Only that, and nothing more. No sound, no flash. But suddenly, as if an invisible giant hand had been placed against his chest, the unfortunate policeman was brought to a halt. A look of incredible terror and amazement appeared on his round, moonlike face. And in a moment, fierce, torrid flames were leaping up all about him; sizzling, white-hot flames that scorched the clothes from his body, and the flesh from his face. He screamed again and again—screams of dreadful agony that made the blood of Betty Dale and every one of the spectators run cold with horror.
He rolled on the cement floor, clawed about him frenziedly. No one dared approach for fear of being engulfed in that raging furnace which he had become. A wide circle had been cleared about him. And then, suddenly, he lay still, a pitiful scorched thing, that had just now been a man, an officer of the law, a human being with a love of life, perhaps the father of a family.
Men and women stood silent, petrified by the sudden calamity. A quietness as of the tomb descended upon the assembled company. And then, strained nerves could stand no more. The sight of that lifeless thing that had been burned to death before their very eyes released hysteric floodgates of emotion.
A woman screamed, shrilly, piercingly, and fainted. It was Mabel Boling. She slid to the floor, inert and unconscious. Harry Pringle, who was still with her, stooped to aid the senseless woman, as echoes of her shriek were taken up by women all over the room. The bazaar suddenly became a bedlam of high-pitched, hysterical voices. People milled about in panic, shrinking from the awful figure in the booth.
Harry Pringle knelt beside Mabel Boling, shouting, “Give her air! Give her air! Some water, somebody!”
And in the midst of that pandemonium, the ungainly monster stirred slowly, and a deep, metallic cadaverous voice issued from somewhere in the depths of its barrel-like body. “Let nobody move. Stand still with your hands in the air!”
It was as if someone at a great distance were broadcasting, the voice emanating from a receiving set somewhere in the monstrous shape that dominated the room.
Men and women stiffened to frightened attention as those deep, ominous tones resounded through the place. The uniformed men, cowed by the hideous death of their colleague, obeyed the command with the others. The robot killers who guarded the doors stood motionless, as if they had nothing to do with what was going on. But their automatics were trained upon the crowd. It would have been suicide for anyone to defy the order.
Only Harry Pringle, oblivious to everything, still knelt beside Mabel Boling, striving wildly to bring her back to consciousness.
The macabre being in the booth raised its hand once more, and without warning, without repeating the command, pointed at Pringle. From somewhere in the middle of the room came the agonized cry of Pringle’s mother, “Harry! Harry! My boy!”
Too late.
White hot flames sprang up from the young man. The revolting odor of scorched flesh once more pervaded the room. He threshed wildly about, trying to beat out the flames, to no avail. People backed away from him, forming a wide circle. He started to cry, “Damn you—” but his voice was suddenly smothered by the flames, as he twisted horribly in the throes of excruciating agony.
Jack Larrabie, his young friend, was standing close to the far wall. Behind him was a fire extinguisher, hanging ready for use. Stealthily he reached up for it, but the murder monster seemed to have all-seeing eyes. Again that metallic voice, “Don’t touch it!”
The gloved hand made a half-move toward Larrabie, stopped as the young physician stayed his reaching arm in mid-air. He was glaring murderously at the monster.
All this had taken only a few seconds; and in that short time young Harry Pringle’s agony ended in merciful death. He seemed to shrivel up, drop to the floor. Flames still licked his pathetic form, and even though he was dead, his body twitched.
Toward the middle of the room, a white-haired woman struggled frantically in the restraining arms of her husband, the commissioner, moaning in a dead voice, “My boy! My boy!”
Roderick Pringle, his face gray, held desperately to his wife’s arms. To let her leap to her son would only mean death for her, too.
Of a sudden, wild, uncontrollable laughter burst from the half-crazed woman—no mother’s sanity could help cracking under the strain of witnessing such a sight.
