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.
He opened the window a little on Simpson's side and after ten minutes of cold wind, the man began to squirm in his seat, moaned jerkily. Suddenly he sat bolt upright. The abrupt motion made him moan again and attempt to raise his hands to his head. The handcuffs grated on the nickeled ring and he stared at them dazedly, then whipped his head around toward the driver. The Spider did not look at him. His hunched back beneath the black cape, his sallow face glowing in the dim light, made a sinister picture. O'Leary Simpson's breath came swiftly.
The Spider said nothing. He knew that uncertainty would work more damage on Simpson's morale than any threats he could make. And he must break Simpson's courage to make him talk. If he was involved, it should not be difficult. This man had gone to bed in the security of his home, an expensive home which his wealth had built. He awoke, apparently from that sleep, to find himself riding through a wild night, handcuffed, and seated beside a sinister, black-draped figure. He would think at first that it was a nightmare . . . .
"Who are you?" Simpson demanded in a voice that vainly strove to be angry. His voice gained strength. "Who are you and what the hell do you mean by this?" His handcuffs rattled.
The Spider turned his head slowly, looked with cold implacable hatred into Simpson's eyes, so that the man winced back into his corner. Then the Spider looked back to the road. He didn't say anything, and neither did Simpson for a long while. The car rattled its way to the end of the Bronx River Parkway, took the sharp grade to the right of Kensico dam at forty-five. The engine made only a slight hissing. The rain drummed.
"In God's name," Simpson asked hoarsely. "Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?"
This time the Spider did not even turn his head. Simpson began to stammer out more questions, to threaten and curse, and finally to plead, but Wentworth ignored him. Finally the man fell silent, made little low moaning sounds that went on and on while the car reeled off ten miles, left the broad winding concrete highway that bordered the Kensico reservoir for a lonelier strip of macadam where the coupe jarred and rattled. The dashlight was improperly shielded and it turned the inside of the windshield into a dim mirror. In it Wentworth studied Simpson's face.
It was a fat, flaccid face, but beneath the blubber were the outlines of a hard and ruthless jaw. Simpson's mouth was lipless. It would be a straight gash in anger, but now it was trembling with weakness. A nervous tic quivered in the right corner. Simpson had an egg-shaped, partly bald head, colorless eyebrows, and there was a dewlap beneath his double chin. The dewlap quivered also.
The Spider's earlier elation of the evening was growing. Simpson's behavior had not been that of a guiltless man. Wentworth braked to a halt, leaned forward, cut the switch. Windshield-wiper and engine died together. The windshield clouded instantly with lashing drops that drummed like bony fingers along the roof and hammered on the tiny hood. Simpson was shaking all over. He watched Wentworth with furtive eyes. Suddenly he squealed. "Good God!" he cried. "I know you! . . . You . . . you're the . . . ." his voice trailed off and the word "Spider" quaked from him in a quivering breath.
Wentworth turned his head slowly, his face expressionless. He slid a hand beneath his cape, a gesture of dread menace.
"Have you anything to say before . . . ." Wentworth drew his hand slowly into view, showing the dull gleaming muzzle of an automatic.
"In God's name, Spider, I swear to you . . . ." Simpson broke off, choking, as the muzzle of the gun swung slowly, centered on his body and lifted until he was staring with widening gaze down into the little black hole that was the eye of death. "I swear," he whimpered. "I'm getting nothing out of it at all."
The Spider's face did not change, but he knew now that he had guessed right, that O'Leary Simpson held a clue. He appeared to hesitate. His bitter blue-gray eyes stared along the barrel of his gun.
"My time is short," he said flatly. "You will have to talk fast, for if you fail to convince me by two o'clock . . . ." A jerk of his head indicated the clock set into the rear vision mirror. It stood at three minutes of two. Simpson's eyes jumped to it, flew back to the face of the Spider. He licked his lips, sucked in a deep breath and began talking.
"I swear to you I didn't know what was behind it," he said rapidly. "Two months ago, a man called me over the telephone and reminded me that there existed written proof of a crime that would send me to prison for years . . ."
"You were responsible for the collapse of that school," Wentworth said softly. "They couldn't find your private set of specifications which told your foreman to shave the cement mixture, to use wood instead of steel, but this man could. He had the specifications. Who was this man?"
"I don't know," Simpson said. He whimpered suddenly and shrank back in his corner, tried to pull his manacled hands around in front of him as in prayer. "I don't know, Spider! As God is my witness!"
Wentworth had made no movement unless there was a slightly increased hunch to his shoulders, unless the flame of his eyes had flared more brightly. He said, between his teeth: "Go ahead."
"This man called me and told me that," Simpson stammered on. "Then he hung up. Several days later he called again, and I was half crazy with fear by then. He said he would send me some money and that with it I was to buy stock in the Bessmo Corporation, that I was to pyramid the earnings until further orders." Simpson licked his lips; his eyes slid sideways to the clock and his words spilled out faster than ever. "I did that, thinking I was getting off easy. A while later, he told me to rent a safety-deposit box, put the shares in that and then to convert all dividends into cash and place that in the box, too. I did that, too, and thought that at last I had a way to find out who held the papers. The bank wouldn't tell me who shared my box, had orders not to. I . . . . I intended either to buy him off, or . . . . or . . . ."
"Kill him," the Spider supplied.
Simpson's stare at the gun was like the fascinated stare of a snake-charmed bird. "I hid and watched at the bank where I had rented the box and didn't see anyone. But the next night two men came to my house and beat me up terribly. I was in the hospital for ten days."
"But you went again?"
"I went again," Simpson admitted. "I had to, you see. I couldn't go on not knowing when the blow would fall, when the roof would be snatched from over the heads of my wife and daughter, when my disgrace would strike them down. I went again and saw a man I knew was a minor stockholder in Bessmo enter the bank vaults. Later, when I went to the box I shared with this blackmailer whom the bank was protecting, I found the money gone, found a note telling me to put no more money in the box and that later I would be told what to do with it. By this time the buildings were beginning to fall and I became terribly afraid. I . . . I felt that there was a connection, a reason why this man did not want his stock in Bessmo listed in his own name, and this seemed to explain it. I knew that Bessmo would resist whatever was causing buildings to collapse. I was afraid."
"This small stockholder," Wentworth said, and hesitated, his voice choking. He felt that he was on the brink of a discovery that would solve the whole case, that would bring to book the man behind all these killings and crashes, the Master himself. His heart thudded in his throat. "This small stockholder you saw entering the bank. He was . . . Alrecht?"
Simpson shivered. "You know everything," he said faintly. "It was Alrecht."