She took his arm and before he knew it, led him to the spot on the floor near the window which Dan had indicated. Meanwhile Dan was listening attentively in his closet.

"Now—stand there. You are just as I was—only I didn't expect anything."

She was pantomiming someone approaching stealthily while Kennedy watched her with interest, tinged with doubt. Behind Craig, in his closet, Dan was reaching for the switchboard button.

"You see," she said advancing quickly and acting her words, "he placed his hands on my shoulders—so—then threw his arms about my neck—so."

She said no more, but imprinted a deep, passionate kiss on Kennedy's mouth, clinging closely to him. Before Kennedy could draw away, Dan, in the closet, had pressed the button and the switch several times in rapid succession.

"Th-that's very realistic," gasped Craig, a good deal taken aback by the sudden osculatory assault.

He frowned.

"I—I'll look into the case," he said, backing away. "There may be some scientific explanation—but—er—"

He was plainly embarrassed and hastened to make his adieux.

Kennedy had no more than shut the door before Dan, with a gleeful laugh, burst out of the closet and flung his own arms about Florrie in an embrace that might have been poisoned, it is true, but was none the less real for that.

. . . . . . . .

How little impression the thing made on Kennedy can be easily seen from the fact that on the way downtown that afternoon he stopped at Martin's, on Fifth Avenue, and bought a ring—a very handsome solitaire, the finest Martin had in the shop.

It must have been about the time that he decided to stop at Martin's that the Dodge butler, Jennings, admitted a young lady who presented a card on which was engraved the name

Miss FLORENCE LEIGH 20 Prospect Avenue.

As he handed Elaine the card, she looked up from the book she was reading and took it.

"I don't know her," she said puckering her pretty brow. "Do you? What does she look like?"

"I never saw her before, Miss Elaine," Jennings shrugged. "But she is very well dressed."

"All right, show her in, Jennings. I'll see her."

Elaine moved into the drawing room, Jennings springing forward to part the portieres for her and passing through the room quickly where Flirty Florrie sat waiting. Flirty Florrie rose and stood gazing at Elaine, apparently very much embarrassed, even after Jennings had gone.

There was a short pause. The woman was the first to speak.

"It IS embarrassing," she said finally, "but, Miss Dodge, I have come to you to beg for my love."

Elaine looked at her non-plussed.

"Yes," she continued, "you do not know it, but Craig Kennedy is infatuated with you." She paused again, then added, "But he is engaged to me."

Elaine stared at the woman. She was dazed. She could not believe it.

"There is the ring," Flirty Florrie added indicating a very impressive paste diamond.

Elaine frowned but said nothing. Her head was in a whirl. She could not believe. Although Florrie was very much embarrassed, she was quite as evidently very much wrought up. Quickly she reached into her bag and drew out two photographs, without a word, handing them to Elaine. Elaine took them reluctantly.

"There's the proof," Florrie said simply, choking a sob.

Elaine looked with a start. Sure enough, there was the neat living room in the house on Prospect Avenue. In one picture Florrie had her arms over Kennedy's shoulders. In the other, apparently, they were passionately kissing.

Elaine slowly laid the photographs on the table.

"Please—please, Miss Dodge—give me back my lost love. You are rich and beautiful—I am poor. I have only my good looks. But—I— I love him—and he—loves me—and has promised to marry me."

Filled with wonder, and misgivings now, and quite as much embarrassed at the woman's pleadings as the woman herself had acted a moment before, Elaine tried to wave her off.

"Really—I—I don't know anything about all this. It—it doesn't concern me. Please—go."

Florrie had broken down completely and was weeping softly into a lace handkerchief.

She moved toward the door. Elaine followed her.

"Jennings—please see the lady to the door."

Back in the drawing room, Elaine almost seized the photographs and hurried into the library where she could be alone. There she stood gazing at them—doubt, wonder, and fear battling on her plastic features.

Just then she heard the bell and Jennings in the hall.

She shoved the photographs away from her on the table.

It was Kennedy himself, close upon the announcement of the butler. He was in a particularly joyous and happy mood, for he had stopped at Martin's.

"How are you this afternoon?" he greeted Elaine gaily.

Elaine had been too overcome by what had just happened to throw it off so easily, and received him with a quickly studied coolness.

Still, Craig, man-like, did not notice it at once. In fact he was too busy gazing about to see that neither Jennings, Marie, nor the duenna Aunt Josephine were visible. They were not and he quickly took the ring from his pocket. Without waiting, he showed it to Elaine. In fact, so sure had he been that everything was plain sailing, that he seemed to take it almost for granted. Under other circumstances, he would have been right. But not tonight.

Elaine very coolly admired the ring, as Craig might have eyed a specimen on a microscope slide. Still, he did not notice.

He took the ring, about to put it on her finger. Elaine drew away. Concealment was not in her frank nature.

She picked up the two photographs.

"What have you to say about those?" she asked cuttingly.

Kennedy, quite surprised, took them and looked at them. Then he let them fall carelessly on the table and dropped into a chair, his head back in a burst of laughter.

"Why—that was what they put over on Walter," he said. "He called me up early this afternoon—told me he had discovered one of these poisoned kiss cases you have read about in the papers. Think of it—all that to pull a concealed camera! Such an elaborate business—just to get me where they could fake this thing. I suppose they've put some one up to saying she's engaged?"

Elaine was not so lightly affected. "But," she said severely, repressing her emotion, "I don't understand, MR. Kennedy, how scientific inquiry into 'the poisoned kiss' could necessitate this sort of thing."

She pointed at the photographs accusingly.

"But," he began, trying to explain.

"No buts," she interrupted.

"Then you believe that I—"

"How can you, as a scientist, ask me to doubt the camera," she insinuated, very coldly turning away.

Kennedy rapidly began to see that it was far more serious than he had at first thought.

"Very well," he said with a touch of impatience, "if my word is not to be taken—I—I'll—"

He had seized his hat and stick.

Elaine did not deign to answer.

Then, without a word he stalked out of the door.

As he did so, Elaine hastily turned and took a few steps after him, as if to recall her words, then stopped, and her pride got the better of her.

She walked slowly back to the chair by the table—the chair he had been sitting in—sank down into it and cried.

. . . . . . . .

Kennedy was moping in the laboratory the next day when I came in.

Just what the trouble was, I did not know, but I had decided that it was up to me to try to cheer him up.

"Say, Craig," I began, trying to overcome his fit of blues.

Kennedy, filled with his own thoughts, paid no attention to me. Still, I kept on.

Finally he got up and, before I knew it, he took me by the ear and marched me into the next room.

I saw that what he needed chiefly was to be let alone, and he went back to his chair, dropping down into it and banging his fists on the table. Under his breath he loosed a small volley of bitter expletives. Then he jumped up.

"By George—I WILL," he muttered.

I poked my head out of the door in time to see him grab up his hat and coat and dash from the room, putting his coat on as he went.

"He's a nut today," I exclaimed to myself.

Though I did not know, yet, of the quarrel, Kennedy had really struggled with himself until he was willing to put his pride in his pocket and had made up his mind to call on Elaine again.

As he entered, he saw that it was really of no use, for only Aunt Josephine was in the library.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," she said innocently enough, "I'm so sorry she isn't here. There's been something troubling her and she won't tell me what it is. But she's gone to call on a young woman, a Florence Leigh, I think."

"Florence Leigh!" exclaimed Craig with a start and a frown. "Let me use your telephone."

I had turned my attention in the laboratory to a story I was writing, when I heard the telephone ring. It was Craig. Without a word of apology for his rudeness, which I knew had been purely absent-minded, I heard him saying, "Walter—meet me in half an hour outside that Florence Leigh's house."

He was gone in a minute, giving me scarcely time to call back that I would.

Then, with a hasty apology for his abruptness, he excused himself, leaving Aunt Josephine wondering at his strange actions.

At about the same time that Craig had left the laboratory, at the Dodge house Elaine and Aunt Josephine had been in the hall near the library. Elaine was in her street dress.

"I'm going out, Auntie," she said with an attempted gaiety. "And," she added, "if anyone should ask for me, I'll be there."

She had showed her a card on which was engraved, the name and address of Florence Leigh.

"All right, dear," answered Aunt Josephine, not quite clear in her mind what subtle change there was in Elaine.

. . . . . . . .

Half an hour later I was waiting near the house in the suburbs to which I had been directed by the strange telephone call the day before. I noticed that it was apparently deserted. The blinds were closed and a "To Let" sign was on the side of the house.

"Hello, Walter," cried Craig at last, bustling along. He stopped a moment to look at the house. Then, together, we went up the steps and we rang the bell, gazing about.

"Strange," muttered Craig. "The house looks deserted."

He pointed out the sign and the generally unoccupied look of the place. Nor was there any answer to our ring. Kennedy paused only a second, in thought.

"Come on, Walter," he said with a sudden decision. "We've got to get in here somehow."

He led the way around the side of the house to a window, and with a powerful grasp, wrenched open the closed shutters. He had just smashed the window viciously with his foot when a policeman appeared.

"Hey, you fellows—what are you doing there?" he shouted.

Craig paused a second, then pulled his card from his pocket.

"Just the man I want," he parried, much to the policeman's surprise, "There's something crooked going on here. Follow us in."

We climbed into the window. There was the same living room we had seen the day before. But it was now bare and deserted. Everything was gone except an old broken chair. Craig and I were frankly amazed at the complete and sudden change and I think the policeman was a little surprised, for he had thought the place occupied.

