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Roy Glashan's Library
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The Spider, September 1940, with "Master of the Night-Demons"
Just as Adolph Hitler brutally slaughtered his opponents, so did Asmodeus, Master of the Night-Demons, crush New York's police force and lay down his hideous ultimatum to the city: "Surrender... or die!" Could one man—Richard Wentworth—with only his pitifully few loyal allies, and the Spider's sinister garb, stem this monstrous Blitzkrieg of crime!
FLAMES belched simultaneously from the muzzles of the Spider's twin automatics. Men were dying suddenly in that dark courtyard—men who had thought that tonight, surely, the Spider would be caught in the steel jaws of the trap they had so carefully laid for him.
They had known that tonight the Spider would come, and that he would wait there beside the moon-flecked fountain in the center of the courtyard. And now the Spider was here, his black cape swirling, his great black hat pulled low over the ghastly face they hated—and feared—so much.
But only for an instant had their hopes flared high. Somehow, the Spider had sensed the trap even before they had sprung it. Like a wraith, he was slipping back into the enveloping darkness, so that now they could spot him only by the flashes of his gun.
Here, on the great estate of the Honorable Wilbur Lucas, there were a hundred men—seasoned killers all—who had been promised a small fortune for the body of the Spider, The bait had been cunningly exposed, the trap laid with deadly thoroughness. Tonight the Spider had come at the urgent appeal of Nola Lucas, the beautiful sister of the Honorable Wilbur Lucas. It was her ad in the paper which had brought the telephone call from the Spider, and over the phone she had made this appointment to meet him by the moon-flecked fountain in the courtyard of her brother's mansion.
But there was no Nola Lucas when the Spider arrived. On the right was the great Lucas mansion. On the left, the summer pavilion. Facing it were the garages and outbuildings.
From all three sides a hail of leaden death poured down upon the courtyard where the Spider had appeared.
But how can men fight a moving wraith, a disembodied spirit? How can men know when they have killed one whom they cannot see?
Of this they were sure: Retreat had been cut off. The Spider could not go back the way by which he had come. If he went forward, or to the right or to the left, he must go straight into the blasting guns of the killers. Should he remain in the courtyard, he could not help but be blasted into eternity by that constant, searching, deadly hail of machine-gun bullets which raked the courtyard from end to end.
For the attack had been well planned. Each of the posted machine gunners had been assigned a certain sector of the courtyard. It was his business to rake that sector with burst after burst, and make sure that no living thing therein might survive.
For a full five minutes that deadly barrage continued, like a curtain of fire laid down by an attacking army before the zero hour. The sharp blast of rattling machine gun fire echoed and re-echoed upon the night, like an orchestra of death playing a melody of doom.
And then suddenly there sounded the shrill blast of a whistle. Abruptly the firing ceased. A searchlight beam sliced down from the roof of the great mansion, flooding the courtyard. It was followed by a second and a third. The lights criss-crossed each other, illuminating every square inch of ground which had been raked by the machine gun fire. They revealed the pock-marks where the steel-jacketed bullets had gouged the concrete. They revealed also the broken body of a luckless cat, riddled by a dozen slugs.
BUT nowhere under the questing fingers of those searchlights did the eager eyes of the anxious killers discern the body of the Spider!
Men came running from the mansion, from the pavilion and from the outbuildings. Frantically, they searched every inch of the courtyard. The Spider was not there. It was miraculous, unbelievable, that any living man could have escaped from that enfilade of lead. Yet it had happened. Once more the Spider had stepped squarely into the jaws of death—and had stepped just as deftly out.
A tall man with muddy grey eyes and a twisted mouth came out of the mansion to direct the search. He fumed and raged, ordering the killers to make more effective search, to examine the underbrush and the lawn surrounding the courtyard, on the chance that the Spider had crawled away there to die. He strode across the pock-marked concrete, and picked up the broken, bloody body of the unfortunate cat. He held the gruesome object aloft by the tail.
"Damn you all!" he spat at them out of his twisted and bitter mouth, waving the dead cat above his head. "Is this the best you can do—to go hunting for the Spider, and to bag a cat!"
He hurled the dead animal into the pool surrounding the fountain. It splashed into the turbid water, sending up a geyser of spray. Then it sank from sight.
The man with the muddy eyes and the twisted mouth turned and went among those killers, lashing at them with his tongue. And though he himself was unarmed, while the searching killers all had guns in their hands, nevertheless they shrank from the man with the muddy eyes, not even daring to look at him when he upbraided them.
For twenty minutes he directed that frantic search, scouring all the surrounding grounds for the body of the Spider, But at last he was forced to admit that the one he had sought to trap had eluded him. He ordered the men back to their barracks, which he had established in one of the outbuildings. Then he signaled for the searchlights to be doused, and himself strode back into the great old mansion. He stormed through the hall, disregarding the timorous salute of an armed guard who stood on duty just inside the door.
The man with the muddy eyes entered the library at the left of the hall. He was cursing venomously under his breath. An elderly butler had just finished setting a decanter of whiskey and a glass upon the desk. The butler involuntarily cringed away from the man with the muddy grey eyes.
"I—I've brought you your whiskey, Mr. Colona, as you ordered—"
Mr. Colona's muddy eyes rested for an instant on the butler, then he barked, "Get out, damn you! Get out!"
He accompanied the order with a merciless back-handed blow full into the elderly butler's face. It sent the man staggering backward so that he slipped and fell heavily to the floor.
Mr. Colona took a quick step forward and drove a vicious kick into the prostrate man's side.
"Get out, I said!"
The butler scrambled to his feet, uttering a groan of agony, and ran out of the room.
MR. COLONA kicked the door shut, and went back to the desk. He poured himself a stiff jolt of whiskey and downed it at a gulp. Then he sat down at the desk and looked up at the electric clock on the wall. It indicated exactly one minute before eight.
Mr. Colona's hand was shaking a little as he placed it on the telephone. He did not take the instrument off the cradle, but held his hand there, keeping his eyes on the second-hand of the electric clock.
Precisely at eight, he picked up the telephone and put it to his ear.
Five seconds passed, and then a voice came floating over the wire. It was a smooth voice, replete with the suggestion of power and authority.
"Good evening, Colona. I trust that you have a favorable report for me."
Colona licked the lips of his crooked mouth. His hand shook even more than before. No longer did he speak in a savage and vengeful voice. No longer was his manner overbearing and brutal. It was as if the very sound of that smooth, suave voice over the phone had changed him into a servile and cowering wretch.
"Asmodeus!" he gasped almost pleadingly. "I—I have bad news—"
"I hope for your sake, my dear Colona," spoke the voice of him who had been called Asmodeus, "that you are not going to tell me that the Spider has escaped you tonight!"
"Give me another chance, Asmodeus!" Colona begged, his face slowly becoming greyish-green. "Just one more chance, that's all I ask. I don't understand how he escaped this time. But I'll do better next time—I swear it. I have the Lucas girl locked up downstairs. She knows how to contact the Spider, I'll go to work on her and make her talk. Give me just this one more chance, Asmodeus, and I promise you I won't fail!"
He waited, gripping the phone so hard that his knuckles showed white. His face was tense and expectant, like the face of a prisoner at the bar awaiting sentence.
At last Asmodeus spoke: "I will think it over, Colona."
"But—but how will I know your decision?"
The suave voice at the other end of the phone chuckled. "If you are still alive one hour from now, my dear Colona, you will know that I have decided to give you another chance!"
There was a faint, whirring noise, and the wire went dead. Asmodeus had disconnected.
Colona was shaking all over as he cradled the phone. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Then he poured another tumblerful of whiskey, splashing the liquor all over the desk. He gulped it down, gagging on it. Then he sat, white-faced and tense, with his eyes glued to the electric clock...
OUTSIDE the mansion, a strange and ghastly stillness lay thick and heavy over the courtyard which had just ceased resounding to the rolling drumfire of machine guns. Nothing moved in the moon-flecked area between the mansion and the summer pavilion. Nothing was visible except the glowing tips of cigarettes which hung from the lips of guards who were stationed at each end, with high-powered rifles under their arms. In the murky water of the pool which surrounded the fountain, the dead body of the cat floated on the surface, sole victim of the murderous barrage.
None of the four guards glanced toward that fountain. They were not interested in it. They were watching the outer fringes of the courtyard, expecting, perhaps, that the Spider would return from some refuge he had miraculously found out there.
It would have paid them, however, to center more of their attention upon the fountain. For a black, shadowy blob slowly appeared on the surface of the pool, near the floating body of the dead cat. Inch by inch, that shadowy object rose along the side of the pool, and finally slid over, on to the terrace. For a long time it lay motionless, a part of the night. Then it began to move in the direction of the summer pavilion. Slowly, laboriously, carefully, it made its way across the shadowed courtyard, avoiding the patches of moonlight. It left a faint trail of wetness behind it, and water from the pool dripped down upon the cement. Otherwise there was nothing to indicate that a man was crossing the open space.
For twenty long minutes, the Spider had lain submerged beneath the surface of the pool. No wonder that no one had thought to look in there for him! No man could live for twenty minutes beneath the surface of the water. But the Spider had done it.
At the first hint that this was a trap, he had known that retreat was impossible. He had known that his enemies would expect him to run, and he had foreseen that they would rake the courtyard to search him out. He had, therefore, dived head first into the pool. Then, with swift, sure fingers, he had found his fountain pen and ripped the rubber sack from it. He had emptied the ink out of the sack and opened both ends, converting it into a rubber tube. With one end of this tube in his mouth and the other projecting a full quarter inch above the water, he had breathed sufficient air into his lungs to enable him to remain submerged while the grim and merciless search for him went on.
Of course, he had not been able to protect his guns or his ammunition from the water. They were useless now. The Spider must now face the task of completing the mission which had brought him here—but he must do it unarmed against the horde of armed killers who infested these grounds tonight.
IT was Nola Lucas whom he sought. Her appeal had brought him here, and he was convinced that her plea had been genuine and sincere, and that she had not deliberately sought to trap him. Therefore, he reasoned that she must now be a prisoner. His purpose was to reach her under the very noses of the garrison of this estate.
His movements must, of necessity, be slow and careful, lest they attract the attention of the posted guards. In spite of this handicap, however, it took him but five minutes to ascertain that there were no prisoners in the summer pavilion. Now began the slow and laborious process of working across the courtyard to the mansion. Twice he was interrupted in his progress, and forced to lie still and motionless, enveloped by his black cape, while the headlights of two busses swept into the courtyard from the road beyond. The busses arrived within three or four minutes of each other, and each carried a contingent of a dozen men who first reported at the mansion, and were then conducted across the courtyard and back to the barracks at the rear. The smouldering eyes of the Spider followed those new arrivals thoughtfully. New recruits these must be, for the huge and sinister force of evil which was gathering here for some secret purpose.
When the second of the two busses had departed, the Spider continued his cautious progress. To have attracted the attention of the guards at this time would have meant instant death, for the Spider was defenseless against those high-powered rifles—since his own weapons and ammunition had been rendered useless. And the guards were so keyed up that they would have begun to shoot at the merest sound, or at the slightest hint of movement.
Yet the Spider must take a grave risk, for he had come to a strip of courtyard which was bathed in moonlight. The strip was perhaps ten yards wide, and even a shadow would be noticed in crossing it. Swiftly, the Spider's black-gloved hand searched along the pavement until he found an empty machine gun shell. Under cover of his all-enveloping cloak, he hurled it across the courtyard. It struck the pavement fifty feet away with a sudden, startling clatter. Instantly, four rifles in the hands of the four guards began to pump bullets at the spot where the brass missile had fallen. For that moment, the eyes of all the guards were fixed upon the other side of the courtyard.
The Spider bent low, and raced across the moon-washed patch of pavement. He reached the protecting shadow of the mansion, and merged with the darkness there, just as the searchlights on the roof burst once more into brilliant glare.
For a full minute longer, the rifles continued to pepper away at that spot where the shell had fallen, while the searchlights swung around to pick it up. But the lights revealed nothing in that spot. The riflemen ceased their fire, and hurried out to search that end of the grounds once more.
The Spider had moved swiftly. Already he was around at the other side of the mansion, away from that light-stabbed courtyard.
Men were coming out from this end of the house, in answer to the alarm. They brushed so close to the Spider that, had they come a scant six inches closer, they must have tripped over him. Yet none noticed the dark and motionless blob of shadow which hugged the wall. When the last of them had disappeared around the side of the mansion, the Spider moved swiftly toward the door by which they had made their exit. He tried it, but found it locked.
THE clamor and excitement of the search was once more in full blast around on the other side of the house which faced the courtyard. But here there was only silence, as the Spider brought forth a long, glittering steel instrument from somewhere beneath his cloak. A moment's manipulation with that tool, and the door was unlocked. Like a gliding shadow, the Spider slipped into the hallway closing the door gently behind him, all his senses strained to highest pitch.
There was no one in the hall. Ahead of him stretched the passage which led through the kitchen, perhaps, to the front part of the house. At his left, a stairway descended to the basement. Without hesitation, the Spider chose the latter.
THE basement was dank and dark. There were no windows, and little fresh air. Dully, as from a great distance, came the noises made by the men who were searching the grounds.
The Spider moved soundlessly, feeling his way along the wall. Suddenly, he stopped short. His ear detected a slight whisper of sound, which might have escaped another man. In the dark, he followed that sound across the basement; in a moment it became more distinct. It resolved itself into the murmur of hushed voices somewhere here in the cellar. A few steps more, and they became even clearer. A man and a woman were talking, in hushed and muffled whispers.
The Spider stood stock still, listening.
"It's the Spider, Nola," said the man's voice. "He must have come to keep his appointment with you—and they trapped him!"
"God help us then, Wilbur!" The words came huskily from the throat of Nola Lucas. "If they have caught the Spider, then there's no hope for you and me!"
"If we could only get out, Nola!" fretted Wilbur Lucas. "These damned bars are so strong—"
There followed at once a wild and savage rattling of metal against metal. And it was easy to imagine what was happening there in the darkness. A man, embittered and hopeless, shaking the bars of his prison door with the frantic rage of despair.
"Stop it, Wilbur!" Nola's voice cut sharply through the impenetrable gloom. "You'll go mad if you keep on like that!"
After a moment, the rattling ceased.
The Spider made no move. He remained silent, invisible. But ahead of him in the darkness, he could now discern two white blobs which were the faces of Nola Lucas and her brother, Wilbur. His own face made no such startling contrast in the darkness, for the wet and dripping hat brim covered his features completely.
"Damn! Damn!" Wilbur Lucas cried hoarsely. "Who would believe it—that we could be made prisoners in our own house, and thrust down here like beasts in a cage!"
He subsided into silence, and for a long moment no one spoke. The sounds of the search still came seeping through the thick cellar walls, indicating that those killers outside were not abandoning their hunt so quickly this time.
"They haven't caught him yet," Nola whispered, "or they wouldn't still be hunting for him. Maybe—maybe he'll find us yet—"
"Don't be a fool, Nola!" Wilbur Lucas exclaimed testily. "They've got a hundred men on this estate. How could anyone hope to get by? Wait and see—they'll soon be bringing the Spider down here, a prisoner. Or else they'll throw his dead body down the steps, just to mock us."
"No, no! Something tells me... the Spider will win through. I know he'll win through!"
THE Spider stirred in the darkness where he stood. He removed his black hat, and allowed his cape to swing wide open.
"Thank you, Miss Lucas," he said in a deep and vibrant voice which thrilled his two hearers as greatly as it startled them. "Thank you for your confidence!"
Wilbur Lucas uttered a gasp of fright and amazement. But his sister called out joyously, triumphantly: "The Spider! It's the Spider! Oh, thank God! I knew you'd come!"
The black-caped figure stepped closer, so that they could see his grim and ghastly face. The fame of that scarred and ugly countenance had gone before it into the far corners of the Underworld. Caricatures of it had appeared in newspapers. Many evil men had looked upon it, but had never lived to describe it. Yet, so weird and terrible were those features, that the watchword in the Underworld was: You don't need a description. You'll know the Spider when you see him! None knew whose face was hidden behind those ghastly features. None knew the true identity of him who was known as the Spider, And no living man had ever come forward to state in public that he had seen the Spider unmasked.
Yet, those ghastly features—rendered even more ghastly by the gloom of that dank and noisome cellar—did not frighten Nola Lucas. Rather, they imbued her with renewed courage and hope.
"You'll save us, Spider, won't you?" she asked with a throb of exaltation in her voice.
"Yes, Nola," the Spider said softly. "I'll save you—if it's humanly possible."
Brother and sister were in adjoining cells. The cells had apparently once been storage bins, but they had been converted to their present use by a lining of sheet steel and the addition of grilled doors equipped with a metal cross-bar. The cross-bar athwart the door of each cell was fastened by a strong padlock.
The Spider examined the padlock by the light of his waterproof flashlight. At last he nodded.
"I can open the lock," he said. "But we must wait till they stop searching outside. The two of you could never pass through the grounds now."
He raised his eyes from the lock, and studied Nola Lucas. "Why did you send for me?" he asked. "On the phone, you told me that you had information—information about a menace which only the Spider could conquer."
Nola nodded swiftly. "Yes, yes. I wanted to tell you about the wickedest man in the world—Asmodeus."
"Asmodeus!" the Spider repeated. "That was the name of the legendary King of Demons—the ruler of all the devils who came to torment me in the night!"
"That's it!" cried Nola. "It's the men of Asmodeus who have imprisoned Wilbur and myself down here, in our own home!"
She halted for a moment, and then continued, "All those killers up there serve him. I've heard his plans. He's going to steal the property of many others, the way he has seized our estate. He intends to spread terror far and wide, and to make himself the sole master when he has destroyed the rule of law and order!"
"This Asmodeus," the Spider asked softly, "is he here—in this house?"
"No, no! Colona is the one whose shock troops seized this estate. Colona is a terrible man, but he is only a servant of Asmodeus."
"I think I see," said the Spider, as he worked over Nola's padlock with a long, glittering instrument of tool steel.
For the moment, he was so concentrated upon his task, and upon listening to what Nola Lucas had to tell him, that he failed to hear the man who was coming down the cellar stairs.
THAT man was coming down without stealth. He had taken only two or three steps down, and his legs alone were visible. The upper part of his body was screened from the cellar. In a moment he would be all the way down, and when his head appeared, he could not fail to note the gleam of the Spider's small flashlight. That man was himself carrying a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. Apparently, he was the jailer or guard for these two unfortunate prisoners.
It was Wilbur Lucas who whispered, "Spider! Look out there! Behind you!"
With the swift reflex action of a man who is used to meeting emergencies, the Spider doused his light, and whirled.
The jailer descended to the foot of the stairs, throwing the beam of his flashlight ahead of him.
The Spider faded silently into the darkness.
The jailer crossed the cellar toward the two barred prison rooms. He turned his flashlight square in the faces of Nola and Wilbur. He was a big brute with the thick neck of an ox, and the small, wicked eyes of a boar. He waved his gun.
"Nice an' snug," he said gloatingly. "I jus' came down to tell you two that your frien', the Spider, ain't agoin' to show up tonight. He's somewheres out there on the grounds, an' the boys is goin' to run him to earth if it takes them all night."
Nola smiled at him with brave defiance. "You're wrong, Judd. You will never catch the Spider, He's too smart for all of you."
Judd guffawed loudly. "That's what you think, baby! But you got plenty to learn. Our boss is smarter'n ten Spiders!"
Nola laughed scornfully. "Who? Colona?"
She was desperately trying to keep Judd engrossed in conversation, because she thought she discerned the dark, shadowy figure of the Spider moving around behind the ox-like jailer in the darkness.
Judd didn't notice her anxious glances, or if he did, he misinterpreted them.
"Colona?" he repeated. "Naw. Colona is a tough bird, all right, but he jus' takes orders from the big boss—Asmodeus. Asmodeus will wipe the floor with the Spider!"
He came closer to Nola's cell door, and stuck the flashlight under his arm. With his free hand, he took a key from his pocket and inserted it in the padlock. His small, vicious eyes were fixed hungrily upon Nola Lucas's slender and desirable body. "Colona—he said to make things uncomfortable for you, baby. So I guess I'll jus' spend a little time with you in your cell—"
He turned the key in the padlock, and lifted off the heavy cross-bar.
In the next cell, Wilbur Lucas shouted hoarsely, "Get away from her, damn you! I'll kill you—"
Judd only laughed. He drove his huge fist between the iron bars, squarely into Wilbur Lucas's face, sending the young man crashing backward from the grilled door. Then he turned and swung open the door of Nola's cell, and stepped in.
Nola backed away from him, her face suddenly white and strained.
"Spider!" she called in a weak voice. "Spider—help me!"
Judd's laughter echoed in the cellar. "The Spider ain't gonna' help you tonight, baby! He's in plenty trouble his-self right—"
"Sorry to disappoint you, Judd," said a cool, self-possessed voice at his elbow.
JUDD started to whirl around with a startled exclamation leaping from his thick and sensuous lips. But he froze where he stood, his eyes widening at sight of the dark figure which faced him. Anyone else would have struck Judd from behind. Not so the Spider, Though his guns were useless, he disdained to take an unfair advantage of any man. He waited until Judd had turned to face him, and then brought a black-gloved fist out of nowhere to smash home against the jailer's jaw.
Judd was a heavy man. Yet that blow, delivered with no great apparent effort, lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing to the floor. He struck hard with the back of his head, twitched once, and then lay very still.
Nola Lucas exhaled her breath in a deep and tremulous sigh.
"I—I thought you had deserted us, Spider, I couldn't see you in the dark, at first. I thought you had left us at his mercy!"
The Spider said nothing. He stooped, and snatched up the keys and the gun which Judd had dropped. Then swiftly he went and unlocked the door of the next cell. Wilbur Lucas had struggled to his feet, and was wiping blood from his face where Judd had struck him.
"Did—did you kill that brute?" he demanded.
"I don't think so," said the Spider, "His skull is too thick."
He replaced the cross-bar and the padlock upon the door of Nola's cell, locking Judd inside. From an inner recess of his clothing he produced a small object which he did not permit either Nola or Wilbur to see. He stepped close to the door of the cell within which Judd lay, and pressed that small platinum object against the cross-bar. When he stepped back and turned his flashlight upon it, there shown under the light the bright vermilion seal of the Spider—the mark which he always left as proof to all the world that his avenging hand had passed this way. Then he swiftly led Nola and Wilbur across the cellar to the stairs.
It was Wilbur Lucas who held back. "Wait, Spider, We can't escape this way. There are a hundred men searching the grounds, and the searchlights on the roof turn the night into day. We'll be spotted in a minute, and mowed down—"
The Spider waved him impatiently to silence.
