“X” smiled a little. “It is too bad the inspector was humiliated that way. He should not have run out, though. Have there been any further developments?”
Betty’s tone became very serious. “Yes! The news is terrible, you’ll never guess what it is!”
“Perhaps I can,” said the Secret Agent. “Has it anything to do with Governor-elect Farrell?”
“Yes, yes. How did you know? Mr. Farrell has disappeared from his suite at the Clayton. Nobody knows what became of him. He was last seen about twenty minutes after his interview with us. The Princess Ar-Lassi saw him last, going into the bedroom of his suite. He said he would lie down for a short rest. He hasn’t been seen since! The Princess says the assassins of Egypt have struck at him instead of her. She is prostrated.”
“X” pursed his lips. “I was afraid something like that was next on the list. What other theories are being advanced?”
BETTY said, “Well, at the paper we’re all pretty sure that it’s a kidnaping tied up in some way with the murder of Michael Crome. We’re expecting to have the governor-elect’s body turn up horribly tortured, just as Crome was.
“But the officials of the Conservative Party think differently—at least they say they do. Boss John Hanscom gave out a statement to the effect that he was sure Farrell had just sneaked away for a couple of days’ rest after his trying experience, and that we would hear from him shortly. He said he felt sure there was nothing to worry about. But he didn’t look so happy himself. State Senator Thane said practically the same thing. But here’s something funny. I called up Lieutenant Governor Rice, and he refused to make a statement. Imagine that—after wasting ninety cents on a call to the Catskills!”
“Catskills!” the Secret Agent cried explosively. “What was the number?”
“I don’t know,” Betty told him. “The operator at the Herald has it on file. It was she who called the lieutenant governor for me. I can get it if you want it.”
“Yes, yes. Get it. I’ll call you back in five minutes.” He consulted his watch once more. Six minutes left, before Kyle’s friends would come. A plan was forming in his mind. “But first,” he said to Betty, “what other information have you? Were you able to get the fingerprints of Sam Slawson?”
“No. Jack Price hasn’t been able to locate them yet, over at headquarters. He says it would have been easy for one of the plainclothes men to take them out.”
“All right, Betty. Get me the number of Lieutenant Governor Rice’s place in the Catskills. If it’s the number I think, there’ll be a scoop for you tonight.”
He hung up. While he had talked to Betty, a full-fledged plan had taken shape in his mind. The Agent quickly stepped over to Kyle’s body, stooped and examined it. Kyle had got a pretty bad knock on the head. He would be out for quite some time, but to make sure, “X” gave him an injection from the hypodermic syringe.
Then he got out his flat case and mirror, and set to work once more, as he had done with Burks. He first stripped from himself the wig and bushy eyebrows of the inspector. He still wore the metal plates that gave him the heavy build of Kyle, for they had served as well in his impersonation of Inspector Burks. He put on the wig he had used in the case of James L. Black. Then he stripped the make-up from the face of Kyle, and proceeded to make himself up as the killer.
He was going to take the only course that he felt would bring him in actual touch with Kyle’s boss, perhaps lead him to the missing Farrell. He was going to go with the men who were coming to take Kyle to the boss.
He glanced at his watch. One minute to go. There was still the nose to prepare, and two plates that would raise the cheek bones.
He worked feverishly, finished, and then hurried into the next room where he prepared some additional material that might be useful later if it should become necessary to drop the impersonation of Kyle.
He had just finished this, and was coming back to dispose of the body of Kyle before calling Betty Dale back, when there came a knock at the door—three short ones and two long ones. Kyle’s friends were here.
Chapter XI
Prisoner!
“X” HAD not had an opportunity to practice Kyle’s voice tones. There was no time to practice now, however. He had to take the chance. Simulating the killer’s voice to the best of his ability, he called, “All right, boys. Wait a minute. I gotta lock the back door.”
He used the extra time to drag Kyle’s body down the short hall into the bedroom. As he came back he heard one of the men call through the door, “Snap it up, will you. This ain’t no tea party!”
