Spider Page 15

  The Spider was ever alert for new outbreaks of crime. It was only by constant vigilance that he had averted, a dozen times over, the desire of the Underworld to rule over the nation; the slaughter of untold thousands. . . . It had seemed to him now that perhaps some ring of race-track gamblers had conceived a new, horrible weapon and was using it, at present, to destroy personal enemies and to frame races. If that were true, it was no more than a routine job for the police; but suppose . . . suppose the criminals behind this strange new terror turned their thoughts to nation-wide conquest!

  The Spider had seen many overwhelming reigns of terror begin thus trivially. He had learned the wisdom of striking quickly and terribly. So he had come tonight to determine what Latham knew of this strange, new, killing instrument.

  The turmoil below was quieting. Soon the patrol of the grounds would begin again. The Spider had no fear that the man he had struck would regain consciousness and betray him. The jiu-jitsu blow would be effective for at least an hour and by that time, the Spider's presence would be known to them all!

  A slow smile crossed the Spider's straight lips as he crept stealthily up the service stairway of the mansion toward the second floor sitting room, where, he knew, Latham kept his watch. There was a shotgun guard in the wide, upper hall. The Spider drew a length of silken line from a pocket of his cape, rope less than the diameter of a pencil which yet had a tensile strength of seven hundred pounds! The Spider's web, police had dubbed it. Well, he would use it now to catch a fly!

  Carefully, he looped the cord, carefully tossed it. The unwary guard felt gossamer brush his throat; then he was yanked off his feet, his shotgun clattering to the floor. The Spider was beside him in an instant and once more he struck swiftly to render the man unconscious. He freed his line and, in two long bounds, was at the door behind which Latham lurked with his bodyguard.

  That noise of clattering gun had been intentional. After its sound, all was utter, waiting silence. Then, abruptly, the door the Spider watched snapped open. A man with a gun held rigidly ready sprang out into the hall. He grated a curse as he saw the prostrate guard, moved toward him cautiously. The Spider's fist lashed out, caught him hard on the jaw. While the man still wavered on his feet, the Spider had yanked away his gun, was through the open door, had closed it, and the automatic was covering the room.

  "Ah, Latham," said the Spider, his voice flat, mocking. "Let me compliment you on the efficacy of your guard!" He laughed softly, and that sound, too, was taunting, blood-chilling.

  There were three men in the room and they sat—one of them half-stood—in attitudes of frozen fright. Only Latham's gun was in sight, upon a small, nearby taboret which also held whiskey and a soda siphon. He held a glass in his right hand and, the first to recover, he began presently to slosh the liquid about in it slowly. He was spare, but full-faced and distinguished with his smooth, brown hair which had whitened upon the temples.

  "Damn glad you've come, Spider," Latham said calmly. "Perhaps you know some way of stopping these damned bats."

  "Just keep on drinking, Latham," the Spider said. "I wouldn't think of interrupting your pleasure."

  The Spider's voice was gentle, but the grim, gaunt face with its lipless mouth and harsh beak of a nose was threat enough. Latham gazed at the sallow face, the hunch-backed figure in black cape that crouched behind the ready gun and his pale face became grayish. His glass moved jerkily away from the taboret and he touched tongue to his dry lips.

  "Good God, Spider," he said hoarsely, "I . . . I was just going to set my glass down."

  "Certainly, Latham," the Spider agreed. "Tonight, Latham, you have no reason to fear me. I simply want to ask you some questions. . . . Whose stable shelters the vampire bats?"

  Latham contrived a smile. "The guard I've got here tonight should prove to you that mine doesn't, Spider," he said anxiously. "Hell, my men just drove away one attack . . . !"

  The Spider's lipless mouth parted a little, but he did not explain the bats. Abruptly, tension whipped his body. He half-crouched and his gun jutted toward Latham's chest. Pounding footsteps were racing down the hall. In the darkness outside, a man screamed—a cry that choked off in mid-shout. With the suddenness of lightning, the lights clicked out and somewhere, wailing, quavering through the night, came a mourning note that was like the moan of a tortured soul in hell.

  "Oh God!" screamed Latham. "It's the Bat Man!"

  * * *

  For fifteen seconds after the first beat of footsteps, the Spider had suspected a trick. Perhaps someone knew the method of quickly reviving the man he had knocked out. There was a way. . . . But the sound of Latham's voice, the inarticulate fright in the cries of the others, convinced him that their terror was genuine.

  The Bat Man . . . no need to inquire what they meant. He had suspected human agency behind the attacks of the vampire bats. These men knew and they called the master of the winged killers . . . the Bat Man!

  The Spider waited tensely for this oddly-named man to show himself. His guns were ready. . . . Instantly, instinctively, the Spider had sprung from the spot he stood when the lights went out, but no one moved to attack him. There was a wild stampede of feet toward the door. Latham cried out.

  "Keep that door shut, damn you!" His gun streaked flame out of the darkness. Near the door, a man groaned and thumped to the floor.

  "Keep away from that door!" Latham shouted again, his panic barely under control. "I'll shoot the first man who touches it."

