“This is it,” whispered Smitty to Josh and Mac. “The payoff. I don’t know how in the world they managed to do that to the guard. But — come on!”
The three crept in through the opened gate at a safe distance behind Kopell’s mob.
The wild commotion was at the back of the house, now. For probably the first time since Cranlowe had announced his invention, felled all the trees and hired the guards, one whole side of his place was left vacant and unattended.
Kopell’s gang got to the iron-studded door, with Smitty and Mac and Josh forty yards behind. The gang had not the faintest notion that they were being trailed.
Nor had Benson’s three aides any idea that they had a silent follower. But such was the case.
Behind the three came one more figure, slim, silent, head down. The trailers were being trailed!
In the study, Cranlowe had leaped toward the door with the sound of the shots. And Jenner had interposed his bulk. Cranlowe drew back, knowing something terrible was up, ready to charge the plant president.
“Benson!” snapped Jenner. “Get him. Get Cranlowe.”
The Avenger stepped, like a docile robot, toward the inventor. Cranlowe yelled and tried to run. Benson was on him with one quick move. He hurled Cranlowe to the floor, and looked up at Jenner for further orders.
“Tie him up, Benson.”
Panting, raging, Cranlowe struggled. But he was a child, of course, in those steely white hands. Benson took the window drapes, torn down and tossed to him by Jenner, and bound Cranlowe with them.
“So you’re a man of honor,” Cranlowe raged to the man with the white hair and the dead face. “And you, Jenner, are my lifelong friend! Is every one in the world against me, just because I tried to save the world?”
Jenner didn’t even bother to reply to that one. He came and stood over Cranlowe.
“The formula, Cranlowe,” he said, voice level and emotionless. “I want it. At once.”
“You won’t get it. Nothing will make me give it up.”
“Nothing?” said Jenner. “I wonder. We have still another ace to play, my friend. Your son! Do you think much of your son?”
Cranlowe stopped his convulsive struggling and stared up at Jenner in a great silence. His eyes seemed to withdraw farther into his skull than ever.
“What… do you mean?” he whispered at last.
“Would you hold your formula as more precious than your son?”
Cranlowe was silent, glaring.
“Robert Cranlowe is being held at this moment,” said Jenner. “He will be unhurt, if we get the formula. If we do not—”
“You wouldn’t kill him,” whispered Cranlowe. “You wouldn’t do that, Jenner. No matter what else you’ve become, you’re not a murderer.”
“Do you want to wager Robert’s life on that?” said Jenner. “Or — do you want to write out the formula?”
Cranlowe began struggling again, exhausting himself against the tightness of his bonds. Finally he stopped. Jenner said, emotionlessly:
“I swear he’ll die, Cranlowe, if you don’t do as you’re told. And he won’t die a very pretty death, either.”
The inventor lay very still and straight, staring up at the plant president.
“Well?” said Jenner.
Cranlowe spoke, then, in a tone that was hoarse and cracked, but still indomitable.
“With that formula, a warlike nation could conquer the earth, and uncounted thousands would die in the process. With the formula in the wrong hands, I would become a kind of monster, for inventing such a thing. Whereas, used for peace, it can be a great blessing. My answer, Jenner, is— No!”
“It won’t be used for peace if something happens to you. It will die with you, and all your work will have been for nothing. And your son will have given his life for nothing.”
“Not for nothing,” said Cranlowe hoarsely. “At least the weapon will have been kept from evil uses. I am sorry. I hope for forgiveness. But my own son will have to die for the sake of a threatened humanity.”
It was a complete failure for the plant president, apparently. But he only smiled.
From his pocket he drew another of the black disks. He came toward Cranlowe with it. He clicked a tiny knob on its side, like the stem of a watch, only smaller. There was a tiny, shrill buzzing sound, which almost at once went up beyond the range of Cranlowe’s hearing.
Jenner had paid no attention to Benson as he did these things. Why should he? The white-haired man was his machine, with will completely chained—
The Avenger’s foot danced out in a move almost too swift to follow. It caught Jenner on the wrist, and the black disk flew to the far end of the room.
With his mouth literally open with surprise, Jenner jumped for Benson. A lashing fist caught him on the jaw with delicate precision. He fell as if anaesthetized.
“I guess,” said The Avenger quietly, “I’ve learned about all I could in my role as automaton.”
CHAPTER XVII
Last Stand
“So you’re friend and not enemy,” said Cranlowe, as Benson began to untie him. “And it’s Jenner who is the false friend — the brains behind these attacks.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said The Avenger.
“The round black thing,” said Cranlowe, bewildered. “And your obedience to Jenner’s orders—”
“The one was the cause of the other. At least, Jenner thought so. I went to his office, some hours ago, to have a talk with him. Suddenly I heard a tiny buzzing sound, like that which came from the disk a minute ago when he began to work on you. It kept going up in volume and pitch. But I still kept hearing it, when most people would not have. My ears are pretty keen. The answer came to me before it was too late: something about that disk was what made men go mad — or at least obey someone’s orders to do mad things. I pretended to be in a deep trance, before the pitch of the thing had reached a point where I really would have lost control of my voluntary thought-processes. And the sound stopped at that point. And stayed there.”
Benson drew out the disk Jenner had said to keep always with him.
“Can you hear the buzz of this thing?” he said.
Cranlowe shook his head.
“Queer,” said Benson, colorless eyes glittering. “I can. My hearing must be quite different from that of most people.”
He turned the little stem of the thing slowly counterclockwise. And the high pitch of the vibrating thing inside lowered as his fingers moved. He pressed the stem, and the intense, high noise stopped.
He opened the black disk.
“A tiny but powerful battery, and a vibrating tongue between two little hard-rubbed diaphragms,” he mused. “With a rheostat action to slow or hasten the vibrator.”
He set the rheostat back as far as it would go, and started the shrill little vibrator again. Now he could hear it as plainly as any other sound. Even Cranlowe caught it, a little bit.
“I’ve heard that sound before,” he said swiftly. “Yes, now I remember. Vibration— Bacteria—”
He took the thing in his fingers.
“Years ago,” he said, “I performed an experiment at Garfield Gear. I tested the effect of rapid vibration on bacteria. It was my thought that possibly vibration, at the precise pitch might kill bacteria. So I devised a vibrating machine. Like this, only not so compact and perfected. The experiment didn’t work out satisfactorily; so I abandoned the whole thing. But I remember — one of the workmen acted queerly during one stage of the affair.”
Benson nodded, pale eyes like ice in his white, dead face.
“Somebody else remembered,” he said. “And somebody continued to work on it, not to use against bacteria, but against people.”