Secret Agent X : The Complete Series Volume 3 Page 41

  “I’ll be there in a half hour,” answered the Count. “I have a choice consignment, and the prices will astound you. At Eddie’s Place on Nyack Street.”

  The Count hung up. “X” nodded to the clerk as he started from the St. Etienne Inn, and the man addressed him as Landru. The Agent hailed another cab, and went to Eddie’s Place, an old deserted underworld resort in a disreputable section of the city, formerly the hangout of many dope smugglers. He had only a few minutes to wait.

  A CAB stopped near the old building. The Count got out. He carried the same suitcase that he had taken from the amphibian. His hat was pulled low, his face half buried in the upturned collar of his topcoat, “X” motioned to him, and opened the door of the old dive, using one of his skeleton keys. The Count peered at him suspiciously. Then he grunted relief when he recognized the face of Landru.

  “You have picked an outlandish spot, Felix,” he said irritably. “I hope you have brought a good supply of money. I want to get this transaction over in a hurry. You seem to think you are the only person who takes risks. I am playing for big stakes. If the law catches me, it is my finish. But you, Felix, you have not much to lose.”

  “Come on!” growled the Agent, speaking French. “We are losing valuable time with your insulting nonsense.”

  He lighted the way with a pocket flash. He led de Ronfort down a long, narrow corridor. The place had been closed a couple of years previously for violation of the National Prohibition Act. It was an ill-smelling, rat-infested building that had been the scene of several murders.

  In a back room, “X” laid his flashlight on the table, and told de Ronfort to exhibit his goods. The pocket flash was the only means of illumination.

  “A fine place!” grumbled the Count. “You might have shown one of my station a little consideration, Felix. You could have rented a room at some lodging house.”

  “Yes,” retorted the Agent, “and have a dozen people see you go in and out! With every newspaper blaring about the drug menace, with federal men and the narcotic squad working night and day, I want privacy when I transact this sort of business.”

  Remy de Ronfort put the suitcase on the table and opened it. “X” flashed the light on the contents. The case was half-filled. There were scores of small, hermetically sealed packages.

  “Each one contains an ounce,” said the Count. “Three hundred and sixty of them. Made from the finest China opium, processed in England, and smuggled into America by a French nobleman.”

  The Agent had to stifle his excitement. Three hundred and sixty ounces would retail at twenty-three thousand and forty dollars! And the profit to the Count would be enough to keep an ordinary middle-class family for three years or more.

  “Not too much, if your price is right,” said “X” casually. “I will not buy any cocaine and very little morphine. How much heroin?”

  The Count’s face darkened. “Nine pounds of morphine and twenty-one of heroin. That is only half of what I brought from the ship. I am in need of ready money. That’s why I deal with a cutthroat like you. The rest I shall keep until I get my price.”

  THE Agent uttered a grumbling protest. “Nine pounds of morphine! Nom de Dieu! Man, you know the call is for heroin! Ninety per cent of the users want it. Anybody who takes morphine is willing to switch to the other. Yet you bring in nine pounds of morphine! Most unsatisfactory, de Ronfort. Nine pounds of morphine! A man of your experience, an aristocrat, bungling like that!”

  De Ronfort immediately became the placating, cajoling supersalesman.

  “You know I have to take what I can get,” he said. “You know how I bring the stuff in. Out there where a coast-guard cutter is liable to bear down on me, I must work for speed. As soon as the stuff is lowered over the side and I have it in the cockpit, I take off again.”

  The Count was an earnest, gesticulating tradesman now, just one voluble, excitable French merchant talking to another.

  “You can sell the morphine for heroin,” suggested de Ronfort “Half of your customers will need the stuff so badly, they won’t notice what they are taking, as long as it has an effect.”

  “All right, all right,” said the Agent irritably. “You have brought in thirty pounds, apothecaries weight. What is your price?”

  “Eighteen thousand dollars!”

