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."