Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6

by G. T. Fleming-Roberts

  “Who are you, stranger, that you knock at the door of the Ming men?” Sung demanded in Cantonese. With one hand, he tilted a pierced brass lantern so that its jaundiced rays fell upon X’s yellow face.

  “You know not my face, honored Sung,” replied X, in the same language, “for the sun has not seen it, nor any moon but tonight’s. Go, I beg of you, to Lo Mong Yung. Say that he who is known to the Ming-men as Ho Ling wishes speech with him.”

  Sung regarded the Agent’s face for a moment. His stern features gave way to a slight expression of awe. He turned, opened a door, and entered swiftly.

  A moment later, Sung returned, holding the door aside for X to enter.

  Behind a glass-topped desk sat an old Chinaman. His wise, penetrating eyes were deep in a face that was like wrinkled parchment. His fingers, interlaced in front of him, were but fragile bits of bone and skin. Advancing to the desk, Agent X bowed low.

  “Accept my greetings, venerable father of all Mingmen, and humble apology for this, my intrusion upon your happy solitude. I have come—”

  Lo Mong Yung raised his hand in a mute demand for silence. X understood. In the stairway up which X had just passed, was the sound of heavy footsteps. The raucous voice of the law was insistently demanding entrance into the tong headquarters.

  “I tell you,” the voice shouted, “I saw a big Chink come running into this joint. That guy’s a murderer. I got to get him.”

  LO MONG YUNG looked at X with eloquent eyes. With his right hand, he motioned toward a door directly behind his desk. X nodded, sprang around the desk, opened the door and closed it behind him. Lo Mong Yung’s deep, penetrating eyes seemed to transfix the outer door. There was not the slightest trace of anxiety on his immobile face, but within his mind he tossed a strange problem pro and con.

  Here was a dangerous dilemma brought to the house of the tong by the Mingmen’s close relationship with the mysterious white man who had been welcomed among them. Loyalty to Agent X made it imperative that X’s hiding place should not be revealed. Yet Lo Mong Yung knew that all white men did not understand the Chinese as did Agent X. He knew that this slight service he had rendered the Agent might mean the incurring of the displeasure of the police who had long looked upon the Ming brotherhood as the most peaceable organization in Chinatown.

  He listened for several minutes to Sung’s guttural protestations and to the detective’s ranting. Then slowly he extended one fragile forefinger toward an electric button on his desk. A signal buzzed, and the front door opened. A stocky plain-clothes man pushed past the gigantic Sung and entered the office. In spite of Sung’s physical interference, the detective planted himself squarely in front of Lo Mong Yung’s desk.

  “You the kingpin, here?” he demanded insolently.

  “I have the honor to serve the Ming brotherhood as its president,” replied Lo Mong Yung in perfect English.

  “Well, a Chink neighbor of yours has been murdered, chewed alive, you might say. I saw a mighty suspicious character trot across the street and come in this joint. I’m looking for him.”

  Lo Mong Yung considered the matter for a moment. “I am afraid, if what you say is true about the death of my countryman, that you make a mistake in searching here. No Chinese, to my knowledge, have ever been addicted to that despicable practise of cannibalism.”

  The detective reddened, hid his discomfiture with bellowing: “This ain’t no time for joking. I’m going to search this dump if I have to tear down the walls.”

  “You have, of course, that necessary legal document known as a search warrant?” asked Lo Mong Yung gently.

  The detective doubled his right fist, shook it threateningly under Lo Mong Yung’s nose. “This’ll be my search warrant!”

  Lo Mong Yung saw Sung’s yellow fingers glide into the flowing’ sleeve of his green robe. The butt of his automatic gleamed dully in the dim light. Sung watched the venerable tong leader, waiting for his cue to draw his gun. But at that moment, the door behind Lo Mung Yung’s desk opened. A man stood there—a man whose face was gray with continual worry, whose outthrust jaw denoted indomitable courage.

  “What’s the trouble here?” he demanded crisply. “Since when does a member of my police force attempt to search the house of an innocent man without the necessary papers?”

  The detective’s jaw dropped. “Commissioner Foster!” he gasped.

