Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 4 Page 29

  He had scarcely landed at the bottom of the pit before strong hands seized him. In the glow of subdued light, he saw the heads of several men—faces that were rendered simian in appearance because of the gas masks covering them. He was hurried, surrounded by men, over a rough floor in a direction unknown.

  As the green mist of poison gas cleared, he knew that he was being carried through a newly constructed tunnel, evidently reaching far under the prison wall. He knew that the people in the death chamber were helpless to follow. The poison gas would see to that.

  His rescuers paused only long enough to remove the straps that bound his legs. When they continued their flight up the passage, “X” panted out, “Whew! That was some narrow squeak!”

  There was no reply. Only the shuffling of feet along the floor disturbed the silence.

  Directly ahead, the tunnel slanted sharply upward. Warm fresh air fanned “X’s” flushed face. In another moment they were in the open. A brief glimpse of his surroundings—a scattering of small houses, and “X” was lifted into a motor car. The man at his side removed his gas mask as the car rolled smoothly away.

  The Secret Agent’s eyes were searching the compartment trying to see the faces of the men who had saved him from the gallows. As the car sped beneath a lone street lamp near the outskirts of the city, a beam of light fell directly across the face of the man at his side. “X” could scarcely repress an exclamation of astonishment.

  For the face of the man had not a single animate feature. Rather, it was like the painted, waxen face of a doll. The features were thin, the nose hawklike, the fixed expression terrifying. Only the eyes seemed part of the living man and they were deep, dark pools where nameless evil dwelt.

  Suddenly, the creature at his side moved with startling rapidity. Pain knifed through “X’s” arm. Fire flowed momentarily in his veins. He saw the flash of a hypodermic needle as it was drawn from his flesh. His brain suddenly became clouded. His body gained new buoyancy. He was plunged into a drugged sleep.

  Chapter VII

  ASSASSINS’ COUNCIL

  THE Agent’s awakening was like returning from the grave. Something seemed to explode within his body. The shock was so sudden that he found himself panting as though he had been suddenly showered with water.

  He was standing upright, body rigid. For an instant, his surroundings dazed him. He was in a vast, high-ceilinged room. The walls, paneled in oak were apparently of incredible age. A huge fireplace was a maw of crackling flames. The room seemed to be without doors or windows and the only source of light was a wrought-iron chandelier that dropped from a chain from the ceiling.

  “X” was in his shirt sleeves, and standing in the center of a circle of seven chairs. Six of the chairs were occupied by men wearing sombre gray suits, identical in every way. A small diamond badge, fashioned in the form of an Arabic numeral, was pinned to the lapel of each man’s coat. The chairs, too, were all alike. However, the man whose badge designated him as Number One occupied a slightly larger chair than the others.

  The faces of the six men were what astonished “X” more than anything else. For to a feature, all faces were alike—waxen, doll-like, hideous in their lack of human expression.

  “Tolman,” began the man who was designated as Number One, “you have been selected for membership in our organization for several reasons. You have an admirable criminal record.”

  “X” bobbed his head. “Thanks, chief,” he said in the voice of Pete Tolman, better now that the capsules had been removed from his nostrils. “And thanks for savin’ me from bein’ topped.”

  “Silence! You must know that silence is our golden rule. Only because we, the leaders of a mighty order, have maintained silence have we successfully carried out every stage of our Herculean task.

  “My purpose in rescuing you was a selfish one. Your service with this group will be for my own selfish purposes. However, you will find that you will be paid beyond your wildest imaginings and that you will be able to retire in a few years, independently wealthy—if you obey me in all things.

  “Our battle is waged with the most powerful weapon known to man. I mean money—two kinds of money. Hard, sound currency for our friends and colleagues; spurious bills for our enemies.

  “Let me enumerate your present duties. First of all, you will obtain for us the engraving plates for the production of five and ten dollar bills which were made by your old friend, Joseph Fronberg. We have all of Fronberg’s plates with the exception of the ones just named. Do you know where they are hidden?”

