KIRKPATRICK'S face darkened at Wentworth's words, but he did not waver from his resolved purpose. He spoke crisply, and two of the uniformed men sidled into Wentworth's room and moved toward him, guns and handcuffs ready. Wentworth was aware that Jackson was watching narrowly for a signal, and he shook his head slightly. He knew that Kirkpatrick's patience had worn thin. There had been too many recent coincidental appearances of Wentworth on the scene of the Spider's operations. Moreover, Wentworth dared not risk receiving a wound! Too much depended on his remaining ready for the battle. But the time was so cruelly short . . . . Twenty minutes!
"All right," he said angrily, "come on with the handcuffs! Put me in this escape-proof cell of yours, and get on with your trapping of the Spider! If only I had a chance to warn him!"
The police snapped on the handcuffs and Jackson watched with a puzzled air; then resolution formed in his face.
"I'm sure, sir," he said, "that the Spider would expect some such trap as this, I'm quite sure it won't keep him from appearing!"
Wentworth's head whipped toward his man, and he read Jackson's intention in his direct blue gaze. Wentworth's voice still seemed angry. "You will not leave this apartment, Jackson!" he snapped. "I won't have the Spider thinking we are parties to the trap! You understand, Jackson, no matter how badly you wish to help the Spider, you will not leave this apartment—or you will leave my service!"
Jackson's face went pale. His voice was stolid, "Yes, Major!"
Wentworth jerked at the handcuffs, "Come along! Let's see this cell—or you'll be late for your treachery, Kirkpatrick!"
Worry gnawed at the back of Wentworth's brain. Jackson's intention had been completely plain. It had been his intention to don the robes of the Spider and walk into that tunnel of death, as he had volunteered to do before Kirkpatrick's arrival. It would be fatal, in more ways than one. Jackson was a grand fighting man, but he lacked the split-second brain of the Master of Men! If he escaped the attack of the criminals he would surely fall into the hands of the police, and that would be as disastrous as if Wentworth himself were captured in the robes of the Spider!
Wentworth had made the choice of the cell with full knowledge that he might be dooming himself irrevocably. But if he went with Kirkpatrick, there would be no chance at all to appear as the Spider and Wentworth had not yet given up hope of keeping his rendezvous with death! He maintained a hard silence while the police took him down in the elevator and out where Kirkpatrick's car waited. Wentworth stole a glance at the clock on the dashboard of the car. Already quarter past nine! Fifteen minutes . . . .
"My home," Kirkpatrick told the driver quietly, "and make it fast, Cassidy."
Wentworth said nothing. His eyes bored straight ahead, and the police were close about him, with ready guns. He was tempted to strike out about him; to break from custody and take his chances later with convincing Kirkpatrick that his escape had been made in order to warn the Spider. No, better to wait, until he had seen this escape-proof cell of Kirkpatrick's! Strange that he had ordered the driver to his home . . . . He tried to keep his eyes off the slow jumping of the dashboard clock hands.
Wordlessly still, Kirkpatrick took Wentworth up the elevator to his own apartment, and now they were alone save for the driver, Cassidy. The man's pale blue eyes roved over Wentworth constantly, and Wentworth studied him secretly. Evidently, this man was to be his guard. His hopes rose . . . . One man on guard!
When he saw the cell, his heart fell. He remembered now that Kirkpatrick had mentioned once before a plan for safeguarding witnesses against criminal assault; the next time one was threatened, he would keep that witness in his own home! And this cell had been prepared for that purpose. It had no window, and only one door, which opened into Kirkpatrick's bedroom. That door was reinforced by a second gate of tool steel. And the locks were intricate and shielded by a broad plate of armor steel that precluded the possibility of Wentworth reaching it!
When the door clanged shut, Kirkpatrick stepped back from the grating, and his eyes pleaded for understanding.
"I have to do this, Dick," he said quietly. "Cassidy, I hold you entirely responsible." He touched a button, and a shield of bullet-proof glass slid out of floor sockets. "You will stand behind this shield, Cassidy," he said. "You will not stir from this spot until I return. Dick, it won't be long. In ten minutes, the Spider will appear . . . or I will know that you are the Spider!"
