Chapter XXV: Face to Face

Cole glanced about the room they had entered. Its sparse furnishings suggested that it had been arranged in haste. There were a desk and a telephone, hinting that it served as the executive office of the gold-mad crowd, also a few chairs, a huge steel safe, and a cot. The cluttered condition of the desk indicated that some one had recently been sitting there and would probably soon return. Cole’s gaze rested longingly on the telephone, the only connecting link with the outside world.

Very gently Doctor Latham placed the girl in one of the chairs. As she looked up at him, her eyes were full of trust and gratitude.

The doctor turned to one of the armed guards at the door.

“Where is the benevolent gentleman whom you call the big chief?” he inquired.

“You’ll see him soon enough,” replied the man surlily.

“Good!” exclaimed Latham. “At last my curiosity shall be satisfied. We have a pretty good idea what he looks like—eh, Cole?”

“I think we do,” said Cole, a smile tugging at his lips. “Once or twice before my suspicions turned in the direction of the man I have in mind, but something threw me off the track. Now I am almost sure.”

Cole’s next words were spoken in an undertone, too low for the girl to hear. “You realize what you are up against, don’t you, Latham?”

“Against a bunch of cockeyed devils, of course.”

“I had something more specific in mind. Professor Carmody has failed to bully us, so now the big chief himself is to have a try at it. You realize, of course, that he wouldn’t allow himself to be seen by us unless——” He paused and looked gravely at the doctor.

“Yes, I understand,” whispered Latham, throwing an uneasy glance at Miss Brownell. “He wouldn’t show himself to us if he thought there was the slightest chance that we would ever tell tales about him. These scoundrels are planning to murder us, Cole.”

“So it looks, but not until they have made one more effort to make you reveal the formula for the seventh ingredient.”

There was a look of sad humor in the doctor’s eyes. “And next time they will try harder. I’ll keep up the bluff as long as I can. The seventh ingredient!” He chuckled grimly under his breath. “Like most humbugs, it sounds well.”

Cole glanced expectantly toward the door. “A little while ago, out in the other room, when you stepped between Carmody’s pistol and Miss Brownell, did you expect the professor would shoot?”

“I didn’t know what to expect, to tell the truth.”

“Well, I knew he wouldn’t,” said Cole emphatically. “While we are waiting, you might try to figure out the reason why. When you find it, file it away in your mind for future reference. It may come in handy. We must stop this whispering. We are making Miss Brownell nervous.”

A slight sound was heard in the corridor. The two armed guards stood aside, and then the door opened. A moment later, smiling thinly as he saw his suspicions confirmed, Cole faced the leader of the alchemists.

“Good evening, Mr. Englebreth,” he said easily.

An attendant pushed the invalid’s wheel chair up to the desk. Englebreth, his disproportionately broad shoulders slightly hunched, looked about the room with a rather listless expression. He was as white-faced as ever, and his pale, washed-out eyes showed little animation, but a faintly sinister smile played about the long, thin lips. In his hand was a pistol with which he toyed with apparent carelessness.

He nodded at Cole, then, with a quick motion of his long, slim fingers, dismissed his attendant. The door closed, and the two armed guards stood in front of it. For a while no one spoke. A hush seemed to have descended over the little group with the invalid’s entrance. Latham regarded him intently, but without a sign of surprise. For a moment Englebreth’s pale eyes rested on Miss Brownell, then he glanced at the doctor, and finally at Cole. His forehead puckered a little.

“You do not seem surprised to see me,” he remarked petulantly, as if disappointed that his entrance had created no sensation.

“Why should I be?” Cole asked.

“Surely you didn’t suspect until now that I was connected with the enterprise on foot here?”

“On the contrary,” said Cole, “your entrance has only confirmed the suspicions that have been running in and out of my head for the past two days. They began when I saw you enter the offices of the Bureau of Civic Research. They received a setback when I learned that the letters you left on the desk were genuine.”

Englebreth seemed mildly amused. “I am a public-spirited man,” he declared. “The Bureau of Civic Research is one of the numerous praiseworthy activities I am interested in. Being one of its honorary vice presidents I have free access to its headquarters, of course. When I learned, quite by accident, that a certain mysterious organization, located on the top floor of the building, was resisting my plans, then this privilege stood me in good stead. You might have guessed, Cole, that I left those letters for a blind, just to show any casual visitor that everything was open and aboveboard.”

“I might,” said Cole dryly.

“Yet you have proven yourself a very fair guesser, I must say. You are a clever fellow, Cole. The Unknown Seven didn’t become really dangerous to us until you took charge of its activities. Not that you have accomplished anything,” he added with a dry chuckle. “We are too strong even for you.”

