“We won’t need no blindfold now,” Binks said as he proceeded toward the illuminated end. “You couldn’t get out of here in a million years unless I took you. I’m the only one,” he added proudly, “outside of the Skull, that knows the way out.”
“I don’t even know where we are,” Fannon said. “What’s this, a cellar?”
Binks cackled. “Maybe the Skull will tell you. I ain’t sayin’ a word. It ain’t healthy to talk out o’ place in here.”
They reached the end of the corridor. There was no door here, only a blank wall. Binks bent down, fumbled in the corner, and suddenly the wall at the end of the corridor seemed to slide away, leaving a dark opening. Binks stepped into it, and Fannon followed. Binks bent down, manipulated something again, and the panel through which they had stepped slid to, leaving them in utter blackness.
Fannon could tell that Binks was once more bending to the floor. In a moment Binks straightened up, there was a whirring of well-oiled machinery, and they began to rise. They were in some sort of elevator that moved smoothly and noiselessly. When it stopped, Binks reached down, pulled a lever. Fannon’s eyes, more accustomed to the darkness now, noted the exact position of the lever, but he said nothing.
In response to Binks’ manipulation of the lever, the panel slid open again, revealing another long corridor similar to the one below. Fannon estimated that they had come up one flight in the elevator. He said, as they went along this second corridor, “What’s all the mystery about? You’d think the Skull was another Fu-Manchu with all these secret passages and things.”
“Nobody’s ever seen his face,” Binks told him. “Not even me. An’ he trusts me more than anybody else — I guess because I ain’t got the brains to do him dirt. Ha, ha!”
There was a note of insanity in Binks’ laughter; a suggestion of sadistic cruelty that made his listener shudder. Fannon tried to pump him, without seeming to do so. “What happened to this chap, Tyler, whose place I’m supposed to take?”
Binks half turned, looked up at him queerly. “You want to know? I’ll show you. Wait a minute.” He stopped under a dim electric light bulb set in the wall that lined the corridor. Fannon could see a narrow slot, waist high, in the wall, about a half inch long. Binks took a peculiarly shaped key from his pocket. This key was flat, just wide enough to fit into the slot.
When he slipped it in a crack appeared in the wall. The crack widened; a panel was sliding open, disclosing another passageway at right angles to the one they were in. As soon as they stepped into this passageway, the panel closed behind them. This corridor, though wider than the others, was also lit by only a single bulb at the end. On either side were heavy doors similar to the one in the room below.
Binks stopped before the second door on the left from the end. He turned the knob, opened it slowly. It was pitch dark inside, and the faint illumination from the hall failed to help. Fannon could feel an uneasy stirring from within, and then a slight groan. Binks produced a flashlight from his pocket, threw its beam into the interior of the room, illuminating the gaunt, cadaverous body of a man chained with his face to the wall.
THE man had a stubble of beard a week old, and there was a mad, fearsome light in his eyes as he blinked at the flashlight, over his shoulder. He was so chained, Fannon saw, that his toes barely touched the floor. The strain upon his arms after any considerable period of time would be unbearable.
Binks said with mock solicitude, “How do you feel, Tyler? You been gettin’ plenty time to think?”
The chained prisoner only succeeded in croaking a few unintelligible syllables.
Binks remarked conversationally to Fannon, “He’s been here three days now. We been havin’ some fun.” He lowered the flashlight so that it showed the man’s naked torso, and Fannon gasped. It was criss-crossed with long bloody gashes that had been made with a whip. The man’s back was a raw mass of bloody flesh. Binks continued, “But that’s only the beginning. Tomorrow the Skull is gonna give him the works. Tomorrow is execution day.”
Tyler managed to gasp out, “For God’s sake, help me!”
Fannon restrained himself with difficulty. He threw a significant glance at the poor victim as he followed Binks out into the corridor, watched him slam the door. He had noted that this door, too, had no handle on the inside. He noted, also, that none of the doors was equipped with a lock. It was only necessary to turn the knob from the outside to open them.
As they went down the hall past a number of other closed doors, Fannon asked, “What did Tyler ever do to merit such punishment?”
Binks only laughed. “The Skull will tell you.”
Fannon said nothing further. He was busy going over in his mind every inch of the route they had covered, in an effort to remember it so that he could traverse the same route alone. They passed through another of the queer sliding panels, and stood in a square anteroom. Opposite them was a door with no handle on it, while at the left was another door that did have a handle.
Binks indicated the door without the handle. “The Skull will let you in through that door,” he said. “I’m not supposed to be around when he talks to you fellers. I’m not supposed to know what his plans are.” He laughed idiotically. “Not much, I don’t!”
Fannon watched him go out through the door at the left, saw the last grinning leer that he cast behind him before the door closed. Then Fannon went to the one chair in the anteroom, sat down, and lit a cigarette. His face was calm, betrayed no emotion, no sign of fear or perturbation. If anyone was watching him through secret peepholes, his face told nothing except, perhaps, that there was a criminal of higher type than average, who was supremely self-assured.
After a few moments, the door opposite began to open slowly. There was utter darkness beyond it. Through the doorway came a stocky man, wide-shouldered, with a square chin and a low forehead. He grinned at Fannon, showing discolored teeth. “So you’re the new man, huh? Glad to know you.”
FANNON did not rise. He allowed the smoke to trickle slowly from his nostrils, then said drawlingly, “I thought I was here to talk to the Skull.”
The stocky man asked, frowning, “What makes you think I’m not the Skull?”
Fannon slowly shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you haven’t got the brains to be the boss of this outfit.”
The stocky man grinned again. “You win, brother. I’m Rufe Linson, second in command. The Skull always likes to test men out this way. He’s watching us now. Before you can see him, I’ll have to search you. Stand up.”
“I was searched once, before coming in,” Fannon protested, though complying.
Rufe made a derogatory gesture. “By that halfwit, Binks. I do a regular job. See, the Skull has got wind that there’s a certain guy tryin’ to squirm into this place — a guy called Secret Agent ‘X.’ You might be him for all we know. So we gotta search every man right down to the skin. This ‘X’ guy always has special trick stunts on him; and if we ever found gas guns or trick cigarettes or things like that on a new guy, believe me it would be tough for him.”
While he talked, he searched the new man’s clothing with a thoroughness that overlooked nothing. He ripped the lining of Fannon’s coat, turned down the cuffs of his trousers, took the ribbon off the hat, ripped open the tie.
In the pockets he found a few coins, a package of cigarettes, and a box of matches. He broke every one of the cigarettes, then made Fannon remove his shoes. He pried open the soles to see if there was anything hidden there.
“It’s all right,” he assured Fannon. “When you go back to the main room, you’ll find new clothing to put on. The Skull always keeps his men well dressed.”