The Exploits of Elaine Read online

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  THE CRAIG KENNEDY SERIES

  THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE

  BY

  ARTHUR B. REEVE

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I THE CLUTCHING HAND

  II THE TWILIGHT SLEEP

  III THE VANISHING JEWELS

  IV "THE FROZEN SAFE"

  V THE POISONED ROOM

  VI THE VAMPIRE

  VII THE DOUBLE TRAP

  VIII THE HIDDEN VOICE

  IX THE DEATH RAY

  X THE LIFE CURRENT

  XI THE HOUR OF THREE

  XII THE BLOOD CRYSTALS

  XIII THE DEVIL WORSHIPPERS

  XIV THE RECKONING

  THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE

  CHAPTER I

  THE CLUTCHING HAND

  "Jameson, here's a story I wish you'd follow up," remarked the managingeditor of the Star to me one evening after I had turned in anassignment of the late afternoon.

  He handed me a clipping from the evening edition of the Star and Iquickly ran my eye over the headline:

  "THE CLUTCHING HAND" WINS AGAIN

  NEW YORK'S MYSTERIOUS MASTER CRIMINAL PERFECTS ANOTHER COUP

  CITY POLICE COMPLETELY BAFFLED

  "Here's this murder of Fletcher, the retired banker and trustee of theUniversity," he explained. "Not a clue--except a warning letter signedwith this mysterious clutching fist. Last week it was the robbery ofthe Haxworth jewels and the killing of old Haxworth. Again that curioussign of the hand. Then there was the dastardly attempt on Sherburne,the steel magnate. Not a trace of the assailant except this sameclutching fist. So it has gone, Jameson--the most alarming and mostinexplicable series of murders that has ever happened in this country.And nothing but this uncanny hand to trace them by."

  The editor paused a moment, then exclaimed, "Why, this fellow seems totake a diabolical--I might almost say pathological--pleasure in crimesof violence, revenge, avarice and self-protection. Sometimes it seemsas if he delights in the pure deviltry of the thing. It is weird."

  He leaned over and spoke in a low, tense tone. "Strangest of all, thetip has just come to us that Fletcher, Haxworth, Sherburne and all therest of those wealthy men were insured in the Consolidated Mutual Life.Now, Jameson, I want you to find Taylor Dodge, the president, andinterview him. Get what you can, at any cost."

  I had naturally thought first of Kennedy, but there was no time now tocall him up and, besides, I must see Dodge immediately.

  Dodge, I discovered over the telephone, was not at home, nor at any ofthe clubs to which he belonged. Late though it was I concluded that hewas at his office. No amount of persuasion could get me past the door,and, though I found out later and shall tell soon what was going onthere, I determined, about nine o'clock, that the best way to get atDodge was to go to his house on Fifth Avenue, if I had to camp on hisfront doorstep until morning. The harder I found the story to get, themore I wanted it.

  With some misgivings about being admitted, I rang the bell of thesplendid, though not very modern, Dodge residence. An English butler,with a nose that must have been his fortune, opened the door andgravely informed me that Mr. Dodge was not at home, but was expected atany moment.

  Once in, I was not going lightly to give up that advantage. I bethoughtmyself of his daughter, Elaine, one of the most popular debutantes ofthe season, and sent in my card to her, on a chance of interesting herand seeing her father, writing on the bottom of the card: "Would liketo interview Mr. Dodge regarding Clutching Hand."

  Summoning up what assurance I had, which is sometimes considerable, Ifollowed the butler down the hall as he bore my card. As he opened thedoor of the drawing room I caught a vision of a slip of a girl, in anevening gown.

  Elaine Dodge was both the ingenue and the athlete--the thoroughlymodern type of girl--equally at home with tennis and tango, table talkand tea. Vivacious eyes that hinted at a stunning amber brown sparkledbeneath masses of the most wonderful auburn hair. Her pearly teeth,when she smiled, were marvellous. And she smiled often, for life to herseemed a continuous film of enjoyment.

