There were three men at the far end of the barn, playing with greasy cards on an upended box.
“Aw, shut up!” grated one.
Young Cranlowe glared, but did as he was told. The card game went on, with the cards making little slapping sounds.
“They must have heard you phone me,” Nellie said, “and then came to my rooms at the time you said you would come—”
“Listen,” one of the three at the box jerked out, “we don’t want to hear anything from any of you! Get that?”
Each had his automatic lying on the box. The man who had spoken picked his up, and faced the two girls and the inventor’s son for a moment. Then he returned his attention to the game, and there was silence.
Nellie glanced at Rosabel, who shrugged a little. And then the dainty blonde, who looked so fragile and soft and helpless, gazed around the place of their confinement.
The barn was small, rough-floored. The floor of the old hayloft above had been removed, leaving a tracery of beams and supporting joists in midair. There was still the ladder up to where the hayloft had once been, now leading to nothing but a warped old beam.
Nellie began to walk slowly around. The ill-tempered man at the upended box looked as if he were going to stop all movement as well as all speech, but finally he snorted and said nothing. Nellie got near the ladder.
Rosabel glanced at her once with alert, comprehending eyes. And the slow minutes passed.
Then another car approached outside. They could hear it roll quietly to a stop beside the barn. A good, powerful, silent car. The heavy barn door slid back and another man came in.
This man was smooth in dress and manner, and had dull, dark eyes, like black onyx.
“Kopell,” said one of the men at the box, looking up from the cards.
The man nodded, and looked with contented eyes at the two girls and young Cranlowe.
“So you picked them up,” he said. “Good enough. Even if we don’t get anything out of them, we’ve got them away from her, so there won’t be any trouble at that end. That was the main thing.”
“You wanted to pop a couple questions at the girls, didn’t you?” said the man at the box.
“Oh, sure,” said Kopell. “If they’ll talk, swell. But it don’t matter much if they refuse.”
“No,” said the man at the box, grinning. “I guess it won’t matter much to ’em — six feet underground.”
CHAPTER XIV
The Black Disk
The Avenger and his aides rarely got into a mess, no matter how perilous, from which they did not emerge with some useful bit of information. It was so in this case, with Nellie Gray.
At least she had the information. Whether or not she was going to be able to emerge with it was something else again. But she was hoping that she was.
Kopell, Garfield City’s Public Enemy Number 1 and underworld leader, came rather carelessly toward the tiny blonde who looked so softly feminine and helpless. She backed against the ladder, presenting an excellent picture of scared girlhood in the hands of bold, bad men.
“Don’t like this so much, huh?” Kopell said to her, smiling wolfishly. “You mix into a big game, and then don’t like it so well when you lose out. Well, you shouldn’t have poked your pretty little nose in it in the first place.”
“In what?” said Nellie innocently. “What big game are you talking about?”
“The game that made you pick up a fast friendship with Mrs. Cranlowe,” said Kopell.
“You all keep talking about that,” said Nellie. “I just happened to meet her in the lobby when I checked into the apartment hotel—”
“And then pumped her for information,” nodded Kopell. “And also spotted the guys we had watching her. But still you don’t know a thing about anything!”
“That’s right,” Nellie said.
“A while ago,” snarled Kopell, “you heard me say it didn’t matter much whether you talked or not. Well, it doesn’t. But I’m curious, like any other guy. I’d like to know where you come into this, who you’re working for, and a lot of other things. If it isn’t too much trouble, I’ll make you or that maid of yours tell. I will now proceed,” he added, with a smirk, “to take some trouble. A good twist of the arm ought to refresh your memory.”
He reached out toward Nellie’s left wrist. He really shouldn’t have. Rosabel knew that and got ready for action. But Kopell, naturally, didn’t know.
He almost got the wrist, and then it had moved up six inches so that he missed his hold. But Nellie Gray did not miss hers. Her small right hand darted out and closed on Kopell’s wrist. It was there for about a second, but the man yelled as if he had laid his hand on a stove.
Nellie’s thumb had found a nerve center and pressed, with the resulting effect of running a large red-hot needle into Kopell’s arm.
That was just for good luck, it wasn’t the main purpose of her clasp. The main purpose came out a breath later, when Kopell suddenly took a header over her outstretched left leg and crashed ten feet away on the splintery floor.
Rosabel screamed then. She shrieked like a steam whistle and jumped toward the side of the barn where a loose plank flapped. She grabbed hold of the plank and began shaking it back and forth, screaming.
There was no sense to it, but there didn’t have to be. Working in perfect unison with Nellie, the Negress had wanted just one thing — to get all eyes on her for a second or two. And her shrieks and crazy actions accomplished this.
Everybody gaped at her for a couple of heartbeats except Kopell, who was dazedly, incredulously picking himself up off the floor. And in that short time, Nellie was six rungs up the ladder. She leaped from there.
Like a dainty projectile, she flew toward the upended box on which the three gunmen had been having their card game. She lit on it, and three guns, which were being snatched up by men who were beginning at last to get really alarmed, went in three different directions. They had been lying on the box. Under the impetus of Nellie’s small foot, they were kicked yards away.
The three grabbed for her. But it was like grabbing for a shadow which you didn’t expect would be in that particular spot at that particular time anyway. She jumped over the head of one of the men and was halfway to the door before they were on their feet.
There was a shot, sounding like a cannon roar in the close confines of the barn. But the shot didn’t hit anything. It had been aimed at Nellie, but Rosabel had found the loose plank in her hands at the moment and had lunged with it. When thrust powerfully under a man’s chin, a plank can be an excellent weapon. Kopell went down again.
“Run!” cried Nellie at the door. “You, too, Robert!”
Rosabel was out almost as quickly as Nellie. The car Kopell had come in was just ahead.
“Robert!” called Nellie. “Hurry up—”
“Get away!” she heard young Cranlowe’s muffled voice. “I— They’ve got me! I can’t—”
Rosabel had the door open. She got into the car, and Nellie dove in after her. The men were at the barn door, having recovered their weapons. They still had blank, incredulous looks on their faces that a girl could do these things to them. They began to shoot. Then they stopped, knowing it was useless. Kopell’s car had been shot at before. It stopped bullets.
Nellie and Rosabel streaked for the road — two girls who, unaided, had gotten away from four armed gangsters.
The speedometer read eighty.
“We don’t have to go so fast,” said Rosabel. “We’re out of range, now.”
“Yes, we do have to go fast,” Nellie retorted. “You heard what that man said when he came in. That we had been gotten away from her so there wouldn’t be any trouble at that end.”