CHAPTER SEVENTEEN On to Washington

RAM SINGH'S revolver was spitting a fiery answer into the darkness. But the men in ambush were well hidden. They had only to continue their firing long enough to riddle the body of the ship and they would kill everyone in it.

Wentworth yanked open the roof of the cockpit. He jammed both feet on the brakes, stepped the motor up as high as he dared. His hand dipped into his pocket, came out with a small green vial that glistened in the moonlight. He flung it high and to the left.

Instantly he released the brakes, let the plane plunge almost against the tree that blocked the road twenty-five feet ahead, then jammed on the brakes again, at the same time jerking the throttle wide and jamming the stick forward to keep the craft flat upon the ground.

He kept the motor roaring, but even above its full-throated bellow came the agonized screams of men in horrible torture. The screams lasted but a moment, then died into strangling cries. And Wentworth, thrusting his head up into the slip-stream of the propeller, saw great spreading tentacles of green gas, writhing about in the shrubbery behind as if the gas were a living beast of prey seeking out victims in the black night.

Brownlee's hand gripped his arm. “Dick, in heaven's name, you didn't loose that gas!”

“I did.” Wentworth called back, grimly. “We're nosed into the wind. You could tell that by the way the plane kicked over the field. And with this propeller to keep the air clean along the sides of the ship, I don't believe we're in any serious danger.”

For half an hour, while the motor roared, Wentworth watched the long arms of the gas drift away into the distance and thin into the air. Finally, when it was safe, he climbed down and inspected the tree that was jammed across the road. He drew from the kit beneath his arm a bit of silken cord— a spider web the Press had called it. It seemed as fragile as a spider web, yet would test at seven hundred pounds.

With a double strand of this, he and Ram Singh rigged a harness for themselves and, after back-breaking effort, dragged the tree from the path. Then Wentworth sent the plane racing on down the road, which, improving now, shot them swiftly into Wacomchic. The town was dead, windows dark, not a soul abroad, except a stray dog that yapped excitedly, turned tail and ran as Wentworth drew the laboring plane to a halt at the railroad station.

Wentworth routed out the station agent, got to a telephone and finally awakened a disgruntled operator. He ordered a plane sent to them immediately, then put a call through to Stanley Kirkpatrick, police commissioner of New York City.

After a ten minute delay, he heard Kirkpatrick's precise tones.

Wentworth gripped the phone excitedly. “Wentworth speaking,”' he said. “What's the news of the Green Hand? I just had a battle with a number of the gang's men, and one of them bragged that he planned to dominate the entire country. I've been out of touch for nearly eighteen hours, and I'm worried.”

Kirkpatrick's precise tones were weary. “You've every right to be worried,” he said. “The Green Hand served notice last night that unless the Government paid five billion dollars, the gas would be turned loose on New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, and several other of our larger cities. Tomorrow midnight— it's tonight now, I guess— is the deadline.”

WENTWORTH frowned. “What's being done?” he demanded.

“Nothing that will do any good,” Kirkpatrick told him. “People are rioting in the streets. Some want the money paid. Some want Jonathan Love made dictator. The town is lousy with those green-shirted soldiers of Jonathan Love. They've got a flock of fans set up, but I don't believe it will do a bit of good.”

“And Love is in Washington?” Wentworth asked, his eyes narrow.

“Yes,” said Kirkpatrick, “Love is in Washington. And the whole damn country is crazy about him. Newspapers call him the Savior of the country. They want him made Dictator, all- around-boss of the works.”

Wentworth clipped out words. “That must stop. He's a tool of the Green Hand.”

“Try and stop him,” jeered Kirkpatrick. “I tell you the whole country is on its knees to him.”

“It will take me seven hours to reach Washington,” Wentworth said; “I'm going there and try to argue the Government into turning Love down cold. I don't expect much success. Will you assign fifty of your men to me and have them report to me in Washington individually at the Ambassador Hotel?”

There was silence over the wire. A gap of words which the singing of current in the wires filled. Finally Kirkpatrick spoke.

“It's damned irregular. They'd be without authority. Why do you want them?” he asked.

“I can't go into details,” Wentworth said. “But Brownlee has a gas which will neutralize that of the Green Hand. The Green Hand will use fake gas chiefly against Jonathan Love. But he'll be using the real stuff too. I want your fifty men to use the neutralizing gas and protect the high government officials that the Green Hand will attempt to murder. He'll want to make sure his puppet, Love, is absolute boss.”

“I'll do that,” Kirkpatrick agreed at once. “Will you in return give me enough of that gas to protect the points of attack in New York City?”

“It's a deal,” Wentworth said. “Remember, the Ambassador.”

“By the way,” Kirkpatrick broke in hurriedly, “those fingerprints you sent me?”

“Yes?” Wentworth was eager.

“They belong to a lad whose original name was Tim Selden. He did a year or two for robbery in 1923.”

“Thanks, that's fine,” said Wentworth, and hung up.

He had Ram Singh make further calls, one engaging an empty loft in Washington for Brownlee to work in, and others ordering the supplies he'd need to manufacture his neutralizing gas. Delivery was to be made by the time Wentworth reached Washington, which he estimated would be about noon.

As Ram Singh hung up, the plane which Wentworth had ordered was set down on a field near the station. Watched by a curious crowd, the four, Ram Singh, Professor Brownlee, and behind them, Wentworth with an arm about Nita, entered the plane. The motors roared instantly, the ship whirled, and took off for Washington in a mad race to save the nation from the domination of the Green Hand.

SEVEN hours, almost to the minute, after the take-off from Wacomchic, their big cabin plane landed on Hoover field. It was instantly surrounded by green-shirted troops. Wentworth still wore his disguise of the mechanic with the scar-twisted mouth. He let Professor Brownlee do the talking, and the Professor did it well, explaining that he was rushing to offer his assistance to government officials, seeking to counteract the gas of the Green Hand.

