The Spider's Web

The Spider's Web by St. George Rathborne

Aleck Craig, a Canadian athlete, haunts Chicago’s Midway Plaisance in search of Dorothy, a young woman he aided during a skating accident in Montreal. He meets his old friend Claude Wycherley, an impoverished but warm-hearted ex-actor who pretends to make fortunes through imaginary grain-market speculations. Wycherley reveals that Aroun Scutari, a Turkish gem dealer and former pasha, has recruited him for a scheme: Scutari wants Wycherley to stage a dangerous rescue on the Ferris wheel, thereby winning Dorothy Cereal’s gratitude and access to her fortune. The plot is rooted in Scutari’s twenty-year-old grievance against Dorothy’s father, Samson Cereal. While in Turkey, Samson had fallen in love with Marda, a Georgian girl already purchased as Scutari’s intended bride. Samson abducted Marda and escaped with her to America. Scutari now seeks revenge by stealing Samson’s daughter. When a supposedly deranged professor terrifies Dorothy and other women in a Ferris-wheel car, Wycherley loses his nerve. Craig climbs the moving wheel’s framework, enters the car, and subdues the genuinely crazed professor. Dorothy recognizes him as her Montreal rescuer and invites him to her father’s house. Craig and Wycherley discover that Dorothy has been secretly visiting the Midway for a “sacred purpose.” They see her with a bronzed young man who appears to be a miner, and they also encounter Saidee, the Veiled Fortune Teller of Cairo Street. When Scutari tears away Saidee’s veil, Craig is convinced she closely resembles Dorothy. He concludes that Saidee may be Marda, whom Dorothy believes dead, and suspects Dorothy is seeking the truth about her mother. Bob Rocket, a Colorado sheriff and Wycherley’s grateful friend, arrives hunting John Phœnix, accused of embezzling fifty thousand dollars from the Hecla Mining Company. The photograph supplied to Rocket appears to identify Dorothy’s companion. Meanwhile, Scutari and Dorothy’s corrupt duenna, Mrs. Merrick, attempt to abduct Dorothy at the Midway by drugging her. Marda tries to intervene but is carried away by Scutari’s men. Craig attacks Scutari and his hired followers, aided by Wycherley and a drunken young man called Happy Jack. Dorothy is rescued and taken home, though she does not yet realize Mrs. Merrick betrayed her. After Wycherley saves a frightened woman from a burning tenement, Craig learns that she is Adela, Samson Cereal’s first wife. Divorced after Samson believed her unfaithful, Adela is the mother of his estranged son. Craig and Wycherley realize that Dorothy’s supposed lover is actually John Cereal, who has used the name John Atherton, and that Dorothy has been working to reconcile him with their father. Adela, dying and repentant, longs to see her son and to obtain Samson’s forgiveness. Samson visits Craig and Wycherley, explains that Dorothy has discovered evidence clearing John of an old charge of theft, and says John will attend a reception at the Cereal home. Craig warns Samson that Marda is alive and that Scutari means to repay Samson’s old abduction by carrying off Dorothy. Samson invites both men to the reception and offers Wycherley a position after learning of his elaborate imaginary market dealings. At the reception, Samson and John are reconciled. Adela enters the house disguised as a servant so that she can secretly see her son. A telegram then informs Samson that he needs fifty thousand dollars immediately to preserve control of a major enterprise; otherwise he will be ruined. John offers the exact sum, claiming to have it in a Chicago bank. Before the matter is settled, Rocket enters to arrest John as the supposed John Phœnix. John calmly explains that Phœnix was actually his confidential secretary, while he himself is John Atherton, president and manager of the Hecla. A new telegram confirms Rocket has been sent the wrong photograph, clearing John. Happy Jack then arrives and reveals himself as the real Phœnix. He has overheard Scutari’s plans and brings shorthand notes recording a fresh conspiracy against Samson and Craig, involving Scutari’s agents and a woman Samson has long believed dead. When John confronts him, Phœnix confesses to stealing nearly all of the fifty thousand dollars. Rather than expose him, John recovers the money, gives him funds to leave for Canada, and offers him a chance to reform for his mother’s sake. The text ends as the reception continues, with Craig devoted to Dorothy, the threats of Scutari still unresolved, and the secrets of Marda and Adela not yet fully revealed.

By St. George Rathborne · First published 1902 · Genre: Adventure Fiction, Romantic Adventure, Mystery Fiction · 30 chapters · 69,774 words

First lines

"Eight days I have haunted this beehive, fought my way through the multitude, looked into tens of thousands of faces, and yet failed to find her. I'm afraid, Aleck Craig, you're on a wild goose chase, and the sooner you return to Montreal the better for your peace of mind. Eight days! and six of them spent amid the infernal clatter of this bedlam. I've been wondering what the sensations of a man would be, could he go to sleep in Canada and awaken right _here_."

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mystery · detective fiction · crime fiction · adventure fiction · suspense · investigation · secret plots · criminal schemes · danger · intrigue · pursuit · disguise

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The Spider's Web is listed on Textopian as a novel by St. George Rathborne, dated 1902 CE.

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