The sound was faint, mouse-like, yet a shadow moved instantly in the hall. Agent “X” could see huge shoulders and a giant head thrown in black silhouette on the opposite wall. The shadow moved, changed size as the man behind it approached slowly.
Sucking breath between his teeth, the Agent backed into the shadows of the reception room. He crouched behind a chair and waited.
The shadow moved to the door, and the man was revealed in the subdued light behind him. Big, heavy-set, he had the flattened features of an ape. His head was bent forward on a thick, bull neck. Something in his fingers gleamed dully. An automatic—proving that this was one of Roswell Sully’s paid guards. The financier had taken a tip from the racketeers he resembled, had hired paid gunmen to protect him.
Agent “X” drew his gas gun from his pocket, but hesitated. He dared not use it now. The faint chemical smell of the gas might drift through the house and attract attention. It might arouse the suspicion of whoever was in the room behind the lighted keyhole. No, he could not use the gas gun, though it was his only weapon. As he waited, “X” heard voices raised in the room beyond. It made him tingle with excitement. He felt a stab of annoyance at this interruption.
The apelike gunman came through the door and moved stealthily toward a wall switch, obviously intending to flood the room with light. And that would not do! As the man’s fingers reached for the switch, “X” sprang.
He made two coordinated movements. He wrenched the gun from the giant’s hand and at the same moment clapped a palm over the mouth that parted to let out a bellow of surprise. Then, before the disarmed guard could begin a hand-to-hand struggle which might result in noise and the upset of all his carefully laid plans, Agent “X” doubled up his knuckles and delivered a famous jiu-jitsu blow—the deft thrust directly under the heart, as taught by Tatsuo Shima, instructor to the bodyguards of His Imperial Highness Hirohito in Tokyo. A man could be killed by that blow, or merely knocked insensible, and Agent “X” was a master of the lighter, stunning thrust.
The big guard went as limp as though a bullet had crashed into his brain, and “X” lowered his unconscious body to the carpet.
No noise had disturbed the quiet of the room, and the way was clear. Agent “X” tiptoed on toward that door from behind which came the sound of voices, one of which was harshly raised.
Chapter IX
WOMAN OF MYSTERY
THE loud voice was a man’s, the other a woman’s, and in the latter the Agent recognized the drawling, cultured accents of Vivian de Graf.
He tiptoed closer, found the door into the room slightly ajar, and cautiously widened the opening, bringing into his line of vision the couple at the far end of the room.
Vivian de Graf, sumptuously clad in furs, was seated in a deep, brocaded chair, her slim legs crossed, gloved hands toying with a jade cigarette holder. She looked utterly bored.
Roswell Sully stood before her. His face, with its clipped and bristling mustache, was red beneath its thatch of white hair. Anger showed in every line of his dapper figure. A big diamond on one well-manicured hand flashed as he gesticulated.
“Vivian—I can’t stand it!” he was saying thickly. “All afternoon I’ve been waiting, counting the minutes, expecting that you would keep your promise to stay and dine with me. Now you say you can give me only half an hour. Really, I—”
Vivian shrugged, sniffing delicately at the spotted orchid pinned to her coat. She spoke languidly: “Do you expect me to dance attendance on you all the time, Roswell?”
“All the time!” Sully’s voice rose jaggedly. “All the time—when you’ve only let me see you twice this week. To discuss business matters!”
Vivian de Graf fumbled in her bag, shrugged again. “A cigarette please, Roswell. I seem to have run out.”
Sully ignored her request. “You forget,” he went on furiously, “all I’ve done for you. The money you’ve made through me, the prestige my name has given you—the people you’ve met! What would you be without me? Nothing! And yet you—”
A sigh fell from Vivian de Graf’s lips. Without replying, she rose languorously and crossed with swaying hips to a table where she helped herself to a cigarette from a red lacquer box.
Sully stared at her insolently turned back. “By God, Vivian,” he began passionately, “if you’re playing around with some other man—If you leave me after all I’ve done for you, I’ll—I’ll—”
She turned slowly, touching a match to her cigarette. Her tapering fingers were steady. Her soft laughter was faintly derisive as she let smoke trickle from her nostrils.
