Perhaps she had discovered X’s real identity. She had been lurking around police headquarters. Perhaps she had seen two Keegans enter the building. But as long as there was even a suspicion that Betty was in the power of that ruthless murderer, X would suffer the tortures of the damned. He realized that his brain was fogged with hideous visions that speculated on all the terrors that might befall Betty before he could reach her.
He stood up suddenly. “Let’s go.” And together they hurried from the café.
“This hideout of his,” Fay October explained as they rolled along in X’s car, “is a regular fort. He and the Turneys fixed it up. It’s filled with traps and crazy passages. A squad of police wouldn’t have a chance of getting at him, but one man might be able to.”
X was driving according to the girl’s direction. He noticed that a taxi had been following them ever since they had left the café. But as compared with the peril of Betty Dale, all other dangers seemed of secondary importance.
“Stop here,” Fay directed when they had reached the river front. “It will be safer if I go the rest of the way on foot. You can follow. It will not seem as though I deliberately brought you here.”
X agreed. He would have agreed to anything that he thought would bring him closer to Betty Dale. Impatiently, he drummed with his fingers on the steering wheel while he watched Fay October hurrying down the street. When she had gone about half a block, X got out and followed. He saw her enter the door of the long, low building that extended out over the river. As he approached, his keen glance took in every detail of the building.
It appeared to be a simple, flimsy structure, yet Fay October had told him that it was a fortress. Then he noticed something peculiar about the stove pipe that passed through the roof of the front part of the structure. The stove pipe was moving, slowly turning. The pipe evidently served the purpose of a periscope, enabling the hidden killer to see without being seen.
X knew that there was no possible chance for a surprise entrance. At the moment, he wasn’t thinking about catching the criminal. His one hope was that he would not be too late to make an effort to save Betty Dale.
All windows in the front of the building were securely shuttered. The door looked flimsy enough until he touched it Then he knew that it was solidly fitted and very thick. The door was unlocked. He knew that he was thrusting his head into a trap, yet he twisted the knob and eagerly entered.
The door closed immediately after him. The darkness was stunning. For a moment, X stood perfectly still, his gas pistol in his hand. Then light came gradually, glowed dimly from an electric bulb set in the ceiling. X’s quick-drawn breath whistled between his teeth. A man sat at a little desk. In front of him was what appeared to be a radio microphone. And the face of the man at the desk was that of Tony Lizio.
Lizio’s eyes were half closed. He made not the slightest move. X took a step forward, his gun leveled at Lizio’s head. “Lizio,” he whispered. Then his eyes narrowed shrewdly. He took another step. Then it happened.
X SENSED the quivering of the floor. But on the instant when he would have sprung back, the floor opened like jaws of a mighty beast. He was precipitated into a pit of inky blackness. There was a rush of chill, damp air. His feet struck a slime-covered floor and instantly deserted him. His body twisted sideways as it fell. His head struck the wall. Something in the back of his neck snapped. A bombshell seemed to burst within his brain. Then there was nothing—nothing but an infinity of darkness.
So dark was the pit into which he had fallen that X was scarcely able to discern the division between consciousness and unconsciousness. The blow on the head had knocked him out, but it was that twist of the neck as he fell that had increased the period of unconsciousness. Perhaps the first thing he heard clearly was the distant rush of water. Then he discovered that he was sitting bolt upright in water that covered his thighs. He groped out with his hands, splashed the water on the floor, encountered something that was dead, gelid flesh beneath the water. His fingers found a face covered with water. He explored the features of the corpse and shuddered involuntarily.
He stood up with difficulty, remembered his flashlight, and turned it on. The place was narrow, seemed endless in length. It was about fifteen feet to the floor above. Rays of his light struck the features of the corpse beneath the water. Ripples distorted the features beyond recognition, but the Agent’s sensitive fingers had seen what his eyes could not.
Ten feet away, sitting with his back against the wall, was another man. Blood from a cut in the forehead flowed down one cheek and dried there. The man was Harvey Bates.
