He vaulted a fence, turned right down another street, cut between two dark houses, then turned left, zigzagging like a pursued fox.
Somewhere behind him a police whistle shrilled. He could hear excited voices, the sound of running feet. He soon left both behind. But he was not taking any chances.
Under cover of the darkness his skilled fingers worked with uncanny dexterity. He removed a layer of plastic material from his face, added another pigment, darkening his skin, built up new contours from the tubes he took from his pocket. He seemed a swarthy Latin when he came into the light again. The taxi man would not be able to identify him if they should meet. Neither would those in the murder car if by any chance they had gotten a glimpse of him in his coupé.
He hailed another taxi on a cross street, said:
“Warner Avenue.”
“What number, chief?” the taxi driver asked.
The Agent said: “Just drive along. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
They swung into Warner Avenue, a section of cheap rooming houses. The Agent eyed the numbers on the buildings as they passed. He ordered the cab to stop when forty showed, paid his fare and continued on foot.
Sauntering on the opposite side of the street, he saw No. 24 across the way. The house that the dead man lived in was like the others on that block — red brick, dilapidated, hinting of respectability gone into decay. There was a “room to let” sign in the front window.
The block seemed quiet, broodingly sinister. Night wind rustled the leaves of the few sparse trees. Somewhere a fretful child was crying faintly. These were the only sounds.
AGENT “X” crossed the street, eyes alert, pulses quickening. He climbed the cracked steps of No. 24, took out the keys that he had removed from Ridley’s pocket. His knowledge of locks made him choose the right one instantly. He opened the door, entered a musty carpeted hall. A small bulb covered with peeled yellow paint cast a saffron glow over a hat stand, an old chair, and a small table. Somewhere in the basement rooms he heard footsteps, as of a large woman moving about a kitchen. A doorway showed a flight of stairs leading down.
He passed this, moved by an old-fashioned parlor and up a flight of stairs to the floor above. This it seemed likely would be where the rented rooms were located.
Again his knowledge of locks served him. Several doors were shut. Another key on Ridley’s ring opened one. “X” found himself in a small hall bedroom.
Tensely he looked around. The place had an eeriness to it. It was the room of a murdered man — the room, perhaps, of a man belonging to a powerful and deadly secret society. Before making inquiries of the landlady, Agent “X” began a swift search of that room.
He went to the door, shoved the old-fashioned bolt home, strode to a small dresser standing against the wall. With speed and thoroughness his hands roved through the drawers.
Nothing here but a few pieces of clothing and some toilet articles. The closet in the room held an overcoat, two pairs of shoes, a couple of empty boxes. Ridley’s belongings showed that he had been in poor circumstances financially.
A battered suitcase was stuffed under the bed. The Agent drew this out eagerly. Some old magazines were stuffed in it, a few more clothes. In the cover flap were some letters addressed to Ridley.
“X” glanced through them, gathered that they were from a married sister on the West Coast. They threw no light on the menace that Ridley’s cipher had indicated.
The Agent was puzzled. How had Ridley come to use the Playfair cipher? What connection, if any, had Ridley with the DOACs? Again, the Agent’s deductive faculties began working. A man sufficiently cunning to use a complicated cipher would hardly leave incriminating evidence lying about his room for the prying eyes of a landlady to see. But that didn’t mean there was nothing here.
“X” began a more thorough search of the room then. He had looked in all the obvious places. He began systematically going over every foot of wall space and every stick of furniture. He turned the chairs upside down, searched the bottoms. He pulled every drawer out of the dresser, looked beneath them. He took the bedcovers off, searched them and the mattress. Nothing came to light.
Then he stared at the floor. There was a worn carpet on it, nailed down, showing the uneven ridges of irregular boarding beneath. Something caught and held the Agent’s eye.
At one corner of the carpet, that nearest the window, the tack heads looked brighter. He verified this by getting down on hands and knees. The other tacks showed rust spots, or worn places where feet had tramped. These were newer, unworn. The Agent’s eyes glowed. Such little things he had trained himself to observe, things that other people might have passed by.
He took out his compact tool kit, removed from it a thing like a small chisel. He thrust the edge of this under one of the tacks.
The tack came up easily, showing that it had been removed before, or that the wood beneath was rotten.
In less than a minute he had all the tacks in the corner up. The board beneath was sound. The Agent’s pulses beat faster. He saw that at some time this piece of boarding had been sawed in two, a foot from the wall. There were nail heads in it, but, when he inserted his chisel device, the board lifted easily. The nail heads were only dummies.
Beneath the boarding was a space a foot square between the floor and the ceiling of the room below. In this hidden space were several articles. One, which instantly attracted the Agent, was a folded bit of rubber like a bathing cap. The Agent picked it up. His hand trembled then, for he saw at once that it was not a bathing cap, but a hood, made to fit tightly over the head, with eyeholes and a breathing space cut for the mouth.
He recalled the raids on police headquarters and National Guard barracks made by strangely garbed figures. Staring at the thing in his hands he had a sense of eeriness. Here was the hood of a DOAC member. Vivid blue, skull-like, it would, he knew, make its wearer look like a grotesque human vulture.
HERE was proof, also, that Ridley had belonged to the DOAC organization, proof that the hideous molten lead murders could be attributed to the secret society, as “X” had guessed.
The Agent stuffed the hood in an inner pocket. Its presence on him would be like a death warrant if he should be caught by the DOACs. And, if he fell into the hands of police and it were found, it would mean imprisonment. But neither possibility worried him. His eyes were bright with the thrill of the quest.
He picked up the other articles in the floor space. These consisted of a wicked looking Webley, a box of shells beside it, and an envelope containing a small pamphlet and a square of paper. He pulled the paper out, stared at it frowning.
FELLOW AMERICANS! The time has come for staunch citizens to unite! The time has come to prepare ourselves for what lies before us!America is soon to be bathed in bloodshed, anarchy, revolt! The depression is not ended, the New Deal will break down.We, the wise, the true-hearted, the brave, must become the dictators and the saviors of our country! We have formed a society therefore to champion the inalienable rights for which our fathers bled and died! We are training ourselves to take a firm grasp on America’s helm, to pilot the Ship of State through the troublesome waters that lie ahead.Our courage fills cowards with fear. Our frankness makes the treacherous furious. The boldness of our methods makes the weak tremble. Today every man’s hand is against us! Tomorrow we shall command universal respect! If you are strong, loyal, unselfish — we ask you to join our ranks; we, the Defenders of the American Constitution!
Here was an example of the propaganda that was luring thousands of embittered souls into the ranks of a secret society that was as false as it was criminal. The word “DOAC” was an abbreviation of the phrase “Defenders of the American Constitution.” But Agent “X” wasn’t fooled by their high-sounding title.