Finally they were permitted to enter the city and Wentworth, shifting his disguise to that of the blond and English Rupert Barton, in which character he was known to a number of the New York police, took up his quarters at the Ambassador and began making his arrangements for defense of the city.

Soon the New York police detail loaned him by Commissioner Kirkpatrick began drifting in by twos and threes, and Wentworth made assignments to each, based on maps which he had worked out on the plane. Each man was armed with a rifle and given a carboy of gas from Brownlee's loft factory down in the southeast section of the city.

Each man, with this equipment, was placed in a rented car and was given a specified section of the city to patrol. Every hour they were to phone the Ambassador for instructions.

“I don't know,” Wentworth told each man, “how the gas will be carried, but I am making investigations and sometime between now and midnight, when the attack begins, I will give you your detailed information.

Wentworth's next task was to ship by plane a quantity of the neutralizing gas to Commissioner Kirkpatrick in New York. Then he gave instructions to Ram Singh, went to the Washington headquarters of the International Broadcasting System and had a long conference with the manager. His plans were complete now, except for locating the means by which the gas would be transported into town.

Bombs could not be dropped from the air this time. The city was too well guarded by circling planes. Wentworth knew, too, that the Green Hand did not intend to attack exclusively with the poisonous gas. He would loose large quantities of the non-noxious vapor for the worker troops of Jonathan Love to fight. He would free the real gas only at those places where he wished to wipe out prominent officials, who otherwise might prove an obstacle to the complete domination of the Nation— through Jonathan Love.

Wentworth equipped himself with a carboy of the neutralizing gas and a rifle and began to tour the city, seeking out some reservoirs for the gas the Green Hand had promised to release if the ransom of five billion

were not paid by midnight.

He rolled along slowly through the traffic, following no set course except that now and again he intersected one of the patrols to make sure it was alert and ready.

Newspaper extra after extra was screamed on the streets. Wentworth bought them all. Love had been proclaimed dictator after a twenty-four hour cabinet session. He was given absolute authority, with the sole stipulation that he save the country from the Green Hand.

Still the panic was not stilled. People raced madly through the streets, seeking to escape from the city. Automobiles roared at top speed, loaded to the mudguards with humanity. All over the country, the newspapers revealed, this scene was being repeated. Panic ruled the land.

LOVE'S green-clad troops were everywhere. The giant fans were stationed at strategic points, with reserve fans mounted on huge trucks ready to rush to any weak spot. And this, too, was true throughout the country. But it was here in Washington that the greatest forces had been mobilized. Love, himself was here, Dictator Love now.

Wentworth smiled dryly. He had hoped to forestall that, hoped to perfect his own plans and reveal them to the President in completed form, ready to take over the city's defense. Once Love was installed in office, he had known, it would be twice as difficult to oust him. But Love was in office now, and still Wentworth's plans were not perfected. He had yet to learn how the Green Hand would transport his poisonous gases into the city.

A car ahead of him slammed on its brakes, stopping in three feet, and Wentworth squealed to a halt also. Another of those trucks that had been tangling traffic all evening lumbered out of a side street, rumbled through the snarl of cars it had created and trundled on. Wentworth rolled on, still pondering the problem of the gas. Another truck blundered into the street, tying up the swift, heavy line of fleeing cars. Wentworth stared at the bulky vehicle.

Like most of the others, it was a gasoline truck. The town seemed to be full of them, all heading into the city. As Wentworth, swerving to the curb with scraping fenders, hounded by squawking horns, a fleet of four more trucks, labeled “Shale Gasoline” droned past.

His eyes glinting, Wentworth began to hunt more tankers. On a side street, he found a fleet of four parked. And there was a curious thing about them. There were four men on each, instead of two, and Wentworth remembered abruptly that the others he had seen had been similarly overmanned.

Frowning, Wentworth sent his car swiftly back along Rhode Island Avenue, heading for the downtown district. It was growing late. In a little over an hour, the Green Hand's deadline would fall due. He would loose his fearful, murderous gases upon the city, seeking to wipe out all officialdom so that Love would hold undisputed sway.

Wentworth turned right after whisking through a large, double traffic circle, passed near the home of a sub-secretary of the Treasury. He saw a tank truck parked nearby.

Wentworth's eyes glittered. He circled a block so as to come up behind the truck, adjusted a small hose to the carboy of gas which he carried, and driving close to the truck, fired a rifle bullet into its tank.

Instantly, a thin streamer of green gas seeped from the hole. Wentworth spurted his car toward the tanker, thrust his hose out of the side and turned on Professor Brownlee's neutralizing gas.

There came a violent puff of flame, blazing instantly into an intolerable white heat!

Then Wentworth had swept past. The flame mounted higher and higher, until the trees beside the street began to wither with the heat. Four men piled from the front of the truck, guns blazing in their hands. Wentworth whirled a corner, heard a tire let go with a bang.

The auto lurched, swayed and, despite Wentworth's tight control, slammed sideways into a tree.

Wentworth sprang out, gun in hand and crouched behind the car's motor. The four men pounded around the corner, pistols in hand. Wentworth's snap shot dropped one. The other three flung to the safety of a dark doorway.

The blazing white light of the burning gas threw eerie shadows on the street, made the doorway where the men hid black as night. Wentworth fired three swift shots into the darkness, then sprang from the cover of the car and raced to the wall in which the doorway was cut. Along this he crept toward the hideout of the three men. There were three guns against his one. If all fired at once, he would be surely killed and with him would die the country's last hope of escaping the horrible menace of the Green Hand.

BUT Wentworth's course was not as reckless as it seemed. Only one man would be in a position to fire around that door jamb at a time, and Wentworth, with his uncanny accuracy, felt himself the equal of any one gunman. A pistol glinted, and once more Wentworth's weapon spoke. There came a cry of anguish, the pistol spun into the air and a dark figure reeled into view. Wentworth's second shot laid him dead upon the ground.

Wentworth called softly. “If I have to come after you, I'll kill. If you want to surrender, I'll let you live.”

