TEXT:  THE MOTION MENACE
  A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
  
  Table of Contents
  THE MOTION MENACE.................................................................................................................................1
  A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson......................................................................................1
  Chapter I. MEN WITH BEARDS...........................................................................................................1
  Chapter II. THE WALL OF TERROR....................................................................................................7
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC.......................................................................................................13
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE.................................................................................................19
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER..................................................................................................24
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET...........................................................................................................30
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE...................................................................................................38
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT..................................................................................................................43
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR................................................................................................................48
  Chapter X. AIR ACTION......................................................................................................................53
  Chapter XI. THE INVISIBLE WALL...................................................................................................57
  Chapter XII. MANCHU MENACE.......................................................................................................62
  Chapter XIII. THE TRICKSTER..........................................................................................................67
  Chapter XIV. TROUBLE PILED UP....................................................................................................74
  Chapter XV. TRAPS AND BAIT..........................................................................................................78
  Chapter XVI. LAIR...............................................................................................................................81
  Chapter XVII. THE TRICK THAT DIDN’T  WORK..........................................................................85
  Chapter XVIII. INERTIA......................................................................................................................91
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  THE MOTION MENACE
  A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  http://www.blackmask.com
  Chapter I. MEN WITH BEARDS
  • 
  Chapter II. THE WALL OF TERROR
  • 
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  • 
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE
  • 
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  • 
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  • 
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
  • 
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
  • 
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR
  • 
  Chapter X. AIR ACTION
  • 
  Chapter XI. THE INVISIBLE WALL
  • 
  Chapter XII. MANCHU MENACE
  • 
  Chapter XIII. THE TRICKSTER
  • 
  Chapter XIV. TROUBLE PILED UP
  • 
  Chapter XV. TRAPS AND BAIT
  • 
  Chapter XVI. LAIR
  • 
  Chapter XVII. THE TRICK THAT DIDN’T WORK
  • 
  Chapter XVIII. INERTIA
  • 
  Chapter I. MEN WITH BEARDS
  THE strange rumor that circulated when the China  Rocket crashed did not get the attention it should have.
  When aviation was new, airplane company press agents  got the habit of breathing hints of sabotage every
  time there was a  crack−up. Nothing definite. Just vagueness about Communists,  terrorists, or some other
  nebulous enemy.
  The idea was for these whisperings to prevent the  public getting the thought that maybe airplanes were not as
  safe as  they might be. This sort of thing eventually stopped, but the memory  remained in the public mind as
  old stuff.
  The China Rocket was a luxury clipper from  San Francisco to Shanghai, China. Two pilots and a radio
  operator. Hot  meals. Pretty hostesses whose smiles would take your mind off  air−sickness and the size of the
  Pacific Ocean, or who would hand you a  paper bag if that didn’t work.
  Divers had to be used to get what was left of the  China Rocket out of Hangchau Bay, just south of Shanghai.
  Fortunately, Europeans who had seen it happen could point out the spot.  The observers just happened to be an
  American movie actor and his party  aboard a small yacht. The story they told was so queer they were asked
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  to repeat it quite a few times.
  The China Rocket had come to a dead stop in  the sky. Very suddenly. All its motors had halted. Then the
  plane had  fallen into Hangchau Bay. That was the eyewitnesses’ tale.
  Authorities and newspapermen accounted for this  remarkably unbelievable story with two explanations
  which they  considered probable: The observers had either made it up to grab some  publicity, or they had all
  been drunk. But some one had a more  acceptable suggestion: An insane passenger had grabbed the controls.
  Details of the extremely modern construction of the  plane were reprinted in America and Europe.
  It did not appear in print that Clark Savage, Jr.,  better known as Doc Savage, had designed the plane. Or,
  rather, the  ship was an exact duplicate in shape and streamlining of two ships  which Doc Savage had built for
  himself. Doc Savage was not an  individual who got in print when it could be avoided.
  This point, missed by all but one person, happened  to explain why the China Rocket crashed.
  A YOUNG lady was the one who did not miss the point.  She went down to breakfast in the coffee shop of a
  Shanghai hotel the  next morning, bought a newspaper as a matter of course, and naturally  saw the story of the
  China Rocket, and pictures of the ill−fated  ship. She looked sharply at the pictures.
  The young lady was tall, but her figure did not have  a very good shape. Her hair was blond, but the stringy
  kind of blond  that does not interest any one. Horn−rimmed colored spectacles didn’t  help her looks any.
  Her clothes were padded to give her a bad form, her  hair was dyed, and the awful glasses hid the color of her
  eyes. None of  this was very easily detected. Actually, she was a stunning beauty.
  The dumpy−looking young woman hastily turned pages  until she found another airplane picture. The legend
  under it said:
  Miss Enola Emmel, of New York, lands her plane in  Shanghai, bound on Orient tour.
  The plane was outwardly a duplicate of the unlucky  China Rocket.
  The manager of the hotel happened to pass. He said,  "I hope everything is satisfactory, Miss Emmel." He was
  an American,  and the hotel was American−owned and managed.
  The young lady who was on the register as Miss Enola  Emmel said, "Yes, thank you," rather absently.
  She was thinking. She turned back to the plane−wreck  news, and her expression became grim. She got up and
  looked around  until she found a telephone booth. It was a modern booth, just like  those in New York hotel
  lobbies.
  The girl called a number in New York City by  transpacific telephone. The connection required about ten
  minutes.
  A remarkable voice answered the telephone in New  York. A male voice with depth, timbre and control. Not a
  radio  announcer on any network had a voice the equal of it.
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  "This is Pat," the young woman in China said.  "Listen, Doc, have you read about the China Rocket?"
  "Naturally," said the unusual voice.
  "A hunch just struck me, Doc. You know�"
  "Pat," said the voice, "you are supposed to be  taking a vacation. You claimed you were tired of running that
  beauty  shop and ladies’ gymnasium, where you charge such outrageous prices.  You borrowed one of my
  planes, had it shipped to the Philippines, and  started flying it yourself on a tour of the Orient. You disguised
  yourself. You insisted you were going to have one vacation where no one  would bother you. Go ahead and
  take it."
  The young woman said, "What I need is diversion,  more than a vacation. I think I’ve found some excitement."
  "It is to be hoped not." The New York voice sounded  weary.
  "I think whoever crashed the China Rocket was  after me!"
  The response this got from the New York end of the  long wire was strange. It was not an exclamation, grunt
  or whistle. It  was a fantastic sound. Probably the nearest description was trilling.  It rose and fell, eerie, but
  without tune. It was such a sound as might  have been made by a small breeze.
  THE young woman waited until the trilling sank into  nothingness, then said, "My plane looked exactly like
  the China  Rocket. I left Manila at the same time, but stopped off in South  China to see if I could find any
  trace of Captain Cutting Wizer."
  "You really went to China to find Captain Wizer, did  you not?"
  "Yes. He is an expert on electromagnetic  dermatological science. When he visited New York some months
  ago, he  made me a little contraption that cures blackheads like nobody’s  business. I want to hire him to build
  more apparatus. But I can’t find  him. Nobody knows where he went. Anyway, that could have no connection
  with this. No one knows me here in Shanghai."
  "Are you using your own name?"
  "Of course not. I’m Miss Enola Emmel, an air  tourist."
  "Took the words ‘lemme alone’ and turned them  around. Not especially good."
  "I thought," Pat said, "it was right snitzy."
  The man in New York asked, "Why should any one try  to kill you, Pat?"
  "Now you’ve got me. I cannot think of an enemy in  the world."
  There was a brief silence.
  "The people on the boat who saw the China Rocket  crash told a rather strange story, Pat. That is, their
  description of  how the China Rocket crashed. It came to a sudden, dead stop in  the air, they said, so you will
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  recall. Of course, that is impossible.  Planes do not come to sudden, dead stops in mid−air."
  "Yes, Doc. It struck me as wacky, too."
  "It might be advisable to look into the matter."
  Pat said cheerfully, "I’ll meet you on Hangchau Bay  where the plane crashed."
  "You will not!"
  "Please, Doc, I must�"
  "This is one time you stay out of trouble, young  lady. No more backtalk. Go on with your vacation."
  "I won’t!"
  "You will!"
  Pat Savage appeared to have been backed into a  corner. She grimaced, started to say something two or three
  times, and  finally emitted a dramatic groan.
  "Oh, all right!" she snapped. "But I hope I run into  a kidnaping or something up in these woods!"
  Bang! 
  went the receiver, and Pat stepped out of the phone booth. 
  "MISS SAVAGE, I’m here to save you," a voice said at  Pat’s elbow.
  Pat�or Enola Emmel, as she called herself�gave a  start and eyed the speaker.
  "Didn’t you stop to think," she snapped, "that I  might have a weak heart? And my name is Enola Emmel, not
  Savage!"
  The young man was as tall as any young man should  be, and he had blue eyes, blond hair, a pleasantly large
  mouth. His  shirt and the handkerchief peeking from the breast pocket were a shade  of light tan; his well−cut
  suit, tie and shoes, were different shades  of brown.
  "Your specialty is giving others heart trouble," he  said, cheerfully. "And I know you’re Pat Savage. I’ve seen
  you before.  Say, did you know your life was in danger?"
  "My life�" Pat stared at him.
  "Well, maybe not that bad. But a man’s trailing you.  Oh, yes, my name is Halloc. Ky Halloc. I was at the
  airport when you  landed last night. An old man with whiskers was following you. Not to  be outdone, I, in
  turn, followed him. He is now loitering in the  street. I’ll show you."
  "I think you’re crazy, or else you’re kidding me,"  Pat said. But nevertheless she followed him.
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  Out on the street there was no white−whiskered  gentleman, and Pat asked, "How did you happen to be at the
  airport last  night?"
  Halloc grinned. "Just happened to be passing by and  saw the plane land. I recognized you, then saw the old
  boy follow you.  He’s around somewhere. We’ll take a ride in my car. He’ll follow us,  and you can see him."
  Halloc was no millionaire, judging from his car. It  had been washed recently, though, and the
  chromium�what there was�had  been polished. It was a second−hand car shipped over from the United
  States. He held the door open.
  Getting in, Pat showed him the business end of an  enormous, single−action six−shooter.
  "Swell!" Halloc grinned. "I always wanted to wed a  real old−fashioned sheriff’s daughter." He got in.
  Pat kept the six−gun in her right hand, and kept her  left hand on her left knee. That way, her arm would
  prevent his  grabbing the gun if he felt so inclined.
  They drove through narrow streets, scraped some  paint off the fenders turning cramped corners, but saw no
  one. Then Ky  Halloc gave Pat a surprise.
  "Look here," he said, "what got Doc Savage  interested in the Elders?"
  Pat took off her colored glasses. Her eyes narrowed  at him.
  "I have no idea what you’re talking about," she said.
  "Oh, don’t try to beat around the bush. Doc Savage  started you investigating because you were least likely to
  be  suspected. Anyway, you knew the man."
  It was with some difficulty that Pat managed to look  composed.
  "They tried to stop you yesterday, and got the  China Rocket by mistake," Halloc said. "The two planes looked
  alike. Instead of killing you, they killed those others by mistake."
  "You listened outside the telephone booth!" Pat  snapped.
  "Nope."
  "Then how did you�who are you, anyway?"
  The young man took in a big breath.
  "I’m a new pal of yours. Listen, does the name  Viscount Herschel Penroff mean anything to you?"
  It didn’t. Pat shook her head.
  "Ever hear of Captain Cutting Wizer?" Ky Halloc  asked.
  "Captain Wizer?" Pat’s eyes widened. "You mean a  nice old gentleman who is a surgeon experimenting with
  electrical  treatments for skin disorders?"
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  "Captain Wizer�nice old gentleman?" Ky Halloc looked  queer.
  "A wonderful old fellow," Pat said warmly. "I want  to hire him to build skin−beautifying apparatus. Do you
  know where he  is?"
  "Did he have a white beard?"
  "No." Pat frowned. "Look here, what is this all  about?" 
  The young man shook his head. "Either you’re fooling  me and don’t know what a horrible fellow Captain
  Wizer is or�well, we’d  better talk this over. Say, I’ve got to smoke while I talk. Have you  got a cigarette? I’m
  out of them."
  "I don’t smoke," Pat said.
  Ky Halloc steered his car into the curb at a corner,  stopped and shut off the engine. There was a tobacco shop
  on the corner.
  Pat watched him get out and walk quickly into the  tobacco store. He had a nice, swinging stride, with his
  shoulders held  back. It was too early yet to tell whether he had any brains or not.
  Pat was so interested in speculating about the young  man that she did not observe a car until it stopped in the
  street  beside Ky Halloc’s machine. She gripped her gun and eyed the newly  arrived automobile. It looked
  harmless enough.
  A smallish man, bundled to his ears in a gaberdine  coat, was driving. Two persons were in the rear. All three
  seemed to be  engaged in an animated discussion. It was the kind of conference any  travelers might hold when
  puzzled about the road.
  Then Pat gave a start. Beards! All three of them had  white beards! The sight of so many beards startled Pat.
  When the car  door opened, she thought it was Ky Halloc returning, and neglected to  look around.
  The next instant, her six−gun was wrenched out of  her fingers.
  WHEN Pat looked around to see who had snatched her  gun, she got one of the surprises of her life. There was
  not one man.  There were two. They both had pistols. One was already starting the car.
  They both had white beards!
  Pat took a moment to get over being stunned; then  she went into action.
  The white whiskers of the nearest man were nice and  long. Pat grabbed and yanked. The fellow hadn’t
  expected that. She got  him down across her lap. He couldn’t very well shoot. Neither could his  companion.
  With her free hand, Pat aimed a dig at the driver’s  little pop eyes. He bleated and threw up his hands as if he
  had found a  snake in his lap.
  Pat reached for her big six−shooter. At the same  time, she twisted the whiskers with all her might. She could
  feel some  of them pulling out.
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  Then the curtain of unconsciousness fell down on  things.
  The bearded man from the other car hastily pocketed  the gun with which he had clubbed Pat.
  "Can you drive, General?" he asked.
  "Yes," said the one whose eyes Pat had poked.
  Both cars went down the street in a hurry. They did  not, however, drive too fast. That might have interested
  some of the  military guards stationed about this, the foreign quarter of the city.
  Ky Halloc came out of the Chinese tobacco shop with  a pack of American cigarettes on which he had paid an
  unearthly import  duty. He looked about, and seemed surprised when he saw his car about  four blocks distant,
  moving rapidly. It turned a corner and was lost to  sight.
  Ky Halloc, after he had rubbed his jaw, gave a  queer, short laugh.
  "This," he said, "is just the first chapter."
  Chapter II. THE WALL OF TERROR
  PAT SAVAGE looked at some white whisker hairs in her  fingers for a while after she awakened. They had
  tied her wrists with a  necktie, but her fingers must have remained unconsciously clenched on  the whiskers.
  She tried her strength. But the necktie was stronger.
  Trees and brush were whisking past on either side.  The woods did not look as if it had been farmed. Wild
  country.
  Pat looked her captors over. They were a queer pair.  They reminded her of old owls. Their hooked noses did
  that. The way  they kept their lips tight made it look as if they had something in  their mouths. They did speak
  good English, though.
  As she finished her inspection, she nearly snorted.  They were dressed like a vaudeville team. Each wore a
  gaberdine topcoat  buttoned to the throat, and each head was topped by a hat shaped like a  stewpan, and made
  of some white fur that might have been  dyed−and−clipped rabbit, or ermine.
  Pat looked around. The other car was following.
  "Well," Pat demanded, "what’s the meaning of this?"
  "Quiet, madame," said one of the old men. "His  Highness will confer with you when the time comes."
  The time, it developed, was some distance off. The  cars drove for half an hour�there was a clock on the
  dashboard. Then  both machines pulled off the road and headed for the shore of a lake.  They nearly got stuck.
  Every one alighted, and Pat was helped out.
  Two canoes were cocked up on the lake shore. Every  one got in them. Three of the men gave Pat every help
  possible. When  one of them did her a service, he always prefaced it by a funny little  bow. The canoes were of
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  American make.
  Pat wondered, as they paddled out in the lake, if  they could swim. Two men were in her boat and three were
  in the other.  She could make good time with her hands and feet tied. Pat became  intrigued with the idea.
  She upset the canoe.
  THE old men could swim. They were, in fact, a bunch  of old Neptunes. Pat, swimming underwater, just
  started to vision  escape�the water was loosening the necktie�when they caught her. She  kicked around some,
  but they held her.
  They righted the overturned canoe, with the help of  the bearded gentlemen in the other canoe, and spilled the
  water out of  it. Two of them gave their bows, then hauled Pat, dripping and madder  than she could remember
  being, into the craft.
  Not a word was said by anybody. But it took great  control for Pat to keep silent.
  They rounded a headland. A plane�a seaplane,  two−motored, big and fast�stood on the lake. A man was
  inside, waiting.
  More bows, and Pat was lifted into the plane cabin.  The pilot�he had a helmet chin strap buckled under his
  whiskers�had the  bowing habit, also. He made Pat comfortable in a seat, then backed away.
  The old men then upset both canoes.
  "If the trail comes this far, the upset canoes may  mislead them with thoughts of drowning," an old gentleman
  told Pat. He  smiled widely, then closed his mouth and held it as if he had something  in it.
  The plane then took off. The ship climbed  beautifully. It headed south.
  "I’m sorry, madame," one old man apologized. He  bowed, then tied a scarf over Pat’s eyes; and Pat thereafter
  could not  see where they were going.
  The plane finally landed nicely on water, taxied a  bit, then the floats ground against what sounded like rock;
  and other  noises indicated the craft was being tied with ropes to the shore.
  An old gentleman then removed Pat’s blindfold and  bowed. "My arm, madame," he said politely.
  Pat tried to jump into the water as they helped her  ashore. She wanted to leave wet tracks. They politely
  prevented this,  then removed her high−heeled pumps, which might leave scratches on the  stone.
  The old men had also taken off their shoes. They all  wore very woolly socks.
  They walked in silence across the stone. Nowhere was  there a blade of grass, although there were high,
  wooded slopes around  the lake.
  A cleft appeared ahead. They walked to it. As they  walked in, it narrowed, and quickly became the mouth of
  a cave. The  hole was not waist high, and only wide enough for one man at a time.
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  The old man in the lead stepped back, bowed, and  said, "You first, madame."
  Pat glanced angrily at the surrounding rocks. There  was not much she could do. She bent and dived into the
  hole.  Straightening up, she looked around.
  Pat’s career had not been entirely without scares.  She had rather good self−control; but she suddenly emitted
  a startled  screech.
  She had crept into the den of an enormous bear. And  the occupant was home!
  PAT knew a good deal about bears. This one was the  worst kind. A grizzly! Monstrous! The beast showed its
  fangs. A growl  came from it. Then it started for her.
  The grizzly was not a dozen feet distant, and  grizzlies are not customers to meet at that range, even with the
  most  high−powered rifle.
  Pat whirled, hopped for the outlet. Her feet were  not now lashed with the necktie, but she doubted very much
  if she could  make it anyway.
  One of the old men blocked the way.
  The thoughts that lashed Pat’s brain the next  instant were chaotic.
  Shrill, chortling glee came from the old man’s lips.  He had his head back. Laughing! Like a babe with a
  lollypop!
  "Be calm, madame," he said. "The bear is a pet.  Perfectly gentle. Back, Moe!"
  Moe stopped. He showed his teeth, lathered his gums  with a red tongue, burped, then lurched around and
  retreated.
  "You can’t tell me Moe is a pet!" Pat said shakily.
  "His temper may not be the best," the old man said  sorrowfully. "You see, his stomach has been bothering
  him. He likes  that strong brown Chinese beer, but we unfortunately ran out of it."
  One of the bearded men then stooped and began  working on the floor. The interior of the cave was veined
  with cracks,  that being the nature of the stone.
  The man working on the floor lifted a slab of  stone�a trapdoor.
  "You see," said Pat’s informant, "any one finding  this place with Moe in it would think it a mere bear’s den."
  Pat almost remarked that as far as she was concerned  it was anyway, but didn’t.
  AFTER several polite bows, Pat was guided into the  hole in the floor. She expected steps. There were none
  here.
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  Pat discovered herself standing in what seemed to be  a metal bucket about seven feet deep and three across.
  There were  handholds around it, and the sides were padded.
  Three of the old men got in with Pat. The bucket  lacked the size to hold all of them. The others said they
  would wait  for the second trip.
  Some one operated a switch or a lever. The bucket  sank. But the way did not lie downward much of the
  distance, either.  Instead, the bucket traveled on one side. Pat appreciated the padded  sides and the handles
  then. Because she had the sensation of standing  on her head, she knew the bucket was being pulled upward.
  They came out in a twilight, and Pat looked around.  What she saw was amazing enough that she somewhat
  forgot about being  mad.
  She stood in a giant crack. There were walls of  stone on each side, the natural rock sides of the crack, which
  Pat  judged to be four hundred feet high, or more. The width at the bottom  was nowhere more than two
  hundred feet. Strangely, the crack seemed  narrower at the top. Pat decided this might be an optical illusion.
  Suddenly Pat became so interested in listening that  she forgot all else. There was a sound in the air. A weirdly
  fantastic  sound. An orchestration. The vibrations did not rise and fall. They  were steady.
  Pat was escorted to a mass of stone which looked as  if it had fallen into the crack, but hadn’t. It proved to be
  a box of a  hut, carefully camouflaged. There was a door, but no lock on the door.
  "Unfortunately, madame, we never prepared to keep  prisoners," an old man told Pat.
  "Listen here, you old goats!" Pat snapped. "Why did  you bring me here?"
  "It is very simple, madame. You are associated with  Doc Savage indirectly. You started to the Orient and
  began inquiring  for Captain Wizer. Obviously, you knew something. So we set about  apprehending you."
  "But," Pat exclaimed, "I only wanted to hire Captain  Wizer to build beauty apparatus!"
  "In that case, we took some lives needlessly."
  Pat looked horrified. "Then you did wreck the  China Rocket?" she gasped.
  "That was an unfortunate bit of futility, it  seems�if you only wanted Captain Wizer to build beauty
  machines," the  old fellow said calmly, and walked away.
  Pat stood and stared after him. She turned away.  Utter revulsion was on her features. All those innocent
  passengers  aboard the China Rocket� 
  There was a noise at the door. Pat turned.
  "Captain Wizer!" she gasped.
  CAPTAIN WIZER was a tall affair of bones and  wrinkled hide. He had no beard. He did have piercing eyes
  and a  forehead of almost remarkable size. He wore big horn−rimmed spectacles  and they had thick lenses
  which magnified his eyeballs, giving them a  weird aspect. He wore a long white smock, very heavy rubber
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  gloves and  a strange sort of mask of some kind of metal that resembled lead was  dangling around his neck.
  "Ay yust bane learn ‘bout you," he said. 
  "You�you’re one of these butchers!" Pat snapped  grimly. The old man�Wizer was past sixty�blinked
  soberly. 
  "It vars too bad dis had to happen. Ay don’t vant to  see you ha’ar."
  "Who are these old men?" Pat asked.
  "Ve oll bane Elders," said Wizer.
  "So you old reprobates call yourselves the Elders,  eh? I think murderers would be more apt."
  Old Wizer blinked owlishly at her behind his thick  spectacles.
  "It yust bane too bad," he muttered. "Oll you can do  bane to hope. Maybe�" He fell silent.
  "What have I done?" Pat demanded angrily.
  "You got yourself mixed up in somet’ings so big dot  you can’t do anyt’ings ‘bout her. Ay vould not tell you
  any more."
  "But I only came to China to get you to design  beauty apparatus!"
  "Ay know. But ve make mistake. Ve bane tank Doc  Savage send you to investigate us."
  Pat could think of nothing to say to that. Old Wizer  stood there squirming.
  "Ay don’t tank His Highness bane here now," he said  finally. "Vhen he come, Ay bane try to see you don’t
  die. You bane  awful pretty girl to die."
  He shuffled away, head down, looking sorrowful.
  PAT stood and thought. She had accidentally come  upon something sinister. The old men thought she had
  been sent by Doc  Savage. They were scared of Doc. That was not strange.
  Doc Savage, the man of bronze, the man of mystery,  the mental marvel, as the newspapers called him, had a
  reputation which  was capable of frightening crooks. For evildoers were Doc’s specialty.
  These Elders were taking no chances.
  Pat snorted, and went back to the door. It did not  have a lock, she had noted. She craned her neck and looked
  through the  ventilating slit. Then she opened the door the merest crack. It did not  make a noise.
  An old man stood beside the door, on guard. The  fellow must have been made a trifle deaf. He had not heard
  the door. No  other Elders were in sight.
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  Pat was an impulsive young lady. She picked out a  spot behind the old gentleman’s right ear and let him have
  it.
  She grabbed, jerked him inside. No need to hit him  again, though. He was out. She shook him out of his
  gaberdine and  lifted off his fur cap, which had not been knocked off. Under the  gaberdine he wore a rather
  startlingly brilliant uniform. There was  much gold braid and many medals, some of them jeweled. She looked
  closely at the medals. Genuine!
  Pat stepped out clad in the gaberdine and the white  fur hat.
  She had not taken a dozen steps when one of the old  men saw her. He was the fellow guarding the tunnel
  mouth. But he did  not give an alarm, and she went on, satisfied she had fooled him. She  headed toward the
  upper end of the crack and quickly rounded the bend.
  Pat would not have been as confident had she seen  the expression on the wrinkled visage of the old owl at the
  tunnel  mouth. He was smiling grimly, and talking to himself.
  "It is best that she learn now how hopeless her  position is," he chuckled.
  He waited. Obviously, he was expecting something to  happen. It did.
  There was a scream. Pat’s voice! Tearing with  horror! She screeched again, long, drawn−out, starting loud,
  and  trailing off to an end that was almost a whimper.
  The violinlike singing sounds kept on steadily.  There was a definitely sinister quality about them.
  Pat appeared. Running. Staggering, rather. She did  not seem to be wounded. Yet she weaved and could
  hardly walk. And upon  her face was an awful whiteness.
  Men were appearing from whatever tasks had employed  them. They ran until they saw Pat, after which they
  stopped and stared.
  "Get the physician!" one of them called.
  Pat weaved to the hut where she had been confined.  She collapsed in the door, and began to wring her arms,
  to beat them  against her sides and against the ground. Her eyes were almost glazed.  She mumbled, delirious
  with agony.
  The men gathered around her. With great solicitude,  they clasped her wrists and arms and began to knead and
  pat them. They  still didn’t forget to bow before each small service.
  Pat moaned, "Oh�that�that�horror�"
  An old man in the background said solemnly, "She  knows, now."
  "Yes," said another, with equal solemnity. "And she  is a nice young woman, with courage. It is sad."
  Pat, in her delirium of pain, rolled and mumbled. In  her blankness, she seemed to be trying to convey a
  warning.
  "Doc!" she moaned incoherently. "You won’t  guess�you’ll never have�a chance!"
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter II. THE WALL OF TERROR
  12
  
