Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated)

by Paul Chadwick

  “She must have told you,” the man was saying. “We found it on her. She must have known what it meant.”

  “No—no,” the woman replied. “She didn’t tell me anything. After Cora went to work for Mr. Roemer I never saw much of her. She was secretive always. I never questioned her.”

  “It’s the only clue,” the man’s voice continued stubbornly. “If you can tell me what it means, you’ll be helping the police. You’ll be helping to run down the murderer who killed your sister. Did she ever own a car?”

  “No—she didn’t drive, I tell you. She never had a car.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Yes—yes, I’m sure.”

  There was silence for a moment, and in this silence Agent “X” quietly opened the door. His eyes were gleaming. His body was tense. The action he planned was high-handed, unusual even for him; but impulse had its place in his working methods. Here was an opportunity! The police had one clue—one he hadn’t heard of. What was it? The police might not like it—but, to aid in running down the murderer of Scanlon, he would demand that they share that clue with him.

  But, as he opened the door, he paused in sudden, breathless amazement. Fate had played a trick on him. The one man he didn’t want to meet was here! Any ordinary dick from the Homicide Squad he could have handled without exciting suspicion. But the man standing in the kitchen facing him was Inspector John Burks, head of the bureau—and his own double!

  Chapter IV

  A Cipher Solved

  IN that first instant it was evident that the inspector had seen him. Utter stupefaction made Burks’s face sag for a moment. His eyes bulged. His thin-lipped mouth opened. So exact was the impersonation that the door might have been a mirror and Agent “X” merely the reflection of himself.

  The woman, Cora Stenstrom’s sister, was dumfounded, too. Her gaunt homely face assumed an expression of blank amazement.

  In the flash of a second, Agent “X’s” eyes dropped from the inspector’s face to his hand. Burks was holding a slip of paper between tense fingers. On it were letters and figures. Here was the clue that the police had found.

  The damage was done now. There was no drawing back. The Agent acted quickly, daringly.

  So swiftly that the inspector and the woman could only gape, he crossed the room, gliding up to Burks’s side. He uttered an impersonal, coldly clipped sentence.

  “Let me see what you have there, Inspector.”

  It was not a request, but an order. Burks’s mouth closed with a snap. His pale, gaunt face flushed to a mottled, furious red.

  “Secret Agent ‘X,’” he gasped. There was, he knew, only one man in the world who would attempt such a thing or dare such a disguise. His fingers dropped the paper. His hand dived toward his coat pocket The significant bulge there showed that a police automatic was cradled inside the cloth.

  But, in that split second, Agent “X” made his decision. Burks would shoot him dead without question, thinking he had killed a notorious criminal. “X” didn’t give the inspector a chance to draw his gun.

  His fist lashed outward and upward in a flashingly swift arc. A hundred and sixty-five pounds of bone and muscle were behind the fist. The Agent’s knuckles struck the point of Burks’s chin. It was a boxer’s blow, straight to the “button.” Without so much as a groan, Burks staggered backward and collapsed. He lay peacefully on the floor, like a man in a deep sleep.

  Secret Agent “X” stooped and picked up the paper on the floor. It was only a slip. At first glance the numbers and letters on it seemed simple enough.

  “A Green Ford 1920 D EHEC.”

  While the woman stood frozen, too terrified to speak, Agent “X’s” eyes ran over it. He realized instantly that it was some sort of cipher. Burks had questioned the woman about it. She had given him no satisfaction. She evidently knew nothing about her sister’s private life. It seemed useless to question her further.

  The woman, recovering a little, opened her mouth to scream, but Agent “X” silenced her with an abrupt, commanding gesture.

  “Quiet!” he ordered.

  With no other word to the amazed woman, he turned on his heel and left the house, striding swiftly through the front door. He walked boldly down the walk and stepped into Burks’s car at the curb. Instead of getting in back, he took a seat directly beside the driver.

  “Get going!” he said.

  The driver, half asleep, snapped into alertness.

  “Yes, sir. Where to?”

