“No I haven’t, Lewey.” X smiled at the transparency of Strait’s acting. He stepped calmly into the room and closed the door. “Lewey Strait, I know your record perfectly. You did a long stretch when you forged the name of the man who is now our governor. I want you to pen that famous signature again—to a reprieve for Tony Lizio.”
“A reprieve?” gasped Strait. “Say, you must be crazy. You get out of here. You’re a dick, that’s what you are. You’re trying to get me in a jam. I’ve been on the level for many years, but you dicks don’t give a man a chance to stay that way. If we go straight, you try to frame—”
“That will do, Lewey.” Agent X was stern. “I am not a detective.” He drew his dangerous-looking gas pistol. “Understand this—I can compel you to do whatever I want you to do. In my pocket, I have a paper that requires only the signature of the governor to stay the electrocution of Tony Lizio. I want you to supply that signature. No trickery, Lewey, or I’ll kill you.”
At that moment Agent X looked perfectly capable of carrying out his threat. His jaw was set and his eyes were unblinking. “On the other hand,” he added, “I will see that you are richly rewarded if the forgery is perfect.”
Lewey backed fearfully before the Agent’s gun. “No—no,” he muttered. “I’m through.”
“One more job, Lewey,” X insisted. He took a paper from his inner coat pocket and tossed it on the table. Beside it, he placed a pen. “Believe me, Lewey, if you really intend to go straight, I will see that you have your chance—after you have done this job for me.”
“Who—who are you?” Lewey quavered. His screwed up little eyes were harnessed by the steady, gray gaze of his visitor.
“Sign the paper, Lewey,” urged X gently. “You will be well rewarded. It is for the sake of justice.”
Lewey Strait debated no longer. He sprang to the table and picked up the pen. Tongue between his teeth, brow scowling, he thought a moment. On the edge of a newspaper he practiced.
“I—I’m not sure that I can do it,” he said huskily.
“You have the art,” X told him, “if you will have the courage. You are doing no wrong, Lewey. I would stake my word on it that Lizio is innocent of the murder of Jonalden.”
Strait pinched his pen anew and set it to paper. Laboriously, he traced, while Agent X watched.
“Lift your mits, boys!” a hard voice demanded.
The pen in Lewey’s hand sputtered across the paper. With a cry of fright, he swung around. He saw the man who was Agent X facing a burly policeman who had just entered the room. Behind the cop was another. In the gloomy hall beyond, X could see the slender form of Fay October.
Agent X was smiling that disarming smile of his. His hands were poised halfway to his pockets which contained numerous special defensive weapons that would have given him a few seconds of surprise in which to break for the open. Yet when he saw the pitiful, panic-stricken Lewey Strait, cringing before the police guns, the Agent’s code would not permit him to act as he ordinarily would have done.
Lewey Strait had unwillingly undertaken what, in the eyes of the law, was a penitentiary offense. He could not hope to escape prison for the rest of his natural life. To escape with Lewey, at the moment, was impossible, X knew. Yet he could not leave the ex-con to face a penalty for a crime that was not of his own volition. It was a strange and precarious position that the Agent found himself in, a situation to which there seemed no solution. Slowly, he raised his hands above his head.
“What’d you say they were up to, miss?” asked one of the coppers of Fay October.
THE NIGHT CLUB dancer stared boldly through large, dark eyes first at Lewey and then at Agent X. Then she glanced at the table. “I heard them say something about fixing a reprieve for Tony Lizio. It sounded screwy to me, but I thought you boys might like to have a look.”
“Screwy is right!” echoed one of the police. His companion, who had gone over to the little table and had been examining the piece of paper, said: “Well, I’ll be damned!” He picked up the paper and waved it under Lewey Strait’s nose. “Of all the cockeyed schemes I ever heard of— But I’m damned if I don’t think it might have worked for a time.”
And that was all that Agent X had hoped for—a little more time in which to get evidence that would liberate Lizio and see the real killer of Jonalden behind the bars. But that plan was frustrated now. He searched Fay October’s dark, beautiful face. She was much too small to be the woman in black who had killed ruthlessly on board the airliner. Yet she seemed to have the same motive behind her—to stifle truth, to send Tony Lizio to the chair.
