He marveled at the quiet efficiency of that muffled port motor.
He could hear the faint movement of valves now, hear the drumming swish of the propeller. He worked behind it, climbed down to the motor nacelle, groped cautiously in the darkness.
A six-foot, steel catwalk led from this nacelle to the cabin, facilitating repairs while the blimp was in the air.
“X” lowered himself to the catwalk, felt along it, found a door in the side of the cabin. His heart beat faster. There was a handle on the door. It wasn’t locked. He turned the handle, opened the door, stepped inside. He was now in the very stronghold of death.
A short, narrow corridor, lighted by one tiny bulb went to right and left. There were two doors along the side of this corridor, another up forward.
Agent “X” cat-footed toward this forward door. Inside, the blimp was constructed differently from any he had ever seen. It had been built by an unusual man for unusual purposes.
“X” came to the door at the end of the corridor, opened it.
Silhouetted against another bulb above the blimp’s instrument panel, a man was standing. Rigidly as an automaton he held the controls that guided the blimp through the air. His eyes were fixed on the dials before him that were spread across the polished panel in glittering array. The blimp was in the fog now, being flown by instruments alone.
Agent “X” passed through the door, started toward that silent figure in front of the controls, then stiffened. He had heard no sound behind him, but something cold was suddenly pressed against his back. Some one had come along the corridor silently, seen him enter the control room. Death was in that pressure.
With the quickness of a striking snake, Agent “X” reached behind him, knocked the gun from the fingers that held it with a chopping upward blow of his hand. The gun clattered, but the silent man who held it leaped on Agent “X’s” back, bore him to the floor, wrapping fingers around his throat. The man by the controls gave an amazed, stifled cry.
Agent “X” fought like a mad man. These hirelings of the Octopus were amazed at his presence; but to attack was instinctive with them. The other man left his place at the controls, joined his comrade. They did not cry out again. They bent their energies to overpower this human wraith who had appeared so mysteriously out of the night.
But the light of battle was in the Agent’s eyes. He could not, would not, submit to defeat now. He fought tigerishly, fought for the suppression of the most vicious criminal band with which he had ever come in contact.
Ignoring for the moment those fingers around his neck, he lashed out with his fist at the man in front. Knuckles cracked against flesh. The man staggered away. Then Agent “X” deliberately fell backwards with all his might, fell on top of the man who was trying to strangle him. It was an utterly unexpected maneuver.
“X” jerked his own head forward as he struck. He heard the other’s body hit the steel flooring. There was a thud, a gasp. The hands around the Agent’s neck relaxed. “X” bounded to his feet.
THE man who had been at the controls was coming forward again, jerking a gun from his belt. Agent “X” didn’t give him time to use it. His two fists cracked against the man’s face with the speed of descending trip-hammers. The man went down this time to stay.
Agent “X” whirled on the other, saw that he was out, too, a huddled heap across the sill of the control room door. “X” was master of the forward part of the blimp.
But how many others were there? A sudden, sinking qualm affected “X” like a chill. What if the Octopus himself were not on board? What if this robbery had been accomplished by his hirelings alone? Then “X” recalled those broadcasts. This was the Octopus’s blimp. It must be his broadcasting station as well. He must be on board when such a huge robbery as this was underway.
“X” took one look at the controls. The altimeter read two thousand feet. Its needle showed that the blimp was still level. The compass was steady. The craft could be safely left alone for many minutes. The steady wind would not make it change its course.
Agent “X” stepped over the body of the man near the corridor door. He walked down the corridor silently, eyes alert, gas gun held ready. The strange stillness of the big craft amazed him. The smooth throb of the motors, the faint rhythmic swish of the propellers were the only sounds.
Quickly, silently, Agent “X” opened the first door he came to. There was a small flashlight in his hand. He turned it on. This room went the full width of the gondola. Stout metal beams crisscrossed it. Suspended from the beams was a squat, compact piece of mechanism, an electric hoist, geared to tremendous power. Agent “X” gave an exclamation.
In the center of this chamber, raised above the level of the floor, was the black, mysterious car in which the Mandel child had been whisked from his home.
It was like the spy cars suspended from Zeppelins during the World War. The mystery of the kidnaping was explained. The blimp had hovered above the Mandel home, motors slowed till the craft was stationary against the wind. The car had been lowered to the sun roof. The child had been snatched from his bed. Then the car had been raised on the hoist, the motors of the blimp started so that the car plunged ahead.
There was also a grappling hook on a moveable beam swinging from the hoist. Agent “X” stepped across the floor. At his feet, piled carelessly against the metal wall, was the five million in gold taken from the Morencia.
He left the room, walked silently toward that other door. Coming close, he saw that there was faint light around it.
With fingers tense as talons Agent “X” reached for the handle of the door. The mystery of the Octopus was at last to be solved.
Quietly as a guest entering some room where his host expected him, Agent “X” pushed through the door. There was a brilliant overhead light here. The room was filled with complex machinery, and, at a desklike table in the center of the room, a lone man sat.
Agent “X” drew in his breath with a shudder of amazement. Prepared as he was for a surprise, he was not prepared for this. For the man at the table desk was Professor Norton Beale, the great criminologist.
Beale raised his head, gave a slight start, then sat rigidly, arms spread before him. His leonine head, his broad shoulders, gave an impression of power held in leash. His eyes behind his glasses met those of the Agent calmly.
The Agent’s gun was steady. His own eyes were steely bright.
The whole incredible drama of crime was climaxed by this quiet man sitting before him. A great criminologist turned criminal. A man who had spent his life fighting crooks, now the master crook of them all.
Looking at that huge, intellectual head, Agent “X” realized that here was a man led astray by strange forces. A fierce will, a suppressed thirst for power that the profession of criminology did not bring him, a desire to show the surpassing brilliance of his mind by a mad game of life and death with Society itself, had urged Beale on.
FOR nearly fifteen seconds the Octopus did not speak. A lesser man would have leaped to his feet in amazement at the sight of this unexpected visitor where no visitor seemed possible. But the machine-like brain, the steely nerves of Norton Beale were under perfect control.
He studied the Agent’s face calmly, intent. Then with a magnificent show of aplomb, Beale removed his eye glasses, wiping them with a handkerchief he flicked from his vest.
“X,” anticipating some trick, waited tensely. Beale spoke at last.
“This,” he said, “is an unexpected pleasure. Whoever you are I compliment you sincerely.”
“X” crossed deliberately to the table, took a chair on the opposite side from Beale, gun still centered on the other man’s forehead. Beale studied the Agent’s hypnotic, burningly intent eyes. Then he threw back his head and laughed suddenly. He laughed as though at some uproariously funny joke. “X” wondered if the man were slightly mad. But there was real mirth in the professor’s laugh. It was the mirth of a man who can view a situation with scientific impartiality. Beale spoke, again.