Quest of the Spider - Robeson Kenneth (читать книги без txt) 📗

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.

The corridor was carpeted. On tiptoes, Bugs approached the door.

Something crunched faintly underfoot. He paid no attention. It might be a bit of a cracker or a portion of a bread crumb. Bending over, Bugs put his ear to the keyhole.

He could hear everything being said in the room!

"THIS fiend who calls himself the Gray Spider is clever," Doc Savage was saying. "I am convinced that to get him, we will have to go after him with a deeply laid plan."

"Shoot the works!" Monk chuckled. "I'm r'arin' to go! I could scrap guys like them that tackled us a while ago all day, and it wouldn't be more trouble than fighting mosquitoes."

"You don't lick any one this time," Doc told him. "You use that brain nobody would suspect you've got. Starting immediately, you are a famous German chemist. You specialized on poison gas. You sold a secret gas formula to an unfriendly country, and as a result, you're taking it on the lam. You're hiding out for fear secret agents will kill you. Got it straight?"

"You bet." Monk's little eyes glittered.

"All right," Doc smiled. "You will strike out into the swamps like a man who is hunting a hiding place. Your purpose, of course, is to let the Gray Spider add you to his organization. In this way—if you don't die of snake-bite, or the alligators don't eat you, or the swamp natives fill you full of lead, or the Gray Spider get suspicious and order you killed—you should learn something."

Monk's wide grin never budged. "Ain't you the cheerful guy, Doc!"

"Renny" Doc continued, facing the big fisted engineer, "you will visit the governor of Louisiana, flying to Baton Rouge this afternoon. He will commission you a special forest ranger. I will telephone him long-distance, and see to that. Your engineering training fits you for the forest ranger job. You will go into the swamps, and, like Monk, try to learn something definite about the Gray Spider."

"Want me to pretend to be a crooked ranger, eh?" Renny grinned.

"I imagine it would get better results."

Doc's golden eyes now roved to Long Tom, the electrical wizard. "You are to tap the phone lines of the large lumber companies of Louisiana, and arrange to listen in on any conversation of importance. This will entail hiring a force of expert stenographers, of course, since no man could listen in to twenty or thirty phones simultaneously."