THE SPIDER-City of Doom

by Norvell W. Page

  If Wentworth had been one instant late in his swift leap, those flames would have seared the life from his body in that first flash! As it was, he felt the hot bite of the knife-points of flame, heard the window crash out with the force of the concussion! No ordinary man would have lived through that first split-second of disaster, but Wentworth would not have this long survived his fierce battles with crime had he not been a little greater than human.

  In the instant when he was whipping aside the covers, to gaze at the incredible fact that Ram Singh was a bound prisoner in Duncan's bed, Wentworth's all-seeing eyes had caught sight of another thing. He had glimpsed a wire, so fine as to be invisible except on close inspection, fastened to the bed-clothes. He had felt that wire catch and drag as he flung the covers aside. More than that had not been necessary! He was on the trail of an arsonist, and such men dealt in flame traps!

  Wentworth tried to roll Ram Singh from the bed, but ropes held him prisoner. Wentworth's hand stabbed beneath his cape and brought out . . . the glass globes of the flame extinguisher! Fiercely, he hurled one where the red, leaping flames were hottest! Already, the fire was beginning to roar with the draft from the open window. The rug, walls, even the bed itself, was alive with little dancing blazes! Then the extinguisher burst!

  Where it shattered against the wall, the flames leaped fiercely high . . . and went out! White fumes crawled along the floor, and where they rolled, the spots of fire pinched out like a match tossed into a basin of water. One more of the extinguisher bombs Wentworth hurled, and the last of the blazes was blackened. The room was completely dark now. Plainly, the wiring system had been involved in that touch-off; was blown out now!

  Wentworth thrust himself violently from the bed, and a keen pocket-knife flicked open in his hand. He worked with furious speed, slashing loose the bonds that held Ram Singh. Even after that so short blaze, the air of the room was stifling hot. It reached with tearing hands into his lungs. The fumes of the extinguisher crawled close to the floor, but Wentworth coughed stranglingly as he worked . . . . His mind raced even faster than his deft hands.

  No question that Munro had come before him, exactly figuring the Spider's next step; no question either that this flame-trap was only the beginning! There would be killers here whose job it would be to make sure of the Spider's death! At any moment, the doors might crash in—the gunmen hurl themselves to the attack! Ram Singh must be free then . . . .

  These thoughts were in the forefront of Wentworth's mind, but there was a nagging agony there, too, that he would not permit to make itself felt. Ram Singh's presence here could mean only one thing: he had been overpowered by some trick while Wentworth and Nita had been inside the Hesperides Club the last time. And that meant . . . that meant the man who had driven Nita away in the Daimler was Munro!

  Wentworth ripped the gag from Ram Singh's lips. "Quiet!" he warned. "There will be enemies near!"

  Ram Singh heaved his broad-shouldered length from the bed, and Wentworth caught the gleam of his teeth as he spat on the floor. "Wah," he rumbled softly. "Thy servant is a swollen-bellied idiot from the hills! They tricked me, sahib! Thy servant is unfit to live!"

  Ram Singh was suddenly on his knees before Wentworth, and his powerful hands ripped open the throat of his tunic.

  "Master," he growled, "they have taken my knives, else I would spare thee the task! Slay a dog who is unfit!"

  Wentworth's hand dropped heavily on Ram Singh's shoulder. His own heart was lead in his chest. "If you deserve death, my warrior," he said in the harsh Punjabi that was Ram Singh's native language, "then I also deserve that fate. For I rode behind this man, clothed in thy garments! And I did not know him! I did not know him . . . and he carried off . . . the missie sahib!"

  A growl of rage rumbled in Ram Singh's chest. He was suddenly on his feet, and his crouch was like a beast. His hands swung restlessly. "Master," he whispered, "let us, thou and I, earn the right to live! When I have found those who hold the missie sahib . . . ."

  Wentworth's own lips were curved in a wintry smile. He heard a few frightened calls in the courtyard outside the window, but on this floor, there was complete silence. And it was a silence of waiting, and of death!