  Her mumblings became weaker and weaker and her  movements less and less, as if an unseen beast of silence
  were slowly  swallowing her.
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  THERE were occasions when Doc Savage would have  better been a more ordinary−looking individual. As it
  was, his  appearance was so striking that he could hardly put a foot on the  street without being recognized.
  Almost all New York knew him.
  He towered in any crowd. His skin had a distinctive  bronze tint. His hair was an unusual bronze hue, only a
  bit darker than  his skin. His eyes were striking, like pools of flake gold always  stirred. And the eyes
  possessed something magnetic.
  For the last few weeks, Doc had been molested.  People were spying on him. Doormen, clerks, newsboys, taxi
  drivers.  When asked the idea, they freely admitted they were gathering  information for a series of articles on
  the bronze man by a newspaper  syndicate. They got paid for each tip they turned in about him.
  Doc never gave interviews, so the syndicate seemed  to be using this other method. There was no law against
  it.
  So Doc at the moment was using obscure routes to his  headquarters on the eighty−sixth floor of the city’s
  most prominent  skyscraper. He came out in the skyscraper lobby and beat three  autograph−seekers to an
  elevator.
  The elevator operator immediately whisked his  passenger upward. He did not say anything.
  Doc Savage said, "You are new here, aren’t you?"
  "Yes, sir," the operator replied as tonelessly as a  machine.
  "Whose place did you take?"
  "Walter’s, sir."
  "Walter is a nice boy," Doc Savage said.
  "Yes, sir."
  The elevator reached the eighty−sixth floor. The  operator opened the door.
  Doc Savage stepped out. Then he reached back into  the elevator, grasped the operator and pulled him out.
  The fellow made  noises like a tomcat. He kicked, struck and even spat.
  Doc Savage gripped a handful of the left breast of  the operator’s coat. The coat fabric was a stout weave. Yet
  it tore  away as if it were ancient cheesecloth. Altogether, Doc’s fingers got  coat, shirt, undershirt�and a flat
  pistol and its holster.
  The operator continued to fight. He hung limp  finally, not because he had given up, but because his strength
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  13
  
  was gone.
  "How�how’d you fall to me?" he asked thickly.
  "It came out as a matter of routine checking, a  safety−first check, we call it," the bronze man said without
  emotion.  "Walter’s parents were called. It developed he has not been home for a  week. Each day or so, he
  telephones to say he is all right, and merely  not coming home because he is working overtime."
  The operator said nothing.
  "Where is the other operator�Walter?" Doc Savage  asked. 
  "You won’t get nothin’ outta me!" the other snarled.  "And if you’re wise, you’ll let me go and forget about
  it!"
  "And why?"
  "Because you’re stickin’ your nose into somethin’ a  lot bigger than you dream!"
  DOC SAVAGE did not look particularly alarmed. He  propelled the prisoner to the door of his headquarters
  suite�a  bronze−colored panel which bore his name in letters so small as to be  hardly noticeable. Inside, there
  was an impressive anteroom. Beyond was  another room, much more vast, which was a library. One if the
  world’s  greatest collections of scientific tomes was there.
  There was a third room, also huge. The laboratory.  The chamber of magic where the man of bronze
  concocted some of his  amazing scientific gadgets.
  Doc Savage stopped on the threshold of the  laboratory. Something had arrested him. His trilling noise came
  into  being briefly.
  The bronze man stepped swiftly to a panel in the  wall which looked innocent enough, but which, when
  opened by some  undetected catch, disclosed a number of recording instruments similar  to inking barometers.
  Each was glass−enclosed. They were attached to  the establishment’s remarkable system of burglar alarms,
  and registered  any furtive entrance into the place.
  Every one of the devices had stopped working.
  The bronze man whipped a quick gaze over the  laboratory. There was just one thing there that should not
  have been.  Stillness! Utter silence.
  Doc Savage was carrying on experiments with the  effect of electrochemical stimulation on musculature, and
  he had a  number of guinea pigs, parrots, pigeons, in the place. They should have  been moving about.
  Every one of the live things was dead!
  The captive elevator operator looked around. He was  scared. He had seen the dead things.
  "It’s been�they�" He threw back his head and blared  out a howl of utter fright. "If it comes back and catches
  us here,  we’ll die!"
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  14
  
  Doc Savage said quietly, "This place is literally a  fortress. It would take a small army to break in."
  The prisoner shook and bubbled.
  "You c−can’t s−stop it!" he gurgled.
  THE prisoner did not stop shaking until Doc Savage  had him down on the street, in a taxicab. The fellow was
  still scared,  but he had been overjoyed at getting out of the skyscraper.
  "You do not think that your employers would kill you  in an effort at my life?" Doc asked.
  The man shivered. "Brother, them old guys with the  whiskers ain’t like nobody you ever went up against
  before."
  Doc Savage said quietly, "You are going to have some  interesting things to tell me, it would seem, especially
  since an  attempt on my life has just been made."
  "Not me!"
  A line of taxicabs were drawn up before the  Pennsylvania Station, awaiting fares as the bronze man’s car
  neared it.
  "Pull in there," Doc directed.
  The driver pulled in. The bronze man got out, and  went to eight different cabs which were operated by the
  same concern  and therefore looked alike. He gave each of the eight drivers a bill  and explained briefly what
  he wanted. He got in one of the cabs with  his prisoner.
  What happened next was intended to confuse any one  who might have been following. The eight cabs which
  all looked alike  drove in a compact group. They shifted about, one taking the lead,  another dropping back. In
  and out of traffic, they dodged. Doc and his  prisoner got down on the floorboards.
  "Slick," the prisoner muttered. "I’ve been making  tails for years, and I’d never be able to follow a guy
  through this."
  "So you are an expert?" Doc queried.
  "I’m a private detective," the man said.
  Their cab stopped suddenly.
  "Hey!" the driver squawled. "What�what�"
  There was a series of deafening crashes. Yells.  Curses. Breaking glass. Doc lifted for a look.
  A STRANGE thing had happened in the street ahead.  Several cars appeared to have come to a dead stop.
  Other cars had  smashed into them. Two had upset.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  15
  
  Doc moved rapidly. He whipped out of the rear, got  into the front seat, shoved the driver over. The driver was
  agog. Doc  meshed gears, backed, and with expert speed, got out of the jam. Then  he stopped the machine,
  thrust his head out and scrutinized the  buildings on each side of the street.
  The glance which he gave each side was fleeting, but  enough. Doc took two hours of intensive exercise daily.
  A part of it  was devoted to strengthening observation powers.
  He saw a man with a beard standing at a fourth−story  window of a building on the right side of the street.
  Doc got the cab rolling. He took the first  corner�turning right�on two wheels. An alley appeared. The taxi
  slid  into that, stopped.
  "Run!" Doc told the driver, and the fellow ran.
  The bronze man’s fingers then did something to the  captive’s neck. The fellow became strangely rigid. He
  seemed fully  conscious, but unable to move. Doc heaved him into the cab.
  Fire escapes came down the backs of the buildings to  the alley. They were supposed to end high enough so
  that no one could  reach them from the alley. Doc ran, jumped, got hold of the fire escape  landing. An instant
  later, he was gliding up the steps.
  The fourth−story window was locked on the inside.  The bronze man bumped the sash with a palm, and got to
  the lock. It  made some noise, so he did not lose time. The corridor, after the  daylight outside, was dark. It
  smelled of furs. This was the fur  district. A bulb on a dropcord made some light at the other end.
  Doc had covered about fifteen feet when the light  went out.
  The bronze man whipped to one side, waited.
  A minute passed.
  There were cautious footsteps. Some one moving.
  Doc eased out into the hall, made for the footsteps.  He made no sound. He could hear the other. One man,
  apparently. The  fellow was descending stairs.
  Because it was very dark in the old corridor, once  he had rounded a corner, Doc kept an arm out ahead,
  feeling the way.
  He reached the stairway. But he never went down it.
  Something incredible took hold of his arm.
  PAIN was the first thing. Stinging pain, the kind  that comes from a healing wound when it is hurt. It was so
  agonizing  that it put strange lights in front of Doc’s eyes. It started at the  end of his extended arm, and
  flooded back. He wrenched to get the arm  free.
  The arm would not come back! An irresistible force  had gripped it! His muscles�gigantic sinews�stretched,
  and the joints  seemed to give, but he could not free his hand.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  16
  
  Doc kicked with terrific force. His foot hit  something. It felt as hard as bone. The impact stung all the way up
  to  the hip. And the thing grabbed the foot. Held it! No amount of yanking  freed the leg.
  Then, without warning, and before he could get a  light going�the bronze man carried a tiny flashlight�to tell
  what the  thing was, it released him.
  There was no sound, no noise of breathing, no odor  of anything. It just released him. And when Doc lunged,
  kicked and  struck, there was nothing.
  Silence, except for the patter of footsteps  retreating down the steps, now far below. A moment after he had
  been  released, the footsteps paused.
  A cackle of laughter came up the stairs. Then an  ancient, gleeful voice came gurgling up. It was hollow, as if
  spoken  back of a hand.
  "You have been treated gently this time, Savage,"  the croak said. "You probably do not understand what has
  happened.  Unfortunately, if your curiosity persists, you will not learn much  more."
  The footsteps hurried on downward.
  Doc Savage, instead of going down the stairs�even  his speed would not catch the one who had fled�went
  toward the front of  the building.
  The room he entered was grimy, had no furniture. On  the floor lay cigarette stubs and a small bottle. The
  window was open.  Doc went to it.
  He was in time to see two old men with white beards  get into a new, expensive sedan. The car left in a great
  hurry.
  Doc leaned out of the window and called, "Stop that  sedan!"
  The bronze man’s voice was a powerful crash that  caused every one within blocks to look up. But it did no
  good. There  was too much excitement where the cars had smashed together.
  The sedan got away.
  Doc then made an investigation. But his search  netted him nothing.
  He went down into the street. A policeman was  questioning the drivers of the cars which had stopped so
  suddenly and  caused all the mixup. All the men were drivers of the taxicabs which  Doc had hired. They were
  being raked over the coals.
  "How the hell do I know what happened, I tell you!"  one driver yelled irately. "My hack musta locked gears
  or somethin’. It  just up and stopped!"
  "Same here," said another driver earnestly.
  "Fishy," grumbled the cop. "Very fishy!"
  Several persons recognized Doc Savage and started  asking him questions. Doc escaped and went back to the
  alley. The  prisoner was still in the cab, still in the strangely rigid condition.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  17
  
  Doc got into the cab and drove it down to a  thoroughfare very near Wall Street. He picked the prisoner up
  and  carried him into a towering office building.
  A private elevator served the penthouse. Doc walked  in, the rigid man over one shoulder, and said, "Andrew
  Blodgett  Mayfair’s laboratory."
  The gaping elevator operator let the bronze man and  his burden out in an ultra−modernistic hallway. It was
  doubtful if  there was a more flamboyant−looking hall in the city.
  Doc stopped and listened.
  A man was groaning. Swearing, rather, but he was  doing it in a tone so low and full of horror that it sounded
  as if he  were groaning.
  DOC SAVAGE lunged for a chromium slab of a door,  shouldered it open, and halted.
  There was a dazzling, modernistic table of glass and  chromium in the center of the room. On the table lay a
  pig.
  The pig was quite a specimen of the genus porker. It  had long ears, no body worth mentioning, a tremendous
  snoot, and  wing−sized ears. It seemed to be dead.
  "Doc!" squeaked a tiny, boylike voice. "Quick! I’ve  been tryin’ to locate you! Habeas! He’s dead! Can’t you
  do somethin’?  You gotta! Here! Look! Oh, hurry!"
  The author of this machine gun volley of pleas was  as unusual−looking in his race as the hog he was so
  anxious about was  in his.
  Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair was, as  might be expected, called "Monk." His resemblance to
  an ape would not  permit anything else. Back of his forehead, which was not an inch wide,  was a brain that
  had gotten him the repute of being one of the greatest  living industrial chemists.
  "I was out!" he wailed. "I came back. Somethin’ had  happened! My clocks had stopped. So had a generator.
  So had my  air−conditioning machine. And Habeas was dead! Doc, do somethin’!"
  The bronze man lowered his burden and went to the  pig. The shote was Habeas Corpus, and he was no
  ordinary hog. He was  Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair’s pet, and if not the only  trained hog in
  captivity, he was surely the most adept.
  "Adrenaline!" Doc said abruptly.
  Monk ran into his laboratory. He knew what the  adrenaline was going to be used for, so he brought a syringe
  with a  long needle.
  Doc Savage ran the needle of the hypodermic into the  pig’s heart and squirted in the adrenaline. Then he
  worked over the  shote with skilled fingers.
  Monk danced about. He would rather have parted with  his right arm than lose the hog.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter III. DEATH FANTASTIC
  18
  
  Doc did not seem to be having much luck. He himself  whipped into the laboratory, to come back soon with
  more chemicals. He  began mixing them, administering them, experimenting.
  Monk wailed, "I don’t savvy what’s happenin’!"
  "This same thing occurred at my place," Doc told  him. "The animals and birds on hand for scientific
  experimental  purposes were all killed. None had a mark on them. You notice that  Habeas is unmarked."
  "That’s what gets my goat!" Monk groaned. "What’s  done it?"
  Doc Savage said quietly, "It is something a good  deal more dangerous than anything we ever ran across
  before."
  Monk’s small, boylike voice was thoughtful as he  said, "That takes in a lot of territory."
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE
  MONK, unable to stand still, took a stamping turn  and almost fell over Doc’s prisoner.
  "Who’s this?" the apish chemist howled.
  "Spy," Doc said. "Have not questioned him." 
  Monk popped his hands together, grimaced.
  "Unjinx ‘im, Doc," he requested. "I’ll make ‘im  recite for us!"
  Doc came over to the prisoner and relieved that  strange paralysis by a pressure on the nerve centers.
  The prisoner groaned and felt of his neck.
  Monk yelled, "Tell us everything you know!"
  "Hell with you!" the captive snarled.
  The man probably expected a third degree. It was  doubtful if his worst fears approached what he did get.
  Monk picked him  up bodily, slammed him against a wall, caught him on the bounce,  crashed him to the floor,
  then picked him up by the ears alone. Monk  let loose, hit him in the middle, straightened the fellow with a
  smash  under the jaw.
  Monk gloried in trouble. Doc had a policy of never  doing any more physical damage to an enemy than could
  be helped, but  Monk had never thought much of the policy.
  "Monk!" Doc admonished.
  "I know," Monk said. "No unnecessary violence. Right  now, my hog has been killed. Why, blast my hide, if
  this guy�"
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE
  19
  
  Thump! 
  Monk knocked the prisoner against the wall again with a blow, let  him fall, then jumped onto him. Sitting on
  the fellow’s middle, Monk  grabbed an arm and calmly began to pull the fingers out of joint. 
  The man, screaming, blubbered, "I’ll tell you!"
  THE man wailed and stuttered in his haste to get  information out.
  He was a private detective. Not of the good class.  Divorce evidence, bodyguards, strike−breaking, maybe a
  framing now and  then.
  An old man with a beard had hired him to watch Doc  Savage. The old man with the beard had paid plenty.
  The elevator  operator had been kidnaped but was alive and well, and would be  released. He was in a house on
  West Sixteenth Street. Alone. If the  police went there, they could free him.
  Monk took off at this point to call the police and  tell them to raid the house.
  The private detective went on to say there had been  several of the old men. All of them had white beards.
  They wore a  uniform of some kind when they were not on the street. A gaberdine coat  and a queer white hat.
  He had written out all he had been able to learn  about Doc Savage, and they had called for the information at
  his office.
  "How’d they kill my hog, if they did?" Monk growled.
  "I don’t know, mister, so help me," the sleuth  wailed. "One old man told another one day he could kill
  anything  anywhere any time he wanted. He acted so earnest I believed ‘im."
  "What else d’you know?"
  "The old men call themselves the Elders. And they  mutter all the time about some Great Plan. Oh, yes, I
  found this out  over a dictograph I rigged in my reception room. I always check on what  my clients say behind
  my back. These old men told me all the time that  they represented a newspaper syndicate doing a story on
  you."
  That seemed to be all he knew. Monk ambled over  anxiously to see how Doc was getting along with Habeas.
  The homely  chemist saw the bronze man’s hands. His eyes popped.
  "Blazes, Doc! What’s wrong with your right hand?"
  The bronze man’s usually metallic−looking right hand  was now a bruised−looking purple, and was obviously
  swollen somewhat.  The skin was not broken.
  Doc began to talk as he worked. He told what had  happened in the street, and left out no details about the
  mysterious  seizure in the darkness of the hallway.
  "My foot is in the same condition as the hand, from  the way it feels," he finished.
  "Bones broken?" 
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE
  20
  
  "No, Monk."
  "Flesh crushed?" 
  "Strangely, no."
  "Skinned anywhere?"
  "No."
  "Then how the heck does it feel?"
  "As if it had been frozen and was thawing out."
  "I’ll be switched!" Monk said.
  DOC continued to work over the pig. Most of his  movements were made with his left hand. He seemed to be
  using a series  of chemical injections, coupled with massage intended to restore heart  action.
  Fifteen minutes later, Habeas Corpus kicked both  rear legs and flopped his enormous ears slightly.
  "He gonna make it?" Monk breathed.
  "He will," Doc replied.
  "Yeo−w−w!" 
  Monk squawled. "Hurrah! Yeo−w−w!"
  The telephone started ringing.
  "That’ll be the cops to tell us they did or didn’t  find the elevator operator," Monk said.
  He started for the telephone. It stopped  ringing�stopped queerly in the middle of one of its ringing bursts.
  Doc got between Monk and the room where the  telephone was.
  "Watch out," Doc said.
  Monk, puzzled, eyed the bronze man, saw he was  watching the telephone room. Monk looked in that
  direction also.  Nothing happened.
  Monk began to have a creepy feeling. Was he wrong,  or had two of the flies, on the far side of the room,
  fallen to the  floor?
  They had! There went another! That one was closer.
  Doc scooped up the pig. "Run!"
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE
  21
  
  "Help!" screamed the prisoner, "Don’t leave me!"
  Monk grabbed him by the collar and dragged him along  toward the elevator, grumbling, "I don’t know why
  I’m doin’ this!"
  They reached the elevator. It was waiting. They  piled in. Doc seemed in a wild haste. He himself grasped the
  control  and clamped it over to full speed descent.
  Despite the fact that rarely did the bronze man’s  features show any expression, they registered something
  during the next  few moments. Tension. Expectancy. Grimness.
  But nothing happened, and they dashed out on the  street.
  Doc hailed a taxi.
  A cab came rolling up. They got in. The driver was a  tall fellow with blond hair, and a cleanly shaven nape.
  "Get away from here," Doc directed. "Use speed."
  "Speed may not be enough," the driver said calmly.  "They may kill us anyway."
  MONK stiffened, yelled, "May kill�hey, driver, how  the blazes do you know so much?"
  The driver got the cab off fast.
  "I should know something about it," he said.  "They’ve been trying to kill me for over a month."
  Doc reacted quickly to that. He leaned forward  through the sliding window, gripped the driver and held him
  helpless,  using one hand. With the other hand, he made a quick search.
  He found a gun.
  He also found something that the driver did not  observe that he found�a tiny, triangular badge of gold with
  enamel on it . The inscription on it was not English, and it was not the badge  of any American organization.
  Monk had produced a weapon which resembled an  oversize automatic and which was a machine−pistol of
  Doc’s invention.  He held it ready.
  "I flew all the way from Manchuria," the driver said  quietly enough. "Came over on one of the Clipper
  planes. Hired a fast  ship and flew nonstop to New York. I was hanging around trying to see  you secretly. You
  knew they were watching you?"
  "Rather thoroughly, it would appear," Doc agreed. 
  "You said it. They’ve got money and they spend it.  Private detective agencies, telephone company
  employees, newsboys, soda  jerkers, waitresses, doormen, elevator operators. You know what they  told all
  those people they wanted information on you for?"
  "A newspaper syndicate gathering story material,"  Doc suggested.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE
  22
  
  "Huh! Yeah, that was the gag."
  "Clever," the bronze man said dryly. "We naturally  called the syndicate when we learned I was being
  watched. They said  they had an European client who wanted the stuff."
  "That was another gag," said the young man.
  The driver then got the taxicab on South Street,  which was inhabited mostly by trucks. He was skillful. The
  cab left a  wake of squealing truck brakes and water−front profanity. They went  through the smell around
  Fulton Fish Market so swiftly that they barely  got a whiff.
  The taxicab frightened a cop entirely off the  street, careened around a corner, did a perfect racing car skid,
  and  took the Brooklyn Bridge ramp.
  "Hey, driver!" Monk roared. "Where you goin’?"
  "Airport!" barked the taxi driver. "I got a fast  plane there!"
  "What’s the idea, dang you?"
  "I’m Ky Halloc!" said the driver. "I came to New  York from China to see you fellows!"
  "What’s that supposed to explain?"
  Ky Halloc yelled, "You don’t want Pat Savage to die,  do you?"
  "Pat!" Monk squawled. "What’s happened to Pat?"
  "She tried to find Captain Wizer. So the old men  thought she had stumbled onto the fact that their world
  headquarters is  in Manchuria," Halloc barked. "New York is only a branch of the  devilish organization. To
  fight it, you’ve got to go to Manchuria. My  plane can catch the next China Clipper in Frisco, and the
  Clipper’ll put you in the Orient without delay."
  DOC SAVAGE heard this without visible display. He  had not spoken, which was characteristic of him.
  Moreover, Monk was  doing a good enough job of questioning.
  The flake gold eyes drifted a glance over the  rear−view mirror.
  "Several policemen following," Doc said. "A patrol  car and three motor cycles."
  "I guess," shouted Ky Halloc, "they figure we’re  speeding!" 
  Three motor cycles whined up alongside. The  uniformed men on them looked angry. The patrol car stuck
  close behind  the motor cycles.
  "Pull over, you!" a cop bawled. "Whatcha think these  streets are for, anyhow?"
  Doc Savage leaned out a window.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IV. WHISKERED TROUBLE
  23
  
  "Is Captain Thorn still leader of this district?"  the bronze man asked.
  Sight of Doc Savage had a remarkable effect upon the  uniformed man on the motor cycle. He threw up an
  arm in salute.
  "Sure," he shouted, "Captain Thorn’s our skipper."
  He screwed around on his bouncing seat to howl at  his companions, "It’s Doc Savage!" Then he guided his
  popping steed  close to the window. "Where you wanta go, Savage? We’ll clear the way  for you."
  "Roosevelt Field!" shouted Ky Halloc.
  The bluecoat pitched up an arm in salute. "I know a  short−cut. All new, smooth pavement. Follow us!"
  Two of the motor cycles hooted ahead. The third and  the car followed a hundred feet back.
  "Boy!" yelled Ky Halloc. "Boy!"
  Doc opened the door on the driver’s side and swung  out on the running board.
  "Swell idea!" Ky Halloc shouted. "Get up here, and  I’ll tell you what it’s all about while you drive!"
  Doc swung in under the wheel. The speedometer slowed  ten miles, from eighty back to seventy, while they
  changed.
  Ky Halloc said, "Now, I’ll explain fully�"
  "Hold it," Doc Savage said. "We’ve got something  more important to do first." He turned his head. "Hang on,
  Monk."
  "But, what�" The apish chemist looked confused.
  "We’ve got to do something quickly," said the bronze  man, "or we’re going to be in a bad jam."
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  DOC tramped heavily on the brake. The car skipped  about a bit, then bumped up onto a sidewalk; under
  Doc’s expert hands,  the machine skidded just enough, straightened at the crucial instant,  and banged to a stop
  against the front of a store�across the store  door, which was caved in by the impact.
  "Into this building," Doc said. "I’ll take the  prisoner."
  Monk dived into the building, pet pig under an arm.
  Habeas had completely recovered by now.
  Ky Halloc, dazed by things happening too fast,  yelled, "But these cops will�"
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  24
  
