Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6

by G. T. Fleming-Roberts

  “If you would help me,” replied X, “I might be able to do something.”

  “Oh, there ain’t anything I wouldn’t do. Just tell me what.”

  “Then tell me something about your husband. Was he in pretty good health?”

  “Oh, always. One of those thin, wiry persons that always look worse off than they are. I don’t remember of him ever havin’ to go to a doctor until about two weeks ago. Then he was complainin’ of the rheumatiz. Mr. Hyde told his own doctor to look at my mister. The doctor gave him treatments.”

  “Just what sort of treatments?” X asked quietly.

  “Oh, shots. He went about every three days for a while. Then the doctor gave him some pills to take.”

  “And did Mr. Thomas’ condition improve?”

  “A little. He didn’t have such twinges as long as he kept takin’ the pills. But—but he didn’t live to take them all. Might have cured him. I got some of ’em here in my bag.” She opened a worn pocketbook and took out an unlabeled bottle, there were a few white tablets in the bottle. She handed them to Agent X.

  X took one of the pills, looked at it, smelled it, and finally chewed off a piece and tasted it. An odd smile spread across his face. Mr. Thomas’ rheumatism never would have been cured by those pills, though his suffering might have been lessened. They were ordinary five grain tablets of aspirin.

  “Now if you’d just tell me what I can do to help you, Mr. Martin—” the old woman urged.

  “I believe you’ve helped immensely,”

  Mrs. Thomas stood up. X took her arm and led her to the door. “And by the way, don’t bother to look for another scrubbing job,” he told her. “I happen to know that your thrifty husband made some very wise investments. You’ll be getting an income from these investments for a long, long time. And just in case there are some expenses that need meeting right away, allow me to advance you a hundred dollars on your next month’s income. You can pay me back when you see me again.” And before the old woman could refuse, he thrust a roll of bills into her hand and gently pushed her into the hall.

  AGENT X closed the door of his office and locked it. Mentally, he added the name of Mrs. Thomas to the long list of deserving people on his charity list. Then he went to his telephone and called the office of Dr. Bently Simon. His voice slipped easily into the harsh, grumbling tones of Mr. Herman Tetwilder.

  “Dr. Simon in?” he demanded. “This is Mr. Tetwilder.”

  A male voice replied: “Nope. Dr. Simon went to the office of Miss Barrie, the attorney. Want me to have the doctor call you when he comes in?”

  “No—no. The man’s never at home!” And X hung up violently. He sprang across the office to his private chamber and locked himself in. A few minutes later when he emerged, he appeared a much different man than A.J. Martin. His skin was dark, his jaw square and determined-looking. He wore a dark suit and gray felt hat. Members of the police force might well have taken him for Detective Sergeant Keegan, an impersonation that he felt was comparatively safe, inasmuch as discreet inquiry had informed him that Inspector Burks had sent Keegan into New Jersey on a case in no way related to the invisible murders.

  He hurried from his office and went to a near-by parking garage where several cars were always at his service. Then a distance of about twelve blocks through late afternoon traffic brought him to the office of Della Barrie.

  As he entered the elevator of the office building, some one slapped him on the shoulder. X turned his head slightly and saw the lean, hawklike face of Carlos Carasco, Betty Dale’s colleague on the Herald staff.

  “How are you, sleuth?” Carasco’s thin lips smiled.

  X looked the feature writer up and down. “I wouldn’t have to be a detective to know where you’re going,” he said in Detective Keegan’s voice. “When’s the big day?”

  Carasco’s smile widened. “Miss Barrie and I have tried to keep quiet about our marriage, but things have a way of leaking out. The wedding is tomorrow. Care to drop around and bring a wedding present?”

  X grunted. “Who knows? I might.”

  “But don’t get it that I’m not all business up to the last hour. I’m going up to see Della now on a story—the Pettman dog house. What you think of the old lady leaving her cool million to buy bones for stray dogs?”

  X shrugged. “It was her money.”

  “Well,” Carasco inched toward the door of the elevator, “here’s where I get off.” And to his surprise, X followed him.

