The Avenger 7 - Stockholders in Death by Kenneth Robeson Read Free Book Online Page A

Warning!
    Next night the light burned again in the directors’ room of Town Bank. And that light illuminated very grave and worried faces!
    The faces of Grand and Wallach, Rath and Birch, were worried enough tonight. Also, frightened. All, that is, save the thin countenance of Wallach.
    The director who looked as bland as a deacon was rubbing his dry thin hands together slowly and smiling a little.
    “Maisley was badly scared,” he murmured. “Maisley might have talked. So Maisley was taken care of. You see? We are all quite safe.”
    Birch’s choleric, red face was a shade paler than usual. He moistened his lips.
    “I wonder how it was made to look so much like an accident?” he mused. “His coupé was found on the rocks beneath Suicide Heights. He was found in it, smashed like a—like a bug in a gear wheel. What made him drive over the edge like that?”
    “What do you care?” said Wallach, with his dry smile.
    “Oh, I don’t really care,” said Birch hastily, glancing around as if afraid death would hear him.
    The four looked at each other covertly; had been doing so all evening. None of them seemed to know just who was responsible for the clueless death of Theodore Maisley. Wallach, with his bland, deacon’s placidity? Birch, the choleric and blustering? Rath, pompous and loud-spoken? Grand, wide-shouldered and arrogant?
    “When this started,” said Grand, seeming to feel the unspoken question and hastily to answer it, “I didn’t have any idea there’d be murder involved. I don’t like it, gentlemen.”
    “Nor do any of us,” purred Wallach, rubbing thin fingers softly together. “But—what would you do? Crimm had to be put out of the way so that his stock could be kept safely. Maisley had to go, because he might have turned informer on us. Both were attended to. And it has been done so well that no suspicion can ever be attached to any of us. The same with Haskell.”
    “But—murder,” whispered Birch.
    Grand stuck out his big jaw.
    “This Ballandale stock,” he said. “Who’s got it? Which one of us? It isn’t me.”
    Wallach smiled dryly.
    “Of course, each of us would deny having it. I deny it, myself. So, I am sure, would Birch and Rath. What difference does it make which of us has it? The stock is safe, and we will gain control of the corporation in a few days, when the next meeting is scheduled. You all know how much we stand to make out of the transaction. And, afterward, we can dispose of the stock, a small block at a time, and pocket that money, too—”
    Wallach stopped, and stared with a faint look of perplexity at Birch. The blustering, red-faced director was glaring with wide eyes at the door of the conference room. And, now, his face wasn’t even pale; it was a ghostly white.
    Wallach turned to the door. Rath and Grand whirled, too. The door was opening.

    There was no way for anyone to get into the bank after hours, save the banking officials themselves. Yet, that door was opening, and all the directors were in here. The guard wouldn’t be intruding—he’d had orders to stay on the floor below.
    The door swung all the way back. On the threshold stood a man of average height and build, in a gray business suit, looking more like a machine of gray steel than a man.
    The man’s face was as white as Birch’s; but fear had nothing to do with pallor in this case.
    “Who are you?” boomed Grand, jaw out. “How dare you come in here?”
    “How . . . how did you get in, anyway?” stammered Rath.
    Birch tried to talk and couldn’t. Wallach was very still; dry, thin fingers for once not rubbing each other.
    “Good evening, gentlemen,” said the chill, deadly figure in the doorway.
    There was silence as The Avenger stepped into the conference room and calmly closed the door behind him. Grand’s jaw no longer stuck out. Birch’s face was more bloodless than ever.
    “You may have heard of me,” said the white-faced, pale-eyed man. “Richard Benson.”
    Birch swallowed