For nearly twelve hours at a stretch Agent “X” had remained in that room, listening. There was hardly a station in the United States, Canada or Mexico, private or commercial, that he had not tuned in on for a moment at least as he sought patiently for some broadcast that might fit in with the clue of Van Camp’s strange set.
And now, suddenly, a mysterious message was coming in out of the night. The Secret Agent’s eyes were glowing with the light of rapt intensity. On a wave length lower than that of any other call he had received so far, a strange jumble of words was being repeated at fifteen-minute intervals.
“Tee — ten — sent — to — ner — del — that — ree — dows — un — tues — night — oh —”
Those jerky syllables were in a man’s voice — a voice that Agent “X” could never mistake. It was the precise, obviously disguised voice of the Octopus.
But what was the master criminal saying? There was a maddening, unfathomable riddle in those spaced syllables. “Sent — to” and “tues — night” were the only ones that appeared to make any sense. Something had happened, or was going to happen Tuesday night; but what? Every second syllable vanished, and these gaps of silence formed an amazing puzzle.
Three times the Agent listened to the strange message, then leaped to another instrument standing on a chair near by. This was a complex directional aerial attached to the radio. Copper wire was coiled in the flattest possible plane, mounted on a rotating central post. A micrometer screw controlled the movements of this coil.
Feverishly “X” turned this screw until the message, coming in a fourth time, grew louder. A gold-foil galvanometer at the base of the aerial showed at last that maximum volume had been attained. Any slight movement beyond that point made the message dim. A small radio beam compass also worked in conjunction with the aerial. The Agent studied this tensely. The clocklike face of the compass turned as the aerial was rotated, but the needle remained stationary. From the relation of the two, the Agent got exact bearings. The red compass line, corresponding to the plane of the aerial, showed almost due east.
“X” suddenly rose. He packed up his radio set and other instruments with speed and care. In quick strides he left his hideout. The night air felt good after the prisonlike life he had been living for twelve hours. He deposited his equipment in the seat of his car, drove like a demon in a southerly direction away from Chicago. There was no telling how long the Octopus’s message would continue to be broadcast.
FOR a half hour “X” raced through the night, thundering over night-darkened country roads. Twenty-five miles south of Chicago he turned off into a narrow side lane and parked in a grove of trees. Here he set up his instruments again and bent over them intently.
Five minutes, and that mysterious call was once more being repeated.
“Tee — ten — sent — to — ner — del — that — ree — dows — un — tues — night — oh —”
A second time the Agent adjusted his radio beam compass and directional aerial until the supersensitive leaves of the special galvanometer showed maximum intensity. Now the red line on the clocklike face of the compass was pointing a tiny fraction north of due east. It was no more than a single degree on the compass’s graduated face. Agent “X” set a screw-head which locked the line where it was.
He opened a detailed scale map of the United States put out by the Geodetic Survey. It did not vary from actual distance by more than a tenth of a mile at most.
“X” marked the two positions from which he had taken the directions, marked the compass points in fractions of degrees. Like an astronomer photographing a star from two different points, he now had a paralax.
Careful mathematical estimates of the sides of this elongated isosceles triangle would enable him to determine where they converged. This would be the spot from which the mysterious broadcast had been made.
Back in his hideout Agent “X” covered a sheet of paper with exact geometrical symbols and figures. With a ruler marked off in millimeters and a pair of the finest calipers he went over the Geodetic Survey map.
When he straightened at last, his eyes were snapping pools of light. The broadcast of the Octopus was coming from a county in western New York State. The Agent had the precise spot marked off on his map. The station was somewhere in a circle, not more than a half mile in diameter. The data collected by means of his precise scientific instruments could not lie.
The Agent changed to his disguise of Martin, the newspaper man, again. He got in touch with Hobart at once, arranged to have the ex-dick meet him at the Chicago airport within half an hour.
“X” beat the detective to the airport, chartered a fast plane and a skilled pilot from a commercial flying company. In this he and Hobart flew to Buffalo.
THE Agent had a hideout in Buffalo, too, also a car garaged under another name. He kept Hobart waiting while he got this car. Then, with Hobart beside him on the seat and his elaborate scientific equipment packed in the rear, he headed off into the country.
Twice Agent “X” consulted his road map. A State highway led him close to his objective. He swung into a country road, the ruts of which made the big car jounce like a ship on a stormy sea. But in spite of the bad condition of the road and its many curves, Agent “X” switched off the car’s lights.
Guided only by the dim light of the stars he drove ahead, eyes seeming able to pierce the darkness. Jim Hobart swore as a particularly bad rut made the car leap and clatter.
“That crack-up in that plane of yours had nothing on this, boss! I’ll be needing an air cushion to sit on for the next week.”
Agent “X” gave a low command for quiet; then whispered to Hobart to keep his automatic handy. He stopped, flicked on the dim instrument board light a moment, and consulted both his road map and the Geodetic map again.
He switched off the light, listened, but nothing sounded except the moaning of the night wind through the trees of the rocky, wooded country. Agent “X” spoke guardedly.
“I want you to stay here, Jim, and keep watch of the car while I scout around. Don’t move till I get back.”
“X” slipped like a wraith into the darkness, walking surefootedly. Black as the night was, things to him were visible. He had trained himself long ago to see under circumstances in which other men could not.
Cautiously he walked through the sparse woods. Any moment he expected to come upon some old barn or house which held sinister secrets. Perhaps within the next hour he would come to grips with the Octopus, the man who mysteriously controlled a crime corporation covering the whole United States.
A half hour passed and Agent “X” saw nothing but trees, ground and rocks. Systematically he searched that circle he had marked out on his map. With the thoroughness of a hound, never lapping over back tracks, he went over the circle, crossing its diameter first, going over one half, then the other.
At last after two hours he stopped, eyes bright, jaws grim. Failure had marked his course tonight; failure after all those precise recordings and careful computations.
There was no single sign of human life within this circle out of which the broadcast had come. There was no hidden station, no barn, house, shack, cave or suspicious point. It was only what it appeared to be — empty, desolate country. Once again the Octopus had checkmated him.
Chapter XXI
DISCONSOLATELY Agent “X” went back to the car where Hobart was waiting. “X’s” shoulders drooped for the first time since he had begun his quest for the master of crime — the Octopus. Out of the darkness Hobart’s hushed voice reached him.