The Avenger 3 - The Sky Walker Read Online Free PDF Page A

have no idea what it was the brothers were working on?” Benson said to Josh.
    “No, sir,” said the colored man. “I haven’t. Mr. Max and Mr. Robert kept their secrets to themselves.”
    “You say their laboratory was broken into about a month ago, and something very important was taken?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And the brothers did not get in touch with the police?”
    “No, sir. They didn’t want even the police to know what they were working on.”
    “But Max Gant went to police headquarters yesterday evening.”
    “Yes, sir. But that was because the pavilion had collapsed, and he was afraid there’d be more disasters if he didn’t tell what he knew—put the city authorities on their guard.”
    “Then their inventions were definitely connected with that collapse, and with the noise in the sky,” Benson nodded. “But that’s all you know?”
    “Absolutely all, sir.”
    “The brothers must have had materials and supplies delivered. And I suppose you took them in occasionally. Can you remember what any of them were?”
    “No, sir,” Josh said. But here Rosabel spoke up.
    “I remember one thing,” she said. “It was a small package from the Warwick Corporation in New Jersey. I signed for it, and gave it to Mr. Max. He was too eager to wait till he got up to the laboratory with it, and opened it on the way up the stairs. I got a look at the stuff he took from the package. It was a thin, long strip of stuff that looked like glass. But I guess it wasn’t glass, because Mr. Max bent it around in his fingers. And he kept saying: ‘This would do the trick. As tough as steel and as transparent as glass.’ ”
    Into Benson’s icy-pale eyes the glitter was coming.
    “That strip,” he mused, “would be Glassite, a new Warwick product. It’s a plastic that is as clear as glass, but is unbreakable. Thank you very much, Rosabel. You’ve told me more than, perhaps, you realize.”
    MacMurdie spoke, scowling. He was an expert chemist, and knew all about the new product, Glassite. But no perplexity had been cleared from his face by the mention of it here.
    “What does all this rigamarole mean to ye, Muster Benson?” he asked.
    “It means,” said Benson slowly, his dead white face like a mask of Fate, “that Chicago and the region around it will bitterly regret the day that strip of Glassite was delivered to the Gant brothers for experimentation. Now tell me, Josh, Rosabel, what are your plans for the future?”
    Josh looked at his pretty wife. She nodded. The bond between these two was close enough so that looks could substitute for words.
    “We could get another position pretty easily, sir,” Josh said respectfully. “Most of Mr. Robert’s and Mr. Max’s friends know about us and could use us. But we’d like to work for you if that’s possible.”
    Benson’s unreadable, icy eyes probed the two of them.
    Rosabel said: “Those two brothers were the finest men we’ve ever known. And they were murdered in cold blood. We’d like to work for you at least till those murderers have got what’s coming to them. We’ll work for nothing if you don’t feel you can afford us.”
    Something almost like a smile touched Benson’s clear, pale eyes. Few people knew how much wealth he had acquired from previous adventuring. In addition, in southern Mexico in a cache known only to him and his associates, was the vast golden hoard of the Aztecs, buried centuries ago from the invading Spaniards, recently discovered by Benson through explorations of Nellie Gray’s archeologist father. That hoard was in Nellie’s name, but she had insisted it be used as an inexhaustible bank account by Benson in his crime work.
    Asking if Benson could afford Josh and Rosabel was like asking if the United States mint could afford to hire a new scrubwoman.
    “I’ll be glad to have you help us,” Benson said, after a moment. “But there may be danger—”
    “We can take care of ourselves,” Josh said quietly. “What comes