HICKEY shoved and tugged at the false bald head that Ram Singh had fastened on Wentworth's scalp. It hurt, but it held. Ram Singh had done his work well. Hickey cursed and quit.
"I can't get it off," he said, "but this guy isn't Baldy. That's a fake head on there, and . . ."
McSwag stepped in close and his right fist swept up. It was aimed at the jaw, but Wentworth jerked his head, took the blow high up on his cheek. Nevertheless he went down hard and a great white burst of light smashed through his brain. Dully he felt shoes thud against his sides, felt the sharp heel of Beatrice Ross rake the side of his face.
Fumbling, he reached for his guns. There wasn't much feeling in his hands. Before they had moved six inches, fists pinioned his wrists to the floor. His guns were ripped from their holsters. More heels hit his sides. His stomach seemed caved in. Then he was aware of a big figure over him and fists flailing.
"Lay off!" McSwag bellowed. "You can have him in a minute. First I want to ask some questions. Lay off, I say!"
Wentworth felt himself dragged up and slammed into a chair. Whiskey burned down his throat. Water drenched him. He gasped, rolled his head and came foggily back to his senses. McSwag was holding Beatrice Ross away from him with an arm like a limb of oak. Behind him were four men and insane hatred glared from their eyes. Baldy hovered to one side, a smirking grin on his face. And Wentworth saw death in all those faces, even in the grim, hard face of McSwag who, he realized dimly, had saved him from being beaten to death a few moments before.
The Spider could expect no mercy here. Not a criminal in the entire country but had come to dread and hate his name as that of the one man who could strike terror into their hearts. Not a man in this group but who, some time, had been blocked and defeated in criminal endeavor by some crusade of the Spider. His lethal guns had burned down their companions. Now they had him a helpless prisoner! Jackson and the detective were equally useless.
"I just want to know who this Spider guy is," McSwag said, "then you can have him. Now lay off a minute, will you?"
"He killed Devil Hackerson," Beatrice Ross screeched, "and I'm going to kill him!"
"Sure, sure," McSwag soothed. "Now wait!"
The woman kept struggling to get past his arm and he drew back his hand and hit her hard with the heel. She spun up against the wall and struck it with her shoulders. Her head snapped back and she slid down slowly, a dazed look in her eyes.
"Let me kill him!" she moaned.
McSwag ignored her, turned back to Wentworth. The other men waited, tensely, leashed hounds at the kill, dogs beaten back after tasting blood. They licked their lips and fingered their weapons.
"Your number's up, Spider," McSwag said slowly. "You were a damn fool to come here like this. And this is once you ain't going to wiggle out of it. Come on, who are you?"
Wentworth lifted his head from the back of the chair. He realized he was in the big arm seat that McSwag had occupied. It was an effective prison, for he was bedded so deeply in it that there was no chance for him to move any way but forward. McSwag and his four men hedged him in there. There was no chance to tip the chair over backward either. It was too heavy for that. Besides, that beating had done him up.
He dipped his hands into his vest pocket for his cigarette-case and McSwag knocked it from his hand. It snapped against the gas log with a silvery note. "I just wanted a smoke," Wentworth explained mildly.
"Okay," McSwag grunted, "but you'll smoke my cigarettes. Get the point?"
"Oh, quite," said Wentworth. He accepted one of McSwag's cigarettes and lighted it. "Quite," he said. "You seem to have me at a temporary disadvantage."
"Temporary is right," McSwag growled and a grudging admiration lighted his eyes. "It's going to last about two minutes and then the disadvantage is going to become permanent. Come on, now, who are you?"
"The Master knows," Beatrice Ross said suddenly. "He had him followed, and ordered a train wrecked to get him."
McSwag said, "That ain't helping. I wrecked the train and I don't know who he is. You know, Baldy?"
Baldy licked his lips. "I'll tell you," he said hoarsely, "if you'll let me kill him." McSwag looked at him in surprise.
"You?" he demanded.
There was a crazy gleam in Baldy's one good eye. He nodded his head. "Yeah, I want to blow off that funny-looking head."
Wentworth laughed. "Really, Baldy," he said, "it wasn't such a bad head until Hickey started mussing it up."
For the first time he saw a gleam of hope. Baldy was no hood, didn't know how to handle a gun. If he could goad the man into making an attempt he might stand a chance of snatching the weapon. It was certain Baldy would come close to use it. He glanced out of the corner of his masked eyes toward the cigarette case. It was beginning to melt a little with the gas-log's heat.
"Let me!" Baldy pleaded.
"No!" Beatrice Ross said violently. "I'm going to." She stopped suddenly, snatched up her skirt and yanked a small gun from a thigh holster. Before she could use it, McSwag had wrenched it from her hand.
McSwag weighed Beatrice's gun on his hand and eyed Baldy. "I think that might be a good idea," he said softly. There was a gleam in his eyes. Wentworth could read his thoughts. If he had a murder he could hold over Baldy's head, he might twist him to his own ends, use him against the Master. The Spider blew another smoke ring and was thankful that the Zeiss lenses hid the mounting hope in his eyes.
"Shoot him in the belly, Baldy," Hickey urged hoarsely. "I want to put lead in him, too. He smashed out Trigger Skinner, and . . . ."
