"It's about Horace Haas," Bunnywell whined. "I loaned him five hundred dollars some time ago. He promised to pay it back within ten days. But when I ask him for it, he just laughs me off. I wonder—I wonder if you would speak to him. Five hundred dollars may not seem to you like much, but it is a large sum to me. I worked very hard to save it"
Big Eric cleared his throat noisily. He scowled. It was plain that he was disgusted with his business partner. He drew a large wallet from his pocket and extracted several bills.
"Here's your five hundred!" he boomed. "I'll collect it from Horace Haas!"
Old Bunnywell seemed about to sob. "Oh, thank you."
"Forget it!" thumped Big Eric. "I want my employees to make a complaint against an executive of the company just as soon as they would against an office boy, or quicker!"
Silas Bunnywell shuffled out, all but hugging his money.
"It's about time for me to hand Horace Haas another trimming with my fists!" growled Big Eric. "I have to knock him into line about once a year."
"Here he comes now, dad," interposed Edna.
Horace Haas came in. One noticed first the light-yellow, double-breasted tea vest he wore. Second in prominence was an enormous diamond ring. Morning coat, striped pants, too-shiny shoes and spats were noteworthy, as well as a flashy cravat.
The least striking thing in all this flamboyance was Horace Haas, the man. He was just a weak-chinned, florid, watery-eyed and roly-poly fat man. His hair was very dark.
He was excited. He flourished a sheet of paper.
"Big Eric!" he barked loudly. "I got something important! Lookit! A letter come through the mail this morning from Topper Beed, the man who has been helping us against the Gray Spider!"
Big Eric took the letter. He gave it a glance.
"Read this!" he boomed, and thrust it to Doc.
Doc's golden eyes translated:
If you want to seize the Gray Spider, I can tell you where to get him. TOPPER BEED.
"Give me Topper Beed's address!" Doc commanded.
"He has a large sawmill equipment repair shop and secondhand store over beyond Canal Street," replied Horace Haas. He gave the exact address.
Haas stared at the mighty bronze man. His weak jaw fell slowly. His shifty eyes seemed to swell in their watery sockets. He was awed by the giant metallic figure before him.
"So this is the Doc Savage you told me you was goin' after!" he muttered to Big Eric.
Doc Savage moved silently for the door. "I am going to interview Topper Beed," he said grimly.
* * *
TOPPER BEED’S sawmill repair shop and secondhand store was not located far from the old French quarter. Beside the place, and easily accessible to a wharf on the Mississippi, lay what looked like a junk lot of the parts of scores of sawmills. Some of the stuff was in good shape.
No sign of life was apparent around the ramshackle sheet-iron building which housed the shop. The door was secured with a heavy chain and a padlock.
Doc Savage's sinewy bronze fingers worked for a moment with the padlock. They manipulated a steel tool that looked much like a darning needle, with a crook on the end.
The padlock opened. Doc entered the shop.
The place was built like an airplane hangar, although not quite as large. A sizable drill stood in one corner, an enormous forge and anvil in another. Grease and metal chips made a gum underfoot.
In one spot, water shone glassily on the greasy floor. It had been splashed there not many hours ago. Near the water stood a wooden tank. This had evidently been made by sawing in half a very large barrel.
The tublike tank was full to the brim with water. A coat of oil floated on the surface. Evidently it was the water used to temper metal after it had been worked with on the forge and anvil.
Doc stuck a pair of long-handled blacksmith's tongs into the tub—brought up the body of a man!
The form was stocky and muscular, with the rough red skin and calloused palms of one who has long worked with heat and metal.
The man had been stunned by a blow on the head, and held in the tank until he drowned.
Several letters reposed in an inner pocket. The addresses were still legible. They bore the name of Topper Beed.
The man had surfeited his life for his activities against the Gray Spider!
* * *
DOC SAVAGE soon quitted the shop. The killers had been either clever or lucky, for they had left no clue to their Identity.
As Doc came out of the shop, two men down the street hastily settled low in the car they were driving.
"We gotta look out for that guy, Lefty!" one said.
"And how!" breathed the other. "Don't go staring at him like he was Santa Claus! He might notice!"
The pair were Lefty and Bugs, the two lumber company detectives who were in the Gray Spider's gang—the same pair who had treacherously struck down Big Eric!
Only a few minutes ago, they had received rush orders from the Gray Spider to come here and pick up the trail of the bronze man.
"We're to croak 'im if we get the chance!" muttered Lefty. "We might cut down on him right now!"
"Too risky!" Bugs hastily protested. "There's a cop in the next block."
They watched Doc Savage enter his roadster.
Lefty glanced about uneasily, as if to make sure no one was near, then growled: "I wonder if the bronze guy found anything to show we scragged old Topper Beed?"
"We didn't leave no clues!" snarled Bugs.
Doc Savage was unaware of the two murderers of Topper Beed crouched in their car. The morning sun shone on the windshield of their machine in such a manner that the reflection made it impossible to see inside.
Doc's roadster carried him over to Canal Street, thence southward. It halted shortly before a concern which sold dictaphones.
