Ten minutes later, he left the lodging house feeling like a new man and certainly looking the part. A change of clothes, makeup, and toupee had made him a man that no one would have looked at twice.
He hurried back the way he had come just in time to meet Harvey Bates and Timothy Scallot leaving the morgue. Scallot was excitedly talking of the miracle they had witnessed in the morgue. Bates, his usual laconic self, was answering in single, clipped syllables only when an answer was necessary.
X strode up to Bates and tapped him on the arm. “Mr. Bates, I believe?”
Bates looked wonderly at Agent X and nodded his head.
“I’d like a few words with you if you’ll just step into the drug store here. A purely personal matter, you understand.”
BATES complied with the Agent’s request. They stepped to the door of the drug store, and when X spoke again it was with the voice that Bates was sure to recognize.
Bates’s face beamed with pleasure. “Afraid you wouldn’t make it, sir. But why were you there? Accomplish something?”
X shook his head. “Not a thing.” He related briefly what had happened to him after he had disguised himself as Mark Brady. “I believe that some chemical in the top of the coffin lid was responsible for the trance into which I fell. It was genuine catalepsy, you may be sure, or I would not have been brought to the morgue. Undoubtedly the criminals found me in the coffin and decided that it would be good riddance of Agent X if they left me for the police.”
Bates scratched his shaggy black hair. “Heard or read something like that. Man discovered some sort of anesthetic. Considered impractical. The stuff induced artificial catalepsy. Think it was in the paper about two weeks ago. Cardigan or Varden or some name like that was the discoverer of the stuff.”
X frowned. “Dr. Cornelius Arden?” he suggested.
Bates snapped his fingers. “That was it. Arden.”
“That’s a new angle,” said X thoughtfully. “Stick close to the central office. I’ll contact you later. Up to now, the Fury has made all the moves. Now it’s our turn.” And he left Bates standing in the door of the drug store.
In spite of the fact that his mind had been a complete blank while under the influence of the potent drug that had produced catalepsy. X could still recall that the Fury planned a robbery scheduled for that night at the home of Rex Bastion. Unless the Fury had changed plans, Agent X was determined to meet him at Bastion’s that night.
X returned to his hideout and there called the office of the Herald. A few minutes later, he was talking with Betty Dale, the capable newspaper woman who was the Agent’s closest friend.
“Can you give me a little information. Betty?” X asked, using the voice that was associated with his portrayal of the character of A.J. Martin, one of his disguises with which Betty was familiar.
Betty caught her breath. The sudden appearances of the Agent never failed to surprise her. “You know,” she replied, “that I will do anything to help you.”
“What can you tell me about a man by the name of Rex Bastion? You know the old Bastion place overlooking the Hudson?”
“Oh, you mean the death-ray man!” the girl exclaimed. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about him. I’ve met him, but he’s a man you can’t get next to. He’s always so busy bragging about his own achievements that you can’t see the inner man, if you know what I mean.”
“Death ray? What’s that about a death ray?”
“Hadn’t you heard?” Betty came back. “He’s invented a ray, the exact nature of which he refuses to make public. But he hints it will be marketed soon as a defensive weapon. The man’s a joke to every one in the newspaper office. He craves publicity. For all I know, the death ray may be only a gag. We did treat him to a column a few nights ago. He intends to demonstrate the ray tonight, I believe. I’m going to see if I can cover the demonstration for the paper.”
X frowned thoughtfully at the transmitter for a minute. Perhaps this time Bastion deserved all the credit publicity could give him. Perhaps he had discovered a death ray that was practical. Some one was bound to some day. Why not Bastion? The man was really quite capable along the lines of electrical research.
“I wouldn’t try to cover that story if I were you, Betty,” X told her. “I can’t tell you more than that it might be dangerous.”
The girl’s merry laughter came back through the receiver. “Personally,” she said, “I don’t believe anything that Rex Bastion invented would be deadly enough to poach an egg…. When will I see you?”
“I don’t know,” X said quietly, “perhaps tonight. Good-bye now, and remember what I said about danger at the Bastion place.”
