WENTWORTH turned carelessly away from where Alrecht lay, glaring up at Kirkpatrick. He nodded slightly to Nita. It was more a movement of the eyes than of the head. At the same moment, he barked staccato Hindustani words at Ram Singh. The Hindu took two swift strides across the room and seized Briggs' arms. Nita stepped up behind him and, wrapping her fingers in his long hair, yanked fiercely at it. There was a moment of struggle, of panted curses, then the hair came free and revealed an egg-shaped bald head.
Wentworth's gun was in his hand. "W. Johnson Briggs," he said sharply, "you are Baldy. You are the Master! There is other damning evidence against you, too. We will find, I think, that you left the Berengaria before she sailed, then overtook her by fast boat while she went down the bay. You had to see McSwag once more before you sailed."
"He did do that!" Nancy Collins cried out. "He said it was business."
"Also," Wentworth said. "I am sure that Alrecht will now confirm that he saw you open the box in which O'Leary Simpson placed Bessmo money."
"He did," said Alrecht grudgingly from the bed. "But I didn't know what it meant. I only knew he was afraid when I recognized him."
Wentworth was grinning tensely, eyes watching Briggs with keen attention. "There were two other circumstances which pointed to you, Briggs," he said. "From the description by Ram Singh of Baldy, he smoked a cigarette like a man used to cigars, that is, Baldy wet the entire end of the cigarette with his lips. And you smoke cigars, Briggs.
"Furthermore, the man who got something on the contractor O'Leary Simpson, who got his secret specifications and held them over him to force his cooperation in buying Bessmo stock, must necessarily have been someone connected with the building trade. And you were, Briggs. Then there was the matter of Baldy's big head, and your own as evidenced by that picture of your daughter wearing your hat."
"This is all utter nonsense," Briggs protested hoarsely. "How could I possibly profit from all these murders?"
"That's the simplest part of it," Wentworth told him curtly, "and the fiendish part of it, too. First you got a cut of all the money seized by the criminals with the use of this gas steel-eater that you stole from Jim Collins. Second, you profit from contracts for the rebuilding of skyscrapers, for you are a leading architect of such buildings. Third, you would take in millions through dividends from the Bessmo Corporation, whose stock you held through O'Leary Simpson. Is that a full enough picture, Briggs? Or shall I give more . . . ."
Suddenly, without warning, Ram Singh reeled backward, his head knocked back between his shoulders. Briggs snatched his leather portfolio and sprang past Nita against the wall.
"If one of you moves," he cried sharply, "the ship sinks!" He held the portfolio raised above his head, a gun in the other hand.
"Nonsense, Briggs," Kirkpatrick growled. "That bag couldn't possibly hold enough gas to sink this ship."
Briggs laughed shrilly. "It holds enough to release the big tank of gas I have hidden aboard the ship. The ventilation system of the ship will carry this to it. Your guns are useless. I released gas into the room when I first entered, just a little, but enough to make your guns explode if you fire them. My own weapon is impervious to the gas."
Anse Collins was crouched with his fists clenched, his eyes glaring. Nancy Collins had shrunk back from Briggs and Nita picked herself up slowly from the floor where Briggs had hurled her. She dropped the wig from her hands with a shudder of distaste.
"Give up, Briggs," Kirkpatrick snarled at him. "You can't escape . . . ."
Briggs' gun came up slowly. "Oh, yes, I can," he said. "I can kill you-all—my southern accent again—take your plane and release the gas. Yes, I think I should escape."
"The Spider has your daughter captive," Wentworth said quietly.
Briggs glared at him. "I shall make you tell where she is, Wentworth," he said curtly. "Talk, or your Nita shall suffer terribly before she dies. A bullet through her white belly . . . . There's no use in pretending you're not the Spider. I know you are. This stuff about getting that story from Bee Ross—That's all hokum!"
"My gun also is impervious to the gas," Wentworth put in quietly. His weapon was leveled at the little man's stomach.
"A bluff," snarled Briggs, "a bluff that will get you nowhere!"
Abruptly he sprang sideways, flung his arms about Nita van Sloan so that he held the pistol in front of her—the pistol and the portfolio.
"Grab his bag!" Wentworth snapped.
Nita snaked her arms from out of his grip, seized the portfolio with both hands. Briggs snarled, raked at her head with his automatic and she reeled forward, but she still clutched at the bag, doubled her body forward to protect it. Wentworth sprang sideways, his automatic jerking up, but Briggs was too swift for him. The small man bounded like a rubber ball, went out through the suite's door into the hall and banged the barrier shut behind him. He blasted lead through the panel and Collins dropped to the floor, his left leg shattered by a bullet. He cursed violently. Nancy flung down on her knees beside him, shielding him with her body from more lead.
"Oh, Anse," she moaned. "God, don't let him die!"
Briggs shouted outside the door.
"The first man to open the door dies," Briggs bellowed. "Remember your guns are useless."
Wentworth charged the door and wrenched it open, hurling himself aside. More lead streamed through the opening, hammering the wall. Kirkpatrick, who had rushed forward, stopped with a grunt, sat down heavily with both arms locked across his belly. He staggered to his feet and pulled a shattered gun from his belt. Briggs' bullet had struck there. He reeled a moment, sank weakly down to the floor. He wasn't injured badly but the blow had paralyzed his muscles.