But above her strident shrieks of mad laughter, there rose once more that metallic voice. “Gag her! Stop that noise, or—”
The pointing finger started to swing in her direction warningly.
Frantically, desperately, Roderick Pringle, himself on the point of breaking down, threw his arms about his wife, smothering her cries. At last the surcease of unconsciousness came to the bereaved mother, and she sagged in her husband’s arms. Her daughter already lay in a merciful faint on the floor.
Mabel Boling stirred, sighed, and opened her eyes. Her uncomprehending gaze fell on the charred remains of Harry Pringle. She did not realize yet what had befallen him; she was still dazed, and she weakly allowed her head to drop back on the concrete floor.
And now the murder monster and his hellish cohorts had the throng subdued, resistless. From a gay, insouciant gathering, spending money freely in the name of charity, this bazaar had been transformed to a grisly scene of murder and terror, with two smoldering bodies, strangely twisted in death, as mute evidence of the dread horror that had suddenly come among them.
CHAPTER. VI
THE BETRAYAL
The resonant voice of the gruesome being in the booth now rose in terse, metallic command to its cohorts of robot killers. “Take up the collection!” The automatons snapped into motion at the order. They swarmed from booth to booth, producing from somewhere in their clothing large canvas bags into which they poured the cash which had been taken in.
The robbery was proceeding with the timed efficiency of a well-rehearsed play, every movement of the automatons seeming to have been carefully planned in advance. The whole thing took very little time. While they were emptying the cash drawers, that ominous voice of the specter in the booth spoke again, addressing the cowering throng.
“Make no resistance and you will be harmed no more. The sooner you learn that resistance is useless, the better off you will be. Remember that for the future when we appear again!”
Betty Dale tried hard to remember every inflection of that voice. But she knew it was useless. The voice was disguised, and besides it was issuing from some sort of metal speaker which made it impossible to identify it.
An outcry from the doorway behind her made her turn suddenly about.
This doorway opened into the hallway close to the stairs and the elevator. She saw the two elevator cages open, with the robot killer who had brushed past her before, standing guard. He had shot the two operators with his silenced gun, and their bodies lay now, one of them huddled—in the cage, the other sprawled half in and half out of the other cage, a pool of blood, seeping along the cement floor from a wound in the head.
The cry that caused her to turn was uttered by a uniformed man who had come down the stairs from the floor above, no doubt attracted by the screams of the women. He was one of the special policemen employed by the building. His gun was holstered at his side, but he drew it as he noted the situation through the open doorway.
He raised his gun, fired six times through the open door at the barrel-like figure in the booth. The heavy slugs from the thirty-eight whined across the room to the thunderous reverberations of the gun and buried themselves in that unholy being—without effect!
The figure staggered slightly from the smashing impact of the bullets, but recovered its balance, raised a pointing finger at the brave attacker.
But the robot killer at the elevator cages was already in action. He emptied his automatic into the body of the special, who staggered, ran a few steps on the concrete floor, and flung headlong down the stairs leading to the floor below. But the sear
ching finger of the ugly monster in the gas mask had found him too, and his body burst into flames, forming a veritable ball of fire that rolled down the steps.
The metallic voice issued an order to the killer at the elevators. “Guard those stairs. Allow no one up or down. We leave now!”
The robot seemed to understand the order as if it were a human being. It moved stiffly toward the head of the stairs, and took up a position there, then proceeded to insert a new clip in the automatic it had just emptied into the body of the special policeman.
Betty Dale had her hand to her mouth in consternation. She had no eyes now for the swift movement of the horde of robots and their leader. For she had seen something that made her blood chill with sharp concern. Just before the flaming body of the policeman had hurtled downward, carrying fiery destruction for anyone who might be in its path, she had glimpsed a face—the face of a man who was running up the stairs. It was the face of Mr. Vardis—Secret Agent “X”—returning, attracted, as had been the special policeman who was now hurtling down upon him, by the screams of the women.
