47

McGraff came to voice. He put his face

“Yes.”

close to the door, the laboratory door, and The old giant snorted. “You fools would bellowed, “Fleur—you turn that machine on, better have done that in the first place. When and it’ll be the end of you, you hear?” And I first approached you for capital, it was a fair then without waiting for a response, he deal.”

shouted, “Savage has a thing that will make “It was a stinking deal—twenty per your transmitter explode. We have it here.

cent,” McGraff said. “We want half.”

You understand me? You turn that thing on, “Preposterous!”

and we will turn this one on, and it will blow McGraff’s voice was cold. “Albert you to hell.”

Gross, our friend, is dead. I think you under-The old giant’s voice, coming through stand how close we were to Albert and he to the door, was as big as if it had been in the us. A friend’s life we do not sell cheaply.”

room with us.

McCutcheon said: “Augustino killed Al-

“Ridiculous!” he thundered.

bert. It was Augustino’s way of killing. So we McGraff made frantic gestures to want Augustino too.”

McCutcheon. And McCutcheon hastily put Spatny—or Fleur—grunted. “Augustino the big suitcase with Doc Savage’s gadget in was with me in Munich, then in Griefswald it on the table. He fooled with the knobs, and Peenemunde. He helped me get out brow wrinkled, doing it just as Savage had when the Party became suspicious of me—said it should be done.

when they discovered I was holding back the The little old hag watched this. She better part of my discoveries in chromos-made up her mind in a hurry. She went over pheric activities. Without Augustino, I would to the door, called: “Poppa, they’re not fool-not be here. . . . Still, Albert was as much to ing.”

you as Augustino is to me—”

The old giant swore a great oath. It “No, poppa!” the old woman said was in German, a language I speak fluently sharply. She wheeled on the Macs. “Au-to the extent of six words—but it had to be an gustino we will not sacrifice. We are too few oath.

to destroy each other.”

“There must be peace, poppa,” she That brought silence for a while. I was said. She wheeled on the Macs. “You are getting it straight now. The old pile of bones fools, all of you. Greedy fools, steeped in the had been a Nazi scientist, and he had kept bloody past. Don’t you realize the world has his discoveries for himself, fled Germany with changed against you and that you are now them. He must have been a typical Nazi. He fighting among yourselves like cur dogs?”

had run out of money here in America—the McGraff pulled in a deep breath. “Tell richness of his diggings here indicated that him to come out. We’ll talk terms.”

he could run out of money rather easily. He “Why do you say that?” she demanded had approached three old friends, McGraff, suspiciously.

McCutcheon, and Albert Gross, for financing.

“I’ve spent the day with Savage, and I The result was not unexpected—they’d got to know more about him than I did,” McGraff fighting over the gadget the old man had, and said. “That’s why.”

he’d been winning. The Macs and Gross had She stood close to the door and said, run Doc Savage into the picture, no doubt to “Poppa, they have taken a bear by the tail frighten the old giant into coming to terms.

and the animal will consume you all if you do But he’d started killing them, beginning with not be friends with each other.” Presumably Gross.

she meant Doc Savage was bruin.

McGraff broke the silence. “We will sur-render the point of Augustino,” he said grimly, “if he can dispose of Doc Savage.”

THE old man came out. I didn’t like it.

Spatny stiffened. He called them sev-Paula didn’t like it either, and she fastened a eral dark things in German. Then he said: set of trembling fingers on my arm.

“Why did you pick a man like Savage to Spatny asked: “You will furnish me frighten me with? There is no more danger-money? It must be so.”

ous a man.”

McGraff looked at McCutcheon, who

“We underestimated him,” McGraff said, “Yes.”

admitted bitterly.

“Much money. I am not a cheap man.”