Secret Agent "X": The Complete Series, Volume 7
by
G.T. Fleming-Roberts
Introduction by
Tom Johnson
Altus Press • 2015
Copyright Information
© 2015 Altus Press
Publication History:
“The Doom Director” originally appeared in the August 1936 issue of Secret Agent “X” magazine.
“Horror’s Handclasp” originally appeared in the October 1936 issue of Secret Agent “X” magazine.
“City of Madness” originally appeared in the December 1936 issue of Secret Agent “X” magazine.
“Death’s Frozen Formula” originally appeared in the February 1937 issue of Secret Agent “X” magazine.
“The Murder Brain” originally appeared in the April 1937 issue of Secret Agent “X” magazine.
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Designed by Matthew Moring/Altus Press
Special Thanks to Tom Johnson, Rick Ollerman & Ray Riethmeier
Introduction by Tom Johnson
IN this volume, we again find some very interesting stories by G.T. Fleming-Roberts. “The Doom Director” and “Horror’s Handclasp” (August and October 1936, respectively) were both headed Detective Mysteries, while the next three stories, “City of Madness,” “Death’s Frozen Formula,” and “The Murder Brain,” December 1936, February and April 1937, were headed G-Man Action Adventures.
Some may consider “The Doom Director,” “Horror’s Handclasp,” and “The Murder Brain” as minor entries, but they do have their merits. Of note, we see “X” save Inspector Burks’ life in “The Doom Director,” and in return the inspector allows “X” to escape. And femme fatale Vina Trumaine appears in “Horror’s Handclasp.” While in “The Murder Brain,” we have a woman with two identities. But, in my opinion, our main stories this time around are “City of Madness” and “Death’s Frozen Formula,” two of my favorites. “Death’s Frozen Formula” was actually the first pulp of Secret Agent “X” that I ever owned, and it happened to be a good one.
Zerna is the femme fatale. This woman was exotically beautiful. She possessed a dark, secret beauty that warmed to gay colors and daring costumes. Her dark, soft skin had a faint yellowish coat that suggested mixed bloods. Her lips were warm and scarlet; her eyes cold and sea green. She was as evil a woman that Agent “X” had ever faced. She dispensed drugs and death while never displaying any emotion. She was a cold and heartless woman.
Yes, the novel is dark, and “X” is faced with a drug syndicate of pure evil.
But “City of Madness” may just be the best Secret Agent “X” story in the series. Here he is faced by his most evil adversary, Shaitan, and Betty Dale sees his true face for the first time. Betty was with the Agent from the very first, although a few novels featured her in no active part, merely giving the Agent information over the phone. However, she was usually right in the middle of his cases, and getting captured, being drugged, put in dungeons and tortured. At least once in every novel, Agent “X” was forced to penetrate a criminal stronghold to rescue the young reporter. She saw the Agent’s true face for the first time in “City of Madness” (December 1936). She remained with the Agent for another year of the magazine, making her final appearance in the December 1937 issue, titled “Plague of the Golden Death.” At that time she was dropped from the series (but the Agent still finds other fair damsels to rescue).
Betty had relatives in a town named Branford (no state given, but assumed to be New York), an aunt and cousin. The cousin, Paula Channing, is very wealthy in her own right, and popular in the community (“City of the Living Dead,” June 1934).
Also important to the series was the love interest for the Agent’s two aides, Jim Hobart and Harvey Bates; though the two ladies involved were only featured in one novel each, their parts were very important and deserve mention:
Leanne Manners (“The Murder Monster,” December 1934) — Leanne was a red-haired young girl from a mid-western town. The fiancée of Jim Hobart, she was refined and educated (and also a graceful dancer). Agent “X” got her a job at the Diamond Club, where she quickly became the star of the nightclub show. However, she actually had another job there, which consisted of keeping tabs on the mobsters that frequented the club.
Leanne and Hobart were soon to be married, but she only appeared in the one novel and was never mentioned again. However, as Jim Hobart only remained with the Agent for two more years it might be assumed that they did get married and, due to the dangerous work in which he was involved, he was released from active service by the Agent.
