Farrell took a deep breath and went on. “It is true,” he said, “that the Prince Ar-Lassi was murdered in the same way as Michael Crome. At the time that the prince was killed, the princess here, narrowly escaped the same fate. But the murderers have not given up. For some reason they have seemed to feel that the entire family of Mehemet must be exterminated. The princess has felt constantly in danger for the last three years. She somehow knew that the doom that caught her former husband would sooner or later overtake her, and she feared for me as well.
“That is why she insisted that I wear this Egyptian ring. It is supposed to guard its wearer against death. I wanted her to keep it, but she became almost hysterical in her insistence, so I had to put it on.” He laughed in a sheepish sort of way. “It seems to have worked with Kyle today.”
He suddenly became serious again. “But—this doom that the princess feared has apparently caught up with her. Whether by accident or design, it was poor Michael Crome who suffered first.” He looked around at all of them. “I am telling you this, my friends, for your own information. It is strictly off the record. Publicity will not help us in combating these fiendish murderers.”
Farrell leaned against the desk, and lit a cigarette with a shaking hand.
Betty Dale had listened wide-eyed to his story. Now she impulsively went forward and put her arm around the princess’s waist. “My dear,” she said, softly. “If there is anything I can do for you—”
She was interrupted by the cool voice of the keen-eyed man. “May I ask you, sir, if you heard the news broadcast this evening?”
FARRELL seemed to have found some solace in his cigarette. He shook his head through a cloud of smoke. “I did not. What—”
“It mentioned,” the other told him, “that another convict had escaped from Riker Penitentiary a week before Killer Kyle. I wonder if you ever heard of him. His name is—Sam Slawson.”
Judge Farrell started. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve heard of him. I’m wondering—if he’ll be the next to make some sort of attempt against me. It seems as if some powerful influence has caused the release of these criminals so that they may commit murder. I trust that the police will be able to give sufficient protection, not only to myself, but to the other officials who have been placed in office by the recent election. Somehow, I have a feeling that they are all in danger.” The governor-elect stopped, looked squarely at the tall man. “I don’t recall you, sir. Are you one of the regular reporters?”
The tall man shook his head. “No, judge. My name is Anderson. I am the editor of the Northtown Examiner. Perhaps you will recall that the police commissioner phoned you for permission to include me in those to be granted an interview.” While he talked he extracted a card from his wallet, and handed it to Farrell.
The governor-elect glanced at the card, and nodded. “Yes, yes. I do recall it.” He turned to the others. “I regret, now, that the time is up. If you will all excuse me—”
They said good-by to him, and filed out, Mr. Anderson bringing up the rear.
The princess accompanied them to the outer door, and sped them on their way graciously. As Mr. Anderson, of the Northtown Examiner, stepped past her, he said, “I hope, madam, that you have not taken offense at anything I said.”
Her eyes held a provocative challenge as she replied, smiling faintly, “I will forgive you fully, Mr. Anderson—if we meet again.”
Her eyes were enigmatic as she watched him enter the elevator behind the others, watched the cage descend.
And in the inner room, Governor-elect Farrell was staring with dilated eyes at the card that had just been handed to him. For the printed name of Mr. Anderson was disappearing; the surface of the card turned black under his gaze, and upon it appeared a gleaming white “X.”
The detective on duty outside came in with the princess, and saw the look on the governor-elect’s face. He exclaimed, “What’s the trouble, judge?”
Farrell shouted, “Call the commissioner. Have extra men assigned here! That editor—was Secret Agent ‘X’!”
MEANWHILE, the elevator had reached the lobby, and the reporters hastened to telephones to flash their stories to waiting city rooms. Betty Dale felt her arm taken in a strong grip. Mr. Anderson said, “Will you come outside with me? I want to talk to you—about some one you know well.”
The voice was so strong, imperious, that Betty felt herself impelled to go out in the street with him. He led her around the corner, to a parked coupé. “Get in,” he said.
