“X” made some rapid changes on his face, removed the features of August Langton. He ripped off the ascot and winged collar, rumpled the bosom shirt, and changed his tools and kits from cutaway to pants pockets. Then he threaded his way through the charred bank, charred blue corpses and through the fire lines to lose himself in the crowd.
He instructed Harvey Bates to pick up the roadster and return it to its garage. Next, he took a taxi to another part of town. He passed a high wall. Over this wall rose the roofs and gables of a stately house left vacant by the litigation of heirs. This was the old Montgomery Mansion.
TWO blocks from it, “X” paid off the cabby and secretly made his way into the mansion through an adjoining structure. Once in his most impregnable hideout, “X” moved quickly. He went into his armor room, expertly studied the rare pieces. Selecting two suits of Fifteenth-century Maximilian armor, he went to work with soldering iron, steel wire and stout copper cable.
When he finished, he just had time to change to the personality of Elisha Pond and drive to Great Neck. He snatched up a phone, called Betty Dale’s number. She must have been about ready to leave, for he heard her impatient:
“Hello?”
“X” pursed his lips for his soft, eerie, ventriloquistic whistle. When Betty heard it, her impatience vanished.
“I’m so glad you called,” she said warmly. “I was worried. Downtown—this afternoon—”
“I know, Betty,” said “X.” “August Langton is safe.”
There was a moment of silence on Betty’s end of the wire. Then: “I was about to leave for the party. Have you changed your mind about going?”
“No, Betty. Have you learned if Inspector Burks will be there?”
“He will. But Detective Sergeant Mellor asked for the night off. There’s talk around headquarters that he is seeing some debutante.”
“Thanks, Betty,” said the Agent. He hung up, grimly thoughtful about young Mellor.
Then “X” made elaborate preparations for the night. He secreted about his person a great number of the tools, devices and defensive weapons he might require before the night was over. And he carried a larger stock of tubes and vials for quick changes of features.
All in readiness, he made up carefully as Elisha Pond. He knew that the Blue Spark knew that Elisha Pond was Secret Agent “X.” But “X” was setting a trap and using himself for the bait.
Chapter VII
BENEATH THE BLACK HOOD
BARKER’S beach party was a gay affair. The Agent could hear shouts and laughter as he nosed his car into the long winding drive leading up to the mansion. The voices were of young men and girls. Secret Agent “X” was young. But there was no expression in his strange eyes to tell if he longed for this phase of life that had never been his to enjoy.
There were two butlers on the wide veranda. One of them had seen Elisha Pond before. He stepped forward to open the car door; a genuinely pleasant smile on his face. Elisha Pond had the knack of making friends wherever he went.
“X” stepped from the car, leaving it for the butler to park. The second butler, taking his cue from the first, smiled all over the place as he led “X” to the rear of the mansion where green sward terraced down to a white beach. There was festivity here. Japanese lanterns were strung from the veranda down to the water.
On the wide awninged veranda, the older people of the party were grouped at metal tables sipping highballs. The younger set ranged from the green down to splashes of water in the sound. Some were stretched on the grass, others on the beach. All were drinking, laughing, having a grand time.
Agent “X” looked over the scene of strapping, bronzed men and beautiful sun-tanned young women. There was no menace of the dread Blue Spark here. Yet “X” could not shake off the sense of horror that almost stifled the breath in him. And that feeling of impending danger grew when he spotted the group that the butler was leading him to.
For in that group were J. Reynolds Barker, August Langton, Warner Sinclair and the ramrodlike Baron von Huhn. Some one in that group knew that he was Secret Agent “X.” And some one in that group was either the Blue Spark himself or one of his ranking emissaries.
Warner Sinclair and August Langton seemed to have patched up their differences of the afternoon. The round-faced Sinclair was standing, holding his highball glass across his chest and was talking in that fast though distinct way of his. “X” could hear every word. Warner Sinclair was saying:
“Dreadful thing, August. A newspaper reporter collared me not an hour ago. The pup knew you were coming here, and was going to make a sensational item out of your going on a party when so many perished in your bank.”
