Suddenly the Agent turned his head. The high-pitched wail of a police siren sounded. He drew toward the side of the street. A green radio patrol car shot past, going like the wind.
There was a frenzied note in the blast of its siren, recklessness in its speed. Wrenching the wheel, the Agent turned and followed. He heard another car join the first, racing in the same direction. A crawling sense of horror filled him. A hunch told him it could mean only one thing. The torch-killing band of robbers had struck again!
Chapter XIV
Melting Murder
CROUCHING over the wheel, he pressed the gas button down until his own long, low roadster was eating up the distance that separated it from the nearest radio cruiser. The red tail-light of the police car increased rapidly in size.
It was headed toward the mid-section of the city. Then brakes squealed in sudden protest. Rubber snarled on the pavement. The cruiser was slowing down.
Agent “X” saw why. Down the block another car was coming—a long, low roadster with a narrow windshield and flattened hood.
In his first horrified glimpse of it, Agent “X” recognized the car. It was the same one that had followed him when, disguised as Commissioner of Police Foster, he had nearly lost his life with Inspector Burks. Its terrific rate of travel indicated that it was speeding away from the scene of some other crime.
Agent “X,” a cold chill clutching at his heart, wished he could cry out a warning to those cops in the car ahead. He tried to do so, but they didn’t hear him. Then he jammed on his own brakes, watched like a man in the midst of a nightmare over which he has no control,
One of the cops in the cruiser thrust a submachine gun out of the vehicle’s side, pressed a trigger, sending a stream of bullets toward the oncoming roadster. But it was a speeding target no man could hit.
It careened toward one curb, leaped back toward the other, came roaring on. Suddenly the Agent’s knuckles went white on his own steering wheel. A wicked black snout poked out of the roadster’s side-curtain. There was a hiss, a streak of light through the air, and a blinding, crackling jet of flame played over the police cruiser that had tried so staunchly to bar the murder car’s way.
The cruiser, still moving, swerved and crashed into the curb. The cop with the machine gun tumbled out as the door burst open. He fell on his knees on the sidewalk, and the roadster roared by, its hideous weapon playing over the cruiser, killing the cop at the wheel, making a funeral pyre out of the trim headquarters car. It was gone up the block at express train speed before the fallen cop could arise.
Agent “X,” trembling, slid into the curb behind the burning cruiser. The man inside was dead, beyond aid. The cop with the gun was just getting up. Agent “X” called out harshly and made a quick motion.
The cop hesitated only an instant, his face as white as parchment. Then he understood. He leaped onto Agent “X’s” running board, and even as he did so, “X” sent his own car forward with a screech of quickly meshed gears.
The cop was silent as “X” hurtled ahead. The engine under its polished, streamlined hood rose to a vibrant roar of power. The clack and hiss of the tires made talk impossible. The Agent’s eyes were focused far in front. He passed a police cruiser, outdistanced it. His knuckles were white, his eyes gleaming points of steel. For the moment he was acting on impulse. In a cold, unreasoning fury, now, he was doing the one thing that seemed possible, chasing the killers, hoping to give the cop with the gun another chance to use it.
Driving as he had never driven before, driving like a madman, he sent his roadster hurtling through the night-darkened streets. Then far ahead he saw the murder car. There was, he knew, some special motor under its low hood. His own cars were custom built, bought for the highest speed, the most exceptional usage. Pressing the gas button to the floor boards, risking death every instant, he crept up on the car before him.
The street no longer seemed like a street. It was a whizzing, hissing band of black asphalt, ripping back under the tires, threatening, it seemed, to tear them from the rims.
The cop beside him leaned out the side of the car. He was shaking, his face was deathly white. But his hands were holding the submachine gun steadily. The department heads might be getting nervous, losing their morale, but these men in blue were fighting like true soldiers. Agent “X” warmed to the man beside him. For the moment he was proud to be battling shoulder to shoulder with the law which had so often hunted him.
