[Transcriber's Note:

 This etext was produced from "Astounding Stories" January and February, 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. 

 The original "What has gone before" recap section from the second part (February edition) has been removed from this combined version. 

 Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved. Author's punctuation style is preserved. Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_. Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=. 

 Typographical problems have been changed and are listed at the end of the text. ]

 * * * * *

[Illustration: Front cover of "Amazing Stories"]

The Mind Master

_Beginning a Two-Part Novel_

By Arthur J. Burks

[Illustration: _A sequel to "Manape the Mighty"_]

CHAPTER I

_The Tuft of Hair_

"Let's hope the horrible nightmare is over, dearest, " whispered EllenEstabrook to Lee Bentley as their liner came crawling up through theNarrows and the Statue of Liberty greeted the two with uplifted torchbeyond Staten Island. New York's skyline was beautiful through themist and smoke which always seemed to mask it. It was good to be homeagain. 

[Sidenote: Once more Lee Bentley is caught up in the marvelousmachinations of the mad genius Barter. ]

Certainly it was a far cry from the African jungles where, for thespace of a ghastly nightmare, Ellen had been a captive of the apesand Bentley himself had had a horrible adventure. Caleb Barter, a madscientist, had drugged him and exchanged his brain with that of anape, and for hours Bentley had roamed the jungles hidden in the greathairy body, the only part of him remaining "Bentley" being the Bentleybrain which Barter had placed in the ape's skull-pan. Bentley wouldnever forget the horror of that grim awakening, in which he had foundhimself walking on bent knuckles, his voice the fighting bellow of agiant anthropoid. 

[Illustration: _A bullet ploughed through the top of the ape'shead. _]

Yes, it was a far cry from the African jungles to populous Manhattan. 

As soon as Ellen and Lee considered themselves recovered from theshock of the experience they would be married. They had already spenttwo months of absolute rest in England after their escape from Africa, but they found it had not been enough. Their story had been told inthe press of the world and they had been constantly besieged by thecurious, which of course had not helped them to forget. 

 - - -

"Lee, " whispered Ellen, "I'll never feel sure that Caleb Barter isdead. We should have gone out that morning when he forgot to take hiswhip and we thought the vengeful apes had slain him. We should haveproved it to our own satisfaction. It would be an ironic jest, characteristic of Barter, to allow us to think him dead. "

"He's dead all right, dear, " replied Bentley, his nostrils quiveringwith pleasure as he looked ahead at New York, while the breeze alongthe Hudson pushed his hair back from his forehead. "He had abused thegreat anthropoids for too many years. They seized their opportunity, don't mistake that. "

"Still, he was a genius in his way, a mad, frightful genius. It hardlyseems possible to me that he would allow himself to be so easilytrapped. It's a reflection on his great mentality, twisted though itwas. "

"Forget it, dear, " replied Bentley, putting his arm around hershoulders. "We'll both try to forget. After our nerves have returnedto normal we'll be married. Then nothing can trouble us. "

The vessel docked and later Lee and Ellen entered a taxicab near thepier. 

"I'll take you to your home, Ellen, " said Bentley. "Then I'll lookafter my own affairs for the next couple of days, which includesmaking peace with my father, then we'll go on from here. "

They looked through the windows of the cab as they rolled into lowerFifth Avenue and headed uptown. Newsies were screaming an extra fromthe sidewalks. 

"Excitement!" said Bentley enthusiastically. "It's certainly good tobe home and hear a newsboy's unintelligible screaming of an extra, isn't it?"

On an impulse he ordered the cabbie to draw up to the curb andpurchased a newspaper. 

"Do you mind if I glance through the headlines?" Bentley asked Ellen. "I haven't looked at an American paper for ever so long. "

 - - -

The cab started again and Bentley folded the paper, falling easilyinto the habit of New Yorkers who are accustomed to reading onsubways where there isn't room for elbows, to say nothing of broadnewspapers. 

His eyes caught a headline. He started, frowning, but was instantlymindful of Ellen. He mustn't show any signs that would excite her, especially when he didn't yet understand what had caused his owninstant perturbation. 

Had Ellen looked at him she might have seen merely the calm face of aman mildly interested in the news of the day, but she was looking outat the Fifth Avenue shops. 

Bentley was staring again at the newspaper story:

 "An evil genius signing his 'manifestoes' with the strange cognomen of 'Mind Master' gives the authorities of New York City twelve hours in which to take precautions. To prove that he is able to make good his mad threats he states that at noon exactly, to-day, he will cause the death of the chief executive of a great insurance company whose offices are in the Flatiron Building. After that, at regular stated periods, warnings to be issued in each case ten hours in advance, he will steal the brains of the twenty men whose names are hereto appended:" (There followed then a list of names, all of which were known to Bentley. )

He understood why the story had startled him, too. "Mind Master!"Anything that had to do with the human brain interested him mightilynow, for he knew to what grim uses it could be put at the hands of amaster scientist. Around his own head, safely covered by his hairunless someone looked closely, and even then they must needs know whatthey sought, was a thin white line. It marked the line of CalebBarter's operation on him that terrible night in the African jungles, when his brain had been transferred to the skull-pan of an ape, andthe ape's brain to his own cranium. Any mention of the brain, therefore, recalled to him a very harrowing experience. 

It was little wonder that he shuddered. 

Ellen noticed his agitation. 

"What is it, dearest?" she asked softly, placing her hand in the crookof his arm. 

 - - -

He was about to answer her, desperately trying to think of somethingto say that would not alarm her, when their taxicab, with a suddenapplication of the brakes, came to a sharp stop. Bentley noticed thatthey were at the intersection of Twenty-second Street and FifthAvenue. The lights were still green, but nevertheless all traffic washalted. 

And for a strange reason. 

From the west door of the Flatiron Building emerged a grim apparitionof a man. His body was scored by countless bleeding wounds whichlooked as though they had been made by the fingernails of a giant. Theman wore no article of clothing except his shoes. Apparently, hisclothing had been ripped from his body by the same instrument whichhad turned his body into a raw, dripping horror. 

The man staggered, half-running, at times all but falling, toward thetraffic officer at the intersection. 

As he ran he screamed, horrible, babbling screams. His lips workedcrazily, his eyes rolled. He was frightened beyond the comprehensionof ordinary mortals. His screams began and ended on the high shrillnotes of utter dementia, and as he ran he pawed the air with hisbleeding hands as though he fought out on all sides against invisibledemons seeking to drag him down. 

"Oh, my God!" said Ellen. "Even here!"

What had caused her to speak the last two words? Did she also have apremonition of grim disaster? Did she also feel, deep down inside her, as Bentley did, that the nightmare through which they had passed wasnot yet ended?

Bentley now sat unmoving, his eyes unblinking, as he saw the naked manstagger over to the traffic officer. The color drained from his face. 

He looked at his watch. It was exactly noon. 

Even without further consideration Bentley knew that this gruesomeapparition had some direct connection with the newspaper story he hadjust read. 

 - - -

Unobtrusively, trying to make it seem a preoccupied action, he foldedthe newspaper again and thrust it down at the end of the seat cushion. But Ellen was watching him, a haunting fear gradually coming into hereyes. 

She quickly reached past him and snatched the paper before he realizedher intent. The item he had read came instantly under her eyes becauseof the way he had automatically folded the paper. She read it withstaring eyes. 

"So, Lee, " she said, "you think there's a connection with--with--well, with _us_?"

"Absurd!" he said heartily, too heartily. "Caleb Barter is dead. "

"But I have never been sure, " insisted Ellen. "Oh, Lee, let's get awayfrom here! Let's take the first boat for Bermuda--anywhere to escapethis terrible fear. "

"No!" he retorted harshly. "If our suspicions are correct, and I thinkwe're unwarrantedly keyed up because of our recent experiences, theofficials of New York may need my help. "

"Your help? Why?"

"I know more about Caleb Barter than any other living man, perhaps. "

"Then you _do_ have doubts that he is dead!"

Bentley shrugged his shoulders. 

"Ellen, " he said, "drive on home without me. I'm going to drop off andfind out all I can. If we're in for it in any way it's just as well toknow it at once. "

"You'll come right along?"

"Just as soon as I can make it. And I hope I'll be able to report ourfears groundless. "

Bentley stepped from the cab. He ordered the chauffeur to turn rightinto Twenty-second Street and to proceed until Ellen gave him furtherdirections. 

Then Bentley hurried through the congestion of automobiles toward thetraffic officer who was fighting with the naked man, trying to subduehim. Other men were running to the officer's assistance, for it couldbe seen that he alone was no match for the lunatic. Bentley, however, was first to arrive. 

"Give me a hand!" gasped the officer. "I can't handle 'im withoutusin' my club and I don't wanna do that. The poor fella don't knowwhat he's a-doin'. "

 - - -

Bentley quickly sprang to the patrolman's assistance. Between themthey soon reduced the stranger to a squirming bundle and dragged himto the sidewalk; another officer was phoning for an ambulance. Thestricken man was now mumbling, babbling insanely. Blood trickled fromthe corners of his lips. The sight of one eye had been destroyed. 

Bentley watched him, sprawled now on the sidewalk, surrounded by agroup of men. The man was dying, no question about that. The talons, which had scored him, had bitten deeply and he was destined to bleedto death soon even if the wounds were not otherwise mortal. 

Bentley noticed something clutched tightly in the man's righthand--something that sent a chill through his body despite the heat ofa mid-July noon. The officer, apparently, had not noticed it. 

Soon a clanging bell announced the arrival of an ambulance, and as thecrowd stepped aside to clear the way, Bentley bent over the dying man. The man's lips were parted and he was trying with a mighty effort ofwill to speak. 

Bentley put his ear close to the bleeding lips through which wordsstrove to bubble. He heard parts of two words:

". . . Ind . . . Aster. . . . "

Bentley suddenly knew what the man was trying to say. The half-utteredwords could mean only--"Mind Master. "

Bentley suppressed a shudder and extended his hands to the closedright hand of the dying man. Carefully he removed from between thefingers three tufts of thick brown hair, coarse and crude of texture. There was a rattle in the naked man's throat. 

Five minutes later the ambulance intern hastily scribbled in hisrecord the entry, "Dead on Arrival. "

Bentley, more frightened than he had ever been before, entered ataxicab as soon as the body had been removed and the streets cleared. He stared closely at the tufts of hair in his hand. Maybe he had beenwrong in taking them before detectives arrived on the scene, but hehad to know, and he felt that these hairs proved his mad suspicions. 

Caleb Barter was alive!

The hairs came from the shaggy coat of a giant anthropoid ape or agorilla. 

CHAPTER II

_Ultimatum_

How terribly far-fetched it seemed! It was unbelievable enough thatBentley had once reposed in the body of an ape. That had been in theAfrican wilds. But the idiocy of the thing now rested in Bentley'sbelief that here, immediately upon landing, he was again facingsomething just as horrible. 

But the coincidences were too clear. The palaver about "brains, " and"Mind Master"--and those ape hairs in Bentley's hands. He wished heknew all that had led up to that story he had read in the paper justprior to the appearance of the naked man from the west door of theFlatiron Building. However, the killing would get front page positionnow, due to the importance of the dead man--Bentley never doubted itwas the man whom, in the paper, the "Mind Master" had promised toslay. 

Great apes in the heart of New York City! It sounded silly, preposterous. Yet, before he had gone through that dread experiencewith the mad Barter, Bentley would have sworn that brain transplantationwas impossible. Even now he was not sure that it hadn't all been aterrible dream. 

Should Bentley go at once to the police to give them the benefit ofwhatever knowledge he might have of Caleb Barter? He wasn't sure. Thenhe decided that sooner or later he must come out into the open. So hecaught a cab and went to police headquarters. 

"I wish, " he said, "to talk to someone about the Mind Master!"

If he had said, "I have just come from Mars, " he could scarcely havecaused a greater sensation. 

 - - -

But his calm statement got him an instant audience with a slender manof thirty-five or so, whose hair was prematurely gray at the temples, and whose eyes were shrewd and far-seeing. 

"My name's Thomas Tyler, " said the detective. He certainly didn't lookthe conventional detective, but Bentley knew instantly that he_wasn't_ the conventional detective. "I work on the unusual cases. Ifyou hadn't sent in your name I wouldn't have seen you, which meansthat as soon as you leave here you are to forget my name and how Ilook. "

He motioned Bentley to a seat. Bentley sat back. Suddenly Thomas Tylerwas around his desk and had pushed back the hair from Bentley'stemples. He drew in his breath with a sharp hiss when he saw the whiteline which circled Bentley's skull. 

"It's not exactly proof, " he said, as though he and Bentley had beenin the midst of a discussion of that awful operation Barter hadperformed on Bentley, "but I'd take your word for it. "

"The story, in the main, was true, " said Bentley. 

"I thought so. What made you come here?"

"I saw that naked man run across Fifth Avenue from the door of theFlatiron Building. I saw the officer subdue him, helped him do it infact, and saw the man die. Since there was no detective there, I tookthe liberty of removing these from the fingers of the dead man. "

Bentley gave Tyler the coarse hair, stained with blood. Tyler lookedat it grimly for a moment or two. 

"Not human hair, " he said, as though talking to himself. "Not like anyI know of. But . . . Ah, you know what sort of hair, eh? That's whatsent you here!"

"It's the hair of an ape or a gorilla. "

"How do you know, for sure?"

"Once, " said Bentley grimly, "for several horrible hours . . . I was agiant anthropoid ape. "

 - - -

Tyler's chair legs crashed solidly to the floor. 

"I see, " he said. "You think this thing has some connection with yourown experiences. How long ago was that?"

"Slightly over two months. "

"You think the same man. . . ?"

"I don't know. But who could want, as a newspaper story I just readsays, to steal the brains of men? What for? It sounds like Barter. I've never heard of anybody else with such an obsession. I'm puttingtwo and two together--and fervently hoping they'll add up to seveninstead of four. For if ever in my life I wanted to be wrong it'snow. "

Tyler pursed his lips. Bentley saw that his eyes were glinting withexcitement. 

"But there's a possibility you're right. Do you know what the MindMaster's first manifesto said? It was published by a tabloid newspaperas a sort of gag--a strange crank letter. Here it is. "

Tyler tossed Bentley a newspaper clipping a week old. Bentley readquickly:

 "The white race is deteriorating physically at a dangerous rate. In fifty years, if nothing is done to prevent it, the world will be filled with men whose bodies are so soft as to be almost worthless. But I shall take steps to prevent that, as soon as I am ready. I need a week. Then I shall begin my crusade to make the white race a race of supermen, whom I alone shall rule. They shall keep the brains they have, which shall be transferred to bodies which I shall furnish. 

 (Signed) The Mind Master. "

 - - -

Tyler squinted at Bentley again. 

"You see? Brains are all right, he says, but the white race needs newbodies. If he isn't suggesting brain substitution, what is hesuggesting? Though I confess I never thought of your story until yourname was sent in to me a while ago. For the world thinks of Barter ashaving been killed by the great apes. "

"Yes, I told newspaper reporters that. I thought it was true. But thisMind Master must be Barter. There couldn't be two persons in the worldwith mental quirks so much alike. "

"Tell me what Barter looks like. Oh, there are plenty of picturesextant of the famous Professor Caleb Barter who disappeared from theworld some years ago, but he'll know that, of course, and he won'tlook like the pictures. 

"Alteration of his own features should be easy for a man who jugglesbrains. "

"He may have changed his features since I saw him, too, " said Bentley. "But I'm sure I'd know him. "

Tyler's telephone rang stridently. 

He took down the receiver. His mouth fell slackly open as his eyeslifted to Bentley's face. But he recovered himself and slapped hishand over the transmitter. 

"Anybody know you came here?" asked Tyler. 

Bentley shook his head. 

"Well, " went on Tyler, "I don't know how it happens, but thistelephone message is for you!"

Bentley's heart seemed to jump into his throat. One of those huncheswhich sometimes were so valuable to him had struck him, as though itwere a blow between the eyes. His lips tightened. His face was pale, but there was a grim light in his eyes. 

He hesitated for a second, the receiver in his hand, his mouth againstthe transmitter. 

"Well, Professor Barter?" he said conversationally. 

 - - -

There came a gasp from Thomas Tyler. He jumped to the door andmotioned to someone. A man in uniform came to his side. Bentleydistinctly heard Tyler tell the man to have this telephone calltraced. 

From the receiver came a well-remembered chuckle. 

"So you were expecting me, eh, Bentley? You never really believed thatone of my genius would fall such easy prey to the great apes didyou?"

"Of course not, Professor, " said Bentley soothingly. "It would be aninsult to your vivid mentality. "

"_Vivid_ mentality! _Vivid_ mentality! Why, Bentley, there isn'tanother brain in the world to compare with mine. And you of all peopleshould know it. The whole world will know it before I'm finished, forI have made tremendous strides since you helped me to perform thatcrowning achievement in Africa. By the way, tell your friend Tyler, who just called the officer to the door, that it's useless to try totrace this call!"

Bentley jumped as though he had been stung. How had Barter known whatTyler was doing? How had he guessed what Tyler had told the man inuniform? How had Barter known Bentley was visiting Tyler? How had hediscovered even that Bentley was back in the United States? Why, besides, was he so friendly with Bentley now?

