He left Hummel stretched out on the floor and went back into the hallway where a telephone stood on a small table. He dialed quickly, reading the undertaker’s number from the card. It was after two in the morning — but undertakers keep all-night phones. They expect calls at any hour. Death does not wait upon human convenience.
A voice answered at once. Agent “X” spoke cautiously.
“Von Helvig speaking. You delivered a casket this evening, I believe.”
Silence for a moment, then: “Yes — the delivery was made about nine o’clock — a hurry call. But Von Helvig wasn’t the name. There must be some mistake.”
“What was the name?”
There was another silence before the voice spoke again: “Hummel.”
The Agent’s body stiffened. His fingers gripped the receiver tightly. This must mean that Lili knew the spy by his real name.
“Karl Hummel?”
“Right.”
“My mistake. The same party wants some flowers. There’s been a mix-up. Will you please give me the address?”
“It’s out in the suburbs,” answered the voice. “But they’ve gone. They wanted to ship a body tonight. That’s why we had to rush the order through.”
“You did the embalming, too, I suppose?”
“No, another undertaker did that. We delivered the casket and called later to make shipment. They left by the Congressional Express.”
“Thanks! I’ve got to catch them if I can.”
The Agent’s voice was quiet. But his fingers trembled as they replaced the receiver of the phone.
Karl Hummel, alias von Helvig — the man who lay dead in the next room! A casket quickly bought and shipped by train. The Congressional Express. These were new and sinister angles in a mystery already bafflingly black.
Agent “X” looked at his watch. Already that train was miles away, speeding northward over night-shrouded rails. There wasn’t time to catch it by car!
“X” picked up the telephone again. The number he called this time was listed in no book, but at last a deep voice answered — the voice of the man known to the Agent as “K9.”
Briefly Agent “X” made a strange request. Then he plunged to the street and sent his roadster leaping from the curb.
Minutes later he braked savagely before the gates of Bolling Field. An air beacon still shone, but the field’s hangars were dark — all except one. Here sleepy-eyed mechanics were rolling out a ship. A two-place attack plane, high-powered, swift, dual-controlled. As mechanics whirled the prop a man slipped a flying helmet over his head — one of the army’s crack pilots.
He peered curiously as the man called Captain Stewart Black approached. Respect showed in his eyes when he recognised the insignia of General Staff. He saluted.
AGENT “X” scrutinized intently the man who was to fly his plane. “K9” had promised him a special pilot. This man who stood before him was Lieutenant Draper, an instructor in aerial acrobatics, a racer and dare-devil flyer. Here was a pilot as expert as the Agent himself.
“X” touched his arm.
“I’ve got to catch a train, lieutenant. The Congressional Express, on the Pennsylvania line. I want you to overtake her and land me.”
“Where?”
“On her.”
Draper’s face expressed amazement.
“You want me to land you — where?”
“On the train, I said. When you spot her, nose down and straighten out. I’ll manage the rest”
“You mean you’re going to transfer?”
“Exactly!”
Shaking his head doubtfully, but apparently realizing that it was no use opposing the will of his superior, the pilot climbed into the rear cockpit. He let the ship warm five minutes more. The life of a captain on General Staff might be on his hands tonight.
The swift ship zoomed up off the field and climbed like a rocket. Agent “X” slipped goggles over his eyes. His pulses seemed to beat to the radial engine’s roar. He knew the pilot thought him insane. But Draper could be trusted to do his stuff.
They wheeled over the city, headed northward, and picked up the line of the railroad within ten minutes. At twice the train’s speed the fast ship forged ahead. Mile after mile through the black night sky.
It was Agent “X” who spotted the Congressional Express first. There was a cut through the hills. He caught the glint of lighted windows, like a string of brilliants snaking along the earth. He turned his head and signaled the pilot behind him, motioning downward with one hand.
Draper’s face was white. But he obeyed instructions, diminishing altitude sharply and leveling.
The Agent rose in the cockpit, the windblast striking his body with the slapping violence of a huge palm. He stood poised until he grew accustomed to its thrust, then threw one leg over the side and stepped out on a wing. A tense calmness directed his movements — the calmness of a man who knows the safety of his country depends upon the success of his desperate plan.
He grasped the sharp struts firmly, slipped backwards and groped downward with his feet. His toes found the plane’s landing carriage. He climbed down, twisting his body around the strong steel rods. Six feet ahead the propeller cut like a gigantic scythe, death in its whirling blades.
The wind blast tore at him as the plane nosed down again. The ground billowed up. Lieutenant Draper, wild though he considered the attempt, was doing his stuff. He would have something to tell his buddies about, though they would undoubtedly think he was lying. His face was white as he bent over the controls, brought the plane down slowly, throttled the engine.
Plainly visible now, the train was almost directly below them. A rushing serpent in the darkness, with a brown top and a hundred fiery eyes glowing in its sides. It was toward that brown top that Lieutenant Draper flew, dropping the plane’s nose gradually, expertly.
Agent “X” clung to the landing gear, waiting tensely. Not till the train had rounded the curve and was on a long straightaway did Draper try to get close. Then he dropped altitude swiftly, leveled out a hundred feet above the train. It was a roaring monster now, flashing through the darkness at eighty miles an hour. Draper cut his own speed to match it, held steady.
Then, foot by foot, the plane seemed to drift down toward that gliding brown-backed serpent. Lieutenant Draper was peering over the side, goggled head thrust out, hands steady on the sensitively responsive controls. The train’s top crawled slowly back. A strong wind at their tail was making it difficult to synchronize speed.
A GRIM smile twisted the Agent’s lips. One slip — and it would mean death and the end. He must not fail now. He must wait till that backward motion of the train ceased. Fields, trees, dark houses fled beneath them. Draper came lower still until the ship’s air wheels seemed almost to touch a car’s top. And now the train appeared to be standing still. Its speed and the plane’s were matched. The moment had arrived.
Eyes steely bright, the Agent opened his fingers and dropped. For a second he seemed to hang in space between the roar above and below him. Then, on hands and knees he struck the roof of a car. He slid. The rushing wind pushed at him with hostile strength. For an instant he was helpless in its grip, nearly swept from the surface of the speeding train. Then his fingers caught in a ventilator opening, curled in a viselike grip. He was safe.
He crouched, looked up at the climbing plane. Lieutenant Draper’s goggled head peered over the side. His hand lifted in salute. Then the ship soared upward like a bird and vanished into the aerial blackness.
Secure, steady now, Agent “X” crawled forward along the top of the swaying car. He covered two Pullmans, a string of day coaches, came at last to the baggage car which was coupled to the tender. Steam and smoke from the big locomotive belched in his face, raining gritty cinders.