was because of the probability that lingering death, in some mysterious form, lurked in the shabby place.
Dick never let his assistants take chances if it could be avoided. He felt solely responsible for them, and fear for their safety was the only fear he knew.
Fear for his own safety, he didn’t know at all. In fact, as has been said, he acted as if death would be a thing to welcome rather than avoid.
So none of his aides was to enter that place of slow death. It had to be entered, but the entering was to be done by The Avenger himself.
He went to the place swiftly after Nellie’s report that the woman had left. That report had meant that all four occupants were out, and he could have the place to himself.
Like a shadow, or a silent gray fox, Dick got to the alley mouth unobserved by any pedestrian. It was an almost eerie trick of his. He could go down a fairly crowded street in such an unobtrusive manner that no soul could later recall that such a person had passed among them.
And certainly none could recall what doorway or areaway he chose to enter. On this street were only a few people, so the task was even easier.
He went down the dark alley like a wraith, losing himself in darkness so thick that even his colorless eyes, as fine in darkness as a feral animal’s, could barely pick the way. And if he had been seen, what of that?
He wasn’t The Avenger; he was Johnny the Dip, with a right to be slinking down this alley.
Continuing with that thought, it wouldn’t be out of character at all for him, as a reputed pickpocket, to look stealthily around before entering his door, so Dick Benson did that, too.
Catlike, he went past the rear-house, listened, looked into every place in the stubby blind thoroughfare where a person might hide, and satisfied himself that no soul was around to observe him.
Then he went more openly to the rear-house.
The locks on the door of Johnny the Dip were going to take time, so Dick went past them and to Old Mitch’s door. The lock there was so easy that he opened it almost as readily as if he had used a key.
He stepped into blackness and shut the door behind him, holding the lapel of his coat over mouth and nostrils as he did so.
His coat lapels, as always, were saturated with an odorless chemical of MacMurdie’s devising that absorbed, for a time, the lethal effects of almost every gas known.
Whether the hideous, slow-motion death was in the very air or not, even The Avenger didn’t know. But he took no chances. He breathed through the protective lapel.
His flash bit into the darkness of the room.
The first thing Dick looked for was a possible old doorway, boarded over or nailed, perhaps, that might lead into the room next door. In that way, he could avoid time spent on those massive locks of Johnny the Dip.
But there was no such opening; so he went on to the rest of the room and found exactly nothing to rouse any investigator’s interest.
There was nothing in the old stove but a few ashes, still warm, where Old Mitch had cooked his dinner with the wood he gleaned from the streets. There was nothing in a cracked and drafty closet but some clothes too near the ragbag properly to be called clothes.
The battered table had a drawer, and in this were some tin knives, forks, spoons and a can opener.
An orange crate, used as a bureau, held a few pitiful personal possessions, probably found in some trash can.
There was nothing in Old Mitch’s room to indicate where he might have picked up the slow-motion malady.
Benson went out, around the building, then up the insecure outside stairs to the room above, the one used by the woman who had been trailed by Nellie Gray.
In here, The Avenger moved more cautiously, as there was built up in him a feeling so faint that it had not begun to be apparent till he was just leaving Old Mitch’s room. A feeling that was now growing within him by the second.
A feeling of impending doom!
Dick Benson had made his large personal fortune
Dick never let his assistants take chances if it could be avoided. He felt solely responsible for them, and fear for their safety was the only fear he knew.
Fear for his own safety, he didn’t know at all. In fact, as has been said, he acted as if death would be a thing to welcome rather than avoid.
So none of his aides was to enter that place of slow death. It had to be entered, but the entering was to be done by The Avenger himself.
He went to the place swiftly after Nellie’s report that the woman had left. That report had meant that all four occupants were out, and he could have the place to himself.
Like a shadow, or a silent gray fox, Dick got to the alley mouth unobserved by any pedestrian. It was an almost eerie trick of his. He could go down a fairly crowded street in such an unobtrusive manner that no soul could later recall that such a person had passed among them.
And certainly none could recall what doorway or areaway he chose to enter. On this street were only a few people, so the task was even easier.
He went down the dark alley like a wraith, losing himself in darkness so thick that even his colorless eyes, as fine in darkness as a feral animal’s, could barely pick the way. And if he had been seen, what of that?
He wasn’t The Avenger; he was Johnny the Dip, with a right to be slinking down this alley.
Continuing with that thought, it wouldn’t be out of character at all for him, as a reputed pickpocket, to look stealthily around before entering his door, so Dick Benson did that, too.
Catlike, he went past the rear-house, listened, looked into every place in the stubby blind thoroughfare where a person might hide, and satisfied himself that no soul was around to observe him.
Then he went more openly to the rear-house.
The locks on the door of Johnny the Dip were going to take time, so Dick went past them and to Old Mitch’s door. The lock there was so easy that he opened it almost as readily as if he had used a key.
He stepped into blackness and shut the door behind him, holding the lapel of his coat over mouth and nostrils as he did so.
His coat lapels, as always, were saturated with an odorless chemical of MacMurdie’s devising that absorbed, for a time, the lethal effects of almost every gas known.
Whether the hideous, slow-motion death was in the very air or not, even The Avenger didn’t know. But he took no chances. He breathed through the protective lapel.
His flash bit into the darkness of the room.
The first thing Dick looked for was a possible old doorway, boarded over or nailed, perhaps, that might lead into the room next door. In that way, he could avoid time spent on those massive locks of Johnny the Dip.
But there was no such opening; so he went on to the rest of the room and found exactly nothing to rouse any investigator’s interest.
There was nothing in the old stove but a few ashes, still warm, where Old Mitch had cooked his dinner with the wood he gleaned from the streets. There was nothing in a cracked and drafty closet but some clothes too near the ragbag properly to be called clothes.
The battered table had a drawer, and in this were some tin knives, forks, spoons and a can opener.
An orange crate, used as a bureau, held a few pitiful personal possessions, probably found in some trash can.
There was nothing in Old Mitch’s room to indicate where he might have picked up the slow-motion malady.
Benson went out, around the building, then up the insecure outside stairs to the room above, the one used by the woman who had been trailed by Nellie Gray.
In here, The Avenger moved more cautiously, as there was built up in him a feeling so faint that it had not begun to be apparent till he was just leaving Old Mitch’s room. A feeling that was now growing within him by the second.
A feeling of impending doom!
Dick Benson had made his large personal fortune
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