  “You’re not planning to pinch my bride, are you, Keegan?” Carasco asked, as they walked together up the hall.

  “Not yet. But I don’t make any promises.”

  They entered the office. Carasco waved to Miss Barrie’s secretary and burst into the private office. X followed him.

  Della Barrie sat at her desk, smoking. There was a man at the window, looking down into the street. He turned. It was David Coombs, looking more than ever like an overgrown, surprised child. But Dr. Bently Simon was not in the room.

  DELLA BARRIE came forward and greeted Carasco affectionately. Coombs cleared his throat. “This mixing business and pleasure is highly objectionable, Miss Barrie,” he said softly.

  Della turned around, cheeks red, lips smiling. She nodded at X. “What’s on your troubled mind now, sergeant?”

  “Where’s Dr. Simon?” X demanded.

  The woman’s smile vanished. “Dr. Simon. Why, how should I know? Is he supposed to be here?”

  “Such was the information given me. You mean he hasn’t been here at all?”

  “He has never been here as far as I know. I’m sorry. But maybe he came while Mr. Coombs and I were busy. My secretary’s quite a lion. She may have frightened him away.”

  “Miss Barrie,” put in Coombs, “my chauffeur is waiting down in the street. We’ll have to let the matter of Miss Pettman’s estate rest for a while.”

  “Which reminds me,” Carasco said, “that while I’ve a chance to interview both administrators, I might as well get the stuff for the dog-house story now.”

  “Dog house? Bah!” It was the first time that Agent X had ever seen David Coombs the least bit ruffled. “Look here, Della, hasn’t Miss Pettman a cousin in Cleveland? Couldn’t that cousin contest the will? I’d give anything to see it broken. All that good money going to waste.”

  Della smiled. “If you think I enjoy being administratrix for the benefit of stray dogs of the city, you’re much mistaken. But it’s our job, and we’ve got to do it.”

  “Dogs!” sniffed Coombs as he marched through the door. “Most offensive!”

  A glance at his watch told X that if he was going to catch Inspector Burks at police headquarters he would have to hurry. He murmured goodbye to Della Barrie and Carasco, and hurried from the office.

  As he was leaving the building, the Agent saw David Coombs getting into his limousine. It was only a glance in passing, but X was certain that David Coombs’ chauffeur was a man he had once seen in a police line-up.

  However, he had more important things to do than worry about the character of David Coombs’ chauffeur. That evening, James Benson, utilities magnate, had an appointment with Inspector Burks—and the invisible death. Agent X was determined that he would be there also.

  X’s disguise was perfection. He had frequent opportunities to test it as he hurried through the halls of police headquarters to the homicide office, for he was hailed as Keegan by half a dozen officials. His long strides carried him swiftly through the homicide bureau and into Burks’ private office. He slammed the door behind him and fastened the bolt.

  Standing at his desk, his hat on his head, was the inspector himself. He was evidently just concluding a telephone conversation, for the receiver was still in his hand.

  On seeing X, Inspector Burks made his first mistake. He dropped the receiver to its hook. Had he left the connection open, the man at the other end of the wire might have heard much of what followed. And that man would have known what to do. For as soon as X got a good look
at Burks’ face, he knew at once that the inspector had been talking to the real Sergeant Keegan.

  BURKS’ hand shot toward his coat pocket. But the Agent’s swift movements had not faltered even though he realized that the inspector had identified him as soon as he had entered. His long leap carried him to the desk. His left fist shot to the biceps of Burks’ right arm. Burks’ fingers stiffened. His gun, already half out of his pocket, tumbled to the floor. The Agent’s right shot toward the point of Burks’ chin. But Burks was a born fighter. His head jerked to one side and the Agent’s blow merely fanned his ear. Burks retaliated with a left hook. X took the power out of that blow by allowing it to glance from his right elbow before it landed on his jaw. He staggered backwards, looked groggy and took another blow on the temple. His knees sagged. With a triumphant oath, Burks bent to recover his gun.