Cole received the compliment with a shrug. A silence fell between them. In the stillness the rhythmic humming of machinery was distinctly heard. In Cole’s ears it sounded like a pæan of gold. He looked deep into Englebreth’s pale eyes. There was a queer flicker in the depths, an expression of insatiable greed to which the subterranean whir and throw was but the audible accompaniment. He had seen the same expression in Reeves’ burning orbs and also in the eyes of Carmody and Ballinger. There was something abysmal about it. It suggested one who, having gazed too long on visions of great wealth, had become enslaved to a fearful obsession.

“Yes, you are very clever,” Englebreth went on. “It did not occur to me that any one might suspect what the safe contained, but evidently you did. You followed the yacht, of course. It was a very ingenious move, Cole. Without doing so you would never have located our establishment here. Now that you are here what do you propose to do?”

Cole only smiled. Again he looked deep into Englebreth’s eyes and saw the smoldering fires of the fever of gold.

“My wife is an admirer of yours, Cole,” the invalid went on. “When her brother disappeared she insisted that I engage you to find him. Of course I couldn’t very well refuse. It would have looked suspicious, and, besides, I supposed you were harmless. When I saw that you were about to learn too much, through your connection with me, I succeeded in persuading my wife that you were not worthy of confidence, that it was best to dismiss you. Again I ask you what you intend to do.”

The words sounded like a taunt. Again Cole slanted a glance at the telephone. The instrument tantalized him. He noticed that the green cord attached to its base was of generous length. His mind worked quickly, but the sight of the three automatics baffled him. A sudden move would mean instant death, not only for himself, but for his two companions as well.

“You seem irresolute,” Englebreth observed. “And no wonder, Cole. For once in your life, you are absolutely helpless. You have been entirely too meddlesome, and people who meddle in others’ affairs usually get into trouble. Listen!”

Cole listened. A faint smile played about Englebreth’s lips as the whirring of machinery sounded clearly in the surrounding silence.

“Know what it means, Cole. It means gold! Gold!” His lips seemed to caress the word. “Millions and millions and millions, Cole. After you are gone we shall be turning out gold in unlimited quantities. I and my associates shall be the richest men in the world. And you, poor worm, who thought you could stop us, will be reduced to a few grains of dust.”

“Sure of that?” demanded Cole.

His tone, clear and confident, seemed to impress the invalid.

“Why do you ask? Surely you don’t expect to escape from your present predicament. As it happens, all the members of my organization are here to-night. A touch of my finger will summon twenty men to my assistance, if necessary.”

He scanned Cole’s face for a sign of fear, but none came. The other’s coolness seemed to nettle him.

“So the gang is all here,” said Cole carelessly. “That means, of course, that Doctor Ballinger is included?”

“Naturally. An excellent man, Ballinger. He has a practical mind, and he knows on which side his bread is buttered. Why do you ask?”

“I am glad he is here,” said Cole. “I wouldn’t want him to get away from me, you know.”

The invalid leaned out of the chair and stared. “Get away?” he echoed. “What do you mean?”

“I have a particular score to settle with Ballinger,” said Cole calmly. “Naturally I want him present when I hand you and your gang over to the police.”

“When you——” Englebreth was utterly astounded. “If you think this is a joking matter——”

“I was never more serious in my life, Englebreth. Before daybreak I expect to hand every mother’s son of you over to the authorities.”

Englebreth stared for a moment longer; then he laughed hoarsely. Cole could see that his cool insolence had exerted the intended moral effect. The invalid, though the advantage was all on his side, felt just a trifle ill at ease. Cole’s demeanor was well calculated to suggest that a surprise of some sort was forthcoming. Englebreth would not have been human if he had failed to be impressed by the airy assurance of one whom he thought wholly at his mercy.

Finally he shrugged. “You must be mad,” he muttered. Then he faced Latham, who stood beside the chair in which Miss Brownell sat. “I have something to say to you, doctor. You did us a service once, and that is something I never forget. If you will——”

“Save your breath,” interrupted Latham contemptuously. “For a time, a little while ago, I was tempted to enter into negotiations with you, but Miss Brownell wouldn’t hear of it. What is a mere man to do when a woman sets her foot down?”

“Your flippancy is ill-timed,” said Englebreth austerely.

“Hasn’t one a right to joke at one’s own funeral?”

