by Norvell Page
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.
Presently, at a dark corner in a district of slums and gaunt warehouses, Wentworth paid off the taxi driver. He waited impatiently until the machine had whirled a corner, and then he sprinted into the dark mouth of an alley. Half way along its length, there was an incongruous small brick garage, whose door mechanism was operated by a masked beam of black light which Wentworth interrupted at irregularly timed intervals. The doors slid open and Wentworth stepped inside.
Parked there was a replica of the battered coupe which he had used the night before. Wentworth's swift glance assured him that everything was in order and then his eyes quested hurriedly over the garage. They lighted on two old gingerale bottles on a shelf and, as Wentworth stared at them, a grim light crept into his eyes. Not a weapon he liked to use, but against such monstrous murderers as these men of steel. . . .
He filled those bottles with gasoline. He twisted a bit of rag about each one then and, tightly corked, laid them beside him as he got behind the wheel. He fought the cold motor to life, emerged into the alley, and drove rapidly across town. The motor moaned with power, and Wentworth crouched fiercely over the wheel. Once his eyes strayed to those two innocuous seeming bottles upon the seat, and when they did, cold fires flamed in their depths. God grant that he would be in time!
The ferry house was a squat monster beside the dark Hudson. The slip was its yawning jaws. Above it, to Southward, the inverted arch of the bridge laid a clear curve of beauty against the stars.
The roadway to the ferry house led under a stone arch that bore railway tracks. Beyond this, a battered coupe huddled like an old woman in the shadows. The black shape that detached from it, and drifted beneath the arch, was equally anonymous, but from under the black hat brim cold eyes surveyed the building. Its spire, that once had held a clock, pointed upward like a warning finger.
Through the archway, the wind moaned on the deep note of a dying man. It caught the tail of a long black cape, flapped it once. When he was nearer, the dilapidated aspect of the building showed more clearly. The doors were locked. In Wentworth's nimble fingers a lockpick made little of that. The door did not creak as he eased it open, but afterward
he stood very still inside, and a cold smile moved the lipless gash of the Spider's mouth.
This old building, abandoned for months, held a trace of heat! It was not that the gaunt waiting room was warm, but there was the smell of heat. Wentworth bent quickly, and his fingers hovered above the cracks in the floor. He nodded alertly. The warmth came from below! So quickly, so easily, he had located the hiding place to which Nita's shrewd message had guided him!
Briskly, his eyes quested over the interior. There was an elevator shaft which led to the upper deck of the ferry house; probably downward also. It would not do for the Spider, and there were no stairs in evidence. He whipped out a shielded flashlight and its radiance flickered and vanished, glowed again. He traveled silently along the walls, then swerved toward the deserted change booths. The opening he sought would be masked, and . . . in the second change booth, Wentworth stopped. His light burned steadily for a half minute. He had found the trapdoor he sought.
Nita lay huddled against the wall of the ferry house, arms and legs bound tightly. She was not given to despair, but her lot seemed almost hopeless. How many hours had passed since the robots had ambushed her on the river bottom? They seemed endless, horrible. Those men within the steel monsters . . . they had forced to her to strip off her clothing as a taunt to Dick. . . . It still brought a burning flush to her cheeks. Her present garments were inadequate, but she had small thought for bodily discomfort. If only she could hope!
There had been hope for hours after she had smuggled that vague message into her clothing. She had been left here alone with only a single guard, one of the Drexler men in uniform, and it seemed to her that her very thoughts must be summoning Dick. Now—she prayed that he would not come!
A half hour ago, three robots had entered the building. One of them had vanished into the elevator shaft, but the other two stood near the trapdoor that opened into this basement room from above. And Nita knew with a terrible certainty why they waited! They were expecting Dick. . . .
At the thought, Nita saw one of the men in steel turn its head slowly and the blank panes of glass stared at her. It was their utter soullessness that was terrifying. A steel hand motioned to the uniformed guard and he pushed himself warily to his feet, grinned down at Nita.
"Come on, toots," he said. "Me and you is going places!"
"Where?" Nita demanded.
The guard just grinned, caught her by the arm. "A safe place," he said. "I think somebody is paying us a visit, and the Iron Man don't want you hurt none. Not yet, anyway. Come on!"
With the man's hand gripping her arm, Nita surged to her feet. "I can't walk like this," she said. "Untie my ankles."
The man hesitated, then shrugged and stooped to do as she bid. Nita's eyes flashed to the ceiling, and she saw . . . the trapdoor begin to lift! The robots saw it, too. Their heads were tilted back, their great steel hands poised just beside the opening.
Nita cried, "Back, Dick! Two robots . . . waiting!"
The guard struck Nita across the mouth with the flat of his hand. In the same instant, a gun blasted from the ceiling! Nita saw the tongue of flame leap out of the darkness overhead, heard the surprised gasp of the man in front of her! His body jerked and pitched heavily against her, bore Nita to the floor. But Nita did not tear her eyes away from the opening in the ceiling. She cried her warning, but there was no answer. She saw a small flicker of fire up there. Then one of the robots took a single stride forward, and reached up into the darkness with great taloned hands of steel!
