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The Exploits of Elaine

by Arthur B. Reeve · English · Gutenberg #5151 · 444,204 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Exploits of Elaine

Author: Arthur B. Reeve


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #5151]
                Most recently updated: September 15, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5151

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES

THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE

BY

ARTHUR B. REEVE




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

   I   THE CLUTCHING HAND

  II   THE TWILIGHT SLEEP

 III   THE VANISHING JEWELS

  IV   "THE FROZEN SAFE"

   V   THE POISONED ROOM

  VI   THE VAMPIRE

 VII   THE DOUBLE TRAP

VIII   THE HIDDEN VOICE

  IX   THE DEATH RAY

   X   THE LIFE CURRENT

  XI   THE HOUR OF THREE

 XII   THE BLOOD CRYSTALS

XIII   THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS

 XIV   THE RECKONING




THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE




CHAPTER I

THE CLUTCHING HAND


"Jameson, here's a story I wish you'd follow up," remarked the managing
editor of the Star to me one evening after I had turned in an
assignment of the late afternoon.

He handed me a clipping from the evening edition of the Star and I
quickly ran my eye over the headline:

    "THE CLUTCHING HAND" WINS AGAIN

  NEW YORK'S MYSTERIOUS MASTER CRIMINAL
         PERFECTS ANOTHER COUP

     CITY POLICE COMPLETELY BAFFLED

"Here's this murder of Fletcher, the retired banker and trustee of the
University," he explained. "Not a clue--except a warning letter signed
with this mysterious clutching fist. Last week it was the robbery of
the Haxworth jewels and the killing of old Haxworth. Again that curious
sign of the hand. Then there was the dastardly attempt on Sherburne,
the steel magnate. Not a trace of the assailant except this same
clutching fist. So it has gone, Jameson--the most alarming and most
inexplicable series of murders that has ever happened in this country.
And nothing but this uncanny hand to trace them by."

The editor paused a moment, then exclaimed, "Why, this fellow seems to
take a diabolical--I might almost say pathological--pleasure in crimes
of violence, revenge, avarice and self-protection. Sometimes it seems
as if he delights in the pure deviltry of the thing. It is weird."

He leaned over and spoke in a low, tense tone. "Strangest of all, the
tip has just come to us that Fletcher, Haxworth, Sherburne and all the
rest of those wealthy men were insured in the Consolidated Mutual Life.
Now, Jameson, I want you to find Taylor Dodge, the president, and
interview him. Get what you can, at any cost."

I had naturally thought first of Kennedy, but there was no time now to
call him up and, besides, I must see Dodge immediately.

Dodge, I discovered over the telephone, was not at home, nor at any of
the clubs to which he belonged. Late though it was I concluded that he
was at his office. No amount of persuasion could get me past the door,
and, though I found out later and shall tell soon what was going on
there, I determined, about nine o'clock, that the best way to get at
Dodge was to go to his house on Fifth Avenue, if I had to camp on his
front doorstep until morning. The harder I found the story to get, the
more I wanted it.

With some misgivings about being admitted, I rang the bell of the
splendid, though not very modern, Dodge residence. An English butler,
with a nose that must have been his fortune, opened the door and
gravely informed me that Mr. Dodge was not at home, but was expected at
any moment.

Once in, I was not going lightly to give up that advantage. I bethought
myself of his daughter, Elaine, one of the most popular debutantes of
the season, and sent in my card to her, on a chance of interesting her
and seeing her father, writing on the bottom of the card: "Would like
to interview Mr. Dodge regarding Clutching Hand."

Summoning up what assurance I had, which is sometimes considerable, I
followed the butler down the hall as he bore my card. As he opened the
door of the drawing room I caught a vision of a slip of a girl, in an
evening gown.

Elaine Dodge was both the ingenue and the athlete--the thoroughly
modern type of girl--equally at home with tennis and tango, table talk
and tea. Vivacious eyes that hinted at a stunning amber brown sparkled
beneath masses of the most wonderful auburn hair. Her pearly teeth,
when she smiled, were marvellous. And she smiled often, for life to her
seemed a continuous film of enjoyment.

Near her I recognized from his pictures, Perry Bennett, the rising
young corporation lawyer, a mighty good looking fellow, with an
affable, pleasing way about him, perhaps thirty-five years old or so,
but already prominent and quite friendly with Dodge.

On a table I saw a book, as though Elaine had cast it down when the
lawyer arrived to call on the daughter under pretense of waiting for
her father. Crumpled on the table was the Star. They had read the story.

"Who is it, Jennings?" she asked.

"A reporter, Miss Dodge," answered the butler glancing superciliously
back at me, "and you know how your father dislikes to see anyone here
at the house," he added deferentially to her.

I took in the situation at a glance. Bennett was trying not to look
discourteous, but this was a call on Elaine and it had been
interrupted. I could expect no help from that quarter. Still, I fancied
that Elaine was not averse to trying to pique her visitor and
determined at least to try it.

"Miss Dodge," I pleaded, bowing as if I had known them all my life,
"I've been trying to find your father all the evening. It's very
important."

She looked up at me surprised and in doubt whether to laugh or stamp
her pretty little foot in indignation at my stupendous nerve.

She laughed. "You are a very brave young man," she replied with a
roguish look at Bennett's discomfiture over the interruption of the
tete-a-tete.

There was a note of seriousness in it, too, that made me ask quickly,
"Why?"

The smile flitted from her face and in its place came a frank earnest
expression which I later learned to like and respect very much. "My
father has declared he will eat the very next reporter who tries to
interview him here," she answered.

I was about to prolong the waiting time by some jolly about such a
stunning girl not having by any possibility such a cannibal of a
parent, when the rattle of the changing gears of a car outside told of
the approach of a limousine.

The big front door opened and Elaine flung herself in the arms of an
elderly, stern-faced, gray-haired man. "Why, Dad," she cried, "where
have you been? I missed you so much at dinner. I'll be so glad when
this terrible business gets cleared up. Tell--me. What is on your mind?
What is it that worries you now?"

I noticed then that Dodge seemed wrought-up and a bit unnerved, for he
sank rather heavily into a chair, brushed his face with his
handkerchief and breathed heavily. Elaine hovered over him
solicitously, repeating her question.

With a mighty effort he seemed to get himself together. He rose and
turned to Bennett.

"Perry," he exclaimed, "I've got the Clutching Hand!"

The two men stared at each other.

"Yes," continued Dodge, "I've just found out how to trace it, and
tomorrow I am going to set the alarms of the city at rest by exposing--"

Just then Dodge caught sight of me. For the moment I thought perhaps he
was going to fulfill his threat.

"Who the devil--why didn't you tell me a reporter was here, Jennings?"
he sputtered indignantly, pointing toward the door.

Argument, entreaty were of no avail. He stamped crustily into the
library, taking Bennett with him and leaving me with Elaine. Inside I
could hear them talking, and managed to catch enough to piece together
the story. I wanted to stay, but Elaine, smiling at my enthusiasm,
shook her head and held out her hand in one of her frank, straight-arm
hand shakes. There was nothing to do but go.

At least, I reflected, I had the greater part of the story--all except
the one big thing, however,--the name of the criminal. But Dodge would
know him tomorrow!

I hurried back to the Star to write my story in time to catch the last
morning edition.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Meanwhile, if I may anticipate my story, I must tell of what we later
learned had happened to Dodge so completely to upset him.

Ever since the Consolidated Mutual had been hit by the murders, he had
had many lines out in the hope of enmeshing the perpetrator. That
night, as I found out the next day, he had at last heard of a clue. One
of the company's detectives had brought in a red-headed, lame, partly
paralyzed crook who enjoyed the expressive monniker of "Limpy Red."
"Limpy Red" was a gunman of some renown, evil faced and having nothing
much to lose, desperate. Whoever the master criminal of the Clutching
Hand might have been he had seen fit to employ Limpy but had not taken
the precaution of getting rid of him soon enough when he was through.

Wherefore Limpy had a grievance and now descended under pressure to the
low level of snitching to Dodge in his office.

"No, Governor," the trembling wretch had said as he handed over a grimy
envelope, "I ain't never seen his face--but here is directions how to
find his hang-out."

As Limpy ambled out, he turned to Dodge, quivering at the enormity of
his unpardonable sin in gang-land, "For God's sake, Governor," he
implored, "don't let on how you found out!"

And yet Limpy Red had scarcely left with his promise not to tell, when
Dodge, happening to turn over some papers came upon an envelope left on
his own desk, bearing that mysterious Clutching Hand!

He tore it open, and read in amazement:

"Destroy Limpy Red's instructions within the next hour."

Dodge gazed about in wonder. This thing was getting on his nerves. He
determined to go home and rest.

Outside the house, as he left his car, pasted over the monogram on the
door, he had found another note, with the same weird mark and the
single word:

"Remember!"

Much of this I had already gathered from what I overheard Dodge telling
Bennett as they entered the library. Some, also, I have pieced together
from the story of a servant who overheard.

At any rate, in spite of the pleadings of young Bennett, Dodge refused
to take warning. In the safe in his beautifully fitted library he
deposited Limpy's document in an envelope containing all the
correspondence that had lead up to the final step in the discovery.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

It was late in the evening when I returned to our apartment and, not
finding Kennedy there, knew that I would discover him at the laboratory.

"Craig," I cried as I burst in on him, "I've got a case for
you--greater than any ever before!"

Kennedy looked up calmly from the rack of scientific instruments that
surrounded him, test tubes, beakers, carefully labelled bottles.

He had been examining a piece of cloth and had laid it aside in
disappointment near his magnifying glass. Just now he was watching a
reaction in a series of test tubes standing on his table. He was
looking dejectedly at the floor as I came in.

"Indeed?" he remarked coolly going back to the reaction.

"Yes," I cried. "It is a scientific criminal who seems to leave no
clues."

Kennedy looked up gravely. "Every criminal leaves a trace," he said
quietly. "If it hasn't been found, then it must be because no one has
ever looked for it in the right way."

Still gazing at me keenly, he added, "Yes, I already knew there was
such a man at large. I have been called in on that Fletcher case--he
was a trustee of the University, you know."

"All right," I exclaimed, a little nettled that he should have
anticipated me even so much in the case. "But you haven't heard the
latest."

"What is it?" he asked with provoking calmness,

"Taylor Dodge," I blurted out, "has the clue. To-morrow he will track
down the man!"

Kennedy fairly jumped as I repeated the news.

"How long has he known?" he demanded eagerly.

"Perhaps three or four hours," I hazarded.

Kennedy gazed at me fixedly.

"Then Taylor Dodge is dead!" he exclaimed, throwing off his
acid-stained laboratory smock and hurrying into his street clothes.

"Impossible!" I ejaculated.

Kennedy paid no attention to the objection. "Come, Walter," he urged.
"We must hurry, before the trail gets cold."

There was something positively uncanny about Kennedy's assurance. I
doubted--yet I feared.

It was well past the middle of the night when we pulled up in a
night-hawk taxicab before the Dodge house, mounted the steps and rang
the bell.

Jennings answered sleepily, but not so much so that he did not
recognize me. He was about to bang the door shut when Kennedy
interposed his foot.

"Where is Mr. Dodge?" asked Kennedy. "Is he all right?"

"Of course he is--in bed," replied the butler.

Just then we heard a faint cry, like nothing exactly human. Or was it
our heightened imaginations, under the spell of the darkness?

"Listen!" cautioned Kennedy.

We did, standing there now in the hall. Kennedy was the only one of us
who was cool. Jennings' face blanched, then he turned tremblingly and
went down to the library door whence the sounds had seemed to come.

He called but there was no answer. He turned the knob and opened the
door. The Dodge library was a large room. In the center stood a big
flat-topped desk of heavy mahogany. It was brilliantly lighted.

At one end of the desk was a telephone. Taylor Dodge was lying on the
floor at that end of the desk--perfectly rigid--his face distorted--a
ghastly figure. A pet dog ran over, sniffed frantically at his master's
legs and suddenly began to howl dismally.

Dodge was dead!

"Help!" shouted Jennings.

Others of the servants came rushing in. There was for the moment the
greatest excitement and confusion.

Suddenly a wild figure in flying garments flitted down the stairs and
into the library, dropping beside the dead man, without seeming to
notice us at all.

"Father!" shrieked a woman's voice, heart broken. "Father! Oh--my
God--he--he is dead!"

It was Elaine Dodge.

With a mighty effort, the heroic girl seemed to pull herself together.

"Jennings," she cried, "Call Mr. Bennett--immediately!"

From the one-sided, excited conversation of the butler over the
telephone, I gathered that Bennett had been in the process of disrobing
in his own apartment uptown and would be right down.

Together, Kennedy, Elaine and myself lifted Dodge to a sofa and
Elaine's aunt, Josephine, with whom she lived, appeared on the scene,
trying to quiet the sobbing girl.

Kennedy and I withdrew a little way and he looked about curiously.

"What was it?" I whispered. "Was it natural, an accident, or--or
murder?"

The word seemed to stick in my throat. If it was a murder, what was the
motive? Could it have been to get the evidence which Dodge had that
would incriminate the master criminal?

Kennedy moved over quietly and examined the body of Dodge. When he
rose, his face had a peculiar look.

"Terrible!" he whispered to me. "Apparently he had been working at his
accustomed place at the desk when the telephone rang. He rose and
crossed over to it. See! That brought his feet on this register let
into the floor. As he took the telephone receiver down a flash of light
must have shot from it to his ear. It shows the characteristic electric
burn."

"The motive?" I queried.

"Evidently his pockets had been gone through, though none of the
valuables were missing. Things on his desk show that a hasty search has
been made."

Just then the door opened and Bennett burst in.

As he stood over the body, gazing down at it, repressing the emotions
of a strong man, he turned to Elaine and in a low voice, exclaimed,
"The Clutching Hand did this! I shall consecrate my life to bring this
man to justice!"

He spoke tensely and Elaine, looking up into his face, as if imploring
his help in her hour of need, unable to speak, merely grasped his hand.

Kennedy, who in the meantime had stood apart from the rest of us, was
examining the telephone carefully.

"A clever crook," I heard him mutter between his teeth. "He must have
worn gloves. Not a finger print--at least here."

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Perhaps I can do no better than to reconstruct the crime as Kennedy
later pieced these startling events together.

Long after I had left and even after Bennett left, Dodge continued
working in his library, for he was known as a prodigious worker.

Had he taken the trouble, however, to pause and peer out into the
moonlight that flooded the back of his house, he might have seen the
figures of two stealthy crooks crouching in the half shadows of one of
the cellar windows.

One crook was masked by a handkerchief drawn tightly about his lower
face, leaving only his eyes visible beneath the cap with visor pulled
down over his forehead. He had a peculiar stoop of the shoulders and
wore his coat collar turned up. One hand, the right, seemed almost
deformed. It was that which gave him his name in the underworld--the
Clutching Hand.

The masked crook held carefully the ends of two wires attached to an
electric feed, and sending his pal to keep watch outside, he entered
the cellar of the Dodge house through a window whose pane they had
carefully removed. As he came through the window he dragged the wires
with him, and, alter a moment's reconnoitering attached them to the
furnace pipe of the old-fashioned hot-air heater where the pipe ran up
through the floor to the library above. The other wire was quickly
attached to the telephone where its wires entered.

Upstairs, Dodge, evidently uneasy in his mind about the precious "Limpy
Red" letter, took it from the safe along with most of the other
correspondence and, pressing a hidden spring in the wall, opened a
secret panel, placed most of the important documents in this hiding
place. Then he put some blank sheets of paper in an envelope and
returned it to the safe.

Downstairs the masked master criminal had already attached a voltmeter
to the wires he had installed, waiting.

Just then could be heard the tinkle of Dodge's telephone and the old
man rose to answer it. As he did so he placed his foot on the iron
register, his hand taking the telephone and the receiver. At that
instant came a powerful electric flash. Dodge sank on the floor
grasping the instrument, electrocuted. Below, the master criminal could
scarcely refrain from exclaiming with satisfaction as his voltmeter
registered the powerful current that was passing.

A moment later the criminal slid silently into Dodge's room. Carefully
putting on rubber gloves and avoiding touching the register, he
wrenched the telephone from the grasp of the dead man, replacing it in
its normal position. Only for a second did he pause to look at his
victim as he destroyed the evidence of his work.

Minutes were precious. First Dodge's pockets, then his desk engaged his
attention. There was left the safe.

As he approached the strong box, the master criminal took two vials
from his pockets. Removing a bust of Shakespeare that stood on the
safe, he poured the contents of the vials in two mixed masses of powder
forming a heap on the safe, into which he inserted two magnesium wires.

He lighted them, sprang back, hiding his eyes from the light, and a
blinding gush of flame, lasting perhaps ten seconds, poured out from
the top of the safe.

It was not an explosion, but just a dazzling, intense flame that
sizzled and crackled. It seemed impossible, but the glowing mass was
literally sinking, sinking down into the cold steel. At last it burned
through--as if the safe had been of tinder!

Without waiting a moment longer than necessary, the masked criminal
advanced again and actually put his hand down through the top of the
safe, pulling out a bunch of papers. Quickly he thrust them all, with
just a glance, into his pocket.

Still working quickly, he took the bust of the great dramatist which he
had removed and placed it under the light. Next from his pocket he drew
two curious stencils, as it were, which he had apparently carefully
prepared. With his hands, still carefully gloved, he rubbed the
stencils on his hair, as if to cover them with a film of natural oils.
Then he deliberately pressed them over the statue in several places. It
was a peculiar action and he seemed to fairly gloat over it when it was
done, and the bust returned to its place, covering the hole.

As noiselessly as he had come, he made his exit after one last
malignant look at Dodge. It was now but the work of a moment to remove
the wires he had placed, and climb out of the window, taking them and
destroying the evidence down in the cellar.

A low whistle from the masked crook, now again in the shadow, brought
his pal stealthily to his side.

"It's all right," he whispered hoarsely to the man. "Now, you attend to
Limpy Red."

The villainous looking pal nodded and without another word the two made
their getaway, safely, in opposite directions.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

When Limpy Red, still trembling, left the office of Dodge earlier in
the evening, he had repaired as fast as his shambling feet would take
him to his favorite dive upon Park Row. There he might have been seen
drinking with any one who came along, for Limpy had money--blood
money,--and the recollection of his treachery and revenge must both be
forgotten and celebrated.

Had the Bowery "sinkers" not got into his eyes, he might have noticed
among the late revellers, a man who spoke to no one but took his place
nearby at the bar.

Limpy had long since reached the point of saturation and, lurching
forth from his new found cronies, he sought other fields of excitement.
Likewise did the newcomer, who bore a strange resemblance to the
look-out who had been stationed outside at the Dodge house a scant half
hour before.

What happened later was only a matter of seconds. It came when the
hated snitch--for gangdom hates the informer worse than anything else
dead or alive--had turned a sufficiently dark and deserted corner.

A muffled thud, a stifled groan followed as a heavy section of lead
pipe wrapped in a newspaper descended on the crass skull of Limpy. The
wielder of the improvised but fatal weapon permitted himself the luxury
of an instant's cruel smile--then vanished into the darkness leaving
another complete job for the coroner and the morgue.

It was the vengeance of the Clutching Hand--swift, sure, remorseless.

And yet it had not been a night of complete success for the master
criminal, as anyone might have seen who could have followed his sinuous
route to a place of greater safety.

Unable to wait longer he pulled the papers he had taken from the safe
from his pocket. His chagrin at finding them to be blank paper found
only one expression of foiled fury--that menacing clutching hand!

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Kennedy had turned from his futile examination for marks on the
telephone. There stood the safe, a moderate sized strong box but of a
modern type. He tried the door. It was locked. There was not a mark on
it. The combination had not been tampered with. Nor had there been any
attempt to "soup" the safe.

With a quick motion he felt in his pocket as if looking for gloves.
Finding none, he glanced about, and seized a pair of tongs from beside
the grate. With them, in order not to confuse any possible finger
prints on the bust, he lifted it off. I gave a gasp of surprise.

There, in the top of the safe, yawned a gaping hole through which one
could have thrust his arm!

"What is it?" we asked, crowding about him.

"Thermit," he replied laconically.

"Thermit?" I repeated.

"Yes--a compound of iron oxide and powdered aluminum invented by a
chemist at Essen, Germany. It gives a temperature of over five thousand
degrees. It will eat its way through the strongest steel."

Jennings, his mouth wide open with wonder, advanced to take the bust
from Kennedy.

"No--don't touch it," he waved him off, laying the bust on the desk. "I
want no one to touch it--don't you see how careful I was to use the
tongs that there might be no question about any clue this fellow may
have left on the marble?"

As he spoke, Craig was dusting over the surface of the bust with some
black powder.

"Look!" exclaimed Craig suddenly.

We bent over. The black powder had in fact brought out strongly some
peculiar, more or less regular, black smudges.

"Finger prints!" I cried excitedly.

"Yes," nodded Kennedy, studying them closely. "A clue--perhaps."

"What--those little marks--a clue?" asked a voice behind us.

I turned and saw Elaine, looking over our shoulders, fascinated. It was
evidently the first time she had realized that Kennedy was in the room.

"How can you tell anything by that?'" she asked.

"Why, easily," he answered picking up a brass blotting-pad which lay on
the desk. "You see, I place my finger on this weight--so. I dust the
powder over the mark--so. You could see it even without the powder on
this glass. Do you see those lines? There are various types of
markings--four general types--and each person's markings are different,
even if of the same general type--loop, whorl, arch, or composite."

He continued working as he talked.