She drew back. “Why—”
His laugh held a hint of faint triumph. With the index finger of his right hand he described the letter “X” in the air.
Her face lighted. “You!” she exclaimed. “And I was promising myself I’d surely penetrate your next disguise!” She felt a surge of emotion that always came when she found herself in the presence of this man whose true face she had never seen, yet whom, she felt, she knew better than did anyone else in the world.
He smiled. “The day that you do penetrate my disguise,” he said, “I’ll know that I’m slipping. Then it will be time for me to give up all this, and think of—other things.”
She put an impulsive hand on his sleeve. “I hope,” she breathed, “that that day will come soon.”
A newsboy passed at that moment, calling an extra, and the momentary look of relaxation passed from the face of “Mr. Anderson.” Again there came into it that grim firmness, that purposefulness, that sometimes frightened Betty Dale. He bought a paper, helped her into the car, and spread the paper open. The headline was about Killer Kyle.
Betty read it over his shoulder. “Killer Kyle silent!” it said. “Refuses to reveal name of person who hired him to attack Governor-elect Farrell. Claims he has no personal grudge against governor-elect. Boasts that he will be free within twenty-four hours!”
Betty shuddered. “He must have powerful connections to feel so certain that he will escape.”
The Secret Agent nodded. “I am afraid there will be more killings in the next twenty-four hours.”
He scanned the rest of the story with somber eyes. It went on to say that extraordinary precautions had been taken to prevent Kyle’s escape. Members of the bomb squad, and the riot squad, had been drafted for duty. Machine guns were placed at strategic points around headquarters. The Secret Agent put down the paper, and looked at Betty in a queer way.
She suddenly thrilled under his eye. She knew that look. “You—you want me to do something for you?”
He nodded. “I want you to go down to headquarters, and look it over carefully. Make note of all the points at which the machine guns are placed. Note how the guards are distributed inside the building, and also get all the information you can about the precautions that are being taken. In addition, I would like to know in what part of the building Kyle is being held. Meet me with the information, in one hour, at the corner of Cherry and Grove—three blocks from headquarters.”
Betty said, “Why—why do you want all this?”
“Because,” Secret Agent “X” said coolly, “I am going to rescue Killer Kyle.”
Chapter IV
Killer’s Boast
DOWNTOWN that evening, headquarters bore the appearance of an armed camp. The police had drawn a living cordon of uniformed men around the area for two blocks in every direction.
The big building occupied a square block, and each of the four streets surrounding it was patrolled by radio cars and motorcycles with armored side-cars. The men in these cars were provided with riot guns. Posted in convenient windows in the houses opposite, were men from the bomb squad, the riot squad, the safe and loft squad, and from other departments. They were drafted for the emergency, and armed with sub-machine guns that could rake the streets at a moment’s notice.
These were no idle precautions. It was within the bounds of possibility that Killer Kyle’s old gang would try to effect a rescue by storming headquarters. He had once done the same for them when they were confined in the death house o
f a Middle West jail. The result had been a half dozen prison guards shot down and killed, and the escape of Kyle’s gang. If he had done it for them, it was natural to suppose that they would try the same means to free him.
Inside the headquarters building, plain-clothes men patrolled the corridors with guns openly hanging from holsters. No one was admitted without a pass from the highest authority. There was an air about all these men, of electric expectancy—an attitude of tense suspicion.
Two men with a sub-machine gun were placed in the rear of the ground floor corridor, commanding the staircase that led down to the basement. For it was down there that Killer Kyle was being held. He sat there, in a small room. There were a dozen officials present, but he was the only one seated. His wrists were handcuffed to the arms of the chair.
He was a big brute of a man, with wide shoulders and a deep chest. His muscles bulged under the wrinkled gray suit that he wore. He had a huge shock of black hair, a hooked nose, and close-set, beady, deadly eyes. His lips were thick, red, and they curled away now from stained teeth in a snarl of defiance.
