Burks nodded. “I’m clear on that now. And I see how Winton wanted to get Lizio out of the big house so that Lizio would be blamed for all the crimes. Come to think of it, who had a better chance to instruct Lizio on how to get out? Winton was Lizio’s lawyer, and saw him nearly every day. And of course Winton got the formula of the gas from Dr. Mills. But what was that you said about feathers?”
X laughed. “Oh, that’s a joke—but not to Winton. He’s sensitive to bird feathers. A lot of people who have hay fever or asthma are. Bird feathers brought on acute attacks of hay fever whenever Winton got near to them. Naturally, he would avoid feathers. But he had to have a canary with him when he went on the plane with the idea of gassing all aboard in order to eliminate Lolly Turney and Agent Hughes. The canary, being sensitive to poisonous gas warned him when the gas began to escape. When I met Winton a little after the affair on the plane, he had an acute attack of hay fever. This attack was not repeated until the night he tried to kill his wife.
“Apparently, Winton had not entered Dr. Mills’ house on that night, but nevertheless he was sneezing when I met him. Mrs. Winton had a lot of canary birds. She told me that she liked them around because they kept her ex-husband away. At the time, I did not know exactly why they kept him away. I really collected those feathers with the idea of comparing them with feathers found at another place where I was sure ‘the woman in black’ had been. You see, I was suspicious of Mills, too, at that time.”
“I see,” said Burks. “Tonight, it occurred to you that if you could prove Winton sensitive to feathers, you would really have something on him. Well, he started to sneeze almost as soon as you loosed the feathers.”
X nodded. He was steering the boat up to one of the nearby piers. Burks sighed. “Well, I guess I have to give the Feds the credit for this case. Nice work.”
“Keep the credit,” X suggested.
“Nope. I believe in giving credit where due. I see Betty Dale out on the pier waiting for us. The kid ought to be in bed, but she’ll never go until she gets her story. What’s your name? We want to get it right in the papers.”
X tossed a rope onto the pier. A man seized it, made it fast. X turned to Burks, smiled strangely. “All right. Here’s my card. And be sure the name’s spelled right.” He handed Burks a piece of cardboard that was considerably sodden by the water. The Agent sprang to the pier.
Burks got to the pier more slowly. He was staring at the card in his hand beneath the light of his flashlight. It seemed blank on both sides, at first, but slowly, as though by magic, a black letter “X” appeared on the surface.
Burks vehemently told the world that he would be damned. He looked out across the pier. But there was no sign of Agent X. He was lost in the crowd. Perhaps, by now, he wore another one of his thousand faces and spoke with another one of his thousand voices.
Horror’s Handclasp
The gods of evil sent forth a sardonic, murdering genius of crime, whose unholy face struck terror to the hearts of all who beheld it. And such was the powerful wile of this fiend called the Fury, that even Secret Agent X had at last met a checkmate opponent—a tantalizing sadist who made famous men and gorgeous women his pawns to play Satan’s grotesque game of hopscotch upon a gigantic chess board that dealt either death or madness.
CHAPTER I
Killer’s Caress
THERE was nothing about the house to suggest that it was inhabited, even by spirits. Beyond an iron gate that sagged back against the stone wall was a garden of neglect. A close observer, however, would have noticed that weeds that grew between the flags of the walk had been trampled lately.
The house itself had boarded windows. Its porch posts had a drunken lean. The architectural glory of its slate-shingled hip roof was overshadowed by the tall apartment houses that flanked it. Here was a lair for rats and spiders, a wide-eaved shelter for pigeons and sparrows. Surely nothing more.
Yet the old Marrow house was attracting the attention of two top-hatted gentlemen in the doorway of the apartment across the street.
“A clever, precautionary move of Madame Susu, you understand,” said one of the men. A wave of his walking stick indicated the old house. “Not long ago the American Society of Magicians made the discovery that suicide, murder, financial ruin were often traceable to these so-called spirit mediums. The activity of the society, has pretty well weeded out the spirit fakers from New York.”
“Surely, Moss,” said the other, a lean-waisted, young man with an eager, intelligent face and inquiring gray eyes, “you a scientist, have no faith in this Oriental mystic and her abracadabra.”
