We could hear his feet crunching the dry leaves and twigs as he went around the side of the barn again. Together we threw ourselves against the front door, but, although it yielded a little he had barred it so that it would resist our united strength for some time.

Again and again we threw ourselves against it. It was horribly dark in there, except for an oblong spot where the moonlight streamed in through a window. Suddenly the pale silver of the moonlight on the floor reddened.

The man had struck a match and thrown it into a mass of oil-soaked straw and gunpowder which protruded through one of the weather- beaten boards, near the floor.

It was only a matter of a second or so now when the fire swept into the barn itself. There was no beating it out. Some one had literally soaked the straw and the floor with oil. It seemed as though the whole place burst into a sudden blaze of tinder. Outside, we could hear footsteps rapidly retreating toward the shelter of the clump of woods.

For a second I looked dismayed at the rapidly-mounting flames.

"A very pretty situation," I forced with a laugh. "But I hope he doesn't think we'll stay here and burn, with a perfectly good window in full view."

I took a step toward the window, but before I could take another, Kennedy yanked me back.

"Don't think for a moment that he overlooked that," he shouted.

Craig looked around hastily. In a corner, just back of us was a long pole. He snatched it up and moved cautiously toward the window, keeping the pole as level as possible as he endeavored to get a leverage on the sash. The flames were mounting faster and higher, licking up everything.

"Keep back, Walter," he muttered, "just as far as you can."

He had scarcely raised the window a fraction of an inch when an old rusty, heavy anvil and a bent worn plowshare crashed down to the floor directly over the spot where I should have been if he had not dragged me away. I started back, aghast. Nothing had been overlooked to finish us off.

"I think you may try it safely now, all right," smiled Kennedy coolly.

We climbed out of the window, not an instant too soon from the raging inferno about us.

Having gained the clump of woods, the gaunt figure had paused long enough to gloat over his clever scheme. Instead, he saw us making good our escape. With a gesture of intense fury he turned. There was nothing more for him to do but to zigzag his way to safety across country.

The barn was now burning fiercely and it was almost as light as day about us. Kennedy paused only long enough to look down at the ground where the fire had been started.

"See, Walter," he exclaimed pointing to a square indention in the soft soil. "No white man ever made a footprint like that."

I bent over. The prints had the squareness of those paper-layered soles of a Chinaman.

"Long Sin," came the name involuntarily to my lips, for I knew that Wu would delegate just such a job to his faithful slave.

Kennedy did not pause an instant longer, but in the light of the burning barn, as best he could, started to follow the trail in a desperate endeavor either to overtake Long Sin, or at least to find the final direction in which he would go.

. . . . . . .

At the entrance of the passageway which led to the little underground chamber in which we had sought the treasure hidden by the Clutching Hand, Wu Fang was seated on a rock waiting impatiently, though now and then indulging in a sinister smile at the subtle trick by which he had recovered the ring.

The sound of approaching footsteps disturbed him. He was far too clever to leave anything to chance and, like a serpent, he wriggled behind another rock and waited. It was only a glance, however, that he needed to allay his suspicions. It was Long Sin, breathless.

Wu stepped out beside him so quietly that even the acute Long Sin did not hear. "Well?" he said in a guttural tone.

Long Sin drew back in fear. "I have failed, oh master," he replied in an imploring tone. "Even now they follow my tracks."

It was bad enough to confess defeat without the fear of capture.

Wu frowned. "We must work quickly, then," he muttered.

He picked up a dark lantern near-by, indicating another to Long Sin. They entered the cave, flashing the lights ahead of them.

"Be careful," ordered Wu, proceeding gingerly from one stepping- stone to another. "We shall be followed no further than this."

He paused a moment and pointed his finger at the earth. Everywhere, except here and there where a stone projected, was a sticky, slimy substance. It was an old trick of primitive races.

"Bird lime," hissed Wu, pointing at the viscid substance made of the juice of the holly bark, extracted by boiling, and mixed with a third part of nut oil and grease.

They passed on from stone to stone until they came to the subterranean chamber itself. Without a moment's hesitation, Wu made his way toward the rock in which they had found the slot with its cryptic inscription.

Long Sin watched his master in silent admiration as, at last, he drew forth the mystic ring for which they had dared all.

Without a word, Wu dropped it in the slot. It tinkled down the runway, a protuberance hit a trigger and pushed it a hair's breadth.

A noise behind them caused the two to turn startled. Even Wu had not expected it.