There were present in the room, a representative from the district attorney’s office, several men from the homicide squad, including Lieutenant Fitzimmons. There were also present Sergeant Nevins of the headquarters detail, a warrant officer, and in charge of all, the lean, hard-faced Inspector John Burks.
Burks towered over Killer Kyle, feet spread wide, brow dewed with sweat, jaw jutting; a picture of bulldog tenacity. He shook a finger under Kyle’s nose, barked, “You better talk now, Kyle! It’ll be easier for you in the long run.” He bent low, his face close to the prisoner’s. “Give us the name of the man who hired you to attack the governor-elect, and maybe we can make it easier for you. If you don’t, you’ll have a hard road ahead of you.”
Kyle glared up at him, fairly spat, “You go to hell!”
Burks whirled away with an expression of disgust. He said to Lieutenant Fitzimmons, “I’d like to have him alone for a while. Too bad the commissioner’s so set against—”
Kyle broke into a taunting laugh. “I ain’t afraid o’ you, Burks. I can take it. Try it an’ see if I talk. An’ after I get out o’ here I’ll come back an’ even it up!”
BURKS swung back to him. “You crazy fool! The man who hired you is going to let you burn! Do you think he or anybody else could get you out of here? We’ll have a regiment around you, if necessary, till the day you burn. Your only chance is to talk—fast.”
Kyle grinned nastily. “A fat lot you know about it. I’ll be out of here in twenty-four hours!”
Burks suddenly rapped at him, “You’re the one that killed Michael Crome, too!”
Kyle said, “Nuts! I was in jail when he got bumped.”
“No, you weren’t, Kyle. You killed Crome. You got him out to that lonely beach on Staten Island. You tried to get him to tell you some secret by torturing him: you stuck a corkscrew into his body at spots where the tendons were located, and you twisted the tendons around till they snapped. But he didn’t talk—or else he lost consciousness before he could talk, because I don’t think any man could withstand that torture. So then you injected some poison into him that made him swell up and die. You did—you know you did!”
Kyle had grown pale during the recital. Even his brutal hulk had imagination enough to realize the fiendishness of the torture that had been inflicted on Crome. “God, no!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t do that to a guy. I’d shoot him, yes—a slug in the belly is bad enough. But that—not me!”
Burks bent close to him again. “All right, Kyle. Suppose you didn’t do it. I bet the man that hired you to attack the governor-elect is the same one that killed Crome. He wanted something that Crome or Mr. Farrell had or could tell him.”
Kyle let his eyes flicker, half closed them.
Burks saw that he had scored. He drove home his point. “All right. Suppose he does succeed in getting you out of here. It’s impossible. But suppose he does—what do you think’ll happen? You’ll get the same dose that Crome got! Do you think the man who hired you is going to leave you alive to maybe blackmail him for the rest of his life? Nix! You’ll get it in the neck. That’s where Crome got the injection of that devilish stuff that swelled him up.”
Burks stopped. He was breathless, sweating. “What do you say, Kyle? Do you talk? I’ll see that you get a break if you do. If you don’t, you lose anyway you look at it.”
Kyle appeared to waver. Apparently Burks had hit on the right note in stressing the ruthlessness of Kyle’s “boss.” But Kyle shook his head suddenly, growled, “Nix! You go to hell!” Then he started to laugh loudly, wildly. “You almost got me, that time, Burks. You’re foxy!”
The inspector was an old hand at this work. He glanced around at the others, winked at the D.A.’s man, and returned to the attack. “Wear ’em down,” was his motto.
He leveled a finger at Kyle, said, “Where’s this Sam Slawson that escaped from Riker a week before you did? Maybe he’s the one who killed Crome. Tell us where to find him.”
The prisoner leaned back in the chair, and showed his stained teeth in a grin. “I don’t know no Sam Slawson, inspector. And anyway, even if I did, you could still go to hell!”
Burks turned away, his face apoplectic.