"Come on," cried Kennedy, beckoning us on.

Quickly he rushed through the house. There was not a thing in it to change the deserted appearance of the first floor. At last it occurred to Craig to grope his way down cellar. There was nothing there, either, except a bin, as innocent of coal as Mother Hubbard's cupboard was of food. For several minutes we hunted about without discovering a thing.

Kennedy had been carefully going over the place and was at the other side of the cellar from ourselves when I saw him stop and gaze at the floor. He was not looking, apparently, so much as listening. I strained my ears, but could make out nothing. Before I could say anything, he raised his hand for silence. Apparently he had heard something.

"Hide," he whispered suddenly to us.

Without another word, though for the life of me I could make nothing out of it, I pulled the policeman into a little angle of the wall nearby, while Craig slipped into a similar angle.

We waited a moment. Nothing happened. Had he been seeing things or hearing things, I wondered?

From our hidden vantage we could now see a square piece in the floor, perhaps five feet in diameter, slowly open up as though on a pivot. Beneath it we could make out a tube-like hole, perhaps three feet across, with a covered top. It slowly opened.

A weird and sinister figure of a man appeared. Over his head he wore a peculiar helmet with hideous glass pieces over the eyes, and tubes that connected with a tank which he carried buckled to his back. As he slowly dragged himself out, I could wonder only at the outlandish headgear.

Quickly he closed down the cover of the tube, but not before a vile effluvium seemed to escape, and penetrate even to us in our hiding places. As he moved forward, Kennedy gave a flying leap at him, and we followed with a regular football interference.

It was the work of only a moment for us to subdue and hold him, while Craig ripped off the helmet.

It was Dan the Dude.

"What's that thing?" I puffed, as I helped Craig with the headgear.

"An oxygen helmet," he replied. "There must be air down the tube that cannot be breathed."

He went over to the tube. Carefully he opened the top and gazed down, starting back a second later, with his face puckered up at the noxious odor.

"Sewer gas," he ejaculated, as he slammed the cover down. Then he added to the policeman, "Where do you suppose it comes from?"

"Why," replied the officer, "the St. James Drain—an old sewer—is somewhere about these parts."

Kennedy puckered his face as he gazed at our prisoner. He reached down quickly and lifted something off the man's coat.

"Golden hair," he muttered. "Elaine's!"

A moment later he seized the man and shook him roughly.

"Where is she—tell me?" he demanded.

The man snarled some kind of reply, refusing to say a word about her.

"Tell me," repeated Kennedy.

"Humph!" snorted the prisoner, more close-mouthed than ever.

Kennedy was furious. As he sent the man reeling away from him, he seized the oxygen helmet and began putting it on. There was only one thing to do—to follow the clue of the golden strands of hair.

Down into the pest hole he went, his head protected by the oxygen helmet. As he cautiously took one step after another down a series of iron rungs inside the hole, he found that the water was up to his chest. At the bottom of the perpendicular pit was a narrow low passage way, leading off. It was just about big enough to get through, but he managed to grope along it. He came at last to the main drain, an old stone-walled sewer, as murky a place as could well be imagined, filled with the foulest sewer gas. He was hardly able to keep his feet in the swirling, bubbling water that swept past, almost up to his neck.

The minutes passed as the policeman and I watched our prisoner in the cellar, by the tube. I looked anxiously at my watch.

"Craig!" I shouted at last, unable to control my fears for him.

No answer. To go down after him seemed out of the question.

By this time, Craig had come to a small open chamber into which the sewer widened. On the wall he found another series of iron rungs up which he climbed. The gas was terrible.

As he neared the top of the ladder, he came to a shelf-like aperture in the sewer chamber, and gazed about. It was horribly dark. He reached out and felt a piece of cloth. Anxiously he pulled on it. Then he reached further into the darkness.

There was Elaine, unconscious, apparently dead.

He shook her, endeavoring to wake her up. But it was no use.

In desperation Craig carried her down the ladder.

With our prisoner, we could only look helplessly around. Again and again I looked at my watch as the minutes lengthened. Suppose the oxygen gave out?

"By George, I'm going down after him," I cried in desperation.

"Don't do it," advised the policeman. "You'll never get out."

One whiff of the horrible gas told me that he was right. I should not have been able to go fifty feet in it. I looked at him in despair. It was impossible.

"Listen," said the policeman, straining his ears.

There was indeed a faint noise from the black depths below us. A rope alongside the rough ladder began to move, as though someone was pulling it taut. We gazed down.

"Craig! Craig!" I called. "Is that you?"

No answer. But the rope still moved. Perhaps the helmet made it impossible for him to hear.

He had struggled back in the swirling current almost exhausted by his helpless burden. Holding Elaine's head above the surface of the water and pulling on the rope to attract my attention, for he could neither hear nor shout, he had taken a turn of the rope about Elaine. I tried pulling on it. There was something heavy on the other end and I kept on pulling.

At last I could make out Kennedy dimly mounting the ladder. The weight was the unconscious body of Elaine which he steadied as he mounted. I tugged harder and he slowly came up.

Together, at last, the policeman and I reached down and pulled them out.

We placed Elaine on the cellar floor, as comfortably as was possible, and the policeman began his first-aid motions for resuscitation.

"No—no," cried Kennedy, "Not here—take her up where the air is fresher."

With his revolver still drawn to overawe the prisoner, the policeman forced him to aid us in carrying her up the rickety flight of cellar steps. Kennedy followed quickly, unscrewing the oxygen helmet as he went.

In the deserted living room we deposited our senseless burden, while Kennedy, the helmet off now, bent over her.

"Quick—quick!" he cried to the officer, "An ambulance!"

"But the prisoner," the policeman indicated.

"Hurry—hurry—I'll take care of him," urged Craig, seizing the policeman's pistol and thrusting it into his pocket. "Walter—help me."

He was trying the ordinary methods of resuscitation. Meanwhile the officer had hurried out, seeking the nearest telephone, while we worked madly to bring Elaine back.

Again and again Kennedy bent and outstretched her arms, trying to induce respiration. So busy was I that for the moment I forgot our prisoner.

But Dan had seen his chance. Noiselessly he picked up the old chair in the room and with it raised was approaching Kennedy to knock him out.

Before I knew it myself, Kennedy had heard him. With a half instinctive motion, he drew the revolver from his pocket and, almost before I could see it, had shot the man. Without a word he returned the gun to his pocket and again bent over Elaine, without so much as a look at the crook who sank to the floor, dropping the chair from his nerveless hands.

Already the policeman had got an ambulance which was now tearing along to us.

Frantically Kennedy was working.

A moment he paused and looked at me—hopeless.

Just then, outside, we could hear the ambulance, and a doctor and two attendants hurried up to the door. Without a word the doctor seemed to appreciate the gravity of the case.

He finished his examination and shook his head.

"There is no hope—no hope," he said slowly.

Kennedy merely stared at him. But the rest of us instinctively removed our hats.

Kennedy gazed at Elaine, overcome. Was this the end?

It was not many minutes later that Kennedy had Elaine in the little sitting room off the laboratory, having taken her there in the ambulance, with the doctor and two attendants.

Elaine's body had been placed on a couch, covered by a blanket, and the shades were drawn. The light fell on her pale face.

There was something incongruous about death and the vast collection of scientific apparatus, a ghastly mocking of humanity. How futile was it all in the presence of the great destroyer?

Aunt Josephine had arrived, stunned, and a moment later, Perry Bennett. As I looked at the sorrowful party, Aunt Josephine rose slowly from her position on her knees where she had been weeping silently beside Elaine, and pressed her hands over her eyes, with every indication of faintness.

Before any of us could do anything, she had staggered into the laboratory itself, Bennett and I following quickly. There I was busy for some time getting restoratives.

Meanwhile Kennedy, beside the couch, with an air of desperate determination, turned away and opened a cabinet. From it he took a large coil and attached it to a storage battery, dragging the peculiar apparatus near Elaine's couch.

To an electric light socket, Craig attached wires. The doctor watched him in silent wonder.

"Doctor," he asked slowly as he worked, "do you know of Professor Leduc of the Nantes Ecole de Medicin?"

"Why—yes," answered the doctor, "but what of him?"

"Then you know of his method of electrical resuscitation."

"Yes—but—" He paused, looking apprehensively at Kennedy.

Craig paid no attention to his fears, but approaching the couch on which Elaine lay, applied the electrodes. "You see," he explained, with forced calmness, "I apply the anode here—the cathode there."

The ambulance surgeon looked on excitedly, as Craig turned on the current, applying it to the back of the neck and to the spine.

For some minutes the machine worked.

Then the young doctor's eyes began to bulge.

"My heavens!" he cried under his breath. "Look!"

Elaine's chest had slowly risen and fallen. Kennedy, his attention riveted on his work, applied himself with redoubled efforts. The young doctor looked on with increased wonder.

"Look! The color in her face! See her lips!" he cried.

At last her eyes slowly fluttered open—then closed.

Would the machine succeed? Or was it just the galvanic effect of the current? The doctor noticed it and quickly placed his ear to her heart. His face was a study in astonishment. The minutes sped fast.

To us outside, who had no idea what was transpiring in the other room, the minutes were leaden-feeted. Aunt Josephine, weak but now herself again, was sitting nervously.

Just then the door opened.

I shall never forget the look on the young ambulance surgeon's face, as he murmured under his breath, "Come here—the age of miracles is not passed—look!"

