The Death Giver

CHAPTER XVII. BUBBLES OF DEATH

THE booming music of the brass band was blaring upward. The parade was scarcely more than a block away. The roaring welcome down the street was drowning out the march that the band was playing.

The cries of thousands were rolling along the street, half a block in advance of the parade. Paul Roderick was witnessing that great spectacle which only Manhattan can produce — a welcome from the hearts of the mighty towers which line lower Broadway.

As if by signal, hundreds of windows began to disgorge their shower of confetti and torn paper. This had been started farther down Broadway, now it was universal at the point where Roderick’s building was located. Long ribbons of ticker tape shot toward the street, forming streaks more than a hundred feet in length.

As the air became filled with a deluge of fluttering paper, Paul Roderick leaned from the window to note the increasing storm. All that the eye could discern now was the man-made flurry that was gaining the proportions of a blizzard.

But Roderick was watching another spot — the window outside of the next office. As if in elation, Roderick hurled forth the strips of paper that had formed the packages. These meant nothing; they were merely his pretended contribution to the celebration.

For Roderick saw that The Death Giver’s scheme of doom was working!

Along the pipe beneath the adjoining window, bubbles were forming at every air hole. Rapidly expanding until it reached the size of a large bowling ball, each bubble detached itself and floated outward and downward, squarely toward the street below!

The bubbles which Roderick watched were not the first. Others had preceded them, and were already part way down to Broadway. Their steady, constant descent was just what Roderick had expected. The first of the bubbles would strike just after the blaring band had passed!

Bubbles of death!

Those were the spheres that Paul Roderick watched in gloating admiration. The greatest of the dread inventions that lay within the master brain of Thade, The Death Giver!

Paul Roderick knew the secret of those bubbles. The liquid that he had poured into the tank was Thade’s most deadly poison. Combining with the compressed air, it made a heavy vapor that formed itself into a powerful lethal gas.

The escaping vapor was blocked by the gluey substance that Roderick had poured into the pipe. The pressure of the gas forced that liquid outward, it formed strong bubbles, and when the size had increased, these spheres detached themselves like soap bubbles from a pipe.

Only an impact would cause the gluey bubbles to burst. The weight of the gas — the consistency of the gluey substance — these combined to carry the bubbles steadily downward, untroubled by chance breezes and undisturbed by the fluttering flakes of paper.

AMID the artificial snowstorm, no human eye could possibly detect the presence of those bubbles. The first of the deadly missiles were nearly to the street. Following them were dozens more. The forerunners were barely above the heads of the band players; there was a chance that they might strike before the last had passed.

That would not matter. The greater number of the airy plummets would reach the goal which Thade had planned. Directly behind the band were the three cars in which rode the celebrities of the day!

Open cars, without tops. Through the whirling eddies of paper, Roderick could see the mayor and the governors in the first machine. Then came the fliers, standing and waving to the crowds. After that the car with the secretary of the navy and the admiral!

Second by second, the slow procession was nearing the spot where the bubbles would strike. Even in that moment of elation, Paul Roderick was extremely calm. His quick eye noted that no more bubbles were forming along the pipe. The pressure of the gas had ended. The last of the fragile bombs had gone on its way.

Springing toward the door of the inner room, Roderick called the final order to Treffin. His command was to dismantle the apparatus. He heard Treffin’s response. He hastened back to the window. A quick glance below. Roderick saw the first of the bubbles strike the street a dozen feet behind the last member of the band.

That was well. The space between the band and the first car had widened to nearly fifty feet. Another bubble struck. A few seconds more, and the falling bubbles would spell death. By dozens they would drift upon their objectives.

In that interim, Roderick had one more mission. That concerned his final discussion with Harlan Treffin after this was over. From his pocket, Roderick was drawing an oddly shaped pistol. It looked more like a water pistol than a revolver; its muzzle was fitted with a spray.

Opening the top of this strange gun, Roderick uncorked the green bottle on the table and poured the last remnants of the poison fluid into the peculiar weapon. He replaced the bottle on the table, closed the pistol, and put it with the bottle. That gun would prove as deadly as the falling bubbles, when its contents were discharged.

But Roderick’s thoughts were back to the scene below. He eyed the spectacle and waited for results.

The first car was already in the bubble zone. The mayor and the governors, with their shiny silk hats, were waving to the crowds, moderately accepting a portion of the acclaim. As Roderick stared, a bubble landed squarely in their midst and burst, unnoticed.

To Roderick’s amazement the men kept on bowing. The deadly missive had done no harm. A second bubble landed; like the first, its result was nothing.

An oath came from Roderick’s lips. By all rights, four men should be collapsing in that car — four dignitaries struck down by an unseen hand. The first of the bubbles must somehow have become impotent. The others would do their work.

They were landing now. Squarely in the second car, among the standing aviators. One bubble burst above Commander Hughes’s head. The aviator brushed away the moisture from his forehead. Two more struck in quick succession; then a fourth. The next bubble plopped in the street behind the car.

The parade was keeping on! Not one of the four men had wavered. What could be the matter? Never before had Thade’s lethal inventions failed to function!

The final car was in the center of dropping bubbles. One struck beside the chauffeur. A second burst near the secretary of the navy. Three more landed on the car and broke as harmlessly as spheres of soapy water from a child’s clay bubble pipe.

A fiendish cry of rage burst from Roderick’s lips. The last of the three cars were by. The rest of the bubbles were floating down upon a company of khaki-clad soldiers. What did it matter if any were potent now?

By all the laws of certainty, a dozen men of prominence should be dying now. Those cars of bowing celebrities should have been transformed to vans of victims. What was the answer?

Paul Roderick had followed instructions to the letter. All had gone in accordance with prearranged plans.

Yet some unknown power had intervened to thwart the designs of Thade, the supermind of destruction.

Bursting bubbles! Bubbles designed to kill; yet which had broken harmlessly. The scheme of Thade, The Death Giver, was like those bubbles. It, too, had vanished, forgotten amid the gala welcome of Manhattan!