Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 6

by G. T. Fleming-Roberts

  Beem’s battered companion nodded. “And he swiped my car—that tan roadster over there. Look in the rumble seat. I saw him put his make-up stuff in a zipper bag—”

  Burks and Beem sprang to the sidewalk and pounced upon the tan roadster. They shuffled through baggage piled in the rumble seat. Beem triumphantly produced a zipper bag and slid back the fastenings. Burks put his hand in and uttered an oath. “False whiskers and everything. Let’s go, boys!”

  “Easy,” Beem warned. “We’ve got to get in there quietly. We don’t want our bird to produce wings and fly.”

  “Don’t tell me!” Burks exploded, “I know that guy. Come on, Carasco.” And Burks led the way up the walk, the steps, and into the church. He was accompanied by two of his men. An usher would have stopped them, but Burks flashed his badge and pressed a finger on his lips. He led his little party up the aisle.

  Della Barrie, looking very regal in her white gown, had just joined hands with the bridegroom who was suave and confident. The minister raised his eyes and saw Burks, Beem, the two headquarters men, and a man who looked as though he had been in a fight. A frown disturbed his placid face.

  Burks held up his hand. “Hold it, Reverend. I’m arresting the bridegroom. The charge covers murder, kidnaping, and anything else you care to name.”

  Bride and bridegroom turned. Della Barrie uttered a faint scream, and dropped her bouquet. She clutched the bridegroom’s arm.

  The bridegroom had perfect possession of himself. “Utterly absurd, inspector. Don’t you know me? I’m Carlos Carasco.”

  Burks nodded. “I know you. This is Carlos Carasco.” And he thumbed at the battered man at his side. “You are Secret Agent X. You’re the man behind the invisible death. You’ve also been Dr. Bently Simon, and I’m taking you away for murder.”

  The wedding guests stood up. An excited murmur ran through the crowd. Burks’ two men forced the guests back into the pews.

  “Keep your seats, everybody,” Burks warned. “Some one may get hurt.” He held up the zipper bag. “Ever see this?” he asked the bridegroom.

  “Why—why—” His mouth shut.

  “Of course you have. It’s yours,” Burks cut in. “And I’ll show you something else.” He reached in the bag and pulled out the false whiskers and monocle. “Your disguise when you played the part of Dr. Bently Simon. Mr. X, I’ve got you with the goods. Try any tricks, and I’ll shoot to kill. Don’t try any of your knock-out gas. I can hold my breath as long as the next man.”

  THE bridegroom had grown deathly white. Della Barrie had deserted him and was staring in amazement from the real Carasco to Secret Agent X.

  Then the bridegroom went into action. He ducked across the front of the church, keeping the wedding guests between himself and the detectives. Burks couldn’t fire, though he held his gun in readiness, for fear of hurting some innocent person.

  Thornton Beem tried a snap shot with his pneumatic pistol. The silent bullet clipped the ear of a wedding guest, but the bridegroom hurdled pews, gained the left aisle, and was ducking from pillar to pillar. Burks’ gun swung, following the running man. “Halt, X, or I’ll drop you!”

  The bridegroom gained the front door and for a moment was framed against the glaring street beyond. Burks shouted: “Halt in the name of the law!” Then his gun roared twice. The man on the front steps staggered, took another step, and pitched forward, a rolling tangle of arms and legs.

  Burks and his men and Thornton Beem sprang forward and clattered down the steps of the church. The man was lying on his face. Blood dribbled from a cleanly drilled hole at the base of his brain.

  “Dead,” Burks said huskily. “Call the morgue, boys.” It was small triumph for Burks. True, he had rid the earth of a dangerous man, but he hated killing. He turned the corpse over. “His last impersonation,” he muttered a little sadly.

  Inside the church, the living Carasco looked out upon the dead one. There was something sad about his battered face. He had not wanted things to turn out just that way. He turned around suddenly as a figure in white fluttered down the aisle toward him.

  “Carlos, my Carlos!” Della Barrie sobbed, and threw herself into his arms.

