“What do I have to hoist?” X asked aloud of Beckridge.
The man in the derby shrugged. “I got no idea. The point is, tomorrow night you’ve got to pull off the job. Money maybe. Maybe jewels.”
“How much in it for me?” asked X. Beckridge looked at the short man. The short man said: “You don’t get it. We work for the Fury because he’s goin’ after something big. This stuff is just small fry, but it’s the foundation for a big take. He’ll treat us fair enough when the big take comes!”
X shook his head. “Not me. I sign no blank checks. You guys—”
The door of the office burst open. The two men who had driven X over from Madame Susu’s place brought in the madame herself.
The spirit medium had changed to a simple suit of dark blue. She was none the less a striking, regal figure. Her dark, narrow eyes smoldered with suppressed anger and she stood stiffly erect as though she loathed the touch of her two male escorts.
The medium raised her right arm, pointed directly at the Agent. Her soft, musical voice whispered from vivid red lips: “That man will destroy you all. Madame Susu has said it. None shall escape him, for he is Secret Agent X.”
Whether it was sheer guess, mystic prophecy, or because she had watched X through the keyhole when he was in the act of changing his makeup, X did not know. He knew only that he would have to act and act quickly. He lunged straight at the two men in the doorway. His right fist cracked to the jaw of one. His gas pistol came out and spurted its anesthetizing charge straight into the face of the other. A thrust of his elbow sent the man lurching to one side to heap beside the door.
X sprang through the opening, slammed the door. Bullets from Beckridge’s gun jagged splinters from the door inches from the Agent’s hand. X sprang across the embalming room, opened the door that led into the garage, and slammed it without going out. Escape would have been an easy matter for him, but he had his teeth deep in the crime and he was loath to let go.
Instead of leaving the mortuary, he pushed through a door in the side of the embalming room and closed it quietly behind him just as Beckridge and the short man crashed into the embalming room.
The Agent found himself in a small room where heavy drapes of purple velvet hung over long windows. The room was indirectly lighted and here two plain coffins lay in the middle of the floor. X was on the point of investigating further when he heard soft footfalls outside the door of the small room. Instantly, he ducked behind one of the purple curtains and held his breath lest the waving of the drapes betray his hiding place.
Two men entered the room. X was unable to see them, but he could hear their voices clearly.
“These coffins,” explained one of the men, “have to be taken to the Fury before morning. Is the hearse ready?”
THE OTHER replied that the hearse would require gas and oil before the trip.
“Okeh,” the other said. “We’ll get to that right away. We’ll all have to clear out of here tonight. Something tells me this joint is goin’ to be hot.”
The two men left the room and X slipped from his hiding place. The two coffins were to be taken to the Fury. Very well, X was determined to go with them. He crossed to one of the coffins and threw back the lid. Involuntarily, a gasp of horror escaped him. The corpse within was that of a man, briefly clad. Every rib was clearly defined beneath the yellow, parchment skin. The arms were like slivers of bone covered with tissues. The face was as gaunt as the victim of an East Indian famine. And this thing, this wasted corpse was to go to the Fury.
It required courage to lift that feather-weight, chill, stiff body from the coffin and hide it behind the curtains. It required even more courage to take its place. X thought grimly of another time when he had entered a coffin and had learned the terror of premature burial. This time he would take every precaution against suffocation. As he lay down on the soft death couch and pulled down the lid, he wedged a pencil between the lid and the side to allow air to be admitted.
In spite of the grisly bed on which he rested, in spite of the stuffy blackness, X forced himself to relax. It was only a matter of minutes now before he would learn what was behind the inexplicable moves of the Fury. There were many questions that a few minutes in the Fury’s presence might answer: why had the name, Secret Agent X been written on the register at Madame Susu’s? Why had the hideous hand of death reached out to leave its mark on Dot Dejong? Why were such wealthy and powerful men as Dr. Arden and Donald Lowery trembling in the grip of terror? Why—
The Agent felt that his mind was wandering. Relaxation was easy. It was difficult to concentrate on anything. Once, he caught himself dozing off and it was only with an effort that he roused himself. What was the matter with him? The night’s activity was hardly enough to exhaust his powerful body. Yet he was sleepy now, utterly worn out, like that yellow corpse—
Again, X found himself jerking out of a doze. Doze? It seemed more than that. Breathing was an effort. His hands crept up to his throat slowly and laboriously. His fingers pressed against an artery in his neck. His pulse was scarcely perceptible. Or was he too tired to detect any pulse at all?
