The Flame Breathers

CHAPTER VII The Fourth Pole

The curious headquarters of The Avenger, on Bleek Street, did not often see the white-faced man and all his aides there, together. Usually one or more was out; there was a lot of work to be done by a little band like this who devoted their lives to crime fighting.

They were all there now the day after the burning of the garage.

Nellie Gray sat on a leather divan near the rear corner window, with sun highlighting her gold hair through slats over the casement that looked like the slats of a Venetian blind. They were not what they seemed, however. The slats were special alloy steel, set into the masonry at a 45° angle so that light could come through but bullets could not.

Nellie, barely five feet tall, with soft blue eyes, was the most diminutive, feminine looking young woman you’d ever want to see.

But large men had been known to fall on their surprised faces when they tried to lay hands on her, for Nellie Gray could surpass the skill of most men, with her hands as well as with a gun.

Near Nellie sat Rosabel, the pretty Negress who was Josh Newton’s wife. She stared at her sleepy-looking husband with fond eyes.

Josh, Mac and Smitty stared at their chief, and wondered what lay behind the pale, death mask of a face in which were eyes as expressionless and glittering as chips of stainless steel.

The Avenger was waiting for a report. The report, if it came, was to be about a fourth gentleman from Poland.

Wencilau, tragically dead in Paris; Shewski in Berlin; Veck in Montreal. And in each case were similarities that simply could not be coincidence.

Investigating authorities had found each time that the dead man had lived in fear of immediate death. They had found that each man was a scientist of some sort. They had discovered, of course, that each was Polish.

Three men, of the same profession and nationality, hiding in far places! The first thing The Avenger had done, of course, was to try to link the three together.

Dick Benson, in the course of an adventurous career, had made thousands of friends all over the world. He had set some of his friends to work on this.

From Warsaw, Poland, had come the report that Veck and Wencilau and Shewski were old friends and coworkers. From Berlin had come the news that just before the death of Shewski, a little man, with ears so flat to his head that it didn’t seem as if he had any ears, had visited him. The man, it was thought, was an old employee of Shewski’s.

From Paris, The Avenger had gleaned the news that a small man of about the same description had tried to get into Wencilau’s room the day before the murder. He had told the concierge he was Wencilau’s laboratory helper at one time.

And from Montreal, after exhaustive investigation and questioning, a chambermaid had been found who swore she saw a little man with outstanding ears talking to Veck, through his shut door, on the day of Veck’s death. That, it would seem, would be Xisco, who had said he once worked in a laboratory with Veck.

Three men, close friends, dead. And, in each case, a former laboratory helper had been around shortly before death struck.

Then from Warsaw had come a final report that was the most vital to date.

There had been four close friends and scientific co-workers. Four Polish scientists, scattered and hiding from something.

The fourth, a man named Sodolow, had come to the United States with the other three, and from there had gone to Algiers, North Africa. Miracles of tracing had been necessary to establish that fact, because Sodolow had made it a business to move there without leaving any clues behind him.

Algiers. But he wasn’t there now. A salesman of farm machinery whose life Benson had once saved in Fez, had reported that the man named Sodolow — using an alias at his hotel — had left the Mediterranean city. A hundred dollars had brought the guarded information that he was en route to New York.

There the trail had stopped, till Benson had talked to a stevedore who knew a steward who had smuggled a man ashore who looked much like this Sodolow. That had been four days ago.

Benson’s private exchange telephone had emitted a discreet buzz. When that phone rang, it was important.

The Avenger picked up the instrument in his slim but steel-strong hand. His face, as always, was as emotionless as a wax mold. But his eyes took on their chill glitter as he listened to brief words from one of his countless friends who were only too glad to act as agents for him, when circumstances compelled Benson to ask their help.

Benson nodded and hung up.

“They’ve found Sodolow,” he said. “He’s at a Polish boarding house near Third Street, plainly hiding out as the others did.”

“The fourth Pole,” said Mac somberly.

“Yes. The fourth of the little squad of scientists who came here to the United States for a while, and then scattered in far places to hide as if the devil himself were after them.”

The Avenger hadn’t seemed to move fast. But in an incredibly short time he was at the door.

‘‘Smitty,” he said, “come with me. And bring a stomach pump.”

“Stomach pump?” repeated the giant, perplexed.

