THE SPIDER-City of Doom

by Norvell W. Page

  The kitchen light flung an oblong of luminousness out into the living room, just reaching Collins, who was still unconscious. Wentworth stooped over the deputy sheriff, found a welted red knot behind his left ear where Jigg's gun had struck. A slosh of water from the kitchen and the man stirred, moaning. Wentworth watched him a moment, then nodded and stopped fleetingly by each of the two men he had slain. He pressed something that glinted to each forehead and when he stepped away, a blob that was red as their spilled blood glowed upon the brow of each. That blob had sprawling hairy legs, and viciously ready fangs—the seal of the Spider!

  A thin mocking grin was on the Spider's lips as he left his prey, reloaded and holstered his guns, and crossed to the woman. She lay face down on the floor, arms thrown protectingly over her blond head. Her silken gown hung from her in tatters, exposing the smooth tense curve of her back.

  Wentworth dropped the blanket over her. "The gangsters are gone," he said swiftly, "but police will be here within minutes and I must be gone when they arrive. You know by now that the Spider is your friend. You must answer some questions."

  The girl stirred slightly, and he helped her sit up on the floor. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She locked her even white teeth upon her lower lip and fought down sobs. Wentworth drew the blanket about her shoulders and squatted before her.

  "I'll tell you what I know," Wentworth said swiftly, and recounted what he had learned of her husband's death.

  While he spoke, the girl's eyes quested over the room. She saw the dead men and her eyes flew back to Wentworth as if for protection. Her gaze clung desperately to him now.

  "I want to know what invention your husband was working on," Wentworth said. "Can you tell me?"

  The girl shook her golden head. Her hair slipped down across her shoulder. "Those gangsters were after something like that, too," she said. "They wanted something they said was in Jim's papers. But it wasn't there."

  "You don't know what it was?"

  "No, except Jim said—" she choked and her eyes filled. "Jim said it would put us on Easy Street forever. We could . . . could . . ." Her voice died out.

  Wentworth heard Collins stir behind him and jerked his head about. The deputy surged abruptly to his feet, stood with clenched fists, his eyes darting about. He took in the twisted bodies on the floor, glared at Wentworth. "One of them got away," he growled hoarsely.

  "Do you know what Jim's invention was?" Wentworth asked sharply.

  The man's dark eyes narrowed. "I reckon it wouldn't be any of your business if I did," he said.

  * * *

  Wentworth straightened. "That's where you're wrong," he said coldly. "Two days after Jim Collins died, a bank was robbed near here. The crooks who broke into that bank had something brand new in the way of burglar tools. It smashed steel like sugar. I associate your brother's death with that robbery."

  Deputy Collins came forward slowly. He was a heavily built man, over six feet tall, with wedge shoulders. His neck was corded. "I reckon you'll have to explain that last remark," he said. His voice was soft and slow, but there was a hard ring to the words.

  Wentworth uttered an impatient exclamation. He knew the police must be close. He could not understand why they had not come before this.

  "I mean that gangsters murdered your brother for his secret," he said swiftly. "Now, for heaven's sake, if you know anything, spill it fast."

  The huge man stared at him with his big head thrust forward, the heavy shock of brown hair tousled. He seemed to be studying the man beneath the false face that Wentworth had built over his own to create the character of the Spider.

  "I reckon we do owe you a mite of consideration," Collins said slowly. "You sure pulled us out of a powerful tight hole." He shook his head. "We don't know much. Only that Jim was figuring on selling his invention to the government. But there's two men that know more than we do. They're Bill Butterworth, who worked with Jim at the steel plant, and . . . ." A scowl twisted the man's features. "DeHaven Alrecht, a damned foreigner who had his finger in Jim's pie."

  Nancy Collins' quiet voice broke in. "Mr. Alrecht was very nice to us, Anse," she said. "He got Jim his job at the plant and he was going to finance the invention when Jim got it finished."

  "Sure, for a lion's share cut of the profits," Anse Collins drawled. "And you can't tell me he was just being nice to Jim. I always did think the skunk had his eye on you."

