“Mr. Hobart, this girl was in your master’s hideout. Your life depends on how much she knows. If she can lead the way to the hideout—you are worthless to the Blue Kingdom. And you will be added to its—er—interesting collection…. Watch.”
The glistening blue hand of the Spark moved to a switchboard on the arm of his chair. He touched one of the levers. “X” saw the lid of the coffin rise. Toby Moore sat quietly in her chair. Then “X” saw a cannon-shaped barrel slowly rise out of the coffin on insulated mechanical arms. Its strange rubber-snouted muzzle pointed directly at the girl.
Yet Toby Moore sat quietly in the chair. Not even a hair of her frizzy red thatch seemed to move. “X” shot a glance at the Blue Spark, saw him carefully scan his switchboard, select a button and press it.
A jagged streak of lightning leaped from the muzzle of the insulated cannon. The blue chamber blazed in a preternatural glare. And that glare disappeared into the head of Toby Moore. She gave a spasmodic jerk. Her legs thrashed against the rubber footstool.
THE Secret Agent strained against the steel clamps holding him to the chair. He shouted a fierce oath at the Blue Spark. For it seemed to him that the girl had been deliberately executed before his eyes.
A tinny chuckle came from the box-like mouth of the Blue Spark. Then he said: “The girl is quite safe, Mr. Hobart. That little flash merely puts her in the right mood to answer questions.”
And then Secret Agent “X” knew why Toby Moore had been able to resist his magnetic will. Her mind had been electrically shocked to a pitch that could be controlled by the Blue Spark. She was a living, breathing automaton. Her brain was not her own. The resonant voice of the Blue Spark cut short the Agent’s thoughts.
“Number Three…. We want to know where Secret Agent ‘X’s’ hideout is located.”
The Agent stared at the girl. Number Three! Toby Moore was high in the rank of the Blue Kingdom. She was now sitting straight in the chair again. Her lips moved mechanically.
“I saw only the inside of the apartment, Sire. I was gassed before I was taken in, and when I was taken out. When I regained consciousness I was in Inspector Burks’ police car.”
The Spark’s blue hood nodded. “Our friend Secret Agent ‘X’ has a sense of humor. We, too, have an extraordinary sense of humor. Number Three. Did you see Mr. ‘X’s’ face?”
“Only the face of Private Detective Grebb, Sire.”
“Secret Agent ‘X’ is far too clever to have in the field against us. He burned the beautiful blue corpse of Grebb—so he must take Grebb’s place here for all Eternity to look at.” A tinny chuckle vibrated from the disk over his mouth. He turned to the Agent. “And in that cause, Mr. Hobart, you are going to help us.”
“X” had been carefully testing the steel clamps that held him in the chair. With his peerless chromium tools in his hands, they would have been child’s play. But without those tools, the clamps were an unsurmountable barrier. “X” shook his head at the Blue Spark, saying:
“I don’t work for that ‘X’ guy. He’s hot. Every cop in the country is out to grab him.”
The Blue Spark waved a hand at Toby Moore. “You are dismissed, Number Three. Your next order will come from Number One.”
“X” caught a slight quirk that twisted Toby Moore’s red mouth. It was there barely a second, then disappeared. The Agent was given no time to think about it for the Blue Spark addressed him again.
“Mr. Hobart, there is but one alternative in your case. You must be put in the right mood to answer questions.”
The Agent tensed in the steel-clamped chair.
In that metallic voice, the Blue Spark went on. “No…. Secret Agent ‘X’ is too adroit to let his helpers in on his little secret. You probably have told the truth. Our best campaign against the Secret Agent would be to trap him through one he trusted.”
“X” strained against the steel clamps. His blood had chilled in his veins. He knew what the Blue Spark was leading up to.
The Blue Spark sat there nodding to himself. “Yes, Mr. Hobart, you will betray your master. And your betrayal will not rest heavy on your conscience. You will have no conscience, Mr. Hobart. Our blue lightning removes all conscience from the mind.” The Blue Spark continued nodding to himself.
SECRET AGENT “X” felt cold sweat bathe him from head to foot Every fibre in his body quivered. The cold hand of fear clutched his vitals. His head swam with hideous thoughts. For he knew that his brain was about to be destroyed.