A panicky thought burned across his mind. Terror wrung sweat from his body. When pulse stopped, when breathing stopped, you were dying. He had to get out of that coffin. Throw back the lid. That was it—the cushions of the lid were soaked with something that was affecting his breathing. He would die if he didn’t get out of that poisonous darkness.
He exerted every effort to sit up. But he could not move. All feeling seemed to stop at his thighs. His legs, as far as he knew, did not exist. A smile curved slowly across the lips of Agent X. It was all very pleasant just to lie there in spite of the encroaching cold that passed over his body. Thoughts flickered across his mind in rapid succession. He thought pleasantly of Betty Dale, the sweet girl reporter who had shared so many of his adventures. This was one she would not share. This was death. Too bad so many men died in pain. He felt no pain. Only a desire to sleep eternally and not dream….
CHAPTER III
Bates Carries On
A MAN whose six feet two inches of height was hidden by the squareness of his immense body paced tirelessly up and down in front of the arched gate of the morgue. His square-shaped head hung low as though he were in deep thought. He wore no hat and the chill rain of the afternoon had draggled his shaggy hair down over his forehead. Now and again he would impatiently yank at the sleeve of his trench coat and glance at his wrist watch.
Across the street a car pulled up. A young man with a scraggy jaw and bleak eyes got out. The atrocious bottle-green hat he wore had lost its snap long before it had faced this afternoon’s drenching. As he crossed the street it was easy to see that Detective Timothy Scallot, of the Homicide Bureau, was extremely nervous. No more so, however, than the big, square man he joined a moment later. Timothy Scallot attempted to convey nonchalance as he grinned at the big man and said:
“Nice afternoon, Mr. Bates.”
“Right!” Bates clipped.
“This is going to be ticklish,” Scallot confided in a whisper. “I’ve told the assistant medical examiner that you’re a professor from Northwestern University’s criminological school. Think you can act absent-minded?”
Bates could see nothing to be jocular about. For over twelve hours now, he had heard nothing from Secret Agent X, his beloved chief. It was seldom that the Agent didn’t call upon Bates when he was working on an important case. When the announcement of Dot Dejong’s murder had come to the ears of Bates, and still no word from X, he had commenced to worry. For he knew that X had attended the séance at Madame Susu’s.
At last, in desperation he had decided to strike out alone, attempt to fathom the mystery of the Fury, but above all try to locate Agent X. His first move had been to get Timothy Scallot to arrange for Bates to attend the autopsy on the body of Dot Dejong.
“We’ve accomplished absolutely nothing on this Dejong kill,” Scallot confided as he opened the front door of the morgue. �
��Burks has held up the autopsy as long as possible. He’s trotted in all the suspects for a look at the body when he’s grilled them. He seems to think that Lowery, the radio man, knows something. But Lowery won’t talk.”
“Madame Susu?” clipped Bates.
“The cops followed her to an undertaker’s establishment, lost her there. The woman’s a real magician when it comes to the disappearing act. By the way, I don’t think I should have told the assistant medical examiner that you were a professor. There’ll be a real scientist here. A fellow by the name of Alan Moss. You may not be able to bluff him.”
Bates grunted. He was anxious to see Alan Moss. It was Moss, he knew, who accompanied Agent X to the séance.
They passed through a corridor lined with refrigerating compartments and entered the post-mortem room at the end. Men in white were bending over a table where the body of Dot Dejong rested.
Scallot beckoned to the assistant medical examiner who was watching the proceedings. The doctor came over and shook hands with Bates whom Scallot introduced as Professor Westfield.
