Secret Agent "X" – The Complete Series, Volume 3

Unseen, horrible as the tightening coils of some spectral serpent, the dope ring worked! Those who betrayed its secrets died in the agonies of the green-hued poison death. Those who served it became sweating, shattered slaves. And Agent “X” dared both death and slavery to fight the sinister scourge!

Chapter I

NIGHT lay over Chinatown. Night with its stillness, its darkness, its strangely sinister shadows. A blanket of drifting fog, deadening sound and sight, made even familiar objects appear distorted and mysterious. Behind this dank vapor there was tenseness, uneasiness and unusual activity along the narrow, winding streets.

As the fog rolled ponderously through them like the coils of some huge, ghostly serpent seeking human prey, men moved in the gloom and spoke in whispers. Few Orientals were abroad. The men who trod cautiously by dusty shops and dark doorways were white. Their faces were grim. Guns weighted the pockets of many. Automatics were strapped in holsters ready for instant use.

A score of extra policemen had been detailed for duty in Chinatown tonight. Others of the group who so vigilantly patrolled were plainclothes detectives and special agents of the Federal Narcotic Squad. All were hunting the same insidious thing — dope.

Certain habits of the men from the Land of the Poppy Seed were known to them. Suspicions therefore led to this section of the city where thousands of Orientals dwelt.

The few Chinamen who ventured out crept furtively along the pavements, ducking out of sight quickly. Those who didn’t were stopped and questioned by alert detectives. They were asked to identify themselves, with business references or immigration papers. If they couldn’t they were driven away in patrol wagons to police headquarters for further questioning. Because of the sinister, unseen presence of the dread dope evil, East and West were close to the breaking point tonight.

As the darkness deepened and the fog grew thicker a shadow moved at the end of a narrow, cluttered alley. It became taller, clearer, and suddenly took shape as a man. There was a fence behind the alley. Through this the man had come. So quietly and mysteriously had he appeared that he seemed hardly more than some apparition, a human embodiment of the darkness of the night.

Yet he had the complexion and the sloe-black, slanted eyes of a Chinaman. A lofty, intellectual forehead, broad, high cheek bones, and a tall, muscular body proclaimed that he was one of the proud Northern Manchu race, conquerors and rulers of China for three hundred years.

The tall Oriental moved with catlike quiet and swiftness. He was dressed in a simple black mohair suit. Black, rubber-soled shoes were on his feet. A black, soft hat covered his head. Except for the yellowish moon of his face he was invisible as long as he stayed in the shadows.

He seemed to have a definite objective, a route that he was following. Twice this took him across Chinatown’s main streets. At such times he waited with infinite patience until the patrolling cops had turned their backs. Then, swift and silent as a streamer of fog blown by the night wind, he would slip across the thoroughfare and disappear into an alleyway beyond.

In a few minutes he came close to a building that was famous in Chinatown’s history. This was a simple three-story, brownstone edifice with a peaked roof. Once it had been a white man’s residence. Now ornate bronze dragons graced its four corners. On its front, high above the street, was the insignia of the Ming Tong, powerful Chinese secret society whose influence stretched into every city in the land where Orientals gathered.

In the past, bloody tong battles had raged close to this building. Tides of death had swept around its base when hatchetmen and slant-eyed sharpshooters fought for supremacy. Then peace had come to Chinatown. The tongmen had arrived at secret pacts and agreements. The Ming Tong was now ruled over by the benevolent and aged Lo Mong Yung, father of the Mingmen.

IN the mouth of an alley across from this building the tall Manchu paused. He would have to cross one more street to reach the door of tong headquarters, and two federal men were on patrol there. They were ready to nab and question any members who might come. In the minds of the white men tonight the tong was linked up with sinister narcotic activities. In spite of the wisdom, strength and kindliness of old Lo Mong Yung, they felt that Ming headquarters might be the clearing house of the dreaded drug.

The tall Manchu understood this. His eyes glittered. He waited, watching, debating, as ten minutes passed. The Manchu’s patience seemed inexhaustible. He appeared able to make of himself a living statue.

A half hour went by. Then, at the end of it, he was rewarded. For something down the block attracted the attention of the federal men. This was a truckload of rice, spices and bamboo shoots arriving at the side door of a harmless old merchant’s shop. The federal men suspected apparently the consignment might contain hidden dope.

Seizing his opportunity, the tall Manchu crossed the street as quickly as he had the others. He slipped through the doorway of Ming headquarters so deftly that he seemed only a breath of the night fog entering.

Yet a voice instantly sounded close to his ear. A flashlight clicked on, and the hard snout of an automatic was pressed against the Manchu’s side.

He didn’t cry out or jump as a white man might have been expected to do. He stood straight and taut, staring into the lens of the flash, waiting, unawed it seemed by the presence of the gun.

“Where are you headed, fellah? What’s your name and what’s your business?” The words came from the lips of Detective Bartholdy, veteran sleuth of the city narcotic squad; a man who had spent twenty years of his life hunting dope, and a man who trusted no Chinaman.

The tall Manchu caught a glimpse of Bartholdy’s face. Suspicion gleamed in the detective’s narrowed eyes. Bartholdy was set for trouble. He had been lurking here to nab just such a visitor. He would never let this man enter the tong without exhaustive inquiries. Valuable minutes had already passed. The tall Manchu in the black suit, notwithstanding his outward calm, was in a hurry.

He addressed the detective in excellent English, but in the slightly nasal, singsong accents of his race. “My name is Ho Ling,” he said. “I go about my private business, and that business is harmful to no one.”

The detective only pressed the gun tighter. “Yeah? And how do I know that? I don’t remember seeing you around here before. I’ve got a pretty good memory for faces.”

“It is not likely, white man, that you would remember the faces of all the five thousand members of my race who inhabit this quarter.”

“Don’t try to high-hat me, fellah! Show me some identification.”

The tall Manchu nodded gravely. He held out a slender but powerful hand with pointed fingertips and nails that were carefully manicured, “This ring,” he said. “Perhaps you have seen one like it before. It is the symbol of my tong. I am not a Mingman. I am here in the stronghold of the Mingmen, however, on a peaceful mission.”

On the Manchu’s third finger gleamed a ring of immense proportions and singular design. A dragon’s head of rose onyx was held in a wrought gold setting. Two tiny emeralds sparkled in the dragon’s eyes. Its nostrils flared open.

BARTHOLDY grunted and leaned forward, moving his flash so that the rays fell on the strange ring. His intent face was not more than a foot above the ring which the Manchu held high.

“I never remember seeing a ring like that before,” Bartholdy said. “I guess—”

He didn’t finish the sentence. For the Manchu’s long and powerful hand moved imperceptibly. The third finger, as though it had a life all its own, twitched upward ever so slightly. As it did so the tiny, hideous jaws of the onyx dragon opened wide. From them shot a jet of strange, pungent vapor. Straight into Bartholdy’s open mouth and nostrils it went.

The cry that rose to his lips was stilled. The Manchu’s other hand, working in lightninglike conjunction with the one that bore the ring, wrenched the gun from Bartholdy’s fingers before he could pull the trigger.

Bartholdy, gasping and trying to retain his faculties, endeavored to keep a grip on the wall behind him. He could not. Slowly and still soundlessly his body sagged. His knees gave way under him. He sank to the floor and lay inertly; not dead, but knocked out for many minutes by the concentrated essence of a powerful anaesthetic vapor he had inhaled.

The Manchu’s expression had not changed. His eyes still gleamed. His yellow face was impassive. Before moving from where he stood he caught hold of the head of the dragon ring, gave it a dexterous twist and snapped it open. The hollowed out onyx, which was merely a thin shell, disclosed a small metal cylinder. The Manchu took this out, dropped it in his pocket. It was empty now. It had done its work. He replaced it with a fresh one, snapped the onyx dragon’s head down again.

Then he glanced down at Bartholdy’s inert form. It could not stay there. In a moment the two federal men would be back. They might look in the doorway of Ming headquarters and see it.

The Manchu’s keen eyes saw a door opening toward the left. He turned the knob, stuck his head inside, and saw that here was a classroom maintained by the Ming Tong and used in the daytime to teach Chinese merchants American business tactics.

In a moment he had transferred the unconscious Detective Bartholdy to this chamber. He left the detective propped solemnly before a desk. Then he moved silently up a long flight of stairs to the building’s second floor. He walked down a short corridor and stopped suddenly again, as a voice challenged him for the second time that night.

This was no white detective or federal agent. It was a tall, stern-faced Chinaman, clad in a silk robe with flowing sleeves. His yellow arms were crossed and his hands stuffed in those sleeves.

“Who are you, stranger, and what is your business that you come to the headquarters of the Ming Tong at this time of night?” The Chinaman with the folded arms spoke in Cantonese.

The tall Manchu gave answer fluently, in the same language, as though all dialects were familiar to him.

“Sung, courageous guardian of the portals of this most honorable tong, I come in peace. I would have talk with Lo Mong Yung, venerable father of the Mingmen. Tell him that one by the name of Ho Ling wishes to see him.”

The robed Chinaman shook his head sternly. “You appear to know me and call me by name, but I have never seen you before. There are fears and evil whispers abroad tonight. Caution has been impressed upon me by my master.”

The Manchu eyed the other calmly. He knew that in those flowing sleeves, clenched in the snaky yellow fingers, were twin automatics capable of mowing him down in a second. He knew that the Chinaman, Sung, had been selected for this post because he had nerves of steel, the brain of a fox, and could shoot with the uncanny accuracy of a born marksman. He nodded and reached into his own coat pocket.

“It is about these fears and whispers that I come,” he said.

The other’s body stiffened; But instead of a gun the tall Manchu brought a card from his pocket.

“Give the venerable Lo Mong Yung this,” he said.

The other looked at it, snorted. “It is blank,” he said. “It has no writing on it. What foolishness is this?”

“Give it to him,” replied the man who called himself Ho Ling, “Save your questioning till afterwards.” There was a strange note of authority in his voice now, and something in his eye that seemed to command the other’s respect.

“I will do as you say,” the guard said. “But remain here. If you attempt to enter the chamber of Yung before he has given the word, your life will be upon your own conscience.”

Deftly removing one of the automatics hidden in his sleeve, to give the impression that he was unarmed. Sung took the blank card and walked through a doorway. He returned a minute later, and stared at the visitor, Ho Ling, with new respect and a little awe.

“You may enter,” he said, “Lo Mong Yung, the honored and revered father of our tong, will see you.”

THE Manchu passed through the doorway that Sung indicated, swept a curtain aside and found himself in a room that was like an ordinary American business office.

At a glass-topped desk an aged Chinaman sat. His face was withered, parchmentlike. His hands were mere fragile wisps of bone and loose skin; yet his eyes were piercingly bright. He glanced at his visitor, glanced down at a white card lying on his desk, and in those bright eyes was a look of perplexity.

The card, which a moment before when Sung had carried it in had been blank, now showed a black “X,” startlingly revealed on its white surface. Under the rays of the light overhead this “X” had come out.

The old Chinaman’s voice sounded in the room. It was low, thin as tinkling glass, hardly more than a whisper, but it carried the weight of wisdom and authority.

“I do not understand, O stranger. You come bearing the card of a white man — the only white man ever to be taken into our tong and made a brother of the Mingmen. Yet you are not he. You are a Manchu, and one unknown to me who have seen many men.”

The tall Manchu bowed. “O father of the Ming Tong, accept greetings from that white man of whom you speak — and know that I am he, now brother of the Mingmen.”

For seconds the eyes of the two men clashed. The ancient Chinaman shook his head.

“The white man I speak of has surprised me with his deeds before. He is a brother of strange ways and remarkable talents. Yet he once did the Ming Tong a great service, and his actions are always based on the good things whereby men live well and honestly. If you are really he, step close and speak in my ear that word known only to the brothers of my tong.”

The tall Manchu did so. What he whispered was spoken so softly that it did not carry beyond the desk. Yet it satisfied Lo Mong Yung.

“Now I know,” he said, “that whispers I have heard are true. You are he whom they call the ‘Man of a Thousand Faces.’ You are one who fights the dragon of evil. You are—”

The visitor lifted his hand. “Do not speak it, O venerable father! For even here there may be inquisitive ears. Let it be enough that I am a Mingman come to ask words of wisdom from one who has known many years of well-spent life.”

The old Chinaman nodded slowly. “Proceed, O brother,” he said. “If the withered brain of this unworthy servant may humbly aid one of illustrious deeds; the honor blesses the revered fathers of my ancient family.”

The white man in the guise of a Manchu bowed. It seemed utterly incredible that his Mongolian features, slanted eyes and yellow complexion were all parts of a masterly disguise. Yet this was so, for Lo Mong Yung’s visitor was the strange, relentless criminal investigator known as Secret Agent “X,” a man so secretive and mysterious that no living soul had ever knowingly seen him unmasked.

IF it were rumored that “X” was in the building, a cordon of police would be thrown around it at once. Machine guns would be trained on the Ming Tong headquarters, the rooms would be bombarded with tear gas. “X” would have to pause in his investigation to save himself. For the Secret Agent, friend of the law in fact, was misunderstood.

Many times he had been accused of crimes that he was trying in reality to prevent. Many times the guardians of the law had looked upon him as a ruthless, dangerous enemy of society, not knowing that he fought always for society, against the rabid hordes of the underworld of crime.

He was beginning one of his amazing campaigns now. He was about to fight something that threatened to spread over the whole nation like a relentless, sinister blight. He addressed Lo Mong Yung gravely, still using the flowery language of the East.

“Respected master, an evil visitation has come upon us — something as destructive to men as locusts are to a field of young rice. Unless this monster is strangled before it grows too large; unless the country is freed from its evil spell, no man can predict what may happen. There will be a famine of happiness surely, a collapse of human hopes — perhaps utter ruin. I speak, O venerable father, of the drug evil.”

His slender, fragile hands thrust in the great sleeves of his gold-worked, richly embroidered mandarin coat, Lo Mong Yung sat as motionless and inscrutable as the figure of Buddha, wreathed with incense, that squatted in a niche on the opposite wall. Yet the eyes of the aged Chinaman were like fiery coals gleaming from the yellow face of a waxen idol.

“I have heard the story,” he spoke at last in his thin voice. “The evil has permeated the privileged class. The wealthy have succumbed to the pitiless power of drugs. Their bodies writhe for the soothing potency. Their children cry to have their crawling nerves quieted. A dreadful narcotic is making maniacs and criminals of people who were as wealthy and respected as mandarins.”

Secret Agent “X” nodded. “But these children of misfortune have not sought this degradation. It has seeped into their veins, enslaved them unawares. I have discovered, wise father, through the science of my laboratory, that many brands of expensive cigarettes, candies, even lipsticks, have been treated with a powerful narcotic that has worked subtle power over these victims.

“It is a wily method, a masterly stroke of distorted genius on the part of someone to gain addicts for this insidious drug. Yet no money has been demanded so far as I can find out. The drug is being administered free. This is one thing that makes the law helpless. And it makes the mystery of it all as black as a forest of ebony.”

The Agent made a sudden gesture of apology.

“I am presuming upon your tolerance,” he said. “I tax your ears perhaps with what you already know. But let me picture briefly how this thing is being spread.”

Lo Mong Yung motioned with one withered hand for the Agent to continue.

“A wealthy man may drop in at his club,” said “X.” “He may refresh himself at the cocktail hour, not knowing that his liquor is adulterated with this strange drug. He thinks the exhilaration he feels comes from alcohol alone. Even the club manager and the regular attendants have no knowledge of the evil force at work.

“But in a week, two at most, our clubman has become an addict. He is no longer human. He is a fiend with a craving that destroys his integrity, an appetite that will make him lie, slander, sell out his partners, even kill, to get more of this thing that has enslaved him. Yet no one knows who is giving this drug out, or why it is being done.”

Lo Mong Yung threw out his hands, palms upward.

“It is deplorable,” he said. “But why do you confer with my profound ignorance? How may the sum of my blundering experience help you against this blight?”

“Learned father,” said the Secret Agent slowly, “is it possible that the poison of some strange plot has eaten into the hearts of our Mingmen? The tong is powerful. It has ways of reaching all levels of society. I ask you therefore, as the honorable head of the Mings, to speak if you have any suspicion of our brothers.”

LO MONG YUNG’S expression did not change. He did not show anger. It was not in his philosophy to let the fires of rage destroy the wisdom of his venerable years. His was the power of a placid man.

“Truly, my son,” he said quietly, “the burnt child is wary of the fire. And the man who has reached the mandarin’s palace does not seek the coolie’s hut. The insidious poppy once ravaged our people like a leprosy. We have been the burnt child. But we have smothered the velvet fumes of the opium pipe, have broken the needle of the hypodermic. No longer do Mingmen court the devil dust of morphine that mocks them with visions of lotus blossoms while it shrivels their souls and shrinks them, body and mind. We have left the coolie’s hut of poverty. We have sipped the nectar of prosperity. No, O son, the weight of my years be upon my words! No Mingman is guilty of this evil.”

The Agent bowed low, and his gesture of humility was sincere.

“Forgive me, most venerable sage,” he said, “and accept my deepest thanks for the manner in which you have answered my question. Know, too, that I am happy in the assurance that the brothers of our Ming Tong are innocent of any traffic with this evil. And now I would draw upon your wisdom a little longer. Have you, O father, given any thought as to what man, or group of men, may be behind this strange thing?”

Before he answered “X’s” latest question, the venerable father of the Ming Tong arose and crossed the room that was like any business office except that ancient Eastern art mingled with modern Western efficiency. Built into the back wall was a large filing cabinet.

On it stood an enameled bronze incense burner of the Ming Period. Across the paneled wall stretched a scroll of flowers and birds, which “X” knew to be the work of Pien Lan, an artist of the Tang Dynasty, who lived in the eighth century. There were specimens of Chinese craftsmanship; carvings of teakwood, jade, rose quartz and ivory. On the glass-topped desk lay a cinnabar box of delicate design, and chrysanthemums filled a glazed flower vase of the Ching Dynasty.

Lo Mong Yung lighted a coiled joss-stick and placed it before the idol of Buddha, then he seated himself again and spoke in the solemn tones of some Eastern oracle.

“My son, long before the bluecoats swarmed the streets and caused our people to bolt the doors and draw the blinds, I knew that our noble order was suspected. I have sent out many of our brothers to try and pierce the mystery. But we have learned little. It may be that the dragon of a foreign power is breathing fire on America — seeking to weaken the nation for invasion.”

The eyes of Agent “X” gleamed as Lo Mong Yung said this. He crouched forward toward the ancient Chinaman with something of the look of a questing hawk about his face and posture.

“That thought has troubled me,” he said softly. “If a hostile country is fostering this dread thing, then the leaders must be caught before guns roar and men are mobilized for wholesale slaughter. But possibly a madman, jaded by riches and jaundiced against the goodness of the world employs this treachery to feed his hatred and cultivate his wickedness.”

“The suggestion has the color of logic,” replied Lo Mong Yung. “Whether it carries the substance of truth, I do not know. I can speak only in feeble conjectures. But I do know of one powerful white drug ring that is like a volcano, rumbling in its depths and boiling with the threat of devastating eruption. We have learned that this ring is combing the underworld for gunmen — for the vicious gray rats and snarling jackals who slew during the prohibition era. Maybe it is behind this blight for some reason we do not know, and maybe it is marshaling forces to fight a competition that threatens its ruin.”

The Secret Agent pressed his fingertips together till the nails showed white. His eyes seemed to carry leaping points of fire in their depths.

“O father,” he said quickly, “you may have given the lead that will direct me to the heart of this trouble. Tell me where these men gather to plot their wickedness.”

Before Lo Mong Yung could answer something disturbed the quiet of the room. The shrilling note of a police whistle pierced the tense stillness of Chinatown. Then a harsh Western voice roared out orders that brought a look of distress to the ancient Chinaman’s face. A gun cracked sharply, and somewhere a window crashed shut.

From a lower floor arose a shrill chatter in Canton dialect. Then came a ripping, splitting racket that was almost deafening. Axes were splintering the front doors. The headquarters of the Ming Tong was being raided.

Chapter II

IN a moment there was a bang as the door was flung back. Heavy footsteps thumped in the lower hallway. The guard, Sung, began protesting in pidgin English.

Agent “X” heard a snarled oath, then the crack of a fist against flesh and bone. Sung’s outburst was cut short. Immediately there was the pounding of steps on the stairs.

The Agent slipped his hand in his pocket and brought out a gun. Lo Mong Yung put a restraining hand on “X’s” arm, and shook his head. He did not know that the weapon discharged only gas pellets, which aided the Agent in his captures and escapes, but which did no harm other than render the victim unconscious for a short time.

“One killing in the house of the Ming Tong,” said Lo Mong Yung, “and I would join my ancestors knowing that our society would be forever blackened in the eyes of the law. I speak now as the father of the Mingmen. Come!”

It was a command, and the Secret Agent bowed to it, following the fragile Chinaman across the room. Already the police had reached the floor, and were pounding at the door.

The Agent thought he would have to fight, for there appeared to be only the one exit, and the law was swarming in the corridor. But Lo Mong Yung slid his slender hand like a caress over the scroll of Pien Lan, and a long-nailed finger touched the bill of a humming-bird drawn during the Tang Dynasty, when even Europe was a land of barbarians.

Instantly the filing cabinet moved forward, revealing an aperture through which a man could squeeze. “X” needed no prompting. He was through the opening in a second, and the cabinet was rolling back, leaving him in a vaultlike room lighted by an oil lamp. The room seemed sealed, except for a secret entrance, but the air was fresh, so there was some other means of ventilation and probably another exit.

The Agent was amazed how clearly sounds came from the other room. He carried a small, portable amplifier, but he didn’t need it now, for the vault was equipped with a microphone connected with the office. The members of the narcotic squad were in the room. “X” pictured Lo Mong Yung greeting them with the sedate, unruffled graciousness of a philosopher. Lo Mong Yung’s voice reached his ears now.

“A violent entrance and a furrowed brow imply an interest which a doddering old heathen like myself does not merit,” he said in faultless English and with gentle irony.

A quick retort came.

“Listen, you slant-eyed old fossil! I’m Inspector Bower of the Narcotic Division. We got a tip-off that you had a Chink dope runner cached in here. Bring him out or we’ll tear this dump down and sell it for kindling wood.”

“Your request fills me with regret,” said Lo Mong Yung. “You ask me to perform a task not in my humble capacity to achieve. Had I the power of Confucius I could not lessen my unworthiness by bringing forth the dope runner in question, for he does not exist except in the fertile realm of your excellent imagination. If you will honor me, however, by accepting a glass of Tiger Bone wine, or a choice draft of Gop Goy in which a lizard has taken ten years to dissolve, I will feel that I have made partial atonement. Or, if liquor while on duty is forbidden, perhaps I can tempt you with cockroaches in honey, a delicacy that caused the Emperor Shih-tsu to neglect the affairs of state.”

The Agent heard a snarl of laughter.

“That’s tellin’ him, Lichee Nut!” a squad member said. “The old duffer has you tied in a package and ready for delivery, Bower.”

“Search this room!” bellowed the voice of Inspector Bower. “This isn’t a tent show. Tap the walls, and if you hear a hollow sound, use the ax. Look in those jugs, too. You never can tell where these slobs may hide dope.”

CRASH. Agent “X” stifled the anger he felt as one of Lo Mong Yung’s rare vases was knocked to the floor and smashed to bits. He heard the voice of the aged Chinaman rise calmly, “You do injustice to my feeble attempts to honor this visit. You humiliate me by breaking the lesser of my art pieces. That is only a poor offering of the great Chu Tse-min, who went to rest in the dragon’s horn during the Yuan Dynasty.”

Listening at the microphone, “X” realized from Inspector Bower’s mumblings that the Chinaman had taken the wind out of the squad man’s sails.

A bulldog sort like Bower wasn’t the kind to volunteer an honest apology, but shortly afterward, certain that Lo Mong Yung was alone, he did hustle his men out of the office, leaving Lo Mong Yung to contemplate the ruin of his ancient vase.

Presently the Chinaman touched Pien Lan’s scroll again. The filing cabinet rolled forward, and Secret Agent “X” stepped into the room.

“The bull has invaded the China shop, my son,” spoke Lo Mong Yung calmly. “But the scattered fragments of Chu Tse-min’s vase make me rejoice to think that we still are here to gaze upon them. I believe the honorable official is convinced that I had no strange visitor, that all I entertained were the sad memories of a life misspent in folly and indiscretion.”

“I am forever in your debt, O father,” said Secret Agent “X,” “and I am sorry that I am the cause of this invasion of your sanctuary. But now I must say farewell and bid you long years of full rice bowls and warm coverings.”

Lo Mong Yung looked startled for the first time.

“You will stay surely!” he said. “In these poor quarters you have refuge at least. Outside you will be a hunted creature, doomed to become a prey in the ravening clutches of the law.”

Agent “X” knew that Lo Mong Yung didn’t exaggerate the danger. But he knew, too, that no matter how long he waited in Ming Tong headquarters the police would not be recalled from Chinatown as long as Police Commissioner Foster was shouting for results. Meanwhile the drug evil was spreading. The duty of the Agent was plain. He must find out about this dope ring that was recruiting cannon, and see whether it was behind the mysterious spread of this sinister narcotic.

When Lo Mong Yung understood that “X’s” mind was made up, he stopped his protests and gave “X” the address of an underworld dive and instructions that would enable him to reach the inner circle of the drug ring.

Armed with information that gave him something to work on, “X” left the office of the Ming Tong. The corridor was clear, but he could hear footsteps on the floor below. There was no chance of getting out of the building by the front entrance, and cops were probably at the back door.

At the end of the hallway was a small window. The Agent moved stealthily toward it. He shoved up on the frame. Moisture or paint made the window stick, but suddenly his efforts caused it to fly up with a bang. The noise wasn’t loud, but it was thunderous to “X” who wanted to go in silence.

Some one shouted. Others took up the call of alarm. A man ran up the stairs, reaching the landing below as the Agent was going through the window. It was one of Bower’s men.

The detective’s automatic roared, and the report echoed thunderously through the house. The bullet dug into the sill, but the Agent had catapulted through the window onto the slanting, corrugated terra-cotta roof of a Chinese restaurant designed after the pattern of an Oriental temple.

He intended climbing over this to the flat roof of a Chinese hotel. But halfway up the slanting side he was spotted. Sub-machine guns were trained on him. Inspector Bower shouted for him to give up. The squad chief warned the Agent just once, then barked an order for his men to fire.

The cops began shattering the terra-cotta on each side of “X.” It meant suicide to buck such odds. The Agent stopped climbing and slid, down to the eaves of the roof. Through the fog-laden darkness from the street, it appeared that he had been hit. His legs were hanging over the side. It seemed that his belt buckle, caught in the gutter, kept him from falling to the ground.

“We got him,” said the inspector harshly. “Keep him covered and climb out there. See what’s happened to him. But watch out. We don’t know whether he’s dead or trying to pull a fast one.”

AGENT “X” did intend to pull a fast one, but it had to be exceedingly fast — or fail entirely. He couldn’t afford the slightest misplay. Bower had sent two men out on the roof and cops were milling in the street. Others had been sent into the Chinese hotel.

A narrow alleyway separated the tong headquarters from this, but the drop would break every bone in the Agent’s body. He was covered from the street and not more than four feet away, a detective had a gun on him.

Before Agent “X” had leaped from the Ming Tong house, however, his photographic brain had recorded that under the eaves right below him was an opened window to the third story of the restaurant. That window figured in his daring plan. But he hung limply until the detective with the gun sprang across to him.

The dick got a footing in the rainwater gutter and a hand-hold on a half-circle of terra-cotta roofing. Agent “X” caught a glimpse of his face. It was Bartholdy, the man he had temporarily knocked out. The detective spoke savagely now.

“Hell! There’s that dragon-head ring that crocked me cold as a cod. But you won’t trick me again, Chink, not by a damn sight!”

“X” heard Bartholdy suck in a deep breath. The plainclothes cop didn’t intend to inhale any more sleep-producing gas tonight. But, to get the ring and prevent the supposed Chinaman from falling at the same time, the detective had to drop his automatic in his pocket.

This he did, still holding his breath. Then he grabbed the Agent by the back of the coat and began slipping the large gold-wrought, rose onyx ring from “X’s” finger.

Bartholdy wasn’t aware that his prisoner, whom he thought dead or unconscious, held a gun in his right hand which was wedged in the gutter under his body. The swirling, dank fog helped the Agent.

He waited until Bartholdy had removed the ring and exhaled. Then “X” himself took a deep breath and held it. The next instant he whipped his gas gun out and fired at close range. Bartholdy caught the full effect of the anesthetic vapor as he inhaled.

He uttered a faint sigh like a tired man and collapsed. His foot, jammed in the gutter, prevented him from going over the side. The Agent muscled up beside the unconscious detective. Death was close at his elbow. He must hurry if he expected to get away at all. But he wouldn’t leave Detective Bartoldy without first making certain that the man wouldn’t fall. He insured against this by thrusting the detective’s hands and arms under two half-circles of terra cotta. Bartholdy was safe now, far safer than Agent “X.”

Men were bounding up the stairs of the Ming House. Bower shouted to Bartholdy and, getting no answer, began giving orders like a general planning an attack.

Agent “X” lowered himself quickly until he was hanging below the eaves, many feet above the street, like a man suspended above the brink of doom. In spite of the curtain of fog the sharp eyes of Bower spotted him.

“He’s getting away! Powell — Lorimer — get the lead out of your feet and nab that Chink!”

Because of the danger of hitting Detective Bartholdy, Bower had the good sense not to order another burst of sub-machine gun fire. This was what “X” had counted on. He swung to the window ledge and was through the opening as Detectives Powell and Lorimer rushed to the window in the Ming house. They shouted commands for him to halt, threatened to drop him, but “X” ducked out of sight and ran into a room filled with frightened Chinese.

None of the Orientals tried to stop him. They saw him as a Manchu, a Mingman, and a brother. He opened a door. Three plainclothes men and two uniformed cops had reached the head of the stairs. They hadn’t seen him before and weren’t sure of his identity. Their hesitation gave “X” a chance to slam the door shut and lock it. Instantly there was an uproar on the other side, pounding on the panels, then the crash and splinter of wood as the officers rammed shoulders against the door.

A Chinaman directed “X” to another exit with a slight shift of his glance. The Agent streaked across the room and was through the door. He raced down three flights to the kitchen and got out the back way before the Chinese cooks recovered from their startled surprise.

He plunged down a twisting alley, vaulted a fence, and sped along the narrow space between two brick buildings, entering the first back door he reached. Here he found himself in a second-hand clothing store. The proprietor jumped up, uttering a startled yell. He made a grab for a phone, thinking evidently that “X” was a hold-up man. The Agent gave him a quick shove into a pile of old suits and streaked past him.

HE reached the street door and paused suddenly. For a moment his wild exertions over the past few minutes told upon him. An old wound in his side, received on a battlefield in France, and curiously enough drawn into a scar that was shaped like a crude “X,” gave him a twinge of pain. Surgeons at the time that wound had been made by a piece of whizzing shrapnel had predicted that he could not live. But the Agent’s amazing vitality and unconquerable will had won out. The X-shaped scar seemed symbolic of the qualities that made Secret Agent “X” a fighter who refused ever to quit.

