The gray fox of a man stared at the wall.
“Ye didn’t want to kill them yourself because, as ye said, you’re no executioner. Ye didn’t want them arrested because they might buy their way out with their power and their money. So ye arranged for them to eliminate themselves.”
Still Benson said nothing. But the Scot, knowing the genius now of the pale, steely figure, was sure in his knowledge of what had really happened.
“When ye planted that dictograph, ye also planted a duplicate letter you had Mrs. Martineau write, and the postcard with a little additional message on it which ye wrote yourself. Planted it in the desk of the partner that also had a gun in it, which happened to be Buell’s.
“Ye knew when the two had got to their office, Muster Benson. Ye knew that Buell would go wild when he saw he’d been framed. And ye knew about when Hickock would come scurryin’ to tell of the slip in plans. Knowing all that, ye made their fates for them.” The Scot’s bitter blue eyes flamed. “So crooks kill crooks, and it’s perfect justice.”
Still Benson said nothing. The man who had moved super-criminals to their own destruction, like a master chess player moved pawns and rooks, could not feel the grim elation felt by Smitty and the Scot. He had only one thought in mind.
“Could my wife, my little girl be still alive?” he said at last.
Smitty stirred, and his eyes took on a great pity. He’d have liked to encourage Benson’s hope, but in justice he couldn’t. It is no favor to encourage a delusion.
“They were dropped from the plane over the middle of Lake Ontario,” he said, as gently as possible. “I was dropped, too. Same place, same way, for the same reason. And I was dropped without a parachute — as far as they knew.”
Benson stared at him, gray eyes terrible. But the giant went on.
“Is it likely that… they… had parachutes put on them, any more than I did?”
For a second it looked as though the steely-gray figure would flash on the giant. And if it had, Smitty would have stood still and taken all Benson cared to give. But finally Benson relaxed.
“I suppose you’re right. But I will always hope—”
Then MacMurdie reluctantly voiced what both he and the giant were thinking.
“The job’s done, Muster Benson. Me and this overgrown chunk of muscle here have helped as well as we could. So now I suppose we’ll be sayin’ good-bye and good luck to ye.”
“Oh, no,” said Benson quickly.
The Scot stared. Benson went on more slowly, face dead and immobile but pale eyes flaming like ice in the dawn.
“I’ve been thinking it out, Mac, Smitty. And it comes to something like this: I’ve suffered a terrible loss. But others have suffered as greatly — and still more are doomed to suffer in the future. You two are cases in point. You, Mac, lost as much as I have. You, Smitty, spent a year in jail on a false charge. Now, having suffered myself, I would like to help others in the future.”
The two were still, hardly breathing, as they listened to the slow words slip from the dead lips.
“There is much work to be done that the police can’t handle. I’d like to do that work. I’d like to devote the rest of my life, and my fortune, and what talents I possess, to fighting crime of the sort that has made my own life barren and meaningless. I’ll need help. Would you two… like to stay on with me and administer justice — our way?”
Smitty’s vast shoulders, swelled exultantly. “Of course, chief!”
MacMurdie’s bitter eyes burned blue flame. “With the greatest of pleasure, Muster Benson.”
“Right,” said Benson. “You, Smitty, will be a personal assistant. You, Mac, will have a nice drugstore in payment for your help.” He held up his steely, slim hand as the Scot would have protested at the inactive course suggested. “It will be a special kind of drugstore, Mac. It will be equipped, as no drugstore ever was before — to fight crime. We’ll settle in New York, I think. As that’s the biggest city, it is frequently the headquarters for criminal activities as well as more legitimate enterprises.”
The pale-gray eyes ceased to focus on the two and stared through them.
“You can go now, if you don’t mind, and leave me to work out the rest of it.”
Gently, the two left, almost on tiptoe. For they knew that the thoughts he wanted to be alone with were not of the future.
They were of the past: of a woman with tawny-gold hair and brown eyes, and a little girl who was her image.
On into the dawn the steel-gray man with the pale and deadly eyes sat with his thoughts. Roused by the loss of all that made life worth living, he had been a terrible force. But he had still been a man.
Now, he was hardly human. He was a shining, sinister machine. An engine of destruction, forged unwittingly by crime, created by an underworld which henceforth was destined to shudder at mention of the thing he had become.
The Avenger!