Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 4 Page 35

  As soon as he had pushed the penny into the lock, a spring snapped. The coin jumped back into his hand, but the steel panel was slowly sliding back into the wall. Beyond, a pale blue light illuminated a room about eight by ten feet in size. Without hesitation, “X” stepped in.

  Chapter XVII

  THE ENEMY’S CAMP

  SO smoothly, so silently that no one but a man of “X’s” unusually accute senses could have noticed it, the little room began to rise. It was then, as “X” had guessed, an electric elevator. On stopping, the door slid open with the same silence. “X” stepped into a barren room and a steel panel, similar to the one which he had just succeeded in opening, closed upon the elevator.

  Sliding doors directly in front of Agent “X” opened, revealing a short hall. Around the bend of the hall, moving with a shuffling, diagonal step that Agent “X” immediately recognized, came a hideous figure. It was the crippled begger who had spied on “X’s” apartment. Bleary eyes glared from beneath the overhanging tangle of his dirty gray hair. If the cause of his limping had come from paralysis, then the same disease had left its mark on his face.

  His mouth was twisted to one side in a permanent, bestial snarl. His red tongue gaped between exposed teeth. His cheeks and chin were pitted with loathsome, open sores. The peculiar posture that his crippled limbs imposed upon him caused his powerful arms to dangle in front of him, lending something simian to his appearance. “X” saw that his gait, which could only be described as diagonal, was produced by extending the right leg at an angle and pulling its mate up to meet it.

  The hideous monster of a man sidled up to “X.” He seized the Agent’s arm with a grip which actually brought a wince of pain to “X.” “The sign,” he mumbled from his crooked mouth.

  “X” hesitated. He felt that the cripple’s strange eyes were stripping off his mask, discovering him as the spy that he was. He had never been told any sign in particular used by the Seven gang. Anyway, he had to take a chance. He took from his pocket the numbered penny and handed it to the cripple. As he did so, he noticed the monster’s hands.

  The fingers were knotted, big knuckled. Flesh had been eaten away from the fingertips until they were raw-looking and sponge-pitted. No vicious, flesh-corrupting disease had done that to the man’s fingers. The fingertips had been eaten by acid—perhaps to prevent any chance of his fingerprints being recognized.

  He fumbled the coin back into Secret Agent “X’s” hands. “Come, Number Three,” he grumbled. He dragged himself around the corner and down the hall. “X” followed closely and noted that the cripple unlocked a second door at the end of the passage by means of a penny exactly the same way as “X” had opened the door of the elevator. However, “X” saw that the face of the cripple’s penny was centered with the strange design that combined the numbers one, three, four, and seven.

  The room beyond seemed like the lounge of some exclusive club. Perhaps twenty men sprawled in chairs or leaned over card tables. And they were all criminals—men with police records, denizens of the underworld easily recognized by Secret Agent “X” who knew nearly every face in the rogues’ gallery. They paid not the slightest attention to “X,” but he noted that their glances followed the cripple with surreptitious, timid glances.

  Through another door of immense thickness, the noise of the criminals in the lounge was muffled completely. Up a short hall, they turned into the Oak Room with its antique paneling and crackling, open fire.

  IN a small office just beyond, “X” saw Number One sitting behind his desk. He neither moved nor spoke. Dim light did not pierce the sunken eye-holes in his mask, and “X” could not discern the slightest sign of life in the man.

  “Number Three,” announced the cripple in a surly voice.

  “I suppose, Number Three,” came coldly from Number One, “that you have not brought Tolman with you?”

  “No, sir,” replied “X” imitating as closely as possible the soft, velvety voice that he remembered as belonging to Number Three.

  “If I were a just man,” Number One went on quietly, “I should hand you over to the Bishop, here, for a taste of the knout.”

  “X” looked at the hideous cripple. This creature, then, was the Bishop. The cripple’s bleared eyes burned as if he anticipated, with pleasure, beating Number Three with the knout.

  “However, present circumstances make it necessary for me to have every available man ready for instant service in case the populace does not respond to our present methods of persuasion. The revolt I have so carefully nurtured—” Number One stopped, uttered a sharp command: “Bishop, are you still here? Go! I must talk to Dr. Kousha in private!”

