SENATOR THANE had been sitting in the easy chair. Now he uncrossed his legs, and stood up. “You forget the princess, major. She could have put the lights out.”
Denvers shook his head. He said, bitingly, “No, senator, I didn’t forget the princess. I’m thinking very much about her. I’m wondering what brought her out here. You tell me you don’t know—but I think you do. However, we’ll leave that for the moment. Let’s get back to the lights. I’ll tell you why the princess couldn’t have put the lights out—she was at least six feet from the door, by your own stories. She certainly couldn’t have reached the light switch without all of you noticing what she was going to do!”
Gates was walking up and down nervously. He put his hands up to the sides of his head, cried out, “God! What a headache this has given me! Can’t I go up and lie down, or something?”
“In a little while, Mr. Gates,” the major told him. “I just want to finish this up.” He turned back to Hanscom. “Now this man, Fleer. You say he was near the door. Well, the way I see it, it was either Fleer that put these lights out, or else some one up on the balcony.”
Fleer exclaimed, “Say, you don’t think I had anything to do wit’ killin’ Mr. Rice! I wouldn’t do a thing like that!”
Thane motioned to Fleer to be quiet, and stepped in front of Denvers, his back to Hanscom. “Look here, major,” he said, drawing himself up, “I am a state senator, and my word should have a little weight with you. I tell, you, there’s no point in going on with this investigation. You’d do better to be out on the grounds with your men, seeking Kyle. We all told you that it was Kyle who killed Mr. Rice. Isn’t that sufficient for you?”
Denvers had grown red in the face at Thane’s remark about his belonging out on the grounds with the troopers. He thrust his chin out at the senator, and exploded, “I’ll not stop for you or anybody else—less than the governor! The governor is the only man who has the authority to call me off. I know you and your friends here are hiding something! There’s only one man in your whole dirty crowd whose word I’d take, and that’s Judge Farrell’s! I’ve admired him for years, and when he was elected I hoped he’d turn around and throw out every one of you dirty politicians! I hope he does it after he takes office. It would be a damn good riddance!”
“If,” Thane interrupted softly, “he is found. Did you know, major, that Judge Farrell has disappeared?”
“Yes, damn it, I know. And that’s why I’m so particular about this investigation. There’s been some nasty stuff pulled somewhere. You’ve got good reason to kidnap him yourself, senator. With Rice dead, and Judge Farrell gone, you’ll become acting governor, since you’re president pro tem of the senate!”
BETTY had followed the verbal battle with tense interest. She knew that Major Denvers was no fool. He must have pretty strong suspicions to talk so plainly. She watched Thane closely to get his reaction to Denvers’ statement; but the senator’s poker face revealed nothing. He merely said, very low, “You are a very outspoken man, major—very outspoken, indeed. You may find that trait—embarrassing, some day!”
Hanscom broke in to relieve the tension. “I suppose, major, that you could even find some reason why I should be interested in killing Alvin Rice and causing Judge Farrell to disappear?”
“Since you ask for it,” said Denvers, “I’ll give it to you! You’ve been working hand in glove for years with that man.” He pointed to Gates. “I would guess that after Judge Farrell was elected he told you where to get off at, that he’d have no trafficking with the power interests, and you got after him in order to protect your old-time graft. Thane here, is your man. If he was acting governor, you’d have things your own way!”
Without waiting for a reply, the major turned then on Fleer, so suddenly that the little gunman backed away from him. “You!” he thundered. “What were you doing here?”
“Me? Why—why—me an’ my pal, there, we was lookin’ fer a job, see—”
Betty smiled. Even Hanscom and Thane had to smile at the ridiculous-sounding, stammered excuse. But Denvers did not smile. He thrust out an accusing finger at Fleer. “I’ll tell you what you were doing here! You brought Killer Kyle up here in that hearse that’s in the garage! You took him out of the city, and brought him up here!”
Fleer exclaimed, “Who, me? What hearse? I ain’t seen no hearse!”
Denvers advanced on him ominously. “Oh, no? You didn’t see any hearse at all, eh? Never even touched the hearse, eh?”