  Near her I recognized from his pictures, Perry Bennett, the risingyoung corporation lawyer, a mighty good looking fellow, with anaffable, pleasing way about him, perhaps thirty-five years old or so,but already prominent and quite friendly with Dodge.

  On a table I saw a book, as though Elaine had cast it down when thelawyer arrived to call on the daughter under pretense of waiting forher father. Crumpled on the table was the Star. They had read the story.

  "Who is it, Jennings?" she asked.

  "A reporter, Miss Dodge," answered the butler glancing superciliouslyback at me, "and you know how your father dislikes to see anyone hereat the house," he added deferentially to her.

  I took in the situation at a glance. Bennett was trying not to lookdiscourteous, but this was a call on Elaine and it had beeninterrupted. I could expect no help from that quarter. Still, I fanciedthat Elaine was not averse to trying to pique her visitor anddetermined at least to try it.

  "Miss Dodge," I pleaded, bowing as if I had known them all my life,"I've been trying to find your father all the evening. It's veryimportant."

  She looked up at me surprised and in doubt whether to laugh or stampher pretty little foot in indignation at my stupendous nerve.

  She laughed. "You are a very brave young man," she replied with aroguish look at Bennett's discomfiture over the interruption of thetete-a-tete.

  There was a note of seriousness in it, too, that made me ask quickly,"Why?"

  The smile flitted from her face and in its place came a frank earnestexpression which I later learned to like and respect very much. "Myfather has declared he will eat the very next reporter who tries tointerview him here," she answered.

  I was about to prolong the waiting time by some jolly about such astunning girl not having by any possibility such a cannibal of aparent, when the rattle of the changing gears of a car outside told ofthe approach of a limousine.

  The big front door opened and Elaine flung herself in the arms of anelderly, stern-faced, gray-haired man. "Why, Dad," she cried, "wherehave you been? I missed you so much at dinner. I'll be so glad whenthis terrible business gets cleared up. Tell--me. What is on your mind?What is it that worries you now?"

  I noticed then that Dodge seemed wrought-up and a bit unnerved, for hesank rather heavily into a chair, brushed his face with hishandkerchief and breathed heavily. Elaine hovered over himsolicitously, repeating her question.

  With a mighty effort he seemed to get himself together. He rose andturned to Bennett.

  "Perry," he exclaimed, "I've got the Clutching Hand!"

  The two men stared at each other.

  "Yes," continued Dodge, "I've just found out how to trace it, andtomorrow I am going to set the alarms of the city at rest by exposing--"

  Just then Dodge caught sight of me. For the moment I thought perhaps hewas going to fulfill his threat.

  "Who the devil--why didn't you tell me a reporter was here, Jennings?"he sputtered indignantly, pointing toward the door.

  Argument, entreaty were of no avail. He stamped crustily into thelibrary, taking Bennett with him and leaving me with Elaine. Inside Icould hear them talking, and managed to catch enough to piece togetherthe story. I wanted to stay, but Elaine, smiling at my enthusiasm,shook her head and held out her hand in one of her frank, straight-armhand shakes. There was nothing to do but go.

  At least, I reflected, I had the greater part of the story--all exceptthe one big thing, however,--the name of the criminal. But Dodge wouldknow him tomorrow!

  I hurried back to the Sta
r to write my story in time to catch the lastmorning edition.

  . . . . . . . .

  Meanwhile, if I may anticipate my story, I must tell of what we laterlearned had happened to Dodge so completely to upset him.

  Ever since the Consolidated Mutual had been hit by the murders, he hadhad many lines out in the hope of enmeshing the perpetrator. Thatnight, as I found out the next day, he had at last heard of a clue. Oneof the company's detectives had brought in a red-headed, lame, partlyparalyzed crook who enjoyed the expressive monniker of "Limpy Red.""Limpy Red" was a gunman of some renown, evil faced and having nothingmuch to lose, desperate. Whoever the master criminal of the ClutchingHand might have been he had seen fit to employ Limpy but had not takenthe precaution of getting rid of him soon enough when he was through.

