The Pulp Hero

by Theodore A. Tinsley

  His suspicions were confirmed. The man within that shell was Fred Barton. Fred Barton, who was supposed to have been kidnapped; Fred Barton who had just consigned his friend, Jack Larrabie, to horrible death by fire!

  It took fifteen minutes to get him out of that cumbersome suit of combination armor and padding. The Agent was careful to prevent him from using that deadly right arm that controlled the secret of the burning death.

  He snapped a pair of handcuffs on young Barton’s wrists when he dragged him out of the shell of armor. Barton tried to resist, struggled with maniacal strength. But the Agent twisted his arms in a punishing grip, and tightened the cuffs.

  Barton stood there, breathing heavily, his face flushed, while “X” knelt beside the monster’s suit, found the tube that ran from the underneath metal finger in the right hand to a compact tank strapped on the inside of the back.

  He looked up at Barton. “You were always a clever chemist, Barton. This gas that you use here—it could have made you famous; you would have been hailed as a leader in your field—the discoverer of an invisible gas that ignites upon contact with organic substance. Why did you employ it in this way?”

  Barton’s youthful face twisted into a leer of malice and hatred. “You’ve ruined the greatest scheme the world has ever known! In a short time I would have had more power than any king or emperor!” He took an impulsive step forward.

  “Whoever you are, you must be clever, ingenious, to have fought me this way. Why not join me? There will be little reward for you in turning me over to the police compared to what I can offer you. With the secret of that gas, two such men as you and I could achieve world empire. What do you say!”

  “X” paid no attention to the mad offer of partnership in crime. He gazed speculatively at Barton, reflecting that there were strange motives in the world which impelled men to do mad things. This young man, possessed of wealth, education, culture, had turned to crime because of those very endowments which the world envied; surfeit of good fortune had made life empty—boring for him; and his brilliant mind had sought in crime the thrills that his jaded appetite craved.

  “X” said aloud, “You had no regard even for your own father. You permitted him to think you were kidnapped—so that you would be free to appear as the monster!”

  Barton waved the comment away impatiently. “What of it!” His voice became wheedling, eager. “Will you join me? You and I—nobody could stop us. We could climb the heights of power together!”

  “X” shook his head. “And meet the same fate that your other partners met?”

  Barton jerked his head up, eyes startled.

  The Agent went on inexorably. “Of course you had partners. You didn’t operate on those convicts’ faces yourself—it was Jack Larrabie here that did that. And Harry Pringle, too. He planned the jail break because of his intimate knowledge of the layout of the State Prison—his father is the deputy police commissioner.”

  Barton stared at the Agent, fascinated, as he went on. “And Ranny Coulter—another of your jaded young thrill-seekers. This is his father’s house. The whole row belongs to his father. He furnished your headquarters. You were all going to take turns at acting as the monster. But you killed them all, one after the other, when you found you didn’t need them any longer.”

  The Agent spoke bitterly now. He pointed an accusing finger. “Barton, you are the worst of the lot—for you betrayed even your own associates.

  “I have no sympathy for you—only for your father, for the fathers of Larrabie, and Coulter, and Pringle. I am thinking of the disgrace, the shame that you four thrill-seeking egomaniacs have brought upon their heads!”

  Barton asked fiercely, “Who are you, anyway?”

  “You may call me—Secret Agent ‘X’!”

  Barton’s body tautened. He raised his manacled hands in the air, leaped at “X” in a furious, desperate, fanatical onslaught. He brought his joined hands down in a chopping blow at the Agent’s skull.

  But “X” had jumped inside his guard, so that the steel cuffs glanced off his shoulder. The Agent at the same time swung a hard right list to Barton’s middle, doubling him up. Barton sagged weakly to the floor. There were tears of defeat in his eyes. His breath, taken away by that blow, came in short gasps. His hands fumbled in his vest pocket, came out with a small pellet. They flashed upward, and the pellet disappeared in his mouth. He gulped, and swallowed.