"And if anything should prevent the Spider from appearing," Wentworth said quietly, "you will have been responsible for Nita's death! Remember that!"
Kirkpatrick's face was grey and drawn. "The Spider always keeps his word," he said . . . and strode from the room.
Behind the shield, Cassidy stood rigidly, gun in hand, and his eyes rested a little fearfully upon Richard Wentworth. Wentworth stood motionless also. There was so little time. But, as Kirkpatrick had said, the Spider always kept his word! There had to be a way out. He still had the small automatic strapped to his arm; police had found and removed the others, but that glass shield prevented him from using the gun. Short of Cassidy's death, there was no way he could escape without the knowledge of Kirkpatrick, sooner or later; and that knowledge would be more condemnatory than if the Spider failed to appear! But Nita . . . God!
Wentworth did not delude himself with the hope that Munro would turn Nita free even if the Spider did appear, but it was his one last chance to make contact with a man as fleeting as a handful of smoke. He had to be there; had to capture Munro . . . had to. Wentworth's eyes were half-veiled by their lids as he studied Cassidy. There was still a way, perhaps. Cassidy was a genius at driving, but Wentworth remembered he had not done so well as a patrolman. Cassidy was frowning now with hard concentration as he gripped his revolver behind the shield.
Yes, Wentworth had one slim chance. He had battled against the will of master hypnotists himself; and had never succumbed unless drugs had been used upon him previously. It was the power of his mind against theirs, and it was the mind of the Master of Men that triumphed. That he had the personal magnitude for command he had proved time and again; every leader has to that extent the potency of the hypnotist. But could he . . . could he hypnotize Cassidy! Wentworth knew the theory of the art perfectly, though he had not himself practiced it. In the end, it reduced itself to tiring the optic nerves of the patient and overbearing his will power with your own!
Wentworth slipped a key ring from his vest pocket and began to twirl it around and around his finger. It caught facets of bright light, twinkled them against the bullet-proof screen behind which Cassidy stood. He twirled . . . and presently, he saw that Cassidy's eyes were following the flash of the keys. It was inevitable in a scene so otherwise devoid of interest that he should watch movement. For a long minute after minute, Wentworth twirled the key. Slowly, he lifted his hand toward his face . . . and Cassidy's eyes followed!
Wentworth waited until the keys were twirling squarely before his own eyes, and then he swallowed the keys with his hand. He had put his own gaze on Cassidy's, and he widened his eyes, concentrated all his will power on holding Cassidy's stare with his own! He saw Cassidy shiver a little; saw him try to took away . . . and fail!
Wentworth's eyes blazed with the living force of his will, and he flung that thunderbolt of his personality against the weaker mind of the man who confronted him, beyond that screen of glass. Presently, Wentworth's lips began to move, and his sibilant whisper reached across the room.
"My will above yours, Cassidy," he whispered. "My will is stronger than yours. You must obey me! You wish to obey me. Cassidy, you wish to obey me!"
Cassidy's lips quivered. His eyes were strained wide, and the gun was held as solidly as rock in his hand.
"Cassidy!" Wentworth's voice had the command of a trumpet. "Cassidy, you must obey me!"
Cassidy's lips moved again. His voice came out woodenly, "I—I must obey you!" he stammered.
Wentworth felt the wetness of perspiration upon his forehead, and he pushed out of his mind all thought other than domination of this man before him. He willed himself to forget the rapid flight of the minutes, and how much that could mean to him.
"We have been fighting men who deal in fire, Cassidy," Wentworth said softly. "They have set this place on fire. You can feel the heat of it. That is why the perspiration is on your forehead. That is why you are afraid, Cassidy. The place is on fire!"
Fright stiffened Cassidy's face. He said, shakily, "The place is on fire!"
"You must release your prisoner, Cassidy," Wentworth whispered. "If you let him burn to death, it would be murder! Kirkpatrick would fire you and you would never drive his car again. You would never again drive a car with the siren shrieking. So you must open the cell, Cassidy. Then you certainly will be a real hero!"
