THE SPIDER-City of Doom (54 page)

Nita rolled her head fretfully. "You sound like . . .
The Voice,
" she said dully. "I wish I could remember. I must be sure, but I do not like it."

The door of the room was closed, but the sound of footfalls came through readily. It was the visiting hour and many patients were receiving. A loudspeaker called a doctor's name tinnily. Nita, with her eyes closed, did not hear the door open. She knew only that the loudspeaker sounded suddenly much louder, and then was pinched down again. She opened her eyes, and gasped.

Just inside the door stood a hunched figure. Its twisted back was toward her, and the whole body was covered in a long black cape. The figure turned slowly about, and she had a glimpse of a lipless mouth, of commanding eyes beneath the brim of the black hat. The nurse still had her head bowed.

"Who are you?" Nita gasped.

The
Spider
took two slow steps toward her. His voice came out flatly. "Wentworth will not be here," he said. "I came in his stead, so that you could be sure!"

Nita's hands grasped the arms of her chair rigidly. Her head was pressed back painfully, and there was fear in her face. Wentworth's own face, behind the mask of the
Spider,
was twisted in torment. He hated to shock her this way, but he had made his decision. Nita must hate him too much ever to become involved in his perils again. His heart was leaden inside him; his cold will was like steel.

Hidden, his eyes flicked about the room. The nurse sat as she had been at his entrance, and his eyes narrowed at recognition of her. She was the same who had taken notes on the meeting of the Council of Evil!

Suddenly, Nita was relaxed again in her chair. Her hand went out to the roses beside her on the table. Her eyes were still strained wide. She knew now. She had been right. The nurse was right to insist she must make sure and then allow her to notify the police. The sight of this twisted figure of a man was terrifying, but somehow she was sure that underneath that disguise was the man, Richard Wentworth. She could not have told how she knew it, but she did. There could no longer be any doubt.

Richard Wentworth had killed a man!

Nita shuddered a little at memory of that moment when she had seen the red seal ground into dying flesh. She said, slowly, "I am glad you came. All this time I had suspected Mr. Wentworth. It was wrong of me. He has been very kind; he sent all these flowers . . . ." She lifted the bouquet in her hand.

Wentworth said in his normal voice, "So now, you are sure."

He took a step nearer her. His hands were clenched at his sides. Out of his eye corners he still watched the motionless nurse. Where were the men of Moulin? They must be somewhere around . . . . But Nita would have been told a lie, of course. She wouldn't help gangsters to destroy him. She would think it was the police she served.

"Has The Voice spoken to you recently?" Wentworth asked.

Nita winced. "No, no!" she said. "I do not want to hear The Voice. It is always speaking to me. Even when my nurse is here, it speaks to me, but she cannot hear it . . . ! But what do you know about The Voice?"

Wentworth shook his head, bending toward her. "Only that it lies!" he said softly. "Come, Nita, there is danger here! You must go away with me!"

Nita gasped, "No!" She held the roses tightly as if they were a weapon. "No, I dare not!"

"I will protect you," Wentworth said quietly. The continual quiet, the motionless figure of the nurse worried him. There was terror and danger breeding here. For himself, he was ready to face it. But if the killers failed this time—and Wentworth intended that they should fail!—they might carry Nita away to bait him into a trap. And the result for Nita would be horrible . . . .

"You must," he said, and laid his hand on her arm. "Come with me,
now!
"

Nita gasped, "No! No, I tell you! You must go—"

Wentworth said hoarsely, "Nita!"

She lifted the corsage of roses and crushed them against his face!

For an amazed instant, Wentworth did not move. Then the heady odor of the roses revealed itself as deeper, more cloying than was normal. It clogged his nostrils, burned in his throat. Good God . . .
gas!
Wentworth hurled himself backward. He clawed for his gun, and his hand had no feeling in it at all. He could not tell whether he found his gun or not. Desperately, he wheeled toward the window. This was the one thing on which he had not counted. In his love and trust of Nita, he had not seen how she could be swayed. He had not thought that she would attack him!

