The Agent passed the information desk and was on the point of opening the front door when a taxi pulled up in front of the entrance. A woman got out. The soft, upturned collar of her luxurious fur coat was a proper setting for a face that was undeniably beautiful. She was undoubtedly older than appeared at the first glance. There was a worldliness about her mascaraed eyes and a hint of henna in her dark red hair. She carried in her hand a long, florist box.
As the woman came up the front steps, a small, stooped figure of a man darted from behind one of the great white pillars of the portico. A thin, rough hand slipped down from a ragged length of sleeve and clutched the soft fur of the woman’s coat. Her red lips parted as though to scream. Then her wide eyes fastened on the face of the little man. She checked her cry with lip biting and looked anxiously toward the door of the sanitarium as if she feared that she was watched.
Her gloved fingers fumbled at the clasp of her purse. Piercing, twitching eyes watched her from beneath the disreputable hat of the man who clung to her coat. Suddenly, with an angry gesture, the woman thrust her purse into the man’s hand and hurried up the steps, hugging her box of flowers close to her.
Agent X opened the door for her and stood courteously to one side. He stood in the vestibule a moment, pretending to busy himself with turning up his coat collar. Actually, he watched the woman go to the information desk and impatiently press the signal button. An attendant came from the office.
“I want to see Mr. Jerrico, if you please,” said the woman.
THE attendant stared at her a moment as if he could not believe his ears. “Er—Miss Clarice,” he said in a strained voice, “I’m afraid that’s impossible. Mr. Jerrico has met with an accident.”
The woman paled, leaned eagerly forward, eyes searching the truth from the attendant’s face. “He’s not—not dead?” she whispered hoarsely.
“I am afraid, Miss Clarice—” the man began.
The woman’s legs wilted beneath her. She flung an arm to her face as though she had been struck and slumped to the floor in a dead faint. The box she had carried fell to the floor and broke open. A dozen moist, red roses fell out.
Coming down the corridor of the sanitarium, digging at his smoke-filled eyes with his fists, was Dr. Leonard. Trailing behind him were Ghurst and Theodore Mulkin. Agent X turned quickly so that they had no opportunity to see his face, and hurried from the sanitarium.
As he regained his car, which he had left in the drive, X saw the slight, stooped figure of the beggar who had stopped the woman who was known to Broadway as Mimi Clarice. The Agent whistled a short, sharp note. The man turned, darted a furtive glance over his shoulder.
X asked: “May I give you a lift? You and I seem to be going the same direction. It’s pretty cold to be walking.”
The man approached the car cautiously. Light from the sanitarium entryway fell upon his thin, unshaved face. He must have been nearly fifty, the Agent decided. As he walked, his head jerked and his thin lips twitched. When he reached the door of the Agent’s sedan, his bloodshot eyes regarded the Agent suspiciously.
X opened the door. “Jump in. I’m in a hurry.”
“Okeh, mister.” The man had a snagging voice. He slid down in the seat and turned his collar up. But as X drove he felt that the eyes of his passenger never left his face. The man was a nervous wreck. It was an old story to the Agent—dope starvation.
“Where can I let you out?” asked X. They had glided along for several blocks without speaking.
The man hesitated. Finally: “Why, just drop me off at the Bellevieu Apartments up here.”
“Live there?” asked X.
“Tryin’ to be funny?” asked the man. Lip-twitching broke his sneer. “You think they’d let a guy like Lew Mots even so much as touch the brass buttons on the doorman there?” He leaned his thin hand against the latch of the door. “Just stop right here.”
X applied the brakes and the dope fiend was out and gone before the car had come to a stop. X accelerated to the corner, parked, and sprang from the car. It was a certainty that Lew Mots wasn’t going to the Bellevieu Apartments. X would have been willing to have wagered that Mots’ destination was a house in the next block—the house of Mr. Hans Haas.
Mr. Haas sold chemicals to the sanitarium and drugs to the medical profession. There was a chance that his drug traffic did not stop there. Why else would Lew Mots insist upon stopping in this respectable neighborhood if he did not hope to establish a “connection” with Hans Haas? Had robbery been his objective, he certainly would not have permitted X to see him alight so near to the scene of his crime.