Secret agent “X” had heard those screams as he stepped from the elevator downstairs and started to cross the lobby to the street. He turned to go back, but the cage was already rising in response to insistent ringing from above, where the robot killer was summoning the operator back to meet his death.
The Agent’s sure instinct told him that those screams were not occasioned by any ordinary accident—he caught the edge of frightful terror in them.
He noted from the indicator that the second cage was not descending, and his swiftly roving eyes saw the staircase at the left. Several people were in the lobby, and he shouted to them, “Call headquarters, somebody! Send in a riot call!” Then he dashed for the stairs, sprinted up them with a speed that left those in the lobby agape.
On the way up, as he passed landing after landing on the way to the fourth floor, he heard further cries, then silence, which was even more ominous. He passed the third floor, was approaching the fourth, when he saw the special policeman on the landing, got a swift glimpse of the room with the hideous figure in the booth, saw the uniformed officer burst into flame and come tumbling down right at him.
The stairway was narrow, there was no chance of avoiding that hurtling bundle of fire. It would strike him in a moment, engulf him in its flaming destruction.
His brain worked with the speed of lightning. He seized the banister, vaulted over, and hung by his hands on the outside, as the ball of fire rolled down, thumped on the lower landing, and came to a stop against the wall.
The Agent easily supported himself by his hands. He hung there for a moment longer, while the full import of the situation came to him. He heard the metallic voice from the booth order, “You will all remain quiet while we leave. Keep your hands in the air.”
There was silence within that room, then the voice again, “All right, we’re leaving. File out the back way.”
Hanging there by his hands, “X” saw the shape of the robot who had shot the officer at the head of the stairs.
The Agent realized at once what was taking place. Those beings who had committed the robot murders had struck again, this time at the gay throng assembled here in the name of charity; they had brought terror and frightful death along with them; and now they were making good their escape. That escape could not be prevented. But there was one thing that could be done—one of these so-called robots must be captured if possible.
Without hesitation, “X” leaped into action. He swung over the banister, dashed up the stairs, at the same time drawing a peculiar-shaped gun.10
The robot on the landing was just turning to depart. From below came the shrill note of a police whistle, the tramp of many feet on the stairs.
As “X” reached the top landing, he got a glimpse into the bazaar room, saw the ghastly figure of the murder monster moving with ungainly, ponderous motions as it stepped through a doorway at the far end of the room, followed by the horde of robots who marched across the floor in its wake.
The robot who had stood at the head of the stairs was just stepping through the doorway to cross the room and join the others. “X” leveled his gas gun and pulled the trigger. A stream of gas was ejected from the muzzle, enveloping the robot’s head. The action was a desperate one, for if the robot were protected and not susceptible to the effects of the gas, it would immediately turn upon the Agent and loose a stream of lead from its automatic, which, at that short range, could mean nothing but death.
“X” poised on the balls of his feet, ready to leap forward at the figure if it swung toward him. But it didn’t. Suddenly, as the gas struck, the robot sagged, and crumpled to a heap on the floor!
Pandemonium reigned within the bazaar room as the last of the unholy horde left through the far exit. “X” paid no attention to the riot within. He stooped swiftly beside the unconscious figure, looked deeply into the smooth features. He ran his hand along the inert shape. His fingers encountered metal. The figure was wearing a bullet-proof vest, and leg, thigh and arm guards of the same material. No wonder bullets had no effect! He raised his head sharply as a frantic figure raced up beside him. It was Betty Dale. Her face was flushed with excitement, and her hands shook. Her voice was barely audible above the cacophony of sound from inside the bazaar room. “I—I saw you on the stairs!” she exclaimed. She shuddered, closed her eyes tight as if to shut out some terrible sight, “I thought you’d be burned! God! It’s horrible! That—that monster—it killed Harry Pringle, and a policeman. And those robots—”
“X” arose from beside the inert form on the floor. The feet of the police were pounding closer on the stairs. They were on the landing below now.