  Wherefore Limpy had a grievance and now descended under pressure to thelow level of snitching to Dodge in his office.

  "No, Governor," the trembling wretch had said as he handed over a grimyenvelope, "I ain't never seen his face--but here is directions how tofind his hang-out."

  As Limpy ambled out, he turned to Dodge, quivering at the enormity ofhis unpardonable sin in gang-land, "For God's sake, Governor," heimplored, "don't let on how you found out!"

  And yet Limpy Red had scarcely left with his promise not to tell, whenDodge, happening to turn over some papers came upon an envelope left onhis own desk, bearing that mysterious Clutching Hand!

  He tore it open, and read in amazement:

  "Destroy Limpy Red's instructions within the next hour."

  Dodge gazed about in wonder. This thing was getting on his nerves. Hedetermined to go home and rest.

  Outside the house, as he left his car, pasted over the monogram on thedoor, he had found another note, with the same weird mark and thesingle word:

  "Remember!"

  Much of this I had already gathered from what I overheard Dodge tellingBennett as they entered the library. Some, also, I have pieced togetherfrom the story of a servant who overheard.

  At any rate, in spite of the pleadings of young Bennett, Dodge refusedto take warning. In the safe in his beautifully fitted library hedeposited Limpy's document in an envelope containing all thecorrespondence that had lead up to the final step in the discovery.

  . . . . . . . .

  It was late in the evening when I returned to our apartment and, notfinding Kennedy there, knew that I would discover him at the laboratory.

  "Craig," I cried as I burst in on him, "I've got a case foryou--greater than any ever before!"

  Kennedy looked up calmly from the rack of scientific instruments thatsurrounded him, test tubes, beakers, carefully labelled bottles.

  He had been examining a piece of cloth and had laid it aside indisappointment near his magnifying glass. Just now he was watching areaction in a series of test tubes standing on his table. He waslooking dejectedly at the floor as I came in.

  "Indeed?" he remarked coolly going back to the reaction.

  "Yes," I cried. "It is a scientific criminal who seems to leave noclues."

  Kennedy looked up gravely. "Every criminal leaves a trace," he saidquietly. "If it hasn't been found, then it must be because no one hasever looked for it in the right way."

  Still gazing at me keenly, he added, "Yes, I already knew there wassuch a man at large. I have been called in on that Fletcher case--hewas a trustee of the University, you know."

  "All right," I exclaimed, a little nettled that he should haveanticipated me even so much in the case. "But you haven't heard thelatest."

  "What is it?" he asked with provoking calmness,

  "Taylor Dodge," I blurted out, "has the clue. To-morrow he will trackdown the man!"

  Kennedy fairly jumped as I repeated the news.

  "How long has he known?" he demanded eagerly.

  "Perhaps three or four hours," I hazarded.

  Kennedy gazed at me fixedly.

  "Then Taylor Dodge is dead!" he exclaimed, throwing off hisacid-stained laboratory smock and hurrying into his street clothes.

  "Impossible!" I ejaculated.

  Kennedy paid no attention to the objection. "Come, Walter," he urged."We must hurry, before the trail gets cold."

  There was something positively uncanny about Kennedy's assurance. Idoubted--yet I feared.

  It was well past the middle of the night when we pulled up in anight-hawk taxicab before the Dodge house, mounted the steps and rangthe bell.

  Jennings answered sleepily, but not so much so that he did notrecognize me. He was about to bang the door shut when Kennedyinterposed his foot.

  "Where is Mr. Dodge?" asked Kennedy. "Is he all right?"

  "Of course he is--in bed," replied the butler.

