“X’s” mind raced backward, from point to point of his contacts in this place. It was possible. He recalled that Binks had never appeared at the same time as the Skull. Always there had been a period of waiting between the time the halfwit left him and the appearance of the master. And no wonder that no one else in the place had ever been trusted with the secret of the entrances and exits. The Skull had never, in effect, trusted anybody but himself. He had been able to snoop around, to overhear the conversations of his men; always in dim light, so that the rubber mask on his face would not be discovered.
“And now—” the Skull had said.
And now there was a soft whirring of well-oiled machinery, and the elevator started to descend slowly, ominously.
And “X” heard the Skull say, “Do you know where you are going, my friend? You are descending to a chamber on the level of the river. And I am going to open certain valves—” He laughed. “Your body will be found in the river in a few days — bloated, rotted. And in just thirty minutes the poor halfwit, Binks, will go to the main room and let out two of my men who are to go and pick up the first payment of ransom money!” The voice rose to a paean of triumph. “Thirty minutes exactly! And my plan succeeds. Triumph! Triumph! And for you — your death, my friend, shall be unwept, unhonored and unsung!”
The cage descended for a long time. “X” wondered if Jim Hobart had succeeded in following him to the entrance in the garage; and if so, whether the police would believe his story that the car had disappeared into the apparently empty garage. He doubted that they could find their way in here, even if they did believe him; doubted that they could pierce the clever camouflages the Skull had placed in the way — the movable ramp in the interior of the garage, the long trip underground on some sort of moving vehicle while he was blindfolded.
“X” decided that there was little to hope for help from the police. The lives of those men in the cells upstairs depended on him alone. And he was caged here, with the prospect of death by drowning.
The elevator ceased its motion. For several minutes there was silence. “X” reflected bitterly that the Skull had quoted the ancient poet with great aptness: “Unwept, unhonored and unsung!” Truly that would be his fate. None would ever know that the Secret Agent had toiled here mightily to save men from a hideous fate. He would simply vanish from the earth, and the body of an unknown man would be fished out of the river. The papers would report it as the suicide of a derelict.
Elisha Pond and others whom the Agent had created would walk no more in their accustomed haunts, and some would wonder where they had gone. Betty Dale would awake in the old Montgomery Mansion, and make her way home. If she escaped the future attentions of the Skull, she would wonder at “X’s” nonappearance, await him, perhaps, for years. And then, at last, she would reluctantly yield to the conclusion that he must be dead. She alone might guess how he had perished. And he knew that her sorrow would be great. He visualized her, waiting from year to year, hoping against hope that he would some day present himself to her in another disguise.
Above everything Secret Agent “X” felt most poignantly the fact that the Skull would remain with a free hand to wreak his insidious will upon helpless men and women — to go on destroying the minds and bodies of intelligent men in his ruthless climb to power.
All these things flashed through his subconscious being with kaleidoscopic swiftness as the cage descended. His conscious intelligence, in the meanwhile, was coping with the problem in hand. For Secret Agent “X” was not one to bow his head and await what seemed to be inevitable. For more times than one the things that had appeared to be inevitable had turned out to be avoidable by the exercise of his keen brain.
Now he was swiftly examining the ceiling of his cage. There was a flat plate screwed into the center of the ceiling, probably the terminal of the cable that lifted the elevator. “X” took a small screwdriver out of the flat black case in his pocket, and raised himself so that he could reach the plate.
It was the only thing that offered itself to work on, and he was not one to remain idle under any circumstances. In order to raise himself, he pressed his knees outward against the sides of the cage, which was no more than two feet wide. Then he rested his back against one wall, pushed the soles of his shoes against the opposite wall. In this manner he managed to raise himself so that he could reach the plate with the screwdriver.
He was off the floor, and working on the first of the screws by the time the cage came to a stop. And it was to this that he owed his life. For he heard the Skull shout from above:
“All right, Mister ‘X’! This is a quicker end than I planned for you, but I am short of time. See how you like swimming down there. Good-by forever!” And the Skull’s laughter rose cruelly, mercilessly, while the floor of the cage dropped open with a sudden jerk.
Had “X” been standing on the floor he would have been hurled down the shaft that now yawned below!
THE Agent clung to his precarious hold, pressing his feet against the opposite wall, looked down. About fifteen feet below, at the bottom of the shaft, was an opening. And just below the opening he could see the white foam of swirling water. The river was rushing in here, the water making low, grumbling noises as it was forced in by a tremendous pressure from somewhere at the mouth of that tunnel that must lead from the waterfront.
No man could have lived down there. Refuse shot past at express train speed. Even as he looked, a heavy piece of rotten lumber was slammed against a side of the watery tunnel below there; slammed with a crash that would have shattered a man’s ribs.
The Skull must just have opened the valves, and the inrush of water was devastating to anything it might catch there. “X” assumed that the Skull would soon open another valve that would lead the water out again through another pipe, back to the river where his body would have been carried had he fallen down there. And while he watched he was afforded another evidence of the Skull’s devilish ingenuity.
For, probably in response to another switch or lever, a heavy grating slid over the top of the opening over the rushing water. He smiled grimly. The Skull was taking no chances on his climbing out of there once he fell through the opening.
“X” estimated the distance to the grating below, allowed his body to relax, and jumped straight down through the open trapdoor. He landed on all fours, bending his knees and elbows to take up the shock of the drop. His right hand slipped between the bars, and he went down, his head striking the grating. For a moment he was stunned; the cold, swirling water below licked at his hand, hanging down, and drops cascaded on his cheek.
He rolled over on his back, and breathed deeply to get air into his lungs and drive the dizziness from his head. He lay there for a while with his eyes closed. The right side of his head hurt badly, and he put up a hand to feel blood where the skin had cracked.
His make-up was ruined, rubbed off in spots. He could not pass for Hilary any longer unless he took the time to touch himself up. And that was out of the question. He felt that speed was essential now; the Skull believed him dead, and must be taken by surprise.
He looked up to see the trap door in the elevator above him snap shut with a clang. He watched as the cage rose a little way, then stopped once again. Suddenly he felt the grating upon which he was resting heave. It was sliding away from under him! Either the Skull could see that he hadn’t fallen through yet, or else he was just making sure.
The water had risen now so that it was bubbling above the grating. In a moment there would be nothing for him to rest upon. He would drop down into that maelstrom.