The Avenger 20 - The Green Killer Read Online Free PDF Page B

and almost with alarm at Smitty’s towering bulk. The giant always seemed to scrape whatever ceiling he stood under and to fill whatever room he entered.
    Smitty followed up the look of apprehension by coming right to the point and booming threateningly. “You sold a truck to a bunch of gangsters recently, didn’t you?”
    “H-huh?” stammered Hatch. Then he recovered his poise. “I don’t know who you are or why you’re asking, but I didn’t know they were gangsters. Honest!”
    Nellie looked at Smitty in a way that told him to shut up. She had been staring at Hatch’s chubby, but firm, face, and she had decided that this man would tell nothing but what he wanted to tell. And the police had already heard that. It was a place for a persuader, all right.
    She took one of Mac’s little pellets from her purse in such a way that Hatch, looking perplexedly from one to the other of them, couldn’t see. She broke the fragile shell by a hard pinch.
    “Hey!” said Hatch suddenly. And now he didn’t look quite so much like a puzzled, innocent man. He looked wary. “What are you doing? What’s that purple stuff?”
    The faintly purple haze surrounded the three of them. It affected Smitty and Nellie as well as Hatch; but since they were the ones who were doing the questioning, this did not matter. They had enough wit left to carry on.
    “To whom did you really sell your van?” asked Nellie.
    “To a man I never saw before who said his name was Gleason, just as I told the cops,” Hatch replied. The fact that he was no longer alarmed about the purple haze, didn’t ask any more about it, showed that the stuff was working. He was losing that shrewd caution of his and was softening up.
    “What did he look like?”
    “He was a big fellow, half bald, with a scar over the bridge of his nose. He wore horn-rimmed glasses with one plain lens and one reducing lens. He talked in a high, squeaky voice.”
    “Is that what you told the police?”
    Hatch hesitated just an instant, but the truth gas was working beautifully.
    “No, I told them differently. I hadn’t any idea my old van was to be used for criminal purposes. But it had been. So I figured I’d stay out of trouble by lying about it.”
    “Do you know where this big man with the glasses could be found?”
    “I don’t really know. But I have an idea. He said something to another man with him—a smaller guy with yellow hair who limped—about a boat; where could they keep the van on a boat? The other man said something about keeping it in an old East River yard where the boat was abandoned. That’s all I know.”
    “That,” said Smitty, “should be quite enough. Let’s go, Nellie.”
    They got outside. The giant turned solemnly to her.
    “The other night,” he said, “You went out with Cole Wilson.”
    Cole Wilson was another member of Justice, Inc. At present, he was turning his production-management and engineering talents to the swifter production of heavy tanks for the army, at the government’s request. Wilson was black-eyed, dark-haired, and altogether too good-looking for Smitty’s peace of mind—when it was considered that the big fellow was pretty gone on Nellie.
    “Yes, I went out with Cole Wilson,” said Nellie, who had inhaled quite as much of the persuader as Hatch had, and would be under the influence for another minute or two.
    “Where did you go with him?”
    “We went to the New York field office of the F.B.I, for some espionage information he wanted.”
    Smitty grinned all over his big face.
    “And what did you tell me later you did?”
    “I said Cole and I had gone to the Pink Room for some dancing,” Nellie admitted.
    “Why did you do that?”
    “Just to kid you a little.” The influence of the purple mist was wearing off. Nellie looked sideways at the giant. Then she snapped indignantly, “You dumb edition of King Kong! You took advantage of me!”
    Smitty hooted with delight.
    “You made me talk when I was still fuzzy with