It was held in a very large, very old house. This house stood alone in the center of a vast lot that was jungled with shrubbery. The house was made of concrete blocks, and it had four entrances, one on each side.
Batavia was first to arrive at the house, and he bustled around, unlocking all the doors, making ready for the meeting. To-night Batavia wore a different a.s.sortment of gray clothes, and he chewed a cork-tipped cigar.
He did not seem happy.
Men who arrived for the conference came furtively. They entered the house by different doors, coat collars turned up, hats yanked down, handkerchiefs held to their faces. Two or three, apparently not caring, made no effort to conceal their visages; one of the latter was the man who had fired the blast under the bridge as Doc Savage"s car was crossing.
The interior of the house was kept dark. Each man had to give a pa.s.sword. Beyond that, little talking was done, and this was confined to grunts.
Several times, however, there were outbursts of giggling.
When more than a dozen men were present, Batavia called order by clearing his throat loudly. Then he turned a flashlight on his own face and let all the men see him.
"I am Batavia," he explained. "Some of you already know me."
His audience was silent, except for one man, who couldn"t help giggling.
"I am the man who hired all of you," Batavia said. "Your orders came through me."
He paused to let that sink in.
"There is another over me," he said. "I am not the real leader."
This got two or three surprise grunts from the a.s.semblage. The men squirmed uneasily, for the spooky atmosphere in the old house had their nerves on edge.
Batavia said, "Progress has been satisfactory. The public is being fooled into believing gas from the earth is causing the giggling. No one now believes there were any giggling ghosts."
Batavia threw his cigar on the floor and put a fresh one in his mouth.
"It"s a good thing for us," he said, "that we got that ghost story stopped."He added, "Doc Savage was disposed of. That was good work, too."
Someone in the audience started giggling, and Batavia waited until the man could control himself.
"Some more trouble has developed," Batavia said. "One of Doc Savage"s aids, a man named Johnny Littlejohn, is causing the trouble. This Littlejohn is going around claiming there wasn"t any earthquake.
We can"t have that!"
Batavia now called out four numbers; evidently the men in the organization answered to numbers rather than names.
"I want you four men," Batavia said, "to go with me, to-night. We"re going to get rid of this Johnny Littlejohn as fast as we got rid of Doc Savage!"
A man in the background muttered, "What about this guy named Birmingham Lawn?"
Batavia laughed harshly. "Don"t worry about Lawn!"
"And that geologist, A. King Christophe?"
"Christophe is harmless," Batavia said. "Forget him."
Batavia extinguished the flashlight which had been glowing on his features.
Then he did something dramatic.
"Gentlemen," he announced, "I have a surprise."
Tense silence dropped over the room.
Batavia said, "I told you a moment ago that another man was the real leader of this. That man is here now. He wants you to see his face, wants you to know him, so that, when he gives you an order, you will know who he is."
Batavia pointed his flashlight at an open door.
The light struck full on the face of a man standing there.
At least one of the group knew the face by sight, because this individual emitted an exclamation.
"William Henry Hart!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "The inventor!"
Batavia laughed.
"Yes," he said. "The boss is William Henry Hart."
GEOLOGIST WILLIAM HARPER LITTLEJOHN habitually drove an old goblin of a car that appeared as incapable of efficiency as its owner, but which was just as deceptive in appearance. Johnny had been known to go at top speed for an astonishing length of time without sleep or food, and his old car had like qualities, except that it never fasted; it drank prodigious amounts of gas.
It was midnight-an hour after the meeting in the old cement block house-when Johnny, driving his ancient chariot, drew up beside the waterfront curb.A man came out of the darkness and got in the car.
The new arrival, besides being big, was distinctive for two features: he had a long going-to-a-funeral face, and his fists were nearly the size of quart pails. This man was Major John "Renny" Renwick, engineer, fist-smasher of door panels, and a Doc Savage aid.
"Holy cow!" Renny said, trying to find a soft place in the car cushions. "That Hart sure led us a chase."
Renny had a voice reminiscent of a lion roaring in a cave.
"Has Hart done anything suspicious?" Johnny asked.
"Heck-no! He just bounces around like the Irishman"s flea. I never saw a guy do more work than he"s done."
"You haven"t lost sight of Hart at any time?"
"Long Tom and I have watched him every minute," Renny said.
"Where is Hart now?"
"In the Digester Company plant just around the corner. You might as well walk."
