Then he's a shark. You'll find that out."

Tweed-suit was glaring at me. "We may have to do some inducting," he said.

NOW came a very touching scene. It had, also, a certain hideous note.

Because another man-and this man also I had seen during the previous day at different places, not at the time recognizing him as one of the thugs-came into the place. He brought with him Mr. Farrar.

Mr. Farrar entered with his hands held on a level with his shoulders. His face was pale. When he saw Lila, his features registered the bitterest sort of stunned emotion.

"Father!" Lila cried. "They-you-"

She didn't say that she had suspected her father of masterminding the affair, but you could see that she was now convinced differently, and revolted with the very idea that she could have had such a thought.

"Lila, darling," Farrar said softly. "I-I was hoping-they told me they had you prisoner-I was hoping they lied."

Lila sobbed for a few moments. Then she turned to me. "Henry," she said. "Henry, I'm sorry I hit you and took the suit. I did it because-well-I was foolish enough to believe my father was involved."

"I understand," I said. "You wished to aid him."

Farrar did not seem astonished. He told me, "This is not news. Lila accused me of such a thing earlier last night-before you and Savage and Mayfair returned the second time. That was why Lila was not there.

She had left in a rage, revolted with me."

I stared at Lila. "That's what you wanted to tell Savage when you telephoned?"

"Yes.""But why didn't you tell me, Lila, when we talked."

She said bitterly, "You just don't inspire confidence, Henry."

I was bitterly hurt. After all I had been through, I wasn't inspiring confidence. It was a nauseating development.

"I'm very distressed," I mumbled.

Tweed-suit asked dryly, "Are you distressed enough, Henry, to help us out with the gadget? You could put quite a few feathers in your nest while you're doing it."

"But what-what about Lila, Mr. Farrar and Dido Alstrong?" I asked uneasily.

"They'll be distressed, too," said tweed-suit. "And rather dead, I'm afraid."

"Oh! Oh, no-"

An utterly unexpected voice-not a stranger's voice, though-addressed us.

"Speaking of distress," it said. "I think now's as good a time as any to contribute some."

I believe I experienced an undreamed-of emotion: I believe I was glad to see the lout Monk Mayfair.

Chapter XII.

MAYFAIR'S voice was a little m.u.f.fled because he stood outside a window. He remedied that. He knocked the gla.s.s out of the window. In the middle of the sound of breaking gla.s.s, his big voice-it was a normally squeaky voice, but it certainly changed when he was excited-said clearly, "The place is surrounded with cops. So act accordingly."

Maybe it was the breaking gla.s.s. Maybe they just didn't believe him. Maybe they were too desperate to care-understandable, because there had been a cold-blooded murder.

Anyway, activities commenced.

Slim began by shooting Mr. Mayfair in the chest. This discomfited Mayfair. That, I swear to you, was all it did-discomfit him. Apparently he was standing rather precariously on a barrel or something outside the window, and the bullet unbalanced him; his great arms waved like a spider's legs, and presently he fell into the room. Not away from the window. Into the room. The effect was tremendous, because he removed the remainder of the gla.s.s from the window, and his yell was like a freight-engine whistling in the room. Mayfair came erect. He came toward Slim. Slim shot him again. Mayfair still came.

Slim said, "Blanks!" He really thought his gun was loaded with blank cartridges, evidently, because he pointed it at the ceiling, which was plastered, and pulled the trigger again. A bullet from his gun ploughed a quant.i.ty of plaster loose. Quite satisfied his bullets were real, Slim prepared to fire at Mayfair again. But he had wasted too much time, and Mayfair hit him. I had not realized a mere fist could change a man's face so.

Doc Savage's voice said distinctly, "Monk, get out of there! I told you we'd use gas on them!""h.e.l.l, I slipped and fell in the window," Monk said.

I am afraid I have begun the description of this fight inadequately. Not that, even now, anything seems quite adequate. . . . Anyway, there had been at the beginning three victims in the room-myself, Lila, Mr.

Farrar-or four counting Dido Alstrong. And the enemies were Slim, Pokey, Ossie, the tweed-suit, and the man who had brought Mr. Farrar-five. Slim was no longer interested. Four remained.

So there were now four foes, three-to-four neutrals, and bedlam. Everyone did whatever occurred to him or her at the time. I could not watch it all.

Savage came in. He had, dumfoundingly, been in the other room. The man's speed was fabulous. The tweed-suit and Ossie were levelling handguns; Savage was upon them instantly; he struck one gun away, seized the other, and got it. And then the pair were at him, and Pokey joined them.

I knew Savage could not overpower three of them. It was impossible. My only thought, the only way I could see life ahead of me, was to take flight. But I needed an excuse for it, and so I leaped to Lila, cried, "Here! I'll help you!"

She was still tied. Bound, I discovered, to the chair. Terror gave me no time to unbind her. I picked up girl and chair and made for the door. I made it, but fell down at the door; I went crashing down the steps, slammed into the ground on my face. There was mud. I was blinded.

The rain beat on me. The wind whipped my clothing. Inside the house, a gun crashed. A man screamed awfully. The mud hurt my eyes no end; I could not see a thing.

Then feet, a man's feet, hit hard beside me. I sensed-felt, heard-the force of a terrific blow that just missed my head. Someone was trying to brain me! He cursed.

Have you ever been blinded? And in a fight? It was very bad; I began to feel much as I had felt in Farrar's apartment. Not brave. Just imbued with a wish to live-to do anything, anything at all, to live.

