Secret Agent X : The Complete Series Volume 3 Page 30

  “Well, have you any idea what the rates are?”

  The attendant had half turned away, as if to return to his duties. He stopped reluctantly. “They run around a hundred a month with service.”

  “A hundred a month!” the Agent exclaimed. “Why, that’s almost twice the prevailing rates!”

  “That’s what we charge, mister. We only take in high class people.”

  “That’s entirely too much,” said “X.” “I don’t see how you can get any business.”

  The attendant shrugged. “We get along.” He turned away once more. “I think it’s cheaper up the block. Why don’t you try over there?”

  “I will. Oh, by the way—”

  The attendant stopped once more, annoyed. “What—”

  He never finished. For Secret Agent “X” had stepped close to him and, as he turned, delivered a smashing blow to the point of the attendant’s chin. The overalled man staggered backward, his eyes growing glassy, and would have slumped to the floor had “X” not caught him and eased him down slowly. He then dragged the unconscious attendant’s body over to a corner, where he deposited it.

  Now he proceeded to scan every corner of the garage. There was no place of concealment anywhere. The walls were of brick, bare, without any sort of covering that might hide a secret door.

  The Agent stepped to the doorway, looked out at the street. Directly opposite was a brownstone house, one of the long row that ran to the corner. They had once been the homes of comfortable families, quiet and refined. Now they all had “furnished room” signs. All, that is, except Number 346, which was the one directly opposite. This one had no sign, and did not seem to be occupied at all.

  Secret Agent “X” frowned, turned away from the entrance, and went into the office of the garage, which was in the corner, facing the street. There was no one in the office, but he noticed that the large window on the street was of frosted glass, making it impossible to look in from outside.

  There was a desk against one wall, and a table in the center. The floor was of concrete. There were two closed doors in the wall opposite the desk. The Agent tried them. The first opened into a wash room, the second into a closet. It was quite a roomy closet. A dozen new tires, still in their wrappings, were stacked at one side. The rest of the closet was occupied by boxes of inner tubes, cans of oil, and other innocent-appearing accessories of a legitimate garage.

  The Agent examined the floor and the walls, but could find no trace of an opening. His face was intent, thoughtful.

  Before leaving the closet, he put his hands on the top tire of the stack, tried to lift it. He found that it could not be lifted. It was tied to the others by several lengths of heavy wire. “X” gripped the wire, and pulled.

  And the whole stack of tires moved outward, toward him!

  They had been resting on a metal plate set just above the floor, which moved on a pivot. Below the plate there was disclosed a circular opening leading down into darkness.

  Secret Agent “X” peered down into this opening and saw a set of stairs.

  HE was taut now, all his senses keenly alert. No sound came from the garage outside the office, no sound came from the depths below. Ominous silence lay about the place, and the gathering dusk seemed to creep upon him with damp, stifling fingers. Here then, was the lair where lurked this murder monster that had held the city in terror. Now at last, after unremitting effort, after thrusting himself into danger time and again, he was going to come to grips once more with that horrible specter of death that caused men to turn into a living blaze of torture.

  The Agent lowered himself into the opening, descended the short flight of steps. It was pitch black in here, but he did not light his flash. He reached the bottom, felt a wall at his right, and followed it. He put out his left hand, felt another wall.

  He was in a narrow passage, and his sense of direction told him that it ran under the street, toward Number 346, opposite. He followed the passage for about thirty feet, and found himself before a closed door.

  Now he risked the flashlight, saw that the door was of steel, with a small peephole, closed now, high up at the level of the eyes.

  He set the flashlight on its end so that the beam was diffused upward, and knelt before the lock, taking out his kit of tools. In less than three minutes, working with absolute silence, he had the door open, stepped through into a lighted cubbyhole.

  One of the robot-men was seated here, apparently a guard. He sprang up, hand streaking for the silenced automatic that lay on a small table beside him. But the Agent was faster. He had provided himself with another gas gun to replace the one he had lost earlier in the day, and he fired this full in the face of the startled robot. The man sank to the floor without a moan.

