The Avenger 24 - Midnight Murder (11 page)

It was a seven-story loft-and-manufacturing building right on the East River, not far from the Williamsburg Bridge. The place seemed half vacant. On each side of it was a low building, three stories high, so that this one stuck up all by itself like a sore thumb.

It was quite dark, now.

As far as Nellie and Smitty could tell, there wasn’t a soul in the building. No light showed anywhere. Down half a block, they saw the car Josh had come in; but there was no sign of Josh himself.

They parked across the street from Josh’s car and a little nearer the building. And as they got out, Nellie looked into a dark doorway.

“Josh!” she called in a low voice.

Josh came to the sidewalk edge of the deep doorway.

“Has Wight showed up, yet?” asked Smitty.

“No,” said Josh.

“Rosabel said Spade, at General Laboratories, told you Wight might show up here. Did he say why he thought that?”

“He said part of this invention, that they’re so hysterically anxious to keep secret, was here,” said Josh. “At least, Spade thought it was here. In the laboratory vault. So he thought maybe Wight would come and get it, afraid someone would blow the vault and steal it.”

“How long have you been on watch here?” Nellie asked him.

“About four hours,” said Josh. “I’ve seen dozens of people come out of the building, till an hour ago, and no one went in. I think the building is empty, now. I don’t think there is a soul in it.”

“Watchman?” suggested Smitty.

“I guess the building is too small to have one. Anyhow, I haven’t seen anybody go in, even a night man.”

“Have you got Wight’s place spotted?”

“I think so,” said Josh. “I looked at the directory in the building lobby when I first got here. There’s no General Laboratories listing on the board, but the names of Wight, Grace, Boone and Towne are all there. And all are in room—or suite—303. Numbers under ten are in the back of the building, overlooking the East River Drive—”

Nellie drew Josh and Smitty back into the doorway.

“Customer,” she said in a low tone.

A taxi had stopped in front of the building they had been speaking of. A man got out, looked furtively around, paid the driver and went in. Nellie’s hand was tight on Smitty’s arm.

“Rew Wight! Spade called the turn. He did come here!”

Wight’s hand went to his pocket and came out as he got to the street door. He had a key to the place, it seemed; probably all the tenants had them, in case they wanted to get in after hours. The door opened, and he went in.

Josh and Smitty and Nellie hurried after him, but the door had banged shut long before they got there.

Nellie was the most expert of the three at lock manipulation. It took her several minutes to get the door open; and by that time, when they got in, Wight had climbed the stairs to the third floor. They heard the bang of a heavy door up there as he went into the laboratory.

Nellie threw the door catch so it would be unnecessary to monkey with the lock when they wanted to let themselves out. This, it developed, was a mistake.

They went to the stairs and got up a flight before Josh said, “Wait a minute. What do we do with Wight when we get him?”

They stopped. Nellie looked at Smitty, and the giant scratched his head uncertainly. Wight had gotten away from them at the Westchester house. They had set out to “get” him again. But, having gotten him, what were they to do with him? There’d been no chance to get orders from Benson.

Nellie cut across the puzzle. She was a direct little soul.

“He’s in trouble,” she said. “He has been captured once by a gang of crooks. Maybe next time, he’ll be killed. I would say we should either follow him around as a bodyguard to protect him, or just pick him up and take him to Bleak Street for his own safety, whether he wants to go or not.”

“Vote for the latter,” said Smitty.

“Me, too,” said Josh.

They might have saved themselves their uncertainty, and their voting, had they known it.

They were halfway up the next flight—elevators were not running at this hour, of course—when Josh stopped, and the others did too, and with the cessation of the sound of their footsteps, they all heard it.

Stealthy sounds down in the lobby!

A single bulb was on down there, in the rear, to provide night illumination. Now, this light went out.

They stole back to the first-floor landing. There, Josh continued alone. Dressed in black, with his dark skin, he could move unseen through darkness where Nellie and Smitty couldn’t.

The light in the lobby was out, but faint light from the street silhouetted the doors, which were big and mainly of glass. Josh saw movement against the doors.

