Cold fury filled him. He battled desperately to keep his faculties, to free himself from the smothering hood before darkness came. But the fumes in his lungs were mastering him. He slipped on the wet pavement, sank to his knees. His legs seemed to crumple under him. As blinding lights danced before his pain-racked eyes he fell into the black depths of unconsciousness.
Chapter III
HORROR beat upon him when he woke up. He had a sense of appalling catastrophe. He had lost all track of time. He seemed to be in a dark, still room. Then he became conscious of a sound. A man’s voice, low-pitched and precise.
The Agent’s eyes still burned, but when he raised inflamed lids he found that he could see. He started, and breath hissed between his teeth. He was in a room. It was a man’s voice he heard. And he saw in that first instant of returning consciousness that both he and Saunders were prisoners. There were steel handcuffs on his ankles and wrists. These were attached to rings in the wall behind; Saunders looked like a man stretched out on a crucifix. His head still hung down.
Then “X’s” eyes swivelled again to the man who was speaking. His attitude was as calm as the quiet tones of his voice, but his appearance made the Agent’s body grow rigid. For the man wore a green mask over his face. It was a livid, poisonous green, like the scales of some reptile, and, through slits in the mask, his eyes glittered as coldly and evilly as the beady eyes of a snake.
“You have waked,” the man was saying. “Your friend is waking also. You will now be able to answer questions I shall ask.”
Agent “X” turned his head. Saunders’ eyes, red and inflamed, were opening.
“What the hell—” he muttered. “Say, what’s this. You—”
The man in the green mask held up his hand. His eyes glittered behind the green of the cloth that covered his face. There was a measured inhuman dryness in his speech.
“Wait,” he said. “It is not for you to ask questions. That is for me. You need only answer.”
“I’ll answer nothing,” said Saunders. “I’ll see you in hell for this.”
“That may be,” said the green-masked man quietly. He chuckled, and there was something about the sound of that chuckle that tightened the skin along Agent “X’s” spine. He had been in the presence of some of the world’s most desperate criminals — men without heart or soul. He sensed now that he was in the presence of a murderer. He muttered a warning to Saunders.
The green-masked man turned on him.
“You need not be afraid to talk — Elisha Pond,” he said. “Your secrets are known already. You were summoned to Washington tonight for a special reason. You are the man about whom strange rumors have circulated, I think. You are called—”
The green-masked man stopped speaking for a moment and walked forward. He probed with tense, inquisitive fingers, picked at the lifelike plastic material on the Agent’s face.
“That is a disguise you are wearing — a most remarkable one. It is my belief that you are the man called Secret Agent ‘X,’ the man, they say, who can make himself up in a thousand different ways.” Green Mask’s chuckle came again. “Whether you talk or not now, Elisha Pond — it is unimportant. You will talk later, when I am ready — and if I give you another chance. Look!”
The man lifted his hand. In it was the telegram that had brought Agent “X” to Washington.
“Code!” the green-masked man said. “Government code. Very ingenious, isn’t it? Very difficult to read — but listen.”
In a clear voice the man who had captured Agent “X” and Saunders began to decipher the message on the telegram — the message instructing “X” what to do in a certain room of a certain house upon his arrival there. It was from a high and mysterious Government official. The green-masked man read it as easily as though it had been addressed to him. Then his voice grew harsh.
“This paper has saved you some unpleasantness. If I hadn’t seen it, and if you still refused to talk, I would take means to make you. For you are an important man, Elisha Pond. Otherwise you would not have been summoned to Washington. You are expected to perform a great service for your country. But it is evident to me that I know more at the moment than you. The rest I shall learn from the sender of this telegram — and from your friend here.”
Again Saunders spoke, fury mottling his face. “Not from me, you won’t — you double-crossing mug.”
“I don’t like your speech,” said the green-masked man quietly. “You were instructed to take this gentleman, Elisha Pond, to a certain address. You will now give me that address.”
“You heard me,” said Saunders. “Come over here and I’ll give you a poke in the eye.”
“Fool!” rasped the Green Mask. He clapped his hands suddenly. The door of the room opened. Four figures glided in. The eyes of Secret Agent “X” stared at them burningly. Saunders gaped in amazement. If this had been a weird, drug-distorted nightmare, the four who had entered could not have been more grotesquely horrible. They, too, wore green masks, but not a simple cloth mask like the man in the chair. Hideously carved devil faces of some thin wood covered their features. They looked savage, barbaric. Leering mouths, huge noses, distended nostrils — with the sinister glitter of their own eyes flashing through holes in the wood. One of them spoke — and Agent “X” recognized again the foreign tongue he had heard before.
The man in the chair gave answer, using the same strange dialect.
“Chinks!” breathed Saunders — but “X” knew he was wrong.
The man in the chair turned again, faced Saunders.
“I give you one more chance,” he said. “Will you talk or shall the Kep-shak be used — the pollen of the blossom that loosens men’s tongues?”
A cold sweat stood out on the Agent’s forehead. Some inkling of what was to ensue filled him. He turned his head toward Saunders.
“Talk,” he said. “Tell him what you know!”
This wouldn’t be much — only an address. Its concealment was not worth a man’s agony. But Saunders shook his head. He was a powerful man, arrogantly confident of his own physical endurance.
THE green-masked man in the chair clapped his hands again. The four others stepped forward. One of them drew a knife, slit the sleeves of Saunders’ coat from shoulder to wrist, laying bare his arms. Another drew something from behind his back that was like a tiny devil’s claw. With an abrupt, expert stroke he drew it across Saunders’ skin, leaving a line of red scratches. A third man came forward with a metal box in his hand. He lifted the cover, drew out a pinch of grayish powder.
“Talk!” said the Agent again. “Talk, Saunders.”
The thick-set Federal man gritted his teeth. His lips remained locked.
The man with the pinch of powder made a swift motion. He tossed the powder on the scratches along Saunders’ arm, rubbed it in with his thumb, stepped back. A slow change came over Saunders’ face. The muscles in his cheek began to tense. His body began to move. He writhed in the steel bracelets that held him, bucking his shoulders up, trying to tear his wrists loose. But the cuffs were locked tightly. The strong steel held.
His lips opened then. Breath whistled between his teeth.
“God!” he muttered. “God!”
The ruddy glow of his face was paling slowly now. Beads of sweat stood out on his skin. Agent “X” tried desperately to work loose, to aid him. But the steel of the handcuffs bit into his own skin. They held tight.
“I’ll talk,” said Saunders with a sudden groan. “You win, Green Mug. I’ll talk.”
The words were wrenched from his lips by pain. He was a brave man, but the agony of a strange, exotic drug seeping into his veins through the scratches in his arms was too much. He babbled the address to which he had been directed to take Agent “X.” The green-masked man in the chair nodded. Agent “X” listened. Then the green-masked man spoke.