Wings of the Black Death/Chapter 12

James Handley, the man Virginia had said could not be guilty! The man she was to marry! There was a shortage in his accounts—and he was missing!

Wentworth was keenly interested. But no hint of it showed in his face. He flicked ashes from his cigarette and lounged about the office, inspecting the oil paintings which hung upon its walls as if totally disinterested in the conversation between Pugh and the two policemen.

But the name apparently had been dismissal for the two officers. “We'll put out an alarm for him, sir,” one of them told Pugh. “And you may depend, sir, that we'll pick him up very shortly. They can't escape our dragnet.”

“Fine,” said MacDonald Pugh heartily, and the policemen left.

“Good of you to call, Dick,” Pugh said to him, and Wentworth turned smiling from the inspection of a portrait.

“You have atrocious taste in paintings, Mac,” he said, “but you have managed to get one good piece here. Undoubtedly a Millet.”

MacDonald Pugh smiled. “You didn't come here, Dick, to criticize my paintings, I'm sure.”

“No,” Wentworth told him. “I was down this way, thought of you, and recalled that promise of a fishing party some weekend. The tuna are running off Montauk, you know. A bit early, but I understand some large ones have been taken.”

“That's damned nice of you,” Pugh said. “But I don't see how I could possibly get away. The stock market is doing tricks these days, what with the NRA and Mr. Roosevelt's so-called controlled inflation.”

Wentworth waved a hand negligently, tossing his cigarette into a smoking stand. “You business men,” he sighed. “I wish I could find something in life that was half so interesting. Sure you can't make it, Mac?”

Pugh shook his bald head regretfully, smiling up from beneath those white brows. “No can do. But if you're out at your estate over Sunday, and decide finally not to go fishing, you might drop over. Bring Nita along. When the ticker stops Saturday noon, I have until the Stock Exchange opens Monday before I—”

A strangled cry rang through the office. Wentworth whirled, staring with narrowed eyes past Pugh to the door of an office marked “Private.” 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. And only Wentworth, jaw clenched and eyes aglint, remained.

The man collapsed into a seat, flung his arms across a desk top and leaned his chest against its edge, his breath coming hoarsely.

“You have been blackmailed?” Wentworth demanded.

The man stared at him unseeingly. Wentworth moved a step nearer and demanded again, “Were you blackmailed?”

This time the man's head nodded heavily. “Yes. And I paid.”

His hoarse voice was scarcely human, the words mere mouthings. “I paid. And now—oh, God—I'm dying anyhow! Dying—the Black Plague—”

“Whom did you pay?” Wentworth snapped at him. Sympathy for the dying man touched him, but more than sympathy was at stake. Here was a man who had actually had contact with the dread master of the plague, had paid him blackmail. If he could obtain from him with his dying breath a clue that might save the countless millions of the city—

Works' head sagged forward. Breath rasped more harshly in his throat. He belched. Blood poured from his jaws. It tore a muffled scream of agony from him.

“Quick, man!” Wentworth shot at him. “Do you know who the blackmailer was?”

The sagging head raised an Inch, wobbled slowly in negation.

“No—” Works got out, “but—voice on wire—thought I knew it.”

Wentworth advanced two swift strides. Here was the Black Death in all its horror. Its contagion might strike him down. But here, too, might be the one clue that the Spider must have to track the plague master.

Suddenly Works convulsed, reared back in his chair with clutching hands digging into his throat.

“Speak, man, speak!” Wentworth cried. The purple lips opened, suffocation blackened his face. Blood gushed out. Sound issued from that ghastly mouth. But it was sound that was translatable into no word. It was the death rattle. And Works slumped forward upon the desk, his face dyed by the loathsome blush of the Black Death.

For an instant longer Wentworth stared at the body, his heart torn with compassion at the cruelty he had been forced to exert upon this dying man. Then he whirled and strode from the room with hard-pounding heels.

Gone was the airy nonchalance with which he had met MacDonald Pugh; gone the smile from his lips, and in its place was grim purpose.

From his path a man fled, running with a wobbling unaccustomed gait, a sloppy unpressed coat flapping in the wind, a dilapidated gray felt jammed down about his ears.

