Tuned for Murder

CHAPTER XV Unholy Convergence

For hours Benson had sat in the private lounging room of Jenner’s office. He had sat there while Jenner went out for an hour or so, and sat there when Jenner returned. He sat there while Jenner waited the results of his dispatching of Mrs. Cranlowe to Cranlowe Heights to tackle the inventor. It was eleven o’clock when a phone call was sent through the deserted plant on a private wire to the president’s office.

“Mr. Jenner? This is Al calling.” The voice was low, guarded. “At the Heights. Can you hear me? I can’t speak any louder. Someone might hear me at this end.”

“I can hear you, all right,” Jenner said.

The man phoning was the fellow named Trillo, who had managed to get himself hired as Cranlowe’s chauffeur after the old man had driven the station wagon into the path of the van.

“It’s no go on Mrs. Cranlowe,” said Trillo, at Cranlowe Heights. “Something slipped. Anyhow, Cranlowe caught on there was something wrong. He tossed her into a cell in the basement.”

Jenner exclaimed sharply. “You’re sure?”

“Yes! It happened quite a little while ago. But this is the first chance I’ve had to call you about it.”

Jenner thought for a moment, then said: “Very well. Stay on out there and keep your eyes open.”

Trillo laughed harshly. “No doubt about my staying out here! You can’t get out of the place. Or in, either.”

“We’ll see about that. About getting in, I mean,” said Jenner.

He made a phone call himself, then went in to where Benson sat.

“Come in here, you,” he said.

Benson got up and came to him. His pale eyes had that blank look in them. It was about the look that had been in Blandell’s eyes when he gave away the dollar bills, and in Cranlowe’s secretary’s eyes when she stepped off the twenty-fourth-floor fire-escape balcony into thin air.

“We are going out to Cranlowe Heights, you and I,” Jenner said to him. “When we get there, you are to try to persuade Cranlowe to give you that formula. You understand?”

“I understand,” said Benson dully.

Jenner’s hand went to Benson’s inner coat pocket. Without resistance it came out again, bearing a thick little leather case. In the case were letters and documents to The Avenger from governors of several states, from the head of the department of justice and from many police chiefs. It was his portfolio of identification.

“Fine,” said Jenner. “Anyone looking over these things would trust you implicitly. Also, Cranlowe has probably heard of you. You will pose as a government emissary and persuade him to ‘sell’ the formula to the war department.”

“Yes,” said The Avenger, in dull obedience.

Jenner took from his pocket a thick black disk of the type he had given Mrs. Cranlowe. About the size of an old-fashioned dollar watch.

“Put this in your pocket. Keep it there.”

Benson put the disk in his pocket and followed Jenner out to the street. He got in Jenner’s car with him and was driven to Cranlowe Heights.

There was a delay at the gate.

“Richard Benson?” came Cranlowe’s voice over the house phone. “Yes, I’ve heard of him. But I don’t know him by sight, and I don’t see what business he has with me.”

“Won’t you take my word for it that this is Mr. Benson with me, and that he must see you?” said Jenner. “He has come from Washington to see you secretly. He knew I was a good friend of yours; so he came to see me first and asked me to get him in to you.”

“Must he talk to me at midnight?”

“He has come at this hour to preserve the secrecy of his mission,” said Jenner.

“I’ve had a hard evening, Jenner,” came Cranlowe’s voice wearily. “A rotten thing happened to me. I won’t go into it. But — if I must see him—”

Cranlowe gave the appropriate order to the guard at the gate. Jenner and Benson were escorted to the iron-studded front door, through the glare of many floodlights.

Lights blaring over the lawn inside the iron fence of Cranlowe Heights. Lights blaring over the bare hill slopes outside the fence. A lighted fortress.

Inside the grounds, The Avenger walked, empty-eyed, beside Jenner. Outside, beyond the range of the floodlights, two cars approached the hilltop, one from the east and the other from the west. The one from the east got to the bottom of the hill first. From it stepped Kopell and four men.

On the other side, the second car stopped and five men got out: the young fellow with the old eyes, the jolly-looking fat guy, the man with the narrow jaw, the big ape who looked like Gargantua and the mixed-breed chap with the slanting eyes.

The five made a silent way around to where Kopell waited. He nodded, without words, in greeting.

Everything converged on Cranlowe Heights. Like a lone king on a chessboard, Cranlowe was being slowly and methodically surrounded by the entire opposite force. There had been one subtle, ruthless move after another designed to wring that formula out of him. Now, this final, concerted effort against him.

He didn’t know about it yet, of course. But he was very shortly to be informed!

Kopell looked at his watch, while his nine choice thugs looked at him. It was ten minutes past midnight. He kept looking at it, and then at the floodlighted expanse between himself and the gate, till five minutes passed.

At a quarter after twelve, as if the thing had happened by clockwork, the floodlights went out.

“Up to the gate,” said Kopell in a low tone.

There were cries from the fence up there.

“The lights! What’s the matter in there?”

“Get those lights on!”

