The Frosted Death

CHAPTER VI Crossed Trails

Sangaman, broken fugitive from the law, stared out the window of his retreat.

Veshnir’s Maine cabin, so kindly put to his use, was an elaborate place. Log cabin it might be; but it was two stories tall, contained eight rooms and two baths, and had its own electric plant including water pump.

It was in about the center of the thousand or so acres of almost virgin Maine woods that went with it. No soul was in that area, save for Sangaman himself. You couldn’t see a hundred yards clear in any direction because of the thick trees. About a mile to the east was the seacoast; but along here the coast was as deserted as the woods.

It was the perfect hideout for — a murderer.

Sangaman, staring absently out the window, had aged ten years in the hours succeeding the murder of Targill. He had been a rich man, respected, prominent in business and society. Now he was a hunted thing, with only a little in cash that he had managed to withdraw secretly before he fled.

His brain had cleared a bit, and he was pretty sure, now, that he had not murdered Targill. Still, he could not swear that he had not done it.

But if he had not — then who had? There were two theories to follow that. One was that some employee had sneaked into the laboratory, unknown to the others, and killed Targill. The other was that Veshnir had done it!

The first must be discounted because Veshnir had vehemently maintained that he had seen Sangaman attack Targill.

The latter appealed most to logic.

But there was no sense in Veshnir’s killing Targill. There was, it seemed, no motive. Also, if Veshnir had done it, and framed it on him, why wouldn’t he turn Sangaman over to the police instead of hiding him up here in this wilderness? That didn’t make sense, either.

Guiltless or guilty, Veshnir had hidden him. And hidden he would remain till something, somehow, broke on the Targill case. In police custody, he was doomed. Free, he still had a chance.

Back in New York, in a fine Park Avenue apartment, a girl was reading about Sangaman. The girl was tall and slender and had chestnut hair. Her face, though youthful and feminine, was slightly like Sangaman’s sensitive face. And that was natural enough, for she was Sangaman’s daughter, Claudette.

She read with horror: Targill, head chemist at the Sangaman-Veshnir Drug Corp., murdered. Thomas Sangaman missing. His partner Veshnir, loyally denying that Sangaman was in the building that night, although the building employees stated otherwise. Sangaman’s fingerprints found on the murder weapon.

A little moan came from Claudette’s lips. This was her father they were talking about! Her father — a killer! It was impossible! She must prove otherwise. But how? The police were no aid. They had already judged her father guilty. Who, then, could she go to?

Claudette Sangaman was one of the rare few in private life who knew of The Avenger, and she knew that he specialized in giving just that kind of help: aid that the regular police could not or would not give.

Twenty-five minutes later she stood before the center door of The Avenger’s huge headquarters on Bleek Street. Over the door was a small sign in black and faded gilt. The sign had but one word on it:

JUSTICE

She went in, and up to the top floor after being passed by a small, lovely blond girl with sympathetic eyes. Claudette Sangaman gasped, as most people did, when they saw The Avenger.

The white, dead face was like a mask under her gaze. The icily flaming, colorless eyes bored into hers like diamond drills as she stumbled forth on her plea for help. Help to clear her father.

She was precisely the kind of person The Avenger lived to help. But this time she had come to him at a very unfortunate moment. The Avenger was deeply sympathetic, but his flashing brain was occupied to the exclusion of everything else by the case of John Braun.

The case of the snow man.

That, he feared, would take every ounce of his energy for an indefinite number of days—

There, Benson stopped short. His eyes took on the pale glitter that touched their depths when his genius found a small, significant point to fasten on.

Thomas Sangaman. Sangaman-Veshnir Drug Corp. And a chemist had been murdered.

“Nellie,” Benson called in his quiet but vibrant voice.

Nellie Gray came to him. She was the small and lovely blonde who had first met Claudette.

Small and pretty, she was just a shade over five feet tall and slim for her height. She had bronze-gold hair and gray eyes, and a complexion that made her look like a pink-and-white doll.

Dainty and tiny and soft appealing looking — but Nellie Gray was an expert in jujitsu and wrestling, and could even box pretty well. She could fight like a little tigress, and had belied her fragile appearance more than once in her work for The Avenger. Furthermore, she was almost as uncanny a marksman with rifle and automatic as The Avenger, himself. She had picked that up from her archeologist-explorer father — murdered by criminals of the type Nellie helped Benson work against, now.

“Nellie,” said Benson, eyes stabbing in her direction with their pale glitter, “please bring me the list of firms on Eighth Avenue made up by the detective who died this morning.”

Nellie brought the list. The Avenger glanced at it and read aloud:

“Sangaman-Veshnir Co., lower Eighth Avenue.”

“That’s right,” said Claudette, hope lifting at this renewed interest after his refusal. “That’s the address of dad’s company.”

“That’s on the west side of the street.”

“Yes,” said Claudette.

“About four blocks from the Laddex Co.,” Benson mused, “and fourteen or fifteen block from Braun’s street.”

Claudette didn’t know what he was talking about, now; so she said nothing.

“Is the laboratory, in the Sangaman-Veshnir Building, on the Eighth Avenue side?” Benson asked.

Claudette nodded. “On the top floor,” she added.

The Avenger’s machinelike brain clicked the pieces into correlation with each other, and formed a plausible whole.

John Braun had died of a mysterious thing that The Avenger was sure was man-created. The kind of thing that must have come from some laboratory. It was logical to suppose that John Braun had passed under the high window of such a laboratory on his way home — to death! And in that laboratory a highly expert chemist had been murdered, for some reason or other, that same night.

It looked as if the trails crossed. One was the path up which you might toil to rescue Sangaman, if innocent. The other the trail to the origination of that dreadful white stuff that turned its victims into snow figures.

Here, the paths intersected and became one. “I’ll help you!” said Benson.