Charlotta (“City of Madness,” December 1936) — Darkly beautiful, her narrow velvety-lidded eyes were almost black and extraordinarily shrewd. High cheekbones accentuated a small, pointed chin. Her rouged lips suggested determination without in any way detracting from her beauty. She wore a short, flared black skirt and the postage stamp apron of a housemaid.
Though American born, nature had endowed her with brains as well as beauty, and she had served Russia in the early days of the war. Her mastery of foreign languages and her love for adventure had enticed her to seek fortune in strange lands at an early age. She later left Russia and transferred her abilities to the French Intelligence Service. Wherever adventure and intrigue could be found, there too was Charlotta.
Harvey Bates fell in love with her (and so did I) in the novel and she returned his love. But after this novel Bates was active in only four more cases and seldom placed in a position of danger. Thus, it might be assumed that Charlotta added the name of Bates to her own—and Agent “X” once again lost another very capable operative.
G.T. Fleming-Roberts was a master storyteller, and his plots always worked well. During the final years of the series, I believe his stories were edited for length, thus we missed out on some exceptionally good writing during this period. But even then, the characters he created carried the stories even with the word count cut. I think this current volume proves that George Thomas Fleming Roberts was, indeed, one of the top pulp authors of his day.
Happy reading!
Tom Johnson
Seymour, Texas
The Doom Director
Invisible doom came to change the living into strangled, purple-faced gallows corpses. And Agent X’s cunning inventions and courage were failing before the wile of a fear-mad killer, who could send his unseen death to Sing Sing in time to cheat even the electric chair.
CHAPTER I
Corpse Cargo
A MINIATURE constellation of red, green and yellow stars moved against the black dome of sky—the night plane from Chicago, riding the blast of her three propellers, flying due east. The motors, three steely hearts, throbbed dutifully. Much depended on their pulse that night, much more than the human lives marooned upon that moving island in the sky.
Seemingly alone in the dark was this giant of the skies. Yet phantom wires linked it to the earth—wires, oddly enough, that tangled in a maze of conflicting purposes and emotions. At Ossining, thirty miles up the Hudson, Tony Lizio paced a cell in the prison death house. He might not have to die if the plane and all aboard reached New York safely. Fortunately, he did not realize that his salvation winged across the sky, else the suspense might have driven him to madness.
In a filthy East Side lodging house, another man thought of the night plane and was greedy for its arrival. Fifty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels were aboard, and if every cog of criminal planning meshed, they would change hands i
n mid-air. Change hands without, he doubtless thought with a chuckle, benefit of monetary consideration.
Certain officials in police headquarters were edgy with excitement as they clocked the progress of that plane. Out of the dark and secretive night, a radio message had flashed from Chicago. A desperate criminal was aboard the airliner, masquerading as the radio operator. And when Inspector John Burks had received that message he had glanced significantly at the police commissioner, clenched his big fist, and said: “Well, that’s just one place where Secret Agent X can’t possibly get away from us.” For in Burks’ mind, one, and only one, man would have the sheer audacity to impersonate a member of the crew of the airliner.
The scales of justice swayed between heaven and earth that night. Yet within the plane itself the passengers showed no indication of their importance to the events that took place on the earth below.
“Yes, sir,” declared Samuel Hempstead, folding his paper vigorously, “he ought to get it and get it proper. The chair’s too good for him. But if that’s all we’ve got I say I hope he gets it and gets it proper.” He added insult to injury by slapping the picture that loomed largely from the front page of the paper. The picture was that of Tony Lizio, wide-eyed and frightened by the photographer’s flashlight. That same Lizio who at the moment paced his cell in Sing Sing’s “dance hall” and alternately prayed and cursed.
