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Chapter Two
Where Death Waits

IN THE dim-lighted room where Eggendorfer lay dead with the mocking crimson seal of the Spider upon his forehead, a gangster stood on guard. In his right fist was a heavy automatic and his eyes roved ceaselessly about the room. Time and time again, he started at some slight creaking in the ancient building. The whine of the cold wind, the tapping fingers of icy snow crystals against the window made him shiver as if with cold. His tongue touched his dry lips and there was fear in the greyness of his cheeks.

He was here because the Spider might return before the police could arrive. Only the threat of death from the boss, the promise of sure support, could have forced him to keep this lone vigil. Suppose the Spider did come!

Mugsy Lugan flinched as a particularly hard gust rattled the loose window. Only the wind . . . . It had to be the wind! Mugsy took a slow step toward the window, shook his head. No, that was against orders. He couldn't even make sure whether it was the Spider. All he could do was stand here and wait . . . for the Spider. His eyes fell toward Eggendorfer's stiffening body and he flinched. Eggendorfer had waited for the Spider!

Mugsy Lugan shifted his automatic to his left hand, dragged the right palm against his trouser leg. Geez, sweating in this weather!

"Damn the Spider to hell!" he muttered.

From the window, a voice spoke softly, a mocking voice, flatly metallic and instinct with menace!

"How very inhospitable of you, Mugsy," the voice said, softly. "The Spider is simply paying you a call!"

Mugsy stiffened, and his mouth gaped with the looseness of the fear that ran like ice through all his body. He shivered, turned about laboriously. The gun dangled limply from his fingers—poised on the windowsill, the night cold and black behind him, crouched the becaped and menacing figure of the Spider! A gun glinted in each fist. His eyes seemed to bore like bullets through Mugsy's cowardly flesh. The gun trembled in Mugsy's hand, fell to the floor with a reverberating thud!

"That was wise, Mugsy," came the sibilant mockery of the Spider's voice. "That was very wise! Now pick up that lighter, Mugsy, and bring it to me. And I think it would be advisable for you to hurry!"

One of the Spider's guns lifted an inch, and Mugsy's trembling became violent. "Yes, sir," he stammered. "Oh, sure, Spider. Right away. I . . . ."

He bent for the lighter, but his hands were shaking so that his fingers could not clasp it. His face twisted about, warped with fear.

"Don't, Spider," he whispered hoarsely. "Don't shoot. I'm trying. I swear to God I'm trying!"

Wentworth swore impatiently, leaped from the sill. Seconds were flying, and he could not estimate how many more were left to him. Already, he thought he could hear the faint whimper of police sirens racing to this spot. He took a stride forward, and with a frightened squawk, Mugsy Lugan dodged aside. His hands hit the wall, and he went down on his knees. Wentworth stooped toward the lighter—and hell burst loose in that room!

As Wentworth bent forward, the three doors that opened into that barren room flung wide with whining speed. Dazzling lights converged on Wentworth from those three separate angles—and the doors were crowded with armed men!

"Start shooting!" Mugsy's voice rose, thin with terror. "For God's sake, start shooting. Kill the Spider!"

There was that moment's pause while Wentworth stood crouched in the middle of the death-trap; while the blaze of lights pinned him, helpless, against the shadows and the guns of the men in those three doors quested for and centered on his body . . . and Mugsy pleaded for his death with a frantic certainty that only the quick and deadly fire of his companions could save him from the vengeance of the Spider!

A hoarse oath sprang to Wentworth's lips as he realized the nature of the snare into which he had stepped. Those two men on guard out front had fooled him, that and the call to the police. He had been so certain that the crooks would depend on the police to do their killing for them . . . and he had walked into this trap.

Wentworth's brain raced madly, seeking a way out. Even the deadly twin automatics of the Spider could not batter a way through this ring of steel. He . . . the Spider straightened, and the thin lipless gash of the mouth parted. His eyes glared straight into those dazzling lights, and . . . the Spider laughed!

