X STOOD up, frowning. There was one chance in a million that someone had tried to write the Chinese name, “Ho-Pin.” If this were true, his course was clear. Ho-Pin, X knew, operated a lottery fronted by a legitimate tea business. It was possible that Bates had been taken to Ho-Pin’s place. If such were the case, an elaborate change of make-up would be necessary before he could expect to gain entrance. Certainly, he could not go as the head keeper of Farington’s zoo.
His decision made, X hurried up the steps and left the shop the way he had come. He made the best possible speed to his car, opened the rumble seat, and took out a small, square suitcase. With this, he sprinted back to Karahmud’s shop. There he opened the suitcase, took out a conservatively tailored suit of Oxford gray, and a box of make-up material. He felt fairly secure in the shop, for he knew that the criminals, learning that X or his agents had spotted the place, had immediately deserted it and would be unlikely to return. Having changed to the dark suit, he set about working on his face. This required a few seconds of thought. Obviously, he would have to become a Chinese—preferably someone known to Ho-Pin.
Immediately the character of Wong Kee Lim suggested itself. Wong Kee Lim, he knew, had spent much of his father’s money in gambling and would therefore be apt to be welcome to the home of one of the biggest lotteries in town. His remarkable, photographic memory recalled every detail of Wong Kee Lim’s features, as he worked, counterfeiting the flat nose, slant eyes and weak mouth of his chosen character.
And as he worked, he talked to himself, practicing every inflection of Wong Kee Lim’s voice as he remembered it. Having smoothed a black toupee over his own hair, there remained only that tedious task of coloring his eyes. From his make-up kit, he selected the proper vial and dropper. Two drops. No more, in each eye and the strange dye darkened his irises so that they resembled those of a Chinese. This done, he hastily repacked his bag and left it in the secret room where Harvey Bates had met the two Chinese.
As he approached, Ho-Pin’s disreputable house, a small car pulled to a stop directly in front of the door. X’s lips opened in unspoken surprise. For the person getting out of the car was a young girl. Wisps of pale golden hair were visible beneath her smart hat, and X would have recognized that perfect little figure anywhere in the world. The girl was Betty Dale. She entered the door of Ho-Pin’s notorious gambling shop without the slightest hesitation.
X followed Betty closely and entering the same door found himself at the top of a short flight of steps leading down into the basement. The stairs ended in a small, low-ceilinged room. In front of a large curtained doorway was a shabby counter upon which a few dusty baskets of tea were displayed. Ho-Pin was perched on his stool in the corner, stroking his frayed brush of gray beard. His reptilian eyes passed appraisingly over the girl’s trim figure. Agent X, imitating the langorous steps of Wong Kee Lim, crossed the room and leaned idly against the wall. A cigarette dangled from his lax lips.
Ho-Pin took no more notice of X than if he had not been there at all. Evidently, X had chosen his disguise wisely. Betty, however, sent a troubled glance over her shoulder at this evilly handsome yellow man who had followed her in. She went over to the counter, fumbled with her purse.
“I want to cash this,” she said timidly, not knowing whether to address her request to Agent X or Ho-Pin. The old Chinese got from his stool as a serpent glides from a rock, and went behind the counter. He leaned familiarly over Betty Dale and leered into her face. “What you want, missy?”
“This coupon.” Betty held up a slip of paper covered with elaborate gold engraving. The Agent’s heart gave a bound. He had seen similar engraving on the stock certificate that had burst into flame the previous night in the apartment of Wong Fun. And he had seen the silver death’s head appear among the charred fragments. Had Betty invested some of her savings in stock, that meant certain death?
“Let me see.” Ho-Pin’s skeleton fingers touched Betty’s hand caressingly as he took the coupon. X saw Betty’s shoulders twitch with a shudder at the touch of the yellow hand. Once again her glance swept the room and lingered on the yellow mask that was X’s face. There was apprehension in her blue eyes now.
HO-PIN examined the coupon and smiled. “Monthly dividend at five percent,” he calculated aloud. “A principle of three thousand dollars. I pay missy one hundred fifty dollars. Is that right?”