His brain, the keenest manhunting machine of the age, was about to be controlled by a vicious murderer. The Man of a Thousand Faces would die. And in his human husk would live a brainless being whose mind would function at the will of another.
The Secret Agent’s great work would go unfinished. In sheer desperation, he flung himself against his bonds. He felt his stomach tighten, seem wretchedly hollow. Fear feathers brushed his spine. His eyes never left the sleek black coffin. For it was now revolving on its spidery-legged table. There was no sound of machinery. The moving casket was as silent as the hooded figure of the Blue Spark.
The coffin stopped moving. Its foot now faced the imprisoned “X.” A slithering sound as of snakes crawling through dry leaves filled the chamber. The Secret Agent knew that sound—the sound of the glistening ebon phalanx moving out of range of the coffin.
A short bark of a laugh came from the Blue Spark. The mechanical resonance of it reverberated from the walls of the Blue Room. He said slowly:
“You are about to become one of us, Mr. Hobart…. Pain—when it reaches the peak of human agony—becomes exquisite. Your pain will be exquisite, Mr. Hobart. Just relax, please.”
Agent “X” knew what Jim Hobart’s reactions would have been. He struggled like a madman, shouted at the hooded Blue Spark, taunted the grimly silent phalanx. But the Agent’s mind was working—marshalling every atom of power to combat the electrical charge that was pitched to shatter his mind.
The coffin lid opened as if ghostly hands were raising it. And that same rubber-insulated gun lifted from its funereal bed. The strangely shaped muzzle pointed directly at “X’s” head. Two black figures detached themselves from the wedgelike formation. They stretched a heavy sheet of vulcanized rubber over the Agent’s body, fastening it at the neck and over the shoes. Only “X’s” head was unprotected.
He slumped back in the chair as if fatigue and fear had claimed him. But his mind had steeled itself against the bolt of lightning that was about to leap from the muzzle of the gun. It was the Secret Agent’s greatest fight. His thousand tricks, his thousand surprises could not help him now. It was nerve—raw nerve—and guts.
The Blue Spark’s glistening finger hovered over a button on the switchboard before him. His goggled eyes turned to “X” for one last morsel of relish. And “X” played his part. He sent piercing shrieks rocketing to the ceiling of the chamber. His eyes protruded; his mouth twitched with the spasmodic writhing of a man on the brink of insanity. But his mind was never more alert, more composed.
Then it came. The Blue Spark’s finger jabbed down on the button. The room burst into a blinding glare of preternatural light. Light that was swallowed by the blackest pitch. “X” felt his mind go—felt it shatter with the fibre-jarring concussion of an exploding bomb. He fell into a cavern of blackness.
Chapter IV
ELECTRA
WHEN the Agent regained consciousness, he found himself on a park bench. Cold gray dawn was painting the eastern sky in a ghoulish hue. He was cold, chilled to the marrow. Newspapers had been spread under him and over him. He shivered; slowly, painfully sat up. Curled up on nearby benches were other paper-wrapped human derelicts. “X” stretched himself gingerly to get his cold and cramped muscles back into play.
By degrees he recalled the Blue Chamber, and what had happened there. Then, like a near-drunk who wants to test his sobriety, he asked himself where he was. The answer came all right. He tried again, mentioning the names of Jim Hobart and Harvey Bates.
It was then that Secret Agent knew that he had defeated the plans of the Blue Spark—that his tremendous will power had equaled the brain-destroying charge of the lightning projector.
“X” spent the next fifteen minutes throwing any possible shadows off his trail. He knew that the Blue Spark, thinking that “X’s” mind had been conquered, had given him definite orders. What those orders were, “X” hadn’t the remotest idea. He stopped in an all-night lunch wagon, drank a cup of steaming-hot coffee, then slid into a phone booth. He called a familiar number, then waited. Moments later, the sleepy voice of a young girl said:
“If this is the office—I’m not coming in.”
It was the voice of Betty Dale.
“X” smiled. He asked quietly: “Are you awake now, Betty?” Then he pursed his lips and sent a low eerie whistle over the wire.
