3. 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.
"Hello," 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 passed the telephone to Craig and was watching him keenly as he listened over it. The anticipation 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.
"Please read the letter again, slower, Miss Dodge," he asked, adding, "There isn't time for me to see it--just yet. But I want it exactly. You say it is made up of separate words and type cut from newspapers and pasted on note paper?"
I handed him paper and pencil.
"All right now, Miss Dodge, go ahead."
As he wrote, he indicated to me by his eyes that he wanted me to read. I did so:
"Sturtevant Martin, Jeweler, "739 1/2 Fifth Ave., "New York City.
"SIR:
"As you have failed to deliver the $10,000, I shall rob your main diamond case at exactly noon today."
"Thank you, Miss Dodge," continued Kennedy, laying down the pencil. "Yes, I understand perfectly--signed by that same Clutching Hand. Let me see," he pondered, looking at his watch. "It is now just about half past eleven. Very well. I shall meet you and Miss Martin at Mr. Martin's store directly."
It lacked five minutes of noon when Kennedy and I dashed up before Martin's and dismissed our taxicab.
A remarkable scene greeted us as we entered the famous jewelry shop. Involuntarily I drew back. Squarely in front of us a man had suddenly raised a revolver and leveled it at us.
"Don't!" cried a familiar voice. "That is Mr. Kennedy!"
Just then, from a little knot of people, Elaine Dodge sprang forward with a cry and seized the gun.
Kennedy turned to her, apparently not half so much concerned about the automatic that yawned at him as about the anxiety of the pretty girl who had intervened. The too eager plainclothesman lowered the gun sheepishly.
Sturtevant Martin was a typical society business man, quietly but richly dressed. He was inclined to be pompous and affected a pair of rather distinguished looking side whiskers.
In the excitement I glanced about hurriedly. There were two or three policemen in the shop and several plainclothesmen, some armed with formidable looking sawed-off shot guns.
Directly in front of me was a sign, tacked up on a pillar, which read, "This store will be closed at noon today. Martin & Co."
All the customers were gone. In fact the clerks had had some trouble in clearing the shop, as many of them expressed not only surprise but exasperation at the proceeding.
Nevertheless the clerks had politely but insistently ushered them out.
Martin himself was evidently very nervous and very much alarmed. Indeed no one could blame him for that. Merely to have been singled out by this amazing master criminal was enough to cause panic. Already he had engaged detectives, prepared for whatever might happen, and they had advised him to leave the diamonds in the counter, clear the store, and let the crooks try anything, if they dared.
I fancied that he was somewhat exasperated at his daughter's presence, too, but could see that her explanation of Elaine's and Perry Bennett's interest in the Clutching Hand had considerably mollified him. He had been talking with Bennett as we came in and evidently had a high respect for the young lawyer.
Just back of us, and around the corner, as we came in, we had noticed a limousine which had driven up. Three faultlessly attired dandies had entered a doorway down the street, as we learned afterwards, apparently going to a fashionable tailor's which occupied the second floor of the old-fashioned building, the first floor having been renovated and made ready for renting. Had we been there a moment sooner we might have seen, I suppose, that one of them nodded to a taxicab driver who was standing at a public hack stand a few feet up the block. The driver nodded unostentatiously back to the men.
In spite of the excitement, Kennedy quietly examined the show case, which was, indeed, a veritable treasure store of brilliants. Then with a keen scrutinizing glance he looked over the police and detectives gathered around. There was nothing to do now but wait, as the detectives had advised.
I looked at a large antique grandfather's clock which was standing nearby. It now lacked scarcely a minute of twelve.
Slowly the hands of the clock came nearer together at noon.
We all gathered about the show case with its glittering hoard of wealth, forming a circle at a respectful distance.
Martin pointed nervously at the clock.
In deep-lunged tones the clock played the chords written, I believe, by Handel. Then it began striking.
As it did so, Martin involuntarily counted off the strokes, while one of the plainclothesmen waved his shotgun in unison.
Martin finished counting.
Nothing had happened.
