Free The Avenger 18 - Death in Slow Motion by Kenneth Robeson Page A

Mac.
    “Mac, I want you to go to the rear-house and get a picture of one of the occupants. Any one of them will do. Come back as soon as you can with it, and we’ll develop and enlarge it at once.”

    On the near corner of the street intersection down from the alley on which was the rear-house, there was a newsstand.
    The boy-tending it was one of the few youngsters who did not know about The Avenger. But he was a sharp-eyed lad, and the dour Scot with the bleak but honest eyes won his confidence in a moment.
    “Sure,” said the lad, “I know that falling-down old packing box where Old Mitch lives. Boy, if a fire ever got going on that crate—”
    “Do you know who lives in it?” asked Mac.
    “Yeah! I’ve seen all of ’em coming and going enough to get wise to the layout. There’s four rooms, see? Two upstairs and two down. They’re all rented. The two upstairs have outside stairways in the back, so each can have a private entrance. One stairway comes down on the left side to a kind of walk to the alley, and one comes down the right side to another walk. And each of the two downstairs rooms has its door.”
    Mac nodded; he had observed those four entrances for the four rooms.
    “Old Mitch lives in the right-hand room downstairs,” the boy continued. “Over him lives some woman. Scrubwoman, I guess; she looks like it. Downstairs on the left, there’s a guy I’ve only seen a coupla times. But I know about him. He’s a pick-pocket. Johnny the Dip, he’s called. Over him is a guy who buys papers from me. He has a twisted leg and works in an office somewhere.”
    Mac nodded again. It all checked with what he knew, except for this Johnny the Dip. That occupant, he hadn’t known of before. But that explained the massive locks on the one door, the portal beside Old Mitch’s.
    A crook would quite logically have heavy locks to stall any unexpected raid till he could destroy evidence.
    Mac thanked the lad, told him to say nothing of the questioning or of his presence around there and went into the alley.
    It was nearly dusk, now. And in the alley it was quite dark.
    The dour Scot went to a point beyond the rear-house, which was without lights anywhere, and settled down on his haunches behind a barricade formed of two battered refuse cans.
    He drew out a small camera that was the finest made and which had several of Benson’s ideas incorporated in it. The result was a camera to turn a photographer green with envy.
    To the camera, Mac attached a small battery flashbulb.
    He waited, unseen there; and as he waited, he went over the short list of occupants in his mind. An old tramp, who could hardly be called a tramp as long as he had the determination to house himself with his own efforts, no matter how squalid his, shelter was. A woman who looked like a scrubwoman. A bookkeeper a cut above such a neighborhood, but living in it so that his wife could rid herself of lung trouble in Arizona. And a pickpocket.
    Quite an assortment.
    The old man had inadvertently gotten a touch of the malady from which workmen were dying like flies. At the gasket factory? Possibly. From his ingrate son, who dressed well and drove a new small car but gave his old father blows instead of support? Perhaps, though there had been nothing wrong with the son at that factory. From one of the other three in the rear house? That seemed the most logical of all.
    Mac tensed. There had been steps in the alley toward the street. One of the occupants of the rickety house was approaching. He looked over the two refuse cans.
    It was dark, but his eyes were accustomed to it. Dimly he saw a dapper figure coming toward him. The figure went to the door beside Old Mitch’s, and there was a clink as many keys jangled on a key ring.
    Johnny the Dip.
    Mac stood up, deliberately making a noise as he did it. The man at the door with the massive locks whirled in alarm.
    There was a blinding flash, and Mac had a perfect picture of the fellow, face-on, at close