CHAPTER IV
Hidden Death
A G-MAN bobbed through the opening in the roof. As X legged toward the eaves he shot a glance over his shoulder in time to catch the full effect of the G-man’s flashlight beam.
“It’s Cassino!” shouted the Fed, and opened up with his automatic.
X zig-zagged to the left and got a fan-tail ventilator between himself and his pursuers. The G-man sieved the sheet-metal of the ventilator with bullets. Still he saw the man he supposed to be Cassino covering the roof like a rabbit.
The G-man broke into a run, two of his companions directly behind him. The Feds were sure of their quarry, for the running man was dashing toward the edge of the building. Either the supposed Cassino would fall three stories to the ground below, or lose his nerve in the last minute.
Between the buildings was a gap of twelve feet, possibly more. There was no way that the Agent could estimate the distance in the dark. He knew only that when his toes touched the eaves trough he would jump with every ounce of strength he could goad from his muscles.
Sheet metal drummed beneath his shoes. The eaves—he must jump, perhaps into eternity. He hurled himself forward into mid-air that shrilled in his ears no less keenly than the bullets which followed him. His right toe caught the eaves trough of the second building. He lost balance and, for a moment, all sense of direction; every route seemed to lead downward into a bottomless pit. His body smacked flat against the flat roof surface of the second building.
He gulped in breath, dragged his dangling legs out of emptiness, regained his feet, and raced across the roof, entirely at a loss as to what he should do next. He scurried for a skylight that loomed as large as a tent. Behind it, he had a moment’s security in which to plot his future course.
The G-man who had first gained the skylight, after X had thrown Dr. Ormand down the stair, came to the edge of the roof. He must have decided that if a rat like Lewey Cassino could make such a jump, he, too, could make it. But his leap was poorly timed. It was but a matter of luck that fingers of his air-thrashing arms hooked over the eaves of the next building.
The other G-men came to a stop at the edge of the roof to stare in horror at their kicking companion who swung from the eaves of the building across the way. Forgot, for the moment, was Lewey Cassino.
“Hang on, Dick!” called one of the men. “We’ll give you a hand.” He swung his flashlight around, spotted the iron ladder which was bridged across the space between the two buildings. He ran to it, moved it along until it all but touched the fingers of the hanging man. Then he crossed to the other building, his companion following to give assistance to the man who hung on the eaves.
Glass smashed and tinkled frostily. The G-man’s attention was instantly shifted toward the skylight where the supposed Lewey Cassino had disappeared.
The Fed called something to his buddies and then sprinted toward the skylight. A large section of the glass had been kicked out, and, somewhere in the darkness below, the G-man could hear heavy footsteps pounding along the hallway.
The G-man dropped through the opening in the skylight, struck the floor of the hall below. He required a second before his eyes became used to the greater darkness. Then he spotted the stair rail, ran to it, and down the first flight of steps. At the second landing, he leaned over the rail to see a man running down the hall below. The G-man vaulted the stair railing, dropped into the hall, to land within a yard of his quarry. His long arms sprang out straight to collar his man.
But the man he had collared jerked around, roared: “What the hell?” He sent a jolting left into the G-man’s middle that flattened the Fed against the wall. The G-man took a long breath, when he could, and blinked at the man he had been pursuing—a man with a round, red face that mirrored an irate expression.
“Aren’t you Inspector John Burks of the City Homicide Department?” asked the G-man, a bit lamely.
“Am I?” roared the red-faced person. “You’ve got me there, brother. For a moment I thought I was a tackling dummy. You make a practice of dropping from ceilings and trying to neck everybody you meet?”
The G-man fumbled in his pocket, produced his gold badge and flashed it. “Sorry, Inspector. A man just broke through the skylight on the roof and ran down these steps. There was only one man in sight. You just happened to be that man. I’m looking for Lewey Cassino.”
“Cassino?” bellowed the inspector. “Why didn’t you say so? I’d like to lay my hands on him myself. Where’d he go?”
“He vanished.”
