Free The Avenger 11 - River of Ice by Kenneth Robeson Page B

battles.
    “Well,” said Smitty, towering in the room, “he isn’t to blame for any of our recent troubles. Wonder what killed him?” It took a lot of searching to find that out.
    The Avenger took out a small bit of what seemed to be dark violet paper. But the paper was coated with a special methyl stain of MacMurdie’s concoction to detect gunfire. Hours after a gun had been fired in a room, this stain would pick up the faint remaining fumes and turn to bluish-green. The paper retained its color, showing that no gun had been fired in this room, at least not for a long time.
    Conroy’s body, on examination, seemed to be completely unmarked. You’d have thought the man had simply lain down on the divan and peacefully died of a heart attack. Or perhaps he had committed suicide in some subtle way, since it was apparent that his servants had been sent away from the place.
    Then The Avenger’s sensitive, steel-strong fingers found something. They had been searching Conroy’s scalp, through the thick, reddish hair. There was a tiny projection above the left ear, not quite as far from the ear as from a point at the exact top of the skull. Benson stared closer. Something like the end of a needle was just barely seen in the scalp—with the other end far down in the brain beneath.
    Into the stainless steel chips of eyes came the diamond glitter that meant The Avenger had suddenly discovered a great deal. He straightened up and stared at the curiously staring giant and the equally curious Scot. “From the mists of the past,” said Benson, pale lips scarcely moving in his paralyzed face, “the ruthless ancients teach the modern crook. But not, it would seem, too well.”
    “Huh?” said Smitty.
    The colorless, terrible eyes turned on him; and the giant experienced a funny feeling at the pit of his stomach, as even friends did when those pale-agate orbs rested on them. Benson’s lips barely moved in his paralyzed face. “I told you about the sample manuscript, the ancient bundle of hides, Lini Waller brought to New York as an example of the archaeological wonders of those caves,” he said. “I told you that the ancient record they chanced to pick at random was a volume dealing with the medicinal and surgical skill of that lost race. Well, among other things, it is told in the record how they made slaves by a brain operation that robbed the victim of conscious will, turned him into a robot that moved and talked as its master commanded. But it was hardly complicated enough to be called an operation. It consisted of very simply, and diabolically, driving a slim metal wedge into the brain at precisely the right area to paralyze the seat of will. Whoever we are after, has learned this trick from a study of the manuscript.”
    The pale, clear eyes narrowed. “I think this was done to Lini Waller. It would explain the way she is apparently working against her own interests. She’s an automation docilely working toward her own destruction. And that would explain why I was unable to hypnotize her. There was no conscious will there to hypnotize.”
    Smitty jabbed a colossal thumb in the direction of the divan. “But Conroy wasn’t turned into a robot. Conroy was turned into a corpse.”
    The Avenger nodded. “By accident,” his calm, cold voice came in reply. “I have said the ancients seem to have taught the modern crook the robot trick—but not too well. This is a delicate operation, simple as the actual penetration of the brain appears to be. The metal must go into the exact segment of the brain. If it strays to right or left, even a fraction of an inch, the victim dies—as Conroy did. It would appear that someone wanted Conroy to become an automation obeying crooked orders, perhaps wanted him to be a scapegoat in case trouble developed. But the needle didn’t go exactly where it should have gone; so Conroy died!”
    Mac was staring at the bizarre picture presented by the dead man and his immediate surroundings. The