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

apartment in Middleton? And, darling . . . !" He paused, smiling down at her tenderly. "Hide yourself at some hotel. I'm afraid these killers may strike at me through you."
    He bent over her, a hand on each arm of her chair, brushed her gleaming hair with his lips. Nita lifted her mouth to his, pressed her soft cheek to his with closed eyes. Wentworth's arms dropped about her shoulders, tightened savagely. It was as if he would shield her with that moment's caress from all the fury of the world, the madness of criminal onslaughts. When he released her, his eyes were gentle.
    "It may be some days before I see you again, dear," he said briskly. "There is much to do."
    He saw rebellious protest on Nita's face and promised swiftly that he had work for her, too, but that first he must make certain investigations . . . Then he sent her away. Five minutes later he was driving away in his town sedan, the Lancia in which he had burned the roads between Middleton and New York. In a dark side street, he parked and drew the curtains, entered the tonneau. His hand dropped to a button beneath the left half of the cushion and that section slid forward and revolved soundlessly.
    Its back contained clothing hung on racks and from it Wentworth unfolded a mirror and make-up tray framed with mazdas. He went to work swiftly. Beneath his skillful hands the face of Richard Wentworth became sallow and sharp, the nose lengthened and bushy black brows that were low over his eyes masked the mockery of his own smooth eyebrows. A lank, black wig, a broad-brimmed hat of black and a cape completed the transformation. He pocketed false celluloid teeth like fangs. Again Richard Wentworth had become the Spider. He climbed slowly from the tonneau, and shuffling along the walk, he was a hunchback, twisted shoulders distorting the smooth erect stride that was Wentworth's.
     
    The Spider's face was set and hard. Tonight he was borrowing a leaf from the book of gangsterdom. It dictated that when you could not find the man you wanted, you attacked where it would hurt that man. The police would be before him, of course, watching for Hackerson to fall into their hands. But Wentworth would not wait . . . .
    He turned around a corner, his cape flapping behind him in the cold whip of the wind, a somber, half-seen shadow in the swift-falling winter dusk, and saw a block ahead the apartment house where lived Beatrice Ross, Devil Hackerson's mistress. As he shuffled closer, he made out the forms of two men hidden in a facing doorway. His lips stirred slightly in mockery. The police were watching for Hackerson, waiting for him to drop into their laps. As if Hackerson, knowing that police and the Spider both were upon his trail, would walk openly into so obvious a place as his mistress' home!
    Wentworth circled the block to avoid the detectives, for his hunched and caped figure was known throughout the land as the disguise of the Spider. He turned alongside the apartment house where Hackerson's girl friend lived, moved close within the shadow of the wall. A black stairway opened downward, tunneling under the next building. Wentworth drifted into it soundlessly, brought up against a steel grating. A lock pick disposed of that in seconds and he moved through into a black areaway walled in by the towering, window-pierced cliffs of apartment houses.
    Two minutes later, he was moving steadily up the stairs of Beatrice Ross' house. He reached the fourth floor without challenge, paused a moment outside the door that bore the bronze figures 4C. The lock brought a small smile to his lips. Hackerson would know the best kind to use all right. A Foxx. It was a tough nut to crack. A glance showed him the fire-escape exit on his right. He reached the window in quick, quiet strides, slid outside. From the platform, it was only a long step to the sill of the woman's bathroom window. That would be the bedroom that was lighted next to it.
    Without hesitation, Wentworth stepped