"Sahib," Ram Singh's voice was sharp but low at Wentworth's elbow. "I could climb out through the porthole."
"Say it loudly," Wentworth whispered, and the Hindu repeated, as if he were calling from across the room.
"Sahib, if I could get past the door, I could climb out the porthole."
"I'll knock out the light," Wentworth called back. He did that, then thrust his gun into his belt, sprang for the door and caught the lintel with both hands. He swung with his feet doubled up and landed softly on all fours in the hallway. No shot welcomed him and his lips skinned back from his teeth in a tight, fierce grin. His ruse had worked, had drawn Briggs away from his guard in fear that he might be flanked.
Darting soft-footed along the hall, Wentworth swiftly figured out the geography of the ship, where the ventilation system would shoot the fumes that Briggs had planned to release in the stateroom. He frowned as he ran, shook his head. It was nonsense. The ventilators did not blow out of the rooms. They blew fresh air into them. He should have grasped that at once. The whole thing had been a bluff. Briggs had come into the suite without any suspicion that he might be exposed and had cleverly seized on a ruse to stall off capture.
A picture flashed into Wentworth's mind. Eddie Blanton telling of the destruction of the pirate yacht. A tank on the deck, he had said. Wentworth recalled abruptly that he had seen a cylindrical tank in the forward deck-well, lashed to the deck. He threw caution to the winds and sprinted.
Wentworth plunged into the opening from which the man had issued, found a narrow companionway winding upward.
He grabbed the rails and yanked himself up the steps, reached the deck above and spun out into the open.
Wentworth streaked forward along the deck, sprang to the railing. The well was in shadow, but he made out the cylindrical form of the tank, made out a man hunched above it.
"Get away from that tank, Briggs," he roared, "or by heaven I'll shoot the heart out of you."
Mocking laughter floated up to him and the cover clanged against metal as Briggs wrenched it from the tank. Good God! What was Briggs yelling?
"Too late, Spider," he jeered from the darkness. "You're too late. You can't reach me in time to stop the gas. You can't shoot because your gun will blow up . . . ."
Wentworth sent his wild laughter into the night. "I can shoot, Briggs!" he shouted. "I had a gun plated with gold for just this emergency . . ." He plucked an oiled rag that protected the inside of the barrel from the muzzle, threw a half dozen shots at that huddled figure on top the tank.
He sprang to the rail, balanced for an instant, then sprang out into the darkness toward the steel deck of the well.
Briggs' scream came again, nearly inarticulate words. "You . . . damned . . . ." It mingled pain and startled surprise, then changed to a piercing shriek of absolute terror.
Wentworth's feet banged on the deck and he sprawled on hands and knees, his gun flying from his hand. He fought to his feet, lunged toward the bulk of the tank. He could no longer see Briggs, but in his nostrils was an acrid burning odor. It strangled him, bit at his eyes. He knew what that was. The steel-eater had escaped, but had enough of it got out to soften the Britannia's plates?
With a sob, he flung himself on the tank, groping with nails that grated painfully on its sides for the lid that Briggs had removed. He heard the Master screaming, heard him beg for mercy, and the sounds were hollow. They were accompanied by a muffled clangor of leather beating steel.
As Wentworth's groping hands found the lid, he realized what had happened. His bullets sprayed into the darkness had struck Briggs and bowled him into the opening of the tank of gas! Remembering what had happened to that other man who had been caught in a concentrated fog of the steel-eater, Wentworth felt a horror stab into his soul. Briggs was being eaten alive by the gas!
But there could be no hesitancy. Moments were precious. Already enough of the gas might have escaped to sink the Britannia. If he paused to haul Briggs from his torture chamber, more of the vicious steel-eater would leak out. The ship would certainly be doomed. Wentworth's shoulders swelled. He seized the round metal lid of the tank's manhole and with a heave slapped it into place. Its clang was hollow and cracked and Briggs' rising scream was muted.
"Soap!" Wentworth yelled at the bridge. "Get soap and swab down the decks and plates! Fast, man!"
Behind him, he heard Kirkpatrick catch up the cry. The Commissioner had recovered from that bullet blow against his stomach, realized what he was doing, realized that soap would counteract the acid effect of the steel-eater.
The ship was safe and Wentworth's head wrenched back between his shoulders as the fearful grim laughter bubbled from his lips. He was laughing with fierce pleasure, the laughter that comes from the gods when a human monster's own works turn upon him and destroy him. And he was echoing, too, the shout of triumph with which the world hails cosmic retribution. Thinking of the tens of thousands that had died, the tens of thousands more that would go through life as cripples because this man had longed for gold, Wentworth reached for the turnbuckles that would secure the lid of the tank and seal Briggs in his cell of acid gas—gas that concentrated as it was here, would eat through living, human flesh.
And as Briggs' muffled screams of agony, his beating upon the walls that imprisoned him grew weaker, Wentworth leaned against the tank and his hands shook. Finally the sounds ceased within and the Spider lifted a drawn face toward the stars that shed dim light down upon the Britannia, upon the two thousand souls he had saved. And the Spider shuddered.
"It was horrible," he said hoarsely. "But it was necessary and it was just. God knows it was just!"