A shot blazed its answer. Wentworth's swift reply brought a curse of pain from the doorway.

“If you want to surrender,” Wentworth called again, “toss your guns out where I can see them. Then come out with your hands high. I wouldn't advise you to try any tricks. Tricks always make me nervous. I'm apt to shoot first and ask questions later.”

Moments of silence then, broken only by the distant moan of a police siren.

“When I count five,” Wentworth said, “I'm going to start shooting. I'm afraid I can't wait for our friends the police.”

“Gees, ain't you a cop?” a timorous voice called from the doorway.

“No,” said Wentworth. “Throw out your gun.” A single weapon glinted in the air, clinked on the sidewalk and skittered into the gutter.

“Where's your friend?” Wentworth demanded.

“Cripes,” the man in the doorway said, “You've killed them all!”

Wentworth's eyes narrowed. “Come out into the open with your hands high.”

Promptly a small man with a pasty face stepped out. Wentworth's gun covered him, but his eyes were wary on the doorway. He saw what he sought— a glint of metal a foot above the ground. His pistol barked first, and the man in the doorway cried out in a strangled voice, and he spilled out into the open, kicking convulsively.

Wentworth had just time to affix Spider's seals to their foreheads and hustle his captive around a corner when a police squad car rolled up.

A taxi sped Wentworth to safety at the Ambassador.

He left the prisoner in charge of Ram Singh and told the faithful Hindu to order all the patrols as they called in to take every tank wagon they saw, fire a bullet through the storage vat and turn their gas on it.

They might make a few mistakes, but in that case there would be only the loss of gasoline to worry about. If the tankers carried the green gas, they would burst into flame on contact with Professor Brownlee's neutralizer. He gave a few other final instructions in Hindu.

Wentworth's plans were now complete. He was prepared to expose Jonathan Love as the catspaw of a criminal— was at last ready to offer his services in the battle against the Green Hand. He went hurriedly to the street, found a taxi and climbed in.

“The White House,” he ordered.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Death to the Spider

THE taxi driver stared curiously at Wentworth, shrugged and jerked his cab into motion. Whirling corners, he squealed eventually out into Pennsylvania Avenue and slid to a halt before the White House. Instantly a half dozen of the green-clad troopers of Jonathan Love were beside the cab. Wentworth paid off his driver and stepped out among them. A young chap, face fresh and rosy with the cold, stepped up to Wentworth. “No civilians allowed here,” he said.

Wentworth smiled at him quietly. “Jonathan Love will see me,” he said.

“Have you an appointment?” the young man's voice turned deferential.

“No,” said Wentworth. “Just take him my name. Richard Wentworth.”

The man stared at him dubiously, then jerked his head in a short nod. “Keep your eye on him,” he told his three companions and strode off toward the White House.

It was fifteen minutes before he returned and bade Wentworth enter.

Wentworth strode between more guards at the gates, up the walk to the White House. On each side and behind him walked the green guards. He frowned as he approached the door. This was risky business, placing himself in the power of the fanatic, Love. But there was no escape from it. He must get his warning to the high officials, tell them of Professor Brownlee's experiment and seek to persuade them to seek safety elsewhere. Not that he expected to be able to persuade the President to flee.

More guards met him at the door, and at a word from one of those who had accompanied him from the gate, they made way. Wentworth strode into the broad formal hallway, was escorted into the Yellow Room.

At one end of it, as on a throne, sat Jonathan Love, resplendent in the green uniform of his troops, a golden sash about his .waist and a golden sword at his side. He was alone except for two stony-faced sentries who stood at his back, pistols in hand.

Wentworth stopped before the dictator. Love did not rise. His gaunt, lined face seemed rigidly set, incapable of mobility. There was an exalted look upon him. Wentworth stood squarely in front of him, on straddled pugnacious legs.

“You'll learn, tonight,” Wentworth said, “how futile your fans are. For tonight the Green Hand strikes not alone to build your prestige. He strikes also to kill.”

Love leaned forward in his high-backed yellow satin chair, his left hand rested upon the pommel of his sword.

“Have a care, Wentworth,” he said softly, “there are witnesses to what you say. Every word you utter damns you as an ally of the Green Hand.”

“Tommyrot,” snapped Wentworth. “Better accuse yourself. You're the one who's really helping that gang of crooks.”

Love got slowly and magnificently to his feet. His uniform became his lean, long body. “Wentworth— ”

“Oh, shut up,” said Wentworth, “I didn't come to hear speeches. I didn't come here to see you. I sent my name to you, because you're the only man here who would recognize it and I must see the President.”

“Well, well, look who wants to see the President!” a woman's mocking voice came from behind Wentworth. And the woman who called herself Olga Bantsoff and whom Wentworth called Maggie Foley, sauntered by, an insolent hand upon the hip of her green silk dress.

She turned and faced Wentworth tauntingly. Pale lips smiled; hate shone in her narrow green eyes. There was a sash of gold about her waist and she toyed with it. Slowly she turned her back upon Wentworth, strolled up to Love and put her hand on his arm. Once more she directed her narrow green gaze at Wentworth.

“When are you going to hang him, honey?” she asked Love.

HE patted her hand. “You mustn't interfere in affairs of state, Olga. Run along, now; I'll see you later.”

Wentworth stared at the man and woman, a sneering twist to his lips. “The Emperor of America!” he jeered. His voice grew strong. “Your empire is— Death!”

Wentworth turned and started from the room. “Seize him,” Love ordered.

The two guards leveled their pistols and sprang to intercept him. He waited until they were nearly upon

him, then dropped to the floor and sent them in a sprawling heap. Before they could recover, he had darted from the room, along the hall and into the ante room of the President's office.

A secretary jerked up a startled head. Three Secret Service men sprang forward. Wentworth flashed past them into the office of the President. The Secret Service men were at his heels. They seized him as he confronted the warm gray man who was President of the United States. There were twelve other men in the room, government officials and members of the cabinet. They, too, sprang between Wentworth and the President, guarding him from the expected assassin's bullets.