The medical examiner turned to Alan Moss. The young scientist was sitting on a high white stool holding his round-lensed glasses in his right hand and polishing them with a wad of cotton in his left.
“Have you come to any conclusion regarding the murder method in this case, Mr. Moss?” asked the medical examiner.
MOSS raised his energetic eyebrows. “Oh, it’s quite obvious that some corrosive was used. An acid perhaps that not only has the power to destroy flesh, but also unites with the oxygen carried by the blood stream. This, I think, will be proved conclusively when the heart is examined. An acid, I should say, that is not only a corrosive but also a deadly poison when used intravenously. Do you agree, Professor Westfield?”
“Not well enough acquainted with particulars,” Bates skillfully evaded. He coughed, looked around the room. Near-by was another table supporting a sheeted form. The medical examiner followed Bates’s gaze.
“Another puzzling case,” said the doctor, pointing at the sheeted form. He stepped over and turned back the sheet to disclose the body of a man with heavy features.
“Mark Brady!” Bates exclaimed involuntarily.
“Exactly,” said Moss. “Some one has saved the G-men some bullets.”
“Brady,” explained the medical examiner, “hasn’t a mark on his body. There are no outward traces of poison. I am anxious to learn just how he met death.”
“He was too tough to die naturally,” put in Scallot. “We found his body all laid out in a coffin at the mortuary to which we traced Madame Susu.”
Moss, the medical examiner, and Scallot returned to the operating table, but Bates hung back. He had no taste for the gruesome details of a post mortem examination. He wanted only to know the exact cause of death. Now and then, the medical examiner would ask Bates’s opinion on the condition of this or that organ, but always Bates managed an evasive answer.
Bates was troubled with an unaccountable feeling that he was being watched closely. Nerves perhaps, for masquerading as a scientist was indeed nerve-racking for him. But it seemed as though two eyes like points of fire were burning into the back of his brain. At times Bates, ordinarily hard to ruffle, felt that he must shout, so persistent was the effort of those unseen eyes.
At last, he could stand it no longer. He swung around, his glance jumping about the room, searching for the origin of that troublesome stare.
And when he found it, he could not shout. He was rooted to the floor, his body cold all over and his scalp crawling. For the fixed, compelling gaze was coming from the eyes of the corpse of Mark Brady. Dead eyes staring with the gleam of life. And dead lips—dead lips moving?
Bates blinked. It was all unbelievable. This was the morgue. When a man was brought here he was utterly dead. Yet the corpse of Mark Brady stared at him and whispered, though no sound passed the dead lips.
With legs that felt like fence posts, Bates crossed the tile floor to the table where lay Mark Brady. There wasn’t the slightest doubt now. The lips were moving. Bates turned around toward the men gathered about the body of Dot Dejong. His lips parted to call out—
“Bates!” a strained, whispered voice.
Bates’s heart leaped into his throat. His head spun. This was madness. Some one behind him had called his name. And there was no one behind—only the corpse of Public Enemy Mark Brady.
BATES turned slowly. It seemed as though he had to drag his head around. Once again, his terrified eyes met those of the corpse. He saw the dead lips twist slightly in a feeble smile.
“X,” came the whisper from the lips. “I am X.”
“You—you’re—” Then Bates recalled that the slightest alarm might warn the others within the room that here was a corpse that was not dead, a Mark Brady that was not Mark Brady. He sent an anxious glance over his shoulder. Alan Moss and the medical examiner were enthusiastically debating some question pertaining to the corpse of Dot Dejong.
“I can’t explain—now,” came the whispering voice again. This time it was more like the voice by which Bates knew Agent X. “I—I can’t move. Muscles tight—cold. Carry on if I can’t—make it.”
“Good heavens!” whispered Bates, “they’ll perform an autopsy—any minute!”
Agent X smiled weakly. “No. I’m not dead…. Catalepsy.”
“What you want me to do?” came Bates’s agonized, hushed voice.
“Don’t—know. It’s passing—I think.”
A hand dropped on Bates’s shoulder. The big man jumped. His fists clenched. Had worst come to worst he would have fought, killed even to prevent anyone from touching that half-dead body on the table.
