THE SPIDER flung back his head and laughed. It was derisive, self-mockery. Alrecht, of course, but Alrecht had disappeared. He was a will-o'-the-wisp, a shadow in the darkness. Simpson was babbling words, eyes darting from the gun to the clock which stood now at one minute past two.
"It's the truth," he was stammering. "For God's sake, Spider, believe me!"
Wentworth ceased his flat laughter. "I do," he said. "You deserve death for that other crime you committed, for the deaths of half a hundred school children, but you can purchase your way out of that. I want the key to the safety-deposit box, and I want your absolute silence about what has happened tonight. If you so much as breathe a word of it, I will know, and I will come for you. And next time, there will be nothing you can say to stave off my avenging bullet."
Simpson stammered in fear. The key, he said, had been stolen from him. Throughout the long drive back to his home he kept that up. Finally Wentworth was convinced he spoke the truth and the man sputtered his gratitude that he was allowed to live. Wentworth was confident now that he had a clue to the Master.
But the next day's investigation was a disappointment. The name on the bank's register card for the man who shared Simpson's safety deposit vault was "John Smith" and the man who had been accustomed to recognize the holders of boxes and admit them to the vaults could not describe "Smith." He was dead—had been crushed to death in the fall of a building two days before.
Signatures of Alrecht were not obtainable for comparison. His bachelor quarters were clean of any handwriting. His bank, the First National in Middleton, had been destroyed. Such friends as could be found had no letters, though one said vaguely that a photostat of the John Smith signature seemed familiar.
Nita and the others had set sail for New York on the Britannia and were due to arrive in two days. Wentworth, seated in Kirkpatrick's office, watched the reports come across the Commissioner's desk. They were like men in war time, these two.
When the carroty-haired cop who kept watch outside the Commissioner's door thrust in an excited head, both men looked up at him with a curious expectant tension.
"Eddie Blanton, of the Press," said carrot-top, and the two settled back into their seats wearily. Kirkpatrick raised an indifferent hand in consent of the man's admittance and Blanton came in briskly. Wentworth eyed him intently. Brisk movement in Blanton was a signal of excitement. Usually he lounged, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, the slouch gray hat on at any angle, the baggy topcoat soggy about his ankles. But now the coat swung out behind him, slapping quick-moving calves.
"Listen, Kirk," he said swiftly. "We got a hot tip on the Britannia, and the chief didn't even want me to talk to you over the 'phone about it."
Wentworth felt a slow, cold tension stiffen his back. He dropped the report he was scanning on his knees and his gray-blue eyes fixed on Blanton. There was a grin on the reporter's face and a tightness about his eyes that meant big news. But big news to him might mean disaster . . .
"What about the Britannia!" Kirkpatrick's voice was hard and quick.
"Is she or isn't she carrying five millions in gold?" Blanton demanded.
Wentworth's fears eased. He still sat rigidly, eyeing Blanton. Kirkpatrick frowned. "I can't say anything for publication on that, Eddie," he said slowly.
"Can you tell me whether you're planning a heavy police guard at the dock?"
"Don't start that business," Kirkpatrick growled. "You're not going to worm a damned thing out of me, and you know it."
Wentworth was leaning forward now. "I've got some friends on the Britannia, Blanton," he said slowly. "Somebody who could give you some good detail stuff."
Blanton spun toward him, shrewd brown eyes gleaming. "Where'd you get the tip from?" he demanded.
Wentworth was on his feet in an instant. "I thought so, damn it," he said. "Out with it, Blanton. What's happened on the Britannia!"
Kirkpatrick stared from one man to the other, leaning back in his chair. "What's this all about?"
***
Blanton grimaced. "Your friend, Wentworth, just tricked me," he said. "I guess I might as well spill it, but keep it under your hat until we can hit the street with an extra. I was really sent over to find out whether anybody else was in on it." He leaned over and picked up Kirkpatrick's 'phone. "Outside, darling," he told the main operator downstairs, dialed his paper and got hold of the city editor. "All clear, Gibby," he reported. "Naw, not a thing." He hung up.
"Yeah, you tricked me," Blanton told Wentworth, "but just the same I'm going to cash in on that promise of yours."
"Talk, damn you!" Kirkpatrick growled.
Blanton lipped another cigarette, held a burning match and looked over it. "The steel bunch tried to hijack the Britannia," he said casually, sucked the flame against the cigarette and blew the match out with smoke. "And dear little Briggsy, none other than our own W. Johnson Briggs, sank 'em with their own stuff."