Cassidy went through a struggle then, and Wentworth's eyes burned and burned into his.
"You feel the heat," he said.
"I feel the heat!" Cassidy echoed. "The place is on fire."
"The place is on fire!"
"Cassidy," Wentworth ordered crisply, "unlock the cell and save the prisoner from the fire!"
Cassidy's lips opened. He shuddered . . . and stepped slowly around the glass shield. "Unlock the cell," he repeated woodenly!
Seconds later, the steel lattice swung open—and Wentworth stepped outside, a free man! He did not take his eyes from Cassidy.
"Cassidy, behind that glass shield, you will be safe from fire," he said softly. "If you step out from behind it, you will be burned! Stay behind that shield every minute, Cassidy . . . and forget what has happened!"
Wentworth bounded across the room, and he staggered a little as he ran, so intense had been the concentration of his mind. He felt as shaken as though he had fought a great battle . . . and God, time was so short! Impossible now to return to his home for the cape and garb of the Spider! He whirled toward Kirkpatrick's coat closet, and whipped out a long evening dress cape, lined with white satin. He found a black fedora and dragged it down over his brows. It was the best he could do . . . asbestos cape and fire extinguishers were at his home. He had one light gun instead of his two heavy arms. And he was going to a rendezvous with almost certain death—to capture the most clever, ruthless criminal he had ever fought!
Wentworth laughed, and the sound came out of his lips with thin self-mockery. He hurled himself down the stairs toward the street. He had three minutes . . . .
Within thirty seconds, Wentworth was hurling himself into a cab at the door of the apartment house.
"Down Park Avenue! Fast!"
The driver wrenched the cab out from the curb and sent it spurting down Park Avenue. Wentworth loosened the gun from the rubber bands at his wrist. The cape was thrown over his arm, the hat perched jauntily on his head. Nothing here for the man to recognize as the Spider! But he could not ride the whole way in this cab, lest a link be made between Kirk's apartment and the rendezvous of the Spider!
A half-dozen blocks down Park Avenue, Wentworth paid off the cab. He waited through feverish seconds while the machine tooled on, then Wentworth turned a corner and stepped toward another cab at the curb. The driver hopped out, and Wentworth moved in sharply. His left fist jolted upward solidly to the jaw, and he crossed the right neatly.
Wentworth stooped over to thrust a ten dollar bill into the man's hand . . . then sprang behind the wheel!
One minute was left before he was due to walk into that black tunnel, but it would be enough. A bare ten blocks to cover, and he cared nothing for traffic lights now! As he ground the accelerator to the floor, and felt the stubborn motor begin to catch, a familiar moving figure tagged his glance and his head swung about. He frowned in bewilderment at the thing he saw.
"Kirkpatrick!" he muttered.
He could not be mistaken in that jerky, decisive stride, the commanding aggressive poise of the shoulders. If he needed confirmation, a man in police blue stalked at his elbow! They were going rapidly up the steps and into the lobby of the exclusive Bonheur Hotel.
What business could Kirkpatrick have there at this particular time, Wentworth wondered. He was driving with a wide open throttle, weaving with sure hands through the dawdling traffic. The lights changed, but Wentworth let the cab rave on. He palmed the horn button and held it down. A cop whistled shrilly, but Wentworth ignored him, raced on. The high entrance to the ramp around Grand Central Terminal was just ahead. Beyond that, across the seven blocks that the viaduct spanned, and he would be at the entrance of the tunnel where he had his rendezvous with death! Yet his thoughts lingered back there with Kirkpatrick. There was an elaborate society ball being held at the Bonheur on this Thanksgiving night. The rich would be there in full panoply of jewels and satins—and he had seen Kirkpatrick enter.
Wentworth jerked his head. He could not think of that now. He must concentrate on the approaching battle. Kirkpatrick's arrival had prevented him using what little time had remained to him for making any plans for the capture of Munro. He could make none now; charge into the tunnel; locate Munro, and then . . . . Wentworth whipped the cab around the last right-angle turn of the ramp, bore down on the accelerator for the last two block dash to the entrance of the tunnel. He could see its black cavern arch, the signs set across its mouth to turn traffic aside. Somewhere a clock began to strike out for the half-hour!
