Spider (19 page)

The Bat Man . . . no need to inquire what they meant. He had suspected human agency behind the attacks of the vampire bats. These men knew and they called the master of the winged killers . . .
the Bat Man!

The
Spider
waited tensely for this oddly-named man to show himself. His guns were ready. . . . Instantly, instinctively, the
Spider
had sprung from the spot he stood when the lights went out, but no one moved to attack him. There was a wild stampede of feet toward the door. Latham cried out.

"Keep that door shut, damn you!" His gun streaked flame out of the darkness. Near the door, a man groaned and thumped to the floor.

"Keep away from that door!" Latham shouted again, his panic barely under control. "I'll shoot the first man who touches it."

The
Spider
realized abruptly that the running in the hall had ceased. Either the man had seen the bodies there and fled in terror, or . . .
or the bats already had struck!
The
Spider
crouched to the floor, so that he caught the gray light of the window across the room—so that he could watch movement about him. No one budged. A man whimpered off to his right near the door and the one who had fallen at Latham's shot breathed with rattling breath. Latham had aimed well. He was cursing monotonously.

"You see,
Spider,
" he whispered. "You see, he's after me. The Bat Man . . . !"

His voice was drowned in the bellowing blasts of shotguns just outside the window. There was a tearing, ripping sound of wire screen and the
Spider
saw against the gray square of the window the fluttering form of a bat!

"Cover your throat, Latham!" he shouted. "A bat just came in the window."

Even as he cried the warning, a half-dozen more of the black, loathsome things dodged in through the torn screening. A shuddering moan came from Latham.

"You can't tell when they bite," he whimpered. "You can't tell. Oh, God . . . !"

With his teeth set, the
Spider
whipped out his fountain pen flashlight, squeezed out its widely diffused ray. He saw a dodging, leathery-winged beast within inches of his face. The bat flicked away, but the
Spider's
bullet was swifter than its flight. The creature was torn to bits by forty-five caliber lead and the
Spider
pressed back against the wall, watching, watching. . . .

Abruptly, he became aware of two things. Within the house, all was silence. And there, but dimly heard, came a shrill, monstrous squeaking, as if a giant bat called to its kind!

It sounded again and black bat forms fluttered through the beam of the
Spider's
light, whirled toward the window and were gone.

One more of the creatures the
Spider
smashed with lead; then he was alone with the thumping of his heart, the reverberations of his shot. He lifted his gloved left hand and touched away the moisture that had oozed out through his facial make-up. He acknowledged to himself that in those few seconds, crouched against the wall, he had known the cold touch of fear. Bats with poisoned teeth . . . ! He fought down a shudder.

On swift, silent feet, the
Spider
crossed the room and peered out of the window. The entire mansion was dark and on the grounds nothing visible moved. The squeaking which clearly had recalled the bats had now ceased and far off, toward where the moon sank, a dog howled. Upward, there was nothing except the blackness of the sky. . . . Suddenly, the
Spider's
teeth shut upon a curse, his guns swirled upward. But he knew that shooting would be vain. His eyes were narrow as he stared. . . .

No bat ever had that wing spread, nor flew with that gliding, motionless ease. And yet, sliding effortlessly across the starry sky, the
Spider
beheld a creature
with bat wings fully ten feet across!

Even as he watched, the thing steeped its angle of dive and sped out of sight over the close, clustering trees that reached upward toward the sky. For long moments after it was gone, the
Spider
crouched there at the window. He was aware of his quickened breath, of the aching in the forearm of the hand that held his gun.

"It was out of range," he whispered to himself. "Out of range!"

He jerked his head angrily, reached up a gloved hand to shut the window, then turned back to the room. Almost the
Spider
doubted his eyesight. No, no, he had
seen
the thing. His eyes had been too well trained in a thousand situations where life and liberty, a thousand lives, hinged on the accuracy of his vision. Breath hissed noisily out between his teeth. Latham had cried, "The Bat Man!" Was it possible that what he had seen was a . . . a man with wings!

The
Spider
spread the light of his torch over the floor. There was no doubt in his own mind of what he would find, but the horror written largely on Latham's twisted features tightened his own grim mouth. Latham had covered his throat, so the bat had fastened to his hand. He was dead.

Slowly, the
Spider
turned the beam upon the other two in the room. They were dead, too. He found the instrument which had smashed out the screening of the window—a spear with a special collar of light, steel blades which extended fully nine inches all around the haft. It must have been hurled with terrific force, for the screening was double, a heavier screen mesh outside the usual lighter wire.

The
Spider
made his way swiftly through the darkened house, avoiding the bodies of men that were everywhere scattered in distorted, tortured attitudes of death. There was no use in carrying the bats he had killed with him. He had recognized them as vampires of an ordinary variety,
Desmodus rufus,
a tiny creature whose body was no more than three inches long, with a wing spread of only seven inches. He could recognize it by its reddish-brown body and the black wings with edging of white. The heavy bullet had smashed the animal too badly for him to examine its teeth. However, that was scarcely necessary. The
Spider
was terribly sure now that human agency was behind the murders.

At the outer door, the
Spider
paused for a moment, his eyes dark and narrow. Twenty-seven men had died here tonight by the bite of non-poisonous vampire bats. He himself had seen the attack. A cold fury swept him as he realized what havoc these same tactics would wreak if they were used against the populace at large. So far, the Bat Man had confined his attacks to a few gamblers, also creatures of the half-world like the bats. The
Spider
could not mourn their loss to humanity—but suppose the man went power-mad? Suppose the agency behind these attacks turned loose his murderous creatures upon cities, upon entire countrysides . . . ?

