate replied only in cold
monosyllables.

The nurse, Miss Clarke, had disappeared. Probably she had gone to her
room, was Pat's instant thought. Miss Clarke had seen the blood on
Pat's hand. Could the nurse have been suspicious to the extent of
listening in on her conversation?

Pat stepped quickly into the living room. The bloodstained sword cane
slipped from under her coat. It fell to the floor.



Chapter VIII. BLOOD OF A DUCK

IT was only natural that both Doctor Madren and Jim Stevens should
reach to restore the fallen sword cane. Doctor Madren was the nearest.
His chubby hands picked up the sheath. The top twisted loose.

The psychiatrist's brilliant blue eyes glittered. Extended in his hand
was a steel blade, fine and slender at the point as a stiletto. The
point was covered with a sticky, dark substance.

Higher on the blade was the unmistakable scarlet stain of dried blood.
Pat had made one hasty movement to recover the cane. Now she laughed
with a little hollow sound.

"Well, well, well!" rolled Doctor Madren's oily voice. "I have heard
that young women sometimes go armed, but this is indeed a most
peculiar weapon. It takes one back to the Middle Ages. The lady is
wandering along a midnight road with a bloody sword hidden under her
cloak. There must be some explanation?"

"If I must explain anything," said Pat quickly, "the truth will sound
very silly. A friend used the sword to cut off the heads of a couple
of ducks for dinner. I picked it up when I started out to find a
telephone. I'll not trouble you any further, Doctor Madren. I can call
a taxicab and return to the cottage."

Pat extended her hand quickly. Doctor Madren deliberately pulled the
sword cane out of her reach. Pat's coat fell back. Under one arm the
holstered superfirer pistol with its clumsy magazine drum of bullets
was fully exposed.

Doctor Madren clucked again. His eyes rolled. They appealed to heaven
and made him look more than ever like an angel.

"Most astounding," he murmured. "If there had been a machine gun or
two sticking around, probably you would have brought them along, too?
You said your name was Miss Holcomb, I believe?"

Jim Stevens took the sword and its sheath firmly from Doctor Madren's
hand. A light of understanding had come into his eyes. Though he was
intensely worried over his father's condition, something had seemed to
appeal to him as humorous. He had recalled where he had seen the
picture of this Miss Holcomb. And that picture had borne the name
Patricia Savage.

Also, Jim Stevens knew that Doc Savage had been responsible for the
psychiatrist's visit to his father. He had no means of knowing how all
this fitted together, but he had heard the man of bronze had his own
methods of working.

"You were called to talk with dad," said Jim Stevens. "I shall see
that Miss--Holcomb is returned safely."

He bowed and handed the cane to Pat. Doctor Madren rubbed his pudgy
hands. His round mouth smiled, but his eyes were like frozen blue
agates.

"Very well," he said. "I can only apologize for bringing Miss Holcomb
to your house."

Jim Stevens said, "Come on, Miss Holcomb, I will take you in my car."

As the speedy roadster swung into the driveway, Pat spoke.

"I have you to thank, Mr. Stevens, for rescuing me from an awkward
position. I'm sorry I can't explain more, even to you."

Jim Stevens smiled and glanced at her. But his voice was very serious.

"You do not have to explain, Miss Holcomb." He put emphasis on the
name. Pat let that ride. "Perhaps you should know this illness of
dad's isn't all that is happening. A week ago, a new gardener nearly
killed another man at our place. I had him discharged. And his mental
condition was exactly the same as dad's. In the city, they are talking
about two other similar cases. In one case, a shoe shiner killed a
friend under an elevated train."

Pat shivered. And she had found Ham's sword alongside the man with his
throat fatally slashed. She wanted to explain more to the friendly
young millionaire. But she felt she must keep her secret.

Jim Stevens's next words made her glad she had so decided.

"I don't know what's happened," he said, "but Doctor Madren is one of
these very respectable citizens, and most conservative. It would be no
surprise if he informed the State Police as soon as possible about
that sword cane. Without asking more, I would advise you to get rid of
it until there can be an explanation."

"Thanks," said Pat, faintly. "You are kind. Now I shall walk into the
cottage from the highway here."

She left the car against his protest and started over the dark hill.
If she had not been so disturbed, she might have known Jim Stevens was
following to see her safely to the cottage.

Jim Stevens was guided by Pat's flashlight. When she entered the
kitchen of Monk's cottage, he was not far behind. The young man made
his way cautiously to a window.

Pat had thrown off her coat. The amazing young woman then put aside
the clumsy superfirer.

Pat next took a metal polish and scrubbed the blade of Ham's sword
thoroughly. As she did this, she kept glancing furtively at an inner
door. She had the appearance of seeking to avoid having others in the
house know she had returned.