"You speak, Professor, " said Bentley softly, "as though you could seeright into police headquarters. "

"I can, Bentley! I can!" said Barter impatiently, as though he wererebuking a schoolboy for saying the obvious. 

"You're close by, then?"

"No. I'm a long way--several miles--from you. But I can see everythingyou do. And you needn't look at Tyler in such surprise!"

 - - -

Bentley started. He had looked at Tyler in a surprised way and, cleverthough he was, he didn't think that Barter could have _guessed_ soaccurately to the second the gesture he had made. Barter chuckled. 

"It's a good jest, isn't it? But listen to me, Bentley, I've a greatscheme in hand for the amelioration of mankind. I need your help, mostly because you were such an excellent subject in my greatestsuccessful experiment. "

"Will it be the same sort of experiment as the other?" Bentley's heartwas in his mouth as he asked the question. 

"Yes, the same . . . But there are improvements I have succeeded inperfecting since the creation of Manape. My one mistake when Manapewas created was in that I allowed myself to lose control of him--ofyou! That will not happen again. Oh, if you'll help me, Bentley, thatoperation will not be performed on you until you yourself request itbecause I shall have proved to you that it is better for you. Youshall be my assistant and obey my orders, nothing more. "

Lee Bentley drew a deep breath. 

"If I prefer not to work with you again, Professor?"

A chuckle was Barter's answer. The chuckle broke off shortly. 

"You should not refuse, Bentley, " said the scientist at last. "Forthen I should find it necessary to remove you. You might stand in myway, and though you would be but a puny obstacle, you still would bean obstacle. For example, consider Ellen Estabrook, your fianc�e. Ican find no use for her . . . And she knows as much about me as you do. Therefore, at my convenience, I shall remove her. "

 - - -

"Caleb Barter, " Bentley's voice was hoarse with anger as he droppedhis soothing mode of address toward the man he knew was insane, "ifanything happens to Miss Estabrook through you I shall find you nomatter how well you are guarded . . . And I shall destroy you bit bybit, as a small boy destroys a fly. For every least evil thing thathappens to Miss Estabrook, a hundred times that will happen to you atmy hands. "

"Good!" snapped Barter, no longer chuckling. "I am happy to know howmuch she means to you. It shows me how easily I may control youthrough her. It means war then, between us? I'm sorry, Bentley, for Ilike you. In a way, you know, you are my creation. But in a warbetween us, Bentley, you haven't a chance to win. "

Bentley clicked up the receiver. 

"Could you trace the call, Tyler?" he snapped. 

Tyler shook his head ruefully. 

"We couldn't locate the right telephone, but we could tell whichexchange it came through, and the lines of that exchange cover a hugesection of the city. "

"Can you find out exactly the section and the address of each phone onevery line?"

"Yes. The exchange is Stuyvesant. "

"That gives me some help. I used to live in Greenwich Village and Ihad a Stuyvesant number. I'm going after Barter. Say, Tyler, how doyou suppose Barter knew exactly what was going on in this room?"

Tyler's face slowly whitened as his eyes looked fearfully into theeyes of Lee Bentley. He shook his head slowly. 

Bentley squared his shoulders and spoke quietly and determinedly. 

"Mr. Tyler, " he said, "I am in a great hurry. May I be conducted in apolice car? Might as well. I'll be working with you hand and gloveuntil Barter is captured. "

Bentley rode behind a shrieking siren to the home of the Estabrooks. . . While from a distance of two miles Caleb Barter watched everymove and chuckled grimly to himself. 

CHAPTER III

_Hell's Laboratory_

The huge room was absolutely free of all sounds from anywhere savewithin itself. The walls, the floors, the doors were of chrome steel. The cages were iron-ribbed and ponderous. 

The long table which ran down the strange room's center was coveredwith retorts, test tubes, Bunsen burners--all of the stock-in-trade ofthe scientist who spends most of his time at research work. The manwho bent over the table was well past middle age. His hair wassnow-white, but his cheeks were like rosy red apples. He literallyseemed to glow with health. He was like a strange flame. His handswere slender, the fingers long and extraordinarily supple. His lipswere redder even than his cheeks, and made one, strangely enough, think of vampires. His eyes were coal-black, fathomless, piercing. 

On the bronze wall directly across the table from the swiftly laboringman was a porcelain tablet set into the bronze, and in the midst ofthe table were a score of little push-buttons. Above each was a redlight; and below, a green one. 

Several inches below each green light was a little slot whichresembled a tiny keyhole, something like the keyhole in the averagehandbag. There was a key in each hole, and from each key hung a lengthof gleaming chain which shone like gold and might have been gold, orat least, some gold-plated metal. On the dangling end of each chainwas another key which might have been the twin of the key in the holeabove. 

In the space between the keyholes and the green lights there were theletters and figures: A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 . . . And so on up to T-20. 

Plainly it was the beginning of a complicated classification systemwith any number of combinations possible. 

 - - -

Behind the working man the row of cages partially hid the broodinghorror of the place. There were twenty cages--and in each one was asulking, red-eyed anthropoid ape. Plainly the fact that the number ofapes coincided with the number of push-buttons, and with the number ofkeys, to say nothing of the red lights and the green lights, was noaccident. The apes were sullenly silent, proof that they feared theman at the table so much that they were afraid to move. 

At last the white-haired man stopped and breathed a sigh ofsatisfaction. Carefully he placed in the middle of the table theinstrument which he had been examining. It looked like a slightlyconcave aluminum plate or tympanum, save that on the apex appeared atiny ball of the same metal. Except for the color and the fact thatthe thing was almost flat, it looked like a small Manchu hat. 

"Naka Machi!" said the man suddenly in a conversational tone ofvoice. 

The chrome steel door swung open swiftly and silently and another manentered. He was about the same height as the first man, but he wasyounger and his eyes were blacker. His hair was as black as the wingsof a crow. He was a Japanese dressed in Occidental garb. 

"Naka Machi, " said the white-haired one again, "I have examined everybit of the infinitesimal mechanism in the ball on this tympanum. It isperfect. You are a genius, Naka Machi. There is only one geniusgreater--Professor Caleb Barter!"

Naka Machi bowed low, and as he spoke his breath hissed inwardly throughhis teeth after the Japanese manner of admitting humility--"that myhumble breath may not blow upon you"--which never needed really tobe sincere. 

"I am merely a genius with my fingers, Professor Barter, " said NakaMachi in a musical voice. "The smaller the medium in which I work thehappier I am, Professor; and in that I am a genius. But the plan forthis so marvelous little radio-control, as you call it, came entirelyfrom your head, my master. I did exactly as the plans bade me. Will itwork?"

 - - -

Caleb Barter's red face went redder still. His eyes shot flames ofanger. His lips pouched. Almost he seemed on the point of strikingdown his Japanese assistant. 

"Will it work?" he repeated. "Have you not just told me that youfollowed my plans exactly? Have I not just now checked your every bitof work and pronounced it perfect? Then how can it fail to work? Haveyou another one ready?"

"Yes, my master. Now that I have perfected two, the work will becomemonotonous. If the master wishes, I can create still anotherradio-control, inside the head of a pin, which I should first renderhollow with that skill which only Naka Machi possesses?"

Caleb Barter almost smiled. 

"It will not be necessary. But it will be necessary for you to makeeighteen additional radio-controls of the same size as this one, orsay make twenty-four so that we shall have some extra ones in case ofaccident. These two will be put into action at once. Naka Machi, bringme Lecky, completely uniformed as a smart chauffeur! Have you laid ina store of clothing, as I bade you, to fit every conceivable need ofLecky, Stanley, Morton and Cleve?"

"Yes, my master. "

"Then bring in Lecky accoutered as a chauffeur. "

Ten minutes later a young man entered behind Naka Machi. He wasslender and his chauffeur's uniform fitted him like a glove. He lookedlike a soldier in it. Indeed his bearing, his whole stance, spoke ofmany years as a soldier--and a proud one. The fellow was brimful ofhealth. His cheeks were rosy with vitality. He looked like a man withhealth so abundant he never found means to tire himself to the pointwhere he could sleep dreamlessly. 

But, nevertheless his arms hung listlessly at his sides. His eyesseemed empty of hope, dull and lifeless, and one looked into thoseeyes and shuddered. One tried to gaze deeply into them and foundoneself baffled. There was no soul behind them. 

"Come here, Lecky, " said Barter coldly. 

 - - -

Lecky glided effortlessly forward to stand before Barter. 

"You've no brains, Lecky, " said Barter emotionlessly; "no brains ofyour own. You have a splendid body which moves only at the will ofCaleb Barter. I need that body for my purposes. But a man with brainsis dangerous. That's why you haven't any. "

Barter now took the silvery tympanum with the ball atop it and set iton the head of Lecky. On top of it he placed the chauffeur's cap, bringing it down tightly to keep the tympanum in place. 

"If I had it to do again I'd insert the tympanum under the skull aspart of the operation, Naka Machi, " said Barter as he worked. "We'lldo that hereafter. And we begin work immediately. I'm going to sendLecky out now to get the first subject. "

"The first subject, sir?"

"Yes. Manhattan's richest man. A man must have brains to becomeManhattan's richest man, and I need men with brains. His name isHarold Hervey. He will be leaving his office in the Empire StateBuilding in about half an hour. I want Lecky to be on hand to meethim. "

On his own head Barter placed a second tympanum which Naka Machi hadbrought him. Over it he pulled a rubber cap, like a bathing cap with ahole cut in the top. 

"Now, we'll try it out, Naka Machi, " said Barter. "Which one of theselights is Lecky's?"

"B-2, my master. "

Barter sat down under the light marked "B-2" and lifted the key whichdangled from the end of the golden chain. This key he inserted in atiny orifice in the ball atop his head. Then he turned in his chair tolook at Lecky. Barter's face was a mask of concentration as he gazedintently at the young man. 

 - - -

Lecky stiffened to attention. His right hand shot to his cap visor insalute. His lips twisted into a travesty of a smile. For a few secondshe went through a strange series of posturings. He stood in theattitude of a boxer preparing to attack. He danced smartly on histoes. He bent double and touched the floor with the palms of hishands. He jumped up and down with his legs stiff. He stopped suddenlywith his right hand at rigid salute. But his eyes were still vacantthrough every posture. 

Barter's face showed a glow of satisfaction. 

"He did exactly what I willed him to do! I am his master. He is myslave--even more abjectly than you are my slave, Naka Machi!"

"But that would be impossible, my master, " said Naka Machi, hissingagain through his teeth as he sucked in his breath. "None could bemore abjectly your slave than I. "

"Do not say anything is impossible, " said Barter peevishly, "when Isay otherwise. Anything is possible to me! Now, we'll send Leckyforth. I'll watch him through the heliotubes and control his everymove. While I am directing Lecky you will prepare the table behind mefor the first of our world-revolutionizing operations. "

"Yes, my master, " said the Japanese humbly. 

"But first, it's just as well that Lecky is in a good humor, eventhough he is my slave. Where are the walnuts, Naka Machi?"

The Japanese tendered a large walnut to Barter. Barter rose andapproached Lecky who still stood at salute. He stopped a couple ofpaces in front of the soldierly man and held up the walnut as a mansometimes holds up food to a dog, bidding him "speak" before he may befed. 

 - - -

Then Lecky did a strange thing. 

He began to jump up and down like a pleased child. His jumping causedhim to lose his balance, but he recaptured it by pressing the backs ofhis hands against the floor. His hitherto expressionless eyes losttheir dullness. Saliva dribbled at the corners of his mouth. Bartertossed him the walnut. Lecky held it under his right forefinger, against the _heel_ of his thumb, instead of between thumb andforefinger, as he lifted it to his mouth. 

Barter chuckled. 

"Even the human casement cannot wholly hide the ape, eh, Naka Machi?"said Barter. 

Naka Machi hissed. 

Barter returned to the porcelain slab banked with the lights and thekeys. He readjusted the keys and his face became thoughtful again. 

Lecky turned smartly, still nibbling at his walnut, strode to thebronze door and let himself out. 

Through the heliotube directly above the key marked "B-2, " CalebBarter watched him go, and kept watching him as he made his way to thestreet. Barter looked ahead of his puppet, noting the cars which wereparked at the curb. He saw a stately limousine. He grinned. Thechauffeur was not in sight. Barter looked for him and found him at atable in a nearby restaurant, his back to the window. 

Barter looked back at his puppet and his face became serious withconcentration. 

Lecky walked blithely along the street and turned right when he wasopposite the limousine. Without a moment's hesitation, he stepped intothe limousine, pressed the starter, shifted gears, turned in themiddle of the block and started swiftly uptown. 

After Lecky had shifted gears he drove with his left hand alone. Hisright was still busy with the walnut. 

Barter now looked like a man in a trance, so deeply did he concentrateon his task of guiding his soulless, ape-brained puppet, Lecky, through the heavy traffic of Manhattan. 

CHAPTER IV

_The Opening Gun_

"That list, Tyler, " said Bentley, after he had somewhat calmed thefears of Ellen Estabrook and had returned to the task of tracingBarter, "is headed by Harold Hervey, the multi-millionaire. I knowBarter well enough to know that he'll go down the list methodically, taking each person in turn. We'd best take immediate precautions toguard the old man's home. For Barter, if not entirely ready to takedrastic steps, must be almost ready, else he couldn't issue hismanifestoes and take a chance of some slip-up before he could getreally started. "

"Why do you suppose he named Hervey on the list?" asked Tyler. 

"Because Hervey is a financial genius. Barter wishes not only to carryout his plan of creating a race of supermen, but wishes at the sametime to maintain personal control of them. And to control Manhattan, from which he logically hopes to extend his control to the wholeUnited States, then to the whole world, Barter must also control themoney marts. Hervey is the shrewdest financier in the world. "

"But won't we frighten Hervey's family if we take steps now?"

"Better to frighten them now than to be too late entirely. However, wecan place his house under surveillance without the knowledge of thefamily for the time being. And you'd better send a couple of men tohis office in the Empire State Building to see that nothing happensto him on the way home this evening. I talked to him by telephone andhe pooh-poohed the whole thing. Hard-headed business executives haveno imagination. "

Bentley and Tyler rode uptown in the back seat of a speeding policecar driven by one of the best chauffeurs Bentley had ever riddenbehind. He edged through holes in the traffic where Bentley couldscarcely see any holes at all. He estimated the speed of cars whichmight have collided with the police vehicle and slipped through withinches to spare. In his way the man was a genius. But Bentley was yetto see the driving of a master genius. . . . 

 - - -

Far out in the residential district the police car came to astop. Other police cars arrived at intervals to disgorge men inplain clothes who immediately entered upon their guard duties asunobtrusively as possible. If Hervey's family noticed at all theywould scarcely attach any importance to the arrival of cars and thedischarging of passengers who seemed to have nothing to do exceptdawdle on the sidewalks. 

But all the way uptown a hunch had ridden Bentley. He had the feelingthat no matter how fast the police car traveled, no matter howskilfully the chauffeur inched his way through the press, they wouldbe too late to save Hervey. The feeling became an obsession. Manytimes he called through the speaking tube. 

"Faster, driver, for God's sake, faster!"

Now near the home of Harold Hervey, Bentley found himself unable towalk slowly, with the air of nonchalance, which the other policeofficers wore like a cloak. 

"Something's happened, " said Bentley, "I'm sure of it. I feel thatBarter is so close to me that I could touch him if I knew in whichdirection to extend my fingers. "

Suddenly a speeding car, with horn bellowing, came crashing up thestreet toward the Hervey residence. It was traveling at great speed, careening from side to side like a ship in a storm at sea. 

"There comes Hervey's car, " said Tyler. "And something has happened tomake him travel like that. Old man Hervey doesn't allow his chauffeurto go faster than twenty miles an hour. "

 - - -

Tyler and Bentley were near by when the car squealed to a stop beforethe Hervey residence and a hatless, disheveled man leaped out almostbefore the car stopped rolling. 

"That's not Hervey, " said Tyler. "That's his private secretary. Something's up. It's time we took a hand in things. "

Tyler and Bentley grasped the young man by the elbow. 

"What's up?" demanded Tyler. 

"It's Mr. Hervey, sir, " panted the secretary. "It just happened. He'sbeen kidnaped!"

The secretary was a slight man, but fear had given him strength. Healmost dragged Tyler and Bentley off their feet as he strode on up thewalk leading to the home of Hervey. 

"You'll scare his family half to death!" said Tyler. 

"It'll have to come sometime, Tyler, " said Bentley. "It might as wellbe now. They'll have to know. We'll have to sit inactively from thismoment on. Tyler, there's nothing that can be done for Hervey. Barterhas scored. We couldn't catch him now to save ourselves fromperdition. But his next step will involve the Hervey menage. We'llhave to wait there for his next move. "

Tyler and Bentley entered the vast gloomy structure of theold-fashioned Hervey domicile on the heels of the frightenedsecretary. Mrs. Hervey, a faded woman of sixty or so, met them at thedoor. Her head was held high, her lips grimly drawn into a straightline. 

"So, " she said evenly, "they've got Mr. Hervey. I begged him to takethose threats seriously. He's been either killed or kidnaped. "

"Kidnaped, " said Bentley, continuing brutally because of the couragehe saw in the old woman's face. "And that means he'll be dead withinthe hour, if he isn't dead already. We've got to stay here for a fewhours, to await the next move of the madman calling himself the MindMaster, in the hope that we can trace him when he makes his nextmove. "

Mrs. Hervey lifted her head still higher. 

