“Quite near the salt flat, at about the same time, a plane was similarly being put through tests. A rancher has reported that he thought he saw a plane fly at a faster speed than he had ever seen one go before. And shortly after that, the plane exploded and rained to earth in unrecognizable bits — some of them stained with the blood of the pilot. Again, a test so remarkable must have been performed that certain interests utterly destroyed the plane and test pilot to insure secrecy.”
Smitty cleared his throat. It sounded like the rasp of a sandblaster. Mac and Nellie glared at him. The giant colored a little and spread his huge hands in an apologetic way.
“The four scientists, to get back to them, seemed to have been poisoned. Yet no laboratory has found a trace of any known poison. This poison, it seems, is explosive. At least, the sample taken quickly from Sodolow’s stomach exploded at a spark, in my laboratory. And the sample from Veck’s stomach may also have been, because the Montreal police laboratory went up in smoke and rubble about the time the lab men were due to work on the sample. But — how could any man with a normal sense of taste be induced to swallow enough of any known explosive to be burst like a bomb by it later? And why is the stuff they seem to have swallowed sometimes explosive and sometimes not explosive?”
Benson’s voice grew softer and yet, in a curious way, even more grim.
“Three more pieces remain to the puzzle bits, each containing smaller riddles:
“First, Lorens Singer’s home is utterly destroyed by something seeming to have filled every water pipe in the building, and eighteen people are killed. Singer was not in the building; so he was uninjured. He did not know who annihilated his home in an effort to kill him. He did not know why. I am certain he did not know. I have never seen such ruthless, cold anger as he displayed when he swore to get the people responsible.
“Second, a house is discovered in New Jersey that is elaborately heated and lighted, yet into which seems to run neither oil lines nor electric cables. Josh and Mac saw a half-inch pipe leading into the base of the furnace, but it would not seem to have been an oil line. Oilburners need electric motors to function, and there was no apparent electricity in the house. Josh later saw a similar pipe at the bank of a near creek, leading back in a way suggesting that that was the pipe that entered the house. During their search, they meet Xisco — a former laboratory helper of the late Veck — who says it is his home. Later, after the house is destroyed by fire, Xisco disappears. At the same time, the private detective, hired recently by the Henderlin Corp., who guided Mac and Josh there, dies with flame coming from his mouth and nose. And a car, occupants unseen, is heard driving away.
“Third, Henderlin’s bath is blown up in a manner to suggest that he had been soaking in gasoline or nitroglycerin instead of water and that a match had ignited the stuff. But a sample from his bath is — plain water.”
The dominant, cold voice stopped. Benson turned back from the window.
“Get me Warsaw, Poland, on the phone, Nellie.”
The musing of The Avenger was over. It was time for action again.
His aides were sure that behind the pale, awesome eyes of their chief the puzzle pieces were all neatly in place. But to them they were still only puzzle pieces.
CHAPTER XII
Company Shutdown
There was quite a little bustle and activity in the offices of the Henderlin Corp. — offices which took up four and a half floors in the Henderlin Building, down in New York’s financial section. But even a man unfamiliar with offices would soon have sensed that there wasn’t as much routine commotion as there should have been.
Even up here on the top floor, where the big offices of the corporation executives were maintained in a discreet hush, you could soon ascertain that only a skeleton force of clerks and secretaries was present.
The first guess, of course, would be that the place had shut down because of the death of its president, Pratt Henderlin. But that first guess would have been wrong.
A battery of afternoon newspapers on the anteroom table told the story.
Mines and oil fields of the Henderlin Corp. have been ordered closed for a mid-season inventory, the vice president, Walter Gaffney, confided to the press today. Off the record, it was hinted that surplus stocks of coal and oil have piled up until it is advisable to close the collieries and wells and allow the stocks to be used up before more are added. The shut down, Mr. Gaffney insisted, would only last a few weeks—
A man passed the huge anteroom table and approached the girl at the information desk.
“Mr. Richard Benson to see Mr. Walter Gaffney,” the man said quietly.
That was all. Manner and tone were as quiet as could possibly be. But the information girl, glancing up at the caller’s face, could not suppress a start that was born half of fear and half of something like awe.
The girl was well informed. Girls at information desks of large corporations have to be. She knew the other, whispered name of this Richard Benson.
The Avenger!
She phoned instantly to the office of the vice president, Gaffney. And the vice president, figuratively speaking, threw from his office at once a person in his estimation far less important than the almost fabulous individual waiting in the anteroom.
The person leaving Gaffney’s office was a raven-tressed girl. She had jet-black eyes that would have been lovely if it were not for their almost metallic hardness.
“Yes, Mr. Benson?” said Gaffney, rising respectfully from his ornate walnut desk as The Avenger strode into his office. “What can I do for you?”
The diamond-drill eyes stared down at him with basilisk lack of expression till Gaffney swallowed nervously. He was a person who looked as important as he was — a big man with aggressive paunch. He seemed to shrivel a little under Benson’s quiet stare.
“I came to see you,” said Benson, “about this shutdown of yours. I find it very interesting in view of certain other circumstances. The news story is true?”
Gaffney cleared his throat.
“Yes, Mr. Benson. It is quite true.”
“And the reasons?” inquired Benson.
Gaffney’s large fingers fidgeted nervously with a gold pencil.
“The papers gave the reasons. We stopped producing until a rather dangerous surplus can be taken from our yards. Much more than we usually have on hand.”
“I glanced over your stock statements before coming here,” said The Avenger, voice even but cold. “I notice that you have, in coal yards and oil tanks, about enough fuel to meet average demands for four to five months. I recall that in the past it was your custom to have an eight-to ten-month stock on hand, to guard against strikes. Half the usual reserves on hand do not sound like a dangerous surplus.”
Gaffney colored a little, then went a little pale.
“Those figures—” he rasped. “No one is supposed to have access to those figures—”
“Nevertheless I saw them. And they disprove the surplus claim. The story of closing down for inventory will probably not fool even the average newspaper reader. May I ask the real reason for this sudden decision to produce no more coal and oil for a while?”
“If you would see our production manager—” murmured Gaffney miserably.
“I have no intention of seeing your production manager. You know the answers as well as he does. I would appreciate hearing them.”