THE SPIDER-City of Doom (23 page)

"There's hardly no way to break bad news, my dear," he said quietly. "Your cousin, Gregory, just had the misfortune to be hit by an automobile."

"Gregory!" Nita burst out, rising at once to her feet. "Is he hurt badly?"

Wentworth shook his head. "Can't tell yet. Fortunately, he was struck near my apartment, and the doorman recognized him, had him carried right in."

Duncan slid Nita's chair aside. His eyes were puzzled. "I hope, Miss van Sloan, you will find this less serious than you anticipate."

Wentworth said, quietly, "It's decent of you to be concerned, Duncan."

He and Nita hurried across the dining-room and, with inattentive seeming eyes, Wentworth saw Duncan send the gunmen racing along a corridor . . . a corridor that had an exit on the street! He doubted that it meant an attack. Duncan could not be sure enough of himself as yet. He got into the overcoat he had previously left at the checkroom, hurried Nita out through the doors of the Hesperides. As they stepped out beneath the marquee, a sleek limousine flashed from the curb up the street and swerved to a halt before them. A giant bearded Sikh, his head bound in a turban, leaped from the driver's seat to whip open the door.

Wentworth sprang into the tonneau behind Nita, caught up the speaking-tube as the Sikh, recognizing the need for haste, slid in behind the wheel again.

"Slow just after you turn the corner, Ram Singh," Wentworth snapped. "I'll jump out. Take the
missie sahib
to the apartment, and stay just four minutes. Then drive fast for the address she'll give you!"

The Daimler slid powerfully forward and Wentworth whipped toward Nita. In the special rear-vision mirror of the tonneau, he saw the four gangsters of Duncan piling into a sedan behind them.

"They'll follow you," Wentworth said swiftly. "Let them keep you in sight. I'll leave my overcoat and hat here. Rig them up on my cane as if I sat beside you. They won't attack. They suspect where I'm going, and want to keep me in sight. I'll see you in a few minutes. This is the address . . . . Watch Ram Singh on timing. It may be . . . important!"

Nita's hands clung to his, "Good luck, Dick!" she whispered. "And next time, dear, don't be so careless!" Her tone was light, but Wentworth knew the pain that lurked beneath her words. It was always her way to encourage him.

Wentworth laughed, but his eyes were bitter and cold. "I thought I had to deal with a single case of arson," he said soberly. "There is more behind it than that! I was sure the criminals would hold on to that cigarette lighter for their own purposes, and was going back for it later. There is a brain behind this, Nita."

Nita's face was set in a smile, but he saw the tightness of apprehension about her mouth corners. "Another battle, Dick?" she asked.

Wentworth's voice was grim. "Before he died, this arsonist—his name was Eggendorfer—talked a little. He said his master's name is . . .
Munro!
"

Nita's smile was wiped from her lips. She whipped toward Wentworth and her face was frightened. "
Munro!
" she whispered.

Before she could say more, the Daimler swerved around the corner and slowed. Wentworth sprang from the running-board and three long bounds hurled him into the shadows of a doorway. The Daimler spurted on and, an instant later, the pursuing gangster car whipped around the corner in pursuit. Wentworth watched them go with grim eyes, his nerves slowly tautening . . . . If he were wrong about their intention . . . . If they should attack Nita. But the Daimler was bullet-proof and Ram Singh was one of the greatest of a great warrior race!

Now . . . .

Cold wind whined desolately along the street and Wentworth, coat collar turned up to hide the white gleam of his formal shirt, felt the bite of the chill, though his blood was racing. This would have to be fast, damned fast! It would be a matter of split-second timing with Kirkpatrick racing to the scene, and his own advantage a matter of seconds only. He could rely on Jackson, but . . . . Why didn't Jackson come!

Why?

His mind flicked back to Nita, racing across the city with those gangsters on her trail. Even she had been shaken with horror at the mention of Munro's name, and she knew him only by reputation. Wentworth had met him once in battle, and the
Spider
had barely escaped alive from that trap! Munro was damnably shrewd, utterly ruthless, one of the great minds of the criminal world. He . . . .

