Norvell Page

“ Yet somewhere near here, Apollo had bayed, had snarled in anger and charged.
More cautiously now, her eyes questing through the blackening night, Nita advanced. Had the great dog triumphed, bowled over the man she trailed! Or had her faithful Apollo been killed? Was that man even now lying in ambush for her among the shrubs and great fragments of rocks, that tumbled from that peak which was near at hand now, were strewn across her path?
The pulsing of her blood was a throbbing excitement in Nita's ears. She thrust the gun ahead of her and pushed on, jerked to a sudden halt. ”

“ The Spider whirled swiftly to the door, jerked it open. Outside all was deep, dark silence. No police whistles skirled in the streets; no sirens smote his ears; no one shouted. The acrid odor of gun powder drifted past his nostrils, and the Spider glanced swiftly at his watch.
He still had four minutes before Ram Singh would call the police. Four minutes before a radio alarm flashed out and swift two-seated cars sped through the crooked east side to seize John Harper with his stolen jewels.
A swift smile crossed the Spider's lips. No one would ever arrest John Harper now. ”

“ From the man's left wrist dangled a blackjack.
“You filthy animal,” the Spider rasped. “Why was that necessary?”
“Face the wall!” snarled the man, and the gun inched forward like the head of a poisonous viper.
The Spider hesitated. But once more he controlled himself, his muscles taut with anger. He longed to crush this beast, as he knew he could any moment he chose. But it was more important that he obtain a definite clue to the Black Death than that the injury to this girl be immediately avenged. He was convinced now that this man was not the arch criminal himself. ”

“ The door swung haltingly open and a man staggered out, clutching at his throat.
“The Black Death!” he gasped. “I've got it!” His hand ripped his collar open, and on the corpse-like yellowness of his throat Wentworth saw the purple flower of the dread plague!
The man was Theodore Works, Pugh's partner, and there could be no doubt that he was dying. His stumbling entry had thrown the room into a panic. Stenographers sprang screaming from their tasks, and pale-faced men raced in panic for the street.
Even Pugh, with one terrified glance, joined in the pellmell rush. ”

“ Because justice must wait on such men, Wentworth tonight had turned his back upon gayety; leaving the side of the woman he loved, to grope through the vicious underworld in hopes of grappling with that mocking skeleton at the feast; risking his life once more that the tentacles of crime might be kept from the throat of the city. Because of this, Wentworth tonight again became the Spider! ”

“ Tell a taxi driver to hurry in New York and you get the wildest ride that can be achieved by human ingenuity and mechanical power. Fender-brushing, brake-slamming, tire squealing speed!
Off slammed the taxi, weaving through traffic like a rabbit running through brambles. It whirled a corner on dry-skidding tires, dodged a head-on collision by a fraction of an inch, spurted between two encroaching trucks.
Wentworth, feverish-eyed, tense-muscled, leaned forward and rapped on the glass. “Faster,” he cried, “Faster!” ”

“ A billion dollars that would fly into the dawn sky to ransom a city from man-inflicted plague! The false dawn already showed in the east. In an hour would come the take-off.
And back in the cavern where the plague pigeons kept up their everlasting murmur, Nita van Sloan, who alone knew the secret of the cave, struggled futilely with her bonds.
Masked in shrubbery, on a field not far from the entrance to that dread cavern, waited another plane, a ship that, mockingly, was painted all black, the plane the Black Death would fly. ”

“ He crouched and snarled suddenly, whirling toward Wentworth, helpless in his shackles of steel—“a pity you must die.”
Slowly, while Nita watched with horror- widened eyes, he drew from his pocket the automatic she had tried to snatch.
“You were right, Wentworth,” he said. “I only wanted the girl here so I could kill her with you. There was just the slightest chance that you might have struck some trail that pointed to me and confided your suspicions to her.
“But—” the gloating laughter cackled out, “—the Black Death leaves only dead behind. There will be no tales told.” ”

