Spider (13 page)

"You'll be all right now, Dick," he said quietly. "Just rest up for a week, and you'll be fit as a fiddle. You escaped pneumonia by a hair."

Wentworth gazed blankly at the doctor for a long minute, and then the whole circumstance of the situation rushed over him. He raised up from the bed.

"What time is it?" he demanded.

The doctor consulted his watch. "Seven o'clock. Evening. You've had a good fifteen-hour sleep."

"Fifteen hours!" Wentworth echoed. He flung the covers aside, bounded to his feet. His jab at the bell-push brought Jenkyns at a run. His face wrinkled in a delighted smile at sight of Wentworth.

"Where is Miss Nita?" Wentworth asked quickly.

The smile left Jenkyns' face at once. He shook his white head. "She left here about three o'clock in the morning, sir, with Ram Singh. I have heard nothing from either of them."

"Jackson?"

"Not since last night, sir," Jenkyns said heavily.

Wentworth pressed down an oath of dismay. What was it Nita had said just before he fell under the influence of the drugs in the car?

"
I promise you your work shall go on!
"

With feverish hands, Wentworth began to dress. He was not even aware that the doctor had left.

"Do you know where Miss Nita went?" he demanded of Jenkyns, with harshness creeping into his voice.

"I only know, sir," Jenkyns said miserably, "that Ram Singh spent some time in the supply room and left with a very heavy load on his back."

Wentworth was rapidly knotting his tie. He snatched double shoulder holsters from his closet and weighed two heavy automatics in his fists, checked their loading before he dropped them into their clips. He had small doubts as to what Ram Singh and Nita had intended. But had they run into an ambush, as he had, beneath the waters of the East River? And Jackson . . . Jenkyns came hurriedly in at the doorway.

"Mr. Kirkpatrick to see you, sir," he announced.

Wentworth whipped toward the door. This was all he needed now, to have Kirkpatrick spring some new trap upon him, inspired by the machinations of the Iron Man!

"How many men did he bring this time?" Wentworth demanded harshly.

Kirkpatrick spoke from the hallway behind Jenkyns. "I am quite alone, Dick," he said. "I bring you news that may have meaning to you. I'll confess we can make very little of it. Your cruiser was picked up by the river police today. It was anchored close to the channel off the site of your destroyed home. There was a diving ladder overside. Nita's slippers, at least I assume they are hers, were aboard, but nothing else."

Wentworth stared at Kirkpatrick fixedly, but made no response to the information. It was just as he had feared. Ram Singh and Nita. . . .

"A man answering Ram Singh's description," Kirkpatrick went on, "was picked up by a tug. He has a broken shoulder, and a slight skull fracture, and is unconscious in Bellevue hospital."

Wentworth made a small gesture with his right hand. "Phone the hospital, Jenkyns," he instructed. "You know what to do. All possible attention. Send Dr. Riggs there at once."

Jenkyns bowed and departed and Wentworth faced Kirkpatrick. His face was drawn and cold. "And Jackson?" he asked quietly. "I suppose he has been arrested?"

Kirkpatrick faced him with a still face. "It was about Jackson I came to see you, primarily," he said. "He was taken prisoner last night with the body of a murdered policeman in his arms. Apparently, it was his intention to throw the body into the river!"

Wentworth nodded heavily, "I was afraid of that," he said slowly. "I assume full responsibility. The policeman was killed by a robot I encountered off Sutton Place last night. In your present suspicious frame of mind, I was dubious that you would believe that such things as robots existed. Jackson volunteered to remove the body from the vicinity of my wrecked car, and I did not countermand him as I should have. That is the truth of it, Kirk. I give you my word."

Kirkpatrick's own voice was heavy. "I was sure there was an explanation," he said slowly. "If you will make that statement to my secretary and sign it, I think we'll get Jackson off in a few days."

Wentworth looked sharply at Kirkpatrick and saw that his friend was trying to make amends for the suspicions of the night before. There was a pleading that Kirk would never voice deep in his frosty blue eyes. Abruptly, Wentworth thrust out his hand.

"Thanks, Kirk," he said. "I know you could make it pretty tough for Jackson. And I think we'd better join forces. These robots are too much for either of us, single-handed. Shall we go to headquarters while I tell you what I know?"

