The Pulp Hero

by Theodore A. Tinsley

  The Agent reassured him. “That ain’t hot money, Teagle. It’s good cash. You can change it in any bank in the city. Think I’m a sap?”

  Teagle pocketed the money. “Okay, Harder. Come along.” He turned, proceeded up Eighth Avenue.

  The Agent swung in beside him. “Where do we have to go?”

  “Don’t ask so many questions!” the other growled. “You’ll see.”

  They walked up two blocks, turned the corner and stopped before a small store with windows which had been frosted to prevent passers-by from looking in. The street was deserted, but “X” noted two doorways across the street, where the shadows seemed thicker than elsewhere. Also, as Teagle rang the bell at the door, the Agent saw two men appear out of a hallway several doors down.

  These men strolled casually toward the store with frosted windows, their hands in their overcoat pockets. At the same time, the two shadows on the opposite side moved, resolved themselves into men, and started across. The Agent did not appear to notice all this, but he crowded closer to Linky, slid the automatic from his shoulder holster and put it into his coat pocket. He did not take his hand out of the pocket, but he looked significantly at Teagle.

  Linky looked down at the bulge the automatic made close to his own side, looked up at “X”, and said, “What’s the idea, friend?”

  “X” laughed harshly. “Just an old habit of mine when I go into strange places. You can never tell what’s on the cards.”

  The door of the store opened to Teagle’s ring, and a big, heavy-set, man with a walrus moustache looked inquiringly at them, then said, “Oh, hello, Linky. Come on in.” He turned and went back down the short, dark hall, motioning them to follow him.

  Teagle said to the Agent, “This is where we meet your friend. You don’t have to worry about nothin’ happening. This joint is okay.”

  “X” crowded in beside Linky, shut the door behind them so quickly that anybody outside who might have been waiting for a clear potshot at him would have been disappointed.

  Out in the street, the four shadows converged before the door. They did not ring the bell. No word was spoken among them. They seemed to be acting according to prearranged plan, and waited silently.

  In a few moments the door opened, and the big man with the walrus moustache appeared again, stood aside for them to enter. They filed in past him and walked down the short hall. The big man closed the door, followed them into the lighted room at the end of the hall. This was a barroom, with a small bar at one end. Near the bar was another door, which was closed. This other door led into a private room where guests could drink undisturbed, transact whatever private business they had.

  The big man stepped behind the bar, saying nothing to the four who had entered. They stood near the wall now, hands in pockets, unmoving, their eyes on the door to the inner room. There was something peculiar about them—something that caused the bartender to shudder. They looked like brothers—and they walked stiffly, mechanically. There was nothing to indicate that they were human except four pair of eyes that glittered out of those faces with a merciless light that made the man with the walrus moustache feel, somehow, cold and clammy.

  The four men waited stolidly, never speaking. Presently the door of the inner room opened and Linky Teagle came out—alone. A shadow crossed his face—was it a shadow of fear?—as he saw those four silent figures. He gulped, looked away from them with an effort, and said to the bartender, “He took the doped drink like a fish; he’s out cold already.”

  The bartender grinned nervously, rubbing his hands. “A Mickey Finn always works, Linky. Only I was afraid that guy was too slick to take it. He certainly fell fer the whole lay, just like a sap—expectin’ you to lead him to Gilly!” He glanced at the four men. “You can go in an’ get him now, boys.” He spoke diffidently, as if he almost thought they would not understand him.

  But they did. One of them produced from his coat a capacious sugar sack, which he unfolded and shook out. It was large enough to hold an unconscious man. The four of them then advanced into the inner room.

  The bartender peered over Teagle’s shoulder, glimpsed the inert form that lay with head on table, unconscious. He poured out two stiff jolts of whisky, handed one to Teagle, and downed his own at a gulp, sighed gustily. “I’m glad that’s over. Did you scratch his face to see if he had make-up?”

  Teagle nodded. “It’s make-up all right, and damn clever. If I didn’t know for sure that Harder was dead, I’d swear it was him.”

