Secret Agent X : The Complete Series Volume 3 Read online

  “I see, my friend,” he said.

  But his eyes were clouded with a strange emotion—the emotion of discovering something that has hitherto been considered incredible by the mind of man. For that line, indicative of a healed scar, had given him the clue to a momentous discovery. It had given him a glimpse of a thing so weird, so monstrous, as to stagger the imagination.

  The Agent’s grip tightened; he held the other helpless in the crook of his arm, while the long, sensitive fingers of his right hand probed further, feeling the contours of the man’s head. The brownish, nondescript-colored hair was wiry, unnatural. The Agent pressed with his thumb and forefinger, and the whole scalp seemed to move. The man was wearing a cunningly contrived wig!

  The killer’s eyes betrayed a venomous hatred as “X” removed the wig. It was fitted with a suction cap that clung to his shaven skull. At one spot on that skull, the Agent’s magnifying glass revealed another scar, not more than an inch long, and entirely healed.

  The Agent did not examine the scar at this time. His mind was occupied with the horrid, monstrous secret he had discovered.

  He said, “My friend, the masquerade is over!”

  The killer glared up at him, tried to heave himself upright, and emitted a series of inarticulate, horrible grunts.

  “X” studied the killer’s eyes. He was interested in them, for they seemed to evoke a memory somewhere within him—a memory of another face, of those same eyes peering out of a face that in no way resembled this one. He went on, watching the other intently.

  “Your face has been changed, my friend—changed by a marvelous job of plastic surgery. This monster master of yours has had your face changed to resemble the others whom he uses. You acted like robots to fool the public and the police—and why shouldn’t they be fooled, when you were all facsimiles of each other!”

  “X” knew he was right in his findings, because the killer bared his teeth in a snarl, threw him a venomous glance.

  THE Agent hardly dared to put into concrete thoughts the revolting conclusion suggested by that line around the rim of the killer’s face. But now, as he noted the killer’s reaction, he was convinced that he had guessed right—this man had had his face transformed by a highly skilled surgeon!

  At the urge of a sudden flash of inspiration, Secret Agent “X” twisted the killer’s body around, seized the handcuffed wrists, and examined his fingertips. They were smooth, white, soft. Holding the killer’s hand firmly, the Agent directed his magnifying glass on the right thumb. And under that glass, which mercilessly showed every line and mark, the Agent was able to detect a minute scar running across the under side of the thumb. Each finger in turn that he examined showed the same scar. A remarkably skillful surgeon had grafted fresh skin onto each finger—skin that had been miraculously provided with a set of loops and whorls!

  The Agent’s lips set grimly. “Very clever—very clever indeed!” he remarked. “No wonder the police could discover no record for you!”

  Once more he turned the killer around facing him. “Your fingertips have also been changed. You have been made into a different man. I wonder if you knew in advance that you were going to be made into a replica of those others—or did your master have that done to you against your will?”

  The killer regarded him sullenly, saying nothing.

  “X” arose from his knees, stood over him. “All the world knows now that you and your fellows are not robots. Why continue the pretense? Why don’t you talk now? Is it because you are afraid to let me hear your voice? Are you afraid that I will recognize you—Gilly?”

  That last sentence, deliberately spoken with sudden intensity, seemed to have the effect of a charge of electricity upon the killer. His whole body shook with an uncontrollable spasm of terror. His mouth opened, but no sound issued except a short series of horrible inarticulate grunting noises. The man seemed to be straining his larynx to utter words that rebelled at being spoken.

  The Agent said to him, “You wonder how I guessed who you are, Gilly?” He smiled grimly. “I wasn’t quite sure—but now I see that I am right. It was your eyes that gave you away, Gilly. You could change your face a thousand times, but I would always remember your eyes!”

  “X” spoke tautly, quickly now. He wanted to follow up his advantage.

  “I can send you back to the death house, Gilly—or I can let you escape, give you enough money to go to another country and change your name. All you have to do is give me the name of your master, tell me where your headquarters are. Which do you choose?”