The villainy of Tony Lizio, his chance of escaping the chair had been the chief topic of conversation among those inclined to talk. Hempstead was obviously rabid on the subject. All criminals, regardless of their crime, ought to be quickly removed from the earth, in his opinion. Lizio was a man found guilty by the courts of the kidnaping and murder of young John Jonalden IV, the likeable, inoffensive heir to the Jonalden fortune.
“Personally, I disagree,” said a young man in front of Hempstead. He had been personally disagreeing all evening. “We have no right to take a man’s life on circumstantial evidence. I admit that it looks rather bad for this Lizio, the half-completed ransom notes in his possession and all. But—”
Hempstead was deaf to all but his own voice. He began again with a glowing but inaccurate description of Tony Lizio writhing in the chair and getting half the voltage he deserved. Back of Hempstead, a bullet-headed man squirmed, hid his diminutive nose behind a magazine, and kept an eye on Mr. Hempstead.
Across the aisle from the bullet-headed person, a young pleasant-looking man kept his eyes toward the window. There was nothing to see in the glass but blackness—blackness and the reflection of the bullet-headed man. The young man knew that regardless of what name the bullet-headed person had put on the passenger list, his real name was Turney. He also knew that Mr. Turney’s reason for being on the plane was none other than Samuel Hempstead, or rather Mr. Hempstead’s diamonds.
But Turney and the young man and the old woman had said not a word since the plane had taken off. The old woman occupied the last seat in the compartment. Her large, unlovely figure was completely shrouded in black. A heavy, black veil draped her face. She was entirely surrounded by flowers so that she looked like a mourner at a funeral. She carried a small, brass bird cage in which a canary hopped from perch to perch and now and then tweeted when the old lady whispered to it.
HEMPSTEAD enthusiastically damned Tony Lizio for the last time and had plunged headlong into the crime problem. “I believe it the duty of every person to take particular pains not to put temptation in the way of criminals,” Hempstead told anyone who would listen. “There’d be much less crime if everyone was careful. Now you take me. I could travel by train or bus. But do I? Not me. What’s the use of tempting the crooks with all the stuff I’ve got to carry.”
“I take it,” said the man inclined to debate with Hempstead, “that you believe the patrons of the airlines to be very superior persons.”
“They’re higher up in the world,” Hempstead guffawed. “But seriously, that’s not it. Any one of you might be crooked. The point is, well—” Hempstead reached into his pocket and brought out a flat black case. He tapped it significantly. “There’s fifty grand in unset diamonds in this case. I bought ’em for our shop from a collector in Chicago.”
The young man across the aisle watched Mr. Turney’s reflection in the window. Mr. Turney had lowered his magazine a little. He had even bent forward to make sure he knew in which pocket Mr. Hempstead carried his jewels.
Hempstead droned on as tirelessly as the motors themselves: “Just suppose some of you are crooks. Suppose you hold me up for the jewels. Where would you run to after you got ’em? Where, I ask you? You can’t jump out of the plane. You got the jewels, maybe, but you can’t get away with them. Yes sir, I feel perfectly safe on a plane.”
Mr. Turney couldn’t repress a smile. And the young man across the aisle saw the reflection of it. His jaw squared suddenly and his eyes narrowed. His hand went into his coat pocket and bulged there. He slipped quickly across the aisle and dropped into the vacant chair beside the bullet-headed Mr. Turney. The bulge in his pocket jabbed into Turney’s side. His lips smiled amiably while his eyes threatened. The drone of the motors and Hempstead’s lecture effectively muffled the young man’s voice.
“Hughes is my name, Turney,” he announced to the bullet-headed man. He reached into his pocket with his left hand and produced a small gold badge that made Turney squirm. “What Hempstead says about a crook not being able to get off one of the planes is pretty true. When we land in New York, you’ve got your choice of leaving a free man or going up to police headquarters on the charge of carrying concealed weapons as a starter. But that’s just a starter, Turney.”
“Lolly” Turney, one-time gang czar, forgot about Mr. Hempstead’s diamonds. He knew only that there was a gun jabbing his side and a G-man’s steady eyes prodding his brain.