He straightened now. Then strode calmly out into a street that during the daytime was a main business artery. Behind him lay Chinatown, swarming now with cops and detectives, searching through the chill fog for a mysterious Manchu.

Because there was still a slight chance that someone was on his trail, Agent “X” took a devious route to his mid-town hideout, an apartment furnished with equipment and clothes for his numerous disguises.

He rode a subway to an express stop, walked two blocks crosstown to an elevated, and rode the local a few stations downtown. After that he changed taxis three times, and finally paid off a cab driver a block from his apartment.

Once in his hideout, he went to work swiftly to create a new disguise. He removed the black mohair suit that had fitted the role of a dignified Manchu tongman. In his undershirt and shorts Agent “X” showed a lean, supple, muscular body that had the condition and reflexes of a champion pugilist’s.

Quickly he stripped off the makeup which had given him the appearance of an Oriental. Beneath it was a remarkable face that not even his few intimate associates had ever knowingly seen. Strong, distinguished features full of power and character were there. The slightly curving line of the nose marked hawklike stamina. The piercing, brilliant eyes were clear lenses that transferred sharply defined pictures to a highly geared brain mechanism.

Not only was the identity of this man marked with mystery, but there was mystery even in these features. For different lights changed them almost as effectively as did his disguises. Looked at from the front they seemed remarkably youthful. But light falling on them from an oblique angle brought out the maturity of one who had been through a thousand strange and harrowing adventures. Sometimes in overhead rays Agent “X” seemed to have the long sensitive face of a scholar. With light coming up from below, his broad, fighting chin was most prominent.

With dexterous, experienced fingers Agent “X” worked plastic, volatile make-up material over his face, covering the skin first with ingenious flesh-colored pigments. He got up from his triple-sided mirrors after a few minutes and put on a salt-and-pepper cheviot of shrieking design, such as one would expect a race-track tout to wear.

He added patent-leather shoes and spats, and tipped a dove-gray hat on his head so that the rim came just to the hair-line. Over his head he slipped an ingeniously made toupee fashioned in a sporty sailor’s haircut, with the back of the neck shaved up to where the thick hair bulged out.

When he walked from his hideout the “Man of a Thousand Faces” had achieved a new character. He was now “Spats” McGurn, professional mobster and gunman, eager to quote homicide rates to the highest bidder.

At a casual glance he didn’t look tough. He had slightly thickened one ear and broadened the bridge of his nose to suggest that he had served an apprenticeship in the prize ring.

THE Agent knew his characterization would be more effective if he didn’t give himself too tough an appearance. He looked like a person who spent his time in dance halls and pool rooms, one who prided himself on being a classy dresser. But “X” had changed the line of his mouth to suggest cruelty. He had molded his features so that he could if he chose register intense viciousness.

Taking a taxi to the slum districts of the city he got off at a section that did its share in keeping the state penitentiary populated. The Agent’s destination was the address given him by Lo Mong Yung. This was a pool room on London Avenue called the “Big Kid’s,” known to the police as a hangout of small-time gamblers, petty racketeers, sneak-thieves, and loafers who were studying to be criminals. What the police didn’t know was that below the pool room, a dope ring was organizing and plotting activities.

The Big Kid’s had a small bar, thirty pool and billiard tables, slot machines against the walls, and back rooms for card games where suckers could be cold-decked. The air was blue with tobacco smoke, loud with the click of pool balls and the profane talk of the players.

“X” spotted the proprietor, Dan Sabelli, whose three hundred pounds of quivering blubber deserved the name “big,” but who was forty years from being a “kid.”

He was a sweating, bleary-eyed, wheezing man, who controlled enough votes to swing the district to his advantage. His pouchy, flabby-jowled, veined face was familiar to police line-ups. He had been indicted sixteen times for crimes ranging from petty larceny to homicide, but had never been convicted. The Agent had business with him, but he took his time.

He looked over the pool players for a while, took part in a couple of games, then deliberately picked a quarrel with a thick-necked giant of a man. “X,” as Spats McGurn, insulted the giant, provoked a fist fight and neatly knocked him out with a tricky left and two well-placed rights.

Dan Sabelli, the Big Kid, lumbered over at once, wheezing, puffing, and growling orders to attendants to get the senseless man into a back room quickly. He stepped up to Agent “X” angrily.

“Listen, guy! If you’re feelin’ tough tonight scram out ’o here! Do you want to have the cops droppin’ in and botherin’ the boys? That ain’t no way to help business! Start lammin’ if you know what’s good fer yer.”

“Sorry, Dan,” the Agent apologized. “A mug insulted me and I had to let him have it. He was askin’ for it. They can’t get tough with Spats McGurn, see? An’ before I leave this lousy joint I got some business to transact. You’re makin’ a book, ain’t you? And while I’m here I’m gonna slap on a few bets fer tomorrow’s races. The ponies always act right when I’m wearing these rags.”

He took the Big Kid by one blubbery arm and led him away from the others. His voice sank to a hoarse whisper.

“I like Iron Man in the fifth at New Orleans tomorrow,” he said.

The Big Kid gave a start and studied the Agent with a piercing gaze. “X’s” last comment had been the countersign which would admit him to the inner circle of the dope ring. It had been included in the instructions given him by Lo Mong Yung.

“All right, fella,” said the Big Kid. “I get you. Take that back door on the right. Go into the fourth room on the left. Wait there.”

“X” nodded casually. He lighted a cigarette, sauntered to the rear of the pool hall and wandered down the corridor to the designated room. It seemed to be an ordinary card room, garnished with a round table and a half dozen chairs. On the walls were photos of vaudeville queens and pugilists.

BUT the moment the Agent was inside, the door closed, and there was an ominous click. He did not need to turn the knob. He knew he was locked in.

His eyes glowed more brightly, but his features did not change. He puffed on his cigarette and seated himself at the table. An old pack of cards lay scattered on the circle of green felt; “X” gathered them in, shuffled them, and started a game of solitaire. He was certain he was under close surveillance.

On the back wall was secured a large full-length picture of John L. Sullivan. Suddenly some one spoke and “X” whirled. The voice came from the lips of Sullivan’s picture, and those lips moved. Also the eyes were gleaming at him, and they were alive. The Agent saw then that the eyes and mouth of the picture had been cut out. Yet they had been in place when he entered. Possibly they worked on hinges. Now some one was behind the picture, studying him and speaking.

“Who got you interested in Iron Man?” demanded the voice behind John L. Sullivan’s picture.

The Agent answered quickly. “Hoppy Joe said I could pick up some nice change if I had the right dope,” he said.

The hidden questioner remained silent for a second, apparently deliberating. Hoppy Joe was a Mingman, one of the spies detailed by Lo Mong Yung to ferret out the secret of the dope blight that caused suspicion to be thrown upon the tong. The Chinaman had worked his way into a membership in this drug ring. That was how Lo Mong Yung knew the counter-sign which he passed on to the Agent. There was a chance of difficulties, however, for Hoppy Joe, instead of being a narcotic victim, was in reality a scholarly young Chinese named Shen-nang Ti.

The Agent waited tensely for the man behind the picture to speak. Suppose the Chinaman’s identity had been discovered? What if it had been learned that Shen-nang Ti was a spy?

No trace of out-of-character emotion showed in his face, or gestures, however. The hidden man was studying him intently. The Agent was careful to maintain his attitude of insolent confidence as the gangster, Spats McGurn. The cigarette hung loosely from his lip. He raised one eyebrow impudently. Finally the unseen man demanded his name and details of his career.

“Pete McGurn,” said “X” at once. “They call me Spats out West. Chi’s my home town, but I rode the rails out when the goin’ got bad. Down along the Mex border I got to be quite a handy man. Ran snow, coke, a little poppy paste and some heroin. Never bothered with marahuana. That’s greaser stuff and not for smart guys like me. I played all the spots from Laredo to Nogales, till the Border got too hot for me. I came North with a nice stake, but blew it on a dame. That’s why I want to go to work.”

“It listens good,” said the hidden man. “Knowing Hoppy Joe shows you got the right connections, and the way you popped that punk out there wasn’t bad. But we ain’t much on knuckle stuff here. We leave that fer the kids. Can you use a rod?”

Agent “X” snorted and flicked ashes from his cigarette scornfully. “Listen, mister,” he said. “Along the Border they do some fancy shootin’, an’ they call hittin’ a silver dollar two out of five at fifteen feet pretty good. Four out of five was my average.”

“Yeah! Well, you’ll get plenty of target practice on this job, fella. But it won’t be silver dollars you’ll shoot at, see? Maybe you’ll do, Spats, and maybe you won’t. If you want the job you can have it. We’ll give you a chance to make good. An’ any time you want to quit the racket you can do it — via the morgue!”

The Agent heard a scraping sound behind him. A strip of the floor near the far wall was rising. It continued until it almost touched the ceiling. On a level with the rest of the floor was the platform of an elevator. “X” was instructed to stand on this. He did so, and the platform began to sink quickly.

ON the next level, “X” stepped into a cellar room lighted by a small yellow globe. The jaundiced light gave a ghastliness to the pinched face of the rat-mouthed, shifty-eyed little man who greeted the Agent in a high-pitched nasal voice. The twitching muscles and jerking movements proclaimed the hophead.

The guide took “X” down a long flight of stone steps into a winding passageway. Though they were underground, the air lacked dankness of an earthy odor. That was because the walls were of concrete. Somewhere down here, the Agent believed, were dry vaults where narcotics were stored. He wondered if this was the fountainhead from which free drugs poured forth on the country in a deadly, sinister flood.

At the end of the passage, the guide pressed a button that opened a door covered with bullet-proof sheet-iron. Ushered into a brilliantly lighted room, “X” viewed at least a score of men lounging in easy chairs, playing cards or billiards, or reading. The place could have been the clubroom of wealthy men, except for the amazing variety of types.

Pallor and nervousness marked the younger men as drug addicts. Some of the older ones, if they were victims of the habit, showed no evidence that narcotics ravaged their systems. A few of the oldest were of distinguished appearance, and the Agent’s impression was that they possessed more than front. Likely they were medical men, outlawed for illegal practices, who handled the details which required professional knowledge.

“This guy is Spats McGurn,” the guide introduced “X” to the crowd. “McGurn, make yourself at home. Plenty of reading material around. If you feel hungry, the cook will fix you a snack. Bunks are in the room on your left. Nothing to do but loaf now.”

“X” sensed that he was the focal point of frank distrust. In this place, a stranger was under suspicion until he proved himself a member of the underworld by some criminal action. The Agent scowled and sprawled in a chair.

Though he had reached the hideout, he was a long way from success. He was under probation. As far as he was concerned, this clubroom was an observation ward. Experience told him that he might be kept idle for a week or more, while he was watched and studied. During that delay, thousands of people might be enslaved to the insidious drug that was being unloaded upon the nation. Misery and tragedy would stalk across America, while a mobster determined whether “X” was worthy to shoot men down for the dope ring. He had to do something that would win the interest of the leader, that would end his probation at a stroke.

HE picked up a newspaper and rattled through it to the sports section. Behind the raised sheets, he listened intently. The conversation buzzed around the commonplace topics of small talk. He heard nothing about the activities of the ring.

The clock ticked oft valuable time, and “X” was learning nothing. He tried to single out the mob leader, but no one seemed to fit the part. The entire group appeared contented with idleness. This hideout wasn’t unlike firemen’s quarters, where there was little to do until an alarm came in.

The Agent puzzled over a means whereby he could start something and end this exasperating inaction. Trouble would do it, a quarrel, a fight. These men lived by the gun. It wouldn’t take much of an injury to pride or person to make them draw.

Yet he couldn’t brush up to a man and deliberately start a dispute. That would be too obvious. Vicious living had made them smart to tricks, overly suspicious. A play that was too open would suggest a hidden motive.

“X” noticed that whenever he rattled his paper, a sniffing, hard-eyed, death’s-head of a man reading a book nearby, looked up with a scowl of irritation. The Agent’s eyes gleamed. Here was a chance.

He rattled his paper a little more. He gently kicked a table leg in nerve-rasping rhythm. He hummed a monotonous tune, drumming an accompaniment on the arm of his chair with his fingers. To this symphony of irritation he added the most agonizing noise in existence by repeatedly smacking his tongue against a tooth.

Suddenly the hophead sprang from his chair, cursing viciously at “X.” He snatched the paper, yelled, “You damn low-life! Go climb in a bunk before I put the heat on you, and shut you up for good. You’d drive a man nuts with them noises. Lay off that one-man band, or I’ll bend a gun-barrel over your thick dome.”

The snowbird interspersed his tirade with fighting words. “X” hid his satisfaction behind a savage scowl. Leaping erect, he lunged at the man, who sprang to one side and shot a fist at “X’s” head.

The blow landed, though the Agent rolled the force out of the impact. He answered with a vicious snarl and swung a chair overhead. Murder instantly flamed in the hophead’s eyes. Life had etched no humanity on his repulsive face. There was nothing but greed, and evil, and killing hate cut in the harsh lines.

He went into a fighting crouch, his right hand streaking to a shoulder holster beneath his armpit. The gun had half cleared the leather, when “X” dropped the chair. His own hand darted under his coat and appeared again, clutching an automatic.

The draw was swifter than the eye, a blur of movement, that made the others tense in amazement. “X” actually completed the draw the instant the chair struck the floor.

Usually he carried only his gas gun, but this time he’d packed a real bullet-shooting weapon. A mobster without a killing gun was like a plumber without a wrench. To avoid suspicion in that direction, the Agent had brought a rod along.

Then came the pounding crash of flame-spitting guns, and savage blasts filled the room with ear-bursting thunder.

Chapter III

THE reports seemingly were simultaneous; but one was a split-second late — and that wink of time was sufficient to dispel the shadow of death that hovered over the duelists.

The hophead’s automatic suddenly flew out of his grasp as the slug from “X’s” gun smashed against the frame. The man was yanking the trigger as the bullet struck, and the muzzle lanced flame while the gun was spinning in mid-air. The lead buried into the ceiling, sending a shower of plaster down on the billiard table.

Cursing madly, the hophead clutched at his hand and shrank back. Fear bulged his eyes, as he whimpered for help. But he did not need help, for “X” was finished with him. A slight bullet groove across the knuckle of the hophead’s right thumb was the only casualty. The Agent’s astounding display of marksmanship and cool steadiness immediately made him a personality to be respected and recognized.

“ALL right, rat,” “X” snarled. “Crawl into your hole and leave the rod work to professionals. You amateurs are always on the receiving end. You’re all thumbs. Your kind generally end up on the hot squat.”

The Agent addressed the others sarcastically.

“Sorry I disturbed you, gents. Don’t like to overstep myself — specially when I’ve just joined up with a mob. But I ain’t the sort to let a guy get funny with me. If they stay off my toes I’m like a milk-fed lamb. That’s my story, gents, straight and simple — and now I’ll finish my paper.”

The hophead had ducked into another room. From the look on the man’s face, “X” knew the snowbird still had ideas of murder. But the Agent wasn’t worried. As long as he didn’t turn his back to his foe, he doubted if the man had the skill or the nerve to get him.

No sooner had the Agent settled himself to listen again behind his newspaper than the others began coming up to comment on his gunwork and to voice profane admiration. The ice was broken. That brief trick had done more to put him in the favor of the mob than any overtures of friendliness or attempts at being a good fellow.

He learned that he had dueled with Teddy Eldon, “one of the best gunmen in the mob when he’s loaded with coke and waltzing on air.” But the Agent didn’t learn about the traffic in drugs.

Later, his rat-faced guide came in.

“You’re a quick worker, Spats,” the man said. “You’ve done the shortest trick at bench warming of any new guy. Generally a fella cools his heels for a coupla weeks, sometimes a month, before the chief lets on he knows the bum is alive. But he was watchin’ you when Teddy elected you a candidate for a marble slab. Martel wants to see you.”

“X” was taken to a luxurious office, with blue, modernistic decorations and furnishings. The carpet was thick, the room air-conditioned, the lighting indirect, and behind a broad desk sat a gross bulldog of a man, an iron-jawed symbol of evil prosperity with a long black cigar jammed in the corner of a square, firm mouth.

Martel was obviously not a victim of the drugs he sold. His eyes were as clear as they were cold. His skin was tanned by the sun, and his walking beam shoulders looked as though they would be more at home in a gymnasium than a night club. He was the embodiment of vicious strength. It would take a hard-fisted, ruthless man like him to handle that nondescript gathering of cokeheads in the big room.

“I’m going to break a rule, Spats,” Martel told “X.” “I saw your swell work with Teddy Eldon. Just a slug, that guy. A good man for his job, but he’ll end up in the death house or be carted to potter’s field. You, Spats, you’re different. I heard about you freezing a punk upstairs with a punch. You’ve got brains, enterprise, nerve. You say you’ve been in the dope racket yourself. Then you know what it’s all about. And you know that the main thing in life is power.”

Martel boomed the word. “I came out of the gutter, Spats. I never opened a school book in my life. But I’ve got doctors, lawyers, professors, statesmen, big shots in business, right in the palm of my hand.” Martel emphasized this by squeezing a huge, beefy hand into a formidable fist.

“Why?” he boomed. “How is it these mental marvels are kids in my grasp? I ain’t a wizard. No! But I control the stuff that makes me a wizard, see? Dope! Load a guy with dope, get him to where his nerves are on fire, and every inch of him is crawling for want of a shot, and never mind how high-hat he is — if you control his supply of junk he’s your sucker. Dope—power!”

MARTEL puffed furiously on his black cigar. “I run a good layout, Spats,” he went on, “but now I’ve got competition, rotten, dirty competition. And I’ve got to break it!” His teeth clicked as though he were biting off the words.

“Somebody’s muscling in on your territory, eh?” said “X” casually, “Have you got a line on them, chief? I don’t always treat guys gentle. Maybe I could do your outfit some good.”

“You bet you can!” said Martel emphatically. “I don’t know who’s running this other mob. But, damn them, they’re not underbidding me. No, sir! The dirty heels are giving the stuff away! I’ve been gathering cannon. That’s why you’re here. I’ve had spies out. A tip just came in. This other mob is bringing an auto load of dope down from up-state. I’m hi-jacking the stuff tonight, and by the holy cow, I’ll give the junk away under the Martel banner.”

The Agent hid a smile of elation. The mob chief didn’t know who was behind this other ring, but he’d said enough so that “X” was no longer working at loose ends.

“I’m sending you out tonight, Spats,” Martel said. “You’re in the pick of my six best rodmen. On this job tonight depends your future standing with me. I want that load of junk! I’m going to blast that gang off the face of the earth. If they show fight, give ’em the works, see? And remember, a guy with rigor mortis don’t talk.”

That was the interview. A few minutes later the Agent was in a high-powered sedan with five of the hardest-faced men seen outside of a penitentiary. “X” was made to ride in the front seat with the driver. That was a measure of precaution. He was not entirely accepted. The others didn’t relish having their backs to him.

The driver was “Fat” Hickman, a homicide expert, who actually had spent six months in the Sing Sing death house, and had finally been acquitted on a technicality. He was dangerous as a rattlesnake, and actually eligible for the electric chair on a dozen counts.

“Them babies are going to give us a picnic, sure enough, Spats,” he said. “They enjoy puttin’ the heat on a guy to see him fall. When we welcome them to our fair city, put your whole heart into your work. Give the undertaker a decent break.”

The talk as they rode along was light and bantering, on the surface. Four of them were so hopped up with cocaine that they could have laughed at a firing squad. Hickman had a natural killer’s nerve. He didn’t need a narcotic to deaden his mind against peril. The Agent’s self-mastery always served him faithfully when danger threatened.

They traveled out of the city about ten miles along the highway north. Then Hickman swerved off onto a macadamized country road. It was a lonely section, a sharp contrast to the congestion and clangor of the city.

“X” looked at his watch. It lacked a few minutes of two. Suddenly headlights pierced the gloom ahead like two gigantic serpent’s eyes. The mobsters ducked down. Machine guns were thrust through holes in the re-enforced body of the sedan.

Hickman slowed the car, then stopped it crosswise on the road, so that the other machine would not be able to pass unless it ran into a brush-choked ditch. The car ahead stopped about fifty yards away. The occupant waited. Then he began to back up.

“Picked a blank that time,” commented Hickman, starting the machine. “That fella figured we’re stick up artists.”

When the gunman swung the car to the right side of the road, the other machine gathered speed, and whizzed by at sixty miles an hour. Three times Hickman blocked the road for the wrong car. Then they heard the purr of a high-powered auto traveling at great speed.

“That sounds like business,” said the former death-house resident with an evil leer.

He brought the car to a skidding, rubber-screeching stop. A large sedan hummed over the knob of a hill. There was a mad grinding of brakes. Blinding headlights glared on the blue-steel barrels of Tommy guns protruding from the side of the Martel car. Deathly silence prevailed for a few tense moments. Then the lonely, quiet country road became a thunderous battlefield.

Hickman had stopped the right car at last.

THOSE in the other sedan needed no explanation of gun-barrels projecting from an automobile parked across the road. The gunmen in the dope car started hostilities without challenge or interrogation. They knew they were facing hi-jackers. Martel’s men had the advantage, however, for their machine was crosswise, and they could blast their foes with a fierce broadside. A Thompson sub-machine gun was thrust into “X’s” hands. Grim of face, his eyes gleaming as coldly as the unwinking stars above, the Secret Agent put the weapon into operation. Its roar was savage and intense, but his aim was deliberately wide. The bullets whirred harmlessly into the night.

A thunderous attack from the dope car smashed against the bullet-proof windows of the sedan and ricocheted from the re-enforced body. In time the glass would be drilled through, but before that happened an alarm would go through the countryside, and the clashing mobsters would have the law surrounding them.

Some one in the dope car let out a shriek of agony. Fat Hickman cackled like a madman. His eyes glittered with murderous light, his thick, drooling lips were drawn back in a wolfish leer. Flushed and sweating, he was on his knees, a hulk of viciousness, the stock of his hot and smoking Tommy gun bucking against his fat-padded shoulder.

“We’ve got ’em!” he yelled exultantly. “That ain’t bullet-proof glass. We’ll pour so much lead into them babies that the undertaker will have to melt ’em to get ’em into their caskets. Give ’em the works, Spats! This is our night. We’ll collect a bonus fer this job!”

Agent “X” muttered savagely to himself. He had hoped that Martel’s men would capture the rival mobsters, or trail their car. But here he was in the thick of what would probably be a massacre. The car would become a shambles, a bullet-wrecked hearse. His five gunmen companions wanted no survivors of the dope car. The thunder of gunfire sounded like an attack on a front-line trench. When the smoke cleared, the road would be strewn with corpses.

The opposing gangsters were hidden. Suddenly a big barrel, thicker than that of a shotgun, was thrust over the bottom part of the shattered windshield’s frame. That puzzled “X.” Machine gun bullets had been ineffective on the Martel sedan. Certainly buckshot against the car would be like trying to smash a stone wall with a sling-shot.

A terrific, deafening explosion jolted the sedan. The car rocked as though it had been rammed by a truck. Violently thrown against the side of the machine, the Agent struck his temple against the metal crank used to lower the window. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Luckily his great strength threw off the effects of the blow quickly, or he would have been burned alive.

HE regained tortured senses to find himself alone, deserted in the sedan that had become like a furnace, stifling and searing. The top of the car was a flaming mass, and fire was licking up around the machine. The mobsters were to the left, concealed in the heavy brush and pouring destruction at the dope car.

His vision blurred and his brain hazy from pain, “X” puzzled foggily to determine the cause of the fire. There was a peculiar glow to the flame that was unlike ordinary combustions. He recalled the terrific explosion that had knocked him out. Again he studied the flame — like opals on fire. Then he understood. The rival mobsters had fired a phosphorus bomb.

Already the burning chemical was eating through the top, dripping fire onto the rear cushions. If those flaming globules dropped on “X” they would cling and eat like acid. The poisonous fumes were pouring into the car. “X” was but a few seconds from unconsciousness. He knew it.

Some of the phosphorus had got into the engine, and there was danger of an explosion. Even if “X” did get free, he would be exposed to the menace of Tommy guns. The left forward door was jammed, and the one next to the driver’s seat would open onto sure death. Peril cleared his brain. He contemplated the left rear door. That was his one chance, yet near it phosphorus was dripping from the burning top. He had to risk that vicious chemical, or be broiled to death.

The Secret Agent took a knife from his pocket and ripped the leather covering from the front seat. Using this as a shield over his head and body, he climbed to the rear, careful not to step on the phosphorus.

Instantly his improvised leather shield was dotted with fiery particles, but he got the door open, and flung himself from the roaring holocaust into the road. He hurled the blazing covering away, stepped gingerly to avoid phosphorus on the ground, and made for the ditch. A wild shout came from the other car. “X” gave a violent leap. He had been spotted.

While in mid-air a Tommy gun began streaming lead around him. Bullets seared across his back as he fell, but the mobster did not shift his aim soon enough to finish the Agent.

Some of the brush was afire, for the bomb had scattered the phosphorus. “X” managed to avoid the flames as he crawled through the brush toward the dope car. That direction saved his life, for the gangster was raking the ditch with machine-gun fire farther down, obviously thinking that the person, if he lived, was making his escape to the rear.

The firing from Martel’s men had dwindled with ominous significance. “X” detected only two guns in operation from the side. Then came a piercing outburst that rose shrilly above the savage rattle and roar of the Thompsons.

A man cursed madly. The Agent recognized the voice of Fat Hickman. The killer’s stream of oaths was suddenly cut off in a withering blast of gunfire. Another gang execution had taken place. That ended the battle. Possibly one Martel man still lived, but he was not staying to meet the same fate as his companions.

By now the Martel sedan was a mass of flames. Any moment the fire would reach the gas tank. “X” was close enough to be killed by an explosion. As swiftly as he could; he crawled through the bushes. The mobsters, triumphant but begrimed and bloody from the battle, returned to the dope car. The engine started, and the machine swung around to head back the way it came.

Climbing the bank of the ditch, “X” darted to the rear of the machine, and clutched onto the spare tire. It was a desperate risk.

About a quarter of a mile away there boomed a thunderous explosion as flames reached the gas tank of the Martel sedan. “X” clamped his jaws as he looked back at the flaming wreck. To him that demolished car was like a symbol of the destruction that was being wrought to fatten the bank accounts of vicious, greed-mastered men like Martel.

Yet Martel was insignificant compared to the drug menace that was breaking into this racket.

Chapter IV

THE dope car swung off onto another road, and headed in the direction of the city. Agent “X” quickly took something from an inner pocket of his coat. This was a small, flat object that looked like a pocket camera.

He snapped it open, pressed a black disc attached to a cord to the rear of the sedan, put the cameralike box to his ear and fingered a screw head on its side. At first only a confused blur of sound reached him. He tuned his amplifying device down, selecting the sounds he wanted. And in a moment he began to catch bits of conversation. He learned that a Martel spy had been caught and tortured into talking. That was why the mobsters were prepared for the hi-jackers.

“X” began to grow concerned about his next move when the car reached the city. If the driver took a route through the center of town, “X” would have to get off, for a man hanging onto a spare tire would get the instant attention of a night-patrolling cop. And the Agent didn’t like the idea of following in a taxi. The gangsters would surely be watching to see if they were trailed.

But the Agent’s worry on this score was dispelled when the car neared the city, for the driver headed toward the river. The auto sped along the dark, deserted waterfront between the columns of a ramp. “X” hoped that one of the men would say something that would give him an idea of their destination. He was riding with killers. If they found him, he would soon be floating in the river.

The driver traveled within the speed limit, for with their illegal freight, they could not afford to be stopped. “X” believed it was a hot car anyway, stolen for the trip, to be abandoned after it was unloaded.

Drawing near a tumbling down old condemned warehouse, the car swerved to a driveway alongside it, and next to the high brick wall surrounding a packing plant. As the car crossed the sidewalk, “X” dropped from his perch, and darted to the corner of the wall.

The machine stopped a short stretch down the alleyway in front of a small workman’s cottage. Four of the men leaped out, scanned the driveway in both directions, and then pulled eight large suitcases from the machine.

If those suitcases were filled with narcotics, the runners had made a very profitable trip, for, computed at current prices, that quantity would sell in the tens of thousands.

It was close to sunrise now. Trucks were rumbling over the cobblestones. Early gangs of dock workers were shuffling to the piers. “X” now knew one of the hideouts. But with dawn approaching, there was little he could do. He might visit the cottage later in the day, disguised as a peddler or a tramp hunting for a hand-out. Or he might wait until darkness. But, in his present disguise as Spats McGurn, his appearance would arouse suspicion. He started to turn away, when some one came out of the cottage.

“X” stepped into the shadows. The mobster started the car, and backed out. The Agent’s eyes blazed with excitement. That changed his plans, but suited him perfectly. When the machine neared the sidewalk, he again took his position on the rear tire. But he didn’t intend to stay there long.

At the first stop for traffic, “X” stepped to the pavement, walked to the side of the car, and thrust the muzzle of his gas gun through a lowered window. As the mobster turned, a jet of gas sprayed directly into his face. The man gasped, started to curse and go for his gun. Then he collapsed over his steering wheel.

By the time the traffic cleared, the Agent was in the driver’s seat, with the mobster slumped beside him, overcome by the gas. “X” drove to another of his hideouts, in the tenement section more than two miles from this spot. The dope runner was still unconscious when the Agent stopped. Putting one of the man’s arms over his shoulder and holding the wrist, “X” grabbed him around the waist, and dragged him across the sidewalk. An early pedestrian stopped and stared.

“Too much celebration,” explained the Agent, and hauled the mobster into the dim and dingy hallway. There “X” got the fireman’s grip on the man, and carried him up three flights of stairs.

“X’s” place was in the back, a typical tenement double room, shabbily furnished, but with cross-ventilation. It was not the ventilation that had interested the Agent, but the fact that one of the windows was close to the fire escape of the next building, offering a chance of escape in an emergency.

AFTER he locked the window and drew the blinds, the Agent bound and gagged his captive, then went back to the car, which he drove to another section of the city and abandoned. A hot car would draw a cop instantly. He didn’t want a blue-coat prowling around the tenement where his hideout was located.

By the time he returned it was daylight and the effects of the gas had worn off. The mobster was conscious and struggling with his bonds. “X” placed some white powders, neatly squared on white paper, on a tray and held them in front of the dope runner. The man was a drug addict, sweating and writhing in his need for easement. “X” removed the gag.

“If you yell,” he said, holding the gas gun menacingly, “it’ll only be once, understand? I’m not going to fool with you. What is your name? Whom do you work for? Your system is screaming for a shot. Here it is. Enough to make you do a toe dance. Talk — and I’ll give it to you.”

As Martel had said — dope was power. This man was born a cur and a weakling, but he feared gang reprisal. It took an hour before his tongue began to wag. But when he started, he chattered like a man in a delirium.

