Wings of the Black Death/Chapter 19

The Spider was gone, yes. But that seal would tell the world that the Spider was not dead, that he had escaped the grave that had threatened in the river. And once more police, now that the Black Death was finished, would be able to turn their attentions to catching him.

Wentworth dared not go to his home, lest they be waiting for him there. Nevertheless when Nita and he drove back to the city in her speedy little Renault, the Spider, having sent Ram Singh on ahead with the small black valise and some private instructions in Hindustani, turned downtown and headed directly for police headquarters.

“Dick!” cried Nita, grabbing his arm, “Are you crazy? Have you forgotten...”

Wentworth smiled at her, stopped the car before police headquarters and kissed Nita for all the world to see.

“No, darling,” he said, “It is you who have forgotten.”

And he led the puzzled and still reluctant girl to the office of the police commissioner. An officer sprang up smartly and swung open the door, ushering into the presence of Stanley Kirkpatrick, the Spider and Nita van Sloan.

Nita stared in bewilderment at the three persons she saw there. Virginia Doeg, a young man she didn't know, but whom Wentworth bowed to and addressed as Handley, and Commissioner Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick's face was grave, but years seemed to have dropped from him. His clothing was immaculate again, his black mustache was waxed to needle points, and he bowed with a gallant gesture to Nita.

“I have already communicated with the newspapermen,” he said gravely. “They will be here in a few minutes.”

“But I don't understand,” Nita whispered to Wentworth. “What is this all about?”

Wentworth smiled down at her.

“Let Kirkpatrick have his fun,” he said. The door opened again and the newsmen filtered in, a keen-faced dilapidated lot.

Kirkpatrick greeted them somberly. One of the newspapermen nudged another.

“The Spider,” he whispered, and all eyes riveted on Wentworth.

He pretended not to hear, but Nita's hands gripped his arm until her fingers ached.

“I called you gentlemen in,” Kirkpatrick said, “to hear a dictagraph record which was delivered to me today by the Spider—“ Kirkpatrick looked up at the newsmen with a slight smile—“though not in person. But he called me up in advance and told me it was coming, and a taxi driver brought it.”

He stooped and lifted to the table a rusty valise. He opened it, and gleaming metal showed inside.

“If you press the side of this bag,” Kirkpatrick said, “it starts the machinery going, and a magnifying device which is the cleverest bit of work I've ever heard of, picks up any sound within a radius of ten or fifteen feet perfectly... I want you to hear the record.”

He pressed the side of the bag at the point he had indicated, and suddenly a harshly vehement voice spoke from the bag with a tone so life-like that Nita started:

“Why do you continue to hide behind that mask? Do you think I am a complete fool? Can you imagine that the Spider doesn't know that the name of his enemy is—” a short laugh barked from the instrument—“is MacDonald Pugh.”

And another voice snarled out, the voice of a man they all knew to be dead, the voice of MacDonald Pugh.

“That knowledge will do you no good, Mr. Spider. I do not intend to leave any witness to accuse me of the Black Death.”

And Nita, her heart singing, recalled that long talk she had not been able to understand in the cavern and remembered that it cleared her Dick in every particular, of every crime that the police laid at his door. She smiled gaily.

“Why didn't you tell me?” she whispered into Dick's ear.

“When?” He merely framed the word with his lips, and Nita, remembering, laughed. When would he have had a moment to tell her before they had landed again at his estate and started back over the road to town? And really this was much nicer than being told.

She heard, as in a dream, Wentworth's voice grating as it never naturally did and realized that he had been disguising his tones there in the cavern. Then Kirkpatrick stopped the machine and turned toward Wentworth.

“It's very obvious, Dick,” he said, “that the Spider's voice is not yours. But that eccentric gentleman left nothing to chance. He told me over the phone—” He smiled and drew toward him a slip of paper. “I think I have the exact words. 'I do not appreciate your confusing me with that numbskull, Wentworth. He's all right, but he hasn't the brain for this type of work!' ”

Wentworth was angry.

“That's all very well for the Spider to brag,” he said vehemently. “I was on the right trail, though. He just beat me to it.”

“That's right, Wentworth,” jeered a reporter. “He just beat you to it.”

And the newspaper men made a concerted dash for the door to phone in the biggest story since five hours ago when the Master of the Plague had died.

Virginia Doeg and Jimmy Handley were the next to go. Handley stopping to shake Wentworth's hand, and say again the “Thank you,” he had shouted when Wentworth had saved him. Then only Kirkpatrick and Nita and the Spider were left.

Wentworth crossed to the desk and held out his hand. Kirkpatrick gripped it fiercely, and the men's eyes locked affectionately. Nita, who could understand, slipped from the office, a soft smile on her lips. Finally the two men dropped their hands, a little embarrassed by their show of emotion.

The Spider cleared his throat. “That was generous of you, Stanley,” he said, “making it as public as all that.”

“Forget it,” said Kirkpatrick shortly. “You have much more to forgive than I.”

And he proffered his cigarette case. Wentworth accepted one, and with a quick gleam in his eyes, dug from his pocket the clumsy lighter that Pugh had made, the lighter which even now bore the seals of the Spider—seals that would not dissolve in an unknowing hand.

“I wonder,” said Wentworth slowly, his tip-tilted brows mocking, “if you'd let me have that dictating machine as a souvenir of a case on which the Spider beat me to the kill?”

He flicked flame to the clumsy lighter with its Spider's seals and touched it to Kirkpatrick's cigarette.