Lewey Strait was screaming about his innocence. He had not wanted to do this thing. He had been forced at the point of a gun to forge the governor’s signature.
“Gun is it?” One of the cops strode up to X and frisked him methodically. Gas pistol, makeup kit, chemical kit, small bombs containing anesthetizing gas and tear gas, tiny tools, all passed over into the cop’s pockets. The cop was amazed at the odd assortment. “Looks like we got a desperate man here. Cassidy,” he told his companion. “We better just handcuff these two together. This guy’s got enough stuff in his pockets to start a revolution.”
In another moment, Agent X found himself handcuffed to the all but weeping forger. The two cops knew the value of the fake reprieve as evidence, but they did not realize that the special equipment removed from X’s pockets would brand one of their prisoners as Inspector Burks’ old enemy.
As the two police with their charges went into the hall, a tall, broad figure of a man flattened himself against the wall, watched closely, then ran for another stairway. Agent X did not see the man, nor did the police.
The Agent’s right wrist was linked to Strait’s wrist. His left arm was gripped by the cop who had searched him. X had paid particular attention to where the cop had placed all the special equipment he had taken from X’s pockets. He knew that his left hand at the moment was only about eight inches away from a very surprising device that now rested in the policeman’s pocket.
As soon as they had reached the sidewalk, X put his daring plan into effect. A totally unexpected twist of the left arm freed him from the cop’s grip. His long fingers jabbed into the cop’s pocket, and instantly selected the thing he needed. Coming up, the point of his elbow crashed into the cop’s jaw, and at the same instant his left foot went out for a trip that sent the cop sprawling.
THE SMALL, round object X had obtained was a chemical smoke bomb. Its self-lighting fuse ignited as soon as the bomb had struck the sidewalk. X shoved Strait violently against the second cop before the latter knew what had happened. The second cop lost his grip on the forger’s arm, and X dragged his companion straight toward the police car parked at the curb.
A dense cloud of smoke separated them from the two policemen. But as they were on the point of gaining the police car, X saw that a third policeman was in the driver’s seat. He saw, too, that the man had drawn a gun and that the muzzle was pointed directly at Lewey Strait. X sprang onto the running board, thrusting Strait behind him.
The bullet intended for the forger landed squarely in the center of the Agent’s chest. The bullet-proof vest X always wore checked the slug from entering his flesh, but the impact of the shot would have laid another man out. A wince of pain streaked across X’s face. His free hand went out in an effort to grapple with the man in the car. For a moment, the policeman’s gun was centered on the Agent’s unprotected head.
But at that moment, a tall, broad figure rose from the running board on the opposite side of the police car. For an instant, X glimpsed the face of Harvey Bates. He saw Bates seize the cop’s gun arm and force it upward. At the same time, Bates’ fist descended like a hammer to the top of the cop’s head. The cop had hardly time to go limp before Bates had dragged him from beneath the wheel and into the street. Then Bates ran for an alley.
X pulled Strait into the car beside him. He kicked the gear-shift lever with his foot and gave gas for a quick start. Steeri
ng with one hand, he took the corner on screaming tires. For several blocks, he kept up the furious pace. Then he stopped.
“Lewey,” he said to the frightened man beside him, “I’m sorry about what happened tonight. But you’ll not regret it if you’re really determined to go straight.”
Lewey snarled: “You’ve finished me. They’ll catch me. They always do. It’ll be the fourth time for me; that means life.”
X shook his head. He groped in his vest pocket with his left hand. The cop who had searched him had left him his personal effects and at the end of his watch chain was a ring of clever master keys. Among them was a key small enough to fit the lock of the handcuffs. Only a moment was required in which to unlock the bracelets.
“Lewey, I know of a plastic surgeon who will alter your features. They could stand a little improvement, you know. And—well, you’ll have your chance.” He scribbled something on a card he had taken from his pocket. He handed the card to Strait.