  Dr. Kousha! Then Number One took Agent “X” for Dr. Kousha. Well did “X” remember the name. Kousha, a Japanese professor of psychology whose plottings in his own country against the military party had caused him to flee from the island empire. So Kousha had found his way to America. Probably, he was the broadfaced Japanese whom “X” had seen with Milo Leads not more than an hour ago.

  How eagerly Number One must have snapped up Kousha for membership in his criminal council. For Kousha was a man entirely without scruples, a brilliant scholar, and a skilled hypnotist. It was easy for “X” to see how weak characters might have been enmeshed in the sinister web of the Seven gang by means of Milo Leads’ drugs and Kousha’s diabolical hypnotism.

  When the door had closed behind the Bishop, Number One asked: “Just what would you propose be done in order to ferret out this Secret Agent ‘X’ and prevent him from hindering our progress?”

  “X” answered promptly: “I would broadcast by radio, communicate with Agent ‘X’ and tell him that you have Betty Dale here at headquarters. That would most certainly draw him from his hiding place.”

  After a moment’s silence, Number One replied: “I heard Corin’s appeal to ‘X’ over the radio. I wonder if he succeeded in putting ‘X’ on the job? But even Secret Agent ‘X’ could not find our headquarters. We dare not tell him that Betty Dale is here and further inform him where our headquarters is.”

  “Then, I should arrange to have Secret Agent ‘X’ meet several of our men,” the Agent suggested. “He should give himself up as a prisoner in exchange for the freedom of Betty Dale.”

  “I shall think it over,” replied Number One. “Having the girl in our power is the first step towards the removal of ‘X.’ We might use our own transmitter—” His voice tapered off in a mumbled soliloquy.

  Certain now that Betty Dale had been taken by the Seven gang and was yet alive, Agent “X” inched towards Number One’s chair. He was well armed and he felt certain that he could overcome Number One. Under the threat of death, he might be able to make the gang chief tell where Betty Dale was held prisoner.

  BUT the very simplicity of what he was about to attempt put “X” on his guard. Surely Number One had some insidious, hidden weapon, some powerful defense to hold his lieutenants in check. For Number One must live in daily fear of his life. His payment for servitude was lavish, but he was a cruel master. He must have made enemies among his own men.

  Four feet only separated “X” from the criminal chief. Still, Number One had not moved. Somewhere, a gong rang out. “X” wondered if Number One had sensed danger and was signaling for help. A crackling noise sounded somewhere as though an electrical circuit was being switched on or off. “X’s” right hand sought the pocket where he carried his gas gun. He knew that he was taking desperate chances, but it was now or never. He leaped towards the silent, motionless figure. His left hand shot out, seizing Number One by the throat. His right brought the gun up to the gang leader’s head.

  “X” was about to speak, to demand the instant release of Betty Dale. Suddenly, he realized that the throat of Number One was as cold as death and that it was hard and unyielding. Nor had the gang chief made a single move to defend himself against “X.” The man-thing in the chair with whom “X” had been talking was nothing more than a dummy, weighing all told not
more than fifty pounds.

  “X” sprang back. No wonder he had been permitted to speak to Number One alone. Somewhere in the building or perhaps miles away, Number One had spoken to “X” by means of a telephone and loudspeaker system. Probably the equipment was concealed in the dummy itself.

  “Number One,” said “X” softly, “do you hear me, Number One?”

  There was no reply. Evidently the circuit had been switched off. Perhaps the gong that “X” had heard had been a signal to call Number One’s attentions to some matter that required immediate attention. “X” was alone in Number One’s office, and in the little closet at one side of the room was the iron-bound book of records that could spell doom for the Seven Silent Men.

  “X” approached the little closet cautiously and pushed back the curtains. The book lay exactly as it had been when “X” had signed the name of Pete Tolman to the confession of the murder of Betty Dale. It seemed but a simple task to reach out and touch the book. But “X” knew that certain death lurked in that closet. It was a man-trap constructed so as to protect the record book of the gang. “X” guessed that invisible infra-red light rays passed between the bulls-eye lenses at either end of the closet.

