That one blow from the Agent’s powerful arm would be enough to keep McCray out for some time. In that time, X had to accomplish miracles. First of all, he had to make over his face so that he might impersonate the warden. Crouching before his makeup kit, with McCray propped up in a chair as a model, the Agent’s fingers flew, fashioning new features and adding color to the plastic material by means of his special pigments. He combed out a gray toupee after the fashion of McCray’s hair. The dark suit he wore was very similar to McCray’s and there was no necessity for a change.
He then concealed the warden in a closet and hurried from the office. He had hit upon one plan of liberating Lizio. But it was a scheme that involved considerable violence. He wanted some plan that would be surprising and subtle. First of all, he had to see Tony Lizio. It was very possible that if Lizio remained cool in spite of his proximity to the chair, X might manage some switch of identities that would enable Lizio to walk from the prison to freedom with none being the wiser until much later.
X passed numerous officials. Evidently, his disguise was perfect, for all greeted him as the warden. He gained the prison yard and walked to the death house. Lizio had been established in one of the six last-minute cells that extended in an obtuse angle from the corridor leading to the chair.
Lizio was a tall, big-boned man with no evidence of a neck and small, pointed ears set far forward on his head. A grin brightened his dull face as he saw Agent X. “Hello, warden,” he greeted.
“How are you, Tony? What’s going on here?” For X had noticed that the door of the condemned man’s cell was open, and that two guards were standing in front of it. Another guard was in the cell helping Lizio with a large, ice-packed, ice cream bucket. Lizio was peeling paper from a brick of ice cream.
Lizio grinned. “You know what you says. You says da last time, I get anything I wanta to eat.” He pointed at the brick of cream. “Ice cream from Luigi’s. Gotta my name in whipsa cream.”
The Agent’s eyes were soft with pity. Condemned men made odd requests. Probably one of Lizio’s childish ambitions had been realized—to have ice cream made to order. The condemned man cut off a slice and offered it to the Agent. X took it to humor the man, ate without relish, talked cheerfully, and all the while studied Lizio.
He was more convinced than ever that the man was innocent of the crime. But how to get him out? X knew that reporters were already waiting to get into the execution chamber. The clock crawled on. Given a few moments alone with Lizio, X could have made alterations in his features so that no one would have recognized him. But Lizio lacked the guile necessary to an impersonator, and his voice and manner of speaking would have given him away at once.
X LEFT Lizio to his ice cream and went out again into the yard. He was familiar with the layout of the penitentiary, knew the gate through which supply trucks were permitted to pass. If he could get Lizio to impersonate one of the truck drivers—but no, that was outside the reaches of even the Agent’s fertile imagination. He looked at his watch. Only about ten minutes left in Lizio’s allotted span of life. Well, the execution could not take place without the presence of the warden. That would delay matters for a little while.
X went back through the main building, stopped at the guards’ arsenal. After a few minutes there, he started back to the warden’s office.
At the end of the corridor, he came to an abrupt halt. Stretched on the clean, mopped floor was a man. He was unmistakably dead. His glassy eyes bulged, his blue and swollen tongue protruded from between his teeth, his face was that ghastly blue-black, of a hanged man. A few feet beyond was another guard. Again the hand of the blue death had reached out and killed. Beyond was another. The corridor was like the hall of death, silent and corpse-filled. All about was a funereal odor like freshly cut flowers.
Agent X sprang into the warden’s office, he seized the phone, called the death house. But there was no answer to persistent ringing. He crossed the office toward the door, stopped, stared at the typewriter on the warden’s desk. Curling around the platen of the writing machine was a piece of paper. On the paper was typed:
Keep out of this, Agent X.
X turned to the closet in which he had concealed the warden. The closet was empty. The warden must have known X’s identity. Had he written the note? Was McCray actually involved in this super-crime?
The door of the office swung open. One of the prisoners, a trusty, rushed breathlessly in. “Lizio has escaped!” he gasped out. “The death house is a morgue. Prisoners, and guards all dead.”
