Kenneth Robeson - Quest of the Spider

The elevator operator was prone on the floor of the cage. There was not a mark on him. He had simply fainted from fright during Monk's terrific fight.

"Where are the others?" Doc questioned.

"Reckon they've got the rest of them upstairs," Monk laughed. "Anyhow, they was goin' strong when I chased these five into the elevator."

"What floor they on?"

"Fifth."

Doc halted the cage at the fifth floor. He got out. Monk trailed him, pausing only to butt the head of one of his captives against the wall when the fellow seemed about to revive. Monk did this without even shifting the prisoner under his arm.

Stifled screeches and moans were coming from a room down the corridor. Doc and Monk approached the sounds.

But they had only taken a few steps when the panel flew out of the door, a torn mess of splinters. Approximately a gallon of reddish, iron-hard knuckles appeared.

"Renny is celebratin'!" Monk chuckled. "The big lout is gonna haul off and hit a block of iron by mistake some day."

The fist belonged to Colonel John Renwick. He was honored throughout the world for his feats in civil engineering—and for his ability to pop the panel out of the stoutest door with his fist. He had a habit of doing this when he felt good. Evidently his spirits were high now.

It was the print of Renny's gigantic thumb which had signed the blank sheet of paper they had left at the Danielsen & Haas office to show Doc they were in town.

They caught sight of Renny's features through the hole his big fist had made. The face would have surprised a stranger, who would naturally have expected to see a wide grin.

It was forbidding, solemn. Indeed, it looked as if the owner had just gone to a funeral.

But that was another peculiarity about Renny, who was six feet four, and weighed two fifty. The more joyful the occasion, the more sour he looked.

Another burst of screeches and moans came out of the room.

Doc and Monk entered.

"GLORY be!" grinned Monk. "What're you doin' to that poor feller, Long Tom?"

Long Tom—Major Thomas J. Roberts on the military records—was the weakling of the crowd, judging by appearances. He was undersized, slender, only fairly set up. He had pale hair and pale eyes, and a somewhat sallow complexion—as though he might have spent a lot of his life in a cellar.

His ears were big and thin and pale, and since they were between Doc and Monk and the light, it was almost possible to see through them.

Long Tom sat on a beaten-up swamp man. He was busily engaged with the ends of an electric cord he had torn from a floor lamp. He was tying them to the wrists of the man on whom he sat.

"This monkey don't know what electricity is," he snorted. "I'm gonna give a couple of shocks. It might persuade him to tell who the Gray Spider is, and where we can get him."

It was natural that Long Tom's thoughts should turn to electricity. That was his profession. His reputation in the electrical field had few equals. He was called in for consultations by the great electrical experts often.

A loud moan of agony drew their eyes to the window.

"Another experimenter!" Monk snorted.

The last member of Doc's group of friends and aids was near the window. He, too, sat on a prisoner. He was tall and gaunt, with a half-starved look. His hair was thin, and gray at the temples. He had the appearance of a studious scientist rather than an adventurer.

This was Johnny, or William Harper Littlejohn to the great men of archaeology and geology. Johnny possibly knew more about the structure of the earth and the habits of mankind, ancient and modern, than ninety-nine out of a hundred so-called experts on the subjects.

With one hand, Johnny was holding his glasses in the sunlight. The left lens of these spectacles was in reality a very powerful magnifying glass.

Johnny didn't need a left lens, since he had practically lost the use of that eye in the Great War. So he carried in its place a magnifier, which he could use in his business.

A curl of smoke came from the coat of the man Johnny sat on. The sun, concentrated by the magnifying lens, was burning the coat.

"Talk!" Johnny directed his prisoner. "Or I'll put this glass to work on your eyes! It'll burn 'em out in about a minute!"

The captive only glared hate.

A moment later, Long Tom's victim gave a squawk as the electric current tingled through him. Although harmless, the voltage was highly uncomfortable. The man kept a tight lip.

"I hate to discourage you," Doc chuckled, "but I'm afraid you won't get anything out of these men. You would have just about as much success trying to scare an Apache Indian into talking."

"They're peculiar beings, these swamp dwellers," Johnny agreed. "Being the offspring of criminals who have fled to the swamps for safety, they have had one rule of existence drummed into them all their lives. That rule is to tell nothing to an outsider, no matter what the cost."

"That's the idea," Doc agreed. "Did any of them get away?"

Johnny counted Monk's armload of captives. "Five! And these two make seven. Seven are all we saw."

"That's right," Renny agreed.

"Then we'll take them to the hotel where I have some of their friends sleeping," Doc replied. "Afterward, we'll find a new hang-out for you fellows. And I'll outline the part you are to play in the festivities."

They left, bearing the prisoners.

A MOMENT after Doc and his friends vanished, a man sidled out of a room down the corridor.

"What I mean, I was lucky!" he muttered.

The man was Bugs, other half of the crooked lumber detective pair. At the start of the fight which had resulted in the downfall of the swamp men, Bugs had had the good fortune to dodge into an empty room without being seen. There he had crouched, preserving his own hide, callous to what happened to his assistants.

He scurried down successive flights of stairs, reached the lobby, and worked across it. Excitement raged in the lobby. Wiremen were arriving, although there was no need of them. Bell boys and guests charged about, adding to the general confusion. Bugs walked outside.

He saw Doc Savage and his friends putting the prisoners into two taxicabs. Instantly, he concealed himself behind a fire truck.

Bugs thought fast. He abhorred the idea of following Doc. He feared the big bronze man more than the devil himself. The devil wasn't real to Bugs, but only somebody the preachers shouted about. The giant bronze man was real—entirely too much so.

But if he trailed Doc and his men to their new rendezvous, Bugs knew he would have something with which to curry the Gray Spider's favor. He decided to take a chance.

He engaged a cab to follow the pair Doc and his men had taken.

The cavalcade led to the little hotel where Doc was storing his drugged prisoners to await transportation to the New York State institution where their criminal tendencies would be cured.

"Huh!" grunted Bugs, watching the captives being taken inside. "That beats me! I thought they'd be handed to the cops! Oh, well, I'll remember this address, and the Gray Spider can come here and turn his swamp snipes loose."

Doc and his men—in one taxicab now—betook themselves to a neat little inn in the French district. Watching from the street, Bugs saw them engage quarters. He trailed inside after they mounted steps to the upper regions.

Revolver in hand, Bugs climbed the stairs. He heard the innkeeper returning. The fellow had installed Doc and his men in their room. Bugs scuffled behind a handy drape, revolver ready, hoping the gloominess of the hallway would aid in preventing his discovery.

The innkeeper went below without dreaming Bugs was inside.

Down the hall, Bugs crept. He heard voices. One boomed like a large rock rolling around in a huge drum. He remembered that tone. It belonged to the human leviathan who knocked panels out of doors with his fists.