  He held her tenderly. “I know,” he said gently. “This has been a terrible shock, Della. I’m sorry, believe me. You see, he didn’t want you. He wanted Marcus Hyde’s money. He would have killed Hyde right after the ceremony. He was a cowardly criminal.”

  “I know, dear,” the woman sobbed. “You—you did right. I’m proud of you. I’m just stunned. What if I had married Agent X? Oh, kiss me, Carlos.” She lifted quivering red lips.

  He kissed her, but it was the hardest thing he had ever done. That kiss was meant for the dead man out in the street. Very gently, he slipped from her embrace. He turned to the minister. “You take care of her,” he whispered. “The wedding will have to be postponed. Della, I’ll have to go now.”

  “Oh, don’t,” she pleaded.

  “But I must.” He smiled. “If you ever marry a newspaperman, you’ll have to expect things like this. I’ve got to get the biggest story in months. And you wouldn’t want to go through with the wedding with your eyes all teary, would you?”

  “No,” she replied weakly. “But you’ll be back soon?”

  THE man muttered something, turned, and hurried from the church. He hated to have to deceive a sincere woman, but there was no other way. Out in the street, men were lifting the body into an ambulance. That dead man was Carlos Carasco, alias Dr. Bently Simon. His bruised and living counterpart was Secret Agent X.

  It had all been a carefully planned hoax to bring about the arrest of Carlos Carasco. X had planted evidence that would have convicted Carasco of the invisible murders. He had put the beard and make-up material, which Carasco had used in his alias of Dr. Simon, in Carasco’s car.

  Then X had impersonated Carasco, added a bruise on his head for effect, and gone to Thornton Beem. He cared little if the police thought that Carasco was Agent X. They would learn the truth when they discovered that there was no make-up material on Carasco’s face. X had expected that Carasco’s nerve would be broken when he was confronted with the evidence which proved that he was also the villainous Dr. Simon. But X had not supposed that he would have so little sense as to try to run away when Burks had him covered with his gun. So while Carasco had probably got his just deserts, X was not entirely satisfied in the way his trick had worked out.

  The Agent’s first duty was to get in touch with Betty Dale. The girl reporter would be grief stricken if she heard the rumor that Agent X had been shot. As soon as he left the church, X went to a nearby drug store and phoned the Herald office, only to learn that Betty Dale had not put in her appearance that day.

  X’s brow furrowed. Could Betty be sick? Could something have happened to her? Had she gone out on a secret investigation of her own?

  He hurried back to the church, got in Carlos Carasco’s car, and unlocked it with one of the master keys he always carried. Then he drove like a mad man to Betty’s apartment. He ran into the building and took an elevator to the fourth floor. He hurried down the hall and knocked on the door of Betty’s apartment. No answer. He brought out his master keys and unlocked the door.

  Everything seemed to be in perfect order, but the apartment was filled with a silence that foreboded evil. A piece of paper was propped against Betty’s typewriter. On it was writing in Betty’s unforgettable hand but in a code which X had taught her. Translated, it read:

  “Please let me know how you came out with your kidnaping of Ned Sangar. Did I do my part right? Am very anxious.”

  The Agent’s heart leaped. Some one, claiming to be Agent X, had used Betty as a tool to snare Ned Sangar. But the Agent never introduced himself to Betty in any other way than by secret signal. There was only one explanation—some one knew of one of the signs he used.

  His mind raced back over every move that he had made during the investigation of the invisible murders. Only once had he signaled to Betty
, and that had been when he had impersonated Thornton Beem in the hall of the Marcus Hyde mansion. But at that moment, no one could have seen him, unless—

  X sprang to the door, nearly yanking it from its hinges in getting it open. Miles separated Betty’s apartment from Long View—miles that meant minutes. Almost anything could happen in that time. X suddenly realized that his task was only half done. When he had signaled Betty, Carasco had not been in the Hyde hall. There was some one else in the kidnap and murder racket besides Carasco. That some one had Betty in his power and perhaps Harvey Bates, too. And the hideous, invisible death was still at large.

  There was only one way to discover the identity of the other villain. He must get to the Hyde house as soon as possible.

