Once again he took out his delicate amplifier — the instrument that had plumbed the secrets of many desperate criminals. Quickly he opened it, pressed the small microphone to the wall, put the ear piece to his head, and fingered the rheostats.
It was a simpler task to isolate these voices than it had been to hear in the moving car. There was little else to interfere. The passages, deep underground, were strangely still.
Two men were talking. The words they used were not in gangster dialect. This was the speech of more educated men. The Agent’s heart leaped. It seemed he was now listening to those who guided this hidden and hideous racket. He was separated from them only by a foot or two of steel and concrete. One voice was deeper than the other. The higher-pitched voice was faintly familiar to “X.” He listened spellbound. The men were arguing fiercely. The deeper voice was sneering, contemptuous.
“We’ve gone too far to stop at anything now! At my orders the children of the city commissioners, the mayor, and the aldermen have been inoculated. What have you got to say to that?”
A furious curse came from the lips of the other man.
“You should have asked me about it first. I told you—”
“It makes no difference what you told me! I’m running things from now on. You’ve lost your nerve. I’ve been watching you. I’ve seen it coming. You’re going to take your orders from me like the rest of them whether you like it or not. This racket’s almost washed up. The monkeys are dying. People will be getting wise to us pretty soon anyway. I’m going to get a big hunk of money and then skip — that’s why I dropped the mayor a letter this afternoon.”
“You sent the mayor a letter?”
“Yes. One of his kids has got sleeping sickness. I offered to sell the city all the serum we have left for a million in cash.”
“My God — you’re crazy! They’ll know it’s a racket They’ll never pay. You can’t hold up a city.”
“Why not? They’ll be glad to raise the money to save their kids, I tell you. And it will be our last play. After it goes through, we’ll clear out.”
“But we haven’t enough serum left to— The apes are dying, and Hornaday says—”
A harsh, cruel laugh sounded.
“Serum be damned! We’ll get our money. We’ll hand out water if we have to. They’ll never know the difference — until it’s too late.”
Secret Agent “X” tensed with fury.
“The city will raise the funds, I tell you,” the deep voice continued. “The board of aldermen can do it. There’s more in the public treasury than there is in private pockets.” The laugh sounded again. “You can’t back out now! You’ve gone too far to save your own face, and I’ve got enough on you—”
The last words were lost in a volley of curses. The taunting, deep-toned voice cut through them. “You weren’t cut out to be a big shot. You lack guts. And now you’re taking your orders from me.”
Agent “X” strained forward, listening anxiously to catch every word. Who were these men? The walls made their voices distorted. Through the amplifier it was hard to recognize them, and yet—
Then suddenly his body stiffened. A sound had reached him through the other ear. It was on his side of the wall — the sound of movement in the passage.
The skin along his scalp tightened. A sense of danger made him turn abruptly, muscles rigid. And in that instant an overhead light flashed on.
In its glare Agent “X” had the reeling sudden sense of being in the midst of a horrible nightmare. For a half-dozen hideous, hairy faces were staring at him. The strong light revealed them plainly. Creatures that seemed neither men nor apes, who had crept upon him as he bent intent over his amplifier. One of them gave a hoarse cry. Before the Agent could move, they leaped upon him.
Chapter XV
“X” tried to draw his gas gun out, but the apelike forms were too close. They appeared as gorillas until a human voice issued from behind one hideous face.
“Get the rat — kill him.”
The truth of a thing that the Agent had already guessed was now apparent. These prowlers of the night who had been terrorizing the city, spreading disease and horror, were not gorillas, but men dressed up to look like them.
It explained the strange encounter he had had on his first night in Branford, explained the mystery of the toothlike injector; explained how the crime ring controlled their movements and inoculated the victims they selected.
In a blasting wave of fury, Agent “X” fought, but there were too many of them. They rained murderous blows on his head with fists encased in repulsive hairy black gloves. Another spoke hoarsely.
“Don’t kill him! Wait! The bosses will want to know about this. They’ll want to talk to him and find out who he is.”
In this speaker’s voice was a shade of fear. The mystery of the Agent’s inexplicable presence there seemed to have impressed one at least of these grotesque creatures.
But they didn’t handle him gently. The futility of fighting was soon borne home to him, and his heart leaped at mention of the “bosses.” To be taken before them, to find out who they were, was what he most desired.
He collapsed under a shower of vicious blows, lay limp as two of them picked him up. One had a drawn gun pressed against the Agent’s side.
“Keep quiet, rat — or I’ll burn your guts.”
This was gangster talk. Here were men of the same calibre as those who had talked in the car; perhaps the very same individuals.
Agent “X” made no reply. He was thrust forward along the dim corridor, thrust through one of the doors he had seen at the passageway’s end.
The sense of being in a nightmare persisted. The costumes these men wore were so lifelike, the hoods over their heads so hideously real, that they seemed like apes with the power of human speech. No wonder a whole city, seeing them only at night, had been fooled. Here was more evidence of the daring and cunning of the fiends.
“How didja get in?” one of them demanded hoarsely. But still Agent “X” remained silent.
They took him through another door into a high-ceilinged windowless room which had the chill of steel and concrete.
He looked around in wonder, expecting to see the two other men. But the room held no one save those who had come in with him.
One of these went to the farthest wall. Agent “X” saw that it was formed of steel plates welded together. The ape-like man rapped out a series of signals with his knuckles. He stepped back, and a small slit opened in the steel wall. Through it a voice issued, the deep voice of the man Agent “X” had heard before.
“What do you want?”
“We caught a guy in the hallway, boss. He was listening. We got him here.”
The air of the room became deathly still. It seemed charged suddenly with the power of hate — and fear. Agent “X” could feel eyes fixed upon him — eyes that bored out through that single slit in the wall. He understood now that he was not to see the brains behind the racket after all. They had taken clever pains to protect their identity. But the voice sounded again, harsh with fury and amazement.
“You found him in the passage outside, you say? He had come all the way in?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Bring him closer!”
The men dressed as apes obeyed. Agent “X” was pushed nearer the wall, hands pinioned to his sides.