by Otto Penzler
For a moment Kessler looked less panic stricken. A flash of the grim will that had enabled him to build up his great fortune showed in his face.
“I was instructed to pay it in a way that may trip our Doctor Satan up,” he said. “I am to write ten checks of seventy-five thousand dollars each, payable to the Lucifex Insurance Company. These checks I am to bring to this building tonight. From the north side of the building I will find a silver skull dangling from a wire leading down the building wall. I am to put the checks in the skull. It will be drawn up and the checks taken by someone in some room up in the building.”
His jaw squared. “That ought to be our chance, Keane! We can have men scattered throughout the National State Building—”
Keane shook his head. “In the first place, you’d have to have an army here. There are seventy-nine floors, Kessler. Satan’s man may be in any room on any of the seventy-nine floors on the north side of the building. Or he may be on the roof. In the second place, expecting to catch a criminal like Doctor Satan in so obvious a manner is like expecting to catch a fox in a butterfly net. He probably won’t be within miles of this building tonight. And you can depend on it that his man, who is to draw up the skull with the checks in it, won’t be in any position where he can be caught by the police or private detectives.”
Kessler’s panic returned in full force. He clawed at Keane’s arm. “What can we do, then?” he babbled. “What can we do?”
“I don’t know, yet,” admitted Keane. “But we’ve got till tonight to figure out a plan. You come to the building as instructed, with the checks to put in the skull. By then I’ll have weapons with which to fight”—his lips twisted—“the Lucifex Insurance Company.”
3
The National State Building is situated on a slanting plot in New York City. The first floor on the lower side is like a cavern—dark, with practically no light coming in the windows from the canyon of a street.
Near the center of that side was an unobtrusive small shop with “Lucian Photographic Supplies” lettered on it. The window was clean-looking, yet it was strangely opaque. Had a person looked at it observantly he would have noticed, with some bewilderment, that while nothing seemed to obstruct vision, he still could not see what was going on behind it. But there are few really observant eyes; and in any event there was nothing about the obscure place to attract attention.
At the back of the shop there was a large room completely sealed against light. On the door was the sign, “Developing Room.”
Inside the light-proof room the only illumination came from two red light bulbs, like and yet strangely unlike the lights used in developing-rooms. But the activities in the room had nothing to do with developing pictures!
In one corner were two figures that seemed to have stepped out of a nightmare. One was a monkey-like little man with a hair-covered face from which glinted bright, cruel eyes. The other was a legless giant who swung his great torso, when he moved, on arms as thick as most men’s thighs. Both were watching a third figure in the room, more bizarre than either of them.
The third figure bent over a bench. It was tall, spare, and draped from throat to ankles in a blood-red robe. Red rubber gloves were drawn over its hands. The face was covered by a red mask which concealed every feature save the eyes—which were like black, live coals peering through the eye-holes. A skullcap fitted tightly over the head; and from this, in sardonic imitation of the fiend he pretended to be, were two projections like horns.
Doctor Satan stared broodingly at the things on the bench which were engaging his attention. These, innocent enough in appearance, still had in them somehow a suggestion of something weird and grotesque.
They were little dolls, about eight inches high. The sheen of their astonishingly life-like faces suggested that they were made of wax. And they were so amazingly well sculptured that a glimpse revealed their likeness to living persons.
There were four of the little figures clad like men. And any reporter or other person acquainted with the city’s outstanding personalities would have recognized them as four of the nation’s business titans. One of them was Walter P. Kessler.
Doctor Satan’s red-gloved hand pulled a drawer open in the top of the bench. The supple fingers reached into the drawer, took from it two objects, and placed them on the bench.
And now there were six dolls on the bench, the last two being a man and a woman.
The male doll was clad in a tiny blue serge suit. Its face was long-jawed, with gray chips for eyes, over which were heavy black brows. An image of Ascott Keane.
