For a while he studied Landru’s sharp-featured face. The crook was a dandy, sallow and dissipated, but well groomed. He wore a Vandyke, and the ends of his mustache were waxed and carefully rolled until they were like spikes.
“X” ripped off the disguise of A. J. Martin. With his vials and tubes on the dresser, he went to work shaping features that were identical to Landru’s.
In a few minutes he looked like a smooth, dissolute Frenchman out for a night of absinthe and carousal. He put on Landru’s clothes, but wore his own shoes with their secret compartments in the soles and heels that held some of his compact, ingenious equipment.
He entered a telephone booth in the lobby and called up de Ronfort at the Perseus Arms.
“The Fox speaking,” said “X.” “I have your note, but if you wish to do business with me, you must act quickly. Bring the merchandise to Eddie’s place on Nyack Street — you should know where it is — and come prepared to quote a low price. This town is like a powder keg with sparks flying around it. If I should be caught distributing rabbit food, you know that I will be getting my mail at a bastille for years to come. Unless you are reasonable this time, we will not do business.”
“I’ll be there in a half hour,” answered the Count. “I have a choice consignment, and the prices will astound you. At Eddie’s Place on Nyack Street.”
The Count hung up. “X” nodded to the clerk as he started from the St. Etienne Inn, and the man addressed him as Landru. The Agent hailed another cab, and went to Eddie’s Place, an old deserted underworld resort in a disreputable section of the city, formerly the hangout of many dope smugglers. He had only a few minutes to wait.
A CAB stopped near the old building. The Count got out. He carried the same suitcase that he had taken from the amphibian. His hat was pulled low, his face half buried in the upturned collar of his topcoat, “X” motioned to him, and opened the door of the old dive, using one of his skeleton keys. The Count peered at him suspiciously. Then he grunted relief when he recognized the face of Landru.
“You have picked an outlandish spot, Felix,” he said irritably. “I hope you have brought a good supply of money. I want to get this transaction over in a hurry. You seem to think you are the only person who takes risks. I am playing for big stakes. If the law catches me, it is my finish. But you, Felix, you have not much to lose.”
“Come on!” growled the Agent, speaking French. “We are losing valuable time with your insulting nonsense.”
He lighted the way with a pocket flash. He led de Ronfort down a long, narrow corridor. The place had been closed a couple of years previously for violation of the National Prohibition Act. It was an ill-smelling, rat-infested building that had been the scene of several murders.
In a back room, “X” laid his flashlight on the table, and told de Ronfort to exhibit his goods. The pocket flash was the only means of illumination.
“A fine place!” grumbled the Count. “You might have shown one of my station a little consideration, Felix. You could have rented a room at some lodging house.”
“Yes,” retorted the Agent, “and have a dozen people see you go in and out! With every newspaper blaring about the drug menace, with federal men and the narcotic squad working night and day, I want privacy when I transact this sort of business.”
Remy de Ronfort put the suitcase on the table and opened it. “X” flashed the light on the contents. The case was half-filled. There were scores of small, hermetically sealed packages.
“Each one contains an ounce,” said the Count. “Three hundred and sixty of them. Made from the finest China opium, processed in England, and smuggled into America by a French nobleman.”
The Agent had to stifle his excitement. Three hundred and sixty ounces would retail at twenty-three thousand and forty dollars! And the profit to the Count would be enough to keep an ordinary middle-class family for three years or more.
“Not too much, if your price is right,” said “X” casually. “I will not buy any cocaine and very little morphine. How much heroin?”
The Count’s face darkened. “Nine pounds of morphine and twenty-one of heroin. That is only half of what I brought from the ship. I am in need of ready money. That’s why I deal with a cutthroat like you. The rest I shall keep until I get my price.”
THE Agent uttered a grumbling protest. “Nine pounds of morphine! Nom de Dieu! Man, you know the call is for heroin! Ninety per cent of the users want it. Anybody who takes morphine is willing to switch to the other. Yet you bring in nine pounds of morphine! Most unsatisfactory, de Ronfort. Nine pounds of morphine! A man of your experience, an aristocrat, bungling like that!”
De Ronfort immediately became the placating, cajoling supersalesman.
“You know I have to take what I can get,” he said. “You know how I bring the stuff in. Out there where a coast-guard cutter is liable to bear down on me, I must work for speed. As soon as the stuff is lowered over the side and I have it in the cockpit, I take off again.”
The Count was an earnest, gesticulating tradesman now, just one voluble, excitable French merchant talking to another.
“You can sell the morphine for heroin,” suggested de Ronfort “Half of your customers will need the stuff so badly, they won’t notice what they are taking, as long as it has an effect.”
“All right, all right,” said the Agent irritably. “You have brought in thirty pounds, apothecaries weight. What is your price?”
“Eighteen thousand dollars!”
The Agent began talking to the wall, as though it were a person. “I tell him to come with his lowest price, and right off, he quotes me eighteen thousand dollars. I’m lucky if I get that retail, and I take all the risk of going to the Bastille for some of the best years of my life. It’s an outrage. It insults my intelligence.”
“You know that is not true!” spoke de Ronfort heatedly. “You would make five thousand more, even if you sold the pure stuff, and you adulterate it fifty per cent.”
“My price is fifteen thousand,” said the Agent “If the sum does not please you, lock up your suitcase and we will leave. I’m doing you a favor anyway, offering to relieve you of that load, when the police are on the warpath. You could not dispose—”
The Agent stopped suddenly. Footsteps sounded in the corridor. The Count went white. He grabbed “X’s” arm.
“What’s that?” he said in a low, tense voice. “Is — is it the police? I can’t afford—Nom de Dieu—it is worth my life to be caught here! I’m going to marry millions — millions!”
The Count swung “X” around. “Is this a frame-up?” he demanded, his eyes blazing. “Are those some of your twitching, sniffing mob? Extortion, is that it? Going to hold me, and try to extract a ransom from my future father-in-law! No wonder you got me into this forsaken place! But it won’t work, Felix. I should have known better than to deal with an Apache. You belong in the sewers of Paris! I’m going to blow your head off, Felix. And I’ll make quick work of your band of hopheads.”
De Ronfort whipped out an ugly, snub-nosed automatic.
“The police will never connect me, an aristocrat, with the common Felix Landru!” he cried. “You’re through, you sewer rat!”
The Agent poked his head out of the door. Several men were rushing down the corridor. A flashlight shone on “X.” He drew back quickly, bolted the door. There was a yell. Then a harsh command for him to surrender.
“Don’t play games with us, Landru!” some one shouted. “We’ve got you surrounded. You haven’t a chance. You can’t beat the federal government! Give up, and you’ll cheat the undertaker!”