“I’m Louie Corbeau. Geez, fella, give me a sniff, just one little sniff! I’ve got to have it. I’ll kill a cop, do anything for you, for one of them decks. I’m dyin’, mister, dyin’! Your foot ever go to sleep? Well, that’s the way I am. Only a billion needles are stickin’ into me from head to foot. Let my hands loose so I can grab onto something. Geez, I can’t stand it! I’m goin’ nuts. You ain’t human, mister. Can’t you see I’m dyin’ for want of a shot?”

The Agent looked at the man with a coldness that was beyond pity or contempt. Just as this man was a dupe for the leaders of the dope ring, so he was a pawn for “X” in the Agent’s grim, relentless drive against that ring. “X” was aloof. Like a great surgeon, he employed his genius for the betterment of humanity, and for this killer and criminal in his power he felt only scorn.

“Corbeau, you can squirm until your nerves crawl out of your flesh,” said “X” grimly, “and this morphine will stay on the tray. This is barter and trade. Give me information and you’ll get the dope.”

“Geez, I’ll talk!” blurted Louie Corbeau. “I don’t know much. The mob is located in that condemned warehouse at Haswell and Riverfront. I’ve only been a snowbird three months, boss. Honest! I got hurt in an auto smash up. Went to the hospital. An orderly kept givin’ me cigarettes every day. After I was discharged, I nearly went goofy when I couldn’t get any. Then a fella told me I could get the stuff to quiet my nerves. I had to join the mob — an’ now I’m squealin’ on him!”

There was terror in the man’s voice. The Agent’s eyes blazed. A trace of pity showed in them now. This man was an instinctive criminal, but he had been lured into the clutches of the gang. Here was an insidious way in which the ring worked. When it wanted a recruit, it first made him a drug addict. Once under the ring’s control, a dope fiend would commit an atrocity to get a supply of narcotic. Each new addict became an ally of the gang.

“X” questioned and cross-questioned Corbeau. The hophead told the truth, for the Agent’s skillful, rapid-fire examination did not trip him. There was no countersign to use, nothing but the mobster’s face to admit him to the hideout. The leader of the local organization was a killer named Karloff, he said. “X” obtained also the names and descriptions of the other mobsters. And then he went to work. He gave Corbeau the drug his system craved, and a powerful hypnotic which induced sleep instantly.

The Agent needed the drug addict in a relaxed condition, because the man’s face had been so distorted by agony that “X” would not have been able to determine the exact features.

THE Agent brought out his triple mirrors, peeled off the disguise of Spats McGurn, and in a few minutes he molded his plastic, volatile make-up material until Corbeau would have thought he was gazing into a mirror if he had looked at “X.”

After changing to Corbeau’s clothes, the Agent gagged his prisoner again, manacled him with steel bracelets, and left the tenement. He ate breakfast at a cheap lunch counter, and went directly to the hideout at Haswell and Riverfront. There was no signal. A man entered. If he did not belong, he probably would never get out as he had gone in. “X” walked into the workman’s cottage.

It was a three-room shack, actually occupied by a machine operator in the big packing house opposite. The workman, of course, was a mob member, who acted as a blind. The factory man was cooking ham and eggs when “X” came in. He greeted the Agent casually, calling him Corbeau. “X” nodded.

He had learned the layout of the place from his captive, and he went immediately to a small, windowless storeroom, raising a trapdoor that led into a tunnel. In a crouch he ran along this passage to a flight of steps, which took him into the large cemented basement of the condemned warehouse. The place was apparently the temporary quarters of the drug ring, for it had none of the luxurious furnishings of Martel’s hideout.

A number of rooms had been partitioned in the big house. There were tables, chairs, and army cots. A few mobsters were in the main room. A man with the scar of a bullet wound on his right cheek addressed him as Corbeau. From his captive’s descriptive, “X” knew this was Gus Tansley.

Somewhere in the building a man was shrieking for help. That was Serenti, who had been caught by the police and questioned. He had talked too much, and Karloff was punishing him by cutting off his drug supply.

At “X’s” hideout, Louie Corbeau had gibbered out the story of Serenti, for the latter’s fate would be his if it were discovered that Corbeau had told any of the secrets of the ring.

A dark, evil-faced man suddenly appeared at the Agent’s side. His approach had been so stealthy that not even “X’s” keen ears had caught any sound. The man was Karloff. “X” recognized him by the description Corbeau had given.

“Did you dispose of the machine?” asked the mob leader, speaking with a slight lisp, his voice possessing at the same time a metallic ring.

“Sure, Karloff,” answered the Agent, imitating Louie Corbeau’s voice. “I always do what you say. Now do I get my shot?”

Corbeau and the others had risked their lives to bring in a supply of the drug that would not have been exhausted by them for years, but the suitcases had been sealed. It would have been worth their lives to have opened one. Karloff kept his men under the lash by doling out drugs only when their nerves began to rebel.

He was a long, somber man, dark and sinister. His wicked eyes were like points of fire. His upper teeth protruded a little, giving him a perpetual leer. Wearing a long black coat and a high stiff collar, he had a funereal look. His black hair was plastered down on his forehead, straight across, like a bang.

“Come!” he ordered, beckoning “X.” He repeated the command and the gesture to the others. Then he drifted away like a wraith, the men obediently following.

KARLOFF led them to a group of barred cells that had been strong rooms when the huge, tumbling warehouse was in use. From one of the cells came blood-curdling screams; pitiful, heart-rending wails.

“X” saw Serenti then, the man who had talked too much. He was hardly a man any longer, but a live thing in the throes of exquisite torture. The Agent glanced coldly at Karloff, but the leader’s face was a mask that revealed nothing that went on in the cunning killer’s brain. “X” marked him as a sadist who feasted on cruelty, who was governed by inhuman traits.

Serenti threw himself against the bars and reached through with a bloody, clawlike hand, pleading for relief: His arm was bare, showing the skin, hard and toughened by countless hypo punctures. Blood streamed down Serenti’s face from deep, self-inflicted scratches. In his agony he had clawed himself unmercifully. “X” saw ugly welts and lumps on his head. Mad frenzy had made Serenti pull his hair out by the handfuls. His hands were crimson talons of raw, lacerated flesh caused by clutching the rusted iron bars, and by pawing the rough cement walls.

Nature had made the sufferer fight pain with pain. Serenti had gnawed at his tongue until it was swollen and looked like a hunk of pounded beefsteak. Crimson drooled from his cracked lips. He had slashed his arms with long finger nails. He had torn his clothes to ribbons. The craving for drugs had made Serenti demented; a writhing, sweating, cawing, bundle of rasped and outraged nerves.

“They’re eatin’ me up!” he screamed madly. “Ants! Big red ants. Millions of them. They’re tearin’ me to pieces. But I can get rid of them. Pour gasoline over me, Corbeau! Then touch a match to me, Tansley! I’ll burn ’em off! I’ll burn them big red ants. They can’t eat me to pieces. I’ll fix ’em.”

He babbled away in a nightmarish delirium, while his companions looked on without compassion. A blaze flared in the Agent’s eyes. Karloff had the fixed expression of a hideous idol. He showed no sign of emotion. Here was an example of the tremendous power drugs could give a man like Karloff. He was a despot. An addict, deprived of his drug and shrieking for the powder that would end his suffering, would sell his life or take a life for “just one little shot.”

Serenti collapsed and clawed at the cement floor. The grinding of his teeth sounded like the rasp of a steel file against granite. He raised to his knees and cried like a lost child. Getting up, he staggered across the cell and pounded his fists against the wall.

“I’ve got to have it!” he blubbered. “Give me one little shot, Karloff. Just one little shot. Then I’ll go out and kill anyone you want. I’m being eaten — alive — eaten alive!”

“Serenti likes to talk,” said Karloff softly, his voice almost a purr. “He became very friendly with the cops last week. He even told where one of our hideouts was located. He’s been a week without his dope. But we mustn’t be too severe. Here, Serenti, here is your shot.”

Karloff spoke as gently as a mother to her sick child. Serenti uttered a hysterical cry and threw himself against the bars again. He reached out both hands for the white capsules which Karloff produced.

“You’re my friend, Karloff!” he screamed. “You’re my best pal, my only pal. I’ll do anything for you. Anything!”

Serenti got three little capsules from Karloff. The drug addict gulped them down like a famished dog swallowing a bit of meat. His nerves quieted. He relaxed and leaned against the bars, sighing contentedly. But Karloff was not as kind as his manner indicated.

Suddenly Serenti stiffened. His eyes all but popped from their sockets. His veins bulged and seemed to writhe like snakes. He choked and struggled in a terrible agony for breath. He howled like some wounded creature in the wilderness.

“Karloff! Karloff — you fiend! The — the green death!”

“Yes,” breathed Karloff, “the green death.”

IN amazement the Agent watched a startling transformation in the pigmentation of Serenti’s skin. The tortured man suddenly slumped to the floor. “X” knew he was dead. That was not astounding, considering the treachery of Karloff. But what opened the Agent’s eyes was that Serenti’s skin had turned green, a horrible, deathly, muddy green — the hue of some dread arsenical poison.

“Come, gentlemen,” said Karloff softly.

Not once had the leader scowled or smiled or sneered. Only his gentle voice had the tone of ugly insinuation. He moved away with the softness of a cat. In the big room, he handed “X” a small square of powdered narcotic wrapped in white paper. By this time the Agent was cleverly simulating frayed nerves, playing his part of Louie Corbeau. He grabbed the deck of dope, opened it with trembling fingers.

At least, he appeared to open the one Karloff had given him. But right before the sinister man’s searching, penetrating ferret eyes, “X” performed a brilliant trick of sleight-of-hand. He had palmed another square of power — a harmless powder. This one he opened, having palmed the one Karloff handed him. Quickly, dexterously he poured the powder on the back of his hand, and sniffed it. Immediately he straightened up, squared his shoulders and smiled.

Karloff was gone. He had drifted away again, his tread as soft as a cat’s. The Agent found himself alone with Gus Tansley. After a few minutes of idle conversation, “X” decided that he could learn something from Tansley by skillfully guiding the talk. He worked around to the subject of dope, and the trafficking of this drug.

“What I can’t understand, Tansley,” he said, “is why we risk our lives, why fellows like Serenti get the green death, all to transport and distribute dope that is given away!”

The Secret Agent’s eyes were brightly alert. He hoped he was close to a solution of the enigma that had puzzled him all along — the purpose behind the dope ring’s free distribution of the dread stuff. His questioning of Tansley was a shot in the dark, but it connected.

Tansley laughed wickedly.

“You’re a sappy guy, Corbeau. I figured you was wiser than that.”

The Agent waited tensely for Tansley to go on. For a moment it seemed that the mobster would say no more. Then, with the arrogance of one who feels himself in possession of superior wisdom he continued:

“You saw how Serenti was howling for the junk. You know yourself how shaky you was before Karloff handed you a deck. It takes a week to make a hoppy. How many ever get off the stuff?”

The Agent shrugged. He knew that the percentage was very small. The cure depended on the will of the addict, and most of them were weak-willed at the outset. The drug undermined what little moral strength they had, so most cases were hopeless.

“Not many, I guess,” answered “X.” “But I still can’t figure why we’re going in for this gift proposition.”

“Till America’s right in our fist, Corbeau! That’s why.”

“It don’t seem smart, Gus,” returned the Agent. “I know a little about dope. I know that a hundred tons of opium are enough to give the docs of the world all they need. Yet more than two thousand tons are being turned out — and a lot of that tonnage is coming to America. We get everybody twitching and jerking for a shot, and guys like this Martel will jump in and cop the business.”

TANSLEY smirked. “For a little while, yes,” he said. “But it costs a hell of a lot to smuggle dope into the country — and half the junk the peddlers handle is adulterated with about fifty percent sugar of milk. Lots of guys fork over two bucks for a deck, and get nothing but a pinch of salt. But we’ll sell the straight stuff — and underbid any dope ring in America. Even with all of this free junk we’ll make profits the first day we start selling. Now do you get the idea, sap?”

Agent “X” nodded. He got the idea all right. A chill seemed to pass slowly through his blood. The free samples constituted a hideous advertising campaign, a build-up for a tremendous sales onslaught that could not fail. In all his experience with vicious criminals he had never run into anything more appalling than this.

The menace of a foreign invasion had been abolished. But in its place was this monstrous, hydra-headed scheme that was just as terrible. And it was not only possible, but too imminently probable.

Agent “X” knew that statisticians claimed that one-fourth of China’s four hundred million were opium smokers. A hundred million drug addicts in Asia alone. And every twelfth person in India chewed or smoked opium. What if that fate visited America, a land of highly organized nervous systems, keyed up to the pitch of modern civilization? Would the filth, the squalor, the untold misery of the Far East become the Fate of America?

“X” was about to ask how this drug ring could possibly smuggle enough of the stuff in to underbid the other rings, when he noticed a slender thread of wire, colored the mahogany of the furniture, that ran down the leg of the table at which they sat. Quickly he reached his hand under the table and felt a small, hard-rubber disc. A dictograph.

“Yeah,” Gus Tansley was saying, “in another month we’ll all be on the gravy train. Hell, us that’ve got in the outfit early will be drawing in so much cash, we’ll have to hire bookkeepers to tally each day’s take. Gold mines and oil wells ain’t in it. They peter out. But a cokehead ain’t gonna stop sniffin’ till he croaks!”

“You’ve said enough,” spoke a soft voice behind Tansley.

“X,” who had been tensely alert, had not heard the approach of Karloff. The chief came out of the gloom as softly as a cloud. There was no anger in his voice, but just a faint reproach that was deadly in its gentleness.

“Corbeau,” said Karloff somberly, “you are too inquisitive. Tansley, you are too willing to answer questions. I have listened and I am not pleased. I was not pleased with the way Serenti regaled the police with secrets. You know what happened to Serenti!”

Tansley instantly sank to his knees and clutched at Karloff’s legs. He began sobbing, pleading. In a flash all the arrogance had left him. He was a quivering craven, blubbering for mercy, from a man who bad no mercy in his soul.

Agent “X” stood up, aloof, a certain grim majesty in his bearing, his eyes cold with deadly challenge.

“Karloff!” shrieked Tansley. “You — you’re not going to give it to us? Not the — green death!”

“Yes, Tansley,” said Karloff with his faint lisp. “I’m going to give it to you and Corbeau both. You’re gabbing, gossiping fools who have no place in this organization. You’ll be squealing next, telling secrets to the police — the way Serenti did. You have earned the green death!”

Chapter V

THE Agent looked quickly about the big room. Karloff had forestalled a dash for an exit. There were five doorways, though only one led to the tunnel. Framed in each opening was a vicious mobster, gripping an automatic. They were shaking, drug-famished men, eager for the favor of their chief. They had been companions of Tansley and Corbeau, had laughed and joked and eaten with them, and had risked their lives side by side. But now they would riddle the two with lead, if Karloff gave the word.

The reason was plainly apparent. Mastered by drugs, they had seen the horrible torture that deprivation had inflicted on Serenti. And they were sick, suffering men. No doubt Karloff had promised a bonus of white powder for this job. Karloff had but to nod, and their guns would crash. They were his slaves, for their drug supply depended upon him.

“X” had only a few seconds to save himself from Serenti’s fate. If he were not shot at once, the green death would be meted out to him, either in capsule form or by means of a hypodermic. Tansley’s end would be the same, too. The mobster knew it and groveled like a cur at Karloff’s feet

The Agent hesitated. Even to raise his hand would bring a hurricane of lead. And Karloff was about four feet away. Not much chance of delivering a knock-out punch, either. These mobsters would press triggers before he took a step.

Realizing their advantage they were closing in. Insanity glittered in their eyes. They were palsied, shaking like victims of St. Vitus’ dance. Along with the deathly peril which these hopheads symbolized, the sight of them in their loathsome wretchedness was sickening.

The Agent’s eyes were magnetic, impelling, hypnotic, as they fixed on the chief with a withering stare.

Karloff felt the power behind those eyes. One shoulder raised in a defensive attitude. He made an apologetic gesture with his hand. Yet there was irony in Karloff’s manner. He held the winning card and was gloating in that fact.

Looking straight at him, “X” spoke, still in the role of Corbeau.

“You’re a sap, Karloff,” he said in a contemptuous voice. “You’ve got so few brains you have to get tough all the time. A weak sister, Karloff, that’s you. Without dope, and a lot of dopies to manhandle guys for you you’d be hanging out in the municipal lodging house.”

“X” had deliberately stung Karloff’s pride, yet the man was too well-schooled in poker-faced inscrutability to show anger.

“Quite a speech, Corbeau,” he said softly. “But I am not a free agent. I must answer to my superiors for the mistakes of my men. So I strike hard and swiftly.”

“Yeah — that’s what you say — and who are these guys that make you jump when they snap their fingers?”

Agent “X” hardly hoped to get information; and Karloff shook his head.

“I do not give away secrets like Tansley here — and like our friend Serenti. Perhaps that is why I keep my job, whereas you—”

That was as far as Karloff got in his explanation. The drug-craved mobsters were close. The Agent suddenly dived in a football tackle, his hard-muscled shoulder striking Karloff at the knees and knocking him to the cement floor. The chief shouted for his mobsters to shoot, but they could not, without hitting Karloff, for he was on top of “X.”

The Agent got his gun from his shoulder holster and shot out the lights, utilizing his lightninglike draw. The gunmen rushed toward the fallen pair. Gus Tansley scrambled to his feet and started for an exit. One of the other mobsters took a chance and shot wildly then, and Gus Tansley uttered a scream of agony.

“They got me, Corbeau!” he shrieked. “Right in the guts. Come on, you rats! I’m finished, but I’ll take some of you with me!”

Wounded, Tansley acquired the sudden courage that hysteria gives a coward whose doom is sealed. His automatic snarled fiercely. Someone screamed. Karloff was bellowing orders, but they only added to the wild confusion. The Agent was the single person with self-possession. He crawled toward Tansley, guided by the dope fiend’s frenzied voice.

“Quiet — and keep down!” “X” said in a low, tense voice. “There’s a chance of getting out of here. Shut up — or we’ll never make it!”

THE firing had ceased now, for the basement was as dark as a vat of tar, and the gunmen feared shooting one another. Crawling toward the door, “X” half dragged Tansley. The hophead wouldn’t have been in this mess except for his talk with the Agent. He was twisted, warped, less than half a man, but possibly there was something still to reclaim, something to justify his life. “X” would get him out of here and to an institution.

The gunmen were clustering around Karloff, who was threatening them with the green death. But their bravado was gone. Darkness and the chance of stopping a bullet took the fight out of them. So the Agent made the door and got Gus Tansley through the tunnel to the workman’s cottage. There the drug addict collapsed.

He was bleeding heavily, and “X” realized he was through. So did Tansley.

“I’m a goner, Corbeau,” he moaned. “Any of them rats would double-cross a brother or shoot his dad for a deck of coke. Croakin’ doesn’t seem so hard, but the pain, Corbeau — the pain! Geez! Give me a shot, just one little shot before I go!”

Tansley’s body relaxed. A fixed stare came to his glazed eyes. His mouth was half open. Another tragedy had been marked up to the evil of dope? Tansley was through, and his last words had been startlingly significant of the terrible power of narcotics. With death reaching out, Tansley had still been under dope’s insidious spell. His only request, before he passed into eternity was the plea of all dope slaves—“just one little shot—”

The gunmen were in the tunnel now. Tansley lay beyond help, so “X” dashed on through the door and down the alley. Shortly he had blended into the surge of the healthy, work-a-day world.

In a fever of excitement he took a devious route to one of his hideouts and began changing his disguise. A desperate plan had come to his mind — one of those strange schemes that made Secret Agent “X’s” method of work unpredictable and astounding. He had located one of the strongholds of the gang dispensing the free dope. There were dozens of vicious gunmen there, and a man who was more a fiend than a human being. “X” could not hope to round them up single-handed. And, so great was the peril of the spreading menace, that he could not leave these men to carry on with their devilish work. Something must be done and done quickly, and Agent “X” had made up his mind.

The impersonation that “X” created now was what he called one of his “stock disguises.” It was a makeup he had used before in other cities. It would do for the plan he had in mind.

Completely changed in appearance from the mobster Corbeau, he went across the city again to the office of Orrin Q. Mathews, local head of the Federal Narcotic Bureau.

It was early morning, yet the anteroom was filled with people. “X” saw that he might be kept waiting for an hour or more, and time was precious.

He took a piece of paper from his pocket and a pencil. In a moment he had written a carefully worded note, calculated to arouse the interest of the chief inside. It stated that the writer of the note had important information bearing on the drug evil that was menacing the city. This “X” folded and handed to an attendant with instructions to give it at once to Mathews.

It gained Agent “X” an interview immediately. Mathews was sitting behind his desk, his forehead creased with worry. In the person of Agent “X,” now calling himself Biggers, the narcotic head saw a drab-faced man who could have been an overworked bookkeeper. The Agent’s walk was shuffling, apologetic. He let his hands dangle at his side. His acting was perfect.

“What is it, Biggers?” demanded Mathews in a gruff voice. “I’m a busy man, as you must know. Have you really something to tell me, or are you just another crank seeking publicity or wanting to spread slander? Every man with a grudge against some one, it seems, is coming here trying to pin this narcotic business on some person he doesn’t like. My men are kept busy following false leads. Quick, what is it you have to tell me?”

“X” glanced at a clerk in the room with Mathews. He made a significant gesture with one eyebrow, and at a word from Mathews the clerk withdrew. Mathews and Agent “X” were left alone.

“Now,” said Mathews. “Quick, spill it!”

MATHEWS sat back in his chair. He produced a cigar and stuck it between his lips. The Agent smiled grimly. This suited him nicely. He quickly brought a lighter from his pocket — one that he kept for special uses.

“Allow me,” he said, snapping it into flame.

“X” lighted the cigar, and as Mathews puffed it energetically, waiting for “X” to begin, the Agent suddenly pressed a tiny lever on his briquet. The flame went out, and there was a hiss in its place. A jet of the same harmless gas that he had used in the dragon-headed ring in Chinatown went into Mathews’ nostrils. With a single prolonged wheeze, the narcotic head sank slowly forward on his desk. The cigar dropped from inert fingers. The Agent’s anaesthetic gas, potent and concentrated, had acted as quickly as a punch to the jaw.

Holding his own breath so as not to inhale any of the vapors still in the air, Agent “X” dragged Mathews from his chair and stretched him on a small leather couch. Swiftly he locked the door and took his portable make-up materials from the pocket. These included his flesh-colored pigments and tubes of plastic paste that his expert fingers could model with such an amazing skill.

He studied Mathews’ features for nearly a minute, then went to work. The disguise of Biggers came off. In its place he built up a likeness of Mathews. He changed to Mathews’ clothes, and then, gagging the official, he placed him in a closet. A few minutes later “X” unlocked the door, as like Mathews as though he had been the federal man’s twin brother. He poked his head into the next office.

“Hayes,” he addressed the clerk who had gone out, imitating Mathews’ deep voice accurately. “Send Wells in. Tell Everts to get the Thompson guns ready. I want Creager to drive the car. Have Lorson and McAllister wait down below. We’re going to stage a raid that may make history.”

The men whose names “X” gave so fluently were members of the narcotic squad whose activities were known to him. The clerk hurried to follow instructions, tense with excitement.

“X” sat back in his desk chair, alert in mind and body. He had had little time to study the characteristics of Mathews. There was a chance that his daring impersonation of the man might be detected by his subordinates. But “X,” profound student of psychology, was counting on the excitement of the occasion to cover any slight errors he might make. An important raid would put the men on edge.

Wells was the first to come in. “X” was rustling through some papers on his desk. He did not speak until he had jumped up and grabbed his hat. Wells’ face showed no suspicion.

“Just got a tip,” said the Agent quickly. “Don’t know whether it has much basis or not, but I think it has. A lot of cranks have been yapping their heads off around here, as you know. But this time it looks like I’ve got something. Down at Haswell and Riverfront. An old condemned warehouse. The tip says it’s a headquarters for the dope ring that’s been giving the stuff away. Imagine that, Wells — snow selling for sixty-four bucks an ounce — and this gang handing it out free! Well, here’s a chance to stop ’em — maybe — and confiscate a pile of dope.”

“Sounds something like that Serenti tip-off,” said Wells. “Maybe it’s the same gang moved to a new hide-out. We missed ’em the last time. I hope we’ll get ’em now. I’d like to blast the top off a couple of heads to make up for what happened to my pal, Broderick.”

The Agent motioned for Wells to come along, Everything was dovetailing nicely. Wells knew that Serenti had talked, and Broderick, a victim no doubt of the mob that took Serenti’s life, was a friend of the federal detective.

They left the narcotic bureau and piled into the car outside, driven by Creager, a man grown gray in the department. For the most part they were silent as the car roared through the early morning streets, but “X” gave clipped instructions which the men memorized before the car stopped a half block from the warehouse.

He detailed two of the detectives to break in the front entrance. Lorson and McAllister he sent to crash in the doors on either side. The Agent took Wells to the cottage.

THE body of Gus Tansley lay where the mobster had died. Wells, case-hardened to violent deaths, gave the corpse an incurious glance and grunted. “X” wondered grimly how Wells would react if he should learn that this man had died a short while before in the arms of the person he thought was Mathews.

The Agent and Detective Wells were the first to reach the basement. The place was deserted, yet there remained evidence of recent occupation. The body of Serenti lay in the cell. The floor of the big room was splattered with crimson, but, to “X’s” intense disappointment, Karloff and his mobsters were not in evidence.

“It’s the same man, all right,” said Wells, gazing at the green, horrible face of the dead Serenti. “They sure took the wag out of that guy’s tongue. Must have embalmed the sucker with green paint.”

The other federal men arrived, covered with cobwebs, but with nothing to report. On the upper floor they had not found even tracks. Karloff and his men had obviously left via the tunnel and the cottage, taking the suitcases of dope with them.

The Agent, his voice harsh, gave a quick order.

“Lorson, send in word to headquarters. Have the medical examiner come. I want to find out how long Serenti and the other stiff have been dead. The rest of you give this dump a thorough search. Don’t miss anything. Knock on the walls, open up the furniture, collect anything you see.”

Lorson started for the stairs, but he didn’t get far. Suddenly there was a terrific, rocking explosion. The concussion threw them to the floor. Three more detonations came in quick succession, booming blasts that tortured their eardrums and rumbled through the old building like heavy thunder. Then came a smashing, deafening roar from one of the basement rooms.

Instantly the whole building was resounding with the snarl of mounting flames. The crackling above them was savage and intense. A shower of liquid fire had been sprayed over the top of the partition of the basement room, coming dangerously close to the federal men. Some sort of incendiary time bombs had exploded.

The Agent’s jaw clamped viciously. He recognized those flaming opalescent globules. Burning phosphorus. Karloff had placed his infernal machines around the building. Undoubtedly some one had been sent to watch federal headquarters, in anticipation of a raid. Corbeau had been suspected of being a spy. That was why Karloff had fled — and left these engines of destruction behind him.

“Come on, men,” said the Agent, lifting his voice above the crackle of the flames. “This place isn’t going to be healthy in a minute.”

Veterans though they were, the sudden explosion of the bombs and the sight of the flames on all sides had had a demoralizing effect on the men. They obeyed the Agent like sheep, and he led them into the tunnel. But halfway through he realized that escape was cut off in that direction. Harsh crackling sounds came from the cottage, too. He rushed forward and raised the trapdoor. A billow of smoke puffed into the tunnel instantly. Fiery tongues licked at him.

He turned, and with the others sped back to the basement. There was no escape above, the old warehouse was a blazing inferno. They were surrounded by fire. Karloff’s bombs had been placed with fiendish cunning and thoroughness. They were trapped.

Chapter VI

THE building, long condemned, was as dry as tinder. Its rotten old beams and worm-eaten walls burned like kindling wood. The temperature in the basement was mounting to withering furnace heat. Already it was so hot that the sweat dried the instant it oozed from their pores. Every breath of stifling air was like fire drawn into the lungs. Thick, poisonous, suffocating smoke poured into the basement.

None of the detectives thought he would get out of the roaring holocaust except as a sack of charred bones. They were brave men, used to seeing death at close range and steeled to the prospect of going out violently.

“We’ll save the folks funeral expenses anyway, boys,” yelled Creager. “I’m sorry for you gents who have wives and kids. I’ve helped send a dozen men to the chair, but I never thought I’d fry, too.”

From the street came the shriek and clangor of fire engines. But rescue from outside was impossible. Yet Agent “X” had not given up. He wasn’t ready to die. His work was not finished. Too much depended on his living. Cut off from above, cut off from the tunnel, there still must be a way out. One direction remained. That was toward the street in the forward part of the basement.

“Come,” he shouted to the detectives. “Grab my hand, Wells. You, Creager, grab hold of Wells. Are you all here? Sing out! That’s it! Come on!”

With the federal men close behind, “X” ran to the forward wall. He felt along it until he found the door of a coal bin. He had a flash, but the light wouldn’t penetrate the heavy smoke. He got the door open and the men inside. It was comparatively cool here. The air was clear enough to use his light. He flashed it on, directing a beam across the ceiling. Then he gave a shout. About ten feet above was the iron disc of a manhole plate.

“Climb on my shoulders, Wells,” he cried. “Shove that cover off.”

The Agent crouched. Wells grabbed his hands, stepped on his thigh, and swung around to his shoulders. Supported by the Agent, who clamped powerful hands on the man’s calves, Wells experienced little difficulty in removing the manhole cover. It opened onto the sidewalk.

Firemen rushed to help them, and in a few moments the detectives were getting clean air into their lungs. A throng had gathered. The street was strewn with hose. A half dozen companies had been called out. Firemen were playing streams on the blazing building, but their efforts were directed entirely to keeping the fire in the confines of the condemned warehouse.

Reporters, officials, curiosity seekers, began pushing toward the Federal men. “X” had to get away. For all he knew, Mathews had been discovered. Maybe at this moment cops were scouring the city for the impostor who had taken five federal men on a raid.

“Wells,” the Agent addressed one of the detectives, “stall off this mob for me. Tell the reporters I’ll have a statement prepared at my office. I want to follow down another lead — alone. So long!”

“X” ran along inside the police line. A cop got in his path, and the Agent flashed the federal badge belonging to Mathews. That cleared the way. Around the next corner, he hailed a cab, and rode to the railroad station. He barged through to it, went out a side exit and hurried to one of his hideouts.

Here he changed quickly to the disguise of A. J. Martin, newspaper man. Out in the street again he sped in a second cab to an office he maintained under this name.

The Agent was bitterly disappointed at the outcome of the raid. The fire had consumed whatever evidence the building might have contained. Karloff and his sinister crew had fled, taking the dope with them. Their whereabouts was unknown even to “X.” This troubled him.

HE paced the floor of his office for a moment, then reached for the phone. Posing as a press man connected with a big syndicate, he had a staff of operatives working for him, running down minor leads and obtaining information that was vital to his activities. There was shadowing to be done, routine investigations to be made, and other tasks that any competent man could perform. The dangerous, uncertain missions he reserved for himself.