The female doll was a likeness of a beautiful girl with coppery brown hair and deep blue eyes. Beatrice Dale.
“Girse.” Doctor Satan’s voice was soft, almost gentle.
The monkey-like small man with the hairy face hopped forward.
“The plate,” said Doctor Satan.
Girse brought him a thick iron plate, which Doctor Satan set upon the bench.
On the plate were two small, dark patches; discolorations obviously made by the heat of something being burned there. The two little discolorations were all that was left of two little dolls that had been molded in the image of Martial Varley, and the comedian, Croy.
Doctor Satan placed the two dolls on the plate that he had taken from the drawer: the likeness of Beatrice Dale and Ascott Keane.
“Kessler went to Keane,” Doctor Satan said, the red mask over his face stirring angrily. “We shall tend to Kessler—after he has paid tonight. We shall not wait that long to care for Keane and the girl.”
Two wires trailed over the bench from a wall socket. His red-gloved fingers twisted the wires to terminals set into the iron plate. The plate began to heat up.
“Keane has proved himself an unexpectedly competent adversary,” Satan’s voice continued. “with knowledge I thought no man on earth save myself possessed. We’ll see if he can escape this fate—and avoid becoming, with his precious secretary, as Varley and Croy became.”
Small waves of heat began to shimmer up from the iron plate. It stirred the garments clothing the two little dolls. Doctor Satan’s glittering eyes burned down on the mannikins. Girse and the legless giant, Bostiff, watched as he did…
—
Fifty-nine stories above the pseudo-developing shop, Keane smiled soberly at Beatrice Dale. “I ought to fire you,” he said.
“Why on earth—” she gasped.
“Because you’re such a valuable right-hand man, and because you’re such a fine person.”
“Oh,” Beatrice murmured. “I see. More fears for my safety?”
“More fears for your safety,” nodded Keane. “Doctor Satan is out for your life as well as mine, my dear. And—”
“We’ve had this out many times before,” Beatrice interrupted. “And the answer is still: No. I refuse to be fired, Ascott. Sorry.”
There was a glint in Keane’s steel-gray eyes that had nothing to do with business. But he didn’t express his emotions. Beatrice watched his lips part with a breathless stirring in her heart. She had been waiting for some such expression for a long time.
But Keane only said: “So be it. You’re a brave person. I oughtn’t to allow you to risk your life in this private, deadly war that no one knows about but us. But I can’t seem to make you desert, so—”
“So that’s that,” said Beatrice crisply. “Have you decided how you’ll move against Doctor Satan tonight?”
Keane nodded. “I made my plans when I first located him.”
“You know where he is?” said Beatrice in amazement.
“I do.”
“How did you find it out?”
“I didn’t. I thought it out. Doctor Satan seems to have ways of knowing where I am. He must know I’ve located here in the National State Building. The obvious thing for him to do would be to conceal himself on the other side of town. So, that being the expected thing, what would a person as clever as he is, do?”
Beatrice nodded. “I see. Of course! He’d b
e—”
“Right here in this building.”
“But you told Kessler he was probably miles away!” said Beatrice.
“I did. Because I knew Kessler’s character. If he knew the man who threatened him was in the building, he’d try to do something like organizing a raid. Fancy a police raid against Doctor Satan! So I lied and said he was probably a long distance off.” Keane sighed. “I’m afraid the lie was valueless. I can foretell pretty precisely what Kessler will do. He will have an army of men scattered through the building tonight, in spite of what I said. He will attempt to trace Doctor Satan through collection of the checks—and he will die.”
Beatrice shuddered. “By burning? What a horrible way to—”
She stopped.
“What is it?” said Keane urgently, at the strained expression that suddenly molded her face.
“Nothing, I guess,” replied Beatrice slowly. “Power of suggestion, I suppose. When I said ‘burning’ I seemed to feel hot all over, myself.”
Keane sprang from his chair. “My God—why didn’t you tell me at once! I—”
He stopped too, and his eyes narrowed to steely slits in his rugged face. Perspiration was studding his own forehead now.
