Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6

by G. T. Fleming-Roberts

  It came—the very smallest of sounds such as a mouse might make running across the floor. X pivoted, at the same time drawing his gas gun. Standing in the door, regarding him coolly through the slots in his black glasses, was the Faceless Man himself.

  THE AGENT’S gun was steady. “Put up your hands,” he said softly.

  The Faceless Man made no move to obey. Nor did he exert himself to defend himself against Agent X. His rubber-gloved hands dangled at his sides. He must have known whom he was facing. The skull-faced body on the floor was his victim and had been Lew Mots. Knowing of the Agent’s skill in impersonation, he could not have helped but deduce that this second Lew Mots was the Secret Agent.

  The expressionless, bandaged head, the calm eyes, the entire ease of the man foreboded disaster. X watched those reptilian eyes, saw them flicker.

  Suddenly, the door behind X burst open with such violence that the Agent was knocked flat. He rolled across the floor and sprang to his feet. The blow had come as such a surprise that he had lost his gas gun. The stubby little thug who was the Faceless Man’s lieutenant, had sprung into the room. “Get on the lam, boss!” he shouted. “The bulls are coming!”

  But as X sprang toward the door in order to head off the Faceless Man, he saw that the frame of the door that had been behind him was fuming. Two streams of corrosive acid, intended for the Secret Agent had already eaten great black scars in the wood. Yet the Faceless Man had not so much as raised his hand.

  X had no time to speculate on how close he had come to the horrible acid death. The killer and his henchman were going through the door. X sprang after them into the furnace room. His long arms caught the Faceless Man by the shoulders. The man wheeled with catlike quickness. His fist came up in a short, quick stab intended for the Agent’s jaw. X nodded his head to one side and the blow rang against his ear. He led with his left to the killer’s middle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Stubby heave a piece of coal at the light. The bulb smashed. In the dark something struck the Agent’s head with such force that his senses swam for the moment.

  Ahead of him, panic-driven feet clattered up the steps. He stumbled through the darkness, groped for the steps, and eventually found them. He went up in five long strides, shouldered open the door, and ran squarely into three men who held him in spite of his struggles. A flashlight beam fanned across his face.

  “Right, Sam Horn!” a thick voice said. “You’re pinched this time. You coming quietly, or do I have to wrap this night stick around your head?”

  X was in the hands of the police. Instantly, his struggles subsided. “Lay off, flatfoot,” he shrilled in the voice of Lew Mots. “I done nothin’. You got the wrong guy.”

  “Have it your way, Sammy,” said another policeman. “A woman next door saw you going into Haas’ house. Mr. Haas isn’t home, so she called us. We got a lot of larceny tickets to hang on you, Sam Horn.”

  “Aw, you’re nuts!” snarled X. “My name ain’t Sam Horn. It’s Lew Mots.”

  Two of the police had hold of his arms. “That’s a good alias, Sam,” said one, “but it don’t fool us. We know a lot about you.”

  So Lew Mots was but an alias of somebody named Sam Horn. And Mots, or Horn, lay dead in the basement of the Haas house, another victim of the Faceless Murderer. In his hand X had found a child’s block bearing the letter “S.” So the police knew all about Sam Horn, did they? Then they were in possession of knowledge that X did not have. Perhaps they knew of Horn’s connection with Mimi Clarice, Jerrico, and the others.

  And suddenly X was determined to find out just what the police did know. Desperate as was his position, he deliberately plunged himself deeper and deeper into trouble in an effort to gain that information. He very quietly permitted himself to be arrested.

  Chapter V

  THE SCULPTOR’S SECRET

  A.H. GHURST reclined on a low couch in his dimly lighted studio and slowly drank from a tiny glass of absinthe. He pillowed his cheek on his left arm and gazed steadily at the young girl who sat on the hassock beside him. She was a fragile, lovely thing, boyishly slender. A cigarette dangled from her insolent lips, her eyes matched the blue-gray of its smoke.

  There was an admiring gleam in Ghurst’s eyes as he watched Ann Dryden, his favorite model.

