The Exploits of Elaine

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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
managing editor of the Star to me one evening after I had turned
in an assignment of the late afternoon.

He handed me a clipping from the evening edition of the Star and I
quickly 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
the University," he explained. "Not a clue--except a warning
letter signed with this mysterious clutching fist. Last week it
was the robbery of the Haxworth jewels and the killing of old
Haxworth. Again that curious sign of the hand. Then there was the
dastardly attempt on Sherburne, the steel magnate. Not a trace of
the assailant except this same clutching fist. So it has gone,
Jameson--the most alarming and most inexplicable 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 to take a diabolical--I might almost say pathological--
pleasure in crimes of violence, revenge, avarice and self-
protection. Sometimes it seems as 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,
the tip has just come to us that Fletcher, Haxworth, Sherburne and
all the rest of those wealthy men were insured in the Consolidated
Mutual Life. Now, Jameson, I want you to find Taylor Dodge, the
president, and interview him. Get what you can, at any cost."

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

Dodge, I discovered over the telephone, was not at home, nor at
any of the clubs to which he belonged. Late though it was I
concluded that he was 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 on there, I determined, about nine o'clock,
that the best way to get at Dodge was to go to his house on Fifth
Avenue, if I had to camp on his front doorstep until morning. The
harder I found the story to get, the more I wanted it.

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

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

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

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

Near her I recognized from his pictures, Perry Bennett, the rising
young corporation lawyer, a mighty good looking fellow, with an
affable, 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
the lawyer arrived to call on the daughter under pretense of
waiting for her 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
superciliously back at me, "and you know how your father dislikes
to see anyone here at the house," he added deferentially to her.

I took in the situation at a glance. Bennett was trying not to
look discourteous, but this was a call on Elaine and it had been
interrupted. I could expect no help from that quarter. Still, I
fancied that Elaine was not averse to trying to pique her visitor
and determined 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
very important."

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

She laughed. "You are a very brave young man," she replied with a
roguish look at Bennett's discomfiture over the interruption of
the tete-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
earnest expression which I later learned to like and respect very
much. "My father has declared he will eat the very next reporter
who tries to interview him here," she answered.

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

The big front door opened and Elaine flung herself in the arms of
an elderly, stern-faced, gray-haired man. "Why, Dad," she cried,
"where have you been? I missed you so much at dinner. I'll be so
glad when this 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 he sank rather heavily into a chair, brushed his face with his
handkerchief and breathed heavily. Elaine hovered over him
solicitously, repeating her question.

With a mighty effort he seemed to get himself together. He rose
and turned 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, and
tomorrow 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 he was 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 the
library, taking Bennett with him and leaving me with Elaine.
Inside I could hear them talking, and managed to catch enough to
piece together the 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-arm hand shakes. There was nothing to do but go.

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

I hurried back to the Star to write my story in time to catch the
last morning edition.

. . . . . . . .

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

Ever since the Consolidated Mutual had been hit by the murders, he
had had many lines out in the hope of enmeshing the perpetrator.
That night, as I found out the next day, he had at last heard of a
clue. One of the company's detectives had brought in a red-headed,
lame, partly paralyzed crook who enjoyed the expressive monniker
of "Limpy Red." "Limpy Red" was a gunman of some renown, evil
faced and having nothing much to lose, desperate. Whoever the
master criminal of the Clutching Hand might have been he had seen
fit to employ Limpy but had not taken the precaution of getting
rid of him soon enough when he was through.

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

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

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

And yet Limpy Red had scarcely left with his promise not to tell,
when Dodge, happening to turn over some papers came upon an
envelope left on his 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.
He determined to go home and rest.

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

"Remember!"

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

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

. . . . . . . .

It was late in the evening when I returned to our apartment and,
not finding 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 for you--
greater than any ever before!"

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

He had been examining a piece of cloth and had laid it aside in
disappointment near his magnifying glass. Just now he was watching
a reaction in a series of test tubes standing on his table. He was
looking 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 no
clues."

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

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

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

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

"Taylor Dodge," I blurted out, "has the clue. To-morrow he will
track down 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 his acid-
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.
I doubted--yet I feared.