His flashlight fingered along the wall until he found what he sought—a large fuse-box which controlled all the lights on the estate. Now, while Nola and Wilbur watched, black-gloved fingers snapped out fuse after fuse, to the accompaniment of little flashing sparks as the contact was broken in each case. There were twelve of the fuses in all, and when he had yanked out the last of them, they heard a great, confused clamor from outside on the grounds, as well as from the upper regions of the mansion.
Wilbur Lucas had picked up the iron bar of his cell door, and was carrying it as a weapon. At the Spider's direction, Wilbur directed a powerful, smashing blow at the fuse box, and then repeated it a half dozen times until it was only a twisted mass of metal. Now it would be impossible to replace those fuses quickly. As the Spider led the way upstairs, they heard men running around in confusion on the floor above.
Someone shouted, "The fuses! The Spider must have gotten in the cellar and pulled the fuses! Get down there! Quick!"
THE Spider did not pause in his ascent. At the top of the stairs he sprang into the hallway and almost collided with two men carrying rifles. At sight of his sinister figure, they tried to raise their rifles to fire point-blank. But they were too slow. With his left hand, the Spider smashed aside the rifle barrel of the first, and struck him hard over the temple with the barrel of Judd's revolver. The man went limp, and started to fall forward. The Spider seized him by the coat lapel, and flung his unconscious body around just as the second killer thrust his rifle barrel forward, and fired. The bullet plowed into the inert body of the unconscious gangster, drove through, and spent itself against the wall. The rifleman had no second chance to shoot, for the Spider's revolver belched thunder, and a bullet smashed squarely into the man's heart.
Other men were shouting and running about at the front of the house, and those two shots brought them quickly. Their rushing footsteps became audible, drawing closer, as the reverberating echoes of the gunshots died away. Nevertheless, the Spider did not hurry. Under the wondering gaze of Nola and Wilbur, he stooped beside those two dead bodies, doing something with that tiny platinum instrument which he had used in the cellar. When he arose from them, the forehead of each man bore the sinister and terrible imprint of the Spider, Once again, that grim nemesis of the Underworld had left his mark for all to see.
Now, the Spider moved with swift precision. He scooped up the two rifles of the dead men, and then herded Wilbur and Nola out through the back door into the night. He thrust a rifle into the hands of each.
"Listen closely," he said, speaking swiftly and urgently. "Make your way along the north side of the courtyard as quickly as possible. Head toward the road. When you reach the road, turn south, and run for your lives. When you get around the first bend, you will find a small car parked in the underbrush, and camouflaged by some tree branches. Get in that car and drive as fast as you can to the nearest town. Telephone the State troopers. Tell them to come in force, and to send a plane to machine gun these grounds. Now go—"
He gave them a little thrust, sending them out and away from the side of the house. But Wilbur Lucas held back. He had to speak quite loudly to make himself heard above the clamor and excitement within the house and out on the grounds.
"It's mad, Spider! We could never get out to the road. Colona's men are swarming over the grounds—"
"Do as I say!" the Spider ordered imperatively. "I give you my word you won't be halted. Within two minutes of the time you start, there will be nobody on this side of the grounds. But if you should meet anyone, use those rifles!"
Nola Lucas was looking at him queerly. "How can you promise that there won't be anyone to stop us on this side?"
But even as she spoke, her eyes widened in amazement. For the Spider had wrapped that black cloak about him, and stepped backward. And in a moment he was no longer visible in the night.
Nola and Wilbur had no other choice but to follow the orders of the Spider, Timidly, hesitantly, they struck off in the direction he had indicated.
THE Spider was already at the other side of the mansion. Here, men with hand searchlights were swarming all about him. They were throwing a cordon around the house, and sending other men around the grounds. Coolly, calmly, the Spider made his way through that confused mass of killers. He reached the opposite side of the courtyard, near the summer pavilion.
He found a thick trellis of ivy climbing up the side of the pavilion, and seized it with both hands. It was but a moment's work to heave himself up to the low roof. He turned and stood erect here, with his small flashlight in one hand, and Judd's gun in the other. He flicked on the switch of the flashlight, allowing the beam to stream up full into his own face, and from his lips there suddenly emanated a weird and soul-chilling laugh—that laugh which had more than once caused the blood of evil-doers to run cold in their veins.
Abruptly, all sound of shouting and of cursing died out in the courtyard below. Every eye was turned up toward that spot where the avenging figure of the Spider was limned in eerie light. Men came running toward the summer pavilion from every direction, leaving the north end of the courtyard deserted and unwatched—just as the Spider had promised Wilbur and Nola Lucas!
The Spider waited there for thirty full seconds, and no impresario in all the world could have staged a more striking effect than that which the Spider now staged upon the roof of the summer pavilion, with the aid of only a flashlight. Some might have called this the height of daring and bravado. Others might have called it a supreme exhibition of courage, of self-sacrifice—for the purpose of aiding those two prisoners to escape.
If it was foolhardy, it was done, nevertheless, with a grim and definite purpose. This secluded estate on the north shore of Long Island was far from the beaten track of traffic. These armed forces being here assembled—this Fifth Column of crime—might well grow into a deadly menace to society, unless nipped in the bud. It was necessary that someone break through to the outside world to spread the warning. And since Nola and Wilbur Lucas must have much more to tell than they had so far been able to communicate to the Spider, they were the ones whose escape must be brought about—even if it cost the life of the man who was maneuvering it.
For that first thirty seconds, the killers in the courtyard were so stunned by the spectacle of this man who was laughing his challenge into their very faces, that they did not think to use their guns. But then, the gaunt figure of the muddy-eyed Colona appeared at the front door of the mansion, directly opposite the pavilion. His face was twisted with rage, for he had just been down to the cellar and found that his prisoners were gone. He held a rifle in his hand, and swiftly raised it to his shoulder. At the same time, he shouted, "Blast him, you fools!"
His rifle barked in a deep-toned thunderous roar, and was joined by the staccato chattering of a dozen machine guns and the jarring explosions of half a hundred revolvers—all directed from various parts of the courtyard at that one point atop the pavilion where a single man mocked them.
But the Spider was no longer there.
WITH uncanny ability to gauge the split-second reactions of other men, he had waited until the last possible instant before the firing began. Then the small flashlight which illuminated his face was flicked out. His black cape and low-brimmed hat caused him to merge with the blackness. No bit of his face was visible. No sign of movement upon that roof was apparent. No man in the courtyard saw the dark shadow which flowed swiftly back along the roof of the pavilion, and then seemed to ooze down the side of the wall to the ground. Once on the ground, the Spider merged into the night.
The blasting barrage of fire continued to pour against the roof of the summer pavilion. Some of the killers raced up to the second floor of the mansion, so that they could command the pavilion roof from a higher vantage. But their own flashlights showed them nothing upon the roof. Nevertheless, they continued to shoot, in the blind hope that they would get their man. Punishment was in store for those who failed!
The Spider was already out of the courtyard, racing swiftly across the lawn in the direction of the road. No one was here to dispute his passage. Even if he had been easily discernible, all the guards whose duty it was to patrol those grounds had been drawn into the courtyard by the alarm.
When the Spider reached the road, he saw, ahead of him, the running figures of Nola and Wilbur Lucas, just rounding the bend. He did not hurry now, nor did he hasten to overtake them. He waited until he heard the whirring of a starter, and then the clash of gears as the hidden car broke out of the underbrush. Only then did the Spider round the bend. He saw the tail lights of the car disappearing down the road. In a moment it was out of sight.
He reached the spot where the car had been hidden, and uttered a low hut shrill whistle which carried sharply through the night air, even above the reverberating echoes of the gun-fire which were still coming from the direction of the Wilbur estate.
At once, there was the sound of further crashing in the underbrush, and a moment later a second car swept out into the road. This second car was a Daimler, long and sleek, its motor emitting a low, purring hum of restrained power. At the wheel sat a bearded man whose fierce gleaming eyes peered out at the waiting Spider, This man wore a turban wound about his head, after the fashion of the high caste Hindus of India. A purple sash around his waist concealed the long and curving blade of a keen-edged knife whose hilt protruded above the sash. He showed two rows of white and gleaming teeth in a happy smile as he reached back and opened the rear door.
No sooner had the Spider stepped into the car and shut the door, than the turbaned driver stepped on the gas and raced the Daimler down the narrow, rutted road. Even with the sudden acceleration in first gear, the powerful motor made no more than a humming sound. Spring-steel snubbers and shock absorbers kept the tonneau of the car level in spite of the bumpy road.
INSIDE the car, the Spider pressed a secret button, and a compartment opened in the back of the front seat, revealing a complete assortment of makeup material, neatly arranged in compartments. Another compartment in the rear of the car, also opened by pressure upon a secret button, revealed a small but varied wardrobe of clothing, as well as a number of automatic pistols and other weapons.
The swift fingers of the Spider began to work without hesitation, stripping the dark clothes off, and then removing the disguise from his face. As he worked, he talked with the turbaned driver in a strange, smoothly flowing foreign tongue, which a linguist might have recognized as Punjabi—the language of the high-caste of the Hyderabad district of upper India.
"It was touch and go for a few minutes, Ram Singh," he said in Punjabi. "For a while, I thought that it would be the last stand of the Spider!"
"Allah forbid!" Ram Singh exclaimed fervently. "Master, you should not take such risks. Those two whom you sent to escape in the other car were but a man and a girl. They are but two people, and there are no two people in the whole wide world who are worth the life of the Spider!"
"Thank you, Ram Singh," the Spider said.
"By Allah, Master," Ram Singh said fiercely, "if those pigs had brought death to thee, I would have gone there and killed every last one of them with my bare hands!"
The car was already a dozen miles from the point where the Spider had boarded it. The Spider had finished his work—for now. He had made a complete change of clothes, even down to his shoes. Now, as he sat back in the rear of the car, indolently lighting a cigarette at the end of a long amber holder, no one in all the world would have connected him with that dark and sinister figure who had stood upon the roof of the pavilion at the Lucas estate, and had laughed his defiance into the faces of the massed killers in the courtyard below. For this dark-haired, handsome man who rode at his ease in the twenty-thousand-dollar Daimler was known to the society pages of the New York papers as Richard Wentworth, millionaire sportsman, philanthropist, big-game hunter, and dilettante of the arts and letters.
The private fortune of Richard Wentworth was such that he might have made his mark in the world as a captain of industry, a collector of costly paintings or precious jade or jewels. Or he might have lived the life of a carefree playboy, drinking the cup of pleasure to the brim. But Wentworth was not the man to take what life offered and to give nothing in return. He realized that his peculiar talents were such that they imposed upon him a responsibility and a duty to mankind. That duty was the eradication of crime, and the swift meting out of retribution to those criminals in high places who were beyond the reach of the law.
For that purpose he had, many years ago, created the grim and sinister personality of the Spider, And in those years, he had made the Spider's name and the Spider's seal hated and feared in all the dark and murky corners of the Underworld.
THIS task which he had set for himself must needs be done without honor, and without hope of reward or thanks. For the Spider was himself the most hunted man in America. In waging war against organized crime, his methods were, of necessity, outside the law. When his two blazing automatics dealt out justice in the form of swift and sudden death to high-placed malefactors, due process of law was ignored. And the Law, ignored, is more wrathful than a woman scorned.
The total sum of the cash rewards which were offered for the Spider, dead or alive, reached a stupendous figure. And many a man—to his regret—had attempted to earn those rewards!
There were but four people in all the world who knew the true identity of the Spider, One of them was the turbaned driver who now sent the powerful Daimler racing toward the city, with his foot all the way down to the floor-board. Ram Singh was a Sikh warrior, descended from a race of warrior chieftains who had never bowed their heads in homage to any man. Yet Ram Singh gloried now in serving Richard Wentworth—for he recognized in him a fighting man greater even than himself.
"Faster, Ram Singh," Wentworth urged, glancing at the luminous dial of the clock set in the body of the car. "It's eight-thirty, and I have an appointment with Commissioner Kirkpatrick at headquarters at nine o'clock. It's important that I be there on time!"
The Sikh grinned over his shoulder. "Master, the speedometer needle is on one hundred and twenty. It will go no further. Already we have left two motorcycle policemen far behind—"
He broke off abruptly, and fought the wheel for a moment as he passed a huge and lumbering produce truck on the narrow road. But not for a moment did his foot rise from the accelerator. Their speed did not abate for one instant until they reached the environs of Long Island City. There, Ram Singh slowed down to a respectable fifty, which seemed as if they were crawling.
"Don't slow up, Ram Singh," Wentworth urged, watching the clock. "We have only eleven minutes—"
Ram Singh nodded. He pulled a switch which set a siren shrieking. It was a regulation police siren, and Wentworth, because of his personal friendship with Police Commissioner Kirkpatrick, was the only civilian in the City of New York with permission to use it.
Across the Queensboro Bridge, and down First Avenue, that screaming siren cut a swath for them in the traffic, the way a machete cuts a path through a cane brake. At nine o'clock sharp, the great Daimler swung to a stop squarely in front of the entrance of police headquarters.
There was a heavy guard of police thrown around the headquarters building, and a half dozen reporters and camera men were grouped on the sidewalk. Their faces were drawn and anxious, and there was nothing about them of the carefree and nonchalant attitude which one always associates with newspaper men.
Ram Singh stepped smartly out from behind the wheel, and opened the door of the tonneau. Richard Wentworth emerged indolently, leisurely. As he passed Ram Singh, he said swiftly in Punjabi, "Do not wait for me, Old Friend. Go at once to Miss Nita. Do not let her out of your sight. And keep your hand always on that knife of yours. From this moment on, there is danger for her."
RAM SINGH grumbled deep in his beard, and replied in the same tongue. "Let me stay with you, Master, for where you go, there will be sure to be a good fight. Jackson can take care of Missy Sahib—"
Wentworth shook his head swiftly. "Do not question my orders now, Ram Singh. From this moment on, we go on war-footing. The danger to Miss Nita is more than you imagine. Jackson will not be enough. It will take both of you to protect her from the one who has become our mortal enemy."
The Sikh touched his finger to his forehead. "It is an order, Master. I obey."
Swiftly, he marched around to the other side of the car and got under the wheel. Without looking around, he shifted into first and drove away.
Richard Wentworth, left alone on the sidewalk in front of headquarters, was immediately besieged by the reporters.
Tom Randall, of the News-Herald, got in the first word. "Are you the visitor whom Commissioner Kirkpatrick said he was expecting, Mr. Wentworth?"
Dick Wentworth raised his eyebrows. "Visitor? You say Commissioner Kirkpatrick is expecting a visitor?"
Johnny Stern, of the A.P., pushed Randall aside and exclaimed, "Come off it, Mr. Wentworth! Don't try to answer our questions with questions of your own. This is too damned important. Commissioner Kirkpatrick just told us that he is expecting a visitor at nine o'clock sharp—a visitor who is going to give him information concerning Asmodeus. Kirkpatrick said that this visitor would be able to give him a clue as to why this guy Asmodeus killed off seven of our leading business men in the last seven days. He also said that this visitor would have a plan on how to trap Asmodeus!"
The other reporters chimed in anxiously.
"Don't hold out on us, Mr. Wentworth!" one of the others begged. "The public is nervous and jittery. The people of the city are wondering if the police department is able to protect them against Asmodeus, should he go berserk. If you know anything, for God's sake, spill it!"
Wentworth sighed. "Boys," he said, "I do know something. But I'm going to tell it to Kirkpatrick first. Then, it'll be up to him if he wants to make it public. Now, give me a break, boys, and let me through. I'm late for my appointment."
Reluctantly, the reporters made way for him. With any other man, they might have been more persistent. But they knew Wentworth to be a good fellow. They knew that he had always given them a break when he had information of news value; and they understood that he was entitled to a chance to tell his story to the Police Commissioner first.
Wentworth made his way up the steps of police headquarters, nodding to several of the men on guard whom he knew by sight. Once inside, he made straight for the Commissioner's office, which was on the ground floor.
STANLEY KIRKPATRICK, Commissioner of Police of the City of New York, was waiting for him impatiently.
"I shouldn't have let you do this Dick!" Kirkpatrick said. "We're absolutely helpless against Asmodeus. It'll mean your death!"
Wentworth shrugged. "Someone has to take the chance. Frankly, I don't know a thing that would help us to catch Asmodeus. But by staging this interview, we may lure him into making a move against me. That will at least give us a point of contact with Asmodeus or with his chief lieutenant."
Kirkpatrick nodded soberly. He picked up a strip of teletype tape which he had just taken from the news ticker.
"Look at this, Dick!" The tape read:
PITCHED BATTLE BETWEEN STATE TROOPERS AND ARMED CRIMINALS ON ESTATE OF WILBUR LUCAS AT POINT SOLITUDE IN LONG ISLAND... SEVENTY-ONE CRIMINALS KILLED AND WOUNDED... SIXTEEN STATE TROOPERS WOUNDED, TWO KILLED... COAST GUARD PLANE FROM MONTAUK POINT AIDED IN BATTLE... LEADER NAMED COLONA ESCAPES... BLOCK ALL ROADS IN CASE COLONA ATTEMPTS REACH NEW YORK CITY... WILBUR AND NOLA LUCAS SAFE... HAVE INFORMED US THEY OWE THEIR LIVES TO THE SPIDER, WHO ALMOST LOST HIS OWN LIFE IN SAVING THEM... UNDERSTAND THIS WAS LOCAL HEADQUARTERS FOR UNIT OF ASMODEUS... SUGGEST YOU SEND DETECTIVES TO AID US IN QUESTIONING REMAINING PRISONERS, BUT EXPECT TO ELICIT LITTLE INFORMATION FROM THEM, AS THEY HAVE BEEN TOLD NOTHING BY THEIR SUPERIORS...
Kirkpatrick tapped the teletype tape significantly. "Dick, I've got to admit that this is over my head. I've never been up against anyone like this Asmodeus. He's practically organizing an army—a Fifth Column—right under our very noses. Those men out on Point Solitude at the Lucas estate were only recruits. But the ones he is using here in New York are trained shock troops. They're organized and trained so expertly that they can execute crimes of huge proportions, right in our midst. If we don't crush Asmodeus in twenty-four hours, the city will be at his mercy."
Wentworth nodded. "The only thing I can see, Kirk, is to go through with this plan of ours. We will pretend that I've given you some very important information about Asmodeus. You'll tell that to the reporters. I'm sure that Asmodeus will want to find out what I know, and will either try to capture or to kill me. In that way, I shall be able to establish contact with his organization. I'll leave now, and you can make the announcement to the reporters."
KIRKPATRICK shook his head doubtfully. "I'm afraid it will only end in our finding your body somewhere, Dick. How can you fight an organization, when you don't even know the kind of weapons they use? Seven men have been killed in the last seven days, and we don't even know how Asmodeus's killers got to them. And on top of that, he sent warnings to seven others. They are coming here in a delegation, tonight. If I can't assure them protection against Asmodeus, the city will give way to a reign of terror. People will lose confidence in the police. The police will lose confidence in themselves. Law and order will disappear, and we'll have—anarchy!"
"I know, Kirk," Wentworth said softly. "That's why I've offered myself as bait. Let's see how it works!"
Commissioner Kirkpatrick had one more thing on his mind. He still held the teletype tape in his hand, and glanced queerly at Dick Wentworth. "There's something I want to ask you, Dick. Were you out at Point Solitude tonight?"
Wentworth gave him a blank stare. "Point Solitude? You mean the Lucas estate? What makes you think I was out there tonight, Kirk?"
The Commissioner waved an impatient hand. "Don't beat around the bush, Dick. I want a straight answer. Were you at Point Solitude tonight? Yes or no?"
"Why do you want to know, Kirk?"
"I'll tell you why—because the Spider was out there tonight."
"And you still think I might be the Spider?"
"I don't want to think about it, Dick. There have been plenty of times in the past when I thought so." He looked Dick Wentworth straight in the eye. "As the Police Commissioner of the City of New York, sworn to uphold the law, it's my duty to capture the Spider, and see that he dies in the electric chair for the crimes of which he is accused. And if the Spider resists arrest, it's my duty to shoot him to death. If the Spider were my own son, or my own brother—or my best friend—I would do my duty as I see it. That's why I want your assurance that you weren't out at Point Solitude tonight. If I have your word for it, Dick, then I'll know I need never worry about having to shoot my best friend to death!"
For a long minute, pregnant with suspense, the two men looked each other squarely in the eye. At last, Wentworth said in a cold, hard voice: "I'm sorry, Kirk. I refuse to answer that question. I refuse to be cross-examined and placed under oath any time you begin to have new suspicions. If you believe that I am the Spider, then arrest me. Otherwise, I'll thank you to keep your thoughts to yourself!"
Slowly, tight-lipped, Commissioner Kirkpatrick nodded. "I was afraid so, Dick. The very fact that you refuse to deny your presence out there tells me much. I warn you, Dick, that if the Spider appears here in New York—even if he engages in battle with Asmodeus—I will do everything within my power to get him!"
There was no sign of emotion in Richard Wentworth's face. "So be it, Kirk!" he said tightly. "In the meantime, I hope you will not refuse to let me go through with this plan of ours."
"No, Dick. I must accept your services." He thrust out his hand and took Wentworth's. "As Richard Wentworth, my best friend," he said softly, "I wish you all the luck in the world!"
Without another word, Richard Wentworth turned on his heel and strode out of the office...
TWIRLING his cane carelessly, Wentworth made his way down Centre Street and then across to the Bowery. He walked two blocks farther south, then crossed the street and made his way north again. During all this time, he never turned his head once, nor did he give any indication that he knew he was being followed.
At last he turned the corner from the Bowery into Vesey Street. Instantaneously, the attitude of nonchalance vanished. He flattened himself against the wall. To his ears came the purr of a swiftly accelerating motor. The car which had paced him up the Bowery from police headquarters was speeding up, so as not to lose him. It rounded the corner swiftly, and Wentworth tried to catch a glimpse of the occupants. But the interior of the auto was dark, so that he could see only the two men in front, while those in the rear—if there were any—remained virtually invisible.
For an instant, Richard Wentworth had the strange, unaccountable feeling that the shadow of everything evil had fallen across the length of Vesey Street. It was almost as if some powerful force or personality was in that mysterious car and was diffusing powerful rays charged with some corrupting influence. He stiffened, gripping the cane tightly. Never before had he experienced just such a sensation.
The countenances of the two men in the front seat were faintly discernible in the light of the corner street lamp. There was a yellowish cast to their features which proclaimed them to be Orientals. Both were staring ahead down Vesey Street, trying to locate Wentworth. It was the one on the right who spotted him. He nudged the driver, and the car slowed up at once, coming to a stop barely five feet beyond him.
