The Avenger 10 - The Smiling Dogs (15 page)

Josh knew, now, what The Avenger, it was apparent, had known for some time.

“Practical joke?” he burst out. “Why, say! This is the threat that was held over the Senators! This is the thing that’s making them willing to put over the Bison Park steal, even though it means their finish politically.”

Rosabel nodded, dark eyes bright.

“They’d see this impossible sight,” she said, “and be convinced they were going crazy. They wouldn’t dare tell anyone about it. They wouldn’t dare even talk to each other about it. They’d be too afraid of being put in padded cells.”

“And then,” added Josh, “they’d be horrified to find that someone, probably this psychiatrist, Fram, had ‘discovered’ their secret. They could be threatened with a lifetime in an asylum if they didn’t do just as they were told!”

One of the almost identical little red midgets spoke up, jerking at Josh’s viselike hand.

“I tell you, it was all done for a joke! The guy who hired us said so. He wanted to play tricks on a couple of senators and a congressman; so we paraded in front of ’em at odd times when nobody else was around. One of ’em, Burnside, shot at me,” he added angrily. “Almost winged me. Then my pal walked into another doorway and drew his attention away from me.”

Josh was puzzling over something.

“How can you live in steam?” he said.

“Live in steam? You’re nuts,” his captive snapped. For a miniature, he was certainly bad-tempered.

“In Bison Park,” exclaimed Josh, remembering Mac’s and Smitty’s account of seeing a little red man and a green dog in the heart of the steam column from lost Geyser.

“Bison Park? We were never in Bison Park in our lives,” snarled the little man.

“You had the dogs’ vocal cords cut, so they couldn’t bark, and make your victim realize that he was seeing something real instead of the fantasy of a disordered mind.”

“We didn’t have the dogs fixed,” protested the little fellow writhing in Rosabel’s resolute grasp. “The guy who hired us must have. Because the dogs never barked when we had ’em. So what? Lots of folks have the bark cut out of a dog, so they won’t keep the neighbors awake at night.”

Josh returned to one of the midgets’ statements.

“You say one of the men you paraded in front of was a congressman.”

“Yeah!”

“Was it Congressman Coolie?”

“Yeah. That’s the one. Congressman Coolie.” The little man scratched his bright-red chin with his bright-red hand. “The one that got bumped off by somebody just last night. He didn’t fall for the joke at all. Just asked us who the devil we were and what the devil we were doing in his house. He threw a chair at me and nearly got me. He wasn’t scared a bit.”

Josh thought he knew the answer to that one, too.

“I looked over that short biographical sketch of Coolie, that I got for Mr. Benson,” he said to Rosabel. “It said the Congressman was color blind. You see? Coolie didn’t see what the rest did. All he saw was a little man with a dog, without the crazy coloring. It wasn’t quite enough to plant the insanity scare in his mind. He held out on the Bison Park deal, therefore, because he wasn’t properly subdued. So they had to kill him to get him out of their way.”

“I think you’re right,” nodded his pretty wife. “But Josh—who are,’they’?”

Josh turned to his diminutive captive. “Who hired you for these practical jokes, to assume for the moment that you aren’t lying?”

“I’m not lying. The guy who hired us was a bony man with a pale face, as if he had been sick a long time. Said his name was Petrie. Just lately he showed up with a cut down his forehead. That’s all we know about him.”

“Josh—” began Rosabel.

But he held his hand quickly to stop her, and she didn’t say whatever it was she’d had in mind.

The upraised hand was not necessary to halt her. She had felt the same thing he had—the thing that had brought the intent look into his black eyes.

A slight tingling at her waist.

That tingling was the vibrating little signal of their belt radios that same other member wanted to contact them. Josh took his radio out with his free hand.

“Hey, that’s a cute little dingbat,” said his midget. “Where do you buy—”

“Shut up!” snapped Josh.

And a tiny but sweet voice came from the little set. An urgent voice. The voice of Nellie Gray.

“Mac—Smitty—Josh—Chief. Nellie Gray talking. If any of you hear this, come to the aid of Nan Stanton and myself. We are being held for death. Come as soon as you can. We are being held in a cell in a tunnel under the Potomac River. The entrance to the tunnel is through a vacant warehouse. Part of the sign over the warehouse is—RAIN CO. Probably some grain company. In the basement, a concealed manhole leads to the tunnel. Watch for a lever about fifty yards from the tunnel entrance. If there is anyone at the lever, get him before he can pull it down. It operates a floodgate which will flood the whole tube. I will repeat. We are held in an abandoned tunnel under the Potomac River. The entrance is through a vacant warehouse with the sign—”

Josh laid his little radio down so as to have both hands free. He grabbed Rosabel’s midget, and held both.

“The dog leashes,” he said. “Get them free, and we’ll tie these two back to back.”

Rosabel’s slim dark hands were flying before he had finished the sentence. The leashes were really of leather thong, with the flowers braided over the outside. Rosabel used one to bind the midgets’ ankles securely together, and the other to pass first around their chests and then in a deft loop over the wrists of each small man.

“Hey!” snarled one of the midgets. “You can’t do this to us. Leave us loose. We ain’t done a thing—”

“We’ll see later just how much you’re guilty of,” said Josh. “Meantime, you’ll stay here, on ice, for a more thorough questioning.”

They left the raging little men and the soundlessly barking dachshunds and piled into their car to seek for a warehouse on the river with the sign:—RAIN CO.

Several miles away, Mac and Smitty were racing on the same mission in their car.

SOS! Nellie Gray! She didn’t have to call twice.

There were few visitors in the Senate gallery. Perhaps it was the earliness of the hour; perhaps it was because no very important legislation was on the slate for the opening.

