The girl gave it, and Tyler called the number.
“Are Mr. Balisle’s car and chauffeur there?” he asked.
He swore explosively and hung up the receiver.
“Another killing,” he said. “Balisle’s car is gone and the garage people have just found his chauffeur, almost ripped to pieces, in another car left at the garage for storage.
“That means this ape is armed with metal fingernails, just like the one that killed the insurance man in the Flatiron Building. That means he’ll be doubly dangerous when caught. The murdered chauffeur will have to wait for a few moments while we capture the ape.”
Shouts and shots rang through the Clinton Building. The ape was going wild, crashing through doors and windows as if they weren’t there. His mad bellowing sounded terrifying in the extreme, so deep and rumbling that the air seemed to tremble with its menace.
But in the end there came a chorus of triumphant shouts which told that the giant ape had been surrounded.
Bentley and Tyler raced in the direction of the sounds. From all directions came the sounds of footfalls as other plain-clothes men raced to be in at the death. Bentley held his automatic tightly gripped in his right hand. He knew exactly where he was going to aim if the ape were not dead when he reached him.
The creature had been cornered in the areaway between two banks of elevators and had climbed up the cage as high as he could go. He was just out of reach of human hands, even had there been any men there with the courage to try to take him alive. A white foam dripped from the chattering lips of the anthropoid. His red-rimmed eyes flashed fire. Bentley noted the little metal ball on top of the creature’s head.