Back | Next
Contents

Chapter Eight
Hour of Sacrifice

WENTWORTH heard the click of disconnection and whipped toward Kirkpatrick, who was swearing bitterly at delays on the line, unable to get through to a telephone company official. Even while he working, Wentworth knew it was hopeless. Damn it, Ram Singh should have phoned him, and . . . Wentworth shook his head. Ram Singh had not known where he was. Munro must have seen him entering the building, or a spy reported it. The latter was more likely.

Wentworth weaved a little on his feet as he started toward the door, thrust out a hand to steady himself. Into the room bounced District Attorney Toley.

"I've got one thing to thank the Spider for," be chortled. "The biggest case of my career! Kirkpatrick, I want a complete round-up of that gang within twenty-four hours! I'll hold these men here, shove them into the grand jury first thing in the morning . . . I'll have indictments by noon. But don't wait for that, Kirkpatrick. Get busy!"

He bounced out of the room again, and Kirkpatrick crossed to Wentworth's side. "It was Munro, wasn't it, threatening Nita?"

Wentworth said, "Yes, he seems to blame me for what the Spider did." His voice was dull.

Kirkpatrick's voice was kind. "Go home, Dick, and rest. This is all cleaned up, I tell you! We'll have every man behind the bars in twenty-four hours!"

The laughter that pushed out between Wentworth's grim lips was bitter. "Aren't you forgetting . . . Munro?" he asked softly.

"We'll find men who will talk!" Kirkpatrick said, but his voice lacked confidence.

Wentworth shook his head. "They will describe to you a man called Munro—a man whose face has been seared and twisted by flame until it is scarcely human, whose eyes are red-rimmed, bleared sockets."

"No man like that can hide long from us!"

"You miss the point, Kirk," Wentworth said quietly. "No man like that could possibly assume the disguise of a normal face." His voice dropped, wearily.

"The semblance of the Faceless One is merely another disguise. Good luck in your round-up, Kirk, and if you can find out anything about Nita . . . ."

Kirkpatrick's arm tightened about Wentworth's shoulders. They made a strange picture in that scene of triumph. There was bounce to the stride of the district attorney's aides as they scurried about his business; even the police seemed to have a stiffer, more confident poise. But there was a perceptible droop to Wentworth's shoulders, and Kirkpatrick's face was gouged by lines of anger and frustration. His arm dropped and, slowly, he knuckled his waxed mustaches, as always when he was worried.

"As long as Munro is at large," he said gruffly, "we have gained very little by this round-up. His use of fire is a terrible weapon that he knows too well how to use. He will use it as long as he is at liberty."

"And only the more terribly because of this round-up," Wentworth agreed gravely. "We are chasing phantoms in the dark, and we find only the habiliments of trickery . . . empty disguises. If I may suggest, Kirk, it would be a good idea to take a talking-picture record of every one of the prisoners, especially watching the sonograph. A man may disguise his voice, but there will be peculiarities there that he himself will not know. The sonograph will show that in sound vibrations!"

Kirkpatrick's eyes narrowed. "You think that Munro is one of those men who are . . . supposed to be his victims?"

Wentworth lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug. "I do not know, Kirk. It would be clever, in fact the only way he could learn the exact status of the case against him. I have studied each of those men in detail and I can't identify Munro, but I think Munro will call me again about Nita. I will take a sonograph record of the voice . . . We must catch at straws to identify that man!"

Kirkpatrick said crisply, "I'll do it, Dick! If we can trap a man by the way his voice makes the air vibrate . . . ."

"Then we will have added a page to the science of crime-detection," Wentworth smiled slightly. "I hold out no great hopes, Kirk. It is predicated on the possibility that Munro is in that room. Make sure that Toley keeps them prisoners!" He nodded. "If you want me in the next three hours, Kirk . . . After that, you can leave any information about Nita with Ram Singh. I'll be . . . out!"

