The Red Skull

V — Arctic Bait

Johnny examined a scratch on his gangling arm where Ham’s sword-cane had accidentally pricked.

His wordy exchange with Ham had been entirely good-natured. It was the usual thing to argue with Ham, who had a caustic tongue and liked nothing more than a verbal tiff.

Only one man could get the best of Ham in an argument and that was ‘Monk’ — the remaining member of Doc’s group of five. Monk was not present.

“Got any idea what’s up?” Ham asked Doc.

The giant Bronze Man produced the 2 envelopes which had been in Bandy Stevens’s money-belt.

“These may give the answer.”

He explained about the body in the skyscraper corridor as the elevator lifted them.

“The dying man screamed a name just before he expired,” Doc finished. “It was ‘Nate Raff’.”

“I never heard that name before,” Renny declared. “Have you fellows?”

The others shook their heads.

Doc moved the body of Bandy Stevens from the corridor floor, placing it on the inlaid office table. Before doing anything more, he called the authorities and gave the story of what had happened.

“I am taking charge of the affair,” he told the police.

The official at the other end expressed satisfaction. Doc Savage and each of his 5 aides held honorary commissions of high rank on the New York police force. As a result of services rendered in the past, the police had standing orders to give the Bronze Man every cooperation. To these orders, they adhered rigidly.

The phone conversation terminated, Doc pronged the receiver. He ran a paper knife under the envelope flaps.

A letter dropped from one, a sizable bundle of paper from the other.

The men gathered around, eager to learn what the documents had to disclose. Their backs were to the large window. They gave no thought to that, however.

Only one skyscraper nearby was tall enough to furnish a vantage point from which an observer could see into the room. This structure lay within rifle shot. But the windows of Doc’s office were of bulletproof glass.

No danger seemed likely to reach them from the nearby building.

Had Doc or his men turned powerful binoculars on the tower of the skyscraper a few blocks distant, they might have detected something of interest.

This tower — thrusting upward not unlike a candle — was equipped as an observation point. By payment of a small sum, anyone could have the privilege of surveying the city from the lofty perch at any hour of the day-or-night.

Nickel-in-the-slot telescopes were mounted on the platform to permit patrons a better view of the metropolis spread out below them.

Buttons Zortell and one of his hirelings had their eyes jammed to these telescopes. They were getting an excellent view of what happened in Doc Savage’s office.

“The scheme is workin’,” Buttons chuckled. “Them hombres will never guess the truth.”

“Yeah! We’ve got ‘em goin’!” the other man agreed.

“Small thanks to you!” Buttons snapped.

“Aw-w… whatcha beefin’ about?”

“About the boner you pulled down on the street a while ago, you sap! When Doc Savage’s 4 men walked toward us, it was you who started throwin’ lead!”

The man reddened angrily. “I figured they had tumbled to our game.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think they had. They just saw us standin’ there like a bunch of spooky mavericks and come over to see what ailed us.”

“We made a mistake in hangin’ around there.”

“You’re tellin’ me!” Buttons snorted irately. “What a mess of bum shootin’ we done! I don’t think we even nicked anybody!”

“Them fellers moved like they had been shot at before,” complained the other. “They popped out-of-sight like prairie dogs.”

“Havin’ ‘em bump into us didn’t do any harm after all, I guess,” Buttons said in a speculative tone. “In fact, it fits in fine with the rest of my scheme.”

Several seconds of silence followed while both men concentrated on watching the tableau in Doc Savage’s office.

“They’re sure takin’ their time readin’ that letter!” Buttons muttered.

His companion laughed uneasily. “Are you plumb certain you didn’t make a mistake an’ stick the genuine papers back in the envelopes?”

“Of course not!”

Nevertheless, Buttons hastily drew a bundle of documents from the side pocket of his coat and inspected them.

“Nope. I didn’t make a mistake.”

He returned to his pocket the original contents of Bandy Stevens’s money-belt.

“We can’t kill no more time here,” he declared. “Now is our chance to go ahead with our scheme. All of Doc Savage’s men are with him but one. That one is a bird who looks like a gorilla. I found out from the newspapers I called that he’s known as ‘Monk’ on account of his looks. His name is Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair. Some handle for a gent as homely as he is!”

