Shima spoke up. “The honorable police will be here quickly. They promised most faithfully to hurry.” His slanted eyes, bright with fear, were fixed intently on the Agent. “This I would say is very extraordinary person, sir. It is Shima’s humble opinion that he is Man of a Thousand Faces.”
Purcell gasped. “Agent X! By heavens, you may be right! I’ve heard of him. One of the most dangerous criminals in the country.”
Shima nodded. “Exceedingly wicked. Can assume any disguise like evil spirit. Wanted by police everywhere.”
A hush fell over the room. The air was charged with tension. All eyes were fixed on Agent X. Minutes dragged by. Down in the street a siren suddenly sounded. Purcell spoke with abrupt relief. “The police! Open the door for them, Shima.”
The Japanese backed away, hardly able to take his beady, fascinated eyes off Agent X. Inwardly, the Agent tensed. He had waited, hoping for some opportunity to make a break for freedom. None had come. Now it was apparent that he must make one quickly. The police, aroused by the wave of crime in the city, would shoot first and question afterwards. They would be here any moment.
Risking quick death X made a lightning play. His heels rested hard against the floor. He still held the glass of brandy. He pushed down and forward with his feet, shoving the chair straight backward. At the same instant he flung the liquor with a sweeping motion in the faces of the two men. The stream only touched Purcell, but caught Reiss full in the eyes.
Reiss gasped and fired. Bullets tore into the carpet at the spot where Agent X had been. Purcell fired. But X had tumbled over in the chair. As the chair struck, he twisted desperately. Purcell changed the angle of his automatic, shooting straight at the chair. Bullets slapped against it. Purcell, swearing, again swung his gun muzzle to change his aim.
But X had grasped the edge of the rug on which Purcell stood. He gave it a violent yank at the moment that Purcell pumped the trigger. Death missed the Agent by bare fractions of inches. Purcell flailed his left arm wildly, trying to keep his balance. He lost it, toppled and fell.
Instantly the Agent was upon him. He pinned Purcell down, crashed a fist into his body and disarmed him. Reiss had wiped the brandy from his eyes. He leaped forward to bring his gun muzzle thudding on the Agent’s skull. X saw him from the corner of his eye and kicked out viciously, making Reiss stagger back. But a shrieking, hissing cyclone of human energy leaped across the room. Shima flung himself on the Secret Agent’s back, twined yellow fingers around his neck. The Jap had dropped his gun. In his desperate excitement he was resorting to primitive methods of battle.
Purcell was disarmed, almost senseless, but Reiss was still in the fight and the yellow man’s attack had been unexpected. The Agent fought with the quick-witted courage that had carried him through a hundred frays. He fought with the knowledge that this time his fate hung in the balance. For Shima’s fingers had the muscular wiriness of his race. Shima was ready to kill to protect his master.
X DID the one thing possible. There was no time for nicety of action. He toppled backwards on the yellow man, plunging with all his weight to crush the steeliness out of those strangling fingers. Shima gave a gasp and his hands relaxed. In that split second the Agent twisted and shook him off as a terrier might a rat.
Reiss was running toward him, raising his gun to fire. X ducked as a bullet whined past him. Cordite fumes plumed in his very nostrils. He closed in viciously, locking arms around Reiss’ body. The next instant he stiffened, for there had come a sound of trampling in the hall outside.
He swiveled his head, caught sight of blue uniforms and visored caps charging through the door. The grim faces of cops showed underneath the visors. There were two of them, occupants of the fast radio cruiser that had drawn up below. In their fingers police positives gleamed.
“This is the man!” screamed Reiss. “Help me. He’s killing—”
X cut the words off with a savage short-arm punch that the police didn’t see. As Reiss swayed away from it, X pointed to Shima with his other hand. “That Jap,” he shouted. “He’s trying to murder us!”
