Justice, Inc.

CHAPTER XVII Sleet of Death

In the basement of the rambling, boarded-up house, Smitty lay along the wall as well as his chains would permit, resting a little. Even his gigantic strength had been frayed a bit that night. For hours on end he had stood or sat in strained positions, rasping his arm irons against the wall behind him.

It had chewed on the nerves of the others.

“For Heaven’s sake!” Andrews had snapped raggedly. “Stop that infernal noise, will you?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Vincent had put in. “You think you can wear through chains that size? Don’t be a fool, man!”

And toward the end, Mrs. Martineau had developed an excellent case of hysterics. But the noise had gone on.

After a little rest, Smitty stood up and turned to the wall. He held the metal band on his left wrist so it would not bite too deep into the flesh and pulled.

His vast back and shoulders knotted and rippled. His arms corded like tree trunks. His huge hands went milk-white with strain.

And the chain link welded to the iron wrist band snapped where the rubbing had worn it thin.

The right chain followed, and Smitty was held only by the leg irons. He stooped down.

Then he straightened in a hurry, grasped the broken ends of the chain and stood with his hands behind him as if he were still confined. He’d heard steps and seen the solid basement door start to open. The gang here had neglected him for a long time. Apparently they were ready to give him their attention now.

Through the basement door came three men. The one in the lead was a powerfully built fellow with a face a little less coarse than the faces of the other two, but even more cruel. He was dressed in a dapper, streamlined way. He came up to Smitty. The other two stood just behind him.

“So this is the guy you picked off the boat last night,” the dapper man said, looking at Smitty.

“Yeah, Farr,” said one of the other two. Smitty’s muscles tightened. This was the leader here.

“And you don’t know how he got on?”

“Nope.”

“Well,” said Farr, smiling evilly at the giant, “we’ll soon find out. Who are you?”

The question was addressed to Smitty. The giant said nothing.

“Not talking, eh?” said Farr. He turned to the other two. “He’ll be all right in those chains, big as he is. Beat it up and keep watch with the others. I don’t like this guy’s presence. There may be others around.”

The two men who had come as Farr’s bodyguard left. Smitty stared expressionlessly at Farr.

The dapper big man put his hand in his pocket and drew it out with a shiny object in it. The object was a pair of pliers.

Farr grinned. “See these? They’ll make you talk. Now — who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get here? Are there any of your pals around near the island?”

Smitty said nothing.

Farr leaned nearer. “You’d better speak up. You’ve no idea what an ordinary pair of pliers can do to a guy. Still not talking? O.K.—”

Farr reached for the giant’s cheek, with the pliers open and their toothed jaws parted.

On the other side of the basement, Mrs. Martineau screamed wildly. Farr paid no attention. The four men — Leon was on his feet now — shivered and turned away. Mrs. Martineau screamed again and collapsed.

The pliers almost touched Smitty’s flesh — and Smitty smiled and whipped his vast right hand around from behind him.

Farr, with sudden horror in his eyes, tried to leap back. He was too slow. The hand got his throat. Just one hand. But it was enough.

Farr was a strong man himself, in a normal way. But normal strength was a joke when stacked up against Smitty’s gigantic bulk. Farr beat at the iron wrist behind the huge hand — and didn’t weaken the grip in the least. He sagged with all his weight to tear loose — and was held firmly upright at the end of one rigid, tremendous arm.

When he really did collapse, Smitty held him up that way for another thirty seconds to make good and sure he was out. Then he opened his hand. Farr fell like a wet sack.

“Good heavens!” breathed Vincent.

“Young man,” said Old Ironsides, sideburns bristling, “that was miraculous. There was only one thing wrong. You shouldn’t have opened your hand so soon. If you knew what that fiend has put us through—”

Smitty paid no attention to them. He was sitting on the basement floor, face to the wall. He caught hold of the chain manacling his left foot, placed his feet against the wall, too, for a greater brace, and pulled on that chain.

The others watched him, scarcely breathing, knowing that they were seeing something they’d probably never see duplicated again. And the giant’s back arched and strained, and his hands went milk-white again.

The other chains had been weakened by the rasping of the end links against stone. But these had not been similarly weakened. But, on the other hand, with these Smitty was able to get the full purchase of arms and back, chest and legs.

Two hundred and eighty-five pounds of solid muscles heaved on the two-foot length of chain. And in the center, a link not brazed at the ends as solidly as the rest, abruptly straightened and let go.

The chain on his right leg pulled free from the wall, taking staple and some of the wall with it. And Smitty was free. He walked to the nearest basement window, trembling a little, for even his almost incalculable strength had been overstrained a bit. But the tremors soon subsided, and he went to work on the window bars.

The whole grating, four bars and an iron frame, ripped loose in its stone sill under his Gargantuan tugging. But before he could give it the final yank that would tear it completely out, there was a cry from one of the men at his back. Vincent.

“That man Farr! Watch out!”

Smitty whirled — and leaped. But he was too late. Farr had come to a little sooner than expected. He had crept to the door while everyone was breathlessly watching the giant’s incredible feat of strength. Now he had the door open.

“Everybody! Down here!” he shouted hoarsely, as loud as his bruised throat would permit. “Here! Quick! The big fella’s loose!”

