Sweat stood out on Murphy’s brow. “I’m goin’ to jab, Agent X,” he said hoarsely. “You’ve got a chance to save this skirt. It’ll be damage no doc can repair, after I’ve jabbed. You hear me?”
The soldering iron quivered. Murphy snatched a breath. The iron leaped forward….
Lights went out. In the sudden darkness, the tip of the soldering iron glowed like a red eye and slowly faded. Murphy swung around. “The Brain!” he hushed.
Somewhere near at hand came the rattle of machine gun fire again.
“The Feds!” one of Murphy’s men gasped. “They’re shootin’ in the front door.”
“The Feds,” said a low, monotonous voice, “and the Brain!”
A flashlight held in a black-gloved hand beamed through blackness and spotted Murphy and the terrified Betty Dale. Murphy dropped the soldering iron.
“Get to your posts,” the Brain ordered. “We’ll have to shoot it out.”
“We’ll give ’em hell!” one of the men yelled as he drew his automatic and started for the door. “Let’s go, you guys!”
Murphy’s men scrambled from the room to scatter through the building. Squid Murphy, in the light of the Brain’s torch, pulled the chair, in which Betty sat, out from the wall to reveal a hole about fifteen inches square.
“Murphy,” said the Brain, “what are you doing? Get out there and fight with your men.”
Murphy uttered a strained laugh. “Like hell! I’m gettin’ my share of the dough and gettin’ out.”
“Those Feds will shoot you down,” the Brain warned.
“Nix. I got a hundred grand in this bag. I gotta live to spend it!” Murphy yanked a leather satchel from the opening, swung around, and started across the room. The Brain stood in his way, a black and ominous shadow. Murphy paled. “What you goin’ to do, Brain?”
The silenced gun in the Brain’s hand plopped. An expression of blank amazement crossed Murphy’s face. His knees melted under him.
Betty stared down at Murphy’s twitching form, screamed, and sprang to her feet.
The Brain came at her, snatched up the bag containing Murphy’s money, and hooked his arm around the girl’s waist. “Keep still,” he warned. “I’m saving you, Betty Dale!”
Betty struggled in his powerful grasp. “Let me go!” she panted. “I don’t want to be saved by—by you, a murderer!”
The Brain dragged her through the room and to a door that opened on the basement steps.
“You’re the Brain,” Betty gasped. “You’re not trying to save me. This is some sort of a trick.”
The Brain said nothing. They had gained the basement. The gun battle between the G-men and Murphy’s mob roared thunderously above their heads. In the basement floor was an opening which had been closed by a manhole cover. The Brain picked Betty up, carried her to the opening, and dropped her through.
She fell a distance of about eight feet to the damp floor of the sewer below. She got up, turned around, and started to run. The Brain’s light slashed ahead. In another moment he had caught up with her.
“Try to escape, and I’ll kill you,” he said quietly. “Now walk straight ahead.”
Betty clenched her fists, tried an angry blow at the Brain’s head.
He ducked, laughing. “Try to see behind the mask, Betty? Well, when you see my face, it will be a short walk out of this life. When we get to the end of our underground journey, it may be necessary for me to take off my mask and tell the police how I rescued you. They will accept my word above those mad-sounding utterances of yours. Soon after, because you know the truth, I will have to kill you.”
“You’re mad,” she said scornfully. “Do you think you can escape Agent X? He’ll go through anything to get you, Mr. Brain!”
The Brain chuckled. “He’ll have to go through the fires of hell. I killed him with a shot directly between the eyes.”
“You—you’re lying!” Betty stammered.
“Oh, you think—” The Brain stopped. From somewhere behind them came a strange, shuffling sound. The Brain dropped the bag of money. His left arm, holding his flashlight, looped through Betty’s arm. In his right hand, he held his silenced pistol.
THE BRAIN’S light quivered on the twisted, hideous face of Wolf Hollis. The man dragged his crippled body along the passage. The silenced pistol the Brain had pressed into his hand, pointed stiffly at the Brain himself.
“Hollis!” the Brain said hoarsely. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Following you, Brain,” came the reply from grimly twisted lips.
The Brain muttered an oath. “He sounds almost rational. Yet he couldn’t regain his sanity with that federal bullet pressing into his brain.”
The twisted man shuffled forward until he was within ten feet of the Brain and Betty. “Rational, did you say? Never more so!” He laughed softly. “How beautifully you’ll fit into the electric chair, Brain. A portion of the loot is now at your side. I find you abducting an innocent girl. I have seen you commit murder. Furthermore, I have undisputable evidence that you killed Nelson Birr because Birr had uncovered your secret, by finding a portion of the note which Wolf Hollis had dictated and signed, appointing you his successor.