  "They’re not cops!" Monk threw back.
  Monk had caught on by now.
  Guns began banging. The fake cops were opening fire.  Bullets spanked the sheet iron of the taxi. Glass
  started caving out of  the store and car windows.
  "Oh!" gasped Ky Halloc. He dived out of the car into  the store. "They looked like cops!"
  "There is no Captain Thorn in the police  department," Doc Savage said, and glided toward the rear of the
  store  building.
  It was a store building, not a store. Rear windows  were boarded up. There was a door in the rear. It appeared
  solid as  they ran toward it. And it was locked with a bolt−and−chain combination.
  Doc said, "Coöperation, Monk!"
  Monk got in step with the bronze man. One, two,  three and jump! They hit the door together, each planting
  both feet  solidly near the lock. Almost a quarter of a ton, moving fast.  Coöperation. The next instant, they
  were sitting out in the sunlight,  in the wreckage of the door.
  The apish chemist looked around.
  "Aw, heck!" he complained.
  There was open country behind the store. Or it would  have been called open country around New York.
  There was two or three  blocks of it, entirely bare of buildings.
  The bronze man rose to his feet and reëntered the  store. Another door inside led to what had once been a
  kitchen.
  "That way!" Doc said, and gave Monk and Ky Halloc a  shove toward the door. "Take the prisoner, Monk. I’ll
  take care of the  cops."
  The bronze man then wheeled and ran out the rear  door.
  Ky Halloc recovered from the shove, wheeled, and  showed he had ideas about following Doc.
  Monk collared him. The chemist also carried the  senseless captive.
  "Mitt me, my friend!" Monk grunted.
  "But�"
  "Nix!" the apish chemist said. A queer warp got on  his mouth. "It just couldn’t be that maybe you led us into
  this trap,  eh?"
  Monk shoved Ky Halloc into the room, followed.
  Almost immediately the pursuers came into the store.  They got a glimpse of the bronze man in the rear
  doorway, standing  still. And then he was gone. They started shooting and falling over  boxes. Ky Halloc
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  25
  
  looked strange.
  DOC SAVAGE whirled from his position and ran along  the rear of the building. He had cleverly led the
  enemy after him. As  he ran, his right hand got an object out of a pocket.
  The object out of his pocket proved to be a silk  line with a collapsible grappling hook spliced to one end.
  Doc threw the hook upward. There was, fortunately, a  coaming along the edge of the building. The grapple
  hooked. Doc went  up. There were no knots in the silk cord, but he had practiced until  his remarkably
  muscular hands could grasp and throw half twists which  were much more effective.
  All this happened quickly. Yet the pursuers could  easily have come through the store before he had mounted
  more than half  the distance. They didn’t, however. Not a man put his head out the rear  door. They stood
  inside and swore profanely that their quarry probably  waited with guns trained on the door.
  Gaining the top of the building, Doc let the silk  cord hang. A chimney reared out of the roof a few feet
  distant, and the  top bricks were loose, as they somehow usually are on old chimneys. Doc  took two bricks
  back to the roof edge and waited. He removed his coat.
  Two of the fake cops popped out of the rear door  together, one facing each way to take no more chances than
  necessary.
  Monk and Ky Halloc were out of sight by now.
  The men below looked around. They swore. Their  companions came out. In a moment, they would see the
  open door Monk and  Ky Halloc had gone through.
  Doc leaned over and launched the first brick. Since  a brick can do damage to a human skull that no surgeon
  can repair, Doc  aimed for the thickest part of the fattest man. That part of Brooklyn  probably never heard a
  louder yell than the fat man gave.
  Doc did not throw the second brick. He used it to  weight a bundle he had made of his coat. He put the bundle
  on the  coping, but held it so it would seem from below that he was wearing the  coat. The men saw him. They
  lifted guns. Doc ducked.
  Bullets began knocking brick dust off the coping.  Doc held the coat bundle on the little wall, moving it about
  to make  the business seem real. He carried his fountain pens in his vest  pockets, and he drew out the one
  which held red ink and emptied it so  the ink would flow down the outside of the wall. Not much ink. But he
  was lucky, and the men saw it.
  "Did I make a darb of a shot!" somebody boasted.
  The men kept on shooting. The coat bundle was still  visible, but it would soon get knocked off. There would
  only be a  moment.
  The bronze man ran across the rooftops.
  The men continued to shoot at the coat.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  26
  
  "He’s dead up there!" one yelled. "Some of you find  a way up and throw his body down."
  Two ran back inside.
  "He may be only wounded!" the man in charge shouted.  "Keep shooting!"
  MONK, crouched inside the other door with Ky Halloc,  heard all this. And it had about the effect that might
  have been  expected. The homely chemist looked around. Some one had been living in  the place, but was not
  home now. There was a stove. There were some  rickety kitchen chairs. The senseless prisoner breathed
  noisily.
  Monk picked up one of the chairs. Then he picked up  the stove. It was not very large. The stovepipe made a
  racket and a  cloud of soot fell down. Monk put his machine−pistol in his belt.
  "Don’t be a fool!" Ky Halloc gulped.
  Monk swung around and came close to Halloc.
  "I still think there’s somethin’ phony about you!"  Monk said.
  Halloc snarled, "I tell you�"
  He did not finish. Monk’s fist stopped him. He was  senseless when he hit the floor.
  "Anyhow, you won’t be shootin’ me in the back!" Monk  gritted. Then to his pig: "Stay here, Habeas."
  The apish chemist ran out, carrying the stove in  front of his face. He held it by the iron legs, so his hands
  were  fairly sheltered.
  Bullets began hitting his body. They hurt. They  slowed him. But their pain and shock was no more than light
  sledge  blows, for the light alloy mesh armor he wore was the product of a  great deal of experimental research
  by Doc Savage. A bullet hit the  stove and all but deafened him.
  Monk got a man with the chair, but broke it. He  picked the machine−pistol out of his belt, balancing the little
  stove  as a head shield. He aimed low, and put pressure on the trigger. There  were penetrating bullets in the
  weapon instead of the usual "mercy"  slugs.
  The gun made a moan and a vibration which Monk felt  from head to foot.
  A man ran in from the side, jumped, and bore the  stove down. Monk’s gun hand was caught under the shield,
  and he dropped  his gun. Men piled on him.
  A man began to beat Monk’s bullet head with a pistol  gun. He beat enthusiastically. The blows sounded as if
  he were chopping  wood. Other men held Monk’s arms and his legs. His gun arm was held out  straight, and
  convulsive muscular effort was keeping his finger tight  on the trigger. The bawl of the weapon was so
  earsplitting that the  screams of the men seemed like small mice squeaking.
  The man clubbing Monk’s head swung and swung. He  used both hands. Monk’s eyes stayed open, small and
  enraged.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  27
  
  The machine−pistol went silent. It had emptied  itself. The slugs had dug a hole in the brick wall of the store,
  large  enough for a calf to crawl through.
  The man clubbing Monk stopped, gasped, "He’s dead�by  now!"
  "Then why don’t he close his eyes?"
  "Hell, a corpse don’t�"
  Monk hit his torturer in the mouth. Hit him awfully.  The man bounced back into the arms of a fellow,
  doubled over, and  gargled up teeth and blood.
  The rest of the men fell on Monk and managed to get  two pair of handcuffs on his wrists.
  "He may be some help to us if the bronze guy gets  away," one growled.
  Two of them ran to the door from which Monk had  started his charge. They came back carrying two
  senseless forms. That  of Ky Halloc and Doc’s prisoner.
  "Into the cars with ‘em!" the leader ordered. "And  see if there’s a stairway to the roof in the store where you
  found  Halloc."
  A man limped into the store. He came hopping out an  instant afterward, carrying the pig, Habeas, by one ear.
  "There’s no stair," he said. "What in thunder is  this thing?"
  Habeas kicked and squealed feebly.
  "Don’t you hurt that hog!" Monk squawled.
  "So it’s a hog, eh?" grunted the leader. "Bring it  along." He looked knowing. "Maybe we can use it."
  THE fake cops flocked back into the street where the  car and motor cycles stood. They had some difficulty
  climbing through  the wrecked taxi.
  The uproar had been under way long enough now for  curious persons to begin to arrive. The raiders fired
  some shots which  hit no one, but made the spectators run.
  Monk and Halloc were flung into a car along with the  shote. The senseless detective was placed in another
  automobile.
  "Hold them there!" the chief snapped. "We’ll go make  sure that Savage�"
  He stopped. His eyes came out a little. He opened  and shut his mouth. Monk craned his neck to see what had
  so affected  the rascal.
  The cause of the shock seemed to be a stranger who  had approached. This individual was tall, rather skinny,
  and very  neatly dressed in dark garments. But he had a hat yanked down, wore  dark glasses, had his coat
  collar turned up, and a handkerchief covered  the lower part of his face as far up as his nose.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  28
  
  "Something wrong?" he asked, and the handkerchief  changed his voice. Then he added: "I followed you in
  case of trouble."
  "Savage is on the roof!" gulped the other. "We think  he’s dead, but we ain’t sure�"
  The tall man with the hidden features smiled  quietly. It was the same kind of smile a fisherman would bestow
  on a  landed bass just before he knocked it over the head.
  "Take the three prisoners to Preparation Area  Headquarters," he said. "I will handle Savage."
  Without another word, he turned and walked down the  street. He saw some spectators staring timidly out a
  window and called  to them.
  "The police have cornered a dangerous criminal," he  said. "Keep out of sight, or you may get shot. Cover
  your faces against  tear gas."
  Monk was somewhat stunned by the change which now  occurred in his captors. They exchanged glances,
  stared after the tall  stranger, looked at each other again. There was no mistaking what had  come over them:
  They were scared.
  They ran to their motor cycles. Others jumped into  the car. The machines moved. The sirens whined at first,
  making an  uproar.
  "Better shut them off," a man suggested.
  The sirens became silent. Twice, they passed  patrolmen. When they saluted, the patrolmen did the same. The
  motor  cycles and the cars moved at no more than twenty miles an hour. They  went north, then east, then back
  south again, doubling and turning.  They soon came to the water front. It was out toward Gravesend Bay.
  They drove into a weedy lot with a sign supported on  leaning posts:
  SUNRISE BOATYARD
  THERE were some boats hauled out around the place,  but they were not the kind any one with a normal mind
  would venture to  sea in. They were small boats. No one was in sight. The one big shed  was not quite falling
  down, thanks to the braces propped against one  side.
  The gang drove into the shed.
  THE tall, masked man who had said he would take care  of Doc Savage was already there. He must have
  taken a shortcut.
  "You will not be troubled by Savage," he said.
  "Yes, Viscount Penroff," a man said inanely.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter V. MYSTERIOUS MASTER
  29
  
  The men lined the car up before two timbers that  formed a runway up onto more timbers laid across the
  cradle of a marine  railway. They drove the car up on the railway. The motor cycles were  placed beside it.
  A man cut a restraining rope, and the cradle coasted  down the rails and disappeared into the water. It was
  harbor water,  full of trash, and dark enough so that the sunken machines would never  be seen.
  A man rolled an old oil barrel into the water,  letting it spill oil as it rolled. That was to take care of any oil
  that floated to the top from the car motors. Another man went down the  rails with a tumbler of acid and a
  brush, treating the rails so that  they would shortly rust as if they had not been used in months.
  The men changed their clothes, donning garments  which they took out of very swanky town cars. The cars
  had been hidden  behind some old pieces of canvas. There were three of the town cars  altogether. Three of the
  men became dapper chauffeurs.
  Ky Halloc was still senseless. It seemed to worry  them.
  "It looks," one of them said, examining Halloc’s  jaw, "as if he had been kicked by a donkey."
  "I resent that!" growled Monk, who right then was  resenting everything.
  The men tied Monk, gagged him and tossed him in one  of the town cars. They tossed his pig, Habeas, in on
  top of him. Halloc  was put in another car.
  The three town cars took separate ways.
  After a time, they blindfolded Monk.
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  THE town cars had prepared Monk a little. They had  not stuffed his ears, either, and after they had carried
  him out of  what was a private garage into a house which opened off a street that  was probably residential and
  lined with high buildings�the traffic had  been light and had boomed and echoed as it would from big
  structures�Monk had heard the telegraph sounders, the tickers, the  telephones and the tiny whistling of radios
  receiving code.
  They had said something about taking him to their  Preparation Area Headquarters, Monk remembered. He
  hadn’t thought much  about that when he heard it.
  A flunky removed Monk’s blindfold and gag. At least,  he bowed and clicked his heels as if he were a flunky.
  His kowowing was  directed at the man behind the desk.
  The desk was as an impressive mahogany affair as  Monk had ever seen. The gentleman with the neatly
  waxed white mustache  and the dab of a snowy Vandyke was almost hidden by the desk.
  Another flunky came in. Young and neat. He saluted,  popped his heels together like tiny gunshots, and
  addressed the elderly  gentleman.
  "Berlin Preparation Area Headquarters reports four  thousand sixty−three men on assigned positions. No trace
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  30
  
  of suspicion."
  "Excellent!" replied the elderly gentleman.
  "Tokyo Preparation Area reports fourteen submarines  have our men aboard in strategic positions. One man
  captured. He  confessed to being a foreign spy. He was shot. No suspicion as to his  real identity."
  The old gentleman bowed his head a moment.
  "An example of the supreme loyalty inspired by the  Elders," he said. "See that his name is placed on the
  honor rolls, and  see, also, that his family is placed on the List of Extra Privilege."
  "Yes, sir. It will be done. There is one thing more."
  "Well?"
  "His Highness radios congratulations to you,  Viscount Herschel Penroff, for your quick disposal of the Doc
  Savage  menace."
  The elderly gentleman�Viscount Herschel Penroff�  bowed again, humbly.
  "Reply to His Highness that I have taken steps to  completely dispose of the Savage affair. The other members
  of Savage’s  group of aids who happen to be in New York have been seized and are  being brought here."
  "How many of them?" the flunky queried, after  hesitating a moment.
  The old man smiled.
  "Savage has five assistants, all told. We have one  of them here in the room." He glanced at the pop−eyed
  Monk. "Of  Savage’s group, two are now abroad and know nothing of this matter.  Those two are Colonel John
  Renwick, who is on an engineering project in  South Africa, and William Harper Littlejohn, the archaeologist,
  who is  in the South Seas conducting research into the historical past of  certain mystifying stone statues on
  some remote island.
  "That leaves only three here in New York. We have  Monk. The remaining pair, Brigadier General Theodore
  Marley Brooks, the  lawyer, and Major Thomas J. Roberts, a fellow who knows something of  electricity, are
  being brought here."
  "Yes, sir," said the flunky. "I shall radio His  Highness to that effect."
  He popped his heels, saluted and minced out.
  The elderly Viscount Herschel Penroff looked at  Monk, and acted as if he had just discovered him there. He
  bowed as  politely as if Monk were a pretty girl.
  "My apologies for not putting myself at your service  earlier," he said.
  "NUTS!" Monk said, which was neither an original nor  a witty crack, but the best he could think of. "You’re
  that guy in the  mask!"
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  31
  
  Monk was flabbergasted by what he had been hearing.  If he had not known better, he would have thought he
  had awakened on  the stage of a comic opera. Talk of thousands of men, submarines, and  self−sacrifice! The
  kind of hokum comedies are made of! But the same  kind of stuff that sent innumerable thousands of men to
  their death, in  great wars, when one stopped to think.
  Monk looked around. The telegraph instruments,  tickers and radios were in another room, but he could hear
  them. Monk  could read both the telegraph and radio code. He had been picking up  snatches of the stuff the
  wires were handling. It sounded innocent  enough.
  Messages about the prices on foreign exchanges.  Quotations on the franc, the lire, the yen. Orders to buy and
  sell.  Orders to transfer bullion, instructions about earmarking�
  Monk gave a violent start. He had remembered  something. He knew who Viscount Herschel Penroff was!
  The international banker! Not a famous name.  International bankers seem to be retiring souls where publicity
  is  concerned. Monk was no dabbler in international finance, but he did  happen to know the House of Penroff
  had a name, and it was big.
  New York headquarters of the House of Penroff was an  unostentatious, massive, dignified building on Park
  Avenue, and the  name of the firm was not even on the door. The House of Penroff did not  do business with
  the man on the street. Monk mentally laid a bet with  himself that he was in the bank building now. He
  strained, but the  cuffs on his ankles and wrists held.
  "Well," Monk growled, "what’s the dizzy idea?"
  Viscount Herschel Penroff opened a drawer and took  out two ritzy−looking cigars, each of which was sealed
  in an air−tight,  transparent container.
  "Smoke, sir?" he queried.
  Monk started to shake his head, then nodded instead.  An Idea had hit him. Penroff came over, clipped the end
  of one cigar,  inserted it between Monk’s teeth, and bent forward to hold a jeweled  lighter to the weed. Monk
  hurriedly puffed the cigar hot.
  As soon as it was very hot, Monk lunged forward,  trying to stick the heated end in one of his captor’s eyes.
  Monk had no  idea what he would do next, if it worked. But it didn’t work. The old  gentleman dodged aside
  easily.
  Without saying anything, Penroff stepped back and  inspected Monk. He smiled slightly.
  "It is strange that a reputation can kill a man," he  said.
  "Huh?" That was over Monk’s head.
  "I refer to Doc Savage," Penroff said. "Had he been  an ordinary fellow, we would simply have gone to him
  and warned him not  to mingle in this matter if he heard of it. We might even have paid him  a sum of money,
  perhaps a small fortune if he were capable of making us  enough trouble, to refrain from becoming involved."
  The old gentleman bowed his head solemnly.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  32
  
  "Savage was a remarkable man, an amazing man. He had  dedicated his life to helping mankind, and it is
  unfortunate that such  an illustrious career had to end because he interfered with our plans.  Especially sad
  because the end came before this surprising man of  bronze had even reached his prime. The remarkable
  training that made up  his youth had given him the wisdom of a sage, but, after all, he was  but a young man. It
  is very sad."
  He sounded very sad. He was probably acting.
  Monk was not acting. Veins stood out on the homely  chemist’s forehead, and he looked as if something
  terrible inside him  was about to burst out. The hoarse, inarticulate sounds he made were  not speech.
  Viscount Herschel Penroff waited, head bowed. It was  close to five minutes before Monk spoke. He did not
  rave, because it  would have done no good.
  "What kind of dang scheme were you afraid Doc would  spoil?" Monk asked thickly.
  The old man smiled suddenly, brightly. "It pleases  me to have you say that."
  "You old bat!" Monk gritted.
  "Just how much do you know about the Great Plan of  the Elders?"
  "Nothing!"
  "Certain?"
  "We didn’t have time to find out anything!" Monk  snapped.
  The old fellow laughed. "You would probably lie. As  a matter of fact, we brought you here to learn if Doc
  Savage left any  written or other information about us. Did he?"
  "Not that I know of," Monk said thickly.
  "We’ll see about that." The ancient man snapped his  fingers.
  Five men came in. Four of them were squat and ran  more to biceps and shoulders than to foreheads. The fifth
  was thin,  bald, and carried the pig, Habeas.
  "Get the truth out of him," directed Viscount  Herschel Penroff. "Take him to the room which we so
  thoughtfully  equipped in the penthouse."
  MONK had thought his own penthouse about as  elaborate as could be found. Now he changed his mind.
  True, there was a  difference in architectural style. This one was an exact duplicate of  some ancient medieval
  castle. From the worn condition of the stones,  Monk was even sure they were the original article. It seemed
  very much  as if a small castle had been transported bodily from abroad.
  The chamber they finally reached was dark like a  dungeon. There were no lights, so pine−knot torches were
  lighted to  give light.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  33
  
  Monk, glancing about, felt the hairs on his nape  rise. The chamber he was in stood a good chance of being
  soundproof.  The walls looked thick enough. But what had made his neck crawl was the  collection of ancient,
  torturing devices in the room. None had been  overlooked.
  "Put him on the rack," the man with the pig said.  "We’ll see how much rubber he’s got in his system."
  The men fastened the homely chemist in the torture  device.
  "The viscount’s guests thought this was merely a  museum," a man said dryly.
  The torturers put on pressure until Monk could feel  a distinct, pain−filled gap between each point. The
  homely chemist  howled at the top of his voice. There was no Indian stoicism in him. It  was harder to keep
  quiet, and there was no object in it, anyway.
  As Monk expected, his uproar kidded his captors into  thinking he was more badly hurt than he was. He went
  limp and mumbled  and sobbed, mentally deciding that next time he would stage a faint.
  "Come on!" a man snarled. "Did Savage leave any  record of us?"
  "N−no!" Monk wailed. "H−honest!"
  "Hell!" said the man in charge of the torturing.  "He’s a funny kind of ape. I’ve heard he’s as tough as a mule.
  I think  he’s shamming. Give him the works this time."
  "How about pouring some hot lead on that pig?" a man  suggested. "He acts as if he thought more of the hog
  than he does of  himself."
  "I think he does. I told you he’s a goofy duck.  We’ll work on the hog."
  "Hah!" Monk snorted. "If you think you can hurt me  by hurtin’ my hog, you’re nuts!"
  The man peered closely at Monk.
  "Yeah," he said softly, "we’re nuts, then."
  "Somebody’s comin’," the man at the door grunted. 
  Noise was coming up the stairs. From the sounds, a  free−for−all fight. Blows, profanity and scuffing feet.
  The men drew  guns, leaped to the door and looked down the corkscrew stairs. Then  they stepped back.
  A wad of men tumbled into the room. Only two of them  had most of their clothes left. They were scratched,
  bruised and  sweating. Six of them altogether. Four captors with two prisoners.
  The men surrendered their two prisoners with great  willingness.
  "Whew!" one puffed. "Talk about trouble!"
  Both prisoners were much smaller men than their  captors. One had an extremely thin waist, a very high
  forehead, and the  large, mobile mouth of a man who did a lot of talking.
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  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  34
  
  The second prisoner looked as if he had grown up in  a mushroom cave, with frequent lapses into hospitals.
  Perfect picture  of an invalid, and did not look as if he had strength for anything more  strenuous than putting a
  lump of sugar in his coffee. He promptly  belied his looks by giving a flounce which knocked his two captors
  staggering.
  "But they’re tied hand and foot!" a man exploded.  "How’d they do so much damage?"
  "Now that they’re here, you’ll find out," said one  of the wrecks grimly.
  The man with the thin waist and the talker’s mouth  scowled at Monk. The fact that Monk hung on a medieval
  torture  instrument seemed to bother Ham not at all. The contrary, if anything.
  "You evolution mishap!" he gritted. "What is this  mess you’ve got Long Tom and me into?"
  Monk shouted irately, "Don’t you grind your teeth at  me, you overgrown lawbook! Doc and me have been
  charging around all  day, one jump ahead of sudden death. And I still don’t know why!"
  "Ham" was Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks,  Harvard’s finest law product. He didn’t like the
  nickname Ham. To hear  and watch him, the impression was that he liked Monk even less. Monk  apparently
  shared the feeling. Neither had ever spoken a civil word to  the other, which was somewhat strange, since each
  occasionally risked  his life to save the other.
  The mushroom−cellar−and−hospital product was Major  Thomas J. Roberts, remarkable electrical wizard.
  Despite his invalid  looks, he could probably take the first hundred men he would meet on  the street and whip
  ninety of them.
  Came a bedlam on the stairs. One man seemed to be  making it, swearing, moving fast, falling occasionally.
  He piled into  the tower torture room one jump ahead of his troubles.
  His troubles had two legs, two arms that  occasionally doubled as legs, was a little over two feet high, had
  rusty−looking hair, and a face amazingly like Monk’s. Scientists had  disagreed over just what the animal
  was. Some insisted it was a baboon,  with one or more doubtful ancestors. Others were less certain.
  "My pet, Chemistry!" Ham shouted.
  The man who had brought the what−is−it glared about.  He was scratched, bitten, and out of breath.
  "Who the hell’s idea was it for me to bring that  thing along?" he demanded. "Man, it dang near eat me up!"
  "GET them in the torture machines," the man in  charge ordered. "The chief wanted their pets brought. He
  figured maybe  if they saw some things happen to the animals, it would give them  something to think about."
  "I think that’s a goofy idea," snorted one.
  No one else commented. They laid hold of their  prisoners. The fireworks started. Ham and Long Tom, tied
  hand and foot,  managed to navigate with the agility of fish out of water. Once they  knocked their captors onto
  the floor, they were not so handicapped.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  35
  
  The what−is−it, Chemistry, sank teeth in a leg and  held on. Habeas, the pig, got up and took hold of the same
  fellow’s  other leg. Monk, floundering madly, unwound the windlass of the rack  and got into the fight. He
  rolled over, managed to get erect, and hit a  man. The fellow fell through the door and part way down the
  stone  steps. If profanity was color, the air would have been blue.
  "What the hell’s going on up there?" a voice yelled.
  "We’re torturing the prisoners!"
  "So you say!" snarled a man who had just lost two  teeth. 
  But the prisoners had little chance. They were soon  subdued, and jammed into the torture devices. Their
  torturers sat down  to rest, and get their breath.
  Ham glowered at Monk. "You Darwin inspiration, you  say you don’t know why we’re here?"
  "No, I told you once!" Monk yelled.
  "I want to know!"
  "Ask our friends then! They think Doc may have  gotten an idea about them, and they’re going to work us
  over to find  out. That’s all I know."
  "You’re right up to form then," Ham sniffed. "You  never did know anything."
  "You’ve got a tongue that’s fast in the middle and  loose at both ends!" Monk snarled. "First chance, I’m
  gonna take you by  the neck and shake you so hard your legs’ll tie knots!"
  Long Tom put in grimly, "Where’s Doc?"
  Monk stiffened, opened his mouth, shut it, and  looked at the stone floor.
  "Look here!" Long Tom yelled. "Doc�he�he ain’t�"
  A new voice spoke helpfully from the door. 
  "Savage is dead, if that is what you mean," the  speaker offered.
  The courtly old gentleman, Viscount Herschel  Penroff, had come up to the tower dungeon. He stood just
  inside the  door, absently buttoning his dark feltish−looking frock coat, which he  had apparently unbuttoned
  for the climb.
  "Word has come from His Highness," he said slowly.  "All is in readiness for our operations."
  Ham and Long Tom apparently had not seen Viscount  Herschel Penroff before.
  "Who’s this old goat?" Long Tom asked.
  "Penroff, the international banker, and one of the  straw bosses in the organization," Monk growled.
  Viscount Herschel Penroff finished buttoning his  frock coat. He adjusted his tie and cleared his throat.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  36
  
