“You mean — the Town Bank where we’ve done most of your business?” said Wayne softly.
“That’s it. Bunch of thieves! I mean it. My stock was delivered to my account there. They stole it. I’d bought the stock secretly, in small lots, so no one would know I was getting control. The stock was still unsigned by me, held in dummy names. So there you have it. Town Bank stole over two million dollars’ worth of my stock — and no one on earth can prove it was my stock and that they took it.”
“But, Dad,” said Tom, “you said you distrusted Town Bank, yet you had your stock delivered to your account there—”
“I did not. There was a misunderstanding. My brokerage house was to deliver it to my home. They made a mistake and sent it to the bank—”
A suppressed scream came from Crimm’s lips, as he had the worst heart seizure of all.
Sweat came to the man’s clay-colored forehead as he stopped the scream and wrenched out a few words.
“Sorry I… no fortune for you… my own sons—”
Joseph Crimm was still. The supreme pain of angina pectoris was over. He was dead!
Tom and Wayne drew long breaths and stared, white-faced, at each other.
“I’m a murderer,” whispered Tom.
“Don’t say that.” Wayne caught his older brother’s arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“If I’d met him with the car, he wouldn’t have been walking. And that drunken fool of a driver he told about would not have had the chance to scare him to death—”
Tom was suddenly silent. He stayed that way for so long that Wayne started to say something. Tom held up his hand, and his face had become a mask of rage.
“Wayne — that driver wasn’t drunk nor crazy. This is deliberate murder!”
“I don’t see—”
“Look! Dad has just been robbed, in the coldest, crudest way robbery can be accomplished, by an unscrupulous bunch of business men. Now Dad is a fighter. He’d have made things hot for that gang; so they put him out of the way. It was well known that he had a very bad heart. All right! Chase him with a car; scare him; make him run and leap as even a well man of sixty-five should never do, let alone a sick one. Then, when he keels over with a heart attack, just drive away. There’s your victim, dead! But there isn’t a mark on your car, and even a witness could never make a charge stick, because you never actually touched him.”
Wayne’s blue eyes were wide and flaming.
“Dad’s death is cold-blooded murder,” said Tom furiously. “It’s up to us to prove it, though I haven’t the faintest idea how. And it’s up to us to get the Crimm fortune back from those highbinders at Town Bank.”
Wayne nodded, looking ten years older in the last ten minutes.
“We get the money back,” he said harshly, “and we pin murder on whoever drove that car. But — how do we do these things?”
“I don’t know, yet.” Tom’s hands went over his face. “If only I’d been able to meet him in the car! But I had a blow-out as I was coming to the office. A piece of glass or something cut a V-shaped lump out of the tire, clear to the fabric. The right rear. Then she blew.”
Wayne’s hand went impulsively to his older brother’s shoulder.
“Don’t feel like that. It wasn’t your fault. Come, let’s get Dad home.”
Joseph Crimm couldn’t have been moved before. He was so close to death that the attempt would have killed him, at once. He could be moved now that death had struck.
In a mournful procession, he was borne on down the block to the Crimm home. After him came Tom and Wayne, with shoulders bowed.
Murder — subtle, deliberate, clueless! They both felt sure that’s what it was. Someone would pay; both vowed that.
Someone would pay! But — by what means could they be brought to justice?
CHAPTER II
The Search
The two brothers, even after they reached home with their sad burden, took a little while to realize just what they’d been told.
They had heard what had been done to their father’s fortune, but it took a while for it to sink in. Banks, on the whole, are as ethical as any other form of business. Now and then, a banking group does arise which is ruthless and shady in its dealings, just as in any other business endeavor. But it’s alway harder to believe it of banks.
At first Tom and Wayne didn’t really believe a bank had stolen over two million dollars of their father’s securities. Then they began to accept this monstrous thing as a fact, and go into action.
“One thing,” said Wayne. “Dad wasn’t in the least out of his head. His mind was clear as a bell at the last. If he said that happened, it happened.”
Tom nodded.
“Far as that goes, I remember Dad mentioning, once, that a bunch of highbinders were after Ballandale Glass, and that he felt like stepping in and blocking the play. So he did it, after all.”
“All that stock,” said Wayne. “Over two million dollars. Surely there’s some sign that it belonged to Dad, even if it was bought secretly and not yet signed over to him.”
“There must be notes on it among his papers,” agreed Tom. “We’ll look.”
They went over the house, particularly Joseph Crimm’s library and home office and his bedroom. But they found no scrap of paper mentioning a transaction in Ballandale stock.
They went to his office, arriving there at gray dawn. And there they found signs that someone had come before them — and had searched for something, too.
The vault was closed; but when they opened it, the contents were found to be disarranged. The desk drawers were in a jumble, unlike the orderliness with which their father usually kept things.
There was no way of telling who had searched that place before them, nor what the mysterious searcher had found. But there was one clear fact:
No hint of Ballandale stock purchases was anywhere among their father’s papers.
Tom’s face was a dark, frozen mask. Wayne’s was openly furious, and his blue eyes flamed.
“All right,” Tom said in a low, trembling voice. “They’ve gotten away with it, so far. They got the stock, and made sure there wasn’t a thing left behind to trace ownership. They killed Dad to shut him up. But, by heaven, we’ll get them for it!”
Wayne nodded.
“We’ll report this right away. Now! The police—”
“The police!” echoed Tom bitterly.
Wayne stared at him, frowning a little.
“Why, yes! Why not the police? This is crime. You call in the police in a criminal matter.”
“Sure, it’s a crime. But on a big scale. On thefts involving millions of dollars, my small brother, the police are about as much good as an air rifle against elephants.”
“But—”
“You know who the Town Bank directors are, don’t you?” said Tom harshly.
“Yes! We’ve met most of them at Dad’s at one time or another. There’s Lucius Grand, Robert Rath, Louis Wallach and Frederick Birch.”
“And Theodore Maisley, president of the bank,” added Tom. “You know their caliber — all powerful, wealthy, influential men. And you’d call the cops against a bunch like that! Why, men of that stripe own the police.”
Wayne chewed his upper lip. He had often been rubbed the wrong way by his older brother’s cynicism. He was now. But he had to admit there was some slight justification for it. It’s hard for the police to get a handle against such men.
Wayne suddenly banged his right fist in his left palm.
“Of course!” he exclaimed. “Just the thing!”
“What’s just the thing?” snapped Tom sourly.
“We’re not the first people to find ourselves in such a predicament. Others, besides ourselves, have been pitted against men too powerful, too subtle, for the regular police. And they’ve still managed to do something about it. They’ve gone to Justice, Inc., to The Avenger, for help.”