Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2

by Paul Chadwick

  He moved catlike along the ground parallel with the wall. He was slowly approaching the spot where he had glimpsed the ominous shape.

  He felt certain now that it had been going over the wall when he saw it. Yet he had no proof of that. A windbreak of low evergreens made a dark line twenty feet from the wall. The creature might have slipped into them. The Agent waited, ears attuned to the infinitesimal sounds of night. The creature must not get away. Luck had played into his hands.

  Lightly, silently, he placed his feet on the top of the wall, tensed for the spring over. Then grass blades rustled behind him. Out of the blackness, from the direction of the evergreens, a huge furry shape hurtled at him.

  The Agent sensed, rather than saw it. But the spruces made a background as black as jet. He raised his gas gun, fired; and knew instantly that his aim had been poor.

  For a snarl came from the darkness slightly to his left. And before he could swing the gun again a heavy paw descended on his arm with paralyzing force, and the weapon was knocked from his fingers.

  Chapter III

  “Arrest That Man!”

  POWERFUL hairy arms enveloped the Agent’s body in a smothering embrace. In that instant he felt himself in the very shadow of death—either instant death at the hands of the great ape, or the slow death of sleeping sickness. For “X” had glimpsed the gleam of metal in the anthropoid’s powerful paw.

  His own hand vised over the creature’s wrist, warding off the deadly prongs of the germ-laden injector. The merest scrape of it against him, the merest skin abrasion—and all the knowledge of present-day science could not save him from the slow advance of the encephalitis bacilli. His features, too, would set inexorably in the rigidity of the ghastly Parkinsonian Mask.

  The creature’s repulsive breath fanned his face. Dimly he saw the glitter of eyes deep-sunken in its massive, hideous head. “X” lurched sidewise, threw the ape off balance. They crashed to the hard ground in what seemed a death grip.

  Would the gorilla, frustrated in the use of the man-made injector, resort to tooth and claw? That possibility made “X” battle with frenzied force. The lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, were linked up with his lonely struggle against horrible death.

  He panted, jerked an arm free, lashed out with clenched fist. The hairy creature grunted, seemed dazed for a moment. Then, with a guttural snarl, it tried to pin Agent “X” to the ground. For a moment, “X” was underneath. For a moment his grasp of the creature’s wrist, the wrist that held that terrible metal injector, weakened.

  The hairy coat of this inhuman monster made it hard for “X” to retain his grasp. But he knew a dozen tricks of leverage. He knew how to make use of his own strength and weight. He heaved upward, pushed back, toppled the creature off him, still retaining his grip on its arm.

  The Agent’s pulses were hammering. A vivid light glowed in his eyes. There was that in this ape’s actions that puzzled him—caused a dark, incredible suspicion to leap into his mind. But it was no more than a suspicion. There was no proof yet. There could be no proof unless he captured this fighting fury which sought to conquer him.

  He tried to get his free fingers around the creature’s throat But the ape struck “X” an agonizing blow in the side with upthrust knee. The full force of it landed on that puckered X-shaped scar close to the Agent’s heart. Pain from the old wound blossomed into life, gripped Agent “X” with paralyzing fingers of quivering agony.

  And in that moment, unable to move or breathe, his fingers on the great furred paw relaxed. The thing sprang away into the darkness, raced across the black lawn toward the spruce trees and disappeared behind them.

  Panting, the sweat of pain cold on his forehead, “X” rose to his feet. By sheer will power he conquered that wrenching agony in his side. He dropped to hands and knees, groping for his gas gun. He found it, and a moment later his left hand encountered the cold cylinder of his flashlight. But the other thing he sought—the metal, tooth-shaped injection device, which he had hoped the furred monster had dropped, was nowhere to be found.

  FOR another hour, grim-eyed, he hunted dark lawns and streets. He had kept the sinister germs of encephalitis from entering his blood, but he had lost in his first real encounter with this mysterious hairy emissary of microbe death.

  It seemed that his battle with the furred creature had driven it and the others off for good that night. Agent “X” wished now that he had come armed with a real bullet-shooting gun as well as his gas pistol.