Then he was outside and had slammed the door and bolted it, just as Smitty thudded against the panels to follow him. Smitty leaped for the window and completed tearing the bars out. He poked his head out — and instantly fell back in again.

A swift burst of machine-gun fire had almost taken his nose off with its first emergence from the window.

He was free of his chains, but still a prisoner in the basement. He went back to the door, and banged against it with a pile-driver shoulder. Then he jumped warily aside. And it was well he did.

Lead poured through the wood in a solid stream following the impact of his shoulder. A man was posted out there with a machine gun.

Smitty, growling with baffled rage, leaned against the wall next to the door and waited. There seemed nothing else to do at the moment.

Outside, in the high weeds of what had once been a well-kept lawn, MacMurdie and Benson lay four yards apart after MacMurdie’s mistake in waving the weeds when there was no breeze to wave them normally.

Those pale, deadly eyes of Benson had seen the slip. On just such trifles as that, the gray-steel man had staked his life many times in his adventurous past.

“Left — fast!” he snapped in a low tone to MacMurdie, the instant he saw those weeds wave when they shouldn’t have been waving.

The two split right and left. Fortunately the breeze was blowing again, covering the weed movements. MacMurdie and Benson had hardly gotten their distance apart when there was a monotonous, terrible hammering as slugs came from a machine gun. The space between them — where they had been lying an instant before — spewed little gouts of dirt where bullets ripped. Weeds fell as if severed by tiny, unseen scythes in the hands of gnomes.

Then the leaden hail stopped. The two could only lie there and wonder if the man were coming, gun in hand, to see if he had hit anything. They couldn’t see over the weeds from where they lay, and didn’t dare raise their heads.

As a matter of fact, the man was coming. He went slowly, a few steps at a time, gun cradled and ready. He was beginning to think he’d shot at shadows. But he wanted to make sure.

MacMurdie turned his head to stare at Benson. The gray fox of a man could barely be seen through the few yards of weeds. The Scot felt a chill touch his spine. He himself was in mental agony, wondering if the man were sneaking up on them, wondering when he would feel machine-gun slugs plow into his back. He knew his face expressed all this. But Benson’s face did not — could not — express anything at all.

It was still, calm, terribly emotionless. The pale and deadly eyes flaming out of the face that was shaped to resemble another man’s, gave a ghastly effect. Like eyes peering from the grave. From another man’s grave!

And then, at a stroke, he saw the gray man’s stony calm shattered to bits.

From the house, high and terrible, came a woman’s scream. And Benson went all to pieces. Another scream sounded out, and Benson’s face, sweat-beaded, went down to grind into the earth.

A woman in terror — perhaps in torture! Was it — could it possibly be — Alicia? His wife — alive in there? The possibility was too much to be borne. Benson was a quivering and helpless bulk in the grip of an unendurable hope.

MacMurdie watched in growing horror. If the man with the gun was creeping up on them, Benson, in his present state, would prove as helpless as a child.

“Mon, mon, get yersel tagither!” MacMurdie begged soundlessly. And then he heard the weeds rustling not twenty feet away. And Benson, still a quivering wreck from that scream, had obviously not heard.

Mac’s groping hand closed on a rock the size of his fist. With a flick of his bony, powerful wrist, he snapped it as far to his left as he could. Which, since he dared not disturb the weeds with a full throw, was not far.

It stopped only a few feet away — and hell broke loose and shaved the dour Scot’s ear.

The machine gunner poured lead into the spot where the rock had waved the weeds for a full five seconds. Then stood — and watched. He was too old a hand to risk being gripped by the ankles if he went unwarily closer to whatever was disturbing the weeds.

The pause did the trick. There was suddenly a man’s faintly heard yell from within the house.

“Everybody! Down here! Quick! The big fellow’s loose!”

The man turned toward the house. Benson and Mac followed carefully.

The basement windows were at the sides of the house.

And anyone watching the doors from the inside would be apt to overlook a stealthy entrance from the outside.

Benson waved to the Scot to come onto the porch. MacMurdie did so. He flattened against the wall while Benson tried the front doorknob. The door was unlocked.

With his pale and deadly eyes glittering like ice in a gray dawn, Benson stooped down and got Mike, the special little gun. He coolly opened the door.

There was a man in the front hall, with his back turned. He was watching in the wrong direction, it turned out. He whirled at Benson’s entrance.

His gun started to snap up, wavered as he saw the face of Murdock and the clothes Murdock had worn when he left in the motor cruiser.

“Murdock—” he said questioningly.

Then, with its soft, deadly spat, Mike spoke. The man went down, scalp deeply gashed on the top, knocked out, but not killed, by the stunning impact of the little slug glancing from bone.

They went down two steps of the winding stairs leading to the basement. There they halted as a burst of machine-gun fire sounded around the bend beneath them. Somebody shooting through the basement door? It sounded like it—

There were pounding steps in the hall, coming toward them. Men — too many to face, were converging from all the rest of the house to the basement.

A machine gun at the bottom of the stairs, men coming to the top. Benson’s pale eyes flamed lambently. He crept to the bend in the stairs, and leaped like a jaguar.