A cackling voice behind him broke in. “Ha, ha! Tell ’em what else the Skull said to you, Nate.” They turned to see Binks grinning at them. The halfwit came up close, his ugly, scarred face leering at Nate. “Tell ’em the rest of it, Nate.”
Nate fidgeted in the chair. “Aw—”
Binks turned to the others. “You know what else the Skull said? He said to Nate, ‘I’m also pickin’ you because yore too dumb to try to double-cross me!’ Too dumb! Ha, ha!”
An idea suddenly occurred to Nate. He pointed a finger at Binks. “How do you know what the Skull said? We was supposed to be alone in there!”
Binks only laughed again. “There’s lots o’ things I know about around this place. If I wanted to, I could hang the whole lot of you!” He came around the table, alongside “X.” His teeth were bared in an ugly grimace. “Did you hear that, Mr. Fannon? Too dumb to doublecross him!” Binks, face came closer to “X.” “Now you, Mister Fannon, you ain’t dumb, are you?”
“X” looked at him impassively without replying. The halfwit did not wait for an answer, but walked away toward the kitchen.
WHEN they finished breakfast, Binks reappeared from the kitchen and led them out. “The Skull,” he announced, “wants everybody in the execution room this morning. There’s gonna be a show put on, an’ Tyler is the main actor. He’ll squeal swell.”
Binks waited till they had all passed out of the dining room, then closed the door, locking in the Jap waiters and cook. They, as the others, were prisoners.
The halfwit said to “X” as they went down the corridor, “Tyler is the guy I showed you last night; the guy whose place yore takin’. The Skull ain’t got much luck with his safe men, has he?”
“X” frowned down at the ugly halfwit. “What do you mean?”
“Nothin’, nothin’,” Binks cackled, and hurried up ahead. He led them through a maze of passages, through which it would have been hopeless for anyone to try to find his way alone. Finally they reached a narrow, dark passage that sloped downward. This was very long, and as they proceeded it got darker and damper. The slope became sharper. “X” estimated that they must be at least a hundred feet below the street level.
The passage ended in a heavy barred door. Binks removed the bars, tugged at the door until it swung open. “Go on in, boys, go on in. I gotta tell the Skull that ever’thing is ready.”
They filed past him into a room that was in utter darkness. Though it was impossible to see anything here, “X” estimated that it must be a room of tremendous size, for though there were over thirty men in the group, they weren’t at all crowded. The heavy door slammed shut, with Binks on the outside, and “X” heard the iron bars being replaced.
The men shuffled, talked in low, nervous tones. “X” began to feel his way around the room, along the wall. He collided with one or two of the men, but they were not in the mood to fight. “X” knew that there would be some instrument here for inflicting death or worse upon Tyler, wondered if it was the same instrument that had turned Ainsworth Clegg into a mental and physical wreck. If possible, he wanted to save Tyler — not only out of any feeling of compassion, but because Tyler would be a well of information.
He worked his way to a corner in the dark, felt his way along the wall until he was stopped by what appeared to be another wire screen like the one on the windows upstairs. He followed this screen clear across the room, realizing that it divided the room in two parts.
Suddenly there was a muffled gasp from the assembled men. A dim red light had appeared on the other side of the screen. Looking through the mesh, “X” could see a niche in the far wall in the other half of the room. This niche was the size of a large man, and was about halfway up in the wall. Apparently there must be some way of entering it from outside, for it was too high for a man to reach it from the floor.
The thing that had made the men gasp was the figure in the niche. It was the same vermilion-cloaked figure that “X” had met the night before, with the same hideously glowing skull in lieu of a face.
There was a low hum of fear-ridden voices which ended in abrupt silence as the Skull raised a vermilion-gloved hand. “Gentlemen,” he said in a brittle, mocking voice, “before we proceed with the festivities, I have an announcement to make. Last night my lieutenant, Rufe Linson, met with an unfortunate accident. In his place I have appointed Nate Frisch, who will be in charge of expeditions in the future. When you are on the outside, his word will be supreme, as mine is here. The accident to Rufe is regrettable, and I am taking steps to punish the responsible party. However, I believe Nate Frisch will be able to fill the job satisfactorily.”
The Skull raised his hand once more “Now, gentlemen, we will proceed.”
Another light, bright and glaring, went on below the niche. It illuminated a ghastly sight. Tyler, the traitor, was strapped in a chair. It was not an ordinary chair, and he was not strapped there in the ordinary way.
THE other men on “X’s” side of the wire mesh seemed to have known what to expect; but the Secret Agent, though in superb control of his nerves, barely restrained a gasp of horror.
For the chair was an exact replica of the electric chair at the state prison. And Tyler had metal electrodes strapped to his ankles, his wrists, and to the back of his neck. He was still stripped to the waist, and in spite of the straps that held him tight, he shook in a palsy of terror.
The red light in the niche went out, and the figure of the Skull was shrouded in darkness. But his voice came to them. “For the benefit of our new member I will explain that this is our method of punishment. It is a slight innovation on the legal method in use in our state prison, in that the victim is not killed. Our electrician has stepped down the current so that there is just enough to cause an intense shock to the nervous system, resulting in a paralysis of all the nerves, as well as a deadening of the brain cells.”
He paused, then said, “Tyler! Do you understand what is going to happen to you?”
Tyler squirmed in the chair, tried to raise his eyes toward the niche. “For God’s sake!” he babbled. “Don’t do that to me! Anything! Anything! Kill me! But not that! Oh, God, save me!” His words lost themselves in a shrill scream of terror.
The Skull’s brittle laughter floated down from above. “You call on God! I am God here!”
“X” thought he detected a note of insanity in the sonorous tones of the Skull. He felt a faint stir of eagerness ripple through the crowd of men in the room. They were getting ready to enjoy the spectacle.
Once more the Skull spoke from his niche. “Tyler! This is your last moment of sanity. I am about to throw the switch. This — is — your — end!”
Tyler strained against the straps, his throat working though no sound came from his lips.
From above came a blinding flash as the switch was thrown in. Tyler’s body seemed to jerk in the chair. His hands spread out clawlike, spasmodically. Blood spurted from his nose. His mouth opened wide in a soundless scream, his eyes widened, almost popping from their sockets. His head was raised, his Adam’s apple working frantically.
The Secret Agent had seen many gruesome sights in his career; he had seen men in Flanders who took ten hours to die, lying on the shell-pitted battlefields with their entrails squirming out of gaping wounds in their stomachs while they moaned continuously till they died. But the picture of Tyler as the current raced through his body, twisting him into horrid, incredible contortions, was one that rivaled any horror conceivable by man.
“X” shuddered in revulsion as a long sigh went up from the assembled men. They were enjoying each moment of Tyler’s suffering. A long minute it lasted, while Tyler squirmed and strained in the chair.