“How’ll we find ‘im?”

“That’s easy! The newspapers gave me his business address. He’s a famous chemist with a hangout where he works down near Wall Street.”

“Wall Street, huh?” grinned the other man. “I’ve always wanted to see that place.”

“You’ll see it!” Buttons rumbled ominously. “This Monk rannihan is gonna see somethin’, too. Somethin’ he won’t like! He’s probably workin’ all night, too.”

The two hastily quitted their lofty perch.

In Doc Savage’s office, scrutiny of the envelope contents was still under way. The letter came first. It was addressed to Doc and read:

Dear Mr. Savage:

I have heard a lot about you and how you go to bat for fellers who are in trouble. I sure need some help so I’m taking the liberty of sending my pal — Bandy Stevens — to ask your assistance.

I’m sure your aid will make things come out all right, and I can pay you just about any amount of money you want for your services.

Here’s the layout: A few weeks ago, I was prospecting and found a big vein of Radium. I panned out enough to get money for placer mining machinery.

Selling the Radium — several ounces of it — must have tipped off somebody because right away I began having troubles. A gang is after me. I don’t know ‘em. But right now as I write this, they have me cornered in my cabin 45 miles West of Fort Caribou in the Hudson Bay country of Canada.

I’m inclosing a map showing where my cabin and the Radium mine is. My friend Bandy Stevens will try to get to you. But my enemies will probably try to stop him and try to keep you from helping me. Bandy will tell you more.

Please, Mr. Savage, won’t you give a man a hand?

Ben Johnson

Strange little lights flickered in Doc Savage’s golden eyes as he ended perusal of the missive.

They examined the map next. It was an ordinary variety. Probably half the large news stands in New York sold them.

On it, a pair of crosses were carefully inked.

“Well, well!” Long Tom kneaded his rather pallid hands. “Someone has insulted us by thinking we would fall for this fake!”

Buttons Zortell would have been shocked had he witnessed the quickness with which Doc Savage’s crew had discovered the documents were spurious. Unbounded surprise would have been his for he had taken great pains — even to spelling every word correctly — in faking them.

“The writer of the letter made a glaring error in mentioning the Radium,” Doc announced. “Radium is not panned from ore but extracted with costly and intricate machinery. Furthermore, he says he sold several ounces of the rare substance. That is a tremendous quantity for Radium! Enough to have a pronounced effect on the market. No such sale was made recently.”

“That’s right,” agreed Renny, whose engineering knowledge made him familiar with the subject.

“Second, that letter was written hardly more than an hour ago,” Doc continued. “The ink is still somewhat damp.”

“Too bad,” Ham grumbled. “I’d like to go up North. A vacation in the Canadian woods appeals to me.”

“My guess is that it will take us to Arizona,” Doc told him.

Ham betrayed surprise at this.

Then — to show he was capable of detective work himself — he stepped over and examined Bandy Stevens’s coat.

“You win, Doc,” he admitted. “This suit came from a Phoenix, Arizona clothier.”

Doc scrutinized the features of the dead man.

“Wind has reddened the fellow’s face,” he pointed out. “A protected area about the eyes indicates goggles were worn. That means an open plane.”

“Then it would seem he came from Arizona to New York by plane,” Ham grunted.

“We don’t know he came here from Arizona!” Renny objected. “He might actually have come from the Hudson Bay country.”

Doc turned out the cuff’s of Bandy’s trousers, disclosing a small amount of lint and several crumpled fragments of grayish leaves.

“Leaves off sagebrush,” he indicated. “Not greatly withered, either. They were shaken off as the man walked through sagebrush not more than 24 hours ago. I think we can rest assured that he flew straight here from Arizona.”

Doc now rifled through New York telephone books and the ponderous city directories. But he did not find what he sought.

“I was looking for the name of ‘Nate Raff’ — the name Bandy Stevens cried out as he died,” he explained. “There is no such person listed.”

Ham glanced at his watch. “Monk will want to be in on this. What say we call him?”

Doc nodded. Striding to a desk, he flipped one of 5 small switches.

