The Wheel of Death/Chapter 20

It was the following evening, just as dusk was falling, that Richard Wentworth sat with Nita Van Sloan on the window seat of Nita's tower apartment in Riverside Mansions. Apollo, the Great Dane, sat upon the floor with his massive head upon the seat between them. The dog did not know which of them to favor, so he placed his head midway between them and looked up, first at one and then the other.

They had not spoken for some little time, so much in sympathy, or in love if you like it better, were they. Below them the mighty Hudson flowed outward to the sea and upon its far shore, lines of twinkling electric lights were beginning to gleam along the crest of the majestic Palisades. Such moments of silence with Nita and the dog, high up above the mighty scene, were almost as precious to Wentworth as were his moments of strife and adventure. His nature swung to the two extremes, permitting each to be attained the more intensely.

At last he broke the silence. "Nita," he said, "I think you had better not come with me tonight. It may be more dangerous than we think."

She made a little face at him and shook her head obstinately. "We can't be married because you are too wild, old boy," she retorted. "Therefore I am going to do a little bossing without the ceremonial authority. Tonight I'm going with you and that's that!"

"Well," he returned, "I have made all arrangements for it if you insist, but you don't know what you are letting yourself in for. You are going to have the surprise of your life."

And so it was that they took the long elevator ride down to the ground floor of Riverside Mansions and found Wentworth's motor car waiting for them at the door, with Ram Singh seated beside the chauffeur in front. Without any direction from Wentworth the car moved off as soon as they had entered and turned south, running to 59th Street and stopping, still without any directions to the chauffeur, at one of the southern entrances to Central Park.

Wentworth glanced at his watch, turned on the light in the tonneau and pulled down all the blinds. He lifted a small suit case from the floor and handed it to Nita.

"Here is your costume," he said. "Put it on while I drive once around the park."

The chauffeur stepped out of the car and lit a cigarette while he leaned against the wall of the park near the entrance. Wentworth took his place at the wheel and drove into the park. Ram Singh sat up very straight beside his master and said nothing, knowing that everything was planned for the evening, up to a certain point. Beyond that point no one could tell what might happen. In the meantime, there was nothing to discuss.

In the tonneau of the car Nita opened the suit case and found one of the cheapest and most vulgar evening dresses she had ever seen. At no time had she ever worn such a thing. She was beginning to understand what Wentworth had meant when he said she was going to have the surprise of her life. Shielded from view by the drawn blinds, however, she undressed to her very dainty undies and dressed again in the very flashy concoction which she took out of the suit case and was amused because it fitted her so well. Wentworth had an amazingly accurate eye for the female form.

The car circled the park at a high rate of speed and returned to the same southern entrance. Wentworth descended from the driver's seat and the chauffeur tossed his cigarette away, left the wall and resumed his seat. Ram Singh also left the front seat and, together with Wentworth, entered the tonneau. All this was done without a word of direction, so carefully was everything planned. Again the car moved off, under the guidance of the chauffeur, to circle the park once more.

In the tonneau, still shielded from view by the drawn blinds, Ram Singh opened his little make-up box.

Nita, puzzled, surprised and amused, submitted her face to the work of Ram Singh's nimble fingers. Rapidly her features changed and her face became flamboyant, painted beyond the limits of woman's oldest profession. It was quite unlikely that even Wentworth would have recognized her if he had passed her on the street.

"I'm sorry, my dear," said Wentworth, "but Ram Singh has to make you the exact opposite of yourself in order to give you a perfectly safe disguise."

She looked at herself in the little mirror, which Ram Singh reluctantly held up, and gasped.

"And what about you?" she asked. "What kind of a terrible character are you going to be?"

For answer Ram Singh commenced his work upon Wentworth. But it proved a comparatively simple transformation, and occupied much less time than had Nita's make-up. The skin was lightened so that he became pallid and had the appearance of being rather undernourished. What appeared to be a grease smudge was run from ear to chin in such a subtle way that he appeared to be partly comical and partly pathetic.

