The Avenger 24 - Midnight Murder Read Online Free

disappointedly. Tiny, fragile-looking, the sort of girl you’d think would shriek at sight of a spider, the diminutive blonde lived for excitement.
    Smitty’s look at their chief was as forlorn as hers.
    “I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Benson. “Josh, while we’re gone you might get in touch with the war department and see what the nature of this jealously guarded invention is.”

    There were, it seemed, two laboratories. The main one was a long, low, factorylike place, forty miles straight north in New York State, set in the center of a two-hundred-acre wooded tract also held by the company.
    The other was in a tacky old building on the East River. It was also listed under the names, Aldrich Towne, Chester Grace, Rew Wight and Frank Boone.
    A call to this one revealed that no one was in. It also revealed that the place was small enough so that it didn’t even have a switchboard or minor employees. There was no answer at all to the ring of the phone.
    “Looks like ’tis just a small place where only the four partners come to work in secrrret on things,” MacMurdie burred thoughtfully. “Or maybe ’tis just a hole in the wall from which General Laboratories does its New York business. Easier than commutin’ in and out all the time from the main plant.”
    The main plant, forty miles away, was not easy to get into.
    Around the entire plot of woodland in which it was situated, was a high mesh fence with steel poles and with barbed wire strands at the top. Probably it was electrified. The two didn’t have to find out by trying to climb it.
    At the stout steel gate, a guard looked at The Avenger’s card proclaiming him to be an honorary-member of the F.B.I. Even with this, the man was doubtful.
    “I’ll ride along in with you, if you don’t mind,” he said. “People could forge these things.”
    He whistled. Another man stepped from a place of concealment very near; yet it was so perfect that few eyes except The Avenger’s would have detected it.
    This man took the guard duty at the gate, and the first one rode with Mac and The Avenger to the plant building.
    The low building was ultra-modern, of brick and concrete, with not one outside window to emit light. It was ten o’clock at night, now, and you wouldn’t have seen the big low bulk among the trees if the car’s headlights hadn’t picked it out.
    And yet, for all the precautions, Mac saw that Dick’s colorless eyes were narrowed a trifle with disapproval. The dour Scotchman knew why.
    This layout seemed beautifully designed for secrecy, safety and blackout necessities. Actually, save for the latter, it was phony! Any one of Justice, Inc., veteran campaigners all, would have known this at sight.
    You don’t want darkness around important buildings. You want light. Lots of light—floodlights, searchlights, strings of lights. Easy enough to switch them out for blackouts; otherwise, you wanted all the light you could get, to make sure no one was sneaking around who had no business there.
    Also, you don’t want trees around such a place, no matter how cool and charming and sheltering you think they are. You want a naked, unlovely plain—flat, treeless, almost grassless—again so you can see at a glance if anyone is around who has no right to be.
    The Scot was thinking this when he felt The Avenger’s arm tighten and saw that the pale, all-seeing eyes had turned just a little to stare into the woods to the left of the lab building.
    To Mac, there was nothing to be seen in that direction but complete, pitch-blackness. But he knew that Dick had the rare quality of being able to see in the dark. Something about the pale, infallible eyes placed them in the category with the eyes of cat, bat and owl.
    Dick had stopped the car at the door of the building, at the command of the guard with them. The guard got out and, even though he was slightly suspicious of his visitors, he walked in front of The Avenger with his back turned for an