Spider (17 page)

The two robots that remained stood side by side before the entrance of the library. As Wentworth marched toward them, hands aswing at his side, he saw the Iron Man stoop toward one of the great stone lions before the library! Before Wentworth guessed his purpose, the lion was hurled at him!

It was the handicap of the robot monsters that they could not move swiftly. Wentworth pivoted, took a long step to the side, and the granite lion struck the pavement and shattered like a bomb. A huge fragment smashed against the left knee of Wentworth's robot and knocked the leg out from under him. Outflung hands caught Wentworth as he went down, and he was upon his feet before the two robots could destroy him. But when he moved forward the left leg dragged. Yet, as the smaller robot tried to wrench the other lion loose, Wentworth was upon it!

Wentworth's mechanical hands seized upon one arm of the robot, and he began to twist! For an instant, the other strained fiercely, then it lifted the finger gun and blasted at the glass eyes of Wentworth's robot! The bullet did not penetrate, but the glass frosted over. Wentworth did not change his stance, but kept up the inexorable twisting. He heard a shriek of sirens and guessed that a new squad of bomb-throwers had come. A blow on the side of the helmet jarred him to his spine, and he twisted the robot head to see the Iron Man himself.

It was a smashing downblow of the fist that had struck on the helmet. The seams of it had started to separate under that impact, and Wentworth knew that another would drive the metal into his skull! A shout of defiance lifted to Wentworth's lips. He flung all the power of his robot into a final wrench on the metal arm of the other, and swung toward the Iron Man!

The Iron Man staggered backward and the second blow miscarried. There was a shriek of tortured metal, and Wentworth found that he had torn loose the steel arm of the robot! It was the monster's fall that had driven the Iron Man backward!

Once more, the laughter of the
Spider
rang through the street! He lifted the steel arm like a club and struck downward. In the wreckage of the robot at his feet, nothing stirred and he lifted his head then toward the Iron Man himself! The Iron Man was fleeing!

Grimly, Wentworth pursued. He fought the crippled mechanism of his robot, saw a flaming bottle-bomb sail past just in front of him! What the devil—couldn't the police see he was fighting their battle for them?

"Fools!" he cried, "I am your friend!" His voice beat back on his own ears, but did not sound outside the steel casque. During the fight, the speech mechanism had been smashed! And the Iron Man already was turning the corner a half block away!

Wentworth drove the robot into a run—a killing task. Each stride drove the steel feet crackling into the pavement; each shortened stride of the left leg almost threw him, but he persisted. He felt warmth upon his back and knew that a flame-bomb must have burst there. His clenching teeth bit out curses, but he drove on violently, rounded the corner.

He stopped short then, staring in frustrated anger. The shell of the Iron Man lay prostrate upon the pavement—but the master criminal had fled!

Dimly, behind him, Wentworth heard the triumphant shout of the police and he felt the minor shock of another flame-bomb bursting against his back!

Blindly, Wentworth swung about. Without hesitation, he strode toward the high door of an office building on his right, and crashed through the metal framework with a single stride.

Swiftly, Wentworth's eyes swept over the interior. Double bronze doors opened into a bank entrance. He reached the doors, tore them open, and stumbled in and shut them. He eased the robot to a squatting position against the doors. He could count on its enormous weight to hold them shut for a few moments. He reached out then for the fastenings of the helmet.

They were hot to the touch, scorched his fingers, but finally drove the helmet free. In the same instant, he freed himself from the straps that held him and hurled himself head-foremost from the imprisoning oven of the armor! He struck the floor on his shoulders, came tumbling to his feet. Somewhere near him, glass crashed and he heard the heavy hammer of police guns, closer.

The
Spider
darted along the wall, raced for the rear door that he knew must open into a hall. He made it just ahead of the police who were racing to shut that exit. He plunged down cellar steps. The black cape kited out from his shoulders.

It was a work of minutes to find a way out of the cellar, to dart into a side street. Even so, he was only moments ahead of the police as he commandeered a taxi whose driver gaped in awe, ten yards away. Wentworth ground the accelerator to the floor and whipped about in a violent U-turn. He was flashing past the corner before the police could organize, and he had gained three blocks before he heard the first yelp of the sirens!

