"Avenger - 4303 - Calling Justice, INC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Avenger)

As they cleared the outskirts of the city Nellie writhed with helpless rage. Haggard stooped
down and made sure the gag was tight in her mouth, so that she could not make a last appeal for
help. And then they were out on the Tamiami Trail accelerating to a swift pace, racing away from
Miami.

After a while Haggard took the handkerchief away from her mouth, sat up and lit a cigarette. He
looked down at her, allowing the smoke to frickle from his nostrils.

"Well, miss," he said suavely, "are you thinking of talking? It might be better for you. We're
going to have a long time to spend in coaxing you."

He bent down deliberately and placed the glowing tip of his cigarette against Nellie's forearm.
With his free hand he gripped her handcuffed wrist so that she could not twist away.

The excruciating agony of that fiery burn was almost unbearable. But Nellie clamped her teeth
hard and held herself rigid.

Haggard grunted and removed the cigarette tip from her arm. Nellie felt herself about to faint
as the agony coursed through her body, but she fought it off. Haggard looked down at her and said
softly, "You're very brave, my dear girl. But it won't help. Just think--will you be able to stand a
continuous treatment like that? For hours on end? Perhaps for days? Believe me, you'll beg to tell
me where the Zaharoff jewels are hidden. If you're wise you'll save yourself a good deal of torture
and speak now."

Nellie's eyes opened wide. The Zaharoff jewels! She forgot the fiery agony which was almost
numbing her arm. Of course! The Zaharoff jewels! It was Cornelius Zaharoff who had established a
private empire fifty years ago on one of the islands of the East Indies. Trading in copra and
rubber, he had amassed a gigantic fortune which he transmuted into costly jewels for the Armenian
wife he had brought with him to share his empire. He had called her the queen of the island and
bedecked her with jewels. For two generations the Zaharoffs had ruled their island with an iron
hand, until the war had brought the swarming Japanese barbarians. Zaharoff's son had fled with the
fortune in jewels, had brought them to the United States, only to have them stolen in a ruthless
holdup by the Haggard gang. Haggard had locked the entire family, including their retainers, in the
refrigerator to die. Haggard had been caught subsequently, but there had been no survivors of that
crime who could identify him. Young Zaharoff had been away at the time. So Haggard had gotten a life
sentence for another crime, and no one had ever been sure that it had been the Haggard gang which
had perpetrated the Zaharoff atrocity.

Now here was the proof. But Nellie thought bitterly as she lay on the floor of the racing car
that she, too, would never live to identify Royce Haggard.

The car swung off the highway and bumped along what must have been a dirt road, then came to a
stop. Nellie was lifted out and carried over someone's shoulder into a shack of some sort and dumped
on the floor in an inner room. A few minutes later Haggard entered with two men. At a curt order
from him, Nellie was roughly lifted and seated in a rickety chair with her arms forced backward over
the top, still handcuffed so that she could not move an inch.

Haggard stood over her, puffing a cigarette to glowing life. His eyes were small, veiled,