The Avenger 9 - Tuned for Murder (12 page)

Markham nodded. “Unless you want to call an insane act the overpowering of Dr. Lucien and Dr. Grabble by Sessel and Blandell. Personally, I am sure that act was the desperate one of normal men trying to get free to help themselves because they knew no one else would help them.”

“I gathered that impression, too,” said Mac, “which leads me to my next question. External circumstances. What could have happened to throw these men off? And why did Blandell and Sessel go directly to the Garfield Gear Company to look around when they’d fled from Blandell’s house?”

“I’m afraid the reason for their visit to that particular place died with them,” mused Markham. “But I should hazard the guess that they went there because it chanced that each had his mental lapse shortly after being in the place.”

“And Wainwright had his terrible blind fit there, too,” Mac said. “All at the same place. Might not somethin’ at the plant have set these three men off? Some definite occurrence that unhinged their reason?”

“You sound more like a detective than a doctor,” laughed Markham.

“A psychiatrist has to be a detective,” retorted Mac, “as ye well know, yourself.”

“I don’t think anything at Garfield Gear could be responsible,” said Markham slowly. “What could occur at an ordinary manufacturing plant to drive a man temporarily insane? No, to my mind it was only coincidence that each had his lapse at the same location.”

It was all Mac could get. For the fourth time, he had drawn blank. Markham was pleasant and open and was telling all he knew, apparently. But all he knew was not enough to shed any light.

Mac left, in another ten minutes, passing with his old man’s gait through the anteroom in which was the adipose lady with the Pekingese. He was just an average, if exceptionally intelligent, human being; so—he left. Had he been the seventh son of a seventh son and gifted with supernatural powers, he would have stayed. For right after he had gone, some weird things happened.

The doctor was about to call for the nurse to send in the sole remaining patient in his anteroom. But he stopped with his mouth still open for the call—and stayed silent and motionless!

In the anteroom, the yapping of the Pekingese suddenly changed to a sharp, pained howling. That went on for ten or fifteen seconds while the fat lady tried to quiet the beast. Then the howling stopped, and the doctor moved again.

He went to a cabinet and got out his black medical bag, moving with a curious, volitionless obedience. His head went to one side as if he were listening. Then he went to a cabinet containing paraphernalia, and got out a crystal ball. It was the type used by clairvoyants. But, also, crystal balls often are used by brain specialists as an aid to healing hypnotism.

His head was still in the listening attitude. And though no words sounded in the ominously quiet office, an observer would have
known
that an actual voice was directing real commands to the man.

The doctor put on hat and topcoat and went out, carrying his little bag. The nurse started to say something to him, but stopped at the preoccupied look in his eyes. Markham went right past her and the patient and into the hall, without glancing at either.

The nurse glanced nervously at the patient before venturing the excuse that the doctor had had an emergency call and wouldn’t be able to care for her today.

The nurse was nervous because she thought she was hearing things. She thought she had heard a voice—a very odd, secret voice, whispering, “Don’t let that bag out of your sight.”

But she knew there could have been no voice because there was no one in the inner office, now that Markham had left.

At the curb in front of the building in which was Markham’s office suite, was a new station wagon. On its door was lettered:

CRANLOWE HEIGHTS

There was a young man in livery at the wheel. He stepped out smartly, opened the door, and Markham got in.

The car went rapidly out to Cranlowe’s guarded estate. And as it rolled, the doctor sat with his head a bit to one side, as if listening—listening! Hence he did not notice that the chauffeur drove with one eye on the speedometer and the other on the dash-clock, as if he were following some very definite schedule of time and speed.

There was no delay at the gate. The guard there telephoned the house, and Cranlowe said: “Oh, yes. Dr. Markham. His co-worker phoned and asked if he might see me. Bring him to the house.”

The guard escorted Markham, carrying his little bag, to the iron-studded front door. The guard didn’t know any more than Cranlowe, that Markham had no co-worker in his office, that he worked absolutely alone.

The man who looked like Poe shook hands briefly with the doctor and went into the study with him. There, the inventor ran nervous fingers through his lank dark hair.

