THE SPIDER-City of Doom (29 page)

And the arms of two men alone anchored that mass of steel, those struggling people to the wall! Wentworth could feel fresh weight sagging upon him. He heard the ripping tear of his coat across his shoulders as the bulge of his muscles swelled against it. Thinly, he heard a man's voice beside, him, a squeaky, thin voice that repeated one sound over and over again. It was desperate, that voice, and Wentworth remembered the mouse-like little man who would not leave.

"Web!" he cried. "Your
web!
Where is it?"

From great depths, Wentworth heard and recognized the words and could not seem to answer. It was a violent effort of will even to remember where he had tucked the powerful line of silk that was his web. Somehow, he forced out words, dragged from the bottom of his mind. So great was the strain upon him that he could not even be sure that the man's hands touched his body, but presently the man was shouting at him again.

"Not good at knots!" he cried. "Think it will hold!"

Wentworth lifted up his head as a man will drag a great rock from the earth, and turned it toward the fire escape. The silken web had been twisted between a steam pipe inside, and the metal frame-work of the fire escape. It was doubled and redoubled a dozen times . . . and as the little man said, the knots were peculiar, but it looked as if it would hold!

Wentworth lifted his head heavily and gazed up at Ram Singh. There were only a few people left on the fire escape, and they were running down the steps toward him. They went past with frightened glances at the man in black. If they noticed that the cords stood out like ropes in his neck, that his face was fiery with congested blood and effort, they said nothing.

Woodenly, Wentworth's eyes followed them downward as they fled, saw firemen snatch them from the last rungs and rush them clear of the wavering metal deadfall. Wentworth lifted his eyes to Ram Singh and the Sikh's eyes were bulging in his head with effort.

His voice reached down to Wentworth feebly. "Go down, master," he called, "and then I . . . ."

"Let go!" Wentworth called. "Let go!"

His sharp command penetrated even the lethargy of utter fatigue that gripped Ram Singh, and he saw the mighty arm of the Sikh loosen its hold. He let go in the same instant. The metal frame-work swayed out from the wall. A final bolt snapped up near the roof . . . and then with a rush, the whole fire escape plunged down into the courtyard! The uppermost platform struck first, bounced high, and then it was all over. A heap of twisted scrap-iron lay in the courtyard.

Somehow, Wentworth dragged himself back inside the window. His web still dangled there, looped about the steam pipe. The rusted iron of the fire escape had given way first. Slowly, Wentworth unwound the web. He was realizing that it might make the difference between life and death for them now. He pushed out from the wall, and the little man smiled at him hesitantly.

"I hope I tied it all right,
Spider,
" he said.

Wentworth felt laughter prod at his chest. He dropped an arm, a weary, strained arm, about the man's shoulders. "No giant could have done better," he said.

The little man flushed and hung his head, and Wentworth strode with him toward the door. He pressed a palm against the door, flinched at the heat of it; stepped back.

"No man could live out there now," he said. "Even to open that door would mean we would be instantly suffocated by superheat."

With long strides, he returned to the window. Ram Singh was leaning out.

"There are still fools upon the roof, master!" Ram Singh called, "and the ladders cannot reach them because of the flames!"

Wentworth felt a dizziness that was exhaustion sweep through him, but he shook his head vehemently and reached out with the coiled web.

"Catch!" he called, and flung the line upward.

Ram Singh's hand wrapped about the silken line and Wentworth turned to the small man beside him.

"You're going out, now!" he said quietly. "There's no more you can do here!"

The man shook his head stubbornly, eyes big behind the glasses. "I'm not a leader," he said. "Very few of us are born to that . . . but I can follow! You may need me on the roof!"

Wentworth clicked back an impatient exclamation, looped the rope beneath the man's arms. "This time," he said grimly, "you lead!
Haul away!
"

The man hung passively in the loop while Ram Singh threw his great muscles into the task. Wentworth twisted away from the window. They had lost the prisoner that Ram Singh had taken, but this was the fourth floor where Duncan's men had tried to trap him. That door in the side wall . . . . Wentworth leaped to it, and slapped his palm against the wood. It was hot, but not like that one which opened into the hallway. He wrenched it open, and black smoke fanned into his face!

