The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™
Page 27
will soon sever these ropes, that then you and I can get my plane, kill
Pugh and save the city from the Black Plague .”
“Yes, Dick, I know that .” There was no break in Nita’s words .
It was Wentworth’s own voice that cracked, not for himself, but
at the thought of this dear loved face dyed with the horrid blush of
the Black Death .
“Darling,” said the Spider, “shall I call Apollo — or order him
away?”
The girl’s smile never faltered . She puckered her lips and whis-
tled .“Here, Apollo!” she called . “To me, Apollo .” And even the Spi-
der, who knew and loved her, who understood her as no one else
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in the world, marveled at the clear courage of her voice . Her voice
was as soft, as gentle, as if she called a child to her lap, instead of
summoning the dread specter of the Black Death .
Wentworth, raising his head again, saw the dog throw up its head,
spin drunkenly and come at a stumbling run into the cavern . He
plunged toward them with lolling tongue, the tongue that so recently
had lapped up the germs of the Black Death!
“Down, Apollo!” Wentworth ordered sharply . The dog stopped,
stared at Dick and crouched slowly . Wentworth tugged as far away
from Nita as their short bonds would permit, held out his bound
hands behind him toward the dog .
“Apollo,” he called sharply . He waved his bound hands the few
inches the ropes permitted .
It was a game to the dog . They had played it before against some
such emergency as this . But Wentworth had never thought that those
sharp fangs, gnawing at the thongs, might mean death to him as well
as freedom .
The instant his hands were free, he ordered the dog sharply away,
bent and untied his ankles . Then, snatching up the valise, he turned
and smiled at Nita, across the width of the cave .
“Good-bye, darling,” he said .
“Dick!” the girl cried wildly . Wentworth shook his head slowly .
“I have risked your dear life as much as I will,” he said . “If I un-
bound you, I could not keep you from coming . I will send Ram
Singh to free you .”
He turned and stumbled from the cave, tears blinding him . He
could not even kiss Nita goodbye, lest already the loathsome conta-
gion was at work within his blood, lest he pass on to her the Black
Death .
And then, in the entrance of the cavern he paused, staring at an
upset tin pan, at sand that had soaked up water, at Apollo far down
the hill lapping eagerly from a creek . Carefully Wentworth exam-
ined the ground . The sand had almost dried again . There were no
dog tracks beside it as there would have been if Apollo had stopped
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to drink water there . But there was the heavy print of a man’s shoe
and scuffed sand!
One of the men in leaving the night before, either deliberately to
torture the animal, or blindly in the dark, had kicked over the care-
fully set pan of water, and Pugh had left without noticing! Probably
he had given that spot of contagion a wide berth as he had gone
toward his plane to fly for the ransom money.
Wentworth leaped to his feet and raced back into the cave . Nita,
sobbing, cried out to him .
“I knew you couldn’t leave me . I knew you couldn’t!”
Rapidly untying her bonds, Wentworth explained what had hap-
pened, that they were saved from the danger of the Black Death .
Together, then they raced from the cave, down the hill, hurrying
toward Wentworth’s place . In the hollow there was a crude cabin .
As they crashed heedlessly through underbrush, they heard a man’s
voice cry out and, Wentworth, hurrying forward found a young man
bound hand and foot beside a small coop of pigeons .
Wentworth knew what that portended. Another fiendish trap of
MacDonald Pugh . He caught the man under the arms, dragged him
to the open and freed him, asking meantime who he was .
“Handley,” said the man, “James Handley .” Wentworth smiled
grimly. That explained it. This was the fiancee of Virginia Doeg,
the man who had been framed by Pugh to throw the trail away from
himself .
As he worked on the ropes, he spoke swiftly . “When I have freed
you, I’m going to run like hell . I’ve got to overtake Pugh before he
can release pigeons and turn loose the Black Death on the city . As
soon as you can move about, kill those pigeons in there and burn the
shack . My home is a little over a mile due east of here . Head for that,
and I’ll leave word for you to be taken care of .”
As he finished speaking, he unfastened the last thong about the
man’s wrists, sprang up and ran off to where Nita was toiling up the
hill . The man shouted thanks after him . Wentworth waved a hand
and saw Nita plunge into a thicket of birches, heard the whinny of
a horse and gave a great cry of hope . He had been afraid the mile of
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woods between the cave and his home would doom their chances of
saving the city . But with the horse—
Nita already had tightened the cinches when he raced up to her .
He sprang to the saddle, caught her up behind him and gave the
thoroughbred his head . The animal had suffered no great discomfort
except a lack of water, but there was no time to wait for that now .