Wentworth did not struggle against the Secret Service men. He was smiling quietly. And when he spoke, it was in a normal tone.

“Mr. President, may I speak a few words to you? It is about the Green Hand. I assure you that it is most important.”

His words stilled the tumult in the room. The door slammed open and Love strode in, followed by his two guards. Love threw out his arm stiffly, pointing at Wentworth.

“Seize that man!” he ordered.

“Never mind, Love,” said Wentworth. “I'm already seized.”

“Just a minute, Mr. Dictator,” the President interrupted. He turned to Wentworth, his grave, direct eyes studying him. “You seek your audiences somewhat precipitately, young man.”

Wentworth acknowledged that with a bow and a slight smile. “Can you conceive of any other way in which I could have got here?” he asked.

“This man is a criminal,” Love thundered. Wentworth whirled toward him. “Will you shut up for two minutes?” he demanded.

Love glowered at him. His hand plucked restlessly at his sword, half bared it.

A thin smile twisted Wentworth's mouth. “Any time but now, Love, I'll be glad to oblige you. Foils, pistols, sabers, rapiers or poison gas.”

He turned back to the President. “Mr. President, this man has been tricked. The country has been tricked into believing that he has a method of destroying the effects of the Green Hand's poison gas. I have positive proof that the fans are of utterly no use, that the gas used against him on the two occasions when the fans have appeared to divert it, was a nonpoisonous gas, released exclusively to make this man seem a Messiah.

“Tonight will tell another story. The fake gas will be released; but here and there about the city the real deadly article will be turned loose. Just enough to kill off every strong official in the country who might dare oppose the rule of Jonathan Love!”

“This is preposterous,” Love broke in.

Wentworth ignored him. He saw that his own quiet demeanor was scoring a certain effect among the officials present. They bent heads together, murmured among themselves. The President's grave, tired eyes were unwavering upon him.

“I'm not accusing Love himself,” Wentworth said. “He is only a catspaw, a tool of the real criminal.”

“Who is the real criminal?” the President asked.

Wentworth shook his head slowly. “I still do not know certainly. A man named George Scott would be the only one I could accuse. And I know Scott is a false name, and that his entire identity is a disguise. I do accuse Olga Bantsoff. She has a criminal record in New York under the name of Maggie Foley. She is the agency through whom the Green Hand controls Jonathan Love.”

A cry of rage tore from Jonathan Love. His saber rasped from its scabbard, and he struck an awkward, slashing blow at Wentworth. Wentworth threw up a hand in which he grasped his hat, caught the blade upon it. He seized Love's wrist and jerked the saber free, flung it to the floor. He put a hand against Love's chest and, with a thrust, sent him reeling back two paces.

“Nice little dictators don't lose their tempers,” he chided.

THERE was a certain grim humor on the face of the President and the members of the cabinet. It was apparent to Wentworth that they had been forced by the people to accept this man as dictator and that they were chiefly amused by him. Still, there was the knowledge that two gas attacks had failed against this man's defense. And where he had not defended, thousands had died horribly.

“I think it would be wise, Mr. Dictator,” the President said somberly, “to control yourself a little better.

Undoubtedly what the man has said is irritating, but there is a time and a place for settlement.” His voice was stern as he turned back to Wentworth. “You say you have positive proof. What is it?”

Wentworth looked him directly in the eye. “My unsupported word,” he said. “And the laboratory experiments of Professor Ezra Brownlee.”

“And these experiments?”

“Professor Brownlee,” Wentworth explained, “analyzed the organs of men dead of the gas. He concocted a neutralizing gas which causes the poison to burst into flame. I have a patrol of men stationed about the city now with this neutralizing gas. Professor Brownlee says that fans would only increase the efficiency of this poison gas. He has found that its enormous ability to expand is based on its capacity for combination with the oxygen of the air. The fans, he says, bring in more oxygen and increase the amount of the gas.”

A bearded man in uniform spoke up.

“Professor Brownlee was at Dunherst?” Wentworth nodded.

“He was dismissed from there under suspicion of criminal practices?”

Wentworth nodded again. “That is true. But the charges were never proved. And I tell you he is as true and honorable a man— ”

The uniformed man broke in again. “The charges were never proved because the chief witness against Brownlee was murdered. The murderer traced the design of a Spider on his forehead in his victim's own blood!”

What the man said was true, and that death had marked the birth of the Spider, scourge of the Underworld, gallant knight of Justice. Wentworth had killed a man who had framed evidence of theft against Brownlee, of whose reputation the man was envious, and whose wife he had loved. Yes, what the man said was true; but not a muscle of Wentworth's eyes wavered from their regard of the man. Not a muscle of his face changed, but he could feel a pulse throbbing in that thin white scar upon his temple and knew that it was red and angry.

“Those things are true,” Wentworth conceded, “yet I cannot see that they affect, in any way what I have told you.”

Jonathan Love strode forward, slapped his palm down upon the long table at the head of which the President sat. “I accuse this man of being the Spider,” he said. “In Michigan there is a murder warrant out against him, charging that he killed five men, two of them with the gas that the Green Hand uses. He printed the blood-red seal of the Spider upon the forehead of each one.”

The President's face had grown stern. “If he killed with this gas, then . . . ”

Love did not let him finish. “It means,” he thundered, slamming the desk again, “that this man is himself the Green Hand! These things that he tells you are intended to make you withdraw

your precautions. Make me withdraw the fans which alone can defeat his poison gas.

“I tell you that it is all a treacherous trick to betray us into the enemy's hands! I demand that this man be executed at once as a traitor to the country that gave him birth!”

CHAPTER NINETEEN Vapor of Hell

WENTWORTH smiled at Love's out-thrust, accusing hand. The three Secret Service men clapped hands upon his shoulders. Love's two green-clad guards leveled guns. Wentworth raised his eyebrows at the leveled weapons, laughed.

“I seem to be considerable of a menace,” he said.

