At the end of ten minutes of patient effort, the links of the handcuffs parted. He breathed deeply, flexing his cramped arms. The metal bracelets were still on his wrists. There wasn’t time to sever them now. He bent and attacked the steel links that connected the fetters on his ankles.
He had more room to work now, more leverage. Muscles in his arms and shoulders stood out as he drew the diamond-studded file across the metal in short, powerful strokes. He freed himself of the ankle cuffs in half the time it had taken to do the others. He stood erect—free—and the burning light in his eyes became like a hot flame. He moved close to Saunders, felt the man’s pulse to see that he was surely dead. The glassy, staring eyes of the Government operative were proof enough. Standing erect, face muscles rigid, Agent “X” seemed to be making a silent pledge.
Then, with the steel bracelets unconnected, but still on his wrists and ankles, he strode across the room. The door was locked on the outside, but locks were no impediment to the Agent. He drew a set of slender chromium tools from the lining of his pocket. With the head of one, bent like a blunt fishhook, he picked the lock and opened the door.
There was a hallway outside. It was dark and still. The Agent picked up his suitcase which stood in a corner. The disordered state of its contents showed that the green-masked man had gone through it.
Agent “X” turned it upside down, pressed metal studs on the bottom, then breathed quickly.
The mysterious criminal had missed the narrow, cleverly hidden false bottom where many of Agent “X’s” elaborate make-up materials were hidden. Only careful measurement of the sides of the suitcase would have revealed that.
With his luggage in his hand, Agent “X” catted into the dark hallway. He passed along it cautiously, ears and eyes alert. He encountered no one. He was in an old, deserted house. The masked torturers had gone.
AT the end of the hall he came to a street door. Lightning showed a vivid purple streak across the bottom of the door. He heard the dull and distant rumble of thunder.
He opened the door cautiously, stared out. The house faced on a dark old street in a part of Washington he was not familiar with. But there was no one in sight. The Agent slipped down the steps, crossed the street, and moved quickly ahead. He hated to leave Saunders behind, but the man was beyond aid now—and there was strange and vital work to be done.
He walked five blocks, then plunged into a corner drug store. He found a telephone booth and made a quick call, dialing a number not listed in the public directory.
A masculine voice answered him. It was a deep voice, with a note of quiet power in it, a voice known to Agent “X” only as “K9.”
In clipped sentences Agent “X” told of their capture, Saunders’ brutal murder, and his own escape.
The deep voice of “K9” gasped out a hoarse curse. “Saunders killed!” A silence followed. “X” could hear the harsh breathing of the man at the other end. Then the voice resumed: “Your impersonator failed to pass the tests. I grew suspicious, gave him no information, but—”
“He escaped!”
“Yes!”
“And your orders for me?”
“Come immediately to the appointed place. There is no time to lose now—after what has happened. We don’t know who this man is—or what he’ll do next.”
Agent “X” left the telephone booth quickly. He found a taxi. In it he was whirled through the night-shrouded streets of Washington to the address that was on the telegram.
He stopped the cab a block away, got out, and walked ahead cautiously. His quick brain was active. The green-masked devil would hardly be waiting here to intercept him—for he would suppose that the man he knew as Elisha Pond was still a prisoner.
Tense and alert, the Agent ascended the steps of a big old-fashioned house. At his ring an elderly servant opened the door. With a brief nod to the man, Agent “X” entered and walked directly to a room on the third floor. The room was furnished, but there was no one in it. Agent “X” closed and locked the door.
HE strode to an old-fashioned desk against one wall, seated himself in a chair before it. He knocked on the desk four times, a space, then four times more, as the telegram had instructed him. Then he waited.
As though ghostly fingers were moving it, a small drawer in the desk was pushed out toward him. From a hollow space behind the drawer a voice issued. It was the same deep voice that had spoken to “X” on the telephone.
“The countersign?”
“The thirteen original States,” answered “X.”
The drawer moved back, its front coming flush with the edge of the desk. There was a second of silence, a slight rustling sound, then the drawer moved into sight again.
It contained a piece of paper this time. On the paper a strange, disordered arrangement of numbers and figures were written. They belonged to no known Government code or cipher. They had been devised to fill a unique and special need.
“Read,” said the voice behind the desk.
Agent “X” took the paper from the drawer, studied it an instant, and spoke in a clear voice: “He is trampling out the vintage—”
With a pencil he wrote beneath this sentence, using the same strange symbols, “where the grapes of wrath are stored.” This line from the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was the oral and written test the deep-voiced man had mentioned.
Agent “X” pushed the paper back into the drawer and the drawer disappeared. There was another moment of silence and the voice behind the desk spoke again: “Correct!”
“I am listening,” said Agent “X.” He had given proper identification. He was in communication with a trusted Government official, one of the few persons in the world who knew the real nature of his desperate and dangerous work.
The deep voice began to utter short, swift sentences.
“Two men have been killed tonight. Saunders was not the only one. The first was a Captain Nelson of General Staff, a man bearing important papers—the loss of which form a terrible threat to the safety of this country.”
