The Patriot’s first lieutenant, Gus, was bending over a bed on which an old man was strapped. Gus had a knife in his hand and it started down.
When the door burst open, Gus whirled, flung the blade at the black robed figure and then drew a gun.
The Black Bat avoided the knife easily. He moved aside just as Gus blazed away. The crook could no longer see a target because of the darkness. He gave a shriek of terror and ran toward the window, got it half open and then, on sudden inspiration, turned toward Joel King again.
His gun leveled, but the finger on the trigger never tightened. Gus died—instantly—with a bullet through the brain.
The Black Bat hurried to the bed, cut the old man loose and found that he was unable to walk.
“You’ll have to stay here,” he said, “but not for long. There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore. I’m the Black Bat.”
“Viola—my daughter. She must be here.” Joel King grasped the Black Bat’s arm. “They’ll kill her too.”
“Not if I can help it.” The Black Bat whirled and streaked for the door. He looked downstairs, saw Butch piling up men in a heap, roaring with every attack he made. The big fellow had thrown aside his gun and resorted to the use of those mighty fists. Silk was doing his part somewhere else in the house. The flat bark of his gun indicated that.
* * * *
Working fast, the Black Bat searched the other rooms on the second floor and located a ladder leading to the attic. He went up this warily, expecting a burst of lead to greet him. There was just silence, darkness and dust. His eyes penetrated the gloom, saw a figure lying in a far corner and he quickly climbed the rest of the way into the attic.
As he started toward the dim figure a man shot from around a chimney. A gun belched death. The Black Bat felt a bullet nick his arm and he flung himself to the floor. Two more slugs whizzed above his head. The killer leaped through the trap door, skidded down the ladder and was gone.
The Black Bat smiled somewhat grimly and went to the figure squirming and tossing in the corner.
Carol was near the back, door, biting her nails in anxiety when the Black Bat appeared. He was carrying someone. He whispered instructions to Carol and then plunged back into the house where the sounds of fighting were abating.
Butch had cornered two men who were yowling for mercy. Neither held a gun for that was suicide and they knew it—from having watched Butch tackle others who tried to gun him down. Butch grabbed each man by the neck, dragged them into the middle of the floor and suddenly both were being swung through the air. Their heads collided. Butch let go and they dropped flat.
Butch rubbed his hands and looked for more prey.
Silk came in, smoking gun in his fist. “There were eight or nine of them, sir. One got clear, I’m afraid. Went through the front door while I was busy with two more of them. I don’t believe any others made their escape.”
“Good,” the Black Bat said. “Now let’s get out of here before the police arrive and delay us. Carol took the car—it was very necessary—so Silk, you go to the garage behind the house and see if you can get another. Hurry!”
* * * *
Silk found an expensive sedan, drove it to the door and Butch and the Black Bat piled in. They left the driveway and were rolling south when police cars careened around corners toward the estate.
“Drive to Kurt Miller’s place,” the Black Bat ordered.
When Silk pulled up, half a block from Kurt Miller’s house, the Black Bat looked around, saw no one and disappeared in the alley beside the remains of Miller’s burned out tenement house. He reached Miller’s rear door, opened it without much trouble and very quietly moved toward the front of the house.
Kurt Miller was pacing the living room floor. He heard a sibilant hiss, froze in his tracks and let one hand rest on a gun butt.
“It is—the Patriot?” he asked.
“Who else?” the Black Bat hissed. “You expected me, didn’t you?”
Miller let go of the, gun. “Well yes—in a way. I thought you would send one of your men. I…” he started toward the door.
“Stop where you are,” the Black Bat ordered. “I can’t afford to let you see me. We have business. Let’s get it over with.”
Miller gave a loud gasp of pleasure, ran to his safe and opened it. He drew out several thick sheafs of United States Currency.
“You understand, my friend, this is just a down payment, but you will at once turn the instrument or its blue prints over to me—yes? At least enough so I am sure I am not being cheated. Cheated did I say? forgive me. I have been convinced for days. You have proven the worth of your invention.”
