“You are an impulsive woman, Nina—too impulsive for one of your vocation.”
He turned toward the door. Behind him the trigger mechanism of the automatic clicked emptily four times. She had tried to pump a stream of bullets into his back—tried to murder him.
He turned and bowed.
“I took the precaution,” he said, “of removing the cartridges while we were having our little ride.”
She gasped and crouched, glaring at him.
“You will be sensible,” he continued, “and wait till I have completed negotiations with a certain party. If you call the police or kill me now, all will be lost. But I see that you are not going to be sensible, dear Nina. You are shockingly intoxicated with the greed for gold. Therefore—”
He reached forward, yanked the cord of the telephone out of the wall, flinging the instrument down. Then, with a mocking bow, he opened the door and walked out, taking the key from the lock. Outside, he locked the door and slipped the key in his pocket. It would be some time before she got out, and meanwhile he had much to do.
Chapter IX
The Black Master’s Threat
IT was late, nearly one-thirty; but the Agent chartered another cab and gave an address on Twenty-third Street. The taxi sped downtown. It drew up in the middle of the block before an apartment house.
The Agent paid the driver, then, before entering the building, stepped among the shadows on the opposite side of the street. Two walls came together here forming a dark recess. From it, unobserved, he could look up at the side of the apartment. Many windows were still lighted. There was a light in a window on the sixth floor.
The Secret Agent moved his lips and gave a strange, low whistle. It was melodious yet eerie with an oddly ventriloquistic note. No one standing even a few feet from “X” could have told where it came from. It seemed to fill the whole air and it echoed in both directions along the quiet street.
The shade of the window with the light in it on the sixth floor moved upward. The window was raised and a girl’s head suddenly appeared. From the street her features were visible. She was no more than an enticing silhouette against the light in the room behind her. She looked searchingly up and down the dark block as the Agent repeated the whistle. Then, seeing nothing, she withdrew and closed the window.
The Agent strode quickly into the apartment building, ascended in the automatic lift, and pressed the button of suite No. 6B.
The click of high heels sounded on the parquet flooring inside. The door opened, and the girl who had looked out the window stood framed in the threshold. She, too, was blonde, like Nina, but she was of an altogether different type.
The small, warm oval of her face held sweetness and poise. Her blue eyes were frank, their keenness softened by long, silky lashes that swept to her cheeks. The gleaming wealth of her hair, alive with the glow of the light behind her, made a sunny halo around her head, blending with the creamy whiteness of her neck. Her petite figure was draped in clinging lounging pajamas that revealed its shapeliness. A coolie coat had been flung over the pajamas. She drew this hastily around her and looked questioningly at the man in the doorway.
Her eyes showed no recognition, but her soft warm lips seemed ready to break into a smile. Unable to penetrate his disguise, she was waiting for a signal. He gave it to her, making a motion in the air with his finger—the sign of an X.
Her expression changed instantly. The man before her, whose disguise was so perfect, had revealed his identity by that mysterious gesture. His whistle had told her he was on the way. Now he stood before her—Secret Agent “X.”
The girl’s blue eyes showed infinite respect. She had never seen the real face hidden behind his thousand disguises. He had fooled her again and again, tested out dozens of make-ups on her. Only on rare occasions, when the old wound in his side gave him a twinge of pain and he pressed his hand to it in a characteristic gesture, had she known who he was without being told by some sign or symbol.
There were reasons for the respect and friendship she felt for this strange man. He had been a friend of her father’s—the father who was a police captain slain by underworld bullets. She knew that Agent “X” waged ceaseless warfare on that underworld that she hated and despised.
In her capacity of newspaper woman, a reporter on the Herald, she was often able to help him indirectly, give him information about people, or carry out some order that would contribute to the capture of a criminal.