“You are,” shouted Love.

“However,” said Wentworth, “if my legal memory serves me well, even a Dictator cannot order an execution without trial. Even if it's only a drumhead court-martial, you have to provide that.

“Mr. President,” he turned and tried to bow but was held rigidly. He glanced amusedly at the clenched hands upon his shoulders. “Mr. President,” he repeated, “I demand a trial and I raise objection to Mr. Dictator Love sitting as a member of that court. I am afraid he's slightly prejudiced.”

The President's worn face was puzzled, his eyes intent and grave. “You are entitled to trial,” he said. “As to the composition of the court, my powers are limited— ”

“Surely the Commander in Chief of the Army— ”

The President smiled faintly. His smile showed broad even teeth. His strong, cleft chin was raised. Above his high forehead the graying hair was slightly disordered. “Your trial,” he said, “will be held tomorrow late. Then we shall see.”

“Thank you,” said Wentworth. Love was standing in rigid impatience, waiting for this moment.

“Take him away,” he ordered. The hands on Wentworth's shoulder jerked him about and propelled him from the room.

He heard Love stalking, hard heeled, behind him. “My men will take care of him,” Love said harshly. The Secret Service men dropped away. The two green clad workers closed in and with drawn guns ready, marched him out into the hall.

Love halted them there, a hard smile twisting his furrowed face. All humanity had gone from the man. He was in the full grip of his Messiah complex, fostered by the woman, Olga, encouraged by everyone about him. His lips were thin and cruel, his chin out-thurst.

“Take this dog out and shoot him,” he said harshly.

His secretary, Crosswell, was coming out of the door, across the hall. At the sound of Love's voice, he turned, stared about in puzzlement, then saw Wentworth and the drawn guns. He strode close, his huge, incongruous body moving as lightly as ever.

“Pardon, Sire,” he said to Love, “but do you think that such an action goes well with your famous magnanimity? You are known as a generous ruler. Would you wish to spoil that?”

The deep furrows of Love's face contracted. His eyes were burning with fanatical light.

“I am Jonathan the Just,” he intoned, “but I will not permit the technicalities of law to prevent this man getting his just deserts. Take him away,” he rasped again, “and execute him.”

The men in green seized Wentworth by the shoulders and thrust him toward the door. He threw back his head and laughed. “Jonathan the Just! By all that's holy, Jonathan the Just!”

One of the soldiers slashed at him with a gun barrel, and only Wentworth's quick dodge saved him from a nasty injury.

“Keep your mouth shut,” the man growled. “Certainly, Sire,” Wentworth mocked. They were out of doors now, bathed in the flood lights that were turned upon the White House from all sides. As they strode into the shadows, the man struck viciously again with the gun. Wentworth ducked aside and jolted upward with his fist, knocked the man sprawling. He dodged backward, and the snapped shot of the man on his left buried itself in the body of his companion.

Wentworth snatched the gun and struck again. The guard fell like a log. His companion, drilled through the head, lay motionless. All about the White House guards were shouting. Wentworth saw half a dozen of them converge on him— and then the gas sirens wailed!

THE first one was far distant, off toward the northwest. Others picked it up, and their wails mounted to

wild hysterical screaming. A police car shot down Pennsylvania Avenue, its siren shrieking wide open. A battery of fans to windward of the White House whirred into action. Their motors whined first, mounted the scale until they shrilled with speed.

Wentworth plunged into shrubbery, as the men who had raced toward him halted, transfixed at the sound of the sirens. They raced back to posts of duty, and Wentworth saw the door of the White House flung open, saw Jonathan Love, resplendent in gold and green, stride out into the night.

Wentworth crept off through the darkness toward the high picket fence that surrounded the grounds. Somewhere near here were two of his patrol cars, carrying rifles and carboys of gas. If he could get word to them . . .

Guards were pacing along the fence. Wentworth waited until one had passed, sprang to the fence and with a heave of his arms, vaulted clear. He fell in a heap and rolled as a blasting shot from the guard plowed the earth where he had fallen. Then he was up and racing away, zigzagging through the blackness. More bullets sang after him, but it was a song of disappointment. They missed.

Wentworth reached a pavement and slowed to a walk. This was where his autos were supposed to patrol. He paced along, waiting. No car passed. No car except a huge gasoline tank with four men upon its seat. Wentworth's body merged with the trunk of a tree, invisible in the shadow.

He knew what that truck meant, knew it was filled with the poison gas that struck down men instantaneously and killed them in horribly agony. Here then, was the source of the gas that was to kill the President and wipe out everyone in the White House.

All the truck had to do was to roll past the barrage of fans on Pennsylvania Avenue, loose its lethal vapor, and the wind would do the rest. The fans, sucking in more air, would help to generate the gas more rapidly. They'd send a great viscous cloud of the flesh-eater sweeping over the White House. Not a soul would escape.

Where were the patrols? Where were his men with their carboys of the gas that would turn this noxious vapor of the Green Hand into a pure white flame, harmless to kill and spread desolation? Wentworth drew his revolver, opened fire upon the four men in the truck seat. His lead flattened on bullet-proof glass. Guns blazed in answer, and the huge truck rolled on.

The tires were solid rubber; no good firing at them. Wentworth ducked from behind the tree as the truck rolled past, darted back into the parkland behind him, cutting toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

Even bombs would be of no avail against this truckload of death. They might stop it, but they would only loose the deadly gas, do it even more efficiently than the petcocks which would presently be opened. A parked car with the lights dark, caught Wentworth's attention. He darted toward it, plans forming in his mind for wrecking the truck by charging head on into it. He might prevent the gas from being loosed where the wind would sweep it over the White House. . .

He sprang to the running board. A man was slumped over the steering wheel, his head torn by a bullet. In the car beside him were a rifle and a carboy of gas. One of his own patrol, murdered!

