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Chapter Five
Disaster

There was a weight of horror upon Wentworth's consciousness as he fought slowly back from the dark depths into which he had been plunged. He struggled upward through nightmare memories of wanton slaughter, wholesale destruction . . . . Good God! The gasoline truck!

With that recollection, and the knowledge that it was its explosion which had blasted out his senses, Wentworth burst the last bonds of darkness . . . and once more became conscious of his surroundings. About him was a bedlam of terror. The scorching odors of superheated masonry and metal seared his nostrils. Wentworth realized drunkenly that he lay in the wreckage of his car.

"Nita!" he said hoarsely. He groped out blindly.

All about him lurid light danced in waves of brilliance and shadow over the lobby of the apartment house into which he had charged his limousine in a desperate effort to escape. The fire-dance showed a white flood of faces. It glistened on terror-stretched eyes as people poured toward the wreck of the car, and over it, fighting their way from the apartment building toward the presumptive safety of the streets. But there was no sound at all. None that Wentworth could hear.

He shook his head violently, called once more for Nita. Suddenly, he could hear . . . and wished that he could not! The night was horrid with screams, agony and fear and desperation, in a blended cacophony out of hell. There was the crackle and roar of the flames; the omnipresent wail and shriek of sirens; the shouts of men.

"Nita!" Wentworth cried again.

Frantically, he peered about him. Nita was not in the car!

Desperately, Wentworth fought his way out of a shattered window of the car. Against a column, he saw the limp body of Ram Singh. A leg was doubled grotesquely, where there was no joint. Wentworth reached him in a plunge through the streaming fugitive crowd. The plucky Sikh was unconscious.

Wentworth swung the heavy, inert body into his arms and let the pressure of the escaping people push him to the street. His eyes swept about. Nowhere in the wreckage was any sign of Nita! But where, in the name of God, had she disappeared?

For an instant, stark terror shook Wentworth. Was it possible that the butchers who were responsible for the holocaust had carried her away? But if that were so, surely he never would have liked to know she was missing! They would not have left the Spider alive . . . . and stolen away the Spider's mate—without some special purpose!

An ambulance racketed to a halt and Wentworth staggered toward it with Ram Singh, while horror still raced through his brain. He turned the Sikh over to the doctor, saw the man start his ministrations. He swung away then, and let his eyes quest over the horror of the street. An entire block of apartment buildings had been deluged with flame from the explosion of the gasoline truck. Flaming tatters of burning liquid had been hurled through crashed windows. A great pillar of living fire that writhed and twisted in a gargantuan dance lifted above the corner where the filling station and gas truck had been. Even as Wentworth stared, another minor blast thrust out an arm of flame toward a new building. Bricks were crumbling in the heat. The asphalt of the street had melted and was burning in thick, odorous clouds.

Wentworth was beaten physically backward by the incredible heat. But there was no work here for the Spider. The people already had taken alarm and were fleeing their homes. A dozen, a score of fire trucks had catapulted into the area. Men in asbestos suits were using chemicals on the gasoline.

But Nita! Where was she?

* * *

Wentworth reeled drunkenly away from the fire, used a steaming wall as a shield to regain the lobby of the apartment. The last of the residents had fled, and the place was wrecked. But nowhere in the ruins was there any trace of Nita. Wentworth shook his head, moved heavily away.

Was it possible that, stunned by the blast, she had arisen and roamed off in a daze? It must be that. What else could it be? Wentworth began to run. He doubled the corner, his eyes questing everywhere. There were fleeing hordes, in every stage of dress. There were women with streaming hair and men with blackened faces and staring eyes. Somewhere amid this multitude . . . was Nita!

Wentworth reached another corner, saw a woman swerve suddenly into a dark doorway. For an instant, he thought that it was Nita, and the manner of her entrance puzzled him. It was almost as if she had been . . . yanked into that dark doorway! Wentworth bounded forward . . . and heard the woman scream!