  “X” thought quickly. It was evident that Pete Tolman had been an important wheel in the old Fronberg machine. Surely he would be expected to know what had been done with the plates. He replied: “Sure, chief. Old Fronberg, hid ’em. I got a pretty good idea where they are. May take some time for me to get ’em.”

  “There is no great hurry, Tolman. There are other tasks of greater importance at present. There is but one man who might thwart our purposes. That man’s identity is a mystery, making your job even more difficult. I speak of the man who has hidden himself behind the identity of Secret Agent ‘X.’ When you have found that man, you are to kill him.”

  “X” uttered a low whistle. “That’s a tough un, chief! From what I hear he’s a slick guy.”

  NUMBER ONE nodded. “Yet he is not as clever as I. You will have every assistance from other members of the group.

  “Now, perhaps you have wondered why our group, wealthy and powerful as it is, has remained such a mystery to the police. I doubt very much if even Secret Agent ‘X’ has succeeded in gaining any information about us.”

  “We are known as the Seven Silent Men because to drop the slightest information regarding our organization means death—at the hands of the law or in our own execution chamber. On occasion in meting out punishment to members who might be inclined to inform, the law is our servant. Here at headquarters I have an iron-bound book. Upon its pages are signed confessions to murder.

  “Every member upon initiation to our order must commit murder under the eyes of a witness and then sign his name to a full confession of the deed. If any member should be so careless as to let information drop concerning the Seven Silent Men, his confession may be promptly sent to the police. Admission to our headquarters, the one haven of certain safety, would be refused him. There is no escape for the traitor. Now you know why the Seven Men are also the Silent Men. Any question?”

  “X” bobbed his head. “It’s a swell idea, sure, but it looks to me as though there were only six guys in the gang.”

  “At present, there are only six leaders,” replied Number One. “Number Six displeased us. His name was Arthurs, a teller in the Suburban National Bank. He is dead. You will take his place—after you have proved yourself worthy.

  “You will now advance to my chair,” continued Number One.

  “X” obeyed. The leader of the gang reached into his pocket and drew out a pair of ivory dice and a folded slip of paper. These he handed to “X.”

  “The dice,” he explained, “will serve as a means of designating the servants of the Seven Silent Men. You will understand when you examine them. Carry them with you always. The slip of paper is inscribed with the name of the person whom you are to murder as a part of the initiation into our order. You may look at the paper now.”

  Secret Agent “X” carefully unfolded the paper. His heart was throbbing with excitement. The formidable difficulties which he must overcome to outwit this archcriminal and his gang were piling up ahead of him, forming a seemingly impassable barrier. Murder! He was expected to murder—Secret Agent “X” was expected to take life when his own code seldom permitted him to use lethal weapons.

  But upon looking down at the piece of paper open in his hands, he experienced a stab of pain far more cruel than a wound from an assassin’s knife. For the name written upon the paper was dear to him beyond all others. It was Betty Dale, the beautiful girl reporter who had aided “X” in countless battles aga
inst crime.

  “X” SUDDENLY became aware that all eyes were fixed upon him. He was thankful that the plastic substance covering his face would hide the fact that he had most certainly paled at the thought of what was expected of him. However, something in his eyes must have betrayed his shock to Number One. The leader of the Seven Silent Men spoke icily.

  “Does the killing of a woman seem such a disagreeable task to you? Would you prefer to return to the death house?”

  “Cheez, no, boss!” the Agent cried. “I just ain’t never knifed a woman. Give me the goose pimples at first, s’ help me! But I’ll do it. Just you watch me!”

  “That is the better spirit!” Number One commended. “I intend that Betty Dale shall be killed, that she shall be branded with the mark of Seven, and that she shall be thrown into the river from the wharf. My idea is that such an act will force Secret Agent ‘X’ into open warfare. If I am any judge, Betty Dale is more to ‘X’ than a mere ally.