  “I tell you I have seen him at a window in the Columbine Apartment,” declared Ann Dryden.

  Ghurst took another sip of his green liquor. “What of it?” he asked lazily.

  The model shrugged impatiently. “If that head of yours was good for anything besides growing hair, you’d understand that there hasn’t been enough pressure. He ought to be threatened again.”

  Ghurst stood up and put his glass on a taboret. “Perhaps you’re right. Tell him that we have proof of his identity. You’re positive that it was he you saw?”

  Ann Dryden’s lips twisted angrily. “Could it be anyone else?” She had gone over to a mirror and was pressing a hat over her pale, wavy hair.

  “But don’t get the idea that you’re going to sit here and drink, Ghurst, You’re coming with me.”

  Ghurst grinned like a skull. He slipped off a dressing gown and drew a heavy cloak over his shoulders. He hid his mop of black hair beneath a black, fur felt hat, and followed Ann Dryden from the room.

  As they left the building, neither Ghurst nor his model were conscious of the fact that some distance behind them a sinister figure stepped from the shadows and followed….

  Harvey Bates had consumed most of the food he had found in the pantry of Number Twenty-five, Columbine Apartments. Three times during the day, a doctor from Bates’ own staff had visited the amnesia patient whom X had put in the charge of Bates. At the moment that Bates had found that there was no more food in the apartment and had philosophically decided that he would have to smoke his pipe in lieu of having dinner, the amnesia patient was resting quietly in the bedroom.

  Bates returned to the living room, stuffing his pipe as he went. He was about to throw himself into a luxuriant chair when his keen ears detected a sound just outside the door. Bates put his pipe in his mouth, and approached the door with infinite caution. The hall light threw a moving shadow beneath the crack of the door.

  Bates seized the door knob and flung the door wide. A very beautiful ash blonde was kneeling in the hall and had evidently been trying to stuff a note under the door. She suppressed a cry of fright, and tried to duck under Bates’ long arm as she got to her feet. But Bates could move much faster than his big body might indicate. He seized the girl’s slender arm and pulled her into the room. He closed the door part way, held her with one hand while he lighted his pipe.

  “Hello,” he said, when the important detail of pipe-lighting was over.

  The girl had dropped the letter and was trying to hide it beneath the toe of her small pump. Bates planted his big shoe along side of hers and gently, but firmly, pushed her foot to one side. He stooped, picked up the note, but still held the girl. He opened the paper and read aloud:

  “I know who you are, have proof of your identity. That’s enough to send you to the chair. Hadn’t you better think my offer over more carefully before you refuse the amount I ask?”

  Bates put the note in his pocket. “Intended for me?” he asked the girl, looking gravely into her smoke-gray eyes.

  Her lips pouted. She said nothing.

  “No,” Bates answered his own question. “Maybe for my patient. Now just what ought to be done with you?”

  “Take your hands off of her,” a voice warned.

  Bates looked up quickly. None but a thin man could have squeezed through the door without moving it. And a thin man it was who confronted Bates with a short-barreled gun. Bates recognized the starved-looking man immediately as A.H. Ghurst. He let go of the arm of the girl, took his pipe from his mouth, and blew smoke thoughtfully. “Rear guard, eh?”

  Ghurst said: “See if he’s got a gun, Ann.”

  “We’re wasting time, Ghurst,” said the model, “I’ve made a mistake.�
��

  “Have you—” Ghurst stopped. His finger went to his lips. He stepped across the room, keeping gun and hollow eyes on Bates. He motioned Ann Dryden back from the door. There was some one coming up the hall with slow, measured steps.

  BATES felt absolutely certain that Ghurst would not fire a shot at him. The sculptor would not have risked attracting the attention of that person in the hall. So in spite of the threatening gun, Bates stepped across the living room to the door of the bedroom. He must guard the mysterious patient with his life, if necessary.

  The door opened and the colossal figure of the Faceless Fiend stood there, his broad shoulders and bandaged head overshadowing two men behind him.

