“Let’s see.” The Agent took out notebook and pencil. He made several notations, seeming absorbed in his work. He was conscious that Vivian de Graf was observing him, conscious of a new watchfulness in the woman’s eyes. There was a catlike quality in it that was definitely sinister.
This was a tense moment for the Agent. Perhaps some devilish, quick-acting poison had been dropped into his glass. Perhaps it had been only a drug. He did not know. He could only stage an act, and hope it would be convincing.
At the end of a few seconds he looked up from his notes, passed a slow hand across his forehead and blinked confusedly. “If you don’t mind repeating a few things,” he said. “I seem to have forgotten. Don’t know what’s the matter with my memory. This man Hearndon—”
He let his speech trail off, laughed as though in embarrassment. “Here — let’s see.” He made a few ineffectual dabs at his pad. He appeared to study them, but his head sank lower and lower. “Hearndon,” he muttered, “Hearn—”
His body swayed in the chair. He made a feeble, sleepy clutch at the edge of the table, slumping sidewise to the carpet. He lifted himself once feebly, then fell back and lay inert, every muscle lax.
His eyes were closed, his body limp, but his pulses were hammering. There was a chance he hadn’t manifested quite the right symptoms, that the woman’s suspicions had been aroused. Her silence made a breath-taking moment of suspense. She made no sound, said nothing for several seconds.
Then she rose and bent over him. Self-control was difficult for the Agent at that moment, the temptation to open his eyes at least a slit, almost overpowering. For all he knew, Vivian de Graf might be planning to jab a knife into him. But a moment later she moved away across the carpeted floor.
SHE picked up a telephone and dialed a number. Agent “X” listened intently. His ruse had worked. Vivian de Graf thought him unconscious or dead, and her next move should betray her further.
Her voice came to him. “Lorenzo — this is Vivian. Please drop over, at once! There’s something that may be rather important.”
Lorenzo! The Agent’s heart beat fast. Through his act of appearing to swallow the drug it seemed he was about to meet some one else closely connected with the criminal gang. Vivian de Graf’s whole manner during the last hour had served to convince him that his first suspicion of her had been right.
He lay quietly, apparently in the depths of dreamless unconsciousness, when the woman returned to her seat. She hummed a few bars of a popular song with astounding casualness. She had jilted a wealthy lover of years’ standing, she had had acid thrown in her face, she had given another man drugged wine — yet she could sing! Here was a woman of the temperament and caliber of the Borgias.
She went into an adjoining room, leaving the door open. “X” could hear the soft rustle of feminine garments. Then she returned, settled herself in a chair and idly flipped the pages of a magazine. Shortly afterward a buzzer sounded, two short notes, a long, and another short.
Vivian de Graf crossed quickly to the door, opened it and said: “Come in, Lorenzo.”
Agent “X” heard a man’s tread. He slitted one eye and stared toward the door in time to see a man enter. He was about thirty, smooth-shaven, suave, with sleek black hair. But his features bore the lines and blotches of dissipation, making him look older.
He started at sight of “X’s” body, then gave a lop-sided smile. The door closed and Vivian de Graf said casually, “Just a friend who dropped in, Lorenzo. He’s had one drink too many. You see the result.”
“Up to your old tricks, Vivian,” said the man called Lorenzo. “Just what does it mean?”
“Never mind now!” There was a note of authority in Vivian’s voice, as though she were accustomed to getting her way with men. “Take him out of here at once — and when he has recovered, it might be well to question him. He was very helpful, tonight — overly solicitous of my welfare. And when people get that way I’m always — well, suspicious!”
The young man with the gleaming black hair laughed again. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink, too, Vivian?” His tone was caressing.
“This is not a social visit,” the woman answered icily. “Quick — get him out of here. Some one might come!”
LORENZO approached “X,” placed hands upon his shoulders and began shaking roughly. This gave the Agent his cue. He was not supposed to be poisoned, only drugged — and evidently, with some drug from which he could be aroused.
He sighed, stirred faintly, letting his head flop as Lorenzo shook him, manifesting the sluggishness of a man in a chloral hydrate coma. Lorenzo lifted him to his feet, and Agent “X” shuffled feebly, moving like a sleep-walker.
Vivian flung the door wide and Lorenzo marched his charge out to a waiting car. Agent “X” stumbled, almost fell, letting one knee strike realistically against the car’s door. Lorenzo bundled him in, slammed the door after him, and went round to the driver’s seat.
Gears clicked, the car purred away, with Lorenzo driving carelessly and Agent “X” slumped in the seat, breathing heavily. But his eyes were open now. If Lorenzo had turned to scrutinize him in the darkness he would have beheld not a stupefied man, but one whose gaze was brightly, speculatively alert.
The car turned out of an avenue, into a street where the lights were far apart and shadows lay heavily. “X’s” right hand began creeping toward a secret pocket in his suit. He was reaching for the compact gas gun that could knock a man out within a radius of twenty feet — one of the Agent’s most useful, non-lethal weapons.
But just then a car came out of a side street, and as it passed the interior of Lorenzo’s car was brightly illuminated. In that instant the man detected the change in “X’s” attitude. He gave a stifled exclamation, applied the brakes, and whirled toward “X.” One hand clamped over “X’s” arm, the other doubled into a fist to drive a blow into the Agent’s face.
Rubber squealed beneath the car. The vehicle lurched dangerously, threatened to plunge across the sidewalk into a fence. Even at that moment Agent “X” had presence of mind enough to twist the wheel, while he warded off Lorenzo’s blow with a deft twist of his head and a countering left. The car came to a stop, slewed around, and as it stood crazily across the curb in the shadows, a short, fierce struggle was waged within it.
Lorenzo proved himself a fierce fighter. He was angry, frightened, and he fought with the ferocity of a cornered animal, using every savage trick he knew. He tried to twist over and ram a knee into the Agent’s groin. He gave the Agent no time to pull the gas gun from his pocket. But neither could he draw his own automatic which made a bulge under his armpit. It was a battle of wrenching hands and knotted fists.
Once again, “X” resorted to a Jiu-jutsu blow. Any moment the queer position of the car and the struggling figures in it might attract attention. A patrol police cruiser might come along. Agent “X” could afford to take no chances with his prize.
His knuckles struck Lorenzo on the side of the neck. The man’s head jerked up spasmodically, his hands clawed frantically at his throat, his tongue protruded. For a moment he was like a man choking. The blow the Agent had given him was the well-known strangling blow, which temporarily cuts off air in the windpipe.
It gave the Agent time to do what he wanted. He drew his gas pistol from his pocket, took a deep breath himself, and then calmly fired full into Lorenzo’s face.
The man’s body slumped limply, and Agent “X” quickly cranked down the windows of the car, letting a draft blow through. He held his breath for nearly two minutes. By that time the gas inside the car had dissipated into a mere chemical odor.