The Web of the Golden Spider

Wilson threw his weight against the door, but this was no garden gate to give before such blows. At the end of a half dozen attempts, he paused, bruised and dizzy. It seemed impossible to force the bolt. Yet no sooner had he reached this conclusion than the necessity became compelling; the bolt must be forced. At such moments one’s emotions are so intensified that, if there be any hidden passion, it is instantly brought to light. With the impelling need of reaching the girl’s side–a frantic need out of proportion to any normal relationship between them–Wilson realized partly the instinct which had governed him from the moment he had first caught sight of her features in the rain. If at this stage it could not properly be called love, it was at least an obsessing passion with all love’s attributes. As he paused there in blinding fury at being baffled by this senseless wooden door, he saw her as he had seen the faces between the stars, looking down at him tenderly and trustingly. A lump rose to his throat and his heart grew big within him. There was nothing now–no motive, no ambition, no influence–which could ever control him until after this new great need was satisfied. All this came over him in a flash–he saw as one sees an entire landscape by a single stroke of lightning. Then he faced the door once again.

The simple accident of the muzzle of his revolver striking against the door knob furnished Wilson the inspiration for his next attack. He examined the cylinder and found that four cartridges remained. These were all. Each one of them was precious and would be doubly so once he was beyond this barrier. He thrust the muzzle of the revolver into the lock and fired. The bullet ripped and tore and splintered. Again he placed his shoulder to the door and pushed. It gave a trifle, but still held. He must sacrifice another cartridge. He shot again and this time, as he threw his body full against the bolt, it gave. He fell in atop the débris, but instantly sprang to his feet and stumbled along the hall to the stairway. He mounted this three steps at a time. At the door to the study he was again checked–there was no light within and no voice to greet him. He called her name; the ensuing silence was ghastly in its suggestiveness. He started through the door, but a slight rustling or creak caused him to dart back, and a knife in the hand of some unknown assailant missed him by a margin so slight that his sleeve was ripped from elbow to wrist.

With cocked revolver Wilson waited for the rush which he expected to follow immediately. Save that the curtains before him swayed slightly, there was nothing to show that he was not the only human being in the house. Sorez might still be within unconscious, but what of the girl? He called her name. There was no reply. He dashed through the curtains–for the sixteenth of a second felt the sting of a heavy blow on his scalp, and then fell forward, the world swirling into a black pit at his feet.

When Wilson came to himself he realized that he was in some sort of vehicle. The morning light had come at last–a cold, luminous gray wash scarcely yet of sufficient intensity to do more than outline the world. He attempted to rise, but fell back weakly. He felt his neck and the collar of the luxurious bath robe he still wore to be wet. It was a sticky sort of dampness. He moved his hand up farther and found his hair to be matted. His fingers came in contact with raw flesh, causing him to draw them back quickly. The carriage jounced over the roadbed as though the horses were moving at a gallop. For a few moments he was unable to associate himself with the past at all; it was as though he had come upon himself in this situation as upon a stranger. The driver without the closed carriage seemed bent upon some definite enough errand, turning corners, galloping up this street and across that. He tried to make the fellow hear him, but above the rattling noise this was impossible. There seemed to be nothing to do but to lie there until the end of the journey, wherever that might be.

He lay back and tried to delve into the past. The first connecting link seemed years ago,–he was running away from something, her hand within his. The girl–yes, he remembered now, but still very indistinctly. But soon with a great influx of joy he recalled that moment at the door when he had realized what she meant to him, then the blind pounding at the door, then the run upstairs and–this.

He struggled to his elbow. He must get back to her. How had he come here? Where was he being taken? He was not able to think very clearly and so found it difficult to devise any plan of action, but the necessity drove him on as it had in the face of the locked door. He must stop the carriage and–but even as he was exerting himself in a struggle to make himself heard, the horses slowed down, turned sharply and trotted up a driveway to the entrance of a large stone building. Some sort of an attendant came out, exchanged a few words with the driver, and then, opening the door, looked in. He reached out his hand and groped for Wilson’s pulse.

“Where am I?” asked Wilson.

“That’s all right, old man,” replied the attendant in the paternal tone of those in lesser official positions. “Able to walk, or shall I get a stretcher?”