It was a mocking, bitter sound, the laughter of the Spider, an eerie sound in the room's quiet that was the quiet before death. It beat upon the eardrums of the men who faced him, guns in hand for the kill, and it stayed their trigger fingers for that brief fraction of a second. This was the man they had dreaded and feared through endless nights of terror, a superman who always dodged somehow out of their deadliest traps, who rose to kill when they thought him already dead. They had him helpless under their guns and the Spider must know it . . . . Yet the Spider could laugh! The sound of it rasped harshly on their eardrums with a strangely piercing quality.

It was in that heartbeat's pause that the Spider struck!

 

Even while he laughed, he was in motion. There was one spot in that room where, for a brief moment, he might be safe . . . and that was the spot where Mugsy crouched and wailed for the death of the Spider! Not that Wentworth believed the crooks would have any compunction about murdering a companion, if by that means they could achieve the Spider's demise! But they might hesitate . . . and Wentworth was living by those split-seconds of hesitation.

The Spider had survived a thousand battles by means of those little unheeded heartbeats of time. This second, and the next, and the next . . . and his laughter had signaled Jackson that he was trapped. He hoped that Jackson had been near enough to hear that piercing, eerie laughter! It might give him the instant he needed to grab the slender length of silk that dangled outside the window, the web by which he had climbed, and could slide to safety again!

As Wentworth took that first long leap, his guns crashed in his fists. They hurled their lances of red flame against the white glare of the flashlights . . . and two of those lights blacked out! Two men screamed out in mortal agony as the quarter-ton impact of .45 caliber lead drove the fragments of metal and batteries into their bodies!

Before Wentworth could fire again, the guns of the enemy opened up. Their crashing discharge pulsed within his brain, seemed to swell the walls to bursting! The hot lead, flying from three angles, crossed and criss-crossed the spot where the Spider had stood . . . but he was no longer there! He was a blur of black movement in a room strongly shadowed by the single torch that still blazed from the door. His cape swirled and whipped out from his shoulders until he seemed twice, three times the size of a normal man. He was everywhere at once, and nowhere at all when the bullets flew. The guns in his fists blasted and blasted again—and every bullet sped true! In those crowded doorways, no man could escape or dodge. They were stationary clay-pigeons for the unerring thunder of the Spider's guns!

Two, three seconds beat past in that death-trap, and the Spider's guns had crashed five times. There was a fury of sound, of gun-thunder and human screams, in which individual voice and shot no longer counted. The light in that room of death was red and yellow, the flicker of gun-powder lightning. Only one pair of eyes saw the small sphere that might have been an over-sized baseball lob in through the open window—and the Spider gasped his thankfulness. Every eye saw the flash that came when that sphere exploded there in the middle of the floor beside Eggendorfer's body . . . and after that they saw nothing at all!

From that burst of flame, darkness spurted across the room, coils of blackness that swallowed even the flashes of the guns; that swirled into the faces of the gunmen and clogged their vision. Wentworth flung himself prone on the floor, and his breath whined in his throat from his furious movements. His lips moved soundlessly, but what he said was, "Bless Jackson!"

His trusty comrade-at-arms had heard his signal laughter, and had hurled a smoke bomb through the window!

In the darkness, the killers were mad with fear. Their guns hammered in a frenzy. Plaster dust mingled with the chemical smoke. Wentworth could hear the thudding beat of bullets jarring across the floor, searching out the walls. Mugsy Lugan had long ago ceased to scream.

Wentworth moved cautiously. His guns were fully loaded again, and even in the welter of battle—the intense darkness which could swallow up even the bitter stab of flame from the guns—he had not lost his uncanny sense of direction. He knew that, beside him on the floor within the reach of his hand, was the corpse of Eggendorfer. Wentworth's lips moved in a faint, mocking smile behind the steel mask of the Spider . . . and he began to strip off the cape and wig, the black slouch hat, the steel mask, itself.

The shooting died away a little; men's voices shouted in fear and questioning. And there was little time. The smoke of the bomb would dissipate presently. Through that lull in the bedlam struck the keening of a police siren, shrieking nearer, nearer . . . .

"Close in!" A man's voice rasped. "Keep bullets going through that window, and close in! We'll rake this room from wall to wall. If that louse is still here . . .