There was an amused gleam in the dark eyes of Alan Moss, one of the city’s most promising young scientists. He shrugged. Energetic brows arched above round, rimless glasses. “No faith perhaps, Dale Emboyd, but novelties such as Madame Susu help prevent boredom. Tonight you will probably see stranger things than you have dreamed of in your philosophy.”
A taxi stopped in front of the apartment. A gentleman whose temples were gray, whose shoulders had a scholarly stoop, got out and assisted a woman to alight. Alan Moss and Dale Emboyd looked at the woman and forgot instantly that her escort was the world renowned Dr. Cornelius Arden. The woman was dazzlingly beautiful.
“Dangerously beautiful,” Alan Moss expressed it in a whisper to his younger companion.
Dale Emboyd nodded. The woman was slightly above average height. Her black hair had the same silken sheen as the simple, black gown she wore. A short cape of dark fur was the perfect setting for her cameo-like features. Eyes of brilliant green had a ruthless glint in them that told Dale Emboyd why Moss had said: “Dangerously beautiful.”
Moss took his companion’s arm. They stepped to the sidewalk. Dr. Cornelius Arden pivoted, his lips parted in what was an almost terrified gasp. When his worried glance alighted on Moss’s face, he smiled thinly. Then he looked quickly at Emboyd and frowned.
“Good evening, Dr. Arden,” Alan Moss greeted. “Is it possible that your destination is the same as ours?” His glance indicated the apparently deserted Marrow house.
Dr. Arden admitted it with a timid jerk of his head. He awkwardly managed an introduction between Moss and the woman, a Mrs. Trumaine. Moss presented Dale Emboyd to the doctor and his dazzling companion. Emboyd bowed gracefully over the woman’s hand. His keen gray eyes meeting her ruthless green ones was like the crossing of swords. Though he had not met her before, Dale Emboyd knew something about Vina Trumaine. He had made it his business to know. Vina Trumaine was a widow, over from Europe. By what right she held a position of social prominence, Dale Emboyd had been unable to discover. The right perhaps of a beautiful woman whose poise was perfection.
“I have begged Dr. Arden to bring me here,” Vina Trumaine told them in a musical voice. “He, of course, does not believe in anything he cannot produce in a test tube.”
She left Alan Moss and Dale Emboyd to divide the glory of her slow, alluring smile between them. Taking the doctor’s arm, she proceeded toward the old house. Moss and Emboyd followed a little behind.
“By George!” Moss exclaimed in a whisper, “she is magnificent! And old Arden doesn’t seem to be appreciating her.”
It wasn’t lack of appreciation for beauty that was affecting Dr. Arden, Dale Emboyd was certain. A more powerful emotion than that aroused by the presence of Vina Trumaine possessed him. Dr. Arden was afraid. Of what? Surely not of the conjuring of the mysterious Madame Susu.
AT THE GATE of the Marrow house, the quartet paused a moment, looked up and down the street. Undoubtedly, half the charm of Madame Susu’s spiritualistic séances was due to the pledge of secrecy imposed upon all who attended them. They crossed the dismal garden, went around to a side door, and were eventually admitted by a plump Japanese with a face like a yellow moon, whose smile vanished as soon as Dale Emboyd appeared. Behind a short, yellow hand, he whispered to Alan Moss.
Again the amused twinkle behind the young scientist’s glasses. “I assure you that Mr.
Emboyd is a man of utmost discretion,” he told the Japanese. “He is a fellow club member and I have known him for a long time.”
Three days, Dale Emboyd thought to himself, scarcely constituted a long time. Yet Alan Moss’s exaggeration seemed to assure the Japanese. Alan Moss scrawled his left-handed signature on the visitors’ register. A moment later Emboyd put his name on the register. His name—rather one of his many aliases. For the man who signed as Dale Emboyd was nameless. His fine, almost delicate features were but a mask for a face that none had seen and lived—a mask cleverly modeled from a plastic volatile material of his own compounding and artfully tinted with flesh-colored pigments. For he was the man known the world over as Secret Agent X.