Betty Dale did not reply. She could only stare at Ho-Pin’s cunning eyes.
“And this is the second dividend,” Ho-Pin said slowly, significantly.
Suddenly, all the languor drained from the Agent’s posing figure. He bounded across the room so swiftly that Betty turned, back to the counter, and uttered a frightened little cry. The long, yellow-painted fingers of Agent X shot out and closed over the coupon held in Ho-Pin’s hand. He snatched it away and seized Betty’s arm. “You’re getting out of here,” he whispered crisply, and in the only voice by which Betty Dale could recognize him.
“Stand where you are. Hands up, everybody!” A feminine voice, cold with determination sounded from the front door of the shop. X raised his eyes, saw framed in the doorway, the beautiful, auburn-haired Sandra Phelps. Her chin was firmly set and the automatic in her hand unshaking. She advanced slowly into the room. “Hands up, all of you!”
Agent X and Betty raised their hands above their heads. Sandra Phelps stepped past them, threatening Ho-Pin with her automatic. X could have disarmed her then, but he watched, waiting to see what her business was with Ho-Pin. There was a glint of fear in the eyes of the old Chinese. The thin hands, held aloft, were trembling. There was no doubting but that Sandra Phelps could and would shoot.
“Lady,” the Chinese whined, “what could you want of a poor old man like me.”
“I want to kill you,” Sandra Phelps said icily. “But you can buy your life.”
“But I have nothing!” whined Ho-Pin.
“You have the Book of Doom! Give me the Book of Doom.”
“I can’t. I—”
“Give me the Book of Doom!” Sandra Phelps repeated. Her forefinger was growing perceptibly whiter as it tightened on the trigger of the automatic.
Ho-Pin bent slowly toward the counter. His hands groped in a drawer. The woman’s gun was a steel eye of death, watching his every move. Slowly, Ho-Pin withdrew a large, black-bound book.
“Treason!” The single, purring, whispered word hung for a moment in the stagnant air. Something with the gleam of light and the whistle of a spent arrow flashed from the curtained doorway. Ho-Pin stiffened. His evil, reptilian eyes became suddenly filmy. His right arm rose with jerking movements toward the back of his neck. He turned half around, his whole body withering. As he fell across his own dirty counter, crimson spurted around the blade of a knife buried deep in the back of his neck.
BETTY DALE screamed. The lights went out. Both of the Agent’s arms went about the girl. He lifted her bodily and sprang toward the steps. “Silence, Betty,” he whispered, using the voice of A.J. Martin. Taking the steps two at a time in spite of his burden, he kicked the door open with his foot. He leaped across the sidewalk to the curb, knocked the door of Betty’s car open and almost threw her beneath the steering-wheel. “Drive like the devil, Betty!” he said tensely. “What brought you here in the first place?”
She plugged at her starter. “I—I can’t tell you. Can you come with me?”
“I’ve work to do,” his eyes puzzled at Betty’s words. “See you soon as I can.”
Betty nodded. And with a rip of hastily meshed gears, she sent the car accelerating down the street.
X pivoted and re-entered the house of Ho-Pin. But for the fact that he had been compelled to consider Betty’s safety first, he might have put his hands on the murderer with the purring voice. A phantom voice out of the past. The voice of a supposedly dead woman—Felice Vincart, the Leopard Lady.
The Agent’s pen-light flicked about the low-ceilinged shop of Ho-Pin. The place appeared completely empty. Except for a hideous, bubbl
ing breathing, the room was as quiet as a tomb. There was no sign of the black book that Ho-Pin had lifted to the counter. X saw the withered body of the old Chinese on the floor. Ho-Pin was too far gone to ever regain consciousness. It was likely that the killer’s knife had been poisoned.
X crossed to the doorway and pushed aside the curtains. To his left, a long narrow passage extended downward. X hurried forward and switched off his light. Some sixth sense warned him that some one was directly ahead of him. Boards of the old wood floor creaked with every step that he took. Cautiously, he wormed his way forward, his hand on the butt of his gas pistol.