Wentworth found that his feet were wooden, too. He glanced down at them in surprise, and found that he was on his hands and knees on the floor. He glanced up at Nita, and her eyes were wide, frightened. She was crouched back in her chair, her feet drawn under her.

It was while Wentworth was staring thus that he felt, more than heard, the step of the nurse beside him. He felt the burning sting of a needle. He thought he cried out. Then darkness seemed to spread out from that needle puncture. It contaminated every sense; it spread rapidly through his brain and his brain soaked it up hungrily, gratefully as if it were nepenthe.

It brought forgetfulness and a curious lack of any concern. He knew that he was stretched out, flat on his back, on the floor. He knew that the passive nurse had injected drugs into his veins and that he was incapable of movement. The gangsters would come presently to destroy him . . . and the zero hour of X-day already had struck. He knew all these things, and it did not seem to matter.

He was floating in the midst of a greenish cloud. He was without thought, without feeling. The rosiness turned dark, turned black. It enveloped the brain of the
Spider,
and he lay helpless awaiting the killers' guns!

Nita cringed back in her chair and watched the
Spider
struggle against the drug, vainly, like a man trapped and drowning in deep water. Gasping sounds came from his throat, but all his movements were lethargic.

Behind him, the nurse stood motionless. The needle dangled from her fingers; her head was bowed, and there was utterly no expression in her face. She merely watched.

It was only when the
Spider's
powerful body stretched in final helplessness upon the floor that the nurse moved. She turned toward the door.

"Wait!" Nita gasped.

The nurse turned. "He will answer your questions now," she said in her monotonous voice. "I go so that you may question him."

Nita said urgently, "Wait! You must wait! I cannot question him like that! Help me . . . the wheel chair!"

For an instant, the nurse hesitated. Then she stepped forward to help Nita. Together they struggled with the inert body, lifting it fumblingly toward the chair. Nita's brain was numb. She was not thinking. But something told her that she must not desert this man upon the floor. Her heart was wrung with pity and with dread.

Finally, the
Spider
was in the chair. The nurse settled her white starched uniform and moved toward the door. And Nita did not want her to go. She could not allow her to go!

Nita took a hesitant step toward the nurse. "You must stay here," she said in a muffled voice. "I will not be left alone here."

The nurse did not answer her, but took a quicker step toward the door.

She sprang ahead of the nurse, set her shoulders against the door. "You cannot go," she said, in a fierce low voice. "Why are you so anxious to go?"

There was a pain that enveloped Nita's entire brain. It was blinding her. But she wasn't thinking at all. It was wrong for the nurse to go . . . for some reason she could not phrase.

"No," she whispered, "you can't go!"

The blonde girl stood staring at her with empty eyes. The needle still dangled from her fingers. She looked down at it, and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a handkerchief and wrapped it around the hypodermic. The handkerchief was bright red.

"Very well, Miss van Sloan," she said submissively. She held the red handkerchief in her hand . . . and moved toward the window!

Nita stared at her blankly, then she flung herself across the room. Her soft silken negligee floated backward with her speed. Her feet were in ridiculously unstable silken mules, with little tufts of maribou across the instep. Her eyes were strained wide as if she listened to some inner voice.

But her hands, clasping on the nurse's shoulders, were competent and fierce. She whirled the blonde girl away from the window before she was visible. The nurse staggered backward two long steps. Her white cap tumbled off. The mass of her blonde hair slipped.

Nita said, fiercely, "You were going to signal someone! That's why you wanted to get out. That was why you carried that red handkerchief!"

The nurse did not speak. Her eyes shuttled over the room. Wentworth was slumped in the wheel chair against the far wall . . . and Nita stood between her and the door. Nita was panting. The low silken neck of her gown strained taut across her breasts. Her face was intent, concentrated as if thought cost her a great effort. It did. Her skull ached, ached.

"You . . ." Nita whispered. "You made me trick him. You are a traitor. You drugged him and tried to make a signal. The police! That is it—you are a spy for the police!"

The nurse said, pacifyingly, "Miss van Sloan, you should not excite yourself. I am not connected with the police."

