He stepped back, quickly measured the grimly silent man boring into him and sent a terrific blow at the chin. This time the punch connected squarely. The man tottered, arms flailing the air before him, and pitched to the floor. “X” dragged him into a small room and closed the door.
The Agent bent over the prone figure and tugged off the rubber hood.
An amazed exclamation burst from “X’s” lips. He stared hard at the face beneath him. For that face was the young, Irish face of Detective Sergeant Mellor.
“X,” THEN and there, swiftly formulated new plans for his war on the Kingdom of Blue Corpses. With this revelation he could plan from a new and more direct angle. He rapidly tore the rubber suit from the young police detective; then divested himself of his own rubber garment. He hid them both in the bottom of a closet.
He took out his telegraphic transmission set and contacted Harvey Bates.
“Detective Sergeant Mellor is at Barker’s…. Have him shadowed day and night…. Call men off the black hearse hunt…. Signing off.”
“X” had no sooner put away his transmission set than a bellowing voice seemed to fill the mansion—the voice of Inspector John Burks.
“Where is Barker!… There you are. What’s been going on here? My car was wrecked by a truck down the road.”
And J. Reynolds Barker, in a spluttering tear-gas choked voice, told the inspector just what had been going on—and just how much money had been taken from him.
Burks bellowed: “Where did they go?”
At that instant every light in the mansion and on the vast grounds went out.
Agent “X” thought that was a strange move for the Blue Spark to make. Burks’ bull-fiddle roar rang out:
“The beach!”
The Agent winked on his fountain-pen flashlight, and silently dragged Detective Sergeant Mellor into the closet. He saw there was enough of an opening at the bottom for Mellor to breathe, then locked the door. Crossing to a window, he slipped out and made his way through the shrubs to the beach, where he knew Betty Dale was hiding.
He saw the blonde girl crouching behind a hedge. She had a dark beach robe over her chartreuse swim suit, and the collar was turned high to hide her golden hair. “X” looked toward the water, saw that the dark express cruiser had disappeared. He laid out his make-up kit. He needed no mirror to change to one of his stock disguises. Next he turned his jacket inside out, and the sporty plaid gave place to a dark, inconspicuous weave. He whipped off his striped tie, replaced it with a dark, loosely tied bow. Then he whistled softly—that strange, eerie whistle of Secret Agent “X.”
Betty Dale’s blonde head jerked around. The Agent quickly went to her side and crouched beside her.
“What happened, Betty?”
She pointed mutely to the man “X” had knocked out. There was a dark blotch on his throat running from ear to ear. He had been butchered as he lay there unconscious. Then “X’s” eyes swept to the rock near the water’s edge. The scarlet cape still lay across it.
“We’ll wait, Betty,” said the Agent. “Detective Sergeant Mellor is in with the Blue Spark’s killers. I want to know why.”
The Agent said no more. He lapsed into a moody silence. Betty Dale knew him too well to press questions. And she knew that she was about to be called on to perform some duty for the man she loved. She crouched beside him in utter silence.
There was plenty of noise about the estate. And Inspector Burks was making most of it. Some county police men were running about the grounds. Good loyal men, they were—but totally unable to cope with the strategy of the Blue Spark.
Then “X” saw a bather in a white silk suit emerge from the water. He recognized that superbly molded body; that olive-tinted loveliness and midnight-black hair. Electra. She moved swiftly toward the rock where her scarlet bathing cape lay. And Secret Agent “X” was also moving toward that rock, his dark, crouching figure screened by the shrubbery.
THEY reached the rock at the same moment. “X’s” gas gun was glinting in his hand. Then Electra saw him. Her mouth opened to call for help—and was filled with the grayish vapor hissing from “X’s” gun. She swayed and fell into the Agent’s arms. He quickly carried her back to where Betty Dale was waiting. “X” spoke in clipped whispers.
“Betty, change bathing suits with this girl. I’ll be right back.” The Agent crawled to where the butchered man lay in a welter of his own blood. He ran through the pockets, found nothing. There was absolutely no sign of identification about him. When “X” returned to the shrubs, Betty Dale was adjusting the halter of Electra’s white suit over her blonde head.
