According to this time, the plane had been flying nearly an hour behind its usual schedule.
The craft had struck in a canyon which accounted for the flames not being seen.
“There is nothing to indicate foul play in connection with the wreck… as yet,” Doc remarked.
Monk muttered, “I’d like to lay a bet with somebody that the plane was crashed to murder tough Nate Raff.”
“There is no proof.”
“Maybe not. But the wreck is too much of a coincidence.”
“It might be wise to remember the plane was almost an hour behind schedule when disaster befell it,” Doc suggested.
Monk eyed Doc questioningly. But the big Bronze Man did not amplify his statement or even give his reason for making the remark.
Monk would like to have heard an explanation. Doc had a faculty for picking out suspicious circumstances which later proved significant.
A bit later, the telephone rang.
Monk answered it… and emitted a squall of delight!
“It’s my secretary!” he shouted, then barked into the phone: “Are you safe?”
“No!” the young woman said rapidly. “I’m still a prisoner! But this phone was behind a box and they didn’t notice it. They don’t know I’m talking.”
“Where are you?”
“In a vacant tenement building on Seashore Street. I saw the number — it’s 1113. I’m on the ground floor. The whole building is empty. Can you come… Sh-h-h-h! My guard is returning, I think.”
A sharp <click> denoted the replacing of the distant receiver.
Slamming down his own instrument, Monk lumbered for the door! Doc and the others trailed him. In the elevator going down, Monk gave them the text of the conversation.
“We may be able to nab the whole gang!” Monk chortled.
His homely features were a network of grin wrinkles. He was more elated than he would have let his friends know. Especially the sharp-tongued Ham who was always riding him anyway.
Monk thought a lot of his attractive blonde secretary. She was the most efficient young woman he had met. And one of the prettiest!
There was another reason why she had a big hold on his affections. She liked Monk! This was no small item considering how homely Monk was. Monk’s features were so “pleasantly ugly” that they scared most young ladies.
In truth, Monk was more than a little in love with Lea Aster. He did not admit this though, even to himself. The mere thought of settling down to the peaceful existence of a married man made Monk shiver. Excitement and Danger had become a necessity with the homely fellow. Without them, he would be like a fish out of water.
They wedged into a taxicab for their ride with the exception of Doc Savage who rode outside on the running board where his sharp eyes kept a lookout for danger. This was a procedure Doc habitually followed when trouble threatened. Too, his mighty bronze form was a “living badge” which insured police noninterference.
Such a badge was needed in the wild rush of their cab across town.
They would not have gotten many blocks without it for they broke all speed laws!
The 1100 block on Seashore Street was walled with 5- and 6-story tenement buildings. Yet no soul resided within the confines of the block. The structures were shabby and had long since lived out their usefulness. A building corporation had bought the real estate as well as all leases and had ordered tenants out. Soon the structures would be razed to make room for a modern apartment development.
Doc and his men quitted their cab 2 blocks from the spot. Grim and anxious, Monk started forward. Doc halted him.
“Wait.”
Monk swallowed his impatience and rejoined the group. Long ago, he had learned the wisdom of obeying Doc’s slightest wish. Not that Doc was a stickler for discipline. It was simply that the reasons for what he did were always sound.
Leaving the others behind, Doc advanced alone.
He did not go near the front door of 1113 — the house where Lea Aster had said she was being held. Instead, he scaled a low fence and entered a series of filthy courts behind the buildings.
Never showing himself to the windows of 1113, Doc entered an adjacent tenement. Rickety stairs led him upward and a squeaking hatch let him out on the roof. He crossed to the roof of the structure Lea Aster had named. A skylight gave under his sharp tug.
He swung through and dropped. His landing was noiseless, padded by the spring of tremendous leg muscles.
No sound met his ears. He moved down, a bronze ghost of a figure in the murky halls and stairways.
The building could not have been emptied of its tenants more than a few days ago since telephones had not yet been removed. But already it reeked the ratty smell of age.
Paint and paper was scabby on the walls. Patches of plaster had fallen, scattering gray fragments which would crunch loudly if stepped upon.
Doc reached the 4th floor… descended to the 3rd… then the 2nd. No stirrings, no conversation reached him. Somewhere a lump of plaster fell noisily. Rats scampered. Outside, the traffic on near-by streets made muffled murmurs.
A metallic wraith, Doc glided halfway down the flight of stairs that led to the ground floor. He paused and listened. His hearing was trained, sharp.
He caught the tick of a watch. The sound was rapid, indicating by its speed a woman’s wristwatch.
Doc knew that Lea Aster always wore a small timepiece upon her wrist.
The ticking emanated from a large room opening off the foot of the staircase. Doc did not approach this chamber at once but stood in the lower hallway for several moments.
He went to the front door moving slowly, his golden eyes roving steadily.
Through a door and across a room at the side, he saw a box on the floor. There was dust on the floor of the room. And this bore marks which instantly told him the young woman prisoner had been kept there for a time.
Doc approached the box. Behind it was a telephone. He lifted the box. There was a deposit of dust under it as thick as that on the floor of the rest of the room.
A curious glitter played in the flaky-gold pools of the big Bronze Man’s eyes. For a brief instant, his strange, eerie trilling sound seemed to throb through the stuffy, dead atmosphere of the room.
The dust under the box had told Doc a story… and given him a warning!
The box had been placed there recently — no doubt by Buttons — for the purpose of making a pretense at hiding the phone. That meant the call of Monk’s pretty secretary had been arranged.
She had been tricked into making it!
Expert at fathoming criminal thought processes, Doc Savage knew the probable explanation. He had been decoyed here.
That meant there was a death trap somewhere in the abandoned tenement.
Moving slowly and watching each step as though he were barefooted on a path strewn with thorns, Doc approached the room from whence came the watch ticking. He glanced in.
Lea Aster’s wristwatch lay on the floor in plain sight.
Entering with steps so hesitant and careful they were like a funeral tread, Doc circled the watch.
He did not touch the watch for he suddenly knew that to do so would mean horrible death!
It was grisly and ingenious, this death trap Buttons Zortell had set. It was a scheme which seemed impossible of failure…
…yet hardly that since Doc had fathomed its secret.
Leaving the watch undisturbed, Doc conducted a rapid search of the tenement.
He began at the top floor. His ransacking was barren of results until he came to a ground-floor room directly opposite the one which held the telephone. This was window-less and had apparently been a kitchen.
A number of window sashes were stacked here. Doc had found such sashes in other rooms. Windows had been removed from the building and stacked, preparatory to being taken away by whatever salvage company had bought them.