“Three men have died of something like poisoning,” said Benson quietly. “Quite possibly, this fourth man may have a similar attack while you’re guarding him.”

“Guarding him?”

“ ’Tis parrot blood he has in him,” observed Mac dourly.

“You’ll stay with this man, Sodolow, constantly,” said Benson to the giant. “He is in deadly danger. But even with constant vigilance, he may suffer the same fate as the other three. In which case you will use the pump on him instantly.”

Smitty nodded. It was one more indication of the method and foresight The Avenger used in his work.

The obscure boarding house in the shadow of the El tracks, where Sodolow was hiding, looked innocent enough. But Smitty felt a prickle of foreboding, like goose flesh all around him, when he stepped inside. He could fairly smell danger around. He felt as if eyes were on him as he followed the gray steel figure of The Avenger up the dim stairs to a room on the top floor in the rear. However, stare around as he would, he could see no door open nor any person on stairs or in halls.

He wondered how Benson was going to get in to see Sodolow. A man hiding in horror is not apt to open up. Not even when the magic name of Benson was given. There were too many chances that the name could be used by someone else.

The giant got the answer in the next moment.

Benson took from his pocket a thing like a crochet needle save that its slim length was split into two slivers. Then he knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” came a voice inside.

“A friend,” Benson called through the panels. “We must see you on a very important matter.”

There was a silence. Then the voice said bitterly,

“I have no friends. Whoever you are — go away.”

“Won’t you at least look at us and judge for yourself if you’ll receive us?” said Benson.

The Avenger had noted in advance that there was no peephole arrangement in the door. It was that which had guided his plan.

There was the sound of the lock being reluctantly opened. Then the door went back about an inch.

In the crack, Smitty saw a face. But the face was merely a reflection in a hand mirror. Sodolow was taking no chances. He wasn’t showing himself at that door. He stared at the two in the hall with the aid of the mirror, meanwhile, keeping safe himself. And Smitty saw, near the reflected face, the tip of a gun muzzle the Pole held for further protection.

“I don’t know you, sir,” Solodow snapped. And he shut the door.

Benson had the slim, slit length of steel in the lock. The Pole turned the key, and there was a clicking sound. But the bolt did not slide into place. It was caught by the steel. The click was caused by the sliding of one half of the slim steel against the other. It perfectly imitated the sound of a thrown bolt and would have fooled anybody.

Benson opened the supposedly locked door and stepped into a shabby room.

The man inside screamed and whirled. The Avenger’s hand flashed out and wrested the gun from Sodolow before the frightened man could pull the trigger.

Sodolow glared at the white, dead face and the pale, deathly eyes.

“All right,” he said. “You’ve got me helpless. Go ahead and kill me.”

Benson snapped the cartridges out of the revolver and handed it back.

“I’ve told you we were friends,” he said quietly.

Sodolow sneered. He was a chubby man with a face ordinarily cast in cheerful lines. But it was bitter, frightened, cynical now.

“Fine friends, who force their way into a man’s room!”

“Only because there was no other way to see you,” Benson said. And such was his tone, and the look in the colorless, glacial eyes, that Sodolow relaxed a little.

“What do you want with me?” said Sodolow resignedly.

“We want some information, if you will give it. And we want to help guard against a certain danger that hangs over you. A most peculiar danger.”

The effect on Sodolow was remarkable. His face paled, then purpled. He raised quivering hands.

“You know… the nature of… that danger?” he panted.

“Poison — that later shows no trace of itself in laboratory tests,” said Benson evenly. “Or — the white flame, coming from a man’s lips and nostrils. Of course I know the nature of the threat.”

Sodolow drew a deep breath.

“Who are you, anyway?”

“The name is Benson. Richard Henry Benson.”

Into the Polish scientist’s eyes came profound respect.

“The inventor of the alpha lamp, which produces light without heat!” he breathed. “I am honored, Mr. Benson. I have studied many of your formulas.”

Sodolow reached for a small tin on a nearby table. There was a well-known brand of headache tablets in the tin. He took one up, started to put in his mouth…

Benson’s hand flashed out and knocked the tablet from his fingers.

Sodolow exclaimed at the suddenness of it, then shrugged and smiled bitterly.