A gasp came over the wire, a breathless silence; then: “You?”
“Yes, Betty, I will be right around. See you in ten minutes.” He hung up, and left the lunch wagon.
Between the lunch wagon and the next building was a narrow, dark alley. The streets were still deserted. Only the occasional clop-clop of milk-wagon horses disturbed the silence of the new day. “X” slid into the alley. He crouched down, opened his make-up kit on his knees and went swiftly to work.
Two minutes later, he emerged from the alley. The young Irish face and red hair of Jim Hobart had disappeared. In its place was the face of a middle-aged man—a face so unassuming that no one would look twice at it. The hair was a muddy brown. “X” had turned his coat collar up, leaving it unbuttoned, and had changed the shape of his hat.
He took a prowling taxi to a block from Betty Dale’s apartment house. Walking quickly with the hurried air of an early worker, he covered the block and turned into a small, attractive vestibule. He pushed the button under Betty Dale’s name card. When the buzzer released the catch, he climbed the stairs. A door opened, framing a young and very beautiful girl.
BETTY DALE had dressed for the street in a smartly tailored suit. Her golden-blonde hair had been brushed to a glossy, natural sheen. Her blue eyes were a clear, sparkling sapphire. She was as dainty and fresh as a morning flower. A perfume of subtle bouquet was like an invisible halo about her.
The Agent traced an “X” in the air with his forefinger. Then their hands met in a warm grip. His eyes drank in the beauty of her. He released her hand, and closed the door.
Betty’s eyes saw only the disguise of the middle-aged man. She turned, led the way into a tastefully furnished apartment, saying:
“I made some coffee and heated some hard rolls. Will be with you in a moment.” She stopped at the door of her kitchenette, looked over her shoulder. “Every time I see you, you surprise me with a new face. I wonder what you really look like.”
The Secret Agent smiled, sank into a comfortable chair. Betty looked wistfully at him, then disappeared into the kitchenette. “X” inhaled the fragrant aroma of the coffee, glanced around the cosy room. For a moment his hawkish eyes softened. A home like this and a girl like Betty could never be his. He suddenly sat up, snapped open his telegraphic transmission set. He contacted Harvey Bates, and learned that no progress had been made in running down the mysterious black hearse.
Then, changing the code key, he contacted Jim Hobart. He tapped out the message:
“Keep under cover until further orders. Your life in immediate danger.”
A faint humming told that Jim Hobart was replying.
“Would like to see you right away, boss.”
“X” frowned. Jim Hobart had never expressed a wish like that before. The agency detective could transmit any message in perfect safety with his telegraphic set. “X” puzzled over this a moment, then rapidly replied:
“Meeting place B in half an hour. Signing off.”
The Secret Agent was still frowning when Betty Dale came into the room with a tray. “X” took it from her and placed it between them on a divan. Munching a roll, he asked:
“Have you heard any news about J. Reynolds Barker and Warner Sinclair?”
Betty shook her blonde head. “Nothing exciting, except that J. Reynolds Barker is giving a beach party tonight on his Great Neck estate. Warner Sinclair is one of the guests. August Langton, the banker, is another.”
“That is good news to me, Betty. I would like you to be there.”
Betty’s cup of coffee, halfway to her lips, suddenly stopped. Her arched brows drew together. “You are working on another case.” Shadows of fear clouded the brightness of her eyes. “Is it these blue corpse killings?”
“Right, Betty. Sinclair and Barker are involved. I’ll have to check on Banker August Langton. But I want you there to give me a record of all that takes place.”
Blonde Betty finished the coffee, touched her lips with a napkin. “You will be there?”
“X” nodded. “I will be there.” He got up, gestured toward the breakfast tray. “Thanks, Betty. Your coffee beats anything I’ve ever tasted.” He bowed low with a courtly grace utterly foreign to the work-a-day, middle-aged man his face depicted. Then he swiftly left the apartment.
Betty Dale’s eyes lingered on the closed door long after he had left. She sat down again on the divan, her fingers caressing the Secret Agent’s coffee cup. A deep sigh heaved her firm, straight shoulders. She leaned back, reached for the telephone. When she got her connection, she said:
“Dale speaking. Get me the Barker beach party assignment tonight. I have a hunch there’s news out there.”