"We'll place no obstacles in your path, gentlemen, " she said, "if youare from the police. The family will confine itself to the upperfloors of the house. "

 - - -

Tyler and Bentley took possession of the living room. Outside a dozenplain-clothes men were to patrol the grounds during the hours ofdarkness. 

Other men were at every adjacent street corner. A rat could not havegot through unobserved. 

Tyler and Bentley took seats at a table facing the door. The policecar in which they had arrived stood at the curb, with the chauffeur atthe wheel, the motor humming softly. 

"Timkins, " said Bentley, addressing the private secretary who stood inthe most distant corner of the room, his eyes fearfully fixed on thestreet door, "how was Mr. Hervey captured?"

"I was accompanying him to his car, sir, " replied the young man, "whena dapper fellow in a chauffeur's uniform confronted us on thesidewalk. He stood as stiff and straight as a soldier. He didn't say aword. He just looked at Mr. Hervey. Mr. Hervey stopped because the manwas blocking the sidewalk. I looked into the chauffeur's eyes. Theyseemed utterly dead. I shivered. I'd have sworn the man had no soul, now that I look back at it. Suddenly he lashed out with his fist, striking Mr. Hervey on the jaw. Mr. Hervey started to fall. The mancaught him under the arms and tossed him into the tonneau of alimousine at the curb. The car was away before I could summon thepolice. "

Bentley nodded. 

"Which way did the car go?" he demanded. 

"Downtown, at top speed, " replied Timkins. 

Bentley turned to Tyler. 

"The Stuyvesant exchange is downtown, " he said. "Now Timkins says thatthe kidnaper's car went downtown. And the naked man was killed in theFlatiron Building, which is well downtown in its turn. Tyler, fill allthe area covered by the Stuyvesant exchange with plain-clothes men. Telephone Headquarters to see whether a stolen limousine has beenreported from somewhere in the area. Barter wouldn't have cars of hisown for fear they could be traced. He'll use stolen cars when he usescars at all. And he had his puppet pick up the limousine close to hishideout. "

 - - -

Tyler nodded and quickly spoke into the telephone on the table at hiselbow. 

The telephone reminded Bentley of Ellen Estabrook. 

When Tyler had finished issuing pointed instructions Bentley calledthe residence of the Estabrooks in Astoria, Long Island. 

Carl Estabrook answered the telephone. 

"Is Ellen all right?" asked Bentley. "May I speak to her?"

Carl Estabrook's answering gasp came plainly over the wire. 

"Are you crazy, Lee?" he asked. "Not ten minutes ago you telephonedEllen and told her to meet you near the arch in Washington Square. Iasked her if she was sure the voice was yours, and she was. . . . "

But Bentley, white-faced, had already clicked up the receiver. 

"Tyler, " he said, "Ellen Estabrook, my fianc�e, is walking into atrap. It's Barter again. He'd know how to imitate my voice well enoughto fool Ellen. It would be simple enough for a man like him. Heprobably had that long conversation with me at headquarters to makesure he hadn't forgotten the timbre and pitch of my voice . . . And tohear how it sounded over the telephone. Please have plain-clothes menpick up Ellen in Washington Square. And that, Tyler, if you'll notice, is also downtown. "

Bentley felt that he would go mad with anxiety as he awaited some newsfrom the plain-clothes men Tyler had ordered to look for EllenEstabrook. 

He had asked Tyler to issue rather unusual instructions to theplain-clothes men around the Hervey residence. They were to make noattempt to halt anyone who might approach the house, but were topermit no one to depart. It was a weak plan, but knowing the supremeegotism of Barter, Bentley felt that the old scientist woulddeliberately accept such a challenge. He wouldn't mind risking theloss of a minion. 

 - - -

"He controls his puppets from his hideout, Tyler, " Bentley explained, "and won't hesitate to send them into danger since it can't touch him. And he watches every move they make, too. He's made some televisionadaptation of his own. I'll wager, if he so desires, he can see ussitting here right now, even perhaps hear what we say. I can fancyhearing him chuckle, and Tyler. . . ?"

"Yes?"

"I can see old man Hervey on an operating table with Barter bendingover him, working fiendishly. Behind Barter are cages of apes. "

"But how could he transport apes to his hideout?"

"He could manage to smuggle anything anywhere. Money paves the way toany accomplishment, Tyler. We needn't concern ourselves with how hedoes it, but with the fact that he must surely have apes in hishideout. "

There came suddenly an imperious ringing of the doorbell. 

Bentley and Tyler leaped to their feet, their hands streaking fortheir automatics which they had placed within easy reach on the table. Side by side they sprang for the door, and flung it open. 

A chill of horror ran through Bentley. 

"Mother of God!" cried Tyler. 

"Mr. Hervey!" shrieked Timkins. The secretary, noting the figure whichtoppled so grimly into the room, fainted. The thud of his bodyfollowed the thud of the old man's body to the floor. 

In that first moment of overwhelming terror, all three men noted thatHervey's skull-pan was missing. 

"Look after details here, Tyler!" cried Bentley, quickly recoveringhimself. "I'm after whoever brought the old man home. "

Bentley was racing down the path for the street, where a man inchauffeur's uniform was hurling himself into a limousine, whilebullets from half a dozen plain-clothes men, racing to head him off, sang about his ears. But the stranger gained the driver's seat andthe limousine was away like a shot. The police car was rolling asBentley leaped upon the running board, then eased in beside thedriver. 

"Don't stop for anything!" cried Bentley. "Keep that car in sight!"

The car headed downtown at breakneck speed. 

CHAPTER V

_To Broadway's Horror_

Bentley would never forget that nightmarish ride downtown. It was adream as terrifying and ghastly as had been his experience in theAfrican jungles when he had been Manape. Added to the utter fear ofthe ride was his fear for the safety of Ellen Estabrook. Caleb Barter, so far, was utterly invincible. It seemed he could not be beaten oroutwitted in any way. But Bentley set his lips tightly. 

Caleb Barter must have some weak spot in his insane armor, some way bywhich he could be reached and destroyed--and Bentley swore to himselfthat it would be he who would find that weak spot. 

The limousine ahead was going at dangerous speed. The police chauffeurbeside Bentley crouched low over the wheel as he drove. His eyes neverleft the speeding limousine. People on the sidewalks stared inastonishment as the two cars flashed downtown. 

The leading car sped on, the driver obviously expecting ways to openin the last second before threatened collision. He passed cars on theleft and the right. There were times when his wheels were up on thecurb as he went through lanes between cars and sidewalks. He wasdetermined to go through. 

Only Bentley understood that the driver ahead was an automaton, a manwhose brain did not know the meaning of fear. He knew that from hishideout Caleb Barter was directing the flight of the escaping car. Hecould fancy the old man of the apple-red cheeks, sitting in a chair inhis hideout, his hands in the air as though they gripped the wheel ofa car, sweat breaking forth on his cheeks as he guided his puppetthrough the press of cars. 

But by now in that uncanny way that sometimes happens the streets werebeing cleared as if by magic before the flight of one whom allobservers must have thought a madman. Only Bentley knew that thedriver ahead was not a madman. 

 - - -

His own car careened from side to side. Bentley wondered what thechauffeur would think if he knew he was driving a race against one ofBarter's supermen. He would perhaps have realized that no man couldpossibly follow with any degree of success. The police driver hadsucceeded so far only because, Bentley guessed, he felt that where anyother man could drive, so could he. 

Only Bentley knew that the driver up there was not a "man" in thenormal meaning of the word. He wondered who "he" really was--not thatit mattered greatly, for the entity required to make "him" a normalman had perhaps been destroyed, or had become part of some giantanthropoid to be used later in Barter's ghastly experiments. 

"I wonder if Tyler will send out calls for police cars in other partsof the city to try and cut off the runaway, " shouted Bentley above theshrieking of the motor and the wailing of the siren. "Are any policecars equipped with radio?"

"Several, " answered the police chauffeur. "And they are able to cut inon various public radio stations, too. By this time warnings are beingheard on every blaring radio in Manhattan. "

The two cars sped on. For a brief space the car ahead took to thesidewalk. Suddenly a human body was tossed violently against the sideof a building, and the fleeing car passed on. As the pursuing carpassed the spot Bentley knew by the shape of the bundle that the enemyhad killed a woman. At that speed he must have crushed every bone inher body. In a matter of seconds the information would be telephonedto radio studios and people would be warned to take to open doorwayswhen they saw cars traveling at undue rates of speed. 

"I'm a better driver than he is!" yelled the police chauffeur, out ofthe side of his mouth at Bentley. "I haven't killed anyone yet. "

The words had scarcely left his mouth when a blind man, tapping hisway with a cane, came from behind a building at an intersection andstepped into the gutter. The fool, couldn't he hear the shrieking ofthe siren? But perhaps he was deaf, too. 

 - - -

The police chauffeur turned sharply to the left and for a secondBentley held his breath expecting the careening car to turn over. Ifit did it would roll over a dozen times, and destroy anything thathappened to be in its path. But with a superhuman manipulation of thewheel the police chauffeur righted the car, got it straightened outagain, and was on his way. The old man had not been touched, but therewas no doubt that he had felt the wind of the great car's passing. 

The fleeing car was gaining now. 

It rode madly down Broadway. The great pillared intersection whereBroadway cuts through Sixth Avenue was dead ahead. The fleeing carcontinued on, crashing through, while cars evaded it in everydirection, and into Broadway beyond. After it went Bentley, all othermatters forgotten as he prayed to the god of speed to guide themthrough. 

Two cars came out of Thirty-first Street. Their drivers saw theirdanger at the same time. But they turned different ways, and asBentley's car flashed past them the two cars seemed welded solidlytogether. They were rolling across the sidewalk toward the huge plateglass window of a restaurant. Just as the pursuing car lost them asthey swept past, the two cars went through that plate glass window. Bentley, in his mind's eye, saw the two dead, mutilated drivers, andthe passengers with them, he saw the wreckage of the restaurant, themangled diners who sat at the tables nearest the fatal window. 

"More marks against Barter, " he muttered to himself. "How long willthe list be before I'll be able to drag him down?"

 - - -

On and on went the two cars. People packed the sidewalks, but theykept close against the buildings. The streets were almost desertednow, for that warning had got ahead. Three other police cars werecareening down the street, too. Bentley saw them with pleasure. Othercars would be coming in to head off the fleeing limousine. This onepuppet of Barter's, at least, would be pocketed before he could findtime to leap from his car and escape. 

"Barter's sweating blood as he saws with both hands at an imaginarydriver's wheel, " thought Bentley. "When will he give up--and what willhis driver do when Barter relinquishes control?"

For the first time the grim thought came to him. He knew that thecreature there had the brain of an ape. What would an ape do if hesuddenly found himself at the wheel of a car going down Broadway ateighty miles an hour? He would chatter, and jump up and down. Theplunging car, with accelerator full on, would be out of control. 

"God Almighty, I never thought of that!" yelled Bentley. "As soon ashe sees he can't save his puppet he'll let him get out the best way hecan, himself . . . And that car will be traveling, uncontrolled, ateighty miles an hour. "

As though his very statement had fathered the thought, two police carsswept into the intersection at Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue. The fleeing limousine was turning right to go down Fifth Avenue. 

The police cars were brought to a halt to effectively stop the furtherprogress of the speeding limousine. Three other cars plunged in tomake the box barrage of cars effective. The fleeing car was trapped. Barter must know that. If he did know, it proved that he could seeeverything that transpired. The next few seconds would show. 

 - - -

Bentley gasped as he put his hand on the driver's arm to have him slowdown to prevent a wholesale pile-up in the busy intersection. Hegasped with horror as he did so, for the fleeing car was now goingcrazy. It zigzagged from side to side. Now it rode the two rightwheels, now the two left. 

And suddenly the driver swung nimbly out through the left window, hishands reaching up over the top, and in a moment he was on the roof ofthe careening car. 

"I've seen apes swing into trees like that, " Bentley thought. 

While the car plunged on, the creature stood up on the doomedlimousine, and in spite of the fact that the wind of the car'spassing must have been terrific, the ghastly hybrid jumped up anddown on the top like a delighted child viewing a new toy or riding ashoot-the-chutes. 

Suddenly the creature's right leg went through the top's fabric. Itstruggled to regain its footing as an ape might struggle to regainposition on a limb in the jungles. 

At that moment the fleeing car crashed mercilessly into the twonearest police cars ahead. The men inside had expected the driver toslow down to avoid a collision. How could they know what sort of brainlurked within the driver's skull? They couldn't . . . And threepolicemen paid with their lives for their lack of knowledge as theirbodies were hurled beneath a mass of twisted wreckage, crushed out ofhuman semblance. 

 - - -

The hybrid atop the fatal car was hurled through the air like athunderbolt. His body passed over the railing of the subway entrancebefore the Flatiron Building and Bentley knew he had crashed to hisdeath on the steps. 

The police car had already come to a stop, and Bentley was runningtoward the subway entrance. 

The shapeless bleeding bundle on the steps no longer even resembled aman. Fortunately nobody had been struck by the hurtling body; and, miraculously enough, Barter's pawn was not yet quite dead. 

Moans of animal pain came through his bleeding lips. The eyes scarcelynoticed Bentley, though there was a slight flicker of fear in them. Then, in the instant of death, even that slight expression passed fromthem. Bentley saw the scarline about the skull. 

And now Bentley knew that Barter was missing no slightest move, thathe saw everything. . . . 

For the ghastly hybrid on the steps raised his right hand inmeticulous salute . . . And died. It was an ironic, grotesque gesture. 

Plain-clothes men gathered around. 

"Take his fingerprints, " said Bentley quickly. "Then telegraph thefingerprint section, U. S. Army, at Washington, for this man'sidentity. "

An ambulance was taking aboard the three mangled policemen as Bentleystepped back into his car for the ride down to Washington Square tosee what dread thing had happened to Ellen Estabrook. 

CHAPTER VI

_High Jeopardy_

Ellen Estabrook was almost in hysterics when Bentley reached her. Shehad been immediately picked up by plain-clothes men and had thoughtherself captured by minions of Barter. She had been panic-stricken fora moment, she told Bentley, and it had taken her some little time tobe persuaded that she was in the hands of police. 

But Bentley's heart was filled to overflowing with gratitude that hehad been able to safeguard Ellen against Barter. He never doubted ithad been Barter who had telephoned her. And even now he fancied hecould hear Barter's chuckle of amusement. Barter was watching, perhapseven listening. Bentley felt that the madman was just biding his time. Barter could have taken Ellen in this attempt, but hadn't triedgreatly, knowing himself invincible, knowing that he could take her atany moment if it was necessary. And he might take her even if it werenot necessary, since he had warned Bentley she must be removed. 

The police car raced back uptown so that Bentley could inform himselfof any new developments in the Hervey case. Ellen snuggled against himgratefully. "You'll have to stick close to me, " said Bentley, "untilsomething happens, or until the exigencies of service draw me awayfrom you. Then it will be up to Tom Tyler to look after you. "

"I can look after myself, " she retorted spiritedly. "I'm over age andnot without brains. . . . "

"Yet you went to Washington Square, " said Bentley gently. "Didn't iteven seem strange to you that I would have selected such a place as arendezvous?"

 - - -

Ellen turned away from him and her lips trembled. His gentle thrusthad hurt her. 

"But I would have sworn it was your voice, Lee, " she said. "And--Istill think it was!"

"I tell you I didn't phone you to meet me in Washington Square!"

"But you told me you had talked with Barter for a long time on theheadquarters phone, didn't you? Remember that you are dealing with thecleverest and maddest brain we know of to-day. What if he had merelytalked with you to get a record of your voice? Suppose a voice werecomposed of certain ingredients, certain sounds. Suppose thoseingredients could somehow be captured on a sensitized plate of somekind! Edison would have been burned as a sorcerer a few centuriesbefore he invented the wax record. Twenty years ago who would havethought of talking pictures . . . Voices permanently recorded oncelluloid?"

"But the talkie films merely parrot, over and over again, the words ofactual people. When I talked with Barter this morning I certainly saidnothing about meeting you at Washington Square. "

"But the tone, the timber, the frequency of your voice! Lee, supposehe had gone a step further than the talkies and had found a way tobreak the voice apart and put it back together to suit himself. . . ?"

"Good Lord, Ellen! It sounds crazy . . . But if you would have swornthat voice was mine, then mine it may have been, speaking words withmy voice that I never spoke personally. But wait until we find out forsure. We're just guessing. "

But the idea stuck in his mind and he believed in it enough to tellTyler, upon arriving at the Hervey residence, to warn every man namedon the list of the Mind Master to make no appointments over thetelephone, no matter how sure they were of the voices at the other endof the wire. 

It sounded wild, but was it?

 - - -

That night Ellen and Bentley occupied rooms which faced each otheracross the hall in a midtown hotel, and plain-clothes men were on dutyto right and left in the hall. There were men on the roof and in thelobby, in the garage, everywhere skulkers might be expected to lookfor coigns of vantage from which to proceed against Ellen Estabrook. Bentley knew quite well that Barter would not drop his intentionagainst Ellen, especially since he had failed once already. 

