“I know,” she said. “She loves you—and you—”
She could not finish the sentence. Pain brushed the smile away. She reached up, clasped the hilt of the knife. Close to her ears the Agent’s lips moved, almost like a man uttering a prayer.
“Where is she?”
Greta St. Clair’s lips moved in response. The sound that came from them was hardly speech. It was a ghostly whisper, faint, pain-racked.
“My—house!”
IT was the last sentence that Greta St. Clair was ever to utter. But for a moment her dark eyes opened again, and the faint smile softened her lips. Then she slipped sidewise, slowly on the pillows—slipped and remained staring off into space. Greta St. Clair was dead.
For a second only Agent “X” stared down at this woman who was not altogether bad. The answer that she had given with her last dying breath amazed him as much as her presence here had. It amazed him and sent him into action at the same time.
There was no sound anywhere in the big house. Greta St. Clair had apparently been its sole occupant. Now she, too, had joined the silence.
Grimly the Agent turned and strode from that room of death. Near the doorway into the hall he paused for one brief instant. A telephone stood on a small ebony table. The number written on it corresponded to the one he had heard the DOAC leader speak.
He passed down to the hallway by the other unconscious DOAC, lying still as death. Recklessly he opened the door to the street and raced down the steps. There might be other DOACs lurking outside. For the moment he did not care. His emotion was too great to think of any risk. Up the block he knew Jim Hobart was waiting. He turned and covered the pavement with long, quick strides.
Dusk was falling over Washington. The night seemed to speak of menace, evil, and the mystery that cloaked the disappearance of Betty Dale and the strange and hideous activity of the DOACs in America.
The Agent was breathing quickly. The evening air felt cold on his face, chilling through the plastic, flexible material of his disguise. He was almost running when he reached the coupé where Jim Hobart crouched over the wheel. The lanky operative stared at “X” anxiously, seeming to sense his inner turmoil.
“What is it, boss? Anything happen? Did you find the girl?”
The Agent shook his head, leaping into the car and edging Jim Hobart over as he took the wheel himself.
“No—but I know where she is. We’re going after her now.”
Chapter XX
Chamber of Horrors
A PLANE’S motor sounded muffled over Meadow Stream. A wide-winged shadow darted above the silver band of the river, veiled now in darkness. In two hours Jim Hobart and Agent “X” had made the trip from Washington in the fast two-place ship he had hired, replacing his own Blue Comet. For there must be no slip-up in the work ahead. He wanted help at hand.
The Agent made a skillful landing in a field almost opposite the penitentiary. The plane had scarcely taxied to a stop when the two men were climbing over the fuselage to the ground. They sprinted through pitch-dark woods, crossed the road to the high wall surrounding the St. Clair house.
The gate had been repaired and was now locked, but the Agent quickly inserted a skeleton key that gained them admittance to the grounds. They moved across the dark lawn, silent as wraiths, on guard against a surprise attack by any DOACs who might be lurking about.
The Agent felt a slight, unpleasant tingle along his scalp as he passed the spot where he’d seen the mangled bodies of Greta St. Clair’s guards.
His eyes were flashingly alert. The DOACs might have got in communication with others at Meadow Stream, warning them that “X” was on the way.
The big house was dark and bleak. There was no sign of life, but to “X” it stood there like a sinister monument of treachery. What lurked within? Were human fiends waiting in the pall of gloom for more torture victims? Was Betty Dale really here, or had Greta St Clair, in spite of her dying smile, given the Agent a false lead?
The silence seemed ominous, threatening, giving rise to a dozen ugly possibilities. “X” listened, straining to catch some sound.
But there was none, not even the moan of night wind under the eaves. They walked up the front steps, treading as cautiously as prowling thieves.
“X” tried the door. It was locked. He inserted one of his master keys. The click that followed was fleeting and only slightly audible, but to their harried and overworked imaginations it sounded like the rattle and clank of prison chains.