A dead duck lay on the floor. Jim Stevens let out a breathless gasp.
If anything happened, now there would be no doubt but that the sword
might have been used to cut off the head of a duck.

For Pat was squeezing blood from the dead duck's neck. With this, she
again stained the steel blade. She restored the sword to the cane
sheath and set it conspicuously in a corner. When she turned so her
face showed toward the window, Pat was wearing a rather desperate
smile.

"Well, I'll be damned!" muttered Jim Stevens. "I wouldn't have thought
that possible!"



THOROUGHLY puzzled, Jim Stevens waited a few seconds. The inner door
opened. The waspish figure of Ham emerged. Jim Stevens had a new
shock. The lawyer only stared at Pat with cold, disinterested eyes. He
did not seem in the least curious as to where Pat had been.

Then Monk's ugly face came into the inner doorway. It had much less
expression than any of the ape family.

"Good grief!" said Jim Stevens. "Two of Doc's men, and they've been
hit by the same thing! I'm going to get in touch with Doc Savage
himself! This thing will get him next!"

The young millionaire hurried back around the hill toward the highway.
Coming in, he had followed Pat. Going out, he cut straight across the
brush-covered ground. He stepped squarely upon a soft and yielding
body. He saw a dead man with the throat cleanly slashed. It could have
been done by the blade of a sword.

Now, more than ever, he felt the need of Doc Savage to investigate
these mysterious happenings. And his mind might have been a bit
relieved if he had known that Doc was soon to be on the scene of these
odd happenings.



DOC SAVAGE was at the controls of one of his fastest monoplanes. He
had cut the time of his arrival over the Shinnecock Hills to less than
an hour after receiving Pat's message.

Doc rode under the rather low ceiling of fog. The monoplane motor was
of the latest type. Its propeller of special alloy and the motor
itself sounded scarcely a whisper more than a silenced car engine.
Though the plane was circling low under the fog, its presence could
hardly have been suspected by any one on the ground.

The man of bronze was acting upon a deduction of his own. Before he
sought the nearest possible landing field, he was surveying the
terrain in the vicinity of Monk's cottage. His monoplane carried no
lights.

But Doc was wearing a clumsy arrangement of huge goggles. These
projected like small condensed milk cans from his eyes. Under the
fuselage of the plane an invisible beam was flooding all of the
surface of the rolling hills below. It could not be seen with the
naked eye.

But through Doc's goggles the infra-red ray pierced the darkness. It
spread over a wide area as the plane banked and held in a tight
spiral. In the infra-red beam even the smallest objects were brought
out in sharpest detail.

There was no color except black and white. Because of this, each
detail was even clearer. And Doc had recently improved the infra-red
observing goggles with strong telescopic lenses. Through the window in
the bottom of the monoplane, it seemed as if the ground were only a
few yards away.



AS Doc arrived over the hills, a car had stopped on the highway. Doc
was watching Pat Savage and Jim Stevens as they alighted. He saw Pat
hurry to Monk's cottage. Also he was watching closely while Jim
Stevens was crouched beside the window of Monk's kitchen.

Doc was close down when Jim Stevens started back over the hill. Then
the man of bronze saw the young millionaire halt abruptly beside a
man's body on the ground. It was impossible to detect the nature of
the man's wound, but the man of bronze determined that the man was
dead.

Jim Stevens looked back toward the cottage where he had spied on Pat
Savage. The young man was using a small flashlight. He bent over and
picked up some small object from beside the corpse. Doc could not see
what this might be.

Now the man of bronze became aware of another man moving among the
bushes below Jim Stevens. He was an ungainly, loose-jointed man. He
was creeping up the hill with the furtiveness of a stalking cat. His
hands cradled a shotgun. Doc could not be sure, but it seemed as if
this man intended using the weapon.

The bronze man's eyes swept all of the surrounding territory. Though
he was one of the world's most expert pilots, there appeared no
possibility of setting the monoplane down in the vicinity without
crashing.

Doc acted quickly. He opened the cut-out silencer of the plane motor.
Instantly the staccato reverberations of the exploding cylinders
filled the hills with the blasting roar like a mighty machine gun
turned loose in the sky.

This had its effect. Jim Stevens sprang away from the body of the
murdered man with startled suddenness. At the same time, the shotgun
in the hands of the gaunt man exploded with both barrels. The charges
of shot must have whistled wide of their target. Or at least Jim
Stevens appeared to be unscathed.

The gaunt man broke into the open and started running back down the
hill. Doc smiled grimly. He closed his motor cut-out. It was as if the
monoplane had been blotted from the sky.



