Wings of the Black Death/Chapter 11

Gun flame lanced at Wentworth. His answering shot was lightning fast and drew a curse of pain.

“The lights, Ram Singh,” he shouted.

Darkness shut down like a lid. Gun din filled the hall, and lead chunked into the door at the Spider's elbow. Suddenly then he groaned aloud, threw himself noisily to the floor and rolled silently toward the gunman.

He heard muttered obscenity:

“Got the damned idiot!”

Wentworth grinned thinly and fired upward at the voice. A scream began and choked. A body slammed against the wall, slithered to the floor. The Spider rose. The pencil beam of his flash showed the broken-nosed man, shot through the mouth, dead.

The Black Death had fled, leaving his henchman to kill his foe!

Wentworth padded swiftly down stairs, then checked sharply, a curse of disappointment on his lips. Police whistles! Either the Black Death had given the alarm, or the shots had been heard.

Wentworth smiled and raced upward, almost slammed into Ram Singh coming down.

“Quick!” he snapped. “The police. Carry Apollo!”

He darted into the apartment where he had been held prisoner. Apollo stood on trembling legs in the middle of the floor, a bloody tear across his skull. Seeing Wentworth, he tried feebly to wag his tail.

“Stout fellah!” cried Wentworth, “Good dog!” He clapped the dog on the back, snatched out a knife and freed Nita and Virginia Doeg. He shook the drugged girl, fought to rouse her from her stupor. While they worked Nita asked swift questions.

“How in the world, Dick,” she demanded, “did you get those handcuffs off? How did Ram Singh find you and—”

Dick smiled grimly as he worked. “It's all your doing, darling,” he said.

“But, I—”

“Shhh,” the Spider silenced her. “You did it. I let drop a hint to the Black Death that you knew as much as I did about this business, and you did the rest. He called you up, and I pretended to be worried. Then, when he left to meet you, I used a file I had hidden in these shoes—” he pointed to the thick, soft rubber soles—“when I knew I had to walk into his trap. But the filing took so long that the Black Death's car was at the door before I was free. I just had time to phone Ram Singh—whom I had told to await my call near here—and to put the cuffs back on, when you entered. I was hoping to capture him. And I put off the showdown as long as possible, trying to learn something about his plans. But even when he thought he was going to kill me certainly, he was too cautious to talk.”

He straightened and gazed down at the still stupified Doeg girl.

“No use working on her any more,” he said. “She can walk if she's led.”

He turned toward Ram Singh and found the Hindu crouched behind the metal door. He spun toward the door, but found no danger threatening there. Frowning, he puzzled over Ram Singh's apparent fright.

Then he realized for the first time that Ram Singh was not wearing his turban, that his close- shaved head was bald! That, to a Hindu, was shameful. The Spider found his own hat and gave it to Ram Singh, being careful to hide the laughter that lurked behind his eyes.

“How is it,” he asked in Hindustani when Nita, leading Virginia Doeg had started toward the door, “that thou hast lost thy turban, Ram Singh?”

The man answered with extreme dignity in the same language. “Oh Sahib, it was in thy service. I feared to enter by the door lest the noise of it should cause thy captor to shoot. So disgraced one that I am, I used my turban to lower that unclean beast whom thou callest Apollo to the fire escape so that he might avert the tragedy which threatened here. That is why it was that beast which was first to enter the room and not thy servant, Ram Singh.”

Wentworth placed his hand upon his man's shoulder. “Verily oh Ram Singh,” he said, “thou art a man, and through all India it shall be sung how Ram Singh bared his head that he might save his master.”

Pride gleamed in Ram Singh's eyes and he stood no longer ashamed.

The sirens of police radio cars echoed in the streets now. There was need to hurry. Wentworth caught up the body of the man he had slain and, with it over his shoulder, led the way swiftly downward until they reached the first floor.

They heard then the shouts of policemen, the battering of axes on the door below. Wentworth laid the body of the man at the head of the steps, gun in hand. Then, smiling grimly, he affixed the seal of the Spider upon his forehead.

“That will stop them a while,” he murmured to Nita. Quickly he unlocked an apartment, and sped to a window which opened on the back.

Suddenly Nita quit the other girl and grasped his arm.

“The cigarette lighter, Dick, the one that man planted on you. Throw it away!”

Wentworth laughed softly as he raised the window.

“A souvenir of the Black Death!” he whispered. “I wouldn't lose it for the world!”

“But—” the girl started to protest.

