YELLOW lantern light tinged the rocky walls of the cavern chamber by the time X opened his eyes. His magnificent physical condition enabled him to recover quickly from a blow that would have left another man with an achy, fuzzy head for a long time.
This was not the same part of the cavern in which the blow that had laid him out had been struck. It was a large, rough chamber closed at one end and with a low, rough doorway at the other. There was no door, nothing to prevent X from making his escape. He picked himself up and started for the door.
“Wait,” a voice from somewhere near at hand murmured.
X turned around, saw no one.
“Above your head. Always, above your head, you will find Shaitan, Agent X.”
X raised his eyes to where the rocky roof came together in a wedge-shaped formation. Dimly outlined in the light from the lantern, X could see a face. The features were indistinct, yet X was as certain that he knew what they looked like as if he could see them clearly.
“I will not detain you, Agent X,” went on the whispering voice from the man above him. “I am too familiar with your marvelous escapes to try and detain you—with iron bars and doors, that is. However, I should like to warn you that the chamber just beyond this is dangerous. In the first place, there is only a narrow ledge around its outer rim and the floor is something of a bottomless pit.
“However, you would not have much difficulty in getting across the ledge were it not for the fact that the room is filled with poison gas—the gas of madness and death. Madness, if you breathe only a little of it—madness from the terrible pain it causes. Death, of course, if you get a good whiff. I don’t want you to do anything you would later regret, you know.
“Do you know what time it is? Probably not, since I have taken your watch. There was some of that harmless anesthetizing vapor concealed under the crystal, wasn’t there? At any rate, it is twenty minutes before midnight. I have learned that the people of Brownsboro are taking out gas masks from the national guard headquarters and distributing them. That is a waste of time, since Garvey’s gas will penetrate any of the ordinary filters.”
“You fully intend to go through with this scheme?” X asked calmly.
“I do. Cylinders of gas are mounted up here on a rocky ledge. The elevation and wind are both in my favor. On the stroke of twelve, I turn Death loose. I do not know what will become of you, but I rather imagine you’ll starve to death or else plunge into that death chamber next to you. But before I go, I am sending you a present. Please open it at once.”
A flat paper covered package dropped down through the opening. And the face of Shaitan had disappeared. The parcel landed almost at X’s feet. He picked it up, broke the strings and unwrapped it. It was a piece of polished metal eight inches square. Agent X held it up, frowned in bewilderment at it.
And out of the gloom, looking up at him, frowning back, he saw his face. His own face. The unmasked face of Secret Agent X! Shaitan’s hellish laughter sounded in the distance. “I know the man behind the mask now, Secret Agent X,” Shaitan called back.
X slapped the pockets of his coat. All of his special equipment had been removed. His bullet-proof vest was gone. Nothing remained to him except that small secret compartment in the heel of his shoe. There he had secreted enough plastic material for a single disguise, and a small hypodermic needle loaded with a powerful narcotic. But what good would such flimsy weapons do him?
Footsteps along the rocky floor. X did not turn his head. He simply raised the metal mirror a little. In its polished surface he beheld the vision for which his eyes had hungered. Betty Dale, her dress in tatters, but apparently unharmed. X shoved the mirror hurriedly under his shirt. He turned slowly.
The girl came forward hesitatingly. In her large blue eyes was an almost heavenly light. Her red lips were smiling, yet quivering. Three feet away from him, she stopped. Her eyes devoured every inch of his face. The Agent’s heart seemed to occupy the whole of his throat and was thumping so that he could hardly breathe. Forgot for the moment was the doom that hung over Brownsboro, over civilization for that matter. Agent X was wondering very humanly if Betty was disappointed at meeting him face to face for the first time.
BETTY DALE could neither move nor speak. At last she saw the face she had dreamed about—the true face of Agent X. She saw and longed to touch the soft waves of his dark-brown hair. His forehead was high, wondrously intellectual-looking. His eyes, beneath level brows, were the same eyes she had so frequently seen peering kindly from behind his many masks; there, too, she read of wisdom and generosity. They were eyes that spoke of the immense soul of the man. Eyes with driving power in their steel-gray depths. His nose wasn’t too large. His lips had a ghost of a smile lingering at their corners. His jaw was square and aggressive.