That was all the newspaper needed to know. Betty Dale’s hunches in the past had given them their greatest news scoops. For Secret Agent “X” had always given Betty Dale the inside track on all of his amazing cases.
SECRET AGENT “X” sat before a tri-mirrored dressing table in another of his hideouts. And those three mirrors reflected the true face of “X.” No living man could brag that he had seen that face. Some men had seen it—but they took their secret to the grave with them.
The mirrors reflected a face remarkably youthful for a man who had been through so many strange experiences. There was power in that face—and character and understanding. The eyes had the clear brilliance of an original, penetrating mentality. There was kindness and humor, but unflinching determination in the even, mobile lips. Hawklike strength marked the faintly curving line of the nose; scholarly intelligence was visible in the high, broad forehead. And, there was mystery in those even features, too. For they seemed to change as “X” moved his head in different lights.
The Agent’s agile fingers flicked among the tubes of plastic volatile make-up. And that face again changed—to A.J. Martin of the Associated Press. Changing his clothes, “X” called a midtown garage and ordered the fast roadster he kept there under Martin’s name. “X” found it expeditious to keep several cars under various names, as well as a number of hideouts.
Ten minutes later, the Agent whizzed up to the corner which he and Jim Hobart designated as “Meeting place B.” Jim Hobart left a doorway and walked rapidly to the waiting car. Getting in, he said cheerily:
“Hello, boss.” And when “X” shot the car away from the curb, Hobart went on. “Say, boss, what happened down in the cellar after that fight? You know, the cellar of the Alessandro Apartments where Toby Moore lives.”
“X” had the answer for that ready. “Somebody tapped me on the head. I woke up in a police station house, and had some tall explaining to do.”
“Don’t know what happened to me, boss,” said Jim Hobart. “The cops found me tucked away behind a trunk in a store bin.” Hobart wagged his head. “The birds who jumped us must have been scared off by the cops.”
THE AGENT drove aimlessly, but with all the purposeful speed of a definite destination. His driving was a thing to marvel at. He slipped in and out of traffic with a skilled precision that would have amounted to recklessness had another attempted it. Without taking his eyes from the street, he asked:
“What did you
want to see me about, Hobart?”
Jim Hobart hesitated a moment. Then: “It’s something that would have been too long-winded for the telegraph set.”
“Yes?”
“Well, boss, you know I’m not much of a hand at laying low. I sorta figured that if I was in some sort of a disguise I could go right on working in the open for you.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked the Agent quietly.
Jim Hobart turned in his seat. “You’re a newspaperman, Mr. Martin. I thought you’d know of some smart bird who could fix me up.”
For a long minute the Agent was silent. “There are a lot of places on Broadway, Hobart. You might stop in one of them and buy some black hair dye and a false mustache. Then you can trim your eyebrows. I’ve heard that little things like that do wonders.”
Hobart smiled, said cheerily: “Thanks, boss. I just want to keep on the job for you.”
“That’s fine, Hobart,” murmured “X.” “Where shall I drop you?”
“O. K. at the next corner, boss. There’s a subway entrance there.”
The Secret Agent let Jim Hobart out and drove on. A frown creased “X’s” forehead. Jim Hobart had been his usual cheery self. But a warning sense of menace prodded “X” like the nudging of Fate’s elbow. Then a sudden realization smote him with terrific force. He grasped the wheel for a U turn in the middle of the street. His eyes darted to the rear-vision mirror to see if he had a clear field behind him. And his eyes clung to that mirror.
The glass reflected a maroon coupé bearing down on him. The driver of the coupé was a stranger to “X.” But the person sitting beside the driver—was redheaded Toby Moore. Her glinting eyes were fixed on the Agent’s car. In her hands was a beribboned box such as orchids might come in. The white box was on a level with the window at her elbow.
“X” waited to see no more. His right foot jabbed the accelerator. The super-charged engine, tuned for a rapid pick-up, surged in a mighty roar of power. Like a released arrow, the roadster flashed down the block. The maroon coupé fell behind, then started to gain.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 5 Page 53