Read Online The Avenger 24 - Midnight Murder by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page A

heads.”
    He looked at the divan where Rew Wight had been, and at the pieces of rope cut from Wight’s ankles and arms. His face didn’t change at all; his voice simply grew a little more impersonally icy.
    “Walk upstairs ahead of us,” the man said. “And don’t assume that we would hesitate to risk the noise of gunplay. These walls are quite satisfyingly soundproof.”
    They were; Nellie and Smitty decided, two of the nastiest crooks they’d ever seen. That was because they were two such obviously competent crooks.
    The man who had directed them up from the basement was young, handsome in a magazine-illustration sort of way. He was dressed and groomed like a hotel manager. He had a cigarette in a holder. The cigarette was a long one with an initial on it instead of a brand name; and the holder was six inches long at least, very old, and made of jade.
    The other man, who was apparently head of the thugs that had tangled several times with Justice, Inc., was middle-aged, tall, and tremendously fat. He must have weighed nearly as much as Smitty, though, of course, it was distributed much less effectively. The fat man had a placid, philosophical expression on his face. A sort of gruesome expression. You could imagine him looking philosophical and placid, while he watched someone being flayed alive before his eyes.
    The young man drawled indolently. “Where did your pals take Rew Wight? We want him.”
    “Pals?” echoed Smitty. “Take Wight?”
    Nellie glanced at him, and in the look was volume. Smitty got it fast.
    This crew had no idea that Wight had escaped on his own. They were, of course, sure that friends of the giant’s and the tiny blonde’s had waited outside and were now driving off somewhere with the captured man. Just as well to let them think this, too. If they knew the truth, they’d scatter right now in all directions, on the hunt, and might pick up Wight again. If they thought he’d been taken somewhere, they would waste time trying to find out the destination.
    That is, from their angle it would be time wasted. From Nellie’s and Smitty’s, it might be time a lot more unhealthy than just “wasted.”
    “Did they take Wight to your Bleek Street fortress?” asked the tall, elegant young leader.
    Smitty suddenly decided on truth as being the best of all misleaders, here. That is, truth with a confused air.
    “Nobody took him anywhere,” he said promptly, looking very, very innocent. “He went under his own power. We don’t know where.”
    “That is likely,” said the young man ironically, “with both of you right next to him and easily able to prevent it. You helped Wight out the window and your friends got away with him while we were all intent on the burglar alarm that told us we had visitors in the basement. Now—where was he taken?”
    Smitty said nothing. The young man indolently twisted the cigarette butt from his holder.
    “Aw, this is no way to put the question,” growled one of the gunmen in the big room. “We oughta—”
    Hardly seeming to look, with no expression at all on his pale, good-looking face, the icily correct young fellow flipped the smoldering cigarette butt.
    It hit the objector right in the left eye. Sparks showered. It must have hurt. The man almost dropped his gun. He clawed frantically at his eye with one hand, while he retrieved the gun with the other.
    “We like to talk to friends without broken bones, if necessary,” said the young fellow silkily. “I’m sure you won’t mind.”
    “No-no, of course not,” moaned the man. He was bent double, hand clapped to his eye.
    There were eleven other men, all with guns, in the room. They could have riddled their two dictatorial leaders at any moment. But there was plainly no rebellion in any of them, either. These two leaders were that kind of men.
    It didn’t look so good to Nellie and Smitty.
    The fat man was sitting in a leather chair that, big as it was, could barely hold his bulk. His hands were