Secret Agent X : The Complete Series Volume 3 Read online

  The Agent’s brain worked swiftly. He had never been so close to the finish. Life and death hung on his decision, and he had to make it in a few seconds. Karloff and his gang were no more than a hundred feet behind. Automatics and machine guns pounded away viciously. Bullets thudded against the back of “X’s” car, ripped through the fabric of the top.

  Ahead flowed the river. Death hovered near in either direction. To pause, to slow down even, meant certain suicide. The Agent could not buck those mobsters in a counter-attack. He would not surrender. He had one other choice. The river. Beneath its surface lay safety—or death. His only chance was to drive straight ahead off the end of the dock.

  De Ronforf shrieked when he saw the river so near.

  “Mon Dieu!” he cried in a voice shaken by terror. “Stop! Stop! Have mercy, m’sieu! I will be killed! I do not want to die!”

  A low snarl escaped the Agent. The Count was more abject than a terror-stricken child. He was covering his face with his hands. His disgusting cowardice sickened the Agent. He did not want to die either. To him life was a source of unending interest. But a man who lived as hard as he could not expect to die of old age. Long ago he had schooled himself to fight against odds, no matter how overwhelming they seemed, but to accept defeat, when it came, without flinching. To the Agent defeat had but one meaning—death.

  The car shot onto the rickety old dock. A triumphant outburst of profane jeering came from the other car. “X” heard the screech of brakes. Karloff’s machine had stopped. But the gunfire did not cease.

  “X” reached the end of the wharf. De Ronfort uttered a scream and collapsed. The car crashed through the flimsy wooden railing. The Agent clamped his jaws grimly and clung to the wheel. Maybe it was the end. Remy de Ronfort did not want to die, because he feared death, and life offered great wealth. The Agent did not want to die—because there was still so much to do.

  The car leaped high, shivering like a thing in agony as it catapulted through the darkness. Then, in a shower of machine-gun lead, it hurtled to the rippling waters of the river.

  Chapter XIII

  A FATAL SHOT

  WHILE the auto was in mid-air the Agent got a grip on de Ronfort and the suitcase. The instant the car struck the surface, “X” dived from the open door, tugging the Count with him. The engine stalled the moment the water got into it. There was a vicious hissing as steam rose from the hot metal.

  “X” was under. He made a shallow dive, coming up immediately for air. The water revived de Ronfort. The Count was gasping and spluttering. Lights from the Karloff auto shone on the river. The two men were caught in the glare. Wild shouts came from shore. Bullets lashed the water around them.

  “Take a deep breath!” the Agent rapped out crisply.

  Instead, de Ronfort uttered a shrill scream. The mad, frenzied outburst suddenly choked off. The Count groaned, and then became as still as death. That abrupt silence alarmed “X.” In the gleam of the light from the car, the Agent looked at the man. There was a dark, crimson blotch on the side of de Ronfort’s head. “X” gnawed at his lip, muttered.

  Inhaling deeply, he disappeared again, pulling de Ronfort with him. A superb swimmer, able to hold his breath nearly three minutes, “X” was safe from bullets while he submerged. As he swam downward, encumbered by the limp Frenchman, he kept his eyes open. Looking above, he could see the reflection of the searchlight combing the water. Lead still whipped against the surface. Most of the missiles, he knew, would ricochet. The mobsters were in greater danger of those bullets than he.

  Swimming downstream under the water, he soon got out of the range of light. Then he bobbed above the surface again. The spotlight still played over the river. He gulped a deep breath, and went under, continuing downstream, but working in toward the bank. Soon he bumped into the rotting pile of a dilapidated wharf. He shot upwards into the air, and hauled de Ronfort to the shore under worm-eaten timbers.

  Leaving de Ronfort lying on his back, the Agent dived into the stream once more, and swam out to the suitcase that was floating down the river. The shooting had ceased. “X” cast a searching glance at the road. The car was gone. Karloff and his men doubtlessly believed they had killed de Ronfort and the stranger. The Agent got the suitcase and returned to the shore.

  Count Remy de Ronfort lay dead.