With a sob, Nita tried to wrestle free of the slain guard's body. She found that her ankle ropes were loose, and she braced her legs, began to wriggle clear. A curious object sailed downward. For a hysterical moment, she thought that she was mistaken. It seemed to her that the thing that plummeted down toward the upturned head of the robot was an ordinary bottle with flaming rags knotted about its base!
There was only that glimpse, then the bottle struck the face of the robot, and burst. That was all for a moment, and then, suddenly, the robot was a tower of flames! Liquid fire dripped down its sides and burned fiercely on the steel legs. The head, shoulders and chest of the robot were blotted out in leaping flames!
For a moment the robot stood there, motionless, hands reaching through that trapdoor, and then the thing staggered backward. She had heard them speak before, through the diaphragm magnifier that was hidden somewhere about the great body, but she had never heard such a sound as this. It was a scream of absolute terror, its volume stunning, in this enclosed space. It was as if a ship's siren could take on the qualities of a human voice!
A sob pushed up into Nita's throat as she finally fought her way clear of the guard's body and staggered to her feet. She had been mad to doubt Dick. He had found a way to defeat the robots! The second monster was not waiting to battle against the flame bomb. Instead, it wheeled so quickly that it reeled off-balance against the wall. The battering ram of its shoulder cracked a gaping hole in the concrete, but it staggered on. It came straight toward her!
In terror, Nita turned to flee, and in that moment she saw a figure drop swiftly through the trapdoor, and hang there by one hand—a figure in a kiting black cape. Flat and mocking laughter poured from its lips, and in its right hand another of those absurd glass bottles was clenched. The rags at its base were flaming. Behind him, the other robot beat at its flaming armor, the blows dinning drum beats in rhythm to those awful screams. They were suddenly muffled, almost child-like, and Nita knew that the heat had disabled the amplifier. It was a human voice she heard now.
But the robot that remained on its feet was almost upon her. Nita gasped and turned to run. If it caught her . . . Dick would be beaten! He could not use the flame bomb! Even as the thought struck her, Nita stumbled, pitched helplessly to the floor. The next instant, the monster was upon her. She felt the steel talons close about her, wrench her aloft.
Her senses reeled dizzily, but she fought for sanity. Somehow, she must contrive to break free, to give Dick his chance! Her eyes quested frantically toward the trapdoor! Dick had not yet dropped to the floor. Instead, he swung in mid-air, now dangling from a length of web. He was driving, feet-foremost straight at the robot who held her prisoner—and then Nita remembered! She remembered that a third robot was hidden in the elevator shaft!
Even as the thought flashed across her mind, she saw the monster heave itself into sight, saw the great taloned hands reach for Wentworth where he swung.
"Behind you, Dick!" Nita cried. "Oh, look behind you!"
Wentworth twisted in mid-air. With a final swing upon the web, he hurled himself into space and landed lightly against the wall. And in the same instant, he hurled his bomb—straight into the face of the second robot!
As if that were the moment her own captor had awaited, Nita felt herself falling! The Spider had no more bombs, and the robot wanted both hands to close the battle. While Nita was still falling, the robot turned and plunged straight toward Wentworth! And now he had only powerless guns—and his wits.
Two of the robots were out of the fight. They battled with fires that were spreading. Over the head of the first monster, Nita saw that the tinder-dry flooring of the ferry-house had caught! In a space of minutes, this whole building would be a raging inferno! But Wentworth paid all these things no heed. He was crouched against the concrete wall, his hands empty at his side, waiting for the charge of the robot!
Nita had been badly shaken by her fall, but she struggled to her feet. She threw a frightened glance toward the two flame-wrapped robots, toward the spreading fire that was rapidly eating into the ancient timbers.
"Run, Dick!" she cried. "There is a door at the back. At water level. We can get away!"
Wentworth's voice, reaching out to her, was cold and crisp. "Go there," he ordered quietly. "I'll join you shortly!"
As he finished speaking, the robot struck at him with a taloned hand. Wentworth . . . was not there. He darted sideways and around the robot, and then Nita saw for the first time tha
t a length of his silken web dangled from his hand! She knew the power of that cord which, scarcely larger than a pencil, would lift a thousand pounds with ease. But it would be no more than cotton string to this monster of steel. Surely, Dick did not expect to bind the robot!
Once more, the robot struck down at Wentworth, and stepped into the noose. The Spider snapped it tight about the jointed ankles. Now, he raced in narrowing circles about the robot, throwing loop after loop of the powerful silken rope about the monster's legs!
"Get to the door!" Wentworth ordered again.
"The right hand, Dick!" Nita cried. "It's getting ready to shoot with those fingers!"
