here right now—and we’d both better not talk too much!”
“Yes, yes,” panted Broadbough.
“Meanwhile, if you have anything you don’t want to destroy but still are afraid to keep around the house, you might give it to me and I’ll keep it in my big safe.”
There was a pause, then the judge said:
“I have some documents, of course. You can’t deal with . . . er . . . friends like ours without precautionary measures. So I keep a few facts in case I’m found dead like Martineau. But I’ll continue to keep them, myself, Norman.”
“Of course, if you like. Meanwhile, say nothing to anyone.”
“You don’t have to tell me that!”
Steps warned Josh to get away from the door. He went to the end of the hall. The library door opened. Vautry came out hurriedly, and left the house.
He got into a cab at the curb. In the cab there was a small suitcase. A bag with a gray slipcover that had foreign labels on it. As the cab drove off, with the driver unaware of what was going on in the seat behind him, that bag, and steely-white, deft fingers, did curious things to the face with the neat Vandyke and glittering spectacles.
Norman Vautry became Richard Henry Benson.
The steely white fingers shut the bag with a brittle snap. The flaming pale eyes stared balefully from the wax-white, dead face.
The Avenger had hoped, as a short-cut, to scale valuable criminal documents from Judge Broadbough. He had failed. But minor failures do not mean general failure. The crooks and killers that ruled a city could not be reassured by this small lack of success, even had they known about it.
CHAPTER VII
Unwelcome Visitors!
Benson sat in Groman’s chair at Groman’s teak desk. In the next room lay the helpless hulk that had once been the ruler, behind the scenes, of all Ashton City.
Both rooms were in total darkness. The Avenger was thinking, with the marvelous machine that was his brain clicking smoothly and swiftly along over the straight rails of genius. He thought best in darkness, so he sat in darkness now. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and things were very quiet.
He was sorting over the last secret radio reports sent him, and tabulating them, coldly and impersonally as fate.
Smitty had been taken on as night driver by the White Transportation Corporation. They’d been glad to get a man of his size and strength because they expected trouble.
Nellie had reported that the presence of murdered Judge Martineau in the gambling club called Friday the Thirteenth had been due to a frame-up, not because the judge was used to frequenting such places. Also, just a few minutes ago, Nellie had reported seeing Terry Groman, old Oliver Groman’s daughter, in Sisco’s nightclub office. It was odd that she’d have contacts with her father’s enemies.
Josh had reported that Judge Broadbough was alarmed by something—probably the first gang reports of the presence of Richard Henry Benson in Ashton City.
By his visit to Broadbough’s home disguised as Vautry, The Avenger had proved conclusively that Norman Vautry and Judge Broadbough were in this up to their necks. Also, Broadbough—had valuable documents somewhere around the place.
The wording of Nellie’s report concerning the talk between Buddy Wilson and the fat man corroborated Benson’s guess that in the murder of Martineau lay a weapon against the whole vicious political-criminal ring. “I helped rig it up. We all did—”
Exactly when Benson first heard the noise, he couldn’t have said, himself. At one moment he was sitting utterly motionless in the dark office, thinking. At the next, he was sitting equally motionless, but listening with all his powers of concentration.
The Avenger’s hearing was as far beyond normal as the rest of his powers. In steaming jungles and Antarctic cold, in city and wilderness, he had wagered his life on his miraculous hearing—and won.
The first thing he heard, after the few vague sounds out in the hall that had
“Yes, yes,” panted Broadbough.
“Meanwhile, if you have anything you don’t want to destroy but still are afraid to keep around the house, you might give it to me and I’ll keep it in my big safe.”
There was a pause, then the judge said:
“I have some documents, of course. You can’t deal with . . . er . . . friends like ours without precautionary measures. So I keep a few facts in case I’m found dead like Martineau. But I’ll continue to keep them, myself, Norman.”
“Of course, if you like. Meanwhile, say nothing to anyone.”
“You don’t have to tell me that!”
Steps warned Josh to get away from the door. He went to the end of the hall. The library door opened. Vautry came out hurriedly, and left the house.
He got into a cab at the curb. In the cab there was a small suitcase. A bag with a gray slipcover that had foreign labels on it. As the cab drove off, with the driver unaware of what was going on in the seat behind him, that bag, and steely-white, deft fingers, did curious things to the face with the neat Vandyke and glittering spectacles.
Norman Vautry became Richard Henry Benson.
The steely white fingers shut the bag with a brittle snap. The flaming pale eyes stared balefully from the wax-white, dead face.
The Avenger had hoped, as a short-cut, to scale valuable criminal documents from Judge Broadbough. He had failed. But minor failures do not mean general failure. The crooks and killers that ruled a city could not be reassured by this small lack of success, even had they known about it.
CHAPTER VII
Unwelcome Visitors!
Benson sat in Groman’s chair at Groman’s teak desk. In the next room lay the helpless hulk that had once been the ruler, behind the scenes, of all Ashton City.
Both rooms were in total darkness. The Avenger was thinking, with the marvelous machine that was his brain clicking smoothly and swiftly along over the straight rails of genius. He thought best in darkness, so he sat in darkness now. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and things were very quiet.
He was sorting over the last secret radio reports sent him, and tabulating them, coldly and impersonally as fate.
Smitty had been taken on as night driver by the White Transportation Corporation. They’d been glad to get a man of his size and strength because they expected trouble.
Nellie had reported that the presence of murdered Judge Martineau in the gambling club called Friday the Thirteenth had been due to a frame-up, not because the judge was used to frequenting such places. Also, just a few minutes ago, Nellie had reported seeing Terry Groman, old Oliver Groman’s daughter, in Sisco’s nightclub office. It was odd that she’d have contacts with her father’s enemies.
Josh had reported that Judge Broadbough was alarmed by something—probably the first gang reports of the presence of Richard Henry Benson in Ashton City.
By his visit to Broadbough’s home disguised as Vautry, The Avenger had proved conclusively that Norman Vautry and Judge Broadbough were in this up to their necks. Also, Broadbough—had valuable documents somewhere around the place.
The wording of Nellie’s report concerning the talk between Buddy Wilson and the fat man corroborated Benson’s guess that in the murder of Martineau lay a weapon against the whole vicious political-criminal ring. “I helped rig it up. We all did—”
Exactly when Benson first heard the noise, he couldn’t have said, himself. At one moment he was sitting utterly motionless in the dark office, thinking. At the next, he was sitting equally motionless, but listening with all his powers of concentration.
The Avenger’s hearing was as far beyond normal as the rest of his powers. In steaming jungles and Antarctic cold, in city and wilderness, he had wagered his life on his miraculous hearing—and won.
The first thing he heard, after the few vague sounds out in the hall that had
Similar Books