Wentworth's eyes became narrowed with speculation. He held his cane tightly in the left hand, with the right gripping the long silver handle. A sudden, overwhelming need arose within him to know who it was that occupied the rear seat of that car.
The yellow-faced driver threw the gearshift into reverse, and backed up the few feet necessary to bring them once more abreast of Wentworth. The front and rear doors were opened simultaneously. Two men emerged from the rear and one from the front, while the driver remained stolid at the wheel.
Richard Wentworth felt the blood run hot within him as he observed these three. They were yellow men, yes—yet not wholly Chinese. They were small and wiry, like Sumatran natives, but their cheek bones were high, and their eyes slightly slanted. They moved toward him, spreading out so as to attack from three directions, like jaguars on the stalk, with spring-like, wary steps, never uttering a word. And there were two remarkable and sinister features about those deadly Orientals: While they wore ordinary black alpaca jackets and trousers, it seemed that they had no clothing beneath. The jackets were open, revealing a sort of tight-fitting, silvery metallic armor, or coat-of-mail, which clung to their bodies and came high up around their necks as if it were part of them. And whereas the killers at Point Solitude had been armed with guns and rifles, these men carried entirely different weapons—weapons which were terrifying by reason of their very strangeness. Each man carried a sort of whip, the lash of which was apparently coiled piano wire, perhaps forty inches in length. The wire was fastened to a woven fiber handle, while at the other end there was attached a weight resembling a plumb-bob.
IN the light from the corner lamp, those wire whips in the hands of the mailed yellow men glistened and twisted like the bodies of slim serpents.
Wentworth's eyes glittered as he moved forward to meet the attack. He had brought no gun along, for it was not his intention to attract to the scene by gunfire any patrolmen in the neighborhood who might spoil his chances of contacting the enemy. And though he was not quite sure as to the exact use of those glistening, spring-like weapons, he was never one to wait passively for the enemy's assault. With a flick of his hand, he twisted the knob of the cane and drew forth a blade of Damascus steel from the sheath, and he thrust at the nearest of the yellow men.
They had not expected their quarry to be armed with a sword cane. The nearest one of the yellow men leaped backward, but not before Dick Wentworth's blade had sliced a long gash on his left cheek. The other two came in from both sides swiftly. And now they put their weapons into use. They swung them high in the air, handling them just like whips, and lashed out in such a way as to bring the long, snaky wire coils in a circling motion, intending to wrap them around Wentworth's body. One of the whips flicked toward his hip, while the other started to snake around his neck.
In a flash, he understood the deadly quality of those weapons. Once these coils encircled him, he would be helpless. For the plumb-bob at the ends served to stretch the coiled wire, carrying it swiftly around its victim. And once encircled, the wire would shrink back to its normal size, binding the man tightly and effectually. Around a man's neck, that shrinking wire could easily strangle him.
Wentworth leaped back from the murderous assault, but the yellow men followed him relentlessly, holding the whips poised for the cast which would encircle and imprison him.
Wentworth couldn't get both those whip wielders at once. If he lunged toward the right, the one on the left would encircle his throat. If he lunged toward the left, however, the one on the other side would catch him around the waist. So uncannily swift and expert with the whip were these yellow killers, that Wentworth's decision must be made in a matter of split-seconds.
Dick chose the lesser of the two evils. He twisted on his toes, and lunged at the one who was aiming for his throat. Just as the wire whip was about to snap around his neck, Wentworth's sword pierced the man's right eye. The fellow screamed with a terrible, high-pitched voice, and fell backward. The sword had bitten deep into his brain.
Wentworth withdrew the sword with a dexterous motion and twisted to meet the attack from the opposite direction. But he was too late. The weighted whip was already around his waist, and he felt the remorseless tug as it wrapped itself tight, cutting through his clothes and into his stomach muscles.
The face of the yellow man who had caught him was immobile as he yanked hard on the whip handle in order to increase the tension. Wentworth found it suddenly impossible to breathe. His teeth clamped down hard and he drew back his arm to drive his sword into the yellow man's throat.
BUT Wentworth had forgotten the first of those three yellow men—the one whose cheek he had gashed. That man was not disabled by his wound, and he had been dancing around behind Wentworth, whip raised and ready for action. Now, that wire snaked out and coiled itself around Dick's sword arm, winding twice around it and tightening with an irresistible tug. His arm was dragged down. The wire dug so deeply into his tendons that it paralyzed his hand, and the sword fell from his nerveless fingers.
And at that moment, when Wentworth was apparently a helpless prisoner in the grip of those two cruel whips, a woman's voice spoke from the interior of the car!
That voice seemed to be edged with triumph, and just a touch of venom.
"Bring him here, Tuma," the woman ordered. Then her voice crackled in a second order to the other yellow man whose whip was around Dick's arm. "Do not release the white one's arm, Nilit. He is a dangerous man."
Wentworth still held the empty sheath of the sword cane in his left hand. He tried to raise it in the air to strike with it at his captors, but that tight coil around his waist had driven all the air from his lungs, and deprived him even of the strength to strike a blow. The tug of the two whips at his body compelled him to follow the yellow men over to the car. This he had not counted upon. There could be no help for him now from any quarter, for he had deliberately chosen to turn into this dark and solemn street for the purpose of discovering the identity of those who followed him.
Well, now he knew as little as he had known before. The swift and skillful attack with those peculiar weapons had rendered him a helpless prisoner.
As they reached the car, the woman's face appeared at the window. At sight of her, Wentworth felt a strange chill course through his numb and weakened body.
Never in his life had he seen so beautiful a woman—not even excepting his fiancée, Nita van Sloan. Yet this woman's beauty was not the kind which a man might admire with wholesome pleasure. She was dark, her hair raven black and coiled high above her head. Each feature of her exquisitely carved face was perfect, with a perfection which was almost beyond the human. It was as if her face were a cameo fashioned by the hand of some diabolical super-craftsman. Only her eyes showed that she might be capable of any emotion. Yet Wentworth felt certain that such emotion could not be one of kindliness. This woman might have been some ancient goddess of the nether regions, at this moment pondering demoniac cruelty.
It was not only the woman's eyes which gave Wentworth that chill and ghostly feeling. For that portion of her body which was visible above the frame of the window seemed to be utterly naked, and to gleam like the purest of yellow gold. It took him a moment to understand that she was not naked, but that her body was sheathed from the neck down in a cloth-of-gold gown of the thinnest and finest texture. So closely did it hug the contour of her throat and breast that one might have thought it was the color of her body.
Her scarlet lips parted in a slow and voluptuous smile.
"Ah, Mr. Wentworth! They told me you were dangerous, but I did not believe it until I saw you kill my man with a single thrust of your sword." To indicate the one she meant, she nodded toward where her chauffeur was picking up the body of the dead man.
WENTWORTH faced her impassively, in the grip of those two cruelly tightened whips around his waist and arm. He strove to draw air into his lungs. "Who are you?" he asked hoarsely.
She laughed, and the sound of her laughter was like ice tinkling against crystal.
"Many men have called me by various names. You may call me—Lilith!"
"Lilith!"
The name brought swift visions to Wentworth. In spite of the pain which wracked his body, his mind was keen and alert. This woman had not been born with such a name. She had chosen it deliberately, for a purpose. Lilith, the Queen of Darkness, Goddess of the Night, was known to the Assyrians, and was worshipped unspeakably by the Babylonians! The Lilith of legend must have been just such a beautiful and seductive woman as she, whose soft and voluptuous body lured men to evil and their doom. That was three thousand years ago, when men lived in the dark ignorance of Pantheism, and offered living sacrifices to the gods whose wrath they feared. And now—today, in the twentieth century—this golden woman had chosen to be called—Lilith!
Wentworth stared at her unyieldingly. "What do you want of me?" he asked impatiently.
"Only to take you to one who wishes to speak with you. No harm will come to you—if you answer his questions."
"Who is he?" Wentworth demanded.
Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Like me, he is known by many names. To you, and to the world today, he is known as—Asmodeus!"
At mention of the name, Asmodeus, both Tuma and Nilit raised two fingers of their free hands and touched their heads, eyes and lips in succession. This was the immemorial token of reverence and submission by which men have indicated their subservience to forces which were stronger than they, and which they could not understand. But even in the act of making that obeisance, they did not relax their punishing grip upon the wire whips which encircled Wentworth.
He laughed harshly, in spite of the agony which was eating at his lungs like corroding acid.
"You serve a false god, you two!" he said to Tuma and Nilit. He nodded his head in the direction of the chauffeur who was dumping into the car the dead body of the third killer. "You see how little your masters care about what happens to you? Listen to me—drop those whips and go your way free men. No one will stop you."
But Tuma and Nilit did not even acknowledge by a sign or by a flicker of their eyelids that they had understood what he said.
The woman, Lilith, turned deep-veiled eyes upon him.
"It is no use. Asmodeus is my master, and the master of these men. We all serve Asmodeus unto death—and beyond! In time, he will be master of all. Be wise, Mr. Wentworth, and offer no more resistance. Come with us, and tell my master all that you know. Give your word not to escape, and you will be released and allowed to sit by my side in the car. Come." She extended her hand toward him. "Do you give your parole?"
The numbing agony of stagnant blood was spreading throughout Wentworth's body. But he forced a twisted smile.
"I am sorry, Lilith," he said hoarsely. "I make no bargain with crime!"
AS he spoke, he threw every ounce of his swiftly ebbing strength into a supreme effort. He thrust with the sheath of the sword cane, directly into the face of Tuma.
The ferrule smashed into the yellow man's mouth with a wicked thud. Teeth cracked as Tuma sprawled backward involuntarily, letting go his hold on the fiber handle of the wire whip. He clapped both hands to his bleeding mouth.
Wentworth swung around in a single lithe motion, and cracked down hard with the cane on the knuckles of Nilit. The man screamed with pain, and jumped away.
For an instant, Wentworth was free of both his captors. But the wire whips were still in place around his waist and around his arm. He dropped the sheath of the sword cane and unwrapped the wire from around his waist. He drew in a great gulp of air as the constricting coil dropped from around him. Then he whipped the other one off his arm.
Tuma was dancing in agony, with both hands at his face. But Nilit reached into his pocket and brought out a small automatic pistol. His yellow face was screwed into a vicious mask of hate as he raised the gun and leveled it point-blank at Wentworth.
Wentworth's right arm was still too numb to use. But in his left hand he still held the whip he had taken from his arm. A twisted smile tugged at his lips as he swung it by the handle, snaking it out as the yellow man and giving him a taste of his own medicine. The supple wire rippled, then straightened with the crack of a whip. And the plumb-bob struck Nilit in the temple with shattering force. The point of the bob pierced his skull, and he stiffened under the death blow. The gun fell from his fingers. His body doubled over and collapsed to the ground.
Wentworth heard a smothered cry of anger behind him, and spun around. Lilith was leaning far out of the car, with one of the wire whips in her hand. She slashed at him with the whip in a back-handed blow.
Wentworth dropped prone on the ground, and the snake-like wire with the plumb-bob at the end whined harmlessly over his head. With his left hand he reached out and snatched up the automatic pistol which Nilit had dropped. But even as he reached for it, he heard the queer, muffled voice of a man. It was coming from the radio in the car!
Even in that furious moment of swift and deadly action, the voice struck a familiar chord in Wentworth's memory. He was sure he should know the voice, that he had heard it before. But it was so muffled and distorted that he could not recognize it.
The voice was saying:
"All agents drop everything at once! Report to headquarters without delay! By order of Asmodeus!"
Wentworth's hand was on the gun as the man's voice finished. Instantly, there followed the swift acceleration of the car's motor. He snatched the weapon up, and turned in time to see the car racing away.
The wounded Tuma was clinging to the running board. His mouth was a mass of crimson. The woman, Lilith, was still leaning out of the window and staring back at Wentworth. Upon her seductively beautiful face was the most concentrated look of evil Wentworth had ever seen.
WENTWORTH raised the automatic for a snap shot, intending to puncture a rear tire. Even with his left hand, it was an easy shot for him. The pistol was a thirty-two, and with such a weapon he had many a time hit a much smaller target at a greater distance.
But he never got the chance to shoot. The shock troops of Asmodeus were equipped for every emergency. Suddenly, a thick cloud of smoke spurted out of the exhaust pipe of the car and spread out in a dense vapor. In a matter of seconds, the fleeing vehicle was obscured behind an effective smoke-screen.
Wentworth smiled wryly. Asmodeus and Lilith might be legendary figures of evil out of a dim and distant past—but they well knew how to make use of modern methods of warfare.
He fired five times blindly into the thick cloud of gas, but there was little chance of hitting a tire under such conditions. He knew he had missed, for he heard no answering tire explosion in response to his five thundering shots. He did hear the screech of tires as the car turned a corner. And then the smoke-screen began to drift upward, thinning out and revealing that the street was empty. The car had disappeared.
Thoughtfully, Wentworth lowered the gun. He heard a police whistle blowing nearby. Swiftly, he stooped alongside the body of the dead Nilit. His fingers flitted through the pockets of the man's coat. But he found nothing at all in them, not even a match. He explored that glittering, silvery coat-of-mail which fitted so snugly to the dead man's body—and found that though it yielded to the touch, it was made of material of such great tensile strength that it would probably resist all but the heaviest bullet. Anyone wearing this suit of skin-tight coat-of-mail might be knocked out by the impact of a bullet of ordinary caliber, but would not be killed—unless he were hit in the face.
The police whistle was coming closer, from the direction of the Bowery. Already people were appearing, attracted by the gun-fire. Wentworth had no more time for further examination of the dead man. He got to his feet, frowning. Silently, he slipped down the street, keeping in the shadow. Halfway down, he found an alley. He remained there only long enough to make sure that a uniformed policeman was the first to reach the dead body. Then he faded into the darkness.
SWIFTLY, with tight lips and bleak eyes, he made his way out to the next street, feeling his way along the darkness of the alley. In his hand he was still carrying one of those deadly flexible wire whips. He rolled it up and thrust it into his pocket. His lungs still burned from the constriction of that whip, and he could feel the smarting of the welts around his waist and around the biceps of his right arm. The cloth of his dinner jacket was shredded around the belt line, where the wire had cut into it. Grimly he entered a corner store and went to the phone. He dialed police headquarters, and asked for Police Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
"Kirk," he said, "I beg to report that I have contacted the enemy!"
Kirkpatrick's voice reached him, heavy with anxiety. "What happened, Dick?"
Wentworth laughed bitterly. "I met a woman named Lilith. I'm afraid, Kirk, that we're up against something pretty tough. Has your delegation arrived yet?"
"Yes," the Commissioner told him. "They are here in the office now. They have all received warnings. One of them is to die every day for the next seven days. God, Dick, I don't know what to do to protect them. And I'm worried about Nita, too. Asmodeus knows that she is your fiancée. Now that he's after you, he may strike at her—"
"Nita is well guarded," Wentworth told him shortly. "As for myself, I am looking forward to the next attempt of Asmodeus and Lilith!"
"Are you coming back to headquarters?"
"No, Kirk. I—have other work to do. It looks—as if I may have to go out of town for a while."
There was a long pause at the other end of the telephone. Kirkpatrick knew very well that his friend, Dick Wentworth, wouldn't go out of town at a time like this. He had never seen Wentworth run from danger. On the contrary, he knew that Wentworth was more likely to go in search of it.
The shadow of Kirkpatrick's thoughts almost reached out into the ether and along the length of the telephone wire. Wentworth knew what Kirkpatrick was thinking, and Kirkpatrick was aware that Wentworth could read his thoughts.
"Then, Dick, I may assume that the—Spider is going to walk again?"
"You are welcome to think whatever you like, Kirk. If I don't show up again, just remember one thing: If the shock troops of Asmodeus stage an attack tonight, it won't do any good to shoot at them as if they were ordinary men. Give orders to shoot at their faces!"
IN police headquarters, seven anxious and harassed men watched Commissioner Kirkpatrick as he put down the telephone after his conversation with Richard Wentworth.
"Gentlemen," he said, facing them across the desk, "this call was from a personal friend of mine. He has been working on the problem of contacting the organization of Asmodeus. I am happy to tell you, gentlemen, that you may now expect quick action!"
One of the seven men—a portly, ruddy chap by the name of Van Kosta—barked, "Bah! You police! You always promise that we shall see action. But it's only empty talk. We want something definite. This Asmodeus must be destroyed—before he destroys us!"
"He will be destroyed," Kirkpatrick promised, patiently. "We are doing the best we can—"
A small, thin man by the name of Lixton sprang up from his chair. He had a sallow complexion and a pair of watery, frightened eyes. "To hell with all that!" he shouted. "What are you going to do about this?" He waved a sheet of black paper before Kirkpatrick, upon which a message was written in white ink. "All seven of us have received these notices. What are you doing to protect us?"
His voice rose to a hoarse shout, verging on hysteria, as he waved that black paper in the air. William Barston, one of the others, tried to quiet him. "Take it easy, Lixton. No use shouting—"
"That's all right for you!" Lixton screamed. "You're the last on the list, Barston, but I'm Number One!"
The white message stood out boldly and terrifyingly upon the black background. At the top of the paper, there was a curious drawing, done in white ink. It represented the figure of a revoltingly fat bird-of-prey of some unknown species. Clamped in its beak was the end of a rope, and dangling by the neck from the lower end of that rope was the figure of a man. The man was manifestly dead.
Beneath the ghastly drawing, there were six lines of writing in the same white ink, with the letters carefully and accurately formed—as if the writer were one who took great pride in his penmanship:
Valentine to Peter Lixton!
Asmodeus has spoken,
I write in white,
But blood is red.
Tonight at ten you shall be dead!
Commissioner Kirkpatrick ran an already wet handkerchief across his perspiring forehead. He felt hopeless, beaten. But he dared not show it before these seven, for all seven of them had received similar Valentines, except for the date of death. Beginning with Lixton, one of them was to die each day for seven days, at ten o'clock sharp.
Such threats, couched in such language, might ordinarily have been disregarded, or have been treated with the usual precautions of placing guards at the homes of the seven men. But the threats of Asmodeus were not to be so lightly treated. Last week, seven other men—well known in business and the professions—had received similar poetical death sentences. And all seven had died at precisely the day and hour specified.
Small wonder that Lixton was terrified!
THE unaccountable feature of the deadly business was that no extortion was being attempted, no money demanded, no chance was being given to the threatened men to purchase immunity. None of them could even guess why their death had been decreed by Asmodeus.
Barston and Van Kosta were trying to quiet Lixton, but his voice rose ever higher as he waved the black paper, and pointed a shaking finger at the clock.
"See! Look! Its two minutes of ten! They say here that I'll die at ten o'clock! God, I don't want to die! I'll pay him—I'll do anything—anything!"
Kirkpatrick put a hand on the hysterical man's shoulder.
"Nothing can happen to you here in headquarters, Mr. Lixton. After all, there are police on duty all over the building, and we have a cordon around the block. Try to get hold of yourself."
Shaking with fear, Lixton allowed himself to be helped into a chair.
"Buck up, my man!" exclaimed Van Kosta. "It is only one minute before ten. We will stay here with you till the time is over, and then it will be proved that this Asmodeus is not so all-powerful, that he is an insane faker—"
Van Kosta's words were choked back in his throat as all the lights in the room suddenly went out!
Darkness descended upon the office—darkness in which frightened cries of alarm mingled with the hoarse shouts of police in the corridors and out in the street. Someone had taken a page from the Spider's book. Just as he had killed all the lights, out at the Point Solitude estate, by pulling the fuses, so someone had done here at police headquarters. But there was enough light still filtering into the office through the windows from the street lamps outside, so that Kirkpatrick and the seven men in there could see each other fairly well.
Lixton's jaw went slack, and his eyes rolled with sudden terror. "They've come for me!" he shouted, and darted into a corner, where he cowered.
The other six men began to mill around in panic, but Kirkpatrick snatched a revolver out of his desk drawer and called to them, "Take it easy! There are plenty of guards around the building. And there's still enough light—"
The words stuck in his throat, for just then the street lights flickered and went out. Everything was shrouded in impenetrable darkness.
There was the sound of a scuffle out in the hall, and a muttered oath. Then the thud of a falling body. The door was violently thrown open, and there was the sound of rushing men pouring into the room.
Kirkpatrick pointed his gun at the doorway and pulled the trigger. He fired twice, and then something coiled tightly about his wrist. He was yanked forward, and fell sprawling across his desk, the gun dropping from nerveless fingers. Almost at once, the snakelike wire which had caught his hand was released. Whoever the attackers were, they were totally invisible in the dark, yet were apparently well able to find their own way about.
Above the tumult and commotion within the room and outside in the corridors, the voice of Lixton rose suddenly in a high-pitched scream. It broke off abruptly, and was followed by the sound of violent thrashing about. Once more Lixton screamed, this time forming words: "They've got me! Help—" That was all. A moment longer the confusion and scuffling continued, then abruptly everything became still—except for the hoarse breathing of frightened men in the dark.
"They're gone!" someone shouted.
With his uninjured hand, Commissioner Kirkpatrick found a flashlight and flicked it on. He threw the beam of light around the room. There was no sign of the attacking host which had come and gone so swiftly and silently. The delegation of business men were still present, and Kirkpatrick almost breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that none of them had been harmed. But then his flashlight reached the doorway—and great, gusty cries of horror burst from the throats of the quivering men in that room. Their eyes became fixed in awful fascination upon the thing which the unseen raiding devils of the night had left behind them.
Hanging from the transom over the doorway was the body of Peter Lixton!
HE was dangling, just like the man in the picture warning, with a wire whip around his neck, cutting deep into the skin. His head was hanging down upon his breast, just as the head of the pictured man in the warning. The whip had broken his neck, and he had then been hung from the transom. Pinned to his coat was a large black placard. Upon it there was drawn in white ink the figure of that same curious bird-of-prey. And underneath it were carefully penned the words:
By order of Asmodeus!
The whole of police headquarters was a bedlam of confusion and panic. In the corridors, uniformed patrolmen and plainclothes detectives were scurrying about with flashlights and guns, seeking some enemy to fight. But there was none in evidence. The raiders had come and gone with stunning swiftness, leaving death behind them.
Lixton was not the only victim of the night raiders. A uniformed policeman who had been on guard in front of the Commissioner's office lay dead, with his neck broken. Downstairs in the street, two other patrolmen lay stark and still, while at the curb lay the twisted and broken body of Johnny Stern, the A. P. reporter. He must have gotten in the way of the night devils, trying to get a story.
But of the raiders, there was no sign or trail. Kirkpatrick had fired his gun point-blank into the doorway at the very moment when those men were rushing through it, yet there was nothing to show that he had hit any of them. Either he had missed—which was almost impossible—or they had carried their casualties away with them.
