THE SPIDER-City of Doom (22 page)

Duncan glanced toward him, took short choppy strides toward the main arch. His brittle glance swept the floor before settling on the headwaiter.

"Any new guests in the last five minutes?" he snapped.

"Nearly ten," the headwaiter murmured. "The Saxon-Thompsons. Miss van Sloan . . . ."

"To hell with them!" Duncan whirled to the others, gestured with a tautness that made his arm move jerkily. The men wedged behind him. They moved on their toes, eyes darting everywhere, hands thrust into gun pockets. Mac stood against the wall. Just let the
Spider
pop out now from somewhere. This super-man talk was a lot of rot. There wasn't any man you couldn't kill with a bullet in the right place. He'd put his mark on the
Spider!

He grinned . . . then straightened.

A waiter with a worried frown swung around the corner from the main entrance. "You Mac?" he grunted. "There's a call for you in Duncan's office. Says come quick!"

Mac said, "Yeah? For me?"

He started toward the waiter, and the man turned away. They were around the corner for perhaps ten seconds, then Mac came bounding back.

"You get the number!" he called after the waiter. "I can't leave!"

His eyes stabbed quickly, hotly about the corridor, centered on the phone booths . . . on the booth at the very end. His round pale eyes stretched a little wider and the smile on his mouth became a twisted, sly grimace. He touched his tongue to his lips.

"Hey, you!" he snapped at the headwaiter. "Get Duncan, and get him fast!"

The headwaiter stiffened, stepped into the corridor. "Were you talking to me?" he asked indignantly.

Mac's head swung toward him deliberately, and his pale eyes fell on those of the headwaiter. The man quivered. "Yes, sir! Mr. Duncan, I'll get him!"

Mac kept his eyes on the booth, and Duncan came swiftly, slapping his heels down hard into the softness of the cushioned carpet. Mac pointed with his chin, his lips scarcely moving.

"The end booth," he murmured. "See that piece of black stuff sticking out through the door! That's the
Spider's
cape!"

Duncan drew in a quick, hard breath. His right hand snapped across his chest, came back into sight with a gun from an under-arm holster.

"You mugs close up this corridor," he whispered to the men at his back. "We don't want nobody from the dining-room butting in."

Duncan moved forward on his toes. Mac slipped from his side and came at the booth door from the other side. Their eyes shone, and their breath was noisy between colorless lips.

"Burn him down?" Mac formed soundless words.

Duncan nodded curtly. His teeth began to show between his lips. They were flat against the wall, against the other booths on each side of that partly opened door. Duncan reached out his hand, set it on the handle. He drew in a slow breath, his shoulders swelled. Then he whipped open the door!

With a muffled shout, Mac leaped forward, his gun lifted, ready. Duncan's gun was cradled against his hip.

White fumes roiled out of the opened door. Tendrils of smoke curled up toward the ceiling, swarmed about the shaded lights. There was that smoke, and the little tag-end of a black cape . . . and that was absolutely all. The booth was empty!

Duncan ripped out a harsh oath, spun toward Mac.

A booth five doors up the line was pushed open, and a man stepped out—a tall smiling man with a lithe self-confidence in his every movement, with his head, capped in crisp black hair, held commandingly. His evening dress was tailored perfection.

"What's the trouble, Duncan?" he drawled pleasantly. "Someone attempt to hold you up?"

Duncan whipped toward the man. For an instant, his face was out of control. His mouth was twisted by ugly rage, his eyes glittering. It was only an instant, then his calm gambler's mask dropped into place again, and he was smiling.

"A chiseler did a sneak on us, Mr. Wentworth," said Duncan suavely. "I hope we haven't disturbed you."

Wentworth smiled. The gesture of his right hand, a lean, delicately shaped hand, but powerful, was easy. "Not at all, Duncan," he said easily. "I hope you catch your . . . chiseler. I dislike such rabble."

"A chiseler did sneak out on us, Mr. Wentworth," said Duncan. "It's been a long time since we've seen you here. Welcome to the Hesperides." He stepped toward Wentworth . . .
and thrust out his right hand!