  Gilly’s eyes lost their glare of hatred. They seemed to be imbued now with a sort of dumb terror. They looked up at “X” with a note of helpless appeal. He opened his mouth, tried to talk, but nothing resulted—only those horrid animal grunts.

  The Agent suddenly knelt beside him again. “I wonder—” he muttered. “It can’t be possible. It’s too fiendish even for the murder monster.” Once more he examined Gilly’s shaven skull, his fingers passing over the short scar.

  Gilly did not draw away from him now. On the contrary, he bent his head, as if anxious for “X” to see that scar.

  The Agent drew in his breath sharply as he suddenly understood its significance. Gilly had had more than his face and fingertips changed—some one had operated on his brain, as well. An incision had been made into the brain cells controlling his power of speech. He had been rendered mute!

  Chapter XIII

  PERILOUS TRAIL

  SECRET AGENT “X” never allowed emotion to play a part in his life. But now, as he studied his captive, he felt a surge of bitter repugnance against the unholy being that had conceived this diabolical jest of making veritable robots of his men.

  The Agent had sought by every means possible to locate those twenty-five convicts who had escaped from the State Prison. And if he had succeeded in finding them, he would not have hesitated at turning them over to the law, for they constituted a menace to the society he devoted his life to protecting. But nothing the law could have done to them even approached in horror and in pure cruelty the things that this murder monster had done.

  “X” should have been elated at discovering this important link between the escaped convicts and the murder monster—for he knew now what the police did not as yet suspect—that the so-called robots were in reality the convicts whom every agency of the law was seeking throughout the country.

  But he was far from elated. For he realized now what a stupendous task still faced him. No matter how dangerous those convicts might have been while they were free, the Agent now saw the shadow of a menace infinitely greater. What an inhuman monster this must be, that had freed these men only to chain them by a series of hideous operations in a more horrid slavery than any they had ever known in State Prison!

  His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden ominous sound from the hallway outside the apartment. Boards creaked under a heavy, ponderous tread, and a resonant, metallic voice called out, “Number Eight! Where are you? Number Eight! Where are you?

  Gilly twisted violently out of the Agent’s hands and started to drag himself toward the door in spite of his bound hands. He opened his mouth and uttered a weird, inhuman sound, for all the world like some obscene animal calling to its master.

  That sound was heard, for from outside came the mechanical sounding voice of the monster. “Get away from the door, Number Eight. It’s going to be smashed in!”

  Gilly stopped crawling toward the door. He rested on his back, his face twisted into a grimacing leer of triumph as he stared up at “X.” It was difficult to understand how this little gunman of the underworld should be so loyal to a master that had done such inhuman things to him. “X” had offered Gilly freedom, immunity from prosecution, for information. Gilly could not feel that he was in any danger from the Agent. Yet he welcomed the approach of the murder monster, welcomed the prospect of being brought once more under that fiendish domination!

  There must be some powerful hold—some powerful attraction
—that the monster exerted over these men. “X” wondered if it was possible that the operation on the brains of Gilly and the others—almost certain now that they had all been subjected to the knife—accomplished more than merely depriving them of speech; if it was possible that it had, in fact, converted them all into veritable robots without personal initiative or will of their own.

  There came a smashing impact against the door; the monster must have hurled its huge form against it. But the panels were strong, the door was solid, for the Agent always made it a point to provide his retreat with reinforced doors for just such a contingency. Yet, strong as it was, it yielded a little under the impact of that heavy body. “X” saw that it would not stand up long under the attack. If he remained in the room he would become a target for that finger of death. He would go up in flames, leaving his task unfinished, taking with him the secret of the identity of the robots, leaving the city at the mercy of these cohorts of hell.