"What!" Amazement showed on Wentworth's face.
"Uh-huh, that's just the way I feel," said Blanton, grinning. He told them with the concise efficiency of a man used to handling big news what had happened aboard the Britannia. A fast yacht had hailed the big British steamer in the midst of an Atlantic storm and ordered it to lay to and surrender its five million in gold. If the captain refused, the yacht's message read, the Britannia would be subjected to a whiff of gas that would make her steel plates break to pieces. In other words, the yacht would loose a load of the steel-eater and sink the Britannia without a trace.
Wentworth's fists were knotted at his side. He could see the picture that Blanton threw before them so vividly, the two ships heaving on the gale-swept Atlantic, giant and pygmy, and the giant at the mercy of the smaller boat. Stricken with the steel-eater, her plates would not hold together a minute in those waves. Instant dissolution. Two thousand persons plunged into wild waters from which there could be no rescue . . . .
"Little Briggsy romped up to the captain," Blanton went on. "The news had leaked out somehow. 'Listen, Cap,' he says. 'If we can make even a mild sort of demolition bomb we can beat them off.'"
The captain had heeded Briggs. While they stalled and parleyed with the yacht, powder from pistol bullets was rigged up into a weak bomb, the plane that hopped ashore with the mail from twelve hours at sea was hitched to the catapult and the pilot took off. At the same time the Britannia spun about and headed to windward of the yacht. There was a big yell from the yacht, then the mail pilot swooped over it and dropped his bomb. It was weak, so he didn't have to worry about being blown up while flying too close. He split a gas tank on the deck just as Briggs had recommended, and before he had got a hundred yards away, the yacht went to pieces.
"They got the full dose of their own gas," Blanton said. "The ship just broke up in pieces. Now, Mr. Wentworth, I've told all. How about putting me in touch with that somebody on the Britannia!"
Wentworth found that he had been standing so stiffly his muscles ached with the strain of it. He lifted a hand and plunked a fist against a palm. "That was splendidly done, by God," he said.
"How about that 'phone call to the Britannia, Wentworth?" Blanton insisted. Wentworth nodded, crossed to the desk. He picked up the 'phone.
"Commissioner," a voice said rapidly. "I was just calling. Here's something the cop on the beat thinks you ought to hear about. A man was found burned with acid near the Funsdall National Bank. He was in an auto and . . . ."
Wentworth said, "Wait a minute," turned to Kirkpatrick and repeated what he had been told. His eyes narrowed suddenly, his fist struck the desk. "By Heaven, Kirk, he said. "They're going to attack the Funsdall National with the steel-eater!"
Blanton spun and his coat flapped out from him. He went toward the door in a fast dive. Wentworth reached him in two long strides, caught him by the shoulder. The reporter came about with his fist swinging, but it skidded off Wentworth's forearm and he found himself held helpless.
"Not yet, Blanton," Wentworth said quietly. "This is the first chance we've had to be on the scene before they struck and you're not going to warn them off with your paper."
Behind them, Kirkpatrick was clipping out orders over the telephone with the rapid efficiency for organization that made him the most successful police commissioner New York had ever had. Blanton wriggled his shoulders, sighed and subsided.
Kirkpatrick heel-pounded across the office, and Wentworth pulled Blanton along with them. They entered Kirkpatrick's big sedan, and the driver whirled it on a dime and sent them roaring downtown.
Above the roaring din of the powerful motor, there came another more ominous sound. The scattered banging of pistols and the chattering fury of machine guns!
New power droned into the engine. The sedan leaped and quivered with the force, lunged forward with mounting speed. The siren began to moan, its note rising, swelling until its shriek burst through the streets in terrific volume. Wentworth coolly took his two guns from their holsters. He knew they were in perfect condition, but it was comfortable to feel their weight. He clicked back the bolt, saw the gleam of brass in each chamber and thrust the automatics back into their holster clips. He was conscious of Blanton's eyes upon him. The reporter's face was pale and he had a deprecating grin on his mouth.
"Gun noise always makes me nervous," he apologized.
Wentworth laughed sharply. He was excited. He had more in mind than merely battling these gangsters who would be looting the Funsdall Bank. For days he had been seeking a new contact with the Master and always it eluded him. He could not even discover through which mob he worked now. This was a new chance. Out of the roil of battle just ahead, victory might come, and a clue to Baldy. Wentworth was thinking warmly of Briggs. The dapper, animated little architect had played a game part. He owed Nita's life to him, he realized, for it was obvious that the pirates had intended to destroy the Britannia and all aboard once they had the loot under their own hatches.
