Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 4 Page 45

  It was then that he remembered a part of his equipment which he was seldom called upon to use. In a moment he had stripped off his coat, torn a strip from the lining, put in his hand, and pulled out a flat little bag of cloth. From the other side of his coat, he pulled out a similar bag. Each bag contained a small quantity of powder of his own compounding, so combined as to render ordinarily dangerous chemicals safe to carry.

  “X” tore through the corners of each of the bags. Then he emptied the contents of both bags into the keyhole of the Chinese padlock. He retired to the end of the cell, turned out his flashlight, and waited. Brought into contact with one another, the two chemicals would combine in a complex chemical reaction producing terrific heat. The substance was very similar to that known by welders as thermite.

  After perhaps a minute, the entire cell was engulfed in a blaze of dazzling white light that emanated with a hissing sound from the lock of the door. After the flare had subsided, the lock was a white-hot mass of twisted metal. “X” well knew that no tempered steel could withstand such temperature. He picked up the wooden bench and knocked open the grating. Then he stepped out into the dark passage.

  He had no time even to examine the neighboring cells under the gleam of his flashlight before he saw a dot of light hurrying down the corridor towards him. “X” stepped aside, flattened himself against the wall. He heard the footsteps of a single man coming toward him. Evidently some one had heard him escaping from the cell. A few feet from “X”, the man came to a stop, staring in awe at the open grating.

  “X” sprang toward the man, his cigarette lighter in his hand. The man turned at the sound and stabbed for his gun. But before he could get it out, “X” had pressed a button on the side of the lighter and a fine spray of anesthetizing vapor shot from the lighter. At the same time, he wrenched the man’s automatic from his hand. The Ghoul’s servant staggered, choked on an oath, and fell forward at “X’s” feet. His flashlight crashed to the floor and went out.

  “X” turned the beam of his own light on the man’s face. It was the dark-haired, broad-shouldered Morgan. The Secret Agent dragged him back into the cell. There, he made a careful search of the man’s pockets. The search revealed nothing that would be of use to “X” save a bunch of keys. Probably, Morgan was the Ghoul’s jailor.

  In another moment, “X” was out of the passage and running toward the stairway. He took the steps two at a time, and came to a stop at the door that lead into China Bobby’s office. A moment he hesitated. There was no sound within the office, yet the half-caste might still be at work at his desk. “X” drew the automatic that he had taken from Morgan. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Cautiously, he inched it open.

  The room was empty, and on the desk lay the Agent’s special equipment that the searching fingers of Yu’an had taken from him. Quickly, he removed the contents of his makeup kit, medical kit, and tool-kit. He thrust the rest of his equipment into his pockets and was putting his amplifying device away when he heard the murmur of voices on the other side of the left-hand wall. He tip-toed across the room, his sound amplifying device in his hand.

  He placed the microphone against the wall and held the box to his ear. Manipulating a rheostat on one side of the box, he clarified the sound, and made the words audible. The Ghoul was speaking and evidently to China Bobby:

  “That Morgan has failed. Furthermore, our spies believe that last night he tried to get in touch with the police. He is trying to sell out. Inasmuch as we must get rid of him, I intend to use him as a subject of experimentation. Vardson, the chief chemist, has developed a new phase of the Amber Death that does not penetrate so rapidly and hence does not reach the vital organs so quickly. It means better control for us and longer torment for our victims—and more money. You understand, China Bobby?”

  “Yes, Master,” replied the half-caste meekly.

  “Then in a few minutes you will send the man Morgan to the laboratory on some trumped-up errand. Later, we shall see to this girl reporter. From her we may be able to learn something definite regarding the man who stands between us and the wealth of the nation.”

  CHINA BOBBY started to say something. However, “X” did not listen for more. He sprang back to the steps leading down into the catacombs. Without the aid of his light, he hurried down the steps. As he ran along the narrow tunnel, he flashed his light from one cell to another, trying to locate the one occupied by the unconscious Morgan.