  He never left himself, however, without some means of retreat. Now, he sprang to the window, slid it open while the handcuffed Gilly watched him with narrowed, mad eyes. The Agent counted for escape on the drain pipe which ran up to the roof, close to the window. But the monster had taken care of that, too. For, no sooner had “X” showed himself at the window than there was a wicked spat, and a bullet imbedded itself in the woodwork close to his head. Somewhere outside, a rifleman was stationed with a silenced rifle. Nobody was going to be able to leave that building, by window or otherwise, till the monster had got his man. “X” did not stop to wonder how the monster had learned of the apartment. He immediately set to work.

  From a cabinet in the corner, he produced a pot-bellied jar to which was attached a metal hose. This jar was made of dull, burnished metal, and had a sort of stand beneath it, into which was fitted a Bunsen burner.

  While the heavy oak door bent under the repeated charges of the monster outside, “X” methodically lit the Bunsen burner and ran the hose close to the window. Then he donned a pair of goggles, and took a hypodermic syringe from the cabinet.

  Gilly watched him with a puzzled gaze as he filled the container of the hypodermic with a light-colored liquid. Gilly shrank away from him as he approached, tried to wriggle from his grip. But the Agent held him tight, thrust the needle into his arm, and drove the plunger home.

  The whites of Gilly’s eyes showed, his lids drooped, he wheezed, and was unconscious within half a minute. The hypodermic had been loaded with a highly potent, quick-acting anaesthetic. The dose was sufficient to keep a man unconscious for at least forty-eight hours. Since the Agent could not take Gilly out of that apartment, he had made sure that the monster would not be able to make use of him for the next two days.

  THE blows on the door were telling. Splinters were flying. In a moment there would be a large enough opening for the monster to aim his finger through. “X” turned to the window, observed with satisfaction that the hose from the potbellied jar was now giving off a vapor that thickened as it rose out of the window into heavy clouds of smoke. As the smoke grew in volume, it became impossible to see through it. To the riflemen stationed outside the house, the window would be invisible. This was the latest development in smoke screens—a chemical which the Agent had developed himself and was using now for the first time.

  Under the protection of the smoke screen, the Agent swung himself out of the window, clinging to the drain pipe. But instead of descending as he might have been expected to do, he drew himself up, inch by inch, slowly, painfully. The smoke swirled around him, but his eyes were protected by the goggles. Gripping the pipe with taut fingers and tight knees, he worked himself up toward the roof. It was several minutes before he heard a crash from within the apartment he had just left. He heard heavy, lumbering steps, the crash of furniture. That would be the monster feeling his way around in the room, probably unable to see through the smoke which must be filling the place by this time.

  Suddenly from below there came a shower of high-powered slugs, as the riflemen stationed outside realized that “X” must be using the smoke screen to escape. The slugs clanged against the drain pipe below the point where the smoke came out. Soon they would raise their sights on the chance that he was working upward instead of down. He could not hope to reach the roof before that; in fact, if he ascended any higher, he would emerge from the protection of the smoke screen and would be a clear target.

  He was now alongside the window on the floor directly above his own. Without hesitation he swung his feet over the sill, crashing the glass. He leaped through the jagged opening into the room. It was unfurnished, vacant. His trousers were cut by the glass, there was a long gash in his right hand, and a jagged scratch on his cheek. But he did not stop; he dashed through the room, out into the hall. Doors were opening everywhere, heads were peering out—heads of people who looked bewildered, frightened by the sudden uproar in their house.

  On the landing below “X” heard heavy steps, heard the monster ascending the stairs. The monster was quick-witted, had divined what “X” had done to escape, and was coming after him.

  The Agent ran up the stairs. People ducked their heads inside at sight of his bloody face, made no move to hinder him as he raced to the roof. He pushed open the skylight, raised himself up, and sped across to the roof of the adjoining house.

  He ducked down through the skylight of the next building, just getting a glimpse of the monster’s hideous masked head peering after him out of the opening he had left. The monster was too unwieldy to hoist itself through the skylight after him.

  “X” sped down four flights of steps to the street. A crowd was milling around, attracted by the strange happenings. “X” mingled with the crowd, listening to comment. “It’s the murder monster!” some one said. “He came in that truck across the street and went in this house here. And they’re firing out of the truck at the house!”

