meant, he could not guess.
The laboratory door opened, and Nellie Gray came in. She looked as dainty and fragile as a Dresden doll in that masculine place of retorts and paraphernalia.
“We just got a report on the man Mac and Josh saw die, breathing flame, at the New Jersey place,” she said.
Benson waited in silence for it, brilliant, pale eyes half closed. He had anticipated a fast report when the fingerprints of the dead flame breather, turned in to the police when Mac got back, were looked up.
“The man was Robert Kohuen,” said Nellie, reading from a piece of paper ribbon on which, teletype fashion, all conversations of any of The Avenger’s telephones were mechanically recorded. “He was a private detective, rather prosperous. His last job was with the Henderlin Corp.; nature of the work unspecified.”
“The police are sure his last work was for the Henderlin coal and oil interests?” said Benson.
Nellie nodded. “They are quite sure. It was easy to find out. Kohuen’s secretary took the orders, from Mr. Henderlin himself only a week ago. She told about it.”
Benson left the laboratory with Mac and Nellie and went to the huge third-floor room. There, he seated himself thoughtfully at his desk and stared with pale, unseeing eyes through the steel slats over a window.
The Avenger began to talk slowly, vibrantly to Nellie and Mac, Smitty and Josh and Rosabel. Every now and then it was his habit to list verbally the points of a case brought out to date. He was talking to himself, really. But his aides always listened enthralled. For always, crystal clear, they defined the method, motive and leading forces in the case at hand.
As a rule, however, it was only later that they could look back and see that definition. At the time, they seldom were able to follow Benson’s mercurial thoughts to the goal that was no less certain for being, at that stage, without definite proof.
“There are four Polish scientists,” said The Avenger. “They are friends and co-workers. They have made a great laboratory discovery. Being decent people, they desire to use this great discovery to benefit mankind. But they must have money before they can do anything at all with it. Do they try for financial backing in their own country, Poland, first? Quite possibly. That will be something to investigate—”
Nellie Gray had pencil and notebook in her hand. She took the words in shorthand, as usual in such soliloquies. The purpose was to note later just such “possibilities of investigation” as these, and set wheels in motion in the next few minutes.*
* ( An incidental, secondary purpose has been fulfilled by the notes: from them a great deal of the data contained in my accounts of Dick Benson’s work—after I had wrung from him a grudging consent to publication of those accounts—is continually being gathered. Kenneth Robeson. )
“The United States is vastly wealthy,” the clear but dreaming voice of the scourge of the underworld went on. “The four finally came here. Sodolow’s last words hint that they received their financial backing, all right. But it would seem that their ideas of benefiting mankind were out of order. Their backer, or backers, wanted to exploit mankind, instead.
“The four Polish scientists left. They fled from some ruthless, deadly force. They hid from it—Shewski in Berlin, Wencilau in Paris, Veck in Montreal, Sodolow in Algiers. Three died, terribly—the death of the flame breathers, though not in every case was the flame apparent on their dying breaths. Sodolow fled back to New York, probably to plead for his life with whatever force had relentlessly killed his three associates. But that can never be definitely known. Anyhow, he came back and suffered the same fate, shortly.”
Nellie’s pencil flew in the hushed silence of the group. It was maddening. Each felt that he should know, from the things said, all the answers. Yet none did.
“In each case,” Benson went on, “a former
The laboratory door opened, and Nellie Gray came in. She looked as dainty and fragile as a Dresden doll in that masculine place of retorts and paraphernalia.
“We just got a report on the man Mac and Josh saw die, breathing flame, at the New Jersey place,” she said.
Benson waited in silence for it, brilliant, pale eyes half closed. He had anticipated a fast report when the fingerprints of the dead flame breather, turned in to the police when Mac got back, were looked up.
“The man was Robert Kohuen,” said Nellie, reading from a piece of paper ribbon on which, teletype fashion, all conversations of any of The Avenger’s telephones were mechanically recorded. “He was a private detective, rather prosperous. His last job was with the Henderlin Corp.; nature of the work unspecified.”
“The police are sure his last work was for the Henderlin coal and oil interests?” said Benson.
Nellie nodded. “They are quite sure. It was easy to find out. Kohuen’s secretary took the orders, from Mr. Henderlin himself only a week ago. She told about it.”
Benson left the laboratory with Mac and Nellie and went to the huge third-floor room. There, he seated himself thoughtfully at his desk and stared with pale, unseeing eyes through the steel slats over a window.
The Avenger began to talk slowly, vibrantly to Nellie and Mac, Smitty and Josh and Rosabel. Every now and then it was his habit to list verbally the points of a case brought out to date. He was talking to himself, really. But his aides always listened enthralled. For always, crystal clear, they defined the method, motive and leading forces in the case at hand.
As a rule, however, it was only later that they could look back and see that definition. At the time, they seldom were able to follow Benson’s mercurial thoughts to the goal that was no less certain for being, at that stage, without definite proof.
“There are four Polish scientists,” said The Avenger. “They are friends and co-workers. They have made a great laboratory discovery. Being decent people, they desire to use this great discovery to benefit mankind. But they must have money before they can do anything at all with it. Do they try for financial backing in their own country, Poland, first? Quite possibly. That will be something to investigate—”
Nellie Gray had pencil and notebook in her hand. She took the words in shorthand, as usual in such soliloquies. The purpose was to note later just such “possibilities of investigation” as these, and set wheels in motion in the next few minutes.*
* ( An incidental, secondary purpose has been fulfilled by the notes: from them a great deal of the data contained in my accounts of Dick Benson’s work—after I had wrung from him a grudging consent to publication of those accounts—is continually being gathered. Kenneth Robeson. )
“The United States is vastly wealthy,” the clear but dreaming voice of the scourge of the underworld went on. “The four finally came here. Sodolow’s last words hint that they received their financial backing, all right. But it would seem that their ideas of benefiting mankind were out of order. Their backer, or backers, wanted to exploit mankind, instead.
“The four Polish scientists left. They fled from some ruthless, deadly force. They hid from it—Shewski in Berlin, Wencilau in Paris, Veck in Montreal, Sodolow in Algiers. Three died, terribly—the death of the flame breathers, though not in every case was the flame apparent on their dying breaths. Sodolow fled back to New York, probably to plead for his life with whatever force had relentlessly killed his three associates. But that can never be definitely known. Anyhow, he came back and suffered the same fate, shortly.”
Nellie’s pencil flew in the hushed silence of the group. It was maddening. Each felt that he should know, from the things said, all the answers. Yet none did.
“In each case,” Benson went on, “a former
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