In all, he was a good bit younger-looking than she had imagined. Yet, no; when he turned his head ever so slightly, the boyishness was gone and he appeared as a mature man of the world.
A joyful sob trembled in Betty’s throat. She threw herself forward into the arms that ached for her, that held her with the strength of steel hands, yet were warmed with deepest emotion. She raised her head. Her eyes shimmered. Her lips parted.
“I knew long, long ago this would happen,” he said in a deep, husky voice. “And long ago I knew that once I spoke to you with my real lips nothing in the world could keep my lips from yours.”
For moments, their lips were locked. And while the fire of their own lives burned brighter than ever before, the city at their feet waited in breathless anticipation for the smothering cloud of madness that Shaitan had promised them. Suddenly, X seemed to realize what he was doing. He gently released the girl, whispered breathlessly: “Brownsboro. Shaitan.”
“But—but what can you do? We’re prisoners here together. There’s no escape.”
X jerked his head toward the doorway. “That room. I’ve got to chance getting across it. It may be too far. But I’ve got to try, Betty.”
“No—no. You can’t. You’ll be killed!” She ran after him toward Death’s door, seized him with small, strong fingers. “I couldn’t bear it. Not after this—this, our one moment in a lifetime.”
Gently, he took her wrists and pressed her arms to her sides. “You’d never forgive me, Betty, if fifty thousand people died because you and I were selfish.”
“If you go into that room—I’ll go with you!” she sobbed.
And X knew that she would. Nothing could prevent her from following him to hell itself. He dropped to the floor. Immediately, she was beside him.
“What are you going to do?” she demanded. “Is there no other way out except that room?”
X seized the heel of his right shoe and gave it a quick twist. A slot was revealed in the back of the heel and from this he took the tiny hypodermic needle. “My one weapon, Betty,” he said. He pushed the plunger of the syringe a little way down, releasing some of the precious drug on the floor. His one weapon, and he was going to use it on the one he loved the best! He stood up.
“Kiss me once again, Betty. Quickly, dear.” And as their arms entwined, he thrust the point of the needle into the flesh of her forearm. A scream of terror, as she realized his purpose, came from Betty’s lips. Even as her body wilted to the floor, her fingers clutched at him. He broke away, staggered backwards to the door.
Agent X had given Betty only a small amount of the drug, enough to keep her unconscious for five minutes at the most. The narcotic, while powerful, had no bad after effects so that when she regained consciousness her senses were clear—painfully clear. She found herself alone in the cavern. The shadows, the silence filled her small body with terror. She stood up. Her frightened eyes turned toward the doorway. In the next room was Death, and there Agent X had gone. With a short, sharp cry, she started to run toward the doorway. Life without him seemed an impossibility.
There came a low, rumbling sound from the rear of the rock room. Betty stopped, turned around. Her eyes widened. Her hands crawled up towar
d her throat as if to strangle the scream that was forming there.
A huge stone at the end of the room was slowly rolling inward.
CHAPTER X
Mad Eyes
WHEN X, Bates, and Charlotta had entered the rocky passageway, the Secret Agent had moved quite a bit more rapidly than either of his two companions were able to move. They had gone not more than a hundred feet along the passage before Harvey Bates, who was at the rear, had a premonition that they were being followed.
Without a word that might have alarmed Charlotta, he turned, went back around the last corner they had passed, and listened a moment. Somewhere, he was sure he heard footsteps. He produced a box of safety matches, struck a spark of light that never blossomed into flame.
Instantly, a noose of rope dropped to his shoulders and was yanked tight about his throat as his body was actually lifted from the floor only to be dropped a second later. Half strangled, Bates tore at the rope with both hands. Something sprang out of the dark. There was a brief flash of light from an electric torch, and a hard-toed shoe kicked out and caught Bates in the side of the head. The big man flattened to the floor. His senses had left him.