Instinctively, my hands went up. Perhaps I was screaming in fear and rage; someone was. At any rate, and most fortunately, my hands encountered a down-slugging arm. I jerked. The other fell on me. We fought.

I hit, variously, the mud, an arm, a face, the ground again, my own leg-and I managed to bite, b.u.t.t and kick almost as many objects. It was not very clear. It was too fast. It was like one fall-a great one, down a stairs, when one doesn't know what really happens.

At length the other one was still. Blinded, my eyes leaking, the mud hurting my eyeb.a.l.l.s like acid, I lay across my victim.

A voice addressed a general statement. It was Mayfair.

He said: "What do you know! Henry wound up on the side of the white race."

MAYFAIR took me by the collar and dragged me into the house, on into a kitchen, and jammed my head into a bucket of water. "Wash your face, Henry," he said, and left. I cleared my eyes with all haste, then returned to the conflict scene.

The whole thing, as nearly as anyone could guess its time, had taken less than a minute. But the room was a shambles; furniture lay shattered, the air stank of gunpowder. Bodies were scattered about. Five of thelatter-accounting, unbelievably, for all the opponents.

Doc Savage carried Lila Farrar inside, placed her in a chair. He asked, "You all right?"

She nodded tensely. She was very muddy.

I said, "I'm sorry, Miss Farrar, that I fell with you."

She gave me as pleasant a look as the circ.u.mstances permitted.

"I'm sorry, too, for the things I was thinking about you," she said.

This was confusing. The implication was that I had done something to redeem myself. All I had done was fight, not very gallantly either, for my life.

I wondered which of these men on the floor I had overpowered while blinded. I looked at them. None of them, strangely, were either wet nor muddy.

Dido Alstrong was still tied to the chair. Apparently he had been unable to get into the fight.

Monk Mayfair went outdoors.

Doc Savage asked me quietly, "You feel all right, Henry?"

"I-er-wouldn't call it all right," I confessed. "I'm a trifle upset."

He nodded. "Sorry about using you."

"Using me?"

He hesitated, then inquired, "Hadn't you figured that out?"

"Oh, yes," I said vaguely. This was not true.

Savage now confronted Dido Alstrong, produced a large doc.u.mentary envelope, opened it, fanned the blueprints and data sheets it contained before Dido's face, and demanded, "This gadget phony?"

Dido Alstrong winced. "Yes."

"How come?"

Now Dido Alstrong repeated substantially the story he had told me earlier-he didn't have any supersonic gadget for preserving foodstuffs; he had just pretended to have one in order to impress Mr.

Farrar so that he could wed Lila.

"I didn't dream," Dido finished, "that they would try to steal the thing off me, and kill me too. As soon as I was in danger, I went to that costume shop and rented the monkey suit, told the guy I didn't have enough dough for the deposit, but would leave my watch and those papers for security. . . . Hey, how'd you get that envelope?"

Savage told him how. "Henry and I visited the costume place, and the proprietor happened to mention you were short of money. That seemed queer. So I left Henry locked in the car-the more Henry knew, the more trouble he seemed to be able to make-and went back and asked the proprietor what kind of a deposit had been made. He showed me the envelope. I had the police visit him and get it for me."

"Well, I guess you can see the gadget won't work," Dido mumbled."Yes. Obviously." Savage rifled the papers. "This one is an interesting doc.u.ment. . . . Nothing to do with the phony invention."

"Uh-huh. You mean the statement of the facts," Dido said. "Yeah, I put that in because I didn't want anybody killing me and getting away with it."

"You figured," said Savage, "that in case you were killed, the police would trace the monkey suit back to the shop where you rented it, and find out about the deposit you left, thus discovering the statement?"

"That's right."

"It was a round-about way of naming your possible murderer."

"Yeah, but I didn't want no statement like that in the hands of no lawyer, who might get conscience-ridden and turn it over to the cops. I wanted it where it would be found if I got killed, and also where I could get it back if things turned out well."

"How could it have turned out well if your gadget was a fake?"

Dido Alstrong snorted. "Are you kidding? When this thing developed the way it did, I had a better hold on him than the invention, didn't I? I wanted the girl, and her dough."

Savage shook his head slowly.

"I don't think I like you, Alstrong," he said.

"That hurts me a lot," Dido Alstrong said cheerfully. "A lot. In a pig's eye."

Savage shrugged. "You got scared and fled the city, I take it. Why did you come here?"

"My pal, Hugo Davis, owns the place. I figured it a good hideout. I used to work in a Farrar plant near here, and spent time here before."

"Did you know they killed Hugo Davis?"

"Huh?" Dido paled. "They-did."

Monk Mayfair put his head in the door. "Henry's victim is waking up," he said.

"Let him wake up," Savage replied. "Then bring him inside."

I stood there with the feelings of one whose mind had separated from his body and was hanging suspended several feet distant. Because for the first time I realized who my victim must have been.

THIS Savage was even worse than the rumors had had him. He was the mental wizard they had said he was. He had known, it was suddenly clear to me, all the answers very early in the affair. . . .

In an utterly miserable voice, I asked, "You-you knew Miss Farrar had telephoned me at your laboratory?"

"Why not? There are extension telephones in the laboratory where Monk and I were," said Savage dryly.

"And you gave me the monkey suit, and sent me home to serve as bait?" I blurted.He nodded. "Monk's idea, however. . . . Yes, we surmised what Miss Farrar had on her mind-the problem of whether or not her father was a crook and what she should do."

"And you let those thugs take me, and followed us up here-"

He shook his head. "Wrong. We watched them take Miss Farrar, and followed her here. We were already here when you were brought."

Dido Alstrong entered the discussion.