  Just then we heard a faint cry, like nothing exactly human. Or was itour heightened imaginations, under the spell of the darkness?

  "Listen!" cautioned Kennedy.

  We did, standing there now in the hall. Kennedy was the only one of uswho was cool. Jennings' face blanched, then he turned tremblingly andwent down to the library door whence the sounds had seemed to come.

  He called but there was no answer. He turned the knob and opened thedoor. The Dodge library was a large room. In the center stood a bigflat-topped desk of heavy mahogany. It was brilliantly lighted.

  At one end of the desk was a telephone. Taylor Dodge was lying on thefloor at that end of the desk--perfectly rigid--his face distorted--aghastly figure. A pet dog ran over, sniffed frantically at his master'slegs and suddenly began to howl dismally.

  Dodge was dead!

  "Help!" shouted Jennings.

  Others of the servants came rushing in. There was for the moment thegreatest excitement and confusion.

  Suddenly a wild figure in flying garments flitted down the stairs andinto the library, dropping beside the dead man, without seeming tonotice us at all.

  "Father!" shrieked a woman's voice, heart broken. "Father! Oh--myGod--he--he is dead!"

  It was Elaine Dodge.

  With a mighty effort, the heroic girl seemed to pull herself together.

  "Jennings," she cried, "Call Mr. Bennett--immediately!"

  From the one-sided, excited conversation of the butler over thetelephone, I gathered that Bennett had been in the process of disrobingin his own apartment uptown and would be right down.

  Together, Kennedy, Elaine and myself lifted Dodge to a sofa andElaine's aunt, Josephine, with whom she lived, appeared on the scene,trying to quiet the sobbing girl.

  Kennedy and I withdrew a little way and he looked about curiously.

  "What was it?" I whispered. "Was it natural, an accident, or--ormurder?"

  The word seemed to stick in my throat. If it was a murder, what was themotive? Could it have been to get the evidence which Dodge had thatwould incriminate the master criminal?

  Kennedy moved over quietly and examined the body of Dodge. When herose, his face had a peculiar look.

  "Terrible!" he whispered to me. "Apparently he had been working at hisaccustomed place at the desk when the telephone rang. He rose andcrossed over to it. See! That brought his feet on this register letinto the floor. As he took the telephone receiver down a flash of lightmust have shot from it to his ear. It shows the characteristic electricburn."

  "The motive?" I queried.

  "Evidently his pockets had been gone through, though none of thevaluables were missing. Things on his desk show that a hasty search hasbeen made."

  Just then the door opened and Bennett burst in.

  As he stood over the body, gazing down at it, repressing the emotionsof a strong man, he turned to Elaine and in a low voice, exclaimed,"The Clutching Hand did this! I shall consecrate my life to bring thisman to justice!"

  He spoke tensely and Elaine, looking up into his face, as if imploringhis help in her hour of need, unable to speak, merely grasped his hand.

  Kennedy, who in the meantime had stood apart from the rest of us, wasexamining the t
elephone carefully.

  "A clever crook," I heard him mutter between his teeth. "He must haveworn gloves. Not a finger print--at least here."

  . . . . . . . .

  Perhaps I can do no better than to reconstruct the crime as Kennedylater pieced these startling events together.

  Long after I had left and even after Bennett left, Dodge continuedworking in his library, for he was known as a prodigious worker.

  Had he taken the trouble, however, to pause and peer out into themoonlight that flooded the back of his house, he might have seen thefigures of two stealthy crooks crouching in the half shadows of one ofthe cellar windows.

  One crook was masked by a handkerchief drawn tightly about his lowerface, leaving only his eyes visible beneath the cap with visor pulleddown over his forehead. He had a peculiar stoop of the shoulders andwore his coat collar turned up. One hand, the right, seemed almostdeformed. It was that which gave him his name in the underworld--theClutching Hand.

