The Avenger 16 - The Hate Master Read Online Free PDF Page A

nodded and stopped questioning the man. The Avenger seemed satisfied as to his complete innocence, as far as you could tell from his icy, inscrutable eyes.
    Mac came back after awhile. He shook his sandy head.
    “The place at Scarsdale is cleared out,” he said. “My guess is that it wasn’t lived in for a long time. These men who tackled Miss Morel must have been in only once or twice, using it as a temporary headquarters.”
    It was then that The Avenger got the telephone call about the pigeons. The call was from the public library on Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street. It was made by a sharp-eyed newsboy, who, with hundreds of his fellows in the great city, worked with The Avenger by always calling the Bleek Street headquarters if anything queer were observed.
    And, Heaven knew, this was queer enough!
    “Boss,” came the lad’s voice, “this is Stinky Williams. The pigeons down here at the library are goin’ nuts.”
    “How do you mean?” asked The Avenger.
    “They think they’re eagles or somethin’. They’re fightin’ each other, and even going after people on the sidewalks.”
    “What?”
    “As I live and breathe,” said the boy earnestly. “The men bat ’em off and don’t know whether to laugh or run. A lot of dames is hysterical. I tell you them birds are goin’ completely screwy. Fightin’ pigeons! Ain’t that one for the book?”
    “I’ll be down immediately,” said Dick Benson.

CHAPTER V

Winged Madness
    There are always throngs of people in front of the New York Public Library’s main branch. Not that the city is so starved for book learning; but the building happens to be in almost the exact center of town.
    The broad walk in front of the library was in an uproar, now, crowded densely, with more crowds coming all the time to see what was up. Some people were laughing and ducking around. Others looked stupefied with amazement. All were staring upward.
    Through the crowd and around the fringes, were traffic cops, sweating with a fruitless effort to get people to break it up and move along.
    Dick Benson got to the curb, with Wilson beside him. And then the two got a taste of what it was all about.
    A pigeon charged them!
    That sounds funny, but it wasn’t.
    The bird came at Wilson like a mad-winged javelin, its little red eyes gleaming like jewels. Like a thrown projectile, it struck almost before Cole could get his hands up; and on Cole’s cheek a long shallow gash appeared where the bird’s beak had ripped past.
    The Avenger could move so fast it baffled the eye.
    He moved that way now, one hand going out like light. The hand caught the bird as deftly as a hawk snares a chick.
    Regretfully, Benson flipped his hand and broke the bird’s neck. He had to have it for experimentation. He slipped the dead pigeon into a big inner pocket, then went to the nearest cop.
    Every police officer in the country either knew The Avenger or knew of him, by now. The man nodded respectfully.
    “Move along now, will you?” he yelled at the milling people. “Haven’t the lot of you ever seen pigeons before? There have been pigeons at the library as long as the joint’s been standing.”
    “But not like these,” he confessed in a lower tone to Dick Benson. “Do you know what’s causing this?”
    The Avenger shook his head, and all three men ducked as a crazy bird lanced at them out of the blue. Once more Dick’s hand darted out, fast as the dart of a hummingbird. Another pigeon was caught; but this one he got alive. It went into the inner pocket, where it struggled but could do no harm.
    “Not all of the birds are like that, I see,” said Dick, gazing up at the building ledges.
    “No, sir,” said the cop. “Just some of them. The devil’s in ’em, all right.” A couple of normal pigeons fell from the ledges, pecked to death by their maddened fellows. The cop looked as if he might cross his fingers any minute. “Move on, all you guys— Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn’t mean