The Avenger 3 - The Sky Walker (14 page)

“Anything else, Nellie?”

The fragile-looking Dresden doll of a girl had hesitated a full minute. She knew Benson’s passion for precision of details and didn’t want to report anything meaningless.

“I think,” she said finally, “that Mr. Abel Darcey’s life may be in danger, though I don’t believe he knows it.”

“What gave you that impression?”

“You said that out at the Gant brothers’ house you found a pair of shoes in the laboratory with no nails in them—looking as if someone had stolen the nails.”

“Yes!”

“Well, as I was going out of Mr. Darcey’s office, I saw a boy leaving the outer office after delivering a bundle. The bundle looked like a pair of shoes. I caught up with the boy and asked him about them. He said they were Mr. Darcey’s shoes. His secretary had sent them to the shoe repair shop nearby, to have them nail the rubber heels back on. The soles were sewn, so they were all right. But the cobbler had received the shoes with not one nail in the heels. As if somebody had pulled them out.”

Benson’s almost colorless eyes were on her like brilliant agate.

“It looks,” she said, “as if whoever had entered the Gant laboratory and searched—and took those shoe-nails—had also been in Mr. Darcey’s office to search for something, and had done the same thing to a pair of
his
shoes.”

“And later,” Mac had put in softly, “the skurlies murrdered the Gant brothers.”

“Yes,” said Nellie. “So maybe the same thing hangs over Abel Darcey.”

A little information concerning the three men Benson had picked as possible leaders of that mob in the hangar. Very little! But the gray fox of a man had mulled it over in his mind, behind unreadable, colorless eyes. And now came the next orders.

“Josh!” The white-haired chief addressed his colored associate.

The sleepy-looking negro, Joshua Newton, stepped forward. Sleepy-looking? Yes, but with an intelligence in his eyes that belied his indolent look and the illiterate dialect he used with strangers.

“I want you to go to Ringset’s office. He knows you, from his visits to the Gant house, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, sir,” said Josh.

“Very well. I want you to tell him in a roundabout way that you have an idea what the inventions of the murdered brothers were. Tell him you’ll sell your knowledge of those inventions if the price is right. See how he reacts to that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Josh,” said Benson. “Walk up. Don’t use the elevators.”

“There’s nothing like climbing stairs to preserve health,” Josh agreed.

“Oh, now, Sleepy,” Smitty said. “You know you wouldn’t climb nine flights of stairs unless your life, itself, depended on it. Why you never move at all if you don’t absolutely have to.”

“Neither does a cat,” pointed out Josh, who was something of a dusky philosopher. “But a cat’s usually in good health, isn’t he?”

The Negro shuffled out, deceptively sleepy and dull-looking.

Benson’s bleak, agate eyes turned on Smitty and Mac.

“I want you two to cruise along the Catawbi Railroad right-of-way again, and look around the spot where that track disappeared. Also, question more of the farmers around there, and see if any others besides the one I talked to happened to glimpse anything in the sky when the noise was heard.”

There were left the two girls—pink-and-white Nellie Gray, and darkly pretty Rosabel.

“Nellie,” Benson said, “you will go to Ludlow, the lake-resort town farthest north on the Catawbi line. After our discovery of the abandoned car ferry they’re using for a hangar, the gang will have towed it to a new spot. There’s only one direction to tow it to a deserted spot and that’s north, away from the city. Probably near Ludlow.”

“And I’m to look around for it?” Nellie began eagerly.

“You are not,” said Benson. “You will go to Ludlow as a wealthy young heiress with nothing on her mind but boating and swimming. There, you will simply keep your eyes and ears open and see if you can find out anything from the local residents. This gang will probably have a few of the local tough boys in their employ. You may learn something. Rosabel, you go with Nellie as her maid. It will make the heiress act look more natural, and you can help if anything happens. Can you shoot?”

“Yes, sir,” said the colored girl quietly. She turned away for a moment, lifted her dress, and turned back with a gun in her hand—the smallest make of .22 palm-gun. It was hardly larger than a watch-charm; but at close range in an accurate hand it could do deadly things.

Benson nodded, colorless eyes inexorable and steady in his paralyzed, white face.

“Don’t take unnecessary risks. Simply learn what you can by talking around. Mac and Smitty will meet you later at Ludlow’s best hotel. You’ll all get further orders there.”

Joshua Elijah Newton shuffled toward the old office building in which Colonel Ringset had his office, on tired-seeming, enormous feet. He was going to approach Ringset in his habitual role of uneducated darky. Only a few knew him as he really was—highly educated, alert, clever.

Colonel Ringset, who had not come to the Gant home as often as a few other friends of the brothers, was not one of those few.

“The hunter,” Josh often told Rosabel, “doesn’t turn his gun on the turtle as quickly as on the weasel. Folks don’t watch the slow and dumb like they do the swift and smart. Always be a turtle till you see if the man you’re talking to is a hunter.”

Colonel Marius Ringset, Josh had decided the first time he laid eyes on him, was a hunter. Whether his hunting was of the kind approved by society or not, Josh hadn’t known or cared—till now. Now Mr. Benson wanted to know; and what that gray fox of a man with the icily flaming eyes wanted to know, Josh was going to find out for him if it was humanly possible.

Josh entered the dingy lobby of the building on slow, huge feet.

There was an out-of-order sign on the furthest of the two elevator doors. He heard a clanging in the basement where a man was still clearing away the debris of the smashed cage Smitty had told about. But there were no police around.

It looked as if the accident hadn’t been reported to headquarters, although the saw-marks on the steel cable must have told that the “accident” was an attempt at murder.

