Wittwar’s secretary opened the door and poked her head in. Wittwar frowned. She wasn’t supposed to come unless rung for. At her words, however, his frown swiftly disappeared. For the secretary said, “He is here.”
“Oh!” said Wittwar. “Oh, yes! Splendid. Bring him right in.” He turned to Lini. “There is one final test which your sample manuscript will have to pass,” he said. “We are all fairly expert at judging such things. In addition, I have showed the bundle of skins to three museum heads. There is one authority on such matters who goes beyond us all. That is a man named Benson. Richard Henry Benson. If he O.K.s this, the deal is set.”
Lini nodded. And the door opened once more. A man came in at whom she found herself staring with profound awe. He was not a big man, yet there exuded from him an aura of tremendous power. He was obviously young, though his hair was snow-white. His face was equally white, utterly lifeless, like a death mask in white wax. His flaring gray eyes were so pale that they seemed to be colorless holes, set deep in his emotionless face.
He strode in with swift, flowing movements; and the four men, each wealthy and authoritative, treated him very respectfully indeed. He didn’t waste time in greeting them, merely nodded brusquely.
“Here is the object I spoke of over the phone, Mr. Benson,” said Wittwar. Benson’s pale, infallible eyes studied the bundle of hide. For about fifteen minutes he looked at it. The rest noted that he began by studying that first page, containing the language key. Then he turned to other pages and seemed, incredibly, to read them off almost as swiftly as if they were written in English. Evidently the one long glance at the symbol pictures had told him more than most language students could have learned in a week.
“This is interesting,” he said, closing the bundle, but with his steely forefinger holding a place. “This is evidently the record of surgery and medicine of the race that devised the manuscript. One surgical operation they performed, in particular, is unique.” The pale, deadly eyes swept the face of each, impersonally and swiftly. Yet, each felt an almost physical shock at the impact of the colorless gaze. “It tells how they made slaves — by a simple and quite devilish brain operation, robbing their victims of conscious will. Their captives in war and the malcontents of their own tribe were treated in this way and made into robots.”
He opened the page he had kept with his finger. The rest looked at it. There was a drawing and diagram of a skull on that page. At a point roughly halfway between the left ear hole and the top of the skull, there was a line drawn. That the spot was to be exactly located was evident from the fact that a quarter-circle went over the skull at that point, curving from the ear cavity to the top of the skull. This was divided into eight segments. The line touched the skull about three and a half segments from the ear cavity. “They operated there,” said Benson, “and the one operated upon became an automation. Amazing! Modern surgery has not discovered the seat of conscious will that definitely.”
“You are convinced this is genuine?” said Wittwar, after his inevitable little throat-clearing.
“Definitely,” said Benson, pale eyes intent on the ancient bundle of thin, pliant hide with the picture writing on it. “I would hesitate to say how many thousands of years ago this was drawn up. But a great many. Till now, humanity has come across no such record of a recognizable culture that far back in antiquity. It is beyond price, gentlemen. And you say there is more?”
“Seven large caves full,” Lini spoke up.
“A truly wonderful discovery,” said Benson, colorless eyes leaving her with the breathless impression that diamond drills had probed her brain to its depths.
“It’s a deal,” said Wittwar to Lini Waller. He gave her his hand on it, and Lini was breathless with knowledge of a sure fortune. The four directors of the Wittwar Foundation smiled at her benignly.
But Richard Henry Benson, known to the underworld by the grim title, The Avenger, continued to stare at the ancient bundle of hides making up a book. One of the first of the thin hides — a page if you wished to call it that — was missing! Swift as his inspection of the bundle had been, it had told him that definitely.
One of the first pages was gone! And the bundle was secured by thongs as strong and tough as they day they were made; also the thin skin pages were too tough to tear easily. The thing could not have been lost by mere handling; it must have been deliberately taken out! That was more than odd, thought The Avenger.
CHAPTER IV
The Far Cry
Between the conference room and the small outer office where Wittwar’s secretary stayed when the four directors were in meeting, was a connecting room. Benson caught up to Lini Waller before she walked through this into the anteroom. “Just a moment, please, if you don’t mind,” he said. His tone was low, almost mild. But there was an authoritative quality in it that made the girl instinctively halt.
The pale eyes looked deep into Lini’s own. And though they were piercing eyes, they expressed nothing but concern now. “You know, you have a tremendously valuable secret,” The Avenger said. “The caves full of relics are the biggest discovery of the century. There are many gold ornaments, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said the girl, beginning to frown a little. She didn’t know what business this was of the young man with the white hair and dead, white face.
“Of course,” nodded Benson. “And the gold alone would be a tempting prize to a criminal. Whom have you talked to concerning the seven caves?”
“Only those four men in there,” said Lini, pointing to the closed door of the conference room where the directors still sat. “But really, I—”
“You have told no one else where the caves are?” asked Benson.
“I haven’t even told them,” Lini said. “I am to lead them, or any men they desire, to the caves personally.”
Benson nodded. “That’s good. A wise precaution. But just the same, you are in danger.”
“Why on earth would I be in danger?” demanded Lini, frown deepening.
“Because you have a priceless secret. It is my business to know when danger may be expected. And you—”
“Just what is your business — all of it?” asked the girl frostily. “Why do you horn in on this?”
Benson hesitated. If there was anything he hated, it was autobiographies. Particularly in his own case. Because the reasons for being what he was sounded so confoundedly noble. To say that he was a man who fought crime simply because he had suffered from it personally in the past and wanted to save other people similar suffering, sounded silly, to one who knew nothing about him. But there were times when he had to talk of himself and his work, and this seemed one of them. “Sometime ago,” he said, eyes like pale ice in his paralyzed face, “my life was irreparably damaged in a crime plot. Since then, I have devoted most of my time to fighting criminals as a sort of revenge on the underworld. I need no fees for it. I am quite well established financially. That is, as you put it, my business.”
“There’s no crime in any of this matter,” said Lini, face unfriendly.
“There could easily be,” said Benson. “So I would like to offer my help.”
Lini started toward the outer door again. “I’m sure you are all you claim,” she said, with cool politeness. “But I don’t know you, or anything about you. As you say, I have a priceless secret. Its very value makes it impossible for me to put blind trust in strangers.”