HE was gaining on the murder car now. The suburban streets were flashing by. Houses seemed to leap at them out of the darkness. In a moment he heard the stuttering report of the machine gun in the cop’s hand. An acrid whiff of smokeless, powder filled his nostrils, lashed back by the wind. The ejector of the gun was spitting empty shell cases.
Then with breath-taking suddenness the murder car seemed to be coming toward them. Agent “X” knew what it meant.
He applied the brakes, shouted a warning to the man beside him. He wasn’t thinking of his own life. But nothing would be accomplished if the killers in the car, now slowing down, were allowed to slaughter again.
Then, in the air directly ahead, shutting out view of the murder car, blinding like a blazing sun of death, appeared a fiery eye of flame. The cop swore fiercely. The jet of flame came nearer. Its heat was scorching. In another instant it would be upon them. The cop flung down his gun and jumped.
Agent “X” crouched, jammed on the brakes. The sickening smell of scorching rubber filled his nostrils. The front tires of the car blew with reports like miniature bombs. The roadster bumped and sagged on tire rims. He opened the door, flung sideways, just in time.
The jet of flame descended on the car, melting the windshield as though it were a sheet of ice, firing the padded leather cushions inside. With the cop beside him, “X” raced for the protective shadows beside the street.
The murderer’s car drove on, leaving Agent “X’s” roadster a burned and ravaged wreck.
Crouched in the chill darkness, waiting for the other radio cruisers to come up, the cop told Agent “X” what had happened.
“I don’t know you, buddy, but you got guts,” the cop said. “We didn’t get ’em—but we tried. They blew the safe of the Graybar Jewelry Company and got away with a half million in ice. They burned the guard, just burned the guy, too. Schroder and me got it over—the guy that was driving me, a good guy, too. Schroder and me got it over the air from headquarters and tried to head ’em off. But a swell chance a fella’s got against that heat gun they use.”
Agent “X” nodded somberly. A direct attack against the torch killers was suicidal. His face was bleak in the wavering glare of his burning roadster. He heard other motors down the block—radio cruisers coming. The murder car had sped on—no one knew where.
Cold fury at the killers possessed him. He didn’t wait for the cruisers to come up. There would be questions, delay. He wanted to get back to the city, back to his own line of investigation at once. Without any explanation to the surprised cop he flung off into the shadows and disappeared.
He crossed a lot, put two blocks between himself and the light of his burning roadster, then he located a taxi. The police would have another mystery to probe as to the owner of the burning car. The name it was registered under would tell them nothing. There was no such person.
Agent “X” sat still and tense as the cab sped back along the route over which he had pursued the murder car. The night had been a chain of apparently unprofitable episodes. But he had gained something—learned the whereabouts of Rosa Carpita, and caught Banton in strange actions. Banton!
“X” leaned forward, spoke to the driver. The cab stopped in front of the private detective’s apartment. It was late, getting close to midnight. Banton’s flivver wasn’t outside the building. “X” hoped the man was in. He would have some sort of show-down. There must be an end to these death-torch horrors, and, if Banton knew anything, “X” would find a way to make him talk.
He located Banton’s sui
te number in the mail slot and went directly up, letting himself into the building with a pass-key. The switchboard operator merely glanced at him as he passed by, thinking he was a tenant or the friend of a tenant.
AGENT “X” pressed Banton’s buzzer and waited. But there was no answer. Banton was out. Unceremoniously, then, Agent “X” entered.
The apartment was small, unattractive, cluttered. He searched with the thoroughness of a trained investigator, worked with the frenzied speed of a man driven on by a single motive. But the results of his search were disappointing.
He located a safe, opened it, and came upon the papers Banton had stolen from Davis’s house. There were also records of Banton’s more shady transactions for various clients. But there was nothing which threw light on his dealings with Rosa Carpita. That must be gotten from the man himself. There were two courses open to Agent “X.” To wait here for Banton’s return, or to go in search of him.