  “Yes,” the man in the doorway bit off the affirmation. “And I shall recommend you for demotion if you persist in annoying this old man further. I have been here some time and I assure you that it would be my duty as police commissioner to look in to any suspicious characters that may have entered this building. You may go, and at once.”

  With a stammered apology, the plain-clothes man turned and left the room. When footsteps were heard clumping down the stairs, the man behind Lo Mong Yung’s desk smiled whimsically. When he spoke, his voice was no longer that of Commissioner Foster. It was that of Ho Ling, the Chinese who had entered the tong headquarters a few minutes before—it was but one of the thousand voices of Secret Agent X.

  “Truly, venerable father, the smile of good fortune has warmed this house today.” Agent X stepped from the doorway, lifting the legs of his trousers, as he did so, to reveal the Chinese slippers he had worn in his Chinese impersonation, slippers that Commissioner Foster would certainly never have worn. “And before there are any further interruptions, honorable Lo Mong Yung, I would drink once more at the fountain of your superior knowledge.”

  Lo Mong Yung waved the amazed Sung out of the room. Turning to X, he said: “You have only to ask, Man of Miracles, and I shall answer if it is at all within my limited power to do so.”

  AGENT X thrust his left hand into the sleeve of his smartly tailored coat which had been concealed by the Chinese garb he had previously worn. With a deft motion, he transferred something from his sleeve to Lo Mong Yung’s desk. It was the green china cat.

  Lo Mong Yung’s fingers closed over the figurine. For nearly a minute, he examined it from all angles. Then his frail, reedy voice sounded again. “This is not the work of the men of your country, nor of China. Yet it belongs to the East just as certainly as does the rising sun. I have seen similar craftsmanship in one place not far from here.”

  “And that place—”

  “A shop in this very street owned by that dog of many breeds who calls himself Karahmud,” replied Lo Mong Yung. “Him must you seek. I deeply regret that my limited knowledge cannot assist you further.”

  Having thanked Lo Mong Yung, X was about to take his leave when suddenly the door opened and Sung entered unbidden. “Master,” he began, “there is one without—”

  From the stairwell came a robust voice familiar to Agent X—the voice of Inspector John Burks: “Surround the place, boys! He looks like Commissioner Foster, but don’t let that fool you. Keegan, come along. We’ll go through this Chink joint like a typhoon.”

  Face beaming like a red moon, believing his old enemy to be already in his clutches, Inspector Burks entered the room to encounter the gigantic Sung. Detective Keegan elbowed himself in between Sung and Burks and stood there, looking fearlessly up into the Chinese guardian’s face. Burks stepped around to the desk of Lo Mong Yung.

  “Somebody’s put something over on you,” said Burks, treating the old Chinese with a good deal of respect. “That Commissioner Foster—well, he just wasn’t Foster. I just called headquarters and Foster was in his office. That guy was Agent X. He’s tricked you. With your permission, we’ll search this place for him. If you want to get nasty, why we could charge you with harboring a dangerous criminal.”

  Lo Mong Yung spread his hands and bowed his head slightly. “The Inspector surely knows that the Mingmen would do nothing to impede the progress of justice. Indeed, if the man I believed to be the Commissioner Foster is a clever criminal, you may search this humble domicile from foundation to roof.”

  “Thanks,” growled Burks. “Sorry this had to happen.”

  But I
nspector Burks might have saved his efforts. At the first sound of Burks’ voice, Agent X had slipped from the tong office and descended into the alley behind the building by means of the back steps. He had paused long enough to remove the Chinese slippers from his feet exchanging them for kangaroo leather oxfords with rubber soles which enabled them to be folded up and slipped into one of his secret pockets. His failure to change shoes when he had entered the tong office as Commissioner Foster was not an oversight. He had judged from the conversation between the Chinese and the detective that a moment’s delay would have meant that the guardian Sung would have drawn his automatic. Such an action would have put the Agent’s friends of the Ming Tong forever in the bad graces of the police.

  Having taken the gray-flecked toupee, which had been part of his disguise as Commissioner Foster, from his head, the Agent’s own brown, naturally curly hair was exposed to view. As he hurried along the alley, his skillful fingers worked miracles with the plastic make-up that composed his features, altering them so that when he was challenged a moment later by one of Burks’ men, one look was enough to convince the detective that he had caught the wrong man.

