prone accomplice.
The result was funny, in a mad, dangerous sort of way. The man didn’t know what had happened. Something had knocked his comrade out, but nothing was in evidence. There was no other person on the roof. On one side was thin air, where the garage fronted. On the other was blank wall for ten feet, and then closed windows of the top-floor room.
The man dropped swiftly to his knees, gun whipping out. He looked all around, trying to see in every direction, at once—and saw nothing, anywhere.
The Avenger coldly and calmly ended his dilemma for him by squeezing Mike’s trigger again. The second man went down, unconscious.
Benson opened the secret door, walked out onto the roof, and picked up the nearest of the two. The limp figure was beefy, must have weighed around two hundred pounds; but The Avenger carried him without taxing his superb physique in the least.
He took the man into the building, shut the concealed door tightly again, and carried him lightly up the stairs.
In the big room he nodded wordlessly to Nellie. She knew what the nod meant. She went to a corner and got a small but very compact case and brought it to her chief.
A major miracle was about to occur.
The tremendous nervous shock that paralyzed Benson’s face had left it in a curiously plastic state. The features couldn’t move of themselves. But under prodding fingers, they could be molded into any shape desired—and would stay there. The result was that Benson had really two names to the underworld. He was The Avenger.
And he was the Man of a Thousand Faces.
He could deftly mold his countenance into the exact resemblance of almost any other face; and when proper color eyes and facial tinting were added, he was that other man.
He prepared to become somebody else now.
He propped up the unconscious man he had brought in from the roof. Beside the man’s face, he placed a small mirror. By looking into the mirror, Benson could see his own wax-white countenance close beside the other man’s florid face.
He opened the case.
It was a make-up kit such as couldn’t be duplicated anywhere outside of a large Hollywood studio. There was a tray in which dozens of tissue-thin glass shells reposed. The shells were tiny cups, designed to fit over Benson’s colorless eyeballs. On each pair was painted a slightly different colored pupil. Thus, by selection, The Avenger could acquire brown eyes, or blue, or amber, or any other color.
He slipped a pair of shells with gray-brown pupils over his eyeballs, holding the unconscious man’s eyelids open for an instant, to check the color again. Then he began to manipulate the modeling-clay texture of the flesh of his face.
The nose flattened, broadened, became slightly bulbous at the tip. The cheeks became shallower, fleshier-looking. With a careful hand, Benson tinted the result to the high, florid color of the man. Then over his shock of snow-white hair, he drew a wig with close-cropped, light brown hair.
He estimated the height of the man.
“Shoes,” he said to Nellie, “with two-and-one-quarter-inch lifts.”
He was in the unconscious man’s suit when Nellie Gray got back. He put on the height-adding, special shoes and the man’s derby, with the two little holes in it where Mike’s venomous small bullet had gone in and out again.
And The Avenger was that man!
Benson went through the pockets of the garments he wore. He was, he discovered, a man by the name of Molan Brocker. There was a recently stamped passport in his coat pocket, from a powerful European nation, announcing that fact.
Beside the passport, there was a little money. But there was only one bit of paper of any kind. That was the torn-off corner of an envelope. The corner contained a printed return address. The address read: Klammer Importing Co., Fifth Avenue.
Benson went back down to the second floor and out onto the roof. The other man was still lying there, deeply unconscious. It was possible that he had a mild
The result was funny, in a mad, dangerous sort of way. The man didn’t know what had happened. Something had knocked his comrade out, but nothing was in evidence. There was no other person on the roof. On one side was thin air, where the garage fronted. On the other was blank wall for ten feet, and then closed windows of the top-floor room.
The man dropped swiftly to his knees, gun whipping out. He looked all around, trying to see in every direction, at once—and saw nothing, anywhere.
The Avenger coldly and calmly ended his dilemma for him by squeezing Mike’s trigger again. The second man went down, unconscious.
Benson opened the secret door, walked out onto the roof, and picked up the nearest of the two. The limp figure was beefy, must have weighed around two hundred pounds; but The Avenger carried him without taxing his superb physique in the least.
He took the man into the building, shut the concealed door tightly again, and carried him lightly up the stairs.
In the big room he nodded wordlessly to Nellie. She knew what the nod meant. She went to a corner and got a small but very compact case and brought it to her chief.
A major miracle was about to occur.
The tremendous nervous shock that paralyzed Benson’s face had left it in a curiously plastic state. The features couldn’t move of themselves. But under prodding fingers, they could be molded into any shape desired—and would stay there. The result was that Benson had really two names to the underworld. He was The Avenger.
And he was the Man of a Thousand Faces.
He could deftly mold his countenance into the exact resemblance of almost any other face; and when proper color eyes and facial tinting were added, he was that other man.
He prepared to become somebody else now.
He propped up the unconscious man he had brought in from the roof. Beside the man’s face, he placed a small mirror. By looking into the mirror, Benson could see his own wax-white countenance close beside the other man’s florid face.
He opened the case.
It was a make-up kit such as couldn’t be duplicated anywhere outside of a large Hollywood studio. There was a tray in which dozens of tissue-thin glass shells reposed. The shells were tiny cups, designed to fit over Benson’s colorless eyeballs. On each pair was painted a slightly different colored pupil. Thus, by selection, The Avenger could acquire brown eyes, or blue, or amber, or any other color.
He slipped a pair of shells with gray-brown pupils over his eyeballs, holding the unconscious man’s eyelids open for an instant, to check the color again. Then he began to manipulate the modeling-clay texture of the flesh of his face.
The nose flattened, broadened, became slightly bulbous at the tip. The cheeks became shallower, fleshier-looking. With a careful hand, Benson tinted the result to the high, florid color of the man. Then over his shock of snow-white hair, he drew a wig with close-cropped, light brown hair.
He estimated the height of the man.
“Shoes,” he said to Nellie, “with two-and-one-quarter-inch lifts.”
He was in the unconscious man’s suit when Nellie Gray got back. He put on the height-adding, special shoes and the man’s derby, with the two little holes in it where Mike’s venomous small bullet had gone in and out again.
And The Avenger was that man!
Benson went through the pockets of the garments he wore. He was, he discovered, a man by the name of Molan Brocker. There was a recently stamped passport in his coat pocket, from a powerful European nation, announcing that fact.
Beside the passport, there was a little money. But there was only one bit of paper of any kind. That was the torn-off corner of an envelope. The corner contained a printed return address. The address read: Klammer Importing Co., Fifth Avenue.
Benson went back down to the second floor and out onto the roof. The other man was still lying there, deeply unconscious. It was possible that he had a mild
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