He strode down the broad corridor, and the eyes of the police followed him respectfully. There was a tangle of newspapermen outside the doors and they yelped eager questions at him. Wentworth shook his head.

"You'll have to see Toley, or Kirkpatrick," he said. "I came on private business."

They followed him to the Daimler, where Jackson waited behind the wheel, and he turned at the door there.

"You may quote me as saying that the Spider has done a great piece of work," he answered their barrage. "I envy him the accomplishment! Will you publish my request that the Spider communicate with me on a matter of vital importance . . . to me?"

He leaned back against the cushions then and Jackson slapped the door shut, drove swiftly, smoothly back toward Wentworth's apartment. Wentworth fought against the despair that closed in on his heart, and for the first time allowed himself to think deliberately of Munro's demands.

 

It was like Munro to phrase his demand as he had that Wentworth must put the Spider on the spot. Munro had no doubts that he and the Spider were the same man, though he had no positive proof of it. Wentworth allowed a faint smile to move his lips. Munro needed no proof. All any criminal needed was a suspicion. Well, he could make certain preparations. Munro had said he would call again in three hours time to tell Wentworth where and when the Spider must be sacrificed.

Somehow, he must contrive to turn that deathtrap for the Spider—into a snare that would accomplish Munro's death!

Munro was shrewd enough to guess in advance that he would make just such an attempt. So when Munro called, it certainty that he would allow only the slimmest margin of time . . . Round and round the cycle of weary thought raced.

It had been almost forty-eight hours since he had slept, and his food had been snatched inadequately. Body and brain had been functioning at super-speed, strained to their utmost. He . . . He was tired. And, dear God, the greatest battle lay ahead: the battle to destroy Munro and save Nita's sweet life.

Wentworth tried to exert his will toward rest, and his mind would not. Munro was not finished; his vanity would not permit him to drop the fight now that his superficial organization had been smashed. Wentworth stiffened at the conviction that this trap for the Spider was only a small part of Munro's plans. He would time it beautifully, and while the Spider was walking into a trap—somewhere in the city, Munro would strike a terrible blow with his weapons of living flame!

His hands knotting to slow, white fists on his knees, Wentworth realized that for the present he was utterly helpless to discover where Munro would strike. He could only guess at the nature of the crime . . . but he knew how shrewdly and terribly Munro could plan. It was a safe guess that it would entail a wanton slaughter of human beings to cover the final escape!

A crystal-clear chiming of bells broke across Wentworth's thoughts and he lifted his head to stare about him. The dawn was lifting greyly out of the East. There was a bitter, bracing cold in the air against which the few persons abroad moved swiftly, with heads bowed. The doors of a cathedral stood open and men and women were hurrying up the broad, shallow steps.

"This isn't Sunday," Wentworth said dully.

Jackson shook his head, and there was grief and pity on his face as he turned it for an instant while the car slid to a halt at a traffic light.

"No, Major," he said. "Not Sunday. This is Thanksgiving Day."

Wentworth fought down the mockery of the laughter that surged to his lips. Slowly, he forced himself to relax again against the cushions. Thanksgiving Day . . . .

The first hour that Wentworth spent at his home, high above Fifth Avenue where the wind was clean and sharp, was a time of violent activity. He had Jackson rig a recording-machine to take down the words of Munro, and the voice, when he called again. He made arrangements with the telephone company to trace instantaneously any call that came in over his wires. His car was parked at the curb, ready to race at an instant's notice, and he had Ram Singh rent a seaplane and fly it to the nearest pier in the East River, anchor it there.

Afterward, he sent Jackson after more of the flame-extinguishers and to purchase asbestos cloth with which to line the cape of the Spider and fashion a mask. For the moment, it was all he could do; Kirkpatrick would be pressing the questioning of the prisoners, rounding up whatever of Munro's associates could be found

Now, he could only wait.

Wentworth stripped and flung himself across his bed but, for a long while, even his powerful will could not drive his harassed mind into the nothingness of sleep. At the end of two hours, he awoke without summons. A cold shower, and a brisk rub-down, and he was as refreshed as from a full night's rest.