  Now he smiled grotesquely. “I’ve saved you the trouble of calling the police!” he said. “You win, Sec—”

  His whole body stiffened, his face became crimson, and he collapsed.

  The Agent stooped beside him. He was dead.

  CHAPTER XXII

  “De Mortuis Nihil Nisi Bonum”

  Now Secret Agent “X” worked swiftly, but with purpose. He stepped to the desk, rummaged through drawers, until he found a sealed envelope. He ripped this open, inspected the sheet of paper within. It was headed, “Formula for nitrocetylene.” Below it were chemical symbols which the Agent took care not to look at. He did not want the responsibility of possessing the knowledge of that hideous, death-dealing gas.

  Slowly, somberly, he ripped the paper to shreds, touched a match to them.

  Then he stepped out of that room of horror, into another passage. At the end of this passage was a curtained doorway. “X” parted the curtains, peered through. He saw that the doorway opened upon a platform in a large room. Before the platform, rows of chairs were arranged in a semicircle. And the chairs were occupied—all but two of them, by the figures of the robot-like ex-convicts.

  They were evidently awaiting the arrival of their master upon the platform; they must have been summoned for a meeting which would never take place now.

  One of the robots noticed the crack in the curtains, started up in his chair. “X” gave him no time to warn the others. He held in his hand three glass capsules, larger than the one he had used in his escape from the police car on Brooklyn Bridge. They were colored red; they contained not ammonia, but the anaesthetizing gas which the Agent used in his gun. He stepped through the curtains, onto the platform, and hurled the three capsules among the convicts.

  He did not wait to see the effects; he knew that within a matter of seconds they would be rendered unconscious by that swiftly vaporizing gas, would remain that way for hours.

  He stepped back into the corridor, hurried back to the laboratory. There was a phone here, and he picked it up, dialed the number of Jim Hobart’s office. When Jim got on the wire, the Agent gave him the address of the house of death, issued swift instructions.

  “This is Fearson,” he said. “Come to this address at once. Bring with you a large black bag which Mr. Martin keeps in your office. Ring the outside bell, and I will take the bag from you.”

  That done, the Agent inspected the room carefully. He was seeking the hiding place of the safe which Barton had said contained the descriptions of all those convicts who were lying unconscious in the meeting hall—

  It was almost midnight when sirens sounded before that house of mystery and death. Headquarters cars, squad cars, radio cars filled the quiet street. Police swarmed in from every direction. They were headed by Deputy Commissioner Pringle in person, and they were there in answer to a mysterious telephone call. The caller had instructed them to go to this address in connection with the robot murders.

  Commissioner Pringle was the first up the steps, tried the door and found it open. Burly Inspector Burks, in charge of homicide, shouldered past him. “This is my job, Commissioner,” he grumbled. He strode into the dark hallway with drawn gun, flanked by two plain-clothes men with Thompsons.

  But they met no opposition. Not until they reached the cellar did they know that they had not been hoaxed.

  For there they found the laboratory, and on the floor the empty, monstrous armored shell of the being that had struck terror to the city. And clo
se by lay Fred Barton, youthful and innocent looking in death, beside the scorched body of Jack Larrabie.

  Pringle said with a catch in his voice, “Poor boys. They died trying to fight the monster. I hate to be the one to break the news to their families!” From the laboratory they passed down the hall, found the meeting room. Inspector Burks stepped onto the platform, looked down, and exclaimed, “What the hell is this!”

  The chairs had been cleared away from the center of the room. Where they had stood, there were now ranged in a long row twenty-five unconscious bodies. And the faces were not the faces of robots, but those of the very men who were being sought all over the country—the twenty-five convicts who had escaped from State Prison!

  Inspector Burks leaped from the platform, stooped and examined those heavy-breathing forms. To the chest of each was pinned a typewritten sheet bearing the identifying marks to be found on their bodies—marks which were part of the prison record of each man, and could not be denied.