“Old Brady seems to have a fascination for you, eh, Professor?” It was Timothy Scallot, Scallot with a wink in his eye. Not even to Scallot did Bates dare to reveal what he had witnessed. For Scallot was not aware that his real employer was the mysterious Secret Agent X.
“Yes, sir, Brady still looks tough,” Scallot commented. “Look at that chin. I’ll bet the docs have to blast.”
Bates took Scallot’s arm, steered him back toward the table where the medicos were at work on the body of the murdered women. Scallot’s coat pocket swung heavily against Bates’s hand. The detective invariably carried his gun in his coat pocket.
“Look at Moss,” said Bates. “What’s he doing?”
Scallot craned his neck, and at the same moment Bates managed to get his big hand into Scallot’s pocket and extract the detective’s gun. Now if it came to a fight, the only member of the police force present would be unarmed. Then, too, Bates hoped to slip X the gun if the Agent obtained the use of his legs in time to try a getaway.
Agent X, where he lay upon the morgue table, felt his pulse quickening and warmth slowly penetrating his muscles. Beneath the sheet that partially covered him he found himself able to move his fingers. The strange trance into which he had fallen was passing. But would the full effect of the strange drug leave in time? A surreptitious glance across the room, and he saw the stitcher coming into the room to sew up the murdered woman. Only a few minutes more before the medical men would prepare to perform a second autopsy.
Two of the white-coated assistants approached the table where X lay. The medical examiner and Alan Moss crossed the floor, still arguing. At the door Timothy Scallot chewed a match. Behind Moss and the doctor, stood Harvey Bates, his face grave, his eyes haggard.
Now was the moment to move—if he could. The Agent felt the muscles of his legs tighten. Behind locked lips, his teeth were clenched. He felt the surge of vibrant power through his body. Sheer will goaded him into action. He sat up stiffly, the sheet clinging to him like a shroud.
The two assistants in white dropped their jaws. Their eyes seemed on the point of popping from their sockets. Across the room, Alan Moss uttered a shout. Timothy Scallot reached for his gun—the gun that wasn’t there. And behind them all, Bates thought coolly, acted fast. Scallot’s gun was in his hand, then flyin
g through the air straight toward X. The Agent saw it coming, reached for it with an effort and snatched it out of the air.
It must have appeared nothing short of black magic. X had every advantage of surprise. Over the heads of the stunned doctors, X saw Bates raise his own gun and fire one wild shot in the direction of Agent X. It was a clever move to avoid suspicion.
“Drop that gun!” X ground out between jaws that still seemed stiff.
BATES dropped his gun. Agent X stood up, holding the sheet about him with one hand and covering all within the room with his gun.
“You!” X jerked at one of the medicos. “You take off that white tunic, your trousers and shoes. Move, man, or I’ll make you into a corpse—that won’t live again.”
The terrified man moved to obey. Across the room, X saw Alan Moss trying to get through the door. He sent a warning shot in the young scientist’s direction. Moss turned, his eyebrows high with surprise.
X sat down on the table and thrust out bare feet. To the partially undressed medico he said: “Put your shoes on my feet.”
“I’ll lose my job for this,” said the terrified man.
“You’ll lose your life in another moment. Move, man!”
The medico assisted X to put on the smock and trousers, then suddenly gave X a quick shove. The Agent’s knees struck the top of the table. He fell backwards over the table to strike the floor on the other side. In a moment, Alan Moss and the medical examiner threw themselves upon him.
A quick upward hack with the barrel of the police revolver in his hand knocked out the medical man. An elbow thrust in the face turned Moss aside. Then on his feet, X sprang toward the door, yanked it open and fled along the corridor lined with refrigerating units, to escape through the front door.
That afternoon many people were startled to see a man in a surgeon’s smock running along the sidewalk like a madman, a gun clenched in his hand. At last X ducked into a deserted alley, found his way to a fire escape and up to the third floor. He opened an unlatched window and stepped into a plainly furnished room.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 14