  He knew that the slightest interruption of those rays, by even passing his finger across their path, would break an electrical circuit. He could only guess at the result. Probably some deadly weapon was hidden behind the walls of the closet.

  But Secret Agent “X” was prepared for the occasion. He took from his pocket the small galvanometer for detecting electrical circuits. He moved it slowly around the inner frame of the doorway, watching the needle of the instrument. Suddenly, the needle dipped, telling him that beneath the wooden door frame ran a wire carrying current.

  Moving the galvanometer slowly in the vicinity of the spot where the needle had first dipped, “X” determined that a wire led from the closet under the polished wood flooring and straight toward the gang leader’s desk. In this way, he discovered that the wire led up the inside of the leg on Number One’s desk, struck a small, brass ash tray and doubled back the way it had come.

  Upon examining the ash tray, he learned that the glass lining rested on a delicate spring. The slightest weight, such as the butt of a cigarette, laid on the ash tray would operate the switch that broke the electrical circuit. “X” set his galvanometer down on the ash tray, thus breaking the circuit that operated the electric eyes which guarded the iron book.

  Then he hurried back to the closet and opened the record book. He leafed through pages cluttered with figures that represented the huge financial strength of the gang. Then he came upon the page of confessions. Except for the heading “Confessions” written in black ink, and the lines that allotted seven divisions of the page where the gang members had signed, the page was blank. “X” knew that invisible ink had been used as a further protection. The confessions could easily be brought out by treating the page with heat or chemicals.

  “X” was not interested in reading those confessions. They were for the police and the law courts. For “X” had learned the identity of most of the gang leaders and had even gone so far as to deduce the name of Number One himself. He simply ripped the sheet from the book, rolled it into a neat cylinder, and enclosed it tightly in a small, black cubical box which he had brought for that special purpose.

  Putting the box in his pocket, “X” returned to the desk and closed the circuit that guarded the closet. He had no more than returned the small galvanometer to his pocket, when a man entered the room. He wore the waxen mask of the Seven gang leaders and until he spoke was indistinguishable from any of the others. Then “X” recognized the voice of Count Camocho.

  “Good news, my frien’!” cried the count. “We have been successful in the capture of Secret Agent ‘X’!”

  Chapter XVIII

  THE TORTURE TEST

  “X” IMMEDIATELY adopted the soft voice of Dr. Kousha. “No! How was it possible?”

  “He was found by Number Two and myself,” declared Camocho proudly. “We were about to give up in despair and return here, when we saw the man who looks like Pete Tolman standing in the window of a downtown office—the office, curiously enough, of the Hobart Agency. We went up to the office to find that this Agent ‘X’ who tricked us into believing he was Tolman, was with another man. Number Two strong-armed the other man. I drugged Tolman and brought him to where Number Four was waiting for us, since Number Four knows where this headquarters is.”

  “I see,” said “X” thoughtfully. He knew that the man who had been in the office with Tolman was Jim Hobart. “And I suppose,” he said to the count, “that Number Four drugged you and Number Two in order to bring you here.”

  “Of course—of course,” said the count impatiently.

  “But what makes you think Tolman is Secret Agent ‘X’?”

  The count shrugged. “Number One says that he is. If he were not, why would he have taken the trouble to merely pretend to kill Betty Dale? My one mistake in getting this Tolman was that I didn’t get a chance to kill the man who was with him in the office. You see, the noise of our struggle had attracted so much attention already that we had all we could do to bring Tolman here without being caught.

  “But you need not say anything about this to—” Camocho stopped. He was looking beyond “X” at the dummy that was seated behind the desk. “Sometimes,” the count said shakily, “that dummy deceives me. It would not do to let Number One know that we could not kill the man who was with Tolman!” Camocho waved towards the door. “Come, we must not keep Number One waiting. He is making one of his few personal appearances in the Oak Room. There, we will pass judgment on this Tolman or Senor ‘X’ or whatever his name may be.”