As he sprang forward, a gun stabbed flame at him. He felt the bullet pluck at his clothing, then he plunged into the darkness! The woman screamed again. She staggered out into the light. Her hands were holding together tattered clothing. There was a bloody tear on her throat.

"My jewels!" she gasped. "My jewels—he took them!"

It wasn't Nita.

But Wentworth saw that only in a glance as he sprang to the attack. Dimly, he could see the man crouched in the darkness. His left hand slapped out and the second gunshot lanced past him, beneath his arm. His right fist smacked against the man's jaw solidly, drove him out of the doorway into the street. The gun was on the pavement now. The man crouched . . . leaped fiercely toward Wentworth!

The suddenness of the attack caught Wentworth off guard. He was driven backward; he tripped and fell. But the swift co-ordination of his powerful body stood him in good stead. As he pitched backward, he seized the lapels of the man's coat. His feet stabbed upward at the man's belly. It was a quick, shrewd fall; a jiu-jitsu throw. The looter's body arched through the air. He screamed, terribly, just before he crashed head-on into the wall of the building!

Wentworth pushed wearily to his feet. The woman had fled. The looter was dead. Wentworth stood staring down at him. It was a filthy crime, looting in the wake of such horror. His lips drew thin and cold against his teeth. From his vest pocket, he slid out his cigarette lighter, stooped over the slain man and ground into his forehead . . . the seal of the Spider!

When he straightened again, and looked around, he uttered a glad cry.

A score of feet away, staring at him, was Nita!

His joy faded instantly. There was blood on Nita's face. It had scrawled a crazy pattern across the silk of her dress. Wentworth sprang toward her.

"Nita!" he cried, anxiously. "Where have you been? Are you hurt?"

For a heartbeat of time, Nita stood staring at him. Her eyes were wide with shock and horror. Then, as Wentworth reached her, she screamed! She turned and ran!

Wentworth caught her by the shoulders, whirled her into his arms. "Nita!" he cried. "It's Dick! Don't you understand?"

"You murderer!" Nita gasped hoarsely. "Let me go! You—you killed that man! I saw you . . . ."

Wentworth seized Nita by the shoulders, gazed into her wide eyes. They were glistening with fear. Her lips were awry with loathing and fear. And there was utterly no sign of recognition in her face!

"Nita!" Wentworth cried despairingly.

Nita struck at his face with clawed fingers. "You murderer," she cried. "Let me go! I saw you kill that man! You put—you put a spider on his forehead!"

At that instant, Wentworth heard hard, positive footsteps running toward them. Nita heard them, too.

"Help!" she cried. "Help, police! This man is a murderer!"

Shocked incredulity gripped Wentworth. This blow, coming after so much else, left him without coherent thought. He realized that the concussion of the blast had done something to Nita, but that was only a dimly conscious dictate of his mind. The rest of him was too stunned by this reaction actually to understand what possessed the woman he loved.

But he heard the voice behind him. A man's voice. It rasped, "Let go that woman, you fiend!"

* * *

Wentworth's head whipped about. A policeman had checked beneath a street light. He held a revolver lifted in his hand, was sighting along the barrel! With a desperate effort, Wentworth flung himself aside. Nita screamed again, and ran toward the policeman!

"Save me!" she cried. "Save me! He killed that man! He put a spider on his forehead!"

For a moment, Wentworth wavered. If only he could make Nita understand . . . . The policeman's gun came up again. His whistle was between his teeth and he made it shrill wildly in the night, even as he fired. Wentworth felt the wind of the bullet. Frantically, he flung himself toward the door of a house. It was locked. He flung his weight against it blindly, and the police gun crashed again.

The cop was yelling now. "The Spider!" he shouted. "The Spider! Surround that house. It's the Spider! He killed a guy and tried to kill this woman!"

Wentworth was sobbing drily. This was the maddest mockery of all. He crushed his body into a corner of the doorway and stilled the hammering wildness of his thoughts. He knew now what had happened to Nita. The shock had brought on a temporary amnesia, a forgetfulness of everything save the present. She had seen him kill. Naturally, she had been terrified. That was all. He told himself that, but the shock of Nita's horror at him, and of her flight, still was a pain that blocked rational thought.

