_ CHAPTER VII. THE DOUBLE TRAP
Mindful of the sage advice that a time of peace is best employed in preparing for war, I was busily engaged in cleaning my automatic gun one morning as Kennedy and I were seated in our living room.
Our door buzzer sounded and Kennedy, always alert, jumped up, pushing aside a great pile of papers which had accumulated in the Dodge case.
Two steps took him to the wall where the day before he had installed a peculiar box about four by six inches long connected in some way with a lens-like box of similar size above our bell and speaking tube in the hallway below. He opened it, disclosing an oblong plate of ground glass.
"I thought the seismograph arrangement was not quite enough after that spring-gun affair," he remarked, "so I have put in a sort of teleview of my own invention--so that I can see down into the vestibule downstairs. Well--just look who's here!"
"Some new fandangled periscope arrangement, I suppose?" I queried moving slowly over toward it.
However, one look was enough to interest me. I can express it only in slang. There, framed in the little thing, was a vision of as swell a "chicken" as I have ever seen.
I whistled under my breath.
"Um!" I exclaimed shamelessly, "A peach! Who's your friend?"
I had never said a truer word than in my description of her, though I did not know it at the time. She was indeed known as "Gertie the Peach" in the select circle to which she belonged.
Gertie was very attractive, though frightfully over-dressed. But, then, no one thinks anything of that now, in New York.
Kennedy had opened the lower door and our fair visitor was coming upstairs. Meanwhile he was deeply in thought before the "teleview." He made up his mind quickly, however.
"Go in there, Walter," he said, seizing me quickly and pushing me into my room. "I want you to wait there and watch her carefully."
I slipped the gun into my pocket and went, just as a knock at the door told me she was outside.
Kennedy opened the door, disclosing a very excited young woman.
"Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried, all in one breath, with much emotion, "I'm so glad I found you in. I can't tell you. Oh--my jewels! They have been stolen--and my husband must not know of it. Help me to recover them--please!"
She had not paused, but had gone on in a wild, voluble explanation.
"Just a moment, my dear young lady," interrupted Craig, finding at last a chance to get a word in edgewise. "Do you see that table-- and all those papers? Really, I can't take your case. I am too busy as it is even to take the cases of many of my own clients."
"But, please, Professor Kennedy--please!" she begged. "Help me. It means--oh, I can't tell you how much it means to me!"
She had come close to him and had laid her warm, little soft hand on his, in ardent entreaty.
From my hiding place in my room, I could not help seeing that she was using every charm of her sex and personality to lure him on, as she clung confidingly to him. Craig was very much embarrassed, and I could not help a smile at his discomfiture. Seriously, I should have hated to have been in his position.
Gertie had thrown her arms about Kennedy, as if in wildest devotion. I wondered what Elaine would have thought, if she had a picture of that!
"Oh," she begged him, "please--please, help me!"
Still Kennedy seemed utterly unaffected by her passionate embrace. Carefully he loosened her fingers from about his neck and removed the plump, enticing arms.
Gertie sank into a chair, weeping, while Kennedy stood before her a moment in deep abstraction.
Finally he seemed to make up his mind to something. His manner toward her changed. He took a step to her side.
"I WILL help you," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. "If it is possible I will recover your jewels. Where do you live?"
"At Hazlehurst," she replied, gratefully. "Oh, Mr. Kennedy, how can I ever thank you?"
She seemed overcome with gratitude and took his hand, pressed it, even kissed it.
"Just a minute," he added, carefully extricating his hand. "I'll be ready in just a minute."
Kennedy entered the room where I was listening.
"What's it all about, Craig?" I whispered, mystified.
For a moment he stood thinking, apparently reconsidering what he had just done. Then his second thought seemed to approve it.
"This is a trap of the Clutching Hand, Walter," he whispered, adding tensely, "and we're going to walk right into it."
I looked at him in amazement.
"But, Craig," I demurred, "that's foolhardy. Have her trailed-- anything--but---"
He shook his head and with a mere motion of his hand brushed aside my objections as he went to a cabinet across the room.
From one shelf he took out a small metal box and from another a test tube, placing the test tube in his waistcoat pocket, and the small box in his coatpocket, with excessive care.
Then he turned and motioned to me to follow him out into the other room. I did so, stuffing my "gatt" into my pocket.
"Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson," said Craig, presenting me to the pretty crook.
The introduction quickly over, we three went out to get Craig's car which he kept at a nearby garage.
. . . . . . . .
