“X” sent another blow to Yu’an’s head. The pistol blew just as they bumped lightly against the roof and started sliding down toward the eaves. The anesthetizing vapor hissed into the Agent’s face, but he had been prepared, had held his breath. But the Chinese, knowing nothing about the weapon in his hand, had not been prepared. The cloud of gas dissipated; but, even so, it was of sufficient power to knock out the unwary Chinese. The gas gun dropped from his fingers, slid down the slates, and fell over the eaves.
“X’s” foot encountered the edge of a small skylight that evidently opened into the attic of the mayor’s home. Still clinging to the harness about the Chinaman, he maneuvered his foot so that they might slide farther down the roof to a point where they were stopped by one of many chimneys that sprouted from the roof.
Loosening the line at Yu’an’s belt, “X” moored the balloon to the chimney. With his pocketknife, he cut the Chinese away from the harness and propped him against the chimney to prevent him from rolling off the roof. What became of Yu’an when he at length awoke was no affair of Secret Agent “X”. The Chinese would not have the jumping-balloon to aid him, for “X” had already planned how he would use the balloon in his scheme to save the mayor. For the mayor would be kidnaped that night, but not by the Ghoul if “X” had anything to say about it.
Aided by the traction afforded him by his rubber-soled shoes, “X” crept slowly back up the slates toward the skylight. Catching the frame of the skylight, he extended himself full length on the roof. With a special chrome steel jimmy, which he took from his pocket, he worked the inner latch of the skylight loose and swung the cover back on its hinges. He crawled up so that he could seat himself on the edge of the opening. Since he had given his flashlight to Betty, he had no way of knowing what lay below.
He snaked his body through the opening, caught the edge of the skylight frame with his fingers, dangled there a moment, and dropped. His feet struck something that instantly gave way in a crackling, splintering smash that must have been audible through the house. The attic of the mayor’s house had not been floored, and “X’s” weight had been too much for the plaster. He picked himself up from a mess of broken plaster and splintered lath. He had no idea where he was.
The room was blackness itself. He stumbled forward and encountered a wall. Groping along the wall, he came to a door frame. His fingers closed over the doorknob. He gave it a twist, flung the door wide, and stepped into a hall.
As “X” moved down the hall toward the stairway, a pistol shot rang out through the night. From the foot of the stairs came a cry of terror. As “X” bounded down the stairs, he saw a man stagge across the hall tearing at the hilt of a knife that protruded from his chest. The front door was standing wide; and on the veranda two of the Ghoul’s cutthroats, who had evidently cleared the wall with their jumping-balloons, were struggling with one of the mayor’s bodyguards.
“X” was about to go to the assistance of the guard when a heavily built, gray-haired man ran through the door and into the hall. It was the mayor. There was a revolver in his hand, and before the Agent could make a move to stop him, the mayor turned his gun on “X” and fired. The bullet whined above the Agent’s head. “X” leaped upon the mayor before he could shoot again and twisted the revolver from his hand.
“Quiet!” “X” hissed. “Your safety depends upon speed and quiet.”
“It’s a trap!” shouted the mayor at the top of his lungs. “You’re not a policeman. You’re the Ghoul. A Chine—”
The mayor’s sentence choked off. “X’s” hand had darted from his pocket. His cigarette lighter spat its last charge of gas straight into the mayor’s face. The man tottered forward, fell across the Agent’s shoulders. “X” lifted him bodily, and started up the stairs. If the mayor’s bodyguard could hold off the Ghoul’s other jumping-balloonists, “X” hoped to be able to clear the mayor’s grounds and take the mayor to a place of safety.
IN the hall, “X” pressed on the light and found the attic steps without difficulty. How he was going to get the mayor up on the roof where the jumping-balloon was moored, he did not know. He hoped to find some sort of a ladder that would reach the skylight. But in this he was disappointed.
The attic was empty save for a couple of old trunks resting across the joists. There was, however, a gable jutting out from the steeply slanting roof. “X” walked across the joists and entered the gable. He unlatched and opened the casement window that centered it. Looking down, he saw that there was perhaps five feet of roof between the casement and the eaves—a narrow enough margin when a man starts slipping down the slates of a steeply inclining roof.
