THE ROOM that the Agent had taken under the name of Martin was on the eastern side of the inn. He’d made sure of its exact location before he left, though he had not anticipated returning to it like this. He’d planned, when the moment came, to reassume the facial disguise of Martin and go back through the ornate lobby. The Martin make-up was so well known to him, he’d created it so many times, that his deft, expert fingers could sculpture it even in the dark.
But his wet clothes were a stumbling block. Word of the mysterious man who had dived into the lighthouse cove and knocked out two detectives would be bandied over the whole island. He couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion of Martin now.
He knelt in the dark shadow of a clump of spruce and reconstructed the damaged features of Wilks, using a tube of plastic material from his waterproof pocket kit. Better to be seen as Wilks, if he were seen at all, making a furtive entry of the inn. He could slip into his room and make up as Martin there.
He crossed the playgrounds beside the inn. Tennis courts. A layout for miniature golf. An outside swimming pool holding salt water. He lifted his eyes to the building’s eastern face and counted a row of windows to his own. Suddenly he paused.
There was a huge oak close to a jutting corner, near a narrow second-story roof. Something moved in the branches of the tree. Something that held the Agent’s riveted gaze. His fingers clenched. He stood like a man frozen.
A hideous, batlike shape was swinging from branch to branch. Hand over hand, it moved to the edge of the roof. It made three pendulum movements and leaped upon it. Against the building’s painted sides “X” saw for a moment the crouching figure of one of the hideous dwarfs. He could not see the features. But the long arms and distorted body formed a sinister silhouette.
The thing moved with uncanny swiftness up the slanted roof to the building’s corner. It gripped a leader pipe and climbed upward like a human fly. Its misshapen body and flying coat merged loathsomely with the inn’s boarding. Its agility was amazing.
The Agent waited only till it reached the edge of the roof above and disappeared. Then he flung himself forward across the intervening space. He must learn what the nightmare thing was doing here. He made sure first there were no others in the tree, swung himself up into the hard, cold branches.
He kept his own body in prime condition. His powerful, rangy arms and shoulders bore steely muscles coordinated under perfect control. He had an athlete’s physique that was unobtrusive. It was a necessary adjunct to his work. He, too, swung from branch to branch straight toward the roof. He arced forward to the edge, landing lightly on rubber-soled shoes. He ascended its slant cautiously, tested the leader pipe’s strength.
Warily, he began to climb, marveling at the dwarf-man’s agile strength. His own ascent was not quite so rapid. He hadn’t the animal-like balance of the other. But he reached the edge of the roof in less than a minute.
He lifted his head slowly, saw handball courts with screened-in sides, a fenced sun-bath section, a dozen skylights and a maze of radio wires. Then the figure of the dwarf emerged. The horrible man, walking in simian fashion with knuckles almost touching the ground, was at the far side of the roof now. The upward wash of light from bulbs in the big marquee directly below outlined his grotesque figure.
Agent “X” drew himself over the coping. Crouching, he started forward, eyes intent on what the man-monster was doing. The dwarf had raised one long arm now. There was a small object in his fingers. He moved closer to the roof’s edge and hurled something downward. It fluttered whitely an instant and disappeared. The Agent held his breath, tense with wonder.
SOMETHING scraped directly back of him. The dwarf heard it, too, and gave a snarl. The Agent whirled and remained frozen. The skylight skuttle closest to him had opened softly. A man’s head and shoulders were thrusting out. The man, he knew, could see him plainly, silhouetted against the glow of the marquee bulbs, just as he had seen the dwarf. And there was the gleaming outline of an automatic in the stranger’s fingers—pointed straight at his chest.
“Don’t move! Stand just as you are. Now—raise your hands.” The voice that spoke was hard and precise. The gun in the man’s hand was grimly steady. A soft click sounded as he pressed the switch of a flash, and its bright beam centered on the Agent’s face.
Blinded, temporarily out-maneuvered, the Agent could do nothing but obey. He lifted his hands slowly, stood where he was.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The questions were hurled at him from behind the blinding circle of light.