Raising his finger to indicate that we were to make no noise, he led us into the other room.

Kennedy was bending over the couch.

Elaine, her eyes open, now, was gazing up at him, and a wan smile flitted over her beautiful face.

Kennedy had taken her hand, and as he heard us enter, turned half way to us, while we stared in blank wonder from Elaine to the weird and complicated electrical apparatus.

"It is the life-current," he said simply, patting the Leduc apparatus with his other hand.



CHAPTER XI

THE HOUR OF THREE

With the ominous forefinger of his Clutching Hand extended, the master criminal emphasized his instructions to his minions.

"Perry Bennett, her lawyer, is in favor again with Elaine Dodge," he was saying. "She and Kennedy are on the outs even yet. But they may become reconciled. Then she'll have that fellow on our trail again. Before that happens, we must 'get' her—see?"

It was in the latest headquarters to which Craig had chased the criminal, in one of the toughest parts of the old Greenwich village, on the west side of New York, not far from the river front.

They were all seated in a fairly large but dingy old room, in which were several chairs, a rickety table and, against the wall, a roll-top desk on the top of which was a telephone.

Several crooks of the gang were sitting about, smoking.

"Now," went on Clutching Hand, "I want you, Spike, to follow them. See what they do—where they go. It's her birthday. Something's bound to occur that will give you a lead. All you've got to do is to use your head. Get me?"

Spike rose, nodded, picked up his hat and coat and squirmed out on his mission, like the snake that he was.

. . . . . . . .

It was, as Clutching Hand had said, Elaine's birthday. She had received many callers and congratulations, innumerable costly and beautiful tokens of remembrance from her countless friends and admirers. In the conservatory of the Dodge house Elaine, Aunt Josephine, and Susie Martin were sitting discussing not only the happy occasion, but, more, the many strange events of the past few weeks.

"Well," cried a familiar voice behind them. "What would a certain blonde young lady accept as a birthday present from her family lawyer?"

All three turned in surprise.

"Oh, Mr. Bennett," cried Elaine. "How you startled us!"

He laughed and repeated his question, adopting the tone that he had once used in the days when he had been more in favor with the pretty heiress, before the advent of Kennedy.

Elaine hesitated. She was thinking not so much of his words as of Kennedy. To them all, however, it seemed that she was unable to make up her mind what, in the wealth of her luxury, she would like.

Susie Martin had been wondering whether, now that Bennett was here, she were not de trop, and she looked at her wrist watch mechanically. As she did so, an idea occurred to her.

"Why not one of these?" she cried impulsively, indicating the watch. "Father has some beauties at the shop."

"Oh, good," exclaimed Elaine, "how sweet!"

She welcomed the suggestion, for she had been thinking that perhaps Bennett might be hinting too seriously at a solitaire.

"So that strikes your fancy?" he asked. "Then let's all go to the shop. Miss Martin will personally conduct the tour, and we shall have our pick of the finest stock."

A moment later the three young people went out and were quickly whirled off down the Avenue in the Dodge town car.

It was too gay a party to notice a sinister figure following them in a cab. But as they entered the fashionable jewelry shop, Spike, who had alighted, walked slowly down the street.

Chatting with animation, the three moved over to the watch counter, while the crook, with a determination not to risk missing anything, entered the shop door, too.

"Mr. Thomas," asked Susie as her father's clerk bowed to them, "please show Miss Dodge the wrist watches father was telling about."

With another deferential bow, the clerk hastened to display a case of watches and they bent over them. As each new watch was pointed out, Elaine was delighted.

Unobserved, the crook walked over near enough to hear what was going on.

At last, with much banter and yet care, Elaine selected one that was indeed a beauty and was about to snap it on her dainty wrist, when the clerk interrupted.

"I beg pardon," he suggested, "but I'd advise you to leave it to be regulated, if you please."

"Yes, indeed," chimed in Susie. "Father always advises that."

Reluctantly, Elaine handed it over to the clerk.

"Oh, thank you, ever so much, Mr. Bennett," she said as he unobtrusively paid for the watch and gave the address to which it was to be sent when ready.

A moment later they went out and entered the car again.

As they did so, Spike, who had been looking various things in the next case over as if undecided, came up to the watch counter.

"I'm making a present," he remarked confidentially to the clerk. "How about those bracelet watches?"

The clerk pulled out some of the cheaper ones.

"No," he said thoughtfully, pointing out a tray in the show case, "something like those."

He ended by picking out one identically like that which Elaine had selected, and started to pay for it.

"Better have it regulated," repeated the clerk.

"No," he objected hastily, shaking his head and paying the money quickly. "It's a present—and I want it tonight."

He took the watch and left the store hurriedly.

. . . . . . . .

In the laboratory, Kennedy was working over an oblong oak box, perhaps eighteen inches in length and half as high. In the box I could see, besides other apparatus, two good sized spools of fine wire.

"What's all that?" I asked inquisitively.

"Another of the new instruments that scientific detectives use," he responded, scarcely looking up, "a little magnetic wizard, the telegraphone."

"Which is?" I prompted.

"Something we detectives might use to take down and 'can' telephone and other conversations. When it is attached properly to a telephone, it records everything that is said over the wire."

"How does it work?" I asked, much mystified.

"Well, it is based on an entirely new principle, in every way different from the phonograph," he explained. "As you can see there are no discs or cylinders, but these spools of extremely fine steel wire. The record is not made mechanically on a cylinder, but electromagnetically on this wire."

"How?" I asked, almost incredulously.

"To put it briefly," he went on, "small portions of magnetism, as it were, are imparted to fractions of the steel wire as it passes between two carbon electric magnets. Each impression represents a sound wave. There is no apparent difference in the wire, yet each particle of steel undergoes an electromagnetic transformation by which the sound is indelibly imprinted on it."

"Then you scrape the wire, just as you shave records to use it over again?" I suggested.

"No," he replied. "You pass a magnet over it and the magnet automatically erases the record. Rust has no effect. The record lasts as long as steel lasts."

Craig continued to tinker tantalizingly with the machine which had been invented by a Dane, Valdemar Poulsen.

He had scarcely finished testing out the telegraphone, when the laboratory door opened and a clean-cut young man entered.

Kennedy, I knew, had found that the routine work of the Clutching Hand case was beyond his limited time and had retained this young man, Raymond Chase, to attend to that.

Chase was a young detective whom Craig had employed on shadowing jobs and as a stool pigeon on other cases, and we had all the confidence in the world in him.

Just now what worried Craig was the situation with Elaine, and I fancied that he had given Chase some commission in connection with that.

"I've got it, Mr. Kennedy," greeted Chase with quiet modesty.

"Good," responded Craig heartily. "I knew you would."

"Got what?" I asked a moment later.

Kennedy nodded for Chase to answer.

"I've located the new residence of Flirty Florrie," he replied.

I saw what Kennedy was after at once. Flirty Florrie and Dan the Dude had caused the quarrel between himself and Elaine. Dan the Dude was dead. But Flirty Florrie might be forced to explain it.

"That's fine," he added, exultingly. "Now, I'll clear that thing up."

He took a hasty step to the telephone, put his hand on the receiver and was about to take it off the hook. Then he paused, and I saw his face working. The wound Elaine had given his feelings was deep. It had not yet quite healed.

Finally, his pride, for Kennedy's was a highly sensitive nature, got the better of him.

"No," he said, half to himself, "not—yet."

Elaine had returned home.

Alone, her thoughts naturally went back to what had happened recently to interrupt a friendship which had been the sweetest in her life.

"There MUST be some mistake," she murmured pensively to herself, thinking of the photograph Flirty had given her. "Oh, why did I send him away? Why didn't I believe him?"

Then she thought of what had happened, of how she had been seized by Dan the Dude in the deserted house, of how the noxious gas had overcome her.

They had told her of how Craig had risked his life to save her, how she had been brought home, still only half alive, after his almost miraculous work with the new electric machine.

There was his picture. She had not taken that away. As she looked at it, a wave of feeling came over her. Mechanically, she put out her hand to the telephone.

She was about to take off the receiver, when something seemed to stay her hand. She wanted him to come to her.

And, if either of them had called the other just then, they would have probably crossed wires.

Of such stuff are the quarrels of lovers.

Craig's eye fell on the telegraphone, and an idea seemed to occur to him.

"Walter, you and Chase bring that thing along," he said a moment later.

He paused long enough to take a badge from the drawer of a cabinet, and went out. We followed him, lugging the telegraphone.

At last we came to the apartment house at which Chase had located the woman.

"There it is," he pointed out, as I gave a groan of relief, for the telegraphone was getting like lead.

Kennedy nodded and drew from his pocket the badge I had seen him take from the cabinet.

"Now, Chase," he directed, "you needn't go in with us. Walter and I can manage this, now. But don't get out of touch with me. I shall need you any moment—certainly tomorrow."

I saw that the badge read, Telephone Inspector.

"Walter," he smiled, "you're elected my helper."

We entered the apartment house hall and found a Negro boy in charge of the switchboard. It took Craig only a moment to convince the boy that he was from the company and that complaints had been made by some anonymous tenant.

"You look over that switchboard, Kelly," he winked at me, "while I test out the connections back here. There must be something wrong with the wires or there wouldn't be so many complaints."

He had gone back of the switchboard and the Negro, still unsuspicious, watched without understanding what it was all about.

