Several times, policemen or other individuals cast knowing leers at the big cop riding in the caleso. This was evidence the driver of the vehicle had corrupted more than one man. The mere fact that a cop was riding in this caleso was an indication he was en route to receive a bribe from Tom Too's paymaster.
The caleso halted before an ancient stone building.
"Will you consent to alight, oh mighty one," said the driver
in Mandarin. The contempt in his beady, sloping eyes belied his flowery fashion of speech.
The big policeman got out. He was conducted into a filthy room where an old hag sat on the floor, cracking nuts with a hammer and a block of hardwood.
Only a close observer would have recognized the three irregularly spaced taps which the old crone gave a nut as a signal.
A door in the rear opened. The caleso driver herded the cop into a passage. The place smelled of rats, incense, and cooking opium.
They reached a low, smoky room. Perhaps a dozen Orientals were present, lounging about lazily.
Three men were manacled in a single pile upon the floor — handcuffed ankle to ankle and wrist to wrist.
They were Monk, Long Tom, and Johnny.
The caleso driver shoved the big cop.
"Step inside, oh resplendent one," he directed with a thinly veiled sneer. "Tom Too is not here, but his lieutenants are."
The next instant the caleso driver smashed backward to the stone wall. He was unconscious before he struck it.
Some terrible, unseen force had struck his jaw, breaking it and all but wiping it off his face.
THE Orientals in the low room cackled like chickens disturbed on a roost. The cackling became enraged howling.
Over the excited bedlam penetrated a sound more strange than any ever heard in that ill-omened room. A sound that defied description, it seemed to trill from everywhere, like the song of a jungle bird. It was musical, yet confined itself to no tune; it was inspiring, but not awesome.
The sound of Doc!
The human pile that was Monk, Long Tom, and Johnny went through an upheaval.
"Doc!" Monk squawled. "By golly, he's found us!"
The form in the airy garb of a Mantilla cop seemed to grow in size, to expand. A giant literally materialized before the eyes of those in the room — a giant who was Doc Savage.
Doc spat out bits of gum he had used to change the character of his face. He whipped forward, and there was such speed in his motion that he seemed but a shadow cast across the gloomy den.
The first Oriental in his path dodged wildly. The fellow apparently got clear — the tips of Doc's sinewy bronze fingers,
now stained brown, barely touched the man. Yet the slanteyed one dropped as though stricken through the heart.
A Mongol plucked a revolver from the waistband of his slack pantaloons. It tangled in the shirt tail which hung outside his trousers. He fought to free it. Then there was a sound like an ax hitting a hollow tree, and he fell.
The heavy hardwood stub of the cop's club had knocked him senseless.
Another man was touched by the tips of Doc's fingers. Then two more. The trio were hardly caressed before they became slack, senseless heaps upon the floor.
"His touch is death!" shrieked a Mongol.
That was exaggerated a little. Doc only wore metal thimbles upon his finger tips, in each of which was a needle containing a drug which put a man to sleep instantly. And kept him asleep for hours!
The thimbles were so cleverly constructed that only a close examination would disclose their presence.
Another Oriental went down before Doc's magic touch.
Gun muzzles began lapping flame. Lead shattered the oil lamp which furnished the only illumination.
Putting out the light was a mistake. With the darkness came terror. Yellow men imagined they felt the caress of those terrible fingers. They ducked madly, struck with fury, and sometimes hit each other. Two or three separate fights raged. Coughing guns continued to add to the bedlam.
Panic grew.
"The outer air is sweet, my brothers!" shrilled a voice in Mandarin.
No other impetus was needed. The Mongols headed for the door like skyrockets. Reaching the street, each vied with the other to be the first around the nearest corner.
The old hag lookout, who had made her nut-cracking a signal, had been bowled over in the rush. But now she legged after them.
MONK, Long Tom, and Johnny were scrambling about in their excitement.
"Hold still, you tramps!" Doc chuckled.
Doc's casehardened bronze hands closed over Johnny's handcuffs. They tightened, strained, wrenched — and the links snapped.
Johnny was not surprised. He had seen Doc do things like this on other occasions. Long Tom's bracelets succumbed to the bronze man's herculean strength.
Monk's irons, however, were a different matter. Monk himself possessed strength far beyond the usual — sufficient to break ordinary handcuffs. His captors must have discovered that — the time he broke loose to write the message on the mirror — and decorated him with heavier cuffs. The links that joined them were like log chains.
"They moved you to various parts of the liner, so I couldn't find you, didn't they?" Doc asked.
"We were changed to different staterooms half a dozen times," Monk told him. "Doc, I don't see bow you lived through that voyage. Practically every man of the crew was on Tom Too's pay roll, to say nothing of the swarm of pirates that were among the passengers."
Doc went to work on the locks of Monk's enormous leg and arm irons. They were not difficult. Within thirty seconds, they fell away, expertly picked.
"This place isn't healthy for us!" he warned. "TomToo's men will swarm around here in a few minutes."
Searching, they found a back exit.
"This place was a sort of headquarters for Tom Too's organization in Mantilla," said Johnny.
Johnny seemed little the worse for his period of captivity. His glasses, which had the magnifying lens on the left side, were missing, however. That was no hardship, since Johnny had nearly normal sight in his right eye.
The pale electrical wizard, Long Tom, had a black eye and a cut lip as souvenirs.
The furry Monk showed plenty of wear and tear. His clothes now amounted to little more than a loin cloth. His rusty red hide was cut, scratched, bruised; his reddish fur was crusted with dried blood.
"They pulled a slick one when they caught us in New York," Monk rumbled. "One of them came staggering into the skyscraper office with red ink spilled all over him, pretending he'd been stabbed nearly to death. He got us all looking down in the street to see his assailant. Then his pals walked in and covered us with guns."
Persons stared at the four men curiously. Thinking the cop bad arrested the other three, some sought to follow. But they were soon outdistanced. Doc hurried the pace.
They returned to Mindoro's hide-out by a circuitous route.
THERE was a hilarious reunion when they all met in the secret, sound-proofed room. Renny cuffed Johnny and Long Tom about delightedly with his huge paws, rumbling, "I'll teach you two guys to go and get yourselves caught and cause us so much trouble!"
Monk leered at his old sparring mate, Ham, rubbed his hairy paws in anticipation, and started forward.
Ham flourished his sword cane menacingly. "I'll pick your teeth with this thing if you lay a hand on me, you ugly missing link!"