Empire of doom, p.13
EMPIRE OF DOOM, page 13
The woman stooped over Nita, who now had struggled to a sitting position. Maggie yanked up the skirt of Nita's dark woolen dress and jabbed a rough branch under her doubled knees. Nita's teeth bit into her lip as she choked back a cry at the pain as the branch tore her flesh.
The woman laughed at her sneeringly. “Don't like it, do you, doll face? Don't worry. It won't hurt long.” She turned and swaggered toward Scott, who was grinning at Nita, eyes feasting on her dishevelment.
“I warned you,” said Wentworth quietly. “That's your finish, Maggie Foley.”
The woman turned toward him. Her face, with its pale mocking lips, still lovely despite its hatred. She laughed, but said nothing at all, then swaggered out into the darkness.
“Call me when you get ready to go,” she told Scott. “I want to see the little toy you leave for them to play with.”
Scott grunted. “Oh, get out!” he snapped. Then from a corner he lifted a test tube plugged with wax. It was green, and the lamp light glittered on it venomously. He placed the test tube in a rack on one end of the table, then picked up a ready-made rest into which he locked a rifle, its muzzle almost against the test-tube. Next he placed two batteries, a clock and some wiring on the table.
As he worked over them, attaching clock and wires to the rifle, he looked across at Wentworth apologetically. “It's a rather elaborate set-up,” he said. “It would be much simpler just to shoot you. But I have some scores to settle with you, Spider. You killed off some of my best men. You made that fool, Jonathan Love, difficult to handle. And you hampered my work by driving Maggie here from town. So you're going to suffer a bit before you die, Spider— you and this foolish professor, and the girl friend.
“That tube has the gas in it. In precisely half an hour, this gun will go off, smash the tube and spread the gas over the room. You know what happens then, don't you, Spider?”
Scott laughed shortly, finished his adjustment of the wires and turned to look at Wentworth. His head thrust forward, and gloating came into his eyes.
Wentworth studied his face carefully. Were this man and Delaney one and the same? It was possible. The general conformation of their faces was the same, the color of the eyes and their build checked.
The alterations of the face Wentworth himself could easily have accomplished with a make-up kit. There was something palpably false about Scott. There were portions of his face which were not mobile, indicting that it was built up falsely. That mouth-distorting scar— Wentworth smiled slower.
“Do you think that you can get away with this? Do you think that I don't know your true identity or that, knowing it, I have failed to take into account the possibilities that I might be killed?”
Scott's breath hissed in sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Wentworth, softly, “that if there ever was a George Scott, you are not he. Your make-up is clever, but I, too, know something about the art. I know this face of yours is not the real one. That you are masquerading.”
SCOTT forced a laugh. “So what are you going to do about it?”
“Before I left Loveland,” Wentworth. said, “I wrote out a statement of all I know about the Green Hand. It will be enough to hang you. And if I don't reappear in Loveland within twelve hours that information will be given to the authorities at Washington.”
“Very clever, Spider,” said Scott, slowly, but there was a sneer in his voice; “It so happens, however, that I know you are lying. You have been under surveillance every moment you were in town, and you have not communicated with anyone or even mailed a letter. I would have killed you, but I knew you'd walk into the trap and give me an opportunity to enjoy your death. No, it won't work this time. The Green Hand will go
marching on.”
His voice grew triumphant. “Cities shall fall under my power, and the Government of the United States itself cannot stand against me.” He walked toward Wentworth, tapped his hand against his chest. “I, I shall rule,” he said. “And the great Jonathan Love shall be my puppet!”
Wentworth laughed at him, laughed long and loud. And the man crouched closer, clutching hands reaching out for his captive's throat. His eyes glared wildly. But even as his fingers closed about the helpless Spider's throat, he checked, shook his head sharply and jerked his hands away.
“No,” he said, and grinned slyly, “not that way. You must live to see your sweetheart suffer, see your friend suffer from the flesh eater. Then you yourself shall die. You will notice I have placed you farthest from the table. The gas moves slowly. It will reach you last.”
