Wings of the Black Death/Chapter 7

Wentworth's eyes held an ugly light. But he smiled coldly into the slitted eyes of his captor, and his voice was silky.

“It was unfortunate that you did that,” he said gently. “Now I must kill you.”

The man started to laugh, but his mirth choked and died. He cursed and struck the Spider heavily in the face. A stiff smile twisted Wentworth's lips. His eyes did not falter.

He knew now that his suspicions were correct, that this fellow was merely a muscle-man of the Black Death. He knew, too, that he had been ordered not to kill the Spider, but to bring him alive before the Master of the Plague himself. Wentworth veiled his eyes with his lids lest they show his satisfaction. He would permit his captor to take him to the criminal's lair, and then—Wentworth's eyes grew bleak....

Somewhere in the darkness of the halls Ram Singh lurked. He would follow as Wentworth had ordered, and together they would bring this Black Death to account. If Only Ram Singh did not interfere too soon. Wentworth flicked a glance to the door.

The masked man took Wentworth's gun, crossed the room and crumpled some newspapers on the floor. He laid a chair across them, thrust the entire mass into a wooden,

clothes-crowded closet and touched a match to the pile in a half dozen places.

Eager flames licked the paper, wrapped around the varnished wood of the chair; flimsy clothing in the closet caught up the sparks hungrily. Wentworth jerked to a sitting position, his head throbbing wildly. The man was calmly binding the girl's hands and feet with the obvious intention of leaving her to burn to death!

Wentworth's mouth closed in a tight, hard line. Even if it meant losing contact with the Black Death, he must save the girl. He got laboriously to his feet and inched forward.

The masked man spun with a curse, the blackjack ready. The Spider pretended to be dazed, wavering on his feet. The man struck—but the Spider was not there. Wentworth kicked out, caught the man in the abdomen and spilled him, writhing in pain, to the floor.

The Spider circled him, tugged open the door. “Ram Singh!” he called softly into the darkness.

No answer.

Once more Wentworth called his faithful servant, raising his voice. But his shout was absorbed into the blackness that gave forth no reply. The lurid glare of the flames tinted the shadows, revealed no sign of the Hindu. The masked man struggled to his knees, beginning to recover from the blow Wentworth had struck. The Spider could have run down the stairs and gained safety in flight. Instead, he stared past the man to the girl. The hungry flames ate nearer, towered until the electric light was dimmed, clawed at the ceiling.

Wentworth sprang toward it, launching a kick at the man's jaw. The muscle-man blocked it fumblingly, snatched at the Spider's foot. The grab missed. Wentworth skipped past him, turned his back to the fire and thrust his bound hands into a spire of flames!

His flesh scorched but he did not falter, did not flinch from the bite of the heat. Not until he felt the ropes give as they began to burn did he flinch away. His shoulders bulged as he strained against his bonds.

The masked man got laboriously to his feet, the black silk that covered his face gleaming redly from the flames. He reeled, recovered, roared an obscenity and charged. The Spider ducked under a slashing blow, and the man let out a shout of pain as he blundered too close to the fire and felt its singeing heat.

He whirled, checked a rush at its start and began to weave in more cautiously, wary on wide-placed feet. Outlined against the leaping, smoke-thick flame, his hunched shoulders were like a giant ape's. Wentworth retreated before his advance, fighting the ropes until they tore the flesh of his wrists.

Black smoke drifted like fog between them, blew its hot breath in Wentworth's face, stung his nostrils. He coughed rackingly, sprang backward as a blow glanced at his face. Still the ropes would not yield. Desperately, he fumbled in his hip pocket, dragged out a cigarette case. He dropped it to the floor, set his heel upon it and crushed down heavily. The case shattered. Gray tear gas rose in a little cloud, scarcely visible amid the fire glare and smoke.

The other man's outstretched arms reached out to seize him, but the Spider ducked them, plunged across the room toward the cleared air near the window. An entire corner of the room was in flames now, and despite their leaping light the place was dark, blurred by smoke.

Behind him the muscle-man coughed and choked. Suddenly he tore off his mask and daubed at streaming eyes. But the tear gas Wentworth had released was not in sufficient quantity to put the man out of the fight entirely. The Spider had intended that cigarette case for use close to a man's face.

Shaking his head like a bedeviled dog, the other groped through the smoke toward where Wentworth crouched. His face was heavy, bestial, painted a lobster red by the flapping tongues of flame. Water streamed from his eyes. He blinked, gouging at them with his knuckles, finally spotted the Spider.

The man threw caution aside and charged, swinging the blackjack. Wentworth strained a final time at the ropes and a hand ripped loose with a tearing of flesh. He slashed out with his fist, burying it to the wrist in his adversary's stomach. It turned the blow of the bludgeon from his head, but the weapon crashed down upon his shoulder. Wentworth's lips tightened with pain, and his arm dropped limp and useless to his side!