  Agent “X” didn’t answer. He was holding the slip of paper under the instrument-board light. His face, the face of Inspector Burks, was a blank, but his pulses were racing with excitement. What was this clue that had baffled the police?

  “A Green Ford 1920 D EHEC.”

  While the chauffeur slid the car into gear and shot away from the curb, Agent “X” studied it.

  Those letters at the end of the sentence corresponded to no auto license number he had ever seen. The woman had told Burks that her murdered sister had not even known how to drive a car. Here was mystery. Here was a challenge to the Agent’s cunning. Here also was something that might lead him to the door of the murderer of Scanlon.

  “A Green Ford 1920 D EHEC.”

  The clue was now in the hands of no ordinary police official. It was in the hands of a man of brilliant insight, a man trained to look beneath the surface and thread his way through the devious, complex channels of cryptography, code systems, and ciphergrams.

  He began in his mind to place letters and figures beneath the sentence. He didn’t need any pencil. He had the power of visualization. Seconds passed—and, under the keenness of his analytical brain, the words that had seemed so baffling became understandable.

  “Where to, chief?” repeated the driver uneasily. But Agent “X” waved his hand impatiently.

  “Anywhere,” he said.

  As the car rolled on, a perplexed chauffeur at the wheel, the Agent translated the sentence to his own satisfaction.

  THERE were five letters at the end of it—EHEC, preceded by a D. The numbers 1920 puzzled him a moment, then made his task easier. There was no letter in the alphabet corresponding to nought. The Agent therefore took 19 and 20, counted along the alphabet and substituted letters for them—the letters “S” and “T.” Next he substituted numbers for the letters. This gave him 4, corresponding: to D, and 5853, corresponding to EHEC.

  To him it was child’s play. The thing was a simple substitution cipher. He now had a telephone number—Stuyvesant 4 5853. He guessed at once why such a simple cipher had been used. The maker of it had counted on the words “A Green Ford 1920” to confuse and throw any investigator off the track. They had so far; but the Agent combined the first words into a name, “A. Greenford.”

  His eyes were snapping with excitement. Why had Cora Stenstrom, the murdered woman, carried this name and telephone with her? He remembered the laboratory window with its marks of a jimmy meant to deceive. Had Cora Stenstrom herself opened that window? Her dead lips could never tell, but Agent “X” hoped to fathom their secret.

  For a moment he fingered the slip of paper tensely, forgetful of where he was. Then he felt Burks’s chauffeur’s eyes upon him. The man’s face was troubled, uneasy.

  “You must ’a found out something, chief. That woman must ’a give you a tip. Where’d you like to go next—if it ain’t too much trouble?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Agent “X” grimly. “I’m looking for a murderer.”

  “Yeah, I know it, chief, bu—”

  “A kid and a woman are waiting,” muttered “X” again softly, thinking of Bill Scanlon’s wife and young son, seeming to see once more the face of a man who would not come back. A sudden harsh look sprang into his eyes.

  The chauffeur lifted a hand from the wheel and, in spite of the winter chill, wiped sweat from his forehead. His face was twisted nervously now. He seemed to sense that something was wrong. There was a look of fear and awe in his eyes
as he glanced sidewise at his superior.

  Secret Agent “X” laughed shortly, bitterly. They were crossing a brightly lighted avenue. Another dark street was ahead.

  “Just keep going,” he said, “I’ll tell you when—”

  He stopped speaking. Another sound had cut in upon his words. The short-wave police radio in the front of the car had suddenly come to life. There was a rattle, a buzz. The chauffeur touched the dial.

  “Calling all cars!” came the voice of the headquarters’ announcer. “Calling all cars. Look out for—”

  With a movement so quick that the eyes of the chauffeur could hardly follow it, Secret Agent “X” reached out and turned the dial, cutting off the voice.

  “Stop right here,” he said quickly.

  The car came to a halt with a screech of brakes. Agent “X” jumped put, then paused for an instant, staring back at the wondering eyes of the police chauffeur.

  “What is it, chief? What’s the matter?” the man asked.

  With a strange, sardonic smile on his lips Secret Agent “X” reached into his pocket He drew out the slip of paper with the code upon it, handed it to the chauffeur.