The Spider was in time!
Wentworth dragged the cape about his shoulders, pulled the brim of his black hat low over his eyes, and rapidly bound a scarf across the lower part of his face. He gripped his light single gun in his fist, then . . . and once more bore down on the accelerator!
His eyes stabbed fiercely ahead, and a startled cry crowded out of his throat. As he watched, a cab swerved toward the mouth of the tunnel. Its door whipped open, and from its dark interior, there leaped a figure in a heel-length black cape, with a hat dragged down over its eyes. The figure ran with hunched shoulders, with great black guns gleaming in its fists . . . and it ran straight toward the entrance of the traffic tunnel.
Another Spider had kept the rendezvous.
Even as Wentworth realized what was happening, that Jackson had defied his explicit orders in order to save Nita and clear Wentworth of suspicion—his eyes flicked beyond the entrance of the tunnel, and he saw another thing that was like a blow between the eyes.
From the shadows of a building entrance, another figure was racing across the street toward that same tunnel . . . and it was Kirkpatrick!
Wentworth's foot faltered on the accelerator, and horror seized him by the throat. He knew now that Munro was not inside the tunnel, and would not come there. His original fear was only too well justified; that Munro would strike with all his ruthless force at some other point while the Spider and police were both concentrating on this one spot.
Without a doubt, Munro had been the man he had seen striding into the Bonheur in the disguise of Kirkpatrick! That meant Munro was going to rob the Bonheur and would turn loose his murdering hordes, his fierce flames upon the hapless thousands who were crowded there tonight!
Only an instant did Wentworth hesitate, yet in that moment he had realized all the horror that sudden, liquid flame would create in that crowded hotel; and he had made his plans! He bore down on the accelerator . . . and sent the cab roaring straight toward that yawning black tunnel!
The cab struck the traffic standards and leaped high, sent them clattering and broken aside, the noise of the motor was suddenly deafening in Wentworth's ears. He whistled twice, an eerie, piercing note that he and Jackson had used as a signal before this. It would tell Jackson who roared into the tunnel behind him! He heard the whistle shrill back in joyous answer and, as if that had been a signal, hell broke loose there in that tunnel beneath the streets of New York!
In one instant, the entire walls of that tunnel were converted into flame!
Wentworth crouched over the wheel, feeling the shock of the flaming concussion even through the tightly closed windows. The heat reached through with the impact of a hammer blow. He shielded his eyes, and kept the cab rolling. Ahead, he could see the crouched figure of Jackson, a black, tiny huddled thing in the middle of that inferno. But Jackson had drawn over his head the asbestos-lined cape that the Spider had made with just such a trap as this in mind!
That cape was smoldering on the surface, but even as Wentworth jerked on the brakes, and reached for the door, he saw a hand dart out from beneath the cape—and an area of flame blacked out instantaneously! White fumes swirled upward with the heat, crawled out across the floor, and Jackson wrenched out his hand again, and again, and hurled the flame extinguishers about him. Wentworth let the cab roll slowly forward into that area of blackness, and Jackson straightened, ran staggering toward Wentworth. The wig of the Spider was singed from his head, the makeup was striped with perspiration, and he was panting between the strangling coughs.
Wentworth hurled open the door and sprang to the pavement.
"One side!" he snapped above the roar of the flames, and the cab trundled forward in second gear, throttle yanked wide. Slowly, it gained momentum. The tires were blazing from the inflammables through which it had raced; spots of paint were flaming on its sides.
Wentworth seized Jackson by the arm and, in a half-dozen long bounds, reached an emergency exit that led upward by steel ladders to the streets above.
"We will wait here a moment," Wentworth said quietly.
Jackson nodded.
They stood there and their strangling breath filled the narrow way. The roar and heat of the flames was all about them, sweeping past the entrance to their cul-de-sac. Munro had done a thorough job of priming the walls with inflammables, so that even the stones seemed to burn. It would not last long, but it would last long enough to wipe out of existence any human being who dared it in ordinary clothing, and with any less powerful extinguisher than the ones that Jackson carried.