“What?” The drawled word was a challenge. “What will you do, Roswell?”
“Kill you!” Sully shrieked. “Kill you—even if I go to the chair for it. Kill you—and tell the world what you are. A damn, calculating gold-digger!”
Vivian de Graf leaned against the table, and laughed in his face. “Kill me! You? Why—you haven’t that much nerve left! You’re afraid—afraid to leave this house. Even to show your face in the streets.”
Sully stepped close to her, his fingers raised and tensed as though he would clench them about the woman’s white throat; but his hands were shaking like withered leaves in a wind.
Vivian de Graf laughed again, but the amusement had left her voice. “Don’t be a fool! And don’t touch me! It’s you who are in debt to me. I’m a young woman and people say I’m beautiful. What have you to give me? You’re getting old, Roswell—old—old! If you must know, you bore me, and—I have other friends.”
Her words seemed to stun Sully. He stood swaying on his feet, staring at her. His clenched hands fell laxly at his sides.
Vivian de Graf ground out her cigarette, gathered her furs about her.
“Well, shall we say good-by?” She moved toward the door.
At that, a change came over Sully’s face. The red flush of anger faded, leaving it dead white. “Vivian—Vivian, for God’s sake don’t leave me like this! Forgive me for speaking as I did. I’m just an old fool. But I’m insane about you—” With frightened, abject remorse, Roswell Sully dropped suddenly to his knees, caught the hem of her dress, and kissed it.
Vivian twitched sharply away. “Don’t be dramatic, Sully,” she said scornfully. “It makes you ridiculous. And besides, it’s so—tiresome.” She walked away toward the door.
“X” QUICKLY left his observation post and slipped out of the house as he had entered it. He heard Sully’s voice still pleading as the front door opened. But Vivian de Graf went out and down the drive; her head arrogantly high.
“X” crossed the lawn to the wall, scaled it as he had before, and crouched in the shadows. Apparently, Vivian de Graf had a key to the gate, for it opened and closed silently, and she appeared in the street. There was the click of high heels as she walked toward her car.
Agent “X” edged nearer, silent as a shadow. He was debating whether to speak to the woman now, or follow her, when he drew in a sudden sharp breath. For some one else was watching Vivian de Graf.
Across the street another shadow had detached itself from the hedge bordering an estate opposite Sully’s. It moved cautiously along the walk, then started across the street toward the car. There was a furtive tenseness in the man’s movements. And something glittered in his hand.
Just as Vivian opened the door of her car, and was bending to climb in, the man sprang toward her. She turned her head and a startled, terrified cry came from her lips. She crouched as though she were facing a wild beast. The man’s arm drew back.
Agent “X” leaped forward out of the shadows like a hurtling catapult. His clenched fist struck at the thing gleaming in the man’s raised hand, sent it shattering to the street.
Vivian de Graf swayed against “X,” and while he steadied her the man ducked around the car like a startled rat and fled. The woman straightened then, and “X” sprang in pursuit of her attacker. The man had disappeared through the hedge across the street. When “X” pushed through, his quarry had lost himsel
f in the dark maze of trees covering a wide lawn. The Agent knew there would be no use in further pursuit.
He went back to Vivian de Graf. Something had splashed onto his wrist from the thing in the man’s hand, and it burned like a spark of fire. He reached down to rub it off on a strip of grass by the curb, and his nostrils tingled with an acrid smell that rose from the sidewalk.
Vivian de Graf had regained her poise. Her dark eyes met his calmly. “Who are you?”
The Agent tapped his camera, smiled. “Just a newshound who happened to be passing. And it’s lucky I was!”
The woman poked with her toe at a jumble of broken glass on the sidewalk.
“What is that?”
“That,” said “X” gravely, “is acid. Somebody wanted to mar your beauty, I’m afraid.”
“Well—” her voice was cool, “you saved me from a nasty situation, anyway, and I want to thank you.”
“Aren’t you going to report this to the police? Do you know who that man was?”
