Three Gold Crowns

CHAPTER III Councils of War

There was no delay at all. Dick Benson sat behind the great desk like a staff officer. His pale eyes stared toward a window as if they were seeing, not the bulletproof nickel-steel slats, but into the future itself.

And The Avenger gave his orders for the preliminary actions.

“We have a well-known lawyer framed with murder and blackmailed by three men almost equally well known and respected. Each of the three, Beall, Salloway, and Cleeves, has some object that can be used as evidence damning Farquar. So our first object is to get those things, whatever they may be.”

“We’ll have to get the containers Farquar mentioned,” said Nellie Gray brightly. “The cigar case, the jewel box, and the dispatch case. When we get those, we get the clues — if what Farquar said was right.”

“Yes,” said The Avenger, his close-cropped head nodding. “Get the containers. Cole, you will take Beall. Try to find where he keeps that jewel case. But also delve into the man’s past and try to find out all you can about his present activities.”

Wilson nodded, black eyes blazing. Cole Wilson had a strong streak of Robin Hood in him. Indeed, it was in an effort of his to help an old friend, in somewhat violent ways, that The Avenger had met him and invited him to join the crime-suppression gang. An assignment like this was just what Cole wanted.

“Smitty,” said The Avenger, voice quiet but vibrant as always. “Do the same with Salloway. MacMurdie, you take Cleeves.”

“Hey, how about me?” said Nellie disappointedly. “Don’t I get a job?”

Barely five feet tall, slender and fragile-looking, the little blonde lived for dangerous assignments as much as any of the men. And she was as effective as any of the men, too.

But Dick Benson shook his head slowly.

“There’ll be plenty for you to do later, Nellie. Just now—”

The warning light next to the door showed its pinprick of red. Smitty stepped to a small box on a table near the entrance.

The little black box was a miniature television set, designed by him, which constantly showed the street vestibule — and anyone who happened to be in that vestibule.

“There’s a girl down there,” he said. “She looks nervous,” he added.

Dick Benson signaled to let her up; so Smitty pressed the release button.

“She’s mighty good-looking, too,” Smitty said.

Nellie’s gaze snapped toward the giant. Her eyes blazed.

“You big dope,” she said. “Any time a pretty face comes along, you’re a pushover—”

She stopped. The rest were grinning at her, and the giant was looking much too solemn.

“But it’s nothing to me how pretty she is or what you may think of her,” she said, trying to cover up, and not doing as good a job of it as she usually did.

The door opened, and the object of conversation stepped into the huge top-floor room.

She was taller than Nellie, and a shade more curvy. She had reddish hair and light brown eyes, and wore a tweed suit in keeping with the unseasonable weather. And she was really something to look twice at.

She stared around at those in the room, then went up to the big desk behind which The Avenger sat.

“I… I have something important to tell you,” she faltered. “If we could just be alone—”

“These are my close friends and valued assistants,” said The Avenger; and you forgot his youth, as usual, in the measured authority in his face and tone. “They can hear everything I can.”

The girl hesitated, then sighed.

“All right. If you’re sure they— My name is Harriet… Smith. I came here because three nights ago I stumbled over a dead man, and since then my life has been in danger.”

“That’s not very clear,” said Dick Benson.

“My mind isn’t very clear at the moment, either,” said the girl, with an appealing smile.

Nellie suddenly looked as if feminine intuition were advising her to distrust the helplessness and the appeal of that smile. The moonface of the giant Smitty, however, was all sympathy. Harriet Smith was very eye-filling.

“Where did you see this dead man?” asked Dick, face as expressionless as it had been in the days when it was paralyzed from nerve shock and couldn’t show emotion.

“In the alley off Ninth Avenue nearest Canal Street,” the girl said.

“That was three nights ago? What time of night?”

“It was nearly midnight.”

The pale, all-seeing eyes went over her. Expensive suit, stockings of the two-dollar variety, shoes that had cost close to twenty.

“What were you doing in such a neighborhood at such an hour?” Dick said evenly.

“I… I just happened to be there,” the girl said.

“You work near there, perhaps?”

“I… yes.”

“What do you do?”

“I can’t tell you that. Anyhow, I’ve quit my job. I had to. You see, I’m sure I’ve been followed since then, and I haven’t dared go out on the streets much. I came here to ask you to protect me. If it isn’t too much — I’d like to stay here for a while. I’ve heard this place is a regular fort, and that no one under your protection has ever been hurt.”

Dick Benson’s colorless, brilliant eyes were as expressionless as agate.

“Tell me a little more about this dead man.”