Peters, the investigator from the district attorney’s office, a thin, precise little man, with a dapper mustache and a fishy eye, said, “Let me talk to him, inspector. I may have a new angle.”
He came and stood before the prisoner. “Look here, Kyle,” he said in his coldly incisive voice. “Let me analyze this for you. You are undoubtedly the tool of some political faction. We all know that there has been a bitter political fight. We here,” he looked around the room, “are all regular Conservative Party men, so I can speak plainly. We might as well admit that we would have lost the election and got thrown out of power in the state, if Boss Hanscom hadn’t had the inspiration to run Judge Farrell for governor. All right, Farrell runs and makes it in a landslide.
“But what happened? Lieutenant Governor Alvin Rice, who has been lieutenant governor for two terms, has been hoping like hell that he’d get the nomination. But he had to be sidetracked for a more popular man, and Hanscom ran him again in second place on the ticket. Now—” he spoke slowly, distinctly, directly at Kyle—“maybe it was some one who stood to gain by Farrell’s death that hired you. Am I right?”
Kyle wet his lips, stared back at Peters, and said, “You can go to hell, too, mister.”
Burks took Peters’ arm. “We’re wasting our time now,” he told the assistant district attorney. “We’ll leave him down here for a while, and when Commissioner Foster gets here maybe I can get permission to use more drastic methods on him. Let’s go now.” He said to Sergeant Nevins, “You, Nevins, detail two men to remain on guard here. You stay, too. I’ll hold you personally responsible for the prisoner.”
The officials filed out; Peters looked glum. “I’d like to get this all lined up so I can present it to the Grand Jury in the morning,” he said as they went out.
Burks clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Peters. We’ll have Kyle talking plenty before the morning.”
Kyle’s taunting laugh followed them out into the corridor. He called after them, “I’ll be out of here by tomorrow morning, Burks. I’ll lay you odds on it!”
Chapter V
Plans for Rescue
SHORTLY after Kyle’s last defiance of Inspector Burks, Betty Dale walked down the steps of headquarters with the air of a conspiratress. She started guiltily when Lieutenant Fitzimmons greeted her genially.
“How’s the colleen today?” he inquired. “Sure the department lost a swell little mascot when you took to reportin’!”
She forced a smile, said, “Hello, Dan. How’s the missus, and the little Fitz’s?”
The burly, red-faced lieutenant needed little more than that encouragement. He got into a lengthy story of the latest scrape that Dan, Junior had got into. It was with
difficulty that Betty finally broke away from him, and hurried down the three blocks toward Cherry and Grove.
While at headquarters she had received a phone call from the man she was going to meet, instructing her to try to get certain other information in addition to that he had requested before. She had only been partially successful.
But the thing that weighed on her most heavily was the seeming rashness, the danger of this plan Agent “X” had conceived. She found it difficult to understand his purpose in wishing to rescue Kyle. Yet she was sure of one thing—whatever that purpose was, there was nothing dishonorable about it. Fantastic, mysterious as it seemed, there must be some logical motive behind it.
She trusted, admired Agent “X” so much that her faith in him held no restrictions. She knew with appalling certainty, that she would do whatever he asked—no matter what. She loved him.
She walked more slowly now, tingling to the sweetness of the conscious realization that had come to her.
She passed the outer police lines, and approached the corner of Cherry and Grove. As she had expected, the coupé was there. The door opened, as she came up to it, and she entered.
She did not recognize the man who sat at the wheel, and looked at him with a momentary sense of bewilderment, until he spoke in the voice that he used for her alone—she had grown to recognize the peculiar inflections. Sometimes it was that voice only which reassured her that the man she was talking to was really Secret Agent “X.” Now he traced the sign of the “X” on the windshield with his finger, and she smiled.
“How do you do, Mr.—er—Anderson? You don’t look like yourself anymore.”
He smiled in response, and shook his head. “Anderson is gone—for good. Permit me to introduce myself. I am James L. Black.”
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 16