To complete his disguise Ram Singh handed Wentworth a long linen coat. It was very dirty and had once been yellow. It buttoned tightly around his throat, completely covering his dinner coat, and reached almost to his feet. A cap, slightly too large, with a shiny peak, completed the outfit.

Again the car reached the southern entrance of the park and stopped. Ram Singh left the tonneau and resumed his seat beside the chauffeur, his job completed. The car turned east to Fifth Avenue and ran south.

"Are we going to a fancy dress ball?" asked Nita, looking at her companion in utter amazement and remembering what she, herself, looked like.

"We are going to pay a visit to Sylvester Bannister," Wentworth informed her, "at whose house our friend Commissioner Kirkpatrick has been invited— to his death!"

"But Sylvester Bannister lives somewhere in the sixties," she said, "and we are going south."

"Wait and see," he replied. "There are more surprises in store for you."

Southward the big car rolled smoothly and swiftly until they came to Washington Square, where it stopped at the northwest corner.

"This is where we get out," Wentworth said, and they alighted upon the sidewalk.

Immediately, and again without any direction from Wentworth, the car moved away and was gone. They were alone at Washington Square. Wentworth guided his companion half a block south and halted a decrepit taxicab.

"This is where we get in," he informed her, opening the door for her to enter the rickety affair.

Puzzled and excited by the adventure upon which she found herself, Nita entered the taxi. A man got off the driver's seat and walked away without saying a word. Wentworth took his place and started the taxi, turning north.

"Now that Molly and Jerry Stone are together again," remarked Wentworth to Nita through the open window, "I have two things yet to do. I must prevent good old Stanley Kirkpatrick from getting murdered tonight; and I must take Grogan's confession to the murder away from Mortimer Mack, so that I can give the Governor the necessary proof of the innocence of Molly's father."

"And what am I to do?" asked Nita.

"Perhaps nothing," he answered. "But wait and see." And he passed back to her, through the open window, a very tiny, but quite deadly, pistol.

Northward the taxi rattled until they were in the sixties in the vicinity of Sylvester Bannister's big town house. On a corner, within view of the Bannister home, Wentworth stopped the taxi and they waited, watching the house.

The first person to arrive was Mortimer Mack, his little figure being easily recognized as he went up the steps.

"The first actor has arrived," commented Wentworth to Nita who was sitting tensely behind him in the cab, "unless, of course, there are others already in the house."

There was a wait of fifteen minutes before another car arrived before the Bannister house. From it three men alighted and trudged up the steps to the front door. At their head, limping very badly, Wentworth recognized the hulking form of Dan Grogan.

"It looks rather bad," he said to Nita. "There go the assassins— three of them! Are you still game to go through with it?"

"Try me," was all she said.

But Wentworth himself received a surprise, when, half an hour later, another car arrived and discharged a single passenger. It was Roberts, the President of the Board of Aldermen, one of the strongest and most incorruptible of the city officials.

Perhaps Roberts, the President of the Board of Alderman, and Stanley Kirkpatrick, the Commissioner of Police, were the two greatest obstacles to Mortimer Mack in his attempt to gain control of the politicians and so rule New York. These two men cared not a snap of their fingers for politicians, and death was the only means by which they could be overcome.

Then came Commissioner Kirkpatrick. He had no police escort with him, something he seldom used, and his car drove away and left him as his military figure ascended the steps to the front door.

"One of the cleverest men in New York, but for once he is blind," commented Wentworth to Nita. "I hope that I shall be able to save him."

Nor did Wentworth wait long before going into action, one of those desperate actions in which life and death hung in the balance, depending upon the quickness of his wit, the keenness of his eye and the steadiness of his aim.

"Do you see that hydrant in front of Bannister's house?" he asked Nita. "Walk over there and stand behind it. When I hit the hydrant, scream as loudly as you can and fall to the sidewalk as if dead. Whatever happens, pretend to be quite unconscious until I tell you to wake up. Understand?"

"Uh-huh," she replied a little breathlessly. "But for heaven's sake, don't let me get arrested in this costume!"

In his big library Sylvester Bannister faced his guests, the Commissioner of Police and the President of the Board of Aldermen, across the shining top of his library table, upon which lay a single sheet of white paper.

