The Spider's Reward/Chapter 4

HIS had taken but an instant, for Warwick's act had been like a flash of lightning. As he leaped backward he fired one shot at the wall, and it had its effect.

Green, the man he had feared least, sprang to the French window that opened on the balcony over the court, burst through it, and was gone. Brown, disarmed and seeing himself deserted by his companion, followed. A second bullet whistled over his head.

Warwick ran quickly to the window. Green already was dropping off the bottom of the fire escape, and Brown was not far behind him. Warwick closed the French window and stepped back into the room, chuckling again as if at a merry jest.

There were sounds in the hall, and his doorbell rang. Warwick hurried to open the door. Several tenants were standing just outside, and a janitor came running.

“My word!” Warwick gasped. “Frighten all you chaps, what? Sorry. Examining an automatic, and the fool thing exploded. Sorry—and all that sort of thing.”

They left, and he closed the door and hurried back to the living room. He made sure that the French windows were fastened securely, and then he rushed into his bedchamber.

He stripped off his clothes and began dressing in a brown suit, wondering what had become of the black one, thinking Togo had sent it to be cleaned, and little suspecting that Togo had carried it with him when he answered a bogus telephone message,

It did not take him long to dress. He pulled a dark cap down over his eyes, and hurried back into the living room. He went to the wall and pressed a hidden spring there, and an aperture showed.

Warwick took a black mask from the hole in the wall. It was fitted with a hood that would hide his hair, ears and throat. He put the mask into one of his pockets, slipped his own automatic into another, and put into a tiny slit in the lining of his coat a slender, shining tool made for the purpose of opening locked windows. Last of all, he took out a glass cutter and a rubber suction cap, and put them into a pocket also.

Then he hurried across the room and snapped off the lights. But he decided that Green and Brown might be watching outside, and so he turned the lights on again and left them so. He opened the hall door cautiously and peered out. There was nobody in sight.

The majority of the tenants, he knew, would be at dinner at that hour. Those who had appeared when the shot had been fired had been waiting for the elevators, on their way out to dinner. Warwick went through the hall unseen and reached the end of it, where there was a window and a fire escape.

He threw the window up, got out upon the landing of the fire escape and closed the window again. There he waited for a time, making sure that he had not been seen from inside, and looking down at the alley below him.

The fire escape was shrouded in darkness. Warwick often had used it before when he had desired to slip from the apartment house unseen because he was not dressed as usual. Now he began making his way down it slowly, pausing at each landing to glance in at a hall and be sure nobody was observing him.

He reached the last landing, hesitated a moment, and then dropped lightly to the brick pavement of the alley. A moment later he was slipping through the shadows to the nearest cross street, walking noiselessly, alert for signs of Brown and Green.

He saw nothing of his two former foes. He reached the street and hurried along it until he came to the first corner. There he stood in a dark doorway and waited for several minutes more, until he felt sure that Brown and Green had not seen him and were prepared to follow. He left the hallway and struck out up the street, walking swiftly, his head bent forward, giving the appearance of a mechanic hurrying to his home after the day's work.

As he passed beneath a light he glanced at his watch—not his usual watch, but a cheap one he carried on such excursions. It was a quarter of eight o'clock.

“Four hours,” Warwick told himself. “All kinds of time, what? Fancied it would take me longer to get rid of those chaps. Didn't want to remain in the house, either.”

He went on up the street, but he walked more slowly now. Taxicabs passed him, but he hailed none of them.

Warwick wondered a bit about Brown and Green. From what The Spider had told him, he failed to see how any of the supercriminal's enemies could be aware of what he purposed doing to-night. It was not like former adventures; it was not a case where it was a race between The Spider's band and another crowd of crooks to be first to gather in swag.

However, that did not concern him now. He would be on his guard, in case there were other foes to be encountered. He wondered what had become of Togo, and whether he would make his escape if he really was a prisoner. Warwick had anticipated using Togo to aid him in the adventure of the night, but that could not be helped now.

After all, it was the last adventure—if it proved to be successful. His brief career of crime would be at an end, and he could become a married man. The Spider's life of crime would be at an end, too. All depended upon the successful termination of this night's work, which, while technically outside the law, would not be so very nefarious, It was to deal out justice rather than take advantage of the innocent.

Warwick turned into a broad boulevard far uptown, and continued along it. He was smoking, now, and taking his time. He came to the district of residences of the better class, where limousines waited at the curb for masters and mistresses intending to go to the theater or opera.

Now and then he turned around a corner, and walked on. His destination was at some distance, and he was in no hurry. He glanced at his watch frequently.

“A chap can walk a long distance in an hour,” he mused. “Be ahead of my schedule if I am not careful. Better be early than late, however.”

Now he was at the edge of the city, and here there were no pretentious residences. Small cottages occupied acre tracts here, and their owners had little gardens and chickens. Here and there was a house larger and more imposing where somebody had purchased five acres in days gone by and had made a sort of country place near the city's edge.

Warwick came to a tiny park and sat on a bench in a secluded corner, still smoking. He saw nobody, heard nobody. He glanced at the radium dial of his watch and found that it was after ten o'clock.

