DOC was right.
Monk wasted little time after receiving Doc’s call. He shucked off his rubber work apron. He had a chest fully as thick as it was wide. He put on a coat especially tailored with extra long sleeves. Monk’s arms, thick as kegs, were six inches longer than his legs. Only five feet and a half in height, Monk weighed two hundred and sixty pounds.
His little eyes twinkled like stars in their pits of gristle as he gave his secretary a few orders about his correspondence. Monk knew he might be away six months — or only an hour.
An elevator hurried him down from his penthouse establishment. The elevator operator and the clerk at the cigar stand both grinned widely at the homely Monk. They admired and liked him.
Each carried a pocket piece presented by Monk. These were silver half dollars which Monk had folded in the middle with his huge, hairy, bare hands.
Monk purchased a can of smoking tobacco and a book of cigarette papers. He rolled his own. Then he left the building.
He headed for a near-by subway. The subways offer the quickest, most traffic free transportation in New York City.
A slender, sallow-skinned weasel of a man fell in behind Monk. The fellow was foppishly clad. He kept a hand in a coat pocket.
Monk’s forehead was so low as to be practically nonexistent. This characteristic is popularly supposed to denote stupidity. It didn’t in Monk. He was a highly intelligent man.
Monk’s sharp eyes noted the foppish man trailing him. He saw the weasel-like fellow’s reflection in a plate-glass window of a store.
Monk stopped sharply. His monster hand whipped back. It grasped the knot which the weasel man’s claw made in his coat pocket. Monk twisted. The weasel man’s coat tore half off. Skin was crushed from his hand. And Monk got the long-barreled revolver which the fellow had been holding in the pocket.
The foppish man staggered into a deserted entryway, propelled by a hirsute paw. Monk crowded against him and held him there.
Both Monk’s great hands gripped the revolver barrel. They exerted terrific force. Slowly, the barrel bent until it was like a hairpin.
Monk gave the weasel man back his gun.
"Now you can shoot!" he rumbled pleasantly. "Maybe the bullet will turn around and hit the guy it oughta hit!"
Monk was something of a practical jokester.
The weasel man threw down his useless weapon. He tried to escape. He was helpless in the clutch of this human gorilla.
"Guess I’ll take you along and let Doc Savage talk to you," Monk said amiably.
Monk hauled his prisoner out onto the walk.
"Hold it, you missin’ link!" snarled a coarse voice.
Monk started and stared at the curb.
A sedan had pulled up there. Four villainous looking men occupied it. They had automatic pistols and submachine guns pointed at Monk.
"Get in here!" rasped one of them.
MONK could do two things. He could put up a fight — and certainly get shot. Or he could enter the car.
He got in the sedan.
The instant Monk was seated in the machine, manacles were clicked upon his arms and legs. Not one pair — but three! His captors were prepared to cope with Monk’s vast strength.
Monk began to wish he had taken his chances in a fight.
The sedan wended through traffic. It passed a couple of cops. Monk kept silent. To shout an alarm would have meant the death of those policemen, as well as his own finish. Monk knew men. This was a crew of killers which had him.
The weasel man whose gun Monk had bent was in the car. He cursed the big prisoner and kicked him. Monk said nothing. He did not resist. But he marked the weasel man for a neck-wringing if the opportunity presented.
Rolling on a less used street, the sedan reached the water front. The district was one of rotting piers and disused warehouses on the East River.
The motor of an airplane could be heard out on the river.
The sedan halted. Monk was yanked out.
He saw the plane now. A seaplane, it was painted green.
The seaplane pilot tossed a line. His craft was hauled carefully to one of the old piers.
They dumped Monk in the plane cabin.
The pilot, Monk saw now, had a crimson-soaked bandage about his forehead, and another around his left arm. He was a squat fellow, much too fat. He had mean eyes.
Monk’s captors looked curiously at the pilot’s wounds.
"How’d you get plinked?" one asked.
The pilot vented a snarl of rage. He pointed at several bullet holes in the control compartment.
