“Help! Ouch! Help!”
The next moment a figure came flying into the corridor. Attached to it was what at first sight appeared to be a gigantic spider. Down the corridor the figure fled, yelling at the top of his voice.
All through the hotel, doors could be heard opening and shouts and cries rang through the entire structure from office to garret!
“It’s fire!”
“There’s murder!”
“Call the police!”
“Thieves!”
“Fire! Fire!”
Mingling with these and a dozen other frantic cries from alarmed guests came the clanging of gongs as the night clerk, aroused from his doze in the office, sprang to the emergency alarm and pulled it. This redoubled the confusion.
In the midst of the pandemonium there came skyrocketing madly down the stairs into the half-dressed crowd swarming in the lobby, an extraordinary and alarming figure. It was that of a man clad only in shirt and trousers upon whose face was stamped the wildest terror. Frightened cries broke from his lips and the horrified onlookers perceived that, attached to him, behind, was a gigantic spider, or such at least the thing appeared.