Wentworth knew where he was going, but there was a desperate need for haste. His only chance of proving what he knew to be a fact was to catch the Iron Man before he had the opportunity to remove the traces of his activity. And the police would give him so little time; this taxi was so damnably slow.

When presently he whirled toward the East River, sharp laughter burst from his lips. There was the wall about the Drexler home and there, just turning in through the gate, was a fast-driven sedan! It was too dark for Wentworth to see the man who drove it, but he fought another fraction of speed from the taxi and headed for the fast-closing gates. He caught them an instant before they locked, ripped one entirely free from its hinges. Ahead of him, the sedan was sliding into the garage. Those doors were swifter. They had slid into place before Wentworth could reach them, but he did not hesitate.

In an instant, he had leaped from the driver's seat and was racing, not toward the garage, but toward the house itself! His shoulder drove inward an ancient door, and he reeled across the room, to the stairs that led to the basement!

He cleared the basement stairs in two long leaps, cut toward the steel door that closed off the wine cellar. He checked there for an instant to manipulate the lock, and then he swung it wide. He flicked on the light in the wine cellar—and out of the darkness, a robot reached for him!

Blinded though Wentworth was by the instantaneous flash of the lights, he caught a glimpse of that steel-taloned hand as it streaked toward his feet! Wentworth sprang convulsively into the air, felt the jerk as the talons bit into the tail of his cape, and then he was hurtling through the air, toward the robot.

Wentworth had no hope of knocking the robot off of his feet, but for the
Spider,
police hard on his heels, there could be no retreat. There was only one way, and that was forward! His left arm circled the neck of the robot, he flung his legs high and went over the shoulder of the steel monster to land lightly on his feet in the middle of the wine cellar!

In the same instant, Wentworth wrenched out his automatics, but he did not turn them upon the robot, which was turning to attack him. He knew too well the uselessness of that process. Instead, he pivoted slowly on his heel and his bullets sped true. Each one knocked out the spigot of a wine barrel! In an instant, the ground was drinking in wines.

It took only an instant, and then Wentworth was forced to leap from the path of the robot. A huge foot had lifted to crush him, and a steel fist swung viciously at his head. The fist missed and swept on to bash in the front of a hogshead. There was an instant, eager gush of red wine and Wentworth leaped warily to crouch close against a stone wall in the protection of another wine tun.

Overhead, Wentworth caught the heavy pound of feet and knew that the police already were charging into the house. God, he had so little time! Even now, he was certain to be trapped when the police rushed to the wine cellar. He shifted again and the groping robot crushed another wine tun, released a fresh flood of liquor over the floor.

With a taunting laugh, Wentworth leaped into clear view of the robot. His guns were sheathed now, and the robot turned heavily to face him. It took a long stride toward Wentworth and, in the same instant, the
Spider
sprang into the air. His upreaching hands grasped the asbestos-covered steam pipe well up toward the ceiling, and as he swung there, the robot uttered a muffled shout and reached for him with fiercely powerful hands! At the same instant, Wentworth heard the door at the head of the wine cellar steps wrenched open, and the quick shouts of the police!

There was no time, no time at all. Wentworth ripped an automatic from beneath his arm and blasted lead upward at the ceiling. The light went out in the same instant. There were crazy shouts behind him, then the brilliant beams of flashlights cut the darkness.

To the men grouped on the stairs; to Nita, who stood in helpless terror there beside Kirkpatrick, they showed a curious sight! Wentworth was dangling by one hand from the steam pipes and, as the robot reached for him, he grabbed into the darkness over his head and then stabbed that hand toward the robot! Only Nita saw what he was doing, and a gasp tore at her throat. She saw the black electric wire in his hand, and guessed that the single bullet he had fired had cut that wire in half!