“Jeez!” he said, the way he had heard Kyle talk. “Give us a chance, will you!”
He unlocked the front door, and admitted the two men who waited there. “X” recognized them, for his memory was photographic. They were two underworld killers—small fry compared to the notorious Killer Kyle—by the names of Jurgen and Fleer.
Jurgen was small, thin, giving the appearance of having been dried out in some super-heating process. His cheeks were sunken, his hair thin, and his eyes were pin points of depravity. He was a typical cokie.
Fleer was also short, but squat, with long, prehensile arms. He was chewing on an unlighted cigar, and his chin was wet with brown tobacco juice.
They were both dressed in black, with black derbies.
The thought occurred to the Secret Agent that if his life should ever depend on his impersonation of either of these men, it would be most unfortunate for himself—there was a difference of almost six inches between his height and theirs. Differences in height of more than an inch or two were one of the few obstacles he had found it impossible to overcome in his study of characterizations.
Fleer was the spokesman of the pair. He betrayed a certain respect which an ordinary practitioner in any field might be expected to show to a master in the same field. He said, “Say, Kyle, that was some stunt—walkin’ outta headquarters. You sure can break away from them!”
Jurgen prowled around the room, hands in pockets, his restless eyes darting everywhere.
“X” said, “Never mind the taffy. How we gonna get outta the city?”
Fleer grinned. “Come on down. Wait’ll you see the swell layout we got outside, for foolin’ the cops!”
“Where we goin’?”
“Up to the boss’s place. Let’s go.”
“X” went out with them. Fleer went first, then the Secret Agent, and Jurgen brought up the rear. “X” felt a little uncomfortable with that dope fiend behind him. There was no telling what one of them would do, especially when they were primed.
“X” drew his hat down low over his face. He was Kyle, now, the man whom the police were seeking everywhere. There was an alarm out for him.
Just as they entered the self-service elevator, another door on the floor opened. A man, one of the neighbors, started to come out, saw them in the elevator as the door of the cage was sliding to. The man stopped short, eyes wide, then stepped back in his apartment, slamming the door.
The cage was already descending. Fleer said, “I think that guy recognized you, Kyle. He’ll phone an alarm!”
Jurgen spoke for the first time. “Should I go up an’ smoke him?”
“Naw,” said Fleer. “We’ll be away in two minutes.”
“X” asked him, “What’s this stunt you got for gettin’ away?”
Fleer smirked. “Wait’ll you see. It’s the same stunt we used for gettin’ Sam Slawson in the city when he broke from Riker.”
THE cage reached the ground floor, and they went out. Fleer led the way around the corner. “X” knew, now, that he was on the right trail. At last he was getting closer to the elusive Sam Slawson, whose fingerprints had mysteriously disappeared from headquarters.
As they rounded the corner, “X” looked up and saw a window high up in his building, from which some one was looking down at them. He wondered if it was his neighbor.
Fleer said to him, “Look, Kyle. Here’s the stunt. Ain’t it a wow?”
&n
bsp; “X” looked at the hearse drawn up alongside the curb. “It sure is a wow,” he replied. “What am I supposed to do—be a corpse?”
“That’s the idea,” Fleer grinned. “Who’d think of stoppin’ a hearse to look for Killer Kyle!”
Jurgen had opened the back of the hearse. In his black suit he passed very well for an undertaker’s attendant.
Fleer looked up and down the street to make sure nobody was in sight, and urged “X” on. “Hurry up—get in. Nobody in sight.”
“X” shrugged, climbed in the hearse. Inside, there was an open coffin. The cover lay alongside.
Fleer and Jurgen climbed in with him. “All right,” said Fleer, “get in that box, an’ see if you can act like a corpse.”
“X” looked from Fleer to Jurgen. He didn’t like it. There was a peculiar gleam in Jurgen’s eyes.
He said, “Listen, you guys. I’m gettin’ in there, but don’t try to cross me, see? Or I’ll take the two of you apart!”
Fleer said, “Don’t be sappy, Kyle. We’re only tryin’ to help you get out of the city, like the boss told us. Hurry up now.”