"Doc Savage!" he gritted. "The bronze devil popped up after I thought I’d finished him! He nearly got me!"
Monk grinned at this. He had iron nerves. If Doc Savage was after this gang, the villainous fellows were in for a brisk time indeed. Monk tested his strength against his manacles. They were too much for him.
"Take the big guy to — you know where!" directed one of the men who had occupied the car.
The pilot indicated a radio receiving set in the plane.
"Sure," he said. "I know where he’s goin’. Kar gimme my orders over the short-wave radio set."
He opened the throttle. With a moan from the exhaust pipes, the seaplane taxied about. It raced across the river surface and took the air.
MONK was prepared for an extensive air journey. He was fooled. The seaplane circled over Brooklyn, then across the harbor. It went nearly as far south as the Statue of Liberty. Banking north, it flew up the Hudson River.
The craft descended to the water near the beginning of Riverside Drive. It taxied slowly along the surface, close inshore.
Rearing up in the cabin, Monk was able to peer through the windows.
Near by and directly ahead stood a couple of rickety piers. To one of these was anchored a large, ancient three-masted sailing ship. The black, somber hull of this strange craft was pierced with cannon ports.
On top of the superstructure reared a big sign, reading:
THE JOLLY ROGER
Former Pirate Ship.
(Admission Fifty Cents)
It was the same craft upon which Doc Savage had cornered Squint and his companions. Monk, however, had no way of knowing this.
From the smokestack of the cookhouse, or galley, poured dense black smoke. This smudge was rapidly settling to the water about the old corsair craft.
Soon the vessel was completely hidden. The darksome pall spread to cover the river out a considerable distance from the ship.
Directly into this unusual smoke screen taxied the seaplane.
The floats of the craft were suddenly seized and held. Monk perceived several men had grasped the plane. These men were standing upon something. Monk craned his neck to see what it was.
His little eyes popped in astonishment.
Under the concealment of the smoke screen, a great steel tank of a thing had come up from the deep river bed. This was in the nature of a submarine, but without conning tower or engines and propellers.
A steel hatch gaped open in the middle of the tank. Into this hatch Monk was hauled.
The seaplane taxied away. The hatch closed. The tank of a submarine sank beneath the surface, submerging after the fashion of a genuine U-boat.
The whole operation had been blanketed by the smoke screen. An observer would not have dreamed a man had been shifted from the plane to a strange underwater craft which now rested on the river bed.
Kar’s men dragged Monk into a tiny steel chamber.
For a minute or two, the loud, sobbing gurgling of water entering the ballast tanks persisted. The submersible rolled a little, then settled solidly on the river bottom. One of the gang now spun metal wheels. These, no doubt, controlled valves.
The interior of the strange craft became quiet as a tomb, except for a monotonous drip-drip-dripof a leak somewhere.
The men were taking no chance on Monk’s escape. Three of them stood apart and kept pistols pointed at him.
One fellow picked up an ordinary telephone. This obviously was connected to a wire that led ashore, probably along the cable which must anchor this unusual vessel.
"Kar," he said into the mouthpiece. "We got the big guy here now."
So quiet was the interior of the steel cell that the metallic voice from the receiver diaphragm was plainly audible to every one.
"Let me talk to him," Kar commanded.
THE receiver was jammed against Monk’s scarred ear, but tilted so the others could hear. They held the mouthpiece a few inches from his lips.
"Well, say your piece!" Monk roared.
"You will speak with civility!" snarled the voice from the phone.
Monk blew air out between his lips and tongue, making a loud and insulting noise known variously as the Bronx cheer and the razzberry.
He was kicked in the barrel of a chest for his performance.
"I fear you are going to come to an unfortunate end very soon," Kar sneered silkily.
Monk’s brain was working rapidly, despite his rowdyism. This voice had an ugly, unreal rasp. He knew Kar must be pulling his mouth out of shape with a finger as he spoke, thus disguising his voice.