The
Spider's
lean, taut-skinned face set in determined lines. It was his job to keep such things from coming to pass!

His gun was in his hand as he stepped outside the door. A blazing light slapped the
Spider
in the face. From the close-pressing shrubbery, a man called hoarsely:

"Hands up, it's the law!" The voice broke off in a gasp. "Good God, it's—the
Spider
! The
Spider
sent them bats!"

"That's the man," broke in a girl's voice, a deep, emotional voice.

Then another man, shrill, almost hysterical with his discovery. "It's the
Spider
! The
Spider
!"

Chapter Two
"Death To The Spider!"

THE
SPIDER'S
GUN was ready at his side when the police behind the light challenged, but he did not fire. The
Spider
did not fight the law. He might go outside it in a thousand ways, kill, burglarize, kidnap. . . . But when he did, it was to smash criminals, to assist the law in its great work, because the police and other enforcement officers were hedged in by too many restrictions to operate effectively. He would die before he would fire upon one of the law's men.

Yet capture meant death for the
Spider
; it meant a revelation of his real identity and disgrace for his comrades and the one woman in the world who knew his secrets, Nita van Sloan. It meant even more than that. It meant that the law, for all its myriad successes against petty, customary criminals, would be without a means of combating this new terror that had arisen from the Underworld: the Bat Man, whose existence as yet they did not even suspect!

The thoughts flashed through the
Spider's
brain in the second he closed the door and felt the assault of the light. Useless to attempt a retreat. Before he could open the door and duck from sight, a dozen bullets would smash through his body. There were at least twenty men in the shrubbery out there. He could hear their rustling, their murmur as his identity was shouted hoarsely into the night. He might shoot out the light. It would give him an instant. But the night was scarcely dark enough to hope that he could flee unseen.

The
Spider
shrugged his shoulders, dropped the gun and raised his hands shoulder-high.

"I'm the
Spider,
all right," he admitted calmly, "but you'll have to hunt someone else to take the blame for the bats. I thought Latham was the man, but I was wrong."

Two men were coming out from behind the light now, walking wide lest they come between the guns and the
Spider.

"What do you mean, wrong?" asked the hoarse voice that first had spoken.

The
Spider
allowed his straight lipless mouth to twist into a smile. "You'll find out when you take a look inside."

The two men were close now. Each had fastened a handcuff to one of his own wrists and held the other cuff open, ready for the
Spider's
hand. His eyes turned cold as he saw that. He could escape from handcuffs that were fastened between his own wrists, but if he were chained to two men . . . !

"We'll look into that," the leader growled. "But it'll take more than your say-so to clear you. This young lady seen you comin' in here with a cage. . . . Stand still. There's ten guns on you!"

The
Spider
had started uncontrollably at the information that he had been seen entering the grounds. Why, this was utterly damning! How could he convince these men that the bats he had let escape had been harmless?

"Who accuses me?" he demanded sharply. "Let me see the one who accuses me?"

The leader's voice dropped a note. "Never mind that now. You keep out of sight, young lady. He's up to some trick."

The
Spider
frowned, his heart thudding in his breast. He had had no definite plan in mind, but it was apparent these men were alert for any trick. They would be eager to kill. . . . The two men approaching him, both of them broad, tall farmers, were within a foot or two with their ready handcuffs. They were his only chance, the
Spider
knew. He must somehow use these two to escape, for once those handcuffs closed about his wrists. . . . The men behind the light were watching keenly, for they understood the situation as well as he.

* * *

The
Spider
extended his left arm toward the man who approached from that direction, smiled at him with a thin parting of his lips.

"Come on, come on," he said impatiently. "What are you waiting for? You couldn't be afraid of the
Spider
?"

The man's young face flushed a little. He braced himself visibly and, holding the handcuff in both hands, stepped within reach of the outstretched hand, slapped the shackle about the wrist and fumbled to close the cuff. It was the very instant for which the
Spider
had waited. By offering his wrist so placidly for the bracelet, he had partially disarmed the man. But, even more important, he had obtained a hold on one of the men before the other had quite reached a place where he could act.

While the man still fumbled with the cuff, the
Spider's
fingers closed upon the chain between the shackles and, without a visible preliminary tensing of muscles—without a change in his face—he yanked savagely upon the bracelets. In his timidity, the man was leaning forward off-balance and the jerk pulled him directly in front of the
Spider,
between him and the guns that threatened.

The second man leaped forward and the
Spider
slammed his captive against him, slipped his wrist from the still-unfastened cuff and skipped backward through the door into the house. An excited man fired a shotgun and one of the struggling pair cried out in pain. The
Spider
heard all that as he slammed and bolted the door, then he raced to a window on the same side of the building.

The law men were already battering on the door. A window had been smashed in and gunshots were pouring death into the building. Guards were racing to surround the mansion. The
Spider
opened his window and waited. A guard started past the casement, paused and stared at it uncertainly, then inched forward. The silken rope snaked out of the darkness, yanked him to the window. A single blow knocked him out and the
Spider
was through the window and away. . . .

Once he was amid the shrubbery and trees, he was safe. Not even his namesake, the spider, could move more soundlessly than he. At the high, iron fence that surrounded the estate, he whistled softly in a weird, minor key. Seconds later, a shadow glided to the opposite side of the fence and a rope ladder, made of the same soft, silken cord, came swinging over. A moment later, he was speeding with that other shadow beside him, toward the hidden lane where he had parked the car.

"Wah!
Sahib!
" whispered the one beside him, "are we mice that we flee from battle?" He spoke in the Hindustani that was native to him.

The
Spider
chuckled. "They are men of the law, Ram Singh, more to be pitied for their stupidity than slain."