It made her happy to do this, even when by doing so she got into danger herself. And, being human and feminine, she was curious about the real man behind those brilliant disguises. There was in her something that responded to the strange magnetism, courage and daring of Secret Agent “X.” She sensed that death was always at his elbow. She knew there was little hope of any romance between them. But by comparison with him, other men seemed tame, uninteresting.
SHE walked ahead of him now into the comfortable living room of the apartment she maintained by her own hard work.
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll get you some cigarettes.”
The Agent was silent, but his strange burning eyes followed her. She was a girl in a million, as clever and brave as she was beautiful.
“The harvester has been at work,” he said abruptly.
Betty Dale turned and looked at him. Agent “X” seldom spoke like ordinary men. There were generally innuendoes, subtleties, and double meanings in everything he said. His speech was as mysterious as his person.
He was holding a sheaf of bills in his hand now. She saw many bank notes of high denomination. He flipped them on the table.
“For victims of the wolf,” he said.
She knew at once what he meant. The money that the Agent took from criminals was used to help the victims of criminals. Betty Dale saw to that. Simply, unpretentiously, she distributed what he gave her among people whom crime had in some way left destitute. The wives and small children of men serving prison sentences. Widows and orphans of murder victims.
Was it only to bring her money that the Agent had come?
She saw that tonight he seemed tense and ill at ease. There was an odd light in his eyes, restlessness in the movements of his body.
“Is there any other way I can help yon?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head, blowing quick jets of smoke through his nostrils.
“Ghost fingers are better dealt with alone.”
The girl’s face blanched at this. Her eyes widened.
“You are fighting the Spectral Strangler then,” she said. “There’s danger—terrible danger in that. Four people have been killed already. Be careful for my—for every one’s sake.”
The Agent nodded grimly.
“The trail is getting warm,” he said.
She came closer and spoke again.
“I’ve read about those murders. Every one is talking about them. They are ghastly, unthinkable. I was going to ask a favor of you—but now, now I won’t.”
For Betty to ask any sort of favor of him was so unusual that the Agent stared at her keenly. Then he spoke quickly.
“A girl with sunny hair and sunlight in her heart has helped me often,” he said. “There are debts that it is a pleasure to pay back. Your favor, whatever it is, is granted.”
A flood of color swept into Betty Dale’s cheeks. For a moment she turned her face away, hiding the sudden surge of emotion she didn’t want “X” to see. Love must never come between them, never interfere with his work. And sometimes in his presence, when he showed the admiration he felt for her, she had to fight love down.
“I was going to ask,” she said huskily, “that you go with me to Colonel Gordon Crandal’s party tomorrow night. The paper wants me to cover it. There’s the society angle—and there’s something else.”
“Something else?” he echoed, caught by the sudden frown on her face.
“Yes,” she said. “Colonel Crandal is rich, aristocratic—and the Crandal jewel collection is famous. He’s receiv
ed threats from some criminal who plans to steal them. The Herald was tipped off tonight. There’ll be lots of detectives at the party. The police commissioner himself will be among the guests.”
“Tell me more about this criminal,” he said. “What crook plans such a daring robbery?”
“No one knows. He calls himself the Black Master.”
It was Agent “X” who paled this time beneath his disguise. For a moment his long thin fingers tightened over his cigarette, squeezing it until tiny golden shreds of tobacco spilled to the floor.
“The Black Master?” he echoed harshly.
“Yes—do you know of him?”
He did not reply, but the vivid light of deep emotion sprang into his eyes. He was silent for seconds while the girl studied his face. Then he spoke hoarsely.
“Only death could keep me away from Colonel Crandal’s party, Betty. You are assured of an escort who will try to match in gallantry the beauty of the girl he accompanies.”
Chapter X
A Brilliant Gathering
THE Crandal name was an old and honored one. The Crandal mansion, owned now by Colonel Gordon Crandal, a reserve officer with a distinguished war record, was one of the city’s show places. It occupied nearly a whole city block. Great iron gates closed the street entrance except at such times as the owner chose to admit guests.