On the other side of the chamber, a great rock in the ground slowly turned, as though on a pivot. They watched, fascinated. Even then Wu did not forget the precious ring, but as the rock turned, reached down quickly and recovered it from the cup at the floor.

Inch by inch the pivoted rock moved on its axis. They flashed their lanterns full on it and, as it moved, they could see disclosed huge piles of gold and silver in coins and bars and ornaments, a chest literally filled with brilliants, set and unset, rubies, emeralds, precious stones of every conceivable variety, a cave that would have staggered even Aladdin—the rich reward of the countless marauding operations of Bennett's other personality.

For a moment they could merely stand in avaricious exultation.

. . . . . . .

Painfully and slowly, we managed to trail Long Sin's footprints, until we came to a road where they were lost in the hard macadam. There was no time to stop. We must follow the road on the chance that he had taken it. But which way?

Kennedy chose the most likely direction, for the trail had been at an angle to the road and Long Sin was not likely to double back. We had not gone many rods before Kennedy paused a minute and looked about in the moonlight.

"It's right, Walter," he cried. "Do you recognize it?"

I looked about. Then it flashed over me. This was the back road that led past the entrance to the treasure vault at Aunt Tabby's.

We went on now more quickly, listening carefully to catch any sounds, but heard nothing. At last Kennedy stopped, then plunged among the rocks and bushes beside the road. We were at the cave.

"You go in this way, Walter," he directed. "I'll go around and down where it caved in."

I groped my way along through the darkness.

I had gone only a yard or two, when it seemed as though something had grasped my foot.

With a great wrench I managed to pull it loose. But the weight on my other foot had imbedded it deeper. I struggled to free this foot and got the other caught. My revolver, which I had drawn, was jarred from my hand and in the effort to recover it, I lost my balance. Unable to move a foot in time to catch myself, I fell forward. My hands were now covered by the slimy, sticky stuff, and the more I struggled, the worse I seemed to get entangled.

. . . . . . .

Wu and Long Sin paused only a minute in astonishment. Then they literally fell upon the wealth that lay before them, gloating over the gold, stuffing their hands into the jewels, lifting them up and letting the priceless gems run through their fingers.

Suddenly they paused. There was the slight tinkle of a Chinese bell.

Kennedy had reached Aunt Tabby's garden, outside the roof of the subterranean chamber where it had given way, had gone down carefully over the earth and rock, and in doing so had broken a string stretched across the passageway. The tinkle of a bell attached to it aroused his attention and he stopped short, a second, to look about. Wu Fang had arranged a primitive alarm.

Quickly, Wu and Long Sin blew out their lanterns while Wu gave the rock a push. Slowly, as it had opened, it now closed and they stood there listening.

I was still struggling in the bird lime, getting myself more and more covered with it, when the reverberation of revolver shots reached me.

Wu and Long Sin had opened fire on Kennedy, and Kennedy was replying in kind. In the cavern it sounded like a veritable bombardment. As they retreated, they came nearer and nearer to me and I could see the revolvers spitting fire in the darkness. So intent were they on Kennedy that they forgot me.

I watched them fearfully as they hopped deftly from one stone to another to avoid the lime—and were gone.

"Craig! Craig!" I managed to cry feebly. "Be careful. Keep to the stones."

He strained his eyes toward the ground in the darkness, at the sound of my voice. Then he struck a match and instantly took in the situation which, to me, under any other circumstances, would have been ludicrous.

Stepping from stone to stone, he followed the retreating Chinamen. But they had already reached the mouth of the cave and were making their way rapidly down the road to a bend, in the opposite direction from which we had come. There, Wu's automobile was waiting. They leaped into it and the driver, without a word, shot the car off into the darkness of early dawn.

A moment later, Kennedy appeared, but they had made their getaway. Baffled, he turned and retraced his steps to the cave.

I don't think that I ever welcomed him more sincerely than I did as, finally, I crawled slowly out from the bird lime, exhausted by the effort that I had made to free myself from the sticky mess.

"They got away, Walter," he said, lighting a lantern they had dropped. "By George," he added, I think a little vexed that I had not been able to stop them, "you are a sight!"

He was about to laugh, when I fainted. I can remember nothing until I woke up over by the wall of the chamber where he dragged me.

Kennedy had been working hard to revive me, and, as I opened my eyes, he straightened up. His eye suddenly caught something on the rock beside him. There was a little slot carved in it, and above the slot was a peculiar inscription.

For several minutes, Kennedy puzzled over it, as Wu had done. Then he discovered the little cup near the ground.

"The ring!" he suddenly cried out.

