The Avenger 17 - Nevlo (4 page)

The three were in there now. In fact, all but one of the small band of indomitable crime fighters were there.

Cole Wilson, another member of Justice, Inc., and the little band’s newest member, was not present. An engineer, whose genius in mechanical fields was comparable to the very best in the country, Cole had been called to Washington as a technical adviser on one of the nation’s great defense projects. Such were the superlative abilities of The Avenger’s aides that their advice was sought freely, and given willingly, in these times of stress when the country’s welfare depended on keen minds and exceptional experience.

Blond Nellie Gray, slender, small, demure, sat next to the giant, Smitty. Mac, sandy ropes of eyebrows raised high over his bleak blue eyes, was next to Nellie.

Opposite them sat Josh Newton and his pretty wife, Rosabel. Rosabel had graduated from Tuskegee, too. The two of them were devoted and were seldom far apart.

Behind a big, flat-topped desk was the leader of this little crew whom the underworld feared more than all the police forces of all the land put together, Dick Benson, The Avenger.

He was talking, of course, of that mysterious power blackout that had occurred earlier in the day. And as he talked, the five listened with respect, none more respectfully than Smitty, who, as a fine electrical engineer, recognized his master in The Avenger.

“It seemed to me to be impossible that the queer electrical failure could be due to any natural cause,” came The Avenger’s calm, cold voice. “That was indicated by the fact that Smitty contacted a liner a hundred miles or so from shore, and found it had had no electrical failure. I got in touch with Europe, China, and South America; those places experienced no such phenomenon. Only this, the North American, continent was affected. And if a natural occurrence were responsible, it is reasonable to suppose that the entire earth would have been affected, not just one corner of the globe. But to make sure, I called meteorological stations and observatories in many sections. There has been no instance on recent record of cosmic disturbance or of electrical storms on a large scale till
after
the blackout.”

“So?” said Smitty softly, after a pause.

“So it is pretty conclusive that this thing was done artificially. The blackout of power over our continent was caused by some one man or group of men.”

Smitty got to his feet, stammering in his excitement.

“That isn’t possible! How on earth could any man blank out all electrical units over such an area? Or even stop any one unit at a distance? There have been rumors of rays that would cause ignition systems—on planes or tanks—to go dead at a distance of several miles. War weapons. But I for one have never believed in its possibility.”

“If ye don’t believe in a thing,” said Mac sarcastically, “then that thing canna happen. Nice, clear reasonin’, ye mountain of brawn. But in spite of your beautifully clear logic,
somethin’
made every electrical appliance in North America useless for fifteen or twenty seconds!”

Smitty glared at the Scot and sat down. There was no answer to that. Something
had!

“What beats me,” said Josh thoughtfully, “is that so little has come out in the newspapers.”

Nellie shook her sleek blond head.

“It’s not so surprising, Josh. Probably every power plant thought it was the only one that failed. And every driver thought it was only his car that went dead for a few seconds. There have been a few humorous stories in various papers, where people got together and thought it was mildly curious that more than one motor should fail at the same time. But that’s all.”

“The War Department doesn’t think it’s humorous,” observed Smitty.

And that was true enough.

The War Department was running around in circles down in Washington. They had phoned Dick Benson, who was on record as having done several priceless things for the government, a very short time after the power blackout, asking if he would investigate the phenomenon at once. So Benson would have been in on the case even if his own intellectual curiosity hadn’t driven him into it.

“I wonder if it was a war move,” mused Rosabel, her intelligent dark eyes softly brilliant. “A preliminary, threatening gesture, with a demand from some warlike nation soon to follow.”

“What I’m wondering,” said Smitty, “is not what it was done for, but
how
it was done. It’s simply impossible, I tell you. The power plants I contacted didn’t report any breakdowns. Their generators were turning, driven either by water power or steam. Only, for a little while, power ceased to be generated. It . . . it’s—”

What it was, he was never to be allowed to say. For at that moment there was a tiny pinpoint of red light in a section of wall near the door.

Mac went to a miniature television set designed by Smitty. Always on, it showed anyone entering the vestibule downstairs.

Mac gazed at the screen now, and exclaimed aloud.

“There’s a mon at the buzzer. He seems sick—down on his knees—
Whoosh!
He’s in a bad way. Smitty!”

But the giant was way ahead of him. He was already out the door and down the stairs. In the vestibule, he gathered a moaning, almost senseless form in his arms, and he raced back up the stairs with it as if his burden had weighed no more than a doll.

He laid the man gently on a divan, with the rest gathering around.

Dick Benson took over. His pale eyes, like stainless steel chips, stared compellingly into the man’s blurring ones.

“You wanted to see me?”

The man’s lips moved, but no sound came out. He nodded a very little.

“What did you want to see me about?”

Nellie’s eyes were sympathetic. From the fact that The Avenger, one of the world’s greatest physicians, was making no effort to aid the man, she knew that such effort was hopeless, that the fellow must be dying, with nothing on earth able to stay his fate.

The man was unable to answer the question. His eyes closed, but with a last flicker of desperate strength, he struggled to an elbow.

“Midnight, April 27th—” he gasped.