"Now, boys, boys," McSwag urged jovially. "I see no reason why all of you shouldn't have a shot. The Spider isn't going to run away, are you, Spider?"
Wentworth smiled and carefully blew another ring. "Oh, no!" he said calmly. "I wouldn't cheat you out of your fun."
It was an effort to keep his face twisted into that mocking smile. His heart was a hard thing beating against the wall of his ribs, trying to knock its way out. In his right temple, the thin scar was throbbing. He knew that never before had he been so near death as now. He knew that never had he needed more to live, not only for his own sake, but for the sake of the thousands these men would kill if he died.
Despite all his battling, he still did not know the Master. And ten thousand lives might well hinge on his escape . . . .
"I think Baldy ought to have first shot," McSwag said, "because the Spider came here disguised as him."
He held the gun out to Baldy butt first. Baldy snatched for it and at the same instant, Beatrice Ross catapulted upward from the floor, hands clawing for the weapon. McSwag roared out with anger, stepped forward to interfere, and his bulk spun Baldy aside. The little windbag had the gun and he clutched it in both hands reeling back. Wentworth dived out of the chair and his shoulder caught him in the side.
Baldy spun, felt the heat of the gas log and screamed. Wentworth snatched the gun away from him, blasted one slug from it at Hickey, who alone was in the clear, and a second later made the protection of the heavy chair. Hickey took the bullet between the eyes and slammed down onto the floor, clawing the rug. His gun skated along and Wentworth snatched it from behind the chair. Deliberately he shot down another hood, then smacked out the light with two more bullets.
McSwag had dropped to the floor with the first shot and the big chair was between him and Wentworth. His heavy gun roared and lead plunked through the back of the chair—within an inch of the Spider's head! Wentworth lay flat on the floor and burned lead along the level of the boards. McSwag swore painfully and more bullets smacked into the chair. Two came through.
A small, muffled blast whooshed near the gas log as his cigarette case exploded and Wentworth laughed. It was the mocking monotone of the Spider's mirth.
"Death!" he cackled. "Death! The Spider brings you death!"
Beatrice Ross was screaming with pain now. "Tear gas!" she shrieked. "Tear gas!"
Wentworth caught a movement in the flickering light of the gas log and fired into it twice. A man groaned and thudded to the floor. Wentworth was edging along the wall toward the door. Somewhere in this room, Baldy still crouched. There was still another gunman, Beatrice Ross and McSwag. McSwag was wounded, but Wentworth doubted that he was dead. Also, there was a pounding of feet on the stairway as the men downstairs rushed upward to the rescue. Wentworth reached the door, yanked it open. From the darkness of the room, a gun blazed wildly, and the Spider's own eyes, even protected as they were by the Zeiss lenses, were smarting with the tear gas his cigarette case had released, but the bullet did not come anywhere near him. He must free Jackson, but to do that he must empty the room.
He plunged out into the hall, squealing wildly as he ran toward the stairs. "The Spider! The Spider!" he squeaked. And once more it was Baldy's voice.
A rush of men whirled him sidewise against the wall. The man who had stood behind the counter pinned him there by his coat collar, peering at him in the dim light from the hall's single bulb. Other men dashed by. The man cursed.
"You ain't the real Baldy," he growled and his gun jerked upward at his side. Wentworth fired upward and the bullet smashed under the man's chin, thrust his head back between his shoulder blades. He went back two heavy steps on his heels, already dead, then fell limply. Wentworth crouched low, leaped the entire flight of steps, landed sprawling and rolled as a hurricane of flying lead ploughed the floor where he had landed.
Wentworth emptied the light gun up the stairs, then darted out of the store. He reached his car in a bound, flung into it and kicked the starter. A mighty creaking sound, a Titan in agony, suddenly filled all the world. There was a whang of steel as if a great wire cable had been cut by a bullet. With an abrupt stab of dread, Wentworth ducked forward over the wheel, stared upward.
The spidery span of Brooklyn Bridge, with its myriad tiny lights, was sagging. A splotch of glaring white headlights stabbed wildly downward, then spun dizzily, whirling through space toward the black waters. An automobile was plunging from the bridge. But it was not alone. An entire string of elevated cars tumbled like a child's toy train down after it.
Brooklyn Bridge was falling . . . !
Good God! The Master and his steel-eater had destroyed the Brooklyn Bridge!
Even as the thought materialized into words, a bunch of men hurtled out the front door of the restaurant, guns in hands. They froze there. Their heads twisted, too, toward that catastrophe of the bridge.
His lips grinning back from his teeth, Wentworth realized that the engine of his coupe was racing. With a snarl of fury, he yanked the car into gear, deliberately charged the six men on the walk.
He was within feet of them before they tore their eyes away from the death they had wrought. Their wild screams and upflung guns attempted to stem the rush of the steel monster whose driver had become an avenging demon. Their bullets were as futile as their screams. The car struck two of them down, slammed them savagely to the concrete, ground another against the wall, charged on to carry two more through the plate glass window of the restaurant.
One of them tore loose. He clapped his hands to his back and ran screaming down the street. Blood flowed from his back in a torrent. He did not run far. Wentworth threw back his head and laughed—a sound of blood-curdling merriment . . . .