  The Agent began talking to the wall, as though it were a person. “I tell him to come with his lowest price, and right off, he quotes me eighteen thousand dollars. I’m lucky if I get that retail, and I take all the risk of going to the Bastille for some of the best years of my life. It’s an outrage. It insults my intelligence.”

  “You know that is not true!” spoke de Ronfort heatedly. “You would make five thousand more, even if you sold the pure stuff, and you adulterate it fifty per cent.”

  “My price is fifteen thousand,” said the Agent “If the sum does not please you, lock up your suitcase and we will leave. I’m doing you a favor anyway, offering to relieve you of that load, when the police are on the warpath. You could not dispose—”

  The Agent stopped suddenly. Footsteps sounded in the corridor. The Count went white. He grabbed “X’s” arm.

  “What’s that?” he said in a low, tense voice. “Is—is it the police? I can’t afford—Nom de Dieu—it is worth my life to be caught here! I’m going to marry millions—millions!”

  The Count swung “X” around. “Is this a frame-up?” he demanded, his eyes blazing. “Are those some of your twitching, sniffing mob? Extortion, is that it? Going to hold me, and try to extract a ransom from my future father-in-law! No wonder you got me into this forsaken place! But it won’t work, Felix. I should have known better than to deal with an Apache. You belong in the sewers of Paris! I’m going to blow your head off, Felix. And I’ll make quick work of your band of hopheads.”

  De Ronfort whipped out an ugly, snub-nosed automatic.

  “The police will never connect me, an aristocrat, with the common Felix Landru!” he cried. “You’re through, you sewer rat!”

  The Agent poked his head out of the door. Several men were rushing down the corridor. A flashlight shone on “X.” He drew back quickly, bolted the door. There was a yell. Then a harsh command for him to surrender.

  “Don’t play games with us, Landru!” some one shouted. “We’ve got you surrounded. You haven’t a chance. You can’t beat the federal government! Give up, and you’ll cheat the undertaker!”

  The Agent turned to de Ronfort.

  “You see, my friend, I wasn’t trying the double-cross. Now you must trust me. Hurry!”

  GRABBING the suitcase of dope, “X” shoved the Count toward a rear window. De Ronfort scrambled through, with the agility of a second-story man. Aristocratic dignity was dispensed with for expediency’s sake. “X” leaped through the window. They were in a long, dark alley.

  De Ronfort clutched at his shoulder. The man was desperate, devoid of poise, trembling.

  “It’s my ruin!” he exclaimed. “It means millions lost for me. The place is surrounded. Isn’t there some way?”

  “X” thought a moment. He didn’t want de Ronfort caught. For a man could direct the activities of dope smugglers and peddlers from a prison cell with almost the same ease as he could outside, and without fear of further punishment. With de Ronfort behind bars, “X” would be no nearer to ending the drug menace than he was now. He wanted de Ronfort to continue. By allowing the Count plenty of scope and freedom, “X” might possibly gain information that would aid in finishing the drug ring.

  “X” knew how the rear of the old gambling den was situated. He had determined a route of escape for himself, if he needed it. But now those federal men were dangerously near, and he wanted to be certain that the Count got away.

  “Over the fence!” he ordered de Ronfort. “On the other side is the back entrance to a tenement. The door is unlocked. You can get through to the street. I’ll head these fellows off. I’m not doing this for nothing, de Ronfort. I’m risking my life, understand? When yo
u marry the Blake girl, you will have to make me a nice present.”

  “You are a rat, Landru!” snarled de Ronfort. “But I will pay! Give me the suitcase.”

  “Hurry!” exclaimed the Agent. “They’re coming. You can’t take the dope. If they see you going over the fence, they’ll shoot.”

  That decided the Count. “X” helped him to the top of the wall, and in another moment de Ronfort had disappeared.

  When the federal men burst open the door “X” had bolted, the Agent disposed of his gas gun in an ash can. If caught with that on him, the federal men might discover his identity. Packing the suitcase, he sped down the alleyway. They would hear his footsteps pounding on the cement. They would shoot, but the darkness would make accurate aiming impossible. “X” had a chance.

