Tuned for Murder

CHAPTER II World Threat

At nine o’clock that night, a hundred and ten miles away, a man sat reading a newspaper.

Three things made that simple-sounding act remarkable: the man, the story the newspaper screamed to the world, and the place in which he was reading.

The man was an awe-inspiring figure. He was obviously young, in spite of his thick, snow-white hair. But it was his dead, waxlike face that commanded breathless attention. The paralyzed facial muscles remained constantly immobile and could express no emotion whatever, though this lack of facial expression was made up by the almost colorless eyes that flamed inexorably from his white, dead face.

He was Richard Henry Benson, but because he had made it his life work to fight crime, he was known far and wide as — The Avenger!

The place in which Benson, The Avenger, now read his newspaper, was as unique as the man himself. It was his headquarters, located on a short block in New York City called Bleek Street. Three brick buildings opposite a block-square warehouse — which Benson owned — had been thrown into one, to house his complete laboratory, office and living accommodations.

Over the entrance was a small sign:

The Avenger and his aides were known as Justice, Inc. Two of the aides were up in the great room now as Benson read the newspaper item.

“The man who let that yarn get into a reporter’s hands is asking for death,” said one of the aides.

The man who had spoken was the giant, Smitty, the electrical engineering genius of The Avenger’s crime fighters.

“It would seem,” said a gangling, lean Negro, Josh Newton — another of The Avenger’s aides—“that he released the story deliberately to all the papers at once. Cleveland has it, and Philadelphia, and Denver — every big paper in the country.”

“This man Cranlowe must want to commit suicide awfully bad,” said Smitty.

“Or else he thinks he’s a superman and can protect himself against the trouble this is bound to start,” Josh added reflectively.

The Avenger nodded in his critical analysis of the item.

The headline read:

And the account went on:

The news story went on for two columns more. Its tone was half jest, half earnest. The colossal conceit of a man who proposed single-handedly to end war, naturally drew jest. Yet Cranlowe was a great inventor. Anything he had to say commanded attention.

“The man’s a fool,” said the giant, Smitty. But there was somber admiration in his eyes. And in the cold, flaring eyes of The Avenger, like bits of polar ice in a cold dawn, there was also admiration.

With that announcement, Cranlowe made himself the target of every nation on earth desiring new weapons for new conquests.

Yes, he was a fool. But a splendid fool — risking all he had in an effort to stop war.

“Where does he live?” asked Josh.

“Garfield City,” said Benson, voice quiet but vibrant. “That’s about halfway across the State, west of here.”

In Garfield City, a little earlier, a man had gotten out of a plane who was, in his way, as distinguished as John R. Blandell, president of Garfield City National Bank.

The man, tall, dark of hair and eyes, with a dark Vandyke beard, was Henry Sessel, biologist and author. He was Blandell’s nephew. Word had been sent to him about his uncle’s curious slide from sanity, and he had flown here instantly in answer.

Blandell was in his own home, but he might as well have been locked up somewhere. He was not allowed to leave; friends had kindly seen to that. He was under constant supervision, “for his own good.” He was a bewildered, shattered prisoner.

“What made me do it?” he said, after he had told his distinguished nephew of the corner episode. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know what I had done, till they told me later. My mind seemed to go blank while I was taking leave of Jenner, and it stayed blank till I was here at home with police swarming around and a doctor and psychiatrist in attendance. I suppose the word for it is — insanity.”

“Stop it!” snapped Sessel. “There never has been insanity in our family. Why should you suddenly lose your mental balance?”

“I suppose it has to start in a family sometime,” sighed Blandell. “It’ll be a couple of years before the bank lives down what I did,” he added. “Naturally, I’ve resigned as president.”

Sessel was striding up and down the Blandell living room, fingering his well-kept dark Vandyke beard.

“You say this happened to you while you were taking leave of your friend Jenner at Garfield Gear?”

“Yes,” said Blandell wearily. “But that doesn’t mean anything. It just happened that I was there. If a mental lapse was due, it could have come on me any place.”

Sessel answered noncommittally, and went out to the company in question.

The Garfield Gear Company was a large plant on the edge of town. There was a high barbed-wire fence around it, with an electrified strand on the top. There were men nearby to act as guards. This was because the company, in addition to making gears and axles, made a lot of gun and torpedo parts for the government. War materials are guarded.

Ned Jenner, president and majority stockholder of the company, knew Sessel slightly, so the nephew of the bank president was immediately ushered in to see him.

Jenner was a big fellow, not quite fifty, with a strong jaw, a frank handclasp and a straight glance. In his office, when Sessel entered, was an employee: a slim, slightly bald young man with sensitive lips and a high-arched thin nose.

“Mr. Sessel, Mr. Stanley Grace, my secretary,” Jenner said, rather absently. “I won’t need you for a little while, Grace.”

The secretary nodded silently, folded his notebook, and left the office. Jenner’s frank gaze came to Sessel.

“You’re here about your uncle, I suppose?”

Sessel nodded. He was looking at a leather divan, set along one wall of the office. On the divan was curled a little fox terrier, not asleep, looking Sessel over with bright, alert eyes, but making no move or sound.

“That’s Prince,” said Jenner. “He’s my pal, aren’t you, Prince?” The dog’s tail wagged. “Where I go, Prince goes. He’s in the office when I am, and he usually looks over the plant beside me.”

Jenner turned back to Sessel. “I don’t know that there’s a thing to tell about your uncle,” he said. “It was shocking to hear the news. Shocking! But I’m sure it’s temporary. John has been eminently sane all his life. I know that. Went to school with him. He couldn’t have gone off his head now, at middle age.”

“I don’t think so either.” Sessel was staring at the fox terrier. “The attack came on, he thinks, while he was here at the plant with you.”

Jenner nodded. “I heard that also. And I can see, now, that probably it did. Because the minute I heard it, I remembered that John’s eyes had gone curiously dull as he was shaking hands and leaving. As if he were very tired. All I thought, at the time, was that the old boy must be working too hard. But looking back on it—”

“There was nothing that happened here that could have disturbed him?” said Sessel, staring at the dog.

“Nothing!” said Jenner. “He came out to discuss a short-term loan, we settled the matter and had a chat; then he left. That was all.”

A little whine came from the fox terrier, and he moved uneasily on the divan.

“Did Uncle John do anything queer before he left the plant?” Sessel asked.

Jenner shook his head. “He went out of the office quietly. He left the building like a normal person, nodded to the man at the gate and got in his car. He was driving himself. No one around here had the faintest idea that he wasn’t all right.”

Suddenly the fox terrier howled. There was a curious note of pain in it, though nothing was anywhere near the dog to disquiet it. He howled, and scratched at his ears with his paws.

“What’s the matter with your dog?” said Sessel.

“I don’t know,” said Jenner, anxiously. “He has done that several times lately. Pawed at his ears, as if they hurt. Maybe it’s ear canker. I’ll have to take him to a veterinarian.”

“Yes, that’s a woman who eats vegetables,” Sessel said.

“I beg your pardon?” said Jenner.

“I’ll have to run along,” Sessel said. “Thanks for the ear canker.”

He moved out of the office. He passed through the anteroom where Grace, Jenner’s secretary, had his desk, and into the big general office. As he went he chanted in a low tone, “Thanks for the canker. Thanks for the canker.”