But “X” had no intention of slipping. In a moment he had removed his belt from the loops of his trousers and fastened it beneath the mayor’s arms. This gave him a good handle by which to hold the man.
“X” stepped over the sill, holding to the window frame with one hand and dragging the mayor with the other. In this precarious position, he shifted his grip to the edge of the gable roof. With infinite care, he worked the mayor out onto the roof. Then he began his perilous ascent, keeping close to the gable.
Gaining the ridgepole of the house, “X” saw that the chimney to which he had moored the balloon was directly below him and opposite the gable. He had nothing to do but release his grip on the ridgepole and slide down until the base of the chimney stopped him.
Yu’an was still there, huddled against the chimney. “X” strapped the harness he had removed from the Chinese to the mayor. Then he attached the mooring line of the balloon to the harness. Still holding to the belt beneath the mayor’s arms, he released the balloon from the chimney. The upward pull of the bag enabled him to hoist the mayor to his shoulders without difficulty. He then stepped far enough to one side so that he could clear the chimney and poised himself for the leap.
From his vantage point, “X” could see that the Ghoul’s men had encountered the state police. He could hear the sound of machine-gun fire. A sudden gust of wind tugging at the bag, caused “X” to lurch forward. He kicked out. The balloon climbed into the air. But that moment of off-balance had spoiled his jump. The ground was coming up to meet him faster than he had anticipated. He jerked up his legs to avoid the wall; but as the balloon settled, “X” felt his back brush the wires at the top of the wall.
Distantly, the burglar alarm system raised a mad clangor of gongs. Floodlights, connected with the circuit, blazed through the misty dark. A beam struck “X” full in the face as he settled to the ground. Somewhere, close at hand, a shadowy form moved. “X” kicked out with all his strength in an effort to send the balloon once more climbing into the sky. But at that moment, strong arms locked about his legs. He made an effort to release the mayor. But before he could do this, a horde of men poured from the bushes and threw themselves upon him. And gleaming in the beam of a floodlight, “X” saw the golden veil of the Ghoul himself.
Chapter XII
BETRAYED
HOPELESSLY outnumbered, Secret Agent “X” resorted to strategy as the only way out. There was much to explain that seemed inexplicable if he was to clear himself in the eyes of the Ghoul. He stopped struggling and shouted: “Master, what is the meaning of this? Is this my reward for carrying out your orders?”
“Let him up,” the Ghoul ordered, “but keep him covered with your guns.”
The weight of many men lifted the form of Agent “X”. He was permitted to stand up, but so closely was he hemmed in by a ring of threatening automatics that he could not hope to escape. With his own hands, the Ghoul cut the mayor free from the jumping-balloon. Then a man stepped forward at an order from the veiled fiend and linked “X’s” left wrist to his own by means of handcuffs.
But “X’s” right hand was free to press the switch in his coat pocket. Instantly, he had the nauseating sensation of feeling his right eye twist sharply to the right as the artificial stimulus was applied.
“Now,” said the Ghoul, sternly, “you will tell me, China
Bobby, why you acted in this way. My plans were perfect The state police were entirely at the mercy of our machine guns. But Raymonds, who accompanied you and Yu’an tells me that you cut the ballast bags and leaped over the wall with Yu’an.”
There had been a witness to “X’s” action and there was no use denying what he had done. “Perfectly true, master,” the Agent replied, “and I admit that I was partially at fault. Yu’an had planned to cheat you. He confided as much to me. In fact, I was admitted into a plan by which Yu’an and I were to kidnap the mayor and share the ransom we obtained. But at the last moment, I could not double-cross you.”
“Why?” demanded the Ghoul. “I have never shown you any great kindness, have I?”
Keen judge of human nature that he was, “X” knew that the Ghoul was vain about his power and cruelty. He hung his head. “No,” he admitted. “I did not dare be false to you. I am afraid of you. That is why at the last moment, I decided to carry out your instructions.”
“And where is Yu’an?” asked the Ghoul.
