It was then that The Avenger got the telephone call about the pigeons. The call was from the public library on Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street. It was made by a sharp-eyed newsboy, who, with hundreds of his fellows in the great city, worked with The Avenger by always calling the Bleek Street headquarters if anything queer were observed.
And, Heaven knew, this was queer enough!
“Boss,” came the lad’s voice, “this is Stinky Williams. The pigeons down here at the library are goin’ nuts.”
“How do you mean?” asked The Avenger.
“They think they’re eagles or somethin’. They’re fightin’ each other, and even going after people on the sidewalks.”
“What?”
“As I live and breathe,” said the boy earnestly. “The men bat ’em off and don’t know whether to laugh or run. A lot of dames is hysterical. I tell you them birds are goin’ completely screwy. Fightin’ pigeons! Ain’t that one for the book?”
“I’ll be down immediately,” said Dick Benson.
There are always throngs of people in front of the New York Public Library’s main branch. Not that the city is so starved for book learning; but the building happens to be in almost the exact center of town.
The broad walk in front of the library was in an uproar, now, crowded densely, with more crowds coming all the time to see what was up. Some people were laughing and ducking around. Others looked stupefied with amazement. All were staring upward.
Through the crowd and around the fringes, were traffic cops, sweating with a fruitless effort to get people to break it up and move along.
Dick Benson got to the curb, with Wilson beside him. And then the two got a taste of what it was all about.
A pigeon charged them!
That sounds funny, but it wasn’t.
The bird came at Wilson like a mad-winged javelin, its little red eyes gleaming like jewels. Like a thrown projectile, it struck almost before Cole could get his hands up; and on Cole’s cheek a long shallow gash appeared where the bird’s beak had ripped past.
The Avenger could move so fast it baffled the eye.
He moved that way now, one hand going out like light. The hand caught the bird as deftly as a hawk snares a chick.
Regretfully, Benson flipped his hand and broke the bird’s neck. He had to have it for experimentation. He slipped the dead pigeon into a big inner pocket, then went to the nearest cop.
Every police officer in the country either knew The Avenger or knew of him, by now. The man nodded respectfully.
“Move along now, will you?” he yelled at the milling people. “Haven’t the lot of you ever seen pigeons before? There have been pigeons at the library as long as the joint’s been standing.”
“But not like these,” he confessed in a lower tone to Dick Benson. “Do you know what’s causing this?”
The Avenger shook his head, and all three men ducked as a crazy bird lanced at them out of the blue. Once more Dick’s hand darted out, fast as the dart of a hummingbird. Another pigeon was caught; but this one he got alive. It went into the inner pocket, where it struggled but could do no harm.
“Not all of the birds are like that, I see,” said Dick, gazing up at the building ledges.
“No, sir,” said the cop. “Just some of them. The devil’s in ’em, all right.” A couple of normal pigeons fell from the ledges, pecked to death by their maddened fellows. The cop looked as if he might cross his fingers any minute. “Move on, all you guys— Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn’t mean
The last person addressed was a man who had suddenly turned up at the cop’s elbow, and whom the cop treated almost as deferentially as he had The Avenger. He was a tall man, unusually handsome, with graying hair and fine features and an orator’s mobile mouth.
“Hello, Ritter,” said Benson.
Wilson blinked. This man seemed to know everyone of prominence.
Edwin Ritter, well-known politician, stared at The Avenger, then nodded affably.
“How are you, Benson? Quite a curious thing, all this, isn’t it?” He waved a hand at the gyrating birds around the ledges, then ducked as one winged at his head.
“Quite curious,” Dick agreed, voice even. “Did you come here expressly to see it?”
“No,” said Ritter. “I just happened to be in the neighborhood and saw the crowd. Like most of the rest here, I came out of curiosity, to see what was attracting all the attention.”
Benson’s coat writhed and pulsed with the struggles of the live pigeon. Ritter stared.
“What in the world—” he gasped.
“I’m taking one of these abnormal birds to my laboratory for experimentation,” said Dick.
“I wouldn’t think,” smiled Ritter, “that a man as prominent scientifically as you are would be turned to so small a task.”
“It might not be small,” The Avenger said.
Ritter was borne off on a wave of movement, then.
Benson and Cole went back to the Bleek Street laboratory with the one live pigeon and the one dead one.
Funny to some in the crowd, frightening to others, the scene seemed ominous in the extreme to Benson.
Pigeons attacking everything in sight! It was as mad as it was for rabbits to attack a dog.