“We shall see.” Englebreth’s lips tightened ominously. “You know what we want from you, doctor. Only a formula that by right belongs to us, since you worked it out while you were a member of this organization. Produce it, and I promise to be lenient with you and Miss Brownell. Unless my senses deceive me”—and Englebreth smiled craftily—“you are very anxious that nothing unpleasant shall happen to her.”

Latham hesitated, impressed by the cruel smile on the invalid’s lips, and the girl answered in his place.

“Doctor Latham’s answer is _no_,” she declared emphatically.

Englebreth regarded her curiously, with an odd mingling of admiration and malice. “You are a stubborn young person,” he muttered. “For the last time, doctor, I ask you if you will consent to my terms.”

Again it was Miss Brownell who answered. “Doctor Latham refuses,” she declared. “He knows that your promises are worthless, that you intend to kill us regardless of whether or not he grants your request. I don’t think there is anything further to be said.”

“No?” Englebreth’s thin fingers seemed to tighten around the pistol. “Perhaps I can convince you——”

He stopped short. A squeallike cry of astonishment escaped him, for Cole had just done a very unexpected thing. It was so unexpected, in fact, that it seemed like the act of a person whose reason was tottering. With arms folded across his chest he had casually approached the chair in which Miss Brownell sat. For a time he had seemed absorbed in deep thought, but all the while he had been scheming how he might divert Englebreth’s attention, even if only for a moment, from the menacing pistol in his hand. Anything of a startling nature, the more bizarre and ludicrous the better, would serve his purpose. Now he turned suddenly and gave the girl a resounding slap on the cheek. He followed it up with another, then with a third.

A spell seemed to fall over the gathering. They had witnessed an act, in itself trivial and ridiculous, that staggered their reason by its sheer fatuity. For a measured moment their minds were at a standstill. That was exactly what Cole had intended, and a moment was all he needed. He had acted on a fugitive inspiration at a time when all seemed lost, when a move of a more rational nature would only have hastened the inevitable.

The resounding smack of the third blow had scarcely drifted out on the silence when he leaped at the invalid’s chair. In an instant, while the minds of Englebreth and the two guards at the door were still dazed from contemplation of a thing so bizarre, he had snatched the pistol from the cripple’s hand. A moment later he was crouching low behind Englebreth’s chair, pressing the muzzle of the weapon against his back.

He thrilled inwardly. Once more his mind had triumphed over a critical situation. The other time had been when he faced Professor Carmody in the Bureau of Civic Research. The professor had been thrown off his mental base by a trick just as simple and effective.

“Tell your men to drop their weapons,” he commanded, the muzzle of the pistol prodding Englebreth’s back. “I’ll give you exactly ten seconds. Unless you obey, you will be a dead man.”

Englebreth squirmed in the chair, evidently in a state of great terror. In a few minutes his agile mind might reassert itself, but just now he was merely a shivering wreck. His trembling hand went up and made a signal to his men just as Cole was about to call time. Habitually obedient to the master will, the men at the door dropped their pistols.

Cole rose from his crouching position behind Englebreth’s chair. Latham and the girl stared at him bewilderedly, the latter moving her hand dazedly over the cheek that Cole had struck, both seemingly unable to realize as yet what had happened. Englebreth was breathing raspingly. The two guards at the door gazed dully at the erect figure behind the invalid’s chair.

“Pick up those pistols, Latham,” said Cole quietly. “Pardon my rudeness, Miss Brownell. It was necessary.”

She smiled uncertainly, evidently beginning to understand. It was several moments before the physician could shake off his stupefaction. He moved haltingly over the floor and dazedly took possession of the pistols.

“It was magnificent, Mr. Cole!” murmured the girl, at last grasping the psychological stratagem by which Cole had reversed the situation.

“But if I hadn’t seen it happen, I would have sworn it couldn’t be done,” said Latham.

Cole’s face was grave. His ruse had only averted their immediate danger. Any moment other members of the organization might pour into the room, crushing them by superior numbers. Every second counted now. Holding the pistol in one hand, Cole drew the telephone to him and spoke a number in the transmitter. Only a few words would be needed to make Carlin understand the situation, and within an hour reinforcements would arrive. He wondered, as he waited for his connection, if they could hold out until then. Impatiently he jigged the hook, muttering heartfelt imprecations upon the state of the rural telephone service, and then, in a twinkling, something happened.

He saw the cripple’s weazened hand move stealthily along the side of the desk, became conscious that a heretofore unnoticed door had burst open behind him, heard the girl’s quick, startled cry, saw the light blotted out as if a pall had suddenly dropped over the little room, felt a stinging blow at the back of the head, and, with Englebreth’s diabolic chuckles dinning in his ears, fell to the floor.