“Never thought of that,” said the banker, brows knitted.
J. Reynolds Barker leaned forward in his chair. “And Warner told them a likely tale, August. Indeed he did, sir. He said we were gathering to discuss an immediate reconditioning of your bank.”
The banker turned back to Warner Sinclair. “Thanks. Decent of you.”
“We like to help a bit,” Sinclair made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Forget it.”
Von Huhn stood quietly among them, his flap ears not missing a word. His only interest seemed in tapping ashes from his cigarette.
Agent “X,” too, had taken in every word. One sentence remained in his mind. It might have meant something, and again it might not. He stored it away.
Raising his drink, J. Reynolds Barker saw Agent “X” and the butler approaching the table. Barker got up. “Welcome, Pond! Delighted that you could make it.”
“X” shook hands all around, and dropped into a chair. To August Langton he said: “A horrible thing—that bank slaughter. It was miraculous that you escaped with your life—when you chased the devils.”
The banker’s hands made a modest flutter. “I was lucky.”
Agent “X” knew the truth in that. But he wondered who else did, too.
J. Reynolds Barker touched the Agent’s arm. “Pond, have you been approached by the Blue Spark?”
“X” laughed quietly. “I’m not in your rank, Barker. The Blue Spark wouldn’t give a second glance to my bank balance.”
A scoffing sound came from Warner Sinclair’s glass. He took his nose out of it to say: “Ridiculous, Pond. You could probably buy and sell the lot of us.”
“Still,” argued “X” good-naturedly, “the Blue Spark has chosen to ignore me.” “X” saw a girl moving toward the table, and quickly rose to his feet.
THE girl was the dark-eyed, dark-haired Electra Barker. She moved lithely to her father’s side, kissed him on his bald head. She gave her hand to Warner Sinclair, who held it a moment longer than necessary. His big round eyes seemed to devour her. She called the banker by his first name, saying:
“You were rather dull this afternoon, August.”
The banker looked startled, puzzled, and covered his confusion with a sickly grin.
“X” smiled inwardly at that. He had forgotten to tell the banker that he was supposed to have met Electra.
The baron bowed over Electra’s hand, raised it to his lips. His mechanical smile lingered longer than usual.
Then the girl’s dark, fathomless eyes focused on Agent “X.” Her father spluttered:
“ ’Pon my word, stupid of me. My dear Electra, allow me to present an old friend—Mr. Pond. Pond, my daughter.”
“X,” assuming the bluff good nature of Elisha Pond, shook the girl’s hand warmly and murmured appropriate words. He found that her eyes clung to his. “X” wondered at that. His eyes were the one thing he could not change. And this girl had the habit of looking deeply into one’s eyes. Then she stepped back, and raising a beach bag, said:
“I’m going to change. See you after the swim.”
The Agent’s eyes followed her as she swung across the terrace with a supple, feline grace. He turned back to the table to find Warner Sinclair frowning at him. The frown quickly disappeared. And “X” knew that Warner Sinclair was old enough a
nd foolish enough to be jealous of the girl. The Agent mentally compared Warner Sinclair to the athletic Detective Sergeant Mellor—and Sinclair didn’t stack so well.
Barker flagged a waiter, called out: “A drink for Mr. Pond, and set up another round. What’ll it be, Pond—scotch, rye, bourbon, gin?”
“Rye,” said the Agent, “and soda. Thanks.”
Electra’s visit to the table had cast a sort of a damper on the group. “X” felt many cross-currents hidden beneath polite smiles. He wondered if they all could be in love with the girl. He glanced from Sinclair to Langton and to Von Huhn. Their faces told him nothing.
Then his eyes drifted toward the beach. There was a gay crowd there. Suddenly one of the bathers stood out like a bonfire. She wore a chartreuse one-piece suit. Her golden-blonde hair was very soft in the warm glow of the Japanese lanterns. And her blue eyes sparkled with the excitement of the ball game she was playing with six young bronzed giants.
