HE started toward the elevator with Hobart at his side; then paused and glanced quickly across the lobby.
His fingers dug into Hobart’s arm. He spoke without moving his lips; spoke so softly that the ex-dick alone could hear. “Take a look at that woman over there, Jim—the one in the green dress, sitting on the left side of the column. Don’t let her see you.”
“I get you, boss. A swell looking dame! I’ve always heard there was plenty of fast steppers in Chi.”
“She isn’t from Chicago. She must have arrived here yesterday or today. We’re in luck.”
“You can have her, boss. I’m a redhead myself, and I’d rather play around with a blonde, or maybe a nice little brunette.”
“Sorry, because I’m going to turn her over to you, Jim.”
“Say—”
Secret Agent “X” motioned for silence as they entered the elevator. When the bellhop had shown them to their rooms, Agent “X” spoke quickly, tensely.
“That woman, Jim—her name’s Tasha Merlo. She used to be one of the cleverest fences in the East. Now she’s doing something else. Your work’s cut out for you. I want you to find out where she goes, who she talks to and what she does. Don’t lose sight of her. But be on your guard every minute. She’s poison.”
“You know her then, boss?”
“I do; but she doesn’t know me.” “X” laid a hand on Hobart’s arm, added a sudden word of caution, remembering certain tendencies that Hobart had. “Don’t try to make up to her, Jim. Just keep her in sight—and you’ll need every trick you ever learned on the force.”
“O. K.,” said Hobart. “But I thought you said you was trying to get a line on the gang who hired those killers to knock us down.”
“I am, Jim, and this woman’s with the gang. Now do you understand?”
Hobart’s young face hardened. “I savvy, boss. Fly paper won’t have nothing on me when it comes to staying glued to that jane.”
“Good. I’ll see you here again at noon—or if not then, at six. If you don’t get a chance to come back to the hotel send me a telegram—B.J. Morgan.”
“Where are you going, boss?”
“Places.”
With no further explanation, Agent “X” left, removing a brief case from the suitcase and taking that with him. He took a taxi to a small, old-fashioned apartment, let himself in with a key on his ring. Here was another hideout, established many months ago.
In the privacy of this he changed his disguise quickly. If A.J. Martin had been traced to the airfield where he had that morning taken off, then A.J. Martin was no longer an adequate disguise against the members of the Octopus organization. The criminals thought that Martin was dead in the crash of the Oriole. “X” would let him stay dead so far as they were concerned. The dark-haired, solemn-faced young man who emerged under his skilled fingers was utterly different from the brisk looking, sandy-haired Martin.
Changing his suit to another in the closet of his hideout, he left the apartment and took a taxi to the airport.
Sloan in Boston had given him an exact description of Van Camp. When the big tri-motor passenger plane landed on schedule, Agent “X” had no trouble identifying the lawyer.
THE man was quite thin, stoop-shouldered, with graying hair and deep-set gray eyes that glowed piercingly behind thin-rimmed glasses. He was a man with a poker face, a man whose high cheek bones had the set rigidity of an Indian’s.
The Agent’s pulses tingled. Unless he was mistaken he was looking at a member of the mysterious Octopus’s gang. Or was Van Camp himself the Octopus? There was as yet no way of telling. But that he was connected with the strange stock promotion scheme Agent “X” had sufficient proof.
Van Camp signaled a taxi, got in, and left the field. Agent “X” followed in another cab. The lawyer went directly to one of the most expensive Chicago hotels. Agent “X” strolled into the lobby a moment later. He saw a bellhop start toward the elevator with Van Camp’s luggage, saw Van Camp himself receive some mail from the hand of the desk clerk, proving that he had made reservations in the hotel before he started this morning. Van Camp pocketed the mail, followed the bellhop into the elevator.
Secret Agent “X” strolled by the desk, letting his eye fall on the open register. He got Van Camp’s suite number, 806, strolled on through the lobby to a waiting elevator. There was no time to lose. The grilled door clicked shut as he stepped into the car.
