The yellow man sprang into the room and over to the bed. There, Gilbert Warnow writhed in mortal agony. His hands were tearing at his throat. The pillow, upon which Warnow’s head rested, had been ripped wide apart. Down from the pillow flurried into the air. Veins on Warnow’s neck were swollen. His eyes protruded. Two needles, mounted like fangs in the steel jaws that had snapped from the pillow, were deeply imbedded in his throat.
A hideous change was slowly, inevitably creeping across Warnow’s face. His flesh was becoming as yellow as that of his Chinese servant
The door of the room burst open. Malvern’s face was the color of raw dough. “What the hell!” he ripped out. He stamped to the bed and sent the Chinese spinning across the room. He took hold of the jaws of the trap that had been hidden in the pillow and strained them apart. Over his shoulder he shouted frantic orders:
“Get Dr. Luigi! Watch that damned chink. Connelly, call Inspector Burks. Fourth time the Ghoul’s struck this week!”
Malvern lifted the trap and stared at it as though he could not believe his own eyes. It looked something like a pair of ice tongs—the long, pointed members so edged that they had cut through the pillow when a central impelling spring had been put to work by a trigger device in the center. Two hypodermic needles were fitted to the points of the tongs, so that when Warnow’s head had struck the pillow just above the trigger, the spring had driven the needles up through the pillow and into Warnow’s throat.
“The most hellish device I’ve ever seen!” gasped Malvern. “Whole damned trap sewed right up inside the pillow. Keegan! Don’t stand there like an ape. Get the doctor!”
At the phone in the outer room Connelly could be heard calling Inspector Burks. But Keegan seemed unable to obey the order that had been given him. His eyes were riveted on Warnow. “Good Lord!” he whispered. “Look at his face!”
Chapter II
CORPSE OF THE LIVING
TERROR was in full command of Gilbert Warnow’s bedroom. Like a man fascinated by the eyes of a serpent, Detective Malvern bent over the body on the bed. Keegan, too, though his left hand was clamped over the wrist of Ah-Fang, had eyes but for one thing—the face of the man on the bed.
Warnow’s face was undergoing a horrible and inexplicable metamorphosis. His face was screwed into a knot of agonized supplication. Facial muscles were fixed as though death already possessed him. His fingers, which had been working convulsively, no longer moved; rather they seemed to be frozen into gnarled, yellow claws.
Blood no longer colored his flesh. His skin at every tick of the clock became a deeper, more transparent yellow. His eyes were immobile beneath hardening eyelids; yet in his eyes life still burned and pupils stared accusingly at Detective Malvern.
Malvern’s fingers passed down the dying man’s arm, touched a yellow hand, and recoiled involuntarily. “Good God!” came his husky whisper. “His hands are hard as rock! Yet he lives! Here I sent Connelly for Inspector Burks. Told him this was murder—but is it murder? No life outside, but beneath that shell—”
Keegan bent forward eagerly. His right hand brushed Warnow’s cheek. Had he been watching his charge, he would have noted a crafty expression stealing over the face of Ah-Fang. The Chinese moved with something approaching the speed of light. His right leg came up in a quick kick to the back of Keegan’s knees. Keegan went down in a heap.
The yellow hand of Ah-Fang slipped through his grasp, flattened, and sliced the air in a blow that landed at the base of Detective Malvern’s brain. It was a blow that could have killed had it not been checked by the superb muscular control of the yellow man. Malvern staggered forward. His knees encountered the edge of the bed. He pitched forward across the form of Gilbert Warnow. On his knees, Detective Keegan snatched at his automatic. Two shots lanced through the panel of the bedroom door, which had already closed behind the Chinese.
Through the living room into the hall, like a soundless, moving shadow, raced Ah-Fang. Before he reached the door at the end of the hall, a key was in his hand. In another moment, he was inside the room, and a lock clicked behind him.
To watch the movements of Ah-Fang was to witness a transformation almost as startling as that which had occurred in the bedroom of Gilbert Warnow. No sooner had he entered the room than the shuffling gait of an Oriental changed to lengthy strides that devoured the distance between the door and a small dressing table. Already his thin yellow fingers were doing wonders to his face—raking down his cheeks, tearing off pieces of what appeared to be yellow flesh.