  "I was listening outside for a moment," he said. "I  do not think, from what the prisoners said, that they have
  the  slightest idea of what kind of organization we are."
  "Now you’re gettin’ some sense!" Monk squeaked  angrily. "I told you we didn’t know the first thing!"
  "Excellent!" Viscount Herschel Penroff brushed his  palms together briskly. "In that case, there is no reason
  why you  should not be executed immediately."
  THE prisoners failed for a moment to credit what  they had heard, it being hardly an ordinary thing for a man
  to order  other men shot in the highly civilized center of New York City.
  "Hey!" Monk exploded. "You can’t do that to�"
  "Give them hydrocyanic," the elderly viscount  ordered, "then lower the bodies in the acid vat we ordinarily
  use for  the disposal of cancelled bonds."
  "With pleasure, sir," said a man who had lost two  teeth.
  "Then prepare to board the Munchen."
  "The Munchen? Yes, sir."
  Everybody saluted everybody else, and Viscount  Penroff left, unbuttoning his coat again before he started
  down the  steep stairs.
  The men looked at each other.
  "I’ll get the hydrocyanic," one said.
  The fellow was gone some time. Long enough for the  men to become impatient. One of the pine−knot torches
  burned out, and  they had to nurse the other.
  Flickering red light finally appeared deep in the  winding stairway, and footsteps clumped upward. When the
  fellow  appeared on the steps, he was holding his torch downward so that his  upper portions were bathed in
  reddish gloom. He made a devil figure.
  "You guys better get out," he said. "I’ll dump the  hydrocyanic on them and follow you. The stuff may fix you
  up if it gets  in your lungs. I don’t know."
  The men�they were sobered by the imminence of death,  but tried not to show it�crowded to the stair
  opening. The fellow with  the hydrocyanic stepped to one side to let them pass. When the last was  out, he
  tugged the ponderous wooden door around until it was almost  closed.
  "Want it ready to shut in a hurry when I come out,"  he growled in explanation.
  He came over to Monk and Ham and Long Tom. A blue  bottle reflected the torchlight from his hand. He bent
  over Monk in the  indistinct light.
  He untied Monk’s hands.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VI. THE WORLD NET
  37
  
  "Easy does it," he said softly. "We are far from  being out of this."
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
  MONK had never been struck by lightning. But if he  ever was in the future, he would already know how it
  felt. He made  gurgling sounds and would have yelled in spite of himself. But an  amazingly muscular hand
  clamped his mouth. The other muscular hand  freed his ankles. Then, when Monk had time to compose
  himself, his  mouth was released.
  "Doc!" Monk breathed. "But how in the�"
  "Trick on the house roof," Doc Savage breathed  quietly. "Got off the roof after I was left for dead. Picked the
  lock  on a parked car. Followed you here."
  Cryptic, that. Made it sound easy. Monk, knowing  Doc, understood there was a lot of clever work between
  the lines. Of  course, thinking Doc was dead, the men had been easier to trail. They  had not bothered to look
  behind much.
  Ham and Long Tom were free now. They stood up, then  did squatting exercises and windmilled their arms,
  getting ready for  action.
  "This is that bank, the House of Penroff, ain’t it?"  Monk whispered.
  "Right," agreed the bronze man.
  "Can we get out the way you got in?"
  "It’s hardly feasible."
  "Why?"
  "It entailed some wall climbing."
  Monk swallowed. The House of Penroff was in a  building with sides discreetly bare of the ornamentation that
  makes the  work of a human fly simple, sometimes.
  "We will have to fight for it," the bronze man said.  "Once we take this place, we will have to stop the
  Munchen."
  "Munchen!" Ham exclaimed softly. "So you heard that  old bird, Penroff, mention the Munchen?"
  "The steps are stone and did not creak," the bronze  man replied dryly. "And sounds carry well in this place.
  Come. We are  going to have our hands full."
  The bronze man led them down the stone steps. He  wore no shoes, and was quiet. In the lighted room at the
  bottom�lighted  from windows, this room�the torturers stood waiting.
  "The door does not fit tightly," Doc called. "You  had better get out in the open air."
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
  38
  
  His voice was a perfect imitation of the fellow who  had gone to get the hydrocyanic.
  It fooled the torturers. They scuttled out into the  open court of the penthouse castle, which was a perfectly
  natural thing  to do.
  Monk ran over, slammed the door through which they  had stepped, and locked it. They would have become
  alarmed outside in a  moment, anyway.
  "This way!" Doc rapped.
  The bronze man whipped to a niche in the entrance  hall. It resembled a closet. In the days of chivalry, it had
  probably  been used by the knights to park the heavier parts of their armor.  There were some pieces of armor
  in it now, along with a senseless man.
  The unconscious one was Viscount Herschel Penroff.
  "Blazes!" Monk gasped, and stared at Doc. "So you  nailed him on his way out?"
  The bronze man did not answer. It was obvious what  he had done, anyway. He hauled the viscount out,
  tossed him to Monk.
  "Take care of him," Doc suggested quietly.
  "With pleasure!" Monk growled, and all but yanked  one of the viscount’s ears off to see if he was conscious.
  He wasn’t.
  The man who had gone after the hydrocyanic was also  in the place, minus his clothing. They left him. He was
  only a minor  rogue in this thing.
  The men locked out in the court began shooting.
  "QUICK!" Doc said. His voice did not sound as if he  were in a hurry.
  There was only one modern touch in the entry hall.  An elevator button. Doc put a metallic finger against it.
  When the cage  arrived in response, it came so silently that only Doc heard it. The  doors were opened. The
  bronze man flashed inside.
  "Hey!" the amazed voice of the operator said. "Who  are you?"
  There was a grunt, a falling noise.
  "Come on in," Doc suggested.
  Ham and Long Tom dived into the cage. Monk followed,  with the viscount. The operator was senseless on
  the floor. Doc grasped  the control and sank the cage.
  Monk inflated his chest and grinned. "Simple. This  elevator probably lets us out in the lobby." He bent over
  and searched  the elevator operator, straightened with a gun. "This helps. We can  charge out of the lobby, then
  cover the doors from the street until the  cops get there."
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
  39
  
  Ham sneered, "You make it sound easy, you ape."
  The descending elevator was making a faint sighing.
  "Well," Monk demanded, "is there anything wrong with  my logic?"
  The elevator stopped with a grinding shock. Bells  rang. A faint hissing started.
  "Well," Ham jeered, "what do you think now, Monk?"
  Monk opened his mouth. Then he shut his eyes,  grabbed his throat.
  "Tear gas!" Doc said crisply. "Close your eyes!  Don’t breathe! Get down on the floor!"
  He said it so fast that the words were a rattle.  Then he jumped. The cage had a grilled top. But it was a fake
  grille,  covered by a steel plating. He smashed against the doors.
  They were heavy steel.
  They had a minute at the most. As soon as they  opened their eyes or breathed, the tear gas would get them.
  The bronze man’s sensitive finger tips explored  along the junction of the two sliding halves of the elevator
  doors.  There is invariably a small round hole there, its purpose being to  afford a method of opening the doors
  with a key rod, from the outside,  should they close accidentally.
  Doc found the hole. Into it he dropped one of the  tiny, high−explosive grenades which he invariably carried.
  The grenade  was not half an inch in diameter, but it was probably as powerful a  thing for its size as man had
  yet been able to create.
  The explosion that followed deafened them and tore  the doors apart. They were halfway between floors. They
  could climb out.
  DOC helped his men out into a corridor which was  like any other, except for the richness of the carpeting.
  They ran  clear of the tear gas.
  "They sure prepared things around here!" Monk  exploded. "Fixin’ that elevator for a gas trap!"
  "That is a common precaution in banks which keep  sums of money on their upper floors," Doc said.
  The group turned into a room furnished with a long  table, straight, uncomfortable chairs, and a water cooler.
  No one was  there. A telephone stood on a tabouret in a corner, almost hidden.
  Monk dumped Viscount Herschel Penroff on the table.
  Doc looked out a window.
  "Stay here with the prisoner," the bronze man  directed.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
  40
  
  He whipped out of the room, for it offered nothing  that would aid them. He ran through the corridor toward
  the rear. His  flake gold eyes were busy. The other elevators seemed not to be  running. There was a fire
  hydrant and its rack of hose in the hall. Doc  turned the electric light on. That seemed strange.
  The rear windows were frosted. Doc snapped the sash  of one up. On a level with the window, fully thirty feet
  away, was a  rooftop. It was evidently the back of a theater, because there was not  a window.
  There were no ventilators. There was only a water  tank, situated near the middle of the roof, high on stilts,
  supported  by iron guy wires which ran to steel rods set in the walls.
  Feet rattled on the stairway. Men coming up from  below. Two men, the sounds indicated.
  "They’ll be in the elevator!" one gasped. "Be  careful!"
  "Don’t worry," grunted the second. "The tear gas  will discourage ‘em some."
  Doc was waiting. The men came out of the stairway  much too carelessly. The bronze man’s fist floored the
  first. The  second aimed his gun, but Doc got hold of gun and hand. The weapon  spouted three times, its
  bullets tore three pits in the ceiling, and  the bronze man had the weapon.
  The man had glittering black eyes and big white  teeth. He showed them both.
  "This thing is too much for you ever to stop!" he  snarled.
  His jawbone must have been brittle because of some  affliction. It broke when Doc hit. The bronze man hadn’t
  expected that.
  Monk, Ham and Long Tom came charging up, stopped,  and looked disappointed.
  "We thought you might be able to use a little  coöperation," Long Tom explained.
  Doc said quietly and sharply, "Stay with Penroff! He  is our key to this wild affair!"
  "Blazes!" Monk gulped. "I left ‘im lyin’ on that  table!"
  The homely chemist spun, raced down the corridor.
  The electric light went out. It was the one Doc had  turned on. Simultaneously, the air seemed to become
  quieter.
  "Monk!" the bronze man rapped. "Stop!"
  Monk halted, half wheeled. "Huh?"
  The lean, gentlemanly�he still looked gentlemanly in  spite of his manhandling�figure of Viscount Herschel
  Penroff appeared  in the doorway at the end of the hall.
  He stepped out boldly. A queer, sneering smile rode  his features. He opened the window at that end of the
  hall. It was  obvious he was going to shout down to some one in the street.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
  41
  
  "Stop that!" Monk bawled. He drew the revolver which  he had secured from the elevator operator. "Stay
  away from that window!"
  Penroff ignored him and leaned out the window.
  "For that, you’ll walk on one leg for a while!" Monk  gritted.
  He fired. Then he looked, grunted, "This dang thing  must not shoot straight," and fired again. Then he stared,
  and his  small eyes came bulging out of their little gristle pits.
  Both his bullets had stopped about halfway down the  room, in mid−air. They had hung there for a moment.
  Now, they were  falling, with an incredibly exaggerated slow motion, to the floor.
  Penroff seemed to be shouting. They could see his  chest pump the yells out�but they could not hear a word.
  "He’s telling his men exactly where to locate us,"  Doc said. "We’ll have to move fast, but carefully."
  MONK, his big mouth open, his little eyes still  popping a little, was beyond saying anything. He kept
  glancing at the  gun in his hand, then at the bullets down the corridor. By now, the  lead pellets had fallen to
  the carpet.
  "It must be that lick they gave my head!" he  muttered once. "That would make anybody go nuts and see
  things that  couldn’t happen. That’s it. The lick jarred my imagination loose."
  Ham and Long Tom were not much less baffled.
  Doc Savage moved down the corridor. He went in a  strange way, holding a fountain pen out ahead of himself
  and moving it  about continually, as if trying to feel something. He progressed thus  until he reached the rack
  of hose. He unscrewed the connection and came  back quickly with the coil of hose. He tossed it to Long Tom.
  "Loop in the end," he said crisply.
  Then Doc picked the revolver out of Monk’s limp  fingers. He aimed briefly through the rear window, and the
  gun exploded.
  The bullet parted the guy wire which was one of the  tank supports. The separation was just above the rod to
  which it was  attached.
  "Here’s the loop," Long Tom said.
  It was no place from which to throw a lasso, and the  heavy fire hose had never been intended for rodeo stunts.
  Doc leaned  out the window, and began having his difficulties. The distance was  fully thirty feet, more than
  any man could broadjump from a window  take−off. Three times he missed. Then he ringed the upright rod.
  The window had a steel sash. The bronze man knocked  the glass out and tied the end of the hose.
  "Monk," he said quietly.
  He held the sash end of the hose while Monk swung  across.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VII. THE TOWER ESCAPE
  42
  
  Viscount Herschel Penroff had turned, and was  watching them. He looked surprised, cheated. He wheeled
  and began to  shout further instructions from the window.
  Ham went over. He wore only a rag of his trousers,  and they fell off during the gyrations of his legs. He cut a
  grotesque  figure in his shorts. Long Tom scampered across with the agility of a  monkey. That seemed to
  remind Monk of something.
  "Habeas Corpus!" he yelled, and Ham echoed,  "Chemistry!"
  Doc Savage whipped across the swaying hose.
  "The pets will probably be safe in the penthouse  where we left them," he said.
  The group then ran across the roof. Behind them, the  fire hose was swaying from the last kick which Doc had
  given it.
  Mysteriously, the hose stopped swaying. The stoppage  was abrupt, as if an invisible hand had arrested it.
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
  THE room in which Doc Savage sat was light enough,  but it had the smell of a cave. Concrete floor, walls
  and ceiling were  damp and cavernish−looking. From one spot in the ceiling, a drop of  water fell occasionally.
  The place was full of electrical gadgets. The  sole light came from electric bulbs.
  It had been an old wine cellar, but Long Tom had  bought it cheap and turned it into his experimental
  laboratory.
  Doc held a cablegram. It was from Leningrad,  U.S.S.R., and said:
  INDIVIDUAL ABOUT WHOM YOU HAVE CABLED US IS NOT  MEMBER OF OGPU STOP
  PENROFF WAS NOBLEMAN IN DAYS OF CZAR GOVERNMENT  STOP WE KNOW NOTHING
  ABOUT THE REST
  OGPU CHIEF
  Doc burned the cablegram carefully.
  Ham sat on an uncomfortable iron stool, and was just  finishing explaining how he had been captured. "Two
  of them stepped up  and prodded my ribs with a gun as I left my hotel. They took me  directly to the
  penthouse. I think we are up against some kind of  gigantic organization which is planning some huge crime.
  They were  afraid we would interfere with their plans."
  There was a stir at the door and a stooped old man  with a mustache, a scar on his cheek, dark−colored
  glasses, and an "I  Am Blind" sign around his neck hobbled in, struggling with two very  large suitcases.
  He pulled off his false mustache, plucked the scar  loose, removed his glasses and became Long Tom, the
  electrical genius.  He glanced around.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
  43
  
  "Where’s Monk?" he asked.
  "He should be back shortly," Doc replied. "He is out  getting some information for us."
  Ham spoke up, "Sure you were not followed here, Long  Tom?"
  Long Tom glanced at him, sniffed, and said, "I did  my best." He opened the large suitcases, adding, "I got
  Monk’s hog and  your what−is−it."
  Ham sprang up, and looked very pleased. Chemistry  sidled out of the suitcase, then turned around and looked
  it over  gloomily.
  The pig, Habeas, came out of the other case, also  looked around, and showed his temper by making an abrupt
  rush at  Chemistry, which the latter avoided with the agility of long practice.  Habeas sat down and showed
  long, white tusks indignantly.
  Ham complained, "Monk has been sharpening that hog’s  teeth again! Where’s a hammer?"
  He got up and walked off, looking.
  Long Tom told Doc, "The pets were in the penthouse.  The police were all over the House of Penroff building.
  They had found  three dead men. Physicians declare each of the three dead men died in a  most remarkable
  way�complete stoppage of all internal functions. Heart,  lungs, everything, simply ceased working."
  Long Tom paused, eyed Doc, and asked, "That’s queer,  isn’t it?"
  INSTEAD of answering, the bronze man said, "Penroff  and his men were not there?"
  "Every one of them got away," Long Tom admitted.  "And what’s more, they took their private records. They
  must have had  everything set for a sudden flight. They left the radios, the tickers  and the telegraph apparatus,
  of course. The stuff didn’t prove  anything. Lots of banks have their private communication systems."
  "Nothing to indicate what this organization which  calls itself the Elders is up to?" Doc queried.
  "Not a thing."
  "What are the police going to do?"
  Long Tom shrugged. "They’re stumped."
  Ham called from somewhere, "Say, where d’you keep  your carpenter tools?"
  "Get out of there!" Long Tom yelled. "I got a lot of  delicate apparatus in there, and I don’t want you upsetting
  it!"
  Ham muttered something.
  There came footsteps; then Monk appeared. Monk had a  large ear of corn in each hand. He waved the ears.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
  44
  
  "What a town!" the homely chemist complained. "Where  do you think I finally found some corn? In the
  Museum of Natural  History! And dang near got caught stealing it!"
  Long Tom snapped. "I thought you went out to gather  information?"
  "And vittles for my hog," Monk added. "With them  Elders watchin’ my laboratory, probably, Habeas’s food
  supply is kinda  tied up. I hadda find�"
  He stopped and scowled at Ham, who had come in with  a hammer. "Whatcha gonna do with that, shyster?"
  "I intend to perform a dental operation on that  hog," Ham said grimly.
  Monk’s howl would have done credit to a lion which  had been stepped on by an elephant. "I’ll hit you so hard
  you’ll have  to pull down your socks to pick your teeth! I’ll�"
  Doc Savage put in quietly, "What about the  Munchen?" 
  When Monk and Ham started to quarrel, it went on for  days.
  "The Munchen," Monk said, "is due in  Lakehurst in two hours."
  "Did you book us on her?" Doc asked.
  "Nope," Monk said. "The Munchen is taking no  outside bookings, because she is under private charter."
  Doc Savage was silent. Outwardly, at least. But his  strange, small trilling noise was briefly audible.
  "In two hours it will be dark," he said.
  "It sure will. It’s raining now."
  "We’ll have to move rather quickly," Doc said.
  IN two hours, it was dark, and it was still raining.  It was a warm kind of rain, seeming a bit sticky, somewhat
  remindful of  clam juice. There was no thunder or lightning. The rain came out of  clouds which were just high
  enough to clear the sleek back of the  Munchen.
  The Munchen was nine hundred and sixty feet  of proof that somebody besides the Germans could build
  lighter−than−air  craft. She was a hundred and eighty feet thick. She had been launched  some six months
  previously, and had immediately assumed a schedule of  regular flights around the world.
  Her specialty was passengers who wanted to take a  trip around the world by air. So far, there seemed to be
  quite a supply  of them.
  Besides Diesel motors and noninflammable gas,  private cabins and a promenade deck, the Munchen had a
  billiard  room, a dance orchestra, a floor show with some very snappy lady  numbers, and a swimming pool.
  The swimming pool was not as nutty an  idea as it appeared at first inspection. The water in it was really the
  supply of water ballast which all airships carry.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
  45
  
  The Munchen also carried two airplanes in  underside hangars, to be launched from the air and received back
  in the  same manner. The planes delivered mail and picked it up from places  where there were no facilities for
  handling a thing like the Munchen.
  A factory nobody had ever heard of in a Balkan  country which not many more had heard about had produced
  the Munchen.
  The Munchen had arrived from Kansas City an  hour ago. All the passengers had been put off, some of them
  indignantly. The new passengers�all men�were aboard. But one of the  four radio operators had not returned.
  "Where is the radio operator?" Penroff demanded.
  "The fool rushed out to see his girl who sent a note  saying she was at the field!" complained the commander
  of the  Munchen. "He has been gone an hour."
  "Wait a few minutes," directed Viscount Herschel  Penroff. "Then depart, leaving the idiot behind."
  Viscount Herschel Penroff now had red hair, a nose  the tint of a ripe apple, and a beer drinker’s
  circumference. This  disguise was for the benefit of the police, who were looking for him.
  The commander of the airship saluted briskly at the  command to give the radio man ten minutes.
  "Every man of the crew is one of us," he said. "We  have bomb technicians and gas experts. We can install the
  bomb racks  once we pick them up at the Manchurian Preparation Area headquarters.  It will require no
  alterations."
  "Of course!" snapped Penroff, who seemed to be in a  bad temper. "When the Elders had this craft built, all
  that was  prepared for!"
  A shout advised them that the radio man was coming.  A moment later, two men helped the missing radio
  operator up the  companion, not very gently.
  The knight of the wireless key carried under each  arm a brown bottle with a long neck, and the corks were
  loose in the  necks of the bottles. The radio man had a duck gait, a breath which  would have exploded.
  "Good olsh palshy−walshy," he hiccoughed.
  "Dump the fool in his cabin!" screamed the commander.
  A couple of the crew carried the intoxicated radio  operator, who was a meek−looking, entirely bald−headed
  old gaffer,  called "Sparks" in honor of his trade, into his cabin and stuffed him  in his bunk.
  The two men emptied the two bottles, then  thoughtfully returned them to their owner. Chuckling, they
  departed.
  They had no more than gone when a miracle occurred.  Sparks got up out of his bunk, and with the gait of a
  cold sober man,  headed for the stern of the Munchen. He took his bottles.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
  46
  
  CONSTRUCTION of the Munchen was really  marvelous. The big main girders, which ran from bow to stern,
  were  hollow and equipped with catwalks on which a man could stride along  erect.
  The Diesels were already warming up. There was some  preliminary shouting at the ground crew. There was
  also some loud  cursing by some newspapermen who had not been allowed near the ship,  much to their
  astonishment.
  The miraculously sober Sparks, pausing, drew a  blueprint of the airship from inside his clothing. It was a
  blueprint  on silk, which would not crackle. He examined it, and located the  electrical circuit to the rear
  floodlights.
  A moment later, the rear vicinity of the airship  went unexpectedly dark. This period of gloom lasted only two
  or three  minutes, then the lights came on again.
  Sparks had been standing beside a hatch in the hull.  He was alone when the lights went off. When they came
  on, he had five  companions.
  Doc Savage, Monk, Ham, Habeas and Chemistry were the  newcomers.
  "Greetings, Pappy Long Tom," Monk grinned at Sparks.
  Long Tom looked at Habeas and Chemistry and  grumbled, "We’re gettin’ to be a travelin’ zoo!"
  Ham said righteously, "I did advise leaving that  worthless hog. Now, my Chemistry can climb around it here
  and be a�"
  Long Tom growled, "That was a heck of a haircut you  give me! The hide on my head hurts!"
  Doc Savage coiled the line which Long Tom had  lowered while he had darkened the vicinity below that part
  of the  dirigible. Long Tom had carried the line aboard stuffed in the bottles.  Fortunately, he had also provided
  the bottles with some alcoholic  contents to hide presence of the line.
  "Have any trouble?" Doc asked.
  "Nope," Long Tom said. "Lucky I remembered I’d met  the radio operator on this airship once when I
  inspected its radio  installation on its first trip around the world. When I recalled I  looked like one of the
  operators, and remembered he’d told me he had a  girl friend here in Lakehurst, it was simple.
  "I just wrote a note in a girl’s handwriting, asking  him to come to a dark part of the field. When he got there,
  I knocked  him cold and tied him up. That’s all there was to it."
  Monk pulled out a machine−pistol, patted it, and  remarked, "I’m ready to start operations. Viscount Penroff
  and all his  gang are aboard, ain’t they?"
  "They’re aboard," Long Tom admitted. "The commander  is hand in hand with Penroff. Say, Doc, this
  business gets more  incredible every minute. This airship seems to belong to them."
  Doc Savage said quietly, "You will probably discover  the thing is much larger than you even imagine now.
  We will tackle the  affair cautiously from now on. Cautiously, remember. Our object is not  to capture Penroff."
  "Sure," Monk agreed. "The object is to find Pat."
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter VIII. SKY YACHT
  47
  
  "Yes," Doc added, "and to get control of the method  by which these men wrecked the China Rocket, and
  made some other  seemingly incredible things happen."
  Monk gulped, "I’ll never forget them bullets of mine  stoppin’ in the air, then fallin’ slowlike. Dang! It was as
  if an  invisible spook had grabbed ‘em and was puttin’ them on the floor!"
  Doc’s flake gold eyes rested on Monk. "Remember, we  go cautiously now."
  "Now, Doc," Monk grinned, "you know I’m the soul of  caution."
  There was a vague unsteadiness. The Munchen  was taking off.
  Ham said, abruptly, as if he had just thought of it:
  "Darn that crook, Ky Halloc!"
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR
  THERE may be something in mental telepathy. About  ten seconds after Ham mentioned Ky Halloc in their
  hiding place far  back in the dirigible’s innards, Viscount Herschel Penroff turned to  the Munchen commander
  in the control room with a query:
  "Is Ky Halloc aboard safely?"
  "In my cabin," the skipper replied.
  "Excellent."
  They watched the take−off. There was not much wind  with the rain, so it was not ticklish. A paid civilian
  crew was  handling the ground lines. In the old days, the U. S. government had  generously donated sailors to
  handle every airship which landed at  Lakehurst, but somebody economized, and that stopped.
  Rain ran off the great bag in strings, and the  Diesels purred. A few newspaper flashlights blinked. Airships
  were not  the big news they had been.
  When the altimeter said three thousand, the  inclinometer zero, the airspeed ninety, the commander seemed
  satisfied.
  "We will head out to sea, climb to the stratosphere,  and change our course," he said. "Weather reports
  indicate a cloudy  zone general over southern Canada. We will take that route to the  Pacific coast. Once we
  are over the Pacific, we are unlikely to be  spotted."
  Viscount Herschel Penroff nodded. "Excellent. I am  going to have a word with Ky Halloc."
  Ky Halloc sat on the edge of the berth in the  commander’s cabin. He was dangling his legs idly and smoking.
  He smoked  rapidly, and had almost emptied a pack recently, judging from the  number of damp and smoking
  butts in the tray. He was knocking the  cigarette ashes in one tray, and grinding the butts out in another.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR
  48
  
  Ky was looking rather happy and contemplating the  ceiling. He drew in a sigh.
  "What a girl!" he breathed ecstatically. "I hope  she’ll be glad to see me!"
  "I presume you refer to Patricia Savage," chuckled  Viscount Penroff, who had arrived and stopped just inside
  the door.
  Ky Halloc nodded. "You said it."
  "I doubt if she will be very glad to see you."
  "Why not?"
  "She is of the opinion that you decoyed her into the  hands of the Elders."
  "Oh, I’ll soon fix that," Ky Halloc said airily.
  "I don’t know."
  "Eh?"
  "I don’t know," said Viscount Penroff, "whether you  will live long enough."
  Ky Halloc said, "So you are really going to finish  me?" He did not sound surprised.
  Viscount Penroff drew some papers from inside his  clothing and began to riffle through them in search of a
  particular  document.
  Ky Halloc stirred slightly. This caused the  handcuffs decorating his wrists and ankles to clink gently.
  VISCOUNT PENROFF found what he was hunting: a  radiogram on the private form of his banking
  establishment.
  "Doubtless you can guess the contents of this?" he  said, waving the missive.
  "I can!" Ky Halloc snapped.
  Penroff studied the prisoner. Neither of them looked  very happy.
  "You have quite a reputation, Halloc."
  "I’ve put in quite a few years trying to get one,"  Ky Halloc grinned wryly.
  "Why didn’t you cable Doc Savage that his cousin had  been seized, instead of coming to New York?"
  "Simple. I knew your men had the cables watched. I  had to come in person."
  "Very foolish."
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR
  49
  
