by Robert Reed
would not suspect; a slender thread, it was true, but it might prove
fruitful .
Leaving Kirkpatrick, he first went home and got the tool kit he
carried only when, as the Spider, he went forth to battle the un-
derworld . He changed also to special high-topped shoes, light as a
fencer’s except that they had thick, soft rubber soles .
There was worry in Ram Singh’s eyes. Time and again the fingers
of his good hand touched gently his broken arm in its sling as his
devoted eyes followed every move of the master he had failed in his
last grave encounter with the Black Death .
Wentworth straightened from lacing his shoes, clapped Ram
Singh on his shoulder and went out into the night . He took a taxi
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 140
directly to the local distributors of Dimetrios cigarettes, the kind
which he had noticed Virginia Doeg had smoked .
It was a brand not widely sold, and its distribution would be con-
fined to the wealthy, for it was expensive.
From the distributor he quickly got a list of the stores which re-
tailed the cigarette, and went systematically about the task of visit-
ing them all . There were fourteen in all, and he visited ten without
results .
It was near the closing hour when finally he strolled into a small
tobacconist’s shop on upper Madison Avenue, purchased a pack of
Dimetrios himself and fell into casual conversation with the clerk .
“Not many people buy these, I suppose,” he said .
The young man behind the counter talked with a slight lisp .
“Yeth,” he said “that’th right . We keep them for a very thelect few .
But you know, a little while ago, the motht unthpeakable ruffian
came in and bought five packageth.”
Excitement raced through Wentworth . Here, perhaps, was the
clue he had been seeking . “Ever see the man before?” he asked .
“Never,” shuddered the wavy-haired young clerk, “and I hope he
never cometh back again .”
Wentworth smiled slightly . “Tough guy, eh?”
“He wath,” said the clerk . “He didn’t even wear a collar, and had
a mothst unthpeakable cap on his head and hith nothe — ” He shud-
dered again, “Hith nothe had been mathed over on hith left cheek .”
“Doubtless,” said Wentworth, “a pugilist . And how long ago was
this?”
“Jutht a few minuteth,” the clerk said .
“You didn’t happen to notice which way he went?”
The clerk stared at him . “Why?” he asked in a tense voice . “Ith
he — are you — I mean — are you a politheman?”
Wentworth shook his head slowly . “No,” he said . “I just don’t
want to go in the same direction the gentleman did . From your de-
scription I wouldn’t want to meet him alone on a dark street this late
in the evening .”
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 141
“Oh! cried the clerk . “Oh! Now I thall be afraid to leave at all .”
He moaned miserably, then he brightened . “Oh, but he wath in a car,
that maketh it better .”
“A car, eh? What kind?” Wentworth persisted .
The clerk frowned . “I’m quite thure it wath a Buick,” he said .
“But I didn’t notithe the number .”
Wentworth questioned him futilely a few minutes longer, then
left, but with more confidence than when he had entered.
A ruffian who bought five packs of Dimetrios cigarettes. Went-
worth felt a thrill of hope . He had not miscalculated then . The van-
ity of the Black Death would lead him to make just such a gesture
toward his prisoner, to supply the particular brand of cigarettes the
prisoner liked; or perhaps — Wentworth’s eyes narrowed — perhaps
this was the thread with which the Master of the Plague hoped to
draw the Spider into his trap .
Wentworth shook his head sharply . No, it was too slender for
that . Something more obvious, more certain of detection would
have been employed .
But what to do now? He was in a fashionable neighborhood . Ex-
pensive and elaborate apartment houses raised their lofty crowns on
every side . Where, in this habitat of the wealthy, would the Black
Death hide a prisoner? In what sort of building could the ruffian he
apparently employed find free and unchallenged entrance? How to
trace any one Buick car among the city’s thousands?
He strolled along inspecting the facades of luxurious buildings,
many of their windows darkened now, showing untenanted apart-
ments, since depression days had cut into the higher bracket income .
And abruptly the Spider smiled . Of course, that was the answer .
Some of the buildings were closed entirely, purchased by big cor-
porations for conversion into handsome apartments . They had been
stillborn by hard times . Boarded up, they awaited prosperity and
meantime stood vacant — perfect hideouts for criminals.
He crossed double-laned Park Avenue with its drone of taxies
and expensive motors, pushed on to Fifth Avenue, where apartments
had been hardest hit .
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 142
Here in one block three such shuttered apartments stood . Wen-
tworth had come directly from the tobacco shop to Fifth Avenue,
probably the route a man searching for the cigarettes would have
taken, and now, in the shadow of the wall that bounded Central Park,
he stood and surveyed the looming buildings .
