Instantly Agent “X” drew up beside the curb. It was the middle of a block where shadows lay black. He leaped out of the cruiser, merged with the shadows. He strode across a wide lawn and paused beside a hedge. There, in the darkness, his quick skillful fingers performed miracles on his face.
The painstaking disguise of Doctor Smith disappeared. From a hidden inner lining of his coat he took various small portable make-up devices: a tube of volatile plastic material which dried on contact with the air, a tube of pigments. There was no time for an elaborate disguise now; but, with so much depending on him, he could not risk being seen as Doctor Smith again tonight.
When he emerged from the shadows and crossed the lawn to the next street, the contours and color of his face had miraculously changed. He was younger now, ruddy-faced. His inconspicuous features would not cause anyone to glance at him a second time.
He moved boldly along the street and, a few minutes later, arrived at his hideout without having been stopped. Using the key provided him by his landlady, he went directly to his furnished room.
He lingered there only long enough to swiftly pack his suitcase. In ten minutes he was on the street again, seeking another hideout in a poorer section of the city. He hired it under a new name, and at last felt secure for the moment. For a short time he paced the floor of the room in deep concentration.
THE exposure of Julius Smith was a blow to his entire plan. It raised serious difficulties. As Doctor Smith he had access to the institute. He could keep abreast of all that went on in Branford. But now his hands were tied unless—
Agent “X’s” preoccupied pacing stopped abruptly as a thought flashed across his mind. His eyes grew piercingly bright. To the Man of a Thousand Faces a daring desperate plan had occurred.
Swiftly he went through his suitcase, placing in the lining of his coat any of the equipment he might conceivably need. Then he went forth into the night again.
He walked without pausing through the silent streets. Once he was stopped by an officer who asked his business. The Agent said he was an employee on the night shift in the power house, and the officer let him pass.
He came at last to a region of railroad yards, factories, and merchandise warehouses. Beyond were the city limits, where grim-faced guardsmen of the quarantine line patrolled. Agent “X” had no definite plans as to how he was going to get through; but get through he must, if the plan he had conceived was to be put into action.
He saw sentries patrolling at the end of every block. Their bayonets gleamed in the light of fires that had been kindled. Lights had been strung up at other points. No one could possibly slip through without being seen. The sentries had been instructed to shoot to kill.
But the street with the string of lights at its end gave “X” his cue. He ducked through an alley, came back along the inside of a board fence. Beyond was the highway. A camp of state troopers and police was strung along for a half mile out of town.
Secret Agent “X” glanced upward, located the wiring on the emergency lights. His eyes gleamed. Two poles had been rigged with wires which passed down to an underground conduit. Pipe covered the wires for a few feet upward from the earth. Beyond that they had only their own insulation. It was a short extension line with an independent fuse.
The Agent took a small pair of nippers from his pocket. They had been useful in his work before. Now the fate of a city, perhaps a country, might hinge upon their effectiveness. He came around the edge of the fence, waited till the patrolling sentinel’s back was turned, and closed the nippers over the wire. There was a groove in the tiny implement, and a needle point set in the jaw of the nippers above. The wire fitted into the groove, and pressure on the handle forced the needle into the strands.
Instantly there was a blue spark, a sizzle of smoke. The overhead lights winked out—and this particular exit from the city was plunged into darkness.
Under cover of the gloom, Agent “X” strode out into the highway. He heard the sentries shout; heard answering cries from the highway guard. An auto’s spotlight came on, but the Agent was on the other side of the highway now.
He was certain that he bore no germs of encephalitis in his blood. The furred creature he had fought had failed to jab the pronged injector into his arm. His own solution had prevented him from being bitten by any marauding, microbe-laden mosquitoes. He could leave Branford with a clear conscience on that score.
But there was a long journey ahead of Secret Agent “X.” He must find some means of locomotion.
Chapter V
The Agent Gambles
CREEPING through the darkness beside the highway, Agent “X” approached the emergency camp of state police. All those still awake had run up the highway to help repair the short-circuited light wire.
A new fuse and some fresh bulbs and the lights would go on again. Unless the small puncture in the wire were discovered there would be no proof that it had not been an accident. “X” had removed the nippers.
His eyes roved quickly. Five trim motorcycles were parked on their metal stands close to some bushes by the road. Four had police insignia on them. The fifth was evidently an extra that had been commandeered for service. It was a speedy two-cylinder Harley-Davidson.
Agent “X” walked up to it, slid it off its stand, kicked the stand up. For a moment he paused. The dark highway led away from the city on a slight decline. To start the popping engine now would bring a swarm of police after him. Even if he outdistanced them, telephone and telegraph messages would flash ahead and he would be stopped. But if he could get away without being seen or heard, the loss of the motorcycle might not be discovered until morning. By that time he would be far away.
Holding the machine’s handlebars, he wheeled it off beside the road. Fifty feet from the police camp he got into the leather seat and coasted silently away into the darkness. The two-wheeled vehicle picked up speed, sliding under its own momentum like a silent wraith on its ballbearings. When the decline ended in a rise he was a half-mile away from the city limits.