  “Give that to Inspector Burks,” he said, “with my compliments.”

  “Inspector Burks! Why—what the hell!”

  Words tumbled from the chauffeur’s lips; but Secret Agent “X” didn’t wait to reply. He slipped around the car, darted across the sidewalk into the shadow of a hedge. The darkness seemed to open up, swallow him.

  But behind him, as the excited hand of the chauffeur turned it on again, came the blatant, metallic sound of the police radio.

  “Look out for Inspector Burks’s official car driven by man impersonating him. Chauffeur believed murdered. Look out for escaping killer. Calling all cars!”

  WITH the gleam of sardonic amusement still in his eyes, the Secret Agent ducked between two houses, crossed to another street, and continued on into the night.

  He stopped for a moment in the blackness of an alley to change his disguise. As the impersonator of Inspector Burks, he was a marked man now. Police cars would be combing the city. His present make-up would be like a death warrant.

  His quick, deft fingers removed it, and pulled other materials from a deep inner lining of his coat. Disguises that took patient minutes to build up could be destroyed quickly. He had other stock make-ups for just such emergencies as this.

  Working in the dark by a sense of touch alone, he drew the white toupee from his head, changed it to a gray one, and molded his face into new lines.

  He came out of the alley disguised as a man of middle age, with thick lips and sagging face muscles. Then he walked through the night-shrouded streets to the nearest drug store. In a telephone booth, he dialed information. He gave the number he had deciphered and learned that it was the Hotel Sherwood.

  Step by step he was creeping ahead. Creeping toward what? Toward the solution of the mystery, toward defeat—death? It was certain that the person who had committed four terrible murders wouldn’t stop at committing others. It was certain that menace like a sinister shadow darkened the path that “X” had chosen to follow.

  Still disguised as a well-dressed man of middle age, he took a taxi to within two blocks of the Hotel Sherwood. Smoking a cigarette, he walked into the lobby. It was one of the city’s smaller, less expensive hostelries. A place where many transient out-of-towners stopped. His presence attracted little attention. And “X” always prepared for small emergencies, acted deftly, swiftly, now.

  He fished in his pocket, drew out a complimentary theater ticket that had been handed to him in a restaurant. Dropping this into a yellow envelope, he sealed it and wrote “A. Greenford” on the outside. He moved across the lobby, dropped the envelope on the reception clerk’s desk, and, even before the clerk had seen it he went back to a seat beside an ornamental palm. From here he saw the clerk pick up the envelope and place it in a numbered box.

  A half hour went by, an hour, while the Agent waited tensely. Many cigarettes passed through his fingers. His nerves were screaming for action. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw a dark, quick-moving man come out of the hotel’s elevator.

  The man walked jerkily to the desk and asked a question. The clerk reached into the tier of boxes behind him, drew out the yellow envelope and tossed it on the counter. The Agent’s eyes, brightly alert, took in every move.

  The dark man opened the envelope, frowned at the ticket and threw it irritably into a cuspidor.

  Still frowning, he turned and moved toward a seat in the lobby. He had a brownish, pasty complexion, thin, cruel lips and deep-set eyes.

  He stopped suddenly, turning his head toward the door.

  Newsboys in the street outside were crying shrilly, shouting:

  “Extra! Extra!”

  One of them came into the hotel’s lobby brandishing a paper.

  “Extra! Read all about the big murder! Federal man killed! Read all about the big murder!”

  The dark-faced Mr. Greenford jumped out of his chair and stepped forward tensely. He fumbled in his pocket, produced coins, and bought a paper. Agent “X” watching intently, noticed the sudden change that came over Greenford’s face. Its pastiness seemed to increase. Evil lines showed around his thin mouth. He retired to a corner with the paper in his hand.

  Agent “X” quickly signaled the boy and bought one himself.

  Here was the terrible story of Bill Scanlon’s murder. Here was a picture of him and his wife and small son. Here was the record of his long and faithful service with the Department of Criminal Investigation. Telegraph wires had been humming. The tabloid presses had been busy spewing out a special edition to broadcast this latest strangler horror. The police had been forced to release details to eager reporters. The papers had played it up.