He turned, and Maggie Foley stood in the doorway, a woolen cap drawn down over the pile of blonde hair. The two looked at each other and smiled. Scott turned back to Wentworth, pointed toward the clock. The hands stood at half past ten.
“When those hands reach eleven,” he said, “the gun will explode, and the great gas will crawl across the floor.”
He threw back his head and laughed until the cabin rang with his mirth until the woman Maggie reached out and caught him by the arm with fright in her eyes.
Scott sobered suddenly. Stared at Wentworth with venomous eyes. “At eleven,” he said, “you die. I hope you enjoy your wait.”
He shut the door violently and left Wentworth to stare at the crawling hands of the clock, the clock that would bring death to Nita, to Brownlee and to himself, death in a horrible, screaming agony.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Death Keeps Watch
WENTWORTH tore his eyes from the face of the clock that was ticking off the seconds to their doom and smiled wryly across at Nita.
“You're a little pale, darling,” he said. His words were trivial but there was a world of tenderness in his voice.
Professor Brownlee snorted. “Why wouldn't she be?” he demanded.
Nita's eyes sought Wentworth's. She tried twice to smile before she forced her mouth corners up. “You don't look so well yourself, Dick. You haven't been taking proper care of yourself while you've been away from me.”
Wentworth shook his head. “Things never go right when I'm away from you.”
Professor Brownlee threw back his head and laughed a bit wildly. There were haggard circles beneath his eyes. “Death doesn't worry you, does it, Dick? You two talk as casually as if you were in the drawing room of your penthouse. And yet death, and a damned disagreeable one, is only a few minutes away.” He looked at the clock. “Twenty-six minutes away.”
Wentworth turned his gaze on the professor. “Worried about this little device Scott rigged up to divert us?”
Brownlee nodded with exaggerated gravity, “Strange as it may seem to you, I am a bit worried. You've undoubtedly got some trick up your sleeve, but I'd feel much easier in my mind if you got busy and used it.”
Nita's smile was brave. “Is there a way out, Dick? I don't see any with your hands tied up like that. You can hardly move a finger.”
Wentworth's eyes had been casting about the room while he talked, taking in the rifle in its rest, that waiting poisonous gas, the positions of Nita and the professor. Nita was nearest that green vial. If it were smashed, its biting fumes would reach her soft white flesh first of all. And, as Nita had said, Wentworth was bound so he could scarcely move a finger.
“I have two tricks,” he said slowly, “but I'm afraid neither one will be of any help. Ram Singh followed me by plane, but he is under orders to land at a distance and come afoot. I landed close by to keep attention riveted on myself and permit him to land unobserved. I think Ram Singh will arrive too late.”
Nita's smile stiffened, but resolutely she clung to it.
Professor Brownlee let his gray-bearded chin sag forward on his chest. “Then there is no hope,” he said. “No hope for us or for the world. Without my neutralizer, without you to fight them, the gang of the Green Hand will rule the world. Professor Cather did not exaggerate the potency of this gas.” He raised his gaze to Wentworth. “I perfected that second gas, the neutralizer. But the last atom of it was taken away from me early today. If I had a small test tube of it, I could save us. The instant my gas comes in contact with that other, the two burst into flame.”
Nita laughed. There was a shrill edge to her voice. “If you had the gas,” she mocked, “and if one of us had a knife, if that rifle were empty— ” She laughed again. Her voice became brittle.
“Stop it, Nita,” Wentworth said quietly. “You're getting hysterical. Pull yourself out of it.”
Nita bit her lip. Sobs rose in her throat and forced themselves out, drily.
Professor Brownlee stared moodily at the clock. “Sixteen minutes to go,” he said.
“That will be enough,” Wentworth cried, suddenly. “I've found a way out. Even if my second trick won't work.”
“Your second trick,” Brownlee demanded. “Yes,” said Wentworth. “There's a small pistol built into the sole of one of these shoes. It gives me one shot in extremity. But its a hard thing to aim accurately, and I might very well miss. But now, it won't be necessary to trust to it.”
Nita raised her head eagerly. “What, oh what is it?”
“Just watch me'“ said Wentworth. He shot a quick glance at the clock. Fourteen minutes left, fourteen minutes before that rifle discharges and releases horrible death into the room.
