“You needn’t introduce yourself,” he said. “There’s only one man who could have accomplished this. Again I compliment you, Agent “X.” I’ll be interested to hear how you got away from my board of directors, how you survived the fire and explosions in which they reported to me you had died.”
There was maddening calmness, a smug tone of self-complacence and power in Beale’s voice. Faced with the last person in the world he had expected to see, faced with his most relentless enemy, Beale still behaved as though he were complete master of the situation.
There was no humor in the eyes of Agent “X.” He spoke quietly.
“Even if you hadn’t spread terror over the whole county, Beale — even if your employees didn’t go around killing, robbing, kidnaping, extorting, I would put you in prison for the murder of one man. You made a mistake when you had my detective, MacCarthy, killed, Beale.”
“And you, Agent ‘X,’ made a mistake when you first undertook to hinder my work. Even now, when it seems that victory is yours, you cannot win.”
Beale ceased speaking. His eyes glittered. Agent “X” took something from his coat pocket. It was a small black box hardly larger than a pack of cigarettes. There was a tiny lever at one end. The Agent’s finger poised over this lever. He smiled at Beale grimly.
“I’ve knocked out two of your men, Beale. You may have many more on this ship. You may have secret alarm signals. Help may be on the way this second. But, if you make any such move, neither you nor any of your men will live. There’s enough explosive in this box to annihilate us both, destroy this ship and everything in it. Force my hand and I’ll use it to rid the world of a master criminal.”
Beale shrugged, then chuckled softly. “Don’t be impetuous, Agent ‘X.’ When you reach my age you’ll see that there are times for violence and times when it is futile. You’ve misunderstood my meaning. I’ve no other help on this airship. A pilot, an engineer and myself are all it carries. Its mechanism is automatic. It is not even equipped for battle. You say you have overcome both my employees. Very pretty — but I still say your victory isn’t won. Did it ever occur to you that no one in the whole world will believe you when you tell them I’m a criminal?
“Did it ever occur to you that in trapping me you have only tasted the final sting of defeat? Turn me over to the law — and I’ve only to say I’m a victim of Agent ‘X.’ I’ve only to state that you yourself are the Octopus; that I’ve been fighting you tooth and nail, and that you’ve taken me prisoner. You understand now, Agent ‘X.’ We have waged a battle of wits, and I take the final trick.”
Agent “X” nodded silently. There was truth in every word Beale said — appalling truth. The man had played his cards so well that he was above suspicion! Not even the members of his own corporation knew him. For seconds Agent “X” did not move. His shoulders began to droop dejectedly. Then he took a cigarette case from his pocket, selected one and passed them across to Beale.
Beale’s eyes glittered as he stared at the cigarettes. He spoke with sudden amusement.
“If I should disappear from sight for more than a week, Agent ‘X’—if some one should take a notion to — ah — murder me — there are certain papers in the care of a friend of mine which will be opened. These papers state that I am being pursued and threatened by a dangerous and fiendishly clever criminal; a man who calls himself the Octopus. I have even intimated in these papers that Agent ‘X’ may be the Octopus. You will realize by this that my death would be no triumph for you.”
“X” spoke quietly. “I am not a murderer, Professor Beale. Have a cigarette?”
Beale smiled, shrugged, selected a cigarette and made use of the match that “X” preferred. The professor puffed, savoring the cigarette and seeming to find nothing wrong with it. But in a moment the glitter of his eyes became less bright. His head began to nod. The complacent look faded from his face.
Slowly, calmly, the great criminologist and master criminal fell sidewise in his chair, slumping to the floor. The harmless narcotic which “X” had administered to him in the cigarette would keep him unconscious for many minutes.
A cautious search proved to “X” that Beale had told the truth. There wasn’t another living soul on board the blimp outside of Beale himself and the two whom “X” had knocked out.
“X” returned to Beale’s chamber. He studied the complex apparatus it contained. Here was one of the moat elaborate radio and television broadcast stations “X” had ever seen. Here were the sensitive instruments by which Beale exerted his influence over a mighty crime empire. “X” studied, tested, made notes. Then he went into the blimp’s control room and changed the wheels and levers until the airship began to climb.
Up out of the fog bank it soared like a great monster, up till it had reached an altitude of several thousand feet. Then “X” headed it in a northwesterly direction, toward the lonely, far-off Adirondack mountains.
IT was twenty-four hours later that the Octopus’s sinister board of directors met again. Broadcasts to the secret radio receiving sets of each had informed them that another board meeting was scheduled. A new disbursement of assets to stockholders was to be discussed. That, and the proper investment of a large profit which the corporation had just taken in.
The country was still seething with the news of two crimes. The Mandel kidnaping and the theft of the gold from the liner, Morencia. These two appalling events had followed each other in the same week. Both had shocked profoundly the police and the citizens of the country. The kidnaping had brought terror to hundreds of homes. The theft of gold threatened to have international complications. But the Octopus’s directors were pleased. In both crimes they saw the hand of their master.
Quietly at the appointed time they took their places around the boardroom table. Even Van Camp, the criminal lawyer, was there now. He had quite recovered his composure after the narrow escape he had had at the hands of Agent “X.” He had explained how he had been drugged. The corporation members felt secure, now, safe in the power and efficiency of their vast organization.
The doors of the television cabinet opened. The masked face of the Octopus appeared. He spoke in the precise tones with which they were all familiar.
“Greetings, gentlemen!” he said. “We have much to discuss tonight. Business has been extraordinarily good this week — just as it has during the whole month past. I am going to ask Mr. Sullwell, our treasurer, to mention briefly the outstanding deals we have engaged in — and to state what the profits from these deals have been.”
In dry tones Sullwell enumerated a list of robberies and other crimes which had occurred in every State in the union and had netted over two million dollars. The image on the screen smiled.
“Good! Thank you, Mr. Sullwell! The division of profits will be the main subject under discussion tonight. But, there is another little matter to be attended to first.”
The Octopus paused. The board members stiffened, remembering that the last time the Octopus said this there had come the strange disclosure of an imposter in their midst. Surely that could not have happened again. They looked at each other uneasily. The Octopus continued.
“Yesterday some of our employees, acting under my instructions, took prisoner a man so important to us and to society that I asked two of our members, Mr. Kilrain and Mr. Sullwell, to bring him here. Many of you must have heard the name Norton Beale. Beale has written books and has helped the police. He has been a thorn in the flesh of people like ourselves for years. He is our natural enemy. This man is a prisoner of our corporation now. Ring for an attendant, Mr. Sullwell, and have him brought in.”