Inside, the hallway was tomblike in its quiet. The miasma of mystery permeated the sullen gloom. Their soft footfalls seemed to thud. Even their breathing seemed to rasp in contrast to the utter silence.
No lights showed anywhere. The servants had evidently left after the DOAC raid. But the Agent didn’t relax his caution. He led Jim Hobart down the hall, stopping every few seconds to listen again. He ascended a flight of stairs, searched every room in the upper part of the house, without finding anything but the wreckage still scattered across Greta St. Clair’s bedroom by the DOAC bomb. “X,” using his flashlight now, probed into every closet and corner.
He searched the attic rooms of the house, too, then led Jim Hobart to the first floor again. Here he opened a door and went down a flight of stairs to a cellar.
The place was black, but “X” knew his location. He and his operative were in the cellar where Greta St. Clair’s guards had demonstrated their marksmanship to the Agent and Betty Dale.
“X” brought forth an instrument that looked like a small, vest-pocket camera. It was his amazing sound amplifying device constructed with delicate rheostat controls corresponding to the film wind. Out of the instrument he took a tiny disc microphone connected to a cord. The box itself served as the earphone.
Holding the box to his ear, he placed the microphone against the walls, moving about till he had traversed the whole room. Then he stopped and pressed it to the floor itself—but the only vibrations were the scraping of his own foot. He adjusted the sensitive rheostats, and suddenly his pulse quickened with excitement. He heard a faint sound, indistinguishable at first. He tuned the rheostats, obtaining the highest point of reception. Footsteps! Muffled voices! Those were what now came through the super-sensitive instrument.
“X” stood up, felt along the wall, and found another door. He opened it and the two entered. The cloying fragrance of old vintages informed them that they were in a wine cellar. The Agent whispered close to Hobart’s ear.
“Don’t breathe!”
HOLDING his own breath, the Agent held the sound box to his ear, and moved around the crow-black room turning the microphone in all directions. He heard his footsteps thundering in the earphone, but nothing else. If any one had been in the room, the microphone would have caught the person’s breathing, and the amplifying device would have magnified it into a harsh rasping.
Now the Agent brought out an electric flash and stabbed the darkness with a blade of light. The walls were lined with kegs, barrels, shelves of bottles turned on their sides, others standing erect. The St. Clair house was well equipped for pleasure and life—and probably it was as well equipped for misery and death, too.
“X” searched the floor for a trapdoor. He found none, but he did find where footprints in the dust led to the far side of the room and ended abruptly. The Agent clamped his jaws grimly.
“On your toes, Hobart!” he whispered tensely. “We’re going into something now. I don’t know what. If we find the girl, the main thing is to get her out of here. That may be your job—while I stand off the DOACs. Never mind what happens to me. Get—the—girl—away!”
Hobart nodded grimly and bit into his lower lip. The footprints leading in a single direction had only one explanation. Behind the tier of bottle-filled shelves was a door, a panel that would give ingress to the chamber or chambers below. “X” pulled on the shelves. They yielded to his efforts. The shelves were secured together like a bookcase. On uprights were tiny runners.
The Agent pu
lled the shelves away from the paneled wall. He examined the varnished surface carefully, and found fingerprints in the lower right-hand corner of the third panel. He pressed on this spot, as others had done. The panel slid back on oiled bearings, and a gust of chill air shot up from below.
A dim light from the sub-cellar room suffused the gloom. “X” had shut off his flash. He and Hobart stole down the long flight. A board creaked. “X” stopped, his hand on his gas gun. Somewhere in a chamber below him, he heard muffled voices. He doubted if the noise of the creaking board carried to that chamber, though there was a chance a sentry had been posted outside.
No one approached. “X” continued on. He reached the bottom of the stairs. A winding corridor led to a door. Beyond, men were talking. To one side stood a stack of empty whisky barrels. The Agent and Hobart drew down behind them. The voices of the DOACs didn’t carry distinctly through the walls. He could not catch the drift of the talk, so he placed his microphone to the wall. Then “X” tensed and clenched his fist.