The man he phoned now was Jim Hobart, an ex-detective, and one of the Agent’s most skilled and trusted operatives. He was a bluff, red-headed, rawboned young man. Framed by an underworld czar he had been dismissed from the force on graft charges. Now having got back into the good graces of the police by rendering them service in one of the Agent’s cases, he had been allowed to take out a license and open up a private detective agency.

It was known as the Hobart Agency, and no one except Jim knew that A. J. Martin was the real proprietor. Even he did not guess that the man who had helped him and employed him was the mysterious, ever alert Secret Agent “X,” whose real identity was an eternal enigma. In his eyes “X” was just what he seemed, a high-pressure newspaperman out to get inside stories of crime.

Under the Secret Agent’s direction Hobart had organized a staff of a dozen skilled operatives, men and women in all classes of life and of all ages. By giving a brief order to Jim, “X” could send any one of these men or women out on a shadowing or investigating job. This left his own time free for the really important tasks that no one save himself would have the skill and daring to undertake.

Hobart had been working on details of the drug menace, tracing down the rumor that even the police were being reached by the sinister gang. He answered “X’s” call now, his voice crackling with excitement.

“Plenty of things are happening, boss. You sure had the right tip. This dope wave has hit the department. It’s hard to believe, but you remember Eddie Broderick? A damn good guy. Rough and tough, but a credit to the force. Well, he’s done for, washed up. They found a hypo in his locker, and his arm looks like it was used for a pincushion. He can’t explain how he took to snow, except that the thing came to him, and he almost went crazy until some cokey introduced him to the needle.”

Jim Hobart was full of news, bad news, showing how the sinister ring was spreading. The police department had been hit by the drug evil. The commissioner had managed to stifle publicity, but he couldn’t prevent the facts from getting to a tireless investigator like Hobart. The Agent’s operative went on to tell what else he had learned.

Dolph Palmer, a deputy inspector of the narcotic bureau, had been caught pilfering confiscated drugs. He had admitted his evil habits, but claimed that he’d developed a severe nervous affliction that puzzled the doctors, and which could be soothed only by dope.

Bob Lane, on the police force for twenty years, a typical, honest, courageous cop, the sort who walk a beat until retirement, was in prison on a murder charge. He had held up a small drug store, killed the proprietor to get the store’s supply of narcotics. There was mystery surrounding his addiction, too. He could give no reason why he used drugs, except that suddenly the awful craving had mastered him.

“It’s bad enough when the coppers get on the stuff,” continued Jim Hobart, “but when kids take to dope, it’s awful. You wouldn’t think there’d be cokeheads at the private schools — but take Miss Laurel’s place for girls. That’s about the most high-hat, hoity-toity outfit in town. A gal has to have blue-blood ancestors, a couple of financial pirates for grandfathers, and an inheritance that’d pay off an army before she gets into the Laurel brain factory.”

Hobart paused a moment and the Agent asked a horrified question.

“You mean those child-heirs to millions are taking narcotics?”

“Worse than that, boss,” came Hobart’s answer. “Their folks have kept the story out of the papers, but last night Miss Laurel’s little queens turned out one of the wildest riots in history. One of them got a vial of dope somewhere. Another tried to steal it. She got a paper knife through her ribs. That started it.

“By the time the show was finished, Miss Laurel’s dormitory looked like a battlefield. Dope made those gals hell-cats. More than half of them are hopheads. Ten are in private hospitals, and they’re all under observation. The papers don’t dare print a word, because they’ll lose a million dollars worth of advertising from some of the gals’ papas.”

An intense light shone in the Secret Agent’s eyes. The drug evil was raging and spreading like a plague. Cops, children, people of wealth. Dope knew neither class nor creed. With only a week needed to make a drug addict, this insidious, mysterious ring would soon have the whole city in its power.

“X” had to act quickly. The indefatigable Hobart had a long list of crimes of violence attributed to the new dope evil. The Agent stopped him in the midst of his recital. “You’ve done a swell job, Jim,” he said. “Now I want you to try to discover what the drug victims themselves don’t know. How did they become addicts? That’s what we’ve got to find out. Keep in touch with the office. I don’t know how long I’ll be away this time.”

He hung up and for a moment sat at his desk in deep thought. A mysterious, brooding figure, hidden behind an impenetrable disguise, the Secret Agent was plotting his course of action against one of the worst criminal rings he had ever faced.

FOOTSTEPS sounded in the hallway outside. Something was dropped in the special mail box attached to the door. The footsteps passed on.

The Secret Agent arose quickly, opened the box and took out a long, thin envelope. It was sealed with wax. The color of the wax told him instantly that it was a confidential report from another of his operatives, one Lloyd Hankins.

He tore the end of the envelope off immediately, spread out the papers inside.

The report concerned Count Remy de Ronfort, a European of shady reputation whom “X” was suspicious of and had asked Hankins to investigate. De Ronfort was a descendant of a noble French family, but had become a criminal. He had been in America five weeks, according to Hankins’ report, but so far hadn’t indulged in activities that would interest the police. His time had been spent wooing Paula Rockwell, the fluffy, pretty ward of a retired financier, Whitney Blake.

Charming and aristocratic, de Ronfort was considered a catch for the season’s debutantes by their parents, who didn’t know his reputation. Hankins’ report was brief. He had been shadowing de Ronfort, but had learned little more than what had already been recorded in the society columns. De Ronfort had recently become engaged to Paula Rockwell.

The Agent went at once to his own secret files. He was not satisfied with Hankins’ report. He had some data of his own on the man. The count had a long criminal record on the Continent, but the full list of his adventures outside the law was tucked away in the hidden archives of the Paris Sûreté.

The society columns told of de Ronfort’s vast country estates in France, but it was recorded in the Agent’s authoritative files that the man was penniless, except for what he had made through underworld activities.

He had been associated with dope smuggling activities in Europe. That was why “X” was interested in him. The man was clever, highly educated, with influential contacts throughout the world, and he was a thoroughgoing scoundrel. He had been suspected of purchasing large quantities of crude opium in China and India. Later the police of France had connected him with the activities of a ring engaged in smuggling in the refined products of heroin and morphine. He was said to be a purveyor of narcotics to the rich and black-sheep nobility of several of the world’s metropolises.

The Agent’s own suspicions seemed justified. The count’s conduct had been beyond criticism in America. Yet perhaps he was the power behind the ring now dispensing free drugs. The count lacked neither the ability nor the bent for such a position.

The Agent glanced at a newspaper lying on his desk. He had folded it to a photograph. This was a picture of Remy de Ronfort with Paula Rockwell. They made a dashing couple. There was an announcement of a party in honor of the engaged couple, to be given at Blake’s house the following night.

THAT interested the Agent. Temporarily checkmated in his attempt to catch Karloff, he was ready to try any new lead that had promise. A way to meet Count de Ronfort instantly suggested itself. He reached for the telephone, called the city room of the Herald.

“Miss Betty Dale,” said the Agent when the connection had been made. The girl he had called was one of the few people in the world, besides a high Washington official known as K9, who knew the nature of his strange work. She was the daughter of a police captain who had been slain by underworld bullets. Her contempt for the criminal class was as great as that of the Agent’s himself.

A clear, confident voice came over the wire. “Yes, this is Miss Dale of the Herald.”

A faint gleam appeared in the Agent’s eyes. “You’re going to the Blake party tomorrow night, are you not, Miss Dale?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s right, I’ve been detailed to cover the affair. Who are you?”

Agent “X” ignored the question.

Instead of answering he asked another of his own. “How about taking Ben Buchanan, clubman and man-about-town, as your escort?”

There was a little gasp, a pause, then a cold note crept into the voice that came over the wire. “I’m sorry, Mr. Buchanan, there must be some mistake. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of an introduction. And the first edition goes to press in half an hour. I’m very busy — if you don’t mind—”

“You haven’t answered my question!”

“No; and I don’t intend—”

“X” knew she was about to hang up on him. Betty, golden-haired, pretty as some artist’s model, had a will of her own and could take care of herself. He puckered up his lips suddenly, leaned forward and sent into the telephone’s mouthpiece a whistle that had a strange birdlike note. It was melodious, yet eerie — a sound that once heard could never be forgotten. It was the whistle of Secret Agent “X.” He listened after he had given it. The voice at the end of the wire changed again. It was low and tense now, with a quaver of emotion in it.

“You!” breathed Betty Dale. “I didn’t understand — I thought — Of course I’d like you as an escort. You know—”

Confusion made the girl stop; yet there had been warmth, pleasure, expectancy in her reply. Often before she had given the Secret Agent aid in his desperate work. Often they had shared stark dangers together and walked in the Valley of the Shadow side by side. Never knowingly had she seen the Agent undisguised. His identity was a mystery to her as to the rest of the world. Yet she had felt his power, honesty, courage and unswerving purpose. Beside him others whom she knew seemed tame, commonplace.

“Tomorrow evening,” she added quickly. “Eight-thirty at my apartment. I’ll be — waiting.”

THE next night a sleek, high-powered limousine with a chauffeur at the wheel drew up before a big apartment building. Whitney Blake’s penthouse was on the top.

In the vestibule below, a liveried doorman helped from the car a girl of decisive, glamorous beauty. She wore a shimmering evening gown of white satin. A black velvet wrap trimmed with fur fell from gleamingly white shoulders. The golden, lustrous hair that was like imprisoned sunlight was set off by a tiara of sparkling brilliants. In spite of her career as a newspaper woman there was an unspoiled freshness about Betty Dale. The strength in her firm little chin and clear eyes only heightened her appeal.

The man who escorted her was broad-shouldered. His formal black-and-white garb was tailored to bring out the lines of a muscular, tapering body. The tan on his face suggested the polo field and the hunting trail. He had the easy poise of a man who had devoted his life to graceful, luxurious, selfish existence. The poise of a clubman, and wealthy sportsman at home in the city’s most exclusive drawing rooms. Again Secret Agent “X” was playing a masterly role.

As Ben Buchanan, society gallant, he was just the sort to be welcomed into the gay, sophisticated circle of Paula Rockwell’s friends.

A private elevator whisked them to the twenty-second floor. A door clicked open, and they stepped into an anteroom of the lavish, spacious penthouse of Whitney Blake.

The party was already in noisy progress when “X” and Betty Dale were ushered into the large drawing-room. The Secret Agent looked about him. Beneath this atmosphere of luxury and gaiety, it was possible that he might find the sinister footprints of crime.

The lights were subdued. The music was lilting. In the air was a blend of many soft perfumes, from flowers that stood in tall vases, and from the gowns and bodies of the lovely, glamorously dressed women present. Couples were dancing on the front terrace. In the rear, adding a touch of unconventionality to appeal to the younger set, was a swimming pool, made gay with colored lights. Guests in bathing suits were making use of this. Short swims were being mixed with long drinks.

Many times the Secret Agent had mingled with false and boisterous gaiety of this sort. He knew how to appear to be a part of it. Yet in his heart he felt contempt for it. To one who had known the closeness of death in the pursuit of master criminals, to one who had had adventures in the shadowy underworlds of crime, the false thrills and inanities of drunken wit and alcoholic capers were insipid. Betty Dale spoke softly in his ear.

“There’s always a mixed crowd at Paula Rockwell’s. She’s an excitement seeker and social lion hunter, too.”

“I rather think she is,” said the Agent significantly.

A tall, dark man was coming in from Whitney Blake’s private bar. “X” recognized him as Count Remy de Ronfort. A girl ran in from the terrace and grabbed the count’s arm. She was a fluffy-haired, doll-faced debutante dressed in blue chiffon.

“There’s Paula now,” said Betty. “They make a picture, don’t they?”

The Agent did not answer. His eyes were upon de Ronfort. The count’s smile was ingratiating. “X” could see at a glance that the man had mastered all the social tricks and graces that pass for charm. He had a slight look of dissipation, a slight air of boredom. The small mustache that graced his upper lip was trimmed and trained elegantly. He cut a dashing figure in his evening clothes. Despite his former criminal activities, Remy de Ronfort, in appearance and manner, was as correct as some fashion plate.

Paula Rockwell saw Betty and ran forward, tugging the Count with her.

“Miss Dale,” she cooed. “I’m so glad you’re here! It’s the party of the season. Everybody’s come. All the worth-while people. You must give it a big splurge in tomorrow’s Herald. And don’t forget my fiancé—the Count. His favorite reading is the news stories about himself. And you won’t find me dodging any cameras.”

Paula Rockwell had beauty of a sort; red lips, dancing eyes. But there was an exaggerated coyness about her. Her face mirrored a shallow, empty mind. She drove twelve-cylinder cars and had a one-cylinder brain.

Studying de Ronfort, “X” saw that the man was playing a part. His treatment of Paula Rockwell was the last word in tact. He laughed at her commonplace sallies, baited her into feeling clever, and made her the center of attraction. Behind his actions was the scheming cunning of a man set to get a rich wife. But what did the Count do for money now? That interested “X.”

DE RONFORT murmured polite nothings to Betty. In a moment Paula Rockwell led him away proprietarily to meet some other newly arrived guests. She guided them and the count toward the end of the room. Agent “X” looked in the direction where the engaged couple were headed.

“The old chap in the arm-chair over there in the corner is Whitney Blake,” said Betty. “He had a paralytic stroke after the stock market crash in ’29. The sight of two million going up in smoke was too much for him; but he still has enough left to buy polo ponies and yachts, for Paula and her Count.”

For a moment the Agent’s eyes became fixed on the ex-financier, a white-haired, craggy-faced man. Then they switched from him to another man close by and he asked a sudden question.

“Isn’t that Silas Howe talking to Blake, Betty? How did he crash a party like this?”

Betty Bale stared, then nodded.

“It’s Howe all right. They were talking about him at the Herald office this afternoon. He’s already campaigning against narcotics. He wants to lead a crusade and grab a lot of publicity for himself. I suspect he’s here to make Whitney Blake contribute. He has an apartment in this building and must have crashed the party.”

The Agent’s eyes narrowed. Even here at this gay party the drug menace was making itself felt. Howe, a famous reformer and temperance man, with a rawboned body and a long nose that seemed especially made to be thrust into other people’s affairs, had seen fit to come. The Demon Rum was no longer in the limelight. Howe saw his chance to win notoriety by battling the Demon Drugs.

He began haranguing Whitney Blake now, and the Agent became instantly alert. He moved closer, to overhear the conversation and see what opinions Howe held. The reformer’s voice rose blatantly.

“I tell you, Blake, the big-stick policy must be used against the underworld. Catch all the crooks — make ’em tell what they know — and you’ll run this thing to the ground. I intend to form vigilance committees and—” Howe paused to wipe his gaunt, perspiring face “—I appeal to you as a man of wealth to aid me. I have seen the light again. I’ve come out of retirement. I intend to wipe out the drug evil in America. Contribute ten thousand dollars, Blake, and your fellow citizens will be eternally grateful.”

Blake said nothing. He chewed his cigar thoughtfully. Count de Ronfort, standing near-by with a contemptuous smile on his face, addressed Howe.

“You wouldn’t take the work of the police away from them, would you, my frien’?”

“The police?” sneered Howe. “What have they done? Nothing, nothing, except bungle. Their feet are bogged down in politics. Graft is a festering sore in their midst. A non-partisan organization must fight this thing. That’s why I’m collecting contributions from men like Blake. And I won’t take no for an answer. I know that Blake and others like him will back me up when they learn the facts. I know I can depend on them.”

Silas Howe had the fire of a fanatic and an egotist. He pictured himself as a knight in armor leading a crusade against evil. His voice rose to the hoarse note of a frenzied orator. People gathered about. Whitney Blake listened patiently for a while, then began to show irritation in the tapping of his black cane. He spoke at last, ignoring Howe’s eloquence.

“If the police have bungled,” he said, “I don’t think you and your vigilance committees will get organized enough to do even that. You’re theorists — all of you. Talk can’t win against organized crime. I’ve no desire to contribute money that will be given over in fat salaries to speech-makers. If you want to see some action, Howe, get yourself sworn in as a deputy and join the police or the narcotics bureau. Maybe when hopheads start shooting at you, you won’t be so anxious to lead the crusade.”

HOWE’S lean face turned crimson with fury. He choked down his anger, tried a wheedling tone on Blake. The ex-financier made an impatient gesture and drew out a fresh cigar which de Ronfort courteously lighted for him. Betty Dale laughed in the Secret Agent’s ear.

“Howe has met his match,” she said. “He’s a publicity hound and Blake knows it.”

Agent “X” nodded. He led Betty onto the dance floor. For five minutes they were engaged in the intricate steps of a new tango; then the alert eyes of “X,” trained to miss nothing, began to notice a queer change in the guests. His fingers tightened on his dancing partner’s arm. His voice was tense.

“Look, Betty, there’s something going on here!”

What the Secret Agent had seen was this. Members of the party, who a short time before appeared fatigued with dancing and sodden with drink, now began to show signs of feverish activity. Their eyes were brighter. Their conversation more noisy, their laughter shrill and metallic. A couple bumped into them and made a vulgar sally. Betty Dale grew tense.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“X” had a theory of his own, but he said nothing. He led Betty off the dance floor and they watched and waited. A youth, strangely restless, and circulating through the room, teetered up to them. He had a box of fancy Turkish blend cigarettes in his hand. With a brittle laugh he held this out to the Agent.

“Try one, pal ol’ pal!” he invited. “They’re good for that tired feeling. They pep you up in a jiffy. See for yourself!”

Calmly the Agent took one; but there was a smoldering light in his own eyes. He touched a match to the cigarette, inhaled deeply, while the youth nodded and smiled.

“Makes you feel good, doesn’t it, pal?” he said.

Still Agent “X” said nothing, but at the third breath a sudden sense of exhilaration filled him. He held the cigarette in his hand, said quietly:

“Where did you get these?”

The youth tittered. “A chap in the dressing room gave them to me. Said they were a sort of rejuvenator. And he hit the nail on the head. They’re just what’s needed at a dumb jamboree like this. Here!”

He held the box out for Betty Dale.

“Pardon me, lady, should have offered them to you first — but they make a fellow forget his manners.”

At a sudden warning glance from Agent “X” Betty Dale refused. The Agent had become hawk-eyed now. He did not puff the cigarette again, but he watched the youth closely. The fellow, still in his teens, was obviously a guileless sort. Pleased with the effect of the cigarettes on himself, he was sharing his find with others. He offered a smoke to Paula Rockwell next, and with a coy glance at him she accepted.

The youth struck a match gallantly and held it out for her. But before Paula could get a light Count de Ronfort stepped in suavely. His long hand reached out, drew the cigarette from her fingers. He snapped it in two, dropped it.

“Come, ma cherie,” he said. “That is Turkish and too exotic for your American taste. One of my own would be better — the kind you have been smoking all evening. One must be consistent in these things.”

Paula Rockwell made an annoyed moue with her red lips, but she accepted the Count’s cigarette.

“You are so masterful, Remy,” she said.

Agent “X” had seen this small byplay. His heartbeat had quickened. De Ronfort had known that there was something queer about the cigarettes the youth was offering. Either he had previously tried one himself, or—

“X” did not question him now. He was casually trailing the youth across the penthouse floor. Many guests accepted the smokes he offered. His supply was diminishing. He lit another himself, inhaled hungrily, and came to the side of Silas Howe.

“Have one on me, grandpa,” he said flippantly.

THE reformer’s rawboned figure stiffened. His face quivered with the righteous indignation of his profession.

“Young man,” he said, “your manners are conspicuous by their absence. Treat your elders with respect — and take those filthy weeds away. I never have and never will touch tobacco in any form.”

The youth tittered again, and gave a burlesque salute.

“Then I’ll keep the rest of these for myself,” he said. “Thanks, ol’ man, thanks.”

He started to slip the box into his pocket; but Agent “X” laid a sudden hand on his arm.

“Tell me about this chap who gave those to you!” he said. “He was in the dressing room, you say. Suppose you introduce me to him.”

The youth smiled slyly. “Want a box of ’em for yourself, eh? Well, all right. I never was one to hog a good thing. Come on!”

He led “X” to the dressing room for men, looked about and shook his head.

“The chap’s gone,” he said. “He must have buzzed out.”

“Then we’ll hunt him down,” said “X” grimly.

He escorted the youth through the various rooms, till the young man began to complain.

“What’s this — a walking tour! He’s gone, I say. Never saw him before in my life. Now he’s breezed out. Here, I’ll divvy with you. Can’t go buzzing about like this all night.”

He took out the box of cigarettes. Agent “X” snatched them from his fingers, watching the young man’s face. Indignation alone was expressed there.

“I say!” he cried. “A fine pal you turned out to be. Grab ’em all for yourself. You can’t get away with that.”

In a moment the Agent’s voice grew hard. He stepped close to the man, caught his arm and faced him.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said, “There’s dope in these cigarettes. The tobacco’s loaded with it. That’s why they ‘pep’ you up!”

“Dope!” the youth’s face expressed horror. “It’s rot! Paula Rockwell wouldn’t have dope at her party.”

“You say yourself you got them from a stranger. He isn’t here now. Look, he’s passed out dozens of those cigarettes. Half the people here have been smoking them.”

“And who are you, a dick?”

“No, a man who recognizes dope when he comes across it.”

The youth passed a shaky hand across his flushed face. “I guess you’re right at that,” he said. “I feel — funny. Like floating away, or getting into a fight, or something.”

“Go over and sit down,” said “X” firmly. “Say nothing about this to anyone, but if you see that man who passed them out again tell me.”

The youth nodded, stumbled toward a seat. Agent “X” turned back to Betty Dale. Just as he reached her side a small, self-effacing man came up. He had a paper in his hand.

“I’m Rivers,” he said, “Mr. Blake’s secretary. You’re Miss Dale of the Herald, I’m told. Miss Rockwell said to give you this, a list of tonight’s guests. And if there’s any other information you wish I — er — will be pleased to give it to you.”

Betty Dale thanked the man absently and took the list. There was a grim smile on the Agent’s face. Paula Rockwell was seeking publicity, seeking to feed her shallow-minded vanity — while the coils of the drug evil wound themselves about her guests, and the viperlike poison of dope bit into their hearts and minds.

Before the Agent could speak his thoughts to Betty there was a sudden startling racket outside, near one of the French windows leading to a side balcony.

Those in the spacious drawing room stopped tensely in their tracks. Eyes turned, necks craned. Then gasps went up.

For the French windows swung inward, banging against the wall. Glass shattered and shivered to the floor, and framed in the opening a wild-eyed, unshaven man crouched. He stood there a moment, peering at the crowd, blinking at the light. Then he stepped inside, and a woman gave a terrified shriek.

The man had the look of a hunted beast. His eyes were savage, sunken, with a curious haunted expression. The skin of his face was as tight as a death’s head. The muscles beneath it twitched painfully. He was sniffing like an animal, with nostrils dilated. His clothing was torn, dirty and threadbare, and one hand was thrust before him rigidly. In the fingers of it was clutched a long-bladed knife.

His eyes swiveled about the room. They focused with an insane glare on the group in the corner, where Paula Rockwell, de Ronfort, Silas Howe and others were grouped about Blake in his arm-chair.

The stranger’s breath hissed through clenched teeth. He uttered a shrill, hate-impelled cry and pointed. The Agent started for the man. But the stranger gave a second wild, blood-curdling shout and leaped madly forward, brandishing the wicked sliver of gleaming steel overhead.

Chapter VII

AT that instant a swift outburst came from Silas Howe. “It’s one of them!” he cried. “One of the dope ring! They hate me, fear me — and they’d kill me if they could. But I wield a stronger weapon than they. I—”

As he spoke, the lights in the big room abruptly winked out. His hysterical utterance was cut off by a wild confusion of screams and frenzied shouts. There was a rush to get clear of the maniac’s path.

Agent “X” did not join this. He stood tensely, trying to pierce the gloom. Then a streak of flame lanced the darkness suddenly. The Agent heard no gunshot, yet an agonized cry followed the streak of burning powder. Something thudded to the floor and thrashed about.

Panic gripped the guests of Whitney Blake. They began stumbling over furniture, crashing against the walls. Some one hurled a chair through the French doors leading to the front terrace. There was a clatter, as a tray of liquor glasses was upset. Persons were colliding with one another in a mad endeavor to reach safety.

Then, as mysteriously as they’d gone off, the lights came on again.

Agent “X” surveyed the room. Sprawled on the floor was the wild eyed man, his tousled head encircled by a crimson pool. His knife had dropped from still fingers.

“X” leaned over the body. He didn’t disturb it, but he was able to see instantly that the man was dead. A bullet had caught the stranger in the head.

Excitement gave way to a nervous let-down in the room. A woman laughed hysterically. Another fainted in the arms of her escort. “X” glanced at Silas Howe. The man was trembling with excitement. Beside him, debonair and unruffled, stood Remy de Ronfort, trying to comfort Paula Rockwell, who was crying noisily. Old Whitney Blake still held his cigar, but his face showed lines of strain, like wrinkles on parchment.

De Ronfort’s suave voice sounded in the room, “Most excellent work, M’sieu Howe,” he said. “You saved us from a crazy man. He would have carved us up assuredly. You showed preat presence of mind in administering the coup de grace, as it were — in shooting him.”

Silas Howe looked bewildered, “But — but—” he stuttered, “I didn’t shoot him. I’d have killed him willing — if I could have. He was a homicidal, drug-crazed man — and you saw yourselves that he intended to murder me. But I’m not much of a shot and wouldn’t have taken the chance — especially in the dark. You’re mistaken, Count de Ronfort, it was someone else who slew the vermin.”

De Ronfort laughed and shrugged. “You are a modest man, M’sieu Howe. I myself saw you reaching for a gun just before the lights went out. You should take full credit to yourself instead of giving it to another.”

Howe started to protest when Whitney Blake’s voice sounded.

“Whatever the circumstance we must call the police,” he said. “And I must ask that none of you leave this apartment until a check-up has been made.”

He sent his man, Rivers, to call headquarters. And as this was being done Agent “X” moved through the crowd, brushing against men and deftly touching them to see who was carrying concealed weapons. But the one man who seemed to have a gun was Silas Howe, and yet the reformer had vehemently denied the killing. The agent’s eyes were bright. Betty Dale sensed that there was strange drama in the air.

“Why doesn’t Howe admit the killing?” she whispered. “He could claim self-defense. He has nothing to fear.”

The Agent shook his head. “Perhaps he’s telling the truth. We’ll find out soon.”

IN a few minutes the police arrived. There were several officers in uniform, the medical examiner, and three men in plainclothes. The sight of one of them made Betty Dale exclaim under her breath and clutch the Agent’s arm nervously. This was a pale, sharp-featured man who surveyed the room with a coldly impersonal gaze from piercing gray eyes that gleamed beneath jutting black eyebrows.

One of his men addressed him as “inspector,” and with the medical examiner at his side he looked at the dead man for a moment, then went over and glanced at the French windows.

De Ronfort, poised and talkative, took it upon himself to describe the stranger’s entry and the killing. Inspector Burks listened, making notes in a small black book, then spoke in the flat, hard tone that was habitual with him.

“Nobody admits killing him, eh? That doesn’t look so hot. There must be more to it than self-defense. If a man broke into my house and got fresh with a knife I wouldn’t hesitate to drop him. But if nobody’s going to own up to this job, we’ll have to find out who did it and why he isn’t telling.”

Count de Ronfort laughed. “We have a very modest man with us,” he said. “M’sieu Howe here is the hero of the occasion. But he is too retiring to claim the credit. I think, however, if you will question him—”

The Count ceased speaking. Inspector Burks had already turned on the reformer and fixed him with an eagle eye.

“Well, what about it, Howe? You’ve been holding the lid down on this city for a good many years. But I didn’t know you’d taken over the job of executioner, too. Tell us how you killed this guy.”

Howe shook his head, and his eyes snapped. “I told the Count that I did not do the shooting. He chooses to call me a liar. I have got a gun, but—”

“Ah!” said Burks. He held out his hand. With a sour scowl, Silas Howe fished in his pocket and drew out a small revolver. He gave this to the inspector.

Burks broke open the gun, examined the shells, then squinted through the barrel. Still unsatisfied, he pulled out his handkerchief, thrust it into the gun and twisted it around. Then he examined the cambric intently and shook his head.

“Clean as a whistle. No smoke here, and all the cartridges new! This gun hasn’t been fired tonight. You didn’t kill this man, that’s plain, but you’ll have to take a trip to headquarters anyway, and likely pay a fine. There’s a law in this state that says—”

Silas Howe interrupted angrily. “I have a permit,” he said. “You can’t annoy me like that, inspector, though I know you’d like to — after the expose of police graft I made some years ago; but, see here—” he produced a piece of paper, a pistol permit, and waved it triumphantly in the inspector’s face. “In the reform work I do my life is in constant peril. What happened here tonight shows that this is true. That man came to murder me, and I want to offer thanks to whoever shot him.”

Burks grunted in irritation. His pale face looked still paler. He was in a mood to make trouble for some one. He turned on his assistants.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this. We’ll search every man and woman in this room. This fellow may have been a dopy, but I want to know who killed him. Porter, and you, Kendal, round the folks up. Hunt for a gun, and don’t stop till you find it!”

The two detectives snapped into action instantly. Their skilled, experienced fingers went through men’s pocket and women’s bags and compacts. They were systematic about it, marshaling those who had been searched to one side of the room, keeping the others in a corner. Even Paula Rockwell and Whitney Blake himself were not excluded.

The Count de Ronfort submitted to a search smilingly. Then it was “X’s” turn, and, as the two detectives approached him, all color drained from Betty Dale’s face. Fear made shadows in her eyes. She had hoped the Agent would make a break before this. Yet “X” could not, for suspicion would have reflected back on Betty, since he was her escort.

Now it was too late — and Betty knew that Agent “X” carried various devices to assist him in his strange battle with crime. She had seen them many times, and the thought that they would be found by the police made her blood run cold.

Their presence on the person of Ben Buchanan, supposed clubman, would reveal him instantly as Secret Agent “X,” a man hunted and hounded by Burks as a criminal, and a man wanted by the police of a dozen cities for questioning in connection with crime cases that were still a mystery to them.

Betty Dale held her breath. Deep in her heart she loved this strange, mysterious man whose real face she had never seen. She had hidden her love carefully, pledging herself that it must never interfere with the career he had chosen. But when death and danger threatened him, she found it hard to suppress her emotion.

Inspector Burks stood now with his eagle eyes fastened on the Agent and a gun in an armpit holster close to his hand. And, as the two plain-clothes men reached for the man they knew as Ben Buchanan, it seemed to Betty Dale that she was going to faint.

Chapter VIII

HOLDING her body rigid Betty Dale watched as the detectives searched him. Seconds seemed to drag as their hands went systematically through his clothing. But all they found was a key, a handkerchief and a wallet containing the identification card of Ben Buchanan. There were mocking glints in the Secret Agent’s eyes.

Betty Dale gave a little sigh of relief; but she was puzzled. “X” always carried strange instruments on his person. Now he didn’t even have his specially made chromium tools. Yet a short while before Betty herself had seen a cigarette lighter in his hand, the one with the tiny lever that released a jet of anesthetizing vapor.