The Agent’s reply was quiet. He let no tremor of apprehension enter his tone. “I saw a queer-looking guy come up and I followed. He’s over there now by the edge of the roof.”
“I don’t see him!”
“He was there a second ago. He chucked something down into the front yard. I’m giving you straight dope. Go easy with that gun.”
“What’s your name?”
“Wilks, American Syndicated Press.”
“A reporter, eh? How can you prove it?”
The Agent started to lower his hand and reach toward his pocket. The other’s voice barked harshly:
“Wait! None of that! I’ll find your wallet. Just stand as you are and I’ll—” The man ceased abruptly and cursed. His light ranged up and down the Agent’s body. “X” heard an excited hiss of breath.
“Your clothes are soaking wet! How do you explain that? The cops are out looking for a man with wet clothes right now. Never mind that card! Come down these stairs with me.”
Chapter VI
DANGEROUS DISGUISE
THE MAN’S rasping tone had an air of authority that the Secret Agent caught. Blood pounded in the Agent’s temples. He was trapped, cornered, unless his agile mind could find some way out.
“I fell in the swimming pool down on the lawn,” he said abruptly. “That’s why I’m wet. Don’t get tough, mister! Where are the stairs? I can’t see ’em. You’ve got me blinded with that light.”
His voice was deceptively mild. He waited breathlessly to see if his plausible-sounding story would have the desired effect. The flash was deflected a moment later, centering on the square opening of the skylight. In that instant, the Agent leaped.
He had kept the position of the man’s gun in mind. He dropped to one knee and struck upward, dealing a blow with such lightning swiftness that the stranger was taken by surprise.
The man did not even pull the trigger. The automatic sailed from his fingers, over the Agent’s head, falling to the roof behind. The Agent’s arm continued up, struck rounded bone. His left fist dealt a body blow that doubled the man up. Struggling, gasping, trying to cry out, the man fell backward. He would have dropped through the skylight opening if the Agent had not grabbed his belt.
Holding a hand over the dazed man’s mouth, the Agent peered tensely about him. The hideous dwarf was nowhere in sight now. He’d had minutes in which to make a getaway. To try to find him would be futile.
With his left hand, the Agent picked up the man’s fallen flash and turned it on his face. Pale, even features were revealed above a stiff white collar. The Agent dropped to his knee again and ran a hand inside the other’s coat. He drew out a wallet, flipped it open. There was a license card inside. He turned back the coat lapel, disclosing a gleaming metal badge. The license showed the name of Gilbert Strickland. The badge had the coat-of-arms of the state embossed upon it. The man was obviously the inn’s private detective, a man clever and polished enough to mix unobtrusively with the wealthy clientele.
The Agent’s eyes gleamed as a sudden, startling idea possessed him. He measured the height of Strickland’s figure. He took in the details of the private detective’s face. He recalled mentally the exact accents of the man’s voice.
Abruptly, as though he’d reached a quick decision, the Secret Agent’s hand dipped into an inner pocket of his coat. He drew out a small, black case, took from it a hypodermic syringe. He pulled up Strickland’s sleeve, pressed the hypo’s
needle into a vein of the wrist, and thumbed the plunger home.
Strickland gave a muffled, terrified curse as the needle’s unaccountable prick helped to bring him to. A moment later he was breathing in stertorous gasps. A slight sweat filmed his forehead. Slowly, his body settled back and he lay mutely still. The harmless anesthetizing drug would keep him unconscious for several hours, unless the Agent chose to use a special stimulant and revive him.
The Agent put away his hypo-syringe and softly descended the skylight stairs. A long hallway opened at the bottom. This was the big inn’s top floor. Most of the rooms were empty. Lightless windows outside had told the Agent that.
He drew out his set of master keys, opened a door, peered inside and saw no signs of occupancy. He left the door ajar, returned to the roof, and picked up Strickland’s body. As effortlessly as though the detective were only a child, Agent “X” carried him down the stairs, across the hall and into the vacant room.
