THE SPIDER-City of Doom

by Norvell W. Page

  Wentworth's lips were grim. "It is what I mean to find out . . . tonight!" he said. "And Nita, listen, trust not even a man who seems to be myself from now on, unless he gives you sure proof! It might be . . . Munro!"

  Nita whispered, "A pass-word then?" Wentworth shook his head jerkily as the Daimler slid to a halt again before the Hesperides Club, where a bright neon sign showed three bouncing golden apples. "A pass-word can be faked, my dear," he said slowly. "No one can counterfeit the memories we share!"

  Nita stepped down to the curb, her hand in his, and sent her gay silvery laughter into the cold night. "So we can finish out our evening, Dick," she said happily. "That was a foolish mistake . . . ."

  The doorman's eyes were fixed on them intently as he swung open the portals of the club and Wentworth knew that Duncan would get a report on Nita's words. The gangster car was just sliding to a halt. The gunman, Mac, flashed across the pavement into a side entrance. When Wentworth and Nita had checked their wraps, Duncan was striding toward them, and there was a frown on his forehead; his dark eyes were secretive beneath veiling lids. And Mac was in the background, his sly face completely puzzled.

  Duncan's cordial smile was palpably forced. "I am glad you were able to return, sir!"

  Wentworth's smile was affable. "We don't like to leave things half-finished," he said, "and the injury to Miss van Sloan's cousin was a foolish error. A man who looked like Gregory and the doorman of the apartment made a mistake of identity."

  "I am complimented that you returned!" Duncan bowed.

  Wentworth's brows lifted in mockery. "And I forgot to thank you for the bodyguard, Duncan," he murmured. "I don't know the occasion for it, or is it a service you customarily tender to your clients!"

  HE TURNED easily toward Nita, and his eyes swept the corridor. Mac was no longer alone, and he was no longer in the background. He was moving lightly forward, flanked by three other gunmen! The smile on his lips was sly and knowing, and his round pale eyes were eager. Wentworth checked the curse that leaped to his lips.

  Had something slipped somewhere? It was part of his plan for the evening to have a showdown with Duncan, to find out where he connected with the death of Eggendorfer; with . . . Munro! But this was not the time Wentworth would have chosen, with Nita in the very center of it. Wentworth had not even his guns. He had been compelled to leave them, with their incriminating riflings, for Ram Singh to destroy.

  "By the way," Wentworth murmured over his shoulder. "When Commissioner Kirkpatrick comes, Duncan, you may show him to our table."

  His gaze sought Nita's face, and he saw in the glisten of her eyes that she had spotted the danger. She put a hand on his arm, and leaned close, laughing while she whispered.

  "I have a gun in my muff, Dick, if you want to fight!"

  He started toward the dining-room—and Duncan stepped into his path.

  "I wonder, Mr. Wentworth," he said suavely, "if you would mind stepping into my office a few moments?" His tone was casual, but there was cold menace beneath his voice. At his shoulder, Mac smiled his sly smile.

  Wentworth met that smile easily, and welcomed the chance to remove Nita from danger. "If you'll wait for me in the dining-room, Nita," he said, "I'll promise not to be long."

  "I'm afraid we need the lady, too," Duncan said grimly, and the subterfuge was gone now from his voice. There were three men closing in behind Wentworth. He slid his hands into his trousers pockets and his head was tilted quizzically.

  "I've changed my mind, Duncan," he said. "We won't go with you. And if you don't send your trained seals packing, at once, it will be my regretful duty to put a bullet through your umbilical. Yes, that protuberance over my trouser's pocket is the muzzle of a twenty-five caliber Colt's. Not a large-caliber weapon, but placed as I have indicated, I think you will find it does the trick, nicely!"

  Strangely, Duncan smiled. His eyelids lifted, and Wentworth saw there, instead of the fury and frustration he had expected, a gleam of genuine admiration.

  "Check," he said gently, "you will pardon me now while I make Commissioner Kirkpatrick welcome!"

  Wentworth turned his head easily and saw the crisply striding figure of Commissioner Kirkpatrick of the police punch in through the main entrance of the club. Sergeant Reams strode briskly at his heels, and there were two other uniformed men. Wentworth laughed . . . and took his hands out of his pockets, One held his cigarette case, and the other . . . the slim platinum lighter of the Spider.