  A police whistle sounded. The harsh note made the Agent’s body tense. He must not be caught now, just when he seemed to be on the right track. He ran with all the speed he could muster. But he wasn’t fast enough. Again the whistle sent out its piercing, warning note.

  The mouth of the alley was lighted from the street lamps, and suddenly three forms were outlined in it. They were racing toward “X.” He dropped the suitcase, leaped to the concrete fence. A spring, and he was hanging onto the top, muscling himself up.

  Guns began to roar. Bullets crashed into the wall. Chunks of concrete, chipped by the smashing lead, struck the Agent’s head and body. Men were converging on him. On top of the fence he would be a perfect target. The only escape now, it seemed, lay via the morgue.

  Chapter X

  THE AGENT EXPOSED!

  AGENT “X” dropped to the alleyway again and raised his hands. In another moment he was surrounded by six men. Immediately the Agent was frisked for a gun. They found the automatic belonging to Landru. The search otherwise was not thorough, because the federal men had him disarmed, and they also had all the evidence they needed. He was shoved along toward the street.

  “X” thought ironically how this treatment contrasted to the respect these men had shown him when they had met before. Then they had jumped to his orders, for they were the same federal men from Orrin Q. Mathews’ office. One of them was a stranger to him. But “X” had recently saved the lives of the others, when he led them out of that burning warehouse at Haswell and Riverfront.

  The men flanking him were Wells and Everts. Creager, Lorson, and McAllister followed. McAllister kept poking a gun in the small of the Agent’s back.

  “Who’s that guy who got away, Landru?” he demanded. “You’d better talk. We’ve been watching you for a long while, Frenchy. You’re going up for a long stretch, but you ought to get the chair! I bet you’re the rat who’s been peddling hop to girls’ schools. You’re going to come clean, or we’re going to shellac you proper. Me and my buddies damn near got cremated by one of your hop peddlers, and we don’t like your breed at all. Down to headquarters, you’re going to pick up a lot of lumps and bruises, if you hold back.”

  “X” was thrown bodily into a big car. The suitcase of dope was tossed in on top of him. He had sized the real Landru up in the few moments the Frenchman had talked. He knew that the dope seller would whine and cringe. So the Agent put on a convincing exhibition of a coward.

  “Mon Dieu, gentlemen! You make the very great mistake, of a certainty. I don’ know why you arrest me! No—I do not! My name is Felix Landru, yes. But I am a Frenchman studying social conditions in America. The gendarmes of my country would not treat you so.”

  “Studying social conditions, are you, Landru?” growled Creager. “I bet you can spot a hophead a block away!”

  All the way to headquarters, “X” maintained his protests of innocence. While he was talking, he was puzzling what he should do. These men would have died for him that day he led them from the Karloff hideout. Now they would gladly kill him.

  He knew what was ahead. They would put him through a third degree. The plastic material on his face would never stand up under the poundings of a rubber hose. And if one should yank on his goatee, it would come off. He could not afford to have them penetrate his disguise.

  It wasn’t until he reached headquarters, and the federal men surrounded him in the room where he had first interviewed Orrin Q. Mathews, that “X” conceived his plan. The detectives were actually gloating. They hoped Landru would keep silent, so they could employ the strong-arm routine.

  McAllister brandished a strip of rubber hose in front of him.

  “Going to talk, Landru? Or shall I begin the softening process? Who was that bird you were with? What was the deal you two were making? Where is the rest of the stuff hidden? Tell us the names of your peddlers. Might as well save yourself a lot of punishment.”

  “Mais oui!” exclaimed the Agent. “I talk—I talk, m’sieus. But it must be to one man only. There is too much involved, my friends. Names, names—you would be astounded at the names I would mention. I am but a poor, hard-working man who caters to a great need, m’sieus. But my confession will breathe scandal on people who are high up. Take me to General Mathers. Gladly will I talk—for his ears alone. Then le bon general will use his own discretion, and my conscience will be at rest”

  General Mathers was the head of the Eastern narcotics division. The detectives would have taken “X” before the general, anyway, after the sweating process made him talk. They had a consultation. They were disappointed not to get the chance of manhandling Landru, but they could not beat up a prisoner who was willing to talk.