“No, sir!” Fleer assured him. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do wit’ no hearse!”
“That’s funny. Damn funny. Because in that case I can’t understand how your fingerprints, and those of your pal, Jurgen, came to be plastered all over the damn thing—inside, outside, on the wheel, and on the coffin!”
Thane suddenly said, “Of course they brought him up. They must have brought the princess up, too. Rice must have been in league with them, probably used them in some plot of his—perhaps they killed Michael Crome. Then he wouldn’t pay them, so they killed him—these two, and the princess!”
While Thane spoke. Denvers had looked away from Fleer. All eyes including those of the troopers or guard at the door, were on Thane.
Now, Betty Dale uttered a gasp or amazement. For Fleer had produced a gun from his shoulder holster, and swung it around in a vicious arc, covering the major, and the others in the room. “You ain’t gonna make me the goat!” he snarled. “Hold everything. The first guy that makes a move, I’ll give it to him right in the guts!”
He edged away from the major, toward the window. He was snarling, and the knuckle of his index finger was white where it pressed against the trigger.
Suddenly he turned and sprang through the open French window, and disappeared in the darkness.
MAJOR DENVERS’ hand flashed to his holster, and came out with a heavy thirty-eight. He darted across the room to the window.
“Wait! Wait!” The words came high and shrill from Gates, who was pale and trembling, at the end of his endurance. They stopped Denvers short in midstride. He turned and looked quizzically at the utilities man.
Gates said, “I can’t stand this fighting and killing and shooting any longer! My head! How it hurts!” He waved a hand wildly, spoke to the major. “Send all these people out. Send them all away, and I’ll tell you what you want to know! Tell you everything! God help me, I never thought it would go this far!”
Denvers shrugged. He said to one of the troopers, “Go out, tell Sergeant Plimpton that there’s another man loose on the grounds.” He turned back to Gates. “I guess this is more important than catching Fleer. He can’t get away, and they’ll run him down with Kyle.”
Gates had buried his head in his hands. “Send them away, quick!” He looked at the spot on the rug where Rice had lain, and shuddered. “God! It’s better to go to jail, than to die like that—all swollen up—strangled to death by your own flesh!”
Hansccm stepped up to Gates, gripped his shoulder. “You fool! What’s this going to gain you? You’ll ruin everything!”
Denvers said, “Will you please go outside?”
Hanscom faced him. “For the last time, major, will you call off this investigation? I assure you that it will serve no purpose. Even with what Gates can tell you—”
“I said,” Denvers interrupted evenly, “will you leave the room? I hope you won’t compel me to have the trooper put you out?”
Hanscom shrugged, looked at Thane. Thane nodded. They went to the door. Hanscom went out first. Thane paused, said, “Gates, you’ll regret this. It won’t prevent—what you’re afraid of.”
Gates seemed not to have heard him. Thane turned and followed Hanscom out, thin-lipped.
Denvers turned to Jurgen, who had been trying to efface himself on the couch. The major said to the remaining trooper, “Help this man out of the room. Watch him. You might search him, too. I don’t know why Fleer wasn’t searched for weapons.”
The trooper helped Jurgen to get up, and too
k him out.
Betty Dale got up, approached Denvers. “Couldn’t I stay, major? I’d like to get the story.”
The major was about to refuse, when Gates, with his head still in his hands, said, “Let the newspaper girl stay, I want this to get full publicity. I’m through with it all. I want to make a clean breast!”
“All right,” said Denvers. “You can take down the statement.”
Betty sat down, produced a notebook and pencil from her handbag, and waited.
The major came and stood before Gates. “Well, Mr. Gates,” he urged, “let’s hear what you have to say. Do you know who killed Rice? Do you know who kidnaped Judge Farrell? Are they holding the judge for ransom?”
Gates shook his head. “It’s bigger than that. Not such a common thing as ransom. I first want to tell you about how it came about that Michael Crome was killed.” He got up, strode around the room. “God! It’s so horrible, I don’t know where to start! You see, Crome was tortured because Hanscom—”
He stopped, and uttered a frightful shriek, staggered, and blood spurted from his shoulder.
