The Smiling Dogs

CHAPTER XII Angry Congressman

Josh and Rosabel sat very close together, watching The Avenger. Reunited after danger, the Negro and his pretty wife seemed to want to touch each other frequently to reassure themselves that each was there. They were a devoted couple.

Diminutive, blond Nellie Gray was there, from New York. She sat up straight like a little girl. You’d never have been able to look at her and picture her at the wheel of a gas-filled car, smashing it out of a garage through planks, heavy door and a rain of bullets just a short time ago.

Very near her was the giant, Smitty, trying to look unconcerned about her. It was to be suspected that little Nellie Gray was the giant’s main concern in life. It was also to be suspected that Nellie had a spot in her heart for Smitty; though a caterpillar tractor could not have dragged any such admission from her.

Mac was on the opposite side of the room. His eyes, as were the eyes of the others, were on The Avenger.

Benson sat in a straight-backed chair, powerful, compact body easily erect. His pale, icy eyes were like cold crystal, staring at nothing. He was putting together the things he had found out so far.

There was one other person in the room. An outsider, as far as the indomitable little band of crime-fighters was concerned. But not an outsider in this particular case. That was Nan Stanton. Nellie had brought Nan with her to Washington.

In his steely hands, Benson had the crumpled page from Nan’s book of routine calls that Nellie had deftly taken from the bony man’s pocket. He was looking at those names.

One of them was Tetlow Adams. The other was that of a man just murdered: Congressman Coolie.

“You say Tetlow Adams has called several times on Dr. Fram?” The Avenger said to Nan.

She nodded her sleek brunette head.

“But Congressman Coolie called only once?”

“Just once, as far as I know,” said Nan.

“That was in the New York office?” said The Avenger. “Not down here in Washington?”

“That was in the New York office,” nodded Nan.

“Tell me about it, please?”

Nan Stanton half closed her eyes to remember. “Congressman Coolie was in New York for the day, on some personal business,” she said. “At least that was what I gathered when he came in and asked to see Dr. Fram. It seemed that the doctor had gotten in touch with the Congressman and requested him to drop in. Congressman Coolie had come to the office, as asked, but was pretty impatient about it. He had a lot to do in a short time. And he didn’t seem to know why he had been called.”

“You’re sure of that?” interjected The Avenger, colorless eyes like ice under moonlight.

“Yes. He didn’t know what Dr. Fram wanted to see him about. I guessed that it was on the sanity test bill; but all I could do was guess, because nothing was said. The Congressman went into Dr. Fram’s private office. After a few minutes I heard his voice rise angrily; then he came out again. He looked angry and — and defiant. I think that’s the way you’d describe the expression on his face. He brushed past me without seeing me and went out. And that’s the last he ever saw of Dr. Fram, as far as I know.”

The Avenger’s prematurely white head nodded. His face was as emotionless as paralyzed, dead flesh must always be. But his eyes were like pale agates with little lights behind them.

“That fits in with the idea that has been shaping up in my mind,” he said slowly. “Coolie is House leader of land conservation plans. In the Senate, Burnside and Cutten head most of the same movements. All three are from Montana.

“Somebody wants some area in Montana taken out from government supervision, and turned over to private ownership. On the order of the Teapot Dome scandal.

“To narrow it down: Sheriff came in a hurry to Washington to talk over something with his State representatives. And just before he came, he had been on a visit to the government park nearest his town, Bison National Park. So it is Bison Park that some interest wants to get out from under the government’s thumb.”

Smitty usually sat as silent as the others when the man with the dead face and the icy eyes summed up facts. But this time something burst in his mind with such violence that he exclaimed aloud before he thought. “Of course! Helium!”

The deadly, pale eyes swung his way.

“It’s known that there are helium deposits in Bison Park,” said Smitty hastily. “It must be that private interests want to get control of the park because of the helium.”

Mac shook his dour Scotch head. “Helium’s no big factor industrially,” he said. “There is a very limited market for it. It would pay no man to steal it. Besides, helium is a weapon of war — for dirigibles. There would be a terrific public outcry if politicians turned over a deposit of it to private concerns.”

The Avenger went slowly on. Such was his concentration that it was quite possible that he had not heard the two at all consciously.

“Somebody wants Bison Park. The sheriff, somehow, got wind of the plan, and got hold of the cryptogram we just decoded, and hurried to Washington to block the move. He was killed to recover the cryptogram. So was Sewell, Burnside’s secretary. The plan went on. Coolie, Burnside, Wade, Hornblow, Collendar, Cutten were worked on to get a bill through that turned over Bison Park to private bidding. Burnside and Cutten, incidentally, were the two chiefly responsible, ten years ago, for having the Bison section taken over by the government. But how could these men be persuaded? Because of the helium known to be in Bison Park, anyone proposing that the park revert to private hands would surely be committing political suicide. An outraged public would never return them to office again. Some great threat would have to be held over them. They would have to be forced by fear — and a fear greater than the fear of death!”

“But where does Dr. Fram come in on this?” asked Nan Stanton. “He has nothing to do with parks or helium or anything but the practice of psychiatry.”

