Wentworth stopped before him, standing on straddled legs. A tenseness touched his eyes. "Did you find Hackerson's headquarters?" he asked.
Ram Singh stiffened like a soldier at attention. "I traced him to a saloon,
Sahib
" he reported. "There he talked with one who was bald-headed and had a cast in his left eye. Hackerson addressed him as Baldy. Baldy asked if the Sky Building had been fixed so it would collapse and Hackerson said it had. I left at once to report, but they must have seen me. I was shot down even as I began to tell you about it." He recounted then what had been said in the automobile while he was being carried to the Sky Building to die—of Baldy's words of the Master, of the anonymous "stuff" that had been put on the steel girders.
"Describe this bald man," Wentworth asked softly, and listened with narrowed eyes while Ram Singh told how he looked. He shook his head at the end. "I never heard of such a criminal," he said. "Go to police headquarters and see if you can find him in the rogue's gallery. If you identify him, tell
Sahib
Kirkpatrick what you have told me." He nodded in dismissal and Ram Singh backed three paces, raised his cupped hand to his turbaned forehead in a salaam, pivoted and was gone.
Jenkyns announced dinner, and Wentworth noted with surprise that the mad day had faded. He had not eaten since the night before. Knowing that he must battle soon, he allowed himself an hour more with Nita, during which time they ate the perfect meal Jenkyns had prepared.
Back in the living room, Wentworth took a turn up and down, paused before Nita. "Darling, will you get in touch with Professor Brownlee and have him install an infra-red camera in the Collins apartment in Middleton? And, darling . . . !" He paused, smiling down at her tenderly. "Hide yourself at some hotel. I'm afraid these killers may strike at me through you."
He bent over her, a hand on each arm of her chair, brushed her gleaming hair with his lips. Nita lifted her mouth to his, pressed her soft cheek to his with closed eyes. Wentworth's arms dropped about her shoulders, tightened savagely. It was as if he would shield her with that moment's caress from all the fury of the world, the madness of criminal onslaughts. When he released her, his eyes were gentle.
"It may be some days before I see you again, dear," he said briskly. "There is much to do."
He saw rebellious protest on Nita's face and promised swiftly that he had work for her, too, but that first he must make certain investigations . . . Then he sent her away. Five minutes later he was driving away in his town sedan, the Lancia in which he had burned the roads between Middleton and New York. In a dark side street, he parked and drew the curtains, entered the tonneau. His hand dropped to a button beneath the left half of the cushion and that section slid forward and revolved soundlessly.
Its back contained clothing hung on racks and from it Wentworth unfolded a mirror and make-up tray framed with mazdas. He went to work swiftly. Beneath his skillful hands the face of Richard Wentworth became sallow and sharp, the nose lengthened and bushy black brows that were low over his eyes masked the mockery of his own smooth eyebrows. A lank, black wig, a broad-brimmed hat of black and a cape completed the transformation. He pocketed false celluloid teeth like fangs. Again Richard Wentworth had become the
Spider.
He climbed slowly from the tonneau, and shuffling along the walk, he was a hunchback, twisted shoulders distorting the smooth erect stride that was Wentworth's.
The
Spider's
face was set and hard. Tonight he was borrowing a leaf from the book of gangsterdom. It dictated that when you could not find the man you wanted, you attacked where it would hurt that man. The police would be before him, of course, watching for Hackerson to fall into their hands. But Wentworth would not wait . . . .
He turned around a corner, his cape flapping behind him in the cold whip of the wind, a somber, half-seen shadow in the swift-falling winter dusk, and saw a block ahead the apartment house where lived Beatrice Ross, Devil Hackerson's mistress. As he shuffled closer, he made out the forms of two men hidden in a facing doorway. His lips stirred slightly in mockery. The police were watching for Hackerson, waiting for him to drop into their laps. As if Hackerson, knowing that police and the
Spider
both were upon his trail, would walk openly into so obvious a place as his mistress' home!
Wentworth circled the block to avoid the detectives, for his hunched and caped figure was known throughout the land as the disguise of the
Spider.
