The Mind Master Page 5
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 kno
w 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.