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Authors: Kenneth Robeson
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a man went out the broken-plank exit, followed by Mac. Smitty was left alone in the vast interior of the barge.
When the human dynamo, whom men called The Avenger, had gone, it seemed as if a light had been turned out in the place, leaving it darker than before.
CHAPTER VIII
Cold Extra!
In Chicago, people were still chuckling over the sensational newspaper’s foreign-invasion hoax. An unnamed enemy ready secretly to invade the United States in the vicinity of Chicago? Hooey!
In a lunchroom downtown, several men were laughing about it to the proprietor. One, a big fellow with a gold front tooth, gesticulated.
“I guess if anybody did invade this country, it wouldn’t be secret. And I guess we’d know in advance who the enemy’d be. Besides, how could anybody invade us, and us not know it until after the damage was done?”
“Well, there was that pavilion in Lincoln Park,” the other man said. “Kind of funny how that fell down.”
“Aw, it didn’t have anything to do with an enemy invasion. The girders were rotten, that’s all. The city engineers said so.”
“The whole business is nutty,” said the proprietor of the lunchroom. “Wonder where the paper got that crazy story, anyhow?”
Someone else was wondering that. And that person was a lithe, powerful figure of a man with icily flaming gray eyes. The Avenger.
Benson was in the office of the managing editor of the sensational sheet now. Benson, who knew an amazing number of people in all walks of life, was acquainted with the owner of the paper. The owner didn’t like Benson much, but he was afraid of the pale-eyed man. And when Benson had quietly demanded authority to question the reporter of the paper who was responsible for the invasion yarn, the owner granted it.
Benson was probing the fellow now.
The reporter, a not-too-clean man of forty-five or so, stood like an uneasy schoolboy before Benson in the managing editor’s office.
“Your superior,” Benson said quietly, “disclaims all knowledge of the source of that story. He says it isn’t up to him to question news sources. He gets stories from his reporters, and passes them if they look interesting. He got this yarn from you, decided it would sell out the issue, and printed it. But he insists he doesn’t know where you got hold of it.”
“That’s right,” said the managing editor quickly.
“So now you can tell me where you picked it up,” said Benson.
“It was a source of information that can’t be divulged,” the reporter began, sweating under the gaze of the icy, pale eyes.
“It will be divulged in this case,” Benson said. The reporter knew that the dead-white face, with its awesome lack of expression, was going to follow him around in nightmares.
“I . . . I don’t know the name of the m-man who told me,” he stuttered.
“You don’t know the name of the man who gave you a story like that?”
“No! I got it in a bar, from this guy—”
The managing editor broke in, voice weary and daunted.
“This man”—he jerked his head toward Benson—“seems to be a buddy with everybody from the President of the United States down. Apparently he can call out the United States army if he wants to. Open up!”
The reporter cleared his throat.
“I really did get the story from a guy in a bar,” he said. “But I have an idea the man was there because I usually hit that bar at that hour, and he knew it. He was a young fellow, smooth-looking. Said his name was Carlisle. He spilled the foreign-invasion stuff, and it sounded like a circulation getter to me.”
Benson’s eyes, cold as ice in a polar sea, went from the reporter to his boss.
“All right! You got the story. It sounded like a circulation getter. But you wouldn’t have printed a thing like that without some sort of confirmation. What was it?”
The office door opened under the careless hand of a man from the shop in the basement. Equally indifferent to visitors in the boss’s office, the man came
When the human dynamo, whom men called The Avenger, had gone, it seemed as if a light had been turned out in the place, leaving it darker than before.
CHAPTER VIII
Cold Extra!
In Chicago, people were still chuckling over the sensational newspaper’s foreign-invasion hoax. An unnamed enemy ready secretly to invade the United States in the vicinity of Chicago? Hooey!
In a lunchroom downtown, several men were laughing about it to the proprietor. One, a big fellow with a gold front tooth, gesticulated.
“I guess if anybody did invade this country, it wouldn’t be secret. And I guess we’d know in advance who the enemy’d be. Besides, how could anybody invade us, and us not know it until after the damage was done?”
“Well, there was that pavilion in Lincoln Park,” the other man said. “Kind of funny how that fell down.”
“Aw, it didn’t have anything to do with an enemy invasion. The girders were rotten, that’s all. The city engineers said so.”
“The whole business is nutty,” said the proprietor of the lunchroom. “Wonder where the paper got that crazy story, anyhow?”
Someone else was wondering that. And that person was a lithe, powerful figure of a man with icily flaming gray eyes. The Avenger.
Benson was in the office of the managing editor of the sensational sheet now. Benson, who knew an amazing number of people in all walks of life, was acquainted with the owner of the paper. The owner didn’t like Benson much, but he was afraid of the pale-eyed man. And when Benson had quietly demanded authority to question the reporter of the paper who was responsible for the invasion yarn, the owner granted it.
Benson was probing the fellow now.
The reporter, a not-too-clean man of forty-five or so, stood like an uneasy schoolboy before Benson in the managing editor’s office.
“Your superior,” Benson said quietly, “disclaims all knowledge of the source of that story. He says it isn’t up to him to question news sources. He gets stories from his reporters, and passes them if they look interesting. He got this yarn from you, decided it would sell out the issue, and printed it. But he insists he doesn’t know where you got hold of it.”
“That’s right,” said the managing editor quickly.
“So now you can tell me where you picked it up,” said Benson.
“It was a source of information that can’t be divulged,” the reporter began, sweating under the gaze of the icy, pale eyes.
“It will be divulged in this case,” Benson said. The reporter knew that the dead-white face, with its awesome lack of expression, was going to follow him around in nightmares.
“I . . . I don’t know the name of the m-man who told me,” he stuttered.
“You don’t know the name of the man who gave you a story like that?”
“No! I got it in a bar, from this guy—”
The managing editor broke in, voice weary and daunted.
“This man”—he jerked his head toward Benson—“seems to be a buddy with everybody from the President of the United States down. Apparently he can call out the United States army if he wants to. Open up!”
The reporter cleared his throat.
“I really did get the story from a guy in a bar,” he said. “But I have an idea the man was there because I usually hit that bar at that hour, and he knew it. He was a young fellow, smooth-looking. Said his name was Carlisle. He spilled the foreign-invasion stuff, and it sounded like a circulation getter to me.”
Benson’s eyes, cold as ice in a polar sea, went from the reporter to his boss.
“All right! You got the story. It sounded like a circulation getter. But you wouldn’t have printed a thing like that without some sort of confirmation. What was it?”
The office door opened under the careless hand of a man from the shop in the basement. Equally indifferent to visitors in the boss’s office, the man came
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