  The masked crook held carefully the ends of two wires attached to anelectric feed, and sending his pal to keep watch outside, he enteredthe cellar of the Dodge house through a window whose pane they hadcarefully removed. As he came through the window he dragged the wireswith him, and, alter a moment's reconnoitering attached them to thefurnace pipe of the old-fashioned hot-air heater where the pipe ran upthrough the floor to the library above. The other wire was quicklyattached to the telephone where its wires entered.

  Upstairs, Dodge, evidently uneasy in his mind about the precious "LimpyRed" letter, took it from the safe along with most of the othercorrespondence and, pressing a hidden spring in the wall, opened asecret panel, placed most of the important documents in this hidingplace. Then he put some blank sheets of paper in an envelope andreturned it to the safe.

  Downstairs the masked master criminal had already attached a voltmeterto the wires he had installed, waiting.

  Just then could be heard the tinkle of Dodge's telephone and the oldman rose to answer it. As he did so he placed his foot on the ironregister, his hand taking the telephone and the receiver. At thatinstant came a powerful electric flash. Dodge sank on the floorgrasping the instrument, electrocuted. Below, the master criminal couldscarcely refrain from exclaiming with satisfaction as his voltmeterregistered the powerful current that was passing.

  A moment later the criminal slid silently into Dodge's room. Carefullyputting on rubber gloves and avoiding touching the register, hewrenched the telephone from the grasp of the dead man, replacing it inits normal position. Only for a second did he pause to look at hisvictim as he destroyed the evidence of his work.

  Minutes were precious. First Dodge's pockets, then his desk engaged hisattention. There was left the safe.

  As he approached the strong box, the master criminal took two vialsfrom his pockets. Removing a bust of Shakespeare that stood on thesafe, he poured the contents of the vials in two mixed masses of powderforming a heap on the safe, into which he inserted two magnesium wires.

  He lighted them, sprang back, hiding his eyes from the light, and ablinding gush of flame, lasting perhaps ten seconds, poured out fromthe top of the safe.

  It was not an explosion, but just a dazzling, intense flame thatsizzled and crackled. It seemed impossible, but the glowing mass wasliterally sinking, sinking down into the cold steel. At last it burnedthrough--as if the safe had been of tinder!

  Without waiting a moment longer than necessary, the masked criminaladvanced again and actually put his hand down through the top of thesafe, pulling out a bunch of papers. Quickly he thrust them all, withjust a glance, into his pocket.

  Still working quickly, he took the bust of the great dramatist which hehad removed and placed it under the light. Next from his pocket he drewtwo curious stencils, as it were, which he had apparently carefullyprepared. With his hands, still carefully gloved, he rubbed thestencils on his hair, as if to cover them with a film of natural oils.Then he deliberately pressed them over the statue in several places. Itwas a peculiar action and he seemed to fairly gloat over it when it wasdone, and the bust returned to its place, covering the hole.

  As noiselessly as he had come, he made his exit after one lastmalignant look at Dodge. It was now but the work of a moment to removethe wires he had placed, and climb out of the window, taking them anddestroying the evidence down in the cellar.

  A low whistle from the masked crook, now again in the shadow, broughthis pal stealthily to his side.

  "It's all right," he whispered hoarsely to the man. "Now, you attend toLimpy Red."

  The villainous looking pal nodded and without another word the two madetheir getaway, safely, in opposite directions.

  . . . . . . . .

  When Limpy Red, still trembling, left the office of Dodge earlier inthe evening, he had repaired as fast as his shambling feet would takehim to his favorite dive upon Park Row. There he might have been seendrinking with any one who came along, for Limpy had money--bloodmoney,--and the recollection of his treachery and revenge must both beforgotten and celebrated.

  Had the Bowery "sinkers" not got into his eyes, he might have noticedamong the late revellers, a man who spoke to no one but took his placenearby at the bar.

