Tuned for Murder

CHAPTER XVIII The Masked Man

Four guns were leveled on The Avenger. The four men who held them were in awe, almost afraid, of the man’s absolutely expressionless face. They did not know of the paralysis responsible for its utter immobility. All they knew was that here was a man who showed no emotion of any kind in a situation where any one of them would be scared witless.

The white-haired man’s eyes bothered them, too. They were icy, colorless slits in the white, dead face; and they seemed to hold quiet promise of doom for every man in the library belonging to Kopell’s mob.

But because they were a little afraid, the four were even readier than usual to shoot if an order was disobeyed or a quick move made. The Avenger sensed that and knew that he had better keep quiet.

“Down to the basement with him,” Kopell said. “There are some tricks down there that’ll keep him busy, I’ve been told.”

“Cranlowe, too?” said one of the men.

“No! Keep him up here. We’ll come back and work on him later.”

“ ‘We’ll’ work on him?” said the man, glancing at the still unconscious Jenner. “What about the boss, there?”

Kopell grinned. It was a deadly, cold grimace.

“Look! We’re after a thing worth more dough than any of us ever thought existed. We got a chance to get that thing for ourselves, now. Why share it with him or anyone else?”

There were murmurs of approval. The four men marched Benson downstairs. Kopell and the rest came too, leaving Cranlowe lying bound and helpless on the floor.

Kopell nosed around. He found the door leading to the locked-off cellar room, through which ran the deep chasm, and peered down its shuddery depths. Then he found the door behind which were imprisoned a bewildered psychiatrist and an equally bewildered and hysterical woman.

“Who are you?” snapped Dr. Markham to Kopell. “I demand to be let out of here. Where am I, anyhow? And how did I get here? Who put the little phonograph in my bag?”

“Where is my husband?” wailed Mrs. Cranlowe. “Did he bring me here? And why does he allow me to stay a prisoner?”

“Sure, boys and girls,” grinned Kopell. “You’ll be let out. And then you’ll go by-by, down toward the center of the earth. You won’t be able to blab what you might know, down there.”

He herded them into the dread, earth-floored cellar room. And then he had Benson prodded in there, too.

“One more,” he said. “Get Jenner, from upstairs. He can keep the others company down there.”

Two men went up and came back with the unconscious plant manager. They dumped him next to the chasm.

The two men had just gotten down the basement stairs when a low voice said in the hall behind Smitty and Mac and Josh:

“Get them!”

Mac and Josh whirled, hands going for their guns. They saw, at last, the slim, lone figure behind them. But they had no chance to do anything about it.

A vast paw clamped on the throat of Josh, and another poised like a mallet over the dour Scot’s head.

“Smitty!” croaked Mac. “Have ye gone insane, mon? What—”

The great fist smashed down, and Mac was all through protesting. It was a favorite blow of the giant’s, because of his great height and strength: a hammer blow straight down on a man’s skull. It usually put them out for many minutes.

Josh, in the meantime, was struggling like a black cat. But he wasn’t getting anywhere with it. Either of the two were grim fighters ordinarily. But against the vast strength of their own comrade, they were helpless.

Josh got one frantic kick at Smitty’s shins. So the giant simply held him off at arm’s length, in one hand, till Josh wasn’t struggling any more. Then he dropped him beside Mac, and turned to the slim, masked figure in the corridor.

Smitty’s eyes were blank, and there was a strange and eerie docility in his face. He was waiting, like a robot, for orders.

For a moment the masked young man seemed to hesitate in thoughts. Then he said:

“Take them down to the basement— Wait!”

Down the big front hall which right-angled this corridor, Nellie Gray had seen all the gang go to the basement. She figured it was safe for her to slide out of the stair closet.

She had given herself a few minutes to make sure — and now took this unfortunate moment for her exit.

She came straight to the narrow corridor. Down there she could see only indistinct figures; but her own shapely figure was clearly silhouetted against the light in the main hall.

“Smitty,” she whispered.

Afterward, she thought she had heard very faintly the words:

“Get her. Take her down too.”

But she wasn’t sure of that; and at the moment she paid no attention at all, such was the freakishness of the big man’s reaction to her whisper.

Smitty came toward her and for an instant she felt safe again. Because Smitty had been her tower of strength in a tight place more than once. But then, next instant, she would have turned and run. For then she saw his face.

“Smitty!”

His big, moon face was strangely blank, and his eyes seemed to look at her, but not actually to see her.

His great right hand shot out and got her by the shoulder.

“Smitty, for Heaven’s sake stop clowning around. I don’t know how you got here, but there’s work to be done. They’ve got the chief—”

This time she didn’t hear the words at all, even faintly. But they came distinctly to the giant’s ears.

“Take her down first, and come back for the others.”

Nellie wanted to scream as she had never wanted to in her life before. But she kept it back. She fought like a little tigress while the man she was accustomed to regard as a comrade dragged her like a kicking child to the rear stairs and down into the basement.

Kopell and four of his men were in the space at the foot of the stairs when the giant appeared on the bottom step. The rest were in the other room. Kopell had a gun in his hand, ready to drill the man making the noise on the steps.

But his dull, black eyes narrowed thoughtfully and he withheld the shot.

“This is one of the guys that was in the sedan! We know that now,” bleated Fats. “Don’t you think we ought to burn him down?”

“Wait!” commanded Kopell, staring at the giant’s blank eyes, and watching his oddly mechanical actions as he dragged the girl into the center of the concrete-floored room before releasing her. The man with the narrow jaw grabbed her, then, as she turned to dart back to the stairs.

“Who is she?” said Kopell, gun still steady on Smitty but eyes full of dawning comprehension.

“Nellie Gray. She works for Richard Benson,” said the giant docilely.

“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.