He turned alongside the apartment house where Hackerson's girl friend lived, moved close within the shadow of the wall. A black stairway opened downward, tunneling under the next building. Wentworth drifted into it soundlessly, brought up against a steel grating. A lock pick disposed of that in seconds and he moved through into a black areaway walled in by the towering, window-pierced cliffs of apartment houses.
Two minutes later, he was moving steadily up the stairs of Beatrice Ross' house. He reached the fourth floor without challenge, paused a moment outside the door that bore the bronze figures 4C. The lock brought a small smile to his lips. Hackerson would know the best kind to use all right. A Foxx. It was a tough nut to crack. A glance showed him the fire-escape exit on his right. He reached the window in quick, quiet strides, slid outside. From the platform, it was only a long step to the sill of the woman's bathroom window. That would be the bedroom that was lighted next to it.
Without hesitation, Wentworth stepped across four stories of deep blackness to the sill, crouched there while a cold wind flapped his cloak dully behind him. The window slid up noiselessly and slipping into place his false celluloid fangs, he crept inside, stepping on a steam radiator that hissed dimly, then to the floor. Abruptly the light snapped on, smashing into his eyes. A woman stood in the doorway with an automatic in her hand. "So what do you want, baby?" she sneered. "Come out and show your ugly mug."
Evidently she had started to undress. Her long hennaed hair hung down her naked left shoulder and her clothing consisted of a magenta silken underskirt and, above the waist, nothing but a narrow brassier that compressed her ample breasts. Her undress did not appear to concern her.
"Come on, baby," she urged, mockingly. "Come out where mama can see you better."
Wentworth saw that her lips were brilliantly carmined and their sullen curve was hard as brass. He came forward two slow steps, bared those ugly, inch-long fangs, and lifted his head so that the light crept in under the broad brim of his hat. The woman gasped, retreated a step. Her gun hand began to waver, and then she seized the automatic with both hands and jerked it eye high.
"
The Spider! The Spider!
" she gabbled and began shooting.
WENTWORTH had counted on the woman's fright. He dived in under the gun an instant before she yanked the trigger. His shoulder caught the woman's ankles and spilled her across his back. He heard the gun smash into a mirror, heard the woman's frightened shriek. Her head thudded against the edge of the wash bowl. Wentworth scrambled up, and the woman crouched on hands and knees, head hanging, swaying from side to side like an injured animal. The rest of her hair had come down and its dyed and lifeless ends swept the floor.
Wentworth seized her shoulders, dragged her erect and pinned her against the wall. Her mouth was sagging open, her eyes barely showed the irises. She was half out, but a dashing of water from the bowl jerked her back to full consciousness. He thrust his face, the sallow, menacing face of the
Spider,
close to hers; his lips snarled back from pointed fangs.
"You're going with me," he snapped, "and you're going fast—or you're going out feet first. Which will it be?"
The woman's over-red mouth gagged. She shook her head in bewilderment.
"Police are at the door," Wentworth said, emphasizing his words with a violent shake of her shoulders. "Either come with me or I drop you right here." He dragged out his gun and stabbed its muzzle against her abdomen.
"I—I'll go," she whimpered.
Wentworth led her into the next room, snatched a coat from a closet and threw it at her, and she got into it with fumbling hands. He listened at the door, then hurried her through it to the hall beyond. They went down the fire-escape while police were coming up in the elevator, dived through the passageway that a steel grating closed and moments later reached Wentworth's car. The woman huddled in the opposite corner. The winter night bit through her and her lips beneath the carmine were purple with cold. She watched the
Spider
with cringing eyes.
Wentworth apparently paid her no attention. The woman hugged herself for warmth. "Where—where are you taking me?" she asked.
Wentworth skated to the curb and twisted his long-nosed face toward her.
"Nowhere," he said softly. "You're taking me to Devil Hackerson, or else—" He let his voice trail off and the flat mocking laughter of the
Spider
filled the car.
The woman shivered and huddled miserably in her corner. "He'd—he'd kill me."
"Probably," Wentworth agreed carelessly. "Start talking."
Stark fright was on the face. She stammered out a hoarse plea for mercy, but her voice was hopeless. Wentworth took out his automatic slowly and once more the ugly mirth of the
Spider
spilled from his lips. Beatrice Ross whimpered.
"Get out," Wentworth ordered.
"No, no!"