The cops stood confused a moment. They had come in answer to a telephoned message that a desperate criminal was in Purcell’s apartment being held prisoner. But Purcell, Monkford and Reiss had become familiar to the police since the arson outrages had started. They didn’t know whom to arrest. The Jap looked as likely as any. They started toward him.
“No!” screamed Reiss, getting back his breath. “It’s this man who’s posing as Monkford.” The police stopped again. Their uncertainty gave X his chance. He ran straight toward them in long flying leaps. He struck right and left with hammering fists, knocking them both to their knees. He reached the door and slammed it behind him plunging quickly along the apartment hall.
The elevator that had brought the two cops up was still at the landing. Its uniformed operator was waiting, glued to the spot with curiosity, anxious to know what the trouble was.
“Mr. Monkford!” he gasped. “What—what’s all the shooting?”
“Down!” said the Agent. “We’ve got to get more help!”
The boy jabbed his controls and the car shot downward. It reached the bottom floor, the grille clicked open and X plunged out. A man in an immaculate frock coat came running up, ringing his white hands distractedly. “Mr. Monkford!” he said. “I don’t understand any of it. Some one just telephoned down from Mr. Purcell’s apartment and said to hold you. You’ll excuse me, I hope.”
“Certainly!” The Agent’s arm flashed out. His open hand caught the frock-coated man in the chest, pushed him back forcibly into a potted palm. The palm toppled off its pedestal with a crash of crockery, and the apartment manager sprawled on top of it screaming. X bolted for the door.
Other police cruisers were moaning down the block. Those in them did not see the darting, running figure of the Agent as he raced along the face of the building, slipping into a tradesmen’s alley. He ran to the end of it, climbed a fence, and was soon lost in the shadowy courtyard beyond.
There, crouching in darkness, he changed his disguise quickly. There was no time for careful work. His long fingers moved with seeming magic over his features, remodeling them to one of the stock impersonations he sometimes wore. This was necessary. There would be a police broadcast out for the man who looked like Monkford. Every cop on the beat, every detective would be watching for him.
In his new role, sure that he wouldn’t be recognized, he chartered a cab, raced back to the vicinity of his hideout where he had left Monkford. He walked the rest of the way on foot, entered the shuttered house with a special key, came to a pause in the mysterious room whose silence was disturbed only by the breathing of the two sleeping men.
THE AGENT worked quickly, putting Monkford’s clothes back on him, returning everything that had been in the pockets. Then he took the two unconscious men back to Monkford’s car. He laid them on the floor of the rear compartment, spread a dark robe over them. But, before he drove the car out, he put on another set of plates, one of several he had made himself for just such occasions.
If he had left Monkford’s own on he would have run the risk of being waylaid in the first few blocks. Sharp-eyed police, with machinelike memories for license numbers, would be on the lookout for Monkford’s car.
Even with the new faked plates the Agent drove swiftly, carefully. He was glad when he finally felt free to abandon Monkford’s car on a side street far from his hideout. Both men would regain consciousness in about an hour, and could then tell whatever story they chose to the police.
The Agent paused in a dark doorway and his fingers went again to the tiny radio instrument at his belt. He engaged the cord of the receiver, tapped out the secret signals that would be heard by Bates. Almost immediately an answering series of dots and dashes buzzed in the receiver. The Agent’s fingers pressed the button key again. “Waiting for report!”
“No trace of Boss Santos. Scouring entire city. Santos dropped out of sight three months bac
k. His racket men not seen recently in underworld haunts. Police also stumped.”
The Agent tapped a reply. “Get in touch with operatives in all key cities. Check up on jails and prisons. Don’t stop till light is thrown on Santos’ disappearance and whereabouts of mob. What of Herron?”
“He seems frightened. Has hired private detectives to guard home. One of our operatives has taken room across street. He’s being shadowed.”
“Good!” tapped X. “Have further plan of action. Arson ring can be expected to threaten other big insurance companies. Immediate installation of midget automatic dictographs in offices of all executives necessary. Meet man named Sculley carrying tan suitcase at corner of Jay and Crosby Streets in half an hour. He will provide equipment.”
