Free The Avenger 14 - Three Gold Crowns by Kenneth Robeson Page A

they’d have fired at each other. But nine to two, they must have thought, were odds enough to insure success.
    That thought was soon altered.
    Dick Benson followed the powerful thrust of the dresser with a flashing charge at the men. One, already up, got a blow to the jaw as scientifically administered as an anesthetic, and acting in the same manner. He crumpled and fell. Another, lunging for Dick’s knees, felt iron fingers press at the back of his neck in a nerve pressure—and then didn’t feel anything else. For that, too, could act as an anesthetic, putting a man out for half an hour.
    Meanwhile, Smitty had swung his vast fists four times. The result was: one man doubled over and trying to get back the breath knocked out of him when knuckles apparently went from his stomach clear to his backbone, two men on the floor with cracked jaws, and one man over against the wall who would not move again. The giant had broken necks before by hitting just a little harder than he meant to. It was difficult to gauge his gigantic strength in the heat of battle.
    There were only three left on their feet and these three wheeled for the door to get away, eyes glazed with fear at these impossible things. But Benson and Smitty had no idea of allowing this.
    The two men had been in here a little over five minutes—an incredibly crowded five minutes—and the police, called by Smitty only a little while after he had contacted The Avenger, were due any second.
    Smitty and Benson were determined that they’d arrive to find nine prisoners. Rather, eight battered prisoners and one dead one.
    Smitty was as fast on his feet as a boy, in spite of his near-three-hundred pounds. He reached the bedroom door almost as quickly as Dick. He saw Benson get a fleeing man by the throat and haul him back as easily as if the fellow had been a child. Then, at the hall door, Smitty reached the other two.
    He grabbed a neck with each hand, then brought his hands together. That was all.
    But that was plenty!
    Two heads tried to occupy the space required by one. There was a hollow thud. Smitty dusted off his hands and looked hungrily around to see if anybody was up and asking for more.
    And then there was the clang of the elevator down the hall and a city detective and a uniformed patrolman galloped in.
    “Hey!” said the detective, looking at the bodies strewn around the place like leaves in autumn. Ten of them in the two rooms. “Hey—”
    He looked at Benson and Smitty. So did the patrolman.
    “Jumping Judas!” said the cop. “You two did this?”
    The detective drew a deep breath. He also drew his gun, fast!
    “We’ll have to take you in, and I don’t want either of you within arm’s length. Not when you can clean up a mob like that, between the two of you— Wait a minute—”
    He looked at Benson, staring into the pale eyes and at the thick, coal-black hair and the impassive, regular-featured face. Then he rubbed his jaw with his left hand while his right let the gun sag a little.
    “Would you be Richard Benson, by any chance?” he asked.
    Benson nodded.
    “Aw, he can’t be Benson,” said the cop. “Benson has white hair. I know all about him.”
    The detective shook his head. “There was a report a while ago on him,” he said. “He had some kind of accident in a factory in Detroit. It made all his hair fall out and it came back the color it had been before—black. And look at the big guy. That’s Smith, who works for Benson. There aren’t two other guys in New York that big! And look at the ones they laid out. Nobody else could do that”
    “Here are my credentials,” said Benson quietly.
    The detective looked at them: Letters from the governor of the state, from the President, from the New York police commissioner. Credentials proving Benson a member of the FBI and an honorary member of the city detective bureau.
    “What has happened here, Mr. Benson?” he asked, very respectfully.
    Dick told him.
    “Salloway murdered,