For a moment a question flashed in the bloodshot, frightened eyes of Inspector Burks. He looked at the commissioner sharply, wondering apparently how the commissioner could give offhand dates like that. Secret Agent “X” had almost made a slip.
“I suspected it from the first,” he said, quietly. “I’ve been doing a little research.” The man of a thousand faces was on his guard again. Burks must not know that every weapon of modern warfare was familiar to him.
They plunged on in silence, shaken, sickened, by what they had been through.
THE building in which the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Bank was housed took up half a city block. It was a bulky, old-fashioned flat-roofed skyscraper of twenty stories. The street outside was filled with curious, morbid people now. Ropes had been stretched across the bank’s front by the police, holding the crowd back. A dozen or more cars were parked close by.
The police lines opened instantly to let Inspector Burks and the man impersonating Commissioner Foster through.
But Agent “X’s” pulses were hammering excitedly. Every faculty was alert. He knew that in coming here he was taking a dangerous chance. His disguise might be perfect, but he didn’t know the commissioner’s inner thoughts, or all the people with whom he associated. He might make the wrong answers, might arouse suspicion. He planned to get away as soon as possible.
For an instant he glanced at the outside of the bank. It was one of the city’s smaller financial institutions, a private bank controlled by five partners. Three of these partners, Burks had said, had been slain. Honer, Osterhout, and Davis were their names. Their bodies were still inside, where, surprised in late conference by the raiders, they had met death under the blast of the terrible Flammenwerfer.
But it was the body of the special bank guard in the corridor outside that Agent “X” first saw. He turned his eyes away from the charred, grotesquely sprawled figure. Except for the man’s blackened badge, it might have been impossible to identify him. Even the bones of his face and his teeth had been eaten away by the withering heat of the killer’s torch.
The bodies of the three bankers, John Honer, Eric Osterhout, and Jerome Davis, in the business room behind the cashiers’ cages, were in hardly better shape.
Detectives were checking up, making identification from the blackened, heat-corroded watches, cuff links, and cigarette cases that lay beside the corpses in the piles of grayish ashes that had once been clothing.
Two of the dead men had been burned on both sides of their bodies, reduced to unrecognizable carcasses. The third, Davis, had received the withering flame on his face and the front of his body only. His features were ghastly but still recognizable.
The Agent studied the position and condition of the corpses for tense moments. Then he looked at the huge vault in the bank’s rear. Marks of cutting tools showed around the edges of the locks. It had withstood the onslaught of the raiders’ attack, justifying the faith of its builders.
“Has the vault been opened?” he asked. “Is everything all right?”
“We don’t know, sir. We’re waiting for Marsh and von Blund, the other partners. They’re on their way.”
Burks, standing at the Secret Agent’s side, shot an abrupt question.
“Were there any employees besides the bank guard around?”
Mathers nodded.
“I talked to von Blund on the phone, called him right after I got here. A cashier and one of the bookkeepers were working overtime, too.”
Inspector Burks face grew hard.
“Get their names—find them,” he barked.
“I’ll have to wait, sir, until—”
Mathers didn’t finish, for the police lines were opening to let two well-dressed men through.
“That’s them now,” said Mathers. “They’ll give us the dope.”
Marsh and von Blund, the surviving partners, gasped with horror as they passed the body of the murdered bank guard. How much had Sergeant Mathers told them? Were they prepared for the added shock that awaited them? Evidently not, for von Blund, the older of the two, a blond, stern-faced man in his early forties, stood speechless at the door of the business room. He swayed, leaned against the wall, his eyes starting from his head. Marsh, shorter, stockier, with the poker face of a typical financier, stood with hands clenched at his sides.
It was von Blund who spoke first.
“Eric!” he gasped. “My God, Eric!”
AGENT “X” saw the man turn his eyes away from that unsightly relic on the floor which had been his friend and partner, Eric Osterhout.
