“X” pulled her away from the aperture, and the panel slid down. The spotlight was shifted from the wall, snapped off for an instant, leaving the room in darkness except for the glow that illumined the vermilion Skull in his niche.
“X” let Betty scream. He gripped her arm tightly, as if to reassure her. He had seen something while the wall was flooded with light — something that the Skull had probably never intended that he should see. It was a small lever in the corner, such as was found in all the passages. Its presence meant that there was another panel there, somewhere in the wall — a panel leading to a corridor, perhaps to freedom.
When the light went out, Betty stopped screaming, and leaned weakly on “X.” She said hurriedly, in a low, husky whisper, “Please — don’t let him do that to me. You are a man. Can you allow such things to be done? Save me!”
The spotlight clicked on, and the Secret Agent could only give her arm a friendly squeeze, which he hoped she would understand, before the Skull’s hateful voice addressed them.
“I heard what you just said to Fannon, Miss Dale. You have no chance with him. He is wanted for murder, and is dependent on me for protection. Besides, neither he nor anybody else could get you out of this place against my wishes. So you see, you must do as I ask.”
He paused a moment as Betty closed her eyes in despair, then went on. “The sight of what my chair can do has unnerved you, I see. I don’t blame you. Tyler is not a pretty sight for even a strong man to see. The man you saw in there was a cunning cracksman yesterday. Today he is a driveling idiot.” He paused. “Will you talk now?”
“X,” with his hand on Betty’s arm, felt a tremor course through her. Her chin jutted, though, and she uttered a single word, “No!”
The Skull’s voice crackled with sudden, venomous anger. “Fannon! Strap her in the chair!”
THE Secret Agent looked up into the blinding core of the spotlight. By a supreme effort he kept his voice even. “Isn’t there some other way? Do we have to put her in the chair? I—”
He stopped as the Skull’s icy cold voice interrupted him. “So you are soft, after all, Fannon? No one who is soft can go far with me. I must have men who stop at nothing — when the Skull commands! If you are soft you are useless to me. And useless men are dangerous men. Do you know what I mean, Fannon?”
“X” caught himself up, snapped out of the momentary forgetfulness of his role. The real Fannon would not have uttered that plea. Cold enemy of society that he was, he would have been far from reluctant to inflict torture upon anyone who stood between him and his goal.
“X” said, “It’s not that I’m soft, chief. You ought to know that from my record. I only thought that if you sent the current through her, she’d never be able to talk any more. I thought maybe we could try something else on her — something that wouldn’t destroy her mind—”
The Skull interrupted him once more. “I see. It seemed to me for a moment that you were trying to intercede for her; and that would have been very bad — for you. Your suggestion may be appropriate, but I have said that she goes to the chair, and to the chair she goes. As a matter of fact, I am glad that she refuses to talk. I have never had a woman in the chair, and I am curious to see if the effects of the current are greater or less than on a man. So — in she goes!”
“X” could no longer afford to hesitate. He swung her around, affecting to treat her with roughness. But Betty, with a surge of desperation, wrenched her arm out of “X’s” grip, turned and fled toward the heavy, iron-bound door at the other end of the room. “X” leaped after her. That was not the way to safety. But before Betty had taken two steps, the heavy mesh screen that separated the room into two parts, and which had been raised some six feet up to now, suddenly descended with a clattering bang, right in front of her. Had she been a foot farther toward the door she would have been crushed under it. As it was, she was trapped by the screen.
The Skull said, “It was useless, my dear. You are helpless down there. I enjoy your antics at escape, for all I have to do is move a finger, pull a switch, and you are caught again. Make up your mind that there is no way out. Now,” crisply to “X,” “begin. My time is valuable.”
Betty had wilted with the last opportunity of escape gone. Her head hung, and she offered no resistance as “X” led her to the chair and began to strap her in.
Two electrodes fitted at her wrists, one at the back of her neck, and two at her ankles. If he had any thought of strapping them loosely so that the metal should not come in contact with her body, he was compelled to discard it, for the Skull watched every move, instructing him how to tighten them properly, how to place the electrode at the nape of her neck.
She was following the motions of “X’s” hands, now, as if fascinated by them, unable to move. She raised her eyes to his in a mute appeal, and he tried to convey to her a message with his own eyes. But suddenly her lids drooped, and her head lolled on her breast. She had fainted.
Chapter X
THE chair had a high back, and from his niche in the wall the Skull could not tell that Betty was unconscious. To him she appeared to be drooping with the flight of hope. He asked, “Finished, Fannon?”
“X” nodded. There was a gleam in his eye. He could not speak now, for he was flexing the muscles of his throat, tensing his whole body for the thing that he was about to do. He was about to perform the greatest piece of acting he had ever been called upon to stage in his career — with the lives of Betty Dale and himself as the forfeit if he failed.
The Skull said, “Well, Miss Dale, I am about to throw the switch which will send enough current through your body to make you just like that man you saw in the next room. Have you anything to say?”
But Betty couldn’t answer. She was breathing irregularly now, as if a prey to nightmares in her unconscious condition. All the color had fled from her cheeks, and her long lashes lay supine over her eyes.
The Skull repeated impatiently, “Quick! You have one second more!”
And then the miracle took place.
Out of Betty’s slack mouth there came words. Low words, mumbled at first, almost incoherent, then gaining clearness — and in Betty’s voice. “God! Don’t, no! I’ll tell you anything!”
But it was not Betty who was talking. Secret Agent “X” was leaning over her, his lips parted, as if intensely eager to hear what she said. And it was he who was uttering those words by a supreme achievement of ventriloquism.
The Skull was deceived. Clever man that he was, the performance deceived him. He clucked in satisfaction. “That is very wise, Miss Dale. Now tell us—” his voice assumed an edge of keen expectancy “—who is Secret Agent ‘X’?”
Once more the voice of Betty Dale floated up to the niche, emanating by some strange alchemy of skill from the parted, unmoving lips of Secret Agent “X,” but appearing to be spoken by the girl. “I–I don’t know. I never saw his face. But I know where he is.”
“Where?” The Skull rapped out the one word with a sharp eagerness that was full of venom.
Again the throat muscles of Secret Agent “X” began to contract and expand, and Betty Dale seemed to say, “He’s right here in your place. He told me he was going to get in under a disguise.”