“That telegram was meant for me,” he hissed. “What did you mean by taking it? Who are you?”
Agent “X” faced him squarely. His own eyes were blazing with excitement.
“Perhaps my name is Greenford, too,” he said.
“Perhaps — and perhaps not. You will give me that telegram, or—”
There was a sinister threat in the man’s incompleted sentence. The Agent smiled bleakly.
“You shall have it if you want it,” he said. “A most unfortunate mistake!”
His hand dived into his packet. It came out clutching the yellow telegram. Greenford could not see the small metal tube concealed in the palm of the Agent’s hand. The jostling crowd milled around them. Agent “X” held the telegram out. Greenford reached out a hand to take it. The Secret Agent’s fingers moved. He held the tube tensely, skillfully. His thumb was pressing one end. From the other, the open end of the tube, a hair-thin needle flashed out. It penetrated the skin of Greenford’s wrist, buried itself for an instant in his flesh. The prick of its point was hardly more noticeable than the bite of a mosquito.
Greenford drew his arm away, hardly knowing what had happened. He glanced at the Agent, glanced around. But the telegram was in his fingers. Its message seemed to hold him fascinated. He had not seen ths Agent palm the tube, a miniature hypodermic needle. An instant more and Secret Agent “X” had turned his back and was striding on.
Greenford called after him, started in pursuit again. But he had taken no more than a half-dozen steps when he began to stagger. He fell against a woman at his left, pulled himself up, and swayed to the right. Then suddenly his knees gave way under him. With his face muscles sagging and a look of utter perplexity in his eyes, he fell to the pavement.
Excited shouts went up from the crowd around him. Greenford was sitting on the sidewalk with a dazed look on his face. He was like a man afflicted with a sudden apoplectic stroke. The crowd stopped, drew around him in a ring, staring with dumb, gaping eyes.
“He’s drunk,” someone said.
“He’s sick,” said another. No one made a move to do anything about it. A lethargy of curiosity had settled over the people around — the lethargy of the typical city crowd.
Then a man broke through the barrier of gaping people. His face was concerned. He was a dignified-looking man, gray at the temples, heavy featured. He had a professional air about him. The man was Agent “X” come back.
He felt Greenford’s pulse — rolled his eyelid down and stared at the iris.
“I’m a physician,” he said. “Call a cab — at once. This man seems to be ill.”
Someone at the edge of the crowd signaled a taxi. The cab drew up to the curb. Someone else helped Agent “X” lift Greenford to his feet. In a minute he was inside the vehicle. Then, with Agent “X” holding him solicitously, the cab sped away.
Chapter V
“TO the nearest hospital,” ordered Agent “X,” still maintaining his professional manner. The driver nodded, heading the cab into a long avenue, honking his horn to keep traffic back.
In the interior of the cab, slumped on the seat, Greenford’s body joggled like a sack of meal. His head swayed grotesquely on his shoulder. His dazed eyes stared ahead unseeingly.
But as seconds passed, the vagueness of his eyes began to diminish. It was as though a curtain were slowly going up. Agent “X” opened a side window. Cold night air blew on Greenford’s face. A little of the laxity left his body. He shook himself, opened his eyes wider. A sound like a sigh came from his lips. Suddenly he moved his head, stared at the man beside him. His gaze met the strangely burning eyes of Agent “X.” A snarl came from Greenford’s lips, then color rushed back into his cheeks, mottling them darkly.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Agent “X” did not answer immediately. He reached forward with one hand, slid the glass panel behind the driver’s seat shut.
“Silence!” he said harshly.
“See here—” Greenford was crouched back on the seat now like an animal at bay. “Let me out of this cab or I’ll—”
There was thickness in his voice, the thickness of some foreign accent carefully hidden. He yanked his arm away from the Agent’s grasp, his fingers moved suddenly toward his pocket, then hesitated. The burning, strange light in “X’s” eyes seemed to hold his fascinated. “X’s” right hand had moved, drawn his gas gun out so quickly that Greenford had been unable to follow the motion. The gun was pointed directly at him now. He could not know that its sinister black muzzle held only sleep, not death. The look in the Agent’s eyes was deadly.
The Agent offered no explanation, gave no inkling of his plans. But the look of anger in Greenford’s face turned to one of fear. A sickly doughiness came over his features. He began to tremble. There had been murders. Murder was in the air. In the eyes of this strange man beside him he seemed to read a sinister threat.
“Don’t shoot,” he babbled suddenly. “Don’t kill me. I’ll do anything you say.”
Here was the voice of a coward speaking, a man whose aggression left him when he saw himself cornered. There was contempt in the Agent’s eyes. He had met this breed before. He held the gun steadily. Then he slid the panel behind the driver’s seat open, again.
“Never mind the hospital,” he said. “Drive to the St. James apartments — ninety Jefferson Avenue.”
The cabman gave one puzzled glance and obeyed. If he thought at all, he must have concluded that the address given was a doctor’s office.
Greenford continued to tremble, staring with terrified eyes at the man beside him. Agent “X” seemed to radiate mystery and power. There was inexorable command in his glowing eyes. Their glance was almost hypnotic. Greenford wilted beneath it.
The cab drew up at the address given. A big but not too expensive apartment rose at the side of the street.
Agent “X” thrust the gas gun in his pocket, but kept the muzzle still pointing at Greenford through the cloth of his overcoat.
“Make any break and—” “X” did not finish his sentence, but he pressed the hard snout of the gun against Greenford’s side.
The Agent paid the cabby then, and, with Greenford moving slightly ahead, they entered the apartment building. There was no doorman. A switchboard operator glanced at them casually. Agent “X” pressed the button of an automatic elevator. When the car came into sight, he motioned Greenford into it. He pressed another button, and they ascended to the fifth floor.
Greenford, still trembling with fear, was marshaled down a long corridor and into a simply furnished apartment. The door of the apartment closed after him.
“What do you want?” he asked in a croaking voice. “Who are you? I haven’t got—” He did not finish the sentence. He checked himself, stared at the Agent.
The Agent was silent. His burning eyes were still upon Greenford. He seemed to be studying him, seemed to be analyzing every movement that the man made. Greenford spoke again.
“What is it you want. Don’t—”
Again he stopped in the middle of a sentence. His lips opened to scream, but the scream ended in a gasp. For, as quickly as the flash of a snake’s tongue, Agent “X” had whipped his gas gun out. His finger pressed the trigger. There was a barely audible hiss. A jet of gas sprayed into Greenford’s face, filled his mouth. Without a sound, the man staggered back and collapsed on the rug.
THE Agent pocketed his gun; then drew an open-faced watch from his pocket and glanced at it. It was long after ten now. The telegram he had taken from Greenford had given twelve as the hour of the mysterious rendezvous at Bradley Square. Time was a vital element.