The huckster wheeled his cart to a secluded spot. But he shortly reappeared, pushing his vehicle toward Broadway. He turned south on Broadway, and was soon before the Far East Building, on the tenth floor of which was the office of the Dragon Oriental Goods Company.
The door of the Far East Building was wide. The huckster calmly wheeled his car inside an unheard-of thing.
The half-caste elevator operator dashed forward angrily. Another man was loitering in the lobby. His broad face, prominent cheek bones and almost entire absence of beard denoted, to an expert observer, Mongol blood. He joined the elevator operator.
They proceeded to throw the fruit vender out bodily. It took both of them. They wrestled the peddler clear to the sidewalk and dumped him into the gutter. Then they came back and shoved the cart out.
Neither man noticed the fruit in the cart was not heaped as high as it had been a moment before.
The huckster wheeled his vehicle away, barking excitedly in his native tongue. He disappeared.
Doc Savage had been hidden under the fruit. No one but the peddler knew Doc was now in the Far East Building — least of all the Mongol in the lobby, who was obviously one of Tom Too's pirate horde.
"Me think that velly stlange thing to happen," the Mongol told the elevator operator.
"Allee same lookee funny," agreed the operator. "Mebbe so that fella wolk alongside blonze man?"
The Mongol swore a cackling burst in his native tongue. "Me thinkee good thing follow fluit fella! Alee same cut thloat and play safe."
With this, he felt a knife inside his sleeve and started out. He reached the door.
Splat! The sound was dull, mushy. It came from the side of the door. Thin glass fragments of a hollow ball tinkled on the floor tiling.
The Mongol went to sleep on his feet — fell without a sound.
Doc had hurled one of his anaesthetic balls from the stairway. He had not intended to reveal his presence. But it was necessary that he protect the innocent huckster whom he had bribed to bring him here.
The elevator operator spun. He saw Doc. A screech of fright split past his lips. He charged wildly for the street door.
The cloud of invisible, odorless anaesthetic had not yet become ineffective. The man ran into it. He folded down, and momentum tumbled him head over heels across the walk.
Doc stepped to the door.
From two points — one up the street, one down it — machine guns brayed a loud stream of reports.
Doc had expected something like that. This was a trap, and Tom Too's men were hardly fools enough to wait for him on the upper floors of the building, where their retreat would be cut off.
He flashed backward in time to get in the clear.
Fistfuls of stone powdered off the building entrance as jacketed bullets stormed. Falling glass jangled loudly. Ricocheting lead squawled in the lobby.
Doc glided to the stairs, mounted to the second floor and tried the door of a front office. It chanced to be locked. He pulled — not overly hard, it seemed. The lock burst from its anchorage as though hitched to a tractor.
Entering the office, Doc crossed to a window and glanced down.
The machine guns had silenced. A gray sedan sped along the street, slowing to permit the Mongols to dive aboard. The car continued north. It reached the first corner.
Suddenly there was a series of sawing sounds, like the rasp of a gigantic bull fiddle.
Doc knew those noises instantly — the terrific fire of the compact little machine guns he had invented. Renny, Ham, and Mindoro had turned loose on the Orientals.
The gray sedan careened to the left. It hurdled the curb. There was a roar of rent wood and smashing glass as it hit a display window. The car passed entirely through the window. Wheels ripped off, fenders crumpled, top partially smashed in, it sledded across the floor of a furniture store.
Doc saw the attackers wade through the wreckage after the car. Several times their little machine guns made the awful bull-fiddle sawings.
Then the three men came out and sped toward the Far East Building.
Doc met them downstairs.
"Three of the devils were in the car!" Renny grimaced. "They're all ready for the morgue."
"What about our pals?" Ham demanded. He seized Doc's wrist and stared at the telewatch dial. "Good! They're still tied to those chairs!"
Doc said nothing. His golden eyes showed no elation.
They rode up in the elevator. Renny raced down the tenth-floor corridor. He did not wait to see whether the Dragon concern office door was locked. His keg of a fist whipped a terrific blow. The stout panel jumped out of the frame like match wood.
Renny, continuing forward, tore the door from its hinges with his great weight.
Ham leaped to one of the bound figures, grasped it by the arm. Then he emitted a squawk of horror.
The arm of the form had come off in his hand!
"THEY'RE dummies," Doc said. "The clothes worn by Monk, Long Tom, and Johnny — stuffed with waste paper, and fitted with the faces of show-window dummies."
Ham shuddered violently. "But we saw Monk, Long Tom, and Johnny in here! They were moving about, or at least struggling against their bonds."
"They were here," Doc admitted. "But they were taken away and the dummies substituted while one of the Mongols stood in front of the television transmitter, unless I'm mistaken."
Renny's sober face was black with gloom. "Then they knew the television sender was installed here!"
"They were lucky enough to find it," Doc agreed. "So they brought the three prisoners here, hoping we would see them and come to the rescue. They had the machine-gun trap down in the street waiting for us. That explains the whole thing."
Ham made a slashing gesture with his sword cane. "Blast it! We haven't accomplished anything!"
Doc swung over to the fragments of broken window lying on the floor. One piece was about a foot square, the others smaller. He began gathering them.
"What possible value can that glass have?" Mindoro questioned curiously, still trembling a little from the excitement of the recent fight.
"Monk broke this window and his captors knocked him over," Doc replied. "He lay on top of the glass fragments for a time, while the Mongols looked down at the window to see if the breaking window had caused alarm. They did not watch Monk at all for a few seconds. During that time, I distinctly saw Monk work a crayon of the invisible-writing chalk out of his pocket and write something on the glass."
Renny lumbered for the door. "The ultra-violet apparatus is at the office. We'll have to take the glass there."
They left the Far East Building by a rear door, thus avoiding delay while explanations were being furnished the police.
In Doc's eighty-sixth-floor retreat, they put the glass fragments under the ultra-violet lamp.
Monk's message confronted them, an unearthly bluish scrawl. It was brief, but all-important.
Tom Too is scared and taking a run-out powder.
He is going to Frisco by plane and sailing for the
Luzon Unlon on the liner Malay Queen. He's
taking us three along as hostages to keep you
off his neck. Give 'im hell, Doc!
"Good old Monk!" Ham grinned. "That homely ape does pull a fast one once in a while. He's heard the gang talking among themselves. Probably they figured he couldn't understand their lingo."
Mindoro had paled visibly. He strained his graying hair through palsied fingers.
"This means bloodshed!" he muttered thickly. "Tom Too has given up trying to get the roster of my political group. He will strike, and my associates will fight him. Many will die."