Three Gold Crowns

CHAPTER XII Stubborn Facts

The Avenger had a flock of facts by now, but none of them seemed to weave into a pattern that made sense.

He had started on what seemed a simple quest. He was to help a man in trouble by collecting three phony clues by which blackmailers could send him to the chair on the charge of murdering his clerk.

The simple quest had become mighty complex.

Dick Benson walked back and forth in the vast top-floor room, thinking things out, eyes as pale and bright as bits of moonstone, face alert but utterly expressionless.

Seated in the room, their puzzled eyes following each lithe move of the famous Avenger, were Nellie and Harriet, Smitty, and Josh and Rosabel Newton.

“Beall, Jr., was kidnaped,” said Dick slowly, going on with his train of thought. “The first attempt would have been successful, save that we intervened and he got away. So the kidnapers tried again. Very stubborn and determined about it. But why kidnap him? For money? We have a report that Beall is in financial difficulties. In fact, his paper company is on the verge of bankruptcy. So the kidnapers can’t be after ransom; there’s no money to get.”

He paced the floor, seeming to flow rather than walk, like a tense black panther.

“Farquar didn’t know what clues were held over his head by Beall and Cleeves and Salloway as the blackmail foundation”

“My father is not a blackmailer!” said Harriet.

“You mean you think he isn’t,” said Nellie gently. “But, don’t you see, he would hardly take you into his confidence in such a matter. You just don’t know.”

The Avenger seemed not to have heard.

“All Farquar knew was that the three men had something that would incriminate him. We got the cigar case from Salloway and found a gold crown in it. How would that incriminate anyone?”

“And who killed Salloway,” interrupted Smitty, “and why? Where does that fit in?”

Josh Newton’s quick dark eyes went to the giant’s face.

“It could mean that Beall and Cleeves thought it better to split the demanded million in blackmail two ways instead of three. So one or both of them sent those gangsters there to kill Salloway and get his clue.”

Harriet’s eyes flashed; but at a sharp glance from Nellie she kept silent.

Again Dick Benson seemed to pay no attention. He went on: “The dead man in the alley — the one Miss Beall saw — has been identified as a private detective. There is no proof of who hired him or whom he was working for when he met his death. But on his customers’ list is the name Iando Cleeves; so it’s logical to suppose he was working for Cleeves when he was murdered. Where would that fit in?”

“Maybe it was that night when the clues against Farquar were trumped up,” said Nellie. “Maybe the dead man in the alley had something to do with that.”

“It’s possible,” Dick agreed. “The alley isn’t far from the house in which Smathers was killed. And that brings up the envelope.”

He stood still, and his almost colorless eyes went to Harriet’s face.

“Nothing but blank paper was in the envelope. It seems to me that tells a positive story. The envelope existed only as an excuse for Smathers to go to Ismail’s house. He was sent there on a fake errand only to be murdered. The type of envelope says Beall sent him. But why did any one want to kill Farquar’s man?”

Harriet was fighting against tears. And she blurted something she hadn’t admitted before.

“My father did not send him there! He had nothing to do with it! The clerk left from Farquar’s office that night. I know because I followed him from there—”

She stopped, and looked as if she were sorry she had said so much; then, after having said that much, she went on.

“I’d felt for weeks that Dad was in trouble. I wanted to help him. I got an idea that the man who was bothering him was Markham Farquar, because Dad always seemed terribly upset after seeing him. So, on my own, to try to help, I began watching Farquar. Nothing happened till that night—”

She drew a deep breath and terror was reflected in her eyes.

“I was watching Farquar’s office building from across the street. I saw Smathers come out. I knew him by sight, by then. I didn’t know whether to follow him or wait for Farquar. But finally I followed Smathers.

“I’m not a good trailer, I guess. I saw him go into that seemingly vacant house — and then I didn’t see anything more. If he was killed in there, his killer must have brought him out, because you say the man found in the freight yard was Smathers. But I didn’t see them leave.”

The Avenger’s eyes were pale diamond drills on her face. How much of her final frankness was due to their hypnotic power and how much to growing trust in him, no one could say.

“I realized finally that I’d been given the slip,” she went on. “I started to go to my car, parked several blocks away. I saw another car stop, not far down the street, and I recognized it as a sedan I’d seen around the corner from the Ismail house. I got behind a trash basket and watched. And I saw a trailing car. Both had come from the direction of the Holland Tunnel.

“A man got out of the first one and went into this alley. I couldn’t see his face, he seemed to be just a moving shadow. A man got out of the trailing car, and went into the alley too. In a minute one came back out. The other — stayed in. I went in to investigate, and found the second man lying there dead. And then I screamed—”

She put her hands over her eyes.

