The Avenger 19 - Pictures of Death
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Authors: Kenneth Robeson
Also In This Series
By Kenneth Robeson
#1: J
USTICE
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NC
.
#2: T
HE
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ELLOW
H
OARD
#3: T
HE
S
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#4: T
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#5: T
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ROSTED
D
EATH
#6: T
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B
LOOD
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#7: S
TOCKHOLDERS
IN
D
EATH
#8: T
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G
LASS
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OUNTAIN
#9: T
UNED
F
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#10: T
HE
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MILING
D
OGS
#11: R
IVER
OF
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#12: T
HE
F
LAME
B
REATHERS
#13: M
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ON
W
HEELS
#14: T
HREE
G
OLD
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ROWNS
#15: H
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EATH
#16: T
HE
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#17: N
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#18: D
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WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY
WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION
F
IRST
P
RINTING
: D
ECEMBER
, 1973
C
OPYRIGHT
© 1941
BY
S
TREET
& S
MITH
P
UBLICATIONS
, I
NC
.
C
OPYRIGHT
R
ENEWED
1969
BY
T
HE
C
ONDÉ
N
EST
P
UBLICATIONS
, I
NC
.
A
LL
R
IGHTS
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ESERVED
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APERBACK
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IBRARY
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DITION
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UBLISHED
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RRANGEMENT
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ITH
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HE
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EST
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UBLICATIONS
. I
NC
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C
OVER
I
LLUSTRATION
BY
G
EORGE
G
ROSS
W
ARNER
P
APERBACK
L
IBRARY
IS A
D
IVISION
OF
W
ARNER
B
OOKS,
75 R
OCKERFELLER
P
LAZA
, N.Y. 10019.
A Warner Communications Company
ISBN: 0-446-74-393-3
Printed in the United States of America
CHAPTER IV: Apology for Murder
CHAPTER V: The Devil’s Yardstick
CHAPTER X: Dates of Destruction!
CHAPTER XIII: Investment in Death
PICTURES
OF DEATH
A Long Way Down
The whole thing boiled down to just this: if a little boy’s nose had not been red, the whole history of the United States of America might have been changed.
That statement is made after due thought and after consideration of a great many sinister and complicated factors.
Algernon Heathcote Smith and Nellie Gray, however, were thinking little of noses and not at all of history at the time. They were having fun without violence, which was very rare for anyone connected with The Avenger as these two were. To The Avenger and his aides, that band of crime fighters whose names were synonymous with terror to the underworld, fun was something usually associated with gunplay, automobile crashes and the sweet feel of fists buried deep in ratlike faces.
But this night, these two were having fun just as ordinary people might. They were dancing at the Pink Room of the Coyle Hotel in New York.
Smitty and Nellie, as a couple, had to be seen to be believed.
Algernon Heathcote Smith—a name no one ever called him, save in peril of his life—was a giant. He was six feet nine inches tall, weighed nearly three hundred solid pounds and had such a vast chest that his arms couldn’t hang down straight.
Nellie Gray, on the other hand, was barely five feet high, weighed about an even hundred pounds and was as dainty and blonde and demure as a porcelain statuette.
The two had a table near the window, which was forty-four floors above the Manhattan streets, and were waiting impatiently for the orchestra to start playing again. They wanted to dance; they liked to dance. And if anybody felt like grinning at dainty five feet dancing with six feet nine, well, let him grin.
They were waiting impatiently for the music; but neither one would have been caught dead admitting that to the other. The only remarks they gave each other were calculated insults.
“You were always the worst dancer in town,” said Nellie sweetly. “But just lately you’ve gone downhill even from that status. I’ll be wearing size six shoes after tonight.”
Inasmuch as little Nellie wore size threes ordinarily, there was a considerable amount of acid in the remark.
“Yeah?” growled Smitty, stung. “You’ve noticed everyone looking at us, haven’t you? That’s because we make such a picture on the dance floor. And the reason we make it is me.”
“Picture?” murmured Nellie, looking up to Smitty’s vast height, and to his moonlike face with its bland, china-blue eyes. “A whole mural, I’d say.”
“There you go. Just because I’m a little oversize—”
“Would you say that Gargantua was a bit oversize?” she inquired.
“O.K., O.K.,” said Smitty. “But there have been times when you didn’t mind my size. Whenever you go out and get yourself in some jam because you leap before you look, and when I have to come to your rescue, you like it.”
Now it was Nellie’s turn to be stung.
Everyone connected with The Avenger, because of the terrible danger of his work, was frequently getting into deadly predicaments, which meant that the others dropped everything to come to the rescue. It just happened that Smitty had hauled Nellie out of trouble by the scruff of her pretty neck oftener than he had anyone else. Which burned Nellie up.
“Listen, you behemoth—” she began.
But then two things stopped them. One was the beginning of music for the next dance. The other, as they both rose, was the approach of a curious-looking man to their table.
The man was enormously fat. Though he was a foot shorter than the gigantic Smitty, he must have weighed nearly as much. He was very dark, too, with the type of beard that needs attention twice a day. The folds of flesh making up his blue jowls were constantly set in a beaming smile that was belied by his eyes.
His eyes were small and glittering black; and they looked at everything and everybody with a mean sort of concentration, as if wondering what profit could be squeezed out of that.
“Pardon me,” the fat man said. “You are Mr. Smith and Miss Gray, I believe.”
“That’s right,” said Smitty, itching to whirl his diminutive partner to the music. He was never to enjoy that particular dance, however.
“You are friends of Mr. Richard Benson?”
Friends was a mild term, but Smitty let it go. He merely nodded. Also, he reflected that there was a slight accent in the man’s words. French, he thought. But a very cosmopolitan Frenchman, because the man’s English was perfect.
The fat man looked around as if to make sure no one could overhear. He was safe. Everyone from the near tables was out on the dance floor.
“I have an object to sell,” he said in a low tone, “that I am sure would interest Mr. Benson. But I have been unable to get in touch with him about it.”
Little Nellie flicked a glance at big Smitty. This had a phony sound. Dick Benson, The Avenger, was a very approachable man. He had to be; his business was helping people in distress whose troubles went beyond normal police ability. Therefore, he was “in” to most callers. When a man like this fat guy said he’d been unable to contact The Avenger, even to sell something, it sounded fishy.
But neither of them let on. They just looked interested.
“Perhaps,” said the enormously fat man, “you would . . . er . . . present this object to him and see if he would care to purchase it.”
“Perhaps we would,” said Nellie evenly. “But we’d like to know a few things first.”
“But naturally,” said the fat man.
“Who are you?”
“I am Frank Teebo.”
Smitty decided it was more likely Francois Thebaud.
“What are you?” said Nellie to the fat man.
“I am an artists’ agent. I had an office in Paris till the war started.”
“What are we to present for Mr. Benson’s inspection?”
“A painting,” said Teebo.
“What painting?”
Teebo glanced around again. When he finally answered, it was in a tone so furtive that even Smitty and Nellie could scarcely hear.
“ ‘The Dock,’ by Gauguin,” Teebo breathed.
Smitty checked a whistle of astonishment.
The giant, with his moonface and blue eyes and air of vast good nature, looked dumb. Actually, he was far from that. He was an electrical engineer with a brilliant reputation, with a string of radio inventions to his credit. Besides, he was unusually well informed on a score of other subjects.