“Quite right, my good man,” he admitted with contemptuous indifference. “I intend to make the people of this city dance to the tune I fiddle. Soon the most honored and accomplished people in the country will be subservient to my slightest wish. I will be more absolute in my power than Nero or Napoleon — not by the force of arms, but by the force of drugs. And I will make money — money! Returns greater than that possible on any other investment today. Returns that will more than make up the millions I lost in the stock market crash when fools were in control!”
Inhuman greed shone in the old financier’s eyes. “X” spoke harshly.
“But you’re through, Blake!” he said. “For your work in spreading the dope blight, you could be sent to the penitentiary for the rest of your life. But there is a more serious charge against you. Murder, Blake! You might be acquitted of killing Twyning on the charge of justifiable homicide. But de Ronfort was murdered. You ordered his death yourself. And there will be witnesses to prove that you engineered the killing.”
WHITNEY BLAKE nodded slowly. “I see,” he said. “You are a surprising man. You talk as though you had intimate knowledge of my affairs.” He spoke with mock admiration. “Yes, I killed Twyning — with my cane gun, as no doubt you have already figured out. A brilliant man — Twyning! Truly a genius. It was he who discovered the secret of breaking down the molecular composition of certain coal-tar derivatives. But outside of the laboratory he was a fool, a child. He wanted to donate his formula to the government — a formula that would have given him greater power than all the military forces of the world. He wanted to give it away.
“Through Howe I had already gained control of Paragon Chemicals. Twyning opposed my plan to manufacture the drug. I had to make an addict of him. He came here to kill me, not Howe, so I disposed of him. Were you at Paula’s party? The killing rather livened things up, didn’t it?”
Whitney Blake threw back his head and laughed. There was a trace of madness in his eyes. But there was fiendish cunning also. “De Ronfort,” he continued. “Yes, I commissioned my efficient aide, Karloff, to dispose of him. A common adventurer! A cheap, sneaking smuggler — and he expected to marry my ward, Paula. It was absurd — and after I found out what he was, I — But never mind that now, my friend. You seem to think I’m an unhealthy influence in this country. What, may I ask, do you propose to do about it?”
There was open mockery on Blake’s face now. The Agent’s reply to his question was quiet.
“I have already done it,” he said. “The federal men have been called out. They are beginning a concerted attack on your organization. Probably, at the moment they are raiding your manufacturing room below. Your reign of terror is over, Blake. Your ring will be smashed!”
Once again Whitney Blake threw back his head and laughed. It was the laughter of a devil. His manner suddenly changed to mock sorrow. “It is very sad,” he said, with a shake of his head. “No doubt they are brave men. They have homes and loved ones. Such a tragedy! For you, sir, have only led them to their deaths!”
“What do you mean?” The Agent grew rigid with apprehension.
Blake laughed sardonically. “I can kill them from where I sit, without moving from this chair! You don’t believe me, I see. Then look! You came here for Silas Howe! There — see him!”
ONE of Blake’s fingers moved ever so slightly. There was a clicking sound. A section of the wall opened outward, revealing a sort of closet. The Agent stepped back in horror. He felt that the blood would congeal in his veins. For there was Silas Howe, the criminal who wore the reformer’s cloak. He fell forward into the room, a corpse with the rigidity of rigor mortis already apparent — and his face showed the hideous, poison hue of the green death!
“There he is!” repeated Blake harshly. “A blundering fool if there ever was one! He became overly confident — even careless. He let you shadow him here! I anticipated that he might become a liability in time. He blundered into my hands five years ago when he appropriated for his own use fifty thousand dollars meant for a charitable fund.
“I caught him then, threatened him with exposure, made him grovel at my feet — and afterwards cleared him to put him under obligation to me for life. Now he is dead, killed by me of necessity. But, my friend, he is still useful — just as you, too, will be useful — dead!”
A harsh exclamation came from the Secret Agent’s lips. He started forward, eyes blazing. Blake grew tense, alarmed at once. He raised a warning hand, and “X” stopped.
“I know who you are!” said Blake, with a hoarse note of something closely akin to awe in his voice. “You must be the one — the only person I gave thought to as an obstacle to my plans. You must be the criminal known as Secret Agent ‘X.’ You are a strange man, an interesting man, I have heard. Except for that peculiar twist which makes you an outlaw, go about fighting your own kind, I would like to have you in my organization. But — no! You are an idealistic fool! I have heard that, too.”
Whitney Blake leaned forward and glared at “X.” “You don’t want to cause the deaths of those federal men below, do you? You don’t like to kill even criminals. Then don’t take another step forward. If you do — they die, like rats in a trap, when I open the valves of the cyanic gas tanks.
“I have taken pains to make it possible for me to wipe out those who do my work — the wretched drug addicts in the basement of this building. And — if you move from where you stand — I shall use the same means on the federal men.”
The Agent stifled his rage. He needed a clear mind. He could save himself. But by doing so, he would cause the deaths of many men. He saw by the movement of Whitney Blake’s hands that rows of buttons were under the arms of that chair. One of those buttons, “X” knew now, controlled the lights. That was how Blake had plunged the room in darkness the night he had killed Twyning.
Blake laughed softly. “Suppose my drugs are confiscated,” he said. “That means only a loss of time. I have the formula. They won’t take that from me, because it’s in my head. Eventually my plan will succeed. And no one will suspect me. Stand where you are, Agent ‘X.’ I’m summoning my secretary, Rivers. Remember — a move that displeases me, and I’ll kill those federal men in my laboratory.”
Blake pressed a button. Soon the quiet-laced Rivers entered. His manner was unassuming, yet “X” knew he was of the same ruthless nature as his employer. He must be or Blake would not have hired him. Probably he was under obligation in some way to his master also, a slave of his own fear like Howe.
“Rivers, take the late Mr. Howe back to his own suite,” instructed Blake. “Return immediately. We must dispose of this meddlesome gentleman. He is Secret Agent ‘X,’ a man of many disguises. Perhaps you have heard of him. Before we give him the green death by hypodermic injection, I’m going to have a look at his actual features. Merely curiosity — an old man’s whim.”
The secretary bowed, then dragged the corpse through the open panel that led down to Howe’s suite.
“You see, young man,” said Blake. “I’ve protected myself against a possible raid. Howe signed a full confession, taking the responsibility for the ‘drug blight’, as the newspapers call it. For that confession, I promised the poor fool immunity. Strange, isn’t it, the man is dead! He looked moldy, didn’t he?”
Tense seconds passed while the Agent dared not move for fear of causing the deaths of those men below. Then Rivers returned. He came up behind “X” with irons to handcuff him. Once those steel links slipped over “X’s” wrists it would be the end. Yet the Agent grimly held his hands out behind him. If they clicked shut, he soon would look like the man in the apartment below — green, moldy.