The darkness was like confining velvet. Even his breath seemed to come with difficulty. He stopped abruptly. Some one was in front of him. No, behind him. He turned around. Something cold and hard was thrust against the back of his neck. A beam of light was projected from behind him.
“You love her so very much, that your love invariably betrays you,” came the purring voice of the Leopard Lady. “Clever man!”
Agent X sprang forward and to one side, turning like an acrobat in midair. He jerked out his gas pistol. Then suddenly it happened.
As his feet struck the floor, the rotten boards splintered beneath his weight. With a crash that resounded throughout the long gallery, a section of the floor gave way. X was flying through abysmal blackness to feel a moment later, the shocking chill of black water that closed over his head. The gas gun dropped from X’s fingers. His arms beat the water, driving him quickly toward the surface. As his head broke water, the beam from the Leopard Lady’s flashlight cut down through the gloom. He saw that he was in some old cistern situated beneath the house of Ho-Pin.
The Leopard Lady’s purring voice whispered hollowly in his ears: “You will be quite safe there for a time, Agent X, though I assure you this was not included in my plans. We must really have this floor repaired. If it is any consolation to you, the dark-haired giant of a man you sent to watch Karahmud’s shop is also going to taste water. Have you never heard of the Chinese water torture? I promise you that your spy will tell us anything we want to know when we are through with him.”
Chapter V
THIRTY SHARES OF DEATH
“HOW is it that you shout down a well, my flower? Is your own voice so sweet to you?”
At the surface of the water where X kept himself afloat, X heard these rumbling words. Looking up through the opening in the floor. X saw broad, powerful shoulders, and a round head capped with a tarboosh silhouetted against the Leopard Lady’s light.
“Achmet!” exclaimed the Leopard Lady. “He’s down there, trapped, utterly helpless. Secret Agent X is down there!”
The man in the tarboosh peered cautiously into the cistern. “That stranger, Truth, has risen to your lovely lips,” he growled. “For I have only this minute left the real Wong Kee Lim. So our clever impostor enjoys swimming in the dark, eh?” Achmet’s huge shoulders shook with silent laughter. His hand went to his automatic.
“What are you going to do?” asked Felice Vincart. “Not shoot him! Shooting is much too easy a way out for Agent X.”
The man in the tarboosh laughed. “The cares of this humdrum world hang heavy upon your Achmet’s puny shoulders. Perhaps for one short evening I shall rest in peace—with Mr. X dead.” He raised the gun slowly, calling to X: “Do not ruffle the water, my friend. Why make death more difficult?” And without another word he fired—once, twice, thrice the gun thunder blasted into the hole in the floor. The black water swirled. The head of Agent X was gone. Bubbles rising to the surface of the water burst in red-flecked foam.
“You’ve killed him!” cried Felice Vincart.
Achmet did not put his gun away. Instead, he settled himself on the edge of the opening. “Hand me your light, my flower. I shall wait awhile and watch the water. When I see his dead body rise to the surface, I shall be satisfied. Tomorrow, perhaps, Achmet sleeps!” He sighed, grimly watched the water….
After a seemingly infinite space of time, Harvey Bates began to be conscious that he was a living thing in a world of substance rather than a floating corpse in a limitless void. Little by little he opened his eyes to stare at a dirty plastered ceiling and wonder what he was doing there. Then the ceiling was blotted out by a face that might have haunted a nightmare. A broad, brown face hideously pockmarked and with a slit of a mouth that seemed to belong to a Burmese idol.
Harvey Bates grunted, tried to sit up, couldn’t. His arms and legs were securely fastened to the top of a table. He turned his head. Besides the Burmese, there were three others in the large room—two white-faced toughs and a slender, well-dressed young Chinese with weak lips that dangled a cigarette.
“Is he coming around, Cecil?” asked the young Chinese of the pockmarked man.
“Yes, Wong Kee Lim. He seems fit to take nourishment, but we shall feed him only water!” He uttered a grating laugh that brought a chill draft playing over Bates’ body. He watched a small keen-edged knife slip from the brown man’s sleeve.
“Who do you suppose he is?” asked one of the white-faced toughs.