  "Won't you have a smoke before you go, Duncan?" Wentworth asked lightly.

  Duncan hesitated, and looked down at Wentworth's hands. His smile was slight, even pleasant. "I'm afraid there isn't time just now, Mr. Wentworth," he said. "If I were you, I would remove the plaster dust from your right trouser leg. It is just possible Kirkpatrick might connect it with . . . a recent demolition job that the Spider has just finished!"

  He strode easily away to meet the commissioner of police and Wentworth bent casually to do as Duncan had indicated, but there was a frown behind Wentworth's eyes, and Nita's hand, touching his, was cold. No question now that Duncan was sure of his connection with the Spider, but what was strange was the man's behavior! Duncan was a big-time gambler, it was true, but he was not of a caliber to meet the Spider on equal terms. Yet he had done just that!

  More plainly than any words, Duncan had said: "This is a matter between you and me, Spider. A little private duel we shall finish after a while. I wouldn't want the police to interfere!"

  Behind them, Kirkpatrick was issuing crisp orders to his men, and Wentworth swung about on his heel, lifted a hand in salute. "You came sooner than I had expected, Kirk," he called, "and I see you've brought extra guests. Good evening, Sergeant Reams!"

  The sergeant nodded jerkily. His face was red from the burn of the winter cold, and there was frost in his blue eyes.

  "Good evening, sir," he said, "and to you, Miss van Sloan!"

  Kirkpatrick strode sharply up to Wentworth, and for once there was no friendliness in his saturnine face. His brilliant blue gaze held no recognition whatever.

  "Duncan," he said. "I'll need your office. Bring that hood called Mac. Wentworth, kindly accompany me."

  Wentworth shrugged, "I receive the most pressing invitations!" he said comically to Nita. "If you'll wait for me, dear?"

  Nita laughed. "Nothing of the sort! I'm coming with you! I'm sure Stanley won't mind, will you, Stanley?"

  For once, Kirkpatrick's faultless manners were in abeyance. "As you like, Miss van Sloan!"

  He pounded his heels into the soft carpeting as he headed for Duncan's office. Nita's hand rested lightly on Wentworth's arm. The quizzical smile remained on Wentworth's lips, but he wished Nita were out of it. He did not know what evidence Kirkpatrick might have against him, and he could not afford to be slapped into a prison now, even though he might manage to clear himself in trial! Munro would not await his release to press his damnable arsons, for whatever foul profit he derived from it. Human lives were at stake. Beside that fact, nothing in Wentworth's life could be important!

  If Kirkpatrick's evidence was strong, Wentworth would have no choice but to make a break for it!

  Kirkpatrick was his closest friend, and often they had worked side by side against the bitter enemies of mankind. But Kirkpatrick had long openly suspected Wentworth of being the Spider, though he lacked proof to substantiate that belief. Wentworth knew that if ever his friend did obtain the evidence, he would be treated like any criminal outside the law. Kirkpatrick's allegiance was to society's code of laws—not to an individual's application of justice, however right. So stern was his service to that code that friendship would not weigh against it for an instant.

  And Kirkpatrick's manner had served notice that tonight they were not friends; tonight, they were the forces of law and a man who might be a murderer!

  Wentworth seated Nita suavely in Duncan's large, over-furnished office, dropped nonchalantly into a chair himself. He looked up to find Kirkpatrick standing
on braced legs in the middle of the office, his face stern above the uncompromising thrust of his jaw.

  "Wentworth," he said sharply, "I'll ask you to account for every minute of your evening from seven o'clock to now."

  "An alibi, in fact," Wentworth smiled. "Am I to know of what you suspect me? Ah, well . . . ."

  "This is serious, Wentworth!" Kirkpatrick snapped.

  Wentworth's face obediently fell into serious lines. "I don't think I care for your manner, Kirk," he said quietly. "I have been here at the Hesperides Club with the exception of a brief trip to my apartment and back. I remained at the apartment between four and five minutes."

  "The reason for that trip!"

  Wentworth explained casually about the false report that Nita's cousin had been injured.