Agent “X’s” nerves cried out for action. It was possible Banton had gone back to his office. He could make the trip there, then return if he failed to locate Banton.
“X” went to the nearest of his hide-outs and changed back to the disguise of Andrew Balfour. As he drove in a cab to the bank building he mapped out a course of action.
“X” left his cab and walked swiftly to the side door of the bank building.
He entered with his tenant’s key, ascended quickly to Banton’s office. But it was dark and empty. “X” let himself into his own suite, then switched on the lights and paced the floor, thinking.
He hated to involve Betty Dale in any way. Yet in the present situation she could help him. It would be easier for her than for him to check up again on the movements of Rosa Carpita. He knew that Betty, as always, would be willing to aid him, and, late as it was, he didn’t hesitate to call her.
But, as his hand reached out for the telephone, he paused. Faintly through the thick walls of the room a strange scraping sounded. Another man might not have heard it. But the Agent’s hearing was uncannily keen. The scraping noise was followed by a thud that was hollow, ghostly. The Agent leaped to his feet.
He strode to the door, opened it, thrust his head out and listened. Banton’s office was dark, but once again he heard the eerie scraping. It filled the corridor with a thin whisper of sound, faint as the rustling of a serpent’s scales sliding over stone. It set his teeth on edge. Then the noise ceased.
The Agent stood puzzled a moment, went to the door of Banton’s office and let himself in with a skeleton key. Tensely he searched the place, but no human thing was there.
He went back to his own office, got out his sensitive sound amplifier and pressed the disc microphone to the wall. Then he trembled with excitement. A turn of the rheostat control and the scraping sound reached his ears again. It seemed to be on the floor above now, or even higher. With a sudden hiss of breath the Agent put his amplifier down. He leaped into the corridor and started at a run for the stairs that led upward.
Chapter XV
Danger Flight
THERE were many of them. The building towered sixteen stories above the floor his own office was on. But he dared not use the elevator, dared take no one into his confidence. There were secret and sinister things in the wind.
He climbed the stairs three at a time, floor after floor. Near the top he paused an instant to rest and listen. He no longer heard the scraping noise. The great building was still. But gradually as he waited a new sound intruded upon his consciousness. It was the muffled, far-off beat of an airplane motor, and it seemed to be approaching. Once again the Agent was electrified into action.
He took the last flight of skylight stairs in a reckless leap, crouched tensely. Then, as he cautiously raised the glass cover, he heard again the faint deep-throated mutter of a plane somewhere in the dark sky overhead.
The cloud ceiling was low. Swirling, trailing vapor threatened wind and rain. The glow of the streets was reflected in this mist. The ship above seemed to be nosing down through it, feeling its way. Perhaps it was only a mail plane, perhaps—
But Agent “X” strained forward. His gaze left the clouds, went to the roof. His eyes grew wide with intent interest.
There were times when his swift actions were based on so-called “hunches”—really the quick interplay of deductive faculties working below the conscious level of his mind. It was such a hunch, such a subconscious deduction, that had made him suspicious of the sound in the wall and brought him up to the roof. And it had not led him wrong.
For the roof had undergone an amazing transformation. From the under edge of the coping on each side a bright glow of light was now flaring out—light from bulbs, the sockets of which he had discovered on his previous visit.
And, from the roof’s center, set in the strange socket clamps, was a collapsible framework of slender tubular steel.
There was a pulley, a sliding truck, a spring releasing device—with something set in a metal holder that caught and held the Agent’s eye.
The thing was a big canvas sack like a mail pouch.
In one rushing, clear-visioned flash of understanding the Agent grasped the significance of what he saw. It linked up with the strange death of Darlington, and brought him one step nearer to the death-torch killers.
The device in the center of the roof was similar to that used in airmail pickup. The airplane circling overhead, feeling its way down through the low clouds, was coming to get that sack. What the sack contained, Agent “X” could guess. The crank, Darlington, had been murdered because, in his lonely studies of light, he had come up to this roof to look at the stars, photograph them, perhaps, and had accidentally interfered with the plans of a fiendishly clever band of thieves and killers.
