The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

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

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  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 .”

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  “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 .

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  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 .

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  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 .

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  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

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  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

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  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 .

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  “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 .