“We went through the war together,” muttered von Blund brokenly. “Even that couldn’t separate us. But now—” He clenched his fist. “If the law doesn’t get those fiends, so help me, I will!”
Agent “X” walked close to the body of Eric Osterhout. Detectives were pulling something from the ashes—a tiny metal pin with the crossed wings of a flyer on it. Agent “X” took it in his palm, stared at it. He spoke quietly to von Blund.
“Your friend must have gone in for aviation,” he said.
Von Blund nodded. “In war and peace,” he answered, “it was one of his hobbies.”
Inspector Burks edged up impatiently and shot another question. “Mathers tells me there were two employees of the bank here with your partners. Where are they?”
For a moment von Blund and Marsh looked at each other, then they stared at the inspector.
“Haven’t you seen them?” asked von Blund harshly.
“No.”
With quick steps the banker crossed to a desk behind the cashiers’ cages. His fingers trembled as he drew out a book giving a list of employees’ names and addresses.
“Spencer and Cox,” he said. “One was our head cashier—the other was in the bookkeeping department.”
“They’ve disappeared,” snapped Burks. “That’s evident.”
“Call up their homes,” said von Blund. “It isn’t like them to run away unless—”
“Unless,” echoed Burks, “they had something to do with the job that was pulled tonight.”
Secret Agent “X” spoke then, pointing to the vault.
“It doesn’t seem likely. The cashier must have known how to open the vault. If he—”
But Marsh, the stocky partner, spoke quickly.
“Only the five of us knew how to do that,” he said. “But maybe Spencer thought he could. Maybe that was why—”
“It might be a good idea to look inside,” said Agent “X.” “Perhaps they got in after all—and closed the vault behind them.”
Von Blund nodded. But a quick examination of the vault’s interior, after he and Marsh had opened the great door, showed that nothing had been touched.
“Thank God for that,” said von Blund fervently. “Our depositors won’t suffer, anyway!”
But Inspector Burks voiced a sinister thought that was in the Secret Agent’s mind also.
“The raiders didn’t make the grade this time, but what will stop them from trying again?”
Von Blund clenched his fist.
“We’ll land them in hell if they do. I’ll hire a squad of special guards. We’ll have machine guns posted. Eric, John, and Jerry lost their lives to protect the funds entrusted to them. We’ll see that they didn’t die for nothing.”
There was a quaver in von Blund’s voice, but Agent “X” wondered if any stratagem an honest man could devise could checkmate the fiends who put men to death with hissing flame.
SERGEANT MATHERS came back with a frown on his face.
“I’ve called up the homes of Spencer and Cox,” he said. “They haven’t returned, but they were here tonight, all right. It looks, Mr. von Blund, as if—”
“I won’t believe it,” cried von Blund. “They’ve been with us for years. They were honest, I tell you. Perhaps those fiends kidnapped them.”
Inspector Burks, cynical veteran of a thousand homicide cases, spoke grimly.
“Sentiment is a fine thing, von Blund. Bu
t don’t let it get the best of your reason. Spencer and Cox were probably bribed by the murderers to make things easy. When the raid failed, when they couldn’t open the vault, they made a get-away. I’ll start a dragnet. I’ll have every outgoing train and boat searched and have all roads watched.”
The disappearance of Spencer and Cox added further complications to the chain of ghastly murders. Had the cashier and bookkeeper of the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Bank been mixed up in the raids of the flaming torch killers all the time? Or had a bribe or some hidden, sinister threat made the two employees of the bank betray their trust? Agent “X” pondered this.
“The D.A.’s on his way, too,” said Burks harshly. “The public’s been riding him, and he’s got it in for you, commissioner! You know the row you and he had last week!”
Agent “X” nodded, but his eyes grew suddenly bright. What row did the commissioner have with the district attorney? That was something the blotter at headquarters hadn’t indicated. It was time he left before he made some slip in the presence of the alert D.A.
“I’ve got to get back to headquarters,” he said abruptly. “There’s another angle of this thing I’m working on.”