“With his ancestors,” the Agent lied. “I put a knife in his throat.”
“You will be conducted back to headquarters,” said the Ghoul. “As I drive back to the city, I shall consider what you have done.” And the Ghoul stalked majestically toward the road. Two Chinese, who followed him, carried the unconscious mayor between them.
“X” was closely guarded by the gang and forced into a waiting car. Of that long drive back to the city, he remembered little. His companions were silent the entire distance, but the threatening eyes of their automatics never left him. “X” thought he had never worked harder to snare a criminal; yet time after time he had been outwitted by the Ghoul.
The car pulled up at what appeared to be the rear door of China Bobby’s restaurant. “X” was forced to get out of the car by goading guns. He was dragged through the door and down a flight of steps that ended in a passage leading to China Bobby’s office.
A few minutes later, the Ghoul appeared through a sliding door. Evidently, he had put the mayor in a place of safe keeping, and was determined to settle with the man he believed to be China Bobby.
“I have considered your story carefully,” said the Ghoul, addressing the Agent, “and it is a plausible one. However, before you are released, I would like to ask one—”
But the Ghoul’s sentence was interrupted by the opening of a sliding panel. Staggering through the door, her blonde hair disheveled, was Drew Devon. The Ghoul wheeled on her. “Where have you been?” he demanded.
She shook her head. “I was drugged by some one. Where’s Bill Morgan? Bill Morgan is Secret Agent ‘X’.”
The Ghoul laughed. “Then Secret Agent ‘X’ is dead! I killed Morgan with the Amber Death.”
DREW DEVON’S mouth was bitter. “Conceited beast!” she snapped at the Ghoul. “He isn’t dead. He escaped the Amber Death. For all your brilliance, he might be in the room right now!”
The man who was linked to “X” by means of handcuffs, said: “Master, it might be wise to ask the lady why, if she was drugged, she was yet able to leave this place and warn the mayor of an attempt to kidnap him.”
The Ghoul’s thin hand shot out and caught the girl by the wrist. “You did that?”
For a moment, scorn was displaced by terror in the girl’s eyes. “No—no. I swear I didn’t. I was unconscious in my room all the time.”
Another man spoke up. “That couldn’t be. The mayor’s chauffeur distinctly described the woman who warned the mayor. We all heard him. It could have only been one person—that woman.”
Drew Devon screamed her denial. “It isn’t true! It must have been some trick of Secret Agent ‘X’. If he could impersonate Bill Morgan so that I would risk everything to save—” She checked herself with lip-biting.
“So,” said the Ghoul softly, “you saved Morgan, or ‘X’, or whatever his name is. You saved him from the Amber Death after I commanded that he die. My dear lady, you shall know the maddening torment of the ant pit! When that beautiful body of yours is teeming with tiny, tormenting devils, you will understand the folly of trying to thwart my unalterable commands. Fun-Lo! Gordon! Chang! Take her away to the ant pit!”
Three men sprang forward to do the Ghoul’s bidding. In the mind of Secret Agent “X” a battle was raging. It was within his power to check this brutal act. But at what a price? It might mean exposing himself, jeopardizing the progress he had made. Was Drew Devon worth that much? She was a murderess. But no crime deserved the torment of the ant pit. And though she had saved him unknowingly, “X” knew that he would have now been a dead, amber husk had it not been for Drew Devon.
He had long ago resolved that it must never be said that the Man of a Thousand Faces was ungrateful. He had hit upon a plan for gaining time—a ruse that might prevent the Ghoul from carrying out his despicable plan of torturing Drew Devon. He held up his right hand in an arresting gesture. “Stop!” he cried. “Before you sentence this woman to the fate she justly deserves, it might be well to question her concerning Secret Agent ‘X’. Undoubtedly, if she warned the mayor she is one of his agents.”
A remarkable change came over the face of Drew Devon. A look of cunning crept into her eyes. Hate distorted her features until she was as hideous as a vampire. She pointed a trembling finger at the Agent. “Look at his hand!” she screamed. “He has all his fingers! That man isn’t China Bobby! He’s Secret Agent ‘X’!”