  Then came the moment Burks wasn’t looking for. X stiffened suddenly and brought his right fist into a low, upward swing that landed on Burks’ chin. Every ounce of strength in every muscle from toes to his broad shoulders went into that blow. Burks seemed actually lifted from his feet. He came down on his heels and fell like a log.

  X drew long, deep breaths. Outside Burks’ office, some one was pounding on the door and shouting.

  X stamped to the door. His very footsteps seemed to belong to Inspector Burks. And when he shouted, “What the hell!” it was Burks’ wrathful roar that came from his lips.

  “Nothing, sir,” replied the man on the other side of the door. “I just heard the noise and wondered if anything was the matter. The door was locked—”

  “Well let me do the wondering around here,” X called back. “Keegan was just showing me a new jiu-jitsu stunt. Don’t bother us.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man replied meekly.

  X went back to the unconscious Burks. A brief examination showed him that Burks would be out for an hour, anyway. He pulled out his pocket make-up kit, stood his folding mirror on the inspector’s desk, and began to duplicate Burks’ features and complexion upon his own face.

  Ten minutes later, Agent X, looking exactly like Inspector Burks, left the office, quietly locking the door with Burks’ own key. He had an appointment with the invisible death. He was determined that none should prevent him from keeping it.

  Chapter VII

  APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH

  BETTY DALE soon found that everything she had heard about Ned Sangar, aggressive partner of the firm of Coombs and Sangar, was true. The Stone Man of Wall Street, as Sangar was frequently called, was most unattractive in appearance. His pale, protruding eyes were hardly more expressive than a pair of oysters. His nose was but a continuation of his receding forehead. A wry twist of his shapeless lower lip served him for a smile.

  As she had expected, Sangar had positively refused to see her when she had made an attempt to interview him, the morning following her visitation from the bearded man she had believed to be Agent X. But Betty had been a reporter too long to be easily shaken off. She was in the outer office again when Sangar started out for an afternoon on the golf course. As soon as the broker stepped from his private office, she advanced, smilingly introduced herself, and began asking questions as fast as they popped into her mind.

  At first, Sangar stared at her coldly. Gradually, his fishy eyes warmed. He gave ground steadily until at last he found himself back in his private office with quite the most attractive blonde he had ever seen, sitting beside him.

  “I—er—but, Miss Dale, I am a very busy man. These questions—I would be only too glad to answer at another time. If you would let me take you to lunch, perhaps—”

  “I never eat lunch, Mr. Sangar,” Betty replied. “I have to watch my calories.”

  “But—but you do eat sometime, don’t you?”

  “Breakfast and dinner.”

  And so the trick was turned. Steering Mr. Sangar into Minetta Lane was a far more difficult task. He had planned something more elaborate than the fare offered by the Stephani Café. As they purred along in Sangar’s roadster, Betty finally said:

  “I can’t help it, Mr. Sangar. I am going to eat at the Stephani. I’m simply dying for some ravioli. If you’ll just drive me to the Village and let me out.”

  “But your interview—”

  “I could interview you just as well if not better in the quiet of the Stephani Café.”

  Much against his infallible judgment, Sangar turned the car about and headed for Greenwich Village.

  There were few patrons in the Stephani when they arrived at about eight o’clock. Sangar looked the picture of embarrassment, and it was only with difficulty that Betty hid her nervousness. It was not until she saw the big, square-shouldered man with the scar on his left cheek, that she sighed her relief. For the scar-face, she supposed, was her old friend, Secret Agent X.

  But if Betty relaxed, the reaction her appearance had upon the scar-faced man was quite different. For the man supposed to be Jeefers, the man whom Betty thought was Agent X, was none other than Harvey Bates.

  After X had disguised Bates as the criminal Jeefers, Bates had spent several long and uneventful hours prowling about the Hyde estate. He had been on the point of dozing off while sitting in the warming rays of the afternoon sun, when he had heard footsteps behind him. He had stood up, turned around, and confronted a rough-looking character who promptly addressed him as Jeefers. Bates had replied with a grunt, whereupon the man had thrust a sheet of paper in his hand, and walked away.

