Hurdling a beam, he gained the opening. Out in the street a police whistle was shrilling. A car was starting from the curb. A single man had deserted the truck that blockaded the street. The criminal mob, certain that the police would not be long in arriving, were leaving the scene of the smashup. One wild shot was fired at the Agent as the criminal car whisked away.
“X” turned out his flashlight and ran up the street. A policeman shouted to him to halt, but though he was certain that his disguise as Inspector Burks would save him from any trouble, “X” had no reason for wanting to talk to the officer. He rounded the corner and proceeded directly to the hideout where he had intended to take Donna Magyar. He had escaped the ambush that had been prepared for him, but he had lost the spy woman—his chief lead to Thoth.
Chapter VIII
DISEASE OF THE DAMNED
“PUT every available man, on the lookout for Donna Magyar, alias Sari Saphari!”
This was an order that Agent “X” phoned from his hideout to both Harvey Bates and Jim Hobart. He was now positively certain of the lovely spy’s association with Thoth. Perhaps, in spite of her denial, she did know the identity of this arch criminal. But whether or not this was so, “X” was certain that she possessed information that would eventually lead to Thoth’s capture.
And it was imperative that this menace should be wiped out. Newspapers related the sad story of a panic created in a motion picture palace when several Thoth slaves had entered the house. Robbery had evidently been the maniacal monsters’ objective, but the loss of life far eclipsed the loss of money. Several who had tried to stop the Thoth slaves had been brutally murdered. Additional deaths and scores of injuries had been the result of panic. In other parts of the city, other Neanderthals had run amuck.
There had been the brutal attacks on women, and gruesome evidence of lustful bloodshed. Yet to Agent “X,” the Neanderthals were the object of great pity. He could not forget that they had once been brilliant men instead of half-mad beasts. He knew that these slaves must have paid their ransom many times over; for Thoth would have never risked their lives in less lucrative robberies if he had not bled them for every cent they owned.
“X” hated to think what would happen if Thoth lived on. He must by now have obtained millions from his victims. A man with the unscrupulous criminal mind of Thoth and the millions of a Midas was a menace to the entire civilization.
Though it was perfectly clear to “X” how Thoth exacted servitude and monetary tribute from his slaves—by promising to return their normal physical appearance and mental powers—he had as yet only a faint glimmering of a notion as to how the Thoth slaves were created.
In order to clear up this important point, he decided to turn to Dr. Alexis Yan, the Slavic scientist who was the director of United Charities Hospital.
The experiment that Yan had once attempted, of breeding man with monkey, proved him to be a man with little regard for the human race.
Accordingly, “X” adopted a new disguise. In his hideout, he took out a photo of one of the chief medical examiners on the police force. “X” had met Dr. Peters upon several occasions and required only a photograph to recall his every feature and mannerism. Half an hour later, “X” appeared as a middle-aged medical man, thoroughly calloused to gruesomeness by his years of practice as a medical examiner. Selecting a rough brown cigar similar to the type that Dr. Peters favored, he thrust it between thin lips that had assumed an almost cynical appearance. Adjusting a worn looking pince-nez on the bridge of his nose and taking a medical kit with him, Agent “X” left the hideout in another one of his cars.
The hospital was an impressive edifice fronted with Vermont granite. It had been erected with funds contributed largely because of the energetic campaigning of young Damon Preston. A broad, U-shaped drive ran tangent to the front steps of the hospital where Agent “X” parked his car.
An attendant at the desk informed Agent “X” that Dr. Yan could be found in his suite of rooms at the left wing. Upon being informed that Dr. Peters, a police medico, wanted to see him, Dr. Yan ordered the attendant to admit “X” at once.
DR. YAN’S suite was a sumptuous one judging from the luxuriant furnishings of the small living room into which “X” was shown. Dr. Yan squinted his small, birdlike eyes up at the Agent, gave the latter’s hand a little twitch, and asked, “How do you do? Have you met Mr. Preston?”