  The wound in the side of the head was from a bullet that had pierced the skull. There was nothing to regret in the man’s death except that he had taken along the answers to many questions that bothered the Agent.

  He covered the body with debris, and left the place, carrying the suitcase. It was still dark, though dawn would soon be breaking. He wanted to get out of this vicinity before the light came. There was a chance that Karloff had left a mobster behind to watch for the bodies, to see if any clues were found that might lead to the killers.

  He thought of Paula Rockwell. There was sorrow ahead for her, because the empty-headed girl would never believe that her Count had been a rotter and a cowardly crook. In his fight against crime, “X” often had to waive scruples himself. Later, he meant to call on the girl—as de Ronfort.

  He strode along the road, keeping a careful watch so that he would not be surprised by any of the gangsters. Evidently Karloff was satisfied with the night’s work. The road was deserted. It was dawn, and his clothes were dry by the time “X” reached a well-populated suburban district. He did not want to ride into the city now, for he had de Ronfort’s corpse to consider. Should the body be discovered, it would be turned over to the police. That would spoil his plans.

  So he walked into a Chinese laundry. An oriental in black pajamas greeted him with a gold-toothed smile, and gazed wisely at his bedraggled appearance.

  “Allee samee fall in the liver?” the laundryman asked. “Me catchee iron and fixee you ploper. Washee shirt. Do very fine job!”

  The Agent nodded. “I want that, O brother, but I come humbly beseeching a greater favor. Is there one in this worthy enterprise who knows of the venerable Lo Mong Yung?”

  The Chinese ceased being the humorous little laundryman rubbing his hands and speaking pidgin English. He became a personage of dignity, the honorable head of a family, with the record of his ancestors listed in the archives of his native province for two thousand years. He bowed to the Agent, who returned the courtesy.

  “Will the gracious guest who honors the house of Su Kung whisper close the word that will prove his identity?”

  “X” leaned over the counter and softly spoke the secret password of the Ming Tong. Immediately the Chinaman’s eyes expressed deep respect. To him the Agent was Ho Ling, a revered and honored Mingman.

  “O great white brother,” he spoke reverently, “my decrepit frame trembles with gratitude over this visit. From the lips of the august father himself have I heard praise of the noble Ho Ling, who wages constant war against the dragon of evil. My heart is near bursting with joy that I may please my ancestors by serving the great Ho Ling.”

  The Agent acknowledged the honor with the proper humility and explained as much of what had happened as the laundryman Su Kung needed to know. He wanted the corpse of the Frenchman brought in and hidden. Su Kung was a poor man. There was danger of being caught by the police. Even if he was held in jail a short while, his business would suffer, and his family with it. But Su Kung did not hesitate. The honor of serving the white brother of the Ming Tong bulked far greater than the danger in Su King’s mind.

  A short while later a creaking, rattling, horse-drawn laundry wagon driven by an inscrutable Chinese headed down the little-used road to the old dock. Inside the wagon was Agent “X,” disguised as a Manchu. The Agent was glad to find that the river territory was deserted except for men fishing far downstream. “X” ran along the bank to the wharf under which the corpse was concealed. He carried a huge laundry bag. He fitted this over the body, and tied the opening. Shouldering the burden, he hurried back to the wagon, where Su Kung was ready to start the horse back to the laundry.

&n
bsp; Cold, aloof hunter of criminals though he was, the Agent was deeply affected by the contrast between this sordid finish of de Ronfort and the picture he recalled of the Count at the Blake penthouse, feigning weariness over the fawning attention of debutantes. Yet the man had been asking for trouble, dealing with drug addicts, all of whom were potential murderers.

  Back at Su Kung’s laundry, “X” carried the body in the rear room, and locked the door. There he took careful measurements of the corpse, and spent a long period of intense concentration studying the Count’s face. The Agent’s amazing photographic memory would enable him to reconstruct the face, without any inaccuracies in the features.