“X” said, “Okay. But remember what I said.” He got in the coffin and lay down. Fleer and Jurgen took the cover, one at each end, and laid it over the box. “X” was in darkness, stretched out on his back, with not an inch of room to spare.
There were bolts projecting from the edges of the box, and holes in the cover, into which they slid.
Now, “X” heard queer scraping sounds above him. He called out, “Hey, Fleer! What’s that noise?”
Fleer’s voice came to him innocently, “Nothin’, Kyle, nothin’.”
“X” raised a hand, pushed at the cover. It would not move! He called out again, “Hey, Fleer!” He knew now what those scraping sounds had been. Fleer and Jurgen had screwed down the clamps on the cover. He was a prisoner in the coffin.
“What’s the idea o’ screwin’ me in?” he called out. He heard movement, the sound of the starter, of the motor turning over, then of gears being shifted. Fleer’s voice came to him from alongside the coffin. “The boss said to get you, Kyle, an’ bring you up to him in a coffin—ready for burial!”
“What!”
The hearse had got into motion. Apparently Jurgen was driving. He heard the sounds that Fleer made in going up front to join Jurgen.
From the front, Fleer’s voice came back to him. “You shouldn’t of talked so rough to the boss, Kyle—about squealing. The boss don’t like guys who squeal. So he figured the best thing to do was to bury you. He’s got a nice little mausoleum up at his place, where you’ll never be found!”
“X” understood fully the trap he was in. Whoever this boss was, he was ruthless, efficient in crime. He left no backtrails. The moment he felt that Kyle was becoming a menace he took swift steps to eliminate him. “X” admired him, for a simpler mind would have ordered these two gunmen to kill Kyle on the spot. This boss, however, chose to spirit him away and bury him in a mausoleum, rather than give the police an additional mystery to solve by leaving the killer’s body for them to find. As it was, the police would think that Kyle had completely escaped their net.
His thoughts were interrupted by the spang of a bullet against the chassis of the hearse. This was followed by another and another, in quick succession.
“X” heard Fleer cursing fluently. Fleer cried out, “Step on it, Jurgen. That’s the cops!”
THE hearse leaped forward behind the roar of its suddenly accelerated motor. More bullets struck the hearse.
Fleer exclaimed, “That guy in the house must have seen us an’ reco’nized Kyle. I bet he phoned downtown!”
Jurgen growled, “An’ it’s our luck that radio car had to be right in the neighborhood!”
“X” estimated that the hearse was doing seventy by this time. A crazy, doped-up driver like Jurgen could do it. No sane man, surely, would take the corners the way he was doing.
There was the sound of Fleer climbing in back again. More shots came from behind. Then as the hearse rounded another corner, a bullet crashed into the coffin.
It whizzed through both sides, not an inch above “X’s” head. It made a clean hole on the left side, where it went out. But the wood on the right side was cracked in a hundred lines that radiated from the hole. A splinter lodged in “X’s” cheeks. He worked his hand around and up to his face, drew it out. A little more and it would have pierced his eye.
Now the Secret Agent could look out through the peephole that had been made for him by the bullet. There was little he could see, though, in the darkness.
The radio car was sticking to them, though they were making tremendous speed. He heard Fleer’s voice close beside the coffin. Fleer was working at something that gave forth little clicks. “X” realized suddenly what it was. He was assembling a Thompson gun.
Fleer said, “Slow it up, Jurgen. I’m gonna take a crack at those guys.”
More bullets were spattering around them, though none entered the coffin.
The hearse slowed a little, and suddenly the Thompson beside the coffin began to chatter; a short burst, then silence. Then from behind, a terrible crash, followed by an explosion.
Fleer exclaimed gloatingly, “I got ’em! Boy, look at ’em burn!”
“X” heard Fleer putting the Thompson away. Fleer said, “Well, Kyle, I bet you never did a good job like that. Just one little burst—and blooey! No more cops!” He must have seen the hole in the coffin, for he suddenly asked, “Hey, Kyle! You hit?”
