The Land of Terror

Chapter 5.. JEROME COFFERN’S FRIEND

DOC SAVAGE replaced the receiver of the secret phone. He closed the hidden panel. Silently, he quitted the room as he had entered — through the window. He made his way to the street.

The crowd had thinned. Squint’s scream had not been heard. Doc did not go near his roadster, although his sharp eyes detected no sign of Kar’s men watching the machine.

Doc strode eastward. He reached the edge of Central Park — that rectangle of beautiful lawns and shrubbery two and a half miles long and half a mile wide which is New York’s breathing place. Neat apartment buildings towered along the park.

An old woman held out, hopefully, a bundle of the late newspapers. She was almost blind. Her clothing was shabby. She looked hungry. Doc stopped and took one of the papers.

He looked at the old woman’s eyes. His expert diagnosis told him their ailment could be cured by a few great specialists. He wrote a name and address on a corner of the paper, added his own name, and tore this off and gave it to the crone. The name was that of a specialist who could cure her ailment, but whose fee was a small fortune. But at sight of Doc’s name scrawled on the note, the specialist would gladly cure the woman for nothing.

Doc added a bill he took from a pocket. For a long time after he had gone, the old, nearly blind woman stared at the bill, holding it almost against her eyes. Then she burst into tears. It was more money than she had ever expected to see.

The little incident had no bearing on Doc’s troubles with Kar, except that Doc wanted the paper to see what had been published concerning Jerome Coffern’s weird death — which proved to be nothing he did not already know.

It was such a thing as Doc did often. It was part of his creed, the thing to which his life was devoted — remedying the misfortunes of others.

It was a strange thing for a man to do who had just dealt cold and terrible justice to five murderers. But Doc Savage was a strange man, judged by the look-out-for-yourself-and-nobody-else code of a greedy civilization.

Doc turned into one of the largest apartment houses on that side of Central Park. He rode an elevator to the twentieth floor.

Here Jerome Coffern had lived alone in a modest three-room apartment which was filled almost entirely with scientific books.

The locked door quickly yielded to Doc’s expert wielding of a small hook which he made by bending the tongue of his belt buckle. He entered. He paused just inside the door, bronze face grim.

His golden eyes noted a number of things.

Jerome Coffern thought a great deal of his books, and he had a habit of arranging them just a certain distance from the rear wall of the bookcase. Yet they had a different arrangement now.

He kept chemicals on his library table, also arranged in a certain fashion. Doc knew the arrangement well. To one who didn’t know Coffern, they might look orderly now. But they were not in the right order!

The apartment had been searched!

Swiftly, Doc made a circuit of the place. His nimble fingers, his all-seeing eyes, missed little.

He found the evidence on the typewriter! Jerome Coffern had installed a new ribbon on the machine before starting an extensive document. The machine had written the complete length of the ribbon, then back a considerable distance. But where it had not overwritten, the lettered imprint of the keys was discernible.

Doc read:

STATEMENT TO THE POLICE.

In view of a recent incident when a bullet came near me, I have come to the conclusion an attempt is being made to murder me. Furthermore, I suspect my alleged assailant of being guilty of at least one other murder. I realize I should have gone to the authorities earlier, but the very fantastic, horrible, and ghastly nature of the thing led me to doubt my own suspicions.

Herewith is my story:

Nearly a year ago, I went on a scientific expedition to New Zealand with Oliver Wording Bittman, the taxidermist, and Gabe Yuder. From New Zealand, a trip to Thunder Island was —

And there, to Doc’s disgust, it ended. The rest was illegible. But Jerome Coffern had obviously written it.

Doc continued his search. Jerome Coffern had been a man of few intimate friends. In his personal papers was no reference to any one called Kar.

Oliver Wording Bittman, Doc recalled, was a taxidermist who made a specialty of preparing rare animals for museums. But the name of Gabe Yuder was unfamiliar.

Doc knew the address of Oliver Wording Bittman. It was an apartment house two blocks southward along Central Park.

Doc Savage, unable to find anything else of interest, hurried to interview Oliver Wording Bittman. There was a chance Bittman might have heard of Kar, through Jerome Coffern.

As Doc rode up in an elevator of Bittman’s apartment building, he mentally assembled what he knew of the taxidermist.

The material his memory yielded was all favorable to Oliver Wording Bittman. The man’s name was not unknown. He had a sizable display of rare animal life in the Smithsonian Institution. Walls of several famous clubs and hostelries were adorned with trophies he had mounted.

Best of all, Doc recalled his father had once spoken favorably of Bittman.

The taxidermist himself opened the door.

Oliver Wording Bittman was a man nearly as tall as Doc. But he was thin — so very thin that he looked like a skeleton and a few hard muscles. If a prominent jaw denotes character, Bittman had plenty. His jaw was strikingly large.

Bittman had dark, determined eyes. His hair was dark. His skin had been burned by the wind and sun of many climes. He wore a brown, well-cut business suit. Lounging mules were on his bony, efficient feet.

The only jewelry he wore was a watch chain across his waistcoat front. One end of this secured a timepiece. To the other end was fastened a small implement which at first glance looked like a penknife. Actually, it was a razor-edged taxidermist scalpel for skinning specimens.