X hung up. Bastion, a man who had wasted his millions, claimed to have invented a death ray. Fair prey for the Fury.
CHAPTER IV
The Bastion Ray
IN the tower room of a grim, stone mansion that centered on an island far out in Long Island Sound, a strange figure sat at a desk littered with scientific instruments. His face was as white as bones bleached by the desert sun—a mask of molded celluloid. Centering the forehead of the white mask, like a third eye, was a small golden device representing the hideous head of a Grecian Fury.
Standing on either side of tall oak doors that opened into the dome-topped chamber, were two human skeletons—men so thin that their bones seemed on the point of piercing their dry, yellow skin. They stood like statues, yet somehow they lived and breathed. Deep-eyed, dull-faced walking corpses who guarded the portals of the Fury’s sanctum.
An impending storm had brought an early dusk. The tall, arched windows of the strange chamber, where sat Agent X’s enemy, were now and again brightened by a flicker of lightning dancing across the horizon.
There was something dispassionate about the eyes of the Fury slotted by the openings in the mask. He seemed a chess automaton, a master-mover planning some clever gambit while he worked.
At last he racked a test tube, picked up a hand-set radio transmitter and looked at the watch on his wrist. On a panel in front of him a small pilot light glowed red.
“The Fury speaking,” came a lifeless voice from beyond the mask. “What have you to report?”
The Fury listened a moment. “So Agent X escaped from the morgue, did he?” the man in the mask mused. “Then we can safely count on his presence tonight at Bastion’s place.” He drummed on the desk top with his fingertips a moment. Then: “At all costs we must obtain the Bastion Ray. We cannot go on without it. The death of the Dejong woman has produced no results as yet. If our plan is to succeed, we must obtain the ray.
“Be careful of Mark Brady—the real Mark Brady. We have won him over to our cause, but I believe that this afternoon, under influence of liquor, he let certain information drop. That information is probably now in the hands of the police. As soon as Brady has accomplished our purposes, he must be removed. We have nothing to fear from the police this time, but it may not always be so.”
He listened a moment, drumming quietly on the desk top. “No, there will be no police interference, I assure you. As to any others who may attempt to prevent us from obtaining the Bastion Ray, we shall depend upon the death-touch to handle them. For all who interfere, the caress of death. But for Agent X—” the Fury paused. The strange, emotionless eyes wandered to the gaunt, living corp-ses standing at the door. He nodded his head slowly. “Do not kill Agent X. Leave him for me. There is no greater satisfaction than humbling a powerful opponent.
“Tomorrow I can promise you, we will have the situation well in hand. Huge reservoirs of wealth are ours for the tapping. Until then, every effort must be concentrated on obtaining the Bastion Ray. In two hours we move.”
THE FURY replaced the hand-set, got out of his chair and strode to the window. In the distance thunder rolled ominously. Lightning fell upon his sombre figure and made a gleaming thing of his white mask. The Fury clenched his fists. It was as though he felt the power of the storm in his hands and hurled back the lightning in grim chal
lenge to Secret Agent X.
Just beyond the gates of the Bastion place on Riverside Drive, a car was parked. Behind the wheel was a man with commonplace features and a sandy complexion. He was known to the newspaper world as A.J. Martin, a representative of the Associated Press. Actually Martin was but one of the many aliases of Secret Agent X.
The man beside him was unmistakably Harvey Bates, though the big man wore a neat black mask over his features.
“You have everything, Bates?” X asked. “Net? Glass cutter? You’re well armed?”
“Right,” Bates clipped, readily.
“And you say that the Fury’s raiding party will be in charge of Mark Brady?”
“Such was the information given me by Scallot. Word got to the police from a stool pigeon. Believe Brady was drunk, talked.”
“Then the police will be here. More trouble. On the stroke of nine, I’ll knock out the lights in the laboratory. You’ll be waiting on the skylight as planned. Drop your net on the end of a rope and pull it up when you feel a sharp tug.”
“Don’t see how you can get a big machine in a net like that,” Bates said.