  TEN minutes later, X came to the door of the shop owned by the Karahmud Import Company. Though it was long after business hours, the shop was lighted and a taxi waited out in front. X went to the door, found it locked, and knocked loudly. A moment later, the door was opened by a tall man whose hair and skin were both the color of sand.

  “Mr. Karahmud?” Agent X inquired politely.

  “I? Karahmud?” The tall sandy man burst into a jovial laugh that showed three glittering teeth. “No, no, no. I’m afraid I’m not Karahmud. Gray is my name, Stuart Gray,” He announced his name as though it meant something.

  Agent X looked puzzled. “Gray?” he mused aloud. “Oh, yes, the art collector.”

  Stuart Gray’s eyes and teeth twinkled. “Afraid you’re wrong again, sir. Cosmetics and perfumes are my line. The Royal Stuart Brand, you know. Manufactured right here in New York. Beat the importers at their own game. You wanted to see Karahmud?”

  X nodded. “Police business.” Agent X flashed a badge pinned to the inside of his coat.

  Stuart Gray’s sandy eyebrows rose to meet sandy hair. “Oh, ho! So the old boy’s been getting himself in Dutch. Karahmud, an Egyptian getting himself in Dutch! That’s rather good.” And Stuart laughed loudly at his own joke. When he had subsided a little, he held the door open. “Come in Mr.—er—”

  “Swenson is the name.” And Agent X entered the shop. On shelves and in show cases was a gaudy conglomeration of curios and art pieces that might have originated in any place between Hong Kong and Port Said. And there was all about the room the heady odor of exotic perfumes.

  “That’s Scheherazade, Mr. Swenson,” explained Stuart Gray with a little note of pride in his voice. “Like it?”

  “What?” asked X.

  “That perfume. I knew you noticed it. We make it.” Gray thumbed his vest armhole. “Right here in New York. And big importers like Karahmud sell it because it’s better than the genuine. I’ve been waiting to see Karahmud for half an hour. Asked me to drop by for an order. Sells fast.” Stuart Gray leaned over a counter and tapped a Chinese gong of brass that swung on a teakwood support. The silvery note had hardly died away before a swarthy, pock-marked little man who resembled a Burmese fanatic in modern clothes put in his appearance.

  “Yes, effendi?” the pock-marked man inquired.

  “Hasn’t that master of yours come in yet, Cecil?” asked Stuart Gray. “I’ll swan, I’ve waited half an hour for him.” He consulting a thin, diamond-encrusted watch.

  “No, effendi. Any moment now.”

  “Can’t wait any moment, Cecil,” Gray cocked a Leghorn straw hat on the back of his head and started for the door. “Be back later.” His hand drove into his pocket and came out with a tiny, elaborately cut glass vial which he pressed into X’s hand. “Sample of Three-O’clock-in-the-Morning, Mr. Swenson.” He smiled, winked. “Give it to the sweetheart. Retails for twenty dollars an ounce. Happy to have met you.” And with another flash of gold teeth, Stuart Gray was gone.

  FOR half an hour, Agent X wandered around the shop, looking at a variety of Oriental merchandise. There were several small articles that looked like products of the same workmanship as the evil green china cat, but there was nothing exactly like it on any of the shelves. All the time he was wandering about the shop, X was conscious that Cecil’s eyes followed him. In spite of the pock-marked man’s name, X felt that he was being watched by the eyes of a Burmese cutthroat.

  A moment later, the Burmese tapped him on the shoulder. The Agent turned with unintentioned rapidity, so suspicious had he become of the pock-marked Cecil.

  “Effendi, the master is here.”

  In the door was a ponderous figure clad in evening attire that was conventional except for a flame-red sash about his middle. A thin, hawk nose cleaved a dark curling mustache that joined a thick close-clipped beard encircling his chin. Beetling brows overhung somnolent eyes. His dusky hands were clasped in front of him. His brilliant, white teeth flashed in a brief smile. “So humbly sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said in a ludicrous, piping falsetto.

  X walked to the counter nearest the bearded Karahmud. With a sudden motion, he produced the green china cat and placed it upright on the glass top of the counter. All the time, his keen, steely eyes watched Karahmud’s dusky face. The importer winced at the sudden appearance of the cat. Some strange oath whispered in his beard.