But still Agent “X” was cautious. He wheeled the motorcycle up the next hill, coasted again to the bottom, and only then started the engine, careful to keep it muffled.
It bore him away along the dark road with the speed of the wind. The pure night air streaming past his face was exhilarating after his close contact with the germ-laden city. He opened the gas throttle slowly, bent forward over the handlebars and settled down to his long ride. The blood tingled in his veins as he swept forward through the night at fifty miles an hour.
He took the curves like a racer, leaning far over; opened up on level stretches till the two-wheeled machine beneath him became a thundering monster of speed and power.
WHEN dawn came Agent “X” was in New York, his motorcycle parked in a garage. He did not look as though he had spent a sleepless night. Dynamic, unconquerable forces seemed to drive him on. His eyes were bright, his step quick. There was much to be done within the next few hours.
The boat bringing John Vaughton, English authority on sleeping sickness, had docked at twelve the night previous. Vaughton was registered in a New York hotel. All this “X” had learned in messages which had flashed between him and “K 9” in Washington.
The Agent went quickly to one of his New York hideouts. When he came forth again he was well dressed, with the indefinable air of the professional man about him. A card in his wallet bore the name Warner Barrick, M.D., of the New York Academy of Medicine. He went to a garage, took out one of many cars he kept on hand, and drove swiftly to the hotel where Doctor Vaughton was a guest. The famous doctor was just finishing breakfast when “X” arrived. A half-dozen news reporters were interviewing him. In his clipped British accent, Vaughton offered guarded opinions on the current sleeping sickness epidemic in America. He was a white-haired, ruddy-faced Englishman of middle height. Nose glasses added to his impressive dignity. The eyes of Agent “X” noted all this in one swift glance. Then he shouldered forward to Vaughton’s table.
“Good morning, doctor. I’d like a word with you if I may.”
Doctor Vaughton glanced at the card “X” presented, and nodded.
“What is it, sir?”
“Before you leave for Branford there are several physicians of this city who would like your advice on an important matter. Would you be so kind as to come with me to a certain clinic?”
The Englishman looked at his watch. “My train leaves in an hour. There is little time.”
“I know,” agreed Agent “X.” “But all we ask is a few moments.”
Vaughton nodded, got his coat and hat. “X” guided him out of the hotel to his waiting car.
“In the unpleasant event that the epidemic in Branford should spread to this city, doctor, we should like to make certain preparations. We thought that your experience in combating sleeping sickness would make it possible for you to give us advice on precautionary measures.”
Doctor Vaughton shook his head worriedly.
“There is misapprehension in many quarters,” he said. “My work has been against the African variety of the disease—an altogether different malady. I tried to make that clear to Doctor Gollomb, when he radioed me to come. I told him I could do little.”
“You have no serum, then, that would effect a cure?” “X” asked.
Vaughton spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Serum. No! I am here only in the capacity of investigator and possible adviser.”
“X” nodded. The truth of what Traub had told him was now confirmed. In combating the inroads of encephalitis even the great Doctor Vaughton would be helpless.
“X” was silent until he drew up before an apartment building.
“This way please, doctor,” he said.
Vaughton looked about him curiously.
“Your clinics here in America are located differently from ours in England,” he smiled.
The Secret Agent remained silent as he showed Vaughton to an apartment on the fifth floor. He opened a door, led Vaughton inside. The apartment was empty. It showed no signs of medical equipment.
“What’s this?” asked Vaughton sharply. “Do you call this a clinic?”
“No, doctor,” Agent “X” said softly. “I brought you here under false pretenses. I regret very much that the step was necessary. You will understand later, perhaps.”
“And what do you intend doing?”
“This!” said “X” suddenly.
He drew his gas gun from his pocket and, even before the look of horror on Vaughton’s face had fully materialized, the Secret Agent fired. The jet of harmless gas went into Vaughton’s open mouth and nostrils. The great doctor sank without a groan to the floor.
AGENT “X” quickly locked the door of the apartment—which was one of his secret hideouts. Then for a moment he looked down at the unconscious Englishman, frowning. This was the desperate play he had planned in the dark hours of the night. It was daring. Almost it seemed uncalled for, possibly harmful to the interests of the citizens of Branford. But Agent “X” knew what he was about. Vaughton, student of the malady caused by the bite of the African tsetse fly had admitted that he would be little, if any, help against the dread encephalitis. Agent “X’s” researches had told him this even before he had met the man.
But, disguised as Vaughton, the Man of a Thousand Faces could accomplish something concrete in his battle with the hideous human fiends behind the spread of the disease.
There was less than an hour now before Vaughton’s train would leave. Never before had the Secret Agent worked so rapidly on a masterly disguise. Much depended on this disguise. For a few moments he practiced British speech and characteristic gestures.
Then, with delicate instruments, he made precise measurements of the contours of Vaughton’s face. Satisfied at last, he set a three-sided mirror on the bureau, placed a chair before it and went to work.
First he removed the brief disguise of Warner Barrick. This had been a purely fictitious character which he had assumed only for the purpose of leading Vaughton to the hideout. Then, for a few moments, Secret Agent “X’s” own features were revealed.
