The Exploits of Elaine / Reeve, Arthur B. (Arthur Benjamin), 1880-1936

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Title: The Exploits of Elaine

Author: Arthur B. Reeve

Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5151]
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[This file was first posted on May 15, 2002]

Edition: 10

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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