The Avenger, disguised as Tetlow Adams, looked around.

There were half a dozen middle-aged women, looking as if they might be a small party touring the Capitol. There were several newspaper reporters. And there was a man who seemed to have been able to smuggle a small camera into the gallery. The man was vague-looking, with watery brown eyes, not dressed very well. He had his small camera up between the folds of his coat, where it could only be seen from straight ahead—or by eyes as keen as The Avenger’s.

Just these few in the gallery. And there weren’t many more than that in the room below.

About twenty-five senators were there, reading newspapers, talking in low tones, walking on and off the floor. The rest were in various cloakrooms.

All the senators reported to have had anything to do with Dr. Fram, however, were present. Benson’s eyes went from Wade to Cutten, and Hornblow, and Collendar, and Burnside.

Yes, the Senator taken from The Avenger’s hideout was there. Benson had been sure he would be. It was improbable that Burnside would have been hurt or killed—or permanently detained. His usefulness was there on that Senate floor.

Burnside looked like a man who was ill. His face was pale. His eyes were dull and weary. His shoulders drooped. His fingers drummed nervously on his desk top, and his gaze was confined to those fingers and that desk top. He didn’t look at anyone else.

The rest of the senators whose names were linked with Fram’s were pale and nervous too; but not so much so as Burnside.

It was certainly a sleepy-looking scene. In the gallery, the women tourists looked disappointed. One of the reporters yawned audibly. The man with the concealed camera leaned back in his seat and looked bored, too. And the low buzz from the members of the Senate, down below, was like the sleepy drone from a beehive, or the low talking of a class of boys when teacher is out of the room.

Roll call was taken. Then, as scheduled, a bill was introduced by an elderly representative from Tennessee.

It was not a very startling or interesting bill. It proposed that $4,500,000 of flood control money be allocated to the purpose of building a dam across some little river somewhere in his home state. The proposal didn’t get a ripple from anyone.

The Avenger wasn’t listening to the rambling discourse following the proposal. He was looking down at Senator Burnside, eyes hawk-keen in spite of the colored pupils over his own colorless ones.

Burnside looked as if about to have a seizure of some kind.

He was sitting rigidly in his seat. His hands were clenched over each other so that clear from the gallery Benson could note their strained, milky whiteness. And he was glaring at his desk top as if the thing had suddenly become a great open maw about to engulf him.

Every drop of color had drained from his face. He was trembling a little, all over.

The Senator from Tennessee sat down. And Burnside, after trying twice before he could make his knees support his weight, stood up.

The Avenger leaned forward a little, eyes like ice behind their disguising tissue eyecups.

This was it!

“Mr. President,” quavered Burnside.

“Senator Burnside.”

“I would like to propose an amendment to the bill of the gentleman from Tennessee. It is that the park in my state designated as Bison National Park be thrown open to private bidding for mineral rights.”

One of the reporters in the gallery lifted an eyebrow, but then yawned again. There was no stir on the floor. It was quite true that such a bill might easily become law because few people knew much about the small section named. It would only be afterward that a storm would rage.

Burnside, sweating, trembling so that his colleagues stared curiously at him, rambled on.

Bison Park was small and out-of-the-way. He cited figures of tourists, indicating that few citizens of the United States had any interest in it. The park was expensive to maintain. He told of the money spent annually in upkeep. There was no reason why it should remain under government control—

The Avenger’s pale gaze was on Cutten, now. The other Senator from Montana was shifting in his seat, alternately red with a great anger, and white with a great fear.

But with anger winning out.

Burnside sat down. There was still no commotion at all. In fact, there was practically no interest. Ten years ago, Senator Burnside had been co-sponsor of a bill turning Bison Park over to the government. Now he was sponsoring a bill turning it back to private hands again. So what?

Burnside sat down and Cutten sprang up. In his face was a great resolve. And a determination that made his features seem as if carved out of stone. The Avenger leaned forward tensely, waiting.

Waiting for the storm of condemnation of the amendment to come from Cutten’s lips. For obviously the man intended to blast the park proposal wide open, and to hell with the personal consequences.

The blasting never began.

“Senator Cutten,” droned the chair, in recognition.

But Cutten was not staring at the chair. He was looking down at his desk top. And in his eyes was a horror that was as great as Burnside’s terror of a moment ago.

“The gentleman from Montana wishes to add a few words to Senator Burnside’s proposed amendment before the matter is opened for debate?” asked the chair.

Cutten moistened his lips, but obviously could not speak. He swallowed hard, shook his head and sat down, with no word uttered.

It was complete defeat!

The giant Smitty stared at the sign over the vacant warehouse sprawled on the bank of the Potomac River on the fringe of Georgetown.

Over the door of the building was a big, peeling sign: MURRAIN CO.

“That’ll be it,” said Smitty. “There’s nothing about grain in the sign, but Nellie said it was a vacant warehouse and the sign ended with—RAIN.”

“Ye’re right,” nodded Mac. “Now to get in.”

It was midmorning, but there weren’t many people along here. For the benefit of the few who might observe them, Mac and Smitty stepped from their car and walked openly to the warehouse-office door as if they had business there.

The door was boarded over; but when Smitty tugged at the handle a little, boards and nailheads moved in unison. The boarding was a fake.

So Smitty, vast right hand clutching the knob, exerted a little strength.

The lock, groaning, then screaming thinly like a live thing, came apart. The knob came out with its square stem like some kind of strange fruit plucked stem and all from a tough branch.

Smitty dropped it, reached a ponderous forefinger into the ragged hole, manipulated the bolt mechanism of the ruined lock and the door swung inward.

Mac and the giant entered a small, bare office that was an inch thick with dust—except in a straight line from door to rear partition.

There, many feet had recently scuffed the dust away.