HE drew from his pocket a small photograph of a South American capital. Betty Dale stared with wonder. Suddenly the man called Raphael Sancho flipped the photograph over, holding it in his palm so that only Betty could see. In that moment she held her breath in excitement. A single letter showed on the back of the picture, written in some strange ink. It was the letter “X,” and under the glare of the lights it slowly began to fade.
“You!” she said. “I did not guess!” Then, in spite of her effort at self-control, the color in her cheeks deepened. Her eyes became ever more bright. The man whom she most respected and admired in all the world was at her side. The man whose real face she had never seen, but whose strange, dynamic personality had cast a spell over her emotions so that all other men by comparison seemed lame. The man, whom, deep in her heart, she loved.
But Betty Dale knew that “X” had only his work to think of. She knew that the time might never come when they could be more to each other than they were now — loyal, trusting friends and allies. She knew that she had no right ever to interfere with his strange, caring career.
The Agent pocketed his photograph. He looked quickly around.
“There is a small alcove at the end of the room,” he said. “Perhaps we can continue our discussion of South America there.”
They circled the dance floor, a youthful, graceful couple. Eyes followed Betty Dale enviously because she had apparently captured the interest of the dashing Raphael Sancho. Other eyes looked with envy upon Sancho because he was holding the attention of the room’s loveliest girl.
They sat on a bench in the alcove and Betty Dale spoke quickly.
“I have found out nothing except that both the senator and Suzanne seem upset. Ferris has gone to the sanatorium again. But I don’t thick that’s what’s worrying them. It is something else.”
“Yes,” said the Agent. “Be careful, Betty. Be on your guard even when you are talking to Suzanne. She has friends. It is these friends I want you to watch. Find out all you can about Lili Damora, and the German attaché, Otto von Helvig. Find out also about Senators Foulette, Cobb, and Rathborne: Remember anything you hear.”
“I will,” said Betty. “Is it something very important?”
“Very,” said the Agent.
“And dangerous?”
A shadow came into the Secret Agent’s eyes for a moment. He was thinking of Green Mask.
“I have said be careful, Betty. Be on your guard every instant.”
Betty touched his arm suddenly. “Nothing will happen to me. It is you I am thinking of. I read about the terrible murder of Senator Rathborne’s man. Had that anything to do with what is worrying you?”
The Agent nodded. “Yes, Betty, it had. But my reason for being in Washington is more vital even than the hunt for a murderer. It is something which concerns the safety of America. It was that which made me ask you to come.”
Betty started to answer, then suddenly stopped. She stared across the ballroom, eyes wide with amazement. Something strange was happening. It was a warmish spring night. Windows on both sides of the ballroom were open. Now a smoky haze was coming through these windows. People were moving back.
A man’s voice was raised in sudden excitement.
“Fire!” he said.
The soft throb of the orchestra came to a stop. Low conversation was hushed. Agent “X” rose to his feet, stepped forward. He moved quickly toward one of the open windows which gave on a wide lawn outside. Then he paused and sniffed, nostrils dilating.
A strange odor was in the air. The haze of smoke was curling in ghostly streamers through the whole big room. This was not fire — it was something else. A girl near “X” gave a cry and swayed against her escort.
“I’m fainting,” she gasped. “Air — please.”
But she did not reach the door. She had taken only two steps when her knees gave way and she collapsed on the polished floor. Others were staggering, too. The smoke in the air made a dim veil, blurring faces. Or was it the effect of the strange scent? Agent “X” did not know. This time he leaped toward the window.
But his leap ended in a drunken sort of stagger. For a fresh breath of the strange smoke had entered his nostrils. It made his senses swim. He heard other cries around him; saw, as through an awful fog, that men and women in all parts of the room were sinking to their knees, collapsing on the floor.
He turned back toward Betty Dale, tried to reach her. She, too, was collapsing, slumping sidewise in the seat, her head falling forward on a wilting neck.
Chill horror grasped Secret Agent “X.” In a frenzy of effort he tried to go to her, get her out of this room. But his muscles would not respond. Like a man caught in the grip of a horrible nightmare that paralyzes while a danger he cannot avoid creeps upon him, Agent “X” fell to the floor. There he lay, immobile, unable to move — slipping closer and closer to the borderland of unconsciousness.
Chapter XIII
AGENT “X” struggled fiercely, his iron will urging him on. He would not give up as other men did. Physically helpless, he fought to retain that spark of consciousness which still made him able to see and hear. Turning his head he breathed through his cupped hands, holding them across his face, drawing the air through tense fingers to purify it.
Numb in every muscle, his eyes could still focus. And he was amazed at what he saw.
Hideously evil faces appeared in the windows as the strange haze began to clear. Sinister brown-skinned figures glided into the room. There were at least a half-dozen of them, and they began robbing the inert guests with calculated thoroughness.
They stripped rings from fingers, links from men’s cuffs, necklaces from the white throats of women, tiaras from their hair. Jewels were all they seemed to seek. Everything that glittered they fell upon and pocketed as a flock of hungry vultures might pluck flesh from bones.
“X” could not stop them. He could not even cry out. The single small jewel that Betty Dale was fond of, an heirloom from her dead mother, was taken from her throat as he looked. Then fresh horror came.
Two of the men were lifting Betty Dale up. He saw as in an unbelievable nightmare her body rise from the floor, saw her blonde head hang limply, saw her borne toward the door.
Icy hands clutched at the Agent’s heart then. Frantic blood surged in his veins. He tried to move, but still the drug held him. An invisible net seemed spread over his whole body.
His lips moved to form words: “Betty Dale! Betty Dale!” But they made no sound. He alone of all the guests was witness to her abduction. And he was unable to prevent it. It was plain to him who these brown-skinned men were. This was the poisonous Malay horde whose master was the green-masked killer. These were the men who had tried to murder him with the dart on the lawn of Blackwell’s house, the same who had tortured poor Saunders to death with the hideous Kep-shak. And now they were taking Betty Dale away.
More terrible than torture of the body was the mental torture that gripped Agent “X.” Except for him, Betty Dale would be safe in her own home city hundreds of miles away. If he had not called her, this would not have happened.
As he lay, fighting for the power to move, bathed in cold sweat, a shadow fell on the floor beside him. He could not turn, but his eyes rolled feebly. The shadow belonged to one of the brown-skinned men.
The man stooped, pinned a note to Agent “X’s” coat. Then he moved after the others, and the Agent caught a last glimpse of Betty Dale’s golden head. A last glimpse of her pale, lovely face.
There came times when the Agent’s dauntless spirit seemed to master his flesh. This was one of them. Overcome like the others by the strange smoke that had filled the room, Agent “X” refused to let it conquer the fighting heart within him.