We all breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well, it is still there!" exclaimed Martin, pointing at the show-case, with a forced laugh.
Suddenly came a rending and crashing sound. It seemed as if the very floor on which we stood was giving way.
The show-case, with all its priceless contents, went smashing down into the cellar below.
The flooring beneath the case had been cut through!
All crowded forward, gazing at the black yawning cavern. A moment we hesitated, then gingerly craned our necks over the edge.
Down below, three men, covered with linen dusters and their faces hidden by masks, had knocked the props away from the ceiling of the cellar, which they had sawed almost through at their leisure, and the show case had landed eight or ten feet below, shivered into a thousand bits.
A volley of shots whizzed past us, and another. While one crook was hastily stuffing the untold wealth of jewels into a burlap bag, the others had drawn revolvers and were firing up through the hole in the floor, desperately.
Martin, his detectives, and the rest of us fell back from the edge of the chasm hastily, to keep out of range of the hail of bullets.
"Look out!" cried someone behind us, before we could recover from our first surprise and return the fire.
One of the desperadoes had taken a bomb from under his duster, lighted it, and thrown it up through the hole in the floor.
It sailed up over our heads and landed near our little group on the floor, the fuse sputtering ominously.
Quickly we divided and backed away even further.
I heard an exclamation of fear from Elaine.
Kennedy had pushed his way past us and picked up the deadly infernal machine in his bare hands.
I watched him, fascinated. As near as he dared, he approached the hole in the floor, still holding the thing off at arm's length. Would he never throw it?
He was coolly holding it, allowing the fuse to burn down closer to the explosion point.
It was now within less than an inch sure death.
Suddenly he raised it and hurled the deadly thing down through the hole.
We could hear the imprecations of the crooks as it struck the cellar floor, near them. They had evidently been still cramming jewelry into the capacious maw of the bag. One of them, discovering the bomb, must have advanced toward it, then retreated when he saw how imminent was the explosion.
"Leave the store--quick!" rang out Kennedy's voice.
We backed away as fast as those behind us would permit. Kennedy and Bennett were the last to leave, in fact paused at the door.
Down below the crooks were beating a hasty retreat through a secret entrance which they had effected.
"The bag! The bag!" we could hear one of them bellow.
"The bomb--run!" cried another voice gruffly.
A second later came an ominous silence. The last of the three must have fled.
The explosion that followed lifted us fairly off our feet. A great puff of smoke came belching up through the hole, followed by the crashing of hundreds of dollars' worth of glass ware in the jewelry shop as fragments of stone, brick and mortar and huge splinters of wood were flung with tremendous force in every direction from the miniature volcano.
As the smoke from the explosion cleared away, Kennedy could be seen, the first to run forward.
Meanwhile Martin's detectives had rushed down a flight of back stairs that led into a coal cellar. With coal shovels and bars, anything they could lay hands on, they attacked the door that opened forward from the coal cellar into the front basement where the robbers had been.
A moment Kennedy and Bennett paused on the brink of the abyss which the bomb had made, waiting for the smoke to decrease. Then they began to climb down cautiously over the piled up wreckage.
The explosion had set the basement afire, but the fire had not gained much headway, by the time they reached the basement. Quickly Kennedy ran to the door into the coal cellar and opened it.
From the other side, Martin, followed by the police and the detectives, burst in.
"Fire!" cried one of the policemen, leaping back to turn in an alarm from the special apparatus upstairs.
All except Martin began beating out the flames, using such weapons as they already held in their hands to batter down the door.
To Martin there was one thing paramount--the jewels.
In the midst of the confusion, Elaine, closely followed by her friend Susie, made her way fearlessly into the stifle of smoke down the stairs.
"There are your jewels, Mr. Martin," cried Kennedy, kicking the precious burlap bag with his foot as if it had been so much ordinary merchandise, and turning toward what was in his mind the most important thing at stake--the direction taken by the agents of the Clutching Hand.
"Thank heaven!" ejaculated Martin, fairly pouncing on the bag and tearing it open. "They didn't get away with them--after all!" he exclaimed, examining the contents with satisfaction. "See--you must have frightened them off at just the right moment when you sent the bomb back at them."
