She gasped and crouched, glaring at him.
“You will be sensible,” he continued, “and wait till I have completed negotiations with a certain party. If you call the police or kill me now, all will be lost. But I see that you are not going to be sensible, dear Nina. You are shockingly intoxicated with the greed for gold. Therefore—”
He reached forward, yanked the cord of the telephone out of the wall, flinging the instrument down. Then, with a mocking bow, he opened the door and walked out, taking the key from the lock. Outside, he locked the door and slipped the key in his pocket. It would be some time before she got out, and meanwhile he had much to do.
Chapter IX
IT was late, nearly one-thirty; but the Agent chartered another cab and gave an address on Twenty-third Street. The taxi sped downtown. It drew up in the middle of the block before an apartment house.
The Agent paid the driver, then, before entering the building, stepped among the shadows on the opposite side of the street. Two walls came together here forming a dark recess. From it, unobserved, he could look up at the side of the apartment. Many windows were still lighted. There was a light in a window on the sixth floor.
The Secret Agent moved his lips and gave a strange, low whistle. It was melodious yet eerie with an oddly ventriloquistic note. No one standing even a few feet from “X” could have told where it came from. It seemed to fill the whole air and it echoed in both directions along the quiet street.
The shade of the window with the light in it on the sixth floor moved upward. The window was raised and a girl’s head suddenly appeared. From the street her features were visible. She was no more than an enticing silhouette against the light in the room behind her. She looked searchingly up and down the dark block as the Agent repeated the whistle. Then, seeing nothing, she withdrew and closed the window.
The Agent strode quickly into the apartment building, ascended in the automatic lift, and pressed the button of suite No. 6B.
The click of high heels sounded on the parquet flooring inside. The door opened, and the girl who had looked out the window stood framed in the threshold. She, too, was blonde, like Nina, but she was of an altogether different type.
The small, warm oval of her face held sweetness and poise. Her blue eyes were frank, their keenness softened by long, silky lashes that swept to her cheeks. The gleaming wealth of her hair, alive with the glow of the light behind her, made a sunny halo around her head, blending with the creamy whiteness of her neck. Her petite figure was draped in clinging lounging pajamas that revealed its shapeliness. A coolie coat had been flung over the pajamas. She drew this hastily around her and looked questioningly at the man in the doorway.
Her eyes showed no recognition, but her soft warm lips seemed ready to break into a smile. Unable to penetrate his disguise, she was waiting for a signal. He gave it to her, making a motion in the air with his finger — the sign of an X.
Her expression changed instantly. The man before her, whose disguise was so perfect, had revealed his identity by that mysterious gesture. His whistle had told her he was on the way. Now he stood before her — Secret Agent “X.”
The girl’s blue eyes showed infinite respect. She had never seen the real face hidden behind his thousand disguises. He had fooled her again and again, tested out dozens of make-ups on her. Only on rare occasions, when the old wound in his side gave him a twinge of pain and he pressed his hand to it in a characteristic gesture, had she known who he was without being told by some sign or symbol.
There were reasons for the respect and friendship she felt for this strange man. He had been a friend of her father’s — the father who was a police captain slain by underworld bullets. She knew that Agent “X” waged ceaseless warfare on that underworld that she hated and despised.
In her capacity of newspaper woman, a reporter on the Herald, she was often able to help him indirectly, give him information about people, or carry out some order that would contribute to the capture of a criminal.
It made her happy to do this, even when by doing so she got into danger herself. And, being human and feminine, she was curious about the real man behind those brilliant disguises. There was in her something that responded to the strange magnetism, courage and daring of Secret Agent “X.” She sensed that death was always at his elbow. She knew there was little hope of any romance between them. But by comparison with him, other men seemed tame, uninteresting.
SHE walked ahead of him now into the comfortable living room of the apartment she maintained by her own hard work.
“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll get you some cigarettes.”
The Agent was silent, but his strange burning eyes followed her. She was a girl in a million, as clever and brave as she was beautiful.
“The harvester has been at work,” he said abruptly.
Betty Dale turned and looked at him. Agent “X” seldom spoke like ordinary men. There were generally innuendoes, subtleties, and double meanings in everything he said. His speech was as mysterious as his person.
He was holding a sheaf of bills in his hand now. She saw many bank notes of high denomination. He flipped them on the table.
“For victims of the wolf,” he said.
She knew at once what he meant. The money that the Agent took from criminals was used to help the victims of criminals. Betty Dale saw to that. Simply, unpretentiously, she distributed what he gave her among people whom crime had in some way left destitute. The wives and small children of men serving prison sentences. Widows and orphans of murder victims.
Was it only to bring her money that the Agent had come?
She saw that tonight he seemed tense and ill at ease. There was an odd light in his eyes, restlessness in the movements of his body.
“Is there any other way I can help yon?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head, blowing quick jets of smoke through his nostrils.
“Ghost fingers are better dealt with alone.”
The girl’s face blanched at this. Her eyes widened.
“You are fighting the Spectral Strangler then,” she said. “There’s danger — terrible danger in that. Four people have been killed already. Be careful for my — for every one’s sake.”
The Agent nodded grimly.
“The trail is getting warm,” he said.
She came closer and spoke again.
“I’ve read about those murders. Every one is talking about them. They are ghastly, unthinkable. I was going to ask a favor of you — but now, now I won’t.”
For Betty to ask any sort of favor of him was so unusual that the Agent stared at her keenly. Then he spoke quickly.
“A girl with sunny hair and sunlight in her heart has helped me often,” he said. “There are debts that it is a pleasure to pay back. Your favor, whatever it is, is granted.”
A flood of color swept into Betty Dale’s cheeks. For a moment she turned her face away, hiding the sudden surge of emotion she didn’t want “X” to see. Love must never come between them, never interfere with his work. And sometimes in his presence, when he showed the admiration he felt for her, she had to fight love down.
“I was going to ask,” she said huskily, “that you go with me to Colonel Gordon Crandal’s party tomorrow night. The paper wants me to cover it. There’s the society angle — and there’s something else.”
“Something else?” he echoed, caught by the sudden frown on her face.
“Yes,” she said. “Colonel Crandal is rich, aristocratic — and the Crandal jewel collection is famous. He’s received threats from some criminal who plans to steal them. The Herald was tipped off tonight. There’ll be lots of detectives at the party. The police commissioner himself will be among the guests.”