The moment we disappeared, he raised his hand carefully above his head and made the sign of the Clutching Hand. Far down the street, in a closed car, the Clutching Hand himself, his face masked, gave an answering sign.
A moment later he left the car, gazing about stealthily. Not a soul was in sight and he managed to make his way to the door of our laboratory without being observed. Then he opened it with a pa.s.s key which he must have obtained in some way by working the janitor or the university officials.
Probably he thought that the papers might be at the laboratory, for he had repeatedly failed to locate them at the Dodge house. At any rate he was busily engaged in ransacking drawers and cabinets in the laboratory, when the telephone suddenly rang. He did not want to answer it, but if it kept on ringing someone outside might come in.
An instant he hesitated. Then, disguising his voice as much as he could to imitate mine, he took off the receiver.
"h.e.l.lo!" he answered.
His face was a study in all that was dark as he realized that it was Elaine calling. He clenched his crooked hand even more viciously.
"Have you read them?" he asked, curbing his impatience as she unsuspectingly poured forth her story, supposedly to me.
"Then don"t unseal them," he hastened to reply. "Put them back. Then there can be no question about them. You can open them before witnesses."
For a moment he paused, then added, "Put them back and tell no one of their discovery. I will tell Mr. Kennedy the moment I can get him."
A smile spread over his sinister face as Elaine confided in him her intention to go shopping.
"A rather expensive expedition for you, young lady," he muttered to himself as he returned the receiver to the hook.
Clutching Hand lost no further time at the laboratory. He had thus, luckily for him, found out what he wanted. The papers were not there after all, but at the Dodge house.
Suppose she should really be gone on only a short shopping trip and should return to find that she had been fooled over the wire? Quickly, he went to the telephone again.
"h.e.l.lo, Dan," he called when he got his number.
"Miss Dodge is going shopping. I want you and the other Falsers to follow her--delay her all you can. Use your own judgment."
It was what had come to be known in his organization as the "Brotherhood of Falsers." There, in the back room of a low dive, were Dan the Dude, the emissary who had been loitering about the laboratory, a gunman, Dago Mike, a couple of women, slatterns, one known as Kitty the Hawk, and a boy of eight or ten, whom they called Billy. Before them stood large schooners of beer, while the precocious youngster grumbled over milk.
"All right, Chief," shouted back Dan, their leader as he hung up the telephone after noting carefully the hasty instructions. "We"ll do it--trust us."
The others, knowing that a job was to lighten the monotony of existence, gathered about him.
They listened intently as he detailed to them the orders of the Clutching Hand, hastily planning out the campaign like a division commander disposing his forces in battle and a.s.signing each his part.
With alacrity the Brotherhood went their separate ways.
Elaine had not been gone long from the house when Craig and I arrived there. She had followed the telephone instructions of the Clutching Hand and had told no one.
"Too bad," greeted Jennings, "but Miss Elaine has just gone shopping and I don"t know when she"ll be back."
Shopping being an uncertain element as far as time was concerned, Kennedy asked if anyone else was at home.
"Mrs. Dodge is in the library reading, sir," replied Jennings, taking it for granted that we would see her.
Aunt Josephine greeted us cordially and Craig set down the vocaphone package he was carrying.
She nodded to Jennings to leave us and he withdrew.
"I"m not going to let anything happen here to Miss Elaine again if I can help it," remarked Craig in a low tone, a moment later, gazing about the library.
"What are you thinking of doing?" asked Aunt Josephine keenly.
"I"m going to put in a vocaphone," he returned unwrapping it.
"What"s that?" she asked.
"A loud speaking telephone--connected with my laboratory," he explained, repeating what he had already told me, while she listened almost awe-struck at the latest scientific wonder.
He was looking about, trying to figure out just where it could be placed to best advantage, when he approached the suit of armor.
"I see you have brought it back and had it repaired," he remarked to Aunt Josephine. Suddenly his face lighted up. "Ah--an idea!" he exclaimed. "No one will ever think to look INSIDE that."
It was indeed an inspiration. Kennedy worked quickly now, placing the little box inside the breast plate of the ancient armourer with the top of the instrument projecting right up into the helmet. It was a strange combination--the medieval and the ultra-modern.
"Now, Mrs. Dodge," he said finally, as he had completed installing the thing and hiding the wire under carpets and rugs until it ran out to the connection which he made with the telephone, "don"t breathe a word of it--to anyone. We don"t know who to trust or suspect."
"I shall not," she answered, by this time thoroughly educated in the value of silence.
Kennedy looked at his watch.
"I"ve got an engagement with the telephone company, now," he said rather briskly, although I knew that if Elaine had been there the company and everything could have gone hang for the present. "Sorry not to have seen Miss Elaine," he added as we bowed ourselves out, "but I think we"ve got her protected now."
"I hope so," sighed her aunt.
Elaine"s car had stopped finally at a shop on Fifth Avenue. She stepped out and entered, leaving her chauffeur to wait.
As she did so, Dan and Billy sidled along the crowded sidewalk.
"There she is, Billy," pointed out Dan as Elaine disappeared through the swinging doors of the shop. "Now, you wait right here," he instructed stealthily, "and when she comes out--you know what to do.
Only, be careful."
Dan the Dude left Billy, and Billy surrept.i.tiously drew from under his coat a dirty half loaf of bread. With a glance about, he dropped it into the gutter close to the entrance to Elaine"s car. Then he withdrew a little distance.
When Elaine came out and approached her car, Billy, looking as cold and forlorn as could be, shot forward. Pretending to spy the dirty piece of bread in the gutter, he made a dive for it, just as Elaine was about to step into the car.
Elaine, surprised, drew back. Billy picked up the piece of bread and, with all the actions of having discovered a treasure, began to gnaw at it voraciously.
Shocked at the disgusting sight, she tried to take the bread away from him.
"I know it"s dirty, Miss," whimpered Billy, "but it"s the first food I"ve seen for four days."
Instantly Elaine was full of sympathy. She had taken the food away.