“Fear of our organization is spreading,” said the man on Morvay’s right. “We are becoming famous. They call us the “ ‘Torture Trust.’ ” A low laugh followed. “It will make our next move easier. We are known across the water.”
THEY then began to discuss the plot they had in mind. It was stupendously daring, yet absurdly simple; but they never acted without long preliminary arguments, weighing each move with cold logic. They had the training, the discipline, of men in high positions. Each could have made a decent living in the world of honest men. But there was in each a hidden strain of criminality coupled with a ruthless thirst for power.
The plan under discussion tonight dealt with Sir Anthony Dunsmark, British financier; one of the heads of the great Bank of England; a man of international repute; a man whose opinions were taken as gospel truth and whose statements had to be issued guardedly because they had power to influence stock quotations in many countries. Dunsmark had shouldered his share of the financial burdens of the World War. He was on his way to America now to take part in a meeting of bankers, to do his bit toward helping along world recovery. Traveling on the liner Victoria, accompanied by one secretary, he would arrive in three days.
The hooded trio were like buzzards before a feast preparing for his arrival. So far their extortion racket had fallen on rich men in the city only. But here was an opportunity to extend operations.
What if Anthony Dunsmark disappeared upon arrival in America? What if his government should receive a letter demanding a vast sum which, if not paid over, would bring about the death of Dunsmark by the lingering horrors of acid?
No government would permit such a thing to happen to one of its best-known citizens. The sum asked would be paid, no matter how great it might be. To have Sir Anthony Dunsmark meet his death at the hands of American criminals would be a blot on the United States. America would contribute to his ransom if necessary. Thus the black-robed trio reasoned. But there were still details to be worked out. Dunsmark would be met at the dock by a police escort. There would be secret service operatives mingling in the crowd. To steal him away in spite of this was a big order. But the trio had confidence in their ability.
“There are many methods,” said the man on Morvay’s right. “Dunsmark will be lionized for days after his arrival. He will be invited everywhere. We will watch him ceaselessly and wait for an opportunity.”
Morvay laughed softly.
“One of us,” he said, “might even invite him to our own home. We are not without social position ourselves.”
The man on his left growled an objection.
“There must be no hint of suspicion directed at us.”
“We will meet again tomorrow night,” Morvay answered. “I have feelers out. I will know then the names of some of the people who plan to have Dunsmark as a guest.”
The others nodded assent. Discussion ceased. One by one they arose and left the council chamber, each leaving by a different route, Morvay passed through the buildings in the rear of the warehouse. He breathed easier now that the Secret Agent was gone. “X” was the only man so far who had given them any worry. The police were still wandering in confused circles and floundering in a bog of doubt.
It was raining as Morvay stepped into the dark street. He rolled his collar up and strode quickly along, his ulster flapping about his heels. He turned at the corner, heading toward the avenue four blocks away where it was his custom to pick up a taxi.
Then, shortly before he reached it he was pleased to see a cruising cab coming his way. The rain had increased. This was a bit of luck, he thought.
He held up a finger, signaled the cab, and climbed in. He gave the name of a hotel, one of the points where he sometimes changed taxis, in the routine that all of them followed to throw shadowers off the trail. He lit a cigarette and leaned back against the seat, going over in his mind the details of the daring crime planned.
The driver, sitting slumped behind the wheel, drove the cab on through the chill winter rain. Drops of moisture splattered against the glass in the door. Morvay was glad the windows were closed. He did not see the hands of the driver creep down to a small hidden lever beside his seat. He could not, for there was a front partition cutting off his view.
But he began to feel a slow dizziness creeping over him. The air in the cab seemed to be getting stale as though the exhaust had sprung a leak and carbon monoxide were seeping into the car’s interior.
Morvay leaned forward, reaching toward a window. But the dizziness increased to such an extent that he swayed in his seat.
He tried to raise his hand and it seemed to weigh many pounds. His cigarette dropped from shaking fingers. He tried to cry out to the driver, but his voice sounded faint and far away.
He slumped sidewise in the seat, struggling frantically to preserve his faculties. For a moment his face turned toward the ceiling of the cab, and a sudden shudder of amazement passed through his body. He made a desperate effort to rise, but succeeded only in flopping to the floor where he lay, still staring toward the roof with glassy, horrified eyes.
Over his head, in the center of the fabric covering the taxi’s roof, something glowed with an eerie, wavering light. It was a letter, an “X,” written in some kind of radiant paint. And, as Professor Morvay slipped into unconsciousness, it seemed to hover before his gaze like an accusing, all-seeing eye.
Chapter XV
THE taxi rolled on through the dreary, rain-swept night. In the rear compartment the inert body of Professor Morvay lurched grotesquely with every jounce the car gave. His still face and glassy eyes were like those of a corpse. But he was not dead.
The driver of the cab pressed the small lever beside his seat a second time, cutting off the flow of odorless anesthetizing gas that had swept Morvay into the dreamless depths of unconsciousness. The driver’s face was expressionless, but under his visored cap his eyes glowed with piercing brightness.
Several times fares stepped to the curb, signaling him to stop, supposing the cab empty. But the cabman drove by them briskly. He avoided the lighted streets, turned west, and whirled into a long avenue that led uptown. He bore steadily ahead through the rain with the purposefulness of a man who has a definite objective.
Wheeling into the broad drive that skirted the river, he passed millionaires’ homes and block upon block of expensive apartment houses, magnificent with their liveried doormen and glittering foyers.
Once he turned his head and glanced sidewise at a gloomy old house that rose on a corner. Its windows were boarded up. There was an air of decay and desolation about the place. It was the old Montgomery mansion which the litigation of heirs had kept empty for years.
A faint, grim smile twisted the mouth of the cabman, alias Secret Agent “X.” In a chamber of that house he had achieved his present disguise. The past twenty-four hours had been exciting ones. A man rated as dead had come to life. The members of the hideous “Torture Trust” believed he had gone down with the speeding taxi that had plunged off the dock. Their sadistic slaves had watched for him to rise to the surface, and he had not risen. The crash of the cab had been something he had planned deliberately.
They did not know that he could hold his breath a full two minutes under water and swim with the swift, powerful strokes of a diving otter. They hadn’t seen him when he reached the surface under the inky shadows of the dock. And they didn’t know that he had communicated with Betty Dale, told her to keep under cover in her room at the Hotel Graymont.