"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 003 - Quest of the Spider" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Big Eric DanielsenтАФnow there's a white guy!" they'd generally say. "Hasn't got an enemy in the world!"

They would have changed their minds, 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 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, blond 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 the film offer. It was an event when
such beauty and brains came together.

The fact that the men passengers on the planeтАФthose who didn't have their wives alongтАФhad selected seats
where they could steal a covert look at Edna now and then, showed what a pippin she was.
One man 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.



The plane cabin was partially sound-proofed. 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 air line. The man was giving the condition of the air they were passing through, and
getting 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.

"I'm not so jumpy that I'll start shooting everybody that looks suspicious, just on the chance that I'll get the
Gray Spider, or one of his men."

At mention of the Gray Spider, dread flashed to Edna Danielsen's pretty face. It was obvious the name had a