arising, I will handle myself.”
And strangely, The Avenger took the dismissal. He had come there to get information from the motor millionaire regardless. He was certainly equipped to force it. Yet he didn’t.
Without a word, he walked to the door. But with him, on the sole of his shoe, went something he had an idea would be more revealing than anything the magnate might have chosen to say.
A folded bit of paper.
That, a small note, was what Marr had jerked behind him, when Benson had first entered unexpectedly. The Avenger’s quick eyes had just barely caught it. And that was what Marr had nudged with his foot backward—under the trailing end of the window drape.
Benson had put his foot over it, and twisted. The move had protruded several tiny, barbed needle points from the special double sole in the instep of his shoe, and on these points the paper had caught and held.
He closed the door of the music room on Marr’s coldly angry stare, bent and took the paper from its precarious place, put it in his pocket and calmly left the house.
In his car, he opened it. It was important, all right. It was an extortion note!
The letters were crudely printed with blue indelible pencil on a scrap of cheap, lined note paper.
Pay the million to the party named or continue to take the consequences.
Blackmail! On a huge scale! Being attempted by someone who had the power to wreck a mammoth automotive plant.
The Avenger drove slowly and the tense glitter in his colorless eyes indicated that he was thinking of the weird factors in this growing mystery of the automobile world.
There was a new steel process belonging to the Marr Co. With it, automotive parts were tempered to a hitherto unknown toughness after being machined.
With this, the blackmailer was threatening Marr’s business existence; he had somehow managed to subject various parts to this tempering process before the finishing machining. And as a result the tempered parts were ruining the tool machinery, less resistant than the steel it was trying to work.
In addition to plant troubles, Marr had had his finished mystery car—practically ready to be released on the market—stolen from him, and there was no telling where it might be, now.
Besides blackmail, there was murder in this affair. Men had died to permit the theft of that car—though as yet there had been no violence in connection with the factory damage.
So Marr was to pay a million or “continue to take the consequences.” Who, inside the Marr plant, was smart enough and unsuspected enough to cause that damage?
CHAPTER XII
The Marr Plant
The man in charge of the stock room in the motor department of the Marr plant was a close friend of the toolroom superintendent who knew Benson so well. So when the tool-room man told the stock-room man to put himself under The Avenger’s directions and tell no one, the stock-room head did so.
Though the directions given him by Benson were pretty simple.
He was just to sit still as if posing for a picture.
He was doing that now, in one of the rooms at the hotel where The Avenger and his aides were staying. And with him was Benson. The man was staring in awe at The Avenger.
Benson had a small grip like a standard overnight bag open before him. But it was not an overnight bag. It was a most complete make-up kit.
There were scores of pairs of tissue-thin eyecups, with various colored pupils on them, which Benson could slide on over his own almost colorless eyeballs. There were waxes and pigments, pads for the cheeks, false scars, wigs.
Everything a man could need for making himself look like someone else.
And Benson was now in the process of making himself look like the stock-room head.
He had slipped brown-pupiled cups over his eyeballs, and then put on a brown wig streaked with gray. Now, he was making his features resemble the man’s features, and it was this process that was making the stock-room head almost shiver.
The nerve shock that had paralyzed
And strangely, The Avenger took the dismissal. He had come there to get information from the motor millionaire regardless. He was certainly equipped to force it. Yet he didn’t.
Without a word, he walked to the door. But with him, on the sole of his shoe, went something he had an idea would be more revealing than anything the magnate might have chosen to say.
A folded bit of paper.
That, a small note, was what Marr had jerked behind him, when Benson had first entered unexpectedly. The Avenger’s quick eyes had just barely caught it. And that was what Marr had nudged with his foot backward—under the trailing end of the window drape.
Benson had put his foot over it, and twisted. The move had protruded several tiny, barbed needle points from the special double sole in the instep of his shoe, and on these points the paper had caught and held.
He closed the door of the music room on Marr’s coldly angry stare, bent and took the paper from its precarious place, put it in his pocket and calmly left the house.
In his car, he opened it. It was important, all right. It was an extortion note!
The letters were crudely printed with blue indelible pencil on a scrap of cheap, lined note paper.
Pay the million to the party named or continue to take the consequences.
Blackmail! On a huge scale! Being attempted by someone who had the power to wreck a mammoth automotive plant.
The Avenger drove slowly and the tense glitter in his colorless eyes indicated that he was thinking of the weird factors in this growing mystery of the automobile world.
There was a new steel process belonging to the Marr Co. With it, automotive parts were tempered to a hitherto unknown toughness after being machined.
With this, the blackmailer was threatening Marr’s business existence; he had somehow managed to subject various parts to this tempering process before the finishing machining. And as a result the tempered parts were ruining the tool machinery, less resistant than the steel it was trying to work.
In addition to plant troubles, Marr had had his finished mystery car—practically ready to be released on the market—stolen from him, and there was no telling where it might be, now.
Besides blackmail, there was murder in this affair. Men had died to permit the theft of that car—though as yet there had been no violence in connection with the factory damage.
So Marr was to pay a million or “continue to take the consequences.” Who, inside the Marr plant, was smart enough and unsuspected enough to cause that damage?
CHAPTER XII
The Marr Plant
The man in charge of the stock room in the motor department of the Marr plant was a close friend of the toolroom superintendent who knew Benson so well. So when the tool-room man told the stock-room man to put himself under The Avenger’s directions and tell no one, the stock-room head did so.
Though the directions given him by Benson were pretty simple.
He was just to sit still as if posing for a picture.
He was doing that now, in one of the rooms at the hotel where The Avenger and his aides were staying. And with him was Benson. The man was staring in awe at The Avenger.
Benson had a small grip like a standard overnight bag open before him. But it was not an overnight bag. It was a most complete make-up kit.
There were scores of pairs of tissue-thin eyecups, with various colored pupils on them, which Benson could slide on over his own almost colorless eyeballs. There were waxes and pigments, pads for the cheeks, false scars, wigs.
Everything a man could need for making himself look like someone else.
And Benson was now in the process of making himself look like the stock-room head.
He had slipped brown-pupiled cups over his eyeballs, and then put on a brown wig streaked with gray. Now, he was making his features resemble the man’s features, and it was this process that was making the stock-room head almost shiver.
The nerve shock that had paralyzed
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