“That is one of the things he will tell us,” replied the pock-marked man. He rolled a steel support on wheels along the table until it was directly above Bates’ head. Hanging from the steel support was a large funnel to which was attached a rubber tube that passed through a broad leather strap.
“What’s the game, boys?” asked Bates with his usual crispness.
“Water polo!” laughed one of the toughs. “The object of the game is to destroy the organization of Secret Agent X. We believe you are a link in that organization. If you’ll tell us all you know, we’ll let you die in peace.”
“Never heard of Secret Agent X,” Bates grunted.
“Then let me explain our method of torture,” said the Burmese. “The tube is forced into your mouth—so.” And he suited the action to the words. Bates gagged, tried helplessly to resist. But in spite of his efforts, two inches of rubber hose was forced into his throat. “And the strap goes around your head,” went on the Burmese. “The funnel at the top is filled with water and can be replenished if necessary. I can remove a clamp from the tube and water under great pressure will be forced into your esophagus. It is much more than you can swallow. You’ll feel as though you were going to burst, but you won’t—not for a while, anyway. Delightful?”
Sweat beaded Bates’ brow at the thought. His square teeth ground together. So they would have him talk, would they. Let them try!
Something chilled as ice slid along his wrist. The ugly Burmese was bending far over Bates’ body, doing something to his hands. “You understand,” the pock-marked one was saying, “that you may indicate your willingness to speak simply by blinking your eyes five times.”
Something tickled Bates’ legs. It felt as though a rat was scampering over him. He rolled his eyes but could see nothing but the Burmese.
“Now, Wong Kee Lim, if you will manage the water line,” Cecil was saying. “And you, Spike, stand by with a bucket of water.”
The Chinese and one of the whites obeyed instructions. All crowded nearer the table, sadistic lights in their eyes. Bates groaned inwardly, “Get on with it!” his mind was saying.
“Start the water, Wong Kee Lim,” ordered the Burmese.
THERE was a sudden rush in the rubber tube. Bates keyed his nerves for the torment to come. Then suddenly, hell opened up within the room. Just as the water reached Bates’ mouth, the rubber tube was yanked aside. The column of water struck him full in the face—a chill, invigorating shock. Lean, powerful hands struck his sides, pushed, rolled him to the floor. Like a brown bombshell, the Burmese went into action. He picked up the entire torture device and flung it across the room where it flattened one of the toughs. Bates staggered to his feet, saw another one of the toughs go down beneath the Burmese’s flying fists. A man was coming toward Bates, a knife in his hand. Bates kicked out with his right foot, the toe of his shoe connecting with the man’s wrist. Then he closed in, wea
ving from side to side, landing blow after blow.
“This way, Bates!”
That voice—the voice Bates knew belonged to Secret Agent X—was coming from the thin lips of the Burmese. With a tremendous effort, Bates shook his man off and staggered across the room, following the fighting Burmese. Wong Kee Lim sprang like a cat, closing off the only door in the room, threatening Bates with an automatic.
Bates pulled up short. There was no way out. He saw the Chinese’s trigger finger tighten, heard the shot—but he felt no pain. For at the moment Wong Kee Lim had shot, the Burmese had flung himself forward. The slug from Wong Kee Lim’s gun thudded into the brown man’s body and brought him down to his knees.
A harsh oath ground out from beneath Bates’ teeth. He leaped over the form of the fallen Burmese—the man he knew to be Agent X—and his usually sober eyes were flaming with hate. He caught Wong Kee Lim’s right wrist in his hand and snapped the bones in one powerful wrench. The gun thudded to the floor.
Bates’ right fist smashed the center of the yellow face, blotting it out of his rage-muddled vision. He turned, made an effort to pick up Agent X who had sacrificed everything to save him from Wong Kee Lim’s shot. But Agent X was not there.
“This way, Bates!” Again came that well-known voice.
Bates blinked back mist, saw the pock-marked man directly in front of him and heading for the door. Two strides brought Bates to the Agent’s side. Through the door, X paused a moment to swing the panel shut. Then he seized Bates’ arm and hurried him along a dark hall.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6 Page 15