“Right!” said the Agent. He saw that the man wasn’t going to talk. He shoved one of the thousand-dollar bills forward. “Take that,” he said, “just as a mark of good will — and as a sort of option. Don’t tell anybody else what you’ve told me, will you?”
The man grabbed the bill, fingered it lovingly.
“No, sir,” he said. “It’ll stay between you an’ me. But I gotta have a lot more of these, an’ everything’s got to be businesslike, the way I said.”
“When will I see you again?”
“Tomorrow night,” the man said.
The Agent nodded. He rose and showed the man downstairs.
“Tomorrow night,” he said softly, then opened the door and the strange, furtive-faced man slipped into the darkness.
Agent “X” knew he would be back — unless something intervened. It was this possibility that made the Agent move quickly after his visitor had gone. Too many sinister forces were in the wind to take any chance. Too many unscrupulous people wanted the information the stranger had to sell. The Agent dared not wait.
Snatching a hat and coat, he ran to the back of the house, slipped out the rear door. Ten seconds after the man had left the front, Agent “X” was on his trail. The man did not know it. He did not know that one of the most masterly shadowers in the world was following him. He used several common ruses to throw off pursuit. He dodged around corners, kept to the dark side of the streets. But Agent “X” did not lose him.
The man got into a small car, drove off. The red tail-light of his auto bobbed up the street. In less than a minute the Agent was following in the fast roadster that he had hired.
It was a long chase, through the night-darkened streets, then out into the still darker suburbs.
ON the highway, almost deserted now, Agent “X” turned off his headlights. For nearly a mile he followed the car ahead, keeping on the road by the dim light reflected from the rain-wet macadam. Trees and fields began to flash beside the road at last. A golf course, silent and deserted, stretched away under the night sky. The road began to cut through dense woods. Rich men’s estates formed little oases of green turf in this forest.
Then “X” saw the car ahead draw to the side of the road, turn and jounce into the bushes. Its red tail-light disappeared, winking off suddenly.
“X” stopped his own car. He left it parked far off the road, sprang out and walked ahead. A distant boom of thunder sounded hollowly across the still, wet woods. He stopped when he came near the spot where the stranger had parked. He listened and could hear the faint sound of footsteps, the rustle of small bushes as someone moved away. The man had struck off through the woods.
“X” entered them cautiously. Shadowing would be difficult now. The woods were black. He could not see the man. He was on unfamiliar territory.
Stooping, he felt the ground with cautious, exploring fingers. The bushes were denser in spots. Less so in others. He continued to feel; made a discovery. A narrow path began here.
This helped. He walked along, feeling his way. Again he stopped. The man’s footsteps were softer now. They grew fainter still and died, as the Agent listened. The man evidently knew his way along this path. The Agent risked flashing his tiny light. The denseness of the woods would hide its glow. He made sure of the path he was on.
For the space of fifteen minutes he lost all sight and sound of the man ahead. But he made sure he was following the path. He was confident where the man was going. A chill dampness came out of the wet woods around him. Once a frightened bird gave a shrill cry. Once a small animal, a squirrel perhaps, skittered away among wet leaves. The Agent continued his way.
Then at last he saw a light ahead. He moved on along the path, and the light became two — the windows of a small house. Beyond them he could see another faint light which seemed to be a larger house. He was approaching one of the rich men’s estates from the rear.
But, as he neared the lights he had first seen, the Agent suddenly paused. A scream cut through the stillness of the damp, night woods. It was a fearful scream that sent prickles along “X’s” back. It held fright, horror. And, as he moved ahead again, running now, every muscle tense, the screaming mounted into a cry of sheer agony that beat upon the eardrums intolerably.
The Agent raced toward the spot. Fearful and shrill as the scream was, he sensed that it was muffled by walls. It had come from inside the cottage where the lights showed. As he neared this the screaming died to a ghastly gurgle, then faded away entirely.
The Agent burst through a patch of shrubbery that marked the path’s end. For a moment he paused, almost tripped.
In the light that flared from the windows of the cottage he had caught sight of a face against a background of wet tree trunks. It was turned toward him, eyes glittering. It was the horrible, green-masked face of the man who had murdered Saunders.
Chapter IX
THE face vanished before “X” could move. There was no sound in the darkness. The face and its owner seemed to melt into the woods and be swallowed up by tree trunks. Any attempt at pursuit in that Stygian blackness would be futile — and fatal. “X” sped ahead and jerked open the door of the cottage. Perhaps he would be in time.
But he saw in his first horrified glance that he wasn’t. A ghastly sight met his eyes.
A man was stretched out on the floor. His coat, shirt and undershirt had been ripped open. Livid scratches made a network of crimson lines across the bare skin of his chest. Grayish powder showed around the edges of the lines. The man’s face was contorted into a hideous mask of agony. But, distorted as it was, the Agent recognized it.
This was the same man who had come to Renfew’s place with a secret to sell — and the man was dead.
The brutal Kep-shak torture had been used. A large amount of the death-flowers’ pollen had been rubbed into his wounds. So much that the man had died after a few moments of excruciating agony. But not before, “X” guessed, he had babbled his secret to Green Mask. Once again Green Mask had gotten ahead of “X,” wrung a secret from a dying man’s lips.
Cursing harshly, fists clenched, Agent “X” stood for a moment staring down. The menace of Browning’s stolen plans was bad enough without having the added horror of this green-masked killer ever present. The murderer’s move tonight convinced “X” of one thing. Green Mask did not have the stolen plans in his possession. He, too, was after them. It was a race between himself and Agent “X.” A race that had become a titanic struggle.
The Agent looked quickly around the room. There was nothing here of interest. Even the man’s name was not important now. He would never satisfy his greed to sell the information he had obtained. He was a mercenary, disloyal rogue, but he did not deserve such a death as this. No human being did. Again the Agent’s curse was like a pledge.
He turned toward the door of the cottage, opened it cautiously. The night outside seemed dark. But when he stepped across the threshold, a harsh voice spoke close to his ear.
“Hands up! Don’t move, fellah — or I’ll blow your damned head off!”
Slowly, stiffly, the Agent raised his hands. A man with a double-barreled shotgun was moving around the edge of the cottage. The gun was pointed straight at “X’s” head. He knew what a load of buckshot would do at such close range. He waited, hands held stiffly aloft, and another man followed the first. This second man was clad in a chauffeur’s uniform. The first one wore overalls and looked like a gardener.