Pride gleamed in the eyes of Brownell at the Secret Agent’s flattery. He shrugged suddenly. “I did not intend to let any visitors here in on my secret. But after all, there’s no reason why you, Mr. Burpee, shouldn’t know. Come this way, please.”
Agent “X” hid the thrill of excitement he felt. He had played his cards well, played on the vanity of a man to whom no other emotion except fear would appeal. For, that the man before him was vain of his yellow orchids, he had sensed months ago. Otherwise he would not have laid them at the feet of the woman he wished to impress.
Brownell led Agent “X” into the big house itself. It showed signs of recent expensive redecoration. The Agent’s bearded host ushered him down a flight of winding stairs into a cellar room. A door showed at the end of this. Brownell opened it, motioned “X” to enter. He did so, and gasped at what he saw.
For here in this moist chamber, warmed even now by coils of steam pipes; here without any scrap of daylight or vent to the outside air, the prize saffron orchids grew, rearing their spotted yellow heads among jumbled piles of rock, on specially constructed concrete tables. They were everywhere “X” looked, sprouting amid rank green leaves, almost like some startling fungous growth. The plants seemed to be staring at him as though they had life of their own.
He put surprise into his voice, made his eyes widen.
“No sunlight! Good gracious, sir, you mean you raise these lovely flowers in this dark cellar chamber?”
The man who called himself Brownell smiled. “In a cellar chamber — yes. In the dark — no! Look!”
He gestured toward the ceiling where an intricate grillework of glass tubing showed. It seemed somewhat similar to slender Neon lighting tubes, but was arranged differently. No light was visible in them now. The light that revealed the bright flowers came from a big bulb Brownell had switched on when he opened the door.
“There is my sun,” he said. “There is the light the orchids are grown in.”
“Light!” echoed the Agent skeptically, in the tone of a puzzled old man. He adjusted his glasses again, peered up at the gleaming tubing as though to detect some illumination.
AGAIN the man called Brownell laughed in the depths of his wiry black beard. “You can’t see it,” he said. “It is invisible — beyond the range of the spectrum which human eyes can detect. Yet it is there — just as invisible and just as powerful as the ultra-violet rays which can blister the skin. That’s where my orchids get their power to grow, and, because this light is never lacking, I’ve been able to create hybrids never produced before.”
“It is incredible,” said the Agent softly. “You’ve been experimenting with these flowers for years I suppose?”
“Yes, ever since I was a very young man. And it took me a long time to develop this light. I’m proud of it. It’s rather an accomplishment you must admit — and I’m glad I have the leisure to indulge my hobby.”
“An exceedingly constructive hobby,” murmured the Agent. “And a great deal of time and patience must have gone into it.”
“More perhaps than you realize,” said Brownell boastfully. “Very few men would have had the will power to persist. It took me months, even, to gage the right intensity of my ultra-ray light. A trifle too little and the flowers would grow pale and die! A bit too much, and it would literally burn them up. Do you feel anything odd in your head right now?”
The Agent nodded, smiled.
“A slight buzzing it seems. It is most remarkable — and how you can control such a thing is a mystery to me!”
“It would be,” said Brownell superciliously. “But I’ll give you an idea how it’s done.”
He led Agent “X” to the end of the cellar chamber where the saffron orchids grew, opened a door into still another room. No plants showed here. It was filled with complex electrical mechanism. There many small tubes, many elaborate coils of wire, dials and delicate rheostat controls. An electric motor in a dust-proof casing gave out a low, continuous hum.
The tubes in the outer chamber where the plants grew were all connected to one central outlet which went through the wall of this power room. There was a big graduated dial and a leverlike handle near the low-humming motor. It reminded “X” of a control in some great ocean liner.
“There is my light throttle,” said Brownell. “With that I control the invisible candlepower in the next room and in here, too, for the light that those tubes generate can come right through stone walls, right through metal, glass, anything! I have an insulating substance in the outside walls and ceiling, or else, if I turned the lever too far every one in this house might—”
Brownell checked himself suddenly; frowned as though his enthusiasm had made him say a little more than he had meant. He added rather brusquely:
“This branch of my horticultural hobby won’t interest you, Mr. Burpee.”
The Secret Agent was smiling. The wrinkled contours of his disguised face were deceptively gentle. Never had he looked more benign; never more harmless.
“On the contrary, Mr. Brownell,” he said. “I am most interested — fascinated, I might even add! For many months I have wondered how you raised those exquisite orchids.”
“Many months! They have never been on exhibition before!”
“Never on public exhibition — but, you can see how rapt my interest in them has been!”
SLOWLY, while a gradual change came over Brownell’s face, the Secret Agent reached in his pocket. He took out an envelope, took from it a withered flower; one whose yellow spotted petals nevertheless showed. With the flower he displayed a small color plate, made while the bloom was still fresh enough to reveal accurate tints. Brownell’s bearded mouth gaped for a moment.
“Where — where did you get that?” he asked.
“In the apartment of a very lovely lady,” said “X” softly. “In the apartment of Vivian de Graf! It was one of the last of the flowers you sent her — before an assassin’s bullet struck her down. Too bad that your gallant attentions so aroused the jealousy of her devoted husband!”
Brownell made a sound in his throat like a curse. Suddenly, furiously he struck the dried flower and color plate from “X’s” fingers. He stepped back, stood with feet apart, glaring and panting at his white-haired visitor. The change that had come over his face above the beard was startling. It was furious, contorted in its anger, eyes glittering slits, veins standing out on the sweating forehead. It was the face of a hideous, sadistic criminal, the face of a man who, for all his esthetic love of flowers, had the instincts of a ruthless, predatory beast.
“So,” he said. “Alfred Burpee. eh? The editor of a flower journal — interested in orchids — and in the light I raise them by!”
Suddenly Brownell threw back his head, opened a cavern of a mouth in his black beard, and gave vent to hideous laughter. He choked at the end of it, squeezed tears from his eyes. “Light!” he bellowed. “Light, eh!”
With a move so quick that the Agent could barely follow it, he thrust the lever attached to the big dial near the motor all the way to its end stop. The motor’s low hum rose to an ear-splitting whine. Instantly the sensation of buzzing in the Agent’s brain increased. Increased. Instantly the room began to grow dark, and the beaded, distorted features of the man before him began to fade, while Brownell’s wildly evil laughter sounded mockingly. “Light! Light!” he screamed again. “Light — but you can’t see in it!” The bearded criminal had geared up his mechanism, until the blinding darkness, a by-product of his experiments on plants, had descended as it had months ago over the terror-stricken crowds at the points where the raids had taken place.