Bittman twirled this scalpel about a forefinger.

"You are Doc Savage!" he greeted Doc instantly. "I am indeed honored."

Doc admitted his identity, but wondered how Bittman knew him. Bittman must have guessed the question.

"You may wonder how I knew you," the taxidermist smiled. "Come into the library and I will show you the answer."

They moved through the apartment.

Oliver Wording Bittman certainly considered his own work decorative. And in truth, the fellow was an expert in his line. Many scores of rare animal trophies adorned the walls. A great Alaskan Kodiak bear stood in a corner, astoundingly lifelike. Skin rugs made an overlapping carpet underfoot. The workmanship on all these was fine.

They came to a large picture framed on the wall. In the lower left corner of the picture reposed a portion of a letter.

The picture was of Doc Savage’s father. The resemblance between parent and son was marked.

Doc stepped nearer to read the letter.

It was a missive from his own father to Oliver Wording Bittman. It read:

To you, my dear Oliver, I can never express my thanks sufficiently for the recent occasion upon which you quite certainly saved my life. Were it not for your unerring eye and swift marksmanship, I should not be penning this.

Before me as I write, I have the skin of the lion which would surely have downed me but for your quick shooting, and which you so kindly consented to mount. It just arrived. The workmanship is one of the best samples of the taxidermist art I ever beheld. I shall treasure it.

I shall treasure also my association with you on our recent African expedition together. And may the best of the world be yours.

Sincerely,

CLARK SAVAGE, Sr.

The note moved Doc Savage deeply. The death of his father was still a fresh hurt. This had occurred only recently. The elder Savage had been murdered.

It had done little to assuage the pain when Doc himself took up the trail of the murderer, a trail that led to Central America, and ended in a stroke of cold justice for the killer, as well as perilous adventures for Doc and five friends who had accompanied him.

Doc offered his hand to Bittman.

"Whatever debt of gratitude my father owed you," he said feelingly, "you can consider that I also owe you."

Bittman smiled and took the hand in a firm clasp.

IN a very few minutes the conversation got around to Oliver Wording Bittman’s acquaintance with Jerome Coffern.

"I knew Coffern, yes," said Bittman. "We went on that New Zealand expedition together. You say he is dead? What a shock! His murderers should be made to suffer!"

"Five of them have already done that," Doc replied grimly. "But the master mind who ordered Coffern’s murder is still at large. He must pay the penalty!

"He is a man I know only as Kar. I was hoping you might yield some information. Or if not, perhaps you can inform me where Gabe Yuder, the other member of the expedition, can be found."

Oliver Wording Bittman toyed with the scalpel on his watch chain. His eyes were veiled in deep thought.

"Gabe Yuder!" he muttered. "I wonder — could he be the man? He was an unsavory chap. I have no idea what became of him after our return. He remained in New Zealand — intending to return here later."

"Will you describe Gabe Yuder?"

Around and around Bittman’s finger flew the scalpel. He spoke in clipped sentences, giving an excellent description.

"Gabe Yuder was a young man, under thirty. He was robust, an athletic type. He had a red face. His mouth was big. The lower lip was cleft by a knife scar. His eyes were always bloodshot. They were a pale gray. They reminded you of a snake’s undersides. His hair was sandy, a sort of mongrel color.

"Yuder had a loud, coarse voice. He had an overbearing manner. His knuckles were scarred from knocking people about. He would strike a native at the slightest provocation. And he was a combination of chemist and electrical engineer by trade. He went along with us to prospect for petroleum."

"He Does sound rather villainous," Doc admitted. "Can you tell me anything about this Smoke of Eternity?"

"The Smoke of Eternity? What is that?" queried Bittman, looking puzzled.

Doc debated. There was no reason why he should not tell Bittman of the terrible dissolving compound that had destroyed Jerome Coffern. Besides, Bittman had been friend to Doc’s father.

So Doc explained what the Smoke of Eternity was.

"Good heavens!" Bittman groaned. "Such a thing is incredible! No! I can’t tell you the slightest thing about it."

"Did you note anything suspicious about Gabe Yuder’s actions on the New Zealand expedition?"

Oliver Wording Bittman thought deeply, then nodded.

"Yes, now that I think of it. Here is what happened: Our expedition split in two parts when we reached New Zealand. I remained in New Zealand to gather and mount samples of the island bird life for a New York museum, Yuder and Jerome Coffern chartered a schooner and sailed with Yuder’s plane to an island some distance away."

"A plane?" Doc interposed.

"I neglected to tell you," Bittman said hastily. "Yuder is also a flyer. He took a plane along on the expedition. Some American oil company was financing him."

"What was the name of the island to which Yuder and Jerome Coffern went?" Doc asked.

"Thunder Island."

THUNDER ISLAND!

Doc’s bronze brow wrinkled as he groped in his memory. There were few spots in the world, however outlying, upon which he did not possess at least general information.

"As I recall," Doc continued, "Thunder Island is nothing but the cone of an active volcano projecting from the sea. The sides of the cone are so barren they support no vegetation whatever. And great quantities of steam come continually from the active crater."

