Secret Agent "X" – The Complete Series, Volume 2

Chapter I

BROODING darkness lay over the pretentious mansion. No lights showed anywhere on the spacious grounds, except for a splash of incandescence thrown from the partly opened door of the cement garage that was built into the side of the house. Off to the left, the white stonework of a private mausoleum rose, wraith-like in the night, barely discernible in the gloom.

In the house itself, the servants’ quarters were darkened. The dim bulb in the hall at the entrance left the rest of the corridor in shadowy obscurity. In one room only was there a sign of subdued life. This was a library on the second floor, at the rear. The house was built on a sharp slope, so that this second floor room became, in fact, a ground floor room.

Here were gathered four men whose features were indistinguishable in the partial light of a weak-bulbed bridge lamp in the far corner.

Even in the dim illumination, this room appeared as a sumptuously furnished library. Bookcases lined the walls; deep, comfortable upholstered chairs were in evidence. At the far end from the windows a balcony stretched across the room. The four men paid no attention to the furnishings. Though their faces were blurs, and the starched fronts of their dress shirts merely white splotches in the semi-gloom, it was apparent that there was a strange tenseness about them; a strained air of nervous expectancy that seemed to charge the atmosphere with hideous forebodings of doom.

One of the four, a very tall man, was walking up and down, while the others sat still and taut, their very attitudes seeming to question him. Every time the tall man neared the far end of the room, the low-thrown light of the bridge lamp cast its gleaming focus on his brightly polished patent leather shoes that squeaked slightly with each step.

One of the seated men flicked a lighter to a cigarette. The hand that held the lighter was revealed as flabby, pudgy, trembling. He took a puff or two of the cigarette, extinguished the lighter. Then, with an impatient motion, he crushed the cigarette in an ash tray on the end table.

“God!” he broke out, in a high-pitched voice. “Stop that walking! Those damn shoes of yours — squeaking like that! They give me the creeps!”

The tall man kept on walking, “Losing your nerve?” he demanded bitingly.

Another of the four stirred in his chair. He was a man with a large, heavy body. His face was almost entirely hidden in the depths of the upholstery. He took a bulky, old-fashioned watch from his vest pocket, snapped open the case. “It’s eight-fifteen,” he said in a deep, authoritative voice. “If anything has happened, it’s over by this time. Turn on the radio, and get the news flashes. It’s better than phoning in to the city for information. That might arouse suspicion.”

The fourth man remained silent. He sat still and self-contained, a mere shadow in the darkness.

The tall man grunted, walked over to the radio, treading hard so as to make his shoes squeak louder.

The pudgy man said, “God! That squeaking will drive me crazy!”

THE others paid him no attention. They stiffened in their seats as the radio sprang to life under the tall man’s manipulation.

The announcer’s voice billowed into the room, filled it. “And to bear out once more all the dark rumors and fearful whispers about the sinister hand that seems to be enveloping the entire state in a clutch of horror,” he was saying, “we learn that within the last hour a bold, brazen and murderous attempt has been made to assassinate Judge Guy B. Farrell, the governor-elect of the state! Fortunately, the murderer was balked in the attempt, and the life of the governor-elect was saved. But no one feels safe any longer within the borders of the state!”

The voice of the pudgy man quavered shrilly, drowning out the announcer’s voice. “God! Failed! What’ll we do?”

“Shut up!” the tall man snarled. He turned the volume control, and the announcer’s voice grew louder:

“The killer was captured after his murderous attempt, and turned out to be none other than the dangerous desperado, the escaped convict, ‘Killer’ Kyle, whose escape from Riker Penitentiary a few days ago was shrouded in such mystery that the warden would not even grant an interview. Kyle is the second convict to break out of Riker within a week. You will recall that Sam Slawson, the all-around confidence man, was the first.”

The large man who had suggested turning on the radio, grunted, and said, “They’re tying things up — guessing close. Something will have to be done.”

The announcer continued: “It becomes rapidly clearer that there is some enormous plot on foot to seize control of the state through murder of key men. Last week, shortly after Sam Slawson’s escape from Riker, Governor-elect Farrell’s secretary was hideously tortured, and then murdered. There is no apparent reason why this terrible thing should have been done to Michael Crome. Crome was Judge Farrell’s secretary for eleven years.

“Judge Farrell is an honest, upright man — that is why he was drafted to run for governor on the Conservative party ticket. Why should Crome have been killed, and why should this attempt have been made on the judge’s life? Kyle admits that he had nothing against Judge Farrell, but refuses to disclose who aided him to escape from Riker, or who paid him to try to kill the governor-elect.

“Immediately after his arrest he was taken to headquarters where he will be grilled by Inspector Burks. He is defiant, and boasts that he will be out within twenty-four hours. Inspector Burks, in a statement to the press, said that extraordinary precautions have been taken, and that not even a fly could get out of headquarters. Nevertheless, grave doubts are being expressed, in view of the fact that there seems to be a deep-laid plot on foot, engineered by a master criminal who commands the respect even of such men as Killer Kyle!”

The pudgy man appeared to shudder perceptibly. “God! Remember what Crome’s body looked like? All bloated up to twice its size! And his throat swollen so he couldn’t breathe — and strangled to death!” He sprang up. “I can’t stand it, I tell you!” He started for the door.

The tall man reached out a long hand and seized his arm, hurled him back into the chair. “Be careful,” he said coldly. “We can’t afford to have any weak sisters. And it’s too late to back out. You’re in this—” he leaned forward and said the next words slowly “—alive — or dead!”

The radio announcer was still talking. “Judge Farrell, who has been without a secretary since election day, due to the murder of Michael Crome, has announced that he will not engage a new one for the present. He will temporarily make use of the services of his fiancée, the beautiful Princess Ar-Lassi, whose recent advent into society has attracted wide attention. The swift romance that grew between the judge and the fascinating widow of the Egyptian prince, Mehemet Ar-Lassi, is—”

The tall man shut off the radio with an impatient flick of his fingers.

And now the fourth man in the room leaned forward in his chair and spoke for the first time. His hands, with carefully manicured fingernails, were trembling visibly as he tapped the gun-metal cigarette case he had extracted from his pocket. “So,” he said in a low, tense voice, “Kyle failed to kill Farrell, and was caught. And now they want to make him talk. And he boasts he will be out in twenty-four hours!” His long finger stabbed up at the tall man. “Is there any basis for that boast?”

The tall man glared downward a moment and spoke sharply, hoarsely: “Why ask me? You know—”

He did not finish the sentence. His face was working strangely. And, in the silence that followed his words, the atmosphere of tense foreboding in the room deepened. A mysterious force seemed to be at work, chilling the minds and hearts of its occupants with a fear they dared not even voice. That force was like the slow, relentless grip of a hand of horror, crushing them in its snaky fingers.

Chapter II

BEFORE the desk of the Clayton Hotel, four young men and a young woman waited impatiently. The woman was hardly more than a girl. Her trim little figure was charged with the quick energy of youth. A pair of blue eyes sparkled in the small, creamy oval of her face. Blonde hair peeped out from under the brim of her hat. She was exchanging light chatter with the four men. But behind her apparent gayety there were undertones of tense emotion and purpose.

The phone on the clerk’s desk jangled abruptly. The clerk answered it, then nodded to the little group, his eyes feasting on the loveliness of the girl. “The governor-elect will see you now.” His announcement included them all.

One of the men with the girl said, “Let’s go.” He consulted his wrist-watch, then spoke to the girl. “You can shoot the works to him, Betty. He’ll probably stand for more from you than from us.” He led the way to the elevator.

It was apparent that the police weren’t going to allow another attack upon the governor-elect. Several headquarters detectives were stationed in the lobby. One grim-faced man stood close to the elevator door, watching all those who entered or left the car. He nodded to the four men and the girl as they got in.

Then, just as the door was about to slide to, a tall stranger bustled through the crowds in the lobby and leaped toward the elevator. He appeared to be of indefinite age. He was plainly dressed, and his blunt, nondescript features were as inconspicuous as his clothes. But, in the depths of his eyes, was a glow of flashing, penetrating intelligence. This look of dynamic mental power seemed mysteriously out of keeping with his commonplace face. As though anxious to hide it, he quickly lowered his gaze. The detective stretched out an arm and barred his way.

“Where to, mister?”

The keen-eyed man said, “To see Governor-elect Farrell. I just got in from upstate.” He took a wallet out of his pocket, and exhibited a card.

The detective said: “Oh, yeah. The commissioner said it would be okay for you to go up. You’re just in time.” He moved out of the way, and the tall, keen-eyed man went in.

The operator closed the door, and shot the cage up to the fifteenth floor. They all got out. The girl led the way down the corridor to a door before which another plain-clothes man was stationed. He nodded genially, and opened the door for them. The keen-eyed man who had arrived late seemed to have attached himself to their group, for he followed them in, though no word had yet been spoken by him.

Inside the governor-elect’s suite, they waited in an anteroom until the inner door opened. A gorgeously beautiful woman stood framed in the doorway. She was slender, sinuous, and appeared taller then she really was by reason of the long, tightly, fitting evening dress she wore.

The dress was of bright red, and expensive. So well was it fitted that it seemed to have been molded to her body. A coral necklace that matched the dress lay against her white throat, and jet black hair was done into a large knot at the nape of her neck. She was a strikingly attractive woman, in spite of the strange hardness that shone in her eyes.

She said in a low voice, with a trace of accent: “Eef you will come in, miss and gentlemen, Meestaire Farrell will see you now. He is vairy nervous — after that so terrible experience.” She shuddered prettily, and motioned them in.

They filed in past her, the keen-eyed man last. As he brushed her in passing he cast a searching glance into her features, and there was a quizzical smile on his lips. The woman flushed under his sharp gaze, and turned away.

The room which they were now in was lit only by a floor lamp near the door. The other end of the room was in semi-gloom, but there was enough light to see the harassed features of the man who sat behind the desk. He was a stately, dignified man in his fifties, hair turning gray at the temples, eyes sunk deep, cheeks gaunt and pale from the strenuous campaign he had been through. His hands rested on the glass top of the desk. On the middle finger of the right hand he wore a heavy gold ring with a strange design. It was a raised figure, Egyptian in type, but its lines were indistinguishable because of the lack of light.

The woman with the jet hair came around and stood beside the desk. The man looked up at her, nodded, and spoke to the visitors. “All right. I can give you five minutes — no more. I am very tired; and somewhat unstrung by this attempt on my life. Perhaps it will be better if one of you does the talking for all.”

One of the men tapped the blonde girl on the shoulder. “Go on, Betty. Talk up.”

THE girl took a step toward the desk, and smiled pleasantly. “I’ll try to make it as short as I can, judge. The first question is: What were your sensations when Kyle fired at you with the automatic?”

Farrell moved restlessly. The queer Egyptian ring seemed to radiate a disquieting glow. “Shock, more than anything else,” he said. “At first I didn’t realize I was being fired at. There was this explosion at the end of the corridor, and something whizzed past my head. Then there was a crash in the woodwork beside me. You can see where the bullet struck, when you go out. Captain Donovan, my bodyguard, drew his gun and raced down the hall.

“Only then did I understand that somebody was trying to kill me. The princess here, with whom I was going on a motor ride, screamed. I turned and saw this Killer Kyle down near the elevators. He was firing again, but Captain Donovan was between me and the assassin. Kyle’s remaining six bullets found their mark in the poor captain’s body. He took the death that was intended for me. Then the house detective came around the bend in the hall, and struck Kyle over the head with his revolver. That was all.”

Betty and the four reporters were busy taking notes. The governor-elect’s statement would go in their papers word for word. The keen-eyed man, however, took no notes. During Farrell’s recital he listened attentively, his piercing eyes darting from the speaker to the exotically beautiful princess.

Betty said, “Thank you, governor. Now, number two: Do you suspect that Killer Kyle had anything to do with the murder of your secretary, Michael Crome, which occurred last week?”

Farrell frowned. “I don’t know what to think. There seems to be some deep-seated plot against the incoming state officials. What is behind it is a mystery.”

“Who,” Betty asked, “would succeed you if anything happened to you?”

The eyes of the Princess Ar-Lassi flashed angrily. “I think,” she exclaimed, “that this question which you now ask is in vairy poor taste!”

BETTY started to say, “I’m sorry—” but the governor-elect raised a patient hand.

“It’s all right, my dear,” he said. “When you become accustomed to newspaper reporters, you will learn not to be offended at anything they may ask. It’s their business.” He smiled at Betty. “I’ll answer that by saying that according to the statute, if I were to be killed, Lieutenant Governor Alvin Rice, who has been re-elected, would become governor. And in the event that Lieutenant Governor Rice should become incapacitated, the gubernatorial functions would be assumed by the president pro-tem of the senate — who happens to be State Senator Anton Thane, a very good friend of mine. So, for that matter, is Mr. Rice — even though he fought me for the nomination in the convention.”

“Both these gentlemen belong to the Conservative Party, the same as you?” Betty asked.

“They do. We are all regular party men. That, as you know, is why I yielded to the entreaties of my good friend, John Hanscom, the Conservative Party leader, and agreed to run for governor. I was quite satisfied with my position as Justice of the Supreme Court, but I feel that party loyalty comes before personal preference.” Farrell’s tone had unconsciously assumed an oratorical note. Phrases like these were second nature to politicians.

Betty went on with her questions. “Do you know of any reason why your secretary, Michael Crome, should have been tortured and killed in that hideous way? Was he in possession of any secrets that the murderer might have wanted to wrest from him?”

Farrell was silent, thoughtful, for a moment. Then he said, “No. It is incredible that such a fiendish act could take place in this civilized country!” His face appeared to look older, harried, at the very thought of Crome’s death.

Betty tactfully passed on to the next subject. “And now,” smilingly, “if you will permit me, I should like to go to a more personal matter—”

Farrell said, “Yes, yes. I know. I suppose you all want to know about myself and the Princess Ar-Lassi.”

They all nodded eagerly. All except the tall man, who stood behind the rest with veiled eyes, as if he were considering a matter far removed from this room. He seemed hardly to hear as Farrell explained, “The princess and I will be married on the evening of my inauguration. We will make that day the date of a double celebration. I am sure that the princess will lend dignity and grace to the gubernatorial mansion. She has already proved invaluable, acting as my secretary since poor Michael was murdered.”

Betty said, “Would you care to tell us how you met—”

Farrell held up a hand. His mouth drew into a stubborn line. “We will not go into that now, if you please. The details of our romance are more or less private property. Even a public official is entitled to some degree of privacy in some matters.”

Betty shrugged. “Just as you say, governor. I know how you feel. I’m sure I’d feel as you do.” She extended a finger, pointed to the governor’s ring. “That ring — I’ve never seen you wear it before.”

“That,” said Farrell, looking affectionately at the princess, “was a gift from my fiancée. It was an heirloom of the family of her former husband, Mehemet Ar-Lassi, Prince of Egypt. She acquired it upon his death. It is said to possess strange properties—” he eyed it speculatively—“which I am testing out.” He raised his head suddenly, tapped on the glass desk top with his open hand. “I’m sorry, but your time is up. Now, if any of you have another question or two, I’ll answer if I can, and then I must ask you to excuse me.” He rose, but remained behind the desk.

One of the reporters demanded eagerly, “Look here, governor, isn’t there any way in which control of the state could get to the Liberal Party, your opponents, if Killer Kyle had been successful?”

Farrell started, then bowed his head reflectively. After a while he said slowly, “There is one way — but it means almost wholesale murder. I hesitate to consider it as a possibility. You see, if I were killed, if Lieutenant Governor Rice were killed, and if State Senator Thane were killed, then the Speaker of the Assembly would become the acting governor. He, as you know, is Assemblyman Linton, of the Liberal Party. He has been fighting for years for public ownership of utilities. But Linton would never turn to murder!”

And then the drawling voice of the hitherto silent man with the piercing eyes startled them all by the depth of its quiet assurance. “If I may ask a question, sir—” though he spoke to Farrell, his gleaming eyes rested on the darkly beautiful princess—“you mentioned the death of Prince Mehemet Ar-Lassi. Is it not true, if my memory serves me, that he was murdered, about three years ago; and in a manner similar to the way your secretary, Michael Crome, met his death? That is, his body swelled to tremendous proportions, and he was throttled by the expansion of his throat muscles?”

Chapter III

IF a bombshell had been exploded in the room it could not have created a greater sensation. All color ebbed from the face of the princess. Her white face, set off by the coral necklace and the jet hair became as a mask of death. She put a hand to her throat and gasped, “How — how did you know that?”

The keen-eyed man smiled slowly. “It happens that — er — a friend of mine was traveling in Africa on a very confidential mission at the time of the prince’s death. He related all the peculiar particulars to me.”

The governor-elect took a step forward from the desk, fists clenched at his sides, his lips set grimly. “Your impertinent insinuation, sir—”

The keen-eyed man held up a placating hand. “I assure you, sir, that I meant to insinuate nothing. I am as interested in probing to the bottom of Michael Crome’s murder as you are. I am merely in search of anything that may help.”

The governor suddenly appeared to wilt. He put an arm across the shoulder of the Princess Ar-Lassi. “It is no use, my dear. Secrets cannot be kept from the press. Perhaps it will be better to tell them.” He turned to the small group of excited news people. “This, gentlemen, must be strictly off the record!” He looked from one to the other of them, and they all nodded in turn, including the keen-eyed man.

Farrell took a deep breath and went on. “It is true,” he said, “that the Prince Ar-Lassi was murdered in the same way as Michael Crome. At the time that the prince was killed, the princess here, narrowly escaped the same fate. But the murderers have not given up. For some reason they have seemed to feel that the entire family of Mehemet must be exterminated. The princess has felt constantly in danger for the last three years. She somehow knew that the doom that caught her former husband would sooner or later overtake her, and she feared for me as well.

“That is why she insisted that I wear this Egyptian ring. It is supposed to guard its wearer against death. I wanted her to keep it, but she became almost hysterical in her insistence, so I had to put it on.” He laughed in a sheepish sort of way. “It seems to have worked with Kyle today.”

He suddenly became serious again. “But — this doom that the princess feared has apparently caught up with her. Whether by accident or design, it was poor Michael Crome who suffered first.” He looked around at all of them. “I am telling you this, my friends, for your own information. It is strictly off the record. Publicity will not help us in combating these fiendish murderers.”

Farrell leaned against the desk, and lit a cigarette with a shaking hand.

Betty Dale had listened wide-eyed to his story. Now she impulsively went forward and put her arm around the princess’s waist. “My dear,” she said, softly. “If there is anything I can do for you—”

She was interrupted by the cool voice of the keen-eyed man. “May I ask you, sir, if you heard the news broadcast this evening?”

FARRELL seemed to have found some solace in his cigarette. He shook his head through a cloud of smoke. “I did not. What—”

“It mentioned,” the other told him, “that another convict had escaped from Riker Penitentiary a week before Killer Kyle. I wonder if you ever heard of him. His name is — Sam Slawson.”

Judge Farrell started. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve heard of him. I’m wondering — if he’ll be the next to make some sort of attempt against me. It seems as if some powerful influence has caused the release of these criminals so that they may commit murder. I trust that the police will be able to give sufficient protection, not only to myself, but to the other officials who have been placed in office by the recent election. Somehow, I have a feeling that they are all in danger.” The governor-elect stopped, looked squarely at the tall man. “I don’t recall you, sir. Are you one of the regular reporters?”

The tall man shook his head. “No, judge. My name is Anderson. I am the editor of the Northtown Examiner. Perhaps you will recall that the police commissioner phoned you for permission to include me in those to be granted an interview.” While he talked he extracted a card from his wallet, and handed it to Farrell.

The governor-elect glanced at the card, and nodded. “Yes, yes. I do recall it.” He turned to the others. “I regret, now, that the time is up. If you will all excuse me—”

They said good-by to him, and filed out, Mr. Anderson bringing up the rear.

The princess accompanied them to the outer door, and sped them on their way graciously. As Mr. Anderson, of the Northtown Examiner, stepped past her, he said, “I hope, madam, that you have not taken offense at anything I said.”

Her eyes held a provocative challenge as she replied, smiling faintly, “I will forgive you fully, Mr. Anderson—if we meet again.”

Her eyes were enigmatic as she watched him enter the elevator behind the others, watched the cage descend.

And in the inner room, Governor-elect Farrell was staring with dilated eyes at the card that had just been handed to him. For the printed name of Mr. Anderson was disappearing; the surface of the card turned black under his gaze, and upon it appeared a gleaming white “X.”

The detective on duty outside came in with the princess, and saw the look on the governor-elect’s face. He exclaimed, “What’s the trouble, judge?”

Farrell shouted, “Call the commissioner. Have extra men assigned here! That editor — was Secret Agent ‘X’!”

MEANWHILE, the elevator had reached the lobby, and the reporters hastened to telephones to flash their stories to waiting city rooms. Betty Dale felt her arm taken in a strong grip. Mr. Anderson said, “Will you come outside with me? I want to talk to you — about some one you know well.”

The voice was so strong, imperious, that Betty felt herself impelled to go out in the street with him. He led her around the corner, to a parked coupé. “Get in,” he said.

She drew back. “Why—”

His laugh held a hint of faint triumph. With the index finger of his right hand he described the letter “X” in the air.

Her face lighted. “You!” she exclaimed. “And I was promising myself I’d surely penetrate your next disguise!” She felt a surge of emotion that always came when she found herself in the presence of this man whose true face she had never seen, yet whom, she felt, she knew better than did anyone else in the world.

He smiled. “The day that you do penetrate my disguise,” he said, “I’ll know that I’m slipping. Then it will be time for me to give up all this, and think of — other things.”

She put an impulsive hand on his sleeve. “I hope,” she breathed, “that that day will come soon.”

