Agent “X” rapped on the metal partition as he had heard the others do. There was no answer for a second. Momentarily he feared that perhaps the “boss” had gone. Then a sleepy, surly voice answered him. Evidently the leader of the extortionist ring had a cot where he could take naps in the hideout.
“What is it?” His voice came harshly.
“We got Traub, boss. We only had to use one of the gadgets. Here they are.”
“You gave the commissioner a full injection?”
Agent “X” laughed.
“All there was in it, boss.”
The small door below the eyehole opened. A hand appeared.
It was then that Agent “X” acted with the suddenness of a coiled spring abruptly released. He dropped the injectors, seized the hand, held it — pulling it through the opening.
A harsh cry sounded behind the wall. Agent “X” had his needle hypodermic out again. He plunged it into the wrist of the hand he held, squeezed the plunger. Then suddenly he realized that the needle was almost empty. He had used up most of the drug it contained.
But he held the man’s hand tensely till the fingers were beginning to grow lax. The drug was taking effect on the man behind the wall. But how long would he stay unconscious?
Dizziness swept over the Agent. He was aware again of the bacilli in his blood. This it was, he guessed, that had made him forget to fill the hypo needle. But footsteps sounded outside in the corridor. He dropped the hand he held, stepped away from the wall. Two men, evilly costumed and just back from some sinister mission, shuffled into the room.
“We thought we heard some one yell,” growled one.
“I knocked and the boss didn’t answer,” said “X.” “I thought maybe he was asleep and hollered at him. He ain’t there.”
The others rapped also. There was no answer from behind the wall.
“He’ll be back soon,” said one of the men. “He’s stayin’ here nights now.”
They rolled down their hoods, waited, puffing cigarettes. Agent “X” looked at them. Here were more of the vicious scum of the underworld.
They stared at him wondering why he did not make himself comfortable and lower his own mask. He shuffled out of the room, went down the corridor. But two other costumed men passed him. The hideous clan seemed to be assembling — their work for the night over.
AGENT “X” crept down the stairway to the underground garage. Here was the door, the lock of which had given him so much trouble. It was made of steel. It would take the police too much time to open it — and time was precious. He left it unlocked, strode swiftly through the underground passage, unlocking all the doors he came to. Then he ran back, climbed the stairs, and tiptoed into Hornaday’s room.
The man was breathing stertorously again. The effects of the diluted serum had worn off. He was back in the dread coma of sleeping sickness.
Agent “X” rolled up the man’s sleeve and gave him another injection of the serum in the bottle. That would bring Hornaday around by the time—
Feverish impatience possessed the Agent. Shooting pains were stabbing through his head. The disease was progressing in his body. But he was not thinking of himself. He was thinking of the success of his plans, thinking of Betty Dale. The gangsters had taken his watch from him, but he had possessed himself of Traub’s.
He looked at it. Five minutes of two. The night had gone. It was early morning. But these fiends who worked like ghouls in the darkness were still up. So were others, Agent “X” knew, men he had summoned.
He crept resolutely to the head of the stairs again. Faint sounds reached him. Some one was moving along the subterranean passage. The Agent’s heart beat faster.
Then he went to Hornaday’s room again and quickly took off the gorilla-suit. He removed his cloth suit also, stepped back into the furred one again, and put the other over it. This bulked his clothing out, made him look fatter, gave him the proportions of Traub. At places where the black fur came below the cuffs of the other suit, he cut it off. Commissioner Traub seemed to be standing in the room.
A cry sounded somewhere in the passage outside; then it seemed that a series of earthquake shocks came. Through the iron walls, through the concrete of the old gas works, came the blows of axes, the shouts of men. But some of the shouting men were already inside. The corridor outside Hornaday’s room rang suddenly to the sharp reports of automatics. Agent “X” looked out. The place was swarming with police — the men that he had summoned.
Gangsters poured out of the room beyond. Fierce curses sounded, the crack of automatics. A yell went up as one of the gangsters appeared in his hideous gorilla suit. Two cops fired at him point-blank. He fell sprawling grotesquely, his hood came off.
“It ain’t an ape — it’s a man,” cried a cop.
Smoke made the corridor hazy. The acrid tang of it was in the air. Agent “X” ran out into the corridor. He was unarmed, but he didn’t care. The gangsters were putting up a stiff resistance. He saw tear gas bombs in the hands of two cops.
“Not those,” he shouted. “There are real apes here. We can’t take any chance. That gas is liable—”
“Commissioner Traub!”
The cops’ jaws fell. But Chief Baxter shouldered forward, wrung the Agent’s hand.
“Good work, Traub! Great! How the hell did you do it?”
“X” didn’t answer. He snatched up a gun that a gangster, trying to plunge past, and dropped by a cop, had let fall. With this Agent “X” joined the fight. Not often did he use lethal weapons. But time was precious. What if the drug he had administered to the man behind the wall began to lose its effect? The man must not escape. He might take the serum with him — would in all probability.
Agent “X” fought like a fiend; winged two gangsters in the shoulder; pressed forward toward the room at the end of the corridor, until cops gasped at the amazing audacity of Commissioner Traub.
But they followed on his heels. The gangsters made a last stand, and were either shot or taken prisoners.
Then Agent “X” shouted an order.
“Bring in the acetylene torches quickly. Cut through that wall.”
In his telephone conversation with Baxter, talking as Traub, he had instructed that torches be brought. Two big cops from the boiler squad, which had been summoned, came into the room with the gas and torches.
Slipping their goggles over their faces, they set to work. The white-hot flame of the torches bit through the steel wall that separated this chamber from the mystery room beyond.
Sledge hammers broke out the brittle steel in the panels that the torches had cut. Agent “X,” Chief Baxter, and two cops stepped through. Then Baxter gave a harsh cry.
A man was lying on the floor — a man familiar to many citizens of Branford.
“Doctor Roeber!” cried Baxter. “Look, Traub! This guy who took care of the millionaires and swells is the crook, the big shot behind it all.”
FOR one instant only, Agent “X” stood staring. Then his questing eyes searched the room and he leaped forward. In a glass cabinet was the precious serum. In another the dread virus culture, marked in the degrees of its potency. He grabbed one serum syringe, filled it, put it in his pocket. Whatever happened, he would reserve some of that for Betty Dale.
“See that nothing happens to any of this,” he said. “It’s precious. Hornaday’s down the corridor in room G. He’ll tell you what to do. He’ll—”
Agent “X” stopped speaking, for the man on the floor, Doctor Roeber, had suddenly stirred! His face twitched. He roused himself; thrust an arm under him and sat up.