Secret Agent X, December, 1935
When Joe started out for his wedding, he didn’t expect his gun-toting past would delay him. For Joe had resigned from the gang. But when he stumbled on a corpse, he found he was carrying a suicide satchel.
JOE knew that he mustn’t get caught. That He was so absorbed with thoughts of
was the first thing that banged into his head Mary, that he didn’t see anyone at first. Mary when the man dropped dead. He had to get had given, him a year’s grace. He had told her away at once. But it all happened so quickly.
of his past when he’d had a different last He was walking down the street, name. He had assured her that he had never carrying the handbag. It was quite late; past really hurt anyone; that he never wanted to midnight. The street was almost deserted. And hurt anyone.
Joe was thinking of Mary. He knew that Mary And he had figured it all out by
was expecting him in Baneville. They were himself that he couldn’t be a crook without going to get married. He was to take the hurting people sooner or later—even if he morning train.
only used his guns to throw a scare into the
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folks he held up.
him. But he kept on talking, musingly.
Joe had told her all that. And she had
“What’s in the handbag, Joe?”
believed him, without much difficulty. He was Joe answered promptly: “History,
such a gentle-looking fellow, something like a Louis. In four volumes. One large and three—
piano-player is supposed to look; mild-
”
mannered and soft-voiced. And he liked to And then it happened. Louis was
read—especially history.
paying no attention to Joe at all. Another man But, because she was wiser than he,
had swung around the corner, was a few feet Mary had decided that he must prove his away. He stopped abruptly as he saw Louis.
worth by living one clean, honest year. He had Something appeared in Louis’ hand.
done that. And she had written him that she Flame stabbed the darkness. Shots shattered was all ready for the wedding.
the stillness of the night.
Mary knew. But nobody else—for
The man cried out something hoarsely, Mary’s sake—must know.
then sank to the ground.
A gun clattered on the sidewalk beside THEN it happened. He was walking down the the fallen man. Louis was in the car instantly, street. He had almost reached a corner—
and driving rapidly away. Joe stood quite still, carrying a handbag. A car was standing at the unable to move. He was still thinking, wildly, curb. On the sidewalk, near the car, was a of Mary.
young man. Joe had almost passed him when he recognized him. He tried to hurry by, but ALMOST at once, another man appeared from the young man stopped him.
around the corner. He was a large man, with a
“How’re you, Joe?” he said, staring at cunning face. He had, Joe somehow noticed, a him queerly.
long thin nose. He stared at the man on the
“Hello, Louis,” Joe answered, pausing ground. He seemed not to notice Louis driving for a minute.
away in the car.
Joe really hadn’t wanted to see Louis, Then it was that Joe realized in a flash because Louis belonged to a past that he that he had to get away. This man had seen wanted to leave far behind. And, of all of his him. There was a dead man on the ground, a old associates, there were none he liked less gun alongside of him—and no one else but than Louis. But, having stopped, it seemed Joe.
necessary to be friendly.
And that would mean a murder charge!
“How’s things, Louis?” asked Joe.
There was the dead man—and there
Louis’ grin was barely visible in the was the gun! Louis’ fingerprints would not be darkness. “Busy as hell,” he said. “Busy as on that gun, for he had worn gloves. Joe hell.”
would probably find it impossible to prove Joe was uncomfortable. “That’s swell, that it wasn’t his. If he were caught, he would Louis,” he said.
be charged with murder; his past record would
“How’s things with you, Joe?” Louis
be brought up, and even if he managed to said then.
prove his innocence, his future with Mary
“Couldn’t be better,” said Joe. He would be destroyed.
would not, of course, tell him about Mary, nor Louis, of course, would have an alibi about anything else, for that matter. “Leaving all ready; it wouldn’t do any good for Joe to town in the morning.”
tell the police that Louis did it.
Louis didn’t seem to be looking at
The man on the corner was still staring
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3
at Joe. Suddenly, two or three other men
“He ain’t here,” muttered a voice.
appeared from doorways across the street. Joe
“And he couldn’t of got over them
turned and ran down the block. He was far fences this quick,” said another.
short of the next corner when another large
“Maybe got in the house here some
figure appeared ahead of him—a patrolman.
way,” said the first.
Joe stopped short. It appeared to him Almost at once, the footsteps started vaguely, then, that several men were running again and came up on the back porch.
in his direction.