  It was after eleven when he got back to the spot where he had parked his car. He drove toward the health commissioner’s office. As he neared, the Agent tensed. The fear-inspired quiet of Branford’s streets was broken now, and in its stead sounded the clamor of an angry mob.

  Torches made lurid light along the block. Swarming hundreds had gathered before the city hall. In their midst, a soap-box orator was shouting. Of huge proportion, with an ugly pockmarked face, there was a kind of twisted intelligence in the man’s features. Fanaticism fed the smoldering gleam in his eyes. His voice rose with a harsh note of passion:

  “Are we to stand like dumb beasts doing nothing while disease spreads among us and devours our children? These clever ‘priests of science’—what are they? Fools! And you are fools to look to them for help. Who loosed the scourge among us? They did—and they must be punished! But we must be allowed to leave the city before it is too late!”

  “X” shouldered his way through the muttering crowd. He strode up the steps of city hall. The voice of the radical fanatic screeched after him.

  “Look—there goes another doctor! What good are these medical men in a time of need? They are fools, fools, fools!”

  The crowd took up the cry. Jeers and catcalls followed “X.”

  A knot of policemen barred his way, nervously watching the angry mob. “X’s” credentials as Doctor Julius Smith admitted him. He found that the commissioner of health had returned. The commissioner was in his office in conference with one of Branford’s harassed physicians, but he granted “X” an immediate interview.

  Traub was a ponderously built man of the politician type. Small, shrewd eyes gleamed in his florid face. “X” introduced himself and Traub gestured with a fat hand toward the man beside him.

  “This is Doctor Roeber. He’s handling some of the worst cases of sleeping sickness in the town. He was telling me about ’em.”

  “X” nodded to Roeber, a forceful-looking man whose manner held reserve and dignity. Traub’s exact opposite in type. Then the Secret Agent looked up and caught the commissioner staring at him in sharp speculation. “X” had a momentary qualm. Traub was no fool. Was it possible he knew there was no Doctor Julius Smith in the Public Health Service? Branford’s commissioner spoke heavily.

  “Your credentials, if you don’t mind, doc. In times like these the city is full of fakers. We’ve had to arrest a dozen quacks who risked disease in their efforts to gyp some of our citizens.”

  “X” handed the commissioner his papers. Traub studied them, chewing on his unlighted cigar. He nodded, handed the papers back, tipped his cigar ceilingward at a belligerent angle.

  “Well, doc—I suppose the Government is going to take a hand and fix things up in a big way.”

  There was a thinly veiled sneer in Traub’s voice. He apparently resented outside interference even in this emergency. He thrust a fat finger toward “X.”

  “We’re doing everything that can be done now. This thing will have to run its course like other epidemics. Our doctors and health department officials are working day and night. I hope when you go back to Washington you’ll give us credit.”

  “X” started to answer, cocked his head and listened. The cries of the mob outside were like the roar of an angry sea as the orator whipped his listeners to an emotional pitch. Agent “X” nodded in the direction of the street.

  “How are you going to deal with that?” he asked. “Mob violence can’t be ignored, Traub.”

  “Oh, that’s t
hat red, Vronsky,” the commissioner grunted angrily. “He’s a trouble-maker. We tried to arrest him a week ago—and the city employees threatened a general strike if we did. We’ve been forced to combat his crazy speeches with counterpropaganda. I’ve got something to quiet them now.”

  The fat commissioner leaned forward, his voice sinking to a confidential whisper. He winked at Doctor Roeber and at Secret Agent “X.”

  “You’ve heard of Doctor Vaughton, Smith?”

  The Secret Agent nodded. “You mean John Vaughton—the expert on African sleeping sickness?”

  “Exactly—and he’s in this country now. Arrived yesterday. He’s due to be in Branford tomorrow. Doc Gollomb of Drexel Institute radioed him. We’re releasing the news through the press right now. It will be spread across the front pages of the early morning editions. That ought to quiet the people.”

  “He has a cure then?”