“Walk? Of course I can walk. What I want to know is–”

But already the strong arms were beneath his shoulders and half lifting him from the seat.

“Slowly. Slowly now.”

Wilson found himself in a corridor strong with the fumes of ether and carbolic acid.

“See here,” he expostulated, “I didn’t want to come here. I–where’s the driver?”

“He went off as soon as you got out.”

“But where–”

“Come on. This is the City Hospital and you’re hurt. The quicker you get that scalp of yours sewed up the better.”

For a few steps Wilson walked along submissively, his brain still confused. The thought of her came once again, and he struggled free from the detaining arm and turned upon the attendant who was leading him to the accident room.

“I’m going back,” he declared. “This is some conspiracy against the girl. I’ll find out what it is–and I’ll–”

“The sooner you get that scalp fixed,” interrupted the attendant, “the sooner you’ll find the girl.”

The details of the next hour were blurred to him. He remembered the arrival of the brisk young surgeon, remembered his irritated greeting at sight of him–“Another drunken row, I suppose”–and the sharp fight he put up against taking ether. He had but one thought in mind–he must not lose consciousness, for he must get back to the girl. So he fought until two strong men came in and sat one on his chest and one on his knees. When he came out of this he was nicely tucked in bed. They told him that probably he must stay there three or four days–there was danger of the wound growing septic.

Wilson stared at the pretty nurse a moment and then asked, “I beg your pardon–how long did you say?”

“Three days anyway, and possibly longer.”

“Not over three hours longer,” he replied.

She smiled, but shook her head and moved away.

It was broad daylight now. He felt of his head–it was done up in turban-like bandages. He looked around for his clothes; they were put away. The problem of getting out looked a difficult one. But he must. He tried again to think back as to what had happened to him. Who had placed him in the carriage and given orders to the driver? Had it been done to get rid of him or out of kindness? Had it been done by the priest or by Sorez? Above all, what in the meanwhile had become of his comrade?

When the visiting surgeon came in, Wilson told him quite simply that he must leave at once.

“Better stay, boy. A day here now may save you a month.”

“A day here now might spoil my life.”

“A day outside might cost it.”

“I’m willing.”

“Well, we can’t hold you against your will. But think again; you’ve received an ugly blow there and it has left you weak.”

Wilson shook his head.

“I must get out of here at once, whatever the cost.”

The surgeon indifferently signed the order for his release and moved on. The nurse brought his clothes. His only outside garment was the long, gold embroidered lounging robe he had thrown on while his own clothes were drying. He stared at it helplessly. Then he put in on. It did not matter–nothing mattered but getting back to her as soon as possible.

A few minutes later the citizens of Boston turned to smile at the sight of a young man with pale, drawn face hurrying through the streets wearing a white linen turban and an oriental robe. He saw nothing of them.

CHAPTER VI

Blind Man’s Buff

Wilson undoubtedly would have been stopped by the police within three blocks had it not been for the seriousness of his lean face and the evident earnestness with which he was hurrying about his business. As it was, he gathered a goodly sized crowd of street gamins who hooted at his heels until he was forced to take to the side streets. Here for a few squares he was not annoyed. The thing that was most disturbing him was the realization that he knew neither the name of the street nor the number of the house into which he had so strangely come last night. He knew its general direction–it lay beyond the Public Gardens and backed upon the water front, but that was all. With only this vague description he could not ask for help without exciting all manner of suspicion. He must depend upon his instinct. The situation seemed to him like one of those grotesque predicaments of a dream. Had his brain been less intently occupied than it was with the urgency of his mission, he would have suffered acutely.

He could not have had a worse section of the city to traverse–his course led him through the business district, where he passed oddly enough as a fantastic advertisement for a tea house,–but he kept doggedly on until he reached Tremont Street. Here he was beset by a fresh crowd of urchins from the Common who surrounded him until they formed the nucleus of a crowd. For the first time, his progress was actually checked. This roused within him the same dormant, savage man who had grasped the joist–he turned upon the group. He didn’t do much, his eyes had been upon the ground and he raised them, throwing back his head quickly.

“Let me through,” he said.

