The Agent found a shaded lamp on the desk. He turned this on; it cast a dull light, sufficient to illuminate the room. In the wall to the left of the desk there was an open panel. “X” could see a narrow spiral staircase just outside the panel, leading upward. He knew where it went, from his knowledge of the location of the rooms; it led up to the niche in the execution chamber, where the Skull held his cruel rites.
And then the Agent’s eyes gleamed as he noted something else — something close to the desk, something which had failed to register with him until that moment. It was a microphone. A microphone on a stand, right beside the Skull’s chair. Vividly the Agent recalled the picture of himself and Betty Dale escaping through the passages, while the stentorian voice had bellowed through the hidden amplifiers, directing the pursuit.
And slowly the lips of Secret Agent “X” tightened into a thin smile as he contemplated an idea, grimly ironic in its conception, daringly dangerous in execution.
Swiftly he donned the mask and robe, seated himself, and drew the microphone toward him. He flexed the muscles of his throat, tautened, and spoke into it; and his voice was a perfect imitation of the voice used by the Skull.
“This is the Skull talking!” he called sonorously. “Seize Binks! Seize Binks! Seize Binks! Binks is a traitor! Binks is a traitor!”
HE stopped, and his voice came rolling back to him from the amplifiers in the corridor outside: “—a traitor!”
Once more he spoke into the microphone. “Binks is a traitor! Bring him to my office. I will hold you all responsible if he escapes. Get Binks and bring him to my office at once! Do not fail, as you value your lives! When he is caught, let everybody come to my office!”
He ceased talking, waited tensely. Within a few moments he would know if his trick was successful. The Skull might talk the men out of it. If they did turn on him, he might escape, might come back alone to the office.
“X” waited, his ears keenly attuned for sounds outside that would tell him whether many men were coming, or only one. After what seemed an age of waiting, during which he sat unmoving, not showing by so much as the twitch of a muscle the suspense that he felt, there was the sound of voices in the corridor, and the outside door of the anteroom opened.
The men were all there. In the forefront walked Frisch and Gilly, with Binks, handcuffed, between them.
Their brutish faces suggested puzzlement mingled with awe. Frisch and Gilly stopped, hesitantly, at the threshold of the office, waiting for orders from the man who wore the mask of the Skull.
Binks, who had been expostulating shrilly, became quiet when he saw that an impostor sat in his chair. He gazed with burning eyes through his rubber mask at the Agent, then said, “I see you’re hard to kill, Mister ‘X’!” There was open venom in his voice, and a tinge of fear.
Frisch said, “We got him, boss. He was in the main room with us, tellin’ us that you wanted me and Gilly to go out an’ pick up the ransom. When you broadcasted, we grabbed him, an’ he’s been tryin’ to tell us all the way up here that you ain’t the Skull. He says you’re Secret Agent ‘X’! I socked him one, but he wouldn’t keep quiet.”
The other men were crowding close behind, and “X” could see that none of them looked sorry for Binks. They all more or less hated the apparent halfwit, who had prodded and taunted them. Frisch, especially, took a particular pleasure in buffeting Binks around. He no doubt recalled the half-dollars he had thrown to him, recalled that the halfwit had ridiculed him before all the men.
The Agent said, “Bring him in.”
Frisch and Gilly propelled their prisoner toward the desk.
Before they reached the four-foot strip of electrified flooring, “X” said, “That’s far enough. Now—”
But the Skull, his hands manacled behind his back, interrupted, shouting at the men who had crowded in behind, “You fools! This isn’t the Skull. I tell you, it’s Secret Agent ‘X’! Rip that mask off his face, an’ you’ll see it isn’t the Skull!”
Gilly laughed wickedly. “You have been half nuts for a long time,” he taunted. “Now you’re all nuts. Maybe you’ll tell us next that you’re the Skull!” He looked toward “X” behind the desk, as if wondering whether his levity was going to be rebuked.
The Agent said, “Binks is a traitor, men. He was planning to kill the two men who went for the ransom, and collect it for himself. You know that punishment we have for traitors?”
They shouted, “Put him in the chair. Let’s see him wriggle!”
“X” nodded, and the slow motion of his hideous mask must have been impressive to the gathered ruffians. The Skull made another, a desperate attempt to convince them.
“I tell you,” he screamed, “That’s not the Skull. I’m the Skull!” He stopped as a gale of derisive laughter swept the men. Gilly cried, “See that? Just what I said he’d claim. Can you imagine this here halfwit bein’ our boss!”
Binks cried desperately, “I’ll prove it, you damned idiots. I know all about you. You, Gilly!” He stopped for a moment, and then continued and his voice had suddenly become the voice that the men had become accustomed to hear from the Skull himself. He had been a little panicky before, but now he realized that he must control himself, prove to these men beyond doubt that he was their leader. The voice of the Skull, coming to them from Binks, would, at least, cause them to waver, would induce them to listen to him.
ONCE he had their ear, he could prove that he was the Skull. He knew things about them that only the Skull could know; if he mentioned those things, they would be convinced. He started to talk again, using the voice of the Skull. “You, Gilly! Do you remember—”
But Secret Agent “X,” whose brain was keenly attuned to the least change in the situation, detected the change in the voice with the very first words, before the men did. The Skull’s voice was hardly audible above the men’s derisive shouts; they had not yet caught the significance of the change of tone.
Before they had a chance to do so, the Agent arose and thundered, “That’s enough! We will have an execution at once! It will be a lesson to those who betray the Skull!”
Binks tried to shout, but “X” motioned to Frisch, ordered, “Shut him up. He’s said enough!”
Frisch grinned wickedly, raised a fist and brought it down heavily at the side of his prisoner’s head. Binks staggered, and cringed. The blow had hurt.
“X” said curtly, “We will have everybody present at the execution. I want to have those millionaires see how our chair works. You, Frisch, take some men and bring them out of the cells. Take them to the execution room; all you other men, go there and wait for me. Leave me alone with Binks. I want a few words with him alone to show him how bad his mistake has been!”
The men did not question the command. They filed out, shutting the outer anteroom door behind them. Binks stood in a corner, his hideous rubber mask seeming the very incarnation of madness. From under that mask his eyes gleamed fiercely, calculatingly, at the Agent. He was by no means ready to acknowledge defeat. He said with a trace of cunning in his voice, “Look here — I know you’re ‘X.’ You’re a cleverer man than I thought, to have gotten out of the elevator shaft. Why don’t you come in with me? I can make you a rich man. You’d never have to work again—”
He stopped as he saw “X” shake his head slowly in the negative. He burst out, snarling, “You fool! You think you can take my place? You think you can go on with my plans?”
The Agent said softly, “That is not what I intend, Mister Skull.”
“Then you must be looking for a reward! I will give you more than you can ever collect in rewards! Come in with me, and I will give you a third of my profits — three million dollars! And who knows how much more — with two clever men like us working together. Come on,” he urged, as he saw that “X” was silent, “join me. Every man has a price. Three million dollars for a starter should be enough for anyone!”