"Your thumb marks, for example, Miss Dodge, are different from mine.
Mr. Jameson's are different from both of us. And this fellow's finger
prints are still different. It is mathematically impossible to find two
alike in every respect."

Kennedy was holding the brass blotter near the bust as he talked.

I shall never forget the look of blank amazement on his face as he bent
over closer.

"My God!" he exclaimed excitedly, "this fellow is a master criminal! He
has actually made stencils or something of the sort on which by some
mechanical process he has actually forged the hitherto infallible
finger prints!"

I, too, bent over and studied the marks on the bust and those Kennedy
had made on the blotter to show Elaine.

THE FINGER PRINTS ON THE BUST WERE KENNEDY'S OWN.




CHAPTER II

THE TWILIGHT SLEEP


Kennedy had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the solution of the
mysterious Dodge case.

Far into the night, after the challenge of the forged finger print, he
continued at work, endeavoring to extract a clue from the meagre
evidence--the bit of cloth and trace of poison already obtained from
other cases, and now added the strange succession of events that
surrounded the tragedy we had just witnessed.

We dropped around at the Dodge house the next morning. Early though it
was, we found Elaine, a trifle paler but more lovely than ever, and
Perry Bennett themselves vainly endeavoring to solve the mystery of the
Clutching Hand.

They were at Dodge's desk, she in the big desk chair, he standing
beside her, looking over some papers.

"There's nothing there," Bennett was saying as we entered.

I could not help feeling that he was gazing down at Elaine a bit more
tenderly than mere business warranted.

"Have you--found anything?" queried Elaine anxiously, turning eagerly
to Kennedy.

"Nothing--yet," he answered shaking his head, but conveying a quiet
idea of confidence in his tone.

Just then Jennings, the butler, entered, bringing the morning papers.
Elaine seized the Star and hastily opened it. On the first page was the
story I had telephone down very late in the hope of catching a last
city edition.

We all bent over and Craig read aloud:

"CLUTCHING HAND" STILL AT LARGE

NEW YORK'S MASTER CRIMINAL REMAINS UNDETECTED--PERPETRATES NEW DARING
MURDER AND ROBBERY OF MILLIONAIRE DODGE

He had scarcely finished reading the brief but alarming news story that
followed and laid the paper on the desk, when a stone came smashing
through the window from the street.

Startled, we all jumped to our feet. Craig hurried to the window. Not a
soul was in sight!

He stooped and picked up the stone. To it was attached a piece of
paper. Quickly he unfolded it and read:

"Craig Kennedy will give up his search for the "Clutching Hand"--or
die!"

Later I recalled that there seemed to be a slight noise downstairs, as
if at the cellar window through which the masked man had entered the
night before.

In point of fact, one who had been outside at the time might actually
have seen a sinister face at that cellar window, but to us upstairs it
was invisible. The face was that of the servant, Michael.

Without another word Kennedy passed into the drawing room and took his
hat and coat. Both Elaine and Bennett followed.

"I'm afraid I must ask you to excuse me--for the present," Craig
apologized.

Elaine looked at him anxiously.

"You--you will not let that letter intimidate you?" she pleaded, laying
her soft white hand on his arm. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy," she added, bravely
keeping back the tears, "avenge him! All the money in the world would
be too little to pay--if only--"

At the mere mention of money Kennedy's face seemed to cloud, but only
for a moment. He must have felt the confiding pressure of her hand, for
as she paused, appealingly, he took her hand in his, bowing slightly
over it to look closer into her upturned face.

"I'll try," he said simply.

Elaine did not withdraw her hand as she continued to look up at him.
Craig looked at her, as I had never seen him look at a woman before in
all our long acquaintance.

"Miss Dodge," he went on, his voice steady as though he were repressing
something, "I will never take another case until the 'Clutching Hand'
is captured."

The look of gratitude she gave him would have been a princely reward in
itself.

I did not marvel that all the rest of that day and far into the night
Kennedy was at work furiously in his laboratory, studying the notes,
the texture of the paper, the character of the ink, everything that
might perhaps suggest a new lead. It was all, apparently, however,
without result.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

It was some time after these events that Kennedy, reconstructing what
had happened, ran across, in a strange way which I need not tire the
reader by telling, a Dr. Haynes, head of the Hillside Sanitarium for
Women, whose story I shall relate substantially as we received it from
his own lips:

It must have been that same night that a distinguished visitor drove up
in a cab to our Hillside Sanitarium, rang the bell and was admitted to
my office. I might describe him as a moderately tall, well-built man
with a pleasing way about him. Chiefly noticeable, it seems to me, were
his mustache and bushy beard, quite medical and foreign.

I am, by the way, the superintending physician, and that night I was
sitting with Dr. Thompson, my assistant, in the office discussing a
rather interesting case, when an attendant came in with a card and
handed it to me. It read simply, "Dr. Ludwig Reinstrom, Coblenz."

"Here's that Dr. Reinstrom, Thompson, about whom my friend in Germany
wrote the other day," I remarked, nodding to the attendant to admit Dr.
Reinstrom.

I might explain that while I was abroad some time ago, I made a
particular study of the "Daemmerschlaf"--otherwise, the "twilight
sleep," at Freiburg where it was developed and at other places in
Germany where the subject had attracted great attention. I was much
impressed and had imported the treatment to Hillside.

While we waited I reached into my desk and drew out the letter to which
I referred, which ended, I recall:

"As Dr. Reinstrom is in America, he will probably call on you. I am
sure you will be glad to know him.

"With kindest regards, I am,

"Fraternally yours,

"EMIL SCHWARZ, M. D.,

"Director, Leipsic Institute of Medicine."

"Most happy to meet you, Dr. Reinstrom," I greeted the new arrival, as
he entered our office.

For several minutes we sat and chatted of things medical here and
abroad.

"What is it, Doctor," I asked finally, "that interests you most in
America?"

"Oh," he replied quickly with an expressive gesture, "it is the
broadmindedness with which you adopt the best from all over the world,
regardless of prejudice. For instance, I am very much interested in the
new twilight sleep. Of course you have borrowed it largely from us, but
it interests me to see whether you have modified it with practice. In
fact I have come to the Hillside Sanitarium particularly to see it
used. Perhaps we may learn something from you."

It was most gracious and both Dr. Thompson and myself were charmed by
our visitor. I reached over and touched a call-button and our head
nurse entered from a rear room.

"Are there any operations going on now?" I asked.

She looked mechanically at her watch. "Yes, there are two cases, now, I
think," she answered.

"Would you like to follow our technique, Doctor?" I asked, turning to
Dr. Reinstorm.

"I should be delighted," he acquiesced.

A moment later we passed down the corridor of the Sanitarium, still
chatting. At the door of a ward I spoke to the attendant who indicated
that a patient was about to be anesthetized, and Reinstrom and I
entered the room.

There, in perfect quiet, which is an essential part of the treatment,
were several women patients lying in bed in the ward. Before us two
nurses and a doctor were in attendance on one.

I spoke to the Doctor, Dr. Holmes, by the way, who bowed politely to
the distinguished Dr. Reinstrom, then turned quickly to his work.

"Miss Sears," he asked of one of the nurses, "will you bring me that
hypodermic needle? How are you getting on, Miss Stern?" to the other
who was scrubbing the patient's arm with antiseptic soap and water,
thoroughly sterilizing the skin.

"You will see, Dr. Reinstrom." I interposed in a low tone, "that we
follow in the main your Freiburg treatment. We use scopolamin and
narkophin."

I held up the bottle, as I said it, a rather peculiar shaped bottle,
too.

"And the pain?" he asked.

"Practically the same as in your experience abroad. We do not render
the patient unconscious, but prevent her from remembering anything that
goes on."

Dr. Holmes, the attending physician, was just starting the treatment.
Filling his hypodermic, he selected a spot on the patient's arm, where
it had been scrubbed and sterilized, and injected the narcotic.

"How simply you do it all, here!" exclaimed Reinstrom in surprise and
undisguised admiration. "You Americans are wonderful!"

"Come--see a patient who is just recovering," I added, much flattered
by the praise, which, from a German physician, meant much.

Reinstrom followed me out of the door and we entered a private room of
the hospital where another woman patient lay in bed carefully watched
by a nurse.

"How do you do?" I nodded to the nurse in a modulated tone. "Everything
progressing favorably?"

"Perfectly," she returned, as Reinstrom, Haynes and myself formed a
little group about the bedside of the unconscious woman.

"And you say they have no recollection of anything that happens?" asked
Reinstrom.

"Absolutely none--if the treatment is given properly," I replied
confidently.

I picked up a piece of bandage which was the handiest thing about me
and tied it quite tightly about the patient's arm.

As we waited, the patient, who was gradually coming from under the
drug, roused herself.

"What is that--it hurts!" she said putting her hand on the bandage I
had tied tightly.

"That is all right. Just a moment. I'll take it off. Don't you remember
it?" I asked.

She shook her head. I smiled at Reinstrom.

"You see, she has no recollection of my tying the bandage on her arm,"
I pointed out.

"Wonderful!" ejaculated Reinstrom as we left the room.

All the way back to the office he was loud in his praises and thanked
us most heartily, as he put on his hat and coat and shook hands a
cordial good-bye.

Now comes the strange part of my story. After Reinstrom had gone, Dr.
Holmes, the attending physician of the woman whom we had seen
anesthetized, missed his syringe and the bottle of scopolamine.

"Miss Sears," he asked rather testily, "what have you done with the
hypodermic and the scopolamine?"

"Nothing," she protested.

"You must have done something."

She repeated that she had not.

"Well, it is very strange then," he said, "I am positive I laid the
syringe and the bottle right here on this tray on the table."

Holmes, Miss Sears and Miss Stern all hunted, but it could not be
found. Others had to be procured.

I thought little of it at the time, but since then it has occurred to
me that it might interest you, Professor Kennedy, and I give it to you
for what it may be worth.

It was early the next morning that I awoke to find Kennedy already up
and gone from our apartment. I knew he must be at the laboratory, and,
gathering the mail, which the postman had just slipped through the
letter slot, I went over to the University to see him. As I looked over
the letters to cull out my own, one in a woman's handwriting on
attractive notepaper addressed to him caught my eye.

As I came up the path to the Chemistry Building I saw through the
window that, in spite of his getting there early, he was finding it
difficult to keep his mind on his work. It was the first time I had
ever known anything to interfere with science in his life.

I thought of the letter again.

Craig had lighted a Bunsen burner under a large glass retort. But he
had no sooner done so than he sat down on a chair and, picking up a
book which I surmised might be some work on toxicology, started to read.

He seemed not to be able, for the moment, to concentrate his mind and
after a little while closed the book and gazed straight ahead of him.
Again I thought of the letter, and the vision that, no doubt, he saw of
Elaine making her pathetic appeal for his help.

As he heard my footstep in the hall, it must have recalled him for he
snapped the book shut and moved over quickly to the retort.

"Well," I exclaimed as I entered, "you are the early bird. Did you have
any breakfast?"

I tossed down the letters. He did not reply. So I became absorbed in
the morning paper. Still, I did not neglect to watch him covertly out
of the corner of my eye. Quickly he ran over the letters, instead of
taking them, one by one, in his usual methodical way. I quite
complimented my own superior acumen. He selected the dainty note.

A moment Craig looked at it in anticipation, then tore it open eagerly.
I was still watching his face over the top of the paper and was
surprised to see that it showed, first, amazement, then pain, as though
something had hurt him.

He read it again--then looked straight ahead, as if in a daze.

"Strange, how much crime there is now," I commented, looking up from
the paper I had pretended reading.

No answer.

"One would think that one master criminal was enough," I went on.

Still no answer.

He continued to gaze straight ahead at blankness.

"By George," I exclaimed finally, banging my fist on the table and
raising my voice to catch his attention, "you would think we had
nothing but criminals nowadays."

My voice must have startled him. The usually imperturbable old fellow
actually jumped. Then, as my question did not evidently accord with
what was in his mind, he answered at random, "Perhaps--I wonder if--"
and then he stopped, noncommittally.

Suddenly he jumped up, bringing his tightly clenched fist down with a
loud clap into the palm of his hand.

"By heaven!" he exclaimed, "I--I will!"

Startled at his incomprehensible and unusual conduct I did not attempt
to pursue the conversation but let him alone as he strode hastily to
the telephone. Almost angrily he seized the receiver and asked for a
number. It was not like Craig and I could not conceal my concern.

"Wh-what's the matter, Craig?" I blurted out eagerly.

As he waited for the number, he threw the letter over to me. I took it
and read:

"Professor Craig Kennedy,
"The University, The Heights, City.

"Dear Sir,--

"I have come to the conclusion that your work is a hindrance rather
than an assistance in clearing up my father's death and I hereby beg to
state that your services are no longer required. This is a final
decision and I beg that you will not try to see me again regarding the
matter.

"Very truly yours, ELAINE DODGE."

If it had been a bomb I could not have been more surprised. A moment
before I think I had just a sneaking suspicion of jealousy that a
woman--even Elaine--should interest my old chums. But now all that was
swept away. How could any woman scorn him?

I could not make it out.

Kennedy impatiently worked the receiver up and down, repeating the
number. "Hello--hello," he repeated, "Yes--hello. Is Miss--oh--good
morning, Miss Dodge."

He was hurrying along as if to give her no chance to cut him off. "I
have just received a letter, Miss Dodge, telling me that you don't want
me to continue investigating your father's death, and not to try to see
you again about--"

He stopped. I could hear the reply, as sometimes one can when the
telephone wire conditions are a certain way and the quality of the
voice of the speaker a certain kind.

"Why--no--Mr. Kennedy, I have written you no letter."

The look of mingled relief and surprise that crossed Craig's face spoke
volumes.

"Miss Dodge," he almost shouted, "this is a new trick of the Clutching
Hand. I--I'll be right over."

Craig hung up the receiver and turned from the telephone. Evidently he
was thinking deeply. Suddenly his face seemed to light up. He made up
his mind to something and a moment later he opened the cabinet--that
inexhaustible storehouse from which he seemed to draw weird and curious
instruments that met the ever new problems which his strange profession
brought to him.

I watched curiously. He took out a bottle and what looked like a little
hypodermic syringe, thrust them into his pocket and, for once,
oblivious to my very existence, deliberately walked out of the
laboratory.

I did not propose to be thus cavalierly dismissed. I suppose it would
have looked ridiculous to a third party but I followed him as hastily
as if he had tried to shut the door on his own shadow.

We arrived at the corner above the Dodge house just in time to see
another visitor--Bennett--enter. Craig quickened his pace. Jennings had
by this time become quite reconciled to our presence and a moment later
we were entering the drawing room, too.

Elaine was there, looking lovelier than ever in the plain black dress,
which set off the rosy freshness of her face.

"And, Perry," we heard her say, as we were ushered in, "someone has
even forged my name--the handwriting and everything--telling Mr.
Kennedy to drop the case--and I never knew."

She stopped as we entered. We bowed and shook hands with Bennett.
Elaine's Aunt Josephine was in the room, a perfect duenna.

"That's the limit!" exclaimed Bennett. "Miss Dodge has just been
telling me,--"

"Yes," interrupted Craig. "Look, Miss Dodge, this is it."

He handed her the letter. She almost seized it, examining it carefully,
her large eyes opening wider in wonder.

"This is certainly my writing and my notepaper," she murmured, "but I
never wrote the letter!"

Craig looked from the letter to her keenly. No one said a word. For a
moment Kennedy hesitated, thinking.

"Might I--er--see your room, Miss Dodge?" he asked at length.

Aunt Josephine frowned. Bennett and I could not conceal our surprise.

"Why, certainly," nodded Elaine, as she led the way upstairs.

It was a dainty little room, breathing the spirit of its mistress. In
fact it seemed a sort of profanation as we all followed in after her.
For a moment Kennedy stood still, then he carefully looked about. At
the side of the bed, near the head, he stooped and picked up something
which he held in the palm of his hand. I bent over. Something gleamed
in the morning sunshine--some little thin pieces of glass. As he tried
deftly to fit the tiny little bits together, he seemed absorbed in
thought. Quickly he raised it to his nose, as if to smell it.

"Ethyl chloride!" he muttered, wrapping the pieces carefully in a paper
and putting them into his pocket.

An instant later he crossed the room to the window and examined it.

"Look!" he exclaimed.

There, plainly, were marks of a jimmy which had been inserted near the
lock to pry it open.

"Miss Dodge," he asked, "might I--might I trouble you to let me see
your arm?"

Wonderingly she did so and Kennedy bent almost reverently over her
plump arm examining it.

On it was a small dark discoloration, around which was a slight redness
and tenderness.

"That," he said slowly, "is the mark of a hypodermic needle."

As he finished examining Elaine's arm he drew the letter from his
pocket. Still facing her he said in a low tone, "Miss Dodge--you did
write this letter--but under the influence of the new 'twilight sleep.'"

We looked at one another amazed.

Outside, if we had been at the door in the hallway, we might have seen
the sinister-faced Michael listening. He turned and slipped quietly
away.

"Why, Craig," I exclaimed excitedly, "what do you mean?"

"Exactly what I say. With Miss Dodge's permission I shall show you. By
a small administration of the drug which will injure you in no way,
Miss Dodge, I think I can bring back the memory of all that occurred to
you last night. Will you allow me?"

"Mercy, no!" protested Aunt Josephine.

Craig and Elaine faced each other as they had the day before when she
had asked him whether the sudden warning of the Clutching Hand would
intimidate him. She advanced a step nearer. Elaine trusted him.

"Elaine!" protested Aunt Josephine again.

"I want the experiment to be tried," she said quietly.

A moment later Kennedy had placed her in a wing chair in the corner of
the room.

"Now, Mrs. Dodge," he said, "please bring me a basin and a towel."

Aunt Josephine, reconciled, brought them. Kennedy dropped an antiseptic
tablet into the water and carefully sterilized Elaine's arm just above
the spot where the red mark showed. Then he drew the hypodermic from
his pocket--carefully sterilizing it, also, and filling it with
scopolamine from the bottle.

"Just a moment, Miss Dodge," he encouraged as he jabbed the needle into
her arm.

She did not wince.

"Please lie back on the couch," he directed. Then turning to us he
added, "It takes some time for this to work. Our criminal got over that
fact and prevented an outcry by using ethyl chloride first. Let me
reconstruct the scene."

As we watched Elaine going under slowly, Craig talked.

"That night," he said, "warily, the masked criminal of the Clutching
Hand might have been seen down below us in the alley. Up here, Miss
Dodge, worn out by the strain of her father's death, let us say, was
nervously trying to read, to do anything that would take her mind off
the tragedy. Perhaps she fell asleep.

"Just then the Clutching Hand appeared. He came stealthily through that
window which he had opened. A moment he hesitated, seeing Elaine
asleep. Then he tiptoed over to the bed, let us say, and for a moment
looked at her, sleeping.

"A second later he had thrust his hand into his pocket and had taken
out a small glass bulb with a long thin neck. That was ethyl chloride,
a drug which produces a quick anesthesia. But it lasts only a minute or
two. That was enough, As he broke the glass neck of the bulb--letting
the pieces fall on the floor near the bed--he shoved the thing under
Elaine's face, turning his own head away and holding a handkerchief
over his own nose. The mere heat of his hand was enough to cause the
ethyl chloride to spray out and overcome her instantly. He stepped away
from her a moment and replaced the now empty vial in his pocket.

"Then he took a box from his pocket, opened it. There must have been a
syringe and a bottle of scopolamine. Where they came from I do not
know, but perhaps from some hospital. I shall have to find that out
later. He went to Elaine, quickly jabbing the needle, with no
resistance from her now. Slowly he replaced the bottle and the needle
in his pocket. He could not have been in any hurry now, for it takes
time for the drug to work."

Kennedy paused. Had we known at the time, Michael--he of the sinister
face--must have been in the hallway, careful that no one saw him. A tap
at the door and the Clutching Hand, that night, must have beckoned him.
A moment's parley and they separated--Clutching Hand going back to
Elaine, who was now under the influence of the second drug.

"Our criminal," resumed Kennedy thoughtfully, "may have shaken Elaine.
She did not answer. Then he may have partly revived her. She must have
been startled. Clutching Hand, perhaps, was half crouching, with a big
ugly blue steel revolver leveled full in her face.

"'One word and I shoot!' he probably cried. 'Get up!'

"Trembling, she must have done so. 'Your slippers and a kimono,' he
would naturally have ordered. She put them on mechanically. Then he
must have ordered her to go out of the door and down the stairs.
Clutching Hand must have followed and as he did so he would have
cautiously put out the lights."

We were following, spell-bound, Kennedy's graphic reconstruction of
what must have happened. Evidently he had struck close to the truth.
Elaine's eyes were closed. Gently Kennedy led her along. "Now, Miss
Dodge," he encouraged, "try--try hard to recollect just what it was
that happened last night--everything."

As Kennedy paused after his quick recital, she seemed to tremble all
over. Slowly she began to speak. We stood awestruck. Kennedy had been
right!

The girl was now living over again those minutes that had been
forgotten--blotted out by the drug.

And it was all real to her, too,--terribly real. She was speaking,
plainly in terror.

"I see a man--oh, such a figure--with a mask. He holds a gun in my
face--he threatens me. I put on my kimono and slippers, as he tells me.
I am in a daze. I know what I am doing--and I don't know. I go out with
him, downstairs, into the library."

Elaine shuddered again at the recollection. "Ugh! The room is dark, the
room where he killed my father. Moonlight outside streams in. This
masked man and I come in. He switches on the lights.

