Agent X left the Rister home and drove for several blocks until he came to a drug store. He went in, found a telephone pay station, and called a number that was listed in no telephone book. It was the telephone of Harvey Bates’s office, the general headquarters for the Agent’s crime-fighting machine.
To his surprise, it was Bates himself who answered the phone. The Agent’s voice at once slipped to the familiar tone that Bates would recognize.
“Any results from the map, Bates?” And as he listened to what Bates told him, his brow became deeply furrowed. “Impossible! Have you made those measurements carefully?” He was silent for a moment, staring thoughtfully at the wall of the telephone booth. Finally, he said: “Meet me at the office of A.J. Martin in one hour. Bring the map.”
Though it was after midnight and traffic had thinned out, it was nearly an hour before X arrived at the office he maintained in the name of A.J. Martin. He had not changed his disguise.
Bates as usual was punctual. As soon as he had arrived and had stopped marveling at his chief’s present appearance, he brought out the map, a flexible steel rule, and drafting instruments.
“Want you to check my measurements, sir. Think I’m right. Be glad to find out,” Bates clipped.
X spread the map on the top of the desk. There were thumb-tack marks in the extreme corners. He measured the distance between these. Then, with the rule and instruments, he found the common centers of the circles. He nodded his head slowly.
“You’re a hundred per cent right. The center of those circles is in the estate of Samuel Arvin, head of the Anti-Vice League. But before we accuse Arvin of anything, we ought to take another look at newsreels. Arvin may have nothing to do with this business, but newsreels and this map have. I’m going to the movies tomorrow. And before you go, Bates, here’s something to think about. The gas cylinder I picked up tonight contained nothing more potent than ice water.”
Bates frowned. “Something colder than that was used on me,” he said with a shudder.
“Yes!” X smiled. “Used on you. Think it over. It’s important.”
AGENT X attended the first matinee at the Paragon Theatre the following afternoon. He was disguised as a well-known member of the narcotic squad, a guise that brought Walter Nixon, the operator of the theatre, across the lobby with a troubled frown on his forehead. Just as X was about to enter the aisle. Nixon tapped him on the arm.
“Will you step over here a moment, Sergeant?” he whispered.
X was agreeable. “What’s on your mind, Nixon?” he asked.
Nixon gnawed his lip and said nothing until he had drawn X away from the patrons who were entering the theatre. Then he said irritably: “How long is this going to keep up? It seems to me that there are police or members of the Anti-Vice League here at every performance. I think the patrons are beginning to notice it. I demand to know just what you expect to find here at the Paragon.”
“We’re looking for dope,” X said. “The reason the investigation continues is that we have been unable to find any dope here or at other theatres. You should be thankful of that, Nixon, instead of crabbing about it.”
“It’s very annoying,” Nixon persisted.
When he left the theatre, ten minutes later, Agent X thought he was on the track of an important discovery. He had seen only the newsreel, and while his eyes had not left the screen, in the darkness his hands had been busy with pencil and paper. He went immediately from the Paragon to the Princess Theatre directly across the street.
Again, he left as soon as the newsreel had been shown, and his heart was pounding madly with excitement, because of his discovery. While he was as certain about it all as he was about tomorrow’s sunrise, he nevertheless went to one of the downtown theatres and once again checked on the newsreel. Then he went directly to the office of A.J. Martin, phoned Harvey Bates and Jim Hobart.
It was, of course, as A.J. Martin that he welcomed redheaded Jim Hobart and Harvey Bates. Though the two friends of the Agent had met, they had never worked together on a case before; and both were a bit reticent, fearful, no doubt, of betraying some of the Agent’s secrets.
X SPREAD the map he had found in Mrs. Rister’s bag out on the desk once more, and beside it he put a narrow slip of paper on which he had scribbled an odd list of letters and numbers. His gray eyes were twinkling, his lean lips smiling as he asked: “Did either of you ever see that particular newsreel known as ‘Photo-News?’ ”
Bates nodded.