The Agent changed his radio to Jim Hobart’s wave length. The redheaded operative who worked for the man he knew only as A.J. Martin corroborated Bates’ report on Herron and Santos. To him X issued a different order.
“Executive heads of Great Eastern Insurance Company, Purcell, Reiss and Monkford, fear possible attack from members of arson ring. Have homes of each carefully shadowed. Report trouble instantly. Police may be watching. Proceed with extreme caution.”
X left his temporary station and strode grimly off into the darkness. He himself would play the role of “Sculley” and distribute midget dictographs to Harvey Bates and his operatives. He would then be in a position to learn any extortion threats the arson ring might send.
EIGHTEEN HOURS later Agent X paced the floor of a secret hideout. The light of battle shone brightly in his eyes. A sardonic, humorless smile twitched the corners of his mouth. The day’s papers were spread out on a table beside him. Their front pages were taken up with the arson menace and the details of the shocking murders. The headlines of several read:
MAN OF MYSTERY, SECRET AGENT X, BEHIND THREAT TO CITY
The story of his attack on the two policemen in Purcell’s apartment followed. Shima’s suspicion that the man posing as Monkford was Agent X had been corroborated by the words of Monkford himself. The president of Great Eastern Insurance told how he and his chauffeur had been kidnaped.
They remembered nothing of what had taken place during the time they had been unconscious. They didn’t know where they had been taken. But it was obvious that a master of disguise had impersonated Monkford. That man, the police believed, could only be one person—Secret Agent X.
At this moment, eagle-eyed detectives were combing the city for him. Anyone suspected of being X was in danger of being shot on sight. Dozens of suspects were being rounded up and taken to headquarters.
But the danger of police capture wasn’t what excited X. He had faced that danger many times before. It was part of his daily life. What made him nervous was the knowledge that he would soon learn whether the arson ring had made any threats during the past eight hours.
The dictographs had been successfully distributed in the darkest, bleakest period of the early morning. Time had elapsed. It was after five o’clock. The offices of the big insurance companies must be almost emptied of employees and officials. In a short time now Bates and his operatives with their special skeleton pass keys would collect the tiny cylinder records that the automatic dictographs contained. In a short time Secret Agent X would know.
At five thirty his radio buzzed into life like a vibrant-winged insect. The dots and dashes formed the letters of Bates’ secret call. There was quickness, excitement in their hasty repetition. X stopped in his restless pacings, gave the signal that he was listening.
The message tapped out by Bates’ impatient finger came so swiftly that only a man, trained like X in government radiography, could have understood it. Dots and dashes seemed to tumble over themselves.
“Norton King, head of Universal Insurance Company, contacted by arson ring this afternoon. Under threat of ten properties being destroyed, aggregating four million dollars in policies, has agreed to pay over two hundred thousand in cash for immunity. King will charter plane and pilot at City Airport, then fly due west at eight this evening with cash in suitcase. No other instructions. Plane equipped with radio may receive second message in air.”
The Agent clenched his fist as Bates stopped calling. He had expected something like this—a foolproof method of delivering the extortion money when the arson ring contacted a victim sufficiently scared to yield.
The Agent gave Bates swift instructions not to attempt to shadow King. He had obtained the information he desired. The rest was up to him.
Chapter VII
SKY MENACE
NORTON KING stirred in his bed chamber with the quick, jerky strides of a person gripped by fear. He was a big man, big in stature, big in fortune, big in the influence he wielded as chairman of the board of Universal Insurance. But for all his power and prestige he couldn’t hold terror entirely at bay.
Moisture flecked the skin of his smoothly ruddy face. His hands were trembling. His full lips were unnaturally bloodless. He was forcing himself to go through with the plan he had agreed to secretly that afternoon. He was about to pay the arson ring two hundred thousand dollars.