“Must have been a fuse—”

In the sheltering darkness, Kopell and his men ran silently up the hill to the big gate. They knew the lights wouldn’t go on again for a long time. Trillo, in there, had orders to wreck the fuse socket of the floodlight line so it couldn’t be fixed in a hurry.

Sheltering darkness, favorable to a crook’s plan. But darkness can shelter more than crooks. And it was doing so in this case.

One more car had crept up from the east. It had followed Kopell’s at a long distance. The giant, Smitty, was at the wheel. With him in the car were Josh and Mac. Smitty had been trailing Kopell for a long time, waiting for some such move as this. A half-hour before, when the underworld leader had set the nose of his car for Cranlowe Heights, Smitty had collected Mac and Josh and gone after him at once. Now he was very glad of it.

“Looks like they’re going to shoot their way in,” whispered Josh, as the darkness continued and the men ahead made their way to the dim shadow of the iron fence.

“And it also looks as if they had a partner on the inside,” observed Mac.

“I wonder,” said Smitty, not replying to either, “where the chief is?”

Benson, at that moment, was in the library of the inventor, Cranlowe. And on his lips were sentences that had been drilled into him on the way out to the Heights with Jenner, who started the ball rolling now that they were with Cranlowe.

“Mr. Benson is here with the entire authority of the war department,” he said smoothly. “There was a conference in Washington when you released that newspaper statement, and it was finally decided to send him because you, as well as everyone else acquainted with him, must know he is to be trusted completely.”

“I am sure of that, of course,” said Cranlowe, with weary politeness. He had looked over Benson’s credentials.

“I came to see you,” said Benson, “on your new war invention, of course. Your government wants to buy it.”

Cranlowe’s lips were tightening, as they did with every mention of the new weapon. He was shaking his head even before Benson was through speaking.

“My invention is not for sale, even to my own government,” he said. “I am as patriotic as anyone, I think, but my motive is a larger one than patriotism. I mean to stop all wars—”

“Yes, I know,” Benson said. “It is a laudable motive. But a situation has arisen, known only to our Secret Service, which makes patriotism come first. There is an urgent reason why you must sell it to the United States at once.”

“And that?” said Cranlowe skeptically, lips tighter and more stubborn than ever.

“The United States, itself,” said Benson, “is about to be invaded.”

There was silence in the library, broken by a well-rehearsed gasp from Jenner.

“Benson! You didn’t tell me that.”

“I am telling you, now,” said Benson. “And Cranlowe.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Cranlowe, paling. “It is impossible! Who would invade us — and how?”

“We are to be invaded from Guatemala. Air bases have been secretly constructed by the dozen, down there. Thousands of planes have been assembled, waiting only for the signal.”

Cranlowe stared hard at Benson with his deep-set, tired eyes.

“I’m sorry. I simply can’t believe such a thing. An endeavor like that would be instantly known. You can’t hide all knowledge of dozens of air bases and thousands of planes.”

“As I have said, our Secret Service knows of it.”

“More than that would know,” insisted Cranlowe. “Such a large maneuver would become public property before it could be completed. Indeed, it would never be allowed to be completed. Our navy would see to that.”

“It is our policy now not to send armed forces to the Latin American countries—” began Jenner.

“Policy be hanged,” said Cranlowe. “No policy would hold in the face of such a threat.”

“You mean — you think Mr. Benson is lying?” exclaimed Jenner in an outraged tone.

“I mean,” said Cranlowe, “that I think even my own government might connive a little to get such a weapon as I possess — with no thought of using it save in self-defense, I am sure. Nevertheless, they may want it badly enough to stretch the truth a little.”

“You’re a very suspicious man, Cranlowe,” said Jenner with a sigh.

“You would be too, Jenner, in my shoes.”

“Am I to go back to Washington and say that you refuse to co-operate in the face of such a grave emergency?” asked Benson.

Cranlowe looked troubled, and desperate.

“It sounds so fantastic,” he said. “Invasion from Guatemala! If I thought it was really threatening, I’d send you back with the formula tonight, of course. But — I simply can’t accept that on your bare word. With all your prestige and reputation, Mr. Benson, I simply can’t.”

Cranlowe was an intelligent man. He was silent a moment, then said.

“We can do it this way. You go back to Washington to tell our President how I feel. Ask him to get in touch with me in person. If he assures me that what you have said is the truth, I’ll turn my formula over.”

There was a little pause after that, and on Jenner’s face, a hardening, frustrated look. It was going to take something more than logic to answer this all-too-logical thrust!

“Suppose we are invaded in the meantime?” said Benson. “Cities bombed, thousands killed—”

But Cranlowe was shaking his head. No argument could shake the rocklike will of this man with the big-domed skull and deep-set eyes.

“That’s enough,” said Jenner. “Cranlowe is too stubborn and stupid to—”

From out of the night came a weird baying. On the lawn inside the iron fence, the big dogs were howling as if at the moon.

Or as if sensing death in the air.

“The floodlights!” cried Cranlowe, staring out the study window. “They’re out! What on earth—”