Electra lay on the sand in Betty’s chartreuse suit. “X” went over to her, gravely studied the dark beauty of her face with his hand cupped over his flashlight. For minutes, he crouched there imprinting her every feature on his mind. Then he returned to Betty’s side and laid out his make-up kit. His deft fingers flicked to the blonde girl’s face, smoothing volatile plastic on her features with subtle artisty. As he worked, he said:
“Did you notice Electra’s low, husky voice, Betty?” When the girl nodded, he went on: “I want you to imitate it as closely as possible. You won’t have to say much, unless I’m greatly mistaken. But you’ll need all your cleverness, Betty, to fence words with Detective Sergeant Mellor. Where a gesture will suffice instead of words, use a gesture.”
Then “X” briefly sketched what he knew of the heiress and the homicide detective. He next applied pigments of a sunbrowned olive hue. And when he finished, the face of Electra Barker was looking at him from under Betty Dale’s golden hair. From one of his many pockets, he took a toupe of long, black silken hair. He placed it on Betty’s head. With scissors and the consummate skill of a hair-dresser, “X” fashioned a replica of Electra’s coiffure.
After that, he applied the olive-tinted pigment to Betty’s neck, shoulders, arms and legs. It immediately dried. And there before him was the twin of Electra Barker.
Betty Dale had been taking in all that “X” had said about the heiress. When “X” finished, she looked at herself in the mirror he cupped under his flashlight. She couldn’t suppress the gasp that rose to her lips. “X” surveyed his workmanship in one brief glance. Betty was not quite as tall as Electra, but her figure had the same lithe grace, the same exquisite modeling. “X” said:
“Keep to the shrubs, Betty. We’re going back to the house. I’ll carry Electra. Can’t leave her here for another butchering. You slip into her red cape. When we get into the house, I have one more touch to add to the make-up. But I need light. For the smallest fraction of an overdose would mean permanent blindness.”
Betty Dale said nothing. The warm pressure of her hand on his arm told of the confidence she had in him.
The Agent had to wait five minutes in the shrubbery while Inspector Burks and the county police walked back and forth over the grounds. And it was only when they started down toward the pier that the Agent and Betty could dash across the clearing toward the window by which he had recently left. He asked her a terse question:
“Did the lights go out before or after the hooded men boarded the cruiser?”
“Before,” answered Betty.
“X” LIFTED the unconscious Electra across the sill, then Betty, and followed himself, drawing the shade. He took Detective Sergeant Mellor from the closet, and put Electra there in his place. Then he selected a fragile eye-dropper and three tiny vials from a flat, leather case. The lights in the house and on the grounds had been switched on again. He bent over his vials. There was not the slightest hesitation in his mixing of the faintly colored liquids. In fact, his movements seemed almost slipshod, as if he were splashing them together. But his keen eyes had never been keener; his sense of proportion never more accurate. Then:
“All right, Betty. Tilt back your head.”
It was over in a second. And Betty Dale’s deep blue eyes were now a dark shade of brown. “X” heaved a profound sigh of relief. And the light in his eyes was the
tenderest that man or woman ever saw in the black, piercing orbs of Secret Agent “X.” He handed the girl a small vial, saying:
“When you are ready, just use this solution in an eye-cup and the color of your eyes will return to normal.”
Betty Dale slipped the vial into a small handbag she had been carrying. She smiled—the slightly mocking smile of Electra.
“X” nodded approvingly. He produced a hypodermic needle, and approached Mellor, who was now sitting in a chair. “Betty, I’ll be right here in this closet. If there is a slip-up, I’ll get to Mellor before he can so much as lay a hand on you.” Then he shot the hypo into Mellor’s arm, and darted into the closet, leaving the door open the merest crack. Some moments later, he heard an impassioned:
“Electra!”
A low, husky voice replied: “Well?”
Mellor rushed on: “You say, ‘Well?’ There’s been a robbery committed. Men have died! Has that devil ripped the very soul from your body?”
Silence.
“I’ll kill him!” grated Mellor. “Why do you think I joined that pack of murderers?”
