He phoned his executives and gathered them around him.
“Our new Speed-Flow competes directly in price and type with Fox’s 8, doesn’t it?” he said.
It was more a statement than a question. The old man knew it did. One of the younger men nodded.
“The Speed-Flow and the Fox 8 are within a few dollars of each other in price, a few pounds in weight, a few miles in speed. They’re directly competitive.”
“They’re not any more!” snapped Ainslee. “Beginning at once, a new price is effective. The Speed-Flow sells for $650.”
There was a concerted gasp. Then the general superintendent exclaimed:
“We can’t sell for that! The car costs us over $600 at the factory door. We make little enough, with sales costs out, at the present price of $980.”
“The new price,” said Ainslee, “is $650. I’ll show that louse, Fox.”
“You’ll lose millions!” protested the manager.
“So will Fox,” barked Ainslee. “And I can stand it better than he can. I’m better heeled. I’ll run him out of business if it takes my last dollar.”
“The whole industry will suffer! The whole price structure of one of the nation’s greatest industries—”
“Damn the price structure,” snarled Ainslee. “And, particularly, damn Leslie Fox! Do as I said, at once, or I’ll fire the lot of you!”
The Avenger was in his laboratory. He had been there for twenty hours, working tirelessly on the mystery of the pigeons. Tirelessly? He seemed made of metal, where fatigue was concerned. He had worn out Mac and Wilson and now had Josh assisting him.
Josh thought Benson was getting places. The slight tautness of expression indicated it. But as usual the man with the deadly, colorless eyes was not revealing anything till he had something actual to reveal.
Dick was working on about the fiftieth variety of test that can be given to a minute quantity of blood. The blood had been taken from the belligerent pigeon. He had just diluted this bit with a golden liquid which instantly turned cloudy purple, on contact with the blood.
The color was intriguing, but Josh knew The Avenger scarcely noticed that. Color was incidental. What the pale, infallible eyes were studying through a low-power microscope was a queer crystalline pattern forming in the blood cells.
Smitty came in. The giant had a length of what looked like white ribbon in his hands. But it was not ribbon. It was ticker tape from The Avenger’s private news ticker in the big top-floor room.
Over that ticker constantly flowed all the world’s news. Smitty had just gathered an item and now handed it to Dick for his inspection.
Benson read it.
The item was only an account of a personal quarrel, and would have had no importance save for the vast power of the persons involved. That made it front-page news.
There had been an automobile association banquet the night before. There had been an argument between Ainslee and Fox, two titans in the industry. Fox had slugged Ainslee in the jaw.
The account was of the type that is frequently reported by waiters and bellboys in big hotels who get a fee for every tidbit of gossip turned in to the papers. But the sequence of the incident was the important thing.
Ainslee had just announced a price drop of $330 in his car, competing with the Fox 8!
“That’s split the whole motor business apart,” said Smitty.
The Avenger nodded, colorless eyes lambent, like cold moonstone.
“You said Edwin Ritter was at that banquet, Wilson?”
Cole nodded. “The banquet was really given in his honor. The Detroit motor magnates held it officially to indorse his candidacy for president.”
Dick said: “It’s queer.”
They waited for him to say what was queer.
“Lila Morel goes to call on Ritter,” said Benson slowly. “Near his house, she is trapped by thugs and almost killed. There is a crazy affair about mad pigeons at the public library. Ritter just happens to be there at that time. Now, Ritter attends an important banquet, and the men attending it have a violent quarrel that bids fair to disrupt one of the nation’s biggest industries.”
He stared at the test tube. He hadn’t completed his latest test and didn’t want to leave it.
“We haven’t one thing, definite, against Ritter,” he resumed. “But wherever he is, there seems to be a sudden blossoming of trouble. Josh, you and Smitty take one of the planes and go to Detroit. Watch Ritter and note everything he does and every place he goes.”
“We keep out of sight?” said Smitty.
“First see Ritter,” said The Avenger. “See what he has to say about the banquet. After that, trail him so he doesn’t know he is being trailed.”
He turned back to the test tube, and Josh and Smitty went out of the laboratory and then out of the building.
