Some one shouted: “The mark of X! Secret Agent X is in the room!”
X PIVOTED, sprang in the direction of the deadly ray tube. His groping fingers encountered Bates’s net. He gripped it, snatched out with his right hand for the ray tube—and encountered nothing. The tube was gone, completely disappeared. X sprang to the steel cabinet from which Bastion had taken the tube. A moment’s delay had spoiled everything. The cabinet was open, but his exploring fingers found it empty.
At that moment the door of the laboratory burst open. A harsh oath sounded from the lips of Wilbur Kopsak. The Agent snatched out his flashlight and sent its piercing beam toward the door. For a moment, the dot of light paused on the heavy features of Public Enemy Mark Brady. Behind Brady, X saw the lean, hungry features of two beings who looked like walking corpses.
Bastion’s old butler faithfully attempted to prevent the entrance of the invaders into the laboratory. One of the emaciated wretches lifted his right hand, brushed it lightly across the butler’s face.
Instantly the old man’s features were obliterated by an ugly acid brand. Pain sent him reeling into the room, screaming, clawing at blinded eyes. He spun around once like a top about to stop, struck the floor and lay still.
The touch of death. The long arm of the Fury was reaching for its prey. Screaming, cursing, the guests of Rex Bastion mobbed from the laboratory, through doors and windows, rushing pell-mell to get away from the cadaverous killers.
“The ray!” shouted Brady. “Get the ray, damn it!”
Somewhere out on the lawn, came the high-pitched scream of a woman in stark terror. Across the mind of Agent X flashed a hideous picture—the white, girlish shoulders of Betty Dale, branded by the hand of death. He turned toward an open window. One of the Fury’s gaunt slaves stood there. X whirled up a chair, held it like a battering-ram, and rushed the man. The chair hit a body, blotted it from the window. Risking the death-touch, X sprang over the fallen man and gained the lawn.
The scream came again. Guided by it, X raced around a towering clump of lilac and came suddenly upon a woman. His protecting arms went out. Her small hands clutched his arm. He could feel her trembling body pressed close to his.
“Betty!” he whispered. “Are you all right? What happened?” He turned the light of his flashlight down into the girl’s face. The beam awoke the dangerous, fascinating glitter of the green eyes of Vina Trumaine. Her red lips parted, quivered slightly. “So sorry to disappoint you,” she whispered.
X RELEASED her, glanced down at her hands that slowly, almost reluctantly let go of his arm. It was the first time he had seen Vina Trumaine without her black gloves. Her fingernails were filed completely to the quick.
“What happened?” X asked her quickly. “Why did you scream?”
“Because,” she said quietly, “I was afraid. Foolish of me, but I didn’t know you were so near.”
“But what frightened you?”
She touched her chest lightly with her fingertips. “Hush! Some one is coming.”
X reached into his pocket and gripped the butt of his gas pistol. Baleful lightning revealed the shadowy form of a man coming around the lilacs. X turned his flashlight straight into the man’s face. It was Alan Moss, his energetic eyebrows raised in mild surprise. In his left hand he gripped his yellow walking-stick.
“Martin!” Moss exclaimed as soon as he saw X. “And Mrs. Trumaine. Where are those hellish killers?”
“Mr. Martin is anxious about the little reporter,” said Vina Trumaine.
“Oh, Miss Dale? She’s all right. Locked up with Rex Bastion. I’m out to reconnoiter.”
“You didn’t hope to lay any of the killers low with that stick, did you?” X asked.
Moss smiled thinly. “Silly of me, but I always feel safer with the thing in my hand. Suppose we get back to the others. Dr. Arden is certainly worrying about Mrs. Trumaine.”
They turned, started toward the house. X thrust out both arms, checked his companions. “Some one or something is in front of us,” he whispered.
“A man,” whispered Vina Trumaine. “No, three.”
“A man and two of those mummy-devils,” echoed Moss. “Good lord, Martin, have you a gun?”