He fell back. And they knew there was nothing more to do with him, except bury him.

Dick’s hands, slim and not large, but steely in their strength, went over the man’s body. They paused at the right arm, and his icily flaring eyes glared at a small red spot.

“Poisoned!” he said. “Hypodermic needle. Murdered to keep from telling what he came here to tell.”

Janet Weems’s hair was a light brown and streaked with dark gold as if the sun had been at it. She had deep-brown eyes and a smooth, satiny skin. She was a little taller than most girls, and much more graceful. The man, looking at her, found her just about perfect.

But, then, he would have found her about perfect even if she hadn’t actually come so close to it, for he was in love with her.

The man was Bill Burton, newly in charge of Marville’s Plant 4, and Janet Weems was his secretary, soon to become his wife.

Burton looked haggard and ten years older than his real age, which was natural enough. For nearly two months, he had been frantically investigating a generating plant that wouldn’t work, but which, to the trained eye, was absolutely unsurpassed in design and execution.

Bill Burton and Janet Weems were not in Marville now. They were in Cleveland. And they were hiding in Cleveland, under assumed names, as if they were wanted by the whole police force for murder.

This was because at last Burton, who was an extra-competent engineer, had found something at Marville. Something half explaining the failure of perfectly wired, perfectly installed, swiftly turning generators to generate power as they were supposed to do.

Something that had kept him from sleeping or eating ever since. Something that had sent him at once to Cleveland, after taking elaborate precautions to make sure he was not trailed. He meant to board a plane for New York, now.

But not with Janet.

He knew his life wasn’t worth a plugged nickel and refused to have her share peril with him any more than was necessary. Even if she traveled alone, it was going to be dangerous enough.

“The name,” he said tensely, “is Richard Henry Benson. Have you got that?”

“Richard Henry Benson,” repeated Janet. Her lips were pale with worry over Bill. He was so obviously beside himself with fear, terrorized by something he had found at Marville.

“Benson is the one sometimes called The Avenger,” Burton added.

“Rather a melodramatic name,” said Janet, frowning a little.

“He doesn’t call himself that. I have an idea he doesn’t care for it much. Others, particularly crooks, who are afraid of him, have tacked on the label. But no matter. You are to go to this Richard Henry Benson, at Bleek Street in New York. Any cab-driver will know the address instantly, and there is only one tenanted entrance on the street, as I understand it, so you can’t miss.”

“Benson, Bleek Street,” nodded Janet. “And when I get there, what do I say?”

Burton hesitated a long time. What he had in mind was too appalling to tell even Janet. He shrank from doing so. He had an unreasonable feeling that just the knowledge, in her brain, would be dangerous to her.

Finally he reached into his pocket and drew out a small envelope. From the envelope he took two slim lengths of steel, pointed at the ends like needles. At the blunt end of each needle he had taped a very fine strand of copper wire.

They looked like needles with roots on them.

From another pocket he took a diagram. The diagram was simple. It represented one of the needles—whether big or little could not be told since there was nothing else in the drawing for comparison of size—standing upright on a wavy line. The needle’s “root” went down under this wavy line, and from the needle’s tip went up a flock of other lines, straight lines, none of which quite touched the point.

He folded the diagram so that it would be encompassed in the envelope and slid the needles back in also.

“Give him this,” he said, sealing the envelope.

“Bill—what do they mean?”

Burton said nothing.

“Darling, what did you find out at the plant? It must have been just in the last day or two. Before that time you were worried, but that was all. Since then you have been more than worried. You have been afraid—terribly afraid!”

Burton only shook his head. He had a firm chin, anyhow. It was stubborn as granite now. And his lips were a thin straight line in his face.

“You won’t tell me?”

“No, honey, I won’t,” he said. “Time for us to get going. I’ll go out first. You follow in a few minutes. One of us must get through to Benson. You understand? One of us
must
get through!”

“Oh, Bill!”

Janet’s arms were around his neck, and she was kissing him. Then he went out, shoulders back, like a soldier going over the top to a war adventure from which he knew he would never return.

Janet had taken a room in a small, side-street hotel, where Bill had met her. He went out the door with his head down and hurried up the block and around the corner. His car was parked there.

For a full minute he stood in a doorway near the corner and looked around. He was trying to see if anyone was lurking near his machine. He had to wait till several people on the walk went on their way, to be sure they were the innocent pedestrians they seemed to be.

Because of the delay, Janet saw the thing that ensued just a little later.

She gave Burton four minutes, then left the room herself.

In her effort to keep her movements secret, she did not formally check out of the hotel. She left money to cover her bill on the dresser, with a note. In the small lobby, she walked past the desk with only a nod to the clerk, as if she were merely going out for dinner somewhere.

She, too, went out of the entrance as unobtrusively as possible, and her way lay up the block, in the wake of Burton’s steps, toward a taxi stand in the next square.

She reached the corner, glanced down, and saw Burton’s car. She could see the back of his head, through the rear window of the coupé, as he settled behind the wheel.

Her heart was in that look. Dear Bill, so afraid of something. And it was so unlike him to be afraid of anything—