  Drive as fast as he would, it was dusk by the time he reached Long View. The gates were wide open and the great stone house loomed blackly against the gray sky. Not a single window was lighted.

  X SPRANG from the car. His master keys were in his hands before he reached the door. He didn’t need them. Marcus Hyde had evidently acted upon the Agent’s instructions, flying from the invisible death without even taking a moment to lock up his house. Evidently the servants had all been dismissed, for the hall was as silent as the church nave it resembled.

  The Agent snapped on the light. His eyes skated around the room. The long, low couch had not been moved, he was certain. Neither had the mounted suit of armor near by.

  He flung himself on the couch, picturing the position of everyone who had been in the hall at the time he had signaled to Betty. Betty had been sitting in a chair opposite the couch. A few feet from the chair was a deep alcove that was flanked on one side by the wide stairway and elaborate banister. Light from the hall did not pierce this deep niche, X knew, for he had hidden there when he had managed to decoy the police to second floor, previous to taking the place of Beem on the couch.

  X rolled from the couch and entered the alcove. Immediately, he understood how he had been watched. There was a circular mirror hanging at the end of the alcove. From the couch it had been almost invisible, because from that angle it reflected only the dark, beamed ceiling. But when standing erect, X could see the couch in the hall reflected in the mirror in the alcove.

  He quickly checked off the names of those who had been in the hall at the time he had signaled Betty. He recalled the position of each. Only those standing nearly in front of the couch could have watched X’s reflection in the mirror. Rapid elimination gave him the name of the killer who still lived.

  The Agent still wore the disguise he had adopted for the impersonation of Carasco. No need to change it now. If Carasco’s criminal partner did not know the truth about the shooting at the church, the Carasco disguise might give X the opportunity of getting within striking distance of the criminal. Of course, if the second criminal had learned the truth, X would be deliberately thrusting his head into the jaws of death—the invisible death. And though he understood the nature of that invisible death, he knew nothing of the unseen weapon the killers used.

  “Been looking all over for you, Carasco,” a voice croaked behind X.

  Secret Agent X turned. His hand instinctively sought the pocket where he carried his gas pistol. The speaker was a thin, quivering skeleton of a man, with coarse features and a pasty face that twitched constantly. X recognized the man immediately as the Dope, a depraved, half-witted, coke fiend.

  “Hello, Dope,” X said carelessly in the voice of the dead Carasco. “What do you want?”

  “The big boss wants to see you at headquarters at once.”

  And Agent X had no idea where “headquarters” was.

  Chapter X

  DEN OF INVISIBLE DEATH

  X WALKED beside the Dope to the front door. “How will I get into headquarters when I get there?” he asked.

  “Haven’t you got the key, Carasco?”

  “I’ll see,” X stalled. He took out his master keys and also the brass key to the mausoleum. The Dope was watching him closely.

  “You got it right there,” the Dope told him, and he could have only meant the key to the mausoleum.

  Sure of his destination, X started off in the direction of the cemetery. The Dope followed.

  When they arrived at the mausoleum, X unlocked the door and allowed the Dope to enter first. The man crossed to the back room and X saw that he approached the crypt where X and Bates had been confined. The Dope slipped out a screw driver and had the bronze door of the crypt open in a moment. He turned expectantly to X.

  X shook his head. “You go ahead. I’ll hold the light”

  “Gimme the key.”

  The Agent wondered if the brass key that unlocked the front door would also serve to open some secret panel within the crypt. If it didn’t, discovery of his trick was almost certain. He handed the brass key to the Dope.

  X sighed his relief. The Dope accepted the key, crawled into the crypt, and inserted the key in a small opening in one wall. In a moment, the heavy stone slab at the back of the crypt slid downward. The Dope crawled through the opening and X followed. He found himself in a narrow shaft of mossy bricks joined to a sub-passage by means of a steep stairway.

  He followed his twitching guide into what appeared to be a portion of an old, abandoned vault. Several niches, that had once contained coffins, were now covered by glass plates. Behind the plates were human bodies, perhaps robbed from the new mausoleum above. As they approached these niches, X saw that the bodies within swarmed with tiny, white larvae of a type that he had never seen before.