“It’s not a machine. Just a metal vacuum tube. Of course there are a lot of accessories attached to the tube. But the main thing is to get the tube. After you have netted the tube, get across the estate and come out on West End Avenue. I have arranged for a fast car to be waiting for you.”
“But the Fury?”
“I will try to cope with the Fury in my own way.”
“And the police?”
X shook his head. He reached over to the dashboard and turned on the short-wave radio, with which he and Bates kept careful track of the movements of the police on their way to the Bastion house.
“Attention special squads on Riverside Drive,” droned the voice of the police announcer. “Proceed no farther. Proceed no farther. Return at once. Orders given at eight-fifteen are cancelled. Return at once.”
X looked at Bates, frowned.
“The group ordered to Bastion’s?” puzzled Bates.
X nodded. “The police are withdrawing their protection. What can that mean? The Fury doesn’t act like a person who might easily be persuaded to give up his plans. Perhaps he has tricked the police.”
“Or already stolen the ray,” Bates suggested.
X shook his head. “Hardly. We will go right ahead as planned.” Saying this, he sprang from the car and hurried through the rusty, iron gate and across the ill-kept lawn. Beyond neglected sunken gardens, the huge Bastion house stood and still bore the Bastion name in spite of the fact that it was mortgaged from wine cellar to chimney pots.
A wooden-faced butler, whose long service with the Bastion family had become a tradition, admitted Agent X and examined his card. He bowed stiffly, said that Mr. Bastion was expecting Mr. Martin. X was taken into the drawing room where a number of guests had gathered, awaiting Bastion’s demonstration of his invention.
In spite of the Agent’s warning, Betty Dale was there, cool, clear-eyed and lovely in a simple gown that revealed soft, girlish shoulders. She sent a quick glance at Agent X and smiled. A.J. Martin was one of the aliases of Agent X with which she was familiar. She turned at once to Wilbur Kopsak with whom she had been speaking when X had entered.
“Just what is your opinion of the Bastion Ray, Mr. Kopsak?” she asked.
KOPSAK glowered at her, but her smile was contagious. In another moment he was talking and laughing freely. “Don’t know a thing about it, my dear Miss Dale. Not a thing. I simply know that Bastion needs money to carry on his experiments. Undoubtedly that is why I have been invited.”
Across the room, stooped, scholarly Dr. Arden was listening absently to a lecture from Alan Moss. His eyes were worried, red-rimmed from lack of sleep.
Moss was saying: “This man Bastion is mad. If he has accomplished what he claims, how on earth does he expect to shield his ray tube? He claims that it will fuse metal instantly. How then can he direct it?”
Vina Trumaine, all in black—gown, bag and gloves, was observing several oil paintings that hung from the walls. In her dangerous green eyes was neither admiration nor contempt. She turned, however, as X approached. He was certain that her quick glance photographed every detail of his face and dress.
Agent X bowed. “Since our host is too occupied to introduce us, suppose we dispense with formality and manage it ourselves. I am A.J. Martin.”
Vina Trumaine smiled slowly. “Then we require no introduction. I am already familiar with your work for the Associated Press. I am Vina Trumaine.”
X laughed quietly. “I’ll ask for a raise. Some one really reads my articles.” Then: “You are a friend of Rex Bastion, no doubt?”
“The merest acquaintance. Dr. Arden was kind enough to bring me.”
Rex Bastion bustled into the room at the moment. He was a small, thick-set man with almost dwarfish hands and feet. His nose was large and bulbous, his mouth froglike, his eyes probing. He stood in the door, raised his strange hands, much as a master of ceremonies in a night club might do before introducing the star of the evening.
“My friends, my friends,” he began in a blatant voice, “we can now begin. Bastion is here.” He minced into the middle of the room perfectly conscious that he was the center of attraction and glorying in it. “I had to quell a minor uprising among the servants. Such a problem! It seems that some one saw fit to enter my safe without asking my permission. Questioning the servants, I found them highly indignant that I should even insinuate that they knew anything about it.”