For an instant, her quiet tone soothed Nita . . . but the nurse nodded and moved toward the door. And suddenly Nita was in action again. She set her shoulders against the door, spread her arms.

"You are not going out!" she whispered.

The nurse stood still for a moment. Then she put her hand in her pocket again. When she drew it out, she gripped a small automatic.

"Step aside, Miss van Sloan!" she ordered.

Nita drew in a slow breath, and let her arms drop to her sides. Her shoulders sagged a little, too. After all, why was she making all this trouble? She had seen this man in the wheel chair commit a murder. Of that she was sure now. It was only just that the police should take him, even though they had tricked her. That was what she told herself consciously . . . but in the same moment, she knew that she was not going to let the police take him! She would not!

Nita van Sloan took a dragging step away from the door . . . and leaped!

Her hands flew at the nurse. With her left she tried to twist the automatic away. She did turn its muzzle away. Her right arm hooked beneath the nurse's chin. It was without thought that she threw the girl across her hip, sprawled her upon the floor! Nita's mind did not know, but her muscles and her reflexes had remembered that jiu-jitsu throw!

The nurse struck flat on her back. Her head jarred and the gun skated from her fist. But Nita stood, staring in amazement, down at the girl. The unwinding coils of blonde hair made a halo about her head.

Nita said, uncertainly, "I've hurt you, but you should not have tried to get out."

The nurse rolled her head, struggled laboriously to her knees. Suddenly, she leaped up and ran toward the automatic! Nita was after her. One of her mules fell from her foot, and she kicked off the other. Barefooted, she hurled herself at the nurse, just as she straightened with the automatic. Their struggling bodies braced. They reeled stiffly from side to side like drunken people. Nita's roseate robe fluttered and kited behind them. The modeling of her arm muscles stood out strongly.

"You shall not!" she whispered. "You shall not give him to the police! I will not allow it, do you hear? You may kill me, but you're not going to turn him over to the police!"

The nurse said nothing. She fought with fierceness. She struck with her knee and Nita shoved her backward off balance, suddenly took the gun wrist with both hands. She found a leverage that her muscles knew, exerted it.

The nurse gasped with pain. Her free hand clawed at Nita's back. Silk ripped. Her desperate eyes centered on a crockery vase. She threw her weight sideways and they staggered against the dresser.

"Give up the gun," Nita gasped. "I'll break your arm!"

The nurse found the vase with her groping, awkward left hand. She struck sideways at Nita's head. Nita cried out in agony. Her brain was on fire, on
fire!
She slumped to her knees. The nurse ran toward the door. Her hand was on the knob!

"You shall not betray him!" Nita whispered.

Her hand found one of her discarded mules. She was blind with pain, but she flung the mule. She heard a cry and staggered to her feet. She groped toward the door. A blow glanced past her temple, and the nurse's gunwrist struck her shoulder. Nita's hands clamped on that wrist.

The gun went off.

Nita's head jarred sideways under the violence of that concussion. A smothered scream rose in her throat and red agony blotted out all consciousness of action or feeling or thought. She was fighting in that hell of darkness. She twisted, heaved. Through the soaring, pounding pain in her skull, she heard a woman's gasping cry. The shock of a body falling . . . silence.

Presently, Nita heard an imperative knocking at the door. She heard herself saying calmly, "Everything is quite all right. A screen fell over. Go away, please!"

And slowly the whirling room cleared before her eyes. She was not aware that she had ever seen the room before. She stared around her in amazement. She remembered the multiple blast of guns, remembered that Dick, beside her, had leaned far forward to seize the wheel from Ram Singh and wreck the car. There had been an explosion . . . .

When had all that happened! It might have been no more than a moment ago. It might have been a week, a month . . . . Nita gripped her pounding temples and tried to remember. It was all so vague.

So lifted her head and looked around again. Across the bed, blood trickling from her temple where it had struck the metal post, lay the prostrate body of the nurse. Nita did not remember hurling her there by a jiu-jitsu throw. She did have a whirling memory of a battle, of pain in her head.