With fear for Bates in his heart, X waded over to the man. A hasty examination assured him that Bates was only unconscious. X took out his medical kit, stuck his flashlight in a chink in the wooden wall, and hastily prepared a hypodermic injection of a powerful restorative, and let Bates have the full dose. Then X turned out his flashlight to conserve the battery, and waited, his hand placed gently on Bates’ eyelids.
In a few minutes Bates groaned. His eyelids fluttered. X snapped on the light. Bates stared dully at it for a moment. Then he saw X and grunted: “Hello.”
“As soon as you can make it, get on your feet, Bates,” X told him in the voice that Bates could identify him with.
Bates’ eyes started. “You—you’re—but I thought you were Inspector Burks. Where are we? Where’s the man with the veil on his face?”
“Not so loud,” X cautioned. “Just get on your feet as soon as possible. The water’s rising. That devil would have drowned us like rats. And we’ve got work to do—plenty of it.”
“Try it now, sir, if you’ll give me a hand.”
X HELPED Bates to his feet. The big man staggered around, clung to X for support. His muscles were stiff. The pain in his head caused his features to contort in a grimace.
“How are we going to get out?” he demanded, looking about the room.
“Shsh,” X whispered. Above their heads, footsteps sounded loudly. Then a voice said: “I killa dem all. All die for whats da do to Tony.”
Chill fingers played along X’s spine.
“That’s Lizio’s voice,” Bates whispered.
“That’s Lizio’s ghost then,” X replied. “Lizio is dead. He’s been dead for a long time. His body has been posed in a car and that car driven all over town so that people would be convinced he is alive, so that he would get the blame for these strangling deaths. His body was posed up stairs behind that desk. The microphone on the desk was there for effect, so that those people the real murderer intends to dispose of, would think that Lizio was speaking to them through a loudspeaker system. Everyone brought into this building must have seen Lizio’s body sitting behind that desk.”
“How do you know that, sir?” asked Bates.
“Because this place we’re in seems to be a sort of cesspool for corpses. The killer probably thinks we’re dead. Lizio’s body is down here under the water. It must have been pushed through the trap after I landed down here.”
“Then the killer got Lizio out of prison to—to—”
“To act as the fall guy for all the murders contemplated. The killer was scared to death of his own gang. The two Turneys and Fay October helped with the kidnaping of Jonalden. But it was the big boss that killed Jonalden. Then, because the Turneys were grumbling about their split in the ransom money, the boss was afraid they’d make trouble.
“Lolly Turney was killed when Federal Agent Hughes tried to force information out of him. All the records Hughes had about what Lolly Turney told him were taken by the killer—the woman in black. Stealing the Hempstead diamonds and any other thievery that went on in the plane was simply incidental.
“Then, when Pat Turney became mutinous, the killer sent Tony Lizio out to get Pat. That was to give the other members of the Turney gang the idea that Lizio was out to get them for framing Lizio for the Jonalden job. But Lizio was just dumb enough to be dangerous to the killer. I believe that when Lizio went after Pat Turney
with a knife, the real killer dropped one of his gas bombs in the room and killed them both. Then he removed the body of Lizio, for Lizio was to continue to be the fall guy even after he was dead.
“The killer began to get panicky. He tried to kill everyone who was investigating the case—Tip Morgan, Betty Dale, you and me. He murdered two detectives in police headquarters just as they were about to give Inspector Burks some valuable information. He’s a fear-killer, the most dangerous kind. But he was clever enough to make everyone believe that the escaped Lizio was responsible.”
“Then he was—”
“Wait,” X cautioned. “There’s another voice.”
“The man with the veil,” Bates whispered.
In the room above their heads, they could hear the soft, chill voice of the man with the veil—the man who had been the woman in black: “I shall call the roll of those condemned to die here tonight. Dr. Randolph Mills, Warden McCray, Fay October, Dean Winton and Secret Agent X—all condemned, by Lizio, to die.”