That was Betty Dale. Behind that frivolous laughter, she was keenly alert, on the job—ready at an instant’s notice to help the man she loved and admired above all others. The Secret Agent took his eyes from her darting figure and turned back to the table. He rose asking:
“Mind if I take a look at the water, Barker?”
“Indeed not, sir. Make yourself at home. The place is yours, sir.”
“X” nodded to the others and strolled down the terrace lawn to the beach. He felt all their eyes upon him—and he knew that one pair of eyes were throwing a malevolent challenge. Not once did “X” look back. He passed Betty Dale and the half dozen admiring young men. She didn’t dream that the elderly man walking toward the beach was Secret Agent “X.”
THE Agent sat down on a rock and seemed to be looking out over the sound. His hands were busy opening his telegraphic transmission set. He tapped out Jim Hobart’s key, and finally got his signal:
“Listening, boss. Where are you?”
“X” bowed his head. His old friend Jim Hobart was still under the control of the Blue Spark. Right now, the Agent could have used Jim Hobart’s loyal services. “X” was thoughtful for a moment, then tapped out his answer:
“Go to meeting place Q. Wait there for me. Signing off.”
The Agent smiled grimly at his instructions. Then he contacted Harvey Bates, asking:
“Any word on the black hearse?”
Bates’ reply was vastly interesting.
“My operatives lost black hearse—but soon picked up a black florist’s delivery machine…. Followed as far as Great Neck… and lost it there.”
“X” heard footsteps, and quickly put away his transmission set. He turned to see Electra walking toward him. A scarlet beach cape flared back from a white swim suit. The dark loveliness of her hair and olive-tinted skin fairly took the Agent’s breath. He rose to meet her, saying:
“Hello…. I was just looking at the beauty of the night water.” He smiled with genial pleasantry. “The land now offers more beauty than the water.”
The dark-eyed girl slowly smiled and spoke in that rich, deep voice of hers. “I’m sure I’ve met you someplace, Mr.—”
“Pond,” said the Agent, knowing well that the girl knew the name. He had a feeling that this girl was silently laughing at him. He went on: “Perhaps it was in your father’s office.” Then “X” swiftly changed the subject. “Did the flowers arrive all right this afternoon?”
Electra’s dark eyes never even flicked. Her red mouth held its same smile. Yet “X” knew that his question had startled the girl.
Very casually, perhaps too casually, she asked: “How did you know about the flowers, Mr. Pond?”
“Your father mentioned them at the club today,” said “X” offhandedly.
For a moment, the girl stood very still. Her dark eyes dropped to the sand. Pearly teeth took a grip on a soft lower lip. Then suddenly, she laughed. “Of course, Mr. Pond.” She took off her scarlet cape, held it out to the Agent. “Would you mind holding this for me? I’m going in.”
She was off, running down the beach and hit the water with a splash. “X” nodded slowly to himself. That girl was clever. She had given him her cape so that she could keep tabs on him. It was the same as an anchor that would keep the Agent on this spot until she came out of the water. “X” smiled admiringly.
HE watched Electra swim. Then his eyes drifted to one of the tables on the terrace. A trim maid was there, gathering highball glasses and placing them on a tray. “X” started. He peered more closely at the maid. There was no mistake—even at that distance.
That maid—was redheaded Toby Moore.
A sense of menace suddenly weighed down on Secret Agent “X.” He couldn’t shake it off. He peered at the mansion, high on the grassy hill, at the shrubbery-dotted grounds. Nothing there. Then he swung, looked out on the water.
Lightless, a huge express cruiser had glided to the long pier where Barker moored his motorboats. Black-garbed, sinister figures were turning down the pier toward the beach. And on the foredeck of the cruiser, pointing toward land like the finger of Death, was a large, strangely shaped cannon. “X” had seen that cannon before—when it had hurled blistering death into August Langton’s bank.
And now that cannon pointed toward a bath-house.
The beach and terraced lawn suddenly became as bright as day. A jagged streak of lightning lanced straight at the doomed bath-house. The wooden structure split in half, burst into flames. Agent “X’s” eyes had not left the raiding party. The foremost rubber-clad figure seemed to be searching for some one or something. His glistening black head turned toward “X,” and he made a bee-line straight for the Agent.