“As you perhaps know,” he said. “I am not in the habit of permitting anyone to enter this place, save my trusted guards and oldest friends. I would not have allowed you to enter, save that you said you wanted to ask me some things that might shed light on poor Blandell’s fate. If that can be cleared up—”

“I think it can be,” said the doctor. “I have been checking on the things he did and the places he visited, just before that strange mental lapse of his. I found out that first thing in the morning, before he had his attack, he visited a spiritualist medium to—”

“Blandell did that?” Cranlowe snorted. “Impossible! He didn’t believe in that kind of thing.”

“If he did, no one would ever know,” said Markham. “A bank president would not broadcast such visits. Anyway, he went to this one. The seeress said something about you and told him to look into her crystal ball. A ball,” he concluded, “much like this one.”

He took out the crystal he had brought from his office and set it on the table before Cranlowe.

“What Blandell may have seen in the ball, the medium swears she doesn’t know. How it might have affected him, she doesn’t know, either. At least that’s her story, and the police have been unable to shake her.”

“Well?” said Cranlowe, looking at the ball. “How does all this concern me?”

“I want you to look into the ball and tell me if
you
see anything.”

“Nonsense!” snapped the inventor. “You know as well as I do that all you ever see in these things is what you imagine yourself.”

“Precisely,” said Markham. “That is why I want you to look into the ball. The imagined scene you may see there, might give you a clue to what Blandell saw—or thought he saw—just before he had his mental trouble. After all, you were mentioned by the medium. There may be some event, known both to you and to Blandell, that was responsible for his lapse.”

“If I knew of any such event, I’d tell all about it,” said Cranlowe. But his tone was a little different, a little more slow and dreamy.

“Of course you would,” said Markham. His own tone was changing, now. It was becoming soothing, settling on a monotonous level that was almost a chant. “But the event may be locked in your subconscious mind so that it could only come out when you weren’t really trying to think of it. While you were looking into a crystal ball, for example. Look into the ball, Cranlowe.”

“I . . . am . . . looking,” said Cranlowe.

“Look hard! Try to see something in the ball, Cranlowe. Stare deeply into it.”

The inventor seemed scarcely to be breathing. His face was blanked of all expression.

“Tell me what you see in the ball, Cranlowe. And keep looking.”

“I am . . . looking. And now . . . I see something—”

“What do you see? Tell me, what do you see?”

“I see . . . myself,” said Cranlowe dreamily, sleepily. “I am at this desk. I am writing. It has something to do . . . with my war inventions.”

“Ah, yes, the invention,” said Markham, voice as monotonous and soothing as dripping water. “What is this invention, Cranlowe? You are to tell me what it is.”

“It is a superexplosive,” said Cranlowe, mouthing the words a little. “It kills by concussion. It is so powerful that . . . that a two-pound bomb will kill every living thing in a two-and-a-half-mile circle. Too terrible to be used . . . even in a barbarous thing like modern war. Only to be used if a nation invades another. Then used for defense. That will stop all war. No nation will aggress.”

“Yes! Very commendable, Cranlowe. You see yourself at this desk, writing. And it has something to do with the invention. You are writing the formula, are you not?”

“Yes! I am writing . . . the formula,” said Cranlowe.

“Show me, Cranlowe. Show me how.”

“Like this.”

Without looking, Cranlowe’s hands went to the places where paper and pencil were kept. He put a sheet of paper before him, and poised the pencil. A slight spasm crossed his face, as if with an inward struggle.

“Show me, Cranlowe,” said Markham.

“Like . . . this—”

A word was written—

There was a sharp exclamation from the doorway, and Markham was seized in powerful hands.

“Mr. Cranlowe! Wake up! Snap out of it! Cranlowe!”

Markham struggled in the hands of the inventor’s armed butler, who growled an oath and clipped him on the jaw. Markham went down, unconscious.

Cranlowe was wavering in his seat, and into his deep-set eyes a normal light was coming.