  Before he left the laundry, he gave Su Kung a large sum of money. In aiding him, the Chinaman had shown bravery almost to the point of foolhardiness, for dealing with a corpse without the sanction of the law was risky business. So Su Kung was enriched by more than he could make otherwise in six months. Beside that, “X” left money to have the body embalmed by another tong member, sealed in a casket, and kept hidden until the Agent was ready to have de Ronfort’s death made public.

  “X” hurried into the city now, went first to one of his hideouts to perfect his disguise as A. J. Martin, and then to the laboratory of Fenwick, the brilliant research chemist, who was working on the analysis of the doped cigarettes.

  The chemist shook his head after he had greeted the Agent. “Still no results, Mr. Martin,” he said. “We’ve been working night and day on those cigarettes, keeping up our tests. Nearly five hundred precipitations already, and we’ve determined nothing except that the drug has some sort of nitrogenous base.”

  “I’ve brought along some more,” said “X,” opening the suitcase and handing Fenwick two of the packages. “You’ll have better success this time. I want a careful comparison made with the result of this analysis and what little you’ve learned of the doped cigarettes.”

  Fenwick opened a package and examined the contents.

  “Ah! No difficulty here, Mr. Martin! You’ve got the straight stuff now! Off-hand, I’d say this was morphine or heroin. However, I’ll put it through the test.”

  They entered an elaborately equipped laboratory where several men were busy with test-tubes and Bunsen burners. Fenwick went to work, and it was not long before he got results.

  “Just as I thought, Mr. Martin,” he said. “One package contains morphine, the other heroin.”

  “That doesn’t help much,” said the Agent disconcertedly.

  “No,” replied Fenwick. “We’re still as much in the dark as ever with the cigarettes. Whatever is in them reacts on the human system very much like morphia, though far more potently. But we are certain it is neither cocaine, hashish, nor the active principle of opium. It doesn’t respond to any tests for the vegetable alkaloids.” Startling information. The narcotics that de Ronfort had smuggled in were common opium derivatives, whereas the dope distributed by the sinister drug ring completely baffled Fenwick, one of the foremost laboratory technicians in the country.

  Chapter XIV

  SUCCESS—OR A SLAB

  WHAT part had de Ronfort played in the dope menace? The dissimilarity in the drugs certainly was evidence that the Count had not been connected with Karloff’s mob. Yet why had Karloff taken such pains to get rid of him? Not because he was a rival in the distribution of dope. There were bigger men in this illicit traffic who were unmolested. “X” believed there was a deeper reason, a motive that had nothing to do with gang rivalry.

  The Agent returned to one of his hideouts. First, he took a much-needed rest. Trained to fall asleep the instant his head hit the pillow, “X” slept so soundly that a few hours of repose were sufficient. Awakening in mid-afternoon, he set to work molding an elaborate disguise, taking infinite pains with small details.

  This time he was a long while before the triple mirrors, laying on a new pigmentation with the painstaking thoroughness of a great artist. When he finished with his vials and tubes, he donned a wig of shiny, curly black hair, and surveyed himself critically.

  The new countenance brought a cold smile to the Agent’s lips. He had done well. An aristocratic face was reflected in the mirror, clean-cut in profile but with a suggestion of weakness about the month. The face that “X” saw had a slight look of dissipation that sun-bronze had not eliminated. The Agent believed that no one would doubt that he was Remy de Ronfort.

  He had taken special care because he was going to see Paula Rockwell, to find out what she knew of the Count’s activities, and a woman would be quick to notice any irregularity in the appearance of her fiancé.

  “X’s” plan was one of extreme daring. Karloff wanted de Ronfort out of the way. The Agent wanted to find Karloff; so, by disguising himself as the Count, pretending that the man had not been killed, “X” hoped to draw another attack from Karloff, and thus track him down.

  It was literally courting death, posing as the slain de Ronfort. Karloff or his mobsters would likely shoot on sight. Yet it was a sure and swift way of meeting the sinister Karloff.

  The Agent put a bandage on his left arm, which he placed in a sling. He added a few touches to his face to give him a haggard look, and stuck a piece of court plaster over his forehead. Karloff would know something was amiss if he saw de Ronfort without any wounds or signs of emotional stress.