  The four men closed the inner door behind them as they went about their gruesome task of stuffing the inert form into the sack. The bartender shivered slightly. “God! Those guys give me the heebie-jeebies—they don’t seem to have no soul. They don’t talk or anything; they just look at you with those killer-eyes!”

  Teagle’s eyes were on the inner door. He seemed to share some of the walrus-mustached one’s feelings, but he said nothing. He appeared tense, alert.

  The bartender asked huskily, “What’ll they do with that guy in the sack—after they’re through asking him questions?”

  Linky Teagle shrugged. “Maybe there won’t be anything left of him by that time.” He moved toward the door. “I wonder what’s keeping them so long.” The man with the walrus moustache came around to the front of the bar. He said, uneasily, “I’m wonderin’—whoever their boss is, how come he trusts us to see all this? Suppose—” his voice dropped to a whisper—“suppose he give them orders to knock us off after they finish this job?”

  Linky Teagle said, “I was thinking of the same thing. We better take a look in there.”

  His hand snaked inside his coat, produced a gun. He reached out, opened the door wide. The inner room was empty.

  The bartender gasped. “They musta gone out the back way!”

  And just then there was the sound of heavy steps in the short hall that led from the front door. There had been no sound of anyone entering, but there was the distinct noise of a ponderous tread in the hall now.

  The bartender’s face went pale. “They left the outside door unlocked—so they could go around from in back!”

  Teagle swung his gun toward the hallway, just as a strange, monstrous figure came into view. It was the same horrid being that had struck terror into the crowds at the bazaar, that had launched invisible death at Harry Pringle and the policeman. Its barrel-like body waddled as it walked, and its ghastly gas-masked head peered through the gloom.

  It stopped in the doorway, slowly and ponderously raised its hand, with the finger pointing at the bartender.

  The bartender screamed, started to duck behind the bar. Linky Teagle had his gun poised. His finger now contracted on the trigger, and seven slugs—seven livid streams of death streaked from the muzzle straight at the monster. But the heavy figure was unmoved by the hail of lead. It was as if those death-dealing bullets that would have been fatal to any man were no more than pellets from a boy’s toy sling.

  With a sure, inexorable motion, its pointing finger sought the bartender, and a flash of flame sprang from the screaming man’s clothing. In an instant he had become his own fiery funeral pyre. His screams tore through the small room; horrible, hideous screams that mingled with the echoes of Teagle’s gun. He swept his arms in a desperate, flail-like motion over the bar, and the whisky bottle was hurled to the floor, shattered. The alcoholic liquid spread, and the dying man rolled across the floor, right into it. Flames spread, fed by the alcohol, and the place became an inferno.

  In the meantime, the hellish monster had turned its death-finger toward Teagle. But Teagle, acting with desperate speed, had slipped through the inner door that led to the back room and kicked the door shut.

  The room became bright as the flames spread. For a moment the huge, ungainly monster stood there, watching its handiwork. If it entertained any emotion of anger at being balked of its other prey, any disappointment at missing Linky Teag
le, there was no way of telling. It turned ponderously and made its way out of the short hall, into the night, where it stepped into the rear of a closed truck that sped away.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE LAIR OF THE MONSTER

  A square room, poorly, lit. Chairs arranged in a semicircle before a raised platform with, curtains at the rear.

  Walls of whitewashed brick, with small windows high up near the ceiling—a typical cellar room, converted to its present use.

  In the chairs were seated beings that resembled men—rather, shells of men, lacking a human spark. They were awaiting something or someone. They smoked, but did not talk. Their startlingly youthful, features bore an uncanny resemblance to each other—as if they were all members of a single family. And in their eyes there was a ruthlessness, a cold-blooded killer lust that it was hard to credit. It was as if they had made a bargain with the devil—trading their immortal souls for a quality of merciless viciousness beyond human conception.

  There were four chairs vacant in the semicircle. None of those strange beings paid any attention to the empty chairs. They did not even stir when four of their fellows entered through a side door, carrying a sack in which something squirmed.