A newsboy passed at that moment, calling an extra, and the momentary look of relaxation passed from the face of “Mr. Anderson.” Again there came into it that grim firmness, that purposefulness, that sometimes frightened Betty Dale. He bought a paper, helped her into the car, and spread the paper open. The headline was about Killer Kyle.

Betty read it over his shoulder. “Killer Kyle silent!” it said. “Refuses to reveal name of person who hired him to attack Governor-elect Farrell. Claims he has no personal grudge against governor-elect. Boasts that he will be free within twenty-four hours!”

Betty shuddered. “He must have powerful connections to feel so certain that he will escape.”

The Secret Agent nodded. “I am afraid there will be more killings in the next twenty-four hours.”

He scanned the rest of the story with somber eyes. It went on to say that extraordinary precautions had been taken to prevent Kyle’s escape. Members of the bomb squad, and the riot squad, had been drafted for duty. Machine guns were placed at strategic points around headquarters. The Secret Agent put down the paper, and looked at Betty in a queer way.

She suddenly thrilled under his eye. She knew that look. “You — you want me to do something for you?”

He nodded. “I want you to go down to headquarters, and look it over carefully. Make note of all the points at which the machine guns are placed. Note how the guards are distributed inside the building, and also get all the information you can about the precautions that are being taken. In addition, I would like to know in what part of the building Kyle is being held. Meet me with the information, in one hour, at the corner of Cherry and Grove — three blocks from headquarters.”

Betty said, “Why — why do you want all this?”

“Because,” Secret Agent “X” said coolly, “I am going to rescue Killer Kyle.”

Chapter IV

DOWNTOWN that evening, headquarters bore the appearance of an armed camp. The police had drawn a living cordon of uniformed men around the area for two blocks in every direction.

The big building occupied a square block, and each of the four streets surrounding it was patrolled by radio cars and motorcycles with armored side-cars. The men in these cars were provided with riot guns. Posted in convenient windows in the houses opposite, were men from the bomb squad, the riot squad, the safe and loft squad, and from other departments. They were drafted for the emergency, and armed with sub-machine guns that could rake the streets at a moment’s notice.

These were no idle precautions. It was within the bounds of possibility that Killer Kyle’s old gang would try to effect a rescue by storming headquarters. He had once done the same for them when they were confined in the death house of a Middle West jail. The result had been a half dozen prison guards shot down and killed, and the escape of Kyle’s gang. If he had done it for them, it was natural to suppose that they would try the same means to free him.

Inside the headquarters building, plain-clothes men patrolled the corridors with guns openly hanging from holsters. No one was admitted without a pass from the highest authority. There was an air about all these men, of electric expectancy — an attitude of tense suspicion.

Two men with a sub-machine gun were placed in the rear of the ground floor corridor, commanding the staircase that led down to the basement. For it was down there that Killer Kyle was being held. He sat there, in a small room. There were a dozen officials present, but he was the only one seated. His wrists were handcuffed to the arms of the chair.

He was a big brute of a man, with wide shoulders and a deep chest. His muscles bulged under the wrinkled gray suit that he wore. He had a huge shock of black hair, a hooked nose, and close-set, beady, deadly eyes. His lips were thick, red, and they curled away now from stained teeth in a snarl of defiance.

There were present in the room, a representative from the district attorney’s office, several men from the homicide squad, including Lieutenant Fitzimmons. There were also present Sergeant Nevins of the headquarters detail, a warrant officer, and in charge of all, the lean, hard-faced Inspector John Burks.

Burks towered over Killer Kyle, feet spread wide, brow dewed with sweat, jaw jutting; a picture of bulldog tenacity. He shook a finger under Kyle’s nose, barked, “You better talk now, Kyle! It’ll be easier for you in the long run.” He bent low, his face close to the prisoner’s. “Give us the name of the man who hired you to attack the governor-elect, and maybe we can make it easier for you. If you don’t, you’ll have a hard road ahead of you.”

Kyle glared up at him, fairly spat, “You go to hell!”

Burks whirled away with an expression of disgust. He said to Lieutenant Fitzimmons, “I’d like to have him alone for a while. Too bad the commissioner’s so set against—”

Kyle broke into a taunting laugh. “I ain’t afraid o’ you, Burks. I can take it. Try it an’ see if I talk. An’ after I get out o’ here I’ll come back an’ even it up!”

BURKS swung back to him. “You crazy fool! The man who hired you is going to let you burn! Do you think he or anybody else could get you out of here? We’ll have a regiment around you, if necessary, till the day you burn. Your only chance is to talk — fast.”

Kyle grinned nastily. “A fat lot you know about it. I’ll be out of here in twenty-four hours!”

Burks suddenly rapped at him, “You’re the one that killed Michael Crome, too!”

Kyle said, “Nuts! I was in jail when he got bumped.”

“No, you weren’t, Kyle. You killed Crome. You got him out to that lonely beach on Staten Island. You tried to get him to tell you some secret by torturing him: you stuck a corkscrew into his body at spots where the tendons were located, and you twisted the tendons around till they snapped. But he didn’t talk — or else he lost consciousness before he could talk, because I don’t think any man could withstand that torture. So then you injected some poison into him that made him swell up and die. You did — you know you did!”

Kyle had grown pale during the recital. Even his brutal hulk had imagination enough to realize the fiendishness of the torture that had been inflicted on Crome. “God, no!” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t do that to a guy. I’d shoot him, yes — a slug in the belly is bad enough. But that — not me!”

Burks bent close to him again. “All right, Kyle. Suppose you didn’t do it. I bet the man that hired you to attack the governor-elect is the same one that killed Crome. He wanted something that Crome or Mr. Farrell had or could tell him.”

Kyle let his eyes flicker, half closed them.

Burks saw that he had scored. He drove home his point. “All right. Suppose he does succeed in getting you out of here. It’s impossible. But suppose he does — what do you think’ll happen? You’ll get the same dose that Crome got! Do you think the man who hired you is going to leave you alive to maybe blackmail him for the rest of his life? Nix! You’ll get it in the neck. That’s where Crome got the injection of that devilish stuff that swelled him up.”

Burks stopped. He was breathless, sweating. “What do you say, Kyle? Do you talk? I’ll see that you get a break if you do. If you don’t, you lose anyway you look at it.”

Kyle appeared to waver. Apparently Burks had hit on the right note in stressing the ruthlessness of Kyle’s “boss.” But Kyle shook his head suddenly, growled, “Nix! You go to hell!” Then he started to laugh loudly, wildly. “You almost got me, that time, Burks. You’re foxy!”

The inspector was an old hand at this work. He glanced around at the others, winked at the D.A.’s man, and returned to the attack. “Wear ’em down,” was his motto.

He leveled a finger at Kyle, said, “Where’s this Sam Slawson that escaped from Riker a week before you did? Maybe he’s the one who killed Crome. Tell us where to find him.”

The prisoner leaned back in the chair, and showed his stained teeth in a grin. “I don’t know no Sam Slawson, inspector. And anyway, even if I did, you could still go to hell!”

Burks turned away, his face apoplectic.

Peters, the investigator from the district attorney’s office, a thin, precise little man, with a dapper mustache and a fishy eye, said, “Let me talk to him, inspector. I may have a new angle.”

He came and stood before the prisoner. “Look here, Kyle,” he said in his coldly incisive voice. “Let me analyze this for you. You are undoubtedly the tool of some political faction. We all know that there has been a bitter political fight. We here,” he looked around the room, “are all regular Conservative Party men, so I can speak plainly. We might as well admit that we would have lost the election and got thrown out of power in the state, if Boss Hanscom hadn’t had the inspiration to run Judge Farrell for governor. All right, Farrell runs and makes it in a landslide.

“But what happened? Lieutenant Governor Alvin Rice, who has been lieutenant governor for two terms, has been hoping like hell that he’d get the nomination. But he had to be sidetracked for a more popular man, and Hanscom ran him again in second place on the ticket. Now—” he spoke slowly, distinctly, directly at Kyle—“maybe it was some one who stood to gain by Farrell’s death that hired you. Am I right?”

Kyle wet his lips, stared back at Peters, and said, “You can go to hell, too, mister.”

Burks took Peters’ arm. “We’re wasting our time now,” he told the assistant district attorney. “We’ll leave him down here for a while, and when Commissioner Foster gets here maybe I can get permission to use more drastic methods on him. Let’s go now.” He said to Sergeant Nevins, “You, Nevins, detail two men to remain on guard here. You stay, too. I’ll hold you personally responsible for the prisoner.”

The officials filed out; Peters looked glum. “I’d like to get this all lined up so I can present it to the Grand Jury in the morning,” he said as they went out.

Burks clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Peters. We’ll have Kyle talking plenty before the morning.”

Kyle’s taunting laugh followed them out into the corridor. He called after them, “I’ll be out of here by tomorrow morning, Burks. I’ll lay you odds on it!”

Chapter V

SHORTLY after Kyle’s last defiance of Inspector Burks, Betty Dale walked down the steps of headquarters with the air of a conspiratress. She started guiltily when Lieutenant Fitzimmons greeted her genially.

“How’s the colleen today?” he inquired. “Sure the department lost a swell little mascot when you took to reportin’!”

She forced a smile, said, “Hello, Dan. How’s the missus, and the little Fitz’s?”

The burly, red-faced lieutenant needed little more than that encouragement. He got into a lengthy story of the latest scrape that Dan, Junior had got into. It was with difficulty that Betty finally broke away from him, and hurried down the three blocks toward Cherry and Grove.

While at headquarters she had received a phone call from the man she was going to meet, instructing her to try to get certain other information in addition to that he had requested before. She had only been partially successful.

But the thing that weighed on her most heavily was the seeming rashness, the danger of this plan Agent “X” had conceived. She found it difficult to understand his purpose in wishing to rescue Kyle. Yet she was sure of one thing — whatever that purpose was, there was nothing dishonorable about it. Fantastic, mysterious as it seemed, there must be some logical motive behind it.

She trusted, admired Agent “X” so much that her faith in him held no restrictions. She knew with appalling certainty, that she would do whatever he asked — no matter what. She loved him.

She walked more slowly now, tingling to the sweetness of the conscious realization that had come to her.

She passed the outer police lines, and approached the corner of Cherry and Grove. As she had expected, the coupé was there. The door opened, as she came up to it, and she entered.

She did not recognize the man who sat at the wheel, and looked at him with a momentary sense of bewilderment, until he spoke in the voice that he used for her alone — she had grown to recognize the peculiar inflections. Sometimes it was that voice only which reassured her that the man she was talking to was really Secret Agent “X.” Now he traced the sign of the “X” on the windshield with his finger, and she smiled.

“How do you do, Mr. — er — Anderson? You don’t look like yourself anymore.”

He smiled in response, and shook his head. “Anderson is gone — for good. Permit me to introduce myself. I am James L. Black.”

“That’s as good a name as any,” she said with a levity she was far from feeling. There was with her constantly the thought of the mad thing he was about to attempt. She put up a hand and touched his shoulder. “What broad shoulders you have, Mr. Black! And what a funny hooked nose. At a distance I would almost take you for Killer Kyle!”

HE nodded in satisfaction. “That was my intention. The nose, of course, is a work of art. The shoulders are mechanical. I have thin concave plates strapped under my shirt. They give the effect of broad shoulders.” He suddenly grew serious. “But never mind that. Let’s get down to business. What have you found out for me?”

And as suddenly, her eyes grew moist. She gripped his sleeve impulsively. “You mustn’t do it. You can’t get Kyle out of there. Not even Burks could do it. It’s suicide!”

She stopped, and bowed her head. For she saw the adamant granite-like look that had come into his face. She had seen it before. Nothing she could say would swerve him from his purpose. He had dedicated his life to this work, and he risked it so often that she had even ceased getting those all-over cold feelings when she learned of his hairbreadth escapes from destruction.

Her head still bowed, she said in a low, choked voice, “I’m sorry. Don’t pay any attention to me. You will, of course, do what you think is right. And I shall help you to the best of my ability.”

His face softened — this strange face of Mr. James L. Black—

“Good, Betty!” he said. “Now, tell me what you’ve found out.”

She proceeded to relate in detail all the steps the police had taken to ensure that Kyle could not be rescued.

“It just can’t be done,” she finished. “They’d blast you into eternity before you even got to the top of the basement stairs. And if you did succeed, by some miracle, in reaching the main floor, there are guards all around the corridors, and machine guns and motorcycles outside. You can’t try gas, either, because they’ve foreseen that. The commissioner has ordered the men equipped with gas masks.”

“Is Commissioner Foster there?” he asked her.

“No. He’s at home. He’s given Inspector Burks full charge, but he phones every half hour or so to see that everything’s all right.”

“Were you able to discover whether Kyle talked?”

“He didn’t tell them a thing. Inspector Burks, Lieutenant Fitzimmons, and Mr. Peters from the district attorney’s office have just stopped questioning him. Kyle only kept repeating that he would be out of there in twenty-four hours.”

“Perhaps he will be out sooner,” Secret Agent “X” said softly. “And now, were you able to get that other thing I phoned you about?”

“Sam Slawson’s fingerprints? No. There’s something peculiar about that. You know Jack Price, the fingerprint man over there, lets me ramble in the fingerprint room. I went through the cards, and Slawson’s fingerprints are missing! They must have been stolen from the file! I couldn’t ask Jack about them, because that would have given it away. But I’m sure some one’s stolen them.”

Secret Agent “X” nodded thoughtfully. “I thought you would have something like that to report. It indicates that there is some one high in the government behind all this.”

“Why,” she asked, “are you so interested in this Sam Slawson? Is it just because he escaped from the same prison as Kyle?”

“It’s something much deeper than that, Betty. There is a hand of horror reaching out to crush the state in a terrible grip of murder and torture. Kyle is a tool. Slawson must be a tool, too. But Slawson is far more dangerous — because he is intelligent. We must find him — somehow!”

“Is there anything else that you want me to do? Can I help you — since you insist in going ahead with this impossible plan?”

“No. You will now go back to your regular work. Forget about this whole thing. From now on, anyone who appears to be remotely connected with this thing will be in danger of meeting the same fate that Crome met.”

She shuddered. “What about you?”

He smiled, “You ought to know, by this time, that I can take care of myself.” He got out of the car, came around to her side, and helped her out.

She said, “The police cordon starts at the next block. I don’t know what your plan is, but—” she whispered it, for her throat was choked—“good luck!”

She watched him walk down Cherry Street through the darkness, in the direction of headquarters — watched him until his figure blended with the night, and until she could no longer see because of the film of moisture that welled in her eyes.

Then she turned and walked in the opposite direction.

Chapter VI

JAMES L. BLACK — Secret Agent “X”—went down Cherry Street, whistling a tune from “Pinafore.” He appeared to be a man without a care in the world; a big man, heavily built, with a hooked nose and a shock of black hair over which a worn felt hat was pushed back from a high forehead. Only the piercing eyes, darting everywhere, would have revealed that his mind was working at lightning speed, storing away every detail of the situation.

At the outer line of police guards he was stopped by a scowling plain-clothes man who stepped out of a doorway, holding a riot gun in the crook of his elbow.

“Hey!” the detective demanded. “Where do you think you’re going?”

As if by magic there materialized from the shadows several other plain-clothes men, who surrounded the stranger.

Mr. James L. Black stopped, seemed to be surprised, then grinned. “Looks like you fellows mean business. I wish you’d turn that gun away from my stomach. I’d hate to have it go off by accident.”

“Never mind that,” the detective barked. “Who are you, and where are you going?”

“Why,” in a slow, drawling voice, “as to that, my name is James L. Black; and I’m going in to get Killer Kyle out of the clutches of the police.”

The detective grinned crookedly. “You got a funny sense of humor, buddy. This is no time for jokes. You better talk fast, or you’ll find yourself in a nice cell where you can spend the night cracking jokes to yourself!”

That seemed to sober Mr. James L. Black. He said, “All right, if that’s the way you feel about it. I want to see Inspector Burks. I’ve got some private business with him.”

The detective said, “You’ll see Inspector Burks, all right. But you’ll wish you hadn’t.” He turned to one of the men behind him. “Look, Cleary. Take this fellow down to the next block and turn him over to Lieutenant Fitzimmons. He’s acting too damn funny.”

Cleary, a chunky, powerful man, put a hand on the service revolver bolstered at his hip, and said, “Come on, feller. And don’t make any funny moves. Orders tonight are to shoot first and investigate afterwards.” He took the arm of Mr. James L. Black and piloted him down the street to the next corner.

Lieutenant Fitzimmons got out of the patrol car where he had been sitting. He was in charge of the outside arrangements, which he directed from the car. Cleary saluted, said, “Here’s a fellow that’s making wisecracks, sir. Says he wants to see Inspector Burks.”

Fitzimmons frowned. The genial Mr. James L. Black hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his vest, and surveyed the street, with the watching shadows in doorways, prowling cars from which protruded the black muzzles of riot guns, and the men stationed along the curb in groups of two and three.

The casual, almost joshing air seemed to slip from Mr. Black, and he became crisp, businesslike.

He produced a card from his wallet, which he handed to the police lieutenant. “It is important,” he said, “that I see Inspector Burks at once.”

FITZIMMONS glanced at him suspiciously, then at the card. At once, his manner changed. He looked up, smiled coldly. “I see. You fellows are always right on the job.” He returned the card. “I’ll have you taken to the inspector.” He ordered Cleary, “Show this gentleman to the Chief Inspector’s office — and stay with him till you get the boss’s okay.” He added apologetically to Mr. Black. “We have to take that precaution. Not that I think you’re phony, or anything, but those are orders — nobody goes into headquarters tonight, or comes out, without an escort.”

Cleary led Mr. Black down the street into the headquarters building.

Inspector Burks was alone in his office on the ground floor, when they came in.

Cleary said, “Lieut. Fitzimmons said to bring this man to you, sir.”

Burks’ thick black eyebrows came together as his frown deepened. They contrasted sharply with his white hair. “What do you want here?” he demanded of the stranger.

Mr. James L. Black had by this time entirely lost his casual pose. He said, “I want to see you — alone, inspector.” At the same time he drew a card from his vest pocket, and handed it across the desk. Burks made no offer to take it. His hard eyes were sizing up the visitor.

Mr. James L. Black placed the card on the desk, and stepped back. He smiled blandly. “The card will tell you all about me, inspector.”

Burks jerked his eyes down to the card, and started when he read it. It said:

And in the lower left-hand corner appeared the words,

Burks motioned to Cleary. “Okay, you can go back to your post, Cleary.”

The big detective saluted mechanically, and left.

When the door closed behind him, Burks opened a drawer of the desk. His hand came out holding a heavy service revolver, which he pointed steadily at the visitor. “Now,” he said, “you can show me your credentials. Anybody can have cards printed.”

JAMES L. BLACK bobbed his head and smiled in admiration. “I have always heard that you were a hard man to fool, inspector. I am convinced of it now.” Under the cold muzzle of Burks’ gun he gingerly withdrew a wallet from his breast pocket, extracted a paper from it, which he handed across the desk. “This will serve to identify me.”

Burks took the paper with his free hand and read it over carefully. It was a statement, on the letterhead of the attorney general, to the effect that Mr. James L. Black bore unlimited authority to conduct investigations in the name of the United States Government. Appended to the sheet was a description of Mr. Black which tallied with his appearance, and also a specimen signature.

Burks thrust a sheet of paper across the desk to his visitor, and handed him a pen. “Let’s see your signature,” he ordered.

Mr. Black signed his name with a flourish, and the inspector compared it with that on the sheet. Finally he grunted in satisfaction, and handed back the sheet.

“I guess you’re Black, all right.” He put the gun back in the drawer. “We have to be careful. I’m almost certain that a rescue of Kyle will be attempted, but I can’t tell what direction it will come from. Now, Mr. Black, what can I do for you — or the attorney general’s office?”

Mr. Black carefully folded up his authorization, and replaced it in the wallet. His voice was no longer bantering. It had become businesslike. “I am tracing down a rumor,” he said, “that Killer Kyle was involved in a couple of recent kidnaping cases; cases where the children were never returned to their parents. I should like to talk to Kyle.”

Burks shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Black. Even if you’re from the United States Government, I can’t allow you to see Kyle. Commissioner’s orders are that no one sees him now, until he’s arraigned. You’ll have a chance to talk to him tomorrow, but I can’t accommodate you tonight.”

“This is extremely important,” Mr. Black told him. “I must see Kyle now.”

“Nothing doing! Kyle is in my charge, and I say that nobody sees him. Commissioner Foster is holding me personally responsible for Kyle’s safekeeping.” He got up and came around the desk. “Sorry, old man. It can’t be done.”

Mr. Black protested. “I’ll assume all the responsibility. It is imperative that I see him now. Kidnaping, inspector, is a federal charge, and supersedes any local charges.”

Burks’ eyes flashed angrily. “It doesn’t supersede murder, Mister Investigator. The murder of Michael Crome is still unsolved, and we believe Kyle was mixed up in it somehow. Furthermore, there seems to be some deep crime afoot, and we’re holding on to Kyle like glue till we get to the bottom of it. So,” he tapped Black’s chest, “you don’t see him tonight—”

He stopped short, a strange look coming into his eyes. The tap of his finger on Black’s chest had brought forth a hollow sound. He had struck the concave plates that “X” had used to give his chest the appearance of depth.

Burks exclaimed, “Say—”

But Mr. Black backed away from the inspector.

Burks leaped at him, driving a fist to his face. Mr. Black ducked the fist gracefully, and brought up his own fist to Burks’ chin in a driving blow that sent the inspector sprawling against the desk. Burks recovered his balance, swung around to the front of the desk, and snatched the revolver out of the drawer. He whirled with it, finger contracting on trigger.

But Mr. Black already had in his hand a peculiar-looking gun.