  The Dope led from this incubator of crawling things into a large, well-lighted laboratory. At a desk in the center of the room sat a man who wore a white laboratory suit, skull cap, and gauze mask. As X entered, the man in white got up. His eyes were smiling.

  “You’ve heard the news, Carasco? Agent X shot through the head. We can go ahead with plans for our retirement. We’ll get rid of Hyde. Della Barrie will sign the fortune over to you as soon as she has inherited it, and we’ll split the spoils. Should be nearly a million apiece from the Hyde estate, and over four hundred thousand dollars in gold and jewels from our kidnapings. Wonderful, eh? But you’re getting more than your share. You’re getting Della Barrie to boot.”

  X laughed. “I’d rather it was the blonde from the Herald office.”

  The man in white shook his head. “That is impossible. Both she and the big spy must be done away with. They know too much.”

  Agent X’s heart leaped hopefully. Then Betty and Bates were still alive. Still, he kept on acting, sparring for an opening. “I’ve heard that the police are getting wise to the fact that we kill by anaphylaxis.”

  The man in white chuckled. “But it will take them a long time to find out how we make that final, poisonous injection. Besides, we’ll be through with this in a couple of days. We must collect from our last two kidnap victims, get rid of Miss Dale and the other X spy, and kill Hyde. The police, incidentally, are suspicious of Hyde because of his nightly wanderings. I have a plan by which we can throw all the blame on his shoulders. No one would ever suppose that Hyde acted under your hypnotic influence,”

  So it was Carasco who had hypnotized Hyde, X had guessed as much. Eagerly, he asked the killer how Hyde was to be framed.

  “Simplicity itself,” declared the man in white. “I have prepared a full confession. You’ll hypnotize Hyde and make him sign it. Then, Hyde could commit suicide. Understand?”

  X smiled. “You’re a genius. Let’s see the confession.”

  Chuckling, the killer extended a sheet of paper covered with close typing. “This is the whole truth. It would mean the chair for you and I if we signed it. But Hyde is the man who will sign it. Did you know that Hyde nearly escaped us? I caught him as he was on the way to the airport, running away from the invisible death.”

  AGENT X was deeply engrossed in the paper in his hands. As the killer had said, it was the truth from beginning to end. It read:

  “The laborious process by which
I created what has been termed the ‘invisible death’ is too long to relate in this confession. That mysterious phenomenon, anaphylaxis, is its foundation. As a biologist and bacteriologist I understood how an ordinarily harmless protein may become a deadly poison to anyone who has been sensitized to that protein. I had frequently read of persons dying from bee stings, and I knew that anaphylaxis was the underlying cause of their death—they had become sensitized to the venom of the bee because of previous stings.

  “By much tedious laboratory work, by breeding and cross-breeding insects, I finally developed a hybrid insect possessing a mosquitolike lust for human blood, and, also, when disturbed while feeding, was capable of inflicting a wasplike sting. These tiny, hybrid insects could be nurtured by the billions, thriving best, I found, on dead human flesh. In these tiny insects, I had my offensive weapon.

  “Every person kidnaped by my organization, received hypodermic injections containing small amounts of venom of my hybrid insects. These injections, of course, were harmless, only serving to sensitize the system so that a sting from one of my insects would mean death. I warned every victim that if he or she gave out any information to the police, death would be certain and immediate.

  “If one of our victims was inclined to talk, one of my men was always close by, carrying some of the insects in a little match box. If the insects stung persons who had not been sensitized, the result was hardly noticeable. Furthermore, I noticed that the sensitizing injections made certain changes in the blood of the victim that made him particularly attractive to my insects.

  “Whenever an insect started to feed upon one of our victims, the victim would naturally slap at it. Then the insect stung, and our victims died before they could utter a word that would help the police.

  “In this manner I killed Miss Pettman and Benson, for the purpose of keeping them quiet. Thomas, the watchman, I killed because he was becoming too inquisitive about the mausoleum in the cemetery.

  “This is my confession. I sign it freely.”