The Lab

When Anthony Quinn needs to analyze a new piece of evidence in a case, or to gather his team of crime fighters for a meeting away from prying eyes, he does so in a hidden lab which can be accessed through a secret door in his study.

This page will collect information about the Black Bat's laboratory. Similarly to how the other members of the team are described on the "Supporting Cast" page above, lines from original Black Bat stories published in Black Book Detective will provide the descriptive text.

For the record, the "white-tiled" lab is mentioned in the Bat's second story, Murder Calls The Black Bat, which is cover-dated July 1939.

Meanwhile, according to cbr.com, 

In 1939's "Detective Comics" #29 (with art by Bob Kane, and written by Gardner Fox), Bruce Wayne kept his costume in a small chest in his bedroom, and his "crime lab" was just a room hidden in a wall inside Wayne Manor.

Detective Comics #29 is also dated July 1939. Go on, cbr...

When Batman started using his vehicles like the Batmobile and the Batplane, they obviously couldn't go into his regular mansion's garage. That's when Batman started using the Batcave, right? Wrong. In 1940's "Batman" #3 (Bob Kane, Bill Finger), Batman rushed to get his Batplane by traveling in an underground tunnel to an old and beaten-up barn where he kept his vehicles. 

Batman #3 has a cover date of September 1940. Several more Black Bat stories had been published by then and I believe they all included the Bat's crime fighting lab and its exit through a tunnel that led to a garden house. Just another coincidental similarity between the characters, no doubt. 

Enough of that. Let's find out more about the lab!

Quinn closed the door behind him and sat down on a laboratory bench. Here were all the chemicals and apparatus needed in criminological work. Microscopes, spectroscopes, ballistic devices, one whole section devoted to toxicology. Part of the floor was a trap door which led to stairs that descended into a tunnel. This ended in a garden house far at the rear of Quinn's estate. It gave him and his aides a secret means of coming and going without detection.  The Black Bat's Crusade (May 1940).

He...opened a large cupboard to reveal dozens of guns of all makes. The Voice Of Doom (Nov 1941).

...then a bluish light glowed at the far corner of the lab. There was a battery of lights installed there, each color having a  different meaning. Some warned when there were visitors in the in the house, or visitors approaching. The blue signal indicated that Silk, in some room in the house, was relaying a phone call to Quinn in the lab. The Murder Prophet (June 1947)

The story Shadow of Evil makes mention of "Books by the hundreds" as well as fingerprint identification equipment and "moulage".

Several stories make mention of a privacy screen behind which Tony can change in and out of his Black Bat outfit and a davenport in which he and Carol Baldwin usually sit. Big Butch tends to engulf a standard "straight-backed chair".