Spider (5 page)

Wentworth said, "No, no, I only thought that at first. The man has on a private police agency's uniform. But there is one of your men killed."

Kirkpatrick said violently, "Will you talk sense, Dick? I demand that you give me the whole truth at once! It isn't just luck that I'm here, you know!"

Wentworth said slowly, "Do you want to have someone take down this statement?"

Kirkpatrick started to gesture toward a plainclothesman who had followed him through the doors, then he stared at Wentworth with suddenly narrowed eyes. "We'll take the statement in your apartment," he said sharply. "Come along!"

Wentworth looked at him while his mind raced desperately. Kirkpatrick had seen through his stall, or at least had become suspicious of delay . . . and Jackson had not yet had time to arrange matters as he had ordered. He shrugged heavily.

"Oh, all right," he said and started toward the elevator, then turned toward the telephone operator. "By the way, if Miss van Sloan should call—"

"Disregard that!" Kirkpatrick snapped at the operator. "By God, Dick, if you're trying any hocus-pocus on me! Why should you come down here to call a policeman? You have two private lines into your home in addition to the one through the switchboard!"

Wentworth faced Kirkpatrick, and there was no smile on his face. "The way you have been behaving lately Kirk," he said shortly, "with your suspicions and persecution of me, I find it expedient to have witnesses for every movement of mine."

Kirkpatrick did not quail under the direct gaze of Wentworth's grey-blue eyes, but a small frown knifed between his brows. "I warn you, Dick," he said quietly, "that every second of delay increases my suspicions of you! I told you it was not luck that I had come here! I have a tip that—"

"That what?" Wentworth demanded as Kirkpatrick broke off.

"That will come later," Kirkpatrick said shortly. "Into the elevator at once, or I'll go up without you!"

Wentworth nodded and stepped into the cage. The uniformed man and Kirkpatrick's secretary followed and the elevator sped upward. Wentworth said, wearily, "I suppose I'll have to put up with these suspicions of yours, Kirk, but I warn you they're wearing hard on my liking for you. After all, friendship is based on mutual respect, and really—"

"I'll ask you to account for your movements, Dick," Kirkpatrick interrupted sharply, "from seven o'clock tonight onward!"

"Under the circumstances, perhaps I'd better call my lawyer first," Wentworth snapped, "though I fail to see why I should fall under suspicion for having killed a burglar in my own home! A burglar I tried to capture, and who fired on me twice before I returned a shot!"

"So that's what happened, is it?" Kirkpatrick asked. His voice was utterly without expression.

"Would it be asking too much?" Wentworth went on bitterly, "to demand the reason for your presence, since you would hardly bring your secretary and other officers on a friendly call?"

The elevator sighed to a halt, and Kirkpatrick strode out of the cage without reply, jabbed hard at the bell beside Wentworth's door. Wentworth stood idly aside. He had done what he could to delay the police. If Jackson were not ready now, he would have to make a break for it! He peered covertly toward the two men who accompanied Kirkpatrick. Sergeant Reams, the officer in uniform, was not a man who needed orders, otherwise he would not have been Kirkpatrick's bodyguard. He stood by the elevator with a revolver ready in his fist!

The door of Wentworth's penthouse opened on the safety chain, and through the opening Wentworth saw the dark bearded face and turbaned head of his other confidential servitor, Ram Singh.

"Open the door," Kirkpatrick ordered brusquely.

Ram Singh's dark eyes regarded Kirkpatrick impassively. "Pardon, Kirkpatrick
sahib
," he said in the deep rumble of his voice, "but do you come in friendship or as the police? If you come as the police . . ."

Kirkpatrick's anger flushed into his cheekbones, but he checked the angry retort that sprang to his lips. "Confound it, Dick!" he snapped, "there is a reason for these delays!"

"Quite," Wentworth murmured, and his smooth black eyebrows arched in mockery. "The reason lies in your own anger and impatience, for as the Hindus say . . ." he lapsed into the Hindustani which Ram Singh understood. "
If all is well, open the door, my comrade. Otherwise, have trouble with the lock.
Which means, Kirk, that the angry man maketh his own impediments."

"Will you order this stubborn Sikh—" Kirkpatrick began, but cut off as the door swung smoothly open.