AT this instant, an automobile filled with men swept around a bend in
the concrete highway. This car skidded to a reckless stop directly
behind the roadster Jim Stevens had parked. Half a dozen men poured up
the hill.

Doc noted they were wearing the tight-legged uniforms of State
policemen. Two of these men leveled guns at Jim Stevens. The man of
bronze moved a small switch. A round microphone attachment suspended
from the roof of the plane started recording sound.

This was another of Doc's most recent devices. After considerable
experimenting, working with Major Thomas J. Roberts--"Long Tom"--his
electrical expert and one of his five aides, the man of bronze had
succeeded in making double use of the plane's ground detector. This
detector recorded distances from the earth or other solid objects by
vibration of the echoes of the plane's own motor when its cut-out was
open.

Now the recorder was picking up the voices of the men on the ground.
It seemed to Doc that these policemen moved somewhat mechanically, as
if there was a stiffness in their joints.

"Keep your hands in sight, buddy!" commanded a voice. "What the hell's
been going on up here in the hills?"

Jim Stevens had put up his hands. He could not well do otherwise. The
bronze man at the plane controls was watching him intently, at the
same time keeping the silenced monoplane banking lightly above the
group below.

Jim Stevens flicked one hand a little sidewise. It looked as if he had
rid himself of something he had been holding. Doc judged this to be
the small object he had picked up alongside the murdered man on the
hill. He was to discover later that this was a silver buckle torn from
one of Pat Savage's small slippers.

Two of the uniformed men went up to the body on the hill. Doc made
note that they did not seem to do much searching. They went directly
to the corpse. That was strange, he decided, if they had not been here
previously. And if they had been, they would have left some one on
guard.

The two men returned. A voice came from the microphone beside Doc.

"Maybe you'll tell us that guy up there bumped himself off!" grated
one of the uniformed men.

Jim Stevens must have said the first thing that came to his mind.

"I've been hunting ducks," he said, sarcastically.

"Smart guy, huh?" snapped a voice. "Well, you'll maybe be able to tell
it to the inspector over at Riverhead! Get in, buddy!"



DOC SAVAGE'S plane was not equipped with a machine gun. The man of
bronze never carried a pistol on his own person. He believed the
possessor of that kind of a weapon came to depend upon it more than
upon his own wits and strength.

But there was a superfirer pistol in one of the many compartments. Doc
dived toward the ground. One of the uniformed men caught a glimpse of
the swooping, silent plane. It looked to him like a great silver bat
coming out of the fog. He whooped loudly.

"Look out! There's a guy upstairs! Let 'im have it!"

The bronze man now was sure these were not State policemen. A
fusillade of pistol shots peppered the undercarriage and the
bulletproof fuselage. Doc's hand whipped from the window beside the
controls.

The air became filled with the humming of a million vicious
bumblebees. A couple of the men staggered and sat down. They were
instantly asleep. The mercy bullets from the superfirer missed the
others.

One man's fist lashed out. Its impact nearly dislocated Jim Stevens's
jaw.

The two wounded men and the young millionaire were pushed into the
car. It roared away down the highway. Still using the infra-red beam,
Doc started to trail the auto. Then he banked abruptly.

Pat Savage had come running over the ridge of the hill near where the
murdered man still lay. Apparently, she had heard the shooting and the
brief roaring of Doc's motor. Doc again saw the gaunt man who had been
stalking Jim Stevens, and who had shot at him. The gaunt man had
regained his shotgun.

Doc set the controls and slanted the nose of the plane at a dangerous
angle. Pat was running directly toward the man with the shotgun. The
man appeared to be reloading the weapon.

The bronze man's superfirer stopped him with a stream of the mercy
bullets.

Pat halted, staring upward at the humming sound of the machine pistol.
The gaunt man had miraculously escaped the mercy bullets, though they
had crackled all around him. But he started running back down the
hill.

Doc turned on the plane's loudspeaker device. Through this, his voice
could be heard clearly. It could have been detected if the plane had
been a mile high.

"Go back to the cottage, Pat," instructed Doc's voice. "I'll be there
as quickly as possible. Look out for an attack. There is a man
watching you."

The monoplane hummed away into the fog. Though he followed the highway
for a couple of miles, the car carrying Jim Stevens had disappeared.
Doc judged it must have been concealed somewhere in the trees.



THE man of bronze circled at a low altitude, seeking the nearest
possible landing space. A beach nearly two miles from Monk's cottage
offered the only available space.

As Doc brought the plane down, he turned on the radio broadcaster-and-
speaker. This was operated on a special short wave. Its broadcasts
were scrambled. They were intelligible only to his own companions. If
picked up by any other radio, they would have sounded like the
meaningless jabbering of idiots.