  The Secret Agent wasted no time. He knelt beside the inert form, set up his portable mirror and laid on the floor his make-up kit.

  His fingers worked swiftly, dexterously, as he modeled for himself a face that was the duplicate of the face of the robot who lay before him.

  Finally he arose. His gray suit was of the same cut as that of the robots; his face was an exact replica of theirs. He walked stiffly, opened a door at the other side of the cubbyhole, and stepped through, for all the world another one of those merciless killers.

  He was in a short hall, musty and dank with the typical cellar smell. This must be the cellar of Number 346. He passed a rickety wooden door, heard a scraping noise behind it.

  The door was fastened on the outside by a staple which he removed. He flashed his light into the dark ulterior, saw a huddled form, tied, with mouth and eyes taped.

  He stepped inside, knelt beside the figure, and removed the tape from the mouth, leaving the man’s eyes covered. The man was Ed Runkle!

  Runkle had not been picked up by Bates’ men—in fact he had been lost sight of after “X” had seen him driving away from Belvidere Road. And this was why he had not been picked up again. He was a prisoner of the monster—Runkle, the attorney who had defended the monster’s man in court, whom “X” had seen driving away from the slaughter house on Belvidere Road!

  WITH the tape off his mouth, the little attorney wet his lips, ran his tongue around the outside of his mouth where the tape had torn the skin. “What do you want of me?” he asked huskily. He wriggled his head as if he could in that way remove the tape from his eyes. “Are you one of the—robots? Talk, why don’t you talk! Let me hear you say something!”

  “X” kept his ear cocked for the possible approach of anyone along the corridor. He said, “I am not a robot. Answer my questions, but do not raise your voice. How did you get here?”

  Runkle’s body seemed to stiffen at the sound of “X’s” voice. He exclaimed, “If you’re not a robot—who are you?” He had seemed to gain courage from the news that this was not another one of the ruthless mechanical-appearing men of the monster. Even his voice seemed to assume a new tone, a tone with a tinge of cunning in it. He repeated the question—“Who are you?”

  “Never mind that,” the Agent told him curtly. “There’s no time now for explanations. If I’m to help you, you must answer me quickly. How did you get here?”

  With the instinct of his profession, Runkle began to hedge. “You want information? Why don’t you take the tape off my eyes then? When I see who you are, maybe I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “X” arose from beside him. “I have no time,” he said shortly. “If you won’t talk, I’ll leave you here.” He went toward the door.

  Runkle called out in a low, desperate voice, “Wait! Don’t leave me here! I’ll talk.”

  The Agent returned, stood above him. “Go on.”

  “I don’t know how I got here. I was driving, out in Brooklyn. Suddenly a large truck cut in front of me, forced me to the curb. The rear door of the truck opened, and a small army of these robots swarmed out, grabbed me and hustled me into the truck. They tied me up this way, and taped my eyes. Then I passed out, and I don’t know what happened after that. I came
to in here—I don’t know where I am.” He raised his voice in a thin whine. “For God’s sake, get me out of—”

  “X” quickly placed a hand over his mouth. “Silence, you fool! Do you want to attract everybody in the place?”

  The Agent removed his hand from the attorney’s mouth, asked, “Why did you kill Marcy and Brinz?”

  Runkle shifted energetically. “God! I didn’t do that! I went down to the kitchen to get some drinks for them, and when I got back I saw two of those robots in the hall upstairs, and they were firing their silenced guns into the room where Marcy and Brinz were sitting. I got scared and ran out. I got in my car and drove away from there as fast as I could go.”

  The Agent bent closer. “What was your business with Marcy?” he asked.

  Runkle was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “I don’t believe you’re here to help me. You’re one of that monster’s men. You’re pumping me!” He lapsed into stubborn silence.