If Inspector Burks felt the commissioner’s sudden decision to leave was odd he didn’t indicate it. Perhaps he thought the commissioner wanted to avoid unpleasant contact with the D.A. This was the case, but not for the reasons Inspector Burks might have assumed.
The inspector accompanied Agent “X” to the door and mapped out his campaign for trapping the two runaway bank employees.
“If we can catch ’em,” he said, “we’ll sweat ’em till we find who the guys are that hired ’em. I don’t believe they pulled this job alone.”
At the door of the bank, Inspector Burks suddenly swore and stabbed a finger toward the street.
“Look! There’s that nut, Banton,” he said, “trying to get in and pull a snoop act again. He forgets he ain’t with us any more and that we don’t let four-flushing agency dicks sit in if we can help it.”
Agent “X” stiffened. He had never heard of Banton. The inspector spoke as though here were a character well known to the commissioner. “X” turned his head, saw a red-faced, gross-bodied man trying to shove through the police lines, as a cop forcefully restrained him. When “X” opened the door of the bank he heard Banton’s angry voice.
“I got offices in this building, I tell you,” the man was saying. “You can’t keep a guy away from his own place.”
As Banton caught sight of Secret Agent “X,” a look of sneering familiarity overspread his face.
“Be a sport, commish! Let a guy look around. Just because you kicked me off the force don’t mean I’m poison. There’s a reward out for these killers. I can use dough as well as the next person—and your gang ain’t showin’ up so smart!”
There was a bitter slur in that last phrase that Agent “X” caught. The finely tuned mechanism of his memory was working now. Banton! The name stirred recollections. There had been a big police shake-up, a cleaning out of grafters a few years ago. Banton was the name of one of the lieutenants whose resignation had been “gratefully received.” “Kicked off the force,” Banton had said.
AGENT “X” in the role of the commissioner walked toward Banton. The man’s lips curled back from stained teeth and he made another slurring remark.
“A swell bunch of sleuths you got, commish! I been in business myself for nearly two years, and I ain’t never been licked on a case yet. That’s why I want to look in on this. You can’t keep me out either, commish. I got diggin’s right in the bank building.”
Agent “X,” acting as the commissioner, waved his hand.
“Let him look around,” he said magnanimously.
“Thanks, thanks,” sneered Banton. “Big-hearted of you—commish! You always was a square guy, weren’t you?”
The eyes of Banton gleamed with bitterness and hatred, and Agent “X” went on his way wondering. Police were being slain, burned alive. Banton, kicked off the force on a graft charge and now in the detective business for himself, would be worth investigating. Was it possible that bitterness and a deflated ego could account for the brutality and ruthlessness of these strange crimes?
Speeding to headquarters in an official car, Agent “X” tensely pondered these things. He would stay in headquarters just long enough to look up the records of Banton.
Back in the commissioner’s office he started to take off his hat and coat, then paused. Following his entrance there came a sudden sound of excitement downstairs. He heard an elevator click open. Then there were louder sounds in the corridor outside—the noise of pounding, running feet.
Suddenly the door of the commissioner’s office burst open and an angry, disheveled man stood in the threshold—a man with a shabby overcoat wrapped around his tall, sparse body.
Police Commissioner Foster!
Speechless for a moment, Agent “X” faced the man he had impersonated. He realized in that instant that the weak-kneed gangsters he had hired had got cold feet—let their prisoner go. And, as he stood collecting his thoughts, the commissioner raised a trembling finger and pointed toward him.
“Arrest that man,” he said. “He’s a criminal and an imposter.”
Chapter V
A Suspect
A HALF-DOZEN detectives crowded in the doorway behind the commissioner. All eyes were focused on Secret Agent “X.” The room became charged with a tension that was almost electric.
The Agent met the commissioner’s accusing gaze calmly. By no movement or gesture did he betray any indication of nervousness. But he fully sensed what a desperate spot he was in.