At mention of the officer’s name, Agent “X” tensed, and asked a sudden question.
“Was it John Bernard Nelson?”
“The same—you knew him?”
“Yes.”
A shadow came into Agent “X’s” eyes. He had known Nelson back in the days when the world was bathed in the red carnage of war. He had known him as a high-spirited officer, brave, honest and loyal. And “X,” who never forgot a face, saw the features of Captain Nelson in his mind’s eye now. It added a personal touch to the mystery and horror of what had occurred tonight. Was this man another victim of Green Mask?
“How was he killed?” asked “X” harshly.
“By a blow on the head.”
The voice of “K9” began to give details then, details of the Browning ray mechanism, and the theft of the plans. When he had finished, “X” asked an abrupt question.
“Who are the suspects?”
A pause followed this query. The man who spoke through the drawer seemed to be thinking, pondering.
“It is a delicate matter,” he said at last. “That is why you were summoned, Agent ‘X.’ It is a matter that cannot be handled in the regular way. Five senators were in that room. Until this thing is settled, until the stolen plans are recovered, suspicion rests upon them all.”
“Their names?” asked Agent “X” quickly.
“Blackwell, Dashman, Foulette, Cobb, and Rathborne.”
“What line of investigation do you recommend?”
Again the voice was silent for a second. The answer it gave was tentative, reluctant.
“Senator Dashman was a friend of Captain Nelson’s. It was he who was influential in getting Nelson appointed to General Staff. He of the five would have been most likely to know in advance any movements the captain might make.”
“Anything else?” asked the Agent.
“One more thing! Captain Nelson has been seen in the company of a woman named Lili Damora. Inve
stigate her, also.”
“I will,” said “X” quietly.
HE was beginning now to understand the importance of his summons to Washington. He was beginning to realize the extreme difficulty of this task that had been wished on him. The deep voice of the man behind the desk came again, quivering with suppressed emotion.
“You now have the facts, Agent ‘X.’ The rest is up to you. Terrible as the death of Saunders was, your task is greater than the mere pursuit of a murderer—a thousand times greater. It may be too late. Doctor Browning’s secret may already have left the country. In any event, menace hangs over America. If these plans fall into the hands of an enemy country—if war should come with that country—then untold horror will befall your fellow citizens. Do all you can to recover them. Leave no stone unturned. Stand ready to give your life, if necessary. That is all, Agent ‘X.’”
The voice ceased speaking. The drawer closed slowly. Trembling slightly, Agent “X” arose. It was not fear of death that made him tremble. Death he had faced often—on the flaming battlefields of France, in strange, dark alleys of the underworld, high in the air, deep in the sea. Years ago doctors had predicted that death would come from the wound in his side where he now bore a livid scar. The only fear that influenced him was the fear of possible failure—the fear that he was too late.
He descended the stairs of the house, left it as he had come. He strode off resolutely into the night. Down the block he signaled a cab. He gave the junction of two streets as his destination. There he changed to another cab. He did this twice more, keeping a cautious watch behind, taking precautions against the possibility of pursuit. The man in the green mask was constantly in his mind.
AT an address in a street of furnished apartments Agent “X” stopped at last. He took a key from his ring, entered the door boldly, went to an apartment on the second floor. Here was proof of the far-sighted policy he pursued in his strange warfare on crime.
The apartment was small but completely and comfortably equipped. Dust on the floor and furniture showed that it hadn’t been occupied for months. The Agent went to a closet, drew forth a wardrobe trunk. In it, packed closely and carefully, were dozens of suits and uniforms. It might have been the wardrobe of some master character actor.
He drew from it a trim army uniform. It had a captain’s insignia on the shoulders. The silver star and gold coat of arms of the General Staff were on the collar. In the pocket of the uniform were papers denoting the fact that its wearer was Captain Stewart Black. They were in good order and would pass inspection anywhere. As an army officer of General Staff, “X’s” movements were less liable to be questioned.
Before putting the uniform on, he opened the false bottom of his suitcase again. From it he took a small, collapsible, three-sided mirror, then an array of pigments, transparent tissues, and volatile plastic substances. Here was all the paraphernalia of a man who was a master of disguise.
He made sure the door was locked, set his mirror up. Then his long, powerful fingers went to work. He removed the disguise he had worn upon his arrival in Washington. For a moment, under an overhead light, his real face was revealed—the face that not even his few intimates ever saw. It was a singularly youthful face except when the light fell on it at an oblique angle. Then new planes were brought out. They showed marks of maturity and strength, with lines that were faint but recognizable records of countless strange experiences and adventures.
On these features that were really his own, he began building up a new face. The pigments came first, changing the color of his skin. Then strips of tissue-thin adhesive, creating new muscular contours. Then the mysterious volatile substance that dried almost instantly. The substance so flexible that it responded to every facial movement. He had the rugged, blunt features of a hard-bitten army officer now. Once again Agent “X” had wrought a masterly disguise.
