Long Sin struck several blows on the resounding gong and then raised his voice in solemn tones.
"Ksing Chau, the Terrible, demands a consort. She is to be foreign--fair of face and with golden hair."
Amazed at this unexpected message, the Chinamen prostrated themselves again and their unhallowed devotions terminated a few moments later amid suppressed excitement as they filed out.
At the same time, in a room of the adjoining house, the Clutching Hand himself was busily engaged making the most elaborate preparations for some nefarious scheme which his fertile mind had evolved.
The room had been fitted up as a medium"s seance parlor, with black hangings on the walls, while at one side there was a square cabinet of black cloth, with a guitar lying before it.
Two of the Clutching Hand"s most trusted confederates and a hard-faced woman of middle age, dressed in plain black, were putting the finishing touches to this apartment, when their Chief entered.
Clutching Hand gazed about the room, now and then giving an order or two to make more effective the setting for the purpose which he had in mind.
Finally he nodded in approval and stepped over to the fire place where logs were burning brightly in a grate.
Pressing a spring in the mantelpiece, the master criminal effected an instant transformation. The logs in the fireplace, still burning, disappeared immediately through the side of the brick tiling and a metal sheet covered them. An aperture opened at the back, as if by magic.
Through this opening Clutching Hand made his way quickly and disappeared.
Emerging on the other side of the peculiar fireplace, Clutching Hand pushed aside a curtain which barred the way and looked into the Chinese temple, taking up a position behind the metallic figure on the dais.
The Chinamen had by this time finished their devotions, if such they might be called, and the last one was leaving, while Long Sin stood alone on the dais.
The noise of the departing Satanists had scarcely died away when Clutching Hand stepped out.
"Follow me," he ordered hoa.r.s.ely seizing Long Sin by the arm and leading him away.
They pa.s.sed through the pa.s.sageway of the fireplace and, having entered the seance room, Clutching Hand began briefly explaining the purpose of the preparations that had been made. Long Sin wagged his head in voluble approval.
As Clutching Hand finished, the Chinaman turned to the hard-faced woman who was to act the part of medium and added some directions to those Clutching Hand had already given.
The medium nodded acquiescence, and a moment later, left the room to carry out some ingenious plot framed by the master mind of the criminal world.
Elaine was standing in the library gazing sadly at Kennedy"s portrait, thinking over recent events and above all the rebuff over the telephone which she supposed she had received.
It all seemed so unreal to her. Surely, she felt in her heart, she could not have been so mistaken in the man. Yet the facts seemed to speak for themselves.
In spite of it all, she was almost about to kiss the portrait when something seemed to stay her hands. Instead she laid the picture down, with a sigh.
A moment later, Jennings entered with a card on a salver. Elaine took it and saw with surprise the name of her caller:
MADAME SAVETSKY, MEDIUM
Beneath the engraved name were the words written in ink, "I have a message from the spirit of your father."
"Yes, I will see her," cried Elaine eagerly, in response to the butler"s inquiry.
She followed Jennings into the adjoining room and there found herself face to face with the hard-featured woman who had only a few moments before left the Clutching Hand.
Elaine looked rather than spoke her inquiry.
"Your father, my dear," purred the medium with a great pretence of suppressed excitement, "appeared to me, the other night, from the spirit world. I was in a trance and he asked me to deliver a message to you."
"What was the message?" asked Elaine breathlessly, now aroused to intense interest.
"I must go into a trance again to get it," replied the insinuating Savetsky, "and if you like I can try it at once, provided we can be left alone long enough."
"Please--don"t wait," urged Elaine, pulling the portieres of the doors closer, as if that might insure privacy.
Seated in her chair, the medium muttered wildly for a few moments, rolled her eyes and with some convulsive movements pretended to go into a trance.
Savetsky seemed about to speak and Elaine, in the highest state of nervous tension, listened, trying to make something of the gibberish mutterings.
Suddenly the curtains were pushed aside and Aunt Josephine and Bennett, who had just come in, entered.
"I can do nothing here," exclaimed Savetsky, starting up and looking about severely. "You must come to my seance chamber where we shall not be interrupted."
"I will," cried Elaine, vexed at the intrusion at that moment. "I must have that message--I must."
"What"s all this, Elaine?" demanded Aunt Josephine.
Hurriedly, Elaine poured forth to her aunt and Bennett the story of the medium"s visit and the promised message from her father in the other world.
Aunt Josephine, who was not one easily to be imposed on, strongly objected to Elaine"s proposal to accompany Savetsky to the seance chamber, but Elaine would not be denied. She pleaded with her aunt, urging that she be allowed to go.
"It might be safe for Elaine to go," Bennett finally suggested to Aunt Josephine, "if you and I accompanied her."
All this time the medium was listening closely to the conversation.
Elaine looked at her inquiringly. With a shrug, she indicated that she had no objection to having Elaine escorted to the parlor by her friends.
At last Aunt Josephine, influenced by Elaine"s pleadings and Bennett"s suggestion, gave in and agreed to join in the visit.
A few moments later, in the Dodge car, Elaine, the medium, and her two escorts started for the Chinese quarter.
At the house, the medium opened the door with her key and ushered in her three visitors.
Long Sin who had been watching for their arrival from the window now hastily withdrew from the seance room and disappeared behind the black curtains.
Entering the room the medium at once prepared for the seance by pulling down the window shades. Then she seated herself in a chair beside the cabinet, and appeared to fall off slowly into a trance.
Her strange proceedings were watched with the greatest curiosity by Elaine as well as Aunt Josephine and Bennett, who had taken seats placed at one side of the room.
The room itself was dimly lighted, and the curtains of the cabinet seemed, in the obscurity, to sway back and forth as if stirred by some ghostly breeze.
All of them were now quite on edge with excitement.