“Put the money on the floor,” the Black Bat said. “You’ll get what you pay for, don’t worry.”
Miller obeyed, stepped back and rubbed his hands briskly. The huge smile on his face died away suddenly for he saw the grim outlines of the Black Bat facing him. Miller made a grab for his gun, but a hand with steel fingers grasped his wrist. Miller began to whimper.
“Your days as a secret agent are over,” the Black Bat told him firmly. “I let you go once before because I thought you might put me on the trail of the Patriot. Now that isn’t necessary; but you are going to be put into a cell.”
“No—no—” Miller squealed. Then a fist hit him. Miller dropped like a log.
The Black Bat spent a few moments binding the man and locking him in a closet. Scooping up the money the spy had set aside, he rushed out of the house, reached the car and piled in.
“Where to now?” Silk queried.
“Viola King’s place, as fast as you can make it. Butch—this stuff I’m putting in your hands is good old United States Currency. Miller was going to pay it over to the Patriot, but I got there first. I don’t know how much it represents, but you and Silk are to visit the widow of that printer who was killed. She is to be pensioned off with Miller’s money—which isn’t such a bad idea at that. Then both of you are to return to the house and wait for me.”
CHAPTER XIX
The Huge Fraud
Entering swiftly, Commissioner Warner, Captain McGrath and a number of G-Men surprised Viola King at her house.
“We don’t know what it’s all about—yet,” Warner told her. “Just let us wait, please. I’m expecting some other men.”
Halton and Lockwood showed up five minutes later, just as confused as the others. They all entered the living room. Warner went to a rear window and raised it high. Then he sat down.
Someone was moving at the back of the house. Hank Standish, looking a bit sheepish, came in.
“I—suppose you think it rather odd that I didn’t show up before, but the fact is—I didn’t know just who you were. Viola asked me to remain here and protect her.”
Viola went to his side. “There is nothing to fear from these men, darling.”
“That,” a voice announced from somewhere behind them, “is the truth.”
Everyone turned quickly. The Black Bat stood just inside the open window.
“But,” he went on, “one man here is to be feared because he has proved himself extremely dangerous. The Patriot is finished, gentlemen. A spy named Miller was prepared to buy the instrument of death which the Patriot offered for sale. Miller is at the moment, tied up and locked in the closet of his home. One of you federal men will phone your office and have him picked up at once.”
“But the Acme Building.” Captain McGrath started forward and then checked himself because there was a gun in the Black Bat’s fist now. “We should be there now.”
“The Acme Building is safe,” the Black Bat said. “When you promptly searched it and prevented anyone from entering, you saved the building, Captain.”
“What do you mean?” Halton demanded.
“Merely that there will be no further explosions. Mr. Halton—you have unwittingly furthered the efforts of the Patriot. I hope that from this affair you will learn that the police are capable of handling their own job. And you—Mr. Lockwood—were for
ever present when Halton went about. Why did you never leave him out of your sight?”
Lockwood licked his lips. “I—well—I’m a business man. Halton is a Congressman and I’ve been trying to get certain things through. I—helped him financially by purchasing some of his holdings. I—just wanted to be sure he wouldn’t doublecross me. Then I became interested in this affair and—I just tagged along. Sometimes I even thought Halton was behind this and I wanted to watch him for that reason too.”
“Black Bat,” McGrath called out. “Who is the Patriot? I know he must be someone present in this room because you had us gather here to see him revealed. What’s happened to Joel King?”
“Yes,” Viola cried. “Please—is he all right.” “Perfectly well—in fact he happens to be standing in the doorway right now.”
Everyone looked in that direction. Joel King, with a pale, frightened girl at his side, took a couple of steps into the room. Suddenly Viola screamed and Hank Standish had a gun In his hand. With an oath he whirled toward the Black Bat. There was one shot—from Captain McGrath’s service pistol—and Standish let go of his gun with bloody fingers.
