Betty’s mouth was firm, but her eyes were wet. “I — don’t care. If you die — then I should like to die — too.”
The Agent gripped her hand, pressed it. They waited together for the elevator to reach the upper level, for whatever lay in store beyond.
Chapter XII
THERE was a grinding noise, and the elevator came to rest. “X” opened the door which had presented to him only a blank wall before, and found that it now led into a narrow hallway. The quartz markings on the floor appeared under the box-lens, and they followed these.
They were apparently in an empty house of some sort. No light entered here, for the windows were boarded up with steel shutters like those on the windows in the headquarters of the Skull.
The markings led them to another small room, with another door opening on a blank wall. Here the Agent did not hesitate. He sought and found a lever in the wall, pressed it, and the elevator descended swiftly. When it stopped, the agent put his hand on the knob, opened the door a crack, and stopped. Just outside he had caught the sound of whispered words. There were men out there in the darkness, waiting for them. Softly he closed the door, turned to Betty in the dark.
“Binks must have taken a short cut,” he told her. “They’re out there, waiting for us.”
“What are you going to do?”
“They must have heard the noise of the machinery,” the Agent told her. “They know we are here and are waiting for the door to open. If we don’t come out pretty soon they’ll come in after us.”
“And then?”
“Too much depends on our getting out. Nothing must stop us!”
She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but she heard the grim resolve in his tone.
Soon, Binks’ voice came to them. “Go on, Gilly, I’ll hold the flashlight. You go on in there an’ mop ’em up. They ain’t got no guns. It’ll be a pipe!”
“Okay!” Gilly exclaimed. “Here I go!”
“X” crouched beside the door, holding Betty behind him. They were in such a position that they would be screened by the door when it opened.
They heard Gilly approach, felt the door give under his push. A beam of light penetrated the crack. There was a hard push from Gilly and the door swung wide. Gilly had pushed it with the snout of the sub-machine gun which he held at his shoulder. For a second that snout showed in the doorway, and “X,” reaching a long arm around the door, gripped it and tugged.
Gilly uttered a shout, came tumbling into the room after the gun, sprawled on the floor. The gun slipped from his hands as he tried frantically to rise. He was in the center of the room, outlined by the beam of the flashlight. For “X” to have stepped out there from behind the door would have meant death from the other guns in the darkness.
Binks shouted, “Go on in there, boys! Blast him before he gets his hands on Gilly’s gun!”
There was a rush of feet toward the doorway. But “X” slammed it shut in the faces of the advancing attackers, stooped to the floor, and yanked upward on the lever.
The door heaved inward under the thrust of a heavy shoulder, and the big, brutish form of Gelter, one of the men who had gone on the mission to kidnap Betty, appeared, with a gun in his hand.
But the room had already begun to move upward in response to “X’s” touch on the lever. The floor of the room was now higher than the outer floor, and Gelter tripped, sprawled half in and half out. The floor rose to the accompaniment of shouts from the men outside, and Gelter struggled to maintain a hold, with his legs hanging over the edge of the rising floor.
Gilly scrambled to his knees; murderous, slitted eyes on the Secret Agent. He reached for his machine gun. “X” took a quick step forward, brought the edge of his open hand down in a chopping blow to his neck, and the little gunman slumped down, unconscious, his grip on the Thompson relaxing.
And just then Betty Dale shrieked — again and again. “X” looked at her swiftly, turned his eyes to follow the wavering finger that pointed. Gelter had waited too long; the floor had risen to the top of the doorway, clamping his body at the waist. As he felt the inexorable pressure, the big kidnaper’s face turned yellow with terror. His big, hairy arms strained against the floor in a futile attempt to stop it from rising. His eyes were on “X” and he shouted hoarsely, “God! Stop it! It’s crushing me!”
“X” leaped to the lever, depressed it. The elevator stopped for a moment, then moved downward; but not before there was a horrible crunching of bones, and Gelter screamed shrilly, then became silent as his body slumped on the floor.
The floor, moving downward, released him from the terrible grip, and he slid off, falling into the outer room below. The flashlight was still flaring up at them. “X” picked up the submachine gun, put it to his shoulder, aiming low into the room below, and pressed the trip.
Lead belched from it into the floor of the cellar room below. There were confused shouts, cries of panic, and a rush of feet away from the spraying lead. Binks’ voice, raised in a cackling, querulous shout of anger, rose above the stuttering of the gun. “C’mere, you monkeys! He’s comin’ down. Get him!”
But the flying lead, on top of the sight of Gelter’s broken body hurtling down upon them, was too much for the innately cowardly men. They fled, and Binks followed them. His flashlight disappeared, leaving the place in utter darkness. By the time the elevator was down to the level of the cellar room once more, there was no opposition to the egress of “X” and Betty Dale.
The Secret Agent gave Betty his flashlight, told her to keep the pencil of light ahead of them. He advanced before her, the machine gun still at his shoulder. Her light showed they were in a cellar, flicked around and found the door, opening upward. “X” went up the steps first, looked out and saw that the alley above was clear. He stepped up, followed by Betty, and quickly moved into a darker spot, whispering over his shoulder, “Douse the light.”
She did so, and not a moment too soon. For a patrolman came running into the alley, no doubt attracted by the shots. He saw the open cellar door, clicked on his flashlight, drew his gun, and stepped down into it. “X” seized the opportunity to grip Betty’s arm and dash with her into the back entrance of the pool room through which he had entered that afternoon. The sight of the machine gun at his shoulder cowed the occupants of the pool room, and they shrank out of the way.
The Secret Agent rushed Betty through, out into the street. As he had expected, Binks and the others had not given up the chase so easily. A black car was waiting at the curb. The minute “X” appeared in the doorway of the pool room, the muzzle of a Thompson was thrust out of one of the windows. “X” had his Thompson at his shoulder and spitting fire before the gunner in the car could get set. “X” kept his finger on the trip this time, till the drum was empty. He saw the Thompson in the car drop from a suddenly nerveless hand and clatter to the gutter, saw a close-cropped head loll out of the window as the frightened driver shot the car from there.
Even before the car had disappeared around the corner, “X” had hurried Betty in the opposite direction. Around the near corner he dragged her, dropping the empty Tommy, and down the street until he saw a cruising cab.
He flagged this, bundled her into it, and gave an address uptown. In the cab Betty tried to catch her breath. Finally, when she was breathing more regularly, she said, “I don’t know how you did it, but I’m sure no one else in the world could have got out of that nightmare prison! Where are you going now?”