The Torture Trust by Brant House

Book Details

In this, the debut of Secret Agent “X”, the Agent must match wits with a coterie of criminals that uses torture and murder to extract ransoms from prominent figures.

Secret Agent “X” is a master of disguise and his true identity is never revealed. He adopts several different identities in each story. What we do know about “X” is that he served in the War (World War I) in intelligence and was wounded from which he got an X shaped scar. He is a dedicated crime-fighter working undercover for the U.S. government, although this is unknown to local police who consider him an outlaw. His true role is known only to newspaper reporter Betty Dale and his mysterious Washington controller, K-9.

The Torture Trust (1934)
Men with skulls for faces—these were the victims of that terrible trio who met in a hidden room. And Secret Agent “X” went against them, daring the bottled torment of their deaf-mute slaves, in a desperate battle of wits at the gateway of destruction.

Chapter I – Night Get-Away
Chapter II – Forced Testimony
Chapter III – The Agent’s Hide-out
Chapter IV – Police Net
Chapter V – The Acid Thrower
Chapter VI – Sinister Summons
Chapter VII – Masters of Death
Chapter VIII – Terrible Seconds
Chapter IX – The Murderers Strike
Chapter X – Torture!
Chapter XI – A Cry in the Dark
Chapter XII – Trapped!
Chapter XIII – The Plunge
Chapter XIV – The Mark of the Agent
Chapter XV – The Inspector Arrives
Chapter XVI – The Terrible Trio
Chapter XVII – Across Dark Waters
Chapter XVIII – The Raid
Chapter XIX – Mysterious Instructions
The Secret Council – Behind the Scenes with Secret Agent “X”

The Torture Trust was published in Secret Agent “X” in the February, 1934 issue, the first of forty-one issues.

The author of The Torture Trust was Paul Chadwick (1902–1972), the originator of the character Secret Agent “X,” the man of a thousand faces. The other writers of these stories were G. T. Fleming-Roberts (born George Thomas Roberts, 1910-1968) and Emile C. Tepperman (1899-1951).

The Torture Trust has 5 illustrations.

Files:

1. House-TortureTrust.epub

Excerpt: The Torture Trust

Chapter I

Night Get-Away

THE prison guard’s feet made ghostly echoes along the dimly lighted corridor of the State Penitentiary. The sound whispered weirdly through the barred chambers, dying away in the steel rafters overhead. The guard’s electric torch probed the cells as he passed, playing over the forms of the sleeping men.

It was after midnight. All seemed quiet within the great, gloomy building that was one of society’s bulwarks against a rising tide of crime.

The guard’s figure passed through a door at the end of a corridor, and the echoes at last ceased their eerie whisperings.

Seconds of silence passed. Then a new sound came. It issued from cell No. 17—the sound of furtive movement.

The man who had been lying as still as death when the guard passed threw his blankets aside. His hard, shrewd eyes gleamed eagerly. His narrow-boned face took on the alertness of a prowling weasel.

Jason Hertz, down on the prison books as convict No. 1088, had not been asleep at all.

His thin, clawlike hands, which had dabbled in every sort of crime from blackmail to murder, became suddenly active. He drew the blankets apart, wadded one into the shape of a sleeping man, and stuffed it under the other. Then he reached beneath his bunk and drew out a roundish object the size of a melon.

It was a ball made from stale bread mixed with water and kneaded together. The bread he had saved for the last three days. He set it on the end of the bunk nearest the door, covering the top of it with scraps of loose hair collected from the floor of the prison barber shop. It looked like the touseled head of a sleeping man and would serve to mislead the guard when he made his next tour of inspection.

Hertz pulled other articles from beneath his bunk—articles which had been smuggled to him under mysterious circumstances. And, as he looked at them, an uneasy expression crossed his face. He recalled the visitor who had come to him the day before and on other days during the past several weeks—the tall, gray-haired man whose card bore the name: “Crawford Gibbons, Attorney-at-Law.”

He recalled the strangely compellent look in the lawyer’s eyes, the forcefulness of his manner, the abrupt persuasiveness of his voice.

Who was Crawford Gibbons, and who was employing him? Why was he aiding Hertz to escape?

These were the questions Hertz had asked himself, for, behind the guard’s back, Gibbons had quietly slipped him a chamois-skin bundle. In it were tools and instructions making his getaway possible.

The prison authorities Regarded Hertz as a desperate criminal. Among his vicious associates in crime, he was rated as being hard-boiled and as dangerous as a snake. But the lawyer, Gibbons, had put fear into Jason Hertz’s heart. Gibbons had refused to answer questions, refused to reveal his motives. Yet, under the mysterious dominance of the man’s personality, Hertz had felt his own will crumbling. It was as though Gibbons had cast a spell over him.

Conflicting impulses stirred in Hertz’s mind; one, the desire to escape and go back to his underworld haunts; the other, the fear that he might be entering some sort of trap. He paused a moment fighting within himself. But it was useless. Something stronger than reason cried out that he must follow the lawyer’s instructions.

With a cleverly shaped skeleton key that Gibbons had given him, he opened the door and stepped into the corridor, every nerve alert. He listened, but no sound came except the snores of sleeping men.

Shoes off, as silent as a fox, he walked away from the cell, turning into a branch corridor. He climbed a flight of steel stairs and reached the empty cell block above used for overflow prisoners. It was as deserted as a tomb. Hertz entered one of the empty cells, grasped the bars, and climbed up toward the metal ceiling with the agility of an ape. There was a galvanized iron roof above him. For a moment he struck a match, feet braced on a crossbar below.

The tiny flickering flame showed that the metal, seemingly intact, had been cut through with a fine hack saw—his own handiwork of the night before.

He lifted his hand, pressed against the galvanized iron, and a circular piece of metal moved upward. A dark opening appeared, large enough for a man to crawl through.

Hertz thrust his fingers up, caught the strong edge of the thick metal, and lifted himself. He braced his elbows, rested a moment, then strained again. In a second he was in the narrow “attic” of the prison, between the ceiling and the roof.

A faint gleam of light made by the night sky showed ahead. Hertz crept toward it, across the top of the metal ceiling, careful to step on the steel rafters to which the sheet iron was fastened. He came to the light—the square opening of a barred window—and used his hands again.

Drawing a hack saw set in a metal frame from his blouse, he attacked the bars before him with the skill of a man accustomed to the use of tools. The hardened chromium bit through the bars one by one and Hertz wrenched them loose.

He fastened a loop of strong line, which he also took from his blouse, to the stub of one bar, threw the end out the window, and crawled through feet first. Hand over hand, he lowered himself to the ground below.

Clouds obscured the stars. Hertz moved forward in utter darkness, his bare feet soundless on the earth.

Excerpt From: Brant House. “The Torture Trust”