“I’d heard of you and how you helped people a long time ago,” Harriet went on. “But I wouldn’t have come here just because I happened to see a dead man. I came because I’m sure I’ve been followed since then. The man who passed me in the alley must have seen me, after all. I guess he is afraid I could identify him in court. I couldn’t — I never did see his face — but he means to kill me to shut me up.”
“So you want protection here.” Dick nodded. “All right, you shall have it.”
He looked at Nellie, but didn’t seem to see the signals of warning which the clear-witted little blonde was trying to wigwag.
“Take Miss Smith to one of the guest rooms downstairs, Nellie,” was all he said.
Mac and Smitty and Cole were gone on their assignments when Nellie got back to the big room.
“That girl’s a fake, chief,” Nellie said anxiously. “She knows a lot more than she has let on.”
The Avenger nodded calmly. “Yes, I think so, too.”
“She came here for more than just protection!” Nellie snapped. “She may be part of a trap of some kind.”
“On the other hand,” Dick said evenly, “she may be in desperate circumstances and want our help very much. But she may be afraid to trust us by telling everything till she has a chance to see for herself if we can be so trusted. We’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”
From the big television set at the end wall of the headquarters room came a burr of sound. Then Mac’s voice. Mac was talking through the tiny radio each member of The Avenger’s band carried in a small metal case under his belt. Another marvelous device of Smitty’s, who had no peer as electrical and radio wizard.
“Muster Benson,” said Mac.
“Listening, Mac.”
“The trail starts with yere three skurlies all togetherrr,” burred the Scot. “Cleeves and Salloway and Beall are at the Eighth Avenue office of Salloway this minute. ’Tis a conference of some kind. I’ve radioed Smitty and Cole Wilson to come and start their trailin’ from this point. I’ll get in touch with ye if there are any developments.”
“Right,” said Dick, pale eyes lambent. “Try to catch what they’re talking about.”
This, however, was impossible. Mac couldn’t get near enough to Salloway’s private office to overhear the conference. And that was unfortunate, because he’d have found it most interesting.
There was no longer a Burke in the contracting partnership of Salloway & Burke. Salloway was sole proprietor, and a lucrative business he found it.
Salloway’s office was big and expensive, and so was Salloway himself. He was over six feet tall, heavily built, with a florid face. He sat at a polished teakwood desk that was studded with push buttons.
Robert Beall, of the Beall Paper Manufacturing Co., sat tensely in a chair at the end of the desk. Beall was a smaller man, though also rather heavily built. He had light brown eyes and graying brown hair — and beads of sweat on his forehead.
Iando Cleeves, the art collector, was at the left end of the desk. Cleeves was a small man, slenderly built, and as dapper as a Malacca cane — an excellent example of which he held over his knees like an unsheathed sword.
The conference between the three who had sent Markham Farquar flying in fear to the Bleek Street headquarters of The Avenger was not a long one.
“You’re sure Markham went to see Benson?” Cleeves was saying, hand tightening on the cane. It was a white, slim, almost feminine hand.
“Yes,” said Salloway. His voice was heavy, harsh.
“He couldn’t have had a very convincing story to tell,” said Beall.
“We can’t take a chance on that,” Salloway rumbled. “Even the ghost of a chance that The Avenger, as the fellow is sometimes called, may come in on this case is too much of a risk for us.”
“What do you propose?” asked Cleeves.
“I don’t know what to suggest,” shrugged Salloway. “All I know is that Benson simply must not be allowed to range himself on the side of Markham Farquar. We’re beaten, if that happens. And, gentlemen, you know what will happen to us if we’re defeated in this matter.”
The three of them were silent over that. They knew, all right!
“So?” said Salloway grimly.
“We’d better close down on Markham fast,” said Beall, clenching his hands.
And that, in essence, was all there was to the conference: a resolve on the part of three powerful men that a fourth must not enlist the aid of The Avenger — and that the fourth had better be squeezed hard and fast.
CHAPTER IV
Shadow at Night
In Dick Benson’s top-floor room was a news teletype, over which all the world’s news constantly flowed.
An item came in at about nine o’clock that night that instantly caught The Avenger’s eye.
The item said briefly that, as yet, there had been no identification of the tramp found ground almost to bits in a Newark freight yard.
That was all, but it was enough to make Benson peruse the items of the previous few days.
He hadn’t seen the announcement of the tramp’s death in the first place. After all, that was a small item; the teletype was filled with vaster news these days. But he found it now.
An unidentified tramp had been found in the freight yard, cut to ribbons by car wheels. He had died, the police thought, in the late night of November 3.
That was three nights ago.
And it was three nights ago, according to Farquar, that his clerk, Smathers, had disappeared. The clerk for whose murder the lawyer was now being threatened.
There was nothing on earth to connect the unidentified tramp with Smathers. In fact, there was nothing to connect the tramp with anything — no labels in clothes, no other marks of identification had been found. But there was just a chance that there might be some connection; so The Avenger prepared to act on the news.
And at the same time, a floor below, the pretty guest they’d put up at Bleek Street earlier in the day was apparently prepared to act on something, too.
She seemed ready to go out somewhere.
But she wasn’t going out because, standing at her door and listening, she could hear Nellie Gray moving about in the next room. And the door of that next room was open so that if Harriet Smith went down the hall, Nellie would be sure to see her.
Then there was a buzz from the next room. The signal was to summon Nellie up to The Avenger’s desk. Harriet didn’t know that, but she did know that after the signal there were steps, and Nellie was out of the way.
The coast was clear. Harriet went down the hall to the stairs and down to the street. And Nellie, on the top floor, faced The Avenger.
“Nellie,” Dick Benson said, “I think it might be a good idea if we tried to trace Smathers, Farquar’s clerk, from Farquars office. None of the lines I’ve put out have yielded any information about Smathers after he left the office three nights ago. He may have gone home, and then out, or he may have gone directly to his death somewhere. It’s possible that he left some clue to his destination in Farquar’s office; something that Farquar himself has been unable to turn up, or, if he has uncovered it, something whose meaning he can’t read. You go to Farquar’s office and see.”
“I’m on my way,” answered Nellie, smiling. “But, chief, that girl — Harriet Smith — I’d been sort of keeping an eye on her.”
The Avenger’s pale, icy eyes considered that.
“We have no right to hold her here if she wants to leave. But I’ll set this telltale to inform me if her door opens, and I’ll have Josh trail her if she goes anywhere.”
His steely hand flipped a small switch. The little switch looked like the kind on two-phone systems, but actually it had nothing to do with the phone. It flashed a tiny blue light if the door of Harriet Smith’s room was opened.