He saw Foster pick up the ’phone, instruct the man at the desk outside to send in the visitor.
In the few moments that elapsed now, a great hush fell upon the room.
Inspector Burks chewed on his cigar viciously. Commissioner Foster interlocked his hands in front of him, and was cracking the joints nervously. Mayor Sturgis was drumming rapidly on the desk. The other men in the room were shifting about in their chairs, or pacing up and down in the narrow confines. The Agent could understand just how they felt. This was a momentous time in their lives in more ways than one. Not only were they being threatened with a gruesome death by an unknown individual who termed himself Doctor Blood, but they were about to come face to face with a man whose name had almost become legendary in the annals of crime—Secret Agent “X”!
The Agent, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, began to make his own arrangements for the reception of the visitor. It was true that this man might be only a publicity seeker, and harmless. On the other hand, he might be an emissary of the dread Doctor Blood, in which case he must be captured at all costs. “X” felt that if he could have such a person alone in one of his retreats for several hours, he would be able to elicit from him enough information to lead him to Doctor Blood.
The Agent moved closer to the door, surreptitiously extracted his gas gun from his pocket and held it in his hand shielded from the others in the room by his body. It was ready for instant use. Now he waited tensely for the appearance of the person who was masquerading as Secret Agent “X.”
The silence in the room was like a blanket of dark expectancy. So quiet was it that the ticking of the little clock upon Commissioner Foster’s desk was clearly audible.
And then the door opened. All eyes turned toward the doorway.
Chapter V
MESSENGER OF DOOM
A SIGH that was almost like an exclamation of astonishment arose from those in the room.
The Agent noted out of the corner of his eye that Professor Langknecht was the only one in the room who was not staring at the visitor. On the contrary, the Professor had turned his face away and buried it in his large handkerchief.
It seemed that the Professor had suddenly developed a great interest in wiping his face clean. This was strangely at variance with the desire which he had expressed a few moments ago to meet the person who was calling in the role of Secret Agent “X.”
The Agent’s lips tightened in a grim line. Mentally, he noted the Professor’s name as another to be investigated along with Oscar Stanton.
“X” swung his eyes back to the doorway.
Mayor Sturgis exclaimed hoarsely, “What—”
He got no farther. A slight, weird figure suddenly became visible in the corridor—but only for the space of a second. There was a short vision of a twisted, vicious countenance; then a small metal object came sailing into the room, and crashed against the commissioner’s desk. It broke with a faint, tingling sound, and at once the room became flooded with a biting, acrid, blinding fog through which it was impossible to see.
Pandemonium was let loose in that room. “X,” holding his breath, leaped toward the doorway. But just then the heavy body of some one in the room barged into him, throwing him off balance, sending him tripping backward. The door slammed while “X” was scrambling to his feet. He did not know whether the visitor who had thrown that gas bomb into the room had entered or had departed. The fumes of the gas were overpowering. In the impenetrable darkness, there were sounds of men retching, of men stumbling, pushing against each other.
“X” had recognized the nature of the chemical which had come from the exploded bomb at once, and he had taken a deep breath at the first sound of the explosion. Now he held his breath, although his eyes smarted excruciatingly.
From across the room, Patterson’s voice was heard, raised in an unearthly shriek which suddenly ended in a terrible gurgling sound.
Some one shouted agonizingly: “The beasts—they’ve got Patterson!”
“X” dashed across the room toward the spot where Patterson had screamed. He thrust aside the milling bodies of panic-stricken men, pushed past them until his sense of space told him that he was at the spot where Patterson had been sitting. Since it was impossible to see, anyway, he closed his eyes, still holding his breath, and groped blindly on the floor. His hand encountered a bloody, revolting body. He touched a severed artery, and came away sopping wet from the spurting blood.
And then his hand found something else—a mouth, a pair of bloody, slavering jaws. Somebody—or something—was stooping over that bloody, gory body, drinking the fresh, spurting blood!
There was the disgusting, revolting, animal sound of a bestial throat gulping down the crimson fluid.
THE Agent reached out his right hand, which still held the gas pistol. He reversed the pistol, brought the butt down with all the force that he could command upon the head of that vicious creature. Still with his eyes closed, he reached down, hauled the suddenly inert body up over his shoulder. His congested lungs seemed to be tearing their way out through his throat, but he managed to stagger across the room with his burden. He did not make toward the door to the corridor, but went in the opposite direction. He had seen another door, just to the right of the commissioner’s desk. From previous experiences of his at headquarters, he knew that this little side door would lead him through a narrow corridor toward the rear exit of headquarters.
The room was now filled with groans, shouts, cries of pain. Men were stumbling about, groaning, groping blindly. Others were hammering at the door to the corridor. Apparently the strange visitor had turned the key in the lock after slamming it. There was no egress that way.
“X,” still with his burden, found the small door he was heading for, reached out and tore it open. He stepped through into the cool freshness of the outside corridor, took a deep breath of the comparatively clean air, and opened his eyes. He could see once more. He breathed two or three lungfuls of air before he was able to talk. Then he shouted: “This way, everybody—this way!”