  “I have been told, Mr. Karahmud,” said X briskly, “that I can purchase a mate to this in your shop. Though it is after business hours, I wish you would show me what you have.”

  “Here, in this shop?” Karahmud’s brown hands came up in a helpless gesture. “But that is impossible, my good sir. That—” trembling fingers pointed at the cat—“is to be avoided like the plague. That is Pasht, the hybrid cat goddess, harbinger of disaster. I could never sell anything so—so evil—”

  A shrill scream of terror rang throughout the building. The Agent’s eyes flashed ceilingward then flitted across Karahmud’s dusky face. Without a word, he brushed the big Eurasian aside, sprang past him through a door, and saw steps leading upward. As he bounded up the steps, the cry came again—a shrill terror-driven cry for help. At the top of the steps, X burst through a door. The room appeared to be an office.

  Shrinking against a carved walnut desk, was a woman. Her lips were parted, screaming silently now. Her eyes, beneath an abundance of auburn hair, were wide with fright. And though terror distorted her every feature it could not mask the beauty of her face. One trembling hand pointed toward a curtained doorway. “Help me,” she whispered. “Take me out of here. The green eyes.”

  SECRET AGENT X sprang toward the curtained doorway. At that moment, a weird, soulless wail sounded through the night:

  “Kaw-a-a-oo-wee.”

  X stopped. The cry that had heralded death—the blood-lust killing of Wong Fun. Behind the curtains death—death for Agent X? He drew his powerful gas pistol with his right hand and parted the curtains with his left. Nothing happened. He took out his flashlight and beamed it into the hallway. It was empty. Frowning, X turned toward the auburn-haired beauty. Her lips were still parted, her eyes frightened. X held up his hand.

  “Don’t scream again, if you please. I don’t like it.”

  “But the eyes! Oh, I’m not lying. I’m not. Please—please take me away.”

  X’s eyes darted about the room. The one window was open and he noticed a tuft of gray woolen cloth caught on a nail on the sill. His eyes went back to the woman. Her skirt was smartly tailored from some gray wool fabric. He nodded his head.

  “All right, I’ll take you away.” He offered her his arm. She took it eagerly, clinging close to him as they walked down the gloomy steps. Beneath her breath came dry sobbing sounds. And as they gained the shop, she seemed to try to shrink behind X.

  But the shop was empty. The
room beyond, through which Karahmud had passed was empty. And on the counter, where X had left it, was no sign of the green china cat. But in losing one clue, X believed that he had encountered another—the beautiful auburn-haired woman. Certainly, she was no common thief, yet he was certain that she had stealthily entered the apartment above.

  “You are of the police?” the woman asked in an odd musical voice that X liked.

  “Perhaps,” he nodded vaguely. “Come along.” He took her arm and steered her to the front door. “We’ll get you to a safe place.”

  But on the steps of Karahmud’s shop stood the tall, sandy-haired Stuart Gray with his gilt-edged smile. “Oh, ho, Mr. Swenson. Karahmud come—” His eyes darted across the face of the frightened girl. “Well, I’ll swan!” he exploded. “Made an arrest already?”

  The Agent’s eyebrows raised. “Arrest? No. And our friend Karahmud has done a Houdini act.”

  “But that girl!” gasped Gray. “You know she looks mighty like a woman Karahmud was telling me about. Same hair and eyes. He caught her prowling around his place once—”

  “That’s not true!” the girl interrupted. “I’m Sandra Phelps.” Her arm jerked in the Agent’s grasp. Her light brown eyes flashed angrily. “If you try to arrest me, I’ll have you discharged from the force. Let me go.”

  The Agent’s grip tightened on her arm. “Come along sister.” He pulled her into the street. Stuart Gray bounded to the door of his waiting cab. “Be glad to give you a lift, Mr. Swenson. Always wanted to figure in an arrest.”

  Agent X lifted the struggling girl into the cab. His destination was quite another than Center Street, but he felt he could give some explanation to Gray later on. He proposed to get Miss Sandra Phelps to a place of safety where he could question her completely. Stuart Gray tapped the driver on the shoulder. The man shifted gears and the taxi accelerated down the street.