The Happy Killers by Kenneth Robeson

Author:Kenneth Robeson [Robeson, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Action & Adventure, Pulp Action
Published: 2009-08-24T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X - Girl Trouble

Smitty thought this was about the weirdest affair, this business of the laughing killers, that they'd worked on yet. They went here; they hurried there. They fought a gang of rats that sometimes laughed like maniacs and sometimes didn't.

There was no logic to it. Weird was a mild word for it. Yet, the giant had an uneasy hunch that it wasn't at all weird to The Avenger. He felt that behind the pale, glacial eyes, in the appalling brain, a pattern was already clearly forming.

They were all up in the big Bleeker Street headquarters room. Josh had just finished reporting, being pretty resentful about it when he came to the ingratitude of the blond, whom Dick Benson had identified for him as Edna Brown.

The Avenger turned to the door. None of the rest had heard any sound, but his quick ears had caught one. The door opened and Mac came in. He wore a lab coat over his bony frame.

"Did you analyze the sample from the beaker in Tate's laboratory?" Dick asked.

Mac nodded. "And found nothin' to get excited about Muster Benson. Unless there's somethin' there that I haven't the knowledge to locate."

"If you can't locate it, it isn't there," Dick said quietly. The Scot reddened with pleasure. "What did you find?"

Mac shrugged. "Laughing gas. To be more specific, the scrapings from Tate's beaker seem to be nitrous oxide, obtained by mixing solutions of hydroxylamine hydrochloride and sodium nitrite in the usual manner. Then it was cooled under pressure to a liquid, boiled, then evaporated to form a white solid. Which would be yer laughin' gas pills."

Benson said, "Just nitrous oxide. Laughing gas solidified into pills. That would produce a mild form of intoxication, a semi-immunity to pain, and perhaps increased physical strength for a short time. Cases of that have been known. But it would not account for amplifying the murder lust that lies in all men. There was no trace of any other drug, Mac?"

"If there was, I missed it." The bony Scot shrugged.

The Avenger paced slowly up and down one end of the enormous room, eyes like frozen jewels in his mask-like face.

"I think I begin to get some of this," Nellie said hopefully. "Beak Nailen and his gang robbed Brown just for the money and jewels they knew were in the safe. Then they saw the formula that came with the loot and realized that they had something big. They had something they could feed to gunmen that would make them brave as lions, immune to pain, and would deaden their conscious wills enough so that when they were told to kill someone, they'd go out and do it without question."

She looked at The Avenger, but Dick was still pacing and she didn't know if he was listening or not.

"Nailen trailed Brown the next day and saw that he came here for help. He fed some of the pills to a man of his, and sent him to the drugstore to kill Mac and Wilson before they could start fighting his gang.

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