  "That door leads into the hallway, Ram Singh," he said. "It is locked! And our enemies are outside!" Ram Singh crossed the room in two easy strides, and his hands clamped on the knob of the door. His shoulders, his back arched like the bow of a catapult.

  "I will want one man alive," Wentworth's whisper rang.

  There came a slow creaking from the door. Ram Singh's breath exploded in a curse from his lips . . . and suddenly be straightened. There was a ripping of wood, the scream of torn metal! Ram Singh wrenched the door from its hinges! A hoarse shout burst from his lips. He thrust the door before him, and lunged out into the hallway!

  The enemy was waiting, men at each end of that narrow hallway with guns in their fists. They were waiting . . . but they were not ready. So swift was Ram Singh's leap that he was half-way to the nearest men before they realized their prisoners had burst from the apartment! Ram Singh whipped the door above his head, and his teeth gleamed amid the thicket of his beard. The war cry of his native hills roared joyously from his throat! A single gun spat then, wildly, and Ram Singh hurled the door, like a broad-bladed javelin, at the killers!

  A man turned to run, and the door caught him in the small of the back, bent and broke him; carried him on against his fellows crowded in that narrow corridor! Three men went down, and Ram Singh shouted again and leaped through the air, with his great fists reaching before him! All that Wentworth saw as he flung through the doorway, and afterward he ignored the men at Ram Singh's end of the corridor. He had his automatics in his fist and he pivoted to the right—began shooting!

  There were five men at his end of the hall. One of them, straight ahead, grasped a machine-gun. Out of doors on either side of the hallway leaned the other four, and revolvers were in their fists. In that single sweep of his eyes, Wentworth placed them all, estimated them—and his guns, hard-pressed against his hips, jerked in the first salvo of death!

  His first bullet caught the crouching machine-gunner squarely in the forehead and whipped him backward out of sight through that darkened doorway. His weapon clattered to the floor and, afterward, his feet showed. They drummed the floor for a little while. But Wentworth was scarcely aware of that. The guns throbbed like living things in his fists, scoring along the walls as they skimmed toward those twin doorways from which death threatened. A gunman lurched backward against his companion, surged forward again as the other opened panicky fire on the Spider—and hit his own partner instead!

  Another man, drilled through the shoulder, was whirled out into the middle of the hallway by the sledge-hammer of the Spider's lead. He pitched to his hands and knees and began to scramble frantically, crazily toward that dark doorway where the machine-gun lay. There were only two men left alive in those doorways, and they had flinched back out of sight.

  Wentworth heard Ram Singh's pantherish stride behind him. "What, master," he jibed, "are there still men alive down here?"

  Wentworth's smile twisted his lips. He was waiting while the crawling gangster grappled for the machine-gun. His eyes flicked to those two empty doorways.

  "Throw a body down the hall," he murmured, and Ram Singh laughed harshly. His breath gusted out through his nostrils and, over Wentworth's head, sailed the limp-armed body of a man. It crashed to the floor before the doors, and flame spat out of the darkness. Wentworth squeezed each trigger once, and there was the concerted clatter of falling guns within those rooms. He had had only the gun-wrists of the men to shoot at—but he had needed no more target than that!

  There were screams inside those rooms, pain and fright hoarsening the voices. And the gangster with the broken shoulder had his machine-gun.

  "Drop it, fool, and live," Wentworth sent his harsh whisper sibilantly through the hallway.

  The man's jaw was chattering with fear. His
eyes strained wide and blind in his face. Perhaps he could not hear! His hands shook as he tried to bring the machine-gun to bear. Wentworth squeezed a trigger, and the machine-gun leaped like a living thing from the man's hand.

  "Take him, Ram Singh," Wentworth whispered. "Alive!"

  With a shout, Ram Singh bounded down the hallway. Wentworth moved forward more slowly. A glance behind him showed what fearful carnage the bare hands of the enraged Sikh had performed. There no longer were any cries from the two rooms that flanked the hall, yet there should be wounded men in them. There should be . . . .