“Thank you, Captain,” the Black Bat said. “I noticed you were prepared for trouble, so I held my fire. Yes—Standish is the Patriot. Viola—the one we knew—is his accomplice. She took the place of the real Viola King who had been kidnaped when she was on her way home from school. Joel King rarely permitted his daughter to return home so the false Viola easily slipped into her place without arousing any attention. Joel King was, of course, also kidnaped.”
Hank Standish glared at the Black Bat. “All right,” he warned, “you’ve got me, but everyone here is going to die unless I’m permitted to leave here alone. The lethal machine is installed and ready to work. It will wipe all of us out unless you do as I say.”
The Black Bat laughed. “Your fraud has stopped working, Standish. In fact so far as I was concerned, it stopped long ago. You have no death machine to explode things at will. The photography planes were sabotaged—by having an extremely explosive chemical placed in the cameras. The explosion was set to synchronize with the flares that were dropped.
“The speed boats were also prepared to blow up with time bombs contained in the speedometers installed after the craft were searched. You set up a machine, yes, but it was as phony as you. Everyone believed I was killed in the blast at that house on the river cliff. One of your men placed bombs in there—the machine was turned on for effect because you knew someone would see it.
“Viola, the false one, posing as Joel King’s daughter built up the necessary publicity about the lethal machine. She said it did exist—told her story to anybody who would listen, I suppose.
“Along with your campaign of terror, you made the nation believe you possessed such an instrument. Even Miller fell for it, which, of course, you intended all along. You even set up a hideout in one of his apartments so he’d be sure to contact you.”
McGrath asked. “But what about the man who was blown to bits at the airfield?”
“He was a printer, kidnaped to do the Patriot’s printing work on those leaflets. He was permitted to escape and the taxi driver who drove him to the airport was one of the Patriot’s men. You’ll find him at Police Headquarters when you return. This driver had to help the printer from his car because the man was hurt. During the process, he slipped one of those small but high powered bombs into his pocket. There was no lethal machine and there never will be.
“Now, gentlemen, you have your man—an expert in propaganda. His band of crooks distributed the phonograph records, the fake newspapers, dropped leaflets from building roofs and because Standish was involved in the motion picture business it was not hard for him to arrange, through his men, for certain projectionists to be bribed so they’d slip the section of propaganda film into the regular news reels.”
Halton gave a long sigh and sat down heavily. He was mopping his brow when the Black Bat called to him.
“Halton, you were in this house when Joel King was forcibly brought here to open his safe. That was just a ruse to build up the fact that he was working willingly for the Patriot. You were assaulted by the Patriot’s men. Can you tell me why?”
“Sure,” Halton said. “When they came in, I grabbed a vase and tried to crown one of them. We had a scrap, the vase went through the window and then—well that’s all I remember.”
“Exactly,” the Black Bat said. “I arrived very shortly after. Standish had been tied up by his own men but not hurt. Viola was very tenderly cared for, too. Standish told me he knocked the vase through the window, but—the man was firmly tied. There was no table near the window so how could he pick up a vase and use it?
“I suspected him then, but not the false Viola. She’s a clever, resourceful crook. You’ll find the money paid to her in this house. It was never transferred to the hearse. One of those you stopped made the contact, but naturally falsified the transfer of those packages to it.
“Which reminds me—the Patriot has a number of crooks working for him. Some are in strategic defense positions. Ferret them out quickly. It should not be difficult if you keep his arrest a secret. I…look—the real Viola King is more ill than I thought. Help her!”
By the time Viola King was placed on a davenport, the Black Bat was gone!
* * * *
Butch, Silk and Carol were in Tony Quinn’s lab when he returned. While he changed to Tony Quinn’s more comfortable tweeds, he told them just what happened.
“And you knew there wasn’t a lethal machine.” Silk heaved a long sigh. “I wish I’d known it because I never worried so much over anything in my life. You would have had your doubts too—if you were with Carol when they started blasting the golf course all around us.”
