Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 279 by Maxwel l Grant

Author:Maxwel,l Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

CHAPTER XI

POP SORBER turned from the pit where Alhambra had finished taunting the rattlers, and raised the curtain upon Nicco, the cigarette fiend. Reclining on an army cot was a tall, languid figure that represented the last stage of human

wreckage. Any roughneck could play the fiend, because it was largely a matter of

make-up, but this recruit was doing a good job.

His hair was disheveled over his listless, but contorted face which was well plastered with yellow grease paint. The same jaundiced dye covered his bare

arms and was thickest on the hand that held a cigarette above an ash-tray that overflowed with smoldering stumps.

Funny how this act still fetched them. It belonged back in the Nineties, when cigarettes were an obnoxious novelty, linked with fantastic tales of what happened to unfortunates who smoked a pack a day. They turned yellow and stayed

so, living on a diet of nicotine that sustained them instead of food, for their

systems were saturated.

Old Pop was telling the same old tale, but making it a dozen packs instead

of one. It was a great build, but it needed a pay-off, so Pop had one for the benefit of the few smart spectators. As a conclusion he hitched a suction cup to

the wrist of the languid fiend, and ran a connecting hose into a glass jar, which he promptly covered with a lid. The wise boys stared as smoke began to fill the jar, presumably arriving from the fiend's over-saturated system.

Raising the lid, Pop let the smoke teem from the jar. Dropping the curtain,

he nudged the army cot and awoke the drowsy stooge.

"Okay, roughie," said Pop. "Get out and shill for the joints until the next

show. Don't forget to load the jar for the smoke stunt. A couple of drops of spirits of salts in the lid and a dose of ammonia in the jar. Not too much ammonia though or they'll smell it."

Emerging from between the curtains, Pop stepped over to the next platform and solemnly drew the drapes that disclosed the spider girl.

"There she is, folks," spieled Pop. "Poor Spidora, one of Nature's most unfortunate creations. She lives, she breathes, she talks like you and me, but her life is spent in weaving webs like the fine specimen she has just completed.

The head of a girl with the body of a spider. Unbelievable but true, because seeing is believing.

"Ask any questions and she will answer them, but don't throw peanuts or candy because she don't like 'em. Her diet consists solely of insects, like that

of any spider and she spins her web to trap them. Spidora, half-human, half insect, the celebrated, one and only spider girl."

The spectators were looking at a monstrous spider that had the charming head of Margo Lane. The thing was perched in the center of a web that looked like strands of rough tarred rope arranged in crude geometric pattern. On her part, Margo was summing the spectators and finding, to her amazement that they,

like previous audiences, were swallowing all that Pop said. A few feeble questions came from the throng and after Margo answered them, Pop dropped the curtain.

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