On the desk stood what seemed to be a box with a frosted glass panel in one end. As Doc moved the switch, a movie-like image appeared on the panel.

This mechanism was a telephone-television apparatus of Doc’s construction. The 5 switches connected to circuits that led to the places of business of Doc’s 5 men — a switch for each man.

On the scanning screen of the televisor appeared the interior of Monk’s laboratory in a penthouse atop an office building near Wall Street.

The laboratory was untenanted.

“Monk probably hasn’t come to work yet,” Ham decided. “He’ll be there soon. The big mug has a habit of going to work at 5:00 in the morning. It’s almost that time now.”

“You’ve got a lot of room to talk about ‘working hours’!” snorted Johnny. “You’ve been up here all night.”

“But only to watch you birds sweat!” Ham retorted.

This was hardly the truth. Ham had taken a part in the night’s work which was the tedious task of perfecting plans and structural details for an addition to a strange institution which Doc Savage maintained in up-state New York. Few people knew of this weird place or the fantastic purpose it served. And should the knowledge have gotten out, it would have proven sensational.

For it was to this institution that Doc sent such criminals as he captured. Once incarcerated there, they underwent delicate brain operations which wiped out all knowledge of their past, leaving their minds a blank.

Then they received an intensive education not only in right living and good citizenship but also in the art of making an honest living. They were taught to hate criminals and their ways. No man — once released from this place — had ever returned to a life of crime.

Doc’s money maintained the unusual “College” and the specialists who performed the operations had been taught by his hand.

Gathering up the plans upon which they had worked through most of the night, Doc placed them in the great safe.

“We’ll attend to these later,” he declared. “They are almost complete, anyway.”

Ham stared grimly at the lifeless form of Bandy Stevens.

“Have you any idea who did this, Doc?”

The Bronze Man replied with a question.

“Did you notice anything in particular about the men who shot at you downstairs?”

“They were sunburned fellows. That could easily be noticed,” Ham replied.

“And all of them but one used single-action six-shooters,” Renny boomed.

“That type of gun is the standard firearm of the West,” Doc pointed out. “They were evidently Westerners. Bandy Stevens was from the West. So that points to a connection between them and his killing.”

“I’ll bet they were the murderers!” snapped Ham. “When we walked toward them, they thought they were discovered. That’s why they started shooting!”

Doc nodded. He moved to his televisiphone and threw the switch.

“I’ll try to get Monk again.”

The interior of Monk’s laboratory once more appeared on the scanning screen. The great racks of chemicals, retorts, and test tubes showed with a fair degree of distinctness.

The laboratory was now occupied.

An extremely pretty blonde young woman approached the mechanism. She was tall and exquisitely formed.

As she came closer, the televisor screen framed her features, picture-fashion. The greater detail only accentuated her beauty. She was a knock-out!

The blonde was Lea Aster, Monk’s secretary. Monk was wont to boast he had the prettiest secretary in New York. He probably did not exaggerate.

Doc spoke into a microphone which was part of the mechanism.

“Is Monk there?”

“Not yet.” Lea Aster’s voice — rich and modulated as finely as the tones of a high-salaried radio singer — came from a loudspeaker built into the televisor. “He hasn’t come in yet.”

“Have him give us a look when he arrives,” Doc replied.

“Certainly… But wait! I hear some one at the door now. Perhaps it is Monk.”

The young woman turned from the televisiphone. Since she was no longer before the “eye” of the apparatus, Doc and his men could see the door of Monk’s laboratory.

A man suddenly appeared in the opening. He was huge, burly, vicious of feature. 2 bullet scars were like gray buttons, one on either cheek.

It was Buttons Zortell!

“That’s one of the birds who jumped us on the street!” Renny boomed.

Then he fell silent, watching the tableau in Monk’s workshop.

Dashing forward, Buttons Zortell seized Lea Aster. The blonde screamed and struck at him!

Facing the televisor, she shrilled: “Help!”

More men appeared in the laboratory — confederates of Buttons Zortell.

“Smash that box of a jigger!” Buttons ordered angrily.

One of the men ran over and bashed at the televisiphone box with a heavy six-gun!

The image vanished as the mechanism was put out-of-commission.