Ram Singh bowed low, and hid the mockery in his dark gaze. "A thousand pardons, Kirkpatrick
sahib
," he rumbled. "My turban is in the dust! I did not know that my master accompanied his friend!"

Kirkpatrick strode past him with an oath, and from inside the apartment, Jackson's voice called out calmly, "You came quickly, sir! The body is in here!"

Wentworth followed the angry strides of Kirkpatrick across the drawing room toward the arch that gave into the music chamber beyond, and his quick eyes flashed over the chaste simplicity of the furnishings. He smothered an oath. The body was stretched out as he had ordered upon the floor, and there were bullet scars obviously from the gun in the man's hand . . . but Wentworth's eyes were fixed on a number of objects placed about the room. They were cleverly disposed, so that they seemed a part of the furnishings, yet Wentworth knew that they were stolen property!

On the grand piano, there was an exquisitely carved Ming vase of moonlight jade, and on the mantel a small antique clock of French fame caught glittering lights with the swing of a pendulum encrusted with precious stones! Surely, the Iron Man, or whoever directed the robot's movements, did not stint for money when he planned a frame-up! Those articles had a value in hundreds of thousands, and their possession might well tempt even a Richard Wentworth to robbery!

Kirkpatrick was standing over the body of the dead man. He reached down to lift the head by the hair, swore softly as he let it fall.

"Your burglar," he said acidly, "is a trusted agent of a private protection agency famed for its integrity. The Drexler agency! But I don't need to tell you that. You know Frank Drexler! Nor do I see that he has stolen anything!"

Wentworth said slowly, "You are quite right, Kirk. It is apparent that this is a most peculiar burglar. He came bearing gifts!" He strolled across the room toward the Ming vase, made a slow business of reaching out for it. "This vase, as I happen to know, being something of a connoisseur in such matters, belongs to one Aaron Smedley, whose house was robbed tonight, and—"

"
Don't touch that vase!
" Kirkpatrick snapped.

Wentworth let his hand freeze in mid-air, while he turned with lifted brows toward Kirkpatrick. "What have I done now?" he demanded.

Kirkpatrick was standing on braced legs, and his hands were clasped hard behind him. "I do not want your fingerprints on that vase, Dick," he said quietly. "
Unless they are already there!
"

Wentworth shrugged irritably, "Really, Kirk, you're going too far!" He turned angrily across the room. "I insist on an immediate fingerprint test. I have materials here. . . . And would it be asking too much if you also fingerprint the corpse? Or is it a criminal offense for me to make the suggestion?" He continued to fume while he jerked open the drawer of the desk, caught out envelopes of powder, a sufflator, ink pad and papers. "Apparently, you suspect me of robbery! Well, I've confessed homicide. That should satisfy you."

He flung the articles on the desk and Kirkpatrick took them quickly, but Wentworth stood staring down into the drawer. It was only an instant's pause that did not catch the commissioner's attention, but the discovery he made set Wentworth's heart to racing painfully. He had, perhaps, escaped one trap that had been set for him by the fiendish ingenuity of these criminals. It was unlikely Kirkpatrick could contradict the testimony of those fingerprints on the loot. He had hoped to get rid of Kirk now, race on with his investigation—and he had only discovered a second trap! The Iron Man had not been content with planting loot here and tipping the police. The same man who had placed the evidence here had, at the same time, set another snare!

In that drawer, Wentworth habitually kept an automatic registered in his name, and licensed to him. And that gun was gone!

Wentworth had no doubt as to the whereabouts of that gun, or what had been the purpose of the theft. As surely as death itself, that gun was planted now in one of the looted houses; and equally certain, too, was the fact that a bullet would have been fired from it into the mutilated corpse of one of the guards!

A slow and bitter smile disturbed Wentworth's lips. Truly, the Iron Man planned well! Somehow now, he must elude the police, and get to the murder scene before that incriminating gun was found!

Kirkpatrick's voice came to his ears with an accent of relief, but with a reserve that puzzled Wentworth.

"The fingerprints on the vase and clock are undoubtedly those of the dead man," Kirkpatrick said quietly. "Now, Dick, I must ask you to accompany me."

Wentworth turned slowly, and his face was expressionless, but he felt that he knew the answer to this invitation even while he phrased the query, "That's always a pleasure, Kirk," he said, "though I'm a bit weary just now. Would it be impertinent to ask where it is you wish to go?"