  They deposited the sack on the floor, and one of them stooped, cut open the rope that tied it at the top. They helped out the half-conscious man who was within it, stood him on his feet. The doped drink had not yet worn off entirely, and the man was still groggy, wobbling, dazed.

  The face of John Harder stared about the room with swollen, uncomprehending eyes. He was no longer the desperate fugitive from justice; he was a man with half his senses deadened by dope, unable to familiarize himself with his surroundings.

  No words were spoken by the robot killers who held his arms. There was utter silence in the room for a space of minutes. And then the curtains parted at the back of the narrow platform, and the murder monster stepped out—huge, ungainly, terrifying.

  At sight of that monster, the captive wrenched wildly at the hands that held him; but his strength had been sapped by the dope, and he was as a child in the grip of his grinning captors.

  The monstrous figure on the platform paid him no attention at first. It stood there, planted solidly, its hideous head moving from side to side as it took stock of those present.

  Finally, from somewhere in its bowels there emanated the same sonorous metallic voice, that had struck terror into the hearts of the people at the bazaar.

  “I have no fault to find with the way you all acted tonight at the bazaar. You were true sons of the monster! Always remember that you must be ruthless, merciless! Do not hesitate to kill—a dead enemy is a harmless enemy; and we have no friends! By striking terror into the hearts of everybody, we eliminate resistance.”

  The voice paused for a moment, then went on, “In future, however, you must be more careful. Tonight we lost one of you—Number Eight is reported missing, capture by the police. If he had come at once in answer to my order, he would not have been caught. It is imperative now that we release him. My plans are all set for tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock, when he is to be arraigned in court. You will all participate; your instructions will be issued later. Now we must attend to another matter.”

  The ungainly monster half turned toward the captive, ordered those holding him, “Bring the prisoner forward!” Then it once more addressed the seated audience of killers, “There is one enemy whom I knew all along I would have to eliminate in this campaign, for he was sure to interfere with our progress. That enemy is the man known as Secret Agent ‘X.’ You have all heard how impossible it is to find him, how dangerous he is. Well, gentlemen, I have the honor to show you—Secret Agent ‘X’! He was caught by a simple trick; he practically walked into our hands.”

  The four men led their struggling captive down to the foot of the platform.

  The monster continued, “I am sure that this is Secret Agent ‘X’ because nobody else in the world could have disguised himself as John Harder. He tried to crash into this organization in that role; gentlemen, John Harder is dead. But this man didn’t know it. And there he stands. Look at that disguise. Perfect! It shall now be our pleasure to scrape that putty off his face, and see for the first time the real features of—Secret Agent ‘X’! And after we are through asking him a few questions, I will treat him to a bath of fire!”

  There was no trace of pity in the eyes of the smooth-faced killers who watched the captive struggle ineffectually with those who held him. He tried to talk, but the powerful drug had paralyzed the muscles of his throat temporarily. It was wearing off slowly, and confused syllables issued from his mouth, syllables that had no coherence or meaning.

  He was rapidly searched, and an automatic taken from his shoulder holster, together with a few other papers. Then those who held him proceeded to scratch the plaster and make-up from his face.

  While they were doing it, the resonant voice of the monster spoke mockingly, “For once the famous Secret Agent ‘X’ has nothing to say; for once he is helpless. At last he has met his master! This, gentlemen, is the end of Secret Agent ‘X’!” There was a note of proud triumph in that voice now—a note of evil, unmerciful triumph, which ended in a gasp of rage as the last of the make-up was removed, revealing the face of—Linky Teagle!

  A rustle of excitement, spread among the assembled killers, but even then no word was spoken among them—only, here and—there were heard gross, unintelligible grunts, and the wheezy, terror-impregnated breathing of Linky Teagle.

  Above the sound of those inhuman grunts rose the metallic, but now enraged voice of the murder monster. “If this is a trick, somebody is going to pay for it! Scratch that face and see if it’s another disguise!”