"'Go to the safe,' he says, and I do it, the new safe, you know. 'Do
you know the combination?' he asks me. 'Yes,' I reply, too frightened
to say no.

"'Open it then,' he says, waving that awful revolver closer. I do so.
Hastily he rummages through it, throwing papers here and there. But he
seems not to find what he is after and turns away, swearing fearfully.

"'Hang it!' he cries to me. 'Where else did your father keep papers?' I
point in desperation at the desk. He takes one last look at the safe,
shoves all the papers he has strewn on the floor back again and slams
the safe shut.

"'Now, come on!' he says, indicating with the gun that he wants me to
follow him away from the safe. At the desk he repeats the search. But
he finds nothing. Almost I think he is about to kill me. 'Where else
did your father keep papers?' he hisses fiercely, still threatening me
with the gun.

"I am too frightened to speak. But at last I am able to say, 'I--I
don't know!' Again he threatens me. 'As God is my judge,' I cry, 'I
don't know.' It is fearful. Will he shoot me?

"Thank heaven! At last he believes me. But such a look of foiled fury I
have never seen on any human face before.

"'Sit down!' he growls, adding, 'at the desk.' I do.

"'Take some of your notepaper--the best.' I do that, too.

"'And a pen,' he goes on. My fingers can hardly hold it.

"'Now--write!' he says, and as he dictates, I write--"

"This?" interjected Kennedy, eagerly holding up the letter that he had
received from her.

Elaine looked it over with her drug-laden eyes. "Yes," she nodded, then
lapsed again to the scene itself. "He reads it over and as he does so
says, 'Now, address an envelope.' Himself he folds the letter, seals
the envelope, stamps it, and drops it into his pocket, hastily
straightening the desk.

"'Now, go ahead of me--again. Leave the room--no, by the hall door. We
are going back upstairs.' I obey him, and at the door he switches off
the lights. How I stand it, I don't know. I go upstairs, mechanically,
into my own room--I and this masked man.

"'Take off the kimono and slippers!' he orders. I do that. 'Get into
bed!' he growls. I crawl in fearfully. For a moment he looks
about,--then goes out--with a look back as he goes. Oh! Oh! That
hand--which he raises at me--THAT HAND!"

The poor girl was sitting bolt upright, staring straight at the hall
door, as we watched and listened, fascinated.

Kennedy was bending over, soothing her. She gave evidences of coming
out from the effect of the drug.

I noticed that Bennett had suddenly moved a step in the direction of
the door at which she stared.

"My God!" he muttered, staring, too. "Look!"

We did look. A letter was slowly being inserted under the door.

I took a quick step forward. That moment I felt a rough tug at my arm,
and a voice whispered, "Wait--you chump!"

It was Kennedy. He had whipped out his automatic and had carefully
leveled it at the door. Before he could fire, however, Bennett had
rushed ahead.

I followed. We looked down the hall. Sure enough, the figure of a man
could be seen disappearing around an angle. I followed Bennett out of
the door and down the hall.

Words cannot keep pace with what followed. Together we rushed to the
backstairs.

"Down there, while I go down the front!" cried Bennett.

I went down and he turned and went down the other flight. As he did so,
Craig followed him.

Suddenly, in the drawing room, I bumped into a figure on the other side
of the portieres. I seized him. We struggled. Rip! The portieres came
down, covering me entirely. Over and over we went, smashing a lamp. It
was vicious. Another man attacked me, too.

"I--I've got him--Kennedy!" I heard a voice pant over me.

A scream followed from Aunt Josephine. Suddenly the portieres were
pulled off me.

"The deuce!" puffed Kennedy. "It's Jameson!"

Bennett had rushed plump into me, coming the other way, hidden by the
portieres.

If we had known at the time, our Michael of the sinister face had
gained the library and was standing in the center of the room. He had
heard me coming and had fled to the drawing room. As we finished our
struggle in the library, he rose hastily from behind the divan in the
other room where he had dropped and had quietly and hastily disappeared
through another door.

Laughing and breathing hard, they helped me to my feet. It was no joke
to me. I was sore in every bone.

"Well, where DID he go?" insisted Bennett.

"I don't know--perhaps back there," I cried.

Bennett and I argued a moment, then started and stopped short. Aunt
Josephine had run downstairs and now was shoving the letter into
Craig's hands.

We gathered about him, curiously. He opened it. On it was that awesome
Clutching Hand again.

Kennedy read it. For a moment he stood and studied it, then slowly
crushed it in his hand.

Just then Elaine, pale and shaken from the ordeal she had voluntarily
gone through, burst in upon us from upstairs. Without a word she
advanced to Craig and took the letter from him.

Inside, as on the envelope, was that same signature of the Clutching
Hand.

Elaine gazed at it wild-eyed, then at Craig. Craig smilingly reached
for the note, took it, folded it and unconcernedly thrust it into his
pocket.

"My God!" she cried, clasping her hands convulsively and repeating the
words of the letter. "YOUR LAST WARNING!"




CHAPTER III

THE VANISHING JEWELS


Banging away at my typewriter, the next day, in Kennedy's laboratory, I
was startled by the sudden, insistent ringing of the telephone near me.

"Hello," I answered, for Craig was at work at his table, trying still
to extract some clue from the slender evidence thus far elicited in the
Dodge mystery.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," I heard an excited voice over the wire reply, "my
friend, Susie Martin is here. Her father has just received a message
from that Clutching Hand and--"

"Just a moment, Miss Dodge," I interrupted. "This is Mr. Jameson."

"Oh!" came back the voice, breathless and disappointed. "Let me have
Mr. Kennedy--quick."

I had already passed the telephone to Craig and was watching him keenly
as he listened over it. The anticipation of a message from Elaine did
not fade, yet his face grew grave as he listened.

He motioned to me for a pad and pencil that lay near me.

"Please read the letter again, slower, Miss Dodge," he asked, adding,
"There isn't time for me to see it--just yet. But I want it exactly.
You say it is made up of separate words and type cut from newspapers
and pasted on note paper?"

I handed him paper and pencil.

"All right now, Miss Dodge, go ahead."

As he wrote, he indicated to me by his eyes that he wanted me to read.
I did so:

"Sturtevant Martin, Jeweler,
"739 1/2 Fifth Ave.,
"New York City.

"SIR:

"As you have failed to deliver the $10,000, I shall rob your main
diamond case at exactly noon today."

"Thank you, Miss Dodge," continued Kennedy, laying down the pencil.
"Yes, I understand perfectly--signed by that same Clutching Hand. Let
me see," he pondered, looking at his watch. "It is now just about half
past eleven. Very well. I shall meet you and Miss Martin at Mr.
Martin's store directly."

It lacked five minutes of noon when Kennedy and I dashed up before
Martin's and dismissed our taxi-cab.

A remarkable scene greeted us as we entered the famous jewelry shop.
Involuntarily I drew back. Squarely in front of us a man had suddenly
raised a revolver and leveled it at us.

"Don't!" cried a familiar voice. "That is Mr. Kennedy!"

Just then, from a little knot of people, Elaine Dodge sprang forward
with a cry and seized the gun.

Kennedy turned to her, apparently not half so much concerned about the
automatic that yawned at him as about the anxiety of the pretty girl
who had intervened. The too eager plainclothesman lowered the gun
sheepishly.

Sturtevant Martin was a typical society business man, quietly but
richly dressed. He was inclined to be pompous and affected a pair of
rather distinguished looking side whiskers.

In the excitement I glanced about hurriedly. There were two or three
policemen in the shop and several plainclothesmen, some armed with
formidable looking sawed-off shot guns.

Directly in front of me was a sign, tacked up on a pillar, which read,
"This store will be closed at noon today. Martin & Co."

All the customers were gone. In fact the clerks had had some trouble in
clearing the shop, as many of them expressed not only surprise but
exasperation at the proceeding. Nevertheless the clerks had politely
but insistently ushered them out.

Martin himself was evidently very nervous and very much alarmed. Indeed
no one could blame him for that. Merely to have been singled out by
this amazing master criminal was enough to cause panic. Already he had
engaged detectives, prepared for whatever might happen, and they had
advised him to leave the diamonds in the counter, clear the store, and
let the crooks try anything, if they dared.

I fancied that he was somewhat exasperated at his daughter's presence,
too, but could see that her explanation of Elaine's and Perry Bennett's
interest in the Clutching Hand had considerably mollified him. He had
been talking with Bennett as we came in and evidently had a high
respect for the young lawyer.

Just back of us, and around the corner, as we came in, we had noticed a
limousine which had driven up. Three faultlessly attired dandies had
entered a doorway down the street, as we learned afterwards, apparently
going to a fashionable tailor's which occupied the second floor of the
old-fashioned building, the first floor having been renovated and made
ready for renting. Had we been there a moment sooner we might have
seen, I suppose, that one of them nodded to a taxicab driver who was
standing at a public hack stand a few feet up the block. The driver
nodded unostentatiously back to the men.

In spite of the excitement, Kennedy quietly examined the show case,
which was, indeed, a veritable treasure store of brilliants. Then with
a keen scrutinizing glance he looked over the police and detectives
gathered around. There was nothing to do now but wait, as the
detectives had advised.

I looked at a large antique grandfather's clock which was standing
nearby. It now lacked scarcely a minute of twelve.

Slowly the hands of the clock came nearer together at noon.

We all gathered about the show case with its glittering hoard of
wealth, forming a circle at a respectful distance.

Martin pointed nervously at the clock.

In deep-lunged tones the clock played the chords written, I believe, by
Handel. Then it began striking.

As it did so, Martin involuntarily counted off the strokes, while one
of the plainclothesmen waved his shotgun in unison.

Martin finished counting.

Nothing had happened.

We all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, it is still there!" exclaimed Martin, pointing at the show-case,
with a forced laugh.

Suddenly came a rending and crashing sound. It seemed as if the very
floor on which we stood was giving way.

The show-case, with all its priceless contents, went smashing down into
the cellar below.

The flooring beneath the case had been cut through!

All crowded forward, gazing at the black yawning cavern. A moment we
hesitated, then gingerly craned our necks over the edge.

Down below, three men, covered with linen dusters and their faces
hidden by masks, had knocked the props away from the ceiling of the
cellar, which they had sawed almost through at their leisure, and the
show case had landed eight or ten feet below, shivered into a thousand
bits.

A volley of shots whizzed past us, and another. While one crook was
hastily stuffing the untold wealth of jewels into a burlap bag, the
others had drawn revolvers and were firing up through the hole in the
floor, desperately.

Martin, his detectives, and the rest of us fell back from the edge of
the chasm hastily, to keep out of range of the hail of bullets.

"Look out!" cried someone behind us, before we could recover from our
first surprise and return the fire.

One of the desperadoes had taken a bomb from under his duster, lighted
it, and thrown it up through the hole in the floor.

It sailed up over our heads and landed near our little group on the
floor, the fuse sputtering ominously.

Quickly we divided and backed away even further.

I heard an exclamation of fear from Elaine.

Kennedy had pushed his way past us and picked up the deadly infernal
machine in his bare hands.

I watched him, fascinated. As near as he dared, he approached the hole
in the floor, still holding the thing off at arm's length. Would he
never throw it?

He was coolly holding it, allowing the fuse to burn down closer to the
explosion point.

It was now within less than an inch sure death.

Suddenly he raised it and hurled the deadly thing down through the hole.

We could hear the imprecations of the crooks as it struck the cellar
floor, near them. They had evidently been still cramming jewelry into
the capacious maw of the bag. One of them, discovering the bomb, must
have advanced toward it, then retreated when he saw how imminent was
the explosion.

"Leave the store--quick!" rang out Kennedy's voice.

We backed away as fast as those behind us would permit. Kennedy and
Bennett were the last to leave, in fact paused at the door.

Down below the crooks were beating a hasty retreat through a secret
entrance which they had effected.

"The bag! The bag!" we could hear one of them bellow.

"The bomb--run!" cried another voice gruffly.

A second later came an ominous silence. The last of the three must have
fled.

The explosion that followed lifted us fairly off our feet. A great puff
of smoke came belching up through the hole, followed by the crashing of
hundreds of dollars' worth of glass ware in the jewelry shop as
fragments of stone, brick and mortar and huge splinters of wood were
flung with tremendous force in every direction from the miniature
volcano.

As the smoke from the explosion cleared away, Kennedy could be seen,
the first to run forward.

Meanwhile Martin's detectives had rushed down a flight of back stairs
that led into a coal cellar. With coal shovels and bars, anything they
could lay hands on, they attacked the door that opened forward from the
coal cellar into the front basement where the robbers had been.

A moment Kennedy and Bennett paused on the brink of the abyss which the
bomb had made, waiting for the smoke to decrease. Then they began to
climb down cautiously over the piled up wreckage.

The explosion had set the basement afire, but the fire had not gained
much headway, by the time they reached the basement. Quickly Kennedy
ran to the door into the coal cellar and opened it.

From the other side, Martin, followed by the police and the detectives,
burst in.

"Fire!" cried one of the policemen, leaping back to turn in an alarm
from the special apparatus upstairs.

All except Martin began beating out the flames, using such weapons as
they already held in their hands to batter down the door.

To Martin there was one thing paramount--the jewels.

In the midst of the confusion, Elaine, closely followed by her friend
Susie, made her way fearlessly into the stifle of smoke down the stairs.

"There are your jewels, Mr. Martin," cried Kennedy, kicking the
precious burlap bag with his foot as if it had been so much ordinary
merchandise, and turning toward what was in his mind the most important
thing at stake--the direction taken by the agents of the Clutching Hand.

"Thank heaven!" ejaculated Martin, fairly pouncing on the bag and
tearing it open. "They didn't get away with them--after all!" he
exclaimed, examining the contents with satisfaction. "See--you must
have frightened them off at just the right moment when you sent the
bomb back at them."

Elaine and Susie pressed forward eagerly as he poured forth the
sparkling stream of gems, intact.

"Wasn't he just simply wonderful!" I heard Susie whisper to Elaine.

Elaine did not answer. She had eyes or ears for nothing now in the
melee but Kennedy.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Events were moving rapidly.

The limousine had been standing innocently enough at the curb near the
corner, with the taxicab close behind it.

Less than ten minutes after they had entered, three well-dressed men
came out of the vacant shop, apparently from the tailor's above, and
climbed leisurely into their car.

As the last one entered, he half turned to the taxicab driver, hiding
from passers-by the sign of the Clutching Hand which the taxicab driver
returned, in the same manner. Then the big car whirled up the avenue.

All this we learned later from a street sweeper who was at work nearby.

Down below, while the police and detectives were putting out the fire,
Kennedy was examining the wall of the cellar, looking for the spot
where the crooks had escaped.

"A secret door!" he exclaimed, as he paused after tapping along the
wall to determine its character. "You can see how the force of the
explosion has loosened it."

Sure enough, when he pointed it out to us, it was plainly visible. One
of the detectives picked up a crowbar and others, still with the
hastily selected implements they had seized to fight the fire, started
in to pry it open.

As it yielded, Kennedy pushed his way through. Elaine, always utterly
fearless, followed. Then the rest of us went through.

There seemed to be nothing, however, that would help us in the cellar
next door, and Kennedy mounted the steps of a stairway in the rear.

The stairway led to a sort of storeroom, full of barrels and boxes, but
otherwise characterless. When I arrived Kennedy was gingerly holding up
the dusters which the crooks had worn.

"We're on the right trail," commented Elaine as he showed them to her,
"but where do you suppose the owners are?"

Craig shrugged his shoulders and gave a quick look about. "Evidently
they came in from and went away by the street," he observed, hurrying
to the door, followed by Elaine.

On the sidewalk, he gazed up the avenue, then catching sight of the
street cleaner, called to him.

"Yes, sir," replied the man, stolidly looking up from his work. "I see
three gentlemen come out and get into an automobile."

"Which way did they go?" asked Kennedy.

For answer the man jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the general
direction uptown.

"Did you notice the number of the car?" asked Craig eagerly.

The man shrugged his shoulders blankly.

With keen glance, Kennedy strained his eyes. Far up the avenue, he
could descry the car threading its way in and out among the others,
just about disappearing.

A moment later Craig caught sight of the vacant taxicab and crooked his
finger at the driver, who answered promptly by cranking his engine.

"You saw that limousine standing there?" asked Craig.

"Yes," nodded the chauffeur with a show of alertness.

"Well, follow it," ordered Kennedy, jumping into the cab.

"Yes, sir."

Craig was just about to close the door when a slight figure flashed
past us and a dainty foot was placed on the step.

"Please, Mr. Kennedy," pleaded Elaine, "let me go. They may lead to my
father's slayer."

She said it so earnestly that Craig could scarcely have resisted if he
had wanted to do so.

Just as Elaine and Kennedy were moving off, I came out of the vacant
store, with Bennett and the detectives.

"Craig!" I called. "Where are you going?"

Kennedy stuck his head out of the window and I am quite sure that he
was not altogether displeased that I was not with him.

"Chasing that limousine," he shouted back. "Follow us in another car."

A moment later he and Elaine were gone.

Bennett and I looked about.

"There are a couple of cabs--down there," I pointed out at the other
end of the block. "I'll take one you take the other."

Followed by a couple of the detectives, I jumped into the first one I
came to, excitedly telling the driver to follow Kennedy's taxi,
directing him with my head out of the window.

"Mr. Jameson, please--can't I go with you?"

I turned. It was Susie Martin. "One of you fellows, go in the other
car," I asked the detectives.

Before the man could move, Mr. Martin himself appeared.

"No, Susan, I--I won't allow it," he ordered.

"But Elaine went," she pouted.

"Well, Elaine is--ah--I won't have it," stormed Martin.

There was no time to waste. With a hasty apology, I drove off.

Who, besides Bennett, went in the other car, I don't know, but it made
no difference, for we soon lost them. Our driver, however, was a really
clever fellow. Far ahead now we could see the limousine drive around a
corner, making a dangerous swerve. Kennedy's cab followed, skidding
dangerously near a pole.

But the taxicab was no match for the powerful limousine. On uptown they
went, the only thing preventing the limousine from escaping being the
fear of pursuit by traffic police if the driver let out speed. They
were content to manage to keep just far enough ahead to be out of
danger of having Kennedy overhaul them. As for us, we followed as best
we could, on uptown, past the city line, and out into the country.

There Kennedy lost sight altogether of the car he was trailing. Worse
than that, we lost sight of Kennedy. Still we kept on blindly, trusting
to luck and common sense in picking the road.

I was peering ahead over the driver's shoulder, the window down, trying
to direct him, when we approached a fork in the road. Here was a
dilemma which must be decided at once rightly or wrongly.

As we neared the crossroad, I gave an involuntary exclamation. Beside
the road, almost on it, lay the figure of a man. Our driver pulled up
with a jerk and I was out of the car in an instant.

There lay Kennedy! Someone had blackjacked him. He was groaning and
just beginning to show signs of consciousness as I bent over.

"What's the matter, old man?" I asked, helping him to his feet.

He looked about dazed a moment, then seeing me and comprehending, he
pointed excitedly, but vaguely.

"Elaine!" he cried. "They've kidnapped Elaine!"

What had really happened, as we learned later from Elaine and others,
was that when the cross roads was reached, the three crooks in the
limousine had stopped long enough to speak to an accomplice stationed
there, according to their plan for a getaway. He was a tough looking
individual who might have been hoboing it to the city.

When, a few minutes later, Kennedy and Elaine had approached the fork,
their driver had slowed up, as if in doubt which way to go. Craig had
stuck his head out of the window, as I had done, and, seeing the
crossroads, had told the chauffeur to stop. There stood the hobo.

"Did a car pass here, just now--a big car?" called Craig.

The man put his hand to his ear, as if only half comprehending.

"Which way did the big car go?" repeated Kennedy.

The hobo approached the taxicab sullenly, as if he had a grudge against
cars in general.

One question after another elicited little that could be construed as
intelligence. If Craig had only been able to see, he would have found
out that, with his back toward the taxicab driver, the hobo held one
hand behind him and made the sign of the Clutching Hand, glancing
surreptitiously at the driver to catch the answering sign, while Craig
gazed earnestly up the two roads.

At last Craig gave him up as hopeless. "Well--go ahead--that way," he
indicated, picking the most likely road.

As the chauffeur was about to start, he stalled his engine.

"Hurry!" urged Craig, exasperated at the delays.

The driver got out and tried to crank the engine. Again and again he
turned it over, but, somehow, it refused to start. Then he lifted the
hood and began to tinker.

"What's the matter?" asked Craig, impatiently jumping out and bending
over the engine, too.

The driver shrugged his shoulders. "Must be something wrong with the
ignition, I guess," he replied.

Kennedy looked the car over hastily. "I can't see anything wrong," he
frowned.

"Well, there is," growled the driver.

Precious minutes were speeding away, as they argued. Finally with his
characteristic energy, Kennedy put the taxicab driver aside.

"Let me try it," he said. "Miss Dodge, will you arrange that spark and
throttle?"

Elaine, equal to anything, did so, and Craig bent down and cranked the
engine. It started on the first spin.

"See!" he exclaimed. "There wasn't anything, after all."

He took a step toward the taxicab.

"Say," objected the driver, nastily, interposing himself between Craig
and the wheel which he seemed disposed to take now, "who's running this
boat, anyhow?"

Surprised, Kennedy tried to shoulder the fellow out of the way. The
driver resisted sullenly.

"Mr. Kennedy--look out!" cried Elaine.

Craig turned. But it was too late. The rough looking fellow had wakened
to life. Suddenly he stepped up behind Kennedy with a blackjack. As the
heavy weight descended, Craig crumpled up on the ground, unconscious.