"I don't know," Craig muttered finally for the benefit of the boy, "but I think I'll have to leave that tester after all. Say, if I put it here, you'll have to be careful not to let anyone meddle with it. If you do, there'll be the deuce to pay. See?"

Kennedy had already started to fasten the telegraphone to the wires he had selected from the tangle.

At last he finished and stood up.

"Don't disturb it and don't let anyone else touch it," he ordered. "Better not tell anyone—that's the best way. I'll be back for it tomorrow probably."

"Yas sah," nodded the boy, with a bow, as we went out.

We returned to the laboratory, where there seemed to be nothing we could do now except wait for something to happen.

Kennedy, however, employed the time by plunging into work, most of the time experimenting with a peculiar little coil to which ran the wires of an ordinary electric bell.

Back in the new hang-out, the Clutching Hand was laying down the law to his lieutenants and heelers, when Spike at last entered.

"Huh!" growled the master criminal, covering the fact that he was considerably relieved to see him at last, "where have YOU been? I've been off on a little job myself and got back."

Spike apologized profusely. He had succeeded so easily that he had thought to take a little time to meet up with an old pal whom he ran across, just out of prison.

"Yes sir," he replied hastily, "well, I went over to the Dodge house, and I saw them finally. Followed them into a jewelry shop. That lawyer bought her a wrist watch. So I bought one just like it. I thought perhaps we could—" "Give it to me," growled Clutching Hand, seizing it the moment Slim displayed it. "And don't butt in—see?"

From the capacious desk, the master criminal pulled a set of small drills, vices, and other jeweler's tools and placed them on the table.

"All right," he relented. "Now, do you see what I have just thought of—no? This is just the chance. Look at me."

The heelers gathered around him, peering curiously at their master as he worked at the bracelet watch.

Carefully he plied his hands to the job, regardless of time.

"There," he exclaimed at last, holding the watch up where they could all see it. "See!"

He pulled out the stem to set the hands and slowly twisted it between his thumb and finger. He turned the hands until they were almost at the point of three o'clock.

Then he held the watch out where all could see it.

They bent closer and strained their eyes at the little second hand ticking away merrily.

As the minute hand touched three, from the back of the case, as if from the casing itself, a little needle, perhaps a quarter of an inch, jumped out. It seemed to come from what looked like merely a small inset in the decorations.

"You see what will happen at the hour of three?" he asked.

No one said a word, as he held up a vial which he had drawn from his pocket. On it they could read the label, "Ricinus."

"One of the most powerful poisons in the world!" he exclaimed. "Enough here to kill a regiment!"

They fairly gasped and looked at it with horror, exchanging glances. Then they looked at him in awe. There was no wonder that Clutching Hand kept them in line, once he had a crook in his power.

Opening the vial carefully, he dipped in a thin piece of glass and placed a tiny drop in a receptacle back of the needle and on the needle itself.

Altogether it savored of the ancient days of the Borgias with their weird poisoned rings.

Then he dropped the vial back into his pocket, pressed a spring, and the needle went back into its unsuspected hiding place.

"I've set my invention to go off at three o'clock," he concluded. "Tomorrow forenoon, it will have to be delivered early—and I don't believe we shall be troubled any longer by Miss Elaine Dodge," he added venomously.

Even the crooks, hardened as they were, could only gasp.

Calmly he wrapped up the apparently innocent engine of destruction and handed it to Spike.

"See that she gets it in time," he said merely.

"I will, sir," answered Spike, taking it gingerly.

Flirty Florrie had returned that afternoon, late, from some expedition on which she had been sent.

Rankling in her heart yet was the death of her lover, Dan the Dude. For, although in her sphere of crookdom they are neither married nor given in marriage, still there is a brand of loyalty that higher circles might well copy. Sacred to the memory of the dead, however, she had one desire—revenge.

Thus when she arrived home, she went to the telephone to report and called a number, 4494 Greenwich.

"Hello, Chief," she repeated. "This is Flirty. Have you done anything yet in the little matter we talked about?"

"Say—be careful of names—over the wire," came a growl.

"You know—what I mean."

"Yes. The trick will be pulled off at three o'clock." "Good!" she exclaimed. "Good-bye and thank you."

With his well-known caution Clutching Hand did not even betray names over the telephone if he could help it.

Flirty hung up the receiver with satisfaction. The manes of the departed Dan might soon rest in peace!

The next day, early in the forenoon, a young man with a small package carefully done up came to the Dodge house.

"From Martin's, the jeweler's, for Miss Dodge," he said to Jennings at the door.

Elaine and Aunt Josephine were sitting in the library when Jennings announced him.

"Oh, it's my watch," cried Elaine. "Show him in."

Jennings bowed and did so. Spike entered, and handed the package to Elaine, who signed her name excitedly and opened it.

"Just look, Auntie," she exclaimed. "Isn't it stunning?"

"Very pretty," commented Aunt Josephine.

Elaine put the watch on her wrist and admired it.

"Is it all right?" asked Spike.

"Yes, yes," answered Elaine. "You may go."

He went out, while Elaine gazed rapturously at the new trinket while it ticked off the minutes—this devilish instrument.

Early the same morning Kennedy went around again to the apartment house and, cautious not to be seen by Flirty, recovered the telegraphone. Together we carried it to the laboratory.

There he set up a little instrument that looked like a wedge sitting up on end, in the face of which was a dial. Through it he began to run the wire from the spools, and, taking an earpiece, put another on my head over my ears.

"You see," he explained, "the principle on which this is based is that a mass of tempered steel may be impressed with and will retain magnetic fluxes varying in density and in sign in adjacent portions of itself—little deposits of magnetic impulse.

"When the telegraphone is attached to the telephone wire, the currents that affect the receiver also affect the coils of the telegraphone and the disturbance set up causes a deposit of magnetic impulse on the steel wire.

"When the wire is again run past these coils with a receiver such as I have here in circuit with the coils, a light vibration is set up in the receiver diaphragm which reproduces the sound of speech." He turned a switch and we listened eagerly. There was no grating and thumping, as he controlled the running off of the wire. We were listening to everything that had been said over the telephone during the time since we left the machine.

First came several calls from people with bills and she put them off most adroitly.

Then we heard a call that caused Kennedy to look at me quickly, stop the machine and start at that point over again.

"That's what I wanted," he said as we listened in:

"Give me 4494 Greenwich."

"Hello."

"Hello, Chief. This is Flirty. Have you done anything yet in the little matter we talked about?

"Say—be careful of names—over the wire."

"You know—what I mean."

"Yes, the trick will be pulled off at three o'clock.

"Good! Good-bye and thank you!"

"Good-bye."

Kennedy stopped the machine and I looked at him blankly.

"She called Greenwich 4494 and was told that the trick would be pulled off at three o'clock today," he ruminated.

"What trick?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know. That is what we must find out. I hadn't expected a tip like that. What I wanted was to find out how to get at the Clutching Hand."

He paused and considered a minute, then moved to the telephone.

"There's only one thing to do and that's to follow out my original scheme," he said energetically. "Information, please."

"Where is Greenwich 4494?" he asked a moment later.

The minutes passed. "Thank you," he cried, writing down on a pad an address over on the west side near the river front. Then turning to me he explained, "Walter, we've got him at last!"

Craig rose and put on his hat and coat, thrusting a pair of opera glasses into his pocket, in case we should want to observe the place at a distance. I followed him excitedly. The trail was hot.

Kennedy and I came at last to the place on the West Side where the crooked streets curved off.

Instead of keeping on until he came to the place we sought, he turned and quickly slipped behind the shelter of a fence. There was a broken board in the fence and he bent down, gazing through with the opera glasses.

Across the lot was the new headquarters, a somewhat dilapidated old-fashioned brick house of several generations back. Through the glass we could see an evil-countenanced crook slinking along. He mounted the steps and rang the bell, turning as he waited.

From a small aperture in the doorway looked out another face, equally evil. Under cover, the crook made the sign of the clutching hand twice and was admitted.

"That's the place, all right," whispered Kennedy with satisfaction.

He hurried to a telephone booth where he called several numbers. Then we returned to the laboratory, while Kennedy quickly figured out a plan of action. I knew Chase was expected there soon.

From the table he picked up the small coil over which I had seen him working, and attached it to the bell and some batteries. He replaced it on the table, while I watched curiously.

"A selenium cell," he explained. "Only when light falls on it does it become a good conductor of electricity. Then the bell will ring."

Just before making the connection he placed his hat over the cell. Then he lifted the hat. The light fell on it and the bell rang. He replaced the hat and the bell stopped. It was evidently a very peculiar property of the substance, selenium.

Just then there came a knock at the door. I opened it.

"Hello, Chase," greeted Kennedy. "Well, I've found the new headquarters all right,—over on the west side."

Kennedy picked up the selenium cell and a long coil of fine wire which he placed in a bag. Then he took another bag already packed and, shifting them between us, we hurried down town.

Near the vacant lot, back of the new headquarters, was an old broken down house. Through the rear of it we entered.

I started back in astonishment as we found eight or ten policemen already there. Kennedy had ordered them to be ready for a raid and they had dropped in one at a time without attracting attention.

"Well, men," he greeted them, "I see you found the place all right. Now, in a little while Jameson will return with two wires. Attach them to the bell which I will leave here. When it rings, raid the house. Jameson will lead you to it. Come, Walter," he added, picking up the bags.

Ten minutes later, outside the new headquarters, a crouched up figure, carrying a small package, his face hidden under his soft hat and up-turned collar, could have been seen slinking along until he came to the steps.

