INTO the bank now came more than a dozen furtive men. They carried automatic pistols and submachine guns.
One man alone had an air pistol. "C’mon!" he snarled. "Kar’s orders was to push this right through!"
"Hey, Guffey!" called one. "Didja fix the watchman?"
When there was no answer from their companion, they muttered uneasily. Then they advanced.
"Gosh, look!" a man choked.
On the floor, just turning into the horrible gray vapor, lay a human head.
"It’s Guffey!"
For a moment, it looked like they were going to flee. The sight of the fantastic thing happening to Guffey’s head drained whatever courage they had.
"Aw, get next to yourselves, you mugs!" sneered the man who carried the only other air pistol. "You don’t see the watchman around, do you? Guffey just had a little accident. The Smoke of Eternity dissolved both him and the watchman."
After a few more mutters, the explanation of the watchman’s absence and Guffey’s demise was accepted. The men set to work. They advanced on the vault. The man with the air pistol fired it at the vault door.
Instantly, the thick steel began dissolving into the strange smoke.
Over in the shadow of the vice president’s desk, Doc Savage’s sensitive bronze fingers explored the air pistol, the slug from which had finished Guffey. He was disgusted to learn it held no other capsule cartridge of the Smoke of Eternity.
Doc recalled the words of the man dying from a lopped-off hand aboard the Jolly Roger. The fellow had said that Kar never gave one of his men more than a single cartridge of the Smoke of Eternity. Kar feared, probably, that his men would launch out on a robbery campaign of their own if supplied with a quantity of the stuff.
The dissolving of the vault door had now ceased, the potency of the missile of Smoke of Eternity exhausted.
Kar’s men were reluctant to go near the opening, at first. They were like boys playing with a mad dog. They didn’t know but what the fearsome dissolving substance might do them harm.
But one finally entered the vault. The others followed. In a moment, they reappeared weighted down with sacks of clinking gold coin. Gone was their hesitation now. The gold had affected them like potent liquor. They were drunk with the thought of such wealth.
In the shadow of the desk, Doc’s mighty bronze form remained motionless. The numskull guard slept silently at his feet. Doc was letting the robbery go forward!
But it was for good purpose. He wanted to trail the loot to Kar!
The thieves were stacking the swag near the hole they had opened in the bank building.
Doc’s golden eyes missed no move. He reasoned they would haul it away in one or more trucks. Two million dollars in gold weighed a great deal.
His reasoning was right — just as right as had been his guess that Kar might try to get his hands on this gold without waiting for it to leave New York by train. For Kar was clever enough to realize the train plot might have been overheard by Doc.
A large truck rolled up in the dark side street beside the hole in the bank wall. Into this, the thieves heaved sacks of gold coin.
At this point, the watchman began to revive. With his first move, he was pinned helplessly by hard bronze arms. He could not have been held more solidly had he been dressed in a block of solid steel. Nor could he cry out, or use his eyes.
The last bag of gold was hoisted into the truck by tired arms that were very unused to anything that smacked of work. The truck was large. It held all the gold.
The thieves piled in. The truck rolled away.
DOC’S impressive voice throbbed against the ear of the helpless watchman. It was pregnant with command.
"Call the police! Tell them the bank was robbed by Kar’s men. They will know who is meant by Kar’s men. Do you understand?"
The watchman started to swear at Doc, but desisted quickly when he felt the power of those great bronze fingers.
"I understand," he mumbled.
"You are to tell them nothing else until they arrive," Doc continued. "Then you can tell them of me. Tell them Doc Savage was here. They will keep it out of the newspapers. And, most important of all, you are not to tell the newspapers of me, understand?"
The watchman snarled that he did. Doc had saved his life, but the man was far from grateful.
Doc Savage glided for the door.
Instantly, the watchman made a dive for his gun, which lay on the floor near the spot where the body of Guffey had dissolved. The man’s fingers clenched the weapon.
But when he lifted the muzzle, no bronze man could be seen. This reminded the watchman of the horrible dissolving of a human body he had witnessed. He got an attack of the jitters. His knees shook so he had to sit down on the floor and recover his nerve.
Doc Savage followed the truck. He had expended only a few minutes with the watchman. The truck had rolled slowly, so there would be less noise. Three blocks only, it had covered.
Doc ran. He haunted the gloom next to buildings. The truck headed uptown. Doc kept pace easily.
After fifteen blocks or so, the big bronze man hailed a nighthawking taxi. His physical condition was so perfect that he was breathing no more swiftly than normal when he entered the taxicab.
"Follow that truck," Doc directed. He noted the taxi driver had an honest face and frank manners. He displayed a bill.
The denomination of the bill made the driver gulp.
"This can’t be honest money!" he grinned.
"Stop and take aboard the first cop you see, if you think it’s not honest," Doc invited.
"You win!" the driver chuckled.
The hackman knew his business. He drove ahead of the truck, haunted side streets parallel to its course, and remained behind, where he might arouse suspicion, only at rare intervals.
Keeping to the East Side, where fish trucks were already beginning to rumble on the streets, the thieves drove far uptown. Near the northern end of Manhattan Island, they turned west and crossed the isle. Then they came down the other side. They had simply gone out of their way to mislead the police, should the officers get a description of the vehicle.
The thieves’ destination was the Jolly Roger!
The truck pulled down the bluff from Riverside Drive on a rutty old road used by dump vehicles.
Doc dismissed his taxi at the top of the bluff. The shadows gobbled him up. He reappeared near the ancient corsair craft, to lurk in the shelter of a tangled bush.
He watched the thieves consign the bags of gold coin to a hiding place. The simplicity of that hiding place surprised him.
They merely dumped the gold off the ramshackle wharf!
THE spot they chose for the dumping was out in deep water, near the stern of the Jolly Roger, but between the hull of the old craft and the wharf.
"Drop it close to the hull, you fool!" Doc heard one of the thieves order another. "Be sure it lands on the shelf fastened to the hull!"
So that explained it!
Far enough beneath the river surface that no one would ever notice, there was a shelf affixed to the Jolly Roger. Considering that the police now knew Kar had used the old corsair ship, it was a daring move to conceal the loot here. But perhaps the safer for that! Searchers would hardly suspect so prominent a spot.
It was far from what it seemed — this old buccaneer vessel.
Doc waited patiently for some sign of Kar.
Another man appeared unexpectedly, running from the direction of the bluff. He made a good deal of noise in the darkness.
Guns were clutched uneasily. Then the thieves hailed the newcomer as one of their number. "We nearly let you have it!"