THE SPIDER-City of Doom (32 page)

Instantly, his keen mind leaped to the use of the panel. His hand flicked to the button and depressed it, and he gazed down at the infra-red view of the outer office. Daley, already freed, was being led across the office toward a place of concealment. As Wentworth watched, Daley's hands lifted, and he stripped off the wig . . . His whole face seemed to come off with the touch of his hands!

In still amazement, Wentworth watched. There had been terror in the crouch of those ambushers a moment ago, but now suddenly there was confidence in their poise. The guns lifted bravely in their hands. And Wentworth knew why! Daley had stripped off a
disguise. Daley was . . .
Munro!

Wentworth's lips twisted in a slow smile, and the expression of his face was ominous! He laid his guns on the desk before him, and his eyes quested over the thin partition of glass and wood that separated him from the outer room, shifted back to the view in the panel—and a curse leaped to his lips. Munro had faced toward him now, and for the first time he saw the man's face. He saw where a face should be. God! The man . . .
The man had no face!

The flesh was welted and corded across his countenance as if by a horrible burn. The mouth was a twisted, gaping smear, and the eyes were red-rimmed, drawn to awful slits! If this was the face of Munro . . . Wentworth cut off his thoughts. The police sirens were shrieking to crescendo. In a few moments' time, they would be crashing into the building, and he had a score to settle first!

Wentworth looked down again at the ground-glass panel, looked toward the walls and deliberately lifted his two guns. He could not be absolutely sure of his first shot through those obstacles, but with the aid of the ground-glass panel he could soon get the range!

Wentworth thrust out his two automatics at arm's length, a thing the
Spider
rarely found necessary to do. Eyes on the panel, he squeezed the two triggers together!

The crash of the guns in the office was thunderous. The wooden partition of the wall held two torn and splintered holes . . . and in the infra-red panel, Wentworth saw the glass of the outer door crash to the floor! But Munro . . . Munro who had stood there a moment before, was flat on the floor behind a desk! The other men were on their feet, and their guns began to speak!

Wentworth smiled bitterly. Munro was for the moment beyond his reach, but when he arose again, the guns of the
Spider
would be more certain! He began to shoot!

At the same instant, he heard the window crash out behind him, and there was a muffled blast on the floor. He saw gouts of liquid flame hurtle past him—and in the same instant, the benzene which he had scattered against the walls caught fire! In a breath, the walls of the room were curtains of flame!

The end . . . .

Outside the office door, the guns of the killers were crashing! Wentworth saw a gun spurt upward from the spot where Munro lay, and suddenly the infra-red panel went blank! And the sirens of the police had wailed to a finish out in the streets.

Trapped . . . Doubly trapped by flames and the guns of these men outside, his advantage of the infra-red panel destroyed. And the police were outside. Wentworth lifted his two automatics, crouched in the shelter of the desk. Wentworth lifted the guns . . . and then the
Spider
laughed aloud!

In that outer office, men heard the laughter of the
Spider
and clutched their guns more fiercely. The bright red glare of the flames lifted behind the partition, threw its light out through the ground glass of the door.

"Wait!" Munro's voice said harshly. "He can't see you now, and he'll have to come out. And don't worry about the police. I'll blast a way through them!"

Abruptly, the door of the inner office whipped open. The caped, hunched outline of the
Spider
glided smoothly forward, and guns reached out their red lances from its sides. With a hysterical fury, the guns of the gangsters answered! They cursed and shouted in the release of their tension, hurled lead with both hands. The figure of the
Spider
had stopped, and there were no more shots from him.

"I got him, Frenchy!" a hoarse voice shouted. "I got three bullets in him!"

"I got five!" Frenchy yelled back.

The guns, emptied once, began to hammer again . . . and still there was no answering fire. And yet, suddenly, the
Spider
laughed!

The eerie sound of that mocking mirth mounted above the fury of the guns, above the crackling roar of the fire within the inner office. It stopped the shooting; it cut off the voices of men. Then, with a shriek of pure terror, one man bolted out through the doorway. Another followed.

