Secret Agent X: Legion of the Living Dead. Brant House

avoid a car coming from the opposite direction. Its front wheel clipped the corner of the curb and the car bounded into an alley.

      “X” followed, wheeling his car across the street and into the alley. Ahead of him, the cream-colored car had slowed down. “X” spurted, and in another moment was forced to cram on his brakes with all the strength of his right leg. From a covered driveway, a huge truck had backed across the alley. The Agent was as effectually separated from his quarry as if a stone wall had suddenly been conjured up in front of him. In spite of his quick action and the superior power of his brakes he did not stop until the nose of his car had mashed against the panel of the truck.

      Was this opportune intervention a coincidence? The Secret Agent thought not. Everything had fallen in too perfectly with the Leopard Lady’s plan of escape. He could almost hear her husky, purring laugh of triumph.

      “X” knocked open the door of his car and leaped to the pavement. In a moment his question was definitely answered. It was no coincidence; it was a perfectly laid trap set to catch one man—Secret Agent “X.”

      From the doorway of flanking buildings poured a small army of men—corpse-faced criminals from out of the past. With the confidence their numbers gave them, they rushed upon “X,” blunt-nose automatics firmly gripped in their fists. The Agent drew his gun with his right hand, at the same time sending a short, jolting left to the side of the foremost criminal’s head. The man dropped without a groan. “X’s” gas gun, that marvelous weapon of his own development, hissed like a snake. A cloud of the powerful anesthetizing vapor blasted a second criminal into oblivion.

      Completely surrounded, “X” fought like one possessed of the devil. He hacked at heads with the barrel of his gun, wary of using the gas with which it was loaded lest in the mad, battling maelstrom of humanity some of the anesthetizing fumes reach his own lungs. The gang, he knew, would avoid using their automatics lest the sound of shots draw in police interference.

      “X” got a grip around the waist of one of his opponents, lifted the man bodily, and would have hurled him to the pavement had he not at that moment been struck a powerful blow from behind. Off balance, he sprawled to the pavement. Like starved wolves, the mob was upon him, holding him down by sheer weight of numbers. A gun barrel crashed into his head—once—twice. Agent “X” dipped into oblivion.

1 AUTHOR’S NOTE: Followers of the “X” chronicles have probably recognized the redheaded clerk as Jim Hobart, the young man who directs the Hobart Detective agency, one of the units in the Secret Agent’s vast crime fighting organization. Though the Hobart group resembles any other private detective bureau in that it is at the service of the public, Jim Hobart’s first duty is toward Agent “X”, who befriended him in a time of need. In as much as Hobart knew “X” only in the character of A. J. Martin, a newspaper correspondent, it is little wonder that he failed to recognize his friend when “X” adopted the identity of Peter Krausman.

2 AUTHOR’S NOTE: Daughter of a former member of the police force, it seemed a natural course of events that Betty Dale should turn to police reporting when she became old enough to select a career. Though left alone in the world, she was not without friends — many of them detectives who knew her father. But her staunchest friend, and the man she admires most, is Secret Agent “X”. Together, they have encountered many perilous adventures, previously recorded. Her admiration for the Agent has grown to a beautiful, unselfish love.

3 AUTHOR’S NOTE: It should be explained for the benefit of those who meet the Agent for the first time herein, that though Betty Dale has met him often enough to know him probably more than any other person, she has never seen his true face. Her love for him is not based upon romantic dreams revolving about this man of mystery; it is the underlying, thoroughly human qualities of the man that attract her. For always, Agent “X” is kindly to those who merit kindness; never has he willingly harmed the defenseless. Even his enemies attest the quality of his mercy.