  "Anse!" The girl's voice was distressed.

  "It's a fact," Anse Collins said stubbornly. "Alrecht was dead set on marrying you."

  A thunderous fist beat on the door. Wentworth sprang to his feet. "That's the police," he snapped. "Listen, the crooks who held you up came from New York. If you want to find Jim's murderers, you can go there and register at the Kennillworth Hotel on Forty-Sixth Street. I'll get in touch with you."

  He reached the kitchen door in a bound—checked short. Crouched on the fire-escape was a policeman. The cold light from the window glinted on his badge and on a gun in his hand. So that was why the police had delayed! They had surrounded the building before knocking. The fist battered at the door again.

  "Open up," a man shouted. "It's the police."

  The fire-escape and door were blocked. That policeman on the fire-escape prevented any use of the dumbwaiter in the kitchen. And here on the floor lay the bodies of two men with the seal of the Spider upon their foreheads. What did it matter that they were criminals? The Spider had killed them, and the law could not consider motives.

  "If you don't open up in one minute," the rough voice bellowed from the hall, "we'll break the door in!"

  Chapter Two

  Ram Singh Falls

  THE TWO, Nancy Collins, and her brother-in-law, were staring at Wentworth with worried frowns. Unconsciously, the girl drew the blanket more tightly about her. There was a wary light in Anse Collins' eyes.

  "Look here," he shouted gruffly. "I'm an officer of the law, too, even if I haven't any authority here. Reckon you better get out of here damned quick."

  Wentworth laughed softly. "That's right. Stall them as long as you can."

  He darted into the bedroom, slapped the door shut and locked it. He heard the reverberations of more pounding on the outside door, heard Collins' gruff voice, but couldn't make out the words. He reached the window with quick strides. It was already raised and he peered furtively toward the man on the fire-escape. The cop was still poised there with gun in hand, peering into the kitchen.

  A glance above and below showed still another uniform cap thrust over the edge of the roof, two shadows that were men in the alley below. Wentworth's smile became grim. It was almost as if these men knew that the Spider was here and were taking no chances on his escape. There was a fifty-thousand-dollar reason for him—the rewards piled upon his head by communities he had flouted and mocked in his swift and deadly pursuit of evildoers.

  It did not matter at all that Wentworth had done these things only in the name of justice, that he killed only when justice was served by death. A dozen different states were ready to hang or electrocute him—if they could once identify him as the Spider. And in the other room there was evidence enough of that, besides the two persons who knew he had affixed the mocking crimson seal to the dead men lying there.

  If he failed to escape, not only was his life forfeit, but perhaps with him would die the chance of capturing criminals who, through their wide scientific knowledge, could ravage from banks all over the nation the hard-earned savings of thousands of honest men and women. Even as he thought this, he wheeled, reentered the living room. There was one slim chance of escape, but he would have to act quickly.

  Collins and Nancy jerked about as he opened the door. "Stand clear," he ordered them gesturing toward the portal where police hammered.

  Collins sprang back and Wentworth fired twice into the ceiling A fusillade answered, riddling the door. Wentworth sprang back into the bedroom, reached the window in a bound.

  The cop on the fire-escape straightened, sma
shed in the window with his gun, sprang inside. But that man on the roof and those two in the alley still watched. Wentworth shrugged. It was now or never. Already the police were at the door of the bedroom.

  "Open up, Spider," a man commanded. "We got you dead to rights this time. You're surrounded and you can't get away."

  There was jubilance in the voice, eager triumph. Wentworth's smile tightened. He whipped a length of silken cord from beneath his arm, cord that was not quite as large in diameter as a pencil, yet which had a tensile strength of seven-hundred pounds. He looped it over the steam radiator beneath the window, forked the sill and slid down the side of the building with the cord wrapped about arms and legs. He contrived to make a lot of noise doing it, kicked the window out of the room below the Collins' bedroom.

  The two policemen on watch in the alley heard and shouted rapidly. They ran down the alley with their flashlights questing over the side of the building.

