Not waiting to see whether he had any cigarettes to offer, she moved with swaggering grace toward a square box on the mantle opposite where he stood. The Agent had flung his hat, coat and cane over a chair near by. His eye measured the distance to them in a furtive, sidewise glance.
Blossom O’Shean lifted the lid of the box and thrust her white hand in. She turned for a moment facing him with a mirthless smile on her lips. “Drink,” she said, “and enjoy it! It’s the last one you’ll ever get!” Her hand came out of the box with a glitter of metal in it. Her voice rose till it was a hoarse scream like a hacksaw going over steel. “Drink—an’ take this, you rat!”
HE saw her arm move forward with the speed of a striking snake. He dropped his glass and plunged sidewise as her automatic spouted flame. Bullets slapped behind him. In the same instant he saw three figures step into the room.
One from the curtain over the window. Two from the curtains across the doors. Flat-chested, pale-faced men with glittering eyes. Men who held big automatics clamped in their talon-like fists. Men who had been waiting there to kill him, slaughter him in cold blood.
The Agent ignored them for a split second. He moved with the lightning suddenness of a tempered, uncoiling spring. He flung his overcoat at the frenzied woman. It dropped over her white shoulders like a net. His left hand swept up his cane. He plunged straight toward her.
She was still pumping bullets at him through the fabric with the mechanical energy of a machine. The shots were going wild. The Agent snatched at the pistol through the coat. His fingers closed around it. He pulled coat and gun away with a savage jerk.
He doubled up, did a backwards somersault on the floor as other guns roared in a murderous crossfire. He got Blossom O’Shean’s gun untangled from the coat and crashed a shot at the figure by the window. The man fell forward with a choking scream. He slapped another shot at the big bowl light below the ceiling and the room went dark.
Light from the bulb in the hallway made a ghostly glow in the chamber. The Agent knew he was still visible against the pattern of the rug. He jumped again, escaping by fractions of inches the bullets that snarled around. He felt the hot lash of a slug across the skin of his leg. He fired with desperate quickness at a pinpoint of flame by the door. There was only a metallic click in his hand. The gun was empty.
The Agent jerked at the gold head of his cane, and a gleaming ribbon of steel came free in his hand. He flung the hidden sword across the room with a sound like a plucked cello string. A shaft of fire quivered for a moment in the air as the sword’s point found a mark and the upright blade caught the light. Another man cried out in pain. A second gun was silenced.
The third gunman fired two wild shots and fled. The thud of his receding footsteps sounded in the room behind the curtain. A window opened and banged shut. The Agent found a bridge lamp and snapped it on.
His eyes had the bright glitter of polished steel. They roved around the room.
The man he had shot lay moaning on the floor. The other, with the sword point in his body, had sunk to his knees and was clawing dazedly at the blade. Blossom O’Shean leaned against the mantel, hands pressed to her breast, face white as plaster.
As the light went on she made a pantherish leap for the stabbed man’s gun; but the Agent beat her to it. He snatched up the weapon, menaced her with its muzzle. “Quick,” he said, “tell me about those men you work for.”
Fear of death eclipsed her trembling fury. She shrank away.
“Speak!” said the Agent “Three seconds is all you got!”
HE had never shot a woman, never would, but terror was the only language Blossom O’Shean knew. She seemed to wilt before it. Her eyes were fixed on the gun muzzle as though it were a snake. She moved back against the wall, hands spread beside her.
“No!” she gasped. “No—you wouldn’t do it. Don’t kill me like you did the Boss! I’m a right dame. Don’t!” The Agent’s gun moved closer and words came in a frenzied rush from the woman’s lips. “I get it! You want to double-cross the guys I work for. I—I’d help you if I could—But listen! I don’t know nothing about them, see? Honest, it’s the truth. I’m giving you the straight dope. I don’t want to die.”
“Prove it!”
“I will! Give me a chance. I’ll do it. Look—come here!”