With a scream, Elaine turned and started to run. But the chauffeur
seized her arm.

"Say, bo," he asked of the rough fellow, "what does Clutching Hand want
with her? Quick! There's another cab likely to be along in a moment
with that fellow Jameson in it."

The rough fellow, with an oath, seized her and dragged her into the
taxicab. "Go ahead!" he growled, indicating the road.

And away they sped, leaving Kennedy unconscious on the side of the road
where we found him.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

"What are we to do?" I asked helplessly of Kennedy, when we had at last
got him on his feet.

His head still ringing from the force of the blow of the blackjack,
Craig stooped down, then knelt in the dust of the road, then ran ahead
a bit where it was somewhat muddy.

"Which way--which way?" he muttered to himself.

I thought perhaps the blow had affected him and leaned over to see what
he was doing. Instead, he was studying the marks made by the tire of
the Clutching Hand cab. Very decidedly, there in the road, the little
anti-skid marks on the tread of the tire showed--some worn, some
cut--but with each revolution the same marks reappearing unmistakably.
More than that, it was an unusual make of tire. Craig was actually
studying the finger prints, so to speak, of an automobile!

More slowly now and carefully, we proceeded, for a mistake meant losing
the trail of Elaine. Kennedy absolutely refused to get inside our cab,
but clung tightly to a metal rod outside while he stood on the running
board--now straining his eyes along the road to catch any faint glimpse
of either taxi or limousine, or the dust from them, now gazing intently
at the ground following the finger prints of the taxicab that was
carrying off Elaine. All pain was forgotten by him now in the intensity
of his anxiety for her.

We came to another crossroads and the driver glanced at Craig. "Stop!"
he ordered.

In another instant he was down in the dirt, examining the road for
marks.

"That way!" he indicated, leaping back to the running board.

We piled back into the car and proceeded under Kennedy's direction, as
fast as he would permit. So it continued, perhaps for a couple of hours.

At last Kennedy stopped the cab and slowly directed the driver to veer
into an open space that looked peculiarly lonesome. Near it stood a one
story brick factory building, closed, but not abandoned.

As I looked about at the unattractive scene, Kennedy already was down
on his knees in the dirt again, studying the tire tracks. They were all
confused, showing that the taxicab we were following had evidently
backed in and turned several times before going on.

"Crossed by another set of tire tracks!" he exclaimed excitedly,
studying closer. "That must have been the limousine, waiting."

Laboriously he was following the course of the cars in the open space,
when the one word escaped him, "Footprints!"

He was up and off in a moment, before we could imagine what he was
after. We had got out of the cab, and followed him as, down to the very
shore of a sort of cove or bay, he went. There lay a rusty, discarded
boiler on the beach, half submerged in the rising tide. At this tank
the footprints seemed to go right down the sand and into the waves
which were slowly obliterating them. Kennedy gazed out as if to make
out a possible boat on the horizon, where the cove widened out.

"Look!" he cried.

Farther down the shore, a few feet, I had discovered the same prints,
going in the opposite direction, back toward the place from which we
had just come. I started to follow them, but soon found myself alone.
Kennedy had paused beside the old boiler.

"What is it?" I asked, retracing my steps.

He did not answer, but seemed to be listening. We listened also. There
certainly was a most peculiar noise inside that tank.

Was it a muffled scream?

Kennedy reached down and picked up a rock, hitting the tank a
resounding blow. As the echo died down, he listened again.

Yes, there was a sound--a scream perhaps--a woman's voice, faint, but
unmistakable.

I looked at his face inquiringly. Without a word I read in it the
confirmation of the thought that had flashed into my mind.

Elaine Dodge was inside!

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

First had come the limousine, with its three bandits, to the spot fixed
on as a rendezvous. Later had come the taxicab. As it hove into sight,
the three well-dressed crooks had drawn revolvers, thinking perhaps the
plan for getting rid of Kennedy might possibly have miscarried. But the
taxicab driver and the rough-faced fellow had reassured them with the
sign of the Clutching Hand, and the revolvers were lowered.

As they parleyed hastily, the rough-neck and the fake chauffeur lifted
Elaine out of the taxi. She was bound and gagged.

"Well, now we've got her, what shall we do with her?" asked one.

"It's got to be quick. There's another cab," put in the driver.

"The deuce with that."

"The deuce with nothing," he returned. "That fellow Kennedy's a clever
one. He may come to. If he does, he won't miss us. Quick, now!"

"I wish I'd broken his skull," muttered the roughneck.

"We'd better leave her somewhere here," remarked one of the
better-dressed three. "I don't think the chief wants us to kill
her--yet," he added, with an ominous glance at Elaine, who in spite of
threats was not cowed, but was vainly struggling at her bonds.

"Well, where shall it be?" asked another.

They looked about.

"See," cried the third. "See that old boiler down there at the edge of
the water? Why not put her in there? No one'll ever think to look in
such a place."

Down by the water's edge, where he pointed, lay a big boiler such as is
used on stationary engines, with its end lapped by the waves. With a
hasty expression of approval, the rough-neck picked Elaine up bodily,
still struggling vainly, and together they carried her, bound and
gagged, to the tank. The opening, which was toward the water, was
small, but they managed, roughly, to thrust her in.

A moment later and they had rolled up a huge boulder against the small
entrance, bracing it so that it would be impossible for her to get out
from the inside. Then they drove off hastily.

Inside the old boiler lay Elaine, still bound and gagged. If she could
only scream! Someone might hear. She must get help. There was water in
the tank. She managed to lean up inside it, standing as high as the
walls would allow her, trying to keep her head above the water.

Frantically, she managed to loosen the gag. She screamed. Her voice
seemed to be bound around by the iron walls as was she herself. She
shuddered, The water was rising--had reached her chest, and was still
rising, slowly, inexorably.

What should she do? Would no one hear her? The water was up to her neck
now. She held her head as high as she could and screamed again.

What was that? Silence? Or was someone outside?

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Coolly, in spite of the emergency, Kennedy took in the perilous
situation.

The lower end of the boiler, which was on a slant on the rapidly
shelving beach, was now completely under water and impossible to get
at. Besides, the opening was small, too small.

We pulled away the stone, but that did no good. No one could hope to
get in and then out again that way alive--much less with a helpless
girl. Yet something must be done. The tank was practically submerged
inside, as I estimated quickly. Blows had no effect on the huge iron
trap which had been built to resist many pounds of pressure.

Kennedy gazed about frantically and his eye caught the sign on the
factory:

OXYACETYLENE WELDING CO.

"Come, Walter," he cried, running up the shore.

A moment later, breathless, we reached the doorway. It was, of course,
locked. Kennedy whipped out his revolver and several well-directed
shots through the keyhole smashed the lock. We put our shoulders to it
and swung the door open, entering the factory.

There was not a soul about, not even a watchman. Hastily we took in the
place, a forge and a number of odds and ends of metal sheets, rods,
pipes and angles.

Beside a workbench stood two long cylinders, studded with bolts.

"That's what I'm looking for," exclaimed Craig. "Here, Walter, take
one. I'll take the other--and the tubes--and--"

He did not pause to finish, but seized up a peculiar shaped instrument,
like a huge hook, with a curved neck and sharp beak. Really it was
composed of two metal tubes which ran into a cylinder or mixing chamber
above the nozzle, while parallel to them ran another tube with a nozzle
of its own.

We ran, for there was no time to lose. As nearly as I could estimate
it, the water must now be slowly closing over Elaine.

"What is it?" I asked as he joined up the tubes from the tanks to the
peculiar hook-like apparatus he carried.

"An oxyacetylene blowpipe," he muttered back feverishly working. "Used
for welding and cutting, too," he added.

With a light he touched the nozzle. Instantly a hissing, blinding
flame-needle made the steel under it incandescent. The terrific heat
from one nozzle made the steel glow. The stream of oxygen from the
second completely consumed the hot metal. And the force of the blast
carried a fine spray of disintegrated metal before it. It was a
brilliant sight. But it was more than that. Through the very steel
itself, the flame, thousands of degrees hot, seemed to eat its way in a
fine line, as if it were a sharp knife cutting through ordinary
cardboard.

With tense muscles Kennedy skillfully guided the terrible instrument
that ate cold steel, wielding the torch as deftly as if it had been, as
indeed it was, a magic wand of modern science.

He was actually cutting out a huge hole in the still exposed surface of
the tank--all around, except for a few inches, to prevent the heavy
piece from falling inward.

As Kennedy carefully bent outward the section of the tank which he had
cut, he quickly reached down and lifted Elaine, unconscious, out of the
water.

Gently he laid her on the sand. It was the work of only a moment to cut
the cords that bound her hands.

There she lay, pale and still. Was she dead?

Kennedy worked frantically to revive her.

At last, slowly, the color seemed to return to her pale lips. Her
eyelids fluttered. Then her great, deep eyes opened.

As she looked up and caught sight of Craig bending anxiously over her,
she seemed to comprehend. For a moment both were silent. Then Elaine
reached up and took his hand.

There was much in the look she gave him--admiration, confidence,--love
itself.

Heroics, however, were never part of Kennedy's frank make-up. The fact
was that her admiration, even though not spoken, plainly embarrassed
him. Yet he forgot that as he looked at her lying there, frail and
helpless.

He stroked her forehead gently, laying back the wet ringlets of her
hair.

"Craig," she murmured, "you--you've saved my life!"

Her tone was eloquent.

"Elaine," he whispered, still gazing into her wonderful eyes, "the
Clutching Hand shall pay for this! It is a fight to the finish between
us!"




CHAPTER IV

"THE FROZEN SAFE"


Kennedy swung open the door of our taxicab as we pulled up, safe at
last, before the Dodge mansion, after the rescue of Elaine from the
brutal machinations of the Clutching Hand.

Bennett was on the step of the cab in a moment and, together, one on
each side of Elaine, they assisted her out of the car and up the steps
to the house.

As they mounted the steps, Kennedy called back to me, "Pay the driver,
Walter, please."

It was the first time I had thought of that. As it happened, I had
quite a bankroll with me and, in my hurry, I peeled off a ten dollar
bill and tossed it to the fellow, intending to be generous and tell him
to keep the change.

"Say," he exclaimed, pointing to the clock, "come across--twenty-three,
sixty."

Protesting, I peeled off some more bills.

Having satisfied this veritable anaconda and gorged his dilating
appetite for banknotes, I turned to follow the others. Jennings had
opened the door immediately. Whether it was that he retained a grudge
against me or whether he did not see me, he would have closed it before
I could get up there. I called and took the steps two at a time.

Elaine's Aunt Josephine was waiting for us in the drawing room, very
much worried. The dear old lady was quite scandalized as Elaine
excitedly told of the thrilling events that had just taken place.

"And to think they--actually--carried you!" she exclaimed, horrified,
adding, "And I not--"

"But Mr. Kennedy came along and saved me just in time," interrupted
Elaine with a smile. "I was well chaperoned!"

Aunt Josephine turned to Craig gratefully. "How can I ever thank you
enough, Mr. Kennedy," she said fervently.

Kennedy was quite embarrassed. With a smile, Elaine perceived his
discomfiture, not at all displeased by it.

"Come into the library," she cried gaily, taking his arm. "I've
something to show you."

Where the old safe which had been burnt through had stood was now a
brand new safe of the very latest construction and design--one of those
that look and are so formidable.

"Here is the new safe," she pointed out brightly. "It is not only proof
against explosives, but between the plates is a lining that is proof
against thermit and even that oxy-acetylene blowpipe by which you
rescued me from the old boiler. It has a time lock, too, that will
prevent its being opened at night, even if anyone should learn the
combination."

They stood before the safe a moment and Kennedy examined it closely
with much interest.

"Wonderful!" he admired.

"I knew you'd approve of it," cried Elaine, much pleased. "Now I have
something else to show you."

She paused at the desk and from a drawer took out a portfolio of large
photographs. They were very handsome photographs of herself.

"Much more wonderful than the safe," remarked Craig earnestly. Then,
hesitating and a trifle embarrassed, he added, "May I--may I have one?"

"If you care for it," she said, dropping her eyes, then glancing up at
him quickly.

"Care for it?" he repeated. "It will be one of the greatest treasures."

She slipped the picture quickly into an envelope. "Come," she
interrupted. "Aunt Josephine will be wondering where we are. She--she's
a demon chaperone."

Bennett, Aunt Josephine and myself were talking earnestly as Elaine and
Craig returned.

"Well," said Bennett, glancing at his watch and rising as he turned to
Elaine, "I'm afraid I must go, now."

He crossed over to where she stood and shook hands. There was no doubt
that Bennett was very much smitten by his fair client.

"Good-bye, Mr. Bennett," she murmured, "and thank you so much for what
you have done for me today."

But there was something lifeless about the words. She turned quickly to
Craig, who had remained standing.

"Must you go, too, Mr. Kennedy?" she asked, noticing his position.

"I'm afraid Mr. Jameson and I must be back on the job before this
Clutching Hand gets busy again," he replied reluctantly.

"Oh, I hope you--we get him soon!" she exclaimed, and there was nothing
lifeless about the way she gave Craig her hand, as Bennett, he and I
left a moment later.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

That morning I had noticed Kennedy fussing some time at the door of our
apartment before we went over to the laboratory. As nearly as I could
make out he had placed something under the rug at the door out into the
hallway.

When we approached our door, now, Craig paused. By pressing a little
concealed button he caused a panel in the wall outside to loosen,
disclosing a small, boxlike plate in the wall underneath.

It was about a foot long and perhaps four inches wide. Through it ran a
piece of paper which unrolled from one coil and wound up on another,
actuated by clockwork. Across the blank white paper ran an ink line
traced by a stylographic pen, such as I had seen in mechanical pencils
used in offices, hotels, banks and such places.

Kennedy examined the thing with interest.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A new seismograph," he replied, still gazing carefully at the rolled
up part of the paper. "I have installed it because it registers every
footstep on the floor of our apartment. We can't be too careful with
this Clutching Hand. I want to know whether we have any visitors or not
in our absence. This straight line indicates that we have not. Wait a
moment."

Craig hastily unlocked the door and entered. Inside, I could see him
pacing up and down our modest quarters.

"Do you see anything, Walter?" he called.

I looked at the seismograph. The pen had started to trace its line, no
longer even and straight, but zigzag, at different heights across the
paper.

He came to the door. "What do you think of it?" he inquired.

"Splendid idea," I answered enthusiastically.

Our apartment was, as I have said, modest, consisting of a large living
room, two bedrooms, and bath--an attractive but not ornate place, which
we found very cosy and comfortable. On one side of the room was a big
fire place, before which stood a fire screen. We had collected easy
chairs and capacious tables and desks. Books were scattered about,
literally overflowing from the crowded shelves. On the walls were our
favorite pictures, while for ornament, I suppose I might mention my
typewriter and now and then some of Craig's wonderful scientific
apparatus as satisfying our limited desire for the purely aesthetic.

We entered and fell to work at the aforementioned typewriter, on a
special Sunday story that I had been forced to neglect. I was not so
busy, however, that I did not notice out of the corner of my eye that
Kennedy had taken from its cover Elaine Dodge's picture and was gazing
at it ravenously.

I put my hand surreptitiously over my mouth and coughed. Kennedy
wheeled on me and I hastily banged a sentence out on the machine,
making at least half a dozen mistakes.

I had finished as much of the article as I could do then and was
smoking and reading it over. Kennedy was still gazing at the picture
Miss Dodge had given him, then moving from place to place about the
room, evidently wondering where it would look best. I doubt whether he
had done another blessed thing since we returned.

He tried it on the mantel. That wouldn't do. At last he held it up
beside a picture of Galton, I think, of finger print and eugenics fame,
who hung on the wall directly opposite the fireplace. Hastily he
compared the two. Elaine's picture was of precisely the same size.

Next he tore out the picture of the scientist and threw it carelessly
into the fireplace. Then he placed Elaine's picture in its place and
hung it up again, standing off to admire it.

I watched him gleefully. Was this Craig? Purposely I moved my elbow
suddenly and pushed a book with a bang on the floor. Kennedy actually
jumped. I picked up the book with a muttered apology. No, this was not
the same old Craig.

Perhaps half an hour later, I was still reading. Kennedy was now pacing
up and down the room, apparently unable to concentrate his mind on any
but one subject.

He stopped a moment before the photograph, looked at it fixedly. Then
he started his methodical walk again, hesitated, and went over to the
telephone, calling a number which I recognized.

"She must have been pretty well done up by her experience," he said
apologetically, catching my eye. "I was wondering if--Hello--oh, Miss
Dodge--I--er--I--er--just called up to see if you were all right."

Craig was very much embarrassed, but also very much in earnest.

A musical laugh rippled over the telephone. "Yes, I'm all right, thank
you, Mr. Kennedy--and I put the package you sent me into the safe,
but--"

"Package?" frowned Craig. "Why, I sent you no package, Miss Dodge. In
the safe?"

"Why, yes, and the safe is all covered with moisture--and so cold."

"Moisture--cold?" he repeated quickly.

"Yes, I have been wondering if it is all right. In fact, I was going to
call you up, only I was afraid you'd think I was foolish."

"I shall be right over," he answered hastily, clapping the receiver
back on its hook. "Walter," he added, seizing his hat and coat, "come
on--hurry!"

A few minutes later we drove up in a taxi before the Dodge house and
rang the bell.

Jennings admitted us sleepily.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

It could not have been long after we left Miss Dodge late in the
afternoon that Susie Martin, who had been quite worried over our long
absence after the attempt to rob her father, dropped in on Elaine.
Wide-eyed, she had listened to Elaine's story of what had happened.

"And you think this Clutching Hand has never recovered the
incriminating papers that caused him to murder your father?" asked
Susie.

Elaine shook her head. "No. Let me show you the new safe I've bought.
Mr. Kennedy thinks it wonderful."

"I should think you'd be proud of it," admired Susie. "I must tell
father to get one, too."

At that very moment, if they had known it, the Clutching Hand with his
sinister, masked face, was peering at the two girls from the other side
of the portieres.

Susie rose to go and Elaine followed her to the door. No sooner had she
gone than the Clutching Hand came out from behind the curtains. He
gazed about a moment, then moving over to the safe about which the two
girls had been talking, stealthily examined it.

He must have heard someone coming, for, with a gesture of hate at the
safe itself, as though he personified it, he slipped back of the
curtains again.

Elaine had returned and as she sat down at the desk to go over some
papers which Bennett had left relative to settling up the estate, the
masked intruder stealthily and silently withdrew.

"A package for you, Miss Dodge," announced Michael later in the evening
as Elaine, in her dainty evening gown, was still engaged in going over
the papers. He carried it in his hands rather gingerly.

"Mr. Kennedy sent it, ma'am. He says it contains clues and will you
please put it in the new safe for him."

Elaine took the package eagerly and examined it. Then she pulled open
the heavy door of the safe.

"It must be getting cold out, Michael," she remarked. "This package is
as cold as ice."

"It is, ma'am," answered Michael, deferentially with a sidelong glance
that did not prevent his watching her intently.

She closed the safe and, with a glance at her watch, set the time lock
and went upstairs to her room.

No sooner had Elaine disappeared than Michael appeared again, cat-like,
through the curtains from the drawing room, and, after a glance about
the dimly lighted library, discovering that the coast was clear,
motioned to a figure hiding behind the portieres.

A moment, and Clutching Hand himself came out.

He moved over to the safe and looked it over. Then he put out his hand
and touched it.

"Good, Michael," he exclaimed with satisfaction.

"Listen!" cautioned Michael.

Someone was coming and they hastily slunk behind the protecting
portieres. It was Marie, Elaine's maid.

She turned up the lights and went over to the desk for a book for which
Elaine had evidently sent her. She paused and appeared to be listening.
Then she went to the door.

"Jennings!" she beckoned.

"What is it, Marie?" he replied.

She said nothing, but as he came up the hall led him to the center of
the room.

"Listen! I heard sighs and groans!"

Jennings looked at her a moment, puzzled, then laughed. "You girls!" he
exclaimed. "I suppose you'll always think the library haunted, now."

"But, Jennings, listen," she persisted.

Jennings did listen. Sure enough, there were sounds, weird, uncanny. He
gazed about the room. It was eerie. Then he took a few steps toward the
safe. Marie put out her hand to it, and started back.

"Why, that safe is all covered with cold sweat!" she cried with bated
breath.

Sure enough the face of the safe was beaded with dampness. Jennings put
his hand on it and quickly drew it away, leaving a mark on the dampness.

"Wh-what do you think of that?" he gasped.

"I'm going to tell Miss Dodge," cried Marie, genuinely frightened.

A moment later she burst into Elaine's room.

"What is the matter, Marie?" asked Elaine, laying down her book. "You
look as if you had seen a ghost."

"Ah, but, mademoiselle--it ees just like that. The safe--if
mademoiselle will come downstairs, I will show it you."

Puzzled but interested, Elaine followed her. In the library Jennings
pointed mutely at the new safe. Elaine approached it. As they stood
about new beads of perspiration, as it were, formed on it. Elaine
touched it, and also quickly withdrew her hand.

"I can't imagine what's the matter," she said. "But--well--Jennings,
you may go--and Marie, also."

When the servants had gone she still regarded the safe with the same
wondering look, then turning out the light, she followed.

She had scarcely disappeared when, from the portiered doorway nearby,
the Clutching Hand appeared, and, after gazing out at them, took a
quick look at the safe.

"Good!" he muttered.

