Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6

by G. T. Fleming-Roberts

  Never had the Secret Agent felt as helpless. Except for Della Barrie, no one had been within five feet of Miss Pettman. The poor woman had cried out something about a shot. Yet there was no sound, no blood, no wound. X had paid particular attention to those in the room. No one had made a significant move. There were no open windows or doors.

  It was impossible for the Agent to get near the body at the time, for as soon as Miss Pettman had been seized, police had pressed around her, vainly trying to protect her from the thing they couldn’t see.

  Suddenly, Carlos Carasco, the reporter that X had seen Betty talking to, shouted: “Search everyone in the room. Somebody must have killed her. There’s no other explanation.”

  X waited only until he was certain that the police sergeant in charge was going to take the reporter’s suggestion. Then he glanced about, saw a small door a few feet away, and hurried to it. Only two people, X saw, were watching him closely—Harvey Bates and Betty Dale.

  He quietly slipped into the next room. His pockets were crammed with make-up kit and special devices that would have instantly given him away to the police. If he could find some place to conceal his equipment and then return to the room, he might yet be able to cover the investigation closely.

  Hardly had he entered the room when the door opened. X turned quickly, instantly on the defensive. It was Betty Dale. She closed the door softly and hurried across to the Agent. Her white brow was clouded with a worried frown.

  “Betty!” X exclaimed softly. “It’s dangerous for you to be here with me. If the police ever thought that you knew me you would be arrested as an accomplice in my supposed crimes.”

  Betty nodded. “I think Inspector Burks is about half-suspicious of me anyway. Over at the Hyde house, I sneaked into the next room and fired two shots out the window at a man I didn’t see. I told the inspector a wild tale that I don’t think went over so big.”

  X took the girl’s two hands and for a precious moment feasted his eyes on her beautiful face. “And you did all that just to decoy them from the hall so that I could get away. That was very fine of you, Betty. Don’t think me ungrateful when I ask you not to take such risks.”

  “But I didn’t see how you could possibly get out of there alive if I didn’t. But anyway, that isn’t what I wanted to tell you. It’s about Della Barrie. You noticed that she was standing behind Miss Pettman? You noticed that Miss Pettman slapped at the back of her neck just before she was seized with that terrible attack?”

  X nodded. “But Della Barrie made no move that I saw, though I admit that part of the time I was watching others in the room.”

  “That’s it. I’m certain that Della Barrie has something to do with this. Isn’t it odd that she is the only person who was at the Hyde house tonight who was also here now? And just as soon as you left Long View, she and Mr. Hyde went into the library. I looked through the keyhole. She was having Mr. Hyde sign some sort of a document.”

  “Mr. Hyde wanted to see her about a change in his will,” X told her.

  “That’s just it. These old men in their dotage are like putty in her hands.”

  The Agent nodded. “It does look odd. Then Della Barrie was trying to get Miss Pettman to make some change in her will. Know anything more about her?”

  “Well, my colleague, Carlos Carasco, is going to take her out of circulation. That’s something.”

  X frowned. “So the smart woman lawyer is going to marry the humble reporter. Well, I can see that Carasco has an air about him that might appeal to some women—a sort of worldliness. But of course—”

  Tap-tap-tap. Something rapped on the window pane. X pivoted. His hand went into the pocket that held his gas gun.

  SHORTLY after Harvey Bates had seen Agent X and Betty slip from the room of invisible death, he began to worry. He knew that the man who appeared to be Tetwilder was really Agent X, for X had arranged to join Bates at the Pettman house in that disguise. At first, Bates feared that someone else might have been watching X. Also, he knew that the room into which X had gone had no exit except the one door and a window.

  His fears were redoubled a short time later when a servant told him that Mr. Tetwilder was waiting to be admitted and was anxiously inquiring into the state of Miss Pettman’s health. This second Tetwilder, thought Bates, was certainly not X. Immediately Bates left the house by the back door and went around to the window of the little room where X and Betty were closeted. It was Bates who had tapped cautiously on the window.