Wentworth listened tautly. Jackson said no word, but he had drawn himself up stiffly in his soldier's attitude. Wentworth did not speak to him, but his heart went out to Jackson. He had risked death before in the Spider's name, but this time he had done even more—he had risked being discharged by the master he loved better than life itself! He was waiting now for the blow to fall.
"Robe and hat," Wentworth ordered coldly. "Make-up kit? Good! Follow me!"
Wentworth swept on the robe of the Spider, and slowly, soundlessly, made his way up the escape ladder. When he was half-way up, he heard the crash as the taxi cab, kept straight by the close walls of the tunnel, smacked into the traffic stanchions at the far end of the passage. He heard the sharp shouts of the police, their shrill whistles; even the echo of pounding feet as they raced toward the spot.
"This will have to be fast!" Wentworth whispered to Jackson. "As soon as we are clear of this place, I'm going to expose myself to the police, and lead them away. You will then return to your post, according to orders. Understand this, Jackson?"
Jackson said, woodenly. "Yes, Major! I—"
Wentworth smiled slightly. "You will assemble four automatics, and a dozen hand grenades and await further instructions."
Jackson said eagerly, "Yes, Major!"
Wentworth thrust open the grating and slipped out—into the open air. The police guard for this exit was a half-dozen paces away, staring fixedly down the street toward where the taxi was wrecked against a lamp-post, a blazing wreck. Wentworth took two long strides, and his fist crashed against the policeman's jaw. He eased him to the ground, gazed piercingly about him. His lips smiled thinly as he saw Kirkpatrick's car, almost across the street!
In a single lithe movement, Wentworth vaulted the metal fence that girdled the Central park above the traffic tunnel. He was three-quarters of the way across the street before the driver of Kirkpatrick's car saw him, then the man stared openmouthed through a long moment before he stabbed for his gun. It was too late. Wentworth's fist lashed out again, connected with the man's jaw. Wentworth eased him out of the car, to the pavement, and slid in behind the wheel. He cut the siren loose, started the machine rolling, and executed a swift U-turn.
Police darted out into the street ahead of him, recognized the commissioner's car and hesitated. Kirkpatrick sprang out from a post at the entrance of the tunnel, and Wentworth headed straight toward him . . . swerved at the last moment.
Wentworth leaned out of the car then, and his scarf-masked face beneath the broad-brimmed black hat was secretly smiling.
"Follow me, Kirkpatrick!" he called, "and I'll lead you to Munro!"
A policeman gasped, "The Spider! It's the Spider!"
Then Wentworth drove down on the accelerator and the powerful car of the police commissioner leaped forward and took the ramp back toward upper Park Avenue. The smile that had touched his lips for an instant at sight of the complete bewilderment upon Kirkpatrick's face was gone now, and there was another, grimmer expression, God grant that he would lead the police after Munro in time! This was the swiftest way . . . for the police to pursue the Spider! They would not be slow to take up this chase!
Wentworth whipped the long limousine through the twisted lane of the viaduct, sent it bellowing down the slope and into Park Avenue. He wrenched the siren wide, and held it that way. His eyes burned ahead to the sedate facade of the Bonheur Hotel. It had been no more than five minutes ago that he had seen Munro, disguised as Kirkpatrick, enter those broad doors. Five minutes . . . . But a thousand men could die in that many seconds! Only, Munro had not yet released his flames upon the hotel. The blow might fall at any moment.
Wentworth swerved the powerful machine and rammed straight toward a red box, set upon a standard on the corner—a red fire alarm box! The front bumper caught it, slammed it straight down upon the pavement. The box split into fragments, bounced high . . . and Wentworth was racing on! That was one way to turn in a fire alarm, and he had no time to stop! He had killed the siren. The police behind him were getting under way. The first two radio cars dived down the chute of the viaduct with their sirens shrieking like women in pain. Wentworth clipped one more fire box, and then he swung the limousine in a whistling curve and slammed it to the curb in front of the Bonheur Hotel!