Noiselessly Michael of the sinister face moved in and took a position
in the center of the room, as if on guard, while Clutching Hand sat
before the safe watching it intently.

"Someone at the door--Jennings is answering the bell," Michael
whispered hoarsely.

"Confound it!" muttered Clutching Hand, as both moved again behind the
heavy velour curtains.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

"I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Kennedy," greeted Elaine unaffectedly as
Jennings admitted us.

She had heard the bell and was coming downstairs as we entered. We
three moved toward the library and someone switched on the lights.

Craig strode over to the safe. The cold sweat on it had now turned to
icicles. Craig's face clouded with thought as he examined it more
closely. There was actually a groaning sound from within.

"It can't be opened," he said to himself. "The time lock is set for
tomorrow morning."

Outside, if we had not been so absorbed in the present mystery, we
might have seen Michael and the Clutching Hand listening to us.
Clutching Hand looked hastily at his watch.

"The deuce!" he muttered under his breath, stifling his suppressed fury.

We stood looking at the safe. Kennedy was deeply interested, Elaine
standing close beside him. Suddenly he seemed to make up his mind.

"Quick--Elaine!" he cried, taking her arm. "Stand back!"

We all retreated. The safe door, powerful as it was, had actually begun
to warp and bend. The plates were bulging. A moment later, with a loud
report and concussion the door blew off.

A blast of cold air and flakes like snow flew out. Papers were
scattered on every side.

We stood gazing, aghast, a second, then ran forward. Kennedy quickly
examined the safe. He bent down and from the wreck took up a package,
now covered with white.

As quickly he dropped it.

"That is the package that was sent," cried Elaine.

Taking it in a table cover, he laid it on the table and opened it.
Inside was a peculiar shaped flask, open at the top, but like a vacuum
bottle.

"A Dewar flask!" ejaculated Craig.

"What is it?" asked Elaine, appealing to him.

"Liquid air!" he answered. "As it evaporated, the terrific pressure of
expanding air in the safe increased until it blew out the door. That is
what caused the cold sweating and the groans."

We watched him, startled.

On the other side of the portieres Michael and Clutching Hand waited.
Then, in the general confusion, Clutching Hand slowly disappeared,
foiled.

"Where did this package come from?" asked Kennedy of Jennings
suspiciously.

Jennings looked blank.

"Why," put in Elaine, "Michael brought it to me."

"Get Michael," ordered Kennedy.

"Yes, sir," nodded Jennings.

A moment later he returned. "I found him, going upstairs," reported
Jennings, leading Michael in.

"Where did you get this package?" shot out Kennedy.

"It was left at the door, sir, by a boy, sir."

Question after question could not shake that simple, stolid sentence.
Kennedy frowned.

"You may go," he said finally, as if reserving something for Michael
later.

A sudden exclamation followed from Elaine as Michael passed down the
hall again. She had moved over to the desk, during the questioning, and
was leaning against it.

Inadvertently she had touched an envelope. It was addressed, "Craig
Kennedy."

Craig tore it open, Elaine bending anxiously over his shoulder,
frightened.

We read:

"YOU HAVE INTERFERED FOR THE LAST TIME. IT IS THE END."

Beneath it stood the fearsome sign of the Clutching Hand!

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

The warning of the Clutching Hand had no other effect on Kennedy than
the redoubling of his precautions for safety. Nothing further happened
that night, however, and the next morning found us early at the
laboratory.

It was the late forenoon, when after a hurried trip down to the office,
I rejoined Kennedy at his scientific workshop.

We walked down the street when a big limousine shot past. Kennedy
stopped in the middle of a remark. He had recognized the car, with a
sort of instinct.

At the same moment I saw a smiling face at the window of the car. It
was Elaine Dodge.

The car stopped in something less than twice its length and then backed
toward us.

Kennedy, hat off, was at the window in a moment. There were Aunt
Josephine, and Susie Martin, also.

"Where are you boys going?" asked Elaine, with interest, then added
with a gaiety that ill concealed her real anxiety, "I'm so glad to see
you--to see that--er--nothing has happened from that dreadful Clutching
Hand."

"Why, we were just going up to our rooms," replied Kennedy.

"Can't we drive you around?"

We climbed in and a moment later were off. The ride was only too short
for Kennedy. We stepped out in front of our apartment and stood
chatting for a moment.

"Some day I want to show you the laboratory," Craig was saying.

"It must be so--interesting!" exclaimed Elaine enthusiastically. "Think
of all the bad men you must have caught!"

"I have quite a collection of stuff here at our rooms," remarked Craig,
"almost a museum. Still," he ventured, "I can't promise that the place
is in order," he laughed.

Elaine hesitated. "Would you like to see it?" she wheedled of Aunt
Josephine.

Aunt Josephine nodded acquiescence, and a moment later we all entered
the building.

"You--you are very careful since that last warning?" asked Elaine as we
approached our door.

"More than ever--now," replied Craig. "I have made up my mind to win."

She seemed to catch at the words as though they had a hidden meaning,
looking first at him and then away, not displeased.

Kennedy had started to unlock the door, when he stopped short.

"See," he said, "this is a precaution I have just installed. I almost
forgot in the excitement."

He pressed a panel and disclosed the box-like apparatus.

"This is my seismograph which tells me whether I have had any visitors
in my absence. If the pen traces a straight line, it is, all right; but
if--hello--Walter, the line is wavy."

We exchanged a significant glance.

"Would you mind--er--standing down the hall just a bit while I enter?"
asked Craig.

"Be careful," cautioned Elaine.

He unlocked the door, standing off to one side. Then he extended his
hand across the doorway. Still nothing happened. There was not a sound.
He looked cautiously into the room. Apparently there was nothing.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

It had been about the middle of the morning that an express wagon had
pulled up sharply before our apartment.

"Mr. Kennedy live here?" asked one of the expressmen, descending with
his helper and approaching our janitor, Jens Jensen, a typical Swede,
who was coming up out of the basement.

Jens growled a surly, "Yes--but Mr. Kannady, he bane out."

"Too bad--we've got this large cabinet he ordered from Grand Rapids. We
can't cart it around all day. Can't you let us in so we can leave it?"

Jensen muttered. "Wall--I guess it bane all right."

They took the cabinet off the wagon and carried it upstairs. Jensen
opened our door, still grumbling, and they placed the heavy cabinet in
the living room.

"Sign here."

"You fallers bane a nuisance," protested Jens, signing nevertheless.

Scarcely had the sound ox their footfalls died away in the outside
hallway when the door of the cabinet slowly opened and a masked face
protruded, gazing about the room.

It was the Clutching Hand!

From the cabinet he took a large package wrapped in newspapers. As he
held it, looking keenly about, his eye rested on Elaine's picture. A
moment he looked at it, then quickly at the fireplace opposite.

An idea seemed to occur to him. He took the package to the fireplace,
removed the screen, and laid the package over the andirons with one end
pointing out into the room.

Next he took from the cabinet a couple of storage batteries and a coil
of wire. Deftly and quickly he fixed them on the package.

Meanwhile, before an alleyway across the street and further down the
long block the express wagon had stopped. The driver and his helper
clambered out and for a moment stood talking in low tones, with covert
glances at our apartment. They moved into the alley and the driver drew
out a battered pair of opera glasses, levelling them at our windows.

Having completed fixing the batteries and wires, Clutching Hand ran the
wires along the moulding on the wall overhead, from the fireplace until
he was directly over Elaine's picture. Skillfully, he managed to fix
the wires, using them in place of the picture wires to support the
framed photograph. Then he carefully moved the photograph until it hung
very noticeably askew on the wall.

The last wire joined, he looked about the room, then noiselessly moved
to the window and raised the shade.

Quickly he raised his hand and brought the fingers slowly together. It
was the sign.

Off in the alley, the express driver and his helper were still gazing
up through the opera glass.

"What d'ye see, Bill?" he asked, handing over the glass.

The other took it and looked. "It's him--the Hand, Jack," whispered the
helper, handing the glasses back.

They jumped into the wagon and away it rattled.

Jensen was smoking placidly as the wagon pulled up the second time.

"Sorry," said the driver sheepishly, "but we delivered the cabinet to
the wrong Mr. Kennedy."

He pulled out the inevitable book to prove it.

"Wall, you bane fine fallers," growled Jensen, puffing like a furnace,
in his fury. "You cannot go up agane."

"We'll get fired for the mistake," pleaded the helper.

"Just this once," urged the driver, as he rattled some loose change in
his pocket. "Here--there goes a whole day's tips."

He handed Jens a dollar in small change.

Still grumpy but mollified by the silver Jens let them go up and opened
the door to our rooms again. There stood the cabinet, as outwardly
innocent as when it came in.

Lugging and tugging they managed to get the heavy piece of furniture
out and downstairs again, loading it on the wagon. Then they drove off
with it, accompanied by a parting volley from Jensen.

In an unfrequented street, perhaps half a mile away, the wagon stopped.
With a keen glance around, the driver and his helper made sure that no
one was about.

"Such a shaking up as you've given me!" growled a voice as the cabinet
door opened. "But I've got him this time!"

It was the Clutching Hand.

"There, men, you can leave me here," he ordered.

He motioned to them to drive off and, as they did so, pulled off his
masking handkerchief and dived into a narrow street leading up to a
thoroughfare.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Craig gazed into our living room cautiously.

"I can't see anything wrong," he said to me as I stood just beside him.
"Miss Dodge," he added, "will you and the rest excuse me if I ask you
to wait just a moment longer?"

Elaine watched him, fascinated. He crossed the room, then went into
each of our other rooms. Apparently nothing was wrong and a minute
later he reappeared at the doorway.

"I guess it's all right," he said. "Perhaps it was only Jensen, the
janitor."

Elaine, Aunt Josephine and Susie Martin entered. Craig placed chairs
for them, but still I could see that he was uneasy. From time to time,
while they were admiring one of our treasures after another, he glanced
about suspiciously. Finally he moved over to a closet and flung the
door open, ready for anything. No one was in the closet and he closed
it hastily.

"What is the trouble, do you think?" asked Elaine wonderingly, noticing
his manner.

"I--I can't just say," answered Craig, trying to appear easy.

She had risen and with keen interest was looking at the books, the
pictures, the queer collection of weapons and odds and ends from the
underworld that Craig had amassed in his adventures.

At last her eye wandered across the room. She caught sight of her own
picture, occupying a place of honor--but hanging askew.

"Isn't that just like a man!" she exclaimed laughingly. "Such
housekeepers as you are--such carelessness!"

She had taken a step or two across the room to straighten the picture.

"Miss Dodge!" almost shouted Kennedy, his face fairly blanched, "Stop!"

She turned, her stunning eyes filled with amazement at his suddenness.
Nevertheless she moved quickly to one side, as he waved his arms,
unable to speak quickly enough.

Kennedy stood quite still, gazing at the picture, askew, with suspicion.

"That wasn't that way when we left, was it, Walter?" he asked.

"It certainly was not," I answered positively, "There was more time
spent in getting that picture just right than I ever saw you spend on
all the rest of the room."

Craig frowned.

As for myself, I did not know what to make of it.

"I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to step into this back room," said
Craig at length to the ladies. "I'm sorry--but we can't be too careful
with this intruder, whoever he was."

They rose, surprised, but, as he continued to urge them, they moved
into my room.

Elaine, however, stopped at the door.

For a moment Kennedy appeared to be considering. Then his eye fell on a
fishing rod that stood in a corner. He took it and moved toward the
picture.

On his hands and knees, to one side, down as close as he could get to
the floor, with the rod extended at arm's length, he motioned to me to
do the same, behind him.

Elaine, unable to repress her interest took a half step forward,
breathless, from the doorway, while Susie Martin and Aunt Josephine
stood close behind her.

Carefully Kennedy reached out with the pole and straightened the
picture.

As he did so there was a flash, a loud, deafening report, and a great
puff of smoke from the fireplace.

The fire screen was riddled and overturned. A charge of buckshot
shattered the precious photograph of Elaine.

We had dropped flat on the floor at the report. I looked about. Kennedy
was unharmed, and so were the rest.

With a bound he was at the fireplace, followed by Elaine and the rest
of us. There, in what remained of a package done up roughly in
newspaper, was a shot gun with its barrel sawed off about six inches
from the lock, fastened to a block of wood, and connected to a series
of springs on the trigger, released by a little electromagnetic
arrangement actuated by two batteries and leading by wires up along the
moulding to the picture where the slightest touch would complete the
circuit.

The newspapers which were wrapped about the deadly thing were burning,
and Kennedy quickly tore them off, throwing them into the fireplace.

A startled cry from Elaine caused us to turn.

She was standing directly before her shattered picture where it hung
awry on the wall. The heavy charges of buckshot had knocked away large
pieces of paper and plaster under it.

"Craig!" she gasped.

He was at her side in a second.

She laid one hand on his arm, as she faced him. With the other she
traced an imaginary line in the air from the level of the buckshot to
his head and then straight to the infernal thing that had lain in the
fireplace.

"And to think," she shuddered, "that it was through ME that he tried to
kill you!"

"Never mind," laughed Craig easily, as they gazed into each other's
eyes, drawn together by their mutual peril, "Clutching Hand will have
to be cleverer than this to get either of us--Elaine!"




CHAPTER V

THE POISONED ROOM


Elaine and Craig were much together during the next few days.

Somehow or other, it seemed that the chase of the Clutching Hand
involved long conferences in the Dodge library and even, in fact,
extended to excursions into that notoriously crime-infested
neighborhood of Riverside Drive with its fashionable processions of
automobiles and go-carts--as far north, indeed, as that desperate haunt
known as Grant's Tomb.

More than that, these delvings into the underworld involved Kennedy in
the necessity of wearing a frock coat and silk hat in the afternoon,
and I found that he was selecting his neckwear with a care that had
been utterly foreign to him during all the years previous that I had
known him.

It all looked very suspicious to me.

But, to return to the more serious side of the affair.

Kennedy and Elaine had scarcely come out of the house and descended the
steps, one afternoon, when a sinister face appeared in a basement
areaway nearby.

The figure was crouched over, with his back humped up almost as if
deformed, and his left hand had an unmistakable twist.

It was the Clutching Hand.

He wore a telephone inspector's hat and coat and carried a bag slung by
a strap over his shoulder. For once he had left off his mask, but, in
place of it, his face was covered by a scraggly black beard. In fact,
he seemed to avoid turning his face full, three-quarters or even
profile to anyone, unless he had to do so. As much as possible he
averted it, but he did so in a clever way that made it seem quite
natural. The disguise was effective.

He saw Kennedy and Miss Dodge and slunk unobtrusively against a
railing, with his head turned away. Laughing and chatting, they passed.
As they walked down the street, Clutching Hand turned and gazed after
them. Involuntarily the menacing hand clutched in open hatred.

Then he turned in the other direction and, going up the steps of the
Dodge house, rang the bell.

"Telephone inspector," he said in a loud tone as Michael, in Jennings'
place for the afternoon, opened the door.

He accompanied the words with the sign and Michael, taking care that
the words be heard, in case anyone was listening, admitted him.

As it happened, Aunt Josephine was upstairs in Elaine's room. She was
fixing flowers in a vase on the dressing table of her idolized niece.
Meanwhile, Rusty, the collie, lay, half blinking, on the floor.

"Who is this?" she asked, as Michael led the bogus telephone inspector
into the room.

"A man from the telephone company," he answered deferentially.

Aunt Josephine, unsophisticated, allowed them to enter without a
further question.

Quickly, like a good workman, Clutching Hand went to the telephone
instrument and by dint of keeping his finger on the hook and his back
to Aunt Josephine succeeded in conveying the illusion that he was
examining it.

Aunt Josephine moved to the door. Not so, Rusty. He did not like the
looks of the stranger and he had no scruples against letting it be
known.

As she put her hand on the knob to go out into the hall, Rusty uttered
a low growl which grew into a full-lunged snarl at the Clutching Hand.
Clutching Hand kicked at him vigorously, if surreptitiously. Rusty
barked.

"Lady," he disguised his voice, "will yer please ter call off the dog?
Me and him don't seem to cotton to each other."

"Here, Rusty," she commanded, "down!"

Together Aunt Josephine and Michael removed the still protesting Rusty.

No sooner was the door shut than the Clutching Hand moved over swiftly
to it. For a few seconds, he stood gazing at them as they disappeared
down-stairs. Then he came back into the center of the room.

Hastily he opened his bag and from it drew a small powder-spraying
outfit such as I have seen used for spraying bug-powder. He then took
out a sort of muzzle with an elastic band on it and slipped it over his
head so that the muzzle protected his nose and mouth.

He seemed to work a sort of pumping attachment and from the nozzle of
the spraying instrument blew out a cloud of powder which he directed at
the wall.

The wall paper was one of those rich, fuzzy varieties and it seemed to
catch the powder. Clutching Hand appeared to be more than satisfied
with the effect.

Meanwhile, Michael, in the hallway, on guard to see that no one
bothered the Clutching Hand at his work, was overcome by curiosity to
see what his master was doing. He opened the door a little bit and
gazed stealthily through the crack into the room.

Clutching Hand was now spraying the rug close to the dressing table of
Elaine and was standing near the mirror. He stooped down to examine the
rug. Then, as he raised his head, he happened to look into the mirror.
In it he could see the full reflection of Michael behind him, gazing
into the room.

"The scoundrel!" muttered Clutching Hand, with repressed fury at the
discovery.

He rose quickly and shut off the spraying instrument, stuffing it into
the bag. He took a step or two toward the door. Michael drew back,
fearfully, pretending now to be on guard.

Clutching Hand opened the door and, still wearing the muzzle, beckoned
to Michael. Michael could scarcely control his fears. But he obeyed,
entering Elaine's room after the Clutching Hand, who locked the door.

"Were you watching me?" demanded the master criminal, with rage.

Michael, trembling all over, shook his head. For a moment Clutching
Hand looked him over disdainfully at the clumsy lie.

Then he brutally struck Michael in the face, knocking him down. An
ungovernable, almost insane fury seemed to possess the man as he stood
over the prostrate footman, cursing.

"Get up!" he ordered.

Michael obeyed, thoroughly cowed.

"Take me to the cellar, now," he demanded.

Michael led the way from the room without a protest, the master
criminal following him closely.

Down into the cellar, by a back way, they went, Clutching Hand still
wearing his muzzle and Michael saying not a word.

Suddenly Clutching Hand turned on him and seized him by the collar.

"Now, go upstairs, you," he muttered, shaking him until his teeth
fairly chattered, "and if you watch me again--I'll kill you!"

He thrust Michael away and the footman, overcome by fear, hurried
upstairs. Still trembling and fearful, Michael paused In the hallway,
looking back resentfully, for even one who is in the power of a
super-criminal is still human and has feelings that may be injured.

Michael put his hand on his face where the Clutching Hand had struck
him. There he waited, muttering to himself. As he thought it over,
anger took the place of fear. He slowly turned in the direction of the
cellar. Closing both his fists, Michael made a threatening gesture at
his master in crime.

Meanwhile, Clutching Hand was standing by the electric meter. He
examined it carefully, feeling where the wires entered and left it
starting to trace them out. At last he came to a point where it seemed
suitable to make a connection for some purpose he had in mind.

Quickly he took some wire from his bag and connected it with the
electric light wires. Next, he led these wires, concealed of course,
along the cellar floor, in the direction of the furnace.

The furnace was one of the old hot air heaters and he paused before it
as though seeking something. Then he bent down beside it and uncovered
a little tank. He took off the top on which were cast in the iron the
words:

"This tank must be kept full of water."

He thrust his hand gingerly into it, bringing it out quickly. The tank
was nearly full of water and he brought his hand out wet. It was also
hot. But he did not seem to mind that, for he shook his head with a
smile of satisfaction.

Next, from his capacious bag he took two metal poles, or electrodes,
and fastened them carefully to the ends of the wires, placing them at
opposite ends of the tank in the water.

For several moments he watched. The water inside the tank seemed the
same as before, only on each electrode there appeared bubbles, on one
bubbles of oxygen, on the other of hydrogen. The water was decomposing
under the current by electrolysis.

Another moment he surveyed his work to see that he had left no loose
ends. Then he picked up his bag and moved toward the cellar steps. As
he did so, he removed the muzzle from his nose and quietly let himself
out of the house.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

The next morning, Rusty, who had been Elaine's constant companion since
the trouble had begun, awakened his mistress by licking her hand as it
hung limply over the side of her bed.

She awakened with a start and put her hand to her head. She felt ill.

"Poor old fellow," she murmured, half dazedly, for the moment endowing
her pet with her own feelings, as she patted his faithful shaggy head.

Rusty moved away again, wagging his tail listlessly. The collie, too,
felt ill. Elaine watched him as he walked, dejected, across the room
and then lay down.

"Why, Miss Elaine--what ees ze mattair? You are so pale!" exclaimed the
maid, Marie, as she entered the room a moment later with the morning's
mail on a salver.

"I don't feel well, Marie," she replied, trying with her slender white
hand to brush the cobwebs from her brain. "I--I wish you'd tell Aunt
Josephine to telephone Dr. Hayward."

"Yes, mademoiselle," answered Marie, deftly and sympathetically
straightening out the pillows.

Languidly Elaine took the letters one by one off the salver. She looked
at them, but seemed not to have energy enough to open them.

Finally she selected one and slowly tore it open. It had no
superscription, but it at once arrested her attention and transfixed
her with terror.

It read:

"YOU ARE SICK THIS MORNING. TOMORROW YOU WILL BE WORSE. THE NEXT DAY
YOU WILL DIE UNLESS YOU DISCHARGE CRAIG KENNEDY."