Crashing through shrubbery, ducking under swooping tree
branches, they raced back to Wentworth’s home, the tawny form of
Apollo a flash in the distance ahead of them, the black valise still
clutched in Wentworth’s hand .
Straight to the hangar that housed his always ready plane, Wen-
tworth galloped the horse . He sprang to the ground and with Nita
close behind him, darted to the wide, sliding doors, threw his weight
against them . While Nita completed their opening, he vaulted into
the cockpit, touched the starter button .
Compression whined, the propeller moved slowly, and suddenly
the motor caught with a coughing roar . The girl clambered up the
wing, the slipstream whipping her hair about her face, completing
the ruin of her blouse . Wentworth jerked the throttle, and the ship
trundled out onto the field. He whirled it into the wind and, chancing
the danger of a cold engine, sent the ship racing down the runway,
took the air like a bird .
It was a speedy Northrup, a special plane with an adjustable pitch
propeller, and it glittered, as scarlet as one of the Spider’s own seals,
as it swept in a steady climb upward, banked sharply and streaked
off on the trail of the Black Death .
Wentworth knew the course that the money plane was scheduled
to follow, guessed that Pugh planned to attack it . Pugh had ordered
all planes from the sky on pain of releasing the Black Death . And
Wentworth, turning the controls over to Nita — it was a dual control
plane for long flights — swept the sky with glasses.
For long moments
as they raced toward the city, he could see
nothing . The haze of smoke above manhattan’s towers intervened .
But once the scarlet streak had dipped through that and the course
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swung westward and north along the Hudson, he tried again with
the binoculars .
The early sun was behind them, and suddenly Wentworth caught
a flash of light. He focused the glasses more sharply and made out
the silver wings of the ransom plane . Even as he watched, a small
black plane swooped out of the clouds above it .
Wentworth’s hands tensed upon his glasses . His eyes glinted .
There before him was the plane of the Black Death!
Far up the river he saw the two planes slant downward together .
They disappeared behind trees . The scarlet Northrup droned on . It
was equipped with no machine gun, but in a compartment beside
him Wentworth had a “Tommy,” a Thompson sub-machine gun that
would be wonderfully effective at relatively close range .
Grimly now, as the plane swept on, he unfastened the straps that
held it and drew the gun up past his chest and above the cowling . He
fastened it down with another strap, then wriggled into a parachute .
After which he took the controls while Nita availed herself of simi-
lar protection .
Wentworth was ready for the battle . They were near at hand now,
only a mile or two from the spot where the two planes had settled .
And even as he watched, the black craft of Pugh shot above the tree
tops and began to climb steeply. A moment later they flashed over
the field and Wentworth, peering down, made out the inert bodies of
three men stretched beside the silver-winged ransom plane .
Wentworth’s mouth went grim . He unstrapped the machine gun
and held it ready in his hands . Only a few hundred yards separated
him now from the Black Death . Suddenly the plane ahead vaulted
upward in an inhuman turn and shot back to meet him, with a flicker
of flame behind its propeller that he recognized with mounting anger
was a double machine gun . Where in heaven’s name had Pugh got
a military plane?
But there was no time to speculate on that . He must destroy the
man . Wentworth had been watching keenly, and he had seen no
pigeons winging back toward the city . He was positive the dread
harbingers of the plague were still aboard .
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He raised a hand to signal Nita to give him the controls, but the
girl had already thrown the ship into a twisting spiral, dodging from
the line of Pugh’s fire. Pugh veered to meet them, and she whipped
the nose back the other way . And now the black ship was within
range of Wentworth’s lighter gun .
Pugh was still struggling for altitude .
Abruptly Nita let him have it . Instead of climbing, she put the
Northrup into a steep dive, swishing down across the black ship’s
nose before Pugh could bring his guns to bear .
The killer flipped up the tail of his ship, but it was too late. The
scarlet Northrup had darted under, and a stream of .45 caliber bullets
ripped into the motor and underside of the black ship .
Nita zoomed and flashed back upon the tail of the black plane.
But there was no need of further firing. Black smoke and a burst of
flame ripped from the engine of Pugh’s ship. Wentworth saw the
Plague Master pumping frantically with a fire extinguisher.
The flames blossomed into full flower, flicked back at Pugh. He
threw up his arms . The motors drowned the sound of his shriek . He
reared for an instant in the cockpit, then leaped far out, clear of the
flaming black plane. His parachute whipped open.
Without an instant’s hesitation, Wentworth leaped, too, dropping
the gun back into the cockpit, depending on the automatic in his
pocket . But instead of jerking his rip-cord immediately, Wentworth
let his body hurtle downward unchecked . He shot past Pugh like a
bullet and fancied he heard a strangled cry of rage from the man .