“Eight, out,” he said.
When he emerged in the eighth floor corridor the bellhop who had shown Van Camp to his rooms was just leaving. “X” watched him enter a descending elevator, leaving the corridor empty. Quick as a flash, Agent “X” went to the door marked 806.
His kit of chromium tools was already in his hands. But he put it away when he saw the lock, took out his key ring instead. On it were six fragile skeleton keys of assorted sizes. One of these would do the job.
So deftly and softly that there was barely a scrape, he tried two keys. The second one fitted, turned in his hand. The door opened.
Van Camp had taken one of the hotel’s more pretentious suites. “X” had figured on this. There was a hallway, three rooms opening off it. In the farthest of these was a light, the shadow of a man on the wall. Silently Agent “X” ducked into the nearest darkened room. His gas pistol was in his hand. He waited, heard the rustle of paper. Van Camp was opening his mail.
When he had finished he walked to the telephone. The number he called was that of the hotel where Hobart and Agent “X” had registered an hour before. Van Camp’s voice was well modulated, but slightly nasal.
“I’d like to speak to Miss Tasha Merlo, please.”
There was an instant of silence, then the lawyer spoke rapidly.
“This is Van Camp, Miss Merlo. Remain where you are until I call you again. You are to act under my instructions. A new territory will be assigned to you, possibly in the West. The matter which you called to my attention has been taken care of. It was troublesome; but gave no serious cause for alarm. Because of your promptness and efficiency in handling the matter I shall recommend you for promotion at our meeting tonight. That is all.”
The receiver clicked up, terminating the conversation. But the Agent’s pulse beat had increased. The lawyer’s matter-of-fact words had told him several things. The most important was that there was to be some sort of secret meeting tonight in Chicago. The “matter” which Tasha Merlo had brought to Van Camp’s attention was in the Agent’s mind undoubtedly his own visit to her house. It had been “taken care of” when two killers had been engaged to shoot him out of the sky. Did this mean that Van Camp was the Octopus?
THEN the lawyer phoned again. This time the conversation seemed more cryptic than before.
“All our directors will be there, I understand, Mr. Harding. The same place at the same time. No, nothing serious. Yes, a very good gesture. It should promote interest and faith substantially.” Van Camp’s laugh sounded, a strange, dry chuckle.
The receiver clicked up a second time. Van Camp broke into a tuneless whistle. Agent “X’s” thoughts raced. A board of directors. A chairman. Van Camp then was only one of several directors. But the place where the meeting would be held had not been mentioned. And if he waited and followed Van Camp this evening it might be too late.
One of the fantastically daring plans that made Agent “X” an investigator extraordinary formulated in his mind. Gas pistol in hand, he walked softly along the hallway. He was in the very doorway of the room where Van Camp was, before the lawyer turned and saw him.
An expression of utter amazement made Van Camp’s face muscles sag. Then, with a movement fast as the head of a striking snake, the lawyer reached toward his open bag.
“Don’t,” said Agent “X” harshly. “Lift your hands, Van Camp.” The muzzle of his gas gun emphasized the command. The tone of his voice was unrelenting. But it was the strange, piercing quality of the Agent’s eyes that seemed to hold Van Camp spellbound, as though they radiated
a force and magnetism which the lawyer could not combat. Slowly his hands went up. The gaze that he fixed upon the Agent was like that of a cornered rat.
“What—what do you want?” he gasped.
“A little information,” said “X.” “Just where is this directors’ meeting you came to attend tonight, and what time does it take place?”
All color drained from the lawyer’s face. The skin seemed to tighten along his cheek bones till his head looked like a skull.
“Who are you?” His voice was so low that it barely whispered through the still air of the room.
“Never mind—answer my questions.”
Van Camp’s lips pressed together. Slowly he shook his head. He waited rigidly like a man who expects death, a man who knows there is no possible alternative. For long seconds Agent “X” stared into his eyes.
“You will not speak. You are afraid of the Octopus!”
