Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 5

by Paul Chadwick

  “Wait!” “X” suddenly spoke to the firemen who were about to remove the body. “Hold on a minute, boys. I’ve got an idea.”

  The Agent hurried back into the main house along the dusty corridor where he had crept in darkness. He stopped before the old hatstand with its bowl of apples. Eyes bright, he poked among the brownish apple cores that lay around it. He selected two, went back to the laboratory again, and knelt beside the corpse. Guldi had been eating these when he came last night. Guldi’s toothmarks were plain upon them. The bites of the incisors were visible in a dozen places. The left one was broken. They made an uneven mark.

  The Agent held one core close to the corpse’s teeth. He studied the core and the teeth intently. They did not fit. The teeth in the grinning, blackened skull hadn’t made these bites. He had proof that the burned body wasn’t Guldi’s. Guldi was still alive!

  Chapter XII

  CRIMINAL CONTACT

  IT was night again. A tall man nervously paced a small, cluttered office. On a desk against the wall stood a squat leather satchel. The tall man was Swope, chief of the Rock Island police. The satchel contained a hundred thousand in cash ready for delivery to the most fearful extortion group that the state had ever known.

  Vernon Lasher had been unable to raise all of the money himself. A score of wealthy citizens of the island, headed by Captain Crump, had come forward and aided him. Horror over the uncanny fate of Clifton Hines had aroused public feeling. The island population didn’t want another victim treated in the same way.

  Swope was nervous because he had been selected as the intermediary and would have to face the kidnapers alone. He wasn’t a cowardly man, but he had never before come in contact with such fearful criminals. His face was pallid. Perspiration beaded his forehead, trickled down his cheeks, though the night was not warm. Cigar stubs lay in a ring around the desk.

  He looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock now. In a few moments more he would have to start on one of the strangest and most perilous missions of his life. He had ordered his own men to keep away from him and not communicate with him, previous to his rendezvous with the kidnapers. This was done as a precaution against rousing any possible suspicion on the criminals’ part of a police conspiracy. Swope did not want their anger to be turned against himself. Their terrible murder weapon had put fear into his heart.

  Swope walked to the squat satchel on his desk, picked it up and started for the door. His hand reached for the knob, froze abruptly.

  “Don’t move!”

  Swope had not heard the rear window of his office being raised. But a voice suddenly spoke from its open square, a voice that chilled him, paralyzed him with its inexorable grimness. Standing rigid, stunned, he saw from the tail of his eye the head and shoulders of a somberly masked man. There was a gun in the stranger’s hand. It was pointed straight at him.

  The masked figure swung a leg over the sill, stepped from the fire escape landing outside directly into the room. He closed the window softly behind with one hand, kept the other hand holding the gun pointed at Swope, spoke again in the same stern voice.

  “Drop that bag, Swope. Raise your hands. Turn around facing me. Stand still.”

  Swope obeyed, making the movements that the stranger had ordered like a well-controlled automaton. Then with hands lifted, eyeing the stranger before him fixedly, emotion began to flood Swope’s brain. A mottled red surged over his pale face. He found his voice. He spoke hoarsely.

  “You’re—one of the kidnapers! You’ve taken this way—to collect?”

  The stranger slowly shook his head.

  Swope didn’t understand at first, then he blurted: “You’re just a cheap crook! You’ve come to steal the ransom money! Listen—whoever you are, you can’t do that! You can’t do it! This money is to save a human life. It’s to save a boy from the most hellish thing you ever heard of. You can’t steal it—”

  “I’m not going to steal it, Swope!”

  “Then who are you? What do you want?”

  THE masked stranger did not answer. He was standing close to Swope now, not more than ten feet away. Suddenly his finger on the trigger of the gun twitched slightly. There was no report, but a sharp hiss sounded like the noise of escaping steam. A cloud of whitish vapor spurted from the gun’s muzzle enveloping Swope’s head.

