"Are—you willing—to have your blood transfused?" he parleyed.
"No—no—no!" she cried in horror,
Dr. Morton turned to the desperate criminal. "I cannot do it."
"The deuce you can't!" A cold steel revolver pressed down on Dr.Morton's stomach. In the other hand the master crook held his watch.
"You have just one minute to make up your mind."
Dr. Morton shrank back. The revolver followed. The pressure of a fly's foot meant eternity for him.
"I—I'll try!"
The other crooks next carried Elaine, struggling, and threw her down beside the wounded man. Together they arranged another couch beside him.
Dr. Morton, still covered by the gun, bent over the two, the hardened criminal and the delicate, beautiful girl. Clutching Hand glared fiendishly, insanely.
From his bag he took a little piece of something that shone like silver. It was in the form of a minute, hollow cylinder, with two grooves on it, a cylinder so tiny that it would scarcely have slipped over the point of a pencil.
"A cannulla," he explained, as he prepared to make an incision inElaine's arm and in the arm of the wounded rogue.
He cuffed it over the severed end of the artery, so cleverly that the inner linings of the vein and artery, the endothelium as it is called, were in complete contact with each other.
Clutching Hand watched eagerly, as though he had found some new, scientific engine of death in the little hollow cylinder.
A moment and the blood that was, perhaps, to save the life of the wounded felon was coursing into his veins from Elaine.
A moment later, Dr. Morton looked up at the Clutching Hand and nodded,"Well, it's working!"
At Elaine's head, Clutching Hand himself was administering just enough ether to keep her under and prevent a struggle that would wreck all. The wounded man had not been anesthetized and seemed feebly conscious of what was being done to save him.
All were now bending over the two.
Dr. Morton bent closest over Elaine. He looked at her anxiously, felt her pulse, watched her breathing, then pursed up his lips.
"This is—dangerous," he ventured, gazing askance at the grim ClutchingHand.
"Can't help it," came back laconically and relentlessly.
The doctor shuddered.
The man was a veritable vampire!
. . . . . . . .
Outside the deserted house, Kennedy and I were looking helplessly about.
Suddenly Kennedy dashed back and reappeared a minute later with a couple of pieces of armor. He held them down to Rusty and the dog sniffed at them.
But Rusty stood still.
Kennedy pointed to the ground.
Nothing doing. In leading us where he had been before, Rusty had reached the end of his canine ability.
Everything we could do to make Rusty understand that we wanted him to follow a trail was unavailing. He simply could not do it. Kennedy coaxed and scolded. Rusty merely sat up on his hind legs and begged with those irresistible brown eyes.
"You can't make a bloodhound out of a collie," despaired Craig, looking about again helplessly.
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a police whistle. He blew three sharp blasts.
Would it bring help?
. . . . . . . .
While we were thus despairing, the continued absence of Dr. Morton from home had alarmed his family and had set in motion another train of events.
When he did not return, and could not be located at the place to which he was supposed to have gone, several policemen had been summoned to his house, and they had come, finally, with real bloodhounds from a suburban station.
There were the tracks of his car. That the police themselves could follow, while two men came along holding in leash the pack, leaders of which were "Searchlight" and "Bob."
It had not been long before the party came across the deserted runabout beside the road. There they had stopped, for a moment.
It was just then that they heard Kennedy's call, and one of them had been detailed to answer it.
"Well, what do YOU want?" asked the officer, eyeing Kennedy suspiciously as he stood there with the armor. "What's them pieces of tin—hey?"
Kennedy quickly flashed his own special badge. "I want to trail a girl," he exclaimed hurriedly. "Can I find a bloodhound about here?"
"A hound? Why, we have a pack—over there."
"Bring them—quick!" ordered Craig.
The policeman, who was an intelligent fellow, saw at once that, as Kennedy said, the two trails probably crossed. He shouted and in a few seconds the others, with the pack, came.
A brief parley resulted in our joining forces.
Kennedy held the armor down to the dogs. "Searchlight" gave a low whine, then, followed by "Bob" and the others, was off, all with noses close to the ground. We followed.
The armor was, after all, the missing link.
Through woods and fields the dogs led us.
Would we be in time to rescue Elaine?
. . . . . . . .
In the mysterious haunt of the Clutching Hand, all were still standing around Elaine and the wounded Pitts Slim.
Just then a cry from one of the group startled the rest. One of them, less hardened than the Clutching Hand, had turned away from the sight, had gone to the window, and had been attracted by something outside.
"Look!" he cried.
From the absolute stillness of death, there was now wild excitement among the crooks.
"Police! Police!" they shouted to each other as they fled by a doorway to a secret passage.
Clutching Hand turned to his first assistant.
"You—go—too," he ordered.
. . . . . . . .
The dogs had led us to a strange looking house, and were now baying and leaping up against the door. We did not stop to knock, but began to break through, for inside we could hear faintly sounds of excitement and cries of "Police—police!"
The door yielded and we rushed into a long hallway. Up the passage we went until we came to another door.
An instant and we were all against it. It was stout, but it shook before us. The panels began to yield.
. . . . . . . .
On the other side of that door from us, the master crook stood for a moment. Dr. Morton hesitated, not knowing quite what to do.
Just then the wounded Pitts Slim lifted his hand feebly. He seemed vaguely to understand that the game was up. He touched the Clutching Hand.
"You did your best, Chief," he murmured thickly. "Beat it, if you can.I'm a goner, anyway."
Clutching Hand hesitated by the wounded crook. This was the loyalty of gangland, worthy a better cause. He could not bring himself to desert his pal. He was undecided, still.
But there was the door, bulging, and a panel bursting.
He moved over to a panel in the wall and pushed a spring. It slid open and he stepped through. Then it closed—not a second too soon.
