The Avenger 32 - The Death Machine Read Online Free PDF

wild and overgrown.
    “I come from a line of eager lawn mowers myself.” He fitted the key into the lock and turned it. The door opened silently. “Darn, no Inner Sanctum squeak.”
    Nellie sniffed the musty air of the hallway. “Nutmeg,” she decided. Finding the light switch, she flicked it on.
    A faded earth-brown carpet, with a dim flower and vine pattern, covered the hardwood floor. Several mismatched chairs and tables stood, like a lopsided row of sentries, along the left hand wall. Crack-surfaced oil paintings of the former owner’s nineteenth Century relatives dotted the same wall, providing oval breaks in the wide-stripe design of the wall paper.
    “Let us assume Uncle H took the place furnished,” said Cole. “I’d hate to think those blokes are hanging on some remote branches of Smitty’s family tree.”
    Nellie was following her nose. “His workshop must be back here.” She walked to the hall’s end and through a curtained door.
    Dawdling along, Cole studied one or two of the oil portraits. “Here’s an imposing chap. A beard like that might add something to my already impressive appearance,” he said. “Though perhaps this beard on this fellow is the more striking. Yes, I do believe the little scarlet bows tied in it are—
    Something crashed over in the room Nellie had gone into. Rattling metal, smashing glass.
    “Nell?”
    Cole dashed down the hall, dived for the curtains.
    “Blackjack!” warned Nellie from inside.
    Cole executed a sudden stop, almost a movie cartoon stop, raveling the carpet underfoot. Instead of plunging through the doorway, he grabbed at the curtains and pulled them, pole and all, down.
    A crewcut young man in a blue and gold team sweater was standing there, awkwardly, with a blackjack raised above his head.
    Behind him, in a room cluttered with work tables and scientific equipment, Nellie was struggling with another similarly clad young man.
    “Some sort of initiation prank, my lad?” Cole asked the surprised youth.
    “I’ll initiate you, buddy.” The wide-shouldered young man jumped at Cole, swinging the blackjack.
    “Didn’t know they gave letters in sapping.” Cole dodged, thrust out a foot.
    The boy tripped, tumbled out into the hall and fell into the tangle of pulled-down curtains.
    Abandoning him for the moment, Cole went to the aid of the girl. “Wonderman to the rescue,” he announced as he threw himself at the back of the young man who was trying to throttle Nellie.
    Cole got a full nelson on the youth, then ran him toward the nearest wall. The burly young man’s head thunked into the knotty pine.
    “Crying out loud,” he muttered, weaving as Cole let him go. “I’m dizzy as a . . .” He suddenly straightened and tackled Cole.
    “For shame, trying to play on my sympathies.” The grinning Cole brought up a knee in time to render the tackle unsuccessful.
    This time the youth was really dizzy. He went stumbling backwards, flapping his arms.
    He backed into a workbench, knocked a flask to the floor and then sat down on the resultant shards of broken glass. “Yow!” he exclaimed and jumped up.
    Cole had turned his attention to Nellie. “You okay, pixie?”
    Swallowing a few times, the girl nodded. “Yes,” she managed to say. “He got hold of my throat the minute I stepped over the threshhold.”
    “Looks like we ran into an ambush.” Cole patted her on the shoulder and glanced out into the hallway. “Oops. Our other bird has flown.”
    “Cole, this boy—”
    “Hey there, don’t!” Cole sprinted toward the remaining young man.
    The college boy had just taken a capsule from his pocket. Before Cole reached him he’d swallowed it. “You learn nothing from me, my friend.”
    Thirty seconds later he lay dead on the floor.
    Shaking his head, Cole stepped away from the body. “Whoever we’re up against this time around . . . they play for high stakes.”

CHAPTER VIII

“What a Revolting Development This Is!”
    Carrying a bunch of roses