Deeper and deeper New York had sunk in the toils of the Underworld czar — until its entire population had been regimented by the Black Police into a Kingdom of Crime! Everywhere marched the evil emperor’s cohorts, collecting the taxes that meant death; and the law was at a standstill. In that moment of desperation, one man had a heaven-sent inspiration. For now Richard Wentworth, as the Spider, resolved to fight the Underworld with its own merciless weapons. With New York’s own police commissioner at his side, he raised a fugitive, fighting legion of honest men who, like Robin Hood’s band of old, took the law into its own hands — to come from secret lairs, strike and punish criminals — then slip back into the shadows again! The City that Paid to Die is torn from the pages of the September, 1938 issue of The Spider magazine.