Back in his private room, he quickly stepped to a curtained iron door. Pushing back the curtains, he went through it and disappeared, the curtains falling back.
At the end of the passageway, he stopped, in a sort of grotto or cave. As he came out, he looked back. All was still. No one was about. He was safe here, at least!
Off came the mask and he turned down the road a few rods distant beyond some bushes, as little concerned about the wild happenings as any other passer-by might have been.
. . . . . . . .
At the very moment when we burst in, Dr. Morton, seeing his chance, stopped the blood transfusion, working frantically to stop the flow of blood.
Kennedy sprang to Elaine's side, horrified by the blood that had spattered over everything.
With a mighty effort he checked a blow that he had aimed at Dr. Morton, as it flashed over him that the surgeon, now free again, was doing his best to save the terribly imperilled life of Elaine.
Just then the police burst through the secret panel and rushed on, leaving us alone, with the unconscious, scarcely breathing Elaine. From the sounds we could tell that they had come to the private room of the Clutching Hand. It was empty and they were non-plussed.
"Not a window!" called one.
"What are those curtains?"
They pulled them back, disclosing an iron door. They tried it but it was bolted on the other side. Blows had no effect. They had to give it up for the instant.
A policeman now stood beside Elaine and the wounded burglar who was muttering deliriously to himself.
He was pretty far gone, as the policeman knelt down and tried to get a statement out of him.
"Who was that man who left you—last—the Clutching Hand?"
Not a word came from the crook.
The policeman repeated his question.
With his last strength, he looked disdainfully at the officer's pad and pencil. "The gangster never squeals," he snarled, as he fell back.
Dr. Morton had paid no attention whatever to him, but was working desperately now over Elaine, trying to bring her back to life.
"Is she—going to—die?" gasped Craig, frantically.
Every eye was riveted on Dr. Morton.
"She is all right," he muttered. "But the man is going to die."
At the sound of Craig's voice Elaine had feebly opened her eyes.
"Thank heaven," breathed Craig, with a sigh of relief, as his hand gently stroked Elaine's unnaturally cold forehead.
Mindful of the sage advice that a time of peace is best employed in preparing for war, I was busily engaged in cleaning my automatic gun one morning as Kennedy and I were seated in our living room.
Our door buzzer sounded and Kennedy, always alert, jumped up, pushing aside a great pile of papers which had accumulated in the Dodge case.
Two steps took him to the wall where the day before he had installed a peculiar box about four by six inches long connected in some way with a lens-like box of similar size above our bell and speaking tube in the hallway below. He opened it, disclosing an oblong plate of ground glass.
"I thought the seismograph arrangement was not quite enough after that spring-gun affair," he remarked, "so I have put in a sort of teleview of my own invention—so that I can see down into the vestibule downstairs. Well—just look who's here!"
"Some new fandangled periscope arrangement, I suppose?" I queried moving slowly over toward it.
However, one look was enough to interest me. I can express it only in slang. There, framed in the little thing, was a vision of as swell a "chicken" as I have ever seen.
I whistled under my breath.
"Um!" I exclaimed shamelessly, "A peach! Who's your friend?"
I had never said a truer word than in my description of her, though I did not know it at the time. She was indeed known as "Gertie the Peach" in the select circle to which she belonged.
Gertie was very attractive, though frightfully over-dressed. But, then, no one thinks anything of that now, in New York.
Kennedy had opened the lower door and our fair visitor was coming upstairs. Meanwhile he was deeply in thought before the "teleview." He made up his mind quickly, however.
"Go in there, Walter," he said, seizing me quickly and pushing me into my room. "I want you to wait there and watch her carefully."
I slipped the gun into my pocket and went, just as a knock at the door told me she was outside.
Kennedy opened the door, disclosing a very excited young woman.
"Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried, all in one breath, with much emotion, "I'm so glad I found you in. I can't tell you. Oh—my jewels! They have been stolen—and my husband must not know of it. Help me to recover them—please!"
She had not paused, but had gone on in a wild, voluble explanation.
"Just a moment, my dear young lady," interrupted Craig, finding at last a chance to get a word in edgewise. "Do you see that table—and all those papers? Really, I can't take your case. I am too busy as it is even to take the cases of many of my own clients."
"But, please, Professor Kennedy—please!" she begged. "Help me. It means—oh, I can't tell you how much it means to me!"
She had come close to him and had laid her warm, little soft hand on his, in ardent entreaty.
From my hiding place in my room, I could not help seeing that she was using every charm of her sex and personality to lure him on, as she clung confidingly to him. Craig was very much embarrassed, and I could not help a smile at his discomfiture. Seriously, I should have hated to have been in his position.
Gertie had thrown her arms about Kennedy, as if in wildest devotion. I wondered what Elaine would have thought, if she had a picture of that!
"Oh," she begged him, "please—please, help me!"
Still Kennedy seemed utterly unaffected by her passionate embrace. Carefully he loosened her fingers from about his neck and removed the plump, enticing arms.
Gertie sank into a chair, weeping, while Kennedy stood before her a moment in deep abstraction.
Finally he seemed to make up his mind to something. His manner toward her changed. He took a step to her side.
"I WILL help you," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. "If it is possible I will recover your jewels. Where do you live?"
"At Hazlehurst," she replied, gratefully. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, how can I ever thank you?"
She seemed overcome with gratitude and took his hand, pressed it, even kissed it.
"Just a minute," he added, carefully extricating his hand. "I'll be ready in just a minute."
Kennedy entered the room where I was listening.
"What's it all about, Craig?" I whispered, mystified.
For a moment he stood thinking, apparently reconsidering what he had just done. Then his second thought seemed to approve it.
"This is a trap of the Clutching Hand, Walter," he whispered, adding tensely, "and we're going to walk right into it."
I looked at him in amazement.