“Keeping up the show to the end,” Bates whispered.
Another voice sounded in the room above. It was unmistakably that of Inspector Burks: “Get it out of your head that I’m Agent X,” Burks roared.
“I would expect you to deny it,” went on the killer calmly, “but, when I meet two Inspectors Burks, I know that one is Agent X. If I’ve picked the wrong one, it doesn’t matter. The other is dead by now. In a minute or two I shall turn on the gas that will promptly rid me of all of you.”
“Come out and face me man to man!” shouted Burks. “I can’t fight a voice.”
AGENT X had listened carefully. There was some consolation in the fact that Betty Dale was evidently not among those in the lethal chamber above. It was just possible that she had never fallen into the killer’s trap. But what of the others? They were going to die, and X was as helpless as though he wore a straight-jacket.
“Stand here, Bates,” he whispered. “There has to be a way to get up there. We’ve got to stop this slaughter some way.”
X waded along the gloomy corridor, his flashlight ray becoming feeble. The water was deepening all the time. The floor beneath him slanted steeply downward. Every now and then his feet found an opening through which the water entered. How much below the level of the river this section of the building was, he did not know. The water was up to his waist now. He slipped certain small articles from his pocket into his hat, together with a wadded up handkerchief. With the hat on his head he could hope to keep these materials dry for a time anyway.
The water was coming in with the force of Niagara near the end of the building. No possible outlet that way. He was on the way back to join Bates, when he saw a small door on the left side of the corridor. Just as he was about to investigate this door, he heard a strangely bubbling sound above his head. He turned the flashlight toward the ceiling. Two glass globes fully two feet in diameter were hanging from a steel frame halfway up the wall. Leading from the top of the globes were copper tubes that passed through the floor above. The bubbling sound was caused by the activity of a frosty-blue liquid in the globes. X knew that it was the deadly thanatogen in its liquid form.
“Bates!” he called huskily. “Come here.”
He heard Bates floundering through the water that had now risen nearly to the Agent’s armpits. While waiting for Bates, he studied the deadly-looking contraption above his head. He understood that as the liquid warmed to room temperature, it would gradually pass back into the gaseous state, expanding at the same time. This expansion would force it up through the copper tubes into the execution chamber above.
The Agent pointed out the globes to Bates when the big man came panting up to him. The long period of unconsciousness in this damp hole had taken a lot of Bates’ herculean strength.
“What is it?” he gasped.
“That’s the gas,” X explained. “If you’ve got the strength to get me on your shoulders, I may be able to bend those copper tubes so the stuff won’t get through when the killer turns the valves. Of course, there’s a chance I may break the tubes. We won’t have a chance when those big globes burst. They’ll have to. As that liquid becomes a gas and expands to many times its present volume, with the copper tubes closed, there’ll be no other way for it to get out except by smashing through those globes. You know what that means?”
Bates nodded. “But we could save the others.”
X nodded. “And, of course,” he added as cheerfully as he could, “we may find a way out of here before the gas gets us. Are you game?”
“Certainly.”
“Good man! Stand ready to give me a leg up.”
CHAPTER XI
Death by Inches
BATES was already leaning against the wall, his broad back bowed. X handed Bates the flashlight. Then he planted a foot on Bates’ thigh and climbed to his back. He held to the wall, put a foot on each of Bates’ shoulders. “Straighten up. But take it easy.”
Bates grunted, strained, straightened slowly. X groped gingerly around the glass globes and got hold of the steel supports. “Another inch, Bates.”
Bates strained up a little more. X let go of the supports and grabbed one of the copper tubes with both hands. If he lost his balance, if Bates slipped, the whole hellish contraption would come crashing down on them. The muscles of the Agent’s arms swelled until it seemed they must burst through the skin. But slowly he twisted that tube, kinked it, squeezed it until it was completely closed.