Wentworth inched himself about, working so that the stick which had been jammed beneath his knees came opposite a space between two logs where the clay chinking had fallen out. He gripped the stick tightly
between his calves and thighs and whirled himself, jamming the end of the branch into the chink. Slowly, he began to tug. The branch slid an inch to one side beneath his knees before its end pulled out of the chink. But at least it had moved! There was hope!
Wentworth jammed the branch in again and repeated the process. Slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, the stick was dislodged from beneath his knees, until straining his legs close against his body, flexing his elbows, he managed to lift one elbow over the end of the stick. It fell to the ground and though Wentworth's wrists still were bound together, he could use hands and arms as a unit. And his position was no longer cramped.
Wentworth stared at the clock. It had taken him eleven minutes to pull the stick loose. Only three remained before the rifle would discharge. No time now to saw loose the ropes as he had intended! He picked up the stick in both hands and aiming carefully, hurled it with all his force against the rifle barrel. It struck fairly, forced the rifle barrel aside, perhaps two inches.
It no longer pointed at the vial of gas. But Wentworth staring at it, felt his face grow pale, felt the thin scar on his temple throb with leaping blood. His lips closed grimly, and frantically he tore at the fastenings of a shoe. For now the rifle pointed directly at Nita, and Nita was roped to the wall so that she cold not move from the path of the bullet!
IN two minutes the gun would discharge, sending its tearing leaden pellet crashing into that lovely body. Nita's eyes widened as she stared into the black muzzle of the rifle, but now there was no hysteria in her. She looked across at Wentworth and smiled.
“At any rate,” she said, “you will go free. You can save the country from this band of murderers. That is your duty.”
Brownlee's face was haggard with fear. “Good Lord, Wentworth, do something,” he begged.
Wentworth tore off the shoe, threw up both hands and flung it with all his strength. It struck the rifle glancingly, clattered to the floor. The barrel did not move. It's muzzle still pointed at Nita's head. And the hands of the clock pointed to one minute of eleven. One minute more before the rifle would discharge!
Desperately Wentworth ripped off his other shoe. This one contained the hidden pistol.... He jerked it to the level of his eye, sighting along the sole. Fifteen seconds ticked by. Fifteen of the last forty-five. Wentworth held his breath. He must be terribly certain of his aim.
Professor Brownlee closed his eyes and lifted his face. His lips moved silently. Nita still stared into the muzzle of the rifle. After that last effort of Wentworth's she had given up. Her face was pale, but there was no panic in it.
“Good bye, Dick,” she said quietly.
A muffled explosion filled the cabin with clapping echoes!
A cry wrenched from Professor Brownlee's lips. Nita went limp in her bonds, her head sagged forward. Wentworth took the shoe down slowly from before his face. The smile on his lips was strained.
“God in Heaven,” moaned Brownlee, “why did she have to die?”
“Look at the clock,” said Wentworth, quietly. Brownlee stared at him without comprehension. “At the clock, not at me,” said Wentworth, and finally the Professor turned his head about and stared at the clock. The wire which had been fastened to it, to connect it with the battery and discharge the gun, was snapped loose and still vibrated in the air. The hands of the clock registered eleven, the hour set for their doom.
“That was not the rifle you heard, Professor, but the gun in my shoe,” said Wentworth. “I shot the wire loose at the last second.”
“But Nita,” cried Brownlee, staring at the relaxed form of the girl.
“Nita,” said Wentworth, “has fainted.”
“Nita,” called Brownlee, wildly, “Nita!” “Don't, Professor,” Wentworth said. “I want her to be free of her bonds when she comes around.”
His hands found the kit beneath his arm, extracted a steel chisel with which he rapidly severed the ropes that held him. He sprang to Nita's side, cut her bonds, removed the cruel stick that had torn her flesh and cushioned her head in his arms. Then he pressed his lips to hers.
A footstep outside the door! Wentworth sprang to the rifle on the table, caught it up and leveled it. The latch bar lifted slowly. The door swung wide, and Wentworth, the gun held rigidly, relaxed and smiled.
“Come in, Ram Singh,” he said. “You are just in time to cut Professor Brownlee free.”