“It’s come!” he said. “The attack on us by Satan. But it wasn’t wholly unexpected. The suitcase in the corner—get it and open it! Quickly!”
Beatrice started toward the suitcase but stopped and pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Ascott—I’m…burning up…I—”
“Get that suitcase!”
Keane sprang to the desk and opened the wide lower drawer. He took a paper-wrapped parcel from it, ripped it open. An odd array was disclosed; two pairs of things like cloth slippers, two pairs of badly proportioned gloves, two small rounded sacks.
Beatrice was struggling with the snaps on the suitcase. Both were breathing heavily now, dragging their arms as if they weighed tons.
“Ascott—I can’t stand it—I’m burning—” panted the girl.
“You’ve got to stand it! Is the case open? Put on the smaller of the two garments there. Toss me the other.”
The garments in question were two suits of unguessable material that were designed to fit tightly over a human body—an unclothed human body.
Beatrice tossed the larger of the two to Keane, who was divesting himself of his outer garments with rapid fingers.
“Ascott—I can’t change into this—here before—”
“Damn modesty!” grated Keane. “Get into those things! You hear! Quickly!”
Both were no longer perspiring. Their faces were dry, feverish. Heat was radiating from their bodies in a stifling stream.
Beatrice stood before Keane in the tight single garment that covered body and arms and legs.
“These gloves on your hands!” snapped Keane. “The sack over your head. The shoes on your feet!”
“Oh, God!” panted Beatrice.
Then she had done as Keane commanded. From soles to hair she was covered by the curious fabric Keane had devised. And the awful burning sensation was allayed.
There were eye-slits in the sacks each wore. They stared at each other with eyes that were wide with a close view of death. Then Beatrice sighed shudderingly.
“The same thing Varley and Croy went through?” she said.
“The same,” said Keane. “Poor fellows! Doctor Satan thought he could deal us the same doom. And he almost did! If we’d been a little farther away from these fabric shields of ours—”
“How do they stop Doctor Satan’s weapon?” said Beatrice. “And how can he strike—as he does—from a distance?”
“His weapon, and this fabric I made,” said Keane, “go back a long way beyond history, to the priesthood serving the ancestors of the Cretans. They forged the weapon in wizardry, and at the same time devised the fabric to wear as protection against their enemies who must inevitably learn the secret of the weapon too. It is the father of the modern voodoo practise of making a crude image of an enemy and sticking pins into it.”
He drew a long breath.
“A small image is made in the likeness of the person to be destroyed. The image is made of substance pervious to fire. In the cases of Croy and Varley, I should say after descriptions of how they perished, of wax. The image is then burned, and the person in whose likeness it is cast burns to nothingness as the image does—if the manipulator knows the secret incantations of the Cretans, as Doctor Satan does. But I’ll give you more than an explanation; I’ll give you a demonstration! For we are going to strike back at Doctor Satan in a manner I think he will be utterly unprepared for!”
—
He went to the opened suitcase, looking like a being from another planet in the ill-fitting garments he had thrown together after analyzing Varley’s death. He took from the suitcase a thing that looked like a little doll. It was an image of a monkey-like man with a hairy face and long, simian arms.
“How hideous!” exclaimed Beatrice. “But isn’t that Doctor Satan’s assistant Girse?”
Ascott Keane nodded. “Yes. I wish it were the image of Satan himself, but that would be useless. Satan, using the ancient death, would too obviously be prepared for it just as I was.”
Beatrice stared at the image for a moment, perplexity in her eyes. “But—Ascott! Didn’t you tell me that Girse was dead? Wasn’t he—consumed instead of you when…?”