When the detectives had passed on to another of Blake’s guests, Betty glanced at the Agent questioningly. He drew her aside and whispered a quick explanation.

“That bookcase over against the wall,” he said. “I’m glad the inspector isn’t interested in Greek tragedy. I pulled out a volume of Aeschylus when he wasn’t looking and hid certain things behind it.”

“X” retrieved his mysterious equipment as dexterously as he had hidden it. Then he turned his attention to the work of the police. Blue-coats had been dispatched to search the apartment. They had discovered the means used by the intruder to reach the penthouse.

A rope had been thrown up over the balcony railing from a set-back ledge on the floor below. This floor held several empty apartments. The man could easily have hidden in one of them, or in a deserted corridor until he was ready to break into Blake’s penthouse.

There was no clue, however, as to who had turned off the lights. Apparently no one in the drawing room was responsible. Several switches showed along the walls. Inspector Burks tested them. Each controlled a row of lights, but no master switch could be found in the room. Agent “X” was lynx-eyed with alertness, listening, watching.

The sudden entry and shooting of the wild-appearing stranger had flung a pall of horror over the party. And the mystery of his death was deepening each second.

The medical examiner’s statement that the man had been a drug addict started Silas Howe on another harangue.

“That’s right,” he cried vehemently. “He was a hophead, and he came here to murder me. My life isn’t safe anywhere. But danger won’t stop me. My course is set. I’ll smash all barriers in my fight against the drug evil. You see now, Blake, what great need there is for funds! As a close neighbor of yours I must ask again that you contribute.”

Whitney Blake merely grunted. He ignored the reformer’s final plea. This dampened Howe’s enthusiasm for a while. But soon he singled out a pretty, wealthy debutante who had been to the bar once too often. He began picturing to her the horrors of the drug, stirring her alcoholic imagination, as an aid in soliciting funds.

Agent “X” nudged Betty, and for a time his eyes intently studied the gaunt, leathery face of the reformer.

Inspector Burks began the weary routine of questioning all those in the room at the time of the shooting. He got nowhere. A dozen people had been standing in front of the maniac when he burst through the French windows. Any one of them could have seen his silhouette against the outside glow when the lights went off. Any one with a gun could have shot him. But Silas Howe’s was the only weapon to be found, and that hadn’t been fired. Unseen, horrible death, like the spirit of evil itself, seemed to be present at the party. Men and women shuddered.

“X” was in accord with Burks’s theory that the shooting had been done by some one now in the room. But who was it? He had not forgotten that his purpose in coming had been to investigate Count Remy de Ronfort. Yet the Frenchman seemed the most unperturbed person there. And not even a pocket-knife had been found in his possession.

After the names and addresses of the guests had been taken by the police, Burks announced that they were free to go. But he warned them that any and all were subject to call as witnesses.

“And I won’t hesitate to subpoena you, either,” he added threateningly.

The inspector was in a savage mood. Some one had turned a common, self-defense shooting into a complicated affair, with possibly a hidden motive. Burks grew more ugly when his men finished searching the body and reported that there were no visible means of identification.

Agent “X,” pointing to the man’s shoes, spoke with a touch of irony, “Those are custom-made, inspector. They were good shoes once, though they are in bad shape now. Acid or something has spotted and rotted them. Even at that they provide a lead for any detective who knows his job.”

Inspector Burks grew purple with irritation. He choked, made a snarling noise in his throat and glared at the Agent.

“A brilliant observation, Mr. Buchanan, but it happens that I am conducting this investigation. I’ll thank you not to interfere.” His voice was shaky with rage. “X” had put him in an embarrassing position before the crowd, made the police appear inadequate and hurt his professional pride. Burks alibied himself quickly.

“I was coming to those shoes as a matter of routine,” he said icily. “The police I can assure you don’t need the advice of meddling bystanders to conduct a murder investigation.”

Yet in spite of his harsh response “X” knew that Burks would work on the tip. The Agent himself took special note of the shoes. The heels had been built up on the inner part, as is done to help and correct feet suffering from fallen arches. Stamped in German script on the insteps were the words “hand made.”

BLAKE’S frightened guests began to straggle out, glad to escape from his place of mystery and death, Agent “X” and Betty left also. “X” had learned all he could from watching. There were certain leads now that must be carefully followed.

He escorted Betty to her door, silent for the most part. She raised her blue eyes to his just before he left her and asked him to promise that he would call her if there was any way in which she could help him.

“I will, Betty,” he said, “but—”

He left the sentence unfinished. Before his mind rose a horrible picture of the man who had died in Karloff’s stronghold. The man who had fallen to the floor in the agonies of the green death. The hideous shadow of the narcotic ring must not be allowed to menace golden-haired Betty Dale. He took her hand, pressed it for a moment, and turned.

“I’ll be seeing you soon,” he said gaily. The smiling light in his eyes gave no indication of the inhuman dangers he would shortly face.

In one of his hideouts he changed his disguise to that of A. J. Martin, then went to the laboratory of a toxicologist and brilliant research chemist named Fenwick. Posing as Martin, “X” had made use of this man’s technical skill and complex equipment before.

Already in the present case he had made arrangements to employ Fenwick in probing the sinister secrets of the dope ring. Every scrap of evidence so far in the way of confiscated drugs had been turned over to the man.

Small, birdlike, with an almost inexhaustible energy that enabled him to work night and day, Fenwick greeted the Agent.

“How are you, Mr. Martin?”

The chemist was wearing a stained white coat. There was a dripping hydrometer in his hand. A metal pot was boiling on a small gas stove and fumes filled the close air of the laboratory. Agent “X” smiled, but wasted no time in pleasantries, He handed Fenwick the Turkish cigarettes he had obtained at Blake’s party.

“These contain a drug,” he said quietly. “I doubt if an analysis of them will be easy. There’s hardly enough of the stuff to isolate and work on. But do your best, Fenwick.”

There was an undertone of tenseness in the Agent’s low-spoken words, and Fenwick nodded at once.

“I’ll get busy immediately. There’ll be a report for you tomorrow, Mr. Martin.”

“Good!” said the Agent.

He left Fenwick’s place and hurried away. The chemist was only a small cog in the amazing crime-combating machine that Agent “X” had secretly built up. There were many other cogs.

He went to the office which he maintained as the newspaper man, Martin, and picked up the phone. Once again he called Jim Hobart, but this time he asked Jim to come and see him.

The long, lanky operative arrived quickly, removing his hat and exposing his crest of flaming red hair. He had shared many dangers with “X” and had a wholesome respect for his employer, the man he thought of as A. J. Martin, representative of a great newspaper syndicate.

“What can I do for you, boss?” he said.

Agent “X” sprawled a leg over his desk, hung a cigarette on his lower lip, and assumed the manner and attitude of a hard-boiled newspaper man. Through clouds of smoke he squinted up at Hobart.

“Have you got a man on your staff, Jim, who can speak French, wear nifty clothes and mingle with the best society?”

Hobart immediately nodded. “Yes, boss. Walter Milburn’s the fellow. His mother was French and used to whale him if he didn’t talk frog. She sent him to dancing school and after he grew up he got to be the slickest bond salesman going, until folks stopped buying bonds. He can wear clothes like a fashion plate and he’s got a Park Avenue manner. On top of that he’s turned out to be a good dick.”

“Good,” said “X” quietly.

He drew a photograph of Count Remy de Ronfort from his desk, along with a brief record of the Count’s career.

“I want this man kept under surveillance day and night,” he said. “Get Milburn and whoever helps him to give you a daily report on him. Spare no expense. Use your own methods. Tip bellboys, bartenders, waiters, anybody, if necessary — but don’t lose sight of him. If you hear of his doing anything funny get in touch with me at once.”

HOBART looked at the picture and whistled, “That’s the guy who’s engaged to old Whitney Blake’s ward, Paula Rockwell! They had their mugs in the papers the other day.”

“Exactly!”

“And he’s an ex-crook and dope runner, you say?”

“Yes! He’s been shadowed before, too. See that Milburn does his stuff right.”

“Count on me, boss. If Milly pulls any boners I’ll clout him so hard he’ll think he’s a skyrocket.”

“Then it may be too late,” said “X” quietly.

When Jim Hobart had gone, Agent “X” left the office of Martin and went to a phone booth in a drug store many blocks away. Unknown to Hobart, or anyone else, there was still another detective organization under the Agent’s control. This was a staff built up of seasoned and reliable operatives, interviewed individually by himself under different disguises and recruited from all parts of the country. They were nominally in charge of a man named Bates.

Bates had secret headquarters, established by Agent “X.” Day and night either Bates or one of his assistants was beside the phone, ready to respond to “X,” the man they knew only as “chief.” The Agent had even equipped Bates’s headquarters with a special, short-wave broadcasting radio. From this he could pick up important messages in code on the radio of his own car.

He called Bates now, and the man’s voice came to him instantly.

“Yes, chief, is that you?”

“Right.”

There was a pause at Bates’s end of the wire. He was waiting for the chief to speak. “X” did so at once, using the particular tone he always employed when communicating with Bates’s headquarters.

“I want you to send an experienced operative to the morgue,” he said. “Tell him to look for the unidentified man who was killed at Whitney Blake’s party tonight. He can claim he’s hunting for a friend who is missing. His best lead is to trace down this man’s shoes. They are custom-made and of a certain type. The maker shouldn’t be hard to locate. Hurry on this job. I want you to beat the police.”

“O.K., chief.”

“And, Bates, send every man you’ve got on the job if necessary. Look up every place that makes custom-made shoes in the city. Give them the dead man’s description. Find out who he is.”

“Yes, chief.”

Agent “X” hung up. He was throwing both of his highly trained organizations into this battle against the drug menace. Working separately; unknown to each other, both had been enlisted in the same cause. Both were responsible to Agent “X.” The expense of his campaign might be great; but “X” stood ready to spend a fortune if he could stamp out the drug blight. The huge account held for him under the name of Elisha Pond in the First National Bank would take care of that.

SIX hours passed, and the Agent received the first of his reports. It was from Fenwick, the chemist, and its contents were disappointing. Hard as he had tried, Fenwick had been unable to make a complete analysis. The drug in the impregnated tobacco of the cigarettes had become blended with nicotine in such a way that its exact chemical nature eluded him. He promised sure results if “Mr, Martin” could obtain a purer specimen of the drug.

“X” called up the headquarters of Bates’s and received a message that helped to offset Fenwick’s failure.

“We’ve traced down those shoes, chief,” Bates said. “They were made by a German over on the west side of town for this chap who was killed. His name’s Alfred Twyning. He used to work in the research department of the Paragon Chemical Company. Looks like he hit the booze, got fired and got to be a bum.”

“Good work, Bates,” said Agent “X” quietly. What the man had told him checked up with those acid stains he had noticed on Twyning’s shoes. But mystery still shrouded Twyning’s death. Who had shot him, and what for? “X” snapped quick orders into the phone.

“Get all the information you can on Twyning’s connection with Paragon Chemicals. I’ve heard of the place. It’s out in the suburbs. They make tooth-paste, face creams, and stuff like that. Try to find out where he lived. If he left any belongings, search them, any way you can. Get all possible data.”

“Yes, chief.”

“X” spent the day making the rounds of underworld haunts in the disguise of a sportily dressed crook. It was a stock make-up that he had often employed. It aroused no suspicion. He hoped to run across one of Karloff’s men, or hear something that would lead him back to the present hideout of the man who killed with the horrible green death. But if any criminals knew about the dope ring they dared not speak. Terror seemed to have taken the underworld into its icy grip.

Back in the office of A. J. Martin that evening Agent “X” received a message that sent him into instant action. It was Jim Hobart calling. The courageous redhead whom “X” had placed in charge of an agency was excited.

“I’m in a cigar store across from Clarendon Field right now, boss,” he said. “I just followed the frog out here in a taxi. This de Ronfort guy has got a plane that he keeps under the name of Pierre LaFarge. Tie that if you can! I heard him talking to some mechanics. They’re getting the plane ready now. I don’t know where he’s going; but he’s traveling alone. What’s next on the program?”

“Stick close,” said “X” grimly. “If you can, slip de Ronfort’s mechanics some money to stall on the job. Tell them it’s a practical joke and that you want to make him late at a wedding. Something like that. Then charter another plane and stand by. Follow de Ronfort if he takes off before I get there.”

The Agent clicked up the receiver. He grabbed his hat and coat and ran swiftly from the office. At the curb he jumped into one of his own cars, a smart, fast roadster with a short wave radio concealed under the dash panel. He was in a desperate hurry, impatient to get through the heavy traffic, and twice he drew reprimands from cops. A motor cycle officer stopped him, but his press card saved him from a summons.

In the suburbs he struck smooth concrete where he could step on the accelerator. He made the roadster surge forward till the engine was roaring as though a giant were imprisoned beneath the hood. Soon he was in a thinly populated section where the road was flanked by rolling meadows. Another mile, and he drove up before a big gate in a high wire fence.

Parking his car at the curb, he hurried through the gate and onto a broad field where he headed toward a bulky line of great, sprawling buildings. These were airplane hangars. “X’s” sharp eyes recognized a mechanic lolling against a wall and he shouted to him.

“Get the bus out, quick, Joe! The biplane!”

THE mechanic flung away his cigarette and snapped into life.

“Right away, Mr. Martin,” he said. “The open one’s in tiptop shape. I went over her this morning. What’s happening this time, Mr. Martin? You newspaper guys sure lead a wild life.”

The Agent motioned the talkative mechanic to show some real speed. He ran to the hangar. By the time the plane had been pushed out, with a dolly under the tail, “X” was ready, garbed in a suede jacket, with goggles and helmet adjusted.

At this field he kept two planes. This small, single-seater biplane he called the Blue Comet. She was a beautiful craft, built with staggered wings, low camber and plenty of sweep-back. Except for her flashy coloring she might have been an Army pursuit job. During the war the Agent had done considerable flying. He had an expert’s knowledge of all types of ships, and he’d selected the Blue Comet for its speed, climb and maneuverability after exhaustive tests of many other planes.

The Agent climbed into the cockpit as his mechanic wound up the inertia starter. He raised his hand, switched on the ignition, and the engine broke into a smooth-voiced, throaty rumble. For a minute or two “X” leaned back against the crash pad and warmed the motor. Then he signaled the mechanic to pull the chocks. He shoved the throttle forward; the radial broke into a roar and the plane leaped down the macadamized surface of the field, swiftly gathering momentum. It rose into the air as gracefully as a soaring gull, and hurtled up into the night-darkened sky

A short climb and “X” circled around, taking a northern course. The city spread out under his wings. Streets, parks, car tracks, with rows of twinkling electric lights like miniature strings of diamonds. Soon his trained eyes singled out the brilliant air beacon of Clarendon Field. He pushed the stick forward, kicked left rudder to sideslip and kill speed, and made an unobtrusive landing.

Jim Hobart was on the look-out for him. Jim knew the Blue Comet. Even before “X” had taxied to a stop, the operative was running beside the plane. Quick and efficient, schooled to emergencies, Hobart didn’t lose time on unnecessary preliminaries.

“The guy’s just taking off,” he said hoarsely. “Over to your left, boss! I stalled his men for a while, but the Count complained to the field management about the delay. The operations guy came out, raised hell with the mechanics, and they sure hustled after that.”

The Agent shot a quick glance to the left. “An amphibian!” he said.

Two field attendants were running toward the Blue Comet. “X” spoke quickly.

“Steer those birds away, Jim! I don’t want any one nosing around. Tell them I stopped by to hand over some important papers to you. Quick!”

De Ronfort’s amphibian was already in the air. Off the ground again, “X” immediately sought altitude until he was several hundred feet above the Frenchman’s plane. The amphibian was traveling due east. To throw off suspicion that he was following, “X” headed south. Presently he banked the Blue Comet and brought the craft up on a parallel course with de Ronfort.

There were other planes in the air, but the Agent had no difficulty keeping track of the amphibian. The Count was heading out to sea.

Below twinkled the lights of the shoreline. In the channel a ship was ocean-bound, leaving a banner of heavy smoke trailing from the stack. In shore were the dark hulks of vessels resting at anchor. About five miles out at sea, “X” saw a blinker flashing on the bridge of a small steamer. Only a few lights gleamed from the portholes. The vessel obviously wasn’t a passenger ship. “X” wasn’t close enough to make out the boat clearly, but through the binoculars it appeared to be a tramp steamer.

Suddenly de Ronfort’s plane swooped down, glided along the water and stopped very close to the ship’s side. The night was clear. Cutting off his motor and gliding lower, “X” saw dots that were men at the ship’s rail. Something attached to a line was thrown overboard. Peering through powerful night glasses, “X” watched de Ronfort haul an oblong shape aboard the amphibian.

“X’s” eyes gleamed. This must surely be contraband of some sort. Probably it was dope. The Agent headed south once more. He banked again, and took a northwesterly course toward Clarendon Field, ahead of the Count. His mouth was grim. He meant to find out without delay, what Remy de Ronfort was smuggling into the United States.

Chapter IX

CONFIDENT that the Count was returning to Clarendon Field, “X” shoved the throttle forward and sent the Blue Comet ahead at full speed. He landed, turned his plane over to a mechanic and walked toward the black shadow of a hangar.

Five minutes later the Frenchman’s amphibian was taxiing to a stop. De Ronfort stepped out of the plane, tugging a heavy suitcase.

He looked around sharply. While he removed his flying garb, he kept the suitcase between his legs. It was plain that de Ronfort was worried. He snapped at attendants and seemed impatient to be off. As soon as he was free to go, he half ran to the street.

Once more he stopped and swiveled his eyes in all directions. “X” had remained in the shadows. He saw de Ronfort light a cigarette, take a few nervous puffs, and throw it down, only to light another. A taxi driver hailed him, but the Count waved him on.

“X” realized the reason when the Frenchman hired the next cab. This one belonged to a company that had twelve thousand machines, and the drivers were not likely to be federal men or rival mobsters, whereas the first car had been a tumble-down machine with a hard-faced man at the wheel.

As soon as the Count’s taxi started, “X” ran to another, an independent cab, and flashed a fifty-dollar bill before the man’s eyes, along with his press card.

“Climb in the back seat, old-timer,” he said. “Let me take the wheel. Duck down so you won’t be seen — and give me your cap.”

The cabman sat up with a jerk. “Say, what’s the gag? You’re flashing stuff that talks big in my language, but I ain’t anxious to spend ten years in Sing Sing for takin’ it. How do I know it ain’t bogus? Was it printed in a cellar over in Jersey?”

The Agent quickly returned the large bill to his wallet. The driver’s face clouded with disappointment. But “X” drew out five worn and wrinkled tens.

“Here,” he said, thrusting the currency in the cabman’s hand. “These bills smell with age. I’m on the track of something big and you’re going to ruin a scoop if you don’t come to life.”

That did the trick. The driver got in back and crouched down on the floor. Wearing the red-and-black cap, the Agent slid into the front seat and started the taxi. A deft manipulation of plastic material gave him a twisted, dented nose. Over his perfect upper teeth he fitted a false set that protruded, bulged his lip, and changed the entire appearance of his face. The other machine was a quarter mile away by now, but the road was a through thoroughfare, and soon “X” was close behind.

He saw de Ronfort staring back anxiously. The Count’s expression changed to one of relief when he saw that the taxi seemed to be occupied only by a dumb-looking driver. When they got to the heavy traffic, “X” stayed about a half block behind, though he was careful that the Count’s car was on the other side of the cross street when the lights turned red.

The Count’s car drove to the heart of the city, and rolled up a side street on the fringe of the theatrical district. The taxi stopped in front of the Perseus Arms, a swanky hotel that catered to celebrities and people of wealth.

The Agent stopped the taxi, hastily remodeled his nose, removed the false teeth, and tossed the cab driver his cap.

“You’ve earned your money,” he said. “But keep mum.”

The Agent went across the street and into the Perseus Arms. There was no danger of detection, for the man that de Ronfort had seen driving the taxi had none of the smooth, genteel appearance of A. J. Martin.

The Count stood at the main desk, writing. “X” dropped into an easy chair and watched. A few minutes later a Western Union messenger entered the lobby and went to the desk. The clerk spoke to de Ronfort, and the Frenchman handed the boy a note and a bill. “X” sauntered from the lobby. When the messenger reached the sidewalk, the Agent followed him.

Around a corner, he stopped the lad and flashed a detective badge.

“I’ll take charge of that slip, son,” he said in a kindly voice. “Just move along and keep quiet. If your boss calls you down tell him that a federal man gave you orders to say nothing. Understand?”

The boy nodded, but his eyes grew big and he looked scared. “X” handed him a dollar bill, then a slip of paper with the address of the Hobart Agency on it.

“Nothing to be frightened about,” he said. “If you should lose your job because of this go to the address on that paper and the man there will give you a better one.”

When the messenger had saluted and dodged into the crowd “X” looked at the note. It was addressed to one Felix Landru, a man “X” had heard stories of, a sly, slippery underworld character, formerly a Paris Apache, and as sleek and suave as de Ronfort himself. “X” read the note.

“The Peacock has a big supply of rabbit food to dispose of at a commission,” it said. “The Fox is asked to get in touch with him at the Perseus Arms as soon as possible.”

There was nothing incriminating in that note. The “Peacock” undoubtedly was de Ronfort, while the “Fox” likely was the wily Landru. And was the “rabbit food” the contraband that the Count had smuggled into the country in that suitcase? Dope?

The address on the note was the St. Etienne Inn, a cheap hotel on Bordeaux Street in the French section of the city.

THE Agent immediately took a taxi to the St. Etienne. He obtained Landru’s room number from the clerk, and rode the squeaky, slow-moving elevator to the fourth floor. A radio was playing in the crook’s room, but it was turned off the instant “X” knocked.

There was almost a minute of silence. The Agent grew tense with uncertainty. He knocked again. This time he spoke Landru’s name softly.

The door opened a crack. The room was dark. But the shaft of dim light from the corridor glinted on an automatic in Landru’s hand. The crook peered furtively through the narrow opening.

“Landru, quick, let me in!” In a hoarse whisper, “X” addressed the man in perfectly accented French. “The Peacock sent me. He’s got a new consignment of rabbit food, but the federals are hounding him. We’ve got to work fast!”

“Mon Dieu, you should not have come here then!” exclaimed Landru, letting the Agent into his room. “Why did he not send the note? Has the man lost all caution, now that he is annexing himself to wealth and influence? Or are you—”

Landru did not finish the sentence. Suspicion leaped into his eyes as he stared at the Agent.

Slam! A slugging fist smashed Landru on the point of the jaw. “X” had thrown all his strength and weight into the terrific, jolting impact. The crook dropped to the floor as though his legs had been cut out from under him.

The Agent switched on the lights. He had wanted to sound Landru out, to get information if he could. But the man was obviously suspicious, and “X” had suddenly thought of a better scheme, one more suited to get to the bottom of Remy de Ronfort’s activities.

For a while he studied Landru’s sharp-featured face. The crook was a dandy, sallow and dissipated, but well groomed. He wore a Vandyke, and the ends of his mustache were waxed and carefully rolled until they were like spikes.

“X” ripped off the disguise of A. J. Martin. With his vials and tubes on the dresser, he went to work shaping features that were identical to Landru’s.

In a few minutes he looked like a smooth, dissolute Frenchman out for a night of absinthe and carousal. He put on Landru’s clothes, but wore his own shoes with their secret compartments in the soles and heels that held some of his compact, ingenious equipment.

He entered a telephone booth in the lobby and called up de Ronfort at the Perseus Arms.

“The Fox speaking,” said “X.” “I have your note, but if you wish to do business with me, you must act quickly. Bring the merchandise to Eddie’s place on Nyack Street — you should know where it is — and come prepared to quote a low price. This town is like a powder keg with sparks flying around it. If I should be caught distributing rabbit food, you know that I will be getting my mail at a bastille for years to come. Unless you are reasonable this time, we will not do business.”

“I’ll be there in a half hour,” answered the Count. “I have a choice consignment, and the prices will astound you. At Eddie’s Place on Nyack Street.”

The Count hung up. “X” nodded to the clerk as he started from the St. Etienne Inn, and the man addressed him as Landru. The Agent hailed another cab, and went to Eddie’s Place, an old deserted underworld resort in a disreputable section of the city, formerly the hangout of many dope smugglers. He had only a few minutes to wait.

A CAB stopped near the old building. The Count got out. He carried the same suitcase that he had taken from the amphibian. His hat was pulled low, his face half buried in the upturned collar of his topcoat, “X” motioned to him, and opened the door of the old dive, using one of his skeleton keys. The Count peered at him suspiciously. Then he grunted relief when he recognized the face of Landru.

“You have picked an outlandish spot, Felix,” he said irritably. “I hope you have brought a good supply of money. I want to get this transaction over in a hurry. You seem to think you are the only person who takes risks. I am playing for big stakes. If the law catches me, it is my finish. But you, Felix, you have not much to lose.”

“Come on!” growled the Agent, speaking French. “We are losing valuable time with your insulting nonsense.”

He lighted the way with a pocket flash. He led de Ronfort down a long, narrow corridor. The place had been closed a couple of years previously for violation of the National Prohibition Act. It was an ill-smelling, rat-infested building that had been the scene of several murders.

In a back room, “X” laid his flashlight on the table, and told de Ronfort to exhibit his goods. The pocket flash was the only means of illumination.

“A fine place!” grumbled the Count. “You might have shown one of my station a little consideration, Felix. You could have rented a room at some lodging house.”

“Yes,” retorted the Agent, “and have a dozen people see you go in and out! With every newspaper blaring about the drug menace, with federal men and the narcotic squad working night and day, I want privacy when I transact this sort of business.”

Remy de Ronfort put the suitcase on the table and opened it. “X” flashed the light on the contents. The case was half-filled. There were scores of small, hermetically sealed packages.

“Each one contains an ounce,” said the Count. “Three hundred and sixty of them. Made from the finest China opium, processed in England, and smuggled into America by a French nobleman.”

The Agent had to stifle his excitement. Three hundred and sixty ounces would retail at twenty-three thousand and forty dollars! And the profit to the Count would be enough to keep an ordinary middle-class family for three years or more.

“Not too much, if your price is right,” said “X” casually. “I will not buy any cocaine and very little morphine. How much heroin?”

The Count’s face darkened. “Nine pounds of morphine and twenty-one of heroin. That is only half of what I brought from the ship. I am in need of ready money. That’s why I deal with a cutthroat like you. The rest I shall keep until I get my price.”

THE Agent uttered a grumbling protest. “Nine pounds of morphine! Nom de Dieu! Man, you know the call is for heroin! Ninety per cent of the users want it. Anybody who takes morphine is willing to switch to the other. Yet you bring in nine pounds of morphine! Most unsatisfactory, de Ronfort. Nine pounds of morphine! A man of your experience, an aristocrat, bungling like that!”

De Ronfort immediately became the placating, cajoling supersalesman.

“You know I have to take what I can get,” he said. “You know how I bring the stuff in. Out there where a coast-guard cutter is liable to bear down on me, I must work for speed. As soon as the stuff is lowered over the side and I have it in the cockpit, I take off again.”

The Count was an earnest, gesticulating tradesman now, just one voluble, excitable French merchant talking to another.

“You can sell the morphine for heroin,” suggested de Ronfort “Half of your customers will need the stuff so badly, they won’t notice what they are taking, as long as it has an effect.”

“All right, all right,” said the Agent irritably. “You have brought in thirty pounds, apothecaries weight. What is your price?”

“Eighteen thousand dollars!”

The Agent began talking to the wall, as though it were a person. “I tell him to come with his lowest price, and right off, he quotes me eighteen thousand dollars. I’m lucky if I get that retail, and I take all the risk of going to the Bastille for some of the best years of my life. It’s an outrage. It insults my intelligence.”

“You know that is not true!” spoke de Ronfort heatedly. “You would make five thousand more, even if you sold the pure stuff, and you adulterate it fifty per cent.”

“My price is fifteen thousand,” said the Agent “If the sum does not please you, lock up your suitcase and we will leave. I’m doing you a favor anyway, offering to relieve you of that load, when the police are on the warpath. You could not dispose—”

The Agent stopped suddenly. Footsteps sounded in the corridor. The Count went white. He grabbed “X’s” arm.

“What’s that?” he said in a low, tense voice. “Is — is it the police? I can’t afford—Nom de Dieu—it is worth my life to be caught here! I’m going to marry millions — millions!”

The Count swung “X” around. “Is this a frame-up?” he demanded, his eyes blazing. “Are those some of your twitching, sniffing mob? Extortion, is that it? Going to hold me, and try to extract a ransom from my future father-in-law! No wonder you got me into this forsaken place! But it won’t work, Felix. I should have known better than to deal with an Apache. You belong in the sewers of Paris! I’m going to blow your head off, Felix. And I’ll make quick work of your band of hopheads.”

De Ronfort whipped out an ugly, snub-nosed automatic.

“The police will never connect me, an aristocrat, with the common Felix Landru!” he cried. “You’re through, you sewer rat!”

The Agent poked his head out of the door. Several men were rushing down the corridor. A flashlight shone on “X.” He drew back quickly, bolted the door. There was a yell. Then a harsh command for him to surrender.

“Don’t play games with us, Landru!” some one shouted. “We’ve got you surrounded. You haven’t a chance. You can’t beat the federal government! Give up, and you’ll cheat the undertaker!”

The Agent turned to de Ronfort.

“You see, my friend, I wasn’t trying the double-cross. Now you must trust me. Hurry!”

GRABBING the suitcase of dope, “X” shoved the Count toward a rear window. De Ronfort scrambled through, with the agility of a second-story man. Aristocratic dignity was dispensed with for expediency’s sake. “X” leaped through the window. They were in a long, dark alley.

De Ronfort clutched at his shoulder. The man was desperate, devoid of poise, trembling.

“It’s my ruin!” he exclaimed. “It means millions lost for me. The place is surrounded. Isn’t there some way?”

“X” thought a moment. He didn’t want de Ronfort caught. For a man could direct the activities of dope smugglers and peddlers from a prison cell with almost the same ease as he could outside, and without fear of further punishment. With de Ronfort behind bars, “X” would be no nearer to ending the drug menace than he was now. He wanted de Ronfort to continue. By allowing the Count plenty of scope and freedom, “X” might possibly gain information that would aid in finishing the drug ring.

“X” knew how the rear of the old gambling den was situated. He had determined a route of escape for himself, if he needed it. But now those federal men were dangerously near, and he wanted to be certain that the Count got away.

“Over the fence!” he ordered de Ronfort. “On the other side is the back entrance to a tenement. The door is unlocked. You can get through to the street. I’ll head these fellows off. I’m not doing this for nothing, de Ronfort. I’m risking my life, understand? When you marry the Blake girl, you will have to make me a nice present.”

“You are a rat, Landru!” snarled de Ronfort. “But I will pay! Give me the suitcase.”

“Hurry!” exclaimed the Agent. “They’re coming. You can’t take the dope. If they see you going over the fence, they’ll shoot.”

That decided the Count. “X” helped him to the top of the wall, and in another moment de Ronfort had disappeared.