  At a public telephone booth, “X” called up Paula Rockwell. A servant answered the ring, but the girl apparently had been close by, for she was talking eagerly over the wire a moment after the servant repeated the Count’s name.

  “Darling!” the girl cried. “You’re all right then? Where are you, Remy? I’m worried sick! Come here to the apartment at once! I won’t rest a minute till I see you!”

  “No, Paula,” the Agent answered. “I must see you alone first. Meet me at the Green Lantern on Oswego Street. Hurry!”

  The girl agreed and “X” hung up. His eyes were flashing. Paula perhaps would be able to clear up the mystery of the Count’s connection with the dope smuggling ring that was handing the stuff out free. It was possible that de Ronfort had tried to doublecross them and they had retaliated for that reason.

  The Green Lantern was the same sort of dingy bar and restaurant as the Genoa Café, and Oswego Street ran through one of the poorest sections of the city. The Agent reached the place shortly before the girl. When the heiress arrived, “X” was sitting at a table, staring into a whiskey glass. He got up, slump-shouldered and dejected, the picture of defeat. But beneath the pose he was tense and concerned.

  Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. She grabbed his right hand and clung to it. Then she gently touched the arm resting in the sling.

  “You—you are wounded,” she said tremulously.

  THE Agent nodded. She was a flighty, shallow, empty-headed girl. “X” believed her incapable of any real depth of feeling. Her affection was more for the title than the man. The Agent was relieved to see that she was completely fooled by the disguise. There was a slight shade of difference in his eyes and de Ronfort’s, but the girl, beside herself with fear, did not notice the change.

  “We must flee!” she said. “We must get you away from those terrorists and revolutionists! Why must we suffer so from those horrible men? I’m frightened to death, Remy.”

  So that was it. Terrorists. Revolutionists. That was how Remy de Ronfoft had explained his harassment—the reason for going away, the reason for borrowing money—to Paula Rockwell at the Genoa Café. He had posed as the persecuted one, the hounded, hunted noble, the victim of his aristocratic birth, preyed upon by treacherous, conspiring terrorists. “X” immediately took the cue. He was disappointed. Paula Rockwell could tell him nothing about de Ronfort’s real activities, because she was ignorant of them herself. But “X” must keep up his role.

  “Oui, ma chère,” he said in a voice husky with weariness, “the terrorists had me trapped. They caught me at Union Station, and took me into the country to kill me. I fought hard and got away, but—they shot me
. It is only a flesh wound as you see.”

  The girl’s cheeks flushed suddenly. “We’ll go to South America or China,” she said. “We’ll disappear from sight. In some far-off place we’ll find our happiness, living for each other. I don’t ask for anything more, Remy dear. My social life would be so empty, so meaningless, without you. My guardian would send us money. Then, when the terrorists have been put down by the police, we can return!”

  “X” saw that Paula Rockwell visioned herself in a romantic role. It seemed as though she were quoting gushy motion-picture dialogue. He wondered if she would feel like a heroine after six months of obscurity in a Shanghai hideout, such as she probably pictured. How much would she have loved de Ronfort without his title? The girl was frightened, but the Agent believed her tears were more the product of hysteria than sorrow.

  “I can’t go out of the city, Paula,” said “X” bitterly. “Every station, every road, every ship will be watched by the terrorists. I am lost, my dear, lost!”

  He told of the capture, omitting the part he himself had played, and painting de Ronfort as a hero. No use disillusioning the girl now.

  Paula’s eyes flashed when she heard the story. It added glamour to her Count. She could not prevent an expression of disappointment, though, when she learned that the China trip was impossible. She was a gullible creature, with merely a surface sophistication that was sufficient for her own trivial set. Knowing nothing of de Ronfort’s criminal activities, she believed all “X” told her.

  “You must come home,” she pleaded. “You need me now. Daddy will know what to do.”

  “No,” responded the Agent. “You are kind, ma chère, so kind. But that is too much. Your guardian is a man of position, of wealth. And he has troubles of his own. With his affliction and his age, it is unfair for me to burden him with my problems. Let me fight this out, Paula. It seems hopeless, but I’ll face the danger stoutly.”