Rising from a deep lounging chair to meet the Agent was Damon Preston. He ran fingers through his blond hair, then smilingly took “X’s” hand. “If you’re here to see Dr. Yan, I’ll just run along. Alex and I are old friends and he can talk to me at any time. But it is seldom that he gets a chance to talk to one of his colleagues on the police force, being a most law-abiding chap.”
“No, no,” “X” jerked out the side of his mouth in the manner of the man whom he was impersonating. “Please stay right where you are. This may interest you as well as Dr. Yan.”
“And pray what are we going to talk about?” demanded Dr. Yan.
“About this Thoth business,” replied “X.” “You, Mr. Preston, have so generously offered a reward for information leading to Thoth’s capture that I thought you might be interested.”
“Undoubtedly!” exclaimed Preston. “Since that affair at George Marcus’ house, I have thought of little else.” Preston’s long fingers struck a match and touched off a cigarette. Through a great cloud of smoke, he viewed Agent “X.” “Have you information of value, Dr. Peters?”
“Only questions, I am afraid,” replied “X.” He carefully deposited ash from his rough cigar into an ash tray at his side. Then he turned abruptly to Damon Preston. “Do you believe in werewolfery, Mr. Preston?”
Damon Preston discarded his cigarette with an impatient gesture. His brow clouded for a moment before his pleasant smile flashed again. “But you aren’t serious, Doctor!”
“X” turned to Yan. The little scientist bobbed his head. “I understand what you mean, Dr. Peters. If you had asked me that question I would have said that I do believe such things.”
“Really, you amaze me!” Preston was sitting on the edge of his chair, his wide blue eyes staring eagerly from Yan to the Agent.
“There are,” began Dr. Yan, “certain recorded cases of something that might have been called werewolfery. Yet in no instance have the persons so affected become wolves. They may believe they are beasts. They may even be as savage as wolves; but they retain human form.”
“Oh, you mean—what do you call it?” Preston interrupted. “Form of insanity, isn’t it Dr. Peters?”
“X” nodded. “One which has made police history a few times. The term is lycanthropy—a bestial madness, a lusting for blood. It may have given rise to werewolf legends. However, Dr. Yan, is there any disease that might bring about a definite change in the human body—a reversion to type?”
Dr. Yan mopped his bald head with his handkerchief. Very slowly, he nodded. “There is such a disease—or shall we say disorder?—rarely found but unpleasant enough.” He shuddered. “I have known one such case. It extended through a long period of time and when at last the poor victim was ready for the grave—”
“Yes, go on,” Preston urged eagerly.
“Well,” said Yan, after a short hesitation, “when the poor victim was ready for the grave, he was practically unrecognizable. Not in the sense that he no longer looked like—er, John Brown, shall we say? The horror lay in the fact that he was something that seemed to have slipped back millions of years. Gentlemen, he was no longer a man, as we know mankind to-day!”
PRESTON snapped a burned match between his fingers. “What the devil was he? Not a man! By Jove!”
“We don’t know. Perhaps we will never know—eh, Dr. Peters?”
“X” shook his head. “You’re in too deep water for me. What did the poor devil look like?”
Dr. Yan again mopped his brow. “He looked something like what the profane would call the missing link. He looked like the turning poi
nt in evolution when man had just emerged from the realm of the beast. In short, gentlemen, he looked exactly like these maniacs that have been terrorizing the city, called by the papers, ‘Neanderthal men.’”
“Jove!” exclaimed Preston. “We’re getting somewhere! Why the devil haven’t you told me about this before, Alex?”
“I expected to be laughed at. My unfortunate patient was a victim of the rare disease of ostectis. To suggest that ostectis had become epidemic seemed entirely absurd. Yet I am afraid that that is the case. Ostectis is a rare disorder of that mysterious gland located in the brain and known as the pituitary body. This ductless gland has remained a mystery and ostectis is the most mysterious disorder of all the diseases of the endocrine glands.”
“Is it curable?” asked “X.”
Yan shook his head. “Very probably it is not curable. Once the disease has hold of a man….” And again Yan shuddered.
Damon Preston’s hand was shaking as he lighted another cigarette. “Then, Alex,” he said in a hushed voice, “there must be the mark of the beast in us all. Your disease would prove that.”