There were a lot of men down here. No telling how many. All he could tell was that quite a few had sneaked in here, after he and Smitty and Nellie had entered. How had they come here at just this time? Trailing Rew Wight? Watching him, as he had watched the building? Probably they’d been on Wight’s trail.

Josh had the courage of a black panther. He left the stairs and sidled along the wall, till he was actually mingling with this gang! His elbow touched a man.

“I don’t hear anything up there,” Josh whispered. “Maybe there’s a way out.”

“Shut up!” whispered the man. “Wanta tip ’em off? Sure they’re up there. Wight, too. Between you an’ me, I think the thing the boss is after is up there. I think the fat boy was kinda sore he didn’t think to look here for it sooner.”

Josh improvised, speaking in an even lower tone, so as not to “tip off” the members of Justice, Inc., up the stairs.

“Who’d think they’d keep it right in their shop?” he hazarded.

“Yeah,” was the low whisper from the man at his elbow. “You’d think it’d be in a safe-deposit box.” He added, “The other cars oughta be here, by now.”

That was enough for Josh. He had to get back to Nellie and Smitty and tell them there were already too many down here to handle, and that “other cars” were on the way, right now, with even more.

He slid toward the stairs, and found that several men had gotten between him and them. He started to eel between them.

There was a sudden suspicious exclamation. And a flashlight sent its beam squarely in Josh’s dark face! He smacked it to the floor, where it instantly shattered and went out, but the damage was done.

Nobody yelled or shot because nobody wanted to draw police attention here. But there were snarled curses, no less fervent for being suppressed, and about six men jumped Josh.

The Negro could fight like a black tiger. He struck out like a windmill in the dark and had the pleasure of feeling a couple of satisfactorily jarring contacts with faces.

“Get out the fire escape!” he yelled to the two up the stairs. “There are too many—”

A fist caught him in the jaw, guided by sound, and he didn’t have a chance for more words. But he’d given a warning. Now, the two up there could get help.

Nellie and Smitty had no intention of getting out the fire escape or any other way. They took the stairs down two at a time. Josh was in trouble, and when one of the members of Justice, Inc., was in a mess, all the rest jumped to help him.

Fighting in the dark was precisely the kind of fighting the little blonde and her huge sidekick were best at. This was because they didn’t depend on blows, which need a seen target to be effective.

Smitty’s vast paw caught a shoulder. He squeezed. There was a hoarse but sustained screaming in answer. The screaming kept up after he released the shoulder. In fact, it went on till some of the man’s own gang swung gun or sap to stop it.

Smitty went happily on.

He felt an arm and yanked on it. The feel of it, and a grunt of agony, told him that the arm ended up by being effectively out of joint.

A head butted him in the stomach. He grunted at that, but the thick sheath of iron-hard muscles down there didn’t feel it much. He banged down hard on the head with the heel of his fist, as a hammer hits a nail!

A body collapsed around his feet, almost tripping him.

“This isn’t so bad,” he said to Nellie.

Nellie didn’t answer. She was too busy. Because she wore a dress, she was distinguishable as an enemy to every thug who happened to brush against her.

One man who had lunged for her was out of it. She’d caught his coat, yanked it down over his arms, and then put him out of his spirit of enterprise by bringing the edge of her firm little hand slashing hard against his Adam’s apple.

Hands got her by the throat. She drove her own hands and arms up between the clutching wrists and spread hard. The hands tore loose. She caught one of the wrists, bent down hard, and the body behind the wrist pin-wheeled over her slim shoulders to smack against the lobby floor.

No, it was not so bad. But in a moment, things changed. The door opened. None of the battlers heard that, above the other sounds. But then an extra powerful flashlight rayed out. They all saw that.

It froze the lot of them for an instant, and the poses were something that should have been photographed.

Nellie had a man by the hair, hauling his head down with her left hand while her small right fist was poised to drive up against his jaw. She held on like that for an instant, while the light transfixed them all.

Josh was on his knees with red trickling down his temple. But his wiry, strong hands were around the throat of a man he had dragged down with him.

Smitty had a man’s writhing body raised over his head at arm’s length. He had been caught as he was about to heave it enthusiastically toward three other men.