"We are on our way!" boomed a deep voice. "We will arrive at Monk's
cottage in a few minutes!"

The voice was that of Colonel John Renwick. He was known as "Renny."
An engineer recognized among the world's foremost, Renny was a giant
in size. Long ago, he had elected to share Doc Savage's adventures.
With him now, in a car speeding from Riverhead only a few miles away,
were two other lesser figures.

One was a lengthy skeleton of a man. He had a lean, scholarly face.
When he spoke, he could only have been understood by some one who knew
all the words in the dictionary. He was William Harper Littlejohn,
geologist and archaeologist. Known as "Johnny," he, too, was one of
Doc Savage's five aides.

The other man looked decidedly unhealthy. He was a pint-size man. It
looked as if a violent blow would have killed him. Many had made the
mistake of thinking so. For Long Tom, the electrical wizard, was tough
enough for two or three average men in a fight.

These three men had been summoned by Doc immediately after he had
received Pat's message. They had been attending the sessions of a
group of scientists at the Museum of Early American History at the
town of Riverhead, not far from Monk's cottage. This was so named
because it was at the head of Great Peconic Bay. The three aides had
been staying in the town overnight.

On receiving Renny's assurance, Doc instructed, "Leave your car on the
highway and await my arrival before going to Monk's house. It might be
best to conceal yourselves. I fear we are opposed by enemies possessed
of an evil force of mysterious origin."

As the car containing the three men approached the middle of the
Shinnecock Hills, Doc Savage was on his way from the beach. The man of
bronze gave no attention to the highways. He was crossing the woods,
fields and hills with the direct instinct of a jungle-trained mind and
body.

The covering of a few miles would be only a matter of short minutes.
But he was to be too late to avert the disaster already hovering over
the car carrying his three companions.



Chapter IX. THE RED-HEADED MAN

"HERE seems to be the locale where the convolutions of the topography
formulate a seriatim," drawled the voice of Johnny from the rear seat
of the automobile.

"Holy cow!" boomed Renny. "I didn't hit it, did I?"

"Johnny means," said Long Tom, "we have arrived in the Shinnecock
Hills. And Doc said for us to get off the highway and wait for him."

The headlight beams knifed around a sharp curve. They picked out the
bushes above a ditch. Johnny seemed instantly to forget his long
words.

"Hold it, Renny! I saw a man's face! Up there in the bushes!"

Renny skidded the sedan disconcertingly close to the ditch. He was
disengaging himself from under the wheel.

"Where? How far back?"

"Go easy," warned Johnny. "It might be a trap. It looked as if the man
was lying down."

Johnny was correct. The man was in a recumbent position. He was red-
headed. The man had been sleeping peacefully for some time. He was the
redhead who had gotten a dose of several mercy bullets from Pat
Savage's pistol before she had gone to Southampton.

"It would be best to move him away from here into the trees and park
the car without lights," suggested Long Tom. He had been examining the
body. "We'll have to watch our step. This fellow has been spattered
with some of Doc's bullets. That means Monk must have been in
trouble."

Long Tom was pulling small objects from the red-headed man's pockets.
Johnny joined him.

With Long Tom, he was inspecting the contents of the senseless man's
pockets. Then the two of them picked the man up and carried him
farther back into the bushes. Renny ran the sedan off the road and
turned off the lights. He followed the others.

Renny said, "Maybe we should turn on the radio, so Doc can find us. I
wonder why he didn't want us to go to Monk's cottage?"

Bony Johnny's multi-syllabled words seemed to have left him
permanently.

"Why would Doc be looking for us?" he said, suddenly. "Is Doc
somewhere out here? This is a funny place for him to be. He does get
strange notions sometimes."

Long Tom was looking at the red-headed man on the ground. Before Renny
could speak, Long Tom said, "I don't see any good reason to be lugging
a dead man around. Nobody wants a corpse. He won't be of any use to
any one."

"Holy cow!" gasped Renny. "You fellas gone nuts? Is Doc around? What
do you suppose we're doing here? That man isn't dead! He's only been
plastered with mercy bullets! Doc'll bring him around!"

"No one can ever bring a dead man to life," announced Johnny,
solemnly. "I wish it were morning. I'd like to have a look at some of
the rock formations around here. There might be something
interesting."

"Well, it is kind of cold," replied Long Tom. "That's our car over
there. What do you say we get back in out of this fog?"



RENNY sucked in a long deep breath.

"Sa-ay, you fellas! Cut out the monkeyin'! This isn't any time for
kiddin'!"