  “X” followed Count Camocho into the Oak Room. There, all of the seven chairs were occupied with the exception of the two that awaited Camocho and himself. Tolman had been strapped into the sixth chair where he sat trembling and darting furtive glances about the room. Tolman’s thin ratlike face was as pallid as paper.

  Number One nodded at the Agent. “I am sorry our conference was so abruptly terminated, Number Three. I had to hurry here in order to be present when the prisoner was brought in. This man, who to all appearances is Pete Tolman, is none other than Secret Agent ‘X.’”

  “That’s baloney!” screamed Tolman. “It’s a frame, that’s what!”

  “Very clever acting, Agent ‘X,’” said Number One to Tolman. “But you are already too well acquainted with our methods to suppose that it will save you. You have learned too much.”

  “I don’t know a damn thing!” shouted Tolman. “All I know is that you fellows got me out of stir and shut me up in a stuffy office that wasn’t much better.”

  NUMBER ONE looked at Agent “X.” The latter had taken the chair that awaited him. “What do you say, Number Three?” Number One enquired.

  “X” replied, “The man may be telling the truth.” For killer though Tolman was, “X” had no desire that he should suffer the tortures which Number One might inflict upon him.

  “We shall very soon find out,” declared Number One. He turned to Number Seven who occupied the chair at his left. “You may retire,” he said. “Tell the Bishop to bring Betty Dale into this room.”

  Number Seven left the room. For nearly two minutes, the council chamber was as silent as the grave. Then a door opened. All eyes turned towards the door, but none stared as eagerly as Secret Agent “X.”

  The Bishop entered, his scarred and misshapen hands locked over a rope. Tied by the wrists to the rope, was Betty Dale. A sensation of rage that he could scarcely restrain passed over “X.” Her face was the picture of beauty and terror.

  Number One spoke, again addressing Tolman: “Do you know this woman?”

  Tolman’s beady eyes darted towards Betty. “Naw, never seen her before!”

  Number One turned to Betty. “Miss Dale, not only did you escape the death which I decided should be yours, but you also escaped the brand of
Seven which should have been implanted on your forehead. As a means of persuading Secret Agent ‘X’ to speak, we are about to remedy the omission of the brand. Acid would have been used formerly, because we find it inconvenient to carry a branding iron with us wherever we go. But seeing that you are alive, I believe that the pain of your flesh burning with a hot iron will have more effect on Secret Agent ‘X’ than the acid would.” He nodded towards the Bishop. “Bring the branding iron!”

  Agent “X” sprang to his feet. “Number One,” he called sharply, “if this woman must suffer, I beg to be permitted to inflict the torture myself.”

  Number One regarded “X” suspiciously for a time. “Just what personal enmity do you have against this woman?”

  “None whatever,” replied the Agent. “But I hope to redeem myself for the gross negligence on my part which permitted Agent ‘X’ to fool me into believing that Betty Dale was dead. Permit me to be the instrument of her torture.”

  Number One considered for a moment. “This is somewhat out of keeping with your character, doctor,” he said. “But I shall not pry into your affairs. Perhaps you have a personal grievance against Secret Agent ‘X.’ That is of no concern of mine, in as much as it does not have anything to do with this organization. You have my permission. But remember, the branding iron shall not touch the girl if Agent ‘X’ should decide to talk.”

  “Go ahead and fry her, if you want to!” screamed Tolman. “I don’t know anything about Agent ‘X’ or the Seven gang. But—” he added craftily—“I do know somethin’ that I’ll trade you to get out of this mess. You’re not so damned clever as you think.”

  Ignoring Tolman, Number One turned to the Bishop who had just entered with a red hot iron held in a pair of tongs. “Give the brand to Number Three,” he directed.

  AGENT “X” stepped over to the Bishop. The monster, who had apparently looked forward to the torture with sadistic delight, yielded the iron to him only after another sharp command from Number One. “X” turned and walked slowly towards Betty, the hot iron outthrust before him. Betty opened her lips as if to scream, but suddenly choked back the cry. For the Secret Agent had drawn in the air an almost imperceptible letter “X.”