Murder on Wheels

CHAPTER X Wrecked Rollers

The new Marr automotive works was something that drew sightseers from all over America and technicians from all over Europe who thirsted for industrial knowledge.

The heart of the plant was its new strip mill, into one end of which went scrap iron and raw ingots, and from the other end of which came detailed parts of cars ready for final machining.

There was an entire building devoted to turning out the thin plates from which body parts were stamped. And in this building there was a line of rollers that had cost close to a million dollars to install.

It was a typical blooming-mill operation, with new improvements.

A bloom, or white-hot steel billet went through a succession of rollers. Each set of rollers was adjusted closer together than the last, and the billet became a thinner and thinner and wider and wider plate, till eventually it wound up as the thin-guage steel sheet which would make turret tops and fenders.

The blooms, fed into the thick end of the roller procession, were constantly tested by a metallurgical expert, to see that they weren’t too hard or too soft. Indeed, the very billet that did the damage that morning, was one of the one-in-three that had been so tested.

But you’d never think it had been tested when it hit that first roller.

There weren’t many men in the shop. There are few in a modern plant of that nature. But those who were there suddenly dropped everything they were doing at about ten minutes past ten in the morning. Because that was when it occurred.

The crash sounded like a sixteen-inch gun being fired. Only this was accompanied by a screaming of strained metal and a roaring of metal chunks, weighing tons, dropping to the concrete floor.

Wham!

The next roller, its rolls set closer, went with a report like the blowing up of a battleship!

And the white-hot bloom that had broken the first rolls and had scarcely been flattened at all, sailed past the second set still undented, save for a smaller chunk split off a corner.

Down the moving bed of the rolls it slid, while the cries of men resounded in the place.

“Stop the rolls!”

“Shut off that current!”

“Stop the—”

Bam!

The flaming billet was so much too big for the third set that it merely stayed hard against them while the moving bed buckled and ground underneath. But there was that foot-thick fragment split off before.

That wasn’t too thick to go through, but it was too thick to handle if it wouldn’t flatten.

Which it hadn’t!

One more set of rollers smashed with the unyielding fragment before they got the rolls stopped and examined, speechless, the damage done. Then the foreman handed his shop coat to a workman, rolled up his sleeves and, white-faced, hunted around for the metallurgist who had tested that bloom. He meant to strew pieces of his body around the plant.

“You damned fool! You let a billet go in with a carbon content so high it was like shoving a chunk of high-speed cutting steel in there!”

“I didn’t,” protested the lab man, shaking and gnawing at his knuckles while he stared at the appalling sight. A hundred thousand dollars would hardly cover the damage. What it would cost in lost time to the entire big plant before the rolls could be replaced was almost beyond computing.

“You must have,” shouted the foreman. “Stick up your fists. I’m gonna—”

“I tell you, the carbon content was O. K. Look — I’ve still got a sample of the run. I’ll test it again for you.”

He did, and the carbon content — an excess of which makes steel too hard and brittle to handle — was indeed all right.

“Then what,” said the foreman, “made that bloom bust the rolls?”

“How do I know,” wailed the lab man. “Where’s Jackson? Phineas Jackson? He hasn’t been around for days, and no one can find him. He’s the only man who could tell us what is wrong with that steel.”

The new mystery Marr-Car, put out by Marcus Marr.

The moment Josh and Mac had reported, The Avenger had contacted a friend at the plant.

One of the main reasons why Dick Benson was such a powerful factor in a fight against the underworld was that he had more friends than most ten men.

In the course of a life, short in years but very long in adventure, he had met hundreds of men in all walks of life: dock laborers, millionaires; beach combers, college professors; laborers, ambassadors. And no man ever met The Avenger without feeling awe for his genius, and feeling impelled to obey him if he ever asked for something to be done.

A glance at the Marr personnel had told Benson that he knew the tool-room superintendent. He had phoned the man to get in touch with him at once if anything unusual happened at the plant.

And the wrecking of the rolls was certainly not in the ordinary factory routine!

So The Avenger hung up the phone from that report and went out fast. He went to the downtown office, in the Marr Building, of Marcus Marr.