Tyler and Bentley sat in Bentley's room drinking black coffee anddiscussing their plans for the next day. The latest paper hadcontained another manifesto of the Mind Master! the second man on hislist was to be taken at ten o'clock the next day. The man waspresident of a great construction company. His name was Saret Balisle;he was under thirty, slim as a professional dancer, and dark as agypsy. 

"But what does Barter want with all these big shots?" asked ThomasTyler. "Just what is the point of his stealing their brains andputting them into the skull-pans of apes, if that's what you think hehas in mind?"

"The Barter touch, " said Bentley grimly. "At first he probablyintended to kill just any men and make the transfer, and then use hismanapes to send against the men he wished to capture, and through whomhe intended to gain control of Manhattan. Then he decided, since hehad learned to control his manapes, by radio I suppose, that it wouldbe an ironic touch to make virtual slaves of the "key" men he hadchosen for his crusade. "

"But why the transplantation at all, even if the man is mad? Hereasons logically. Only his premises are unthinkable . . . And he buildssuccessful ghastly experiments on top of them. . . . "

 - - -

"He claims he wishes to build a race of supermen, " Bentley answered. "His reason for the brain transference is therefore plain. Ananthropoid ape has a body which is several times as hardy, durable andmighty as that of even the strongest man, but the ape has not thebrain of a civilized man. A specialized man, one with a highlydeveloped brain, generally has a very weak body. He's constantly putto the necessity of taking exercise to keep from growing sick. Therefore the ape's body and the man's brain would seem, to Barter, anideal combination. That nature didn't plan it so troubles him not atall. He will make a fool of nature!"

"I wonder if we'll get him. Nobody knows how many lives have been lostalready. "

"We'll get him, Tyler. I'll bet anything you want to name that yourmen have walked back and forth across his hideout. I'll bet thatdecent, respectable people live within mere yards of him and donot know it. We'll get to him the second he makes a mistake of anykind. Maybe he'll make his first one when he tries to get SaretBalisle--Good Lord, I forgot something. Tyler, phone again and askHeadquarters if the coroner found anything strange about the head ofthe men I chased down Fifth Avenue. "

Tyler phoned. 

"Yes, " he said, clicking up the receiver, "he had bits of metal whichlooked like aluminum in his scalp; but the autopsy shows that it camefrom outside somewhere. "

"It's part of Barter's radio control, " muttered Bentley, "it _must_be! It has to be . . . And I didn't think of looking for it at thetime. "

 - - -

Long before sunrise Bentley and Tyler repaired to the office of SaretBalisle, letting themselves in with keys which had been furnished themlast night. It had been decided that Balisle would not try to run awayfrom the threat of the Mind Master, but would be in his office asusual. If he ran, and got out of touch with the police, Barter wouldget him anyway and nobody would be the wiser. 

Balisle had grinned and shrugged his shoulders, but the wanness in hischeeks showed that he didn't take the threats lightly, consideringwhat it was thought had happened to Harold Hervey. 

"I wonder, " said Tyler as they walked through the cool of the morningto the Clinton Building on lower Fifth Avenue, where Balisle had hisoffices, "how Barter keeps his apes with men's brains from trying tobreak away from him when he has to divert his mental control to otherchannels?"

Bentley hesitated, seeking a logical answer. It seemed simple enoughwhen the answer came to his mind. 

"Suppose, Tyler, " he said, "that you wakened from a nightmare andlooked into a mirror to discover that you were an anthropoid ape? Thatyou were incapable of speaking, of using your hands save in theclumsiest fashion? When it came home to you what had happened to you, would you rush right out into the street, hoping that the people onthe sidewalks would understand that you were a man in ape'sclothing?"

"Good Lord! I never thought of that!"

"You would if you'd ever been an ape. I know the feeling. "

"Then Barter's manapes are more surely prisoners than if they weresentenced to serve their entire lives in the deepest solitary cells inSing Sing! How horrible--but still, they yet would have a way ofescape. "

"Yes, simply break out and start running, knowing that the crowd wouldsoon take and destroy them. Right enough--but even when one knowsoneself an ape it isn't easy to destroy oneself. "

 - - -

They entered the offices of Saret Balisle and looked about them. Itwas just an ordinary office. They looked in clothes closets and inshadowy corners. They took every possible precaution in their surveyof the situation. They looked for hidden instruments of destruction. They looked for hidden dictaphones. They were extremely thorough intheir preliminary preparations for the defense of Saret Balisle. 

At five minutes of ten o'clock Balisle was at his desk, pale of face, but grinning confidently. 

There were men in uniform in the hallways, on the roof, in the windowsof rooms across the avenue. Bentley and Tyler should have felt surethat not even a mouse could have broken through the cordon to reachSaret Balisle. But Bentley was doubtful. 

He went to the window nearest Balisle and looked out. Sixteen storiesdown was Fifth Avenue, patrolled in this block by a dozen blue-coatsand as many more plain-clothes men. Saret Balisle seemed to beimpregnable. 

But at ten o'clock exactly, a blood-curdling scream came from the roomadjoining Balisle's, where some insurance company had offices. Thescream was followed by other screams--all the screams of women. . . . 

For just a moment Bentley and Tyler whirled to stare at the doorgiving onto the hall, their hands tightly gripping their automatics. 

"God Almighty!" It came in a choked scream from the lips of SaretBalisle, simultaneous with the falling of a shower of glass in theroom. 

 - - -

Tyler and Bentley whirled back. 

A giant anthropoid ape stood on the window sill, and the brute's lefthand held tightly clasped the ankle of Balisle, holding him as a childholds a rag doll. 

The ape swung Balisle out over the abyss. 

Tyler flung up his automatic. 

"Don't!" shouted Bentley. "If you shoot he'll drop Balisle!"

Bentley felt sick and the bottom seemed to drop out of his stomach asthe anthropoid, still holding Balisle as lightly as though he didn'tknow he held extra weight at all, dropped from sight. 

Tyler and Bentley leaped to the window, looked down. The ape haddropped safely to the ledge of the window just below. He held oneasily with his right hand while Bentley and Tyler swayed dizzily. Theanthropoid still held Balisle by the ankle. 

A head looked out of the window to the right. A frightened woman. 

"God!" she choked. "That beast came out of the clothes closet. We'vebeen wondering why we couldn't open it. He must have been inside, holding it. "

A hundred men, all crack shots, stood helpless on roofs, in windowsacross the street, in the street below, while the anthropoid apedropped slowly down the face of the Clinton Building toward thestreet. 

How would Barter lead his minion free of this tangle when, as wasinevitable, the brute reached ground level?

CHAPTER VII

_Strange Interview_

Bentley and Tyler were to learn in the next few minutes how great wasthe executive ability of Caleb Barter. He had created a mighty puzzle, each and every bit of which must fit together exactly. Time wasimportant in making the puzzle complete--and the puzzle changed witheach passing second. As the anthropoid went slowly down the face ofthe Clinton Building, Bentley was sure that Barter controlled everymove and saw every slightest thing that transpired. He knew very wellthat of all the great organization which had been set to prevent thetaking of Saret Balisle, not a man would now shoot at the ape for fearof jeopardizing the life of Balisle. 

And yet Balisle was being spirited away to pass through an experiencewhich would be far worse than a merciful bullet through the brain orthe heart. Bentley knew he would be justified in the eyes of humanityif he ordered his men to fire upon the anthropoid, even if he weresure that Balisle would die. But as long as there was life there washope, too, and he couldn't bring himself to give the order. 

The ape dropped down the face of the building as easily as he wouldhave dropped from limb to limb of a jungle tree. The sixteenstories under him did not disconcert him at all. Bentley had asuspicion about this particular ape, but he wouldn't know for atime yet whether his suspicion had a basis in fact. He couldn't thinkof a man--especially an old man like Harold Hervey--making thathair-raising descent. Yet . . . If he were controlled, mind and soul, by Caleb Barter the Mind Master. . . ?

"Tyler, " said Bentley tersely. "The instant the ape reaches the streetI'm going to order your men to fire. You will shout out to them now, designating which ones shall fire. Be sure they are crack marksmen whowill drill the ape without hitting Balisle--and, by all means, havethem wait so that the ape's fall won't send Balisle crashing todeath. "

"Maybe I'd better tell them to rush him?"

"Maybe that's better, but remember they're dealing with a giantanthropoid, in strength at least, and that somebody is likely to befatally injured. In addition the ape may tear Balisle apart as soon asmen start to close in on him. Barter will have thought of that, andall he'll have to do to make his puppet perform is to will him to doit. No, they'll have to shoot--and tell them to aim at his head andheart. "

 - - -

Tyler leaned out of the window and shouted to the men across thestreet. 

"Shoot as soon as the ape reaches the sidewalk!" he cried. "Be carefulyou don't hit Balisle. "

And from Balisle himself, muffled and frightened, came a sudden cry. 

"Shoot now! I'd rather fall and have it over with!"

There was a moment of silence. Bentley almost gave the order to firewhen the ape was at the twelfth story, but he held his tongue by asupreme effort of will. 

Balisle looked down. It must have been a terrifying experience toswing above such a horrible abyss by one leg, and for a moment Balislelost his head. He screamed and started to grapple with his grimcaptor. 

"Don't, Balisle!" shouted Tyler. "You'll make him lose his balance. Hang on as you are and we'll get him when he reaches the street. "

"What good will it do?" screamed Balisle, his voice taking on a highkeening note as the ape dropped again, this time from the twelfth tothe eleventh floor. "He slipped it over a hundred men to get me thisfar. He'll find a way to beat you when he reaches the street, too. "

Bentley had a sinking feeling that Balisle spoke the truth; but evenso, he could not see how anybody, even Barter, could walk through thetrap which was being tightened around the descending anthropoid. 

It made Bentley dizzy to watch the slow methodical descent of theanthropoid. He could fancy himself in Balisle's position and it madehim sick and faint. He understood the desperation which caused Balisleto make yet another attempt to battle with the ape. 

Then the ape did a grim thing. 

He paused on the eleventh floor, and crouching on a window sill, deliberately snapped Balisle's head against the wall of the ClintonBuilding! In his time Bentley had slain rabbits exactly like that. Balisle hung now as limp as a rag and blood dripped from his mouth andnose. But Bentley knew, as his face went white at the sound of thatsharp, thudding blow that Balisle had not been killed by it. 

 - - -

Savage oaths burst from the lips of policemen who saw the action ofthe ape. 

"He acts like a human being! An ape wouldn't have thought of that!"

The words came hysterically from the lips of a woman who, frightenedthough she was, could not tear herself from the window to the right ofwhere Bentley and Tyler leaned out to stare down. 

Bentley smiled grimly. What would she think if he told her gravelythat the creature crawling down the face of the building was not quitean ape?

So far the public didn't know what the Mind Master schemed. He'dspoken of stealing brains, but that had meant nothing to the generalpublic. Just the maunderings of a madman, perhaps. 

At the third floor the anthropoid hesitated. He seemed to be gazingall around, noting the preparations which were being made to trap himat the street level. 

"An ape wouldn't do that, " muttered Bentley. "A man would. The man inthat manape is showing through--but he won't be able to force himselffree of Barter's domination. If he could he'd probably throw Balisledown now to keep him from being . . . Well, treated as Barter intends totreat him. "

The ape dropped to the second floor. Silence seemed to hang over FifthAvenue. Ugly gun muzzles protruded from every window across thestreet. Scores of rifles were aimed down from windows in the ClintonBuilding, to drill the ape through from above. 

At that instant a limousine whirled into Fifth Avenue, traveling fast, and ground to a stop under the ape. 

"What's this?" cried Bentley. 

"That's Saret Balisle's car, " said Tyler. "There's nobody in it buthis chauffeur. The fool! Does he think he can take his master awayfrom the ape singlehanded?"

"That looks like foolhardy loyalty, but I'm not so sure that it'sBalisle's chauffeur at the wheel. Tyler, send somebody down towherever it is that Balisle parks his car. "

 - - -

But before Tyler could move to obey, the anthropoid ape made hissurprise move, and did a thing which no ape would have thought ofdoing. He hurled Balisle toward the limousine. The somersaulting bodystruck the roof of the car, crashed through the fabric, and droppedinto the tonneau. 

At the same instant the limousine leaped to full speed ahead. 

A shower of bullets smashed windows and scored deeply and menacinglythe brick walls all around the giant anthropoid which for a secondstill crouched on the second-story ledge. The ape whirled and crashedthrough the window at his back. 

"Tyler, send half a dozen cars after that limousine. They simply haveto catch it. But they mustn't fire for fear of killing Balisle. Havethe car followed right to Barter's hideout. The men in this buildingwill scatter at once through the building. We must trap that ape!"

The whole police organization was in a turmoil. 

Sirens screamed as police cars flashed after the fleeing limousinewhich carried Saret Balisle away. Doors slammed and windows crashed astwo score policemen scattered through the building, armed with riotguns and pistols, seeking the ape. 

Tyler, after barking the staccato orders which set his men in motion, turned to Balisle's secretary. 

"Quickly, the number Balisle calls when he wants his automobile sentaround. "

The girl gave it, and Tyler called the number. 

"Are Mr. Balisle's car and chauffeur there?" he asked. 

He swore explosively and hung up the receiver. 

"Another killing, " he said. "Balisle's car is gone and the garagepeople have just found his chauffeur, almost ripped to pieces, inanother car left at the garage for storage. 

"That means this ape is armed with metal fingernails, just like theone that killed the insurance man in the Flatiron Building. That meanshe'll be doubly dangerous when caught. The murdered chauffeur willhave to wait for a few moments while we capture the ape. "

 - - -

Shouts and shots rang through the Clinton Building. The ape was goingwild, crashing through doors and windows as if they weren't there. Hismad bellowing sounded terrifying in the extreme, so deep and rumblingthat the air seemed to tremble with its menace. 

But in the end there came a chorus of triumphant shouts which toldthat the giant ape had been surrounded. 

Bentley and Tyler raced in the direction of the sounds. From alldirections came the sounds of footfalls as other plain-clothes menraced to be in at the death. Bentley held his automatic tightlygripped in his right hand. He knew exactly where he was going to aimif the ape were not dead when he reached him. 

The creature had been cornered in the areaway between two banks ofelevators and had climbed up the cage as high as he could go. He wasjust out of reach of human hands, even had there been any men therewith the courage to try to take him alive. A white foam dripped fromthe chattering lips of the anthropoid. His red-rimmed eyes flashedfire. Bentley noted the little metal ball on top of the creature'shead. 

Deliberately he stopped, raised his automatic, and held it steadywhile he pressed the trigger with the extreme care which asharp-shooter knows to be necessary . . . And a bullet ploughed throughthe top of the ape's head. 

The little ball vanished, and the ape released his grip suddenly. Hischattering died away to an uncertain murmur, the fire went out of hiseyes, and he fell to the floor. No bullet had yet actually struck him, for he had whirled into the window from the second-story ledgesimultaneously with the barking of the policemen's rifles and pistols. He had escaped there--but here he was not to escape. 

Bentley and Tyler both lifted their voices to shout warnings to thepolicemen, but their voices were drowned in the savage explosions of adozen weapons, in the hands of men who probably thought the creaturewas in the act of charging . . . And the ape sprawled on the floor, hislegs and arms quivering. 

 - - -

Half a dozen men rushed forward, weapons extended. 

"Keep back!" yelled Bentley, rushing in. 

He stood over the ape, staring intently at his glazing eyes. 

"Tyler, " snapped Bentley, "have everybody fall back beyond earshot. "

Tyler issued the orders. Bentley shouted, "Quickly, quickly!" knowinghe had little time. 

Then, with Tyler beside him, he knelt beside the ape. 

"I know you can't talk, but you can answer me by nodding or shakingyour head. You are Harold Hervey, aren't you?"

The eyes of the ape were hopeless. Tyler gasped, staring at Bentley asthough for a moment he thought him crazy. But in the next instant hedoubted his own sanity, for the ape, slowly and ponderously, noddedhis head. 

"I'm going to name a number of places where I think you might havebeen taken, " went on Bentley. "In each case nod or shake your head. Isit near Sixth Avenue?"

Slowly the great head moved, more slowly even than before; but itnodded. 

"Where? Below Twenty-third Street?"

Again the ponderous, agonizing nod. 

Bentley went on. 

"Below Fourteenth Street?"

Again the nod, barely perceptible this time. 

"Below Christopher Street?" asked Bentley. 

This time the head shook from side to side, ever so slightly. 

"Two blocks above Christopher?"

But this question was never destined to be answered. The giantanthropoid in whose skull-pan was the brain of Harold Hervey, entirelycontrolled by Caleb Barter, until Bentley had shot the little metalball from his head, had died. 

Bentley rose and looked down at the anthropoid for several seconds. 

"Barter will hate to lose this creature, " he said. "He probably hasjust the number of apes he needs--and Tyler, here's a hunch: he'llneed an ape to take the place of this one! Get me the best surgeon tobe found in Manhattan, and get him as fast as you can!"

"Good God!" ejaculated Tyler. "What do you want a surgeon for? Whatare you going to do?"

"Barter needs an ape to take the place of this one. I shall be thatape!"

 * * * * *

The Mind Master

By Arthur J. Burks

_Conclusion_

[Illustration: _"Now, Bentley, " said Barter, "I'll explainwhat I intend doing. "_]

CHAPTER VIII

_The Mute Plungers_

It would be difficult to comprehend the nervous strain under whichManhattan had been laboring during the past thirty-six hours. Thestory of the kidnaping of Harold Hervey had not been given to thenewspapers, for an excellent reason. If Hervey's financial enemiesknew of his kidnaping and death they would hammer away at his stocksuntil they fell to nothing and his family, accustomed to fabulouswealth, would have been reduced to beggary. 