Vivian de Graf’s laugh was mirthless and harsh. “An old—friend, I think. Drunk, probably.”
“Or just playful,” the Agent said sarcastically. She glanced at him sharply. His smile was disarming. He seemed to be merely a guileless young newspaperman. But the woman’s next words were tinged with suspicion.
“It occurs to me that it was rather odd—your being here just at the right moment.”
“X” THOUGHT quickly. This woman was shrewd. A display of frankness would be safest for him. He smiled again, showing even white teeth.
“Not as odd as you think, Mrs. de Graf, since I’ve been trailing you all afternoon.”
Dark eyes and arched brows questioned him.
“It’s that robbery at the bank,” he said. “You were there. I want your story of the thing—and a picture. It’ll get me in solid with the old man. How about it?”
His eyes bored into hers, trying to discover whether or not he had convinced her. But her eyes were inscrutable as she smiled and gestured toward her car.
“One good turn deserves another, I suppose,” she said lightly. “But we can’t stand here in the cold and talk. Hop in.”
There was a thin smile on the Agent’s lips as the phaeton purred downtown. Nothing could have pleased him more than this. He was alone with his suspect, in a position to study her closely. Already he had proof that she was a woman of startling poise and stamina. A woman cool-headed and callous enough to cast in her lot with criminals.
“Don’t forget,” he said eagerly, “that I want your picture. Society beauty tells story of bank holdup. That’s feature stuff. The crime has got the whole police force gaga. It’s a mystery, it doesn’t make sense—so it’s hot news.”
“But you, a bright young reporter, will solve the mystery of course.”
Her smile challenged him, mockery gleamed in her eyes. He was careful to stick to his role.
“I wouldn’t say that, Mrs. de Graf. It’s got me stumped, I’ll admit. But I’m going to take a whack at it.” He paused a moment. “You were there,” he added. “Haven’t you got some theory?”
She nodded. “Personally, I suspect that man Hearndon, who came into Banton’s office just before the raid.”
“I don’t know,” said the Agent. “The cops are looking for Hearndon—and Washington says there isn’t any such name on the Department of Justice list. He was a phony, all right, and yet—”
Grim amusement twitched the Agent’s lips in the semidarkness. What would Vivian de Graf do if she knew that “Hearndon” was sitting close beside her?
“There’s absolutely no doubt,” she said positively, “that Hearndon, whatever he was, acted as an advance scout for the gang. His coming was the signal for the raid to begin. That’s what I told the police when they questioned me.”
“But Hearndon wanted the bank closed! How would that have helped the crooks?”
The woman laughed softly. “Hearndon knew there wasn’t time to close the bank. That was only a stall. There are clever men behind this thing!”
THE phaeton sped across the city and entered a mews. It was close to the edge of a park, in an ultra-smart residential section liked by those who leaned toward the Bohemian. Wealthy actresses, painters and musicians had studios here.
Vivian de Graf stopped her car before a two-story building of pink stucco. It comprised two apartments, each with its private entrance. She had chosen a setting typical of a woman whose private life would not stand close inspection. An ideal residence, too, “X” thought, for a person who wished freedom to come and go unnoticed at any hour of the day or night.
With her own key, Vivian de Graf opened the door and showed “X” into a large, exotically furnished drawing room. Two blue vases filled with spotted yellow orchids caught the Agent’s quick eye instantly, one on top of a piano, another on an antique table. They added the final touch of the bizarre to this exotic and very expensively furnished room.
“You’ll have something to drink,” Vivian de Graf murmured as she slipped the soft mink cloak from her shoulders. “Some sherry, perhaps?” Her slim hand reached for a cut-glass decanter.
The Agent nodded. “Thanks.”
His eyes were alert. Something in the room seemed to hint at the crouching shadow of evil. The still draperies were too luxurious, the furnishings too expensive, this woman a bit too poised and casual. And those dozens of spotted orchids, which must be worth a small fortune, seemed the symbols of an unwholesome mystery.