That forenoon, Perry Bennett was reading up a case. In the outer office Milton Schofield, his office boy, was industriously chewing gum and admiring his feet cocked up on the desk before him.
The door to the waiting room opened and an attractive woman of perhaps thirty, dressed in extreme mourning, entered with a boy.
Milton cast a glance of scorn at the "little dude." He was in reality about fourteen years old but was dressed to look much younger.
Milton took his feet down in deference to the lady, but snickered openly at the boy. A fight seemed imminent.
"Did you wish to see Mr. Bennett?" asked the precocious Milton politely on one hand while on the other he made a wry grimace.
"Yes--here is my card," replied the woman.
It was deeply bordered in black. Even Milton was startled at reading it: "Mrs. Taylor Dodge."
He looked at the woman in open-mouthed astonishment. Even he knew that Elaine's mother had been dead for years.
The woman, however, true to her name in the artistic coterie in which she was leader, had sunk into a chair and was sobbing convulsively, as only "Weepy Mary" could.
It was so effective that even Milton was visibly moved. He took the card in, excitedly, to Bennett.
"There's a woman outside--says she is Mrs. Dodge!" he cried.
If Milton had had an X-ray eye he could have seen her take a cigarette from her handbag and light it nonchalantly the moment he was gone.
As for Bennett, Milton, who was watching him closely, thought he was about to discharge him on the spot for bothering him. He took the card, and his face expressed the most extreme surprise, then anger. He thought a moment.
"Tell that woman to state her business in writing," he thundered curtly at Milton.
As the boy turned to go back to the waiting room, Weepy Mary, hearing him coming, hastily shoved the cigarette into her "son's" hand.
"Mr. Bennett says for you to write out what it is you want to see him about," reported Milton, indicating the table before which she was sitting.
Mary had automatically taken up sobbing, with the release of the cigarette. She looked at the table on which were letter paper, pens and ink.
"I may write here?" she asked.
"Surely, ma'am," replied Milton, still very much overwhelmed by her sorrow.
Weepy Mary sat there, writing and sobbing.
In the midst of his sympathy, however, Milton sniffed. There was an unmistakable odor of tobacco smoke about the room. He looked sharply at the "son" and discovered the still smoking cigarette.
It was too much for Milton's outraged dignity. Bennett did not allow him that coveted privilege. This upstart could not usurp it.
He reached over and seized the boy by the arm and swung him around till he faced a sign in the corner on the wall.
"See?" he demanded.
The sign read courteously:
"No Smoking in This Office--Please. "PERRY BENNETT."
"Leggo my arm," snarled the "son," putting the offending cigarette defiantly into his mouth.
Milton coolly and deliberately reached over and, with an exaggerated politeness swiftly and effectively removed it, dropping it on the floor and stamping defiantly on it.
"Son" raised his fists pugnaciously, for he didn't care much for the role he was playing, anyhow.
Milton did the same.
There was every element of a gaudy mix-up, when the outer door of the office suddenly swung open and Elaine Dodge entered.
Gallantry was Milton's middle name and he sprang forward to hold the door, and then opened Bennett's door, as he ushered in Elaine.
As she passed "Weepy Mary," who was still writing at the table and crying bitterly, Elaine hesitated and looked at her curiously. Even after Milton had opened Bennett's door, she could not resist another glance. Instinctively Elaine seemed to scent trouble.
Bennett was still studying the black-bordered card, when she greeted him.
"Who is that woman?" she asked, still wondering about the identity of the Niobe outside.
At first he said nothing. But finally, seeing that she had noticed it, he handed Elaine the card, reluctantly.
Elaine read it with a gasp. The look of surprise that crossed her face was terrible.
Before she could say anything, however, Milton had returned with the sheet of paper on which "Weepy Mary" had written and handed it to Bennett.
Bennett read it with uncontrolled astonishment.
"What is it?" demanded Elaine.
He handed it to her and she read:
"As the lawful wife and widow of Taylor Dodge, I demand my son's rights and my own.
"MRS. TAYLOR DODGE."
Elaine gasped at it.
"She--my father's wife!" she exclaimed, "What effrontery! What does she mean?"
Bennett hesitated.
"Tell me," Elaine cried, "Is there--can there be anything in it? No--no--there isn't!"
Bennett spoke in a low tone. "I have heard a whisper of some scandal or other connected with your father--but--" He paused.
Elaine was first shocked, then indignant.
"Why--such a thing is absurd. Show the woman in!"
"No--please--Miss Dodge. Let me deal with her."
By this time Elaine was furious.
"Yes--I WILL see her."
She pressed the button on Bennett's desk and Milton responded.
