Kenneth Robeson - The Avenger 16 by The Hate Master

Author:The Hate Master
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-20T15:19:28+00:00

Chapter XI

Into the Trap

There was an excellent reason why The Avenger burst into action without even waiting for Smitty to finish his report.

The phone call from Morel, some hours ago!

The scientist had called from the Maine laboratory, it seemed, through the nearest exchange which was Kinnisten, Maine. He had said he was safe, but couldn’t take time to explain anything and would probably have to leave right away for the West.

Now, the very first thing that had happened after that call, of course, was Lila’s urgent request that she be allowed to rush up there and see if she could catch her father and have a few words with him before he left for another indefinite and unexplained period.

Benson had rather reluctantly agreed and had sent Mac along to guard her.

There seemed no reason not to do this, though Dick had been instinctively uneasy. After all, from the first, there had been no proof that Morel hadn’t left the clearing of his own free will.

Smitty’s work with the thermocouple showed how a kidnaping might have occurred from the air, where at first glance such would seem impossible.

But there was no proof of such a thing, and Morel’s call had cast further doubt upon it. And it had been Morel! Lila knew her father’s voice without a shadow of a doubt. So it had seemed all right. A man wouldn’t mislead his own daughter.

Now, Morel had been seen in Michigan, hundreds of miles from the spot from where he had ostensibly phoned. And many things had clicked into place in Benson’s brain.

The queer monotony of Morel’s voice over the phone! The way he had kept right on talking in spite of Lila’s questions and exclamations! Morel had answered none of those questions; had replied to none of her statements. The voice had just gone on.

Why? Because it wasn’t Morel! That phone call had been a recording of Morel’s voice, played in advance and run before a telephone in Maine when the owner of the voice was nowhere near there.

“Nellie!” The Avenger called, eyes like pale ice with cold flame behind them.

The elaborate scheme meant only one thing?a trap!

Their enemy had decided, for reasons of his own, that Morel’s daughter must know too much and must be killed. Morel had been drugged or tricked into making that phonograph record because the gang was shrewd enough to know that the girl’s first move, after hearing from her absent father, would be to hurry up and try to contact him. In which case she could be murdered at leisure.

“Nellie!”

“Yes, chief.”

The diminutive blonde appeared in the doorway. Her satin-smooth cheeks were pink, and in her blue eyes was the light of excitement.

“Mac and Lila Morel have left for Morel’s Maine laboratory, near Kinnisten,” said Dick.

“Yes, I know.”

“I find out now,” The Avenger went on, “that it is almost certainly a trap. They’ve been drawn up there by a false telephone call. Take the fastest plane and go after them.”

“And just bring them back?” said Nellie, looking disappointed.

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