From outside the window had come the soft plop of a silenced gun.
BETTY sat motionless, pencil poised, frozen at the sight of Gates writhing on the floor.
Denvers bent to him, spoke over his shoulder to Betty, “Call out to the troopers. Get some one in here!”
Betty rushed to the door, flung it open. She quickly told a trooper in the hall that Gates had been shot from the window. The trooper hurried to the front, drawing his gun, and dashed around the house.
Betty turned back into the room, and stifled a scream at what she saw. Gates’s wound should not have been fatal in itself, being through the fleshy part of the shoulder.
Denvers had ripped his coat off, opened his shirt and exposed the wound.
All around the wound, the flesh was swelling!
Gates writhed in agony, saliva drooled from his lips. He tried to talk, but only a hoarse croaking issued from his throat.
Denvers looked up from where he knelt beside the dying man, said to Betty, “Better go out, Miss Dale. This is no sight for you!”
But Betty rushed over, knelt beside them. “Isn’t there something we can do for him?”
Even as she spoke, the swelling spread. The body of Gates seemed to bloat all around the wound. It spread quickly, and his throat began to swell.
Denvers said, “A bullet could never do that, alone. It must have been coated with the same stuff that was given to Rice. The medical examiner found a puncture in Rice’s neck—made by a sharp instrument—probably a hypodermic.”
There was a gasp from Gates. His face grew purple, as the rapidly spreading swelling choked off the air supply through his throat. Gates’s eyes began to pop, the breath came thinly from between his laboring lips, and under their very eyes, while they were powerless to help him, he gasped his last, clawing at his throat as if to tear an opening there through which he could breathe.
Betty rose to her feet. She began to sob hysterically. The sight had been too much for her.
Denvers put a fatherly arm around her shoulders. “Buck up, Betty. It’s a terrible thing to witness, I know, but you’re a Dale. Calm down. Take a seat. There—feel better?”
Betty bit her lip to control herself, gripped the arms of her chair, and nodded, trying not to look in the direction of the awful thing on the floor.
Denvers turned to the door as Thane and Hanscom came in with two of the troopers. One of the uniformed men saluted, said, “We didn’t catch anybody under the window, sir. He had just a minute head start before we got there—time enough to disappear, though I can’t see how he did it!”
Denvers looked at Thane and Hanscom. “Where were you gentlemen when Gates was shot?”
Thane looked down at the body of Gates, and shuddered. He glanced sideways at Hanscom, then toward the major. “Why—we were both in the next room down the corridor, waiting for you to get through.”
One of the troopers said, “Excuse me, major, but Senator Thane is mistaken. As I came into the house I saw him and Mr. Hanscom coming in ahead of me. They must have been outside when Mr. Gates was shot!”
Denvers glared at Thane. “Well?” he asked.
Thane shrugged. “A difference of testimony, major. It is Mr. Hanscom and myself against your trooper. I assure you, we did not leave the house.”
JUST then two more of the uniformed men came in dragging Fleer between them. Fleer was disheveled. It appeared he had put up a struggle, for his collar was torn, and there was a lump on the side of his head.
Denvers exclaimed, “So everybody’s back, eh? Where’d you come from?”
One of the two troopers who had brought him in explained, “We found him in the garage, sir. He was just climbing into the hearse, sir. Looked like he figured on driving out and smashing through the gates.”
“Search them all!” Denvers ordered. “And go out, tell Sergeant Plimpton to have the grounds gone over for a gun with a silencer on it.”
Thane grew excited. “I protest against being searched, major. It is an indignity. You have no reason to suspect us. You know damn well that Kyle is loose somewhere on the grounds. It might very well have been he—”
He was interrupted by the appearance of Sergeant Plimpton at the doorway. Betty’s heart leaped. Had they caught the Secret Agent—perhaps wounded or killed him?”
Denvers said, “What is it, Plimpton?”