Kirkpatrick was unsmiling, too. "I want you to go with me," he said quietly, "to the home of Aaron Smedley."

Wentworth felt the shock of those words and knew that his suspicions were correct. Not only had the gun been planted as he feared—
but Kirkpatrick had been tipped off about that, too!

Now there was no chance at all of evading Kirkpatrick, of getting there first. He must be with the commissioner when the police found the gun which would pin upon him one of the most atrocious murders the city had known! Against that evidence, the trickery played here would not stand up an instant! Kirkpatrick's keen mind would tell him how he had been tricked. But, damn it, the
Spider
could not allow himself to be imprisoned! The lives of many of the city's people would be crushed like ants beneath the iron tread of those grim robots, unless the
Spider
remained at liberty!

Something close to panic goaded Wentworth then, not a fear for himself, but the certainty of the fate that threatened the people he loved and served. Panic. . . .

Wentworth shrugged and, by a violent effort, made his voice easy. "Certainly, Kirk," he agreed. "I will go wearily with you to the home of Aaron Smedley. After that, I hope you will allow me an opportunity to sleep!"

Kirkpatrick's frown refused to lift. "Yes, Dick," he said. "I only hope that you will be allowed to sleep comfortably in your own bed, and not—"

"Not in one of your private guest chambers," Wentworth interrupted with enforced gaiety. "The ones with bars and tool-steel doors!"

Chapter Three
The Trap Is Sprung

THROUGH A LONG MOMENT, the two friends stood face-to-face in the middle of that death-marked music room. The half-angry smile lingered on Wentworth's lips, but Kirkpatrick was completely grave. Wentworth knew that each move the commissioner made against him stabbed Kirkpatrick to the heart; he knew that Kirk would be the more grimly determined to press the evidence against him for that very reason. Wentworth's mind was racing ahead, canvassing every possibility. Somehow, he had to evade making the trip with Kirkpatrick, arrive before him at the looted home of Aaron Smedley. Not until then could he strike back at these murderous criminals who were, so early in the war, trying to destroy the man they must recognize as their most dangerous enemy! Yes, he must elude Kirkpatrick—but it must be done in such a way that no suspicion attached to him! Wentworth wheeled abruptly away. "I'll be with you, Kirk, as soon as I change to more appropriate clothing."

Kirkpatrick said, "Certainly. . . . Sergeant Reams, stay in sight of him the entire time."

Wentworth bowed swiftly, but made no demur and accomplished his rapid change under the watchful eyes of Kirkpatrick's bodyguard—and Sergeant Reams kept his revolver in his fist!

Wentworth's stride was crisp with anger as he returned to the music room, clad now in the dark tweeds he preferred, and it put an edge on his voice when he spoke to Kirkpatrick. "As you know," he said, "Nita is always in danger whenever I have been attacked, and I can give no other interpretation to what happened here tonight. You won't mind if I phone her to be careful?"

"No objection," Kirkpatrick told him tonelessly. "You won't mind making the call from this room?"

Wentworth smiled thinly as he swung toward a wall cabinet and removed a portable telephone. He plugged it into a jack in the wall, and went through the routine of dialing a number. He had only one chance of evading Kirkpatrick, and that would draw Nita into danger as well as himself. There was no other way . . . and he had plugged the telephone into a radio circuit instead of the regular phone line. That very action would start the transmitter on the roof into operation. He could only hope that Nita would be listening.. . . .

"Nita, dear?" he threw his voice into the air. "I'm glad I caught you at home. Yes, I'm at home, too. I wish you were here!" He emphasized that phrase very slightly. If Nita heard, she would know what he meant, and she would get here as quickly as possible. "No, unfortunately, I have to go out again. Kirkpatrick has invited me most urgently. . . ."

Kirkpatrick said shortly, "Cut that short, Dick! You wanted to warn her!"

Wentworth's shoulders tautened at the peremptory tone. Kirkpatrick must indeed be on edge. He made no response, continued to speak into the blankness of the air. If only he could be sure Nita was listening!

"Dear, I want you to take particularly good care of yourself. Keep your gun always handy. Yes, I've been attacked once tonight by this new criminal gang, and that means danger . . . to you, dear. Yes, of course, I'll be careful. I'm always ready for any unexpected events that may develop. As you say it is the unexpected thing that is demoralizing. You know the Hindustani proverb?"