CHAPTER II
Ultimatum
How terribly far-fetched it seemed! It was unbelievable enough that Bentley had once reposed in the body of an ape. That had been in the African wilds. But the idiocy of the thing now rested in Bentley’s belief that here, immediately upon landing, he was again facing something just as horrible.
But the coincidences were too clear. The palaver about “brains,” and “Mind Master”––and those ape hairs in Bentley’s hands. He wished he knew all that had led up to that story he had read in the paper just prior to the appearance of the naked man from the west door of the Flatiron Building. However, the killing would get front page position now, due to the importance of the dead man––Bentley never doubted it was the man whom, in the paper, the “Mind Master” had promised to slay.
Great apes in the heart of New York City! It sounded silly, preposterous. Yet, before he had gone through that dread experience with the mad Barter, Bentley would have sworn that brain transplantation was impossible. Even now he was not sure that it hadn’t all been a terrible dream.
Should Bentley go at once to the police to give them the benefit of whatever knowledge he might have of Caleb Barter? He wasn’t sure. Then he decided that sooner or later he must come out into the open. So he caught a cab and went to police headquarters.
“I wish,” he said, “to talk to someone about the Mind Master!”
If he had said, “I have just come from Mars,” he could scarcely have caused a greater sensation.