Wentworth's easy smile did not fade, though he knew well the significance of Duncan's offered handclasp. These killers knew that the
Spider
had been wounded in the right hand . . . and here was Wentworth on the spot where the
Spider
had vanished in a cloud of smoke! The wound, no more than a bullet-burn, but damnably painful none-the-less, was covered now with a swift hemostatic collodion. And Wentworth, calmly, deliberately, accepted Duncan's handclasp. Duncan's fingers clamped down with a vise-like pressure, and his powerful thumb dug into the back of Wentworth's wounded hand!

Pain shot up Wentworth's arm and jarred against his nervous system like a thousand jabbing knives, but it was not for nothing that Wentworth lived his double life; on one hand the wealthy gentleman of leisure, clubman, sportsman; and on the other, that secret avenger of the night, that champion of preyed-upon humanity—known as the
Spider!
His clasp of Duncan's hand was natural, easy, and the careless smile of his lips never wavered!

Through long seconds, Duncan held that grip . . . then he relaxed it and stepped back, and there was puzzlement in his black eyes.

"You give your guests a warm welcome, Duncan," Wentworth said easily. "I'm sorry I haven't dropped by before, but I've been . . . rather on the run lately!"

Duncan faltered, "I hope we didn't disturb you."

Wentworth waved his right hand carelessly, a lean, powerful hand, but delicately sensitive in shape. "Not at all. I couldn't reach my party, and I didn't like to leave my number. Always unsatisfactory, don't you think?" He turned toward the close-pressed rank that closed the corridor. "I hope you catch your chiseler!"

Unostentatiously, he tucked his right hand into his trouser pocket. The blood was squeezing out through the collodion . . . and these wolves would need no more than a glimpse of blood upon his right hand to close in with blazing guns! Such was their fear and hatred of the
Spider,
they would risk anything at all to bring him down!

He moved casually toward the corridor guards. His grey-blue eyes looked beyond them. The headwaiter was already bowing obsequiously . . . . And that row of killers, of men panting for the life of the
Spider,
lawless criminals who lived by the gun . . . . These men stepped aside and made a passage for Wentworth without waiting for an order from Duncan! Such was the force of the man, Wentworth.

The headwaiter bowed again, "This way, Mr. Wentworth," he said loudly. "Miss van Sloan is waiting!"

Mac was at Duncan's elbow. "You heard what he said, didn't you? He tried to get somebody, and wouldn't leave his number. Well, look here. Somebody phoned me in your office, sent word by the waiter. I turned my back for maybe ten seconds . . . ."

"Ten seconds," murmured Duncan. "Time enough. Yes, time enough for him to leave one booth and duck into another . . . . But he didn't flinch when I clamped down on his hand."

"He's got that hand in his pocket now," said Mac . . . .

Richard Wentworth strolled easily across the dining-room of the Hesperides. A dozen people nodded to him eagerly, or tried to detain him at their tables, but he murmured his excuses and pushed on. He knew that Duncan's eyes were still on him, and that the men would not so soon, or so easily, drop their search for the
Spider.
He was still in the deathtrap! After all, the
Spider
had killed one of their number tonight, one of their experts who would be hard to replace—an expert in the cowardly vicious crime of arson!

Wentworth's eyes met those of Nita van Sloan across the last fifty feet of the dining-room and saw the smile move her full soft lips. His stride lengthened, and there was, perhaps, a pang in his breast; not that he regretted his task, or the duties to which he had pledged himself. But it was hard on Nita always to live thus in peril. A pity, a great pity that they were not what they seemed—two people very much in love and out for an evening's entertainment . . . .

"I hope, my dear," he murmured, "that I haven't kept you waiting long?"

"A year or so," Nita laughed up into his face. "At least five minutes."

Wentworth clasped her hands . . . with his left, dropped an order for Martinis to the attentive waiter as he slid into a chair opposite Nita, She leaned toward him with her handkerchief.

"Dear," she said, "You should be more careful when you keep me waiting! Who was she?" She touched his mouth corner with the handkerchief, dabbing away a bit of the
Spider
make-up which he had missed. Under her breath, she whispered. "Duncan is coming this way. Four men backing him, separately. Do you need my gun?"

Wentworth sighed, lips smiling though his grey-blue eyes were keen and cold. "I hoped to conceal that blonde from you," he said, and softly, "Knock over your glass and break it!"

