Read The Avenger 23 - The Wilder Curse for Free Online

other.
    “Calling exterminator companies now, Josh?” said Smitty. “What you got—ants in the belfry?”
    But at this moment, someone must have come to the phone on the other end and must have said his name was Fowler.
    “You call on Thornton Heights, Mr. Fowler? . . . You do. I am calling for Mr. Richard Benson, and I would like to ask if Mr. Timothy Phelan, assistant engineer at Thornton Heights, got in touch with you yesterday at any time . . . He didn’t? . . . No call from Thornton Heights in the last month? . . . Thank you.”
    “What,” said Nellie, as Josh hung up, “goes on?” The tiny blonde had a curiosity large enough for Smitty, and it was all too seldom satisfied around here.
    Josh grinned at her. “I don’t know. The chief said he saw a notation at Thornton Heights last night to get in touch with the Acme Exterminator Co. It was on the desk of the murdered man, Tim Phelan. It was in Phelan’s handwriting; he knew that because there was a boiler report next to it in the same hand and signed by Phelan. So the chief told me to get in touch with the company and see what he had to say to them.”
    Smitty shook his head wonderingly.
    “I was in that office, too. I didn’t notice any such notation. And I don’t remember that the chief looked around the desk much.”
    “You wouldn’t notice a two-headed pony if it didn’t kick you,” jeered little Nellie. “The chief has eyes all around his head and a memory like a roll of film.”
    The Avenger came into the huge room in time to prevent an explosive retort on the part of the giant. He came from the direction of his private laboratory, which was one of the world’s finest, so Smitty guessed he had been studying the slug he’d dug out of the wall of Moran’s office before leaving. The bullet that had torn through the chair instead of through Dick.
    The Avenger’s colorless, icy eyes flicked toward Josh.
    “No call from Phelan,” Josh reported.
    Dick Benson sat down behind the big desk. At first, the rest thought they’d get no hint of why the call had been made. But, for once, The Avenger thought audibly. And after he had done so, Smitty and Nellie realized they should have had the same thoughts— if they’d had the concentration to notice the notation on Phelan’s desk in the first place.
    “Then Phelan had just made note of it,” mused Benson, “meaning to call, first thing in the morning. He must have jotted it down very shortly before he was murdered. Why? He must have seen or heard vermin.”
    He dialed the Thornton Heights office. The others heard a feminine voice answer.
    “Are the Thornton Heights buildings much troubled by insect pests?” Dick asked.
    “Why, of course not!” the girl said indignantly. “You won’t find a single—”
    “This is an official call,” Dick said evenly.
    There was a pause, then a change in the girl’s tone.
    “Every large building in every city has a few roaches and silverfish,” said the girl. “We have our share. No more.”
    “Have you had more than the usual number of complaints from your central building, the one in which your offices are located?”
    “No, sir,” said the girl. “This building is exceptionally free at the moment.”
    “How about mice or rats?”
    “There we have a clean slate,” said the girl. “These buildings are of the best construction. There hasn’t been a complaint of that nature for years. Three years, to be exact.”
    The Avenger hung up.
    “It wasn’t insect vermin he wanted to report,” he mused. “There aren’t any to speak of. So it wasn’t anything he saw. It must have been something he heard—like a sound of mice or rats. But there are none of those, either.”
    He said no more, but it wasn’t necessary to say more. The others understood plainly enough.
    What Phelan had heard just before he was killed was a sound made by his approaching murderer. A sound, probably, like that made by rats.
    An animal sound.
    And his body looked as if