  "Don't shoot!" Wentworth cried in terror-stricken accents. "For God's sake, don't shoot!"

  He pushed his feet against the side of the house and caused himself to swing from side to side. The cops ran down the alley until they stood below him but carefully away from the wall so that he could not drop upon them. Wentworth had descended another story now. He was only two floors above the ground and directly opposite the window of another apartment.

  Windows were flung open above his head and bedcapped heads thrust out. "We got him," the cops below sang out triumphantly.

  Wentworth was gyrating widely on his silken line now. His feet struck the window and crashed it inward. Then, abruptly, the Spider vanished. He swung into the window and out of sight. Guns blazed in the alley. Men shouted excitedly.

  Inside the room where Wentworth crouched, a quavering voice said, "Don't shoot me. I ain't got nothing you want."

  Wentworth crossed to the door in a bound, sprang across the room beyond and jerked open the outside door, slammed it again. Silently then, he slipped back to the kitchen. This apartment had exactly the same floor plan as the Collins' rooms and he had no trouble in finding his way. In the kitchen, he went directly to the dumb-waiter shaft. The cage itself was one story below and he hauled it quietly to his level and climbed inside. He was certain the basement would be guarded. There was still only a slim chance of escaping. He raised the dumbwaiter slowly until he was once more level with the Collins apartment. He listened intently, ear to the shaft door. There was no sound in the apartment and he eased into the empty kitchen.

  Then he could hear talking in the next room, Nancy Collins protesting vigorously that she knew nothing except what she had told. Wentworth peered into the room. Collins was standing with legs aggressively braced, his tousled head thrust forward. "I reckon you-all have asked enough questions now," the big man drawled quietly.

  There were two police inside, one in civilian clothes, one in uniform. Wentworth's spring into the room was soundless. The first warning the two men had of his presence was the flashing light within their skulls when his pistols slapped their heads. Collins half-started forward, but suddenly he was looking into the black muzzle of an automatic.

  "I don't want to slap you down, too," the Spider said softly.

  Anse Collins grinned slowly. "Reckon I don't want you to either," he smiled.

  Wentworth nodded. He stooped and snatched the uniformed man's cap, put it on and whirled back to the kitchen, clambered out on the fire-escape. The two police were still in the alley.

  "He went down the dumb-waiter!" Wentworth yelled at them. "The Spider's in the basement!"

  The two cops peered up and saw the silhouette of a police cap against the sky.

  "Get down in the basement, you lugs!" Wentworth bawled. "He's down there, I tell you. I'll watch the alley."

  The two cops hesitated a moment longer, then raced for the cellar entrance as Wentworth clattered down. They paused once more at the door. Wentworth dropped from the fire-escape and ran toward them. They ducked out of sight. He clapped the door shut behind them, jammed into its crack a thin piece of rasp steel from the tool kit beneath his arm. Then he raced on for the street. The cops in the basement started shouting. Their guns banged, smashing the door's lock. The man on the roof peered down uncertainly into the darkness of the alley, but it sounded to him as if Spider and police had joined battle in the basement.

  Wentworth darted into the street, saw a line of police cars at the curb and leaped into the first. The motor was still hot and it started instantly. He took the corner on two whistling tires. Behind him, through the whine and sough of the wind roaring past the car, biting at his silk-gloved hands, he heard the popping of pistol shots, the skid of wheels, then the wail of sirens. But he had a two-block lead. It was all the Spider needed.

  Ten minutes later, driving his own car and stripped of the disguise of the Spider which was carefully hidden in a secret compartment in the car's rear, Richard Wentworth parked by the Ft. Middle Hotel, where he had registered that night with Ram Singh. He had several lines of investigation open, but just now it was most important that he be here to receive a phone call from Ram Singh when the Hindu should have located the headquarters toward which Devil Hackerson had been fleeing. He had hardly reached his room when the bell tinkled and he snatched up the receiver.

  "Sahib!" It was Ram Singh's voice, a gasp of haste.

  "Shoot," Wentworth ordered.