But no word had come from Munro and time passed . . . .

 

By A violent exertion of will, Wentworth forced himself to sit quietly in his drawing-room to await that call. His mind would stray . . . and presently he would find himself striding the floor with long, reaching strides, his hair rumpled from the quick, hard thrusts of his lean fingers through it. Somehow, he should be able to hit on the target of Munro's plans this day. The banks would be closed, and fire was not, anyway, a potent weapon against those structures built conventionally of stone and steel. He gripped his temples hard. Damn it, he could not think. But his every nerve was vibrantly alert. He knew that this day Munro would strike!

The day dragged out its weary course. Three times, Kirkpatrick called, but he was asking for information and had none himself to offer. In Wentworth's home, no one moved save on tiptoe. Time and again, Jackson would come to stand silently behind him, but he was not an articulate man. He could not proffer the sympathy he felt. There was a scowling rage on the face of Ram Singh, and Punjabi curses hissed through his lips. Even Jackson, who usually bantered him, did not cross him this Thanksgiving day.

Blue dusk began to gather in the streets and the western sky held low clouds, red as the flames that Munro raised so terribly and still there came no word. Wentworth fought against a feeling of helplessness and despair. He knew that all this had been deliberately calculated by Munro; that somewhere in the city he was making his dual preparations, to kill the Spider, and to loot when the hour was ripe. But Wentworth knew that, regardless of the fact that Munro had planned to keep him idle, his greatest hope of finding and destroying this wanton butcher was to do precisely that. When the telephone shrilled . . . .

Old Jenkyns, the butler who had served Wentworth's father before him, came in on silent feet with food . . . and Wentworth realized that the night had turned black and overcast. It was after nine o'clock. He rose to stretch his taut muscles, and the phone bell whirred again.

Jenkyns started violently, turned with his passive stride toward the phone in the hallway. At Wentworth's crisp signal, Jackson started the sonograph instrument to record the voice, as they had each time the phone bell had sounded. He strained his ears to catch Jenkyns' voice, his hand on the instrument at his side. This was part of a calculated plan to keep whoever called waiting on the wire as long as possible, so that the message could be quickly traced.

Jenkyns was in the doorway of the drawing-room, and the pallor of his face told its own story. Wentworth lifted the phone, and saw with a curious detachment that there was no tremor in his hand. Well, would he expect the long years of training to fail him now?

"Richard Wentworth here," he said quietly.

The instant the man spoke, Wentworth knew with a sharp sense of disappointment that it was not Munro. He pushed out words in a wild hurry.

"In one minute, Wentworth, tune your radio to twenty-three megacycles," he rushed. "One minute . . . twenty-three megacycles!"

Wentworth said steadily, "Would you mind repeating . . . ." He cut off then, for the man had disconnected. Wentworth came alertly to his feet.

"Ram Singh!" he snapped. "Out on the terrace. Use that directional loop and spot the direction from which that message will come. Jackson, phone the police radio-room direct and get their directional loop working on it. You got the wave-length . . . twenty-three megacycles!"

Wentworth sprang toward the radio, paid little heed when the telephone shrilled again. That would be the telephone company reporting on the whereabouts of the man who had just called him, and Wentworth knew now that was unimportant. He might have been sent miles from the hideout to make the call. But Munro would calculate that he could not trace the radio message without preparation . . . and he might be right! It was possible that he would speak from a car equipped with two-way radio, and in that case the directional loop would accomplish nothing. If the transmitter were stationary . . . .

Wentworth heard the slow warming of the tubes in his set and stood glowering down at the radio receiver. He tuned it to the specified wave-band. He shifted the sonograph so that he could record the voice that came from the radio and, abruptly, he stiffened. A startled cry leapt from his lips. A voice was coming from the radio.

"Dick!" it called. "Dick! Listen carefully . . . ." It was the voice of Nita!