Wentworth's face was a grim mask of hate. Gently he lifted the body of his patrolman from the car and laid him upon the grass. He sprang into the bloody seat, kicked the engine into life and spurted ahead. Already the truck had whirled into Pennsylvania Avenue; already it was nearing that battery of fans!

Green-clad men rushed into the streets, aiming rifles at the bullet-proof glass that protected the driver and his three helpers. Even as Wentworth raced near, his cold engine stammering, green vapor, coiling, greasy fingers of it, rushed out of the hose nozzles at the tank wagon's back. They struck the ground, mushroomed and lifted thick heads like a nest of venomous snakes. They slithered, crawling, rolling, streaming, toward the fans, carrying death toward the White House. Wentworth jerked the hose of the carboy into his hand, loosed the petcock, and with the neutralizing gas hissing from the nozzle, charged into the green vapors of death!

THE green soldiers were reeling back, stretched in writhing agony upon the ground, the tearing teeth of the flesh-eating gas gnawing at their vitals. Wentworth's wheels churned the gas, as his own vapors spurted to meet it.

The world turned into white flame. Searing, leaping tongues of it raced across the earth, wherever the poison gas had run. The truck was enveloped in a blanket of fire. Wentworth felt its scorching breath, but he was traveling at terrific speed. Before the flames could do more than singe his face, he had burst through and

was racing down a Pennsylvania Avenue that was lit as brilliantly as day by the leaping tongues of white fire that towered behind.

All over the city similar pillars of flame were stretching white fingers toward the night sky, as Wentworth's patrolling men pierced the tanks of gas, and set them blazing with Professor Brownlee's invention. Here and there a patrolman was killed, and the horror gas got loose, drifting over the city, wiping out its hundreds before another patrolman could reach the scene and set it afire. Where the battle of the gases occurred, trees became charred stakes. Houses were enveloped in flame and destroyed in a few moments' time.

But in the end the victory went to Wentworth. Everywhere people fled in panic, filling the streets with screaming, hoarsely terrified crowds. Women with children in their arms ran until exhaustion dropped them in their tracks. Grim- faced men, white with dread and anxiety, raced with them. But at last, when the tide of battle turned, they returned wearily to their homes, happily free of the Green Hand's death fog.

Wearily, at last, Wentworth too, left off the battle and returned to the hotel. This skirmish was won, but another, greater battle remained. The Green Hand was still at large, and Jonathan Love— Wentworth's face twisted with mockery— Jonathan the Just still was dictator.

His strength would be consolidated by the victory tonight. His would be the credit for the rout of the Green Hand. The country would be knocking its head on the floor at his feet, and the Green Hand would reap the loot of billions that Scott's scrawled figures upon a sheet of paper had revealed as its goal. Wentworth's smile was bitter. The Spider had not yet finished his task.

CHAPTER TWENTY Jonathan the Just

BACK at the Ambassador, Wentworth conferred briefly with Ram Singh. “Did the Missie Sahib report?” he asked.

Ram Singh bowed.

“And the radio company?” “Han, Sahib”

Wentworth smiled. “It is well.” Ram Singh bowed again, left the room and Wentworth sank into a chair and closed his eyes.

Minutes later, stealthy feet crept upon him. The pasty-faced gunman Wentworth had captured was free!

He stole into the room, his right hand gripping a revolver, and behind him, whispering encouragement, crept Ram Singh!

Swiftly the two strode toward Wentworth. “Hands up!” the gunman barked. And Wentworth, jerking open his eyes, stared with apparent fright into the muzzle of a leveled gun.

He looked beyond the gunman to Ram Singh, and his face became distorted with anger. “You traitor!” he rasped. “False to your salt. Son of a pig!” He lapsed into Hindustani, his face still twisted with anger.

“Shut up,” said the gunman. “You're making too much noise.”

Wentworth cowered away from the man. “Don't shoot,” he said.

The gunman grinned. “I won't if you're good. You're coming along with me. A certain party I know will pay plenty to get hold of you.”

Wentworth submitted to the man, and after the gunman had talked over the phone to four different parties, he allowed himself to be taken to the street, thrust into a taxi and trundled through the streets of Washington. Finally, at the side entrance of a great hall, the taxi drew up and Wentworth was hustled into the building.

“Mr. Crosswell,” the gunman said, when a guard opened the door.

He was herded up dark stairs into a small cubby-hole of a room that was littered with stage properties.

Ram Singh had disappeared somewhere on the trip upstairs, and the gunman crouched alone against a trunkful of clothing, the gun held carelessly in his hand.

A few moments later the door was thrust open and another man with arms tied behind him was hustled in by the green-clad guards of Jonathan Love. The man's face was haggard; deep lines etched into his face, and his wiry red hair was tousled. But there was a fightgleam in his blue eyes. He glared about the room. His eyes lit on Wentworth, bound as was he himself.

His eyes widened. “So they got you, too, did they?”

Wentworth nodded slowly. “My own man betrayed me,” he said.

Delaney smiled grimly. “From what I hear we won't have long to worry about it.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Jonathan the Just,” his words were a sneer, “is out there telling a crowd of fifteen or twenty thousand just how he did it. The street is full of them too and the whole damn country is tuned in on the radio. It's my guess that when he gets through, he'll haul us out on the stage and say, 'Here's the Green Hand,' and throw us to the mob.”

Wentworth nodded gloomily. “That's a good guess, I suppose.”

The green guards laughed. “A damn good guess,” one jeered.

“All I hope,” said Delaney, “is that they cut my hands loose first. If I could go out fighting, it wouldn't be so bad.”

Wentworth grinned in spite of himself. That remark was so damned Irish.

A THUNDEROUS roaring filtered through to them, the crowd's shouting ovation to Jonathan Love. “Sounds like we're getting near the end,” Wentworth muttered. “Listen, here, Mr. Guard. I want to see Crosswell, Selden Crosswell, the big guy that's secretary to Jonathan Love. Get him in here, will you?”

“Aw, he won't come,” said the guard.

Wentworth smiled dryly. “Tell him Wentworth wants to confess. He'll come fast enough.”