  Wentworth stiffened to gauge the screams and shouting that echoed through the building. Undoubtedly, the police already had been summoned. He couldn't have much time. But why were those two men in the dark rooms silent? Wentworth's eyes narrowed in abrupt alarm. He leaped through the nearest doorway and flung the strongly concentrated beam of his pocket-flash about the room. Empty! A bound took him across the hallway and into the opposite room. That also was empty, and ropes swung from the window!

  Through a long moment, Wentworth stood there staring out into the darkness from which the snow whirled like dark specks against the sky-glow, and then a shout lifted to his lips. He wheeled out of the room.

  "Bring the prisoner, Ram Singh!" he shouted.

  * * *

  He plunged for the steps, toward the screams and the shouting below him. No question what those escape ropes meant. They had not been left there for the killers to escape from the Spider. Munro had never expected the Spider to emerge alive from Duncan's room; nor would he have provided for his men to escape. Nor would they have needed the ropes for escape, if the fire in Duncan's apartment had spread. But if this apartment building were set for a touch-off, if the flames were meant to leap up this unguarded wooden stairway and sweep the building in one terrifying holocaust of destruction—then they would have needed those ropes, and needed them badly.

  Wentworth took the stairs in great bounds. "Fire!" he shouted, as he ran. "Fire! The building is on fire! Get out! Get out fast—before it's too late! Hurry!" Voices muted beneath the lash of his voice. In the dim-lighted hallway below him, white faces turned up toward him. An old woman with a white cap upon her whiter hair smiled uncertainly with wrinkled lips, and a girl in a feathered negligee tossed her head, and smiled a little slyly. There was a man in trousers and undershirt, and he stared at Wentworth with spreading eyes. His red face drained of color.

  "The Spider!" he whispered, and his voice broke. He screamed, "The Spider!" He turned and began to tear down the steps. They shook under his terrified tread!

  Wentworth swung his arm at the people gathered there in a tight, terrified bunch. "Come on!" he shouted. "Follow me! I tell you the house is on fire!"

  He stampeded down the steps behind the man, hearing his screams run ahead of him, hearing the terror that the mere mention of the Spider's name could spread in the sudden stillness; and the sudden screams that followed in the wake of the man's flight. Wentworth's lips were grim. He could not blame the people for fearing him, though it was in their service he had done what he had done. They could not reason out his motives. They only knew that many had been found dead with the glittering red mockery of the Spider's seal upon their forehead. And so they feared . . . .

  It was a glancing thought across Wentworth's mind as he raced for the first floor. He could do no more than shout a warning to the people he passed. It was on the first floor, in the basement beneath, that he must seek to prevent this threatened holocaust. The touch-off mechanism would be there; the naphtha to spread the flames instantaneously. God, if only Munro were here now! Wentworth's fists tightened in white hammers at his side! The damnable callousness of the man to set such a trap, when scores of human beings were clustered in these ancient buildings; when every fire he touched off meant human lives! But he would not care for that, only for money in his pocket, by whatever scheme he used to collect on these pyres of the living.

  As he ran, Wentworth heard a sound pierce through the beat of terror that raced about him: The shriek of speeding police sirens! His teeth locked together. They would be here within instants, and all about the street echoed to screams that blazoned the name of the Spider! Immediate flight was the only thing that could save him. He had his prisoner. Ram Singh could force words from the man, if the fear of the Spider would not. Within his grasp was the means to smash Munro!

  But Wentworth did not even hesitate on the first floor, where he might have dashed to safety. He swung down the narrow hallway, batted open the basement door. He had to save these people first of all. If he could find the touch-off mechanism in time! He knew he had not many seconds. The precipitate flight of those gunmen told him that. He peered down into the blackness of the basement, and the hot volatile stench of naphtha struck his nostrils. Even as he started down the steps, he saw the hot leap of an electric flash!

  A shout rose in Wentworth's throat. He hurled himself backward, slammed the door, dodged aside. A rumbling concussion made the floor leap beneath his feet. The basement door was torn from its hinges, and jagged swords of red flame stabbed out through the opening! There was that moment's pause, and then flame was boiling out through the doorway, as coffee boils over from a pot. Gouts of red and yellow rolled across the floor and where they touched, fresh fire leaped up to add to the billowing folds of pure flame.