"Dick, I am allowed to say only what has been written for me," she went on steadily, deliberately. "Listen carefully, for I may not repeat."

Wentworth's hands reached out impotently toward the radio. He shook his head, forcing sharp attention on Nita's words as she went on in that same deliberate way.

"These are the orders of Munro," she said. "At precisely nine-thirty, the Spider will enter the end of the Park Avenue traffic tunnel at Fortieth Street, on foot. He will walk through this tunnel to the south end."

Wentworth was only half-listening to the words, though his mind flashed ahead to the picture. That short tunnel, which once had been utilized by street cars, was used now as an auxiliary passage to carry traffic from the Park Avenue ramps that wove around Grand Central Terminal. After dark, it was closed, but only by a series of signs placed across its mouth. In its six blocks of darkness, the Spider must walk, and somewhere inside he would meet death!

That much was clear, but Wentworth's attention had been caught by something strange in Nita's manner of speech. He was alert for some secret message from her, under the cover of those words; a hope that had sagged dismally when she said she was reading a written message. But there was that strange something in her speech. Some of her words were drawled slowly, but others had a quick, staccato delivery. There was a rhythm there . . . .

"If the Spider fails to do this, I am to be killed, Dick," Nita went on, drawling now. "Bu-ut Mu-unro ha-as," Three slow words, now suddenly three swift words, staccato, sharp, "allowed me to s-a-ay thi-is a-added thing. Fo-orget abo-out me-e, Dick, and don't te-ell the-e Spi-der. Signing off. Goodnight, dear and . . . good-by!"

The hum of the radio station died out, and Jackson was instantly on the wire, calling police headquarters, but Wentworth stared before him blankly. Three slow words, three quick words, three slow words. Three dashes . . . Why, good God, Nita had been signaling in Morse code!

 

WENTWORTH whipped about to the sonograph and rapidly made the necessary adjustments to repeat the message. Once more Nita's curiously rhythmic voice sounded in his ears . . . but instead of clearing, Wentworth's bewilderment increased. He knew now that it was in Morse code, her message, and he knew what she had signaled, but it meant nothing, nothing at all.

Nita's secret message was: "S. O. S."

Jackson whipped about from the telephone. "Police got the message. The directional reading is one-eighty—three-sixty."

Ram Singh strode into the drawing room, his eyes gleaming fiercely. "Wan, sahib, let us go and destroy them!" he cried. "They are due south of us!"

"Or due north," Wentworth murmured. "You mean that your reading was . . ."

"One-eighty-three-sixty, sahib!"

Wentworth ripped out a harsh oath. Due to some accident, or design on the part of Munro, the two readings had told absolutely nothing of the exact location from which the station had broadcast. A north-south line through police headquarters and his own home would lead out over the water of the harbor and across Staten Island, into New Jersey, northward . . . Wentworth whipped about suddenly.

"Jackson, get Kirkpatrick on the phone!" he cried. "Tell him that Munro had access to the room in which the men were questioned, or overheard our conversation in the hallway! He knew that we were going to attempt a sonograph identification, and for that reason he did not send the message to me himself, but had it radioed by Nita! Tell him to make sure that none of Munro's witnesses escaped!"

Wentworth bounded toward his chambers, flinging an order at Ram Singh, "Get over to the pier, and warm up the motor of that seaplane!" he snapped. "Phone Jenkyns a number at which he can call you. Once the motor is warmed, keep it idling and stand by that phone!"

In his room, Wentworth made swift preparations. He snapped two broad rubber bands about his wrist and thrust under them a light, powerful automatic. His eyes were glittering like ice, and he whipped about when Jackson stepped inside the room. Jackson's broad face was set in stony lines.

"Mr. Kirkpatrick had left headquarters, sir," he reported. "I gave the message to Sergeant Reams. Reams was sore as hell, sir. Toley let the witnesses go home for Thanksgiving dinner. Police were sent to guard them . . . and one of the witnesses murdered his police guard and escaped!"