  The police chief opened his lips to cry out, and the vapor filled his mouth and lungs, cutting off speech, making him gasp instead. He made one clawing motion with his arms, reaching blindly for support, sank to his knees, and from this position rolled inertly to the floor. He was not dead, but it would be several hours before he regained consciousness.

  Ignoring Swope for a moment, the stranger walked to the window and pulled down the shade. Then he whipped off his mask which consisted of a square of black cloth tied over his face. The features of the man who carried the card of A.J. Martin were revealed.

  The Secret Agent locked the door to prevent any possibility of intrusion. Then he set to work on the disguise he was about to create with the swiftness born of desperate urgency. There was no time to lose. He’d had to figure things closely. He’d come to Swope’s office when all danger of Swope’s men hanging about was past, but not too late to catch Swope before he left for Goose Bay. He had possibly ten minutes to create a disguise as important as any he had ever attempted in his life. For, in place of the pleasant, nondescript features of Martin, he was about to duplicate Swope’s own. This time he did not even strip off the disguise of Martin, but laid other plastic, volatile material on it in a liquid state. He used the Martin disguise as a base, building up Swope’s more rugged nose and chin. He changed the color of the hair and eyebrows, tinted the synthetic flesh to conform to Swope’s. He changed quickly into Swope’s clothing, transferring all his secret articles from his own. Now he was Swope’s double to the life, more like the police chief than any twin brother could have been.

  He searched for a place to hide Swope’s inert body and found a shallow coat closet. In this he propped Swope up and locked the door, making sure first that the crack below it would allow sufficient ventilation.

  Taking a deep breath he picked up the satchel of money, opened the front door and descended a flight of stairs to the street of Rock Island’s small village. Rumors of Swope’s mission this evening had been nosed about. The street was deserted. No one wanted to risk being seen even looking at Swope. Terror held Rock Island in its grip.

  But as Agent “X” got behind the wheel of Swope’s car standing at the curb, thrust gears home and headed out of town toward the road that led to Goose Bay, he got a brief glimpse of a figure strained back in the shadow of a doorway. The tense watchful attitude caught his attention. His sharp eyes made out the features of the face. The eyes spying on him in semi-darkness were those of Holly Babette.

  The Agent’s heart beat faster as he raced along. There was no time to make an attempt to stop and question her now. Even if there had been time, to do so might be a fatal mistake. For, if Holly was in with the criminals, spying for them, she could hardly be more than a minor cog in the weird crime wheel. To cross-question her now would only stir the extortionists’ suspicion and lead to their escape.

  The Agent drove Swope’s car at a roaring pace through the night. There was no uncertainty in his movements. Cautious investigation during the day had familiarized him with the necessary facts. He followed the road to a tiny harbor alongside the bay. Here he parked in a circular space that bathers used. He strode along a path an eighth of a mile to the harbor’s eastward end. A soft lapping of water indicated the spot where a rowboat was tied.

  The Agent climbed in, deposited the satchel in the bottom, cast loose the painter, and set the oars firmly in the rowlocks. In long, powerful sweeps, he headed out for the middle of the wide bay.

  DARKNESS pressed in about him, menacing, mysterious. Even the wan glow of the stars was hidden by stormy clouds. Off across the water to his left he could see the lights of a few cottages strung along the sho
re. Far out where the bay merged into the open sea a crimson beacon flashed every half minute, winking in and out like a single devil’s eye. There was a swell, and his small boat bobbed and slapped against the waves as he pulled with steady stroke.

  There were finely conditioned muscles along the Agent’s arms and chest. Once he had pulled stroke oar in a racing shell that had swept to victory in a great university contest. Rowing was no new experience to him. He made better time across the dark water than Swope would have done in his place.

  He gauged the distance between the red-flashing beacon and the lights on shore, shipped oars in what he believed was the center of the bay. For a moment he let the boat rock in silence, listening, straining his eyes into the dark. But the blackness that lay on the surface of the bay was too deep even for his eyes to penetrate.

