Neither of them had had breakfast, and they were a bit snappish about it. Smitty usually ordered breakfast eggs by the dozen; and Nellie, for all her dainty smallness of size, could do a fine, thorough job on a rasher of bacon and a pile of toast.
They hadn’t had breakfast because, in turns, they had been watching an entrance way all night — one dozing beside the wheel while the other, ready for instant motion, glued his eyes on the door.
It was the door of a second-rate building in which resided a person named von Bolen Haygar.
The Avenger had come in direct contact with persons calling themselves Shan Haygar, Carmella Haygar, and Harlik Haygar. As the woods seemed to be so full of Haygars, he had decided to look around and see if there were still more.
Benson had a private espionage system that was unparalleled for efficiency. Clerks in rental agencies, men in stores, boys at newsstands, subway workers — a host of people, following occupations that exposed them to the public, did occasional searching for The Avenger. He had thrown this machine into gear and had come up with some additional facts.
There were more Haygars.
There was a Sharnoff Haygar, described by a delicatessen-store owner in lower Manhattan as a customer. There was a von Bolen Haygar.
Also, from an old Who’s Who came the information that there had been a Wendell Haygar; and following that lead had been unearthed the story of old Wendell’s death, the return of an estranged son, and his residence on a Maine island.
Benson had shelved that for the moment and set Nellie and Smitty on von Bolen’s trail and Mac and Josh on the trail of Sharnoff.
Von Bolen was now on his way somewhere with a suitcase in a taxicab, with Smitty and Nellie faithfully behind.
“You know,” said Smitty sourly, “this is one of the goofiest affairs yet. It didn’t look like much of anything when it started. A girl comes and says somebody is out to kill her and asks us to guard her for forty-eight hours. She has a gold metal for which, it seems, she was kidnapped, and there are a couple of other unexplained murders. Then zing! We’re in it up to our necks. And we still know nothing at all about it.”
“We know there are other medals besides the one Carmella had,” said Nellie. “I believe the chief is working on the theory that another one of the things was the motive for the murder of Milky Morley and Simon the Grind.”
Smitty thought hungrily of about eighteen fried eggs reposing on half a dozen pieces of ham. Large pieces.
“We wouldn’t be in this at all,” he grumbled, “if that nitwit Carmella hadn’t sneaked away from Bleek Street. Now the chief is afraid she’s in danger.”
“We’d be in it without Carmella,” contradicted Nellie. “The chief wants to know the secret of those golden disks. It’s something pretty big, and pretty dangerous, which is exactly the kind of thing he takes on.”
“I wonder what is the secret? What do the gold medallions mean?”
“They’re just keepsakes,” mimicked Nellie. “They mean nothing; have little value. We Haygars treasure them because they have sentimental value. Bah! If—”
The taxi ahead of them turned into Newark Airport, as they’d had an idea it would.
Smitty stopped their car at the gate, and he and Nellie walked in. Ahead of them, they could see von Bolen legging it for one of the small hangars at the east end of the field. Apparently he had made all arrangements in advance for a plane.
They hurried a little, and then it commenced — an apparent attempt in broad daylight, on a field swarming with attendants, at either murder or kidnapping.
Four men had been talking together, apparently on some business matter, next to the hangar toward which von Bolen had been hastening. They turned suddenly and raced up to the Prussian-looking gentleman.
“Smitty!” gasped Nellie.
But the giant was already moving — and moving fast. He weighed nearly three hundred, but he could move like a slim kid if he had to. He got to von Bolen almost as soon as the four surprise attackers.
He would have gotten there equally soon, but he had to duck back for an instant to avoid being run down by a car, and that cost him a couple of seconds.
There was a man with a tense face at the wheel of the car, and he stopped his vehicle a few feet away and waited with motor racing.
Meanwhile, the four had von Bolen down, and two were trying to boot him on the head while the other two tried to get into his pockets. Von Bolen was squirming to avoid being brained, and the squirming also made a search impossible.
That was when Smitty got there.
With a growl a little like that of an annoyed grizzly, the giant plucked two men away from von Bolen and slammed them together. They smashed into each other chest to chest! They smashed so hard that they seemed to merge into one another; both slumped to their knees, gasping, when the vast hands released them.
One of the others was swinging a gun like a club at the huge fellow’s head. One of the blows landed slantingly, and Smitty got mad!
Paying no attention to the banging gun, he caught the man’s arm, swooped down for his left ankle, then straightened up. The fellow hung yelling for a instant. Then the huge shoulders heaved, and the man landed over twenty feet away!
The driver was racing the car motor in a wordless plea for escape. Von Bolen had torn from the grip of the fourth man and was beating it toward the hangar. Attendants from all parts of the field were running up.
The two who had been smashed together crawled weakly into the car. The one Smitty had thrown got in, too, dragging a crooked leg behind him. The fourth fellow turned from the giant with a scream; then the car door slammed, and the car was in motion.
It slammed through the airport gate and on down the wide road while Smitty ran after von Bolen with Nellie Gray close behind.
About ten airport attendants got in between.
“Out of the way!” roared Smitty, charging.
Four fell, but the other six got him, and he was handicapped by the fact that he didn’t want to hurt these guys.
Three clung to each leg, which slowed him a little, and then three more got to him and climbed his vast frame. Finally a small army of attendants managed to get him off his feet and swarm over him like ants over a caterpillar.
A plane came from the hangar at a fast clip and took off. Von Bolen was in it!
Smitty stopped fighting. The attendants warily let him up.
“And this,” said Nellie, when her dainty voice could be heard, “is the way we get thanked for saving the life of a stranger.”
“Huh?” said one of the attendants suspiciously.
“Four men tried to kill that man who just left in the plane,” said Nellie, her blond loveliness playing havoc with the attendant’s sense of justice. “We happened to see the attempt and drove the men off. Then you come and pile on my friend.”
“Look here — who was fighting who?” snapped another of the men.
“I just told you.”
“But if you saved the guy’s life, why did he buzz off without thanking you?”
“I don’t know,” said Nellie. “He’s a stranger to us.”
“If you didn’t know him, why did you—”
“We were just doing our good deed for the day,” said Nellie sweetly.
The men looked rather foolishly at each other. There was no one around to complain against the giant they gingerly held. There seemed to be no charge against him save that of disturbing the peace — a charge which apparently was never going to be pressed by anybody. And the little blonde with the appealing blue eyes certainly did not look like a crook.
They took Smitty’s name, and Nellie’s, and then let them go. There seemed nothing else to do. And the two went out fast enough.