Bits of transparent adhesive that held the eyelids of the man aslant, so as to attain the appearance of a Chinese, were torn away. A glossy black toupee disappeared into a small bag open on the dressing table. A pigment-neutralizing substance was rubbed into his hands, returning them to their natural whiteness.
For a brief interlude, the mirror reflected the man’s true face—a smooth, youthful forehead surmounted by brown, wavy hair; eyes that were hypnotic, steely points; lips and chin that were a startling combination of youth and maturity. There was in his entire aspect a certain fearlessness, a deadliness of purpose that marked him as a man far above the average in courage and resourcefulness. It was the real face of the incomparable Secret Agent “X”.
EARLY that evening, the real Ah-Fang had been waylaid by a stalwart, rough-looking character who had thrust a peculiarly shaped gun into the Chinese’s face. A jet of powerful anesthetizing vapor had shot from that gun. Ah-Fang had slipped into unconsciousness and had been whisked away in a powerful motor car.
For the stalwart man was none other than Secret Agent “X” concealed behind another of his masterly disguises. No identity was too difficult for him to assume. His special plastic volatile compound could be molded to resemble the contours of any face. His own formulated pigments, clever toupees, face-plates, and other elements of make-up, had enabled him to create for himself the exact replica of the face of Ah-Fang. And when he had mastered the peculiar speech of the Oriental, he had gone to the suite of Gilbert Warnow—Gilbert Warnow, who awaited death at the hand of the fiendishly clever extortionist known as the Golden Ghoul.
The skilled fingers of Secret Agent “X” produced lightning changes in his face. He dared not lose a second of time in carrying out the daring scheme he had contrived. On turning from the mirror a few minutes later, he had achieved another of his brilliant disguises.
He seemed a heavier man withal, powerfully built and red of face. He had had the audacity to assume the character of Inspector Burks of the Homicide Department, knowing full well that within a short time the real Inspector Burks would enter the Hotel Empire to investigate the living death that had claimed Gilbert Warnow.
Having removed every trace of his make-up materials from the table, “X” opened the door of the room and stepped into the hall. He nearly bumped into Detective Keegan who was striding down the hall, hand on the butt of the gun in his pocket.
“Inspector Burks!” Keegan exploded. “You got here fast enough.”
A puzzled expression, neatly counterfeited, crossed the face of the man who appeared to be Inspector Burks. “You called me? What about? I just dropped in to see how Warnow was getting along. What’s the matter, man? You look like you’d seen a ghost!”
“I have!” Keegan insisted. “I’ve seen the Ghoul! Warnow’s Chinese house-boy must be the Ghoul. He was the only one in the room when Warnow was killed. He must—”
“X” seized the detective’s arm. “Warnow killed? You stand there and tell me that the Ghoul got into that locked room with my best men laying for him?” He didn’t wait for Keegan’s answer but sprang down the hall towards the suite occupied by Gilbert Warnow. “X” had chosen the perilous disguise of Inspector Burks because he wanted to have complete freedom to do as he pleased in Warnow’s rooms. There were valuable clues to be collected before members of the police force got a chance at them.
AT the hall door of Warnow’s suite, Detective Malvern sat in a chair and held his head. Evidently he ha
d not yet recovered from the effects of the blow “X” had given him. However, he stood up and saluted a little dazedly as “X” brushed past him into the living room. “Stay where you are, Malvern,” he ordered. Then crossing to the bedroom door, he twisted the key in the lock.
He turned at once to the radio console through which the voice of the Ghoul had spoken to Warnow. With a tiny pen-flashlight in his hand, he made a hasty inspection of the console. His eyes narrowed as they encountered a small, flat, black package at one end of the cadmium-plated radio chassis. He noted that aerial and ground leads were fastened to the black packet and that feed wires led back to the radio set proper. A small timing device was attached to the power line and evidently could be set to turn the set off and on automatically.
The black packet, “X” guessed, was some new sort of short-wave converter that had been attached to the radio set by some one in the Ghoul’s organization who had access to Warnow’s room.This would have enabled the Ghoul to speak to Warnow through the medium of one of the hundreds of short-wave transmitters located throughout the city.
