Cobb stood speechless, confused. It was Blackwell who addressed the meeting for the third time. His face looked apoplectic. He struck the table, threw his shoulders back, and spoke in a voice that made the walls ring.
“Rubbish, Rathborne — utter rubbish!” he shouted. “It was Germany’s terroristic tactics — her submarines, her Zeppelins, her poison gas — that made the nations of the earth rise up to crush her in the World War! Countries will always combine to defeat a common enemy. Even if this were not so, the proud history of these United States wouldn’t allow us to stoop to the use of such a weapon. I move, gentlemen, that the Browning ray mechanism be destroyed for all time.”
Senators Dashman, Foulette, and Cobb leaped to their feet, cheering Blackwell. The cabinet man joined them. Captain Nelson, looking relieved, nodded his approval.
Only Senator Rathborne remained silent. His face wore the obstinate, sullen expression of a man who cannot accept defeat gracefully. But the motion was carried over his head. It was agreed by the senatorial committee that Doctor Browning’s hideous ray mechanism be destroyed.
RATHBORNE was the first to leave the conference room. He placed his broad-brimmed hat on his head with a vicious slap. He stalked angrily from the building. The others made their exits in pairs.
Rain lashed their faces. Wind pressed their garments to their bodies. But they didn’t mind the fierceness of the weather. They felt they had done a good night’s work. They thought they had settled an unpleasant problem. None of them guessed how soon the unseen spirit of horror was to stalk through the dark, deserted streets of Washington. None of them sensed that the lightning was like a demon’s winking eye and the thunder that followed it a peal of devilish, sardonic mirth.
But a few minutes after they had left the committee room a human cry stark with agony sounded in the night. It rose piercingly above the mutter of the thunder, died away into a weird echo that whispered along the now deserted street.
A patrolling cop two blocks away heard it. He turned alertly, staring into the murky gloom from beneath the dripping visor of his rubber-covered cap. The glistening black rubber of his cape swished wetly as he ran toward the spot from which the sound had issued.
There was no one on the sidewalk. His flash beam probed areaways; and suddenly he stooped down.
A sprawled, inert figure lay at his feet — a man. Under the glare of the electric torch, livid rivulets of crimson showed. They streaked the man’s cheeks, mingling with the rain, coming from a hideous wound in the left temple. The cop’s fingers groped hastily for the man’s pulse. There was no heartbeat. The man was dead.
One shrill blast on the cop’s whistle summoned the patrolman on the next beat. Then he ran to the phone box on the corner.
His call was relayed over many wires. It caused consternation in high circles. Hardly had the five senators reached their homes when a strange message was flashed to each.
“The Secretary of War requests your presence immediately!”
Wondering, filled now with a deep sense of foreboding, the senators responded. One by one their fast cars sped back along their tracks, and at the State, War and Navy Building they entered the same windowless room they had so recently left.
The secretary greeted them silently, his face grave and strained. There were odd, haunting shadows of uneasiness in his eyes. Not until they were all assembled did he speak. Then he stared fixedly into the faces of the five senators seated before him. He licked his lips, fumbled a moment with his watch chain, cleared his throat noisily.
“Gentlemen,” he snapped. “I have terrible news for you. You heard tonight the report that Captain Nelson gave us on the Browning ray mechanism. You heard what a devastating weapon it could become. You were shown the unpleasant statistics of experiments made on animals. Gentlemen, Captain Nelson has been murdered — the plans of the ray machine have been stolen!”
Chapter II
AT the moment this terrible news was being spoken, a fast sport roadster came to a screeching stop before the Army Air Corps base at Mitchell Field, Long Island.
A tall man muffled in a heavy overcoat leaped from the car. There was a suitcase in his hand. He walked with quick strides through the field gate toward a two-place army plane warming on the deadline.
Sparks from the throttled motor issued like a swarm of fireflies from the end of the hot exhaust stack. The pilot turned his head, nodding, as the tall man came up. He watched as the tall man climbed into the gunner’s cockpit. He listened for the snap of the safety belt, then bent over his controls.
The plane tore down the field, leaped into the night sky in a roaring zoom of power. It banked, straightened out, and began to climb. Its destination was Bolling Field, Anacostia, D.C.
The pilot had no idea as to the identity of the man riding behind. He was only obeying orders which had instructed him to wait for and pick up a passenger. If he thought at all, he supposed that the man was an embassy attaché or an important witness in some fresh financial scandal the Government was investigating. The pilot’s one concern was to see that the trip was made safely. It was a wicked night for flying.
Only one or two people in the world knew the identity of the plane’s mysterious passenger. These few were pledged to secrecy and silence.
In the passenger’s pocket was a telegram couched in secret government code. It was addressed to Elisha Pond, care of a bank in New York. It summoned him to Washington. Arrangements for the army plane had been made at the order of a high Government official.
Tonight the mysterious passenger in the gunner’s seat was a man of destiny. His movements in the next few hours might influence the lives of thousands of people. They might conceivably influence the future of a nation.
In appearance there was nothing extraordinary about the man. He was youngish, well built. He sat erectly in his seat, staring ahead into the dark night. The only odd thing about him was the intent, burning light in his eyes. This light seemed to indicate depths of intelligence, magnetism, and power.
Yet, inconspicuous as the man’s features appeared, they held infinite mystery. For the face that showed was not his real one. The man was disguised, so cunningly that not even the sharpest eye could have detected a flaw. The man was, in fact, a master of disguise — a master of a thousand faces. The man was Secret Agent “X.”
Who was Secret Agent “X”? For months past people had been asking that question. Criminals along the black byways of the underworld had asked it. They had learned to fear his name. Rumors had even spread behind prison walls, spread to the darkest and most evil dives. Gangsters had heard of Secret Agent “X.” Murderers had trembled at mention of him.
The police forces of a dozen cities had asked to know who he was. Detectives had suspected him. He had been hunted as a criminal. Crimes that he had never committed had been pinned on him until subsequent facts proved him guiltless. Yet no one could give an accurate description of him, for he never appeared twice alike. He was a man of a thousand faces — a thousand disguises — a thousand surprises. A man who was feared, hated, suspected, hunted. A man who guarded his identity as a precious secret.
There was the snapping of excitement in Agent “X’s” eyes tonight. Under the cognomen of Elisha Pond, in care of the First National Bank, he had received many telegrams from Washington. They came from a high Government official whose identity was also a secret.