“Get the signal room ready,” one of the DOACs was saying. “The Master arrives shortly before midnight. That hour will become one of the most important in American history. There must be no accidents, no slip-ups, no incompetence! The Master will send the word to all parts of the nation. From Maine to California, from Florida to Washington State, the overthrow of the present order begins on the stroke of twelve. You men now owe allegiance only to the Cause. Be hard, be ruthless! Blast opposition before you. Dissolve the present system in the gases and liquids that science has provided.”
Prickles raced along the Agent’s spine. The sinister hour was drawing near. “X” had to prevent the fatal broadcast that would bring destruction to vast numbers of citizens who would rise against the hooded hordes. Throughout the land, happy people were sleeping, dancing, working, unaware of the tragedy that hovered near.
From all points the scum of the nation would gather—the mentally diseased, the street hoodlums, the rat-faced gangsters, the addicts of pernicious drugs—the vast legion of defectives who in the main filled the DOAC ranks. They would sweep across the land, scattering misery and evil and desolation, plundering and killing and razing the structure of decent society—all in the name of liberty, equality, fraternity.
SUDDENLY he put a warning hand on Jim Hobart’s arm. The door opened. Three DOACs came out. The door closed, and they strode down a narrow gloomy passage. They entered another room. Brilliant light glared through the entrance. “X” got a glimpse of a control board of rubber-knobbed dials. That was probably the signal room, equipped up to the latest invention in radio progress. The DOACs must use some special wave of their own.
The Agent motioned to his operative. The two followed down the narrow passage. “X” didn’t go into the signal room. He couldn’t afford a clash now. He wanted to find Betty, wanted to get her out of this evil place, before he began his onslaught on the hooded fiends.
He opened a door near the signal room. His gas gun was ready, if he should meet a DOAC. The room was not occupied, but it was far from empty. The Agent’s eyes widened.
Jim Hobart, seasoned campaigner though he was, couldn’t suppress a gasp of amazement. They were in an arsenal, not an ordinary arsenal of guns and ammunition, but one filled with instruments that gave the opposition not the slightest fighting chance.
There were guns, of course, racks and racks of them: Lebels, Mausers, Winchesters, Marlins, guns of domestic and foreign make. They were not terrifying, however. Rifles were obtainable. National Guard units and State militias could retaliate against foes armed with guns. But what chance had the soldiers with their inadequate hand grenades against the terrible bombs used by the DOACs?
There was case after case of these bombs, each fitted with a clocklike dial and supplied with two electrodes. There were time bombs that could be set to explode seconds or hours later. One of them could tear a six-foot gap in a brick building, could twist heavy armor plate, could destroy half a regiment. But the DOACs didn’t end with bombs.
“X” and Hobart went into a sub-chamber fitted with laboratory equipment. In test-tube racks were vials labeled with scientific names. Those vials swarmed with invisible germs, countless millions of them; germs of typhoid, of the deadly sleeping-sickness, of devastating tropical fevers, of infantile paralysis, and all the horrible ills that beset man. The DOACs were ready for the most fiendish of all modern war tactics—the use of bacteria!
Even guns, bombs, and bacteria did not complete the DOACs’ equipment for annihilation. In another sub-chamber, they found tanks of the wicked Lewisite gas, di-chlorethyl sulphide, or “mustard gas,” di-phosgene, and diphenyl chlorasine which could penetrate any respirator. Here also were huge metal containers and hoselike jets from which liquid fire could be sprayed. The DOACs had obtained equipment for the most modern and horrible type of warfare. Beneath the St. Clair house were enough deadly destructive agents to wreck a whole nation.
AGENT “X” shuddered. There were, he knew, other DOAC chapters scattered throughout the land. There were headquarters in every large city; but he doubted if there were anywhere else an arsenal as fearful as this. This was the center, the hub of DOAC activity. From it the Master was to issue the command which would loose the hooded hordes like a ravaging blight over the country. And who was the Master?