X went into the hall, nearly bumped into Attorney Dean Winton. Winton seized his coat lapels. “Warden, you’ve got to delay the execution. I’m expecting new evidence any moment. Lizio is innocent.”
X said through clenched teeth: “I wish to heaven he was innocent. But if he never committed murder before, he has now.”
Winton gasped. “Is that why the prison is in such a turmoil? Is that why Inspector Burks is outside? When did it happen?”
“Burks?” What was Burks doing at Sing Sing? He was a long way outside his province of law enforcement. Then suddenly it flashed upon X’s mind that news of the attempted faking of a reprieve had reached the ears of Burks. Burks had recognized the Agent’s daring methods and had supposed that X would not stop there in his effort to free Lizio.
Though Burks would have no official capacity in the prison, still he was a splendid organizer and leader of men. He would bolster the morale that would otherwise be badly damaged by the absence of Warden McCray.
Down the corridor a way, he heard Burks’ roaring: “Lizio escaped, you say? With McCray as hostage? Expected something like that. It’s the job of Mr. X. Watch every gate. Nobody goes out, not even me, without a double check-up. That’s the only way. Agent X is apt to turn up looking like anybody.”
X turned his head. His eyes encountered Winton’s. The lawyer could not have helped but hear that which Burks had said. Winton’s jaw dropped. Then with an oath, he sprang at X. At the same time, he shouted: “Burks! Burks! Here’s your Agent X!”
X ducked as Winton leaped. His lowered shoulder caught the lawyer waist high. His hand clasped Winton back of the knees. He straightened suddenly, released his grip, threw Winton head first to the floor. He wheeled around in a crouched position. The trusty who had followed from the warden’s office got a blow to the point of the chin that sent him reeling across the corridor to heap against the wall.
Then X was off at a run down the corridor. The crack of shots and the scream of lead followed him, but he escaped unscathed.
But his escape was only to another part of the prison. With Burks the watch dog, he would find it harder to get out of prison than he had found it to get in. Yet, get out he must.
Somewhere, the Agent’s deductions had slipped up. Was robbery the real motive behind the plane disaster? Could it be that Lizio, the apparent innocent, was actually commanding the forces of a powerful criminal organization?
But at the present moment, he was forced to concern himself with getting out of Sing Sing. There was only one method: he must organize and direct a large-scale prison break. And this must be effected without loss of life, and, if possible, without a single prisoner escaping the clutches of the law.
CHAPTER IV
Phantom Flowers
AT almost the same moment that X, in the prison, admitted to himself that he was completely baffled, Harvey Bates saw the opportunity he had been looking for. Pat Turney, re-christened “The Terrible” because of his bestial countenance and habitual scowl, left the East Side lodging house where he had been quartered during the night. And Turney, to all appearance, was depending entirely upon his grimacing face to protect him from any rival racketeers who might be seeking his scalp. Turney was alone.
Pat Turney proceeded on foot, and Harvey Bates leisurely followed, smoke puffing placidly from his square pipe that nearly matched the square contours of his head and torso. Bates’ ambition at the moment was to get Turney alone, hand out much
more fist work than Turney would take, and force Turney to tell him who his mysterious companion of the night before had been—the sinister man who masqueraded as the woman in black.
A few blocks north, Turney entered an apartment above a dance hall known as the Hoola Club. The club was known to be Turney property.
Bates followed without hesitation up the carpeted stairway and came to a stop outside the only visible door. He listened a moment. He could hear absolutely no sound. The door was open a crack. Bates deliberately tamped out the fire in his pipe and returned it to his pocket. Both hands free, he pushed open the door.
Turney sat in a chair. In each of his hands were automatics. On his thick lips was a smile that was more terrible than his scowl.
“Come in, colossal,” he invited throatily. “You get it, don’t you—or you will when these roscoes start talking.”
Bates nodded. “Trap.”