Wentworth strangled, threw the cape over his head, and plunged into the heat. Even through the thickness of his cape, he could sense the red leap of flames. Suddenly, he tripped and fell. His hands plunged against the body of a man! Cautiously, Wentworth uncovered his face, and recognized one of the killers! With a quick surge of strength, Wentworth caught up the body and hurried back to the room he had quitted. Ram Singh's shout was anxious, and Wentworth leaned out the window to reassure him, caught the silken line as it snaked down again. Rapidly, he secured it about the man's body, then he went up the silken line, feet braced against the wall, hauling in hand-over-hand! The instant his feet struck the floor inside the window upstairs, he whirled toward Ram Singh.

"Dead man on the other end of the line," he snapped. "Bring him to the roof! Where's that little man?"

Ram Singh's lips moved in a grin. "On the roof," he grunted. "He talks too much."

Wentworth grinned back slowly in Ram Singh's eyes, recognizing the admiration of the Sikh. Then Wentworth loped across the room. The air was a little clearer here, but it would not last long. The wood of the floors was beginning to smolder . . . . He sprang for the stairs, and raced to the roof, heard Ram Singh's heavy tread behind him. On the far corner of the roof were six women, huddled together, and over them stood the little man, looking out very quietly into the night. There was another building over that way, a good fifty feet away. There was nothing else.

Wentworth ran toward him, ducking under the mess of radio aerials that criss-crossed erratically; heard Ram Singh hurl the body to the roof and pound after him. In a swift instant, Wentworth leaned over the balustrade and surveyed the scene below. The flames billowed out from the windows, and even at this height, the heat was unbearable. No, no ladders could reach them here. He made a swift circuit of the roof. On one side, there was a two story building, and there were few windows on the wall. As yet, the fire had not broken through.

Instantly, Wentworth's plan was formed. He sprang atop the balustrade, and his cape billowed out in the rising heat from the flames. He cupped his hands to his mouth and sent a clear shout ringing toward the streets below. Even above the roar of the flames, the answer came back. It was a sigh, a groan of a hundred, a thousand voices.

"The
Spider!
The
Spider?'

Wentworth lifted his hands for silence, and once more called out: "Roof to the left! Spread nets!"

There were long moments of uncertainty while Wentworth repeated that call and then he saw firemen stream out onto the roof! But already, it threatened to be too late! A section of the brick wall had fallen, and the flames licked out furiously! The firemen could not come close enough for the people to jump. Wentworth saw men in the white asbestos suits of the smoke-eaters run in their heavy burdened way toward the building, but knew they would come too late.

He cupped his hands. "Here they come!" he shouted. "Ram Singh . . . .
Throw them!
"

The women screamed, began to run like frightened fowls about the roof. It was the little man who stepped forward then. His face was white as the face of the high-sailing moon, and there was a quaver in his voice.

"I'm a fool about heights!" he said, and swallowed hard. "B-but you can throw me!"

The women stared then, and one of them came forward. "If he makes the net," she said, "you can throw me!"

Another woman darted forward. "No, no, throw me first! They can't hold the nets this near very long!"

Wentworth smiled thinly at the little man, "So you can't lead?" he asked softly.

He nodded to Ram Singh, and the giant Sikh caught the woman at the hips and whirled her high over his head. He ran toward the balustrade, and . . . hurled her into space! Her scream soared up into the heavens, and the white faces of the other women lined the balustrade. But Ram Singh's cast was true, and the woman smacked into the net and was taken out safely.

Swiftly then, Ram Singh and Wentworth hurled the others. The last one they both had to swing between them, like an adagio dancer by hands and feet, before she could be hurled into a high arch toward the net. She just made the edge of it, and afterward, the firemen shrank back. The flames were boiling out.

Wentworth whirled toward Ram Singh and together they gazed out over the fiery abyss. A reedy voice spoke into their silence. "It's too far to throw me," he said. "Too bad!"