“X” said. “Yes. I’m bleeding to death! Get me a doctor!”
Fleer chuckled. “You’ll be better off than bein’ buried alive. But the boss will be a little sore. He wanted to ask you a couple questions.”
Jurgen called back from in front, “Is he dead?”
“No,” said Fleer, “but he says he’s hit. He’s dyin’.”
“Hell,” said Jurgen. “We’ll have a job cleanin’ up the blood!”
“X” called out, “Listen, you guys. I got plenty dough salted away. Take me outta here, an’ I’ll fix you both up.”
“Nix,” Fleer told him. “The boss’d track us down an’ we’d never enjoy the dough. Look what he’s doin’ to you fer just talkin’ big. Imagine what’d happen to us if we crossed him like that. Did you ever have a corkscrew twisted around in your body? Nothing doing!”
Chapter XII
The “Boss”
THROUGH the night the hearse traveled at tremendous speed. “X” could discern little from his peephole. But he was able to tell when they left the city and got onto a country road. After what he estimated to be more than a half hour, the hearse stopped for a moment while one of the two—either Fleer or Jurgen—got out. He came back then, and “X” knew it was Fleer, for he said:
“Okay. Drive right through the gate and straight up the road. The garage is built into the side of the house.”
They got into motion again. Gravel crunched under the heavy tires. Once more the hearse stopped, and this time the motor was shut off. Electric lights went on, and “X” peered through the hole to see that they were in a concrete garage.
Fleer said, “Let’s get that box out.”
A moment later “X” felt the coffin lifted. It was carried out of the hearse, and deposited on the floor.
Jurgen said, “I don’t see no blood.”
“You wait here,” Fleer ordered. “I’m gonna get the boss.”
“X” heard him go out.
Jurgen said to the coffin, “You ain’t hit, Kyle. I don’t see no blood.”
“X” was silent, his mind turning over means of getting out of that coffin. He lay flat on his back. It was impossible for him to turn over, difficult even, for him to get at the kit of tools in his vest.
Soon there were footsteps outside, and two men came in. Fleer was one of them. He said, “There he is, boss, all delivered, just like you ordered.”
“X” put his eye to the peephole, and started. The man who had come in with
Fleer was Lieutenant Governor Alvin Rice. His suspicions had been correct.
Rice wore a tuxedo, and his polished patent leather shoes glinted in the light. He was tall, very thin, with sparse hair and a gaunt face. It was easy to see why he was unpopular with the public, why “Boss” John Hanscom had found it necessary to run some one else for governor when the election was in doubt.
Rice asked, in a peculiarly cold, toneless voice, “Did you have any trouble?”
“We sure did,” Fleer told him. “Some one must have seen us an’ phoned in an alarm. We got chased by a radio car, an’ I had to open up on ’em wit’ the Thompson. I hit the car, an’ that makes two cops less to worry about.”
Rice’s lips compressed thinly. “You idiots! And you came here with the hearse? After that fight? We’ll have the police down on us in no time!”
Fleer shrugged. “What could we do?”
Rice said, “Well, you’ll have to work fast, now, get rid of him, and take the hearse out of here.” He turned toward the coffin. His face bore a look of cold satisfaction. “So you thought you could threaten me, Kyle? Nobody ever does that and profits by it. You’ve learned a lesson, but one that won’t do you much good. You won’t be able to benefit by it.”
“X” said, mimicking the voice of Kyle, “You can’t get away with this, Rice.”
“No? Perhaps you will be convinced that I can when you are in a niche in the mausoleum!”
“You—you goin’ to bury me alive?”
“Correct. It’s less messy than any other way I know. However, if you care to tell me some things, perhaps I could spare you that.”
“What do you want to know?”
Rice leaned down toward the coffin, eagerly. “Who was the man that got you out of headquarters?”
“X” WAS silent for a while. Was there any way of talking himself out of the horrible death that Rice had prepared for him? He doubted it. Rice would have him buried, no matter what he said. Still, it was worth a trial. “Let me outta here, an’ I’ll tell you.”
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 20