Before Burks could steady his revolver and depress the trigger, Mr. Black fired. Burks was a brave man but he conceived himself to be in the presence of death. He cried:

“God! You—” And then the anaesthetizing gas from Mr. Black’s gun took effect, and the inspector collapsed on the floor, his suddenly numb fingers releasing the revolver without having fired a shot.

Chapter VII

LIKE an actor who steps behind the wings at the end of the play, Secret Agent “X” shed the role of James L. Black, Special Investigator. He glanced down at the unconscious form of the inspector, then moved quickly to the door with the intention of locking it. But the door was an old one, and the catch hadn’t worked for years. Burks had never bothered to have it fixed, for there had never been the necessity of locking it — no one would have dared to walk into that office unannounced any more than to attack a tiger with bare hands.

The Secret Agent shrugged. He would have to take the risk of interruption in the work he was about to do.

His fingers worked swiftly as he removed a flat black case from a pocket. He placed this on the floor beside Burks. From another pocket he took a portable folding mirror, and set it up next to the flat case.

He bent over Burks, and set to work removing the inspector’s clothes. This was a difficult task, as the unconscious form of the inspector was unwieldy. When he got them off, he placed them on the floor, and quickly shed his own outer clothing, donned those of the inspector. He kept his own vest though, as this was equipped with secret pockets where reclined sundry instruments which aided him in his work.

He now knelt before the mirror, and with the help of the contents of the flat black case, he proceeded to change his features. His long, skillful fingers worked with amazing speed, manipulating face plates, wads of cotton, rare pigments, stopping at intervals to inspect the face of the unconscious Burks. All the time, though, he kept half an eye on the unlocked door. At any moment an interruption might occur. Finally, he drew from an inner pocket of his vest a wig, which he adjusted carefully; and a pair of black, bushy things that he pasted above his eyes with infinite care, and which became eyebrows.

When he stood up, he was the living replica of Inspector Burks!

He packed his materials away in the case again, slipped it and the folded mirror into an inner recess of his vest.

Then his eyes scanned the room. At the other end was a door. Quickly he crossed to it and swung it open. Behind it was a room no bigger than a good-sized closet. It had once been used for the purpose of concealing a stenographer when it became desirable to take down statements of suspects, unknown to them. Inspector Burks had trapped many a man in that way in the old days before the dictograph came into use. Now it stood empty and neglected.

“X” smiled at the thought of the use to which that closet was now going to be put. He placed his hands under the arms of the scantily clad inspector, and dragged him into the closet, propping his body against the wall.

“X” shut the closet door, scooped up his own discarded clothes and placed them behind the desk. He seated himself at the desk, and inspected a row of buttons on a small board at the edge. One of the buttons was labeled “messenger,” and “X” pressed this. He assumed one of the inspector’s characteristic poses, and waited.

ALMOST at once there was a knock at the door, and it opened to admit a uniformed patrolman on messenger duty.

“X” said sharply, crisply, “Go downstairs and tell Sergeant Nevins to bring up the prisoner, Kyle!”

The patrolman exclaimed, “K-Kyle, sir? You — you want him up here?”

“Didn’t I make myself clear?” the Secret Agent demanded in the biting manner of the inspector.

The patrolman saluted. “Y-yes, sir.” He turned and left, but with a look of amazement.

“X” was satisfied. He had passed the first test; the patrolman had taken him for Burks. Well and good. But would the canny Sergeant Nevins be fooled by it? “X’s” mind went back to another time when he had had occasion to impersonate the peppery Inspector Burks. It was like tempting fate to try the same thing twice. He shrugged, fatalistically, and waited.

Soon there was another knock at the door, and Detective sergeant Nevins entered. Nevins was the plodding, meticulous type of man, with eyes that missed no details. He was alone.

“Look here, inspector,” he began. “Reilly tells me you want Kyle brought up here. Is it wise? I know you’re the boss, but I distinctly heard the commissioner say that Kyle was to be kept down there, and not brought up for any reason, until the morning. Why, we’ve got a cot set up for him down there. I hope you don’t mind my talking like this—”

“X” roared at him in imitation of Burks. “I certainly do mind! I want to talk to Kyle, not to you! Since when have you become my guardian?”

Nevins was stubborn. “I’m sorry, inspector. The order was so strange that I thought there might be some mistake, so I came up myself to make sure that was what you meant. If it’s necessary to have him up here, don’t you think you’d better phone the commissioner first — or else wait till he calls up?”

Nevins had been in the department thirty years, and he took liberties with his superiors that would not have been tolerated from any one else. On many occasions he had been outspoken with the commissioner himself.

“X” met the situation as he thought Burks might have met it. He arose, came around the desk, and towered over Nevins. “Sergeant,” he said in an ominous voice, “you will remember that I am chief inspector, and your superior. I find it necessary to interview Kyle — here. Will you bring him up, or will I relieve you of your post?”

Nevins looked at him for a long moment without saying a word. “X” waited tensely for some sign that Nevins had penetrated his impersonation — some flicker of the eye that would indicate he knew the man before him was not Burks. But Nevins had a poker face, and it remained calm. Finally he shrugged. “If you put it that way, inspector, all right, I’ll bring him up. But the responsibility is entirely yours.”

He turned and went out.

“X” walked back and forth. Much depended on the next five minutes. If Nevins had been fooled, well and good. But had he? It was possible that his shrewd eyes had noted some little thing amiss, and that he had gone out to get help to seize the impostor.

WHILE “X” waited, a groan issued from the closet where Burks lay. The Agent frowned. The gas would soon wear off. It was not intended for the purpose of keeping a person unconscious for any great period of time, and a man of Burks’ great stamina might recover even sooner than the average.

“X” took a hypodermic syringe from one of the receptacles in his vest. This syringe contained a nicely measured dose of a drug prepared by himself. It was sufficient, if injected, to keep a man under its influence for three hours. He approached the closet with the syringe. It would be best to make sure that Burks made no sounds when Nevins returned with Kyle — if he did.

But just as “X” had his hand on the closet door, the telephone on the desk burst into sound. With a philosophical shrug he put the hypo back in its receptacle, and went to the phone.

He picked it up, said, “Yes?” He turned cold as he heard Commissioner Foster’s voice crackle over the wire. “Look here, Burks, what’s this they tell me? Nevins just called up, and says you’ve ordered him to bring Kyle up to your office. I didn’t countermand the order, because I repose full confidence in your judgment — but I’d like to know what it’s all about. Couldn’t you at least have told me in advance what you intended to do?”

“X” thought quickly. He was unfamiliar with the terms of intimacy upon which the commissioner and Burks talked. He might say the wrong thing — one little word, perhaps, which would give Foster grounds for suspicion. It would then be an easy matter for the commissioner to hang up and phone back to the switchboard, ordering him held there.

He had to trust to luck here — to luck and his uncanny instinct for saying the right thing. “I’m sorry, commissioner, but this thing arose so suddenly that I had no time to phone you. There’s been a man here from the attorney general’s office, and he gave me a tip that may open up a new line of inquiry on Kyle. I thought it best to have Kyle up here where I can talk to him in private.”

“A man from the attorney general’s office?” the commissioner demanded. “What’s his name? I know all those boys.”

“X” could not afford to hesitate now; the least pause would have raised Foster’s suspicions. “His name is Black — James L. Black. His credentials are all in order.”

“Black,” Foster mused. “I don’t know any Black in the attorney general’s office. Tell you what — hold everything. Keep Kyle and this Black in your office. I’m coming over myself to take a look. So long. See you in a few minutes.”

The commissioner hung up.

“X” replaced the receiver, his mind racing. He would have to work fast now. Once the commissioner got on the scene, the play would be over.

THE door opened suddenly, without any preliminary rap, and Nevins walked in, looking sulky. He held a big service revolver in his right hand. Kyle was handcuffed to his left, defiant as ever.

Kyle’s stained teeth were in evidence, for he was grinning broadly. “What’s eatin’ yuh, Burks?” he asked. “Think you can wear me down?”

Nevins said, “Here he is. I should tell you that I phoned Commissioner Foster before bringing him up. I think it’s a crazy stunt — with this bird’s record of escapes.” He shrugged. “But as long as the commissioner said okay, okay it is.”

“Thanks,” the Secret Agent said dryly. He was listening, taut, for a sound from the closet. He would have to get rid of Nevins quickly — before Burks groaned again. If he had only had the time to administer that drug! He said to Nevins, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone with the prisoner!”

Nevins almost shouted. “Alone!”

“That’s what I said!”

Nevins suddenly grinned. He waved the revolver at “X.” “Sorry, inspector, but it can’t be done!”

“X” advanced upon him in Burks’ best truculent manner. “What do you mean — can’t!”

“Don’t you remember, inspector, that you yourself gave the order that any officer who was handcuffed to Kyle should be sure not to carry the keys on his person? Funny you don’t remember that. You said it would be too easy for Kyle to knock out the officer and take the keys. Don’t you remember that?” At the same time that he spoke, Nevins looked queerly at the man who was supposed to be Burks.

“X” wondered if this was a trap. Had Burks really given any such order, or was Nevins inventing it to see if he would give himself away by seeming to remember something he had never said?

Kyle’s barking laugh saved him. “Well! It looks like I’m a pretty important guy — having the whole damn police department arguin’ over me!” He shook at the handcuff that linked him to Nevins. “Come on, sarge, be a good sport. Open up them cuffs!”

And just then the thing happened that “X” had been in fear of!

From the recesses of the closet came a deep groan.

Nevins turned a startled face toward the closet. His gun wavered. “What the hell,” he exclaimed. “That sounded like—”

“X” grasped the opportunity. He said softly, “Sorry, Nevins!” His right fist flashed up in a short arc, landed flush on the detective sergeant’s chin.

Nevins’ eyes open wide, he grunted, and slid to the floor, his body sagged against the handcuffs attached to Kyle’s wrist. The heavy service revolver clattered to the floor.

Kyle gazed down at him in stupid amazement, exclaimed, “Jeez!”

Now “X” surprised Kyle with the speed of motion that he exhibited. From an inner pocket of his vest he took a leather kit about three by six inches; and no more than a quarter of an inch in thickness. Unfolded, this revealed a set of chromium steel tools, and a set of master keys suited for every conceivable form of lock. From this kit the Secret Agent picked unerringly, a single key. While Kyle watched in amazement, he inserted it in the lock of the handcuffs, and opened them.

He replaced the key, folded the kit, and put it away. Curtly he ordered Kyle, “Get those handcuffs off you!”

Kyle scuffed the steel bracelet off his wrist, his beady eyes mirroring a deep cunning. Suddenly he dived for the revolver that Nevins had dropped.

“X” took a quick step and kicked the revolver out of his reach. He said, “You fool, do you think you can shoot your way out of here? You’d be dead in two minutes!”

Kyle asked uncertainly, “What’s your game, Burks?” He crouched, animal-like, not comprehending the situation.

“X” said slowly, clearly, “Never mind what my game is. Do as I say and I’ll get you out of here with a whole skin!”

Kyle looked at him stupidly. “You’ll get me out of here? Why?”

“X” snapped at him, “Are you going to keep on asking questions until the whole police force piles in here? Get out of those clothes!” He strode around the desk, got out the suit he had come in — the clothes of the fictional Mr. James L. Black. “Put these on, quickly.”

Suddenly a light came into Kyle’s eyes. “I got it!” he exclaimed. “You’re in the pay of the boss! He’s fixed you! You’re gonna save me! I knew the boss’d come through!” He started to get out of his clothes. “Jeez! The boss must be good. I never thought he could get to you!”

“X” said nothing. He got out his make-up case, and when Kyle had put on the clothes, he set to work on his face. In less than five minutes Kyle was the double of Mr. James L. Black. The nose had not needed changing, due to “X’s” foresight in providing Mr. Black with a nose like Kyle’s. It was only necessary to thicken his lashes a little, give him a slightly wider jaw, and insert a plate to cover his stained upper teeth. The plate was an exact duplicate of Mr. Black’s teeth.

Secret Agent “X” stood back and surveyed his handiwork, nodded in satisfaction. “You’ll pass,” he told the bewildered Kyle. “Now remember — from this minute on, you keep your mouth shut; don’t talk. That’s the only thing that will give you away. They’d recognize you in a second if you started to talk.”

From the depths of the closet came another groan.

Kyle demanded, “Who’s in there?”

“Never mind!” the Secret Agent rapped at him. “You want to get out, don’t you? All right. I’m taking you out. This is the most dangerous part of the program. I’m Inspector Burks. You’re James L. Black, Special Investigator for the attorney general’s office. Look your part, but don’t talk it. Ready? Let’s go. We’re going to walk right out of headquarters, through the whole police department!”

Chapter VIII

NEVINS was beginning to stir on the floor. “X” stooped and gave him the injection of the hypodermic syringe that had been intended for Burks. There was no time now to reload it for the inspector. They would have to trust to the potency of the gas to keep him out of the picture for a short while longer.

The Secret Agent looked up from beside Nevins, to see Kyle making for the revolver that the sergeant had dropped.

He rapped out, “Keep away from that gun, Kyle!”

Kyle turned, stared. “I ain’t gonna use it on you, Burks. I just figure I oughta have a gat if we’re gonna make a break.”

“There’ll be no gats on this job. We use our heads here.” He stowed the hypo away, took Kyle’s arm. “Let’s go.”

He opened the door, and they went out into the corridor. They walked down toward the entrance, and the man on guard saluted. “X” returned the salute. He had to acknowledge half a dozen more salutes before they reached the street. Out on the sidewalk, he nudged Kyle. “To the left.”

They could discern the dark shadows of watchers in doorways across the street. In the middle of the block a squad car came to a halt alongside the curb. The man beside the driver leaned out, looked searchingly at them, then exclaimed, “Oh! Inspector Burks. I didn’t recognize you.”

“X” said, “All right. Glad to see you’re so vigilant.” He pressed on, still retaining his hold on Kyle’s arm.

Behind them, the officer who had spoken to “X” said to the driver of the car, “Gee, did you hear that? Imagine it! Burks handing out praise! He’s gettin’ old!”

At the next corner was the car in which Lieutenant Fitzimmons was stationed. He got out of the car as he saw their figures approaching. When he recognized Burks, he saluted. He nodded to Kyle, recognizing him as the man from the attorney general’s office.

They passed by Fitzimmons, and Kyle said, “Jeez, what a stunt. Walkin’ right out o’ headquarters arm in arm wit’ the chief inspector!”

“Forget about that,” the Secret Agent told him. “Just keep your head. If you hear an outcry behind us, don’t get panicky. Follow my lead.”

“X” really expected such an outcry. For he knew that Burks would not long remain under the influence of the gas.

They proceeded slowly. “X” had difficulty in restraining his companion, who was constantly getting slightly ahead of him.

“Relax,” he told Kyle. “The police cordon ends at the next corner. I have a car parked a block beyond that. Once there we’ll be safe.”

“What I can’t figure,” Kyle said, “is how come the boss could get you to do this. You’ll sure get broke for this job — if not worse!”

As they neared the outside of the police cordon, “X,” peering ahead into the night, gave an involuntary gasp of chagrin. At the corner, a large, expensive limousine was drawn up close to the curb, and one of the plain-clothes men was talking to its occupants.

“What’s the trouble?” Kyle asked, nervously.

“That,” said the Secret Agent, “is Commissioner Foster’s limousine!”

KYLE uttered a low curse. “X” could feel his arm trembling. “Hell,” he exclaimed, “let’s duck in one of these houses. We gotta make a break!”

He turned toward the doorway of the house they were passing. “X” tightened the grip on his arm, dragged him along. “You idiot! There are men stationed in those houses. We’ve got to bluff it out with Foster!”

“But suppose they find Nevins back there while we’re talkin’ to the commissioner? They’d burn us down! Nix on that stuff — let’s dive in one o’ these houses — ouch!” as “X’s” fingers became a steel band around his arm.

“You’ll play it out this way! Do you think I got you this far only to have you shot down?”

Kyle’s voice took on the suggestion of a whine. “Jeez! At least give me a gun so I can shoot my way out if they get on to us. I ain’t even got a gun.”

“Neither have I. There’ll be no shooting. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“Jeez! Neither of us wit’ a gat! What sort of a fool play is this? Say—” as a new thought dawned on him, “—you ain’t leadin’ me into no trap, are you? Maybe the boss fixed it with you to get me knocked off—”

“X” squeezed his arm so that he winced. “Quiet!”

They were close to the commissioner’s car, and the detective who had been leaning in at the window turned to see who they were. When they came up to him, he saluted, said, “Inspector Burks! Here’s the commissioner!”

Commissioner Foster leaned out from the back seat of the car. His features expressed worry. “Burks!” he exclaimed. “Anything wrong?”

“X” could feel the spasmodic twitch of Kyle’s arm under his grip. Kyle was not used to facing situations like this. Give him a loaded automatic, and he could raise the courage for anything; but this was something that called for cool nerves and quick thinking.

The Secret Agent said, “Nothing wrong, commissioner, but something quite important has come up. This,” he nodded at Kyle, “is the man I told you about — from the attorney general’s office. I believe that with his assistance we can tie Kyle up with the murder of Michael Crome, and get to the reason for his attack on Governor-elect Farrell. I’d like to talk to you in private.”

The commissioner seemed doubtful, but he shrugged, opened the door.

“X” propelled Kyle into the car. Kyle’s instinct was to resist, but that steel grip on his arm would brook no argument. When the door of the car closed behind them, the chauffeur turned his head from the front seat, and said, “Will we move on, sir?”

Commissioner Foster shook his head. “Shut your motor off, Willis. We may be here awhile.”

The Secret Agent said hurriedly, “No, Willis, wait.” He turned to the commissioner. “Let him keep it running. I’m going to a certain place with Mr. Black, here, and perhaps you’d like to come along?”

“All right, Willis,” the commissioner ordered. “Let it run.” He bent an inquiring gaze upon “X” and his companion. “Now, will you be good enough to tell me what this mystery is all about?”

Just then, the detective who had been standing at the curb, exclaimed, “Look, commissioner! There’s something the matter over at headquarters!”

The Secret Agent’s body stiffened. He could feel Kyle, who sat between himself and the commissioner, squirming.

THE car was facing toward headquarters, and by peering ahead through the darkness, he could discern a crowd of milling men in front of the gloomy structure. Soon several figures disentangled themselves from the crowd, and came running in their direction. As they passed under a street light, the figure in the lead was illuminated. It was that of Chief Inspector Burks, clad only in his underwear, clutching a revolver in one hand, and shouting wildly at them.

The detective at the curb cried, “That’s the inspector! Then who’s—” He turned a suddenly suspicious stare into the car.

The commissioner said, “Hell! What—”

But the Secret Agent’s lightning quick mind had already shaped a course of action. Before the detective at the curb could realize the meaning of the situation, “X” had drawn his gas gun, and reaching past the commissioner and Kyle, discharged it full in the detective’s face.

At the same time he ordered, “Take care of the commissioner, Kyle!”

Without waiting to see that his order was obeyed, he swung around to the chauffeur, and brought the butt of his gun down on the driver’s skull, with just enough force to render him unconscious. Even at this critical moment he was careful not to inflict a mortal injury.

He sensed a struggle going on beside him, between Kyle and the commissioner. He had heard the commissioner’s single startled gasp after his command: “Kyle! Good God—” and then the silence of the struggle.

He had no time for that now. Leaning over the front seat, he shoved the chauffeur’s body to one side, and scrambled in behind the wheel. With consummate skill he shifted into first, and swung the wheel. The car was long and heavy, but he succeeded in making a complete turn in the narrow street by climbing the opposite curb with the front wheel.

Behind them now he heard Burks’ voice raised in an angry shout. “Stop that car! Kyle’s escaped!”

He raced the motor, and the car leaped away from the pursuers.

In the rear seat the noise of the struggle had suddenly ceased. Kyle said, “I got’m.”

The Secret Agent looked in the rear vision mirror, and saw Kyle straddling the commissioner. Foster’s arms were pinioned to his sides by Kyle’s brutal hands. He was glaring up at his captor, and breathing heavily from the unwonted exertion. Though he was police commissioner, and head of the entire police department, he was unused to personal violence.

The commissioner turned his head, glared at “X.” He gasped, “You must be the one who impersonated Burks once before! You’re Secret A—”

“X” HAD shifted into high by this time, and the car was doing forty along Cherry Street. He swerved it madly, and the rest of the commissioner’s sentence ended in a gasp as both he and Kyle clutched for balance.

“X” waited, perturbed, for some word from Kyle that he understood what the commissioner had attempted to say. Had he been successful in preventing revelation of his identity to Kyle?

But the convict was too intent on the chase behind them. He growled at Foster, “Don’t make no funny moves, or I’ll brain you!” Then he looked out of the rear window. “They’re afraid to shoot,” he gloated. “They might kill the commissioner!”

“X” saw, in the rear vision mirror, a number of squad cars and several motorcycles strung out behind them, and “X” swung east into a side street. The pursuit roared around the corner a block in the rear.

As if in answer to Kyle’s challenge, a sub-machine gun began to stutter, bright lances of flame sprang at them from behind.

Kyle said, “Jeez, they’re shootin’ at the tires!”

And then it happened.

There was a loud explosion in the rear, followed almost immediately by another. Both rear tires had been hit.

The car lurched, swerved drunkenly across the street. “X” fought the wheel desperately, and got the car out of its mad skid, slowly applied the brake, and brought it to a halt, square across the street. There was no room for another car to pass, but the motorcycles would be able to make it.

The machine gun had ceased firing. The pursuit was thundering down upon them.

“X” got out on the far side, cried to Kyle, “Come on — out!” Kyle swung a wicked fist to the side of the commissioner’s head, and Foster slid unconscious in the seat. Then he leaped out after the Secret Agent.

“X” shouted, “Follow me!” and led the way into the dark hallway of an old house. It was an old law tenement, and the air in here was murky and musty. Outside they could hear the squealing of brakes as the pursuing cars pulled up short.

