Wings of the Black Death/Chapter 9

In her penthouse apartment, high up on Riverside Drive, overlooking the misty Hudson which she loved to paint, Nita van Sloan sat upon a window seat and stared unseeingly out into the darkness of the night.

Far out on the bosom of the Hudson gleamed the pale yellow lights of passing boats. The black Jersey shore was shrouded in mist, a delicate problem for any artist's brush. But Nita van Sloan saw none of that. For all the deep cushioned comfort of the window seat, she sat tensely, chin resting on her palm. It was far past midnight, but sleep would not come to the troubled girl.

Lying beside her on the floor, the Great Dane dog that Dick Wentworth had given her as a puppy stared up at her with worshipping eyes, its nose outstretched upon its forepaws.

Nita sighed deeply, and the dog rose with a low whine in its throat, and rested its head in the girl's lap.

The girl's blue eyes were tired as she turned them upon the dog. She smiled faintly.

“Are you worried, too, Apollo, about our Dick?” she asked.

The dog emitted a small coughing bark. It was his invariable response to the name of the master he loved.

The girl swung back her pajama-clad legs to the floor and strode nervously to a small table. She picked up a cigarette and ignited it. A moment later she tossed it away and moved restively about the room, changing the position of a picture, picking up a hair pin from the floor, doing a dozen things without thought.

For she knew that Richard Wentworth never before had crossed blades with so dangerous an antagonist as the Black Death. Swiftly Nita came to a decision. Phoning would be useless. He would only laugh at her fears, cajole her into remaining—and waiting—alone. And tonight she wanted warmer solace than that. She tore off the pajamas as if they strangled her, dressed with swift speed, and snapping a leash upon Apollo's collar, left the building.

In the pocket of her sport-suit she carried a small but deadly gun Dick had given her. She summoned a taxi, and entering it gave in a low voice the number of Wentworth's apartment house.

Her touch of the bell of his penthouse had hardly sounded the buzzer before the door swung open and the haggard face of gray-haired old Jenkyns stared out.

The smiles that usually wreathed his ruddy countenance were missing. Nita felt her heart contract.

“Then Dick—Dick isn't home?” she asked. Jenkyns shook his old head slowly, stepped aside for her to enter. Apollo, released, bounded ahead through the apartment, snuffing excitedly. But presently he returned and crowded close against Nita as she stood in the luxuriously furnished drawing room, looking about with vacant eyes.

“Ram Singh?” she asked.

Once more Jenkyns shook his head, and Nita's hopes sank again. “They didn't leave together, Miss Nita. Ram Singh went out a little while after the master.” Ram Singh had a broken arm, and a man couldn't fight with his arm in splints, Nita thought. Listlessly she tugged her brown hat from her gleaming, curly head and walked slowly toward a window.

Abruptly she was tense again, for from the hall sounded the metallic buzz of the phone. She raced to it, snatched up the receiver.

“Richard Wentworth's apartment,” she said, her words trembling with hope.

The voice that came over the wire was not Dick's. It had a soft sibilance that made Nita's hand tighten about the receiver, that made a chill of dread race down her spine.

“Ah, Miss van Sloan,” said the voice on the wire, “I thought I could find you there after I called your own apartment vainly. Richard Wentworth—the Spider—is my prisoner.”

A gasp shuddered from the girl. Someone had penetrated the secret that no one save those who battled for him knew. Someone had discovered that Richard Wentworth was the Spider! And that someone—she was suddenly sure was the Black Death!

“What do you want?” she demanded, striving to drive the fear from her tone.

“Ah,” said the voice, “I see that you are reasonable. That is fortunate. I was about to kill the Spider, but learning his identity I remembered that he was a wealthy man—and money is very dear to me. If you would care to ransom him—”

“Oh yes, yes!” Nita cried.

Evil laughter taunted her. “It will not be so simple as that. You cannot come with the police and liberate your—friend. For there is a little safety device which I have arranged to protect myself.

“In the Spider's pocket is a cigarette lighter that is a twin to his own in every respect save one. In this one the seal of the Spider will not dissolve when it is opened, and the secret chamber is so clumsily hidden that even the dull-witted police can discover it.”

Nita heard that news with sinking heart. “You doubtless know,” the Black Death went on, “where you can get hold of considerable money.”

Yes, Nita did know. There was a safe in Dick's room where he always kept a large quantity of cash on hand against the possible necessity of flight that ever hung above his head.

“Get this money, then,” the man ordered. “Come to the corner of Madison Avenue and Fifty-Seventh Street and walk uptown. Obey the man who meets you there.”

Then reed-like over the phone Nita caught a faint voice as if someone shouted from a distance, and she thrilled as she recognized the voice of Dick Wentworth.

“No, Nita! No! It—means—death!”

A curse snarled from the man at the phone. She heard a jar, silence, then the dread voice purred once more in her ear.

“It was unfortunately necessary for me to silence your—friend. He is unduly suspicious, and a trifle troublesome. It may be that unless you hurry I shall be forced to deal firmly with him before you can get here. In fact I can allow you only twenty minutes. Remember—” the man's voice rose suddenly in sharp warning—“if you bring the police, they will learn that Richard Wentworth is the Spider. They will not forget that the seal of the Spider has been printed on the brow of five of their dead comrades.”

“Oh tell, tell me,” cried Nita, “that Dick is all right. You haven't hurt him—”

Over the wires came only a sinister laugh. Nita put the telephone down with a listless hand. The anxious Jenkyns was at her elbow. “What is it, Miss Nita?”

She told him rapidly all that she knew, and the butler, too, begged her not to go.