The night was crystal clear, and bitterly cold. Wentworth muffled himself to the ears in a great coat before climbing into Kirkpatrick's car. He was desperately anxious to start out upon Nita's trail, but he had no starting point. If Nita had disappeared, there was no hope that the robot would still lie disabled on the river bottom.

"I had intended to check up on Drexler last night," Wentworth told Kirkpatrick quietly. "The same thought must have occurred to you."

Kirkpatrick looked at him sharply. "Are you sure you didn't pay Drexler a visit?"

"I gather that the
Spider
did," Wentworth said drily. "And yet I'm inclined to believe in Drexler."

Kirkpatrick nodded reluctantly. "There's a report about the city that people will be safe if they employ Drexler guards," he said. "A number of prominent men have called me about that report. Of the three who were robbed last night, Aaron Smedley at least had been warned to hire Drexler guards!

"Drexler swears he knows nothing of the matter. There is nothing to show that these racketeer threats were made by anyone connected with him . . . and Drexler voluntarily submitted his books for examination. He admitted that his business had been growing lately by leaps and bounds, that he had been compelled to employ many new men."

"Yet you believe in Drexler, too?" Wentworth asked softly.

Kirkpatrick's jaw set in a stubborn line. "I believe in Drexler," he said. "It's possible someone is using him as a scapegoat. That has happened before this."

Wentworth agreed, and told of his discoveries concerning the robots and of disabling one beneath the river; and of what he feared had happened to Nita.

"You should have notified us, Dick!" Kirkpatrick snapped.

Wentworth smiled slightly, but made no other answer. Kirkpatrick had scarcely been in a tractable mood yesterday.

"So I'd like your men to make all possible efforts to find some trace of Nita," he went on steadily. "And post a guard over Ram Singh to notify us the moment he regains consciousness. It's just possible he may know something. My guess is that Nita insisted on making the dive herself, that she was attacked by robots and Ram Singh dove to her rescue! He was probably disabled by a single blow that broke his shoulder and cracked his skull, and was lucky enough to be picked up."

Kirkpatrick said heavily, "It sums up to this: several hundred thousand dollars' worth of damage has been done, a score of people have been brutally murdered—and if the robots decided to march on police headquarters and wipe it out, we could not stop them! Something must be done!"

Wentworth whispered, "Something!"

His voice died in the whine of the radio in the car. "Sergeant Reams, call headquarters," came the announcer's voice. "Sergeant Reams, call headquarters."

Kirkpatrick stiffened in his seat. It was the code by which headquarters indicated an urgent need to get in touch with him. The driver swung the heavy car to the curb beside a call box and Kirkpatrick leaped to the pavement. Wentworth leaned forward and deliberately tuned the radio to a news broadcast which he knew would be going on at this moment.

"The New York police have a new mystery," said the announcer, "which may or may not be connected with the great steel giants which are destroying property and killing civilians. A rowboat drifting down the East River was picked up today and in it was found a woman's clothing, complete to the last item except for the shoes. Police said that the clothing contained a secret message which would, and I quote, 'enable them to crack the case in twenty-four hours!'"

Wentworth's eyes narrowed as the full impact of the words struck him, and he turned to see Kirkpatrick leaping toward the car. "Get to headquarters fast!" he snapped, grimly. "Those damned fools!"

Wentworth said savagely, "That was madness, Kirk! They gave out on the radio the fact that they had a secret message. Before we can reach there, they may move her!"

Kirkpatrick stared at Wentworth without comprehension. "What in hell are you talking about?"

Wentworth explained rapidly. "Plainly, those must be Nita's clothes! It's a taunt at me, and she was clever enough to plant some message in them. Get me there fast, Kirk. I've got to see for myself what this message is!"

The car was already roaring through the streets, parting traffic with the shriek of its siren. Kirkpatrick massaged his brows with bony fingers. "I see," he said slowly. "I didn't know about that. The news I received was that the Iron Man telephoned a few moments ago to speak to me, and those damned fools let him get away! He's calling again! Dick, this may be the break I've been praying for!"

Wentworth's words were urgent. "It's more apt to be a threat, or extortion. Good luck to you, Kirk, I'll follow Nita's message!"

