Read Online The Avenger 15 - House of Death by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page B

a yell, in some choice Arabic profanity, and then came the order: “Get this dog. But quietly.”
    Blood streamed from a gash on the right side of the leader’s throat. In the distraction of Benson’s appearance, Shan had managed to get his knife from its resting place near the rail. He had made one last attempt on the leader’s life. The knife barely missed the big vein in the man’s throat when he frantically jerked aside from Shan’s rush.
    It was literally a last attempt.
    The men had fought to overpower Shan before. They waded in with knives and clubs. Shan kicked one in the jaw in a manner suggesting a broken neck, but then it was over. He fell with half a dozen blades in his body, and with his head clubbed almost out of human semblance!
    The leader pressed a handkerchief to his bleeding neck and stepped over the dead man toward the cabin.
    “Come aft,” he called in English to The Avenger. “You may keep your weapons. We have no quarrel with you—unless you were working for our enemy, here.”
    Benson, not unnaturally, stayed where he was, cold eyes expressionless, features emotionless in the face of danger.
    “You might as well come aft,” said the man, without apparent anger. “If you jump overboard, we can run you down or shoot you. If you put up a fight, eventually we can overpower you.”
    The Avenger made no move to holster Mike and Ike, although the logic of what the man said was apparent. Benson had another weapon with him: small glass capsules of a powerful anesthetizing gas of MacMurdie’s devising. But the gas would be futile, used on the open deck of a boat at sea. The fumes would be blown away before the men were even made groggy by it.
    “You may not have a quarrel with me,” came Dick’s voice, calm, even, icy. “But you would have an excellent reason for not wanting me to live. I have just seen your crew stab and club a man to death.”
    “You have,” said the leader. “But you did not see a murder, as you are probably thinking you did.” He dabbed at his neck. “My men killed him before he could kill me. And they killed no honest man, but a criminal and an imposter.”
    “Imposter?” repeated The Avenger, tonelessly.
    “Yes. That man claimed to be Shan Haygar, of the Turkish Haygars. He was not. I am Shan Haygar!”
    The other men were listening, some intently, showing that they understood English, some indifferently, indicating that it was an unknown tongue to them.
    The Avenger holstered Mike and Ike.
    If it occurred to him that these Haygars were about the hardest people to put a finger on that the world had ever seen, his eyes gave no sign of it. Haygar, Haygar, who’s a Haygar? It seemed as if dozens of people were running around calling themselves by that name, and then getting bumped off by other dozens insisting that they were genuine and the first ones frauds.
    Benson went forward over the cabin’s top. It was quite true that, with a dozen men against him and no chance to use any of the weird devices he carried with him to fight crime, he was trapped. And even if he could have fought free, his main purpose of being aboard—to see where the boat was bound for—would be hopelessly frustrated.
    While The Avenger was approaching, the leader was bent over the dead man with his hands flying over his stark form. He straightened up, and there was a glint as light touched a gold medallion in his dark hand.
    He smiled at Benson.
    “It looks pretty grisly, doesn’t it?” he said. “But believe me, justice has been done. And to show you how firmly I am convinced of that, I am now going to radio the harbor police.”
    He stood aside, wordlessly taking it for granted that Dick would jump down beside him.
    “Will you come into the cabin with me?”
    Without waiting for an answer, he ducked and strode into the cabin. And Benson, not seeming to move swiftly, and yet covering space like flowing light, leaped featherlike to the deck and strode into the cabin.
    It was the sort of