The guard glowered at him. “So you want to confess, do you?”

“That's what I said.”

“O. K.,” the guard agreed, “I'll get him.” And he went out.

Delaney looked at Wentworth with doubting eyes.

“What's the idea?” he asked. “Or are you really that guy, the Green Hand?”

“Who me?” said Wentworth. “I thought you were. How about the gang that shot their way into jail to rescue you?”

Delaney smiled bitterly. “They kept me prisoner from that day until this, stuffed away in some hole of a cellar.”

“Think anybody will believe that?”

Delaney shook his head.

The door of the room flung open suddenly, and Jonathan Love stalked in. By his side, bundled to her ears in an ermine cloak, lolled Olga Bantsoff. Crosswell was with them, too.

“So you want to confess?” Love bit out at Wentworth. There was a fanatical exultation on his face. “That will be fine news to the crowd downstairs. I spoke first. They were impatient for me. But I promised my people that I would be back, that I would bring with me the Green Hand and that he would be executed on the stage where all could see!”

“And I,” Olga thrust forward, hate gleaming in her green eyes, her pale mouth smiling, “am going to give the signal for them to hang you.”

“How nice,” said Wentworth.

“Well, get on with your confession,” Love ordered.

Wentworth shook his head. “It would be useless,” he said.

“What?” roared Love. “You got me up here by a trick!”

“I didn't send for you at all,” Wentworth pointed out. “I sent for Crosswell. I wanted to talk to him. As I told you before, you have let this power bug go to your head. You think you are a great man. You're only the puppet of the master criminal calling himself the Green Hand. I know who the Green Hand is. When I am taken before the crowd downstairs, I shall reveal his identity and offer the proof. I think that even the crowd will be convinced.”

Love snorted. “A lot of silly nonsense. I'm going back to my people. In ten minutes I shall send for you to be executed.”

Wentworth smiled confidently. “It won't be I who is executed, Love. It will be another man, and that man will be the Green Hand. I tell you I have proof.”

Love threw back his head and laughed. “Proof! A trainload of proof would not convince me that you aren't the Green Hand.”

“I know that,” said Wentworth, and mockingly cried, “Long live Jonathan the Just.”

Love turned on his heel and stalked out of the door. “Come, Olga. Come Crosswell.”

Olga followed with one last backward sneer at Wentworth above her ermine-clad shoulder.

Crosswell lingered behind. “With your permission, Sire, I will remain and see that these dogs are brought down for their execution at the proper time.”

Love nodded carelessly on his way out. Crosswell took the gun from one of the guards.

“You men go outside and stand guard at the end of the hall,” he ordered. “Let no one come near the door. I'm afraid that the gang may make some last-minute attempt to free their leader.”

The gunman swaggered forward. “Listen, Chief,” he said, “don't forget me. I'm the guy what brought him in here.”

Crosswell smiled at him. ‘You won't be forgotten.”

The gunman and the two guards went out. Crosswell closed and bolted the door behind them. Then, with the gun leveled, he advanced until he stood within six feet of where Wentworth was sprawled, bound hand and foot, upon the floor.

“I'm curious to hear, Mr. Spider,” he said, “who it is you mean to accuse when you stand upon the scaffold.”

“How curious are you, Crosswell?”

Crosswell leaned forward, thrusting out the gun. “Curious enough to put a bullet into your belly if you don't talk fast,” he rasped.

Wentworth smiled pleasantly up at Crosswell. “The man I will accuse,” he said, “is yourself, Selden Crosswell.”

CROSSWELL straightened, smiling also. “I thought so,” he said softly.

“You were damn clever,” said Wentworth. “You almost made me think Delaney was guilty, just as you succeeded in convincing Love that Delaney and myself were tied up with the Green Hand. But I'm curious to know just what made you think that I was the trapper who killed some men in the north woods.”.

Crosswell threw back his head and laughed. “That was rather good,” he said. “I see no harm in telling you, since you are so soon to die.” He spun the gun around his finger by the trigger guard. “In fact, you're going to die before Love sends for you to go to the scaffold. But I don't think you could possibly convince anyone that I am the Green Hand even though I should be foolish enough to let you try. I've got Love too much under my thumb for that. Olga is doing a good job there; she has him completely fooled. And Love will do anything that Olga and I tell him to do.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Jonathan the Just!” he sneered. “Jonathan the Dumb!”

Wentworth nodded. “You're damn smart, all right. I showed how dumb I was when I tipped my hand by telling what I was going to say on the scaffold. But tell me, how did you trace me from the north woods?”

“It was very simple,” said Crosswell “I had a spy in police headquarters. When you filed a complaint against George Scott, I knew you were the man.''

“Then you were the one who phoned the guards at the Elkhorn plant and tried to have me killed, and you set the police on me afterward?” Wentworth went on. “You had Delaney accused of turning off that fan during the attack on Loveland, and later you had your men shoot him out ofjail so that suspicion would be directed toward him— so that in the end you could hang him as the Green Hand and take Renee for yourself.”

Crosswell started. “Oh, you knew about Renee, did you?”

Delaney surged against his bonds, tried to get to his feet. “You dog!” he cried. “So that's what behind all this! You want Renee!”

Crosswell nodded slowly. “I'll have Renee all right. But that's only a small part of it, part of the billions of dollars I'll get through Love's position as Dictator of the Government. I'll get government contracts and all sorts of concessions, not to mention a huge salary. Anything I want will be mine.”

Gloating crept into his voice. “Billions!” he said. “Billions will be mine!”

He laughed around in triumph. Delaney raged curses at him, and Crosswell leaned over and whipped him with the end of the pistol barrel, stretching the young Irishman unconscious and bleeding on the floor. There was ferocity in his face, as he straightened and glared at Wentworth.

“Some day I'm going to do that to Love. That fool, with his high and mighty airs! I was satisfied enough with my job, knowing I'd be rich some day, through him, but his airs got under my skin. I got to hate him, and now,” he threw back his head and laughed, “he is the puppet, and I am the Master. When I pull the strings, he'll dance!”