A thousand feet from the rolling farm land beneath him, Wen-
tworth yanked the rip cord . His parachute snapped open and he
drifted downward, seeming scarcely to move . He could not see Pugh
now . The man was hidden by the open bell of his own parachute .
But the Black Death would not escape him .
Already the plague had perished in the flames of the ship, burning
fiercely in a nearby field. And Wentworth would reach the ground
first. He would be free of his parachute and ready, when Pugh land-
ed, to exact vengeance for the hundreds who had died .
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The ground sprang up beneath him and, flexing his knees, Wen-
tworth spilled down on the soft earth, tugging at the windblown
parachute . In a few moments, he was free of it and peering upward,
spotted Pugh . He was sideslipping his parachute, putting as much
distance as possible between himself and the vengeful Spider .
But Wentworth paced him easily. He saw Pugh’s automatic flame
in his hand, but he still pursued, dodging the hail of bullets that spat
viciously into the dust of the field. He put his hand into his pocket
for his gun . It was gone!
Somewhere in that frantic tumble through the air, it had spilled
from his pocket . For an instant Wentworth checked, then he ran on
more swiftly than before . Counting shots on Pugh, he estimated that
at the present rate the man would exhaust his bullets about fifty feet
above the ground, would be unable to reload in time .
But Pugh was canny . He held one shot . His parachute was only
forty feet from the ground, now thirty, now… Pugh bent his knees
and took the landing perfectly, whirled with raised gun as Went-
worth raced at him .
But Pugh had figured without the wind in his parachute. Even as
he leveled the gun, the collapsing sail was caught by a gust .
Wentworth had crowded him too closely . He had not had time to
free himself from the harness, and the tugging parachute jerked him
nearly off his feet. Before he could recover his balance and fire, the
Spider was upon him .
His fist struck the wrist of Pugh’s gun hand, knocked the weapon
fifteen feet away. And then began a grim battle for life, the Black
Death and the Spider, grim-faced and bleak-eyed, in the warm bath
of the morning sunshine .
“The end, Pugh! The end for you!” Wentworth cried . And there
was laughter on his lips — fighting, angry laughter. “Remember the
dog? Even if you overcome me, you — ”
Pugh’s face blanched . “Good God!” he cried in frantic terror .
“You’ve got the Black Death!”
Wentworth laughed again tauntingly . And suddenly Pugh turned
and ran .
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The Spider let him run a little way, dragging the parachute, work-
ing with desperate hands on the harness . And just as Pugh was al-
most free, Wentworth jumped on the parachute with both feet . The
man wa
s yanked to the ground .
He scrambled up, tore off the last of the harness, and the Spider
sprang upon him, seized him by the throat . Pugh struck in a frenzy
of fear with his fists, but his blows were weak.
In the end, the Black Death was a coward and died a coward’s
death, with terror in his eyes, with the Spider’s fingers crushing the
life slowly out of him .
Wentworth rose from the body of the man with disgust mingling
with the ferocity of his hate . He brushed his hands, reached into
his trouser pocket and brought out the crude imitation of his own
cigarette lighter with which Pugh had sought to incriminate him .
With it he printed upon the great bald head the vermilion death
seal of the Spider .
Then abruptly he shot a glance upward, hearing the whistle
of wind on a swooping plane . The scarlet Northrup glided in to a
perfect landing, its wing slots cutting its terrific landing speed to a
mere forty-five miles an hour. The slots were still in an experimental
stage . But Wentworth had contrived to have them installed on his
plane, and they worked perfectly .
Wentworth glanced once more at the man who had paid the pen-
alty at last for his crimes, then turned and loped toward the plane . But
Nita did not wait for him . She whirled the ship and taxied swiftly in
his direction, pointing toward the woods a few hundred yards distant
with an outflung hand.
Then Wentworth saw that Nita had maneuvered the lever which
hid the plane’s license number on wing and tail with a thin layer of
cloth on which a fictitious number had been painted, and he sprang
to the wing .
Even as his feet touched, Nita jerked open the throttle, and the
ship’s wheels left the ground before Wentworth was settled into the
cockpit . Then, peering over the side of the swiftly rising plane, he
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saw the need for haste . Blue-coated policemen were rushing onto
the field from the woods, and guns glinted in their hands.
The seal of the Spider, they would find, but — Wentworth threw
back his head and laughed, turned and blew a kiss to Nita — the
Spider was gone .
Chapter 19
Kirkpatrick is Generous
The Spider was gone, yes . But that seal would tell the world that
the Spider was not dead, that he had escaped the grave that had