  Traub’s eyes became the shrewd eyes of a politician.

  “No—but the people think he has. They don’t know the difference between encephalitis and the African disease caused by the bite of the tsetse fly. They think a germ and a trypanosome are one and the same. They didn’t go to medical school like I did and get educated.

  “We’ve got to quiet them somehow. We’re letting them think that Doctor Vaughton is a wizard. We’re telling ’em everything will be jake when he arrives. He’ll be met at the station tomorrow with a brass band and everything, like a hero. He’s admitted to Gollomb he don’t think he can do anything for this kind of sleeping sickness—but I wired him to keep still about that. The citizens of this city have got to think he’s a big medicine man. If they don’t we’re gonna have riots and hell to pay.”

  Commissioner Traub rose ponderously, waving his cigar. “I can spill some mean oratory myself. Watch me settle those mugs out there right now.”

  TRAUB went to the steps of the city hall, and Agent “X” followed, keeping in the background. The commissioner’s big voice boomed commandingly above Vronsky’s hoarse, impassioned shouts. The cries of the mob stilled.

  “Go back to your homes, folks,” roared Traub, waving his cigar. “We’ve got a doc lined up now who’ll knock this epidemic for a goal. Vaughton’s his name—the biggest sleeping sickness shark in the world. What he don’t know you could scratch on the back of a postage stamp. He’s coming to Branford tomorrow. He’s got serum with him that will make every germ in this city high-tail for cover!”

  Some one in the crowd cheered. Another voice took it up. The tense, fear-strained faces of those in the mob broke into smiles. Here was good news at last. The angry cries of Vronsky, the radical, were drowned out. His fiery words no longer had the power to sway the mob. One by one men left to go to their homes and spread the good word.

  “Poor saps!” said the commissioner from his lofty pinnacle of knowledge. He waved Agent “X” back to his office with a satisfied smile.

  “X” felt scorn for the man’s tactics. Here was the action of a cheap politician, not the lofty idealism of medicine, which Traub was supposed to uphold. Yet there was some justification for his act Something had to be done to quiet the people. Frenzied mobs and strikes inside the quarantined city would only add to the horror. It was Traub’s manner, rather than his actual hoaxing, that the Agent criticized. Back in the commissioner’s office, “X’s” eyes betrayed some of the contempt he felt. Traub seemed to sense it.

  “You high-falutin’ birds from Washington are all right in the laboratory, maybe,” Traub said, “but you don’t know anything about handling folks. Another of you Public Health Service men was here last week— By the way, he didn’t say nothin’ about you coming. How was that?”

  The beginnings of suspicion glinted in Traub’s small eyes. “X” answered quietly, though his nerves were taut. Traub, accustomed to associating with shady politicians, was not an easy man to fool.

  “I asked permission to come on my own hook,” the Agent said. “The Government is worried about this epidemic. If it should spread elsewhere—”

  Traub’s cigar tilted aggressively again. “It won’t! We’re gettin’ rid of the mosquitoes. I got men pouring oil on every pond and puddle in the city limits. The police will locate those escaped apes and put ’em out of business.”

  “Some of them should be caught alive and taken back to the institute,” said “X.” “Doctor Gollomb is handicapped by lack of material to work with.”

  “Yeah,” jeered Traub. “We’ll put salt on those monkeys’ tails and just lead ’em back on a string. I’ve told Goliomb if he wants the apes alive he can go out and get ’em himself with some of those science sharks of his. My men have got orders to shoot ’em on sight!”

  “X” nodded, and rose. He saw that there were warring elements here. Traub on one side. Gollomb on the other. And the angry populace ready to rise up in rebellion. They were all sitting on a powder keg with the constant menace of the terrible disease overshadowing everything.

  He went to Branford’s main hotel, checked in as Julius Smith, establishing headquarters where Traub and the institute could reach him. Then he drove blocks away and, under another name, rented a cheap furnished room. Here he deposited his make-up materials and other strange paraphernalia. There was no telling when a quick change of disguise might be necessary.