The Mind Master himself, up to a late hour, had given no word to thenewspapers in his "manifestoes. " The Hervey family held its breathfearing that he would--for the newspapers would have played the storyfor all the sensationalism it would carry. Bentley, when this matterwas called to his attention, wondered. Barter had kept his own counselfor a purpose, but what was it? There was no way of asking him. 

The story of the mad race down Broadway in pursuit of the limousinewhich had returned the lifeless body of Hervey to his residence hadbeen a sensational one, and the tabloids had given it their besttreatment. The chauffeur who had crawled out like a monkey atop hiscareening car, to lose his life when catapulted into the entrance tothe Twenty-third Street subway station: the three policemen whoselives had been lost because the chauffeur hadn't stopped as they hadexpected him to, the kidnaping of Saret Balisle by a great ape hadn'tyet broken as a story, nor the murder of Balisle's chauffeur. 

But everybody knew something of the story of the naked man of the daybefore. Many were the speculations as to what had ripped and torn hisflesh from his body, along with his clothes. What manner of claws hadit been which had sliced him in scores of places as though with manyrazors?

Men and women walked the streets apprehensively, and many of themturned at intervals to look behind them. No telling what they would dowhen the story of Balisle's kidnaping by an anthropoid ape and aqueer mute chauffeur got abroad. To top it all the police pursuerslost the Balisle limousine and Saret Balisle had taken his place amongthe lost. 

 - - -

Bentley knew as soon as the disgruntled and rather frightened policeofficers returned to the Clinton Building with the news that Balislehad got away from them in the stolen Balisle car, that already theill-fated young man was probably under the anesthetic which CalebBarter used on his victims. 

"Tyler, do you know a surgeon who can do any surgical job short ofbrain transplantation?"

"Yeah. There's a chap has offices in the Fifth Avenue Building. He'sprobably the very best in the racket. Maybe it's because of his name. It's Tyler. "

"Some relative of yours?"

"Not much. He's just my dad--and one of the world's finest andcleverest. "

"Will he listen to reason? Can he perform delicate operations?"

"He's my dad, Bentley, and he'd do almost anything I asked him so longas it was honest . . . And he could switch the noses of a mosquito and ahumming bird so skillfully that the humming bird would go looking fora sleeping cop and the mosquito would start building a nest in atree. "

"Get him here. No--has he an operating room where all sound can beshut out? I've got a hunch I'd like somehow to try and drop a screenaround us as we work. Maybe your dad would know what to do. You see, I'm positive that Barter sees everything we do and if he sees meturning into an ape he would just chuckle and pass up the trap. "

"He's got a lead armored room where he keeps a bit of radium. "

"That's it. Talk to him. No, not on the phone. You'll have tofigure out some way to do it so that you can be sure Barter isn'tlistening. "

"I'll manage. I'll send him a note. "

"Your messenger will be killed on the way to him. "

"Then I'll go myself. "

"And Barter will watch everybody that goes into his office or comesout, and mark down each person as possibly being connected with thepolice. However, you figure it out. "

 - - -

When Tyler had gone and the dead "ape" had been stretched out in onecorner of Balisle's office, and covered with something to cloak itshideousness, Bentley telephoned Ellen Estabrook. 

"Have I been making any appointments with you this morning?" he askedher cheerily. 

"Please don't jest when things are so terrible. Have you seen thelatest papers?"

"No. What do they say?"

"There's a lot of the story I'm thinking about. You'd better read itright away. It's an extra, anyhow. The newsies ought to be calling itaround you somewhere--and where are you, anyway?"

Bentley informed her, and told her, too, that he would be with her assoon as he possibly could. Taking the usual masculine advantage hedecided to tell her now what he wouldn't have had the heart to tellher to her face, that he was planning a rather desperate stunt toreach Barter, and would consequently be away from her for anindefinite period. 

"But I'll see you first?" she said after a long hesitation. Bentleycould hear her voice tremble, though he knew she was fightingdesperately to keep him from noting the catch in her voice. 

"Yes, nothing will happen until--well, not until I've seen youagain. "

Just as Bentley hung up the receiver the extra was being cried. Sometwo hours had now elapsed since Balisle had been taken away, and nowthe newsboys were shouting the headlines. 

"Extra! Extra! All about the big Wall Street crash! Hervey fortuneentirely swept away!"

 - - -

Bentley sent an office boy out for the paper and spread it out on thedesk to digest it as quickly as possible. 

"One million shares of Hervey Incorporated, " read the black words in abox on the first page--a story in mourning, "were dumped on the marketat eleven o'clock this morning. Four men seem to have been behind thequeer coup. One of them had a power of attorney from Harold Herveyhimself, and he had the shares to sell. So many shares were dumpedthat the bottom fell out of the stock. Others holding the Herveyshares, fearful that they would get nothing at all, also began todump, and every share thus dumped was bought up quickly by three othermen about whom nobody knew anything, except that they paid with cash. The strangest thing about it all was that the three men who boughtHervey Incorporated, seemed to be dumb-mutes, for they didn't sayanything. They acted through a broker, and indicated their purchaseswith their fingers in the conventional manner and tendered cards asidentification! They were Harry Stanley, Clarence Morton, and WillardCleve--addresses unknown, history unknown. 

"Nothing, in fact, is known about any of the three or the littlewhite-haired, apple-cheeked man who sold so heavily in HerveyIncorporated. That the three mutes did not buy the shares sold by thelittle white-haired man would seem to indicate that all four of themworked together . . . But it is only a supposition as they were not seentogether and apparently did not know one another. But the three mutesconstantly ate walnuts. All four men, who among them knocked thebottom out of Wall Street, and wiped away the Hervey fortune, slippedout in the excitement inspired by their rapid buying and selling, andseemed to vanish into thin air. "

Bentley didn't know much about the stock market, but it seemed to himthat Barter had managed a theft of mighty proportions. With a power ofattorney, which he had wrung from Hervey after his capture, he hadmanaged to possess himself of Hervey's shares. In themselves they wereworth millions. Even at a fraction of their price Barter would realizeheavily on them. Selling quickly he would force the price far down. Then his puppets--and Bentley had no doubt that Stanley, Morton andCleve were his puppets--bought all other shares offered by panickyinvestors in Hervey Incorporated at a tiny fraction of their value. Far less, naturally, than Barter had made by selling his loot. 

The purchased shares Barter could hold for an increase. HerveyIncorporated was good and its price would go up again, and Barterwould sell and gain millions. 

 - - -

That is how Bentley saw it, and his lips drew into a firmer, straighter line as, half an hour later, he explained it all to Ellen. 

"It's desperate, dear, " he whispered in her ear. "Manhattan'sfinancial structure has been shaken to its foundations. But that isn'tall by any means. Barter has performed his horrible operation on twoof New York's most brilliant men. It was a Barter gesture to send'Harold Hervey' to capture Balisle, and the horror of it staggeredme. "

"Lee, " said Ellen, "understand this: that if I have no word from youwithin seventy-two, no, forty-eight hours after you get started onthis scheme you have in mind, I'm going to get through to Bartersomehow. If I put an ad in the paper and tell him where I'm to befound he'll surely make another attempt to take me in. If he'scaptured you, or uncovered the trap you're laying, then I'll at leastbe with you. If he kills you he kills me. If we can't live together wecan die together. "

Bentley kissed her fervently, trying not to think what it would meanto him now if she were in the hands of Caleb Barter. Secretly heintended having Tyler keep her so closely guarded that she couldn'tpossibly do anything as foolish as she had suggested. 

The late evening papers carried another manifesto of the Mind Masterto the effect that the remaining eighteen men named on the originallist were to be taken before noon of the next day. 

Oddly enough eighteen kidnapings were reported from various places inManhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. 

"So, " thought Bentley, "he's afraid to send out normal apes to capturehis eighteen key men. Maybe his control over them is not perfect. That's it. I suppose--he needs human brains before he can exerciseperfect control. I suppose Stanley, Morton and Cleve did thekidnapings. "

 - - -

Late that night Bentley kissed Ellen good-by, told her to keep up hercourage, and repaired to the rendezvous arranged for by Thomas Tylerand his surgeon father. In the operating room was the cold body of theanthropoid that had successfully abducted Saret Balisle. 

"Young man, " said Dr. Tyler, "just what is it you want me to do? I'mnot asking for your reasons. Tommy tells me you know what you'redoing. I must say though, I don't believe that story of braintransplantation. No doctor would believe it for a minute. "

Bentley looked at the dead ape. 

"You'll take Tommy's word for it that that ape kidnaped Saret Balisleto-day and took him down the face of a building, sixteen stories tothe ground?"

"Of course. Tommy wouldn't string his father. "

"Well, part of your surgical work to-night will make it necessary foryou to look at that creature's brain. You'll recognize a human brainin that ape's skull. After you've made that discovery, here's what Iwant you to do: I'll strip to the skin; then I want you to place theskin of that ape on me, so that from top to toes I am an ape. You'llhave to do the job so perfectly that I'll _be_ an ape--as soon as, under your watchful eye and Tom's, I have mastered all the apemannerisms the three of us can remember. Can you do it?"

Tyler senior shrugged. 

He motioned his son and Bentley to help him lift the huge ape body tothe operating table, and under the glaring light above he set to workwith instruments which gleamed like molten silver, then became asullen red. . . . 

CHAPTER IX

_The Furry Mime_

"Listen, boys, " said Dr. Tyler, after he had removed the skin of theape, and for a few brief seconds had examined the brain, to shake hishead in astonishment. "I've an idea that may help you. It would beimpossible for you, Bentley, to play the ape well enough to fool thismad Mind Master. But a hitherto unknown type of ape has just beendiscovered in Colombia. I read the story of it in a scientific journalto-day. The ape is more manlike than any other known to science. Youshall be that ape, brought in during the night by a famous returnedexplorer. There will be great interest in you now that the story ofSaret Balisle's kidnaping has broken. With the attention of New Yorkupon you, certainly your presence will interest Caleb Barter. "

Tyler senior rummaged in a pile of papers on his desk and broughtforth the story he referred to, which also carried a picture of theColombian ape. 

"It would be impossible for me to change your shape and add to yoursize sufficiently to make you a real giant anthropoid. You'd have tobe twice as deep through the chest; you'd have to have bowed legs asbig as small tree trunks; you'd have to have a sloping forehead. No, it's impossible, for I'd have to equip you by padding to an impossibledegree, and a scientist would only need to touch you to know you as animitation ape. But if you are made up as the Colombian ape--"

Bentley quickly interrupted. 

"The idea is excellent. I was dubious before about my chances ofsuccess, but as an ape of a new species I have a far better chance, and my inevitable human behavior won't be so noticeable. "

 - - -

Dr. Tyler measured Bentley as carefully as a tailor, proud of hisskill, measures a particular, wealthy customer. 

"You will almost suffocate, " he said, keeping up a running monologueas his inspired hands worked with forceps and scalpels, "but I canmake plenty of air vents in the ape skin which will allow the pores ofyour skin to breathe. If they are hidden under the hair they willscarcely be noticed, unless of course Barter sees what we are doinghere and suspects from the beginning. "

"I can stand the discomfort for as long as may prove necessary, " saidBentley grimly, conquering a feeling of terror as he already sawhimself in the role of an ape, a role previously played in which hehad suffered the torments of the damned, "and anything is preferableto the wholesale carnage which Barter is doing. In seventy-two hourshe has wrecked the morale of Manhattan. I shall try to get it back. Tyler, will you make every effort to guard the other eighteen mennamed on the Mind Master's original list?"

"Of course, " but Tyler said it dubiously. Barter had proved it almostimpossible to outwit him. In their hearts both Bentley and Tyler knewthat Barter would make good his boast to take the eighteen men he hadnamed. It seemed a grim price Manhattan must pay to be finally rid ofBarter's satanic machinations. 

When Bentley, stripped naked, quietly announced his readiness to takehis place on the operating table, Tyler senior took a deep breath, like a diver preparing to plunge into icy water, and lookedquestioningly at Bentley. 

"I'm ready, sir, " said Bentley quietly. "Let's get on with the task. "

Dr. Tyler set to work with amazing, uncanny speed. He had never beenmore skilful in closing sutures of the flesh in any of his myriad ofoperations. He was a man inspired as he labored on the task ofchanging Lee Bentley from a normal human being to a Colombian ape. 

 - - -

While the surgeon worked his son telephoned to the Colombian explorerwhose return from Latin-America had been mentioned in the day's news. He couldn't explain anything over the telephone, he said, but wouldDoctor Jackson come at once to the private offices of James Tyler, surgeon?

Doctor Jackson grumbled, but the urgency in the voice of Tylerconvinced him that the thing was important. He promised to be on handwithin an hour. It then lacked a few minutes of three o'clock in themorning. 

Next at Bentley's suggestion--and he talked quickly and eagerly tokeep his mind off the ordeal he knew he was facing--Tyler got thecurator of the Bronx Zoo out of bed and asked him to wait upon DoctorTyler immediately. 

At four o'clock Doctor Jackson and the curator entered the room whereSurgeon Tyler had performed a miracle. 

Doctor Jackson stepped back in amazement when he noted the manlike apewhich leaned with arms folded against one wall of the operating room. His eyes were big with amazement. 

He studied Bentley for several minutes, while no one spoke a word. 

It was the curator who broke the strained silence. 

"So this is your Colombian ape, " he said. "I read the news story, butI understood that the ape you had found had been killed in the attemptto capture it. "

Surgeon Tyler spoke easily. 

"That news story, " he said, "was to prevent Doctor Jackson from beingannoyed by visitors eager to see his find. As a matter of sober factDoctor Jackson captured the Colombian ape alive and is now about toturn it over to the zoo. Understand me, Doctor Jackson?"

 - - -

Still the explorer said nothing. For a moment longer he stared atBentley; then he walked over to him. 

"The hair is different, " he said as though talking to himself. "TheColombian ape's hair is of a slightly finer texture. But thatcould be explained away as I allowed only the merest bit ofinformation to the reporters to-day. I can add a supplementarystory in the next newspaper which will explain that the coarse furof the Colombian ape is the only thing about it which makes itresemble a giant anthropoid. "

Jackson had walked to Bentley without fear and ran his fingers throughthe hair as he spoke. 

"I know it's a man, and some surgeon has performed a miracle, " hesaid. "Just what is it you wish me to do?"

"You've read the stories relating to the Mind Master, Doctor?" askedBentley suddenly. How strangely his voice came from the body of anape!

"I've read some of them, " answered Jackson. "Is this a scheme wherebyyou hope to trap the Mind Master?"

"Yes. "

"Then depend upon me for any assistance I can render. As a scientist Iunderstand fully the power for evil of a mad genius of our class. ThisMind Master should be ruthlessly destroyed. "

"Thank you, " said Bentley, stepping forward. "You know, perhaps, howthe Colombian ape behaves, enough that you can coach me how to walk, how to gesture?"

"Certainly. It will take perhaps an hour to prepare you to fill yourrole creditably. "

 - - -

Jackson's face flushed with enthusiasm. He was launched on a taskwhich fired his interest. He was an authority on apes and anythingrelating to them inspired him. 

"Seat yourself on a chair, " said Jackson. "The Colombian ape sitsupright like a man. "

Bentley seated himself as Jackson had bidden him. 

"Now spread your legs apart awkwardly, with the knees straight. TheColombian ape doesn't exactly sit on a chair or a rock or a tree, heleans against it in a _half_ sitting position. "

Bentley quickly assumed the awkward strained position suggested byJackson. 

Jackson stepped up to him and placed Bentley's arms, unbent, so thathis fists hung down outside his wide-apart knees, and cupped hisfingers so that they seemed perpetually in the act of closing onsomething. 

"You can't possibly take the proper position with your toes, " went onJackson, "for it's beyond a man's ability to curve his toes as he doeshis hands. The Colombian ape's toes are prehensile. "

"Can't you say in your next news story, Doctor, " suggested Bentley, "that the Colombian ape, the nearest animal relative of man, seems tobe in an advanced stage of evolution. Can you not say that theColombian ape is by way of losing the use of his toes?"

"Many scientists know that to be untrue, " said Jackson, "but perhapswe can help you through your scheme before they begin denying detailsin the newspapers. Too bad we can't send secret suggestions to allanthropologists that they remain discreetly silent until the mantle ofhorror is lifted from Manhattan. But of course we can't, since we'dbetray ourselves. Our only hope, then, is to work at top speed. "

"I am as eager as anyone to finish a particularly horrible task, " saidBentley. 

 - - -

Under Jackson's instructions Bentley walked up and down theroom. His shaggy shadow on the several walls as he turned, marchedand countermarched at Jackson's commands, filled Bentley withself-loathing. He found himself repulsive. His body perspiredfreely impregnating the ape skin with a harsh odor that wasbiting and terrible in his nostrils. It was sickening. He tried toclose his mind to the repulsiveness of what he was doing. 

He walked with a swaying, side-to-side gait, something like a sailor'srolling walk, while his arms swung free at his sides as though theymerely hung from his body. The Colombian ape walked like that, Jacksonsaid. 

