The Avenger 10 - The Smiling Dogs Read Online Free Page B

Montana, near the city of Bison. There are the usual freak stone formations, several miniature grand canyons, a couple of geysers, mineral springs—”
    “And from mineral springs,” nodded Benson, “some such mixture of salt and sulphur deposit might be lying around. Go out to Bison and find it, Mac. Go with him, Smitty. Take the plane. I want to know just where Aldershot was in Bison Park, before he came in such a hurry to Washington.”

CHAPTER IV

Senatorial Interest
    The eminent psychiatrist Dr. Fram had his office on the first floor of the home he had rented while in Washington. The office took up most of the first floor. There was a large anteroom, which was normally the living room of the place. A heavy double door led to Fram’s private office, formerly a paneled dining room.
    In the big anteroom was Fram’s secretary and assistant. And a glance at her suggested that Fram had excellent taste in secretaries.
    She was rather small, with a figure that could have gone into any floor show, and with dark eyes and soft brown hair, and lips to make a man go around talking to himself. Her name was Nan Stanton, and she had been working for Fram for about a year.
    Because she had worked for him that long, she was frowning perplexedly over a bill that had just come in the doctor’s regular mail. The bill was from a veterinarian’s office. It was for ten dollars but didn’t specify what the ten dollars was to pay for. It was just a bill for ten dollars from a veterinarian.
    That was why Nan Stanton’s soft brown eyes expressed such perplexity. She had worked for Fram for a full year; and to the best of her knowledge, he had no pets of any kind. Certainly he had brought none to Washington with him from his regular New York office. Why, then, a bill for ten dollars from a vet?
    She laid it aside, to ask Fram about it later, as a man came out of her boss’ private office. She smiled at the man as he nodded a farewell to her, and he smiled back.
    The man was Senator Cutten.
    Nan began slitting open other envelopes, and sorting their contents for Dr. Fram. She didn’t know quite how long she was engaged at this routine task, when suddenly she was aware of someone else in the anteroom.
    She looked up—and gasped.
    She was staring into eyes that had so little color as to seem to be pale crystal. And they were as hard as any crystal, too. The eyes were set in a white, dead face that gave you the shivers.
    For an instant, the pale eyes were not meeting hers. Then they flickered up to her face from the thing they had rested on before.
    That thing was the bill from the veterinarian.
    “Good morning,” said the owner of the colorless, deadly eyes and the mask of a face. “My name is Richard Benson. I would like to see Dr. Fram.”
    “I’ll take your name in,” said Nan, staring more curiously than ever. This man was one of the most memorable she had ever seen. But in his remarkable appearance, at least one thing was missing that usually appeared in the eyes of visitors here.
    That was—fear. The people who came here were usually driven by fear! Of a nervous breakdown. Of their mental balance. Of the brain troubles of near and dear ones. That was what good psychiatrists were for—to be visited by people in such trouble.
    But there was no fear in those pale eyes. No fear of anything on this green earth. And if ever she had seen an icy, unconquerable clarity of logic and sanity, she saw it in those eyes.
    She came out in a minute. “Dr. Fram will be glad to see you,” she smiled.
    The Avenger went into the psychiatrist’s office. Fram got up politely from his desk and offered a slim, capable hand to the white-faced man’s steel grip. Then he touched his trim, small goatee with his middle finger and smilingly came to the conclusion that his secretary had reached.
    “You don’t appear to be in need of my professional services, Mr. Benson. You are here on the behalf of someone else?”
    “Yes,” said Benson quietly.