"'Hang it!' he cries to me. 'Where else did your father keep papers?' I point in desperation at the desk. He takes one last look at the safe, shoves all the papers he has strewn on the floor back again and slams the safe shut.

"'Now, come on!' he says, indicating with the gun that he wants me to follow him away from the safe. At the desk he repeats the search. But he finds nothing. Almost I think he is about to kill me. 'Where else did your father keep papers?' he hisses fiercely, still threatening me with the gun.

"I am too frightened to speak. But at last I am able to say, 'I--I don't know!' Again he threatens me. 'As G.o.d is my judge,' I cry, 'I don't know.' It is fearful. Will he shoot me?

"Thank heaven! At last he believes me. But such a look of foiled fury I have never seen on any human face before.

"'Sit down!' he growls, adding, 'at the desk.' I do.

"'Take some of your notepaper--the best.' I do that, too.

"'And a pen,' he goes on. My fingers can hardly hold it.

"'Now--write!' he says, and as he dictates, I write--"

"This?" interjected Kennedy, eagerly holding up the letter that he had received from her.

Elaine looked it over with her drug-laden eyes. "Yes," she nodded, then lapsed again to the scene itself. "He reads it over and as he does so says, 'Now, address an envelope.' Himself he folds the letter, seals the envelope, stamps it, and drops it into his pocket, hastily straightening the desk.

"'Now, go ahead of me--again. Leave the room--no, by the hall door. We are going back upstairs.' I obey him, and at the door he switches off the lights. How I stand it, I don't know. I go upstairs, mechanically, into my own room--I and this masked man.

"'Take off the kimono and slippers!' he orders. I do that. 'Get into bed!' he growls. I crawl in fearfully. For a moment he looks about,--then goes out--with a look back as he goes. Oh! Oh! That hand--which he raises at me--THAT HAND!"

The poor girl was sitting bolt upright, staring straight at the hall door, as we watched and listened, fascinated.

Kennedy was bending over, soothing her. She gave evidences of coming out from the effect of the drug.

I noticed that Bennett had suddenly moved a step in the direction of the door at which she stared.

"My G.o.d!" he muttered, staring, too. "Look!"

We did look. A letter was slowly being inserted under the door.

I took a quick step forward. That moment I felt a rough tug at my arm, and a voice whispered, "Wait--you chump!"

It was Kennedy. He had whipped out his automatic and had carefully leveled it at the door. Before he could fire, however, Bennett had rushed ahead.

I followed. We looked down the hall. Sure enough, the figure of a man could be seen disappearing around an angle. I followed Bennett out of the door and down the hall.

Words cannot keep pace with what followed. Together we rushed to the backstairs.

"Down there, while I go down the front!" cried Bennett.

I went down and he turned and went down the other flight. As he did so, Craig followed him.

Suddenly, in the drawing room, I b.u.mped into a figure on the other side of the portieres. I seized him. We struggled. Rip! The portieres came down, covering me entirely. Over and over we went, smashing a lamp. It was vicious. Another man attacked me, too.

"I--I've got him--Kennedy!" I heard a voice pant over me.

A scream followed from Aunt Josephine. Suddenly the portieres were pulled off me.

"The deuce!" puffed Kennedy. "It's Jameson!"

Bennett had rushed plump into me, coming the other way, hidden by the portieres.

If we had known at the time, our Michael of the sinister face had gained the library and was standing in the center of the room. He had heard me coming and had fled to the drawing room. As we finished our struggle in the library, he rose hastily from behind the divan in the other room where he had dropped and had quietly and hastily disappeared through another door.

Laughing and breathing hard, they helped me to my feet. It was no joke to me. I was sore in every bone.

"Well, where DID he go?" insisted Bennett.

"I don't know--perhaps back there," I cried.

Bennett and I argued a moment, then started and stopped short. Aunt Josephine had run downstairs and now was shoving the letter into Craig's hands.

We gathered about him, curiously. He opened it. On it was that awesome Clutching Hand again.

Kennedy read it. For a moment he stood and studied it, then slowly crushed it in his hand.

Just then Elaine, pale and shaken from the ordeal she had voluntarily gone through, burst in upon us from upstairs. Without a word she advanced to Craig and took the letter from him.

Inside, as on the envelope, was that same signature of the Clutching Hand.

Elaine gazed at it wild-eyed, then at Craig. Craig smilingly reached for the note, took it, folded it and unconcernedly thrust it into his pocket.

"My G.o.d!" she cried, clasping her hands convulsively and repeating the words of the letter. "YOUR LAST WARNING!"

CHAPTER III

THE VANISHING JEWELS

Banging away at my typewriter, the next day, in Kennedy's laboratory, I was startled by the sudden, insistent ringing of the telephone near me.

"h.e.l.lo," I answered, for Craig was at work at his table, trying still to extract some clue from the slender evidence thus far elicited in the Dodge mystery.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," I heard an excited voice over the wire reply, "my friend, Susie Martin is here. Her father has just received a message from that Clutching Hand and--"

"Just a moment, Miss Dodge," I interrupted. "This is Mr. Jameson."

"Oh!" came back the voice, breathless and disappointed. "Let me have Mr. Kennedy--quick."

I had already pa.s.sed the telephone to Craig and was watching him keenly as he listened over it. The antic.i.p.ation of a message from Elaine did not fade, yet his face grew grave as he listened.

He motioned to me for a pad and pencil that lay near me.