He drove out into the street, turned the powerful coupé’s nose toward Morningside Square. He knew the locality. It was one of the exclusive residential sections of the wealthy. This might help him in his plan. Few people would recognize Santos there.
It was past noon when he reached the square. He circled it, braked slowly before the huge, ornate apartment house numbered nineteen. Suddenly he stopped. For a limousine with a uniformed chauffeur was standing at the curb, and a woman with a dazzlingly made-up face was stepping toward it under the wide marquee.
Her features were a mask of synthetic beauty, giving no indications of her age. But the Agent, past master at analyzing facial contours, saw the hard planes that cosmetics couldn’t conceal. He saw more—mascaraed eyes that held guile and ruthless cunning. He knew he was looking at Blossom O’Shean.
She got into the car with swaggering grace. A fawning vestibule attendant closed the door behind her and the limousine drove away. The Secret Agent followed. He had no definite plan, but he wanted to meet her. Her appearance, her changed name, her way of living, bespoke sudden riches. How had she got them, and how would she respond to him as Santos? The answer to these questions might hold the secret of many others. Time was too precious for painstaking investigation. He must strike quickly, boldly, even at tremendous risk.
The limousine went only a few blocks and stopped before a fashionable tearoom. Blossom O’Shean got out. With swaying furs and swaggering hips she entered the building with the air of a queen.
Stifling the trip-hammer beating of his heart, the Agent followed. He marched into the eating place with the greatest composure, said to the headwaiter who bobbed in front of him: “I’m a friend of Madam Colemont’s and would like to join her.” He was taken to her table through aisles of well-dressed people.
She was already seated, fortunately alone. When her face lifted and her eyes fell on Agent X she seemed to freeze. Her skin, beneath her cosmetics, visibly paled. Her bosom swelled with a sudden gasping breath.
The Agent smilingly sat down in the chair that the headwaiter drew out and waved the man away. He leaned across the table, gazing at Blossom O’Shean, and said, “Take it easy. Don’t look so surprised.”
“Jeez!” she said huskily. “When did you get back, Boss? Why didn’t you call me? You—you must have gone off your nut to come in here!”
“Ain’t you glad to see me, honey?” the Agent purred.
“Sure, you know I am! But—when I first lamped you I thought it was a ghost! What made you scram like that—and why did you stop writing? Where you been?”
HER questions were pitfalls that the Agent avoided dexterously, feeling his way.
“Never mind about me. I had to scram. Business. But tell me about yourself. You look like you were doing well for yourself, kid!”
The woman’s eyes darted nervously around the room. They returned to the Agent’s face and brightened. “Gee, it gave me a shock to see you! But about me doin’ well—you said it! I’m in on a gold mine, Boss! I’m helpin’ along a racket that makes the old days look cheap!”
“Yeah? What is it—and what about the gang?”
“Most of the boys are workin’ for me. I’m holdin’ the mob together. You ought to thank me!”
“Swell, Blossom! How you doin’ it, kid?”
Her foot under the table pressed down on his. “I got backers, big ones. I’ll try to swing you in on it. But you shoulda had more sense than to come here. We can’t talk. It ain’t safe. Don’t you know, Boss, that all the dicks are hot after you?”
The Agent shrugged and grinned, and the woman’s voice suddenly got hard. “O.K. Maybe it’s good for your blood pressure to play hide and seek with the coppers, but it ain’t good for me. If any of the old crowd saw you at my table it would gum the works. If the dicks spotted you, it would be just too bad. I’m not takin’ chances. I told you I might steer you into something big. I won’t if you act nutty!”
“You win, sweetheart. What would you like me to do?”
“Scram outta here the way you came. Don’t let anybody see you. Lie low. Then drop around to my joint this evening. I’ll give you an earful and show you how a lady lives.”
The Agent winked, and rose. “I’ll be seein’ you, Madam Colemont,” he purred.
Twice in the next hour he visited his sub-post office box. Both times it was empty. On the third visit he found a note addressed to Gregory Marsedon that made his fingers tremble.