Keane nodded. “Yes, he was—and I was foolish enough for a while to believe what I saw as final. But Doctor Satan knows as much about the ancient evil arts as I do—at least as much—and I know of a way to bring a dead person back, even if the body is destroyed, so long as I had the foresight to preserve some parts like hair or nail-clippings. I forgot that any close associate of Doctor Satan must be killed twice, so long as Satan is free to work his magic. That is why I made this image of Girse as soon as I realized what Doctor Satan is doing. There’s just a chance that he hasn’t prepared any protection for Girse, on the assumption that I already considered Girse out of the picture forever.”
“It’s made of wax?” said Beatrice, understanding and awe beginning to glint in her eyes.
“Made of wax,” Keane nodded.
He looked around the office, saw no metal tray to put the little doll on, and flipped back a corner of the rug. The floor of the office was of smooth cement. He set the image on the cement. With her hand to her breast, Beatrice watched. The proceeding, seeming inconsequential in itself, had an air of deadliness about it that stopped the breath in her throat.
Keane looked around the office again, then strode to the clothes he and Beatrice had flung to the floor in their haste a moment ago.
“Sorry,” he said, taking her garments with his own and piling them on the cement. “We’ll have to send down to Fifth Avenue for more clothes to be brought here. I need these now.”
On the pile of cloth he placed the image of Girse. Then he touched a match to the fabric…
—
In the developing room, Doctor Satan fairly spat his rage as he stared at the two wax dolls on the red-hot iron plate. The dolls were not burning! Defying all the laws of physics and, as far as Satan knew, of wizardry, the waxen images were standing unharmed on the metal that should have consumed them utterly.
“Damn him!” Doctor Satan whispered, gloved hands clenching. “Damn him! He has escaped again! Though how—”
He heard breathing begin to sound stertorously beside him. His eyes suddenly widened with incredulity behind the eye-holes in his mask. He whirled.
Girse was staring at him with frenzy and horror in his eyes. The breath was tearing from his corded throat, as though each would be his last.
“Master!” he gasped imploringly. “Doctor Satan! Stop—”
The skin on his face and hands, dry and feverish-looking, suddenly began to crack. “Stop the burning!” he pleaded in a shrill scream.
But Doctor Satan could only clench his hands and curse softly, whispering to himself, “I did not foresee it, Girse. I brought
you back with the essential salts, one of the most guarded of all occult secrets, and I was sure that Ascott Keane would never suspect. But he did, damn him, and he was ready for me…”
Girse shrieked again, and fell to the floor. Then his screams stopped; he was dead, and this time there would be no return; the essential salts could be used to restore a man only once. Girse’s body moved on, jerking and twisting as a tight-rolled bit of paper twists and jerks in a consuming fire.
“Keane!” whispered Doctor Satan, staring at the floor where a discolored spot was all that remained of his follower. His eyes were frightful. “By the devil, my master, he’ll pay for that a thousand times over!”
4
At half-past twelve that night a solitary figure walked along the north side of the National State Building. The north side was the one the Lucian Photographic Supplies shop faced on, the side street. It was deserted save for the lone man.
The man slowed his pace as he saw a shining object hanging from the building wall about waist-high, a few yards ahead of him. He clenched his hands, then took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
The man was Walter P. Kessler. And the flourish of the white handkerchief in the dimness of the street was a signal.
Across the street four floors up in a warehouse, a man with a private detective’s badge in his pocket and a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He watched Kessler, saw the shining object he was approaching, and nodded.
Kessler drew from his pocket an unaddressed envelope. In it were ten checks made out to the Lucifex Insurance Company. He grasped the receptable for the checks in his left hand.
The receptacle was a cleverly molded skull, of silver, about two-thirds life size. There was a hole in the top of it. Kessler thrust the envelope securely into the hole.
The skull began to rise up the building wall, toward some unguessable spot in the tremendous cliff formed by seventy-nine stories of cut stone. Across the street the man with the binoculars managed at last to spot the thin wire from which the silver skull was suspended. He followed it up with his gaze.
It came from a window almost at the top of the building. The man grasped a phone at his elbow.