“Of course. It may be the death of me, Mr. Benson. But I have taken three of those tablets already today, with no ill effects. And, after all, a man must swallow food and wine or water. That is my vulnerability to the fiends—”

He stopped. Benson said,

“It is a very great thing you have discovered, isn’t it?”

“So great,” said Sodolow, in a hushed tone, “that I dare not tell even you. Though it sounds as if you have guessed a little—”

“You brought it to this country some time ago?” said Benson. “And then you left the country hurriedly?”

“That’s right. Veck and Shewski and Wencilau and I. A tremendous discovery. We brought it to America for financial backing. Poland is poor and the United States has great wealth. But we intended to use our brain child to benefit mankind. And, instead, we found that mankind was to be exploited. Shewski and Veck and Wencilau have died, though they hid at the ends of the earth. So I came back to see the cold-blooded fiend who ordained their deaths and plead with him—”

Sodolow stopped. His mouth suddenly twisted with pain.

“To plead with him—” he repeated, almost stupidly, as if not knowing that he was speaking aloud.

He screamed.

Smitty felt like putting his hands over his ears to shut out the sound. It was the shriek of a man who suddenly discovers that, beyond all hope, he is doomed! It was the cry of a man already dead, and terribly aware of it.

“Smitty! The pump!” Benson snapped.

Sodolow had taken nothing into his mouth since the two had been there. Hence, unless the poison had been swallowed previously and was just beginning to work, he could not have been poisoned.

Yet he was acting like a man who had been.

He doubled in the middle, and fell to the floor where he writhed in agony! Foam flecked his lips. His teeth were so ground together that even The Avenger’s iron fingers were put to task to get them apart so the pump could be used.

Benson drained the stomach contents and put them into one of two vials he took from his pocket. The vial was tightly stoppered, was absolutely airtight.

Not half a minute had elasped between the time when Sodolow fell to the floor and the time when his stomach was emptied. But even The Avenger’s foresight and swiftness had not been enough in this case.

Sodolow was dead, struck down as if by lightning!

“Good heavens,” breathed Smitty.

Benson looked down at the dead man, the fourth to go in so short a time. His paralyzed, emotionless face was like a mask. His eyes were like polar ice. Yet Smitty knew there was plenty of emotion under the surface.

The death of this man, whom Benson had come to try to save, was a major defeat. It was all the more of a defeat since Benson had had no time to get real information from him. But the white, still face, of course, showed none of that.

Benson put the bottle with the stomach contents in his pocket. The other, identical vial, he filled with wine from a bottle on the table. He put this into his pocket, too, and beside it the little tin box of headache tablets. There were two left in the tin.

“Police?” said Smitty, glancing from the dead man to his chief.

“We can notify them later,” said Benson. “We had better get away from here as soon as we can—”

The door smashed open!

“You had that idea a little late, buddy,” grated a man at the door.

His scarred, crafty face snarled at them over the sights of a .44. He shot twice at Benson and twice at the giant Smitty.

Both fell without sound!

The man took the aspirin tin and the vial from Benson’s pocket, and left.

Smitty was the first to get up. He rubbed his vast chest. Over his torso, and Benson’s, was a special type of bulletproof vest, recently perfected by The Avenger. Made of interwoven strands of a marvelous substance which Benson called celluglass, and the formula of which was known to him alone, it could turn anything up to a .50-caliber machine gun bullet.

But a .44 slug at close range kicks like a mule, even if it doesn’t penetrate. And both Benson and Smitty had been struck twice from less than five feet away.

“I think a rib’s gone,” complained the giant. “Why didn’t you let me take him, chief? I played dead because you did. But I didn’t want to.”

“If he had shot at our heads, the bullets would have hit no friendly shield,” Benson pointed out. “And head shots would have been next if we hadn’t let him think the first were successful. Besides, he got only what I wanted taken — in case we were attacked on leaving here — which was to be expected.”

“He got the tin of headache tablets,” said Smitty.

“I know what that would have yielded under analysis,” Benson said unemotionally. “Traces of the same thing we will find in the stomach contents of Sodolow. So the loss of the tin box means nothing.”

“But they got that vial, too!”

“They got the vial with ordinary wine in it,” said The Avenger. “The other, from the dead man’s stomach, is safe in my pocket. If he had started to take that, there would have been action! But he didn’t. So we now have it for laboratory analysis — though I doubt if any man alive can accurately analyze, part for part, the chemicals in it.”