"Then take it here!" Wentworth presented the gun. The woman's hands clawed at him desperately, snatching at the weapon. Wentworth cursed and jerked open his door, backed out. Beatrice Ross scrambled out the opposite side and began to run with crazy frightened shrieks. The
Spider
raised his gun deliberately, squeezed off a bullet.
"Oh, God!" The woman stumbled, clapped a hand to her shoulder.
A mirthless smile twisted Wentworth's lips. He had merely burned the flesh. He fired another bullet and fragments of cement stung her ankles. As she went around the corner, Wentworth blew chips off the bricks, then sprang to his car and spurted away. He circled the block in time to see the woman almost fall into a taxi. With a smooth twist of the wheel, the
Spider
took up the trail he hoped would lead to Devil Hackerson . . . .
The taxi droned southward on Riverside Drive, took the elevated highway along the Hudson shore and slanted down a ramp at 19th Street. It stopped at the entrance of a huge apartment house that sprawled over two blocks, one of those "colonies" that have sprung up among the tenements of New York's east and west sides to take care of the mounting demand for modern apartment quarters convenient to the business districts. The hallboy stared at the badge that Wentworth showed and stammered out that the woman had gone to Apartment 305.
The
Spider
was smiling as the elevator lifted him. If he knew Hackerson, the man would have assured himself of at least two exits to his apartment. That meant it would be on a fire-escape. Within two minutes after he reached the third floor, Wentworth continued his guess. He stood on the steel lattice-work of the fire-escape outside an apartment whose shades were drawn. He heard excited voices within.
"It was the
Spider,
I tell you," Beatrice Ross was blurting. "He tried to make me tell where you were and I wouldn't, then he said he was going to kill me. I ran and he shot at me three times, but didn't hit me."
Wentworth laughed silently. Even as he had hoped, the woman had fled straight to Devil Hackerson.
"You damned fool!" a man choked. "You damned fool! Do you think the
Spider
could shoot three times and miss? He just wanted you to come here so he could follow. You lousy little—" the sound of a sodden blow came through the closed window—"little tramp!"
Beatrice Ross's sobs filled the room.
"Butts," the man snapped. "Dig out and scout around the building. Muggsie, keep watch in the hall. I'll sit tight and wait. The
Spider
will be here any minute."
There was a silence of moments broken only by the sobbing of the woman. "It wasn't nothing like that, Devil," she pleaded. "I know it wasn't. I wouldn't fall for a sappy move like that. He shot at me and missed. He burned my shoulder once—"
"Shut up," Hackerson growled. "I want to hear the
Spider
when he comes. My God,
the fire-escape!
It isn't covered!"
Wentworth smiled thinly. He kicked in the window and the shade snapped up. He went in guns first and caught Hackerson half out of his chair, hand going for rod too late.
"Yes, Hackerson, the fire-escape," said Wentworth quietly, "but you were a little slow in thinking about it." The sinister flat laughter of the
Spider
filled the room.
Devil Hackerson's hand quivered at his vest opening, but he could not make up his mind to go for his gun, not with the
Spider's
two automatics leveled on his breast, not with the
Spider's
glacial eyes boring into him. The woman on the floor whimpered and moaned. She clasped her hands before her and rose straight on her knees and swayed backward and forward. Her coat came open and her brassier had slipped. Her hair was wild about her shoulders. She didn't say a word, just moaned.
Hackerson was unconsciously backing. His knees struck the davenport and he dropped down on the cushions and bounced soggily. The tip of his tongue touched his lips.
"What do you want?" he asked hoarsely.
"First," said the
Spider,
his fantastic fanged teeth chopping off the words. "First, the name of the man who ordered that job on the Plymouth and the Sky buildings."
Hackerson sucked in a deep breath. His eyes were riveted with hypnotic fascination on Wentworth's gaze.
"For God's sake, don't shoot,
Spider,
" he whispered. "I don't know."
"What about Baldy?" The words were little more than a hiss. Wentworth was listening for other things than the moaning of the woman and Hackerson's reply. He was listening for the possible return of Butts and Muggsie. They had been ordered to prowl outside, but they might return. If Butts peered up at the window and saw the curtains flapping out into the frigid night, he might think it worth investigating.