“Do you remember Edwin Ritter, the man who was at the library when we visited it?” Dick asked Cole.
Cole nodded.
“I wish you’d go and have a talk with him about it,” The Avenger said. “Find out exactly what he observed about the birds. He may have seen something we missed. Also, try to find out how he happened to be there just at that time.”
Both Wilson and Mac stared swiftly at Dick, at that. It sounded as if The Avenger were beginning to have curious doubts about Ritter. And yet, prominent as Ritter was it wasn’t possible there could be real suspicion directed against him.
Mac helped Benson some more while Dick tackled the mystery of the mad pigeon. But there was to be no report on Ritter from Wilson.
Each of The Avenger’s aides carried a tiny two-way radio set in a curved case at his waist. A belt set designed by Smitty. Wilson’s voice came over his small set after his signal had sounded.
“Cole reporting, chief. Ritter isn’t in town. He left, by plane, for Detroit, earlier today. His servant, a little fellow by the name of Knarlie, says Ritter went there to attend a banquet af automobile manufacturers. The banquet’s just about beginning now. Any further orders?”
After a minute, Benson told him that there were no further orders for the moment. Even in the fastest of planes, Cole couldn’t have reached Detroit in time to take in that banquet. And there seemed no reason why anyone should go to it anyway.
All of which only proved that occasionally even The Avenger failed to divine the importance of some occurrence. For, as it turned out, the banquet in Detroit was to be highly important, indeed.
The Book-Brunswick Hotel is impressive with marble and uniforms and lobbies and general richness of appearance. The Green Room, where important meetings are held, looks like something out of Versailles Gardens.
The gentlemen in the Green Room that evening, congregated around a large oval table, were the sleekest, most polished bunch you ever saw. And the richest gathering you were ever apt to see. Each was owner of a great motor kingdom.
There was Leslie Fox, sponsor of the Fox 8, and also manufacturer of motorboat engines. There was Horace Weyland, truck and tractor king. There was John Ainslee, white-haired old-timer who had started before the days of steering wheels with the Ainslee twin-cylinder. There were George Moppert, Alfred Vanden, Gervaise Childs, Charles Swing—
There were twenty-nine men there, and twenty-eight of them were the heads of giant corporations bearing their names.
The twenty-ninth was Edwin C. Ritter.
Ritter sat at the right of the toastmaster of the evening, and Ritter wore a perpetual, pleased smile. For this banquet, announced to the public as a yearly meeting of the motor association, was not that at all. It was a banquet in his honor, at which had already been pledged the support of these influential men in his forthcoming presidential campaign.
It was a little past ten o’clock. Till now, the evening had gone smoothly enough. The dinner had been eaten, with an accompaniment of red wine and white. The coffee and cigars had been served. Several short speeches had been made. And now it was time for Ritter’s speech of acceptance.
The well-known public figure had never looked more impressive. He stood up, with his prematurely white hair like a white banner over his good-looking face. He started to say something, but whatever it was was never said.
Leslie Fox, a beefy man with frosty-gray eyes, and John Ainslee, with fire in his own aged orbs, had been whispering about something for several minutes. Then the whispering had grown a little louder, with neither of them paying any attention to anyone else.
Both of them had been getting madder and madder, if the mottled red rising in their cheeks was any true sign.
Now, just as Ritter’s first smooth word was about to come forth, old Ainslee suddenly leaped to his feet and his fist smashed down on the table with a force to make the coffee cups jiggle in their saucers.
“You rat!” he howled at Fox. “You double-crossing louse! You—” There followed a name like an explosion, which jerked every head there in the direction of the two men.
Fox was on his feet, too, by now. The two glared at each other like two animals about to battle to the death.
“Gentlemen,” pleaded Ritter. “Please—”
One of the other men said: “What’s up, Les? Why the commotion?”
“He should tell you what’s up!” exploded Ainslee. “Go on, tell ’em, you slug!”
“What I want to do in my own plant is my own business,” howled Fox.
“The hell it is! It’s the business of every one of us. We’re all in the same boat, aren’t we?”
“What are you talking about?” rapped out Alfred Vanden.
“You know we’re all going to get a lot of airplane business,” said Ainslee. “There’s even been talk of suspending automobile production for a while to get caught up on planes. Well, listen to this: Fox just hired eleven hundred plane mechanics at eight cents an hour above the standard scale!”
That was a bomb in the room all right. Vanden jerked around to where Fox and Ainslee stood and caught Fox’s arm.
“You… you didn’t!” he choked.
Fox said nothing, but looked ferociously at Ainslee.
“You cheap chiseler,” shouted another of the men. “You know we’re all going to have to have plane mechanics, and you steal a march on us by hiring a lot in advance — at excess pay! Now we’ll all have to pay that much. Where do you get off, endangering our profits like that?”
“Gentlemen—” pleaded Ritter once more. But no one even heard him.
“You old hyena!” roared Fox to Ainslee. “Can’t you ever keep your mouth shut? I was trying to do you a good turn. You could have hired some yourself, ahead of the rest. So do you thank me? You do not! You blab around. Why, I’ve a good notion to—”
Fox finished with what he had a good notion to do. That was to let go with a good right hook to the older man’s firm jaw.
Ainslee spun around twice on his way back and fell to the floor. Fox started toward him and was grabbed by a couple of the others. He struck at them, and one thing led to another—
A sleek, polished bunch, all right — when they got into the place. When they got out, there were several black eyes, a few bloodied noses and a whole lot of bruises in places where they would show. It had been like a battle in the bleachers after an unfair decision by the umpire against the home team, or like a rotten-tomato battle against rival gangs of tough street kids.
Certainly not like a meeting of motor magnates.
And the hard feelings didn’t break up with the banquet. They persisted till next morning. They had full possession of old Ainslee as he sat at his desk in the administration building of the vast plant bearing his name.
Ainslee was thinking of Fox, and his eyes flashed with a fire younger than his years.
“I’ll fix his wagon,” he said finally.
He phoned his executives and gathered them around him.
“Our new Speed-Flow competes directly in price and type with Fox’s 8, doesn’t it?” he said.
It was more a statement than a question. The old man knew it did. One of the younger men nodded.
“The Speed-Flow and the Fox 8 are within a few dollars of each other in price, a few pounds in weight, a few miles in speed. They’re directly competitive.”
“They’re not any more!” snapped Ainslee. “Beginning at once, a new price is effective. The Speed-Flow sells for $650.”
There was a concerted gasp. Then the general superintendent exclaimed:
“We can’t sell for that! The car costs us over $600 at the factory door. We make little enough, with sales costs out, at the present price of $980.”