Elaine and Susie pressed forward eagerly as he poured forth the sparkling stream of gems, intact.
"Wasn't he just simply wonderful!" I heard Susie whisper to Elaine.
Elaine did not answer. She had eyes or ears for nothing now in the melee but Kennedy.
. . . . . . . .
Events were moving rapidly.
The limousine had been standing innocently enough at the curb near the corner, with the taxicab close behind it.
Less than ten minutes after they had entered, three well-dressed men came out of the vacant shop, apparently from the tailor's above, and climbed leisurely into their car.
As the last one entered, he half turned to the taxicab driver, hiding from passersby the sign of the Clutching Hand which the taxicab driver returned, in the same manner. Then the big car whirled up the avenue.
All this we learned later from a street sweeper who was at work nearby.
Down below, while the police and detectives were putting out the fire, Kennedy was examining the wall of the cellar, looking for the spot where the crooks had escaped.
"A secret door!" he exclaimed, as he paused after tapping along the wall to determine its character. "You can see how the force of the explosion has loosened it."
Sure enough, when he pointed it out to us, it was plainly visible. One of the detectives picked up a crowbar and others, still with the hastily selected implements they had seized to fight the fire, started in to pry it open.
As it yielded, Kennedy pushed his way through. Elaine, always utterly fearless, followed.
Then the rest of us went through.
There seemed to be nothing, however, that would help us in the cellar next door, and Kennedy mounted the steps of a stairway in the rear.
The stairway led to a sort of storeroom, full of barrels and boxes, but otherwise characterless. When I arrived Kennedy was gingerly holding up the dusters which the crooks had worn.
"We're on the right trail," commented Elaine as he showed them to her, "but where do you suppose the owners are?"
Craig shrugged his shoulders and gave a quick look about. "Evidently they came in from and went away by the street," he observed, hurrying to the door, followed by Elaine.
On the sidewalk, he gazed up the avenue, then catching sight of the street cleaner, called to him.
"Yes, sir," replied the man, stolidly looking up from his work. "I see three gentlemen come out and get into an automobile."
"Which way did they go?" asked Kennedy.
For answer the man jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction uptown.
"Did you notice the number of the car?" asked Craig eagerly.
The man shrugged his shoulders blankly.
With keen glance, Kennedy strained his eyes. Far up the avenue, he could descry the car threading its way in and out among the others, just about disappearing.
A moment later Craig caught sight of the vacant taxicab and crooked his finger at the driver, who answered promptly by cranking his engine.
"You saw that limousine standing there?" asked Craig.
"Yes," nodded the chauffeur with a show of alertness.
"Well, follow it," ordered Kennedy, jumping into the cab.
"Yes, sir."
Craig was just about to close the door when a slight figure flashed past us and a dainty foot was placed on the step.
"Please, Mr. Kennedy," pleaded Elaine, "let me go. They may lead to my father's slayer."
She said it so earnestly that Craig could scarcely have resisted if he had wanted to do so.
Just as Elaine and Kennedy were moving off, I came out of the vacant store, with Bennett and the detectives.
"Craig!" I called. "Where are you going?"
Kennedy stuck his head out of the window and I am quite sure that he was not altogether displeased that I was not with him.
"Chasing that limousine," he shouted back. "Follow us in another car."
A moment later he and Elaine were gone.
Bennett and I looked about.
"There are a couple of cabs--down there," I pointed out at the other end of the block. "I'll take one you take the other."
Followed by a couple of the detectives, I jumped into the first one I came to, excitedly telling the driver to follow Kennedy's taxi, directing him with my head out of the window.
"Mr. Jameson, please--can't I go with you?"
I turned. It was Susie Martin. "One of you fellows, go in the other car," I asked the detectives.
Before the man could move, Mr. Martin himself appeared.
"No, Susan, I--I won't allow it," he ordered.
"But Elaine went," she pouted.
"Well, Elaine is--ah--I won't have it," stormed Martin.
