The elevator rose with them, and The Avenger stopped it at the top floor.
“I’ll stay up here with Ritter,” he said. “He may have something interesting to tell me. The rest of you go down to the next floor. Walk down. Don’t use the elevator— Something, Nellie?”
The diminutive blonde was looking as if she had been kicked in the ribs. And it developed there was something.
“Chief,” she gasped, “I just remembered. There was a bill for repairs in the glove compartment of the sedan. The bill was addressed to the Justine Building! And I think one of the men who caught me went through that glove compartment!”
Smitty whistled.
“Now we’re in for it!” growled Mac.
“How did a thing like that get in the compartment?” wondered Josh. “That gang’ll be on us like a ton of lead as soon as those guys get back to Ritter’s house with the addressed bill. It’s like sending them an engraved invitation to come to the Justine Building.”
“We’d better take Ritter out of here,” said Smitty.
“No,” said The Avenger.
“But, chief—”
“We’ll stay right here. You all wait on the floor below. And don’t use that elevator; walk down.”
It wasn’t the first time he had given an unexplained command. But never had one been more mystifying.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Hate Master
The top floor of the small office building was fixed up as a commodious eight-room apartment. Benson sat with Ritter in the smallest of the rooms, near the back. Ritter sat bolt upright in a straight-backed chair. The Avenger sat at ease in a padded easy-chair.
“You fool!” sneered Ritter. “You’ll burn in the chair for this. You and all your friends.”
“Possibly,” said Benson.
“You can’t get away with kidnaping a presidential candidate.”
“After tonight, you won’t be a candidate,” said Benson.
“You think you can stop me?” snarled Ritter. “Why, you haven’t any proof of anything. If you think you can put me behind bars—”
“I haven’t bars in mind at all,” said Benson. “What I have in mind is your cure!”
There was thick, throbbing silence for a moment
“Cure?” said Ritter.
“Yes. You see, I don’t believe you’re the master mind behind this crime at all.”
Ritter didn’t say anything. He looked at The Avenger with hate-gleaming eyes.
“There was the affair of the dog,” said Benson calmly.
“If you mean the time I was disciplining my dog and your men caught me at it—”
“There was no ‘discipline’ about your treatment of the dog. Beating with a wire whip isn’t discipline; it is pure torture. The result of blind hatred. Since then, I’ve been convinced you were a pawn in this game and not the king. Someone is your master, and has injected you with carefully measured amounts of Morel’s hate serum as well as others.”
“You’re crazy,” said Ritter.
“You bear out my theory,” nodded Benson. “If you were guilty, you would be eager enough to have me think someone else was responsible and that you were an innocent victim. As it is, the man who calls the tune for you — shall we call him the Hate Master? — has you so thoroughly in his power that you try to protect him.”
Ritter laughed. It was a hard, jarring sound.
“Who do you think your ridiculous Hate Master is? Morel?”
“No, Morel is also a victim. He was taken and held so that he could manufacture more of the stuff, and its antidote, if needed. That he is a victim was proved by the fact that he actually tried to kill his own daughter. Only a maniac would try that.”
“Then who is it?”
“I don’t know,” said The Avenger frankly. “I have my suspicions, but I can’t prove them. I hope to know before the night is over, however—”
“You will know,” came a low, harsh voice, “right now. Just before I send you to hell!”
Ritter turned with a gasp. The Avenger turned slowly, calmly, though the increased glitter in his pale, deadly eyes attested to the fact that the interruption was a complete surprise to him.
A man had opened the door so silently that not one sound betrayed him. The man came easily into the room, with a sawed-off shotgun pointing straight at Dick Benson’s head.
Even at that moment, the man had what seemed to be a slight smile on his lips, and an almost kindly light in his eyes. Even at such a moment he handled his body in an almost obsequious way, as if he could never get over his training — which was that of a perfect servant.
“I happen to know about your bulletproof underwear, or whatever it is,” the man said. “Please observe that the gun is leveled at your face, not at your body.”
The man was Knarlie, the servant in Ritter’s home.
Behind Knarlie, seven men filed into the room, all with guns pointed at the two men. As The Avenger had once said, professional gunmen are a dime a dozen. A ruthless man can always go out and hire murderous stooges if he needs them.
“I expected you to show up here,” said Dick, evenly. “In fact, I planned the whole thing to get you here. But—”
“But you didn’t expect me to get here so fast, or to get in so quietly, eh?” said Knarlie. The little man looked like a figure out of hell. His brown eyes, which had seemed so benevolent and so distressed at the cruelties of his “employer,” Ritter, now glittered with ambition for power and with ruthlessness against anyone standing in his way.
The Avenger’s eyes were lambent moonstones on him. He said nothing.
“Your place,” said Knarlie, “is like most fortresses. It is designed to be impregnable from the outside. But in the design it was forgotten that, if ever any enemy did get in, the fine fortress would become a terrible prison. As this has now become your prison.”
“You seem to have studied military terms and tactics,” murmured Benson.
“Of course,” said Knarlie. “A dictator needs such knowledge. And I shall be dictator — when Ritter is in the White House. I couldn’t run for president, myself. My damned ugliness makes it impossible for me to be a public figure. But I could — and did — take promising material like Ritter to put in the limelight, while I really ran things from behind the throne. It is hard to pretend to be a servant, as I have done, when you are really the master. But that’s ended now — or will be with the next elections.”
“You’re going ahead with your plan?”
“Of course,” said Knarlie. His voice was as calm as The Avenger’s own. The most dangerous killer is he whose voice is never lifted, whose nerves never quiver.
“You are the only one who can stop me,” he said. “And you are as good as dead, right now! I said a fortress could be a terrible trap. Yours has become so. You know the thick steel doors that shut off this floor from all the rest? Those are closed and bolted now, save for one out of which we shall go. Then I’ll jam that so no one can open it. Ritter and I will get out of here quickly and speed away from the building. My men” — he nodded at the hired thugs, who nodded almost indifferently back — “will mop up your helpers, and Morel’s daughter, on the floors below. And that will be that!”
“You seem very sure,” shrugged The Avenger. “How about Ritter? You can’t keep a man, even a president, injected constantly with a drug for four years.”
“I don’t have to,” said Knarlie, smiling silkily and looking more physically hideous than ever. “Morel’s serum, used for a long period, leaves a man permanently affected. Ritter hasn’t had an injection for a long time now. He hasn’t needed one; have you, Ritter?”
“No,” said Ritter docilely.
“And you’re glad I gave you the drug, aren’t you, Ritter?”