Brand of the Metal Maiden by Brant House

Book Details

Who is the Emperor Zero? And why would he send his henchmen to unleash the hideous poison gas at the rooftop café and murder the patrons?

Brand of the Metal Maiden (1936)
A music master was the Emperor Zero — master of murder music. For his pupils danced a mad rhythm into the grave. Young people they were, but as they danced they aged — years in seconds. Young faces became furrowed with the mark of time. Their hair became as white as frost. Mummies they became—in silks and satins, and modern dinner coats. . . . Secret Agent X hurled his crime-crushing organisations against the Emperor Zero. But Agent X found himself enmeshed in the hilarious dance to hell.

Chapter I – Hell from the Heavens
Chapter II – Man-Trap
Chapter III – The Squaw’s Dive
Chapter IV – The Bat-men Strike
Chapter V – Death at Dewarren’s
Chapter VI – The Mark of X
Chapter VII – Emperor Zero
Chapter VIII – Day of Doom
Chapter IX – The Zero Hour
The Secret Council – Behind the Scenes With Secret Agent X

Brand of the Metal Maiden was published in Secret Agent “X” in the January, 1936 issue.

G.T. Fleming-Roberts (born George Thomas Roberts, 1910-1968) was the author of this story, using the house name Brant House.

Brand of the Metal Maiden has 4 illustrations.

Files:

1. House-BrandOfTheMetalMaiden.epub

Excerpt: Brand of the Metal Maiden

Chapter I

Hell from the Heavens

THE Franconia Roof Café seemed like some gay island in the sky. Remote from the rumbling traffic in the street below, the Franconia string ensemble played soft, entrancing music. Electric lanterns of pale amber glass were as tiny stars between colorful canopies that extended over a portion of the tables. And at the outer extremities of the roof, bordered by lovely flowers, a portion of the cafe was open to the sky.

The patrons of the Franconia Roof Café—gorgeously gowned women and immaculately groomed men—were unaware of the far-flung shadow of tragedy above them all. Perhaps one face among them all was prophetic of the disaster to come. It was the face of a man, just turning forty-five, who was seated at one of the tables at the outer edge of the cafe.

His few gray hairs robbed his face of none of its virility. The sun of many lands had tanned his cheeks. His gaze at the moment had wandered from the roof-garden and its gay company to the dark horizon visible here and there between towers of steel and stone that drilled the sky like giant gimlets. Three deep, dark lines formed between the man’s keen, gray eyes. He stroked his gray mustache thoughtfully.

His name was Robert Recklow, a member of the British C.I.D. It was his first visit to New York and his awe of the vast city was not entirely swept away by the knowledge that deep within the heart of the metropolis was a veritable cancer of crime, the dank effluvium of which had spread throughout the world.

Recklow’s companion was a man entirely out of place on the Franconia Roof. Yet except for the nasal quality of his voice, so utterly lacking in refinement, none would have known but what he was of the Four Hundred. He was faultlessly dressed, not unpleasant to look at, if one discounted the fact that his eyes were too close together.

His hands clasping and unclasping at the edge of the table, were soft and white as a woman’s. Yet he belonged to the very dregs of society. Clever, deceptive, yet withal an ability to adapt himself perfectly to any surroundings, Mr. “Easy” Eastman would have made an ideal spy. As it was he had made the most of his natural talents and was the best paid stool pigeon in America.

Having got rid of an attentive waiter, Robert Recklow turned his attention to the entertainment of his unusual guest and the observation of the men and women about him. He had chosen the Franconia Roof for his rendezvous with Eastman for a specific reason. Here, perhaps, they would be free from the prying eyes of the dark and formidable foe which Recklow feared above anything he had ever encountered. And Recklow’s enviable record attested to the fact that he was a man not easily frightened.

As he refilled his guest’s glass, Recklow’s eye caught sight of a couple just entering the roof-garden to take a table beneath one of the colorful canopies. The woman wore a creamy, clinging evening dress. Her beautifully arranged hair was the blue-black of a raven’s wing. Her nose was delicate perfection, her lips petulant. Yet there was something—some fleeting shadow, perhaps, across her pale cheeks—that held an eternity of suffering. Her dark eyes burned with a light that might have been kindled by an intense love, or an equally intense hate.

Her escort was remarkable only in the fact that his hair was obviously not the color it appeared to be. Aside from a square and savage-looking jaw, his features were commonplace. His hands, unwholesomely puffy, indicated that he was well past his physical prime, though he seemed scarcely older than Recklow.

Recklow leaned across the small table to deposit a neat cone of cigar ash into a trap. He seemed to be still looking out over the edge of the roof-garden railing. He spoke quietly.

“The man and woman who just came in, Mr. Eastman. Have you ever seen them before, especially in connection with your—er—work?”

EASTMAN, whose glance was habitually surreptitious, looked quickly in the direction of the newcomers. A soft whistle escaped his lips. Then his close-set, piggish eyes roved back to Recklow’s face. “She’s a beauty, mister, and I got an eye for the women. No, I never piped the dame before. I’d remember a woman like her. Never seen the guy with her, either. Big shots, eh?”

“The very biggest,” murmured Recklow. “Countess Savinna has been involved in several plots that have shaken the very foundations of certain countries of Continental Europe. And the man is no other than Clyde Dewarren, who inherited the Dewarren munitions millions. Dewarren and Savinna,” he mused. “The fuel and the flame.” Robert Recklow stroked his mustache.”

An easy smile was on Mr. Eastman’s lips as he leaned back in his chair and regarded his host. After a moment, he said: “Well how’s about it, mister. You wanted info, didn’t you?”

