Mac’s bleak blue eyes were very somber.
“Then the man who fell into the basement—”
“Was Birch,” nodded Benson, pale eyes flaming. “One of the bank men, at least, has paid for his crimes. I came first, was mistaken for him, and managed to get you all free and the lot of us out of there. The man crushed in the basement was the real Birch.”
“But the blazing door that kept the skurlies from gettin’ away,” said Mac.
“You should know how that was done, Mac. One of your brain children accomplished it. You know the chemical you evolved which is so volatile that it leaps into flames with the mere warmth of a candle twenty feet away? I dashed a vial of that against the door when I came in. The heat of the building fire very soon set it off. I warned the gang not to fire the building. They did — and about half of them have given their lives in consequence.”
A sound came from Smitty that was like a croak, but was really a gasp of awe.
This man with the dead face and the pale eyes and the virile hair! He would be a perpetual marvel to his aides. The Avenger did not take life. Instead he maneuvered enemies into positions where, if they tried murderously to destroy him or anyone connected with him, they destroyed themselves instead.
Once more the master chess player called The Avenger had moved living pawns into such a position. And half the pawns had been swept from the board.
CHAPTER XII
Dead or Alive
The colorless, infallible eyes of The Avenger had a glitter in them like that of gray-fogged glass. Things were rushing to a time limit.
Because of the deliberate rumors about Town Bank, there had been many withdrawals. And the directors couldn’t bolster up the bank’s liquid assets with their own money because Benson had driven their personal securities down to a point where it would be ruinous to sell them.
Town Bank and its unscrupulous executives were in a desperate position. But it looked as if, with ingenuity, it could last for another twenty-four hours before closing its doors.
And in another day the stockholders of Ballandale Glass Corp. had their meeting. At that meeting, the Town Bank directors, with Crimm’s big block of stock to give them a majority, could vote in a policy that would swiftly ruin the corporation.
Then, at once, they could sell that stock, as secretly and circuitously as it had been bought, and get the cash they needed to save the bank. After that, they would follow their original plan to wait till the corporation had smashed, buy the pieces for five cents on the dollar, and make millions by building the concern up again.
In twenty-four hours the stockholders’ meeting—
Then safety for the ruthless bank crew.
So The Avenger had to wind their clocks for them before that time had passed. And a day is not very long when you are confronted with an involved criminal mess.
Benson had a dozen plans in his flaming, cold brain. But with time pressing urgently, with a thousand things to be done, there had to be a bad break.
It was furnished by Tom Crimm.
Benson’s belt radio sent out its tiny, urgent signal. Benson listened to Rosabel’s voice.
Josh Newton’s pretty wife was still the “maid” for Luckow’s sister in her apartment. And she had something to say, now, that instantly took all The Avenger’s attention.
“They’ve got Tom?” he snapped back. “The police?”
“Yes,” came the small voice from the radio case. “He went out. Luckow and his sister had both told him not to. But he said he was going crazy cooped up; so he went out. A patrolman saw him. They’ve got him cornered in a garage on Amsterdam Avenue. Beatrice Luckow just came back from trailing him and phoned her brother. So I’m telling you the whole thing, just as she told it.”
“What garage?”
“I didn’t get that, Mr. Benson,” said Rosabel. “But I guess there won’t be any trouble finding it.”
Benson started for the door. No, there wouldn’t be much trouble in finding what hole they’d cornered Tom in.
Tom was wanted for two murders and bank robbery. A man wanted for all that is taken by the police — dead or alive! With a strong chance that it will be dead. The cops don’t mess with men as dangerous as that.
Tom had brains enough. He would realize that. He would know that if he tried to walk out and give himself up, chances were he’d be shot down by an excited rookie before he took two steps.
That meant one thing: He’d have to shoot it out with the police like any seasoned crook.
Dead or alive!
No, there’d be no trouble locating that garage. Just cruise up Amsterdam till you saw crowds of people held back by patrolmen, cops and plain-clothesmen shooting at windows from behind barricades.
And how anyone could enter a mess like that and come out unseen and unscathed with the man a hundred police were after, would seem to be an unanswerable question.
The Avenger got out his make-up kit and began to work with swift fingers.
Man of a Thousand Faces.
His fingers molded and prodded and shaped. In a moment he had a heavy, phlegmatic face. He had on his habitual gray, one of the dozens of suits that made him inconspicuous in a crowd. He just kept that on; but from a cabinet he got out a derby, a little worn.
He cut a cigar in half, steely fingers flying at their task. He lit the cigar stub, let it die out; then he clamped the long butt in his jaws.
He was a heavy-featured, heavy-footed plain-clothes-man with cigar butt and derby in about three and a half minutes.
He raced to the basement of the Bleek Street building and got into a fast car. He went up the ramp and over the sidewalk to the street with siren screaming.
There was a police star on the car. The Avenger had enough influence with the police department to have plastered all his cars with similar stars, if he had cared to. That was because he had worked with them so effectually in the past.
Now — and a regretful glint appeared in the cold, pale eyes — he was going to have to work against the police. He didn’t like that at all. But it was necessary, if Tom’s life were to be saved.
He screamed uptown, with his police badge getting him the right of way, and went up Amsterdam Avenue. Very soon he saw the commotion he’d anticipated.
It was even worse than he’d thought.
A gun battle, in mid-morning! There must have been ten thousand spectators, at a safe distance behind a cordon of cops. And there must have been a brigade of police. Out of that melee, The Avenger had to pick Tom Crimm.
He braked his car, with a squeal of tires, and shouldered through the crowd. He was so typically detective that no cop even thought of stopping him. He went to a knot of detectives behind a truck, and stared at the garage — a three-story building with half the front windows out.
“Down, you chump!” hissed one of the detectives. And a bullet from a top floor window came close to his head.
Instead of ducking, Benson walked toward the yawning street door of the garage
“Hey! Come back!” cried one of his fellow detectives — as they deemed themselves. “The guy’s crazy, in there! He’ll drill you in a dozen spots! Besides, the joint’s full of tear gas—”
The Avenger didn’t seem to be moving fast. Which was what had drawn the most urgent of the yells of warning. But just the same he was in that doorway before more than one more slug could be sent down at him — at a narrow miss.
Not too hard to get to the door. The reason none of the others had was because of the tear gas. They couldn’t have stood it. But Benson simply reached into a vest pocket, got out two plain glass, tissue-thin cups to slip over his pale eyeballs, and put them on to protect his eyes from the stinging gas. Then he raised the lapel of his coat and breathed through that. The lapel was chemically treated and was as good as a gas mask.