Quinn laughed. “That gave me my first inkling of the truth. If a lethal machine capable of contacting three fast moving planes high in the sky and during a complete blackout, couldn’t pick you and Carol off as you ran across an open golf course in moonlight—well—it made me wonder.
“The golf course simply was mined. They intended to use it on someone to give the illusion that a death ray was at work. Building up that idea was the Patriot’s greatest task. It was propaganda, pure and simple.”
Carol inquired. “And you suspected Standish all along?”
“Good heavens no. I’d have stopped him long ago if I had any evidence. I got to him partly by a process of elimination. When the Patriot was very busy, Halton and Lockwood were in Washington doing their best to convince other statesmen to pay off. Halton really was sincere. Of course, if such an instrument did exist, twenty million was a small price to pay for it.
“You’ll notice Washington didn’t do much hesitating. But Standish realized the sum was terrific so, in order to at least get something, he requested a token payment and if the thing still looked safe later on, he’d demand more.
“Standish phoned the fake Viola to build up the machine’s reputation even more. They knew G-Men had tapped the wires. In fact Viola went out of her way to let them get into the house. Standish made the call from Halton’s summer home. That I knew by checking the call. I saw two men leave the house—with the help of my eyes that can see through darkness. I didn’t recognize either of them, but they were fairly big men and Joel King was slight of build. Also I knew Gus was with the Patriot and would naturally leave with him when the shooting started on the beach.
“Therefore I was sure Joel King hadn’t been at the summer house and—either the Patriot called Viola or Gus did. When she swore it was her father, I knew she lied. Standish was pretending to be her fiance, even faked a fight with her when she consented to help the Patriot. It was all an act. If Viola were involved, I knew Standish would be too. I…someone is coming to the house. Silk—get busy.”
Captain McGrath came in after the secret door to the lab was shut, walked up to where Tony Quinn sat, staring into space with sightless eyes.
McGrath said, “Mr. Quinn, I came to apologiz
e. You aren’t the Black Bat. I’m sure of it. We unmasked the Patriot, solved the whole case. That is—ah—the Black Bat did most of it. But—you remember Steve Cobb, the taxi driver who you hired? He’s pinched too.”
“Steve?” Quinn asked in a surprised voice. “Good heavens, what for?”
“He was one of the Patriot’s men assigned to watch you because Viola—who was a fake—also used you to spread propaganda about the lethal machine which also doesn’t exist. The…”
“Hold on,” Quinn squirmed around in his chair. “This is all very strange to me. Steve Cobb an agent of the Patriot. I can’t believe you.”
“Yeah—Steve is even boasting about how he fooled you. Now the way I look at it, if you were the Black Bat, you’d have know about it in one minute flat. Steve met the Black Bat all right, while you were right here at home. The Patriot moved into one of those big mansions on Riverside Drive—just took it over while the owner was away. We caught Steve there. I just thought you’d like to know I’d changed my mind. The Black Bat would never have let Steve get away with that.”
“My, my,” Quinn said. He grinned broadly as McGrath hurried out.
Captain McGrath really believed he’d done a fine piece of work in admitting to Tony Quinn that he wasn’t the Black Bat. He kept priding himself on the idea until—as he entered Police Headquarters—someone laughed raucously.
“Say, Captain—I see you’ve been around the Black Bat again. There’s about five of his stickers pasted on your shoulders.”
Captain McGrath slammed the door of his office so hard the glass rattled. Captain McGrath was not sure anymore. Then he chuckled. That was really the way he wanted it.
PAYABLE TO BEARER by Talbot Mundy
CHAPTER 1
Ikey and His Trade.
If you bring a woman into a story you spoil the story, and in all probability libel the woman; everybody knows that. But there are two women in this story, so get ready; they always have crept in, and they always will —and we have to make the best of it. In this instance, though, the first person to creep in was Ikey Hole.
Adventure Tales, Volume 6 Page 36
