The Avenger had a laboratory that could not have been beaten even by the great commercial laboratories. And he could use that lab as few men ever born could use scientific equipment. He was one of the world’s leading scientists, pick any branch you please.
But Dick Benson was being baffled, now.
He had a pigeon that thought it was an eagle and tried to attack everything moving, and he couldn’t find what had made it savage.
He had taken one live and one dead pigeon from the public library. He had tested and vivisected the dead bird in every way known to man, and he could find no variance from normal in it. So he was now concentrating on the live one.
And this one was certainly something to write home about.
The bird was in large cage. It kept to the side of the cage nearest to anything moving. Then it flew at the bars — most of the feathers were out of its head from beating against the wires — and tried to get at what made the movement, regardless of the size of the thing.
“ ’Tis strrrange,” burred MacMurdie, who was working with The Avenger. Of course, Mac, though an outstanding scientist himself, was only a capable helper when his knowledge was compared to the knowledge of Dick Benson.
“You bird’s mad,” said Mac dourly. “Yet, ’tis a consistent kind of madness. It acts as if it would like to destroy every livin’ thing except itself.”
The Avenger’s head, with its virile, heavy black shock of hair, nodded slowly.
“It almost seems,” Dick said, “as though the pigeon has a fiendish hate for everything alive; as if the brain or nervous system were subtly deranged. But there was no sign of injury in the other bird.”
Mac shrugged.
“ ’Tis sick in the head — but only the head, Muster Benson. Ye’ll obserrrve that the pigeon is healthy enough. It eats when ye feed it — after ye’ve drawn back so it doesn’t try to fly at you.”
“Yes, it’s healthy enough,” conceded Dick, colorless eyes like wells of ice in his impassive face.
The Avenger paced slowly up and down the laboratory. Mac stared. It was the first time he had ever seen Dick baffled by anything of laboratory nature. But, he had to admit, it was the first time he had ever seen a problem of so unique a nature brought home to anyone.
“Ritter,” said The Avenger, stopping his pacing.
“Eh?” said Mac.
“Ritter was at the library,” Dick explained. “He’s no scientist, as far as I know. But he is an intelligent man. I’d like to ask him what he observed about the behavior of the birds. Besides—”
The Avenger didn’t go on with that last sentence.
Mac said: “Ritter’s gotten to be a big figure, politically, hasn’t he?”
“The biggest,” said Benson. “He’s quite apt to be a presidential candidate in the coming election, and there is a good chance that he’ll be our next president.”
“D’ye think it’s possible that Ritter knows something about this?” said Mac.
But Dick made no reply to that. He summoned Cole Wilson from the vast, top-floor room. Wilson came barging in, dark hair back on his forehead, black eyes blazing, eager for a job.
“Do you remember Edwin Ritter, the man who was at the library when we visited it?” Dick asked Cole.
Cole nodded.
“I wish you’d go and have a talk with him about it,” The Avenger said. “Find out exactly what he observed about the birds. He may have seen something we missed. Also, try to find out how he happened to be there just at that time.”
Both Wilson and Mac stared swiftly at Dick, at that. It sounded as if The Avenger were beginning to have curious doubts about Ritter. And yet, prominent as Ritter was it wasn’t possible there could be real suspicion directed against him.
Mac helped Benson some more while Dick tackled the mystery of the mad pigeon. But there was to be no report on Ritter from Wilson.
Each of The Avenger’s aides carried a tiny two-way radio set in a curved case at his waist. A belt set designed by Smitty. Wilson’s voice came over his small set after his signal had sounded.
“Cole reporting, chief. Ritter isn’t in town. He left, by plane, for Detroit, earlier today. His servant, a little fellow by the name of Knarlie, says Ritter went there to attend a banquet af automobile manufacturers. The banquet’s just about beginning now. Any further orders?”
After a minute, Benson told him that there were no further orders for the moment. Even in the fastest of planes, Cole couldn’t have reached Detroit in time to take in that banquet. And there seemed no reason why anyone should go to it anyway.
All of which only proved that occasionally even The Avenger failed to divine the importance of some occurrence. For, as it turned out, the banquet in Detroit was to be highly important, indeed.
The Book-Brunswick Hotel is impressive with marble and uniforms and lobbies and general richness of appearance. The Green Room, where important meetings are held, looks like something out of Versailles Gardens.