"But, Craig," I demurred, "that's foolhardy. Have her trailed—anything—but—-"
He shook his head and with a mere motion of his hand brushed aside my objections as he went to a cabinet across the room.
From one shelf he took out a small metal box and from another a test tube, placing the test tube in his waistcoat pocket, and the small box in his coatpocket, with excessive care.
Then he turned and motioned to me to follow him out into the other room. I did so, stuffing my "gatt" into my pocket.
"Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson," said Craig, presenting me to the pretty crook.
The introduction quickly over, we three went out to get Craig's car which he kept at a nearby garage.
. . . . . . . .
That forenoon, Perry Bennett was reading up a case. In the outer office Milton Schofield, his office boy, was industriously chewing gum and admiring his feet cocked up on the desk before him.
The door to the waiting room opened and an attractive woman of perhaps thirty, dressed in extreme mourning, entered with a boy.
Milton cast a glance of scorn at the "little dude." He was in reality about fourteen years old but was dressed to look much younger.
Milton took his feet down in deference to the lady, but snickered openly at the boy. A fight seemed imminent.
"Did you wish to see Mr. Bennett?" asked the precocious Milton politely on one hand while on the other he made a wry grimace.
"Yes—here is my card," replied the woman.
It was deeply bordered in black. Even Milton was startled at reading it: "Mrs. Taylor Dodge."
He looked at the woman in open-mouthed astonishment. Even he knew thatElaine's mother had been dead for years.
The woman, however, true to her name in the artistic coterie in which she was leader, had sunk into a chair and was sobbing convulsively, as only "Weepy Mary" could.
It was so effective that even Milton was visibly moved. He took the card in, excitedly, to Bennett.
"There's a woman outside—says she is Mrs. Dodge!" he cried.
If Milton had had an X-ray eye he could have seen her take a cigarette from her handbag and light it nonchalantly the moment he was gone.
As for Bennett, Milton, who was watching him closely, thought he was about to discharge him on the spot for bothering him. He took the card, and his face expressed the most extreme surprise, then anger. He thought a moment.
"Tell that woman to state her business in writing," he thundered curtly at Milton.
As the boy turned to go back to the waiting room, Weepy Mary, hearing him coming, hastily shoved the cigarette into her "son's" hand.
"Mr. Bennett says for you to write out what it is you want to see him about," reported Milton, indicating the table before which she was sitting.
Mary had automatically taken up sobbing, with the release of the cigarette. She looked at the table on which were letter paper, pens and ink.
"I may write here?" she asked.
"Surely, ma'am," replied Milton, still very much overwhelmed by her sorrow.
Weepy Mary sat there, writing and sobbing.
In the midst of his sympathy, however, Milton sniffed. There was an unmistakable odor of tobacco smoke about the room. He looked sharply at the "son" and discovered the still smoking cigarette.
It was too much for Milton's outraged dignity. Bennett did not allow him that coveted privilege. This upstart could not usurp it.
He reached over and seized the boy by the arm and swung him around till he faced a sign in the corner on the wall.
"See?" he demanded.
The sign read courteously:
"No Smoking in This Office—Please. "PERRY BENNETT."
"Leggo my arm," snarled the "son," putting the offending cigarette defiantly into his mouth.
Milton coolly and deliberately reached over and, with an exaggerated politeness swiftly and effectively removed it, dropping it on the floor and stamping defiantly on it.
"Son" raised his fists pugnaciously, for he didn't care much for the role he was playing, anyhow.
Milton did the same.
There was every element of a gaudy mix-up, when the outer door of the office suddenly swung open and Elaine Dodge entered.
Gallantry was Milton's middle name and he sprang forward to hold the door, and then opened Bennett's door, as he ushered in Elaine.
As she passed "Weepy Mary," who was still writing at the table and crying bitterly, Elaine hesitated and looked at her curiously. Even after Milton had opened Bennett's door, she could not resist another glance. Instinctively Elaine seemed to scent trouble.
Bennett was still studying the black-bordered card, when she greeted him.
"Who is that woman?" she asked, still wondering about the identity of the Niobe outside.
At first he said nothing. But finally, seeing that she had noticed it, he handed Elaine the card, reluctantly.
Elaine read it with a gasp. The look of surprise that crossed her face was terrible.
Before she could say anything, however, Milton had returned with the sheet of paper on which "Weepy Mary" had written and handed it to Bennett.
Bennett read it with uncontrolled astonishment.
"What is it?" demanded Elaine.
He handed it to her and she read:
"As the lawful wife and widow of Taylor Dodge, I demand my son's rights and my own.
Elaine gasped at it.
"She—my father's wife!" she exclaimed, "What effrontery! What does she mean?"
Bennett hesitated.
"Tell me," Elaine cried, "Is there—can there be anything in it?No—no—there isn't!"
Bennett spoke in a low tone. "I have heard a whisper of some scandal or other connected with your father—but—" He paused.
Elaine was first shocked, then indignant.
"Why—such a thing is absurd. Show the woman in!"
"No—please—Miss Dodge. Let me deal with her."
By this time Elaine was furious.
"Yes—I WILL see her."
She pressed the button on Bennett's desk and Milton responded.
"Milton, show the—the woman in," she ordered, "and that boy, too."
As Milton turned to crook his finger at "Weepy Mary," she nodded surreptitiously and dug her fingers sharply into "son's" ribs.
"Yell—you little fool,—yell," she whispered.
Obedient to his "mother's" commands, and much to Milton's disgust, the boy started to cry in close imitation of his elder.
Elaine was still holding the paper in her hands when they entered.
"What does all this mean?" she demanded.
"Weepy Mary," between sobs, managed to blurt out, "You are Miss Elaine Dodge, aren't you? Well, it means that your father married me when I was only seventeen and this boy is his son—your half brother."