With a single long stride, he was across the sidewalk while the stupefied doorman still stared. He went up the steps in a bound, batted his way through the revolving doors . . . and bounded to the middle of the lobby!
A woman was smiling, leaning her shoulders against one of the marble columns as she looked up into the face of her escort. She frowned at the sudden cold that the Spider's swift entrance had brought, and turned her head. She screamed then, and pointed with a shaking hand. She screamed, "The Spider!"
A half dozen, then a score, then a hundred voices echoed that shout. Men and women were suddenly running from the lobby of the hotel! But Wentworth threw both arms high above his head, and his voice rang out clearly.
"Listen to me," he cried. "Listen to the Spider, and know that the Spider does not lie! This place is going to be robbed tonight, perhaps within a few minutes! The robbers will set the building on fire. The police and the fire department are on the way. Be calm . . . . Do not allow yourself to be stampeded!"
Hard-faced men wedged suddenly out of a narrow corridor to the left of the lobby, pounded toward him with hands reaching for their guns. Wentworth knew them for the squad of detectives maintained by the hotel.
"This way!" he shouted to them.
With an easy vault, Wentworth cleared the marble counter of the desk. His weight smashed against the staring clerk, carried him to the floor.
Wentworth crouched beside the terrified man. "Commissioner Kirkpatrick came in here a moment ago," he said harshly. "Where is he?"
The clerk's eyes, rolled up. "The manager!" he gasped. "The manager . . . . His office!"
His quivering hand pointed toward a door at one end of the desk alcove and Wentworth sprang toward it. A gun crashed from the lobby and he heard the deathly whisper of the lead past his head. He hit the door—and it was locked. No time for finesse now that the alarm was given! Wentworth's gun cracked twice in his hand, shattering the lock, and the drive of his shoulder hurled it quivering inward. His leap carried him two-thirds of the way across the office, and the smashing detonation of a gun greeted him; his automatic answered and a man in police blue stepped backward a half-pace. His head was punched backward so that he seemed, incredulously, to stare at the ceiling. Then his uniform hat slipped off and bounced on the floor, and his body let loose all at once. He slumped forward to the floor, a bullet hole between his eyes.
In a single all-inclusive glance, Wentworth took in the manager's office. A man in evening dress lay sprawled upon the floor with a bullet hole through the back of his skull. The safe gaped, and papers were strewn about . . . and a man was just rising with a valise stuffed full of money from before the looted strongbox. At the swift double crash of the guns, he whipped about—and Wentworth gasped!
Even when he knew the truth, when his unfaltering gun-hand was sweeping up for the final shot that would wipe Munro from the face of the earth, he felt a shock run along his nerves. In that first, curt glance, he would have sworn he was gazing into the face, and the eyes, of Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick!
It required a conscious effort to force his hand to close on the trigger, and Wentworth knew even as he fired, that he had missed! Great God, the Spider, face-to-face with a mass murderer, had missed an easy shot! His body had refused the clear order of his brain, because of the shock that Munro's resemblance to Kirkpatrick had given him. For once the Spider's highly trained reflexes had played him false! There was time for no second shot!
Wentworth saw mockery leap into those dark eyes that stared so fixedly into his. The valise swept across the desk, and knocked the telephone to the floor—and the room exploded!
Wentworth felt heat strike him like a moving wall. It plucked him from the floor and hurled him backward. Somehow, he managed to whip the asbestos-lined cape before his face, but the shock, the heat, almost overpowered him. Half-dazed though he was, he drove himself to his feet, fought his way through the swirling smoke, the leaping tongues of crimson flame. The gun quested like a hound's nose for its prey, and did not find it.
Behind him, he could hear the sudden screams of people, and he knew that the touch-off of the entire hotel had been hooked up with some electrical contact connected with the telephone. Munro's sweeping valise, loaded with loot, had set off a holocaust!
Wentworth smashed two of the flame extinguishers against the walls of the office, and then he could see an open door across its width. He hesitated, not in fear of what might lie behind, but with a divided sense of duty. All his being urged him to fling himself in violent pursuit of Munro now, while he knew in what guise the man fled. But there were hundreds, thousands of people trapped in the hotel. Wentworth hesitated . . . and there came to his ears the screams and shrieks of a dozen sirens. He heard the hoarse, long drawn wail of the fire engines; the whimpering, yelping thinness of police radio cars; the deeper ululation of the ambulances.