A battered coupe whipped around the corner with a purring power in the motor beneath the hood that belied the ancient body. Wentworth stepped from cover and the coupe swung in, the door already open. Wentworth leaped in, and Jackson drove the accelerator to the floor. His hands were white upon the wheel, the muscles ridged out along the broad line of his jaw. More clearly than any words, his tension told how well he recognized the need for haste.

Wentworth was crouched on the floor instantly. He whipped forward the right half of the front seat, and a secret compartment was revealed behind it. No time for the full
Spider
make-up, but there was a steel mask that he sometimes used in such emergency. It reproduced the
Spider's
features exactly, but if it should slip, or Wentworth should be captured! With a grim thinning of lips, Wentworth took that risk. Wig, cape, hat . . . twin automatics.

"Nice timing, Jackson," Wentworth said quietly. "Details!"

"Gave you everything," Jackson's voice had a rasp of taut nerves. "I was at headquarters, according to the Major's instructions, keeping an eye on the commissioner. Told him the Major sent me down to check on records of forgers. Stalled along until this call came in. Headquarters was so upside down I called over Kirkpatrick's own phone!"

"Good work," Wentworth nodded. He was on the seat now, and it was no longer Richard Wentworth who rode beside Jackson, but a hunched and sinister figure, whose eyes gleamed coldly beneath the broad black brim of a slouch hat; whose hands clutched the twin butts of deadly automatics. Damnable having to lose these minutes that might make all the difference between life and death, but he had no choice save to return to Eggendorfer's room as the
Spider
—and he had been forced to destroy his previous disguise with a vial of acid carried for that purpose.

So far, he seemed to be ahead of the police. He had heard no distant wail of sirens . . . . His keen eyes reached ahead, narrowed as he spotted two men lounging against the front wall of the tenement building that he must enter.

"Shoot past!" he snapped at Jackson. "Then slow on the back street. Those are Duncan's men!"

Jackson twisted about his broad, honest face and there was worry in the eyes that held always a hint of idolatry when they rested on Wentworth's face.

"There'll be a lot of those hoods, Major," he growled. "Couldn't you let me . . . ."

"Just stand by, Jackson," Wentworth ordered quietly. "Usual orders. I'll signal if I need help. Eggendorfer's room is on the third floor, southeast corner."

"Stand by, sir," Jackson acknowledged with a growl, and Wentworth knew that no more was necessary. More than once Jackson had walked into what seemed certain death to serve him . . . .

The car slowed to the curb, seemed barely to hesitate, but when it passed the street light at the next corner, the seat beside Jackson was empty . . . and on that ominously dark street, a darker shadow had merged with the shadows that cringed against the wall. The
Spider
moved into battle!

IN THE dim-lighted room where Eggendorfer lay dead with the mocking crimson seal of the
Spider
upon his forehead, a gangster stood on guard. In his right fist was a heavy automatic and his eyes roved ceaselessly about the room. Time and time again, he started at some slight creaking in the ancient building. The whine of the cold wind, the tapping fingers of icy snow crystals against the window made him shiver as if with cold. His tongue touched his dry lips and there was fear in the greyness of his cheeks.

He was here because the
Spider
might return before the police could arrive. Only the threat of death from the boss, the promise of sure support, could have forced him to keep this lone vigil. Suppose the
Spider
did come!

Mugsy Lugan flinched as a particularly hard gust rattled the loose window. Only the wind . . . . It had to be the wind! Mugsy took a slow step toward the window, shook his head. No, that was against orders. He couldn't even make sure whether it was the
Spider.
All he could do was stand here and wait . . . for the
Spider.
His eyes fell toward Eggendorfer's stiffening body and he flinched. Eggendorfer had waited for the
Spider!

Mugsy Lugan shifted his automatic to his left hand, dragged the right palm against his trouser leg. Geez, sweating in this weather!

"Damn the
Spider
to hell!" he muttered.

From the window, a voice spoke softly, a mocking voice, flatly metallic and instinct with menace!

"How very inhospitable of you, Mugsy," the voice said, softly. "The
Spider
is simply paying you a call!"