He drew the nearest vase toward him and examined the heavy blossoms, with the eye of a connoisseur. He had never seen blooms like these before. He was familiar with most of the thousands of orchid species scattered throughout the world. He had thought all those in cultivation were known to him.
But these eluded classification. They reminded him of the Queen Cattleya orchids, yet were larger, deeper in their saffron tint. They bore some resemblance to Cyripedium Argus.
His eyes switched abruptly from the flowers to Vivian de Graf’s white hands. Almost unconsciously he had detected a minute but incongruous movement she had made. In pouring his glass of sherry she had let something fall into the wine—a few drops of colorless liquid from a ring. She had put either dope or poison into his drink!
Chapter X
COUNTERPLAY
NO slightest tremor of uneasiness showed in the Secret Agent’s manner. He was, in fact, elated at this development. Here was final proof that Vivian de Graf was a dangerous, unscrupulous woman. Her act was to him a tacit admission of her guilt. And in it he saw a great opportunity to make her betray herself further.
Doctored liquor was an old story to Secret Agent “X.” Once, long ago, in an espionage assignment against one of Europe’s most famous spies, such a trick had caught him unawares. Ever after that experience he had been on the lookout for a possible repetition of it, and had taken simple but adroit precautions to checkmate it without rousing suspicion.
Vivian de Graf was watching him through drooping lids. Her eyes were brightly alert behind them. Her white teeth showed in a flashing smile. Her graceful, supple figure was relaxed in her chair.
Before drinking his wine, “X” offered her a cigarette which she accepted. He struck a flame on the lighter Betty Dale had given him and which had served him so well in the burning house, touched it to Vivian de Graf’s cigarette and to his own, then returned the lighter to his pocket.
When his hand came out-again, something came with it—a small syringe of pliant rubber, like an old-fashioned camera bulb. To it was attached a tiny curved tube. “X” held the syringe cupped in his right palm, the third and fourth fingers pressed against it, while his second finger hid the tube.
Lifting the sherry glass in thumb and forefinger, he raised it to his lips. Then, as he tipped it slightly as though sipping, he let the tube’s end drop into it, releasing his two fingers on the syringe. The bulb at once began to fill. As the Agent tipped his head and the glass back farther, the sherry disappeared directly before V
ivian de Graf’s eyes.
No one, save a person well versed in stage magic and sleight-of-hand, could have conceived that the wine had gone anywhere except into the Agent’s mouth. “X” had, in fact, learned the trick from a famous vaudeville magician.
He set the glass down, let his right hand fall to his side under the table, thrust the syringe back into his pocket and gave a twist to the tube which sealed it.
Vivian de Graf was smiling. “Now,” she said, “what about that picture you wanted—or were there some other questions you’d like to ask to round out your story?”
“Let’s see.” The Agent took out notebook and pencil. He made several notations, seeming absorbed in his work. He was conscious that Vivian de Graf was observing him, conscious of a new watchfulness in the woman’s eyes. There was a catlike quality in it that was definitely sinister.
This was a tense moment for the Agent. Perhaps some devilish, quick-acting poison had been dropped into his glass. Perhaps it had been only a drug. He did not know. He could only stage an act, and hope it would be convincing.
At the end of a few seconds he looked up from his notes, passed a slow hand across his forehead and blinked confusedly. “If you don’t mind repeating a few things,” he said. “I seem to have forgotten. Don’t know what’s the matter with my memory. This man Hearndon—”
He let his speech trail off, laughed as though in embarrassment. “Here—let’s see.” He made a few ineffectual dabs at his pad. He appeared to study them, but his head sank lower and lower. “Hearndon,” he muttered, “Hearn—”
His body swayed in the chair. He made a feeble, sleepy clutch at the edge of the table, slumping sidewise to the carpet. He lifted himself once feebly, then fell back and lay inert, every muscle lax.
His eyes were closed, his body limp, but his pulses were hammering. There was a chance he hadn’t manifested quite the right symptoms, that the woman’s suspicions had been aroused. Her silence made a breath-taking moment of suspense. She made no sound, said nothing for several seconds.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 4 Page 6