Kyle said, “Jeez, we can’t get away. They’ll have the block surrounded in two minutes!”

“X” said nothing, but groped through the dark hallway until they came to a rear door. They went out into a yard that was littered with garbage cans, climbed a fence.

There was commotion and shouting behind them. Several windows in the house opened, heads were poked out.

On the other side of the fence was a three-family brownstone, facing on the next street. Alongside it was a driveway, leading to a small garage in the rear.

A car stood in the driveway, its motor running, headlights on. The owner was standing before the door of the garage, in the glow of the headlights. He had just finished opening the garage door when he stopped to see the two strange figures come over the fence.

“X” gave the man no time to retreat. He reached him with a quick leap, and shoved him inside the garage. The man lost his balance, and sprawled on the concrete floor, shouting. “Hey you! What’s the idea?”

Before the man could get to his feet, “X” had slid the door closed, fastened the padlock. He led the way to the car, to the accompaniment of the owner’s frantic pounding at the inside of the garage door. He got in the driver’s seat, and Kyle crowded in beside him.

In a moment he had backed down into the street, and was roaring east again. As he turned north at the next corner, he looked back and got a glimpse of the first of the pursuing officers who had come through the back yard after them.

Kyle said admiringly, “Jeez, mister, you sure work fast. I thought we was goners!”

Chapter IX

“X” SAID nothing. He drove swiftly, steadily north for almost a mile. Once they saw a radio car a block away, and he quickly turned off into a side street, then swung north again at the next corner. The alarm would be out for them by this time, and he had to be careful.

At a street near the river they left the car, and “X” led the way around the block. The owner of the car would be well compensated for the use of his car as well as for his rough treatment. In a day or so he would receive in the mail an envelope with no return address. This envelope would contain a sum sufficient to satisfy him. He was evidently a man in modest circumstances, and would no doubt be able to make good use of the money.

Kyle followed along now, making no protest. He had seen that this man was definitely bound on getting him out of the clutches of the law, and after witnessing his efficiency, was content to let him have the lead — for the time being. He had other plans, however, for the time when the danger would be over.

“X” took him to a large apartment building facing the river. This was one of the newer buildings that had been erected on the site of a former slum.

As they entered, Kyle noted the address—17 Green Street. He said, “What you got here, mister, a hide-out?”

“X” nodded, led him into a self-service elevator, and they ascended to the eighth floor. The Secret Agent opened the door of apartment No. 806, and snapped on the lights. They were in a room of a well-furnished apartment. There were rooms beyond a doorway at the other end.

“X” stepped over to a secretary in the corner. He kept here various makeup materials, mechanical devices, just as he did in all of his retreats. He was about to open it, when suddenly he tensed. Behind him, Kyle had snapped, “Put ’em up, mister, whatever your name is! I got you covered!”

The Secret Agent turned slowly, half raising his hands. Kyle had a heavy service revolver in his hand. He menaced “X” with it, and snarled, “Now you can gimme the lowdown. What did you get me out of headquarters for?”

The revolver was pointing straight at “X,” and Kyle’s eyes had a killer’s light in them. His finger was curled tautly around the trigger.

“X” said, “I see you got yourself a gat. Where?”

Kyle smiled cunningly. “You’re smart, mister, but you ain’t got eyes in the back of your head. I took this off the commissioner while you was driving!

“Now, give us the lowdown on who you are. I know you ain’t Burks, but you got a damn good make-up. You fixed me up swell, too.” Suddenly his eyes sparkled. “I got it! I bet I know what the commissioner was goin’ to call you when you swerved the car like that. He was goin’ to call you — Secret Agent ‘X’!”

“X” kept his hands in the air, eyed Kyle shrewdly. “What does it matter who I am? I saved you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Sure you did. That’s what I want to know—why?”

“I saved you because I wanted to ask you two questions. If you’ll answer them I’ll pay you well and see that you get out of the country!”

Kyle laughed. “I can get taken care of now, without you. The boss will take care of me from now on. But let’s hear what you want to know.”

“In the first place,” the Secret Agent replied, “I want to know who hired you to attack Governor-elect Farrell. Secondly, who killed Michael Crome? I think you know, or can help me to find out.”

Kyle held the gun steady. “Where do you fit in on all this? What’s it to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Will you talk?”

Kyle grinned savagely. “You look like Burks, an’ you talk like Burks. But you ain’t. I know that.” He took a step closer. “No, mister, I ain’t doin’ business with you. But I’m gonna find out who you are. Maybe the commissioner was right. I got a yen to see your face under the make-up. Stand still — I’m gonna scratch that stuff off your face an’ take a look at it!”

He advanced toward the Secret Agent, gun thrust forward. There was no doubt as to his intention. He was going to satisfy his curiosity first, then he would shoot — to kill. There was no mercy, no gratitude in him.

“X” had been edging imperceptibly toward a spot in the rug not far from the secretary. His eyes were on Kyle, hands half raised, but he knew where that spot was. It was marked by the figure of a leopard woven into the design of the rug. He placed one foot on the leopard’s paw, which was extended before it, and the other foot upon its tail.

There was a tiny button under each of these points, which had to be pressed in a particular way. He did so, and immediately the room was plunged into darkness. A short circuit had been caused by the pressure on the two buttons, and the fuse had blown.

Kyle uttered a grunt of surprise.

The Secret Agent bent at the knees and plunged at the place where he knew Kyle was standing. He encircled Kyle about the waist with one arm, raised the other and swept it in the air until it encountered Kyle’s gun hand, which was raised to strike at him. His fingers caught Kyle’s wrist in a grip of iron, and gave it a sudden, vicious twist. Kyle cried out in pain, and dropped the revolver.

“X” released his hold about Kyle’s waist, and brought the edge of his open hand around in a slashing blow to the other’s neck. In the darkness he miscalculated slightly, and the edge of his hand struck Kyle’s head behind the ear. Kyle caved in without a sound. “X” caught his body and eased him to the floor.

Then he got his pocket flashlight, groped along the wall behind the secretary, and pulled over a switch. This switch threw the electric current through an auxiliary set of fuses, and the room was instantly illumined once more.

He stared for a moment at Kyle, who was twitching on the floor. He was about to regain consciousness. “X” looked speculatively at the phone on the table. He tried to put himself in Kyle’s place. If Kyle came to, and found himself alone here, what would be the first reaction of a man of his mentality? The chances were that he would phone to his unknown boss for assistance.

“X” nodded to himself, and decided to try the experiment. He picked up the commissioner’s gun, and locked it in the secretary.

Kyle was starting to open his eyes when “X” crossed the room and went out into the corridor, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter X

INSTEAD of going away, however, he quickly made his way around a bend in the corridor, and let himself back in to the apartment through the service door. He went through the kitchen, making no sound, into a bedroom. There was an extension phone here. He picked it up slowly and gently, so that if Kyle were already talking on it he would not hear the click.

Just as he had expected, Kyle was already at the phone. He must have come to at once, and pounced on the instrument, for “X” heard him giving the number, but was able to catch only the last three words: “Four-two-three.”

What had the number been? He waited tensely, his hand over the mouthpiece. Soon a voice said faintly: “Yes?”

Kyle spoke eagerly. “Boss! This is you-know-who! I got away!”

The voice at the other end exclaimed, “Yes, yes! I just heard about it. You shouldn’t have called.”

Kyle said, “Shouldn’t have called! I ain’t outta the bag yet. You gotta help me. I’m right in the city, an’ there’s a dragnet around the town by this time.”

The other’s voice bore a trace of culture, education. It was not the voice of a lowly plotter, but of some one who must wield power, have influence. “I don’t see how I can help you, right now. Why don’t you lay low till the search quiets down—”

Kyle’s coarse laugh interrupted.

“Lay low! I’m in a spot right now. The guy that saved me—”

“Yes — I meant to ask you that. Who was it? Why did he do it?”

“I don’t know, boss. But I got a hunch. Whoever he is, he wanted to know a hell of a lot about you.”

“Did you — tell him anything?” This anxiously.

“Not yet. I’m in his place now. He thinks I’m knocked out. I guess he’ll be back. You better get me out of here, or I’ll spill everything to him. An’ make it snappy, too.”

There was a short silence. Then, “All right, I’ll take care of getting you out of there. What’s the address?”

“Seventeen Green Street, apartment eight-o-six. How you gonna work it, boss?”

“I’m too far away to get there myself, but I’ll phone a couple of the boys in the city, and tell them to get to work at once. I’ll have them there in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. An’ listen, boss, they better be here. What I mean, otherwise I open up to this guy — an’ he’s plenty anxious to get the dope on a couple of things — including Crome’s—”

The voice at the other end rapped fiercely, “Shut up, you fool, keep mum. The boys will be there.”

“That’s jake with me, boss. Tell ’em to knock on the door — three times fast and twice slow — so I’ll know it’s them.”

There were two faint clicks, and the conversation ceased.

“X” tingled with the awareness that he was close now to the solution of the murder of Crome. The man at the other end was the answer. He had to trace that call, find out who it was.

But first he had to attend to Kyle.

HE stepped out of the bedroom, walked through a short hall, and entered the living room. Kyle was at the secretary, trying to pry it open. At the sound of “X’s” step, he whirled. For a moment his face bore a look of astonishment, then he snarled, “You tricked me! You were listening in!”

“X” crossed the room with the lithe stride of a panther. “Yes,” he said softly. “The last time I put you to sleep for a short time. You got over it quickly. Now my friend, it is going to be for a little longer.”

Kyle was like a cornered animal. He had acquired a healthy respect for the Secret Agent during the last hour, but he had his back to the wall now. The steady purpose that he saw in “X’s” eyes lent him the courage of desperation.

With a low, animal-like growl, he launched himself at the Secret Agent. He was some thirty pounds heavier, as was evidenced by the fact that “X” had found it necessary to use the metal plates to pad his shoulders and chest. If his body had struck “X” as intended, the fight would have been over, for the wind would have undoubtedly been knocked out of the lighter man. But “X” sidestepped gracefully. He was no amateur at these tactics himself.

Kyle, however, was an old-timer at the rough-and-tumble game. The sobriquet of “Killer” had been earned by him, not as was popularly supposed, through his criminal activities, but had been bestowed years earlier, when he had been a barnstorming wrestler. His career as a wrestler was marked by the death of two opponents in a year, and he had earned the moniker that stuck to him through the following years.

Kyle’s rush ended just as “X” sidestepped. Kyle sprang upward, jolted “X’s” midriff with his elbow, and at the same time stuck a foot out behind him. “X” tripped backward. The back of his head struck the wall jarringly. In another moment Kyle had him in a deadly headlock.

The sweat stood out on the foreheads of both men. The agony of that grip was almost unbearable. Kyle knew it, and grinned wickedly through the sweat. “X” knew its deadliness, and did the only thing that would save him. It was a trick he had learned years ago in Yokohama.

He pressed his thumb into a spot in Kyle’s body just below the left armpit. Steadily he increased the pressure, until Kyle had to release the hold or suffer excruciating pain. Kyle gasped and loosened his grip involuntarily. Immediately, the Secret Agent broke the hold, and rolled away. Before Kyle could attack again, the Agent was on his feet. He stepped in, exhibiting superb footwork, feinted once; then his right fist flashed in too fast for the eyes to follow, there was the crack of bone on bone, and Kyle went jolting backward till he hit the wall, where he sank down. He was unconscious before he struck the floor.

“X” lost no time now, though his breath was coming short and fast. He had heard Kyle’s boss say that some one would be there in fifteen minutes.

He got to the phone, jiggled the hook till the operator answered. “What number,” he demanded, “was just called from this phone?”

The operator said, “Just a minute, sir.” It was two minutes before she came on again. “That was a long distance number, sir. It was Catskill 423.”

“X” said, “Thanks,” and asked the operator to give him information. To the information operator he said, “Kindly give me the name and address of the subscriber at Catskill 423.”

He waited impatiently. In another moment he would have the name of the man who had paid Kyle to attempt the life of Governor-elect Farrell, of the man who had tortured and killed Michael Crome in that hideous manner. And then information came back on the line to say, “I’m sorry, sir, but Catskill 423 is an unpublished number, and we are not permitted to divulge the name of the subscriber.”

“X” HUNG up in deep disappointment. It was useless to pursue the inquiry further along those lines. There were ways of getting that name and address. But they would take more time than he could afford.

His eyes rested moodily on the form of Kyle who, though unconscious, was breathing stertorously. His mind was working out a dozen alternate plans. None of them would click. He glanced at his wristwatch. Nine minutes before Kyle’s friends were scheduled to arrive — if they were prompt. Time to call Betty Dale, anyway, see if there were any developments that had a bearing on the case.

He picked up the phone once more, asked for Betty’s number. In a moment her soft, troubled voice answered him.

His own voice changed as if by magic when he spoke to her, assuming the mysterious phrasing that he often used. He said, “The hawk seeks aid of the swan. Have you any news?”

She exclaimed, “I’m so glad you called. I just got in. I was covering the story of Kyle’s escape. I was so happy to learn that you were safe.” Her voice took on a note of gayety. “And it was funny, too. Wait till you see tomorrow’s papers. They’ll all have pictures of Inspector Burks running out of headquarters in his underwear!”

“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

“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?”

“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

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.”

Rice laughed harshly. “You better tell me now.”

“X” decided to draw a bow at a long shot. “All right. It was Sam Slawson!”

The effect of his announcement was far greater than he had expected. Rice’s face became paper white. He began to gasp for breath. “Sam Slawson!” he repeated. He bent closer to the coffin. “You mean — Slawson — knows—”

“X” waited breathlessly for the next disclosure. He had suspected all along that there were ramifications to this business that went far beyond Rice. Now, he felt, he was going to learn something of tremendous importance. Rice himself was in fear of something — perhaps of a greater, more ruthless criminal than himself.

But Rice did not go further. He stood up, strode up and down in the narrow garage, reflectively. “It’s possible,” he muttered. “Slawson could have acted the part of Burks. He has the ability. There is no one else who could have done it, except—” he stopped and faced the coffin. “How much more do you know, Kyle? Do you know where Slawson is now?”

“X” said, “No.”

Rice came close to the coffin again. “I’m sorry, Kyle,” he said softly, “but if there was a chance of my going easy on you before, there is none now. You know too much. You have to die.”

He turned to Fleer and Jurgen. “Go and prepare the niche in the mausoleum that I pointed out to you before. Then come back here one at a time, and move the coffin. If anybody stops you on the grounds, tell them you’re the new caretakers. Take off those black coats, roll up your sleeves. Go ahead now, get started. Then take the hearse out of here and get rid of it. I’ll be in the house if you need me.”

As he was about to go, Fleer asked, “How about some dough, boss? We’re broke.”

“I’ll bring you some in a little while — before you’re through. I have to go back now — there are some people at the house.”

“Can’t you get rid of them?” Jurgen asked. “This is a hell of a job to do with people around. Suppose he yells while we’re carryin’ him?”

“I’ll worry about that!” Rice exclaimed impatiently. “They won’t pay any attention to yells. I can’t get rid of them. I’ve got distinguished company. There’s John Hanscom, boss of the Conservative Party, State Senator Thane, and Cyrus Gates, the public utilities man. You don’t tell people like that to get out.”

Fleer shrugged. “You’re the boss. Let’s get to work.” He motioned to Jurgen, and they went out with Rice, after removing their coats and hats.

Rice cast a single nervous look behind at the coffin. “You sure he can’t get out of there?” The Secret Agent heard him ask the question from outside the garage door. And he heard Fleer answer, “No chance. He’s clamped in tight.”

“He’s a dangerous man with a gun. If he ever got loose, after what we’re doing to him—” Rice’s voice died away in the night.

SECRET AGENT “X” was alone in the coffin in the garage. The things he had just heard gave him ample food for thought. It was queer that Rice should have three such men as those he had mentioned, as his guests here tonight, when he was engaged in such treacherous work. “X” considered the possibility that they were all involved in the crime with him.

But “X” put these thoughts from his mind, and turned to seek a solution of his immediate predicament.

First he donned a pair of thin rubber gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. Then, in the confining space of the coffin, he strove to wriggle around so that his hands could get to the receptacle in his vest where he kept his kit of tools. He finally managed to get the vest open, and the kit out. Though there was light in the garage, it was dark within the coffin, for practically no light seeped in through the two bullet holes in the wood.

He opened the kit on his chest, and felt around till he found what he wanted. It was a keen, broad-toothed file, that would saw through wood. His intention was to insert it in one of the holes and work away with it till he had an opening large enough to smash through.

This, however, would probably take a good deal of time — more than he expected to have. For if they were in a hurry to get the hearse out, they would return immediately after preparing the niche; and preparing the niche would not take them more than a matter of minutes. On the whole, the chances were slim of his getting out of the coffin before Jurgen, or Fleer, or both, returned.

He turned his head toward the hole, and raised the file. It would be a difficult task at best, for he had nothing to rest his arm against while he worked. He couldn’t even turn on his side, as the height of the box prohibited that.

Just as he was about to insert the file in the hole, he stopped, holding his breath. Something had obstructed the light that seeped in through the hole. Some one had come into the garage out of the night.

“X” heard cautious steps, then some one was close to the coffin. The footsteps stole away toward the hearse, then came back. There was silence for a second, then “X’s” heart leaped. Whoever it was, was working on the clasps that held down the lid of the coffin.

The low sounds of a wrench being cautiously employed came to his ears. One clamp came off. Then another. Quick, jerky breathing came to him from above.

In all there were six clamps on the coffin. “X,” lying in anxious silence, had heard five of them removed. Now the sounds of the working fingers became faster, the breathing became quicker.

The sixth clamp came off, was placed on the floor.

Now the cover was lifted, slid over on the floor. Light partly blinded him. “X” started to sit up, and stopped. He was staring into the cold muzzle of an automatic. Behind the automatic was the intent stare of the person he had least expected to see here — the Princess Ar-Lassi.

SHE was still dressed in her red evening dress, with the coral necklace hanging from her throat as she bent forward over the coffin. There was no panic in her eyes, only a deadly sureness. She held the automatic steadily. Her hand did not shake.

“X” waited for her next move, expecting at any moment to see Jurgen or Fleer materialize out of the darkness outside.

The princess’s eyes burned into his. Her red lips formed into a taunting smile. “So the famous Killer Kyle,” she said, “is at last in a spot that he cannot escape from! From jails, yes. From the police, yes. But — from a coffin of living death — no!” She stepped back a pace. “Sit up,” she ordered. “And keep your hands in sight.”

“X” obeyed. He breathed easier on one point — she did not suspect that he was other than Killer Kyle. He said, “What the hell, lady—”

“Stop!” she interrupted. “I’ll do the talking!”

He noted now, that she spoke without accent. It had been an affectation, then, back there at the Clayton Hotel, when she had been present at the interview with Governor-elect Farrell. It had been a pose, assumed for a purpose.

She took a step backward, and ordered, “Get out of that box. And keep your hands in the air!”

“X” obeyed her. He stood outside the coffin, hands above his head, watching her closely.

She said, “Kyle, I can kill you now — or I can let you go free. It depends on you.”

He said nothing, waited to hear more.

She went on. “You do not know me, but I know you. I know that you are fearless — a brave man!” Her eyes were large, admiring. She was a consummate actress. Suddenly she asked. “Kyle, are you a man of your word?”

“X” said, “What is it you want?”

“There is something which must be done — tonight. I can’t do it. You are the kind of man who can.” She smiled at him warmly, though she held the gun steady. “I will do you a good turn and release you — you will repay me by doing this thing for me. Is it a bargain?”

“What do you want done?”

“You will kill a man!”

“Who?”

“Does it matter? It is your life for his!”

“X” was waiting for an opportunity to wrest the gun from her. But she was too far away. She was no fool, this woman; she had stepped back to be out of his reach. He said, “You want Rice killed?”

“No, no! Not Rice. Another man. The man who—”

She was interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside.

She glanced away, and “X” took a step toward her. But she turned quickly and menaced him with the gun. “Stay where you are!” She backed slowly to the light switch against the wall. The footsteps came closer — one man’s.

The princess said, “I must not be found here — it would mean my death!” She put a hand on the light switch and clicked it off.

The garage was plunged in darkness. “X” heard the voice of Jurgen raised in astonishment. “Who’s in there?”

He didn’t answer, but waited for Jurgen’s form to appear in the doorway. The princess was lurking somewhere in the garage, he knew.

Suddenly he saw Jurgen’s dim form, gun in hand, outlined in the doorway for a second, then Jurgen disappeared into the deeper darkness of the garage. A moment later his flashlight came on, swung around, and bathed “X” in its light.

Jurgen’s astonished voice exclaimed, “Kyle! How the hell’d you get out?”

“X” moved toward him. Jurgen shouted, “Stop! Stop, or I’ll drop you right there!”

There was a rustle of motion in the far corner. Jurgen, panicky, turned toward it, swinging his flash along. The moment the light left “X” he leaped at Jurgen. Jurgen realized his mistake at once, whirled back. He dropped the flashlight and swung his gun in a vicious arc that caught the Secret Agent on the shoulder.

“X” smashed in through the blow, and drove a fist to Jurgen’s face. Jurgen rocked backward on his heels. Before he could recover, “X” placed another blow on his chin, and Jurgen dropped like a stone. The gun clattered away from his nerveless fingers. “X” picked up the gun, felt his way to the switch, and clicked it on.

His eyes darted over the interior of the garage. The princess was gone.

Chapter XIII

“X” WASTED no time in the garage. Fleer would be there at any moment. He had no desire to engage in battle with Fleer. He wanted to come to grips with Rice, or, perhaps, with those who were behind Rice.

The problem of the princess he dismissed from his mind for the time being.