  “You may wonder how this killing will be arranged. Leave that to me. Surely you realize the extent of our power. A group capable of tunneling under the walls of a penitentiary, blasting through the floor of the death house, and rescuing a prisoner from the gallows, is also capable of arranging a mere murder. And when Betty Dale is found, a corpse floating in the East River, well—” Number One uttered an evil chuckle—“Mr. ‘X’ will be pretty badly upset. He’ll be in such a frenzy that he’ll turn the city upside-down in a frantic effort to find the hiding place of the Seven Silent Men. Then—then he will show his hand. Then Pete Tolman’s knife will know where to strike. Am I right, Tolman?”

  “Sure, boss!” the Agent spoke confidently. “But you haven’t told me where this headquarters is yet. Some old millionaire’s dump?”

  Number One’s voice lost every hint of cordiality. “Do not be too inquisitive, lest your eternal silence be assured. We are rather clever at this business of ripping out a man’s tongue!” Number One snapped his fingers. “Number Three and Number Four, you will attend Tolman. See that he is suitably disguised. Then take him away. He will be free to do as he pleases until his services are required to murder Betty Dale.”

  Two of the Silent Men rose from their chairs. “X” saw an oak panel open to reveal a scarlet-curtained doorway. Through this he was led by Number Three and Number Four into a small room hardly bigger than a closet. There he was furnished with a red wig, a sandy mustache, and grease paints—clumsy accessories of disguise that would have caused Agent “X” to laugh had there remained any humor in his heart.

  When “X” had completed this clumsy disguise, Number Four approached him with a large, brutal looking hypodermic needle. He was forced to submit to several injections to nerve centers throughout the body. He felt the strange drug oozing over him.

  He realized suddenly, that he was going blind. His mind was strangely dulled, his sense of equilibrium upset. He was like a corpse with only the motor nerves that activated his arms and legs remaining alive. Later, he recognized the rumble of a motor. Then he knew that he was walking. But his brain was far too deadened for him to remember the direction taken or the interval of time between the administration of the drug and his sudden and violent reawakening.

  Chapter VIII

  THE CRIPPLED SPY

  SLOWLY, Agent “X’s” sense of sight returned to him. A red mist that swam before his eyes parted and he was dazzled by the glitter of a million lights. He was in the middle of the sidewalk. Hurrying people jostled him rudely. In the street was the continual stream of heavy traffic. He realized that he was in New York—in fact, he was standing in the very shadow of the mammoth Falmouth Tower Building. It was eight-thirty P. M.

  But as far as he knew, he might have been brought miles and miles from the Seven gang’s headquarters. Certainly among the gleaming spires and dancing lights of the city, he would find no old house boasting such a room as the oak-paneled one occupied by the Seven Silent Men.

  As he walked down the street, three newsboys came by shouting their sensational ware. The Herald had put out an extra. Black headlines screamed:

  COUNTERFEIT BILLS IN FALMOUTH PAYROLL

  “X” reached into his pocket to find it well stocked with bills and change. Evidently Number One believed in keeping his hirelings happy with money. “X” hailed one of the newshawkers and bought a paper. He glanced at the headlines as he hurried along. Much had happened since he and Jim Hobart had flown to Baton Rouge.

  The caldron of trouble brewed and bubbled. Banks had closed to prevent runs. The Bankers Express Agency had been ordered to stop work because it was impossible to tell their armored trucks from those employed by the counterfeiters in the distribution of spurious money. The Falmouth Manufacturing Company had actually paid out thousands of dollars in worthless currency—money that they had supposed had come from a legitimate bank.

  “X” remembered the blond, unpleasant Lynn Falmouth. Falmouth presented a baffling enigma to Agent “X.” He was a character beyond fathoming, even to an astute psychologist like Secret Agent “X.” Nor could he forget that Falmouth’s cousin, George Arthurs, had been Number Six of the Silent Men.

  Rounding the corner, “X” came abruptly on a knot of people gathered around a hollow-eyed young man who was haranguing on the failure of the government to stop the flow of counterfeit money. He flaunted a copy of the Herald in their faces.