The words only deepened the deathly look on Van Camp’s face. Agent “X,” a masterly judge of human actions, knew that here was a man whose lips were sealed by a fear so great that no threat could open them. Fear would not make him babble like the craven Quade. He knew more than Quade. For that reason he would say less. Agent “X” acted quickly.
His finger tightened around the trigger of the gas gun. A jet of vapor spurted into Van Camp’s face. His body sagged, and he fell soundlessly to the floor. To all intents and purposes he was dead; but the effects of the gas pistol would wear off in twenty minutes. Van Camp would then be himself again.
Agent “X” went through the lawyer’s luggage quickly, studied everything in his pockets including the mail he had received. There was nothing which could in any way prove that Van Camp was other than he appeared—a respectable, hard-working criminal lawyer.
Agent “X” had half expected this. The brain behind this criminal was too clever to let any member carry incriminating evidence. But “X” had come prepared. Knowing that all depended on finding out Van Camp’s connection with the stock-selling scheme, he had brought an instrument of investigation which he seldom used. This was a bottle of small greenish capsules; a preparation of that drug known to the medical profession as sodium amytol. The Agent knew its history. It had been used successfully in psychopathic clinics. Often it was used in place of ether as an anaesthetic for minor operations.
It had a peculiar effect similar to that of hypnosis. The patient, with no sensation of pain, no consciousness that he could remember after he awoke, would answer truthfully questions put to him. This was why psychiatrists had employed it to get at the root of fixations in their patients’ minds.
“X” poured a glass of water, lifted Van Camp’s head, deposited two of the capsules on his tongue and made him swallow them. He propped Van Camp up on the sofa, looked at his own watch. In a matter of twenty minutes he would learn the location and time set for the Octopus’s strange board of directors’ meeting.
Chapter XVI
Passwords to Hell
THAT night a man who appeared to be Van Camp drove along Roosevelt Road. He was headed toward the suburb of Cicero, a peaceful section of manufacturing plants, homes, schools, churches. Once it had been the scene of the bloodiest gangster battles in American history. Swaggering overlords of crime, in the palmy days of prohibition, had ruled here until underworld bullets cut short their careers. The faces of many buildings were still pock-marked with machine-gun slugs. Citizens could still point to the precise spots where famous racketeers had dropped in their tracks.
Secret Agent “X” had obtained the information he wanted from Van Camp. He had learned where the meeting of the Octopus’s strange band was to take place. He had learned the time schedule, memorized the mysterious passwords and signals. Now, disguised daringly as Van Camp, he was on his way to face death.
Down a dark side street, away from the business section of Cicero, he turned the nose of his hired, drive-yourself car. He went four blocks, parked, and got out. The night seemed peaceful. Stars winked overhead. A faint warm breeze stirred the branches of the few trees along the street. But somewhere not far ahead the masters of sudden death were meeting.
Secret Agent “X” went another two blocks on foot, following directions which he had wrung from Van Camp’s lips by means of the drug.
He came at last to a group of deserted buildings which sprawled across the space of a whole city block. A high barbed-wire fence encircled the property. It was a group of factory buildings formerly owned by an electrical company. Posted signs warned trespassers off and gave notice that the property was now in the hands of a real estate holding concern. When business conditions warranted it, these buildings would be salvaged or torn down and others erected. Now they were as still and bleak as huge mausoleums.
Agent “X,” eyes glowing bright, walked swiftly along the opposite side of the street parallel with this old factory site. He paused when he saw the dusty windows of a small cigar and stationery store ahead. A faded sign in gold lettering bore the words “Colosimo & Rici.” The front of this store faced the main entrance of the closed factory. Agent “X” glanced at his watch, nodded to himself, strolled into the store.
A chair creaked in the rear. A greasy-faced proprietor came waddling out to the counter. The man had eyes as black as agate hidden in rolls of baggy flesh. His skin had a toadlike wartiness. He crouched over the counter, staring at Agent “X.”