"No—never," cried Elaine vehemently, unable to restrain her disgust."He never married again. He was too devoted to the memory of my mother."
"Weepy Mary" smiled cynically. "Come with me and I will show you the church records and the minister who married us."
"You will?" repeated Elaine defiantly. "Well, I'll just do as you ask.Mr. Bennett shall go with me."
"No, no, Miss Dodge—don't go. Leave the matter to me," urged Bennett. "I will take care of HER. Besides, I must be in court in twenty minutes."
Elaine paused, but she was thoroughly aroused.
"Then I will go with her myself," she cried defiantly.
In spite of every objection that Bennett made, "Weepy Mary," her son, and Elaine went out to call a taxicab to take them to the railroad station where they could catch a train to the little town where the woman asserted she had been married.
. . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, before a little country church in the town, a closed automobile had drawn up.
As the door opened, a figure, humped up and masked, alighted.
It was the Clutching Hand.
The car had scarcely pulled away, when he gave a long rap, followed by two short taps, at the door of the vestry, a secret code, evidently.
Inside the vestry room a well-dressed man but with a very sinister face heard the knock and a second later opened the door.
"What—not ready yet?" growled the Clutching Hand. "Quick—now—get on those clothes. I heard the train whistle as I came in the car. In which closet does the minister keep them?"
The crook, without a word, went to a closet and took out a suit of clothes of ministerial cut. Then he hastily put them on, adding some side-whiskers, which he had brought with him.
At about the same time, Elaine, accompanied by "Weepy Mary" and her "son," had arrived at the little tumble-down station and had taken the only vehicle in sight, a very ancient carriage.
It ambled along until, at last, it pulled up before the vestry room door of the church, just as the bogus minister was finishing his transformation from a frank crook. Clutching Hand was giving him final instructions.
Elaine and the others alighted and approached the church, while the ancient vehicle rattled away.
"They're coming," whispered the crook, peering cautiously out of the window.
Clutching Hand moved silently and snake-like into the closet and shut the door.
"How do you do, Dr. Carton?" greeted "Weepy Mary." "I guess you don't remember me."
The clerical gentleman looked at her fixedly a moment.
"Remember you?" he repeated. "Of course, my dear. I remember everyone I marry."
"And you remember to whom you married me?"
"Perfectly. To an older man—a Taylor Dodge."
Elaine was overcome.
"Won't you step in?" he asked suavely. "Your friend here doesn't seem well."
They all entered.
"And you—you say—you married this—this woman to Taylor Dodge?" queried Elaine, tensely.
The bogus minister seemed to be very fatherly. "Yes," he assented, "I certainly did so."
"Have you the record?" asked Elaine, fighting to the last.
"Why, yes. I can show you the record."
He moved over to the closet. "Come over here," he asked.
He opened the door. Elaine screamed and drew back. There stood her arch enemy, the Clutching Hand himself.
As he stepped forth, she turned, wildly, to run—anywhere. But strong arms seized her and forced her into a chair.
She looked at the woman and the minister. It was a plot!
A moment Clutching Hand looked Elaine over. "Put the others out," he ordered the other crook.
Quickly the man obeyed, leading "Weepy Mary" and her "son" to the door, and waving them away as he locked it. They left, quite as much in the dark about the master criminal's identity as Elaine.
"Now, my pretty dear," began the Clutching Hand as the lock turned in the vestry door, "we shall be joined shortly by your friend, Craig Kennedy, and," he added with a leer, "I think your rather insistent search for a certain person will cease."
Elaine drew back in the chair, horrified, at the implied threat.
Clutching Hand laughed, diabolically.
. . . . . . . .
While these astounding events were transpiring in the little church, Kennedy and I had been tearing across the country in his big car, following the directions of our fair friend.
We stopped at last before a prosperous, attractive-looking house and entered a very prettily furnished but small parlor. Heavy portieres hung over the doorway into the hall, over another into a back room and over the bay windows.
"Won't you sit down a moment?" coaxed Gertie. "I'm quite blown to pieces after that ride. My, how you drive!"
As she pulled aside the hall portieres, three men with guns thrust their hands out. I turned. Two others had stepped from the back room and two more from the bay window. We were surrounded. Seven guns were aimed at us with deadly precision.
"No—no—Walter—it's no use," shouted Kennedy calmly restraining my hand which I had clapped on my own gun.
At the same time, with his other hand, he took from his pocket the small can which I had seen him place there, and held it aloft.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I suspected some such thing. I have here a small box of fulminate of mercury. If I drop it, this building and the entire vicinity will be blown to atoms. Go ahead—shoot!" he added, nonchalantly.
The seven of them drew back, rather hurriedly.
Kennedy was a dangerous prisoner.
He calmly sat down in an arm chair, leaning back as he carefully balanced the deadly little box of fulminate of mercury on his knee. He placed his finger tips together and smiled at the seven crooks, who had gathered together, staring breathlessly at this man who toyed with death.
Gertie ran from the room.
For a moment they looked at each other, undecided, then one by one, they stepped away from Kennedy toward the door.
The leader was the last to go. He had scarcely taken a step.
"Stop!" ordered Kennedy.
The crook did so. As Craig moved toward him, he waited, cold sweat breaking out on his face.
"Say," he whined, "you let me be!"
It was ineffectual. Kennedy, still smiling confidently, came closer, still holding the deadly little box, balanced between two fingers.
He took the crook's gun and dropped it into his pocket.
"Sit down!" ordered Craig.
Outside, the other six parleyed in hoarse whispers. One raised a gun, but the woman and the others restrained him and fled.
"Take me to your master!" demanded Kennedy.
The crook remained silent.
"Where is he?" repeated Craig. "Tell me!"
Still the man remained silent. Craig looked the fellow over again. Then, still with that confident smile, he reached into his inside pocket and drew forth the tube I had seen him place there.
