“Avenger?” said Tom, scowling. “Who’s that?”
“Don’t you ever read?” said Wayne. “There’s a man named Richard Henry Benson, who mixes in just such cases. He’s young, and tremendously rich. Some time ago his family was lost in a crooked deal, and ever since he has made it his business to fight crime — in revenge!”
“Baloney!”
“It’s true! I’ve heard Dad speak of him.” Wayne’s eyes were shining with a light of hero worship. “He has his headquarters in Bleek Street, in lower Manhattan. He has some helpers, and they all call themselves Justice, Inc. That’s because they see to it that justice is done, no matter how smart the crooks—”
“For how much?” Tom’s voice was a stream of cold water across his brother’s enthusiasm.
“What?” said Wayne, jerked back to earth.
“He sees that justice is done — for how much?”
“He doesn’t work for money,” Wayne protested. “He has all any man needs—”
“Hooey! Show me a man who doesn’t work for money, and you’ll be showing me a corpse. Of course he gets something out of it.”
Wayne’s jaw set. It seemed to have gotten much more mature in the last few hours.
“It’s my vote that we go and see The Avenger and ask him to help us,” he declared quietly.
“Sure! And have him chisel half of Dad’s fortune, if he recovers the stock! Nothing doing.”
“All right, what’s your idea on this?”
“Town Bank stole that stock and killed Dad,” said Tom grimly. “So that makes them thieves and murderers. Yet they are too high for the police to tackle. There’s only one thing to do. That is — get even tougher thieves and murderers after them!”
The puzzled crease deepened between Wayne’s blond brows.
“There is a lad in New York named Nicky Luckow,” Tom said. “A nice boy. Rackets, gang murders, dope, all the rest of it. He’d bump off the mayor for a thousand dollars. That’s the man I want help from, in a case like this.”
“You’re crazy!” gasped Wayne. “Luckow is the most notorious gangster in the East.”
“Right! I’m going to him and tell him about this. I’m going to offer him a quarter of the value of the Ballandale stock — if he and his gang can recover it, and find out which Town Bank official is directly responsible for Dad’s death.”
“But if you did locate the murderer, you couldn’t turn him over to the law when you’d rounded him up with such a crew.”
“There’s no law against it. When Luckow and his crew find our man, he’ll be dealt with at no bother to the courts.”
“Tom!”
“Bunch of racketeers at that bank, huh?” raged Tom. “We’ll see how they like being stacked up against professionals for a change.”
Wayne stared at his brother. Lumps of muscle quivered at the corners of his mouth. Tom’s eyes were cold points of resolve.
“I’m going to The Avenger,” said Wayne.
“I’m going to Nicky Luckow,” grated Tom.
“You damn fool,” said Wayne, glaring.
“You trusting babe in the woods,” sneered Tom. “Go to your chiseling Avenger and see how much he tries to gyp out of you!”
In lower Manhattan there is a street only a short block long. One whole side is taken up with the windowless back of a great storage building. The other side has several stores, vacant, a vacant warehouse and, in the middle, three old brick apartment buildings.
The street is named Bleek Street. In effect the block is owned by one man, since he has the stores and warehouse across from the storage building under long lease, and owns the three old brick buildings.
That owner is Richard Henry Benson, known to police and underworld, alike, as — The Avenger.
The three old three-story buildings, behind the shabby facade, are thrown into one; and the interior is furnished with a quiet splendor possible only to a very rich man.
The entire top floors of the three buildings are one enormous room; and in that room, when they are not at work on some dangerous case, are to be found the little crew calling itself, Justice, Inc.
Four of them were up there now: Nellie Gray, Josh Newton and his wife Rosabel, and Smitty, whose full and much-hated name was Algernon Heathcote Smith.
Smitty looked at the clock. It was a quarter of nine.
“Where’s the chief?” he asked.
“In the lab,” said Nellie. There was a reverent tone in their voices. Almost an awed tone. You didn’t speak lightly of The Avenger. “As far as I know he’s been there all night.”
“He doesn’t seem to need sleep or anything,” said Josh. “I sometimes think he isn’t human—”
There was a soft buzz and they all were silent.
Down on the street, in the center of the three converted buildings, was the entrance and vestibule under the small sign which simply read:
JUSTICE
The buzz had indicated that someone, down there, wanted to get in. And when that happened, it was usually important.
Smitty switched on a small television radio. The giant, with his moon-face and not-too-intelligent-looking china-blue eyes was an electrical engineer of superb capability. He had designed the gadget. It showed whoever was in the vestibule.
On the screen, now, flashed the image of a young fellow with hurt blue eyes and blond hair.
“Yes?”
They saw the young fellow start when Smitty’s voice sounded out of nowhere in the vestibule downstairs.
“I am Wayne Crimm,” he said, looking around, not knowing in what direction to pitch his voice. “I would like to see Mr. Benson.”
Crimm? At that name, they all looked at each other.
In the corner was a teletype that continually flashed the news of the world before the eyes of The Avenger and his aides. It had flashed a message concerning that name, early in the morning.
Joseph Crimm, well-known lawyer, had dropped dead of heart failure a block from his home in the late night.
Now his son was here to see Dick Benson.
Smitty stared at Nellie, who nodded.
“I’ll get the chief from the lab,” she said. “You let Wayne Crimm up. I’m pretty sure the chief will want to see him. And I’m pretty sure that when he does, there will be some sparks flying, somewhere!”
CHAPTER III
Nicky Luckow
Nicky Luckow was a power in New York’s underworld. Some went so far as to say that he commanded it. Whether or not he headed it, he was so powerful that anyone could find him by merely looking up his address in the Manhattan phone book. He didn’t have to hide out.
Nicholai Luckow, West Twenty-fourth Street.
The address given was that of the Jeff Hotel. Luckow owned the place, a small one; and few but his henchmen had rooms there.
He was sitting in his second-floor office when the message came. The office was large, luxurious, and very, very businesslike. There were filing cabinets, a desk where a dark-eyed girl with a hard mouth worked, his own desk, and a battery of telephones. It didn’t look like a gangster’s lair at all.
The man who came in gave it away, though. He walked like a cat with a grouch against the world. His eyes were hooded and mean. The bulge at his left shoulder fairly shouted the fact that he packed a gun.
Luckow looked at the card the man dropped on his desk.
THOMAS W. CRIMM
He looked at the card for a full minute, eyes as expressionless as dully polished stones. Then he raised immaculately tailored shoulders in a small shrug.
“Bring him in!”
Tom Crimm was in the little lobby of the hotel. He saw that the clerk behind the key counter looked like an inquiring weasel, and Tom was glad of it. He saw that three men watching him from other parts of the lobby looked like rats on a large scale, with a rat’s deadliness of eye, and he was glad of that, too.