  One of the four killers, grinning as a child might grin when it crushes a grasshopper with its foot, drew a knife and scraped the point along the captive’s face, eliciting a muted howl of agony. But no plaster came off. Blood ran freely where the knife point had scored into the flesh. It was indeed Linky Teagle.

  The monster uttered a single ominous word, “Explain!”

  Teagle gulped, tried to talk, and succeeded only in emitting grotesque sounds. He was in the grip of terror, and he tried desperately to talk. Finally, urged by his dread, he managed to get out some words. The dope was wearing off, easing his throat muscles.

  “It’s no joke, boss. I had this guy ‘X’ in the back room, and the bartender brought in the doped drink. But he must have got wise. Because—” he stopped, swallowed hard, and found it impossible to continue.

  The monster ordered, “Bring him water.”

  One of the four disappeared through the side door, returned in a moment with a glass of water which Teagle gulped at a single draught. His throat felt better, and he went on.

  “He must have got wise, somehow. Because all of a sudden he pulls out a funny shaped gun. I says, ‘What’s that, Harder?’—makin’ believe, see, that I still thought he was Harder. An’ he says to me, lookin’ kinda funny, ‘So you know who I am! Well, I will show you how to make a quick change, only you won’t be able to witness it, Linky.’ An’ with that, he shoots off this funny gun that don’t make no noise, an’ I feel a sudden kind of sickish sweet feelin’, an’ that’s all I know till I wake up in the sack! So help me, boss, it ain’t no joke!”

  Several of the killers stirred uneasily in the silence that followed Linky’s recital. It was difficult to tell from their impassive countenances what they felt. Only their eyes blazed with a dangerous lust. But they looked tensely at the monster on the platform. Somehow the monster’s rage and bafflement seemed to pervade the whole room.

  The resonant voice burst from the bowels of the barrel-like shape. “So he put you to sleep, eh, Teagle? And then he changed places with you—made up as you, and made you up as Harder. Then he came out and sent my men in to put you in the sack.” The voice paused, then continued ruminatively, “And to
think—I almost got him. I wondered that Linky Teagle could be so quick-witted as to escape the fire bath!”

  Teagle looked up, sudden fear in his eyes. “What do you mean, boss—escape the fire bath?”

  “You didn’t think, Teagle, that you would be allowed to live after learning so much of our secret? Well, perhaps you did. So did that foolish bartender. I killed him. I thought I failed with you. This time I shall not fail.”

  Slowly the ominous finger rose, pointing at Teagle. “Stand away from him!” ordered the metallic voice.

  The four smooth-faced killers who had held him now sprang away. Teagle cried out piteously, “What you gonna do to—”

  He never ended the sentence, for he was suddenly enveloped in flames…

  CHAPTER IX

  DESPERATE PLAN

  Secret Agent “X” did not permit himself to rest after escaping the trap set for him by Linky Teagle.

  He knew that the murder monster would quickly discover the ruse by which he had substituted Linky Teagle for himself in the sack. He knew that the murder monster would be spurred to redoubled activity by the realization that it was the Secret Agent, and not Teagle, who had escaped from the menace of the flaming death in the smelly barroom on Eighth Avenue.

  And “X,” too, was spurred to feverish activity by the knowledge that there was much to be done yet if the monster was to be prevented from striking again with that horrible flaming death. All hope of gaining admittance to the inner ring of the monster’s cohorts was now dissipated. He must follow along other lines of inquiry.

  The most promising lead was the actress, Mabel Boling. She was a former friend of “Duke” Marcy. She had been with Harry Pringle when he was killed. The Agent was to phone her tomorrow. But that was too long to wait. If she knew anything, she must be made to talk before morning.

  It was to see her, therefore, that the Agent was now on his way. He had discarded, temporarily, the personality of Mr. Vardis. To appear before Mabel Boling in that character might make her suspicious now. He was Mr. A. J. Martin, a newspaper man. As such, he had every legitimate reason to approach her; he would be collecting news on the atrocity at the bazaar, and it was certain that she would not be asleep after her harrowing experience—she would probably be home, being interviewed by other representatives of the press.