The Avenger 23 - The Wilder Curse (6 page)

“I believe he was,” Mrs. Foley said. “He acted very nervous, very strange, for weeks before he . . . before his—”

“How do ye mean—strrrange?” burred the Scot.

“He hired a chauffeur who was an ex-wrestler, as a sort of guard,” said Mrs. Foley. “And he had those prison bars put over the windows. He jumped when anyone came near him unexpectedly. Even when I did. And he always seemed to be listening.”

“Listening?” said Wilson. “Listening to what?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Foley. “I never heard anything. And if I didn’t, I don’t see how he could have. Yet, he was always listening as if he
did
hear something.”

“Did what he thought he heard scare him?”

“I should say it did,” sighed Mrs. Foley. “Carl lost at least thirty pounds in the month before he died. The doctors said there wasn’t a thing the matter with him. So it must have been just that he was so afraid.”

“He was killed in his office, I understand,” Cole said, very sympathetic in tone, “late at night. Did he often work nights?”

“He used to. But during the time he was so scared, he hardly ever went out of the house after dinner.”

“Did he say why he went, that night?”

“No. He seemed more nervous than ever. I was awfully surprised that he went out. But somebody phoned him just before, and I guess some matter was discussed that seemed to Carl to be so important he’d better see about it personally.”

“Oh, so someone phoned just before he went out!”

“Yes.” Mrs. Foley looked beautifully reproachful. “I’ve told the regular police all this already,” she complained.

“Has anyone but the police—and friends—called here since Muster Foley died?” Mac asked suddenly.

“No.” Mrs. Foley shook her head. Then, after a moment, she said, “But what do you mean, anyone besides police and our friends?”

“I mean—
anyone,”
said the Scot.

“An electrician came yesterday,” said Mrs. Foley with indifference. “He said Mr. Foley had called him just before he . . . it happened. He said he’d been told to fix the lights.”

“What lights?” Mac said.

“I don’t know. I was out. When I got back, the second-floor maid told me about it. He did something to the lights in Mr. Foley’s upstairs study. I’d thought they were all right before he came.”

“Could we see those lights?”

“Of course,” sighed Mrs. Foley.

They went up broad, curved stairs. Cole said, “Did you tell this to the regular police?”

“No,” said Mrs. Foley. “They didn’t ask, and I didn’t think to tell them. It didn’t seem important. Is it?”

“Don’t know yet,” Mac said.

They looked at the lights in the small, book-lined study. There was a central fixture and four around the walls.

No one of them had been repaired, damaged or touched in any way whatever, as far as Mac and Cole could tell. The electrician might never have monkeyed with them, for all the evidence that was left.

Then Cole’s sharp black eyes were drawn to the shiny plate over the wall switch. It had been taken off and put back on recently. You could tell because it hadn’t been put back exactly as before. A hairline of paint showed fresher than the rest.

Cole promptly took it off again. Underneath was the wadded wire and switch mechanism, innocent, correct. There was nothing wrong here.

They thanked Mrs. Foley and went out. As they started down the stairs, they were almost bumped into by someone coming up.

This was a young fellow, about Cole’s age and build, but with yellow hair and a face almost too good-looking. He looked eagerly, almost boyishly, at the two.

“You’re with Justice, Inc., aren’t you?” he said. “I’ve heard of you. Spotted you by the names. Maid said you were here. I’m Clarence Beck, Mr. Foley’s nephew.”

Mac and Cole hardly had time to nod acknowledgment, when he rushed on:

“Uncle Carl and I were pals as well as relatives. Say, I’d like to help in catching his murderer. Didn’t ask the regular cops, because I knew there was no chance. But I’ve heard about how
you
work. I don’t see why I couldn’t stick around with you. I’d sure like to help.”

“Well,” began Mac doubtfully, “I harrdly think—”

“Swell!” Clarence Beck said. “I’m sure I can be of some use. I know, for instance, who phoned Uncle Carl just before he was killed—the phone call that got him out of here and to his office, that night. I found out after the police were here. I’ll be glad to tell—”

He stopped suddenly and snapped his fingers. “What do you know!” he exclaimed. “Forgot something. Very important, too. Don’t go ’way, now. I’ve got to make a phone call. A girl named Myra.”

He dashed into the first-floor library.

“Brain like a feather,” muttered Mac.

“I think he’s all right. Just impulsive,” Cole said defensively. He had a weak spot for others like himself.

“Just the same, we can get along without him verrra nicely,” Mac said.

They went on out the door.

There was something in the street that hadn’t been there when they went into Foley’s house. But neither Mac nor Cole, versed as they were in the ways of danger, paid much attention to it. It was too common a sight in any big city.

It was a big, dull-red moving van. It was backed in to the curb at an angle, just in front of the car they’d come in. As they emerged from the Foley doorway, two men were laboring out of the next house with a piano.

They were crossing the sidewalk just as Cole and Mac got to that point on the way to their car. The two members of Justice, Inc. paused a moment to let the movers get past.

The scuffling feet of the men drowned all other sounds of feet. And with two at the piano and a third just lifting a chair into the open rear of the van, it would seem that the whole crew was in sight.

Cole and Mac never knew what hit them!

Padded pipe, or something of the kind, crashed down on their skulls from behind. They pitched forward. Before they’d hit the walk, the sluggers behind them caught their bodies.

A woman was walking toward them half a block away, but she didn’t see anything. The piano was between her and what had happened. No witnesses were ever to report this.

The men with the blackjacks heaved Mac and Cole into the van. Still another man in there—that made at least six in this odd moving gang—threw carpet over the two bodies. They loaded the piano in, shut the big rear doors and drove away.