It was signed by the mystic trademark of the fearsome Clutching Hand!

Elaine drew back into the pillows, horror stricken.

Quickly she called to Marie. "Go--get Aunt Josephine--right away!"

As Marie almost flew down the hall, Elaine still holding the letter
convulsively, pulled herself together and got up, trembling. She almost
seized the telephone as she called Kennedy's number.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Kennedy, in his stained laboratory apron, was at work before his table,
while I was watching him with intense interest, when the telephone rang.

Without a word he answered the call and I could see a look of
perturbation cross his face. I knew it was from Elaine, but could tell
nothing about the nature of the message.

An instant later he almost tore off the apron and threw on his hat and
coat. I followed him as he dashed out of the laboratory.

"This is terrible--terrible," he muttered, as we hurried across the
campus of the University to a taxi-cab stand.

A few minutes later, when we arrived at the Dodge mansion, we found
Aunt Josephine and Marie doing all they could under the circumstances.
Aunt Josephine had just given her a glass of water which she drank
eagerly. Rusty had, meanwhile, crawled under the bed, caring only to be
alone and undisturbed.

Dr. Hayward had arrived and had just finished taking her pulse and
temperature as our cab pulled up.

Jennings who had evidently been expecting us let us in without a word
and conducted us up to Elaine's room. We knocked.

"Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Jameson," we could hear Marie whisper in a subdued
voice.

"Tell them to come in," answered Elaine eagerly.

We entered. There she lay, beautiful as ever, but with a whiteness of
her fresh cheek that was too etherially unnatural. Elaine was quite ill
indeed.

"Oh--I'm so glad to see you," she breathed, with an air of relief as
Kennedy advanced.

"Why--what is the matter?" asked Craig, anxiously.

Dr. Hayward shook his head dubiously, but Kennedy did not notice him,
for, as he approached Elaine, she drew from the covers where she had
concealed it a letter and handed it to him.

Craig took it and read:

"YOU ARE SICK THIS MORNING. TOMORROW YOU WILL BE WORSE. THE NEXT DAY
YOU WILL DIE UNLESS YOU DISCHARGE CRAIG KENNEDY."

At the signature of the Clutching Hand he frowned, then, noticing Dr.
Hayward, turned to him and repeated his question, "What is the matter?"

Dr. Hayward continued shaking his head. "I cannot diagnose her
symptoms," he shrugged.

As I watched Kennedy's face, I saw his nostrils dilating, almost as if
he were a hound and had scented his quarry. I sniffed, too. There
seemed to be a faint odor, almost as if of garlic, in the room. It was
unmistakable and Craig looked about him curiously but said nothing.

As he sniffed, he moved impatiently and his foot touched Rusty, under
the bed. Rusty whined and moved back lazily. Craig bent over and looked
at him.

"What's the matter with Rusty?" he asked. "Is he sick, too?"

"Why--yes," answered Elaine, following Craig with her deep eyes. "Poor
Rusty. He woke me up this morning. He feels as badly as I do, poor old
fellow."

Craig reached down and gently pulled the collie out into the room.
Rusty crouched down close to the floor. His nose was hot and dry and
feverish. He was plainly ill.

"How long has Rusty been in the room?" asked Craig.

"All night," answered Elaine. "I wouldn't think of being without him
now."

Kennedy lifted the dog by his front paws. Rusty submitted patiently,
but without any spirit.

"May I take Rusty along with me?" he asked finally.

Elaine hesitated. "Surely," she said at length, "only, be gentle with
him."

Craig looked at her as though it would be impossible to be otherwise
with anything belonging to Elaine.

"Of course," he said simply. "I thought that I might be able to
discover the trouble from studying him."

We stayed only a few minutes longer, for Kennedy seemed to realize the
necessity of doing something immediately and even Dr. Hayward was
fighting in the dark. As for me, I gave it up, too. I could find no
answer to the mystery of what was the peculiar malady of Elaine.

Back in the laboratory, Kennedy set to work immediately, brushing
everything else aside. He began by drawing off a little of Rusty's
blood in a tube, very carefully.

"Here, Walter," he said pointing to the little incision he had made.
"Will you take care of him?"

I bound up the wounded leg and gave the poor beast a drink of water.
Rusty looked at me gratefully from his big sad brown eyes. He seemed to
appreciate our gentleness and to realize that we were trying to help
him.

In the meantime, Craig had taken a flask with a rubber stopper. Through
one hole in it was fitted a long funnel; through another ran a glass
tube. The tube connected with a large U-shaped drying tube filled with
calcium chloride, which, in turn, connected with a long open tube with
an upturned end.

Into the flask, Craig dropped some pure granulated zinc. Then he
covered it with dilute sulphuric acid, poured in through the funnel
tube.

"That forms hydrogen gas," he explained to me, "which passes through
the drying tube and the ignition tube. Wait a moment until all the air
is expelled from the tubes."

He lighted a match and touched it to the open, upturned end. The
hydrogen, now escaping freely, was ignited with a pale blue flame.

A few moments later, having extracted something like a serum from the
blood he had drawn off from Rusty. He added the extract to the mixture
in the flask, pouring it in, also through the funnel tube.

Almost immediately the pale, bluish flame turned to bluish white, and
white fumes were formed. In the ignition tube a sort of metallic
deposit appeared.

Quickly Craig made one test after another.

As he did so, I sniffed. There was an unmistakable odor of garlic in
the air which made me think of what I had already noticed in Elaine's
room.

"What is it?" I asked, mystified.

"Arseniuretted hydrogen," he answered, still engaged in verifying his
tests. "This is the Marsh test for arsenic."

I gazed from Kennedy to the apparatus, then to Rusty and a picture of
Elaine, pale and listless, flashed before me.

"Arsenic!" I repeated in horror.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

I had scarcely recovered from the surprise of Kennedy's startling
revelation when the telephone rang again. Kennedy seized the receiver,
thinking evidently that the message might be from or about Elaine.

But from the look on his face and from his manner, I could gather that,
although it was not from Elaine herself, it was about something that
interested him greatly. As he talked, he took his little notebook and
hastily jotted down something in it. Still, I could not make out what
the conversation was about.

"Good!" I heard him say finally. "I shall keep the
appointment--absolutely."

His face wore a peculiar puzzled look as he hung up the receiver.

"What was it?" I asked eagerly.

"It was Elaine's footman, Michael," he replied thoughtfully. "As I
suspected, he says that he is a confederate of the Clutching Hand and
if we will protect him he will tell us the trouble with Elaine."

I considered a moment. "How's that?" I queried.

"Well," added Craig, "you see, Michael has become infuriated by the
treatment he received from the Clutching Hand. I believe he cuffed him
in the face yesterday. Anyway, he says he has determined to get even
and betray him. So, after hearing how Elaine was, he slipped out of the
servant's door and looking about carefully to see that he wasn't
followed, he went straight to a drug store and called me up. He seemed
extremely nervous and fearful."

I did not like the looks of the thing, and said so. "Craig," I objected
vehemently, "don't go to meet him. It is a trap."

Kennedy had evidently considered my objection already.

"It may be a trap," he replied slowly, "but Elaine is dying and we've
got to see this thing through."

As he spoke, he took an automatic from a drawer of a cabinet and thrust
it into his pocket. Then he went to another drawer and took out several
sections of thin tubing which seemed to be made to fasten together as a
fishing pole is fastened, but were now separate, as if ready for
travelling.

"Well--are you coming, Walter?" he asked finally--the only answer to my
flood of caution.

Then he went out. I followed, still arguing.

"If YOU go, _I_ go," I capitulated. "That's all there is to it."

Following the directions that Michael had given over the telephone
Craig led me into one of the toughest parts of the lower West Side.

"Here's the place," he announced, stopping across the street from a
dingy Raines Law Hotel.

"Pretty tough," I objected. "Are you sure?"

"Quite," replied Kennedy, consulting his note book again.

"Well, I'll be hanged if I'll go in that joint," I persisted.

It had no effect on Kennedy. "Nonsense, Walter," he replied, crossing
the street.

Reluctantly I followed and we entered the place.

"I want a room," asked Craig as we were accosted by the proprietor,
comfortably clad in a loud checked suit and striped shirt sleeves. "I
had one here once before--forty-nine, I think."

"Fifty--" I began to correct.

Kennedy trod hard on my toes.

"Yes, forty-nine," he repeated.

The proprietor called a stout negro porter, waiter, and bell-hop all
combined in one, who led us upstairs.

"Fohty-nine, sah," he pointed out, as Kennedy dropped a dime into his
ready palm.

The negro left us and as Craig started to enter, I objected, "But,
Craig, it was fifty-nine, not forty-nine. This is the wrong room."

"I know it," he replied. "I had it written in the book. But I want
forty-nine--now. Just follow me, Walter."

Nervously I followed him into the room.

"Don't you understand?" he went on. "Room forty-nine is probably just
the same as fifty-nine, except perhaps the pictures and furniture, only
it is on the floor below."

He gazed about keenly. Then he took a few steps to the window and threw
it open. As he stood there he took the parts of the rods he had been
carrying and fitted them together until he had a pole some eight or ten
feet long. At one end was a curious arrangement that seemed to contain
lenses and a mirror. At the other end was an eye-piece, as nearly as I
could make out.

"What is that?" I asked as he completed his work.

"That? That is an instrument something on the order of a miniature
submarine periscope," Craig replied, still at work.

I watched him, fascinated at his resourcefulness. He stealthily thrust
the mirror end of the periscope out of the window and up toward the
corresponding window up stairs. Then he gazed eagerly through the
eye-piece.

"Walter--look!" he exclaimed to me.

I did. There, sure enough, was Michael, pacing up and down the room. He
had already preceded us. In his scared and stealthy manner, he had
entered the Raines Law hotel which announced "Furnished Rooms for
Gentlemen Only." There he had sought a room, fifty-nine, as he had said.

As he came into the room, he had looked about, overcome by the enormity
of what he was about to do. He locked the door. Still, he had not been
able to avoid gazing about fearfully, as he was doing now that we saw
him.

Nothing had happened. Yet he brushed his hand over his forehead and
breathed a sigh of relief. The air seemed to be stifling him and
already he had gone to the window and thrown it open. Then he had gazed
out as though there might be some unknown peril in the very air. He had
now drawn back from the window and was considering. He was actually
trembling. Should he flee? He whistled softly to himself to keep his
shaking fears under control. Then he started to pace up and down the
room in nervous impatience and irresolution.

As I looked at him nervously walking to and fro, I could not help
admitting that things looked safe enough and all right to me. Kennedy
folded the periscope up and we left our room, mounting the remaining
flight of stairs.

In fifty-nine we could hear the measured step of the footman. Craig
knocked. The footsteps ceased. Then the door opened slowly and I could
see a cold blue automatic.

"Look out!" I cried.

Michael in his fear had drawn a gun.

"It's all right, Michael," reassured Craig calmly. "All right, Walter,"
he added to me.

The gun dropped back into the footman's pocket. We entered and Michael
again locked the door. Not a word had been spoken by him so far.

Next Michael moved to the center of the room and, as I realized later,
brought himself in direct lines with the open window. He seemed to be
overcome with fear at his betrayal and stood there breathing heavily.

"Professor Kennedy," he began, "I have been so mistreated that I have
made up my mind to tell you all I know about this Clutching--"

Suddenly he drew a sharp breath and both his hands clutched at his own
breast. He did not stagger and fall in the ordinary manner, but seemed
to bend at the knees and waist and literally crumple down on his face.

We ran to him. Craig turned him over gently on his back and examined
him. He called. No answer. Michael was almost pulseless.

Quickly Craig tore off his collar and bared his breast, for the man
seemed to be struggling for breath. As he did so, he drew from
Michael's chest a small, sharp-pointed dart.

"What's that?" I ejaculated, horror stricken.

"A poisoned blow gun dart such as is used by the South American Indians
on the upper Orinoco," he said slowly.

He examined it carefully.

"What is the poison?" I asked.

"Curari," he replied simply. "It acts on the respiratory muscles,
paralyzing them, and causing asphyxiation."

The dart seemed to have been made of a quill with a very sharp point,
hollow, and containing the deadly poison in the sharpened end.

"Look out!" I cautioned as he handled it.

"Oh, that's all right," he answered casually. "If I don't scratch
myself, I am safe enough. I could swallow the stuff and it wouldn't
hurt me--unless I had an abrasion of the lips or some internal cut."

Kennedy continued to examine the dart until suddenly I heard a low
exclamation of surprise from him. Inside the hollow quill was a thin
sheet of tissue paper, tightly rolled. He drew it out and read:

"To know me is DEATH Kennedy--Take Warning!"

Underneath was the inevitable Clutching Hand sign.

We jumped to our feet. Kennedy rushed to the window and slammed it
shut, while I seized the key from Michael's pocket, opened the door and
called for help.

A moment before, on the roof of a building across the street, one might
have seen a bent, skulking figure. His face was copper colored and on
his head was a thick thatch of matted hair. He looked like a South
American Indian, in a very dilapidated suit of castoff American clothes.

He had slipped out through a doorway leading to a flight of steps from
the roof to the hallway of the tenement. His fatal dart sent on its
unerring mission with a precision born of long years in the South
American jungle, he concealed the deadly blow-gun in his breast pocket,
with a cruel smile, and, like one of his native venomous serpents,
wormed his way down the stairs again.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

My outcry brought a veritable battalion of aid. The hotel proprietor,
the negro waiter, and several others dashed upstairs, followed shortly
by a portly policeman, puffing at the exertion.

"What's the matter, here?" he panted. "Ye're all under arrest!"

Kennedy quietly pulled out his card case and taking the policeman aside
showed it to him.

"We had an appointment to meet this man--in that Clutching Hand case,
you know. He is Miss Dodge's footman," Craig explained.

Then he took the policeman into his confidence, showing him the dart
and explaining about the poison. The officer stared blankly.

"I must get away, too," hurried on Craig. "Officer, I will leave you to
take charge here. You can depend on me for the inquest."

The officer nodded.

"Come on, Walter," whispered Craig, eager to get away, then adding the
one word, "Elaine!"

I followed hastily, not slow to understand his fear for her.

Nor were Craig's fears groundless. In spite of all that could be done
for her, Elaine was still in bed, much weaker now than before. While we
had been gone, Dr. Hayward, Aunt Josephine and Marie were distracted.

More than that, the Clutching Hand had not neglected the opportunity,
either.

Suddenly, just before our return, a stone had come hurtling through the
window, without warning of any kind, and had landed on Elaine's bed.

Below, as we learned some time afterwards, a car had drawn up hastily
and the evil-faced crook whom the Clutching Hand had used to rid
himself of the informer, "Limpy Red," had leaped out and hurled the
stone through the window, as quickly leaping back into the car and
whisking away.

Elaine had screamed. All had reached for the stone. But she had been
the first to seize it and discover that around it was wrapped a piece
of paper on which was the ominous warning, signed as usual by the Hand:

"Michael is dead. Tomorrow, you. Then Kennedy. Stop before it is too
late."

Elaine had sunk back into her pillows, paler than ever from this second
shock, while the others, as they read the note, were overcome by alarm
and despair, at the suddenness of the thing.

It was just then that Kennedy and I arrived and were admitted.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," cried Elaine, handing him the note.

Craig took it and read. "Miss Dodge," he said, as he held the note out
to me, "you are suffering from arsenic poisoning--but I don't know yet
how it is being administered."

He gazed about keenly. Meanwhile, I had taken the crumpled note from
him and was reading it. Somehow, I had leaned against the wall. As I
turned, Craig happened to glance at me.

"For heaven's sake, Walter," I heard him exclaim. "What have you been
up against?"

He fairly leaped at me and I felt him examining my shoulder where I had
been leaning on the wall. Something on the paper had come off and had
left a white mark on my shoulder. Craig looked puzzled from me to the
wall.

"Arsenic!" he cried.

He whipped out a pocket lens and looked at the paper. "This heavy fuzzy
paper is fairly loaded with it, powdered," he reported.

I looked, too. The powdered arsenic was plainly discernible. "Yes, here
it is," he continued, standing absorbed in thought. "But why did it
work so effectively?"

He sniffed as he had before. So did I. There was still the faint smell
of garlic. Kennedy paced the room. Suddenly, pausing by the register,
an idea seemed to strike him.

"Walter," he whispered, "come down cellar with me."

"Oh--be careful," cried Elaine, anxious for him.

"I will," he called back.

As he flashed his pocket electric bull's-eye about, his gaze fell on
the electric meter. He paused before it. In spite of the fact that it
was broad daylight, it was running. His face puckered.

"They are using no current at present in the house," he ruminated. "Yet
the meter is running."

He continued to examine the meter. Then he began to follow the electric
wires along. At last he discovered a place where they had been tampered
with and tapped by other wires.

"The work of the Clutching Hand!" he muttered.

Eagerly he followed the wires to the furnace and around to the back.
There they led right into a little water tank. Kennedy yanked them out.
As he did so he pulled something with them.

"Two electrodes--the villain placed there," he exclaimed, holding them
up triumphantly for me to see.

"Y-yes," I replied dubiously, "but what does it all mean?"

"Why, don't you see? Under the influence of the electric current the
water was decomposed and gave off oxygen and hydrogen. The free
hydrogen passed up the furnace pipe and combining with the arsenic in
the wall paper formed the deadly arseniuretted hydrogen."

He cast the whole improvised electrolysis apparatus on the floor and
dashed up the cellar steps.

"I've found it!" he cried, hurrying into Elaine's room. "It's in this
room--a deadly gas--arseniuretted hydrogen."

He tore open the windows and threw them all open. "Have her moved," he
cried to Aunt Josephine. "Then have a vacuum cleaner go over every inch
of wall, carpet and upholstery."

Standing beside her, he breathlessly explained his discovery. "That
wall paper has been loaded down with arsenic, probably Paris green or
Schweinfurth green, which is aceto-arsenite of copper. Every minute you
are here, you are breathing arseniuretted hydrogen. The Clutching Hand
has cleverly contrived to introduce the nascent gas into the room. That
acts on the arsenic compounds in the wall paper and hangings and sets
free the gas. I thought I knew the smell the moment I got a whiff of
it. You are slowly being poisoned by minute quantities of the deadly
gas. This Clutching Hand is a diabolical genius. Think of it--poisoned
wall paper!"

No one said a word. Kennedy reached down and took the two Clutching
Hand messages Elaine had received. "I shall want to study these notes,
more, too," he said, holding them up to the wall at the head of the bed
as he flashed his pocket lens at them. "You see, Elaine, I may be able
to get something from studying the ink, the paper, the handwriting--"

Suddenly both leaped back, with a cry.

Their faces had been several inches apart. Something had whizzed
between them and literally impaled the two notes on the wall.

Down the street, on the roof of a carriage house, back of a neighbor's,
might have been seen the uncouth figure of the dilapidated South
American Indian crouching behind a chimney and gazing intently at the
Dodge house.

As Craig had thrown open Elaine's window and turned to Elaine, the
figure had crouched closer to his chimney.

Then with an uncanny determination he slowly raised the blow-gun to his
lips.

I jumped forward, followed by Dr. Hayward, Aunt Josephine, and Marie.
Kennedy had a peculiar look as he pulled out from the wall a blow-gun
dart similar in every way to that which had killed Michael.

"Craig!" gasped Elaine, reaching up and laying her soft white hand on
his arm in undisguised fear for him, "you--you must give up this chase
for the Clutching Hand!"

"Give up the chase for the Clutching Hand?" he repeated in surprise.
"Never! Not until either he or I is dead!"

There was both fear and admiration mingled in her look, as he reached
down and patted her dainty shoulder encouragingly.




CHAPTER VI

THE VAMPIRE


Kennedy went the next day to the Dodge house, and, as usual, Perry
Bennett was there in the library with Elaine, still going over the
Clutching Hand case, in their endeavor to track down the mysterious
master criminal.

Bennett seemed as deeply as ever in love with Elaine. Still, as
Jennings admitted Craig, it was sufficiently evident by the manner in
which Elaine left Bennett and ran to meet Craig that she had the
highest regard for him.

"I've brought you a little document that may interest you," remarked
Kennedy, reaching into his pocket and pulling out an envelope.

Elaine tore it open and looked at the paper within.

"Oh, how thoughtful of you!" she exclaimed in surprise.

It was a permit from the police made out in her name allowing her to
carry a revolver.

A moment later, Kennedy reached into his coat pocket and produced a
little automatic which he handed to her.

"Thank you," she cried eagerly.

Elaine examined the gun with interest, then, raising it, pointed it
playfully at Bennett.

"Oh--no--no!" exclaimed Kennedy, taking her arm quickly, and gently
deflecting the weapon away. "You mustn't think it is a toy. It explodes
at a mere touch of the trigger--when that safety ratchet is turned."

Bennett had realized the danger and had jumped back, almost
mechanically. As he did so, he bumped into a suit of medieval armor
standing by the wall, knocking it over with a resounding crash.

"I beg pardon," he ejaculated, "I'm very sorry. That was very awkward
of me."

Jennings, who had been busy about the portieres at the doorway, started
to pick up the fallen knight. Some of the pieces were broken, and the
three gathered about as the butler tried to fit them together again as
best he could.

"Too bad, too bad," apologized Bennett profusely. "I really forgot how
close I was to the thing."

"Oh, never mind," returned Elaine, a little crestfallen, "It is smashed
all right--but it was my fault. Jennings, send for someone to repair
it."