Wentworth turned quickly, and he had the silken web in his hand. "With this, we can make it," he said quietly, and knotted the web beneath the man's arms. He lifted them submissively, but his eyes were very wide. He took off his glasses and his hands were trembling.

"I don't like to go first," he said. "Suppose the web catches fire when you lower me through the flames?"

Wentworth put his hands on the man's shoulders, looked him directly in the eye. "We're going to swing you clear of the flames," he said. "If we never meet again, I want you to know this: I've never met a braver man!"

The little man flushed and dropped his eyes. "Why—why,
Spider . . . .
" he began.

He had not chance for more. Ram Singh caught him up in his arms and ran toward the end of the roof. Swiftly, they lowered him and then Ram Singh and Wentworth together began to swing him. He hung limply in the bight of the rope, a little man afraid of heights, a little man who knew he would never be a leader. At first, he moved so very little, then his body began to sweep through a slow arc, faster, faster . . . . Back and forth across the rear of the building they swung him, until his body was sailing out beyond the side wall, out toward the net that was spread on the adjacent roof.

"Now!" Wentworth gasped.

As the man's body swung again to the farthest limits of the web, they let it rush out between their hands. Wentworth had the end twisted around his hand. They would need it to escape; they would have to have it . . . and then a coldness shot through him! He realized that the web was not long enough! It would not reach the net! Instead, the little man would be snapped up short, swung back into the flames . . . .

At the last possible moment, Wentworth whipped his hand free of the silk, and it left his hand like the snapped line of a kite. The little man sailed through the air, folded neatly to land in the center of the net. The silken web whipped after him, settled its soft skein about him. On the roof, Ram Singh turned slowly toward Wentworth and there was a grin on his face.

He started to speak, and there was a crashing roar behind them, a volley of upward flying sparks. The top floor had fallen, and the roof was already curling the soles of their shoes!

"
Wah,
master," cried Ram Singh, "we are trapped like dead Parsecs atop a Tower of Silence. But no vultures will ever pick our bones!"

Wentworth's eyes were questing about. If he had the web, there was that roof fifty feet away. But he did not have the web . . . .

"There are vultures below, Ram Singh," he said quietly. "They wear blue coats . . . ."

Ram Singh spat into the flames. "
Wah,
there are no more than two score of them, and we are mighty warriors, thou and I!"

He heaved a deep sigh, and coughed violently with the heat. "I should have liked another battle or two!"

Ram Singh threw back his head and bellowed with sudden laughter. "Ha, surely it is a great joke the One True God plays upon us!" he roared. "Now, we have earned the right to live again—and there is no way at all in which to live. Ah, hoo! How the One True God can jest!"

IN THE streets about the blazing apartment building, police fought to hold back the hysterical crowds. A thin line of the rescued still filtered down from the adjoining roof, from the court to the rear but they were those who long ago had been thrust to safety by the
Spider.
No one could live now in that blazing inferno!

A long block from the apartment, the heat reddened the faces of the struggling police; people held hands before their eyes and even then the blast-furnace temperature struck like a hammer. Beyond the roped-off line, the firemen crouched behind shields to play their hoses. The hundred pound pressure in the lines hissed and roared from the nozzles but the white gush of the waters seemed not to touch the flames at all. The roar of the roiling flames that bubbled from the windows; the black immensity of the tower of smoke blotted out every other conscious thought. Men stood in stupefied awe of the thing that man had created—and destroyed!

Even the police, bracing their shoulders backward against the crowd, could stare nowhere except at that black smear that was the roof. It had not crashed yet. Every other floor had fallen, but for the moment the roof still held.

"The man's done for," Sergeant O'Leary lifted his hoarse voice above the fire roar, above the murmurous thunder of the crowd behind him. "Not even the
Spider
could live through that!"

"A great pity," Officer McDonald yelled back at him. "A great pity, the fire had to take him . . . when every man here is straining to line that crook up between his pistol sights!"

Officer McDonald's uniform cap was suddenly snatched from his head and a woman's hands fastened in his hair!