"No matter how much YOU accuse me," added Craig casually, "no one will ever take the word of a crook that a reputable scientist like me would do what I am about to do."
He had taken out his penknife and opened it. Then he beckoned to me.
"Bare his arm and hold his wrist, Walter," he said.
Craig bent down with the knife and the tube, then paused a moment and turned the tube so that we could see it.
On the label were the ominous words:
Germ culture 6248A Bacillus Leprae (Leprosy)
Calmly he took the knife and proceeded to make an incision in the man's arm. The crook's feelings underwent a terrific struggle.
"No—no—no—don't," he implored. "I will take you to the ClutchingHand—even if it kills me!"
Kennedy stepped back, replacing the tube in his pocket.
"Very well, go ahead!" he agreed.
We followed the crook, Craig still holding the deadly box of fulminate of mercury carefully balanced so that if anyone shot him from a hiding place it would drop.
. . . . . . . .
No sooner had we gone than Gertie hurried to the nearest telephone to inform the Clutching Hand of our escape.
Elaine had sunk back into the chair, as the telephone rang. ClutchingHand answered it.
A moment later, in uncontrollable fury he hurled the instrument to the floor.
"Here—we've got to act quickly—that devil has escaped again," he hissed. "We must get her away. You keep her here. I'll be back—right away—with a car."
He dashed madly from the church, pulling off his mask as he gained the street.
. . . . . . . .
Kennedy had forced the crook ahead of us into the car which was waiting and I followed, taking the wheel this time.
"Which way, now—quick!" demanded Craig, "And if you get me in wrong—I've got that tube yet—you remember."
Our crook started off with a whole burst of directions that rivalled the motor guide—"through the town, following trolley tracks, jog right, jog left under the R. R. bridge, leaving trolley tracks; at cemetery turn left, stopping at the old stone church."
"Is this it?" asked Craig incredulously.
"Yes—as I live," swore the crook in a cowed voice.
He had gone to pieces. Kennedy jumped from the machine.
"Here, take this gun, Walter," he said to me. "Don't take your eyes off the fellow—keep him covered."
Craig walked around the church, out of sight, until he came to a small vestry window and looked in.
There was Elaine, sitting in a chair, and near her stood an elderly looking man in clerical garb, which to Craig's trained eye was quite evidently a disguise.
Elaine happened just then to glance at the window and her eyes grew wide with astonishment at the sight of Craig.
He made a hasty motion to her to make a dash for the door. She nodded quietly.
With a glance at her guardian, she suddenly made a rush.
He was at her in a moment, pouncing on her, cat-like.
Kennedy had seized an iron bar that lay beside the window where some workmen had been repairing the stone pavement, and, with a blow shattered the glass and the sash.
At the sound of the smashing glass the crook turned and with a mighty effort threw Elaine aside, drawing his revolver. As he raised it, Elaine sprang at him and frantically seized his wrist.
Utterly merciless, the man brought the butt of the gun down with full force on Elaine's head. Only her hat and hair saved her, but she sank unconscious.
Then he turned at Craig and fired twice.
One shot grazed Craig's hat, but the other struck him in the shoulder and Kennedy reeled.
With a desperate effort he pulled himself together and leaped forward again, closing with the fellow and wrenching the gun from him before he could fire again.
It fell to the floor with a clang.
Just then the man broke away and made a dash for the door leading back into the church itself, with Kennedy after him. At the foot of a flight of stairs, he turned long enough to pick up a chair. As Kennedy came on, he deliberately smashed it over Craig's head.
Kennedy warded off the blow as best he could, then, still undaunted, started up the stairs after the fellow.
Up they went, into the choir loft and then into the belfry itself. There they came to sheer hand to hand struggle. Kennedy tripped on a loose board and would have fallen backwards, if he had not been able to recover himself just in time. The crook, desperate, leaped for the ladder leading further up into the steeple. Kennedy followed.
Elaine had recovered consciousness almost immediately and, hearing the commotion, stirred and started to rise and look about.
From the church she could hear sounds of the struggle. She paused just long enough to seize the crook's revolver lying on the floor.
She hurried into the church and up into the belfry, thence up the ladder, whence the sounds came.
The crook by this time had gained the outside of the steeple through an opening. Kennedy was in close pursuit.
On the top of the steeple was a great gilded cross, considerably larger than a man. As the crook clambered outside, he scaled the steeple, using a lightning rod and some projecting points to pull himself up, desperately.
Kennedy followed unhesitatingly.
There they were, struggling in deadly combat, clinging to the gilded cross.
The first I knew of it was a horrified gasp from my own crook. I looked up carefully, fearing it was a stall to get me off my guard. There were Kennedy and the other crook, struggling, swaying back and forth, between life and death.
I looked at my man. What should I do? Should I leave him and go to Craig? If I did, might he not pick us both off, from a safe vantage point, by some sharp-shooting skill?
There was nothing I could do.
Kennedy was clinging to a lightning rod on the cross.
It broke.
I gasped as Craig reeled back. But he managed to catch hold of the rod further down and cling to it.
The crook seemed to exult diabolically. Holding with both hands to the cross, he let himself out to his full length and stamped on Kennedy's fingers, trying every way to dislodge him. It was all Kennedy could do to keep his hold.
I cried out in agony at the sight, for he had dislodged one of Craig's hands. The other could not hold on much longer. He was about to fall.
Just then I saw a face at the little window opening out from the ladder to the outside of the steeple—a woman's face, tense with horror.
It was Elaine!
Quickly a hand followed and in it was a revolver.
Just as the crook was about to dislodge Kennedy's other hand, I saw a flash and a puff of smoke and a second later, heard a report—and another—and another.
Horrors!
The crook who had taken refuge seemed to stagger back, wildly, taking a couple of steps in the thin air.
Kennedy regained his hold.