He placed his burden upon the floor, stared down at it with narrowed eyes. This was no four-footed beast of prey. It was a man, a young man, whose countenance even now in repose was distorted into a vicious mask of lust. Blood flecked his lips. It was a human being—but it had torn a man’s throat, and drunk his blood!
This was the opportunity which he had been laboring for all this time—an opportunity to question one of the tools of the person who had signed the note to Commissioner Foster—Doctor Blood.
“X” had had this very thing in mind when he acted with such swiftness back in the commissioner’s room. This strange being with lust of a beast of prey was nevertheless a man. And a man could be made to talk—by methods which the Agent alone knew. He stooped quickly, lifted the unconscious burden over his shoulder, and made swiftly down the corridor.
Behind him he could hear the hoarse cries of Commissioner Foster, Norman Marsh, and Mayor Sturgis as they found the opened side door and urged the others to come out through it.
“X” hastened down the little corridor and emerged through a side door which let him out into Lafayette Street.
He carried his inert burden down the street, and stopped before a police squad car which was parked at the curb. There were no officers in it, in accordance with Mayor Sturgis’ orders to leave the coast clear for the arrival of Secret Agent “X.” The Agent thrust the young man into the car, went around to the other side and got in under the wheel. There were no keys in the lock, but the Agent drew from his pocket a ring of keys, selected one and inserted it in the ignition. He stepped on the starter, and the motor turned over.
In a moment they were off, had turned the corner, and were headed east. After driving two blocks, “X” headed north four blocks, and drew up before a garage in the middle of a sleazy tenement block.
The Agent left his unconscious captive in the squad car, and entered this garage. In a few moments he emerged, driving a small coupé
. This was one of the many cars which he kept planted at strategic spots throughout the city in readiness for just such an emergency.
The young man’s unconscious body was a heavy, inert weight, but it took “X” only a few moments to transfer him to the coupé. He then drove away from there, leaving the squad car at the curb to be found by the police.
Eight blocks away, the Agent braked his car to a halt in a quiet block along the river front before a small two story building set in between two large, darkened warehouses which were closed for the night.
This little building was one of the many retreats which the Agent maintained throughout the city.
Once more “X” maneuvered his unconscious guest out of the car, slung him over his shoulder and carried him into the darkened doorway of the little building, and up a short flight of narrow stairs.
If he waited outside for another minute or two, he would have seen the small sedan which turned into the block right after him. This sedan was driven by the dark, beautiful woman whom he had observed sitting in the parked car in front of police headquarters.
She had followed him all the way, had watched while he made the transfer at the garage, and then had continued to follow him to this retreat. Her face as she drove past the small building between the two warehouses was inscrutable. But her eyes darted from the parked coupé to the building.
She drove past as far as the corner, turned into the next street, and parked her car. Then she got out, crossed the street and stood in a darkened doorway, watching the house into which the Agent had led his captive. In the darkness, her face showed white and drawn, and her black eyes burned with an intense fire.
Chapter VI
WHO IS DOCTOR BLOOD
WITHIN the house, the Agent was unaware of the woman who watched outside. He carried the unconscious man up the stairs, and into a room on the top floor. This room contained some strange appurtenances. Here, cunningly concealed, were emergency kits of make-up material, a complete assortment of clothes for changes of character, and various instruments and gadgets which the Agent found useful in his continuous battle against crime.
In other rooms of this house there was a completely equipped chemical laboratory, a filing system which catalogued the names of thousands of underworld characters, and a library of several hundred books. This was one of the Agent’s main retreats—a place where he often retired to work on particularly baffling puzzles.
The Agent deposited his captive in an armchair, and went to the window. The street outside was deserted. He could not see the woman who had followed him for she had not stayed to watch, but had hurried around the corner to an all-night lunchroom up the middle of the next block, and was busy at that very moment making a telephone call.
She spoke long and earnestly into the telephone, her eyes alight with a strange fire. When she was through, she hurried out of the lunchroom and returned to her vigil across the street. But it was in that interval when she had been gone that the Agent had looked out of the window. Now he was busy with his captive.
That young man was just beginning to regain consciousness. He stirred, batted his eyes. “X” slipped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists; went through his clothes quickly. There was not even a scrap of paper to indicate his identity. There was a large bump on his head, and there were flecks of foam upon his lips. “X’s” eyes were inscrutable as he observed these things. What strange kind of being was this, who tore open men’s jugular veins, drank their blood?
The young man’s eyes were open now, were regarding “X” with a strange sort of terror. It was unbelievable that this timid, harmless looking youth had leaped in to make his kill like a jungle beast.
The Agent demanded of him: “What is your name?”
The other hesitated a moment, then answered sullenly: “Laurento.”
“Who sent you to headquarters to pose as Secret Agent ‘X’?”
Laurento’s voice was monotonous, as if he were making stereotyped answers to stereotyped questions. “Doctor Blood sent me.” He said it as if that explained everything.
“Why did you kill Patterson?”
