"Avenger - 4305 - Cargo Of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Avenger)

ever watchful for a knife in the back, for they will betray each other without compunction--"

"Hold on just a minute," Benson said. "Will you please tell me what you're talking about? Why
should I go to the foot of Edge Street?"

"Didn't Hilda tell you?"

"No. She only asked me to come here to the Suydenville Hotel."

"Then she must have been interrupted. O merciful Lord, I hope they haven't harmed her--"

"Look here, madam. Whoever you are, if your daughter is in danger I think you'd better call the
police!"

There was a gasp of sheer terror at the other end. "I ask you, in the name of everything you
hold dear, not to bring the police into this. You are The Avenger, the man who helps those who are
in terrible trouble, who have no more hope and no chance. If that is so, then I ask you to help me
now, and never breathe a word of this to the police!"

"I'm sorry, madam. You're asking too much."

"Then . . . then you won't help?"

"Not unless you explain--"

"God help me, I cannot explain now. Each minute that passes is like a drop of blood spilling
from my Hilda's veins. If you will come back to the Suydenville Hotel at midnight I will explain
all, I will tell you everything you wish to know. But now--"

Suddenly, her voice ended in an agonized gasp as a crash sounded through the receiver. Then
there was silence for a moment.

Benson tensed, his hand tightening on the instrument. "Hello--"

He was interrupted by a click as someone carefully hung up the receiver at the other end.

Benson raised his hand to Jiggle the hook and call the police; but he refrained, recalling the
woman's passionate plea for secrecy. Slowly, he replaced the receiver on the hook and stepped out of
the booth.

None of the people in the lobby seemed to be any more interested in him now than they had been
upon his arrival. He made his way out to the street. He found a taxicab and told the driver to
across the bridge into Queens, toward Marabout Creek. It was all he could do--to carry out the
woman's request.

It was thirteen minutes after nine when he left the cab a block from Edge Street and walked the
rest of the way through the dimly lit. unpopulated section out here at the God-forsaken edge of
Queens. He had hardly reached Edge Street before he spotted a small, flickering flashlight almost a
hundred yards away, along the bank of the dank, ill-smelling Marabout Creek. He smiled grimly in the
dark. Thus far the unknown woman's arrangements were working out with the accuracy of a timetable.