Victor Garwick cried harshly, “And I was asked to contribute! I helped them financially! I wish now I hadn’t!”
“The whole city blames the doctors at Drexel for what has happened,” said Mrs. Garwick. “They shouldn’t have let those apes get out!”
Agent “X” did not argue the point. He could not blame the stricken parents for being prejudiced. He turned from them to the boy.
“Do whatever your own doctor says,” he told him. “Keep cheerful and everything will turn out O.K.”
“You think then that I will come down with—”
David Garwick’s quivering lips could not frame the dread word. Agent “X” was silent. His discovery that the disease was being spread, in some cases at least, by injection, drove all doubt from his mind. David Garwick had been inoculated with the germs. His boyish face would before long set in the terrible contours of rigidity — the Parkinsonian Mask.
Two weeks was the usual incubation period; but the germs of this dread epidemic seemed to be unusually virulent. In a matter of days or even hours David Garwick would feel the clutch of those silent microbe invaders, would sink slowly into the horrible listlessness from which he might never be aroused.
Agent “X” was filled with deep, silent fury — fury against the inhuman fiends who were responsible for this.
“You’ll come through all right,” he said huskily. He wished he could feel the confidence he tried to put into his voice. “I’m going directly to the institute,” he said. “I understand they are working night and day there, trying to develop a serum. Your own family doctor will do all that can be done.”
The haggard eyes of the Garwicks followed him. He passed the trembling servant in the hallway, went out into the night. A few hundred feet from the gate a green-crossed car roared past him and into the Garwicks’ drive. Apparently their family doctor had arrived. “X” hoped he would be able to bolster up their morale for the ordeal to come.
HE strode swiftly to his own car, climbed in, and retraced his route back along the avenue. His disguised features were set as he drove through the gloom. Fury had become a white-hot resolve to fight this hideous evil. For a moment, Agent “X” pressed a hand to his side where an old scar, received on a battlefield in France, gave him a momentary twinge of pain. Excitement sometimes made the wound throb as though the piece of shrapnel that had caused it were freshly imbedded.
It seemed the sign and symbol of the Agent’s amazing courage. For the scar had drawn the flesh into the semblance of a crude “X.” Years ago, physicians had predicted that it might cause his death; but his extraordinary vitality and indomitable will had cheated the Grim Reaper. The scar remained as an ever-present reminder of death — but death was no longer feared by Secret Agent “X.” He had come to grips with it too often. His only fear was ever that death might overtake him before his strange hazardous work was done. With horror hovering like a dreadful shadow over a whole great community, the “Man of a Thousand Faces” must fight as never before. And, with death on all sides of him, he must hold death at bay.
He sped down the street toward Drexel Institute. The massive white stone building was set on a slight hill surrounded by spacious grounds. It was a temple of science upon which its founder, Alfred Drexel, had lavished millions until the stock market crash of ’29 had wiped out his fortune.
Now the great building stood in all its grandeur, paradoxically bearing the name of a ruined man. It had sucked up the greatest proportion of Drexel’s wealth and energy. Drexel, still a resident of Branford, had had to sell his own huge estate. He lived in modest apartments in the very shadow of the huge institution he had created.
What an ironic blow that the citizens of Branford had turned bitterly against the very thing that had been their chief cause for civic pride. The words of Mr. and Mrs. Garwick had shown that feeling against the institute ran high. This was proved too by the presence of an extra armed guard of police around the grounds.
They stopped “X” at the gate. His papers were examined before he was allowed to drive in. An armed institute guard asked for his credentials again at the door. Then he was shown into the building and taken to the office of the director, Doctor Gollomb.
A round-faced, shrewd-eyed man, with the high forehead of a scholar, Gollomb gave him a brusque welcome. Worry had deeply lined the director’s face. His fingers kept up a restless tattoo on his desk.
“I’ve had only four hours sleep a night since this epidemic started, Doctor Smith,” he said. “We’re still hoping to find a serum — but with the apes gone it’s damned difficult. What the people don’t understand is that the development of serum therapy requires time and patience. I’m helpless. Not only my apes are gone — but one of my best men has disappeared as well.”
Agent “X” leaned forward. Tense interest brightened his eyes.
“Who is that, doctor?”
“Just a student here — a young man named Hornaday. He’s a strange, moody chap, but close to being a genius. When he worked at all he had the patience of Job. With an ultra-microscope and a filter using polarized light he thought he had isolated the encephalitis germ. We were counting heavily on his findings. He was working on a new kind of serum — a radical method of treatment consisting of bacteriophage that would kill the virus-producing organisms.”
SECRET AGENT “X” started. Doctor Gollomb’s words told him that the student Hornaday had apparently been on the right track.
“How do you account for Hornaday’s disappearance?” he asked suddenly.
Doctor Gollomb leaned forward, tapped “X’s” arm. “He wandered away once before. I’ve said Hornaday was moody. He was the type who would submit to no discipline or restriction. When the wanderlust struck him he would drop everything and go. That’s the simple explanation.”
“You’ve made no mention of this to the police or the public?”
“The police — no! Why should I? I kept it from the papers purposely. They’d be sure to circulate wild stories. I don’t want any more scandal attached to the institute! It’s bad enough as it is!”
Doctor Gollomb paused. A troubled frown wrinkled his forehead. “There’s only one thing that puzzles me,” he continued slowly. “And it is another reason for keeping silent on the question of Hornaday’s — ah — voluntary vacation. He took all his notes and some of his equipment with him!”
“That’s incredible!” snapped the Agent.
“Yes! And if he reads reports of this epidemic and doesn’t come back when we need him so desperately I shall never forgive him,” said Doctor Gollomb. “Brilliant as he is, I’ll see him expelled from the institute!”
The director’s eyes snapped with anger. But Agent “X’s” glowed for a different reason. Drexel’s most brilliant student of encephalitis missing — staying away at a time like this. The Agent shot another question:
“Just when did he leave — before or after the gorillas escaped?”
“About a week before, doctor — but if you’re trying to insinuate anything, it’s preposterous!”
“X” raised a hand. “I’m trying to insinuate nothing. I just wish we could locate Hornaday. He might be most — useful.”
“I agree with you, Smith. But we have other brilliant men here and I’ve sent for Doctor John Vaughton, the English expert on sleeping sickness. If only we had some of the gorillas! Even one would help. I am hoping hourly that a capture will be made. I’ve instructed the health commissioner and the police to do all in their power to bring the animals back alive.”
“Rather a difficult feat,” said “X” dryly, “since the gorillas’ claws and teeth are impregnated with disease germs. It is doubtful if the police will feel as idealistic about it as you scientists.”