For an instant Wentworth pursued. But after two swift strides he checked himself. A grim twist that was only half a smile came to his lips.

He should know by now the earmarks of the gentlemen of the press, should know that no one but a careless, keen reporter would dare, as this man had, the curse of the Black Death for the comparatively trivial accomplishment of spreading first the news of a major story upon the front page of his paper.

Wentworth strode on to the curb and hailed a taxi, cried sharply, “Police headquarters!” Then he settled back upon the cushions and toyed with the head of his cane, looking down at its carved ivory handle with eyes that for once were unappreciative of its artistry.

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.

But before his cab could traverse the mile between Wall Street and the headquarters of police, men were screaming extras on the streets, and black headlines blazoned forth the news that the Black Death was a blackmailer's plot.

Perhaps, Wentworth thought, that news would help bring in information from others that had been blackmailed; perhaps it would bring out a clue to the plague master himself. But though he doubted that the police would be able to find the man, there was a way in which they could help if they would. They could, in all probability, locate James Handley. If they would search in earnest for that man, putting their best men upon the case, it was at least possible that some definite lead might be uncovered.

But Wentworth entered the office of the Commissioner with a feeling of futility. How could he convince Kirkpatrick of the necessity for that search, unless he revealed not only what Wentworth knew, but what the Spider had learned?

Kirkpatrick's face brought Wentworth to a stop just inside the door. It was the face of a living man who was dead, the face of a man haunted by a tragic fear, or tortured by a secret grief. He stared at Wentworth with eyes that were unblinking and utterly cold, deep-sunk beneath frowning brows. And for once, his mustache was untidy and unpointed, and his clothes, usually immaculate, were unpressed.

“Why do you come here?” he demanded harshly.

Wentworth stared at him without speech, and once more the Commissioner rasped:

“Why do you come here?”

Wentworth was unprepared for the attack. His lips moved stiffly in a smile that was without mirth. “I came to help—”

“I don't want your help,” thundered Kirkpatrick. He smacked his fist on the desk and crouched over it like a man about to spring. His eyes were burning.

“In heaven's name, Stanley, what is the matter with you?” Wentworth demanded.

There was a sternness in his face and his eyes did not waver before the assault of Kirkpatrick's glare. For two full minutes the men stared so into each other's eyes, and then Kirkpatrick straightened slowly from his tense crouch, dragged a heavy hand across his furrowed brow.

He sank limply back into his chair, and Wentworth came forward until he stood just across the desk from the Commissioner. He was smiling easily now, and offered his cigarette case to Kirkpatrick.

“You gave me quite a start, Stan,” he said. “You must be under a terrific strain.”

Kirkpatrick made no move to accept the proffered cigarette. He seemed infinitely tired, sagging in his seat like a man almost without life. But his hands upon the arms of the chair were white with the tension of his gripping fingers.

“Wentworth,” he said slowly, in a voice that was as dull and empty as his eyes. “I have long suspected that you were the Spider. I have had no proof of it. God knows I didn't want proof of it, except as my duty drove me on. For the Spider to me was an admirable man, despite his crimes against the law. He struck down criminals that I could not touch because of the rigid regulations of that law. And he avenged the innocent. For that I revered him, respected him as I respected you.”

Wentworth opened his mouth to speak, but Kirkpatrick's eyes stopped him. “I say respected,” he went on, “but that is past now. And I'm warning you that any other Commissioner of Police, knowing what I know, would believe the Spider, believe you, guilty of the Black Death!”

Kirkpatrick stopped speaking and his chin sagged upon his chest. But still his burning eyes held those of his friend. He leaned toward him across the desk.

“This is—” Wentworth began. But once more the Commissioner stopped him, this time with a tired lift of his hand.

“Knowing you, Wentworth,” he said, “knowing the Spider of days past, I cannot believe a man of those humanitarian instincts could inflict the Black Death upon the city... If I did believe you capable of that—” Suddenly the Commissioner snapped to his feet, stood rigidly, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. “If I believed that Wentworth, I'd shoot you down this minute in cold blood!”