MARSEDON: Slater contacted. Has agreed to pay. He will get money in bills from bank sometime before five and hold same for our instructions. He will be at home with cash all evening. You know what to do.
When you have picked up money, proceed at once to Hotel Hadley, where room on third floor, facing south, is being held for Marsedon. Claim room, go to it, and as soon as you are alone pull up shade and blink lights six times. Go at once to drug store across street and take call in booth for Marsedon.
The Agent smiled grimly at the simple ingenuity of the arrangement. It left no loophole through which he might trace the arsonist ring. It left him to take all the risks in the collection of the money.
He began making plans at once. He would go to Slater’s home with forged credentials and in the disguise of a police official. He might, as he had suggested, even impersonate the commissioner. There was no doubt in his mind that he could collect the money. With proper make-up it would be a simple task, even though the house was ringed with detectives. What excited him more was the thought of the strange revelations Blossom O’Shean might make that evening.
THE Agent’s visit had left “Madam Colemont” too nervous to eat her lunch. In her hard, calculating way she was in love with Boss Santos. She had visions of what dashing figures the pair of them would cut, swaggering through the capitals of Europe. His sudden return opened up glamorous possibilities. They would have a yacht, larger than any now afloat. They would have cars, houses, princely suites in London, Paris, Berlin. They would hobnob with royalty—after they had made their pile. She would steer Boss Santos into the stream of lawless gold that was carrying her to undreamed-of riches.
She left the restaurant and returned to her apartment. She went to a small chamber at the rear of her boudoir and carefully locked the door. The room was ostensibly an intimate lounge. There was a couch in it, a couple of easy chairs and a small, locked desk.
She opened this with a special key. There were no writing materials in the desk. Instead, there was a compact but elaborate mechanism of dials and boxed-in tubes. She reached forward and pulled out a microphone on a movable arm. She slipped a pair of disc receivers over her head. She threw a switch that turned on an electric current, drawn from a cleverly concealed connection made where the desk’s leg fitted into a floor plug. The desk held a two-way wireless telephone, operating on a super-short wave.
A box mounted behind the telephone itself held a device known as a “scrambler.” This distorted the syllables spoken into the microphone before they were sent on the air. No one accidentally stumbling on the wave length would be able to make head or tail of any messages sent over it. Both her instrument and the one miles away which received her call had counteracting mechanisms which “unscrambled” messages received.
She hadn’t bought the telephone or had it built herself. It had been installed by the “backers” for whom she worked. Its mechanism was a closed book to her. She had merely been told to do certain things to get her messages through.
She did them now, and presently a harsh voice sounded in her ears. “Station Zero. What do you want?”
“Madam Colemont speaking. I’ve got some big news.”
“Go ahead. What is it?”
“The Boss has come back! My old pal, Santos! He’s a great guy, on the up-and-up when he likes you, and I’d like to get him into our racket. Him and me make a sure-fire team. I want your O.K.”
“What!” The single word, coming over the air, snapped in the receiver like a curse.
“You heard m
e—Boss Santos! You must know the guy I mean. He did a disappearing act a while ago. Business, he said. But now he’s come back!”
There was a moment’s silence before the harsh voice answered. Then the words had a strange measured quality that made Blossom O’Shean feel cold. “I’m going to give you some news, too—Madam Colemont—something I haven’t told you, because it didn’t seem wise. Something that I’m afraid will be a shock.”
“Go ahead, spill it!”
“Boss Santos hasn’t returned. Boss Santos is dead!”
Blossom O’Shean broke into strident laughter. “Quit your kiddin’,” she said.
“I’m not kidding,” the measured voice stated. “I’m telling you a fact. Boss Santos is dead—murdered. He died months ago. The man you say is the Boss is an impostor.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” said Blossom O’Shean coolly. “I played around with that guy for years. I guess I know him. He sat at my table at lunch. I talked to him just like I’m talking to you. He’s coming here tonight. If you think he was murdered, you’ve got the wrong dope.”
“Foolish woman!” There was rasping annoyance in the unseen speaker’s tone. “You have let an impostor, a criminal, trick you, fool you. You have played into the hands of Secret Agent X.”