And then . . . the Spider laughed.

"Come, fools!" he shouted. "Come and take me!"

 

From the darkness, guns roared, and the screams of lead-slashed men lifted terribly. The smoke was thinning, and the flames of the Spider's automatics gave them a target. "There!" shouted the leader. "There against the wall!"

Brilliant flashlights bored once more into the thinning mist of smoke, and the guns bellowed and roared; the walls shook, and the taste of burned powder was in the air, stranglingly thick. There were no more shots from that cape-draped figure against the wall. It shook and quivered to the impact of deadly lead, but still that sinister, changeless face peered out from beneath the hat brim; still it did not flee from their attack!

"He's dead!" the leader said hoarsely. "He's got to be dead! I put almost a whole drum of bullets through him. He . . . . Come on!"

Through the darkness they charged. Their guns kicked against their stiffened wrists, and they ignored the dying wail of sirens nearby. To hell with that, if they could kill the Spider! The leader leaped close and slammed the barrel of his sub-machine gun against the side of that lolling head. The black slouch hat tilted up and fell to the floor with a soft little plop, then . . . then the face of the Spider came loose and fell to the floor. It rang like steel, and they knew it was a mask. But they were not staring at it, they were gazing into the face of the dead man against the wall. A Spider seal gleamed eerily on the forehead.

"Eggendorfer!" the leader shouted. "Damn him to hell, he put his clothes on Eggendorfer and scrammed!"

Laughter came mockingly from behind them, laughter and a swift bail of lead! Men reeled and pitched to the floor. The leader slumped to his knees and his hands clawed at the figure of Eggendorfer, hung by his collar to a light bracket on the wall. They fell together to the floor. Men lifted futile, emptied guns toward the window, but they snapped only at emptiness, at a black rectangle through which swirled a few icy particles of wind-spun snow.

"Beware," came the Spider's voice softly. "Beware, you who would trap the Spider! Carry that warning to Munro!"

Fear nailed those who remained alive to the floor, and outside the window, Wentworth slid swiftly down the silken rope by which he had climbed, the line that was no thicker than a pencil but which had phenomenal strength, and which the police and criminals alike knew as the Spider's web!

Wentworth hit the pavement, wrapped the silken web into a swift tight ball. Police were hammering into the building now. Those criminals who had survived would not escape, but he had had to cut it terribly fine. Jackson already had gone at his orders. If Ram Singh was late by so much as a minute . . . .

The Daimler careened around the corner, and Wentworth leaped to the street, flung to the running-board as the heavy limousine slowed for an instant.

"Go ahead, Ram Singh!" Nita cried, and slammed the door behind Wentworth. "They're right behind us. Your hat, your coat . . . . Oh, thank heavens, Dick. I heard guns. I never heard so many guns . . . ."

Wentworth dropped back against the cushions and settled his silk hat more smoothly upon his head. His brows were tilted and there was a slight, grim smile on his lips. He saw in the rear-vision mirror that the gangster car had just whirled the corner behind him.

His hand touched Nita's briefly, where they rested on his arm. "I believe I, too, heard . . . some guns," he murmured. "I fancy there are those who wish . . . they had not heard them! They won't again!"

 

Nita's hands clung to his right arm and, left-handed, Wentworth offered a cigarette, snapped flame to the slender platinum lighter that had so nearly brought about his death. By that minute yellow flame, Nita smiled into his eyes.

"Dick!" she smiled. "Showing off at your age! As if I didn't know you had recovered that lighter!"

Wentworth's laughter was tender. This was when Nita showed her true courage. He knew that she had been torn by fears for his safety, but aside from that first involuntary outcry of thanksgiving, she would never admit it. She was easing his own tension now, for none knew better than she that this was only the beginning of the battle—if Munro were involved!

"Tell me, Dick," Nita said quietly. "You mentioned . . . Munro. I remember . . . awful things about him." Her shoulders, warm beneath her fur coat, shivered a little.