He appeared as he really was—as not even his few close intimates ever saw him. The face reflected in the three-sided mirror seemed boyish at first glance. But it was a curiously changeable face. For, as he turned his head, and light fell on it from a new angle, maturity and the record of countless experiences seemed written there. Here was the dauntless courage of a man still youthful, but with wisdom and foresight gained in many strange places of the earth.
His deft fingers began creating the disguise of Vaughton. Carefully chosen pigments imitated the exact color of the Englishman’s skin. The volatile materials which were flexible even when dry built up the contours. A white toupee came next. Then Agent “X” lightened the shade of his irises with an ingenious drug of his own until his eyes were the exact blue of Vaughton’s.
At the end of fifteen minutes it seemed as if Vaughton’s twin brother were in that room. Agent “X” worked still more swiftly now. He changed to Vaughton’s clothing, lifting the papers from his pocket. Then he took a slender hypodermic from a small leather case and injected into the doctor’s arm a harmless narcotic which would keep him unconscious for many hours. He put Vaughton on a sofa, making him comfortable with pillows, and threw a blanket over him, and left the apartment.
Back in Vaughton’s hotel, the clerk hailed him.
“You’d better hurry, doctor, if you want to catch that train. We took the liberty of getting your grips all ready.”
A bell boy with Vaughton’s grip and two suitcases hustled him to the curb. A spinning taxi took him to the railroad terminal. And a moment later, a distinguished, white-haired English gentleman settled himself in a Pullman chair with a sigh of satisfaction. Once again Agent “X” was started on a journey—a journey that would carry him back into the City of Sleeping Death.
Chapter VI
Death to Vaughton!
AS the train on which Agent “X” was a passenger pulled slowly out of the New York terminal another passenger, arriving late, leaped aboard. This was a blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl, her small, fine-featured face flushed with excitement.
She carried a suitcase in one hand, a portable typewriter in the other. Masculine eyes followed admiringly as she hurried along the car’s swaying aisle. Her petite figure was delicately proportioned and the curls escaping from beneath her small smart hat gleamed like spun gold. She wore her clothes with an air and she seemed to radiate youth and vitality.
She passed the white-haired, distinguished-looking Englishman and took a seat farther along and on the opposite side of the aisle. As she moved by him the Englishman gave a sudden, visible start.
It was the first time in hours that he had betrayed any emotion. A strange look flashed in the depths of his eyes. He stared with rapt intensity at the piquant profile of the blonde-haired girl. She turned, as though sensing eyes upon her. But her gaze, meeting his, showed not the slightest flicker of recognition.
A faint gleam of humor appeared in the eyes of the white-haired gentleman. Then it vanished, and was followed by a worried frown. What was this girl’s destination? Was it possible that—
For minutes Agent “X” pondered the situation behind the mask of his ruddy-faced disguise. He saw the girl open a magazine and settle down as though for a long trip. When the conductor came down the aisle to take her ticket, he watched carefully.
The blue uniformed official glanced at the bit of pasteboard in his hand and shook his head sharply. His face showed worry as he stooped and spoke rapidly to the girl. Agent “X” could hear a few words.
“No place for you to go—quarantined—better change your mind, miss.”
The girl’s pretty face, as she looked up at the conductor, broke into a sunny smile. Her answer was too low for “X” to hear. But he saw the conductor nod somberly, punch her ticket and stick it beneath the upholstery of the seat in front.
The gleam was bright in
the Secret Agent’s eyes now. He waited until the conductor had left the car, then made his way down the aisle to the girl.
“Pardon me miss—your face is familiar.”
The girl looked up with startled incomprehension into the white-haired Englishman’s ruddy face. Her blue eyes studied his features. She shook her curls.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met. There must be some mistake.”
The man disguised as Doctor Vaughton smiled. He sat down in the other half of the seat and continued speaking with a clipped English accent.
“I am Doctor Vaughton, and I interviewed a lot of newspaper people this morning. I’m on my way to Branford to see about this epidemic of sleeping sickness. I had an idea you were among the reporters at my hotel.”
THE girl gasped. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard of!” she exclaimed. “I am a newspaper reporter—but I wasn’t at your hotel. The Herald sent a man to see you. I’m going to Branford myself to cover the epidemic.”
“But surely your paper didn’t send you!”
“Not exactly. I—er—volunteered. I’ve got an aunt in Branford. I’m going to stop over with her, and do a feature story while I’m there. The Herald will be glad to get it.”
“But, my dear young lady, do you know the risk you’re running?”
The girl nodded. A determined gleam shone in her blue eyes, and her small pointed chin lifted aggressively.
“I know—and so do the doctors and nurses working there. If they’re not afraid, why should I be? The rest of the country ought to be told just what’s going on in Branford. I want to open everyone’s eyes to the danger. I want to tell them of the courage of men like you, Doctor Vaughton—men who aren’t afraid to fight for the safety of humanity. They wirelessed you on the ship. I heard about it in the Herald office last night.”
Agent “X” spoke softly, “Could nothing persuade you not to go?”
“Nothing!”
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 4