Watching his face fearfully she slid away. She beckoned with a hand that seemed almost frozen. The Agent followed, suspicious of some trick. She moved with the steps of a person in the grip of a nightmare horror into another room. It was her boudoir, and she led him through it. She opened a top bureau drawer while the Agent watched tensely. She thrust a queer-shaped key in the lock of a door. Beyond was a smaller chamber, and the woman pointed to a desk.
“I don’t know ’em!” she husked. “I never saw ’em. I don’t know who they are. They contacted me first by telephone. They send me my dough by mail. When I want to talk to any of ’em I just use that.” Her trembling fingers unlocked the desk with a rattle of metal. “See,” she said feverishly, “it’s a radio telephone. I never seen any of ’em. I’m a right dame, givin’ you all the dope—and—don’t smoke me.”
The Agent’s eyes measured hers. He seemed to deliberate. He ignored her frantic pleadings. But he saw that terror had made her speak the truth. He saw that she dared not lie with that gun pointing straight at her heart. He saw that she knew no more about her mysterious “backers” than he did himself. A leaden weight of disappointment filled him. He spoke suddenly, his voice toneless.
“I didn’t kill Boss Santos. I’m not going to kill you. Santos was murdered by the men you work for. You’ve been a dupe in a devil’s game.”
His eyes left her twitching face, went back to the desk. His brain worked swiftly. The fate of Betty Dale hung by a slender thread. If the heads of the arson ring learned that he had come here, wounded two of their hirelings and tried to plumb their secrets, Betty Dale might meet a horrible end. They must not know. There was one last desperate gamble still to be played.
The Agent’s hand flashed out. He brought the hard muzzle of the gun down on the delicate apparatus. He smashed tubes, broke dials, wrecked the mechanism completely. Blossom O’Shean hissed suddenly: “Somebody’s knocking. They musta heard the shots. The cops’ll be coming!”
X heard the insistent ringing of the bell with thudding blows behind it. The management of the apartment was demanding to know what was going on. The wail of a siren suddenly lifted from the street outside. Some one in the house had called the police already.
X moved past the woman, darted through the hallway into the room where death had so nearly caught him. He bent quickly over both wounded men, saw that they would live. The man by the window had a shattered shoulder. The other had caught the sword blade close to his heart. He was bleeding internally probably, but still had a fighting chance. The Agent drew out the sword and shoved it in his cane.
He leaped to the window as other sirens sounded in the street like hounds giving tongue. Let Blossom O’Shean give the police any explanation she cared to. He couldn’t stop her.
HE opened the window, stepped out, and moved swiftly down the fire escape. He paused in the shadowed courtyard for a moment to make deft changes in his face. Then he slipped through an ally into the street and hailed a taxi.
It carried him almost to his hideout. He left it, went the rest of the way on foot. He was tense-faced, panting when he reached his secret chamber. He changed his clothes, made up as Marsedon, with all the speed at his command. When the disguise was finished, he strapped the canvas pouches of money around his waist. Then he went to a small cabinet in the chamber’s corner.
There were assorted chemicals here, liquids, gases and powders. The cabinet was a compact laboratory. It held some of the equipment he used when he employed science to aid him. He selected a small flask of compressed oxygen, a length of rubber tubing, and a wooden clip. He slipped them in his pocket, and hurried to the street.
On his way to the Hadley Hotel in
another taxi he stopped at a delicatessen store and made a small purchase. He came back to the taxi carrying a paper bag. In the cab he transferred some of the bag’s contents to his pocket, leaving the remainder on the seat.
A clerk behind the hotel counter nodded when he gave his name.
“Your room is waiting, Mr. Marsedon. A boy will show you up.”
The clerk frowned at his lack of luggage, but X tossed a five dollar bill on the desk and paid for the room in advance. He followed a bellhop grimly up to the third floor and along a corridor to the section that faced south.
He tipped the boy at the door, said: “That’s all, sonny,” and turned the key in the lock. The room was dark and X walked to the window. It opened on a wide, traffic-filled street. Somewhere along this block, or the next, or in one of the thousands of windows that bordered it, eyes were watching. His signal would be seen by one of the arsonist heads.
The Agent grasped the shade and let it snap to the top. He walked back to the door, found the light switch, and winked the overhead bulbs in and out six times. They flashed their message to criminal eyes that half a million dollars in cash had been collected.