“Why?” came Betty’s low voice.
The young detective made an inarticulate sound. “One of us must surely be mad! That devil has your mind in the palm of his hand—”
“And you are trying to save me?” hazarded Betty.
Agent “X” nodded to that question. Betty had put just the right touch of mockery in it—the gentle mockery of a futile quest.
“Electra,” said Mellor in savage earnestness, “I will never stop trying. Nothing, nothing else in the world matters…. And the Blue Spark knows it! He doesn’t shock my brain—because he knows he doesn’t have to. He knows that his hold over you—is his hold over me. He laughs at me—and goes on playing king. He gloats over his kingdom of the dead. His subjects never leave his empire. He turns them into blue, petrified corpses.”
Betty Dale had seen life in the raw, scraped to the bone. Her newspaper experience had been a school of vast learning. And taking a page from life, she said quietly:
“The Blue Spark may tire of toying with you.”
“That,” gritted the young detective, “is why I want you to go away with me. If I am killed—there will be no one to help you. Please, Electra—”
A BELLOWING voice from the hall blared out: “Get on that phone. I want headquarters. And I want Sergeant Mellor—don’t give a hoot in hell where he is or what he is doing. Get him out here!”
Mellor’s voice, pitched lower, said: “You heard that? I am risking my future, my life—and you won’t even listen to me!”
Betty deftly fanned the flame of the detective’s anger. “The Blue Spark might hear you—”
“Damn him!” Then Mellor’s voice got lower. “I think I know who he is, Electra. And I’m warning you—no matter who he is—I’m going to kill him!”
Betty Dale’s voice came to “X’s” ears: “Who—”
Then a harsh, guttural voice cut in:
“Very interesting!”
Betty stifled a scream.
Mellor’s chair scraped on the floor.
Agent “X” whipped up his gas gun, opened the door a fraction wider. He saw a dark face at the window; a face with deeply set eyes and large flap-like ears—the face of the Baron von Huhn. A long-barreled Luger glinted in his hand. He said in that clipped, incisive way of his:
“You both will remain as you are. I am coming into the room.”
Agent “X” didn’t stir in the closet. For his gas gun was a mere toy compared to the sinister Luger in Von Huhn’s steady hand. “X” never used lethal weapons. But this was one of the rare times he wished he had a clip of lead-nosed slugs in his automatic instead of harmless anesthetizing gas. The Agent saw Von Huhn climb into the room, heard him say:
“A detective—and our very beautiful Miss Barker.” Then he snapped: “Both in the band of the Blue Spark…. Well!”
“X” thought quickly, and took out his telegraphic transmission set. He muffled it under his coat; contacted Harvey Bates—gave him the address of the house adjoining the old Montgomery Mansion, and instructed:
“Pick up two coffin-shaped boxes—bring to Great Neck—hide both under bed in Electra Barker’s room…. Greatest secrecy must cover your movements…. I countermand instructions regarding Detective Sergeant Mellor.”
Bates’ simple reply was:
“My best men already on way to given address. Bates.”
The Agent put away his set. He had his plan of attack on the Blue Kingdom well under way. Then the blood in “X’s” veins turned to ice.
Electra Barker, coming out of her unconscious state, muttered something unintelligible. She was right at his feet. The closet door was ajar. The three out in the room could not but hear the muttering sound of Electra.
“X” moved with the speed of darting light. He jabbed a hypo into the girl’s arm, giving her a stronger dose of a sleeping potion. Then he snatched up one of the rubber suits he had thrown in the bottom of this closet, and swiftly climbed into it.
Von Huhn’s voice carried into the closet. “Come out at once—or I will fire through the door.” There was nothing hurried or excited about the command. But “X” correctly interpreted the deadly fibre of it.
“X” spoke in a voice that matched the baron’s for lack of emotion.
“That will be unnecessary, Herr Baron.”
THE Agent knew exactly what he was going to do when he entered the room. And the only disguise that would help him put his stunt across was this rubber garment. He finally stepped out into the room, his hands raised above his glistening black head. He kicked the door shut behind him. Then he quietly took in the scene before him.