“The Birr murder was one of the cleverest unpremeditated crimes I have ever encountered,” went on the twisted man. “You found Nelson Birr under the influence of a non-lethal dose of chloral hydrate. You administered the approved antidote for chloral hydrate—strong coffee. But in that coffee, you placed nicotine. Even a non-lethal dose of chloral hydrate, when fortified by nicotine, becomes deadly. The nicotine was readily obtained in the form of tobacco residue from the catch-basin of your pipe. Placed in the coffee, it was unnoticed. Your only error was spilling a drop of the tobacco juice on the card table cover.
“Examination of that stain told me what it was. Who but you would have had the necessary scientific knowledge to pull such a murder trick? Who but you, a world-famous authority on potential murderers, would have been able to pick out men like McAdam and Aaron Malthus—men who had motives for murder, lacked the nerve to commit them, and would be willing to pay you for doing the job.
“My evidence can be further substantiated: the handwriting on the scrap of paper which dropped from Birr’s wallet, was identical to that on the note placed around the butt of the automatic you handed me, proving that the illiterate Wolf Hollis dictated the message Birr found to you. And why should you have helped me by passing me that gun when the police held me in Malthus’s house? Simply to alibi yourself and preclude any suspicion I might form about you.”
“Then—then,” the Brain stammered, “you’re not Wolf Hollis?”
“An absurd question! It was all a matter of mistaken identities. By means of makeup, I simply switched identities with Wolf Hollis. It was Wolf Hollis you killed, not Agent X. I am Agent X. The Wolf Hollis who allowed you to press this gun I have into his hand, was Agent X.”
The Brain laughed. He turned his pistol quickly and pressed it against Betty Dale. “This young woman tells me that Agent X would do much for her. And if Agent X comes a step nearer, he will be able to consider himself her murderer!”
Agent X flung the empty gun straight at the Brain’s head. The Brain ducked, released Betty Dale, and flung himself at Agent X. Fists thudded on flesh. The Brain was a windmill gone mad. He had power that terror-stimulus had doubled, but he lacked the cool, fighting nerves of Agent X.
X took blow after blow, but always ducked under killing haymakers. The Brain’s breath was coming in desperate sobs. He was quickly wearing himself down, yet he felt that X’s telling blows were hammering him with more power than before.
“Damn you!” he shouted, as one of his punches cleared the point of X’s chin.
X laughed, coldly, disconcertingly. “Save your breath, doctor. You need it!” Then he closed in for a quick finish. A blow to the belt doubled the Brain over. A hook to the jaw straightened him out again—out on the floor.
Agent X sprang to Betty Dale
and seized her in his arms. “Dear, I hadn’t the slightest idea you were here! I’d have torn the place apart—”
“Let’s not talk,” Betty whispered. She raised her lips to his.
WHITE light speared through the darkness. Agent X swung around, his body shielding Betty against this new, unforeseen danger.
“Put up your hands, Wolf Hollis!” cried a familiar voice. Special Agent Weston matured from the gloom. Behind him were half a dozen G-men. Agent X raised his hands above his head. “So you’ve cleaned out another rats’ nest, Weston? Allow me to congratulate you!”
Weston came closer. “No funny cracks, Hollis. This time you won’t get away.”
“I’m not trying,” laughed X. “I wish you’d search me. Inside a secret pocket of my coat, you’ll find that note signed by a person known as K9. It will identify me.”
Weston’s jaw dropped. “You—you’re—”
“Look for yourself, Weston!” Eagerly, Weston sought out the note when he had read on a previous occasion. He turned to his men. “Boys, this man is all right!”
A G-man grunted: “Looks enough like Wolf Hollis to be his brother.”
Weston laughed. “He’s everybody’s brother—twin brother!” He shook X by the hand. “We’ve rounded up the whole crew, the Dean woman and all. The Dean woman must have been giving us the run-around before, but this last tip was genuine enough. But who’s this?” Weston dropped beside the unconscious masked man on the floor. He jerked off the mask. “Dr. Stuart Ormand! What does this mean?”
X smiled grimly. “It means the chair for Dr. Ormand and another triumph for the F.B.I. Helpless, because of a bullet pressing on his brain, Wolf Hollis was merely a tool, a fall guy for Dr. Ormand, the Brain, cleverest criminal brain I have ever met. His true identity was not even suspected by his own henchmen. His profits from his mercenary murders must have reached something well over a million. All of his killings were trade-marked by Wolf Hollis’s cross-and-circle signature, so that Hollis would get the blame. He got on all right until he had to pull that cover-up murder of Nelson Birr, because Birr had the dope on him.
“I’ll be glad to hand over the proof that will find Dr. Ormand guilty in any court. But right now—” he turned to Betty Dale and smiled gently. “Well, Weston, you interrupted some rather important business of mine—mine and this young woman’s.”
Table of Contents
Secret Agent "X": The Complete Series, Volume 7
Copyright Information
Introduction by Tom Johnson
The Doom Director
Horror’s Handclasp
City of Madness
Death’s Frozen Formula
The Murder Brain
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 7 Page 51