the door, shut it behind her as she stepped inside and reached for the light.
And that was the last Nan Stanton knew about anything for a long, long time! Colored lights burst behind her eyelids as something hard but padded smacked down on her head. Then blackness.
“O.K.,” said the man who had clubbed the girl. He clicked on the lights.
The light revealed him to be a most offensive-looking man, with bony features and a tallow color to his skin. There was a fresh scar running down over his forehead.
The bony man had damned that trash basket a good many times. “Bundle her into the locker,” he said.
He was talking to two men who looked so much like gunmen that they could have stepped into the movies as they stood.
Undersized men with narrowed eyes, weak mouths, and belligerent jaws. They were dressed in clothes that were twice as expensive as the clothes of most men, but still didn’t look right on them.
In the center of the anteroom where they all stood, was a little heap of white, starched dresses of the type Nan wore in Fram’s office.
The heap had come from a steel locker, which now lay empty on the floor beside it. The locker, placed horizontally, looked gruesomely like a coffin with a hinged lid.
Into it, as into a coffin, the two men lifted the unconscious girl.
“Is she dead?” asked one of them, without much curiosity.
“I don’t know,” said the bony man, equally indifferent.
“If she ain’t now, she will be later. Carry her down to the car. You, Joey, drive her to the garage.”
The two men took the locker, one at each end, and went out into the corridor. They headed for the freight elevator, straining to make the steel case seem as light as it would have been had there been no body cramped in it.
Behind them, the bony man reflected that he might as well turn that light out. And with that decision, he let another girl besides Nan Stanton in for a load of grief.
Nellie Gray, stanch aide of The Avenger, was as petite, feminine and fragile-looking as a white porcelain doll. And she was as explosive as a hand grenade when the occasion demanded action.
Nellie, told to prowl through the offices of Dr. Fram, had wandered idly by the door during the day, and looked over the lock. It was not a very good lock. It was of the type that didn’t even need to be picked. A knife blade inserted in the crack, pressed down on the lock-bar with the cutting edge getting a leverage, and waggled back and forth a few times would release it.
However, there were too many people around in the daytime to permit such suspicious actions. So Nellie returned at a little past eleven o’clock, waited till the eighteenth floor was clear—a couple of men carrying a steel locker were the last to occupy the hallway—and then went to Fram’s door.
Three waggles with the knife slid the lock-bar back. Nellie, looking like a little girl getting into mischief rather than the extremely competent aide of a nationally known crime fighter, opened the door and tiptoed into blackness.
She pressed the button of a little pencil flash. Its thin beam quested around inquiringly.
Just a few seconds before, another thin beam had been questing. It had been snapped off when the sound of her knife in the door crack had rasped faintly. But she had no way of knowing that. Nor did the fact that the door of a little washroom was standing open a crack seem particularly suspicious to her.
Go through the files, The Avenger had said, and copy anything concerned with the listed senators. Or anything else looking important.
Nellie went through the anteroom into the inner office—and stopped with a gasp.
Someone else had beaten her to it. Someone else had searched to see if anything important were around. The drawers were out of the desk and filing cabinet, and papers were all over everything. The rugs were scuffed up, where someone had looked under them. Pictures were askew on the walls. The small office vault hung open.
Nellie suddenly
And that was the last Nan Stanton knew about anything for a long, long time! Colored lights burst behind her eyelids as something hard but padded smacked down on her head. Then blackness.
“O.K.,” said the man who had clubbed the girl. He clicked on the lights.
The light revealed him to be a most offensive-looking man, with bony features and a tallow color to his skin. There was a fresh scar running down over his forehead.
The bony man had damned that trash basket a good many times. “Bundle her into the locker,” he said.
He was talking to two men who looked so much like gunmen that they could have stepped into the movies as they stood.
Undersized men with narrowed eyes, weak mouths, and belligerent jaws. They were dressed in clothes that were twice as expensive as the clothes of most men, but still didn’t look right on them.
In the center of the anteroom where they all stood, was a little heap of white, starched dresses of the type Nan wore in Fram’s office.
The heap had come from a steel locker, which now lay empty on the floor beside it. The locker, placed horizontally, looked gruesomely like a coffin with a hinged lid.
Into it, as into a coffin, the two men lifted the unconscious girl.
“Is she dead?” asked one of them, without much curiosity.
“I don’t know,” said the bony man, equally indifferent.
“If she ain’t now, she will be later. Carry her down to the car. You, Joey, drive her to the garage.”
The two men took the locker, one at each end, and went out into the corridor. They headed for the freight elevator, straining to make the steel case seem as light as it would have been had there been no body cramped in it.
Behind them, the bony man reflected that he might as well turn that light out. And with that decision, he let another girl besides Nan Stanton in for a load of grief.
Nellie Gray, stanch aide of The Avenger, was as petite, feminine and fragile-looking as a white porcelain doll. And she was as explosive as a hand grenade when the occasion demanded action.
Nellie, told to prowl through the offices of Dr. Fram, had wandered idly by the door during the day, and looked over the lock. It was not a very good lock. It was of the type that didn’t even need to be picked. A knife blade inserted in the crack, pressed down on the lock-bar with the cutting edge getting a leverage, and waggled back and forth a few times would release it.
However, there were too many people around in the daytime to permit such suspicious actions. So Nellie returned at a little past eleven o’clock, waited till the eighteenth floor was clear—a couple of men carrying a steel locker were the last to occupy the hallway—and then went to Fram’s door.
Three waggles with the knife slid the lock-bar back. Nellie, looking like a little girl getting into mischief rather than the extremely competent aide of a nationally known crime fighter, opened the door and tiptoed into blackness.
She pressed the button of a little pencil flash. Its thin beam quested around inquiringly.
Just a few seconds before, another thin beam had been questing. It had been snapped off when the sound of her knife in the door crack had rasped faintly. But she had no way of knowing that. Nor did the fact that the door of a little washroom was standing open a crack seem particularly suspicious to her.
Go through the files, The Avenger had said, and copy anything concerned with the listed senators. Or anything else looking important.
Nellie went through the anteroom into the inner office—and stopped with a gasp.
Someone else had beaten her to it. Someone else had searched to see if anything important were around. The drawers were out of the desk and filing cabinet, and papers were all over everything. The rugs were scuffed up, where someone had looked under them. Pictures were askew on the walls. The small office vault hung open.
Nellie suddenly
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