  The Spider realized abruptly that the running in the hall had ceased. Either the man had seen the bodies there and fled in terror, or . . . or the bats already had struck! The Spider crouched to the floor, so that he caught the gray light of the window across the room—so that he could watch movement about him. No one budged. A man whimpered off to his right near the door and the one who had fallen at Latham's shot breathed with rattling breath. Latham had aimed well. He was cursing monotonously.

  "You see, Spider," he whispered. "You see, he's after me. The Bat Man . . . !"

  His voice was drowned in the bellowing blasts of shotguns just outside the window. There was a tearing, ripping sound of wire screen and the Spider saw against the gray square of the window the fluttering form of a bat!

  "Cover your throat, Latham!" he shouted. "A bat just came in the window."

  Even as he cried the warning, a half-dozen more of the black, loathsome things dodged in through the torn screening. A shuddering moan came from Latham.

  "You can't tell when they bite," he whimpered. "You can't tell. Oh, God . . . !"

  With his teeth set, the Spider whipped out his fountain pen flashlight, squeezed out its widely diffused ray. He saw a dodging, leathery-winged beast within inches of his face. The bat flicked away, but the Spider's bullet was swifter than its flight. The creature was torn to bits by forty-five caliber lead and the Spider pressed back against the wall, watching, watching. . . .

  Abruptly, he became aware of two things. Within the house, all was silence. And there, but dimly heard, came a shrill, monstrous squeaking, as if a giant bat called to its kind!

  It sounded again and black bat forms fluttered through the beam of the Spider's light, whirled toward the window and were gone.

  One more of the creatures the Spider smashed with lead; then he was alone with the thumping of his heart, the reverberations of his shot. He lifted his gloved left hand and touched away the moisture that had oozed out through his facial make-up. He acknowledged to himself that in those few seconds, crouched against the wall, he had known the cold touch of fear. Bats with poisoned teeth . . . ! He fought down a shudder.

  On swift, silent feet, the Spider crossed the room and peered out of the window. The entire mansion was dark and on the grounds nothing visible moved. The squeaking which clearly had recalled the bats had now ceased and far off, toward where the moon sank, a dog howled. Upward, there was nothing except the blackness of the sky. . . . Suddenly, the Spider's teeth shut upon a curse, his guns swirled upward.
But he knew that shooting would be vain. His eyes were narrow as he stared. . . .

  No bat ever had that wing spread, nor flew with that gliding, motionless ease. And yet, sliding effortlessly across the starry sky, the Spider beheld a creature with bat wings fully ten feet across!

  Even as he watched, the thing steeped its angle of dive and sped out of sight over the close, clustering trees that reached upward toward the sky. For long moments after it was gone, the Spider crouched there at the window. He was aware of his quickened breath, of the aching in the forearm of the hand that held his gun.

  "It was out of range," he whispered to himself. "Out of range!"

  He jerked his head angrily, reached up a gloved hand to shut the window, then turned back to the room. Almost the Spider doubted his eyesight. No, no, he had seen the thing. His eyes had been too well trained in a thousand situations where life and liberty, a thousand lives, hinged on the accuracy of his vision. Breath hissed noisily out between his teeth. Latham had cried, "The Bat Man!" Was it possible that what he had seen was a . . . a man with wings!

  The Spider spread the light of his torch over the floor. There was no doubt in his own mind of what he would find, but the horror written largely on Latham's twisted features tightened his own grim mouth. Latham had covered his throat, so the bat had fastened to his hand. He was dead.

  Slowly, the Spider turned the beam upon the other two in the room. They were dead, too. He found the instrument which had smashed out the screening of the window—a spear with a special collar of light, steel blades which extended fully nine inches all around the haft. It must have been hurled with terrific force, for the screening was double, a heavier screen mesh outside the usual lighter wire.

  The Spider made his way swiftly through the darkened house, avoiding the bodies of men that were everywhere scattered in distorted, tortured attitudes of death. There was no use in carrying the bats he had killed with him. He had recognized them as vampires of an ordinary variety, Desmodus rufus, a tiny creature whose body was no more than three inches long, with a wing spread of only seven inches. He could recognize it by its reddish-brown body and the black wings with edging of white. The heavy bullet had smashed the animal too badly for him to examine its teeth. However, that was scarcely necessary. The Spider was terribly sure now that human agency was behind the murders.

  At the outer door, the Spider paused for a moment, his eyes dark and narrow. Twenty-seven men had died here tonight by the bite of non-poisonous vampire bats. He himself had seen the attack. A cold fury swept him as he realized what havoc these same tactics would wreak if they were used against the populace at large. So far, the Bat Man had confined his attacks to a few gamblers, also creatures of the half-world like the bats. The Spider could not mourn their loss to humanity—but suppose the man went power-mad? Suppose the agency behind these attacks turned loose his murderous creatures upon cities, upon entire countrysides . . . ?

  The Spider's lean, taut-skinned face set in determined lines. It was his job to keep such things from coming to pass!

  His gun was in his hand as he stepped outside the door. A blazing light slapped the Spider in the face. From the close-pressing shrubbery, a man called hoarsely:

  "Hands up, it's the law!" The voice broke off in a gasp. "Good God, it's—the Spider! The Spider sent them bats!"