I was too muddled to appreciate at once what he meant, but I saw him reach into his fob pocket and draw forth the replica of the trinket which had caused so much disaster, as if it had been cursed by the Clutching Hand himself. He dropped it into the slot.

Struggling to my feet, I saw across from me the very rock itself moving. Was it an hallucination, born of my nervous condition?

"Look, Craig!" I cried involuntarily, pointing.

He turned. No, it was not a vision. It actually moved. Together we watched. Slowly the rock turned on a pivot. There were disclosed to our astonished eyes the hidden millions of the Clutching Hand.

I looked from the gold and jewels to Kennedy, in speechless amazement.

"We have beaten them, anyhow," I cried.

Slowly Craig shook his head sadly.

"Yes," he murmured, "we have found the Clutching Hand's millions, but we have lost Elaine."



CHAPTER IV

THE VENGEANCE OF WU FANG

Elaine was still in the power of Wu Fang.

Kennedy had thwarted the Chinese master criminal in his search for the millions amassed by the Clutching Hand. But any joy that we might have derived from this success was completely obscured by the fear that Wu might wreak some diabolical vengeance on Elaine.

It was a ticklish situation. In fact, I doubt whether Craig would have discovered the treasure at all, if our pursuit of Wu and Long Sin the night before had not literally forced us into doing so.

Nor were Kennedy's fears unfounded. Wu and Long Sin had scarcely reached the secret apartment back of the deceptive exterior of the Chinatown tenement, when the subtle Chinaman began to contemplate his revenge.

Long Sin was smoking a Chinese pipe, resting after their hurried flight, while Wu, the tireless, was seated at a table at the other end of the room. At last Wu Fang took up a long Chinese dirk from the table before him, looked at it, turned it over, felt its edge. It was keen and the point was sharp. He rose and deliberately walked across to a door leading into a back room.

On a couch lay Elaine and with her, as a guardian, was Weepy Mary whom the Clutching Hand had used to lure her to the church where the faked record of her father's marriage was supposed to be. Indeed, though Wu had lost the Clutching Hand's millions, he had seen his chance and had fallen heir to what was left of Bennett's criminal organization.

As Wu, the Serpent, entered and advanced slowly towards Elaine, she crouched back from him in deadly fear. He stopped before her without a word and his menacing eye seemed to read her very thoughts.

Slowly he drew from under his robe the Chinese dirk. He felt the edge of it again and gazed significantly at Elaine. She shrank back even further, as far as the divan would permit.

It was a critical moment.

Just then Long Sin entered. "One of the five millions waits outside," he reported simply, with a bow.

Wu understood. It had been a pleasant fiction of his that although he did not, of course, absolutely control such a stupendous organization he could, by his subtle power, force almost unlimited allegiance from the simple coolies in that district of China from which he came.

Out in the front room, just a moment before, a knock at the door had disturbed Long Sin, and a Chinese servant had announced a visitor. Long Sin had waved to the servant to usher him in and a poorly clad coolie had entered.

He bowed as Long Sin faced him. "Where is the master?" he had asked.

Long Sin had not deigned to speak. With a mere wave of his hand, he indicated that he would be the bearer of the message, and had followed Wu through the door of the back room.

So, almost by chance, Wu was interrupted in the brutal vengeance which had first come to his mind. He sheathed the knife and, still without a word, went back into the main room, giving a nod to Weepy Mary to guard Elaine closely.

Wu eyed the coolie until the newcomer could almost feel the master's penetrating gaze, although his head was bowed in awe. Quickly the coolie thrust his hand under his blouse and drew forth a package. With another bow, he advanced.

"For your enemies, oh master," he said, handing the package over to Wu.

For the first time since the loss of the treasure, Wu Fang seemed to take an interest in something besides revenge. The coolie started to open the package, removed the paper wrapper, and then a silk wrapping inside. Finally he came to a box, from which he drew a leather pouch, each operation conducted with greater care as it became evident that the contents were especially precious in some way. Then he took from the pouch a small vial.

"What is it?" demanded Wu Fang, as the coolie displayed it.

The coolie drew forth now a magnifying glass and a glass slide. Opening the vial with great care he shook something out on the slide, then placed it under the lens.

"Look!" he said simply.

Wu bent over and looked. Under the lens what had formerly seemed to be merely a black speck of dirt became now one of the most weird and uncanny little creatures to be found in all the realm of nature. It seemed to be all legs and feelers moving at once. A normal person would have looked at the creature only with the greatest repugnance. Wu regarded it with a sort of unholy fascination.

"And it is?" he queried.