  He glanced at the radium-painted hands of his wristwatch. It still lacked four minutes of ten. He waited grimly, holding the flash ready in his hand to give the signal which had been specified in the note pinned to young Hines’ coat. A black-crowned night heron squawked eerily as it flitted unseen overhead. Another gave answer a half mile away. These were the only sounds.

  The hands of his watch crept forward, one, two, three minutes. They pointed exactly to the hour of ten. The Agent raised the flash above his head and blinked it four times. He lowered it, sat silent in the boat still listening.

  A second passed, and off to his right a low mutter sounded. It increased to a muffled, throbbing beat. It came out of the darkness in a ghostly rumble, approaching nearer—nearer. It seemed like some giant monster of the sea speeding forward to engulf him.

  Suddenly a brilliant spotlight winked on, bathing him in a flood of blinding light. It bore down upon him steadily. Above the metallic rumble he began to hear the lapping of water on some sort of hull. He adjusted himself to the spotlight’s glare, half closed his eyes, glancing at the edge of its circle, and saw dimly a spreading gray shape. Huge arms seemed to reach out across the surface of the bay, fingers distended. Wings! A seaplane was approaching, taxiing slowly over the water toward him.

  He sat still, aware of the increased pounding of his heart. The spotlight bore down upon him like a monstrous eye. He knew there were other human eyes behind it, appraising him and every detail of the boat. He knew there must be guns, unseen, but directed at him, ready to snuff out his life if he made a single suspicious move.

  The spotlight turned. The seaplane swung slowly round, broadside to him, one huge wing jutting over his head. He could see its hull dimly. It was a cabin type, torpedo-shaped, fast as lightning, its single pontoon spear sharp at the bow. A brilliant hand torch took the place of the spotlight and was directed at him. A side door of the cabin opened.

  “Come nearer! Slow there!”

  THE voice that spoke was gruff, harshly evil. With one oar the Agent sculled close up to the pontoon. Faintly, behind the lens of the flash, he could make out two masked figures in the open door. Their eyes showed glitteringly through tiny slits. One held a machine gun in the crook of his arm, ready for instant murder. The other held a huge automatic in his right hand. Any attempt now to resist or capture these men would be suicidal, the Agent knew.

  “Hand up the bag. Be quick about it!”

  Quietly the Agent lifted the satchel of money, raised it high and felt it clutched and drawn out of sight by the man who held the automatic. Something plopped into the bottom of his boat a half second later. A tightly wadded bit of paper.

  “Back off. Fast!”

  The Agent obeyed, nerves tingling, half expecting a withering blast of bullets that would plunge him into eternity. None came, and when he had receded fifty feet, both the spotlight and the other suddenly winked off. The low mutter of the idling engine became a muffled roar. Slapping waves told that the seaplane was forging ahead. Invisible in the blackness, it swept swiftly away. In a moment the changing pitch and angle of the engine sound told the Agent that the plane had leaped into the sky.

  Ignoring the note that had been thrown to him for the moment, the Agent set feverishly to work. In utter darkness, he drew from the side pocket of his coat a small black case. He lifted a somewhat similar case from the opposite pocket.

  From one he took the pair of miniature collapsible earphones mounted on a half circle of springy metal. These he clamped over his head. The raised lid of the case had a mushroom-shaped microphone mounted on it. A black cord trailed from the phones to this. Another cord unwound under his fingers and was plugged into contact sockets on the side of the second black case.

  He raised the lid of this and a thin bakelite board with a complex assortment of dials was revealed. Tiny electric bulbs, of the type used by surgeons to throw light during delicate operations, illuminated the dials from beneath. They were no larger than grains of wheat. Quivering hair needles were set in the centers of the dials. Tiny rheostats were set below them. The Agent pressed a lever and a drum of tissue-thin paper, operated by a spring, began to turn slowly under the point of an inked stylus.

  The instrument was one of the most delicate and accurate directional sound-recording devices on earth. It was an elaboration of the “electric ears” used during the World War to detect the approach of hostile planes.