There was no time to waste. With a hasty apology, I drove off.
Who, besides Bennett, went in the other car, I don't know, but it made no difference, for we soon lost them. Our driver, however, was a really clever fellow. Far ahead now we could see the limousine drive around a corner, making a dangerous swerve. Kennedy's cab followed, skidding dangerously near a pole.
But the taxicab was no match for the powerful limousine. On uptown they went, the only thing preventing the limousine from escaping being the fear of pursuit by traffic police if the driver let out speed. They were content to manage to keep just far enough ahead to be out of danger of having Kennedy overhaul them. As for us, we followed as best we could, on uptown, past the city line, and out into the country.
There Kennedy lost sight altogether of the car he was trailing. Worse than that, we lost sight of Kennedy. Still we kept on blindly, trusting to luck and common sense in picking the road.
I was peering ahead over the driver's shoulder, the window down, trying to direct him, when we approached a fork in the road. Here was a dilemma which must be decided at once rightly or wrongly.
As we neared the crossroad, I gave an involuntary exclamation. Beside the road, almost on it, lay the figure of a man. Our driver pulled up with a jerk and I was out of the car in an instant.
There lay Kennedy! Someone had blackjacked him. He was groaning and just beginning to show signs of consciousness as I bent over.
"What's the matter, old man?" I asked, helping him to his feet.
He looked about dazed a moment, then seeing me and comprehending, he pointed excitedly, but vaguely.
"Elaine!" he cried. "They've kidnapped Elaine!"
What had really happened, as we learned later from Elaine and others, was that when the cross roads was reached, the three crooks in the limousine had stopped long enough to speak to an accomplice stationed there, according to their plan for a getaway. He was a tough looking individual who might have been hoboing it to the city.
When, a few minutes later, Kennedy and Elaine had approached the fork, their driver had slowed up, as if in doubt which way to go. Craig had stuck his head out of the window, as I had done, and, seeing the crossroads, had told the chauffeur to stop. There stood the hobo.
"Did a car pass here, just now--a big car?" called Craig.
The man put his hand to his ear, as if only half comprehending.
"Which way did the big car go?" repeated Kennedy.
The hobo approached the taxicab sullenly, as if he had a grudge against cars in general.
One question after another elicited little that could be construed as intelligence. If Craig had only been able to see, he would have found out that, with his back toward the taxicab driver, the hobo held one hand behind him and made the sign of the Clutching Hand, glancing surreptitiously at the driver to catch the answering sign, while Craig gazed earnestly up the two roads.
At last Craig gave him up as hopeless. "Well--go ahead--that way," he indicated, picking the most likely road.
As the chauffeur was about to start, he stalled his engine.
"Hurry!" urged Craig, exasperated at the delays.
The driver got out and tried to crank the engine. Again and again he turned it over, but, somehow, it refused to start. Then he lifted the hood and began to tinker.
"What's the matter?" asked Craig, impatiently jumping out and bending over the engine, too.
The driver shrugged his shoulders. "Must be something wrong with the ignition, I guess," he replied.
Kennedy looked the car over hastily. "I can't see anything wrong," he frowned.
"Well, there is," growled the driver.
Precious minutes were speeding away, as they argued. Finally with his characteristic energy, Kennedy put the taxicab driver aside.
"Let me try it," he said. "Miss Dodge, will you arrange that spark and throttle?"
Elaine, equal to anything, did so, and Craig bent down and cranked the engine. It started on the first spin.
"See!" he exclaimed. "There wasn't anything, after all."
He took a step toward the taxicab.
"Say," objected the driver, nastily, interposing himself between Craig and the wheel which he seemed disposed to take now, "who's running this boat, anyhow?"
Surprised, Kennedy tried to shoulder the fellow out of the way. The driver resisted sullenly.
"Mr. Kennedy--look out!" cried Elaine.
Craig turned. But it was too late. The rough looking fellow had wakened to life. Suddenly he stepped up behind Kennedy with a blackjack. As the heavy weight descended, Craig crumpled up on the ground, unconscious.