  Ghurst grinned like a skull. The weapon swung like a turret gun on a battleship and beaded on the figure in the doorway. “I will be able to deliver my message in person,” he whispered.

  Eyes in the slots of the Faceless Man’s glasses watched Ghurst closely. Neither the Faceless Man nor the two behind him seemed to be armed.

  Ghurst came forward steadily. Bates watched, saw Ann Dryden pale suddenly. Bates inched toward the door of the bedroom. His hand dropped to a little table and closed over a heavy bronze book-end.

  “You see,” Ghurst was saying quietly, “I know the face behind all those bandages, I can identify you beyond the shadow of a doubt. I am going to—”

  Like bolts of lightning, twin tongues of what appeared to be smoke lashed from the eyes of the Faceless Man.

  Ghurst seemed to shrivel like a leaf. His face was completely veiled with acrid, gray fumes. Both hands went to his eyes. From his lips came the scream of the damned.

  Bates saw Ann Dryden dart through the door. He saw the Faceless Man’s own henchmen coming across the room toward him. He lifted the book-end above his head and threw it straight at the single electric light fixture in the ceiling. His big body was in motion before he realized how accurate had been his aim. A plunging body lurched into him.

  He sent it off through the darkness with a blow of his fist. Then backing through the bedroom door, slammed it, and turned the bolt. He sprang to the bed, lifted the slight form of the sleeping amnesia patient in his arms, and went to the window. He cleared the frame of glass with kicks from his right heel, and getting through to the fire escape, clattered down three flights to the alley.

  And behind him, the entire apartment building seemed to scream with terrible agony. Bates shuddered. He had seen the Faceless Man blast Ghurst’s features with a single glance….

  Agent X realized fully the chances he was taking in allowing himself to be arrested as Sam Horn. Certainly no other man who laid claim to sanity would have deliberately thrust his head into the lion’s mouth as X was doing. But X had the utmost confidence in his own wit and his physical strength. The breaks being anywhere near even, he would not only get the information he desired but leave Center Street in perfect safety.

  But then the breaks were not even at all. Even before they took him to the car, the police searched his pockets and garments carefully. All of his clever defense devices were taken from him. His make-up kit and medical kit were also removed. He entered police headquarters equipped with his bare hands, his brain and very little else that might contribute toward his chances of getting out again.

  But on the way to headquarters, he had thought upon the murder problem that he was working on rather than upon the danger that threatened him. “G” “H” “S” “T”—the letters revolved dizzily in his brain.

  AT headquarters, X was taken directly to the office of Police Commissioner Foster. He played his part to the most exacting degree. He wasn’t Agent X then, he was dope-starved Lew Mots.

  Commissioner Foster’s grave, continually troubled eyes regarded his prisoner contemptuously. He nodded the police detectives out of the room. He was alone with what he undoubtedly looked upon as a craven wretch. The top drawer of his desk was open and the .38 in it was within easy reach.

  “Horn or Mots or whatever your name is, I know well enough your connection with certain thefts that have been brought to our attention in the past few months,” began Foster. “I am going outside my own principles to extend a full pardon to you for these offenses if you will give me the information I want.”

  Agent X twitched in his chair and studiously avoided Foster’s eyes.

  A phone on the commissioner’s desk burred. Foster picked it up with his left hand, his right lingering near the drawer that held his gun. His eyes never left X’s twitching face. He listened without a word and then replaced the phone.

  “Horn,” he said to the Agent, “undoubtedly you know that it has happened again, since I feel certain that you are connected with these so-called Faceless Murders. You were seen spying on the house of Henri Raybon half an hour before his death. A few minutes later, you made a telephone call which we were unfortunately unable to trace. But we know that just after you made that phone call, Henri Raybon was killed.”

  “I don’t know a damn thing,” whined X. “You let me out of here. I got a right to get me a mouthpiece.”

  Foster shook a stern finger at the Agent. “Do you deny that you know of this latest tragedy?”

  “I don’t know a damn thing,” repeated the Agent.