Wentworth laughed harshly. Between their eagerness to catch the Spider, and his own care to summon the fire department, there would be ample help for the people of the hotel within a space of seconds.
The Spider was free to hunt!
With that laugh, Wentworth thunder-bolted across the room and burst out through that closed door. A gun hammered furiously from the darkness at a corridor's end, a man was emptying a gun as fast as he could pull the trigger . . . and that was no way to shoot accurately, as Wentworth could have told him. He threw a shot across his chest toward that flickering snake-tongue of powder-flame . . . and it was extinguished. The Spider javelined. At least, after that first moment did not even pause. He bounded toward where a gleam of street lights showed an exit, whipped to the street!
A car was spurting from the curb and Wentworth's automatic lifted with deadly perfection toward the driver, who wore still the neatly formal derby that Kirkpatrick affected in winter—and then Wentworth swore, and did not fire! He had caught the yellowish green gleam of lights across the glass of the limousine, and knew that his bullet would be wasted. Bullet proof!
There was a crowded taxi rank, and Wentworth lunged toward the nearest cab, flung into the front seat beside the driver.
"After that car!" he ordered, and the cold incisiveness of his voice snapped the man from the lethargy of waiting. He jammed in the gear while his eyes flinched from the gaunt, caped figure beside him, from the cold glint of the gun in the Spider's hand.
Wentworth said quietly, "Wreck that car ahead! And don't worry about your job, or this cab. I'll pay for the machine, and give you a thousand dollar bonus . . . . But wreck that car ahead!"
The taxi leaped under the spur of the Spider's words, but the limousine already had a block lead. Wind drummed violently against the cab, hit it at the corners like a mighty sledge. Traffic skittered aside as the horn blared for right-of-way through red lights. Wentworth's eyes burned in his head. The scarf muffled him to the nose, and his hands were calm upon the gun. He slipped out the clip, fingered the bullets. Two shots left, and one in the chamber. A weak armament with which to tackle Munro! He could not waste bullets in chance shots at this high speed. And there was too much traffic. A stray bit of lead, a ricochet . . . .
"He's got a fast car, boss," the driver gasped. He was panting, his face streaked with perspiration. His eyes darted everywhere and the cab dodged like a rabbit. The limousine ahead took no such precautions. It slammed straight through across Broadway, across Eighth, boring steadily westward!
Wentworth shook his head, thinking fiercely. In a short while, the man must turn either north or south. If he hit the west side elevated highway, he would walk away from this cab. Their chance would come on the turn. Wentworth reached out and cranked down the right-hand window. The cold struck through the opening like a knife. Wentworth tugged his hat down firmly over his temples, knotted the scarf fast about his face and leaned out. He was crouching, countering the jars of their speed with flexed knees; ready to shoot . . . .
A cry leaped to his lips! Ignoring the blare of that screaming horn ahead, a small car pushed out across the intersection with Ninth Avenue. Too late, the girl who was driving saw the juggernaut of the limousine, tried to turn two ways at once . . . and clapped her hands over her eyes in despair. The limousine swerved a foot, caught the small car on the right rear wheel. The coupe looped, turned over, slammed upside down into an elevated pillar. The limousine was past . . . but the coupe was not through! It bounced from the pillar, fell to its side and spun slowly around—directly into the path of the taxi!
The cab driver stood on the brakes. He was half-erect, crouched behind the wheel. He flung the cab into a twisting turn to the right, and the tires screamed, skated across the wet pavement. He countered the skid with a wrench of the wheel, caromed off an elevated pillar with a shriek of torn metal. Glass showed across the front seat from a shattered window . . . and then the cab was roaring northward along Ninth Avenue.
"Left again!" Wentworth ordered, coldly. "I'll double that bonus! That man deliberately hit the girl's coupe. Deliberately, I tell you—to stop us!"