X hurried around the corner in time to see Mots trudging down the street in the direction of Haas’ house but on the opposite side of the street. X nonchalantly crossed the street, entered a front yard before an imposing-looking house, and cut across lots so that he arrived at the gateway of Haas’ property at just about the time Lew Mots crossed the street. In the shadow of the gate, he waited.
LEW MOTS shuffled through the gate. Agent X sprang like a panther. The barrel of his gun gouged into Mots’ midsection. The fingers of his left hand seized a handful of ill-fitting coat-front. “Not a word!” he warned.
Mots struggled impotently for a moment, then subsided. “Damn it, mister, if this is a stick-up, you’re wasting your time!”
A whisper from the gas gun. Gray mist blotted out Lew Mots’ pinched face for a moment. The dope fiend sagged forward and fell into the arms of Secret Agent X.
X dragged the man to the pillar of the gate and propped him up in the corner. Then he dropped on one knee and slipped a flat, leather case from his inside coat pocket. In it, placed in such positions that he could find each article in the dark, were tubes of plastic volatile material, face-plates, coloring agents, and several neatly folded toupees. These materials constituted the foundation for the Agent’s thousand impersonations.
His limited acquaintance with Mots would not have permitted him to adopt Mots’ identity without the aid of a light and a mirror. But for his purpose it would be sufficient if he assumed some character of the same stamp as Mots and one which his skillful fingers could manage successfully in the dark.
Ten minutes later, just as X was putting the finishing touches on his make-up, a man passed through the gate of the Haas property. He was tall and well made, and light falling across his face from the gate lamp brought out the strong lines of his handsome face. The man was Theodore Mulkin, Dr. Leonard’s friend.
X waited a few minutes until Mulkin had been admitted. Then he went up to the door and knocked. None would have known him for the young man who had appeared at the Leonard Sanitarium. He had added ten years to his face. His nose was a battered thing and his jaw pugnacious. Thick lips twitched spasmodically, and he squinted his eyes against the glare of the porch lantern. He had completed his disguise by slipping into Mots’ coat which fit him considerably better than it had fitted the dope fiend.
A manservant opened the door.
“The boss in?” X asked in a whining voice.
The servant nodded coldly. “What name shall I give?”
“Just tell him that a Lew Mots sent me.”
The servant closed the door somewhat hastily in the Agent’s face and the latter was allowed to wait two minutes before the servant again opened the door to admit him.
“Mr. Haas will see you.” And the servant led X into a small living room that was crowded with elaborate furniture.
Haas heaved his bulk from a rose-colored chair, looked at X critically for a moment, and bobbed his white brush of hair. In another chair, Theodore Mulkin puffed on a fragrant cigar and blinked through the smoke.
“You want to see me?” asked Haas.
“Yeah, boss. Like to talk wit youse alone.”
HAAS glanced uneasily about the room. Mulkin got to his feet. “I’ll just step into the next room, Haas. We’ve all evening for our chat. It’s about something queer that happened at the sanitarium a little while ago.” And he
left the room.
“Won’t you sit down?” Haas invited, indicating the rose-colored chair.
X dropped into the chair and helped himself from a humidor of cigars. “Lew Mots says you’re a right guy,” he said. He squinted up at Haas. “This is where Mots gets his stuff, ain’t it.”
Haas looked puzzled. “There must be some mistake,” he said throatily. “I’ve never heard of your friend Mots.”
X chuckled. “I don’t blame you for being edgy about it. But hows about slipping me a deck of C. And at your own price. I got lots of dough and you got plenty of coke.” Haas looked stupefied for a moment. Then he paled. His lips tightened and he sprang across the room to the desk. He fumbled with a drawer and snatched out a gun. “Dope fiend, eh?” he roared. “Well, I know what to do with men like you!”
X sprang to his feet and took a step forward. Haas threatened with his gun, and said: “Put up your hands!” Then the chemist called over his shoulder: “Mulkin, get police headquarters!”