A few seconds later, Charlotta came to a stop. Directly ahead she saw the Agent’s flashlight wink. But where was Harvey Bates? She called him in a voice that whispered and that was immediately choked off by the thin fingers of two hands that reached out for her. Those thin fingers tightened, tightened until every beat of her heart boomed in her ears and a faintly illuminated red cloud floated before her eyes.
When the cloud was gone, when she had once again regained consciousness, strong arms were about her and a husky voice was calling her name. She opened her eyes, saw, by yellow lantern light, that she was in the arms of Harvey Bates.
“Thank heaven!” Bates whispered fervently. “I was afraid—afraid—” And what he feared seemed too terrible to talk about. Bates was sitting on a rough, stone floor, his back braced against a great boulder. He had drawn the unconscious Charlotta up into a sitting position so that her head rested upon his shoulder. For frantic seconds, he had been attempting to revive her.
Charlotta made no effort to move. She felt very tired, but very comfortable and safe in this big, square man’s arms. Ever since her early teens there had been men about, wanting to caress her. But there was something about this man’s sometimes awkward touch that thrilled her. He was always so gentle and kind. Never presumptuous.
At last she began to wonder where they were. The lantern in the center of the room showed that the place was apparently without doors. No, there was a small opening in a rocky ceiling fifteen feet above their heads. The place was a sort of pit.
“How did we get here?” she asked. She felt Bates’s big shoulders shrug. “Guess we were both knocked out. Some one dropped a rope over my head.”
“The Punjab lasso,” Charlotta said. “A weapon that Shaitan sometimes used in the east. In Mongolia, a peasant once pointed out a Soyot herdsman hanging to the limb of a tree. Shaitan had passed that night, the peasant explained to me. Shaitan has always struck from behind. He never fights if the odds are equal. That is why I hate him as I have never hated anyone. It’s a wonder he didn’t hang you.”
“Would you have cared much? I mean—” Bates coughed.
“Very much,” she whispered earnestly. She uttered a little laugh, sat up straight, and looked around. “How are we going to get out of here? What has become of X? And look! Had you noticed that both of us have lost our shoes? Why’s that?”
“Don’t know,” Bates said. “Doesn’t look—”
“Shsh—”
Bates looked at Charlotta. The warning hiss had not come from her lips. A crumb of rock was dislodged from above and dropped to the floor. They looked up, saw a wood ladder that was being pushed through the opening in the roof.
“It’s X,” Bates whispered. “Never fails. The one man who never misses.”
BATES and Charlotta got to their feet. The ladder was resting on the floor, the opening in the roof now easily accessible. Bates sprang to the lower round of the ladder. Instantly, he uttered a sharp cry of pain and fell back to the floor. Charlotta dropped beside him. “Your hands, dear!” she cried anxiously. “You’ve been cut!”
Bates didn’t need to be told that. His hands were drenched with his own blood. His feet, too, were severely cut. He looked up toward the top of the ladder and could just distinguish something resembling a human face in the gloom. A hellish chuckle sounded from the opening.
“Shaitan!” gasped Charlotta.
“Shaitan!” the voice mocked. “How do you like my ladder? Razor edges all along the rounds and side pieces. One way I had of torturing Garvey. I saved the ladder especially for you, Charlotta. My dear girl, if I remember properly, you have a very healthy appetite. There will be a sumptuous feast spread out for you at the top of the ladder. Each day I trust your appetite will improve. Tantalus knew no greater torment.”
“I might have known,” Charlotta said bitterly. “Satan incarnate!”
Shaitan laughed. “Well, you would follow me halfway around the earth, you know. Now that you have met me, I hope you are not disappointed. Sorry I must leave. Secret Agent X, you might like to know, is in a similar fix—he and the blonde reporter. The night I went to erase Bedford, Betty Dale was foolish enough to try and stop me. When I overcame her, she said that Agent X would see that I got my just deserts, from which I surmised that she was a particular friend of the Agent and therefore valuable alive.
“It seems that after all I am the only successful prophet. In as much as I have predicted the destruction of Brownsboro, I will have to go about my business. Happy days!” The face in the opening was gone.
