"Avenger - 4303 - Calling Justice, INC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Avenger)

Corbey grinned. "You bet he will! Just show him the lighted butt!"

Haggard nodded. He turned to Nellie. "Maybe you're Iying. Maybe not. If you've lied about
checking the stuff in the hotel safe, you've gained yourself five or six hours. You're welcome to
them. But believe me, if the stuff isn't in the safe, you'll wish you hadn't talked at all!"


CHAPTER IV.
THE AVENGER.

On Bleek Street in the city of New York there is a modest building upon the front of which
appears a small plaque bearing the cryptic inscription: Justice, Inc. Bleek Street is no
thoroughfare. It is a dead-end street and there are no pedestrians who pass by chance. Only those
enter Bleek Street who are bound for the building of Justice, Inc. And those are people in deadly
need of help. For this is the headquarters of Dick Benson--The Avenger. Having himself passed
through a baptism of fire, his life and his huge fortune have since been devoted to saving others
from the ordeal to which he was subjected. No person who seeks his protection from the overlords of
crime--in whatever part of the world it may be--is denied assistance. The organization which The
Avenger has built-up is small, but compact and deadly efficient. Operating like the well-greased
fighting machine that it is, it clicks on all eight once it rolls into action.

But this evening there was no action at Justice, Inc.

Benson was fiddling idly with the dials of a powerful receiving set while the huge figure of
Smitty, his powerful aid, was cramped into a chair, his huge hand gripping a telephone. Upon the
foreheads of both of them there was a frown of worry.

At last Smitty finished his telephone conversation and racked the phone. He stood up, towering,
big and powerful, Iike some viking god of old, a great figure of a man, with a deep and rumbling
voice.

"There's something wrong, Dick." he said. "The Fleetwood people say that the bus arrived at
Miami fifty minutes ago, If Nellie had been on it she should have phoned by this time. She knows our
standing rule!"

The standing rule was that whenever any one member of Justice Inc., was away from headquarters‹
whether on business or pleasure, he or she must keep in constant touch by phone, radio or wire.
There was good and sufficient reason for that rule; Justice, Inc. had made itself many terrible
enemies in the course of its constant battle against crime. And every member of the organization
walked always in the shadow of death. Therefore, the precaution of constant communication. If
headquarters failed to hear from a missing member on time. the others immediately swung into action.

"Did anyone leave the bus along the route?" Benson asked, still fiddling with the radio.

"The clerk didn't say," Smitty grumbled. "In fact he was damned close-mouthed. I gave him
Nellie's description and I thought he was going to say something, but he changed his mind and asked
for my number. Then there was trouble on the line and we were disconnected."

"I don't like it," said Benson. "Nellie must be in a jam. Phone Holloway. Tell him I want the
fastest plane in the hangar. That converted Beaufort fighter will do‹the one the British government