Mulkin came into the room, looked from Haas to X, hesitated a moment, then picked up the phone. “Police headquarters, quickly,” he snapped.
X measured the distance between himself and Haas. The pistol in the hand of the chemist was trembling. X flung himself forward. The gun roared, but not before X had deflected the barrel with his left hand. With a twist and a jerk he disarmed Haas. The pistol thumped to the carpet. X half turned to see Mulkin yank the telephone from the stand and hurl it straight toward him. X ducked, the heavy instrument grazing his ear. He snatched out his gas pistol to cover both men as he backed toward the door.
Once in the hall, he seized the door knob, flung open the door, and raced toward the gate. He ducked into his original hiding place behind the gate pillar and ripped off Mots’ old coat. Hastily, his fingers altered the plastic material on his face—swift, deft touches that straightened the battered nose and put new lines in his face. Then he lifted Lew Mots’ slight form and stepped through the gate.
As he gained the sidewalk, a policeman rounded the corner on the run. Probably the officer had been attracted by the sound of the shot from Haas’ gun. X let his burden sag to the sidewalk.
“Hurry, officer!” he pleaded. “Get a doctor. A man’s been hurt.”
The cop took one look at Mots’ pale face, raised his whistle and blasted it. “You saw what happened?”
X shook his head. “Call a doctor, can’t you. The man’s dying! You can get some one at the sanitarium.”
The policeman nodded his head and hurried through the Haas gate, evidently intent on borrowing the phone.
No sooner was the policeman’s back turned than X hoisted Mots to his shoulder and ran across the street. He rounded the corner of an apartment building and entered the alley at the rear. Still burdened with Mots, he climbed the fire escape to the second floor where he pushed open an unlatched window. Here was a sanctuary—one of the Agent’s many hide-outs spread throughout the city. He put Lew Mots on the bed and sat down at a telephone. He called a number familiar to him—that of the Hobart Detective Agency. A moment later, he heard the cheerful voice of Jim Hobart, director of the agency.
“Hobart, this is Martin speaking,” said X. “I’m at the Bridly Apartment, suite B5. Come to the apartment at once. There you will find a cokey by the name of Mots. I want you to watch him day and night until you hear from me.”
X held down the receiver hook long enough for the connection to be broken before he dialed a number that was listed in no telephone directory. A moment later, a crisp voice answered:
“Bates speaking.”
The Agent’s voice changed, dropped in pitch and varied in quality until it became the voice that Bates had heard so many times, the true voice of the Secret Agent.
“Meet me in half an hour at the south-east corner of sector 12, zone 3.” And quietly, he hung up.
Chapter III
THE FACE AT THE WINDOW
ACROSS from the Leonard Sanitarium, where shadows of the tall towers of the Warwick Mansion deepened the night, a tall wisp of a man might have been seen moving like a wraith among the beds of naked shrubbery. Warwick Mansion was dark, suiting the purpose of the prowler exactly. He crossed to a leaded glass window and explored the window frame with deft fingers. From the pocket of his coat, he slipped a small, sharp instrument which he inserted beneath the casement.
For perhaps a minute he worked in silence. Then the window swung quietly open. The prowler pocketed his tool, seized the window-sill in both hands, and sprang lightly up to vault into the room beyond. He closed the window with gloved hands and drew the damask curtains. Then he flicked on the light of a pocket torch.
Reflected rays of the torch found his face, half covered by a small mask. His lips were lean and parted in a whimsical smile that revealed square, white teeth. His chin, deeply tanned, jutted decisively.
The spot of his light traveled about the walls and centered upon the circular front of a wall safe. His smile broadened. On tiptoe, he crossed the room, and slipped off the glove on his right hand. He cupped fingers over his mouth and blew his breath on them to warm them. Then resting his shoulder against the wall, he cautiously took hold of the dial of the safe and moved it slowly, listening to the click of the tumblers.
Suddenly light—white, blinding light, as the electrolier in the great room was turned on. The prowler spun around, his lips drawn taut over his grinning teeth. The man who stood in the doorway wore a scarlet, brocaded dressing gown fitting tightly over his powerful shoulders. The hairs of his gray mustache were tightly curled, his gray hair bed-rumpled. There was no sign of sleep in his black eyes. His square jaw worked like a dredging shovel as he ground out the words:
“You will oblige me by putting up your hands.”
