“Smitty!” blazed the tiny blonde.
But the giant paid her no attention, nor did the others.
“Hold a gun on her! Don’t try to hold her with your hands,” Kopell said. “She’s as dangerous as any man, if you get close to her.”
But he was staring at Smitty. Even Fats was getting it, now.
“Hey, he’s all coked up or something, ain’t he?” he said.
Kopell said slowly, “Not exactly coked up. But something like it. I guess Jenner brought him along, fixed up so he’d do what he’s told.”
Smitty was turning and going back to the stairs.
“We ought keep him in sight—” Fats began doubtfully.
“No! Let him go. I’ll trail him.”
Kopell went after Smitty, up to the narrow corridor. There the giant got Josh by the belt in one hand, and Mac similarly by the other, and began lugging them to the basement that way.
“Well, well!” said Kopell, putting his gun up at last. “So Jenner had you after these two, before he was conked, with orders to get rid of them. Good stuff, big boy. You’re going to be a handy guy to have around. I can see that. What the hell is it about those round black things that can do this to a guy? I could use them in my business, plenty!”
Kopell saw the two men Smitty picked up. And he went back down to the basement after the giant with no knowledge, whatever, of still another man in the hall.
The masked man had utilized the stair closet that had thrice sheltered Nellie, when the big man came back up. He slipped out, now.
He went to the library and stared in. Cranlowe glared back from the floor, bound and raging but still unshakable. Cranlowe didn’t remark much to himself on the appearance of this new figure. All he knew was that still another of his murderous enemies was after him.
The man walked in, alone with the bound inventor. He was utterly unidentifiable. You couldn’t even see his eyes, behind the blue silk handkerchief acting as a mask. The slits for eyeholes were too narrow for that.
“Luck is with me,” the masked man murmured. His voice was obviously disguised as well as his features. “Things are working out even better than I had planned.”
His hand was going into his pocket as he spoke. It came out with one of the black disks.
“The last,” he said. “But I won’t need any more. Just this one for you; then I’m all through.”
He set the stem. Cranlowe, horrified, heard the first shrill whine of the thing that was going to make an obedient machine of him; then the whine rose beyond hearing.
“My gracious scapegoat, Jenner, is in the basement,” the masked man went on contentedly. “With him are your wife, and that fool psychiatrist. Also all of Benson’s gang save the little Negress, whom I can kill easily, a little later. Also Kopell and all of his gang who know anything about this affair. Two small moves will leave me with the formula, alone, with not one soul knowing I have it. One move is to lock everyone in the cellar, with that nice thick iron bar you have on your oak door. The other is to fire the house.”
Cranlowe’s eyes were beginning to reflect a dawning recognition of the masked young man — and a wild incredulity. But they were also beginning to dull a bit, too.
The masked man watched him intently, hand on the tiny stem in the black disk.
“Curious,” he said, his mask moving a little with the words. “For every individual, a slightly different vibration point at which his conscious brain is numbed. The exact pitch for one will work with no other— Ah!”
The inventor’s deep-set eyes had blanked out at last. The masked man set the little disk so that the pitch at which Cranlowe’s vibratory hypnosis point occurred, should continue as long as he wished to hold the man in bondage.
He stepped to the library table and came back with pen and ink and paper. He unbound Cranlowe’s right hand.
“Write the formula!” he said.
And obediently, without a tremor, Cranlowe’s hand began to move — to set down the priceless formula that he had withstood murder and threat, kidnap of son and blandishments of wife, to keep inviolate.
CHAPTER XIX
The Grim Joker!
Kopell had a sense of humor. He was a joker. His sense of humor was rather crude, but it was easily roused. It was roused in this case, for a joke that he thought would be the best of his life. A little on the grim side, but excellent for all that.
It had occurred to him that it would be funny for the giant, Smitty, to throw Benson and the others down the chasm, one by one, and then obediently jump down it himself. Very, very funny!
In the earth-floored part of the basement, the rest watched the cruel grin grow on the mob leader’s face with varying expressions of their own.
Mac, still a little dazed from the blow on his head, stared with bitter blue eyes promising what he’d do to the man if he ever had a chance. Josh, as sensitive to hunches as any of his race, looked with growing, cold apprehension. Nellie stared at the mobster as one would stare at a black widow spider.
Benson, alone, had no expression on his face. It was as emotionless as a white desert of ice; but from it, his pale, deadly eyes stared in full comprehension of what was in the wind. He had seen Kopell’s furtive glance at the chasm, and then at the docile giant, and the icy genius of his mind had picked up the gangster’s intent immediately.
Mrs. Cranlowe and Markham only cowered a little lower on the floor. But the gang looked very expectant. They were used to their leader’s jokes, and his grin told them another was on its way. Boy, this would be good!
Kopell kept silent for a full minute, savoring the situation. Then he gave his order.
“You, big fella, toss the girl down the crack in the ground.”
“Hey!” one of the gang said. “She’s cute!”
“She’ll be cuter when she can’t talk,” snapped Kopell. “Go on, you big ape!”
There was a fluid flash of movement that took everyone by surprise. It came from The Avenger. At one instant Benson was ten feet from Smitty. At the next, he was on the big man.
“Get the white-headed guy!”
“Burn him down—”
“Hold it!” yelled Kopell.
This was going to be fun, too. And even the white-headed guy couldn’t do any real harm with nine men around to blast him, if necessary.
Benson’s steely white hands grasped Smitty’s big arms.
“Smitty! Come to your senses, man! You’ve just been told to kill Nellie Gray! Nellie Gray! Don’t you understand?”
Smitty shook loose from the grip, china-blue eyes on Benson’s face with no recognition in them at all. He turned toward the horrified blonde again.
Nellie leaped back. She was afraid of death — who is not? But she had faced it before with no fraction of the sheer terror she felt, now. Death was bad enough — but to receive it from a man she knew was more than fond of her, and whom she held in high regard, too, was many times worse!
She leaped back. And Smitty followed with a long step. Then Benson jumped like a gray cougar on the giant’s broad back.
There was a quick, marvelously deft move, and the giant was sprawled on the floor on his face, with Benson atop him. But the position didn’t last long. No man could restrain so easily the titanic strength of the giant.
Smitty arched his huge back. Benson slid half off. Smitty shook himself like a big dog ridding its coat of water, and Benson lost the rest of his hold.
Almost holding their breaths, the gang watched the encounter. A man as fast as light, with a body seeming to be made out of steel — but, after all, only of average size and weight pitted against a fellow who weighed close to three hundred pounds and yet carried his bulk as lightly as a lightweight boxer.