His thoughts cut off and he braced himself with feet and thighs as the sedan skidded around a corner, straightened with its rear swinging, and swooped up a narrow cross-street between the cliffs of skyscrapers. There were gaps here and there in the rows, shattered windows presented blank eyes and the sedan dodged pits in the street. Once more a whipping turn, this time to the left, and a khaki of National Guardsmen showed. The brakes snagged and rubber whined; the sedan's rear seemed to rise with the suddenness of the stop. It slewed sidewise and Wentworth went out first, guns in his hands. Kirkpatrick was right behind him. A blue uniformed police officer, a lieutenant, puffed up at a run.
"They're inside the bank, sir," he panted. "Wiped out every man in sight with machine guns before they went in."
The proof of his statement lay in the streets, scattered bodies in brown and blue. But the robbers were trapped. Behind barricades of autos, the khaki troops, reinforced by police, waited with leveled rifles, with ready machine guns. Wentworth ran an alert eye over the defenses, heard the lieutenant report that the bank was surrounded in just this way. Then a machine gun opened up from a window.
A soldier twenty yards away tilted up the muzzle of a Lewis gun, shoulders hunched to take its recoil, and squeezed on the trigger. The gun exploded in his hands. The bolt ripped through the side of his face, hurled him kicking to the ground. His helper, standing ready with a drum of ammunition, stared stupidly and a blast from the machine gun in the bank's window smashed his head to bits. Kirkpatrick cursed viciously, strode toward the lines, and a whistle shrilled. Soldiers threw up their rifles, aiming at that window of death. What was intended as a volley turned into a mass suicide. Every rifle of the twenty aimed at that window exploded in the hands of the soldiers.
Wentworth stared down at the automatic in his hand with twisted lips, then he plunged forward also.
"Cease firing!" he shouted, and his cry was a mockery. There wasn't a soldier at this barricade except the white-faced sergeant who had trilled the whistle. He, too, was staring stupidly at the automatic he held in his hand. Wentworth seized his arm.
"Where's the commanding officer?" he snapped.
The sergeant gestured toward a cigar store at the side of the street whose windows had long since been smashed by lead. Wentworth plunged toward it at a dead run, saw cement dust kick up in his path and wrenched aside, dived to the cover of the automobile barricade. Bullets drummed fiercely against it.
When firing stopped, he jumped to his feet, reached the store at a dead run, found the major in charge.
"They've turned the steel-eater loose on the guns," Wentworth barked. "They'll all explode. The bayonet is our only chance. They'll have to be used carefully or they'll crumble."
The Major stared at him a moment, then caught the drift of the words.
"You're Major Wentworth," he nodded. "I was in your company once, over there. Give me a hand, will you? I've lost three officers, and . . . ."
Wentworth cut him short with a jerk of his hand. "Couriers to order cease firing," he barked. "With your permission, Major, I'll organize a bayonet squad." His mouth twisted thinly. "I always had a theory I taught my own sergeants that two inches of the bayonet was plenty to kill. It will have to be today, and the thrusts will all have to be in the guts. Those blades, weakened by the steel eater, won't stand even a throat job today."
The major assented with a crisp nod, jerked off hat and coat and flung them at Wentworth. "That will give you authority," he said.
Wentworth hauled himself into the coat while machine guns drummed on. But the soldiers were not shooting now. The couriers had reached them with orders not to fire. Wentworth reached the sidedoor of the store in a stride, dived out and rolled to the cover of a barricade. Men in khaki were crouched there white-faced. They were not regular army men, just boys who loved military atmosphere and had signed up with the national guard. A few of their officers had seen overseas service; none of the boys had. They were clenching their bayoneted rifles but they had no confidence in them. They had ceased to be weapons for defense and attack and had become dangerous to the men who held them.
"Men," Wentworth pitched his voice above the chatter of the gangster guns, "your guns cannot be fired, but your bayonets are still good, if you use them right." Eyes turned to him, showed doubt at his strangely mixed garb. But his voice commanded obedience, his manner carried authority. "You need only two inches of the blade," Wentworth hammered on, "and that means two inches only. That will kill, will knock a man out cold on his feet the moment you pull the steel out of him. But remember, two inches only, and that here." He jabbed a finger into his abdomen below the parting of his ribs. "Right there and nowhere else!"