“Was your victim of ostectis mentally deranged?” asked “X.”
Dr. Yan nodded. “He was a terrible creature! I do not think that the ailment itself caused mental failure, though the affected pituitary body might have produced pressure. It was the horror of the disease that warped my man’s brain. Imagine, watching yourself slowly turning to the form of a man beast that history does not record.
“Imagine the nightly fear that daylight will find you a snarling savage thing with blood of another on your hands or—or lips. I was glad when the man, who was no longer a man, was dead!”
“Then you would support my belief that the servants of this criminal Thoth are victims of ostectis?” asked “X.”
“Yes and no,” replied Dr. Yan cautiously. “A process of reversion to the Neanderthal type would be a long process, unless the change was forced in some manner—say, by mechanical means. You understand that the skeleton, the entire body, in fact, is actually plastic during life. Slow, torturous pressure can alterate human form. If—if mind you—some fiend had discovered certain drugs for controlling the pituitary gland and thus producing artificial ostectis; and at the same time had invented some mechanical means of aiding the disease, the transformation of man into Neanderthal might be a short process.”
Agent “X” stood up. “You have helped me, Dr. Yan. Rest assured that the police will overlook nothing in this investigation. Thoth must be the moat damnable monster alive!”
Seeing that the Agent was about to leave, Preston stood up. “Remember, Dr. Peters,” he said earnestly, “anything that I can do, you know, you have only to give me a ring. Thoth must be wiped out!”
“X” thanked both Preston and Yan and immediately left the building. It was little wonder that Thoth’s victims were willing to pay in money and servitude if Thoth claimed to return them to their normal forms. Probably the fiend knew all the time that the malformation he had created was permanent. Whether as a result of his ghastly experiment or from the use of drugs, his victims lost their minds. Or was it something else they had lost? Their souls?
As soon as he had driven his car away from the hospital, “X” again communicated with Bates by means of the radio, only to learn that his operatives had found no sign of Donna Magyar. However, it had been reported that both Thornton Beem and Stanley Heidt had been liberated after a few questions at police headquarters. Though the police had evidently dismissed Heidt and his shady companion, Agent “X” had not. He was not forgetting that Heidt had maintained a strictly “hands-off” policy where the activities of Thoth were concerned.
Undoubtedly, Heidt had made every effort to bring pressure to bear in high places to try and prevent police interference. While Heidt wielded powerful weapons in the world of politics, “X” was certain that the police had resisted corruption. Yet what could have been Heidt’s motive for such pressure? Why had Thornton Beem deliberately shot the Agent’s gas pistol from his hand the night of the strange affair at the Marcus home?
These and other questions “X” was resolved should be answered that night. If he failed to extract information from Heidt and Beem, he was afraid that he would once again find himself against a blank wall. The insidious work of Thoth went on unchecked, while the police and Secret Agent “X” seemed to be struggling against unalterable forces.
STANLEY HEIDT’S ill-gotten wealth had obtained for him a pretentious home in a fashionable section of the city. With this destination in view, Agent “X” pushed his car to its best possible speed.
The removal of the pince-nez and inevitable cigar that Dr. Peters was so fond of, altered the Agent’s appearance considerably. Having smoothed out a few lines in his make-up and having changed to a black toupee, Agent “X” had once again become an entirely different looking person.
Arriving at Heidt’s house, “X” found the place strangely dark and silent. It was only after he had about decided to enter by force that his knocking was answered by a servant. In the dim light from the entry-way, “X” eyed the man suspiciously. Formal butlers livery had not altered the man’s appearance beyond recognition. He was obviously “Snipe” Hogan, a former torpedo in Heidt’s bootleg mob.
Mr. Heidt, the man informed the Agent, was not at home. As a matter of fact, there was no one in the house at all.
“Good!” exclaimed “X.” “Then you’ll not have the slightest objection to my searching the place.”
Hogan looked frightened. His right hand clawed slowly toward his shoulder holster—much too slowly to outwit the Agent. “X” snatched out his gas pistol and confronted Hogan with it. “Back up, you!” he commanded. And pressing the muzzle of his pistol against Hogan’s chest, he forced his way into the hall.