While the body of Peter Lixton was being taken down from the gruesome gallows upon which it had been hung, Commissioner Kirkpatrick strode up and down in his office, his face grey and drawn. Such a thing as this had not been known in the history of New York City. Never before had a criminal organization been powerful and ruthless and cunning enough to carry off a raid against police headquarters itself. Within a few minutes now, every radio station in the country would be heralding forth the news that Asmodeus was invincible and all-powerful; that the great police force of the greatest city in the world was helpless against him; that Asmodeus had the power and the skill to carry out his threat of death against anyone he chose. From this moment on it would be acknowledged that the Fifth Column of crime had taken over the City of New York!
WHEN Wentworth finished his telephone conversation with Commissioner Kirkpatrick, he left the drug store and hurried to the nearest subway station. It was his intention to get home to his Fifth Avenue apartment as quickly as possible, in order to prepare adequately for the next attack by Asmodeus. The subway was much quicker than a cab would have been, and he, therefore, made for the nearest station, at Worth Street. Before he reached it, he knew that he was still being followed. The unerring instinct which had guided him through countless perils in his adventurous career rang a warning bell somewhere in his brain. He stopped two or three times, under the pretext of looking in store windows, but was unable to spot his trailers. Nevertheless, he knew they were there. He smiled grimly. Perhaps Asmodeus' next attempt against his life would come quickly!
HE descended to the subway station, put a nickel in the turnstile, and passed through on to the platform. He watched the entrance, waiting to see who would appear. But, to his amazement, no one came down after him. He frowned. He could not have been mistaken. His instinct had never deceived him. He was certain that he had been followed in the street. Yet his followers seemed either to have lost him, or to have abandoned the trail.
The local train rumbled into the station, and Wentworth boarded it, still keeping his eye on the turnstile. But the doors closed, and no one else had boarded it, except for two or three people who had been on the platform before he arrived. He stood on the car's platform, looking back, as the train pulled out, and just as he was about to turn away, he glimpsed a man running down the stairs. That man was peculiarly dressed, and was strange in appearance, too. He had the high cheekbones and the small slanting eyes of the Sumatran natives—just like Tuma and Nilit. But, unlike Tuma and Nilit, this man was not wearing the silvery shining coat-of-mail underneath his alpaca jacket. Instead, it seemed that he was wearing some sort of black shirt and black gloves. The shirt was tight-fitting, like the black skin tights of acrobats. Upon his head he wore a small skull cap. That was all the chance Wentworth had to observe the fellow, before the train rumbled out of the station. But the one glimpse he had of his face gave him the impression of utter malevolence and vicious triumph.
Wentworth could not understand why the fellow should feel so triumphant. He had not succeeded in following his man. He might think that Wentworth was safely installed in the train, and might guess that he was going up to his residence. But there was nothing to prevent Wentworth from getting off at the next station, and disappearing—should he wish to do so.
The train was not too crowded at this hour of the night, and Wentworth was able to remain on the platform without being jostled about. A man and a woman next to him were discussing the atrocities committed by Asmodeus. Naturally, they had not heard of the raid on police headquarters. But they were speculating as to the possible motives of Asmodeus in sentencing prominent men to death for no apparent reason.
The woman shuddered and said, "I heard on the radio about how the Spider saved Nola and Wilbur Lucas from Asmodeus out at Point Solitude. I hope to heaven the Spider decides to come to New York. I'm afraid the police aren't smart enough for Asmodeus!"
WENTWORTH'S eyes were troubled as he turned away from them, so as not to appear to be eavesdropping. It was indeed serious when the man in the street recognized the desperateness of the situation. For this was the first step in the eventual total loss of morale. Once the public's confidence in the law-enforcing agencies of the city was shattered, Asmodeus would have a foothold toward establishing his total reign of terror.
He watched each station carefully as they pulled into it, on the chance that his follower had telephoned ahead for someone else to pick up the trail. But no one boarded the train who looked in the least as if he might be bent on such a mission.
It was just before the train reached the Fourteenth Street express station that the blow was struck.
Somewhere up ahead on the track, a thunderous, shattering explosion sent its crashing reverberation down the length of the tunnel. A great blast of hot, cordite-filled air swept past the train, as if blown out of the lungs of a fire-eating giant. Abruptly, the train came to a jarring halt. Car crashed against car as the rear ones piled into those ahead. Men and women were thrown to the floor, bruised and dazed. At the same time, all the lights went out. Even the emergency system failed to operate. In the total darkness which followed, panic welled up among the passengers like a stark apparition.
Screams and groans filled the air—only to be drowned out at once by the blast of a second explosion.
Wentworth had been thrown to his hands and knees, but he bounced back to his feet with the resiliency of lithe and well-powered muscles. He brought out his flashlight at once, and the thin pencil of its beam revealed to him the milling, plunging, fighting figures of passengers, all scrambling in their frantic anxiety to get out of the car. Their terror was no whit lessened by the fact that the explosions were continuing in rapid succession. Those explosions were not all taking place in the same spot. From the intensity of their sounds, Wentworth judged that the blasts had been set off at spaced intervals throughout the subway system, for the ones they were hearing now seemed to be coming from far uptown.
No wonder, then, that the yellow killer who had followed him had given up the chase at the subway entrance, and had grinned with malevolent triumph when he saw Wentworth board the train. He must have known that the destruction of the subway system was timed for this moment.
Passengers fought their way out on to the platform, scrambling and clawing at the doors in a desperate effort to get them open. But the guard at the end of the train must have been rendered unconscious by the jarring stop. The doors would not open.
Wentworth was wedged into a corner by the fighting mass of people. He tried to raise his voice to speak to them, but it was impossible to make himself heard above the screams and shouts, and above the continuous echoing and re-echoing of the swiftly recurring explosions. No matter how far away in the subway system those explosions were taking place, the volume of their blasting sound was carried with full intensity throughout the tunnel. Each new explosion added to the rolling volume of sound, like an avalanche which increases in size as it thunders down the mountainside.
WEDGED in that corner as he was, Wentworth shuddered at the thought that this same scene of hysterical panic was taking place in thousands of subway cars up and down the line. There were never less than two hundred thousand people in the subway system at any time of the day or evening. What ghastly scenes must be occurring up and down the miles of tunnel!
Wentworth tried to push his way out of the corner, so as to get to the middle door in the platform. That door would not be locked, and could be opened inward if it were possible to get the crowd back from it. He managed to squirm over to that door, but all his shouts to the people to back away from it went unheeded. Now, as he struggled against impossible odds to wrench the door open, there came a whiff of something which sent a sudden, terrible chill of apprehension through his veins.
It was the pungent smell of smoke!
Fire in the subway! With tens of thousands of people trapped in thousands of subway cars throughout the line! And here these men and women about him were clawing in wild panic, obstructing their own means of escape. With all his strength, Wentworth could not budge them away from the door. His voice was drowned by the din and clamor. Desperately, he sought for a means of saving these people from themselves.
There was only one thing that he could do—and he did it! He turned out his flashlight, raised his head in the air, and his lips parted slightly. The muscles of his throat became taut. And there emerged a sound so weird and shrill and terrifying, that it dominated every other sound in the car, even cutting into the rumbling of the explosion.
It was the soul-chilling laugh of the Spider!
Every man and woman in the car became rigid as that ghastly laughter crackled against their eardrums and impinged itself upon their consciousness. There was no doubt in anyone's mind as to the identity of that laughter. They had read about it in newspapers. They had heard it over the radio, at such times as the Spider had found it necessary to broadcast. This, then, was the Spider who was somewhere in their midst. Yet none knew which of them was uttering that weird sound. For Wentworth was throwing his voice with all the skill of the accomplished ventriloquist.
As soon as he had captured their attention, he allowed the laughter to trickle away into silence. But he immediately followed it with words.
"You fools!" he told them, in that sharp and rasping voice which he had cultivated for the use of the Spider alone. "You fools! Do you want to die here like rats because of your own panic? Step back from the door, so it can be opened. Hurry, and I'll save as many of you as I can, before the fire comes. Step back, I say!"
THE powerful and insistent voice, coming apparently from the air above them, had its effect. Wentworth helped by starting to push and shove the people away from the door. Now they offered no resistance. In a moment, he had a clear space, and wrenched the door open. This was the last car of the train, and if he had not braced himself with powerfully bulging muscles, he would have been thrown out upon the track by the sudden forward surge of the crowd. He realized instantly that this mass of people would become jammed in the narrow doorway, if their exit were not regulated. He flashed on his light and saw one or two competent looking men, who had apparently been brought to their senses by the strident voice of the Spider, He saw by their expressions that they realized the gravity of the situation.
"The Spider is right," he said. "Can you two fellows hold this crowd in check? I'll find the nearest exit, and you can send them out one at a time. Women and children first."
The men nodded, and slipped into place beside Wentworth. They turned and faced the crowd, raising their voices above the din of the still continuing explosions. Once they had shouted out what they intended to do, the pushing and crushing ceased. In spite of what may be said about them, the average New Yorker is far from being selfish or cowardly. Given an emergency, he has been known to rise to the occasion in magnificent style. These men here in the subway train were no exception. Though the car was now completely jammed by the influx of passengers from the cars ahead, the women and children were quickly and cheerfully helped forward.
As soon as Wentworth saw that the situation was under control, he leaped down onto the roadbed. The pungent odor of smoke was even stronger now, and looking down the length of the track ahead of the train, he saw the red glow of fire sweeping toward him. There was nothing in the subway tunnel for fire to feed upon, therefore this must be a chemical conflagration, deliberately manufactured for the purpose of wantonly destroying life.
His face was grim with fury. Tonight there would be sadness and mourning in thousands of homes—all because one man sought some secret and unspeakable goal.
Wentworth spotted the emergency ladder leading up to the grated opening in the roof of the subway. He climbed up it swiftly, and pushed the grating out. Then he descended again, just in time to help the first of the women passengers up the ladder. One after another they came past him, some murmuring thanks, others moaning to themselves. There was now no longer any disorder among them, but Wentworth urged them to greater speed as the heat in the tunnel increased. The chemical fire was drawing swiftly closer, forced onward by the recurring blasts of the explosions up the line.
There were almost three hundred people in the train, and by the time the last had left the tunnel, the fire was so close that its heat made the emergency ladder too hot to hold. Wentworth used his hat and a handkerchief to hold the ladder as he climbed up, the last one to leave. In the street, the confusion was dreadful. Traffic had halted, and the rescued passengers were wandering around in a daze. The air was filled with the clangor of fire apparatus, the insistent clamor of racing ambulances, and the wail of police car sirens. A green police truck with a wrecking crew and a pull-motor came to a stop at the curb, but as soon as they saw that there were no injured here, the car dashed away up the line.
WENTWORTH saw that there was nothing for him to do here, and started to make his way out of the crowd as inconspicuously as possible. But one of the two men who had helped in the subway train accosted him. He was a well-knit man in his middle forties, with a firm, square jaw, and a pair of level grey eyes. He carried himself with a youthful and military bearing, despite the hint of grey hair at his temples.
"Excuse me, sir," he said to Wentworth. "My name is Crandall. I want to shake your hand, sir. If it hadn't been for you, we would never have gotten out of that subway train alive. After the Spider gave that mysterious warning, I saw how you pushed the crowd aside. If you hadn't taken charge, we wouldn't have escaped anyway—even with the Spider's warning."
Wentworth smiled deprecatingly. But his eyes clouded. "I am wondering how many thousands of people died down in there tonight—or are still dying."
Crandall's face became fixed and stern. "It's that damned fiend, Asmodeus! The police can't cope with him. Thank God, at least, that the Spider is in New York."
Wentworth nodded, murmuring his hope that the Spider might be able to accomplish something against the vicious organization of Asmodeus. He gave his name to Crandall, and promised to look him up as soon as this trouble was over. But as he was turning away, the older man stopped him once more.
"Look here, Wentworth! Why can't we do something about this? As long as the police are helpless, it's up to the citizens to step in. I'm an ex-service man. I commanded a company in the Argonne. I could round up a lot of the boys from the Legion. We could organize a sort of vigilante army—"
Wentworth's eyes glowed. "I was in the service, too. By God, Captain Crandall, I think you've got something worthwhile there!"
"I'll get right to work!" Crandall burst out. "Here—" he scribbled a number on a slip of paper and thrust it into Wentworth's hand—"there's my address and telephone number. Phone me, or come over, any time tonight. I'll be up all night, contacting the boys. We'll hold a council of war."
Wentworth took the slip of paper. In turn he gave Crandall his own phone number—the number of one of the many apartments he maintained in the city.
"I'll call you," he said in parting, "unless something happens to me. If—if I shouldn't be able to make it, a—friend of mine may contact you."
"A friend?" Captain Crandall asked, puzzled. "What's his name?"
Wentworth smiled. "You will know him... when he shows up!"
He hurriedly left the puzzled Crandall, and made his way through the throng. It was impossible to get a taxicab. They had all been commandeered for the purpose of rushing injured people out of the subways to hospitals. Fire-fighting crews and police were working at all the emergency exits, carrying charred and blackened bodies out into the night air. Of those who were alive, none had been so fortunate as the ones who had found themselves in Wentworth's train. For in almost every case, panic had contributed to the number of injuries, where the fire and the explosions had failed to take sufficient toll.
WENTWORTH felt sick at heart at sight of all these innocent victims of one man's monstrous scheming. He entered a telephone booth in a corner drug store where they were administering first aid to a dozen victims, and dialed police headquarters. The "busy" signal kept coming back to him constantly. It was impossible to get the headquarters number. He realized that calls must be flooding in there from every point in the city. Anxious relatives in all the five boroughs must be phoning to find out whether the names of their dear ones were on the casualty lists.
In order to get his connection, Wentworth dialed the operator and asked for a certain official number, which was not known to more than thirty people in all of Greater New York. A word from him over this private wire, and his call was immediately put through to headquarters. A moment later, he had Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
"Kirk," he said, "do you want my help down there?"
"No, Dick. There's nothing that any of us can do down here. I'm tied up now, hand and foot. I've had to assign three-fourths of all available men to emergency and first aid work on the subway. It means that hundreds of vital points all over the city must be left unguarded by police. It means that Asmodeus is free to strike with his shock troops wherever he likes, and as often as he pleases. I'm sure the subway explosion was engineered by Asmodeus, just for the purpose of immobilizing the police force! It's a Blitzkrieg, Dick!"
Wentworth gave the Commissioner the telephone number of Captain Crandall. "Get in touch with him, Kirk. I'm sure he's a good man. He may be able to assemble a sizeable force of ex-service men to police the city in the emergency. And if you want me down there—"
"No, no, Dick. It's more important that you keep on with what you're doing. For God's sake, try to effect contact with Asmodeus. I hate to ask you to do this, Dick, but if it's necessary for you to risk your life—I know you're only too glad to do so!"
"Right you are, Kirk!" Wentworth said. "I shall do my best."
WENTWORTH hitch-hiked his way uptown on the tailboard of a truck which had been commandeered as an ambulance. At Times Square, he descended from the truck, and made his way, bleak-eyed and grim, across the crowded intersection. It was here that the greatest destruction of life had taken place. One of the explosions had occurred right in Times Square station, where the Broadway Subway, the Seventh Avenue Subway, the Queensboro Line, and the Grand Central Shuttle all meet.
Stretcher bearers were still bringing the dead and the injured up through the kiosks and the emergency exits, forming a ghastly parade of misery. Ambulances cluttered the streets, moving through the milling throngs with difficulty. There were not enough of them, so it had been necessary to lay out the dead in one row on the sidewalk, and the injured in another row. Volunteer physicians and nurses were working feverishly, without a moment's breathing space, passing from stretcher to stretcher on the sidewalk.
The police were as stunned as the citizens themselves. They had lost all authority over the throngs. People wandered aimlessly everywhere around Times Square. Many of them had been in the subway at the time of the explosion, but miraculously had been spared. They were still suffering from shock, and didn't seem to know what to do with themselves. The odor of smoke and of cordite was still emanating from the emergency exits. This was the worst catastrophe which had ever struck the City of New York.
Wentworth had a definite objective, the Broadcast Building, on the north side of Times Square. But it took him almost twenty minutes to work his way to it. On the fourth floor of this building was Station WASM—a new radio station which had been in operation only about four months, having taken over the wavelength of Station WNZ. The latter station had inexplicably gone out of business. WASM had succeeded amazingly in gathering an impressive list of national advertisers—this, in spite of the fact that it was not a member of any network.
The star commentator of Station WASM was a man named Rex Pryor. Pryor had gained a large radio audience by his uncanny ability to foretell certain events. Only a month ago, he had said cryptically that certain people would do well to learn to swim. It was only eight days after that when a houseboat was found sunk at the bottom of the East River. The bodies of eight people were found locked in one of the rooms of the houseboat. They had died by drowning, unable to fight their way out of the cabins. Pryor, of course, denied that his cryptic statement had had any relation to those unfortunate people. The eight victims all belonged to the Social Register, and the houseboat was the property of one of them. But no one had been able to ascertain how those eight people had come together there. Only the week before, Pryor had said that seven men with broken necks were just as dead as seven men with their throats cut. Strangely enough, the warning of Asmodeus had shortly followed to seven prominent business men. Those seven men had all died, one after the other, with their throats cut. Now, this week, seven others had received warnings that they would die by strangulation.
The police had, of course, noted that the initials of Station WASM were the same as the first three letters of the name of Asmodeus, They had carefully investigated the ownership and operation of the radio station, but had found nothing suspicious. The stock was owned by three or four wealthy families, none of whom could in any way be connected with a criminal like Asmodeus. But the events of this evening had thrown a different light on that question, because one of the families owning stock in WASM was—the family of Wilbur and Nola Lucas!
THESE facts alone would not have brought Wentworth to the Broadcast Building on a night like this, when death and destruction were rampant in the city. But something which had been evading him for the last half hour had suddenly struck home like a bolt from the blue. He recalled that voice, muffled and unrecognizable, which had spoken through the radio to the woman, Lilith, just before her car had pulled away from the curb. All evening, Wentworth had been troubled by his inability to place the voice. But now he knew! He didn't think he could be mistaken. He would have been ready to stake his life that it had been the voice of Rex Pryor!
The lobby of the Broadcast Building was deserted. The elevator staff and all the service employees were out on Times Square, watching the drama of misery and suffering which was being played out there. Very few of the tenants had remained in the building, either. This was the kind of spectacle which attracts the morbid curiosity of the human being with a strange, magnetic power.
All four of the elevators were standing deserted at the ground floor. Wentworth got into one of them, closed the door and pulled the lever. He stopped at the fourth floor, and got out. The reception office was deserted. But down the hall, he saw a red light, indicating that that particular studio was on the air at that time. Walking past the glassed-in enclosure, he saw the tall and saturnine Rex Pryor seated at his desk and speaking into a microphone. On the wall behind Pryor there were two signs, both in illuminated neon letters. One read: "Silence." The other read: "On the air." Pryor was reading from notes, and did not see Wentworth passing by. Wentworth went around the corner and opened the door leading into the auditorium. No one was occupying any of the seats. At the front of the auditorium, there was a small stage. Wentworth climbed up on this, went into the wings, and opened another door. This led into the sound chamber of Rex Pryor's studio. It was separated from the studio itself by glass partitions. A loudspeaker on a small mahogany table was emitting Pryor's voice from the next room.
Pryor was saying, "There is little doubt in the mind of anyone that this terrible holocaust was engineered by Asmodeus. I assure you, People of New York, that Asmodeus is responsible for it. Soon you will see further demonstrations of the power of Asmodeus. He has made me his mouthpiece, and I am telling you only what he has instructed me to tell. When Asmodeus is tired of destruction and death—when he has had his fill of taking human life—he is going to tell you upon what terms he will spare the rest of the city. I advise you to listen, and to obey him implicitly. The forces at his command are invincible. The people of New York have no choice but to yield—"
Pryor looked up at that moment, and saw Wentworth in the sound chamber. A spasm of surprise twitched across his saturnine features. His stubby fingers crumpled the papers on his desk. In a moment, he recovered his self-possession. He leaned swiftly forward, and put his mouth close to the microphone. And then, in a voice entirely different from that which he had used for broadcasting, he said urgently, "I notice that I have a distinguished visitor here in the studio—Mr. Richard Wentworth!"
AS soon as he had said that, Pryor sprang up and pulled the switch, which cut the microphone off the air. Then he placed his finger on a button. Immediately, an alarm bell began to sound its raucous clangor somewhere in the building.
Wentworth's eyes narrowed. He pulled out the revolver which he had taken from Nilit, down on Vesey Street. He had fired only five shots from it, and there was still one more bullet in the gun. He placed the muzzle of the revolver against the glass partition, pointing it straight at Rex Pryor. With his hand, he motioned for Pryor to remain where he was.
Pryor stared at him for a moment across the room, and then his thin lips parted in a cryptic grin. Deliberately, he turned his back and began to walk to the door of the broadcasting room. Wentworth's lips tightened. He lowered the sight of the revolver, aiming at Pryor's legs. Then he pulled the trigger.
The gun blasted, and the bullet smashed with pile-driver force against the glass partition. But it did not go through! It cracked the glass in a myriad, star-shaped cracks, and ricocheted off. The partition was made of bullet-proof glass!
Tight-lipped, Wentworth flung away the empty gun and whirled around. He pushed out of the sound chamber, and into the auditorium. His running footsteps echoed hollowly as he raced for the door into the corridor. He stopped short, with a bitter smile upon his lips.
A dozen men were racing down the corridor toward him. They were wiry little yellow men, dressed like Nilit and Tuma, attired in alpaca jackets. But instead of the glittering, silvery armor which Nilit and Tuma had worn, these men had black, skin-tight coats-of-mail under their jackets. Each of them had a long, wire whip, which he wielded with consummate skill. The foremost of these yellow killers was less than thirty feet from Wentworth, with the others strung out behind him.
Dick Wentworth had only a moment in which to act. He could stand and fight; or back up into the auditorium with the hope of locking the door behind him; or retreat down the length of the hallway. He turned his head, and saw that Rex Pryor had come out of the sound room on his right. Pryor now had a long-barreled revolver, to which was attached a silencer. Pryor's long, gaunt face was twisted in a malignant grin. He did not attempt to shoot at Wentworth, but merely held the revolver at his side, waiting for the yellow men to do their work. Apparently, it was still desired to capture Wentworth alive.
Richard Wentworth's decision was made in an instant. He turned and ran away from the yellow men, straight toward Pryor. As he did so, his hand reached into his pocket and brought out the folded wire whip which he had taken away from Tuma.
Rex Pryor raised the silenced revolver and shouted, "Stand still!"