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

Jennings answered sleepily, but not so much so that he did not
recognize me. He was about to bang the door shut when Kennedy
interposed 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
it our 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 us who was cool. Jennings' face blanched, then he turned
tremblingly and went 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
the door. The Dodge library was a large room. In the center stood
a big flat-topped desk of heavy mahogany. It was brilliantly
lighted.

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

Dodge was dead!

"Help!" shouted Jennings.

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

Suddenly a wild figure in flying garments flitted down the stairs
and into the library, dropping beside the dead man, without
seeming to notice us at all.

"Father!" shrieked a woman's voice, heart broken. "Father! Oh--my
God--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 the
telephone, I gathered that Bennett had been in the process of
disrobing in his own apartment uptown and would be right down.

Together, Kennedy, Elaine and myself lifted Dodge to a sofa and
Elaine'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--or
murder?"

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

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

"Terrible!" he whispered to me. "Apparently he had been working at
his accustomed place at the desk when the telephone rang. He rose
and crossed over to it. See! That brought his feet on this
register let into the floor. As he took the telephone receiver
down a flash of light must have shot from it to his ear. It shows
the characteristic electric burn."

"The motive?" I queried.

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

Just then the door opened and Bennett burst in.

As he stood over the body, gazing down at it, repressing the
emotions of 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 this man to justice!"

He spoke tensely and Elaine, looking up into his face, as if
imploring his 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,
was examining the telephone carefully.

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

. . . . . . . .

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

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

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

One crook was masked by a handkerchief drawn tightly about his
lower face, leaving only his eyes visible beneath the cap with
visor pulled down over his forehead. He had a peculiar stoop of
the shoulders and wore his coat collar turned up. One hand, the
right, seemed almost deformed. It was that which gave him his name
in the underworld--the Clutching Hand.

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

Upstairs, Dodge, evidently uneasy in his mind about the precious
"Limpy Red" letter, took it from the safe along with most of the
other correspondence and, pressing a hidden spring in the wall,
opened a secret panel, placed most of the important documents in
this hiding place. Then he put some blank sheets of paper in an
envelope and returned it to the safe.

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

Just then could be heard the tinkle of Dodge's telephone and the
old man rose to answer it. As he did so he placed his foot on the
iron register, his hand taking the telephone and the receiver. At
that instant came a powerful electric flash. Dodge sank on the
floor grasping the instrument, electrocuted. Below, the master
criminal could scarcely refrain from exclaiming with satisfaction
as his voltmeter registered the powerful current that was passing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still working quickly, he took the bust of the great dramatist
which he had removed and placed it under the light. Next from his
pocket he drew two curious stencils, as it were, which he had
apparently carefully prepared. With his hands, still carefully
gloved, he rubbed the stencils 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. It was a peculiar action and he
seemed to fairly gloat over it when it was done, and the bust
returned to its place, covering the hole.

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

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

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

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

. . . . . . . .

When Limpy Red, still trembling, left the office of Dodge earlier
in the evening, he had repaired as fast as his shambling feet
would take him to his favorite dive upon Park Row. There he might
have been seen drinking with any one who came along, for Limpy had
money--blood money,--and the recollection of his treachery and
revenge must both be forgotten and celebrated.

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

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

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

A muffled thud, a stifled groan followed as a heavy section of
lead pipe wrapped in a newspaper descended on the crass skull of
Limpy. The wielder of the improvised but fatal weapon permitted
himself the luxury of an instant's cruel smile--then vanished into
the darkness leaving another 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 master
criminal, as anyone might have seen who could have followed his
sinuous route to a place of greater safety.

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

. . . . . . . .

Kennedy had turned from his futile examination for marks on the
telephone. There stood the safe, a moderate sized strong box but
of a modern type. He tried the door. It was locked. There was not
a mark on it. The combination had not been tampered with. Nor had
there been any attempt 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 beside the grate. With them, in order not to confuse any
possible finger prints 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
one could 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 a
chemist at Essen, Germany. It gives a temperature of over five
thousand degrees. It will eat its way through the strongest
steel."

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

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

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

"Look!" exclaimed Craig suddenly.

We bent over. The black powder had in fact brought out strongly
some peculiar, 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 was evidently 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 on the desk. "You see, I place my finger on this weight--so. I
dust the powder over the mark--so. You could see it even without
the powder on this glass. Do you see those lines? There are
various types of markings--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 finger prints are still different. It is mathematically
impossible to find two alike in every respect."

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