A paunchy man in a dress suit with glittering diamond studs brushed Betty Dale aside with a sweep of his fat arm and charged ahead like a frightened bull.
Agent “X” saw the man’s action from the corner of his eye. His lip curled in contempt. The man lurched by him and the Agent thrust a quick foot into his path tripping him, disregarding the fact that the man was the president of one of the city’s leading banks. The bank official skidded along the floor carrying a rug with him.
The police commissioner was shouting, too, trying to stem the tide of panic. His voice boomed out. The frenzy began to subside.
Secret Agent “X” leaped up the broad stairway, his eyes burning with excitement. Three detectives, freeing themselves from the milling crowd, followed him.
At the top of the stairs there was a long hallway. Agent “X” looked down it. Another figure lurched into sight. It was the old butler, the man who had carried the jewels down for the guests to see. The butler’s fingers were clawing at his throat. He collapsed on the floor as the Agent neared him. His face, too, had the ghastly livid hue of strangulation.
Debris, and the broken panels of a door showed the location of the explosion. Secret Agent “X” needed no one to tell him it was the entrance to the jewel room.
The door was hanging loosely on its hinges. He thrust it open, stepped inside. The force of the explosion had shattered every light bulb. In the gloom he almost fell over another form — another detective.
One of the plain-clothes men behind him flashed on a light. “X” saw then that the man at his feet was dead, too. He had evidently fallen before the explosion had taken place. His body was twisted grotesquely, his features mutilated beyond recognition. Death and horror had struck here.
“The safe’s been blown,” said the detective behind “X” harshly.
The beam of the man’s flash light was focused on the heavy iron box across the room. It was twisted out of line now, its sides bulging, its doors blown off.
“Soup!” said another detective. “A bungling job, too. They used enough nitro to wreck a house.”
With drawn guns, both men leaped across the room, running to a window which was open. It gave on a balcony. They turned their lights down on the lawn beneath. Secret Agent “X” heard them cry out. Peering over their shoulders, he saw a fourth huddled form on the icy turf. The detective stationed to patrol the grounds had been killed along with the two others.
Guests, taking courage, now that the police were going to the scene of the explosion, were coming up the stairs, crowding into the hall.
Crandal came into the room, two friends with him. The millionaire’s face no longer wore its look of easy assurance. He was tense and pale.
“The jewels are gone,” he said hoarsely.
He seemed to forget the dead man lying at his feet, the other men outside. He was staring wide-eyed at the safe.
In front of it was the black leather case that had contained the jewels. It was empty, battered and broken by the terrible force of the explosion. There wasn’t a jewel in sight.
Colonel Crandal leaped to the window. He stood speechless, staring out.
The police commissioner appeared in the doorway, a group of guests, including Piere DuBrong and Nick Baroni, with him. The commissioner’s collar was torn. His hair was on end. He had been fighting to stop the panic downstairs. He said:
“You’d better go down, Colonel. You’d better go and quiet your guests. Tell them it’s over now. That criminal made good his threat.”
There was bitterness, defeat, in the commissioner’s voice.
“This has been a terrible night, Colonel,” he continued. “Three of my men gone. They tell me MacCarthy outside was killed, too.”
THE Secret Agent was listening. His burning eyes were swiveling around the room, staring at the safe and the window. The killer had wiped out clues, wiped out any possibility of identification by leaving a trail of death behind him.
The Agent’s gaze came to rest on the faces of DuBrong and Nick Baroni. They both appeared shaken and terrified. But were they? The Agent was baffled. It was as though the Black Master was a being as intangible as the murder weapon he used. Agent “X” stared out the window off across the ice-coated lawn. The commissioner issued a harsh order to those of his men who were left.
“Go out and hunt around. Get some clews that will help Burks.”
Hatless and coatless, the Agent dashed out on the lawn. The glow from the lighted windows on the first floor shed ghostly radiance. He supplemented their glow by lighting matches. The detectives came with their flash lights.
But Agent “X” had discovered in his first brief examination of the lawn how hopeless it was to look for clews here. The ground was frozen as solidly as rock. The short turf was matted with ice. Its glass-smooth surface showed no tracks. A hundred men might have walked over it.
He moved up to the dead detective. The man’s distorted features showed that the Spectral Strangler had struck him down also. What horror had he seen out there in the semi-darkness? His bloodless lips would never tell now.
Down on his hands and knees. Agent “X” examined the ground around the form of the slain detective. For a moment he bent close, then flattened his palm, rubbed it over the icy coating. Something sharper than ice pricked his skin. He drew his hand up, looked at it. Tiny particles of glass were clinging to it. They were even more fragile than the shell-thin globes of electric light bulbs. A detective came up to his side.
“What’s the matter? What the hell are you looking for, mister?”
The Agent held his hand out.
“Glass,” he said quietly.
The detective swore harshly, took an empty envelope from his pocket.
“Give it to me,” he said.
The Agent passed the glass slivers over. He had forced the police to share a clew with him. It was only fair that he share this one now with them. He believed he understood its significance, but he doubted that it would lead anywhere.
A police siren rose into a moaning wail out in the street. A car turned into the driveway of the Crandal home and drew up before the big entrance-way.
Secret Agent “X” went back into the house. He was there when Inspector Burks of the homicide squad met the police commissioner. The two went into a whispered consultation for a moment; then the commissioner held up his hand, addressing the frightened guests.
“There’s a criminal you’ve all heard of — a criminal I’ve reason to believe struck tonight, stole Crandal’s jewels, and killed these men. I’m referring to the man who masks behind the name of Secret Agent ‘X.’ It is my belief that he and the Black Master are one.”
Betty Dale came close to Agent “X.” Her eyes were dark with anxiety.
“We’d better leave,” she said. She wasn’t thinking of her newspaper work; she was thinking only of the Agent’s safety.
His smile reassured her.
“There is work for the lady scribe,” he said. “She must stay. But far places call an explorer. He has a rendezvous at midnight.”
He looked at the great clock against the wall. It was after ten now.
Some of the guests began to leave. An air of gloom and horror had fallen over the house. The atmosphere of festivity was gone.
Other police cars joined the first one in the drive. Fingerprint experts, Bertillon men, official photographers, the medical examiner and his assistant, and a detail of men from the bomb squad arrived. It seemed that every detective in the city was pouring into the Crandal home.
SECRET AGENT “X,” under the guise of Clark Manning, explorer, slipped quietly away. There were deep suspicions in his mind. He intended to investigate Piere DuBrong and the gangster, Nick Baroni. Was it only coincidence that they were there when the robbery took place? But he had a rendezvous at midnight. It could not be postponed. And a question burned in his mind. After such a fiendish and daring crime, would the Black Master still meet him in that silent, empty house that faced Bradley Square? If so, he had a plan worked out. He was ready tonight to take a desperate chance.