The silence seemed ominous, threatening, giving rise to a dozen ugly possibilities. “X” listened, straining to catch some sound.
But there was none, not even the moan of night wind under the eaves. They walked up the front steps, treading as cautiously as prowling thieves.
“X” tried the door. It was locked. He inserted one of his master keys. The click that followed was fleeting and only slightly audible, but to their harried and overworked imaginations it sounded like the rattle and clank of prison chains.
Inside, the hallway was tomblike in its quiet. The miasma of mystery permeated the sullen gloom. Their soft footfalls seemed to thud. Even their breathing seemed to rasp in contrast to the utter silence.
No lights showed anywhere. The servants had evidently left after the DOAC raid. But the Agent didn’t relax his caution. He led Jim Hobart down the hall, stopping every few seconds to listen again. He ascended a flight of stairs, searched every room in the upper part of the house, without finding anything but the wreckage still scattered across Greta St. Clair’s bedroom by the DOAC bomb. “X,” using his flashlight now, probed into every closet and corner.
He searched the attic rooms of the house, too, then led Jim Hobart to the first floor again. Here he opened a door and went down a flight of stairs to a cellar.
The place was black, but “X” knew his location. He and his operative were in the cellar where Greta St. Clair’s guards had demonstrated their marksmanship to the Agent and Betty Dale.
“X” brought forth an instrument that looked like a small, vest-pocket camera. It was his amazing sound amplifying device constructed with delicate rheostat controls corresponding to the film wind. Out of the instrument he took a tiny disc microphone connected to a cord. The box itself served as the earphone.
Holding the box to his ear, he placed the microphone against the walls, moving about till he had traversed the whole room. Then he stopped and pressed it to the floor itself — but the only vibrations were the scraping of his own foot. He adjusted the sensitive rheostats, and suddenly his pulse quickened with excitement. He heard a faint sound, indistinguishable at first. He tuned the rheostats, obtaining the highest point of reception. Footsteps! Muffled voices! Those were what now came through the super-sensitive instrument.
“X” stood up, felt along the wall, and found another door. He opened it and the two entered. The cloying fragrance of old vintages informed them that they were in a wine cellar. The Agent whispered close to Hobart’s ear.
“Don’t breathe!”
HOLDING his own breath, the Agent held the sound box to his ear, and moved around the crow-black room turning the microphone in all directions. He heard his footsteps thundering in the earphone, but nothing else. If any one had been in the room, the microphone would have caught the person’s breathing, and the amplifying device would have magnified it into a harsh rasping.
Now the Agent brought out an electric flash and stabbed the darkness with a blade of light. The walls were lined with kegs, barrels, shelves of bottles turned on their sides, others standing erect. The St. Clair house was well equipped for pleasure and life — and probably it was as well equipped for misery and death, too.
“X” searched the floor for a trapdoor. He found none, but he did find where footprints in the dust led to the far side of the room and ended abruptly. The Agent clamped his jaws grimly.
“On your toes, Hobart!” he whispered tensely. “We’re going into something now. I don’t know what. If we find the girl, the main thing is to get her out of here. That may be your job — while I stand off the DOACs. Never mind what happens to me. Get — the — girl — away!”
Hobart nodded grimly and bit into his lower lip. The footprints leading in a single direction had only one explanation. Behind the tier of bottle-filled shelves was a door, a panel that would give ingress to the chamber or chambers below. “X” pulled on the shelves. They yielded to his efforts. The shelves were secured together like a bookcase. On uprights were tiny runners.
The Agent pulled the shelves away from the paneled wall. He examined the varnished surface carefully, and found fingerprints in the lower right-hand corner of the third panel. He pressed on this spot, as others had done. The panel slid back on oiled bearings, and a gust of chill air shot up from below.
A dim light from the sub-cellar room suffused the gloom. “X” had shut off his flash. He and Hobart stole down the long flight. A board creaked. “X” stopped, his hand on his gas gun. Somewhere in a chamber below him, he heard muffled voices. He doubted if the noise of the creaking board carried to that chamber, though there was a chance a sentry had been posted outside.
No one approached. “X” continued on. He reached the bottom of the stairs. A winding corridor led to a door. Beyond, men were talking. To one side stood a stack of empty whisky barrels. The Agent and Hobart drew down behind them. The voices of the DOACs didn’t carry distinctly through the walls. He could not catch the drift of the talk, so he placed his microphone to the wall. Then “X” tensed and clenched his fist.
“Get the signal room ready,” one of the DOACs was saying. “The Master arrives shortly before midnight. That hour will become one of the most important in American history. There must be no accidents, no slip-ups, no incompetence! The Master will send the word to all parts of the nation. From Maine to California, from Florida to Washington State, the overthrow of the present order begins on the stroke of twelve. You men now owe allegiance only to the Cause. Be hard, be ruthless! Blast opposition before you. Dissolve the present system in the gases and liquids that science has provided.”
Prickles raced along the Agent’s spine. The sinister hour was drawing near. “X” had to prevent the fatal broadcast that would bring destruction to vast numbers of citizens who would rise against the hooded hordes. Throughout the land, happy people were sleeping, dancing, working, unaware of the tragedy that hovered near.
From all points the scum of the nation would gather — the mentally diseased, the street hoodlums, the rat-faced gangsters, the addicts of pernicious drugs — the vast legion of defectives who in the main filled the DOAC ranks. They would sweep across the land, scattering misery and evil and desolation, plundering and killing and razing the structure of decent society — all in the name of liberty, equality, fraternity.
SUDDENLY he put a warning hand on Jim Hobart’s arm. The door opened. Three DOACs came out. The door closed, and they strode down a narrow gloomy passage. They entered another room. Brilliant light glared through the entrance. “X” got a glimpse of a control board of rubber-knobbed dials. That was probably the signal room, equipped up to the latest invention in radio progress. The DOACs must use some special wave of their own.
The Agent motioned to his operative. The two followed down the narrow passage. “X” didn’t go into the signal room. He couldn’t afford a clash now. He wanted to find Betty, wanted to get her out of this evil place, before he began his onslaught on the hooded fiends.
He opened a door near the signal room. His gas gun was ready, if he should meet a DOAC. The room was not occupied, but it was far from empty. The Agent’s eyes widened.
Jim Hobart, seasoned campaigner though he was, couldn’t suppress a gasp of amazement. They were in an arsenal, not an ordinary arsenal of guns and ammunition, but one filled with instruments that gave the opposition not the slightest fighting chance.
There were guns, of course, racks and racks of them: Lebels, Mausers, Winchesters, Marlins, guns of domestic and foreign make. They were not terrifying, however. Rifles were obtainable. National Guard units and State militias could retaliate against foes armed with guns. But what chance had the soldiers with their inadequate hand grenades against the terrible bombs used by the DOACs?