"What the white man calls the African tick which carries the recurrent fever," answered the coolie deferentially.

A flash of intense exultation seemed to darken Wu Fang's sinister face. Several times he paced up and down the room, as he contemplated the sight which he had just seen. Then he came to a sudden determination.

"Wait," he said to the coolie, as he moved slowly again into the back room.

Long Sin had remained there. With Weepy Mary he was guarding Elaine when Wu Fang reentered. Elaine was thoroughly aroused by this time. Even the fact that Wu no longer held the murderous dirk did not serve to reassure her, for the look on his face was even more terrible than before.

He smiled cunningly to himself.

"Suffering is a state of mind," he said in a low tone, "and I have decided that it would be poor revenge for me to harm you. You are free."

Nothing could have come as a greater surprise to Elaine. Even Long Sin had not expected any such speech as this. Elaine, however, was wonder-stricken.

"Do you—do you really mean it?" she asked, scarcely able to believe what her ears heard.

Wu merely nodded, and with a wave of his hand to Long Sin indicated that Elaine was to be released.

Long Sin, the slave, did not stop to question his master, but merely moved over to a closet and took out the hat and wraps which Elaine had worn when she had been kidnapped in the up-town apartment. He handed them over to her and she put them on with trembling hands.

No one stopped her and she nerved herself to take several steps toward the door. She had scarcely crossed half the room.

"Wait!" ordered Wu sharply.

Was he merely torturing her, as a cat might torture a mouse? She stopped obediently, afraid to look at him.

"This will be the vengeance of Wu Fang," he went on impressively. "Slowly, one by one, your friends will weaken and die, then your family, until finally only you are left. Then will come your turn."

He stopped again and raised his long lean forefinger. "Go," he hissed. "I wish you much joy."

He turned to Long Sin and whispered a word to him. A moment later, Long Sin drew forth a large silken handkerchief and tied it tightly over Elaine's eyes. Then he took her hand and led her out. There was to be no chance by which she could lead a raiding party back to the den in which she had been held.

I don't think that in all our friendship I have ever seen Kennedy so utterly depressed as he was when we returned after the discovery of the vast fortune which Bennett had cleverly secreted. I came upon him in the laboratory the next morning while he was trying to read. He had laid aside his scientific work, and now he had even laid aside his book.

There seemed to be absolutely nothing to do until some new clue turned up. I placed my hand on his shoulder, but the words that would encourage him died on my lips. Several times I started to speak, but each time I checked myself. There did not seem to be anything that would be appropriate for such an occasion.

A sharp ring at the telephone made both of us fairly jump, so nervous had we become. Kennedy reached over instantly for the instrument in the vague hope that at last there was some news.

As I watched his face, it changed first from despair to wonder, and finally it seemed to light up with the most remarkable look of relief and happiness that one could imagine.

"I shall be right over," he cried, jamming the receiver down on the hook, and in the same motion reaching for his hat and coat. "Walter," he cried, "it is Elaine! They have let her go!"

I seized my own hat and coat in time to follow him and we dashed out of the laboratory.

The suspense under which Aunt Josephine had been living had told on her. Her niece, Elaine's cousin, Mary Brown, who lived at Rockledge, had come into the city to comfort Aunt Josephine and they had been sitting, that morning, in the library. Marie, the maid was busy about the room, while Aunt Josephine talked sadly over Elaine's strange disappearance. She was on the verge of tears.

Suddenly a startled cry from Jennings out in the hall caused both ladies to jump to their feet. They could scarcely believe what they heard as the faithful old butler cried out the name.

"Why—Miss Elaine!" he gasped.

An instant later Elaine herself burst into the room and flung herself into Aunt Josephine's arms. All talking and half crying from joy at once, they crowded about her. Breathlessly she answered the questions that flew thick and fast.

In the excitement Aunt Josephine had seized the telephone and called our number. She did not even wait to break the good news, but handed the telephone to Elaine herself.

We left the laboratory on the run, too fast to notice that just around the building line at the corner stood a limousine with shades drawn. Even if we had paused to glance back, we could not have seen Wu Fang and Long Sin inside, gazing out through the corner of the curtains. They were in European dress now and had evidently come prepared for just what they knew was likely to happen.

In all the strange series of events, I doubt whether we had ever made better time from the laboratory over to the Dodge house than we did now. We were admitted by the faithful Jennings and almost ran into the library.

"Oh, Craig!" cried Elaine, as Kennedy, almost speechless, seized her by both hands.

For a few seconds none of us could speak. Then followed a veritable flood of eager conversation.