“X” was in the act of removing the black converter when he noted, at one end of the chassis, a twisted wire hairpin. A close examination led him to believe that it had been used as an improvised screw driver in making the necessary connections to the converter. “X” pocketed the converter in a secret pocket located in the lining of his coat. Then he went to the bedroom, unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Beside the bed where lay the stiff, yellow form of Warnow, was Dr. Luigi and Detective Connelly. Without a word, as one awestruck by the appearance of Gilbert Warnow, the Secret Agent approached the bed. Warnow’s face retained the same rigid, terrified aspect. His eyes were open, but the eyeballs had also turned the yellow of amber and looked dry and brittle.
“Another yellow corpse!” the Secret Agent exclaimed in perfect imitation of Burks’ voice. He stretched out his hand and flicked the yellow cheek with his forefinger. It was like snapping a piece of cold china.
Dr. Luigi regarded “X” with dark, serious eyes. “Not a corpse, Inspector. The damnable part of it is that inside that hard, amber shell of a body beats a living heart! Behind that yellow mask is a living brain! You and I have no conception of the torture through which that living brain is passing. Warnow is entombed alive in his own body! That is what my fellow countryman, Dante, called inferno!”
“Poor devil,” the Secret Agent murmured sympathetically.
“And life may go on for hours, even days. There seems to be a sort of stricture in the throat that would prevent him from taking nourishment. Unless he has a better brain than most men, this living death must drive him to madness.”
“X” stared at the living corpse a moment longer. Then he said: “Connelly, take Dr. Luigi out of the room. I want to be alone here a moment.”
Connelly looked wonderingly at his superior. It was an odd command; but who was he to question the authority of Inspector Burks.
“X’s” first action on being left alone with the corpse was to pick up the trap that had been concealed in Warnow’s pillow. The movements of “X” were difficult to follow, so rapidly did he work. Time had already ticked along too fast. At any moment, the real Inspector Burks might enter. Inasmuch as there was no possible exit from the bedroom save through the living room, “X” could not hope to escape without encountering the inspector if he came before “X” was through with his investigation.
IT took him but a moment to remove the two hypodermic needles that had been fixed in the jaws of the trap. These he wrapped in a piece of gauze and dropped into a hidden pocket inside his coat. Then he left the room, and locked the door behind him. In the living room were Malvern and Connelly. Dr. Luigi had vanished.
“Malvern,” rapped the Secret Agent, “anyone come in to see Warnow?”
“Lionel Gage came in for a while with Dr. Luigi,” replied Malvern.
“And the servants?”
“Just the hotel chambermaid and that chink who was with Warnow most of the time. The chink gave us the slip. When we get him, we’ll learn something. Why, he had every opportunity to plant that trap!”
Malvern was interrupted by a violent crash that emanated from the bedroom where lay the living corpse. “X” and the detective leaped at the same time to collide at the locked door of the bedroom. With Burks’ characteristic roar, “X” shouted Malvern out of the way, twisted the key in the lock, and leaped into the room.
The window pane was smashed to bits. “X” saw the legs of a man who was poised on the window sill. He sprang toward the window, fingernails raking the cloth of trouser legs just as the man leaped into space. “X” leaned far over the window ledge in an effort to see the falling body. But there was nothing—nothing ten stories below, except the deserted street.
“Inspector Burks, sir!” shouted Malvern.“Look! It’s gone!”
“X” turned. Alert as was his brain, it was impossible for him to comprehend all that had happened in these few minutes. A large canvas sack was on the floor. A seam in the sack was ripped and leaden shot strewed the floor. And on the bed was the impression—only the impression—of a human body. The living corpse had vanished.
Suddenly, “X” sensed something that spelled immediate peril for himself. In the living room, two men were talking—Keegan, and a man whose voice was familiar to “X”. How familiar! It was the voice of the real Inspector Burks.