“After that, I came here for help.”

“You weren’t very helpful yourself, were you?” said Benson quietly. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

Harriet spread her hands miserably.

“I come for help, and what is the first thing I find? You are working for Farquar; for the man I feel is Dad’s bitter enemy! I didn’t know whether you were really in with him, or were being hoodwinked by him. I gave you the benefit of the doubt by staying here, but I didn’t dare tell all I knew till I’d found out more about you.”

“You’re not telling all you know, even now,” said The Avenger, face as calm as his voice. “There’s something more. What is it?”

“There isn’t any more—”

“What is it?” said Dick inexorably.

So Harriet, after a pleading glance, gave in.

“While the two were in the alley, I saw still another man appear from somewhere and do something to the first car — the sedan. He might have been searching it, I don’t know. I was watching the alley more than the car and only saw the man out of the corner of my eye.”

“For goodness’ sake,” said Nellie impatiently. “I don’t see why you should be so careful to keep that to yourself!”

“I think I do,” said Benson quietly. He was still staring at Harriet. “You felt you knew that man searching the car, didn’t you?”

“Why, I… I—”

“You thought it was your father!”

And then the little pinpoint of red showed near the door, in warning that someone was in the vestibule downstairs. Josh went to the tiny television set that revealed anyone there.

“Markham Farquar,” Josh said. And he pressed the admittance buzzer at Benson’s nod.

“Farquar?” cried Harriet wildly. “Let me out of here! I don’t want to face that man!”

Nellie looked at The Avenger, and Benson nodded again. So Nellie took Harriet out and down to her room on the second floor.

“You know what I think?” said Smitty. And the giant said it regretfully because Harriet was a very pretty girl and Smitty was susceptible to such. “I think she’s in with her father on this blackmail plot. I think she’s hanging around here, trying to spy on us, and ready to throw a monkey wrench in the gears if we begin to really threaten Beall’s safety.”

Then the door opened and Markham Farquar came in. The man whom Harriet Beall didn’t dare face.

Farquar looked like a sick man. Gone was his imposing carriage and his air of authority. He seemed less than life-size, shriveled, defeated.

“I just came to tell you,” he said dully, “that I’m giving up the fight on this affair. I’m licked. I’m going to scrape together the blackmail sum, pay it, and get some peace.”

“Oh?” said Benson, face impassive. “You’ve had more trouble lately, then?”

Farquar laughed a little wildly. “Trouble! Four times in ten hours I’ve missed being killed by a matter of inches! Somehow, someone has rung a gang of killers or racketeers in on this. I think the attempts on my life were deliberately meant not quite to succeed. Just to show me on how slim a thread my life hung if I didn’t surrender! So — I’m giving in.”

“Well, I’m not.”

Dick Benson’s eyes were like cold wells of pale ice in his expressionless face.

“There has been murder. There have been attempts at kidnaping. Such things are my business, Mr. Farquar. I intend to go ahead.”

Farquar’s shoulders straightened a very little. He looked hopefully at The Avenger.

“You think we have a chance to beat them?”

“I do,” said Benson.

“You give me new courage,” said Farquar, voice a bit tremulous. “Very well, then, we’ll try a little longer.”

“Would you like to put up here at Bleek Street?” asked Benson. “It would stop these attempts on your life.”

Farquar shook his head.

“I’ll stay for a while to throw possible trailers off my track; then I’ll go home and lock myself in. You have my number. You can tell me any developments over the phone.”

“I can tell you one now,” said Dick. “We have reason to believe that your clerk, Smathers, did not go home or anywhere else from your office, the night he died. He left for Death’s address, direct from your place.”

“From my office?” Farquar said, with panic in his voice. “That’s bad. That’s very bad! It would look in a law court — if this ever gets to court — as if I sent him on that last errand of his! You’re sure of this?”

“Reasonably sure,” said Benson, not giving the source of the information.

Farquar drew a deep breath.

“I’ll still put my faith in Justice, Inc. I still believe that you can get hold of those three bits of fake evidence held over me, and I’ll hang on till then.”

He left with a different gait from the one with which he’d entered, after waiting a while, as he had said, to throw possible trailers off his path.

“Scaring him physically as well as mentally,” mused Smitty. “The blackmailers must be getting desperate, chief. Suppose one of those near-attempts on his life should accidentally succeed? Then there wouldn’t be any Farquar left to pay out the money.”

The Avenger nodded, eyes pale and icy, face impassive.