He stared at the ball as if he had never seen it before, stared with horror at the sheet of paper with the first word of his precious formula on it, glared with frantic hate at the unconscious man on the floor.

“Charlatan! Crook!” he screamed at Markham. Then he whirled to the servant.

“Summers, thank heaven you looked into this room when you did and had wit enough to realize what was going on. Take this man to the basement strong room and lock him up. Hypnotize
me,
will he?”

“How about the hole in the ground?” said Summers.

“Not yet! We don’t throw him into the chasm, yet. When he has gone without food and water for a few days, he may decide to tell us who is behind this trip of his to Cranlowe Heights. Maybe
he
is the man behind what happened to Blandell and the rest. We should know shortly.”

If there was one thing that stood out clearly in this crazy welter, it was that the focal point of the whole business was the Garfield Gear Company. More precisely, that part of the Garfield Gear Company in which the president, Jenner, had his office.

So Dick Benson went to the Garfield Gear Company to Ned Jenner’s office.

The Avenger went openly, as himself. Till now he had kept under cover so that the gang which had attacked him at the quarry would continue to think him dead. Now he walked undisguised. For a purpose. If, after he left the office, attacks against him started again, it would prove beyond all further doubt that someone high in Garfield Gear—almost certainly Jenner—was directly connected with the underworld and had reported that he still lived. It would also expose Benson to death with every breath he drew. But the man with the white, dead face and the icy, pale eyes didn’t bother to think about that. Risk was normal to him; absence of risk the exception.

Benson got through the gate and through the general office simply by walking through and saying to anyone who gave evidence of wanting to stop him and inquire his business: “To see Mr. Jenner.” An ordinary person would have been detained and made to wait by any of a half a dozen employees; but such was the white-haired, dead-faced man’s air of quiet authority and power that none tried to stop him here.

Till he got to the small office outside Jenner’s own, where Jenner’s secretary had his desk. The pallid, quiet young fellow with the high-bridged nose tried to get in his way—but stepped back at the impact of those terrible, pale eyes on his own.

Benson opened the door of Jenner’s office and walked in.

The president of Garfield Gear was reading some letters. He looked up with a sharp frown.

“Who in the world are you? And how did you get in here, unannounced? I am busy. If you will wait your turn—”

He stopped, and looked again at the expressionless, white face in which were the colorless, icy eyes.

“I am Richard Benson, Mr. Jenner,” said The Avenger, in his calm but vibrant voice. “I don’t know if the name is familiar—”

“Why, yes, it is,” said Jenner, tone completely different. “I have heard of you, though I never expected to meet you. It was in connection with our government orders. You have done some work for the government, I believe.”

“I have done work for several governments,” Benson said, pale eyes gauging the man.

“It is an honor to have you here,” Jenner said. “But what is the occasion for the visit?”

“The murder of Blandell and Sessel,” said Benson. “I have come out to ask you a few questions about it.”

“The police asked many—”

“I am sure they were quite thorough. But I would like to know a few things that, perhaps, they didn’t think to go into. For one thing, I understand your dog howled just before Sessel went through his antics in your general office. And I believe he howled again just before Wainwright went strangely mad and killed the two men. Is that right?”

“Yes,” Jenner nodded. “That is correct.”

On the leather divan, Prince, Jenner’s canine companion, stared at the two men with bright little eyes, divining that he was being talked about, but staying still and soundless as he had been trained.

“There was more of the same thing,” Benson said. “I have learned that while Blandell stood on the corner giving away dollar bills, a dog with one of the men getting a bill did the same thing. Howled—almost as if something hurt him. And again, outside the plant gate, just before the old man driving Cranlowe’s station wagon drove suicidally in front of a truck, a mongrel dog nearby howled as if in pain.”

“I hadn’t heard of those two things.”

“But you did hear your dog howl. Have you any idea what was behind his antics?”

“No,” said Jenner, “I haven’t. He howled, and pawed at his ears. But why, I can’t say. Is it important?”

“I think it may be very important, indeed. Haven’t you even a guess to make?”

“Not even a guess,” smiled Jenner.