- - -

Bentley knew as soon as the disgruntled and rather frightened police
officers returned to the Clinton Building with the news that Balisle
had got away from them in the stolen Balisle car, that already the
ill-fated young man was probably under the anesthetic which Caleb
Barter used on his victims.

"Tyler, do you know a surgeon who can do any surgical job short of
brain transplantation?"

"Yeah. There's a chap has offices in the Fifth Avenue Building. He's
probably the very best in the racket. Maybe it's because of his name.
It's Tyler."

"Some relative of yours?"

"Not much. He's just my dad--and one of the world's finest and
cleverest."

"Will he listen to reason? Can he perform delicate operations?"

"He's my dad, Bentley, and he'd do almost anything I asked him so long
as it was honest ... and he could switch the noses of a mosquito and a
humming bird so skillfully that the humming bird would go looking for
a sleeping cop and the mosquito would start building a nest in a
tree."

"Get him here. No--has he an operating room where all sound can be
shut out? I've got a hunch I'd like somehow to try and drop a screen
around us as we work. Maybe your dad would know what to do. You see,
I'm positive that Barter sees everything we do and if he sees me
turning into an ape he would just chuckle and pass up the trap."

"He's got a lead armored room where he keeps a bit of radium."

"That's it. Talk to him. No, not on the phone. You'll have to
figure out some way to do it so that you can be sure Barter isn't
listening."

"I'll manage. I'll send him a note."

"Your messenger will be killed on the way to him."

"Then I'll go myself."

"And Barter will watch everybody that goes into his office or comes
out, and mark down each person as possibly being connected with the
police. However, you figure it out."

- - -

When Tyler had gone and the dead "ape" had been stretched out in one
corner of Balisle's office, and covered with something to cloak its
hideousness, Bentley telephoned Ellen Estabrook.

"Have I been making any appointments with you this morning?" he asked
her cheerily.

"Please don't jest when things are so terrible. Have you seen the
latest papers?"

"No. What do they say?"

"There's a lot of the story I'm thinking about. You'd better read it
right away. It's an extra, anyhow. The newsies ought to be calling it
around you somewhere--and where are you, anyw