He remembered then that he had guns in his armpit holsters. He yanked one out and drove two bullets through the lock of the door. It was high time for action. Other policemen were charging into the streets. A bullet whanged past him, flattened against the bricks. The glass of the door was suddenly shattered in a design of death. Splinters of glass cut his cheek as he hurled himself once more at the barrier. It yielded, and he catapulted into the dark hallway.

But the police were just behind him. Wentworth ran blindly. He caromed against the stairway, staggered against the opposite wall. His feet beat raggedly as he ran on, off balance. He leaped against another door, fell to the floor. Gun-flame brightened the hall fitfully behind him. The lead beat on metal ahead of him. A pan jangled to the floor and drummed as it spun on edge. Plaster dust roiled into the darkness. He felt it burn his throat as he raced on. Another door, locked. But the key was in it. Somehow he locked the door behind him and fled on.

It gained him a few seconds. He was in the open air again, running beneath a sky that was red with fire. A fence . . . his heavy body went over it, but he landed off balance, stumbled to his knees. He was up again, dodging, running. A dog began to bark savagely, snapping at his heels. He vaulted another fence and felt pain stab through his hand. A nail. He fell, and for a long moment he could not lift himself from the ground.

In staggering pain, he lumbered toward the rear of the house that must give on the next street. He reached up and struck with his gun at the glass of a window. It did not break. God, was he so weak? He struck again, and glass showered down into his face. Laboriously, he grasped the sill and muscled his weary body upward. Somehow, he was through the window, was stumbling through a room where every step brought him against a new piece of furniture. Upstairs, a woman was screaming.

Another door, and another . . . the blessed air of the street. He forced himself to check and lean against a wall. He was fleeing in blind panic—he, the Spider! He forced himself to stare about him, to seek his bearings. The police were at least two blocks behind him. He could hear their shouts. There was a sudden crash of gunfire as they raked a suspicious shadow somewhere.

There was an auto parked at the curb right in front of him.

 

Wentworth staggered toward it.

The door was locked. He put his shoulders into a heave on the doorhandle, and the lock snapped. He flung himself behind the wheel. His fingers were shaking as he reached to the leather girdle about his waist. There was a tool there . . . . He stabbed the lock-pick at the ignition switch, and missed.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe slowly. He crushed his shaking hands together, held them firm with an effort. Slowly the madness went from his brain. When he reached for the lock again, he was stone cold inside. His eyes held their old keenness. The police were rounding the corner, a half block away, when he maneuvered the car into motion. Their bullets drummed against the metal back of the car. One punched through the window, and made its hole-centered star in the windshield. Then he whirled a corner and was leaving them behind.

Wentworth knew now where he was going. Regardless of danger to himself, he must get to Commissioner Kirkpatrick at once and tell him how terribly these killers were armed. The police must be organized on a new scale, equipped with new weapons. In God's name, what sort of organization was this that devastated a section of the city for the sake of a petty racket!

There was no way of guessing, but the threat they constituted needed no analysis. The people must be protected against any recurrence of such horror.

Wentworth eluded the police in a space of a half dozen blocks and headed straight for police headquarters. He remembered dimly that he had ordered his masked ally, Jackson, to speed there after giving his message to the police. Perhaps Jackson had managed to get through to Kirkpatrick. It was a thing that must be done . . . quickly.

Wentworth bore the accelerator to the floor, wove through confused traffic as he raced for headquarters. A block away, he abandoned the car. The license number might have been spotted. The bullet scars were a betrayal in themselves. Wentworth raced on afoot. There was a dilapidated coupe parked before headquarters and as he saw it, he uttered a gasp of thankfulness. Jackson was here first, then. He had carried the message!

Wentworth darted toward the car and uncertainty shook him. The right front tire was flat. There were bullet-pocks on the armored sides, and the windshield had great frosted blotches where lead had hammered on its protective thickness. He swerved toward the coupe, whipped open the door.