King was a business man, practical, hard-headed, facing life with a grim sort of realism that bred quick decisions. He’d read all details of the incendiary fires. He knew these criminals, whoever they were, weren’t bluffing. They were ready to destroy property, ready to commit murder to gain their ends. The police seemed no match for them.
Even before the arson ring had called him up, King had made his decision. If immunity could be bought he would buy it, however big the price. A two-hundred-thousand-dollar payment was better than having millions in property go up in smoke. The good name of his company with it.
He had taken no one into his confidence, not even the police. The criminals had stressed the folly of police protection. He had therefore made his arrangements quietly. To the bank, which had agreed to supply cash on the strength of company securities, he had merely explained that he needed the money for an unusual advertising campaign in the middle west. He’d made the same explanation to his family when he had chartered the private plane.
No one guessed his plans, but King, alone in his room, was battling terror. He sensed the hideous danger of any contact with such a criminal group. He did not know yet exactly how the money was to be turned over. Perhaps his life would be forfeited along with it.
He dressed with particular care, putting on a tweed traveling suit, trying to steady his jumping nerves with small routine activities. He paused at the door of his closet, frowning over which pair of low tan shoes he would wear—as though it mattered.
He did not notice the faint, stealthy sound on the lawn below his window. Thick vines grew up the side of his old family house. They had been rustling in the wind all evening. He bent over the problem of his shoes.
Outside in the darkness, a huge shadow, black and agile as a spider, dexterously mounted toward him. The shadow was a man in a warm but loose-hanging coat. A man with powerful muscles rippling and tightening like cords across his shoulders. A man with a flashing, penetrating gaze. Secret Agent X.
The Agent had been waiting in the chill darkness for twenty minutes. Before that he had taken a stealthy tour of the entire lawn. He had familiarized himself with King’s mansion-like house. He had laid his perilous plans carefully.
The strong wisteria vines held his weight. He reached King’s window in a moment. One glance through the crack under the shade told him, as he had figured, that this was the right room.
Holding himself firmly with braced feet, he drew a small fountain pen from his top coat pocket. He twisted the point, held it easily, and appeared to write around the edge of the big pane close to the frame. Behind the sliding pen point a faint vapor rose and a white line formed. It bit deep into the glass. The pen was filled with an acid, corrosive on silica, such as glass engravers use.
He let the stuff smoke a minute while he carefully repocketed his pen. By that time the acid had eaten almost through
the pane. The Agent drew out his thimble suction cap and pressed it delicately against the glass. He pushed the pane inward with a quick thrust, holding the thimble so it wouldn’t drop, and swung a leg dexterously over the sill. He was in the room, standing upright before the window when King turned in horror. The Agent silenced him with a commanding gesture of his quickly drawn gun.
The insurance man’s eyes bulged. X had appeared as swiftly, as miraculously as some apparition out of the night itself. X spoke softly, with a steely, compelling note in his low-pitched voice.
“Don’t move, King. I’m going to save you the trouble of meeting the criminals tonight. I’m going to save you from possible death.”
Before King could answer, the spurt of vapor from the Agent’s gas gun sent him staggering to his knees. From that position he swayed and toppled silently to the floor.
Though the air was heavy, X did not wait for the fumes to clear. There wasn’t a moment to be lost. He worked with a giddiness in his head while the anesthetizing vapor of his own weapon drifted slowly out the severed pane.
He locked the door, made up his face as King’s, kneeling by the closet, with a small mirror propped on a chair. Not till he’d slipped on a thin toupee the same shade as King’s and duplicated the insurance man’s features did he think about King’s clothes.
KING’S frame was slightly bigger than his own. The clothes were slightly larger. He put them over the suit and trousers he was wearing, and the garments beneath took up the slack. He appeared to be Norton King in the flesh as he straightened.
His face was tense. Any moment there might be an interruption. He was working against desperate odds being so close to King’s family. He quickly put on an overcoat, selected a hat, and lifted King’s inert body through the closet door. He made the man comfortable with pillows. Then he closed the door and locked it, keeping the key.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6 Page 25