“Now, that gun you’re nursing in that shoulder holster,” demanded “X.” His hand darted in beneath the man’s coat and reappeared with a serviceable automatic. This he pocketed. Rapidly, he frisked the pockets of Hogan’s clothes. His search netted nothing of importance.
The Agent’s eyes narrowed. Voinoff, formerly in Heidt’s mob was a member of Thoth’s gang. Why not Hogan, then?
“So you’re a member of the Thoth crowd now, Hogan,” said “X.”
The man looked sullenly at the floor. “The hell I am!”
“I suppose you know that I can force information from you.”
“Not if I don’t know a damned thing, you can’t!”
“X” moved quickly toward Hogan. But as he did so, light from the hall lamp glittered upon something in one corner of the room. Even from a distance, “X” feared that he knew what that object was. He sprang toward it and picked it up in fingers that trembled. It was a small gold vanity case of odd design. He had seen it often before but never had he seen another exactly like it.
Hurriedly, he opened it. The mirror was broken. There was a cold feeling all around the Agent’s heart. The vanity was decidedly the property of Betty Dale.
FOR a moment, he had in his anxiety, forgotten about Hogan. In the next moment, he was forcibly reminded of the man’s presence. From a standing position, Hogan hurled himself in a leap that carried him across the room to where “X” stood. A powerful left hook landed neatly behind the Agent’s right ear. “X” staggered beneath the force of the blow. His brain spun. He felt his gas pistol knocked from his fingers.
But before Hogan could turn the gun around—for he undoubtedly supposed it to be an ordinary automatic—“X” was in full possession of his senses. He closed in on Hogan with a furious assault of flying fists that battered the mobster, face and body. One final driving blow to the jaw, sent Hogan reeling across the hall to trip over the legs of a chair.
“X” dove forward, landing on Hogan’s chest. His powerful hands pinned Hogan’s arms to the floor. “Now,” he gritted harshly, “tell me what has happened to her?”
Hogan spat out an oath. “To who—damn it!”
“You know. The
girl to whom this compact belongs.” “X” shook the compact beneath Hogan’s nose, at the same time prodding Hogan’s chest with his knees.
“Never saw it!” shouted Hogan. “You let me up, damn you!”
“After you talk!”
Hogan’s eyes flickered. “I don’t know anything. I’m not working for anybody but Heidt. I only got here ten minutes ago. There was nobody in the house—no girls and no vanities. You’re tryin’ to frame me!”
Agent “X” could read truth in the man’s frightened eyes. He pulled out his cigarette lighter and with an impatient gesture, pressed the button that released the charge of anesthetizing vapor. On the floor, the terrified Hogan struggled against the power of those unfamiliar fumes. A curse died on his lips as he dropped back unconscious.
Two minutes of frantic search of the house convinced “X” that aside from the servant, the house was indeed empty. Betty had been there, acting, no doubt, on the Agent’s suggestion. But where was she now?
“X” dropped to a chair in front of the hall phone. He put in a call to Betty’s apartment only to receive no answer. He tried the office of the Herald, enquiring if Betty had been given a night assignment. No, Betty had left the office at the usual time.
“X” stood up. He was faced with grim reality. Betty Dale had disappeared. Was her disappearance another of the malign kidnapings engineered by Thoth? Betty’s life was usually so regular that “X” generally knew where to find her at certain times of the day. It would be unlike her to suddenly leave town.
Thoth must have been behind her disappearance. But what could the criminal hope to gain from the girl? Horrible phantoms danced before the Agent’s eyes, but not for long. In another moment, he had dashed fanciful thoughts from his mind. He must have action. He had never attained anything by brooding over what might have happened. But he could not help thinking that if Thoth had abducted Betty—if he had taken her to his hidden lair—she might better be dead. In that dark prison, she could never find her way out. It was largely a matter of coincidence that Agent “X” had found his way into Thoth’s labyrinth. And there was no possible way to return unless—
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 5 Page 44