Everything that Lacey had said was already known to Secret Agent “X.” Stanton had been under observation by the Agent’s operatives for the last ten days. And the Agent knew that as soon as Stanton turned the corner he would once more be picked up by a shadow, and followed wherever he went. The Agent’s eyes were troubled, though, as he glanced out of the window. He wished now that he had taken the time to phone to his headquarters and ordered that a couple of operatives be placed on this woman who was parked across the street, to shadow her. He could do nothing about it now though.
He saw Foster pick up the ’phone, instruct the man at the desk outside to send in the visitor.
In the few moments that elapsed now, a great hush fell upon the room.
Inspector Burks chewed on his cigar viciously. Commissioner Foster interlocked his hands in front of him, and was cracking the joints nervously. Mayor Sturgis was drumming rapidly on the desk. The other men in the room were shifting about in their chairs, or pacing up and down in the narrow confines. The Agent could understand just how they felt. This was a momentous time in their lives in more ways than one. Not only were they being threatened with a gruesome death by an unknown individual who termed himself Doctor Blood, but they were about to come face to face with a man whose name had almost become legendary in the annals of crime — Secret Agent “X”!
The Agent, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, began to make his own arrangements for the reception of the visitor. It was true that this man might be only a publicity seeker, and harmless. On the other hand, he might be an emissary of the dread Doctor Blood, in which case he must be captured at all costs. “X” felt that if he could have such a person alone in one of his retreats for several hours, he would be able to elicit from him enough information to lead him to Doctor Blood.
The Agent moved closer to the door, surreptitiously extracted his gas gun from his pocket and held it in his hand shielded from the others in the room by his body. It was ready for instant use. Now he waited tensely for the appearance of the person who was masquerading as Secret Agent “X.”
The silence in the room was like a blanket of dark expectancy. So quiet was it that the ticking of the little clock upon Commissioner Foster’s desk was clearly audible.
And then the door opened. All eyes turned toward the doorway.
Chapter V
A SIGH that was almost like an exclamation of astonishment arose from those in the room.
The Agent noted out of the corner of his eye that Professor Langknecht was the only one in the room who was not staring at the visitor. On the contrary, the Professor had turned his face away and buried it in his large handkerchief.
It seemed that the Professor had suddenly developed a great interest in wiping his face clean. This was strangely at variance with the desire which he had expressed a few moments ago to meet the person who was calling in the role of Secret Agent “X.”
The Agent’s lips tightened in a grim line. Mentally, he noted the Professor’s name as another to be investigated along with Oscar Stanton.
“X” swung his eyes back to the doorway.
Mayor Sturgis exclaimed hoarsely, “What—”
He got no farther. A slight, weird figure suddenly became visible in the corridor — but only for the space of a second. There was a short vision of a twisted, vicious countenance; then a small metal object came sailing into the room, and crashed against the commissioner’s desk. It broke with a faint, tingling sound, and at once the room became flooded with a biting, acrid, blinding fog through which it was impossible to see.
Pandemonium was let loose in that room. “X,” holding his breath, leaped toward the doorway. But just then the heavy body of some one in the room barged into him, throwing him off balance, sending him tripping backward. The door slammed while “X” was scrambling to his feet. He did not know whether the visitor who had thrown that gas bomb into the room had entered or had departed. The fumes of the gas were overpowering. In the impenetrable darkness, there were sounds of men retching, of men stumbling, pushing against each other.
“X” had recognized the nature of the chemical which had come from the exploded bomb at once, and he had taken a deep breath at the first sound of the explosion. Now he held his breath, although his eyes smarted excruciatingly.
From across the room, Patterson’s voice was heard, raised in an unearthly shriek which suddenly ended in a terrible gurgling sound.
Some one shouted agonizingly: “The beasts — they’ve got Patterson!”
“X” dashed across the room toward the spot where Patterson had screamed. He thrust aside the milling bodies of panic-stricken men, pushed past them until his sense of space told him that he was at the spot where Patterson had been sitting. Since it was impossible to see, anyway, he closed his eyes, still holding his breath, and groped blindly on the floor. His hand encountered a bloody, revolting body. He touched a severed artery, and came away sopping wet from the spurting blood.
And then his hand found something else — a mouth, a pair of bloody, slavering jaws. Somebody — or something — was stooping over that bloody, gory body, drinking the fresh, spurting blood!
There was the disgusting, revolting, animal sound of a bestial throat gulping down the crimson fluid.
THE Agent reached out his right hand, which still held the gas pistol. He reversed the pistol, brought the butt down with all the force that he could command upon the head of that vicious creature. Still with his eyes closed, he reached down, hauled the suddenly inert body up over his shoulder. His congested lungs seemed to be tearing their way out through his throat, but he managed to stagger across the room with his burden. He did not make toward the door to the corridor, but went in the opposite direction. He had seen another door, just to the right of the commissioner’s desk. From previous experiences of his at headquarters, he knew that this little side door would lead him through a narrow corridor toward the rear exit of headquarters.
The room was now filled with groans, shouts, cries of pain. Men were stumbling about, groaning, groping blindly. Others were hammering at the door to the corridor. Apparently the strange visitor had turned the key in the lock after slamming it. There was no egress that way.
“X,” still with his burden, found the small door he was heading for, reached out and tore it open. He stepped through into the cool freshness of the outside corridor, took a deep breath of the comparatively clean air, and opened his eyes. He could see once more. He breathed two or three lungfuls of air before he was able to talk. Then he shouted: “This way, everybody — this way!”
He placed his burden upon the floor, stared down at it with narrowed eyes. This was no four-footed beast of prey. It was a man, a young man, whose countenance even now in repose was distorted into a vicious mask of lust. Blood flecked his lips. It was a human being — but it had torn a man’s throat, and drunk his blood!
This was the opportunity which he had been laboring for all this time — an opportunity to question one of the tools of the person who had signed the note to Commissioner Foster — Doctor Blood.
“X” had had this very thing in mind when he acted with such swiftness back in the commissioner’s room. This strange being with lust of a beast of prey was nevertheless a man. And a man could be made to talk — by methods which the Agent alone knew. He stooped quickly, lifted the unconscious burden over his shoulder, and made swiftly down the corridor.
Behind him he could hear the hoarse cries of Commissioner Foster, Norman Marsh, and Mayor Sturgis as they found the opened side door and urged the others to come out through it.