Kenneth Robeson - The Land of Terror

Oliver Wording Bittman, the taxidermist, sat waiting!

AROUND and around his forefinger, the taxidermist was spinning the skinning scalpel which he wore on his watch chain. He leaped erect. A strange, worried light filled his dark, determined eyes. His rough, weather-darkened skin seemed a little pale. His large jaw had a desperate tightness.

"I am paying my visit to you rather sooner than expected," he said. He tried to smile. The smile didn’t quite jell.

Doc knew there was something behind the perturbation of this man who had saved his father’s life.

"You are in trouble?" he inquired curiously.

Bittman nodded violently.

"I certainly am!" He unbuttoned his vest and shirt with thin fingers. He lifted a bandage below.

There was a shallow scrape of a wound across the man’s ribs. It resembled the mark of a bullet.

"I was shot at," Bittman explained. "You can see how narrowly the bullet missed being my finish. This occurred only a few minutes after you left my apartment."

"Did you see who fired?"

"It was Yuder!"

"Gabe Yuder?"

"It was!" Bittman said fiercely. "He escaped in an automobile. But not before I saw his face. The man you call Kar is Gabe Yuder!"

Violent flickerings were in Doc’s flaky eyes as he spoke to Bittman.

"In some mysterious manner, Kar learned I visited you, Bittman. One of his men, piloting a seaplane, made an unsuccessful attempt on my life soon after I left your apartment."

"This means Kar has marked me for death," muttered Oliver Wording Bittman. He juggled the watch-chain scalpel nervously. "I — I wonder — if — could I — join you for my own protection? To be frank, I do not believe the police would be equal to a thing such as this."

Doc Savage hesitated not at all. Although he and his five remarkable men worked best alone, unimpeded by the presence of one of lesser ability, he could not refuse Bittman. The man had done Doc’s father a supreme favor, as evidenced by the picture and the letter Bittman possessed.

"Of course you can join us," Doc replied generously. "But perhaps I had better warn you that being with us will not be exactly safe. We seem to draw death and violence like honey draws bees. You might be more secure from danger if you went into hiding somewhere."

Bittman’s large jaw set firmly. "I am not a coward who runs to a hiding place! I wish to assist you in my feeble way. Jerome Coffern was a friend of mine! I beg you to permit me to do my bit to bring the man who murdered him to justice! That is all I ask. Will you not grant it?"

This speech moved Doc Savage. Bittman had voiced Doc’s own motives in pursuing the devilish Kar.

"You shall become one of us," Doc declared.

He knew, however, that in accepting Bittman’s presence, he was taking on added responsibilities. Bittman’s life would have to be guarded.

JOHNNY, the elongated, gaunt geologist and archaeologist, now appeared. He came in bearing a sizable box. It seemed quite heavy.

"The rock specimens from Thunder Island," he announced. "There’s a lot of them. Jerome Coffern’s made a complete collection."

Doc Savage gave the specimens a swift inspection. But he did not put them under a microscope or start analyzing them.

"No time right now to examine them intensively," he explained. "That can come later."

He locked the specimens in a safe which stood in the outer office. This safe was rather large. In height, it came above Doc’s shoulder.

Taking fresh clothing from the concealed locker, Doc put it on.

He got from the laboratory a large sheet of cardboard such as artists use to make drawings upon. A cabinet yielded pencils.

"If you’ll just lend me some assistance," he requested Oliver Wording Bittman, "I am going to make a sketch of Gabe Yuder, as you described him. I want you to watch me and point out any differences between my sketch and Yuder’s features."

Doc’s steady, sensitive bronze fingers moved with a rapidity that defied the eye. On the cardboard took form, as though by magic, the features of a man.

"A little fuller in the cheeks," said Bittman, "and a smaller jaw."

The work came to an end.

"That is a remarkable likeness!" said Bittman.

"This is for the police," Doc told him. "We will have them put out an alarm for Gabe Yuder. If we get him — we will — "

"We will have Kar!" Bittman said fiercely.

Calling a messenger, Doc dispatched the drawing to the nearest police station.

Soon after, the voices of Renny and Ham were heard in the corridor.

"Poor Monk!" Renny’s voice rambled. "We found nothing but a bootblack who saw Monk forced into a car. That means those devils took him for a ride. He’s done for!"

There was the trace of a sob in Ham’s reply.

"I’m afraid you’re right, Renny. It’s a terrible thing. Monk was one of the finest men who ever lived. I actually loved Monk!"

Monk heard this. Devilment danced in his little, starry eyes. He looked like he was going to explode with mirth.

For Ham, the waspish, quick-thinking lawyer, had never before expressed such sweet sentiments. He was wont to call Monk the "missing link" and other things even less complimentary. To hear the sharp-tongued Ham talk, one would think nothing would give him more pleasure than to stick his sword cane in Monk’s anthropoid form.

This peeve of Ham’s dated back to the Great War, to the incident which had given Ham his nickname. As a joke, Ham had taught Monk some French words which were highly insulting, telling Monk they were the proper things to flatter a Frenchman with. Monk had addressed the words to a French general, and that worthy promptly had Monk clapped in the guardhouse for several days.

But within the week after Monk’s release, Ham was hailed upon a charge of stealing hams. Somebody had planted the evidence. Ham had never been able to prove it was Monk who framed him, and it still irked him to think of it. He blamed Monk for the nickname of Ham, which he didn’t particularly care for.

HAM and Renny entered. They saw Monk.

"Haw, haw, haw!" Monk let out a tornado of laughter. "So you love me, eh?"

Ham carefully wiped from his face the first flash of joy at seeing Monk.

"I’d love to cut your hairy throat!" he snapped angrily.

Doc advised Ham and Renny what had happened to Monk. As he finished, the telephone rang. Long Tom’s voice came over the wire.

"I’ve traced the phone wire from that tenth house," he advised. "And also the one from the Jolly Roger ."

"We’ll be right up!" Doc declared.

Monk, Renny, Ham and Johnny were plunging through the door as Doc hung up. They had buckled on bulletproof vests. They had seized the small, deadly machine guns which were Doc’s invention.

Oliver Wording Bittman seemed dazed by the suddenness with which these men went into action. Swallowing his astonishment, he dived in their wake.

Doc summoned an elevator.

"Better take two taxicabs!" he advised when they were on the street. "If Kar should turn that Smoke of Eternity on one carload, it wouldn’t get us all."

"Pleasant thought!" Monk grinned.

The two cabs wheeled up Fifth Avenue. Doc rode the runningboard of the foremost machine. He habitually did this, for his very presence was a charm which magically gave him right of way through all traffic. New York City’s traffic policemen had been instructed by their chiefs to give every assistance to this remarkable man of bronze.

Too, Doc preferred to be outside where his keen eyes missed nothing. For this reason also, Doc’s personal cars were always roadsters or convertibles, the tops of which could be lowered.

The trip uptown turned out to be uneventful.