The Spider kissed her swiftly on the lips, smothering the words, helped her over the sill and lowered her by her hands to the ground. It was a drop of only a few feet. Rapidly he lowered the others after her. Then he and the great dog sprang down themselves.

The Spider and those with him faded into the shadows.

The rising sun was red in the sky as Wentworth and his tired company threaded the city. But even at this early hour the streets resounded with the shouts of newsboys, crying the toll of the Black Death. A hundred killed!

Wentworth's jaws locked. A hundred dead! The Black Death was striking more savagely. While Wentworth battled futilely against his traps, sought frantically for some clue to the man's identity, the black wings of the Plague were sweeping the city, as its purple flower of pain blossomed on scores of throats.

But Wentworth had the girl, Virginia Doeg, at least. When she had thrown off the drugs, he would question her. Desperately he hoped for a clue from her.

Later, when she had slept off the narcotic, safe in his apartment with Nita, he went to the girl.

Though his eyes were grim with the thought of the ravages of the Black Death ever at the back of his mind, he was gentle with Virginia Doeg as he insisted upon her answering the question that he had put to her a few hours ago. A smile twisted his lips—it seemed like years.

When last he had asked that question, fear had gleamed for a moment in her eyes. 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.” Bewilderment clouded Wentworth's eyes. His sharp glance flicked to Nita, and he saw a sly smile about her mouth.

Then suddenly he understood. Nita had convinced the girl, whose drug-dazed memories were befuddled, that the man who had kidnapped her was the Spider.

Wentworth had believed it necessary to reveal to this girl that the Spider and Wentworth were one. And now Nita cleverly had kept the secret. His eyes gave her silent thanks, as he picked up the thread of thought that the girl's cry of revulsion had revealed.

“Unless you want the Spider to come again,” he said sternly, “you had better answer my question at once.”

The frightened girl looked up at him, large- eyed and pale, beneath the glowing red shower of her hair. “Oh,” she said, “he couldn't have done it. Not my Jimmy!”

“Jimmy?”

The girl spoke rapidly now. “Yes, Jimmy. He could have done it, but I know he didn't. He loves me. We are to be married. And he is not the only one. Any official of the firm could have done it.”

“What's Jimmy's name?” Wentworth said softly.

“But he isn't guilty,” the girl protested. “I know he isn't.”

“Of course not,” the Spider reassured her, “but I would like to know the name of—” he smiled—“the lucky man.”

Virginia Doeg blushed, and dropped her eyes. “Jimmy Handley,” she said.

“Ah, yes,” said Wentworth, remembering then MacDonald Pugh's mention of the man. An intelligent youth, Pugh had said, one who was “going places.” Was it possible that the girl was Handley's dupe, that he had substituted the forged bonds and given the germs to her dog, so that when the time came he could direct suspicion upon her by claiming that the bonds had been stolen to finance the start of this monstrous crime?

Wentworth nodded swiftly to Nita, signifying that the girl could go now, and left the room hurriedly. He glanced at his watch. It was late, nearly four o'clock.

He caught his hat and cane from Jenkyns' ready hand, strode into the hall, and a moment later a taxi was whisking him through the late afternoon traffic to the offices of Pugh & Works, Inc. on Wall Street.

Straight down Broadway they whirled until that famous thoroughfare became a narrow street that belied its name, until the graveyard that marked one end of Wall Street hove into view, and they whirled into the narrow canyon that was the money center of the world.

The taxi jerked to a halt. Wentworth tossed the driver a bill and climbed out. A two-seated green Ford with P.D. printed on its side, a radio patrol car of the police, was parked ahead of him.

The devil! Was he going to run into some new crime at every turn of the trail that the Black Death left? He told himself that he was foolish, that the police car had no connection with his errand. But when he thrust into the elaborate offices of the brokerage firm of Pugh & Works, he found the two policemen from the patrol car there before him.

And MacDonald Pugh himself, his high shoulders stooped, his forward-leaning bald head nodding emphasis to his words, was talking to them.

Wentworth caught the tag end of what he was saying. “There is no doubt about it,” Pugh was declaring positively. “There is a shortage in his accounts. He left the office early yesterday and he has not returned.”

“And what's his name, sir,” one of the officers demanded.

MacDonald Pugh looked up with dark eyes from beneath his almost white brows, saw Wentworth and raised a hand in affable salute. “Just a minute, Dick,” he said, and turned back to the policeman.

“The man's name,” he said, “is James Handley.”