THE SPIDER-City of Doom (11 page)

Alrecht was seated behind his desk, lounging back, toying with a metal pencil with one hand. "What do you want?" he asked. There was no expression in his voice, either of hostility or welcome.

"Some dope about Jim Collins," Wentworth told him. He swaggered up to the desk and hooked his knee over a corner, leaned on it. "You was a pretty good friend of his, wasn't you ?"

He studied the smallish man behind the desk. Alrecht was not old, though the wariness in his eyes was far from callow. Those eyes were watery, but had a strange quality of piercing regard. His hair lay neatly upon his large head, parted low on the side, and the parts had thinned peaks above his temples. His nose was sharp and aggressive, his mouth was secretive. There were little radiating lines along the upper lip that were prominent now as he pursed his mouth judiciously.

"Pretty good, yes," he agreed finally, with a nod. "But I knew his wife better than I knew him."

Wentworth leered. "Oh, that way, eh?" Alrecht's eyes lifted to his coldly and Wentworth straightened and took his knee off the desk. "No offense intended, counselor," he said quickly.

"I hope not," Alrecht replied gently.

Wentworth was acting out his role of detective to perfection, but behind the mask of crudity and swagger authority, he was keenly estimating this man. Alrecht was shrewd, beyond any doubt, and nervousness was evident in the slow, studied movements of his hands. He was fighting a tendency to fidget with that metal pencil. He slapped it down abruptly, and clasped his hands together. The fingers closed tightly.

"Come to the point," he said sharply. "I have no time to idle away like this."

"Of course not, of course not," Wentworth agreed. "The commissioner wanted to know if you had any idea what this invention of Jim Collins' was. Miz' Collins, she says you was to finance it if it went over."

Alrecht shook his head. "No, I didn't know what it was. Jim was very secretive about it. All he said was it would make us all rich if I'd help him. And of course I was glad to do that for Mrs. Collins' sake."

"I see," Wentworth nodded sagely. "Know Bill Butterworth?" Was he mistaken, or had Alrecht started at that sudden mention of the chemist who worked with Collins?

"I've met him," Alrecht said cautiously, after a perceptible pause. "He was another chemist at the place where Jim worked. In fact I had dinner with him last night, trying to find if he knew anything of Jim's processes—for Mrs. Collins' sake, of course."

"Of course," Wentworth agreed, and he masked his sarcasm so lightly that Alrecht looked at him sharply for a long moment before he went on talking.

"Butterworth said he didn't know anything about it, but he seemed to be more prosperous than I ever remember seeing him before." Alrecht paused as if weighing his words. "He had on a new suit and he seemed mightily pleased with himself. Told me he'd had an extra allowance from home and was planning to run back and surprise the folks. He was English, you know. I tried to get hold of him at the plant today and he had left. They said he had resigned."

Wentworth frowned heavily. "That looks mighty suspicious."

Alrecht nodded slowly, and there was a gleam back of his pale, queerly keen eyes. "I thought so, and here's something else. Night before last I was driving through the Outerdale section—that's where the Collins lived you know—and I'll swear I saw Butterworth sneaking along the street. Sneaking, mind you! I started to stop him, but he clearly didn't want to be recognized so I thought better of it."

Alrecht spread his hands, palm upward. Wentworth saw that they were moist. "I don't want to make trouble for Butterworth, but it all seems damnably suspicious. And I'll tell you something else. It's just a hunch, you understand, but I believe it's a good one. I believe that Jim's invention is being used by these men who robbed the bank here!"

"No!" Wentworth cried. Alrecht nodded solemnly.

"Jeez!" said Wentworth. "There might be something in that at that. Jim Collins was a steel chemist . . .
say!
I'm going to find this Bill Butterworth."

He started toward the door. "Thanks a lot, Mr. Alrecht."

Alrecht jerked his chin up, lowering his eyes, a gesture to wait. "Just a minute, my man," he said. He got deliberately to his feet and circled the desk. He put a hand on Wentworth's arm and looked seriously into his eyes. "I'd much rather my name wasn't mentioned in connection with this," he said. "Tell your superiors if you have to, but . . ." He smiled patronizingly, tapped Wentworth on the shoulder. "Why not turn the idea in as your own?"