“Can’t be done,” the red-faced man interrupted. “If you can get men to guard the back door, I’ll take the front. Nobody passed me in the hall, and nobody is going to pass me at the front door. If Cassino is alive, he’s in this building.”
There was no deceit in what the red-faced man had said. He, and he alone, knew that Lewey Cassino was dead, lying in some one’s coal cellar. For the red-faced man whom the federal agent had addressed as Inspector Burks, was none other than Secret Agent X.
THE TIME required for the G-men to rescue their companion had been sufficient for Agent X to make a hasty change in his makeup while hiding behind the skylight. The impersonation of Burks was one which he could manage from memory and which offered him comparative safety. It was true that his makeup would not have withstood close scrutiny, for he had adopted it in great haste. But there was no reason for the G-man to examine him closely.
Instead of mounting guard at the door of the building, Agent X walked briskly off into the night. So far, the impersonation of Lewey Cassino had resulted only in constant trouble for him. He had resolved to drop it for the time being, for he had lost all track of Lefty Laughlin and his white-faced companion. As far as the mysterious killings which were marked by a circle and cross were concerned, X was exactly in the same position he had been in at the start of the investigation.
Why should men be gunned down without apparent discrimination? Why, above all, should the victims be literally crossed out by white paint, drawn in a design used by members of the Safety Council to designate fatal automobile accidents? On the face of it, it appeared that some one person was possessed with a vengeful monomania—a person who had lost a loved one in a motor accident and was determined to square accounts by dealing death right and left.
But some one person wasn’t doing the killing. These unfortunate victims of the sign of sudden death were set upon by mobs of gunmen. Vengeance of the mob type had to have some sort of motive. And here there seemed no sort of motive, whatsoever.
OBLIVIOUS to the fact that he was being sighted by killers over a gun that rested on the window sill of the apartment house where Pamela Dean lived, Harvey Bates paused a moment to rekindle his pipe. The head of his match, however, never touched the side of its box. Out of the night came a short, sharp, woman’s scream.
Harvey Bates dropped the match and sprinted toward the corner of the apartment building from whence the cry came. The sound of his heavy shoes on the pavement muffled the plop of a silenced gun, but not the mosquito-buzz of the bullet. Bates didn’t turn around. He knew he was being shot at, but also knew the wisdom of not pausing to discover from whence that shot came, and thus probably making a corpse of himself. He zig-zagged toward the opening of an alley where was the sound of a scuffle.
A woman was punching and kicking at a man who was doing his best to detain her and muffle her cries. As Bates waded into the war, the man released the woman, flashed a knife, and sprang at Bates. It was too dark in the alley to see anything but the ominous flash of the knife. Bates caught the man’s wrist as the knife plunged downward, employed a deft twist that Agent X had taught him, and heard the knife clank to the pavement.
The man, perhaps for the first time, took a good look at the silhouette of Harvey Bates. Only fear could have given him the strength to break Bates’s grip. Then he wheeled around and raced up the alley.
Bates would have pursued the man, had it not been for the two small hands that clutched at his
coat and the familiar ring of the feminine voice that was thanking him.
“Miss Dale!” gasped Bates. He took the girl’s arm and hurried her back to the sidewalk where lamplight enabled him to see a sweet, girlish face, flushed prettily from the struggle, and framed by unruly golden hair.
Bates’s immediate task was apparent. Betty Dale, girl reporter on the Herald, was a far closer friend to Agent X than even Bates. Bates knew, from previous adventures, that the Secret Agent would have given up his own life rather than have any harm come to Betty. Therefore, Bates argued, his first duty toward X was to get Betty Dale to a place of safety at once.
“Harvey Bates!” exclaimed the girl delightedly. “I—”
“No time,” he clipped. His grip on her arm tightened, and he hurried her possessively off down the street, put her in his car, and drove for three blocks before uttering a word.
“Is this a kidnaping?” Betty demanded. “I was on the threshold of the greatest human-interest story of my short and eventful career. Where’s the fire?”
Bates jerked his head. “Back there.”