“X” knew that the rubber-clad man had been looking for some sign. And the only sign “X” had about him was the scarlet bathing cape over his arm. Disturbing thoughts tumbled over each other in his mind. Had Electra deliberately marked him for the Blue Spark’s men? “X’s” thoughts flashed back to August Langton’s bank. Electra had been there minutes before the raid.
The rubber-clad man surged toward “X” in leaping bounds. There was not the slightest hesitation in his movements. “X” dropped the scarlet cape, backed quickly toward a fringe of shubbery. The black figure came on more swiftly. “X” whipped out a gas gun he had equipped himself with at his hideout. He waited until the black figure was almost upon him, then he raised the gun and discharged it full in the breathing slits of the rubber hood.
The man gasped, his momentum carried him crashing into the shrubs, but he was unconscious before he hit the ground. “X” rapidly stripped the rubber garment from the unconscious man and struggled into it. The man was a stranger to “X.” Then drawing on the rubber hood, “X” followed a group of raiders up the hill toward the mansion.
Cries of fear now supplanted the laughter of the merrymakers. They stood in huddled groups; some watching the burning bath-house, others staring in awed silence at the rubber-clad raiders.
The Agent followed the weird landing party into the house. Not a hand had been raised against them. The Blue Spark had done a good job of instilling fear into those he came in contact with. “X” paused at the open door to J. Reynolds Barker’s study. The rubber-clad raiders had gone in there. “X” looked in the open doorway.
J. REYNOLDS BARKER was standing before a wall safe, looking fearfully over his shoulder at the black-garbed spokesman who confronted him. The spokesman’s voice was deep, husky, muffled by the rubber hood. The voice was saying:
“You were instructed to have two hundred thousand dollars in this safe, Mr. Barker. The Blue Spark has sent me to collect it for him.”
“X” studied the spokesman, listened to every word, every inflection. The spokesman moved toward the safe, and there was a catlike stealth in that movement.
The Baron von Huhn stood stiffly against one wall. His expression was neither hostile nor friendly. He just watched all, heard all, and said nothing.
Warner Sinclair looked at the spokesman. “You can’t get away
with this high-handedness. We will have your boat—”
“Silence!” husked the spokesman.
August Langton’s hand tugged at his collar as he watched Barker fumble with stacks of currency. Then the banker slumped into a chair, brushed perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“X” heard the faintest of sounds behind him. He whirled in a crouch—and saw Betty Dale slipping behind a divan. A small, pearl-handled revolver glinted in her hand. The Agent quickly crossed his forefingers in front of him, forming an X. Betty Dale’s blue eyes widened in sheer amazement. Her little gun dropped to her side.
The Agent bent over her, whispered: “Betty, there’s a red bathing cape down by the big rock on the beach—”
The blonde girl quickly nodded. “Yes. I saw Electra Barker give it to Mr. Pond.”
“Watch the cape,” said “X.” “Let me know when Electra comes for it. Keep out of sight. There’s an unconscious man there who’ll probably be picked up by the Blue Spark’s men. Don’t let them see you. Stop your watch the instant Electra picks up the cape. Hang the watch on a shrub. Phone in the story of the raid to your paper—then go home…. I’ll call you later, Betty.”
“X” abruptly turned and walked back to the open doors of the study. The rubber-clad men were coming out. The spokesman was holding a satchel stuffed with J. Reynolds Barker’s money. “X” stepped back to fall in with the glistening black-hooded figures. He gradually worked his way to the end of the file. As they were about to round a turn in the corridor, “X” took a small tear-gas bomb from his pocket and hurled it back into the study.
The last of the rubber-clad men saw the movement and whirled on “X.” The others had passed around the corner. “X” lashed out, struck the hooded head at where he figured the point of the chin would be. But the black figure had been wary, ducked, and took a glancing blow on the jaw. Without a word, he plowed into “X,” fists skidding off the greased-rubber suit. The Agent hadn’t figured on a drawn-out fight here. He hadn’t the time. Every second was precious.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 5 Page 56