THE SPIDER-City of Doom (41 page)

"I didn't need any of the precautions I took," he said. "Jackson wasn't necessary as a guard. I've just sent him home, with that signal. Of course, Hurd may have disbanded his force—"

Abruptly Nita caught Wentworth's arm. "Oh, look, Dick!" she whispered.

Wentworth's head jerked about where she pointed. In the darkness of a side street, a half dozen figures milled about. They were the figures of half-grown boys. They were attacking a man!

"What the devil!" Wentworth snapped. "Ram Singh—into that street!"

The limousine swung smoothly over, glided to a halt. Wentworth was already on the street. One of the boys turned and saw him, but he did not run. Instead, he flung himself fiercely into the fight again.

Wentworth saw that the man was trying to draw a gun!

"Wait! Stop this!" Wentworth lifted his voice. "What goes on here?"

Two of the boys whirled toward him, and the man got his gun free. He pointed it at the nearest of the boys. Before he could fire, Wentworth sprang forward. His leap was smooth as a lion's charge. The cane in his hand lunged forward like a rapier. There was the click of metal on metal . . . and the gun clattered to the pavement.

For an instant, the boys stood back. The man seized the opportunity. He ducked into a black doorway behind him. For a few moments, footsteps beat on wooden floors, then they were silent . . . . The man was gone. But the boys were circled around Wentworth, as ominously silent as wolves ready for the kill.

One boy muttered out of his mouth corner, "If he goes for a gun, slug him." Wentworth glanced at them in bewilderment. If these boys were a gang of hoodlums bent on robbery, they were the boldest he had ever seen. Usually, the mere arrival of an extra person would set such thieves running in all directions. But these stood their ground, and glared at him. This time, it had been the victim who had fled!

The keen grey-blue eyes of Wentworth inspected the boy who had spoken. He was perhaps sixteen, broad in the shoulders for his age, and dressed like all the other boys, in long trousers and a pullover sweater. It was almost a uniform. The boy's fists were knotted at his sides, his jaw was thrust out belligerently, and his dark eyes were hot and angry as they met Wentworth's unswervingly.

The boy muttered out of his mouth corner again, "Maybe he's one of them. He sure broke it up neat!"

One of the boys stooped swiftly and caught up the gun that had been dropped. His hand shook a little with the weapon. Slowly, Wentworth looked over the faces of the five boys . . . and he made his decision.

"I seem to have made a slight mistake," he said, "you weren't trying to rob that man, were you?"

"Rob him?" The boy who was plainly the leader was scornful. He spat. "Rob him, hell! We was trying to beat the living daylights out of him. Same as we'll do you if you don't come clean. What'd you butt in for?"

Wentworth felt a sharp urge to laugh. He kept his face sombre. Behind the boys, Ram Singh stood with folded arms. Nita van Sloan had opened a small gun-port in the window and the muzzle of an automatic glinted through it. Wentworth nodded toward her, toward Ram Singh.

"It's all right," he said quietly. "I'm just going to have a talk with these young men."

The leader whipped his head about, saw Ram Singh, caught the glint of the gun in the window. His face paled a little. It made the freckles across his nose startlingly strong. His eyes were wide, but he stood up to Wentworth.

"All right," he said hoarsely, "so you got us. So what?"

This time, Wentworth did laugh. He sobered quickly. "Son, I haven't got you at all. But I would like to know what this is all about. I don't believe you thought you were doing wrong, or you would have run. But I don't think you realize your danger. In another moment, one or two of you would have been shot. If that man made charges against you, you fellows would spend the next five years in a reform school!"

The boy said, uneasily, "He won't make no charges against us."

Wentworth said quietly, "I'm Richard Wentworth. Perhaps I can help you."

The boy's eyes widened, "Geez, are you! Richard Wentworth, hunh! Golly, you—
you've seen the Spider!
Look, I'm Bill Sanders. And this is Monk, and Pug, and Fats, and Deesie. They're my gang. Look, we know something the
Spider
ought to know. Can you get word to him?"

Wentworth leaned on his cane and looked at the five boys grouped eagerly about him. They had forgotten the fight of a few moments before, though their faces bore the marks of it. A cut lip here, a swollen and blackening eye. Bill Sanders limped as he moved closer, but his gaze was courageous.

