THE SPIDER-City of Doom (16 page)

A hard smile twisted Wentworth's mouth. The answer to that lay in the destruction of Brooklyn Bridge. The Master was not yet through! More thousands were to die and other thousands go through life as cripples to fill his pockets. Wentworth discarded his disguise in a washroom, went to his apartment for clothing, gave some instructions, then hurried to police headquarters. Kirkpatrick had just returned wearily from the wreckage of Brooklyn Bridge. Pounds seemed to have been stripped from his lean body, years added to his shoulders. He dropped behind his desk without waiting to remove coat or derby. He looked beaten.

"Briggs got off all right," he said heavily. "Didn't want to go, but I think it was wise to get him out of the country before we make the announcement about Bessmo steel. The president of Bessmo convinced me it would do what it's supposed to."

Wentworth reached for a 'phone and put in a call to Professor Brownlee.

"Where'd you send Briggs?" he asked Kirkpatrick.

"Put him on the
Berengaria.
" The Commissioner was fingering through some reports distractedly and frowned at Wentworth's laughter. "What's the matter?" he demanded.

"Nothing at all," Wentworth said. "I sent Nita abroad on the same boat."

Kirkpatrick smiled warily. "There were a number of last minute passengers. Briggs wouldn't go unless Nancy Collins went along as his secretary. Nancy wouldn't go unless her brother-in-law, Anse, was with her. Luckily, Anse called us here to report he hadn't been able to find Alrecht and we got hold of him. He tried to dissuade Nancy, but finally went." Wentworth frowned. He had counted on Anse Collins' help in his activities of the next few days, but it couldn't be helped now.

"Damn it," he swore. "Everything is going haywire. Still no trace of Baldy, I suppose?"

The 'phone rang. Professor Brownlee agreed to call the newspapers and give them the information on Bessmo steel. "I haven't been able to find a way to make steel impervious to crystallizing," he said, "but gold-plating might prevent any external attack."

Wentworth had scarcely hung up when the 'phone buzzed again. He frowned, picking up the receiver, then handed the instrument to Kirkpatrick with a quizzical grimace. "For you," he said and watched Kirkpatrick's face grow in turns angry and puzzled as he listened.

"You turn that girl loose," Kirkpatrick barked. "Do you hear . . . ." He jiggled the hook up and down in vain, roared out an order to trace the call. He hung up, turned baffled eyes to Wentworth.

"That was the
Spider
," he said slowly. "I'll swear it was. He had the same mocking laugh, the same flat expressionless voice and the slightly pedantic manner of speech. Damn it, Dick, quit playing tricks on me. I'm in no gay mood."

Wentworth raised questioning eyebrows. "Aside from the matter of tricks, which I'm not playing," he said, "what in the hell are you talking about?"

"The
Spider . . . .
" said Kirkpatrick, then hesitated, "the
Spider
informs me that he has freed Betty Briggs, that when I need her to testify against McSwag he'll produce her, but in the meantime he's keeping her safe himself.

"I didn't know McSwag had been arrested," he said slowly. "I see the
Spider
has stolen the march on me once more. He killed nine gangsters. He desired me to know, over the 'phone, that the reason we hadn't been able to trace Betty's 'phone call was that it had come over a tapped-in phone."

He stared at Wentworth, but his friend's face gave no hint of the amusement be felt. He had instructed Jackson to make the call and imitate the
Spider's
voice, no difficult trick since the voice was a false tone to begin with, a deliberately disguised chest voice whose chief characteristic was its mockery and its monotone. Although Kirkpatrick believed that he was the
Spider,
it was just as well to shake that belief on occasion—to give him reason to deny to his superiors and his men that Wentworth and the
Spider
were one and be able to cite proof of it.

"It's fantastic, Dick," Kirkpatrick said. He shrugged. "I think I'll resign in favor of . . . . the
Spider!
" He grinned.

Suddenly the teletype machine in the corner of the office which brought in reports from other boroughs and states began to clatter. There was excitement in its swift, rattling clicks, so much so that Kirkpatrick's eyes jerked to the instrument and Wentworth twisted about to stare. Both men sprang to their feet and raced to the instrument. It ticked out:

 
U.S.S. CRUISER PENNSYNAPOLIS SUNK . . . ALL ABOARD BELIEVED LOST . . . STEEL SIDES BROKE IN WHEN CURRENT SLAMMED SHIP AGAINST PIER.
 

