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

floor, but they weren’t worth the high rent. However, Nellie Gray, registered as Josephine Lang, hadn’t even looked twice at the figure. None of the aides of The Avenger thought about expenses. They didn’t have to.
    None, that is, save MacMurdie, who would always be in anguish when he had to spend a nickel, no matter how unlimited was the supply of nickels at his disposal.
    Down two floors, there was a suite much larger than Nellie’s, and renting for twice as much. It was rented to Mrs. Jesse Cranlowe. The fancy sum indicated one of two things: Either Mr. Cranlowe had unlimited means at his disposal, too, or she was a very selfish person about her expenditures.
    “It must be the latter,” said Nellie to Rosabel. “For the chief told us that Cranlowe was pinched for money at the moment. I guess the second Mrs. Cranlowe doesn’t care how pinched he is!”
    “She seems to be nice, though,” said Rosabel.
    “Yes, she does,” Nellie admitted. “I guess she’s more ignorant in financial matters, and spoiled, than mean. She probably hasn’t any idea what it means to be pinched for money.”
    “She and Mr. Cranlowe’s son get along better than children and stepmothers often do,” said Rosabel.
    Nellie nodded. That was her impression, too.
    She had let no grass grow under her feet in her task of getting acquainted with Mrs. Cranlowe. The inventor’s wife had come into the lobby while Nellie was taking the suite for herself “and maid.” Nellie had exclaimed aloud and bent suddenly, with a wet fingertip trying to catch a run in her stocking. A run she had just started with a furtive fingernail.
    “Oh!” she said. “And I haven’t time to shop for new stockings now. And my others are in my trunk, which won’t be here till tomorrow!”
    The exclamation had been subtly directed at the passing Mrs. Cranlowe, who had turned, to be met with a rueful smile.
    She had taken the bait.
    “You are just coming in? You can send your maid to my rooms, if you like. I have a little thread that ought to match that flesh tint. It will make a pucker in the stocking, but it’s better than a run.”
    “Oh, thank you so much,” said Nellie. There was a little general conversation, and a self-introduction. And then, with Nellie’s dainty charm turned on full, there was a suggestion of dinner together.
    Nellie was getting into a crisp frock for dinner, now.
    “Did you see that man when you went out to the drugstore a few minutes ago?” Rosabel asked in a low tone as she hooked Nellie up the side.
    The man in question was a fellow Nellie had told Rosabel about glimpsing as she left Mrs. Cranlowe in the lobby and went to an elevator.
    He was a young-looking chap with something the matter with his eyes. They didn’t match the rest of him. They were a thousand years old, and all evil; as if they had been pried from the skull of an old, old man and set into the sockets of a young man.
    The young man with the ancient eyes had come to the building door shortly after Mrs. Cranlowe had. He hadn’t come in; had just stayed there, but Nellie got the idea he was watching the inventor’s wife.
    Then he had seemed to watch Nellie after she talked to Mrs. Cranlowe.
    “No, didn’t see a sign of him,” Nellie said cheerfully.
    “Be careful,” urged Rosabel.
    Nellie laughed. It was a reckless, musical trill of sound.
    “I’ll be careful, all right. I don’t think a coffin would become me.”
    She went down to Mrs. Cranlowe’s apartment.
    Mrs. Cranlowe was a woman of thirty-three or four, but looking younger. She was a brunette, on the plump side, with a full red little mouth and hands that were always making vague gestures.
    She opened the door, when Nellie knocked, on a businesslike-looking night chain. Then she unhooked it when she saw Nellie’s face.
    “I wanted to be sure it was you,” she explained.
    “Sure it was me?” repeated Nellie innocently.
    “Yes! You know I have had some most unpleasant experiences recently.