"How about the intelligence of the Colombian ape?" asked Bentley. 

"We shot the only specimen so far seen by man before we could discoverany facts bearing on his intelligence, " said Jackson. 

"Then you can safely say that he possesses intelligence far beyondthat of known apes, " said Bentley quickly, "somewhere, let us say, between that of the lowest order of mankind and civilized man. "

Jackson nodded his held dubiously. 

"It seems, " he said unsmilingly, "that I arrived in the United Statesat exactly the right time! You would have failed signally to convincethe Mind Master in the role of an African great ape. "

Bentley managed a short laugh. How horribly it came from the lips ofan ape!

"I'm not overly superstitious, " he said, "but I regard this as a goodomen. I feel we're sure to succeed in what we are planning. I thinkBarter will surely wish to experiment with me if he thinks I am inreality a great ape from Colombia. He'll welcome the chance to examineany ape which so nearly resembles man. I'm an important link in hisplan to create a race of supermen. At least that's how we must hopethat Barter will estimate the situation when my story is told into-morrow's papers. "

 - - -

An hour before dawn Doctor Jackson, weary from his arduous instructionof the equally exhausted Bentley, pronounced Lee a satisfactory"ape. "

"Now here's where you come in, " said Bentley tiredly to the curator. "I'm to be taken now to a cage in the Bronx. During the rest of to-dayyou will quietly instruct your attendants that their guard to-night atthe zoo must not be too strict. I must be in position to be stolen bythe minions of the Mind Master. "

Now the full significance of the desperate expedition upon whichBentley was embarking came home to them all. Their faces were white. Bentley shuddered under his ape robe. His mind went catapulting backinto the past to the time when he had been Manape. This was much likeit, save that all of him was now encased in the accouterments of anape and he did not suffer the mental hazards which had almost drivenhim insane when he had been Manape, with the perpetual necessity ofkeeping close watch over his own human body which had held the brainof an ape. 

He stiffened. "I'm ready, " he said. 

Immediately upon arrival the curator had been asked to have a closedcar, quickly walled with a mixture of lead and zinc--which Bentley andTyler hoped would thwart the spying of Caleb Barter--brought toTyler's door. 

Three or four zoo attendants entered with a cage when Bentleypronounced himself ready. They stared agape at Bentley and their faceswent white when he strode toward them upright, like a man. 

Bentley would have spoken to reassure them, but Tyler signaled him tokeep silent. The zoo attendants might talk and entirely spoil theirscheme. 

 - - -

Two hours later, long before the first crowds began to arrive at theBronx Zoo, Lee Bentley was driven from his small cage in the car, intoa huge cage at the zoo. From a dark corner, in which he crouched asthough overcome with fear, he gazed affrightedly out across what hecould see of Bronx Park. 

"When I used to feed the animals here, " he said to himself, "I neverexpected that the time would come when I myself would be caged--andone of them. "

The curator had ridden out with the cage. But, save for making sure ofthe fastening on the big cage, he paid no heed to Bentley. He treatedhim, of necessity, as though he were actually the Colombian ape hepretended to be. From now on until he succeeded or failed, Lee Bentleywas an ape from the jungles of Latin-America. 

Just before the crowds could reasonably be expected to begin arriving, curious to see this strange thing Doctor Jackson had brought fromColombia, an attendant arrived with a freshly painted sign. 

"Colombian Great Ape, " it read, "Presented to Bronx Zoo by DoctorClaude Jackson. "

It seemed to close entirely behind Lee Bentley the vast door whichseparated the apes from civilization. Miserably he crouched in hiscorner and awaited the coming of the curious. 

CHAPTER X

_Grim Anticipation_

A numbing fear began to grow upon Lee Bentley as the ordeal of waitingbegan. 

Naturally he could not eat the food given usually to apes and ofcourse he could not be seen calmly eating bacon and eggs with knifeand fork. And because he couldn't eat he was assailed by a dreadfulhunger, which, however, he managed to fight down partially. He smiledinwardly as he looked ahead and understood that despite the warningsnot to feed the animals, children of all ages, from four years tosixty, would surreptitiously toss peanuts and walnuts into his cage. 

He felt a little hopeful about it. They would at least allay hishunger. 

But no, he could not do that, either. Nobody had thought to ask DoctorJackson how a Colombian ape manipulated his food. Even a certainclumsiness in that respect might start questions which would cause thepublic to doubt the authenticity of Jackson's find. 

Bentley decided to sulk. The ape he was supposed to be couldreasonably be expected to resent captivity and would probably go on ahunger strike. He would do likewise and be in character if hestarved. 

He crouched in a far corner as the first comers began to arrive. Theywere fathers and mothers with their children, and the older peoplecarried, usually, newspapers under their arms. Bentley wished with allhis soul that he could see one of the papers close enough to read theheadlines. 

However, when the crowd was not too thick, Bentley waddled nearer tothe wire mesh which separated him from the curious crowd and throughlids which were half closed as though he slept, he managed to glimpsea few excerpts from the paper:

"Police department redoubling their precautions to prevent Mind Masterfrom capturing eighteen intended victims. "

"Hideout of Mind Master still undiscovered. When will the public bedelivered from the stupidity of the police?"

"Doctor Jackson returns from Colombia, bringing a living specimen ofan ape hitherto unknown to civilized man, but more like him than anyape hitherto known. Visitors may see the creature to-day in the BronxZoo. "

 - - -

That was the story which had brought out the visitors who wereforming, moment by moment, a bigger crowd before Bentley's cage. Bentley managed a glimpse of a woman's wrist-watch after what seemedan age of trying to do so without his intention becoming plain to thetoo bright children who crowded as close to the cage as attendantswould permit. It was ten o'clock. It would be at least twelve morehours before Bentley could reasonably expect any action on the part ofBarter. Barter would now be concentrating on his plans to kidnap theeighteen men he had first named. 

Bentley tried to make the time pass faster by imagining what Barterwould be doing. By now his labors must be titanic. He must haveseparate controls for each of his minions, and there were many timeswhen he must control several at one time, thus making his task akin tothat of a man trying to look two ways at once, while he rolled acigarette with one hand and shined his shoes with the other. Certainly the concentration required was enormous. 

Yet, no matter how complicated became his puzzle, Barter was itsmaster because he was its creator, and Bentley hadn't the slightestdoubt that, until someone actually penetrated Barter's stronghold, hewould not be stopped. 

Bentley knew that at the very first opportunity he would destroy CalebBarter as he would have destroyed a mad dog or stamped to death adeadly snake. The life of one man would rest lightly upon hisconscience, if that man were Caleb Barter. 

Perhaps, though, he could learn many of Barter's secrets before hedestroyed him. Properly used they might prove boons to mankind. It wasonly the use Barter was putting them to that threatened to fill theworld with horror and bloodshed. 

 - - -

"Mama, why don't he eat?"

"Hush, " said a woman, as though afraid the Colombian ape would hearand become angry; "don't annoy the creature. He looks fully capable ofcoming right out at us. "

But the child who had been admonished began to juggle a bag of peanutswhich he managed to throw into the cage. Bentley stooped forward, sniffing suspiciously at the sack, while a wave of hunger made himfeel weak and giddy for a moment. He just realized that he hadn'teaten for almost twenty-four hours. His time had been so filled withaction and excitement that there hadn't been opportunity. 

"I hope, " he said to himself, in an effort to drive away thoughts offood, "that Tyler will take every precaution to prevent Ellen fromdoing something foolish. "

Knowing that he could no longer communicate with her, could no longerbe absolutely sure that she was still out of Barter's clutches, hesuffered agonies of fear for her safety. 

"If Barter places a hand on her I'll tear his skin from his carcass, bit by bit!" he said, unconsciously clenching his fists. 

"Oh, look, mama, he's shuttin' his fists as though he wanted to fightsomebody! I'll bet he could whip Dempsey, couldn't he, mama?"

"Perhaps he could, son. Hush now, and watch him. There's a good boy!"

It brought Bentley sharply back to his surroundings and proved to himthat he must not allow his mind to go wool-gathering if he did notwish to give himself away. What if, in an access of anger, he happenedto speak his thoughts aloud? He could imagine the amazement of thecrowd. 

 - - -

The day wore on. 

At noon a strange horror seemed to travel over the Bronx Zoo, andwithin a short time every last visitor had precipitately departed. Bentley could now safely approach the wire mesh and look out andaround over a wider radius. 

Right under the wire mesh was a newspaper someone had thrown away. 

By pressing tightly against the mesh Bentley could see the headlines. 

"Mind Master successful on all counts!"

So that's what had turned the crowd to stony silence with very fear?They had all fled, wondering who would be next. Bentley had heard theshouting of the extra on the distant streets, but it had been so faraway he hadn't heard the words. One solitary newspaper had appearedamong the Bronx crowd and the story it carried under startlingscareheads had passed from brain to brain as though by magic . . . Andthe crowd had fled. 

Bentley stared down at the newspaper in horror, a horror that was inno way mitigated by his having fully expected Barter to succeed. Mutually, with no words having been spoken to express the thought, Tyler and Bentley had conceded to Barter the eighteen victims he hadnamed. 

Nothing could be done to stop him. His brains were greater than thecombined wisdom of the city of New York. 

What else was in that paper?

Bentley stared at it for an hour, and finally a vagrant breeze, forwhich he had hoped and prayed during that hour, whipped across thepark and stirred the paper. He read more headlines. 

"Lee Bentley disappears! Believed kidnaped or slain by Mind Master!"

How had that story got out? Surely Tyler would have kept that from thepress. Following on the heels of the Colombian ape story, Barter wouldalmost surely put two and two together to arrive at the proper total. 

 - - -

Bentley read on:

"Ellen Estabrook, fianc�e of Lee Bentley, disappears mysteriously fromher hotel room. Guarded by a score of police, not one has yet beenfound who knows anything of her disappearance or saw her leave. Nobodyseems to have seen anyone go to her room or leave it. Our policedepartment must have fallen on evil days indeed when twenty crackplain-clothes men cannot keep one woman under surveillance. "

Something was radically wrong, but Bentley could not piece the wholestory together, simply because he had been out of touch for so manyhours that the thread of it had slipped from his fingers. 

Suddenly Bentley noticed that a solitary man was watching himcuriously, a dawning amazement in his face. Bentley roused himself andsaw that he was standing against the mesh, fingers hooked into itabove his head, his weight on his left leg, his right foot crossedover his left, his head thoughtfully bowed. 

To the amazed man yonder the "Colombian ape" must have lookedremarkably like a condemned man clutching the bars of his cell, awaiting the coming of the executioner. 

Bentley recovered himself and sat down on the floor of the cage in theloose easy manner an ape would have used. 

He forced himself to sit thus until evening, when the last curious onevanished from the park and darkness began to fall. 

Then excitement at the approach of a hoped for denouement began torise in his heart like a rushing tide. 

Would Barter fall for the ruse? Or did he already know that theColombian ape was Lee Bentley?

In either case, Bentley thought, the Mind Master would take actionduring the first hours of darkness. Bentley was gambling desperatelyon what he knew to be characteristic of Caleb Barter. 

CHAPTER XI

_In the Dead of Night_

Bentley knew that if Ellen were in the hands of Caleb Barter the madprofessor would probably do her no harm, but use her as a club againstBentley, and through Bentley, the Manhattan police. He did not believethat the Mind Master would consider performing the brain operation onEllen. Caleb Barter's scheme seemed to consider only men, and men ofsubstance. 

No, Ellen would not be harmed, he felt, but that made him feel noeasier, knowing that she might be in the hands of Barter. 

How could he know of Naka Machi, and the refined vengeance of the MindMaster?

The last visitors had left the park and comparative quiet settled overthe zoo. Save for the sounds of animals feeding and the occasionalcursing voices of attendants there were no sounds. Not since Bentleyhad taken his place in the cage had anyone spoken to him. He hadnever felt so lonely and uncertain in his life. 

Now there was utter darkness and silence. 

And then before his cage appeared a tiny spot of light. If Barter'sminions expected to deal with a powerful ape they would come preparedto subdue him by whatever means seemed necessary. Bentley had no wishto be injured, and yet he must make some show of resistance in orderto allay any possible suspicion that he _wished_ to be stolen. 

There was a faint gnawing sound at the wire outside the cage. Micemight have made that sound, sharpening their teeth on the wire. Bentley decided to feign sleep. Had Barter come personally tosupervise his capture? That didn't seem reasonable as Barter mustrealize that all his effectiveness depended upon his ability to retaincontrol of whatever organization he might have built up--and hiscentral control must be his hideout. 

Then he would be sending some of his puppets to get Bentley. 

Would they be apes with man's brains? Impossible. Apes could nottravel from place to place without attracting attention, especially ifthey traveled unguarded and went casually to a given destination asmen would go. So, if his puppets were not men in the normal meaning, then they were "apemen. "

 - - -

The wire came softly down. Bentley hoped that no attendant might comeblundering around now to spoil everything. His heart pounded withexcitement. 

At last he was going to see Caleb Barter again at close quarters. 

"I shall destroy him, " he told himself. 

The shadowy outlines of two men came through the severed wires. Bentley still pretended to be asleep. He wondered if Barter'stelevisory equipment included any arrangements permitting him to seein the dark, and knew instantly that it did. How else could these twopuppets have come so unerringly to the proper cage in Bronx Park?

No, Bentley did not dare allow himself to be taken easily in the hopethat his actions would pass unnoticed. 

But he waited until the ropes began to fall about him, testing thestrength of his adversaries by mental measurement. By their uncertain, hesitating actions he knew that he dealt only with the _forms_ ofmen--forms which were ruled by brains which had not in themselvesintelligence enough to perform the acts they were now performing. Apebrains in the skull-pans of men. The brains in themselves were onlyimportant because they were living matter which was being used as asensory sounding board by which Caleb Barter, the Mind Master, transmitted his commands to the arms and legs and bodies of hispuppets. 

Bentley sprang into action. He growled and snarled at the two men whowere trying to take him. Only two men? Surely Barter would have sentmore than two men to take a great ape! He knows I'm not a true ape, thought Bentley. He's giving me a challenge. He knows I wish to get tohis hideout and he is making sure that I get there. 

But Bentley was only guessing. Calmness descended upon him as herealized that he was soon to face a crucial test. 

 - - -

Just now, however, he struck out at the two men who were striving tobind him. They were husky chaps, and one of them packed the wallop ofa real fighter. Neither man said a word to him, and when his own handsclawed at them--how would he dare strike out with his fists?--the menmade queer animal sounds in their throats. Bentley could wellremember how helpless, hopeless and lost he had felt when his brainhad been in the skull-pan of Manape. 

The brain of an ape could not be a terribly intelligent instrument inthe first place. What thoughts, if apes had thoughts at all, coursedthrough an ape brain which found itself inside a human skull?

The answer to that was simple: only such thoughts as Barter originatedand transmitted through the mental sounding board. After all, thematerial of the human brain and the ape brain were perhaps very muchalike, and Barter was working on a sound scientific principle inmaking a sounding board of an ape's brain. 

Bentley shuddered through the fur that covered him. Knowing the sortof creatures with which he had to deal--men in all things save theirintelligence--made him tremble with nausea. Such grim, ghastlyhybrids. But he stopped shuddering when he recalled that he stilldealt with men after all--at least with one man, Caleb Barter. When hethought of these two "apemen" as separate entities of a human being ofmany personalities--Caleb Barter--he was able to plan some method bywhich to deal with them. 

So now he fought, seemingly with the utmost savagery, to keep themfrom binding him with ropes. Even as he fought, however, he fancied hecould hear the grim chuckling of Caleb Barter. What did Barter know?

Bentley knew that eventually he would discover the truth. 

 - - -

In struggling against the two "men" his hands encountered the knobs ontheir heads--the tiny metal balls protruding from the top of the skullat the point where, in babies, the head remains soft during babyhood. He could have broken connection with Barter for these two by jerkingthe controls free. And then what? He would never get through to Barterand would release in Bronx Park two men whose strange type ofmadness, when they were discovered, would startle the countryside. Twomen with the savagery of anthropoid apes! He shuddered as he carefullyrefrained from disturbing those balls. 

At last Bentley was quite securely bound, only his lower limbsremaining free so that he could walk, though the length of his stepswas strictly limited. His hands were entirely and securely bound, andthe significance of this fact did not escape him. Barter knew that hedid not need his hands to aid him in walking! Of course the newspaperstory released by Doctor Jackson had reported the Colombian ape asbeing able to walk exactly like a man. 

But that didn't prevent Bentley from nursing the suspicion that Barteralready _knew_. Even if he did, it could in no wise alter thedetermination of Bentley. His task was to penetrate the hideout ofBarter--and he was on the way there now. 

 - - -

With little attempt at concealment the two men led Bentley to a longblack closed car outside the park. They met no one. The two menavoided discovery with uncanny ease. Bentley thrilled with excitement. He felt he knew approximately where Barter's hideout was. 

It was useless, to speculate, however; time would show it to him. 

Bentley was tossed into the tonneau of the car. His two captors, moving with the precision of men in a trance, took their places in thefront seat. Bentley struggled for a time against his bonds. He wantedto sit up and peer out, to see what way they took so that he wouldknow where he was when he reached Barter's hideout. But of course, even if he shook his bonds free he did not dare rise to a sittingposition, for to control the intricate handling of his two puppets, Barter's attention must have been pretty carefully fixed upon thiscar. 