“We’ve run Kyle down, sir. He’s in the mausoleum. One of the men looked in through the grilled window, and saw a shape in the dark. He started to turn his flash in there, when Kyle hit him on the head with a gun through the opening. I’ve come to ask your instructions as to how to proceed, sir. We have some gas bombs; shall I break them out?”
Denvers’ eyes sparkled. “Break out the bombs, Plimpton,” he ordered. “We’ll treat Killer Kyle to a little dose of tear gas!” He turned to Thane. “Sorry, I’ll have to order you, and Mr. Hanscom, and Fleer, to be detained in this room until we’re through with Kyle. You see, if Kyle was bottled up in the mausoleum all this time, he couldn’t have shot Gates through the window. See where that leaves us?”
He grinned sardonically at Hanscom and Thane as he left, after posting a guard in the room.
Betty Dale followed him out, after a single shuddering glance at the now covered body of Gates.
Outside the house she ran after Denvers, who was marching erectly to take charge of the group of troopers clustered a short distance from the mausoleum.
Chapter XVIII
Cornered
BEFORE the grilled door of the mausoleum the troopers were drawn up in a firing line. Denvers stepped to the head. Sergeant Plimpton came up on the run from the car parked in the driveway, where he had gone for the gas bombs. He distributed them to four of the men.
Major Denvers stepped up to the grilled outer door, swung it open.
Sergeant Plimpton put a hand on his arm. “Don’t go in there, major! He’ll shoot through the opening in the granite door!”
Denvers shook off his arm. “Stand back, sergeant!” He drew his service revolver, went down the single step, and stood before the massive stone door. “Come out of there, Kyle!” he thundered. “Come out, or we’ll gas you!”
Betty Dale had come close, unnoticed by the troopers. Her eyes were glued to the little square opening in the big door. If the man inside showed himself, she was sure she would be able to tell if it were Kyle, or “X” impersonating him. She felt that her instinct, keyed up to the nth degree, would be sure this time.
And while she watched, taut and trembling, a strange thing happened.
Denvers had taken a flashlight from one of the men. He snapped it on, now, and directed its beam into the grilled opening. Suddenly a face appeared in that opening—a face they all knew; a face gaunt, with disheveled gray hair, yet retaining a dignity of bearing that no disturbance or violence could rob it of.
Betty uttered a little cry of relief, felt
herself growing weak with joy. “It isn’t he! It isn’t he!” The words kept repeating themselves over and over again somewhere within her.
The troopers all tensed; Sergeant Plimpton gasped; and Major Denvers almost dropped his flashlight. “Judge Farrell!” he exclaimed. “Glory be! You locked in here?”
Farrell snapped at him. “Of course I’m locked in! Do you think I’m staying here because I like the company? Get a key. Get me out. Do something. Don’t stand there gaping!”
His voice sounded weary, weak, yet there was spirit in him.
Denvers ordered Plimpton, “Go back to the house. See if the servants know where the key is!”
Plimpton said, “Sure thing, sir,” and hurried away.
Denvers said, “We’ll have you out in a jiffy, judge. What happened? Were you kidnaped?” He raised the flashlight so that the beam struck the ceiling and was diffused, spreading a little light.
FARRELL exclaimed, “Kidnaped is right. They’ve had me here for hours now! The one who was watching me went out a little while ago, and I managed to wriggle free. Then some one stuck his head at this window, and I hit him. He ran out.”
“That must have been one of my men,” Denvers commented. “He thought you were Kyle!”
Plimpton came back with a large key. Denvers seized it from him, and opened the door.
Governor-elect Farrell staggered out. His clothes were torn, mussed. There was a cut over his right eye.
“Looks like you put up a fight, judge,” said Denvers.
“Who wouldn’t? They dragged me out of the Clayton through the service elevator, at the point of a gun. In here, I thought I saw a chance to break away, but they were too much for me.”
Farrell leaned on Denvers’ arm, led the way toward the house. “Bring those troopers along, major. I’ll feel safer. Where am I?”
Betty Dale, following close behind, heard Denvers explaining to him the events of the evening.
Farrell said. “H’m. So Rice was in the conspiracy. Too bad. I didn’t think it of him.”
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 24
