Free The Avenger 16 - The Hate Master by Kenneth Robeson Page A

when even his steel frame was taxed beyond endurance.
    Morel was a great scientist. And it had taken him a year and a half to produce finally the red liquid with which he had injected the guinea pigs just before he was taken from Maine. If he was taken and had not gone off of his own volition.
    It was a commentary on The Avenger’s vast ability that he now had a little vial full of red liquid, like Morel’s, which he had managed to synthesize from scratch in only a couple of days. One of his innumerable tests with the blood of the mad pigeons had finally put him on the track.
    He had duplicated the serum. Which, he figured, was about two fifths of the job he had cut out for himself.
    There was a soft buzz as Nellie, in the top-floor room, called on the laboratory phone. Dick picked up the instrument.
    “Yes?”
    “Smitty talking, chief,” came the giant’s voice.
    “Yes, Smitty. Where are you? What has happened?”
    Smitty told briefly what had happened.
    “Josh and I are morally sure, now, that Ritter is in this. He’s the head man. But there’s no proof of anything, yet. In the meantime, we’ve been buzzing around that blimp. We got a sample of dirt from the grappling hook, and a government soil-conservation man was able to tell us the approximate Michigan section it came from. We went around that spot till we found an old duffer in a village who swore he’d seen a balloon or something a couple of times at night, near there. Village called Knightstown. We’re here now, trying to find the hangar the blimp was kept in, if possible.”
    “Good work,” said Dick, voice even and calm. “Keep in touch with me. Things are moving faster, I believe.”
    He didn’t bother to explain, and Smitty knew better than to ask for explanations.
    “O K,” said the big fellow. He hung up. And then Nellie’s voice came to Benson.
    “Another call came in while you were talking to Smitty,” Nellie said. “I’m holding it on another wire. It’s for Lila Morel. Do you want to hear it?”
    Dick hesitated. Every phone call into the headquarters was recorded. He could hear any conversation later. But he thought he’d better listen to actual voices; sometimes there were slight overtones which a recording missed.
    “Yes,” he said. “Is Lila ready now?”
    “She’s ready.”
    “Then go ahead.”
    So the call from outside sounded on the phone in the lab as well as on one of the battery of phones in the big room.
    “Kinnisten, Maine, calling,” came the long-distance operator’s voice. “A call for Miss Lila Morel. Person to person.”
    “This is Lila Morel,” came Lila’s voice over the phone.
    “Go ahead, please,” said the operator.
    A man’s voice sounded. “Hello. Lila?”
    “Yes? Oh, Dad! It’s you! We were all so worried. What happened to you? Where are—”
    “This is Dad, Lila,” came the man’s voice. “I’m at the Maine place. I don’t know just how long I’ll be here. I have to leave for the West. I can’t explain now.”
    “Dad, what’s it all about?” pleaded Lila. “You—”
    “I called to tell you I’m safe and well,” said Morel. “And to tell you not to try to find me.”
    “But, Dad, I must see you—”
    The voice went on as if she hadn’t spoken.
    “I’m all right, but very busy. Just stop trying to find me, and I’ll see you soon. Good-by, Lila.”
    “Dad—wait—”
    But the line was dead. The scientist had hung up.
    Dick Benson replaced his phone slowly on its cradle. His pale, infallible eyes held the icy glitter that was theirs when The Avenger was thinking out something that could not quite be explained at the moment, but which struck the man of genius as important.
    There was something about that phone call; something peculiar.
    He couldn’t place it; so he went back to his test tubes.

    In the Michigan village of Knightstown, Smitty and Josh set out to find the place where that blimp had been kept hidden.
    “You’d think it would be easy,” said Josh. “A