“Got one!” he called triumphantly. “How are you doing down there?”
Bates did not answer. X could feel the man’s exhausted body trembling. X reached around the second globe and got hold of the tube.
At that moment, the chill voice of the killer sounded hollowly in the room above: “I am going to open the valves. In another moment, you will smell flowers—the distinctive odor of thanatogen. Flowers you will never see. Flowers for your own funeral.”
X felt a vibration in the tube he was gripping. The valves were opening. He clenched his teeth, exerted all his strength upon the tube. It yielded slowly. Sweat beaded X’s brow. Beneath his feet, Bates swayed slightly.
“Steady, man! He’s opening the valves. In another second, I’ll have this one closed.”
“I—I’m going under,” Bates gasped.
“No! Bates, you can’t!” X brought all his strength to bear on the copper pipe. It weakened suddenly. For a moment, he thought that he had broken it. He gave it a twist, a quick kink, just before Bates keeled over in the water.
It was only by an acrobatic twist in mid-air that X avoided bringing the infernal machine down upon him as he fell. X struck the water feet first and by some miracle kept his head up. A beam of light from the flash came shooting up through the water. X was about to dive for Bates when the big man’s head bobbed to the surface. He coughed, sputtered, regained his feet.
“Sorry, sir. Foot slipped.” He waded over to X’s side. The water was up to the top of his shoulders now. “Thought for a moment I couldn’t hold out at all.”
“You didn’t find a way out of here while you were exploring the bottom, did you?” X asked lightly.
Bates shook his head. He pointed the flashlight up at the glass bulbs. “Did that do the trick?”
X watched the fuming liquid in the bulbs. The liquid was slowly disappearing as it gradually became the invisible gas. X nodded slowly. “It worked. The gas is expanding right now.”
Above their heads, some one was praying and cursing alternately.
Bates grinned feebly. “Won’t they be surprised when the gas don’t get them?”
X nodded. He was watching the glass globes above them.
“If those globes burst,” Bates said, “well, there’s something I’d like to say before they do. It’s been great, just knowing you and helping a little. I’ve got a big kick—”
A shrill scream cut through Bates’ sentence. And it came from somewhere near at hand. Agent X turned the color of paper. What had he done? Sav
ed those in the room above, perhaps, by making a lethal chamber of their own quarters. But that scream of terror could have come but from one person—Betty Dale. She was somewhere in that under-water hole, sharing the death by inches that X and Bates had designed for themselves.
“Betty!” X called hoarsely. “Where are you?”
“Something struck this door over here, sir,” Bates told him. “I was just going to suggest we try to get through that way. Look, some one’s trying to open it.”
“Betty!” X shouted. “Don’t open that door. Stay where you are!” For X had good reason to believe that the deadly gas would dissipate before it could penetrate that door.
But he had warned the girl too late. The door swung open a little. Current caught it and swung it wide. For a brief moment, X saw Betty knee deep in water that had seeped into the next room. Then she disappeared in a veritable avalanche of water that poured through the door.
THERE was one thing in their favor: the next room had an electric light close to the ceiling. X swam through the door, saw Betty’s golden head rise above the water. In another moment, he was beside her. The water was not yet up to X’s and Bates’ chins, but Betty was forced to swim to keep her head above water.
X clasped the girl in his arms. She was sobbing with relief. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe,” she choked out. “When I heard that fiend say he was going to turn on the gas in the room above, when I heard him say that you were there, I nearly went mad. I tried not to—”
“There, there,” X comforted. “Everything is all right.” There was no use telling her of the fearful proximity of death.
Bates pointed to the ceiling. “Door up there. Suppose we could get through?”
“It’s locked,” Betty told them. “I tried it hours ago. I’ve lost all track of time. I haven’t seen a soul since the veiled devil put me down here.”
“How did you get up to the door?” asked X.
“With the bed spring,” she explained. “The bed is under water now. But it’s no use trying it. The door’s locked.”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 10