happening behind his back.
A man in a dark-blue suit, a little the worse for wear, and a derby hat in the same condition, tiptoed from street door to librarian’s desk. He took every possible precaution to make no noise, a thing which naturally made the librarian, a woman of forty with fringy hair and glasses, stare at him with raised eyebrows. You’re supposed to be quiet in a library, but you don’t have to be that quiet.
He got to the desk. She started to say something. He put a thick finger to his lips. There was a pad of scratch paper and pen and ink on the desk. The man wrote, then handed the pad to the librarian.
She read the short message with eyes widening. Then she looked at The Avenger, bent over his book with the rare concentration that was one of his strengths. She looked at him with loathing, with positive horror. She nodded violently to the man.
Then the second curious thing happened.
In an elaborately careless way, stopping now and then to glance at the books nearest her on the shelves, she went to the rear of the big main room. There were two attendants there. She passed them smiling, saying something.
They looked at each other in a breathless, frightened kind of way and drifted toward the door. The librarian paused near two other small groups, and these groups, too, after a few seconds, walked slowly out of there. The librarian started to go back toward the door, too.
The Avenger, pale eyes brilliant on the rapidly turning pages of the last book he had selected, said to Beck in a low tone, “You’d better get out of here, fast.”
“Why, what do you mean?” said Beck.
“Something is about to happen. Everyone has been leaving. Haven’t you seen that? Leave here at once!”
“But what about you?”
“I’m prepared for trouble. I got ready for it when I noticed that we were followed here to the library.”
“Followed? We were? I didn’t notice that.”
“If you don’t leave at once,” said The Avenger, eyes on the book all the time as if he were aware of nothing but the printed page, “you may be carried out.”
“All right, I’ll leave. In a minute.”
Suddenly, Beck’s voice was entirely different. Suddenly it wasn’t ebullient and over-youthful any more. It was quite steady. And when Benson turned, he saw that Beck’s eyes were steady, too, and so was Beck’s hand, in which a gun was held.
The gun was pointed at The Avenger’s throat!
“Turn around, chair and all,” said Beck. “Sit with your back to me.”
Benson did so, pale eyes brilliant as ice in moonlight. The gun came lightly to rest on the back of his neck.
“I saw you ‘get prepared’ in the car,” Beck said. “You put quite a number of interesting and deadly little gadgets in your pockets, didn’t you? Well, I’m going to take them all out again. I’m going to give the men who are after you a nice, fair break. You can face them with empty hands, and we’ll see what the famous, and oh-so-pious, Avenger will do in a case like that.”
Cautiously, his hand went up. He clutched the collar of The Avenger’s coat and jerked downward, sliding the garment half down his arms and body and pinioning arms to sides. Then he began going through Benson’s intricately pocketed vest and dumping things out.
CHAPTER XII
Battle in a Library
The coat trick is a good one. Yank a man’s coat halfway down his arms and he’s held as neatly as if in a straight jacket, particularly if it is buttoned, as Benson’s coat had been. It works with almost everyone.
But it didn’t work with The Avenger. Because the coat trick is a good one, and one that is widely known, the man with the colorless, deadly eyes and the steel spring body had long ago worked out a reply for it.
A very simple reply.
First, he jerked his body to the left, with no preliminary movement of any kind to warn the man behind him. Then he caught the wrist above the hand that was dipping into his vest pockets and after that he shot his body
A man in a dark-blue suit, a little the worse for wear, and a derby hat in the same condition, tiptoed from street door to librarian’s desk. He took every possible precaution to make no noise, a thing which naturally made the librarian, a woman of forty with fringy hair and glasses, stare at him with raised eyebrows. You’re supposed to be quiet in a library, but you don’t have to be that quiet.
He got to the desk. She started to say something. He put a thick finger to his lips. There was a pad of scratch paper and pen and ink on the desk. The man wrote, then handed the pad to the librarian.
She read the short message with eyes widening. Then she looked at The Avenger, bent over his book with the rare concentration that was one of his strengths. She looked at him with loathing, with positive horror. She nodded violently to the man.
Then the second curious thing happened.
In an elaborately careless way, stopping now and then to glance at the books nearest her on the shelves, she went to the rear of the big main room. There were two attendants there. She passed them smiling, saying something.
They looked at each other in a breathless, frightened kind of way and drifted toward the door. The librarian paused near two other small groups, and these groups, too, after a few seconds, walked slowly out of there. The librarian started to go back toward the door, too.
The Avenger, pale eyes brilliant on the rapidly turning pages of the last book he had selected, said to Beck in a low tone, “You’d better get out of here, fast.”
“Why, what do you mean?” said Beck.
“Something is about to happen. Everyone has been leaving. Haven’t you seen that? Leave here at once!”
“But what about you?”
“I’m prepared for trouble. I got ready for it when I noticed that we were followed here to the library.”
“Followed? We were? I didn’t notice that.”
“If you don’t leave at once,” said The Avenger, eyes on the book all the time as if he were aware of nothing but the printed page, “you may be carried out.”
“All right, I’ll leave. In a minute.”
Suddenly, Beck’s voice was entirely different. Suddenly it wasn’t ebullient and over-youthful any more. It was quite steady. And when Benson turned, he saw that Beck’s eyes were steady, too, and so was Beck’s hand, in which a gun was held.
The gun was pointed at The Avenger’s throat!
“Turn around, chair and all,” said Beck. “Sit with your back to me.”
Benson did so, pale eyes brilliant as ice in moonlight. The gun came lightly to rest on the back of his neck.
“I saw you ‘get prepared’ in the car,” Beck said. “You put quite a number of interesting and deadly little gadgets in your pockets, didn’t you? Well, I’m going to take them all out again. I’m going to give the men who are after you a nice, fair break. You can face them with empty hands, and we’ll see what the famous, and oh-so-pious, Avenger will do in a case like that.”
Cautiously, his hand went up. He clutched the collar of The Avenger’s coat and jerked downward, sliding the garment half down his arms and body and pinioning arms to sides. Then he began going through Benson’s intricately pocketed vest and dumping things out.
CHAPTER XII
Battle in a Library
The coat trick is a good one. Yank a man’s coat halfway down his arms and he’s held as neatly as if in a straight jacket, particularly if it is buttoned, as Benson’s coat had been. It works with almost everyone.
But it didn’t work with The Avenger. Because the coat trick is a good one, and one that is widely known, the man with the colorless, deadly eyes and the steel spring body had long ago worked out a reply for it.
A very simple reply.
First, he jerked his body to the left, with no preliminary movement of any kind to warn the man behind him. Then he caught the wrist above the hand that was dipping into his vest pockets and after that he shot his body
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