But she was not so easily dismissed. For when he left the garage, he saw a dim form stealing down the edge of the gravel road toward the gate of the estate. There were no lights on the grounds, but he recognized the sinuous grace of the princess.

Hugging the shadows, he followed at a discreet distance. The princess swung open the gate, and as “X” watched, a man with hat brim pulled low, and coat collar turned up, walked into the grounds past her. They stood in earnest conversation for a moment, then they disappeared into the shrubbery that lined the path.

“X” stole up, careful to make no noise. But when he reached the spot where they had been they were no longer in sight. The only direction they could have taken was toward the mausoleum, which loomed squat and dark some two hundred feet to the east of the house.

“X” shrugged. There were things going on at the house, he decided, that should bring him closer to his objective than the princess and her mysterious visitor.

Hanscom, Thane and Gates — if they were together with Rice, now, their conversation should prove very interesting.

There was the danger that Fleer would come after Jurgen — in fact it was a certainty that he would — and find Jurgen knocked out, and the prisoner gone from the coffin. But that was a chance he had to take. There was no time to waste on small fry row.

He made his way back toward the house. The house was built on a sharp slope, the ground being much lower at the front than at the rear. As a result, the second floor in the front became the ground floor at the rear.

“X” worked his way around to the back. The ground here rose up close to the second floor window of a room in which there was a light that oozed through heavy drapes.

“X” came close, and tried the French window. It was unlocked, and swung outward. He was careful to make no noise in opening it. He peered through the curtains and saw four men in a comfortable library. Across the far end of the room ran a balcony that was shrouded in darkness.

One of the four men was Lieutenant Governor Alvin Rice. He was talking vehemently, excitedly, to the other three.

“X” knew the others. The large man who sat heavily in a deeply upholstered chair was John Hanscom, old-time politician, boss of the Conservative Party. The well-built man with the ruddy countenance and the dangerous eyes was State Senator Anton Thane, president pro tem of the senate, the man who would become acting governor if anything should happen to both Rice and Judge Farrell. Thane was listening carefully to Rice while he extracted a cigarette from a silver case.

THE fourth man was standing near the window, his face a pasty hue, his pudgy, white hands wet with perspiration. His eyes were on Rice in fascinated horror. “X” knew him to be Cyrus Gates, the representative of the power interests that were in back of Hanscom and the Conservative Party. He was nervous, distraught, the weakest of the four. He winced every time Rice’s shoes squeaked as he walked up and down the room.

Rice was saying, “I told them to take the damn hearse out of here. I don’t think it was followed, or the police would have been here by this time. I could fix it up if they did come, but I’d rather not have to.”

Hanscom took the long cigar out of his mouth, and said in his deep voice. “You should never have used that crazy Kyle, Rice. There was no sense to it. You’ll get us all in trouble.”

Rice snarled, “What would you want — to sit back quietly till we all got ours, like Crome? I tell you, that’s what would have happened — may still happen! Slawson is a devil; and he’s got this Egyptian poison. My plan was the best. It’s not my fault that it went wrong.” He turned to the others. “What do you think, Thane? What about you, Gates?”

Thane was lighting a cigarette. He took a leisurely puff, let his eyes slide from Hanscom to Rice. “Strikes me,” he said in his cold voice, “that you’ve messed this up. Better not try to be the boss around here — one boss is plenty. Let Hanscom do the thinking for all of us.”

Hanscom rolled the cigar around in his mouth. He grumbled, “This is a nice time to let me take charge. I have a mind to let you boys worry this out by yourselves. Why didn’t you consult me in the first place?”

Gates, the utility man, had listened with growing panic. Now he burst out, “God, don’t sit and talk about it — do something! Now Kyle has failed, and the—”

“Judge,” Thane finished for him, half contemptuously. “You want to say that the judge will ruin us all, isn’t that it?”

Gates nodded, his fat face beaded with perspiration. “I’ve paid you boys plenty of money — but I never contemplated murder! Now Kyle will talk—”

Rice smiled thinly. “Don’t worry about that, Gates. I’ve arranged everything. Kyle won’t talk any more.”

Gates’s face went white. “You — you mean—”

“I’m having him put in a niche in the mausoleum — coffin and all. He’ll never be heard from again!”

Gates exclaimed, “B-but that’s — murder!”

Rice showed his teeth in a nasty smile. He came up close to the utilities man, said, “If you can think of a better way to handle it, go ahead.”

Hanscom boomed from the depths of his chair, “Never mind the quarreling. Rice’s way is the only way — now. We’ve got to get rid of Kyle, and think about something else—where is the judge now? We’ve got to find him, set to him quickly, before—” the big boss’s voice trailed off significantly.

“X” had been following the conversation carefully. It gave him a new light on many things, and made him certain of one thing more — there must be cross currents of crime here that were not apparent on the surface. Hanscom did not seem to know who had kidnaped Farrell. If any of the others knew, there must be a deep reason for withholding the information from the boss.

If Rice and Thane didn’t know where Farrell was now, then there must be some other factor in the situation — some other factor that was as dangerous to these men as it was to the judge. A hand of horror, that would crush innocent and guilty alike when its plans were perfected.

THESE men hated Farrell, were planning him harm, had indeed attempted it already, through Kyle. But “X” was convinced that even while they were thus plotting, another, more sinister force was closing in on all of them — had in fact, already closed in on Judge Farrell. “X” wondered where Slawson fitted into that conception of a sinister hand of horror. Was he that kind of man? It would have helped if he had been able to get the convict’s record from Betty Dale. As it was he had to work in the dark.

He was annoyed, more than startled, at the sound of footsteps coming around the end of the house. He had expected that some one or other of the various people who were prowling around the house that night would get to the window, too. He backed away, crouching low, and hid behind a hydrangea bush.

Then he focused his eyes to the darkness, and made out the figure of the Princess Ar-Lassi, sidling along the wall toward the window. She came up close, and listened, her face dimly illumined in the faint glow that came through the curtains.

For several minutes the Secret Agent watched her, while she, in turn, watched those in the room. Suddenly the princess turned and made her way toward the front of the house. “X” wondered if she was going in.

He made his way back to the window.

The four men were close together now, talking low. “X” could not hear all that they said, but isolated words dribbled out to him. Once he heard Hanscom say, “Get Slawson.”

He caught only the name, the rest was lost in an explosive burst of anger from Rice. They were apparently not getting on together so well.

Gates seemed to be protesting volubly against something that Rice said. He was nervous, glancing around fearfully, as if he expected some horrible death to leap upon him in that very room.

Suddenly there was a rap at the door.

Gates jumped, then smiled sheepishly. Hanscom scowled at the door. Rice called out, “Come in.”

The door opened in answer to his invitation, and the Princess Ar-Lassi walked in. There was a mocking smile on her face. She carried a handbag under her arm.

“X” could tell from the expressions of astonishment on the faces of the four men that they had not known she was on the grounds.

Rice recovered first, and bowed. “This is a pleasure, princess,” he murmured. “I didn’t know—”

Hanscom interrupted him, scowling. “How did you get here? I thought you were at the Clayton!”

The princess uttered a low laugh. She came a couple of steps farther into the room. “There was nothing to keep me at the Clayton, since my fiancée — left. So I came here. I wish to have a little talk with you four gentlemen.”

Chapter XIV

“X” saw that Rice was almost imperceptibly edging toward the desk in the corner, while he said, masking his uneasiness with a cloak of courtesy, “It is always a pleasure to talk to a beautiful woman. I, for one, am at your service.”

Hanscom and Thane were also uneasy, the Secret Agent saw, while Gates, the utility man stared from one to the other of them, and then at the princess, while he fidgeted nervously. There was something tense about the princess, something electric, that made these men realize she had not just come in to chat about the weather.

Hanscom rolled the cigar to a corner of his mouth, asked, “What do you want, lady?”

The Princess Ar-Lassi smiled sweetly at them all inclusively. It appeared she had shed her accent for good, for she said: “You’ll be surprised at what I want, Mr. Hanscom. I want a hundred thousand dollars — in cash!”

Hanscom’s face grew apoplectic. He exploded: “What!”

Thane started to laugh, while Gates looked bewildered. Only Rice did not seem surprised. In his face “X” saw a dawning comprehension.

The princess nodded. “A hundred thousand dollars. You can have Mr. Gates, there, take it out of one of his slush funds. It’ll never be missed. And you can be thankful I am so modest in my demands!”

Rice allowed himself a thin smile. “Perhaps you will tell us, princess, why you think we are going to give you a hundred thousand dollars?”

“Of course I’ll tell you. I thought you knew. You’re going to give me that money so that I’ll feel well disposed toward you; so that I won’t talk about — things!”

Thane said coldly, “Are you trying to blackmail us, princess? You — the fiancée of the governor-elect?”

She shrugged. “You should know better than anyone, Senator Thane, that I will never be able to marry the — governor-elect!”

“What — what do you mean?” Thane became blustery. “Are you insinuating—”

“That you have been planning to murder my — fiancée! You hired Killer Kyle to do it. Don’t deny it. Kyle is right here on the estate now.”

Hanscom heaved his heavy body in the chair, and tried to bluff. “You’re crazy!” he cried. “Go and tell the newspapers; go and tell everybody. Let them come here and look. They’ll find nothing.”

“Of course not, Mr. Hanscom. By that time you’ll have got rid of the evidence — that bullet-riddled hearse, for instance. But there are things you can’t get rid of. Suppose I went to Mr. Linton, of the Liberal Party, and told him that Judge Farrell—”

Rice cried out, “Stop! Never mention that!”

Her eyes glowed. “Now, I think, we understand each other. You are ruthless, unscrupulous men, working for power — power that almost slipped out of your fingers last week — power that may be wrested from your hands tomorrow, tonight, if you are not careful. And you may lose more — you may lose your lives — the way Michael Crome lost his!

“How would you like to have your bodies swell up — you, and you, and you,” she indicated Rice, Hanscom, Gates, in turn, “the way Crome’s did, until your throats are closed and you can breathe no longer! That is your danger!”

Gates had gone white while she talked. Now he gasped, cried weakly, “Enough! Enough! Let’s give her the money. Anything! Only stop her! Stop her!”

Hanscom growled at him, “Shut up!”

Rice’s lips curled in scorn. “I’ll stop her! The way I stop them all when they talk too much!” He slipped open a drawer of the desk, and put out his hand for the gun that lay there.

But the princess was quicker than he. Her handbag snapped open, and her ugly black automatic appeared in her hand, pointing at Rice.

“Close that drawer!” she ordered. “And leave the gun in it!”

Rice swore under his breath, and obeyed.

The princess now swung the gun so that it menaced everybody in the room.

“X” knew that she was dangerous, ruthless, cruel, as she stood there with narrowed eyes behind the automatic. He remained motionless, allowing the strange play to go on in the hope of learning more from the excited, unguarded reactions of these people.

THE princess said, “Rice, I could kill you now, and it would be self-defense. These men can testify that you went for your gun.”

“You’re crazy!” Rice snarled. “Why should they testify to that? They’re my friends!”

“Your friends? They are also the — governor-elect’s friends. You are his friend. Yet you hired Kyle to kill him. Just so, they would be glad to see me kill you. Senator Thane would become acting governor; Hanscom would be rid of a blundering fool; Gates doesn’t care as long as he can get his bills through the legislature — and anyway, he’s scared of his shadow; he’d fall in line.”

Rice’s face had become ashen. He said nothing, watched her in silence.

She went on. “But I am interested in only one thing — I want to get as much out of this as I can. Frankly, I don’t care who is governor. I don’t care if you finally eliminate — Farrell. I’ll keep my hands off — I’ll even help you — if I get one hundred thousand dollars! Perhaps,” she leaned forward as she spoke the next words, “I would even tell you where to find the body of—”

“God! Stop!” Gates blurted. “Don’t say it! The walls may have ears!”

Secret Agent “X” stiffened. Whose body had she meant? Was it the governor-elect’s? It could hardly be, from the tenor of the previous conversation. Had there been another murder, as yet unreported? Was the body being held over the heads of these men as a club, a menace?

“X” began to feel that the key to the sinister mystery that lay over this place was in the hands of no one person; that each held a thread of clue. That there were dark cross-currents of greed, of desire for power, of hate, all working against each other.

He was piecing together things he had heard so far, things he had seen; but he was no nearer a solution than when he had set out to drag information from Kyle. In fact, the more he learned, the more confusing it seemed. This missing body that the princess had mentioned was a factor he had not been aware of at all.

He set himself to listen more closely, in the hope of catching a further clue from an inflection of voice, from an unguarded remark. And suddenly he stiffened. The door behind the princess was slowly opening as she spoke. Engaged as she was, in holding the four men at bay with her automatic, she did not hear it.

But Rice saw the door move, and said nothing. “X” could tell when Hanscom and Thane noticed it, for they both started perceptibly, then, studiously tried to appear natural. Gates was too nervous to notice anything.

In the narrow opening of the door appeared the ugly face of Fleer. He stared into the room, as if not thoroughly comprehending the situation.

Rice gave him his cue. He said to the woman, “We are all helpless while you threaten us with that gun, princess.” He spoke very loud, looking at the part of Fleer’s face that showed in the open crack of the door.

Fleer took the cue. He pushed the door open noiselessly, crept up on the princess. She was saying, “You’d better decide quickly. There isn’t—”

THAT was as far as she got. Fleer pounced upon her gun hand, and twisted it mercilessly, until she dropped the automatic, uttering an involuntary cry of pain.

Rice yanked open the drawer and snatched up the gun he had tried to get before. “Good work, Fleer,” he said, with a thin smile. “Stand away from her!”

Fleer backed away.

The princess stood silent, rubbing her wrist where the marks of Fleer’s hand showed.

Rice said to her, “And now, princess, you see what a mistake it was to come here and threaten us. In this game you are only allowed one mistake.”

Hanscom took the cigar out of his mouth, breathed a sigh of relief.

Gates was silent, eyes wide, fidgeting nervously.

Thane said, “What are we going to do with her?”

“There is only one thing to do with her,” Rice answered. “The same thing we’re going to do with Kyle. We can’t afford—”

Fleer interrupted him, excitedly. “Say, boss! That’s what I come to tell you! Kyle’s gone! He broke out of the coffin somehow, an’ knocked out Jurgen. He’s loose some place in the grounds, an’ he has Jurgen’s gun!”

That announcement started a small panic in the room. Only the princess was cool.

Gates turned viciously on Rice. “Well, what are you going to do now? You’ve been handling this whole thing in your own way. Do something. Don’t you realize that Kyle will be out for revenge? Who wouldn’t — after you were going to bury him alive. Do something, man!”

Outside the window, the Secret Agent hugged the shadows. As soon as these men recovered from their panic they would hunt him like a dog throughout the grounds. Should he stay? He decided to remain.

Thane was walking up and down in great perturbation. “After all,” he suddenly said, “Kyle has nothing against us. It’s Rice he’ll be after. Let Rice take care of himself!”

Rice’s face grew a mottled purple. “Sure,” he shouted. “Let me do all the dirty work. Then let me take all the chances! It would suit you fine, Mr. Senator, wouldn’t it, if I passed out of the picture. Then you’d be next in line for the acting governorship!” He had temporarily forgotten the princess. He waved his gun wildly at Thane.

Hanscom flung his cigar into a far corner. “Stop!” he thundered. “We can’t afford to have fighting among ourselves.” He shook a finger at Rice. “Remember that I’m still the boss of the party. I’ll take charge—”

“You’ll take charge of nothing!” Rice snarled at him. “I’ve done all the dirty work, and I’m serving notice that from now on I’ll give the orders. Things are going to be done my way!”

Hanscom restrained himself with an effort. “Is that so?” he inquired sweetly. “Well, Mister Rice, we’ll see about that. Others have tried that little game in the past. But,” he thrust his chin up at Rice, “John Hanscom is still the boss! And they are either dead or in jail who—”

He stopped as Rice picked up the phone. “What are you doing now?”

Rice spoke a number into the phone. “Rave on,” he said to Hanscom over his shoulder. “Me, I’m phoning the state troopers. Kyle is on the grounds. We can’t let him get away. I’m going to give the troopers orders to shoot on sight! There’ll be no chance for Kyle to talk this time!”

He got his connection, and spoke swiftly into the phone, hung up.

Hanscom settled back in his chair. “All right. We’ll arrange our own differences — more conveniently.”

Chapter XV

THE Secret Agent had watched the scene with great interest, hoping to gain information from the dissension of the others.

Now he gave thought to his own predicament. The troopers would be here in a short time. He would have to take cover, his usefulness might be ended. There was only one thing to do — precipitate matters. He had to find out where Farrell was, before something happened to him.

Rice had put down the phone and was pointing to the balcony in the far corner of the room. This balcony was in shadow. He said to Fleer, “Take the princess up there. You’ll find rope in the pantry in the rear of the hall. Tie her up and put her on the balcony. It may be better for the troopers not to find her here.”

The princess started to protest, when “X” opened the French window wide and stepped into the room.

They all stopped as if turned to stone when they saw him.

“X” had Jurgen’s gun, with which he covered them. “Put your gun down,” he ordered Rice.

Rice had half turned from the desk at the sound of his entrance. Now he let the gun drop from shaking fingers, and exclaimed. “Kyle! Don’t shoot! Let’s talk this over!” His face had become ashen.

Fleer crouched back in the shadows, his hand stealing toward his armpit. “X” snapped, “As you were, Fleer!”

The little gunman straightened, let his empty hand drop to his side. His mouth was twitching, he was bracing himself as if expecting a bullet in his chest.

“X” let his eyes rove over the others. Hanscom had his cigar half way to his mouth, seemed carved in that position. Gates was cowering in his chair, clutching the arms. Thane was cooler than the rest. There was a half-smile on his face, as if he were enjoying some secret joke.

Suddenly the princess burst into laughter. “My rescuer!” she cried. “Mister Kyle, you couldn’t have come at a better moment. Do you know what they were going to do to me?” “X” acted the part of Kyle with consummate art. “Lay off!” he growled. He swung his gun so that it was pointing at Gates. He had picked the utility man as the weakest one in the room. “Where,” he demanded, “is Farrell? Talk fast, or—”

Gates’s eyes widened in terror. “God! Don’t shoot! I don’t know. I tell you, I don’t know!”

Hanscom started to rise. “Look here, Kyle, none of us were in favor of Rice’s program. You shouldn’t hold anything against—”

And suddenly, in the middle of his sentence, he stopped talking.

For, without warning, the room was plunged into darkness.

“X” swung away from the spot where he had stood, in case any one should fire at him under cover of the darkness. But there was no shot; only a terrified cry from Gates, and then silence, as each one in the room realized that to make a noise might mean death.

There was the sound of feet moving swiftly over the rug.

“X” heard a strangled cry from the direction of the desk. “Aar-gh!” And after it the noise of a falling body, then of some one threshing on the floor.

Then some one swished through the room, the door opened and closed swiftly, and there was silence once more in the room — silence except for the labored breathing of the occupants, and except for the agonized threshing of a body on the floor.

The Secret Agent took out his pocket flashlight, and clicked it on. Its ray found first the face of Gates, who was still sitting in the chair, his face mirroring dreadful terror.

It traveled then to Senator Thane, who stood, tense, with a gun in his hand. Thane blinked, and jerked his head away from the light.

“X” swung his flash upward to the old-fashioned mantelpiece, on which stood a pair of ornate candelabra. He stepped toward it, took out a book of matches, and lit the three candles. The flame threw an eerie light over the room, and “X” turned to see the group of men eyeing him queerly.

Thane looked around, exclaimed, “Where’s Rice? Where’s the princess!”

Neither was there.

Hanscom said, “Some one went out through that door. Maybe—”

But Gates, who had been sitting where he had a view of the rear of the desk, suddenly raised his voice in a high-pitched scream, and pointed a shaking finger. “Rice — there’s Rice!”

FLEER and Hanscom, who were nearest, dashed around, looked, and raised horror-struck eyes. Thane came more slowly, an eye still on “X.” The Secret Agent reached the desk at the same time as Thane, and they both looked at the twisted, bloated body of the man on the floor who had been Lieutenant Governor Alvin Rice not ten minutes ago.

“God!” exclaimed Hanscom. “He died right under our eyes — in the dark. And that’s the way Mike Crome’s body looked when they found it — swollen up just like that!”

“X” stooped, touched the body. Rice was dead. Dead of strangulation due to the swelling of his throat. The sight was repulsive. His throat, his chin, the upper part of his chest, were swollen to twice their normal size. His collar had burst open, the tie had been forced loose by the pressure of swelling flesh. The agony of the death must have been excruciating. It was he they had heard threshing about on the floor.

The Secret Agent stood up. He still held his gun. The others had not yet recovered from the horror of the thing they had just seen.

Gates had gone altogether to pieces. He was whimpering, unstrung, shocked. “X” eyed him carefully, suspicious that his condition was a pose. Of course, everything pointed to the princess, since she was the only one who had fled. But it was just as possible that one of the men in the room had committed the murder.

Fleer, also, was greatly shocked. He did not have the motive that the others had — that is, there was not the same apparent motive.

Certainly, the others had had motive enough — Hanscom might have done it to eliminate a man who was proving a dangerous blunderer; Thane might have done it to ensure that he would have the governorship. Only Gates seemed incapable of having done it. If he was not acting, he was in a state of pure funk.

The fact that the princess had run out, helped more or less to exculpate her in the Secret Agent’s mind. There had been no necessity for fleeing, if she was the murderess; she had only to drop the death-dealing instrument — whatever it was — on the floor, and remain in the room. That would have been the logical thing to do. There must have been some great, impelling motive that caused her to run out that way.

As the Secret Agent surveyed every man in the room in turn, another possibility suggested itself to him — that some one had been hiding on the balcony. There had been ample time, in that period of darkness, for a man to come down from the balcony, deal death, and escape.