A slow smile spread over Laurento’s countenance. His bloody lips made the smile a thing of horror. “That is a question which you must ask of Doctor Blood.”
“X” asked him softly: “Where can I find this Doctor Blood?”
Laurento veiled his eyes, and his mouth assumed a stubborn set. “You will have to find that out for yourself.” He twisted his head around, rubbed his nose against the lapel of his coat as if it itched. The action was entirely natural, such as any man might make while handcuffed.
The Agent continued patiently, disregarding the subtle appeal to remove the handcuffs. “You are not an American?”
Laurento shook his head. “No. But I’ve lived in this country for a long time.”
“Look here,” Secret Agent “X” urged. “You realize that you’ve just committed a terrible crime. You were under some sort of strange influence when you did it. Now you are more or less normal. This Doctor Blood has made a criminal—a murderer—of you. Why do you protect him? Tell me who he is!”
THE Agent suddenly stopped talking, extended a hand to support the young man. For Laurento’s head had dropped upon his chest, his body sagged, and he would have fallen from the chair if the Agent had not caught him.
Laurento’s breath was coming regularly, though a trifle slowly. He was falling into some sort of coma. His lips moved weakly, and “X” caught the words: “Doctor Blood will—take care—of everything.”
The words died away into silence as the young man lost consciousness. His body became a dead weight on the Agent’s supporting arm. The Agent betrayed no sign of exasperation at this sudden checkmate. But he could not figure by what method Laurento had been suddenly thrown into this coma. Though he had done extensive research work in chemistry and the allied sciences, he knew of no drug whose action was so delayed that it could be administered at one time so as to produce an effect like this at a later hour. He forced open Laurento’s mouth, sniffed his breath. He perceived no betraying chemical odor.
But his hand on the young man’s coat suddenly felt a peculiar wetness on the lapel. He bent closer to examine the cloth, and a peculiar odor assailed his nostrils. Laurento’s coat lapel had been saturated with some sort of drug. And the Agent had breathed it.
A staggering thought flooded his brain. Laurento had lost consciousness within five minutes of brushing his nose against that coat lapel. The same thing would now happen to the Agent.
Already “X” could feel a strange sort of dizziness in the back of his head. Peculiar spots were beginning to dance before his eyes. There was no knowing how long this drug would keep him in that comatose condition.
Doctor Blood’s plans had worked far better than even that ingenious criminal had anticipated; for now, within five minutes, the one man who might possibly be able to frustrate his fiendish plans would be impotent, lying as inert and helpless as Laurento now was.
But the Agent did not lose his wits as another man in that predicament might have. He crossed the room swiftly but without panic to the opposite wall. He placed his thumb at a certain spot in the molding and pressed hard. Instantly a small panel about three feet square opened downward like a tray. Set upon this panel, and held to it by suction cups were dozens of small vials of vari-colored liquids, together with a hypodermic syringe.
The Agent’s knees were beginning to shake, sweat was breaking out upon his brow. He was feeling the powerful effect of the drug which he had inhaled—knew that it would overcome him within a matter of minutes. Even now he was keeping on his feet by a supreme exercise of will power.
Jaws pressed hard together, his whole body straining in every fibre to resist the drug, his fingers nevertheless moved swiftly as he filled the syringe from one of the vials. Then he stripped off his coat, did not wait to roll up his sleeve but tore it from wrist to shoulder. And without stopping to swab off his arm with antiseptic he quickly dro
ve home the plunger of the hypodermic. The syringe contained a powerful dose of adrenalin. “X” did not know the nature of the drug which he had inhaled, but was hoping that the adrenalin, which served the same purpose with other coma producing drugs would counteract the effect of this one.
He replaced the hypodermic upon the tray, waited tensely for the results. His whole body was in a cold sweat now, the light was dimming before his eyes, and he experienced a queer watery weakness in his legs. He clenched his hands, pressed elbows against his sides, and forced himself to stand stiffly erect.
The blood raced through the arteries, carrying the adrenalin to his heart, which pumped it back through his entire body. If only the adrenalin could become operative before that deadly drug took full control of him. It was a battle of will against matter—the powerful will of a man who had schooled his body to obey every impulse of his mind. He must hold out now—for how long?
Slowly he began to sway on his feet. The room had begun to dance about him. The floor seemed to be tipping, the walls to be slanting. His eyes sought the window where he seemed to see gray shapes in the black of the night outside.
Still he stood there stiffly, defiantly, a man fighting against the elements. And then suddenly, the walls stopped slanting, the floor stopped tipping. He could feel his heart beating faster and faster, recovering from the strange lassitude which had gripped him. The spots began to clear from before his eyes, and he uttered a deep sigh—the only sign of the tremendous, almost unendurable strain under which he had labored for the last three or four minutes. He had won.
Weakly he crossed to the window, swung it open, and breathed in deep gulps of the fresh night air. Then he sought a chair, sat back in it, relaxing and closed his eyes. For the moment he gave no thought to Laurento who had slipped from the chair and now lay in a huddled heap on the floor.
Secret Agent X - The Complete Series Volume 4 Page 17
