He pored over the short biography now.
Congressman Coolie. Twice elected representative from Montana. Mild liberal record. Interested in soil conservation and reforestration. Sponsor of nine such bills into the House. Fifty-four years old, married and divorced, three children. Color blind—
The Avenger stopped right there.
So Congressman Coolie was color blind. Benson’s icy, brilliant eyes half closed. It was as if little, shining moons were being partially eclipsed. That fact seemed to strike him as one of the most important things he had found out to date.
He turned from Coolie’s short description to reports on the phychiatrist, Dr. Fram.
Fram was in Who’s Who as eminent in his profession. He was the author of a small book on psychiatry as applied to wayward girls. His reputation was excellent. There was no hint of an interest, however, in pressing through a law forcing couples to take a sanity test before being given marriage licenses. Not a mention of that had been made, till about six weeks ago.
Then, abruptly, the distinguished doctor had begun to live, seemingly, for nothing else. He had suddenly packed and gone to Washington to lobby for the bill.
His trip had occurred the day after Tetlow Adams had come to see him — ostensibly about his son — for the third time.
Did the psychiatrist’s sudden trip have anything to do with Adams’ last call? Or was it sheer coincidence?
The Avenger went to the big home of Tetlow Adams, out near Wardman Park.
There was a half acre of ground around the house. It was enclosed by a high spiked iron fence. There was a heavy gate — and the gate was barred. That would seem to indicate that Adams carefully guarded himself and that he was afraid of something.
It was after two o’clock in the morning, a very suspicious time to call. The Avenger didn’t even attempt to explain to the guard, who came to the gate when he pressed the night bell, what his reasons were for wanting to see Adams. He knew his entrance would be refused.
The guard stared through heavy iron bars. His right hand was at his belt, and Benson saw a holster there.
“What you want at this time of night, bud?” he demanded truculently.
Benson didn’t say anything. He just stared at the man.
“Well? What’s the matter?” the guard said. “Can’t y’u talk?”
Benson stared into the man’s eyes, with his pale orbs like misty crystal.
“Beat it,” said the man. But his voice was uncertain, and his face was getting a queer blank look. “You can’t get in… get in here—” He stopped, jerkily, like a rundown clock.
Benson stared a moment longer, with eyes like naked steel blades. The man was profoundly hypnotized.
“You will open the gate for me,” said The Avenger, voice quiet but vibrant with power.
The man opened the gate, moving like something that acted only when a button was pressed. The Avenger went in; then he shut the gate himself.
He left the man there, standing as erect as a sentry, but standing like a wooden thing, too, carved only to resemble a sentry.
Benson went down a driveway. There were bushes lining it. He heard a stealthy movement a little ahead and to his right but kept on walking.
A figure catapulted over the line of bushes and straight at Benson’s body. That figure would have instantly bowled over anyone not warned of its coming. A short, murderous club in its right hand told what would happen after that.
But The Avenger had been warned by his marvelously acute sense of hearing. So he was prepared.
He side-stepped a foot, seeming to move slowly. But there are men whose actions are so fast that they make the maneuvers of ordinary men seem to have been done in slow motion. Benson was one of those rare few.
The man crashed to the driveway, got up snarling and leaped again.
The Avenger’s right fist flicked out. It caught the man on the side of the jaw, and the fellow went down. He would be out, The Avenger calculated from the impact, between twenty minutes and a half hour.
Benson went on.
He tapped on the door, two knocks, and then two more. It wouldn’t matter what the code knock was to get into the guarded house, or even if there were no code at all. Whoever was at the portal would be almost certain to figure that it was one of the guards wanting to get in.
The man at the door, a husky butler, opened it all right. But he opened with a gun in his hand, taking no chances. At least he thought he was taking no chances. But it developed that the gun might just as well have been a toy.
With the first movement inward of the door, Benson caught the glint of light on steel, and his hand snapped forth. It caught the gun in a vise-like grip and swirled it around in the man’s hand till it pointed at his own body.
Then the butler’s main concern was not to pull the trigger. Then The Avenger got second finger and thumb of his left hand at the back of the man’s neck in that swift pressure which could bring unconsciousness, or, if not released in time, even death.
The butler sagged, and Benson leaped over his body and reached the stairs just as three more men in servants’ livery appeared at doors down the first-floor hall.
The Avenger sped up the stairs. At the front room near the head of them, a healthy-looking man of sixty in rumpled pajamas had his head poked out the door, gazing sleepily into the hall.
Benson wrenched that door back and stepped in. “You are Adams? Sorry I had to come in this way. I hadn’t time to wait till morning and—”
“Who are you, sir?” snapped Adams, purpling with anger. “Get out! I’m not seeing anyone!”
“It was because I thought it wouldn’t do any good to send in my name that I entered in this manner,” Benson said quietly. “I wanted to talk with you, at once.”
“I told you to get out of here! If you don’t—”
“Sit down,” said The Avenger.
“Wait till my men get here—” sputtered the mining magnate.
“Sit down!” snapped Benson. There was the crack of a whiplash in his voice.
Almost without realizing what he was doing, Adams sat down on the edge of his bed. He stared with wide eyes at the death-mask face of The Avenger.
There was a banging at the door. Benson had locked it, hand behind him, when he walked into the room. The guards were trying to get in now.
“Tell them everything is all right and to go away,” Benson ordered.
Adams had intelligence, and he was wide awake by now. Obviously, he reasoned that if his life were in danger, it would be the easiest thing in the world for this white-haired young man to kill him if he tried to call for help.
“You, out there in the hall,” he growled. “I’m all right. This is a friend. Go and take your guard positions again.”
“You sure you don’t need help, boss?”
“No! Go away!” yelled Adams, at the look in the chill, colorless eyes.
Footsteps faded down the hall. The Avenger nodded. “That’s better. And I assure you you’re in no danger. I’ll introduce myself. I am Richard Henry Benson.”
Adams was a mining and railroad power. In both circles he had heard of the vastly wealthy Benson. Also it would seem that he had heard of The Avenger’s more widely known activity of crime fighting. For his face paled a little.
“Mr. Benson! If you had just sent your name in—”
“You would have told me, if I were the President himself, that I’d have to wait till morning to see you,” said Benson calmly. “And as I said, I have no time to spare. What do you know of the psychiatrist, Dr. Fram?”