THE FANCIEST LIAR
The scuffling behind the shaft wall in the other room abruptly became understandable. Curses exploded. Grunts puffed.
Two men heaved up behind the parapet. Mo-Gwei and Shrops! They were locked in ferocious embrace. In some fashion, Shrops had managed to free his hands. He had his arms banded around the sinister apparition in the yellow robe and purple mask of the yak demon.
“Now’s our chance!” Monk yelled.
But Doc was already on his feet and whipping into the large room.
Mo-Gwei looked around and saw the bronze giant. The sight maddened him. He pitched about in an effort to free himself. He got clear.
The Bron mask hampered his vision, and he stepped back almost to the lip of the pit. Even then he would not have fallen in, however. But Shrops, howling in rage, dived forward.
The Cockney’s shove propelled Mo-Gwei over the wall and into the pit.
Mo-Gwei clutched madly. His hands managed to tangle in Shrops’s hair, and he jerked the Cockney along as he fell.
Both men shrieked as they sank into the glittering blue depths. The shrieks seemed to sink into the depths of the earth. Somehow, the receding wails were remindful of the dying whistle of the blue meteors themselves.
The sounds ended with meaningful abruptness.
Racing forward, Doc peered into the pit, shielding his eyes from the glare. He stared for only a moment. Then he drew away and waved Monk and Rae Stanley back.
“There’s no need of looking,” he said. “It’s a sight you might remember too long.”
Monk grunted, “You mean——”
“The shaft must be two hundred feet deep,” Doc replied. “They were killed by the fall.”
Rae Stanley suddenly covered her face with her hands and choked, “My father—hunt him——”
An arm across her shoulders, Doc guided her outside.
Ham appeared.
“We’ve got just about everybody,” reported the dapper lawyer.
Doc signalled him, and Ham took over the handling of Rae Stanley. He guided her to an adjacent chamber.
Big-fisted Renny dashed up. His arms were laden with numerous of the metal cure-cylinders.
“Lookit!” he rumbled. “There’s enough of these things to return normalcy to those poor devils who were overcome by the blue meteor in South America.”
“We’ll ship them over as quickly as possible,” Doc told him.
Long Tom and Johnny turned up, satisfaction on their faces.
“We’ve got the whole outfit, Doc,” the electrical wizard grunted.
“Locked in the strongest room in the place,” added gaunt Johnny.
Monk squinted at the mouth of the shaft with its topping plume of blue light, then eyed Doc.
“Who was Mo-Gwei?” he asked. “Or did you get a look at his face.”
“His face is visible at the bottom of the shaft,” Doc said, after a pause. “The purple mask came off in the fall.”
“Is he somebody we know?”
Doc was very slow in answering.
“This is one of the few times I have really hated to reveal the identity of a villain,” he said at last. “In fact, we’re not going to disclose it to the world.”
The others seemed astounded. “Why not?”
“This man was undoubtedly robbed of his mental balance by the blue meteor,” Doc explained. “As far as his right mind was concerned, he has probably been dead for many months. His body lived, and in it the distorted shred of mentality which the blue meteor had left him.”
Monk gulped, seeming too surprised to speak. He had comprehended the identity of Mo-Gwei, from Doc’s words.
“The man was not responsible for his hideous plan to make himself master of civilization,” Doc continued. “It was the product of an irrational brain, that idea. There is little doubt but that it would have succeeded had his own men, Shrops and Saturday Loo, not double-crossed him.”
“When did you get a line on his identity, Doc?” Monk demanded.
“In the Village of the Mad Ones,” Doc replied slowly. “I was masquerading as Mo-Gwei, and told a guard that the bronze man was holding the man who was actually Mo-Gwei. When the guard instantly realized Mo-Gwei could not be a prisoner and be addressing him at the same time, he gave an alarm. That told me the truth.”
“And when Rae Stanley asked you about her father,” said Monk, “you didn’t tell her.”
“I did not tell her that Professor Stanley was Mo-Gwei,” Doc said grimly.
* * * *
“Brothers,” the bronze man continued, “we’re going to keep Rae Stanley from learning her father was Mo-Gwei. She’s a swell girl, and Stanley was not mentally responsible. The blue meteor got him, undoubtedly.”
Doc went over to the shaft and glanced into its blue depths. He could see Professor Stanley, still wearing the yellow robe of Mo-Gwei.
Near by lay Saturday Loo, who had turned traitor to Shrops. No doubt Mo-Gwei had cast him to his death. There were other victims of Mo-Gwei’s poor, deranged mind down there.
Doc drew back. He plucked a metal egg of a bomb from his vest and tossed it into the shaft. Then he herded his men swiftly outside.
There was a whooping roar. The stone floor shuddered; lumps of mud jumped off the walls; the ceiling groaned. The floor all about the shaft caved in, and the azure light shut off, indicating that the pit had closed itself tightly.
“It will never be opened again,” Doc said grimly. “We’ll have the Tibetan government see to that.”
A sober file of men, Doc and his aides moved toward the room which held Ham and Rae Stanley.
“Professor Stanley—was Mo-Gwei,” Monk mumbled. “That explains why the Tibetan natives hated white men. A rumor got out that Mo-Gwei was white, probably.”
Doc replied nothing. The flake-gold of the bronze man’s eyes seemed less animated than usual, as if at rest.
The men walked through the ancient monastery and came near the room which held Ham and Rae Stanley.
Monk held up a hand.
“Let me handle this,” he muttered. “I’m the fanciest liar in the gang.”
They entered the room.
Rae Stanley looked up tearfully. “My father——”
“Perished several months ago,” Monk told her.