Frequently in his life great issues had depended on guesswork, hunches. More than once the uncanny correctness of his hunches had brought him success. Now, his instinct told him that sooner or later information of value would reach him at this apartment. But his senses cried out for action; his imagination painted ghastly pictures of what might be taking place outside, even at this moment.
At eleven o’clock, after he had been tempted a dozen times to leave the place, the telephone in Courtney’s apartment rang for the fifth time since his entrance. And now it was no feminine voice that greeted him.
His fingers tensed over the receiver as a slightly muffled man’s voice sounded. Agent “X” got the impression that the person was talking through a cloth, to disguise his speech. “X” crouched eagerly over the instrument.
“Courtney?” the voice said.
“Yes — Courtney speaking,” the Agent replied.
A slight pause. Then a muffled voice made a sudden, clipped statement in a tone of dry authority. A statement that brought a thrill to the Secret Agent’s taut nerves.
“We meet at twelve. I shall expect you, Lorenzo Courtney.”
Chapter XIII
NO OTHER word was spoken. The muffled voice was silent. The receiver clicked up. But Agent “X,” turning in taut excitement from the phone, no longer wondered if his decision to remain in Courtney’s apartment had been wise. He knew it had been, for there was every reason to believe that the man to whom he had just listened was the leader of the devil-dark gang.
Yet the message had been too brief to be satisfactory. Members of the band who used scourging, torturing whips to clear the way for their criminal activities were meeting at midnight. But where?
“X” was aware suddenly of his perilous lack of information concerning Courtney; aware of the difficulties the man’s self-inflicted death had thrown in his way. Courtney’s hideously mocking laughter seemed to ring in his ears. Courtney’s dying words echoed in his mind. “You will never know — now—”
Agent “X” walked to the secretary in Courtney’s apartment, sat down for a moment and studied the itemized reports that Bates and Hobart had rushed to him. The list of young Courtney’s friends held his attention.
Certain characteristics of the devil-dark criminals were known to “X” now. They were not ordinary underworld characters. They did not haunt the murky byways of crookdom. That was why neither Bates, nor Hobart, nor the police had been able to pick up details concerning them. And Thaddeus Penny had corroborated “X’s” own impression that the mysterious raiders were men of education, even culture.
“X” had a theory to explain this. Lorenzo Courtney had been living proof of his theory. Educated, well-bred men did not go in for crime generally unless other customary fields of activity were closed to them. Courtney had been a failure in banking. He had left his profession in disgrace, with the threat of a prison sentence hanging like a shadow over his life. He had been greedy, ambitious, vain at heart. Failure, disgrace, had brought out the innate criminal instincts that lurk in many men. The same forces would bring out those characteristics in others.
And on the list of Courtney’s friends which Hobart had given him was one which a card in Courtney’s wallet also showed. This was a man named Chauncey Doeg, a man who, according to Hobart’s data, had even served a two-year sentence for defrauding the mails in connection with the advertising of a certain bond issue. Doeg, like Courtney, had been a member of the younger sporting set, a polo player, yachtsman, and society gallant, much sought after by the mothers of debutantes, until disgrace had clouded his life.
Disgrace, obscurity, would be bitter pills for such a man to swallow; for the most intolerable poverty of all to bear is the poverty of those who have once possessed regal luxury.
Secret Agent “X” struck the secretary sharply with a clenched fist. His eyes were gleaming with the quest again. His logical brain had unearthed the possible hidden seeds of crime. He had made his decision — and was ready once more to gamble. But before he left Courtney’s apartment he did an odd thing for Agent “X.” He went to a glass decanter, poured himself a drink of whiskey and tossed it off. This was not because he needed stimulant. It was to make his disguise of the wastrel Courtney even more complete, by adding the odor of liquor on his breath. Twenty minutes later a car slowed and stopped at the corner of a block of shabby apartments. Agent “X,” still disguised as Courtney, was behind the wheel. He got out, sauntered halfway down the block, and merged suddenly with the black shadows at the mouth of a tradesmen’s entry. Here, with a view of the buildings on the street’s opposite side, he waited. One of those buildings held the apartment of Chauncey Doeg. And “X” had taken pains to learn that the banker was at home. He had asked Betty Dale, the one girl in the city who knew the true nature of his daring work, to call Doeg’s number. She had been instructed by the Agent to ask for “Charles Doeg,” then apologize timidly for calling the wrong party. She had reported to “X” that Chauncey Doeg was home.
“X” WAITED now with a feeling of impatience, a feeling of uncertainty that he had to fight down, akin to the same emotion he had had in Courtney’s apartment. Yet now it was even worse. For he had definite information that there was a secret meeting tonight. And, if his surmise concerning Doeg was wrong, the knowledge that the meeting had passed without his attendance would be intolerably bitter.
Yet all the facts pointed toward the verification of the Agent’s theory. These shabby apartments where Doeg dwelt proved that the once prosperous banker had come down in the world. He had had no doting and wealthy mother like Courtney to give him an allowance. If Courtney had been tempted into crime, how much greater must the temptation of Doeg be? And “X,” in his conversation with Betty Dale, had made quick check-up on the man. She was in a position to know, and she had given him certain facts.
Doeg’s character had changed since his stay in prison. He had become silent, irritable, appearing only in fashionable circles, and then to attend the wedding of a boyhood friend. For the rest he kept to himself, brooding apparently over his grievances.
But minutes ticked by, and the Agent’s uneasiness grew. He looked at his watch. Eleven thirty, and still no sign of Chauncey Doeg.
It wasn’t till twenty minutes of twelve that a heavy-set figure appeared in the vestibule of the apartment opposite. A shabby coat of a once modish and expensive cut fitted powerful shoulders. Above a white silk scarf a brutally aggressive chin showed, framing the thick lips of a sullen mouth. “X” recognized Chauncey Doeg from the minute description Betty Dale had given him.
The young ex-banker peered up and down the block for a moment. Then he stepped imperiously to the curb and summoned a passing taxi.
“X” left his hideout as soon as the taxi’s tail-light was a disappearing red eye dawn the street. He walked swift strides to his own coupé, made a U-turn and followed the cab, careful not to get too close.
Once, to avert any possible suspicion in Doeg’s mind that he was being followed, “X” took a chance, speeded up and plunged into a right-angle street. Then he swerved around a corner, raced along a parallel block and came back in on the route that Doeg’s taxi was following.
When “X” saw Doeg’s taxi draw to the curb he was a good two blocks behind. He immediately plunged into a side street, parked out of sight and reappeared on foot. Doeg must not see him. He would certainly think it odd that his friend, Lorenzo Courtney, was shadowing him.