The Spider #29: ‘Slaves of the Murder Syndicate’

“Slaves Of The Murder Syndicate” was originally published in the February 1936 issue of The Spider Magazine. A powerful Eastern murder syndicate employed two ghastly weapons — the Dancing Death, and the Dissolver. With them, they held America for ransom, spreading pain and terror and red destruction. Never had The Spider’s struggle against the Underworld seemed so futile, for the name of Richard Wentworth was disgraced, his fortune was forfeit, and his beloved had betrayed him into the hands of the police — and certain death!

Here is a darned good Spider adventure. It is a sequel to the previous month’s story, “The Mayor of Hell.” But where the previous story was only average, this one steps it up and is a true joy to read. The “wow” factor in this story is the terrible weapons wielded by the murder syndicate.

There is the Dancing Death, in which victims whirl about madly before their death. And there is the Dissolver, which dissolves human flesh in a grisly manner.

There’s some pretty gruesome scenes in this story as The Spider has to fight these fiends. And another thing that makes this story top-notch is that it tidies up a lot of loose ends from the previous story. Wentworth was assumed dead; his fortune was confiscated; his friends were in jail. All is resolved, here in this story. Oh, and there’s a wedding, too. That’s right, Richard Wentworth and Nita van Sloan finally make it to the altar. All of that makes this a great Spider story that I can strongly recommend.

Our story opens shortly after the previous month’s story ends. Wentworth encounters a young woman on the street who is in the process of being abducted by two thugs. He saves her, but in doing so she is shot with a strange dart gun containing some weird poison. It causes her to dance wildly before her death. The first victim of the Dancing Death.

Nita betrays!

Wentworth returns to his rooms to find Nita van Sloan waiting for him. Nita is still weak from her gunshot wound two months earlier. Ram Singh and Jackson still reside in jail charged in assisting The Spider to escape from the police. Police Commissioner Stanley Kirkpatrick, no longer governor but back in his old job as head of police, has sent a message to Wentworth via Nina. He says it is time for The Spider to retire… for Wentworth to pledge he will never again become The Spider or do The Spider’s work. To take up the slack, Kirkpatrick intends to create an undercover bureau which will work as The Spider has in the past. Unless Wentworth promises that The Spider will stay dead, Kirkpatrick will see to it that his estate remains confiscated. Nina begs Dick to accept Kirkpatrick’s offer. Sadly, he refuses. He cannot. The door crashes open; the law steps into the room with a revolver in both hands. Wentworth is under arrest. Nita had betrayed him. Nita, the one person he had trusted above all others.

Wentworth and Nita are taken to headquarters where Commissioner Kirkpatrick once again asks Wentworth to retire as The Spider. A rock is thrown through the window and a policeman is struck with a feathered dart. Another cop is knocked out. Wentworth knocks out Kirkpatrick. Nina tries to take her life but is stopped by Wentworth. She lies unconscious. Wentworth makes his escape. Whew. As is typical, this story rushes long at a break-neck speed. I’m breathless just reading this summary!

The following morning, the newspapers twist the facts of the case. Don’t they always? The Spider is once again on the loose. After breakfast, Wentworth walks up Broadway when a car filled with three ugly thugs lets loose with a machine gun. It’s not aiming at Wentworth, but rather the crowds on the sidewalk. It strews deadly bullets through the crowds, killing tens perhaps hundreds of people. A second thug shoots darts and the pedestrians break out in a wild frenzied dance — the Dance of Death.

Wentworth follows in a commandeered taxi and wrecks the car and kills its passengers. He then returns to the East Side slums where he was living in hiding for the past weeks. There in his room he finds a man waiting for him. It’s Blackmon who accuses Wentworth of killing his wife, that woman on the street who was the first victim of the Dancing Death; he’s out for revenge and seeks Wentworth’s life. Before he can shoot, the man is shot with a small dart in the back of the neck. Wentworth saves him by cutting the wound and sucking out the poison. He’s interrupted by a stranger with a gun. Wentworth is rendered unconscious by a silk around his throat.

It’s like a dream…

He awakes in something out of an Arabian Nights dream. He’s garbed in the long loose robes of the East with soft silk slippers on his feet. He is taken by Tarsa, a beautiful young woman, to a secret laboratory where a German scientist works on the Dissolver. Wentworth watches as rats are exposed to a dark vapor. They scream, run in terror, they gradually began to dissolve; their bodies actually melt away, disappearing completely. As the doctor explains, just as snails will melt away when touched by salt, so he has found the salt that melts away animal bodies.