  "The only thing I could do. I knew what I was up  against."
  Viscount Penroff rubbed his jaw in a puzzled manner.
  "Halloc, why didn’t you tell Doc Savage what you  were?"
  "I’m not in the habit of going around putting that  information out!" Halloc snapped.
  "And why not?"
  "I wouldn’t live long if I did!"
  Viscount Penroff fluttered the radiogram again.  "This unfortunately arrived just an hour or so too late to
  apprise me  of your true identity. It came, in fact, just after my men had taken  you prisoner."
  "Tsk tsk," 
  said Ky Halloc. "That was inefficiency." 
  "You are not a very talkative individual, are you?"
  "Oh, but I am. I talk all the time. In the presence  of a pretty lady, I am especially loquacious. Why�"
  "But you don’t talk about your rather strange  business much?"
  "Business is a dull subject, viscount."
  "Yours wouldn’t be."
  "Matter of opinion."
  Viscount Penroff looked suddenly grim.
  "What I am getting at is this: Who, besides  yourself, knows what you have discovered?"
  Ky Halloc laughed. It was a loud, contemptuous blare  of mirth.
  "You can go to hell!" he said.
  "I thought so," Viscount Penroff said grimly. "Well,  we’ll see. If you have advised any one what you have
  discovered, we  will expect you to radio them saying you had made a mistake, and that  there was nothing to
  it."
  "Well, well."
  "You will also radio them that you are taking a  vacation trip," continued Penroff.
  "And where would I be going on a vacation?"
  "That depends on how good a life you have been  leading. I trust it won’t be the spot you consigned me to a
  moment ago."
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR
  50
  
  An orderly�or the airship equivalent of an  orderly�came in. He extended a message of some kind.
  Viscount Herschel Penroff read the missive, started,  read it again. He began to wear a grin so big that it
  threatened to  skin the entire front of his face.
  "Pardon my sorrow!" he chortled at Ky Halloc. 
  Ky Halloc ignored him.
  "Doc Savage and his three aids," said Penroff, "have  been captured."
  KY HALLOC had been traveling on his nerve. This was  evident now in the way he reacted. His body became
  tense, but the  muscles on his face relaxed. He became a beaten young man.
  The orderly went out.
  Viscount Penroff teetered on his heels, smiling  widely. "Another menace removed from the path of righteous
  progress. A  great cause, a wonderful good, will go forward. Millions of people can  be free to receive a
  supreme benefit that�"
  Ky Halloc spat. "You aren’t kidding me, polite boy!  The fact that you’re playing for billions doesn’t change
  the fact that  you’re a bunch of thieves."
  Halloc lighted a cigarette and reached over to put  the match in the ash fray.
  Viscount Penroff continued teetering on his heels  and smiling slightly.
  Halloc picked up the tray of cigarette ashes, flung  them in Penroff’s face. He lunged. Both his fists came up
  and Penroff  went down.
  Penroff had age against him. Yet, in his prime, he  must have been formidable. He knew all the tricks of
  jujitsu, and some  of his own. Since Halloc was manacled wrist and ankle, they were about  an even match.
  They wound up in a knot in the corner, straining at  each other, not doing much damage.
  "You fool!" Penroff gritted. "You can’t escape!"
  "There’s parachutes!" Halloc puffed. "And by  now�back over land�hell, I won’t make�it!"
  They reared up, striking, poking, even doing some  biting. An instant later, men came rushing in. They fell
  upon Ky  Halloc, hauled him back, and slammed him down in one of the modernistic  chairs which was very
  strong and light.
  Viscount Penroff used delicate, dabbing gestures  with a handkerchief to remove ashes from his eyes. Ky
  Halloc glared  around and wondered what had summoned the enemy, until he discovered  the receiver off the
  hook of the intership telephone instrument.  Penroff must have managed to knock it off during the fight.
  Penroff put his handkerchief away. His reddened eyes  were ugly.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR
  51
  
  "I have heard that a man falling through the air  does not lose consciousness," he said. "I hope that is the case."
  The crew men began removing Ky Halloc’s clothing.  Evidently the idea was to take no chances on his being
  identified  through the garments.
  The message−carrying flunky appeared again in the  midst of these preparations. He handed the radiogram
  which he carried  to Penroff.
  The latter read it. He looked like a man who had  just found a "no−longer−need−your−services" slip in his pay
  envelope.
  "From His Highness," he told the men. "An order to  keep Ky Halloc alive."
  Nobody in the room looked more surprised than did Ky  Halloc. He swallowed several times, and when he did
  speak, it was to  ask a question on a different subject.
  "Where was Doc Savage taken?" he queried.
  "In San Francisco," explained Viscount Penroff. "The  radiogram was from the chief of our West Coast
  Preparation Area  Headquarters, stating that Savage and his three aids had been taken."
  LONG TOM, electrical wizard and radio man of  abilities, was at about this moment holding a consultation
  with Doc  Savage.
  "The fake radiogram to keep Ky Halloc alive worked,"  Long Tom was chuckling. "They swallowed it."
  "You sure?" Monk asked uneasily.
  "As sure as I am that they were taken in by the  other fake message which said Doc and the rest of us had been
  captured." Long Tom retorted.
  Ham chuckled dryly. "That was a neat trick to keep  them from suspecting we might be aboard, even if we did
  figure it out."
  Long Tom turned away. "I gotta get back to the radio  shack. If they happen to send a message asking for
  details about  keeping Halloc alive, or our being captured, I’ll have to be there to  frame an answer."
  Long Tom crept down a girder, and eased through an  opening in a curtainlike affair of silk. Doc, Monk and
  Ham were hidden  in the safety envelope which surrounded each of the big gas cells.
  Once on the keel catwalk, the electrical wizard  hurried to the radio shack. When he entered, his heart tried to
  get out  of his throat.
  Viscount Herschel Penroff and the commander stood in  the radio shack.
  "So you have sobered?" the commander snapped. 
  Long Tom, not trusting his voice imitative ability,  merely saluted and looked apprehensive of punishment for
  drinking. The  business of looking scared was no trouble at all.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter IX. HIGH HORROR
  52
  
  Viscount Herschel Penroff and the dirigible  commander seemed to be unsuspicious.
  "You will not operate your transmitter until further  orders," directed the airship skipper. "Some one with a
  direction−finder might spot us. There is no need of taking chances."
  Long Tom saluted again briskly. He had noted the  little kowtow and salute which the Elders used, and he had
  it down pat.
  Viscount Penroff and the captain went out.
  Long Tom looked relieved, happy.
  He naturally didn’t hear what Viscount Penroff had  to say when they were out of earshot.
  "We are apparently being duped," Viscount Penroff  muttered. "That radio man is the Doc Savage aid known
  as Long Tom."
  The commander was startled, and asked wonderingly,  "How did you know?"
  "Simple," Viscount Penroff said. "Sparks has a scar  on his left hand. This one didn’t."
  Chapter X. AIR ACTION
  LONG TOM ROBERTS was a quick thinker. Indeed, it had  been an occasion of slightly too much
  quick−thinking which had earned  him his nickname. Years earlier, he had once hit upon the bright idea  of
  defending a certain military position by loading an old−time cannon  of the type known as Long Toms, and
  having no regulation shot and ball,  had employed a collection of rocks, broken beer bottles, jackknives and
  beltbuckles.
  That it hadn’t worked was probably the cannon’s  fault. He had come out of the resultant misadventure with
  his life and  the nickname Long Tom.
  But quick thinking and iron−nerve control are two  different things.
  Viscount Herschel Penroff came into the radio cabin,  put a message in front of Long Tom, and spoke.
  "Disregard the earlier order about silence, and send  that," Penroff said.
  Long Tom read the body of the message:
  DOC SAVAGE WAS DISCOVERED ABOARD AND HAS BEEN TAKEN
  PENROFF
  Long Tom looked stark for an instant. Then he  reached for the transmitter key.
  "I’ll send the message, sir," he said.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter X. AIR ACTION
  53
  
  Viscount Penroff put the cold end of a gun against  that part of Long Tom’s neck which got hottest when he
  was mad.
  "So Savage is aboard!" Penroff snarled.
  Long Tom gulped twice.
  "Huh? What�say�there’s some mistake�"
  "No use lying, Long Tom Roberts."
  Long Tom sat perfectly still. The gun muzzle was  cold.
  "Savage is aboard," said Penroff. "You gave it away  by your start."
  More men came in. Determined fellows with guns. Long  Tom could have saved his fight, and with it some of
  his own skin. They  bounced him on the floor a few times to celebrate, then tied him.
  Ky Halloc rattled his handcuffs in surprise when  they threw Long Tom into a cabin with him.
  "Greetings, fellow unfortunate," Ky Halloc grinned  wryly.
  "You’d better start worryin’!" Long Tom snapped.
  "Oh, they got a radiogram from His Highness not to  kill me," said Halloc.
  "That’s what you think," Long Tom grunted. "By now,  they probably know that was a fake and�"
  Two men came in with gags and silenced both Ky  Halloc and Long Tom. That, strangely enough, disgusted
  Long Tom more  than getting caught. He had expected to get from Halloc the nature of  the Elders’
  scheme�what they were after.
  LONG TOM had been glaring indignantly for at least  an hour before Viscount Penroff came stamping back.
  He hadn’t found  Doc, obviously. He ungagged Long Tom.
  "Where is Savage?" he yelled.
  "I don’t know," Long Tom said truthfully. "But if  you would turn on the broadcast radio receiver, you might
  get an idea."
  The last was no lie either, technically.
  Viscount Penroff, old face screwed up in a puzzled  scowl, stamped over to the radio, turned it on, and got a
  backwoods  comedian telling stale jokes.
  "Try to find a news broadcast," Long Tom suggested.
  Penroff fiddled with the dial, got a commentator’s  rattling voice:
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter X. AIR ACTION
  54
  
  "The stock market staged another of its calm days  to−day. . . . The president went fishing to−day at his
  country estate.  . . . Doc Savage, America’s man of mystery, is reported to have  refueled his plane on a
  mysterious
  flight across the United States. In Seattle, he refused to  interview reporters. His plane left in the direction of
  the Pacific  Ocean. . . . Little Sweetie Adkins, the latest child movie  sensation�" 
  "Gr−r−r!" 
  Penroff gritted, and shut off the radio. 
  Long Tom tried not to look as uneasy as he felt.  Penroff was glaring at him, and the elderly gentleman’s
  hands were  opening and closing as if he wanted to pick something apart.
  "I certainly thought Savage was aboard!" Penroff  snarled.
  "Do you think I would lie to you?" Long Tom asked  righteously.
  Penroff snapped, "Separate these two prisoners!" and  stamped out.
  Long Tom was taken to another cabin, dumped on the  bunk, lashed there, and left to meditate. Principally, he
  reflected on  what lengths Doc Savage went to leave no possible precaution untaken.
  For instance, it had cost Doc an enormous sum to  have two national network news commentators spread false
  reports that  the bronze man was on his way across the continent by plane. Doc had  not overlooked the long
  chance that the broadcasts might convince  Penroff’s crowd that he was not on the airship.
  It was lucky he hadn’t.
  LONG TOM had no real certainty about the intentions  of his captors where he was concerned. Except, of
  course, that they  would eventually try to dispose of him. But they were keeping him alive  for some reason.
  They were also keeping Ky Halloc alive. Or were they?  They would have no trouble learning the order to
  keep Halloc alive was  a fake.
  Long Tom lay back and did some fast thinking, trying  to figure out what part Halloc played, and in general,
  just what was up.
  He could have spread his thinking out a little. He  had close to five days in which to do it. Five eternal years
  during  which the big airship droned steadily through the sky. That they went  far north, Long Tom knew,
  because he almost froze.
  Had he put in the five days puzzling over the  mystery of the Elders, their gigantic organization, and what they
  were  trying to accomplish, he was pretty sure he would have turned into a  lunatic. He did not have enough
  clues to base any real guess on.
  The airship hit one stormy area, during which it  went high; and there was a long period during which the air
  in the  sealed cabins was chemically purified. Long Tom, who had done some high  flying at times, decided
  they were probably up in the stratosphere as  far as the dirigible would go.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter X. AIR ACTION
  55
  
  Long Tom spent a great deal of time trying to figure  out the nature of the mysterious thing which had stopped
  Monk’s bullets  in the bank building.
  Some kind of new and absolutely invisible glass?  That was possible. Yet it had gripped Doc Savage’s hand
  when he touched  it earlier, and it had temporarily killed Habeas, the hog.
  It could still be glass of some kind. Just coat it  with a chemical, itself invisible, which induced shock or death
  on  contact. That was not so harebrained. Consider the strange marine  creatures called "man o’ wars," which
  are found in tropical waters.  Merely touching them causes awful agony.
  But what had stopped the telephone bells ringing,  and had extinguished the lights? What had prevented
  Viscount Penroff’s  voice, when he had stood in the bank building and shouted down into the  street, from
  being heard?
  Long Tom assembled all these questions and some  others. He had plenty of time. The answers he conjured up
  did not  satisfy him. They only made his head ache.
  His captors fed him once a day, and he complained  bitterly over the meals, claiming he was no canary.
  ON the fifth day�Long Tom had been permitted to keep  his watch, and had kept it wound�the electrical
  wizard received a  message. He was lying with his head against a girder, and he heard a  tapping.
  "L−o−n−g T−o−m," 
  it spelled out in telegraph code. 
  Long Tom got his handcuffs�he was handcuffed  now�around where he could tap a message back with the
  wristlets.
  "W−h−o?" 
  he asked.
  "D−o−c. A−r−e y−o−u s−a−f−e?"
  "Y−e−s," 
  Long Tom tapped back. "Y−o−u−r i−d−e−a o−f u−s−i−n−g g−a−s  m−a−s−k−s a−n−d h−i−d−i−n−g
  o−u−t i−n t−h−e g−a−s b−a−g−s w−a−s  a g−o−o−d o−n−e."
  Long Tom had known all along that this method of  hiding out accounted for the gang not finding Doc, Monk
  and Ham and the  two pets. They had prepared for it in advance, even to Monk and Ham  bringing along
  air−tight bags containing oxygen apparatus. They could  put their pets in the bags.
  Long Tom waited for the tapping to continue.  Instead, Viscount Penroff strode in, followed by two of the
  crew.  Penroff wore a big grin.
  "It seems the possibility of trickery with messages  was not entirely exhausted," he said.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter X. AIR ACTION
  56
  
  "Huh?" Long Tom got cold all over.
  "So Doc Savage is aboard after all?" Penroff smiled.
  Long Tom wet his lips, said nothing.
  "It was not Doc Savage sending to you a moment ago,"  Penroff said. "It was I."
  Chapter XI. THE INVISIBLE WALL
  LONG TOM suddenly started wondering how any one with  as few brains as he had just demonstrated he
  possessed had managed to  live as long as he had.
  His longevity was not going to extend much more, it  seemed.
  Viscount Penroff drew a gun from his waistcoat  pocket. It was a little gun with two barrels and some gold
  filigree. It  cocked with a sound as if some one had cracked a peanut.
  "You have just accomplished the thing for which you  were kept alive," Penroff said dryly. "We are now over
  Manchuria, and  your body, if found, is not likely to be identified, and it would not  make much difference if it
  was. The Elders will soon be in a position  where nothing so small as a murder will trouble them."
  Two men who had come in with Penroff put their  finger tips in their ears. Little short−barreled guns like
  Penroff’s  made a large noise.
  There was a loud noise. But it was not from  Penroff’s gun. It came from the ceiling. Penroff’s gun hit the
  floor,  and the man’s hand turned red and ragged.
  The two aids of Penroff spun and fled. Penroff  started to follow. But two steps put him down on his face. He
  seemed to  sleep. Long Tom knew he had been felled by a "mercy" bullet such as  Doc’s supermachine pistols
  used.
  The two men who had fled reached back in, got  Penroff and dragged him out into the runway.
  Ripping noises came from the ceiling. A sheet metal  plate split, and peeled back, and Doc Savage dropped
  down. Monk, Ham,  their pets, followed.
  "We’ve been layin’ up there keepin’ an eye on you  for days!" Monk threw at Long Tom.
  Long Tom heaved erect, rattled his handcuffs. "Get  me outta these!"
  A man put a head, hand and revolver in the door.  Monk’s supermachine pistol spanked. The head vanished,
  untouched.
  "Durn!" Monk complained. "Missed him!"
  Doc said, "We only have a moment!"
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter XI. THE INVISIBLE WALL
  57
  
  The bronze man whipped to the passage. The two men  were scampering away with Penroff.
  "Where is Halloc?" Doc asked.
  "This way," Long Tom said, and pointed. "They were  holding him prisoner, if they haven’t killed him."
  The bronze man ran to the indicated door. The room  beyond was empty.
  The dirigible motors were surprisingly silent.  Excited shouts, which were ringing through the catwalks and
  passages of  the giant airship, could be plainly heard.
  Ham carried his favorite weapon, his sword cane. It  had a blade of rare steel, and the tip was coated with a
  chemical which  produced quick, harmless unconsciousness.
  "Four of us," he snapped. "Sixty or seventy of them.  Rather bad odds, eh?"
  Doc said, "We may be able to reach the planes."
  THE planes, low−wing combination sea−and−land ships,  each with a single motor, were racked in the
  underside of the  dirigible. Hatches slid back, and the mechanical holders lowered the  planes, then released
  them. They could be picked up by a hook  arrangement while in flight, but Doc and his men were not
  concerned  particularly about that.
  They did not have much trouble reaching the planes.  Doc and his men had brought along some of the
  innumerable gadgets which  they used, and which frequently kept them alive when the odds seemed  fantastic.
  They flipped a few tiny smoke bombs behind them. The pall  from these helped.
  The interior hangars of the two planes were located  one ahead of the other. The group clattered down a metal
  ladder which  had rungs no thicker than lead pencils. There was light enough to look  the planes over.
  One ship was smaller, and its motor cowling was off,  the propeller dismantled.
  "They been workin’ on that one!" Monk exploded.
  The other ship, the larger one, seemed intact. They  dived into it. The pilot cockpit had a hatch on top, and by
  standing  erect in this, one could jerk the levers which opened the sliding doors  and lowered the supporting
  clamp.
  Electric motors operated the doors and big clamp.  The doors opened when Doc operated the lever, but the
  clamp barely  started down with the plane when it stopped.
  "Dang ‘em!" Monk gulped. "They shut off the current!"
  "We will take a chance on dropping free," Doc said.
  There was a safety catch intended to prevent the  plane being dropped before the supporting clamp and its big
  retractible  arms were fully lowered.
   THE MOTION MENACE
  Chapter XI. THE INVISIBLE WALL
  58
  