A few, even at that, shifted to one side, but a half dozen larger boys pressed in more closely, baiting him on. They had not seen in his eyes what the others saw.

“I’m in a hurry,” he said. “Let me through.”

Some of the crowd laughed; some jeered. All of them waited expectantly. Wilson took a short, quick breath. His frame stiffened, and then without a word he hurled himself forward. He must have been half mad, for as he bored a passage through, striking to the right and left, he saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. His teeth together, his mind once again centered with burning intensity upon the solitary fact that he must get back to the girl who had sent him out to protect her. He was at this moment no more the man who crammed Hebrew verbs in the confines of that small, whitewashed room at the theological school than as though born of a different mother. He was more like that Wilson who in the days of Miles Standish was thought to be possessed of devils for the fierceness with which he fought Indians. It would have taken a half dozen strong men to stop him, and no one ventured to do more than strike at him.

Once he was free of them, he started on, hoping to get across Park Street and into the Common. But the pack was instantly at his heels again after the manner of their kind. He glanced about him baffled, realizing that with the increasing excitement his chances of pulling clear of them lessened. He dreaded the arrival of the police–that would mean questioning, and he could give no satisfactory explanation of his condition. To tell the truth would be to incriminate himself, compromise the girl, and bring about no end of a complication. He turned sharply and made up the hill at a run. He was a grotesque enough figure with the long robe streaming at his heels, his head surmounted by the fantastic turban, and his face roughened with two days’ beard, but he made something of a pathetic appeal, too. He was putting up a good fight. It took only half an eye to see that he was running on his nerve and that in his eagerness to get clear, there was nothing of cowardice. Even now there was not one of the rabble who dared come within fighting distance of him. It was the harrying they enjoyed–the sight of a man tormented. A policeman elbowed his way through the crowd and instead of clubbing back the aggressors, pushed on to the young man who was tottering near his finish.

Wilson saw him. He gave one last hurried look about on the chance of finding some loophole of escape from that which was worse than the crowd. His eyes fell upon the face of a young man in an automobile which was moving slowly up the hill. It took the latter but a glance to see that Wilson was a gentleman hard pushed. The appeal in the eyes was enough. He ordered the machine stopped and threw open the door. As Wilson reached it, he leaned forward and grasped his shoulders, dragging him in. Then the driver threw back his lever and the machine leaped forward like an unleashed dog. The officer ordered them to stop, but they skimmed on up the hill and turning to the left found Beacon Street a straight path before them.

“Narrow squeak that time, old man,” smiled the stranger. “What the devil was the trouble?”

“This, I suppose,” answered Wilson, as soon as he had caught his breath, lifting a corner of the elaborate gown. “And this,” touching the bandages on his head.

“But what in thunder did they chase you for?”

“I guess they thought I was crazy–or drunk.”

“Well, it wasn’t fair sport at a hundred to one. Where shall I land you?”

Wilson pondered a second. He would only lose time if he got out and attempted again to find the house in that rig.

“If–if I could only get some clothes.”

“Where’s your hotel or home? Take you anywhere you say.”

“I haven’t either a home or a hotel,” answered Wilson, deliberately. “And these are all the clothes I have in the world.”

“Is that a dream?”

“It is the truth.”

“But how–” exclaimed the other.

“I can’t tell you now how it came about, but it is the truth that I am without a cent, and that this is my entire wardrobe.”

“Where did you come from this morning?” asked the other, still incredulous.

“From the hospital.”

Wilson hesitated just a second; he knew that in asking anything further he ran the risk of being mistaken for a charlatan, but this seemed now his only chance of getting back to her. They were speeding out through the Fenway, but the driver had now slowed down to await further orders. The man would drop him anywhere he said, but even supposing he brought him back to the vicinity of the house, he could not possibly escape observation long enough to locate that little door in the rear–the only clue he had to identification of the house. If ever a man’s exterior gave promise of generous help, the features of this fellow by his side did. He was of about his own age, smooth shaven, with a frank, open face that gave him a clean and wholesome appearance. He had the lithe frame and red cheeks of an athlete in training–his eyes clear as night air, his teeth white as a hound’s. But it was a trick of the eyes which decided Wilson–a bright eagerness tinged with humor and something of dreams, which suggested that he himself was alert for just such adventures as this in which Wilson found himself. He glanced up and found the other studying him curiously as though trying to decide for himself just what sort of a fellow he had rescued.