Betty sighed. There were times when a little third-degreeing of Harvey Bates would have been justifiable. “All right. If you won’t, I will. I’ve been trying to follow Sally Vergane. Remember—Wolf Hollis’s old girl friend? There’s a heart tug in every word she utters, if she ever utters anything I can print. I lost her trail half a dozen times this evening, then actually saw her enter that apartment back there, by the side door. I was on the point of following, when that gorilla came at me. If you’re not busy, suppose we go back and you help me find Sally?”
“Busy,” said Bates.
“Doing what?”
“Getting you to your flat. Then, maybe, go back for the murderer.”
“Whose murderer?”
“Mine, almost.” And Bates lapsed into the silence he had reluctantly left. Ten minutes later, he drew up in front of the apartment house where Betty Dale lived.
There was a man in Betty’s apartment. He was sitting in a chair, facing the door. The girl jerked back in surprise and stood poised on toe-tips a second.
“Why, Inspector Burks!” she gasped.
BATES pushed his big, protecting body in front of the girl and measured the red-faced man in the chair. The inspector stood up, uttered a short, whimsical laugh, such as no one had ever heard from the lips of Inspector Burks. Betty Dale peered around Bates, an odd, expectant light in her merry blue eyes. Fingers of the red-faced man crossed to form a letter “X,” one of the secret signs X had arranged to use in identifying himself to Betty.
“You!” Relief and sheer joy combined in the single word as Betty crowded past Bates into the room. No less surprised than Betty, Bates came through the doorway and closed the panel behind him. Agent X clasped both of Betty’s hands. His gray eyes smiled warmly.
“I’ve a job for you,” he said.
“I’m glad. What is it?”
“I’d like you to get next to Sally Vergane. What’s so surprising about that?”
Betty looked at Harvey Bates. “I was trying to get next to Sally Vergane, but he wouldn’t let me.”
“By the way, Bates,” X said, mildly reproachful, “where is G-man Henry Jackson?”
“Same place—locked up. Been working on a lead I got from him.” And, thrifty with words, Bates told how he had gone to Pamela Dean’s and obtained information regarding the scheduled murder in the firm headed by Aaron Malthus. Then he told of Betty’s plight and the silenced bullet that some one had tried to plant in his back.
“Aaron Malthus,” X muttered. “Again, there’s nothing consistent about the murder mob’s choice of victims. Some have money; some haven’t. Aaron Malthus is one for the ‘haven’t’ side. He, and several others, are engaged in an investment business that happens to be in a bad way. ‘Queer.’ ”
“But what about Sally Vergane?” Betty asked. “Why should she be going into a ritzy apartment building like that? What’s the connection?”
X sighed. “Certainly not enough answers to go around, are there?”
“Better get back to my post, sir?” Bates queried.
X nodded. “And before you go, just give me Jackson’s badge and credentials. I may want to use them later. Keep Jackson under dope. Keep an eye on the Dean dame without getting yourself scorched by any more silenced bullets. You did a good job tonight.”
Bates flushed, became interested in the toes of his shoes, and clumsily left the room.
“What are you going to do?”
“There’s only one move for me—go to Aaron Malthus. I’ll have to hang around his place as a plumber or something until I get a chance to step into his shoes.”
Betty paled. “You mean that, knowing that the white cross is threatening Malthus, you—you’d impersonate him?”
X slipped an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Now, Betty,” he said with a smile, “it’s rather a necessary risk; don’t you see? There’s not a single other angle to work from.”
“All right,” said Betty meekly. She had long since learned that X’s will was unalterable. “Then you want me to work on the Sally Vergane angle?”
“If you can do so in safety, Betty. If you could meet her in some public place and just pump her, as though you were getting a newspaper story. Watch out for anything she may say about Wolf Hollis. The man is officially dead. Still, I wonder.”
“So do I. That charred body found in the house Hollis burned down over his ears—it was identified as Hollis’s simply by the ring on the finger of the corpse. There might have been some one else in the house with Hollis.”
X nodded. He liked watching the girl’s intelligent, expressive face; he liked hearing her talk. But there would be time for all that later on, he hoped. He kissed her gently. “Take care of yourself,” he whispered, and hurriedly left the apartment.