  There were several people he wanted to investigate. Vronsky, the radical agitator, was one. Drexel, founder of the institute, whose fortune had been wiped out, was another. It was the Secret Agent’s policy to pursue every possible angle of investigation until he had a complete picture of a case. He had established to his own satisfaction that there was a human agency behind the spread of the dread disease. Who was it?

  Shortly after midnight he returned to his hotel again. A grim-faced deputation met him in the lobby. Traub headed the group. His small eyes smoldered, the stump of a fat cigar projected from his thick lips. Two uniformed men were at his side: another in plain clothes, who had, to “X’s” experienced gaze, the look of a detective.

  The Agent’s pulses hammered. A sudden ominous silence had fallen at his entrance. Then Traub spoke with oily ponderousness.

  “Let’s see those papers of yours again, doc.”

  Agent “X” handed his credentials over, eyes flicking with steely alertness from one to another of the men. Traub passed the papers to the plain-clothes man.

  “There you are, chief,” he said with heavy smugness. “They must be forged.” He turned to “X,” his face hard.

  “This is Chief Baxter. I telephoned Washington long distance, doc. The jig is up. There ain’t no Julius Smith in the Public Service line-up. You’re just another damned quack—the worst of the lot—and you’ll cool your heels in our jail till the epidemic’s over. Then they’ll ship you to the Federal pen for impersonating a Government employee. Arrest him, chief!”

  Chapter IV

  The Lines of Death

  GRIMLY the two cops closed in on Secret Agent “X,” guns drawn.

  “We got enough trouble,” continued Traub harshly, “without being pestered by frauds like you. I hope you get the sleeping sickness!”

  The commissioner touched a match to the stub of his cigar, puffed furiously, then turned his pompous back and strode out.

  “Take him down to headquarters, boys,” said Chief Baxter. “There’s a cell waiting.”

  For a tense moment the brain of Agent “X” worked desperately. He had underestimated the suspicious nature of Branford’s commissioner of health.

  One thing “X” knew—he must not be locked up. His battle against the machinations of unseen criminals must not be stopped. The glow of determination filled his eyes.

  One of the cops was going through his pockets. He found the Agent’s gas gun, snarled an oath.

  “Heeled, eh? A crook and a lead-slinger, too!”

  The cop’s automatic thrust forcefully into “X’s” side. “Any funny business and you’ll get a lead pill yourself,” he blustered. “That’s the kind of medicin
e a bird like you oughta have.”

  They led “X” out to the curb where a police car was waiting. He made his body tremble as though he were overcome with nervousness. With one foot on the police car’s running board he drew a package of cigarettes from his pocket. With shaking fingers he put one to his lips and fished a cigarette lighter from his vest. The cops stood by impatiently.

  “Get a move on,” said one. “You’ll have plenty of time to smoke in the jug, along with the other quacks down there.”

  “X” pressed the wheel of the lighter with his thumb. But instead of touching the flame to the end of his cigarette, he moved the lighter suddenly in a swift arc. There was a faint hiss. A jet of acrid vapor spurted from a small hole in the lighter’s side. It was concentrated tear gas under pressure—and it went directly into the eyes of the two cops.

  One of them made a wild clutch at “X,” pulled the trigger of his automatic. But “X” jerked the man’s hand aside a fraction of an instant before the report sounded. The bullet plowed into the shiny side of the green car.

  “X” snatched his own gas gun out of the cop’s pocket. Hurling both policemen away with a sweep of his arms he leaped into the cruiser. The cops, utterly blinded and swearing furiously, made vain attempts to fire in the right direction.

  But, with an expert twist of the wheel, Agent “X” swung the car away from the curb and roared down the block. He pressed the gas button till the speedometer needle of the small swift car showed forty—fifty—sixty—and the hotel was blocks behind.

  Then somewhere ahead a siren sounded. A telephone call had gone out from the hotel, of course. Already the radio patrol had been warned. “X” switched on the dashboard radio, heard the voice of the police announcer excitedly instructing all cars to be on the lookout for a stolen cruiser driven by a quack doctor named Julius Smith.