The yellow men were close behind, and the first of them had his whip thrown back behind him ready for the cast as soon as he could come within reach. Wentworth kept running straight at Pryor, in the face of the revolver. He raised the wire whip, gripping it by the fiber handle, and swung it over his head. He brought it forward in a swift, snake-like cast, just as he had seen Tuma and Nilit do. Before Rex Pryor realized what was happening, the wire was coiled around his gun wrist. Wentworth whirled around, yanking with all his might. Pryor was dragged forward, a scream of pain welling up to his lips as the coiled whip tore the skin from his wrist. His fingers opened, and the revolver dropped from his grip. Wentworth stooped and snatched it and fired into the advancing yellow men.
THE first of those wiry killers took the bullet square in the breastbone. It stopped him up short just as if he had been struck in the chest by a mighty battering ram.
Wentworth fired three times more, swiftly, and brought down three more of the attackers. The others uttered cries of dismay, and turned to flee. Wentworth turned to Rex Pryor.
The radio announcer was on his knees, working with his free hand at the whip which was coiled around his wrist. He was whimpering in pain. Wentworth let some slack into the wire, and allowed Pryor to unwind it from about his wrist. Then he said, "Stand up, Pryor! Get up on your feet!"
The radio announcer was no longer sneering. He got slowly to his feet, nursing his raw bleeding wrist.
"Put both hands at your side," Wentworth ordered.
Pryor looked at him darkly. "What—what are you going to do—"
"Obey me," Wentworth said softly. "I assure you I will have no hesitation in killing you if you don't do exactly as I say."
Pryor took one look into those cold grey eyes, and obeyed. He stood up straight, with his arms close to his side. Wentworth flicked the wire whip out, and sent it snaking around Pryor's waist. It encircled him twice, pinning his arms to his side. Wentworth stepped in close then, and twisted the end of the whip around, tying it securely. Pryor was unable to move his arms.
Wentworth nodded in satisfaction. He put the silenced revolver into his jacket pocket, and picked up two more of the wire whips.
"Now, let's get going," he said pleasantly.
He turned Pryor around, and pushed him toward the empty elevator cage by which he had ascended. They had almost reached the cage when Wentworth heard a slight scraping sound behind him down at the end of the hall. He turned swiftly, and saw that the yellow men who had fled were returning. But this time they were not carrying whips. There were three of them, and each held a sub-machine gun under the crook of his arm. They marched in a row, like a small-sized platoon of soldiers, and at a word from the one on the right, all three of them dropped to one knee, raising their machine guns to their shoulders. They were going to send bursts down the hall, and they didn't seem to care that Rex Pryor would die in that coming barrage—as long as they could get Wentworth.
Pryor turned his head and saw them, too. He uttered a shrill scream of terror.
"Don't shoot! For God's sake, don't—"
Pryor would never have had a chance to finish that plea, for the yellow men's fingers were already on the trips of their machine guns. It was Wentworth who saved him. Dick gave him a mighty shove that sent him staggering sideways, straight through the open door of the elevator cage. At the same time, Wentworth went into a low dive, following him. He heard the first staccato machine gun bursts, and something tugged at his shoe as he dived through the open doorway. But he had no time to investigate for any further hits. He landed on hands and knees, rebounded to his feet, slid the door shut and yanked the lever over. The cage shot downward just as the yellow men reached the door and began to fire through it. But the cage had already dropped below the level of the fourth floor.
WENTWORTH turned, and looked down at the quivering Rex Pryor. There was perspiration on Pryor's forehead, and on the back of his neck. He was shivering as if with the ague.
"Well," said Wentworth, "you never thought I'd be saving you from your own friends!"
Pryor tried to stand on his feet, but his hands were bound at his side by the tightly wound wire whip. He lost his balance and fell down again. His feet were shaking so that they would not hold him up.
At the ground floor, Wentworth got a grip on Pryor's collar and yanked him up to his feet. Then he pushed him out into the street.
The confusion in Times Square had lessened only slightly. A small degree of order had been restored by the arrival of Commissioner Kirkpatrick in person. Kirkpatrick had infused new spirit into the police, and had set them at the task of creating order out of chaos. The ambulances were now lined up in a long column, and were loading the injured from the sidewalk in turn, taking the worst cases first.
Wentworth kept his grip on Rex Pryor's collar, and pushed him ahead up to the spot where Kirkpatrick was standing on the roof of his official police car and directing operations.
The Commissioner saw him, and leaped down to the ground. Swiftly, Wentworth explained what had happened. He shook Pryor like a rat.
"This fellow can tell us a good deal about Asmodeus."
Kirkpatrick nodded, and growled, "Yes. I heard his broadcast just now. I heard him announce that you were in the studio, Dick, but I had no time to look into it. I'll take him downtown. We'll make him talk, all right!"
Rex Pryor's lips curled in a sneer. "I know nothing, Commissioner," he said. "It just so happens that Asmodeus has chosen me for his mouthpiece, to make his announcements to the public. And he has also told me that I will be under his special protection. I am not afraid of you, Kirkpatrick. Asmodeus will take care of me!"
Wentworth laughed harshly. "Sure! He'll take care of you all right—with a couple of machine guns! Those yellow babies of his were all ready to burn you down too, if they could only get me!"
Pryor's face grew pale. A flicker of terror passed through his eyes. He was probably remembering with great vividness how those three machine gun muzzles had pointed at him just a few moments ago. He dropped his eyes.
"I—I swear I don't know a thing, Mr. Wentworth. I just broadcast what Asmodeus told me to say."
Wentworth shrugged. "Well, it's your funeral." He saw that Pryor was having difficulty in breathing because of the tightness of the coiled wire around his body. "We'll just leave that on him for a while, and see if it makes him more talkative!"
"Okay," grunted the Commissioner. "I'll have him taken to one of the precinct houses and kept where Asmodeus can't find him." He called over two plainclothesmen and instructed them to take Pryor in charge. It was at that moment that a thick stream of smoke began to pour from the doorway of the Broadcast Building.
SOMEONE in the street yelled, "Fire!" and pointed in that direction. Soon a dozen people had taken up the alarm, and some of the firemen who were working at the emergency exits began to run over toward the Broadcast Building.
But Richard Wentworth muttered an oath under his breath. Swiftly, he sprang to the roof of Commissioner Kirkpatrick's car, and shouted to the firemen, waving them back. "That's not fire! That's a smoke screen!" He swung to face an armored police motorcycle with a machine gun mounted on the sidecar. He motioned urgently to the officer who was seated in the sidecar. "Turn your gun on that smoke screen!"
The officer looked up at him, bewildered, not understanding why he should shoot at smoke.
But Wentworth knew. He had seen that same smoke screen rolling out of the exhaust pipe of the car in which Lilith had escaped. And he could guess only too well what was behind that slowly advancing cloud of gas, now.
There was no time to argue or explain. He leaped down from the roof of the car, and sprang over to the motorcycle.
The officer in the sidecar said, "Look here, Mr. Wentworth, you ain't in charge here. You can't butt in—"
"Damn it, man," Wentworth rapped out, "I've no time to explain!"
He brought his right fist up in a short arc, and landed it flush on the officer's jaw. The man's head snapped back, but before he could sag down, Wentworth seized him by the collar and yanked him out of the sidecar. The policeman on the motorcycle exclaimed, "Hey!" and reached for the revolver in his holster. Wentworth saw it, and smashed a second blow hard to the side of this man's head, toppling him off the machine.
Then Dick clambered into the sidecar and seized the trip of the machine gun. The delay had almost proved fatal. The smoke screen had already advanced some ten feet out from the entrance of the Broadcast Building.
Wentworth turned the muzzle of the machine gun straight at the smoke screen. He pulled the trip, and moved the gun in a short arc as he sent burst after burst into that cloud of smoke. The staccato chatter of the guns rose above the clamor of sound on Times Square, as the steel-jacketed slugs poured into those who were sheltered behind the smoke screen.
Suddenly, the gas began to thin out. It became possible to see who was behind it. There had been two columns of yellow men, with twenty in each column. They were equipped with machine guns, and the two leaders each had a peculiar sort of wagon which resembled a tall wheelbarrow. Upon this wagon there rested a huge tank, with a nozzle at the top. It was from these nozzles that the gas was emanating. These shock troops moving to the attack had carried their own smoke screen with them.
IT had apparently been their intention to reach the center of Times Square before opening fire, and there to effect the capture of Wentworth and the release of Rex Pryor. But Wentworth's swift action with the machine gun had broken up their plan. As the smoke drifted upward, the bodies of almost thirty of them could be seen lying sprawled on the street. Wentworth had kept shooting until the belt was exhausted. Half a dozen of the others fell in their tracks, fatally wounded, while the remainder retreated in panic back into the Broadcast Building.
Kirkpatrick, galvanized into action by what he had seen, snapped orders with the rapidity of a Gatling gun. At his command, a squad of police came rushing from the other side of the square, with tear gas bombs and with riot guns.
Kirkpatrick was about to put himself at their head and go into the building, but Wentworth took him by the arm and led him to one side.
"You're wasting your time, Kirk. You'll find nobody in that building but those Eurasian killers. You won't find Asmodeus, or any of his important lieutenants. As a matter of fact, I don't think you'll find anyone. They probably have a secret exit from the building."
"Good Lord, Dick!" Kirkpatrick exploded. "Do you want me to ignore a thing like this? We're not that demoralized yet. No, we've got to go in after those killers!"
He started away, but Dick caught him by the arm. "Wait!"
The Commissioner stopped, looking impatient and angry. "Well?"
"How many armed men have you here, Kirk?"
"Why, there must be seventy-five or a hundred of my men here on Times Square—"
"I don't mean them," Wentworth broke in crisply. "I don't mean men armed only with revolvers. I'm talking about machine guns and tear gas bombs."
"Just these," Kirkpatrick told him, waving toward the small squad of men who were drawn up in front of the Broadcast Building, waiting for him to take command of them. "Just about twenty."
"Don't you see, Kirk," Wentworth pleaded earnestly, "that if you take these twenty men inside that building, it will leave Times Square unprotected—"
"Unprotected against what?" the Commissioner demanded sardonically. "What further harm could anyone do here?"
Almost as if it were in answer to his question, every light in Times Square suddenly flicked out. Theatre marquees, street lamps, lights in office buildings and electric advertising signs—all faded into darkness. It was as if the blackness of the outer universe had suddenly crept down to engulf all the lights of the city. All that remained of light was the long, stabbing beams of automobile headlights in Times Square.
ABRUPTLY, all the voices were stilled. Even the wounded ceased to moan. Doctors and nurses stopped in the midst of rendering first aid. All movement in Times Square ceased. Men and women paused rigidly, waiting to see what this sudden influx of darkness might portend.
Kirkpatrick gripped Richard Wentworth's arm. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed under his breath. "What are they going to do now?" He turned away for a moment to give orders to his men to turn on their bright lights. And when he turned back—Wentworth was no longer at his side!
"Dick!" he called. "Dick!—"
And then, Kirkpatrick's booming voice was drowned out by a new and greater voice which seemed to be speaking from everywhere at once. It filled the air with its powerful, resonant tones. No man could tell whence it came. Almost, it was as if this were the voice of some god descended from Mount Olympus to address this poor mortal world with the voice of the universe itself.
"Listen, all who can hear," the Voice pronounced in a tone like that of thunder. "This is Asmodeus who speaks to you now. You have seen what I can do. I can crush you all beneath my thumb. Or I can give you the priceless gift of life. I am the Prince of Darkness. I am the master of the Night-Demons. In the night, my servants come and go. In the night, they kill. I give you now my orders. They must be obeyed to the letter, or I shall breathe death upon you all. Hear then, what I order. At dawn tomorrow morning, every man and woman and child of you must remain within your homes, with the doors locked and the shades pulled down. Let no living being venture out upon the street. Whoever does, shall die.
"From dawn tomorrow to dusk tomorrow, your city shall belong to Asmodeus... I have spoken!"
Barely had that ominous voice ceased speaking, when another sound cut through the night. This time it was the familiar, strident laughter of the Spider!
That laughter of the Spider was a sad anti-climax to the ominous and threatening speech of Asmodeus. Everyone who had listened to the words of that man who styled himself the Prince of Darkness and Master of the Night-Demons had felt the deep chill of dread which the speech was intended to produce. Even Kirkpatrick, standing there with his armed police, experienced a sensation of utter helplessness in the face of that sonorous ultimatum. It was easy to see that the whole thing had been stage-managed with diabolical cleverness, from the very first warning to the business men of the city, right down to this moment. It had been built up for effect. The death of Lixton in police headquarters, then the wholesale and wanton massacre of thousands of innocent people in the subway, and finally this last announcement, coming as it seemed from the stellar regions. The sudden total darkness was an additional stage setting calculated to strike terror into all who were present. And no doubt Asmodeus had considered the effect which would be produced when he finished his speech and his voice died away, and the darkness remained like a pall over the city.
But he had not counted on the one thing which could have destroyed the effect of all his showmanship. That one thing was—laughter!
Laughter—the audible evidence of derision—is the one instrument which can be used against the most imponderable of forces. So, the Spider's laughter just at that moment served to undo the web of hypnotic terror which the voice of Asmodeus had spun about those people in Times Square. For twenty full seconds, that laughter rang out clear and strident, and the voice of the Spider as he laughed was no less terrible than that of Asmodeus.
THE Spider's laughter ceased, and he began to speak.
"Asmodeus, you are a fraud. I, the Spider, say that your demands are preposterous. You are only a vicious little murderer who will soon be caught. You are no Prince of Darkness, Asmodeus. I, the Spider, advise all the people of the city to disregard you. I tell them that they need not stay at home tomorrow. I tell them that they may walk the streets without fear. I tell them this because I, the Spider, promise that your power will be crushed before dawn. And the Spider's promise has never been broken!"
Once more, that eerie laughter rose high above Times Square. And then it suddenly ceased, and there was utter silence. For the space of a dozen heartbeats, everyone stood tense and rigid in the Square. This challenge which the Spider had flung straight into the teeth of Asmodeus... How would Asmodeus answer it? They almost expected that a bolt of lightning would strike down the Spider! But there were many who breathed sighs of relief. When they had first heard Asmodeus speak, it had seemed that his voice came from the heavens. But that illusion had been swiftly shattered when they heard the Spider, For it seemed that the Spider was equally aware of the means by which Asmodeus had been able to make his voice so powerful. And that very idea—the idea that another man could duplicate the feat—detracted from their fear of Asmodeus.
But now that giant voice spoke swiftly in answer to the Spider.
"Spider, I accept your challenge. Let it be a duel between us—of wits, and strength, and cunning. I, Asmodeus, hereby sentence the Spider to death before dawn. You people of New York—you shall see the Spider dead. And then you shall believe in my power, and you shall obey the orders I have given. That is all!"
If anyone in Times Square expected that the Spider would make a reply, he was disappointed. For a long time, everybody waited. But there was only silence.
At last Commissioner Kirkpatrick bestirred himself; the whole Square broke into life once more, as if coming out of a trance. Doctors resumed their first aid work, ambulances began once more to load the injured, people began to move about their separate tasks. It was like a scene out of one of Grimm's fairy tales—a city that had been held motionless under a spell by the magic of some wizard, and then suddenly released into swarming activity. No different was the spell under which these people had been held by those two powerful, stentorian voices of the giant adversaries: Asmodeus—and the Spider! These people felt like Lilliputians witnessing a mighty duel of giants. And they understood that their only hope lay in victory... for the Spider.
The buzz of voices rose above the moans of the injured as men talked in the darkness, illuminated only by the gleaming headlights of the automobiles.
"The Spider is our friend," some said, speaking like dazed children. Others whispered, "We must pray for the Spider!"
BUT Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick did not share those sentiments. That old war horse of the law gnashed his teeth in helpless rage, restlessly treading the pavement.
"So the Spider and Asmodeus are taking this battle out of our hands, are they! We'll see about that! By God, I'm not licked yet. The Spider is as much a criminal as Asmodeus. And I think I can lay my hands on him!"
He spun around, barking, "Wentworth!... Where's Wentworth? He disappeared the moment it got dark. Where—"
"Right here, Kirk!" spoke the cool, collected voice of Richard Wentworth.
The Commissioner whirled around. "Dick! I—I thought you had—gone away—"
Wentworth raised his eyebrows. "Without saying goodbye, Kirk?"
The Commissioner's eyes narrowed. "Have you been here all the time, Dick, while Asmodeus and the Spider were talking?"
Wentworth smiled. "I heard the voices as well as you did," he said evasively.
Kirkpatrick gave him a long, suspicious look. Then he said, "I could swear you weren't here a moment ago, Dick. I—I thought maybe it was you—"
"You thought it was I who was throwing my voice into the air? Surely, Kirk, you would have heard me if I had been standing right beside you here!"
"Well, let it go. But I don't understand how either of them could make their voices so powerful—and appear to be coming from the sky!"
"I think I can give you the explanation of that," Wentworth said slowly. "If you'll have your men make a search of all the large buildings within a radius of about twenty blocks, which are equipped with air-conditioning systems, you'll find, no doubt, that one of them somewhere is equipped in addition with a microphone hooked up to the air-conditioning blowers."
"Microphone?" Kirkpatrick said, frowning. "I don't understand. What has that got to do—"
"Have you ever tried throwing your voice into the ducts of an air-conditioning system? Your words would be carried all through the building on the air currents, gathering volume on the way. By the time your voice reached the outlet it would be magnified a thousand-fold. It would seem to be coming from the sky, out of the lungs of a giant. Asmodeus probably broadcast that message from a private sending set somewhere, and it was picked up by his assistants with a receiving set in some air-conditioned building, then transmitted into the air-conditioning system through the microphone."
"You—you guessed all this?" Kirkpatrick demanded.
"That's my guess," Wentworth said. "It just occurred to me."
"And what about the Spider? How did he do it?"
WENTWORTH smiled slowly. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Spider duplicated the method of Asmodeus. Perhaps the Spider used another air-conditioning system. He may have spoken directly into the blower system."
"I see!" said Commissioner Kirkpatrick. His eyes swung across Times Square to the Paramount Theater, which was now shrouded in darkness. "That's the only building right around here which is equipped with an emergency generator system for electric power. The Spider could have turned on the emergency generator, and set the air-conditioning blowers working for his broadcast." He turned and looked Wentworth squarely in the eye. "And you knew about that generator system, Dick. You could have sneaked over there and made your broadcast, and been back at my side by the time Asmodeus was through talking."
Wentworth met his gaze squarely, coldly. "Yes," he said, "I could have done it."
"Did you?"
Wentworth's eyes were narrow, lips tense and tight. "That is for you to prove, my dear Mr. Commissioner!" He bowed stiffly, "And now, if you have nothing further to say to me, I must be going! There are more important pursuits—than trying to catch the Spider!" He turned on his heel and strode away without a backward glance.
"Wait, Dick!" Kirkpatrick exclaimed.
He hurried after Wentworth, and took him by the arm. "I—I'm sorry, Dick. This thing has me groggy. Right now, I don't care who the Spider is—as long as he can help us."
"Of course, Kirk!" Wentworth said with a warm smile, taking the hand which the Commissioner extended to him. "You can count on me—for what little help I can give you."
"Do you suppose he—means to enforce that ultimatum of his? God! Imagine laying down such terms to the greatest city in the world! Imagine turning the city over to Asmodeus from dawn to dusk—with not a citizen allowed on the streets!"
"It's not dawn yet," Wentworth said softly. "Besides, the Spider offered an ultimatum of his own!"
"Then—then you think we shouldn't accept Asmodeus' terms and rely on the Spider in the meantime?... Suppose Asmodeus inflicts another catastrophe like this on the city!"
Wentworth shuddered. "Let's wait and see. In the meantime—" nodding his head toward where two patrolmen were hanging on grimly to Rex Pryor—"get Pryor out of here. Get him down to some station house, and grill him. Maybe you can make him talk. I must go now, Kirk. I'll be in touch with you before dawn."
WENTWORTH hurried away toward the Square. He was particularly anxious to get away at this moment, because he had seen something which Kirkpatrick had not noticed. He recognized the dark bulk of his own long Daimler, which had just pulled in from a side street. He frowned as he made his way toward it. He had given Ram Singh strict orders to remain with Nita van Sloan, and not to leave her out of his sight. He knew that Ram Singh would not disobey. Therefore, if Ram Singh were driving the Daimler, Miss Nita must be with him. He had hoped that she would remain safe in her apartment, guarded by Ram Singh and by Jackson. Those two had served him long and faithfully, and he could depend upon them to defend her with their lives. But he smiled in spite of himself. It was just like Nita to refuse to remain sequestered and inactive. She was no hothouse flower to be pampered and nursed. Through the years, she had insisted on sharing the Spider's adventurous career, and on facing his dangers by his side. Tonight, he saw that it would be no different. Though he was fearful for her safety, yet he felt a tingling of pride at the thought that such a woman should be his. Nita van Sloan was indeed a fitting mate for the Spider!
Wentworth was still fifty feet from the car, making his way among the rows of wounded, when he suddenly saw the headlights of the Daimler blink out. He stopped short. There must be a reason for that.
Almost instantly, the headlights went on again. And then he saw that it had been done to attract his attention, for the small parking lights were now turned on, too, in addition to the headlamps. Wentworth's eyes narrowed as those parking lights began to go on and off, on and off quickly.
They were signaling to him in Morse Code!
Three times they repeated his call letter: one short and two longs, denoting the letter W.
Immediately, the lights proceeded to blink out a message: A long and two shorts—D; one short and one long—A; one long and one short—N; two longs and one short—G; one short—E; one short, a space and two shorts—R.
Wentworth was as familiar with Morse Code as the average man is with the letters of his name. He had also insisted that Nita, Ram Singh and Jackson also make themselves thoroughly familiar with it. They could all transmit and receive it with the ease with which the average person could read and write English. Therefore, Wentworth had no trouble in getting the message which those lights blinked out at him:
D-A-N-G-E-R... K-E-E-P A-W-A-Y... D-A-N-G-E-R... K-E-E-P A-W-A-Y...
WENTWORTH'S eyes narrowed as he scanned the area around the Daimler. He could see nothing that looked suspicious or menacing. Yet such a warning from Nita or from Ram Singh was not to be disregarded. He noticed that there was an ambulance parked a few feet behind the Daimler. It must just have arrived, for Wentworth had not seen it when he first noticed his own car, and for the last minute he had been preoccupied in watching the Morse signaling.
Unlike the other ambulances, this one had not pulled over into line to receive patients. But he could see a white-coated driver and white-coated interns sitting in front. It was impossible, in the dark, to distinguish their faces. He noted also, with a sudden tensing of his muscles, that there was another vehicle over to the right of the Daimler. That vehicle was—a fire engine!