The Agent put a hand on Betty’s shoulder that seemed to soothe her as if by magic. His eyes glittered. “That is all over and done with, Betty. The dead are dead. But this man on the floor here will change the situation. From now on the police and the public will know that these are not robots, not mechanical men, not supernatural beings. The police were rapidly becoming demoralized by the feeling that they had to face super-human beings. From now on they will fight with renewed vigor, knowing that their enemies are no more than men.”
He drew Betty Dale away before the first of the uniformed men came into sight on the stairs. “It’s too bad that I won’t have an opportunity to question this man. I am afraid the police won’t get anywhere with him.” He shrugged. “Perhaps I can arrange to question him later. Now I must get out of here. I have an appointment.”
He pressed her hand, left her, and slipped into the throng in the bazaar room. Betty watched him, speechless, while he mingled with the hysterical crowd who still kept a wide space cleared around the smoldering, scorched bodies of Harry Pringle and the unfortunate policeman who had defied the murder monster.
CHAPTER VII
FOUR WHO WAITED
It was twenty minutes past midnight when Secret Agent “X” appeared again on Eighth Avenue outside Haley’s Bar and Grill. He had been delayed by the police investigation at the bazaar, had been compelled to wait while the names of all those present had been taken. The police had been puzzled at finding the killer’s unconscious body, had been at a loss to understand how he had been rendered insensible. But no one except Betty Dale had seen the Agent fire his gas gun at the robot-like killer, and she said nothing.
Haley’s Bar and Grill was still doing a rushing business. Outside the rain had stopped, but the sky was cloudy and dark. “X” stood near the curb, away from the light that streamed out of Haley’s windows. He was twenty minutes late for his appointment with Linky Teagle.
Once more he was in the role of John Harder, fugitive from justice, friend of Gilly, the gunman. He had confidence in the perfection of his disguise, in his knowledge of the characteristics of the man he was impersonating, for he had studied them thoroughly. He would have felt a good deal less confident, however, ha
d he possessed knowledge of a fact not yet reported to the police—the fact that John Harder, the man he was impersonating tonight, was dead! Harder had accidentally shot himself in the leg while examining a machine gun. Harder had fallen on the Tommy, had for two days lain in the lonely hut where he was hiding out, until two of his gang returned. But Harder was dead when they found him—for gangrene had set in. The two pals took his body and buried it in a barren field near the hut. That was the end of Harder.
Gilly, many miles away in State Prison, got word of that event by means of the grapevine telegraph of the underworld, because he was known to be a one-time pal of Harder’s. And so, though Secret Agent “X” did not know that he was impersonating a dead man, others did…
The Agent strolled up and down the street in front of Haley’s, wondering whether Linky Teagle had been there and gone, or whether he would soon appear. “X” was not unconscious of the possibility that this appointment might be a trap of some sort. He kept a wary eye out for passing automobiles from which a sub-machine gun might spout lead. He now carried an automatic holstered under his left armpit; and few could use it with a dexterity to equal his. He did not intend to inflict death if he could help it—yet it would come in handy if he were being “put on the spot.”
No overt attack was made, however. And soon a shadowy figure approached out of the misty night, came close. It was Linky Teagle. Teagle scanned his face, and grunted. “You got nerve, wandering around the city with a fat reward posted for you in every post office in town!”
“X” brushed the remark aside. “Well?” he demanded, “How about Gilly?”
Teagle took his time about answering. “You got that two grand you promised?”
The Agent nodded. “I got it, right here.” He tapped the breast pocket of his coat.
Teagle’s face was eager. “Okay. Give us it, an’ I’ll take you to him!”
“X” brought out an envelope and handed it to the other. Teagle almost snatched it from his fingers, opened the flap and drew out the contents. Twenty crisp one hundred dollar bills. He looked up suspiciously. “This ain’t—swag from some hold-up, is it? Will I get my neck in a sling if I try to pass it?”
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