Tonight was one of those times. The many windows of the Crandal mansion were brightly lighted. An orchestra was playing seductive dance music. The huge ballroom, where presidents and visiting royalty had danced, was open, its furniture dusted, its ancient crystal chandeliers glittering impressively.
The end of prohibition had brought old-time gaiety back. The portraits of long-dead ancestors in tarnished frames seemed to smile down in approval at the handsomely-dressed company. Men were there in tail coats and dinner jackets. Ladies in low-cut evening gowns. Radiant debutantes were attired to reveal charms that would lure hesitant bachelors into the bonds of matrimony.
Faithful old servants of the Crandal family moved silently about the polished floors, trays of cocktails in their blue-veined hands. They seemed as much of an inheritance as the house itself.
Betty Dale and her escort came shortly before nine—shortly before the fashionable hour so that Betty, because of her newspaper work, wouldn’t miss seeing the arrival of the more impressive guests.
She wore blue slippers and a clinging blue dress, complementing the gold of her hair. A white evening wrap was thrown about her shapely shoulders. Her loveliness rivaled that of any blue blood present.
Girls cast envious glances at her as she entered. Men paused to stare in admiration. Her escort came in for a share of attention, too.
Tall and immaculately dressed in formal evening clothes, his face had the lean, healthy look of an out-of-doors man. It was darkly tanned. His hair swept straight back from a strong forehead. His temples were slightly, becomingly gray.
Betty Dale introduced him to those of the guests she knew.
“I want you to meet Clark Manning, the explorer,” she said.
She spoke convincingly. People mumbled that they had often heard of Clark Manning. To admit that they hadn’t would have seemed both rude and ignorant. A gushing lady spoke admiringly of Manning’s travel books—taking care not to mention any particular titles. Manning seemed like a man worth cultivating. His burning, deep-set eyes were strangely compelling and mysterious.
A friend of Betty’s brought Colonel Crandal up to them. The scion of the ancient family was in his late forties, tall, gray-haired, poised. He was still a bachelor and eager, hopeful debutantes flocked around him like satellites around a star.
He acknowledged his introduction to Betty Dale and her escort, Secret Agent “X,” now posing as Clark Manning, explorer.
The colonel’s swift, experienced eyes appraised Betty from her trim little slippered feet to the sunny gold of her hair. Then he spoke debonairly, asked her to dance, and bore her off, leaving a half-dozen disappointed young ladies in his wake.
The girls looked to Secret Agent “X” for consolation. They begged him to tell them about his explorations. But he shook his head modestly. In a few minutes he edged away and strode off to reconnoiter by himself.
HE studied the smiling, gay faces around him. Would they be so smiling, so gay if they knew that the threat of the Black Master hung like an evil shadow over this house? Wouldn’t their bright laughter turn to whispers of ghastly fear if they knew that the man who had threatened Crandal was the murderer who killed with invisible, choking fingers?
Among the guests were quiet-faced men in dinner jackets—men who seemed to have no part in the festivities.
These were agency and police detectives detailed to watch and protect Crandal’s famous jewels from the menace of a daring criminal. But even they, “X” felt certain, didn’t know with whom they were dealing. They didn’t know that the Black Master and the dealer in swift, strangling death were one and the same.
Agent “X’s” gaze was hawklike. Was it possible that the murderer of Scanlon and those others was somewhere in this brilliant gathering?
His eyes wandered from face to face. He saw the city’s tall, suave police commissioner talking to a group of ladies, thrilling them with tales of his police experiences, his successful contests with criminals. Before this night was over the commissioner might have something else to think about—something too ghastly perhaps to relate as drawing room conversation.
Then Agent “X” gave a sudden start.
More guests were arriving. He saw a flash of light on blonde hair. A woman in a flame-colored evening gown came through the ballroom door. She moved tigerishly, sinuously across the floor, a tall, dark man at her side. She was smiling radiantly—smiling with her red lips, but her eyes did not smile. They had the cold, appraising look of an adventuress.