"No doubt," Wentworth murmured, and his forehead creased. "Munro, the Man of a Thousand Faces! I'd hoped he'd never return to this country! He is probably the greatest criminal organizer it's ever been my misfortune to encounter . . . and aside from that, a true artist at disguise, hence his name: Munro . . . . The name doesn't mean a thing. He not only can impersonate other people, but he creates a separate personality for each crime. The police hunt him, and find only the shell of the disguise! Never a clue to his real identity. It's his vanity that causes him to use that one name again, after these years. Munro . . . . The fact that he uses it is a taunt and a challenge to me!"

"And this time," Nita said slowly, "Munro's weapon is . . . arson?"

Wentworth nodded and the last traces of laughter and mockery were gone from his lips, from his eyes. "The man who paid, Eggendorfer, said his boss was Munro. And men who face the Spider in their last hour do not lie!"

"No," Nita said quietly. "I don't think he would lie, but where is the profit, Dick? It's awful to think in terms of profit when human lives are at stake. But that man does! A rattle-trap tenement, and five of those poor children . . . ."

Wentworth's lips were grim. "It is what I mean to find out . . . tonight!" he said. "And Nita, listen, trust not even a man who seems to be myself from now on, unless he gives you sure proof! It might be . . . Munro!"

Nita whispered, "A pass-word then?" Wentworth shook his head jerkily as the Daimler slid to a halt again before the Hesperides Club, where a bright neon sign showed three bouncing golden apples. "A pass-word can be faked, my dear," he said slowly. "No one can counterfeit the memories we share!"

Nita stepped down to the curb, her hand in his, and sent her gay silvery laughter into the cold night. "So we can finish out our evening, Dick," she said happily. "That was a foolish mistake . . . ."

The doorman's eyes were fixed on them intently as he swung open the portals of the club and Wentworth knew that Duncan would get a report on Nita's words. The gangster car was just sliding to a halt. The gunman, Mac, flashed across the pavement into a side entrance. When Wentworth and Nita had checked their wraps, Duncan was striding toward them, and there was a frown on his forehead; his dark eyes were secretive beneath veiling lids. And Mac was in the background, his sly face completely puzzled.

Duncan's cordial smile was palpably forced. "I am glad you were able to return, sir!"

Wentworth's smile was affable. "We don't like to leave things half-finished," he said, "and the injury to Miss van Sloan's cousin was a foolish error. A man who looked like Gregory and the doorman of the apartment made a mistake of identity."

"I am complimented that you returned!" Duncan bowed.

Wentworth's brows lifted in mockery. "And I forgot to thank you for the bodyguard, Duncan," he murmured. "I don't know the occasion for it, or is it a service you customarily tender to your clients!"

 

HE TURNED easily toward Nita, and his eyes swept the corridor. Mac was no longer alone, and he was no longer in the background. He was moving lightly forward, flanked by three other gunmen! The smile on his lips was sly and knowing, and his round pale eyes were eager. Wentworth checked the curse that leaped to his lips.

Had something slipped somewhere? It was part of his plan for the evening to have a showdown with Duncan, to find out where he connected with the death of Eggendorfer; with . . . Munro! But this was not the time Wentworth would have chosen, with Nita in the very center of it. Wentworth had not even his guns. He had been compelled to leave them, with their incriminating riflings, for Ram Singh to destroy.

"By the way," Wentworth murmured over his shoulder. "When Commissioner Kirkpatrick comes, Duncan, you may show him to our table."

His gaze sought Nita's face, and he saw in the glisten of her eyes that she had spotted the danger. She put a hand on his arm, and leaned close, laughing while she whispered.

"I have a gun in my muff, Dick, if you want to fight!"

He started toward the dining-room—and Duncan stepped into his path.

"I wonder, Mr. Wentworth," he said suavely, "if you would mind stepping into my office a few moments?" His tone was casual, but there was cold menace beneath his voice. At his shoulder, Mac smiled his sly smile.

Wentworth met that smile easily, and welcomed the chance to remove Nita from danger. "If you'll wait for me in the dining-room, Nita," he said, "I'll promise not to be long."

