The Avenger 1 - Justice, Inc. (11 page)

Mystery can work in opposite directions. If Benson had been unable to get far, as yet, toward the core of the grim mystery that had been exploded into his life with the disappearance of wife and child, so, too, had the men against whom he was fighting been unable to penetrate the mystery of who was beginning to get so close to their mongrel heels.

Pete, from the light truck that had borne Leon away to an unknown destination, and the slack-lipped driver of that truck, still with his inevitable cigarette drooping from the corner of his loose mouth, talked it over a bit.

They were in a cheap boardinghouse room kept in Pete’s name.

“It’s that guy, Benson, of course, who’s behind the monkeyin’ around,” Pete said. “But where’s Benson keeping himself? Benson’s a black-haired young fella. All we’ve seen around is a white-haired guy with a face like something dug up from a grave at midnight. I tell you, the boss is getting kinda worried about it.”

“Who
is
the boss?” mused the slack-lipped driver.

Pete turned baleful eyes on him. The man hastily backtracked.

“Look, I ain’t sayin’ I’m going to nose around and find out things—like the guy you had to knock off in the truck. I’m just a little curious—see? Don’t get me wrong. If you know anything about this, and feel like talking, go ahead. If you don’t, I don’t care. Get me?”

“I don’t know a thing,” Pete said, relaxing stiffly. “That’s the truth.”

“You don’t know the answer to all this stuff we’ve been doing?”

“No. Snatch. That’s all I know. But—nobody’s had the bee put on ’em for money yet. It beats me.”

“And you don’t know who’s behind it?”

“No, and I don’t want to. It’s unhealthy. Anybody in the crowd gets a grand for opening up anybody else who gets too nosy. That’s a standing offer. When it’s like that—you think I’m going around investigating?”

Pete lit a cigarette and drew deep.

“Now, this white-haired guy who has been gettin’ so busy—” he began.

His phone rang. He picked it up.

“S404,” a voice said. All you could tell about the voice, so muffled and disguised was it, was that it was that of a man. But the code number—of a plane—was right.

“O.K. shoot,” Pete said tersely.

“Go to the home of Mrs. Martineau,” the muffled voice rapped out. “Others are going to the homes of the rest. You will do as they are ordered to do: Watch the place. Don’t be seen. Watch from a distance. Any man going there to investigate—see that he doesn’t get far alive. You understand?”

“I understand. You want I should go alone?”

“Take another with you. The man we’re beginning to want out of the way is clever. But two of you should be able to handle him.”

“I’ll say we’ll be able to handle him!” Pete said, lips in a cold grin. “O.K., boss.”

He hung up. The other man stared.

“Say! Was that the boss? Was—”

“I don’t know,” Pete snapped. “That’s the way we get all our orders. Just a guy over the phone. I don’t know who he is. Come on.”

“Where to?”

“The joint where the widow Martineau lives—or lived! The big shots are worried that Benson may get wind of what happened to her, and go snoopin’ around her place. If he does—”

Pete took out his automatic, looked at the full clip, and slipped the safety off and then on again in answer.

Back at the Hotel Ely, Benson was studying the latest editions of the newspapers. So was the giant, Smitty. But Benson was reading financial pages with his eyes like devouring gray flame, while Smitty was concentrating on the regular news.

The giant laid down the last paper with a sigh.

“There’s no mention of the cops being after one Algernon Heathcote Smith,” he said. “I believe it’s as you predicted it would be: Leon’s daughter stopped calling for the cops right after we left. She is now kept silent by the same fear that holds in all such cases. She’s afraid if she reports anybody to the police—me or anybody else—it will go hard with her father. I guess it will be all right for me to walk around loose for a while.”

Benson simply nodded. He was studying the financial news that had been repeated in one form or another by all the papers.

The news was local—and had to do with the Buffalo Tap and Die Works.

For the past twenty-four hours it has been impossible for anyone to get in touch with Mr. Stephen Vincent, secretary-treasurer to Buffalo Tap & Die. He has gone away “for a week’s rest,” according to members of his family and employees near to him. In the opinion of this humble correspondent, that seems highly unusual when you consider that for some time past, it has been impossible to get in touch with Mr. Lawrence Hickock, president of the same firm. The unexplained absence of two high officers of this concern seems to hint that perhaps an investigation of finances should be in order. Where is the much vaunted S.E.C. in this matter?

And in another part of the same paper, under “Financial Transactions,” the following caught the pale-gray eyes:

The extensive holdings of Mrs. Robert Martineau, widow of Dollar Martineau, in Buffalo Tap & Die Works, were thrown on the falling market for that stock with the opening bell this morning. It further added to the chaos of the unfortunate firm’s affairs. Insiders are trying to guess what is in the wind—

Benson looked at the stock quotations, deadly pale eyes like swords of ice in his dead face.

The stock of Buffalo Tap & Die, par 100, was down to 14.

Benson got up, a flashing gray fox methodically and swiftly weaving one cold trail after another into a straight path on which the scent was growing warm. Smitty towered anxiously over him.

“Going somewhere, chief? Let me go for you, huh? You haven’t given me anything to do. You’ve got that redheaded Scotchman out at the Buffalo airport snooping around. But you haven’t given
me
a job.”