  Burks exclaimed, “These are the robots! Feel their bodies—they’re wearing the bullet-proof clothing yet!”

  He placed a hand on their faces, cried, “Good God—this is make-up! Somebody’s fixed their faces to resemble their old selves. They’ve been delivered to us on a silver platter!”

  He arose, issued orders excitedly. Men hastened in, placed handcuffs on the unconscious convicts. A call was put in for the wagon.

  Pringle was trembling with emotion. “I wonder which of these convicts was the ringleader—which of them used the armor of the monster.”

  “We’ll never know,” Burks said morosely. “Whoever it was that laid them out here, must have taken out the one in the monster’s shell and set him here next to the rest. It makes no difference, though—they’ll all burn for murder!”

  Pringle sighed. “Well, there’ll be no more robot killings. At least Professor Larrabie, and Giles Barton will have the satisfaction of knowing that their sons’ deaths were not in vain. They can always be proud that their boys were brave enough to risk their lives against these killers!”

  And from somewhere in the distance there sounded the faint notes of an eerie whistle that jerked every man in the room to attention. That whistle was the inimitable signal of the man who was known as Secret Agent “X”—and it seemed to carry through the air the stamp of approval of Commissioner Pringle’s words.

  The secret of those four young men who had built a tower of terror upon a dream of power would forever be locked in the breast of a single man—Secret Agent “X.”

  For the sake of their families he had adopted the adage, “De mortuis, nihil nisi bonum! (“About the dead let no evil be spoken!”)

  1AUTHOR’S NOTE: Regular readers of these exploits will need no introduction to Secret Agent “X.” The man who hides his identity behind that symbol of the unknown quantity has figured in previous chronicles. Little is known about him personally, except that he saw active service during the War, was wounded in action, and later entered the Intelligence Service. In this branch he so distinguished himself that the value of his special resources and abilities was recognized by the government to be as necessary in peace times as in time of war. Accordingly, after the Armistice, a remarkable proposition was made to him by an official high in government circles. He was made a free-lance agent, commissioned to combat crime wherever it reared its ugly head in the country. It was guaranteed that his anonymity would be preserved, and he was given carte blanche to proceed in any manner that he saw fit, reporting to no one, responsible only to himself. The powers granted to him were unprecedented but they were warranted by the wave of unlawfulness that swept the land after the War, rendering the usual law enforcement agencies almost helpless.

  Secret Agent “X” as he became known, fully justified the confidence that had been placed in him. He never betrayed that trust, no matter what personal sacrifice his duty entailed. To finance his activities ten wealthy men, who were unknown to him and to whom he was unknown, subscribed an unlimited fund which is on deposit to his credit in the name of Elisha Pond at the First National Bank. As this fund becomes depleted by his necessary expenditures in the battle against crime, it is replenished by these wealthy men, who never ask an accounting, never know how it is used. But they feel that it has been well spent when they read in their newspapers of the destruction of another criminal gang, or of the capture of some vicious master criminal whom the police have been unable to cope with. Always, in these cases, there remains at the end an element of mystery, for the police themselves do not know how the discomfiture of the criminals was brought about, except that some mysterious force entered the situation at the opportune moment. Reading these accounts, those wealthy men smile knowingly, and feel that their money has been put to good use.

  2AUTHOR’S NOTE: This feeling of Leane’s was amply justified by past events. Jim Hobart had been a young policeman, discharged from the force in disgrace when the agent had met him. “X” had known that Hobart was innocent of the charges upon which his dismissal had been predicated, and he had befriended the red-haired, good-natured young man, given him employment. Hobart didn’t suspect the true identity of his employer. He knew only that his benefactor was a newspaper man by the name of A. J. Martin, and that Mr. Martin could do wonderful things, and had many strange powers. Only recently, on a case that the Agent had solved, he had so arranged it that Jim Hobart received credit for capturing the criminals. Due to this Hobart had received the commendation of the police commissioner and had been permitted to obtain a license as a private detective. He now operated the Hobart Detective Agency, the most profitable client being Mr. A. J. Martin. It looked very much as if Leane Manners would shortly become Mrs. Jim Hobart. It was thus that the Agent requited faithful services.

