“Who is Brinz?” asked the Agent. “What have you got on him?”
“I figured you’d want to know that, sir, so I’ve got the file handy. Brinz served a term in the Federal Detention House here in the city for transporting and selling liquor. That was before repeal. He got out eight months ago and hasn’t been up to much since. During prohibition he worked for ‘Duke’ Marcy, but there doesn’t seem to be any record of his present connections.” Bates added a short description of Brinz, so that the Agent could know him if he saw the man.
“All right,” said “X,” “I’m going out to Belvidere Road. If Runkle or Brinz should leave the house in the meantime, I want to know about it. But I won’t be able to stop and phone you. You’ll have to use the broadcast.”
“Right, sir. If there’s anything new, I’ll shoot it out to you.”
“Use code A.”
“Code A, sir,” Bates repeated.
“X” left the phone booth and got into his car. The broadcast equipment was one that he employed very infrequently, in cases of emergency, or where it was impossible to phone for reports. It was a powerful sending set located in Bates’s headquarters, sending on the same wave-length as the New York police calls, and for that reason the Agent did not make frequent use of it. But more than once in the past it had been the means of bringing him to the scene of action in time to thwart well-laid criminal plans.
NOW the Agent cut over to the East Side in his car, and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Everywhere, as he passed, he saw police patrolling the streets, with drawn, taut faces. Squad cars toured the city with riot guns ready. These men were bravely preparing to meet the next onslaught of the monster, knowing in advance what little chance they had of surviving.
The Agent stopped for a moment to buy a newspaper and saw the headline, “Governor to be asked for troops to reinforce police. City in dread of next attack of murder monster!”
The Agent increased his speed a little after crossing the bridge. Suddenly the radio in his car came to life. The voice of Bates came over the air, speaking slowly. “Station ‘X’ calling! Station ‘X’ calling!”
At once the Agent drew a pencil from his pocket, wrote on a pad attached to the dashboard as the voice of Bates continued, speaking in Code A. The Agent drove with one hand, hardly slackening his speed as his pencil wrote down only those words of the message that counted.
Finally the voice of Bates ceased. The message which “X” had written on the pad stared up at him: “Fowler reports ‘Duke’ Marcy entered house on Belvidere Road. Fowler returning to empty house next door. Expecting you.”
As the Agent drove on, he tried to puzzle out why “Duke” Marcy should be calling on Runkle and Brinz in this out-of-the-way section of Brooklyn.
He left his car in front of a drug store a block from Belvidere Road, and started to walk toward the corner. Number Twenty-two, he knew from a directory he had consulted, would be just around the corner to the left, and he did not want to attract undue attention by driving right up to the house.
This was a quiet residential section, with few people about in the streets. When the Agent was halfway up the block, he noted a large green coupé turning the corner from Belvidere on two wheels. The coupé roared down the street, gathering speed as it passed “X.”
The driver, who was the sole occupant of the car, had his hands tightly on the wheel and gazed straight ahead without glancing to either side. “X” started as he recognized that driver. It was Ed Runkle!
In a flash the car had sped past and roared down the street out of sight. But in that instant “X’s” eyes had been busy. His keen senses, constantly on the alert, had caught the license number of the coupé. He waited a moment to see if Runkle was being followed by Grace or Fowler, who were supposed to be watching the house on Belvidere Road. But when no other car appeared, the Agent acted instantly. It was important that Runkle should not be lost sight of at this time. It would be impossible for “X” to return to his own car in time to take up the chase. Accordingly, he turned and raced back to the drug store. The clerk behind the counter gazed at him curiously as he tore into the telephone booth and dialed Bates’ number. When he got the connection, he spoke swiftly.
“Runkle has just left the house on Belvidere Road, driving a green Stutz coupé, license number L 27-2. He is not being followed by Grace or Fowler. He is probably headed back for Manhattan, so send out men in cars to cover all the bridges. If he crosses into Manhattan, they can pick him up and trail him. This is important, Bates!”
Bates repeated, “Green Stutz coupé license number L 27-2. Right, sir. I’ll have the bridges covered inside of five minutes.” He said anxiously, “I wonder what’s the matter with Grace and Fowler.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” the Agent told him. “I’m going there now.”
“X” walked up the street again, turned the corner into Belvidere. Number Twenty-two was the second house from the corner and seemed peaceful enough. So did the one next to it, which was vacant, with a “For Sale” sign pasted to one of the pillars of the front porch. The Agent walked around to the back of the vacant house and tried the rear door. It was unlocked — probably left that way by the watchers.
He entered the narrow foyer behind the kitchen to which this door opened, and was assailed by the musty atmosphere that is peculiar to houses that have been long untenanted. He pushed through to the kitchen, then stepped into the dim hallway. Little light entered here from outside, but his sharp eyes detected a huddled form close to the wall.
He stopped short, scrutinizing the shadows at the far end of the hall, the deep blobs of blackness that lay under the stairway to his left. He discerned nothing lurking there, and took a quick step forward, knelt beside the prone body. It was a dead man. He had been shot through the head at close range; there were powder marks around the wound. The floor beneath the man’s head was sopping wet with blood.
The lips of Secret Agent “X” compressed grimly as he recognized the body. It was Fowler, one of the two men who had been shadowing Runkle. Fowler was still warm; the wound was still bleeding. He had died within the last few minutes.
The Agent’s fists clenched involuntarily. These men whom he employed were not just impersonal names to him. He had investigated each one thoroughly, knew them, had met them under one or another of his disguises. Fowler had died in his service — another score to be settled with the murder monster
DESPITE the possibility of pressing danger around him, “X” stopped here a moment, paying silent tribute to the man who had died in the performance of his duty. Then, tearing himself back to the business in hand, he stole noiselessly along the hall, seeming to merge with the shadows. His shoes made not the slightest sound as he explored the other rooms on the ground floor, found them empty and deserted.
Still silently, he went up the stairs. At the upper landing he paused, listening intently. No sound greeted his ears. It was lighter here, and he could see that the hallway was empty of life. But an open door at the right drew him toward it. This room was unfurnished, like the rest, but there was another body on the floor.
Brilliant morning sunlight poured into the room, playing upon the face of the dead man, and “X” did not need to kneel beside him to tell how he had met his death. For the gaping, bloody hole in his forehead spoke for itself. And the man was Grace, Fowler’s co-watcher.