  “X” noted the truck opposite. He could tell that it was armored, an impregnable fortress. He waited until he saw the murder monster appear in the street again. The horrible gas-masked figure was flanked by several of the robots who were carrying the body of Gilly.

  From near-by came the sound of a police siren. The Agent hoped fervently that the monster would leave before the police got there, for he knew that the uniformed men wouldn’t stand the ghost of a chance against the horrible weapon of fire that the monster wielded.

  He himself had fled from it, for he was not yet ready to meet it on even terms; and a senseless attack at this time would not have served the cause of justice—might even have hindered it by removing the only man in existence who knew the secret of the escaped convicts.

  “X” breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the monster and the robots pile into the truck, and the truck pull away before the police car rounded the comer. Then he himself turned and walked away from there swiftly. He had retreated before the monster, had, apparently, lost the first encounter with it. But he was far closer to victory than he had yet been, for he now knew much about the monster and the robots that the monster did not suspect him of knowing.

  And he proceeded to act upon that knowledge.

  Chapter XIV

  DEVIL’S DRAGNET

  THE actions of Secret Agent “X” during the next two or three hours might have appeared highly peculiar to an uninformed observer. He went to another of his apartments and changed back to the disguise of Mr. Vardis. Leaving the apartment, his first stop was at the office of a large theatrical supply firm, where he was closeted with the manager for some twenty minutes before he emerged with a large bundle that he deposited in his car. He then drove to a quiet store in the East Fifties, on the window of which appeared the modest lettering, “Corlear & Son, Custom Tailors.” He took his package inside, and spent almost an hour in the fitting room with Mr. Corlear himself.

  The casual observer would have wondered that a man engaged in so desperate a battle with crime should find time for such apparently frivolous occupations. But Mr. Vardis seemed to have not
hing on his mind but securing a perfect fit in the clothing he was ordering. Mr. Corlear finally escorted him to the door personally, saying, “I promise you, Mr. Vardis, that it will be ready for you by tomorrow morning. I will myself work all night on this job.”

  From Corlear’s, Mr. Vardis drove to the nearest pay telephone and phoned Bates. He issued careful instructions. “You will hold the two planes in readiness in the field in Brooklyn. At the first alarm they will go up over the city.”

  “The planes will be ready, air,” Bates replied. “How about our other operations—shall we continue them?”

  “Absolutely. Keep Runkle under constant observation. I will continue to call you every half hour for news. Have you been able to pick up any trace of ‘Duke’ Marcy as yet?”

  “No, sir. I have more than a dozen men on his trail, but no success.”

  “Keep after him. It’s important that he be located within the next twenty-four hours.”

  When he had completed his call to Bates, the Agent called the office of the Hobart Detective Agency. “This is Mr. Martin,” he told the girl who answered the phone. “Please let me talk to Mr. Hobart.”

  That young man was bubbling with excitement when he got on the wire. “I’m glad you called, Mr. Martin. I’ve been offered a retainer to work on this robot murder case, and I was wondering if I should accept it!”

  “A retainer? By whom?”

  “They’re in my private office now. Young Jack Larrabie, and Randolph Coulter. It seems they expect to be next on the monster’s list. Their friend Pringle—”

  “Take the case, Jim! Ask them to wait. I’ll send up a man to handle it for you—a Mr. Fearson. Give him every co-operation; follow his orders as if they were my own. He’ll be there in a half hour!”

  He hung up, leaving Jim Hobart slightly bewildered. Now he wasted no time. He returned to his car, and sitting in the back, he set up his portable mirror, worked on his face. In a short time there appeared once more the features of the thin, ascetic looking, middle-aged man who had questioned Gilly a few hours earlier. That completed, he selected a set of cards and papers from a small portfolio. These papers established that he was a Mr. Arvold Fearson, private investigator. He had a license in that name, and the picture attached to that license was a duplicate of his new face. It was only one of a dozen identities which the Agent had prepared in advance for instant use.