CHAPTER VIII
_The Mute Plungers_
It would be difficult to comprehend the nervous strain under whichManhattan had been laboring during the past thirty-six hours. Thestory of the kidnaping of Harold Hervey had not been given to thenewspapers, for an excellent reason. If Hervey's financial enemiesknew of his kidnaping and death they would hammer away at his stocksuntil they fell to nothing and his family, accustomed to fabulouswealth, would have been reduced to beggary.
The Mind Master himself, up to a late hour, had given no word to thenewspapers in his "manifestoes." The Hervey family held its breathfearing that he would--for the newspapers would have played the storyfor all the sensationalism it would carry. Bentley, when this matterwas called to his attention, wondered. Barter had kept his own counselfor a purpose, but what was it? There was no way of asking him.
The story of the mad race down Broadway in pursuit of the limousinewhich had returned the lifeless body of Hervey to his residence hadbeen a sensational one, and the tabloids had given it their besttreatment. The chauffeur who had crawled out like a monkey atop hiscareening car, to lose his life when catapulted into the entrance tothe Twenty-third Street subway station: the three policemen whoselives had been lost because the chauffeur hadn't stopped as they hadexpected him to, the kidnaping of Saret Balisle by a great ape hadn'tyet broken as a story, nor the murder of Balisle's chauffeur.
But everybody knew something of the story of the naked man of the daybefore. Many were the speculations as to what had ripped and torn hisflesh from his body, along with his clothes. What manner of claws hadit been which had sliced him in scores of places as though with manyrazors?
Men and women walked the streets apprehensively, and many of themturned at intervals to look behind them. No telling what they would dowhen the story of Balisle's kidnaping by an anthropoid ape and aqueer mute chauffeur got abroad. To top it all the police pursuerslost the Balisle limousine and Saret Balisle had taken his place amongthe lost.
- - -
Bentley knew as soon as the disgruntled and rather frightened policeofficers returned to the Clinton Building with the news that Balislehad got away from them in the stolen Balisle car, that already theill-fated young man was probably under the anesthetic which CalebBarter used on his victims.
"Tyler, do you know a surgeon who can do any surgical job short ofbrain transplantation?"
"Yeah. There's a chap has offices in the Fifth Avenue Building. He'sprobably the very best in the racket. Maybe it's because of his name.It's Tyler."
"Some relative of yours?"
"Not much. He's just my dad--and one of the world's finest andcleverest."
"Will he listen to reason? Can he perform delicate operations?"
"He's my dad, Bentley, and he'd do almost anything I asked him so longas it was honest ... and he could switch the noses of a mosquito and ahumming bird so skillfully that the humming bird would go looking fora sleeping cop and the mosquito would start building a nest in atree."
"Get him here. No--has he an operating room where all sound can beshut out? I've got a hunch I'd like somehow to try and drop a screenaround us as we work. Maybe your dad would know what to do. You see,I'm positive that Barter sees everything we do and if he sees meturning into an ape he would just chuckle and pass up the trap."
"He's got a lead armored room where he keeps a bit of radium."
"That's it. Talk to him. No, not on the phone. You'll have tofigure out some way to do it so that you can be sure Barter isn'tlistening."
"I'll manage. I'll send him a note."
"Your messenger will be killed on the way to him."
"Then I'll go myself."
"And Barter will watch everybody that goes into his office or comesout, and mark down each person as possibly being connected with thepolice. However, you figure it out."
- - -
When Tyler had gone and the dead "ape" had been stretched out in onecorner of Balisle's office, and covered with something to cloak itshideousness, Bentley telephoned Ellen Estabrook.
"Have I been making any appointments with you this morning?" he askedher cheerily.
"Please don't jest when things are so terrible. Have you seen thelatest papers?"
"No. What do they say?"
"There's a lot of the story I'm thinking about. You'd better read itright away. It's an extra, anyhow. The newsies ought to be calling itaround you somewhere--and where are you, anyway?"
Bentley informed her, and told her, too, that he would be with her assoon as he possibly could. Taking the usual masculine advantage hedecided to tell her now what he wouldn't have had the heart to tellher to her face, that he was planning a rather desperate stunt toreach Barter, and would consequently be away from her for anindefinite period.
"But I'll see you first?" she said after a long hesitation. Bentleycould hear her voice tremble, though he knew she was fightingdesperately to keep him from noting the catch in her voice.
"Yes, nothing will happen until--well, not until I've seen youagain."
Just as Bentley hung up the receiver the extra was being cried. Sometwo hours had now elapsed since Balisle had been taken away, and nowthe newsboys were shouting the headlines.
"Extra! Extra! All about the big Wall Street crash! Hervey fortuneentirely swept away!"
- - -
Bentley sent an office boy out for the paper and spread it out on thedesk to digest it as quickly as possible.
