The Avenger 9 - Tuned for Murder Read Online Free

indicating that the trouble recently was made to happen to us— Yes, there’s an answer at Garfield Gear. And we’re going to find it.”
    Blandell looked at him a moment, then nodded. And Sessel went to shave off his Vandyke.
    Dr. Lucien and Dr. Grabble had worked with a lot of mentally unstable patients in their careers. But neither of them had quite made up his mind that Blandell and Sessel were really insane. Therefore, they came into the room where the two were, without any thought of precaution.
    They hadn’t time even to yell when Blandell hit one with a vase and Sessel downed the other with a heavy book.
    Blandell and Sessel took off the doctors’ outer clothing, and then bound and gagged them. They were pretty pale as they did it. It was a tremendous risk they were running. But they thought if they could find out something at the manufacturing plant it would be worth it all.
    The servants and guards in the house weren’t prepared for extreme measures, either. They had been told to persuade the two men to stay in if they tried to leave. But no one had the faintest idea that there actually would be a violent attempt at escape. And it was dark in the hall.
    When Dr. Grabble and Dr. Lucien left the room in which Blandell and Sessel were supposed to be, no one paid much attention. The two got into Grabble’s car, at the curb, and drove off.
    “We’d better keep right on going, if we don’t find out anything,” shivered Blandell, in Grabble’s clothes.
    Sessel nodded, and the two thought of hiding out, as criminals hide out, unless they could solve the mystery of yesterday’s strange conduct.

    They got into the plant easily enough by sending a card from Lucien’s case in to Jenner.
    “Shall we go up that openly?” said Sessel.
    Blandell shook his head. “No!” if there really is something sinister here, we’d be fools to walk right into it again. We’ll get in by asking for Jenner. But we won’t see him at once.”
    Sessel looked at his uncle questioningly.
    “There is a narrow corridor leading past the general office and into a sort of lounging room off Jenner’s office,” the banker explained. “He uses it as a sort of relaxing room. Goes in there and sleeps or reads, sometimes. We’ll sneak into that room and listen through his office door for a while—see if we can hear anything that might give us a hint of what it’s all about.”
    “Excellent,” said Sessel. “You know how to get there?”
    “Yes. I’ve been here often enough.”
    Blandell passed the door leading to the big office on the second floor to a small room, unmarked, at a distance to the right. He opened it, and a narrow corridor stretched before them.
    The corridor, reserved for Jenner’s use if he wanted to go or come in privacy, was completely empty. They walked past the general office, hearing a hum of voices and typewriters through the thin partition. They got to a door that was partly open and Sessel started to open it farther. Blandell silently caught his arm and pointed. Sessel looked in.
    This was not the lounging room Blandell had spoken of. It was the anteroom where Jenner’s secretary sat on guard. Grace was there now, but he was working at something on his desk. The two, one a well-known financier and the other a brilliant scientist and writer, slid past like burglars without the secretary looking up from his desk.
    Reaching the door of the next room, they heard voices from the room beyond, Jenner’s office. They stopped there in the corridor, to listen. But the distance was too great. They couldn’t quite make out words.
    After several minutes, Sessel reached out his hand to open the lounging-room door and creep into it. He stopped suddenly. From Jenner’s office came the sharp howl of a dog! Jenner’s fox terrier. The howl was weird, like that which dogs sometimes utter when they bay at the moon. Only there was pain in this cry.
    They looked at each other. That happened when I was here, was the thought