Hanscom’s face had become a mottled gray. He said, “God, what a way to die! What is it? What bloats him like that?”

Gates suddenly burst into a high, piping laugh. “Who’s next?” he shrieked. “Who’s next? Who’s next?”

Fleer whirled at him, snarled, “Shut up, you!”

Gates subsided, cowering from the murderous glint in the little gunman’s eyes.

And then Thane pointed an accusing finger at “X.” “Kyle!” he shouted. “Kyle did it! Kyle killed him!”

Hanscom suddenly said, “By God! Of course he did! It’s a good thing the troopers are coming!”

Thane started to raise his gun.

“X” jabbed his own gun out at him, rapped, “Don’t do it, Thane!”

Thane froze at the cold finality of that command. “X,” who was facing him across the body of Rice, reached over and took the gun from his unresisting hand. And as he did so, the Secret Agent saw Fleer, out of the corner of his eye, draw an automatic from an armpit holster.

Before Fleer could bring the automatic to bear, “X” flung Thane’s gun at him. The gun caught Fleer in the face, and he staggered back, dropping the automatic.

“X” had no desire to engage in a gun battle with any of the men in the room, until he was sure which were the plotters. Moreover, he was averse to taking human life. So he pushed Hanscom aside, and leaped through the window, out into the night.

The room behind him broke into an uproar. But no one appeared at the window — they doubtless remembered that he had a gun.

“X” sped around the house, and made for the mausoleum. He had suddenly remembered the stranger whom the princess had admitted through the gate a little while ago, and in whose company she had disappeared in the direction of the mausoleum. He glanced at his watch. The radium dial showed both hands at twelve. It was midnight.

Chapter XVI

IF “X” had gone directly to the mausoleum, as he intended, there might have been averted many of the things that took place between midnight and dawn.

But he had not taken a dozen steps in the direction of the granite bulk of the crypt, before he was startled by a shout from the direction of the garage.

The garage was built into the eastern side of the building, facing toward the mausoleum. The driveway ran around past the front of the house, and ended in a concrete square in front of the garage. The ground had been leveled off here, and it sloped sharply upward from the driveway toward the rear where “X” stood.

He looked down, and saw Jurgen staggering out of the garage. He had apparently recovered consciousness just now. Jurgen saw the Secret Agent as he passed under the light streaming from one of the windows of the house, and had raised his voice to give the alarm.

“X” had no wish to be seen making for the mausoleum. He had chosen to go there for two reasons — first, to see whether the princess had fled there, and second to seek some hiding place from the troopers who would be here at any moment.

He was still Kyle, hunted, a fugitive from the law. The order was no doubt out to shoot him on sight. Rice had seen to that as the last thing in life.

And even as Jurgen shouted at the top of his voice, “Kyle! It’s Kyle! Kyle is loose!” the window of the room he had just quit erupted four figures, one after the other. Hanscom, Fleer, Thane; Gates last of all, because he didn’t want to remain alone with the body of Rice.

The others had finally gotten up enough courage to give chase.

Fleer, who was second, saw “X” and fired at him quickly, a full clip from the automatic. But it was night, and the little gunman was nervous. “X” was not hit. He bent over, and ran, weaving, toward the garage.

A heavy revolver roared out behind him. Probably Thane. A slug whizzed past him, too close for comfort.

Now “X” was down on the concrete driveway in front of the garage. He was illumined by the light coming from its interior, and Thane emptied his revolver. “X” felt a hot finger sear his side, but kept on.

Jurgen was not unarmed. He had hauled out the Thompson gun. “X” had not seen him for a moment, and assumed that he had taken refuge in the garage. He had, but for a purpose.

Suddenly, as “X” sped past the open door, a chattering broke out from inside. “X” knew that sound. Many times in France he had dropped to the ground, hugged the terrain, when that deadly chattering made itself heard. Now he did the same thing, and the first burst drummed over his head. In a moment Jurgen would lower the muzzle, rake him as he lay on the ground.

“X” rolled sideways, away from the lighted entrance. With a sigh of relief he found himself past the entrance, out of range. The chatter of the Thompson ceased for a moment. Jurgen was coming out of the garage, a deadly killer armed with a deadly weapon.

From behind, up the slope, “X” could hear Fleer shouting, “Stand back! It’s Jurgen. He’ll get him!”

THICK shrubbery lined the driveway on the side away from the house. “X,” still on the ground, rolled into this. He got to his knees and crept through it, just as Jurgen came out of the garage. Jurgen had seen him, and with a wolfish smile that shone fiercely under the light from inside, steadied the Thompson at his shoulder, preparing to send another burst into the shrubbery.

There were few times in “X’s” career that he had found it necessary to use a lethal weapon. This was one of them. He raised Jurgen’s own gun, and with a motion so fast that it defied the eye to follow it, he fired a single shot.

It struck Jurgen in the left shoulder, and he staggered back with the impact. The muzzle of the Thompson was raised, and a spattering hail of lead flashed into the air as Jurgen’s hand compressed involuntarily on the lever.

“X” rolled through the shrubbery, away from the spot he had been in; and none too soon, for lead roared from one of the guns on the slope, and slugs tore into the ground close beside him.

The Secret Agent peered out of his place of concealment, and saw them scatter, Fleer rounding toward the mausoleum, Thane behind him. Gates stayed where he was, hugging the wall, while Hanscom came down toward Jurgen, who was sitting against the garage wall, with the sub-machine gun in his lap, and waiting for a sight of the quarry.

Hanscom called out to Jurgen, “Did he hit you?”

Jurgen answered, “Only in the shoulder. Wait’ll I see that—”

The Secret Agent started to make his way silently toward the gate. That was the only avenue of escape. And as he approached it, he suddenly saw a pair of headlights coming up the road outside, toward the gate.

A motor roared outside, then was quiet as the car slowed down, stopped before the entrance to the grounds. The headlights were strong, and a moment later they were augmented by a spotlight that swept the grounds through the grille work.

“X” stopped short, crouched low while the beam of the spotlight hovered over him. But it passed on, came to rest on Jurgen and Hanscom.

Hanscom shouted, “The troopers! Thank God!” He started to run down toward the gate. He passed so close to the Secret Agent that “X” could have touched him by reaching out his hand.

Two of the troopers got out of the car and came toward the gate. Hanscom opened it, and they came through, the car following them slowly.

Hanscom seized the first trooper by the sleeve. “Kyle,” he exclaimed. “Killer Kyle is loose somewhere on the grounds! He’s killed Lieutenant Governor Rice! Killed him in a hideous way! Have you got enough men? Search the grounds!”

The trooper said, “Murder, huh?” He turned to the one behind him. “Better go up to the house and phone Major Denvers, Jack. Tell him the lieutenant governor’s been murdered. He’ll want to take charge here himself.”

The trooper addressed as Jack said. “Okay, Hank,” and went in the direction of the house.

THE car was inside the gates now, and two more troopers got out. Hank was apparently in charge. He said to Hanscom, “Call in everybody of your party that’s out on the grounds. Get them all in the house. When we know they’re all safe, we’ll start combing the grounds. Then we can shoot on sight if we see anybody around — we’ll know he don’t belong.”

Hanscom said, “That’s just what I was about to suggest.” He raised his voice, called, “Thane! Come here! The troopers are here!”

From the direction of the mausoleum a flashlight bobbed. There was a hail, and soon Thane and Fleer came into sight.

“X” was crouching not ten feet from the trooper, Hank. They were close to the gate. “X” could, of course, try to make a run for it, to get out of the grounds. He elected to stay; the solution of the terrible death that struck in the dark lay somewhere on those grounds, and “X” was determined to find it.

The task would be doubly hard now, with the state troopers on the scene; it would be even more difficult when Major Denvers arrived. “X” knew Major Denvers. Years ago he had served with him in the same outfit. Denvers was a thorough soldier, a much older man than “X,” and a martinet of the old school. He would prosecute the investigation to the bitter end, no matter whom it involved.

But “X” doubted that he would succeed where Burks had failed. This was no ordinary crime, conceived by an ordinary criminal, but one that was aimed at high places, and planned for the highest stakes in the world — lives of men against power.

“X” noted that he was crouching in almost the same spot that the princess had stood in when she disappeared with the stranger whom she had admitted earlier in the evening. He felt around cautiously in the darkness, careful not to make the slightest sound, for Hank, the trooper, was talking to Hanscom and Thane not ten feet from him. Up by the garage, Fleer had gone up to Jurgen, and was trying to render him first aid. Gates was no longer at the wall. He was nowhere in sight.

“X’s” foot touched a spot in the ground where there seemed to be a hole. He felt it with his hand. The hole wasn’t round. The edge that he touched seemed to extend in a straight line. He felt along the edge a little farther, expecting to feel where it ended.

It didn’t end.

“X” now understood how the princess and her slouch-hatted friend had disappeared. This was no hole. It was a ditch, probably unused now, but formerly used for irrigation purposes on the grounds. It must run along toward the mausoleum.

“X” did not know how deep it was, but he put his foot into it, then stepped in. It was fully five feet deep, and by walking hunched over, a tall man could make his way through the grounds unseen. That, then, was where the princess and the man had gone to. They had merely stepped into the ditch and walked away.

“X” reflected that few people would know about the ditch. It had probably been unused for a dozen years at least, ever since modern pipe lines had been laid on these estates.

“X” walked along it cautiously, feeling his way before him. Gradually the voices of the others were lost to him, as he got farther and farther away, closer to the mausoleum.

Abruptly, the ditch ended. “X” scrambled out. Before him, the white granite mausoleum loomed in the darkness, spectral, forbidding.

HE approached it soundlessly. The massive grilled door was closed. “X” swung it open, slowly at first, to be sure it didn’t creak, then wide when he found it was well oiled.

The darkness was intense. He felt his way down a single step in what he knew to be a sort of outer chamber, and across this to a heavy stone door that opened into the crypt proper. The door was locked. There was a little barred opening in the middle of this door, about the height of a man’s head. The opening was no more than six inches square, and had two bars running up and down.

“X” took out his pocket flashlight, cupped it in his hands, and let its beam trickle through the opening into the interior. The crypt was large, some fifteen feet square. There were niches on two walls, with sliding drawers for the coffins. There was a large stone table against one wall, and a bench against the other.

Three niches were occupied by coffins. Another niche seemed to have been prepared to receive a coffin, for the sliding drawer was open.

In the center of the crypt lay a coffin. The lid had been placed on it carelessly, without being fastened. Otherwise, the crypt appeared to be empty.

“X” snapped off the flashlight. He had seen enough to make him anxious to get in there. His fingers wandered over the lock, determined that it was of the tumbler type, with a rotary bolt.

Swiftly he got the tool kit out of his vest pocket, opened it, and selected a key. There were a dozen keys in that kit, and each was a master key for a certain type of lock. Unerringly, again, he had chosen the right key. The tumbler fell, the bolt clicked, and the door swung open.

“X” stepped inside the pitch-dark crypt, and shut the door. The spring lock clicked. Outside, he heard voices. One of them was very loud, positive, assured. He recognized that voice. It belonged to Major Denvers of the State Police. The major was saying, “This Kyle must be on the grounds. Run the car up the driveway, and rotate the spotlight. We can’t fail to find him. And when you do, shoot to kill!”

“X” retreated from the door. He was trapped, for they would eventually come to search the mausoleum when they didn’t find him anywhere else. In the meantime, though, he could pursue his investigation. Time to worry about that later.

He felt his way to the coffin, ran his hands over it. It was a large coffin — a man’s. “X” wondered if it contained the body the princess had referred to. Hardly, because she had offered to tell Rice and the others where to find a certain body. There was no mystery about the whereabouts of this one.

He raised the lid, placed it on the floor. Then he shaded his flashlight with his hands once more, threw its beams into the box. He looked once, gasped, and clicked the light off.

He remained perfectly still, hardly breathing, a thousand thoughts racing through his brain — thoughts conjured up by the thing he had seen in the box.

For the box contained — not a dead man — but the dead, swollen body of the Princess Ar-Lassi. She had met the same fate as Crome and Rice.

Chapter XVII

BACK in the city, Betty Dale had been wondering why the Secret Agent did not call her back. She had communicated with the switchboard operator at the Herald, and gotten Rice’s telephone number. Now she waited patiently, her uneasiness growing with every moment that passed without the ringing of the telephone.

She felt that “X” must be in trouble, or he would have called as he had promised.

After an hour of fruitless, restless waiting, her eyes closed involuntarily, and she dozed in her arm-chair. Her troubled sleep was at last interrupted by the telephone. She sprang up. wide awake at once, and snatched it up eagerly.

She was disappointed when she heard the voice of Morgan, the night editor of the Herald. He said, “Look, Betty, can you help me out? I’ve got to send Ridley up to the Catskills on a story, and that’ll leave me nobody to cover headquarters. Will you go over and take his place? I can’t leave it open with things happening so fast around there.”

She exclaimed. “Catskills! What’s happened up there?”

“Nothing much,” Morgan told her. “Only they got Killer Kyle cornered up there at Lieutenant Governor Rice’s house. He just phoned in to the state troopers. It’ll be a big story — if they catch him.”

Betty clutched the phone tightly. “Listen,” she said eagerly, pleadingly, “let me take that assignment, Mr. Morgan. Please, I want it.”

Morgan grumbled a little, then gave in. “I guess you’ll do as well as Ridley, maybe even better. Old Major Denvers up there knew your father, didn’t he?”

So it was, that, later in the night, a big rented Packard deposited Betty at the entrance of the Rice mansion. She was the first reporter to appear on the scene.

She had difficulty in gaining admittance until she showed her press card. Finally, however, the trooper on duty permitted her to enter, and a servant led her through a broad hall to the very room where the body of Lieutenant Governor Rice lay.

The medical examiner had just finished his work, and the body was covered up.

Hanscom was there, and Senator Thane, Gates, and Fleer, while Jurgen lay on an improvised cot. His arm was in a sling. Two state troopers were on guard at the door, and Major Denvers, fifty, with iron-gray hair and a square, jutting chin was in charge.

Denvers took time out front the inquiry to remember Betty’s father, and to say a kindly word to her.

“H-have they found Kyle yet?” she asked breathlessly. She guessed that the Secret Agent might be posing as Kyle, for she recalled the disguise he had worn when she had met him in the car outside headquarters, recalled the plates he had told her about, which had caused him to resemble the killer. “Do they know where he’s hiding?”

“No,” Major Denvers told her. “But they’ll get him. He can’t get out — you saw how the roads are patrolled outside; and my men are combing the grounds now. Don’t worry, you’ll have a good story for your paper tonight.” He took her by the arm. “Now sit down in a corner where you’ll be out of the way, while I ask a few questions of these men. There seems to be a lot wrong around here, and I mean to get to the bottom of it. I hate these fat politicians, anyway!”

She sat down, and Denvers turned to the men. “Now, Mr. Hanscom, will you show me just where you were standing when the lights went out?”

Hanscom had lit another cigar, and he was scowling now. “Look here, major,” he protested, “what’s the use of all this nonsense? We know that Kyle killed Mr. Rice when the lights went out. What difference does it make where the rest of us were standing?”

Denvers thundered at him, “I’m in charge here, Mr. Hanscom, and this investigation will be conducted the way I see fit! I don’t care if you’re the boss of the whole state or not, when I see murder, I look into it!”

Hanscom said, “You won’t gain anything by that attitude, Denvers.”

“I’m not looking to gain, Hanscom. I’m looking to do my duty, and, by God, it’s going to be done! Hasn’t it occurred to any of you here, that Kyle must have had an accomplice? He was standing near the window; the electric light switch is close to the door, and there’s another that controls the room up on the balcony. Now you all tell me that Kyle never moved far from the window. All right, how could he have put out the lights? Some one else must have done that — some one in league with him!”

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 took 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

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.”

He turned his head, saw Betty Dale. His eye lighted in recognition. “Aren’t you the newspaper girl that interviewed me at the Clayton this evening?”

She smiled. “You have a good memory, judge.”

Farrell stopped. He took his arm off Denvers’ shoulder, tried standing alone. “I guess I can make it alone. Thanks, major. Sorry I was so snappy to you back there in the crypt. It’d get on anybody’s nerves. I was beginning to picture myself getting the same dose that poor Mike Crome got. Do you know who’s doing all this?”

“No, sir. But there’re enough suspects. For one thing, there’s Killer Kyle. He’s still loose somewhere. Then there’s your friends, Hanscom and Thane; and a rat named Fleer, and his pal, Jurgen. The last two must be in somebody’s pay — I don’t know whose. And then there’s this mysterious Princess Ar-Lassi, whom I’ve never seen, but who’s also around some place. I don’t know where so many people can hide in a place like this.”

Farrell tapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll get them, major. I have every confidence in you. And now,” he turned back to Betty, “I think I’ll do a good turn. I’ll give this young lady an interview. You can go ahead, major, if you wish, leave a couple of troopers here with us for protection, in case there’s anything you need to attend to at the house.”

Denvers looked doubtful. “If you feel it’s safe, judge. I’d hate to have anything happen—”

Farrell gave him a little push. “Don’t worry. Go along. I’ll be there shortly. Maybe I can identify this Fleer or Jurgen that you mention, as the men who kidnaped me.”

Denvers assigned a couple of men to guard the governor-elect, and went ahead. Farrell took Betty’s arm, and walked along with her, the two troopers keeping a respectful distance.

“And now, young lady, suppose you ask your questions. You’re good at that.”

BETTY smiled. She admired him — admired his thoughtfulness in giving her the interview now, right after his harrowing experience. She took advantage of the opportunity. Her keen little newspaper mind was working smoothly. “I hope you’ll pardon this question, judge — but just now, when Major Denvers mentioned the Princess Ar-Lassi as a suspect, and also as being missing, you didn’t seem to show much concern. Has your attitude toward the princess changed since our last interview with you?”

Farrell stopped short. The two troopers stopped behind them, still keeping their distance.

The governor-elect looked at her long and keenly. “You are really a clever girl,” he said. “Denvers didn’t notice that; I didn’t notice it; you did. Thanks for calling my attention to it. I’ll have to rectify the blunder when we get to the house.”

She gazed at him, puzzled. “What do you mean, judge?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. He took her arm and resumed the walk. “So,” he said softly, with a peculiar inflection of the voice, “the swan has failed once more to spot her hawk!”

It was her turn to be amazed. Her face went pale, she faltered in her stride, but immediately recovered, and walked on. Her arm trembled under his hand. “You!” she exclaimed, aghast.

Secret Agent “X” chuckled. “It was the only disguise that would get me out of that mausoleum. Luckily, I had prepared the material for the disguise from the governor-elect’s picture, before leaving the city. I came here with Fleer and Jurgen, posing as Kyle.” His eyes took on a serious expression. “You mentioned the Princess Ar-Lassi; she’s dead — in the mausoleum — the same way that Crome died, that Rice died. I hope you never witness it.”

She said in a low voice, “I have. Gates is dead in the house — like that.” A cold shiver ran through her body. “What is it? What sort of fiend is inflicting this miserable death on these people?”

He answered soberly, “I intend to find out — before dawn. I also intend to find out where Governor-elect Farrell is, if he has not already met the same fate.”

“Why should the princess have been killed?”

“She knew too much. She wanted to work with both sides. She wanted to sell out to Rice and Hanscom and Thane, double-cross whoever it is that’s fighting them.”

“Do you think Thane or Hanscom can be behind Farrell’s disappearance?”

“It’s possible. That’s another reason why I am appearing as Farrell. If they are responsible for his disappearance, they will not be able to conceal their fear of me when I come on the scene. I purposely sent Denvers on ahead, so he could make the announcement that Farrell had been found. If either or both of them tries to get away now, we will know it is because they are afraid to face Farrell.”

They were close to the house. Betty said, “I got some information about Slawson. On the way out here I stopped in at the Herald office. I had looked in the morgue once before, but hadn’t found anything. This time I stopped at Morgan’s desk to get some expense money, and there was the whole file on Slawson, on his desk. He had had it out for a Sunday feature story on the escape from Riker. So I took the whole thing while he wasn’t looking. I didn’t have time to examine it.”

She took a tightly folded sheaf of papers from her handbag, and gave it to him.

He stuffed the papers in his pocket. “I’ll read them the first chance I get. Good work, Betty.” He wanted very badly to go over those papers at once. But there was no chance to, with the troopers right behind.

They reached the house, walked around it to the front entrance, and went in. A trooper in the hall saluted, grinned. “Glad you’re safe, judge. Go right down the hall. They’re all in there.”

THE Secret Agent and Betty found everybody assembled in the room at the rear — the one in which Rice and Gates had been killed. The medical examiner had left after seeing Rice’s body. They had phoned for him again, but he had not yet reached home. Gates still lay on the floor, covered with an old-rose bedspread that one of the troopers had found upstairs.

Jurgen was back on the couch, lying quiet. Fleer crouched against the wall, sulky. He was handcuffed.

Thane and Hanscom stood in the center of the room, facing Denvers, who was hurling questions at them. Sergeant Plimpton was in the room, as well as three troopers. The place was crowded, stuffy, and although the window was open there was the reek of tobacco smoke.

Betty shuddered involuntarily. A sense of foreboding assailed her, a feeling of impending doom. It was as though the people in this room were just talking, moving, quarreling, uselessly, for she seemed to feel that death was going to visit there again.

They all turned when “X” entered the room. The Secret Agent kept his eyes on Thane and Hanscom. What would be their reactions?

Thane’s poker face betrayed nothing. Hanscom grunted, shifted the cigar in his mouth, said, “Hello, Guy. Glad to see you’re safe.”

Denvers said, “We’ve had some news, judge, and it’s somewhat disturbing. I’ve had a telephone call from John Burks, chief inspector down at the city. He tells me that he raided a flat in a house on Green Street. It was the house that this hearse in the garage drove away from. They found Killer Kyle unconscious in the apartment — haven’t been able to revive him yet. But the important thing is, Inspector Burks suspects that the apartment was one of the hideouts of that criminal known as Secret Agent ‘X’! There were a lot of gadgets found there, and material for all kinds of disguises!”

