“Targill!”
“Yes. Dead!” said Veshnir. “You mean, to say you didn’t remember? A thing like that?”
Veshnir repeated his story.
“I was at the laboratory washroom, just off the hall. I came back, opened the door and saw you facing Targill. You had your right hand raised. The lead case was in it. I opened the door just as you brought it down on his head. Then you seemed to faint or something.”
“I killed Targill? You’re mad!”
“You must remember some of it,” Veshnir said.
Sangaman’s face screwed up in the most intensive thinking of his life. The devil of it was that he did remember a little. A very little. Enough to be sure that he had moved around some during his lapse of memory and voluntary action — though he couldn’t recall what he had done.
Sweat began to break out on his forehead. Gone forever was the thought of finances and books that had brought him in here. There was only room for the one terrible thing.
“I didn’t hit him, Veshnir!” he pleaded. “I swear it! I’d know if I—”
“Of course that would be your story,” nodded Veshnir. “And I’ll stand by you through thick and thin. I’ll swear, too, that you were nowhere near the laboratory when Targill died. However—”
Sangaman hung on his words, his look.
“Well? Well?” he croaked.
“There isn’t, really, much chance to lie out of it. There are only the two of us here — with a dead man. And your prints are on that lead case, along with his blood.”
“Veshnir, on the memory of your mother, as you hope for deliverance when you die — did I do what you said you saw me do?”
“I’m sorry,” said Veshnir, with infinite pity on his benevolent countenance, “you did. I think I begin to see why. You’d worked too hard over those books. You got up and came into the laboratory to see me. You saw Targill instead. You have always hated him — said he was ruthless and shifty. Now, you were in a sort of coma. You felt the lead case under your hand, and not knowing in the least what you were doing, you killed him with it. Then you fainted, coming to about five minutes later.”
Sangaman shuddered. If only one small thing hadn’t happened, he wouldn’t believe this impossible thing for a second. But the one thing shook him. That was the fact that he had come to with the definite impression on his mind that he had been moving around, subconsciously, a short time before that.
“I don’t care! I won’t believe it!”
“I’m afraid the police will believe it,” Veshnir said. “See the facts. Only the three of us are here. One of us must have murdered Targill. But it is well known that he and I worked together, were on fine terms, and that his death brings to a premature close an important piece of laboratory work. It is equally well known, on the other hand, that you disliked him very much and would have fired him if I hadn’t intervened.”
Sangaman moaned and rubbed his splitting head.
“I still won’t believe I really did such a thing, conscious or unconscious! But — what shall I do?”
Veshnir shook his head.
“I don’t know. I will support any statement you choose to make, as I said. But I’m afraid — no statement will do any good.”
“Veshnir—you were in here alone with Targill.”
“Naturally,” Veshnir said quietly, “you would think of that. Everyone will. But not for long. As I pointed out, I was working with him on a very important experiment. There might have been millions in it. His death is a great loss to me — but not to you.”
Sangaman was on his feet, now, swaying. He felt the lead case in his hand and dropped it as if it had burned his fingers.
“What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?”
Veshnir was looking very thoughtful.
“I’m afraid you haven’t a chance if you get picked up, now. But later, after we’ve gotten together the best battery of legal talent procurable, you may. Or perhaps we can get together some prominent psychiatrists who could prove you did it in a temporary fit of insanity.”
“So?” said Sangaman pleadingly. He was stunned, dazed, unable to think.
“If you’re caught now, everything is lost. If we have time, there may be hope. It’s everything to gain and nothing to lose. I’d advise you to hide somewhere for a while.”
“Where in the world could I hide? The call will be out for me the minute this is found out. I couldn’t go home — or anywhere else.”
“I don’t know where—” Veshnir began. Then he stopped abruptly. “But, yes! I do know. Last fall I picked up a new summer place in Maine. North of Bangor. It’s a rough place — for shooting and camping. There’s a log cabin, nearly a thousand acres of woods, not a soul on it. It isn’t even known that it’s in my name. I bought it secretly. You can go there.”
Sangaman was in a fog. It was impossible that he had done murder, even in a moment of mental disorder. But — there the body was! And the whole police force would be sure he was the killer, and would pin it on him in an hour’s investigation.
Brokenly he accepted Veshnir’s proposition.
“Wipe my prints off that case,” he said, at the door.
“Of course!” Veshnir said.
But as the door closed, he did not wipe the case. He placed it a little closer to the dead chemist’s head, handling it with a handkerchief around his fingers to keep his own prints off.
CHAPTER IV
Death’s Myriad Touch
All over the country the various police forces were getting more and more familiar with the work of Richard Henry Benson, The Avenger. There wasn’t a police chief in the United States who didn’t know of him.
But here in New York, where The Avenger had his headquarters, every cop on the force knew about him, from the greenest rookie up. That was why the homicide man had called Benson, without question, a few minutes after looking at the corpse that was so eerily like a snow man.
The doctor was curious. He, like most ordinary citizens, didn’t know about Benson.
“How is it,” he said, “that the police department calls on a private citizen like this? Or is Benson with the Federal law department?”
“No, he’s a private citizen,” said the detective.
“But I don’t—”
The homicide man looked around mechanically to see if any reporters were in earshot. Because if there were, he’d have had to soft-pedal about The Avenger. Not only did the force dislike to go on record as asking help outside itself, but also, Benson hated publicity.
“He’s a private citizen,” the detective said, “but not like any other private citizen you ever saw. He’s an average-sized guy, but he can throw any man on the force. And we got some upward of six feet six and weighing two hundred and fifty. He has pure white hair, but still he’s young. Got it overnight in a nerve shock when his wife and kid were taken away by gangsters. His face was paralyzed at the same time, so he’s always dead pan. Gives you the heebies to look at him. His eyes give you the willies, too. They’re light gray. Anyhow, I guess they’re gray: they’re so light they look almost like colorless holes in his face. He’s something, that guy!”
“But surely he doesn’t have only a peculiar physical appearance to make him so important?” queried the doctor, one eyebrow up.
“I’ll say not! He’s got everything on the ball. The guy is a whiz at science in all its branches. He’s a genius at sniffing out crime where no one else can smell it. He has a laboratory that’s twice as good as the big one down in Washington. He—”
A tap at the door interrupted him.
“That’ll be him,” he said, starting toward the door.