So Bentley contented himself with waiting. 

Lying on his back on the floor of the car he tried to see what hecould through the car windows. He knew when he was carried under anelevated system by the crashing roar of trains over his head. He knewhe was being carried downtown, but he wasn't sure that this was theSixth Avenue elevated. 

How could he find out the road they were traveling without sitting upand looking at street signs?

 - - -

He felt he didn't dare do that. He'd be as careful as possible on theoff-chance that Barter really believed him a Colombian ape, when thebenefit of surprise would be with Bentley. 

The car progressed downtown at a normal speed. It stopped for redlights and obeyed all other traffic regulations. Barter was taking nochance on losing more of his puppets. 

Bentley suddenly gasped with horror as he remembered something. Eighteen important men of Manhattan had been kidnaped that day byCaleb Barter. Would Bentley be forced to watch the mad professorperform the eighteen inevitable operations?

Perspiration poured from every pore as he visualized the horror hemight be compelled to witness when he was finally taken into Barter'shideout. The ape skin clung to him as though it were actually his own. There were even moments when Bentley feared that it might grow tohim. 

But he put the feeling of horror from him with the thought that ifEllen were in Barter's power, Barter might even be forcing her toanesthetize for him while he performed his grisly slaughter. 

Bentley's courage returned and now it seemed to him that the journeywould never end, so eager was he to discover whether or not Ellen hadeluded the hands of the Mind Master. 

CHAPTER XII

_A Woman of Courage_

Caleb Barter smiled warmly at the woman who had come to him almost asthough in answer to a prayer. He admired her flashing eyes and thelifted chin which spoke of pride and courage. 

"I had thought of improving the feminine strain of the race also, " hetold her, but almost as though he spoke to himself, "but I realizedthat it mattered little the stature of the mothers of the race as longas the fathers were made virile. But if all women were like yourself, Miss Estabrook, the race would not require the improvement it is nowmy duty to bestow upon it. "

Ellen stared directly into the eyes of the white-haired old man. Asshe looked at him she found it hard to believe that one so gentle fromoutward appearances had such a vast, grim power for evil. In reposehis face was kindly, though there was something out of character inthe fact that it was so apple rosy. And his lips were far too red. 

"Where, " she said quietly, fearlessly, "is Lee Bentley?"

Barter raised his eyebrows as he stared back at her. So far she hadnot looked around at this great room into which he had had herconducted; she had seemed interested only in her mission, whateverthat might be. 

"You mean that delightfully rude young man?" he asked sardonically. 

"You know well enough whom I mean! Where is he?"

"Then he is not to be found in his usual haunts?"

"He has disappeared. "

"And you come out seeking Professor Barter because Bentley hisdisappeared! It is almost as though you had previously arranged withhim to come seeking me if, at a certain time he failed to return fromsome mysterious rendezvous. . . . "

 - - -

Barter's face was now a mask of uncanny shrewdness. In a few words hehad pierced through Ellen's secret of why she had deliberately placedherself in the way of Barter's minions in order to be taken, and nowhe had used the words of her own questions to form a weapon againsther. Ellen gasped in terror. 

Had she made a hideous mistake? Had she, by failing to wait for wordfrom Bentley, ruined all his well laid plans?

Barter now stood before her, his eyes almost shooting fire. 

"Tell me quickly, " he began, and for a second she thought he would puthis hands on her, "what sort of plan is he making to betray me intothe hands of my enemies, who are the enemies of super-civilizationbecause they are my enemies?"

"I know of nothing, " said Ellen stoutly, hoping that she had not, after all, betrayed the fact that she knew Bentley had started to workout an unusual scheme. The details she didn't know, for Lee hadn'ttold her. "But I do know, what all the world knows, that he washelping the police against you. Naturally, then, when he vanished Ithought of you. Besides you had already warned him that you wouldremove him in your own good time. He caused you the loss of two ofyour puppets and I thought, naturally enough, that you would try toremove him to some place where he could not operate so successfullyagainst you. "

"That's all?" queried Barter eagerly. "You don't know of some specialscheme that has been worked out to trap me?"

"I know of no scheme. Now that I am in your hands, Professor, what doyou intend doing with me?"

Barter stared at Ellen for several minutes. 

"I haven't captured Bentley . . . Yet, " he said at last, slowly, "but Ishall--no doubt about that. It is inevitable--as inevitable as CalebBarter. I can use him in my labors for humanity. How I treat him afterhe is taken depends somewhat on you. You may therefore consideryourself a sort of hostage. I have much medical work to perform. Haveyou ever been a nurse?"

 - - -

Ellen recoiled in horror. "You don't mean you would ask me to help youperform those horrible--" She stopped abruptly before her suddentendency to hysterics should make her say things to anger Barter toofar. 

"So, " he said quickly, "you think my brain operations are horrible, eh? Well, you shall see that they are not horrible; that ProfessorBarter, the greatest scientist the world has ever produced, is reallypreparing to prevent civilization from utterly decaying. "

"And afterward?" asked Ellen. "I know that eventually you will betaken and that the people will destroy you, tear you limb from limb. But you will never believe that. Tell me, then, what you plan to dowith me. "

For a brief time he considered the matter. 

"I am an old man, " he said at last, musingly, "but I am young inspirit and in body. It would be amusing to have a mate--but no, no, that would not do! The destiny of Caleb Barter is not linked with awoman. You would simply hold me back. However, I have often beeninterested in miscegenation and its effect on the race if properlyguided. My assistant Naka Machi, is one of the finest specimens of hisrace. Perhaps I shall arrange for you to mate with him, underconditions which I shall dictate, in order to experiment with youroffspring. . . . "

Ellen swayed, her face going dead white. She hadn't yet met NakaMachi, but his name told her enough. The thought of a Japanese, however, was far less repellent than the cold, calm way in whichBarter spoke of using the offspring of such a union. 

"I'll kill myself at the first opportunity, " said Ellen suddenly. 

 - - -

Barter put his forefinger under Ellen's chin in a paternal fashion. His eyes looked deeply into hers. She thought of what his fingers haddone in the past . . . Those long slender fingers. His touch made hershudder. 

But his eyes held her. They seemed like deep wells. Then they werelike black coals advancing upon her out of the darkness, growingbigger and bigger as they came, with little flames in their centersalso growing as they approached. 

"You will submit your will to mine, " said the soft voice of CalebBarter. 

His right hand was making swift snakelike movements back of Ellen'shead. His voice droned on, but already it seemed to Ellen to come froma vast distance. 

"Your mind will be concerned only with the welfare of Caleb Barter, "droned on the voice. "You will think only of Caleb Barter; yourgreatest desire will be to serve him. There is nothing you would notdo for him. Let your objective mind sleep until Caleb Barter wakensit; give your subjective mind into my keeping. "

Beads of perspiration broke out on the cheeks of Caleb Barter as heworked quickly to place the girl entirely under his skilled hypnosis. At last she stood like a statue, her wide-open eyes staring intospace, straight ahead. She did not move. She scarcely seemed tobreathe. 

"You will know that my home is your home, Ellen, " said Barter softly. "You will feel that you are welcome here and that you love this place. It needs the attention of a loving woman; you will give it thatattention. But you will be subservient always to my will. You willenter upon your duties. "

Ellen Estabrook sighed softly as though with relief. Her hands went upto remove her hat, which she placed on a chair in a corner of thehellish laboratory. She removed her light coat and arranged her hairwith skilled fingers. But even as she moved around the room of thelong table her eyes stared vacantly into space. She was as much apuppet of Caleb Barter as were Stanley, Morton and Cleve. But, mercifully, she did not know it. 

 - - -

Barter studied her for several moments; his eyes squinted. He wasmaking sure that she was not duping him with pretense. Satisfied atlast be turned his eyes away from her. He stepped to the porcelainslab set in the bronze wall of his laboratory and looked at thepush-buttons marked "C-3" and "E-5". The red lights were on, indicating that the two puppets controlled by these two keys werereturning toward their master. The lights had been green when Barterhad begun his conversation with Ellen Estabrook, indicating that thetwo puppets were still going away. With a tremendous effort of will hehad given them sufficient mental stimulus to keep them travelingwithout his direct will for the few minutes he would require forEllen. 

Now, however, he quickly donned the metal cap and the little ball, andinserted into the orifice in his cap the swinging key which connectedby chain with the key which fitted into the slot under the buttonmarked "C-3". 

He had returned to his puppets just in time. "C-3" was Cleve, who wasdriving the car sent out to bring in the Colombian ape. As Barter gotin touch with the car it narrowly averted a crash with a police car. . . And the perspiration broke forth afresh on the body of Barter ashe resumed control of his puppets. 

The second creature, in the front seat of the car, was Morton, and itdidn't matter particularly about him as he was not driving. But Mortonwas now becoming all ape. Barter did not wish to use any more of hismental energy than was necessary. He contented himself by sending hiswill into Cleve, who began at once to drive like a master. WheneverMorton, beside him, showed an inclination to jump out of the car orotherwise interfere with Cleve in his work, Barter had but to expressthe thought, and Cleve either pulled him back to his place beside him, or gave him a walnut from his pocket. 

 - - -

Barter could as easily have had them change places, since he assumedcontrol of either at will, or could have controlled a scoresimultaneously. But that would have required additional thoughtstimulus, and he wished to conserve his mental energies for the workwhich yet faced him. 

Once he switched his attention from the heliotube which controlledCleve--and through which, concurrently, he saw everything thattranspired near Cleve, because his televisory apparatus and his radiocontrol were co-workers on almost identical vibratory waves--to thearea of Manhattan immediately surrounding his own neighborhood. 

"Hmm, " he said to himself, "the police are getting too close. As soonas I have completed my labors to-night I shall destroy some of them asa warning to others to keep their distance. "

Morton and Cleve drew up to the curb while Barter watched carefully onall sides, through the heliotube, to make sure that their arrival wasunmarked by the police. 

They climbed out quickly and raced across the sidewalk to the greengate which gave on a gloomy old court, inside which they wereswallowed by the shadows from all eyes save those of Caleb Barter. 

Five minutes after the strange trio had entered the "place, " the greatchrome-steel door of Barter's laboratory swung open. 

"Morton and Cleve, my master, " announced Naka Machi, bowing low andsucking in his breath with a hissing sound. 

Barter's own puppets entered with the ape between them. 

Barter walked fearlessly forward. He had slipped the key from theorifice atop his head. Morton and Cleve now stood listlessly, dumbly, looking with dead eyes at their master. Barter tossed them severalwalnuts each. 

Then he turned his attention to the ape, rubbing his hands togetherwith pleasure. 

But the ape was behaving strangely. His eyes were staring past Barter. His hands sought to lift as though he would hold them out to someone;but the ropes prevented him. Barter turned to look. Ellen Estabrookstood beyond him, white of face, motionless as a statue. The ape wasstraining toward her. 

Caleb Barter chuckled with understanding. 

"Good evening, Lee, " he said gently. "I've been expecting you!"

CHAPTER XIII

_Where the Bodies Went_

Bentley had been bound carelessly. Who could expect ape brains todevise clever bonds, even when controlled by Caleb Barter? And now itseemed that Caleb Barter had known all along; he said he had beenexpecting Bentley. No, that wasn't it. Barter had seen him yearningtoward Ellen Estabrook, statuesque and wide-eyed on the other side ofthe room. If it hadn't been for the presence of Ellen he might havebeen accepted as an ape. Now it made little difference. 

But his bonds were not tightly drawn. He found himself fighting themfiercely, trying to get his hands on Caleb Barter. He could see thescrawny Adam's apple of the mad scientist, and his fingers itched topress themselves into the flesh. 

Caleb Barter stood his ground calmly. "Naka Machi, " he said softly. 

Suddenly Bentley felt a dull, paralyzing blow on his skull. He knew ithad been intended to render him utterly unconscious. But Naka Machihadn't taken into consideration that his skull was protected by thehide of an ape. He remembered, as he stumbled and fell forward, thatthe Japanese were wizards with their hands. That's why Naka Machicould knock him down, render him helpless, yet leave his brain asclearly active as before. Perhaps clearer, even, for now his brain didnot act on his legs and arms, which were helpless. 

Bentley felt as he imagined a patient on the operating table mightfeel when not given sufficient anesthetic, yet given enough to makehim incapable of speech or movement. Such a patient would hear thesoft discussions of the surgeons, see them prepare their instruments, yet be unable to tell them that he wasn't entirely unconscious. 

 - - -

Barter stooped over Bentley and rolled back the lids of his eyes. 

"Good. Naka Machi!" he said. "He won't be in any position to do us aninjury. Remain powerless, Lee Bentley, but retain your knowledge. "

Barter, then, was familiar with the strange hypnosis which the blow ofNaka Machi's hand had put upon Bentley. Barter had taken advantage ofit to add to it a sort of mental paralysis, so that the conditionwould continue. 

"You are in my hands, Lee, " he said in paternal fashion, "but you cando me no harm. Since you were associated with me in the first of mygreat experiments you know much about me. I have never ceased to hopethat you would one day understand and appreciate what I am doing forhumanity and be brought to aid me. Perhaps if I force you to watch myefforts you will understand them and sympathize with my ambitions. "

Bentley could say nothing. Barter's eyes seemed to leap at him growinglarge and glaring, just as the eyes of caricatured animals leap at thecamera in trick motion pictures. Physically he was powerless. Only hisbrain was active. 

"Remove this covering from him, Naka Machi, " went on Barter. "Removehis bonds. You are about his size. Garb him in some of your ownclothing. "

Bentley had the odd feeling that he didn't need to turn his head tosee things around him. His head felt huge, almost to bursting, and hiseyes felt huge, too, so that he could see in all directions, as thoughhis eyeballs had been fish-eye lenses. 

 - - -

He studied Naka Machi. A nasty opponent in a fight, he decided. Hehadn't figured on any opponent other than Barter. This man was almostas great. The skill of his fingers as he quickly removed the ape skinfrom Bentley, using scalpels taken from Barter's table, amazed Bentleywith their miraculous dexterity. He cleaned Bentley's body with somesolution in a sponge and clothed him in some of his own clothing whichfitted fairly well. 

Then he lifted Bentley from the floor and stood him against the wall. 

Bentley was unbound. He tried to lift his hands but they refused tomove. His feet, too, seemed anchored to the floor. His knees werestiff and straight. He might as well have been a wooden image for allhis ability to get about. 

Now Barter spoke. 

"Come here, Lee, " he said. 

Bentley was amazed at the kindliness in Barter's attitude. He dealtwith Bentley as though he had been his son. He felt that Bartergenuinely liked him. It was rather amazing. Barter liked him but wouldremove him without compunction if he thought it necessary. 

Bentley found he could move his feet, or rather they seemed to move oftheir own volition, as he crossed the room to stand before Barter. 

"I'm rather proud of what I have been able to do, Lee, " went onBarter, "and I am now entirely safe from the police. I've issuedanother manifesto telling the public that for each attempt madeagainst me, one of the eighteen men captured by me to-day will die. Manhattan is the abode of terror. Here, see for yourself. "

He extended to Bentley what seemed to be a pair of binoculars, butwith the ear-hooks common to ordinary spectacles. He set them overBentley's eyes and set them in place. 

"Now you can survey New York as you wish. "

 - - -

Bentley looked for a moment or two. Sixth Avenue was a desertedhighway, on which red and green lights blinked off and on in the usualroutine, signaling to drivers who were non-existent. There were vistasof deserted streets and avenues. There were some few livingthings--policemen in uniform, standing in pairs and larger groups, allconcentrated in an area covering no more than twenty acres, whichtwenty acres included the hideout of Caleb Barter. Bentley knew thatthe hideout was under Millegan Place. He had recognized it coming in. A secret panel in a brick wall had opened to show a door where nonewas apparent. Then a circular stairway leading down into darkness tothe room which Barter had gouged out of the earth and turned into alaboratory of hell. 

"See the police?" asked Barter. "They know now where I am, but theyare helpless because of my hostages. I shall now begin the operationsI believe to be necessary. Then I shall issue another manifesto, telling the public that I am safeguarded by great apes whose abilitywill prove the correctness of my theory about the possibility ofcreating a race of supermen. My manifesto shall say that my apes mustnot be slain. It shall say that for every ape slain by the police oneof my eighteen hostages will die. "

Bentley would have gasped with horror, but he could not. Now he sawThomas Tyler, his face a white mask of despair, in the midst of hishelpless men. 

"I'll give you a hand, somehow, Tommy, " Bentley whispered deep downinside him. 

"Now you shall see what I do, Lee, " said Caleb Barter. "Naka Machi, bring the ape skin you took from my friend. Bentley, you will followus. "

 - - -

Barter removed the strange glasses from Bentley's eyes, blotting outthe deserted streets and avenues of Manhattan. Naka Machi followedbehind Bentley, carrying the ape skin in which Bentley had penetratedthe stronghold of Caleb Barter. 

The chrome-steel door swung silently back and the three enteredanother room filled with blaring light. Without being able to lookback Bentley knew that Ellen, white of face and staring, followed attheir heels. 

There was a long white operating table in this room, and a smallerchrome-steel door set some four feet above the floor in one wall. 

"Naka Machi, the incineration tube, " said Barter brusquely. 

Naka Machi stepped to the operating table and dug into one of thedrawers. He brought out a white tube, closed at one end, about aninch in diameter, eight inches in length, and snowy white. 