"You can't kill him!" he shrieked. "Oh, God, you can't kill him!"

That whole office was full of sudden panic, and men fighting to escape. From a remote corner of the office, a figure lifted—minus hat and cape—and the two guns in his fists rolled rhythmically. Three men went down in that huddle at the doorway, but the others escaped. Wentworth reached them in two long leaps, whipped them over on their backs and swore raspingly. The Faceless One, Munro, was not among them!

Fiercely, Wentworth sprang toward where the figure of the
Spider
apparently stood. He yanked cape and hat and flung them about his own body, sprang for the door with the cape kiting from his shoulders. Where the
Spider
apparently had stood, there was revealed a tall desk lamp standing upon a swivel, roller bearing chair. In their hysterical fear, the killers had mistaken that draped chair, with Wentworth prone behind to push it forward, to fire his guns that one time, for the figure of the
Spider!

Beside the outer door, Wentworth paused for a single moment. He stooped, and his cigarette lighter glinted in his hand . . . and when he sped on along the hallway, be left a glistening challenge for Munro, a mockery for the police who at least would not have to solve this crime . . . . The
Spider
had stamped his signature upon his kill—
the seal of the Spider!

But Wentworth ran with fury in his blood. Once more, he had been face to face with Munro, and the man had slipped between his fingers! He recalled that flame-seared countenance and something like a shudder traced its way up Wentworth's spine. If that was the face of Munro, it was no wonder the man had become a genius at disguise!

The battle was not yet lost. The police would be on guard below, warned by the crash of shots and the lurid glare of the flames! If he could contrive to throw Munro into their hands . . . .

Wentworth raced down the fire escape stairs by which he had ascended, and suddenly heard the crackle of shots below, and a muffled detonation that was followed by the mad screams of men in awful pain! He swerved out into the first floor corridor, and saw . . .
hell!
Three police men were down, motionless in death, and two others ran crazily for the exit with flame streaming from their garments! Even as Wentworth saw them, their companions reached for the men and hurled them to the ground to extinguish the fires—and Wentworth heard Kirkpatrick's sharply crisp voice rap out, organizing pursuit!

Wentworth ducked back into the stairway, raced quietly for the service entrance which his lockpick had opened for him a little earlier. He could do no more out there than the police were accomplishing, for Munro had once more made good his escape! But there was something he still could do . . . . He could attend the meeting of Munro's associates. He knew the place, the time, and the pass-word!

His black-caped figure merged with the shadows against the building, to appear presently beside the parked coupe where Jackson waited feverishly. The car leaped forward under Jackson's instant touch, sped northward.

"You called Ram Singh?" Wentworth asked sharply.

Jackson nodded curtly. "No word, sir."

Wentworth knotted his fists on his knees. "Munro is still ahead of me," he said swiftly. "He was waiting for me back there . . . and he has set another trap for me. Know where the Man o' War is?"

"A tough dive on the waterfront, sir," Jackson nodded. "What do you mean—a trap?"

Wentworth smiled faintly. "Munro was in that office. He saw me come in, by means of a television rig-up. Then he picked up a phone and gave me the information as to when, where, and how to enter, a meeting he was calling! That was in case his trap there did not succeed in catching me."

Jackson said frantically, "For God's sake, Major, must you go? That place will be alive with his killers! He'll be expecting you! Must you really go?"

Wentworth's head swung toward him, and there was surprise in his eyes. "Munro will be there," he said quietly.

The room above the Man o' War was reserved for the initiated. It was crowded now by more than twenty men who sat around wet tables and tossed their drinks. Their faces were a rogue's gallery of the unconvicted murder-men of the country's mobs. At the door, an emaciated man with a caved-in chest, a knife gash purple on one cheek, kept watch. It was to him the men whispered one by one, "From my ashes, I arise again!"

His voice was a whisper, but it was a whisper from which men shrank. There was a sardonic gleam in the man's eyes, and once when he turned quickly, the skirt of his coat lifted to show the sheath of a long-bladed knife. He was the guard, the auditor.

In a corner where little light shone, Sprague sat with both elbows spread on the table. He had a reddened, belligerent face, and his fists were knotted.