Nita leaned back easily, but her hand, returning to her side, jarred her water glass toward the floor. Wentworth grabbed for it as it shattered . . . and gashed the back of his right hand! With an exclamation of annoyance, he clapped a handkerchief to the wound—and looked up into Duncan's coldly watchful eyes.

"I seem to be hard on your glassware this evening, Duncan," he said easily, and uncovered his hand.

Duncan's solicitous tones held an undercurrent of mockery. "I hope it's not a severe wound, Mr. Wentworth."

Wentworth smiled, "It might have been so much worse. Did you want something?"

Duncan uttered an exclamation. "Stupid of me. That wound quite cut it out of my mind. There's a phone call for you . . . in a booth in the hall."

"Somehow," Wentworth murmured, "I have an aversion to phone booths tonight. Have a phone plugged in here, Duncan."

He turned back to Nita, who was engaged in binding his cut hand with the napkin. "It's really nothing at all, dear," he said.

Duncan stood an instant longer by the table, then whipped about and went striding choppily across the dining-room.

"He's not satisfied," Nita said quietly. "He'll be back. What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing just now," Wentworth told her. "In a little while, we'll leave. I dropped my cigarette lighter while paying a call this evening . . . ."

Nita could scarcely control her start. In those few words, she knew the whole story. She knew that Wentworth's cigarette lighter held a device in its base for imprinting the seal of the
Spider,
and she knew where that seal was placed—upon the foreheads of those he killed in his coldly just execution of those who were outside the law!

A young couple strolled past, talking excitedly. "Best fire I've seen in years!" the man was exclaiming. "That old tenement burned like paper."

"And good riddance, I say!" the girl cried, and laughed.

Wentworth's lips lost their smile. Thoughtless fools! "Five children died in that fire," he told Nita quietly. "It was a touch-off! Arson!"

Nita's shoulders shuddered a little, and she drew the fur scarf about them. "So that was where you went," she whispered. "That man deserved death!"

Wentworth glanced up as the waiter set the Martinis before them with a flourish. Duncan was returning with another waiter who bore a table phone. The smile on his lips was quiet, and Nita did not need to read his thoughts. She knew that the
Spider
had ferreted out the guilty man and that he had got his deserts! But the cigarette lighter, and the bullet burn across the back of his hand . . . and these cold-jawed men with their terrible, hidden guns . . . .

Wentworth lifted the Martini in his left hand, and Nita gaily clinked her glass against his. "Death and destruction . . ." Wentworth murmured.

"The phone, Mr. Wentworth," Duncan interrupted suavely.

Wentworth laughed, and finished the toast . . . "to all care and sorrow, my dear!"

Duncan gestured to the waiter, who plugged in the phone . . . and Wentworth took it in his left hand. He was leaving no prints of his right hand here. It had been gripping the cigarette lighter when a bullet had burned across its back, paralyzing the grip of his fingers. And he needed the gun in his left hand, and needed it badly! There had been no time for anything except flight. He lifted the phone.

"Richard Wentworth here," he said, with a quiet smile at Nita. He had only half-believed in the reality of this phone call, but he knew the voice that cracked secretly in his ear.

"
Danger, Major!
"

Wentworth's nerves tautened. Only Jackson, who had served under him in the war and was still his top-sergeant, called him 'Major.' And Jackson was at police headquarters on the
Spider's
special business. But while Wentworth's nerves keyed to the excitement in Jackson's voice, even Nita could see no change in his smile.

"Yes," he said.

Jackson already was rushing on. "Police headquarters is turned inside out. Anonymous tip where a body can be found with
Spider
seal on forehead—and beside the body, a cigarette lighter
with the Spider's fingerprints on it!
"

Wentworth frowned slightly. "He must have been in a hurry to have been so careless," he said, already preparing for an abrupt departure. "The matter is getting expert attention, I take it?"

"Headquarters blew up!" Jackson chuckled. "Kirkpatrick left with motorcycle escort ninety seconds ago!"

"In that case," Wentworth said quietly, "we'll hurry right along, of course. Certainly, you may use the other car. And I suggest you hurry. Lucky you knew where to reach me."

Those last few words had told the quick-witted Jackson what to do—get another car and speed to the Hesperides Club. Frowning deeply, Wentworth handed the phone to the waiter. Under the watchful eyes of Duncan, he sat thoughtfully for a moment, then lifted his eyes gravely to Nita.