Since he worked always beyond the law he could not expect any official support if his identity was discovered. He would be exposed and convicted as an imposter and dangerous plotter, convicted probably as an accomplice of the killers who were terrorizing the police. But his voice was as steady as his manner.
“This is absurd!” he said. “Have you any documentary proof to back up your claims? You must be a madman!”
“Madman!” The commissioner’s face became a mottled, almost apoplectic red. He turned, made gestures toward his men. “Arrest him, I say. He’s the criminal who kidnapped me.”
Agent “X” drew the commissioner’s wallet and papers from his pocket, spread them out on the desk in front of him. With a grim smile on his lips he pointed to them.
“Here are papers which give the lie to your wild claim.”
The commissioner gritted his teeth in fury.
“You stole them,” he cried harshly. “You stole my clothes and my papers. You are an imposter and you know it!”
“Is that so? Can you prove it?”
For a moment a baffled, helpless look crossed the commissioner’s face. Then his chin shot forward and his eyes snapped fiercely.
“Yes,” he barked, “I can prove it! When I came into office I ordered every patrolman, detectives, and department head fingerprinted. Prints were taken of every member of the city’s police including the commissioner. The records are right here in this building. Let them be brought and I’ll match prints with you. We’ll see then who’s the imposter.”
A brief, bleak smile came into Agent “X’s” eyes. In the person of the commissioner he had a worthy adversary. The man was alert, on the job. Fingerprints didn’t lie. Inside five minutes the Secret Agent would be shown up and trapped as an imposter.
But he made a quick gesture, gave an imperious order.
“Get the fingerprints in file F,” he said. “Tell Deputy-Inspector Taylor or one of his assistants to come to my office at once.”
He spoke with such assurance, seemed so familiar with the routine of headquarters, that the detectives in the door wavered in uncertainty. One of them went to get the fingerprint files. The commissioner, clutching his shabby coat about him, glared fiercely at the man who had usurped his office and duties.
Secret Agent “X” seemed not to have a care or wo
rry in the world. He dipped his fingers into an inside coat pocket, drew out a cigar, and skinned the cellophane wrapper from it. For a moment he ran it under his nose, sniffing the fragrant weed in the manner of a connoisseur. He bit off one end, placed the cigar between his lips, and lit it.
For a second or two he stood puffing, staring back at the furious commissioner with round, quizzical eyes. Then suddenly, as though he had gone through some inner process of counting, he took the cigar from his mouth and tossed it on the floor.
The detectives stared wide-eyed. Police Commissioner Foster, sensing some sort of trick, opened his mouth to give a warning, but he was too late.
The wrapper of the cigar tossed on the floor by Agent “X” burst apart like a firecracker. A blinding cloud of dense white vapor shot into all parts of the room, billowing out into the corridor.
Just before it reached him Agent “X” took a deep breath and marked the position of the door. As the dense vapor cut off vision as effectually as a white curtain, he leaped around the desk and crossed the room in four quick strides.
The detectives had stepped away from the door. Agent “X” brushed through them and out into the corridor. The smoke given off by the cigar was the same as that used by sky writers. A draft had drawn it along the corridor.
WITH desperate speed Secret Agent “X” leaped along the hallway and down the stairs. He had made himself familiar with the layout of headquarters. When he reached the landing below, he turned left and dashed along a lower hallway to a side exit. A cop barred the door, saw the commissioner, and stepped back. The commissioner nodded and passed out into the night.
With quick, cautious steps he skirted the side of the building, and approached the front. A vague hubbub sounded above him. He looked out into the street. The plain-clothes men stationed outside headquarters had been attracted by the uproar inside. They were disappearing into the vestibule.
Agent “X” turned and walked rapidly away down the block. It was late. The street was deserted. He heard a car coming and ducked into an alley between two buildings. Then he moved out and ran on. Two blocks away he crouched for a moment in the semigloom of an unlighted stoop and went over his face with tense, skilled fingers.
Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated) Page 30