A hostile-eyed secretary was in the outer office like a prison guard.

“Sorry,” he snapped, when Benson asked to see Marr. “Mr. Marr is very busy this morning. He can see no one. No one at all — what did you say your name was?”

The Avenger gave it again, voice even, eyes on the secretary’s face in a gaze that was hard to bear if you had disobedience in mind.

“Mr. Richard Benson? Oh!” The secretary nervously pulled at his fingers till the joints made little cracking noises. “I was told to let no one — absolutely no one — into Mr. Marr’s office. Something has happened at the strip mill — I’ll tell him you’re here.”

He came out in a minute, looking even more shaken. Evidently Marr had handled the secretary pretty severely for disturbing him, before he found out who was calling.

“He’ll see you.”

Benson went in, and walked across a vast room to a huge desk behind which sat a man who looked small and a bit shrunken in contrast. Marr stared up at The Avenger with veiled eyes.

“If you can make this brief?” he suggested. “I am extremely busy.”

“I’ll be brief,” said Benson. His colorless, awesome eyes bored into Marr’s. “A criminal ring has hatched up a scheme that concerns you and has a direct bearing on your recent troubles. My job is to fight crime. I came to ask you to tell me a few—”

“I’m afraid you have come under a misapprehension, Mr. Benson,” Marr said easily. “I have no troubles, save the regular ones of any man in business.”

“You’re sure of that?” said Benson, eyes like stainless steel chips in his paralyzed face.

“Very sure,” said Marr.

“You have worked for months, with brilliant inventors and mechanics, to turn out a new automobile embodying many revolutionary new principles. Now, this mystery car has been stolen — and all your trade secrets with it. I would call that trouble.”

Marr said nothing; he only looked at the white, still face with tired eyes.

“The man who invented the most important thing about the mystery car — the new steel processing — is missing and you don’t know where he is. Phineas Jackson. For all you know, he is negotiating with rival manufacturers and means to sell you out to them. I’d call that trouble, too.”

Still Marr did not reply.

“Now, only a few minutes ago, your strip mill was put out of commission. Some of the new process steel was run through, and it was too hard for the rolls—”

“That wasn’t the new process steel,” Marr blurted. “We’re not in production on that yet, and besides the hardening comes after—”

He stopped, looking confused, and evidently angry at himself for having said that much.

“Comes after the final machining of the product?” said Benson quickly. “Is that what you meant to say?”

Marr was obstinately silent.

“Do you have any idea where Jackson is, now?” said The Avenger.

Into Marr’s eyes crept a glint of fury. His hands clenched on the desk top. But he was through talking.

“You’re doing yourself an injury by not helping me,” said Benson. “But if you don’t care to help — that is your affair. Good day.”

He went back to the hotel — and to a grim-faced MacMurdie, whom he had left in charge of Doris Jackson to see that nothing happened to her.

“She’s gone!” Mac burst out, as Benson entered.

The pale eyes rested on him with the force of a physical blow.

“The little fool!” rasped Mac. “She went to the lobby to telephone somebody—”

“Why didn’t she phone from these rooms?”

“She said frankly that she didn’t want even us to hear who she was talking to or what number she called,” said Mac. “I thought that was all right. You didn’t say anything about treating her like a prisoner. So I went down to the lobby with her, and she went into a phone booth. I saw her talking to somebody, and then I didn’t look any more because I saw a guy hanging around the lobby that looked suspicious. He turned out to be the house detective. When I looked back at the booth, Doris had sneaked out. I waited for her to come back, and she never did.”

Something almost like cold anger came to Benson’s colorless eyes. But not directed at Mac.

“She was just barely rescued from one muddle,” he said. “And now she is foolish enough to leave our guardianship and risk her life again. Didn’t she know it was dangerous for her to go out alone?”

“Sure she did,” said Mac, looking miserable. “She said nothing would drag her away. And then she stole out like a little thief. And I thought she was such a nice girrrl, too.”

The anger had gone from the cold, pale eyes. A look of thoughtfulness was there instead.

“Something very important to her must have developed during her phone call. Well, we’ll hope nothing happens to her. But I’m afraid—”