When the federal men burst open the door “X” had bolted, the Agent disposed of his gas gun in an ash can. If caught with that on him, the federal men might discover his identity. Packing the suitcase, he sped down the alleyway. They would hear his footsteps pounding on the cement. They would shoot, but the darkness would make accurate aiming impossible. “X” had a chance.

A police whistle sounded. The harsh note made the Agent’s body tense. He must not be caught now, just when he seemed to be on the right track. He ran with all the speed he could muster. But he wasn’t fast enough. Again the whistle sent out its piercing, warning note.

The mouth of the alley was lighted from the street lamps, and suddenly three forms were outlined in it. They were racing toward “X.” He dropped the suitcase, leaped to the concrete fence. A spring, and he was hanging onto the top, muscling himself up.

Guns began to roar. Bullets crashed into the wall. Chunks of concrete, chipped by the smashing lead, struck the Agent’s head and body. Men were converging on him. On top of the fence he would be a perfect target. The only escape now, it seemed, lay via the morgue.

Chapter X

AGENT “X” dropped to the alleyway again and raised his hands. In another moment he was surrounded by six men. Immediately the Agent was frisked for a gun. They found the automatic belonging to Landru. The search otherwise was not thorough, because the federal men had him disarmed, and they also had all the evidence they needed. He was shoved along toward the street.

“X” thought ironically how this treatment contrasted to the respect these men had shown him when they had met before. Then they had jumped to his orders, for they were the same federal men from Orrin Q. Mathews’ office. One of them was a stranger to him. But “X” had recently saved the lives of the others, when he led them out of that burning warehouse at Haswell and Riverfront.

The men flanking him were Wells and Everts. Creager, Lorson, and McAllister followed. McAllister kept poking a gun in the small of the Agent’s back.

“Who’s that guy who got away, Landru?” he demanded. “You’d better talk. We’ve been watching you for a long while, Frenchy. You’re going up for a long stretch, but you ought to get the chair! I bet you’re the rat who’s been peddling hop to girls’ schools. You’re going to come clean, or we’re going to shellac you proper. Me and my buddies damn near got cremated by one of your hop peddlers, and we don’t like your breed at all. Down to headquarters, you’re going to pick up a lot of lumps and bruises, if you hold back.”

“X” was thrown bodily into a big car. The suitcase of dope was tossed in on top of him. He had sized the real Landru up in the few moments the Frenchman had talked. He knew that the dope seller would whine and cringe. So the Agent put on a convincing exhibition of a coward.

“Mon Dieu, gentlemen! You make the very great mistake, of a certainty. I don’ know why you arrest me! No — I do not! My name is Felix Landru, yes. But I am a Frenchman studying social conditions in America. The gendarmes of my country would not treat you so.”

“Studying social conditions, are you, Landru?” growled Creager. “I bet you can spot a hophead a block away!”

All the way to headquarters, “X” maintained his protests of innocence. While he was talking, he was puzzling what he should do. These men would have died for him that day he led them from the Karloff hideout. Now they would gladly kill him.

He knew what was ahead. They would put him through a third degree. The plastic material on his face would never stand up under the poundings of a rubber hose. And if one should yank on his goatee, it would come off. He could not afford to have them penetrate his disguise.

It wasn’t until he reached headquarters, and the federal men surrounded him in the room where he had first interviewed Orrin Q. Mathews, that “X” conceived his plan. The detectives were actually gloating. They hoped Landru would keep silent, so they could employ the strong-arm routine.

McAllister brandished a strip of rubber hose in front of him.

“Going to talk, Landru? Or shall I begin the softening process? Who was that bird you were with? What was the deal you two were making? Where is the rest of the stuff hidden? Tell us the names of your peddlers. Might as well save yourself a lot of punishment.”

“Mais oui!” exclaimed the Agent. “I talk — I talk, m’sieus. But it must be to one man only. There is too much involved, my friends. Names, names — you would be astounded at the names I would mention. I am but a poor, hard-working man who caters to a great need, m’sieus. But my confession will breathe scandal on people who are high up. Take me to General Mathers. Gladly will I talk — for his ears alone. Then le bon general will use his own discretion, and my conscience will be at rest”

General Mathers was the head of the Eastern narcotics division. The detectives would have taken “X” before the general, anyway, after the sweating process made him talk. They had a consultation. They were disappointed not to get the chance of manhandling Landru, but they could not beat up a prisoner who was willing to talk.

“X” was taken before the division chief. General Mathers was a hard-faced man with gray hair. Every feature was aggressive. He had fierce, piercing eyes, with pointed eyebrows that looked like stunted horns. He had ridden with Teddy Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, been with Black Jack Pershing on the Mexican border, and helped to break the Hindenburg Line in France. He was a tough old campaigner, and his prize hatred was for dope smugglers and peddlers.

Before the general, the Agent made himself as dejected and wretched in appearance as possible. This man was a strategist who knew all the tricks. He would be savage in dealing with a man like Landru.

“Here he is, general,” spoke Detective McAllister with the utmost respect. “We caught Felix Landru on Nyack Street in an untenanted building that used to be Eddie’s Place, a gambling hall and a murderers’ inn. Men have been on detail watching Landru for two weeks. We nabbed him red-handed, carrying more than twenty thousand dollars’ worth of morphine and heroin.

“Landru is wanted by the Paris police on a murder charge. We found an automatic on him. He says he won’t talk except to you alone, but two of us will be outside during the interview. We hope you’ll call us if he shows the slightest hostility. He’s desperate and alone; he may try to kill you, sir.”

“Very well, McAllister,” boomed Mathers, nodding to the detective. “Leave him with me. I’ll know how to handle him no matter what he does. You men are to be congratulated. I hope this man proves to be the ringleader we’re after.”

DETECTIVE MCALLISTER went out. “X” was left to face the formidable, glowering general. Mathers placed a big service revolver on the desk before him. Then for a full minute he studied the Agent with glaring eyes.

On the desk stood an open box of cigarettes, which gave “X” an idea. He was in a tight spot, and he was fully aware that General Mathers would show no leniency or mercy. The official had a knack of discovering murders that could be charged to the big shots in the dope traffic who had the ill luck to be caught by his men. He considered his work well done when he sent a dope smuggler to the electric chair.

“You said you’d talk to me,” rumbled the general, “that was to save yourself some punishment, wasn’t it? Very well, Felix Landru, begin your story. Stick to the facts, and don’t try to make yourself misunderstood and heroic.”

The Agent was twitching and trembling. “M’sieu,” he spoke in a plaintive voice. “I suffer so much from the need of a drug. I cannot think, because of my nerves. You will not give me heroin, no. That I do not expect. But, please, m’sieu; one cigarette. A smoke will soothe me, and then I will amaze you with names. Mais oui, mon genéral! For me—c’est fini, the end. One cigarette and I talk.”

The general growled, but he tossed a cigarette to the Agent, and shoved a book of matches across the desk. “X” deliberately fumbled the catch. The cigarette dropped to the floor. The Agent bent down and picked the cigarette up. When he stood erect again, the general also was standing, and he had the service revolver leveled at “X.”

“Now, try one of your Apache tricks!” rasped Mathers.

The Agent pretended to be deeply hurt. “But, m’sieu, you are wrong. I am here, not for tricks, but to tell everything.”

“Then proceed.”

“X” lighted the cigarette. He had to stall for time. The general still had the service revolver trained on him. Even a step forward might cause the man to shoot. The Agent racked his brain for something to say. He could not bluff a hard-bitten individual like Mathers very long.

Then a knock came at the door. “X” gave a little sigh of relief. In response to the general’s growl, a clerk entered, carefully kept out of the Agent’s reach, and handed a slip to the chief.

The clerk withdrew. Mathers read the note with a sudden lifting of bushy eyebrows. A sour smile spread over his hard features. He moistened his lips like a tiger licking his chops in anticipation of a kill. He tapped the paper with his fingers, and gazed at the Agent with the cold scrutiny of a scientist studying a laboratory specimen.

“X” did not know what had occurred. He kept his eyes on the general. The gun lay on the desk now. He had to work with lightning speed, or his one chance would be gone.

“You’re Felix Landru, the dope peddler, are you?”

“Oui, m’sieu, I am Felix Landru,” spoke the Agent tensely. Now he had an inkling of what had happened.

The general tossed the slip to him. He read it with a sudden quickening of pulses.

“Felix Landru has just been found unconscious at the St. Etienne Inn on Bordeaux Street. Has a fractured jaw. Fingerprints compared with those on record. They are identical.”

“An impostor, eh?” snarled the general. “Not Felix Landru. Yet your disguise is perfect. I think you are a far greater prize than Landru! There is only one man in the world who could do as smooth a job as that. You must be that criminal they call Secret Agent “X!”

Chapter XI

THE Agent was trapped. Even General Mathers didn’t know that he had the secret sanction of a high government official in Washington. And that secret could never come out even if “X” had to go to jail. It was part of the pledge he had made.

Detectives were waiting outside. The general had but to grab his revolver and call them in. Mathers’ hand started for the weapon. Immediately “X” pounced forward. He brought his right hand down on the fleshy part of the official’s arm.

He jabbed a tiny hypodermic needle into the arm. The harmless but powerful drug had instantaneous effect. It happened so quickly, so unexpectedly, that the general did not think to cry out. Now it was too late. Without making a sound, Mathers slumped into his chair, unconscious.

“X” had obtained the little hypodermic when he dropped the cigarette. The instrument had been hidden in a compartment in the heel of his shoe. The Agent had palmed the hypo, intending to drop it in the sleeve of his raised arm, had the general demanded to see if he held anything except the cigarette.

There was no time to lose. “X” was in an even more difficult situation now. Suppose one of the detectives should look in? The general was merely in a drug-induced coma, yet he appeared to be dead. The man would hardly pause to ask questions. A look at the general, a look at “X,” and he would be apt to start shooting.

Noiselessly the Agent locked the door. Strapped around his right leg just above the ankle was his portable kit of make-up material. He set out his vials and tubes. While he studied Mathers’ features, he removed the disguise of Felix Landru. He worked feverishly. Men had been talking outside. Now there was a significant silence. “X” knew the reason. The voices had ceased in the office, and the detectives were growing anxious.

To forestall an investigation, the Agent began talking, first in the whining accent of Landru, then in the general’s thunderous voice. While he was molding a new disguise, he crept to the window and looked out. There was no way of escape below, but one could grab the window ledge overhead and climb to the floor above — with capture before he got out of the building almost a certainty. “X” had another plan, daring, audacious, one that required cold nerve, great skill, and perfect timing.

He finished his disguise. It was not an elaborate one. He had not the time to work in identical pigmentation and exact features. A close scrutiny would reveal that he was not the general. “X” had to take a chance. He did not change to the official’s clothes. Hauling Mathers to a coat closet in the office, he locked him in.

Some one knocked.

“Everything all right, General Mathers?” The voice was McAllister’s.

The Agent was tense, dry lipped. His eyes burned with feverish excitement. He was not at all sure that his disguise would get by. Instead of answering the detective, “X” grabbed a chair and deliberately hurled it through the window. The loud crash was followed by the musical clatter of falling glass.

“X” uttered deep, full-throated groans, such as might have come from the general. The detective outside was rattling the knob and pounding on the door. He called to the other federal men. Footsteps beat on the tiled floor of the corridor.

“You can’t get away, you scoundrel!” exclaimed “X,” imitating the general’s thunderous voice.

The Agent snatched up the service revolver, and fired several times at the shattered window. Then he ran to the door and unlocked it. Assistants swarmed in. Posing as the general, “X” was rubbing his jaw, as though he had been struck. He pointed at the smashed window with his smoking gun.

“Out there, men!” he cried hoarsely. “The blackguard slugged me and made a dash for it. But he can’t get away. After him, McAllister!”

THE detective already was climbing out the window. Creager was following him. The room was suddenly packed with a milling mob. Attention was focused on the man at the window. That was the Agent’s cue.

Picking up Landru’s hat, “X” quietly left the office. He went down the corridor to a washroom. There he quickly changed to one of his stock disguises. From a photograph he had seen of Landru on the crook’s dresser at the St. Etienne, “X” knew that the former Apache wore the brim of his hat downward. Therefore the Agent turned it up, pulled the hat low on his forehead. Now there was not a vestige of his recent disguise as a Frenchman in manner and make-up.

While the futile search went on in the building, “X” strolled out the main entrance and hailed a cruising cab. De Ronfort had brought only half of his smuggled narcotics to Eddie’s Place. That dope was now in the possessions of the Federal Bureau. The count still had the balance. “X” would call on the Frenchman as an emissary of Landru, who was in the custody of the law.

At the Perseus Arms, however, he learned that de Ronfort had checked out an hour before. And he had not left a forwarding address. De Ronfort was frightened. Possibly he was afraid that if Landru was caught, he would squeal. Or he might have left to dispose of his contraband goods in another section of the country. Maybe he was eloping with Paula Rockwell. That scare at Eddie’s Place might have shown de Ronfort the need for quick work. Once married, the sly, ingratiating aristocrat would have little trouble maneuvering a joint bank account, or one in his own name, from the rattle-brained heiress.

With the Blake fortune behind him, de Ronfort could easily become the narcotics king of America, wielding the power of an absolute despot. It was a terrifying thought. The Agent pictured millions enslaved to de Ronfort through the tyranny of dope.

Wherever the Frenchman was going, “X” knew he would keep in touch with Paula Rockwell. There was a chance that the smuggler right now was at the Blake penthouse. The Agent returned to one of his hideouts long enough to freshen up and change to the disguise of A. J. Martin. As a newspaperman, he went to the Blake apartment building. But he stopped outside. He would wait. If de Ronfort were there, he might come out. Paula Rockwell had no aversion to newspaper people, yet an interview might reveal nothing of what he wanted to learn.

The dial over the private elevator indicated that the car was at the top floor. At this hour Whitney Blake probably had retired. If the girl was out, the car likely would be on the first door, with the operator waiting for her return. “X” remained inconspicuously in the lobby. One of the public elevators was in use, carrying cleaners and all-night workers.

Close to half an hour later, the Agent’s monotonous wait was rewarded by the appearance of Paula Rockwell. She came down in the business elevator with a scrubwoman and a janitor. Why had she avoided the private one? She was nervous, extremely so, and her manner was actually furtive. Evidently her departure was a secret from those in the penthouse. “X” was curious about the reason.

The girl hurried from the building. She held her bag up to shield her face as she crossed the sidewalk. Instead of leaving in one of her own cars, with the private chauffeur, she hired a taxi. The Agent beckoned to another cab, and instructed the driver to follow the car ahead.

Paula Rockwell’s taxi took her to a slum section, where she would go ordinarily only with an escort. The machine stopped before the Genoa Café, a cheap restaurant and saloon, where a few, shabby men and slatternly women were dancing to the tinny strains of a battered player piano.

The Agent sauntered into the place a few moments after the girl entered. He ordered a small beer at the bar. At a corner table not far from the bar sat Remy de Ronfort, his suavity gone, lines of worry etched in his handsome face.

PAULA was sitting across from him, holding his hand and talking earnestly. The count had been drinking. His eyes were glazed and bloodshot. A bottle of whiskey stood on the table. He tossed off two glasses of liquor without a chaser. It was hard for “X” to believe that a man, aristocratic supposedly in everything but his scruples, was affected so much by what had happened at Eddie’s Place. Had something else occurred in the meantime? “X” could not tell from their conversation, for the tinny, jangling piano drowned out their words.

With a cautious side glance, “X” saw Paula Rockwell hand de Ronfort some bills. There was a hundred-dollar greenback on top. A flash of relief shone in the Count’s face. Then he began showing impatience. He tossed off another drink, and jammed his hat on, without thought to appearance. The girl grabbed his arm. Her manner was that of worried protest. “X” cursed the noisy piano. But for that, he might have heard their talk. De Ronfort shook his head and jumped up. He and the girl went to the sidewalk. As they passed the bar, “X” caught a few words.

“But can’t you tell me?” the girl was saying. “Are you leaving just because you got an unsigned note of warning? Probably it’s some silly crank!”

Then they were out of earshot again. The Count beckoned to a taxi. Paula was in tears now. De Ronfort almost shoved her into the back seat. There was a brief embrace. He motioned for the driver to start. The girl began to weep without restraint.

The smuggler hired another cab. “X” was no longer interested in the girl. She had given him a lead. As soon as de Ronfort’s car got underway, the Agent jumped in another taxi. The first car sped through night traffic to Union Station.

De Ronfort rushed into the waiting room and straight to a ticket office. A line of people was ahead of him. “X” waited to one side, his face behind a newspaper. As soon as the Frenchman had obtained his ticket and walked away, the Agent elbowed in ahead of the next buyer, who choked off a protest when he saw the blazing light in “X’s” eyes.

“What was the destination of that last ticket?”

The clerk looked curiously at the Agent and shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to give out that information,” he said slowly.

“X” flashed a detective’s badge. “Give me a ticket to the same destination,” he ordered in a low but harsh voice.

“Yes, sir — yes, sir!” responded the clerk respectfully. “With a sleeper, sir?”

The Agent nodded. The clerk pulled a train fare and a pullman ticket from the rack and stamped them.

“Seventeen seventy-six, please. The train leaves in three minutes. Track forty-two.”

“X” slapped down a twenty dollar bill and raked up his change with the tickets. He started on a run for the entrance to Track 42. Until now he did not know where his ticket would take him. He glanced at it. Montreal. Out of the country.

The Agent looked up to meet a greater surprise. Four men were slipping through the crowd toward de Ronfort. They had hard, pasty faces, wicked eyes, cruel mouths. They were nervous, almost palsied, and their spasmodic movements added to their vicious appearance.

As Corbeau, the drug-addict gunman, “X” had known them. They had watched Serenti die horribly of the loathsome green death. They had shot Gus Tansley so that he bled out his life in less than a minute. They were the drug-mastered fiends of the somber, sadistic Karloff, and they were after Count Remy de Ronfort.

Chapter XII

PUZZLED, the Agent moved close. De Ronfort was starting through the train gate, when one of Karloff’s rat-faced gunmen shoved in ahead of him, and pushed the Count back. The smuggler began a dignified protest, but he stopped abruptly when he found himself surrounded by three others. They pulled back their coat lapels and showed badges.

What was it all about? Karloff’s men posing as federal officers and nabbing de Ronfort. Apparently the Count was not one of the big dope ring. Yet possibly he had challenged Karloff’s authority, and the evil chief was striking in his usual brutal way.

The gunmen rushed the Count across the big waiting room. Trained to avoid scenes in public, de Ronfort went along without protest. But the moment they got him into a sedan, he began to struggle furiously. Physically he was probably more than a match for the four dope-ravaged thugs. Watching from the side of a pillar, “X” saw him slam one of them between the eyes and give another an uppercut that put the man out of the fight.

But the aristocrat’s polo-trained physique was helpless before the deadly threat of an automatic. He suddenly ceased his struggles. “X” knew a rod was probably jabbing the Count in the ribs.

De Ronfort still clung to his suitcase. The sedan started. “X” feared there would be gunplay this time, so he did not hire a taxi. Instead, he commandeered a car, turning on the ignition with a specially constructed key for that purpose. If the car was wrecked or bullet-riddled, the owner would get money for a new one from the inexhaustible funds of Elisha Pond.

“X” wanted that suitcase of dope that de Ronfort was carrying. Traffic was thin now, and the sedan sped to a back street where the driver would not have to stop for lights. In a short while they were out of the city and racing along a lonely suburban road. The Agent kept a quarter of a mile to the rear, so that it wouldn’t seem that he was following the mobsters. For a long while his attention was absorbed by the pursuit. Then he happened to glance in the reflector above him.

He muttered savagely, clutched the steering wheel until it seemed that the white skin over his knuckles would split. He clenched his teeth. Bunches of muscle stood out on his jaw. His narrowed eyes blazed with anger and excitement.

In the mirror he saw a hard and sinister face, a face that conjured up pictures of sudden and horrible death. Karloff. Karloff was in a car close behind, and that car was crowded with his dope-crazed slaves. Karloff’s men were ahead of him and behind him. And there were no roads or lanes branching off.

“X” was hemmed in!

Just then the car ahead stopped by a field. A short way beyond flowed the black waters of a river. De Ronfort was shoved from the car. He still clutched his suitcase. No effort was made to take it away from him. It was pathetic, the way he clung to that supply of narcotics. “X” plainly saw what was to take place. It was the end of the journey for de Ronfort. Surely the Count could not be blind to the significance of the stop.

Yet fear had mastered him. All the fight was drained from him. He was trembling and helpless, as helpless and wretched as Serenti had been before the horrible green death ended his tortures. Yet the count was not a drug addict. Instead, he was a rank, quivering coward. He stood there like an idiot, his eyes seeing nothing. Stupidly he held onto the suitcase, while the drug addicts piled from the car.

The Agent now was in as deadly peril as the Count. There was no escape on either side, sure death behind, and but a sliver of a chance of getting by those mobsters in front. But a desperate situation called for a desperate chance. And that was what the Agent took.

Suddenly he jammed down on the gas. The high-powered car leaped ahead as though impelled by rage and bent on annihilation. “X” held the wheel rigidly, steering straight for the mobsters. Panic froze the drug addicts, they stared pop-eyed at the charging car.

One of them screamed in terror. Frightened witless, they crouched in frenzied fear, directly in the path of the roaring machine. Grimly the Agent exerted more pressure on the accelerator. He was not bluffing. They had a chance to move. If they chose to stay there, he would run them down.

A SNARLING command burst from the rear. Karloff had poked his head from the other car and was lashing his men with vile oaths. The mobsters came to life. They sprang aside. Fear and hate twisted their faces repulsively. Guns went into action.

The Agent ducked low as the automatics thundered out whining destruction. Lead shrieked by the car. A bullet smashed into the windshield, showering razor-edged splinters over “X.” Flying glass cut him, pierced his clothes and lacerated his flesh. But he kept his foot on the accelerator.

The mobsters were at the side of the road, madly raking the car with lead. The Agent whizzed by. Suddenly he slammed on the brakes. The car jumped, skidded sidewise. Before it lost momentum, “X” swung it straight again. The car stopped close to de Ronfort. Men were shouting, cursing. Smoking, flame-spouting guns snarled wickedly. Karloff’s car came to a shrieking stop. The mob chief had lost his deadly calmness. He was cracking out orders like a top sergeant. But those orders were not carried out. Drug-starved to make them obedient, the hopheads were gripped by hysteria and no match for the wild, mad confusion.

To their frenzy “X” owed his life. They wasted plenty of lead. Bullets, aimlessly, blindly fired, came dangerously close. The Agent was crimson from glass cuts, but he kept down, protected by the body of the car. He opened the left-hand door.

De Ronfort was standing close by, like a man under the spell of catalepsy. Without speaking, “X” grabbed him roughly by the front of the coat, and yanked him into the car, hauling in the suitcase after him. De Ronfort was just a shivering, teeth-chattering hulk. The Agent shoved him down in the seat, and wasted no time in talking.

A quick shift of gears, and the car bounded forward again. De Ronfort cowered down, actually whimpering. Karloff’s car had started up again. It was close behind. Bullets ripped through the back of “X’s” machine. He felt a tug at his hat, and knew that if he had been in an upright position, his skull would have been shattered.

The river was directly ahead. A dock led from the road out into the stream. Sudden uneasiness gripped “X.” He glanced to the right and left. There was no turn. He was racing at a mile-a-minute clip along a dead-end road.

De Ronfort beside him, uttered a scream of agony. The Agent turned and saw blood streaming down the man’s neck. “X” did not know whether the count had been hit by a bullet or a piece of glass. De Ronfort was shaking like an addict deprived of his drug for a week. A rank, abject coward, he was overwhelmed, crazed by fear.

The Agent’s brain worked swiftly. He had never been so close to the finish. Life and death hung on his decision, and he had to make it in a few seconds. Karloff and his gang were no more than a hundred feet behind. Automatics and machine guns pounded away viciously. Bullets thudded against the back of “X’s” car, ripped through the fabric of the top.

Ahead flowed the river. Death hovered near in either direction. To pause, to slow down even, meant certain suicide. The Agent could not buck those mobsters in a counter-attack. He would not surrender. He had one other choice. The river. Beneath its surface lay safety — or death. His only chance was to drive straight ahead off the end of the dock.

De Ronforf shrieked when he saw the river so near.

“Mon Dieu!” he cried in a voice shaken by terror. “Stop! Stop! Have mercy, m’sieu! I will be killed! I do not want to die!”

A low snarl escaped the Agent. The Count was more abject than a terror-stricken child. He was covering his face with his hands. His disgusting cowardice sickened the Agent. He did not want to die either. To him life was a source of unending interest. But a man who lived as hard as he could not expect to die of old age. Long ago he had schooled himself to fight against odds, no matter how overwhelming they seemed, but to accept defeat, when it came, without flinching. To the Agent defeat had but one meaning — death.

The car shot onto the rickety old dock. A triumphant outburst of profane jeering came from the other car. “X” heard the screech of brakes. Karloff’s machine had stopped. But the gunfire did not cease.

“X” reached the end of the wharf. De Ronfort uttered a scream and collapsed. The car crashed through the flimsy wooden railing. The Agent clamped his jaws grimly and clung to the wheel. Maybe it was the end. Remy de Ronfort did not want to die, because he feared death, and life offered great wealth. The Agent did not want to die — because there was still so much to do.

The car leaped high, shivering like a thing in agony as it catapulted through the darkness. Then, in a shower of machine-gun lead, it hurtled to the rippling waters of the river.

Chapter XIII

WHILE the auto was in mid-air the Agent got a grip on de Ronfort and the suitcase. The instant the car struck the surface, “X” dived from the open door, tugging the Count with him. The engine stalled the moment the water got into it. There was a vicious hissing as steam rose from the hot metal.

“X” was under. He made a shallow dive, coming up immediately for air. The water revived de Ronfort. The Count was gasping and spluttering. Lights from the Karloff auto shone on the river. The two men were caught in the glare. Wild shouts came from shore. Bullets lashed the water around them.

“Take a deep breath!” the Agent rapped out crisply.

Instead, de Ronfort uttered a shrill scream. The mad, frenzied outburst suddenly choked off. The Count groaned, and then became as still as death. That abrupt silence alarmed “X.” In the gleam of the light from the car, the Agent looked at the man. There was a dark, crimson blotch on the side of de Ronfort’s head. “X” gnawed at his lip, muttered.

Inhaling deeply, he disappeared again, pulling de Ronfort with him. A superb swimmer, able to hold his breath nearly three minutes, “X” was safe from bullets while he submerged. As he swam downward, encumbered by the limp Frenchman, he kept his eyes open. Looking above, he could see the reflection of the searchlight combing the water. Lead still whipped against the surface. Most of the missiles, he knew, would ricochet. The mobsters were in greater danger of those bullets than he.

Swimming downstream under the water, he soon got out of the range of light. Then he bobbed above the surface again. The spotlight still played over the river. He gulped a deep breath, and went under, continuing downstream, but working in toward the bank. Soon he bumped into the rotting pile of a dilapidated wharf. He shot upwards into the air, and hauled de Ronfort to the shore under worm-eaten timbers.

Leaving de Ronfort lying on his back, the Agent dived into the stream once more, and swam out to the suitcase that was floating down the river. The shooting had ceased. “X” cast a searching glance at the road. The car was gone. Karloff and his men doubtlessly believed they had killed de Ronfort and the stranger. The Agent got the suitcase and returned to the shore.

Count Remy de Ronfort lay dead.

The wound in the side of the head was from a bullet that had pierced the skull. There was nothing to regret in the man’s death except that he had taken along the answers to many questions that bothered the Agent.

He covered the body with debris, and left the place, carrying the suitcase. It was still dark, though dawn would soon be breaking. He wanted to get out of this vicinity before the light came. There was a chance that Karloff had left a mobster behind to watch for the bodies, to see if any clues were found that might lead to the killers.

He thought of Paula Rockwell. There was sorrow ahead for her, because the empty-headed girl would never believe that her Count had been a rotter and a cowardly crook. In his fight against crime, “X” often had to waive scruples himself. Later, he meant to call on the girl — as de Ronfort.

He strode along the road, keeping a careful watch so that he would not be surprised by any of the gangsters. Evidently Karloff was satisfied with the night’s work. The road was deserted. It was dawn, and his clothes were dry by the time “X” reached a well-populated suburban district. He did not want to ride into the city now, for he had de Ronfort’s corpse to consider. Should the body be discovered, it would be turned over to the police. That would spoil his plans.

So he walked into a Chinese laundry. An oriental in black pajamas greeted him with a gold-toothed smile, and gazed wisely at his bedraggled appearance.

“Allee samee fall in the liver?” the laundryman asked. “Me catchee iron and fixee you ploper. Washee shirt. Do very fine job!”

The Agent nodded. “I want that, O brother, but I come humbly beseeching a greater favor. Is there one in this worthy enterprise who knows of the venerable Lo Mong Yung?”

The Chinese ceased being the humorous little laundryman rubbing his hands and speaking pidgin English. He became a personage of dignity, the honorable head of a family, with the record of his ancestors listed in the archives of his native province for two thousand years. He bowed to the Agent, who returned the courtesy.

“Will the gracious guest who honors the house of Su Kung whisper close the word that will prove his identity?”

“X” leaned over the counter and softly spoke the secret password of the Ming Tong. Immediately the Chinaman’s eyes expressed deep respect. To him the Agent was Ho Ling, a revered and honored Mingman.

“O great white brother,” he spoke reverently, “my decrepit frame trembles with gratitude over this visit. From the lips of the august father himself have I heard praise of the noble Ho Ling, who wages constant war against the dragon of evil. My heart is near bursting with joy that I may please my ancestors by serving the great Ho Ling.”

The Agent acknowledged the honor with the proper humility and explained as much of what had happened as the laundryman Su Kung needed to know. He wanted the corpse of the Frenchman brought in and hidden. Su Kung was a poor man. There was danger of being caught by the police. Even if he was held in jail a short while, his business would suffer, and his family with it. But Su Kung did not hesitate. The honor of serving the white brother of the Ming Tong bulked far greater than the danger in Su King’s mind.

A short while later a creaking, rattling, horse-drawn laundry wagon driven by an inscrutable Chinese headed down the little-used road to the old dock. Inside the wagon was Agent “X,” disguised as a Manchu. The Agent was glad to find that the river territory was deserted except for men fishing far downstream. “X” ran along the bank to the wharf under which the corpse was concealed. He carried a huge laundry bag. He fitted this over the body, and tied the opening. Shouldering the burden, he hurried back to the wagon, where Su Kung was ready to start the horse back to the laundry.

Cold, aloof hunter of criminals though he was, the Agent was deeply affected by the contrast between this sordid finish of de Ronfort and the picture he recalled of the Count at the Blake penthouse, feigning weariness over the fawning attention of debutantes. Yet the man had been asking for trouble, dealing with drug addicts, all of whom were potential murderers.

Back at Su Kung’s laundry, “X” carried the body in the rear room, and locked the door. There he took careful measurements of the corpse, and spent a long period of intense concentration studying the Count’s face. The Agent’s amazing photographic memory would enable him to reconstruct the face, without any inaccuracies in the features.

