Read Online The Avenger 19 - Pictures of Death by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page B

certain. So it is either up in Vaughan’s Connecticut home or hidden where no one can ever find it.”
    “Whoosh!” said Mac. “I’d admire to see the skurlie that could hide anything where you couldn’t find—”
    He stopped. Benson’s hand was on his forearm, and Mac shut his teeth hard on the yelp at what The Avenger must have thought was no finger pressure at all.
    Benson nodded down the corridor toward the door. Someone was trying a key in it.
    “Visitors, huh?” whispered Mac. “Do ye think it may be the gang that—”
    He didn’t finish it. There were voices outside, careless and rather loud, not the voices of anyone trying to sneak in. Also, the key had turned the lock bolt smoothly, leading Dick and Mac to believe that it must be the regular key to this place.
    “Police,” nodded Mac. “It’s all right, chief.”
    The Avenger said nothing. His eyes were like pale holes in his calm face as he stared at the entering men.

    Two were in police uniform, two were in plain clothes, and there was a sleek-looking, jauntily authoritative fellow at their head who appeared to have come from the district attorney’s office.
    “What the—” exclaimed the sleek-looking man, staring at the two in the corridor. He had very dark hair and eyes, was quite the playboy type at first glance; yet he handled himself with the air of a man who always knows just what he is doing.
    “Oh!” he said suddenly. His dark eyes went friendly. “You must be Richard Benson. There’s only one man with eyes that light under hair that black, who might be found in a dead man’s rooms. Did you turn up any clues, Mr. Benson?”
    The Avenger’s face was like that of a sphinx as he watched the five come down the hall toward him. His eyes were unreadable.
    “No clues,” he said quietly. “I don’t seem to place you, Mr.—”
    “The name is Add—Addfield. I’m in the D.A.’s office. New there. But I’ve heard about you, sir.”
    “So have we,” said one of the plain-clothes men. “It’s a pleasure to have you work with us, sir.”
    “You have come here as a matter of routine,” said The Avenger. “But have you anything in particular in mind to look for in your regular searching?”
    The sleek, dark chap nodded pleasantly.
    “Vaughan’s private records, as I suppose you know, sir, disclose that he recently bought Dubois’ ‘Diabolo.’ We’d like a look at it, among other things. If you’d show us where you had searched, it might save duplication of effort.”
    He was moving easily toward the two, with his men behind him, when The Avenger’s voice stopped them.
    Benson’s voice didn’t seem to change a note, but suddenly it was as deadly as the thrust of a bushmaster.
    “Stay where you are!”
    The five stopped. In The Avenger’s hands had appeared the two seemingly toy weapons which were all he ever armed himself with. In his right hand was a slim little throwing knife with a hollow tube for a handle. He called it, with glacial affection, Ike. In the left hand, he held an equally slim, streamlined revolver that had a special silencer and a .22 slug. This, he had named Mike.
    These were all Dick held against five men. But MacMurdie knew that they were plenty! And the five must have heard something of Mike and Ike, too, because none moved and none tried for his own weapon.
    “But Muster Benson,” began Mac, bewildered at the shift.
    “These are the men we’re after, Mac,” said Benson evenly. “Look at that ‘patrolman’s’ shoes. Black, but decidedly not regulation. Look at the cut of the other’s coat.”
    “All right,” snarled the sleek dark man suddenly and loudly. “You win. We’re not cops. So what are you planning to do about it? You and that hatpin and pea shooter—”
    It was well done and well timed. The snarling, loud voice hid all sound of the stealthy footsteps behind Mac and Benson!
    Just at the last instant, The Avenger’s quick brain sensed something wrong, and his sharp ears