  Wentworth picked himself up from its path and staggered toward the front of the building. Men and women were screaming, throwing themselves from the first-floor windows. Two or three streamed down the steps and out the front door, but already the flames were working on those wooden stairs, dancing joyously, bubbling through the cracks, spreading . . . . Halfway down the first flight, Ram Singh was crouched with the unconscious gangster across his shoulder. Escape was easy now. The police had not yet arrived.

  It was like the Spider that he did not hesitate at all. On the one hand was safety in escape; on the other death either by fire or at the guns of the police. But human lives were at stake, the people whom the Spider served selflessly and without stint!

  Wentworth did not think of escape. He thought of an old woman in a nightcap, and a saucy young girl; he remembered the frightened wail of children.

  "Out, Ram Singh!" he ordered. "Save yourself, and take the prisoner to the car!"

  And the Spider whirled and bounded up the stairs, back into the teeth of flames—into the mouth of hell!

  Chapter Five

  The Mouth of Hell

  WENTWORTH raced furiously up the steps, toward the surge of people who fought to descend that narrow, treacherous way. Wentworth felt the stairs tremble violently under his tread. A step cracked and collapsed under the thrust of his foot, and up the well, a tower of flame flapped in sudden fury. It twined its hot arms across the stairs and Wentworth hurtled it with a muffled shout.

  The heat stabbed into his lungs and he staggered.

  Instantly, a strong arm was about his shoulders, heaving him upward. And in his ear, the calm voice of Ram Singh spoke gravely.

  "Your orders, sahib!"

  Ram Singh had chosen to die beside the master he loved rather than seek safety in flight!

  Wentworth whirled toward the valiant Sikh and the screams of terrified humans beat about them like a leaden hail. A man ran at the flames on the steps, shrieked and hurled himself headlong through the licking tongues. His body struck with a crash, and there was a rending, tearing sound! The steps gave way beneath him, and his scream soared, but the flames' roar drowned it quickly. They leaped higher, released by the fall of the stairs.

  Wentworth's lips moved in a slight smile of acknowledgment of Ram Singh's courage. He thrust out his hand, pointing.

  "Drive the people upstairs!" he ordered fiercely.

  He flung up his arms, and in the hot draft of the flames, his cape billowed out behind him like black wings, a brave erect figure against the scarlet and yellow of death that flared behind him.

  "Up!" he shouted above the flame roar.
"Climb upward! The roof is your only protection! Fire engines are coming with ladders! Get up!"

  He yelled.

  A few women fled before him toward the stairs, but there was terror above, and people fought also to run down that narrow treadway to what they hoped was safety. Ram Singh reached over the rail and seized a man by the neck, dragged him from the steps.

  "Up!" he shouted. "Go up!"

  His scowl was fierce, and the women broke before him and fled upward. At the head of the steps, they ran into a jam of human beings. Wentworth leaped for the stairway and his legs drove him fiercely. His hands reached out over the heads of the terrified people and picked out the cowards—the men who fought blindly and crazily to escape, and were imperiling other lives. Wentworth struck crisp, reaching blows. The men went down, and the jam was broken. Afterward, the people could move more swiftly.

  They were on the third floor now, and already the heat here was incredible. Black smoke swirled and drifted through the hallways, and there were strangling gasps of terror. A woman was on her knees with a baby in her arms, and two other children clung to her, big-eyed with fear, too frightened even to cry.

  "The fire escape, Ram Singh!" Wentworth said quietly. "Get back there and see that there is no fighting."

  Ram Singh tossed his prisoner to the floor and darted back through the wide open doorways toward the fire escape and Wentworth heard his voice ring out fiercely, batter down the panic screams. Wentworth bent over the woman with the children, and she flinched from his touch.

  "It will be safer up above," Wentworth said gently.

  The woman cringed away, rising to her feet. She turned and ran toward the steps upward, with the children clinging to her.

  "Who's the funny man, Mother?" the little boy piped. "What are you running for, Mother? He's a nice man . . . ."