  In two of the cells, he saw nondescript underworld characters chained to the wall, evidently being disciplined for some slight mistake they had made while serving the Ghoul. In another cell, “X” saw the body of Ah-Fang, one-time valet of Gilbert Warnow. He had evidently only suffered a scalp wound from the bullet China Bobby had fired at him that night. Probably, he had come seeking to be revenged on the half-caste only to be murdered by Yu’an.

  Entering the cell in which he had been imprisoned for so short a time, “X” knelt beside the unconscious Morgan. For a brief interlude, he studied every angle of the man’s face. Then setting up the small mirror that he had taken from his pocket make-up kit, he proceeded, in the uncertain light of his flashlight, to disguise himself as Morgan. In spite of the adverse conditions under which he worked, the effect was marvelous. After he had changed clothes with the gunman he felt that he could pass for Morgan even under the eyes of the Ghoul.

  In a corner of the cell, “X” hid as much of his paraphernalia as he possibly could. He retained the automatic which he had taken from Morgan; it was a weapon that would arouse no suspicion in case he was searched. He also loaded a small hypodermic needle with an anesthetizing drug, and concealed the needle in an inner pocket of his coat. Having slipped a new charging cylinder into the anesthetizing gas chamber of his lighter, he considered himself prepared to meet the Ghoul.

  “X” had already deduced something of the process by which the Ghoul turned men into hideous, living mummies. He knew that certain aldehydes, particularly formaldehyde, produce peculiar changes in the proteins of the human body. That formic acid played some part in the preparation of the mysterious chemical compound the Ghoul employed, had been indicated by China Bobby’s reference to stinging ants and nettles. Both were natural sources of that acid. “X” believed that the Ghoul’s Amber Death simply enabled him to change the colloidal protein on the human body into synthetic amber. The Ghoul embalmed his victims alive.

  It was as he hurried up the steps leading from the Ghoul’s prison cells that his disguise was compelled to undergo its severest test. A beam of light in the hands of a man at the top of the steps flashed directly into his eyes. “X” stopped, and steeled his nerves for the ordeal that was to come. For he had seen Morgan only twice, and heard him speak once.

  “Morgan!” China Bobby’s cold metallic voice sounded hollow as he shouted down the stairs. “What have you been doing down there?”

  “Oh, it was that dick we took in, sir,” the Agent explained, relying on his memory to recall the voice and manner of speaking of the man he represented.

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  “He was making all kinds of a fuss. So I conked him on the head, and he’ll be out for a bit of a nap.”

  China Bobby stood aside to permit “X” to enter the office. He followed the Secret Agent, closing the door behind him. “The Ghoul,” China Bobby said, “places a good deal of trust in you, Morgan.”

  “Glad to hear that,” replied “X”.

  “As you probably have heard, we are going to kidnap the mayor shortly, and force him to appeal to the people of the city for a huge sum of money to be paid to the Ghoul for his release. You understand what kind of release!” China Bobby chuckled. “The Ghoul wants to see you.”

  “X’s” jaw dropped. He simulated surprise. “Y-you mean I am to meet him face to face?” But while he had spoken to the half-caste, his mind considered this new enterprise of the Ghoul. Kidnap the mayor. Then Mayor Grauman would be subjected to the Amber Death.

  Chi
na Bobby smiled. “I cannot say as to that,” he replied. “But come with me. I will show you to the laboratory.” China Bobby touched a button on his desk. One of the many sliding doors in the room opened. He led “X” through this and down a labyrinthian corridor to stop in front of a steel door. There was a Chinese dragon lacquered on the center of the door. The half-caste said: “You have only to press the eye of the dragon and you will be in the laboratory.” He turned and retraced his steps.

  Without hesitation, “X” pressed the dragon’s eye. Immediately, the lights in the passage went out. The entire floor seemed to tremble beneath him and move down so gradually that he was scarcely conscious of it. A panel flipped open in front of him, and he faced a brilliantly lighted room. Boldly he stepped into the room and the panel closed behind him. In amazement that his masterly control could not disguise, “X” stared about the room. And in a row along the wall, the graveless dead stared back at him.

