He found a chair in the darkness and threw it at the window. Tinkling glass followed its crash. Then the giant stepped back from the door. Mac and Josh, getting the idea, flattened against the wall, too.
There were yells as men went outside to watch the window. There were more shouts as, in the hall, men banged against the door.
It was disconcerting to them to find the door unlatched. It opened so easily that all four of them poured into the room like water from a tap. They landed in a heap at the feet of the three aides of The Avenger.
Smitty got one, with his right hand almost circling the fellow’s throat. The bone mallet which was Mac’s left fist caught another in the face. And Josh felt a head and began banging on the front side of it with piston blows.
In twelve seconds there was no opposition at all when they started to walk out of the room.
Smitty shut the door, and this time he locked it against assaults. Then he leaped up the stairs. He wanted Burnside. They’d gotten Josh; now he wanted the other man taken from the hideout, the Senator. His window ruse had been for the purpose of clearing the house to give him a minute or two in which to search.
Burnside wasn’t upstairs. Smitty took the steps down in about three giant’s strides, and looked through the rest of the first floor. No Burnside! Nor was he in the basement.
The men in the room were shooting at the lock. They’d be out in a minute. The others were streaming back in the front door — and being methodically felled by Josh and Mac as they stuck their heads in.
Shots were popping, and some of them hit home. But the celluglass bulletproofed garments Mac and Josh wore were keeping them from any harm other than bruises.
Smitty came up to them, sore because he had failed to find Burnside. He took it out on a couple of the gunmen, who popped in through the door together and instantly crouched and began pumping slugs.
Smitty’s huge right hand caught a throat, and so did his left. The men screamed. Smitty banged them together. Head hit head like a pair of melons.
“Let’s go,” said Smitty, hurling the two bodies out the door and against three other men who were trying to get in.
They went out the back way.
“I want my shoes,” said Josh.
Mac snorted. “Whoosh! Ye can’t go back into that gang just for a pair of brogans!”
“I probably won’t be able to find another pair in Washington to fit me,” said Josh. “Where’d you say the car was? Foot of the street? I’ll meet you there.”
He was gone before either the giant or Mac could detain him. They shrugged and went on.
Josh appeared, almost invisible in the darkness, as they got to the car. He wore his shoes. And on his right fist was a gash where knuckles had hit teeth. But he was luckier than the other man. He still had his knuckles.
CHAPTER XII
Angry Congressman
Josh and Rosabel sat very close together, watching The Avenger. Reunited after danger, the Negro and his pretty wife seemed to want to touch each other frequently to reassure themselves that each was there. They were a devoted couple.
Diminutive, blond Nellie Gray was there, from New York. She sat up straight like a little girl. You’d never have been able to look at her and picture her at the wheel of a gas-filled car, smashing it out of a garage through planks, heavy door and a rain of bullets just a short time ago.
Very near her was the giant, Smitty, trying to look unconcerned about her. It was to be suspected that little Nellie Gray was the giant’s main concern in life. It was also to be suspected that Nellie had a spot in her heart for Smitty; though a caterpillar tractor could not have dragged any such admission from her.
Mac was on the opposite side of the room. His eyes, as were the eyes of the others, were on The Avenger.
Benson sat in a straight-backed chair, powerful, compact body easily erect. His pale, icy eyes were like cold crystal, staring at nothing. He was putting together the things he had found out so far.
There was one other person in the room. An outsider, as far as the indomitable little band of crime-fighters was concerned. But not an outsider in this particular case. That was Nan Stanton. Nellie had brought Nan with her to Washington.
In his steely hands, Benson had the crumpled page from Nan’s book of routine calls that Nellie had deftly taken from the bony man’s pocket. He was looking at those names.
One of them was Tetlow Adams. The other was that of a man just murdered: Congressman Coolie.
“You say Tetlow Adams has called several times on Dr. Fram?” The Avenger said to Nan.
She nodded her sleek brunette head.
“But Congressman Coolie called only once?”
“Just once, as far as I know,” said Nan.
“That was in the New York office?” said The Avenger. “Not down here in Washington?”
“That was in the New York office,” nodded Nan.
“Tell me about it, please?”
Nan Stanton half closed her eyes to remember. “Congressman Coolie was in New York for the day, on some personal business,” she said. “At least that was what I gathered when he came in and asked to see Dr. Fram. It seemed that the doctor had gotten in touch with the Congressman and requested him to drop in. Congressman Coolie had come to the office, as asked, but was pretty impatient about it. He had a lot to do in a short time. And he didn’t seem to know why he had been called.”
“You’re sure of that?” interjected The Avenger, colorless eyes like ice under moonlight.
“Yes. He didn’t know what Dr. Fram wanted to see him about. I guessed that it was on the sanity test bill; but all I could do was guess, because nothing was said. The Congressman went into Dr. Fram’s private office. After a few minutes I heard his voice rise angrily; then he came out again. He looked angry and — and defiant. I think that’s the way you’d describe the expression on his face. He brushed past me without seeing me and went out. And that’s the last he ever saw of Dr. Fram, as far as I know.”
The Avenger’s prematurely white head nodded. His face was as emotionless as paralyzed, dead flesh must always be. But his eyes were like pale agates with little lights behind them.
“That fits in with the idea that has been shaping up in my mind,” he said slowly. “Coolie is House leader of land conservation plans. In the Senate, Burnside and Cutten head most of the same movements. All three are from Montana.
“Somebody wants some area in Montana taken out from government supervision, and turned over to private ownership. On the order of the Teapot Dome scandal.
“To narrow it down: Sheriff came in a hurry to Washington to talk over something with his State representatives. And just before he came, he had been on a visit to the government park nearest his town, Bison National Park. So it is Bison Park that some interest wants to get out from under the government’s thumb.”
Smitty usually sat as silent as the others when the man with the dead face and the icy eyes summed up facts. But this time something burst in his mind with such violence that he exclaimed aloud before he thought. “Of course! Helium!”
The deadly, pale eyes swung his way.
“It’s known that there are helium deposits in Bison Park,” said Smitty hastily. “It must be that private interests want to get control of the park because of the helium.”
Mac shook his dour Scotch head. “Helium’s no big factor industrially,” he said. “There is a very limited market for it. It would pay no man to steal it. Besides, helium is a weapon of war — for dirigibles. There would be a terrific public outcry if politicians turned over a deposit of it to private concerns.”
The Avenger went slowly on. Such was his concentration that it was quite possible that he had not heard the two at all consciously.