THE MASTER MYSTERY. Arthur B. Reeve
with miraculous dexterity to release himself from the strait-jacket.
Chapter VI
Locke struggled with superhuman effort to release himself from the strait-jacket in which he was held prisoner. The throat-straps pressed against the neck muscles and the strain on the straps could be heard like pistol-shots as the leather stretched under his prodigous efforts.
With every nerve keyed up and his reflexes answering his keen brain, he swayed backward and forward, rolled from side to side until his shoulder-blades were thrown completely out of joint. The pain was intense, but he summoned every ounce of strength at his command and finally succeeded in getting one of his arms free by gradually working his body toward a settee, where, with his elbow on the seat, he pushed his disjointed arm over his head.
Agony was written all over his face as at last with a final effort he extricated his arms and was in a position to loosen the straps which bound them, with his teeth.
Nor was his labor over now. The canvas jacket cut into his flesh and the buckles bruised his muscles. His body ached with weariness, yet he clung to his task. Like a thing incarnate he toiled as he realized the danger that confronted Eva.
Up-stairs, the monster was pursuing Eva. The heavy oaken doors were as straws to him, and he plunged through them as a mad elephant dashes through a canebrake. Destruction lay in his wake as he crashed through the improvised barriers which Eva had constructed to delay his onslaught. A crouching, desolate figure, she waited for what she knew to be her end. There was only one barrier left between her and this engine of destruction. It was only a moment now when she would be a crushed, mangled mass. With terror in her heart she waited for the thing to crash through the last remaining barrier, and even now she could hear his ponderous step as he crossed the room toward the door which would only momentarily stay his progress. Her lips moved in prayer as she waited and the dread moments seemed eons to her.
Suddenly she heard a crash, and she could see the panels of sturdy oak in the door give way as though they were egg-shells. The gigantic fist of the monster crashed through and she could discern the dim outline of the enormous head, and the glaring eyes of fire looking toward her. With a shrill shriek she raised her arms above her head and fell swooning to the floor just as a pistol-shot rang out.
Locke, disheveled and weak, had released himself from the strait-jacket, and with the speed of a panther had ascended the stairs. He saw the monster crashing through the last remaining barrier, and without hesitation he fired at the thing as he closed in. His one thought was to delay it or make it swerve in its course momentarily, with the hope that by some chance Eva might have time to escape. Could he only accomplish this, he thought his mission successful, regardless of the outcome as far as he himself was concerned.
He pulled the trigger of his automatic again and again as he rushed forward. By some strange trick of fate the figure reeled for a second and one of its arms dropped swinging to its side. The bullet had entered a joint. Had it in some way deranged the mechanism, causing the Automaton to turn in its tracks and confront Locke as he charged forward? Or was some human being concealed in the armored creature and wounded?
Eva, in her semi-conscious state, saw the mass of metal charge toward Locke, and closed her eyes so as not to be a witness to his end. She waited, dumb and helpless with fright, and before her surged the meaning of this man's great sacrifice for her. In the brief interval she realized that men of his ilk were few. She realized that her interest in the young chemist was more than a passing fancy and the truth was driven home to her in his hour of peril. She closed her eyes and all before her went blank.
As the Automaton faced Locke voices could be heard in the hall, and the gardener of Brent Rock, who had summoned aid, came to Locke's assistance. Armed with clubs and garden tools, the men charged the monster. Like a lion at bay, the thing turned from its task of destroying Locke to face its new enemies. En masse they attacked the Automaton, but it shook them off, one by one, as a terrier would rats, and made its way toward the grand staircase. Some of the gardener's aids suffered broken bones, while others were left unconscious as a result of the conflict.
Locke picked himself up and rushed to Eva's side. He took the prostrate form in his arms and looked down into her beautiful face. The room was in ruins, and Eva slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him. Her hand went out in a momentary caress, but as she fully recovered consciousness she moved her hand away lest he really know. She looked up at him gratefully, and Locke, a little confused, took his arm from around her waist. With boyish bashfulness he hung his head and asked her if she was all right. The sound of his own voice amid the ruins brought back his composure.
"We must see about father. Perhaps something has happened to him," said Eva, as she started toward the door.
Locke looked after the girl, then followed her.
Propped up in bed, Peter Brent presented a pitiable sight. His glassy stare and shrill laugh like a coyote baying at the moon sent cold chills down Eva's back as she entered the room. This man, at one time a power in the business world, was only a shell of his former self, and his inhuman laughter caused even Locke to shudder a little as he entered the room.
Eva walked over to her father and put her hand to his brow, looking wistfully in his eyes for some sign of recognition.
She kissed him on the forehead and called him, but he still stared blankly ahead of him, unconscious of even her presence. Locke felt the pulse of the patient and looked at the dilated pupils.
"There must be some antidote for this Madagascar madness, and I shall move everything to find it," he said, as he looked at Eva with determination.
She turned toward him eagerly as he spoke and his words gave her a little cheer. Eva continued her caresses, but the demented man showed no signs of recognizing even his own daughter.
From another room the shrill laughter of Flint could be heard as he raved in delirium. Bereft of reason, he fought an unseen enemy.
"Q did it, I tell you—it's Q," he raved and shrieked in his insane way as he rocked back and forth in bed. He was fighting his own conscience, and kept pushing some unseen thing from him as he shook in a paroxysm of fright.
The front-door bell rang and Balcom entered. He was suave in manner, but this time he seemed a little excited as he gave his hat and stick to the butler.
"Tell Miss Brent I must see her at once," he ordered.
As the butler turned to mount the stairs, Balcom reached his hand up and rubbed his shoulder as though he were in pain. Perhaps the gesture meant nothing, but a keen observer would have noticed that his arm did not move with the freedom that one would expect of a man of his frame and build. As he rubbed his shoulder his eyes followed the butler up the stairs and his lips tightened. He watched him until he was out of sight, then turned and entered the library.
As Balcom entered the library the door-bell rang and the three ambulance men who had been overpowered by the emissaries of the Automaton entered. Balcom approached them and hasty explanations were forthcoming. In his suave manner he quieted the most noisy of the trio, who by this time had found the strait-jacket from which Locke had just released himself.
"This looks like a put-up job to me," growled the driver, as he confronted Balcom, holding the strait-jacket toward him. "And I believe you know something about it."
"My dear man, I am the person who telephoned for you to come for my stricken partner," said Balcom, "and I still insist that he is in dire need of treatment."
As he spoke Eva entered the library in time to hear him. She was followed by Locke.
"My father shall not be taken from this house," she cried, in reply to Balcom's orders to the attendants.
As she spoke she turned toward Locke and looked at him for his acquiescence. He quietly nodded toward her in an assuring manner, and as he did so one might have noticed Balcom's face cloud up with evil purpose. He was thinking of this young