The suspicious failure to report such an accident might be caused by Colonel Ringset’s orders. Or it might be that the building owner had simply wanted to avoid notoriety for his building, which would exonerate Ringset of crooked motives.

Josh shuffled up nine flights of stairs and walked into the outer office of the colonel. A waspish woman of forty stared at him from behind her desk.

“Ah’d lak t’see de cuhnel, please, ma’am,” Josh said, hat in hand.

“Colonel Ringset is very busy just now,” the waspish secretary said, “I’m afraid—”

“Ah’s de boy worked fo’ Robert and Max Gant,” Josh said. “De cuhnel knows me. Jus’ tell him Ah’s anxious to see him, please, ma’am.”

The spinster secretary frowned, hesitated, then went into the office marked
Private.
She came back in a moment still frowning, but less impatient of manner.

“He’ll see you.”

Josh shuffled into Ringset’s office. The cold, gray eyes of the old man probed him from under bushy gray brows.

“Your name’s Josh, isn’t it? Yes, I thought I remembered— Terrible thing, the brothers’ deaths— What did you want to see me about, Josh? A job?”

“No, suh,” drawled Josh. “Leastwise, not ’zactly. But it was about money.”

“If you want to borrow”—Ringset began, scowling.

“No, suh. Ah don’t want to borrow. Ah’s got somethin’ to sell and Ah thought mebbe you’d be interested.”

“Something to sell? I don’t understand.”

“It’s lak this,” drawled Josh, turning his hat in bashful fingers. “De Gant brothers was wuhkin’ on a couple inventions when dey was killed. Seems lak dey was pow’ful inventions, too. Now, folks thinks dem inventions is gone an’ fohgotten, with the brothers daid.”

“Well, aren’t they?” said Colonel Ringset.

“No, suh,” said Josh earnestly. “Leastwise, Ah don’t think they is. Ah knows where Ah can put my han’s on some papuhs of the brothers. Dem papuhs has somethin’ to do with the inventions. Ah’s daid sure o’ that.”

The cold, old eyes were very steady on Josh’s face.

“So?” Ringset said.

“So fo’ a little money—say a hun’ded dolluhs—dem papuhs could be turned ovah to you-all, cuhnel. And from de papuhs, mebbe you-all could figure out what dese pow’ful, big inventions was. An’ dat would be wuhth more’n a hund’ed dolluhs, wouldn’t it?”

The colonel’s gaze was still intent on Josh’s sleepy, innocent-looking face. And in the old man’s eyes Josh could read—nothing at all. Mention of the Gant inventions hadn’t caused the old man to turn a hair. Mention of papers which someone else might buy if he didn’t, seemed to mean nothing to Ringset.

“Josh, you’re a black rascal,” the colonel said after a moment, lips thin.

“If a hund’ed dolluhs is too much,” faltered Josh, “mebbe fifty dolluhs—I”

“You can leave, Josh. I don’t want any inventions that way.”

“But f’um de way de brothers talked dem inventions might be wuhth millions—”

“Not interested,” said Colonel Ringset coldly. “You can go, now. I’m very busy.”

Josh left, a picture of disappointed docility.

He really was as disappointed as he looked. He had hoped to learn something for Mr. Benson. But there had been nothing to learn from the colonel’s reception of an offer that you’d think any man, if he were the least bit crooked, would jump at.

So it began to look as if the mine owner, no matter how he stood to profit from the steel failures, was as honest as his actions made him seem.

Mechanically, Josh started to press the button beside the one remaining elevator shaft that was in working order. Then he grimaced, went to the stairs, and descended on foot.

“A man who takes useless chances is a man who likes flowers—in hands folded across his chest,” was one of the axioms in his book of philosophy.

And yet, in spite of his precaution about the elevator, Josh took a chance when he stepped from the office building door without looking carefully around first.

Next to the building was a small warehouse, not in use, with a dust-smeared show-window and a setback doorway.

In the inclosure of that setback a man was standing. He was about twelve feet from the office building doorway.

His pose, leaning against the jamb with his hands in his coat pockets, was such that the few people on the sidewalk not far away paid no attention to him.

Josh started to walk in the other direction from the office-building exit.

“Come here, you!” came a low voice from behind him.

He turned, saw the man in the doorway, and froze.

The muzzle of a gun was plainly to be seen poking out the fabric of the man’s coat pocket.

Josh’s big feet itched for flight. And he trembled on the verge of it. But the distance between him and that gun was too short. The gunman couldn’t miss.

“I said—come here!”

Josh obeyed orders. He drew near the setback doorway of the unused warehouse on reluctant feet.

The man with the gun concealed in his pocket backed through the doorway.

“Come on! In here—unless you want a slug in the heart!”

Josh followed the man inside. It was as dark as a cave in there.

“Turn around!”

Josh turned.

The ceiling seemed to bang down on his skull, and he fell into blackness.

Looking demure and lovely and helpless, Nellie Gray sat on the train going north along the lake to Ludlow, a town about ninety miles from Chicago on the east shore. Nellie did not have to pretend to be a wealthy girl. She was extremely wealthy. With all the gold of the Aztecs hidden in Mexico in a cache known only to Benson and his aides, Nellie, as well as each of the others, was fantastically rich. But no one of the little group had any desire to just sit back and have a good time on that wealth. Each wanted to fight crime; since each had suffered greatly from criminals.

Sitting beside Nellie, the perfect picture of a lady’s maid, was Rosabel. Actually, the two girls were co-workers and friends. But you wouldn’t guess it to look at them. The picture was of a spoiled rich girl and a patient servant.