Several times Kirkpatrick's alert eyes dropped from Bannister's face to that sheet of paper upon the table, which did not lie flat. It concealed something which would have been invisible to the Commissioner, had it not been partly reflected by the shining surface of the table.

Sylvester Bannister came straight to the point. Would Kirkpatrick and Roberts resign their official positions to accept high newspaper positions at double their present salaries?

Mortimer Mack, sitting meekly to one side, commenced to speak.

"Shut up!" ordered old Bannister in a commanding tone. "I'll do the talking."

Mortimer Mack closed his lips quickly. He was in the presence of his master. The quiet, elderly publisher had cowed him with a look and a few words.

"Well, what is your answer, gentlemen?" Bannister asked, looking directly at Commissioner Kirkpatrick. "Do you accept my very liberal offer?"

Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick's eyes glanced again at the big sheet of paper upon the table. Upon his face was some amusement and some contempt. Quickly his hand swept the sheet of paper from the table. From beneath it a small revolver fell from the table into a waste basket.

"So you are the master mind behind all this tampering with the politicians by Mortimer Mack, eh?" he questioned witheringly. "I suppose you wanted political power, eh? You were willing to seduce a lot of men through Mack, who made money out of it, and turn them into drug addicts. To get your ends you wrecked homes by using unscrupulous and licentious women, and you ruined other families through gambling. Now you try to bribe me, and— if I refuse— you are prepared to kill me. Well, Mr. Bannister, let me tell you that you are not clever enough to catch an old fox like me."

"You have evil thoughts, Mr. Commissioner," said old Bannister. "But since they are evil, let it be as you think."

He raised his hand slightly, and from behind the heavy drapes at the entrance there stepped forth Dan Grogan and his two companions. Each of the three men held an automatic pistol in his hand.

"Well, get it over with," directed Bannister coldly. "What are you waiting for?"

The three men slowly began to raise their pistols, while Mortimer Mack turned his head so that he would not see what was about to happen. Roberts, the President of the Board of Alderman, trembled and was too alarmed to move otherwise. Stanley Kirkpatrick faced the three murderers and deliberately laughed.

Suddenly, from the street, a terrific crash sounded, followed by a feminine scream.

The three men lowered their pistols somewhat. Grogan limped to a window, pulled the curtain aside and looked out.

"There has been an accident," he said, "and they are carrying somebody into the house."

"Get back behind the portieres!" snapped Sylvester Bannister. "But be ready to kill these two men, if they make the slightest attempt to escape. Shoot them no matter what happens, or who is in the room, if they attempt to get away or even move from their chairs."

Quickly Grogan and his two companions slipped back behind the curtains.

Voices sounded in the hall and through the drapes staggered a tall taxi driver, with an apparently unconscious girl in his arms. The driver looked unusually tall because of a dirty, yellow coat buttoned tightly around his throat and reaching almost to his feet. As for the girl, she was cheaply and flashily dressed and her face was painted almost beyond belief. Over the man's arm her head hung downward with lifeless immobility.

Richard Wentworth and Nita had arrived. For a moment Wentworth stared stupidly around the room. He knew, by the look of Roberts face, that a desperate situation existed, but he could not yet locate the danger. The grease smudge gave him so ridiculous an appearance that he appeared to be a man of small intellect and very much bewildered. Suddenly he darted forward and placed the inert girl in a chair near Bannister, while the servant, who had followed them in, brought a pillow and then withdrew at a nod from his master.

"Shall I call a police doctor for the young— ah— the young lady?" asked Kirkpatrick, audaciously reaching for the telephone.

"No!" barked Bannister savagely. "Probably she has just fainted."

Kirkpatrick's hand drew back from the telephone, while he watched Bannister pour some brandy into a glass from a decanter, evidently with the intention of trying to revive the girl.

"Are you the boss?"

Wentworth, in his capacity of a mentally upset taxi driver, stared wildly at Bannister as he asked the question. Abruptly, without waiting for an answer, his excitement increased and he began to walk crazily about the room. He shouted that it was not his fault that the girl had jumped in front of his taxi.

