Free THE SPIDER-City of Doom by Norvell W. Page

down her face, wetting the cheek that still bore the crimson imprint of Hackerson's blow. Wentworth pushed her aside, held her off with a hand on her shoulder while she leaned forward, swiping at him futilely.
    "You can give a message to Baldy," the Spider said, slowly. "You tell him this is just a token payment. Tell him I shall kill every hireling of his Master, himself included, on sight. The Spider will show no more mercy. From now on, he will kill! Kill! KILL! "
    He thrust Beatrice Ross away and she reeled with arms swinging wildly. Wentworth stepped to the fire-escape, swung rapidly downward. He heard the Ross woman screeching from the window. Flame lanced from her hand and gun-noise racketed in the narrow areaway. But her bullets only clanged off the steel framework of the fire-escape and splatted against the concrete floor of the areaway.
    As he dashed through the hallways of another of the colony buildings, a white-faced man stepped into his path with a gun in a trembling hand. A swift blow sent the gun scaling along the floor and the Spider went out into the street. The eerie shriek of police sirens was close at hand, but he reached his car before the first of the radio patrol-cars skated into the street. His eyes, as he drove quietly away, were burning points of flame. His only accomplishment had been to wipe out the one tangible clue he had to the Master. There remained—Beatrice Ross.
     
     

Chapter Seven
Lull Before the Storm
    AS WENTWORTH drove on, a cold smile touched his lips. The fiery action had cooled his rage, left only the steel-like bite of avenging anger. He swerved to the curb, called police headquarters and got Ram Singh on the telephone.
    "Have you had any success, Ram Singh?" he queried.
    The Hindu's voice was expressionless, but there was weariness behind it. "There is not a picture in the Rogue's gallery like the man I saw."
    "Very well, I have another task for thee, Ram Singh," Wentworth lapsed into staccato Hindustani, for he did not know who might be listening upon the wire. "Devil Hackerson is dead with the seal of the Spider upon his forehead. Police will bring in presently a woman known as Beatrice Ross. When she is freed, follow her and before many hours, you should meet again your friend, Baldy. When you do, drop the woman and trail the man. Report through Jenkyns."
    He parked his car and speedily stripped off the disguise of the Spider, becoming then a blond young man with full cheeks and a bristling, reddish mustache. He exaggerated his customary erect stride as he entered the Kennillworth Hotel on Forty-Sixth Street. He walked with an accentuated tap of heels, a slight sway of the left hip that cavalrymen everywhere would recognize, the stride of an officer accustomed to wearing spurs and swaying the dangling sabre out of the way of his booted calves.
    At the desk, his incisive question revealed that Anse Collins' room was on the eleventh floor. Wentworth crossed to a house 'phone to talk with him, and the clerk scowled after him. These army men were all like that, so used to service by others that they never had a courteous word for anyone.
    "Collins," Wentworth said softly as the man answered the 'phone, "this is the man you have been expecting. I'll be right up."
    "Good!" Collins snapped. "I was getting ready to go out on my own. I'm thinking that the same thing that was used to break that safe caused these buildings to fall today."
    Wentworth found that Nancy Collins had a room down the hall from her brother-in-law. "If you don't mind," the deputy said, "I reckon we don't need to bother Nancy any. She's had a powerful tough time of it lately." His eyes were keenly studying Wentworth's face, skipped over the brownish tweeds he had donned. "I reckon I wouldn't know you."
    A broad smile curved Wentworth's lips. "Probably not," he agreed. There were few persons in the world more adept at disguise than the Spider. It was not that he changed his face radically. It was simply that with