"Milton, show the--the woman in," she ordered, "and that boy, too."
As Milton turned to crook his finger at "Weepy Mary," she nodded surreptitiously and dug her fingers sharply into "son's" ribs.
"Yell--you little fool,--yell," she whispered.
Obedient to his "mother's" commands, and much to Milton's disgust, the boy started to cry in close imitation of his elder.
Elaine was still holding the paper in her hands when they entered.
"What does all this mean?" she demanded.
"Weepy Mary," between sobs, managed to blurt out, "You are Miss Elaine Dodge, aren't you? Well, it means that your father married me when I was only seventeen and this boy is his son--your half brother."
"No--never," cried Elaine vehemently, unable to restrain her disgust. "He never married again. He was too devoted to the memory of my mother."
"Weepy Mary" smiled cynically. "Come with me and I will show you the church records and the minister who married us."
"You will?" repeated Elaine defiantly. "Well, I'll just do as you ask. Mr. Bennett shall go with me."
"No, no, Miss Dodge--don't go. Leave the matter to me," urged Bennett. "I will take care of HER. Besides, I must be in court in twenty minutes."
Elaine paused, but she was thoroughly aroused.
"Then I will go with her myself," she cried defiantly.
In spite of every objection that Bennett made, "Weepy Mary," her son, and Elaine went out to call a taxicab to take them to the railroad station where they could catch a train to the little town where the woman asserted she had been married.
. . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, before a little country church in the town, a closed automobile had drawn up.
As the door opened, a figure, humped up and masked, alighted.
It was the Clutching Hand.
The car had scarcely pulled away, when he gave a long rap, followed by two short taps, at the door of the vestry, a secret code, evidently.
Inside the vestry room a well-dressed man but with a very sinister face heard the knock and a second later opened the door.
"What--not ready yet?" growled the Clutching Hand. "Quick--now-- get on those clothes. I heard the train whistle as I came in the car. In which closet does the minister keep them?"
The crook, without a word, went to a closet and took out a suit of clothes of ministerial cut. Then he hastily put them on, adding some side-whiskers, which he had brought with him.
At about the same time, Elaine, acompanied by "Weepy Mary" and her "son," had arrived at the little tumble-down station and had taken the only vehicle in sight, a very ancient carriage.
It ambled along until, at last, it pulled up before the vestry room door of the church, just as the bogus minister was finishing his transformation from a frank crook. Clutching Hand was giving him final instructions.
Elaine and the others alighted and approached the church, while the ancient vehicle rattled away.
"They're coming," whispered the crook, peering cautiously out of the window.
Clutching Hand moved silently and snake-like into the closet and shut the door.
"How do you do, Dr. Carton?" greeted "Weepy Mary." "I guess you don't remember me."
The clerical gentleman looked at her fixedly a moment.
"Remember you?" he repeated. "Of course, my dear. I remember everyone I marry."
"And you remember to whom you married me?"
"Perfectly. To an older man--a Taylor Dodge."
Elaine was overcome.
"Won't you step in?" he asked suavely. "Your friend here doesn't seem well."
They all entered.
"And you--you say--you married this--this woman to Taylor Dodge?" queried Elaine, tensely.
The bogus minister seemed to be very fatherly. "Yes," he assented, "I certainly did so."
"Have you the record?" asked Elaine, fighting to the last.
"Why, yes. I can show you the record."
He moved over to the closet. "Come over here," he asked.
He opened the door. Elaine screamed and drew back. There stood her arch enemy, the Clutching Hand himself.
As he stepped forth, she turned, wildly, to run--anywhere. But strong arms seized her and forced her into a chair.
She looked at the woman and the minister. It was a plot!
A moment Clutching Hand looked Elaine over. "Put the others out," he ordered the other crook.
Quickly the man obeyed, leading "Weepy Mary" and her "son" to the door, and waving them away as he locked it. They left, quite as much in the dark about the master criminal's identity as Elaine.
"Now, my pretty dear," began the Clutching Hand as the lock turned in the vestry door, "we shall be joined shortly by your friend, Craig Kennedy, and," he added with a leer, "I think your rather insistent search for a certain person will cease."
Elaine drew back in the chair, horrified, at the implied threat.
Clutching Hand laughed, diabolically.
. . . . . . . .
While these astounding events were transpiring in the little church, Kennedy and I had been tearing across the country in his big car, following the directions of our fair friend.
We stopped at last before a prosperous, attractive-looking house and entered a very prettily furnished but small parlor. Heavy portieres hung over the doorway into the hall, over another into a back room and over the bay windows.