It was remarkable, thought the Agent, how sheer charlatanism could exert power over even the most brilliant minds. In the reception hall of the old house, where shaded lamps burned dimly behind boarded windows, he met Wilbur Kopsak, one of the most enterprising business promoters in the city. Tall, with a jaw that jutted furiously, with eyes that glowered beneath short black brows, Kopsak was a compelling, powerful figure. At the present time, X knew, he was engaged in organizing a cosmetic manufacturing concern.
Then there was Donald J. Lowery, a mild-eyed, kindly man of perhaps forty years of age—a very nervous man, judging by the way his trembling match-flame threatened his wisp of yellow mustache as he lighted a cigarette. Beside Lowery, stood a tiny, Titian-haired woman with soulful eyes and a warm, husky voice. Her pretty face was less famous than her voice, for she was Dot Dejong, torrid blues singer of Mr. Lowery’s far-reaching radio network.
But it was a man of small importance in the business and social world who attracted most of the Agent’s attention. That man was Paul Vost—thin-faced, pale-eyed, bronze-skinned Paul Vost. It was largely because of Vost that X was there. Vost, a debonair man-about-town whose reputation would not undergo too thorough an investigation, had visited Madame Susu’s secret establishment for five consecutive nights. And just what amusement a man of Vost’s caliber found in communicating with “departed spirits” X could not imagine.
In one disguise or another, X had been following Vost for a week. He had discovered that dangling from Vost’s watch chain was an odd ornament of gold representing the head of a hideous woman. He had discovered that Vost was secretly meeting the sunny-haired, unsophisticated niece of Police Commissioner Foster. Yet it was not the attention of Paul Vost to unspoiled Doris Foster that had claimed X’s interest.
FROM out of the underworld had come the whispered rumor that Europe had given America a criminal genius. A being whose identity was as secret as the Agent’s own, whose cleverness, ruthless daring, and unprecedented cruelty had resulted in the loss of colossal sums of money in European capitals. That criminal genius was known simply as the Fury.
Through dark, crooked channels this information had come to the ears of Agent X. Immediately, he was on guard, watching for the Fury’s first move. He did not know whether the hidden opponent he was about to face was a man or a woman. He knew only that as long as he lived he would exert every effort to block the schemes of this enterprising criminal. X was not suspicious of Vost simply because of the latter’s unsavory reputation, but because the hideous gold head on Vost’s watch chain was patterned after an artist’s conception of the Fury of ancient Grecian myths.
No sooner had the Agent signed his name to the register, paid his twenty dollar fee which was exacted by the famous Madame Susu, than a silvery-toned gong sounded. A hush fell upon those in the hall. X glanced at the faces about him. The great Lowery twitched his thin mustache. His companion, the tiny Dot Dejong, made a grimace with her small mouth while a shudder rippled visibly across her bare shoulders.
Paul Vost’s thin face was a study in sneering sophistry. Wilbur Kopsak’s scowl might have been intended to frighten the spirits away. Dr. Arden looked dazed. Alan Moss’s eyes sparkled with amusement. Doris Foster turned pale, smiled faintly when Vost squeezed her arm. Vina Trumaine alone was unchanged, neither thrilled nor frightened by the promise of finding herself in the presence of Madame Susu.
At the end of the hall, sliding doors were parted by hands unseen. Guests of Madame Susu entered the séance chamber. There was an eerie, foreboding atmosphere about the room that could not quite be described. Heavy oak timbers and panels formed walls and ceiling and absorbed most of the light from guttering candles in copper sconces. On silver tripods, brasiers of cloying incense smoldered. A curtain of exquisite Japanese embroidery work cut off the north end of the room. There were no windows, no visible doors save the ones through which they had just passed.
Agent X hung back, while others took places around a huge refectory table. He watched Paul Vost pull out a chair for Doris Foster at one end of the table, then sit down beside her. X took a position directly across from Donald Lowery, deliberately turned his back on Vost, and was apparently anxious only for the drawing of the Japanese curtain. Actually, his right hand palmed a small mirror by means of which he could watch Vost intently.
“If at any time any of you feel the slightest desire to move to another chair, it is because an unwelcome spirit is beside you.” It was the moonfaced Japanese servant who spoke. “Do not hesitate to take another chair at any time during the séance.”
Those about the table squirmed uncomfortably. There were hushed whispers. Dot Dejong forced a laugh, whispered to Lowery:
“I’m getting scared!”