“Yeah! I’m a right dame, and I take my orders from you because you hand out the dough. But I ain’t gonna say black is white. I tell you Boss Santos is back, and I wanta get him into this racket.”
A grating laugh sounded. “If you don’t believe me, you shall have proof! A gentleman will visit you shortly, a Mr. DeLeon. Go with him to a certain house. What you see will, I think, convince you.”
Blossom O’Shean was nervous when she put the telephone away. She was biting her lip. The “backers” who gave her orders had ways she couldn’t understand. The voice that spoke from “Station Zero” sometimes gave her the creeps. She paced the floor of her luxurious apartment and puffed cigarettes, till a ring sounded at her door.
Her immaculate maid admitted a tall man with a black, carefully trimmed beard. She had never seen him before. His manner was courtly. “I am Mr. DeLeon,” he said. “I will be honored if you will come with me.”
BLOSSOM O’SHEAN got her wraps and followed the bearded stranger. A car was waiting below. Its chauffeur drove them to a street of run-down houses, where Mr. DeLeon helped her to alight. He guided her up a flight of old steps. A key admitted them to a musty hall.
Mr. DeLeon moved with the air of one who knows what he is about. He led her to an attic room. He suddenly gripped her arm and threw open another door. “Steady,” he said. “But take careful notice of what you see.”
DeLeon drew back some dusty draperies, and Blossom O’Shean let out a terrified cry. There was a table in the center of the room. A man was slumped in a chair before it. She got a look at the man’s head, saw only fleshless bones. The man was a skeleton, and there was a knife sticking in his bony back.
More than that, Blossom O’Shean recognized the suit as one she had seen Boss Santos once wear. And there was something horribly, gruesomely familiar in the set of those slumped shoulders. She took two fearful steps into the room and screamed again. For a familiar heavy gold ring gleamed on a bony finger of one of the skeleton’s hands. It was the lucky ring that Santos had always worn and prized.
“It’s him!” she gasped. “The Boss! That bag of bones is him!”
“Right,” said the voice of DeLeon. “I’m sorry it took such unpleasant proof to convince you. But it’s better that you know the truth.”
“He was knifed!” Blossom panted. “Some rat sneaked up and shoved that toad-sticker in his back.” She was silent an instant, face working, hands clenched. “Who did it?” she screamed. “Who gave the works to the Boss?”
DeLeon’s eyes wavered a moment under the fierce lash of hers. He licked his lips, then said slowly: “I’ll give it to you straight. The man who killed him is the same one who came to you today. The murderer of Santos is Secret Agent X.”
Blossom O’Shean laughed suddenly in a sound like the scream of a frenzied panther. Her lips were red as blood. Her teeth were white fangs. Her hands crooked into claws. “Swell!” she said harshly. “Swell—he’s coming to me tonight.”
DeLeon read her meaning, saw the fierce light in her eyes. His hand clenched her arm in a grip of iron. His voice came in a snarl.
“You mustn’t touch him! You must stall, do you hear? You must play up to him, let him think you still take him for Santos. You must confuse him all you can.”
“Why should I?” demanded the woman. “He got the Boss. I’m going to get him.”
“I order you not to! Do it, and you’ll land in jail or the gutter. Do it—and you may die yourself by the swelling death.”
The woman stiffened slightly, cringed away. “Why—why shouldn’t I kill him?” she gasped.
“Because he is needed! Because he is working for the men at Station Zero. Later you can do as you please with him. But you must not touch him—tonight.”
Blossom O’Shean was silent, and DeLeon led her away. She did not speak as they drove back to Morningside Square. Once she turned and saw that DeLeon’s face was rigid with fury. It occurred to her then that his black beard was false. She sensed that this man was one of her employers. She nodded when he growled at her outside her apartment: “See that you obey!”