On the cushion was a dark stain. Slowly, Wentworth touched the spot. It was still wet and his fingers . . . were red!

The sound of a man coming out of swing doors fast made Wentworth whip his head toward the entrance to police headquarters. A stiffly erect figure in a Chesterfield and derby was coming rapidly down the steps. He caught the set, saturnine profile of Commissioner Kirkpatrick and gladness thrust through him. He would be in time, then, with his message. He took a single stride forward . . . then checked.

That limousine sliding to the curb where Kirkpatrick had stopped was not the police commissioner's machine. It bore the license plates of the Mayor of New York!

Even before the car slid to a halt, the door batted open and the bounding, energetic figure of the mayor leaped out. His deep voice had a rasp.

"Kirkpatrick!" he snapped. "I'll expect your resignation by tomorrow morning. You're suspended as of this moment!"

Kirkpatrick stiffened under the shock of the words. His metallic, crisp voice was angry. "I'll discuss that with you later, Mr. Mayor," he said coldly. "Right now, there is an emergency which must be handled at once."

The Mayor caught Kirkpatrick's arm as he strode past. "Just a moment, Kirkpatrick," he said harshly. "I said you were suspended. I have already appointed your successor. Inspector Littlejohn will be acting commissioner."

Wentworth winced at the name. Littlejohn was a competent man, all right, but completely ruthless. His pursuit of the Spider, and his sure but proofless conviction that Wentworth and the Spider were one amounted almost to an obsession. With Littlejohn in control, there would be no co-operation between the police and Wentworth. His knowledge would never be used.

The Mayor was saying, "There is no time now to discuss the details. The charges will be preferred if you demand it. For the present, I'm busy!"

 

He whipped toward the car, and the dour-faced Littlejohn stepped down. Wentworth peered into the interior of the limousine. There was a large and bulging figure there he recognized. Daniel Flagg, boss of a political machine. But Wentworth's eyes lingered there only a moment. They centered on the woman who was alighting, her hand resting upon Littlejohn's.

It was Nita!

"Nita!" Kirkpatrick cried. "Confound it, Littlejohn, have you already started your persecution?"

But Nita was staring at Kirkpatrick in a dazed way. "Am I supposed to know you, too?" she asked emptily. "But I am not being persecuted. I saw a man commit a murder, and they tell me he is a notorious criminal called the Spider. I am going to try to identify him for the Mayor and Inspector Littlejohn."

She pressed her hands to her temples. "I have the queerest feeling. This is what they call amnesia, I suppose. I remember nothing except that I was walking along a street near a big fire and saw this man commit murder and put a red seal on his victim's forehead. He seemed to think I should know him, too. He called me by my first name . . . . He was horrible. There was blood on his hands . . . ."

Littlejohn took her arm and urged her toward the doors of headquarters. Quietly, Wentworth slipped into the wrecked coupe. There was a twisted smile on his lips. Nita, afflicted with amnesia, and prepared to identify him to a hostile police commissioner! Kirkpatrick out of power when the city needed his efficiency most! And a deadly group of butchers striking with the efficiency of a German Blitzkrieg!

Wentworth pressed his hands hard to his head. He would have to go into hiding, of course. But he would lose not one hour in striking against the criminals, against Big Gannuck and the rest of his army of destruction. But first, he would have to find them . . . .

Wentworth shook his head wearily. He had destroyed the only headquarters of which he, or those brave boys, knew. He—abruptly his eyes narrowed. He stooped and picked up from the floor of the coupe a short billy such as policeman carry. He turned it over slowly in his hands. There were stains on it. Wentworth's face grew stern and cold. This club had been used against Jackson. But it was not a police billy. It did not bear the tell-tale initials N.Y.P.D. which all police equipment carried.

Abruptly, Wentworth's head jerked up. His hands clenched on the stained billy, and from his unsmiling lips, there came a mocking sound that promised destruction to the criminals who had done these deeds of horror. Soft and mocking, flat and ominous, it sounded there in the darkness of the wrecked coupe . . . the laughter of the Spider!

 

 

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