X returned to a table that centered the room and turned the contents of the bag out on its surface. There was a large wad of bills, a jeweled compact, a card case and a many-folded sheet of paper.
THE CARD case was empty, but the inner flap of it had been engraved with the name: Sylvia Rister.
The Agent’s eyes narrowed. Sylvia Rister was Morgan Rister’s wife. If Rister was really associated with the gang, surely he wouldn’t have permitted his wife to take dope. If he wasn’t in with the criminals, where were they obtaining the liquid gas they used for a weapon?
X next turned his attention to the folded piece of paper. On opening it, he discovered that it was a complete metropolitan map of New York.
Why would Mrs. Rister, a resident of the city for years, be carrying a map like this one? X flattened the map out on the table and studied it for a minute.
There were thirty-one circles, all having a common center, drawn on the face of the map in fine lines of India ink.
X folded the map and put it in his pocket. With the idea of returning Mrs. Rister’s bag, he left the room and was halfway across the dance floor, when the radio was turned off. The sudden silence fell like a blow upon the drug addicts. They stopped their dancing, clung to their partners, and looked around the room as though they expected something terrible to happen.
“Absolute silence!” Zerna’s strident voice demanded.
She was standing at one end of the room, her hard, chill eyes flickering from one masked face to another.
“There is a traitor among you,” Zerna said.
Instantly, there arose an excited murmur among the guests, but Zerna stamped her foot and put an end to that. “Because,” she said, “there is a traitor here, all must remove their masks at once.”
For a moment, no one moved. Zerna repeated her demand. Still, no faces were bared.
The Agent’s pulse quickened. Had his deception been discovered? How could his disguise have been penetrated? Then it suddenly occurred to him that there was one bold stroke he might use to divert suspicion from himself.
He quickly raised his right hand and jerked off his mask. Surely, the first man in the group to expose his face would be the last suspected of being the traitor.
One by one masks were removed. The Secret Agent was shocked as he recognized many people from the best families in the city, among other dope addicts. Half the crowd seemed to have come from the wealthy class. They, no doubt, paid “club dues” to prevent their vice being made public. Others in the group were obviously the lowest in the criminal scale. Probably, their “club dues” were paid in services of unlawful nature.
Zerna looked from one face to another. “We believe that Secret Agent X is among those present,” she said. “We have a way of proving this, of course.”
She clapped her hands. A door at the side of the room opened, and, to X’s horror, Betty Dale was led into the room.
Betty Dale was actually almost beside herself with terror. She knew why she had been brought here. She was to point out Secret Agent X. Actually, she had no more idea which of those present was the Agent. Yet to save Harvey Bates from torture, she had to point. And what if her wild guess should prove correct?
Betty closed her eyes for a moment, bit her lip. Then she raised a trembling forefinger and pointed straight at the back of the man next to her. “That is Secret Agent X,” she said firmly.
CHAPTER VII
The Betrayal
BETTY did not raise her eyes to meet those of the man to whom she had pointed, until she heard him curse. There was something so familiar about the ring of his voice that the girl’s heart skipped a beat. She looked up quickly, then, into the goggling eyes of Gordon Stien.
“Betty,” the newspaperman gasped, “this is a hell of a gag!”
Three men immediately fell upon Gordon Stien. Some one cried: “The girl’s giving it to you straight. She came with that guy.”
The hophead criminals dragged the struggling, kicking Stien toward the door through which Betty had come. Stien was shouting:
“Of all the rotten deals a man ever got from a woman, this is it! Me, Agent X? What a laugh! Why—”
Then the sound of Stien’s voice was muffled by the closing of a door.
It was obvious to Agent X that Betty Dale was on the brink of complete collapse because her grabbing in the dark had resulted in the plight of her fellow reporter. X had no idea what motive had been behind Betty’s action, but he greatly feared that she had been tormented in some way.
No sooner had the criminals seized Stien, than X began moving toward the doomed reporter. It was utterly impossible for the Secret Agent to stand back and allow some one else to take punishment that had been designed for him.
