“Tell me more about this criminal,” he said. “What crook plans such a daring robbery?”
“No one knows. He calls himself the Black Master.”
It was Agent “X” who paled this time beneath his disguise. For a moment his long thin fingers tightened over his cigarette, squeezing it until tiny golden shreds of tobacco spilled to the floor.
“The Black Master?” he echoed harshly.
“Yes — do you know of him?”
He did not reply, but the vivid light of deep emotion sprang into his eyes. He was silent for seconds while the girl studied his face. Then he spoke hoarsely.
“Only death could keep me away from Colonel Crandal’s party, Betty. You are assured of an escort who will try to match in gallantry the beauty of the girl he accompanies.”
Chapter X
THE Crandal name was an old and honored one. The Crandal mansion, owned now by Colonel Gordon Crandal, a reserve officer with a distinguished war record, was one of the city’s show places. It occupied nearly a whole city block. Great iron gates closed the street entrance except at such times as the owner chose to admit guests.
Tonight was one of those times. The many windows of the Crandal mansion were brightly lighted. An orchestra was playing seductive dance music. The huge ballroom, where presidents and visiting royalty had danced, was open, its furniture dusted, its ancient crystal chandeliers glittering impressively.
The end of prohibition had brought old-time gaiety back. The portraits of long-dead ancestors in tarnished frames seemed to smile down in approval at the handsomely-dressed company. Men were there in tail coats and dinner jackets. Ladies in low-cut evening gowns. Radiant debutantes were attired to reveal charms that would lure hesitant bachelors into the bonds of matrimony.
Faithful old servants of the Crandal family moved silently about the polished floors, trays of cocktails in their blue-veined hands. They seemed as much of an inheritance as the house itself.
Betty Dale and her escort came shortly before nine — shortly before the fashionable hour so that Betty, because of her newspaper work, wouldn’t miss seeing the arrival of the more impressive guests.
She wore blue slippers and a clinging blue dress, complementing the gold of her hair. A white evening wrap was thrown about her shapely shoulders. Her loveliness rivaled that of any blue blood present.
Girls cast envious glances at her as she entered. Men paused to stare in admiration. Her escort came in for a share of attention, too.
Tall and immaculately dressed in formal evening clothes, his face had the lean, healthy look of an out-of-doors man. It was darkly tanned. His hair swept straight back from a strong forehead. His temples were slightly, becomingly gray.
Betty Dale introduced him to those of the guests she knew.
“I want you to meet Clark Manning, the explorer,” she said.
She spoke convincingly. People mumbled that they had often heard of Clark Manning. To admit that they hadn’t would have seemed both rude and ignorant. A gushing lady spoke admiringly of Manning’s travel books — taking care not to mention any particular titles. Manning seemed like a man worth cultivating. His burning, deep-set eyes were strangely compelling and mysterious.
A friend of Betty’s brought Colonel Crandal up to them. The scion of the ancient family was in his late forties, tall, gray-haired, poised. He was still a bachelor and eager, hopeful debutantes flocked around him like satellites around a star.
He acknowledged his introduction to Betty Dale and her escort, Secret Agent “X,” now posing as Clark Manning, explorer.
The colonel’s swift, experienced eyes appraised Betty from her trim little slippered feet to the sunny gold of her hair. Then he spoke debonairly, asked her to dance, and bore her off, leaving a half-dozen disappointed young ladies in his wake.
The girls looked to Secret Agent “X” for consolation. They begged him to tell them about his explorations. But he shook his head modestly. In a few minutes he edged away and strode off to reconnoiter by himself.
HE studied the smiling, gay faces around him. Would they be so smiling, so gay if they knew that the threat of the Black Master hung like an evil shadow over this house? Wouldn’t their bright laughter turn to whispers of ghastly fear if they knew that the man who had threatened Crandal was the murderer who killed with invisible, choking fingers?
Among the guests were quiet-faced men in dinner jackets — men who seemed to have no part in the festivities.
These were agency and police detectives detailed to watch and protect Crandal’s famous jewels from the menace of a daring criminal. But even they, “X” felt certain, didn’t know with whom they were dealing. They didn’t know that the Black Master and the dealer in swift, strangling death were one and the same.
Agent “X’s” gaze was hawklike. Was it possible that the murderer of Scanlon and those others was somewhere in this brilliant gathering?
His eyes wandered from face to face. He saw the city’s tall, suave police commissioner talking to a group of ladies, thrilling them with tales of his police experiences, his successful contests with criminals. Before this night was over the commissioner might have something else to think about — something too ghastly perhaps to relate as drawing room conversation.
Then Agent “X” gave a sudden start.
More guests were arriving. He saw a flash of light on blonde hair. A woman in a flame-colored evening gown came through the ballroom door. She moved tigerishly, sinuously across the floor, a tall, dark man at her side. She was smiling radiantly — smiling with her red lips, but her eyes did not smile. They had the cold, appraising look of an adventuress.
“Nina!” whispered the Agent tensely under his breath.
It was a shock to see her here — a surprise. Yet, staring around at the mixed assemblage, he saw that her presence, was not altogether out of place.
Whispers had it that Colonel Crandal planned to run for the legislature. People of all types and from all walks of life had been invited to this party. A politician and a city commissioner hovered around the punch bowl. A night-club hostess leaned on the arm of one.
Beyond them, fat and baggily dressed, was Nick Baroni, a big shot in the days when gangdom rode to wealth and power on a flood of illegal liquor. He had paid his income taxes, escaped jail. He had reformed, so rumor had it, and was spending his money to gain entree into society. A thin veneer of social polish hid brutal instincts that slumbered behind his oily, massaged face. He was balancing a cocktail glass in fingers that had once tensed around the vibrating trigger of a Tommy gun.
The Secret Agent’s lips curled.
Then his eyes swiveled back to the woman in the red dress. He edged close, lighting a cigarette, and heard Nina and her escort introduced.
“Piere DuBrong and the Countess Rocazy,” the lady who presented them said.
Nina was carrying it off well. An elaborate coiffure had been artfully molded to soften the lines of her face. Her nails were stained a vivid crimson. She held a small fan in her hand, pressing it close against her white bosom. She was capitalizing on her exotic charm, playing on the gullibility of social climbers to whom a European title was a thing before which to bow down and worship. But Agent “X” was not impressed. He believed that her title was bogus.
The man with her, Piere DuBrong, had the alert hungry look of a questing hawk. His glittering eyes indicated a keen, acquisitive brain. The two appeared well matched.