“That you, boss?”
“Yes.”
“Any luck?”
“No, Jim.”
Hobart cleared his throat, asked a hesitant question.
“What was you after, boss?”
“A big shot, Jim — a crook who makes all other crooks in the country look like small fish.”
“Gees! And you thought he was hanging out in this dump?”
“Yes, I did. Figures told me so — and figures don’t lie!”
Agent “X” gave no explanation of this seemingly cryptic statement. He lapsed into grim-lipped silence.
Hobart and “X” stayed the rest of the night in a small commercial hotel in a little town outside Buffalo. They registered again as traveling salesmen.
When morning came Agent “X” drove out alone to the circle he had marked on the map. He convinced himself that his night-time search had been right. There was no hidden broadcasting station here.
When he returned to his hotel room, Hobart held out a morning paper excitedly.
“Look, boss — here’s the dumbest kidnap racket I’ve ever heard of a crook pulling. A guy has warned a millionaire that he’ll grab the millionaire’s kid if the millionaire don’t cough up two hundred grand in advance. Tie that if you can — a crook asking advance payment for a job he ain’t done yet! Fat chance he’s got to get it, with the federal government clamping the lid down on kidnapers. He ought to have grabbed the kid first and asked for his dough afterwards, like the rest of ’em. Even the crooks are getting sappy these days.”
Agent “X” took the paper with no comment. The news item bore the address of a small mid-Western community. It said:
Warner Mandel, wealthy brewer of this city, yesterday received a note threatening that his small son would be kidnaped if he did not place two hundred thousand dollars in the hands of criminals within the next forty-eight hours.Details for delivery of the cash were given in the note, it is understood. The police and Mr. Mandel have refused to disclose what these arrangements were. A cordon of police, State detectives and federal men nave been thrown around Mandel’s suburban mansion. This demand of unknown extortionists to frighten a prospective victim into paying is more evidence of the bravado of modern criminals. In this case it is doomed to failure, however. Mandel states that he cannot be intimidated. He has no fears for his small son. His estate has been turned into a fortress. Commissioner Davenport of this city, in charge of activities to checkmate the criminals, gives as his belief that they will not even attempt to carry out their threat.
Agent “X” stared at the paper. The light in his eyes became so intense that Hobart, watching him, gave a hoarse exclamation.
“What is it, boss? That guy Mandel ain’t a friend of yours, is he?”
“No — not a friend.”
“But you know something about him.”
“I think I do!”
Silently Agent “X” took a piece of paper from an inner pocket. On it was printed the strange message he had received on his special radio the evening before.
“Tee — ten — sent — to — ner — del — that — ree — dows — un — tues — night — oh—”
Before the fifth and sixth syllables respectively, he inserted two others, “War” and “Man” and put the word “note” between “sent” and “to.” Sent note to Warner Mandel.
Agent “X” got up, paced the room excitedly. Here was conclusive evidence to him that the Octopus was the man who had threatened the millionaire brewer. And if the Octopus was behind the proposed kidnaping there was a likelihood, almost a certainty, that it would be carried out, despite the heavily armed police cordon. He turned to Hobart.
“There’s nothing phoney about this stunt, Jim. One of the cleverest crooks in the U. S. is behind it — the man I’ve been looking for.”
Jim Hobart shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry, boss. There’s been a lot of kidnapings lately. The cops are on their toes. With them on the look-out for the next twenty-four hours no crook will have a chance of getting inside the Mandel place.”
A grim smile twitched the Secret Agent’s lips. Hobart didn’t know as he did that the Octopus was a man of satanic genius and unexpected originality. Neither did the police. And yet he couldn’t warn them. Publicity would be given such a warning — publicity that would reach the ears of the Octopus, and let him know Agent “X” still lived.
“X” made a quick decision. “Pack up your duds, Jim. It’s time we got started.”
“Where to now, boss?”
“Out to the place where this kidnap stunt is going to be pulled.”
WHEN they reached the city where Warner Mandel lived, Jim Hobart was again disappointed at the inactive role his employer, Martin, gave him.
“Just hang around the hotel, Jim,” said the Secret Agent. “Your name this time is Bill Conrad. I’ll call you if I need you. Keep your ears and eyes open.”
“X” got himself a small furnished room in another part of the city. For more than an hour he combed the ether with his all-wave radio. No further messages flashed out of the sky.
As the afternoon deepened and the shadows of evening came, they seemed to portend evil. Tonight at midnight the forty-eight-hour limit would be up. The shadow of the Octopus would fall in sinister fashion over Warner Mandel’s son.
Agent “X” drove by the big Mandel estate. It was on the outskirts of the city. He saw that the newspaper report was right. Mandel’s big place had been turned into a fortress.
It covered a whole city block. At each corner, though it was still daylight and the period stipulated by the kidnapers had not elapsed, a radio patrol car was stationed. Every hundred feet along the fence that skirted the place a guard with a rifle stood. Plain-clothes detectives and federal men were sauntering about the lawn.
The Mandel child was nowhere in sight. Hidden behind the walls of the house, with other plain-clothes men inside, it seemed fantastic to suppose that any criminal could get to him. But Agent “X” wasn’t at ease.
“X” saw a tradesman on his way to the kitchen entrance stopped. He was cross-questioned by the police. His delivery auto was searched before he was allowed to enter. An armed detective got up on the seat with him. This spoke well for Commissioner Davenport’s thoroughness. But the silent closing down of the evening shadows seemed as ominous to “X” as the slow, purposeful curling up of an Octopus’s tentacles.
He drove by again after dark, saw that the guards had been doubled and that searchlights had been set along the fence. Their bright beams illuminated all four streets in both directions. When “X” tried to enter one of these streets, he was stopped, questioned, and told to detour through another block.
The Secret Agent’s eyes were bright. He must get inside that cordon of police. To be at hand if the Octopus dared to strike, he stood ready to risk exposure or death at the hands of the police. But there was only one way to achieve his end. He must make a desperate play as he had done before in his strange warfare on crime.
Throughout the afternoon he had Jim Hobart make discreet inquiries concerning the city’s police. Four deputy inspectors had been assigned to the Mandel case. Two for day detail. Two others for night. Hobart got the names and addresses of these men from the city’s newspaper office. One, assigned to night duty, was a bachelor living alone in a small apartment. This one was Deputy Inspector Thomas Dulany.
A HALF hour before Deputy Inspector Dulany was scheduled to start for his post of duty that night he received a visitor. A tall man with a pleasant face and alert eyes rang his bell. The man handed the inspector a card bearing the name of Dillon. It stated that he was from the State’s superintendent of insurance.