Turney looked Bates up and down. “Smart, too, and what a big boy! I was watchin’ you last night when you separated that flatfoot from his car. A nice piece of musclin’. Who was the guy who lammed with Lewey Strait?”
Bates said nothing.
“Secret Agent X,” supplied Turney. “You don’t have to tell me. He was the guy who tried to fake a reprieve to save Lizio from the hot squat. Nobody else would think up a stunt like that. You bein’ his pal, you get the idea why you’re here. I gotta square things with Mr. X. I’d just as leave start on you. Mr. X was the guy who rubbed out my brother on the damned plane.”
“That,” Bates told him, “is crazy.” He took a step toward Turney.
Turney shook his head. “Don’t try it. I couldn’t miss you with my eyes closed. What’s more, I got only to raise my voice and bring in the rest of the boys. I kind of want to save you till your pal gets here. Then when Mr. X comes, you’re goin’ to watch each other take a long time dyin’.”
“When X comes,” Bates told him, “he’s going to squeeze the truth out of you about the Jonalden case. He knows that you were in on it.”
Turney laughed. He glanced at a clock on the table. “That’s one case that’s closed. Just about now, some doc’s listenin’ to Lizio’s ticker and hearin’ nothin’. He’ll turn away from the hot seat and say—”
Turney choked on his words. His ugly face went white. He stood up, staggered back a little.
Over his shoulder, Bates saw a tall, big-boned man with a dull, dark face and no apparent neck. The man who had just pushed into the room was Tony Lizio. And as he advanced slowly, like a corpse from the grave, Turney backed, seemed to forget his guns.
“Fix me in da frame, eh?” Lizio growled. “You wanta me to fry, eh? I show you da t’ing or two.”
Then Bates saw his chance. Lizio blocked the door through which Bates had entered, but there was a second door near Turney’s table. Bates sprang for it, seized the knob and opened the door.
At that moment, the lights went out. But Bates plunged ahead. Arms came out of the darkness. He lashed out with his fists in blows that thudded into human flesh. But a tide of humanity swept over him, bore him to the floor. Stunned, he was half-dragged and half-carried into another room. A single impression was foremost in his mind. He was conscious of a faint odor that was sweetish, like freshly cut flowers.
In another moment, he was in a lighted room. He was completely surrounded by desperate-looking, armed men. Turney had not been lying when he had said that his boys were within the sound of his voice, and Bates cursed himself for having plunged headlong into their midst. He was considerably worse off than he had been before….
BACK in Sing Sing prison, Secret Agent X ducked through a doorway of one of the prison offices. There, trusties, who had clerical ability, were at work. Evidently, news of the escape of Lizio had not yet reached this office. X picked out a gray-headed individual about his own height and build. He beckoned to the man. The trusty rose from his desk and followed X into a washroom.
“You know there’s been a prison break?” X demanded in a voice that was the exact counterpart of that of Warden McCray.
“Prison break, sir?” asked the man excitedly. “Who was it?”
X didn’t answer the question. All he had wanted was to hear the man’s voice. His gas pistol came from his pocket and spat its charge of gas straight into the man’s face. The convict dropped in his tracks.
X locked the door of the washroom. His makeup kit was in his hands in a moment. His fingers flew in the alteration of the volatile substance that covered his face. Three minutes later, his features were identical to those of the unconscious man on the floor.
He changed clothes with the convict and immediately slipped from the washroom. Out in the hall, a party of guards, trusties and reporters were hurrying along. Reporters who would have covered the electrocution of Lizio had a totally different, and more thrilling, story to report. Among the search party, X picked out a short man who wore a black, furry felt hat. Immediately, he recalled the figure he had seen near the Turney gang’s hideout on the night before. A glimpse of the man’s face, and X recognized him as Tip Morgan, a reporter on the Herald. He had seen the man frequently with Betty Dale.
