Swearing, cursing men flung themselves on top of “X” to pin him down, but he struck right and left with the gun muzzle, then gave a savage roll that took him clear of the cot.
Death hovered to the room. The odds were all against Agent “X.” He had the gun — but the tape was still across his eyes; the ropes bound his feet. Apparently his maneuver had been the reckless, futile stunt of a fear-crazed and desperate man. Actually it was based on calculation, logic and a carefully thought-out plan.
For with one swift sweep “X” tore the adhesive from his eyes. Then he held his breath, crouched tensely. The tape was gone — but its cruel pressure on his eyeballs over a period of time had made the retinas cast blurred and distorted images. He could see only that these men in the room with him were masked with some sort of black stuff that made them look now like ghoulish monsters. They were staring at him, coming toward him, and one seemed to be raising a gun.
The Agent fired a single shot quickly and heard a man cry out. He didn’t often kill, but the memory of those crushed and mangled children in the zone of that first horrible robbery was still in his mind. The memory also of the lacerated body of the murdered Ellen Dowe. These men were fiends, human vultures, and what stayed his hand now was not mercy for their lives, but the knowledge that he could not shoot straight because of the state of his eyes — and a pressing need he had for at least one of the bullets in the gun. He snarled a fierce order.
“Back there — all of you! Against the wall!”
They did not know that he could barely see them. His one lucky shot had made its impression. Tensely the masked men moved backward toward the wall.
And, as they stood there, the Secret Agent suddenly did a strange thing. His gun left the masked figures. He bent like lightning, thrust its muzzle between his shoes, felt quickly with the fingers of his left hand, and then slammed a bullet through the ropes that held his ankle. The crashing lead, fired at close range, was quicker, more effective than any knife. Two ropes parted, and Agent “X” spread his feet and kicked the others off.
But his act, quick as it had been, had given his masked enemies a chance for a treacherous move. An arm flashed out, a finger jabbed forward, and there was a click in the room as every light went out. Some one had pressed a switch.
And the instant darkness fell the Agent heard stealthy movement. These men knew the room, he did not, and death was creeping upon him out of the dark. Instinct made him drop, fling himself sidewise, and as he did so pinpoints of flame stabbed the darkness, and a half dozen bullets crashed into the wall, close to where he had stood.
He raised the weapon in his own hands, fired twice and leaped away again. Another cry sounded. His aim at the points of fire had been true. But the next time he shot his gun clicked empty. He was unarmed in that room with killers creeping upon him.
HANDS stretched along the wall, the Agent felt for some possible means of escape. And suddenly the smooth knob of a door brushed against his fingers. The Agent yanked the door open, saw a glimmer of light. He didn’t know, but perhaps this led to the passage to the street through which he had been carried. Then the next second he saw a narrow stairway.
But he had no choice now. He leaped toward the cavernlike mouth of the stairs, dropping to his knees as bullets whined about him. He flung the empty gun over his shoulder, heard it crash into the room, and ascending the stairs in long-legged strides, entered a dark hall. His flashlight, winked on for a moment, disclosed an old-fashioned hatrack, a pair of high front doors with curved Gothic tops. He turned the other way and saw draperies and barred windows beyond. Dusty, ancient furniture stood against the walls. The bandits had chosen an old house, obviously long closed and locked, for their hideout.
He knew there was no quick exit from this floor; knew also that his gas gun, strapped in a flat holster to his leg would not stop a crowd of armed men. As feet pounded up from below, “X” leaped to the stairs behind him, leading to the rooms above. He whipped out his gas gun, expecting to be challenged by more of the band upstairs.
But no challenge came. The rooms on the second floor were empty, their windows barred and shuttered. He knew this type of house. Sixty or seventy-five years old, it was a relic of the brownstone era. There should be an attic, with a wooden scuttle giving on the roof. He climbed quickly, leaped up a short, steep flight of stairs and found himself in the attic. Then he paused.
Sudden silence had descended on the house. No sound of footsteps was audible now. The whole place was as quiet as though the gang of torturers had vanished. “X” considered this unexpected development uneasily. Then, as he peered down over the railing of the stairs, he found a gruesome explanation. A faint draft of musty air came up. And it was tinged with something beside the odor of old walls and dusty furniture. Smoke, acridly pungent, drifted to his nostrils!
He leaned far over the deep stairwell and stared down. At the bottom, four stories below, there was a flickering gleam. Fire! As he watched, it fanned out, turning from red to orange, then to hot yellow flame. Mixed with the smoke funneling up was the scent of gasoline!
The Secret Agent’s jaws clamped shut. He knew the first floor of the building would already be an impassable inferno. He could not go down. The attic had two rooms separated by a short hall. In this a wide-stepped ladder rose toward the roof. He climbed quickly, searched with tense fingers for the hooks in the wooden scuttle.
But he grew suddenly rigid, and felt a coldness at his heart. Not hooks, but huge padlocks held the scuttle down. Two of them, products of some locksmith of long ago, with thick rings stuck through strong hasps bolted to the beams.
It was an obstacle he hadn’t anticipated. He carried tools — the gleaming chromium rods with slender ends and tiny pivotal extensions that had often been used to unravel the mysteries of modern locks. With these no door was barred to him. But these rusty, ancient padlocks — would he be able to open them in time?
Chapter VII
THE sound of the fire was mounting every instant into a fearful, smothered roar. The attic was insufferably hot. Sweat trickled down the Agent’s neck and bathed his body.
The mechanism inside the old lock seemed rusted in a solid mass upon which his delicate tools made no impression. He tried another and another length of metal. He needed oil to free the rust-corroded pivots.
Desperately he thrust his hand into his pocket and brought out a small cigarette lighter. It was of silver, with pebbled leather sides, and had been a present from Betty Dale — the only girl in the world who knew the nature of his dangerous work. With feverish concentration, making every motion of his deft fingers count, “X” drew the woolen wick from the lighter, squeezed drops of the fluid into the old lock. Before taking up his tools again, he treated the second lock in the same way.
Then he adjusted his rod with pivotal extensions, one of his most ingenious chromium pieces. In response to its probing, he felt something give inside the old lock. One piece of metal moved, another.
Somewhere below, a falling balustrade blasted up heat and sparks. Clouds of soot swirled about “X’s” head. The air was scorching. His eyes smarted painfully as he worked.
Slowly the rusted lock worked free. Pivots that had not moved for years creaked protestingly as he got the hang of the pins and slots inside. He found a spot that gave, pressed at an angle — and the curved hasp of the padlock opened.