Then they saw that it was an all-enveloping garment of some kind.
“Asbestos,” said Wilson unexcitedly. “I’ll go up, now, and when the fire department comes I’ll have them clear a passage around the grease pit first, so you can come up—”
“Wait a minute!” said Mac. “Are ye a magician, mon, to have just the proper thing here at the proper time?”
Wilson shrugged almost carelessly.
“Naturally, it occurred to me, when I hid the car in this deserted building, that Ormsdale and his gang might locate it again. If they did, what would they do? Almost certainly leave it here as bait and try to kill me when I came back to it. If they tried to kill me, how would it be? The easiest way would be either to burn the place down or blow it up while I was in it. So it seemed only common sense to cache this asbestos suit down here.”
“Whew,” said Smitty in an aside to Mac. “This guy is good!”
Wilson, bundled in the awkward, thick asbestos garment, with gloves of the same stuff and an asbestos mask ready to fit over his head, said to Benson:
“I started to say before, Ormsdale is not going to get away. He will be waiting conveniently near here, ready for the police to pick him up red-handed in the car he stole.”
Cole Wilson laughed a little, vibrantly, calmly.
“You see, I fixed the car up a little just on the chance that Ormsdale would lay hands on it. When he closed the door on himself — as he has by now found out — he dropped a pin in the locks of each of the other doors so that they, too, were locked. They also jammed, so that they can only be opened again with blowtorches and crowbars! Also, I shut off the fuel line so that the motor will die after about three minutes of running. We’ll find him, caught in his own web, somewhere within half a dozen blocks of here.”
“This guy, said Smitty more loudly, “is very good.”
Mac and Nellie murmured the same thought. Here was a young fellow with ability, method, forethought almost equal to their leader’s own. Also, he had a terrific desire to right wrongs and fight crime — even though the trait was a little out of place in the case of Phineas Jackson, who hadn’t really wanted to be helped.
“There’s only one place for this mon,” said Mac softly. “That is, with us. If we can persuade him to join us.”
Cole Wilson’s head went up, and his eyes were black pits of eagerness.
“I intended to ask if I could join you,” he said simply, to The Avenger. “For a long time I’ve known of you, and approved what you were doing. But I didn’t know if I’d have the honor of working under you.”
“It would be an honor shared by us all,” said Benson.
The steely hand of The Avenger clasped the powerful hand of the new crime aid. And Cole Wilson laughed softly and said: “We’ll all celebrate this shortly, as soon as I put Ormsdale behind bars and get a path cleared for the rest of you to leave. Be back soon.”
He went out, and The Avenger’s pale, deadly eyes were steely bright with the thought of the valuable new member admitted to his indomitable little band.
For Benson’s face might be young and alive again, and his thick hair black instead of prematurely white, but he was still — The Avenger. He still lived but for one thing, the fight to the finish against the superlords of the underworld!