  Limpy had long since reached the point of saturation and, lurchingforth from his new found cronies, he sought other fields of excitement.Likewise did the newcomer, who bore a strange resemblance to thelook-out who had been stationed outside at the Dodge house a scant halfhour before.

  What happened later was only a matter of seconds. It came when thehated snitch--for gangdom hates the informer worse than anything elsedead or alive--had turned a sufficiently dark and deserted corner.

  A muffled thud, a stifled groan followed as a heavy section of leadpipe wrapped in a newspaper descended on the crass skull of Limpy. Thewielder of the improvised but fatal weapon permitted himself the luxuryof an instant's cruel smile--then vanished into the darkness leavinganother complete job for the coroner and the morgue.

  It was the vengeance of the Clutching Hand--swift, sure, remorseless.

  And yet it had not been a night of complete success for the mastercriminal, as anyone might have seen who could have followed his sinuousroute to a place of greater safety.

  Unable to wait longer he pulled the papers he had taken from the safefrom his pocket. His chagrin at finding them to be blank paper foundonly one expression of foiled fury--that menacing clutching hand!

  . . . . . . . .

  Kennedy had turned from his futile examination for marks on thetelephone. There stood the safe, a moderate sized strong box but of amodern type. He tried the door. It was locked. There was not a mark onit. The combination had not been tampered with. Nor had there been anyattempt to "soup" the safe.

  With a quick motion he felt in his pocket as if looking for gloves.Finding none, he glanced about, and seized a pair of tongs from besidethe grate. With them, in order not to confuse any possible fingerprints on the bust, he lifted it off. I gave a gasp of surprise.

  There, in the top of the safe, yawned a gaping hole through which onecould have thrust his arm!

  "What is it?" we asked, crowding about him.

  "Thermit," he replied laconically.

  "Thermit?" I repeated.

  "Yes--a compound of iron oxide and powdered aluminum invented by achemist at Essen, Germany. It gives a temperature of over five thousanddegrees. It will eat its way through the strongest steel."

  Jennings, his mouth wide open with wonder, advanced to take the bustfrom Kennedy.

  "No--don't touch it," he waved him off, laying the bust on the desk. "Iwant no one to touch it--don't you see how careful I was to use thetongs that there might be no question about any clue this fellow mayhave left on the marble?"

  As he spoke, Craig was dusting over the surface of the bust with someblack powder.

  "Look!" exclaimed Craig suddenly.

  We bent over. The black po
wder had in fact brought out strongly somepeculiar, more or less regular, black smudges.

  "Finger prints!" I cried excitedly.

  "Yes," nodded Kennedy, studying them closely. "A clue--perhaps."

  "What--those little marks--a clue?" asked a voice behind us.

  I turned and saw Elaine, looking over our shoulders, fascinated. It wasevidently the first time she had realized that Kennedy was in the room.

  "How can you tell anything by that?'" she asked.

  "Why, easily," he answered picking up a brass blotting-pad which lay onthe desk. "You see, I place my finger on this weight--so. I dust thepowder over the mark--so. You could see it even without the powder onthis glass. Do you see those lines? There are various types ofmarkings--four general types--and each person's markings are different,even if of the same general type--loop, whorl, arch, or composite."

  He continued working as he talked.

  "Your thumb marks, for example, Miss Dodge, are different from mine.Mr. Jameson's are different from both of us. And this fellow's fingerprints are still different. It is mathematically impossible to find twoalike in every respect."

  Kennedy was holding the brass blotter near the bust as he talked.

  I shall never forget the look of blank amazement on his face as he bentover closer.

  "My God!" he exclaimed excitedly, "this fellow is a master criminal! Hehas actually made stencils or something of the sort on which by somemechanical process he has actually forged the hitherto infalliblefinger prints!"

  I, too, bent over and studied the marks on the bust and those Kennedyhad made on the blotter to show Elaine.

  THE FINGER PRINTS ON THE BUST WERE KENNEDY'S OWN.