Now it was Nellie’s turn to have an idea that simply forced expression. “Tetlow Adams! He’s a mining man. He would be the one most interested in mineral rights. He must have forced Dr. Fram to be his mouthpiece, with the sanity test business as a blind to cover the real—”

Another voice sounded out. A voice that came from none of them there, but from the small radio The Avenger carried always with him. The radio was tuned to the police band.

“Calling Car 29,” came the monotonous voice of the announcer. “Calling Car 29. Signal Q. Rocker Building. Car 29. Signal Q. Rocker Building.”

Smitty and Mac looked at each other. Signal Q. That was — murder!

Nan Stanton didn’t know what Signal Q meant, but the address had significance for her. “Rocker Building!” she gasped. “That’s on Pennsylvania Avenue. And it’s the business address of Tetlow Adams. His office is in the Rocker Building.”

The pale, cold eyes of The Avenger looked at and through her. Then the man with the dead face was gone, with Mac and Smitty right after him, exerting themselves to keep up with their chief.

The Washington police had been given orders to treat the man with the white, death-mask face and colorless, awe-inspiring eyes as if he were the chief, himself. They let him into the lobby of the Rocker Building after just a glance at his unforgettable countenance.

“Who is it?” asked Benson of one of the men. “Adams?”

“Adams?” repeated the man. “Nope. Nobody by that name is mixed up in this, far as we know. A guy named Gottlieb was the one who got bumped off. Toy salesman. Tenth floor. The building watchman saw a trickle of blood comin’ from under his door and busted in. He saw the guy dead on the floor and phoned headquarters.”

“A toy salesman!” exclaimed Smitty. Mac shook his sandy-thatched head, with perplexity large on his homely Scotch features.

The Avenger strode to the big board on the lobby wall. The directory for the building. He looked up Gottlieb, Knox Toy & Novelty Co. It was 1019. He looked for the name of the mining magnate, and found it. Tetlow Adams, 910 to 919. That would bring his suite almost directly under the office of the dead toy salesman.

Benson went up to the tenth floor to the office where murder had been committed.

Gottlieb lay beside the chair from which he had slumped, next to his desk. His head was a gory ruin. But it seemed otherwise untouched. His clothes were not in the disarray that should have resulted from a search. And as far as could be seen, not one thing in the office had been touched.

Two detectives and the coroner were in the office. One of the detectives caught that swift, all-embracing glance of The Avenger and read it.

“Not one thing was touched or taken, as far as we can tell,” he said to Benson. Meanwhile he stared in awe at this legendary person. “There don’t seem to have been a motive for murder at all. Unless some enemy of the guy killed him because he was sore at him. Anyhow, all we know is that somebody sneaked in here, killed Gottlieb, turned the lights out, and sneaked away again.”

“You mean he just came in, killed, turned off the lights, and left?” said the giant Smitty. “Nothing else?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

The Avenger was saying nothing. But the pale, cold eyes were like shiny, stainless steel chips.

“I think that will be all that this murder can tell us,” he said to Mac and Smitty. And he started away.

Outside the building, the Scot couldn’t contain himself any longer. “And the murrrder of the toy man does tell ye something, Muster Benson?” he burred.

The Avenger nodded. “The slanting line of light,” he quoted the decoded cryptogram.

“I don’t—” began Mac uncertainly.

“The line of light referred to in the message in Aldershot’s pocket must mean a slanting line of lighted windows in a certain building — the Rocker Building — at a certain time. That was to be the signal to someone that ‘all is ready.’ I’ve thought that was the way of it, for some time. This proves it.

“That someone is the man we’re after; the instigator of this gigantic criminal plot. But like so many other criminal minds, he has directed his plans — his murders — from behind the scenes; unknown even to those doing his bidding. He is probably in a window of one of these neighboring buildings or many blocks away reading the message, ‘all is ready,’ with binoculars.”

“I get it,” Smitty said, understanding The Avenger’s implication. “Protection against blackmail. The head of this steal doesn’t want his own men to know who he is for fear they’ll put the squeeze on him later.”

Benson’s head nodded agreement to the giant’s deduction. “Gottlieb was murdered by someone who didn’t touch a thing on his person or in his office. The killer simply came in, murdered, turned the lights off and left. There is your motive. Gottlieb’s lighted windows would ruin the slanting light signal planned in the cryptogram. He had to be gotten out of here and his windows darkened by a certain hour. Probably the man wanting to give the signal tried several tricks to get Gottlieb out of his office peaceably. Gottlieb didn’t fall for them. The time of the signal was at hand. The man had to kill Gottlieb to give it.”

“So,” rumbled Smitty, “the signal now has been given that ‘all is ready.’ And that means that the thing that is ready is the steal of Bison Park. I wonder where the next act takes place?”

“On the Senate floor in the morning,” said The Avenger quietly. “The last act would have to be there. Which means we will have to move fast or the government will lose valuable Bison Park with its helium deposits — a loss that might mean the difference between victory and defeat in time of war.”