The Avenger 7 - Stockholders in Death Read Online Free PDF

correct.
    Luckow’s eyes, like dully polished stones, were duller than usual as, for the fourth time, he went over what Tom Crimm had told him.
    “Funny,” he said, “that your dad would have the stock sent to the bank when it was the bank he was thinking of fighting. If he didn’t trust ’em why’d he let the stuff get near enough for ’em to sink their hooks in it?”
    “He says he didn’t,” said Tom. “He says he ordered the stock delivered to his home.”
    “And it was sent to the bank instead,” mused Luckow. “Who’d be the guy to send it out?”
    “Dad did business through the firm of Haskell, Lampert & Klein, on the New York Exchange. Particularly through Haskell, I guess. Probably it was Haskell who sent out the Ballandale Corp. stock.”
    Luckow pressed a buzzer on his desk.
    “I think we have something there, kid,” he said softly. “This guy, Haskell, may have a few things he’d like to talk about—if he’s approached the right way.”
    Tim, the man who looked like a mean cat with a grouch against the whole world, padded in in answer to the desk buzzer.
    “Tim, get Blinky and go with Tom here. Tom’ll show you where. There’s a guy he knows who may have something to say that we’d like to hear. Tom’ll do the questioning. You and Blinky will do the work of loosening his tongue.”
    For an instant, faint apprehension came over Tom’s face. He had tied in with a tough gang just because they were tough; he had tough work ahead of him. But the sinister overtones in Luckow’s voice as he spoke of “loosening” Haskell’s tongue sent a chill to Tom’s spine.
    He snapped out of that momentary weakness, though. His father had been robbed of his fortune and murdered. Anything that happened to men who could do things like that—anything—would be better than they deserved.
    “You’re going with us, aren’t you?” he said to Nick Luckow.
    The mob leader smiled a little, softly, dangerously. It had been some time since he went with his boys on a job. He preferred to let others take their chances with New York’s excellent cops.
    “I’ll stay here,” he said. “I got some thinking to do. Luck to you, kid.”
    Tom and the two called Tim and Blinky went out to a sedan parked in front of the hotel.
    “So?” said Tim softly, at the wheel.
    Tom gave the address of Harry Haskell, his father’s broker.

    Haskell lived in a rather small penthouse on Riverside Drive. When the car pulled up to the building, Tim and Blinky hung back at the door.
    “You go in, kid,” said Tim smoothly. “You know the ropes in these joints and you look slicker than we do. Get the guy in the lobby to look another way and we’ll catch up to you at the elevators.”
    Tom went in. No one so easy to fool as a wise guy.
    “To see Mr. Haskell,” he said, at the lobby desk.
    “Just a moment, please,” the night man said.
    He turned to a house phone. And as he turned, like twin shadows, the two Luckow men left the doorway and slid past his back to the automatic elevators.
    The night man turned back to Tom.
    “Mr. Haskell says it’s too late to see anybody. He is ready to retire.”
    “Say it’s about Ballandale,” said Tom.
    The night man nodded as he turned from the instrument a second time. “He’ll see you. Twenty-first floor. Penthouse.”
    Tom got in the cage where Blinky and Tim were pressed to one side, out of the night man’s sight. He pushed the button for the 21st floor.
    Tom’s heart was thudding hard as they went up. He was leaving the straight road entirely, now. No one knew that any better than he did. Haskell wouldn’t talk short of torture.
    Well, let it come. The end justified the means. If he could turn up his father’s murderer this way—
    The door was opened the instant Tom knocked. A wary, slightly frightened face peered out. The face of Haskell, himself, not a servant. The mention of Ballandale had upset him and made him secretive, all right.
    “Crimm! I don’t understand,