“I don’t blame you for being suspicious,” began Wilson, “but I’ve told you only the truth. Furthermore, I’ve done nothing any decent fellow wouldn’t do. The police have no right to me, although they might make a lot of trouble.”

“That’s all right, old man. You needn’t feel obliged to ’fess up to me.”

“I wanted to tell you that much,” answered Wilson, “because I want to ask something of you; I want you to give me a suit of clothes and enough money to keep me alive for a week.”

Wilson saw the other’s brows contract for a second as though in keen annoyance or disappointment at this mediocre turn in a promising situation. He added quickly:

“I’m not asking this altogether for myself; there’s a girl involved–a girl in great danger. If I get back to her soon, there is still hope that I can be of some use.”

The other’s face brightened instantly.

“What’s that you say? A girl in danger?”

“In serious danger. This–” he pointed at the linen turban, “this ought to give you some idea of how serious; I was on my way to her when I received this.”

“But good Lord, man, why didn’t you say so before? Home, Mike, and let her out!”

The chauffeur leaned forward and once again the machine vibrated to the call. They skimmed along the park roads and into the smooth roads of Brookline. From here Wilson knew nothing of the direction or the locality.

“My name is Danbury,” his rescuer introduced himself, “and I’m glad to be of help to you. We’re about the same size and I guess you can get into some of my clothes. But can’t I send a wire or something to the girl that you are coming?”

Wilson shook his head. “I don’t know exactly where she is myself. You see I–I found her in the dark and I lost her in the dark.”

“Sort of a game of blind man’s buff,” broke in Danbury. “But how the devil did you get that swipe in the head?”

“I don’t know any more than you where that came from.”

“You look as though you ought to be tucked away in bed on account of it. You are still groggy.”

Wilson tried to smile, but, truth to tell, his head was getting dizzy again and he felt almost faint.

“Lie back and take it easy until we reach the house. I’ll give you a dose of brandy when we get there.”

The machine slid through a stone gateway and stopped before a fine, rambling white house set in the midst of green trees and with a wide sweep of green lawn behind it. A butler hurried out and at a nod took hold of one of Wilson’s arms and helped him up the steps–though it was clear the old fellow did not like the appearance of his master’s guest. Of late, however, the boy had brought home several of whom he did not approve. One of them–quite the worst one to his mind–was now waiting in the study. The butler had crossed himself after having escorted him in. If ever the devil assumed human shape, he would say that this was no other than his satanic majesty himself.

“A gentleman to see you, sir, in the study.”

“The devil you say,” snapped Danbury.

“I did not say it, sir.”

“I wanted to take this gentleman in there. However, we will go to the den.”

Danbury led the way through a series of rooms to a smaller room which opened upon the green lawn. It was furnished in mahogany with plenty of large, leather-bottomed chairs and a huge sofa. The walls were decorated with designs of yachts and pictures of dogs. This room evidently was shut off from the main study by the folding doors which were partly concealed by a large tapestry. Danbury poured out a stiff drink of brandy and insisted upon Wilson’s swallowing it, which he did after considerable choking.

“Now,” said Danbury, “you lie down while John is getting some clothes together, and I’ll just slip into the next room and see what my queer friend wants.”

Wilson stretched himself out and gave himself up to the warm influx of life which came with the stimulation from the drink. Pound after pound seemed to be lifting from his weary legs and cloud after cloud from his dulled brain. He would soon be able to go back now. He felt a new need for the sight of her, for the touch of her warm fingers, for the smile of good fellowship from her dark eyes. In these last few hours he felt that he had grown wonderfully in his intimacy with her and this found expression in his need of her. Lying there, he felt a craving that bit like thirst or hunger. It was something new to him thus to yearn for another. The sentiment dormant within him had always found its satisfaction in the impersonal in his vague and distant dreams. Now it was as though all those fancies of the past had suddenly been gathered together and embodied in this new-found comrade.