The room in which he found himself was luxurious, magnificently furnished. These top-floor chambers, affording a water view, were the most expensive in the inn. For that reason they were empty. The Agent strode to a closet and found, as he had hoped, that there was a bulb inside. He carried Strickland in and closed the door.
MOST of his working materials were in the room of A.J. Martin two flights below. But he had his portable, waterproof kit and a small mirror with him. With these he set to work at once.
He stripped off his disguise of Wilks with an instantaneously dissolving ointment. He stepped out of his wet clothing. Standing in shorts, with his powerful torso bared and his real face exposed, the Agent was revealed as not even his close associates had ever seen him. There was an odd scar over his heart, drawn into the shape of a crude X.
It seemed symbolic of the Secret Agent’s vitality and courage. For a piece of shrapnel had buried itself there during the holocaust of death in France. And the Agent had survived, when his life had been despaired of. He had been one of the youngest Allied Intelligence operatives in all Europe.
His uncovered face above his muscular, wide-set shoulders was an eternal riddle. Maturity and youth were mingled strangely according to how light played upon it. There was forcefulness in the rounded chin, probing intelligence in the wide-set eyes, strength and grim humor in the mobile lips. It was a young face, filled with a boyish zest for life. Yet there were faint lines and rugged contours which were the indelible markings left by countless adventures which had brought him close to death.
The Agent began now the mysterious art of impersonation which had made him famous—rated as one of the strangest characters in the world. He squeezed from a tube some of the volatile substance that had a pyroxyline base. He spread it over his features, molding it skillfully with his hands. His eyes were intent on the face of Strickland, and on the small mirror propped on the wall before him.
Under his powerful, sculpturing fingers, Strickland’s features began to appear on his own. The Agent, with uncanny skill born of long practice, duplicated every plane and line. And the drying material, still flexible, moved as his own facial muscles moved beneath it, appearing as living flesh. He tinted it the right shade with special pigment. He matched Strickland’s gray hair with one of several toupees he carried, made by one of the cleverest stage costumers of Europe. A cellophane wrapping had kept it dry.
He removed Strickland’s clothes and slipped into them himself. He practiced Strickland’s accents, as he had memorized them from hearing them once—and Strickland himself seemed to be muttering in the closet.
The Agent emerged, and even the detective’s own parents would not have guessed that he wasn’t their son. The disguise was perfect, yet “X” knew he was treading on dangerous ground. He knew nothing of Strickland’s background. There were a hundred things that might betray him. Every move he made held hidden danger.
Leaving Strickland unconscious in the closet, the Agent hurried downstairs. He had barely reached the resplendent lobby when a bellhop came running toward him.
“I’ve been looking for you, sir. Mr. Jones wants to see you at once.”
Jones was the inn’s manager. “X” hurried toward the desk. The small, weak-eyed manager in his cutaway coat was frightened. He held a roll of paper in his hand. He thrust it toward “X,” said:
“I don’t know what this is, Strickland, but it was just picked up out front. A guest found it. It’s addressed to Mr. Lasher. It may be something from the kidnapers again. You’d better take it to him at once!”
THE Agent reached for the paper. This was what he’d seen the dwarf throw down. He nodded, pocketed the roll, and turned toward the door. The manager called after him:
“Hurry back, Strickland! Papers all over the country are calling up! News has leaked out about the kidnaping—and those horrible murders. Reporters are on their way. City police are coming. I won’t know what to tell them—or what to do!”
“X” didn’t answer, but hurried on through the door. He ran around to the side of the inn to the big garage in back. He rolled back a door, went to A.J. Martin’s car. He climbed into the seat and made the starter whine. If anyone questioned him, he had an excuse thought up. He’d say he’d commandeered this coupé because it looked so fast.
That was one of his reasons for using his own car, but he had another. Under an innocent-appearing exterior the coupé held many strange devices.
The Agent backed out, whirled away into the darkness. A short distance from the inn he stopped beside the road. Under the dashboard light he opened and read the roll of paper. It was a message addressed to Lasher, mysterious and threatening.