  "It has puzzled me greatly, Kirk," he finished. "No one at all had been injured. The doorman at my apartment, who was supposed to have made the call, denied any knowledge of it. In fact, Kirk, it almost seems that some one wanted to destroy my alibi for precisely that time!"

  Duncan was leaning his hips against the desk, smoking. He smiled, and interrupted. "That undoubtedly explains what I heard, Commissioner," he said. "I heard reports that Mr. Wentworth was to be held up and robbed. I didn't wish him to be annoyed, so I sent along a bodyguard in another car. Except for the few minutes when he was in his own apartment building, they did not lose sight of his car, did you, Mac?"

  Mac's face was ludicrous with surprise. He swallowed, tried for his usual sly grin, missed it badly. "That's the truth, Commissioner!" he said. "We followed that Daimler all the way across town and back again, and there he was, big as life, sitting in back with the dame."

  Nita's laughter was a trill. "Now, see, Dick," she said. "Why can't you call me interesting things like that? I'm a 'dame'!"

  Wentworth's gaze locked with that of Duncan, and once more he was puzzled by the mocking shine of the man's masked eyes. A cold suspicion raced through Wentworth's mind, but when he rose to his feet, it was casually.

  "That's very kind of you indeed, Duncan," he murmured. "I wondered at the purpose of the men who followed me. You were one, er . . . Mr. Mac? Thank you very much indeed."

  Wentworth held out his hand, with the adhesive stripped across the back, and shook hands with Mac, then offered his hand to Duncan.

  He saw uncertainty touch Duncan's eyes. Kirkpatrick's growl behind Wentworth held relief in its tones. Much as he despised to accept the word of those who lived on the fringes of the law, he felt that Duncan must speak the truth—at least so far as the alibi was concerned for he knew Wentworth would never enter into a bargain with such a man as this.

  "I have my own doubts about the reason for your surveillance of Mr. Wentworth," Kirkpatrick said grimly to Duncan. "You'll overstep yourself some day. I hope soon!"

  Duncan's eyes shot past Wentworth to Kirkpatrick, and his voice was mocking. "Mr. Commissioner, it sounds suspiciously as if you were trying to get me to commit a crime so that you could make an arrest! Surely, there are enough crimes in your city already!" As he finished speaking, he accepted Wentworth's handclasp.

  Wentworth's eyes bored into the black, cool eyes of the gambler, but they told him nothing. The handclasp did! Once before tonight, he had shaken hands with Duncan, and he knew . . . that the man whose hand he shook in this instant was not Duncan!

  A clever artist in disguise might simulate another person so carefully that a casual acquaintance might not be able to detect the difference, but no man could change the bony structure, the shape and thickness of his hand! The hand he shook now was thinner, narrower, with smaller bones. There was something almost feline in the touch!

  Perfection in disguise, and a boldness that met the police on equal terms, that dared even to challenge the Spider to a duel.

  Wentworth knew, with a terrible certainty, that he was shaking the hand of the man who this night had accomplished, through Eggendorfer, the destruction of a tenement in which five innocent children had lost their lives.

  He was shaking the hand of Munro!

  Chapter Three

  The Spider At Bay

  WENTWORTH'S reaction to that recognition was instantaneous. Munro was a man who would be gone the moment his hands no longer touched him. Once let him get outside this office, and he could strip off the disguise of Duncan . . . and vanish! Yet there was nothing, absolutely nothing genuine with which to charge him! He could not say that Eggendorfer, dying, had confessed he had taken his orders from Munro. For it was the Spider who had killed Eggendorfer, and Wentworth could have no knowledge of what the man had said!

  Wentworth's mind flashed to Nita, sitting quietly behind him, to Kirkpatrick. If he precipitated a battle now, one of them might be injured, killed. It was characteristic of Wentworth that he did not think of himself, though he was unarmed. But he could not let his fears for Nita stop him. This man was guilty of the murder of five children, and it would not stop there!

  Wentworth stepped back and drew a slow breath. He knew that what he was about to say might precipitate a fighting scrape that would kill Nita, but he could not hesitate.

  "Kirkpatrick," he said quietly. "This man lies. His men trailed me with intent to kill me. Duncan himself threatened me with guns tonight, and was on the point of taking me a prisoner into his office when you arrived so opportunely. I will swear out a warrant. Arrest this man!"