  “X” was taken before the division chief. General Mathers was a hard-faced man with gray hair. Every feature was aggressive. He had fierce, piercing eyes, with pointed eyebrows that looked like stunted horns. He had ridden with Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, been with Black Jack Pershing on the Mexican border, and helped to break the Hindenburg Line in France. He was a tough old campaigner, and his prize hatred was for dope smugglers and peddlers.

  Before the general, the Agent made himself as dejected and wretched in appearance as possible. This man was a strategist who knew all the tricks. He would be savage in dealing with a man like Landru.

  “Here he is, general,” spoke Detective McAllister with the utmost respect. “We caught Felix Landru on Nyack Street in an untenanted building that used to be Eddie’s Place, a gambling hall and a murderers’ inn. Men have been on detail watching Landru for two weeks. We nabbed him red-handed, carrying more than twenty thousand dollars’ worth of morphine and heroin.

  “Landru is wanted by the Paris police on a murder charge. We found an automatic on him. He says he won’t talk except to you alone, but two of us will be outside during the interview. We hope you’ll call us if he shows the slightest hostility. He’s desperate and alone; he may try to kill you, sir.”

  “Very well, McAllister,” boomed Mathers, nodding to the detective. “Leave him with me. I’ll know how to handle him no matter what he does. You men are to be congratulated. I hope this man proves to be the ringleader we’re after.”

  DETECTIVE MCALLISTER went out. “X” was left to face the formidable, glowering general. Mathers placed a big service revolver on the desk before him. Then for a full minute he studied the Agent with glaring eyes.

  On the desk stood an open box of cigarettes, which gave “X” an idea. He was in a tight spot, and he was fully aware that General Mathers would show no leniency or mercy. The official had a knack of discovering murders that could be charged to the big shots in the dope traffic who had the ill luck to be caught by his men. He considered his work well done when he sent a dope smuggler to the electric chair.

  “You said you’d talk to me,” rumbled the general, “that was to save yourself some punishment, wasn’t it? Very well, Felix Landru, begin your story. Stick to the facts, and don’t try to make yourself misunderstood and heroic.”

  The Agent was twitching and trembling. “M’sieu,” he spoke in a plaintive voice. “I suffer so much from the need of a drug. I cannot think, because of my nerves. You will not give me heroin, no. That I do not
expect. But, please, m’sieu; one cigarette. A smoke will soothe me, and then I will amaze you with names. Mais oui, mon genéral! For me—c’est fini, the end. One cigarette and I talk.”

  The general growled, but he tossed a cigarette to the Agent, and shoved a book of matches across the desk. “X” deliberately fumbled the catch. The cigarette dropped to the floor. The Agent bent down and picked the cigarette up. When he stood erect again, the general also was standing, and he had the service revolver leveled at “X.”

  “Now, try one of your Apache tricks!” rasped Mathers.

  The Agent pretended to be deeply hurt. “But, m’sieu, you are wrong. I am here, not for tricks, but to tell everything.”

  “Then proceed.”

  “X” lighted the cigarette. He had to stall for time. The general still had the service revolver trained on him. Even a step forward might cause the man to shoot. The Agent racked his brain for something to say. He could not bluff a hard-bitten individual like Mathers very long.

  Then a knock came at the door. “X” gave a little sigh of relief. In response to the general’s growl, a clerk entered, carefully kept out of the Agent’s reach, and handed a slip to the chief.

  The clerk withdrew. Mathers read the note with a sudden lifting of bushy eyebrows. A sour smile spread over his hard features. He moistened his lips like a tiger licking his chops in anticipation of a kill. He tapped the paper with his fingers, and gazed at the Agent with the cold scrutiny of a scientist studying a laboratory specimen.

  “X” did not know what had occurred. He kept his eyes on the general. The gun lay on the desk now. He had to work with lightning speed, or his one chance would be gone.