Wentworth went rigid, his hands clenched. Kirkpatrick's hoarse voice rasped out oaths in an unrecognizable tone. "By God!" he swore, and his voice became solemn. "If I catch the Master, I shall torture him to death!"

Wentworth stared at his friend's pale, drawn face and knew that Kirkpatrick had pronounced a solemn pledge he would never fulfill—not if the
Spider
could fulfill it first!

IN THE DAYS that followed, Wentworth fought a battle that was strange for the
Spider.
Instead of fighting in the night against the Master's men, he devoted himself to devising safety measures that would cut down the fearful toll of lives, directing the efforts of a hundred detectives whom Kirkpatrick placed under his personal direction. This was no time for smashing through lines of gangsters. Twice now, the
Spider
had wiped out mobs, and still the slaughter of the innocents went on. He must, in this case, run down the leader and eliminate him. When that was done, the gangs could be wiped out to some purpose.

The slaughter went on relentlessly. Bridges were smashed. Buildings tumbled into the streets. Ships shook their plates to pieces in the battering of the Atlantic gales. Trains found rails dissolving under their swift wheels and spilled pitiful dead across the countryside, but gradually the number of deaths diminished, though the wreckage continued. The rigid regulations set up in New York under Wentworth's administration and copied throughout the East began to take effect.

Still buildings continued to crash to the streets and bridges collapsed beneath puny loads. Cities were deserted by every man and woman who could possibly escape, fleeing to the rural areas where steel was not used for building. Men who had to remain sent their wives and children away. Going to work, they walked in the middle of the street with fearful eyes continually alert for the first hint of a building's collapse. On windy days, all shops and offices closed.

Such was the city that New York had become—in which the
Spider
fought to save human lives. When he had done all that he possibly could to check the mounting toll of the steel-eater, Wentworth pushed on with his investigations. He heard from Nita that though Butterworth had been traced to England through his passport, his family had seen nothing of him. Alrecht had not been found. Briggs was clamoring for permission to come home and petition the
Spider
for the return of his daughter. Finally, he declared he would defy Kirkpatrick's advice and start on the
Britannia,
England's newest and swiftest ship.

The police had checked the list of Bessmo stock holders without finding anyone suspicious save Alrecht, but Wentworth was not satisfied. He went over the list himself and looked up the private history of each man. Then he paid each a personal visit and in that way finally came to O'Leary Simpson. That man, newspaper clippings had told him, had built a school building ten years before that had collapsed and killed half a hundred children. He had been cleared of blame by an inquiry. Furthermore, Wentworth's interview with him had yielded nothing. He went from the man's office to a newspaper and went to the clipping files, the Morgue as it is called.

Wentworth frowned over the clipping about O'Leary Simpson. It was foolish to suppose there was any connection between that happening so long ago and these modern tragedies. Yet the man was in a position to profit largely by the mounting sale of Bessmo steel, which was being turned out by carloads in a triple-shift factory. Hundreds of other steel factories all over the country were paying for the privilege of installing the Bessmo process in their mills. And O'Leary Simpson was next to the largest holder of stock in the Bessmo corporation, which Wentworth was sure was the key to this whole tragic enigma. He got up slowly from the table where he had been reading the clippings and his jaw tensed in resolve.

Wentworth would pay O'Leary Simpson another visit, but this time it would be the
Spider
who called.

The heavy twilight was thick as Wentworth pushed his way out into a windy, rain-swept street. Men walked behind wind-buffeted umbrellas in the middle of the street. Asphalt glistened with the watery trail of the few moving headlights. A bit early for the
Spider's
call . . . . He turned up his coat collar, thrust his head into the whipping drops. He could not recall a single war with the underworld's master minds that had defied him so many weeks. There had been some in which, on the verge of conquering, he had been laid low by wounds. There had been times when a prison cell had kept him from the battle. But it was none of these in the present case. He simply had been unable to run the Master to earth.

Alrecht, upon whom his suspicions centered, had disappeared as utterly as if his body had been pulped in the crash of one of the skyscrapers, ground into a bloody unrecognizable slime as had been so many thousands of the population of the East. Baldy had not been sighted again, but the evidences of his work were everywhere.

Wentworth turned his heavy footsteps toward home, let Jenkyns take his soggy coat and hat. With an effort he braced his shoulders, lifted his head. The
Spider
was not beaten, could not be beaten, he told himself. For the sake of suffering humanity to which he long ago had dedicated his life and service, he must succeed.

The 'phone rang and Wentworth was electrified at Nita's first words. She said breathlessly: "We have found Butterworth, but he refuses to return with us."

Wentworth threw back his head and laughed, feeling new life within him. "Then kidnap him!" he said. "Bring him back on the
Britannia,
sailing tomorrow noon. Here's how you can do it." He swiftly outlined a simple plan in which Ram Singh's make-up ability would figure. Butterworth would seem a helpless invalid, in care of the Hindu and Nita.

"I have evidence," said Nita, "that Butterworth has been in constant communication with America. He has made some heavy deposits in banks, all in the name of Alrecht."

Wentworth laughed again, and jubilance crept into his voice, "It looks, my beloved, as if you have gone the
Spider
one better this time," he told her, "and are solving this mystery all by yourself. By the way, Briggs is coming back on the
Britannia,
and that means Nancy Collins and Anse. You won't lack company."

Hanging up the 'phone, Wentworth strode across the music room to the organ, stepped up until he could reach the vents of two treble pipes. He tapped their edges with a rhythmic, alternate cadence and they made dim echoes of notes. He paused, went through the cadence again, then stepped down. A tapestry-covered panel in the side wall pivoted soundlessly outward, a yellow glow sprang up within.

He Strode into the yellow glow and with a dim click the panel revolved again and closed behind him. Within the narrow room beyond, Wentworth swiftly assumed the disguise of the
Spider,
lank hair and beak nose, cape and black hat and hunched back. This room was a recent installation, necessitated by the increasing frequency with which public suspicion centered upon himself as the
Spider
—by the occasional forays of police. He had bought the entire apartment building, had the suite below his vacated and Professor Brownlee and himself had made the necessary changes in the walls.

When they finished their work, his apartment would become an impregnable fortress, but so far there was only this dressing room and a hidden exit into the service-stairs by way of a porter's closet in the hall. Within ten minutes, Wentworth was stealing down the stairs, letting himself out into the dark street where the rain still bounced shattered drops from glistening pavements. It was turning colder. Wentworth drew the cape tightly about him and entered a battered old coupe whose disreputable hood masked a powerful engine. This, too, was a camouflage that had been forced upon him.

He fought the cold engine to life and sped northward, swinging presently into Central Park, crossing the 155th street bridge over the Harlem ship canal and taking the Grand Concourse with its row on row of white-faced apartment houses. O'Leary Simpson lived in Bronxville, a small, exclusive suburb within ten miles of the city limits. As Wentworth had planned it, he would arrive there shortly after midnight. Unless the Simpsons had guests, they should be in bed then, which suited the
Spider's
plans excellently.

The house was a sprawling Spanish style dwelling, smooth white walls and roof of tile. Wentworth coasted past it and saw no lights, whirled a corner and parked. His approach was as silent as his shadow. He searched for and found the burglar alarm on a window and attached to its two plates a length of wire. The alarm was of the type that sounded a gong when a plate on the window and another on the frame were separated, thus breaking a circuit. By means of the wire, he prevented that happening. He shut the window soundlessly behind him, unlocked a side door with the same caution, then crept up broad marble stairs to the second floor. Silently, he visited every door along the hall, located persons sleeping behind three of them: one, the daughter; another, the wife; the third, O'Leary Simpson.

At that door, he listened longest, and satisfied that the man slept, he entered. The connecting door between the rooms of the man and his wife was open and this the
Spider
shut; then he crossed to Simpson's side. He weighed a black-jack upon his palm and then struck lightly just behind the sleeping man's ear. The rhythm of Simpson's breathing broke for a moment, his muscles jerked, then relaxed. His breathing continued, a little more shallow and roughened, that was all. Wentworth whipped back the covers, rolled a blanket about the unconscious man and heaved him up to his shoulder with a smooth ease that spoke volumes for the strength of those broad, athletic shoulders. As silently as he had entered, he descended, slid out the door he had prepared below and went rapidly to his car. He handcuffed Simpson to a nickeled ring beside the seat, installed for just that purpose, and drove quietly away.