There was work to be done. Aaron Malthus, or some member of his company, was in danger. It was up to X to discover who was actually threatened by the insidious sign of death. Then, if he could shift the danger to his own capable shoulders by stepping into the threatened man’s shoes, the Brain, Squid Murphy, or whoever headed the maniac murder-group would find a more worthy opponent when it came time to cross out another victim.
CHAPTER V
Death Bargains
THE following evening, Squid Murphy sidled into a booth in an untidy ravioli restaurant. On the other side of the table, her heels hooked on the round of a chair, was Sally Vergane. The thick platter of food in front of her was untouched.
Squid watched her with fishy eyes. “How come you don’t eat when you’re out with me?” he demanded unpleasantly.
Sally smiled hatefully. “Maybe it’s because I’m so nuts about you I lose my appetite.”
“It’s as good food as Wolf Hollis ever fed you, ain’t it?”
Sally’s eyelids drooped wearily. “Yeah—the grub’s as good…. What you been doin’, Squid?”
Murphy plucked a cigarette and played with it between squirming fingers. “Linin’ up the job for the Brain.”
“But you got no line on the Brain, himself, have you?”
Murphy massaged his jaw and shook his head. “Why should I? Ain’t I satisfied? It’s good for the bank account to do as the Brain says. Good for the health, too.”
Sally leaned across the table. Her blue eyes burned brightly, earnestly. “Listen, Squid, you gotta do something for me. I got a notion who the Brain is. You gotta find out for sure. It’s burnin’ me up, see? I think the Brain is Wolf Hollis. And if he is, and he don’t come around to me any more, he’s got a new girl. Wolf Hollis always had to have a girl. He was no good without one. It’s killing me, just thinking of it. I love that guy, Squid. Even if he’s got another girl, I’d love him. I just want to know.”
Squid laughed. “Wolf Hollis is neckin’ angels, if anybody. He’s dead. I watched the house burn where they cornered him. When the Feds say a guy is dead, he’s dead.”
“All righ
t. If the Brain isn’t Wolf Hollis, how’d he get at the head of this mob? A guy without a name, who never shows his face, couldn’t just come and say he was goin’ to boss the toughest mob in town.”
“I get you,” Squid agreed. “Tell you something—the Brain was a friend of Wolf Hollis. The Brain’s got a slip of paper with a note from Hollis, saying that if anything happened to Wolf the Brain was to take things over. That satisfied me and the boys. It’s good enough for—”
Squid touched Sally’s hand and nodded toward the door. “Here’s where I get off, kid. See that blonde who came in the door?” Sally mirrored the doorway in a cheap vanity and nodded. “Well,” Murphy continued, “she’s a sob sister from the Herald. She’s been trailin’ you lately. Money says she wants a heart throb from you for her paper. Don’t give no reporter the lifted snoot. They’ll get suspicious. Act down and out and glad to grieve for Wolf Hollis, but watch your step. This Herald kid has a brain in that bonnet.”
And as Betty Dale started down the aisle between the restaurant booths, Squid Murphy slipped out unseen….
AARON MALTHUS sat in his study awaiting dinner guests. He was a dark man, gray-templed, and with lumpy features. His leathery eyelids were nearly closed; yet he was not relaxed. His jaw muscles worked like an irregular pulse. Before the dark curtain of his mind a plain, oak chair equipped with straps and electrodes, and a curious metal cap persisted in harnessing his attention. Perhaps Aaron Malthus had never fully realized before that he was a murderer.
French windows opened a mere crack. A black-gloved hand slid through the opening and along the wall to press a light switch. In utter blackness, Malthus gasped a breath that whistled between clenched teeth. The French windows opened and closed.
“I am here, Mr. Malthus,” said a muffled voice.
“Who—the Brain?” gasped Malthus. He jerked his chair around so that he could face the origin of the voice.
“Yes,” said a muffled voice. “You have been trying to contact me through Murphy. So I am here. What is it you want?”
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 45