“Take this card to the address I have written down. You’ll find temporary sanctuary there.”
Strait took the card, looked at it curiously out of his small, squinting eyes. “I don’t get you,” he said quietly. “You’re not a crook. You’re not a dick. Who are you?”
X smiled whimsically as Strait got out of the police car. “Don’t think about that too much, Lewey.” Then he turned the car around and drove back within two blocks of the point where he had stolen it.
His makeup kit was gone. Nevertheless, his skilled fingers made hurried alterations in the plastic material that covered his real features. He removed the blond toupee he wore and revealed his own wavy, brown hair. No one would have recognized him as the man who had tricked the police a few minutes ago. He was determined to meet Bates for a brief check-up.
Two doors east of the lodging where X had found Strait, Bates waited and watched patiently. He failed entirely to recognize X when the latter tapped him on the shoulder. It was not until X spoke in the voice with which Bates was familiar that Bates knew that he was once again in the presence of his beloved employer.
“That was quick thinking,” X commended. “But a dangerous move. I can’t afford to have the police spot you. And by the way, how did you recognize me?”
“Didn’t,” Bates clipped. “Followed Fay October into that place. It’s the old Turney crowd’s hangout. Walls are pretty thin. I eavesdropped. Turney and another man must have heard you talking with the forger. From what I gathered of their conversation, some one was trying to fake a reprieve for Lizio. Only one man would have the nerve to try a thing like that. You, I mean.”
X uttered a short laugh. “So you moved your listening post to a point just outside Strait’s door. Where’s Turney?”
BATES nodded silently towards the dismal house.
“And the other? You mentioned another.”
“Gone,” Bates told him. “I got a look at him. He’s the boss, the man behind the Jonalden job.”
“What did he—” X stopped. From the door of the tenement where he had met Strait, came Fay October. She turned north, moving at a leisurely, graceful pace. A big sedan rolled silently by X and Bates and slowed at the curb. A man put his head out of the car. It was Dean Winton.
“Hello, Fay,” the attorney called cheerily. “This is a fine neighborhood for you to be in. Wouldn’t you rather ride?”
The girl smiled, nodded and got into the car. As the sedan moved off, X glimpsed another woman who stepped from a doorway across the street. Her dress and carriage indicated that she, too, was entirely out of place in this neighborhood. She stepped quickly to a waiting cab, gave an order and drove off after the sedan. Agent X glanced at Bates.
The big, square-headed man said: “Mrs. Winton in the taxi.”
X confirmed with a nod. No one could read the papers and not know of Dean Winton’s beautiful wife. She had obtained a divorce from Winton only about a year ago.
“Now tell me quickly about this man who was with Turney,” X urged. “What did he look like?”
“Couldn’t say, sir. Wore a veil.”
“A veil?” X echoed.
“Right, sir. He was a woman. Dressed like one. A woman in black.”
X frowned. “Stick to your job, Bates,” he ordered. “Watch the Turney crowd. The older Turney brother was in on the Jonalden job. And he was murdered, to shut him up, along with half a dozen others who happened to be on the same plane with him. Any information that he may have given Federal Agent Hughes, was stolen by the murderer, who is your woman in black. The woman in black must have got off the plane before it landed by means of a parachute. You proved that he or she, whichever it is, is hand in glove with the younger Turney. Grill Turney if you get a chance. Look sharp.”
“But Lizio, sir. Not a chance of saving him now, is there?”
“There’s only one way,” X told him thoughtfully. “The lawless way. I’ve got to take it. Lizio will have to be removed from the death house.” And that, he thought, as he moved off up the street, was almost an impossibility.
Directly across the street from where Bates stood, a short man who wore a black, furry felt hat stepped from the shadows and walked toward the street lamp. There he appeared to jot something down in a notebook. Then, like a boy who wants to run past a graveyard, the man in the black hat hurried up the street in the opposite direction to that taken by X.
CHAPTER III
Death-House Break
WHILE in the city, X was seldom very far from one of his many hideouts. After he had left Bates, he went to a lodging house only a few blocks away. There he had leased a room under one of his many aliases.