He had almost missed noticing it, because its lights were out. But now, as his eyes focused upon it, he saw that it was a hose engine, with a dozen figures in firemen's uniforms standing upon the running board and the tail. It was not strange that there should be a fire engine here. There were a dozen pieces of fire apparatus in Times Square at the moment. But on none of them were the crews standing idle. As he watched, he saw one of the firemen descend from the engine and run over and talk to the interne in the ambulance.
Wentworth's lips tightened. This, then, was the danger.
His eyes flicked back to the Daimler, and he saw that the parking lights were blinking on and off once more. Swiftly, he read the new message which they were transmitting:
F-I-R-E E-N-G-I-N-E A-N-D A-M-B-U-L-A-N-C-E F-O-L-L-O-W-E-D U-S H-E-R-E...E-X-P-E-C-T A-T-T-A-C-K A-S S-O-O-N A-S W-E L-E-A-V-E... C-A-N Y-O-U G-I-V-E U-S O-R-D-E-R-S...
It was just as Wentworth had thought! Asmodeus must have set a watch upon Nita's apartment, and they had followed her when she left it. It was not difficult to imagine the hordes of Asmodeus capturing a fire engine and an ambulance, killing the crews, and donning their uniforms. They had evidently wished to follow Nita, refraining from making an attack, in the hope that she would lead them to Wentworth. It was a good thing that Nita had given him that warning in Morse Code—else he might have walked unsuspectingly up to the Daimler. And then the bogus firemen and hospital interns would have swarmed all over him, and he would have been captured without a chance to resist.
But now, Nita and Ram Singh were awaiting his orders.
Swiftly, he cast about in his mind for a means of checkmating this latest move of the enemy. He knew that Nita and Ram Singh were watching him intently—and were, in turn, being watched by the minions of Asmodeus. Suddenly, his eyes flashed with inspiration as a daring and perilous plan occurred to him. He took his pencil flashlight from his pocket and held it in front of him. Then he began to signal in Morse Code:
W-A-I-T F-O-R O-R-D-E-R-S
He put the flashlight away, and a moment later saw the Daimler's lights blink out:
S-T-A-N-D-I-N-G B-Y F-O-R O-R-D-E-R-S
WENTWORTH swung quickly on his heel, and hurried over to one of the emergency exits where a fire crew was still working. A half dozen firemen were sitting on the running board of a fire truck, resting. They were exhausted from their arduous work in the smoke-filled subway.
Wentworth drew one of the firemen aside, and said quickly, "I'm Richard Wentworth."
The man nodded, smiling. "You don't need to introduce yourself to me, Mr. Wentworth. You were the toastmaster at the Firemen's Dinner last month. We'll never forget your donation of ten thousand dollars to the Disabled Firemen's Fund. Anything you want—just name it. My name is Kelly—Michael Kelly—and I speak for all the boys of Company Nine!"
"Thanks, Mike," Wentworth said, with a warm glow in his eyes. He turned, and saw that the other firemen had come crowding around them at mention of his name.
"Would you boys like the chance to take a crack at some of the shock troops of Asmodeus?" he asked.
"Would we!" they shouted in chorus.
Mike Kelly exclaimed eagerly, "Lead us to it, Mr. Wentworth!"
"It'll be dangerous—"
"To hell with that!" barked Mike Kelly. "If we don't fight now, we may never have the chance. By tomorrow, Asmodeus will have the city in the hollow of his hand!"
Wentworth nodded. "Good! I want you to get all the men of your company together, and take the fire truck. You'll need some weapons—"
"We have all the weapons we need!" Mike Kelly declared, striding over to the fire truck and picking up a heavy fire-axe. He heaved it up to his shoulder with a grin. "This is one thing our boys know how to handle!"
It took only a moment to assemble all the men of Company Nine. They came eagerly, willing and anxious to strike a blow for their city. A young, red-headed fellow named Jerry Boone was the company driver. He got behind the wheel, and winked, grinning youthfully. "Boy, will I show those babies how to drive!"
Wentworth mounted on to the top of the truck's cab, and once more took out his pencil flashlight. He signaled a message to the Daimler:
O-R-D-E-R-S... L-E-A-V-E A-T O-N-C-E... D-R-I-V-E S-L-O-W-L-Y N-O-R-T-H T-O F-I-F-T-Y S-E-V-E-N-T-H S-T-R-E-E-T... T-H-E-N T-U-R-N W-E-S-T T-O H-U-D-S-O-N R-I-V-E-R... T-H-E-N N-O-R-T-H T-O R-I-V-E-R-S-I-D-E D-R-I-V-E A-P-A-R-T-M-E-N-T...
He waited a moment, and then the Daimler's parking lights blinked a response:
O-R-D-E-R-S R-E-C-E-I-V-E-D... H-E-R-E W-E G-O
Immediately, the Daimler glided away, swinging north into Broadway.
WENTWORTH climbed down from the top of the cab, and took his place with the firemen on the running board. Mike Kelly handed him a fireman's coat and hat, and he shrugged into them while they watched the ambulance and the fire engine with the bogus crews swing into line behind the Daimler. The ambulance remained about a hundred feet behind the Daimler, and the fire engine two hundred feet behind the ambulance. As soon as all three vehicles had started up Broadway, Wentworth gave the word, and Jerry Boone pushed his foot down on the accelerator. Engine Company Number Nine started out in pursuit. They drove without lights, and kept a good two blocks behind the hose truck. Wentworth had no fear of losing the caravan ahead, for he had the advantage of knowing exactly what route they would take. Broadway was a long, black chasm of misery, relieved only by the stabbing headlights of automobiles grouped at intervals around the emergency exits of the subway. All along the line, in every part of the city, there were similar first aid groups. Farther north, Wentworth was able to discern the fog-shrouded incandescence of street lights. Apparently, the region that had been blacked out was limited to the territory around Times Square. Above Fifty-seventh Street, the lighting system was normal.
At Wentworth's order, Jerry Boone swung west on Fifty-sixth Street, and speeded the fire truck up to fifty miles an hour, racing across town. The caravan with the Daimler in the lead and the ambulance and hose engine following had turned west at Fifty-seventh. Since the Daimler was proceeding at a slow and leisurely pace, it enabled Company Nine's truck to get ahead of them. Fifty-sixth Street was one-way eastbound, but there was no traffic at all off the main arteries, and no policemen around to enforce the traffic laws. They reached Twelfth Avenue far ahead of the caravan on Fifty-seventh Street, and Jerry Boone swung north and parked, still without lights, up on the sidewalk and close in against the wall of the corner building. In this way, he would be out of sight of the ambulance and the hose engine when they turned the corner in pursuit of the Daimler. The waterfront was totally deserted.
A moment after they had parked, they saw the headlights of the Daimler approaching. As it turned the corner, Wentworth flicked his flashlight once, and Ram Singh, at the wheel of the Daimler, blinked his headlights in response. Then he started to make the turn into Twelfth Avenue.
Immediately, there was the sound of a swiftly accelerating motor, and the ambulance raced up alongside the Daimler. It swung sharply in to the right, cutting it off. Ram Singh stepped hard on the brake, bringing the limousine to a sharp halt. Further back on Fifty-seventh Street, they could hear the powerful motor of the hose engine rushing up to the attack. Just as Wentworth had figured, they probably considered this to be an ideal spot for their purpose. No doubt they realized that Nita would not lead them to Wentworth. Therefore, they were attacking now.
"This is it, boys!" Mike Kelly yelled.
THEY all leaped down off the fire truck, gripping their heavy fire axes. There were twenty of them, and they lined up in columns of two, awaiting the order from Wentworth. Wentworth motioned Jerry Boone over to one side, and slipped in under the wheel. He slid the heavy gearshift into first, and balanced his feet on accelerator and clutch. He handed to Jerry Boone the revolver he had taken from Rex Pryor. He had no need of explaining to Jerry what was to be done with it. The red-headed lad knew!
Wentworth sat taut at the wheel, watching the scene at the corner. The two interns had leaped down out of the ambulance, and had gone to the rear. They swung open the doors, and half a dozen black-coated yellow men sprang out, cradling sub-machine guns under their arms. At the same moment, the hose engine came lumbering up, and the bogus firemen jumped down. Instead of hose or axe, these men were wielding the cruel wire whips.
There was no sign of life from the Daimler. Wentworth knew that Nita and Ram Singh must have rolled up all their windows. With the doors closed and the windows up, that Daimler would offer a good deal of resistance, for it was lined with a thin sheeting of light-weight armor plate, and was equipped with bullet-proof glass all around. But it was doubtful whether it could withstand the concentrated fire of a dozen machine guns in the hands of those wiry yellow men—those trained killers.
Wentworth waited until the last possible moment. With his knuckles white against the mahogany wheel of the fire truck, he watched the black-clothed yellow men with the machine guns kneel in line and raise the weapons to their shoulders. He saw a white man—the one in the intern's uniform—bark a command. And in that instant he recognized that white man. It was the one he had seen in the doorway of the mansion at Point Solitude—the man named Colona!
At Colona's barked order, the yellow men opened up with their machine guns, and the first blast of lead slammed into the Daimler. It was only then that Wentworth went into action.
He engaged the clutch of the fire truck and shoved his foot all the way down on the accelerator. The fire truck leaped forward like a live thing, shooting like a monster projectile out of hell, straight at those kneeling yellow machine-gunners!
The roar of its motor startled those killers. The bogus firemen with their wire whips were over to one side, constituting a reserve corps. They were, therefore, out of the line of the truck's course. But the yellow machine-gunners were caught square in the glare of the two headlamps that Wentworth switched on. They whirled around, swinging their guns to bear upon the truck. Jerry Boone, leaning far out of the cab, fired the revolver at them until it was empty, and as he expended the last of the cartridges, the huge fire truck smashed square into the yellow men.
BODIES went flying in every direction to the accompaniment of screams of mortal terror from the stricken killers. But Wentworth, grim-faced and bleak-eyed at the wheel, felt no pang of compunction for them. He rode right through that line, and swerved the truck just in time to avoid hitting the ambulance.
Colona had leaped aside at the first alarm, and now he turned to run. Wentworth followed him with the truck. In the meantime, the men of Company Nine charged with swinging axes against the bogus firemen with the wire whips. Whip against axe—both in the hands of skillful men, accustomed to their own weapons! The yellow men tried to coil their whips around those axes, and yank them out of the hands of the firemen. But Company Nine knew too well how to handle those powerful implements. The swinging axes tore the whips out of the hands of the yellow men, and keen blades cut into skulls, down to the collar-bone. The yellow men snatched pistols out of their pockets, and formed into a compact group to resist the onslaught of Company Nine's axe-men. But at that moment, the door of the Daimler was pushed violently open, and Ram Singh came bursting forth, with a fighting gleam in his black eyes and a glittering knife in his hand. His voice rose in a shrill, keening, terrifying sound—the immortal war cry of the fighting Sikh warriors of his native land. Straight at that group of huddled gunmen he launched himself, to join with the axemen of Company Nine. The yellow men were holding their fire now, waiting for the axe-men and Ram Singh to come closer. Surely, they would be able to cut down at least half of them with their revolvers. In a moment they would open fire...
But there was another factor in this battle—a factor which no man might disregard lightly. Surely, those yellow killers with the guns in their hands saw Nita van Sloan step out of the Daimler. Certain, also, that they saw the heavy rifle in her hands. But it was only natural that they should disregard her, to concentrate upon Ram Singh and the advancing men of Company Nine. The firemen were coming at them with axes raised, regardless of the revolvers which were pointed at them, ready to blast in a moment. Ram Singh, too, was charging with utter disregard of the fact that in one more instant bullets would be pumping into his body.
It was Nita van Sloan, however, who fired the first shot. The weapon in her hands was not an ordinary rifle. It was one of the newest models only recently adopted by the United States Army—a Garand Automatic Rifle, capable of firing one hundred rounds per minute. Richard Wentworth was one of the select and small number of civilians in the country who had obtained special permission to purchase and own such a rifle. He had five of them, and one always rested in a secret compartment in the Daimler.
NITA stood now alongside the Daimler, disdaining to kneel for cover, and calmly pulled the trigger of the Garand. The powerful gun barked against her shoulder, but she swayed with it rhythmically as shot after shot poured out of the hot muzzle at the rate of a hundred per minute. Slowly she swung that muzzle in a narrow arc, raking the huddled group of yellow gunmen, and cut them down before they could fire a shot. She fired for only about fifteen seconds, but in that time the quick-firing rifle slammed more than thirty steel-jacketed bullets into those gunmen. Then she ceased firing, for she was fearful of hitting Ram Singh or some of the other men of Company Nine, who were already upon the killers. The surviving yellow men fell before Ram Singh's knife and under the swift and deadly blows of the axe-men of Company Nine. No quarter was given, and none was asked. Those yellow killers knew what to expect, and the firemen were in no mood for mercy after having worked over the bodies of the charred and blackened victims of the subway disaster.
In a moment, the battle was over. With a muttered prayer in Punjabi, Ram Singh stooped and wiped his bloody blade clean upon the alpaca jacket of one of his victims. Then he arose, showing his white and perfect teeth in a glittering, triumphant smile.
"Allah be praised!" he said. "Victory has been given to the just!" He came over and raised Nita van Sloan's hand to his lips and kissed it with the courtly gesture of a Hindu nobleman. "Missy Sahib, I pay thee honor. Thou art the bravest woman in all the world, and a true mate for—" he lowered his voice so that only she could hear—"the Spider!"
The men of Company Nine were crowding around Nita, eager to congratulate her. It was her swift action which had brought them victory without the loss of life. Nita was woman enough to blush under their praise. "If only we could get Asmodeus as easily as this!" she said.
She started at the sound of Richard Wentworth's voice behind her. "Nice work, my girl," he said.
She turned and saw Wentworth and Jerry Boone with the muddy-eyed Colona a prisoner between them. While the battle was going on, Wentworth and Boone had chased Colona with the truck, caught up with him and bagged him—alive!
Colona was bitter and sullen. "I don't know a thing about Asmodeus," he said, in response to a question from Wentworth. "I have nothing to say!"
Wentworth raised his eyebrows. He nodded significantly to Ram Singh, who indulged in a wide grin, and drew his curving knife. He stepped up behind Colona, seized him by the back of the collar, and pressed the knife against the small of his back.
"Into the car, quick," he growled. "I have words for thee. Soft words. And if soft words will not make thee talk, pig, then perhaps my knife will have sharper words for thee!"
The Sikh thrust Colona into the Daimler.
Wentworth turned to the men of Company Nine. He patted Jerry Boone and Mike Kelly on the back.
"You boys have done a nice piece of work tonight—"
"We're not through, Mr. Wentworth!" Mike Kelly exclaimed. "Give us a chance to really go to town on Asmodeus and his killers."
Jerry Boone and the others chimed in with Mike Kelly.
"Come on, Mr. Wentworth," Jerry Boone said. "We know you're not through for tonight. Let us stick with you!"
WENTWORTH studied the sturdy lads with kindly eyes.
"All right," he decided suddenly. "I'm going to give you the chance to form the nucleus of an army to fight Asmodeus. Go to this address..." He gave them the slip of paper upon which Captain Crandall had written his address. "There is a group of ex-service men forming over there. Join them. And wait there for orders."
"Will you come to take command?" Mike Kelly asked.
"I'm afraid not," Wentworth told him. "But someone else may call upon you. It's someone in whom I have faith and confidence. You may follow him as you would follow me."
"What's his name?" Jerry Boone asked.
"Men call him... the Spider!" Wentworth replied.
There had been occasions in the past when Wentworth's name had been linked with the Spider, No man can operate for years under a dual existence without sowing the seeds of suspicion in the minds of men. The bold and daring strokes of the Spider in past campaigns against crime had often rendered it impossible for Wentworth to disassociate his own name entirely from that of the Spider, He had, therefore, built up the fiction that the Spider had chosen him as a friend and partial confidant. In this way he had occasionally been able to transmit messages from the Spider, when occasion required.
He realized, of course, that in thus admitting even a slight connection with the most hunted man in America, he was laying himself open to serious danger. But he was willing to take that chance, if only it helped to save innocent people from a holocaust of evil.
If the men of Company Nine had any suspicion that Wentworth was the Spider, they did not voice it. They were satisfied. At his orders, they split up into three groups, each group constituting itself a crew of one of the vehicles. In the hose engine and in the ambulance, they found additional machine guns and ammunition, together with a quantity of extra small arms. These would make a welcome addition to the forces which Captain Crandall was recruiting.
The three crews stood at attention and saluted Wentworth in military fashion. Then they took their posts on the ambulance and the two fire trucks, and at a signal from Michael Kelly, they sent three rousing cheers ringing up into the night air. Wentworth returned their salute, and then stood with his arms around Nita's shoulders, smiling, as the caravan headed east to report for active duty. Then he and Nita got into the Daimler.
RAM SINGH had Colona in the rear, so Wentworth drove. Quickly, he gave Nita a low-voiced account of the situation to date, speaking barely above a whisper so that Colona could not hear.
Nita's eyes widened as he told her of the ultimatum which Asmodeus had delivered. She had arrived at Times Square a few minutes after that dramatic moment, and had not heard it.
"But that's not to be considered, Dick," she exclaimed. "It's inconceivable that a sovereign city of seven million people should bow in abject surrender to one man. It means turning the whole city over to him to do with as he pleases. Those devils of his will run wild. They'll sack and pillage at their own pleasure. They'll be able to remove all the wealth of the city—and no one can stop them!"
Wentworth nodded somberly, staring ahead with grim, bleak eyes as he drove.
"Yes, they'll be able to strip the city. But I'm afraid that the plans of Asmodeus go much deeper than that. The man must have tremendous wealth of his own—otherwise, he couldn't have organized such a powerful, secret and ruthless army. If you had seen what I saw tonight, Nita, you would understand how far-reaching is the organization of Asmodeus. Tonight I saw one of his recruiting barracks, out at Point Solitude. There were at least a hundred men there, and more were coming. He is equipping them with every modern device for lightning warfare. Such a man as Asmodeus—with the resources at his command—must have more in mind than merely looting one city!"
Nita looked at him desperately. "Then you think—"
"I think he intends to make himself the Master of New York and—after that, who knows—perhaps of America!"
For a long time they sat silent, as the car sped north up Riverside Drive.
Then Nita van Sloan said, almost under her breath, "Dick! Asmodeus must be stopped before dawn—even if it costs our lives!"
Wentworth said nothing. There was a deep, dull ache in his breast. He threw a quick side glance at the clear, fresh beauty of Nita's profile. Must she die, too? Must she give up her life also, that others might be saved? Himself, he was prepared to pay the price. He considered that his own life was long ago forfeit. He had risked it so many times, that now he considered that he was living on borrowed time. Whenever the Fates should step in and demand payment of the life he owed them, he stood ready to settle in full—without regrets or remorse. But he faltered at the thought that this beautiful and aristocratic girl whom he loved should also perish. Yet, there was nothing to be done about it. She gloried in sharing his peril and his fate. Perhaps it was better so...
THE Fifth Avenue apartment occupied the penthouse of a twelve-story building, which Wentworth owned outright. The tenants had been chosen with scrupulous care, and among them were two Supreme Court Justices, a congressman, a State senator, and the executives of railroad companies, steamship lines and other national industrial organizations. They were all tenants who could afford to pay the seven-thousand-dollar annual rental which Wentworth charged them, and considered it cheap. All the profit from this building Wentworth donated to various charities.
The elevator operators and other service employees were all tried and trusted men, many of them former police officers and ex-service men. Wentworth paid them enough so that they could live comfortably, and he was assured of their utmost loyalty. He was confident that no one could enter that building whom he wished to keep out.
He did not stop at the front entrance, but drove around the corner and tooled the Daimler into one of a row of private garages on the side street. Underneath the floor of this garage, there was a trap door which led down through a passageway into a secret compartment in the basement of the building. From here, there was a private, secret elevator which took them straight up to the penthouse apartment.
Ram Singh kept his knife-point at the back of Colona's neck as they ascended in the elevator.
Jackson, Wentworth's orderly, admitted them. Jackson had served with Major Wentworth in the World War, and though Wentworth had made him independently wealthy by settling a large annuity upon him, Jackson still insisted upon remaining in his Major's service, and upon performing for him those duties which an orderly would customarily perform for his officer. But, like Ram Singh, he was much more than a servant. There was no question but that both of them would gladly have laid down their lives for either Wentworth or Nita van Sloan. They had proved that, conclusively, on many occasions.
Jackson saluted briskly, clicking his heels. "There is a phone call for the Major," he reported. "Commissioner Kirkpatrick is calling on an urgent matter."
Wentworth nodded. "I'll take it in a moment."
He turned to Colona. "Well," he asked, "are you ready to talk?"
"To hell with you!" Colona snarled. "Asmodeus will have me out of here in no time!"
Wentworth shrugged. "Take him away, Ram Singh. It will be your duty to make him tell us what he knows. This is an emergency, and we can't be squeamish. I don't care what methods you use, as long as you get results!"
Ram Singh did not smile now. "I will teach the pig to squeal!" he said fiercely, and dragged Colona away with him, down the hall.
WENTWORTH and Nita hurried into the book-lined library, and Wentworth took the telephone which Jackson handed him.
"Hello, Kirk," he said.
Kirkpatrick's voice came over the wire, pulsing with excitement. "Dick! I'm glad I got hold of you! I'm phoning from the mayor's office. The state troopers from Point Solitude just brought Wilbur and Nola Lucas in here. They told us their story—how the Spider outwitted that small army of Asmodeus at their estate. By God, Dick, I take back everything I said about the Spider, He deserves a vote of thanks!"
"It's very nice of you to say so, Kirk," Wentworth said slowly. "I'm sure the Spider would be glad to hear that—especially coming from a man who has been hunting him all these years."
"Make no mistake about it, Dick," Commissioner Kirkpatrick said firmly. "My personal feelings in the matter have nothing to do with it. I admire the Spider immensely for what he did tonight. But, all the same, I'm still an officer of the law. If he falls into my hands, the best I will do for him will be to say a prayer for him when they put him in the electric chair!"
Wentworth grimaced impatiently. "Is that what you called to tell me? If that's all, Kirk, I'm very busy."
"No, there's something else, Dick. The mayor and I have decided to call a mass meeting of the civic leaders of New York. We want all to hear the story of Nola and Wilbur Lucas. And then we're going to take a vote on whether to accept Asmodeus's ultimatum—or fight him to the last ditch. We would like to have you and Miss Van Sloan attend that meeting."
Wentworth felt a cold chill of apprehension. He gripped the telephone tightly. "Where is this mass meeting going to be held?"
