“I understand there was Aztec picture writing on the bricks. If I could have just a glimpse of one of them—”
“There,” said Chandler unexpectedly, “I can help you out.”
On his desk, acting as a paper weight, was a perfect little cannon. A miniature of a field piece as complete in all its parts as the clever model boats that many men build as a hobby. Chandler lifted the little toy and took the top envelope from a pile of several envelopes held down by it.
Benson saw the name Krupp on the little cannon.
The envelope had a transparent window on it, as do envelopes that contain bills. The printing on it showed that it was a firm manufacturing mechanical-drawing instruments.
But the way Chandler handled it indicated that there was something in the envelope far more important than a bill for mechanical-drawing tools. That was just a blind.
“I’m trusting you right down to the ground in showing you this,” Chandler said. “But I think I can.”
“You can,” said Benson quietly.
Chandler took out a sheet of paper. It was covered by lines of little ideographs, the picture writing of the Aztecs.
“This,” said Chandler, “is an exact copy of the hieroglyphs on that brick Gray had me keep for him. I copied them off just in case something should happen to the brick.”
“Can you read this?” said Benson, pale flames of eyes traveling over the cryptic lines.
“Hardly!” said Chandler, smiling a little. “I’m interested in the Aztecs — went on two expeditions to their ruins — because they were such marvelous old city planners. I got ideas for my own modern work. I’m not nearly advanced enough to know their writing! Not many men are.”
“May I copy this?” said Benson.
Chandler thought for a moment. Then he said slowly: “I think I’ll do better than that. I think I’ll let you take the list itself. Since the brick itself, with that writing on it, has fallen into the wrong hands, there is no longer such an urgent reason for keeping the whole thing secret. Although I didn’t show even the police that sheet of paper you hold in your hand.”
“It’s much appreciated,” said Benson.
He got up, only of average size but impressive, with his silver-white hair and white, dead face, as few men are impressive.
“I’ll return this shortly,” he said. “Meanwhile, take plenty of precautions about your safety. There seems to be a menace over all who went on that last expedition. As an intimate of Professor Gray, perhaps you are in danger even more than the others.”
Chandler’s smile went crooked and humorless.
“Good advice — but I don’t need it. My hide is very precious to me. I’ll guard it, all right!”
Benson went to the address of Alec Knight, the one young student taken with Professor Gray on that final archaeological expedition — and the third of the dead man’s intimates on the trip.
Knight was obviously in meager circumstances. The building he lived in was hardly more than a tenement on the East Side. But there were tiny apartments in the tenement, not just single rooms. He was getting along well enough to have more than a single chamber to live in.
Benson pressed the bell under his name, got no answer, and jabbed the button again.
Benson went to the top floor of the four-story walk-up building, and found Knight’s door. He knocked. When there was still no answer, he took out a small pocket knife and opened a blade that looked a bit like an old-fashioned buttonhook, except that it was smaller.
It was not a buttonhook. He inserted the thin, flexible end in the lock, turned experimentally twice, and the door opened. He stepped in — and then shut the door quickly and softly behind him. Shut it on death.
His call on Alec Knight, brilliant student putting himself through Columbia, was too late.
Knight, a sturdy, tanned youngster of twenty-one or so, lay next to the shabby day bed, which was the largest piece of furniture in the room. The top of his head was mashed in, as the top of Gray’s head had been. And the room had been searched by someone so thoroughly that it looked as if a tornado had come to call.
Benson stepped with his tiger tread to the door on the side wall. Opening it, he saw another room, with the big folding doors of a pullman kitchenette at its end. This had been designed as a dining room, perhaps. Now it held a work table cluttered with Indian relics of the more common variety and textbooks.
Here the room was not so disarranged, and the gray steel man nodded, his face, as ever, expressionless. The fact that blood was still trickling from Knight’s head showed that he had been very recently killed. And the fact that this second room was only a little disarranged hinted that the killer hadn’t had time for a complete search before he’d been frightened off. Probably by Benson’s ring at the bell downstairs.
With pale eyes full of sympathy at the youth of the dead man, but with a white, still face as dead as the man himself, Benson finished the searching of the second room. No need to go over the part that had already been rifled; anything of importance there would already have been taken.
Benson found many things relative to Aztec Indians — but no clay brick. Only one thing came to light — in a battered leather portfolio — that caught the notice of the pale, infallible eyes.
That was a sealed envelope addressed to Professor Archer Gray. It was unstamped.
Benson opened it. The piece of paper within had just three marks on it — three of the ancient Indian ideographs. That was all.
Benson put it in his pocket and went back to examine the murdered man. His pockets had been turned out, his shirt had been half removed to make sure he had no secret hiding place next to his skin for anything, like a money belt.
The position of the body indicated that the youth had been slugged while he lay resting on the day bed. Asleep, probably. The poor devil hadn’t had a chance, had never known what hit him.
With a reflection of the terrible, cold fury in his pale eyes that had leaped there at the callous act of the man in the brown cap, Benson left the pitiful place of death.
He went to the Metropolitan Museum.
As Chandler had noted, Dick Benson knew countless people in many unusual positions. One of his host of friends was old Dr. Brunniger, on the staff of the Metropolitan. Brunniger was an outstanding authority on ancient Mexico.
“Dick,” said the old man, as Benson found him munching a cold dinner and studying the latest shipment of primitives, “it’s a treat to see you again.”
Brunniger’s eyes went to Benson’s still, white face and his snow-white hair.
“You’re… different than when I saw you last, Richard. I heard about your loss. I’m… sorrier than I can say.”
A terrible light flared in the deadly, pale eyes. That light came when anything reminded The Avenger of the reason for his present mode of life. But he moved his hand as if brushing the thought aside.
“I came for a little information on your specialty, doctor,” he said. He opened the paper Chandler had given him.
“Can you read this?”
Brunniger smiled. “Indian ideographs! Why do you come to me? You, with your surprising knowledge of all things under the sun, can read hieroglyphs yourself.”
“My knowledge,” said Benson, “isn’t as deep as yours. At any rate, this seems to be beyond me.”
Brunniger studied the paper.
“Mayan, I think — no, Aztec. They borrowed from the Mayans, who preceded them, as you know—”
The old expert blinked, shook his head a little, then studied the paper again. He stared up at Benson with a humorous quirk to his lips.
“Why, it doesn’t mean anything! I thought so at first, but couldn’t be sure. Is this some brilliant joker’s idea of humor?”