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

huh?” The detective looked at the dead man in pajamas with the shears in his back. “And one of these guys did it, huh? Well, we’ll take ’em to headquarters. A little persuasive talk will turn our murderer out.”
    Benson doubted that. He doubted that any of these men, all hard cases from the look of them, could be made to say a word. He believed that they’d be sprung in an hour. He was sure they weren’t working for themselves, but for some man of wealth and respectability who could hire the best of lawyers.
    But he didn’t say that. Nor did he say anything about the cigar case, which he had whipped into his inner pocket when the gang made their surprise entrance.
    He took the case with him when he and Smitty went back to Bleek Street, after a lot more questioning.
    There, on Dick Benson’s big desk, they opened it. The thing that had rattled around inside like a pebble fell out on the desk top. And Smitty breathed hard with astonishment while The Avenger stared with his icy pale eyes glittering like stainless-steel chips.
    The thing was a gold crown, torn from a human tooth.

CHAPTER X

Blank Paper
    Everyone was gone from the Bleek Street headquarters save Nellie and Harriet Smith and Rosabel, Josh Newton’s pretty wife. They were all out working on the Farquar blackmail case.
    And now, on the murder of Salloway. One of the three big-time blackmailers was dead, leaving just the two to cope with in Farquar’s defense. But who had killed Salloway? And why?
    Nellie and Harriet were talking that over. But they were really more concerned with another thing.
    That was the bulky white envelope Nellie had brought back from the house in which Harriet had almost been burned like a piece of scorched toast.
    The name A.A. Ismail, and the address, was on the envelope in pencil. Perhaps the writing of that very address was the one that had left its impression on Smathers’s desk blotter at Farquar’s ofice.
    A name written outside. But that was all.
    Presumably, Smathers had taken that envelope, secretly and late at night, to Ismail’s house. Possibly, it was for this that he had been killed, after which his body had been taken to the freight yard.
    Presumably, it was to retrieve that envelope, suddenly remembered, that the killer had returned to the house and caught and nearly killed Harriet Smith.
    All these things in the envelope. And there was nothing in it! Nothing, that is, but a thick sheaf of blank paper folded to resemble, from the outside of the sealed envelope, a lot of documents.
    Just blank paper. The Avenger had tried every test known to science to see if invisible writing came out on the paper—and a few tests known to no one but himself—and nothing had appeared.
    Worthless blank paper in a sealed envelope, with murder and sudden death inexplicably revolving around it.
    Incidentally, investigation had disclosed that there was no such person as A.A. Ismail. At least, not at that address. The house was owned by a bank which had foreclosed a mortgage. It had been lived in for many years by a Mr. Watkins, who had gone away some months before. No one in the neighborhood or connected with the bank had ever heard of anyone called Ismail.
    “It’s crazy,” said Nellie, staring at the envelope. “People don’t kill for nothing. And this seems to be nothing.”
    “I’m not so sure,” said Harriet suddenly.
    “What do you mean?”
    The two made an attractive picture—Nellie, dainty and small and blonde, Harriet taller and more mature but almost equally pretty.
    “I think I’ve seen envelopes like this before,” said Harriet.
    “You have?” Nellie’s eyes flashed. “Where?”
    Harriet seemed to think that over a long time, as if wondering whether to say it or not. But finally she did.
    “I think I’ve seen that kind of envelope, with that kind of watermark, at the offices of the Beall Paper Manufacturing Company.”
    Nellie’s keen brain caught several curious hints in those words and promptly