  The paper had held typewritten instructions. Bates was to spend the evening waiting at the Stephani Café. He was to captain a band of cutthroats who would be disguised as patrons and waiters. When Ned Sangar came in, in the company of a lovely blonde woman, the instructions informed Bates that he was to go up to Sangar and tell him that David Coombs wanted to speak to Sangar on the phone. Coombs, being Sangar’s business partner, would have to be answered, and when Sangar got to the phone booth, Bates was to knock him out. The rest of the kidnaping was to be handled by others within the café.

  A DANGEROUS job for a man who wore his make-up self-consciously, but Bates was determined to chew all that he had bitten off. Having failed to contact X by radio, he had gone to the Stephani with the idea of taking the breaks as they came and, if at all possible, save Mr. Sangar from being kidnaped.

  But seeing that Betty Dale was the blonde who had lured Sangar into this thieves’ den was a shock from which Bates could not recover. He knew that Betty had been associated with Agent X; had even guessed that his beloved employer felt something more than friendship for the girl. As he watched Betty smiling, laughing, deliberately charming the frosty-eyed Sangar, dull pain moved into Harvey Bates’ big heart. Samson had had his Delilah. Now the mighty Agent X had his—

  And suddenly, the dull ache of disappointment was gone. The big man could scarcely contain himself with rage. No wonder X had accomplished nothing in the investigation of the invisible deaths. There was a traitor in his camp—a woman as beautiful as an angel and as poisonous as a viper. And the mental monstrosity grew and grew until Bates was holding Betty Dale responsible for every day of adversity that X had ever had.

  “And if,” Bates thought to himself, “that invisible killer is turned loose on the city, Betty Dale and Betty Dale alone will be responsible!” And in anger, he pushed away from the table where he had been sitting, and strode to where Betty and Sangar were seated.

  The eyes of half a dozen ruthless criminals were upon him. Bates didn’t care. Rage blinded him. When he spoke, it was not with the deliberate growl of Jeefers, that he had been practising all day. He spoke with his usual clipped syllables. He leaned over Sangar’s table, his big frame shaking so that he knocked over the broker’s wine.

  “Phone,” he chopped. “Mr. Coombs.”

  “What? For me?” Sangar stood up, yanked from a trance in which golden hair and blue eyes had predominated. “Who wants me?”

  “Coombs,” Bates repeated. And he seized Sangar by the arm and rushed him
to the service door and out into the kitchen.

  Sangar resisted and sputtered dazed objections. Bates pushed him into a dark little court back of the restaurant.

  “You—you brought me out here to rob me!” Sangar whimpered huskily. And he beat Bates futilely about the head and shoulders with his free arm.

  “Think straight, Sangar,” Bates whispered. “It was a plan to kidnap you. Don’t you—”

  A door crashed open. Men poured into the court. Bates warded off a powerful blow from his foremost assailant, and in the next moment he was forced to release Sangar. His big fist mauled into a face. He lunged with his shoulder and sent another man bowling into a garbage can. But a third came up from behind and caught Bates behind the ear with a blow from a shot-filled leather sack. Then total blackness swept over him.

  So smoothly had everything gone within the café, that Betty Dale had not the slightest idea but what everything had gone off as planned—or as she had supposed had been planned. After twenty minutes of toying with her food, Betty assumed the pose of an annoyed young girl who has suddenly found herself left with the dinner check. A neatly counterfeited expression of disgust on her face, she took the check and approached the cashier’s cage.

  “What happened to your boy friend, Betty?” some one asked.

  Betty’s heart jumped. She turned. At a table near the door sat Carlos Carasco, grinning thinly. Across the table from Carasco, perfectly composed, always confident, was Della Barrie.

  “He—he had business to attend to,” Betty stammered.

  Carasco nodded wisely. “He’s the Stone Man, all right. When you two came in, I thought you’d hooked Sangar at least for the evening. But say, won’t you join us?”