  3AUTHOR’S NOTE: Secret Agent “X” did not depend on any one organization, such as Jim Hobart’s detective agency, for all his information. At a good deal of trouble and expense, he built up the organization headed by Bates. “X” has steadfastly refused to disclose to the author just where the office is, or where Bates is located, or what the telephone number is. Men all over the country report to Bates, who is more or less of a clearing house for news of national importance. That “X” has other agents besides those headed by Bates there is no doubt. He often uses a man from Jim Hobart’s outfit, one or two from Bates’ office, and, perhaps, others whom I do not yet know about. The reason for this, I understand, is so that they may not be able to check with each other to discover his identity. One thing is very definite: though these men are from every walk in life, they have been thoroughly investigated by the Agent, and are absolutely dependable.

  4AUTHOR’S NOTE: The name of Gilly will be recalled by those who read the recent exploit of Secret Agent “X” related under the title of “Servants of the Skull.” Gilly was one of the vicious gunmen who acknowledged the criminal known as the Skull as his master. Gilly almost caused the Agent’s death during those exciting days of hairbreadth adventure; but when the Skull’s plans were disrupted, and his headquarters were invaded by the Police under the guidance of the Agent, Gilly had been captured with the others. Gilly had been serving a life sentence for his part in the Skull’s crimes when the jail break took place, and he was one of the twenty-five to escape.

  5AUTHOR’S NOTE: To the reader these disguises which the Agent assumes may appear to be simple matters, requiring little effort or expenditure of energy; just as, in hearing a pianist playing a difficult number, we may watch his fingers racing across the keyboard and imagine that it is easy. On the contrary, each disguise that “X” assumes requires a degree of skill, or artistry, of sheer genius that it is impossible to estimate. It is known how difficult is the modeling of a head by a sculptor working at his ease with clay. Imagine then, how much more difficult it is to model upon one’s own face the likeness of another man, duplicating facial muscles, pigmentation, and the thousand other detail
s that make the individuality of a man.

  6AUTHOR’S NOTE: These two operatives of Bates’, like all the others, had no idea who their real employer was, or what was the ultimate purpose of the various queer tasks that they were called upon to perform. All they knew was that their work was dangerous but not illegal, and that they were extremely well paid. Their loyalty to their unknown chief was above suspicion, and they never asked questions. Many of them, like Oliver, were reformed criminals; some, like Jim Hobart, were ex-policemen. There were even numbered among those on “X’s” payroll a former sword-swallower from a circus side-show, and a general of the old Imperial Russian Army.

  7AUTHOR’S NOTE: From the very first, upon entering into his strange career, the man who is known as Secret Agent “X” had decided that his life was forfeit to the cause he was espousing. He knew that peril would beset his every step, that there would await him around each corner the danger of a death without honor or acclaim—a death that might be lingering, full of agony. But long ago on a battlefield in France, when he recovered from a wound that should have killed him, he considered that his life was no longer his own; so he risked it daily, feeling that already he was living beyond the span of time allotted to him in the scheme of things. His sole regret upon the contemplation of death would be that he could no longer be of service to humanity in its constant struggle against evil.

  8AUTHOR’S NOTE: Betty Dale is already well known to readers of previous annals. The daughter of a police captain who was killed in action, she was left alone in the world but for Secret Agent “X,” who was a friend of her father’s. “X” aided her to finish her schooling, then saw her well placed as a reporter for a daily newspaper. Many times in the past had he found occasion to enlist her services in his battle with crime. And Betty had grown to care more than she liked to admit for this strange man, whose true features she had never seen.