Hobart said: “Sure, Mr. Martin—a lot of times.”
“Then I need not go into detail as to how the title, ‘Photo-News’ is thrown on the screen. You will remember that the word ‘news’ is spread pretty well across the screen, three stars separating each letter. Now, for just a scrap of history. I’m sure you both know the origin of the word ‘news?’ ”
Hobart said: “It came from the directions, north, east, west, and south as represented by their abbreviations, N, E, W, and S. Isn’t that right?”
“Exactly right. And when I found a slight, apparent flaw in the film, which cast a black mark on the screen above the letter ‘S’ in the trade-mark, and found that same flaw on every Photo-News film shown at every theatre I visited today, I began to think it meant something. And so it does.”
Harvey Bates grunted. The Agent looked at him and smiled. “What’s on your mind, Bates?” he asked.
“A direction. I noticed that flaw on the film before. It was in a different place, though. Never paid any attention to it.”
“No one would pay any attention to it,” X went on, “for without this map, it means nothing. However, if we take a rule and a compass, get the directions down on the map, then draw a line from the center of the thirty-one circles in the direction indicated so subtlely by the newsreel, that line will intersect all of the thirty-one circles.”
“Now, which circle are we going to use? Simply pick out the day of the month, is my guess. This is the ninth, so we consider the ninth circle. Note that a line passing through the circles due south from the common point, which we know to be Arvin’s backyard, intersects circle nine at East Eighteenth Street and at just about the place where Zerna held her dope party last night.”
“I’m still in the dark, Mr. Martin,” said Hobart, his freckled face screwed into a puzzled mask.
“It is simply a subtle way of informing the dopesters where they will meet and obtain their dope ration,” X explained. “Serial numbers, faked on the film, indicate the exact time and exact address. All a dope addict has to do to establish his connection is to drop into any theatre showing Photo-News, get the direction, draw a line on his map, and go to the proper address at the proper time.
“It’s no wonder the police have made no headway. The whole dope syndicate is constantly on the move. Zerna throws parties in houses or apartments that she rents. But is it Zerna who figured all this out? I doubt it. She’s hardly that brainy.
“The point I’m making is this: now that we know how it is done, we can direct that mob into a trap of our own making!”
“Right, sir!” Bates clipped. His square face beamed in absolute admiration of his chief.
“Pull on a moment,” said the more skeptical Hobart. “How’s that to be done?”
“I’ve learned,” X said, “that the Eastern Film Agency distributes next week’s Photo-News films tomorrow morning. Tonight, with the aid of one of Bates’s staff photographers, we tamper with those films so as to direct the whole gang into our trap. I’ll need you and Bates, and some of your best men, to watch the film agency. See that no one else tampers with those films after we have made our changes. That clear?”
Bates and Hobart nodded.
“Then at midnight tonight, you’ll be on Forty-ninth Street near the film agency. I have a little job to attend to before then.”
The “little job” X had mentioned, concerned Mr. Hamilton Esler of the Blue Streak Cab Company. “Honest Ham,” Esler might be—and certainly appeared to be, after turning ov
er the money which X, as Starbuck, had placed in the back of Esler’s cab. But after all, if Esler was associated with the blackmail dope-gang, he would have known ahead of time that the supposed Starbuck was really Agent X. It would have been well worth the money he had turned over to the police to be alibied in the eyes of Secret Agent X.
SHORTLY after Bates and Hobart had left the A.J. Martin office, X walked in the door of the office of the Blue Streak Cab Company. Esler, owner of the small string of cabs, was sitting with his feet on the desk. A commonplace man in appearance was Mr. A.J. Martin, yet Esler’s black eyes examined his visitor searchingly.
Agent X pulled out his card, which represented him as a member of the Associated Press. “Looking for a little human interest angle on the recent death of Mrs. Colrich,” he said to Esler. “I understand that you were the man who drove her to the quarter where she was murdered. Suppose you give me a line on how she was dressed and how she acted.”