He went up and peered through the aperture of the doorway. Then he rang the bell. Twice he raised his hand and clenched it in the now familiar clutch.

A crook inside saw it through the aperture and opened the door. The figure entered and almost before the door was shut tied the masking handkerchief over his face, which hid his identity from even the most trusted lieutenants. The crook bowed to the chief, who, with a growl as though of recognition, moved down the hall.

As he came to the room from which Spike had been sent on his mission, the same group was seated in the thick tobacco smoke.

"You fellows clear out," he growled. "I want to be alone."

"The old man is peeved," muttered one, outside, as they left.

The weird figure gazed about the room to be sure that he was alone.

When Craig and I left the police he had given me most minute instructions which I was now following out to the letter.

"I want you to hide there," he said, indicating a barrel back of the house next to the hang-out. "When you see a wire come down from the headquarters, take it and carry it across the lot to the old house. Attach it to the bell; then wait. When it rings, raid the Clutching Hand joint."

I waited what seemed to be an interminable time back of the barrel and it is no joke hiding back of a barrel.

Finally, however, I saw a coil of fine wire drop rapidly to the ground from a window somewhere above. I made a dash for it, as though I were trying to rush the trenches, seized my prize and without looking back to see where it came from, beat a hasty retreat.

Around the lot I skirted, until at last I reached the place where the police were waiting. Quickly we fastened the wire to the bell.

We waited.

Not a sound from the bell.

Up in the room in the joint, the hunched up figure stood by the table. He had taken his hat off and placed it carefully on the table, and was now waiting.

Suddenly a noise at the door startled him. He listened. Then he backed away from the door and drew a revolver.

As the door slowly opened there entered another figure, hat over his eyes, collar up, a handkerchief over his face, the exact counterpart of the first!

For a moment each glared at the other.

"Hands up!" shouted the first figure, hoarsely, moving the gun and closing the door, with his foot.

The newcomer slowly raised his crooked hand over his head, as the blue steel revolver gaped menacingly.

With a quick movement of the other hand, the first sinister figure removed the handkerchief from his face and straightened up.

It was Kennedy!

"Come over to the center of the room," ordered Kennedy.

Clutching Hand obeyed, eyeing his captor closely.

"Now lay your weapons on the table."

He tossed down a revolver.

The two still faced each other.

"Take off that handkerchief!"

It was a tense moment. Slowly Clutching Hand started to obey. Then he stopped. Kennedy was just about to thunder, "Go on," when the criminal calmly remarked, "You've got ME all right, Kennedy, but in twenty minutes Elaine Dodge will be dead!"

He said it with a nonchalance that might have deceived anyone less astute than Kennedy. Suddenly there flashed over Craig the words: "THE TRICK WILL BE PULLED OFF AT THREE O'CLOCK!"

There was no fake about that. Kennedy frowned. If he killed Clutching Hand, Elaine would die. If he fought, he must either kill or be killed. If he handed Clutching Hand over, all he had to do was to keep quiet. He looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes of three.

What a situation!

He had caught a prisoner he dared not molest—yet.

"What do you mean—tell me?" demanded Kennedy with forced calm.

"Yesterday Mr. Bennett bought a wrist watch for Elaine," the Clutching Hand said quietly. "They left it to be regulated. One of my men bought one just like it. Mine was delivered to her today."

"A likely story!" doubted Kennedy.

For answer, the Clutching Hand pointed to the telephone.

Kennedy reached for it.

"One thing," interrupted the Clutching Hand. "You are a man of honor."

"Yes—yes. Go on."

"If I tell you what to do, you must promise to give me a fighting chance."

"Yes, yes."

"Call up Aunt Josephine, then. Do just as I say."

Covering Clutching Hand, Kennedy called a number. "This is Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Dodge. Did Elaine receive a present of a wrist watch from Mr. Bennett?"

"Yes," she replied, "for her birthday. It came this forenoon."

Kennedy hung up the receiver and faced Clutching Hand puzzled as the latter said, "Call up Martin, the jeweler."

Again Kennedy obeyed.

"Has the watch purchased for Miss Elaine Dodge been delivered?" he asked the clerk.

"No," came back the reply, "the watch Mr. Bennett bought is still here being regulated."

Kennedy hung up the receiver. He was stunned.

"The watch will cause her death at three o'clock," said the Clutching Hand. "Swear to leave here without discovering my identity and I will tell you how. You can save her!"

A moment Kennedy thought. Here was a quandary.

"No," he shouted, seizing the telephone.

Before Kennedy could move, Clutching Hand had pulled the telephone wires with almost superhuman strength from the junction box.

"In that watch," he hissed, "I have set a poisoned needle in a spring that will be released and will plunge it into her arm at exactly three o'clock. On the needle is ricinus!"

Craig advanced, furious. As he did so, Clutching Hand pointed calmly to the clock. It was twenty minutes of three!

With a mental struggle, Kennedy controlled his loathing of the creature before him.

"All right—but you'll hear from me—sooner than you suspect," he shouted, starting for the door.

Then he came back and lifted his hat, hiding as much as possible the selenium cell, letting the light fall on it.

"Only Elaine's life has saved you."

With a last threat he dashed out. He hailed a cab, returning from some steamship wharves not far away.

"Quick!" he ordered, giving the Dodge address on Fifth Avenue.

Minute after minute the police and I waited. Was anything wrong? Where was Craig?

Just then a tremor grew into a tinkle, then came the strong burr of the bell. Kennedy needed us.

With a shout of encouragement to the men I dashed out and over to the old house.

Meanwhile Clutching Hand himself had approached the table to recover his weapon and had noticed the queer little selenium cell. He picked it up and for the first time saw the wire leading out.

"The deuce!" he cried. "He's planned to get me anyhow!"

Clutching Hand rushed to the door—then stopped short. Outside he could hear the police and myself. We had shot the lock on the outside and were already inside.

Clutching Hand slammed shut his door and pulled down over it a heavy wooden bar. A few steps took him to the window. There were police in the back yard, too. He was surrounded.

But he did not hurry. He knew what to do with every second.

At the desk he paused and took out a piece of cardboard. Then with a heavy black marking pencil, he calmly printed on it, while we battered at the barricaded door, a few short feet away.

He laid the sign on the desk, then on another piece of cardboard, drew crudely a hand with the index finger, pointing. This he placed on a chair, indicating the desk.

Just as the swaying and bulging door gave way, Clutching Hand gave the desk a pull. It opened up—his getaway.

He closed it with a sardonic smile in our direction, just before the door crashed in.

We looked about. There was not a soul in the room, nothing but the selenium cell, the chairs, the desk.

"Look!" I cried catching sight of the index finger, and going over to the desk.

We rolled back the top. There on the flat top was a sign:

Dear Blockheads:

Kennedy and I couldn't wait.

Yours as ever,

Then came that mysterious sign of the Clutching Hand.

We hunted over the rooms, but could find nothing that showed a clue. Where was Clutching Hand? Where was Kennedy?

In the next house Clutching Hand had literally come out of an upright piano into the room corresponding to that he had left. Hastily he threw off his handkerchief, slouch hat, old coat and trousers. A neat striped pair of trousers replaced the old, frayed and baggy pair. A new shirt, then a sporty vest and a frock coat followed. As he put the finishing touches on, he looked for all the world like a bewhiskered foreigner.

With a silk hat and stick, he surveyed himself, straightening his tie. At the door of the new headquarters, a few seconds later, I stood with the police.

"Not a sign of him anywhere," growled one of the officers.

Nor was there. Down the street we could see only a straight well- dressed, distinguished looking man who had evidently walked down to the docks to see a friend off, perhaps.

Elaine was sitting in the library reading when Aunt Josephine turned to her.

"What time is it, dear?" she asked.

Elaine glanced at her pretty new trinket.

"Nearly three, Auntie—a couple of minutes," she said.

Just then there came the sound of feet running madly down the hall way. They jumped up, startled.

Kennedy, his coat flying, and hat jammed over his eyes, had almost bowled over poor Jennings in his mad race down the hall.

"Well," demanded Elaine haughtily, "what's—"

Before she knew what was going on, Craig hurried up to her and literally ripped the watch off her wrist, breaking the beautiful bracelet.

He held it up, gingerly. Elaine was speechless. Was this Kennedy? Was he possessed by such an inordinate jealousy of Bennett?

As he held the watch up, the second hand ticked around and the minute hand passed the meridian of the hour.

A viciously sharp little needle gleamed out—then sprang back into the filigree work again.

"Well," she gasped again, "what's the occasion of THIS?"

Craig gazed at Elaine in silence.

Should he defend his rudeness, if she did not understand? She stamped her foot, and repeated the question a third time.

"What do you mean, sir, by such conduct?"

Slowly he bowed.

"I just don't like the kind of birthday presents you receive," he said, turning on his heel. "Good afternoon."



CHAPTER XII

THE BLOOD CRYSTALS

"On your right is the residence of Miss Elaine Dodge, the heiress, who is pursuing the famous master criminal known as the Clutching Hand."

The barker had been grandiloquently pointing out the residences of noted New Yorkers as the big sightseeing car lumbered along through the streets. The car was filled with people and he plied his megaphone as though he were on intimate terms with all the city's notables.

No one paid any attention to the unobtrusive Chinaman who sat inconspicuously in the middle of the car. He was Mr. Long Sin, but no one saw anything particularly mysterious about an oriental visitor more or less viewing New York City.