  “Unseen Strangler Claims Fourth Victim,” the headlines screamed.

  But Agent “X” hardly glanced at the story inside. He knew more than these startling lines told. He was watching the man who called himself “A. Greenford.”

  The dark-faced stranger was devouring the details of the killing, his long, thin hands trembling, one black eyebrow twitching nervously.

  MINUTES passed. The man did not move. Then a uniformed telegraph messenger stepped into the hotel lobby. He went to the desk, handed a telegram to the clerk. The clerk signed for it, gave it to a bellhop. The bellhop’s voice rose.

  “Paging Mr. Greenford. Telegram for Mr. Greenford.”

  Agent “X” acted swiftly, daringly again. He rose from his seat, held his hand up and signaled to the boy. Before the angry, incredulous eyes of the dark-faced man in the corner, he snatched the telegram and slipped a shiny quarter into the bellhop’s hand. Then abruptly, he slit the envelope with his finger and read the message inside.

  “Arthur Greenford, Hotel Sherwood,” it said. “Come to No. 40 Bradley Square, top floor, rear, midnight. Important. B.M.”

  The Agent saw that the dark-faced man had leaped out of his chair and was coming toward him. He did not wait. Thrusting the telegram into his pocket, he turned and walked swiftly to the door.

  He knew that he was being followed. There was an excited gleam in his eyes. The message of the telegram carried mystery with it. It was almost as mysterious as the sentence found on the body of the murdered Cora Stenstrom—the sentence that Secret Agent “X” had deciphered. Who was B.M.? What motive was behind his midnight invitation? Agent “X” would find out.

  Theater crowds were thick on the sidewalk outside. Laughing, jostling people moved along beneath the bright, gay lights. They stared at the gaudy, alluring theater posters, blinked at the flashing neon tubes. They did not sense, as “X” did, the sinister spirit of murder that seemed to stalk through the night.

  He mingled in the crowd quickly, but not too quickly. He turned his head once. The dark-faced man behind him was catching up. Agent “X” lighted a cigarette. He strode ahead as though preoccupied with his own thoughts. He did not turn when so
meone touched his arm. Then a hoarse voice spoke in his ear.

  “Wait—you have something of mine!”

  Agent “X” looked around then. The man who called himself Arthur Greenford was standing tensely at his side. His face was contorted with emotion. Fear and suspicion glared from the depths of his black eyes.

  “That telegram was meant for me,” he hissed. “What did you mean by taking it? Who are you?”

  Agent “X” faced him squarely. His own eyes were blazing with excitement.

  “Perhaps my name is Greenford, too,” he said.

  “Perhaps—and perhaps not. You will give me that telegram, or—”

  There was a sinister threat in the man’s incompleted sentence. The Agent smiled bleakly.

  “You shall have it if you want it,” he said. “A most unfortunate mistake!”

  His hand dived into his packet. It came out clutching the yellow telegram. Greenford could not see the small metal tube concealed in the palm of the Agent’s hand. The jostling crowd milled around them. Agent “X” held the telegram out. Greenford reached out a hand to take it. The Secret Agent’s fingers moved. He held the tube tensely, skillfully. His thumb was pressing one end. From the other, the open end of the tube, a hair-thin needle flashed out. It penetrated the skin of Greenford’s wrist, buried itself for an instant in his flesh. The prick of its point was hardly more noticeable than the bite of a mosquito.

  Greenford drew his arm away, hardly knowing what had happened. He glanced at the Agent, glanced around. But the telegram was in his fingers. Its message seemed to hold him fascinated. He had not seen ths Agent palm the tube, a miniature hypodermic needle. An instant more and Secret Agent “X” had turned his back and was striding on.

  Greenford called after him, started in pursuit again. But he had taken no more than a half-dozen steps when he began to stagger. He fell against a woman at his left, pulled himself up, and swayed to the right. Then suddenly his knees gave way under him. With his face muscles sagging and a look of utter perplexity in his eyes, he fell to the pavement.