The boat bringing John Vaughton, English authority on sleeping sickness, had docked at twelve the night previous. Vaughton was registered in a New York hotel. All this “X” had learned in messages which had flashed between him and “K 9” in Washington.
The Agent went quickly to one of his New York hideouts. When he came forth again he was well dressed, with the indefinable air of the professional man about him. A card in his wallet bore the name Warner Barrick, M.D., of the New York Academy of Medicine. He went to a garage, took out one of many cars he kept on hand, and drove swiftly to the hotel where Doctor Vaughton was a guest. The famous doctor was just finishing breakfast when “X” arrived. A half-dozen news reporters were interviewing him. In his clipped British accent, Vaughton offered guarded opinions on the current sleeping sickness epidemic in America. He was a white-haired, ruddy-faced Englishman of middle height. Nose glasses added to his impressive dignity. The eyes of Agent “X” noted all this in one swift glance. Then he shouldered forward to Vaughton’s table.
“Good morning, doctor. I’d like a word with you if I may.”
Doctor Vaughton glanced at the card “X” presented, and nodded.
“What is it, sir?”
“Before you leave for Branford there are several physicians of this city who would like your advice on an important matter. Would you be so kind as to come with me to a certain clinic?”
The Englishman looked at his watch. “My train leaves in an hour. There is little time.”
“I know,” agreed Agent “X.” “But all we ask is a few moments.”
Vaughton nodded, got his coat and hat. “X” guided him out of the hotel to his waiting car.
“In the unpleasant event that the epidemic in Branford should spread to this city, doctor, we should like to make certain preparations. We thought that your experience in combating sleeping sickness would make it possible for you to give us advice on precautionary measures.”
Doctor Vaughton shook his head worriedly.
“There is misapprehension in many quarters,” he said. “My work has been against the African variety of the disease — an altogether different malady. I tried to make that clear to Doctor Gollomb, when he radioed me to come. I told him I could do little.”
“You have no serum, then, that would effect a cure?” “X” asked.
Vaughton spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Serum. No! I am here only in the capacity of investigator and possible adviser.”
“X” nodded. The truth of what Traub had told him was now confirmed. In combating the inroads of encephalitis even the great Doctor Vaughton would be helpless.
“X” was silent until he drew up before an apartment building.
“This way please, doctor,” he said.
Vaughton looked about him curiously.
“Your clinics here in America are located differently from ours in England,” he smiled.
The Secret Agent remained silent as he showed Vaughton to an apartment on the fifth floor. He opened a door, led Vaughton inside. The apartment was empty. It showed no signs of medical equipment.
“What’s this?” asked Vaughton sharply. “Do you call this a clinic?”
“No, doctor,” Agent “X” said softly. “I brought you here under false pretenses. I regret very much that the step was necessary. You will understand later, perhaps.”
“And what do you intend doing?”
“This!” said “X” suddenly.
He drew his gas gun from his pocket and, even before the look of horror on Vaughton’s face had fully materialized, the Secret Agent fired. The jet of harmless gas went into Vaughton’s open mouth and nostrils. The great doctor sank without a groan to the floor.
AGENT “X” quickly locked the door of the apartment — which was one of his secret hideouts. Then for a moment he looked down at the unconscious Englishman, frowning. This was the desperate play he had planned in the dark hours of the night. It was daring. Almost it seemed uncalled for, possibly harmful to the interests of the citizens of Branford. But Agent “X” knew what he was about. Vaughton, student of the malady caused by the bite of the African tsetse fly had admitted that he would be little, if any, help against the dread encephalitis. Agent “X’s” researches had told him this even before he had met the man.
But, disguised as Vaughton, the Man of a Thousand Faces could accomplish something concrete in his battle with the hideous human fiends behind the spread of the disease.
There was less than an hour now before Vaughton’s train would leave. Never before had the Secret Agent worked so rapidly on a masterly disguise. Much depended on this disguise. For a few moments he practiced British speech and characteristic gestures.
Then, with delicate instruments, he made precise measurements of the contours of Vaughton’s face. Satisfied at last, he set a three-sided mirror on the bureau, placed a chair before it and went to work.
First he removed the brief disguise of Warner Barrick. This had been a purely fictitious character which he had assumed only for the purpose of leading Vaughton to the hideout. Then, for a few moments, Secret Agent “X’s” own features were revealed.
He appeared as he really was — as not even his few close intimates ever saw him. The face reflected in the three-sided mirror seemed boyish at first glance. But it was a curiously changeable face. For, as he turned his head, and light fell on it from a new angle, maturity and the record of countless experiences seemed written there. Here was the dauntless courage of a man still youthful, but with wisdom and foresight gained in many strange places of the earth.
His deft fingers began creating the disguise of Vaughton. Carefully chosen pigments imitated the exact color of the Englishman’s skin. The volatile materials which were flexible even when dry built up the contours. A white toupee came next. Then Agent “X” lightened the shade of his irises with an ingenious drug of his own until his eyes were the exact blue of Vaughton’s.
At the end of fifteen minutes it seemed as if Vaughton’s twin brother were in that room. Agent “X” worked still more swiftly now. He changed to Vaughton’s clothing, lifting the papers from his pocket. Then he took a slender hypodermic from a small leather case and injected into the doctor’s arm a harmless narcotic which would keep him unconscious for many hours. He put Vaughton on a sofa, making him comfortable with pillows, and threw a blanket over him, and left the apartment.
Back in Vaughton’s hotel, the clerk hailed him.
“You’d better hurry, doctor, if you want to catch that train. We took the liberty of getting your grips all ready.”
A bell boy with Vaughton’s grip and two suitcases hustled him to the curb. A spinning taxi took him to the railroad terminal. And a moment later, a distinguished, white-haired English gentleman settled himself in a Pullman chair with a sigh of satisfaction. Once again Agent “X” was started on a journey — a journey that would carry him back into the City of Sleeping Death.
Chapter VI
AS the train on which Agent “X” was a passenger pulled slowly out of the New York terminal another passenger, arriving late, leaped aboard. This was a blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl, her small, fine-featured face flushed with excitement.
She carried a suitcase in one hand, a portable typewriter in the other. Masculine eyes followed admiringly as she hurried along the car’s swaying aisle. Her petite figure was delicately proportioned and the curls escaping from beneath her small smart hat gleamed like spun gold. She wore her clothes with an air and she seemed to radiate youth and vitality.