“How’d you get here?” Art asked the reporter.
“Took some of the serum and started out. Found I wasn’t hopped up enough, so I put half a dozen of the small capsules into effect all at once.”
“How did you know you weren’t hopped up enough?”
“Because of the way things were whizzing by me. I tried to follow a man, and I might as well have tried to follow an express train. I figure we are living right now at a ratio of around three thousand to one.” Searle seemed awed as he said the words.
“Not that fast.”
“Mighty near it.”
“The girl?” Art demanded.
“You mean Louise Folsom?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what worries me. They’ve managed to get her somehow, and they’ve carried her off. This looks to me like the final blow-up. The expose in the Star has broken a lot of their power... You’ll forgive us for jumping at the conclusion you were the mysterious scientist who was at the head of the thing? Tell me how you got into it — but first let’s get these two chaps tied up nice and tight and see if we can’t locate where they were going.”
Swift nodded.
“There’s some rope on the truck. I’ll tell you the story while we truss ’em up. And I think I know about where headquarters are.”
“What truck? This one?”
“That’s the one. You’d better be careful with those suitcases. They’re all loaded with money and gems.”
“What?”
“Fact. They’ve lost their power to terrorize the nation and make the big executives bow to their will, but they still have their power to rob without the victim’s being able to guard against it. They’re stripping the city.”
“Humph. And there’s only two of us,” commented Nick Searle, as he trussed up one of the bandits. “Guns any good?”
“None whatever. The bullets could be dodged, and it takes forever and a day for the hammer to explode the shell. If we wanted to shoot one of these men when he broke loose, we’d have to start shooting the gun now. Then we could go about our business for a while, come back and see if the man had got the knots untied, and, when he did, trust the explosion of the revolver would happen somewhere along about that time.”
Searle laughed.
“You paint a gloomy picture.”
“It’s almost that bad. Notice the truck is backed up to a cellar. I have an idea that cellar is of some importance. Let’s explore in it a little.”
“Suits me. What’ll we do with the men?”
“Drag ’em in... Look out! Here come another couple! Lord, there are two more. Four of ’em. We’ve got to hide here in the truck, and when we start hostilities we’ve got to work fast. There’s a couple of stakes that’ll make good clubs.”
Swift crouched behind a pile of the strangely streamlined suitcases. Four men appeared, laden with loot. They called a greeting, started for the truck.
“Look out!” yelled one. “Somebody’s hiding here!”
“Let’s go!” shouted Art Swift.
The young scientist and the reporter got into action.
One of the outlaws, doubtless forgetting the uselessness of the weapon, pulled an automatic from his pocket, leveled it, and pulled the trigger. Then he dashed it to the ground when the weapon failed to explode.
Two of the men had knives. One climbed on the side of the truck, the other tried the rear.
Thud, thump sounded the clubs, and the men drew off, one of them with a broken arm.
“Let’s go!” yelled Swift, for the second time, and they charged.
It happened that the two men had chanced upon the most deadly weapon available. Knives were limited as to range. Guns were of no use. Clubs, swung with terrific speed and force, were bone-breaking instruments of destruction.
Apparently these outlaws had never encountered resistance in the time-plane upon which they had learned to function. They had never experimented with various weapons, and the futility of their guns, the limited efficiency of their knives, left them helpless before the onslaught of the two men armed with clubs.
Searle surveyed the sprawled figures, grinned at Swift.
“Looks like a good job. Do we tie these up?”
“Sure thing.”
“How about headquarters?”
“Let’s investigate.”
“Attaboy! Better keep that club. We’ll probably run into some more trouble.”
They lowered themselves into a cellar, pushing themselves down the stairs because the force of gravitation was too slow to function, felt their way along a passage, and emerged into a lighted room.
A man sat in this room with telephone receivers clamped to either ear. He was tall, gaunt, dominating. His eyes held a restlessness that seemed unclean, unhealthy. The thin lips were compressed into a single razor-blade slash that cut from cheek to cheek. His jaw was bony, determined.
On the third finger of his right hand gleamed a ring of interlaced triangles. He glanced at the two men, looked at their clubs, half rose from the chair.
“Mr. Zin Zandor, I presume,” said Swift.
The restless eyes snapped to his face.
“So?” rasped the man, and fumbled beneath his desk.
“Stop him,” shouted Searle, and made a wild leap forward.
Swift lowered the point of his club and launched it through the air like a lance with every ounce of force of which he was capable.
At the same instant he became aware of a sickening sweet odor which permeated the room.
Zandor tried to duck. The hurtling club caught him on the forehead as he lowered his head, cutting an ugly gash, sending him staggering back.
His right hand flashed up. It held a sort of gas mask, which he tried to raise to his nostrils. But the impact of the blow had dazed him. His hands seemed to function uncertainly. He turned half purple in the features as congested blood mottled the skin.
“He’s holding his breath,” shouted the reporter, quick to grasp the situation.
Swift whirled. Together they fought toward the door, holding their breath, the sickly-sweet odor seeming to constrict the muscles of their throats.
Behind them they heard a peculiar scraping sound. They turned for one last look.
Zin Zandor was clawing at the top of the desk. The poison gas had got him now. His features were distorted, his mouth open. Even as they looked he went limp, and apparently remained suspended in mid-air.
“Dead and falling,” said Swift as he dragged his companion into the passageway, out to the open air.
They sucked in great lungfuls, feeling strangely dizzy.
“The girl!” cried Searle.
Without an instant’s hesitation, Swift turned and led the way back into the passageway.
“Take a deep breath and we’ll try for her. Probably the gas rises. Keep your head near the floor.”
They dived down and crawled along the floor. The sickening sweet odor was in their nostrils. At the corner of the desk, inclined at an angle of almost forty-five degrees, was the form of the man who had signed himself Zin Zandor. He was falling to the floor, and the force of gravitation was so slow, compared to the speeded-up life forces of the two men who watched him, that he seemed to drift downward with hardly perceptible motion.
There was a door to the left of the desk. Swift took a deep breath, reached upward, turned the knob. The door opened; they scrambled into the inner room.
Here was a Remington typewriter, doubtless the one upon which the blackmail letters had been written. Here, also, was stored great treasure, gold coins, currency, gems. And here they found the girl who had posed as messenger. She was bound hand and foot, gagged — Louise Folsom, captured, doomed to die.