  Foster’s brow knotted. He gnawed his lower lip a moment. “The information I have just received states that in Number Twenty-five Columbine Apartments, A.H. Ghurst, the noted sculptor, has been murdered in exactly the same manner that Jerrico and the others were killed.”

  The Agent’s face betrayed nothing of what was going on within his brain. Ghurst killed in the apartment where Harvey Bates was caring for the mysterious amnesia patient!

  “Now, Horn, I advise you to think carefully before answering the questions I am about to ask you. First of all—”

  But Sam Horn was Sam Horn no longer. His muscles were suddenly tense and strong as steel. He catapulted from his chair, his right hand driving deep into the drawer of Foster’s desk. Foster slammed the drawer on the Agent’s wrist.

  X’s left hand seized Foster’s throat. “Not a word!” he whispered tensely. “Your gun in the drawer is pointing directly at you. The wood will not stop the bullet. Release your hold upon the drawer.”

  Foster turned the color of paper. This was not the voice of Sam Horn. It was the voice of a desperate man who would brook no interference with his plans. Slowly, his fingers peeled from the drawer knob. The Agent removed his hand. Foster’s .38 was pointing directly at Foster’s heart.

  “Now, I will ask you questions, commissioner,” X said with a tight smile. “I expect the truth, for no matter how we go about our work, ours is a common purpose. I am Secret Agent X, and I demand to know all that you know about the Ghosts.”

  Chapter VI

  VOICE FROM THE DEAD

  BETTY DALE had applied herself zealously to the task to which X had assigned her. She had spent every available moment in the newspaper morgue collecting odd facts about the noted actress, Mimi Clarice. It was a task to her liking, however, for she had always greatly admired the actress.

  When she returned to her apartment that night, she sat down to write a complete report for Agent X. From hundreds of publicity stories, concerning Mimi Clarice, she had gained no significant facts. But from an old dramatic critic she had learned that Mimi Clarice was not the woman’s name. As a matter of fact, the actress was quite as successful under the name of Sara Clara a decade ago as she was at the present time. The retirement of the blonde Sara Clara had occurred at almost the same time that the redheaded Mimi Clarice had been discovered.

  This much Betty wrote in her report to X, leaving the note unfinished in her typewriter until she had gained more details. Why had Sara Clara so abruptly retired from the limelight to give place to Mimi Clarice? That was only one of the questions which Betty was determined to find out for herself.

  With this in mind, she got a snack from the kitchen, hastily changed her clothes, and prepared to go to Mimi Clarice’s apartment, hoping to gain en
trance under the pretense of getting a column for the newspaper.

  While searching in her closet for a particular pair of slippers which she was determined to wear, Betty came across a flat, leather-covered case. Her heart gave a funny little jump as she picked it up. It belonged to Agent X—merely an old make-up kit which he had accidentally left in her apartment at one time. Betty had always cherished the make-up kit as a sort of keepsake.

  As she opened the kit, Betty’s blue eyes sparkled. Tonight, perhaps, that kit would be more than a keepsake. She hastily stuffed it into her brief-case together with notebook and pencil. She left the apartment, got in her coupé, and drove at once to the apartment of Mimi Clarice.

  At the moment that Betty stopped her car in front of the building, the actress left the building to enter her limousine. Betty felt a tremor of excitement as she watched the actress leave; perhaps if Mimi Clarice was not at home Betty would learn more than if she had gained a personal interview. She got out and took the elevator to the tenth floor. There she went at once to the door of Mimi Clarice’s suite. The door was locked.

  Betty was about to leave when she saw a laundryman with a load of fresh linen approach the actress’ door. He was followed by a maid who produced a key and unlocked the door. The laundryman put down his burden outside the door while the maid took part of the linen and entered the room, leaving the front door slightly ajar.

  As soon as the laundryman had left, Betty saw her opportunity and slipped into the apartment. The maid was busy in the next room. Betty slipped into a coat closet and waited.

  As soon as the maid had put all the laundry in its proper place, she put on her coat, turned out the lights, and left the apartment. The place was as quiet as a tomb. Betty tiptoed from her hiding place.