The Agent’s objective was the prison arsenal. Inasmuch as the searching party was moving in that direction, he joined them unnoticed. He was only a few feet behind Tip Morgan. So it was that when Morgan unwittingly dropped his notebook on the floor, it was Agent X who picked it up. He had only an instant to glance into it, but several pages, he noticed, were filled with jottings in which the names of Fay October and Dora Winton occurred frequently. X thrust the notebook into his pocket and slipped unnoticed through the door of the arsenal.
His reception was considerably different than when he had entered the same place disguised as the warden. Three guards were in charge of the room.
“What is it, Ridgeway?” the guard nearest the door demanded of X.
FOR ANSWER, X sent a light blow to the guard’s jaw. Immediately, the other two guards threw themselves upon X. He ducked under the hail of blows from their clubs, reached into his pocket and brought out a small crystal sphere which he dropped and crushed on the floor. At the same time, X held his breath. The effect of the concentrated anesthetizing gas, that the glass sphere contained, was almost instantaneous. As soon as the three guards were stretched on the floor, X went to one of the gun cases and took out six automatics. These, he was careful to unload before concealing them on his person.
There had been an emergency lockup order and all the convicts had been returned to their cells with the exception of a number of trusties who were aiding in the search for Agent X. The first cell block X came to had but one guard on the lower tier.
“Message from the head keeper, sir,” X announced as the guard took notice of him.
“Let’s have it.” The guard was standing beneath the second tier of cells which extended out over the first and in such a position that the guard on the second tier could not see him.
“Here is a list of men who are to be taken from their cells to aid in the search.” X brought out a perfectly blank piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to the guard. At the same instant that the guard reached for the paper, the Agent’s left fist landed with terrific force at a point just above the man’s heart. It was a particularly sensitive nerve center and the blow had a paralyzing effect. The guard dropped with scarcely so much as a groan.
Though the guard was unconscious on the floor, the excited prisoners in the cells witnessed something little short of a miracle. The voice of the unconscious guard was speaking—speaking from the lips of Ridgeway, their fellow convict! As he moved along the cells, X, in perfect imitation of the guard’s voice, read from a mythical list of prisoners those who were to be liberated from their cells—this for the benefit of the guards on the tiers above.
X cautioned the prisoners to remain perfectly quiet. He stopped outside the barred door of the cell occupied by a particularly desperate-looking man. He took out one of the unloaded automatics and started t
o pass it through the bars. The convict reached for it eagerly.
Agent X had judged the man correctly. With a gun to give him confidence, this convict would fight to the last ditch. Just what he would do when he found the gun unloaded, X was not certain. X took out his master keys and quickly unlocked the cell. The convict came out, looked furtively about.
He clasped X’s arm. “At a pal. Where to now?” he asked, whispering out the corner of his mouth.
“We’re going to make a break for it,” X told him. “We gotta have more men. I’ve got the guns. You pick the boys with guts. Whole prison organization is disrupted. Now’s the chance of a lifetime.”
The Agent’s strange ally moved down the line of cells, pointing out men who were eager to take a chance on escape. Ten men were thus picked and six of them were armed with harmless automatics. Each looked to X as the man who would lead them to freedom.
But as the men moved through the door of the cell block, the guard on the second tier spotted them. The guard hesitated a moment, as X knew he would do because he could not have helped but hear X and the guard on the lower tier talking over the fake order to release certain of the prisoners to help in the search. But when he glimpsed an automatic in one of the prisoner’s hands, he sounded the alarm and grabbed for his gun.
But by that time, X had moved his little army of desperados through the cell block door. But the alarm was out. The jangling gongs threw the men into a panic. Frightened eyes looked to Agent X. One of the men raised his gun and would have shot anyone or anything had not X knocked down his arm.
“Fool!” X whispered harshly. “Use your gun to threaten. Shooting will only bring more trouble. Follow me.” He led off down the corridor, took a sharp turn to the right. Two guards, hurrying to the call of the alarm bell, ran into the army of prison breakers. The Agent’s gas pistol accounted for one. A convict jumped the other man’s gun, sent the guard’s shot straying ceilingward. A blow with a clubbed gun laid the guard out.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 4