  A veritable museum of accursed art! A silent hell. The laboratory of Satan himself. Daniel Calvert, Lionel Gage, Dr. Luigi, Gilbert Warnow and others who had mysteriously disappeared in the last few days—all were there, standing erect, their stiffened bodies yellow shells of amber. And inside those hardened bodies, they lived and knew the torture of the damned. But aside from himself, “X” saw no other truly living thing within the room. On shelves and in cabinets about the room were rows of chemicals and apparatus.

  As “X” looked about the room, a cabinet against the wall swung back, revealing a doorway. A man dressed in a surgeon’s white gown entered the room to be followed by six vicious-faced men of both yellow and white races.

  “X” recognized the man in white. He was Dr. Vardson, a scientist and medical man who had recently been deprived of his license to practice. Probably Vardson was responsible for the development of the Amber Death.

  Although he knew the scientist, “X” asked timidly of the man in white: “Are you the Ghoul?”

  A MAD cackle of a laugh broke from the scientist’s lips. “No, I am not the Ghoul!”

  “Are you concerned about my presence, Morgan?” the cold, inhuman whisper of the Ghoul breathed from empty air. “Know then that I am always with you. Nothing that you do, or have done, has escaped my notice.”

  “X’s” eyes roamed around the chamber. Between a pair of powerful electric lamps in the ceiling, he saw the conical diaphragm of an ordinary radio speaker. Through this the Ghoul spoke. “X” realized the seriousness of the position in which he had placed himself. Hoping to meet the Ghoul face to face, he had been willing to risk meeting even the Amber Death. But the Ghoul, always shrewd, always cunning, took no personal risks. He remained the disembodied voice, the invisible presence. “X” was not in the hands of the master criminal, but in the hands of his paid assassins.

  “Morgan,” said the Ghoul, “we have developed a new phase of the Amber Death—a milder form that will give us better control. So many of our victims have died from the Amber Death before we had a chance to give them a thorough milking. It is my intention that we shall kidnap the mayor, keep him under the influence of the Amber Death, and make the city pay for his release—his release from life, that is. It will be my master stroke. We will gut the treasury of the city. You understand?”

  “X” shook his head. He knew that the Ghoul was simply trying to distract his attention from the fact that the pack of criminals was slowly forming a circle about him. “Don’t get much of this,” he said, stalling for time. “How can you get money from these rich slobs after you’ve given them the Amber Death?”

  The Ghoul laughed. A note of pride crept into his whispering voice as he said: “Few understand that. The common extortionist threatens his victims with death, if they do not pay. But I have learned that men will pay money to be allowed to die—when one makes the burden of life more terrible than any conception of death! The secret is combining life with death. The statues you see around the room are living brains within dead shells. Even you must understand the torture of living within a sarcophagus of your flesh!”

  Like wolves circling the dying fire, hungry eyes on the hunter they will tear to shreds, the Ghoul’s murderers moved restlessly about Secret Agent “X”

  “You will notice,” the Ghoul went on, “that the right hands of all these living statues are as yet unaffected by the Amber Death. This enables them to write orders of my own dictation and sign them with their names. Such orders direct the payment of money and negotiable securities to my own agents. Each time they pay, they are promised release from life. But eventually, the creeping Amber Death claims them all.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, “X” watched the men who were closing in on him. He could see that they did not relish the prospect of meeting the broad-shouldered Morgan in open fighting. Yet they feared the Ghoul above everything else, and they would obey him.

  “Why don’t your victims hear what you’ve just said to me and refuse to pay, knowing that you have no intention of living up to your promise?” asked “X”. His right hand was in his pocket, fingering with his cigarette lighter.

  Again the Ghoul laughed. “Their torture is increased by the fact that I have carefully sealed their ears. They hear only when I desire to speak with them. And they are blind. Dead bodies, living brains, eternal darkness. It is little wonder that they pray for death!”