It was a beautiful piece of acting for the purpose of giving him time to find out what was wrong and where the danger lay. He flung his long arms about and stared around in an unbalanced manner. His excitement increased, and he began to run here and there about the room with his eyes upon the floor.

It was while Bannister was administering the brandy to the supposedly unconscious girl that the taxi man, during a sudden rush, kicked the waste basket almost the full length of the room. Wentworth had seen the revolver which lay in the waste basket— and he had also seen something else.

Out of the basket slid Bannister's revolver and came to rest within a foot of the curtains— just where the toe of a shoe showed beneath the drapery.

Wentworth seemed to see the revolver for the first time and halted above it as if transfixed. He seemed scared and absurdly puzzled at sight of the weapon. Slowly he bent down and reached for it, but drew his hand back like a child in fear. Again he reached for it and gingerly raised the revolver a few inches from the floor.

"Drop that!" called Bannister sharply, looking over his shoulder.

Wentworth started violently at the sudden command. It seemed as though the sudden start caused him to press the trigger. There was a loud report from the revolver in his hand— and the man behind the drapery fell forward, clutched at his heart and lay still upon the floor.

From the opposite side of the entrance Grogan sprang forward, gun in hand. But Wentworth had dropped the small revolver and had jerked two heavy pistols from the pockets of his long, yellow coat. Faced by the tan man with two guns, Grogan let his own weapon crash upon the floor.

Banister dropped the liqueur glass and grabbed a pistol from the drawer of his table with unexpected quickness for such an elderly man.

"Don't try it!" said a cool, feminine voice from behind his back.

Nita had disobeyed her orders and had recovered consciousness before she had been told to do so. She was sitting up very straight and very much awake. In her hand was the small pistol, which she pressed into Bannister's back.

It was then that the third hidden assassin stepped out from behind the drapes directly behind Wentworth.

"I've got 'em, boss," this man exclaimed. "I'll take the Commissioner of Police first."

There was no time for Wentworth to turn and fire. There was only one thing that he could do, and he did it. . . . He sprang sideways in front of his old friend Stanley Kirkpatrick!

From behind him came the crash of the thug's pistol and the bullet, intended for the Commissioner, tore into Wentworth's right shoulder.

The impact of the heavy slug caught him off balance and threw him to the floor. But even as he struck, he fired upward with his left hand and sent a bullet straight into the forehead of the man who had wounded him.

Grogan seized the opportunity to pick up the weapon he had dropped, and Mortimer Mack, in desperation, drew a small revolver from his pocket. Wentworth kicked the chair from under the little man, sending him to the floor, while he shot Grogan through the heart, just as the restaurant man fired, placing another bullet in Wentworth's right arm.

Wounded, bleeding and in pain, Wentworth rolled over upon the floor toward Mortimer Mack, and succeeded somehow in knocking the weapon from the little man's hand before that badly startled man could regain his feet. In another moment he had jerked Mack's pocketbook out and was shaking the contents out upon the floor with his one useful hand. Abruptly he snatched one of the fallen papers.

"Here you are, Commissioner," he said, holding the paper up to the surprised but self- controlled Kirkpatrick.

"Here is Grogan's confession to the murder of Mack's partner. I had Bannister's telephone wire tapped and I heard him order little Mortimer Mack to bring it down to him tonight. This will clear the man, Dennis, who is waiting electrocution at Sing Sing. Just attend to the matter for me, will you Commissioner?"

Then, for the first time, Commissioner Kirkpatrick lost some of his self-control and became just a trifle emotional.

"Dick," he asked, in a voice that trembled slightly, "is it really you? Dick, old man, you offered your life when you saved mine by jumping in front of that thug's gun. Dick, will you ever forgive me for suspecting you of anything wrong?"

"Oh, shut up!" exclaimed Wentworth, sitting up a little gingerly. "Meet Nita! She is right behind you."

"Nita!" exclaimed Kirkpatrick in more amazement as he turned around to look at her. "By the great horned spoon, that's the cleverest make-up I ever saw!"

But Nita had really fainted at sight of Wentworth's wounds and sat— unconscious— with her little pistol still pressed into the back of Sylvester Bannister!