"One hour I get to haul all the boys in," he rumbled. "Hell of a note!"

"Pipe down, Sprague," one of his companions whispered. He twisted his wry neck about, made a snuffling noise in his nose. "Geez, you don't never know where Munro is going to turn up, or what he'll look like." His snuffling was like weeping. "Geez!"

"That's all right for you, Sniffer," Sprague growled. "Me, I'm responsible, and I wouldn't want to have to make no excuses to Munro!"

The third man at the table moved his thin lips in a smile, and lifted his glass daintily. "I never saw the lad at the next table before—the one with the glass eye. That might be Munro!"

Sprague wrenched about in his chair. "Where, Duke?" he whispered. Sniffer made faint worried sounds in his nose.

"Oh, him!" Sprague frowned. "Naw, I ain't never seen him before. It might be Munro . . . and then again . . .
it might be the Spider!
"

Duke set his glass down so suddenly liquor slopped on his hand, and he did not bother to wipe it off. "My God!" he said. "So that's what we're here for!"

Sniffer pushed his chair back. "Look, Sprague," he snuffled. "You don't want me here. You don't . . . ." The man at the next table looked toward him casually, and Sniffer slumped back in his chair. Sprague watched sardonically and Duke was using a silk handkerchief on his liquor-wet hand, frowning.

Sprague said, "The Chief arranged things so the
Spider
would be here. The Chief will be here, too. If we spot the
Spider,
we burn him down without waiting for orders. If we don't . . . the Chief will point him out."

Sniffer whined, "I don't like this business of not knowing who the guy next to you is! Geez, for all we know . . . ."

"Whiskey or beer?" a voice rasped at his elbow, and Sniffer jerked in his chair. He snuffled plaintively as he looked up into the bored face of a waiter.

"Whiskey, damn you, and quit creeping up on a guy!"

The waiter swabbed the table. "Knifer says everybody's already here, Sprague. You're to start the ball rolling!"

Sprague grunted, "Me!"

The waiter smiled and walked carelessly away. He had the slouching stride of a waiter, and the bored look. He didn't look at anybody, and he saw everything. He saw Knifer with his narrow shoulders braced against the door, that thin smile perpetually on his face from the tear of the knife-gash across his cheek. He saw the tautness everywhere, and he knew the whisper had gone the rounds. The
Spider
was coming . . . . Munro was coming. And nobody knew how either one would appear.

The waiter smiled slightly, and filled three more glasses with whisky. From his sleeve, a thin film of a whitish powder sifted into each glass. He slapped them down on Sprague's table, just as the man reared to his feet.

He beat on the table with his big fist. "All right," he growled. "It's lucky you mugs all got here on time. The Chief ain't taking no foolishness. The
Spider
has been acting up!"

There had been a noisy, half-apprehensive gabble a few moments before, but it died under Sprague's words. They sat stiffly at their tables, and their necks turned slowly, rigidly. They looked out of their eye corners at their neighbors. In the silence, the waiter moved carelessly away across the room. It was fortunate that the coat he had taken from the regular waiter of the Man o' War fitted him loosely. That way, the twin guns beneath his arms did not show!

Sprague was still growling out words, but Wentworth—the waiter—was paying little heed to them. He had been here for half an hour and still he had not spotted Munro. It might be anyone of them, from Knifer or Sprague to the man behind the bar.

"We got a little job to do," Sprague was saying. "Tonight, the
Spider
caused us plenty of grief. He turned the police on our tail, and we got to get our customers in line to see that none of them talks. Duke, you and Frosty will take the job. I'll give you the names. Come over here, Frosty! It's a simple business. We're just going to burn a couple of guys alive. After that, there won't be nobody to talk!"

There were loud guffaws from a few of the tables, but the other men waited uneasily. This was just the preamble. The real business of the night would come when the
Spider
showed himself. The
Spider . . . .
Their eyes slid about slyly.

The waiter was in a dark corner. It was necessary just now, for there was a terrible anger in his eyes! Burn two men alive . . . . He had to finish his business here quickly and protect those men.