Lowery patted the blues singer’s hand kindly.
Wilbur Kopsak grumbled something beneath his breath.
The sliding doors closed softly behind the retiring Japanese. A lock click. Slowly, the embroidered curtain furled back. A chill wind seeming to originate in the gloomy end of the room revealed by the curtain, snatched out the candle flames along the wall. Then pale flickering light was born in a glass globe that centered the table. Its ever-changing colored beams passed from one strange face to another. But beyond the table all was darkness.
At the end of the room from which the chill draft had come, a concealed, yellow-lensed spotlight projected its rays upon a simple gilt stool and upon the glamorous figure that had suddenly appeared on it. Here was Madame Susu in a clinging gown of metallic sequins. She sat stiffly erect, her hands folded upon her breast, and her head bent low. A golden headpiece, like those worn by geisha girls of old Japan, concealed her dark hair.
Her cheeks were a satiny yellow, her eyes narrow and dark. Yet, except for her yellow skin and the exaggerated slant of her eyebrows, there was nothing about her that suggested the Oriental. Here, no doubt, was a woman clever enough to fool men like Lowery and Alan Moss—a woman skilled in showmanship.
Madame Susu raised her head, staring with a faraway look in her eyes. “You have come,” she began in a clear, sweet voice, “to exert an effort to commune with the dear departed. In a very few moments my mind shall wander back into the past. I shall evoke the shades, beg them to look with favor upon us. You may see fearful things. You may hear alarming things. Do not hesitate to ask any questions of any presence that may appear.”
Madame Susu’s head lowered again. For a moment, she seemed to be asleep. Then the muscles of her arms twitched as though she was in great pain.
“I feel the presence of a troubled spirit within this room,” came the madame’s whispering voice.
Agent X heard the men and women about him catch quick breaths. But without seeming to, X was watching Paul Vost closely. One of Vost’s lean arms was draped across the back of Doris Foster’s chair. With his other hand, he groped behind him, his fingers stretching to reach one of the incense brasiers.
“Come in, come in,” moaned Madame Susu. “Come in, troubled one.”
Vost’s fingers touched the incense brasier. There was a faint click as his fingernails met the metal. Then cautiously he drew out a tiny square envelope from the metal bowl. His hands joined in his lap. There was the sound of paper tearing. A troubled frown clouded his brow. His right hand came up and thr
ust a crumpled ball of paper into his coat pocket.
X glanced at the strained, anxious faces about the table. Even Vina Trumaine’s calm had deserted her. Her black-gloved fingers clasped and un-clasped. X pushed back his chair quietly and got to his feet.
NEAR where Madame Susu sat, the floor gave up an ethereal cloud of white vapor that swirled upward toward the ceiling. All watched it closely as it seemed to mature into something almost human in form. X moved quietly toward the foot of the table where Paul Vost sat. Within the room was a weird clamor of small voices.
Lowery groaned.
“Amazing!” whispered Alan Moss.
Agent X was directly behind Paul Vost’s chair.
Suddenly, above the clamor of voices, one voice stood out distinctly: “Beware,” it wailed. “Beware the Fury. The shadow of his hand lies upon you all. There are none here who shall not know his wrath.”
A short, breathless curse from Paul Vost. He leaned forward, stared intently at the glittering figure of Madame Susu, and the ghostly thing of mist that stood beside her. Then the ghost-thing was gone. In its stead was blackness—a blackness that a second later gave up an arm. The arm seemed scarcely human. It was yellow, hairless and emaciated. Great, swollen veins stood out upon it and the hand was a talonlike thing. The arm moved inevitably forward, an arm without an apparent body. It extended above the heads of the terrified men and women around the table. It moved on and on, stopping above each head, as if counting those present.
But another hand beside that of the spirit presence was at work—the slender, graceful hand of Agent X. His fingers glided into Vost’s pocket and scissored over the crumpled bit of paper.
At the moment that X withdrew the paper from Vost’s pocket, Dot Dejong screamed. The yellow, unclean hand was above her head. Her wide, frightened eyes stared at it, fascinated as though by a hideous serpent. Slowly, the yellow arm was lowered. The thin, ugly fingers closed upon the firm, white flesh of the little songstress’s shoulder.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 12