Before he left the laundry, he gave Su Kung a large sum of money. In aiding him, the Chinaman had shown bravery almost to the point of foolhardiness, for dealing with a corpse without the sanction of the law was risky business. So Su Kung was enriched by more than he could make otherwise in six months. Beside that, “X” left money to have the body embalmed by another tong member, sealed in a casket, and kept hidden until the Agent was ready to have de Ronfort’s death made public.

“X” hurried into the city now, went first to one of his hideouts to perfect his disguise as A. J. Martin, and then to the laboratory of Fenwick, the brilliant research chemist, who was working on the analysis of the doped cigarettes.

The chemist shook his head after he had greeted the Agent. “Still no results, Mr. Martin,” he said. “We’ve been working night and day on those cigarettes, keeping up our tests. Nearly five hundred precipitations already, and we’ve determined nothing except that the drug has some sort of nitrogenous base.”

“I’ve brought along some more,” said “X,” opening the suitcase and handing Fenwick two of the packages. “You’ll have better success this time. I want a careful comparison made with the result of this analysis and what little you’ve learned of the doped cigarettes.”

Fenwick opened a package and examined the contents.

“Ah! No difficulty here, Mr. Martin! You’ve got the straight stuff now! Off-hand, I’d say this was morphine or heroin. However, I’ll put it through the test.”

They entered an elaborately equipped laboratory where several men were busy with test-tubes and Bunsen burners. Fenwick went to work, and it was not long before he got results.

“Just as I thought, Mr. Martin,” he said. “One package contains morphine, the other heroin.”

“That doesn’t help much,” said the Agent disconcertedly.

“No,” replied Fenwick. “We’re still as much in the dark as ever with the cigarettes. Whatever is in them reacts on the human system very much like morphia, though far more potently. But we are certain it is neither cocaine, hashish, nor the active principle of opium. It doesn’t respond to any tests for the vegetable alkaloids.” Startling information. The narcotics that de Ronfort had smuggled in were common opium derivatives, whereas the dope distributed by the sinister drug ring completely baffled Fenwick, one of the foremost laboratory technicians in the country.

Chapter XIV

WHAT part had de Ronfort played in the dope menace? The dissimilarity in the drugs certainly was evidence that the Count had not been connected with Karloff’s mob. Yet why had Karloff taken such pains to get rid of him? Not because he was a rival in the distribution of dope. There were bigger men in this illicit traffic who were unmolested. “X” believed there was a deeper reason, a motive that had nothing to do with gang rivalry.

The Agent returned to one of his hideouts. First, he took a much-needed rest. Trained to fall asleep the instant his head hit the pillow, “X” slept so soundly that a few hours of repose were sufficient. Awakening in mid-afternoon, he set to work molding an elaborate disguise, taking infinite pains with small details.

This time he was a long while before the triple mirrors, laying on a new pigmentation with the painstaking thoroughness of a great artist. When he finished with his vials and tubes, he donned a wig of shiny, curly black hair, and surveyed himself critically.

The new countenance brought a cold smile to the Agent’s lips. He had done well. An aristocratic face was reflected in the mirror, clean-cut in profile but with a suggestion of weakness about the month. The face that “X” saw had a slight look of dissipation that sun-bronze had not eliminated. The Agent believed that no one would doubt that he was Remy de Ronfort.

He had taken special care because he was going to see Paula Rockwell, to find out what she knew of the Count’s activities, and a woman would be quick to notice any irregularity in the appearance of her fiancé.

“X’s” plan was one of extreme daring. Karloff wanted de Ronfort out of the way. The Agent wanted to find Karloff; so, by disguising himself as the Count, pretending that the man had not been killed, “X” hoped to draw another attack from Karloff, and thus track him down.

It was literally courting death, posing as the slain de Ronfort. Karloff or his mobsters would likely shoot on sight. Yet it was a sure and swift way of meeting the sinister Karloff.

The Agent put a bandage on his left arm, which he placed in a sling. He added a few touches to his face to give him a haggard look, and stuck a piece of court plaster over his forehead. Karloff would know something was amiss if he saw de Ronfort without any wounds or signs of emotional stress.

At a public telephone booth, “X” called up Paula Rockwell. A servant answered the ring, but the girl apparently had been close by, for she was talking eagerly over the wire a moment after the servant repeated the Count’s name.

“Darling!” the girl cried. “You’re all right then? Where are you, Remy? I’m worried sick! Come here to the apartment at once! I won’t rest a minute till I see you!”

“No, Paula,” the Agent answered. “I must see you alone first. Meet me at the Green Lantern on Oswego Street. Hurry!”

The girl agreed and “X” hung up. His eyes were flashing. Paula perhaps would be able to clear up the mystery of the Count’s connection with the dope smuggling ring that was handing the stuff out free. It was possible that de Ronfort had tried to doublecross them and they had retaliated for that reason.

The Green Lantern was the same sort of dingy bar and restaurant as the Genoa Café, and Oswego Street ran through one of the poorest sections of the city. The Agent reached the place shortly before the girl. When the heiress arrived, “X” was sitting at a table, staring into a whiskey glass. He got up, slump-shouldered and dejected, the picture of defeat. But beneath the pose he was tense and concerned.

Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. She grabbed his right hand and clung to it. Then she gently touched the arm resting in the sling.

“You — you are wounded,” she said tremulously.

THE Agent nodded. She was a flighty, shallow, empty-headed girl. “X” believed her incapable of any real depth of feeling. Her affection was more for the title than the man. The Agent was relieved to see that she was completely fooled by the disguise. There was a slight shade of difference in his eyes and de Ronfort’s, but the girl, beside herself with fear, did not notice the change.

“We must flee!” she said. “We must get you away from those terrorists and revolutionists! Why must we suffer so from those horrible men? I’m frightened to death, Remy.”

So that was it. Terrorists. Revolutionists. That was how Remy de Ronfoft had explained his harassment — the reason for going away, the reason for borrowing money — to Paula Rockwell at the Genoa Café. He had posed as the persecuted one, the hounded, hunted noble, the victim of his aristocratic birth, preyed upon by treacherous, conspiring terrorists. “X” immediately took the cue. He was disappointed. Paula Rockwell could tell him nothing about de Ronfort’s real activities, because she was ignorant of them herself. But “X” must keep up his role.

“Oui, ma chère,” he said in a voice husky with weariness, “the terrorists had me trapped. They caught me at Union Station, and took me into the country to kill me. I fought hard and got away, but — they shot me. It is only a flesh wound as you see.”

The girl’s cheeks flushed suddenly. “We’ll go to South America or China,” she said. “We’ll disappear from sight. In some far-off place we’ll find our happiness, living for each other. I don’t ask for anything more, Remy dear. My social life would be so empty, so meaningless, without you. My guardian would send us money. Then, when the terrorists have been put down by the police, we can return!”

“X” saw that Paula Rockwell visioned herself in a romantic role. It seemed as though she were quoting gushy motion-picture dialogue. He wondered if she would feel like a heroine after six months of obscurity in a Shanghai hideout, such as she probably pictured. How much would she have loved de Ronfort without his title? The girl was frightened, but the Agent believed her tears were more the product of hysteria than sorrow.

“I can’t go out of the city, Paula,” said “X” bitterly. “Every station, every road, every ship will be watched by the terrorists. I am lost, my dear, lost!”

He told of the capture, omitting the part he himself had played, and painting de Ronfort as a hero. No use disillusioning the girl now.

Paula’s eyes flashed when she heard the story. It added glamour to her Count. She could not prevent an expression of disappointment, though, when she learned that the China trip was impossible. She was a gullible creature, with merely a surface sophistication that was sufficient for her own trivial set. Knowing nothing of de Ronfort’s criminal activities, she believed all “X” told her.

“You must come home,” she pleaded. “You need me now. Daddy will know what to do.”

“No,” responded the Agent. “You are kind, ma chère, so kind. But that is too much. Your guardian is a man of position, of wealth. And he has troubles of his own. With his affliction and his age, it is unfair for me to burden him with my problems. Let me fight this out, Paula. It seems hopeless, but I’ll face the danger stoutly.”

The Agent said that for effect, knowing that the girl would be insistent. He wanted to be seen with her. And, if Karloff had any doubts about de Ronfort’s death, he would have spies watching the Blake penthouse. This would further the Agent’s desperate plan of using himself as human bait to get on Karloff’s trail again.

Shortly he was entering the Blake apartment. The old financier was sitting in his wheel chair on the terrace. Whitney Blake had a guest, and the person was Silas Howe, the reformer.

Howe was still ranting about the drug evil, which was spreading like a plague. Newspapers were filled with murders, riots, scandals laid to the deadly drug blight. Howe had a flare for publicity. Daily he appeared in the headlines with his latest outburst. A dark thought suddenly came to the Secret Agent’s mind. Could it possibly be that Howe’s vehemence was a beautiful pose, an almost perfect cover? Not one word of suspicion had “X” heard against Howe; but Howe had come carrying a gun on the night of the party. Was it solely fear of the drug ring that made him go about armed?

The Agent watched the reformer closely while the girl blurted out the story of the terrorists. Howe’s reaction was one of shock. Either he was a marvelous actor or his manner was genuine, for “X” could detect nothing false in it. If he were connected with the gang that had killed de Ronfort, the long-nosed crusader would know about the shooting. Yet not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did he betray that he might have such knowledge.

Whitney Blake pounded his cane on the tile floor of the terrace and kept shaking his head while the girl talked.

“Bad,” he muttered, “bad. You must stay here, Remy, I’ll hire detectives to watch the penthouse night and day. You must have an armed bodyguard.”

“I couldn’t think of staying here, air,” answered the Agent quickly. “It’s my own battle. I don’t want you and Paula endangered, too. Why, those terrorists might even blow up this building.”

Blake mulled over the prospect for a while.

“I’ll have to take that risk,” he said grimly. “I’ll employ more watchmen, and take every precaution. But I insist that you stay. After what you’ve been through, you need rest and quiet and care.”

But “X” refused. There was so much to be done. He wanted to find Karloff’s band again. He had proved to his own satisfaction that Paula Rockwell knew nothing of the dead Count’s criminal activities.

WHEN the Secret Agent left the penthouse, to the protests of old Blake and his ward, Silas Howe went with him to the elevator.

“Count de Ronfort,” said the reformer, “I think you are very unwise to go about in public, while these terrorists are at large. You are in danger of assassination. I beg you to come to my apartment right here in this building. There you will find refuge, and there you will be able to visit your fiancée whenever you like.”

The Agent’s pulse quickened. He looked into Howe’s eyes,

“I am deeply grateful for your offer,” he said politely, “but my nature forbids me from imperiling others. I will go to the French consul for advice. Perhaps I will leave the country with a bodyguard via airplane.”

Howe’s eyebrows raised a little. “X” noticed a sudden flare of interest in the man’s eyes. He wished he knew what thoughts were running behind them.

After “X” spoke of fleeing by airplane, Howe did not press him to stay at his apartment. The Agent took his leave quickly.

On the street he got into a taxi. Midway up the block he drew a small mirror from his pocket and held it so that it reflected what was on the street behind him. Then his heart leaped.

Not far behind was a car carrying two vicious-looking men. By their manner “X” knew they were following him! To make sure, he directed the cabman to drive around the block. The other car kept close in the rear all the way.

The Agent’s lips tightened to a hard, thin line. A tingle of apprehension went through him. Those men might drive up alongside, and blast away with a machine gun. Then not only his own plans would be defeated, but an innocent cabman would meet death. Such an attack was easily possible. To their minds, they had failed once, and this time they would be out to do a thorough job. Yet he was pleased, too. His disguise had served its purpose. These men must be some of Karloff’s gang, set as spies to verify the Count’s death.

A couple of blocks farther on, the cars stopped for a traffic light. One of the mobsters got out of the pursuing auto and ran toward a cigar store. The Agent believed he had gone to telephone other members of the mob.

The second man drove on when the lights changed. At the next intersection, a big truck cut in ahead of the gangster car. “X” was quick to take advantage.

He left a bill on the seat of the taxi, and with the truck cutting off the gangster’s view, the Agent quietly and dexterously opened the door and slipped out. He moved rapidly through the crowd on the sidewalk and entered a large drug store on the corner.

In a telephone booth, he hurriedly changed to one of his stock disguises, put on a light-haired wig, and reshaped the hat. When he came out he was a blond, with none of the characteristics of a Frenchman.

He rushed out an exit that led into the corridor of an office building. The entrance opened onto the sidewalk below the cigar store the gangster had entered. “X” stood inconspicuously in the doorway of the haberdashery until the mobster emerged from the cigar store.

Then the Agent stepped out and followed the man. Once again he was on the trail of the Karloff gang. What would be at the end of that trail? The finish of the drug ring? Or a marble slab for the bullet-riddled corpse of Secret Agent “X”?

Chapter XV

THE gunman started crosstown afoot. He was extremely nervous, furtive. One hand thrust into his coat pocket ominously. When he passed cops, he turned his head. He walked at a pace much faster than other pedestrians.

“X” was tense, grim. The man ahead was tortured by nerves frayed from the lack of dope. He was wild-eyed, insane from his deprivation. It would not take much to make him draw his gun and start a massacre. Frequently he looked behind him. He paid no attention to “X” the first block. On the second he fixed him with a suspicious glare for a moment.

The Agent had to walk fast to keep at an even distance behind the mobster, and that was what caused the evil-faced man to single him out. To throw off suspicion “X” stepped into a grocery store and bought a loaf of bread and a few bunches of vegetables. He carried the bread wrapped in its waxed paper, without a bag, and he fixed the other bag so the leaves and stalks of the vegetables stuck out.

It was dark now. On the street he bought a newspaper. Now he looked like an office worker returning home. “X” walked briskly and got close to the gunman again. The gangster turned around, twisted his ugly face into a snarl. Then he noticed the bundles. His face relaxed to its ordinary viciousness, and he paid no more attention to “X.” The ruse was effective.

Soon the drug addict reached a factory section. A few blocks beyond was a district of middle-class apartment houses. So “X’s” deception still was plausible. The man stopped before a shut-down factory, and waited outside, nervously puffing on a cigarette, until “X” passed by. The gunman eyed him closely. The Agent whistled and walked with the jaunty step of a man whose day’s work is over. He ignored the hophead.

A block farther on, he turned the corner. He disposed of his packages, waited a few minutes, and then peered cautiously around the side of the building. The gunman had disappeared.

Stealthily “X” crept back to the shut-down factory. He was alert in every fiber. Suppose the mobster still was suspicious? He might be lurking in the tomblike gloom, waiting to see if the Agent returned. “X” glanced around carefully. A fog was rolling in off the river, curling its spectral tentacles around the old building. Traffic noise, rising from the avenues, seemed remote, almost ghostly. There was a graveyard silence about this district.

The Agent tried the front door. It was locked. He listened. No sound came from within. Possibly this bleak old building was not the one the gunman had entered. “X” would soon find out. He moved silently to the rear. The back door was locked, too.

“X” brought forth a small leather case that held his intricate tools of the highest grade chromium steel. He took out one that looked like a sail-maker’s needle, except that it had tiny pivotal extensions. This he inserted in the lock. He worked it around noiselessly, and then withdrew it to readjust the extensions. The next insertion brought a faint click. He opened the door.

The interior was cold and musty and as black as a cavern. He walked forward, feeling his way like a blind man. He picked a route through a maze of machinery. Frequently he stopped. His keen ears were tuned to catch the slightest sound. Suddenly he heard a muffled scream, one that sent a chill up his spine, for the outcry suggested the agony of fiendish torture. “X” knew he had the right lead.

The scream came again. “X” crept forward more rapidly. He dared not switch on a flashlight. Suddenly he tripped over a small box. His excellent sense of balance enabled him to prevent a fall, but he upset the box. A loud, metallic clangor rang out as iron washers spilled onto the floor.

“X” gritted his teeth. He fell into a tense crouch. A moment of deathly silence followed. Then a shaft of light shot ceilingward from the floor. A man emerged from a trapdoor. He gripped an automatic. The dazzling beam of a flash pierced through the heavy darkness.

The light played on the spot where “X” had tripped. But he had leaped behind a machine. The bright ray focused on the overturned box of washers. The gunman rasped out a savage oath.

The mobster crept forward. Evidently he had just been given a narcotic, else he would not have possessed this courage. The Agent began to circle noiselessly. His outthrust hands touched a board balanced precariously on top of a machine. It fell to the floor with a loud crack.

A savage snarl came from the gunman. He swung around, but before he could shoot, “X” discharged his gas gun. “X” had several gas guns cached at his hideouts. One of them still lay where he had hid it when the federal men had caught him. Instantly there was a thud as the gangster’s automatic struck the floor. The man collapsed slowly, soundlessly.

The Agent was at his side. He secured the man’s hands behind him, thrust a big gag into his mouth, and left the mobster hidden under a machine.

At the trapdoor, he peered down cautiously. Stairs led into a dimly lighted corridor. Moans and screams and hysterical sobs issued from below. “X” reached the bottom of the stairs. Some one was running along the corridor. The Agent darted to the wall and crouched behind a barrel.

Suddenly the mobster stopped. Every fiber of the Agent’s body tensed. Had the man seen him? “X” was too far away to use his gas gun.

“Ain’t no use hidin’, fella!” snarled the killer. “Stand up and get your mitts in the air, or I’ll blast the roof off your skull. If your hands ain’t empty, you’ll sure die sudden.”

SWIFTLY the Secret Agent stuck something in his mouth and closed his lips over it. He got up and walked toward his captor. A leer spread over the brutal face of the gunman. “X” approached him slowly, his hands stretched overhead.

“Now turn around, and march to the council chamber, pally,” snarled the mobster. “Karloff is always glad to welcome any uninvited visitors. Guess you’ve never heard of the green death, buddy? It sure is a picture, watchin’ a guy squirm and crawl, while his whole body is turnin’ green. You don’t live long once it starts workin’, but you sure know you’re alive and sufferin’ while it lasts. Get going—”

While the killer gloated, “X” had drawn in a deep breath. Now the end of a tiny rubber tube protruded from his lips. His cheek muscles contracted abruptly. A thin jet of colorless liquid spurted out of the tube’s mouth. The instant it contacted with the oxygen in the air, it vaporized. The mobster gave a startled gasp, clawed at space, and slumped to the floor.

Still holding his breath, so he would not be overcome by the gas, “X” dragged the mobster to a room near by. In this room “X” rapidly disguised himself as his would-be captor. He thrust the man in a steel locker, went out. He did not know the gangster’s name, nor his duties. Suppose he should betray himself by a slip-up? Karloff would act on the slightest suspicion. The dreadful green death was an ever-present menace.

Farther down the corridor he stopped before the cell from which the screams had come. He looked in, on a horrible sight. Karloff was dealing out more of his hideous discipline. Two raving hopheads were shackled in irons. In the center of the room stood a table. Chains secured the drug addicts so that they could get within a few inches of reaching a little glass case on the table. That case was filled with a white powder. Heroin. Enough to supply the most confirmed addict for a year. Yet these tortured men could not reach it.

They could not be more abject, more pitiable if they were being burned at the stake. Their mouths foamed up the froth of the insane. One of them gnawed on his wrist. So intense was his agony that he was actually attempting to gnaw it off.

While “X” watched, the madman crunched his teeth down on the bones. There was a sickening crack. Then nature rebelled. The maniac slumped in his chains, his head lolling forward and blood dripping from his mouth.

The other victim of the sadistic Karloff kept swaying and bobbing like one in the wild ecstasy of a primitive religion. His eyes were like agate marbles. They looked as though they would pop from their sockets. His head was almost twice its normal size — from lumps caused by banging his skull against the stone wall. He stared at “X” and uttered a shrill, cackling laugh.

“I’m dying, Hazen!” he screamed at the Agent, naming the mobster who had served as the model for “X’s” disguise. “The maggots are finishing me! Look at them! Millions of them. Crawling, crawling, crawling!” The madman uttered a blood-curdling shriek, and his body shook under great sobs. “Bring Karloff here, Hazen! I want Karloff! I want the beautiful green death — the beautiful green death!”

A WAVE of nausea surged through “X.” He was about to turn away when he was aware some one stood behind him. He swung around, and looked into the evil, funereal face of Karloff. Always that hideous man approached with the stealth of a stalking cat. His dark face showed no emotion.

“Crofton wants the green death, Hazen,” he spoke in his soft, insinuating manner, “The beautiful green death! You are young, Hazen, a young, stupid rodman. You are a slug compared to Crofton. He used to be one of the most brilliant chemists in the world. But he wasn’t smart enough to know better than to work against our organization. Take a lesson, Hazen. Never be too ambitious. Come, Hazen, the master will soon be here!”

A thrill went through “X.” The master. At last, he would see the man whose cunning was devoted to the destruction of human souls and bodies. He followed Karloff into the council chamber. A score of men were congregated there. The atmosphere was tense, electric with excitement. Killers spoke in awed, subdued voices.

At the end of the room was a space partitioned off. Across the front was a sheet of thick glass, and behind the glass, a network of steel mesh such as is found in a bank.

“That is shatter-proof glass, Hazen,” said Karloff. “The Big Boss doesn’t take chances. No dopies will ever take a pot-shot at him.”

The Agent did no talking except to answer in monosyllables. During the wait, he moved quietly about the room, listening intently. He heard much talk that told him nothing of importance. Then he stood near Karloff again. The local chief was giving instructions to one of his mobsters.

“I want you to leave right after the big boss finishes his talk,” Karloff was saying. “The stuff will be hidden in ash-cans. If you’re stopped, you merely say you’re taking ashes to a farm to be used as fertilizer.”

The mob chief talked at considerable length. “X” learned that a consignment of dope was to be sent out of the city. Karloff ordered the man to take the load via the Long Meadow Road, a more devious route, but a less patrolled one.

Then a sudden stillness prevailed in the room. Men grew tense. All eyes focused on the glass shield. Behind it, a door opened. A tall, erect man appeared. He walked with an arrogant stride. A heavy black mask covered his face. Draped around him was a black cape.

For a while he stood back of the bullet-proof glass and surveyed his audience. Then he began speaking in a deep, rumbling voice.

“My message tonight will be brief, gentlemen. I wish to commend the members of this organization, and particularly Karloff, for their splendid and loyal endeavors. We have instituted an advertising campaign that has been a drastic departure from the usual methods. By giving away our product, we have created a demand that will continue to grow to enormous proportions.”

The Big Boss explained that the campaign was one hundred per cent successful. A huge market for the drugs had been built up among wealthy and influential people. Daily, police and high officials were being snared into the drug ring!

“Those in this organization who have proved their faithfulness will be amply rewarded,” continued the master. “All of you are patrons of our excellent product. If you work heart and soul for the organization, the day will come when you will be pensioned with a fortune and an inexhaustible supply of drugs.” There was irony in the man’s voice which the Agent did not miss. Beneath suave woods he was showing his sneering contempt of these poor, broken wretches. He went on more harshly:

“I need not tell you the fate of the disloyal. You have seen with your own eyes what happens to them. Remember that Karloff’s word is law. He alone is responsible to me for the actions of all the members of our local organization. And remember that you are to co-operate as never before for the big sales campaign which lies just ahead. So far, we have been giving the stuff away. Next we start selling it — and then the golden flood will come in. That is all, gentlemen.”

The Big Boss backed out the door. He had not talked long, he had not revealed much that the mobsters did not know, but his presence had been spellbinding, and his words had shocked the Agent. Soon the sale of the drugs was to start. Soon the country would be inundated with a hateful tide of narcotics.

Soon money would be pouring out of addicts’ pockets into the coffers of the dread gang. Money — thousands, perhaps millions of dollars would go to build up an organization which should be stamped out like a nest of poisonous, sinister vipers. But who was this man? “X” did not know. His voice had been too much disguised for “X” to penetrate it.

There was a long silence after the master’s departure, broken finally by Karloff, who dismissed the meeting.

KARLOFF disappeared into a room adjoining the council chamber. That was the Agent’s cue. He quietly slipped out of the big room, and hurried from the building. In the darkness, he changed to a stock disguise which his skillful fingers built up quickly. A little later, in one of his hideouts, he quickly molded the features of A. J. Martin and put on the sandy-haired wig.

He got in his fast roadster and made a swift trip far beyond the city limits. Soon he left the main highway and headed west until he reached a lonely spot on Long Meadow Road.

Stalling the car crosswise on the road about fifty yards around a bend, he waited tensely for the mobsters. A few minutes later he heard the rumble of a truck, the rattle of tin cans. His eyes blazed with excitement. His face grew grim and hard. He changed to a savage, relentless fighting man, fiercely intent on defeating the great evil that was gnawing into America.

Would the truck be supplied with armed guards? Would the odds be too great for a lone man to surmount? “X” got out of his car. He was keyed up to a high nervous tension. Maybe he had but a few seconds to live. He remembered the last time he had faced a machine-load of Karloff mobsters. Would the hopheads throw phosphorus bombs again? “X” did not carry lethal weapons. They would be armed to destroy.

The dope truck careened around the bend. Headlights glared on the stalled car. The driver uttered a profane shout of rage. He jammed on the brakes. The truck skidded half around and came to a screeching stop. The headlights had been gleaming full on the Agent. With the car turned side-wise, “X” was enveloped in darkness.

A machine gun rapped out a wicked tattoo of death. Bullets whined around the Agent. Something pulled at his coat as he threw himself off the road into the bushes. A bullet. He had missed death by a hairbreadth. In the concealment of the underbrush, he plunged toward the dope truck.

Two mobsters manned it, and they were armed with sub-machine guns. The Agent hurled a gas bomb at the driver’s face. It struck him on the forehead. The man’s wicked snarl was cut short as the potent vapors took instant effect. The second mobster dived from the car. He raked the side of the road near “X” with a fierce volley of lead! Knowing only the general direction of the Agent, he did not score.

“X” flung another bomb. Then a third one. The mobster saw the motion of his hand. He spat out ugly oaths. Then he gasped, choked. A stream of fire and lead poured from the Tommy gun, but the missiles plowed into the dirt road. For the Agent’s bombs had struck the gangster. The hophead was already succumbing to the powerful fumes as he triggered the gun. Now he sprawled out on the road, senseless.

Giving the gas time to waft away, “X” then hurried to the truck. On it were loaded a dozen ash cans, heaped up with ashes. The Agent rolled a can off the truck and dumped the contents on the road in front of the headlights. At the very bottom were several small packages. “X” picked the bundles up and hefted them. Probably ten pounds or a little more.

In a few minutes he had the other cans emptied. Each had contained, under the ashes, the same amount of dope as the first. A hundred and twenty pounds, “X” estimated. He gave a shrill whistle of amazement. More than ninety-two thousand dollars’ worth of dope. The Big Boss certainly had a business that made the old-time bootlegging of liquor look like a catch-penny enterprise.

While he was working on the cans, “X” had heard the low put-put of motorcycles. Now gleaming spotlights were trained on Long Meadow Road. The motorcycles were coming at racing speed. The Agent hurried to get the narcotics into his car.

He glanced behind the truck. Four motorcycles plunged toward him. The drivers wore olive-drab uniforms, carried guns in holsters. Cops. They swerved around the truck just as “X” was shifting into high. The Agent’s car was constructed for a rapid pickup. The motorcycles were close when he jammed down on the accelerator. The car leaped ahead. The cops fired warning shots. The Agent gripped the wheel grimly, kept his gleaming eyes fixed on the road ahead. The officers opened up on the rear of the ear in deadly earnest. If they punctured “X’s” tires, he was through.

Chapter XVI

THE Agent had one thing in his favor. His car could travel at great speed more safely on a dirt road than the motorcycles. If one of the cops got in the way of a large stone, he likely would find himself in the brush the next second, with a few broken bones. But those men were dare-devils.

On the next turn, “X” started down a steep slope. Every hundred yards or so, he careened around a sharp turn. Not once did he ease up on the gas. The motorcycles had to slow down. It would be suicidal for the cops to take those turns at the Agent’s speed.

The firing was infrequent now, because the officers had to keep their hands on the bars. “X” swung recklessly around the curves. The terrific driving played havoc with his tires, but that did not matter. All he asked was that they would last until he got out of this danger.

He reached the bottom of the hill. The cops were out of sight, but he could hear their machines. He struck a straightaway. The wheels hit a large plank in the road. The car leaped. It landed with the wheels turned, headed for a ditch. “X” clamped his jaws and fought for control of the car. One wheel went slightly over the edge. He swung hard to the left, brought the auto back into the road.

The cops were just reaching the straightaway when the Agent swerved onto the paved highway. He traveled at roaring speed until he reached the suburbs. Then he slowed to the limit, and headed up a side street. He had thrown off pursuit.

A few minutes later he was in the laboratory of Howard Fenwick, and the great chemist was working over the dope “X” had confiscated. At the Agent’s insistence, he was lavish with the narcotic, running a dozen tests in as many tubes simultaneously. When he finished, he was frowning and shaking his head.

“It’s beyond me, Mr. Martin,” he said apologetically. “I’ve tried every known test, looked for all the known alkaloids. There seems to be only one explanation. It sounds nutty, but it must be true. The dope is synthetic, made by some method of which I’m ignorant.”

“X” frowned, tensed. The chemist’s conclusion had almost the effect of a physical blow. Synthetic. No wonder the Federal narcotic men and detectives had failed. No wonder they could not check the poisonous flood of dope when they were looking into the wrong source. They were hunting for smugglers bringing it into the country, whereas the drug was a home product. The Agent spoke harshly, staring straight before him.

“That means the stuff can be manufactured in tremendous quantities and at a low cost!” he said.

Fenwick nodded. “Undoubtedly. The raw materials, whatever they are, likely cost far less than crude opium. The method of synthetic production probably requires much less labor. Besides, the risk of smuggling is eliminated, and also transportation expenses from the Orient.”

The Agent was appalled by this astounding revelation. Compared to the man who controlled the synthetic manufacture of dope, the smugglers were dwarfed into mere public nuisances. With this weapon of synthetic narcotics, a person with a twisted, criminal mind could reduce the entire country to his will, unless his evil activities were stopped almost at the beginning. And the gang “X” was fighting was getting ready now to launch its tremendous sales campaign.

FROM the laboratory the Agent hurried to the office he kept under the name of A. J. Martin. His desk was stacked with news stories of the drug menace that had been delivered by a clipping bureau. The story heads explained how the law forces were bungling, how the blight was spreading.

Smugglers, opium, airplanes. The whole detective force was wrong. There were smugglers, yes — and drugs brought across the border by airplane. But the dope plague was not the outgrowth of pioneer methods. The longer the federal men searched on the wrong trail, the stronger the Big Boss was becoming in his bid for despotic power in America.

“X” thought of Twyning then, the chemist killed in Whitney Blake’s penthouse. Now that he knew the drug was synthetic, the Agent had a sudden idea of the motive for the homicide, a motive that had little to do with self-defense. Undoubtedly Twyning had been connected with the manufacture of the drug. Could it be that the man had actually discovered the formula?