"One million shares of Hervey Incorporated," read the black words in abox on the first page--a story in mourning, "were dumped on the marketat eleven o'clock this morning. Four men seem to have been behind thequeer coup. One of them had a power of attorney from Harold Herveyhimself, and he had the shares to sell. So many shares were dumpedthat the bottom fell out of the stock. Others holding the Herveyshares, fearful that they would get nothing at all, also began todump, and every share thus dumped was bought up quickly by three othermen about whom nobody knew anything, except that they paid with cash.The strangest thing about it all was that the three men who boughtHervey Incorporated, seemed to be dumb-mutes, for they didn't sayanything. They acted through a broker, and indicated their purchaseswith their fingers in the conventional manner and tendered cards asidentification! They were Harry Stanley, Clarence Morton, and WillardCleve--addresses unknown, history unknown.
"Nothing, in fact, is known about any of the three or the littlewhite-haired, apple-cheeked man who sold so heavily in HerveyIncorporated. That the three mutes did not buy the shares sold by thelittle white-haired man would seem to indicate that all four of themworked together ... but it is only a supposition as they were not seentogether and apparently did not know one another. But the three mutesconstantly ate walnuts. All four men, who among them knocked thebottom out of Wall Street, and wiped away the Hervey fortune, slippedout in the excitement inspired by their rapid buying and selling, andseemed to vanish into thin air."
Bentley didn't know much about the stock market, but it seemed to himthat Barter had managed a theft of mighty proportions. With a power ofattorney, which he had wrung from Hervey after his capture, he hadmanaged to possess himself of Hervey's shares. In themselves they wereworth millions. Even at a fraction of their price Barter would realizeheavily on them. Selling quickly he would force the price far down.Then his puppets--and Bentley had no doubt that Stanley, Morton andCleve were his puppets--bought all other shares offered by panickyinvestors in Hervey Incorporated at a tiny fraction of their value.Far less, naturally, than Barter had made by selling his loot.
The purchased shares Barter could hold for an increase. HerveyIncorporated was good and its price would go up again, and Barterwould sell and gain millions.
- - -
That is how Bentley saw it, and his lips drew into a firmer,straighter line as, half an hour later, he explained it all to Ellen.
"It's desperate, dear," he whispered in her ear. "Manhattan'sfinancial structure has been shaken to its f
oundations. But that isn'tall by any means. Barter has performed his horrible operation on twoof New York's most brilliant men. It was a Barter gesture to send'Harold Hervey' to capture Balisle, and the horror of it staggeredme."
"Lee," said Ellen, "understand this: that if I have no word from youwithin seventy-two, no, forty-eight hours after you get started onthis scheme you have in mind, I'm going to get through to Bartersomehow. If I put an ad in the paper and tell him where I'm to befound he'll surely make another attempt to take me in. If he'scaptured you, or uncovered the trap you're laying, then I'll at leastbe with you. If he kills you he kills me. If we can't live together wecan die together."
Bentley kissed her fervently, trying not to think what it would meanto him now if she were in the hands of Caleb Barter. Secretly heintended having Tyler keep her so closely guarded that she couldn'tpossibly do anything as foolish as she had suggested.
The late evening papers carried another manifesto of the Mind Masterto the effect that the remaining eighteen men named on the originallist were to be taken before noon of the next day.
Oddly enough eighteen kidnapings were reported from various places inManhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.
"So," thought Bentley, "he's afraid to send out normal apes to capturehis eighteen key men. Maybe his control over them is not perfect.That's it. I suppose--he needs human brains before he can exerciseperfect control. I suppose Stanley, Morton and Cleve did thekidnapings."
- - -
Late that night Bentley kissed Ellen good-by, told her to keep up hercourage, and repaired to the rendezvous arranged for by Thomas Tylerand his surgeon father. In the operating room was the cold body of theanthropoid that had successfully abducted Saret Balisle.
"Young man," said Dr. Tyler, "just what is it you want me to do? I'mnot asking for your reasons. Tommy tells me you know what you'redoing. I must say though, I don't believe that story of braintransplantation. No doctor would believe it for a minute."
Bentley looked at the dead ape.
"You'll take Tommy's word for it that that ape kidnaped Saret Balisleto-day and took him down the face of a building, sixteen stories tothe ground?"
"Of course. Tommy wouldn't string his father."
"Well, part of your surgical work to-night will make it necessary foryou to look at that creature's brain. You'll recognize a human brainin that ape's skull. After you've made that discovery, here's what Iwant you to do: I'll strip to the skin; then I want you to place theskin of that ape on me, so that from top to toes I am an ape. You'llhave to do the job so perfectly that I'll _be_ an ape--as soon as,under your watchful eye and Tom's, I have mastered all the apemannerisms the three of us can remember. Can you do it?"
Tyler senior shrugged.
He motioned his son and Bentley to help him lift the huge ape body tothe operating table, and under the glaring light above he set to workwith instruments which gleamed like molten silver, then became asullen red....