  “X” knew that in another moment, the criminal horde would be upon him. He took out his lighter, fingered it absently. Suddenly, he leaped upon the nearest man. A mere puff of vapor from the lighter, and the man bowled over.

  A command shrieked from the loudspeaker in the ceiling. “Take him alive!”

  A horde of yellow and white humanity suddenly descended upon “X”. He snapped out the automatic he had taken from Morgan. Much as he disliked lethal weapons, he shot quickly and accurately. His first bullet crashed through the thigh of an ugly Chinese. He twisted in the grasp of thin, steely hands, dealt powerful blows with his left fist, tried to wrench his right arm free from the hold of another man in order to get in more telling shots.

  And mingling in the general turmoil, behind the line of danger, “X” glimpsed another figure—a man whom he had not seen in the room before—a man whose entire head was swathed in a yellow veil that concealed his features. He saw, too, even as he fell to the floor, a tiny, round black button fastened to the lapel of the veiled man. And the veiled man’s hands—one was white, and the other the sickly yellow of the Amber Death! The mystery of the Ghoul was solved—too late?

  For at that moment, a sharp pain knifed through “X’s” left leg. The Ghoul’s voice came again—not from the speaker in the ceiling but from the man with the yellow veil.

  “Vardson, you fool!” The Ghoul shouted. “You’ve used the wrong needle! That one contained the old form of the Amber Death—not the new! You’ve made a mistake. Morgan may die before we can complete our experiment!”

  A strange numbness was creeping over “X’s” body. His blows were becoming less effective. There was cold pain in his left leg as though muscles were gradually knotting. Many times in his career he had knocked at the door of death. But now the door had opened. The Amber Death, the death that was worse than death, was upon him. Minutes marched, approaching that time when he would no longer be a man, no longer Secret Agent “X,” but a helpless, living, yellow mummy.

  Chapter IX

  DANGER BELOW

  HIDDEN behind his minions, the Ghoul shouted his orders. “Clear the room. To the cells with Vardson. He shall taste torture! Put Morgan in the second laboratory! Go—all of you!”

  “X” felt himself dragged across the room. A door sprang open, and he was thrown to the floor. The door closed. He could hear men running before the furious commands of the Ghoul; could hear the screams of the half-mad Vardson as he was dragged to the place of his punishment. Then, all was silent.

  “X” stared about him. This second laboratory was smaller than the other. At one end he saw the black panel of a radio transmitter. Evide
ntly, it was from here that the Ghoul’s warning messages originated. He saw, too, apparatus for transcribing phonograph records. Experimental chemical and electrical apparatus littered the room. Shelves were laden with drugs and chemicals. It was toward these shelves that “X” looked for some tiny ray of hope.

  With a mighty effort, he dragged himself to his feet. The pain of the contracting muscles in his left leg would have been unbearable to the average man. He limped to the shelves that lined the wall. His feverish eyes devoured the labels one by one and paused on a small vial of adrenalin. Rummaging in a drawer with hands that were already unfeeling, he found a hypodermic needle. Hastily, he filled the syringe, rolled back his sleeve, and made the injection. Almost instantly, the natural stimulant began to take effect. But it could not halt the creeping death.

  He only hoped that it would give him fifteen minutes’ strength before the final rigor set in. In that time, he must find the Ghoul.

  But he was without a weapon. He had lost Morgan’s automatic in the battle in the laboratory. He was looking about the room for some sort of an instrument that would spell death for the Ghoul, when a sound at the other end of the laboratory caused him to turn around.

  A door flung open and he saw the slight, lovely figure of a woman running toward him. It was the blue-eyed, pseudo-Chinese girl who served in China Bobby’s dope den. She stopped five feet from him and stared, wide-eyed with horror. “Bill, darling!” With a sob, she flung herself into his arms and clung passionately to him. “I heard that the Ghoul no longer trusted you,” she sobbed out. “I was afraid—afraid he might use the Amber Death…. Your hands—already yellow!”