Conversation followed, the new arrival speaking rapidly. The words were pitched too low to reach Doc, who was some distance away.
Then tones were raised.
"All but four of you clear out!" commanded the late arrival. "That’s Kar’s orders. I’m to take the four who stay to Kar."
Several loud grumbles wafted to Doc’s sharply tuned ears. But whatever the dissension was, the thieves accepted to the command of their leader. Probably they were complaining about leaving the gold unwatched.
The last of the coin plunked overside to land on the shelf fastened to the Jolly Rogerhull. All but four of the looters got in the truck. The big machine rumbled away.
The four who had remained stood on the wharf with the man who had brought them their orders. Several minutes passed. Noise of the truck died away.
"C’mon!" said the messenger loudly. "I’ll take you to Kar now!"
The man turned toward the old pirate ship.
"Kar is on the Jolly Roger?" ejaculated one of the gang.
"Sure! What’d you think?"
The men disappeared aboard the corsair vessel.
Little more than a darker blur in the murk, Doc’s bronze figure flashed to the Jolly Roger. He scaled the rail with a catlike leap.
Shuffling footsteps located his quarry. They were aft. Down a companion, they went. Doc trailed. He had not visited this part of the craft, despite the number of times he had been aboard. The weird vessel was a labyrinth of narrow passages and tiny cubicles. Evidently every old-time pirate had had to have his individual cabin.
The police, Doc knew, had searched the Jolly Rogerfrom stem to stern when they removed the bodies of Kar’s mobsters to the morgue. Had Kar been hiding aboard, they would have found him.
Doc kept only a few yards behind the five he followed. He entered the third of a series of cramped passages.
A door slammed behind him, barring the passage.
He flung forward. But even his marvelous fleetness could not get him to the passage end before that, too, was blocked by a closing door.
Then the entire ceiling of the passage descended with a crash upon his head!
THE dropping roof would have crushed the life from a body a whit less like springy steel than Doc’s. The mass of monster timbers must have weighed a full ton. The innocent-looking up-and-down beams at the passage sides formed guides upon which the ugly trap operated.
Doc caught the tremendous weight on broad, arched shoulders. He put forth gigantic effort. He broke the deadly force somewhat. But the shock bore him to hands and knees.
Instantly, the door in front of Doc opened. A flashlight sprayed blinding luminance into his golden eyes.
"Got him!" chortled the man who had brought the message to the thieves. "We outsmarted him slick as could be!"
An air pistol snout poked into the flash beam. It leveled at Doc’s perfectly formed bronze features.
Chung!
It discharged.
The flashlight promptly went out as the man who held it leaped back. Obviously, he was fearful some of the ghastly Smoke of Eternity would be splashed upon his person.
From a distance of several yards, the men waited.
"How did Kar get wise the bronze guy was followin’ us?" one asked the messenger.
"Simple," was the chuckled reply. "The watchman at that bank telephoned the morning newspapers a big bronze bird had attacked him and robbed the vault. Guess he phoned the papers before the police. Probably wanted to see his name in print.
"Anyway, it caught the newspapers just at the deadline. They came out with it on the front page. Kar has men watching every paper to grab the editions as they hit the street. He does that to keep track of things. Sometimes the papers have news ahead of the police. Anyhow, the minute Kar got his dope, he reasoned the bronze guy was trailin’ the loot in hopes it would lead him to the chief’s hangout."
"So he sent you — "
"So he sent me here to make that loud talk about leadin’ you guys to him." The speaker laughed nastily. "Kar knew Doc Savage would follow us right into this trap!"
"Kar is pretty slick," said one of the group, smitten with evil admiration.
"You said it! Slickest of all is how he keeps anybody from ever seein’ him, or even of learnin’ what his real name is."
"We were in luck that the watchman called the papers!"
The flashlight spilled glare onto the passage deadfall.
Vile gray smoke had made a sizable smudge. Eerie electrical sparks played in a pronounced fashion.
The heavy timbers of the deadfall were dissolving!
"That," leered one of the men, "fixes the bronze guy!"
But, whether the bronze man met his end or not, his companions were still at his office headquarters; while Doc was out on his errand, they were waiting for the next move.
Chapter 12. THE TERRIBLE DESTROYER
IN Doc Savage’s skyscraper office, six men were waiting the night out, obeying Doc’s command to wait as he made his hurried exit the previous night.
Dawn was not far off. Over on the Sixth Avenue Elevated, trains were beginning to rattle past more often. In another hour, the city would awaken in earnest.
On a table in the office lay the last edition of a morning newspaper. Emblazoned in scare type on the front page was the story the stupid watchman had turned in. The scream heads read:
MYSTERIOUS BRONZE MAN ROBS BANK
"
I wonder if we should do something about that?" Johnny, the geologist, murmured anxiously, wiping his glasses with the thick left lens.
"Doc knows what he is about!" declared Long Tom, who had his nose buried in a highly technical pamphlet on advanced electrical research. "Shut up and let me read."
"Yes, do shut up!" Ham echoed. "I want to listen to this remarkable music!"
Monk and Renny, with the innate calmness of men huge physically, were sleeping. Monk snored. His snores had the peculiar quality of no two sounding remotely alike.
Ham, the waspish, quick-thinking lawyer, sat near Monk, listening with great interest to the variety of snore noises in Monk’s repertoire. His sword cane was between his knees.
"Can you imagine!" Ham jeered. "Not only is Monk the homeliest bird on earth, but he makes the awfulest noises!"
Of the six men present, only Oliver Wording Bittman betrayed nervousness. He got up from his chair often. He paced the floor.
"Aren’t you worried about Doc Savage?" he inquired wonderingly. "He left near midnight. Now it is almost dawn, and no word."
Long Tom repeated his previous declaration. "Doc knows what he is doing. Long ago, we learned not to worry about him."
Bittman made a move to return to his chair. His fingers sought the scalpel on his watch chain. Twirling the thing seemed to give him nervous surcease.
Suddenly he leveled an arm at the door.
"Listen!" he breathed. "Did you hear something?"
Monk promptly awakened — although the words were far less loud than others he had slept through. One had a suspicion Monk had been pretending sleep so as to annoy Ham with his snoring.
Renny’s gigantic fist had ruined the door panel, but temporary repairs had been effected with rough boards.
A faint sound came from the other side of the door. Feet scuffing the corridor floor! Some one in flight!
Monk kicked over the chair in which Renny slept. In a thundering avalanche, Doc’s five friends hit the door. They volleyed through. Oliver Wording Bittman jumped out of their path as though getting clear of a stampede.
A man was just wedging into one of two waiting elevators.
Doc had described all of the recruits assembled to Kar’s cause by Squint. This was one of them!