The heavy car slewed to the curb before police headquarters and Kirkpatrick strode swiftly up the steps. His forehead was knotted into a frown. He needed Dick's help in this struggle that lay ahead, but he knew it would be futile to attempt to interrupt him now. As for Wentworth, a great load had lifted from his heart. He knew at least that Nita was alive, otherwise they would not have submitted

her to that indignity to taunt him!

"Where are those clothes?" he demanded sharply.

Kirkpatrick threw an order back at Sergeant Reams and the officer led Wentworth rapidly along the wide lower hall to an office on the first floor.

"Wants to identify them clothes picked out of the river," Reams said curtly. "Commissioner's orders, give him all help."

Wentworth thanked Reams, and the dumpy man with the eyeshade rose laboriously from his seat and began to poke over shelves with grimed fingers. He found a package in fresh brown paper.

Wentworth caught it from his hands and ripped it open. It took only a glance to assure him that the clothing was Nita's. The scent of her perfume lifted to his nostrils and pain clutched at his heart. Nita in the hands of those devils! Forced to this indignity!

"You identify them, hey?" the custodian asked shrilly.

Wentworth jerked his head in affirmative. "The radio mentioned a secret message," he said thickly. "What was it?"

The man cackled. "Funny business, that was. Funniest thing I ever did see. Inside her slip, we found this, and we can't make heads or tails of it, for a fact!"

The man poked among the clothing and brought out an envelope. In an instant, Wentworth had ripped it open . . . and there tumbled into his hand a fragment of white porcelain and gold, a removable bridge containing an artificial tooth! Wentworth gazed down at the bauble, and his throat closed. He remembered when a gangster, striking at him, had caught Nita in the jaw and knocked out that tooth. Strange, how the memory could close his throat. It was hard to force out words.

"Fastened inside the slip?" he asked, and his voice was a whisper.

"Yes, sir, that's right," the man cackled again, "and if you can make heads or tails out of it, you're a better man than anybody around here!"

Wentworth let the bit of bridgework slide back into the envelope. The muscles stood out in knots on his jaws. No question that Nita meant to convey to him her place of imprisonment, but that fool radio broadcast might already have alarmed the crooks. If they moved her . . . God, he had no time to lose!

Wentworth swung out of the room, into the hall and Sergeant Reams called his name from the head of the steps. Wentworth ignored it, went into the street and hailed a taxi. He had long ago learned the advantage of having a hideout near police headquarters and he directed the driver to that vicinity now. He flung a ten dollar bill to the front seat.

"I want speed," he said flatly.

He got speed, but once he had to stop the taxi to make a phone call. He put through a call to a friend on a morning newspaper.

"I want to know the whereabouts of an abandoned ferry slip, probably on the Hudson River, and near a bridge," he said rapidly. "My guess would be somewhere near the George Washington Bridge—some ferry put out of business by its opening. Can you get that information for me?"

"As it happens," the newspaper man drawled. "You have come to precisely the right man. I looked up that same information for a lad named Frank Drexler about a month ago."

Wentworth struggled to keep his voice calm. "I don't know the gentleman, but where is that slip?" He knew now that he was on the right track. Nita's message had seemed so painfully clear to him, a bridge fastened to a slip . . . and she had disappeared in the river. The Hudson River had been a guess, of course, but Nita had fastened the bridgework to the
wrong
side of the slip. It might mean that he had been interested in the wrong river. It might. . . .

"It's not much of a ferry," the newspaper man was drawling. "Last summer is the first it hasn't operated. Used to run across to Interstate Park, and it's just about a mile above George Washington Bridge. As a matter of fact, it may run again. I seem to remember hearing it had been bought."

"Get the name and have it for me," Wentworth told him. "This is worth money to me, and I'll mail you a check."

The newspaper man sighed, "Insulted again, but I love it!"

Wentworth did not hear him. He was leaping toward the taxi. That inquiry by Drexler was the confirmation he needed. He knew now that he was on the right trail . . . but thanks to the bungling of the police, it might already be cold! Wentworth forced himself to relax. It was madness that he planned, an open attack on a headquarters of robots, even though he would dare greater than that for Nita's sake.