"Concentrated fire, Bentley, " said Barter. "Watch!"

Barter had Naka Machi cast the ape skin through the small steel door, beyond which Bentley could see a boxlike space large enough toaccommodate two or three grown men, lying side by side at full length. It seemed to be indirectly lighted. The ape skin dropped on the floorof this compartment. Barter took the "incineration tube" and directedit on the skin. Bentley heard the clicking of a button. 

The ape skin charred quickly, folded up, drew into itself, disappeared--and a fine gray ash settled on the floor of thecompartment, like rain from the roof of the ghastly little space. 

"Now you understand that I have solved the problem of disposing of thecumbersome useless bodies of my hostages, Lee, " said Baxter, rubbinghis hands together as though he washed them. 

Bentley's heart leaped as Naka Machi placed the incineration tube onthe operating table. It was close enough that Bentley could havereached it, had he not been utterly powerless to move. 

"Naka Machi, " said Barter. "Bring me ape D-4 and Frank Keller, thediplomat. Ellen, clear the operating table. Quickly, now! Bentley, stand against the wall and do not move--but miss nothing I do. "

CHAPTER XIV

_The Straining Prison_

Then began a grim series of activities which combined to form anightmare Bentley was never to forget, even as he prayed within himthat no slightest memory of it would remain in the brain of EllenEstabrook. 

Naka Machi went back to the room which Bentley had first entered andreturned almost at once with a tall thin man, immaculately garbed ingray, wearing a spade beard. His eyes were flashing fires of anger andof pride. 

He stared at Barter. 

"What is all this quackery?" he demanded. "Who is responsible for thisunspeakable rigmarole?"

"Your words are harsh, Mr. Keller, " said Barter suavely, "and youshall learn in good time what I intend. Had you followed mymanifestoes in the news columns you would have known what I intend. Ishall create a race of super--"

"You will at once release myself and the others with me, " interruptedKeller. 

But at that moment Naka Machi returned, leading a great ape whichseemed as docile as though it had been drugged. Naka Machi raised hisright hand quickly, so quickly Bentley could scarce follow themovement, and with the edge of his palm struck the tall gray man inback of the head. Keller's knees buckled. As he started to fall NakaMachi stepped close to him, gathered him in his arms and bore him tothe table. 

At Barter's swift instructions Ellen Estabrook, all unknowing, placeda cone indicated by Barter over the mouth and nose of Keller. NakaMachi struck the ape as he had struck the man, but he waited until hehad persuaded the brute to take his place on the table near Keller'shead. 

 - - -

The ape sprawled. Naka Machi quickly twisted both Keller and the apearound so that their heads were toward each other, their feet pointingin opposite directions. 

"Is that close enough my master?" came the soft voice of Naka Machi. 

"Quite, " said Barter, whose face was now a mask of concentration. "Cleve and Stanley and Morton?"

"They have been locked in their cages, my master, " said Naka Machi. "Are you sure this man who came in the guise of an ape is safe?"

"I shall make sure. But do you remain close where you can render himharmless in case I have misjudged him. "

Naka Machi turned baleful eyes on Bentley. The latter could see thehatred in them and for a moment was at a loss to understand it. 

"I shall destroy him before he can put his hands upon you, my master, "said Naka Machi. 

"I do not wish him destroyed, Naka Machi, " replied Barter. "That isenough of the anesthetic, Miss Estabrook. Naka Machi, my instruments, quickly. "

Before he proceeded with his labors Barter stood in front of Bentleyand stared at him for a moment. Bentley felt the strength flow out ofhim under the gaze of this man--a gaze he could not avoid. Bartersmiled slightly. 

"You will eventually join me of your own free will, Lee, " he saidsoftly. 

"I would rather die a thousand deaths!" screamed Bentley, but thesound of his scream echoed and reechoed through his soul withoutcoming out so that Barter could hear it. 

 - - -

Barter's confidence in his ability to convert Bentley was assuredly amark of his twisted mind, for he must surely have realized thatBentley would be the most injured by his schemes. But he seemed toassociate him with the days of Manape, when Barter had proved tohimself, to Bentley and Ellen Estabrook, that the operation he nowplanned in wholesale proportions was possible. Bentley couldunderstand why Barter regarded him as a friend and colleague, and hisanimosity temporary--because as a subject of his first greatexperiment Bentley was a symbol of Barter's success. 

Strange how easy it was to find logic in the reasoning of madmen, andto understand that logic!

Barter sprang back to his task. 

"Naka Machi, " he said, "take heed that you serve me well. Do you likethis woman?"

"Yes, my master. "

"If you continue in your loyalty to me, I shall give her to you. "

Bentley's mind recoiled with horror. The shock of this cold statementwas like another blow on the head. He wanted to leap forward and setstrangling fingers about the neck of Naka Machi. Ordinarily Naka Machicould handle him with ease, but now that Bentley had heard the plan ofBarter, he could have handled the Japanese with superhuman strength. But he could not move. He strained against the bodily lethargy whichheld him prisoner. If only he could move forward and grasp theincineration tube, he would turn it on Naka Machi and Barter. . . . 

But he could not move, could not fight off the lethargy which was likeinvincible prison walls around him. 

He could move the tips of his fingers, he discovered . . . But no morethan that. The shock of Barter's calm statement had cast off that muchof his semi-hypnotic lethargy. A minute before he hadn't been ableeven to move his fingers. 

 - - -

Give him time, he told himself, while inwardly he bled as he struggleddesperately to throw off the grim hypnosis, and he would yet manage tosave the lives of at least some of the eighteen, see that Ellen wonfree, and destroy this hell-hole under Millegan Place. 

Now incredibly slender instruments were busy near the heads of the twoon the operating table--the ape and Keller, the doomed man. As theknives and scalpels leaped to their work with startling dexterity andamazing speed, Bentley strained again against his horrid invisibleprison. If only he could save this man Keller from this horror . . . Butit was useless. 

The fingers of Barter worked swiftly over the skull of the ape, first. Naka Machi stood on one side of the long table, Ellen on the other, near Barter. Bentley studied her face as the skull of the ape fellopen under the hands of Barter, and he knew she was unaware of whatshe was doing. Bentley had expected a crimson horror, but nothing ofthe kind developed. Could Barter read his thoughts?

"I am an adept at bloodless surgery, Bentley, " he said, while hisfingers never ceased their swift manipulations. 

Now Naka Machi held the skull-pan of the ape, from which he hadremoved the reddish substance which was the ape's brain. This NakaMachi had tossed into the aperture where the ape skin had beendestroyed. 

The empty skull-pan of the ape awaited the brain of Keller. 

Bentley could feel the sweat burst forth on him in every pore as hetried to throw off his awful inertia, to go to the aid of Keller. IfBarter should see the perspiration on his cheeks. . . . 

Bentley thought of Samson in the midst of his enemies, blind andbeaten, of how he had prayed to be given strength to pull down thepillars of the temple. . . . 

"Oh God, " said Bentley to himself, "only this once give me strength tothrow off these chains. Grant that I do something to save the man fromthis horror. "

 - - -

But he could still move only the tips of his fingers when Barter hadfinally closed the sutures in the skull-pan of the ape, renewing againthe ape's skull, with the brain of Keller inside. Keller was finished. He had not moved on the table. Even his chest stood still, stark andlifeless. Barter had not troubled to restore Keller's skull-pan. Whatwas the need?

Naka Machi gathered up the carcass of Keller and bore it swiftly tothe boxlike hole in the wall of the ghastly room. . . . 

He thrust it in. He stepped back and caught up the incineration tubeof concentrated fire . . . And Bentley saw the body of the murdered manshrivel up so quickly it seemed as though it had dissolved before hiseyes. Down from the ceiling of the hell-hole dropped the fine grayash, all that remained--save the imprisoned brain--of Frank Keller, the diplomat. 

Now Bentley was cognizant of something else. With Barter's concentratedwork on Keller, something of the power went out of him. Ever so slightlyBentley could feel that Barter was lacking in strength. Some of hiswill, some of the essential essence of his brain, of his soul, hadbeen expended in the operation--and by so much was Bentley enabled tomove. For now he could move two full fingers on each hand. But howcarefully he kept watch to see that neither Naka Machi nor Barternoticed that he was bursting from his invisible prison. 

If he could get that incineration tube. He'd do the necessary thingsfirst . . . Then direct the ray of it against the softer portions of thehideout of Barter. The flame would eat through. Somewhere it wouldfinally reach wood; that was inflammable. 

There would be smoke, and fire . . . And in the end people would come. Tyler would be watching for a sign, anyway. Barter had said that thepolice knew approximately where he, Barter, was located. 

 - - -

"Now, Bentley, " said Barter, "I'll explain what I intend doing while Irest a moment before the next ordeal. The whole world is against menow because it regards my experiments as horrible, but if I prove tothe world that I am right, and that the men of my creation aresupermen, in the end the world will be on my side. I can force it toobey me, in time, but I prefer the world to serve me willingly, because it realizes that what I do for civilization should really bedone. "

Bentley said nothing, because he could not speak. 

"I'll send Keller to his office under my instructions, " said Barter. "Of course I'll issue a manifesto, first, so that the city will knowthat it is not a wild ape that has escaped. When the new Keller, withthe strong brain of Keller and the mighty body of an ape, appears athis office and proves to his people that he has been vastly improvedby my experiment. . . . "

Bentley tried to shut his mind to the horrible picture Barter's wordsdrew before his eyes. Barter broke off short, while Bentley's mindseemed to rock with the shock of Barter's last statement. He saw apicture . . . A great office filled with many desks occupied bywhite-faced men and women . . . An ornate desk where a "manape" sat. . . . It was ghastly beyond comprehension. It must never come to pass. 

Barter spoke again to Naka Machi. 

"Bring me David Fator and ape S-19. "

"Yes, my master, " replied Naka Machi. 

 - - -

Again Bentley went through the horror from beginning to end. He couldnow move his toes. If only he could fall forward, grasp thatincineration tube, turn it on Barter! With Barter unable to controlhim he would regain his senses in time, he hoped, to stave off thecertain charge of Naka Machi, whose hatred for himself he nowunderstood too well. 

He hoped, if he were able to accomplish what he planned, that horrorupon awakening would cause Ellen to faint. While she was out he coulddestroy the horror with the cleansing flame . . . And tell her shehadn't seen it, after all. 

Bentley could feel the strength pour back into him. Barter wasbecoming moment by moment more intent on his labors. He was becomingcareless with Bentley, not because he underestimated him but becausehe was intensely absorbed in his work. 

By the time two more men had gone bodily into the incinerator andmentally into a pair of apes, the first ape, carelessly dumped on thefloor, came out from under the effects of the drug. 

"Stand over there in the corner, Keller, " Barter said to the hybridcarelessly, "and remember that no matter how you may wish to escapeyou can only do so if I will. Remain quiet there and consider whetheryou will oppose me or obey me. Oppose me and your only escape isself-destruction. Obey me and possess the world!"

Bentley could imagine the horror and despair of "Keller, " for hehimself had known that horror and despair. 

Now he could swing his wrists slightly. Naka Machi turned once with asudden movement and almost caught him at it, and perspiration brokeout on Bentley's face again. Thank God, Ellen realized none of whatshe was experiencing. 

 - - -

Two other men gave their lives at Barter's hands . . . Yet Bentley hadonly regained sufficient possession of himself to fall forward on hisface if he tried to walk, but even that was something. 

Five men were gone now. Could he possibly regain muscular control intime to save the lives of some of the eighteen? As he watched the fivego into the furnace, one by one, he began to despair of saving any ofthe eighteen, but with each operation Barter lost mental strength. Ifhe lost in arithmetical progression as he had during the last five, Bentley estimated that he, Bentley, would be able to move his armsenough to grasp the incineration tube by the time Barter had finishedhis eighth transplantation. 

So, the horror growing until nausea ate at Bentley's stomach likevoracious maggots, he watched Barter destroy three more men andcreate godless monsters in their places. As each manape regainedconsciousness Barter told him what he had told Keller--and Naka Machitook them out, one by one, and placed them in their allotted cages. 

Naka Machi placed the eighth man in the furnace, returned theincineration tube to the table. 

"Now, oh God the Father!" moaned Bentley. 

He leaned forward, striving with all his will to force his hands to gotruly to their target as he fell. He had little or no control of hislegs or knees. But let him once hold that tube in his hands. . . . 

He fell soundlessly, his hands clutching for the tube. His fingerstouched it as he crashed to the floor, and it fell near him. Hisfingers fumbled for the tube and now gripped it tightly. 

From under the table, writhing and twisting, striving to break hismental bondage, Bentley saw the legs of Caleb Barter. He snapped thebutton on the tube and turned its open end toward those legs. 

"I must not look into his eyes as he falls, " thought Bentley, "or allis lost. "

 - - -

A terrible scream rang through the operating room. Barter was falling, crumpling as he fell, and as his body slid downward past the tableedge, Bentley held the end of the tube toward it. As the bodies of theeight had shriveled, so shriveled the body of Caleb Barter. 

Ellen Estabrook screamed horribly, and sprawled on the floor within afoot or two of Bentley. Nature had mercifully sent her into momentaryoblivion when the will of Barter, holding her in thrall, had snappedto show her the horror of what she did. 

Naka Machi was screaming. Bentley was Bentley again, crawling forthfrom under the table. Naka Machi met him in a rush and dissolvedbefore the deadly ray as though he had never existed. Its effect musthave been a silent explosion, for a fine gray ash came down from theceiling as the residue which falls when a soaring rocket has explodedand expended its power. The gray ash was Naka Machi, forever renderedharmless to Ellen. 

Bentley walked over and stood looking at the manapes in their cages. What could be done with them? There was no hope, no possible way bywhich they could resume their normal lives, for of their human bodiesthere remained but heaps of fine powdery ashes. 

Suddenly the manape Keller swept his great hairy arm out between thebars and snatched the tube from Bentley's hand. With a cry of mortalanguish Bentley recoiled from the cage. God! Now all was lost if themanape clicked on the deadly ray and swept it over the room. 

Before he could formulate a plan of action, the manape pressed thefatal button. With a cry Bentley threw himself across the room towhere Ellen lay unconscious, his only thought to somehow protect herfrom the tube. 

 - - -

But the manape, Keller, swung the ray upon the other apes with thehuman minds, and they dissolved into ashy nothingness with bewilderingrapidity. The keen mind of Keller was doing what he knew must be donefor the good of everyone concerned. 

Numbed with horror, Bentley saw the ray directed on Morton andStanley. They fell silently and without protest. . . . 

Keller clicked off the button and looked over at Bentley. He aloneremained of Barter's frightful experiment. He alone remained and itseemed that he was trying to tell Bentley something . . . Asking him tonow take the tube and turn it full on the body which housed his humanbrain. 

While Bentley hesitated, the manape bent down and placed the tube onthe floor of the cage, the muzzle pointing inward. With a clumsymotion of a long hairy arm he reached out and snicked on the button, then placed himself within its deadly range. Keller vanished and theray bit into the wall back of the cage; began to eat through. 

Bentley leaped to his feet and tore across the floor. He plunged histrembling hand through the bars of the cage, switched off the buttonand lifted the tube. 

There were the remaining normal apes. They could have been saved fortransportation to the zoo, but horror was on Bentley and he used thetube again, and yet again. . . . 

And there were the keys. He pulled them from their slots in theporcelain slab, in case there should be other "Stanley-Morton-Cleves"abroad of whom he knew nothing. . . . 

He turned the tube against the red lights and the green lights. 

Then he turned the tube upward and held it steadily. He watched thecharred hole grow bigger and deeper in the high ceiling. . . . 

When at last he heard the approaching clang of the fire engine bellsand the screaming triumph of police sirens, he carefully snicked offthe button of the tube and returned to lift the form of Ellen in armsthat were strong to hold her. 

(_The end. _)

 * * * * *

Transcriber's Changes:

 Page 30: Added closing double-quote (Ellen. "I haven't looked at an American paper for ever so =long. "=)

 Page 32: Was 'that' (Bentley suddenly knew =what= the man was trying to say. The half-uttered)

 Page 32: Was 'interne' (Five minutes later the ambulance =intern= hastily scribbled in his record the entry, "Dead on Arrival. ")

 Page 41: Added closing double-quote (chauffeur to go faster than twenty miles an =hour. "=)

 Page 44: Was 'scarely' (The words had =scarcely= left his mouth when a blind man, tapping)

 Page 45: Was 'multilated' (Bentley, in his mind's eye, saw the two dead, =mutilated= drivers, and the passengers with them, he saw)

 Page 45: Was 'relinquished' ("When will he give up--and what will his driver do when Barter =relinquishes= control?")

 Page 45: Changed ', ' to '. ' (effective. The fleeing car was trapped. Barter must know =that. = If he did know, it proved that he)

 Page 46: Was 'plainclothes' (reached her. She had been immediately picked up by =plain-clothes= men and had thought herself captured)

 Page 46: Was 'persuuaded' (she told Bentley, and it had taken her some little time to be =persuaded= that she was in the hands)

 Page 242: Was 'monolog' ("You will almost suffocate, " he said, keeping up a running =monologue= as his inspired hands worked with)

 Page 257: Was 'at loss' (hatred in them and for a moment was =at a loss= to understand it. )