But hardly were the words out of her mouth before “X” had gone into action. A trick he had learned from a Hindu fakir, of compressing the joints of his hands, enabled him to slip free from the handcuffs that linked him with the Ghoul’s man. He sprang backward across the room.
Like magic, two guns appeared in his hands—one the revolver he had taken from the mayor, and the other the flare-pistol that Yu’an had given him to use as a signal when the mayor was captured. Those guns swept the company of men before him.
“The first man to move, dies!” he shouted.
Behind his group of menials, the Ghoul shouted: “Knife him! After him, all of you!”
TO a man, the killers moved, surging forward like a human tide of destruction. The arch-enemy of their kind stood before them; their knives were thirsty for his blood. Infrequently, did Agent “X” use lethal weapons, but no man knew better how to use a revolver than he did. Two of the foremost killers were dropped at the Agent’s feet by two well-placed shots. Another tripped over a fallen companion and fell upon his own knife. A fourth fired an automatic at close range, the slug landing squarely over the Agent’s heart.
“X” dropped to one knee. His bullet-proof vest of finest manganese steel, had stopped the lead. But the impact alone was enough to knock him down. “X” fired again, sprang to his feet and aside to avoid the thrust of a Chinese knife. The butt of the flare pistol in his hand, laid open the head of another man. Shooting carefully, and hacking with the gun in his left hand, he fought through the mob.
But behind the fury of the hand-to-hand encounter, “X” saw a flash of yellow silk. The Ghoul! The Ghoul was escaping through an open door at the rear of the room. The flare pistol in “X’s” left hand swung up, pointed at the silken draperies that curtained the door of the closet in which he had concealed the unconscious China Bobby. He pulled the trigger. A faint pop and a red ball of fire shot from the gun and burnt through the silk curtains. Instantly, flames licked upward.
“Fire!” shouted “X,” at the same moment sending his last revolver shot at his nearest opponent. To that moment of panic caused by the threat of fire, “X” owed much. Inasmuch as the room was virtually fireproof, no serious damage could be expected from the flaming curtains. But itcaused a moment’s confusion—one precious second when “X” sprang through the door through which the Ghoul had disappeared.
He ran into the passage, found the tiny button that operated the panel, and pressed it. The steel door slipped smoothly into place. Above the Agent’s head, an electric lamp glowed. Holding the flar
e pistol, which he had effectively used but a moment ago, by its hard rubber butt, he knocked out the lamp. As the metal barrel crossed the elements of the bulb, there was a flash of blue flame, then instantaneous blackness. “X” knew that in one stroke he had captured the Ghoul’s mob; for in shorting the electrical circuit he had thrown the electrical mechanism, that operated all the doors leading from the office, out of order. There was no way out for Drew Devon and the horde of killers.
Swiftly and silently, “X” moved down the dark corridor, stopping occasionally to listen to the whisper of footsteps ahead of him. Suddenly, a tiny spot of light shone on what appeared to be a blank wall in front of him. He saw the hand of the Ghoul holding a flashlight and turning the key in the lock of a door. The door opened and closed behind the Ghoul before “X” had a chance to follow. As he approached on tiptoe, a faint hissing sound came out of the darkness. It was a steady hiss like the escape of—
And in another moment, he knew it was gas—poisonous chlorine. He could feel its sting in his eyes and smell its acrid odor. “X” knew that the Ghoul, believing that “X” had in some way managed to inform the police of the gang’s headquarters, was deserting his men and burning his bridges behind him. This was his own secret exit, and the quantities of poison gas hissing into the passage had been prepared for just such an emergency.
AGENT “X” held his breath and closed his eyes against the poisonous, stinging vapor. The fingers of his right hand groped across the panel, searching the keyhole. His right hand fingered the bunch of master keys in his pocket. Without a light, it was impossible for him to pick out the exact key that would unlock the door. Finding the keyhole, he tried them one at a time. His lungs were aching; his heart throbbing at his temples. Yet to breathe was to die. At last he found a key that scraped through the eye of the lock. Just as he turned the key, a dull boom sounded hollowly throughout the cellars.
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