Clammy moisture beaded de Graf’s forehead. His shoulders drooped. He seemed on the verge of collapse as he nodded slowly, unable to face the Agent’s accusing eyes.
“Yes—” he said dully. “Yes — I shot her, as you say.” The smoldering fires of passion flamed in his eyes. “But she gave me cause! She has tricked me, humiliated me, hurt my pride for years. She was a poor girl when I married her. She looked up to me as a great scientific worker. I took her out of the impoverished life she had known. We traveled, met interesting people. Then she got a taste for luxury. Men flattered her. It went to her head. She forgot all I’d done for her, forgot the vows she’d made. She called it being modern. When I objected she threatened to leave me. To keep her, I had to agree to her ways. She dragged my name through the public press, created scandals. She even took up with — a criminal.”
The Agent’s eyes flashed. He leaned forward. “This criminal, de Graf, who was he?”
“I don’t know his name. But she dared brag to me — boasted that she’d grown tired of Roswell Sully, and had found some one who suited her better. A criminal who, she said, was a greater scientist than I. She was a child about such things. I didn’t believe her until I visited her one night at her apartment, and she turned the darkness on me from a mechanism this man had given her. She laughed at me under cover of it, and said she was afraid of me no longer — and would leave me for good—” He broke off, trembling.
“And so you set to work to find out what the darkness was,” Secret Agent “X” prompted, “and made a helmet to combat it. You learned that it wasn’t darkness at all, but a force that blinded human eyes.”
“Yes,” the scientist nodded eagerly. “I had to show her I was as good a man as that lover of hers — even though I couldn’t shower her with orchids. And I–I—”
“You succeeded — and you killed her.”
De Graf nodded. “Yes, I succeeded, and now that you know the truth you’re going to turn me over to the law. You are a detective, of course.”
The Agent shook his head. “No. Hunting criminals is my work — just as yours is science. But I’m not interested in crimes such as yours — crimes of passion.”
“Then why did you come here?” de Graf snarled. “What do you want?”
“Only one thing,” the Agent said sternly. “The helmet — the one you used tonight. Give me that and the law shall never hear from my lips that you are the murderer of your wife.”
Chapter XVII
THE following afternoon Secret Agent “X” stood near the marble and chromium main entrance of S. Carleton Company. Shabby clothing covered the powerful, athletic lines of his body. Nondescript features disguised his face. His manner was dejected. The fiery alertness of his eyes was hidden by the wilted brim of an ancient felt hat.
He attracted little attention from the throngs surging in and out of the city’s largest department store. Once an old lady, touched by his appearance of abject want, slipped a dime into his ungloved hand. The Agent, living up to his role of down-and-outer, acted humbly grateful as he pocketed the coin.
Inside the big store, three thousand shoppers, unaware that the hideous shadow of crime hovered just above their heads, crowded through the aisles, pushed into packed elevators, stood impatiently on escalators, jostled, talked and laughed. Scores of detectives, pretending to be shoppers also, mingled with them. These were picked men of the headquarters division, warned into utmost caution by strange orders they had received, and keeping their guns, blackjacks and bracelets carefully out of sight.
They had arrived from two o’clock on, singly and in pairs, converging on the store from many directions, entering unobtrusively through a dozen different entrances. And the Agent had smiled in grim satisfaction as he watched them come.
No one of the passing detectives gave his drooping, shabbily clad figure a second glance. They took him for what he appeared to be — merely a dejected member of the city’s army of unemployed. Yet it was he who was responsible for their coming there. It was he who had telephoned a startling message to the commissioner earlier in the day, giving the police head explicit directions.
Agent “X” had refused to tell his name. But his voice had carried the ring of absolute assurance, and he had made the police commissioner an amazing promise — so amazing, in fact, that though the commissioner was skeptical he dared not ignore what his nameless informant had said. And the steady but cautious arrival of detectives on the premises of S. Carleton Company proved that he had acted at once.
As Agent “X” stood in front of the store, a newspaper dropped by a careless shopper, slid by his feet. The Agent picked it up like a down-and-outer, grateful for any small favor that circumstance bestowed.
Lurid headlines screamed the news: “Society Beauty Murdered.” A picture of Vivian de Graf stared arrogantly from the page. The words beneath described the finding of her body in her exclusive mews apartment. They stated also that her husband, Emil de Graf, distinguished professor of physics at City University, had been found murdered in the brownstone house where he lived in another part of the city.
This did not surprise the Agent; though he read the story with interest. He had promised not to mention de Graf’s crime to the law, and he had kept his word. But the criminals with whom Vivian de Graf had cast her lot had taken swift vengeance, guessing apparently, just as “X” had, who her slayer was.
He turned the page over, saw one more news item which held his attention for a moment. This told of the finding of Lorenzo Courtney’s body on a park bench early that morning. A patrolling cop had made the discovery. Letters and a wallet in the dead man’s pocket had led to speedy identification. Financial worries were supposed to be the cause of the suicide.
The real motive was known only to Secret Agent “X,” the man responsible for the placing of the body on the bench in the dead of night. For that had been his answer to the unknown Chairman of the criminal group — an answer that would lull suspicion. And only he, outside of the criminals themselves, knew how closely these three events — the murders of Vivian and Emil de Graf and the suicide of Courtney — connected.
He dropped the paper, strolled to a corner of the big store where he could see in both directions. Casual as his manner seemed, excitement pulsed through his tautly alert body. The zero hour of four was almost at hand.
Down the block, a small electric truck with the name of the city lighting company on its sides rattled into view. It stopped beside the curb and a man in overalls emerged, carrying a pair of large, heavy pliers. He looked like a workman. Another man in overalls followed him, a coil of black wire slung over his arm. They lifted a manhole cover and descended below street level.
A minute or two passed, and both reappeared, drawing the length of wire from the hole in the street back to the parked truck.
The thing seemed commonplace. No one passing gave it a second glance. But the grim light of battle sprang into the Secret Agent’s eyes. Collar turned up, blowing on his hands like a bum trying to keep warm, he shuffled nearer the workmen and their truck.
From the corner of his eye he saw two other cars draw up on the same block. There was an air of casualness about the young men within them. They didn’t get out at once, but lighted cigarettes and shuffled through the pages of small books like salesmen going over territory lists.