"You wouldn't mind?" Wentworth registered suppressed eagerness.

"Not at all."

"Thanks, Mr. Alrecht, I won't forget this," Wentworth said feelingly, and walked out. Once in the hall, his forehead creased in a frown. Just what, he wondered, was Alrecht's game? It was obvious that he was trying to throw suspicion on Butterworth, and it was just as obvious that he knew much more about the invention than he was willing to tell.

Furthermore, Wentworth was not entirely sure that he had put over the imposture perfectly. There had been one or two occasions when suspicion had gleamed in Alrecht's queer eyes. He had been inclined to discount Anse Collins' ideas about Alrecht, laying them down to his obvious jealously over Nancy. Now, he was not sure. Alrecht scarcely seemed the egocentric killer that the Master was, yet the man certainly had an essential conceit.

Collins was waiting for Wentworth at the hotel. "Butterworth has skipped town," he growled. "Hasn't been seen since he left his boarding house last night. All his clothes had been cleaned out some time back, and, he owes a wad of bills around town."

Wentworth responded with only a slight nod. His mind was still occupied with the puzzle about Alrecht. To his way of thinking, Butterworth's departure was simply fortuitous for the lawyer. But why had he mentioned seeing Butterworth near the Collins apartment? With a sudden oath, Wentworth wheeled and started for the door.

"Get that picture from the camera shop and come to Alrecht's office with it fast," he snapped.

Collins' quick query was cut off by the slamming door and Wentworth went downstairs in great striding bounds, ignoring the elevator. He was furious with himself. Why hadn't he seen the significance of that story about Butterworth when he was in the lawyer's office? It was obvious enough that the man had been trying to throw suspicion on the chemist and had mentioned his supposed sight of him near the Collins home
because Alrecht knew the home had been searched!

Only guilty knowledge of the searching could have inspired Alrecht's lie about Butterworth and that confiding eager rush of information. Either Alrecht had performed that search himself or he had paid some one to do it. His talkativeness alone was enough to cause suspicion. Long strides hurled Wentworth across the lobby, into a taxi at the curb.

"First National Building fast," he snapped.

They got there fast, but it wasn't fast enough. When he reached Alrecht's office, the lawyer had gone. The girl with the metallic hair tossed her head at him and delicately powdered her nose. "Mr. Alrecht has gone to New York," she said. "He was called into consultation on an important case."

She slapped her hand down on the desk, whirled her chair as Wentworth stalked past her toward the door of the inner office.

"You can't do that," she protested.

The inner office was empty. Wentworth crossed to a telephone. The girl came across and put both hands on the other side of the desk. Her arms were stiff. "Say, what do you think this is?" she demanded.

"Long distance," said Wentworth into the transmitter. "Long distance? Mr. Alrecht calling. I wanted to verify a long distance call that came through your office for me within the last fifteen minutes. It has occurred to me that some friends of mine might be playing a joke . . . Yes, thank you very much."

Alrecht had been called to New York, and by a firm of prominent attorneys. The long distance operator confirmed the 'phone message.

Wentworth frowned and left the shrill girl talking loudly with her hands planted on her hips. Collins almost smacked into him in the hall.

"Say, that guy can't develop the film. Says he ain't got something or other he needs. I took the film away from him." He thrust a wrapped package into Wentworth's hands.

"Hell, the breaks are certainly against us!" Wentworth said impatiently as they went to the elevator. He had counted on that film and now it couldn't be developed until he reached New York. But they could reach New York soon after Alrecht, overtake him at the lawyers' offices. There would be no trains for hours because of the wreck, but an automobile would take them to the city quickly. They left the building hurriedly and climbed into a taxi. It started a leisurely trundle down Main Street. Suddenly the taxi driver squealed and yanked on his wheel. His motor roared and sent the cab reeling down a side-street. Wentworth flung forward, set a hand on the man's collar.

"What the hell . . . ?" he began. Then his voice was smashed into fragments. Rumbling thunderous concussion swept over and past him. The taxi bumped over the curb, side-swayed and rammed its nose against a brick wall, stopped with a jarring crash that sent the windshield back in the driver's lap. He sat motionless, his shoulders rising in little jerks with his heavy breathing.