With a scream, Elaine turned and started to run. But the chauffeur seized her arm.
"Say, bo," he asked of the rough fellow, "what does Clutching Hand want with her?
Quick! There's another cab likely to be along in a moment with that fellow Jameson in it."
The rough fellow, with an oath, seized her and dragged her into the taxicab. "Go ahead!" he growled, indicating the road.
And away they sped, leaving Kennedy unconscious on the side of the road where we found him.
. . . . . . . .
"What are we to do?" I asked helplessly of Kennedy, when we had at last got him on his feet.
His head still ringing from the force of the blow of the blackjack, Craig stooped down, then knelt in the dust of the road, then ran ahead a bit where it was somewhat muddy.
"Which way--which way?" he muttered to himself.
I thought perhaps the blow had affected him and leaned over to see what he was doing.
Instead, he was studying the marks made by the tire of the Clutching Hand cab. Very decidedly, there in the road, the little anti-skid marks on the tread of the tire showed-– some worn, some cut--but with each revolution the same marks reappearing unmistakably. More than that, it was an unusual make of tire. Craig was actually studying the finger prints, so to speak, of an automobile!
More slowly now and carefully, we proceeded, for a mistake meant losing the trail of Elaine. Kennedy absolutely refused to get inside our cab, but clung tightly to a metal rod outside while he stood on the running board--now straining his eyes along the road to catch any faint glimpse of either taxi or limousine, or the dust from them, now gazing intently at the ground following the finger prints of the taxicab that was carrying off Elaine. All pain was forgotten by him now in the intensity of his anxiety for her.
We came to another crossroads and the driver glanced at Craig. "Stop!" he ordered.
In another instant he was down in the dirt, examining the road for marks.
"That way!" he indicated, leaping back to the running board.
We piled back into the car and proceeded under Kennedy's direction, as fast as he would permit. So it continued, perhaps for a couple of hours.
At last Kennedy stopped the cab and slowly directed the driver to veer into an open space that looked peculiarly lonesome. Near it stood a one story brick factory building, closed, but not abandoned.
As I looked about at the unattractive scene, Kennedy already was down on his knees in the dirt again, studying the tire tracks. They were all confused, showing that the taxicab we were following had evidently backed in and turned several times before going on.
"Crossed by another set of tire tracks!" he exclaimed excitedly, studying closer. "That must have been the limousine, waiting."
Laboriously he was following the course of the cars in the open space, when the one word escaped him, "Footprints!"
He was up and off in a moment, before we could imagine what he was after. We had got out of the cab, and followed him as, down to the very shore of a sort of cove or bay, he went. There lay a rusty, discarded boiler on the beach, half submerged in the rising tide.
At this tank the footprints seemed to go right down the sand and into the waves which were slowly obliterating them. Kennedy gazed out as if to make out a possible boat on the horizon, where the cove widened out.
"Look!" he cried.
Farther down the shore, a few feet, I had discovered the same prints, going in the opposite direction, back toward the place from which we had just come. I started to follow them, but soon found myself alone. Kennedy had paused beside the old boiler.
"What is it?" I asked, retracing my steps.
He did not answer, but seemed to be listening. We listened also. There certainly was a most peculiar noise inside that tank.
Was it a muffled scream?
Kennedy reached down and picked up a rock, hitting the tank a resounding blow. As the echo died down, he listened again.
Yes, there was a sound--a scream perhaps--a woman's voice, faint, but unmistakable.
I looked at his face inquiringly. Without a word I read in it the confirmation of the thought that had flashed into my mind.
Elaine Dodge was inside!
. . . . . . . .
First had come the limousine, with its three bandits, to the spot fixed on as a rendezvous.
Later had come the taxicab. As it hove into sight, the three well-dressed crooks had drawn revolvers, thinking perhaps the plan for getting rid of Kennedy might possibly have miscarried. But the taxicab driver and the rough-faced fellow had reassured them with the sign of the Clutching Hand, and the revolvers were lowered.
As they parleyed hastily, the roughneck and the fake chauffeur lifted Elaine out of the taxi. She was bound and gagged.
