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

With a sinking sensation at her heart she went back to the telephone. There was only one thing
to do--a thing she hated to be reduced to: she had to call The Avenger for help. Dick Benson--The
Avenger--would of course drop everything and fly down here. So would Smitty--Algernon Heathcote
Smith--who called himself The Avenger's left-hand man, and who could go berserk at the mere hint of
anyone's harming a hair of Nellie's head. But Nellie squirmed at the thought of the big razzberry
Smitty would give her when it was all over. She would just imagine his great, hearty, booming
laughter. "Hereafter, we'll have to send a nursemaid along with you, half-pint!" he'd chuckle. And
then he'd probably add: "Can't trust you out alone till you grow up!"

Nellie shuddered. It would be humiliating. But it couldn't be helped. She had to make the call.
She lifted the receiver.

And it was only then that she realized the full extent of the trap in which she was snared. For
there was no reply from the switchboard.

The line was dead.


She had been mistaken in thinking that the enemy only intended to watch her. She had misjudged
the man in the tan sport coat. And she realized that she should have known better. With a huge
fortune in jewels at stake, this enemy would not be content to await developments. He would strike
and strike quickly. His men must have taken over the switchboard downstairs. She had committed the
unpardonable blunder of underestimating her enemy--and the penalty might be swift death. She was cut
off now from all aid. She was alone and on her own.

Slowly, she put down the receiver. With her senses keyed up to acute pitch by the imminence of
danger, she heard the faint scraping sound as a key was cautiously inserted into the lock of the
old-fashioned door. Someone on the outside was using a pass key.

She sprang to the door, reached it just as the key was turning in the lock, and her fingers
found the catch. She twisted it fiercely, double-locking the door just in the nick of time. The
turning key on the other side caught as the double-locked tumblers snapped. The man in the corridor
must have realized at once had happened, for she heard the key being withdrawn. Then a voice spoke,
close to the door: "Better open up quietly! You haven't got a chance!"

Nellie's answer was to flick off the electric-light switch, plunging the room in darkness. An
oblong panel of light shafted in through the transom above, from the hall. Her face was set, her
lips clamped tight as she realized that the enemy could reach her through that transom.

Deliberately, she took the pistol out of the waistband of her slacks. She stood to one side of
the door.

"Who are you?" she asked. "What do you want?"

"Mever mind who we are. You know what we want. Are you going to open up?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then we're coming in."