“The beast,” whispered Charlotta, her fine eyes narrow and burning with hate. “The cowardly beast!” She turned to Bates. “Are you badly hurt?”
Bates shook his head. “Blades are sharp, but not very long.” He stood up somewhat painfully and began moving about the prison. After he had made the circuit once, he walked around again. There seemed no possible way out except up the ladder of knives. He leaned back against a big boulder and looked around the room.
“It’s moving!” Charlotta whispered. “That rock you’re leaning against moved. You pushed it a little!”
Bates turned around, braced his shoulder against the rock and pushed. The boulder inched back into the rocky wall. Beyond, he could see a crooked thread of light. He pushed again. The rock moved easier. Here was an exit that Shaitan had overlooked. Just as he gave the rock a final heave that rolled it clear of the opening, some one on the other side screamed. Bates ducked his head and passed through the opening.
He found himself in a natural rock room very similar to the one in which he and Charlotta had been confined. Standing in the center of the room, her hands raised to her throat, was Betty Dale.
BETTY uttered a long sigh and suddenly broke into tears. Charlotta ducked through the opening and was at her side in an instant. “You poor darling!” she whispered. “Who are you? How did you get in this terrible place?”
“Betty Dale,” Bates explained to Charlotta. “Friend of the chief. Where is Agent X?”
“In there,” Betty sobbed. “The room of death. It’s filled with the gas. He went through there, trying to save a lot of people who would like to see him hanged!”
“If he did that,” Bates said gravely, “it was because he felt it his duty.”
“I know it,” Betty choked. “But wh-what’s happened to him?”
Charlotta snapped her fingers. “Wait. I’m getting an idea. You stop crying, honey. I know that X man. As Harvey says, he never misses.”
Bates wasn’t quite so confident. If X had gained his freedom, why hadn’t he come to their aid?
Betty dried her eyes. “Sorry,” she choked out. “I never washed out like this before. But it was different this time. Right after I had really seen him, to have him go like—like a dream.” She smiled weakly. “Go on, Harvey Bates.
I’m ready for anything. I’ll find him somehow, some way.”
“Sure,” Bates agreed. They would find him, but this time, perhaps— Bates shook the gloomy thought out of his head. He turned to Charlotta. “Idea mature?”
“We’ll go back from whence we just came,” said Charlotta, “and go right up the ladder. Turn it up the other way, you know, so the blades of the knives will point downwards!”
“Beautiful!” Bates exclaimed.
Charlotta forced a laugh. She put her arm around Betty and led her toward the opening. “All the brains weren’t given to the men, were they?”
They went back into the stone pit and Bates approached the ladder. He took hold gingerly at the under side and tried to move it. “Fastened above,” he said glumly.
“Nor all the muscles given to the men,” Charlotta said. “Come, Betty, the three of us can move this. The three of us have got to move it!”
Bates got under the ladder and braced his shoulders against it. The girl took hold beneath the round. “One, two, three, heave!” Bates grunted out. And the ladder moved, dislodged the rock that had retained its top, and tore loose from the opening. Bates drew the ladder down, inverted it, and replaced it. Then he climbed up, put his head through the opening and looked around. “All right,” he called back. “Bring the lantern.” He waited at the top of the ladder to extend a helping hand to Betty and Charlotta.
Bates pointed down the passage. “Some one’s got a light down that way. Big, electric light. Easy, now.” He took the lantern from Charlotta’s hand and led the way toward the source of light. Far in the distance, the steeple clock in the city began to chime out the midnight hour—the zero hour for Brownsboro.
They had moved about twenty feet from the opening when Bates stumbled over his shoes and Charlotta’s piled together in the passage. He hastily stepped into his oxfords and helped Charlotta on with her slippers. Then they went on toward the white light.
Fifteen feet from the end of the passage, they heard a high-pitched, insane laugh. A tall, staggering figure lurched from the shadows. It zig-zagged along the natural corridor, bumping into things, fighting with its own shadow, laughing, shouting, screaming. Long strides brought Bates to the staggering maniac. There was something familiar about the screaming, contorted face. The madman almost fell into Bates’s arms and then began a feeble, pointless battle.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 31