Kenneth Robeson - Quest of the Spider

"If you ask me, it wouldn't be healthy!" mumbled Bugs. "You saw what old Topper Beed got for knowin' too much!"

"You mean what we gave him!" Lefty chuckled coldly. "But he got hisn because he was spillin' what he knew."

"How'd Topper Beed happen to get wise to the Gray Spider?" questioned Bugs. "How'd he learn who the Gray Spider is?"

"Topper Beed was buyin' the stolen sawmills the Gray Spider's men were sellin'. But he got suspicious about the deals. He began to snoop around. He went to Danielsen & Haas with what he knew. And he finally found out too much."

"I'll say he did!" Bugs leered.

Several cigarettes were smoked by the pair in the wait that followed.

The yellowish-brown monkey man reappeared in the vile den.

"Gray Spider plentee much mad!" he growled. "Vat yo' send in de package vas no good to heem. Hees say yo' one pair plentee fools!"

Lefty and Bugs took this silently. They were getting off easy, for they had openly disobeyed the Gray Spider's orders in not at least trying to kill the mighty bronze man.

They gathered the Gray Spider had not been able to understand the mysterious lingo inscribed on the dictaphone records.

Another of the monkeylike swamp men shuffled in. He carried a cheap, new-looking black handbag. This he placed on the table.

"What's that?" Lefty demanded.

"Don't ask so many questions!" growled the swamp denizen. "Yo' ees to do mo' work. Oui! And yo' bettair not fall down on dis next job!"

He continued to speak. At times his gibberish was so rapid that Lefty and Bugs had to swear at him to slow him down understandably.

The two crooked lumber detectives began to get pale at the gills as the significance of the Gray Spider's orders dawned. They perspired freely.

"Jimminy!" Bugs whined. "I don't like this!"

"Me either!" grunted Lefty.

"Gray Spider order yo' do dese t'ings!" snapped the monkey man. "Yo' want me tell heem yo' say hees can go jump een river?"

"Nix, nix!" Lefty said hastily. "We'll go through with it."

"Git at it, den!" ordered the monkey man.

LEFTY and Bugs slunk out into the picturesque, ancient street. They carried the handbag. It looked very new against the age of their surroundings.

"There's one thing I don't like about workin' for this Gray Spider!" Lefty growled when they were out of earshot. "All of our orders come from them ignorant swamp snipes! Imagine us takin' orders from the likes of them!"

With the supreme egoism of a cheap criminal, Lefty was ignoring the fact that he was a more vile specimen than the illiterate swamp men. Lefty and Bugs had a certain amount of education, whereas the little monkey men were so ignorant as to hardly know right from wrong. In contrast to the two crooked detectives, they were men who might easily come under the superstitious sway of the Gray Spider.

"The snipes are only the Gray Spider's messengers!" Bugs said resignedly. "Anyway, it's payin' us to take the Gray Spider's orders! Ain't we makin' more money than we ever got in the lousy lumber detective business? Even with all the graft we could knock off lettin' timber poachers bribe us?"

"Yeah—that's right."

IN the course of a little time, Lefty and Bugs turned up before the modernistic Danielsen & Haas building. They entered, carrying the cheap, new handbag.

An elevator lifted them to the top floor. Both men now had a spray of cold sweat on their evil faces.

"This is what I call walkin' into a lion's den!" shivered Bugs.

It was on this floor that Big Eric Danielsen had his office. If the fire-eating lumberman should see them, it would be too bad. And well they knew it!

Danielsen & Haas employees hurried about in the corridor. No one paid the two villainous lumber detectives particular attention. Although Big Eric knew the pair were the Gray Spider's men, he had not spread the word.

"The Gray Spider said we'd be tipped off if the cops started lookin' for us," Bugs muttered. "He said it'd be safe to walk in here, as long as Big Eric, Edna, Ham or the bronze guy didn't see us. I hope he was right!"

"Forget it!" sneered Lefty. "The dope we get from the Gray Spider is always right! He's one guy who don't make mistakes!"

They scuttled swiftly past the door of Big Eric's office. The next door bore the inscription:

HORACE HAAS

Lefty and Bugs exchanged uneasy glances. Then Lefty knocked on the door of Horace Haas's office.

Nothing happened.

"I wonder if whoever answers this door is the Gray Spider?" Bugs muttered.

"I was just wonderin' the same thing," whispered Lefty. "I’m gonna get a look at his face when he opens the door!"

The panel marked with the name of Horace Haas suddenly opened about six inches.

Lefty and Bugs hastily moved to stare into the crack. They were disappointed. They could see only the head of the man inside. And that head was muffled in a mask made out of a very large and brightly colored silk handkerchief.

"Give me the hand bag!" rasped the man in a tone so muffled Lefty and Bugs could not tell whether they had ever heard it before.

The cheap, new bag was passed into the room.

"You understand clearly what you are to do next?" demanded the masked man.

"You mean about goin' to the hotel named on the slip of paper we took from the messenger boy?" Lefty faltered.

"Exactly! You are to go there. You will find some of my swamp men waiting. You are to kill any and all men who registered at that hotel last night and this morning!"

Lefty and Bugs were bewildered. They didn't understand the purpose for the wholesale murder. "But why—"

"It is obvious the dictaphone records you intercepted were orders from Doc Savage to his men!" snarled the masked one. "Since Doc Savage only arrived in New Orleans last night, it is certain his men got here later. By wiping out all late comers to the hotel, we will be certain to get them!"

"What do Doc Savage's men look like?" quizzed Bugs. "How many are there?"

"I do not know that!" hissed the masked man. "I have exhausted my resources in an effort to learn! But it is no use. Whether he has one man or a hundred, I do not know! His aids might even be women! That is an idea! Kill all women who have registered lately at the hotel. Wipe them out along, with the men!"

Lefty and Bugs swapped knowing glances. The conversation had shown them something.

The masked man was the Gray Spider!

The master villain was taking the slaying of mighty bronze Doc Savage into his own hands.

"Go!" rasped the Gray Spider.

The unsavory pair turned away. They almost ran to the elevators. It was as if the devil himself stood in the door of Horace Haas's office at their backs. They had met the Gray Spider—and they were more afraid of the fiend than ever.

"The fools!" hissed the Gray Spider into his silken mask. "Their haste could easily attract suspicion. Their very clumsiness makes them dangerous men to have around. I shall have to add them to my playthings at the Castle of the Moccasin—as soon as they finish these murders for me."

The Gray Spider closed the door of Horace Haas's office.

CARRYING the new, cheap hand bag, the Gray Spider crossed the office. He did not remove his mask. He walked with his body drawn into a hunched bundle. He had a pronounced limp.

However, all these physical quirks were assumed. Should some one enter the office unexpectedly, he did not want to be recognized. He kept a big automatic pistol in his hand against just such a contingency.

An eyehole of the Gray Spider's silken mask pushed close to the keyhole of the door that connected with Big Eric's office.

A faint gritting came from behind the silk mask, as though the wearer were grinding his teeth in hate at what he saw.