Renny pulled out his flashlight. The beam played into his companions'
faces. Very few things had ever shaken the nerve of the big engineer.
But he stepped back with a deep breath.

"Hey!" he rapped. "What's happened to you two?"

His voice was flat. Both Long Tom and Johnny were looking at Renny as
if he didn't exist. The engineer's big body was shaking.

"Listen," said Renny. "Take this light. I'm packin' this man farther
away from the road."

Long Tom took the flashlight without a word. With Johnny, he followed
Renny. The engineer had shouldered the unconscious man as if he were a
mere child. Renny went up the hill for a short distance.

Suddenly Renny dropped the limp body. He jumped to one side.

"Look out!" he warned. "Turn off that light!"

Long Tom did not turn off the flashlight. He stood with it in such a
manner that all three were plainly revealed. A tall, gaunt man stepped
out of the bushes. The mean-looking holes of a double-barreled shotgun
covered the three men.

"Reckon you fellers hain't goin' no further with that thar dead man,"
said the man with the shotgun. "Thar's been too dang much killin' an'
trespassin' on private prop'ity goin' on around here. Now git out!"

Renny was a huge man. But he was light as a cat on his feet. He sprang
directly at the gaunt man. The shotgun exploded. Renny was saved, only
because he was wearing the finely meshed garments of a bulletproof
vest.



TWO charges of shot spattered the engineer. He was so close to the gun
that the force of the blast staggered him as if he had been struck a
heavy blow.

As he recovered himself and started in a long leap toward the gaunt
man, Renny realized in amazement that neither Johnny nor Long Tom had
moved.

But this startling lack of action by the others did not stop his huge
fist swinging. That bunch of knuckles could split an inch plank. The
fist was a terrific, bone-breaking weapon.

But the gaunt man's head seemed to be made of a new kind of bone. He
went down under the blow, but he was not out. As he fell, the man
whipped out a long, mean-looking knife. If Renny had had time to look
closely, he would have seen the weapon already was stained with blood.

Renny was given no time for such an inspection. The gaunt man snapped
the knife into the air from the ball of a leathery thumb. The blade
sank into the flesh of Renny's forearm and the point grated on bone.

Not until then did Renny's companions get into action. By some curious
reflex, Johnny seemed to get the idea he should do something. His
superfiring pistol burred out a short blast. The gaunt man rolled over
and lay still.

Renny groaned and pulled the knife from his arm. Johnny stood holding
the superfirer as if he didn't know he had used it.

The space around them was suddenly filled with an exotic trilling
sound. It vibrated across the hill. It was not a whistle. More like
the clear call of some tropical bird. It was musical, but it had no
special melody. It was the unconscious sound Doc Savage made in times
of stress. Doc had reached the scene.

He had paused for a few seconds beside the murdered man on the hill.
He had observed the slashed throat. Then he had seen the flashlight
held by Johnny and heard the whoom of the shotgun.

The mercy bullets had taken effect on the gaunt man before Doc could
reach the scene. Doc's flaky gold eyes measured everything instantly.

"You should have waited," he advised. "What has happened? Let me see
the knife, Renny. Put some of this on the wound."

Doc took the knife. He gave Renny a small bottle of liquid. The big
engineer made a wry grimace, but poured the chemical on the gushing
wound. The blood immediately ceased to flow.

"I'll fix that up a little later," said Doc. "Here, what is this?"

He was examining the knife taken from Renny's arm. The fresh blood was
wiped off. Under it, on the blade, the stain of other blood had dried.
The man of bronze realized instantly the knife was such a weapon as
might have slit the throat of the corpse farther up the hill.



DOC SAVAGE was deliberately pretending to devote all of his attention
to the knife. But he was closely studying the faces of Long Tom and
Johnny. The fishy coldness of their eyes had told him instantly of
their condition.

In the few minutes he had been coming from the plane on the beach, the
mysterious paralyzer of all emotions had struck again.

But how? Doc turned to Renny.

"You seem all right," he said. "How do you explain it?"

"Holy cow, Doc! I don't know! We found this red-headed man and I
brought him up here. This other fellow tried to cut me in two with a
shotgun! Then he threw the knife!"

Doc wasted no time. This was hardly the place to tarry. In some manner
with Renny present but escaping, two more of Doc's men had been
rendered emotionally inert. Johnny and Long Tom evinced no interest in
either Renny's worried excitement or Doc's questioning appraisal of
their appearance.

"You take the red-headed one," Doc instructed Renny. "I'll bring this
other man. We must get to Monk's cottage without further delay.
Perhaps these men will be ready to talk when they wake up."