She turned to Kennedy. "But I do wish you would teach me how to use
this thing," she added, touching the automatic gingerly.

"Gladly," he returned.

"Won't you join us, Mr. Bennett?" asked Elaine.

"No," the young lawyer smiled, "I'm afraid I can't. You see, I had an
engagement with another client and I'm already late."

He took his hat and coat and, with a reluctant farewell, moved toward
the hallway.

A moment later Elaine and Craig followed, while Jennings finished
restoring the armor as nearly as possible as it had been.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

It was late that night that a masked figure succeeded in raising itself
to the narrow ornamental ledge under Elaine's bedroom window.

Elaine was a light sleeper and, besides, Rusty, her faithful collie,
now fully recovered from the poison, was in her room.

Rusty growled and the sudden noise wakened her.

Startled, Elaine instantly thought of the automatic. She reached under
her pillow, keeping very quiet, and drew forth the gun that Craig had
given her. Stealthily concealing her actions under the covers, she
levelled the automatic at the figure silhouetted in her window and
fired three times.

The figure fell back.

Down in the street, below, the assistant of the Clutching Hand who had
waited while Taylor Dodge was electrocuted, was waiting now as his
confederate, "Pitts Slim"--which indicated that he was both wiry in
stature and libellous in delegating his nativity--made the attempt.

As Slim came tumbling down, having fallen back from the window above,
mortally wounded, the confederate lifted him up and carried him out of
sight hurriedly.

Elaine, by this time, had turned on the lights and had run to the
window to look out. Rusty was barking loudly.

In a side street, nearby, stood a waiting automobile, at the wheel of
which sat another of the emissaries of the Clutching Hand. The driver
looked up, startled, as he saw his fellow hurry around the corner
carrying the wounded Pitts Slim. It was the work of just a moment to
drop the wounded man, as comfortably as possible under the
circumstances, in the rear seat, while his pals started the car off
with a jerk in the hurry of escape.

Jennings, having hastily slipped his trousers on over his pajamas came
running down the hall, while Marie, frightened, came in the other
direction. Aunt Josephine appeared a few seconds later, adding to the
general excitement.

"What's the matter?" she asked, anxiously.

"A burglar, I think," exclaimed Elaine, still holding the gun in her
hand. "Someone tried to get into my window."

"My gracious," cried Aunt Josephine, in alarm, "where will this thing
end?"

Elaine was doing her best now to quiet the fears of her aunt and the
rest of the household.

"Well," she laughed, a little nervously, now that it was all over, "I
want you all to go to bed and stop worrying about me. Don't you see,
I'm perfectly able to take care of myself? Besides, there isn't a
chance, now, of the burglar coming back. Why, I shot him."

"Yes," put in Aunt Josephine, "but--"

Elaine laughingly interrupted her and playfully made as though she were
driving them out of her room, although they were all very much
concerned over the affair. However, they went finally, and she locked
the door.

"Rusty!" she called, "Down there!"

The intelligent collie seemed to understand. He lay down by the
doorway, his nose close to the bottom of the door and his ears alert.

Finally Elaine, too, retired again.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Meanwhile the wounded man was being hurried to one of the hangouts of
the mysterious Clutching Hand, an old-fashioned house in the
Westchester suburbs. It was a carefully hidden place, back from the
main road, surrounded by trees, with a driveway leading up to it.

The car containing the wounded Pitts Slim drew up and the other two men
leaped out of it. With a hurried glance about, they unlocked the front
door with a pass-key and entered, carrying the man.

Indoors was another emissary of the Clutching Hand, a rather studious
looking chap.

"Why, what's the matter?" he exclaimed, as the crooks entered his room,
supporting their half-fainting, wounded pal.

"Slim got a couple of pills," they panted, as they laid him on a couch.

"How?" demanded the other.

"Trying to get into the Dodge house. Elaine did it."

Slim was, quite evidently, badly wounded and was bleeding profusely. A
glance at him was enough for the studious-looking chap. He went to a
secret panel and, pressing it down, took out what was apparently a
house telephone.

In another part of this mysterious house was the secret room of the
Clutching Hand himself where he hid his identity from even his most
trusted followers. It was a small room, lined with books on every
conceivable branch of science that might aid him and containing
innumerable little odds and ends of paraphernalia that might help in
his nefarious criminal career.

His telephone rang and he took down the receiver.

"Pitts Slim's been wounded--badly--Chief," was all he waited to hear.

With scarcely a word, he hung up the receiver, then opened a table
drawer and took out his masking handkerchief. Next he went to a nearby
bookcase, pressed another secret spring, and a panel opened. He passed
through, the handkerchief adjusted.

Across, in the larger, outside study, another panel opened and the
Clutching Hand, all crouched up, transformed, appeared. Without a word
he advanced to the couch on which the wounded crook lay and examined
him.

"How did it happen?" he asked at length.

"Miss Dodge shot him," answered the others, "with an automatic."

"That Craig Kennedy must have given it to her!" he exclaimed with
suppressed fury.

For a moment the Clutching Hand stopped to consider. Then he seized the
regular telephone.

"Dr. Morton?" he asked as he got the number he called.

Late as it was the doctor, who was a well-known surgeon in that part of
the country, answered, apparently from an extension of his telephone
near his bed.

The call was urgent and apparently from a family which he did not feel
that he could neglect.

"Yes, I'll be there--in a few moments," he yawned, hanging up the
receiver and getting out of bed.

Dr. Morton was a middle-aged man, one of those medical men in whose
judgment one instinctively relies. From the brief description of the
"hemorrhage" which the Clutching Hand had cleverly made over the wire,
he knew that a life was at stake. Quickly he dressed and went out to
his garage, back of the house to get his little runabout.

It was only a matter of minutes before the doctor was speeding over the
now deserted suburban roads, apparently on his errand of mercy.

At the address that had been given him, he drew up to the side of the
road, got out and ran up the steps to the door. A ring at the bell
brought a sleepy man to the door, in his trousers and nightshirt.

"How's the patient?" asked Dr. Morton, eagerly.

"Patient?" repeated the man, rubbing his eyes. "There's no one sick
here."

"Then what did you telephone for?" asked the doctor peevishly,

"Telephone? I didn't call up anyone, I was asleep."

Slowly it dawned on the doctor that it was a false alarm and that he
must be the victim of some practical joke.

"Well, that's a great note," he growled, as the man shut the door.

He descended the steps, muttering harsh language at some unknown
trickster. As he climbed back into his machine and made ready to start,
two men seemed to rise before him, as if from nowhere.

As a matter of fact, they had been sent there by the Clutching Hand and
were hiding in a nearby cellar way until their chance came.

One man stood on the running board, on either side of him, and two guns
yawned menacingly at him.

"Drive ahead--that way!" muttered one man, seating himself in the
runabout with his gun close to the doctor's ribs.

The other kept his place on the running board, and on they drove in the
direction of the mysterious, dark house. Half a mile, perhaps, down the
road, they halted and left the car beside the walk.

Dr. Morton was too surprised to marvel at anything now and he realized
that he was in the power of two desperate men. Quickly, they
blindfolded him.

It seemed an interminable walk, as they led him about to confuse him,
but at last he could feel that they had taken him into a house and
along passageways, which they were making unnecessarily long in order
to destroy all recollection that they could. Finally he knew that he
was in a room in which others were present. He suppressed a shudder at
the low, menacing voices.

A moment later he felt them remove the bandage from his eyes, and,
blinking at the light, he could see a hard-faced fellow, pale and weak,
on a blood-stained couch. Over him bent a masked man and another man
stood nearby, endeavoring by improvised bandages to stop the flow of
blood.

"What can you do for this fellow?" asked the masked man.

Dr. Morton, seeing nothing else to do, for he was more than outnumbered
now, bent down and examined him.

As he rose, he said, "He will be dead from loss of blood by morning, no
matter if he is properly bandaged."

"Is there nothing that can save him?" whispered the Clutching Hand
hoarsely.

"Blood transfusion might save him," replied the Doctor. "But so much
blood would be needed that whoever gives it would be liable to die
himself."

Clutching Hand stood silent a moment, thinking, as he gazed at the man
who had been one of his chief reliances. Then, with a menacing gesture,
he spoke in a low, bitter tone.

"SHE WHO SHOT HIM SHALL SUPPLY THE BLOOD."

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

A few quick directions followed to his subordinates, and as he made
ready to go, he muttered, "Keep the doctor here. Don't let him stir
from the room."

Then, with the man who had aided him in the murder of Taylor Dodge, he
sallied out into the blackness that precedes dawn.

It was just before early daybreak when the Clutching Hand and his
confederate reached the Dodge House in the city and came up to the back
door, over the fences. As they stood there, the Clutching Hand produced
a master key and started to open the door. But before he did so, he
took out his watch.

"Let me see," he ruminated. "Twenty minutes past four. At exactly half
past, I want you to do as I told you--see?"

The other crook nodded.

"You may go," ordered the Clutching Hand.

As the crook slunk away, Clutching Hand stealthily let himself into the
house. Noiselessly he prowled through the halls until he came to
Elaine's doorway.

He gave a hasty look up and down the hall. There was no sound. Quickly
he took a syringe from his pocket and bent down by the door. Inserting
the end under it, he squirted some liquid through which vaporized
rapidly in a wide, fine stream of spray. Before he could give an alarm,
Rusty was overcome by the noxious fumes, rolled over on his back and
lay still.

Outside, the other crook was waiting, looking at his watch. As the hand
slowly turned the half hour, he snapped the watch shut. With a quick
glance up and down the deserted street, he deftly started up the rain
pipe that passed near Elaine's window.

This time there was no faithful Rusty to give warning and the second
intruder, after a glance at Elaine, still sleeping, went quickly to the
door, dragged the insensible dog out of the way, turned the key and
admitted the Clutching Hand. As he did so he closed the door.

Evidently the fumes had not reached Elaine, or if they had, the inrush
of fresh air revived her, for she waked and quickly reached for the
gun. In an instant the other crook had leaped at her. Holding his hand
over her mouth to prevent her screaming he snatched the revolver away
before she could fire it.

In the meantime the Clutching Hand had taken out some chloroform and,
rolling a towel in the form of a cone, placed it over her face. She
struggled, gasping and gagging, but the struggles grew weaker and
weaker and finally ceased altogether.

When Elaine was completely under the influence of the drug, they lifted
her out of bed, the chloroform cone still over her face, and quietly
carried her to the door which they opened stealthily.

Downstairs they carried her until they came to the library with its new
safe and there they placed her on a couch.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

At an early hour an express wagon stopped before the Dodge house and
Jennings, half dressed, answered the bell.

"We've come for that broken suit of armor to be repaired," said a
workman.

Jennings let the men in. The armor was still on the stand and the
repairers took armor, stand, and all, laying it on the couch where they
wrapped it in the covers they had brought for the purpose. They lifted
it up and started to carry it out.

"Be careful," cautioned the thrifty Jennings.

Rusty, now recovered, was barking and sniffing at the armor.

"Kick the mutt off," growled one man.

The other did so and Rusty snarled and snapped at him. Jennings took
him by the collar and held him as the repairers went out, loaded the
armor on the wagon, and drove off.

Scarcely had they gone, while Jennings straightened out the disarranged
library, when Rusty began jumping about, barking furiously. Jennings
looked at him in amazement, as the dog ran to the window and leaped out.

He had no time to look after the dog, though, for at that very instant
he heard a voice calling, "Jennings! Jennings!"

It was Marie, almost speechless. He followed her as she led the way to
Miss Elaine's room. There Marie pointed mutely at the bed.

Elaine was not there.

There, too, were her clothes, neatly folded, as Marie had hung them for
her.

"Something must have happened to her!" wailed Marie.

Jennings was now thoroughly alarmed.

Meanwhile the express wagon outside was driving off, with Rusty tearing
after it.

"What's the matter?" cried Aunt Josephine coming in where the footman
and the maid were arguing what was to be done.

She gave one look at the bed, the clothes, and the servants.

"Call Mr. Kennedy!" she cried in alarm.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

"Elaine is gone--no one knows how or where," announced Craig as he
leaped out of bed that morning to answer the furious ringing of our
telephone bell.

It was very early, but Craig dressed hurriedly and I followed as best I
could, for he had the start of me, tieless and collarless.

When we arrived at the Dodge house, Aunt Josephine and Marie were fully
dressed. Jennings let us in.

"What has happened?" demanded Kennedy breathlessly.

While Aunt Josephine tried to tell him, Craig was busy examining the
room.

"Let us see the library," he said at length.

Accordingly down to the library we went. Kennedy looked about. He
seemed to miss something.

"Where is the armor?" he demanded.

"Why, the men came for it and took it away to repair," answered
Jennings.

Kennedy's brow clouded in deep thought.

Outside we had left our taxi, waiting. The door was open and a new
footman, James, was sweeping the rug, when past him flashed a
dishevelled hairy streak.

We were all standing there still as Craig questioned Jennings about the
armor. With a yelp Rusty tore frantically into the room. A moment he
stopped and barked. We all looked at him in surprise. Then, as no one
moved, he seemed to single out Kennedy. He seized Craig's coat in his
teeth and tried to drag him out.

"Here, Rusty--down, sir, down!" called Jennings.

"No, Jennings, no," interposed Craig. "What's the matter, old fellow?"

Craig patted Rusty whose big brown eyes seemed mutely appealing. Out of
the doorway he went, barking still. Craig and I followed while the rest
stood in the vestibule.

Rusty was trying to lead Kennedy down the street!

"Wait here," called Kennedy to Aunt Josephine, as he stepped with me on
the running board of the cab. "Go on, Rusty, good dog!"

Rusty needed no urging. With an eager yelp he started off, still
barking, ahead of us, our car following. On we went, much to the
astonishment of those who were on the street at such an early hour.

It seemed miles that we went, but at last we came to a peculiarly
deserted looking house. Here Rusty turned in and began scratching at
the door. We jumped off the cab and followed.

The door was locked when we tried and from inside we could get no
answer. We put our shoulders to it and burst it in. Rusty gave a leap
forward with a joyous bark.

We followed, more cautiously. There were pieces of armor strewn all
over the floor. Rusty sniffed at them and looked about, disappointed,
then howled.

I looked from the armor to Kennedy, in blank amazement.

"Elaine was kidnapped--in the armor," he cried.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

He was right. Meanwhile, the armor repairers had stopped at last at
this apparently deserted house, a strange sort of repair shop. Still
keeping it wrapped in blankets, they had taken the armor out of the
wagon and now laid it down on an old broken bed. Then they had
unwrapped it and taken off the helmet.

There was Elaine!

She had been stupefied, bound and gagged. Piece after piece of the
armor they removed, finding her still only half conscious.

"Sh! What's that?" cautioned one of the men. They paused and listened.
Sure enough, there was a sound outside. They opened the window
cautiously. A dog was scratching on the door, endeavoring to get in. It
was Rusty.

"I think it's her dog," said the man, turning. "We'd better let him in.
Someone might see him."

The other nodded and a moment later the door opened and in ran Rusty.
Straight to Elaine he went, starting to lick her hand.

"Right--her dog," exclaimed the other man, drawing a gun and hastily
levelling it at Rusty.

"Don't!" cautioned the first. "It would make too much noise. You'd
better choke him!"

The fellow grabbed for Rusty. Rusty was too quick. He jumped. Around
the room they ran. Rusty saw the wide open window--and his chance. Out
he went and disappeared, leaving the man cussing at him.

A moment's argument followed, then they wrapped Elaine in the blankets
alone, still bound and gagged, and carried her out.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

In the secret den, the Clutching Hand was waiting, gazing now and then
at his watch, and then at the wounded man before him. In a chair his
first assistant sat, watching Dr. Morton.

A knock at the door caused them to turn their heads. The crook opened
it and in walked the other crooks who had carried off Elaine in the
suit of armor.

Elaine was now almost conscious, as they sat her down in a chair and
partly loosed her bonds and the gag. She gazed about, frightened.

"Oh--help! help!" she screamed as she caught sight of the now familiar
mask of the Clutching Hand.

"Call all you want--here, young lady," he laughed unnaturally. "No one
can hear. These walls are soundproof!"

Elaine shrank back.

"Now, doc.," he added harshly to Dr. Morton. "It was she who shot him.
Her blood must save him."

Dr. Morton recoiled at the thought of torturing the beautiful young
girl before him.

"Are--you willing--to have your blood transfused?" he parleyed.

"No--no--no!" she cried in horror,

Dr. Morton turned to the desperate criminal. "I cannot do it."

"The deuce you can't!" A cold steel revolver pressed down on Dr.
Morton's stomach. In the other hand the master crook held his watch.

"You have just one minute to make up your mind."

Dr. Morton shrank back. The revolver followed. The pressure of a fly's
foot meant eternity for him.

"I--I'll try!"

The other crooks next carried Elaine, struggling, and threw her down
beside the wounded man. Together they arranged another couch beside him.

Dr. Morton, still covered by the gun, bent over the two, the hardened
criminal and the delicate, beautiful girl. Clutching Hand glared
fiendishly, insanely.

From his bag he took a little piece of something that shone like
silver. It was in the form of a minute, hollow cylinder, with two
grooves on it, a cylinder so tiny that it would scarcely have slipped
over the point of a pencil.

"A cannulla," he explained, as he prepared to make an incision in
Elaine's arm and in the arm of the wounded rogue.

He cuffed it over the severed end of the artery, so cleverly that the
inner linings of the vein and artery, the endothelium as it is called,
were in complete contact with each other.

Clutching Hand watched eagerly, as though he had found some new,
scientific engine of death in the little hollow cylinder.

A moment and the blood that was, perhaps, to save the life of the
wounded felon was coursing into his veins from Elaine.

A moment later, Dr. Morton looked up at the Clutching Hand and nodded,
"Well, it's working!"

At Elaine's head, Clutching Hand himself was administering just enough
ether to keep her under and prevent a struggle that would wreck all.
The wounded man had not been anesthetized and seemed feebly conscious
of what was being done to save him.

All were now bending over the two.

Dr. Morton bent closest over Elaine. He looked at her anxiously, felt
her pulse, watched her breathing, then pursed up his lips.

"This is--dangerous," he ventured, gazing askance at the grim Clutching
Hand.

"Can't help it," came back laconically and relentlessly.

The doctor shuddered.

The man was a veritable vampire!

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Outside the deserted house, Kennedy and I were looking helplessly about.

Suddenly Kennedy dashed back and reappeared a minute later with a
couple of pieces of armor. He held them down to Rusty and the dog
sniffed at them.

But Rusty stood still.

Kennedy pointed to the ground.

Nothing doing. In leading us where he had been before, Rusty had
reached the end of his canine ability.

Everything we could do to make Rusty understand that we wanted him to
follow a trail was unavailing. He simply could not do it. Kennedy
coaxed and scolded. Rusty merely sat up on his hind legs and begged
with those irresistible brown eyes.

"You can't make a bloodhound out of a collie," despaired Craig, looking
about again helplessly.

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a police whistle. He
blew three sharp blasts.

Would it bring help?

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

While we were thus despairing, the continued absence of Dr. Morton from
home had alarmed his family and had set in motion another train of
events.

When he did not return, and could not be located at the place to which
he was supposed to have gone, several policemen had been summoned to
his house, and they had come, finally, with real bloodhounds from a
suburban station.

There were the tracks of his car. That the police themselves could
follow, while two men came along holding in leash the pack, leaders of
which were "Searchlight" and "Bob."

It had not been long before the party came across the deserted runabout
beside the road. There they had stopped, for a moment.

It was just then that they heard Kennedy's call, and one of them had
been detailed to answer it.

"Well, what do YOU want?" asked the officer, eyeing Kennedy
suspiciously as he stood there with the armor. "What's them pieces of
tin--hey?"

Kennedy quickly flashed his own special badge. "I want to trail a
girl," he exclaimed hurriedly. "Can I find a bloodhound about here?"

"A hound? Why, we have a pack--over there."

"Bring them--quick!" ordered Craig.

The policeman, who was an intelligent fellow, saw at once that, as
Kennedy said, the two trails probably crossed. He shouted and in a few
seconds the others, with the pack, came.

A brief parley resulted in our joining forces.

Kennedy held the armor down to the dogs. "Searchlight" gave a low
whine, then, followed by "Bob" and the others, was off, all with noses
close to the ground. We followed.

The armor was, after all, the missing link.

Through woods and fields the dogs led us.

Would we be in time to rescue Elaine?

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

In the mysterious haunt of the Clutching Hand, all were still standing
around Elaine and the wounded Pitts Slim.

Just then a cry from one of the group startled the rest. One of them,
less hardened than the Clutching Hand, had turned away from the sight,
had gone to the window, and had been attracted by something outside.

"Look!" he cried.

From the absolute stillness of death, there was now wild excitement
among the crooks.

"Police! Police!" they shouted to each other as they fled by a doorway
to a secret passage.

Clutching Hand turned to his first assistant.

"You--go--too," he ordered.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

The dogs had led us to a strange looking house, and were now baying and
leaping up against the door. We did not stop to knock, but began to
break through, for inside we could hear faintly sounds of excitement
and cries of "Police--police!"

The door yielded and we rushed into a long hallway. Up the passage we
went until we came to another door.

An instant and we were all against it. It was stout, but it shook
before us. The panels began to yield.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

On the other side of that door from us, the master crook stood for a
moment. Dr. Morton hesitated, not knowing quite what to do.

Just then the wounded Pitts Slim lifted his hand feebly. He seemed
vaguely to understand that the game was up. He touched the Clutching
Hand.