With a sickening thud, the body of the crook landed on the ground around the corner of the church from me.
"Come—you!" I ground out, covering my own crook with the pistol, "and if you attempt a getaway, I'll kill you, too!"
He followed, trembling, unnerved.
We bent over the man. It seemed that every bone in his body must be broken. He groaned, and before I could even attempt anything for him, he was dead.
. . . . . . . .
As Kennedy let himself slowly and painfully down the lightning rod, Elaine seized him and, with all her strength, pulled him in through the window.
He was quite weak now from loss of blood.
"Are you—all right?" she gasped, as they reached the foot of the ladder in the belfry.
Craig looked down at his torn and soiled clothes. Then, in spite of the smarting pain of his wounds, he smiled, "Yes—all right!"
"Thank heaven!" she murmured fervently, trying to staunch the flow of blood.
Craig gazed at her eagerly. The great look of relief in her face seemed to take away all the pain from his own face. In its place came a look of wonder—and hope.
He could not resist.
"This time—it was you—saved me!" he cried, "Elaine!"
Involuntarily his arms sought hers—and he held her a moment, looking deep into her wonderful eyes.
Then their faces came slowly together in their first kiss.
"Jameson—wake up!"
The strain of the Dodge case was beginning to tell on me, for it was keeping us at work at all kinds of hours to circumvent the Clutching Hand, by far the cleverest criminal with whom Kennedy had ever had anything to do.
I had slept later than usual that morning and, in a half doze, I heard a voice calling me, strangely like Kennedy's and yet unlike it.
I leaped out of bed, still in my pajamas, and stood for a moment staring about. Then I ran into the living room. I looked about, rubbing my eyes, startled. No one was there.
"Hey—Jameson—wake up!"
It was spooky.
I ran back into Craig's room. He was gone. There was no one in any of our rooms. The surprise had now thoroughly awakened me.
"Where—the deuce—are you?" I demanded.
Suddenly I heard the voice again—no doubt about it, either.
"Here I am—over on the couch!"
I scratched my head, puzzled. There was certainly no one on that couch.
A laugh greeted me. Plainly, though, it came from the couch. I went over to it and, ridiculous as it seemed, began to throw aside the pillows.
There lay nothing but a little oblong oaken box, perhaps eight or ten inches long and three or four inches square at the ends. In the face were two peculiar square holes and from the top projected a black disc, about the size of a watch, fastened on a swinging metal arm. In the face of the disc were several perforated holes.
I picked up the strange looking thing in wonder and from that magic oak box actually came a burst of laughter.
"Come over to the laboratory, right away," pealed forth a merry voice."I've something to show you."
"Well," I gasped, "what do you know about that?"
Very early that morning Craig had got up, leaving me snoring. Cases never wearied him. He thrived on excitement.
He had gone over to the laboratory and set to work in a corner over another of those peculiar boxes, exactly like that which he had already left in our rooms.
In the face of each of these boxes, as I have said, were two square holes. The sides of these holes converged inward into the box, in the manner of a four sided pyramid, ending at the apex in a little circle of black, perhaps half an inch across.
Satisfied at last with his work, Craig had stood back from the weird apparatus and shouted my name. He had enjoyed my surprise to the fullest extent, then had asked me to join him.
Half an hour afterward I walked into the laboratory, feeling a little sheepish over the practical joke, but none the less curious to find out all about it.
"What is it?" I asked indicating the apparatus.
"A vocaphone," he replied, still laughing, "the loud speaking telephone, the little box that hears and talks. It talks right out in meeting, too—no transmitter to hold to the mouth, no receiver to hold to the ear. You see, this transmitter is so sensitive that it picks up even a whisper, and the receiver is placed back of those two megaphone-like pyramids."
He was standing at a table, carefully packing up one of the vocaphones and a lot of wire.
"I believe the Clutching Hand has been shadowing the Dodge house," he continued thoughtfully. "As long as we watch the place, too, he will do nothing. But if we should seem, ostentatiously, not to be watching, perhaps he may try something, and we may be able to get a clue to his identity over this vocaphone. See?"
I nodded. "We've got to run him down somehow," I agreed.
"Yes," he said, taking his coat and hat. "I am going to connect up one of these things in Miss Dodge's library and arrange with the telephone company for a clear wire so that we can listen in here, where that fellow will never suspect."
. . . . . . . .
At about the same time that Craig and I sallied forth on this new mission, Elaine was arranging some flowers on a stand near the corner of the Dodge library where the secret panel was in which her father had hidden the papers for the possession of which the Clutching Hand had murdered him. They did not disclose his identity, we knew, but they did give directions to at least one of his hang-outs and were therefore very important.
She had moved away from the table, but, as she did so, her dress caught in something in the woodwork. She tried to loosen it and in so doing touched the little metallic spring on which her dress had caught.
Instantly, to her utter surprise, the panel moved. It slid open, disclosing a strong box.
Elaine took it amazed, looked at it a moment, then carried it to a table and started to pry it open.
It was one of those tin dispatch boxes which, as far as I have ever been able to determine, are chiefly valuable for allowing one to place a lot of stuff in a receptacle which is very convenient for a criminal. She had no trouble in opening it.
Inside were some papers, sealed in an envelope and marked "Limpy RedCorrespondence."
"They must be the Clutching Hand papers!" she exclaimed to herself, hesitating a moment in doubt what to do. The fatal documents seemed almost uncanny. Their very presence frightened her. What should she do?
She seized the telephone and eagerly called Kennedy's number.
"Hello," answered a voice.
"Is that you, Craig?" she asked excitedly.
"No, this is Mr. Jameson."
"Oh, Mr. Jameson, I've discovered the Clutching Hand papers," she began, more and more excited.
"Have you read them?" came back the voice quickly.
"No—shall I?"