“Why, sure, Mr. Martin,” Esler agreed. “You see a lot of funny stuff, driving around in a cab. Wonder to me some of you newshawks don’t go in for taxi-wheeling. It was like this….”
For the next ten minutes, X apparently listened to Esler’s accurate account concerning Mrs. Colrich. Actually, his eyes were busy, roving around the office. His gaze got as far as Esler’s desk, and there it stopped. There were thumb-tack marks on the surface of the desk—marks that immediately awakened the Agent’s interest.
A few minutes later, when Esler excused himself to go out to the curb to give a message to one of his drivers, X slipped a steel tape measure from his pocket and calculated the distance between the four groups of thumb-tack marks which roughly represented the four corners of a square. A fifth group of pricks was somewhere near the center of this square. X reeled his tape and put it into his pocket. Then he went out to the curb where Esler stood.
“Do you know where Montgomery Mansion is?” he asked.
Esler thought a moment. “Oh, that old wreck of a stone building in the north end? You can hardly see over the weeds in the yard in the summer. Sure, I know that joint.”
X took a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled out a twenty. “This will convince you I really want to go there,” he said quietly.
HALF an hour later, the cab stopped in front of a dark, deserted house of stone that rambled across several unkept lots. Montgomery Mansion was a once-grand manor where Agent X had hidden one of the most complete crime laboratories in the country.
“You must be going to call on the rats, mister,” Esler said, as he regarded the old house distastefully.
“Yes? Well, I brought the rat with me,” X said quietly. At the same time, he pressed the muzzle of his gas gun into Esler’s back. “Get out,” he said. “And take it easy. My nerves are just a little unstrung tonight.”
“What the hell?” gasped Esler. “Is this a stickup?”
“Oh, no, this is a finish. It’s about the last thing that happens to a man of your stamp before they turn on the juice in the electric chair.”
And across the sunken flags and through the old doorway, Agent X prodded the taxi driver. Through rooms of darkness, across creaking floors, X guided Esler. He forced the man down basement steps. He unlocked a steel door that looked as though it belonged on a bank vault. He thrust Esler into a room beyond, switched on lights, and followed. He closed and locked the heavy door behind them.
“You’ve got fox-brains,” said X. “But when you drew thirty-one circles on a lot of maps of this city, the thumb-tacks, in the corners of the maps, left their marks on your desk. The needle point of the drawing-compass used to make the circles, also left marks. Knowing the measurements of the maps, and also where the center of those thirty-one circles was, I simply compared the known measurements with those indicated by the marks on your desk. Hamilton Esler, the maps which drug addicts carry in order to locate their dope connections, were fixed up by you in your office!”
“Who are you?” Esler asked hoarsely.
X smiled grimly. “I am the man you’ve always managed to keep two jumps ahead of.”
“Secret Agent X,” Esler pronounced slowly, fearfully.
“As good a guess as anyone will ever make,” X admitted. “I am the man who looked like James Starbuck the other night when I rode in your taxi. You knew I wasn’t Starbuck that night, for Zerna had no doubt warned you that I was simply impersonating Starbuck. My death was scheduled for that night. Your mob followed the cab, intending to kill me. But it seems I bear a charmed life. Even you were afraid I might escape. So you arranged a perfect alibi.
“Acting my part as Starbuck, as yet ignorant of the fact that my disguise had been penetrated, I put a stack of supposed blackmail money under the seat of your taxi. Knowing that I would watch to see what became of the money, you handed it over to the police. Thus you squashed any theories I might have had concerning your tie-up with your organization.”
X slipped a black leather case from his pocket, snapped it open with one hand, and took out a loaded hypodermic syringe.
“What are you going to do?” Esler’s voice was no longer steady.
“I am going to turn out your light for a time, my friend,” X said. “Your day as a field general is over.”
Step by step, Esler moved back toward the wall of the room. His eyes flitted from the hypodermic syringe to the Agent’s gas pistol. When his back touched the wall, he lunged suddenly forward in an insane effort to jump the Agent’s gun.