"Won't you sit down a moment?" coaxed Gertie. "I'm quite blown to pieces after that ride. My, how you drive!"
As she pulled aside the hall portieres, three men with guns thrust their hands out. I turned. Two others had stepped from the back room and two more from the bay window. We were surrounded. Seven guns were aimed at us with deadly precision.
"No--no--Walter--it's no use," shouted Kennedy calmly restraining my hand which I had clapped on my own gun.
At the same time, with his other hand, he took from his pocket the small can which I had seen him place there, and held it aloft.
"Gentlemen," he said quietly. "I suspected some such thing. I have here a small box of fulminate of mercury. If I drop it, this building and the entire vicinity will be blown to atoms. Go ahead- -shoot!" he added, nonchalantly.
The seven of them drew back, rather hurriedly.
Kennedy was a dangerous prisoner.
He calmly sat down in an arm chair, leaning back as he carefully balanced the deadly little box of fulminate of mercury on his knee. He placed his finger tips together and smiled at the seven crooks, who had gathered together, staring breathlessly at this man who toyed with death.
Gertie ran from the room.
For a moment they looked at each other, undecided, then one by one, they stepped away from Kennedy toward the door.
The leader was the last to go. He had scarcely taken a step.
"Stop!" ordered Kennedy.
The crook did so. As Craig moved toward him, he waited, cold sweat breaking out on his face.
"Say," he whined, "you let me be!"
It was ineffectual. Kennedy, still smiling confidently, came closer, still holding the deadly little box, balanced between two fingers.
He took the crook's gun and dropped it into his pocket.
"Sit down!" ordered Craig.
Outside, the other six parleyed in hoarse whispers. One raised a gun, but the woman and the others restrained him and fled.
"Take me to your master!" demanded Kennedy.
The crook remained silent.
"Where is he?" repeated Craig. "Tell me!"
Still the man remained silent. Craig looked the fellow over again. Then, still with that confident smile, he reached into his inside pocket and drew forth the tube I had seen him place there.
"No matter how much YOU accuse me," added Craig casually, "no one will ever take the word of a crook that a reputable scientist like me would do what I am about to do."
He had taken out his penknife and opened it. Then he beckoned to me.
"Bare his arm and hold his wrist, Walter," he said.
Craig bent down with the knife and the tube, then paused a moment and turned the tube so that we could see it.
On the label were the ominous words:
Germ culture 6248A Bacillus Leprae (Leprosy)
Calmly he took the knife and proceeded to make an incision in the man's arm. The crook's feelings underwent a terrific struggle.
"No--no--no--don't," he implored. "I will take you to the Clutching Hand--even if it kills me!"
Kennedy stepped back, replacing the tube in his pocket.
"Very well, go ahead!" he agreed.
We followed the crook, Craig still holding the deadly box of fulminate of mercury carefully balanced so that if anyone shot him from a hiding place it would drop.
. . . . . . . .
No sooner had we gone than Gertie hurried to the nearest telephone to inform the Clutching Hand of our escape.
Elaine had sunk back into the chair, as the telephone rang. Clutching Hand answered it.
A moment later, in uncontrollable fury he hurled the instrument to the floor.
"Here--we've got to act quickly--that devil has escaped again," he hissed. "We must get her away. You keep her here. I'll be back-- right away--with a car."
He dashed madly from the church, pulling off his mask as he gained the street.
. . . . . . . .
Kennedy had forced the crook ahead of us into the car which was waiting and I followed, taking the wheel this time.
"Which way, now--quick!" demanded Craig, "And if you get me in wrong--I've got that tube yet--you remember."
Our crook started off with a whole burst of directions that rivalled the motor guide--"through the town, following trolley tracks, jog right, jog left under the R. R. bridge, leaving trolley tracks; at cemetery turn left, stopping at the old stone church."
"Is this it?" asked Craig incredulously.
"Yes--as I live," swore the crook in a cowed voice.
He had gone to pieces. Kennedy jumped from the machine.
"Here, take this gun, Walter," he said to me. "Don't take your eyes off the fellow--keep him covered."
Craig walked around the church, out of sight, until he came to a small vestry window and looked in.
There was Elaine, sitting in a chair, and near her stood an elderly looking man in clerical garb, which to Craig's trained eye was quite evidently a disguise.
Elaine happened just then to glance at the window and her eyes grew wide with astonishment at the sight of Craig.
He made a hasty motion to her to make a dash for the door. She nodded quietly.
