The Avenger 7 - Stockholders in Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

end. The men talked in whispers to be sure the night guard—even though he was a floor below and many feet to the rear—could not catch even a syllable.
    “We’ve got to give this thing up!” insisted one man. He almost whimpered it. He was horribly frightened and did not trouble to hide it. Fear rode high in his spectacled blue eyes. Fear distorted his lean, long-nosed face and made his pudgy body tremble.
    The man was Theodore Maisley, president of the bank. The person he was addressing most directly was Lucius Grand, one of the directors.
    Lucius Grand was tall and broad-shouldered, and had a jaw like a snowplow. He had stony eyes, too, which were not being softened any as they turned on Maisley.
    “Get hold of yourself, Maisley,” he said, with contempt in his voice. “Everything is going fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
    The three other directors nodded agreement with Grand.
    The three were Robert Rath, Louis Wallach and Frederick Birch. Rath was pompous and plump and loud-spoken. Wallach was thin and a little stooped, with the face of a deacon and a voice so soft it was almost a whisper. Birch was choleric and red-faced, but with a sort of emptiness in his blurry gray eyes which indicated that behind all the bluster was a wide streak of yellow.
    “I tell you we’re heading into terrible trouble,” bleated Maisley, the president. “We’ve got to give it up.”
    “What would you suggest that we do, Maisley?” asked Wallach in his soft, near-whisper. He rubbed his thin, dry hands together like a bishop about to pronounce benediction.
    Maisley fearfully outlined his ideas of what they should do.
    “We ought to burn that damned stock. If it’s ever found in our possession we’ll get jail for life. Maybe the electric chair! Don’t forget Joe Crimm.”
    “Burn the stock?” It was a maddened bellow from Grand.
    “Ssh,” said Wallach quickly. “Ssh! The bank guard—”
    “Burn the stock?” Grand said in a lower tone. “Are you crazy?”
    “But Crimm—”
    “Is dead,” said choleric, red-faced Birch, voice as blustering in its carefully low-pitched tone as if he had shouted. “And he died naturally. Don’t forget that. A heart attack. They don’t put people in the electric chair for a heart attack.”
    “The stolen stock, though,” Maisley persisted, wiping sweat from his forehead. “That’s grand larceny. Damned grand—$2,380,000 worth.”
    “That will be taken care of,” said plump and pompous Rath. “Joseph Crimm was taken care of, wasn’t he? Well, this will be taken care of, too. All we have to do is—”
    “You all seem to forget that there is a very weak point,” interrupted Maisley. “Crimm ordered the stock delivered to his home. You know that, don’t you? He was specific about it. Sent a note in his own handwriting to his broker. Instead of that, the broker, Haskell, deliberately delivered the stock to the bank, as we had ordered. Now, Haskell is a weak spot. If he ever talks—”
    “He won’t talk,” whispered Wallach, rubbing his thin hands together. “That, also, will be attended to. You’ll see.”
    “I’m against this,” persisted Maisley. “My vote is to drop the whole matter. Millions from the eventual sale of the stock? More millions from voting control of Ballandale Glass? What of it? The millions won’t do you any good if we get tripped up. Out-and-out crime like this—”
    His voice died uncertainly at the look in the eyes of Grand and Wallach and Rath.
    Maisley, with shreds of honesty still clinging to his petty soul, was in a bad spot. He was afraid of what might grow out of all this. But he was afraid of his associates, too.

    Theodore Maisley, president of Town Bank, was not the only one to whom the weak spot in the crime plan was apparent. There were others thinking along that line. Right at the moment, in fact.
    The Avenger had said that Nicky Luckow, Public Enemy No. 1 in the East, was smart in an animal sort of way. And he was