X nodded, pulled out his gas pistol. The weird trio had stopped. A flashlight held by the man in the center turned its searching ray on X and his companions then flashed straight up to illuminate the glistening, bone-white mask of the Fury himself. Beside the man were two of his unclean, emaciated bodyguards.
The Fury spoke: “These grounds are completely surrounded by my men. We have the strength of numbers and the power none can thwart—the death-touch. This is my ultimatum: tell Bastion to hand over his ray within thirty minutes. Otherwise, I shall be obliged to kill everyone on this estate. Half an hour. No more.”
The Fury and his corpselike escorts turned and moved back into the shadows.
“Great heavens, Martin! Why don’t you shoot?”
X did not shoot for a very good reason. The Fury was beyond the range of his gas pistol. Furthermore, a charge of gas would have certainly blown back and knocked out both Moss and Vina Trumaine, for only those who held their breath were immune to its power.
X shook his head. “For the safety of all concerned, Bastion better hand over his ray.” It was advice he hated to give, yet he could not stand by and watch Betty and the others slaughtered. Against the death-touch he was utterly powerless.
“But he can’t do that, man!” Moss exploded.
“Why?” asked Vina Trumaine.
“He hasn’t got the damned thing! Some one stole it from under his very nose.”
It was a dangerous situation to which X could see but one solution. He must, at all costs, contact the police. Squads of armed police might mow down the Fury’s cadaverous killers, break through their ranks, and come to the rescue. Never before had Agent X called upon the police for help. Now he must, though such a move might result in his own arrest.
CHAPTER V
Black Gloves
AS soon as he had entered the house, X went to the nearest telephone extension only to find that the wires had been cut. Yet the main lines leading to the house were still intact. If he could connect one of the disabled instruments at the point where the lines entered through the roof, he might still be able to contact police headquarters.
After he had made certain that Betty Dale was safe inside Bastion’s study, X went into the drawing room, knelt by the telephone box, and took a small, strong screwdriver from his pocket tool kit. He was on the point of removing the telephone when a soft voice asked: “Just what are you doing?”
He turned to see Vina Trumaine leaning against a table watching him. The woman dangled a cigarette in her red lips. Her green eyes gleamed unblinking through the blue smoke. “I am going to contact the police,” X replied, continuing to work with his screwdriver. “Does that alarm you?”
Vina Trumaine shrugged gracefully. “No. Why should it?”
X stood up, glanced at the woman’s hands. She had once again pulled on her black gloves. He approached her, gently took both her hands in his. “It’s a shame to keep such lovely hands covered.” He took hold of the fingertips of one glove and pulled. She tried to jerk away. His left arm went about her waist and held her tightly. She struggled a moment, eyes bright with fury, then melted toward him.
“Please,” she whispered breathlessly. “Later, perhaps, if you wish to come and see me in my apartment—”
With a quick jerk, X stripped one black glove from one slender hand. The woman glanced down, bit her lips. Agent X smiled. “What have you done with the Bastion Ray?” he demanded coldly.
Her body stiffened. The green eyes registered amazement now, or perhaps it was fear. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about. Will you give me back my glove?”
“You cannot deny that you opened Bastion’s safe and made an attempt to steal the plans of his ray—nonexistent plans, it seems. I have never seen fingers filed as yours ar
e except on the hands of professional safe crackers. Filing them close brings the more sensitive nerve endings close to the surface, enabling the expert safe operator to feel the resistance of the tumblers as he turns the combination dial.”
Well-formed nostrils haughtily spread, she said: “This is quite the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life. You do not seem to realize to whom you are speaking.”
“No,” replied X mockingly, “I haven’t the slightest idea. But certainly you are not what you seem.”
Somewhere outside the house came the crack of a shot. A body struck the hall door. X sprang into the hall, saw the front door buckle beneath the impact of a shoulder. X twisted the latch and Wilbur Kopsak almost fell into the room. He was waving a smoking revolver in his hand, breathing heavily, his thick lips dropping curses. He leaned forward, one hand clasping the Agent’s shoulder, and kicked the door shut behind him.