Behind the cover of excitement caused by Betty’s startling disclosure, Agent X got to the door through which Stien and his guards had passed. When he was certain that no one was watching, he cautiously opened the door and stepped into the room beyond.
The room was dimly lighted. Evidently Stien had been taken to another part of the house. X started across the room, but came to an abrupt stop. Directly in front of him, bound to a chair and table, was the great, square-shouldered form of Harvey Bates. X sprang to his operative. “Have you out in a second, Bates,” he rapped in the voice by which Bates could recognize him.
“You, chief!” Bates gasped. “Miss Dale—”
“I know. We must get her out of here. And Stien is on the spot—the spot where I’m supposed to be. Can’t have that, you know.” The Agent’s capable fingers unknotted ropes and loosened straps.
“Any plans, sir?” Bates whispered.
X shook his head. “We’ll plan as we move. Here—” X pulled a package of cigarettes from his pocket and shook out three or four on the table together with a paper of matches. “After they’ve burned about half an inch, a tear gas cartridge inside the cigarette goes off. Only weapons I have that wouldn’t have been detected. Can you manage them with that nasty burn on your hand?”
Bates nodded. “Burn’s nothing,” he insisted stoutly. “Liquid air.”
X held up a warning finger. “Some one coming,” he whispered. Hastily, he pulled the straps back over Bates’s wrists, but did not hook them. He winked cheerfully at his lieutenant and sprang across the room to crowd himself into a small, open closet.
THE DOOR opened, and Gordon Stien was brought into the room by four of the hophead criminals. The young man had admirable courage. There was a scornful smile forming on his lips as he was taken toward the door of the dance hall.
One of the criminals carried a shiny cylinder, undoubtedly one of the guns used to project the deadly liquid gas. Probably, the criminals had decided to make an example of this man they supposed to be Agent X.
“Better lock that door after you,” said one of the hopheads, when Stien and his guards had entered the dance hall.
From his hiding place, X noticed that the key was on the inside of the door. One of the four guards came back into the room for the key. Once he had obtained it and locked the door, X would have no chance of getting to Stien’s rescue.
The hophead had his back toward the closet where X hid. The door leading into the dance hall was partway open. Nothing but quick, silent action could turn aside the fate in store for Stien.
X sprang like a panther. His leap carried him to within two feet of the man at the door. His left arm shot out, his hand slapping over the mouth of the hophead. His right fist pounded up to the back of the man’s neck at the base of the brain.
The man went limp, fell into the door with a thumping sound that made X hold his breath. Only the excitement in the dance hall prevented those near the door from noticing the noise.
X pulled the unconscious hophead to one side. Harvey Bates sprang to his chief’s aid. Together, they knelt beside the hophead and quickly searched his pockets. X found an automatic and passed it over to Bates.
“I’m going in there and start something,” he said grimly. “Stien won’t
be in any danger after I prove to that mob that he isn’t Agent X. I can probably get as far as the middle of the room before they’ll even notice me. When I start trouble, you come in to cover the crowd while I get Miss Dale out of this hole. Use tear gas where you can. Shoot only as a last resort.”
“Ready for anything,” Bates said eagerly.
X stepped to the door and slipped into the dance hall. Two of the doped killers were holding Stien in a chair in the very center of the room. Nearby, stood the man with the gas cylinder. The man in evening clothes, the only one in the room whose face remained covered, was saying: “And as a warning to others in this room, we have decided that you shall all witness the death of this Secret Agent X.”
Here was a new thrill for the jaded appetites of the dopesters. Some greeted the announcement with shouts and others with pleasureful shudders.
Betty Dale was terrified beyond speech, beyond tears. Her face was ash gray. Her fingers were knotting and unknotting themselves. Here was murder of her own making. And she knew no way to prevent it.
