'Don’tcha see what havin’ such a thing as this Smoke of Eternity means?' Squint snarled. 'It means we can walk right into any bank vault in town and take what we want. And listen, you apes! I ain’t crazy — and I ain’t lyin’!'
At this point, a newsboy’s shout penetrated faintly to the room. The news hawker was crying his papers to the crowd of curious in front of the house.
'Body of famous chemist vanishes!' he was screaming. 'Mystery baffles police!'
Squint laughed nastily. He leveled an arm at one of his listeners.
'Go buy a paper from that kid!'
The man left obediently. In a moment he was back with a pink tabloid newspaper.
Emblazoned in black scare-type was the story of the finding of Jerome Coffern’s right hand and forearm on the grounds of the Mammoth Manufacturing Company plant in New Jersey.
'I guess you’ll believe me now!' Squint sneered. 'I used some of the Smoke of Eternity on old Jerome Coffern. It dissolved all of his body but the hand. Probably the hand didn’t go because there wasn’t quite enough of the stuff.'
The expression on the evil faces surrounding Squint showed the thugs had changed their minds. They no longer thought Squint was lying or crazy.
'Why’d you rub out this Jerome Coffern?' one villain asked.
'Kar ordered it,' said Squint. 'Kar told me why, too. Kar believes in lettin’ his men know why everything is done. The only thing Kar don’t tell is who he is. Nobody knows that. Kar had Jerome Coffern killed because Coffern was the only man alive who might tell the police who Kar is.'
'Jerome Coffern knew Kar, huh?' muttered a man.
'He must have.' Squint fired another cigarette. 'Now, I already got orders for you mugs. A shipment of gold money is goin’ to Chicago tomorrow. Some banks out in Chi are hard up and need the jack. There’s about two million dollars’ worth goin’. A hundred miles out of New York, we jerk up the tracks. We use this Smoke of Eternity to wipe out the bullion guards and get into the armored express car. And out of that two million, each of you guys gets paid your fifty thousand. The rest of the gold coin goes into Kar’s workin’ fund.'
A gasp of evil pleasure swept the group. Mean eyes glittered greedily.
Although Squint had proclaimed that Kar was letting them in on a great deal, they actually knew nothing but the existence of the Smoke of Eternity and the fact they were to rob a gold train.
Who Kar was — they had no idea. Should these men fall into the clutches of the law, they could help the police little even if they told all they knew. True, the gold robbery would be thwarted. But the master villain would still be free.
A FAINT buzz came from the secret phone. Squint hurried to the instrument. He received more orders from Kar. His thin, repulsive face was worried as he hung up and closed the hidden panel.
'Damn!' he groaned. 'Kar has another job for us to do before the gold train thing!'
The others stared at Squint. They could see he was frightened.
'That big bronze devil who gimme such a lot of trouble!' Squint muttered. 'Kar says we gotta get him like we did Jerome Coffern! The bronze devil’s name is Doc Savage. Kar is plenty mad because I let Doc Savage get on my trail. He says it’s the worst thing that coulda happened.'
'One guy can’t give us much trouble!' sneered the thicknecked thug.
'You wouldn’t be so cocky if you’d seen this bronze man work!' Squint whined. 'He ain’t human! He moves quieker’n a tiger! He popped off my four pals just like you was snappin’ your fingers.'
'Baloney!' snorted the burly one. 'Lead me to ‘im! I ain’t never seen the man I couldn’t lick.'
Squint passed a hand over his forehead.
'Beat it, all of you,' he directed. 'Go to wherever you live an’ stay there. Kar knows where to get hold of each of you. I told him. Wait for orders from him, or from me.'
As they started leaving, Squint added an afterthought.
'Remember, Kar has got guys besides you an’ me workin’ for him. I dunno myself who they are. But he’s got more. And if one of you squawks to the cops, he’s sure to be bumped off.'
Then the villainous assemblage melted away. None of them would squeal.
Squint remained behind. When left alone, he went to the secret phone.
'I carried out your orders, boss,' he told Kar.
Suddenly there impinged upon the ears of Squint a weird, soft, trilling sound, like the song of a mysterious jungle bird. It was a note without equal anywhere else in the universe, melodious, but possessing no definite tune. It had a unique quality of emanating from everywhere, as though the very air in the shabby room was giving birth to it.
The trilling sound struck terror into Squint’s evil soul. He whirled, not knowing what he would see.
An awful scream tore through his teeth.
For the rickety window had lifted noiselessly. Equally without sound, the shabby curtain had moved aside.
There, poised like some huge bronze bird of vengeance upon the window sill, was Squint’s doom.
'Doc Savage!' the rodent of a man wailed. Convulsively, Squint clutched for the revolver he had secured aboard the pirate ship.
Doc’s powerful bronze hands seized a table. The table drove across the room as though impelled from a cannon mouth.
Striking Squint squarely, it smashed his worthless life out against the wall. The man’s body fell to the floor amid the table wreckage.
Doc Savage glided to the secret phone. The receiver came to his ear. He listened.
From his lips wafted the weird trilling sound that was part of Doc — the tiny, unconscious thing which he did in moments of absolute concentration. The strange note seemed to saturate and set singing all the air in the room.
Over that secret phone line cracked what sounded like a gulp of terror and rage. Then the receiver banged up at the other end.
It would probably be a long time before the evil Kar forgot that eerie, trilling sound! It was a thing to haunt the slumber hours!
Chapter 5.. JEROME COFFERN’S FRIEND
DOC SAVAGE replaced the receiver of the secret phone. He closed the hidden panel. Silently, he quitted the room as he had entered — through the window. He made his way to the street.
The crowd had thinned. Squint’s scream had not been heard. Doc did not go near his roadster, although his sharp eyes detected no sign of Kar’s men watching the machine.
Doc strode eastward. He reached the edge of Central Park — that rectangle of beautiful lawns and shrubbery two and a half miles long and half a mile wide which is New York’s breathing place. Neat apartment buildings towered along the park.
An old woman held out, hopefully, a bundle of the late newspapers. She was almost blind. Her clothing was shabby. She looked hungry. Doc stopped and took one of the papers.
He looked at the old woman’s eyes. His expert diagnosis told him their ailment could be cured by a few great specialists. He wrote a name and address on a corner of the paper, added his own name, and tore this off and gave it to the crone. The name was that of a specialist who could cure her ailment, but whose fee was a small fortune. But at sight of Doc’s name scrawled on the note, the specialist would gladly cure the woman for nothing.
Doc added a bill he took from a pocket. For a long time after he had gone, the old, nearly blind woman stared at the bill, holding it almost against her eyes. Then she burst into tears. It was more money than she had ever expected to see.