  In a moment, Bates saw his chief cross the room and open the casement. Bates thrust his big, square head into the room. “Tetwilder out front,” he warned crisply, and slipped back into the shadows.

  As Bates walked back around the house with the intention of returning to his post, a shadowy form slipped from the shrubbery at the rear of the house and sprang like a panther upon Harvey Bates. The arm of the attacker raised. His hand clubbed a short piece of lead pipe. The pipe descended swiftly, and Harvey Bates’ big body collapsed without a groan….

  Hardly had the Agent received Bates’ warning when the door of the room where he and Betty were talking, was thrown open. Herman Tetwilder, purple with rage, burst into the room. At his heels were a half dozen police. The police spread across the room, their guns in their hands.

  Betty Dale stared around her, counterfeiting bewilderment. She pointed a finger at Tetwilder. “Why he—there’s two of him. He must be a fake!”

  “Fake, all right,” grunted a policeman, “but you’ve got the wrong man, Miss Dale. There’s the fake!” He pointed at X with the muzzle of his gun.

  “Yes, sir!” Tetwilder exploded. “I left Marcus Hyde not ten minutes ago. And when I get here, some one tries to tell me I’ve been here all the time. Why the colossal nerve of the man! Why the devil don’t you arrest your Mr. X, now that you’ve got him? He’s your invisible death, damn him!”

  But the police were in charge of capable Sergeant Keegan, and Keegan had good reason to know that Agent X could only be captured by the most wary movements. The police were closing in slowly, and their guns had a single point of focus—the head of Secret Agent X.

  “You mean,” and X’s voice matched Tetwilder’s roar, “that I am not Herman Tetwilder? Sergeant, you’re on the verge of making a fool of yourself. I’ll settle this thing for you for all time to come. Not Tetwilder! What idiocy!” The Agent slipped a small penknife from his pocket. The police watched with cautious interest while he opened it.

  “As I understand it,” X grumbled, “this X person covers his face with some sort of plaster. That man—” pointing at Tetwilder—“won’t dare do what I’m going to do, because his face isn’t flesh and blood!” X jerked up his hand and plunged the blade of the knife deep into the plastic material that covered his face.

  To all appearances, blood flowed from a nasty gash. Actually, this was only a clever trick that he had devised for just such an emergency. In the handle of the knife was a little chamber filled with a red liquid dye that closely resembled blood. A touch on a release button, allowed the red dye to flow from the knife blade.

  “And now, let’s see you try that, Mr. X!” said the Agent triumphantly.

  Herman Tetwilder shrank back against the door. His face paled. “Stick a knife into myself? Think I’m crazy!”

  And for a moment, the attention of the bewildered police was fastened on Herman Tetwilder. A moment was all that X required, master of surprise and daring that he was. He slipped back between two dazed police, and sprang lightly through the open window. The fusillade of lead that followed, when the police finally realized that they had been tricked, was much too slow to catch the swiftly running Agent.

  Chapter IV

  TOMB FOR THE LIVING

  MIDNIGHT. Two shadowy forms crossed one corner of Marcus Hyde’s estate. They moved in opposite directions, meeting at the door of a Japanese summer house. There was no word of greeting. One man whispered:

  “You were right about the big man in the Pettman house. He
is a spy—a spy of Secret Agent X. We must proceed with the utmost caution. I have heard much of this Agent X.”

  “A spy of Agent X, you say?” whispered the second man. “Why haven’t you done something about it, then?”

  “I have,” his companion replied. “I followed the big devil and laid him out cold. Then I carried him to a place of safe keeping. Two of our men will pick him up. When they’re through working on him, we’ll know all that he knows about Agent X. But,” he added uneasily, “the very fact that Agent X is on our trail is annoying. And the next job on our list is particularly difficult, you know.”

  A hoarse chuckle from the second man. “Stop worrying. If you have found one of the Agent’s spies, I, too, have accomplished something. We have a new ally. Our next victim will be putty in her hands.”

  “A woman, then? Are you certain?”