  "That's the man," broke in a girl's voice, a deep, emotional voice.

  Then another man, shrill, almost hysterical with his discovery. "It's the Spider! The Spider!"

  Chapter Two

  "Death To The Spider!"

  THE SPIDER'S GUN was ready at his side when the police behind the light challenged, but he did not fire. The Spider did not fight the law. He might go outside it in a thousand ways, kill, burglarize, kidnap. . . . But when he did, it was to smash criminals, to assist the law in its great work, because the police and other enforcement officers were hedged in by too many restrictions to operate effectively. He would die before he would fire upon one of the law's men.

  Yet capture meant death for the Spider; it meant a revelation of his real identity and disgrace for his comrades and the one woman in the world who knew his secrets, Nita van Sloan. It meant even more than that. It meant that the law, for all its myriad successes against petty, customary criminals, would be without a means of combating this new terror that had arisen from the Underworld: the Bat Man, whose existence as yet they did not even suspect!

  The thoughts flashed through the Spider's brain in the second he closed the door and felt the assault of the light. Useless to attempt a retreat. Before he could open the door and duck from sight, a dozen bullets would smash through his body. There were at least twenty men in the shrubbery out there. He could hear their rustling, their murmur as his identity was shouted hoarsely into the night. He might shoot out the light. It would give him an instant. But the night was scarcely dark enough to hope that he could flee unseen.

  The Spider shrugged his shoulders, dropped the gun and raised his hands shoulder-high.

  "I'm the Spider, all right," he admitted calmly, "but you'll have to hunt someone else to take the blame for the bats. I thought Latham was the man, but I was wrong."

  Two men were coming out from behind the light now, walking wide lest they come between the guns and the Spider.

  "What do you mean, wrong?" asked the hoarse voice that first had spoken.

  The Spider allowed his straight lipless mouth to twist into a smile. "You'll find out when you take a look inside."

  The two men were close now. Each had fastened a handcuff to one of his own wrists and held the other cuff open, ready for the Spider's hand. His eyes turned cold as he saw that. He could escape from handcuffs that were fastened between his own wrists, but if he were chained to two men . . . !

  "We'll look into that," the leader growled. "But it'll take more than your say-so to clear you. This young lady seen you comin' in here with a cage. . . . Stand still. There's ten guns on you!"

  The Spider had started uncontrollably at the information that he had been seen entering the grounds. Why, this was utterly damning! How could he convince these men that the bats he had let escape had been harmless?

  "Who accuses me?" he demanded sharply. "Let me see the one who accuses me?"

  The leader's voice dropped a note. "Never mind that now. You keep out of sight, young lady. He's up to some trick."

  The Spider frowned, his heart thudding in his breast. He had had no definite plan in mind, but it was apparent these men were alert for any trick. They would be eager to kill. . . . The two men approaching him, both of them broad, tall farmers, were within a foot or two with their ready handcuffs. They were his only chance, the Spider knew. He must somehow use these two to escape, for once those handcuffs closed about his wrists. . . . The men behind the light were watching keenly, for they understood the situation as well as he.

  * * *

  The Spider extended his left arm toward the man who approached from that direction, smiled at him with a thin parting of his lips.

  "Come on, come on," he said impatiently. "What are you waiting for? You couldn't be afraid of the Spider?"

  The man's young face flushed a little. He braced himself visibly and, holding the handcuff in both hands, stepped within reach of the outstretched hand, slapped the shackle about the wrist and fumbled to close the cuff. It was the very instant for which the Spider had waited. By offering his wrist so placidly for the bracelet, he had partially disarmed the man. But, even more important, he had obtained a hold on one of the men before the other had quite reached a place where he could act.

  While the man still fumbled with the cuff, the Spider's fingers closed upon the chain between the shackles and, without a visible preliminary tensing of muscles—without a change in his face—he yanked savagely upon the bracelets. In his timidity, the man was leaning forward off-balance and the jerk pulled him directly in front of the Spider, between him and the guns that threatened.

  The second man leaped forward an
d the Spider slammed his captive against him, slipped his wrist from the still-unfastened cuff and skipped backward through the door into the house. An excited man fired a shotgun and one of the struggling pair cried out in pain. The Spider heard all that as he slammed and bolted the door, then he raced to a window on the same side of the building.

  The law men were already battering on the door. A window had been smashed in and gunshots were pouring death into the building. Guards were racing to surround the mansion. The Spider opened his window and waited. A guard started past the casement, paused and stared at it uncertainly, then inched forward. The silken rope snaked out of the darkness, yanked him to the window. A single blow knocked him out and the Spider was through the window and away. . . .

  Once he was amid the shrubbery and trees, he was safe. Not even his namesake, the spider, could move more soundlessly than he. At the high, iron fence that surrounded the estate, he whistled softly in a weird, minor key. Seconds later, a shadow glided to the opposite side of the fence and a rope ladder, made of the same soft, silken cord, came swinging over. A moment later, he was speeding with that other shadow beside him, toward the hidden lane where he had parked the car.