Agent X calmly jabbed a cigarette between his lips and lit it. With a slight smile on his lips, he walked briskly toward the center of the room. Virtually weaponless. Agent X risked everything to save the life of the man in the chair.
The masked man muttered at the cigarette-smoking Agent X: “Keep back, Starbuck,” he growled.
AGENT X’s face never changed. The smile seemed frozen there. He moved on until he was directly behind the man with the gas cylinder.
The two hopheads who held Stien never look their eyes from the Agent’s face. Then, with a lightning-like motion, X’s right hand passed over his face and removed his cigarette, at the same time pressing and twisting the plastic material that covered his face. When his right hand dropped to his side, those quick alterations in his features had told their story—a story that instantly marked him for death.
Fingers, eyes pointed. Then voices exclaimed: “There’s Agent X!”
The man with the gas cylinder swung around. The back of his right hand came in contact with the point of X’s cigarette. At the same time, X seized the cylinder of gas and wrenched it from the man’s grasp.
The two hopheads had released Stien. The reporter was legging for the door. Heedless of the gas cylinder with which X threatened them, the hopheads sprang at Agent X, who squirmed out of their reach and moved toward Betty Dale. His long fingers flipped the smoldering cigarette into the midst of the hopheads. There was a faint pop and white clouds of choking, blinding tear gas broke from the cigarette.
Across the room, Harvey Bates appeared. He was moving backwards toward Betty Dale, threatening the mob with his gun. He, too, had one of the tear gas cigarettes going, and this he flipped into the center of the excited throng.
“Toward the front door, Betty!” X sang out. Then he broke into a run to follow the girl and Bates. Only one man stood in their way—the masked man in evening clothes. He stood directly in front of the door, legs wide spread, an automatic in his hand. The eyes in the slots of his mask met those of X.
“Another inch,” he warned, “and I’ll kill that girl!”
X dared not count the cost of his next move. There was but one way out for Bates and Betty. The man in the doorway had to be removed, for it was only a matter of moments before the dazed and surprised mob would sufficiently recover from the tear gas to close in. X raised the gas cylinder and stepped directly between Betty and the masked man.
The masked man’s gun spouted flame and thunder. Slugs that were like twin battering-rams plumped into X’s bullet-proof vest. The Agent’s knees felt like jelly. A red cloud of pain filmed his vision. Yet an almost super-human will kept him upright to shield the body of the girl he loved.
He staggered on, straight into the blazing gat in the man’s hand. The gas cylinder hacked down once. The masked man melted to the floor. X tripped over him, fell flat on his face, and lay there a moment, grasping at his wavering senses.
Bates seized X beneath the arms and pulled him to his feet. X saw Betty’s pale, anxious face close to his. His lips twisted into a wry grin. “I’m all right,” he worked out through clenched teeth. “The bullet-proof vest takes death out of the bullets but leaves the wallop. Let’s go. The car’s out in front.”
Still clinging to the gas cylinder with one hand, X hurried Betty through the front door of the building. From near at hand came the skirl of a police whistle. The sound of the shooting had evidently attracted the cops.
“Move!” X urged. His old strength back again in his well-conditioned body, he lifted Betty in his arms, strode to the car, and put her in the front seat. Bates slipped in under the wheel, kicked over the motor, and as X sprang into the back seat, the car rocketed from the curb.
CHAPTER VIII
Secret Circles
X LEANED over the front seat, his head between Bates and Betty. “No time for chatter. We’re making progress for the first time since this investigation began. These are orders to you, Betty, and to you, Bates.”
“Yes?” the girl said eagerly. “What can I do?”
“Keep away from everybody, Betty,” X said earnestly. “I mean everybody. While this gang exists, you’re not safe a minute. These criminals know they can strike at me through you. Our best bet is to trap the whole mob in some way.” X drew out the map he had taken from Mrs. Rister’s purse, and tossed it into Bates’s lap.
“There are thirty-one circles on that map, Bates. Your job, as soon as you have seen Betty safely home, is to find the center of those circles. Communicate with me through G.H.Q.” X took hold of the door handle of the car. “Stop in the center of the next block,” he ordered.