  Doc broke the clamp with a wrench. He touched the  starter, got it whirring, and the motor banged over. Doc
  jerked the  last lever. The whole mechanism was not much different from one he had  observed in the U.S.
  navy dirigibles. He was familiar with it.
  The plane reeled rather crazily out of the pocket in  the dirigible underside. One wingtip scraped the side of
  the opening,  caught, and the plane tilted and spilled out one wing first, but no  great harm was done.
  "Demolition cartridges!" Doc called.
  Then the bronze man jacked the throttle back, did  the same with the stick, and the ship went up. Men leaned
  out of the  promenade deck windows of the Munchen. They had machine guns,  the hand type, and the ends of
  the barrels got red.
  Only a few bullets hit the outer wingtips of the  plane.
  "I’m surprised at such lousy shooting," said Long  Tom, who had removed his wrist watch, smashed it, and
  was trying to  pick his handcuff lock with the end of the mainspring.
  Monk was changing ammo drums in his supermachine  pistol; latching a drum of demolitions into the
  mechanism.
  Doc did more things with the plane controls. The  craft skidded to a position over the dirigible. It was a silver
  monster  under them.
  "Now," Doc said.
  "This is gonna demonstrate why airships ain’t no  special good in a war," Monk grinned.
  The homely chemist leaned out, aimed, and his  machine pistol strummed. An enormously louder roar came
  from below. The  plane bucked, pitched, and Monk had to stop shooting and grab a hold.
  Doc glanced downward. Not for nothing were those  demolition slugs the compressed essence of the highest
  explosive. In  half a dozen places, the Munchen’s back was broken. It was as if  a devouring monster had taken
  great bites out of her. She was rolling  slightly, and sinking.
  Below, there was an area of rolling country, densely  wooded, with a lake to the east�opposite the setting sun.
  Around the  lake, there was rocky, intensely rough mountain country.
  Ham snapped grimly, "I’d hate to think about making  a forced landing down there!"
  The plane motor stopped.
  "NOW see what you done?" yelled Monk, who could  always find words.
  Ham, looking startled, stared at the gasoline  gauges. "The tanks register full!"
  "Sound them," requested Doc, who had flattened the  plane out and was feeling for its best gliding angle.
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  Ham shouldered the cabin door open, and leaned out.  He could reach the gas tank caps in the low type wings.
  Unscrewing  them, he plumbed with the end of his sword cane.
  "Empty!" he yelled.
  "They did not miss much," Doc said without emotion.
  Monk yelled, "Blazes! You figure they emptied the  gas tanks and wedged the indicator needle to show full?
  And the motor  only ran until it used up the fuel in the carburetors?" The bronze man  did not answer. There
  were binoculars in a rack beside the control  stick. He used them on the terrain below. They were not
  particularly  good glasses. The prospects of making a landing were not good, either.
  Doc pointed. "Our best chance is there."
  The indicated area was a patch, forty acres or so in  extent, where small, soft shrubbery, peculiar to that part of
  Asia,  grew.
  Monk nodded, muttered, "Only I don’t like them kinda  landings."
  Air made sound around wings and struts. It was as if  two or three men were whistling softly and steadily.
  Otherwise, there  was silence. Doc had slanted the plane at the patch of cushion growth.  They could make it
  without difficulty, would even have altitude for a  circle or two of inspection.
  The dirigible, falling more slowly, was now higher  than they. The ends were cocked up. Loose skin covering
  fluttered  around the holes amidships. A gas bag had bulged out like an entrail.
  Men were beginning to appear on the topsides. They  carried lines and knives. They would slash through the
  skin to get at  girders, then lash themselves to the beams with the lines.
  "You gotta give ‘em credit," Monk said. "They know  what to do."
  He meant that the dirigible crew had been quick to  realize the undersides of the air monster would probably
  be crushed  when it hit. Lashed to the topsides, the men stood a better chance.
  The volplaning plane hit a down current, rocked out  of its gliding angle. Doc nosed down to regain speed,
  angled to the  left to get over an area of bare rock. Sun heat on the rock would warm  the air; expansion would
  cause the air to rise, causing an up current  that would assist the plane in maintaining altitude.
  "This is not going to be so bad," Long Tom said.  "That brush is soft stuff�"
  The plane stopped descending.
  HAM pitched forward very hard. He happened to be  holding his sword cane so that he fell against it, and the
  cane sheath  broke, the fine blade bent almost double. Had it not been Damascus, it  would have snapped.
  Monk, who was craning his neck out a window, came  near being beheaded as the shock snapped his body
  forward. Long Tom  dived at the instrument panel, and thereafter wore the imprint of an  inclinometer on his
  forehead. The two pets skidded forward, tangled,  and began to fight.
  Doc Savage arose. The control stick had bent under  the impact of his weight.
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  They all stared around in astonishment.
  What had happened, was happening, was incredible.  There was nothing in the air. Not even a cloud in the
  sky. Nothing they  could have hit. The air was almost unnaturally transparent.
  "That�that�it’s got us!" Monk gulped, holding  his bruised neck.
  They were not falling. Not perceptibly. But the tail  of the plane was tilting downward slowly. It was as if
  something had  taken hold of the nose of the plane, but lacked the strength to hold it  extended level.
  Ham glanced at his sword cane, saw the blade was  intact, and scrambled to the cockpit. He dashed out what
  was left of  the cockpit window, and stabbed viciously with the sword into the thin  air ahead of the ship.
  The blade bent almost double. It had hit something.  Ham yanked. The blade would not come out of whatever
  it had penetrated.  Yet there was nothing visible.
  Ham Brooks was a man with more than what could be  considered an ordinary nerve control. At times he even
  had more nerve  than was good for him, since it made him less cautious. But now his  mouth opened round, his
  face got gray and his breathing became noisy.
  Ham yanked madly at the cane. It did not come free.
  "Try pulling slowly," Doc suggested.
  The bronze man sounded more interested than  concerned, as if they were conducting some intriguing
  scientific  experiment.
  Ham, for once frightened out of his wits, yelled,  "What�what�what is it?"
  "Pull slowly," Doc requested.
  IT was to Ham’s credit that he did stop his frantic  yanking and exert a slow pull. The sword cane blade began
  to come free.  By microscopic degrees at first, then more swiftly�and Ham was suddenly  sprawling back in
  the cabin, the blade in his hand.
  The plane had now slanted downward enough so that  the group had to hang on to keep from sliding into the
  back of the  cabin.
  "It will probably pull free shortly," Doc said.
  That was not a pleasant thought. When the plane did  start falling free, their troubles would be much more
  dangerous. For  the entire forward edge of both wings were crumpled so that it was  entirely impossible to
  control the craft.
  Long Tom yelled, "If we only had parachutes!"
  The plane began to sag more swiftly. It was going to  fall.
  Ky Halloc appeared in the rear of the plane cabin.
  "Greetings," he said calmly, "from a gentleman who  has some parachutes."
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  Chapter XII. MANCHU MENACE
  IT was instantly evident, of course, that Ky Halloc  had been in the rear of the plane�there must have been a
  baggage  compartment back there�all the time. That was quite possible. There had  been no time to look the
  plane over.
  Halloc spun, reached back into the compartment, and  began digging out parachute packs. The plane was
  hanging by its nose,  practically, and he had to hurl the chute packs up to them.
  "They were holding me under guard," he yelled, "when  you started the trouble. It took my guard’s mind off
  his job long  enough for me to pop him over the head with one of them little alloy  chairs. I didn’t know what
  to do. I got to thinking."
  He heaved more parachutes.
  "It occurred to me that you would maybe try to get  away in the planes," he said, "so I charged down there. I
  passed the  parachute locker and brought an armload of them, figuring they might  come in handy."
  Long Tom yelled, "Why didn’t you come out earlier?" 
  Ky Halloc grimaced. "Spring lock on the locker door.  The shock when we hit whatever we did broke it." He
  peered about. "Just  what did we hit�oh, I see. So that’s it!"
  "That’s what?"
  "We’re dang lucky we’re not all dead," said Ky  Halloc.
  Monk growled, "Say, just what�"
  He did not finish because the plane had suddenly  pulled free. It fell, and because the wings were mangled, it
  began to  twist and flutter in a most sickening fashion.
  There was no more talk. The men whipped into the web  harness of the parachutes. The outer doors,
  fortunately, were not  sprung. Doc shouldered one open.
  "Let the chute open and pull you off," he warned.  "It’s just possible they split the chutes or something and left
  them  where we might get hold of them."
  It was with a dubious expression that Monk climbed  out and yanked the ripcord. But the big silk mushroom
  was intact.
  A half minute later, the wildly gyrating plane had  scattered them through the sky. They sank swiftly, and did
  not land far  apart. Doc called out sharply and got them together. Monk and Ham were  carrying their pets.
  The dirigible hit. Girders buckled and fabric and  gas bags split with a sound remindful of a handful of great
  eggs being  crushed. Men screeched, cursed. Firmer voices yelled orders.
  The wreck did not catch fire. Over the treetops, Doc  and his aids could see men working down the mangled
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  sides of the ship,  ripping through the skin fabric with knives to get at the girders for  handholds.
  Doc Savage’s flake gold eyes came to rest on Ky  Halloc.
  "Explain all you can in two or three minutes," Doc  directed, and began picking Long Tom’s handcuffs.
  KY HALLOC hesitated, looked uneasy. "Well, after  all, I hate to�well, almost no one knows my profession."
  "The Elders know," Doc reminded.
  "Yeah," admitted Halloc. "I guess it don’t matter  then. Here’s what I know. That thing we just hit is
  something that  lives."
  Monk exploded, "That’s what I expected all along!"
  Halloc said, "This story is going to sound pretty  fantastic, but before you dismiss it as utterly insane, stop and
  think  of some of the things that have happened."
  "Hurry it up," Doc requested. He had gotten Long Tom  free.
  "Where these things came from, nobody knows," Halloc  said. "The exact nature of the things is also unknown
  to me. They make  no sound. Yet they have a definite intelligence. They can, in fact,  communicate with man
  and be communicated with."
  Halloc stopped and shuddered. "It is my guess that  these embodiments, congregations of force, or whatever
  they are, came  to the earth from outer space."
  He looked at them. "Does that sound reasonable?"
  "We have not much time," Doc reminded.
  "Sure. Those birds in the dirigible will be after  us. Well, a small group of queer old crackpot bearded hermits
  who  called themselves the Elders lived up here in Manchuria. They were  scientists and professors from
  Russia, exiled by the Soviets. They are  embittered old devils, down on the world. Their leader is a man
  named  Captain Cutting Wizer. I believe you know him?" 
  "An acquaintance only, in a professional sense," Doc  Savage said. "He visited New York some time ago, and
  spoke upon some  theories concerning treatment of skin disorders by the use of  electromagnetic fields of
  unusual types. He became well acquainted with  Pat Savage, my cousin, because she was interested in
  dermatology in  connection with her beauty parlor."
  Ky Halloc took a deep breath. "I think Pat is the  loveliest creature I ever met. And those devils are holding
  her!"
  "If she is still alive," Doc said quietly. "Go on."
  "Oh, she’s alive. I heard them say so." Halloc  nodded. "Well, to get back at the story, these Elders managed
  to  communicate with these strange things that we can’t see. They evolved a  terrible scheme. They are going
  to use the creatures to commit  wholesale robberies all over the world. You see, the creatures, or  whatever
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  they are, being invisible, can walk in anywhere and carry away  loot.
  "The Elders were clever. They first got together an  international organization, and charted the places to strike.
  They have  an enormous number of men to handle disposition of the loot. They have�"
  "Where do you come in on this?" Doc asked.
  "Me?" Ky Halloc sighed reluctantly. "You will  understand my unwillingness to speak when I tell you I am a
  criminal  wanted by the law. I was once convicted of a crime which I did not  commit. I will not go into that
  now. I was not guilty. I have never  been a criminal. But I never have been able to prove my innocence. I�"
  "What we are more interested in," Doc reminded, "is  your connection with this."
  "I was approached to become a member of the Elders,"  Ky Halloc said. "Not being a criminal, I turned it
  down."
  "Why did you come to New York?"
  "Believe it or not, simply because I knew Pat Savage  was in danger. Frankly, I fell hopelessly in love with
  her the instant  I saw her. It will never do me any good. I know that. But at least I  can do my bit to help her."
  Monk grinned, slapped him on the back. "You’re a guy  after my own heart," the homely chemist said.
  There was a whistle and a clip−clip−clip  noise in the brush near by. A bullet made it.
  "THEY have started to hunt us," Doc said. He  indicated Monk, Ham and Long Tom. "You three will set out
  north. The  dirigible was flying in that direction."
  Monk invariably objected when he saw a chance of  missing out on a fight. That the group had been for five
  days in  imminent danger of death seemed not to have dulled his love of  excitement.
  "Aw, Doc," he grumbled, "there must be fifty or  sixty of them guys, and�"
  "The more the reason for using caution," the bronze  man said. "They will follow you. Halloc and myself will
  trail along and  wage a guerrilla war."
  Monk eyed Doc, saw argument would do no good, and  picked his hog up by an ear.
  "Come on, you funny Harvard thing," he told Ham. 
  They galloped off, Long Tom bringing up the rear,  Monk and Ham snarling at each other with the start of a
  quarrel that  would probably continue until something drastic broke it up.
  Doc glided into the brush, and was followed more  clumsily by Ky Halloc.
  "Great fellows, those men of yours," Halloc said  heartily. "Most remarkable chaps I ever saw. I like them."
  Doc Savage’s reply to that put into words something  that was usually taken for granted.
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  "If the necessity arose, I would lay down my life to  save them," he said.
  Ky Halloc squinted at him. "You mean, if they were  caught, and the fellows who held them offered to turn
  them loose if you  gave yourself up, you would do it?"
  "Without hesitation."
  "But you as an individual are more valuable to the  world than any one or all of them, and I say that with all
  due respect  to them."
  Doc did not make a reply to that.
  "Keep under cover," the bronze man suggested. "We do  not want them to know we have remained behind."
  When they had found a thick copse of growth, they  crouched there. The earth was the red soil peculiar to that
  part of  Manchuria. It was rather hard−packed and dry. This country was  evidently on the edge of the great
  bare wastes which, farther west,  became an endless desert, and to the north, vast tundra.
  Doc and Ky Halloc heard, after a short time, the  sound of many men running. They traveled swiftly. Short,
  barking shouts  showed they had found the trail. There were yelled orders to spread  out, to miss nothing, and
  to make no mistakes.
  Through all that, Ky Halloc was strangely silent, as  if his mind were occupied with something else. And he
  was watching Doc  Savage most of the time.
  "You are an unusual one," he said unexpectedly.
  IF the remark meant anything to him, Doc gave no  sign. He gestured, and they set off parallel with the gang
  trailing  Monk, Ham and Long Tom and the two pets.
  The bronze man set a course far to one side. Ky  Halloc remarked on this.
  "I thought we were gonna knock ‘em off one at a  time?"
  Doc Savage produced from inside his clothing one of  the machine−pistols.
  "You have a weapon?" he asked.
  "No. Of course not."
  "Take this, then."
  Ky Halloc looked the superfirer over. "I never was  very good at puzzles."
  Doc gave brief instructions. The machine−pistol was  not a simple weapon. There were, moreover, two
  different secret  safeties, which only the closest examination would disclose. There had  been occasions when
  enemies had captured one of the guns, only to spend  hours in a futile effort to make it function.
  "I see, now," Halloc said at last. "Does it kick  much?"
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  "The compensator takes care of that," Doc said.  "Just point and pull the trigger."
  "O. K. Now, what do you want me to do?"
  "Watch the airship wreck," Doc said.
  "Darn it, I can’t do any good there!"
  "Keep under cover," the bronze man directed. "The  men�some of them�are bound to return. For that matter,
  they probably  left a few of their number behind. Some of them must have been injured  in the crash."
  "I’m to watch ‘em?"
  "Exactly. Trail them."
  "I don’t get this!"
  "We have reason to believe they have some kind of  headquarters near here. In Manchuria, at least. You will
  find out where  it is�if you can. For they may be holding Pat there."
  Ky Halloc looked grim and sober, and said, "Poor  kid! I’d give my right arm to save Pat. I only talked to her
  for a  short time, but I never met any one I liked better. Believe me, I mean  that."
  "Do your best," Doc said.
  "Wait a minute! How are you going to know if I do  find Pat?"
  Doc passed over a bit of substance which resembled a  lump of alum.
  "Rub lightly on the trees and rocks you pass with  that," he said.
  "What is it?"
  "A chalk which leaves no visible mark, but which  will glow under the rays of an ultra−violet lantern. I have a
  tiny  ultra−violet projector."
  "Oh," said Halloc wonderingly. "I’ll be darned!  Well, you can depend on me doing my best."
  "No one can do more," Doc said.
  The bronze man walked a few paces�and was gone. It  was almost magical, the silence with which he
  disappeared.
  KY HALLOC, surprise and incredulity on his rather  handsome face, walked quickly to the spot where he had
  last seen Doc  Savage, and looked around. He saw no sign of the bronze man, although  he looked for
  footprints and even bent blades of grass which might be  straightening. He shook his head wonderingly.
  "I’ll be damned!" he said. "That big bronze guy is  sure the spookiest lad I ever met."
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  Halloc next examined the lump of chalk for leaving  invisible marks, and scrutinized the machine−pistol. He
  managed to get  the ammo drum out, extracted one of the cartridges. It was not much  larger than a .22.
  He wedged the bullet in the end of the gun barrel,  bent downward, and managed to pry the slug out of the
  chamber of the  cartridge. There was an almost white powder inside.
  "High−powered stuff," he said, talking to himself.  "Well, I better get on the job."
  Halloc set out toward the dirigible wreck. He went  slowly, and used much care, stopping often to listen.
  There was  shouting from the men following Monk, Ham and Long Tom, but it was  getting far away.
  The wrecked mass of the airship loomed ahead. It got  larger. Never did the air monster seem more huge than
  it did now in its  wrecked condition. Ky Halloc stared at it when he was close enough that  it almost
  overshadowed him.
  "Criminy!" he muttered. "Five million smackers’  worth of sky limousine gone to pot!"
  He crawled closer. Inadvertently, he made a slight  noise. 
  Almost immediately, a dark man with the slightest  slant to his eyes came out of the brush and pointed a rifle
  at Ky  Halloc.
  "You fella velly welcome," he said.
  Ky Halloc turned slowly. He did not try to use the  machine−pistol. It would have been inviting suicide,
  anyway.
  "All right," he growled. "You got me a prisoner!"
  "Make tlacks," the captor directed, and waved at the  dirigible.
  They made tracks, and reached the control cabin. The  control area of the air craft had been damaged very
  little, and the air  giant was tilted enough on its side so that they could walk almost to  the hatch.
  Two guards stood before the hatch. They had  automatic rifles. Both started to salute Ky Halloe.
  "You damned fools!" Ky Halloc snarled in a low  voice. "Doc Savage may be watching us!"
  Chapter XIII. THE TRICKSTER
  INSTEAD of saluting, the two guards pointed their  rifles at Ky Halloc.
  "I think I’ll shoot you now!" one yelled loudly.
  "That’s better," Halloc growled in a low voice.  "This other fellow knew Savage might be watching me, and
  he had sense  enough to pretend to take me prisoner."
  "Does Savage suspect you?" one of the guards asked  uneasily.
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  "I don’t think so," Halloc replied grimly. "But you  can’t tell about that big bronze guy. He does one thing,
  and you  suddenly discover he did it to accomplish something entirely different.  He is a very tough customer."
  "It is incredible he should have survived this  long," one mumbled.
  Ky Halloc sighed deeply and wiped perspiration off  his forehead.
  "I’ve been under a strain, I have. I intended all  along to shoot Savage in the back the first chance I got."
  One of the guards asked dryly, "Why did you not do  so before this?"
  Halloc scowled at the man, trying to ascertain if  any insult was intended. He could detect none.
  "The bronze guy has got eyes like a fly," Ky Halloc  snapped. "And he never turned his back to me."
  "Then he suspects you?"
  "Not necessarily." Ky Halloc sighed again. "That  bronze fellow is like nobody I ever saw. He overlooks
  nothing. He’s  just instinctively cautious. I can see why he has lived so long and is  such a holy terror. Believe
  me, you know something?"
  The guards waited expectantly.
  "As long as I was around Savage, I never saw him  turn his back to anybody," Halloc snapped. "Not anybody,
  mind  you, except his five aids. Man, is he cautious!"
  The others moistened dry lips and glanced about  uneasily.
  "Does he�suspect�the truth?" one asked hesitantly.
  Ky Halloc snorted softly.
  "Not a thing," he declared. "I fed him a story."
  "What kind of story?"
  "Oh, a cock−and−bull yarn about mysterious,  invisible beasts out of the stratosphere or somewhere working
  in  coöperation with some guys who intended to conduct a lot of wholesale  robberies." Halloc chuckled again.
  "That was something, eh?"
  The men smiled admiringly.
  "That, truly, is about as far from the real truth as  one could possibly get," they agreed.
  Halloc jerked his head. "Were the radios jimmied?"
  "One of them still functions."
  "That’s enough. Take me inside, you fellows. There  is a lot to be done."
  The guards pointed their automatic rifles at Ky  Halloc, and he entered the dirigible.
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  THE smashed Munchen was draped across a clump  of small trees, many of which had punctured the outer
  skin of thin  metal and the delicate inner gas chambers of special cellophanelike  material�goldbeater’s skin
  had been found inferior of late for gas bag  linings. There was not much undergrowth, although the trees
  themselves  were not large. There were no birds close by; all had been frightened  away by the strange
  wrecked air Titan. Some buzzards circled far away,  and in the woods the only creature that stirred was a big
  woods rat;  and it was leaving the vicinity furtively. Altogether, there was a  great stillness.
  Perhaps the most still form was the giant man of  bronze. He occupied a bough of a tree from which a view
  could be had of  the control cabin of the Munchen. Held fixedly to his right eye  was a small but very strong
  telescope.
  The glass was powerful enough so that the hammer  marks on the tiny rivets which held the dirigible skin to
  the girders  could be discerned plainly.
  Doc Savage was a skilled lip−reader.
  The bronze man pocketed the telescope, after  collapsing it to fountain−pen size. He swung down out of the
  tree with  ghostly stealth, and advanced on the wrecked airship.
  He circled the entire craft carefully. There was a  lookout in the bow, another in the stern. The two were back
  at the  control cabin door.
  Doc broke a leafy bush large enough to cover him. It  was exactly like the others. He crept forward, holding it
  over him,  moving only when the lookouts were not glancing in his direction. It  was a simple trick, but it took
  time; and he finally reached the  underside of the airship.
  There was no danger of suffocating from the gas  leaking out of the ballonets. The gas, being light, went up.
  Doc found a rip, tested to make sure no squeakage  came from the girders, and swung inside. He reached the
  control room,  but worked into the catwalk above instead of entering, and went on  forward to the radio room.
  There was no guard at the radio room door.
  Ky Halloc had a scrambler attached to the radio  telephone. This was a device in common use by transatlantic
  and other  commercial companies, and simply mixed up the voice so that it meant  nothing until unscrambled
  by a key machine in exact synchronism at the  other set.
  Ky Halloc was speaking.
  "�and then the plane with Savage, Monk, Ham, Long  Tom, them two damned animals, and myself, flew into
  the protective  screen," he said, and stopped for breath.
  WHEN he had his breath, Ky Halloc began laughing.
  "They had no idea what it was," he said. "A little  later, I kidded them into thinking it was an invisible monster
  or  something. They ate it up. You can’t blame them. To some one who  doesn’t know what it is, it is sure
  baffling enough."
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  69
  
  A replying voice came out of a loudspeaker on the  radio room table.
  "But Savage is still alive and free?" 
  it demanded peevishly. It sounded as if it were an old man’s voice. 
  "We’ve got him in our own territory now," Halloc  said. "He has no idea what it is all about, and taking care
  of him will  be gravy."
  "You do not really think it will be easy?" 
  demanded the loud−speaker voice sarcastically. 
  Ky Halloc hesitated.
  "We can do it," he said, and he suddenly sounded  more desperate than confident.
  "What about the others?"
  "Savage’s three men? He sent them on ahead, to decoy  our men. Savage will try and pick our men off one at
  a time. Guerrilla  stuff."
  "That should make it easier."
  "Sure it will. You just get him located, lay down  walls around him, and take him." Ky Halloc began to laugh.
  "He’ll think  the invisible monsters have him!"
  Halloc’s laughter was not very hearty, and it ended  on a false note. It was the kind of laugh a bad ham actor
  would put out  when he had stage fright.
  The radio room was quiet, except for the singing of  an efficient motor generator unit. Somewhere, a marine
  clock struck  five bells. Just why marine clocks were used on the Munchen was  one of those things.
  Ky Halloc thought of something to say, leaned  forward, but did not say it.
  Doc Savage had come forward and taken him by the  neck and around the body. Sinews stood out a little in
  the metallic  arms and hands, and pressure pain so paralyzed Halloc that he could not  make sound.
  Doc leaned close to the microphone.
  "Stand by a moment," he said.
  His voice was a perfect imitation of Ky Halloc’s  lusty tones. The mimicry was not difficult. The bronze man
  had been  around Halloc a good deal now.
  Doc cut the mike out of circuit.
  "You did a good acting job," the bronze man told Ky  Halloc quietly. "It was necessary to watch you in an
  actual  double−cross to be certain. Suspicion that you were not what you  claimed, however, existed from the
  first."
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  Doc then searched Halloc. He found a tiny,  triangular badge of enamel and gold.
  The bronze man’s hand shifted to Halloc’s neck nerve  centers, preparatory to exerting the skilled pressure
  which would bring  the fantastic, semiconscious paralysis.
  "Don’t!" Halloc croaked. "You did that to one of our  men in New York! We ain’t�ain’t been able to wake
  him up�since!"
  His eyes filled with horror as he knew that his plea  was not going to have any effect.
  A man appeared in the door, leveled his rifle and  fired.
  THE man with the rifle was the fellow who had tried  to kill Doc Savage with the mysterious method of
  invisible attack in  New York, on the string of Brooklyn houses which looked just alike. He  was also one of
  the guards who had just stood at the entrance to the  control room and heard Ky Halloc declare Doc Savage
  had more eyes than  a fly. He got a demonstration of that now.
  The bullet missed. Doc had moved. He flung Halloc  aside. The man was too heavy a missile to throw
  quickly. A modernistic  portable loud−speaker wasn’t. He batted that at the rifleman.
  The fellow jumped aside. His second bullet missed.  He did not fire a third. Instead, he squawked, grabbed at
  his middle,  and put his jaw in the way of Doc’s right fist. He had a strong jaw. At  least, it did not break.
  Ky Halloc got up off the floor. Doc gave him a  shove. Halloc butted a metal wall and sagged down, stunned.
  Doc cut the radio mike in.
  "Take Savage’s men alive," he said in Halloc’s voice.
  "That is the plan," 
  the loud−speaker voice said. "As long as they are alive, we have  something with which to bargain."
  "That’s right. Anything else?"
  "Nothing. Except I thought you might like to know  that Captain Cutting Wizer is doing good work."
  The bronze man hesitated briefly.
  "Just how much has he accomplished since the last  time?" he asked, still using Halloc’s tone.
  "The whole job is done."
  Doc waited. To probe further for information would  only arouse suspicion. Anyway, the other men were
  coming.
  "That’s good," he said. "Well, seventry−threes."
  He cut the mike off.
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  71
  
  Men were running down the catwalk from the bow, and  up it from the control room. They had heard the
  shots. Doc cut the  radio carrier wave off the air. Then he reached into the set, got a  fistful of its vitals, and
  ripped them out. The apparatus would not  work for a while.
  He gathered up Ky Halloc, clipped him on a temple.
  There was a hatch in the radio room roof. The bronze  man sprang up with his burden, knocked the hatch
  open, and found one of  the vertical inspection tunnels that ran up through the big gas bag. It  was badly bent,
  squeezed in some places, but would pass him.
  Doc went up. His method was unusual, hardly feasible  if he had lacked much of his tremendous strength. He
  held Ky Halloc  with his legs and mounted the inspection shaft ladder rungs with the  strength of his arms
  alone. He made fair time.
  Gas got stronger. It was escaping from ruptured  ballonets. Down below, it was not bad, but up here�He
  wouldn’t be able  to breathe along the ridge of the airship. The gas was not poisonous  itself, but it displaced
  the air necessary for breathing.
  Doc drew in some of the bad air, held his breath,  and knocked a hole in the thin side of the inspection shaft.
  There was  a gas ballonet beyond. It had ruptured, and was almost empty of gas.  Supporting wires
  crisscrossed it. Doc swung onto these, still carrying  his burden with his legs.
  A fall alone would have meant a bad mauling, perhaps  mangling, on the network of thin, strong wires. There
  was almost no  light. Yet the bronze man seemed to have no great difficulty. Reaching  the other side, he broke
  through, wedged upward, got on a side catwalk,  and raced toward the stern.
  When he came to a rip in the airship’s side, he  looked out.
  A man was standing on each side of the dirigible,  well away, rifle held ready.
  Ky Halloc stirred.
  Doc bent close to Halloc’s ear.
  "This raid was largely to help you along with your  work of deceiving the Elders," Doc said.
  KY HALLOC squinted his eyes several times, as if he  had not heard aright. Then he swallowed incredulously.
  "I’ll be damned! So you know what I am?"
  The bronze man said, "In your pockets in New York  was a badge which indicated you were a secret agent of
  the great Soviet  secret service, the Ogpu."
  Halloc swallowed.
  "On your person a moment ago was a small badge also  indicating you were an Ogpu," Doc told him.
  Halloc grinned, and suddenly looked greatly relieved.
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  "You know the Ogpu," he said. "Members remain  unknown when they’re ordered to do so, or they receive a
  very serious  punishment. That is why I have been keeping quiet."
  Doc nodded. "There is one thing, though: Why did you  trap Pat?"
  "What was the difference?" Ky Halloc countered.  "They were going to seize her, anyway. If I hadn’t
  volunteered, some  one else would have decoyed her, and maybe she would have been killed."
  Doc asked, "Have you learned enough to satisfy the  Ogpu of what is going on?"
  Halloc gave a violent start.
  "So you do know!" he exploded. "Hell! I don’t  see how you figured�it took me weeks�look here! I’ve held
  out on you  because the Ogpu will raise the devil if I reveal what I have learned.  They’re cranks on secrecy.
  But now I’ll tell you�"
  "Save your breath," Doc advised.
  "You mean you know the whole thing?"
  The bronze man’s nod was almost imperceptible.
  "What you said over the radio a few minutes ago was  the final explanation," he said.
  KY HALLOC grinned thinly, extended a hand. "Any hard  feelings? I had my reasons for not telling you who
  I was or what my  angle was. You seem to know them."
  Doc clasped the hand.
  "Forget it," he said. "Want me to leave you here?"
  Halloc nodded. "I think I can do more from this  side."
  "Right," the bronze man agreed. "It would be better  if you were left unconscious."
  "Sure."
  Doc knocked him out with a quick blow.
  The bronze man dropped three smoke bombs on the  ground. They bloomed out a black pall. The riflemen ran
  to it, watching  intently, guns held ready.
  Doc studied the riflemen. One of them was large,  almost as big as the bronze man himself. Doc seemed
  particularly  interested in the size of the fellow.
  The bronze man’s strange, trilling melody was  existent for a brief moment, but not in a loudness sufficient to
  carry  to the watchers.
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  Doc dropped into the brush at the far end of the  wrecked airship. But the bronze man did not leave the
  vicinity.  Instead, he crept back, approaching the riflemen. And when he was very  near flung a small rock
  which he had picked up enroute. The smaller of  the two riflemen collapsed.
  The other gunman whirled. He was not fast enough.  There was the impact of two giant forms colliding, and
  the gunman went  down. Doc was upon him, and his metallic fingers got to the sensitive  spinal nerve centers.
  Doc had the victim over a shoulder and had faded  into the brush before any one came out of the airship wreck.
  Chapter XIV. TROUBLE PILED UP
  LONG TOM was lagging behind. Not because he was  tired, but because Monk and Ham were making so
  much noise squabbling  that he could not hear an enemy if one got close. Not that there was  much likelihood
  of that.
  Monk and Ham had, long ago, trained their pets,  Habeas and Chemistry, to range away in the manner of
  hunting dogs and  signal the presence of any one. The animals were doing so now.
  Monk and Ham were belaboring each other  ferociously�until they ran into a thorny bush. A wild dog, a
  scrawny  creature resembling a jackal, was frightened out of the bush and fled,  yipping.
  Monk looked around, and started with exaggerated  surprise when he saw Ham beside him.
  "Goodness!" he said. "I thought that was you ran  away, sound and all!"
  Ham opened his mouth to bite out a retort, but held  it. Something about the noise of the wild dog had
  interested him.
  The wild dog had stopped in the middle of a yowl.  Broken it off with an almost impossible abruptness.
  Long Tom came running up. "There was something queer  about that!"
  Monk and Ham thought so, too. They ran forward.  Twenty paces brought them to the what−is−it, Chemistry.
  Chemistry was balanced strangely, nape erect, little  eyes fixed on the shrubbery ahead. The men advanced.
  "Blazes!" Monk breathed.
  The wild dog was balanced as if starting a leap,  forefeet off the ground. The position was unnatural. And the
  animal was  as rigid as if turned to stone.
  Chemistry emitted a sound that was probably  profanity in the what−is−it tongue, and started for the dog.
  "Chemistry, stop!" Ham rapped.
  "Sic ‘em!" Monk said hopefully.
  Chemistry paid no attention to Monk.
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  Ham snarled, "You know what’s got that dog! You  wanted Chemistry to get caught, too, you awful accident
  of nature!"
  Long Tom rapped, "I’m in favor of backing a bit.  That’s one of them invisible things that’s got the dog."
  They retreated cautiously, supermachine pistols in  hand. The wild dog continued to stand queerly. The brush
  hid the  creature.
  "Watch for the leaves to move if that thing comes  through after us!" Monk breathed. "It’ll make some kind of
  sound,  maybe, and if it don’t, it’ll sure stir the leaves."
  This was a somewhat difficult order, since there was  a slight breeze and it waved the larger leaves gently.
  Monk had hardly spoken when his little eyes bugged,  and the hair on the back of his neck actually upended. It
  was a  peculiarity of Monk that he had this animal characteristic of hair  standing on end at his nape when he
  was mad or startled.
  "Look!" he squalled. "The leaves have stopped  movin’!"
  This was true. The leaves behind them were becoming  perfectly still.
  They all saw what happened to a bee. It was a large,  fuzzy bee, of a kind to stand this somewhat rigorous
  climate. The bee  was cruising, making a small airplane noise, and suddenly came to a  stop in the air. The bee
  hung there, then began to sink with an  exaggerated slow motion toward the ground.
  "That thing’s followin’ us!" Monk roared.
  THE group of bronze man’s aids had not been moving  slowly in retreat. But now they began to set speed
  records. They came  upon the pig, Habeas Corpus. The animal had been bringing up the rear.
  Habeas was facing the back trail, hackles up, one  forefoot hoisted startlingly like a pointed dog. And the
  shote was  rigidly motionless.
  "It’s got Habeas!" Monk breathed in horror.
  Habeas demonstrated he was wrong by turning tail  suddenly and rushing back to them.
  Then they could see what had alarmed the shote. The  leaves in a narrow swath across the back trail were not
  moving!
  "Let’s try the left," Long Tom said grimly.
  They knew the truth an instant later. The fantastic  monster of stillness had entirely surrounded them.
  Monk growled, "Here’s somethin’ we haven’t tried  yet!" and changed ammo drums in his supermachine
  pistol. The weapons  were ordinarily kept charged with so−called mercy bullets to cause  unconsciousness
  without great damage. Monk clipped in some of the  demolition slugs.
  He lifted the weapon.
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  Ham and Long Tom got down on the ground quickly. The  invisible walls, monsters, masses or whatever they
  were, were not far  distant. The force of those demolition bullets exploding would knock  them off their feet.
  Monk fired. The demolition slug made a sound no  louder than a cork coming out of a wine bottle, although it
  opened less  than a hundred feet distant.
  "Blazes!" Monk lifted the superfirer again. "First  time I ever knew one of them demolitions to turn out a dud!"
  The machine−pistol hooted. A number of corks seemed  to come out of bottles. Monk looked starkly
  incredulous.
  "The demolitions ain’t hurtin’ the things a bit!" he  yelled.
  Long Tom peered about angrily.
  "Not an enemy in sight," he growled, "and me, I’m  scared stiff!"
  The group of Doc’s aids turned squarely around and  tried to go in that direction. But they were blocked there,
  too.
  The next five minutes were an epic. They sought  desperately to find a loophole in the invisible, encircling
  ring. Their  method was simple. They picked up rocks and threw them. Always, the  rocks hit in mid−air, and
  stopped. There was no hole. The rocks fell to  earth with comical slowness.
  Through it all, the sun was bright above, and the  birds circled peacefully in the sky. Buzzards, they were, and
  the  fleet−winged Mongol variety of hawk. The woodland looked peaceful, and  boughs stirred gently with the
  breeze.
  There was no air movement where Monk, Ham and Long  Tom fought the fiendish unknown. They became
  terribly unaware of that.  Ham, who had an imagination, began to gasp, as if he were choking, and  driven
  desperate, turned loose a blast from his machine−pistol.
  They were almost deafened. The gun sound roared as  if in an enclosed room. The slugs exploding against the
  unseen wall,  however, made little ineffectual noises.
  "It’s over us, too!" Ham croaked.
  Then they saw the man.
  HE was a long, old string of wrinkled hide. He did  have a big head�a head that could be said resembled a
  spider’s body, if  one exaggerated. And he had piercing eyes. They could tell that even  from the distance. Or it
  might have been the magnifying quality of the  horn−rimmed spectacles he wore.
  He began making gestures with his arms.
  "Lookit!" Ham breathed. "Old octopus eyes! Who is  he?"
  Long Tom snapped, "Don’t you remember him?"
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  76
  
