Mr. Savage:
I am being forced to write this naturally.
I am asked to convey to you the information that should you be in Arizona tomorrow morning, you will get a package containing my left hand. My other hand will reach you at Noon. Each 6 hours thereafter if you remain in the State, some part of me will be chopped off and sent you as a reminder.
I am in deadly danger here. Please do what they wish.
Lea Aster
Doc’s 5 men accompanied by Ossip Keller and Nate Raff came in. Doc handed them the missive, saying nothing.
Then he stepped out of the office, hurried to the temporary laboratory, and got the lantern which created ultraviolet light.
There was a chance Lea Aster had chalked a secret message upon the paper.
Ossip Keller scowled at Doc as he came in with the box-like lantern. It was plain that Keller still boiled with rage because of his encounter with Johnny. His indignation was the natural state of mind for a righteous man. But it was impossible to tell whether he was really affronted or wearing his cloak of wrath to cover more sinister feelings.
The flimsy buildings of Skullduggery were wired with regular lighting current, supplied by the company plant at the dam site. Doc plugged in the ultraviolet lantern. Had there been no other current available, a few moments’ work would have changed the lantern to battery operation.
Lea Aster’s note received the invisible beams.
“Glory be!” Monk chortled.
Eerie blue lettering had appeared upon the paper. Glowing with a curious electric quality, it was easily readable:
This message is a bluff, Doc. They intend to keep me unharmed and use me to force you to release any of the gang you should happen to capture.
I have not been able to learn who is the brains back of this. His name is never mentioned in my hearing.
I have no idea where I am being held.
Monk emitted a long, gusty sigh of relief!
“I’m sure glad the note was only a bluff! It had me worried for a minute.”
“They’re clever to use the girl as they are,” Doc said gravely. “This way they hinder my operations considerably.”
Surprise leaped upon Monk’s homely face!
“But this is the first time they have threatened to do bodily harm to her!”
“They didn’t need to threaten,” Doc indicated. “And they know that, no doubt. There are numerous workmen on the dam who are obviously in the gang.
“The fellow who let the ammonia compressor in the refrigerating plant overheat is an example. He was not so dumb but that he knew he wasn’t using oil in the bearings. And there are others like him. Yet it is necessary for me to refrain from seizing them.
“The moment I capture one of the gang, things will come to a show-down. Either I’ll have to turn my prisoner loose or the girl will be killed. But as long as I have not actually trapped some of them, they’re not likely to harm Miss Aster. She is, in fact, their ‘trump card’ for use only in a crisis! They surely know that.”
Doc’s 5 men showed marked relief as they heard these theories expounded.
But others did not look so free of mind. O’Melia and Keller — toward whom suspicion already pointed — shifted uneasily in their tracks. They seemed not to know what to do with their hands. Both perspired freely. But that might have been due to the heat.
Nate Raff stood apart with his big jaw outthrust and pipe clamped in his lipless mouth. His gaze fell on his 2 partners and lingered curiously. Even he could see all was not well with the pair.
Suddenly he looked away as though to conceal a swift, horrible suspicion.
Doc’s 5 aides were men trained in the quiet observation of details. They saw Nate Raff’s expression. They read its meaning as clearly as though Raff had been an actor registering feeling before a camera.
Raff’s look had shown that he suspected one or the other of his partners!
XVII–Clue Trail
So tense was the situation that no one noticed Doc Savage was again examining the note from Lea Aster. His attention was centered on the paper itself and the envelope. A pocket microscope was in use.
On the underside of the paper, he found faint, dark smears. These had come from the table upon which the paper had been placed while being written upon. The nature of no material could defy Doc’s analysis for long. He soon knew what the stains were.
Soot from oil smoke!
Without a word, he quitted the office. He wasted no time. His remarkable faculty for deduction had already functioned. He knew what the soot meant.
Skullduggery — being a temporary city — had no buildings equipped with oil furnaces. Mesquite stems served as firewood. These did not make an oily smoke.
Doc had noted a trash fire not far distant and the dark smoke it exuded. The fire no longer burned. But he recalled its location.
More important, he remembered that only one shack had been in the path of smoke from the conflagration. In this — it was reasonable to believe — the girl had written the note.
A thicket of mesquite received Doc’s figure. He seemed to vanish in the gnarled growth. A darkening twilight helped his disappearance.
All was quiet about the tar-paper shack which had served Lea Aster’s captors as a refuge. No light showed through the boarded windows. 3-or-4 striped gophers played around the doorstep. Atop the roof, a woodpecker operated industriously on a wormhole. Peace reigned.
A moist, jingly plop sounded near the shack. After this, the playful gophers seemed to go to sleep. The woodpecker lay down.
Inside the building, 2 loud thumps might have been the noise of men falling out of chairs.
Doc Savage — big and bronze — appeared as if by magic before a mesquite clump. He ran for the hut!
His remarkable anesthetic gas had already done its work and become harmless. Its penetration into the flimsy shack had been swift thanks to cracks in the rickety walls. It had spread instant unconsciousness — a coma which would eventually pass, leaving the victims entirely unharmed.
Doc reached the door but did not grasp the knob. His flashlight dispelled the gloom for a moment.
The knob had a sticky, syrupy coating.
Once more had Doc’s habitual caution saved him.
The stuff on the knob was undoubtedly poison such as had slain Bandy Stevens!
Around to the end of the shack glided the bronze giant.
His right hand became a hard, metallic block. It smashed once!
A plank caved with a splintering crash! Grasping other planks, Doc tore them off.
It was an amazing feat! With his bare hands, he did a job which seemingly called for axes and wrecking bars. The hardwood planks might have been mere strawberry boxes from the way they yielded to his case-hardened bronze fingers.
He entered, his flashlight gushing whiteness.
2 men were heaped on the floor. Both lay face down. Both snored noisily.
Doc brushed them with a toe, turning them. They were 2 of the cliff-dwelling gang.
The flash beam — hunting like a hungry thing — located a trapdoor in the floor. Doc opened this. Steps led down into an earth-walled cellar.
The cellar floor was littered with cigarette stubs, pipe dottle, and burned matches.
No one was there. Doc descended and searched but found nothing of value. The cigarettes were all hand-rolled cowboy fashion. The matches were grocery-store variety.
A rough table upstairs held a 5-cent tablet. From this, the paper for Lea Aster’s note had obviously come. All signs indicated the cabin had harbored a crowd of men through the day.
The gang had retired to some other retreat taking their young woman prisoner. Only two of their number had been left behind.