In front of a tenanted building next to a vacant one was parked a
car that to Wentworth was vaguely familiar . He studied it and sud-
denly he remembered where he had seen it before . It was a Buick
coupe, spotlessly new except for one rear fender that seemed to have
been crumpled in a vise . That was the car that had been parked next
to his Lancia the night he had killed one of the Black Death’s men
in the fire!
Hope warmed Wentworth . He started across the street, then
caught a small gleam of light in the trade entrance of a building that
was otherwise dark .
As he watched a man with a cap ducked out and, walking with
the heavy rolling swagger of those who live by physical competence
alone, strode toward the Buick .
Wentworth watched intently . He wanted to catch a glimpse of
that man’s face . If his nose was broken as the tobacco-clerk had
described, if he was, in the language of that young gentleman, “a
mostht unthpeakable ruffian” — a glimmer of a smile flickered
across Wentworth’s grim mouth — then the Spider would steal into
that black-windowed building and deliberately enter the death trap
the master criminal undoubtedly had baited for him .
Luck favored Wentworth . The man across the street entered the
Buick with the crumpled fender and the dash lights showed the Spi-
der the man’s face . The nose was broken, mashed over on the left
cheek!
Grimly Wentworth waited until the car had turned the corner,
then strolled to the basement from which the man had come .
At a door he paused an i
nstant, donned once more the black silk
mask of the Spider and deftly picked the lock .
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 143
Quickly he entered and relocked the door . It made escape more
difficult, but it prevented the alarm that an unlocked door might
cause .
The Spider stole into the shadows, cat-footed to the stairs and
mounted with the same sure competence . He went systematically
about the tedious task of finding which of the many apartments con-
cealed the Black Death and his prisoner, who, Wentworth was sure,
must be hidden somewhere in this building .
He went from floor to floor, listening at doors, searching with
minute gleams of his flashlight the dusty hallways for indications of
recent passage .
Not until he reached the very top floor did he discover the trace he
sought . There, mingling with the stuffy unventilated air, he caught
the distinct odor of tobacco .
The Spider moved more tensely now, automatic in hand, every
muscle, every sense, alert . The darkness was absolute . No vagrant
gleam of street light could penetrate; no ray beneath a door betrayed
the hiding place of the Black Death; no sound broke the tomb-like
silence .
Wentworth strained his ears, but there was no mutter of voices to
guide him . The vast waiting stillness seemed to crowd close as if the
very air were hostile .
Yet somewhere on this floor was human presence. Here, if any-
where in this building, the jaws of the Black Death’s trap gaped
open .
Softly the Spider went through the search that had become routine
now, listening at each door . At last his ear caught the faint sound of
movement within a room, and a thin smile twisted his lips beneath
the mask .
The door to the trap was beneath his hand . Wentworth turned
from it and stole to stairs that led upward, unfastened a door to the
roof, and searched swiftly for other ingress to the apartment below .
Once more fortune — this time a fire escape ladder — favored
him . And because it did, he was suspicious . Things were too easy .
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 144
Yet there was a chance the Plague Master was not yet ready, that
the hair-trigger spring of the trap did not yet await his cautious foot .
Once more a grim smile played across his mouth . Others had
trapped the Spider, and found it a dangerous pastime . He descended
the fire escape ladder that led down past the window of the apart-
ment where lurked the Black Death .
Yet even in that he exercised care an ordinary man would not
have thought of . He did not tread upon the rounds of the ladder but,
taking his automatic between his teeth, gripped the sides of the iron
stairway with knees and arms and glided down, lest an alarm had
been connected with those rungs .
Wentworth’s thick rubber soles made no sound on the iron grill-
ing of the fire escape platform. He examined the windows. He could
make out the shadow of heavy drapes, but no faint gleam of light
escaped .
From the invaluable kit of tools beneath his arm he took out a
small vial made of wax, and with a plunger attached to the stop-
per drew a semi-circle on the glass above the window’s fastening .
Hydrofluoric acid, such as etchers use. Soft wax was impervious to
it, yet it ate like fire through hardened glass.
Wentworth replaced the wax bottle and took out a rubber suction
cup which he fastened to the pane . When the acid had eaten through,
he removed the piece of glass, soundlessly .
For long moments Wentworth listened at the opening, and pres-
ently his straining ears made out the slow deep breathing of one who
slept .
Was it possible that he had taken unaware the Black Death? Blood
throbbed slowly in his temples . He had moved swiftly . Within a
few hours of the girl’s disappearance he had tracked the man down .