Bastion paused, coughed behind his palm. “Some plans were stolen.”
“Not the plans of the ray, I hope?” Betty Dale asked.
Bastion chuckled. “Indeed no. I am too clever to leave anything decipherable about my invention lying about. Put that in your paper, my dear young lady. Bastion keeps his plans in—” he flicked his forehead—“his not altogether empty head.” He laughed uproariously, pranced across the room, and looked the part of an idiot as he took Betty’s arm and made off toward the laboratory.
“Our host has an eye for beauty, or is it a desire for the right kind of publicity,” Vina Trumaine whispered to X.
“Under the circumstances, undoubtedly the latter,” X flattered as he offered Vina Trumaine his arm.
BASTION’S laboratory had been built at the back of the house, a one-story structure the ceiling of which was centered by a skylight of glass now and again illuminated dully by a flash of lightning. The lightning, X thought, would increase the danger of the scheme that he had evolved. It would certainly silhouette Bates’s big form against the skylight.
At one end of the laboratory was a grotto temporarily constructed. In this grotto was a box about three feet square and constructed of steel plates. At the opposite end was a contraption of generators, electrolytic condensers, rheostats and transformers connected by a maze of wires and having a porcelain socket in the center of it.
Bastion arranged his guests back of the maze of electrical devices, then crossed to a steel cabinet from which he took a curious cylindrical tube of some gleaming metal. This, he pointed out, was the heart of his powerful ray. Then he fitted the tube into the socket and crossed to a small bakelite switchboard.
Agent X was careful to stand close to an electrical outlet. In his pocket was an electrical device which, in spite of its simplicity, was extremely effective. It consisted of a forked piece of brass in an insulated handle. The fork, when thrust into a light-socket would produce a short circuit that would blow out every fuse in the electrical system.
“My friends,” began Bastion with a gleeful rubbing of his dwarfish hands, “I have prepared a pamphlet which will explain the scientific principle behind my ray. The construction of the tube remains a secret, of course. For the benefit of the laity, I might explain shortly that my tube sends out a beam of charged electrical particles with such a tremendous rate of speed that terrific heat is generated.”
“How do you point the beam?�
�� asked Alan Moss.
“You will observe,” Bastion went on, “that in the grotto at the opposite end of the room, there is a steel box that I intend to destroy.”
“How do you direct the beam?” persisted Alan Moss.
Bastion yanked a switch on a panel in front of him. If he spoke at all, his words were lost in the hum of the generator as it started. He gestured toward the grotto at the end of the room.
X glanced upward. A flare of lightning illuminated the form of Harvey Bates sprawled out on the skylight. Bates was evidently courageously at work with his glass cutter.
Bastion pulled a switch, then stepped to his electrical contraption and advanced a rheostat slightly. The tube glowed with a faint purple light.
Then, suddenly, white-hot flame drenched the steel box in the grotto. There were hissing, sputtering sparks, a blinding flare. Metal dripped like water. Bastion cut his switches. The glow faded from the tube. At the end of the room nothing remained of the box save a shapeless mass of molten metal.
“Amazing!” cried Dr. Arden.
“Astounding!” Alan Moss echoed. “But I say, old man, how do you keep the beastly thing from snapping back at you, as it were?”
Standing behind all the others who crowded around the triumphant Bastion, Agent X pulled the forked tool from his pocket. Decidedly, the Bastion Ray was a deadly thing. He shuddered to think of what it might do in the hands of a person like the Fury. With a quick motion of his wrist, he jammed the forked instrument into the light-socket. There was a lightning flash of blue flame, then instantaneous darkness.
Now to yank the tube from its socket, toss it into Bates’s net—
Agent X stopped. His thoughts suddenly left him. He was deaf to the startled cries of those within the room. On the wall directly in front of him, burning in cool flickering flames of green was the mark of the Secret Agent himself—a huge letter “X” drawn in luminous paint.
How had it come there? Had some one again penetrated his disguise? Was some one having a joke at his expense? Did the Fury plan to commit crimes in the Agent’s name?
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 15