"Exactly," corroborated Bittman. "Jerome Coffern told me he flew over the crater once with Yuder. The crater was a number of miles across, but the whole thing seemed filled with steam and fumes. They brought back specimens from the cone, however. Jerome Coffern turned them over to the largest college of geology in New York City."

"We’re getting off the trail," Doc declared. "You said you noted something suspicious about Yuder’s actions. What was it?"

"After he and Jerome Coffern returned from Thunder Island, Yuder was surly and furtive. He acted like he had a secret, now that I think back. But at the time, I thought he was in an ill temper because he had found no oil, although he scouted Thunder Island the whole time Jerome Coffern was there gathering specimens."

"Hm-m-m," Doc murmured.

"I’m afraid that does not help much," Bittman apologized.

"It’s too soon to say."

Doc thought briefly. Then he nodded at the telephone.

"May I make a call from here?"

"Of course!"

Arising hastily, Bittman left the room. This politeness was to show he had no desire to listen in on Doc’s phone talk.

Doc called a number.

"Monk?" he asked.

A mild, pleasant voice replied, "Sure thing, Doc."

That mild voice was a deceptive thing. A listener would not have dreamed it could come from the kind of a man who was at the other end of the wire. For the speaker was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair.

He was a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound human gorilla. He was one of the roughest and toughest and most likable and homely men ever to live. Monk was also one of the few chemists in the world who could be considered a greater expert in that line than poor, unfortunate Jerome Coffern.

Monk was one of five men who accompanied Doc Savage on his amazing jaunts in pursuit of adventure. These five, like Doc, were giving their lives to traveling about the world and righting wrongs and handing out their own brand of justice. Whatever excitement turned up in the course of that pursuit — and there was always plenty — they gobbled up and liked it. How they liked it!

"Monk," Doc suggested, "could you take on a little trouble right now?"

"I’m on my way!" chuckled Monk. "Where do I find this trouble?"

"Call Renny, Long Tom, Johnny and Ham," Doc directed. "All of you show up at my place right away. I think I’m mixed up in something that will make us all hump."

"I’ll get hold of them," Monk promised.

DOC stood by the phone a moment after hanging up. He was thinking of his five friends, "Monk," "Renny," "Long Tom," "Johnny," and "Ham." They were probably the most efficient five men ever to assemble for a definite purpose. Each was a world-famed specialist in a particular line.

Renny was a great engineer, Long Tom an electrical wizard, Johnny an archaeologist and geologist, and Ham one of the cleverest lawyers Harvard ever turned out. The gorillalike Monk, with his magical knowledge of chemistry, completed the group.

They had first assembled during the Great War, these adventurers. The love of excitement held them together. Not a one of the five men but owed his very life to the unique brain and skill of Doc.

With Doc Savage, scrapper above all others, adventurer supreme, they formed a combination which could accomplish marvels.

Doc went in search of Oliver Wording Bittman. He found the famous taxidermist in an adjoining room and thanked him for use of the phone.

"I must take my departure now," he finished. "I should like greatly, though, to discuss at some time your association with my father. And any service I can perform for you, a friend of my father’s, a man who saved his life, I shall gladly do."

Oliver Wording Bittman shrugged. "My saving of your father’s life was really no feat at all. I was simply there and shot a lion as it charged. But I would be delighted to talk at length with you. I admire you greatly. Where could I get in touch with you?"

Doc gave the address of a downtown New York skyscraper which towered nearly a hundred stories — a skyscraper known all over the world because of its great height.

"I occupy the offices formerly used by my father on the eighty-sixth floor," Doc explained.

"I have been there," Bittman smiled. "I shall look you up." He gestured at an extension telephone. "May I not call you a taxi?"

Doc shook his head. "I’ll walk. I want to do some thinking."

Down on the street once more, Doc strode across traffic-laden Central Park West and entered the Park itself. He followed the pedestrian walk, angling southeast. He did not try to make haste.

His remarkable brain was working at top speed. Already, it had evolved a detailed plan which he would put in operation as soon as he met his five friends at the skyscraper office.

High overhead, a plane was droning. Doc looked up as a matter of course, for few things happened around him that he did not notice.

The craft was a cabin seaplane, a monoplane, single-motored. And it was painted green. It circled, seemingly bound nowhere.

Doc dismissed it from his thoughts. Planes circling over New York City were a more common sight than the discovery of an ordinary horsefly.

The walk he traversed descended steeply. It crossed a long, narrow bridge over a Park lagoon. The bridge was of rustic log construction.

Doc reached the bridge middle.

Unexpected things then happened.

With a loud bawl of exhaust stacks, the seaplane above dived. Straight down it came. There was murderous purpose in its plunge.

Doc Savage did not have time to race to the end of the bridge. Had he done so successfully, there was no shelter to be had.

A bronze flash, Doc whipped over the rustic railing. He slid under the bridge.

An object dropped from the plane. It was hardly larger than a baseball.

This thing struck the bridge squarely above where Doc had gone over.

A gush of vile grayish smoke arose. With incredible speed, the bridge began dissolving!