With a lumbering charge, the man was upon Wentworth again. The Spider smashed a fist into his face, leaped aside. With a bellow of rage the crook whirled and lunged again.

It was a one-sided battle, and only Wentworth's quick feet saved him from being instantly overpowered. The other was rapidly recovering from the small dose of tear gas, and all Wentworth's tricks could not overcome the handicap of that numbed left arm and shoulder. He could not block blows, could not feint. Instead he must retreat, duck and dodge, and get in a swift blow when he could.

Dense smoke and vagrant tear gas fumes smarted in his eyes, blurred his vision. The heat seemed to sear his lungs at every gasping breath. Good Lord! The girl! The Spider flung a quick glance toward the bed. A corner of the coverlet already smoldered, its slow fire creeping toward the helpless girl.

Abruptly, the muscle-man let out a shout of triumph. Wentworth's glance at the girl had cost him heavily. He was cornered! Fire licked out savage tongues to one side. Behind him, and to his right, walls hemmed him in.

Mouthing venomous curses, the man sprung forward and struck with the blackjack. No room to dodge. The Spider dropped to his knees. His right hand closed on something silken and hard in the corner. Gripping it, he lunged to his feet again, dived beneath another blow aimed at his head. He glanced down at the thing he had seized. Through smoke bleared eyes he caught the gleam of crimson silk. A woman's parasol! Despite the shallow gasping of his breath, the menace of the flames, and the crouching menace of the Black Death's hireling, Wentworth smiled—and it was a smile of triumph!

He now had a weapon. To any other man it would have been futile; to Wentworth it was perfect. He turned half to the left and faced his enemy along the line of his right shoulder. His feet were at right angles, the right pointed toward the crook, and his knees were flexed. He held the straight handle of the parasol across his palm like a sword, the ferrule raised slightly, pointed toward his enemy's eyes.

As the man charged in, the Spider thrust the parasol forward in a fencer's lunge, all his body thrown into the blow, his arm locked straight. The ferrule slid under the crook's chin, caught him squarely on the throat. The parasol doubled, snapped, but the charge was checked.

The weight of his own plunge hurled him backwards. He threw up his hands, staggered and thumped to the floor. The Spider sprang upon him, slammed home his fist. The head rolled limply over. Wentworth's hand went swiftly to the man's throat. The larynx had been crushed in, closing the windpipe and killing him instantly.

The flames' heat was fierce now. Long tongues of it crept across the floor. Smoke seeped up through the seams.

Wentworth sprang erect. Protecting his face with his arm, he plunged to the girl's side, slapped out the sparks that already had reached her negligee. He caught her up from the smoldering bed, put her by the window.

Back across the room he reeled, caught the dead gangster by the collar and dragged him to the sill. He balanced the body, then allowed it to topple to the ground, a cushion for the girl. From the kit beneath his arm then, he drew a thin cord of silk. Padding this, he knotted it about the girl's body and, snubbing it around a bed post to ease the strain on his one good hand, lowered her slowly to the ground. He tossed the line after her.

Smoke streaked with flame billowed around him, but Wentworth, instead of climbing out, groped across the room and yanked open the door. In the street fire sirens wailed, men raised excited cries. Somewhere an axe thudded on metal. The Spider ran through the halls looking for Ram Singh, who, he felt sure had been overcome on his post of duty. Dark rooms and passageways yielded no trace of the Hindu.

Wentworth could wait no longer. At any instant now, police or firemen might crash into the building, find upon him the marks of battle and connect that with the man who lay dead in the yard. Kirkpatrick was sufficiently suspicious now. The Spider would do well not to direct the finger of guilt toward himself needlessly.

Wentworth darted to the back of the house, peered out. The girl was gone, but the crook's body still lay below. The Spider threw up the window, climbed out on the sill. Flame and smoke belched from the window directly overhead where he and the man had battled.

Feeling was slowly returning now to his left hand and arm. He still did not have full use of it, but he could steady himself as he reached out and caught hold with his right hand of a drain pipe. He stepped across the void and, taking a desperate chance, threw all his weight for an instant upon the grip of that one hand.

It was a terrific strain, but that hand had been strengthened by long hours with the foils. His hold slipped an inch but held until he could grip the pipe with his knees, then he let himself slide down, using his knees and his one good hand alternately.

When he reached the bottom, he leaned for an instant against the house, panting. But there was not time to rest. He crossed swiftly to the body on the ground and printed on its forehead the red seal of the Spider—a warning to the Black Death—and slipped away through the night.

He climbed a fence laboriously and, straddling it, suddenly was outlined in the bright beam of a flashlight. A gruff voice demanded, “Where the hell do you think you're going?”

Wentworth started to drop into the yard behind, but saw a second policeman bending over the corpse of the crook. The officer jerked erect, peered about. He spotted the Spider and a whistle shrilled between the man's lips. He grabbed for his gun.

