The Avenger 24 - Midnight Murder

Also In This Series

By Kenneth Robeson

#1: J
USTICE
, I
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.
#2: T
HE
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ELLOW
H
OARD
#3: T
HE
S
KY
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ALKER
#4: T
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EVIL

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#5: T
HE
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ROSTED
D
EATH
#6: T
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B
LOOD
R
ING
#7: S
TOCKHOLDERS
IN
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EATH
#8: T
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LASS
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OUNTAIN
#9: T
UNED
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URDER
#10: T
HE
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MILING
D
OGS
#11: R
IVER
OF
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#12: T
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F
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B
REATHERS
#13: M
URDER
ON
W
HEELS
#14: T
HREE
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OLD
C
ROWNS
#15: H
OUSE
OF
D
EATH
#16: T
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ATE
M
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#17: N
EVLO
#18: D
EATH
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#19: P
ICTURES
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EATH
#20: T
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#21: T
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#22: T
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#23: T
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URSE

WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY

WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY EDITION
F
IRST
P
RINTING
: M
AY
, 1974

C
OPYRIGHT
© 1942
BY
S
TREET
& S
MITH
P
UBLICATIONS
, I
NC
.
C
OPYRIGHT
R
ENEWED
1969
BY
T
HE
C
ONDÉ
N
EST
P
UBLICATIONS
, I
NC
.
A
LL
R
IGHTS
R
ESERVED

T
HIS
W
ARNER
P
APERBACK
L
IBRARY
E
DITION
IS
P
UBLISHED
BY
A
RRANGEMENT
W
ITH
T
HE
C
ONDÉ
N
EST
P
UBLICATIONS
. I
NC
.

C
OVER
I
LLUSTRATION
BY
G
EORGE
G
ROSS

W
ARNER
P
APERBACK
L
IBRARY
IS A
D
IVISION
OF
W
ARNER
B
OOKS,
75 R
OCKERFELLER
P
LAZA
, N.Y. 10019.

A Warner Communications Company
ISBN: 0-446-75-483-8

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

MIDNIGHT MURDER

CHAPTER I: Bald Knob

CHAPTER II: A Bit of Steel

CHAPTER III: Seen in Darkness

CHAPTER IV: Battle in the Night

CHAPTER V: Beautiful—And Deadly

CHAPTER VI: Where IS Wight?

CHAPTER VII: Painted Trails

CHAPTER VIII: Imported Death

CHAPTER IX: Town Laboratory

CHAPTER X: Sealed Tomb

CHAPTER XI: The Shouting Man

CHAPTER XII: Crash Landing!

CHAPTER XIII: At Midnight

MIDNIGHT
MURDER

CHAPTER I
Bald Knob

The airport’s radio man had a hunch that something was wrong.

He had nothing to base it on; he just had a hunch. But the hunch of a man concerning the one thing in the world he is most familiar with, his job, is not a thing to dismiss too lightly.

It concerned the small cabin plane now headed straight west, in a path never followed by sensible pilots leaving this particular Pennsylvania field.

The reason no regular pilot ever took that line was that less than four miles ahead the high hill called Bald Knob reared straight up for seventeen hundred feet. And unless a pilot were prepared for it, he wouldn’t have attained that altitude in such a short run from the port.

“I hope those guys know what they’re doing,” he said to the youth who was breaking into the business as his assistant here.

“I guess they know, all right,” said the youth. “The pilot’s Wayne Carroll. One of the best the army’s got. They don’t make ’em any better than Wayne.” He shifted gum from right to left. “Testing out some new instrument, aren’t they?”

“Guess so,” said the radio man gloomily. “They sure kept everybody from going near that plane, after Aldrich Towne got here, carrying something or other in a sealed suitcase.”

He sighed with relief.

The plane, a small job of the transport-feeder type that carried six passengers, had turned in its course when it was very near Bald Knob. It banked around and went away from it.

“Good,” he said. “I don’t like it when they head right at straight-up-and down cliffs.”

Sun poured into the glassed-in little room. He said into his mike, “You all right up there, Wayne?”

“Sure,” came the voice of Wayne Carroll from the plane. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

Well, the radio man wouldn’t know that. He just had that hunch, that was all—a cool feeling on the back of the neck that made him shift uneasily in his chair.

“Wonder what they’re testing,” said the youth beside him. “They sure watched that plane.”

Yes, they had surely watched it.

After the ground men had got it out of its hangar and it stood with the prop turning idly for the take-off, a mechanic from General Laboratories had gone over it practically with a microscope.

Watching the mechanic, from a little distance, was distinguished Chester Grace, another big-shot scientist from General Laboratories. And, as if watching him, Captain Wayne Carroll, pilot, and two officers from the army procurement department stood nearby.

No one else was allowed in the vicinity.

The mechanic had gone into the plane cabin with Aldrich Towne, carrying the suitcase. The mechanic had come out without either Towne or the suitcase; Towne had stayed inside. Then, at a wave of Towne’s hand, the two officers and Wayne Carroll joined him in there.

The motors roared briefly, the plane lurched over the field and took off, with everyone connected with the airport still at a distance.

All very mysterious.

Then the plane had headed straight for Bald Knob as if suicidally inclined. It had banked and turned away when a short distance from it. But now it had turned again and was once more speeding toward the sheer-rock wall like a crazy man determined to knock his own brains out.

Which also was very mysterious.

Towne, in the plane, said, “You saw what happened without the detector. The usual thing—no warning at all. Now, we will see what happens with it.”

The procurement officers nodded their heads, attention highly concentrated on their reason for being here.

“Right at it?” said Pilot Wayne Carroll, eying the cliff dubiously.

“Right at it,” said Towne pedantically.

Aldrich Towne talked like a school teacher. He looked like one, too. He was about fifty, tall and lean and spare and with the appearance of one who was so immaculately clean that if dirt fell on him it would roll right off again. He wore shiny pince-nez glasses.

“What is that thing set for?” asked one of the procurement officers.

“A thousand yards,” said Towne primly. “In practice, with high-performance ships, it will be better to make five thousand yards the zero point, the warning point. At eight miles a minute you need that much distance. But for purpose of display, I thought one thousand yards would be more illustrative.”

“It’s illustrative, all right,” said the pilot. “Awful close, if you ask me, even with a slow crate like this.”

And he stared at that cliff which was rushing toward them. It seemed, by now, as if they could see every crack in the rock.

Towne shrugged. “I hold my life as dear as any of you. This near approach is to show you what utter confidence I have in the device.”

The plane kept darting at the sheer and dangerous cliff, more than ever like a man determined to bat his brains out against a wall.

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