“What are you going to do?” Betty asked anxiously as X got out in front of the entrance of a gloomy lodging house.
X smiled kindly. “Much, I hope. We’ve got to wipe this mob out.” Then he added beneath his breath: “Before it wipes us out.” He hurried into the lodging house, where, on the third floor, he had rented a modest room under one of his many aliases.
In this hideout, he briefly examined the gas cylinder he had taken from the hophead. When at last he put it aside, there was a strange, troubled look in his eyes. As he began working on a change of disguise, he thought back over the evening’s adventure. Many things that had been fogged with mystery began to stand out clearly. He understood now that the danger threatening Betty Dale was even greater than he had anticipated.
When he left the hideout a little later, he was a man who looked at home in his shabby surroundings. His face was a hard, vicious mask, with thin lips, a fist-flattened nose, and a killer’s squinted eyes.
A rattling old car that looked incapable of the speed he goaded from it, was the conveyance that took him across Manhattan to the beautiful West End Avenue home of Morgan Rister.
A servant informed the Agent that Mr. Rister wasn’t at home, and X dealt the man a flat-handed blow to the chest that sent him reeling back from the door. Then X came through the door fast enough to catch the servant by the coat lapel and keep him from falling over backwards.
“I’m goin’ to see Rister, yah understand?” he said nasally. “And you ain’t stoppin’ me, yah understand?”
A door opened, and an anxious voice asked: “What is the trouble here?”
X looked over the servant’s shoulder to see Morgan Rister, his pale hair rumpled, his face colorless above the black satin collar of his dressing gown.
An unpleasant grin spread across the ugly mask of makeup that covered X’s face. “Aw, me and James was playin’ knock-knock. I gotta little business to transact with you, Rister.”
“Very well.” Rister’s voice became limp. His hand trembled as he opened the door and ushered X into his study.
“Sit down, Rister,” X said. “Guess you know why I’m here. It’s your lady, again. You wouldn’t want it to get out about her and Jim Starbuck and these dope parties, would you?”
Rister said nothing. His eyes had a frightened gleam.
“I’m paying you enough,” Rister snapped. “I’ve shelled out money to you for the protection of my wife’s name. And I’ve furnished your boss the gas he asked for. I’m through. If I had known you were going to use the stuff for murder, you wouldn’t have had it.”
“That’s fine, Mr. Rister!”
RISTER’S jaw dropped. He stared in utter amazement at the man before him. The voice that had just spoken to him seemed to be that of an entirely different person. Agent X’s hand darted into the pocket of his baggy trousers and produced a neatly counterfeited police badge.
Rister slapped his perspiring brow, gasped like a man plunged suddenly into icy water. “I’ve been talking to a police detective.”
X came nearer and put his hand on Rister’s shoulder. “That’s the idea. We knew down at headquarters about your wife. We had an idea that the liquid stash the gang used to freeze Mrs. Colrich came from your plant. We just wanted to be sure.”
“Wh-what are you going to do with me?” asked Rister.
“Well, I could take you down to headquarters as an accessory to the Ruth Colrich murder. You tell me all you know about the gang, who runs it, and where they get their dope—and maybe I’ll give you a break.”
Rister shook his head and stared blankly at the wall. “I can’t help you. I know nothing of these people. They simply had some pictures of my wife. Not very pleasant pictures. They had been blackmailing her with them. Then they turned on me. I didn’t actually give them the gas. I made it easy for them to steal it.”
X had been studying Rister closely. The unfortunate man was perfectly sincere, he was certain. Probably, his eavesdropping at the door of the smoking room in the Paragon Theatre had been an effort to hear if Wicker and Arvin were talking about his wife in conjunction with the dope parties.
X took Rister’s hand in his own and gave it a grasp that seemed to transmit new energy into the man’s body. “Good night, Rister—and good luck!”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 38