Read Online The Avenger 9 - Tuned for Murder by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online

was not quite such a fool in giving my ultimatum to the world as people probably think.”
    At the door of the library, the servant with the two guns was standing. He stood aside as Cranlowe came forward; and Benson followed him out of the room.
    Cranlowe took him down dark stairs, to the basement of the place.
    “You remember the peculiarity of this hilltop?” said Cranlowe. “Its queer rock formation was one reason why I built here.”
    “Of course,” said Benson, wondering what it was.
    “But you’ve probably forgotten, in the years the house has been here. I’ll show you how it works out, now.”
    The inventor led the way through a conventional cellar with heating plant and other equipment, to a heavy door. He opened this, and exposed a second basement. And this one was oddly cold and drafty.
    Cranlowe switched on a light, and Benson saw what he had meant by mentioning a “peculiar rock formation.”
    In the center of this basement, the floor of which was bare earth, was a black, irregular ditch. At least it seemed to be a ditch, till he moved closer. Then he saw that it went down and down, into black depths. And from far down there a hundred feet or more at least, came the faint trickle of water.
    “There is my disposal arrangement,” said Cranlowe. “A branch of the Garfield River runs under there. It must be around the range of hills between here and Garfield City. And it must flow underground for at least twenty miles, for no one knows of this branch at all.”
    “Disposal arrangement?” Benson echoed Cranlowe’s words, staring into the black, deadly chasm.
    Cranlowe drew himself up.
    “With a secret like mine, I hold myself above the law,” he said quietly. “And since I am greater than the law, I dare not call in the law to protect me.”
    Benson was staring at the man. There was egotism and eccentricity here that approached mental unbalance. And yet the man was sharp enough.
    “I am the law under this roof,” Cranlowe said. “And I am executioner. If anyone does manage to get in here to steal my secret, he shall go down this chasm. His body will appear, hours later and miles away, in the Garfield River. And that is all anyone will know about it.”
    “Well, I don’t blame you for your attitude,” Benson said. Then, since he had many more things he wanted to question Cranlowe about, as Blandell, he started to suggest that they go back upstairs.
    But the suggestion was never made.
    The door from the other basement opened, and four of Cranlowe’s shotgun-armed guards walked in.
    “So?” said Cranlowe.
    “That’s right, boss,” one of the four said.
    “What—” began Benson.
    The look in Cranlowe’s blazing, dark eyes interrupted him.
    “I don’t know who you are,” the inventor said, “nor by what devil’s genius you can imitate another so perfectly. But imitation it is!”
    Benson stared at the inventor, whose teeth showed suddenly in tremendous anger.
    “Blandell, eh? When a man’s death is announced in the headlines of all the papers, and later that man shows up in person—it is time to investigate and corroborate. While you were on your way from gate to house, I ordered a man to phone Garfield City headquarters about you and, also, to phone whatever undertaking establishment you were supposed to be in. If everything wasn’t all right, these four picked men of mine were to report to me—down here.”
    “So we report,” said one of the four, a big fellow with doglike loyalty in his eyes. “You see, Blandell is now holding down a slab in Fain’s Undertaking Parlor in Garfield City, and he’s already half-embalmed. So he can’t be here too, can he?”
    “Grab him!” said Cranlowe. “Throw him down the chasm!”
    The cold, dank air eddied up from the deep crack in solid rock as the four dragged Benson to the edge of the abyss.

CHAPTER IX

The Stalker
    The rent on the three-room hotel-apartment suite was quite excessive. They were beautiful rooms, on the fifteenth