"Well, now we've got her, what shall we do with her?" asked one.
"It's got to be quick. There's another cab," put in the driver.
"The deuce with that."
"The deuce with nothing," he returned. "That fellow Kennedy's a clever one. He may come to. If he does, he won't miss us. Quick, now!"
"I wish I'd broken his skull," muttered the roughneck.
"We'd better leave her somewhere here," remarked one of the better-dressed three. "I don't think the chief wants us to kill her--yet," he added, with an ominous glance at Elaine, who in spite of threats was not cowed, but was vainly struggling at her bonds.
"Well, where shall it be?" asked another.
They looked about.
"See," cried the third. "See that old boiler down there at the edge of the water? Why not put her in there? No one'll ever think to look in such a place."
Down by the water's edge, where he pointed, lay a big boiler such as is used on stationary engines, with its end lapped by the waves. With a hasty expression of approval, the roughneck picked Elaine up bodily, still struggling vainly, and together they carried her, bound and gagged, to the tank. The opening, which was toward the water, was small, but they managed, roughly, to thrust her in.
A moment later and they had rolled up a huge boulder against the small entrance, bracing it so that it would be impossible for her to get out from the inside. Then they drove off hastily.
Inside the old boiler lay Elaine, still bound and gagged. If she could only scream!
Someone might hear. She must get help. There was water in the tank. She managed to lean up inside it, standing as high as the walls would allow her, trying to keep her head above the water.
Frantically, she managed to loosen the gag. She screamed. Her voice seemed to be bound around by the iron walls as was she herself. She shuddered, The water was rising--had reached her chest, and was still rising, slowly, inexorably.
What should she do? Would no one hear her? The water was up to her neck now. She held her head as high as she could and screamed again.
What was that? Silence? Or was someone outside?
. . . . . . . .
Coolly, in spite of the emergency, Kennedy took in the perilous situation.
The lower end of the boiler, which was on a slant on the rapidly shelving beach, was now completely under water and impossible to get at. Besides, the opening was small, too small.
We pulled away the stone, but that did no good. No one could hope to get in and then out again that way alive--much less with a helpless girl. Yet something must be done. The tank was practically submerged inside, as I estimated quickly. Blows had no effect on the huge iron trap which had been built to resist many pounds of pressure.
Kennedy gazed about frantically and his eye caught the sign on the factory: OXYACETYLENE WELDING CO.
"Come, Walter," he cried, running up the shore.
A moment later, breathless, we reached the doorway. It was, of course, locked. Kennedy whipped out his revolver and several well-directed shots through the keyhole smashed the lock. We put our shoulders to it and swung the door open, entering the factory.
There was not a soul about, not even a watchman. Hastily we took in the place, a forge and a number of odds and ends of metal sheets, rods, pipes and angles.
Beside a workbench stood two long cylinders, studded with bolts.
"That's what I'm looking for," exclaimed Craig. "Here, Walter, take one. I'll take the other--and the tubes--and--"
He did not pause to finish, but seized up a peculiar shaped instrument, like a huge hook, with a curved neck and sharp beak. Really it was composed of two metal tubes which ran into a cylinder or mixing chamber above the nozzle, while parallel to them ran another tube with a nozzle of its own.
We ran, for there was no time to lose. As nearly as I could estimate it, the water must now be slowly closing over Elaine.
"What is it?" I asked as he joined up the tubes from the tanks to the peculiar hook-like apparatus he carried.
"An oxyacetylene blowpipe," he muttered back feverishly working. "Used for welding and cutting, too," he added.
With a light he touched the nozzle. Instantly a hissing, blinding flame-needle made the steel under it incandescent. The terrific heat from one nozzle made the steel glow. The stream of oxygen from the second completely consumed the hot metal. And the force of the blast carried a fine spray of disintegrated metal before it. It was a brilliant sight. But it was more than that. Through the very steel itself, the flame, thousands of degrees hot, seemed to eat its way in a fine line, as if it were a sharp knife cutting through ordinary cardboard.
With tense muscles Kennedy skillfully gu