“ As he watched a man with a cap ducked out and, walking with the heavy rolling swagger of those who live by physical competence alone, strode toward the Buick.
Wentworth watched intently. He wanted to catch a glimpse of that man's face. If his nose was broken as the tobacco-clerk had described, if he was, in the language of that young gentleman, “a mostht unthpeakable ruffian”—a glimmer of a smile flickered across Wentworth's grim mouth—then the Spider would steal into that blackwindowed building and deliberately enter the death trap the master criminal undoubtedly had baited for him. ”

“ Even as you in the city read these lines, the Black Death will be among you. Oh, nothing to be alarmed about, for today I shall kill only a few hundred of your millions. Take heed, as these hundreds choke and die with the Black Death, that you do not provoke me by unnecessary delay, lest the next blow wipe out thousands.
And even as newsboys shouted the fearsome headlines the plague had lifted its evil head. Ambulances gonged their way through the streets to the Lower East Side area, where the Black Death had chosen first to strike. And people died in the streets. Thousands fled. ”

“ Standing there in the doorway, carelessly smoking as if guns had never whined bullets past his head, as if his swift justice had never taken life, Wentworth showed no evidence of his minutes-old tussle with death. What first impressed you about him was the remarkable physical alertness of the man. Five feet eleven, with the tapered body and light stride of an athlete, he had a keen, tanned face and the friendly interested eyes of a man who has long since learned the secret of enjoying life. ”

“ Yes, injustice angered him. He flew to the protection of its victims with such anger as a man feels when he sees a dog kicked viciously, or a dray horse beaten senseless as it struggles against a heavy load.
His mind flicked back to the case in hand. Forgery of bonds—well, the Spider knew where that pointed. John Harper prospered by that racket. And John Harper's pawnshop lay just ahead of him, its back windows barred and forbidding, its heavy iron door a veritable Gibraltar. ”

“ He knew sudden fury at the thought that this man, or his master, was responsible for the death of that curly haired boy he had snatched too late from his play with a plague-infested puppy. But the Spider forced himself to calmness, studied the girl narrowly.
She was standing tensely beside the bed, her hands clasped before her, shoulders hunched. Her red hair seemed to have drained all the color from her face. If she was actually in league with the Black Death and had deliberately betrayed Wentworth so that this man might trap him, she was as clever an actress as ever tricked a man. ”

“ Tonight was typical. In a bizarre combination of events too trivial for police to notice, the Spider had sensed the first outcreeping tentacle of a crime he scarcely dared to name, a crime that would blight city and nation for years to come. And because of that he went out quietly, with a smile, to battle with death. ”

“ Holding Nita helpless, the man turned the blank face of his mask to Wentworth.
“And the Spider gives evidence of human emotion,” he mocked. “Imagine the Spider, the great altruist, being swayed by mere jealousy!”
Wentworth's face was disdainful, and in his eyes Nita caught a gleam that gave her hope. But it was only for a moment. Dick was courageous beyond all men she knew, but bravery could not break those gleaming shackles of steel that held him prisoner.
“Just a muscle-man,” the Spider jeered, “a fool sleeping in the King's bed, pretending to be the Black Death. ”

“ Wentworth's mouth went into a thin straight line. “If the Spider is the man who placed the seal upon their foreheads, the Spider shall pay.”
For long moments the men's gaze locked, and the slow languorous strains of another waltz came like music from another world, so foreign was it to the tension of the two. ”

“ At this furious pace, they must be rapidly overtaking the man ahead. Then suddenly she pulled strongly on the reins, brought her horse to a sliding halt. There it was, the deep rich bay of Apollo giving tongue. He had sighted the quarry!
Nita's breath was quick, her face intent, the lovely blue eyes narrowed with an expression of hate that would have shocked many of the friends who knew her in their conventional drawing rooms. Here was no society girl out for a canter. Here was a woman whose lover had been torn from her in disgrace, a woman upon the trail of her lover's foes! ”