Though he was carrying the heavy gaunt man, Doc paused beside the man
whose throat had been cut. He quickly obtained a specimen of the dead
man's dried blood. With this and the knife, it was possible to
discover the killer.



FEET pattered among the rocks. Pat Savage's flushed face appeared from
the bushes.

"Oh, Doc!" she gasped. "I had to get to you as soon as possible! It's
Ham and Monk! They--"

Pat bit off her words with the clenching of her even teeth in her
lower lip. Her golden eyes, much like those of Doc Savage, were wide
with dismay. She was staring at Long Tom and Johnny. Renny was playing
a flashlight which illumined the pallid faces of the electrical expert
and the geologist.

"Oh!" breathed Pat, stepping close to Doc. "They're like them! What is
it, Doc? I seem to feel a menace in these hills! Something unknown!
But I guess I only imagine it!"

"Perhaps there is something in these hills," stated Doc. "But not in
these hills alone. It seems to have been in the city before that."

"Doc, I came to tell you something else," whispered Pat. "It's about
that gaunt man there. I believe he is John Scroggins, the owner of the
duck farm down the hill. Monk had trouble with him. At first, I
thought this dead man was him. Now I know he isn't."

"What about this duck man?" said Doc.

"Why, when you drove him off with your mercy bullets from the plane,
he ran back down the hill," said Pat. "I started back, but I went past
the duck pond. This John Scroggins had a lantern. He had waded into
the pond, and while I watched he killed a couple of ducks by wringing
off their heads."

"Stopped to kill two ducks, Pat? That's strange."

Doc was gazing at the inert, gaunt figure of the homely duck man.

"Yes," said Pat, "it seemed strange to me, so I hid and watched. Doc,
he put something in those ducks after he had pulled off their feathers
and cleaned them. The ducks are in a little cooling house on a brook
near his house."

"I'll be back in a few minutes," said Doc, quickly. "Keep all the
flashlights off. Don't move from here. Renny, you keep a close watch
and don't let any one approach. Start shooting at once if you hear any
one."



DOC seemed to arrive at the duckpond like a shadow drifting down the
hill. He employed no flashlight here. His vision was like that of a
jungle cat in the darkness.

Feeble light from an old oil lantern filtered from the open door of
the duck man's rambling shack. This showed a boxlike house built in
the cold water of the running brook. Doc found the door of this cooler
fastened only with a rusty latch.

Inside, the bronze man played a pencil light around. The luminance
sprayed over two dozen or more dressed ducks. These were suspended
close above the cold water. Doc touched each of the dead birds
quickly.

He came to a pair that were still warm. Their bodies had not had time
to chill. Doc slit them open. In a few seconds, the interior of the
cooling house was filled with the weird trilling. Six knobby bits of
what might have been dirty melted glass lay in one bronze hand. These
did not reflect the light very much.

A small vial of chemical came from one of Doc's innumerable pockets.
His clothes were filled with small compartments. From this vial poured
a liquid of an amber color. Drops of it fell upon the bits of apparent
glass.

Each of the objects was the size of the ball of Doc's thumb. And the
bronze man's thumbs were of more than the average size. The whirlwinds
in Doc's flaky gold eyes stirred rapidly. Here was perhaps the first
definite lead to the motive for the emotional inertia, the plague that
had overtaken his own men and other persons and made their brains seem
to lack initiative.

For these bits of seemingly melted glass were huge diamonds. They were
wholly unpolished and uncut.

At this moment, there seemed no doubt but that the diamonds were some
of those stolen from the safe of Harris Hooper Perrin, the lapidary.

Doc glided to the door of the duck man's shack. One glance within
indicated that a thorough search of the place would require some time.
Continued silence on the hillside above made it evident Pat, Renny and
the others probably would be safe for considerable time, as long as
they remained in darkness.

The man of bronze had placed the enormous unpolished diamonds in an
inner pocket. It appeared this belligerent duck man, John Scroggins,
had sufficient reason to use his ready shotgun upon any trespassers.

John Scroggins might not be as uncouth as he acted. The duck farm
itself must be a blind for other operations. If this were true, then
other persons must be somewhere in the vicinity.

As this thought came to him, Doc kicked off his flashlight and froze
to immobile attention. There had been a furtive, scratching movement
in the rear of the duck man's shack. Some person had been spying.

He now was attempting to depart unseen.



Chapter X. STRANGE RECOVERY

TREES with reaching, gnarled limbs grew thickly above the duck pond.
Under these, the blackness was of opaque quality. Moving feet were
treading softly. Few men in the world could have heard them slithering
along the mushy ground.

Doc Savage rounded the duck man's shack. At the rear, he did not
follow the fleeing spy directly. Instead, the bronze man leaped to the
overhanging branch of a tree. His big hands grasped this lightly. From
this extended limb, Doc swung to another.