  The Agent arose. “You need not answer,” he said. “I know what you were meeting Marcy for. Brinz was bringing the two of you together—‘Duke’ Marcy knew who the Murder Monster is, and he wanted your help to avenge the death of Mabel Boling!” Runkle uttered a gasp of surprise. The Agent turned to the door. “I’m not taping your mouth again—but if you value your life, don’t make any outcry or do anything to attract attention. I give you my word that you will be freed before I leave here.” Then he added, as Runkle started to protest, “You can rely on it—it is the word of—Secret Agent ‘X’!”

  Runkle’s jaw fell open in astonishment. He was too stunned to speak.

  “X” stepped out and continued down the hallway. The hall ended in a cross-corridor; at the end of the corridor was a door, and before the door stood one of the robots with an automatic in his hand. It was too late to draw back, for the robot had already seen him.

  “X” advanced in his direction, but the robot seemed to take him for granted. Indeed, there was no reason why he shouldn’t, for he no doubt took “X” to be one of his fellows.

  He raised his hand, however, motioned for “X” to go back. He was apparently on guard at that door, with instructions to allow no one to enter.

  But “X” advanced as if he had not noticed the gesture, until he was within two feet of the other. The robot stepped forward, barring his way, motioning angrily, now, for him to go back.

  “X” smiled disarmingly, and fired the gas gun, which he had held out of sight, directly into the robot’s face. The guard sagged, unconscious, the automatic slipping from nerveless fingers, and the Agent eased him to the floor.

  He stepped over him and tried the door. It was unlocked, and he pulled it open gently, a fraction of an inch, without making a sound.

  Chapter XXI

  FLAMES OF HATE

  THE room within was large, square. The effect of the first glimpse was an effect of whiteness and cleanliness. The walls were tiled, white. A long bench at the opposite wall ran across the full length of the room, except for the spot in the right-hand corner where there was a flat-topped, mahogany, glass-covered desk.

  On the bench were retorts, test tubes, microscopes. Racks of tubes containing liquids and gasses were nailed to the wall above the bench. Everything seemed orderly, neat; so neat as to be terrifying—terrifying by the very incongruity of this white-tiled laboratory in the cellar of a rundown house in a run-down district.

  The Agent, however, had nothing but a cursory glance for the setting—a glance, though, that embraced everything vital before it rested upon the two characters in the center of the room.

  One of those two was young Jack Larrabie. The other was the weird figure of the murder monster.

  Larrabie’s face was suffused with rage. He was shouting, “Damn you! Why did you kill Coulter?”

  The murder monster waddled forward slowly, stopped, facing Larrabie, and standing sideways to the door through which “X” peered. From somewhere in its depths there came the deep metallic voice that the Agent had heard before. It uttered a hideous, inhuman laugh. Then the laughter stopped suddenly, and the voice spoke.

  “You seem to forget, Larrabie, that I have the whip hand. Do you know what that means ? I will show you!”

  Too late, young Larrabie turned, leaped away from in front of that hideous figure. He had not covered three feet before the ponderous, moving finger of the monster rose, pointing at his back. Horrid, sizzling flame burst out around the young man. He screamed once, half-turned, and his face was a mask of hate and dread.

  He dropped to the floor, tried ineffectually to beat out the flames by rolling over and over. Now he was enveloped in fire, a screaming, wriggling, sizzling ball of fire.

  It had all happened so quickly, almost upon the instant that the Agent had opened the door. Now, “X” flung it wide, launched himself at the monster in a flying leap that caught the gruesome figure amidships. The Agent struck with his shoulder, sent the monster staggering backward so that it would have fallen had it not ended up against the bench. It had gone right through the sheet of flame that enveloped the writhing body of young Larrabie, but had been untouched by it.

  Now its dread finger came up, directed itself unerringly at “X.”

  The monster seemed to be quite at ease, secure in the knowledge that in another instant this intruder would likewise go up in flames. But nothing happened!

  From deep within the monster came a rumble of astonishment.