"I'm afraid we need the lady, too," Duncan said grimly, and the subterfuge was gone now from his voice. There were three men closing in behind Wentworth. He slid his hands into his trousers pockets and his head was tilted quizzically.

"I've changed my mind, Duncan," he said. "We won't go with you. And if you don't send your trained seals packing, at once, it will be my regretful duty to put a bullet through your umbilical. Yes, that protuberance over my trouser's pocket is the muzzle of a twenty-five caliber Colt's. Not a large-caliber weapon, but placed as I have indicated, I think you will find it does the trick, nicely!"

Strangely, Duncan smiled. His eyelids lifted, and Wentworth saw there, instead of the fury and frustration he had expected, a gleam of genuine admiration.

"Check," he said gently, "you will pardon me now while I make Commissioner Kirkpatrick welcome!"

Wentworth turned his head easily and saw the crisply striding figure of Commissioner Kirkpatrick of the police punch in through the main entrance of the club. Sergeant Reams strode briskly at his heels, and there were two other uniformed men. Wentworth laughed . . . and took his hands out of his pockets, One held his cigarette case, and the other . . . the slim platinum lighter of the Spider.

"Won't you have a smoke before you go, Duncan?" Wentworth asked lightly.

Duncan hesitated, and looked down at Wentworth's hands. His smile was slight, even pleasant. "I'm afraid there isn't time just now, Mr. Wentworth," he said. "If I were you, I would remove the plaster dust from your right trouser leg. It is just possible Kirkpatrick might connect it with . . . a recent demolition job that the Spider has just finished!"

He strode easily away to meet the commissioner of police and Wentworth bent casually to do as Duncan had indicated, but there was a frown behind Wentworth's eyes, and Nita's hand, touching his, was cold. No question now that Duncan was sure of his connection with the Spider, but what was strange was the man's behavior! Duncan was a big-time gambler, it was true, but he was not of a caliber to meet the Spider on equal terms. Yet he had done just that!

More plainly than any words, Duncan had said: "This is a matter between you and me, Spider. A little private duel we shall finish after a while. I wouldn't want the police to interfere!"

 

Behind them, Kirkpatrick was issuing crisp orders to his men, and Wentworth swung about on his heel, lifted a hand in salute. "You came sooner than I had expected, Kirk," he called, "and I see you've brought extra guests. Good evening, Sergeant Reams!"

The sergeant nodded jerkily. His face was red from the burn of the winter cold, and there was frost in his blue eyes.

"Good evening, sir," he said, "and to you, Miss van Sloan!"

Kirkpatrick strode sharply up to Wentworth, and for once there was no friendliness in his saturnine face. His brilliant blue gaze held no recognition whatever.

"Duncan," he said. "I'll need your office. Bring that hood called Mac. Wentworth, kindly accompany me."

Wentworth shrugged, "I receive the most pressing invitations!" he said comically to Nita. "If you'll wait for me, dear?"

Nita laughed. "Nothing of the sort! I'm coming with you! I'm sure Stanley won't mind, will you, Stanley?"

For once, Kirkpatrick's faultless manners were in abeyance. "As you like, Miss van Sloan!"

He pounded his heels into the soft carpeting as he headed for Duncan's office. Nita's hand rested lightly on Wentworth's arm. The quizzical smile remained on Wentworth's lips, but he wished Nita were out of it. He did not know what evidence Kirkpatrick might have against him, and he could not afford to be slapped into a prison now, even though he might manage to clear himself in trial! Munro would not await his release to press his damnable arsons, for whatever foul profit he derived from it. Human lives were at stake. Beside that fact, nothing in Wentworth's life could be important!

If Kirkpatrick's evidence was strong, Wentworth would have no choice but to make a break for it!

Kirkpatrick was his closest friend, and often they had worked side by side against the bitter enemies of mankind. But Kirkpatrick had long openly suspected Wentworth of being the Spider, though he lacked proof to substantiate that belief. Wentworth knew that if ever his friend did obtain the evidence, he would be treated like any criminal outside the law. Kirkpatrick's allegiance was to society's code of laws—not to an individual's application of justice, however right. So stern was his service to that code that friendship would not weigh against it for an instant.

