Read Online The Avenger 31 - The Cartoon Crimes by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online

doing, old chap?”
    Josh rubbed at his ribs. “Forty-fives are mean buggers . . . really knock the wind out of you.” The special celluglass bulletproof vest he wore had prevented any serious injury.
    The Avenger moved, vaulting the ebony bar. “All right, my friend. We want MacMurdie. Where is he?”
    Gruber put his gun hand to his lips and ran his tongue over the dark crease across the back of it. “His whereabouts we can bargain for, Avenger,” he said. “I don’t intend to—”
    Benson gave an impatient nod. He swung out and delivered a chopping blow to the side of the neck.
    The man crumbled and fell unconscious on the slated floor behind the bar.
    “Not in the mood to bargain, Richard?” asked Cole.
    The Avenger said, “There’s a sliding panel back here. Our gun-toting friend neglected to close it quite shut.”
    “It should lead us to the secret recesses, I fancy.” Cole hopped to the top of the bar. “Haven’t done this since I got into a brawl in a Mason Street bistro out in Frisco while in the West to attend the World’s Fair of 1939.” He dropped down next to Benson.
    “Let’s make sure we get a docile reception.” The Avenger opened the wall panel a few inches more. There were steps leading down. He flicked a glass capsule through and heard it smash on the bottom step.
    Inside the capsule had been a colorless, odorless gas of MacMurdie’s invention. It would swiftly penetrate all the rooms down there, putting to sleep anyone within. In less than five minutes it would be safe for Benson and the others to descend.
    “Boy, that slug really slowed me down,” said Josh. “Got me shuffling like Willie Best.” He hobbled up to the bar. “Think I’ll pass on jumping this bar the way you gents did. Use me the little swinging door over here.”
    “Paternity makes conservatives of all,” said Cole, grinning. “You’re losing your old flamboyance and brio, Joshua.”
    Benson stooped, collected the fallen Gruber’s automatic, and brushed a hand against the man’s coat.
    Hands behind him, Cole was examining the bottles of liquor arrayed on the shelves. “Fairly impressive stock,” he remarked, “for a spot that’s only a front.”
    “We can go down there now,” said the Avenger. Slipping Mike back into its leg holster, he pulled the panel wide open.
    The stone stairs took a corkscrew path downward, ending in a low plywood-paneled corridor.
    “Very cosy,” said Cole. “One of my Detroit uncles had a rumpus room very much like this. That was where I learned to shoot pool.”
    There was a chill quiet down here. The sound of their shoes rasping across the stone flooring seemed very loud.
    “Open door over there,” said Josh, cocking a thumb.
    Benson held out a restraining arm. “We’ll go easy,” he said. He walked, slowly, toward the open door.
    From the threshold he could see the slumbering MacMurdie.
    “There’s Mac,” observed Cole. “Everyone else seems to have—as we used to say in my vanished youth—flown the coop.”
    “Probably hotfooted it out a back way when they heard that guy upstairs hit the deck,” said Josh.
    Eyes narrowed, Benson remained outside the room. Then he stepped, warily, inside. He stopped a few feet short of Mac. Kneeling, he scanned the stone floor all around the unconscious man. “Seemingly they didn’t have time to arrange any surprises for us.” Next he examined MacMurdie, then picked him up, with ease, and carried him out into the hall.
    “He’s breathing evenly,” noticed Cole.
    “Yes, they only gave him something to put him to sleep,” said the Avenger. “Cole, you and Josh look through the rest of the rooms down here.”
    “Bet we ain’t going to find much,” said Josh, rubbing at his sore rib again. “This place couldn’t be the headquarters of nothing.”
    “You probably won’t find anything, but I want you to look.”
    Cole asked, “What about the publican and the chap who almost got the ax up there?”
    “I’m hoping