“Somebody wants Bison Park. The sheriff, somehow, got wind of the plan, and got hold of the cryptogram we just decoded, and hurried to Washington to block the move. He was killed to recover the cryptogram. So was Sewell, Burnside’s secretary. The plan went on. Coolie, Burnside, Wade, Hornblow, Collendar, Cutten were worked on to get a bill through that turned over Bison Park to private bidding. Burnside and Cutten, incidentally, were the two chiefly responsible, ten years ago, for having the Bison section taken over by the government. But how could these men be persuaded? Because of the helium known to be in Bison Park, anyone proposing that the park revert to private hands would surely be committing political suicide. An outraged public would never return them to office again. Some great threat would have to be held over them. They would have to be forced by fear — and a fear greater than the fear of death!”
“But where does Dr. Fram come in on this?” asked Nan Stanton. “He has nothing to do with parks or helium or anything but the practice of psychiatry.”
Now it was Nellie’s turn to have an idea that simply forced expression. “Tetlow Adams! He’s a mining man. He would be the one most interested in mineral rights. He must have forced Dr. Fram to be his mouthpiece, with the sanity test business as a blind to cover the real—”
Another voice sounded out. A voice that came from none of them there, but from the small radio The Avenger carried always with him. The radio was tuned to the police band.
“Calling Car 29,” came the monotonous voice of the announcer. “Calling Car 29. Signal Q. Rocker Building. Car 29. Signal Q. Rocker Building.”
Smitty and Mac looked at each other. Signal Q. That was — murder!
Nan Stanton didn’t know what Signal Q meant, but the address had significance for her. “Rocker Building!” she gasped. “That’s on Pennsylvania Avenue. And it’s the business address of Tetlow Adams. His office is in the Rocker Building.”
The pale, cold eyes of The Avenger looked at and through her. Then the man with the dead face was gone, with Mac and Smitty right after him, exerting themselves to keep up with their chief.
The Washington police had been given orders to treat the man with the white, death-mask face and colorless, awe-inspiring eyes as if he were the chief, himself. They let him into the lobby of the Rocker Building after just a glance at his unforgettable countenance.
“Who is it?” asked Benson of one of the men. “Adams?”
“Adams?” repeated the man. “Nope. Nobody by that name is mixed up in this, far as we know. A guy named Gottlieb was the one who got bumped off. Toy salesman. Tenth floor. The building watchman saw a trickle of blood comin’ from under his door and busted in. He saw the guy dead on the floor and phoned headquarters.”
“A toy salesman!” exclaimed Smitty. Mac shook his sandy-thatched head, with perplexity large on his homely Scotch features.
The Avenger strode to the big board on the lobby wall. The directory for the building. He looked up Gottlieb, Knox Toy & Novelty Co. It was 1019. He looked for the name of the mining magnate, and found it. Tetlow Adams, 910 to 919. That would bring his suite almost directly under the office of the dead toy salesman.
Benson went up to the tenth floor to the office where murder had been committed.
Gottlieb lay beside the chair from which he had slumped, next to his desk. His head was a gory ruin. But it seemed otherwise untouched. His clothes were not in the disarray that should have resulted from a search. And as far as could be seen, not one thing in the office had been touched.
Two detectives and the coroner were in the office. One of the detectives caught that swift, all-embracing glance of The Avenger and read it.
“Not one thing was touched or taken, as far as we can tell,” he said to Benson. Meanwhile he stared in awe at this legendary person. “There don’t seem to have been a motive for murder at all. Unless some enemy of the guy killed him because he was sore at him. Anyhow, all we know is that somebody sneaked in here, killed Gottlieb, turned the lights out, and sneaked away again.”
“You mean he just came in, killed, turned off the lights, and left?” said the giant Smitty. “Nothing else?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
The Avenger was saying nothing. But the pale, cold eyes were like shiny, stainless steel chips.
“I think that will be all that this murder can tell us,” he said to Mac and Smitty. And he started away.
Outside the building, the Scot couldn’t contain himself any longer. “And the murrrder of the toy man does tell ye something, Muster Benson?” he burred.
The Avenger nodded. “The slanting line of light,” he quoted the decoded cryptogram.
“I don’t—” began Mac uncertainly.
“The line of light referred to in the message in Aldershot’s pocket must mean a slanting line of lighted windows in a certain building — the Rocker Building — at a certain time. That was to be the signal to someone that ‘all is ready.’ I’ve thought that was the way of it, for some time. This proves it.
“That someone is the man we’re after; the instigator of this gigantic criminal plot. But like so many other criminal minds, he has directed his plans — his murders — from behind the scenes; unknown even to those doing his bidding. He is probably in a window of one of these neighboring buildings or many blocks away reading the message, ‘all is ready,’ with binoculars.”
“I get it,” Smitty said, understanding The Avenger’s implication. “Protection against blackmail. The head of this steal doesn’t want his own men to know who he is for fear they’ll put the squeeze on him later.”
Benson’s head nodded agreement to the giant’s deduction. “Gottlieb was murdered by someone who didn’t touch a thing on his person or in his office. The killer simply came in, murdered, turned the lights off and left. There is your motive. Gottlieb’s lighted windows would ruin the slanting light signal planned in the cryptogram. He had to be gotten out of here and his windows darkened by a certain hour. Probably the man wanting to give the signal tried several tricks to get Gottlieb out of his office peaceably. Gottlieb didn’t fall for them. The time of the signal was at hand. The man had to kill Gottlieb to give it.”
“So,” rumbled Smitty, “the signal now has been given that ‘all is ready.’ And that means that the thing that is ready is the steal of Bison Park. I wonder where the next act takes place?”
“On the Senate floor in the morning,” said The Avenger quietly. “The last act would have to be there. Which means we will have to move fast or the government will lose valuable Bison Park with its helium deposits — a loss that might mean the difference between victory and defeat in time of war.”
CHAPTER XIII
Color Blind
It was the wee small hour of the morning again. But again The Avenger was not in the least concerned with sleep.
He was slowly pacing the room at the office suite which had been rented secretly by him for his Washington visits. And his pale eyes were jewel-like in their concentrated brilliance.
Congressman Coolie had been slain at a few minutes past ten. An hour or so after that — so soon afterward as to indicate a clear connection between the two acts — the unfortunate toy salesman had been slain so as to get his disruptive office lights out.
First the death of Coolie, then the signal of the slanting lights.
It looked very much as if Coolie had been a stumbling block in the Bison Park plans. As soon as he had been put out of the way, the “go-ahead” signal had been flashed.
The Avenger had sent Josh Newton for a short history of Congressman Coolie. Biographical facts on all the representatives of the nation are available if you know where to go for them.