“Nina!” whispered the Agent tensely under his breath.
It was a shock to see her here—a surprise. Yet, staring around at the mixed assemblage, he saw that her presence, was not altogether out of place.
Whispers had it that Colonel Crandal planned to run for the legislature. People of all types and from all walks of life had been invited to this party. A politician and a city commissioner hovered around the punch bowl. A night-club hostess leaned on the arm of one.
Beyond them, fat and baggily dressed, was Nick Baroni, a big shot in the days when gangdom rode to wealth and power on a flood of illegal liquor. He had paid his income taxes, escaped jail. He had reformed, so rumor had it, and was spending his money to gain entree into society. A thin veneer of social polish hid brutal instincts that slumbered behind his oily, massaged face. He was balancing a cocktail glass in fingers that had once tensed around the vibrating trigger of a Tommy gun.
The Secret Agent’s lips curled.
Then his eyes swiveled back to the woman in the red dress. He edged close, lighting a cigarette, and heard Nina and her escort introduced.
“Piere DuBrong and the Countess Rocazy,” the lady who presented them said.
Nina was carrying it off well. An elaborate coiffure had been artfully molded to soften the lines of her face. Her nails were stained a vivid crimson. She held a small fan in her hand, pressing it close against her white bosom. She was capitalizing on her exotic charm, playing on the gullibility of social climbers to whom a European title was a thing before which to bow down and worship. But Agent “X” was not impressed. He believed that her title was bogus.
The man with her, Piere DuBrong, had the alert hungry look of a questing hawk. His glittering eyes indicated a keen, acquisitive brain. The two appeared well matched.
But why were they here?
Secret Agent “X” made discreet queries. Who was the charming countess? Who was the tall man with her? He learned that DuBrong was attached to the embassy and that Countess Rocazy was a friend of his, a lovely woman just over from Europe who could speak excellent English.
On the surface that explained matters. But Agen
t “X” wasn’t satisfied. His sense of impending menace deepened. The gaiety of the gathering impressed him now as gaudy beauty hiding something darkly evil. The bright skin of a poisonous serpent! A blood-hungry beast concealed in a bed of gay flowers! Nina Rocazy was like that—a tigress cloaking her claws behind velvet fur until the moment came to spring.
She and her escort had separated now. Agent “X” was introduced to her and even danced with her. He felt the strange undercurrent of drama as he held the woman in his arms. What would her reactions be if she suddenly learned that her dancing partner was the same man who had accompanied her on that wild taxi ride which had so nearly been fatal? What would she say if he told her he was the same man she had tried to kill and who had locked her in her apartment?
He gasped at her audacity when she asked if he thought it would be possible to see the Crandal jewels.
“I have heard so much of the riches of Americans,” she said. “Jewels are riches that even we poor women can understand. They attract us as children are attracted to bright, pretty baubles. There must be other women here who would like to see them, too.”
Agent “X” nodded. She did not understand the mocking light in his eyes.
“Such a woman as you would be doubly appreciative,” he said.
Beneath her smile, lines of avarice showed. Money, the things that money could buy, were the gods she lived by. But would she have cheek enough to make such a request to Colonel Crandal?
“There has been a threat,” he said. “A criminal has announced that he intends to steal the jewels.”
He watched her face, but her hard eyes were inscrutable. She shrugged.
“Colonel Crandal is a brave man. He will not fear threats.”
THE dance ended and he left her. But he followed her through the milling company and saw her cleverly insinuate herself into the group around the colonel. Smiling radiantly, acting as though the impulse had suddenly come to her, she asked if she might see the famous gem collection.
For a moment Colonel Crandal’s face showed surprise. Then he smiled and nodded.
Secret Agent X – The Complete Series Volume 1 (Annotated) Page 18