“I learned a whole lot about you in Chicago, Turney,” went on Hughes. “I’m assigned to the Jonalden case.”
Turney jumped. “Listen, mister—”
“You listen, Turney. Before this plane lands, you’re going to tell me what you know about the Jonalden job. There’s enough stuff on you to put you on Alcatraz for life. But I can forget a lot of that if you’ll come across with the information I’m looking for. Who killed young Jonalden? It wasn’t Tony Lizio. And you know who it was, because on the night of January sixth—”
Turney mopped his brow. “You win,” he croaked.
“And the truth, Turney.”
THE WOMAN in black got to her feet. Head and shoulders stooped, she shuffled along the aisle toward the nose of the plane. Hempstead watched her, nudged the man in front of him. “The old lady’s bird must be getting sleepy. Bored stiff with the stuff she’s been whispering to it.”
The man in front of Hempstead looked around. The old woman’s bird was in the bottom of the cage. The man looked disgustedly at Hempstead. “Sleepy? Say, birds don’t sleep that way. That canary’s dead.”
Hempstead’s shoulders wriggled uncomfortably. “Say, don’t those flowers give you the creeps? Smells too much like a funeral around here to suit me.”
Ahead, in the radio compartment, the operator slumped forward on his tiny table, apparently asleep. The door of the compartment was opened by a hidden hand. A small, glistening object dropped to the floor and slid noiselessly across to the wall as the plane banked. The door of the radio compartment closed.
A few minutes later, the man at the controls of the plane motioned to his companion, the co-pilot. The co-pilot nodded. In front of the nose of the ship, the horizon glowed faintly. Only a few minutes of flying time remained. The co-pilot got up and went to the radio compartment. He merely glanced through the door, but he saw something that caused him to take a sharp gasp of breath.
The radio operator lolled across his table, sleeping. But it was the sleep without an awakening. The man’s face was blue-black. The black, puffy thing between his teeth was his tongue. His wide-open eyes stared blankly, and protruded like the eyeballs of a corpse cut down from the gall
ows.
Horror did not hold the co-pilot long. He turned at once to the passenger compartment. And there he was shocked into immobility. The plane was a flying morgue of garroted corpses. Six passengers and the air stewardess drooped in their seats or sprawled in the aisle. All dead, all apparently strangled. And the air was heavy with the funereal smell of cut flowers.
The co-pilot came out of his daze. He picked his way among the bodies. The stewardess had made an effort to get her medical kit open and had died in the attempt. Hempstead lay crosswise of the aisle, his blue, bloated face mooning up hideously. The jeweler’s coat was open and the lining ripped. The co-pilot knelt and slipped a gloved hand into the man’s pockets. Empty.
Pockets of the other passengers were similarly gutted. Not a paper remained on the body of Hughes. Only his gun and gold Department of Justice badge had escaped the thieving murderer. Lying beneath Hughes, his bullet head doubled under him so that there could be no doubt that his neck was broken, lay “Lolly” Turney. G-man and criminal must have fought side by side for the breath of life.
But the woman in black—what had become of her? The co-pilot went to the seat that she had occupied. In its cage, her canary lay dead. On the floor was a little puddle of water that the co-pilot found chill to the touch. All about were flowers, wilting a little now. On the seat lay a small, square case like an actress’s makeup box. The co-pilot opened it, disclosing a polished black panel. On the panel were mounted knobs and a single calibrated dial. The instrument was an extremely compact short-wave radio receiver. Its dial was set at twenty-five hundred kilocycles—the same wave as that of a police transmitter in Chicago.
But where was the woman in black? The co-pilot picked his way among blue-faced corpses to the small door opening into the baggage compartment in the tail of the fuselage. He opened the door with steady hands and peered into the darkness beyond. He squeezed through the opening and stood there a moment until his eyes became used to the gloom. He stooped over and moved slowly forward to stop a moment later and stare at a jagged opening cut in the aluminum plates that covered the fuselage. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the opening. His gloved hands gripped the ragged edges.
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