With no change of expression the Agent made several purchases. He ordered three packages of cigarettes, all of different brands. Carefully, under the eyes of the watchful proprietor, he opened one of the packages, took out a cigarette and lit it. Three puffs and he broke the cigarette in half, dropped one half on the floor, tossed the other behind the counter.
The proprietor gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Wait,” he said gruffly.
He came around the counter, waddled to the door of the shop, looked up and down the street in both directions. Then he re-entered and tapped Agent “X” on the arm.
“You like a little drink, Mr. Van Camp?” he said.
“Make it two fingers straight, Piere.”
“Go in and help yourself.”
A simple but effective exchange of signals and passwords had been made, secrets learned from the lips of Van Camp.
Agent “X” walked to the rear of the dirty little store. He opened a door, walked straight along a short hallway, entered a small back room. There was a table and several chairs in the center of this. On the back wall was a shelf holding liquor bottles and glasses. It seemed a place where Piere, the fat proprietor, could receive a few intimate guests in private while waiting for customers in his small shop. Nothing more.
But Agent “X” walked directly to the shelf of bottles and glasses. He paused a moment, eyes questing. His hand reached beneath the shelf, fingers groping along its under surface. Concealed there, where no one would ever think of looking, was an electric button.
The Agent pressed it. A moment of silence, then a faint clicking sounded somewhere behind the shelf. He seized the edge of it, pushed to the left. It moved ponderously revealing itself as a heavy steel door on rollers.
Behind it was a landing, and a flight of dark stairs leading down with another door at their bottom.
NOT until the shelf had rolled back into place did an electric bulb over the door below light up. When Agent “X” reached the bottom of the stairway, the door swung open as though ghostly hands were upon it. It closed after him. He turned sharply to the right, then right again, till he was in a passage below street level. This led in the opposite direction from the one taken when he entered the store.
In semi-darkness, with only a faint light far ahead to guide him, he passed under the street and into the block occupied by the old factory site. Here another steel door loomed before him; a door set in thick concrete, reinforced with riveted steel cleats.
It was like the entrance to some fortress. In the very center of it was a small perforated disc resembling a telephone mouthpiec
e. The Agent stood erect, face pointed toward this disc. He spoke in clear precise tones, words and numbers that seemed to have no sense or order.
“Twenty-four. Colombia. Ninety-two. Ten.”
The consonant and vowel sounds made a series of vibrations in the diaphragm of the disc. Instantly there was a whir of geared machinery behind the steel door as an electric motor started. Then the door rose slowly, straight up on oiled bearings. It stopped, Agent “X” passed through, and the door began to descend automatically.
The skin along his scalp felt tight now. With the sliding down of that door his last contact with the outside world was gone. The elaborate maneuvers necessary to get into this place, the precautions taken, were further indications of the power and cunning of the brains behind it. As Van Camp he was about to join the secret board of directors. He was about to come into the presence of the mysterious chairman of that board—the Octopus himself.
He walked resolutely along another corridor, entered a wooden door. Grim steel and concrete now gave way to polished paneling and soft carpets. Ornamented lights lined this corridor. At the end of it was a gleaming mirror, running from floor to ceiling.
As he walked toward it Agent “X” saw his own reflection—the high cheek bones, the long face, the nose glasses of Van Camp. He moved with the same stoop-shouldered slouch. The sinister lawyer seemed to be approaching him.
But the mirror gave Agent “X” a momentary pang of uneasiness. Van Camp had said nothing about it. Why was it there? Was it purely for ornamentation, or did it serve some more subtle purpose? Perhaps it was Argus glass, he thought, opaque from one side, transparent from the other, so that unseen eyes could watch him. “X,” the perfect actor, betrayed no sign of his uneasiness.
THERE was one more door at the right of the mirror. He opened it and found himself suddenly in a magnificently furnished room. A long mahogany table ran down its center. Carved chairs stood alongside the table. Shaded lights, a thick rug, completed the furnishings. It was a typical board room such as one would expect in the offices of some great bank or business corporation.
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 37