Long was of the mandarin type, with drooping mustache, well dressed in American clothes, and conforming to the new customs of an occidentalized China.

Anyone, however, who had been watching Long Sin would have seen that he showed much interest whenever any of the wealthy residents of the city were mentioned. The name of Elaine Dodge seemed particularly to strike him. He listened with subtle interest to what the barker said and looked keenly at the Dodge house.

The sight-seeing car had passed the house, when he rose slowly and motioned that he wanted to be let off. The car stopped, he alighted and slowly rambled away, evidently marvelling greatly at the strange customs of these uncouth westerners.

Elaine was going out, when she met Perry Bennett almost on the steps of the house.

"I've brought you the watch," remarked Bennett; "thought I'd like to give it to you myself."

He displayed the watch which he himself had bought a couple of days before for her birthday. He had called for it himself at the jeweller's where it had now been regulated.

"Oh, thank you," exclaimed Elaine. "Won't you come in?"

They had scarcely greeted each other, when Long Sin strolled along. Neither of them, however, had time to notice the quiet Chinaman who passed the house, looking at Elaine sharply out of the corner of his eye. They entered and Long disappeared down the street.

"Isn't it a beauty?" cried Elaine, holding it out from her, as they entered the library and examining it with great appreciation. "And, oh, do you know, the strangest thing happened yesterday? Sometimes Mr. Kennedy acts too queerly for anything."

She related how Craig had burst in on her and Aunt Josephine and had almost torn the other watch off her wrist.

"Another watch?" repeated Bennett, amazed. "It must have been a mistake. Kennedy is crazy."

"I don't understand it, myself," murmured Elaine.

Long Sin had continued his placid way, revolving some dark and devious plan beneath his impassive Oriental countenance. He was no ordinary personage. In fact he was astute enough to have no record. He left that to his tools.

This remarkable criminal had established himself in a hired apartment downtown. It was furnished in rather elegant American style, but he had added to it some most valuable Oriental curios which gave it a fascinating appearance.

Long Sin, now in rich Oriental costume, was reclining on a divan smoking a strange looking pipe and playing with two pet white rats. Each white rat had a gold band around his leg, to which was connected a gold chain about a foot in length, and the chains ended in rings which were slipped over Long's little fingers. Ordinarily, he carried the pets up the capacious sleeve of each arm.

A servant, also in native costume, entered and bowed deferentially.

"A Miss Mary Carson," she lisped in soft English.

"Let the lady enter," waved Long Sin, with a smile of subtle satisfaction.

The girl bowed again and silently left the room, returning with a handsome, very well dressed white woman.

It would be difficult to analyze just what the fascination was that Long Sin exercised over Mary Carson. But as the servant left the room, Mary bowed almost as deferentially as the little Chinese girl. Long merely nodded in reply.

After a moment, he slowly rose and took from a drawer a newspaper clipping. Without a word, he handed it to Mary. She looked at it with interest, as one woman always does at the picture of another pretty woman. It was a newspaper cut of Elaine, under which was:

ELAINE DODGE, THE HEIRESS, WHOSE BATTLE WITH THE CLUTCHING HAND IS CREATING WORLD WIDE INTEREST.

"Now," he began, at last, breaking the silence, "I'll show you just what I want you to do."

He went over to the wall and took down a curious long Chinese knife from a scabbard which hung there conspicuously.

"See that?" he added, holding it up.

Before she could say a word, he had plunged the knife, apparently, into his own breast.

"Oh!" cried Mary, startled.

She expected to see him fall. But nothing happened. Long Sin laughed. It was an Oriental trick knife in which the blade telescoped into the handle.

"Look at it," he added, handing it to her.

Long Sin took a bladder of water from a table nearby and concealed it under his coat. "Now, you stab me," he directed.

Mary hesitated. But he repeated the command and she plunged the knife gingerly at him. It telescoped. He made her try it over and she stabbed more resolutely. The water from the bladder poured out.

"Good!" cried Long Sin, much pleased. "Now," he added, seating himself beside her, "I want you to lure Elaine here."

Mary looked at him inquiringly as he returned the knife to its scabbard on the wall. "Remember where it is," he continued. "Now, if you will come into the other room I will show you how to get her."

I had been amusing myself by rigging up a contrivance by which I could make it possible to see through or rather over, a door. The idea had been suggested to me by the cystoscope which physicians use in order to look down one's throat, and I had calculated that by using three mirrors placed at proper angles, I could easily reflect rays down to the level of my eye.

Kennedy, who had been busy in the other end of the laboratory, happened to look over in my direction. "What's the big idea, Walter?" he asked.

It was, I admit, a rather cumbersome and clumsy affair.

"Well, you see, Craig," I explained, "you put the top mirror through the transom of a door and—"

Kennedy interrupted with a hearty burst of laughter. "But suppose the door has no transom?" he asked, pointing to our own door.

I scratched my head, thoughtfully. I had assumed that the door would have a transom. A moment later, Craig went to the cabinet and drew out a tube about as big around as a putty blower and as long.

"Now, here's what I call my detectascope," he remarked. "None of your mirrors for me."

"I know," I said somewhat nettled, "but what can you see through that putty blower? A key hole is just as good."

"Do you realize how little you can really see through a key hole?" he replied confidently. "Try it over there."

I did and to tell the truth I could see merely a little part of the hall. Then Kennedy inserted the detectascope.

"Look through that," he directed.

I put my eye to the eye-piece and gazed through the bulging lens of the other end. I could see almost the whole hall.

"That," he explained, "is what is known as a fish-eye lens—a lens that looks through an angle of some 180 degrees, almost twice that of the widest angle lens I know of."

I said nothing, but tossed my own crude invention into the corner, while Craig went back to work.

Elaine was playing with "Rusty" when Jennings brought in a card on which was engraved the name, "Miss Mary Carson," and underneath, in pencil, was written "Belgian Relief Committee."

"How interesting," commented Elaine, rising and accompanying Jennings back into the drawing room. "I wonder what she wants. Very pleased to meet you, Miss Carson," she greeted her visitor.

"You see, Miss Dodge," began Mary, "we're getting up this movement to help the Belgians and we have splendid backing. Just let me show you some of the names on our committee."

She handed Elaine a list which read:

BELGIAN RELIEF COMMITTEE

Mrs. Warburton Fish Mrs. Hamilton Beekman Mrs. C. August Iselm Mrs. Belmont Rivington Mrs. Rupert Solvay.

"I've just been sent to see if I cannot persuade you to join the committee and attend a meeting at Mrs. Rivington's," she went on.

"Why, er," considered Elaine thoughtfully, "er—yes. It must be all right with such people in it."

"Can you go with me now?"

"Just as well as later," agreed Elaine.

They went out together, and, as they were leaving the house a man who had been loitering outside looked at Elaine, then fixedly at her companion.

No sooner had they gone than he sped off to a car waiting around the corner. In the dark depths was a sinister figure, the master criminal himself. The watcher had been an emissary of the Clutching Hand.

"Chief," he whispered eagerly, "You know Adventuress Mary? Well, she's got Elaine Dodge in tow!"

"The deuce!" cried Clutching Hand. "Then we must teach Mary Carson, or whoever she is working for, a lesson. No one shall interfere with our affairs. Follow them!"

Elaine and Mary had gone downtown, talking animatedly, and walked down the avenue toward Mrs. Rivington's apartment.

Meanwhile, Long Sin, still in his Chinese costume, was explaining to the servant just what he wished done, pointing out the dagger on the wall and replacing the bladder under his jacket. A box of opium was on the table, and he was giving most explicit directions. It was into such a web that Elaine was being unwittingly led by Mary.

Entering the hallway of the apartment, Mary rang the bell.

Long heard it. "Answer it," he directed the servant who hastened to do so, while Long glided like a serpent into a back room.

The servant opened the door and Elaine and Mary entered. He closed the door and almost before they knew locked it and was gone into the back room.

Elaine gazed about in trepidation. But before she could say anything, Mary, with a great show of surprise, exclaimed, "Why, I must have made a mistake. This isn't Mrs. Rivington's apartment. How stupid of me."

They looked at each other a moment. Then each laughed nervously, as together they started to go out of the door. It was locked!

Quickly they ran to another door. It was locked, also.

Then they went to the windows. Behind the curtains they were barred and looked out on a blank brick wall in a little court.

"Oh," cried Mary wringing her hands, stricken in mock panic, "oh, I'm so frightened. This may be the den of Chinese white slavers!"

She had picked up some Chinese articles on a table, including the box that Long had left there. It had a peculiar odor.

"Opium!" she whispered, showing it to Elaine.

The two looked at each other, Elaine genuinely worried now.

Just then, the Chinaman entered and stood a moment gazing at them. They turned and Elaine recoiled from him. Long bowed.

"Oh sir," cried Mary, "We've made a mistake. Can't you tell us how to get out?"

Long's only answer was to spread out his hands in polite deprecation and shrug his suave shoulders.

"No speke Englis," he said, gliding out again from the room and closing the door.

Elaine and Mary looked about in despair.

"What shall we do?" asked Elaine.

Mary said nothing, but with a hasty glance discovered on the wall the knife which Long had already told her about. She took it from its scabbard. As she did so the Chinaman returned with a tray on which were queer drinks and glasses.

At the sight of Mary with the knife he scowled blackly, laid the tray down, and took a few steps in her direction. She brandished the knife threateningly, then, as if her nerve failed her, fainted letting the knife fall carefully on the floor so that it struck on the handle and not on the blade.