But, when he left her, fear gave way to rage once more. It mounted against the man who had killed “the Boss” until veins stood out in her neck. It mounted until she was like a wild animal, a panther, thirsting for blood. Trembling, she went to a bureau in her apartment and opened a drawer. She took out a flat automatic and snapped in a clip of shells. She walked to the telephone next and called up three men. She told each to come that evening for a “job” she wanted done. She paced the floor, hissing between clenched teeth: “I’m gonna smoke that rat! I’m gonna give the works to Secret Agent X!”
Chapter XIII
THE TRAP
A TALL man who looked like Police Commissioner Foster left L.L. Slater’s home at eight that night. Armed detectives were posted in the vestibule, but none tried to stop him. Others stationed along the street made deferential salutes to the department’s supreme head.
The man’s bulky overcoat concealed the canvas pouches strapped around his waist. His face gave no hint that L.L. Slater lay unconscious in his study upstairs. The “commissioner” was apparently just emerging from a conference. He walked down the street, entered a car and drove away unmolested.
The collection of the money had been simple for Agent X. So far, he had kept his promise to the extortionist group. But his face under the disguise of Commissioner Foster was tense. He was preparing to make desperate plays, still uncertain of his game.
He did not change his disguise and drive to the Hotel Hadley to claim “Marsedon’s” room. Instead he went to his nearest hideout and made up once more as Boss Santos. He left the canvas pouches of money in a secret vault under the floor. As Santos he sped in his low-slung coupé toward Morningside Square.
When he drew up before No. 19 the doorman gave him a curious glance. But X’s manner was impressive. He stalked into the apartment’s vestibule swinging his gold-headed cane. The girl clerk at the reception desk gave him a brief, admiring glance. The Agent carried off his sporty suit with the air of a cavalier.
“Just tell Madam Colemont an old friend’s calling,” he said.
A luxurious elevator whisked him up to the tenth floor. The operator pointed with a white-gloved hand. “Third door on the right, sir.”
The Agent moved forward with no inkling of what lay ahead. Blossom O’Shean had obviously taken him for Boss Santos when he’d seen her at noon. He hoped to get valuable secrets from her tonight.
The first hint of danger came when Blossom O’Shean opened the door for him herself. There was a strange expression in the woman’s eyes. X had looked into the face of death so often that he had come to know its signs. A chill crept
along his back. Under his disguised face the muscles stiffened.
Blossom O’Shean said huskily: “Boss, it’s you! Come in!” She smiled, but the glint of her white teeth behind crimson lips was like the leer of a Gorgon’s head. X saw that she was deathly white beneath her makeup.
Every nerve in the Agent’s body warned him of peril. But he followed the woman into her apartment with a grin on his face.
“Nice dump you’ve got here, Blossom!”
“Yeah, I like it.” The woman’s eyes swivelled back at him over her white, snaky shoulder. The fingers of her left hand were clenched.
“Nothing wrong is there, Blossom? You seem kinda nervous, kid!”
“Do I!” Blossom O’Shean laughed, and the sound was as glassy, as brittle as the tinkle of breaking ice. “Come into the front room and have a drink. There’s nothing wrong. I’m just excited at seeing an old pal!”
She pushed heavy draperies aside and entered a luxuriously furnished room. Wealth had been lavished here in rococo taste. The oriental rugs, Akbar, Sarouk and Anatolian, were as deep-napped as grass on a lawn. The furniture was upholstered in tapestried silk. The Agent’s eyes swung to the rich curtains that covered the windows and two other doors. One of the curtains over a window seemed to him to bulge slightly. His vision, trained to detect the most microscopic movements, caught a breath-like stir. There was no maid visible in the apartment. That, too, was significant.
Blossom O’Shean walked to a table and poured him a drink herself. She came back sinuously, said: “This will tickle your tonsils, Boss.” He noticed that her hand was trembling so that some of the liquor spilled. “Sit down, Boss, and rest your dogs.”
The Agent took the liquor, but ignored the offer of a chair. Instead, he turned slowly, nonchalantly till his back was to the wall. There was a moment’s silence in the room, a silence that seemed to portend doom. Blossom O’Shean was watching him closely, eyes aglow behind the synthetic curve of her lashes. She said suddenly:
“I gotta have a smoke.”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6 Page 30