  One dial was a compass. Another was a distance recorder based on the scientific law that sound travels at a speed of eleven hundred feet per second. Still another recorded direction through intensity of tone. By turning the mushroom-shaped microphone till the tone dial registered maximum pitch, the Agent could follow perfectly the direction that the seaplane took.

  The earphones were only for additional check-up. And the instrument could record sounds up to the phenomenal range of twenty-five miles—nine miles farther than similar instruments perfected by the military experts of the world.

  But tonight the Secret Agent needed only a fraction of the instrument’s range. The actions of the seaplane puzzled him at first. It spiraled upward to an altitude of eight thousand feet. Then its motor was shut off. Distinctly, through his delicate earphones, he could hear the whistle of wind through the sky craft’s propeller and flat struts. It was going down in a steep dive. He adjusted his dials to record the lesser sound. The inked stylus tabulated the plane’s movements on the revolving tissue by a minute but continuous line.

  The seaplane descended in its dive, nearer and nearer sea level. All noise ceased as it landed at a spot, approximately five miles away on the other side of Rock Island.

  For a full five minutes the Agent listened, to make sure that its motor did not start again. Then, the muscles of his face rigid with intense excitement, he put away his instruments and rowed for shore.

  A great step forward had been made in his tracing down of the extortionists. He knew now definitely that they had a secret hideout somewhere on Rock Island.

  Chapter XIII

  MYSTERY COVE

  FOR a moment the Secret Agent ceased rowing and clicked on his flash. He unfolded the wadded paper that the criminals had dropped. Anger tautened his mouth at the crafty import of the words.

  Swope—accept our receipt for the “first half” of the ransom money paid to save the Lasher boy. The second half must be delivered at the same time and in the same way tomorrow night. One hundred grand. And remember—we’ll be watching! Forget you’re a copper. See that your own and the G-men stay away. Try any stunts and Lasher will be glad to kill his boy just the way old Hines did.

  The fingers of the Agent’s hand balled into a white-knuckled fist. Even after taking the ransom money the extortionists weren’t playing fair. They had no honor, mercy, shame. They would go on like this indefinitely, demanding bonuses in all likelihood when the full ransom had been met.

  The Agent hurried to the shore, tied up the boat and strode to the spot where he had parked Swope’s car. He climbed in, paused an instant in indecision. Caution prompted that Swope must be considered first. The tingling thrill of the chase urged him to go at once to the place where he had heard the seaplane
descend.

  He put caution aside for the moment, sent the car roaring ahead toward the north end of the island. This was dangerous. Some one might recognize Swope’s car. He kept away from the village, counted on the darkness for protection. Once he stopped long enough to make slight alterations to his disguise, memorizing Swope’s features as he did so, so that he could put them back.

  He drew the tissue record from his sound device and compared it quickly with the Rock Island map. The compass and distance marks were accurate to within a hundred feet. His heart beat faster when he saw the precise spot where the plane had landed. It was a cove not far from Professor Guldi’s place—the most deserted section of the island.

  He roared over night roads, conscious of each minute of passing time. He must not take long. Swope’s return would be awaited, spied upon, just as his setting forth had been.

  He entered the narrow highway where his fight with the dwarfs had taken place. He turned off it before he came to Guldi’s house, crept along a rutted lane close to the beach. He switched off his lights and moved ahead on foot in utter darkness. The breaking of waves on rocks warned him when the shore was near. He picked his way stealthily close to the water’s edge, until the abrupt curving of the beach made it apparent that he had reached the cove.

  But there were no lights visible, no sound or sight of human beings. There was only the chill water, the black rocks, the whispering, moaning pines. Was it possible that the seaplane’s occupants had landed here and come ashore? Was there a secret hangar somewhere close to the water’s edge? Cautious, daylight investigation would have to be done.

  The Agent drove swiftly back toward the village. Parked for a moment beside the road, he remodeled his features back to Swope’s. He entered the village street, slid to a stop before the building that housed the police chief’s office. He could not go in the back way now. Swope must be seen returning. Yet he had to hurry. Curiosity might get the better of Swope’s men.