The Secret Agent found it difficult to repress a gesture of loathing for the cold-blooded callousness displayed by the Skull. Instead, he allowed his eyes to grow wide in simulated admiration. “A man like you could conquer the world. You have no conscience — no compunctions about anything; there is nothing to stop you!” He could see the skeleton head nodding as if its owner were pleased. “X” had gauged correctly the extent and the nature of the man’s vanity. But that was only the first step. His work was still to do. He wanted very much to discover how the Skull proposed to get ten million dollars out of his captives.
The Skull said, “As you say, there will be nothing to stop me from conquering the world. Money, today, is, more powerful than weapons. And I shall have ten million dollars to start with!”
“X” felt Gilly and Frisch stirring restlessly beside him. This sort of talk was beyond their comprehension. He took advantage of the Skull’s momentary relaxation of mood to broach the subject uppermost in his mind. “I can’t imagine a man like you making a mistake,” he began. “But I don’t understand how you expect me and the others to raise a million dollars apiece. Frankly, I couldn’t raise a hundred thousand in cash; and I know that Grier and Laurens couldn’t, either.”
The Skull laughed in a pleased manner. “I am making no mistake, Hilary. I realize that you and your friends aren’t able to produce any sizable amounts in cash; but I know where the cash can be forthcoming. And it will be, never fear!”
THE Agent waited, hoping that the Skull would elaborate. And he did.
“I might as well tell you now, for it will be public property in a few hours when I release my notice to the newspapers. You see,” he leaned forward over the desk as he spoke, eyes gleaming in the half light, under the flap of the vermilion hood, “you see, each of you is insured to the hilt. That means that each of you carries approximately six million dollars of life insurance.”
The Secret Agent tensed. He had suspected something like this. Now his suspicions were crystallized into certainty. The plan was devilishly ingenious.
The Skull went on. “Do you understand now where the money will be coming from? I am asking the insurance companies to chip in one million dollars for each of you — a total of ten million dollars, which is less than the sixty million they would have to pay if you all died. The companies will be eager to do it, for they know I mean business. They will have to pay out about five or six million on Clegg when he dies, as he surely will within a day or so. No man can live long after the treatment I give him!”
“X” nodded. He was compelled to admit that the plan was a sound one. The companies would pay. Men like Jonathan Jewett were shrewd, hardheaded business men, but they knew when they were licked. They would pay the ten million to save sixty million, and they would reduce the policies by the amount they paid out, so that in the end they would not be the losers at all.
The Skull was almost sure to get his ransom. And then — what couldn’t a super-criminal like him do once he had the resources which ten million dollars could procure for him. There would be no stopping him. Atrocities would pile up with breath-taking rapidity. The city, the nation — the world, possibly — would offer an open field for his vicious depredations.
Only he, a lone man, with his hands manacled behind his back, might, by some lucky break, be able to stem the mushroom growth of this vilest criminal since the Borgias.
The Skull continued arrogantly, “I have already notified the insurance companies of my terms. They must pay me one million dollars a week for ten weeks; and each week, upon payment of the installment, one of you will be released. If the money is not forthcoming one of you will be released anyway — but not until I have played with him awhile. I am sure, my friend, that neither you nor your friends in the cells here wish to be found in the street some gray morning, in the same state that Ainsworth Clegg was found. So you’d better pray that your insurance companies be prompt!”
“X” wondered if the Skull was wholly sane. He asked, “How in the world do you expect to get away with such a sum of money? Don’t you know that the numbers of the bills will be recorded? You could never use that money.”
The man in vermilion laughed. “I have taken care of that, too, my friend. The money is to be in one-thousand-dollar bills. It is now ten P.M., and I have specified in my ultimatum to the companies that the first million dollars is to be delivered at midnight. Tomorrow morning I shall send out all of my men to change the bills at various banks. They will go in boldly and change them for small bills. They will not be molested, for,” he wagged a finger at “X,” “I still hold you.
“Every day for a week they will continue to change them. No doubt they will be followed, attempts will be made to locate this place. These attempts will fail, for as you saw, my men are able to disappear at will by entering this place through any one of fifteen entrances — the one you came through is an example.” He paused, then snapped, “All right, Hilary! We have had enough of this! Take that pad and pencil, and write the names of all the companies you are insured with, and the amounts.”
At the same time he pressed a button, and the bamboo pole slid out from the side of the desk. The basket hooked on its end stopped within a foot of him. In the basket was a small pad of paper, and a pencil.
The Skull ordered, “Frisch! Open his handcuffs the same as you did with the other prisoners. But keep each of his wrists cuffed to your own while he writes.”
FRISCH extracted a key from his pocket, opened one set of handcuffs, and snapped the empty bracelet on Gilly’s wrist. Then he did the same with the other handcuff, attaching it to his own. Then he swung his hand around, bringing “X’s” right hand in front of him. “X” could now move both hands, but only with the wrist of one or the other of the gunman accompanying it. It was awkward, but permitted him to reach the basket and to write. If he tried to escape he would have to carry both gunmen with him.
He reached into the basket and picked out the pad and pencil, appearing to do so reluctantly.
The Skull said, “Do not hesitate, my friend. You seem to be an intelligent man. You can comprehend how terrible it would be for you to have that intelligence — destroyed — like Clegg!”
“X” was in a quandary. He did not know the particulars of Hilary’s insurance policies; he knew that the publisher carried a large amount with Jewett’s company, and he also knew, by chance, of one other company that covered him for a large sum.
It was possible that the Skull already had some of the information, and would discover at once that he was bluffing. He started to write, saying, “I really don’t recall the exact amounts. I leave most of that to my agent. But I’ll put it down to the best of my recollection.”
He wrote the names of some of the larger companies, setting fictitious sums next to each. He could not be far wrong, for a man like Hilary would have his insurance spread over as many companies as possible.
When he finished, he replaced the pad and pencil in the basket. The Skull pressed another button, and the bamboo pole slid back. Gilly and Frisch swung his hands in behind his back again, but this time they did not leave the two handcuffs. They removed one, and cuffed his hands with the one set, thus leaving the Agent even less play for his hands than he had had before. He offered no resistance.