The silence was almost oppressive. Now and then a motor car ran swiftly along the road, but that was all. Through the trees Warwick could see lights flashing in some of the cottages.

Half past ten came, and with it a man. Warwick heard his footsteps in the distance, and got up and went out to the walk, and turned down it, walking slowly. After a time he stopped, took out a fresh cigarette, and struck a match.

He struck three matches before he got alight. The man coming up behind him watched carefully, for this was a signal. As he passed Warwick he began whistling softly, a strain from a famous grand opera. He did not once glance toward Warwick.

The strain of music was a signal, too. It told Warwick that all was right and everything in readiness, that a certain person would be in his house that night, according to program. Warwick had scarcely looked at the man who gave him the signal. The Spider had said that a man would pass him there, and had told him why. He was a member of The Spider's band, that was all.

Warwick seldom worked with other members of the band, with the exception of Togo. Few of them knew him, and he was acquainted with but few. It was The Spider's way to keep his members apart as much as possible.

Warwick reached the street again and went along it, taking his time. He walked for a mile, and came to a large house that set far back from the road in a grove of trees. He had seen the place often in daytime. It was rather a pretentious place for the neighborhood.

It was the property of a widower named Bertram Blaine, a peculiar man reputed to be wealthy. He had little to do with other folk. Kept two servants, an old man and his wife. The wife acted as housekeeper, and the old man did odd jobs about the place. He had a gardener who worked there each day, but did not live there. The old man and his wife occupied a small cottage on one corner of the tract.

Bertram Blaine was a mystery to his neighbors. He did not seek human companionship. He seemed to be pleasant enough when one met him, but none ever learned his history. The story had started that he grieved over the death of his wife, and cared for nothing except his books and his flower gardens. Warwick grinned when he thought of these things now. There were many things persons did not know about their neighbors, he thought.

Glancing up and down the street while standing in the shadows cast by a giant tree, Warwick made sure that there was no human being within sight. Then he vaulted the stone fence, and was inside Blaine's grounds. For a time he crouched against a clump of bushes and watched and listened. Then he got up and started toward the distant house, darting from shadow to shadow until he reached the edge of the grove.

Warwick never had been inside that house, but The Spider had told him all about it. The supercriminal had ways of gathering information, had men and women who did nothing else, who prepared the way for adventures but were not otherwise concerned in them.

Warwick even had his orders to get through a certain window. He knew that the windows were protected by an alarm system, that the house of Bertram Blaine had traps and devices for guarding its owner against intrusion. He knew, too, how to avoid the majority of them.

He was within a short distance of the house now, and once more he stopped to watch and listen. There was not a light showing. No sound reached his ears except the soft rustling of the wind through the trees. He noticed that the grove cast shadows in such a manner that the bright moonlight did not touch the side of the house where he intended to work. The Spider even had had a report on that matter, and had passed it on to Warwick.

He left the protection of the grove and scurried across the open space until he reached the wall of the house. There he stopped to listen again. And then he began walking along the wall, slowly, searching for a window he had been told was there.

He found it and began work. He fixed the rubber suction cap against the windowpane and held it while, with the other hand, he cut a big circle with the glass cutter. He gave a sharp pull, and the circle came away with a slight crackling sound.

The shade inside the window was down, and Warwick left it so. He did not care to have a sudden draft invade the house, perhaps cause a door to slam and to awaken Bertram Blaine. He put the suction cap in a new place, and cut away more of the glass.

He continued to work until the greater part of the glass was gone. John Warwick knew better than to attempt to open that window with a jimmy. He was aware that such a proceeding would sound an alarm and warn Bertram Blaine.

Now he listened for another moment. Then he reached inside and cautiously rolled up the shade. He braced himself against the wall, and started to climb through the window.

Even experienced burglars admit that there is a ticklish moment when entering a house. A man never knows what he is likely to encounter on the inside. Warwick felt little shivers running up and down his spine. He got one leg inside the window, listened, and then pulled in the other.

No sound reached his ears. He fumbled in a pocket and got his mask and slipped it on, putting the cap on afterward, and his hair and ears were hidden, and his throat, nothing showing but the eyes, that glittered through slits in the mask. He took a pair of gloves from his pocket and put those on, too, for hands may be identified as readily as faces at times.

Then he took his automatic from his pocket and held it in his left hand. He lowered the shade again carefully, noiselessly, an inch at a time, and fastened it at the bottom so that it would prevent a draft and would not fly up or whip against the casement.

Warwick slipped across the room until he came to the opposite wall. Now he took out his electric torch, and flashed it once to locate a door. Then he moved to the door and opened it carefully and stepped into a hall. Once more he listened, again he flashed his torch. He went on through the hall to the bottom of a flight of stairs.

He had been warned about those stairs. How The Spider had acquired the information, Warwick did not know, but the supercriminal had told him that every third step, counting from the bottom, was wired, and that, if a man stepped upon one of them, he gave an alarm. Warwick flashed his electric torch once more to make sure of his bearings. Then he started cautiously up the stairs, careful to avoid each third step.