Wentworth teetered to his feet atop the fence, crouched and sprang. Lead whistled through the air hungrily, but when it reached the spot, the Spider was gone. He had leaped high and wide and landed in the yard of the house next door. Another fence, running the length of the block, cut him off from the policeman whose light had found him.

Behind him a man's voice cried hoarsely into the night:

“It's the Spider! The Spider! Get him! Death to the Spider!”

Heavy hands hit the fence, boots clawed at it. Wentworth ran at top speed. Necessity lent him new strength now. He swarmed over another fence, raced into a lodging house. In the street beyond more police whistles shrieked, and, “The Spider! The Spider! Death to the Spider!” men cried.

No escape that way; no escape the way he had come. The roofs? That was too obvious. Already blue-coated men undoubtedly were scaling upward to snare him there. He might battle his way clear, but the Spider would not fight the forces of the law.

He raced up the stairs, ripping off coat and vest. On the top floor he tore collar and tie from his throat and piled all on the floor against a brick wall. He opened his lighter, spiced its highly inflammable liquid over the pile, set fire to it in a half dozen places. Flames leaped up. Smoke and the stench of burning cloth filled the hall. Small danger of it spreading against that brick wall, but it seemed real enough.

Wentworth raced down the hall, pounded at a door. “Fire! Fire!”

He ran to the next door, beat with his fist. “Fire!” he cried again. “Fire! Get out of here fast!”

Voices gabbled within. A door was opened a crack and a frightened, touseled head thrust out.

“Fire!” yelled Wentworth.

Other voices caught it up. Down the stairs he plunged and beat on more doors. The house was in a turmoil. People had been already awakened by the screaming sirens. The dread cry in their own building tumbled them out in panic.

Men with no coats, with trousers dragged on so hurriedly their suspender straps dangled; women in night clothes with kimonos caught across their breasts; young children laughing and shouting.

Wentworth tousled his own hair, let his suspender straps dangle, swiftly untied his shoes. He affected a limp in one leg. His smoke-swollen eyes seemed sleepy and his mouth drooped stupidly. In the midst of a jam of fleeing people, he ran to the street.

Police were clustered there, but the excited cry of “Fire!” broke their ranks and let the terrified mob through. Smoke was boiling out of the top floor window now. Police and firemen bounded into the building.

Wentworth stared stupidly up at the smoke, thumbed suspender straps over his shoulders. “Damnedest thing I ever saw,” said the Spider with an atrocious accent to a man next to him. “Here I am sleeping sound and I hear the fire sirens making a fuss. 'Jeez!' I says to myself, 'Suppose that's this building.' Then they go on by and I goes back to sleep again. Then foist t'ing you knows here's this guy pounding on the door and yelling fire. Jeez! Was I scared!”

The other man shook his head glumly. “Me, too,” he said, “And here I was having the first good sleep in a week.”

Wentworth stared up at the building again, moved off grumbling. Nobody paid any attention to him and he eased into the darkened areaway of a building. The shadows absorbed him. He slipped a hand to the tool kit beneath his arm, and the iron grating yielded. It was the work of an instant then to penetrate the back yard, scale a fence and escape to the next street.

It was the heat of summer and a man without his coat was not conspicuous. Wentworth shambled with slouched shoulders, but he moved swiftly. His car was parked where he had instructed Ram Singh to place it. Just beyond it was a Buick coupe, spotlessly new except for a rear fender that had been crumpled as if in a vise.

The Spider's eyes narrowed. He moved cautiously to the curb so that his own car interposed between himself and that other car. He stalked it cautiously. The Buick was empty.

But where was Ram Singh? A worried frown furrowed Wentworth's forehead. Never before had the faithful Hindu failed him in his need. Nothing short of injury or—Wentworth hesitated even at the thought—death could prevent him from coming to his master's aid.

With a dread that the prospect of death itself had not brought him, he went leaden-footed to the Lancia and tugged open its rear door. Two feet thrust out stiffly.

“Ram Singh!” Wentworth cried out.

No words answered him, but there was a muffled groan. The Spider's hand was swift to the light. It revealed the Hindu prostrate on the floor, bound and gagged, a gash across his forehead, but not—thank God—dead. An arm was twisted unnaturally and when Wentworth freed him, he found it was broken.

Wentworth sought no explanation, and Ram Singh volunteered none. Between them it was unnecessary.

“Did you see the man's face?” Wentworth asked.

Ram Singh shook his head slowly. Shame was on his face, but he met the Spider's eye directly, then began to climb slowly, with dangling arm, into the chauffeur's seat. Wentworth laughed softly, stopped the Hindu affectionately. He made him as comfortable as possible in the rear, mounted the chauffeur's seat himself and drove rapidly to a doctor, who was under obligations to him for a past and very secret service, and who did not mind winking at the requirement of reporting to the police every suspicious injury he treated—if the man he treated was a friend of Richard Wentworth.