Stockholders in Death

CHAPTER XV Life for a Life

More than Josh had heard the call over Rosabel’s little belt radio. Mac and Smitty had heard it, too. It took them quite a while to get to The Corners, because they had been north of New York, looking around Theodore Maisley’s country place, and the place on the road where the bank president had been forced over the cliff.

They had found something, too. Though many hours had passed since that accident, a trace had endured. They had found tire tracks up a soft lane off the main road. The tracks told of a car having been driven in, turned around, and then driven out again.

The lane was just beyond the curve where the cliff was called Suicide Heights.

“It could have been this way,” rumbled the giant, Smitty. “Maisley is driving out toward his house. He gets to the curve. A car is coming toward him, from the opposite direction, so it’ll meet and pass him on the curve. Another car waits in this lane, and shoots out as that second car goes by. Then the two cars race abreast toward Maisley. He swings to the right to try to miss them and goes over the cliff.”

“Nice reasonin’,” said Mac ironically.

“What’s the matter with it, you Scotch raven?”

“Plenty,” said Mac. “In the first place, there isn’t a chance in a hundred that another car would happen along in just the right place at just the right time. In the second, if one did, and this guy shot out, the other car’d pull ahead or drop behind before the curve was reached. If he didn’t, it would mean he was in on the killing. In which case both cars would have been in the lane and come out together.”

“Then why was this car in the lane?”

“How do I know? Maybe it had nothin’ to do with the accident.”

Smitty played a trump card. Mac’s blue eyes had missed a trick this time.

“This waiting car,” he said, “had a V-shaped cut in the right rear tire just as did the car that shagged Joseph Crimm into heart failure.”

Mac whistled, and looked closer.

“I guess maybe you’re right,” he conceded. “I guess the car did have somethin’ to do with Maisley’s death. But how—”

It was then that Smitty felt the vibration of his tiny radio indicating a call. He held up his hand and listened. So did Mac. And they got Rosabel’s beginning message to Josh. Got that — and the sudden silence.

Without a word to each other, Mac and the giant piled into their car. Trouble! And when one of The Avenger’s aides got into a jam, it was the concern of all the rest of them to get him out.

Mac knew where The Corners was. He started toward it, down Hudson Boulevard, at seventy.

Cops started to phone ahead to stop the maniac in the blue sedan, then refrained as they saw the police insignia which was on several of The Avenger’s machines.

To The Corners.

Mac spotted the car in which Josh had come. All The Avenger’s aides were trained in tactics like army majors. The Scot had decided on a rear approach to the roadhouse as instantly and surely as Josh had. So when the blue sedan came to a stop, it almost nosed into Josh’s car.

Smitty nodded.

“One of us here,” he rumbled. “The three of us can take that place apart and not bother to put it back together again. We—”

The Scot’s bony hand on his arm stopped him. From the roadhouse across the fields came the sound of shots. Many of them.

The two began to run toward The Corners.

Tom came back groaning, to consciousness, about ten minutes after the smashing blow on the head had knocked him out. He opened dazed eyes and saw the face of the man who had socked him.

“Hi, sucker,” said Blinky.

Josh and Rosabel, lying next to Tom, were bound. Tom was not. In a moment he saw why Blinky hadn’t bothered to tie him up.

Blinky had his gun in his hand and was evidently going to stay right in the room with the three to make sure there was no slip-up.

“So you’re going to kill me — and these two,” said Tom thickly.

Blinky shrugged, gun carelessly alert.

“The black boy and his dame — yes,” he said. “You — I still don’t know. Nor does Luckow. He was up here a minute ago and said to hold off for a while.”

“Luckow here?” repeated Tom, starting to get up. “I want to see him—”

“Relax!” snapped Blinky, gun jerking into line. “Just lie right there where you are.”

Tom relaxed. The bitterness of his thoughts was reflected on his face. It isn’t nice to find you have made a major fool of yourself. Tom was finding that out, now. Even more than he’d found it out when he saw that this gang was ready to execute a helpless girl in cold blood.

He glanced at Rosabel with somber sympathy in his eyes, then looked at Josh.

The Negro’s eyes were staring rigidly at a section of wall, high up.

Tom’s eyes followed his gaze. And he saw what Josh had been staring at. There was a section up there, about six inches square, that was obviously a little opening. And the section was swinging silently inward.

Tom started to yell. Was a gun going to be poked in that small hole, to mow down the three of them? Was this death, coming in?

He choked the sound as he realized that this was not logical.

The little opening was moving very furtively. There would be no reason to conceal its movement from Tom and Josh and Rosabel, because they were helpless. Therefore, it must have been done to keep Blinky from knowing it. It must be a friend moving the panel.

Then he saw a part of a face in the opening, and held his breath. Rather, he saw a part of a veil, beneath which only dimly could a woman’s face be seen.

A veiled woman! It was a veiled woman who had helped him once before — at the bank getaway.

A hand appeared where the face had been. In the hand was a curious little sack that glistened dully. A forefinger pointed at Blinky, whose back was toward the opening.

Tom didn’t get the silent message, but quick-witted Josh did. Do something to distract the attention of the guard.

Josh suddenly began to fight his bonds, writhing noisily on the floor as if he had abruptly gone crazy with fear of approaching death. Blinky guffawed, and watched him.

“That’s the stuff. Just one more heave and maybe you can get loose. Maybe!”

The hand in the opening had tossed the little sack and now the opening didn’t show any more. Tom looked sideways at what he held.

The sack was of semi-transparent oiled silk. Within it was soft fabric. He opened the sack a little and a sickish sweet odor came to his nostrils.

Josh was making even more noise, and Blinky was enjoying even more the seeming frenzy of the Negro. His attention was off Tom.

Tom leaped!

Still weak and dazed from the blow on the head, Tom couldn’t conceivably have overcome Blinky in a straight tussle. But in the oiled-silk bag tossed by the veiled woman was a wad of cotton soaked in chloroform. And that did the trick.

Blinky heaved and fought against the stuff jammed to his nose and mouth. He almost got away from Tom twice. But in a minute or less he lay on the floor, out, breathing heavily.

Tom untied Josh and Rosabel.

“Out of here, fast,” he whispered.

“And then?” said Josh sardonically, as he frisked Blinky for the key to the door lock.

“To Mr. Benson’s place,” said Tom humbly.

“Oh! You don’t think you’re so smart any more!”

Tom winced. But he had it coming, and he knew it.

Josh got the key. Softly he opened the door and looked out.

The top-floor hall was empty. The three tiptoed to the rear stairs and down. They landed in the kitchen of the place. There were two men there, indifferently throwing some chicken sandwiches and salads together for any of The Corners’ patrons indiscreet enough to order food. Josh crept upon one and Tom on the other.

They struck together, and the two in soiled chefs’ whites sagged to the unclean floor. Tom and Josh took their guns.

“Look out!” Rosabel screamed.

The two crouched, and shots went over their heads. Their luck was gone. In the doorway were three men, and behind them could be heard the steps of others.

There was a big butcher’s block next to them. Swearing at the ill luck that had let them come so close to escape and then gone back on them, Tom tipped the block over.

He and Josh crouched behind it, with two feet of hard maple as a shield. The men at the door came toward the block, changed their minds as a bullet got one in the leg and another in the arm. They found shelter, too.

For the moment Tom and Josh could hold them off. But the moment couldn’t last long. There were too many of Luckow’s men around the place. In two minutes, or more, the three who had thought to escape death would be killed or captured again.