Five thugs were either down, inert on the floor, or hugging the safety of far walls while they nursed wounds that prohibited any more fighting.

For just an instant, the violent tableau held; then Smitty, with a roar, hurled his burden at whoever was holding the flashlight.

Unfortunately, the unwieldy projectile didn’t quite get there. The light continued to ray out, coldly and impersonally. And a calm voice wheezed from behind it:

“We seem to have a band of children working for us, Gerry. At every encounter, they lie down and let a few of Justice, Inc., walk over them at will.”

“They certainly have not distinguished themselves so far,” was the indolent, drawling answer. “One of you men, turn the lights on.”

The light at the rear of the lobby went on. And with light, there was a different picture here.

Four to one, men faced Nellie and Smitty and Josh with submachine guns and automatics. Meanwhile, Nellie and Smitty recognized Merto and Gerry.

The fat man smiled placidly at the two, and they felt cold from the impact of it. His smile was worse than most blood-thirsty scowls.

Gerry, the beautifully dressed murderer with the long cigarette holder, was hanging black cloth over the glass doors, so that no light would shine into the street. It was standard blackout cloth, easily procurable.

“This is really annoying,” said Merto finally. “Everywhere we turn, we trip over you people. However, we seem gradually to be freeing ourselves of the annoyance. We won’t be bothered by your leader any more. And now, with you neatly trapped here, there will be three more out of the way.”

Nellie went white, and Smitty gulped out something. What did the fat balloon mean, they wouldn’t “be bothered by your leader any more?” The giant was afraid he knew precisely what they meant. So were Nellie and Josh.

In mad anger, the three tensed for a suicidal charge at the grinning elephant with the flashlight. The hands of the mobsters tightened on their guns.

There was tense silence, while the three obviously teetered on the edge of committing suicide on the slight chance that they could reach the fat man first.

In the silence, noises from outside were magnified. A clatter down the street told of a truck being driven too fast, a block or so away. From the East River at their elbows, came the hoot of a boat of some sort, probably a tug.

It seemed like a snort of derision at their desperate plight. “Toot! toot! Try and get out of this! Toot!”

Suddenly, there was a rending, tearing crash from somewhere upstairs in the building. It had come so close on the heels of that last toot, that it seemed as if the sound from the river boat had somehow touched it off.

Merto’s jellylike bulk seemed to freeze solid while his head tilted toward the stairs.

His face suddenly wasn’t placid and philosophical, it was icily furious. So was the face of Gerry, the indolent and elegant co-leader of this crew of cutthroats.

The two looked at each other.

“I don’t know what that is,” snarled Merto, “but I suspect it is more bad luck for us. Let’s see.”

The two raced for the stairs. “Keep these three covered and mow them down if they stir a finger!” Gerry snapped, as the two hit the stairs. There was nothing drawling or indolent about his voice.

The two went up to the third floor, as their steps indicated to those below. Nellie looked at Smitty.

“Rew Wight?” she said. “Was that explosion in his laboratory?”

“I have a hunch it was,” said the giant somberly. “Though what could have set it off, with no one in there but him—”

“Shut up!” snapped one of the men.

Some time elapsed before Merto and Gerry came back down. The fat man’s face was a mask of wrath. The slim, younger man seemed to have regained his careful indolence.

“The detector was there!” Merto raged. “But it will do no one any good, now. Blown to bits! Wight, too. No chance, now, of holding him till he tells us how to duplicate it. We’ll have to start all over again. Never have we had such ill fortune on a job, Gerry.”

The slim, younger man put a cigarette in his long holder. He lighted it and took a thoughtful little puff.

“One of the detectors was in the plane and was retrieved by Chester Grace,” he drawled. “This must have been a second model. Meanwhile, the first is still out in the country laboratory. We can still get that.”

“Yes. But I’d thought—I’d hoped—that we could finish the job tonight, here. What could have caused that explosion? There was no evidence of laboratory experiments dealing with explosives that could go wrong.”

Gerry took his usual thoughtful little puff at his cigarette before answering.