Mugsy stiffened, and his mouth gaped with the looseness of the fear that ran like ice through all his body. He shivered, turned about laboriously. The gun dangled limply from his fingers—poised on the windowsill, the night cold and black behind him, crouched the becaped and menacing figure of the
Spider!
A gun glinted in each fist. His eyes seemed to bore like bullets through Mugsy's cowardly flesh. The gun trembled in Mugsy's hand, fell to the floor with a reverberating thud!

"That was wise, Mugsy," came the sibilant mockery of the
Spider's
voice. "That was very wise! Now pick up that lighter, Mugsy, and bring it to me. And I think it would be advisable for you to hurry!"

One of the
Spider's
guns lifted an inch, and Mugsy's trembling became violent. "Yes, sir," he stammered. "Oh, sure,
Spider.
Right away. I . . . ."

He bent for the lighter, but his hands were shaking so that his fingers could not clasp it. His face twisted about, warped with fear.

"Don't,
Spider,
" he whispered hoarsely. "Don't shoot. I'm trying. I swear to God I'm trying!"

Wentworth swore impatiently, leaped from the sill. Seconds were flying, and he could not estimate how many more were left to him. Already, he thought he could hear the faint whimper of police sirens racing to this spot. He took a stride forward, and with a frightened squawk, Mugsy Lugan dodged aside. His hands hit the wall, and he went down on his knees. Wentworth stooped toward the lighter—and hell burst loose in that room!

As Wentworth bent forward, the three doors that opened into that barren room flung wide with whining speed. Dazzling lights converged on Wentworth from those three separate angles—and the doors were crowded with armed men!

"Start shooting!" Mugsy's voice rose, thin with terror. "For God's sake, start shooting.
Kill the Spider!
"

There was that moment's pause while Wentworth stood crouched in the middle of the death-trap; while the blaze of lights pinned him, helpless, against the shadows and the guns of the men in those three doors quested for and centered on his body . . . and Mugsy pleaded for his death with a frantic certainty that only the quick and deadly fire of his companions could save him from the vengeance of the
Spider!

A hoarse oath sprang to Wentworth's lips as he realized the nature of the snare into which he had stepped. Those two men on guard out front had fooled him, that and the call to the police. He had been so certain that the crooks would depend on the police to do their killing for them . . . and he had walked into this trap.

Wentworth's brain raced madly, seeking a way out. Even the deadly twin automatics of the
Spider
could not batter a way through this ring of steel. He . . . the
Spider
straightened, and the thin lipless gash of the mouth parted. His eyes glared straight into those dazzling lights, and . . .
the Spider laughed!

It was a mocking, bitter sound, the laughter of the
Spider,
an eerie sound in the room's quiet that was the quiet before death. It beat upon the eardrums of the men who faced him, guns in hand for the kill, and it stayed their trigger fingers for that brief fraction of a second. This was the man they had dreaded and feared through endless nights of terror, a superman who always dodged somehow out of their deadliest traps, who rose to kill when they thought him already dead. They had him helpless under their guns and the
Spider
must know it . . . . Yet the
Spider
could laugh! The sound of it rasped harshly on their eardrums with a strangely piercing quality.

It was in that heartbeat's pause that the
Spider
struck!

Even while he laughed, he was in motion. There was one spot in that room where, for a brief moment, he might be safe . . . and that was the spot where Mugsy crouched and wailed for the death of the
Spider!
Not that Wentworth believed the crooks would have any compunction about murdering a companion, if by that means they could achieve the
Spider's
demise! But they might hesitate . . . and Wentworth was living by those split-seconds of hesitation.

The
Spider
had survived a thousand battles by means of those little unheeded heartbeats of time. This second, and the next, and the next . . . and his laughter had signaled Jackson that he was trapped. He hoped that Jackson had been near enough to hear that piercing, eerie laughter! It might give him the instant he needed to grab the slender length of silk that dangled outside the window, the web by which he had climbed, and could slide to safety again!

As Wentworth took that first long leap, his guns crashed in his fists. They hurled their lances of red flame against the white glare of the flashlights . . . and two of those lights blacked out! Two men screamed out in mortal agony as the quarter-ton impact of .45 caliber lead drove the fragments of metal and batteries into their bodies!