So much she saw, and then there was a blinding flash of blue-white light as the naked tip of the electric wire ground against the steel armor of the robot. Its feet were knee-deep in wine, a perfect ground. There was that moment of intense illumination, and when it was blotted out, the glare of the flashlights were dark by comparison. The robot seemed to leap clear of the earth, and then crash backward into the flood of wine. For a moment longer, the
Spider
clung to his high perch and then he, too, dropped into the knee-deep wine, harmless now that the broken wire no longer touched the steel robot.

Kirkpatrick was half-way down the stairs. "All right,
Spider,
" he said quietly, "get your hands up!"

Before Kirkpatrick could protest, Wentworth had stooped. With a few deft movements, he loosened the helmet of the robot, and dragged the dead operator into sight. His face was distorted, but Nita looked at it in amazement, even while she was tortured with the certainty of Dick's capture. She had never seen the man.

"A stranger to most of you, eh, gentlemen?" the
Spider
murmured. "But you know him, Kirkpatrick, and you, Drexler. How about Drexler, senior, there, do you know him?"

Nita was aware then that the two men had moved up behind her, were crowding past her to the stairs, but it was Kirkpatrick who answered.

"Louis Montose," he said in amazement. "But he can't be the Iron Man!"

"You're right," Wentworth said quietly. "He was just a minor crook, who worked for the real villain of the piece, who stands just beside you on the steps!"

Kirkpatrick glanced to his right, and uttered a disgusted exclamation. "Drexler cannot be guilty!" he said sharply. "I have checked him on every point, and he is in the clear!"

Wentworth smiled, "It is queer what things a man can achieve when he has been a weakling all his life," he said softly, but still in the mocking intonation of the
Spider.
"It is queer what dreams that sort of life can breed, dreams of
power
! Look to your left, Kirkpatrick, and tell me . . . what are those red objects in the ears of Drexler's father?"

Kirkpatrick said, emptily, "Drexler's father? Now,
I
know you are mad,
Spider!
A weak old man. . . ."

"A weakling all his life," Wentworth said softly, "but within a robot, his strength becomes that of a giant. A touch of a lever and he can smash in a building.
What is that in his ears?
"

Kirkpatrick said, in bewilderment, "Why he has some of those rubber stopples used to keep water out of the ears in swimming!"

"Or to reduce the incredible racket those robots make, when you're inside one!" Wentworth threw in. "Also, if you will take off the hat of Drexler senior, you will see there the marks made by the straps of a crash helmet such as this dead man wears!"

Old Drexler's face was suddenly fiery red. He twisted toward his son. "You turned me in, you mealy-mouthed coward!" he said shrilly. "I was doing all this for you, to make you the greatest man in the world, something I never had the strength to do! You—"

Old Drexler whipped up his cane and made a violent swing with it. It just missed his son's head and the old man lost his footing and pitched headlong down the steps! His foot caught in the open work of the stairs and he lay there, head down, hands upthrown and dangling, just touching the wine that was red as spilled blood.

"No, don't touch him!" Wentworth said softly. "He's already dead, as you can see from the blueness of his face. Heart failure, I should judge." As he spoke, he bent forward and pressed the base of his cigarette lighter against the chilling flesh of the dead man's forehead, and when he straightened there glowed there the crimson seal of the
Spider
!

Inarticulate rage burst in a roar from Drexler's throat. "You killed him, you trickster!" he shouted, and leaped down the steps!

Kirkpatrick shouted, tried to stop Drexler, but it was too late. Kirkpatrick fired a single shot that went wide of its mark, and then the
Spider
was fleeing across the cellar with Drexler raging behind him. They reached an alcove in the left-hand wall, and Kirkpatrick shouted fiercely.

"Down here, men!" he cried. "And careful! We've trapped the
Spider
too often to have him get away now! I want every man down here, gun in hand!"

* * *

Kirkpatrick himself stood on the steps, with his gun poised while the men in police blue filed past him. Nita twisted her hands. There was no sound in the cellar save for the splashing of the policemen as they moved to close the mouth of that alcove. Nita looked desperately about. She could pull her gun and, perhaps, hold them all captive while Dick made his get-away. She caught the small automatic from her bodice . . . and a hand clamped rigidly down on her wrist.