In his natty uniform he seemed to have stepped straight from the General Staff offices, or from some drill ground. But even the uniform was not as simple as it looked. It contained secret, hidden pockets. Into these Agent “X” transferred certain small things that he carried in his other suit. There was even material for a quick change of disguise, if that became necessary.
Leaving his apartment quickly, he summoned another cab and gave the address of Senator Dashman’s home.
Rain still spattered on the pavement. Lightning flashed on the horizon. The storm that refused to leave the vicinity of the city seemed an expression of the menace that hung over the nation’s capital.
The cab sped along wet, glistening streets, came at last to a big house in a fashionable suburb—a house that expressed the dignity of a man who was one of the country’s lawmakers.
Agent “X” strode up the steps and pressed the bell. He had begun his campaign of action. He had a pretext for his visit to Senator Dashman carefully thought out. His inquiries about Captain Nelson would seem natural and in order. But it was seconds before his signal at the bell was answered.
Then a scared-faced, trembling servant came to the door. He was a colored man with features that showed the dusty grayness of fear. He stood on the threshold, making ineffectual motions for “X” to enter.
“X’s” muscles grew rigid. He sensed in that first instant that something was wrong.
In quick strides he brushed past the servant, entering the carpeted front hall. A group of white-faced people were crowding close to a doorway across the hall. They turned as Agent “X” came toward them. He grasped the arm of a young man.
“What is it?” he barked. “What’s the matter?”
The young man’s voice rose hoarsely. He raised a trembling hand and pointed through the doorway.
“There has been a robbery—and—look!”
Agent “X” followed the direction of the man’s shaking finger. An older man was seated at a desk in the room beyond, a man whose face “X” had seen in the papers many times. A man whose photograph he had in his possession, as he had the photos of all important Government officials. Senator Robert Dashman.
In that first swift glance Agent “X” saw why these men and women in the hallway were crowding close with a look of fear in their eyes. For Senator Dashman was toppled sidewise in his big armchair. His eyes were wide-open, glassy. His skin had the leaden hue of putty, and from his distended nostrils and open mouth came the hoarse sound of stertorous breathing. Senator Dashman was paralyzed—a horrible living corpse.
Chapter V
Whispering Doom
AGENT “X” stood stunned for a moment. There was a ghastly suggestion in Dashman’s stricken state. Was this the work of the terrible Browning ray? Doubt came instantly. How could it be, since only the plans of the ray mechanism had been stolen?
Agent “X” pressed forward into the room where the senator sat. A white-faced, trembling girl whose features showed a family resemblance hovered by his chair. “X” looked at the girl and said quickly, “A doctor should be called at once.”
The girl nodded. “One is on the way. He will be here any moment. And you—”
“Captain Stewart Black,” said the Agent. “I came here to question your father about—”
He paused and turned to stare at the group in the doorway. ln the first moment of excitement he had made no close inspection of those in the house. Now he stood rigidly transfixed, his face muscles stiffening.
A blond, powerfully built man was in the group. There were three others—two young women, one of whom he knew by sight, and the dark-haired young man whom “X” had first questioned. But the blond man was the focal point of interest.
The man’s face, too, was familiar to “X.” There had been a change, a drastic one. Plastic surgery had evidently been used. The chin and nose were different. But to “X,” who had made a life study of facial lines and planes, even the magic of the surgeon’s scalpel was not sufficient to conceal true identity. He had seen this man before.
Names, faces, dates flashed through his brain. The years unrolled like t
he faded page of a parchment strip. He found the name he sought.
Karl Hummel—Prussian spy! The brain of Agent “X” raced with excitement. He was gazing at a man who had played his part in the World War with ruthless cunning, the cunning of a person who believes the end justifies the means.
The Agent’s manner grew studied, calm. He turned back to the young woman again, the girl he guessed was Senator Dashman’s daughter. He started to ask a question, stopped. The front door was opening. Three men were entering the house.
“Doctor Stoll!” cried the girl. “Hurry! Something terrible has happened to dad! The house was robbed a little while ago—and now—”
A sob choked off the girl’s speech. She pointed to her father.
The foremost of the three men strode forward, a physician’s case in his hand, deep concern on his face. The Agent’s glance wandered past him, rested on the second man.
This man was thin, sharp featured, with eyes that showed penetrating intelligence. A small, carefully clipped mustache darkened his upper lip. His features were familiar to one who knew the city and its environs as Agent “X” did. Inspector Clyde of the Washington municipal police!
While Doctor Stoll began his examination of the senator, Inspector Clyde spoke to the senator’s daughter in the abrupt manner of a man accustomed to authority.
“Your servant reports there has been a robbery, Miss Dashman. The city, as you may know, is experiencing a wave of robberies. I came myself when I heard your father had been injured. If you will please give me the details.”
But the girl shook her head and turned from him. The doctor’s coming had relieved her of the need of keeping her emotions in check. She gave way to sobs and another young woman in the group stepped forward. This was the girl whose face was familiar to “X”—a girl who was a college chum of the Agent’s closest and dearest friend. She touched Inspector Clyde’s arm as the Agent looked on.
Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated) Page 44