The prowler looked at the small-bore automatic in the man’s hand. His white-toothed smile spread across his face. “Tom Warwick!” he exclaimed. And with a motion of his left hand, he wiped aside the black mask to reveal his thin, straight nose, blue eyes, and level brows.
The automatic dropped from Warwick’s limp fingers. “Oliver!… You’re still at it?”
The prowler nodded, bowed mockingly. “Oliver Pontius is never happier than when he has a price on his head. I’m society’s most popular burglar. And really, Warwick, you deserve a medal for catching me. You see, I’ve never been caught before.”
Warwick crossed the room and picked up Oliver Pontius’ hand. He shook it gravely. “If you really needed money, old man, why didn’t you come to me—I mean, through the door.”
Pontius laughed, a shrill, spontaneous sort of a laugh. “But I don’t need money. I simply keep this up because I’m bored with society. It’s the same old motive that brought us together in the old days, gay, mad days, weren’t they, Warwick?” He laughed again and looked around the room. “You’ve done well for yourself, I must say. Never would have entered here, you know, if I had known this was your castle. I guess all of us have done pretty well. You and I and Sara and Jerrico—and the rest.”
“Jerrico’s across the street in the sanitarium,” said Warwick. “He’s done too well, if you understand what I mean. Too everything. His health is shot.” He pulled up a chair for his friend. Then he sat down, his back facing French windows that opened on a garden at the rear of the house.
“Seeing you this way,” said Pontius as he sat down, “and knowing that old Jerrico is just across the road, brings back old memories.”
Warwick raised his eyebrows. He whispered: “Ghosts out of the past. And there’s something else, Pontius.” He twisted his mustache nervously. “I haven’t been able to sleep for thinking about it. That’s the only explanation for my catching you tonight. Since it came in the mail, the mere whisper of sound stabs my ear like a knife.”
Pontius’ smile vanished. He was keenly aware of the nervous state of Tom Warwick, a man whom he had never known to show fear. “Police?” he asked,
Warwick shook his head. “I’ve never worried about the police. Those
things we did so many years ago were not only outside the law, but outside the reach of the law. As far as the police are concerned, you and I are untouchables. But there is a power within, you understand?”
Pontius lighted a cigarette. “Not altogether.”
WARWICK reached into the pocket of his dressing gown and took out something. “I’ve even kept this under my pillow and right beside my automatic. Take a look at it.” And he placed in Pontius’ hand a small block of wood—a child’s toy, a nursery block bearing among other colorful decorations, the red letter “T.”
Pontius frowned. “And that came in the mail?” He passed it back to Warwick. “Now I understand.”
“What is it? A warning or a threat?” asked Warwick.
“A threat, is my guess,” was the reply. “And you say Jerrico is just across the street. Oughtn’t Jerrico and the others be warned?”
Warwick shook his head. “How can I be certain that Jerrico didn’t send it?” He leaned forward in his chair, fixing Pontius with his piercing black eyes. “For that matter, what assurance have I that you didn’t send the block?”
Pontius got to his feet. His blue eyes were like ice. “I thought you knew me better than that,” he said coldly. “I’ve thrashed men for less than that.”
Warwick shrugged. “You’re admittedly a thief. Why not a—”
A sharp cry from Pontius cut through Warwick’s accusation. Beneath his tan, the thief had suddenly become pale. He was standing erect, his slight figure wavered. His eyes were glued on the French windows.
Warwick turned in his chair. “What the devil’s the matter with you, man!” he cried irritably.
“That face!” came an awed whisper from Pontius. “Yet it wasn’t a face at all. Something looking in that window. Then it went away. It was all swathed in bandages as though it had just come out of a hospital. And there were black eyes like two burned holes in all that white cotton.”
Warwick sprang to his feet, strode across the room, and swept up his automatic from the floor. “You’ve a gun, Pontius?”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6 Page 34