"You did your best, Chief," he murmured thickly. "Beat it, if you can.
I'm a goner, anyway."

Clutching Hand hesitated by the wounded crook. This was the loyalty of
gangland, worthy a better cause. He could not bring himself to desert
his pal. He was undecided, still.

But there was the door, bulging, and a panel bursting.

He moved over to a panel in the wall and pushed a spring. It slid open
and he stepped through. Then it closed--not a second too soon.

Back in his private room, he quickly stepped to a curtained iron door.
Pushing back the curtains, he went through it and disappeared, the
curtains falling back.

At the end of the passageway, he stopped, in a sort of grotto or cave.
As he came out, he looked back. All was still. No one was about. He was
safe here, at least!

Off came the mask and he turned down the road a few rods distant beyond
some bushes, as little concerned about the wild happenings as any other
passer-by might have been.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

At the very moment when we burst in, Dr. Morton, seeing his chance,
stopped the blood transfusion, working frantically to stop the flow of
blood.

Kennedy sprang to Elaine's side, horrified by the blood that had
spattered over everything.

With a mighty effort he checked a blow that he had aimed at Dr. Morton,
as it flashed over him that the surgeon, now free again, was doing his
best to save the terribly imperilled life of Elaine.

Just then the police burst through the secret panel and rushed on,
leaving us alone, with the unconscious, scarcely breathing Elaine. From
the sounds we could tell that they had come to the private room of the
Clutching Hand. It was empty and they were non-plussed.

"Not a window!" called one.

"What are those curtains?"

They pulled them back, disclosing an iron door. They tried it but it
was bolted on the other side. Blows had no effect. They had to give it
up for the instant.

A policeman now stood beside Elaine and the wounded burglar who was
muttering deliriously to himself.

He was pretty far gone, as the policeman knelt down and tried to get a
statement out of him.

"Who was that man who left you--last--the Clutching Hand?"

Not a word came from the crook.

The policeman repeated his question.

With his last strength, he looked disdainfully at the officer's pad and
pencil. "The gangster never squeals," he snarled, as he fell back.

Dr. Morton had paid no attention whatever to him, but was working
desperately now over Elaine, trying to bring her back to life.

"Is she--going to--die?" gasped Craig, frantically.

Every eye was riveted on Dr. Morton.

"She is all right," he muttered. "But the man is going to die."

At the sound of Craig's voice Elaine had feebly opened her eyes.

"Thank heaven," breathed Craig, with a sigh of relief, as his hand
gently stroked Elaine's unnaturally cold forehead.




CHAPTER VII

THE DOUBLE TRAP


Mindful of the sage advice that a time of peace is best employed in
preparing for war, I was busily engaged in cleaning my automatic gun
one morning as Kennedy and I were seated in our living room.

Our door buzzer sounded and Kennedy, always alert, jumped up, pushing
aside a great pile of papers which had accumulated in the Dodge case.

Two steps took him to the wall where the day before he had installed a
peculiar box about four by six inches long connected in some way with a
lens-like box of similar size above our bell and speaking tube in the
hallway below. He opened it, disclosing an oblong plate of ground glass.

"I thought the seismograph arrangement was not quite enough after that
spring-gun affair," he remarked, "so I have put in a sort of teleview
of my own invention--so that I can see down into the vestibule
downstairs. Well--just look who's here!"

"Some new fandangled periscope arrangement, I suppose?" I queried
moving slowly over toward it.

However, one look was enough to interest me. I can express it only in
slang. There, framed in the little thing, was a vision of as swell a
"chicken" as I have ever seen.

I whistled under my breath.

"Um!" I exclaimed shamelessly, "A peach! Who's your friend?"

I had never said a truer word than in my description of her, though I
did not know it at the time. She was indeed known as "Gertie the Peach"
in the select circle to which she belonged.

Gertie was very attractive, though frightfully over-dressed. But, then,
no one thinks anything of that now, in New York.

Kennedy had opened the lower door and our fair visitor was coming
upstairs. Meanwhile he was deeply in thought before the "teleview." He
made up his mind quickly, however.

"Go in there, Walter," he said, seizing me quickly and pushing me into
my room. "I want you to wait there and watch her carefully."

I slipped the gun into my pocket and went, just as a knock at the door
told me she was outside.

Kennedy opened the door, disclosing a very excited young woman.

"Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried, all in one breath, with much
emotion, "I'm so glad I found you in. I can't tell you. Oh--my jewels!
They have been stolen--and my husband must not know of it. Help me to
recover them--please!"

She had not paused, but had gone on in a wild, voluble explanation.

"Just a moment, my dear young lady," interrupted Craig, finding at last
a chance to get a word in edgewise. "Do you see that table--and all
those papers? Really, I can't take your case. I am too busy as it is
even to take the cases of many of my own clients."

"But, please, Professor Kennedy--please!" she begged. "Help me. It
means--oh, I can't tell you how much it means to me!"

She had come close to him and had laid her warm, little soft hand on
his, in ardent entreaty.

From my hiding place in my room, I could not help seeing that she was
using every charm of her sex and personality to lure him on, as she
clung confidingly to him. Craig was very much embarrassed, and I could
not help a smile at his discomfiture. Seriously, I should have hated to
have been in his position.

Gertie had thrown her arms about Kennedy, as if in wildest devotion. I
wondered what Elaine would have thought, if she had a picture of that!

"Oh," she begged him, "please--please, help me!"

Still Kennedy seemed utterly unaffected by her passionate embrace.
Carefully he loosened her fingers from about his neck and removed the
plump, enticing arms.

Gertie sank into a chair, weeping, while Kennedy stood before her a
moment in deep abstraction.

Finally he seemed to make up his mind to something. His manner toward
her changed. He took a step to her side.

"I WILL help you," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. "If it is
possible I will recover your jewels. Where do you live?"

"At Hazlehurst," she replied, gratefully. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, how can I
ever thank you?"

She seemed overcome with gratitude and took his hand, pressed it, even
kissed it.

"Just a minute," he added, carefully extricating his hand. "I'll be
ready in just a minute."

Kennedy entered the room where I was listening.

"What's it all about, Craig?" I whispered, mystified.

For a moment he stood thinking, apparently reconsidering what he had
just done. Then his second thought seemed to approve it.

"This is a trap of the Clutching Hand, Walter," he whispered, adding
tensely, "and we're going to walk right into it."

I looked at him in amazement.

"But, Craig," I demurred, "that's foolhardy. Have her
trailed--anything--but---"

He shook his head and with a mere motion of his hand brushed aside my
objections as he went to a cabinet across the room.

From one shelf he took out a small metal box and from another a test
tube, placing the test tube in his waistcoat pocket, and the small box
in his coatpocket, with excessive care.

Then he turned and motioned to me to follow him out into the other
room. I did so, stuffing my "gatt" into my pocket.

"Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson," said Craig, presenting me to
the pretty crook.

The introduction quickly over, we three went out to get Craig's car
which he kept at a nearby garage.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

That forenoon, Perry Bennett was reading up a case. In the outer office
Milton Schofield, his office boy, was industriously chewing gum and
admiring his feet cocked up on the desk before him.

The door to the waiting room opened and an attractive woman of perhaps
thirty, dressed in extreme mourning, entered with a boy.

Milton cast a glance of scorn at the "little dude." He was in reality
about fourteen years old but was dressed to look much younger.

Milton took his feet down in deference to the lady, but snickered
openly at the boy. A fight seemed imminent.

"Did you wish to see Mr. Bennett?" asked the precocious Milton politely
on one hand while on the other he made a wry grimace.

"Yes--here is my card," replied the woman.

It was deeply bordered in black. Even Milton was startled at reading
it: "Mrs. Taylor Dodge."

He looked at the woman in open-mouthed astonishment. Even he knew that
Elaine's mother had been dead for years.

The woman, however, true to her name in the artistic coterie in which
she was leader, had sunk into a chair and was sobbing convulsively, as
only "Weepy Mary" could.

It was so effective that even Milton was visibly moved. He took the
card in, excitedly, to Bennett.

"There's a woman outside--says she is Mrs. Dodge!" he cried.

If Milton had had an X-ray eye he could have seen her take a cigarette
from her handbag and light it nonchalantly the moment he was gone.

As for Bennett, Milton, who was watching him closely, thought he was
about to discharge him on the spot for bothering him. He took the card,
and his face expressed the most extreme surprise, then anger. He
thought a moment.

"Tell that woman to state her business in writing," he thundered curtly
at Milton.

As the boy turned to go back to the waiting room, Weepy Mary, hearing
him coming, hastily shoved the cigarette into her "son's" hand.

"Mr. Bennett says for you to write out what it is you want to see him
about," reported Milton, indicating the table before which she was
sitting.

Mary had automatically taken up sobbing, with the release of the
cigarette. She looked at the table on which were letter paper, pens and
ink.

"I may write here?" she asked.

"Surely, ma'am," replied Milton, still very much overwhelmed by her
sorrow.

Weepy Mary sat there, writing and sobbing.

In the midst of his sympathy, however, Milton sniffed. There was an
unmistakable odor of tobacco smoke about the room. He looked sharply at
the "son" and discovered the still smoking cigarette.

It was too much for Milton's outraged dignity. Bennett did not allow
him that coveted privilege. This upstart could not usurp it.

He reached over and seized the boy by the arm and swung him around till
he faced a sign in the corner on the wall.

"See?" he demanded.

The sign read courteously:

  "No Smoking in This Office--Please.   "PERRY BENNETT."

"Leggo my arm," snarled the "son," putting the offending cigarette
defiantly into his mouth.

Milton coolly and deliberately reached over and, with an exaggerated
politeness swiftly and effectively removed it, dropping it on the floor
and stamping defiantly on it.

"Son" raised his fists pugnaciously, for he didn't care much for the
role he was playing, anyhow.

Milton did the same.

There was every element of a gaudy mix-up, when the outer door of the
office suddenly swung open and Elaine Dodge entered.

Gallantry was Milton's middle name and he sprang forward to hold the
door, and then opened Bennett's door, as he ushered in Elaine.

As she passed "Weepy Mary," who was still writing at the table and
crying bitterly, Elaine hesitated and looked at her curiously. Even
after Milton had opened Bennett's door, she could not resist another
glance. Instinctively Elaine seemed to scent trouble.

Bennett was still studying the black-bordered card, when she greeted
him.

"Who is that woman?" she asked, still wondering about the identity of
the Niobe outside.

At first he said nothing. But finally, seeing that she had noticed it,
he handed Elaine the card, reluctantly.

Elaine read it with a gasp. The look of surprise that crossed her face
was terrible.

Before she could say anything, however, Milton had returned with the
sheet of paper on which "Weepy Mary" had written and handed it to
Bennett.

Bennett read it with uncontrolled astonishment.

"What is it?" demanded Elaine.

He handed it to her and she read:

"As the lawful wife and widow of Taylor Dodge, I demand my son's rights
and my own.

"MRS. TAYLOR DODGE."

Elaine gasped at it.

"She--my father's wife!" she exclaimed, "What effrontery! What does she
mean?"

Bennett hesitated.

"Tell me," Elaine cried, "Is there--can there be anything in it?
No--no--there isn't!"

Bennett spoke in a low tone. "I have heard a whisper of some scandal or
other connected with your father--but--" He paused.

Elaine was first shocked, then indignant.

"Why--such a thing is absurd. Show the woman in!"

"No--please--Miss Dodge. Let me deal with her."

By this time Elaine was furious.

"Yes--I WILL see her."

She pressed the button on Bennett's desk and Milton responded.

"Milton, show the--the woman in," she ordered, "and that boy, too."

As Milton turned to crook his finger at "Weepy Mary," she nodded
surreptitiously and dug her fingers sharply into "son's" ribs.

"Yell--you little fool,--yell," she whispered.

Obedient to his "mother's" commands, and much to Milton's disgust, the
boy started to cry in close imitation of his elder.

Elaine was still holding the paper in her hands when they entered.

"What does all this mean?" she demanded.

"Weepy Mary," between sobs, managed to blurt out, "You are Miss Elaine
Dodge, aren't you? Well, it means that your father married me when I
was only seventeen and this boy is his son--your half brother."

"No--never," cried Elaine vehemently, unable to restrain her disgust.
"He never married again. He was too devoted to the memory of my mother."

"Weepy Mary" smiled cynically. "Come with me and I will show you the
church records and the minister who married us."

"You will?" repeated Elaine defiantly. "Well, I'll just do as you ask.
Mr. Bennett shall go with me."

"No, no, Miss Dodge--don't go. Leave the matter to me," urged Bennett.
"I will take care of HER. Besides, I must be in court in twenty
minutes."

Elaine paused, but she was thoroughly aroused.

"Then I will go with her myself," she cried defiantly.

In spite of every objection that Bennett made, "Weepy Mary," her son,
and Elaine went out to call a taxicab to take them to the railroad
station where they could catch a train to the little town where the
woman asserted she had been married.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Meanwhile, before a little country church in the town, a closed
automobile had drawn up.

As the door opened, a figure, humped up and masked, alighted.

It was the Clutching Hand.

The car had scarcely pulled away, when he gave a long rap, followed by
two short taps, at the door of the vestry, a secret code, evidently.

Inside the vestry room a well-dressed man but with a very sinister face
heard the knock and a second later opened the door.

"What--not ready yet?" growled the Clutching Hand. "Quick--now--get on
those clothes. I heard the train whistle as I came in the car. In which
closet does the minister keep them?"

The crook, without a word, went to a closet and took out a suit of
clothes of ministerial cut. Then he hastily put them on, adding some
side-whiskers, which he had brought with him.

At about the same time, Elaine, accompanied by "Weepy Mary" and her
"son," had arrived at the little tumble-down station and had taken the
only vehicle in sight, a very ancient carriage.

It ambled along until, at last, it pulled up before the vestry room
door of the church, just as the bogus minister was finishing his
transformation from a frank crook. Clutching Hand was giving him final
instructions.

Elaine and the others alighted and approached the church, while the
ancient vehicle rattled away.

"They're coming," whispered the crook, peering cautiously out of the
window.

Clutching Hand moved silently and snake-like into the closet and shut
the door.

"How do you do, Dr. Carton?" greeted "Weepy Mary." "I guess you don't
remember me."

The clerical gentleman looked at her fixedly a moment.

"Remember you?" he repeated. "Of course, my dear. I remember everyone I
marry."

"And you remember to whom you married me?"

"Perfectly. To an older man--a Taylor Dodge."

Elaine was overcome.

"Won't you step in?" he asked suavely. "Your friend here doesn't seem
well."

They all entered.

"And you--you say--you married this--this woman to Taylor Dodge?"
queried Elaine, tensely.

The bogus minister seemed to be very fatherly. "Yes," he assented, "I
certainly did so."

"Have you the record?" asked Elaine, fighting to the last.

"Why, yes. I can show you the record."

He moved over to the closet. "Come over here," he asked.

He opened the door. Elaine screamed and drew back. There stood her arch
enemy, the Clutching Hand himself.

As he stepped forth, she turned, wildly, to run--anywhere. But strong
arms seized her and forced her into a chair.

She looked at the woman and the minister. It was a plot!

A moment Clutching Hand looked Elaine over. "Put the others out," he
ordered the other crook.

Quickly the man obeyed, leading "Weepy Mary" and her "son" to the door,
and waving them away as he locked it. They left, quite as much in the
dark about the master criminal's identity as Elaine.

"Now, my pretty dear," began the Clutching Hand as the lock turned in
the vestry door, "we shall be joined shortly by your friend, Craig
Kennedy, and," he added with a leer, "I think your rather insistent
search for a certain person will cease."

Elaine drew back in the chair, horrified, at the implied threat.

Clutching Hand laughed, diabolically.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

While these astounding events were transpiring in the little church,
Kennedy and I had been tearing across the country in his big car,
following the directions of our fair friend.

We stopped at last before a prosperous, attractive-looking house and
entered a very prettily furnished but small parlor. Heavy portieres
hung over the doorway into the hall, over another into a back room and
over the bay windows.

"Won't you sit down a moment?" coaxed Gertie. "I'm quite blown to
pieces after that ride. My, how you drive!"

As she pulled aside the hall portieres, three men with guns thrust
their hands out. I turned. Two others had stepped from the back room
and two more from the bay window. We were surrounded. Seven guns were
aimed at us with deadly precision.

"No--no--Walter--it's no use," shouted Kennedy calmly restraining my
hand which I had clapped on my own gun.

At the same time, with his other hand, he took from his pocket the
small can which I had seen him place there, and held it aloft.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I suspected some such thing. I have here
a small box of fulminate of mercury. If I drop it, this building and
the entire vicinity will be blown to atoms. Go ahead--shoot!" he added,
nonchalantly.

The seven of them drew back, rather hurriedly.

Kennedy was a dangerous prisoner.

He calmly sat down in an arm chair, leaning back as he carefully
balanced the deadly little box of fulminate of mercury on his knee. He
placed his finger tips together and smiled at the seven crooks, who had
gathered together, staring breathlessly at this man who toyed with
death.

Gertie ran from the room.

For a moment they looked at each other, undecided, then one by one,
they stepped away from Kennedy toward the door.

The leader was the last to go. He had scarcely taken a step.

"Stop!" ordered Kennedy.

The crook did so. As Craig moved toward him, he waited, cold sweat
breaking out on his face.

"Say," he whined, "you let me be!"

It was ineffectual. Kennedy, still smiling confidently, came closer,
still holding the deadly little box, balanced between two fingers.

He took the crook's gun and dropped it into his pocket.

"Sit down!" ordered Craig.

Outside, the other six parleyed in hoarse whispers. One raised a gun,
but the woman and the others restrained him and fled.

"Take me to your master!" demanded Kennedy.

The crook remained silent.

"Where is he?" repeated Craig. "Tell me!"

Still the man remained silent. Craig looked the fellow over again.
Then, still with that confident smile, he reached into his inside
pocket and drew forth the tube I had seen him place there.

"No matter how much YOU accuse me," added Craig casually, "no one will
ever take the word of a crook that a reputable scientist like me would
do what I am about to do."

He had taken out his penknife and opened it. Then he beckoned to me.

"Bare his arm and hold his wrist, Walter," he said.

Craig bent down with the knife and the tube, then paused a moment and
turned the tube so that we could see it.

On the label were the ominous words:

Germ culture 6248A Bacillus Leprae (Leprosy)

Calmly he took the knife and proceeded to make an incision in the man's
arm. The crook's feelings underwent a terrific struggle.

"No--no--no--don't," he implored. "I will take you to the Clutching
Hand--even if it kills me!"

Kennedy stepped back, replacing the tube in his pocket.

"Very well, go ahead!" he agreed.

We followed the crook, Craig still holding the deadly box of fulminate
of mercury carefully balanced so that if anyone shot him from a hiding
place it would drop.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

No sooner had we gone than Gertie hurried to the nearest telephone to
inform the Clutching Hand of our escape.

Elaine had sunk back into the chair, as the telephone rang. Clutching
Hand answered it.

A moment later, in uncontrollable fury he hurled the instrument to the
floor.

"Here--we've got to act quickly--that devil has escaped again," he
hissed. "We must get her away. You keep her here. I'll be back--right
away--with a car."

He dashed madly from the church, pulling off his mask as he gained the
street.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Kennedy had forced the crook ahead of us into the car which was waiting
and I followed, taking the wheel this time.

"Which way, now--quick!" demanded Craig, "And if you get me in
wrong--I've got that tube yet--you remember."

Our crook started off with a whole burst of directions that rivalled
the motor guide--"through the town, following trolley tracks, jog
right, jog left under the R. R. bridge, leaving trolley tracks; at
cemetery turn left, stopping at the old stone church."

"Is this it?" asked Craig incredulously.

"Yes--as I live," swore the crook in a cowed voice.

He had gone to pieces. Kennedy jumped from the machine.

"Here, take this gun, Walter," he said to me. "Don't take your eyes off
the fellow--keep him covered."

Craig walked around the church, out of sight, until he came to a small
vestry window and looked in.

There was Elaine, sitting in a chair, and near her stood an elderly
looking man in clerical garb, which to Craig's trained eye was quite
evidently a disguise.

Elaine happened just then to glance at the window and her eyes grew
wide with astonishment at the sight of Craig.

He made a hasty motion to her to make a dash for the door. She nodded
quietly.

With a glance at her guardian, she suddenly made a rush.

He was at her in a moment, pouncing on her, cat-like.

Kennedy had seized an iron bar that lay beside the window where some
workmen had been repairing the stone pavement, and, with a blow
shattered the glass and the sash.

At the sound of the smashing glass the crook turned and with a mighty
effort threw Elaine aside, drawing his revolver. As he raised it,
Elaine sprang at him and frantically seized his wrist.

Utterly merciless, the man brought the butt of the gun down with full
force on Elaine's head. Only her hat and hair saved her, but she sank
unconscious.

Then he turned at Craig and fired twice.

One shot grazed Craig's hat, but the other struck him in the shoulder
and Kennedy reeled.

With a desperate effort he pulled himself together and leaped forward
again, closing with the fellow and wrenching the gun from him before he
could fire again.

It fell to the floor with a clang.

Just then the man broke away and made a dash for the door leading back
into the church itself, with Kennedy after him. At the foot of a flight
of stairs, he turned long enough to pick up a chair. As Kennedy came
on, he deliberately smashed it over Craig's head.

Kennedy warded off the blow as best he could, then, still undaunted,
started up the stairs after the fellow.

Up they went, into the choir loft and then into the belfry itself.
There they came to sheer hand to hand struggle. Kennedy tripped on a
loose board and 

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