Joe moved quickly through the open
He was standing in front of a two-story doorway into a corridor. He stood there in the house. His eye caught sight of a card in the darkness for a moment as he heard some one window: FURNISHED ROOMS. Running trying the back door, at the end of the corridor.
from the sidewalk, by the side of the building, He stepped forward lightly then. The corridor back to the rear, was a dark walk.
ran straight through the house to the front Joe turned and ran swiftly down the
door.
walk.
Halfway down the corridor, a stairway He halted abruptly in a back yard. The started up to the second floor. Probably the yard was surrounded by a high fence, too high best thing to do, Joe thought, was to go to the to climb without something to stand on. There front door, open it, glance out, watch for a was nothing to stand on.
chance to walk away from the house. He could Three steps ran up to a small porch and pretend, if necessary, to be a roomer in the the back door of the house. Joe ran up the house, just going out.
steps, tried the door. It was locked. Near the He reached the bottom of the stairway, door was a small window. The glass window stopped suddenly. Some one was at the front had been left open, but there was a latched door, just inserting a key.
screen.
Joe produced a knife, quickly pulled
SWIFTLY, Joe found the bottom step of the the screen as far away from the window as stairway, started up. He had reached the top possible, inserted the knife and dislodged the when the front door opened. He paused there, catch. He swung the screen open, sprang up out of sight from the bottom. The man who on the sill. It was a little awkward, because he had entered made straight for the stairs. Joe was still clinging to the handbag. But he made slipped down the dimly-lit second-floor it.
corridor. There were doors on each side of There were footsteps pounding down
him. If only he could risk finding one room the walk toward him.
empty—
He slipped across the sill, dropped to Soon he had reached the end of the
the floor inside, pulled the screen down and corridor. The footsteps were coming
> latched it. He was in a small pantry. It was deliberately up the stairs. There was only one dark, but he could make out shelves and small window at the end of the corridor, high cupboards; close by was an open doorway.
up. It offered no escape.
Just outside, in the backyard, were
Just to the right of him was a closed sounds of heavy, lunging tramping. Then there door. Joe seized the knob, turned it, pushed.
was silence for a moment.
The door opened. He entered the dark room Joe squinted through the screen. Some noiselessly, closed the door again. He stood one was playing a flashlight against the high against the door in the darkness, waited.
walls.
The footsteps were coming along the
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corridor. Presently they halted. Then he heard The dead man, no doubt, was a crook, like someone knocking on a door—the door just Louis. Society would not suffer from his across the corridor.
passing. Still it was murder. It worried Joe to There was a silent pause, then came
think that he was running from the law, the low voice of the man in the corridor, holding back what he knew to save himself.
talking to someone in the room there, through But, he told himself, he was doing it for Mary the door. “Hey, Post, open up!”
rather than for himself.
The man’s voice sounded, excited.
Mary! She would be waiting for him in Joe could hear the door across the the morning. It was now about one o’clock.
corridor being opened, and the blurred sound The train left at six, reached Baneville at nine.
of whispering voices. Then the door closed And now—here he was!
again.
Joe reflected, a little bitterly, that he Joe’s sigh of relief was suppressed,
wouldn’t be here now except for his anxiety to and brief. He was in some one’s room. He did clean up the past completely before the not know, yet, if he was alone. His eyes tried wedding.
to pierce the darkness, but he could see nothing but vague shapes.
SO far, no one knew that he had seen, the He moved away from the doorway,
killing—no one except the man who had slowly, his hand groping along the wall. turned the corner just after it had happened, Presently his fingers stopped against a light the man with the long thin nose. That man was button. He thought a moment.
the only one who could recognize him.
He could wait there in the darkness, or But he couldn’t stay in this room much he could switch on the light. There were risks longer. He decided to leave the room, go to in either course. He decided quickly. He the head of the stairs, and, if possible, make pressed his finger against the button.
another try for the front door.
The room was bathed in sudden light.
Joe got up, started toward the door. He There was no one but himself in the room. It had almost reached it when he heard the door was well-furnished; a bed, table, desk, divan, across the corridor being opened, and the chairs. A man’s room, evidently, for ties were voices of two men. He heard distinctly the slung over the bureau.
voice of one of the men, saying: “If there’s It seemed very quiet in the room. Joe any trouble, Carson will call me.”
moved about on tiptoe, put the handbag down Then the door was closed again. Joe
on the floor, behind the divan, then sat down stopped, waited, listening for the visiting man on a chair.
to go back down the corridor to the stairs.
