Read Online The Avenger 13 - Murder on Wheels by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page A

boathouse.
    “I was a dumb to get caught last night like I did,” said Smitty sheepishly, as they got into the coupé. “But this old dumbbell was so clumsy he knocked me off balance. If it was clumsiness.”
    The Avenger said nothing. He hurtled the car toward New York.
    They’d gotten clear to Manhattan and were crossing Park Avenue, when Willis, who had been motionless for a long time, suddenly stiffened and went as rigid as a bar of iron. The breath whistled between his clenched jaws, and his eyes rolled up till only the whites could be seen. A kind of animal bleat came from his taut lips, and he began to flop around like a hooked fish.
    “Hey! He’s having a fit of some kind,” yelled Smitty. “There’s a drugstore. Stop!”
    Benson already had the car stopped. Smitty dragged the flopping body out—and it was suddenly leaping and running down the street.
    “Get him—” cried Smitty, starting to run, himself.
    There was a line of cabs ahead, several of them with motors running. Will Willis got to the first. Insanely, he dove with his fist at the driver, who had been reading a newspaper and hardly knew what hit him. Then Willis jumped into the cab—and was gone!
    The Avenger had not left the coupé. He jerked it forward, slowed for Smitty to leap onto the running board and get in, then started on. But the cab had rounded the next corner; and when they got to it, half over the curb with its nose against a hydrant, it was empty. Willis had leaped out, and Heaven knew where he was, now.
    The two went on to Bleek Street, with Smitty shaking his head.
    “I am dumb! I should have guessed he was pulling an act. And I didn’t. I let him go his crazy way—”
    “I don’t think he’s quite as crazy as he acts,” said Benson quietly.
    Smitty stared quickly at him.
    “I was looking at his eye, closely, back at the boat-house. The pupil was quite normal, not overdilated at all.”
    “Then what—” But Smitty stopped. No use asking questions at this stage of the game. Even The Avenger didn’t know the answers.
    There was no word at Bleek Street from Mac and Josh in Detroit. So, because they were worried by that, and also because there seemed nothing to do in New York at the moment, Benson and Smitty took one of Benson’s planes, a terrifically fast P-40 type, and hopped off.
    But first, Benson had told Nellie in a few words what had happened. Particularly about Will Willis.
    “Try to trace Willis,” he told her. “His trail will be lost from the point where he got away. But you might pick him up again at a station or at one of the bridges, if he tries to get away from Manhattan. Get the police to work on it.”

    At Detroit, Smitty and The Avenger went directly to the hotel Mac and Josh had said they’d use. It was about seven o’clock by now, and the lobby was crowded.
    Dick Benson crossed the large lobby toward the elevators, moving easily, gracefully, but making it difficult for even the giant, Smitty, to keep pace with him.
    “Phone Nellie, Smitty,” Benson said. “Find out what success she has had in tracing Willis. Then come up to the room.” He stepped into the waiting elevator as Smitty turned to the phone booths on the other side of the lobby.
    At the designated room, Benson tapped the code knock of the little band. The door was opened. But not by Mac. This was a stranger, a young fellow, quite good-looking, with alert black eyes and brown hair that grew straight back from his forehead.
    “You’re looking for MacMurdie and Newton?” said this man to Benson. “And you’re Richard Benson, of course. I’m awfully glad you’ve come. Your men are in trouble.”
    “Trouble?” asked The Avenger, tone calm but eyes like drills. “Where?”
    “At Cass Lake,” said the man. “There’s a summer villa out there that’s boarded up. Belongs to William Wesley, one of the motor crowd. They’re being held there. I waited here to tell you.”
    “How is it you know this—and are in this