His progress through the trees was faster than that of the man on the
ground. Doc could hear the man ahead of him pause. He must have been
looking back, listening. Perhaps the spy judged he had not been heard,
for he moved more slowly.

From a height of about a dozen feet, Doc dropped toward the ground.
Then the man who had been slipping away let out a squawk. But he made
but little resistance. Doc's weight had struck him between the
shoulders. Had the bronze man not accurately measured the distance,
the man would have been crushed.

As it was, the man's face was buried for a few seconds in the mushy
ground. When Doc rolled him over and pulled him to his feet, the spy
could hardly stand. The bronze man's pencil light probed the man's
features.

The protruding eyes of Harris Hooper Perrin were bulging out at him.
The lapidary no longer was cloaked by the calmness of the lack of
emotions with which he had apparently been suffering when Doc had last
seen him.



"DOC SAVAGE!" gasped Perrin. "I thought it was--was some one else! I'm
glad it's you!"

Doc believed the little lapidary to be lying. It was hardly possible
Perrin had not seen him clearly in the light of the lantern at the
door of the duck man's shack. There was no evidence now of Perrin's
former abnormal condition. He was twisting violently at the abused
lock of tough hair on his partly bald head.

"You will have opportunity to explain your presence here," said Doc.
"Where there has been a murder, any one might be suspected."

This brought an instant agony of apprehension to the contorted face of
the lapidary.

"Murder?" he gurgled. "What murder? I was only--I got a tip my jewels
might be somewhere around here. There was a call on the telephone
about the Shinnecock Hills, so I came straight here from Manhattan."

"The message must have been explicit as to where you were to come,"
stated Doc, quietly. "You are sure then you had heard nothing of the
murder?"

Perrin chewed wildly at a finger nail for a few seconds.

"I guess I might as well tell the truth," he said. "The call I
received told me to come to the farm owned by a John Scroggins. That's
why I'm here. Then I heard some one prowling around, and I hid to see
what was happening. I didn't know it was you until you dropped out of
the tree on top of me."

Doc's belief was divided. So he only nodded as if this might be true
and said nothing. Had the nervous lapidary been only feigning the
emotionless condition previously, or had he really been affected and
then recovered because of some antidote?

The man of bronze divined instantly that Perrin's nerves could not
have been controlled by himself to the extent of becoming coldly calm.
Perhaps he had used a drug, or some other person had put him under
hypnotic influence. Perrin might become the key to a cure for the
others.

As for the uncut diamonds, perhaps there would be other robberies. The
force to create the frozen brain would strike again, perhaps.

But this did not explain the other cases. Or did it?

Some persons or group stood to make an enormous profit from the
unexplained sale of the Domyn Islands by Simon Stevens. Still, this
left unexplained the case of Smiling Tony Talliano, the humble shoe
shiner.

Doc Savage revolved new theories quickly in his mind.

"You will accompany me, Perrin," he stated. "There are many things to
be explained. At least, you should be informed of some of them. Of
course, you have not found your stolen jewels."

"But why should I go with you?" protested Perrin. "Perhaps I should
have brought some one with me, when I got the tip. But I was told to
come alone. I know nothing of any murder, if there was one."



DOC was not given opportunity to reply to this. Upon the hill where he
had left Renny and the others, one of the superfirers started blasting
into the night. The man of bronze made a quick decision.

One hand whipped out. Perrin writhed under a grip of thumb and fingers
at the back of his neck. But he did not cry out. Instead, his head
drooped. He ceased being nervous. His body slumped to the ground in an
inert heap.

Doc had applied pressure to one of the nerve centers at the base of
the brain. Perrin should be unconscious for considerable time.

After that single blast from the superfirer, there had come no other
shooting from the hill. The silence was ominous.

Doc was forced to circle the two-acre duck pond. Gliding through the
bushes, he first heard the low voice of Pat. She seemed to be sobbing
almost breathlessly.

Pat Savage was only partly conscious. She was attempting to extricate
herself from a tangle of bushes. Doc got her to her feet. His
flashlight showed Renny stretched on the ground. The giant engineer
seemed for a moment to be dead, but Doc ascertained he was breathing.

The senseless bodies of John Scroggins and the red-headed man lay
where they had been placed.

But Johnny and Long Tom had disappeared. Pat was first to recover her
speech. She had a nasty bruise across her forehead.

"Everything was quiet," she said. "Then several men seemed to spring
out of the ground. Something struck me across the head. As I fell, I
heard Renny shooting. Then I must have passed out."