"Then don't unseal them," cautioned the voice. "Put them back exactly as you found them and I'll tell Mr. Kennedy the moment I can get hold of him."
"All right," nodded Elaine. "I'll do that. And please get him—as soon as you possibly can."
"I will."
"I'm going out shopping now," she returned, suddenly. "But, tell himI'll be back—right away."
"Very well."
Hanging up the receiver, Elaine dutifully replaced the papers in the box and returned the box to its secret hiding place, pressing the spring and sliding the panel shut.
A few minutes later she left the house in the Dodge car.
. . . . . . . .
Outside our laboratory, leaning up against a railing, Dan the Dude, an emissary of the Clutching Hand, whose dress now greatly belied his underworld "monniker," had been shadowing us, watching to see when we left.
The moment we disappeared, he raised his hand carefully above his head and made the sign of the Clutching Hand. Far down the street, in a closed car, the Clutching Hand himself, his face masked, gave an answering sign.
A moment later he left the car, gazing about stealthily. Not a soul was in sight and he managed to make his way to the door of our laboratory without being observed. Then he opened it with a pass key which he must have obtained in some way by working the janitor or the university officials.
Probably he thought that the papers might be at the laboratory, for he had repeatedly failed to locate them at the Dodge house. At any rate he was busily engaged in ransacking drawers and cabinets in the laboratory, when the telephone suddenly rang. He did not want to answer it, but if it kept on ringing someone outside might come in.
An instant he hesitated. Then, disguising his voice as much as he could to imitate mine, he took off the receiver.
"Hello!" he answered.
His face was a study in all that was dark as he realized that it wasElaine calling. He clenched his crooked hand even more viciously.
"Have you read them?" he asked, curbing his impatience as she unsuspectingly poured forth her story, supposedly to me.
"Then don't unseal them," he hastened to reply. "Put them back. Then there can be no question about them. You can open them before witnesses."
For a moment he paused, then added, "Put them back and tell no one of their discovery. I will tell Mr. Kennedy the moment I can get him."
A smile spread over his sinister face as Elaine confided in him her intention to go shopping.
"A rather expensive expedition for you, young lady," he muttered to himself as he returned the receiver to the hook.
Clutching Hand lost no further time at the laboratory. He had thus, luckily for him, found out what he wanted. The papers were not there after all, but at the Dodge house.
Suppose she should really be gone on only a short shopping trip and should return to find that she had been fooled over the wire? Quickly, he went to the telephone again.
"Hello, Dan," he called when he got his number.
"Miss Dodge is going shopping. I want you and the other Falsers to follow her—delay her all you can. Use your own judgment."
It was what had come to be known in his organization as the "Brotherhood of Falsers." There, in the back room of a low dive, were Dan the Dude, the emissary who had been loitering about the laboratory, a gunman, Dago Mike, a couple of women, slatterns, one known as Kitty the Hawk, and a boy of eight or ten, whom they called Billy. Before them stood large schooners of beer, while the precocious youngster grumbled over milk.
"All right, Chief," shouted back Dan, their leader as he hung up the telephone after noting carefully the hasty instructions. "We'll do it—trust us."
The others, knowing that a job was to lighten the monotony of existence, gathered about him.
They listened intently as he detailed to them the orders of the Clutching Hand, hastily planning out the campaign like a division commander disposing his forces in battle and assigning each his part.
With alacrity the Brotherhood went their separate ways.
. . . . . . . .
Elaine had not been gone long from the house when Craig and I arrived there. She had followed the telephone instructions of the Clutching Hand and had told no one.
"Too bad," greeted Jennings, "but Miss Elaine has just gone shopping and I don't know when she'll be back."
Shopping being an uncertain element as far as time was concerned,Kennedy asked if anyone else was at home.
"Mrs. Dodge is in the library reading, sir," replied Jennings, taking it for granted that we would see her.
Aunt Josephine greeted us cordially and Craig set down the vocaphone package he was carrying.
She nodded to Jennings to leave us and he withdrew.
"I'm not going to let anything happen here to Miss Elaine again if I can help it," remarked Craig in a low tone, a moment later, gazing about the library.
"What are you thinking of doing?" asked Aunt Josephine keenly.
"I'm going to put in a vocaphone," he returned unwrapping it.
"What's that?" she asked.
"A loud speaking telephone—connected with my laboratory," he explained, repeating what he had already told me, while she listened almost awe-struck at the latest scientific wonder.
He was looking about, trying to figure out just where it could be placed to best advantage, when he approached the suit of armor.
"I see you have brought it back and had it repaired," he remarked to Aunt Josephine. Suddenly his face lighted up. "Ah—an idea!" he exclaimed. "No one will ever think to look INSIDE that."
It was indeed an inspiration. Kennedy worked quickly now, placing the little box inside the breast plate of the ancient armourer with the top of the instrument projecting right up into the helmet. It was a strange combination—the medieval and the ultra-modern.
"Now, Mrs. Dodge," he said finally, as he had completed installing the thing and hiding the wire under carpets and rugs until it ran out to the connection which he made with the telephone, "don't breathe a word of it—to anyone. We don't know who to trust or suspect."
"I shall not," she answered, by this time thoroughly educated in the value of silence.
Kennedy looked at his watch.
"I've got an engagement with the telephone company, now," he said rather briskly, although I knew that if Elaine had been there the company and everything could have gone hang for the present. "Sorry not to have seen Miss Elaine," he added as we bowed ourselves out, "but I think we've got her protected now."
"I hope so," sighed her aunt.
. . . . . . . .
Elaine's car had stopped finally at a shop on Fifth Avenue. She stepped out and entered, leaving her chauffeur to wait.
As she did so, Dan and Billy sidled along the crowded sidewalk.