Von Huhn was standing in the center of the room. His right arm jutted almost casually from his side. “X” was not fooled by the nonchalant position. He had seen the deadliest marksmen of the crack Prussian Guard stand at just so a stance.
Detective Sergeant Mellor’s mouth was a bitter slash in his taut face. He stood in front of the girl he thought was Electra, as if to shield her.
And Betty looked the image of the utilities heiress. Her scarlet cape drooped back from her white silk swim suit. She was acting her part to perfection for Mellor’s benefit, and showed no alarm at the sudden appearance of the rubber-clad figure. “X” looked hard at the baron, spoke in the voice of August Langton, the banker. “Two million, eh? And we needn’t pay it.”
Von Huhn’s jaw dropped. “You?” he gulped.
“X’s” head bobbed. “No names, my friend. Please.” Then he chuckled through the hood. “You might lower that gun.”
The baron hesitated. After a moment’s deliberation, he asked: “Our transactions remain as we discussed them?”
“To the letter. I will explain when I get out of this infernal contraption. Will you aid me, Otto?”
Von Huhn lowered his Luger, stepped forward—to meet “X’s” crashing fist. He caught it on the point of the jaw, and slumped to the floor.
Mellor started toward the Agent. Betty wrapped her arms about him. “Wait,” she said huskily. “He can help us.”
“Who is he?” demanded the detective.
Betty Dale looked at the Agent. He nodded to her. She placed her lips close to Mellor’s ear, whispered: “He is—Secret Agent ‘X’.”
The detective went tense, stared at the rubber hood over “X’s” head.
“X’s” eyes met the detective’s. “Listen closely, Mellor. And if you want to free Electra’s mind from the control of the Blue Spark, you must obey me.”
Mellor looked at the girl. Then he turned to “X,” saying: “I saw what you did in the commissioner’s home. And I saw you made up as Jim Hobart in the Blue Spark’s chamber. I believe—Secret Agent ‘X’—that you can do anything the devil can do.”
“Thanks,” said “X” dryly. “For the moment, just watch me.” The Agent prepared another hypo and shot it into the baron’s arm. Then he turned his back to Mellor, an
d set up his little mirror and make-up kit.
Detective Sergeant Mellor watched, his eyes nearly bulging from his head. He saw the black hood come off “X’s” head… saw “X’s” head and neck take the bullet-shaped formation of the baron’s. He saw the flap-like ears grow. Then, minutes later, he saw the duplicate of the Baron von Huhn smiling at him.
Betty said in the low voice of the heiress, “We must trust him.”
“X” then quickly shook off the rubber garment, and dressed in the baron’s clothes. He went over to the detective, peered intently into his eyes.
“Now, Mellor, you are going to face the greatest surprise of your life. But before it takes place, I want your confidence—your word of honor that you believe in me.”
“Okay, Mister ‘X’.”
“I must be sure,” said the Agent, “that you trust in me to free Electra. It is of vital importance that you have absolute faith in me—”
The bull-fiddle voice of Inspector Burks came from the corridor. “Those rubber guys faded off the earth. I’ve got a squad of my own boys here now—and I’m going over the house and grounds with a curry-comb…. What! They can’t find Mellor. The devil they can’t! Send out a G.O.” His voice died off as he walked along the corridor.
Chapter VIII
SINISTER SURPRISE
“X” SAID: “We’ve got to hurry, Mellor. Burks will be in here in no time now.”
“You have my word,” said the detective.
The Secret Agent nodded to Betty. “All right, Betty.”
“Betty!” echoed Mellor. “Say—” Then all color fled from his face. For Betty had pulled off the black toupe. Golden hair framed the dark beauty of Electra’s features. Mellor gulped, started to speak, gulped again. Fascinated, he watched Betty remove the volatile plastic that was fashioned after Electra’s nose. Then anger flooded his face.
“You’ve tricked me!” he rasped at “X.” “A cheap, dirty trick—”
“You promised to trust me,” the Agent reminded him. “Electra is safe. I employed this trick to learn where you and Electra fitted into the Blue Kingdom.”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 5 Page 57