  “A woman. She has just left the Pettman house.”

  “I don’t trust women in this job.”

  “Rest assured, this one will do every thing you ask. Now, listen closely. The instructions are so simple, and the plan is absolute perfection….”

  Agent X made no attempt to regain his car after he had left through the window of the Pettman house. It was only a short distance across Miss Pettman’s property to Long View estate. As he hurried along, he pulled off the gray toupee that was a part of his disguise as Tetwilder. His skillful fingers made lightning changes in the plastic material that covered his face. Wrinkles were smoothed out. The “U” mustache vanished. No one could have recognized him as the man who had made the surprising exit from Miss Pettman’s house a few moments ago.

  Once again on Marcus Hyde’s rolling land, X recalled the exact path taken by Hyde on his inexplicable nightly ramblings. In the Agent’s pocket was something that might prove to be of tremendous value to him. It was the brass key that he had slipped from Hyde’s key-ring.

  X felt that once he had learned the purpose of Hyde’s nocturnal wanderings, he would be a long way toward solving the mystery of the spectral killer. Hyde’s mad muttering concerning a key had at first aroused X’s curiosity. Then, when he had examined the key closely he knew that it had been used on an old rusty lock that had recently been oiled.

  Routing his course by fountains, pools and flower beds, X came at last to the iron fence that bounded Long View from the cemetery. It seemed impossible that old Marcus Hyde had climbed such a fence, yet there was no apparent opening. X tested the vertical bars with his hands. After he had tried a dozen or more, he found several close together that could be moved in their sockets. X twisted the bars loose, and slipped through into the cemetery.

  It was not a large burial ground, but the pretentious monuments were indicative of the wealth of the families living in that suburban region. The cemetery was centered by a large, dome-roofed mausoleum. And that was about the only place Hyde could have used his mysterious key in the whole necropolis.

  X HURRIED eagerly forward, crossing graves and skirting monuments that gleamed like ghosts through the mist. A clock in a distant steeple gonged drearily twelve times as the Agent reached the bronze-studded door of the mausoleum. He inserted the brass key into the lock. It turned easily. The door opened with a sucking sound. X stepped into the dark abode of death and closed the door behind him.

  He slipped a fountain-pen flashlight from his pocket and flashed its needle of light around him. The rich, bronze-finished plates that sealed the crypts gleamed dully. The air was heavy with damp and the odor of rotting flowers. X crossed to one crypt-lined wall and proceeded to make a circuit of the entire room, examining each crypt seal. Many names were familiar to him, but in the entire search he found nothing that could be connected with crime.

  A Gothic-arched doorway connected the first room of the mausoleum with the second and newer portion. He entered this second room and patiently searched it in the same manner. Several of the plates that closed crypts bore recent burial dates. Close inspection revealed that in some cases the screws, that held the crypts closed, had been tampered with. Near the center wall at the rear, X came to a sudden stop. Hanging beneath the edge of the bronze crypt covering was a torn piece of serge suiting, not more than half an inch square.

  The Agent frowned. Then he took from his pocket a small leather case. Opening it, he selected a stout screwdriver blade that fitted into a rubber-covered handle. With this he loosened the two screws that held the right end of the plate, until he could manipulate them with his fingers. The screws could not be removed from the plate and served as handles for swinging back the crypt seal on its concealed hinges.

  The Agent swung the vault door back. His flashlight beamed into the opening. He could scarcely restrain an exclamation of surprise. There was no coffin in the crypt. But jammed far into the back was the body of a man.

  X put one hand on top of the vault door and the other on the edge of the crypt. He pulled himself up, scrambled inside, and crawled to the other end of the crypt. The body was in a cramped position, the head bent low and partially hidden. There was something extremely familiar about those square shoulders. X’s heart throbbed in his throat as he turned the light on the face. The man was Harvey Bates.