You couldn’t stop us, Lasher. You see that now. We’ve got your son, and you’ve got to come across. You’ll understand soon what we’ll do to him if you fail.
No name was signed. The Agent didn’t know what horrible thing the rubber-corpse killers planned next. There must have been some sinister meaning in the threat that Lasher would understand.
“X” rolled up the message again and pocketed it quickly. He reached then under the car’s instrument panel and turned a hidden dial. His left hand fingered a button tucked under the edge of the coupé’s seat. The dial controlled a powerful short-wave radio set. The button was a transmitting key.
In speedy, staccato dots and dashes, he commenced a message in a secret code. The Agent had mysterious under-cover organizations of his own, skillful, highly trained men and women who did not know for whom they worked. They helped him battle crime by doing routine work. He kept himself in the background, but was the guiding brain.
Members of his organizations were scattered up and down the whole Atlantic Coast, interviewing witnesses, running down rumors, getting what information they could concerning the activities of the murderous kidnap ring. But until the report tonight, which had sent the Agent himself speeding to Rock Island, nothing of value had come in. That had been gleaned by one of “X’s” operatives from the careless lips of a government man being sent to guard the Lasher home.
“X” summoned one of his most loyal allies now. This was Jim Hobart, the redheaded ex-cop, who knew him only as Martin. “X” had employed Hobart after he had been dismissed from the force on graft charges trumped up by an underworld czar. They had shared many strange adventures. Hobart was ready to lay down his life for the man who had given him a job and his self-respect again. The Agent’s quick fingers tapped out a message which would be received many miles away.
Come to Rock Island immediately. Take room at Rock Island Inn. Wait there until I get in touch with you.
The Agent sent his fast car hurtling along a shell road into the darkness again. He swept up to the gate of the Vernon Lasher estate, where the shadow of crime in its most hideous form had so lately fallen.
Chapter VII
THE AGENT CORNERED
HIS disguise of Strickland admitted him. Inside the house horror still held sway. The eyes of the Secret Agent flamed with sudden interest.
Holly Babette was back
again. Her beautiful, oval face was deathly pale. Clever make-up couldn’t cover the lividness of her skin. Her red lips looked unnatural. She was twisting a handkerchief in her hands. Her gray-green eyes had the darting terror he had once seen in a trapped animal’s.
Yet as “X” moved close, he heard her telling the detectives gathered around the same story she had told him—how she had fled in frenzied fear out into the darkness. She mentioned the light, mentioned seeing a mysterious man come in. Her gaze swept the room as though she were looking for someone. He knew she was searching for the supposed detective who had questioned her in the tower.
Lasher was on the couch, his head bandaged, a doctor in attendance. He raised startled eyes as “X” approached.
“Strickland! You should have stayed at the inn! There’s no telling what may happen. You—”
The Agent thrust the roll of paper into his trembling hands.
“A message for you. It was found in the yard of the inn a moment ago. Jones asked me to bring it at once.”
Lasher ripped open the roll tensely. His haggard eyes read the words.
“Swope! Swope!” he called. “Those devils are somewhere nearby. They dared to bring this right to the door of the inn.”
Swope, chief of the island police, a tall, powerful man, strode instantly to Lasher’s side. He snatched up the message, swore with ponderous anger.
“We’ll get them if they’re hanging about! They can’t get away. They can’t hide either. Every house on the island is being searched. Every nook and cranny.”
A harsh chuckle sounded close by Agent “X.” He and Chief Swope turned. Captain Crump had come up softly, was staring at the sinister message, too. His red face was tense with excitement. His mustache bristled. He still clenched the old army six-shooter which he’d had no chance to use. He gripped Swope’s arm, spoke with trembling vehemence, and gestured toward the paper.
“This, sir, upholds a belief I have long held. You know what I mean. I’ve mentioned it to you before. Rock Island, way back in Colonial times, was a fort. I’ve heard my great-grandfather say so. The British were blockaded here. Study your history if you doubt me!”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 5 Page 29