The Secret Agent leaped forward to the waiting canvas sack. A knotted cord fastened the neck of it. A stout braided wire cable was bolted to a series of metal rings sewed directly to the heavy canvas, sufficiently strong to stand the jerk when the sack was swung into the air after a catapult device had thrown it forward.
The Agent unknotted the cord at the sack’s mouth. He moved with lightninglike speed, knowing that any instant the plane above might swing into sight. The poor visibility, the lowness of the clouds, was all that made possible the desperate thing he planned to do.
Many packages of bank notes were there, and smaller canvas sacks of gold and silver coins. Here was a haul of stolen loot waiting to be relayed to some safe hiding-place—loot that had been taken at the cost of men’s lives.
There were a dozen big ventilators jutting from the roof. With an armful of packages containing bank notes the Agent ran to the nearest of these. Unceremoniously he dumped the cash in. He wasn’t sure where it would fall, but it could be located and recovered afterward. Frenziedly, working against time, he made four more trips, dumping the bags of coins into the ventilator, too, emptying the big canvas sack hooked to the catapult.
He heard the airplane in the clouds above shut off its motor. He knew the significance of that. The ship was getting ready to dive below the clouds, glide in to make its pickup. His experienced ears told him that its motor was muffled, that the pilot was taking no chances of having someone in the street hear him.
With eyes bright as pin points of polished steel the Agent moved close to the sack. The thing he was about to do seemed almost suicidal. It required sheer nerve, fearlessness of death—characteristics that the Agent possessed to an extraordinary degree.
The instant before the plane above broke through the under edge of the clouds, Agent “X” stepped into the sack, replacing with his own body the bulk of the bills and coins he had taken out. The weight was not greatly different. Perhaps he was twenty or thirty pounds heavier. But the sack was big, the catapult device should be strong enough. He hoped so, waiting silently, with the cord he had removed once again looped around the mouth of the sack, its ends drawn inside. He tied them just as he heard the first thin whistle of rushing air sweeping through flat wires.
I
T seemed an eternity while the whistle mounted into a wavering screech. Then the pilot of the approaching plane flattened his glide. The screech lessened, became a thin wail. The wail grew steadily louder.
Blood pounded through the Agent’s temples. He could hear the beating of his heart as though it were sledgehammer blows. He had been in many strange and desperate situations, but never one quite like this, when seconds seemed to stand still, when he waited for the grappling cable of the oncoming plane to sweep him into the very jaws of death.
He could hear the clank and swish of the still revolving propeller, like the beat of great ghastly wings. Then there came a click, a snap. The Agent held himself tautly, gripping the cord of the sack mouth in fingers that were white and steely.
Abruptly he toppled sidewise, pressed against the side of the sack. The sack was rushing forward. His neck was snapped back, his head was pressed against the canvas, too, as though a thousand pounds were holding it there. Breath hissed from his lungs.
There was another snap, a nerve-shattering, forward lurch, a dizzy sense of being whirled in an arc as though he were on a giant pendulum. Then a rush of upward movement at express-train speed.
Now he was pressed to the bottom of the sack, glued there apparently, his only conscious hold still on the end of the cord, and the cord was straining into his fingers, cutting them. That upward movement was familiar. He had felt it before, though never like this. He knew he was free of the roof now, sweeping upward into the sky on the end of a slender cable—sweeping with the threat of death imminent.
There was a sudden low mutter of sound, a jarring tremble that the cable transmitted down to him. The plane’s engine had been switched on again. He was yanked skyward at a steady, breath-taking pace. The sides of the sack grew clammy as it was drawn through the clouds.
Then the plane leveled out. There was a metallic grinding sound—the sack being reeled in.
Agent “X” waited. The suspense now was as great as when the plane was gliding in to pick him up. Would the pilot discover the amazing substitution that had been made—a living man instead of a sackful of stolen loot?
Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated) Page 36