  "The Sky Building, sahib," Ram Singh blurted. "They are pl—"

  The sound of a shot and a groan echoed faintly over the wire. Wentworth's hands tensed about the 'phone, knuckles whitening.

  "Ram Singh!" he called anxiously.

  There was a soft click of disconnection. Frantically, Wentworth signaled the operator. "That call, where did it come from?"

  "From New York City, sir," the telephone operator reported.

  Wentworth waited five dragging minutes while she raised the New York operator, while she reported that the call came from a telephone pay-station in a Bronx drug store.

  "Notify police that there was a shooting at that address," Wentworth snapped. "I heard it over the telephone."

  He slammed up the receiver and flung from the hotel, sprang behind the wheel of his car and sent it sizzling along the one hundred and forty mile stretch to New York. He did not think the police would reach the spot in time to learn anything. His mouth shut with compressed lips that formed a straight bitter line. The underworld always struck at the Spider through his loved ones: through Nita van Sloan, the woman he loved, through his loyal Hindu. If Ram Singh had been killed, Wentworth would rip New York's underworld to pieces to find his murderer!

  Meanwhile, what of Ram Singh's message? It was clear that some deviltry was afoot at the Sky Building. Were the users of the steel crusher planning a robbery there?

  While Wentworth raced for New York, while police radio prowl cars sped to the spot where Ram Singh had been shot, Ram Singh himself lay unconscious on the floor of a gray sedan beneath the feet of two men. One of those was Devil Hackerson, and the frown between his eyes was increasing the satanic slant of his brows. "This is damned foolishness," he snapped. "I'm going to stick a knife into the nigger's guts and dump him in the gutter."

  The other man turned his head very slowly. "If you do, the Master will cut off your supply of the stuff," he said. His voice was high; he whined slightly, but there was a tone of insolent authority.

  Hackerson cursed violently. The driver echoed his anger. "This here guy we shot works for the Spider," the latter said. "We ought to string him up by his ears."

  The third man said nothing more. He sat and stared straight ahead through the windshield at the Fifth Avenue traffic through which they were weaving a slow and laborious way. He had a high dome of a head that seemed to swell out behind the ears and dwarf the little, wizened face. One of his overly prominent eyes had a cast in it and was a pale, washed-out blue. The other was brown and kept darting about like a frightened bird. He lipped a cigarette wetly.

  "Listen,
Devil," he whined. "You know I ain't got nothing to do with this. All I do is get the orders over the telephone and bring 'em to you. This guy what calls himself the Master always seems to know where to find me. He may call me at a restaurant or in a saloon and sometimes at the boarding-house. I don't see no harm in doing what the Master says. We get good dough out of it and if you don't do what he says, I'll lose my job, and . . ."

  Devil Hackerson pushed the other roughly in the face, but without ill nature, and the man's cap slid off. He was bald as an egg.

  "Don't get excited, Baldy," he said. "We're doing what your Master wants." There was a sneer in his voice at the word "Master." "But it's not to save your job. It's because we want the stuff. Boy, with that, we could knock over the Treasury of the United States without any trouble at all."

  The man called Baldy drew the cap over his bald head with nervous hands. "The Master says next time you don't use the stuff for what he tells you, you don't get any more." Baldy's voice was trembling, a little squeaky with fear at the message, but he kept on with it. "He says tell you there are other guys would be glad to get their hands on the stuff."

  "Ain't it the truth?" murmured Hackerson, but the frown on his forehead was puzzled now. "I'll be damned if I can see what good it'll do to knock the Sky Building down in the streets. Still more, I can't see why we got to take this nigger up on top of it and wait until the building topples before he dies. Hell, she might fall over while we're up there since it's all fixed now."

  Ram Singh heard the words with a sense of dull shock. These men talked of making the world's tallest building collapse as if it were no more than a hill of sand on the beach. Yet the Sky Building's collapse, even in the dead of night, would kill hundreds. And by day with the thousands teeming past on Fifth Avenue . . . Ram Singh shuddered involuntarily, listened while Baldy talked on.