"There she is, Billy," pointed out Dan as Elaine disappeared through the swinging doors of the shop. "Now, you wait right here," he instructed stealthily, "and when she comes out—you know what to do. Only, be careful."
Dan the Dude left Billy, and Billy surreptitiously drew from under his coat a dirty half loaf of bread. With a glance about, he dropped it into the gutter close to the entrance to Elaine's car. Then he withdrew a little distance.
When Elaine came out and approached her car, Billy, looking as cold and forlorn as could be, shot forward. Pretending to spy the dirty piece of bread in the gutter, he made a dive for it, just as Elaine was about to step into the car.
Elaine, surprised, drew back. Billy picked up the piece of bread and, with all the actions of having discovered a treasure, began to gnaw at it voraciously.
Shocked at the disgusting sight, she tried to take the bread away from him.
"I know it's dirty, Miss," whimpered Billy, "but it's the first foodI've seen for four days."
Instantly Elaine was full of sympathy. She had taken the food away.That would not suffice.
"What's your name, little boy?" she asked.
"Billy," he replied, blubbering.
"Where do you live?"
"With me mother and father—they're sick—nothing to eat—"
He was whimpering an address far over on the East Side.
"Get into the car," Elaine directed.
"Gee—but this is swell," he cried, with no fake, this time.
On they went, through the tenement canyons, dodging children and pushcarts, stopping first at a grocer's, then at a butcher's and a delicatessen. Finally the car stopped where Billy directed. Billy hobbled out, followed by Elaine and her chauffeur, his arms piled high with provisions. She was indeed a lovely Lady Bountiful as a crowd of kids quickly surrounded the car.
In the meantime Dago Mike and Kitty the Hawk had gone to a wretched flat, before which Billy stopped. Kitty sat on the bed, putting dark circles under her eyes with a blackened cork. She was very thin and emaciated, but it was dissipation that had done it. Dago Mike was correspondingly poorly dressed.
He had paused beside the window to look out. "She's coming," he announced finally.
Kitty hastily jumped into the rickety bed, while Mike took up a crutch that was standing idly in a corner. She coughed resignedly and he limped about, forlorn. They had assumed their parts which were almost to the burlesque of poverty, when the door was pushed open and Billy burst in followed by Elaine and the chauffeur.
"Oh, ma—oh, pa," he cried running forward and kissing his pseudo-parents, as Elaine, overcome with sympathy, directed the chauffeur to lay the things on a shaky table.
"God bless you, lady, for a benevolent angel!" muttered the pair, to which Elaine responded by moving over to the wretched bed and bending down to stroke the forehead of the sick woman.
Billy and Mike exchanged a sly wink.
Just then the door opened again. All were genuinely surprised this time, for a prim, spick and span, middle-aged woman entered.
"I am Miss Statistix, of the organized charities," she announced, looking around sharply. "I saw your car standing outside, Miss, and the children below told me you were up here. I came up to see whether you were aiding really DESERVING poor."
She laid a marked emphasis on the word, pursing up her lips. There was no mistaking the apprehension that these fine birds of prey had of her, either.
Miss Statistix took a step forward, looking in a very superior manner from Elaine to the packages of food and then at these prize members of the Brotherhood. She snorted contemptuously.
"Why—wh-what's the matter?" asked Elaine, fidgeting uncomfortably, as if she were herself guilty, in the icy atmosphere that now seemed to envelope all things.
"This man is a gunman, that woman is a bad woman, the boy is Billy the Bread-Snatcher," she answered precisely, drawing out a card on which to record something, "and you, Miss, are a fool!"
"Ya!" snarled the two precious falsers, "get out o' here!"
There was no combating Miss Statistix. She overwhelmed all arguments by the very exactness of her personality.
"YOU get out!" she countered.
Kitty and Mike, accompanied by Billy, sneaked out. Elaine, now very much embarrassed, looked about, wondering at the rapid-fire change. Miss Statistix smiled pityingly.
"Such innocence!" she murmured sadly shaking her head as she lead Elaine to the door. "Don't you know better than to try to help anybody without INVESTIGATING?"
Elaine departed, speechless, properly squelched, followed by her chauffeur.
. . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, a closed car, such as had stood across from the laboratory, had drawn up not far from the Dodge house. Near it was a man in rather shabby clothes and a visored cap on which were the words in dull gold lettering, "Metropolitan Window Cleaning Co." He carried a bucket and a small extension ladder.
In the darkened recesses of the car was the Clutching Hand himself, masked as usual. He had his watch in his hand and was giving most minute instructions to the window cleaner about something. As the latter turned to go, a sharp observer would have noted that it was Dan the Dude, still further disguised.
A few moments later, Dan appeared at the servants' entrance of the Dodge house and rang the bell. Jennings, who happened to be down there, came to the door.
"Man to clean the windows," saluted the bogus cleaner, touching his hat in a way quietly to call attention to the words on it and drawing from his pocket a faked written order.
"All right," nodded Jennings examining the order and finding it apparently all right.
Dan followed him in, taking the ladder and bucket upstairs, where AuntJosephine was still reading.
"The man to clean the windows, ma'am," apologized Jennings.
"Oh, very well," she nodded, taking up her book, to go. Then, recalling the frequent injunctions of Kennedy, she paused long enough to speak quietly to Jennings.
"Stay here and watch him," she whispered as she went out.
Jennings nodded, while Dan opened a window and set to work.
. . . . . . . .
Elaine had scarcely started again in her car down the crowded narrow street. From her position she could not possibly have seen Johnnie, another of the Brotherhood, watching her eagerly up the street.
But as her car approached, Johnnie, with great determination, pulled himself together and ran forward across the street. She saw that.
"Oh!" she screamed, her heart almost stopping.
He had fallen directly in front of the wheels of the car, apparently, and although the chauffeur stopped with a jolt, it seemed that the boy had been run over.