“ The police had arrived; it could be no one else. Wentworth's body tensed for the final desperate moment. Then in the blackness of the hall, a voice roared:
“Hands up there!”
The Spider himself could not have whirled more quickly than the tall man in the doorway. Whirl and shot were instantaneous, and in the hall a man cried out hoarsely.
With a single movement of his hand, the Spider extinguished the light. In two strides he reached the window, yanked down the top casement.
No fear now that the killer would get him. Guns roared and bellowed in the hallway; lead sang and whined. ”

“ Then a man with a gun had interrupted their conversation. It was that fear which had led the Spider to believe that she might hold some clue to the identity of the Black Death.
“Who besides yourself,” he asked again, “had the opportunity to substitute the forged bonds for the genuine?”
And once more the girl evaded his keenly questioning gaze. Wentworth frowned. “Surely now,” he said, “you must realize the importance of answering that question. Your failure to answer it was the reason for all that has happened. Your kidnapping by that masked man.”
“Oh,” she shuddered, “that horrible Spider.” ”

“ It was time the news was spread abroad, time that the city learned that this Black Death was the work of a human agency. Then indeed would the whole world rise up to wipe out the sinister masked shadow that crouched with bloody hands over New York's millions. ”

“ The Black Death. It meant a disease to the people, a plague that hung like a pestilential cloud over the city. To her it meant a sinister voice over the wire, a criminal genius who held her lover's life in vicious, tormenting hands. ”

“ Smoke streaked with flame billowed around him, but Wentworth, instead of climbing out, groped across the room and yanked open the door. In the street fire sirens wailed, men raised excited cries. Somewhere an axe thudded on metal. The Spider ran through the halls looking for Ram Singh, who, he felt sure had been overcome on his post of duty. Dark rooms and passageways yielded no trace of the Hindu.
Wentworth could wait no longer. At any instant now, police or firemen might crash into the building, find upon him the marks of battle and connect that with the man who lay dead in the yard. ”

“ Wentworth stared unseeingly with horror-widened eyes. Surely no human being could conceive so fiendish a crime. Visions of that terrible plague sweeping through the congested millions of New York rose before Wentworth's eyes. ”

“ For the Master of the Plague had not rested content with the toll at the Gainsborough estate. Once more the loathsome, strangling fingers of disease had clutched a family, and a millionaire's child had died with its nurse and mother. White-faced, Wentworth faced the conviction that daily, even hourly, the criminal was sending out his warnings, and where they failed, sending another message that carried with it death by diabolic torture.
And the Spider's sole clue to the Black Death was now in police hands—Virginia Doeg. ”

“ It was mad, that music, as if all the devils of hell leaped in those flicking fingers. Jenkyns' frightened face showed in the doorway. He knew his master's habit of playing out his moods, but never before had he heard such wild notes torn from the straining strings. ”

“ The high bald head wrinkled as John Harper strove to solve the puzzle as to why a crook with a gun should ask for bonds, when jewels sparkled beneath the bright electric light. But he dissembled swiftly.
“I don't know what you mean,” he quavered. Wentworth's body crouched forward, the gun advanced an inch, and his masked face lowered slowly into the puddle of light.
“Don't lie to me, Harper,” he said slowly.
“But I'm not lying,” the man said rapidly. “Honest, I ain't got 'em.”
“Don't lie, Harper,” Wentworth repeated in the same voice. “Don't lie to the Spider.” ”

“ Only a few hundred yards separated him now from the Black Death. Suddenly the plane ahead vaulted upward in an inhuman turn and shot back to meet him, with a flicker of flame behind its propeller that he recognized with mounting anger was a double machine gun. Where in heaven's name had Pugh got a military plane?
But there was no time to speculate on that. He must destroy the man. Wentworth had been watching keenly, and he had seen no pigeons winging back toward the city. He was positive the dread harbingers of the plague were still aboard. ”

“ The ruddy-faced Jenkyns who opened the door bowed delightedly as he took his master's cape, gloves and cane; for Jenkyns, his hair silvering with age, looked forward to the day when Nita van Sloan would be mistress over the household, when the dread pall of mystery would cease to dominate the young master he adored. ”