The greatest crime fighter of the forties returns!In the roaring heart of the crucible, steel is made. In the raging flame of personal tragedy, men are sometimes forged into something more than human.It was so with Dick Benson. He had been a man. After the dread loss inflicted on him by an inhuman crime ring, he became a machine of vengeance dedicated to the extermination of all other crime rings.He turned into the person we know now: a figure of ice and steel, more pitiless than both; a mechanism of whipcord and flame; a symbol of destruction to crooks and killers; a terrible, almost impersonal Force, masking chill genius and supernormal power behind a face ever as white and dead as a mask from the grave. Only his pale eyes, like ice in a polar dawn, hint at the deadliness of the scourge the underworld heedlessly invoked against itself when crime’s greed turned the retired adventurer, Richard Henry Benson, into — The Avenger.THE HATE MASTERKnarlie, a twisted dwarf, worked for the candidate for the White House. Or was it the other way around? The Avenger had to find out in order to save America.
#1: JUSTICE, INC.
#2: THE YELLOW HOARD
#3: THE SKY WALKER
#4: THE DEVIL’S HORNS
#5: THE FROSTED DEATH
#6: THE BLOOD RING
#7: STOCKHOLDERS IN DEATH
#8: THE GLASS MOUNTAIN
#9: TUNED FOR MURDER
#10: THE SMILING DOGS
#11: RIVER OF ICE
#12: THE FLAME BREATHERS
#13: MURDER ON WHEELS
#14: THREE GOLD CROWNS
#15: HOUSE OF DEATH
WARNER PAPERBACK LIBRARY
Death was there. And worse than death. For death can be clean — a crisp break from living, a straight road into oblivion.
This was a grim and foul thing, to leave its loathsome mark in red-dripping letters over a page in American history better hidden than read.
The place in which this thing was born was secretive, hidden, a perfect spot for unnamable births.
All around, for over four miles in any direction, were thick woods, almost as gloomy and impenetrable as the Black Forests of Europe. Then there was a clearing half as large as a football field. Around the clearing, with trees and underbrush crowding right up to the thick-mesh wire, was a high fence with barbed-wire strands slanting outward at the top.
The wire of the fence was electrified; it carried a load that would bring sure death to any small animal and a severe shock to a human.
In the center of the clearing was the building. It was a one-story structure, looking like a small factory. It was about fifty feet square, with windows from ground to roof along all the walls but one corner. The windows in the corner were average size and had curtains at them, indicating that this corner of the place was for living space. Evidently, some woman was around to make that space as cozy as possible.
The building was not a factory; it was a laboratory. And few in the country were more complete. It belonged to Arthur Morel.
Arthur Morel was a name to conjure with in chemical and biological research circles. The world knew and profited by many of his great inventions.
But the world knew nothing of the one on which he was working, now.
Morel, at half past twelve in the evening, was at a small bench at the far end of his barnlike laboratory. There was little equipment on this bench. It was the space he used when an experiment was almost concluded. And this one was.
Almost, but not quite!
Before Morel there was a tiny scale which could measure a human hair with exactitude. There was also a rack in which a little vial now rested.
The vial was no larger than a man’s thumb. In it was a syrupy-looking liquid, remarkable chiefly for its color. It was as red as blood; as red and sparkling with evil life as if made of liquefied rubies.
Morel stared at this vial, his hands idle for the moment. On his face was a look of impatience, frustration — and hope. And for a little while there was silence in the place, save for the chittering of a cageful of guinea pigs at the opposite end of the lab.
Daylight bulbs cast a white light over the chamber that never varied day or night. But this white light was stained ghastly red where it passed through the small, sinister vial. The red bar of light struck Morel on the left cheekbone, and the sight was so eerie that a stifled scream sounded as a girl came from the corner of the building with the curtained windows and saw the man at the small bench.
Morel turned swiftly, and the girl started walking again and came up to him.
Lila Morel was about twenty-one, tall, full-formed, dressed in gray slacks, but looking extremely feminine in spite of shirt and pants. She was dark-eyed and black-haired, whereas Morel was blue of eyes and gray-blond of hair; but you’d know her as Arthur Morel’s daughter because the cast of their features was the same.
“Sorry I yelled, Dad,” she said. “But you should have seen yourself as I came in! There was a red slash of light across your face that made it look as if a saber had just slashed you and almost taken the top of your head off.”
She shuddered a little, her shapely shoulders quivering.
“You don’t suppose that was in the nature of an evil prophecy, do you?” she said, words light but tone not quite so casual.
Morel smiled a little, though his face was still drawn in the impatient, frustrated lines.
“As a scientist, I can hardly believe in omens,” he said. “As a scientist’s daughter, you ought to be free of superstitions, too.”
“If you could have seen yourself—” Lila began. Then she flung out her hands and words came in a torrent.
“Dad, how long are we going to stay up here in the Maine woods? We’re buried here. It’s a wilderness. Why, all we ever hear is the howling of wolves and the occasional hum of a plane motor!”
She paused, and as if to punctuate her words, there sounded in the distance a long drawn-out wail.
“Wolves! I wouldn’t have thought there was a place left in the United States where you’d hear wolves like that.”
“There are many such places,” Morel said absently.
He was looking at the little vial that seemed filled with liquid rubies.