Long quickly caught her as she fainted and carried her out of the room, banging shut the door. Elaine followed in a moment, loyally, to protect her supposed friend, but found that the door had a snap lock on the other side.

She looked about wildly and in a moment Long reappeared. As he advanced slowly and insinuatingly, she drew back, pleading. But her words fell on seemingly deaf ears.

She had picked up the knife which Mary had dropped and when at last Long maneuvred to get her cornered and was about to seize her, she nerved herself up and stabbed him resolutely.

Long staggered back—and fell.

As he did so, he pressed the bladder which he had already placed under his coat. A dark red fluid, like blood, oozed out all over him and ran in a pool on the floor.

Elaine, too horror-stricken at what had happened even to scream, dropped the knife and bent over him. He did not move. She staggered back and ran through the now open door. As she did so, Long seemed suddenly to come to life. He raised himself and looked after her, then with a subtle smile sank back into his former assumed posture on the floor.

When Elaine reached the other room, she found Mary there with the Chinese servant who was giving her a glass of water. At the sight of her, the servant paused, then withdrew into another room further back. Mary, now apparently recovering from her faintness, smiled wanly at Elaine.

"It's all right," she murmured. "He is a Chinese prince who thought we were callers."

At the reassuring nod of Mary toward the front room, Elaine was overcome.

"I—I killed him!" she managed to gasp.

"What?" cried Mary, starting up and trembling violently. "You killed him?"

"Yes," sobbed Elaine, "he came at me—I had the knife—I struck at him—"

The two girls ran into the other room. There Mary looked at the motionless body on the floor and recoiled, horrified.

Elaine noticing some spots on her hands and seeing that they were stained by the blood of Long Sin, wiped the spots off on her hankerchief, dropping it on the floor.

"Ugh!" exclaimed a guttural voice behind them.

It was the servant who had come in. Even his ordinarily impassive Oriental face could not conceal the horror and fear at the sight of his master lying on the floor in a pool of gore. Elaine was now more frightened than ever, if that were possible.

"You—kill him—with knife?" insinuated the Chinese.

Elaine was dumb. The servant did not wait for an answer, but hastily opened the hall door.

To Elaine it seemed that something must be done quickly. A moment and all the house would be in uproar.

Instead, he placed his finger on his lips. "Quick—no word," he said, leading the way to the hall door, "and—you must not leave that—it will be a clue," he added, picking up the bloody handkerchief and pressing it into Elaine's hand.

They quickly ran out into the hall.

"Go—quick!" he urged again, "and hide the handkerchief in the bag. Let no one see it!"

He shut the door. As they hurried away, Elaine breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why did he let us go, though?" she whispered, her head in a whirl.

"I don't know," panted Mary, "but anyhow, thank heaven, we are out of it. Come," she added, taking Elaine's arm, "not a soul has seen us except the servant. Let us get away as quietly as we can."

They had reached the street. Afraid to run, they hurried as fast as they could until they turned the first corner.

Elaine looked back. No one was pursuing.

"We must separate," added Mary. "Let us go different ways. I will see you later. Perhaps they will think some enemy has murdered him."

They pressed each other's hands and parted.

Meanwhile in the front room, Long Sin was on his feet again brushing himself off and mopping up the blood.

"It worked very well, Sam," he said to the servant.

They were conversing eagerly and laughing and did not hear a noise in the back room.

A sinister figure had made its way by means of a fire-escape to a rear window that was not barred, and silently he had stolen in on them.

Cat-like, he advanced, but instead of striking at them, he quietly took a seat in a chair close behind them, a magazine revolver in his hand.

They turned at a slight noise and saw him. Genuine fright was now on their faces as they looked at him, open mouthed.

"What's all this?" he growled. "I am known as the Clutching Hand. I allow no interferences with my affairs. Tell me what you are doing here with Elaine Dodge."

Their beady almond eyes flashed fear. Clutching Hand moved menacingly. There was nothing for the astute Long Sin to do but to submit. Cowed by the well-known power of the master criminal, he took Clutching Hand into his confidence.

With a low bow, Long Sin spread out his hands in surrender and submission.

"I will tell you, honorable sir," he said at length.

"Go on!" growled the criminal.

Quickly Long rehearsed what had happened, from the moment the idea of blackmail had entered his head.

"How about Mary Carson?" asked Clutching Hand. "I saw her here."

Long gave a glance of almost superstitious dread at the man, as if he had an evil eye.

"She will be back—is here now," he added, opening the door at a knock and admitting her.

Adventuress Mary had hurried back to see that all was right. This time Mary was genuinely scared at the forbidding figure of which she had heard.

"It is all right," pacified Long. "Henceforth we work with the honorable Clutching Hand."

Clutching Hand continued to emphasize his demands on them, punctuating his sentences by flourishes of the gun as he gave them the signs and passwords which would enable them to work with his own emissaries.

It was a strange initiation.

At home at last, Elaine sank down into a deep library chair and stared straight ahead. She saw visions of arrest and trial, of the terrible electric chair with herself in it, bound, and of the giving of the fatal signal for turning on the current.

Were such things as these going to happen to her, without Kennedy's help? Why had they quarreled? She buried her face in her hands and wept.

Then she could stand it no longer. She had not taken off her street clothes. She rose and almost fled from the house.

Kennedy and I were still in the laboratory when a knock sounded at the door. I went to the door and opened it. There stood Elaine Dodge.

It was a complete surprise to Craig. There was silence between them for a moment and they merely looked at each other. Elaine was pale and woebegone.

At last Kennedy took a quick step toward her and led her to a chair. Still he felt a sort of constraint.

"What IS the matter?" he asked at length.

She hesitated, then suddenly burst out, "Craig—I—I am—a murderess!"

I have never seen such a look on Craig's face. I know he wanted to laugh and say, "YOU—a murderess?" yet he would not have offended even her self accusation for the world. He managed to do the right thing and say nothing.

Then she poured forth the story substantially as I have set it down, but without the explanation which at that time was not known to any of us.

"Oh," expostulated Craig, "there must be some mistake. It's impossible—impossible."

"No," she asserted. "Look—here's my handkerchief all spotted with blood."

She opened the bag and displayed the blood-spotted handkerchief. He took it and examined it carefully.

"Elaine," he said earnestly, not at all displeased, I could see that something had come up that might blot out the past unfortunate misunderstanding, "there simply must be something wrong here. Leave this handkerchief with me. I'll do my best."

There was still a little restraint between them. She was almost ready to beg his pardon, for all the coolness there had been between them, yet still hesitated.

"Thank you," she said simply as she left the laboratory.

Craig went to work abruptly without a word. On the laboratory table he placed his splendid microscope and several cases of slides as well as innumerable micro-photographs. He had been working for some time when he looked up.

"Ever hear of Dr. Edward Reichert of the University of Pennsylvania and his wonderful discoveries of how blood crystals vary in different species?" he asked.

I had not, but did not admit it.

"Well," he went on, "there is a blood test so delicate that one might almost say that he could identify a criminal by the finger prints, so to speak, of his blood crystals. The hemoglobin or red coloring matter forms crystals and the variations of these crystals both in form and molecular construction are such that they set apart every species of animal from every other, and even the races of men—perhaps may even set apart individuals. Here, Walter, we have sample of human blood crystals."

I looked through the microscope as he directed. There I could see the crystals sharply defined.

"And here," he added, "are the crystals of the blood on Elaine's handkerchief."

I looked again as he changed the slides. There was a marked difference and I looked up at him quickly.

"It is dog's blood—not human blood," he said simply.

I looked again at the two sets of slides. There could be no doubt that there was a plain difference.

"Wonderful!" I exclaimed.

"Yes—wonderful," he agreed, "but what's the game back of all this—that's the main question now."

Long after Clutching Hand had left, Long Sin was giving instructions to his servant and Adventuress Mary just how he had had to change his plans as a result of the unexpected visit.

"Very well," nodded Mary as she left him, "I will do as you say— trust me."

It was not much later, then, that Elaine received a second visit from Mary.

"Show her in, Jennings," she said to the butler nervously.

Indeed, she felt that every eye must be upon her. Even Jennings would know of her guilt soon.

Anxiously, therefore, Elaine looked at her visitor.

"Do you know why the servant allowed us to leave the apartment?" whispered Mary with a glance about fearfully, as if the walls had ears.

"No—why?" inquired Elaine anxiously.

"He's a tong man who has been chosen to do away with the Prince. He followed me, and says you have done his work for him. If you will give him ten thousand dollars for expenses, he will attend to hiding the body."

Here at least was a way out.

"But do you think that is all right? Can he do it?" asked Elaine eagerly.

"Do it? Why those tong men can do anything for money. Only one must be careful not to offend them."

Mary was very convincing.

"Yes, I suppose you are right," agreed Elaine, finally. "I had better do as you say. It is the safest way out of the trouble. Yes, I'll do it. I'll stop at the bank now and get the money."

They rose and Mary preceded her, eager to get away from the house. At the door, however, Elaine asked her to wait while she ran back on some pretext. In the library she took off the receiver of the telephone and quickly called a number.

Our telephone rang in the middle of our conversation on blood crystals and Kennedy himself answered it.

It was Elaine asking Craig's advice.

"They have offered to hush the thing up for ten thousand dollars," she said, in a muffled voice.