Doc produced a small projector box. The light ray coming from this was
invisible. But as it was swung around, there was a bluish glow arising
in spots. These were about as far apart as the average stride of a
man.

There were two sets of these phosphorescent marks. They were from the
heels of Long Tom's and Johnny's shoes. These heels were of spongy
rubber. They had been impregnated with a chemical devised by Doc. It
was one of several substances that fluoresced under the ultra-violet
ray, or "black light."

The man of bronze trailed them swiftly through the bushes.

Suddenly the trail of fluorescing heels vanished. The reason for this
was simple. Two pairs of shoes lay on the ground. Johnny and Long Tom
probably had been forced to remove them.

But Doc was immediately aroused to a new and greater danger. The
mysterious forces opposing them must be very familiar with many of Doc
Savage's defensive devices. Otherwise, the attackers would not have
known about the chemical trail.

Renny had been struck over the head. His superfirer had been knocked
from his hand. He could repeat only what Pat had already told Doc.

The man of bronze for a moment could not understand why John Scroggins
and the red-headed man had not been removed. Then he saw their bodies
had been well concealed from the point of attack. Pat, Renny, Long Tom
and Johnny had been some distance away from the unconscious men when
they were overcome.

"Hide yourselves and wait!" Doc commanded. "I'll be back in a few
minutes!"



WITH almost unbelievable speed, Doc returned to the place where Harris
Hooper Perrin had been sleeping peacefully. The lapidary was no longer
there. Several men had trampled about the spot.

Doc did not delay to attempt trailing these men. He saw they were not
in the vicinity of the duck man's shack. The importance of getting
direct information, and of protecting the others, became apparent.

Back on the hill, Doc Savage picked up the limp figure of John
Scroggins. Renny carried the red-headed man.

As they started back to Monk's cottage, a muffled explosion shook the
ground. Instantly, flames shot high into the sky at the top of the
hill. The blaze revealed the stark outlines of the deserted house. It
looked as if the whole side of the structure had been blasted out. All
of the building seemed to be flaming.

Renny paused.

"We will go on," advised Doc. "I believe that to be a ruse to draw us
up there. It is possible we may quickly learn the truth from these
men."

They proceeded swiftly to Monk's cottage.

"Why, hello, Doc," was Monk's greeting. "I'll have to call my
housekeeper, only I can't remember her name. I'll bet you're hungry?
But all we have to eat is duck."

Ham sat in a chair and stared at the others. His keen lawyer's brain
might have been groping to make sense of all this, but it was not
betrayed by his cold eyes.

"That's the way they came back from the duck pond," explained Pat. "I
don't want to believe it, but it looks as if Ham killed the man on the
hills. A Doctor Madren took me to the house of Simon Stevens."

Doc's flaky gold eyes merely flickered.

"What happened there?"

Pat related it briefly. She told of Jim Stevens bringing her back to
the cottage.

"And then I cleaned off Ham's sword and put duck blood on it,"
finished Pat. "It was the only thing I could think of, after Doctor
Madren and Jim Stevens had seen the stained blade. Was that the right
thing to do, Doc?"

"You would do what you think is right," said Doc, dryly. "And this
young man, Jim Stevens, watched you do it. Then he wouldn't talk to
save himself when he thought State police were arresting him for the
murder. Jim Stevens seems to be a very loyal young man, Pat."

"Oh, they got him?" gasped Pat. "And he saw me clean the sword? Doc,
you've just got to find Jim Stevens! If they weren't State police, how
would they have known about the killing?"

"We will have to take everything in order," advised Doc. "We must find
Jim Stevens, also Long Tom and Johnny. There seem to be a great many
angles to be followed. First we must see if this red-headed man can
talk. Running around in the darkness will get us nowhere."



THE red-headed young man opened his eyes. A hypodermic syringe in
Doc's hand had almost instantly overcome the effects of the mercy
bullets fired by Pat. Doc left John Scroggins temporarily senseless.

Doc's flaky gold eyes were looking into the orbs of the red-headed man
in less than two minutes after their arrival at the cottage. The red-
headed man seemed to be in a daze. His eyes betrayed little life.

"Here, drink this," ordered Doc.

The red-headed man made no protest. He gulped down a small glass of
wine. Into this Doc placed part of the contents of a small vial. This
was the bronze man's own truth serum. This serum was not wholly
effective of itself.

But the chemical created lessened resistance. Those numbed by its
action usually became easy subjects for Doc's hypnotic eyes. Before
they recovered, they nearly always told all that the bronze man wanted
to know.

Doc's was looking steadily at the redhead. The man's eyes did not
waver. Undoubtedly, he could see the compelling whirlwinds that
stirred in the flaky gold orbs. But