“Could you recognize this man?”
“Of course.”
Searle pulled a photograph from his pocket.
Art Swift, crouched behind the pillar, cast about for some way by which he could warn Searle of the identity of the girl, of the danger of being trapped. But the reporter handed her the photograph.
“Why, yes. It’s this man, the third from the end.”
“Great Scott! Why, that’s Art Swift!”
“I can’t help who it is. It’s the man that gave his name as Dr. Zean.”
Swift’s mind whirled. What was this all about? He started to step forward.
“Then we’ll have to kill him on sight,” snapped Searle’s voice. “He knows too damn much!”
Swift sank back against the support of the cold concrete.
Searle, then, was the real arch-villain in the whole affair! He had been the one to bring about the deaths of the millionaires. He had been the one to send the letters to the unfortunate men who had attracted his attention.
As Swift turned this matter over in his mind, Searle and the girl moved away.
Swift waited a few minutes, thinking, then moved out into the stream of pedestrians. A chance fragment of a passing man’s conversation came to his ears.
“Something whizzed right in between us. It must have been a cannon ball or something. It went so fast I could feel the air tugging at my clothes, but I couldn’t see a damned thing. I’d have thought I was dreaming or drunk, but Roberts felt the same sort of a sensation.”
Swift moved away. His senses were reeling. He looked at his watch. It was exactly sixteen minutes past two o’clock. All of this frantic action had taken place in just about a minute.
He thought of the dead doctor, the nurse imprisoned in the closet. He must arrange for the arrest of the nurse, and he must arrange to have Searle arrested.
A sudden drowsiness overtook him. He went to his room in the hotel, telephoned police headquarters, and asked that a detective be sent out to interview him. Then he fell asleep.
The newsboys were crying “Extra!” on the street when he awoke, and some one was pounding on his door. Swift turned the key, instinctively knew the square-toed man who hulked on the threshold was a detective.
“You had a tip an’ wanted a man from headquarters?” asked the man.
“Yes,” said Swift. “Come in.”
The detective entered the room, whirled, swung out a hand. By sheer luck Swift was able to dodge that grasping hand.
“What—” Art began, dodging another fist, and then the detective was on him in a lunging attack.
The very bulk of the man made him clumsy. Yet his charge knocked Swift to a corner. He saw it all, then. This could be no detective, but an agent of the crime ring, sent out to kill him. Fear and desperation gave him strength.
The other was pulling a revolver from his hip. Swift swung a chair. There was the crashing of wood as the rungs slivered, and then Swift saw the man staggering back, slumping to the floor.
Swift ran from the room to the foot of the stairs. A newsboy thrust out an extra of the Star. Swift grabbed it, and, to his horror, saw his own features staring forth at him, just underneath the words:
Then followed an article about the identification of Art Swift as the arch-killer, the greatest blackmailer, the scientific wonder who had used his genius to undermine civilization.
Swift stared at it, stupefied. Was it possible Searle was so daring as to hope he could prevent discovery by making a counter-accusation? The idea had merits, particularly as the Star argued that the scientific knowledge of the criminal made him immune to arrest and necessitated his being shot as a mad dog would be dealt with.
Swift read the article. To his surprise, it exposed the secret of the extract which speeded up the human metabolism to such an extent that life was lived a hundred times more rapidly than was possible under normal conditions.
The article claimed that Searle had solved the mystery with the aid of a female assistant who had tricked the arch-criminal into explaining the details of the crime to her.
That might have been correct. The girl might have been an assistant. Then Searle would not be the real criminal, but just what he appeared, a reporter. Yet, suppose this was merely a trick? Suppose Searle was so clever he had planned for this all along?
Swift wanted to think it over. He clutched the newspaper to him, started for a taxicab. There was the crash of glass, a bellow of rage, the shrill of a police whistle.
The detective had smashed out the glass of the hotel window, was frantically blowing his police whistle. As men looked up in startled surprise, the detective opened fire.
Swift ducked behind a parked car. The bullets from the detective’s gun crashed into the metal, spattered the glass from the door windows, but failed to find their real mark.
Swift realized, however, he was trapped. It would be all right if he had a chance to tell his story. But how about the hysteria of the police? Would they get rabid and shoot on sight as the Star requested them?
He thought then of the box he had in his pocket, the rubber capsules that would speed up his body so that he could escape. He slipped the cover from the box.
And just then a burly form catapulted around the corner of the car. Swift had only time to thrust the box back in his pocket. The cover clattered to the sidewalk. A great blue-coated figure swung a club. Swift tried to dodge, but to no avail. He felt the impact, felt a great wave of nausea and engulfing blackness. Dimly, he realized that the thing that smacked him between the shoulders was the cold pavement. He felt the bite of handcuffs at his wrists, and then lost all consciousness.
Chapter 5
In a Frozen World
Searle’s voice was in his ears when he regained consciousness. There was a tang of jail odor in the air. His form was stretched on a prison pallet and the steel ceiling contained a single bright incandescent, which stabbed his throbbing eyes.
“From the looks of this telephone number, we figured it might be a lead. I got Louise Folsom to give a ring and stall along for information, and the conversation sounded promising, so I sent her up.
“She ran onto this Swift. Of course, she didn’t know him at the time. He was merely a certain Dr. Zean. But he proceeded to explain to her just how the murders had been committed and—”
He broke off as there was a commotion near the door.
“We knocked over that office and found a nurse tied and gagged in the closet, and a dead man in the laboratory. Looks like there’s hell to pay. Somebody had been in the place and cleaned it out, busted up bottles, pulled out drawers, and raised hell generally.” A red-faced sergeant was speaking.
There was the scraping of chairs.
Swift struggled to a sitting posture.
“Can’t you understand, you fools?” he asked.
Hands grabbed his coat, jerked him forward.
“All right. Let’s hear your story.”
Swift kicked with his feet. “Take these handcuffs off.”
A clock, clacking off the seconds, pointed to three minutes to four o’clock.
“Leave him with a guard and let’s go see the office and the dead man,” said one of the officers.
“Triple handcuff him, then,” said Searle, “because he’s the man who pulled the murders. There’s no doubt of that in my mind.”
“It was Ramsay,” said Swift, striving to be patient. “I blundered on to this Dr. Zean, and—”
“Save it!” snapped one of the officers.
“No, no, let him talk.”
Art Swift told his story. The officers looked at one another, incredulity stamped on their faces.