Betty cast a look of apprehension at the Secret Agent but “X’s” face showed nothing. “You don’t say so!” he exclaimed. “I’ve heard of Secret Agent ‘X.’ How is he connected with this business?”

“We don’t know, judge. But Inspector Burks is certain it was this ‘X’ that impersonated him in helping Kyle to escape, and he also feels that perhaps the Secret Agent has come up here in some disguise, perhaps that of Kyle. So it seems we have to do, not with an ordinary killer, but with a super criminal. That explains a lot of things that have been happening around here.”

“X” looked around the room, then back at the major. “You think, then, that it was Secret Agent ‘X’ who kidnaped me?”

Denvers shrugged. “I don’t know. Suppose you look closely at the men in this room. Can you identify any of them as the kidnapers?”

“X” approached Fleer, inspected him closely. Fleer glared at him, but there was apprehension in his face. He seemed to be trying to give him a message. “X” shook his head, turned away. “The men were masked, but I’d know them. It wasn’t this one.” He crossed the room and looked at Jurgen. “Nor this one.”

Denvers asked, “You’re sure it wasn’t Mr. Hanscom or Mr. Thane?”

“X” shook his head.

BOTH Thane and Hanscom looked relieved, as if they had expected a different answer. Hanscom said, “Look here, Guy. Major Denvers thinks a lot of you. Maybe you can get him to stop this damn fool investigation. After all, Thane and I are pretty big men in the state.” He came close to “X,” said slowly, “And you, yourself, perhaps, should not want to have this go on—for a very good reason?”

“X” looked from him to Thane, then to Denvers. “On the contrary, I insist that this investigation proceed. I have nothing to fear!”

Thane’s lips curled in a snarl. “Nothing to fear, eh?” He pointed to the body on the floor, said to Denvers, “Show him how Gates died!”

Just then there was a commotion in the corridor outside. A moment later, two troopers entered, supporting a third man between them. The man seemed to be in bad shape, on the verge of exhaustion.

Betty Dale uttered a gasp of dismay when she saw his face. The others in the room stiffened, looks of amazement appearing on their countenances. Hanscom exclaimed:

“Good God! What—” and seemed to choke on his cigar. Major Denvers’ eyes narrowed in suspicion.

For the man whom the two troopers were supporting was — Governor-elect Farrell.

He and “X” might have been twin brothers for all the difference between them.

There was one point, however, that did not coincide. “X” wore no rings, while on the third finger of the governor-elect’s right hand — the hand that was flung around a trooper’s shoulder, there gleamed the strange Egyptian ring that he had worn at the interview at the Clayton.

The two troopers who had brought him in stared in stupefaction at “X.” One of them murmured, “What the hell — how many of them are there?”

Of them all, “X” alone was cool. His eye strayed to Betty, and he nodded to her in reassurance. But her apprehension was far from quieted. “X” would surely be shown up now, as an impostor. Nothing could save him.

Major Denvers was the first to recover from his astonishment. “Close the door!” he roared. “Plimpton! Stand guard at that door. Allow no one to leave this room!” He motioned to one of his men. “You, lock the window and take your post before it.” Then he demanded of the troopers who had just come in with Farrell, “Now, what’s it all about?”

Farrell’s eyes had been half closed. He had evidently been through some terrible experience. At the sound of Denvers’ voice, he raised his head, but continued to lean for support on the two uniformed men. He said meekly, “These two troopers found me in the cellar. I’m sure I’d have been killed if they hadn’t found me. I was kidnaped!”

One of the troopers said, “We found Judge Farrell down at the east end of the cellar, sir. He was partly unconscious.”

Denvers said, “Yes, yes. But—” he turned to “X” and pointed at him—“who’s this?”

“X” said, “I, as you know, am Judge Farrell. This man is an impostor.” He had cleverly taken the offensive, though there was little, if any chance, of succeeding in the bluff.

Farrell shook his head violently to clear it, and tried to stand on his own feet, succeeded. He looked at “X,” apparently saw him for the first time, and cried, “That man — he looks like me! What’s he doing here?”

Denvers said dryly, “That’s what I’d like to know. And I’m going to find out.”

He turned to Hanscom, who had almost bitten through his cigar in the stress of his amazement. “Look here. Mr. Hanscom, you know Judge Farrell quite well. I confess that I myself am puzzled. Is there any way that you can tell which of these men is Judge Farrell, and which an impostor?”

Hanscom’s eyes rested on Farrell’s ring. “That,” he said, “is the ring that Judge Farrell has worn for the last few days. This man,” he indicated “X,” “has no ring.”

The Secret Agent said, quickly, “The ring was taken from me when I was kidnaped. This man must have put it on and come here to pose as me. He knew I had been kidnaped — probably directed it himself — so he arranged to be found in the cellar.”

Judge Farrell’s eyes flashed. “This is preposterous! I demand that you test this man — ask him some questions!”

Denvers suddenly snapped his fingers, eyes flashing. “I’ve got it! Inspector Burks told me on the wire about the clever impersonator who got Kyle out — he told me who he suspected it was!” He stopped a moment, then went on, slowly, portentously. “Gentlemen, we know that one of these men is an impostor. I know that one of these men is — Secret Agent ‘X,’ the most notorious criminal of the age! And I propose to expose him now!” He glared from Farrell to “X.” “One of you two has make-up on his face. It’ll be easy to tell which!”

Chapter XIX

SERGEANT PLIMPTON had drawn his gun when he took his place at the door. Now, Major Denvers drew his, and the two of them dominated the room.

Thane stood smiling easily. He was enjoying the situation, for some obscure reason. Hanscom looked puzzled, and at the same, time apprehensive. Fleer and Jurgen were entirely beyond their depth.

Betty Dale felt most poignantly of all of them. The moment she dreaded was here — the moment when “X” would be exposed, when his life work would be ended — ignominiously.

The Secret Agent stood in the center of the room, his hands at his sides, and if he felt any perturbation, he concealed it marvelously.

Betty suddenly came to a decision. She would not stand there idly and let the man she admired most in the world be ruined in this tragic manner. She edged, unnoticed, toward the door. Plimpton paid her no attention; his eyes were following Denvers, who had strode up close to “X,” and peered into his face, gun barrel almost touching his chest. “You first, mister,” he said. “I’d have sworn you were Judge Farrell. Perhaps you are. But we have to make sure.” He raised his free hand to scrape “X’s” cheek. “Pardon me, but this is necessary. If that’s make-up on your face, it ought to come off.”

And just then, Betty Dale tensed, her hand flew to the electric light switch, pressed, and the room was plunged in darkness.

Hanscom’s voice, fraught with deep terror, cut through the blackness. “God! The killer! He’ll get some one else!”

But Hanscom’s voice was drowned out by the reverberation of Denvers’ thirty-eight. He had squeezed down on the trigger when “X” gripped his wrist and swung the muzzle away from his chest under cover of darkness. Now “X” brought up his fist to the major’s jaw, and Denvers staggered back, dazed, ran into Thane, and the two of them grappled. The dark room was full of moving, struggling bodies, reeked with the fumes of gunpowder.

The Secret Agent made his way swiftly to the door. He had his gas gun out, now.

Sergeant Plimpton discerned his shadow approaching, shouted, “Nobody leaves. Stand back from the door!” He reached to put on the light switch, but Betty Dale was in his way. A moment later, “X” discharged his gas gun full in Plimpton’s face, and the sergeant slid to the floor, unconscious.

“X” found Betty’s arm in the dark, pressed it, murmured in her ear, “Good girl,” then opened the door and slid through into the lighted hallway.

He heard Denvers’ shout, “He’s gone! Through the door! After him!”

“X” sped along the corridor, to the staircase. The trooper on guard at the outside door turned, raised his gun. “X” had discharged the last cartridge from his gas gun, had not had time to reload. He hurled the empty weapon at the trooper. It struck him in the temple, felled him. The trooper’s finger contracted on the trigger as he fell, and the revolver was discharged into the wall.

“X” spun toward the staircase, leaped upward, just as the door behind him burst open and Denvers erupted from the room, followed by Thane, Hanscom, and the troopers.

At the first landing “X” bowled over a servant who had come running out of one of the rooms at the sound of the shooting.

The Secret Agent continued upward. The house consisted of three floors. The master bedrooms were on the second, the servants’ quarters and a couple of additional guest rooms were on the top floor. The sounds of the pursuit were close below when he rounded into the top hallway from the staircase.

“X” was at the end of his rope. There was no place to retreat to now. They would search every nook and cranny of the top floor, would eventually find him. He heard Denvers’ voice on the second landing, “Three of you, take this floor. The rest, come up!”

Hanscom’s voice also made itself heard. “It must be this Secret Agent ‘X.’ Shoot to kill!”

And Governor-elect Farrell: “This is outrageous! That fellow must be demented!”

“X” sped down the corridor to the last room at the front, opened the door, and slid into the room.

Feet clattered on the landing. “X” heard Denvers order, “Be careful. Search every room, thoroughly. Shoot on sight — the man is a desperate criminal!”

“X” TURNED the catch on the door, locking it. That would give him another minute or so. Then he went to the window and peered out. Below the house he could discern dim shapes patrolling the grounds. There was a drain-pipe that ran down from the roof, less than two feet from the window. It would do no good to take that, though, for he would be seen by the men below before he reached the ground.

He looked up. The roof was the last refuge. Up the drain-pipe — an almost impossible feat, yet not beyond the ability of “X.”

Even as he considered the drain-pipe, a hand in the corridor turned the knob of the door, pushed, found it locked. A trooper’s voice called out. “Major Denvers, sir. This room is locked!”

There was a rush of feet along the corridor. Denvers’ voice called out. “Open up before we shoot the lock off!”

“X” waited for no more. Lithely he swung himself out of the window, clutching the drain-pipe with both hands. Then he wrapped his legs around it, boosted himself to a little higher hold with his hands. He looked up. The roof was ten feet above him. The cornice would afford a good grip to lever himself onto the roof. But the task of getting there….

While he worked himself up. slowly, inch by inch, there was the explosion of a heavy service revolver inside, followed by a rush of feet into the room he had just quit.

He heard Denvers exclaim, “Empty! He must have gone out the window!”

A head peered out, looked downward first, then saw the drain-pipe. “X” had managed to work himself up level with the top of the window, above the head of Denvers. When Denvers turned to look up, as he must, “X” would be spotted, helpless on the drain-pipe.

And then the thing occurred that saved the situation for the Secret Agent. He knew what it meant the moment he heard the scream. It seemed that the lurking hand of horror had chosen exactly the right moment to strike again — the right moment, this time, for the man who was trying to track it down.

The scream came from the top floor, from a room at the rear; one of the rooms that was being searched.

It was the scream of a man — but so inhuman, so horribly permeated with stark terror, that it was impossible to recognize whose throat had uttered it. It was a long scream, more of fright than of pain — a scream that a man will utter when he understands that dreadful doom has descended upon him.

There was just that one, long-drawn-out scream, and then a pregnant silence that seemed to fill the house, and the dreary grounds about it with a sense of overwhelming catastrophe.

Denvers jerked his head inside without looking up.

“X” continued his laborious upward climb, listening the while, for any sounds that would give him a clue to what was happening.

His fingers scraped on sharp sliver-like projections from the lead pipe, and began to bleed. The muscles of his lower legs ached from the strain of supporting his body. But he worked upward indomitably, upward, until at last his lacerated fingers were able to touch the coping of the roof.

FIRST one hand, then the other. He gripped hard, and let his feet swing free, then kicked upward, and hooked the back of his right foot on to the coping. He levered himself up, crawled onto the roof, and lay gasping. It had been a task that racked both the nerves and the muscles.

“X” allowed himself only a half minute to regain his breath, then made his way across the roof to the rear of the house. He trod softly, for he knew that these roofs were thin, and the men in the hall below might hear his steps on the sheet tin.

He stretched full length on the roof at the rear, and looked over.

Light streamed from the room immediately below. Loud voices came through the window. “X” listened carefully, trying to visualize the scene below. He knew that they would think of the roof next; knew that he would be trapped there. But he had to hear what had taken place. Had to know whom the ghastly hand of horror had struck at this time….

And in the room below, a group of men were clustered about a ghastly spectacle on the floor.

Betty Dale stood just outside the doorway, and watched with wide-eyed terror. She could not see the thing on the floor, because of the crowd in the small bedroom.

Denvers had broken through, shouting, “What’s happened?”

Thane stood there, perspiration on his forehead. Governor-elect Farrell knelt on the floor beside a threshing, agonized body. Half a dozen troopers stood around, helpless to aid.

A low groan issued from the man on the floor. His body twitched spasmodically. Incoherent words came from his throat.

Betty pushed her way through. Her heart was thumping wildly. She was afraid to look, for fear that she would see — the Secret Agent.

But when she saw the man who lay dying on the floor, her body relaxed, though she was dumb with the horror of the spectacle. It was Hanscom!

Beside him lay his cigar — the last cigar he would ever smoke. Hanscom’s collar had burst the way Rice’s had. His throat was swelling fast. His fingers were clutching at the bloated flesh, he was trying to talk, though his windpipe was rapidly becoming sealed. In another moment he would choke to death.

Denvers knelt beside Farrell, raised the dying man’s head. Thane said, “Look out, major. Maybe you’ll get the poison if you touch him.”

Denvers paid him no attention. He said, “Can you talk, Hanscom? What happened? Who did this to you?”

Farrell urged him, also, in a hushed voice, “Try to tell us, John. Can’t you say even one word? Give us his name. A clue, anything. Try to say just one word!”

Hanscom made a tremendous effort. His bloated body heaved up in Denvers’ arms, impelled by a last mighty impulse. His eyes glared up desperately, wildly, roved from Thane, who was standing just above him, then down to Denvers and Farrell He opened his horribly swollen mouth from which saliva drooled, and two cracked, parched words issued from distended lips: “Sam — Slawson!”

Then his face started to blacken, his eyes to bulge, and Betty Dale turned away, almost fainting. She leaned against the wall, head on arm, nauseous and frightened, while Hanscom died.

In the suddenly hushed room, the major asked in a low voice, “Who — is this Sam Slawson?”

No one seemed to know….

Chapter XX

SECRET AGENT “X” slowly inched his body back from the coping. He had heard enough. Though he had not been able to see into that room of death, he had been able to evoke a picture of the scene from the things that had been said.

He stole back to the drain-pipe. Going down it would not be as difficult as going up had been, though, perhaps, more dangerous.

He looked down. Three stories below he could see the dim figures still patrolling the grounds.

He swung himself over, gripped the drain-pipe with hands and feet, and slid downward slowly. He passed the window of the top floor room that he had escaped from; then the second floor, then the ground floor. At the ground floor he stopped, clung precariously, while he glanced down. A trooper was almost immediately beneath him, a little to his right. That was where the garage was built into the house. The trooper had apparently been placed on guard over the hearse, which was evidence.

“X” could not descend to the ground. To do so would have been suicide.

He glanced in at the ground floor window. It opened into the hallway. There was a dim light at the door, and he could see nobody there, at the moment. His muscles were becoming cramped, he was beginning to slip. The descent from the roof had not been easy.

He swung one leg in at the window, and in another moment he stood in the hall. The door of the rear room where Rice and Gates had been killed, was open. A couple of troopers were there, and a man who knelt beside Gates’s body — evidently the medical examiner had arrived.

“X” could hear steps descending the staircase from the upper floor, could hear Denvers, and Judge Farrell, and then Senator Thane’s voice raised in angry protest.

He heard Judge Farrell say: “You were in the room with Hanscom, Thane. You could also have shot Gates — you know you’re a crack shot!”

He didn’t get Thane’s reply, for he was gliding down the hall toward the basement stairs. He had to get to some place where he could plan his next move, where he could shed the disguise of Governor-elect Farrell. It was imperative that he work fast; death was visiting these public men in swift succession. What was the object of the murderer?

If he could only get a chance to read over the papers Betty had given him relating to Sam Slawson, the escaped convict, the man whose name had been on Hanscom’s dying lips.

He opened the door to the basement steps, and just then a trooper came out of the rear room, saw him, and raised a shout.

The trooper drew a gun, and “X” stepped into the darkness of the basement staircase, swung the door to behind him.

He crouched low, ran down the steps. And it was well he did, for there were the repeated, smashing reports of the trooper’s thirty-eight, and the slugs tore through the door over his head.

He reached the bottom and groped his way ahead, feeling along the wall.

Above him the house burst into a bedlam of excitement. He heard faint, hoarse shouts, running feet.

He reached the end of the wall, felt a wooden wall across his path. He turned left along this wooden wall and touched a door. There was a hasp on this door, and a padlock hanging from its open end.

“X” opened the door, and stepped through.

Not a moment too soon. The door at the head of the stairs was wrenched ajar, and a man at the top threw the beam of a powerful flashlight into the cellar.

“X” felt around. He was in a sort of large bin. In one corner was a pile of old clothing. “X” started to pull the clothing away. If his calculations were right, there should be a door to the garage right here. The garage backed up against the cellar, and when he had got out of the coffin, he had noticed a door in the concrete wall.

“X” found the door; it was locked, but he also found something else. The floor under his feet at this point gave out a hollow sound as he trod on it. He stooped to examine it in the dark, while excited voices, hurrying feet, passed the door of the bin.

“X” ran his hands along the floor, and encountered a steel ring set into a square of metal about three feet by three. He pulled at this ring, and the metal square lifted at one end, rose on hinges. It was a trapdoor, and seemed to have been in use, for the hinges were well-oiled, silent.

“X” thrust his foot into the hole that yawned beneath him, and it encountered a wooden step. Quickly, he went down the steps — there were four of them — and lowered the trapdoor after him.

THE darkness here was more intense than it had been in the bin. There was a musty odor about the place, a feeling of dampness.

He waited silently, while the search was being conducted overhead. He ventured to flash his torch around, and found that he was at the beginning of a tunnel that led due east under the garage. The thin beam of light traveled for a distance down the underground passage, and dissolved into the darkness. If the tunnel continued in the same direction, he judged, it should lead to the mausoleum. If it did, that would explain many of the curious things that had happened in the house that night.

He heard voices close above him. There was Denvers, Judge Farrell, and Thane. Then the sound of Betty Dale’s voice. Good girl. She had come along with them on the chance that if he was cornered again, she might create another diversion to help him escape. Apparently they had not suspected her of turning off the lights before — had probably thought that it was done from the balcony.

He heard Thane say, “What’s this, a bin?”

And Judge Farrell’s voice: “Yes. This is where I was held. But there’s nobody here now. Where could he have got to?”

Denvers said, “You want to be more careful, judge. Don’t go poking around in the dark. From what’s been happening here it seems that you’re on somebody’s list to get the works.”

The footsteps receded. They were leaving the bin.

“X” put his hand up to the trapdoor. If he could get up into that bin now, he might be able to work his way back into the house; perhaps take a look at Hanscom’s body. There might be a clue—

He stopped, rigid. His hand had touched something cold — something that was moving across the under surface of the trapdoor. It was a steel plate, sliding across it. Even as he felt it, it slid all the way across, with a little click.

He snapped on his flashlight. There was a steel door clear across the trapdoor. It fitted snugly into a groove in the wall at either end. Somebody must have pressed a button up in the bin, causing it to move into place. Somebody up there—somebody who knew he was in the tunnel—had deliberately shut him in; trapped him — unless he could get out at the other end.

Chapter XXI

WITH a philosophical calm that another man would have been far from feeling, Secret Agent “X” turned away from the curtain of steel that blocked him off from entrance to the house.

He swung his flashlight along the tunnel, and set out to follow its beam. Perhaps he could get out at the other end. If it led to the mausoleum, it would serve to show him how the murderer of the Princes Ar-Lassi had disappeared. He intended, also, to inspect the other coffins in the crypt. For he remembered that the princess had referred to a missing body when she spoke to Rice and Thane and Hanscom and Gates.

The flashlight started to cast a pale yellow glow. It was weakening rapidly. “X” had progressed about a hundred feet along the tunnel. It was wet underfoot; water was seeping in from somewhere. Little things scurried away from him at his approach. One or two brushed his legs. Rats.

THE flashlight was growing weaker fast. He snapped it off to save the battery, and felt his way along in the dark, hand on the moist wall. The ground here was soft, and the sides had been shored up with timber. The passage was not high enough for him to stand up in; he had to walk in a semi-crouching attitude.

Suddenly his foot struck something on the ground, and he almost tripped, but recovered his balance by clinging to the boards at the sides. As he did so, there was a scurrying of small bodies away from the spot.

He knelt and put out his hand, touched the body.

It was the body of a man, and it had been dead several days, for it was cold and stiff. The clothing was of a fine texture, expensive.

The body lay in about an inch of water.

Here, then, was the answer to the secret that the Princess Ar-Lassi had offered to sell to the four conspirators. Perhaps a sight of the features of this dead man would solve the enigma in a flash.

“X” took out his flashlight, snapped it on.

And then, before he got a chance to see that face, there was a soft plop and a flash of fire from ahead of him in the tunnel. Even with a silencer, the explosion reverberated dully in the narrow confines of the passageway.

A single shot, and it had come from farther on in the passage. And the aim had been that of a marksman. For the flashlight was shot out of “X’s” hand, leaving him in utter darkness, and his whole arm tingling with a sudden paralyzing numbness.

“X” sprang back from the body, crouched low, his knees in the water. He hugged the wall, keeping himself rigid and silent. The blackness ahead was thick, impenetrable. It was impossible to see even a shadow. Whoever it was that lurked beyond in the tunnel, it was evident that he was an expert marksman. “X’s” mind reverted to the remark he had heard Judge Farrell make to Thane. Thane was a crack shot.