The Agent left his room leisurely, descended to the hotel’s lobby and drifted out into the street. He passed, strolling, happy-faced people who did not guess at the deadly drama near them. He dodged flying taxis and limousines carrying men and women home from picture shows and theaters. He crossed the pavement and entered the drug store opposite to keep his rendezvous with crime.
The call did not come for nearly fifteen minutes. The Agent sipped a cup of coffee at the soda fountain, waiting tensely, conscious of the canvas pouches under his coat. He jumped when a telephone bell tinkled. In a moment a clerk answered it and said: “Call for Mr. Marsedon.”
The Agent entered the booth and heard again the harsh voice of the unknown criminal.
“You were successful, Marsedon?”
“Yes.”
“Go to the house on Stillwell Avenue. Press the button.”
There was no uncertainty in the order, no betrayal of nervousness or doubt. The man who gave it was sure of his mastery over X, sure that the Agent would follow orders—because of Betty Dale.
The Agent left the drug store quickly. A taxi bore him to the house of mystery where he had been the previous night. He entered the dark kitchen, crossed to the closet with grimly resolute steps. He stepped inside and closed the door without an instant’s hesitation.
But before he pressed the hidden button his hands worked deftly, swiftly. He brought the flask of oxygen from his pocket, attached the coiled rubber tube to a valve at its top. He thrust the tube in his mouth, gave the valve a twist, and pressed the wooden clamp over his nostrils. He breathed the sweet, life-giving vapor, and gave the button under the shelf a jab.
In a moment he felt the heavy bromine gas descending in an eerie, smothering cloud. He waited in utter darkness, knowing that he had made a gambler’s play with death.
Chapter XIV
MURDER BAIT
NONE of the bromine vapor entered the Agent’s lungs. He kept the valve in his flask half open, let the oxygen stream into his mouth. But he sank to the floor in a position of utter laxness.
Endless minutes seemed to pass before steps sounded. The flask of compressed gas was almost empty when they paused outside the door. The Agent took a deep breath of oxygen, filling his lungs, then swiftly, cautiously put his flask and tube and clamp away. He lay like a man unconscious while the door opened softly.
A light flicked on. Through closed eyelids he could see the redness of it playing over his face. A harsh voice spoke a whispered order, and two men picked him up. He was lifted, carried to a square box like a Chinese coffin, and dumped inside it. With his knees drawn up to his chin his body just fit. The lid that was instantly clamped down pressed against his head.
He felt the box lifted, knew that he was being carried again to an accompaniment of stealthily shuffling feet. They crossed the kitchen, climbed the basement stairs, moved into the street. The box was raised higher and deposited in a car. Another whispered order which he couldn’t catch, and the mysterious car rolled away.
Fully fifteen minutes passed, with only the rumble of the car wheels and confused traffic noises. Once a policeman’s whistle shrilled, and X knew he was being taken through the heart of town. A million dollars was passing under the officer’s nose and he didn’t know it. Crime was making one of its biggest plays while the Law looked on.
The car stopped at last and the box was lifted from it. Like a package of laundry or merchandise, X was carried through some sort of alley. He heard shoes scrape down stone steps and was borne across a floor. The box was set down a moment, and a door clicked open. It was lifted and placed on what seemed to be a wobbly shelf. Then the door catch clicked again.
In a moment X heard the slapping ropes of a dumb waiter. The shelf he was on jerked and quivered. He had a distinct sensation of ascent. It kept up for many seconds before the dumb waiter stopped. The Agent’s temples hammered.
Muffled steps sounded somewhere not far off. A second door clicked and the box that the Agent was in was jerked roughly forward. It was carried about twenty feet, set down. The Agent tensed as the clamps above him grated. Deft hands above him slowly raised the lid. The Agent’s eyes, smothered in darkness for the past twenty minutes, saw plainly. He got a glimpse of a sinister, black-masked figure. He was in the secret meeting place of the arson ring’s heads.