Recklow took out a box that carried the label of a well-known brand of Egyptian cigarettes. He pushed the box across the table to Eastman, gestured with his cigar.

There was a gleam of understanding in his hired informer’s eyes. Eastman hunched over the cigarette box. “Thanks,” he said, “I don’t mind if I do.” He opened the lid of the box and a look of satisfaction crossed his face. In place of cigarettes, he had sighted a tightly rolled wad of currency of large denomination. Then satisfaction was gone, and for the first time in his spotted career “Easy” Eastman looked anything but at ease. “You’re sure it’s okeh to talk here?” he asked.

Recklow nodded slowly. “I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain. Now it is your turn.”

A definite scowl seemed to draw Eastman’s eyes even closer together. “It’s the biggest outfit I ever got up against,” he said in a husky whisper, “It ain’t like anything I ever seen before. It’s sort of nuts, if you get me. A kind of society—”

“I know,” Recklow cut in. “I know something of its scope. But you—you gained admission to the organization. And while I am chiefly concerned with the mysterious society’s relation to the disappearance of Sir Samuel Cummings, of England’s foreign office, I am also interested in the propelling motive behind the—the damned thing. Is this society communistic?”

Eastman shook his head. “What do you think they call their high Mogul? Oh, you’ll get a laugh out of this.”

In the sky above was a steady drone, ever increasing in intensity. Eastman’s eyes rolled upwards. For some unaccountable reason, sweat had started out on his forehead.

“That above everything else I would like to know,” whispered Recklow. “Who is their chief?”

Eastman ran a finger along inside his collar. The plane drew nearer and nearer.

“Out with it man!” urged Recklow.

“The big shot of the whole crew,” continued Eastman after he had moistened his lips, “is a guy they call Emperor. That don’t sound communistic, does it? Emperor Zero,” he concluded with a shudder.

RECKLOW nodded his head understandingly. “When Sir Samuel disappeared, taking with him certain scientific secrets of the utmost importance to Great Britain, a scrap of paper was left in his office. It bore only a blood-red circle. My colleagues concluded that it was probably intended to represent the letter ‘O’. I maintained that it was a zero. But go on, Eastman.”

“Maybe I should oughta have another drink, mister,” said Eastman. “It sort of gets you, talkin’ about a thing like this. Tell you, mister, I been there—to the place where Zero holds his court.” The very thought drained the color from Eastman’s cheeks. He watched Recklow pour liquor. Then he drank mechanically. After a moment, he continued:

“He said somethin’ to me, mister. It was like when you know that a guy’s playin’ you for a sucker, only —I believed him! You’ll think I’m tight when I tell you this, but Zero said he was goin’ to—”

A silent, somber shadow glided across the white-covered table. Eastman tipped over his chair getting to his feet. He was no longer “Easy.” He was a mouse scurrying futilely to avoid the paw of a cat; a tiny chick running from a striking hawk; a pitiable insect flying in the path of a bat.

To a bat alone could the thing have been compared. The mighty shadow hovered a fraction of a second above the terrified Eastman. Then it dropped to the roof with a crackling, clumsy flutter of dark, membranous wings that, when extended, must have measured six feet across.

Music died in mid-bar. The night air was fraught with the screaming of women. Men became terrified into utter helplessness. For the thing from the skies might have been a being from another world. Its glassy, saucer eyes were set in a shapeless mask like wrinkled leather. It moved erect, wings folded to its sides—walked straight for the paralyzed Eastman.

Again the horrible fluttering of wings, and another bat settled to the roof and made straight for the table of the lovely Countess Savinna and Clyde Dewarren. A hand, like a black, leathery talon appeared from the folded wings of this second hideous hybrid. It held a deadly automatic, trained upon the countess and her escort. Back, until doors were closed after them.

And at the same time, the first giant bat had forced Eastman toward the roof-garden railing. But in his hands was another weapon, the more terrifying because it was totally unfamiliar. In size and shape, this weapon was something like a fire extinguisher. Yet it was something like a high-powered grease gun with a trigger-like lever emerging at an acute angle from the cylinder.

Among all the men on the Franconia Roof that night, one alone had the presence of mind to master fear. Robert Recklow spurred himself from the fearful stupor that had paralyzed him. He hurled himself at the bat-creature. But the thing from the sky was on the alert. Its heavy weapon swung, caught Recklow a powerful blow on the shoulder and bowled him to the floor.

Then the black talon of the thing constricted on the lever at the side of the cylinder, drawing it closer to the body of the weapon. A sound like the escape of air from a tire. Vapor, faintly pink as a sunset cloud and as deadly as cyanide, swirled about the head of Eastman. Then the cloud disseminated, spreading across the roof.

Eastman was the first to show the effects of the gas. Almost at once, his pale face became curiously flushed. His every muscle fluttered like a leaf. Arteries in his neck began to throb. Legs and arms twitched, picking up the mad rhythm of his furiously beating heart. He was panting like a dog; then dancing, wild gyrations such as even a dervish could never perform. But his face was the focal point of the horrid transformation that was going on inside him. For he was aging perceptibly—years in seconds. His hair was bleached to a silvery whiteness.

Still he danced—the dance macabre —flinging his arms about in mad abandonment, circling nearer and nearer the edge of the roof until his quivering, ancient body hurled itself against the stone ledge and pitched head first over the edge. A strident scream that seemed born of no human throat ripped up from the void to diminish horribly. Then sudden death.

Excerpt From: Brant House. “Brand of the Metal Maiden”