“Turn a light on his face.”
This was done also, and again Agent “X” had the uncanny sense that the eyes behind the wall were a tangible force — a force of evil unparalleled in his experience.
“Who are you?” the voice said. “Speak quickly — or you die.”
“An agent of the governor,” said “X.” “I came to Branford to investigate the epidemic.”
“Search him!”
THE Agent’s pockets were searched. His wallet was brought out. In the name place of it was a card bearing the words, “Doctor Preston, State Sanitation Department.” One of the men passed it through the slit in the wall. There was another moment of tense silence.
“And how did you get in here?” the deep voice abruptly demanded.
For a bare instant the Secret Agent was baffled. His identity was something he guarded with his very life. He did not intend to reveal it now. Yet how could he explain his entrance without giving away the fact that he was not what he appeared? One of the apelike men, fingering the Agent’s kit of chromium tools, answered for him.
“He’s got house-breaking gadgets here, boss. He must’ve picked the locks.”
The man behind the screen laughed mirthlessly.
“A doctor who thinks he’s a dick, eh? Pretty smart to get in here — a little too smart. You’re investigating the epidemic, you say?”
“Yes.”
“And how much do you know about it?”
“Enough,” said “X” quietly.
His piercing gaze swept the room, figuring his chances of escape. They were nil now. All six of his captors were alert. They had taken his gas gun from him. To make a break now would invite quick death.
“And you are all alone?” asked the voice.
“Yes.”
“Go to the door and see,” snapped the man behind the wall to those who were his underlings. There was fierce suspicion in his voice. A minute or two of silence followed while one man left the room. “X” could hear the others breathing tensely. The man returned.
“There’s nobody else, boss. He even locked the doors behind him.”
The harsh laughter of the man behind the steel sounded devilishly.
“You came to investigate the sleeping sickness, doctor! You shall have some first-hand experience of it!”
For an instant, he struggled fiercely. It was an involuntary reaction. The laugh of the man behind the wall rang in his ears.
“That frightens you, doctor! You prefer to study sleeping sickness at long range. But the ideals of medicine must be upheld. You shouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice yourself in the interests of science. We’ve developed cultures which vary in the degree of their potency. We’ll give you grade A. Its effects are most rapid.”
The men around “X” waited, except one who moved close to the steel wall. A tiny door opened outward below the eye slit. One of the strange hypodermic injectors in the form of teeth was thrust out by the man inside.
“It is ready,” he said harshly. “Give our doctor guest a forearm injection.”
At that instant time seemed to hang suspended. The Agent’s heart almost ceased to beat. Anticipating that he would attempt another break, four of the five men held him. Another pressed a gun at his back. The sixth, the man with the injector, approached.
“Roll up his sleeve!”
THE quick order was obeyed. The Secret Agent’s arm was shoved forward, bared to the elbow. With impassive cruelty, the man with the injector thrust the strange thing out. A thumb lever snapped the metal teeth open. Agent “X” got a brief detailed glimpse of this hypodermic instrument that had fooled a whole city.
Then the sharp teeth of it sank into his arm. The stabbing pain shot to his shoulder. He saw the hairy, gloved fingers of the man squeeze the injector device. The teeth were withdrawn. He, too, was now harboring the bacilli that had brought terror to Branford.
For a moment the room rang with peal upon peal of mocking laughter which issued from behind the wall.
“You won’t have long to wait, doctor! Our grade A culture is remarkably efficient. Its microbes produce the most poisonous virus of all. So far we have not used it — and I shall be interested to see just how efficacious it is. Meanwhile, you may wait and study your own symptoms. Shall we provide you with a notebook and pencil, doctor, that your experiences may not be lost to posterity?”
Agent “X” remained silent. His body was rigid, apparently, with fear. But it was the rigidity of deep emotion. He must make as much use as possible of the little time left him.
“Take him to room G,” ordered the man behind the wall. “See that he does not have his little playthings with him. One of you keep an eye on him until—”
The Agent’s gas gun, amplifier, and tool kit were removed. His other pockets were searched and emptied. The man with the gun and two others led him out into the corridor. He was pushed along it to a rusty iron door. The door was yanked open, the Agent was thrust inside, and a bolt on the outside was shoved home.
There was a small peephole in the door. The man in the corridor clicked on an overhead bulb, looked in for a moment, then walked off. Agent “X” was alone to face the slow relentless encroachment of the encephalitis bacilli, the germs that would bear him to the land of the living dead.
Chapter XVI
HE looked tensely around the room. It was windowless, exit-less, except for that one bolted door. A couple of old oxygen cylinders were tumbled in a corner. There was not even a chair. The room had apparently been used as a storage chamber in former days by a now defunct gas company.
The Secret Agent paced back and forth. Another man might have given in, resigned himself to the inevitable, but the burning, flashing light of battle was still in the Agent’s eyes. Suddenly hope flared in his mind.
He recalled the ride along River Boulevard in Garwick’s car; recalled the injection of serum he had received as Garwick’s son. Would not that nullify the virulent germs in his blood for a while? His body was now a laboratory where a horrible battle was taking place — a battle between a horde of dread invaders and the serum.
With the terrible pressure of lack of time eased somewhat, Agent “X” could think more freely. He went back over the events of the last hour, recalling in every detail what he had seen — and heard. The man behind the screen had mentioned a name that had made his blood tingle. Hornaday! The young scientist from Drexel Institute was mixed up in this somehow.
It was more than possible that Hornaday had provided the serum with which the criminals were effecting cures. Was the brilliant young student working willingly with these fiends, or had they taken him prisoner? Where was he now? Agent “X” resolved to find out.
His pockets had been searched and emptied. But the gangsters dressed as hideous apes had not known with whom they were dealing. Neither had the man behind the steel wall known. And in his battles of wit with criminals, Agent “X” always tried to keep an ace in the hole.
Deep in the linings of his clothing, padded with strips of felt, were other pockets that hadn’t been discovered. The Secret Agent went through these, taking stock of the things that had been left him. A tiny cylindrical flashlight with a bulb hardly larger than a grain of wheat. A vial of anesthetizing drug with a minute needle injector. A few compact, portable make-up materials. Another miniature tool-kit contained in the hollow barrel of what appeared to be a fountain pen.
This latter Agent “X” fingered. The pen point of it unscrewed leaving a strong metal socket into which the slender tools contained in the barrel could be set. These extra tools had been selected with the greatest care. There was a small screw driver, a rat-tailed file, an auger, and a diamond studded bit.