HE CHECKED himself and glared down at Wentworth. “You're a smart man yourself, Spider. A pity we can't work together. How did you figure that I was the Green Hand?”

“By a number of things, Crosswell,” Wentworth said slowly. “I'll admit that this Delaney trick fooled me for a long time. But I couldn't figure how Delaney planned to rule Love, once Love had become Dictator; and it was obvious that that was the crux of the entire plot. So I looked for a man of the build of George Scott, who could have a hold over Love; a man who could rule Maggie Foley; also for a man who had the opportunity to make the phone call to the Elkhorn plant and knowing your secret identification, give an order for my arrest. All these things, Crosswell, pointed to you.

“And then I did another thing. I got your finger prints, Crosswell; and they proved to be those of a notorious crook who went to prison at the same time that Maggie Foley, whom you call Olga Bantsoff, went up for highway robbery!”

Crosswell had grown restless during the recitation he had asked for and which Wentworth had made more detailed than seemed necessary.

“Very neat, Spider,” said Crosswell. “Now the time has come for you to die. Shall I shoot you, or Delaney, first?”

“Won't King Love be angry with you if you shoot his sacrifices to the mob?”

“I can take care of Love,” snarled Crosswell and raised the gun.

Fists pounded on the door! A woman's voice cried out: “Selden, Selden, for God's sake, let me in!”

Crosswell whirled toward the door with a leveled gun.

“Who is it?” he demanded.

“Maggie,” the woman's voice was hoarse. “Open up, Selden! The radio!'

Crosswell strode to the door, jerked it open. The door flung wide, and Olga rushed into the room, threw her arms around Crosswell's and pinned them to his sides. Jonathan Love strode in behind her, his face a thunder cloud of wrath.

“You dog!” he shouted. “You betrayed me. You are the Green Hand! We heard your confession over the radio.”

“The radio!” Crosswell gasped. He was still struggling with Olga. Her blonde hair came down and streamed across her shoulders. “You will throw me over for that little tramp, Renee,” she gasped. Her face was distorted with hate.

Wentworth laughed mockingly. ‘Yes, Crosswell, the radio. Every word you have said has gone out on a national hookup to millions of listeners throughout the country. I arranged in advance for this. Nita van Sloan made sure you'd come here. My friends rigged up a microphone for this room as soon as they found in what prison you were putting me. They tapped in on the wires over which Jonathan Love was speaking. The whole Nation heard you confess.

“You're doomed, Mr. Green Hand, doomed!”

THE WORDS seemed to lend Crosswell new strength. He wrenched free of Olga, slammed her against Love, and the two sprawled to the floor. The woman clawed into the neck of her dress, yanked out a gun. Crosswell threw up his heavy pistol and fired point blank. The bullet ripped through Olga's forehead.

Love seemed stunned by the brutal violence of the attack. He stared at Crosswell, staggered to his feet, groping for the sword at his side. He caught the hilt, half dragging the blade clear.

“The puppet's master needs you no longer, Jonathan Love,” Crosswell laughed, a little wildly. He drew up the gun and fired.

Love stared at him with wide, dazed eyes, then looked down at his breast, where blood was welling from his wound.

He looked back at Crosswell again. His eyes rolled up and he pitched to the floor, dead, across the body of the woman who had betrayed him.

Crosswell sprang across their bodies, slammed and bolted the door. He whirled back to Wentworth.

“I'm doomed,” he said “Thanks to you, Spider. But you're going with me.”

Wentworth had struggled to a sitting position, his bound hands touching his shoes. As Crosswell threw up the gun, the Spider pressed a spot on the side of his shoe.

There came a muffled explosion, and Crosswell's head jerked back, showing a bullet wound beneath his chin. Wentworth had once more used the pistol hidden in the sole of his shoe.

Crosswell, swaying on his feet, trying vainly to drag up the heavy gun, had paid the penalty for the crimes of the Green Hand!

A crooked smile was on Wentworth's face. The score was settled. Delaney could be left here. He would go free. But the Spider, great as had been his service to humanity, still would be held accountable for the crimes he had committed for the sake of justice.

Wentworth's hands went swiftly to the kit beneath his arm, drew out a chisel, a duplicate of the one which had served him so well in the cabin in the northwoods and began to hack at his bonds. As he worked, he spoke in the dulcet, singing tones of a Radio Announcer:

“This is the Spider speaking, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience, the Spider, whom police hunt for murders, whom the Underworld wants to kill, because it fears his vengeful hand.

“I have just added another to my score of murders. I have killed Selden Crosswell, the Green Hand. You have heard his confession. Before I killed him, he had murdered the dictator, Jonathan Love and the woman through whom the Green Hand controlled Jonathan Love.

“The Spider pronounced judgment upon him, and the Spider killed him.”

He severed the last of his ropes, slid the chisel back into his tool kit and slipped over his face a black mask,

whose skirt dangled below his chin. Now only his eyes were visible, gray, and cold, with ironic laughter.

“This is the Spider signing off. Goodnight,” he said.

He reached above his head to the dangling light, unscrewed the bulb and used it to short circuit the wiring system of the building. He stooped over Crosswell a moment, then in darkness crossed the room; in darkness threw open the door. .

Moments later, police and a frenzied group of acclaiming men and women dashed up the stairs into the black hallway. Police dashed into the room. Their flashlights blazed. They found the bodies of Love and Olga Bantsoff, and Selden Crosswell— found on Crosswell's forehead, a blood-red, hairy-legged spot that was the seal of the Spider!

They found Delaney slowly regaining consciousness. Renee Love dropped to her knees beside him, took his battered head in her lap bent her lovely, generous mouth to his.

Police, searching the room, searching the theater, dug into every nook and cranny of the building. They found the hidden radio equipment and the secret microphone. But they did not find Richard Wentworth.

The Spider had vanished!

THE END