WENTWORTH turned back to Nita. She came to with a little moan, stared up into his face. He smiled tenderly at her.
“It's all right, darling,” he said. “I managed to shoot the wires loose just in time.”
The girl closed her eyes, opened them again slowly, then faintly returned his smile.
“I thought, for just a minute that I was dead, and...” she broke off, struggled to sit up. Wentworth assisted her to her feet.
She let out a little cry of pain, touched the backs of her knees tenderly.
“That woman!” she exclaimed.
Wentworth's face was grim and unsmiling. “She'll pay for it, darling.”
Professor Brownlee was free now and hobbled across to Nita's side. Wentworth left her in his care, laced his shoes and picking up the vial of gas slid it into his pocket.
“Mr. Scott has very kindly given up his fingerprints,” he said grimly.
Then the four struck out for the plane Ram Singh had landed at a distance of two miles. It was a bitter cold trek. Nita and Brownlee, enfeebled by long confinement in bonds, were forced to travel slowly. But at last they made the plane and clambered in. It was a cabin ship, with a forward cockpit that had a removable, transparent cover. Wentworth punched the compression starter and set the motor roaring.
The frigid air had chilled the engine, and Wentworth shoving back the cover of the cockpit scanned the skies while he warmed up for the take-off. Abruptly, Wentworth wrenched about in his seat, stared up into the cold arc of the heavens. A small plane was diving toward them, and he could see the thin flicker of flame from machine gun muzzles behind its propeller. He jerked back the throttle, sent their own plane skimming across the snowy waste.
They were within a hundred and fifty feet of the forest. The motor was still cold and choked and spluttered as it fought to take fuel. Tracer bullets ripped past, a fiery streak in the blackness of the night. Professor Brownlee crouched tensely at Wentworth's shoulder.
“You can't make it, Dick,” he shouted. “If you do manage to take off before we hit those trees, that plane will fill us full of lead before we've climbed a hundred feet.”
But Wentworth apparently was not trying to take off. He kicked the rudder from side to side, made the plane wobble crazily. Bullets scoured the snow all about them gouging up little white piles. A few plucked through the metal and cloth of the cabin itself, but none struck a vital spot. No one was hurt.
Straight toward the trees Wentworth headed his ship. The rutted trace of a wood road writhed out of the forest, made its shallow course across the clearing where Ram Singh had set down the plane. Directly for that opening Wentworth headed.
“Get back to the rear!” he shouted. “Brownlee, Ram Singh, Nita, all of you! Get in the tail!”
With a scrambling rush, the three raced to the end of the plane, Ram Singh crawling back into the baggage compartment.
Scarcely had they taken their positions, when Wentworth sent the plane crashing between two huge trees that stood on either side of the wood road.
The wings were cut off as if cut by a gigantic knife. Fragments slammed back against the cabin of the plane, but the crash scarcely checked the speed of the ship. Held down by the weight in her tail, she did not nose over.
TREES overhead arched sheltering boughs now. Bullets could still clip through, but the trundling ship on the ground would make a difficult target on the shadow-checkered earth. Wentworth slowed the mad rush of the plane. Its heavy tires bounded over the rutted road, bounced over a ravine.
Above the throttled roar of the motor, Wentworth called back. “You can take your seats now.” And as Nita walked up behind him and placed her hand on his shoulder, he turned up his head and laughed at her.
“How do you like the new limousine?”
She smiled down at him. Her hand caressed his hair. Wentworth trundled the plane at slow speed along the road. It twisted and turned, but with some maneuvering Wentworth was able to keep the ship plunging on through the darkness. He rigged a flashlight to pick out a path for him and settled down to driving the ship to Wacomchic.
It was tedious work, but several times more rapid than walking would have been. Each time they came to a clearing they must bolt across it with motor roaring to escape the bullet-spraying dives of the ship that still circled overhead. After an hour, Wentworth leaned forward and extinguished the flashlight whose uncertain light was guiding them through the woods. Ahead, bathed in moonlight, was a wide expanse of treeless snow, a field fully half a mile across. Above it the plane with its machine guns waited.