The driver's jaw was set and he whipped to the left, fought the car out of the skid, and floored the accelerator.
"Gawd A'mighty," he said. "Gawd a'mighty! She wasn't even screaming. She . . . ."
Wentworth shook his head. There was a stinging in his eyes, and a fury in his heart. If he lost the trail this time . . . . Damn it, he could not lose the trail! That poor girl in her shattered coupe. He had seen her at the last moment there. Seen her with the steering-post thrust through her frail body like a brutal, blunt javelin. At least, after that first moment of fright, she had not suffered. By God, Munro should suffer!
And there was Nita.
The taxi was hammering down the last straight stretch toward West Street where the elevated highway ran. No entrance at this corner, or the one below. At any moment, he should see the limousine flash past. Wentworth weighed his gun. Not a chance of hitting it in the brief while it would be exposed. He sat tensely forward and his hands fondled the gun.
"Must have turned south!" the driver shouted.
Wentworth nodded wordlessly, braced himself. The cab hit the smooth, shining pavement in a broadside skid, writhed between two of the highway supports and straightened out. Wentworth strained his eyes ahead . . . . Dear God, the street was empty!
Somewhere in those last few blocks, Munro had twisted aside, or else . . . or else he had driven straight into one of the piers that lined the water's edge! Wentworth's gaze whipped toward the docks and then, above the high hammer of the cab's motor, he caught another sound. It was a deep-throated roar, and there was a blustering quality to that tone that he recognized! Behind the walls of those piers, a seaplane was taking off!
"That pier!" Wentworth shouted, and pointed.
The cab broad-sided and lashed across the width of West Street toward the broad doors of the pier. They had been open, but they were closing now, closing swiftly. Wentworth thrust out his body through the window and leveled the automatic. He saw a hand, white against the edge of the sliding doors, squeezed the trigger once!
The hand jerked out of sight—and the door did not close any farther!
"Straight through! Fast!" he snapped.
The cab jounced violently at the short ramp, lunged through the opening. A machine-gun chattered viciously from the darkness but it came an instant too late. The car was already inside . . . and Wentworth's gun swiveled and blasted! The pale violent flicker of the machine-gun swept upward, higher . . . higher until it pointed at the zenith. Then it stopped . . . and the driver was standing on his brakes. The cab's tires howled on the wooden floor.
"Lie down!" Wentworth threw at the driver. "Lie down flat and don't move!"
His door was already open and the Spider vanished with his first long leap, into the black shadows that clustered thickly against the walls. If he made any sound at all, it was swallowed in the deep bellowing of the airplane engine. There was a narrow door open to the water, and the glisten of the greyer night came through. Across that opening, a black shadow flitted . . . and then, just outside on the water's edge, Wentworth checked. He had one bullet left in that light gun in his fist. One bullet . . . and the plane was already almost completely out of range now!
There was no time to delay. Wentworth could not see the pilot, shielded behind the crash-pad in the cockpit. But he knew this type of plane, knew where its gas tank was! Wentworth squeezed off his last bullet . . . and the plane charged on, tipped up on the pontoon step, and began its rush to the final take-off. It whirled northward into the wind, and the sound of the motor dwindled, became louder as the plane lifted against the sky. Wentworth stood for a long minute and watched the flicker of the exhaust as the ship climbed steadily.
Now . . . .
Wentworth stared, and slowly a hard smile moved the lips beneath the scarf mask. Nita had signaled SOS and the password that Munro had given in the offices of No-More-Fires, Inc., had been "From my ashes, I arise again!"
Wentworth's lips parted in the harsh, mocking laughter of the Spider. He whipped back inside the pier, and raced for the taxi.
"Get me to a telephone," he told the driver softly, "and then get me to Pier Seventy on the East River as fast as this cab will go." He laughed again, and there was triumph in the sound. "Tonight, Munro dies!"
Death . . . .
He flung himself into the cab, but the smile was no longer on his mouth, and there was a touch of fear in his grey-blue eyes as the taxi whined in a U-curve and spurted for the doors. Tonight, Munro would die, but . . . would he die in time to save Nita? Nita . . . .