  “Look, brothers!” he shouted. “A supposedly reputable firm has been paying for the daily labor of hundreds of our companions. Paying not in check and not in cash. Paying them in worthless paper! Shall we stand idle as the police do? How do you know, John Smith, or you, Mary Jones, that the money in your pocket will buy the daily bread or be refused as so much waste paper?”

  “X” waited for no more. He recognized the young man as Malvin Stein, an agitator who had given up his position as heir to the Stein fortune in order to air his crack-brained schemes and epic visions from soap boxes. He was a feeble orator and, had it not been that his subject was of such vital importance, he would have probably lacked an audience. Yet the incident plainly showed the spread of the germs of discontent.

  “X” stepped into a rolling taxi and gave the address of an apartment building where he sometimes made his headquarters. Looking back through the window, he saw a crippled, twisted form of a man pull from the crowd and hobble into a second taxi. “X” wondered if the pitiful wreck of humanity was following him. Beggers seldom rode in taxis.

  The cab containing the cripple nosed determinedly after them. When “X” ordered the driver to stop a few blocks from this apartment, he saw that the second cab dropped back to the corner, obviously to permit the begger to alight. “X” walked on towards his apartment, certain that he heard the strange, shuffling steps of the cripple behind him. Once he turned his head and saw the grotesquely shaped man dragging himself along with a diagonal gait peculiar to a certain type of paralytic.

  “X” entered the apartment building—a tall, stone-fronted old house that had been remodeled for its present use. He climbed the steps to the second floor and let himself in by means of a combination lock concealed beneath the mailbox flap.

  HIS first act on turning on the light was to pull down the blinds. Then, through a small hole in the curtain, he looked down upon the street. Directly opposite the apartment building, he could see the cripple. The man was squatting on the sidewalk, holding a tray of lead pencils which he offered to every passer-by.

  Secret Agent “X” had previously-devised a piece of apparatus for just such an emergency. He went to a closet, unlocked it, and dragged out a strange sort of motion picture projector. It was mounted on a steel frame and in place of the usual film spools there were two flanged pulleys mounted on two arms that extended from a few inches from the floor nearly to the ceiling. Over these pulleys ran a belt of motion picture film.

  He focused the projector lens directly upon the drawn blind of the front window. An electric switch on an extension cord enabled him to snap out the light of th
e room at exactly the same time that he turned on the projector. The illusion was perfect. The projector cast the silhouette of a man sitting in a chair directly upon the blind. From the outside it must havs appeared that “X” had suddenly seated himself in a chair and begun reading. As the belt of film turned, the silhouette made lifelike movements—turning the pages of a book and puffing on a pipe.

  Then, taking care not to step in front of the beam from the projector, “X” walked into another room. There, he opened a small writing desk and produced a folded sheet of paper which he read over quickly. It was an invitation directed to Elisha Pond from Abel Corin, the wealthy bank director. It read:

  Dear Mr. Pond:

  As a philanthropist and public-spirited gentleman, I think you would be interested in meeting Sven Gerlak, a free-lance detective from Milwaukee. You are doubtless well acquainted with his enviable reputation for cracking down on criminal organizations. A number of wealthy gentlemen like yourself have contributed to a fund for employing Mr. Gerlak in hunting down the gang known as the Seven Silent Men.

  I would be happy to have you present at a meeting in my office Thursday evening at about nine o’clock. Mr. Gerlak will be there and a subject of vital importance to our city will be discussed.

  Cordially,

  Abel Corin.

  “X” returned the note to the desk and entered a small room at the back of the apartment. There he kept elaborate material for make-up as well as an extensive wardrobe. Seating himself before a three-sided mirror, he effected a miraculous change in his appearance. When he rose from the mirror he had become the wealthy, eccentric, and mild-faced man who was known throughout the city as Elisha Pond.

  OPENING a window in the same room, “X” swung over the sill, hand-traveled along the ledge until he could grasp the metal downspout leading from the eaves to the alley below. He was in the act of sliding down the pipe, when a window directly opposite opened. A shrill, feminine voice screamed: