THE SPIDER-City of Doom (28 page)

"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!

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 . . . ."

Wentworth ranged swiftly through the rooms of the floor, and found it deserted. Most of the people here had made their escape by the stairs, or already had fled before him up the steps. Ram Singh stood braced outside a window, and his great right fist was lifted like a mallet.

"You walk slow," he shouted, "or by Kali, I will smash heads!"

Wentworth stared out the window. The fire escape was jammed with human beings, creeping, fighting their way downward, and Wentworth felt the blood drain from his heart at the sudden memory of the weakness of that fire escape, and how it had rattled and swayed beneath his single weight!

"Come, Ram Singh!" he shouted. "For God's sake, hurry!"

He whirled and darted out into the hallway. The heat struck him like a solid wall, and he bent his head, muffled his face in his cape and plunged on. A tongue of flame lashed across his ankles like the bite of a scourge. He made the steps. There was no one on it now; no one at all. He plunged upward and felt the creaking of the stair beneath his feet, felt the blistering intensity of the heat that roared up this open stairway.

"Up another floor!" Wentworth shouted. "Make the people go on that fire escape slowly, not more than twelve at a time! It's weak. May break!"

He darted toward the fire escape, and Ram Singh's huge hand clamped on his shoulder. "You go upstairs, master," he said simply. "I stay here!"

Wentworth whirled, and his grey-blue eyes flashed with pale fire. "Obey!" he bit out.

Ram Singh stepped back under the fury of those eyes, and touched his hands to his forehead in low salaam. Without another word, he whirled and sped toward the steps. Wentworth plunged on toward the room which held the fire escape exit.

No light burned within the room, but none was necessary. All outdoors seemed one scarlet tower of light. The flame glow blazed in through the window as from the mouth of a furnace. At the window, a dozen men and women fought and brawled like animals to escape. A man struck about him fiercely with his fists. The woman with the baby in her arms pitched to the floor, a girl screamed as she was hurled half across the room. Immediately she was on her feet again, and dashing back into the melee! The man won a moment's freedom there at the window, got half-way out. Another man seized him by the shoulders and hurled him back . . . and no one climbed out at all!

Wentworth whipped out an automatic and fired a shot into the ceiling. "Stop fighting," he ordered coldly. "The first person who strikes another dies!"

He strode toward the window, and suddenly here was a thing among them that they feared more than the scarlet caress of the flames. Here was a terror with a gun in his fist. One man lifted himself slowly from the floor, and suddenly flung headlong at Wentworth!

Wentworth stepped easily aside, and the gun lifted and fell . . . and the man was sprawling on the floor, unconscious.

"Now then," Wentworth's voice was quiet, even calm. "Women and children first!"

He picked up the woman with the baby, and her eyes lifted to his face . . . and this time she did not cringe. A hesitant smile moved on her lips and Wentworth helped her toward the window . . . but he did not turn his back on the others. He swung the children to the fire escape platform after their mother. Above him, he could hear the harsh rasp of Ram Singh's voice . . . and there were not many on the fire escape.

"Move swiftly, but without running," Wentworth called to the people on the fire escape. "This thing is weak!"

The little boy was grinning at Wentworth, "Good-by, funny man," he said, and toddled down the shaking metal steps.

One by one, gun bitterly ready in his fist, Wentworth issued the people to the fire escape. His eyes quested beyond the immediate group. Against the wall, he saw the old woman with her white, white hair. Beside her, a small, withered mouse of a man stood quietly.

"Come, mother!" Wentworth called.

The woman's withered lips smiled, "Let the young ones go first," she said. "They have so much to live for . . . .

The little man beside her took the old woman's arm and urged her forward.

"Take care of her," Wentworth told him gently.

The man's eyes were large behind his glasses. "If you don't mind," he said, his voice thin and reedy, "I think I'll wait a while. I never could stand heights."

Wentworth stared at him, but there was no time for argument. He swung the woman from the floor, set her gently on the platform. In the red light below, he could see firemen darting into the court.

"There will be help below," he told her.

The woman's withered hand clung to his for an instant. "Bless you,
Spider,
" she quavered.

Wentworth swung then on the huddled men, crouching to one side of the window under the threat of his guns. They were racked by coughing from the fumes that seeped through the closed door, and there was hatred in their eyes.

"One at a time," Wentworth told them grimly. "I'll be at the window above you. The first man who hurries, or tries to rush the others . . . I'll shoot! All right, easy now!"

They went out of the window on their hands and knees, and they did not hurry, or fight. Wentworth saw their faces turned up, rosy in the firelight . . . and then it happened!

With a rending sound of tearing metal, a bolt ripped out of the bricks, and one end of the platform swung clear of the wall. There were shrieks and wild shouts below. Men started to run down the slanting ladders and up above Ram Singh's voice lifted in a hoarse shout!

Wentworth flung a single shot downward, and shouted a warning. He clamped an arm inside the wall then, and locked the other about the rail of the swaying platform. By an exertion of his utmost strength, he tugged it back against the building!

"Ram Singh!" he shouted, and his voice was hoarse with strain. "Ram Singh . . .
hold up the fire escape!
"

There were sudden groaning sounds of wrenched iron, and another bolt gave way. Wentworth's back bowed with effort. His head sagged downward, and his teeth set in his lip. The iron seemed to be severing his arm, his muscles were strained to breaking. Vision swam before his eyes. He was aware of shouts beneath him. The people below realized their danger, and were rushing pell-mell down the metal steps. Those still above them . . . and there was another floor above Ram Singh . . . saw their last means of escape eluding them and stormed the windows in a mass. They crowded the platforms to over-flowing. They fought to get down the stairways.