Chapter 4: The Opening Gun

“That list, Tyler,” said Bentley, after he had somewhat calmed the fears of Ellen Estabrook and had returned to the task of tracing Barter, “is headed by Harold Hervey, the multi-millionaire. I know Barter well enough to know that he’ll go down the list methodically, taking each person in turn. We’d best take immediate precautions to guard the old man’s home. For Barter, if not entirely ready to take drastic steps, must be almost ready, else he couldn’t issue his manifestoes and take a chance of some slip-up before he could get really started.”

“Why do you suppose he named Hervey on the list?” asked Tyler.

“Because Hervey is a financial genius. Barter wishes not only to carry out his plan of creating a race of supermen, but wishes at the same time to maintain personal control of them. And to control Manhattan, from which he logically hopes to extend his control to the whole United States, then to the whole world, Barter must also control the money 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, we can place his house under surveillance without the knowledge of the family for the time being. And you’d better send a couple of men to his office in the Empire State Building to see that nothing happens to him on the way home this evening. I talked to him by telephone and he pooh-poohed the whole thing. Hard-headed business executives have no imagination.”

Bentley and Tyler rode uptown in the back seat of a speeding police car driven by one of the best chauffeurs Bentley had ever ridden behind. He edged through holes in the traffic where Bentley could scarcely see any holes at all. He estimated the speed of cars which might have collided with the police vehicle and slipped through with inches to spare. In his way the man was a genius. But Bentley was yet to see the driving of a master genius...

Far out in the residential district the police car came to a stop. Other police cars arrived at intervals to disgorge men in plain clothes who immediately entered upon their guard duties as unobtrusively as possible. If Hervey’s family noticed at all they would scarcely attach any importance to the arrival of cars and the discharging of passengers who seemed to have nothing to do except dawdle on the sidewalks.

But all the way uptown a hunch had ridden Bentley. He had the feeling that no matter how fast the police car traveled, no matter how skilfully the chauffeur inched his way through the press, they would be too late to save Hervey. The feeling became an obsession. Many times he called through the speaking tube.

“Faster, driver, for God’s sake, faster!”

Now near the home of Harold Hervey, Bentley found himself unable to walk slowly, with the air of nonchalance, which the other police officers wore like a cloak.

“Something’s happened,” said Bentley, “I’m sure of it. I feel that Barter is so close to me that I could touch him if I knew in which direction to extend my fingers.”

Suddenly a speeding car, with horn bellowing, came crashing up the street 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 to make him travel like that. Old man Hervey doesn’t allow his chauffeur to go faster than twenty miles an hour.”

Tyler and Bentley were near by when the car squealed to a stop before the Hervey residence and a hatless, disheveled man leaped out almost before 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’s been kidnaped!”

The secretary was a slight man, but fear had given him strength. He almost dragged Tyler and Bentley off their feet as he strode on up the walk 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 well be now. They’ll have to know. We’ll have to sit inactively from this moment on. Tyler, there’s nothing that can be done for Hervey. Barter has scored. We couldn’t catch him now to save ourselves from perdition. But his next step will involve the Hervey menage. We’ll have to wait there for his next move.”

Tyler and Bentley entered the vast gloomy structure of the old-fashioned Hervey domicile on the heels of the frightened secretary. Mrs. Hervey, a faded woman of sixty or so, met them at the door. Her head was held high, her lips grimly drawn into a straight line.

“So,” she said evenly, “they’ve got Mr. Hervey. I begged him to take those threats seriously. He’s been either killed or kidnaped.”

“Kidnaped,” said Bentley, continuing brutally because of the courage he saw in the old woman’s face. “And that means he’ll be dead within the hour, if he isn’t dead already. We’ve got to stay here for a few hours, to await the next move of the madman calling himself the Mind Master, in the hope that we can trace him when he makes his next move.”

Mrs. Hervey lifted her head still higher.

“We’ll place no obstacles in your path, gentlemen,” she said, “if you are from the police. The family will confine itself to the upper floors of the house.”

Tyler and Bentley took possession of the living room. Outside a dozen plain-clothes men were to patrol the grounds during the hours of darkness.

Other men were at every adjacent street corner. A rat could not have got through unobserved.