He heard Denvers’ shout, “He’s gone! Through the door! After him!”
“X” sped along the corridor, to the staircase. The trooper on guard at the outside door turned, raised his gun. “X” had discharged the last cartridge from his gas gun, had not had time to reload. He hurled the empty weapon at the trooper. It struck him in the temple, felled him. The trooper’s finger contracted on the trigger as he fell, and the revolver was discharged into the wall.
“X” spun toward the staircase, leaped upward, just as the door behind him burst open and Denvers erupted from the room, followed by Thane, Hanscom, and the troopers.
At the first landing “X” bowled over a servant who had come running out of one of the rooms at the sound of the shooting.
The Secret Agent continued upward. The house consisted of three floors. The master bedrooms were on the second, the servants’ quarters and a couple of additional guest rooms were on the top floor. The sounds of the pursuit were close below when he rounded into the top hallway from the staircase.
“X” was at the end of his rope. There was no place to retreat to now. They would search every nook and cranny of the top floor, would eventually find him. He heard Denvers’ voice on the second landing, “Three of you, take this floor. The rest, come up!”
Hanscom’s voice also made itself heard. “It must be this Secret Agent ‘X.’ Shoot to kill!”
And Governor-elect Farrelclass="underline" “This is outrageous! That fellow must be demented!”
“X” sped down the corridor to the last room at the front, opened the door, and slid into the room.
Feet clattered on the landing. “X” heard Denvers order, “Be careful. Search every room, thoroughly. Shoot on sight — the man is a desperate criminal!”
“X” TURNED the catch on the door, locking it. That would give him another minute or so. Then he went to the window and peered out. Below the house he could discern dim shapes patrolling the grounds. There was a drain-pipe that ran down from the roof, less than two feet from the window. It would do no good to take that, though, for he would be seen by the men below before he reached the ground.
He looked up. The roof was the last refuge. Up the drain-pipe — an almost impossible feat, yet not beyond the ability of “X.”
Even as he considered the drain-pipe, a hand in the corridor turned the knob of the door, pushed, found it locked. A trooper’s voice called out. “Major Denvers, sir. This room is locked!”
There was a rush of feet along the corridor. Denvers’ voice called out. “Open up before we shoot the lock off!”
“X” waited for no more. Lithely he swung himself out of the window, clutching the drain-pipe with both hands. Then he wrapped his legs around it, boosted himself to a little higher hold with his hands. He looked up. The roof was ten feet above him. The cornice would afford a good grip to lever himself onto the roof. But the task of getting there….
While he worked himself up. slowly, inch by inch, there was the explosion of a heavy service revolver inside, followed by a rush of feet into the room he had just quit.
He heard Denvers exclaim, “Empty! He must have gone out the window!”
A head peered out, looked downward first, then saw the drain-pipe. “X” had managed to work himself up level with the top of the window, above the head of Denvers. When Denvers turned to look up, as he must, “X” would be spotted, helpless on the drain-pipe.
And then the thing occurred that saved the situation for the Secret Agent. He knew what it meant the moment he heard the scream. It seemed that the lurking hand of horror had chosen exactly the right moment to strike again — the right moment, this time, for the man who was trying to track it down.
The scream came from the top floor, from a room at the rear; one of the rooms that was being searched.
It was the scream of a man — but so inhuman, so horribly permeated with stark terror, that it was impossible to recognize whose throat had uttered it. It was a long scream, more of fright than of pain — a scream that a man will utter when he understands that dreadful doom has descended upon him.
There was just that one, long-drawn-out scream, and then a pregnant silence that seemed to fill the house, and the dreary grounds about it with a sense of overwhelming catastrophe.
Denvers jerked his head inside without looking up.
“X” continued his laborious upward climb, listening the while, for any sounds that would give him a clue to what was happening.
His fingers scraped on sharp sliver-like projections from the lead pipe, and began to bleed. The muscles of his lower legs ached from the strain of supporting his body. But he worked upward indomitably, upward, until at last his lacerated fingers were able to touch the coping of the roof.
FIRST one hand, then the other. He gripped hard, and let his feet swing free, then kicked upward, and hooked the back of his right foot on to the coping. He levered himself up, crawled onto the roof, and lay gasping. It had been a task that racked both the nerves and the muscles.
“X” allowed himself only a half minute to regain his breath, then made his way across the roof to the rear of the house. He trod softly, for he knew that these roofs were thin, and the men in the hall below might hear his steps on the sheet tin.
He stretched full length on the roof at the rear, and looked over.
Light streamed from the room immediately below. Loud voices came through the window. “X” listened carefully, trying to visualize the scene below. He knew that they would think of the roof next; knew that he would be trapped there. But he had to hear what had taken place. Had to know whom the ghastly hand of horror had struck at this time….
And in the room below, a group of men were clustered about a ghastly spectacle on the floor.
Betty Dale stood just outside the doorway, and watched with wide-eyed terror. She could not see the thing on the floor, because of the crowd in the small bedroom.
Denvers had broken through, shouting, “What’s happened?”
Thane stood there, perspiration on his forehead. Governor-elect Farrell knelt on the floor beside a threshing, agonized body. Half a dozen troopers stood around, helpless to aid.
A low groan issued from the man on the floor. His body twitched spasmodically. Incoherent words came from his throat.
Betty pushed her way through. Her heart was thumping wildly. She was afraid to look, for fear that she would see — the Secret Agent.
But when she saw the man who lay dying on the floor, her body relaxed, though she was dumb with the horror of the spectacle. It was Hanscom!
Beside him lay his cigar — the last cigar he would ever smoke. Hanscom’s collar had burst the way Rice’s had. His throat was swelling fast. His fingers were clutching at the bloated flesh, he was trying to talk, though his windpipe was rapidly becoming sealed. In another moment he would choke to death.
Denvers knelt beside Farrell, raised the dying man’s head. Thane said, “Look out, major. Maybe you’ll get the poison if you touch him.”
Denvers paid him no attention. He said, “Can you talk, Hanscom? What happened? Who did this to you?”
Farrell urged him, also, in a hushed voice, “Try to tell us, John. Can’t you say even one word? Give us his name. A clue, anything. Try to say just one word!”
Hanscom made a tremendous effort. His bloated body heaved up in Denvers’ arms, impelled by a last mighty impulse. His eyes glared up desperately, wildly, roved from Thane, who was standing just above him, then down to Denvers and Farrell He opened his horribly swollen mouth from which saliva drooled, and two cracked, parched words issued from distended lips: “Sam — Slawson!”