But Agent “X” could only wait now. He had made one of the greatest gambles of his life. He was like a man poised on the brink of some terrible inferno. Over those miles of city streets, through which the morning light was filtering, a pall of horror hung. There was a chance that thousands of the city’s citizens might never seen another dawn. He himself might not live to see it.
No saying how the Terror might respond to all that had happened. He had known about the Agent’s theft of the bomb. He would know also about Sanzoni’s capture by the Agent. He must have a spy in the Sanzoni gang. And “X” was depending now on the fact that the Terror would hear of Sanzoni’s return. His own statement that Agent “X” would bother him no more must surely reach the Terror’s ear. If it did there was hope. If it did not — death, the impulse that would set off the bombs, might come through the air that very day.
Chapter XVIII
IT seemed to Agent “X” that the hands of the clock moved with the maddening slowness of crawling maggots. His nerves were like crawling maggots also. He craved action, yet he must wait, wait! The lives of thousands depended on his caution, his cunning, now. He had entered into the role of Gus Sanzoni. He must make that disguise convincing till the purpose of it was achieved — till he made contact with the Terror, or the Terror’s messenger.
He went into the small, windowless den off Sanzoni’s office and pretended to sleep. But he wasn’t sleeping. His thoughts were active. He was planning his campaign.
The phone in Sanzoni’s office, he saw, was an extension. It would be suicidal to call Hobart on it. Other ears would listen in. The underworld was ever suspicious. Yet he must somehow get in touch with Hobart and Bates — learn whether Harrigan had been located and what Bates had uncovered. These details might influence his actions in the immediate future.
He had his lunch sent into his office, ate it somberly, and directly afterwards sauntered out a side exit of the club into the street. Two of Sanzoni’s bodyguards sought to accompany him. He waved them off growlingly.
“I got private business, see! After what happened last night I guess I can take care of myself. I don’t need you mugs now.”
There was a hint of suspicion in their blank faces. Agent “X” had an inspiration. He winked.
“You guys stay here and see that Goldie don’t follow. There’s a jane I gotta have a talk with — and it’s getting so I can’t move without Goldie tagging along.”
The gangster guards relaxed. This was a simple and understandable explanation of Sanzoni’s wish to go for a stroll alone. He had let them think there was another woman.
Agent “X” took a taxi, had the driver speed crosstown. He went into a drug store, called Jim Hobart. The excited voice of the redhead reached him at once.
“Boss, I’ve been expecting to hear from you all morning! That guy you asked me to locate, Harrigan — has disappeared! He’s left his apartment. He ain’t at his office. I can’t find any trace of him!”
A thin smile curved the Agent’s lips under the make-up of Gus Sanzoni. The man he suspected of being implicated somehow in the Terror’s activities had taken this time to drop out of sight. That might be mere coincidence, or it might not.
His voice snapped a response at Jim Hobart over the wire. “We’ve got to find him, understand, Jim! This is something big. You’ll know about it later. But keep after Harrigan, question his friends and servants. Find him. And when you do, send out a broadcast in the Z2 code. I may not have a chance to phone you again, but I’ll be listening.”
Agent “X” snapped up the receiver. Hobart would have been astounded, would have thought himself insane, if he could have seen the man he had just talked to — the man whose voice had been that of A. J. Martin.
Still in the role of fat Sanzoni, Agent “X” walked out of the drug store. He took another taxi to a different part of the city. Here he entered an apartment house where no gangster had ever visited. With a key he took from his pocket, not one of Sanzoni’s, but one which he had transferred from his own clothes when he dressed in the mobster’s outfit, he opened a door on the second floor. The place was empty, sparsely furnished. It was another hideout of Secret Agent “X.”
When the Agent came out he carried a cigar box with him. It was inoffensive. It would not attract suspicion. He had apparently visited a friend, and had been given a full box of choice Havanas.
WITH the box under his arm he hurried back to the Montmorency Club. Goldie La Mar had had her beauty sleep and was up for the day. She greeted him boisterously.
“Where you been, Gus? How you feelin’ after the fight last night? Ain’t you got a kiss for Goldie?”
She pouted her red lips at him, sidled up to him possessively. Agent “X” gestured her away. He screwed his face into a scowl, spoke gruffly.
“I’m busy, Goldie. I ain’t got time for no mushy stuff now!”
Hostility flared in the woman’s eyes. Yet he knew that if she wasn’t repulsed she would be a pest, interfering with his desperate plans. She snatched at his arm now. “Listen, Gus, you been actin’ funny lately.” For an instant it seemed to him that he read suspicion on her heavily rouged face. He spoke with swift calculation.
“Lay off me, Goldie! The boys say you got sweet with Bugs last night. You danced with him, didn’t you? You two-timing little—”
That brought pallor to her painted face. She shrank away. Her voice was husky, scared. “Gus — you don’t think—”
Agent “X” walked on, leaving the woman with something to worry about. His show of jealousy against Bugs Gary would keep her docile and quiet till she learned whether he was going to hold it against her.
In Gus Sanzoni’s office, “X” slumped into a chair again, laid the cigar box before him on the desk. He snapped open a little wire catch, raised the lid stealthily. Under the cover, at the top, was a row of cigars wrapped in tin foil. But the gleaming front they presented was only camouflage.
He lifted two of them, moved his fingers deftly on a small rheostat beneath. Finely made, watchlike mechanism filled the remainder of the box. It was a vest-pocket size radio receiving set, operating on two small, but super-powerful, dry batteries. Bending his head he could hear the faint dots and dashes of a secret code message. It was as though a tiny, shrill-winged insect were imprisoned in the box. Three feet away the sound would be inaudible. But Bates was broadcasting a report, and Agent “X” listened. There, in the stronghold of the Terror’s allies, he was getting a report from his own men.
A detailed account of the activities of the Schofield Arms Company came from the radio. Bates was a faithful, routine operative, who worked by rule of thumb and could always be depended upon to carry out an order. But his report now was not significant. The Agent changed the dial again, to the wave-length over which Hobart would signal in code Z2 if he succeeded in locating Harrigan. That had been “X’s” main motive in bringing the hidden radio here.
He was running a risk in doing it. If its presence were discovered, it would be his death warrant. But death was close, anyway. Somewhere the Terror was waiting for darkness, and the money that reposed in Sanzoni’s safe.