looked.
There was a dead animal in the incinerator chute. It appeared that someone had thrown it in and hadn’t gotten around to incinerating it yet. Perhaps the intention was to wait till darkness when the smoke couldn’t be seen.
The dead animal was a guinea pig. And the pig was black.
It was not just the short, bristly hairs of the little animal that were black; the hide was black, too. It was the strange black death, applied this time to a small laboratory test animal instead of to a human being.
“It looks to me as though Hannon has been hiding out all these weeks in his own house,” Cole whispered excitedly. “It looks as if he’s near here, now; as if he’d experimented on this thing sometime today—or, at most, yesterday, because the body is quite fresh.”
Dick said nothing. He stared with icy, basilisk eyes at the blackened little body. Then he took things from various small pockets and set to work.
Rapidly, he took specimens of the guinea pig’s flesh, blood and lungs. These he carefully put into labeled little bottles. After that, he went up the basement stairs and through a covered passageway from house to laboratory building.
A heavy door shut the laboratory from the passage, but this opened at a touch. It was unlocked. The Avenger’s pale, glacial eyes seemed to burn brighter; but if he suspected a trap in the innocently unlocked door, he did not say so.
The two entered a room like a small garage—big, low, with no supporting pillars in the center. It was crowded with scientific apparatus, most of it pertaining to radio but a good deal to chemistry, too.
The Avenger busied himself in an examination of the chemical apparatus.
There was a beaker that had been cleaned till it had a crystal polish on the sides, but in the bottom were traces of some gummy stuff stubbornly clinging. He scraped some of this into a tiny envelope, sealed it.
All the lights in the big room snapped out, as someone at the doorway punched the light switch. Cole swore, then was silent. The Avenger made no sound from the start. He dropped swiftly to the floor in case someone started shooting in the dark.
There was no sound of a shot, however. Instead, there was a step. It seemed to be the light, clicking step of a woman or a girl—the sound made by dainty high heels.
Benson had located Cole in the blackness. It was blackness, too. There were no windows in this ultramodern little shop; all light was from fluorescent tubes. With those clicked off, the blackness was absolute.
The Avenger’s finger pressed Cole’s arm.
“Gas!”
Cole nodded. He had reasoned the same way: A woman alone switches out the light, then walks calmly and unafraid in the darkness toward where she last saw two men! It argued that for some reason she was entirely unafraid of them. That meant that she expected them to be helpless. About the only reason they’d be helpless would be if gas had been released in the big room.
Each had nose clips with little pads of chemical-soaked cotton devised by MacMurdie. They slid these over their nostrils. The clips would keep them from the effects of any gas for about twelve minutes.
They stayed silent, crouched in darkness. The light, clicking steps of the girl continued toward them. She was a cool customer, whoever she might be.
Cole felt a hand touch him, felt fingers begin to feel over his pockets in an impersonal investigation. His own hands darted up. He caught slender wrists. There was a muffled shriek of surprise and fright.
“All right,” Cole called to The Avenger. “I have her.”
In a moment, the light clicked on again, as Dick’s finger touched the switch. It revealed a tall, beautifully shaped girl struggling in Cole’s grasp. The girl had dark-brown hair. What her face was like, you couldn’t tell. The girl’s face had a gas mask over it, hiding it from forehead to chin.
She had been fighting Cole furiously in the darkness. Now, with the lights on, she redoubled her efforts to
There was a dead animal in the incinerator chute. It appeared that someone had thrown it in and hadn’t gotten around to incinerating it yet. Perhaps the intention was to wait till darkness when the smoke couldn’t be seen.
The dead animal was a guinea pig. And the pig was black.
It was not just the short, bristly hairs of the little animal that were black; the hide was black, too. It was the strange black death, applied this time to a small laboratory test animal instead of to a human being.
“It looks to me as though Hannon has been hiding out all these weeks in his own house,” Cole whispered excitedly. “It looks as if he’s near here, now; as if he’d experimented on this thing sometime today—or, at most, yesterday, because the body is quite fresh.”
Dick said nothing. He stared with icy, basilisk eyes at the blackened little body. Then he took things from various small pockets and set to work.
Rapidly, he took specimens of the guinea pig’s flesh, blood and lungs. These he carefully put into labeled little bottles. After that, he went up the basement stairs and through a covered passageway from house to laboratory building.
A heavy door shut the laboratory from the passage, but this opened at a touch. It was unlocked. The Avenger’s pale, glacial eyes seemed to burn brighter; but if he suspected a trap in the innocently unlocked door, he did not say so.
The two entered a room like a small garage—big, low, with no supporting pillars in the center. It was crowded with scientific apparatus, most of it pertaining to radio but a good deal to chemistry, too.
The Avenger busied himself in an examination of the chemical apparatus.
There was a beaker that had been cleaned till it had a crystal polish on the sides, but in the bottom were traces of some gummy stuff stubbornly clinging. He scraped some of this into a tiny envelope, sealed it.
All the lights in the big room snapped out, as someone at the doorway punched the light switch. Cole swore, then was silent. The Avenger made no sound from the start. He dropped swiftly to the floor in case someone started shooting in the dark.
There was no sound of a shot, however. Instead, there was a step. It seemed to be the light, clicking step of a woman or a girl—the sound made by dainty high heels.
Benson had located Cole in the blackness. It was blackness, too. There were no windows in this ultramodern little shop; all light was from fluorescent tubes. With those clicked off, the blackness was absolute.
The Avenger’s finger pressed Cole’s arm.
“Gas!”
Cole nodded. He had reasoned the same way: A woman alone switches out the light, then walks calmly and unafraid in the darkness toward where she last saw two men! It argued that for some reason she was entirely unafraid of them. That meant that she expected them to be helpless. About the only reason they’d be helpless would be if gas had been released in the big room.
Each had nose clips with little pads of chemical-soaked cotton devised by MacMurdie. They slid these over their nostrils. The clips would keep them from the effects of any gas for about twelve minutes.
They stayed silent, crouched in darkness. The light, clicking steps of the girl continued toward them. She was a cool customer, whoever she might be.
Cole felt a hand touch him, felt fingers begin to feel over his pockets in an impersonal investigation. His own hands darted up. He caught slender wrists. There was a muffled shriek of surprise and fright.
“All right,” Cole called to The Avenger. “I have her.”
In a moment, the light clicked on again, as Dick’s finger touched the switch. It revealed a tall, beautifully shaped girl struggling in Cole’s grasp. The girl had dark-brown hair. What her face was like, you couldn’t tell. The girl’s face had a gas mask over it, hiding it from forehead to chin.
She had been fighting Cole furiously in the darkness. Now, with the lights on, she redoubled her efforts to
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