The Secret Agent had no gun, not even the gas gun; he had hurled that at the trooper in the hall. The man at the other end didn’t know this; didn’t know that “X” was unarmed. Which probably explained why he didn’t use a flashlight himself.

There was a slight sound of splashing from up ahead, stealthy movement. The unknown was advancing. He didn’t know whether he had wounded “X” or not.

“X” rubbed his numb arm to restore circulation. It tingled warmly, and after a moment he could move it without feeling that prickling sensation of numbness.

He put his hand into the water, felt around until he located a loose, moist clod of earth. He picked this up, and hurled it in the direction of the advancing man.

He heard a soft thud, an exclamation, and the quick, muted staccato reports of an automatic. He counted the shots — five. The man must have held his finger down on the gun when the clod of earth struck him, and the automatic had emptied itself. If this was the man who had shot Gates, then he had had only six shots left, and he had used them all.

“X” started to advance toward him, started to step over the body in his path. And then he stopped.

HE had heard a sound he recognized. It was just a little sound, but it was a sound that precedes death. It was the sound of a pin being pulled from a grenade.

“X” turned and ran back toward the house; ran as fast as he could in the dark without tripping. His shoes splashed loudly in the water. And that saved him. For just in back of him there was a terrific explosion.

“X,” though a good distance from the explosion, was knocked off his feet, hurled to the ground. The wooden boards of the tunnel crashed about him. Swirling smoke filled the tunnel, accompanied by the acrid fumes of cordite.

He was slightly dazed, and lay in the water for a while, then slowly raised himself to his feet. The force of the explosion had not been great, but, concentrated in the narrow tunnel, it had done plenty of damage. “X” knew that the passage was closed to him now, with that unidentified body still on the other side of the debris.

The man who had thrown the grenade had accomplished a double purpose; he had blocked “X” in, and had given himself the opportunity to get that body out undisturbed.

“X” was groggy from the fumes. There was a rent in the right shoulder of his coat, and a long gash in his forehead where a flying piece of wood had cut him.

He stumbled away from the gases that began to fill the tunnel. He got back to the four steps, and put his hand up to the trapdoor. The steel sheet was still in place. No egress there. The air was getting thin. He had difficulty in breathing. If he remained here for a little white longer, he would be overcome.

He turned and worked his way back to the spot where the explosion had occurred. The water was deeper now than it had been before — at least an inch, for he could feel it sloshing about his ankles. Either the explosion had forced the water up, or else a water line running somewhere in the tunnel had burst.

The fumes here were thicker. He pawed at the debris in front of him, with the faint hope that it could be moved away. The damp, wet earth lay thick across the passage, piled in tight. The explosion had torn the boards away, and the earth had caved in from all sides. There was no telling how thick it was here, how much digging would be necessary to get to the other side of it. He started to claw at it with his hands; then, suddenly, he stopped.

From somewhere, a faint breath of air had come to him. Fresh air.

He looked up, sniffed. Above him he saw a trickle of light, coming through the top of the tunnel.

He brought his face up close, and breathed fresh air. Then he put out his hand, and felt an opening in the earth above him. He realized what that meant — safety. For it seemed that the tunnel was not far below the surface, and the top had caved in here, affording an opening into the air above.

Chapter XXII

THE actual opening was no larger than a man’s hand, but the ground around it had weakened, and when “X” set to work on it, he was suddenly showered by an avalanche of loosened earth that cascaded down upon him.

It bore him down to the bottom of the passage, half buried him in a wet, clayey mixture of dirt and muddy water. He struggled up out of it, his clothes caked with mud, his face and hands black and grimy. He used the fallen earth to climb on, hoisted himself out through the now wide opening, and breathed deeply of the fresh night air.

He looked around to get his bearings. Behind him, about a hundred and fifty feet, the house was brilliantly lighted, and figures moved back and forth past the windows. Several guards patrolled close to the house. The garage door was wide open, and he could see a trooper on guard beside the hearse.

He wondered that no one in the house had heard the explosion, but that was explained by the fact that it had taken place underground, and at a considerable distance. If they had heard it at all they might have taken it for the distant rumbling of thunder. This was especially likely in view of the overcast condition of the sky.

The Secret Agent glanced at his wrist watch. The glass was shattered, and the hands had stopped at two o’clock. He judged that he had been in the tunnel for at least a half hour after the explosion, which would make it roughly two-thirty.

He hugged the ground, and crawled away in the direction of the mausoleum. There, if anywhere, would lie the end of this adventure, he felt. Whoever had perpetrated these crimes had made use of the mausoleum and the tunnel from which to launch his attacks.

He had covered perhaps twenty feet in his awkward position, never moving fast lest he attract the attention of the guards at the house, when he suddenly stopped, hardly breathing. Directly ahead of him, a man was crouching in the shrubbery. His back was to “X,” and he was raising a gun to fire at some one or something ahead of him. “X” could distinguish that the man’s gun had a silencer attachment.

Even as “X” watched, the man fired — once, twice, three times, and then cursed, low and violently.

“X” had been too far away from him to prevent his shooting. And now the Secret Agent’s eyes narrowed. For he recognized the man’s voice. It was State Senator Thane.

Thane had been shooting in the direction of the mausoleum, which loomed gray and dreary in the dark.

Now, from that direction came answering shots, also muffled, but distinguished by the flashes that accompanied them.

Thane fired once more at the flashes, and there were two quick shots in return. Thane spun around, dropped his gun, and put a hand to his stomach, slowly sank to the ground. He uttered a high-pitched cry, and doubled over.

There were shouts from the house, and several figures came running toward them. “X” moved swiftly to the left, circled the wounded Thane. He saw a dim figure stealing through the shrubbery some distance away. It was the unknown duellist who had wounded the senator. He started in pursuit, but almost immediately lost the shadowy figure. Whoever he was, he knew his way about very well.

Behind him, “X” heard the voice of Major Denvers. “It’s Senator Thane. He’s shot! Somebody phone for a doctor! The rest of you spread out and comb the grounds again. Do it right. Don’t stop till you get that killer this time. Where’s Judge Farrell? Make sure he’s safe…. Plimpton! Find the judge and stay with him every second. I bet he’ll be next!”

The Secret Agent made his way toward the mausoleum. If the other man had gone there, it would be dangerous, but it was just as dangerous to remain on the grounds.

He stopped in front of the grilled door, looked through. The massive stone door was unlocked now, and it swung open. Within the crypt was impenetrable darkness.

HE went down the single step cautiously, inched open the stone door. The dank odor of death assailed his nostrils. Was the attacker of Thane lurking in there, automatic ready, to send a slug into him as he had done to the senator?

Oddly, the thought occurred to him, that if it had been the senator who had shot the flashlight out of his hand in the tunnel, he had certainly not done well by himself in that duel. “X” had seen him fire three shots without hitting his antagonist.

He had the heavy door wide open now. He dropped to the floor. If that man was waiting inside, “X” would make a splendid target for him, standing up. The Secret Agent inched his way into the crypt. Now he felt more at ease. That infallible instinct of his told him that he was alone there.

He reached out and swung the door to, then felt his way across the floor toward the spot where the coffin had lain with the horrible, swollen body of the Princess Ar-Laasi. He wanted to examine that body now. Later, he would try to find whether or not there was an exit from the crypt into the tunnel.

He touched the coffin.

He took out a book of matches and lit one. He had been reluctant to use them in the tunnel for fear that he might cause a secondary explosion with the fumes of the cordite.

Now, in the flare of the match, he glanced down into the coffin. For a long time he stared, speculating, his mind racing. Finally, he let the match drop to the floor and go out.

The coffin was empty. The body of the Princess Ar-Lassi had been removed.

So engrossed was he in the train of thoughts that followed this discovery, that he did not notice the slight movement of the massive door — did not notice that some one was inching it open from the outside.

He lit another match, and let his eyes rove over the interior of the crypt. The other coffins were in their proper places in the niches. He stepped close, and examined the drawers. They had not been moved recently, for the dust was not disturbed.

The match went out, and he lit another. He eyed the stone table against the opposite wall, and frowned. He went across to it, and stooped. The table had a wide stone base. Around the base, on the floor, were odd little scratches.

He allowed the match to die; then, in the darkness, he put both hands on the right-hand edge of the table and heaved.

The table swung out from the wall on a pivot. Once more he used a match, and by its light stooped and peered into the opening in the floor that the table had concealed.

This was the other end of the tunnel. There were four steps down, like the four steps at the house. At the bottom he could see the muddy iridescence of the film of water that covered the floor of the passage. And with the last flicker of the match, he saw something else — two bodies lay there.

One was that of the princess, her gaudy red dress wet and torn, and clinging to her bloated body. And beside her lay another body — the body of a man. And “X” started as he caught a flash of those features, stiff in death.

And while the Secret Agent scraped another match, he did not hear the muffled steps of the figure who had worked the door open, and was stealing across the floor of the crypt toward him. He was too absorbed in the new mystery that was presented by the face of that dead man.

The only thing that saved him was the fact that he suddenly bent his head to see better what the match would reveal. As he did so, the viciously swung gun-barrel wielded by the shadowy intruder, just missed the back of his head, and struck his shoulder with stunning force.

“X’s” left arm was numbed from shoulder to elbow. The match flew from his fingers to be extinguished in the water below, and the Secret Agent pitched forward into the tunnel.

He landed on his side, close to the body of the princess. He looked up to see the base of the table moving slowly back into position over the opening.

Chapter XXIII

HE flexed his muscles, bit his lip to keep down the wave of nausea that assailed him as a result of the blow, and lunged up the steps. The table was moving slowly, and “X” got his head and shoulders into the opening. The man who was moving it back into place was just on the other side, and “X” saw a pair of feet. He grabbed one foot with both hands, and yanked hard.

The man uttered a cry of pain as his shin struck the table. The table stopped moving.

“X” was up into the crypt in a flash, raised his arm in time to deflect the muzzle of the automatic that was fired almost into his face. He gripped the wrist that held it, and twisted hard. The automatic spat flame four times more, harmlessly into the ceiling, then clicked on an empty chamber.

In the dark “X” drove a smashing blow to his opponent’s head, and the man staggered back under the impact. But he came back in a rush, trying to slash “X’s” face with the barrel of his gun.

“X” seized the wrist again, clinched with him to avoid being raked by the barrel. His face was close to the other’s, and the faint light that came from outside through the partly open door showed him the man’s features. He exclaimed:

“Judge Farrell!”

The other broke away from the clinch, cried hoarsely, “Damn you, you’ve—” and swung wildly at him.

“X” blocked the blow, and delivered an uppercut that sent the governor-elect reeling backward. He tripped over the open coffin, struck his head against the floor, and lay still.

“X” knelt beside him, lit a match. The governor-elect was unconscious, but no blood was in evidence. He had sustained a bad blow on the head, but that was all.

“X” ran his hands through the governor-elect’s clothes, and found a pocket flashlight. He closed the door of the crypt, and then snapped on the light, went down the four steps into the tunnel.

He stood there for a long minute, playing the light on the face of the dead man who lay beside the princess; a face that resembled in every characteristic the face of the unconscious Judge Farrell upstairs.

His keen brain worked smoothly, clicking into place the various, apparently unrelated things that he had learned that evening. It continued to weave a startling solution, even while he grasped the cold, stiff body, and carried it up the four steps, while he laid it on the floor of the crypt.

THE body had been embalmed, and it showed a dignity in death that was consonant with the sepulchral atmosphere of the crypt.

Then he stood the flashlight on its end, so that the light was diffused upward, making it possible to read the papers that he took from his pocket. It was his first chance to go over them. They were the papers that Betty Dale had given him. There was a complete record of the career of the confidence man, Sam Slawson, and a full description.

Strangely enough, he took a good ten minutes to study the papers, though there was the danger that the troopers would come into the crypt at any moment.

Finally he folded up the papers, and stood looking at the body of the dead man, comparing it, feature for feature with the unconscious form of Governor-elect Farrell.

While he stood there, Farrell began to stir uneasily, opened an eye, then opened both.

He raised himself up on one elbow, looked at the corpse, then at “X.” All three of them might have been triplet brothers; for “X” still wore Farrell’s disguise.

“You’ve — found him!” Farrell exclaimed.

“X” watched him dispassionately as he managed to get to his feet. He came and stood over the body, looked down at it.

The Secret Agent said, “Yes. And the answer to a number of questions!”

Farrell turned to him, asked slowly, “Who are you?”

The Secret Agent answered, “What difference does it make?” Then he said quietly, “Are you ready to come — out there with me?” He indicated the door.

Farrell took a deep breath, said, “No. Not yet.” And he leaped at “X.”

The two men locked in a deadly embrace. Farrell had his left arm around the Secret Agent’s waist; with his right hand he tried to reach “X’s” face. “X” warded that right hand desperately, trying to keep it from his face. On the middle finger of Farrell’s right hand the Egyptian ring gleamed ominously in the rays of the upended flashlight. From the mouth of the ugly figure carved on the ring a murderous needle snapped up. Farrell had pressed a spot on the ring that had shot the needle out.

“X” knew now that the point of that needle was impregnated with the venom that had caused the deaths of the other men.

He gripped that right wrist, forced it back away from his face. He knew what it could do — it would scratch him, perhaps pierce his cheek, cause him to swell up like Rice and Gates and Hanscom, like the princess who lay in her watery sepulcher below.

Farrell twisted his wrist out of “X’s” clutch, stepped back, and brought his right hand, with the needle pointing out, down in a slashing slice at “X’s” head.

“X” jerked his body backward, avoided the needle, but kicked over the flashlight. It went out, and they were in darkness.

“X” felt Farrell’s hot breath in his face, felt another heave of the man’s body as he raised the hand with that deadly needle. And he put his entire weight and skill behind a blow that struck Farrell full in the face. Farrell grunted, swayed, and sank to the floor.

“X” lit a match, saw the governor-elect madly sucking at a long scratch on the palm of his left hand. Farrell looked up wildly, his face gray with terror.

He took the hand away from his mouth long enough to babble, “I scratched my own hand with the needle! God! Save me!”

“X” stood rigid, silent. He shook his head. “As you know, Slawson,” he said, “there is no antidote that we have here for the deadly venom of the giboon viper. I’m afraid you must die just as the other men died.”

The man’s whole arm was already swollen to twice its normal size. He was gasping for breath. “Kill me then,” he begged. “Kill me quickly!”

The Secret Agent said, “I have no weapon. Even if I did, I don’t think I would do it.”

There was a hard line on his lips as he turned away from the terrible sight and let the match drop to the floor. He turned his back, stood quietly, controlling his feelings with an iron will, while the man died. It took five minutes….

Chapter XXIV

OUT on the grounds, between the house and the mausoleum, a group of people were gathered about a groaning man on a blanket that had been spread for him.

Senator Thane was gasping, “Get a doctor — get a doctor!”

Betty Dale was resting his head in her lap, while one of the troopers applied a crude form of bandage to his abdomen.

Major Denvers stood beside him, frowning. Several troopers crowded about, and Sergeant Plimpton said to the major, “I’ve phoned around, sir, to half a dozen doctors in the neighborhood. One of them ought to be here any minute. Too bad, the medical examiner just left a little while ago.”

Denvers stooped, said, “Get a hold on yourself, Thane. A doctor should be here any minute. Can you tell us anything about the man who shot you?”

Thane raised himself in Betty’s arms, was about to speak, then fell back in a faint.

“I’m afraid to move him into the house,” said Denvers. “He might bleed to death.”

“Here comes a doctor, sir,” said Plimpton.

Denvers turned, saw the tall, stoop-shouldered man with glasses who approached them. He said irritably, “Why didn’t you bring your bag? This man is badly hurt.”

The doctor snapped at him, “Don’t try to teach me my business, sir!” He knelt beside Thane, cast a look at Betty, then removed the bandage. He said, “H’m — bad, very bad! He’ll have to go to a hospital.”

He folded the bandage again, replaced it carefully. “Get a stretcher,” he ordered. “If you can’t find a stretcher, find a board of some kind. We’ll have to take him into the house. Phone to Camberwell Hospital, tell ’em I’m out here, and I say to send an ambulance immediately. Max is my name — Archibald Max.”

Plimpton and another trooper went in search of a board.

Doctor Max knelt again beside Thane, took from his pocket a hypodermic syringe, which he filled from a small vial of amber-colored liquid.

Denvers asked, “Will he be able to talk soon, doc?”

Doctor Max did not answer. He proceeded methodically to swab off Thane’s arm, and gave him the injection.

IN a few minutes Thane’s eyes flickered open. They remained blank for a moment, then reflected the extreme pain of his wound. The doctor raised the wounded man’s head, looked up at Denvers, and said, “You can question him now. But be quick. He won’t last long.” To Thane he said, “Better answer this officer’s questions. You are dying.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if it were of no more importance to Thane than if he had said it was going to rain.

Denvers bent down tensely, asked, “Who shot you, Thane!”

Thane looked up weakly, recognized the major. Then his eyes slid to the doctor. “You — say — I’m dying?”

The old medico nodded.

Thane sighed deeply. “Slawson — shot me! He — killed us all off; Crome, Rice, Hanscom — I’m last!”

“Why? Why, man?” Denvers demanded. “Why did this Slawson kill you all? And where is he now?”

Thane smiled terribly. “God help me, I helped to plan it. Slawson — is posing as Judge Farrell!”

“Posing? Then where’s the real judge?”

“The real judge died — two days before election. We got Slawson — out of jail — set him up to pose as Farrell — to save the election. And then, he turned on us — killed us all off — so no one would be left alive who knew the secret — then he could go on as governor!”

Denvers’ brows knit in puzzlement. “But Farrell was attacked himself — by Kyle. How’s that?”

Thane’s face twisted in agony. Doctor Max lowered his head, said soothingly, “Go on. You’ll feel better in a moment, when the drug I gave you starts to work.”

Thane controlled himself by an effort, and answered the major’s question. “Rice got Kyle out of jail when we found that Slawson was — going— to kill us. It was for our own protection. But — Kyle failed. And Slawson came here to get us all. He — did!”

Plimpton and the trooper who had gone with him returned at that moment with a board that Doctor Max pronounced suitable. The doctor superintended the placing of the wounded man upon it, and watched him borne away toward the house.

“Careful,” he called after them. “Don’t jar him, or you’ll cause a hemorrhage!”

Denvers said to him, “Is there no chance for him at all?”

The old doctor looked at him over the rim of his glasses. “Every chance. I’m going in there and give him another hypo. He’ll live.”

“But — but I just heard you tell him he was dying!”

“Yes, of course. But I didn’t say when. I knew you wanted to ask him questions, and a man who knows he’s dying always answers truthfully.” The doctor smiled faintly. “I’ve seen much, major, and I’ve learned a trick or two.”

He hurried into the house after the improvised stretcher.

Denvers looked after him, puzzled, then turned to Betty. “This has been a terrible experience for you, Miss Dale. Have you phoned your paper yet?”

She shook her head. “I–I’ve been too upset. I think I’ll do it now.”

A few minutes later, Doctor Max came out of the house. “I’ve given him a dose of morphine. Lucky I brought a hypo along.” He was just putting the hypo away in a bag. “It’s one thing I always carry with me. The other things—” he snapped his fingers— “fol-de-rol! Stethoscopes — bah! Tongue depressors in waxed paper — bah! I’ve practiced for fifty years, and I did just as well by my patients before all these new-fangled devices came into use! It’s all bosh!” He took a card from his pocket, and gave it to Denvers. “I’m going home now. The ambulance from the hospital should be here any minute, and I can’t wait. I’ve got a delivery coming along any minute now.”

He bowed to Betty, and went swiftly toward the gate.

Denvers said to Betty, “Funny old man. The real old-style practitioner. Too bad there aren’t more of them—” He stopped, pointed at the mausoleum. “That’s queer — who put the light on over there?”

Betty saw that the electric light in the crypt was turned on. They went a few paces toward it, and saw the interior of the crypt through the wide open door.

Denvers exclaimed, “Somebody’s in there — looks dead to me!” They dashed inside, Betty only a step behind him.

Within the crypt he stopped short. “What the hell!”

TWO bodies lay there. One was calm, dignified in death, the other was bloated, hideous. On the middle finger of the right hand of the bloated body was the queer Egyptian ring.

A couple of troopers crowded in behind Betty and the major.

Betty said, her face white, “It’s — Judge Farrell!”

Denvers growled, “Yes. But who’s the other? He’s been dead at least a week, and he looks just like him!”

He knelt beside the bloated body, and detached several sheets of paper that had been pinned to the coat.

Betty read them over his shoulder.

The first two were papers that Betty had given to “X.” They contained a description of Sam Slawson. Across the first was written in a disguised hand. “Compare this man’s fingerprints with those of Sam Slawson.”

The second sheet was a record of the criminal activities of Slawson. It related, among other things, that Slawson had been arrested in the past, for impersonating various people, that the most daring of his impersonations had taken place recently, when he had walked into Judge Farrell’s stockbroker and withdrawn a large sum in securities, posing as the judge. He had never been caught for that, and there was nothing definite to prove that it was he who had committed the crime. He had later been arrested on a charge involving kidnaping, and was serving a long term when he had been mysteriously aided to escape a week before Kyle.

As Major Denvers read on, his amazement grew.

He turned to the third sheet, and he and Betty read the closely written, disguised handwriting. It said:

Major Denvers looked up from the note, whistled in amazement. And, as if in echo, there came from beyond the gates an eerie, chilling whistle, bearing a faint note of triumph.

Both the major and Betty thrilled to the strange sound of that whistle — but in different ways.

Major Denvers glanced down at the card which Doctor Max had given him, exclaimed, “What the hell!”

For all the letters on that card were disappearing, with the exception of the letter “X,” which stood out in bold relief.