Wentworth choked down the oath that leaped to his lips. Always just too late! The man had been Munro without a doubt . . . and they had grasped only another phantom. Give that man ten minutes alone, and he would be a totally different character . . . . He laughed sharply.

"But they will have a sonograph chart of his voice!" he cried. "Jackson, you will stay here and await orders by telephone."

Jackson made no response. His faithful blue eyes looked stubborn. "Begging the Major's pardon, sir," he said stolidly, "Is the Major planning to . . . walk through that tunnel?"

Wentworth was suddenly very quiet. "Don't be a fool, Jackson," he said calmly. "It is the price Munro has placed upon Miss Nita's life!"

"Does the Major trust Munro?"

Wentworth shook his head, and a slow, grim smile built about his lips. "No, Jackson . . . but Munro will be there to make sure the Spider dies! He may . . . find matters not too much to his liking! He worked pretty cleverly, giving me too little time to make preparations to trap him. His own plans are undoubtedly fully arranged!"

Jackson stood very stiffly, "Begging the Major's pardon, sir, I wish to volunteer."

"You what?"

"I wish to volunteer, sir, to walk through that tunnel." Jackson's eyes burned steadily into Wentworth's. "You know, sir, that it is certain death. You . . . The Major won't stand a chance!"

Wentworth's eyes softened, and he dropped a hand on Jackson's shoulder warmly. "Thanks, Jackson," he said quietly. "You can serve me best here." His heart swelled at the loyalty of this man who served him, as thoughtless of self as was the Spider in his service to humanity. He shook Jackson's broad shoulder a little. "I've been in these deathtraps before, man, and . . . ."

Jenkyns was at the door suddenly. "Master Richie," he mumbled. "Commissioner Kirkpatrick is here. He wants you at once . . . ."

Wentworth stiffened. He had no time to talk to Kirkpatrick. Minutes were flying . . . and he had a rendezvous with death.

"Tell him . . ." he began harshly, and cut off. Kirkpatrick was standing just behind Jenkyns.

"Glad I found you in time, Dick," he said quietly. "I have a favor to ask of you!"

Wentworth moved a hand impatiently. "Any other time, Kirk," he said sharply.

"You heard that radio message from Nita, didn't you? Do you think I can let the Spider walk into a trap like that, and not be there to help him?"

Kirkpatrick's blue eyes did not waver at all, and there was grimness in the thrust of his jaw. "The Spider is a law-breaker," he said stolidly. "A killer . . . I am swearing you in as a deputy, Dick. I am calling on you as an officer of the law demanding the support of a citizen as he has the right to do. You will help me trap the Spider!"

Wentworth laughed sharply. "You're crazy, Kirkpatrick!" he said violently. "The Spider is risking his life to save Nita! He called me a few moments after that radio message and promised that he would. And you ask me to help trap him? You're mad!"

Kirkpatrick's jaw was stubborn, and his hand moved at his side. Four uniformed policemen stepped into sight beside him, guns in their fists! Wentworth knew then that he would have no choice of refusing! But, damn it, this was his one chance to save Nita, to snare Munro! Suppose he made a break for it, even in the face of those four guns? Then Kirkpatrick would track him down, and arrest him . . . as the Spider!

And time was flying. Within a little more than twenty minutes, the Spider must start his stroll into that tunnel of death!

"I intend to settle this matter once and for all," Kirkpatrick said harshly. "If you are the Spider, then the Spider cannot appear if you are with me. Dick, you will either do as I say, or I shall clamp you into a cell under protective arrest!"

He frowned. "Well, Dick . . . which is it going to be? Will you help me trap the Spider, or shall I put you in my private escape-proof cell!"

Wentworth's eyes held the shine of desperation, but his voice was very quiet.

"A man would make but one choice, Kirkpatrick," he said curtly. "Where is this cell of yours?"

 

 

Back | Next
Framed