"What d’you want?" Monk demanded.
"You will write a note to your friend and chief, Doc Savage. The note will tell him to meet you at a certain spot."
Monk snorted. "You want me to lead Doc into your trap, eh? Nothin’ stirrin’!"
"You refuse?"
"You guessed it!"
There ensued a brief silence. Kar was thinking.
"Give me the addresses of the men you call Renny, Long Tom, Johnny, and Ham!" he commanded. "I learned from a chemical supply firm where you lived. That is how my men came to be waiting for you to appear. But I could not find where the other four of your friends reside. You will give me that information!"
"Sure," Monk growled. "Just watch me do it!"
Then his pug nose wrinkled as he thought deeply. He asked a question: "How did you know our names? How did you find Renny, Long Tom, Johnny, Ham, and I always join Doc Savage when he tackles trouble?"
Kar’s voice rattled an ugly laugh.
"The information was simple to obtain!"
"I’ll bet it was!" Monk snorted. "Not many people know we work together!"
"I already knew that Doc Savage has his New York headquarters on the eighty-sixth floor of a skyscraper," Kar rasped. "I simply sent one of my men to strike up a conversation with the elevator operators of that skyscraper. My man learned you five men were often with Doc Savage. He wormed your nicknames from the elevator operators."
"What’s behind all this?" Monk questioned.
Monk did not, of course, know anything about Kar’s sinister purpose. He did not even know of the existence of the weird and horrible Smoke of Eternity.
"Doc Savage has interfered with my plans!" Kar gritted. "He must die! You five who are his friends would try to avenge his death. So you also must die!"
"You don’t know what you’re tryin’ to do!" Monk declared.
"I do!"
"Oh, no, you don’t! You’d be runnin’ like hell if you knew what a terror Doc Savage is when he gets on the trail of a snake like you!"
This drew a loud snarl from Kar. "I do not fear Doc Savage!"
"Which shows you ain’t got good sense!" Monk chuckled.
"Put him in the death chamber!" Kar commanded angrily.
The telephone was plucked from Monk’s furry hands. He was hauled aft.
Evidently Kar was enough of a judge of character to realize he could never force Monk to lead Doc Savage into a death trap. So he was going to get rid of Monk immediately.
ONE of the men twisted metal dogs which secured a hatch-like steel panel in a wall of the submerged tank. This swung back. It revealed a box riveted to the hull. The box had the dimensions of a large trunk. It barely accommodated Monk’s bulk as he was jammed inside.
At the end of the box was another steel hatch. But this was obviously secured tightly on the outside.
A small petcock protruded from the box ceiling. One of Kar’s men opened this with a key. He fitted a grille over it.
A thin stream of water entered.
The hatch into the tanklike craft clanked shut. The dogs rattled loudly as they were secured.
Monk flounced about, wrenching at his manacles. He could not snap them with all his prodigous effort.
He tried to stop the inrush of water through the petcock. He failed. The petcock construction was such that he could not block it, due to the grille covering.
The water had risen above his ankles by now. The clammy wetness was like the creep of death.
Monk beat the steel plates of the outer hatch with his shackled legs. They held. Nothing less than nitroglycerin could shatter them.
Steadily, the water crawled upward. The minutes were passing with agonizing speed for Monk. He perspired. His brain raced. He could evolve no possible scheme of escape.
The river water now covered his mouth. He had his head rammed tightly against the roof plates. It could go no higher. Over his upper lip, the deadly liquid sloshed.
After the fashion of a diver, Monk determined to take a couple of quick inhalations, then draw in a lungful of air. He was going to hang on as long as he could.
But with the first indraw of air, water was sucked into his lungs.
Gagging, choking, he sank helplessly to the bottom plates.
Monk was drowning! There was nothing he could do to save himself; no way to inform Doc to get aid.
However, while Monk had been taken captive, during the time required for the trip up the river, Doc Savage was not idle. Monk’s failure to appear was evidence that something was wrong — and Doc never let anything stay wrong for long!