She seemed bent on doing it and no amount of argument from him could stop her. She simply refused to accept the evidence of the blood crystals as better than what her own eyes told her she had seen and done.

"Then wait for half an hour," he answered, without arguing further. "You can do that without exciting suspicion. Go with her to her hotel and hand her over the money."

"All right—I'll do it," she agreed.

"What is the hotel?"

Craig wrote on a slip of paper what she told him—"Room 509, Hotel La Coste."

"Good—I'm glad you called me. Count on me," he finished as he hung up the receiver.

Hastily he threw on his street coat. "Go into the back room and get me that brace and bit, Walter," he asked.

I did so. When I returned, I saw that he had placed the detectascope and some other stuff in a bag. He shoved in the brace and bit also.

"Come on—hurry!" he urged.

We must have made record time in getting to the Coste. It was an ornate place, where merely to breathe was expensive. We entered and by some excuse Kennedy contrived to get past the vigilant bellhops. We passed the telephone switchboard and entered the elevator, getting off at the fifth floor.

With a hasty glance up and down the corridor, to make sure no one was about, Kennedy came to room 509, then passed to the next, 511, opening the door with a skeleton key. We entered and Craig locked the door behind us. It was an ordinary hotel room, but well- furnished. Fortunately it was unoccupied.

Quietly Craig went to the door which led to the next room. It was, of course, locked also. He listened a moment carefully. Not a sound. Quickly, with an exclamation of satisfaction, he opened that door also and went into 509.

This room was much like that in which we had already been. He opened the hall door.

"Watch here, Walter," he directed, "Let me know at the slightest alarm."

Craig had already taken the brace and bit from the bag and started to bore through the wall into room 511, selecting a spot behind a picture of a Spanish dancer—a spot directly back of her snapping black eyes. He finished quickly and inserted the detectascope so that the lens fitted as an eye in the picture. The eye piece was in Room 511. Then he started to brush up the pieces of plaster on the floor.

"Craig," I whispered hastily as I heard an elevator door, "someone's coming!"

He hurried to the door and looked. "There they are," he said, as we saw Elaine and Mary rounding the corner of the hall.

Across the hall, although we did not know it at the time, in room 540, already, Long Sin had taken up his station, just to be handy. There he had been with his servant, playing with his two trained white rats.

Long placed them up his capacious sleeves and carefully opened the door to look out. Unfortunately he, was just in time to see the door of 509 open and disclose us.

His subtle glance detected our presence without our knowing it.

Hastily picking up the brace and bit and the rest of the debris, and with a last look at the detectascope, which was hardly noticeable, even if one already knew it was there, we hurried into 511 and shut the door.

Kennedy mounted a chair and applied his eye to the detectascope. Just then Mary and Elaine entered the next room, Mary opening the door with a regular key.

"Won't you step in?" she asked.

Elaine did so and Mary hesitated in the hall. Long Sin had slipped out on noiseless feet and taken refuge behind some curtains. As he saw her alone, he beckoned to Mary.

"There's a stranger in the next room," he whispered. "I don't like him. Take the money and as quickly as possible get out and go to my apartment."

At the news that there was a suspicious stranger about, Mary showed great alarm. Everything was so rapid, now, that the slightest hesitation meant disaster. Perhaps, by quickness, even a suspicious stranger could be fooled, she reasoned. At any rate, Long Sin was resourceful. She had better trust him.

Mary followed Elaine into the room, where she had seated herself already, and locked the door.

"Have you the money there?" she asked.

"Yes," nodded Elaine, taking out the package of bills which she had got from the bank during the half hour delay.

All this we could see by gazing alternately through the detectascope.

Elaine handed Mary the money. Mary counted it slowly. At last she looked up.

"It's all right," she said. "Now, I'll take this to that tong leader—he's in a room only just across the hall."

She went out.

Kennedy at the detectascope was very excited as this went on. He now jumped off the chair on which he had been standing and rushed to the door to head her off.

To our surprise, in spite of the fact that we could turn the key in the lock, it was impossible to open it!

It was only a moment that Craig paused at the door. The next moment he burst into 509, followed closely by me.

With a scream, Elaine was on her feet in an instant.

There was no time for explanations, however.

He rushed to the door to go out, but it was locked—somehow, on the outside. The skeleton key would not work, at any rate.

He shot the lock, and dashed out, calling back, "Walter, stay there—with Elaine."

Mary had just succeeded in getting on the elevator as Kennedy hurried down the hall. The door was closed and the car descended. He rang the push bell furiously, but there was no answer.

Had he got so far in the chase, only to be outwitted?

He dashed back to the room, with us, and jerked down the telephone receiver.

"Hello—hello—hello!" he called.

No answer.

There seemed to be no way to get a connection. What was the matter?

He hurried down the hall again.

No sooner had Elaine and Mary actually gone into the room, than Long and his servant stole out of 540, across the hall. Somewhere they had obtained a strong but thin rope.

Quickly and silently Long tied the handle of the door 511 in which we were to the handle of 540 which he was vacating. As both doors opened inward and were opposite, they were virtually locked.

Then Long and his servant hurried down the hallway to the elevator.

Down in the hotel lobby, with his followers, the Chinaman paused before the telephone switchboard where two girls were at work.

"You may go," ordered Long, and, as his man left, he moved over closer to the switchboard.

He was listening eagerly and also watching an indicator that told the numbers of the rooms which called, as they flashed into view.

Just as a call from "509" flashed up, Long slipped the rings off his little fingers and loosened the white rats on the telephone switchboard itself.

With a shriek, the telephone system of the Coste went temporarily out of business.

The operators fled to the nearest chairs, drawing their skirts about them.

There was the greatest excitement among all the women in the corridor. Such a display of hosiery was never contemplated by even the most daring costumers.

Shouts from the bellboys who sought to catch the rats who scampered hither and thither in frightened abandon mingled with the shrieks of the ladies.

Kennedy had succeeded in finding the alcove of the floor clerk in charge of the fifth floor. There on his desk was an instrument having a stylus on the end of two arms, connected to a system of magnets. It was a telautograph.

Unceremoniously, Craig pushed the clerk out of his seat and sat down himself. It was a last chance, now that the telephone was out of commission.

Downstairs, in the hotel office, where the excitement had not spread to everyone, was the other end of the electric long distance writer.

It started to write, as Kennedy wrote, upstairs:

"HOUSE DETECTIVE—QUICK—HOLD WOMAN WITH BLUE CHATELAINE BAG, GETTING OUT OF ELEVATOR."

The clerks downstairs saw it and shouted above the din of the rat- baiting.

"McCann—McCann!"

The clerk had torn off the message from the telautograph register, and handed it to the house man who pushed his way to the desk.

Quickly the detective called to the bell-hops. Together they hurried after the well-dressed woman who had just swept out of the elevator. Mary had already passed through the excited lobby and out, and was about to cross the street—safe.

McCann and the bell-hops were now in full cry after her. Flight was useless. She took refuge in indignation and threats.

But McCann was obdurate. She passed quickly to tears and pleadings. It had no effect. They insisted on leading her back. The game was up.

Even an offer of money failed to move their adamantine hearts. Nothing would do but that she must face her accusers.

In the meantime Long Sin had recovered his precious and useful pets. Life in the Coste had assumed something of its normal aspect, and Craig had succeeded in getting an elevator.

It was just as Mary was led in threatening and pleading by turns that he stepped off in the lobby.

There was, however, still just enough excitement to cover a little pantomime. Long Sin had been about to slip out of a side door, thinking all was well, when he caught sight of Mary being led back. She had also seen him, and began to struggle again.

Quickly he shook his head, indicating for her to stop. Then slowly he secretly made the sign of the Clutching Hand at her. It meant that she must not snitch.

She obeyed instantly, and he quietly disappeared.

"Here," cried Kennedy, "take her up in the elevator. I'll prove the case."

With the house detective and Kennedy, Mary was hustled into the elevator and whisked back as she had escaped.

In the meantime I had gathered up what stuff we had in the room we had entered and had returned with Kennedy's bag.

"Wh—what's it all about?" inquired Elaine excitedly.

I tried to explain.

Just then, out in the hall we could hear loud voices, and that of Mary above the rest. Kennedy, a man who looked like a detective, and some bell-boys were leading her toward us.

"Now—not a word of who she is in the papers, McCann," Kennedy was saying, evidently about Elaine. "You know it wouldn't sound well for La Coste. As for that woman—well, I've got the money back. You can take her off—make the charge."

As the house man left with Mary, I handed Craig his bag. We moved toward the door, and as we stood there a moment with Elaine, he quietly handed over to her the big roll of bills.

She took it, with surprise still written in her big blue eyes. "Oh—thank you—I might have known it was only a blackmail scheme," she cried eagerly.

Craig held out his hand and she took it quickly, gazing into his eyes. Craig bowed politely, not quite knowing what to do under the circumstances.

If he had been less of a scientist, he might have understood the look on her face, but, with a nod to me, he turned, and went.

As she looked first at him, then at the paltry ten thousand in her hand, Elaine stamped her little foot in vexation.

"I'm glad I DIDN'T say anything more," she cried. "No—no—he shall beg my pardon first—there!"



CHAPTER XIII

THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS

Elaine was seated in the drawing room with Aunt Josephine one afternoon, when her lawyer, Perry Bennett, dropped in unexpectedly.

He had hardly greeted them when the butler, Jennings, in his usual impassive manner announced that Aunt Josephine was wanted on the telephone.