Dick Benson nodded, but he had something else in his mind.
The Avenger was a man able to see at a glance what others might take a day to really observe. Having seen, he could make deductions that most could never have arrived at, at all. Those colorless, awe-inspiring eyes had been very busy since he’d arrived here.
“I have seen three servants who looked very much like paid guards,” he said. “I have seen evidences that you — and your son and daughter — rarely leave this place. Why?”
Groman’s cigar twitched angrily in his one-sided mouth.
“The men I used to lead have gotten a hint of my idea,” he said. “They know I’m out to clean the town, now, instead of robbing it. So they want to kill me before that can be done. They’re after me for that reason — and for another. They think I have a great deal more money than I really own. They think some of it should be shared by them. So they want to wipe me out, and Terry and Ted, too, and take all the cash they think I’ve held out on them. For that reason, we live in here as if it were an armed fort, with guards around night and day. In spite of that, the gang has tried. Two have gone out of here feet first, to be found in ditches far in the country next day.”
“You’re being very frank,” said Benson quietly.
The sound right hand waved again.
“You won’t turn me in. I can be too valuable to you in the kind of job you live for. Even if you did — so what? I’m old. I’ve had a stroke, and I’ll probably have another one. I haven’t long to live. I don’t care much if I do go to the pen! I certainly wouldn’t go to the chair because I had the two killed in self-defense on my own premises.”
“Who are the ones at the top, as far as you know them?” asked Benson.
“A man named Sisco is the biggest big shot. He owns the Gray Dragon Club, and he is usually there. But he’s number one in alley politics, and he owns a big share in a couple of contracting companies that get all city jobs. Also, he’s hand in glove with Buddy Wilson and his gunmen.
“Another man to watch is Norman Vautry. He owns a newspaper which is always crusading against me. But I think he is in with the gang.
“Outside of Commissioner Cattridge, I’d suspect everyone in the police department till he’s proved himself honest, if I were you. And the judicial situation isn’t too good. There have been some changes since I lost control of the mob. But I know at least one judge who has done some funny things. That’s Judge Broadbough.”
The Avenger’s pale, icy eyes flared steadily at the scarred political veteran who wanted to end his few remaining days in some sort of decency.
The average American town, Benson knew, wasn’t a half-bad place to live in. The cops were square and the judges were respectable, if human. But now and then an Ashton City comes along, where misrule has been permitted for decades, until the very foundation stones under the city hall seem rotten and treacherous.
“I’ve been honest with you,” said Groman. “I’ve told you frankly all you have to face. It’s a tremendous job.”
“I’m taking it,” said Benson.
“The police will be against you — because the few rats in high places can lead the honest majority where they want it led. The underworld politicians and some of the big-business men will be against you. Even the bench, if you aren’t lucky, would be against you if the gang could land you in a court on some hand-picked charge.”
“I’ve said I’m taking the job!” was Benson’s quiet repetition.
Groman’s dressing-gowned bulk leaned back in the swivel chair from the elaborate teak desk.
“Ashton City has gotten more than it deserved,” he said, “when I was able to persuade you to fight for it. All the luck in the world, my son — and if what you turn up will have to crucify me along with it, just go right ahead. I’ll take my chances on the clean-up. Just so there is a clean-up!”
Dick Benson only nodded, quiet, sparing with words, a machine rather than a human being. A machine dedicated to the doom of the country’s shrewdest criminal leaders.
One man against a cityful of crooks and killers. Could such an unequal battle end in anything but disaster for the white-haired, dead-faced man? Only time could tell.
CHAPTER III
Justice, Inc.
Richard Henry Benson, The Avenger, had not been persuaded by Groman to take on a battle against an entire city. With the receipt of the ex-political boss’ letter hinting at what was in the wind, he had made up his mind instantly to pit his marvelous powers against the organized viciousness in Ashton City.
When he had left New York for Ashton City, he had instructed his aides to come, too. They were to follow him from headquarters in several hours.
Benson’s headquarters was a curious place.
There was a block-long street in New York called Bleek Street. One side was taken up by the windowless back of a great storage building. The other side held a big vacant warehouse, three dingy old three-story brick buildings standing wall to wall, and a couple of vacant stores. Dick Benson owned the three brick buildings, and had the warehouse and stores under long lease. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, he owned the entire block.
The three buildings had, behind their separate exteriors, been thrown into one. Two of the entrances were permanently blocked up. The middle entrance, left open, had a small and inconspicuous sign over it.
The sign simply said: “Justice.” The few people wandering along the block might see the sign and think vaguely that “Justice” meant some sort of law firm housed in the place. But it meant help for people who couldn’t afford regular help. And it meant, often, doom to criminals so powerful or shrewd that they could not be vanquished by the regular police.
The faithful aides of The Avenger left the Bleek Street headquarters a little after Benson, and soon began to slip, one by one, from plane and train and bus, into Ashton City.
From the New York midnight plane stepped a man who was the target of all eyes. This was because of his size.
The man was six feet nine and weighed between two hundred and eighty-five and two hundred and ninety pounds. He was fifty-three inches around the chest and wore a size nineteen collar. His arms hung crooked at his sides, like the arms of a gorilla — and for the same reason. There were such ponderous pads of muscles sheathing his barrel chest that there was no room for his arms to hang straight.
The giant looked good-natured enough — and not too bright. His face was of the beaming, full-moon type. His eyes, bright china-blue, were peaceful and almost stupid-seeming.
Never had appearances been more deceptive.
The giant was keen, fast-thinking, and for all his bulk, as quick-moving and lithe as a cat. He was an electrical engineer of the first rank. But over and beyond that, he was a deadly crime-fighter, having joined The Avenger’s battle standards in order to devote all his great powers most effectively against the underworld.
His name was Algernon Heathcote Smith. But if you had any regard for your health, you never called him that. You called him Smitty. Two things could turn him from an amiable-looking mountain of muscle into a savage landslide. One was humor based on his name, the other was crime.
Smitty, looking like a great big, innocent kid, left the landing field and went to a modest hotel.
About the time he did that, the New York train pulled into Ashton City and discharged, among others, a man as odd-appearing, in his way, as Smitty was in his.
Fergus MacMurdie was tall, bony, gangling. He had big dim freckles barely visible under the surface of his coarse red skin. His ears stuck out like sails — perhaps to give windpower to his feet, which were as big as scows. The map of Scotland was written all over his face. And in this map bitter, bleak blue eyes were steady and unwinking. He had hands that, when doubled into fists, were like bone mallets; and when he swung those fists, they collided with things like iron knobs swung at the end of pliant lances.