“X” drew the Malay toward the water then, down the small, sloping beach into the chill river. The man tried once to cry out. But only a hissing grunt came. The Agent let his body sink, pulling the man in after him. He kicked his legs in powerful scissors strokes, pushing violently away from shore.
The current caught them. They began to drift downstream. But the Malay was like a squirming, thrashing fish. He reared up, bringing his full weight down on “X,” forcing his head under. They sank below the surface together, fighting furiously.
With a sudden vicious thrust, the Malay caught “X” in the stomach with a knee. Racking pain shot through the Agent’s body. For an instant his grip weakened, and in that instant the Malay broke away.
In the black water “X” felt a slithering foot slide past. The brown-skinned man was rising to the surface to call for help. “X” clutched again, warding off the knife blow that swung down at him. A grim foreboding told him that this was to be a battle to the death.
He clutched the man’s arm again, struck with his fist under water, felt his knuckles hit yielding flesh. But the water deadened the force of his blow. The Malay suddenly wrapped muscular legs about him. It was like being caught in the tentacles of an octopus. Breath bubbled from the Agent’s compressed lungs. Nothing seemed able to break the brown man’s viselike grip.
“X” drew the Malay’s knife arm downward and held it, twisting slowly, turning the knife blade inwards.
The Malay’s body stiffened suddenly. For seconds “X” could not understand it, could not understand the strange shrinking movement the man had made. For the knife blade had barely touched his flesh. Then he felt the brown-skinned killer’s muscles growing lax. Strangely the man’s struggles were beginning to cease.
They rose to the surface slowly. Then the Agent understood and horror gripped him. The knife blade had been poisoned. The Malay had been struck with his own venomous steel.
The man was floating on his back now. A hoarse breath came through clenched teeth. He squirmed like a wounded fish, lay still. The man was dead.
For a moment only, the Agent hesitated, then his face grew grim. A swift plan came to his mind. Under the dim starlight, close to the water, he stared at the dead Malay’s features. Here perhaps was his one hope of saving Betty Dale. But it was a plan so desperate that it seemed like a challenge hurled into the very face of death.
Turning suddenly he began towing the corpse of the Malay toward the mainland’s shore. It was slow work against the river’s current. The bobbing head of the dead man behind him touched gruesomely against his back. But fear for Betty Dale overbalanced all else. These were not ordinary criminals. They seemed the spawn of some wild nightmare — a horror horde under the control of a ruthless fiend. They could not be combated in any ordinary way. The police could not help him. To tell them where the island hideout was, would, he felt sure, bring hideous disaster on Betty Dale. The green-masked devil would vent his fury upon her.
HE reached the shore five hundred feet below the spot where he had moored his boat. Lifting the lifeless Malay to his shoulder, he carried the man through the sparse woods, laying him at last in the bottom of the boat. Then “X” cut loose and let the current drift the craft downstream.
Not until the island was a half mile behind did he start the motor. Then he headed for the opposite shore, giving the island hideout a wide berth. His eyes were gleaming now. The plan he had conceived was built on desperation. Showing no lights, he sped back along the course he had come. His eyes strained across the dark water until he saw a small river town ahead.
He passed it, tied his boat under the black shadow of a sandy bank, and walked away from the river. He was fighting not only for Betty Dale’s life, he was fighting for the safety of his country. If he did not conquer now, this green-masked killer would beat him in the final show-down.
Without compunction then, the Agent acted swiftly. He must get the Malay to his own hideout. Wet and hatless, still in evening clothes, he knew that if a policeman saw him he would be held as a suspicious character. There would be questions, explanations, and time was vital. He prowled till he saw an auto stop before a house, waited till the owner got out, leaving the engine still running. In a second Agent “X” was behind the wheel, gliding off up the dark street.
He stopped by the river, transferred the body of the Malay to the car, leaving Foulette’s speed boat still tied among the trees. He was helping himself to other people’s property tonight. But there was justification for everything he did.
He sped along a road that edged the river, came at last to the suburbs of Washington, then to the city itself. The Malay’s body was slumped on the floor of the car. It would not be seen unless a policeman stopped him. That was a chance, too, he must take.
But he reached his hideout safely where Michael Renfew was still his prisoner. He doubled the Malay’s body up, wrapped it in a lap robe, and took the outside way to the hideout he had hired — the dark fire escape where none would see.
Once inside he set feverishly to work. There was no time to lose — not with Betty in the hands of the green-masked killer’s horde.
All the artistry of the Man of a Thousand Faces would be needed in the thing he planned to do. For long moments he studied the dead Malay’s face, studied its contours and its color, noticed the man’s clothes. The man was wearing a cheap cloth suit. Then “X” began one of the most difficult disguises of his life.
The high cheek bones were not hard to simulate. Strips of transparent adhesive pulling his own flesh did that. But the strange pigmentation gave him trouble.
Stripped to the waist he rubbed brown liquid into his skin, covering his whole torso. He had been in the water once. He might have to swim again. The coloring fluid he used was waterproof. But he carried a vial of liquid that would take it off.
IT was nearly an hour before his task was done; nearly an hour before Secret Agent “X” had turned himself into a brown-skinned savage. He found a suit in his own wardrobe like that the Malay wore. When he left at last, using the fire escape again, one of the green-masked murderer’s own men seemed to be emerging from that house.
Swiftly the Agent got into the car that he had taken in the river town, and went back along the route he had come. Not all the way, however. His eyes grew alert. He wore dry clothes now. They must remain so. If he arrived on the island wet it would mean suspicion, exposure, and the end of his desperate plan. But he could not go in the motor boat. He must have some silent craft.
He stopped at a place along the road where low-roofed buildings rose close to the river. They were dark, deserted, but the Agent walked quickly to them. Once again that night he helped himself — this time to a light canoe.
He broke into a boat shed, took the frail craft out, launched it. He was no more than a mile from the island now. The river current was with him. It would be better this way than going in the stolen car. Motorcycle police were probably looking for its license plates even now.
His pulses raced as the island loomed ahead. He sent the canoe forward under the swift thrust of his paddle. At the last he let it drift with the current.
Silently as a shadow it bore him forward. The dark vegetation of the island loomed before his bow. He brought the canoe in, waited breathlessly, ready to leap at the slightest sound. But none came, except for the faint stir of branches in the night wind and the lapping of the water.
The Agent was trembling as he set foot on land; trembling not for himself, but from the fear that filled him for Betty Dale. He drew the canoe up, turned his face toward the center of the island.