As soon as he had entered his room and locked the door, he went to a closet and took out what appeared to be a small suitcase. Actually, the case contained a five meter radio transceiver with a telescoping aerial mounted in the top.
A minute later, he was in contact with Jim Hobart, head of the famous Hobart Detective Agency. His instructions were brief. Hobart was to take a group of picked men and go at once to Ossining where they were to be stationed outside the city limits and not far from the penitentiary. Hobart was to take orders only from a man who would say: “Martin sent me.”
X returned the radio to the closet and immediately set about changing his makeup. All the plastic volatile material had to be removed from his face. Next the metal face plates that had been used to simulate high cheek bones were returned to the makeup box. Guided by a number of photographs taken from his files, he began rebuilding his face with quick, skillful movements of his fingers.
The impersonation he was about to attempt was a dangerous one. The man whose features were slowly forming on the face of Agent X was a famous novelist and close friend of Warden McCray of Sing Sing prison. The fact that Novelist Heldon was a shorter man than Agent X did not make matters easier. However, the fact that Heldon and McCray were close friends would assure the Agent’s admission to the warden’s office.
This preparation occupied the early morning hours and it was nearly ten o’clock before he was inside the forbidding doomlike walls of the prison. When he had been admitted into the warden’s office, he found that McCray had other visitors. McCray was in conversation with ex-Mrs. Winton and her father, Dr. Randolph Mills. Dora Winton was a tall, handsome blonde, every inch a sophisticate. Her father was tall and gray-haired. His shoulders were bowed beneath years of scientific research. He was noted for his work with chemical toxins.
Agent X slipped into an inconspicuous position near the door and listened carefully without seeming to.
“My daughter’s request may seem odd to you,” said Mills, in a reedy voice. “I myself know hardly how to account for it. She is not generally so—so charitably inclined.”
Dora Winton’s fine lips thinned. Her nostrils spread. She was obviously not thankful for her father’s last remark. But she managed an appealing smile for Warden McCray.
“Lizio’s case has interested me very much, naturally, because Lizio was one of my husband�
�s clients. Surely if I can do something that will cheer the poor man up you would not deny me the opportunity.”
Warden McCray looked gravely at the woman. “Frankly, I can’t imagine what you could possibly do for the man.” However, he reached for a visiting order slip. Agent X saw Dora Winton sigh. The warden handed the filled out slip to Dr. Mills with a smile.
When the two had left, McCray greeted X genially. But no sooner had their hand clasp been broken than a frown settled down on the warden’s forehead.
“Do such cranks worry you?” asked X as he dropped into the proffered chair beside the warden’s desk.
McCray looked at him shrewdly. “Such cranks don’t. As a rule, none of them do. There is never a man executed within these walls but what we get threat letters.” McCray ran his hands through his sparse thatch. “This time, I have a premonition that some of those threats may be in earnest.” The warden opened the drawer of his desk and fumbled within it. He shot a nervous smile at X. “You’ve changed a little since I last saw you, Heldon.”
Instantly on guard, X watched the warden’s every movement. To all appearances, he was perfectly at ease. “A little fleshier, perhaps?” he suggested.
THE WARDEN shook his head. “No, taller than you were yesterday when you came to tell me you were slipping off to Europe.” McCray’s hand came from the drawer, fingers closed over the butt of a revolver. But his gun wrist met the Agent’s fingers. X was on his feet as soon as he realized that his act had failed. At the same time that he twisted the gun from the warden’s grip, he dealt a paralyzing blow to McCray’s biceps that prevented the warden from pressing the electric call-bell on his desk.
McCray broke free, backed. X swung around the desk and came to grips with the warden. McCray was no mean opponent, for he had come up from a hard-boiled prison guard to his present responsible position. But for every blow he handed out, Agent X had an effective guard. At the very moment when X’s face seemed to be open territory, X put over a short, chopping blow to McCray’s jaw. McCray sagged, and X caught him before he could fall to the floor.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 3