Doc Savage 3 - Quest of the Spider

I -- The Plotters Strike

A "comet" hurtled through the cloudy summer sky. It was a manmade comet of toughened steel and alloy -- the New Orleans-to-New York passenger plane. A hoarse, unending snarl of power poured from the exhaust stacks of the 3 speed-cowled motors.

About a dozen people lounged in the cabin. Some toyed with magazines. Others played bridge. They could not have been more at ease under a reading lamp at home.

Two of the passengers were not so calm, however. Their faces were tense. Their eyes held Fear.

It was plain that they were not scared merely because they were riding in a plane. Their gaze fanned the surrounding clouds time-after-time. It was as if they momentarily expected some hideous fate to pounce from the dingy heavens.

"Take it easy, Edna," murmured one of the two. "I think we are safe here."

The speaker was a man. He bulked big in the wicker plane seat. His rugged hands were drawn into knobbed fists. His blond, coarse hair was peppered with gray at the temples. It had been touseled by nervous stroking of the man's blunt fingers. He seemed very worried.

The man looked like a picture an imaginative artist might paint of that 2-fisted Norseman 'Eric the Red'.

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His name actually was Eric. He was "Big Eric" Danielsen, president of Danielsen & Haas, the largest lumber company in the southern United States. Every man in the lumber business had heard of Big Eric, who had worked up from lowly shed stacker in a sawmill to power and millions.

"Big Eric Danielsen ... now there's a nice guy!" they'd generally say. "Hasn't got an enemy in the World!"

They would have changed their minds now could they have seen Big Eric's drawn face and tense muscles as he sat in the speeding plane. He was like a man apprehensive of being stricken by a fiendish enemy at any instant!

"Try to get some sleep, Dad," suggested the young woman who Big Eric had addressed as 'Edna'. "You sat up all night with an automatic pistol. And don't try to say you didn't! I awakened during the night and saw you."

The resemblance between Edna and her father was strong. She had his firm features, blonde hair, and blue eyes. She was nearly as tall as Big Eric. And she was a ravishing beauty!

A famous motion-picture concern had once offered Edna Danielsen a young fortune if she would enter the talkies. The company had been flabbergasted when the entrancing young woman pointed out that her salary as an executive vice-president of her father's lumber corporation exceeded that of the film offer. It was an event when such beauty and brains came together!

The fact that the men passengers on the plane -- those who didn't have their wives along -- had selected seats where they could steal a covert look at Edna now-and-then showed what a pippin she was.

One male passenger alone had not done that. Strangely enough, this fellow was the cake-eater type who usually ogle pretty girls in an ill-mannered fashion. His hair was slicked down until the top of his head resembled the greased back of a black turtle. He had an evil face.

A moment before, this unsavory fellow had visited the washroom in the rear of the plane. In passing Big Eric and Edna, the man had carefully kept his face turned away.

"There's something queer about the way that man acts!" muttered Big Eric.

"I was just thinking the same thing, Dad," replied the gorgeous Edna.

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The plane cabin was partially soundproofed. Up forward in the pilot's compartment, they could hear the assistant pilot talking into the radio-telephone instrument which was in communication with the nearest plane dispatcher of the airline. The man was giving the condition of the air they were passing through and information on visibility ahead as reported by other planes.

"I'm gonna keep an eye on that slick-haired gigolo," growled Big Eric, still watching the evil-faced man who sat forward. The massive lumber king removed a large Army automatic from a hip pocket. He put it in a coat pocket where it could be gotten at more swiftly.

"Don't do anything reckless, Dad!" warned Edna.

Big Eric tried to chuckle. He was under such a strain that the sound he produced was hardly more than a hollow rattle.