“X” did not know. But this he did know. With the Master killed or captured, and this fearful vipers’ nest of evil put out of commission, the country might yet be saved from the hideous wave of terror that was destined to engulf it. His eyes roved speculatively over the bombs, back to those containers of poison gas. His lips were a thin white line as he turned to Jim Hobart.
The lanky operative was shaken, too. His police work had given him knowledge of explosive and poisonous agents. The color had drained from his face so that his freckles stood out like livid, leprous spots.
“Geez, boss—there’s enough rough stuff there to croak a whole state. There’s enough—”
He did not finish, for “X” had turned toward the door. His own gas gun was clasped in white-knuckled, talon-like fingers. His eyes were blazing like living coals.
“Never mind the stuff now, Jim,” he said thickly. “We must find the girl first—and get her out of here. Then—later—I’ll attend to that.”
What Agent “X” expected to do, he did not say. He pushed the door into the main corridor open again. These underground chambers were built as massively as the rooms of some great railway terminal. They showed the thoroughness and efficiency of the DOAC organization. The Agent started to go through the door with Jim Hobart at his heels, then he paused.
A sound stirred faint echoes along the corridor. It whispered in the air above their heads, ghostlike, disturbing.
“Hear anything, Jim?”
“Yes!”
Hobart’s reply was hardly more than a husky croak. He was leaning forward, staring at “X” intently, listening. The sound came again and this time there was no mistaking it. It was the muffled scream of a girl, frightened with terror, speaking of starkly hideous things, and it came from somewhere on their right.
Agent “X,” lips working, leaped forward. He sped down the corridor on his silent, rubber-soled shoes with the quickness of a cat. Jim Hobart followed, but could not keep up.
There were several doorways here. But the scream was repeated a third time, and its wavering note directed him. It came from the third door on the Agent’s right. He reached the spot in an instant, thrust the door open, and his heart leaped within him.
An iron grating like that of an animal cage reached from floor to ceiling halfway across the room. There was a barred door in its center. This door was open now, and, in the small prison beyond, Betty Dale, her face wan as death, was cowering back against the farther wall as a hooded DOAC moved toward her.
As though the bars of the prison were not enough, small gleaming chains were fastened to Betty’s white wrists. She could not move far in either direction, and the DOAC h
ad something in his hand. This was a smoking metal container with a turquoise blue alcohol flame beneath it—a pot of boiling lead! He set the pot down, leisurely approached the girl, and Betty screamed again. It appeared like a brutal act of intimidation.
“X” didn’t wait to see whether the hooded DOAC meant to pour lead on the girl’s skin or in her throat. The man was intent in his sadistic action. “X” plunged straight through the small barred door of the human cage.
His gas gun was in his hand, but he did not pull the trigger. Not often did Agent “X” strike to kill. He left that for cruder, less skillful investigators who made a habitual practice of violence. But red fury surged through his blood now. For a bare instant Agent “X” was the primitive, whose one thought is to strike down an enemy in the quickest possible way.
He brought the heavy metal muzzle of the gas gun down on the DOAC’s hooded head with all his might. There was a sickening crunch as bone gave way, and the man fell.
Betty Dale’s body seemed to sag. She looked on in dull-eyed amazement, almost doped with the terror that possessed her. Only when the Agent stepped over the fallen body of the hooded man and came close, did Betty’s expression change. Then her eyes became fixed on the face of the Agent. A great trembling seized her.
“Betty!” he said, and, almost as though it were the sign of the cross, he made the mark of X in the air close to her face. A torrent of words came to the girl’s deathly pale lips. The Agent checked them with a quickly made gesture.
“Not now, Betty,” he whispered. “I want to get you out of here first. That is all that counts.”
Secret Agent “X” – The Complete Series Volume 2 Page 58
