Doc needed little help, though. By the time Renny and Monk pulled themselves outside, a Kar killer flung down his weapon.
"Dont croak me!" he blubbered.
"The rest of you drop your guns!" Docs powerful voice dominated the uproar.
Weapons clattered on the deck. Arms flew skyward. The bleating pleas for mercy made a bedlam like a yelping coyote pack.
"What a brave gang!" sneered waspish, quick-thinking Ham. He kicked a dropped submachine gun. "Only take these toys away from them and they are helpless!"
"Tie them up," Doc directed. "Im going to have a talk with the one who seems to have taken Squints place as straw boss."
Doc collared the man who led him into the deadfall trap in the passage the fellow who had fired the dissolving compound at Doc only a few minutes before.
A WHINE of fear escaped the man. He looked at Docs golden eyes, gleaming in the luminance of flashlights, and the whine became a screech.
"Lemme go!" he slavered. He was afraid he would be killed on the spot.
"He dont want much!" Monk chuckled fiercely.
Doc held the man, forcing their eyes to meet. "Wheres Kar?"
"I dont know anybody by that " The lie ended in a loud wail as Docs amazing hands tightened a trifle.
"Do you want to die?" Docs voice was like the knell of doom.
The man obviously didnt. And his resolution not to talk was rapidly evaporating.
"I dunno where Kar is," he whimpered. "Honest, I dont! Hes got a new hangout that nobody knows about but himself. He calls me whenever hes got orders. I dont even know who he is. I aint never seen him! Thats the truth honest, it is!"
"Ever hear of a man named Gabe Yuder?" Doc inquired.
The captive wriggled. "I dunno!"
Docs tone commanded the truth. "Have you?"
"I guess so. I seen that name on a packin box, once. I think it was a box the Smoke of Eternity was shipped in."
"Is he Kar?"
"Huh?" The captive considered the matter. "He might be."
"Where does Kar keep his supply of the Smoke of Eternity?"
A mean, foxy look came into the prisoners face. He glanced to one side, then hurriedly back. "What do I get for telling?"
"Plenty!" said Doc. "Your life."
"You gotta promise to turn me loose," whined the captive. "Its worth that to you, too. Ill tell you why! Kar has only got so much of the Smoke of Eternity. Its all in the hidin place. Kar cant make any more until he goes way off to an island somewhere an gets the stuff to make it out of. You destroy his supply and youve got him."
"No." Docs bronze mouth was grim. "You will remain my prisoner. I will not free you."
"Then I dont tell you where the Smoke of Eternity is!"
"You dont have to."
"Huh?" The mans eyes moved slightly toward the same spot at which he had looked at first mention of the Smoke of Eternity hiding place.
That eye-play had shown Doc where the horrible dissolving compound was stored!
"I know where it is!" Docs voice had a triumphant ring.
"Where?" Monk demanded eagerly. "If we destroy the supply, and Kar cant make any more, weve fixed him."
"Until he goes to Thunder Island and gets whatever unknown element or substance is the basis of the weird stuff," Doc pointed out. "Ill show you where the cache is in a short while. First, well do a couple of things. No. 1 is, tie up these prisoners."
The binding was effected in short order.
"Now we get the gold ashore," Doc directed.
This took considerably longer. Doc and Renny did the diving. They looped ropes around the sacks. The others hauled the coin to the wharf.
"Carry it to shore," Doc commanded, to their puzzlement.
The sun was well up before the task was completed.
Doc now took care that all the prisoners were clear of the Jolly Roger, and the wharf as well, by some hundreds of feet.
He dived overboard near the stern. As he had suspected, he found the shelf on which the gold coin had been hidden was not the only one fixed to the Jolly Rogerhull below the water line. On the opposite side was another.
The Smoke of Eternity cache was here. It consisted of a single large canister of the rare metal which was impervious to its effects. This had a capacity of perhaps five gallons.
Doc brought the canister to the deck. He placed it in plain view atop the deckhouse.
Going ashore, he used a pistol to perforate the canister.
The result was awesome to the extreme. The earlier phenomena when the Smoke of Eternity was released were pygmy in relation. It was like comparing a match flame to an eruption of Vesuvius. In the space of seconds, the Jolly Roger, the ramshackle wharf, and a sizable bite of the shore were wiped out.
It was impossible to tell how deep into the bowels of the earth the annihilation extended. But it must have been a respectable distance, judging from the terrific rush of water to fill the hole. Anchored ships far down the Hudson snapped their hawsers, so great was the pull of water. A Weehawken ferry gave its passengers a hair-raising ride as it went with the current.
The gray, vile smoke arose in such prodigious quantity as to make a pall over all the midtown section of New York. The play of strange electrical sparks created a sound like a hurricane going through a monster forest.
But, beyond a general scare, no harm to anybody resulted.
Chapter 14. THE RACE
ONE week had passed since the incidents on the Jolly Roger. The nearly two million dollars in gold coin, which Doc had recovered, had been restored to the bank. One noteworthy incident accompanied the return of the wealth.
The officials of the bank learned Doc was a great benefactor of mankind, that his purpose in life was the righting of wrongs. So they offered a generous reward of one hundred thousand dollars, thinking Doc would decline to accept, and that the bank would get a lot of good publicity.
Doc fooled them. He took the money. And the next day ten restaurants began supplying free meals to deserving unemployed.
The police never received a single one of Kars villains for trial and sentence to the penitentiary. Instead, Doc sent his prisoners to a certain institution for the mentally imperfect, in a mountain section of up-State New York.
All criminals have a defective mental balance, otherwise they would not be lawbreakers. A famous psychologist would treat Kars men. It might take years. But when released, they would be completely cured of their criminal tendencies.
"Which is what I call taking a lot of pains with em!" Monk had remarked.
Of Kar, there had been no sign. The man had gone into hiding, probably far from New York, Doc rather suspected.
Despite the absence of any hostile move by the master villain, Oliver Wording Bittman had remained close to Doc and his men. This was a privilege Doc could not deny the man, in view of the debt of gratitude the elder Savage had owed him.
"You can play safe," Doc said. "Although it is hardly likely Kar will tackle us again, now that his supply of the Smoke of Eternity is gone. We have him checkmated until he can replenish himself with the ghastly stuff."
"You think he will try to do that?" Bittman inquired.
"I hope so."
Bittman was puzzled.
"I have put Ham to checking on the passports issued all over the country," Doc explained. "The moment Kar leaves the United States for the South Seas, we will know it."
"You think Kar must go to Thunder Island for the unknown element or substance which is the main ingredient of the Smoke of Eternity?"
"I am sure of it. The fact that Kar stole the rock samples from Thunder Island proves it. By stealing the samples from my safe, he told me what I hoped to learn by analyzing the rocks."
Doc Savage was even now waiting for Ham to appear with an early morning report on the passports he had examined. Ham was having the pictures from all passports sent by telephoto from the west coast.