“The man with the white face!” he gasped. “Two things like corpses. They’re still out there waiting for us. Where in hell are the police?”
“You saw the Fury?”
Kopsak shrugged. “A man with a face as white as flour. A golden thing in the center of his forehead. He pointed me out to the two corpse things. I’ve been running from them as I never ran before. Fired a shot when I got close to the door. That seemed to scare them away. We can’t get away from here. There are men spaced every twenty feet around the fence. Why haven’t the police come?”
X NODDED reassuringly. “Please take Mrs. Trumaine into the study with the others. Stay there. I’ll try to get the police out here.”
Kopsak took Vina Trumaine and steered her toward the study.
Back in the drawing room, X lost no time in removing the telephone instrument. Then he tucked box and hand-set under his arm and hurried up the steps.
At the end of the upstairs hall, he found a stairway leading into the attic. Guided by his flashlight, he climbed their narrow length and found himself in a dark and cavernous chamber beneath the steeply slanting roof. He found the twisted phone wires in a moment where they led through a porcelain in the wall of a gable. He carefully scraped away insulation and cut one wire at a time. Then he attached the wires to the poles of the phone box, lifted the hand-set and heard the buzz of a live wire. He immediately called the office of the police commissioner.
“Good evening, Commissioner Foster,” X said quietly when he heard Foster’s familiar voice, “this is Secret Agent X speaking.”
A gasp of amazement from the commissioner.
“I want action, Commissioner, immediately. You may know that I am desperate or I would not have appealed to you. You owe me nothing, it is true, but your duty toward the people of this city is very great. I am speaking from the Bastion house, not for myself but for the people of New York. The entire household and six guests are trapped here, unable to leave alive because the Fury has the house completely surrounded by killers. You know what became of Dot Dejong. That was the Fury’s work. All here are his prospective victims. Send a couple of squads of heavily-armed men over at once. Inform them to avoid hand to hand conflict with anyone here.”
“I—I will see what I can do,” Foster choked out and started to hang up.
“Foster!” shouted Agent X. “What do you mean, ‘see what you can do?’ There are lives in great danger, man!”
“The Fury,” sounded Foster’s strained voice, “is more powerful than the police. My hands are tied.”
A faint click. X shouted, begging Foster not to hang up. He even offered to turn himself over to the police if Foster would send assistance. But the line was dead.
While X was talking to Foster, shadows in the dark attic moved. Gaunt hungry shadows, circling the Agent like wolves whose courage came from strength of numbers. The lean, corpselike servants of the Fury moved stealthily to surround him.
When he realized that Foster had hung up, X dashed the phone to the floor. Foster was not a man to shirk his duty. Something truly serious had happened to impair the courage of the police. But with the police force out of commission, there remained only Agent X and his force of operatives. To bring his own men to the Bastion place meant giving them orders to kill. Without the law to back them, it would make murderers of them all. There seemed no other way—
A LEAN, sinewy shape launched itself in a catlike spring that carried it out of the darkness to land on the Agent’s broad back. X turned as he fell, wrenched his left arm free, sent a smashing blow into a yellow face that was all but a skull. But every shadowy corner of the big attic gave up gaunt, yellow men, slaves of the Fury, whose touch meant death.
X fought like a madman, wondering every minute why he did not feel the branding contact of acid from the lean hands that sought his throat. Then something crashed to the top of his skull. Consciousness flickered out. He lay perfectly still.
“Kill!” a thin voice screamed.
“No!” cried another. “It is against the master’s will. This is the man called X. I heard him say so. Bring rope. Tie him. Gag him. Then go for the master.”
The thin savages scrambled about the gloomy attic, obtaining trunk straps and rope. The Agent’s jaws were forced apart and old rags thrust into his mouth and tied in place. Straps and ropes trussed him up helplessly. Had he been conscious he might have expanded muscles so as to obtain play in his bonds, but by the time the slaves of the Fury had finished, escape without aid would have been impossible.
