did you get this package?” shot out Kennedy.
“It was left at the door, sir, by a boy, sir.”
Question after question could not shake that simple, stolid sentence. Kennedy frowned.
“You may go,” he said finally, as if reserving something for Michael later.
A sudden exclamation followed from Elaine as Michael passed down the hall again. She had moved over to the desk, during the questioning, and was leaning against it.
Inadvertently she had touched an envelope. It was addressed, “Craig Kennedy.”
Craig tore it open, Elaine bending anxiously over his shoulder, frightened.
We read:
“You have interfered for the last time. It is the end.”
Beneath it stood the fearsome sign of the Clutching Hand!
The warning of the Clutching Hand had no other effect on Kennedy than the redoubling of his precautions for safety. Nothing further happened that night, however, and the next morning found us early at the laboratory.
It was the late forenoon, when after a hurried trip down to the office, I rejoined Kennedy at his scientific workshop.
We walked down the street when a big limousine shot past. Kennedy stopped in the middle of a remark. He had recognized the car, with a sort of instinct.
At the same moment I saw a smiling face at the window of the car. It was Elaine Dodge.
The car stopped in something less than twice its length and then backed toward us.
Kennedy, hat off, was at the window in a moment. There were Aunt Josephine, and Susie Martin, also.
“Where are you boys going?” asked Elaine, with interest, then added with a gaiety that ill concealed her real anxiety, “I’m so glad to see you—to see that—er—nothing has happened from that dreadful Clutching Hand.”
“Why, we were just going up to our rooms,” replied Kennedy.
“Can’t we drive you around?”
We climbed in and a moment later were off. The ride was only too short for Kennedy. We stepped out in front of our apartment and stood chatting for a moment.
“Some day I want to show you the laboratory,” Craig was saying.
“It must be so—interesting!” exclaimed Elaine enthusiastically. “Think of all the bad men you must have caught!”
“I have quite a collection of stuff here at our rooms,” remarked Craig, “almost a museum. Still,” he ventured, “I can’t promise that the place is in order,” he laughed.
Elaine hesitated. “Would you like to see it?” she wheedled of Aunt Josephine.
Aunt Josephine nodded acquiescence, and a moment later we all entered the building.
“You—you are very careful since that last warning?” asked Elaine as we approached our door.
“More than ever—now,” replied Craig. “I have made up my mind to win.”
She seemed to catch at the words as though they had a hidden meaning, looking first at him and then away, not displeased.
Kennedy had started to unlock the door, when he stopped short.
“See,” he said, “this is a precaution I have just installed. I almost forgot in the excitement.”
He pressed a panel and disclosed the box-like apparatus.
“This is my seismograph which tells me whether I have had any visitors in my absence. If the pen traces a straight line, it is, all right; but if—hello—Walter, the line is wavy.”
We exchanged a significant glance.
“Would you mind—er—standing down the hall just a bit while I enter?” asked Craig.
“Be careful,” cautioned Elaine.
He unlocked the door, standing off to one side. Then he extended his hand across the doorway. Still nothing happened. There was not a sound. He looked cautiously into the room. Apparently there was nothing.
It had been about the middle of the morning that an express wagon had pulled up sharply before our apartment.
“Mr. Kennedy live here?” asked one of the expressmen, descending with his helper and approaching our janitor, Jens Jensen, a typical Swede, who was coming up out of the basement.
Jens growled a surly, “Yes—but Mr. Kannady, he bane out.”
“Too bad—we’ve got this large cabinet he ordered from Grand Rapids. We can’t cart it around all day. Can’t you let us in so we can leave it?”
Jensen muttered. “Wall—I guess it bane all right.”
They took the cabinet off the wagon and carried it upstairs. Jensen opened our door, still grumbling, and they placed the heavy cabinet in the living room.
“Sign here.”
“You fallers bane a nuisance,” protested Jens, signing nevertheless.
Scarcely had the sound ox their footfalls died away in the outside hallway when the door of the cabinet slowly opened and a masked face protruded, gazing about the room.
It was the Clutching Hand!
From the cabinet he took a large package wrapped in newspapers. As he held it, looking keenly about, his eye rested on Elaine’s picture. A moment he looked at it, then quickly at the fireplace opposite.
An idea seemed to occur to him. He took the package to the fireplace, removed the screen, and laid the package over the andirons with one end pointing out into the room.
Next he took from the cabinet a couple of storage batteries and a coil of wire. Deftly and quickly he fixed them on the package.
Meanwhile, before an alleyway across the street and further down the long block the express wagon had stopped. The driver and his helper clambered out and for a moment stood talking in low tones, with covert glances at our apartment. They moved into the alley and the driver drew out a battered pair of opera glasses, levelling them at our windows.
Having completed fixing the batteries and wires, Clutching Hand ran the wires along the moulding on the wall overhead, from the fireplace until he was directly over Elaine’s picture. Skillfully, he managed to fix the wires, using them in place of the picture wires to support the framed photograph. Then he carefully moved the photograph until it hung very noticeably askew on the wall.
The last wire joined, he looked about the room, then noiselessly moved to the window and raised the shade.
Quickly he raised his hand and brought the fingers slowly together. It was the sign.
Off
