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in Blandell’s scared eyes. And Sessel showed his own thought as plainly. That happened when I was here. Now what—
    Again, his hand went forward to turn the doorknob. But, again, he never did.
    The door banged open suddenly, and a man stood on the threshold. Blandell and Sessel stared at him, started to turn and get away—but stopped dead.
    The man had a gun in his hand. It was a silenced gun, which is an out-of-the-ordinary weapon. He was holding it level before him, staring over the sights.
    The man grinned, showing teeth in a wolfish snarl, and pressed the trigger twice, after deliberate aim.

CHAPTER IV

Death Trap
    A car was skimming the road from New York City to Garfield City in the midmorning sun. It wasn’t an impressive-looking car. It was the large model of a well-known maker, four or five years old. It was rather dull, of enamel and metal trim. You’d look at it and think that it was rolling along exceptionally silent, and rather fast, but that was all.
    Actually, the sedan was making ninety-four miles an hour, though the tremendous special motor under the unobtrusive hood was only turning at a rate that would propel the average vehicle at fifty or so.
    That dull old car was the favorite automobile of The Avenger, who was rich enough to have ordered Rolls Royces in fleets of a dozen, if he had cared to. It had a top speed of a hundred and thirty miles an hour. It was bulletproofed throughout, and equipped with devices and special little inventions for offense and defense that would have made an army-tank officer gasp.
    Benson was speeding to Garfield City in answer to the call of an acquaintance of his, Henry Sessel. With him were the giant, Smitty, and the sleepy-looking Negro, Josh. Also with him was another aide who had not been at Bleek Street when he read the account of Cranlowe’s new war weapon.
    This third aide was a tall, bony Scotchman, Fergus MacMurdie.
    “Whoosh, mon!” Mac said to Benson. “It seems to me we’re on a mighty queer trip.”
    Mac was the soul of pessimism. It always seemed to him, when Benson strapped on his weapons and went out on a job, that they were on a mighty queer, or mighty senseless, or mighty futile mission. And always it was sure to end in failure.
    There was only one time the Scot was cheerful. That was in a jam when there seemed no possible way to escape death. In such a situation, when any sensible man would give up all for lost, Mac would chirp that things were going well, and that they’d win out in another minute or two.
    “It’s going to be one of the queerest of all our trips, Mac,” The Avenger said. His voice, as ever, was quiet; but the ring of command was strong in it. The man with the dead face and the white, thick hair was a great natural leader.
    “Ye think there is a connection between Cranlowe’s war invention and the trouble of this man Blandell, the banker?” probed Mac.
    “I don’t know yet,” Benson said, stepping the speed of the mighty sedan up to ninety-eight on a smooth stretch.
    “There would seem to be nothin’ but coincidence in it,” persisted Mac. “Just because a mon goes crazy for a minute—”
    “If Blandell alone had suffered a temporary lapse, it would be one thing. But Sessel, his nephew, also— No, that’s too much. I know Sessel and have read his works on biology. They don’t agree with some of my own findings, but that’s beside the point. The point being that Sessel is eminently sane. If he, too, had a lapse, it must have been artificially induced.”
    “But chief,” said Smitty, “what connection could such things have with Cranlowe’s invention?”
    Benson was silent for a moment, while the great car hummed smoothly on its bullet flight.
    “I spent most of last night getting information on Blandell,” he said at last, pale eyes glinting like ice under a winter moon. “And I got hold of one bit of knowledge that might hint at the connection. John Blandell is the financial backer of Jesse Cranlowe,