"On the roof of the New Casino Theatre. It holds fifteen hundred people, and we expect to have that many present. We will have people representing every business, profession, and trade union, so that their vote will be thoroughly representative of the opinion of the whole city. Mayor Stanton feels that he doesn't want to take the responsibility of making a decision by himself—"
"Look here, Kirk," Wentworth exclaimed shortly. You mustn't hold that meeting!"
"Mustn't? Why not?"
"Because you'll be sentencing those fifteen hundred people to death! Don't you realize that you'll be giving Asmodeus a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate once and for all that it's hopeless to resist? He'll surely take steps to destroy every soul on the roof of the New Casino Theatre. It will practically assure victory for him, by eliminating all those to whom the people look for leadership—"
"NOT a chance!" Kirkpatrick broke in.
"We're taking extraordinary precautions. I'll have five hundred police in and around that building, and with gas masks, tear gas guns, hand grenades, automatic rifles and machine guns. There is an emergency electric light plant in the basement, and I'll have a guard around it, so that if Asmodeus cuts off the city lights, we won't be in darkness. I've planned everything down to the last detail. If Asmodeus wants to make a pitched battle of it, we'll be ready for him. After all, he can't have more than five hundred men in his damned army. We'll fight it out with him right there!"
"I'm sorry, Kirk," Wentworth said, "but I can't see it your way. You can't fight Asmodeus in the accepted way. He has too many tricks up his sleeve."
"I suppose you think the Spider is better equipped to tackle him?"
"Perhaps he is, Kirk. I advise you not to hold that meeting—"
"I didn't ask for your advice, Dick. After all, I'm still the Police Commissioner, and the plan has the mayor's full approval. I am merely inviting you and Nita to attend. Are you coming—or not?"
"Very well," Wentworth said wearily. "We'll be there."
"All right, Dick. We've called the meeting for midnight. That will give us plenty of time before dawn, to carry out any line of action we decide upon. That gives you twenty minutes to get there. Goodbye, Dick."
"Goodbye, Kirk—" and then Wentworth added under his breath—"and God forgive you!"
He hung up, and turned to gaze bleakly at Nita. "You heard what Kirk said?" he asked.
"Yes, Dick. It's suicide. Asmodeus will be a fool if he doesn't strike—and strike hard. Can't we—prevent that meeting?"
"Prevent it?" Wentworth said harshly. "It's too late for that. The invitations must already be out. The only thing we can do, is try to save those poor people from destruction!" He swung around to Jackson, and ordered crisply, "Have the Daimler and the Mercedes ready at the back entrance in five minutes, Sergeant. See that they are both fully equipped and ready for action. I will take the Daimler, and you drive the Mercedes. We may need both cars tonight. And God help us all!"
THE New Casino Theatre was located on Fifty-Second Street, and had been built at a cost running into many millions of dollars. Adjoining the tall Grayson Building, its spacious roof garden was shaded from the sun in the daytime, and shielded from the east wind in the evening. The roof garden had been equipped like a modern dream of luxury and splendor. The stage was ninety feet long, and raised high enough so that a fifty piece orchestra found ample room beneath it. Tables and chairs were grouped around the large dance floor in the center. The New Casino Roof had become famous from coast to coast as the home of the most expensive and the most brilliant entertainment to be found in the country. Vast spectacles had been presented upon that tremendous stage, and the blank wall of the Grayson Building had been converted into a huge screen, upon which was projected the current television programs for the delectation of the patrons in between the scheduled entertainment. No wonder that the New Casino Roof had become the rendezvous of all the elite of Manhattan, as well as the Mecca of all visitors from everywhere in the country.
But tonight there was no entertainment on the stage, and there were no happy, flushed and joyous faces at the tables. Instead, the stage was occupied by Mayor Stanton, Commissioner Kirkpatrick, and fifty other officials of the city. At the tables were seated the fifteen hundred white-faced, nervous and tense men and women who had been invited here by the mayor. Mayor Stanton was addressing this assemblage, while uniformed policemen with naked guns in their hands formed an almost unbroken line on all four sides of the roof garden.
On the floors below, armed policemen stood in every corridor and at every vantage point, tense and ready for the first sign of danger.
Outside, a veritable mechanized army of squad cars, riot cars and armored motorcycles filled Broadway and Fifty-Second Street, extending all around the block on to Seventh Avenue as well as Fifty-first Street. Policemen with machine guns were stationed in the upper windows of all the buildings on both sides of the street, and a barricade had been erected at each corner. No one was permitted to cross that barricade, except those who tad been invited to the mass meeting.
By no stretch of the human imagination did it seem possible to launch a successful attack upon that gathering.
Richard Wentworth and Nita van Sloan arrived in the Daimler at seven minutes after midnight, with Wentworth driving. They were late, because they had stopped on the way at Captain Crandall's improvised headquarters at the American Legion Post on Lexington Avenue. There they had found that Crandall was in command of a small force totaling almost three hundred grim and determined ex-service men, augmented by the firemen of Company Nine. These volunteer vigilantes had armed themselves with whatever weapons they could find. Many had old shotguns and hunting rifles. Others had produced army rifles and bayonets, relics of their service in the World War. One of the volunteers proudly displayed a German Flammenwerfer, or flame-thrower, only recently captured from a German by a cousin of his in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in France.
WENTWORTH smiled as he accompanied Captain Crandall on an inspection of the grizzled volunteer vigilantes, drawn up in military fashion. In spite of the motley assortment of weapons with which they were armed, Wentworth was sure that they would give a good account of themselves in any encounter with the vicious hordes of Asmodeus.
Crandall explained that the troop was divided into four companies of seventy-five men each. Mike Kelly was in command of one of the companies, and as his other three lieutenants Crandall had selected three men who had been commissioned officers in the United States Army. Each unit was furnished with motorized equipment, and for this purpose they were making use of the two fire engines and the ambulance, as well as several other vehicles which they had requisitioned.
Captain Crandall seemed to have lost ten years. The transformation was startling. The mere fact that he had a chance to strike a blow against Asmodeus had made a younger man of him.
"With an army like this," he said proudly, "I bet we could chase Hitler out of France inside of a week!"
Wentworth gave them no specific instructions. He merely told them about the mass meeting at the New Casino Theatre, and marked down on a roughly drawn street map the positions which he wished each company to take.
"Hold yourselves in readiness for anything," he finished. "I think I know what kind of disposition Commissioner Kirkpatrick intends to make for the protection of the mass meeting. I am afraid that Asmodeus is just as well aware of them, and that he may stage some swift and ruthless attack which will either destroy their morale, or annihilate them. What you must do, Crandall, will depend upon circumstances. You will consider yourself in command of a reserve force, to be brought into action only at the greatest emergency. I am hoping that Asmodeus knows nothing of this volunteer vigilante army, and that he will make no provision for it."
"Will you be at the meeting?" Crandall asked.
Wentworth nodded. "I will be at the meeting. It may also be that the Spider will be present. If the Spider should give you any orders, you will obey them as if they came from me!"
He shook hands with Crandall, Mike Kelly, and the other commanding officers, and departed in the Daimler with Nita, to the accompaniment of a rousing cheer. Jackson, with the Mercedes, remained behind to act in an advisory capacity to Crandall, and also as liaison officer between the volunteer army and Wentworth. This was rendered possible by the fact that both the Mercedes and the Daimler were equipped with two-way radio apparatus, attuned to a special wavelength, and equipped with distorters.
Those distorters made it impossible for anyone else receiving the message to interpret it.
HAVING made all these arrangements, Wentworth continued on his way to the New Casino Theatre, but with a troubled heart. He was afraid that even the great eagerness and bravery of those would be unavailing against the ruthless cunning of Asmodeus. Even when he and Nita arrived at Fifty-second Street and saw the elaborate precautions which had been taken, he was not any more optimistic.
The Daimler was admitted through the police cordon, and since there was no parking space at the curb, Wentworth swung the long, sleek car into the alley between the New Casino Theatre and the Grayson Building. He removed the keys from the ignition and locked the steering wheel, with the front wheels turned far to the left. Under no circumstances did he want the Daimler moved away tonight. For the two-way radio in this car provided his sole link with the reserve troop under the command of Captain Crandall.
He turned to Nita van Sloan, and looked at her out of deep and burning eyes.
"We part here, darling." he said. "You go upstairs to the roof garden—and I go my own way."
She met his glance with a slight, faltering smile.
"We may never see each other again, Dick."
He nodded. "You'll be up there, Nita, when Asmodeus strikes. And when he does strike, it'll be devastating."
"I know," she said crisply. "But there'll be fifteen hundred others up there. Don't worry about me."
He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Suddenly, she threw her arms about him, and drew his face close to hers. Their lips touched for a long, throbbing moment. Then she let her hands drop into her lap. He opened the door and slid out from under the wheel; then he went around the car and held the door open for her. She stepped out, looked up at him, and said softly, "Goodbye... Spider!" She turned then, with her head held high, and left him. She went around to the entrance of the New Casino Theatre, and was admitted at once.
One of the policemen on duty there said, "Say, that's funny. I thought I saw Mr. Wentworth driving that car, with Miss van Sloan sitting next to him. But she went in alone."
The officer went around into the alley, but there was no sign of Richard Wentworth...
AS Nita van Sloan stepped out of the elevator on to the roof garden, Mayor Stanton had just finished introducing Nola Lucas to the assembly.
"Miss Lucas will tell you in her own words just what she knows about Asmodeus," the Mayor said. "Then, I will leave it to you to vote on what action we should take."
He escorted Nola Lucas up to the microphone at the front of the stage, and stood beside it while she addressed the audience. Nola was wearing a travel-stained tweed suit—the same which she had worn when she was rescued by the Spider at Point Solitude. She stood bravely, with her shoulders back and her head up, but there was a hint of terror in her eyes. Behind her, seated on one of the chairs with the city officials, was her brother, Wilbur. He was nervous and fidgety, and kept looking in every direction as if he feared that Asmodeus might spring out upon them from the night.
Nita van Sloan saw all this as she found a chair at the back of the roof garden, and seated herself. Looking around, Nita saw the tense and troubled countenances of the audience. She was acquainted with many of these people, for they were among the civic leaders of the city. Some of them nodded to her, but most of them were so engrossed in watching what took place on the stage, and were so much in the grip of terror, that they did not even notice her arrival. Nita leaned back in her chair, glancing around to observe what precautions had been taken here. She noted the policemen lined up on all sides of the roof, with guns in their hands, and saw also that additional policemen had been placed on the higher roof of the Grayson Building across the narrow alley. Those uniformed men were looking down upon the roof garden, and it was possible to discern, even in the darkness up there, that they were holding rifles under their arms. But Nita's eyes were worried. She knew that when Asmodeus struck, his attack would be so diabolically planned that all the precautions in the world would not prevail against it.
Somewhere around here, she knew, the Spider was walking. And she had more faith in what that one man might do than in all the guns of these policemen.
Through the loud speakers, the voice of Nola Lucas sounded bravely, as she began to tell her story. She spoke of things which she had not had a chance to tell the Spider, She spoke of how Asmodeus had first forced Wilbur Lucas to do his bidding by kidnapping Nola and holding her prisoner. Asmodeus had forced Wilbur Lucas, as well as several other wealthy people—not to pay ransom—but to purchase stock in various corporations, and to turn over the control to Asmodeus. One of those companies had been Station WASM. Later, the shock troops of Asmodeus under the leadership of Colona had invaded the estate and taken it over. It was then only that they had released Nola Lucas from her cell. Nola had taken advantage of the opportunity to insert the ad in the paper which had first brought the Spider's telephone call. But Asmodeus must have known what she was doing, and must have deliberately allowed her to make the appointment with the Spider for the purpose of trapping him. She spoke of one interview she had had with Asmodeus, in which that self-styled Prince of Darkness, and Master of the Night-Demons had told her that one day, soon, he would be the supreme ruler of America.
"That," she finished, "is the purpose of Asmodeus—to make slaves of all of us!" As she returned to her seat, there was not a sound among the vast assemblage.
MAYOR STANTON arose then, and said, "We will now take a vote. Asmodeus has demanded that from dawn to dusk tomorrow the city must be turned over to him. All police must be withdrawn from the streets. All citizens must remain in their homes, with their shades pulled down. In other words, he demands abject surrender. From what Miss Lucas has told us, we shall not be through with him after dusk tomorrow. That—whatever devilish work he intends to do while we are forced to keep to our homes—that will be but the beginning. Therefore, I ask you to vote. The question is, shall we yield, or shall we fight!"
From fifteen hundred throats there rang a single shout: "Fight!"
Hardly had that shout died down, than a new and terrible sound arose to take its place—a sound which rose up from the street below in a dreadful ululation of pain and agony. It struck a burning brand of terror into every breast upon that roof garden. It was the sound of men dying in pain. Everyone in that great assemblage on the roof garden became rigid with horror. For everyone there knew instinctively that such sounds could be uttered only by those experiencing tortures which the human body is incapable of enduring.
Though there were dozens of police lined up at the parapet of the roof garden, it was Nita van Sloan who was the first to reach it, and to look over.
What she saw down below there brought a choked cry of utter dismay to her lips. Now there were a hundred others leaning over the parapet, and they all saw that solid sheet of flame sweeping along Fifty-second Street, engulfing the uniformed men on guard there, as it rolled over them like a wind-swept forest fire which consumes everything in its path. It was the same kind of chemical fire which had thundered through the subway line only two hours ago.
The chemical fire was belching from a huge Department of Sanitation water wagon which was being driven slowly down the street. The water-nozzles had been twisted around so they pointed forward. A liquid chemical was being squirted out of those nozzles in long streams, which ignited when they struck the sheet of fire ahead of the trucks. The truck itself was covered from the ground up with some sort of asbestos sheeting, and at the top, above the cab of the truck, had been installed a huge electric fan which sent a strong current of air ahead of the truck, thus rolling the fire before it.
The wall of fire stretched from one side of the street clear across to the other, and as it rolled along it scorched the facades of the building. The uniformed policemen were running from that advancing billow of fire as fast as their legs could carry them, turning to pump shot after shot into it as they ran. But dozens of them had been overtaken by the fiery menace, and as the flame rolled past them, their shrunken and twisted bodies were left behind in the gutter for the truck to crush beneath its heavy wheels. Behind the Department of Sanitation truck, marched rank upon rank of the wiry yellow killers, each wearing a black coat-of-mail beneath his alpaca jacket, and each carrying two peculiar cup-like objects in his hand, while from the wrist of each there hung a glistening wire whip.
IN that second when she first glimpsed what was taking place below, Nita van Sloan felt that never as long as she lived would she ever be able to eradicate from her memory the sight of that scene of burning carnage. The fleeing policemen were slowing up now, for they thought themselves out of reach of that rolling wall of fire. But suddenly, all hope of safety left them. For from the other end of the street, a second Department of Sanitation truck, covered with asbestos, suddenly appeared. Its nozzles squirted a chemical spray, and at once another sheet of fire flamed into life. Now those two walls of fiery destruction approached each other, closing in with ruthless certainty, and trapping the unfortunate policemen between them. Many of the uniformed men sought refuge in the alley between the theatre and the Grayson Building. But most of them were caught out in the open street, with no place to flee. The two approaching walls of fire met in the middle of the street, engulfing the hopeless men below.
Nita van Sloan pushed back from the parapet. She could no longer endure to watch. She heard the shout of the yellow killers as they launched themselves upon the surviving patrolmen who had taken refuge in the alley and in other nooks and crannies along the street. She felt an irresistible urge to leap up upon that parapet and launch herself down into the street, and tear with her bare hands at the yellow skin of those hateful killers. Only with an effort did she restrain herself from obeying that overpowering impulse. Here on the roof garden, her services were needed. Commissioner Kirkpatrick and Mayor Stanton were forming the uniformed patrolmen into squads. They were going to lead those men down to do battle with the yellow killers. The men and women of the mass meeting were milling around in a terrified, frightened panic, and Kirkpatrick took Nita by the arm.
"We're going down after those devils, Nita. See if you can get these people quieted down. I'm depending on you to prevent this panic from spreading!"
"Yes, yes," Nita said in a voice which she herself did not recognize. "I'll do whatever I can."
She left him, and hurried among the excited people, choosing one here and one there, and appointing them to form the others into small groups, and to get them into some semblance of order. In the meantime, the first of the policemen left the roof by the emergency staircase exit, with Kirkpatrick at their head. The two long lines of policemen filed out of the roof garden on their way down to meet the enemy. Soon, the roof was cleared of uniformed men. Policemen from all the neighboring buildings, including the Grayson Building, were also hurrying down, and it was significant of the grim courage of New York's Finest that none of them held back, even in the face of that grisly threat of flaming death.
Soon the sound of gunfire began to roll up from below. The police must have met the Night-Demons of Asmodeus on the way up. They were engaged in mortal combat.
Nita van Sloan, hurrying here and there about the roof garden, had managed to quiet the growing panic of the assembled representatives who had come to vote tonight. She snatched a moment's time to hurry over to the parapet and look over.
But before she reached the parapet, she suddenly stopped short, as a ghastly yellow face arose over the top of the wall and grinned into hers. Incredible as it seemed to her, that man must have climbed up the face of the wall to reach the roof!
THE yellow killer started to clamber over the parapet, and Nita shouted, "No you don't!" and jumped forward. Her little fist smashed square into the yellow man's face, sending him hurtling backward, out into space. He uttered an unearthly scream as he fell, but the thud of his body on the concrete below was drowned out by the rising volume of gunfire in the building and out in the streets.
Nita felt a sharp tug of nausea at her stomach, but she clenched her hands hard, and set her teeth into her lower lip. She made herself step forward and look over the parapet. Her heart sank at what she saw. She had thought that that yellow man had just climbed to the roof as a scout, by some freak means. But now she saw that she was wrong. Dozens of those wiry little yellow devils were climbing up the face of the building with uncanny speed, the way a horde of ants will climb up an embankment after a large, fat worm. Those two cup-like objects which they had been carrying were suction cups. And by means of these, they were climbing up the wall. A dozen of them were already at the top, and before Nita could even utter a shout of warning, they were over the parapet and on the roof garden. They discarded their suction cups, and raised those wicked wire whips of theirs high in the air, and rushed upon the huddled assembly of men and women, while at the same time the balance of their fellows came swarming over the top to join in the attack.
Horrified, Nita saw that other yellow men were at the windows of the Grayson Building, overlooking the roof garden.
On the roof, the yellow killers formed into a long line, advancing slowly, with their whips snaking out in front of them, and driving the frightened throng back toward the rear of the roof garden.
Nita van Sloan looked about, helplessly, for some means of combating these devils. On the stage, there lay a sub-machine gun, either lost or forgotten by one of the police. The stage itself was deserted, for Wilbur and Nola Lucas and the other officials had come down onto the roof garden. No one had noticed that sub-machine gun. Nita turned to run toward the stage. She heard a scream behind her, and turned swiftly to see Wilbur Lucas fighting a yellow man who had tried to seize Nola. Lucas struck the yellow man savagely in the face with his fist, but a second yellow man leaped in, twirling his whip around Wilbur's neck.
Nita had no more time to look. But she knew that Wilbur Lucas's neck must have been broken by that cruel wire. She kept on racing toward the stage, but one of the yellow men raced around to cut her off. His whip slicked out, encircling her waist. Nita was almost hurled off her feet as the coiled spring wire ripped the filmy material of her dress from her body. The yellow man laughed tauntingly, and swung his whip a second time. There was no escape for Nita, for several other killers were converging upon her. And even if she attempted to run, that long, snaking whip would catch her.
This is the end, she thought. That machine gun on the stage might have saved the day. But there was no one to use it. As the wire tore at her body once more, she thought of Dick Wentworth. Where was the Spider...?
AS if in answer to that unspoken, poignant thought of Nita's, a single shot barked somewhere overhead. That solitary gun blast was almost unheard above the rattling din and gunfire of the battle which was taking place downstairs. But its effect was nonetheless accurate and deadly. For the yellow man whose whip was circling around Nita's waist suddenly threw up his hands and screamed, then fell forward on his face with a bullet through his heart.
Nita's eyes rose joyfully to the roof of the Grayson Building. A glad cry welled up in her throat. There, leaning far over the edge of the roof of the corner building was the black-caped figure of the Spider, with a blazing automatic in each hand.
That first shot had relieved Nita of her immediate tormentor. Now, the Spider's guns began to bark a rhythmic threnody of death as they blazed down upon those devils of the night. Each shot reached its mark. But by now, other yellow men had reached the roof. They had guns, and these they turned upward toward that grim figure of the Spider, Now the battle was joined upon the roof, as well as downstairs. But it was one man against many.
For the moment, Nita stood alone, unwatched by the yellow men. Still with the single purpose in mind of reaching that abandoned machine gun, she turned and ran once more for the stage. But the yellow men were too fast for her. One of them cut her off again, and his whip snaked out to circle her. It was at that moment that the Spider ceased firing. His guns were empty.
Those yellow men sensed that he could harm them no more. A great vicious shout went up from among them, but it was a shout which died in wonder. For suddenly, one of the Spider's empty revolvers came hurtling down upon the roof garden. It landed with a thud, and it became apparent, then, that the gun had been tied to the end of what seemed to be a thin, wispy strand. Up on the roof of the Grayson Building, the Spider leaned over and pulled at the other end of the thread, making the gun roll around the roof garden until the thread encountered a stanchion. The Spider gave that thin thread a sudden twist, so that the gun at its end swung around the stanchion, anchoring the line effectively. The yellow men gazed blankly at that thread-like line. They could not imagine its purpose. Suddenly, they shouted in utter amazement. For they saw the black-caped figure of the Spider swing out from the roof and start to slide down on that thread which seemed hardly strong enough to carry the weight of a mouse!
They expected momentarily that the thread would break beneath the Spider's weight, and send him hurtling down to his death upon the roof garden. But nothing happened for ten, for twenty, for thirty feet. Already the Spider was halfway down. From his pocket he had produced a third gun, which he now turned down upon the yellow men on the roof garden. High up in the Grayson Building, a yellow man leaned out from a window with a long knife, and slashed viciously at the thread. The edge of his keen blade struck that line again and again, but failed to cut it!
THE man looked closely at his knife, wondering what was the trouble with it. The killers down below stared in amazement, thinking, perhaps, that it was some sort of magic. None of these yellow men had ever heard of—the Spider's Web! That thin, unbelievably strong line, had been made for the Spider at his own order, and in accordance with a secret formula, using a basic nylon derivative. Though it was no thicker than a ten-penny nail, its tensile strength was such that it could hold the largest liner moored to its dock. And no instrument had yet been found which could sever it completely. This was the Spider's Web!
Perhaps if those yellow killers had kept on shooting as the Spider slid down the web, they would have got him. Who knows?