Wentworth is taken back to his Arabian Nights room where Tarsa tries to convince him to join their cause. He has been betrayed by Nita, framed by Kirkpatrick. Will he be a sap all his life? The Spider wants to see the leader, first. Tarsa explains that no one has seen the leader. He never shows himself, except in a long black robe with a hood over his face. She leaves to take his ultimatum to his chief. He follows and battles the bodyguard of the Chief in another Arabian Nights room. After cutting down the guards, he forces her to take him to the Chief. Tarsa escapes him and he hides. He overhears her ordering looting and death on a passenger chip called the Picardie, the largest passenger ship afloat. They will attack with the Dancing Death and the Dissolver.

As he is about to leave Hindus enter the room, followed by the Chief. Wentworth attacks. There is another furious battle in which the Chief is killed. Wentworth, The Spider, kills a good dozen Hindus. But he has been tricked. The man in the robes and the hood was not the Chief, but just a Hindu henchman. It was all a ruse while the thugs are off to loot the Picardie.

From here, things ramp up, considerably. As if they weren’t crazy enough already. There are aerial battles. Crash landing on the hurricane deck of a huge passenger ship. Looting and hideous death. The Spider is seriously wounded (again) and needs three weeks of recuperation, during which time the murder syndicate has consolidated its power. The looting of the Saxon Prince had been only the first of many such tragedies. Killers robbed, loosed their plague of torture, killed for the pure joy of it. Their terror had spread beyond New York into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Everywhere, the Dancing Death struck. Everywhere, the fiends looted.

The return of Corporal Death

The Spider is believed to be dead (again), and Corporal Death has been operating again. Wentworth is confused. He was Corporal Death. Who could be acting in his stead? Nita assures him it’s not Pat O’Rourke or Len Roberts, his aides from the previous story “The Mayor of Hell.” She has contacted them, to make sure. It turns out to be Bill Horace, a detective on the police squad who has resigned the force and taken on the mantle of Corporal Death.

Together The Spider and Corporal Death decide to break Ram Singh and Jackson from Sing Sing Prison. Then they can challenge this mysterious syndicate of killers before they strike at the heart of our nation, Washington, D.C.

Boy, in this story, you never get a chance to catch your breath. There are some truly amazing scenes with the horrible death-dealing devices wielded by the killers. And a terrific torture scene at the story’s climax. A giant spiked roller, like a steam roller, prepares to roll over a woman tied helplessly in its path. Sounds like a job for The Spider!

Again in this story we witness the lock picking skills of The Spider. This time he hastily improvises a lockpick from the pin of his belt buckle. That’s pretty innovative.

Readers are given a little history lesson on The Spider’s past. Wentworth originally created The Spider to help out a dear friend who was being framed out of life and honor and home. Also, we learn that Wentworth’s father, a great lawyer, had died when Richard was scarcely in his teens. And Bill Horace and Richard Wentworth go way back. Wentworth had saved Horace’s life more than once in “olden times.” In fact, Wentworth had engineered Bill’s promotion to detective, a deed which had permitted Bill to marry his wife, Tony.

Back together again

When it’s all over, the gang’s all back together again. Ram Singh and Jackson can no longer be held on their previous charges, and Wentworth knows they would be pardoned for the prison break. The law no longer accuses Wentworth of being The Spider, since at the climax, both Wentworth and The Spider appear in the same room together. (Obviously, it was Nita in a Spider disguise.) Wentworth’s wealth will be restored. And all is well with the world… for now.

But at the story’s end there are still some nagging questions. What about Corporal Death? Will Bill Horace continue as him, or will he rejoin the force? Why did Tarsa hate Bill’s wife, Tony? We were told that “It was plain she had some special reason to hate Tony Horace.” But we were never told that reason. Hmmm…

Another loose end is that in the previous story, Richard Wentworth had been disfigured by shrapnel so that he could not be recognized. That’s never mentioned in this story. He is commonly recognized as Wentworth. Did he finally heal? Did he get plastic surgery? Is he using some make-up disguise technique to return his visage to normal? Lots of questions, but no answers. He’s just back.

I will admit the part of the story involving the breakout from Sing Sing Prison seemed to stretch my credulity to the limit. That two men could so easily break in, free two prisoners, and break out again… well, it’s a stretch. But the way Norvell Page writes it, it does seem possible.

I liked the epilogue to the story. At the tale’s end, Wentworth proposes to Nita. He wants to marry her. He promises The Spider is dead. So, down the aisle they go… only to have the wedding ceremony interrupted. The Mayor has been murdered; killed with a golden knife shaped like a fly. Yes, The Fly, the crook who almost beat The Spider (in the tale “Prince of the Red Looters”) has come back to life again! With Nita’s encouragement, Wentworth runs out of the church ready for a new adventure. It seems, the marriage was not to be.

Yes, a very good Spider adventure, here. This is one of those whirlwind stories that just seems to define “pulp” in the truest sense. You should read this one. And lucky for you, it’s currently available in ebook and paperback reprint. So what are you waiting for?