Bill said, "That guy we was beating up was a racketeer. He shook down Deesie's dad for a whole week's take in his grocery store. Deesie's dad is scared to go to the cops, and they wouldn't do nothing anyway. They're all fixed."

"So you took matters into your hands," Wentworth said softly.

"Sure, we ain't afraid," Bill said eagerly. "We even know where they got their headquarters. It's the Mekookum Social Club down on Avenue A. We was figuring on taking that tonight, maybe, if we could get back the money for Deesie's dad. Only we needed some guns."

Wentworth felt coldness along his spine. These boys were fine, and strong and resolute. But they did not realize what they were facing. Guns, and a raid on racketeers . . . murder, death for themselves, reform school . . . . But Bill Sanders was a born leader!

Wentworth's voice was stern. "Bill, you've been a fool!" he snapped. "That's not the way things are done in America! You've been behaving like a hoodlum in one of these foreign countries where thugs in uniform beat up helpless people!"

Bill Sanders shook his head. "No. He was a crook!"

"You were taking the law into your own hands!" Wentworth's voice was still sharp. "That is not the American way!"

Bill Sanders' face was very serious. "You're dead wrong, mister," he said. "That is the American way. Look, I read a lot. When the law don't do things right, Americans take over and do things for the law. Us, we're just setting the law right."

Wentworth asked softly, "Have you given the law a chance? Have you gone to the police? They're pretty swell guys, most of them."

Bill Sanders started to hold out his left hand, hesitated. "Well, no, we ain't," he said slowly. "But, look. Look—the
Spider
don't go to the cops!"

"You're not the
Spider,
son," Wentworth said quietly. "The
Spider
has devoted his entire life to crime detection. He is a qualified judge. And he never strikes . . . unless the police have failed. But you, son . . . ."

The boy shook his head fiercely, "We're
Spiders
, too!" he said. "Look!" He held out his hand, and on his finger there glittered a silver ring, whose seal was black . . . and on that seal there glittered a figure of scarlet—a symbol of poised hairy legs and poisonous fangs:
the seal of the Spider!

It was while Wentworth stared with mingled feelings of respect and dread, and a little of awe that his leadership could do such things . . . it was while he stared that he heard the thin, sliding whine of tires as a car rocketed into the street. Brakes howled. The car jerked to a halt. Four men jumped out and began to stalk toward them. Big shouldered men, tough men. Blackjacks dangled from their fists.

As they came forward, Wentworth heard the squeal of other brakes behind him and knew that another car had come from the opposite direction. Four more men! And Wentworth laughed softly!

"It seems, Bill," he said casually, "that your judgment was more or less right. We have to deal with gangsters. They have come to teach you a lesson. Get back toward the wall and let me . . .
chat
with these gentlemen.

"There are only eight of them."

Sight of Wentworth and his car did not check the men at all. He heard Nita call out softly, and shook his head at her. She knew that he meant she was to help only if he called on her.

Ram Singh's teeth flashed behind the thicket of his beard. "
Wah, Sahib!
" he muttered in his strong, nasal voice. "Do not you soil your hands with these vermin. These many days, thy servant has had no battle to warm his blood!"

A smile moved Wentworth's lips. "No deaths, Ram Singh," he said. "This is not the time nor the place."

Seeing that Wentworth did not flee, that he leaned only casually on his cane, the eight men drew to a halt. Behind him, the five boys seemed scarcely to breathe. They were huddled against the wall, waiting. Ram Singh stood against the left fender of the car, arms folded across his swelling chest. There was no one behind him, for the rough semi-circle of the men ran from the front of the car almost to the tenement wall.

"Gentlemen," Wentworth said equably, "you walk as if you had some business to attend to. Do not allow me to detain you." The silk hat was jaunty over his right eyebrow. The smile on his lips was mocking.

"Shove off, buddy," one of the men growled. "We're just going to run in this bunch of hoodlums. They tried to rob a guy."

Wentworth said, "My, my! Rough customers, these boys, since it takes eight of you to handle them. You made remarkably good time getting here from . . . the Mekookum Club!"

The man started, and his eyes narrowed beneath the snap brim of his hat. He didn't say anything, but the eight men leaped forward as if geared to one throttle of hate. In the same instant, Wentworth and Ram Singh struck.

