“X” quickly placed a hand over his mouth. “Silence, you fool! Do you want to attract everybody in the place?”
The Agent removed his hand from the attorney’s mouth, asked, “Why did you kill Marcy and Brinz?”
Runkle shifted energetically. “God! I didn’t do that! I went down to the kitchen to get some drinks for them, and when I got back I saw two of those robots in the hall upstairs, and they were firing their silenced guns into the room where Marcy and Brinz were sitting. I got scared and ran out. I got in my car and drove away from there as fast as I could go.”
The Agent bent closer. “What was your business with Marcy?” he asked.
Runkle was silent for a long time. Finally he said, “I don’t believe you’re here to help me. You’re one of that monster’s men. You’re pumping me!” He lapsed into stubborn silence.
The Agent arose. “You need not answer,” he said. “I know what you were meeting Marcy for. Brinz was bringing the two of you together—‘Duke’ Marcy knew who the Murder Monster is, and he wanted your help to avenge the death of Mabel Boling!” Runkle uttered a gasp of surprise. The Agent turned to the door. “I’m not taping your mouth again — but if you value your life, don’t make any outcry or do anything to attract attention. I give you my word that you will be freed before I leave here.” Then he added, as Runkle started to protest, “You can rely on it — it is the word of — Secret Agent ‘X’!”
Runkle’s jaw fell open in astonishment. He was too stunned to speak.
“X” stepped out and continued down the hallway. The hall ended in a cross-corridor; at the end of the corridor was a door, and before the door stood one of the robots with an automatic in his hand. It was too late to draw back, for the robot had already seen him.
“X” advanced in his direction, but the robot seemed to take him for granted. Indeed, there was no reason why he shouldn’t, for he no doubt took “X” to be one of his fellows.
He raised his hand, however, motioned for “X” to go back. He was apparently on guard at that door, with instructions to allow no one to enter.
But “X” advanced as if he had not noticed the gesture, until he was within two feet of the other. The robot stepped forward, barring his way, motioning angrily, now, for him to go back.
“X” smiled disarmingly, and fired the gas gun, which he had held out of sight, directly into the robot’s face. The guard sagged, unconscious, the automatic slipping from nerveless fingers, and the Agent eased him to the floor.
He stepped over him and tried the door. It was unlocked, and he pulled it open gently, a fraction of an inch, without making a sound.
Chapter XXI
THE room within was large, square. The effect of the first glimpse was an effect of whiteness and cleanliness. The walls were tiled, white. A long bench at the opposite wall ran across the full length of the room, except for the spot in the right-hand corner where there was a flat-topped, mahogany, glass-covered desk.
On the bench were retorts, test tubes, microscopes. Racks of tubes containing liquids and gasses were nailed to the wall above the bench. Everything seemed orderly, neat; so neat as to be terrifying — terrifying by the very incongruity of this white-tiled laboratory in the cellar of a rundown house in a run-down district.
The Agent, however, had nothing but a cursory glance for the setting — a glance, though, that embraced everything vital before it rested upon the two characters in the center of the room.
One of those two was young Jack Larrabie. The other was the weird figure of the murder monster.
Larrabie’s face was suffused with rage. He was shouting, “Damn you! Why did you kill Coulter?”
The murder monster waddled forward slowly, stopped, facing Larrabie, and standing sideways to the door through which “X” peered. From somewhere in its depths there came the deep metallic voice that the Agent had heard before. It uttered a hideous, inhuman laugh. Then the laughter stopped suddenly, and the voice spoke.
“You seem to forget, Larrabie, that I have the whip hand. Do you know what that means? I will show you!”
Too late, young Larrabie turned, leaped away from in front of that hideous figure. He had not covered three feet before the ponderous, moving finger of the monster rose, pointing at his back. Horrid, sizzling flame burst out around the young man. He screamed once, half-turned, and his face was a mask of hate and dread.
He dropped to the floor, tried ineffectually to beat out the flames by rolling over and over. Now he was enveloped in fire, a screaming, wriggling, sizzling ball of fire.
It had all happened so quickly, almost upon the instant that the Agent had opened the door. Now, “X” flung it wide, launched himself at the monster in a flying leap that caught the gruesome figure amidships. The Agent struck with his shoulder, sent the monster staggering backward so that it would have fallen had it not ended up against the bench. It had gone right through the sheet of flame that enveloped the writhing body of young Larrabie, but had been untouched by it.
Now its dread finger came up, directed itself unerringly at “X.”
The monster seemed to be quite at ease, secure in the knowledge that in another instant this intruder would likewise go up in flames. But nothing happened!
From deep within the monster came a rumble of astonishment.
The Agent laughed grimly, and leaped at the monster once more. This time he did not attempt to match his weight against that of the heavily padded and protected form. He seized the pointing arm, twisted around so that his back was to the monster, his shoulder under the padded arm.
He used the leverage of his shoulder now, heaved and twisted. The monster was carried forward for a moment, off balance. And in that moment the Agent lunged against it sideways. It staggered to one side, and unable to recover its balance, crashed to the floor. The Agent had attacked it in its one weak spot — being so heavily padded and protected, it was easily unbalanced; and once on the floor, it could not rise without great difficulty. It was something like the armored knights of old — invincible while on horseback, but at the mercy of the first attack when thrown.
The monster struggled frantically to swing its deadly finger up once more, but “X” deliberately stepped on the padded arm, pinning it to the floor.
The Agent stared down with somber eyes. “You should have pointed that finger of yours at my face — it’s the only vulnerable spot. The clothes I am wearing are made to order, of sheet asbestos, specially treated to soften it so it could be tailored into a suit. It is fire-proof!”
The body of Jack Larrabie lay still, a few feet away, smouldering, scorched, a pitiful thing in death, the face now fleshless and charred. Even now, with the spark of life burned out of it, the body twitched convulsively as if it still lived in agony.
THE monster tried to twist itself free of the Agent’s foot, which pinned it down. But its very bulk was against it.
The Agent bent swiftly and unbuckled the straps that held the gas mask in place. He jerked it off, and found that the head beneath was nothing but an empty shell of aluminum, covered by the gas-mask. It was held to the metal body by two strong clamps. The Agent undid these, and removed the aluminum shell. Out of an opening in the barrel-like body, where the neck should have been, there stared up at him a pair of venomous eyes, sparkling with hatred.
The occupant of that monster’s armor was not as tall as his shell. His head remained within the armor, while the gas-mask and the aluminum head were merely for the purpose of effect. “X” could now see two peepholes, covered with glass, in the padded body. It was through these that the man within had looked at his victims.