The Avenger 34 - The Glass Man (8 page)

“What about those two down there?”

“I think we’d best move them,” said Konrad. “We want to question them, and this isn’t the ideal location for that. Now that you’re here, you can help us transport them to the place in the desert.”

“Wait, Konrad, I don’t want to get mixed up—”

Konrad gripped Waxman’s arm. “You’ll do exactly what I tell you,” he said.

“. . . and I’ve been the friend and confidant of many of the great magicians and escape artists of the century,” Cole was telling Jenny Keaton as he removed his shoe. “Such men as Houdini, Norgil, Walter Gibson . . .” He clicked his shoe heel aside and took a tiny lock-picking tool from the hollow compartment within the heel. Returning the heel to its original position and the shoe to his foot, he turned his attention to the lock on the metal door of their cell.

“Does that make you an escape artist, too?”

“The deepest, darkest secrets of the prestidigitators are mine,” he assured her. He concentrated on picking the lock.

Jenny Keaton said, “Let’s say we get through this door . . . what’s out there?”

“Could well be more locked doors,” said Cole. “But it’s a long-standing rule of the Wilson clan never to cross a metaphorical bridge until we come to it.”

“Think we’re down under the art gallery someplace?”

“That’s . . . oops, that was a little clumsy of you, old man.” He shook his head over the slip he’d made.

“Does my talking distract you?”

“Not at all.”

“I can keep quiet if you like.”

“On the contrary, your continual banter inspires me to greater heights.” He made a few further deft motions with the pick.
“Voila!”

“Is it open?”

“Should well be.” He turned the handle and pushed the door slowly open outward.

A corridor showed through the gap, lit by a raw light bulb.

Cole signaled for silence and pushed the door further open. He stopped, listening. After a half minute he nodded his head and stepped across the threshold into the corridor.

Jenny Keaton caught hold of his hand and followed him.

This bend of the wood-walled corridor was empty. To their left it branched into two other corridors. They went that way.

Just before they reached the end Konrad, still in his Madame Rosay costume, came around the bend. From out of his knitting bag the actor yanked a pistol. “My, my, what have we here?”

“Thought we’d take a bit of a stroll,” said Cole, grinning at the man with the gun.

“No need to walk when you can ride,” said Konrad. “Now if you’ll kindly come along with me.”

The dog was angry. It barked gruffly, tugging and rattling the chain which held him to the garage.

Edwin Montez pointed a pudgy finger at the grass his flash was spotlighting. “I told you I wasn’t crazy, Sheriff,” he said. “See there, it’s blood.”

The sheriff crouched, touched callused fingers to the blood spot on the lawn near the stone wall. “You sure your dog didn’t cut himself on something?”

“You saw him.” Montez poked a finger in the direction of the chained German shepherd. “There’s not a mark on him.”

“Couldn’t get that close,” replied the sheriff. He moved closer to the stone wall encircling the estate. “Must have gone over the wall around here, this invisible fellow of yours.”

“This is where Nero chased him.”

“We’ll go out and take a look at the sidewalk.”

As they made for the iron gates Montez said, “I had a feeling, a distinct feeling, that I was in danger. That’s the chief reason I got Nero. Ordinarily I can’t stand dogs.”

Shoving open the gate, the sheriff asked, “What made you figure you’d be a target, Mr. Montez?”

“Well . . . I saw what the pattern must be.”

“Pattern?” The sheriff stopped, inspecting the sidewalk by the light of his flash.

“Napton, Price, and I were all friends in college,” said Montez. “It wasn’t only that . . . there was an incident which—”

“I remember now. That’s who the lad in the picture was. Rusty Lamont.”

“Yes, we were all linked to Rusty’s unfortunate death. What picture?”

“Photo I saw at Mrs, Price’s. There’s more blood,” he said, pointing with the flashlight. “Looks like he went along this way. Yep, there’s another splash. Seems to stop here . . .”

“Then you got my message, Sheriff?” A tall, broad woman of fifty was approaching them along the sidewalk.

“What’s that, Mrs. Hackes?”

“About my car. My car was parked right here while I was in visiting old Mrs. Dinlock. When I came out a few minutes ago, I discovered it was gone. Stolen. I called your office, but they said—”

“He must have taken it,” said Montez. “That would tie in with the blood.”

“Blood?” said Mrs. Hackes.

“Give me the details about your car, ma’am,” the sheriff requested. “Make, model, and license number.”

“I can never remember my license number, but it’s a blue 1937 Plymouth two-door sedan. Has a raccoon tail tied to the radio what-do-you-call-it. My oldest boy’s idea.”

“We’ll find it,” the sheriff promised.

“It’s your turn to die!”

The voice came out of the air.

“I don’t think so, Dr. Lamont,” Nellie said defiantely.

The invisible man said no more.

Nellie listened intently, trying to hear him as he moved across the stone floor of the cave room.

But she could hear nothing.

She swung the beam of the flash back and forth, at the same time backing toward the rear wall of the cave.

The unseen Lamont was stalking her, she knew that.

