The Avenger 24 - Midnight Murder Read Online Free Page B

been all right. But he did find the thing almost at once, and Dick didn’t see him raise it to his lips.
    It was his whistle. On it, he blew a ferocious blast! Benson leaped and knocked it out of his hand, but the damage was already done.
    There were sounds of running feet in all directions. From the south end of the enclosure came four men in guards’ uniforms, two with flashlights on.
    This was fine! But from the north, east and west gathered at least a dozen men. And while three or four of these also wore uniforms, the rest did not; and the way they mingled indicated that none of them was employed here.
    One of the men from the south yelped: “Hey, what goes on? Those ain’t our guys—”
    The bigger group of men, snarling, jumped the smaller group, including the man in his underwear.
    Off beyond, in the direction of the building, Benson thought he saw a figure running. It was going toward the laboratory. It was, he thought, a woman’s figure.

CHAPTER IV

Battle in the Night
    Most men, in the face of such odds, would have thought only of getting away without being killed or of driving the enemy away. Neither of these thoughts occurred to The Avenger.
    His vibrant voice sounded over the noise: “Round them up. Don’t let any of them escape.”
    One of the gang in a stolen guard’s suit barked with laughter. The idea of five men capturing twelve or fifteen struck him as funny, it seemed.
    Dick Benson’s idea didn’t seem too appealing to the real guards, either. Two of them were making a break to get away.
    The Avenger threw a small pellet so that it landed just ahead of them. It exploded with a terrific bang but without damage. The two hastened back.
    Into the center of the opposing gang, Benson tossed a pellet of a different kind. It lit soundlessly and broke the same way.
    Two men in civilian clothes wavered around, then abruptly seemed to decide that they were very sleepy. They sank down and closed their eyes. The rest jumped away from that spot, not knowing what had occurred but instinctively realizing that it was unhealthy.
    The Avenger tossed two more anaesthetic pellets. Then two men in street clothes reached him from the rear.
    Dick had known they were coming. He had seen them leave the main body and had followed their footsteps as they sneaked up behind him. He hadn’t done anything about it because there were only two of them.
    They got to him, now, and one drove a knife straight at his back! The other sent three shots at him in rapid succession!
    At least one of the shots got somebody, all right, for there was an unearthly scream of pain and the roar: “Stop shooting, you fools! It’s too dark for it.”
    None of the three shots had caught Benson, because his phenomenal ears had heard the little click of a safety being thrown off in practiced hands, and he had dropped to his knee.
    With this move, the knife had grazed harmlessly over his shoulder, too. The arm behind it, striking with such force and meeting no target to expend the force on, went right on going, followed by the man behind it. The man fell over The Avenger’s head and shoulders, aided by a deft downward jerk on his necktie. A necktie can be a great handicap in a fight against a man who knows how to utilize one as a handle.
    The Avenger clipped the man’s jaw with scientific precision and sprang for the other, who had unwisely sent three slugs in the general direction of his comrades. He got this one with the same anaesthetic tap to the jaw with which the first man had been laid out.
    The trouble was—from the enemy’s point of view—that it was so dark around here that they could see practically nothing, while the man with the pale eyes seemed able to see almost as well as in daylight.
    This was proved when three of them—they were following a hunch that all would not turn out well, in spite of the fact that the odds were in their favor—turned to steal away.
    Promptly, something exploded in front of the fake guards, herding