  The Agent laughed grimly, and leaped at the monster once more. This time he did not attempt to match his weight against that of the heavily padded and protected form. He seized the pointing arm, twisted around so that his back was to the monster, his shoulder under the padded arm.

  He used the leverage of his shoulder now, heaved and twisted. The monster was carried forward for a moment, off balance. And in that moment the Agent lunged against it sideways. It staggered to one side, and unable to recover its balance, crashed to the floor. The Agent had attacked it in its one weak spot—being so heavily padded and protected, it was easily unbalanced; and once on the floor, it could not rise without great difficulty. It was something like the armored knights of old—invincible while on horseback, but at the mercy of the first attack when thrown.

  The monster struggled frantically to swing its deadly finger up once more, but “X” deliberately stepped on the padded arm, pinning it to the floor.

  The Agent stared down with somber eyes. “You should have pointed that finger of yours at my face—it’s the only vulnerable spot. The clothes I am wearing are made to order, of sheet asbestos, specially treated to soften it so it could be tailored into a suit. It is fire-proof!”

  The body of Jack Larrabie lay still, a few feet away, smouldering, scorched, a pitiful thing in death, the face now fleshless and charred. Even now, with the spark of life burned out of it, the body twitched convulsively as if it still lived in agony.

  THE monster tried to twist itself free of the Agent’s foot, which pinned it down. But its very bulk was against it.

  The Agent bent swiftly and unbuckled the straps that held the gas mask in place. He jerked it off, and found that the head beneath was nothing but an empty shell of aluminum, covered by the gas-mask. It was held to the metal body by two strong clamps. The Agent undid these, and removed the aluminum shell. Out of an opening in the barrel-like body, where the neck should have been, there stared up at him a pair of venomous eyes, sparkling with hatred.

  The occupant of that monster’s armor was not as tall as his shell. His head remained within the armor, while the gas-mask and the aluminum head were merely for the purpose of effect. “X” could now see two peepholes, covered with glass, in the padded body. It was through these that the man within had looked at his victims.

  The Agent said, “You can crawl out of there now. You’re through.” His voice was flat, with a strange bitterness. He saw mental pictures of the atrocities at the bazaar, saw the lifeless forms of Fowler and Grace.

  The man within the armor spoke,
no longer metallically, resonantly, but in a human voice, full of anger. “You fool! What good is this going to do you? You need me. Even if your face is changed, there are enough papers in the safe deposit box to identify you to the police. Wherever you went you’d be recognized as one of the robots—you’d be seized in an hour!” Clearly, he was taken in by the Agent’s makeup, believed him to be one of the robots.

  At the sound of his voice, Secret Agent “X” had nodded to himself as if in confirmation of a suspicion. He said. “I am not one of your robots, Fred Barton. I am the instrument which brings you to the bar of justice!”

  The man within the armor of the monster gasped. “Who are you?”

  “X” did not answer. He was unstrapping the padding from the metal armor of the huge figure, still keeping his foot on that arm.

  His suspicions were confirmed. The man within that shell was Fred Barton. Fred Barton, who was supposed to have been kidnaped; Fred Barton who had just consigned his friend, Jack Larrabie, to horrible death by fire!

  It took fifteen minutes to get him out of that cumbersome suit of combination armor and padding. The Agent was careful to prevent him from using that deadly right arm that controlled the secret of the burning death.

  He snapped a pair of handcuffs on young Barton’s wrists when he dragged him out of the shell of armor. Barton tried to resist, struggled with maniacal strength. But the Agent twisted his arms in a punishing grip, and tightened the cuffs.

  Barton stood there, breathing heavily, his face flushed, while “X” knelt beside the monster’s suit, found the tube that ran from the underneath metal finger in the right hand to a compact tank strapped on the inside of the back.

  He looked up at Barton. “You were always a clever chemist, Barton. This gas that you use here—it could have made you famous; you would have been hailed as a leader in your field—the discoverer of an invisible gas that ignites upon contact with organic substance! Why did you employ it in this way?”