Not even the sound of his breathing could she hear.

“I’m not the only one who knows who you are,” Nellie said.

Silence.

Her back was against the wall now. She maneuvered her purse, by its strap, along her arm and nearer her hand. From within she took a pistol. She shifted the flashlight to her left hand and took the gun in her right.

Now all I need is one more hand, she thought.

She stuffed the light, still burning, half into her purse and grabbed the coffeepot off the kerosene stove. There was liquid in the pot.

“Now maybe we’ll see you.” Nellie flung the contents of the pot toward the place where she’d decided Lamont must be standing.

And she’d guessed right. Cold coffee, a good cupful at least, had hit on his face and chest. The coating of thin brown fluid made that part of him visible.

“Back up to the door,” the little blonde ordered. “I can see enough of you to shoot at now, Lamont.”

He obeyed, walked to the door and opened it.

Nellie followed, gun trained on him.

Then Lamont dived out into the central cave, kicking the door back into the girl.

She stumbled, then ran out after him.

Now she couldn’t see him. He had managed to wipe the coffee away on something. He was completely invisible again.

Nellie could hear him, though. Hear him running away, away and up toward the outside.

We can pinch him later, she decided. Now I better see why Pike hasn’t butted in to any of this.

Pike was unconscious. Sprawled on the stone floor of another of the small caves. His spread-out arms touched another circular trap door. Just behind his ear was a growing goose egg.

Her purse also contained a little jug of a special sort of smelling salts which Fergus MacMurdie had concocted. Nellie—she was much stronger than she looked—rolled the government agent over and uncorked the little jug beneath his flattened nose.

“Huh?” he said, eyes opening. “Who decked me?”

“Our invisible chum,” she told him. “Did you look down there?”

“The invisible guy was here? Where is he now?”

“Taking off for the tall grass, I imagine,” Nellie said. “Don’t worry. We can tag him later.”

“You saw him? No, that’s not the right word for it . . . you encountered him?”

“Saw him, too, or part of him.” She quickly explained what had happened while Pike had been unconscious.

“You’re a pretty tough kid,” he said when she finished.

“What about this trap door?”

“Was just about to lift it when Lamont lowered the boom.” He bent to take hold of the rope handle. Then he dropped to one knee. “Damn. I’m a little dizzy still.”

“Here, hold the light. I’ll do it.”

“You can’t—”

But she could. Nellie got the round stone lid out of the floor.

“Who is it?” said a weak voice from below.

“Is that you, Dr. Dean?” asked Pike.

“Pike, you’ve found me,” said the physicist.

“With a little help,” said Pike.

“Do you have to jiggle?”

“I’m not jiggling. I’m sitting calm as a sphinx.”

“You’re jiggling,” repeated Ellis Zanes.

“I don’t know why you want to paint after dark anyway, Ellis.”

“Would you ask Renoir a question like that? Or Van Gogh?”

“I don’t happen to be personally acquainted with either of them,” said the platinum blonde.

“You surely are a halfwit, Alice.”

“I suppose so. I think only a halfwit would sit here holding a flashlight on your canvas so you can do a night scene of the desert, Ellis.”

“Don’t start sobbing, it makes you jiggle the light.”

From down on the dark road a voice called, “Hey, is this your truck?”

“Go away, buffoon, whoever you are,” Zanes called back.

“I’m Robert Pike, an acredited agent of the U.S. Government, buddy.” Pike came into the cast of the light Alice was holding.

“Is he going to give you a parking ticket?” Alice asked.

“Shut up, nitwit. What can we do for you, Mr. Pike?”

“My own damn car is defunct up the road. I have a very important man I have to get back to . . . well, back to where he came from.”

“You mean that secret base out near—”

“Never mind what I mean. I’d like to borrow your truck for a couple of hours.”

“Let me see some paper that proves you’re a Fed,” requested the painter.

“Here.” Pike thrust a fat wallet between him and the canvas.

“That’s a very flattering photo of you on your ID, Pike. Looks like they retouched the nose.”

“Can we borrow the truck? You’d be doing the government a great service.”

“Sure, we’re going to be here for several more hours. Give him the keys, nitwit.”

“Several more hours?” the girl said forlornly. She gave Pike the keys to the pickup.

Smitty took an enormous deep breath. “Look at that sun up there,” he said. “That ain’t a New York sun.”

Josh, swinging his single suitcase, walked across the small desert airfield in the giant’s wake. “Same sun, you just got a different perspective.”

The Avenger was already checking out the car which he’d arranged to have left for them at this private field. By the time the other two Justice, Inc., members joined him he said, “Car looks to be safe.”

“You were expecting maybe a booby trap?” asked Smitty. He opened the car’s trunk and stowed his suitcase and then Josh’s.

“I don’t have complete faith in the security setup in these parts.” Benson climbed in behind the wheel. “From what Nellie told me, too many people know too much.”

“Puts them one up on me.” Smitty ducked into the back seat of the black sedan. “I don’t know enough about anything that’s going on around here.”