“If Master Dick is captured,” he reassured her, “you may be sure he wanted to be. And if he wanted to be, he has a way out. You'd only upset his plans.”

The girl stared at Jenkyns. Dick Wentworth never went into danger unprepared, yet his cry over the wire: “It means death!”

She shook her head sharply. “Not this time, Jenkyns,” she said. “You don't know what a terrible thing he is fighting, how clever the Black Death is!”

She turned swiftly to the task she had set for herself. The weight of the automatic in her pocket swayed against her side and lent a certain comfort. From the wall safe in Wentworth's room she took two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, made a bundle of it under her arm. Apollo followed her every footstep, claws patting on the floor.

She looked down at him. Apollo had helped her in many a tight scrape. But how could she use the Great Dane now? Dick had taught the dog many tricks, had trained him to pretend hostility toward herself if she made a certain signal. It was an old smuggler's trick. Frequently their jewel-smuggling pets were captured by officers who then sought to identify the master through the dog. And the man trained the animals so that they would snarl even at the hand they loved if they received a certain signal from their master.

Perhaps it might serve her in good stead now. She spun toward Jenkyns, smiled at him.

“Jenkyns,” she said, “we are going to do what we can to save Dick. I want you to help me.”

“Anything, anything, Miss Nita! But I'm afraid these old hands have long since passed the time...”

Nita shook her head sharply. “No, not that,” she said. “What I want you to do is this. I'm going to drive Dick's roadster uptown to the spot where they want me to meet this man. I want you to get in a taxi with Apollo and follow me.”

“When I meet someone, just let Apollo out. That is all. But in God's name, whatever happens, don't call the police.”

Jenkyns smiled wanly. “Aye, I can do that, Miss Nita,” he said. “But I hate to think of you putting yourself in the hands of that awful man.”

Nita's hand strayed to her gun, and her sweet mouth compressed, became a straight line that was very much like the Spider's own when he battled against odds.

She called the dog, fastened the leash and gave it into Jenkyns' hand. Together they left the building.

A newsboy dashed up as she crossed to the powerful Hispana Suiza.

“Extra!” he shouted in her ear. “Extra! Black Death kills twenty! Spider hunted! Extra!”

Nita almost flinched from the words. The Black Death. It meant a disease to the people, a plague that hung like a pestilential cloud over the city. To her it meant a sinister voice over the wire, a criminal genius who held her lover's life in vicious, tormenting hands.

She flung into the roadster, with the easy competence of experience touched the motor to deep-throated life. A glance at her watch. Fifteen minutes remained of the time the Black Death had allotted!

Her foot was heavy on the accelerator and the droning motor sped her uptown through nearly deserted streets. She parked at Fifty-Seventh and Madison and walked slowly up the avenue.

Behind her she glimpsed the taxi that contained Jenkyns and her faithful dog, but she dared not glance back again lest she arouse suspicions and foredoom her efforts to save Dick.

She heard the purr of auto tires, the metallic opening of a door, and a black sedan stood at the curb with motor running, its rear door open. Within, all was darkness.

With an effort Nita kept her hand away from the gun in her pocket. Her elbow clamped tight against the package of money beneath her arm. The chauffeur sat with his eyes rigidly front, no one else was visible, but a hateful voice that Nita recognized, called softly,

“Your car awaits, Miss van Sloan.”

Nita forced her feet to carry her toward that yawning black interior and climbed stiffly in.

Not until then did she glimpse the man who had called. A faint glimmer of light seeped beneath a shade and revealed a large, broad shouldered man. There was no face, but eyes stabbed at her through the slits of a black mask.

The door slammed, and the car slid forward. Nita was very near despair. Of what use was her dog now? Of what use Jenkyns' faithful shadowing?

“Where is Dick?” she demanded. “I won't give you the money until...”

The man's soft laughter checked her words. She knew without explanation the meaning of that ugly mirth. To talk of giving him the money when she was in his power, in the power of a man so fiendish that he had loosed the Plague upon the city!

For a wild moment Nita considered snatching her gun, but even as she hesitated it was too late. The man's hand closed like a metal band about her wrist, took the revolver, then deliberately searched her entire person, for other weapons.

Nita's face burned with humiliation, but her angry protest earned only mocking laughter. One thought buoyed her, the hope that soon she would be with Dick. It might avail no more than that they should die together. But even so she went gladly.

It was fifteen minutes later, after many turnings, that the girl felt the car draw to a stop. The man with the mask held a gun so that she could see its glint and said softly:

“I would advise against any outcry. I would dislike to put a bullet into your lovely body, but I should not hesitate to do so if the necessity arose.”

He opened the door and Nita stepped out silently, found herself looking up at an elaborate apartment building.

Her heart beat wildly. Soon now she would see Dick. Sudden fear caught her by the throat. If—if this monster had kept his word and not harmed him.

A man walked on either side of her, and she got no opportunity to discover whether Jenkyns had followed, whether Apollo would be able to help if the need arose.

She was whisked into the building through the basement entrance, up many flights of stairs. The masked man roughly dismissed the chauffeur then, and with fingers clamped about Nita's arm, led her to a door. She heard the key grate. Light smote her eyes.

She started forward, eagerly, but the hand on her arm held her back, and the man's gloating laughter rang in her ears.

“In a hurry, Miss van Sloan? Sorry, but I must detain you a moment.” And he held her while they walked slowly down a long hallway and entered a sparsely furnished room.

There Nita halted. A tremulous smile lifted her lips. Dick at last! But not the Dick she had always known. The man before her was plainly helpless—and there was a despairing droop to his shoulders that spoke clearer than words of lost hope...