But somewhere in that great Book of Life, the Fates had not written that the Spider was to die upon that Web. The enemy had stopped firing, watching their fellow slice at the Web with his knife. They had expected that that would take care of the Spider, And before they realized that the Web could not be cut, the black-caped avenging figure was on the roof among them.
Now they uttered shouts of ugly triumph. This was the man for whom their master, Asmodeus, had offered a fabulous reward. And here he was among them, one among many, an easy prey—or so they thought!
The Spider landed lightly on his feet, and emptied his gun at the nearest of the killers. Then, running in a crouch, and weaving from side to side, he dashed for the stage.
Whips flailed about him. But his queer crouch and his peculiar manner of running foiled the aim of the yellow men. In a moment, he was up on the stage and had reached the machine gun. Then he stood erect with it at his hip. That familiar, dreadful laughter rose from his lips as he faced the enemy, upright and defiant. He stood there, straddle-legged on the stage, while bullets whined around him, and his black-gloved finger closed down on the trip. Lancing flame flew from the muzzle. A long stream of tracer bullets smashed into the foremost rank of the surging attackers. Then he swung the gun slowly, surely, accurately, so as to hit only that line of yellow men, and not the cowering throng of civic leaders.
Like saplings before a tornado, those yellow men went down. The Spider was aiming where he wished, and hitting where he aimed. He must be accurate, for Nita was among those yellow men. He switched the muzzle an inch to the left, and the hail of lead cut down the yellow man whose whip was about her waist Freed, Nita snatched up a revolver dropped by one of the dead yellow men and raced up on the stage to join the Spider, But now the yellow men were in full flight. That deadly barrage from the machine gun had broken their spirit. They had seen this black-caped avenger slide down what seemed to be a thread of cotton from the roof above. They had fired at him, and had not been able to hit him. And now he was cutting them down with uncanny accuracy. Even the thought of the reward offered for the Spider was not enough to spur them on. They turned and ran.
But they were not to escape so easily. For now, that throng of frightened men and women—those civic leaders who had looked over the parapet and seen their policemen burned to death—uttered a resounding shout of vengeance and fell upon their tormentors. Chairs and table legs constituted their weapons, and the fight was short and deadly. When they finished, there was not a yellow man standing.
THEN, when they had wreaked their vengeance upon the whip-men, they turned to seek the Spider and thank him for what he had done. But the Spider was no longer on the stage. He was nowhere to be seen.
Several of them sought Nita van Sloan, and saw her standing with a small group near the parapet and watching the fight in the street. They huddled about her, demanding to know where the Spider was.
"You were on the stage with him," one of them said. "Did you see him go?"
"No," Nita answered truthfully. "I didn't see him go."
She turned to a tall, handsome man in the small group. "Did you see the Spider go, Dick?"
"Why, no," Richard Wentworth replied. "To tell you the truth, I wasn't looking at the Spider."
No one had noticed how the Spider had cunningly unhooked his web from the hook to which it was attached at the top of the Grayson Building, by slipping it skillfully upward in a loop. No one had seen him crawl up the web, and then disappear behind the stage. No one had seen Richard Wentworth emerge a moment later. And none had noticed the fact that Wentworth had not been present before the attack.
Someone in the crowd exclaimed, "I say, we ought to make the Spider Commissioner of Police. That guy has certainly done more for us today..."
Nita and Wentworth were no longer listening to the remarks of those in the crowd. They were peering over the side of the parapet, with anxious eyes. What they saw there gave them renewed courage. The police under Kirkpatrick and Mayor Stanton had battled their way out of the building and into the street. The yellow men had retreated before them, but they were still fighting viciously. But just as Wentworth and Nita looked, they saw two fire trucks and an ambulance come racing into the street from the direction of Broadway. The Vigilantes of Captain Crandall came pouring out of those vehicles, and swarmed over the two Department of Sanitation trucks. Others of the vigilante army followed from other vehicles, attacking the yellow men in the rear.
Wentworth's eyes glowed as he saw how Crandall's men turned the tide of the battle. They were fresh and eager, and their charge carried everything before it. In the space of moments, they had routed the yellow men, who went scurrying off in every direction, disappearing into the shadows of the night. Three lucky cheers went up from down below.
But as Wentworth turned away from the parapet with Nita, there was a grim look in his eyes. He was thinking of those men who had died so horribly in the fire-swept street, and he was thinking, too, of the task which still lay ahead. He met Nita's gaze, and saw that she was thinking the same thing. These cohorts of Asmodeus who had just been defeated were but a small portion of the army which he must have under his command. And now it was certain that in order to re-establish his terrorization of the city, he would surely strike some devastating blow before dawn. The Spider's mission was far from complete.
WENTWORTH had little chance to talk to Nita, for Commissioner Kirkpatrick came hurrying up to the roof, anxious to learn what had happened. Somberly, he looked at the dead bodies of the yellow men strewn about the roof garden, and listened to the excited chatter of those who crowded about him, relating what had happened. There was no joy in his eyes as he finally freed himself of those people, and approached Wentworth and Nita. They had been victorious in this battle, yes—but at a frightful cost. Men who had been living and strong but a few minutes ago were now lying below in the street, their bodies burned and ghastly.
"Thank God the Spider showed up here!" he said wearily. "If these people here had been killed or captured, I don't know what I'd have done. It was my responsibility. I was thinking only of leading my men down to the battle, and forgot that they might be exposed to danger. Now, if we could only locate the headquarters of Asmodeus—"
He stopped, as a breathless patrolman came racing out of the elevator cage, across the roof. The man saluted hastily, and said in a breathless voice, "Commissioner, Headquarters is on the short-wave. They've gotten almost a hundred reports of kidnappings. Women and children have been carried out of homes all over the city, by the Night-Demons of Asmodeus!"
Commissioner Kirkpatrick's shoulders sagged. "Good Lord, what is he trying for now?"
"I don't know, sir," the young policeman replied. "But all of the women and children who have been kidnapped are sons and daughters and wives of these people here."
Richard Wentworth stepped swiftly forward, and gripped the policeman's arm. "You're sure of this?"
The officer nodded. "Yes, Mr. Wentworth. Headquarters checked on it—"
Before he could finish, a strange thing happened. On the blank portion of the Grayson Building where the television screen was erected, a huge face suddenly appeared.
It was the face of a man who was unspeakably evil. He had a narrow jaw and a wide, high forehead. Thin wisps of hair were combed carefully back from it, and parted in the center. His eyes were so deep-set and sunken that they appeared to be dark wells of illimitable depth. His mouth was but a thin line of cruelly drawn lips.
The eyes of every person on the roof were drawn to that strange face as if by a magnet. Wentworth alone looked around and saw the beam of light which indicated that the picture was being thrown on to the screen from the television booth at the other end of the roof garden, which was the booth from which the television programs were regularly broadcast every night when the New Casino Roof was operating. Someone was in that booth, operating the machine, and throwing the televised broadcast on to the screen. That broadcast was coming from some remote spot. Asmodeus had once more chosen a dramatic way of addressing the people.
Wentworth started at once to cross the roof toward the booth, but he stopped short as that evil face upon the screen began to utter words.
"Let no one approach the booth. It will pay you to see what I have to show you all."
IMMEDIATELY, that ghastly face disappeared, giving place to a scene in a vast chamber of some sort. It was a long, narrow chamber. Along the entire length of one wall, human beings were chained by their wrists. Their backs were to the wall, and the chains had been arranged at just the proper height so that they could barely touch the floor with their toes. And before each of those unfortunate persons stood one of the alpaca clothed yellow men, with a wire whip. They were swinging those whips with a cruel, steady rhythm to the beat of a drum.
At one end of the long chamber was a raised platform upon which stood two people. One of them was Asmodeus—he whose face had first been flashed upon the screen. He wore a long, white garment and a white skull-cap which made him look like some priest of an ancient cult. Beside him stood the woman, Lilith. Her golden body appeared to be entirely naked. But Wentworth knew better. He knew that it was golden, skin-tight chain mail which she was wearing.
That scene, with all its dreadful horror, struck like a hammer blow at the hearts of all those people on the roof of the New Casino Theatre. Cries of anguish arose as they recognized loved ones—a wife, a daughter, a son. Men groaned in helpless rage and bitterness, and women screamed.
"Don't hit her! For God's sake, have mercy!"
Heart-rending pleas for mercy went up into the still, unheeding night air. Commissioner Kirkpatrick passed a hand across his dazed eyes. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed. "That scene is actually taking place somewhere!"
Suddenly, the televised picture was wiped off the screen. In its place, there reappeared the figure of Asmodeus. He seemed to be looking right out at the audience out of those deep and ghostly eyes, and his thin lips moved as he uttered words. "Listen to me, all of you, for I, Asmodeus, speak. Tonight you have seen fit to defy me. You have killed many of my men. You have voted to fight. You, who are assembled here, have seen those you love under the lash of my whips. Listen!" He raised a hand for a moment, and the steady beating of the drum became audible once more. "Every time the drum beats, it's another lash. It is for you to say how long they will endure this torture."
Suddenly, the televised picture disappeared from the screen. The ghastly performance was over.
FOR a second there was a great hush over that roof garden. Then fifteen hundred voices rose in piteous unison. Women cried, and men sobbed.
"Oh, God," a woman screamed. "My daughter—my little Susan! Save her! Save her—let's give him the city!"
In the dreadful confusion, one man among all those people moved lithely across the roof. Richard Wentworth had not waited for the performance to end. Already he was close underneath the television booth. He saw a man emerge from it, and start to climb swiftly down the ladder. The fellow looked down, and saw Wentworth. He uttered an oath, and snatched out a revolver. Wentworth's gun was in his hands, and blasting, in the space of a split-second. But he aimed carefully, only to wound, and not to kill. He hit the man in the shoulder. The fellow uttered a cry, and let go of the ladder, his body arching backward, and he clawed for a hold on the rungs. He missed, and went hurtling over the parapet.
So great was the mental suffering of those on the roof garden, that hardly anyone noticed what had happened. Kirkpatrick and Nita came over, and Wentworth swiftly explained.
The Commissioner sighed. "It looks like the end, Dick. These people will surely vote to turn the city over to Asmodeus tomorrow, and I can't blame them much, either. Their only hope is to throw themselves at his mercy."
Wentworth's fists were clenched hard. "Let them vote as they like, Kirk. It's two o'clock now. There are still three hours before dawn. If we fail to get Asmodeus by then—why, then, we must give him the city!"
"But—but what can we do?"
"I think," Wentworth told him slowly, "that I have one more ace in the hole. Let me try it—alone, and no questions asked."
Kirkpatrick nodded gravely...
JUST then Jackson came hurriedly up on to the roof garden. He looked around at the dazed and horrified crowd, and then spotted Wentworth. He came over almost at a run, but slowed down when he approached them. He threw Wentworth a significant glance.
Wentworth said, "Excuse me a minute, Kirk. There's Jackson. He was in the fight downstairs. I want to see how he made out."
He left them, and went over to the edge of the roof.
"What is it, Jackson?"
"It's Ram Singh, sir. He's trying to get you on the short wave. Important. He's got Colona to talk!"
Wentworth's pulse throbbed. He saw that Nita was watching him, and he signaled to her to follow him. She disengaged herself from the others, and in a moment she had joined Wentworth and Jackson in the elevator. They shot downstairs, and Wentworth hurried into the Daimler.
He clicked on the short-wave set, threw the switch which cut the distorter in, so that no one else could pick up the conversation, and said, "Ram Singh! Wentworth calling!"
In a moment he heard the voice of the Sikh coming in over the air. "Master! I have made the pig squeal! I gave him a knife, and told him he must talk, or fight me till one of us die." Ram Singh chuckled. "He only fought a little while."
"What did you learn?"
"He can lead us to Asmodeus, Master. But the place is well guarded, with alarms. Only fifty men may come. If there are more, the alarm will be given. Asmodeus has hundreds of troops, and the fifty are apt to be annihilated. But there is a small chance that they may destroy Asmodeus first. You must find fifty men who are ready to die, Master."
"I see," said Wentworth. "I think I have them, Ram Singh."
"Then bring them to Fifty-Ninth Street, Master. Let them meet me at the subway station at Lexington Avenue. I will bring the pig."
"We'll be there, Ram Singh. In twenty minutes. And for God's sake, don't lose Colona!"
Wentworth clicked off the short-wave set. He turned to look at Jackson and Nita, who had crowded into the car with him, to listen.
Nita's eyes were shining with renewed hope. "A chance! It's a chance to save those helpless women and children—before they die under the lash!"
"Don't count too much on it," Wentworth told her. "Colona may be lying."
"But if he isn't, sir," Jackson said, "then it means that you must have fifty men who are ready to die."
Wentworth nodded. "That's right."
Jackson smiled. "May I be the first to volunteer, sir?"
There was a look of pain in Richard Wentworth's eyes.
"Must you go, Jackson? Ram Singh will surely insist on going. If you and I and Ram Singh are killed, who will be left to take care of Miss Nita?"
"I won't need to be taken care of," Nita said. "Because I'm going, too!"
A quick protest rose to Wentworth's lips. But as he looked into Nita's eye, he smothered it. This was right. Nita was a woman. But she was one of them!
HE got out of the car, and went in search of Captain Crandall. The scene on Fifty-Second Street resembled a European battlefield. He had to pick his way carefully among the charred and crushed bodies. He found Crandall and the other boys, assisting the police in mopping up. When he told Crandall what he wanted, the captain of the vigilantes smiled.
"We'll have too many volunteers," he said.
He went among his men, selecting those who were best armed, and those he knew had the fewest dependents. Among them was Michael Kelly, and the red-headed young Jerry Boone. Each man with whom he spoke slipped inconspicuously away, to hurry to the rendezvous at Fifty-Ninth Street. Then, when the recruiting was done, Wentworth, Crandall and Nita got into the Mercedes, and Jackson drove them up to the meeting place.
Jackson parked about fifty feet from the subway station, and they waited, watching the arriving figures of the fifty vigilantes.
It was almost twenty minutes before Ram Singh arrived, with Colona handcuffed to his left wrist. He had not been able to obtain any means of transportation, so they had to walk from the Fifth Avenue apartment.
The Sikh thrust Colona into the car, and unlocked the handcuffs.
"Here is the pig, Master. Let him tell you his own story."
COLONA slumped hopelessly in the seat between Wentworth and Ram Singh. "All right. It's like this—Asmodeus has his headquarters some place underground. It's around here, but I don't know exactly where. We go in through the Fyfe Building across the street there, and down to the sub-cellar. There is an exit from the sub-cellar into an abandoned spur of the subway. Asmodeus has guards there, and there are a couple of hand-cars which they use for taking the men in and out. They never let more than fifty men in at one time, and once you're in there, you can't get out unless someone at headquarters presses a button to open the steel doors. That's why I said that whoever goes in there must be ready to die. You could get in, but I don't know what you could accomplish."
"How far is headquarters from the place where you enter the subway?"
"It's about a mile, I guess. But I don't know in what direction, because it's pitch black in there, and you can't tell which turns they take on the hand-car. The way they guide themselves, there are little green lights which go on along the track ahead of the hand-car, and go off after the hand-car passes. I don't know if those are electric light bulbs, or if they are men stationed along the track with flashlights."
"What happens when you get to headquarters?"
"There's a steel door. The hand-car stops in front of it, and the guide rings a bell. You can't hear it ring, but I watched him push it, and I know the signal three, one, three. That was the signal he used last time, but for all I know, they might have changed it."
"I see," Wentworth said. He lifted a whistle to his lips, and blew a short blast upon it. Immediately, the shadowy figures of the loitering men of Captain Crandall's volunteer troop began to converge toward the Mercedes.
"Will you let me go now?" Colona asked eagerly.
"Not yet, my friend," Wentworth told him softly. "You're coming along with us, and at the first sign of treachery—you'll be number one on the casualty list!"
Hardly a soul noticed the grim file of fifty-one men and one woman who made their way in the night into the Fyfe Building—to lay their lives on the weighted scales of the Fates...
THE drum was beating in a grim, resounding monotone. Its ominous diapason throbbed through the length of the narrow, vaulted torture chamber. It provided a grisly counterpoint to the high, shrill screams of children and the wracking moans of women under the lash. The cold, dank dampness of death lay thick in the air of this subterranean spur of the subway system, long abandoned to the rotting erosion of water and time.
Upon the dais at the end of the chamber stood Asmodeus and the woman, Lilith. The scene was no different in any detail from that which had been flashed upon the screen over the New Casino Roof Garden.
But that strange and sensuous smile was still upon the lips of the seductive golden woman who stood at the side of Asmodeus. He himself showed only a masklike countenance, upon which was printed, as if indelibly, an unchanging mask of deep and basic malevolence.
On a wall panel at the left of Asmodeus, a green light flashed. The thin penciled lines of his eyebrows rose but a fraction of an inch. He pressed a button below the green light. Immediately, a steel door at the far end of the chamber rose upward on oiled hinges. Beyond it, was another door made entirely of glass. Now, the section of tunnel outside the chamber was visible. Lilith and Asmodeus could see a hand-car approaching, with men clustered thick upon it. The men appeared to have difficulty in hanging on, for they were all bending over, apparently to keep their balance. For this reason, their faces were not visible.
At the front of the hand-car stood a man and a woman—Colona, and Nita van Sloan.
The golden-sheathed body of Lilith began to tremble with a sudden access of passionate triumph. "I know that woman," she exclaimed. "It's Wentworth's fiancée—Nita van Sloan!"
The hand-truck stopped close to the glass door. At a signal from Asmodeus, Colona reached over for a microphone which hung suspended by a wire over the track. He placed it to his ear. At the same time, Asmodeus detached a similar microphone from the wall panel at his left, and spoke a single word into it: "Report!"
COLONA, facing Asmodeus through the glass panel, raised two fingers to his forehead, and placed his lips at the microphone.
"Asmodeus, Prince of Darkness and King of the Night," he said in a ritualistic and reverent manner. "I, Colona, your servant and slave, come to report a victory. I hope that it pleases you. I have captured this woman—Nita van Sloan!"
Looking at Colona through the glass door, Asmodeus and Lilith could see only that his face was twisted into a hideous leer of servile triumph. They could not see the bearded and turbaned figure of Ram Singh, crouching directly behind Colona, with the point of his knife in the small of his back. They saw also the haughty and aristocratic pride in the face of Nita van Sloan. They could not know that her hand, behind her, was tightly gripping the hand of Richard Wentworth.
"I hate that woman!" Lilith murmured to Asmodeus. "I hate her because she is as beautiful as I am. I hate her because I can only command the love of men through passion, while she commands both their love and their respect."
Asmodeus smiled satanically.
"Give her to me!" Lilith begged with a sudden, hot eagerness. "I will kill her!"
"You shall have her," Asmodeus said. He spoke into the microphone, at the same time pressing a second button on the wall panel. "You have done well, Colona. You have wiped out your past failures. You shall be rewarded. Bring the girl in—but do not allow your men to enter. Send them to report to the barracks."
In response to his pressure upon the button, the glass door began to rise.
While Asmodeus talked, the drum had ceased to beat, and the yellow men had stopped lashing their victims. Their cries had died down to faint, tremulous moans of misery. But now, as the glass door rose slowly, the drum resumed its dreadful monotone, and the yellow men swung their lashes once more. To this chorus of infernal torment, Colona stepped down from the hand-truck and led Nita into the chamber.
Asmodeus had turned for a moment to speak to Lilith. But now, when he looked back, he saw that Colona and Nita were not alone. Behind Colona strode the turbaned Ram Singh, while Richard Wentworth kept close behind Nita. In direct disobedience to orders, the other men on the hand truck were rushing through the opening under the glass door.
For once, the face of Asmodeus lost its inhuman, basilisk mask. A shout of rage thundered from his throat. "Treachery!"
The yellow whip-wielders swung around at his order, and formed to meet the attack, while other yellow men came pouring into the room from behind the dais. Asmodeus waved them forward, shouting to them in a strange and foreign tongue. That second wave of yellow men was armed with machine guns. But they never got a chance to use them. For suddenly, from the ranks of the attacking volunteers, a bright, flaring spear of crimson flame lanced forward like a brilliant, flying comet through the night.
THAT flame was projected from the Flammenwerfer—the flame-throwing machine which one of Crandall's volunteers had received from the second World War.
Though these yellow devils had not hesitated to use fire in their attack upon the police, they could not take their own medicine.
But Crandall's men were upon them now, fighting like men possessed, giving no quarter, giving them no chance even to ask for mercy, for they had seen the tortured victims of the lash hanging in chains from the wall, and their mood was one of furious vengeance.
It was Wentworth himself who reached the dais first. Asmodeus had turned to flee, but when he saw that Wentworth was overtaking him, he spun around with a gun in his fist. His face was a terrible, vindictive mass of futile hatred. The two men faced each other for only the space of a heartbeat, yet it seemed to be aeons of time floating in eternity. Each was pointing a gun at the other. The finger of each was curled, taut, around the trigger.
The eyes of Richard Wentworth met and locked with the eyes of Asmodeus, Prince of Darkness. To Wentworth, his own life was a cheap price to pay to rid the world of this monster.
But suddenly, Asmodeus stiffened like a ram rod. His thin-lipped mouth dropped open. Those deep sunk eyes of his grew wide—and for the first time, they became expressive. Expressive of terror. From his throat protruded the bone handle of Ram Singh's long knife.
Wentworth stood very still, and watched him sink slowly to the floor without firing his gun. Then Wentworth turned around and smiled across ten feet of intervening space at Ram Singh. In Punjabi, he called out above the crash and din of the battle, "For the hundredth time, I owe you my life, Old Friend!"
Ram Singh showed his white teeth in a happy smile. "A hundred more, and we shall not be even, Master."
He stepped up on the dais and withdrew his knife from the dead man's body.
The battle was over. Crandall's men were in command of the field. Those yellow men who had not died in the fight were fleeing, disorganized and leaderless, through the subterranean caverns of the subway. There would be no difficulty in rounding them up.
Wentworth glanced hastily around in search of Nita. Suddenly, a great anxiety arose within him. He hurried down the length of the chamber, past the volunteers who were busy releasing the chained victims, and at last glimpsed Nita, standing with a smoking gun over a golden, crumpled body.
Nita heard his footsteps and turned to him, letting the gun drop from her hand.
"I killed her, Dick," she said huskily. "She was too evil to live!"
"Too evil—and too beautiful!" Wentworth added. He put his arm around Nita. "Come, my girl. We're through here. We'll get Ram Singh and Jackson, and go out of town—on a long vacation, some place where the Spider has never been heard of."
"But can we get away?" Nita asked. "Commissioner Kirkpatrick and Mayor Stanton will probably want to stage some ceremonies, and hail you as a hero."
"That," Richard Wentworth said firmly, "is what I want to avoid."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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