  "No. Should I?"
  Their conversation was rational enough, even if  their faces were pale and their eyes protuberant.
  "That is Captain Cutting Wizer, the old lad who  built that remarkable device Pat used in her beauty shop for
  eradicating blackheads and skin disorders by the use of unusual  electromagnetic fields."
  "Pipe down, fellows!" Monk ordered. "He’s trying to  signal us with semaphore code."
  They strained their eyes, and each called out  letters as the old man made them. It was not easy. Captain Wizer
  had a  sketchy idea of the regulation semaphore code. Some of the letters  which he didn’t remember, he
  transmitted by forming them roughly with  his arms.
  "He wants us to surrender!" Monk exclaimed.
  They watched some more. They missed some of it, not  being mind readers. He seemed to be promising them
  that they would not  live long unless they gave up their guns.
  "He wants the guns thrown high in the air and as far  as we can," Ham decided.
  "It’ll be a hot day when anybody licks me this  easy!" Monk gritted.
  He discharged high explosive bullets ineffectually  in the direction of the spectacled old man.
  Captain Wizer waved his arms. His gestures seemed to  be directed at some one back of him. Nothing
  happened for a moment.
  Then the pig, Habeas, began to squeal, flail around,  seemingly held fast by one leg to an invisible something.
  Long Tom took a step backward. He cried out, as an  elbow, extended inadvertently, seemed to be seized by
  an awful−burning,  invisible thing. He struggled. It was as if his elbow were embedded in  hot stone.
  "It’s closin’ in on us!" he gulped.
  Ham snapped, "We’re fools to fight something we’re  helpless against!"
  He waved his arms furiously, then pointed to  himself, his two companions, and put his arms above his head
  in token  of surrender. He threw his gun away.
  Captain Wizer stuck his stem arms out straight and  made flying motions with them, the signal which a
  surveyor uses to  indicate everything is all right.
  Men stood up in the undergrowth all around. They  walked straight to Monk, Ham and Long Tom, slapped
  them over for  weapons, then started them walking.
  "The trap for Savage is next," one said.
  OLD Captain Cutting Wizer shuffled up. A man with a  rifle walked at his elbow.
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  "Ay began to tank you vould be fules," he said. "In  another minute, you vould have been dead yiggers." He
  paused, then  said, "Do you tank Doc Savage could be persuade to forget oll vorks? It  vould be better. Yah.
  Ve might save your lives."
  Monk shrugged. "You would have to talk to Doc about  that."
  One of the gang tried to catch Habeas by the tail,  and was bitten. The fellow jumped back, whipped out a
  revolver and  aimed at the pig.
  The hog said, "Two bits says you miss me."
  The man almost dropped his gun. He popped his eyes  in amazement. He pulled his mouth shut with difficulty.
  "Jimmy crickets!" he exploded. "That damn hog spoke  to me! Or am I crazy?"
  Habeas, the shote, said, "All crooks are crazy, the  way I figure."
  The man with the gun walked around and around  Habeas. He scratched his head.
  "Bless my soul!" he said. "A talking hog!"
  "Get under way!" some one snapped. "We’ve got more  than talking hogs to think about. Grab hold of that ape
  pet there and  let’s get going."
  The march, which the incident had interrupted,  resumed. 
  "Ay tank dot vars smart as ha’al," said Captain  Wizer to Monk.
  Monk knew then that the old man had a quick wit. Of  course, the others would realize in a moment what had
  happened. Monk  was a ventriloquist of sorts, and he frequently had his pet pig make  unexpected remarks.
  In this instance, Monk had taken the only possible  means of saving Habeas from getting shot.
  Long Tom muttered out of a mouth corner, "Wonder  what they’re cooking up for Doc, Monk?"
  Monk shook his head. As a matter of fact, he was not  as concerned, nearly, as he would have been had he
  known Doc Savage had  not followed them, but had gone back to the airship.
  Chapter XV. TRAPS AND BAIT
  ANY time between four and five minutes is good for a  runner traveling a mile. In fact, for generations the
  world has waited  in vain for a runner who could even do it in four minutes. And that on  a smooth cinder track.
  Doc Savage had not run the last three miles in  anything like four minutes to the mile. But the going was no
  cinder  track. It was rock, gullied red earth, and plenty of scrubby trees.  Furthermore, he had more than two
  hundred pounds of limp human over a  shoulder.
  The prisoner he had taken at the dirigible wreck was  still in the grip of the strange paralysis. Only
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  manipulation to  relieve the segmental spinal pressure on the nerve centers would permit  him to move.
  The bronze man kept a sharp watch on his  surroundings. Now he stopped, lowered the prisoner, and climbed
  the  boughs of a tree that was taller and situated on a hill. He was careful  to keep inside the foliage. He used
  the little telescope.
  With the telescope, Doc employed certain small  filters, and a complex mechanical device which made some
  light wave  lengths visible that were ordinarily above or below the visible  spectrum. He simply surveyed the
  surroundings utilizing light which the  unaided eye did not ordinarily register.
  Military and naval observers have used the same  system. Painted surfaces may be made to look like stone, or
  trees, or  water, to the unaided eye. But such surfaces do not have the same  reflecting quality for invisible
  light wave lengths.
  Doc located two large boulders which were canvas or  metal over a frame, painted to resemble stone. They
  were so cleverly  done that he had some difficulty locating them with the naked eye, even  after his device
  selected them.
  He marked their position carefully.
  Before he left the tree, he saw something else. Far  ahead, a file of men, crossing a ridge.
  Monk, Ham and Long Tom were in the file, prisoners.
  Doc Savage made again, very briefly as usual, his  trilling. But now, it had a brisk, urgent quality of enraged
  grimness.
  He dropped quickly out of the tree.
  Very cautiously, he moved forward�until he reached  the edge of a small glade. From it, the nearer of the
  camouflaged stone  sentry huts�which they undoubtedly were�could be seen.
  The bronze man began to do some rather peculiar  things. He felt through his pockets and brought out one of
  the silk  cords with a grappling hook affixed to the end. He measured this off,  almost absent−mindedly, it
  seemed, and his flake gold eyes surveyed the  vicinity. The cord did not appear to be long enough for his
  needs.
  He removed the prisoner’s rather long coat, and with  a knife, began to cut it into thin strips and tie the strips
  together  in a long line.
  When Doc had the longest line possible, he tied one  end of it to a bush which was visible from the
  camouflaged huts.
  Next, Doc removed his coat and vest. This disclosed  an article of clothing, or utility, which he always wore.
  It was a  vest. The underside was a bullet−proof chain mail of great thinness but  surprising invulnerability.
  Attached to the mail was a layer of padded  pockets, tiny containers which held, in total, an astounding variety
  of  chemicals, gadgets and instruments.
  Chemicals from two bottles, when mixed, became a  bronze−colored mixture.
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  79
  
  The prisoner still wore his hat. It was jammed  tightly on his head. Doc removed the hat. He dyed the crown
  with the  bronze.
  He worked painstakingly, without any great attempt  at haste.
  IT must have been nearly an hour later when there  was a stir around one camouflaged sentry hut. Two men
  were located  there, one inside, the other outside, crouching in a bush. It was  possible to see better from the
  outside, and the watcher there had a  pair of glasses with an extremely wide field.
  The outside watcher stiffened. His glasses were  fixed on the little valley below. He changed the focusing
  screw  slightly.
  He saw a bush sway. Behind it, he saw distinctly a  bronze−colored object which resembled a face.
  "Karl!" the watcher exploded. "Directly below! You  see it?"
  There was a gasp inside the little hut.
  "I see him! Quick! Signal! Give directions!"
  The man outside stood up quickly. His arms waved. It  was much the same kind of gesturing with which a
  herder would direct  his sheep dog.
  Down in the valley, the leaves stopped moving in the  breeze. A bird flying suddenly became rigid and
  motionless in the air,  then sank slowly earthward.
  The man watching, who had just signaled, wet his  lips. For a moment, he looked somewhat frightened at
  what he had caused.
  "Better send it up and down the valley a little!"  suggested the voice inside. "We don’t want to take any
  chances this  time!"
  The man waved his arms, transmitting that signal.
  The area where the leaves did not move became  larger. Some small animal screeched awfully, and was silent.
  It was very quiet for a while.
  "That should have done it," the man said hoarsely.
  "Righto!"
  The fellow outside waved his arms briefly. The wind  began to stir the leaves. The bird, which had fallen part
  of the way to  earth, fell the rest of the way naturally, and knocked off feathers on  the branches of a tree when
  it hit.
  A man came out of the camouflaged hut. He looked at  the other.
  "Let’s see," he said.
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  Two men came out of the hut on the distant  prominence. They exchanged signals. Then all four worked down
  and met  on the floor of the valley. They had revolvers ready, and crept toward  the spot where the stirring
  bush had been seen. They reached the spot.  All four swore softly.
  "Tricked!" one snarled.
  They had discovered the bronze−dyed hat which  resembled, from a distance, a face. Also, the bush with the
  string tied  to it.
  THEY lunged forward, following the string. A hundred  feet. Almost another hundred.
  "Look!"
  Fear dropped off their faces. Big grins came.
  "What a break for us!" one breathed.
  They had come upon a giant bronze figure lying on  the ground. The form was quite motionless, the unusually
  regular  features composed.
  One of them picked up a metallic wrist, held it  carelessly at first, then with a surprised clutch.
  "Alive!" the fellow exploded. "It’s unbelievable! He  wasn’t entirely killed!"
  The others seemed equally startled.
  "If we hadn’t covered a wider swath than at first,  we wouldn’t have got him at all," a man explained. "He was
  trying to  work that moving bush trick to see what would happen. But he was caught  when we took no chances
  and spread the effects."
  "What’re we gonna do with him?"
  "Finish him off."
  "Wait a minute! I think we’d get quite an effect if  we carried him in and let His Highness have a look at him."
  That seemed to be an idea that they all thought was  good. The men picked up the motionless bronze form and
  carried it  toward the north.
  Chapter XVI. LAIR
  MONK and Ham did some of their quarreling to take  their minds off more sinister things, it was to be
  suspected. Ham had  started it off this time by suggesting to their captors that they go  ahead and shoot Habeas,
  the hog.
  Monk probably knew that this, if anything, would  make them less likely to shoot Habeas. But he did not
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  81
  
  show that he  harbored any such idea.
  "You tort!" he howled at Ham. Then he addressed  their captors: "When you guys get ready to eliminate this
  shyster, let  me do the job. Then I’ll let you shoot me. I’ll do it happily! Only let  me have this Harvard
  lawyer!"
  The captors looked somewhat surprised. Monk was  registering such fierceness that most of them promptly
  believed he  actually did want to slaughter Ham.
  "Yes, give him a chance at me!" Ham gritted. "I’ll  turn him hairy side in!"
  "Yeah? You’ll need a horse when I get through."
  "Horse?"
  "Yeah. To ride around on lookin’ for your head!" 
  Ham sneered. "I’ll reduce your size until your  handkerchief will make two bed sheets when you�"
  "If you can’t at least think of somethin’ halfway  bright to insult each other with, cut it out!" Long Tom
  snapped.
  "Yumpin’ Yiminy!" said Captain Cutting Wizer. "Ay  have never seen two such yiggers!"
  The small group had been moving along the shore of  the lake. They had kept close to the water. The beach
  was either solid  rock or big pebbles which would not take tracks. Now they turned away  from the water.
  They crossed an expanse of solid rock, and entered a  crack which terminated in what seemed to be the mouth
  of a den of some  kind.
  "What’s that?" Monk demanded suspiciously.
  "Yust a place var you go in," said Captain Wizer.  "Go on."
  Monk apparently saw no reason why he should not  enter. But a moment after he had stooped and gone in, he
  seemed to find  a reason. His howl did everything but make the earth shake. He came  flying out of the hole,
  minus some skin which he had left en route.
  "Blazes!" he squalled. "Blazes!"
  "What is it, you clown?" Ham snapped.
  "Ay forgot to tell you dot Moe vars harmless," said  Captain Wizer.
  Monk cocked a thumb at the hole. "Is that Moe in  there?"
  "Moe. Sure. He’s a ba’ar."
  "I know a bear when I see one!" Monk replied.
  "Dot ba’ar Moe likes beer," Wiser explained. "He is  tame ba’ar."
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  82
  