"Jeez!" he panted out. "
Jeez!
"

Wentworth was out of the taxi now and pelting back toward Main Street.

He saw a dark huddle in the middle of the street, a huddle from which slow thick lines of crimson crawled their way. It was half of a woman's body. The other half was in a hole in the street beneath a building block. Around the corner, Wentworth whirled and stopped dead. The First National Bank building was a jumble of broken masonry and shattered steel scattered along Main street. A streetcar had been passing and its battered walls leaned crazily above its steel trucks, but it had no top and no bottom. Within it, no one even moaned.

It came to Wentworth's consciousness presently that a heavy hand was biting into his arm. He turned to see Collins, white-faced, at his elbow.

"God," Collins gulped, "and you were complaining about the breaks. If we hadn't been in a big hurry getting away from there . . . !"

Wentworth said nothing. He was thinking of that noisy little blond stenographer, a pert little thing with her powder puff and her metallic hair. Somewhere in that mess, they would find her body—if anything was left of it. He turned about, feeling suddenly sick and walked heavily down the sidewalk.

Feet slapped the pavement hurriedly behind him, but he didn't turn, saw no reason to turn until a hard prod of iron jabbed into his back.

"Hands up, you two," a breathless voice ordered. "I saw you two run out of that there bank a minute before she caved in."

Wentworth turned, looked into a policeman's flushed face. "Don't be silly," he said. "I had business with Mr. Alrecht. You can ask . . . ." He paused suddenly, realizing the utter futility of that phrase. Poor little noisy kid, crushed somewhere in that pile. The stenographer couldn't testify to anything.

"You can't fool me," the officer said angrily. "I saw you run out of there, and you're coming along to headquarters . . . ."

Wentworth was suddenly conscious of a growing crowd about them. Of tense, angry faces thick behind the officer, of mutters and clenched fists.

"What is it?" one man asked another.

"The cop caught the two guys that pushed over the First National . . . ."

"Don't be a fool," Collins snapped. He pushed toward the officer. "I'm a deputy sheriff and we had just been to see a lawyer in that building."

"Get back! Get back!" the officer yelled wildly. He backed up, waving his revolver. "Here, you men. Help me."

The mutter became an angry shouting, then a roar. There were fifty persons crowded about the tableau of Wentworth and Collins and the officer. They closed in with a rush.

"Lynch them!" a voice yelled out, somewhere back in the crowd. "They killed more than a hundred people!"

WENTWORTH threw both hands high above his head as men jostled him and hands snatched savagely at his clothing.

"Officer, I demand that you protect me," he snapped. "You got us into this, now get us out of it!"

The policeman was white-faced, frightened at the sudden violence of the mob. He lifted his gun up above his head and squeezed the trigger twice.

"Stop it!" he shouted. "There ain't going to be no lynching!"

Somebody snatched the gun out of his hand; somebody else brought a stone down on the policeman's head. Wentworth wrenched free of the men about him, leaped forward. He saw a man level the gun and kicked out viciously. His shoe cracked against the weapon, spun it high into the air. The man moaned and doubled over a broken wrist.

Wentworth lifted the policeman, hands beneath his arms. Through a tangle of threatening fists, he spotted Collins. The tall Southerner was standing on braced feet, his fists were striking with beautifully timed precision. A man caught an uppercut and stiffened, his back arching as he pitched backward. He took two others with him. Collins' arm drew back fast, the elbow flying out behind him. It caught a man's belly and he doubled over, groaning.

That cleared a ring immediately around Collins and his quick glance sought Wentworth. There was a fighting gleam in his brown eyes, a small hard smile on his mouth.

"Give me a hand with this cop, Collins," Wentworth called. "Somebody hurt him."

Collins put out his two arms breast-stroke fashion and opened a way through the ranks. Men fell away from in front of him.

"Get an ambulance for the cop," Wentworth called. "Somebody slugged him. There's going to be trouble about this."

Collins caught hold of the cop's feet with one hand and hit about him with his right. "Get out of the way," he said angrily. "Can't you see the man's hurt?"

The crowd was in confusion now. Few had been close enough around the policeman to know which had been the accused men. A number of those had been knocked out, and others had fled in fright when the policeman was attacked. The crowd gave way before Collins' angry shouts and the two carried the cop into a drugstore.