Ram Singh touched a hand to the hood of the car, vaulted over it and drove his feet into the face of the end man. Wentworth's cane balanced in his hand and his whole body extended in a straight line behind it. The cane caught the leader between the eyes. His body arched backward while his legs were still carrying him forward. His shoulders thudded to the pavement. His heels clumped down afterward. Wentworth made a long leap forward, bounded entirely over the man's prostrate body, and pivoted easily. Twice more he lunged, and a man doubled over the knock-out punch the cane had administered to the solar plexus; a second caught the ferrule against his jaw and cart-wheeled to the earth. Ram Singh had disposed of another.

In those two swift seconds of action, five of the eight men were stretched helpless on the ground!

"We have destroyed the left flank," Wentworth murmured, "and broken through the centre. An encirclement of the right flank is indicated!"

He and Ram Singh were side by side now, and the three men retreated warily before them. Their heads swung as they sought a way to escape, and there was none. The huddle of boys was against the wall on their left.

In a single bound, one of the men reached the boys. He seized one as a shield, and a gun glittered in his hand.

"Nita!" Wentworth called. "The shoulder, please!"

Nita's gun blasted from the gun-port of the car, and the man pitched to the ground, carrying the boy with him. But Nita had had a clear shot. The remaining two men broke and ran. Wentworth made two long leaps and his cane struck once, and then again. One of the men hit the pavement. The other cringed under a blow across his shoulders. Wentworth's cane twirled in the air, fiercely. Two, three, four blows he laid across the man's back.

"In the future," he said harshly, "leave these boys alone. Understand? You may carry that word to the Mekookum Club!"

The man stumbled down the street and Wentworth tucked the cane under his arm, dusted his hands, before he turned back to the boys. Ram Singh was scowling over the prostrate bodies of the men. One of them was stirring, but he made no effort to rise.

"
Wah,
master," grumbled Ram Singh. "It was a
good
fight thy servant needed. This was not worthy of perspiration."

Wentworth clapped him on the shoulder, but his face was stern as he turned to the worshipful boys against the wall.

"Geez," whispered Bill Sanders. "Oh, geez, you fight like the
Spider
himself!"

Wentworth shook his head quietly. "The
Spider . . .
kills," he said. "You will go to your homes, and you will make no further attacks on these men. I hope you aren't known to them."

Bill Sanders took a hesitant step forward. "But we can't, Mr. Wentworth," he said. "Don't you see? The cops can't do anything unless somebody will talk, and the victims are all scared. We're scared to go to the cops, too. It ain't only Deesie's dad. There's lots of others. We followed the collection gang. Gee, Mr. Wentworth . . ."

Wentworth bent toward the earnest boy, and his face was gentle. "Yes, Bill," he said. "I see . . . but I did not mean nothing would be done. Get all the information you can, but don't disturb these men actively again. I can sometimes get in touch with the
Spider.
I will send him to you! Now, hurry! Get away from here before there's more trouble!"

Wentworth motioned the boys away. They looked at Bill Sanders, and abruptly he nodded. "Okay, Mr. Wentworth!" he said.

In a trice, the five boys were racing away down the street, Bill Sanders leading. He angled across the street, swarmed over a wooden fence. Wood echoed hollowly as his gang followed. He reached a piling beside the wharf, looked around at the four panting boys behind him.

He nodded then, and motioned them over the side. One by one, they bellied over the edge, swung under and disappeared. Bill Sanders stood for a moment peering at the damp darkness around them, listened to the hoot of tugs on the East River whose waters washed the pier.

Then he nodded to himself and swung down into the darkness after the others. It was like a cave under the wharf. One boy had lighted a stump of a candle, set it on a soap box. For moments, the boys panted in silence, their eyes big as they looked at each other.

Presently, Bill Sanders pulled the captured revolver out of his pocket and thumped it down on the box. "We got an arsenal now," he said, and dragged a sleeve across his forehead. "Geez, can that Mr. Wentworth fight!"

That started it. They all talked at once, but presently Bill rapped on the box with the gun. "Spiders, we got to be ready when our chief comes. He'll go to the Mekookum Club and bust it wide open. We'll scout out the neighborhood there, hunh?"