“Of course not!”
Nevertheless, Buttons hastily drew a bundle of documents from the side pocket of his coat and inspected them.
“Nope. I didn’t make a mistake.”
He returned to his pocket the original contents of Bandy Stevens’s money-belt.
“We can’t kill no more time here,” he declared. “Now is our chance to go ahead with our scheme. All of Doc Savage’s men are with him but one. That one is a bird who looks like a gorilla. I found out from the newspapers I called that he’s known as ‘Monk’ on account of his looks. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. Some handle for a gent as homely as he is!”
“How’ll we find ‘im?”
“That’s easy! The newspapers gave me his business address. He’s a famous chemist with a hangout where he works down near Wall Street.”
“Wall Street, huh?” grinned the other man. “I’ve always wanted to see that place.”
“You’ll see it!” Buttons rumbled ominously. “This Monk rannihan is gonna see somethin’, too. Somethin’ he won’t like! He’s probably workin’ all night, too.”
The two hastily quitted their lofty perch.
In Doc Savage’s office, scrutiny of the envelope contents was still under way. The letter came first. It was addressed to Doc and read:
Dear Mr. Savage:
I have heard a lot about you and how you go to bat for fellers who are in trouble. I sure need some help so I’m taking the liberty of sending my pal — Bandy Stevens — to ask your assistance.
I’m sure your aid will make things come out all right, and I can pay you just about any amount of money you want for your services.
Here’s the layout: A few weeks ago, I was prospecting and found a big vein of Radium. I panned out enough to get money for placer mining machinery.
Selling the Radium — several ounces of it — must have tipped off somebody because right away I began having troubles. A gang is after me. I don’t know ‘em. But right now as I write this, they have me cornered in my cabin 45 miles West of Fort Caribou in the Hudson Bay country of Canada.
I’m inclosing a map showing where my cabin and the Radium mine is. My friend Bandy Stevens will try to get to you. But my enemies will probably try to stop him and try to keep you from helping me. Bandy will tell you more.
Please, Mr. Savage, won’t you give a man a hand?
Ben Johnson
Strange little lights flickered in Doc Savage’s golden eyes as he ended perusal of the missive.
They examined the map next. It was an ordinary variety. Probably half the large news stands in New York sold them.
On it, a pair of crosses were carefully inked.
“Well, well!” Long Tom kneaded his rather pallid hands. “Someone has insulted us by thinking we would fall for this fake!”
Buttons Zortell would have been shocked had he witnessed the quickness with which Doc Savage’s crew had discovered the documents were spurious. Unbounded surprise would have been his for he had taken great pains — even to spelling every word correctly — in faking them.
“The writer of the letter made a glaring error in mentioning the Radium,” Doc announced. “Radium is not panned from ore but extracted with costly and intricate machinery. Furthermore, he says he sold several ounces of the rare substance. That is a tremendous quantity for Radium! Enough to have a pronounced effect on the market. No such sale was made recently.”
“That’s right,” agreed Renny, whose engineering knowledge made him familiar with the subject.
“Second, that letter was written hardly more than an hour ago,” Doc continued. “The ink is still somewhat damp.”
“Too bad,” Ham grumbled. “I’d like to go up North. A vacation in the Canadian woods appeals to me.”
“My guess is that it will take us to Arizona,” Doc told him.
Ham betrayed surprise at this.
Then — to show he was capable of detective work himself — he stepped over and examined Bandy Stevens’s coat.
“You win, Doc,” he admitted. “This suit came from a Phoenix, Arizona clothier.”
Doc scrutinized the features of the dead man.
“Wind has reddened the fellow’s face,” he pointed out. “A protected area about the eyes indicates goggles were worn. That means an open plane.”
“Then it would seem he came from Arizona to New York by plane,” Ham grunted.
“We don’t know he came here from Arizona!” Renny objected. “He might actually have come from the Hudson Bay country.”
Doc turned out the cuff’s of Bandy’s trousers, disclosing a small amount of lint and several crumpled fragments of grayish leaves.
“Leaves off sagebrush,” he indicated. “Not greatly withered, either. They were shaken off as the man walked through sagebrush not more than 24 hours ago. I think we can rest assured that he flew straight here from Arizona.”
Doc now rifled through New York telephone books and the ponderous city directories. But he did not find what he sought.
“I was looking for the name of ‘Nate Raff’ — the name Bandy Stevens cried out as he died,” he explained. “There is no such person listed.”
Ham glanced at his watch. “Monk will want to be in on this. What say we call him?”
Doc nodded. Striding to a desk, he flipped one of 5 small switches.
On the desk stood what seemed to be a box with a frosted glass panel in one end. As Doc moved the switch, a movie-like image appeared on the panel.
This mechanism was a telephone-television apparatus of Doc’s construction. The 5 switches connected to circuits that led to the places of business of Doc’s 5 men — a switch for each man.
On the scanning screen of the televisor appeared the interior of Monk’s laboratory in a penthouse atop an office building near Wall Street.
The laboratory was untenanted.
“Monk probably hasn’t come to work yet,” Ham decided. “He’ll be there soon. The big mug has a habit of going to work at 5:00 in the morning. It’s almost that time now.”
“You’ve got a lot of room to talk about ‘working hours’!” snorted Johnny. “You’ve been up here all night.”
“But only to watch you birds sweat!” Ham retorted.
This was hardly the truth. Ham had taken a part in the night’s work which was the tedious task of perfecting plans and structural details for an addition to a strange institution which Doc Savage maintained in up-state New York. Few people knew of this weird place or the fantastic purpose it served. And should the knowledge have gotten out, it would have proven sensational.
For it was to this institution that Doc sent such criminals as he captured. Once incarcerated there, they underwent delicate brain operations which wiped out all knowledge of their past, leaving their minds a blank.
Then they received an intensive education not only in right living and good citizenship but also in the art of making an honest living. They were taught to hate criminals and their ways. No man — once released from this place — had ever returned to a life of crime.
Doc’s money maintained the unusual “College” and the specialists who performed the operations had been taught by his hand.
Gathering up the plans upon which they had worked through most of the night, Doc placed them in the great safe.
“We’ll attend to these later,” he declared. “They are almost complete, anyway.”
Ham stared grimly at the lifeless form of Bandy Stevens.
“Have you any idea who did this, Doc?”
The Bronze Man replied with a question.
“Did you notice anything in particular about the men who shot at you downstairs?”
“They were sunburned fellows. That could easily be noticed,” Ham replied.
“And all of them but one used single-action six-shooters,” Renny boomed.