With a glance at her guardian, she suddenly made a rush.
He was at her in a moment, pouncing on her, cat-like.
Kennedy had seized an iron bar that lay beside the window where some workmen had been repairing the stone pavement, and, with a blow shattered the glass and the sash.
At the sound of the smashing glass the crook turned and with a mighty effort threw Elaine aside, drawing his revolver. As he raised it, Elaine sprang at him and frantically seized his wrist.
Utterly merciless, the man brought the butt of the gun down with full force on Elaine's head. Only her hat and hair saved her, but she sank unconscious.
Then he turned at Craig and fired twice.
One shot grazed Craig's hat, but the other struck him in the shoulder and Kennedy reeled.
With a desperate effort he pulled himself together and leaped forward again, closing with the fellow and wrenching the gun from him before he could fire again.
It fell to the floor with a clang.
Just then the man broke away and made a dash for the door leading back into the church itself, with Kennedy after him. At the foot of a flight of stairs, he turned long enough to pick up a chair. As Kennedy came on, he deliberately smashed it over Craig's head.
Kennedy warded off the blow as best he could, then, still undaunted, started up the stairs after the fellow.
Up they went, into the choir loft and then into the belfry itself. There they came to sheer hand to hand struggle. Kennedy tripped on a loose board and would have fallen backwards, if he had not been able to recover himself just in time. The crook, desperate, leaped for the ladder leading further up into the steeple. Kennedy followed.
Elaine had recovered consciousness almost immediately and, hearing the commotion, stirred and started to rise and look about.
From the church she could hear sounds of the struggle. She paused just long enough to seize the crook's revolver lying on the floor.
She hurried into the church and up into the belfry, thence up the ladder, whence the sounds came.
The crook by this time had gained the outside of the steeple through an opening. Kennedy was in close pursuit.
On the top of the steeple was a great gilded cross, considerably larger than a man. As the crook clambered outside, he scaled the steeple, using a lightning rod and some projecting points to pull himself up, desperately.
Kennedy followed unhesitatingly.
There they were, struggling in deadly combat, clinging to the gilded cross.
The first I knew of it was a horrified gasp from my own crook. I looked up carefully, fearing it was a stall to get me off my guard. There were Kennedy and the other crook, struggling, swaying back and forth, between life and death.
I looked at my man. What should I do? Should I leave him and go to Craig? If I did, might he not pick us both off, from a safe vantage point, by some sharp-shooting skill?
There was nothing I could do.
Kennedy was clinging to a lightning rod on the cross.
It broke.
I gasped as Craig reeled back. But he managed to catch hold of the rod further down and cling to it.
The crook seemed to exult diabolically. Holding with both hands to the cross, he let himself out to his full length and stamped on Kennedy's fingers, trying every way to dislodge him. It was all Kennedy could do to keep his hold.
I cried out in agony at the sight, for he had dislodged one of Craig's hands. The other could not hold on much longer. He was about to fall.
Just then I saw a face at the little window opening out from the ladder to the outside of the steeple--a woman's face, tense with horror.
It was Elaine!
Quickly a hand followed and in it was a revolver.
Just as the crook was about to dislodge Kennedy's other hand, I saw a flash and a puff of smoke and a second later, heard a report--and another--and another.
Horrors!
The crook who had taken refuge seemed to stagger back, wildly, taking a couple of steps in the thin air.
Kennedy regained his hold.
With a sickening thud, the body of the crook landed on the ground around the corner of the church from me.
"Come--you!" I ground out, covering my own crook with the pistol, "and if you attempt a getaway, I'll kill you, too!"
He followed, trembling, unnerved.
We bent over the man. It seemed that every bone in his body must be broken. He groaned, and before I could even attempt anything for him, he was dead.
. . . . . . . .
As Kennedy let himself slowly and painfully down the lightning rod, Elaine seized him and, with all her strength, pulled him in through the window.
He was quite weak now from loss of blood.
"Are you--all right?" she gasped, as they reached the foot of the ladder in the belfry.
Craig looked down at his torn and soiled clothes. Then, in spite of the smarting pain of his wounds, he smiled, "Yes--all right!" "Thank heaven!" she murmured fervently, trying to staunch the flow of blood.
Craig gazed at her eagerly. The great look of relief in her face seemed to take away all the pain from his own face. In its place came a look of wonder--and hope.
He could not resist.
"This time--it was you--saved me!" he cried, "Elaine!"
Involuntarily his arms sought hers--and he held her a moment, looking deep into her wonderful eyes.
Then their faces came slowly together in their first kiss. _