Four pairs of hands reached in and lifted him cautiously. Through half-open eyelids he caught sight of a third masked figure holding a gun. The weapon was pointed toward him. These vulture-like men seemed ready for any trick. They laid cunning plans and added evil caution.
The Agent came to life at the instant his feet touched the floor, risking everything in this final, desperate play. He swung both arms like flails and shoved back with all the force in his legs. He went down in a tangle of cursing, tumbling bodies. Fists struck at him with battering-ram blows. Arms tried to hold him like twining snakes.
He got a swirling glimpse of masked faces and glittering, murderous eyes. He saw the man with the gun trying to find a spot to shoot, saw him crouching, hand poised to fire. He gave the killer no chance to aim. In that lightning-fast, tumbling battle a bullet would menace the lives of his masked assailants. He was counting on this, risking a shot in those first mad seconds.
He fought with the fury of desperation, fought with the knowledge that this was his last and only chance. But he didn’t lose his head.
Twisting, turning, writhing like a wrestler, he clutched wildly at heaving arms and legs. He struck with tight-knuckled fists, delivering blows that brought a gasping grunt. A man’s voice close beside him screamed an order. “The gun! Over here—let me have it—quick!” The masked figure with the weapon moved closer.
Another voice snarled: “Shoot—damn it, shoot!”
There was a jab of metal across the Agent’s shoulder. A muffled report came, so close that powder flame singed the Agent’s neck. The gun had a silencer on it. The bullet had missed him by a fraction only. The next one might strike home, for the masked men were becoming desperate. The man they had thought was unconscious had become a human tornado in the room.
The Agent sensed his increasing peril. He landed a blow against a masked face, driving his knuckles into teeth. He heaved up with his left arm, got a second masked figure almost on his shoulder, and jerked himself erect. Head down, half stumbling, he flung his human missile at the man with the gun. The armed man sidestepped and the Agent leaped away.
HE plunged across the box that had held him, as bullets probed for his life. He lifted the box and threw it at the masked killer with all his might. The man cried out and went down with clawing arms, the box on top of him. His gun spun away. Another vulture-like figure tried to snatch it up, and the Agent’s fist cracked behind his ear. The man fell sprawling, while the Agent caught up the gun.
He turned and saw that the
third masked criminal had got a silenced weapon from somewhere. Their arms swung up together. The Agent’s was a fraction of a second more swift. Flames spurted from the sound-deadening tubes at the guns’ ends simultaneously. Lead plucked at the Agent’s arm, but struck the man before him in the dead center of the chest. The man spun on his feet, black coat swirling away from his body like membranous wings. He pitched forward with a gurgling scream and lay on his face.
The figure beneath the box was just getting up. X thrust the gun toward him, menaced him with a harsh command. “Back up! Raise your hands. You, too—or you’ll get what your friend here just got!” He included the second masked figure in the deadly arc of his gun.
Both men raised their arms above their shoulders, glaring hate through slitted eyes. The Agent spoke again.
“Release Betty Dale at once.”
The masked figure debated a moment, then reached for the telephone. He husked: “Bill, I’ve changed my mind. Let the girl go. Have her call back as soon as she is free.” Replacing the phone, he chuckled. “Betty Dale is now walking into the streets, a free woman. She will be free about fifteen minutes—before the police will pick her up. Then she will burn in the electric chair. It was a very clever move on your part, Mr. Secret Agent X.” The black figure shook with mirthless glee.
X said a bleak nothing. In ten minutes time, the phone rang. He scooped it up and made a soft, melodious whistle that sounded strangely in that room.
“It’s—you!” came the breathless answer. “I don’t understand it, but they’ve let me go.”
“Yes,” said X quietly. “I persuaded certain gentlemen to let you go. Now listen closely. Get in touch with headquarters. Tell Inspector Burks how you were taken prisoner—”
“Isn’t it dangerous?” asked Betty. “The police—”
“You trust me, don’t you?” said the Agent.
“Yes,” came Betty’s soft answer. “You know I do.” Then she added quickly: “Wait! The number I was given was Matthew Monkford’s apartment. I remember it, because I called him and tried to get a story.”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6 Page 31