The voices in the next room which had been subdued now rose to a point where some phrases were audible. The younger man seemed to be getting excited, for he kept exclaiming,

“Good. That’s bully!”

Their words were lost once more, but Wilson soon heard the sentence,

“I’m with you–with you to the end. But what are you going to get out of this?”

Then for the first time he heard the voice of the other. There was some quality in it that made him start. He could not analyze it, but it had a haunting note as though it went back somewhere in his own past. It made him–without any intention of overhearing the burden of the talk–sit up and listen. It was decidedly the voice of an older man–perhaps a foreigner. But if this were so, a foreigner who had lived long in this country, for the accent consisted of a scarcely perceptible blur. He spoke very slowly and with a cold deliberation that was unpleasant. It was so a judge might pronounce sentence of death. It was unemotional and forbidding. Yet there were little catches in it that reminded Wilson of some other voice which he could not place.

“My friend,” came the voice more distinctly, as though the owner had risen and now faced the closed doors between the two rooms, “my friend, the interests I serve are truly different from yours; you serve sentiment; I, justice and revenge. Yet we shall each receive our reward in the same battle.” He paused a moment. Then he added,

“A bit odd, isn’t it, that such interests as yours and mine should focus at a point ten thousand miles from here?”

“Odd? It’s weird! But I’m getting used to such things. I picked up a chap this morning whose story I wouldn’t have believed a year ago. Now I’ve learned that most anything is possible–even you.”

“I?”

“Yes, you and your heathen army, and your good English, and your golden idol.”

“I object to your use of the word ‘heathen,’” the other replied sharply.

Wilson started from his couch, now genuinely interested. But the two had apparently been moving out while this fag-end of the conversation was going on, for their voices died down until they became but a hum. He fell back again, and before he had time to ponder further Danbury hurried in with a suit of clothes over his arm.

“Here,” he cried excitedly, “try on these. I must be off again in a hurry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long, but we’ll make up the time in the machine.”

He tossed out a soft felt hat and blue serge suit. Wilson struggled into the clothes. Save that the trousers were a bit short, the things fitted well enough. At any rate, he looked more respectable than in a lounging robe. The latter he cast aside, and as he did so something fell from it. It was a roll of parchment. Wilson had forgotten all about it, and now thrust it in an inside pocket. He would give it back to Sorez, for very possibly it was of some value. He had not thought of it since it had rolled out of the hollow image.

Danbury led the way out the door as soon as Wilson had finished dressing. The latter felt in one of the vest pockets and drew out a ten dollar bill. He stared from Danbury to the money.

“Tuck it away, man, tuck it away,” said Danbury.

“I can’t tell you–”

“Don’t. Don’t want to hear it. By the way, you’d better make a note of the location of this house in case you need to find me again. Three hundred and forty Bellevue,–remember it? Here, take my card and write it down.”

It took them twenty minutes to reach the foot of Beacon street, and here Wilson asked him to stop.

“I’ve got to begin my hunt from here. I wish I could make you understand how more than grateful I am.”

“Don’t waste the time. Here’s wishing you luck and let me know how you come out, will you?”

He reached forth his hand and Wilson grasped it.

“I will.”

“Well, s’long, old man. Good luck again.”

He spoke to the chauffeur. In less than a minute Wilson was alone again on the street where he had stood the night before.

CHAPTER VII

The Game Continues

It was almost noon, which made it eight hours since Wilson was carried out of the house. He had had less than four hours’ sleep and only the slight nourishment he had received at the hospital since he and the girl dined at midnight, yet he was now fairly strong. His head felt sore and bruised, but he was free of the blinding ache which so weakened him in the morning. An austere life together with the rugged constitution he inherited from his Puritan ancestors was now standing him in good stead. He turned into the narrow street which ran along the water front in the rear of the Beacon Street houses and began his search for the gate which had admitted him to so many unforeseen complications. The river which had raged so turbulently in the dark was now as mild and blue as the sky above. A few clouds, all that were left of the threatening skies of the morning, scudded before a westerly breeze. It was a fair June day–every house flooded with sunshine until, however humble, it looked for the moment like a sultan’s palace. The path before him was no longer a blind alley leading from danger into chaos.