Suppose somebody came in, caught Then, suddenly, he caught his breath. The man him there? He would claim that he had just was not going down the corridor; he had made a mistake; say that he was making an crossed it, had his hand on the doorknob of urgent call on a friend, but that he had never this room!
been there before, and that he thought that it In a dizzy frenzy, Joe rehearsed what was his friend’s room and had decided to wait he was to say to the man, about his visiting a for him.
friend, and the friend being out, and—
It was a far-fetched explanation, but Abruptly, the door swung wide open.
the best he could think of.
The man standing there was the one
He began to think, then, of the man
who had seen him down on the corner—the Louis had shot, down there near the corner.
man with the long thin nose!
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5
Joe stood speechless. The man in the
along the corridor, then down the stairs.
doorway stared at him just as he had stared at Post was standing over him. Joe could him outside on the street. Even at a distance of see that he was very powerful, in spite of his several feet, he seemed to tower over Joe. A shortness.
slow grin appeared on his face.
Post grinned. “You look like a hell of a Then he called out, in a loud voice:
killer to me,” he said. “Still you never can tell
“Heh, Post, come here!”
by a guy’s looks. What you plug him for?”
“I didn’t,” said Joe. “I—I just
THE door was still open. Joe saw the door happened to be around when it happened.”
across the corridor open then, and another
“Yeah? Then why did you beat it?” Joe man appeared, bathrobe over pajamas.
couldn’t answer that. It was because of Mary.
“What’s the matter, Stacker?” he It came to him again, with sudden force, that asked.
he had to get away. But Stacker would be He came across the corridor, stood by back soon—in a minute or two—with the the side of the man called Stacker. He, too, cops.
stared.
Instinctively, he started to his feet.
“See what I found!” said Stacker.
Post pushed him in the face, forced him down
“Who the hell is he?” asked Post.
again. Joe looked up at the man. There was no Stacker laughed. “Why, he’s the punk
question that Post was much stronger than he.
that drilled poor old Slausen!”
But Joe was quick—very quick.
Joe was still silent. He noted that this
“I climbed in a back window,” he
Stacker knew the murdered man—noted it announced, suddenly.
vaguely, still driven by the thought that he had
“Yeah?” said Post, not very much
to get away, somehow.
interested.
“I didn’t kill anyone!” he said
“And I hurt my foot,” Joe went on. He suddenly.
bent down quickly, as if to rub his foot. His Stacker laughed again. “Post,” he said, hands reached out, caught Post by the ankles.
sharply, “you frisk this lug!”
He jerked sharply. Post spun in the air, Post, a short, strongly-built man with a crashed to the floor.
block for a head, approached Joe carefully, ran Almost before Post hit the floor, Joe a hand over him.
snatched the clothes off the bed, flung them
“He ain’t got a thing,” he said finally.
over Post—sheets and blankets. He was on his
“Not a thing that looks like a gat.” He grinned feet now, took the table and pushed it over on at Joe.
Post, now struggling in the bedding.
“Guess he only had one on him,” said
Joe ran for the door, slipped the key Stacker. “That’s the one he used on Slausen—
out of the lock on the inside, stepped out to the and he threw that down on the sidewalk.” He corridor just as Post was emerging from the was looking at Post queerly. “You hang onto bedding. Joe slammed the door shut and him, Post. I’ll go get the law!”
locked it, while inside Post was roaring like a Joe looked anxious. “But I tell you—”
bull.
“Aw, shut up!”
Joe ran down the corridor, skippe
d
Post pushed him back, and he suddenly down the stairs, light feet hitting the steps sat on the edge of the bed. Stacker looked at softly, reached the main floor hallway. He had him once more, in his queer way, then turned almost reached the front door, which was and went out. Joe could hear him hurrying partly open, when he heard steps and voices
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on the sidewalk outside.
curb, was a taxi. Joe yanked open the door, Just beside him, to the left, was an
jumped in.
open doorway. The room inside was lighted—
“Hey,” yelled the driver. “You can’t
one standing lamp. Instantly, Joe guessed that do that. I got a fare. I’m waiting—”
this was the landlady’s room, that perhaps she
“There’s an alley right across the
had gone out to get the police with Stacker.
street,” Joe cut in. “And I got plenty dough.
He stepped into the room, stood behind I’m getting away from a tough guy. You go the door.
like hell!”
The front door was being pushed open. He He had pulled his wallet from his
could hear Stacker’s voice, talking to the pocket, was displaying it. The driver grinned, others: “I got a pal of mine watching him.”
started the taxi, shot across the street and up Then a woman’s voice—probably, Joe
the alley.
thought, the landlady’s—said: “The nerve of
“Don’t stop until I tell you,” Joe
Suicide Satchel By J Page 1