“You’ll get plenty, Smitty.” The clipped words came from lips as still and set as gray stone. Meanwhile, Benson was at work before the mirror.

His fingers, growing ever more deft at their almost gruesome job, were manipulating the strangely dead flesh of his white face.

The set lips went up a little in a reckless, happy-go-lucky cast. The features were shaped into a lean and cynical mask. One eyebrow went up a fraction of an inch higher than the other.

Benson put on the hat and bent brim and crown into shapelessness. He put on the topcoat and left the collar up a little, sloppily.

Smitty suddenly nodded. “I get it. A reporter.”

“Yes,” said Benson. “There may be danger where I’m going. Men posted to block investigation. If I can slip into the place and out again as an ordinary reporter, I may avoid trouble.”

“If there’s a chance of trouble,” said Smitty, “there is also a chance that you might not come back. If you don’t, in a specified time, where shall I go to look for you?”

“I’m going to Mrs. Robert Martineau’s home. If I’m not back in an hour, follow me there.”

Benson went out, with the giant’s eyes still anxious on his new boss. Benson seemed a figure of ice more than a man. His face was like something resurrected from death. Not once had he shown a human emotion. Yet there was something about the man that had roused Smitty’s instant and instinctive obedience. He felt he’d go through fire and flood for him. And he was worried about his safety now!

Had he known the trap set at the Martineau home, nothing could have kept the giant from going along.

Three miles from the outskirts of the city, in a ten-acre estate so well kept that it looked more like a public park than a private place, was the home of Mrs. Martineau.

The grounds were so wooded that the big house could not be seen from the road. There was a hundred yards of driveway, curving at the end to stop in a big circle before a front door as elaborate as that of a museum.

At this door three or four reporters tried to get into the house. There were not as many reporters as there would have been if personal tragedy were hinted. This was only a financial business, so financial reporters were here, and were not too tough about entrance.

A white-faced, agitated-looking servant was denying them all chances of an interview.

“Mrs. Martineau won’t see you, gentlemen. She won’t see anyone. She is not well. She hasn’t seen anyone for several days. It seems to me it’s her own business if she wants to sell—or buy—some stock or other on the market. Please go away, gentlemen.”

“We’ll go, as far as the drive,” said the youngest of the men. “There we’ll camp awhile. We want a few words with Mrs. Martineau on Buffalo Tap & Die. If she has any inkling of future movements—it’s news.”

“I’ve told you, Mrs. Martineau won’t talk to anyone—”

Another man came up to the group. The stamp of the reporter was on him, though his face seemed paler than that of most of the boys who hoof it out in rain and sun, and though his eyes were a little colder than most.

The harrassed butler stared at him.

“You, too,” he said. “You can’t come in. No one can. Mrs. Martineau gave strict orders not to be disturbed.”

Benson stared at the servant, at the door, and at the reporters.

“O.K.,” he said, after a moment, with a shrug.

He walked back down the drive—and darted off to the left among concealing shrubbery as soon as he was out of sight of the front door. He doubled back to the house, to the side. He could hear the arguing voices in front as he went up a big maple tree, hand over hand, to a branch almost touching a third-floor window.

He went out on the branch, with the sure-footed tread of a great panther, and in through the window.

At the front door one of the financial reporters said: “Who’s the guy with the poker face? I never saw
him
before.”

“Don’t work on any of the Buffalo sheets,” another said.

Their voices carried. The words were heard by two men kneeling down low in a small screened summerhouse so that they could not be seen above the waist-high railing. The two had their guns out. They looked at each other significantly as they heard the words.

But Pete and his pal had not needed to hear. They had seen the newcomer double back to the house and climb in the high window, and had already guessed that he wasn’t what he appeared.

Both rested their automatics on the rail of the little summerhouse, with the sights lined up on that window. Like that, with murderous eyes on the entrance which should also be the exit of their intended victim—they waited.

In the house, Benson stole with the silence of a cat toward the stairs, and down to the second floor. He could hear subdued, frantic voices from some room there. He got to the door of the room within which was the talking. He could only hear voices; not words. He soundlessly opened the door an inch, and looked in.

It was a large bedroom, with the western sun streaming in on two occupants. One was an old man with a seamed, anxious face. The other was a young woman whose status in the house was difficult to place. She was better dressed than a servant, and not as well dressed as a guest or relative. Secretary to Mrs. Martineau, Benson judged.

“What are we going to
do?”
said the girl, voice shaking.

The old man sighed. “I don’t know. But I do know there is one thing we
can’t
do. That is, to let anyone—above all, newspaper reporters—know that Helen isn’t here.”

‘Where in the world do you suppose Mrs. Martineau is?”

The old man shook his head.

“You know as well as I do that something—terrible has happened to my niece. Ten days, it has been, since we heard from her. She has been . . . carried away, somewhere, by someone.”

“But what for? Ransom?”

“I don’t know. We’ve had no demands. Perhaps there will be one later. I don’t know.”

Benson turned and left the door. He’d learned all he needed to know—had learned what he had suspected before.

It wasn’t that Mrs. Martineau was ill that she refused to be seen. No one could talk to her—because she wasn’t at this house to be talked to! Like Hickock, and Leon, she had disappeared off the face of the earth.

A third person of wealth and importance! A person, like the others, who the average crook wouldn’t dare to touch!