The driver of the sedan? The flabby man had been thrown against the windshield with such force that his head had gone through. And the windshield was of shatterproof glass!
There are a few times when shatterproof glass is worse than the old-fashioned kind. Such a time is when a person’s head is forced through. Then, where ordinary glass would tend to crack clear out of the windshield, the nonshatterable kind remains intact, with just a head-sized hole in it. And the edges of the hole, around the victim’s throat, become a jagged-edge guillotine!
Such had happened here. The driver’s head bloomed through the windshield like some sort of monstrous growth. But the owner of the head would never move again. For the razorlike edges of the hole in the glass had bitten deep into his throat.
From the wrecked taxi, a man crawled gingerly. The man moved experimentally, then straightened, unhurt.
He was tall, bony, with great knobby hands and ears that stuck out like sails. MacMurdie.
He came forward and clutched Benson by the shoulders.
“Mon, ye’re all right! Thank Heaven! When I saw this skurlie in the car comin’ away from here, I thought they’d already done ye in and were makin’ a getaway.”
Benson stared at the Scot out of pale-gray eyes which were cold wells of frustration.
“How did you get here?” he said, lips barely moving with the clipped words, as was their habit now.
“I heard at the airport ye’d been taken away ‘sick.’ I knew what that meant, and had an idea where they’d take ye. So I followed. A mon at the airport fired after me in the cab. But when I’d got in, I’d put my hat high on my head, figurin’ it might be a target, so the bullet only went through felt an inch above my scalp. A minute after, I took the whole cab and set the driver out, and came on here. But how is it ye come around from behind this car, without a scratch on ye? Weren’t ye in it?”
Benson’s gray-ice eyes went from the Scotchman’s face.
MacMurdie had spoiled a promising plan. Benson was sure the flabby man would have led him to someone of importance in this great but still unguessable crime plot. And now, the flabby man, thanks to MacMurdie’s red anger at the fear of his chief’s death, had died himself. He’d be no good to anybody now. And the mechanic lying unconscious behind knew nothing.
But MacMurdie had had no way of knowing all that. He had acted out of loyalty, so, of course, there was nothing to be said to him.
“I was behind the car,” was all Benson said. His eyes were again imperturbable in the white death of his face. “Come on, Mac. That automobile crash will be investigated, and it wouldn’t be discreet for us to have the police find us.”
“As long as ye weren’t killed,” said the Scot, “did ye find out anything?”
“Very little. My… wife and girl!”—the cold, clipped words were almost steady—“were put out of the way so they couldn’t witness something that went on in that plane. So much seems to have become clear. I would have been put out of the way, too, but I had a gun and they couldn’t attack me till too late. So they did the next best thing and made up that fantastic story to clear themselves.”
“But what was it they did in the plane?”
“I don’t know.” Benson’s pale-gray eyes were grimly thoughtful. “They made only one slip, Mac. One of them mentioned either a man or a thing called ‘Old Ironsides.’ ”
MacMurdie was thoughtful in his turn. Then he said: “ ’Tis a mon, I’m thinkin’. Someone big and influential in the city. I’ve heard the nickname. But I can’t put my hand on it, quite.”
“It would be someone big — and influential,” nodded Benson. “That much, too, I gathered. For there’s millions in it somewhere, and lives are not important. It is up to us to scuttle this thing and save those many lives.”
CHAPTER VII
Murder on Wheels
Wallace Buell, junior partner in the brokerage firm of Carney & Buell, looked sympathetic. He was a brisk and businesslike man, forty-five, slightly bald, with gimlet black eyes and a professionally easy manner.
“I’d advise you to sell,” he said.
He looked more sympathetic still. The firm of Carney & Buell was a big outfit, the Buffalo representatives of one of the biggest financial houses in New York. He had had to advise many clients, in his time, to sell when it meant a ruinous loss, but he could still look sympathetic about it.
“It seems to be the only wise course,” he added.
The man he was talking to was Arnold Leon, a Buffalo manufacturer. Leon was sixty, slight, gray-haired and worried-looking. He protested vigorously.
“Sell my block of stock in Buffalo Tap & Die?” he said. “What kind of advice do you call that?”
“Good advice, as far as I can see it,” Buell said. “We know all about Tap & Die. Our New York associates floated the stock issue in the Buffalo Tap & Die Works, as you know. We’re quick to catch an unfavorable trend. The stock is down, and it’s going lower, Mr. Leon. Sell!”
“According to the last annual report,” Leon said worriedly, “Tap & Die has cash assets more than equal to their indebtedness. It’s a sound company. Why should I sell the stock at a loss?”
“Here’s one reason,” said Buell. “No one knows it as yet but us. You know Lawrence Hickock?”
Leon nodded. “I know of him.”
“Well, Lawrence Hickock, president of Tap & Die — can’t be reached anywhere.”
“What?”
“Yes.” Buell’s eyes were looking a little worried, too. “For three days, his whereabouts have been unknown. His friends don’t know where he is. His family don’t know. No one knows. He has just — skipped out! And when the head of a company mysteriously disappears, what is your natural conclusion?”
Arnold Leon chewed his lips.
“The natural conclusion is that something crooked has been going on, and that he fled before it should become known,” he admitted.
“Exactly,” said Buell. “Now, the stock is already far down below par. Suppose the papers get hold of Hickock’s flight? That’ll take the stock down so far it may even be removed from the board. I have sold what little I own — and I repeat, you’d be wise to sell, too.”
Leon worried it out, waxen, elderly face twisted with the jitters.
“I put a lot of faith in your judgment,” he said. “I’ve done business with you a long time. But, confound it, the cash reserve of Buffalo Tap & Die should meet any emergency. Suppose there has been crooked work. It could hardly be on such a large scale as to wreck the company. Suppose the stock does go way down. It’ll come back, or ought to. I don’t want to sell—”
Buell’s private phone buzzed. Buell picked it up, then said, “Mr. Leon? Yes. Right here.”
He handed the phone to Leon.
“Arnold?” came a voice. “This is John Lansing talking.”
“Lansing!” Leon’s voice was surprised. John Lansing was a Buffalo millionaire with a great deal of authority around the city, and with his fingers in most pies. “I thought you were in Florida.”
“I was. Just got back this morning. And I’ve been hearing some curious things about Tap & Die. Could you come and have a talk with me about it?”
“Gladly!” said Leon. “Ill be right around.”
He hung up with an almost explosive sigh of relief.
“Lansing wants to talk it over,” he said to Buell. “He owns a big block of stock, too. And he’s as shrewd as they make ’em. It will be a relief to discuss the proposition with him.”
Buell looked relieved, too.
“Lansing is a smart old duck,” he said. “After your talk, drop me a hint of his advice, will you? I trust his judgment as much as your own, even though we’re professional traders.”