The thin men walked silently on bare feet to the attic door. One of them said: “The master said we were to hide in the house, await his signal. When that signal comes, we kill. Now we must inform the master of what we have done to the man called X.” And in single file they left the room.
Such was the Agent’s perfect physical condition that he recovered from the blow quickly. As soon as his head had cleared and he recalled what had happened, he glanced about him. The windows of the attic were open. Casements banged, caught in the teeth of the wind that was driving the storm in from sea.
He found that he could flex his knees. He rolled toward one of the casements. There was a thin hope that he could break the glass window and use the cutting fragments of glass to liberate his hands. But this hope was shattered when he discovered that heavy leather straps had been used to bind his hands.
He crouched before the window, braced his shoulder against the sill and managed to get to his feet. Incessant lightning illuminated the scene before him; a tile roof slanting dizzily downward to the eaves of the first story, the shrubbery and dwarf trees on the lawn below and the recumbent figure of a man.
There was no mistaking the square shoulders and shaggy head of the man on the ground. It was Harvey Bates. Had the Fury struck while X was helpless in the attic? Were all within the house dead at the hands of the fiends? Or perhaps Wilbur Kopsak had shot Bates with his revolver, mistaking him for one of the Fury’s men.
No, Bates moved, rolled on the ground, groaned softly.
Some twenty feet from Bates, a bush parted. A thin, mummylike face was visible between the leaf-covered twigs. Then a scrawny arm extended with fingers crooked like talons, with veins bloated like fat worms. The thing crawled from the bushes. There was no mistaking the lust to kill that burned deep in the cavernous eyes. Here was a murder-madman and in the touch of that extended right hand was the power to kill.
The Agent’s heart thudded dismally. He was so utterly helpless. He must stand there, watch the murderous fiend lay his deadly hand on the flesh of the faithful Bates. It was mental torture more than he could bear. He tried to shout a warning, but the gag choked him. If there was only some way to warn Bates, he was certain that the big man would come out of his coma in time to defend himself. But there was no way. None unless—
X looked down the steep incline of the roof. There was a way. It meant risking his own life, but he was willing to pay that price if in return he saved Bates’s life.
The one thing that he could do was to deliberately fall out of the window. He could not help
but fall near where Bates lay and there was the chance that he could shock Bates to his senses. At any rate, he could not permit Bates to face death alone. And there was no mistaking the evil intentions of the yellow-skinned killer.
CHAPTER VI
The Dark Mask
THERE was no getting on the sill, preparing for the long slide down the slates and the drop through the air. There was only one way to get out of that window. He must throw his weight forward, allow the sill to trip him and plunge headlong down the roof. His short, awkward dive landed him on his face. The plastic material that composed his false features was smeared. The breath was hammered out of him. At sickening speed, he slid on his belly down the roof until a raised tile caught his foot and whipped him around. He rolled sideways, felt the bite of the eaves trough against his side, and pitched over the edge.
X landed on his back in a bush only a few feet from where Bates lay. The mummy-faced killer sprang backward, uttered a startled snarl. For a moment, he stood there, staring dumbly at the Agent’s helpless form. Then a glimmer of intelligence crossed his face. He advanced cautiously, his right hand outstretched.
But the sound of X’s body crashing into the bush had brought Bates to his senses. He rolled to his knees, lurched to his feet, saw the emaciated killer. He clawed for his gun, got it out, fired twice in rapid succession. Still hazy from the knockout he had received, he could not hope to hit his target. But the crash of the shots served him well. The thin killer took to his heels and ran back toward the rear of the house.
Bates staggered to the bush, seized the Agent’s bound legs, and pulled him out. He could not have recognized the Agent’s features as those of Martin because the makeup was ruined. But he did know that X covered his face with plastic material and consequently knew his chief.
In silence, Bates removed the gag from X’s mouth. “Hurt, sir?” he asked anxiously.
“No,” X gasped. “A little winded. That bush broke my fall. I didn’t see any other way to warn you. What happened to you, anyway?”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 16