  Duncan's smile did not waver, but something deadly and venomous flashed out of his eyes. He had a cigarette in his fingers and he tapped it gently on the case.

  "I submit," he said easily, "that this is scarcely the treatment I would expect in return for an excellent alibi. But, do your duty, Commissioner!"

  He held out his wrists, the cigarette still dangling from his fingers. Kirkpatrick grunted with satisfaction.

  "I hope you'll stand behind that charge, Dick," he said steadily. "I've been wanting to nail this man. Sergeant Reams . . ."

  Reams took a stride forward, unhooking handcuffs from his belt . . . and Wentworth uttered a cry and leaped past him. He tried to catch the cigarette that dropped from Duncan's fingers. Too late! The cigarette struck the floor, and exploded! An incredible burst of gray vapor spurted upward from the spot, and in the same moment, the lights in the office blacked out!

  Wentworth recognized the gas in the same moment the cigarette exploded. Tear gas! But he did not check his vain leap. Instead, he hurled himself violently forward, his arms taut to grasp Duncan! A man reeled into him, and Wentworth grappled with him viciously. His powerful legs drove him forward, and he slammed the man hard against the wall! A fist hammered into his chest, and a voice cursed thickly.

  "Take that, you rat!" gasped the voice of Sergeant Reams.

  Wentworth swore, jerked free, and in the darkness, a man screamed terribly, and then began to strangle in a horrible way. Words tried to bubble through that scream, and they were meaningless, a ghastly sound in the blackness.

  "Flashlight, Reams!" Wentworth snapped. "The door, Kirk. I'll take the window. Now, Nita, the lights. Switch behind you!"

  An instant after Reams' flashlight snapped across the width of the office, and found nothing, the lights blazed down from the ceiling. Beside the door, Nita was twisted about tensely, her small automatic searching in her fist. Guns were in the hands of Kirkpatrick and Sergeant Reams . . . and Wentworth was spread across the window. Despite that instantaneous guard, Duncan had vanished! But he had left his mark behind.

  Struggling out his life on the floor, hands tearing at the gaping wound in his throat, was the gunman, Mac!

  For an instant, the sight held them frozen motionless. Then Nita uttered a gasping cry and turned her face away, buried it in her arms. Wentworth crossed the office in long bounds.

  "Whistle up your men, Kirk!" he cried. "There must be some hidden exit to this room—but he'll have to leave the building to escape!"

  Kirkpatrick's gun lashed the glass from the window as Wentworth lunged into the hallway. The whistle screamed i
nto the night and Kirkpatrick's deep voice shouted orders, but Wentworth knew in that same moment that it was futile. There were a hundred, perhaps two hundred men in the building—and given ten minutes in seclusion, Munro could easily cast aside the disguise of Duncan and become one of them! He did not even have to disguise himself, for if he appeared in his true identity, no man could recognize him!

  Wentworth stopped his wild dash, knowing in advance that it was futile. Could he shake hands with every man in this place, attempt by that means to identify Munro? But the man was warned now. Clever as he was, he would find some way to disguise his hands also. Moreover, before he had shaken two hundred hands, Wentworth knew that his own would be so numb that there would no longer be any certainty in his grasp. He was beaten—and once more Munro had left no trail! He had even cut the throat of his private bodyguard, so that the man could tell no secrets!

  He found Nita leaning weakly against the wall in the hall, still shaken by the awful death she had witnessed. She said, faintly, "Munro?"

  Wentworth nodded grimly. "No question about it." He turned toward Kirkpatrick as the commissioner came striding from the office. "It won't do any good to order Duncan picked up," he said quietly. "That wasn't Duncan. I knew it when I shook hands with him, because just a short while ago I shook Duncan's hand. Kirk, my private sources of information in France tell me that Munro has returned to America. That was Munro, in disguise as usual. I am quite sure, Kirk, that these arsonous fires that have sprung up around the city in recent weeks are his work!"

  Kirkpatrick gazed keenly into Wentworth's face. "Private information again, Dick?"

  Wentworth shrugged slightly, "Call it a hunch, Kirk. Nothing that would hold water in court. If you have no further use for me, I'll take Nita home. She's had . . . quite a shock."