And Kirkpatrick's manner had served notice that tonight they were not friends; tonight, they were the forces of law and a man who might be a murderer!

Wentworth seated Nita suavely in Duncan's large, over-furnished office, dropped nonchalantly into a chair himself. He looked up to find Kirkpatrick standing on braced legs in the middle of the office, his face stern above the uncompromising thrust of his jaw.

"Wentworth," he said sharply, "I'll ask you to account for every minute of your evening from seven o'clock to now."

"An alibi, in fact," Wentworth smiled. "Am I to know of what you suspect me? Ah, well . . . ."

"This is serious, Wentworth!" Kirkpatrick snapped.

Wentworth's face obediently fell into serious lines. "I don't think I care for your manner, Kirk," he said quietly. "I have been here at the Hesperides Club with the exception of a brief trip to my apartment and back. I remained at the apartment between four and five minutes."

"The reason for that trip!"

Wentworth explained casually about the false report that Nita's cousin had been injured.

"It has puzzled me greatly, Kirk," he finished. "No one at all had been injured. The doorman at my apartment, who was supposed to have made the call, denied any knowledge of it. In fact, Kirk, it almost seems that some one wanted to destroy my alibi for precisely that time!"

 

Duncan was leaning his hips against the desk, smoking. He smiled, and interrupted. "That undoubtedly explains what I heard, Commissioner," he said. "I heard reports that Mr. Wentworth was to be held up and robbed. I didn't wish him to be annoyed, so I sent along a bodyguard in another car. Except for the few minutes when he was in his own apartment building, they did not lose sight of his car, did you, Mac?"

Mac's face was ludicrous with surprise. He swallowed, tried for his usual sly grin, missed it badly. "That's the truth, Commissioner!" he said. "We followed that Daimler all the way across town and back again, and there he was, big as life, sitting in back with the dame."

Nita's laughter was a trill. "Now, see, Dick," she said. "Why can't you call me interesting things like that? I'm a 'dame'!"

Wentworth's gaze locked with that of Duncan, and once more he was puzzled by the mocking shine of the man's masked eyes. A cold suspicion raced through Wentworth's mind, but when he rose to his feet, it was casually.

"That's very kind of you indeed, Duncan," he murmured. "I wondered at the purpose of the men who followed me. You were one, er . . . Mr. Mac? Thank you very much indeed."

Wentworth held out his hand, with the adhesive stripped across the back, and shook hands with Mac, then offered his hand to Duncan.

He saw uncertainty touch Duncan's eyes. Kirkpatrick's growl behind Wentworth held relief in its tones. Much as he despised to accept the word of those who lived on the fringes of the law, he felt that Duncan must speak the truth—at least so far as the alibi was concerned for he knew Wentworth would never enter into a bargain with such a man as this.

"I have my own doubts about the reason for your surveillance of Mr. Wentworth," Kirkpatrick said grimly to Duncan. "You'll overstep yourself some day. I hope soon!"

Duncan's eyes shot past Wentworth to Kirkpatrick, and his voice was mocking. "Mr. Commissioner, it sounds suspiciously as if you were trying to get me to commit a crime so that you could make an arrest! Surely, there are enough crimes in your city already!" As he finished speaking, he accepted Wentworth's handclasp.

Wentworth's eyes bored into the black, cool eyes of the gambler, but they told him nothing. The handclasp did! Once before tonight, he had shaken hands with Duncan, and he knew . . . that the man whose hand he shook in this instant was not Duncan!

A clever artist in disguise might simulate another person so carefully that a casual acquaintance might not be able to detect the difference, but no man could change the bony structure, the shape and thickness of his hand! The hand he shook now was thinner, narrower, with smaller bones. There was something almost feline in the touch!

Perfection in disguise, and a boldness that met the police on equal terms, that dared even to challenge the Spider to a duel.

Wentworth knew, with a terrible certainty, that he was shaking the hand of the man who this night had accomplished, through Eggendorfer, the destruction of a tenement in which five innocent children had lost their lives.

He was shaking the hand of Munro!

 

 

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