  AGENT X touched Bates’ hand. It was warm and the flesh throbbed with life. He sighed his relief. For some inexplicable reason some one had knocked Bates out and brought him to this tomb. X was on the point of moving Bates from this cramped position, when a chill breath fanned his neck. X twisted his head and sent his flashlight beam over his shoulder. His heart leaped and drummed its warning, for the door of the crypt was closing.

  Rapid movement was vital and at the same time impossible in the narrow confines of this house of death. X dropped flat on his face and wriggled backwards. The crypt seal crashed with a deafening din. The heel of the Agent’s shoe struck the metal plate a moment too late.

  He heard the squeak of screws twisting in their sockets. X doubled, twisted, squirmed around, facing the bronze door. He pounded with his fists. The dull ring of the metal mocked his efforts. They were entombed alive. Bates and he would share to the last cubic centimeter this tiny ration of oxygen within the vault. Then smothering oblivion, eternal darkness, and the slow, sure ravages of decay.

  Crouching in front of the door, X’s flashlight beam darted frantically about the edge of the bronze plate. There was no way out. The screws could be operated only from the outside. It was maddening to think that perhaps he had come to the solution of the murder mystery, only to find himself hopelessly trapped. Some one had followed him to the mausoleum—the same person who had closed the crypt seal.

  In that terrible moment when X had seen the crypt door swinging shut, he had glimpsed the hand that had closed it. It was a thin, white, and feeble-looking hand. It was undoubtedly the hand of Marcus Hyde.

  Under the most terrific mental stress, X forced himself to think calmly. In his perilous career he had always found Death at his side, a monstrous, hungry thing; a certainty, of course, but something that he had frequently outwitted. He weighed his chances now and found that Death held all the cards.

  His pocket tools would have no chance of penetrating that thick plate before suffocation came upon him. Sewed in the lining of his coat were two cloth bags containing two chemicals that when combined produced a reaction that gave off terrific heat. This combination of chemicals, not unlike the welder’s thermite, he had often employed with success.

  But to attempt such a reaction now was practically suicide, because there was no means of retiring to a safe distance once the chemicals were ignited. Furthermore, if his supply of thermitelike substance was not enough to melt through the plate, the violent reaction would exhaust all the air in the tomb.

  But what of that? Suffocation faced them anyway, and there was nothing else to be done. Also, there was the chance that the Agent’s body would shield the unconscious Bates from the reaction. Perhaps Bates could be saved to carry on the great work that X had undertaken.

  A faint, ironic smile on his lips
, X began inching out of his coat. Yes, perhaps Bates could be saved, and certainly that last service to humanity was worthy of his best efforts.

  Chapter V

  SINISTER ALLIANCE

  SHORTLY after midnight, Betty Dale arrived at her apartment. Her mind was full of the events of the evening. She never saw Agent X perform one of his miraculous escapes but what she wondered if she would ever see him again. When X had sprung from the window at Miss Pettman’s house, it had seemed to Betty that at least one of the bullets fired by the police must hit him in a vital spot. Hers was no simple task—to stand and watch police shoot at the man she loved and yet restrain her emotions.

  With a heavy heart she unlocked the door of her apartment and entered. She caught her breath. Hope battled with terror. A man was sitting beneath a reading-lamp, calmly turning the pages of a magazine. He wore a heavy, black beard, and a monocle glittered in one eye. The face was not one easily forgotten. The man was Dr. Bentley Simon or—dared she hope that it was Agent X?

  The man looked up, smiled slightly. “Hello, Betty,” he said gently. Then he moved his two forefingers and crossed them to form the letter “X.”

  Betty’s pent-up breath escaped in a long sigh. “This time, you startled me. I was positive that you were Dr. Simon.”

  “Then Dr. Simon is such a terrible creature?” asked her visitor.

  “Oh, no. But then to return home alone and find a man sitting in your best chair, just as though he belonged there—well, it was a bit disconcerting until I was sure it was you,”

  Betty went to a small closet and removed her hat and coat. When she turned around, her visitor was standing beside her, eying her critically through his eyeglass.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, just a little nervously.

  “Matter? Simply that I’ve never seen you looking more beautiful.”