Read The Avenger 17 - Nevlo for Free Online Page B

countryside was very quiet.
    “Feels kind of creepy around here,” was Smitty’s reaction to the unusual silence and desolation.
    They went in. Benson asked to see the engineer in charge.
    The man he questioned was a big fellow in dungarees with a dark and sullen face.
    “You mean Bill Burton? He ain’t here.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Don’t know. He went to Cleveland, and I ain’t heard from him since.”
    “Then,” said Benson, pale eyes fixed on the darkly sullen face, “I’ll ask my questions of you.”
    “I’m not answerin’ any questions,” the man snapped. “So you can go roll your hoop some place else.”
    When any person, great or humble, refused to answer The Avenger’s questions in that half-frightened, half-defiant tone, in spite of the glacial compulsion of the cold, pale eyes, there was something wrong.
    Smitty got the retreating man in one leap. The giant held him off the floor with his great left hand clutching a fold of the denim jacket at the man’s neck. It was like holding up a kitten by the nape of the neck.
    Smitty’s vast right, doubled into an unbelievable fist, gently touched the man’s jaw at the end of a two-inch stab. The fellow’s head rocked.
    “You’ve been asked a civil question,” Smitty said silkily. “You’ll be asked a few more. We sincerely hope you’ll be good enough to answer them all.”
    The man’s frightened eyes showed that he had decided to be very good indeed, and when he was released, he answered questions promptly.
    The incredible tale came out.
    A fine, modern power plant with generators, turned by the turbines, whining their swift song. The latest in plant design, all checked many times for errors.
    And no power coming from it.
    Smitty’s first doubled again.
    “You’re lying,” he rumbled. “That isn’t possible.”
    “It’s the truth,” said the man quickly. “I swear it! There was a dedication, see? The Marville mayor threw the main switch to start things things off. And nothing happened. No power, see? But everything seemed all right. And still does.”
    The Avenger’s eyes were flaring bits of bright ice. And Smitty’s fist slowly uncoiled as he recalled that about the same story had lain in the recent brief power failure in New York.
    Whirring generators, nothing perceptibly wrong, and no power being generated.
    “All right,” he growled, “what’s the answer?”
    “We don’t know,” said the man, looking at the giant’s great hands. “But I think it’s got something to do with Nevlo.”
    “Nevlo?” said The Avenger, voice as icy as his eyes.
    “He was chief engineer here before Burton. He laid out the joint, and then he got fired. Bad-tempered guy with black hair and eyes; held his head to the left all the time.”
    “How could he keep the plant from functioning?”
    “How do I know?” snarled the man. He changed tone and expression as the great fists began to double again. “I mean, nobody knows,” he said. “All we know is that Nevlo laughed when the dedication went sour, and he swore the plant would never be any good till he was back running it again.”
    Smitty and The Avenger looked at each other. The thought behind the china-blue eyes of the giant, and the dread pale eyes of Benson was the same:
    Possibly a man could do such a thing. If so, it would be only another step from stopping one power plant to stopping all power plants.
    “But a mon would have to be a wizard—” began MacMurdie. Then he stopped, and all listened.

    Outside, on the graveled road ending at the plant’s entrance, came the sound of a rapidly driven car. An old car, judging by the rattles. They looked out a lofty window and saw an ancient flivver shudder to a stop. A man in a cheap gray suit, with a cap on, raced from the car and into the plant.
    “Pete!” he yelled to the man with the dark face. He paid no attention to the others. “Pete, I just saw Nevlo!”
    “Nevlo?” barked the other man. “You sure? Everybody in the