Johnny got out of his traffic hazard. Alongside Renny, Johnny looked incredibly thin. They walked about two blocks, and were confronted by a new brick factory building which, while not extremely large, was neat and modern. A sign across the front of the factory said: HART DIGESTER COMPANY.
"What"s a digester?" Johnny asked.
"It"s a contraption they put on smokestacks," Renny explained. "It takes the soot and smell out of smoke.
This patent digester of Hart"s is something a little extraordinary. It purifies the air. If it could be generally adopted, they claim it would be a boon to cities."
"How does a smoke digester purify the air?"
"I"m no chemist!" Renny grunted. "But it takes the impurities out of the air, and puts back oxygen, or something. Works with chemicals."
"Works with chemicals? That seems significant."
"We thought so, too," Renny said grimly.
"If Hart invented the purifier, he"s a chemist."
"Hart is a chemist, all right."
"It would take a chemist to develop a gas that makes people giggle themselves to death."
"Still," Renny said, "I wonder if that business about giggling ghosts ain"t more important than we figure."
Looking thoughtfully over their conclusions, the two men entered a vacant lot located directly across the street from the factory. The lot was surrounded by a tall board fence.
Long Tom was posted at a knothole in the fence, using a pair of binoculars.It was a fact that undertakers always brightened when they saw Long Tom Roberts, because he appeared to be an immediate prospect for a funeral.
Long Tom had been a weakly baby, and a feeble-appearing youth, and all through his manhood he had looked as if he ought to be in a hospital. This appearance of being an invalid was misleading; Long Tom could lick nine out of ten of the average run of men on any street.
"Hart is still working," Long Tom explained disgustedly and pointed. Johnny put his eye to the knothole.
HART was seated at a desk in his factory. Hart had his jaw shoved out, and he was doing things to papers with a pencil. He was plainly visible because the entire wall of the room was windows.
"That all he"s been doing?" Johnny asked.
"Yep," said Long Tom.
"You sure?"
"Listen!" Long Tom said belligerently. "We ain"t taken an eye off him since he left Doc Savage"s headquarters!"
"I"ll be superamalgamated!" Johnny complained. "I hoped he"d lead us to Monk and Ham."
They stood there gloomily, thinking of Doc Savage and Monk and Ham, and the fate that had befallen them.
"Well, Hart hasn"t made a guilty move," Long Tom said finally.
Johnny sighed. "We might as well get him and take him with us. He said he was willing to help. As long as he"s with us, we can watch him."
"Take him with us where?" Renny demanded.
"We"re going," Johnny said, "to interview a man named Birmingham Lawn."
When Johnny, Long Tom and Renny walked in, William Henry Hart flung one hand on a handkerchief lying on his desk. Hart glared at them, a burly and belligerent young man.
He pointed at Renny and Long Tom. "Who are these guys?"
Johnny explained that Renny and Long Tom were more Doc Savage a.s.sociates.
Hart then took his hand off the handkerchief, picked the handkerchief up, and disclosed a large automatic pistol under it.
"I ain"t takin" chances," he explained. "I"ve had enough funny business to do me for a while."
Johnny said, "We hope you will join us."
"I got work to do!" Hart said.
Johnny said, "We will look for Miami Davis among other things. We thought you-"
This had an immediate effect on Hart. He put down his pencil, kicked his chair back, and picked up hisgun and tucked it in the waistband of his trousers.
"Let"s go hunt bear," he said.
They left the smoke-digester-air-purifier manufacturing plant.
"We"ll start our hunt," Johnny said, "with Birmingham Lawn."
"He"s one of our bears, if you ask me," Hart said.
They reached Johnny"s old car and got in.
When the engine started, it shook the whole elderly vehicle, and when the conveyance got in motion, there was a suspicion that one or more of the wheels were square.
William Henry Hart took his gun out of his belt, and began unloading it.
"What"s the idea of that?" Johnny asked.
"I"m afraid this car will jar it off!" Hart explained unkindly.
Chapter XII. THE RESCUED.
LAWN might not have had the largest house in the country, but it was unlikely there were many houses with more dignity. Lawn"s house was as dignified as an art gallery; it also looked rather like an art gallery, being made of light-colored stone, and it was the shape of a long cube, with no ornate gimcracks or decorations. Everything was so simple and reserved.
The house sat alone on a gra.s.sy k.n.o.b, and there were a few trees. A white gravel driveway wound from the house to a gate in a bleak stone wall. It all looked a little like Mount Vernon, Washington"s home, except that the house was more severe.