A call to the Thornton Heights general office had revealed the fact that neither Amos Jones nor Thomas Marsden nor Andrew Sillers were coming there that day. They could be reached at home.

The Avenger wanted a word with the remaining partners of the rich development. He drove toward Marsden’s address first.

Marsden lived in a three-story apartment building, four blocks from Thornton Heights. The building was named “Marsden Manor.” Apparently, it was owned by Marsden as a separate and personal venture, having nothing to do with Thornton Heights.

A glance at the vestibule bells revealed that, while this was a six-apartment building, there were only five apartments in it. The top floor, which should have had two, had only one big one, and this was all Marsden’s.

Benson pressed Marsden’s bell. There was no answer. He pressed again. Marsden’s office had said he was here. Even if he were out for a while, some one of his servants—there must be several for so large a place—should be at home to answer the ring.

But none did. The speaking tube remained mute.

The Avenger took out a ring of master keys of his own design. With but a glance, he picked one out and put it in the vestibule door lock.

The door promptly opened. He went upstairs to the third floor.

He didn’t attempt to open the lock there; but with one of the keys, he scraped at the lock as if he were working on it.

A tremendous voice said, “G-go away or I’ll shoot. I’ll shoot through the door!”

“Do you usually shoot visitors without even knowing who they are?” said The Avenger.

“B-but I know who you are,” came the trembly voice on the other side of the door. “We don’t want you in here.”

The Avenger’s deadly, pale eyes glittered like polar ice under the moon. This was interesting. He was used to having the doors of criminals barred frantically against him. But Marsden was a wealthy, respected man. Why was he so eager to have nothing to do with Richard Benson?

“All right,” Dick said. “If you don’t want to see me, I suppose there’s nothing to do about it.”

“We don’t want to see you. Good-by!”

Benson walked down the stairs audibly then walked back up them silently. The man on the other side of the door seemed satisfied that The Avenger had really gone, as easily as that, which showed that he didn’t know much about Dick Benson after all.

There was a window above the third-floor stairwell. The Avenger’s fingers hooked over the sill. He drew himself up and then out.

The next window in the third-floor line could be reached by leaning far to the side. He reached it, swing up, raised it and slid in.

He was in a small sitting room where there was a desk with several phones on it and a man behind it. The man whirled as Benson straightened from his catlike entrance. In the man’s hand was a .38 revolver.

“I thought my servant told you we didn’t want you in here,” the man said.

The words were composed, but the voice was not. It shook badly. So did the gun. Shaky guns are far more apt to go off than steady ones in the hands of experts.

“You’re Marsden, aren’t you?” said The Avenger, voice as calm and expressionless as his mask of a face.

“Yes. And you’re Richard Benson, and I want nothing to do with you—unless I have a gun in my hand. It looks as though Andrew was right, after all.”

“Andrew? You mean your partner, Andrew Sillers? Right about what?”

The Avenger’s voice was a powerful tool, a compelling thing. Few could defy its cold vibrancy. Probably Thomas Marsden couldn’t have understood its compulsion, either, if he had not been so frightened. He looked at The Avenger as if in deadly fear for his life.

“Get out of here!” he said, waving the gun unsteadily.

His hand touched a button on his desk. The door of the small sitting room opened and a servant in a white jacket came in. He was plump and soft, with a bald head and popping eyes. At least, the eyes were popping when they rested on Benson, who was supposed to have walked peacefully away from the front door.

“Show this man out,” said Marsden, words much more resolute than his voice. “You have the gun I gave you. Keep it against his back till the door closes on him.”

The white-jacketed man drew a gun which he seemed to regard with as much fear as he did Benson. He walked around The Avenger and pressed the muzzle against his spine. Benson could feel it quaking against him.

Now, The Avenger had ways of taking guns away from people. He had ways of making people talk, too, without the use of violence. Quite probably, he could have done both of these things in this instance, but the mention of Andrew Sillers’s name had decided him to leave here peacefully and go at once to see Sillers.

Marsden had said, “It looks as though Andrew was right, after all.”

That seemed strange enough to call for investigation.

“I’ll be back,” he said evenly to Marsden.

Fear leaped higher in the tall, thin man’s gloomy eyes.

“The next time you try to break in here, I’ll shoot you on sight,” he yelled.

His gun covered Dick till The Avenger had gone out of the room. And the servant’s gun trembled against his spine till he had walked out of the apartment.

But The Avenger wasn’t to talk to Andrew Sillers for a while, yet, which was black misfortune for Andrew Sillers.

He had just started his car toward Thornton Heights, when the radio came to life.

“Calling Mr. Benson. Urgent! Mr. Benson.”

The Avenger said into his own transmitter, “Yes, Nellie. What’s up?”

“It’s Cole and Mac, chief,” came the little blonde’s voice. “They’re in some kind of trouble. Couldn’t talk. Either Cole or Mac tapped an SOS on his belt-radio transmitter. I just heard it. That’s all I know.”

“Exact time?” Dick asked.

“Just a minute ago. Ten thirty-two.”

“Have Smitty meet me at Carl Foley’s house. That’s where they were last, as far as we know,” said Benson.

“You mean have Smitty and
me
meet you, don’t you?” Nellie said hopefully.

“No. Just Smitty.”

“Oh!”

You could fairly see Nellie’s disappointment. The diminutive blonde lived for excitement. And it now looked as if she might miss some.

The Avenger, pale eyes glinting as they always did when some of his band were in trouble, sped toward the Foley house.