Suppose he had fought against the illegal use of the synthetic dope? The Big Boss might have made him a drug addict to break his will. “X” recalled that hectic night in the Blake penthouse. A moment before his sudden death, Twyning had headed directly for Silas Howe. That, in the light of his new knowledge, seemed to add weight to his suspicion that Howe might be a possible member of the drug ring.

In any case, the dead Twyning was “X’s” next lead. He called Jim Hobart at once, ordering him to learn all he could of the slain chemist. He suggested that Hobart detail Walter Milburn and the nervy Allan Grant, formerly a newspaper legman, on the same lead.

They were skilled operatives, relentless when trailing down information which their boss wanted. “X” ordered that Silas Howe, the reformer, be shadowed also. He set the grimly efficient Bates organization to watch Karloff’s headquarters. He was doing everything he could, throwing all his resources into this greatest fight of his career.

Eighteen hours passed with no headway made. Then Jim Hobart strode into the office “X” maintained as Martin.

“I talked to several employees at Paragon Chemicals, boss,” said Hobart. “This fellow, Twyning, seems to have been a pretty good scout. Could handle tough formulas as easy as a kid rattles off A, B, C. Used to work after hours. Sometimes he kept at it all night. Always experimenting. Not a sign of drug addiction. No mixer at all. Didn’t know much when it came to anything but chemistry. Some of the laboratory workers spoke of him as a genius.”

“Did he talk about his work?” asked the Agent eagerly.

“That’s just the point, boss,” replied Hobart. “He didn’t. He was always willing to discuss the latest discoveries, but not a peep about his own work except, of course, his routine duties. The fellow had been with Paragon Chemicals for years. High-salaried guy, too. Then four weeks ago he didn’t show up. That was the last they saw of him, until his body was identified in the morgue.”

Hobart’s information backed up some of “X’s” conjectures. Twyning had been considered a genius, an indefatigable worker, a persistent experimenter. Such a man logically could have come upon the formula for synthetic dope.

Later in the day, Hobart returned with another report.

“I found a lodging house near the Paragon Chemicals plant where Twyning had rented a cheap dump of a bedroom under an assumed name and these were in it,” said the operative, handing the Agent a packet of letters. “He used the room, I guess, when he worked late and didn’t want to go to his apartment. His rent was paid six months in advance, and the landlady didn’t know he was dead. I found nothing about Twyning there, but there’s some information in these letters. Silas Howe, that reformer guy, holds majority stock in Paragon Chemicals. Maybe there’s something in it.”

The Agent leaped to his feet. His eyes flashed. That was it. Hobart had brought in the missing part of the puzzle. Twyning, the chemical genius, the tireless experimenter, had worked for Paragon Chemicals. Silas Howe practically owned the company. Twyning had made this gigantic, revolutionary discovery. Silas Howe had stolen the formula. That certainly seemed logical. Hadn’t Twyning, his eyes blazing murderously, come at Howe with a knife?

Chapter XVII

THE Agent was leaving his office when Jim Hobart rushed in for the third time, with Allan Grant close behind. Though the former detective was not the easily ruffled type, he was actually trembling with excitement,

“We’ve found another gang headquarters, boss!” he exclaimed, “No dirty, abandoned old dump, no dopie hideout this time! We bumped into a ritzy office, full of swank and right up to the minute. I played a hunch and sent Grant to answer an ad in the Herald calling for young men and women of hoity-toity social connections. And what did they want! Young society folks to distribute a fancy brand of cigarette among their friends. A smooth-looking dame offered Grant a fat salary to give the stuff away. Grant palmed a couple of smokes. I tried one. Two puffs and you almost hit the ceiling. It wouldn’t take many of those cigarettes to make a fellow get a Napoleon hat and start out to conquer the world.”

The Agent’s face hardened, though an eager light shone in his eyes. More evidence of the master’s insidious cunning. Give the Big Boss a few more days — another week at the most — and his organization would be so firmly imbedded that the country’s entire law force would not be able to tear out its roots. The death thrust had to be made right away. Within the next few hours. With the drug so potent, with so many people falling prey to the habit, even another full day might mean victory for the Big Boss.

“Splendid work, Hobart,” praised “X.” “But the real job is ahead if I want to get a scoop for the paper. You two come with me. Where is this office?”

“In the Quinault Building,” said Hobart.

The operative named a skyscraper near the center of the city. But it was to another building that the Agent went, one where Silas Howe kept an office for his vice-suppression activities. “X” learned from the elevator captain that the reformer wasn’t in. The three men waited. For once “X” felt that it was wise to have help. Too much was at stake tonight. The happiness, the very lives of thousands. He himself might be killed. There must be someone to carry on the work. But Jim and his aides still thought of him only as Martin, the newspaper man.

Night had spread over the city when “X” saw Howe enter with a couple of prominent social workers. It was amazing how the self-styled reformer maintained his sanctimonious front. For years he had been the bane of theatrical producers and book publishers with his vitriolic attacks. He was in the vanguard of every reform, every crusade.

The Agent waited for Howe to come out. That was two hours later. The reformer’s companions were still with him. “X” frowned and tightened his mouth grimly. Possibly Howe would devote this night to social work. The time would be lost, listening to him rage and declaim across the rostrum at a public assemblage. “X” had hoped to follow the man to a hideout where he would see him in his true character.

For several blocks Howe walked with his associates. “X” was disturbed. He had hoped to bear down on this man tonight, but he had no direct evidence yet. Then the Agent’s face brightened; Howe’s companions left the reformer. The man turned a corner.

A few minutes later Howe was entering the Quinault Building. Now was the time for careful maneuvering, for patience. “X” did not want to put the man on guard by a hasty move. Once more he waited. Soon Howe reappeared.

The reformer’s next stop was his own apartment building, the same building where Blake lived. That caused “X” a few moments of concern. Howe had a suite there. Possibly he was retiring for the night.

Then a thrill went through the Agent. Howe did not turn in the front way. He was using the servant’s entrance, slinking in furtively. “X” snapped quick orders to his operatives.

“You two watch across the street! If I need you, I’ll signal to you somehow. Be on the lookout every instant!”

Pressing himself against the wall, the Agent edged through the deep shadows. He paused in the darkness, watching and listening tensely. Then he darted through the door behind Howe. He made no noise, but he could hear Howe’s footsteps far down the corridor. “X” followed swiftly, silently.

He took out something from his pocket as he moved along. It was a stick of radium paint, unlike any other in the world, and with it he left marks on the wall to guide his men in case he called them. He found himself in a maze of passageways, and there were many doors that could cause confusion.

Howe was walking hurriedly, with the quickness of a man who has something to conceal. “X” sped down the winding corridor, raced into a dark passage, guided by the footsteps ahead. Behind him were the glowing marks of the radium paint, tiny lines and arrows. “X” was alert to his danger, to the possibility of rushing headlong into a trap. His tread on rubber-soled shoes was silent, yet there was a chance that guards were posted, that wicked eyes watched through hidden peepholes.

A door slammed. “X” stopped, peered through the darkness. Was some one coming, or had that been Howe? The Agent went on slowly. He didn’t know what lay ahead. He thought of the horrible green death. With success so near, the Big Boss would strike swiftly. The slightest bungle meant annihilation for “X”! He felt his way down another corridor. At the far end, light gleamed faintly through a keyhole. He rushed to the door, listened tensely, then opened it.

A GHASTLY purplish light struck his eyes. Standing in the shadows of an antechamber, he looked into a large room where at least a score of shambling, emaciated men, wearing goggles, were working at long, plate-glass tables under some sort of weird mercury-vapor lamps.

The brilliant tubes glowed and sputtered. The wan and feeble men, moving like automatons, spread thin coatings of a viscid brownish substance over glass plates with long, pliant spatulas.

Before “X’s” eyes a strange and amazing transformation came in that thick, tarlike paste. It turned white, although the mercury lamps gave it a purplish tinge. From a glutinous, semifluid material it changed to glistening, powdery crystals.

At last, “X” had the secret. The Big Boss made his synthetic dope by breaking down the molecular composition of some substance, probably a coal-tar derivative that cost no more than crude oil.

The horror of it stabbed through the Agent like an electric shock. Every coating of brown paste was soon changed into white crystals that meant misery, tragedy, death for scores. One coating yielded enough of the poisonous drug to enslave a hundred people. The terrifying sight made “X” clammy with dread.

The Agent had invaded the arsenals of crime kings, stored with bombs of destroying gases. He had been in the laboratories of madmen, where bacteria that wrought loathsome and fatal diseases were sealed in tubes ready to be spread over a defenseless land. But none of those frightful devices quite equaled the deviltry, the fiendishness of the Big Boss. He sent unsuspecting people into a life of the damned, made monsters, abhorrent and inhuman, out of creatures who once were men.

Below the Agent, those human gargoyles, those pitiful, cadaverous slaves, hideous from the ravages of dope, leprous under the rays of the mercury lamps, moved like rusted old machines. Guards stood over them, threatening with automatics and cracking blacksnakes across the thin, bent backs of the shuffling dope addicts.

Suddenly “X” swung around. He was not frightened, but the flesh felt cold along his spine. A sense of acute personal danger had broken through his concentration. His eyes burned with anger as he stared into the cold black bore of a revolver. The brutal, repulsive man behind it had stepped through a panel that had opened in the wall. Murder glittered in his piggish little eyes.

Chapter XVIII

THE killer advanced with his gun aimed at the Agent’s heart. “Get those mitts in the air and talk quick!” he rasped. “Who sent you in here?”

“X’s” mind raced. He was no farther from death than the pressure of a trigger finger. There was no chance of getting his gas gun. A step toward the guard, and a bullet would rip into his heart. The antechamber was dark, but a purple glow from the mercury lamps shone on the guard’s ugly face. The Agent smiled. His manner became apologetic. He started to raise his hands slowly.

“Why, I — er — don’t understand, sir,” he said in a meek voice. “I’m Dudley Smythe of the New England Welfare League. I’m in town for the United Brotherhood Conference that opens tomorrow. I happened to be passing by, and I saw Brother Howe come in the servant’s entrance. I hailed him, but my good friend did not hear. Not realizing that I might be trespassing, I followed him. I’m sorry, so sorry, if—”

A vaporizing liquid that turned to tear gas suddenly sprayed over the guard’s vicious face. He shrank back, pawing at his smarting, blinded eyes. He uttered an agonized howl that “X” cut short with a savage uppercut that lifted the man off his feet and dropped him in a heap, senseless.

The Agent’s talk had thrown the killer off guard, had distracted him, while “X’s” hands were slowly moving upwards. But the left hand had stopped at the breast pocket, had clutched at the fountain pen secured there. The pressure of a tiny button had opened a catch that released the tear-gas.

“X” stepped back until the gas dispelled and lost its potency. Then he pressed back into the shadows, and drew his gas gun.

“Help! Quick! He’ll kill me!” the Agent cried, imitating the voice of the unconscious guard.

The man’s three associates came running at once. And, as they got within range, “X” pressed the trigger of his gas gun and held it down. There was a moment of choking, gasping confusion, and then the gas took complete effect. The first man staggered, tried to retreat, and collided with his companions. The three dropped like sacks of grain.

The Agent went into the room where the drug fiends were working at the glass-topped tables. Against the wall stood boxes containing packets and bottles of dope. The piles extended to the ceiling, enough of the refined product to enslave the entire metropolis.

The wretched creatures under the lamps performed their tasks with slow, mechanical movements, as though they were under an hypnotic spell. They were repulsive, horrible automatons, with all the spirit lashed out of them, beings who lived solely for the dope that was doled out to them in niggardly quantities.

The Agent beckoned to one of the dopies, who shuffled toward him listlessly. The worker’s eyes were two feverish spots burning in a fleshless face. The skin had the slate-gray tinge of death. He sniffed constantly. The man was dying on his feet.

“Where is the elevator that your master uses?” the Agent demanded. His voice was harsh. This was no time for gentleness.

The hophead shrank back in fear. “No! No!” he cried. “I can’t tell. They’ll deprive me of my drug allowance for a week. A week! Do you understand? A week of torture!”

The man was probably not more than thirty, but he had the decreptitude of age, the feeble, piping voice of one in the last stages of senility.

“You won’t be deprived of your dope,” said the Agent sternly, “but you will get the green death if you don’t tell me. The green death, understand! Where is that elevator?”

The hophead all but collapsed from fear. A spasm of shivering, a nervous convulsion, made it impossible for him to speak for a while.

“The green death!” the man gasped, his eyes bulging with horror. “No! Anything — anything but the green death! I’ll tell! I’ll tell!”

The trembling, terror-stricken man motioned “X” to follow, and reeled into another room. There the Agent found an automatic, self-operating elevator such as is installed in most modern apartment houses. But the entrance to this one was hidden behind a high, green-metal storage cabinet, which the dopie slid back on rollers. The Agent might have wasted precious minutes in hunting for it.

“Are you sure this is the elevator the Big Boss uses?” demanded “X.” “If you’re tricking me, you’ll get the green death!”

The drug addict recoiled in fright. “I’m telling the truth!” He cried in his shrill, feeble voice. “I have seen the green death! I’d do anything to save myself from it.”

THE Agent eyed him narrowly. “How much of this drug are you manufacturing a day here?”

“More than a hundred and thirty pounds,” was the ready answer, “and what do we get? We who make it! One hundred and thirty pounds, and we get five grains a day! Five grains! Yet each of us makes more than thirty-five grains a day, yet our daily dole is five grains.”

The drug addict broke into tears, and his wizened frame, hardly more than a skeleton, retched with great sobs. The Agent looked at him a moment, and then he led the wretched man into the laboratory. He addressed the other slaves.

“You are free men now!” he announced. “The guards are unconscious. They’ll be that way for an hour, but you’ll never be molested again. Take all the drugs you want. You’ll not be harmed. Quiet your shattered nerves! End your torture! Help yourselves, men!”

They stared at him in bewilderment. Then one of them uttered an exultant howl like the savage cry of an animal and dived for the drugs. The laboratory changed into a madhouse, with each dopie scrambling to get his hands on a precious packet. The man at “X’s” side wrung his hand, gave him a look that expressed deep gratitude, and then plunged into the mass of frenzied hopheads.

The Agent had had a purpose in turning the dopies loose on the narcotics. It wasn’t based purely on sympathy for them and their shattered nerves. It was to keep them quiet, out of the way, while he pursued his grim investigation.

He entered the elevator that he had been shown. He closed the cage and pressed the button that started the car upwards. It seemed that the elevator would never reach the top. “X” half expected it to stop, expected it to be converted into an execution chamber.

He searched for tubes or jets that might flood the car with lethal gas. He found none. Naturally, a master criminal like the Big Boss would conceal his means of destruction. Suddenly the car clicked to a stop. The Agent found himself staring at a concrete wall. Frantically he swung around. His body relaxed in relief. There was a door. His heart thumped. He listened. All he heard was the steady ticking of a clock.

He pushed the door open a little. The lights were on. The Agent poised carefully. He would bob his head in and back again quickly, enabling him to get a glimpse of the room before any one could take a pot-shot at him. Opening the door a little more, he darted his head forward. The room was empty.

It was a large room of a suite, and obviously the abode of Silas Howe. The man had maintained his masquerade even here. The furnishings were expensive but severe. Black was the motif of the decorations. Despite the costliness of the teakwood furniture, the place was as cheerless as a monk’s cell.

The Agent searched quickly through the suite. If Howe were there, he was hiding. “X” rushed to the telephone. He would call one of his operatives, and have him order General Mathers’ men to raid the stronghold of the dope ring.

But the telephone was dead. Anxiously he hunted for the switch that would connect it again, but he could not find it. Possibly the wires were cut.

Again the Agent had the eerie feeling that eyes were upon him. He ran to the light switch, pressed the room into darkness. He leaped to the window of the apartment.

Far below, on the opposite side of the street, he knew Jim Hobart and Allan Grant were waiting. “X” took a small flash with a powerful lense from his pocket. It had a focusing attachment to concentrate the rays. He adjusted this, then turned it down and blinked it; two longs, a short and two longs. A second passed, and there was an answering blink from below.

Hobart, watchful as the Agent had cautioned him to be, had seen the signal. He returned it, using a special secret code that the Agent had worked out for him and taught him weeks ago. “X” began giving Hobart orders. The time had arrived to smash the whole ring at once, to call in the law and strike ruthlessly, desperately.

“Get General Mathers,” he flashed to Hobart. “Twenty men at least. Raid basement! Follow radium lines!”

He sent down instructions for the headquarters in the Quinault Building to be raided, and also Karloff’s hideout in the old factory, where the Big Boss had addressed his hirelings. But he stressed the importance of striking hard at the stronghold below first of all. That was the fountain-head of the evil.

“X” heard a faint sound in the dark apartment then. Something scraped on the floor. Outlined at the window, he was a perfect target and knew it. But he had been forced to take the chance. Now uneasiness gripped him.

Madly he hurled himself aside. As he did so, powder flame lanced the darkness. There was a faint, dull pop that told of a silenced gun. A bullet screamed close to the Agent’s head, so close that it scorched the skin of his scalp. Some one cursed.

Chapter XIX

TENSE and alert as a crouching tiger the Agent stole along the wall. His photographic mind gave him a picture of the room. He could reach the door without crashing into the furniture. But a squeaking board might betray him. He dared not breathe. The awful uncertainty of whether his next step would be his last made him hold himself rigid.

A draft of cold air fanned the Agent’s cheek. Excitedly he felt along the wall. He reached an aperture, a panel that had not been opened before. He had no idea where it led, but he stepped through it into a small, well-like recess. His groping hands felt the cold frame of an iron ladder.

His heart pounded, and there was a sudden, bright light of triumph in his eyes. He climbed quickly, went through another opening into a pitch-dark room. Not even the tick of a clock broke the stillness here. From the street far below came the muffled roar of traffic. Little did those who passed by know the mystery, the weirdness, the peril and tragedy housed in this imposing apartment building.

“X” moved stealthily across the thick carpet, soft as lush grass under his feet. He would get to a switch, throw on the lights. With catlike caution he crept forward. Then suddenly his body tensed.

He gave a start of surprise, almost of awe, as light flooded the room. He stood all but petrified by what he saw. Under his disguise his face muscles stiffened. The fingers of his right hand clenched until they formed a fist.

For, sitting in an armchair and gazing at him with mocking, sardonic glints in his eyes was a white-haired, craggy-faced man, not Howe, but another — Whitney Blake.

The old financier smiled, but not pleasantly. There was a derisive, brutal twist to his thin-lipped mouth. The eyes of the two men clashed. In “X’s” was a questing light. Blake’s were hard, cruel, uncompromising.

The ladder to Blake’s penthouse was proof to “X” that Blake was at least in on the secrets of the dope ring and in league with Silas Howe. Yet the Agent delayed his accusation. He wanted to verify the truth of these new and startling suspicions. Back in his mind for days how had been a vague intimation, unexpressed even to himself, that Whitney Blake might have some connection with the ring. But it had seemed too fantastic to harbor even for a moment.

“I’m after Silas Howe,” said “X” quietly. “He must be here. I followed him from the apartment below.”

The old financial wolf regarded the Agent with a look of scorn and bitter, mirthless amusement. “My friend, most people in this world know too little. But you, whoever you are, are different! You know too much — far too much. Your curiosity has thrust you into a situation from which you will never escape.”

Blake’s expression changed. It seemed that all the bitterness, all the ruthless ambition of his grasping, callous soul writhed across his face. The man’s body shook with murderous rage. Agent “X” was astounded at the transformation. Gazing into the financier’s eyes was like looking into the black, slimy pit of some pool in hell where living furies lurked. The sudden change revealed the full secret, verified the Agent’s suspicions. Whitney Blake was the Big Boss, not the man who had given the harangue in Karloff’s hideout, but the guiding force of the great dope ring, the master of the pitiable drug-crazed slaves. His cover, his front, had been an even better mask than Silas Howe’s. The man had social position, a nationwide reputation in the financial world. Besides this he was old, supposedly mellowed by age, a donator to many charities, and it was believed that he had an infirmity that made him a helpless cripple.

Much that had puzzled the Agent was cleared up in a flash. He understood why de Ronfort had been murdered, and how Twyning had come to be killed in Blake’s apartment.

“You are the man who plotted to wreck the country to satisfy your ambition,” the Agent accused in a low, tense voice.

For a moment Blake remained silent, staring at the Agent fixedly. Then he parted his thin lips, showing teeth that seemed like the fangs of a wolf.

“Quite right, my good man,” he admitted with contemptuous indifference. “I intend to make the people of this city dance to the tune I fiddle. Soon the most honored and accomplished people in the country will be subservient to my slightest wish. I will be more absolute in my power than Nero or Napoleon — not by the force of arms, but by the force of drugs. And I will make money — money! Returns greater than that possible on any other investment today. Returns that will more than make up the millions I lost in the stock market crash when fools were in control!”

Inhuman greed shone in the old financier’s eyes. “X” spoke harshly.

“But you’re through, Blake!” he said. “For your work in spreading the dope blight, you could be sent to the penitentiary for the rest of your life. But there is a more serious charge against you. Murder, Blake! You might be acquitted of killing Twyning on the charge of justifiable homicide. But de Ronfort was murdered. You ordered his death yourself. And there will be witnesses to prove that you engineered the killing.”

WHITNEY BLAKE nodded slowly. “I see,” he said. “You are a surprising man. You talk as though you had intimate knowledge of my affairs.” He spoke with mock admiration. “Yes, I killed Twyning — with my cane gun, as no doubt you have already figured out. A brilliant man — Twyning! Truly a genius. It was he who discovered the secret of breaking down the molecular composition of certain coal-tar derivatives. But outside of the laboratory he was a fool, a child. He wanted to donate his formula to the government — a formula that would have given him greater power than all the military forces of the world. He wanted to give it away.

“Through Howe I had already gained control of Paragon Chemicals. Twyning opposed my plan to manufacture the drug. I had to make an addict of him. He came here to kill me, not Howe, so I disposed of him. Were you at Paula’s party? The killing rather livened things up, didn’t it?”

Whitney Blake threw back his head and laughed. There was a trace of madness in his eyes. But there was fiendish cunning also. “De Ronfort,” he continued. “Yes, I commissioned my efficient aide, Karloff, to dispose of him. A common adventurer! A cheap, sneaking smuggler — and he expected to marry my ward, Paula. It was absurd — and after I found out what he was, I — But never mind that now, my friend. You seem to think I’m an unhealthy influence in this country. What, may I ask, do you propose to do about it?”

There was open mockery on Blake’s face now. The Agent’s reply to his question was quiet.

“I have already done it,” he said. “The federal men have been called out. They are beginning a concerted attack on your organization. Probably, at the moment they are raiding your manufacturing room below. Your reign of terror is over, Blake. Your ring will be smashed!”

Once again Whitney Blake threw back his head and laughed. It was the laughter of a devil. His manner suddenly changed to mock sorrow. “It is very sad,” he said, with a shake of his head. “No doubt they are brave men. They have homes and loved ones. Such a tragedy! For you, sir, have only led them to their deaths!”

“What do you mean?” The Agent grew rigid with apprehension.

Blake laughed sardonically. “I can kill them from where I sit, without moving from this chair! You don’t believe me, I see. Then look! You came here for Silas Howe! There — see him!”

ONE of Blake’s fingers moved ever so slightly. There was a clicking sound. A section of the wall opened outward, revealing a sort of closet. The Agent stepped back in horror. He felt that the blood would congeal in his veins. For there was Silas Howe, the criminal who wore the reformer’s cloak. He fell forward into the room, a corpse with the rigidity of rigor mortis already apparent — and his face showed the hideous, poison hue of the green death!

“There he is!” repeated Blake harshly. “A blundering fool if there ever was one! He became overly confident — even careless. He let you shadow him here! I anticipated that he might become a liability in time. He blundered into my hands five years ago when he appropriated for his own use fifty thousand dollars meant for a charitable fund.

“I caught him then, threatened him with exposure, made him grovel at my feet — and afterwards cleared him to put him under obligation to me for life. Now he is dead, killed by me of necessity. But, my friend, he is still useful — just as you, too, will be useful — dead!”

A harsh exclamation came from the Secret Agent’s lips. He started forward, eyes blazing. Blake grew tense, alarmed at once. He raised a warning hand, and “X” stopped.

“I know who you are!” said Blake, with a hoarse note of something closely akin to awe in his voice. “You must be the one — the only person I gave thought to as an obstacle to my plans. You must be the criminal known as Secret Agent ‘X.’ You are a strange man, an interesting man, I have heard. Except for that peculiar twist which makes you an outlaw, go about fighting your own kind, I would like to have you in my organization. But — no! You are an idealistic fool! I have heard that, too.”

Whitney Blake leaned forward and glared at “X.” “You don’t want to cause the deaths of those federal men below, do you? You don’t like to kill even criminals. Then don’t take another step forward. If you do — they die, like rats in a trap, when I open the valves of the cyanic gas tanks.

“I have taken pains to make it possible for me to wipe out those who do my work — the wretched drug addicts in the basement of this building. And — if you move from where you stand — I shall use the same means on the federal men.”

The Agent stifled his rage. He needed a clear mind. He could save himself. But by doing so, he would cause the deaths of many men. He saw by the movement of Whitney Blake’s hands that rows of buttons were under the arms of that chair. One of those buttons, “X” knew now, controlled the lights. That was how Blake had plunged the room in darkness the night he had killed Twyning.

Blake laughed softly. “Suppose my drugs are confiscated,” he said. “That means only a loss of time. I have the formula. They won’t take that from me, because it’s in my head. Eventually my plan will succeed. And no one will suspect me. Stand where you are, Agent ‘X.’ I’m summoning my secretary, Rivers. Remember — a move that displeases me, and I’ll kill those federal men in my laboratory.”

Blake pressed a button. Soon the quiet-laced Rivers entered. His manner was unassuming, yet “X” knew he was of the same ruthless nature as his employer. He must be or Blake would not have hired him. Probably he was under obligation in some way to his master also, a slave of his own fear like Howe.

“Rivers, take the late Mr. Howe back to his own suite,” instructed Blake. “Return immediately. We must dispose of this meddlesome gentleman. He is Secret Agent ‘X,’ a man of many disguises. Perhaps you have heard of him. Before we give him the green death by hypodermic injection, I’m going to have a look at his actual features. Merely curiosity — an old man’s whim.”

The secretary bowed, then dragged the corpse through the open panel that led down to Howe’s suite.

“You see, young man,” said Blake. “I’ve protected myself against a possible raid. Howe signed a full confession, taking the responsibility for the ‘drug blight’, as the newspapers call it. For that confession, I promised the poor fool immunity. Strange, isn’t it, the man is dead! He looked moldy, didn’t he?”

Tense seconds passed while the Agent dared not move for fear of causing the deaths of those men below. Then Rivers returned. He came up behind “X” with irons to handcuff him. Once those steel links slipped over “X’s” wrists it would be the end. Yet the Agent grimly held his hands out behind him. If they clicked shut, he soon would look like the man in the apartment below — green, moldy.

WHITNEY BLAKE was trembling with excitement now as he gloated over his distinguished victim. His voice came hoarsely.

“I will assist myself in administering the green death, Rivers. I have a hypo here already. But first I want to see our guest as he really is. First I want to peel that stuff from his face and look at features that ten thousand detectives and police would risk their lives to see.”

A surge of deep emotion swept through the Agent. He felt the cold steel touch his wrists. A slight shudder passed through his body — not from fear of his own safety; but because of what those irons symbolized. The shackling, sinister yoke of crime on a whole huge community. Men and women ruined, destroyed body and soul.

It was now or never — one daring, desperate play, or the loss of everything for which he had worked, and annihilation by the green death.

Before Rivers could snap on the cuffs, “X” seized his wrists in a vise-like grip.

Every fiber of the Agent’s muscular, powerful, highly trained body grew taut. He bent down, yanked forward like a steel spring suddenly uncoiling. As he did so, the unsuspecting Rivers rose and shot into the air.

The maneuver that “X” had used was amazing but simple. It was an age-old Jiu-jitsu trick of leverage. The Agent had hurled the secretary over his head by means of it. The thing was done with lightning, incredible speed. There was no fumbling, no lost motion. “X’s” full power was in the throw.

He hurled the servant straight toward Whitney Blake as though Rivers had been a piece of iron in some weight-throwing contest. The vicious old financier was transfixed with fear, unable to move, paralyzed in his chair.

Rivers catapulted through the air, arms and legs spinning like the vanes of a windmill.

Crack! His head rammed against Blake’s in a terrific collision. The chair tipped over backwards. The men struck the floor with a deadweight thud, together. “X” leaped forward instantly and knelt beside them. Expertly he felt their skulls. Possibly they sustained slight fractures. Concussions surely, but they would live to answer to the law for their crimes. Blake would go to the electric chair.

The Secret Agent cut the wires to the buttons under the chair arms. Then he hastened through the panel and down the ladder to Howe’s suite. Quickly he searched through the reformer’s clothes till he found the confession Blake had mentioned. He read it over tensely. The murdered man had taken the entire blame for the drug ring.

The Agent considered awhile. At the teakwood desk, he spread the confession out and studied the handwriting minutely for seconds. Then he took up another sheet of stationary and began writing with laborious care.

“I am doomed,” he wrote in Howe’s own hand. “I knew it would come. There is no chance of escape. I am resigned to my fate, but I write this hastily with the prayerful hope that it will get into the proper hands. I have finally discovered the instigator of the horrible drug plague. The human devil behind it is Whitney Blake. Whitney Blake, the financier. From a man named Twyning, Blake stole a formula and method for breaking down the molecular composition of coal-tar derivatives into a powerful synthetic narcotic. Blake killed Twyning. He killed Count de Ronfort, because he did not want de Ronfort to marry his ward. Now he means to kill me. But I will not give him the chance. I am taking my own life. Silas Howe.”

The Agent rose and laid the note under a paperweight. Then he propped the corpse of Silas Howe in the chair at the desk with the pen before him. Soon the federal men would come, and they would find the note. “X” was taking away Howe’s confession, and in its place was leaving one in what looked to be the dead man’s handwriting.

For the first time in his life Agent “X” had committed forgery. Yet it was not for gain, nor to rob anyone. It was to leave evidence that would doom a vicious criminal to the punishment he deserved.

Agent “X” had forged the truth.

He turned off the light, went noiselessly from the suite, and passed out into the corridor. From there he went down into the street.

Many police cars were there now, more coming. A cop stopped him, but the Agent’s press card under the name of A. J. Martin let him through.

Grim-faced detectives were constantly pouring into the building, following the lines of radium paint that “X” had left. General Mathers’ men were at work inside, making the greatest narcotic haul in the city’s history.

For a time the Secret Agent watched, eyes glowing. Then he turned away into the darkness, and moved off slowly. A minute passed and his figure vanished from sight — but suddenly a strange, eerie whistle came out of the shadows. It was weird, birdlike, yet pitched in a minor key.

It was the peculiar call of an amazing and enigmatic person — the person known as Secret Agent “X,” Man of a Thousand Faces, man of mystery and destiny. It signified that once more the master investigator had completed a relentless campaign against crime. The melodious note faded away as slowly as it had come. The work of Secret Agent “X” was done.