  "Listen," Monk said. "I drink beer occasionally, and  if it’s all the same, let’s let Ham go in first."
  "You missing link!" Ham yelled.
  "Ay go vorst," said Captain Wizer, settling that.
  MOE seemed tame in a doubtful way as the party  worked past him. He burped in a friendly fashion, but he
  also lathered  long teeth with his tongue.
  Monk, Ham and Long Tom were taken into the fantastic  crack in the stone in the same manner in which Pat
  Savage had entered.
  Immediately, they heard the same steady sound that  Pat had heard: a strange orchestration that was like
  several violins,  each with one high string being sawed steadily.
  Long Tom frowned, listening. "That noise! Say, I’ll  bet it is�"
  He looked at his captors and fell silent.
  "Ay vouldn’t know too much if Ay vars you," said  Captain Wizer.
  Monk and Ham exchanged looks. They didn’t know what  the sound was. While it was plainly perceptible
  down here, it was not  loud enough to be heard at any distance, which accounted for its  escaping their notice
  outside.
  "Was Pat brought to this place?" Monk demanded.
  "Pat vars de pretty gal?" Captain Wiser asked.
  "You know who Pat is, you comic−talking,  octopus−eyed old duffer!" Monk retorted.
  "Ay don’t like your yumpin’ on me," said Captain  Wiser.
  "Ay don’t�I don’t like bein’ here!" yelled Monk, not  unreasonably.
  "Shut up, you man−toad!" Ham grated. "You’ll get us  all shot right away!"
  There was some sense in that, Monk realized. He held  his tongue while they were escorted toward a region
  where a number of  boulders lay on the floor of the crack.
  Men were moving about. They were quiet, grim men,  and they seemed to have something resembling a
  fanatical determination  on their faces. They all wore the same rig: gaberdine coats and white  fur hats. Some
  of them had beards. The ones with the beards seemed to  be the leaders, although this was not always the case.
  Pat Savage appeared around one of the rocks. She was  accompanied by Viscount Herschel Penroff, whom
  Monk had not seen  lately, and who must have hurried on ahead. There were some other men.
  "Pat!" Monk exclaimed joyfully.
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  Pat looked Monk and the other two bronze man’s aids  over without particular expression. Her shapely lips
  took on a strange  twist. But what struck them was that she did not seem particularly  overjoyed to see them.
  "Pat!" Monk exclaimed. "What’s wrong?"
  Pat’s eyebrows lifted. Those eyebrows had been  envied by many a movie queen, and they were real.
  "Take them away," she said. "His Highness will  decide what is to be done with them. That will depend on
  whether Doc  Savage is taken or not."
  If Monk had been at all susceptible to heart  failure, he would have had it then.
  "Pat!" he gasped. "What kind of crazy talk is that?"
  "Ay yust hate to tell you," said Captain Wizer, "but  de yong lady had decided to yoin us."
  Monk goggled unbelievingly.
  "Pull in your eyes," Pat told him callously. "I have  found out what this is all about, and it appeals to me." Her
  voice  lifted slightly, became more excited. "This is the biggest thing that  ever happened! Those on the inside
  will have power such as no one ever  dreamed of. It’s too good to pass up."
  Monk swallowed several times.
  "I’ll be danged!" he said hoarsely.
  "Take them away," Pat directed. "Place their pets  somewhere so that they can’t cause trouble." Then as an
  afterthought  she said archly, "His Highness is quite nice."
  MONK could not get another word out until they were  incarcerated in a hollow boulder which apparently was
  going to serve as  a prison. The boulder was really an affair of stout timbers with  colored papier−mâché. The
  door had a long slit through which they could  breathe and look out.
  "Pat!" Monk said hollowly at last. "Pat would do a  thing like that!"
  "Don’t start talking about it!" Ham snapped.
  "Yes," Long Tom echoed. "Look here, let’s pool our ideas on what is going on here."
  Monk nodded. "First, I don’t believe that tale Ky  Halloc told us about invisible monsters from the sky. I
  didn’t believe  it from the first."
  "You’re probably lying," Ham said. "But I don’t  believe it now, either."
  "The men on that dirigible were Americans," Monk  said, ignoring the insult. "But these lads in this crack,
  while they  speak fair English, are foreigners. And not Mongolians, either."
  "They’re all one nationality," Long Tom agreed.
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  "All right," Monk said. "The fellows on the  dirigible were Americans because they were the New York gang.
  These  others are probably the main guys. Therefore, it is a foreign plot."
  "Oh, darn!" Ham snapped. "What does that childish  conclusion prove?"
  "I’m going to see what a fist on you will prove in a  minute," Monk told him. "What I’m getting at is that
  these birds are  all white men, if they are foreigners. They are well educated, and the  leaders are all elderly
  fellows. I should judge none of the leaders are  under forty. The younger men are of the same nationality, but
  are not  the leaders. Now�"
  Long Tom said, "Look!"
  He was at the crack. The others crowded to look,  also.
  Four men were entering via the secret way. They  carried a crude litter made of two poles and their coats.
  On the litter lay a bronze form.
  "Doc!" Monk croaked.
  Chapter XVII. THE TRICK THAT DIDN’T  WORK
  A GREAT hubbub of shouting arose, and men ran from  all directions, coming from up and down the floor of
  the stone crack.
  By the time the litter had been carried to a spot a  score of feet from where Monk, Ham and Long Tom were
  incarcerated�a  gesture of sadistic cruelty, that�there was a crowd around.
  Ky Halloc had appeared from somewhere. With him were  Viscount Penroff, Captain Wizer, and Pat. They
  inspected the bronze  man. Viscount Penroff bent over the metallic form.
  "He is not dead, you say?" he demanded.
  "Only stunned, sir," said one of the quartet who had  carried the litter. He also saluted.
  "He sure one tough yigger," said Captain Wizer. 
  Viscount Penroff ordered, "Get back, some of you,  and keep your guns pointed at him."
  This was done, after which Penroff had courage  enough to bend closer to the bronze figure and examine the
  clothing.  Captain Wizer also looked closely.
  "Vot de ha’al is dot dufunny he’s got around his  middle?" Wizer demanded.
  "It’s a carry−all vest of some kind," one of the men  explained.
  "Ay be son of gun," said Wizer. "He vars sure loaded  for ba’ar."
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  Viscount Penroff suddenly began poking at the bronze  face with a stiff forefinger. He emitted a shocked wail.
  "Something’s wrongsky!" he shouted, in his  excitement tacking on a trace of his mother tongue accent.
  Captain Wizer bent closer and peered.
  "Oll Ay can say is Ay’ll be yiggered!" he declared.
  Penroff’s poking finger had disarranged part of the  unconscious victim’s nose. The nose had been a
  remarkably straight and  handsome one. But with the dislodging of the bit of plastic, theatrical  mold, the nose
  was not as straight.
  Penroff suddenly peeled the senseless man’s eyelids  back.
  "Damnation!" Penroff snarled. "This isn’t Savage!"
  The eyes were not flake gold.
  Penroff wrung his hands in his rage. His lashing  eyes fell on the unlucky four who had brought the stretcher
  burden.
  "Shoot those four men immediately!" Penroff yelled.
  That caused a brief, but violent fight. The four did  not want to be shot, and tried to unlimber their guns. They
  were  swarmed over, however, flattened out and held. Penroff was yelling and  cursing now, and it looked as if
  the four would be shot on the spot.
  "Wait a minute," Pat Savage suggested calmly.  "Suppose you use your head."
  Penroff stopped emoting. "What do you mean?"
  "Doc was always a man who had a lot of enemies," Pat  said. "It is really remarkable that he has lived this
  long."
  "What has that got to do with it?"
  "Suppose," Pat said, "that Doc was never the bronze  man he appeared to be. You must admit that big bronze
  characterization  stands out in a crowd. Almost any enemy would recognize him instantly.  Think what it
  would mean if he was never really this bronze man?  Suppose he was a totally different individual?"
  Penroff rubbed his jaw. The idea plainly intrigued  him. He probably thought it would explain a lot of his own
  difficulties  with Doc Savage.
  "But the eyes?" he demanded.
  "Simple," said Pat. "Glass caps of a kind that fit  right on the eyeballs. You know that some spectacles have
  been made  that way. Almost impossible to detect."
  "Oh!" exclaimed Captain Wizer. "Ay always thought he  vars a queer−lookin’ Yohnny."
  "This is really Savage, then!" Penroff chortled.
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  THAT appeared to settle that. The senseless prisoner  was lifted, and placed in the lock−up with Monk, Ham
  and Long Tom. The  door was then closed, and two men with automatic rifles took up a  guarding position.
  The door did not have a lock, so they did not stand  close, but some distance away, where they would have a
  chance to use  their guns on anybody who tried to get out.
  Ky Halloc had a last word for the prisoners.
  "You bright lads are not going to live another  hour," he said, through the crack in the door.
  Monk tried to expectorate on him, but did not quite  succeed.
  "So you were a dirty crook after all," the homely  chemist said. "I kinda felt sure of it all along."
  "Ha, ha, don’t make me laugh!" Halloc retorted. "I  had you fooled right along!"
  "What are you murderers up to?" Monk asked. 
  "You’ll probably never find out!" grinned Halloc. 
  Monk said, "When you die, your spirit had better  have on his runnin’ shoes. Because we’re gonna chase ‘im
  around  somethin’ scandalous on the other side."
  Ky Halloc skipped off looking very happy.
  "What gripes me in particular," Monk complained, "is  that jacksnipe gettin’ away with it."
  Ham, who had been examining their bronze companion,  spoke up.
  "Shut up, you anthropoid, and look at this fellow,"  the lawyer suggested. "Who is he?"
  "He ain’t Doc?"
  "Not by a darn sight! But Doc made him up with this  skin dye and plastic mold. Nobody but Doc can do
  work like that around  here."
  Monk scrutinized the senseless form more closely. "I think he’s one of their own men. And look here! There
  ain’t  nothin’ wrong with ‘im except that paralysis Doc makes with a pressure  on the nerve centers."
  Long Tom suddenly began to laugh softly.
  "You goop!" Ham said. "There’s nothing funny in  this. They’re going to shoot us!"
  "Pat!" Long Tom chortled. "Don’t you get it? She’s  stringing ‘em along. She knew very well this wasn’t Doc.
  Remember how  slick she steered ‘em around to thinking it was Doc when they found the  face make−up?"
  Monk grinned widely.
  "Pat," he said, "sure has a lot of Doc’s qualities." 
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  Ham, who had taken another look through the crack,  said grimly, "And we’re going to need some qualities
  that’ll make us  bulletproof. Here they come!"
  THEIR captors had apparently made up their minds  that they were not going to fool around any more. There
  was a dozen or  more of them in the party, all armed. Pat and Viscount Penroff led the  crowd and Captain
  Wizer brought up the rear. There was no sign of Ky  Halloc.
  Monk, Ham and Long Tom were permitted to look into  gun muzzles, and invited outside. They accepted,
  there being nothing  else to do.
  "His Highness will speak a few words to you, then  you will be shot," Viscount Penroff advised them.
  "Yah," said Captain Wizer. "Ay guess he vants to  bless you and send you on your vay happy."
  The three prisoners were marched toward the north  end of the canyon. It was from this direction that the
  small, weird  orchestration that might have been several fiddles came so steadily.
  Habeas, the pig, and Chemistry, the what−is−it,  appeared and followed their respective masters joyfully.
  "Ay yust made up my mind to have de hog for  breakfast," said Captain Wizer.
  Monk growled, "Did you know that an animal can be  fed poison in amounts so small that it won’t hurt him,
  but his flesh  will gradually become impregnated with the poison until he will kill  anything that eats part of
  him?"
  "Dot’s a ha’al of a yoke!" snorted Captain Wizer.
  "I hope you keep on thinking so," Monk said.
  Ham looked startled. "Is Habeas like that?"
  "Yeah," Monk growled. "I didn’t know but what you  might make bacon out of him some day, and I had him
  all ready for you."
  Doc’s aids rounded an angle in the stone crack, and  used their eyes. They expected to see what was causing
  the whining  orchestration.
  They were thwarted. There was just an  ordinary−looking canyon ahead. Whatever was making the noise was
  evidently hidden in rooms cut in the rock sides of the crack.
  "There’s been a lot of work put in on this place,"  Monk muttered.
  "Vell, ve has been vorkin’ like ha’al ha’ar for two  year," said Captain Wizer.
  The prisoners were escorted to a door in the rock.  From a distance�the rim of the rocky crack, for instance�it
  would be  hard to see the door. There was a room of some size beyond. This was  poorly lighted by two oil
  lanterns. The place was empty.
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  There was a door at the opposite end. A curtain hung  in front of this door, or rather, two men were standing
  there holding  it up with their arms.
  Monk looked at the curtain. He could not understand,  at first, why it was there.
  He knew the reason, though, when a voice came from  behind the curtain. The speaker did not want to be seen.
  "Tie them and place them in the middle of the  floor," said the voice. "Put them on the cross mark. The
  machines are  aligned at the cross mark, and the men will die there. We wish to make  further scientific
  observations of the death process."
  There was something familiar about the voice,  although whoever was talking made it hoarse and snarling.
  Monk decided  it must be familiar because it was the same voice which had threatened  Doc in New York City,
  back near the beginning of the affair.
  The prisoners were dragged to a chalked cross on the  floor. Some one produced a rope.
  Pat took her gigantic single−action six−shooter out  of her frock and pointed it at the curtain, then at the man
  with the  rope.
  "I was afraid it would come to this," she said.
  SOME one wore a wrist watch which ran with a loud  clicking. They could all hear it in the silence which
  followed. It  seemed to be racing to keep time with some hearts.
  "Careful!" Pat said.
  The voice behind the curtain, the voice of the  fellow who didn’t want to be seen, snarled. "So you are
  double−crossing  me!"
  "If you thought I would do anything else, you were a  sucker," Pat said.
  "You will regret this!"
  "You might as well drop that curtain," Pat said.  "You let me know a long time ago who you are!"
  "Who is it?" Monk exploded.
  "That’s His Highness behind that curtain," Pat said  sarcastically. Then, at the curtain: "Come on! Drop it!"
  The curtain remained up.
  Pat said, "I’m going to start shooting holes in that  thing in a minute! Lower it!"
  The voice behind the curtain said, "I wasn’t a  sucker, young lady!"
  Pat rapped, "You hurry and lower that�"
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  "I figured you would double−cross me!" chuckled His  Highness. "So I had the powder taken out of the shells
  for that cannon  you pack!"
  Pat promptly pulled the trigger of her six−shooter.  It made about the same noise as a mousetrap when the
  hammer fell, but  nothing else happened.
  "You see, I overlook no bets," said His Highness. 
  Captain Wizer yelled, "Yah, but you did!" 
  Captain Wizer jumping quickly, grabbed an automatic  from one of the men. He pointed this at almost
  everybody.
  "Ay had a bellyful of de shebang for long tam!" he  shouted.
  "You fool!" screamed the man behind the curtain.  "You are in this too deep to back out!"
  "Oll Ay can say is Ay’m gonna try!" said Wizer.
  "You old dear!" Pat exclaimed. "I didn’t think you  were bad."
  "Ay been played for a sucker," Wizer growled. "Vell,  dem yiggers ain’t gonna drop de curtain, so�"
  He pointed the gun at the curtain. He was going to  start shooting. The man behind the curtain knew it, and so
  did the two  holding up the drape.
  As one man, they yelled, whirled and dived for the  door behind the curtain.
  Monk could not make out the identity of His  Highness. Men’s backs look pretty much alike when they move
  fast enough.
  Captain Wizer shot. He did not stop any one.
  THE shot acted like a starting gun. Monk had a hunch  it would. He jumped and came down with both feet on
  one of the two oil  lanterns that furnished light. Ham, teamworking perfectly, jumped at  the other lantern, got
  it out.
  It became satisfyingly dark.
  Long Tom dived, had luck, and got a gun from some  one. He shot at the ceiling for effect. Other guns went
  off.
  "Run like ha’al!" yelled Captain Wizer. "Ay show you  var!"
  It sounded like an excellent idea. They raced out of  the room, gaining the outer sunlight. Monk was first out.
  He watched.  Captain Wizer, Pat, Ham and Long Tom appeared. Behind them came the  pets. Captain Wizer
  set out up the canyon. Every one followed him.
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  Long Tom did an excellent job of running backward,  and when a man jumped out of the rock wall after them,
  the electrical  wizard fired quickly. The gunman bleated and lost interest in  everything but the bullet hole in
  his shoulder.
  The whining noise got louder, and Captain Wizer  turned sharply to the left, rounded a rocky promontory, and
  dived into  a rock door which was open.
  "Yump in ha’ar!" he shouted.
  The others jumped, but Monk stopped outside and  peered at the face of the cliff. There was a silk line
  hanging down the  face of the cliff. It stirred slightly in the breeze.
  Monk jumped into the hole after the others.
  He promptly fell over two senseless men whom he had  never seen before, but who wore the
  gaberdine−coat−and−furcap uniform.
  Captain Wizer and the others were staring at the  senseless men.
  "Vot in ha’al done happen to dem yiggers?" Wizer  shouted.
  "Who are they?" Monk asked.
  "Guards," retorted Wizer. "Ay vonder vot beat us to  dem?"
  Monk thought the silk cord hanging down the cliff  face gave him a good idea of who was responsible.
  Chapter XVIII. INERTIA
  CAPTAIN WIZER wasted no time, but ran on, and  clattered up a stone stairs. The whining noise was
  extremely loud now.  Monk knew machinery must be making it.
  The group entered a long room which held more  machinery than Monk had ever seen in such a small space
  before, unless  it was aboard a submarine.
  Captain Wizer caught a flash of movement near the  rear, gasped, and lifted his gun. Monk leaped, grabbed
  the gun arm and  forced it down.
  "Not that you would have hit him!" Monk said.
  The individual Wizer had seen, and who had prudently  taken shelter behind a huge iron generator until he
  could be  identified, appeared again.
  "Doc!" Ham yelled. "How’d you get here?"
  Monk explained that. "Down the cliff, with one of  them silk cords."
  The machinery was running, and making the noise.  Looking around, Monk found two unconscious men lying
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  on the floor. The  fact that they were victims of Doc’s unique paralysis indicated the  bronze man had taken
  them.
  Doc Savage came up.
  "You took too much of a chance, making a break for  it," he said. "It was not necessary."
  Monk exploded, "Huh�what�why should we�" 
  The bronze man advised, "Get into the back of the  room, here. It will be safe."
  Doc then went to what seemed to be a control  position of some kind. At least, it was surrounded by switches,
  small  wheels and many dials. He began to make adjustments.
  Captain Wizer came up and looked over Doc’s shoulder.
  Doc said, "This thing is somewhat complicated, but  the theory of gyroscopic interatomic behavior is almost
  perfectly  worked out."
  Captain Wizer blinked two or three times.
  "You bane figger it out already?"
  Doc said, "Only to a partial extent."
  "Ay be yiggered!" said Wizer. "Ay not figger anybody  could see how it vorked in less than a veek or two of
  study."
  Monk was looking around. He had observed, stacked in  the rear of the room, a number of boxes equipped
  with carrying straps.  He started fumbling with one of these.
  "Better not," Doc called.
  "Eh?"
  "They are portable transmitters to set up  complicated opposed magnetic fields in narrow panels to accelerate
  the  inherent interatomic stability ratio of matter. Not understanding them,  you might damage yourself or us."
  "Well, what they do sounds bad enough, even if I  don’t know exactly what it means," Monk said, and left
  them alone.
  "Ay turn it on," said Captain Wizer.
  He threw a lever. Then he grasped the wheels, and  began to turn them, and to move rheostat knots and throw
  switches.
  "Ay could stop a battleship in her tracks vith dis  ha’ar thing," he said.
  Doc Savage said, "Cut down the strength as much as  possible."
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  CAPTAIN WIZER looked at the bronze man in amazement. 
  "You tank Ay am goin’ to let dem yiggers get avay  with vat dey have tried?" he demanded.
  Doc Savage did not answer that. He reached forward,  grasped a rheostat and moved it.
  Wizer sighed. "Ay vasn’t goin’ to be  tender−hearted." 
  Monk, beside himself with curiosity, squeaked, "Hey,  what’s that thing doing?"
  Doc Savage asked quietly, "Do you know what inertia  is?"
  "Sure," Monk retorted. "When you start your car,  it’s harder to get it started moving than it is to keep it
  going. The  thing that makes it want to stand still. That’s inertia."
  "But exactly, what is inertia?"
  "Why, it’s�well�heck! I read a scientific theory  once that�"
  "Oll scientific theories vars crazy!" exclaimed  Captain Wizer. "Ay bane find de truth!"
  Doc Savage took up the explanation. "Captain Wizer  has discovered that inertia is the result of a gyroscopic
  effect  arising out of the orbits of electrons inside the atoms that compose  the molecules that make up all
  matter. This gyroscopic stability, or  reluctance to change, can be greatly enhanced by a certain
  electromagnetic field. In other words, the force of inertia can be  instantaneously increased to such an extent
  that nothing will move."
  Monk thought of something. "But inertia is also the  thing that keeps the car rolling after the power is cut off."
  Captain Wizer was working with the levers.  Apparently, his apparatus was not functioning properly.
  "Inertia bane have not’in’ to do vith prolongation  of motion," he said. "Dat vars yust some yigger’s bum idea."
  "It’s a scientific theory."
  "Yah. Who make scientific theories? Yust Yohnnys  like me."
  Wizer gave more attention to what he was doing. He  began to look worried.
  "Ay afraid ve’re in a ha’al of a shape!" he shouted  suddenly.
  Doc said, "It seemed to me that something was  missing."
  "She von’t vork!" yelled Captain Wizer. "Dem fellers  took avay a leetle tube vich ve can’t get along vitout!"
  A bullet came through the door. It made an ugly  whistling and hammering through the machinery.
  Doc Savage sprang to the cases which Monk had been  examining. He began opening them. One, a second, a
  third, a fourth.
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  "Inertia," Monk muttered. "Increase inertia by  magnetic fields. That means all motion stops in the area. Even
  the air  that conducts sound waves would quit moving. And gravity would still  exert a force, and things would
  gradually sink to the ground. Daggone!  That explains everything that has happened!"
  Doc Savage said abruptly, "Look here, Wizer!"
  Captain Wizer came over, looked at the portable  devices for setting up electromagnetic fields, and his eyes
  got bigger  than ever behind his thick spectacles.
  "Yee!" he said. "Ve in a yam!"
  "What does he mean?" Monk demanded.
  "Our enemies took no chances with these machines,"  Doc said. "They removed a small vacuum exciter tube
  from each device.  The tube is no larger than your finger, but it is vitally necessary,  and without it, the devices
  are useless."
  Long Tom waved his pistol. "There seems to be only  that one door. We can hold the place against them."
  "Yah!" Captain Wizer jerked a finger upward. "She  bane fix to blow oop!"
  "What?"
  "Dynamite. A mine. Dey figger maybe somebody vould  find de place, in vich case dey blow her up."
  IT took a minute to get the full effect of that. Not  only were they besieged without arms, or at least with only
  two pistols  and the shells they held, but they were under a mined area of the cliff.
  A voice called from outside. The harsh, disguised  voice of the one known as His Highness.
  "Wizer knows that we have explosive planted," he  said. "You have no choice but to come out."
  Monk growled, "Fat lot of good it’d do us to come  out. Me, I’d as soon be both dead and buried at the same
  time." He did  not speak loud enough to be heard outside.
  Doc called, "Give us a moment to think it over." 
  There was a pause. "We are not going to waste much  time on you," the voice called.
  Captain Wizer yanked his own hair in his anxiety.  "Yee!" he said. "Ve sure bane fixed!"
  Monk demanded, "You developed these contraptions?"
  "Yah." Captain Wizer nodded vehemently. "Ay am  vorkin’ on electromagnetic germ eradication, and Ay vind
  dis  other by accident."
  "But how did the rest of this come about?" Monk  queried. 
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  94
  
  Wizer shrugged. "Ay am yust a poor yigger. Ay vent  to a banker, dot Viscount Herschel Penroff. He ask me
  questions. He  vars Werry interested. He put up de money."
  Wizer shrugged again and looked disgusted.
  "Too late, Ay find out vot vars planned," he  growled. "Penroff vars old Russian aristocrat. De yigger had a lot
  of  other Russians, and dey vars goin’ to overthrow the Soviets."
  "What?" Monk exploded.
  "Yah." Wizer nodded. "It vars ambitious idea."
  Monk digested that with his mouth open. Penroff was  Russian, and so were many of the others. So they were
  an organization  of revolutionists!
  Pat Savage put in grimly, "I wouldn’t call it a  revolution. That devil they call His Highness told me what he
  really  planned. He was the real leader. Penroff was only a lieutenant and  financier. He was their bank roll."
  "What was behind it, Pat?"
  "Robbery, Monk. Nothing less. They were going to  seize the Soviet republic and set up a puppet empire, then
  loot the  public. Take all the taxes they could raise. Then they would do the  same with other countries. Oh, it
  was big. And they would have made it,  too. That inertia machine makes all modern weapons worthless."
  The voice of His Highness roared from outside.  "Well, what are you going to do?"
  DOC SAVAGE moved toward the opening. The bronze man  showed no particular hurry or excitement.
  He had taken from within his clothing a small box of  a device that might have been one of the so−called
  candid cameras,  although a bit larger, and with a lens that looked black. There were  small switches and dials
  on this.
  "They’ll start shooting the minute they see you,  Doc!" Monk warned.
  The bronze man seemed not to hear. He was careful,  however, when he came near the door, and stood inside
  a few seconds,  apparently searching the floor of the canyon outside.
  "Get ready to get into the open," he warned.
  He lifted the cameralike device to an eye, sighted  exactly as if he were going to take a picture, and pressed a
  button.
  Out in the stone crack, there was a crash and a  terrific roar. The stone room in which they stood shook, and
  great  cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling.
  "Out!" Doc rapped.
  The bronze man went out ahead of the others, still  holding the device. He pointed it at another spot, and
  pressed the  button again.
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  The results were exactly as if an artillery shell  had hit and exploded. Flame spouted. Rock jumped upward.
  The roar was  earsplitting. And when dust cleared, there was a gaping hole.
  The enemy had positioned themselves at a distance  from the door, not wanting to be too close to hostilities if
  the bronze  man tried a break.
  Some of them were running.
  With his instrument�a powerful atomic gun�Doc caused  two more terrific explosions. The last one was
  almost in front of a  small group manning a machine gun. Most of them were knocked off their  feet. None of
  them were seriously injured, for they all got up and ran.
  The force of the blasts had thrown up a great deal  of dust−fine shattered rock and this obscured vision
  somewhat. Through  it, the men ran wildly. Penroff, in charge of a small group, stood his  ground until a blast
  tumbled them, after which that party also fled.
  Doc and his group were fired upon. That was to be  expected. But they took shelter in the holes which the
  earlier  explosions had made.
  The routed enemy were pouring into the tunnel that  led to the outer world. But there seemed to be a hitch.
  They jammed up  in the tunnel. Cursed, shouted. A number could not even get in.
  MONK took a chance, sprinted, and reached the  machine gun, which had been upset on its tripod but not
  otherwise  damaged. He got the gun upright, straightened out the ammo belt, and  turned loose.
  It was to Monk’s credit that he fired his first  burst above the men fighting about the tunnel mouth.
  The burst of lead was more potent than words. Arms  went up. Guns were thrown down.
  Doc, Ham and Long Tom ran forward, alert. They  gathered up more of the fallen guns.
  A single threat to blow up the tunnel brought those  inside scuttling out. Only one tried to use his gun, and
  Long Tom  shattered the man’s arm before he did any damage.
  When they had disarmed the prisoners, Doc lined them  against a stone wall. His flake gold eyes searched for
  Viscount  Herschel Penroff. He was not present.
  "Where are your chiefs?" the bronze man demanded.
  A man swore bitterly.
  "They reached the tunnel car first and fled," he  said. "That is why the rest of us could not escape."
  Doc Savage went into the tunnel and listened. There  was no sound. That was proof enough that the car had
  reached the other  end.
  Monk lumbered into the passage. "They get away?"
  "We’ll follow them," Doc said quietly.
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  The bronze man dropped into the shaftway. There was  an assortment of cables on which the bucketlike car
  operated, but no  track. Probably there were wheels or rollers on the sides of the bucket.
  The reason for such a conveyance was speedily  evident. The route was straight down for some distance, then
  turned  sharply and ran level.
  Doc and Monk had reached this turn when they were  abruptly upset. It was as if a giant had suddenly blown
  his breath at  them. Immediately following was a booming roar, then some dust.
  "Grenade or something!" Monk gulped. "They closed  the shaft!"
  The group scrambled ahead, holding their breath in  the dust, and soon knew Monk had guessed rightly. There
  was no way they  could get through without hours of work.
  Nor was there, they discovered when they returned to  the big rock crack, any simple method of getting out
  any other way. The  walls were sheer. This was no water−made aperture in the earth, but the  crack made by
  some earthquake long ago.
  "Ay sure hope it don’t take a notion to rain," Wizer  muttered.
  "But how did rainwater get out before?" Long Tom  asked him.
  "Through de tunnel," the old scientist replied.
  Doc Savage immediately set the prisoners to work  cutting handholds in the sheer stone walls in an effort to
  get outside.
  There were plenty of tools, they discovered, for the  room where the generators�generators and motors made
  the violinlike  orchestration�were installed was also the workshop where the  inertia−increasers, as Monk
  started calling them, were built.
  When the steps got up high, and the other workmen  became afraid, Doc and Monk took turns at chiseling the
  handholds.
  IN the meantime, old Captain Wizer disconnected the  firing mechanism of the mine over the workroom. He
  had, he explained,  witnessed the installation of the mine.
  Wizer explained further that he had been unaware of  the purpose for which his machines were intended until
  he had  discovered he was to build much larger outfits than were necessary, to  serve as demonstrators.
  From the first, he admitted, it had been planned to  sell the devices to various governments. Not to any one
  government, but  to all who would pay a moderate price. That, at least, had been his  plan.
  It would have stopped war, he maintained. His ideas  on that subject had not changed a great deal. He still
  maintained that  the devices, since they would keep airplanes from bombing cities�it was  only necessary to
  throw up a protective wall�would stop wars.
  Wizer found, at the other end of the canyon, a  hidden box containing the missing gadgets so essential to the
  operation  of his contrivances.
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  By now, the ladder of chiseled steps was very near  the top. Monk, working his shift, had only a few feet to go.
  Doc listened to Captain Wizer expound his ideas  about his machines stopping war.
  "Did you stop to think about human nature, and  especially the nature of some of the present military leaders
  in  Europe?" Doc asked.
  "Ay don’t tank a ha’al of a lot ‘bout it," Wizer  admitted.
  "When your devices were handed over to these  governments, there would be an immediate wild rush on the
  part of one  or two to build thousands of the things, then seize their neighbors  before the latter could get
  prepared," the bronze man suggested.
  Wizer scratched his head while he thought that over.
  "Yah," he said. "Ay bat you’re right."
  He scratched his head some more. "But vot ve gonna  do vith dem?"
  "You are American, aren’t you?"
  "Yah. Ay ban Minnesota Svede. Ay tank my old man  must have ban a horse t’ief and change his name."
  "The American war department has an archive where  they keep some things that are a little too terrible to let
  the rest of  the world know about," Doc said. "Poison gasses of particular frightful  variety. That kind of thing.
  How about adding these inertia−increasers  to the collection, unless we find they are of some surgical value,
  which is hardly likely?"
  Wizer scratched his head again.
  "A very good idea, by Yiminy!" he said.
  Doc glanced up at the cliff. Monk was not on the  line of chiseled steps. The bronze man whipped a glance at
  the bottom  of the cliff. Monk was not there, either.
  The homely chemist had reached the top and gone over.
  Doc ran to the steps and climbed. Wizer followed him.
  THEY heard yells when they approached the shore of  the lake where the mouth of the tunnel was situated.
  They were the  lusty yells which squeaky−voiced Monk could emit when he was in trouble.
  "Help!" Monk howled. "Bring a gun, somebody!"
  Doc began running. Wizer, for an old man, showed  amazing speed, and kept up.
  "He ban found dot Halloc yigger, Ay bat!" Wizer  gasped.
  Doc said nothing.
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  "Halloc vars big man behind de vorks," Wizer added.  "Did you know that?"
  "Yes," Doc Savage said. "Halloc tried repeatedly to  trap us. He thought he had me believing he was a secret
  agent for the  Soviet government, assigned to tracking down you and Penroff. He even  permitted me to find
  credentials on him identifying him as a U.S.S.R.  agent�a high Ogpu official, in fact."
  "How you bane check on him?" Wizer puffed. "The Ogpu  don’t tell anybody vhere their agents vars and
  ain’t."
  "Fortunately, I have a connection with them," Doc  replied. "Did them a favor once, and they reciprocate
  when they can.  They explained that they had no Ky Halloc agent, and further, knew  nothing about the plans
  of Penroff or you. They had no suspicions. That  gave Halloc away. I let him play along because, by following
  him, we  were eventually led to the headquarters."
  Wizer gasped, "Ay guess you have done dem Ogpu  another favor!"
  Then his breath and strength gave out and he dropped  behind.
  "Help!" Monk was yelling ahead. "Shoot this critter!"
  Monk was up a tree. Not, it appeared, nearly as  large a tree as he would have preferred to be up.
  Moe, the bear, was seated at the bottom of the tree.  Monk’s shouting had attracted Doc and Pat, who came
  running up.
  Doc halted. Monk was in no immediate danger. Pat was  smiling.
  Wizer came up, and as soon as he could control his  panting, yelled, "Moe bane a tame ba’ar!"
  "Yeah, I know," Monk shouted. "And he likes beer.  Pat told me all about him. But as far as I’m concerned,
  he’s a wild  bruin."
  "Yah!" snorted Wizer. "Ay show you!"
  He picked up a small stick, advanced, waved the  stick and shouted, "Shoo! Shoo, you berry−eating animal.
  Shoo!"
  Moe got up amiably and shuffled out of sight into  the brush.
  MONK slid out of the tree, but not very confidently.  "Nobody can tell me that bear is a pet," he declared.
  "Sure he bane pet," declared Wizer. "Moe vars eat  out of my hand lots of time."
  "You didn’t set off any hand grenades around him  first, did you?" Monk demanded.
  "Huh? Why you bane ask such silly question?"
  "Because," Monk said, "Halloc and Penroff are over  there in Moe’s den. I’ll admit Moe didn’t eat them. But
  he sure tasted  them all over. They’re plenty dead. Moe, your pet bear, killed Halloc  and Penroff. Maybe Moe
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  is tame, and the exploding grenade just riled  him. But it’ll be a hot day before Moe gets a chance to eat out of
  my  hand."
  THE END
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/R/Robeson, Kenneth/063 The Motion Menace.pdf