The hypodermic needle darted out like the fang of a serpent and buried itself in the flesh of Esler’s throat. Esler’s arms fanned the air wildly, feebly. Then, with a long sigh, he melted to the floor.
X was beside him in a moment, his keen eyes intent upon Esler’s face. He nodded his head slowly. How could he better direct the dope gang into a snare than by disguising himself as the criminals’ leader? He took out his pocket makeup kit and opened it on the floor. Henceforth, until the entire gang was behind bars, he resolved to look and act the part of Hamilton Esler.
CHAPTER IX
Triple-Trap Summons
IT was in the disguise of Hamilton Esler that Agent X set out to meet Bates’s photographic expert that night. In this disguise, there was always a chance that he might run into some members of Esler’s gang who would unknowingly drop important information.
At exactly midnight, X and the photographic expert approached the film distributing office. As they entered the alley at the corner of the building, X held up an arm, checking the man at his side.
“Wait,” he whispered. “Some one is at the back door of the place. It may be a janitor or a watchman.” Or, he thought to himself, it might be one of the gang, coming to make changes in the newsreels in order to inform his servants of their next meeting place. It was a ticklish situation. If he tried to hold the prowler up with a gun and the man turned out to be a watchman, it would be necessary to knock the man out. The watchman’s absence would simply attract attention, not only to the police but also to the criminals.
The man beside X was a photographer, unused to night prowling of this sort. He was ill at ease, certainly, or at that moment he would not have lurched into an ash can.
Immediately, there was a scuffling of feet in the alley near the back door of the building. Agent X’s right hand shot down to his trouser pocket and pulled out a small, round ball. He threw it with all his strength at the corner of the building. It was a magnesium flash bomb, such as X had frequently employed to create a moment of surprise when making some of his daring escapes. Tonight, he employed it with a different objective in mind.
The bomb struck the side of the building and burst. For an instant, the vicinity of the back door of the building was illuminated in the lightning-like flash. But the illumination lasted only for an instant, and X had not succeeded in seeing the running man’s face. However, there was something about his back, the sudden jerk of his shoulders, that was familiar. Agent X immediately broke into a run in a desperate effort to overtake the man.
But the prowler had a long lead. At the mouth of the alley, a car was waiting, its motor idling. The fleeing man sprang into the car, which accelerated down the street. X shrank back into the shadows. The men in the car must not see his face.
A moment later, X had rejoined the photographer. They entered the building together and quickly located the files where the newsreels that were to be distributed on the morrow were kept. Agent X spread a sheet of paper out on a table. On the paper, he had drawn an excellent facsimile of the trade-mark of Photo-News, and the flaws he wanted inserted between the “N” and “E” were clearly indicated, as well as the alterations in serial numbers.
He did not bother to explain the purpose of these alterations to the expert. Actually, these changes would direct the dopesters to a large, deserted warehouse near the Oak Point railway yards on the river front.
As soon as he had made his instructions clear, X left the man to his work. Near the corner of the building, he was met by Harvey Bates who was awaiting orders.
“Surround the place, Bates,” X directed. “The alterations are being made, and your man must not be interrupted. The criminals may send a man to try and make changes, understand, since films go out to the theatres in the morning. Needless to say, you’ve got to prevent this. Our scheme may go haywire, but we’ve got to try it.”
“Sure—everything will be okeh, sir,” Bates said.
But Agent X, walking off alone in the dark, was not so optimistic.
X SPENT the following day in Esler’s taxicab office, actually living the part of his disguise. But it was a day of anxiety and disappointment. The trap had been set for midnight that night. Had it a chance of succeeding? Had some master brain discovered his designs?
Hamilton Esler, he knew, was but one of the men behind the huge vice machine. Others, whom X suspected, were still at large.
Late that night, X left the taxi office and went to a pay telephone station, from which he called Betty Dale’s apartment; but there was no answer to his ringing. He called the office of the Herald and learned that Betty Dale had gone with Gordon Stien, early that morning, to cover an out-of-town assignment.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 39