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!"