As quickly and as silently as a cat, “X” sprang to the door of the bedroom. With a movement so rapid as to be almost imperceptible, he snatched what appeared to be an ordinary automatic from his pocket. He leaped into the room, faced the man whom he was impersonating so artfully. Inspector Burks cursed and stabbed for his gun. But halfway toward the pocket of his coat, his hand stopped. He knew that Agent “X” had the drop on him.
In flawless imitation of Burks’ voice, Agent “X” said: “Put up your hands, Secret Agent ‘X’!”
Chapter III
THE TRAP IS BAITED
THE face of Inspector John Burks purpled. For a moment, he could only splutter an intermingling of oaths and incomplete sentences. “You’ve got the nerve to point that gun at me and tell me I’m not Burks? Malvern, grab that man, if you don’t want to be back on the beat in the morning! Keegan! Connelly! Don’t stand there like—like—”
“Malvern,” commanded “X”, and it was baffling to hear an exact echo of Burks’ voice coming from the mouth of another, “take that man’s gun. He’s Secret Agent ‘X’. No one else would have the nerve to stand there and tell me that he is Inspector Burks.”
Of the three detectives, not one made a move toward either of the twin inspectors. They were seeing double, and looked it.
“You’re going to stand there and let this rank farce go on while the most dangerous man in New York sticks me up with a gun?” roared Burks. “By heaven, I’ll prove I’m Burks! Connelly, you ask that damned impersonator what your first name is. He won’t know, and I will!”
“X” realized that he was trapped. He hadn’t the faintest idea of what Connelly’s first name was. He resorted to sheer bluff. He stepped within inches of the inspector and tilted his gun up at Burks’ face. “You drop that gun, Mr. ‘X’,” he growled, “or I’ll feed you lead!”
A smile started spreading across the broad face of John Burks. “Yeah, well you ought to point that gun of yours lower. That gun of yours, Mr. ‘X’, doesn’t feed anybody lead!”
Burks’ gun-hand, that had been dangling at his side still clenched over his weapon, came up fast. “X” knew in an instant that his gas gun would avail him nothing against Burks; for the inspector was holding his breath.
When the shot from Burks’ gun came, “X” swayed but inches to one side, turned, as the bullet tore through his coat sleeve, and falling to the floor on his side, fired a full charge of the anesthetizing vapor straight at the trio of wide-mouthed detectives who stood behind him. Instantly Malvern pitched forward. Burks must have thought for a mom
ent that his shot had gone wild and struck Detective Malvern. But he had little time to think or plant a bullet in Secret Agent “X’s” body. “X’s” legs swung up in a scissors hold that took Burks at the knees.
Burks collapsed, shouting, grasping frantically at the air. “X” squirmed over, sprang to his feet, and streaked through the door. He came very near to knocking over a uniformed hotel chambermaid who had evidently been listening at the door. Though he had only a fleeting glimpse of the girl’s face as he flashed down the hall, that face was indelibly stamped on his memory. He had seen her somewhere before, and she had been wearing something quite different from the uniform of a Hotel Empire chambermaid.
But there was not a moment to lose. That charge from his gas gun could not have rendered both Connelly and Keegan unconscious as well as Malvern. Then there would be Burks to reckon with—Burks who was doubly dangerous because previous encounters had left him wise to many of the tricks which “X” resorted to.
DOWN the hall, “X” saw the door of an elevator-car sliding open. Behind the glass door of the cage, he could see a squad of men from police headquarters—print men, photographers, and other specialists who had followed on the heels of Inspector Burks. It was then that “X” conceived an audacious little plan. With the real Inspector Burks almost at his heels, “X” leaped into the elevator in the midst of police officials whose promotion would have been immediate could they have knowingly laid their hands on Secret Agent “X.”
“Wrong floor,” he panted in the voice of John Burks. “Next floor up. Make this thing move, operator!”
The elevator boy slammed the door, pushed the starting lever. The police plied “X” with excited questions, ignoring entirely the fact that Burks or some other member of their own force was frantically thumbing the elevator signal-bell on the floor below.
As the car shot upwards, “X’s” hand drove into the pocket of his coat. His fist came out tightly clenched over something. As the operator opened the door, “X” rapped out an order. “Everyone stay in the car a minute.”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 4 Page 39