Probably no such swift action had been expected . It was possible
that within this room the Black Death slept!
Without a sound the Spider eased open the fastening, inched up
the sash until it was high enough to admit his body .
He drew his revolver, caught up the small flashlight in his left
hand, and smothering the light in his palms, stared fixedly at it for a
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 145
few seconds until the pupils of his eyes became accustomed to the
glare, lest bursting into a lighted room would dazzle him .
Silently he eased himself through the opening, stood erect upon
the inner sill within the black drapes that covered it . Then, tearing
them apart, he sprang into the room .
His gun was ready, but firing, he found, would have been futile.
Behind a metal closet door peering through a peephole of bullet
proof glass, crouched a man, and the muzzle of his gun was trained
on the Spider’s breast .
Spring backward? No chance of that . The window was opened
only narrowly; and before he could roll through, half a dozen steel-
jacketed bullets could rip the life from his body .
Charge? The shield of the door completely protected the gun-
man . Swiftly the Spider’s eyes flickered over the room. It was barely
furnished . On a bed nearby, her clothing disheveled, lay Virginia
Doeg, eyes closed, her red hair a veil over her pillow . It was her deep
breathing that had deceived him .
And now the man behind the shield chuckled gloatingly . “Wel-
come, Spider!” he jeered, “Welcome to the death trap!”
Wentworth straightened out of his crouch, his eyes calm .
“Better drop the gun, Spider,” the criminal said softly . “I do not
think that I care to deal with you while you are armed . You should
not have waited so long after you opened the window . Those drapes
permit no light to escape, but they are light and the slightest breath
of air makes them quiver .”
Wentworth let his gun fall .
“Now back three paces,” the man ordered . And when the Spider
had obeyed, the other came out from behind the metal door .
“It is not my intention,” the man sneered, “to kill you at once .
I would rather leave that to my amiable friends, the police . I think
that even they will be able to capture the Spider if I put a bullet say,
through his lung, and tell them where to find him.
“And you needn’t fear that they will be unable to identify you
as the Spider . I have a cigarette lighter myself, not half so clever as
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 146
your own, which will readily yield up the secret of those little red
seals to the police .
“If anything further is needed I shall murder the young lady who
lies on the bed there — Unfortunate that she is drugged and cannot
hear us, eh? — place that ugly little Spider upon her forehead and let
them assume that it was she who wounded you, and that then the
Spider, in the excess of his fury, managed to strangle the life from
his so beautiful betrayer .”
The man chuckled once more, gloatingly, behind his mask .
“But already we have delayed too long . The Black Death must be
about his work. And you must be accounted for first.”
He lifted the pistol, leveled it at Wentworth’s chest and slowly
began to press the trigger .
Chapter 9
The Voice on the Wire
In her penthouse apartment, high up on Riverside Drive, over-
looking the misty Hudson which she loved to paint, Nita van Sloan
sat upon a window seat and stared unseeingly out into the darkness
of the night .
Far out on the bosom of the Hudson gleamed the pale yellow
lights of passing boats . The black Jersey shore was shrouded in mist,
a delicate problem for any artist’s brush . But Nita van Sloan saw
none of that . For all the deep cushioned comfort of the window seat,
she sat tensely, chin resting on her palm . It was far past midnight,
but sleep would not come to the troubled girl .
Lying beside her on the floor, the Great Dane dog that Dick Wen-
tworth had given her as a puppy stared up at her with worshipping
eyes, its nose outstretched upon its forepaws .
Nita sighed deeply, and the dog rose with a low whine in its
throat, and rested its head in the girl’s lap .
The girl’s blue eyes were tired as she turned them upon the dog .
She smiled faintly .
WINGS OF THE BLACK DEATH, by Norvell Page | 147
“Are you worried, too, Apollo, about our Dick?” she asked .
The dog emitted a small coughing bark . It was his invariable re-
sponse to the name of the master he loved .
The girl swung back her pajama-clad legs to the floor and strode
nervously to a small table . She picked up a cigarette and ignited it .
A moment later she tossed it away and moved restively about the
room, changing the position of a picture, picking up a hair pin from
the floor, doing a dozen things without thought.
For she knew that Richard Wentworth never before had crossed
blades with so dangerous an antagonist as the Black Death . Swiftly
Nita came to a decision . Phoning would be useless . He would only
laugh at her fears, cajole her into remaining — and waiting — alone.
And tonight she wanted warmer solace than that . She tore off the
pajamas as if they strangled her, dressed with swift speed, and snap-
ping a leash upon Apollo’s collar, left the building .