“There’s not much to tell. I was near this alley. I saw a man go in, and another man follow him. I couldn’t see the faces of either of them. They were more like shadows than men. I waited a minute, then went in myself, keeping to the dark places”

“Why did you go in?”

“Well, I thought there might be trouble. Anyway, I went in, and I saw one of the men lying on the cobbles. The other was going through his pockets, I think. It was too dark to be sure. Then, all of a sudden, the man who had been lying down got to his feet. I guess he had been playing possum. He did something to the other man, and slid past me without seeing me — anyway I thought he hadn’t seen me — and ran down the street to a sedan. I went to the man now lying in the alley, and he was dead! I think I screamed. Then I got out of there myself.”

There was a short silence, in which the eyes of The Avenger and the others rested on Harriet Smith, whose story seemed to have so many large holes in it.

“I’d heard of you and how you helped people a long time ago,” Harriet went on. “But I wouldn’t have come here just because I happened to see a dead man. I came because I’m sure I’ve been followed since then. The man who passed me in the alley must have seen me, after all. I guess he is afraid I could identify him in court. I couldn’t — I never did see his face — but he means to kill me to shut me up.”

“So you want protection here.” Dick nodded. “All right, you shall have it.”

He looked at Nellie, but didn’t seem to see the signals of warning which the clear-witted little blonde was trying to wigwag.

“Take Miss Smith to one of the guest rooms downstairs, Nellie,” was all he said.

Mac and Smitty and Cole were gone on their assignments when Nellie got back to the big room.

“That girl’s a fake, chief,” Nellie said anxiously. “She knows a lot more than she has let on.”

The Avenger nodded calmly. “Yes, I think so, too.”

“She came here for more than just protection!” Nellie snapped. “She may be part of a trap of some kind.”

“On the other hand,” Dick said evenly, “she may be in desperate circumstances and want our help very much. But she may be afraid to trust us by telling everything till she has a chance to see for herself if we can be so trusted. We’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”

From the big television set at the end wall of the headquarters room came a burr of sound. Then Mac’s voice. Mac was talking through the tiny radio each member of The Avenger’s band carried in a small metal case under his belt. Another marvelous device of Smitty’s, who had no peer as electrical and radio wizard.

“Muster Benson,” said Mac.

“Listening, Mac.”

“The trail starts with yere three skurlies all togetherrr,” burred the Scot. “Cleeves and Salloway and Beall are at the Eighth Avenue office of Salloway this minute. ’Tis a conference of some kind. I’ve radioed Smitty and Cole Wilson to come and start their trailin’ from this point. I’ll get in touch with ye if there are any developments.”

“Right,” said Dick, pale eyes lambent. “Try to catch what they’re talking about.”

This, however, was impossible. Mac couldn’t get near enough to Salloway’s private office to overhear the conference. And that was unfortunate, because he’d have found it most interesting.

There was no longer a Burke in the contracting partnership of Salloway & Burke. Salloway was sole proprietor, and a lucrative business he found it.

Salloway’s office was big and expensive, and so was Salloway himself. He was over six feet tall, heavily built, with a florid face. He sat at a polished teakwood desk that was studded with push buttons.

Robert Beall, of the Beall Paper Manufacturing Co., sat tensely in a chair at the end of the desk. Beall was a smaller man, though also rather heavily built. He had light brown eyes and graying brown hair — and beads of sweat on his forehead.

Iando Cleeves, the art collector, was at the left end of the desk. Cleeves was a small man, slenderly built, and as dapper as a Malacca cane — an excellent example of which he held over his knees like an unsheathed sword.

The conference between the three who had sent Markham Farquar flying in fear to the Bleek Street headquarters of The Avenger was not a long one.

“You’re sure Markham went to see Benson?” Cleeves was saying, hand tightening on the cane. It was a white, slim, almost feminine hand.

“Yes,” said Salloway. His voice was heavy, harsh.

“He couldn’t have had a very convincing story to tell,” said Beall.

“We can’t take a chance on that,” Salloway rumbled. “Even the ghost of a chance that The Avenger, as the fellow is sometimes called, may come in on this case is too much of a risk for us.”

“What do you propose?” asked Cleeves.

“I don’t know what to suggest,” shrugged Salloway. “All I know is that Benson simply must not be allowed to range himself on the side of Markham Farquar. We’re beaten, if that happens. And, gentlemen, you know what will happen to us if we’re defeated in this matter.”

The three of them were silent over that. They knew, all right!

“So?” said Salloway grimly.

“We’d better close down on Markham fast,” said Beall, clenching his hands.

And that, in essence, was all there was to the conference: a resolve on the part of three powerful men that a fourth must not enlist the aid of The Avenger — and that the fourth had better be squeezed hard and fast.