Lefty and Bugs, following discreetly far to the rear, saw Doc enter the establishment.
"I wish to purchase several dictaphone recording cylinders," Doc informed a clerk. "I wish also to use a dictaphone for several minutes."
It was an unusual request, but the clerk complied.
Seating himself at a machine used for demonstration purposes, Doc clipped on one of his new records and proceeded to dictate a long message.
No one heard his voice. The machine recorded smoothly. Doc gave order after order, together with detailed instructions on how they were to be carried out.
He was delivering commands to his men—for he intended to dispatch the records to them by messenger.
"Keep in mind," he finished, "that should one word of these instructions reach the Gray Spider, it might easily mean immediate death and destruction to us all."
Doc made his records into a small package. Down the street a few doors, he entered a telegraph office and engaged a messenger.
On a paper, he wrote the name of a hotel and a room number. It was the hotel to which he had directed his four pals—the directions having been on the message he had left in invisible ink at the Danielsen & Haas offices. Monk, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny would be waiting there.
The messenger stood on the curb and watched the giant bronze man enter his roadster and drive toward the Danielsen & Haas building.
* * *
WHEN Doc Savage was out of sight, the messenger got astride his bicycle. He carried his package carefully. He had been instructed to take pains not to drop it.
He eyed the address of the hotel, then tucked the paper in his tunic pocket. He pedaled on his errand.
Traffic was heavy on Canal Street. The messenger decided his shortest route was a left turn on Claiborne Avenue.
He veered over.
Suddenly an automobile whipped in front of his bike. He trod his coaster brake. No use! He hit the car head-on. His front wheel crumpled. He took a dive over the handlebars and banged his head against the car. Limp and unconscious, he dropped to the pavement.
By a miracle, the package he carried did not fall heavily enough to shatter the well-padded records insi
de.
"Nifty work Bugs!" chuckled one of the men in the car.
"Hold everything, Lefty!" rasped the other. "I'll grab the package the kid was carryin'!"
"Get the paper we saw him put in his coat pocket, too!"
The pair of crooked detectives had welcomed the chance to shift their shadowing activities from Doc Savage to the defenseless messenger boy. All too well, they remembered what the bronze giant had done to the four swampmen who had tried to slay him. They did not like the shadowing job, so they had taken a chance that whatever the messenger was carrying would be important enough to point to a reason for losing Doc Savage—for they would have to show the Gray Spider a good excuse.
Bugs got the package, and the paper from the messenger's pocket. He sprang into the car. The machine raced away.
"Hey, lookit!" exclaimed Bugs, opening the package. "Dictaphone records!"
"They got anything on 'em?"
"Guess so."
Lefty quickly turned their car to the curb as he caught sight of another office-supply concern.
"The bronze guy must've rented a machine to make 'em!" he declared. "What's to keep us from rentin' one to hear 'em?"
"That's usin' the old think box!" complimented Bugs.
They entered the office-supply establishment, drew a clerk aside, and made their needs known. A moment later, they were bending over a transcribing machine. A record was fitted on the cylinder.
The headset consisted of two receivers. They divided it between them. Lefty started the machine. They held their breath. The rotating record, not yet to the message, made a low hiss-hiss in their ears.
Then it began to talk to them!
A dazed expression seized their faces. It was as though somebody had suddenly hit them in the head with a hammer.
They couldn't understand a word they were hearing!
Doc Savage had dictated in a language not one person in a hundred million knew—the tongue of the ancient Mayan civilization! Doc and his men had learned this language from pure-blooded descendants of the ancient race of Maya—from the folk who resided in the lost valley in Central America, and who kept Doc supplied with gold.
"What're we gonna do now?" Bugs growled.
"Get these to the Gray Spider," Lefty decided.
The unsavory pair hurried toward the old French quarter, the bundle of records tucked under Lefty's arm.
* * *
THE French quarter is the most ancient section of New Orleans. Although only a short distance from the new business district of skyscrapers, the French quarter is probably one of the most unique features of any American city. It is more remarkable even than the Chinatown of San Francisco.
Stepping into the French quarter is like stepping into an ancient part of Paris. Old buildings and quaint streets characterize the place. Overhanging balconies were plentiful.
Lefty and Bugs sidled furtively into one of the shabbiest of the buildings. They clumped down a shadowy passage. A door opened after they had mumbled their identity.
The shoddy, ill-smelling room in which they found themselves, was fitted with tables, rickety metal chairs, and a bar. Perhaps a dozen slovenly individuals were present, all men.
One of the yellowish-brown monkeylike men sat at a table. Lefty and Bugs gave him their package and the paper bearing the name of the hotel.
"Get this to the Gray Spider," Lefty directed. "Tell him we think it's important. Tell him we quit trailin' the bronze guy to grab it. And ask him what he wants us to do now."
Without a word, the monkey man departed with package and paper.
"I'd kinda like to follow that swamp snipe and see where the Gray Spider's got his hang-out here in New Orleans," leered Lefty.
"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."
* * *
Chapter VII. KILLERS AT WORK
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 mi
stakes!"
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.
Quest of the Spider ds-3 Page 6