I watched Elaine carefully, in fact we all did, for she seemed, in spite of the excitement of her return, to be almost a complete nervous wreck from the terrible experiences she had undergone.

"Won't you come and stay with me a few days up in the country, dear?" urged Mary at last.

Elaine thought a moment, then turned to Aunt Josephine.

"Yes," considered her aunt, "I think it would do you good."

Still she hesitated; then shyly looked at Kennedy and laughed. "You, too, Craig, must be fagged out," she said frankly. "Come up there with us and take a rest."

Kennedy smiled. "I shall be delighted," he accepted promptly.

"You, too, Mr. Jameson," she added, turning to me.

I hesitated a moment and Kennedy tried to catch my eye. I was just about to speak when he brought his heel down sharply on my toe. I looked at him again and caught just the trace of a nod of his head. I saw that I was de trop.

"No, thank you," I replied. "I'm afraid I'd better not go. Really, I have too much work staring at me. I can't get away—but it's very kind of you to think of asking me."

We chatted, then left a few moments later so that Kennedy could pack.

Around the corner from the laboratory, as we dashed out, had been, as I have said, Wu Fang and Long Sin looking out from the limousine. No sooner had we disappeared across the campus than their driver started up the car and they sped around to our apartment.

Cautiously they alighted and walked down the street. Then making sure they were not observed, they entered and mounted the stairs to our doorway. Long Sin was stationed down the hall on guard while Wu Fang drew from his pocket a blank key, a file and a candle. He lighted the candle and held the key in its flame until it was covered with soot.

Then he inserted the key in the keyhole, turned it and took the key out. Working quickly now, he examined the key sharply. In the soot were slight scratches indicating where it struck and prevented the turning of the lock. He filed the key, trying it again and again. Finally he finished, and opened the door. Beckoning Long Sin, he entered our rooms.

As they stood there, Wu Fang gazed about our living-room, keenly. He was evidently considering where to place something, for, one after another, he picked up several articles on the desk and examined them. Each time that he laid one down he shook his head.

Finally his eye rested on the telephone. It seemed to suggest an idea to him and he crossed over to it. Carefully holding down the receiver on the hook, he unscrewed the case which holds the diaphragm, while with his clever fingers he held the rest of the instrument intact. Then he removed from his pocket the vial which the coolie had given him and placed its contents on the diaphragm itself. Quickly now he replaced the receiver, and, having finished their work, Long Sin and Wu Fang stealthily crept out.

A second time, as we approached our apartment after the visit to Elaine, we were too excited to notice the limousine in which were Wu and Long Sin. But no sooner had we entered than Long Sin left the car with a final word of instruction from his master.

Up-stairs, in the apartment, Kennedy began hurriedly to pack, and I helped him as well as I could. We were in the midst of it when the telephone rang and I answered it.

"Hello!" I called.

There was no response.

"Hello, Hello!" I repeated, raising my voice.

Still there was no answer. I worked the hook up and down but could get no reply. Finally, disgusted, I hung up.

A moment later, I recall now, it seemed to me as though some one had stuck a pin into the lobe of my ear. Still, I thought nothing of it in the excitement of Kennedy's departure, and went to work again to help him pack.

We had scarcely got back to work, when the telephone bell jangled again, and a second time I answered it.

"Is Mr. Kennedy there?" came back a strange voice.

I handed the instrument to Craig.

"Hello," he called. "Who is this?"

No response.

"Hello, hello," he shouted, working the hook as I had done and, as in my case, there was still no answer.

"Some crank," he exclaimed, jamming down the receiver in disgust and returning to his packing.

Neither of us thought anything of it at the time, but now I recall that I did see Kennedy once or twice press the lobe of his ear as though something had hurt it.

We did not know until later that in a pay station down the street our arch enemy, Long Sin, had been calling us up and then, with a wicked smile, refusing to speak to us.

. . . . . . .

It was about a week later that I came home late one night from the Star, feeling pretty done up. Whatever it was, a violent fever seemed to have come on me suddenly. I thought nothing of it, at first, because I soon grew better. But while it lasted, I had the most intense shivering, excruciating pains in my limbs, and delirious headache. I recall, too, that I felt a peculiar soreness on the ear. It was all like nothing I had ever had before.

Indeed the next morning when I woke up, I felt a lassitude that made it quite hard enough even to lounge about in my bath-robe. Finally, feeling no better, I decided to see a doctor. I put on my clothes with a decided effort and went out.

The nearest doctor was about half a block away and we scarcely knew him, for neither Kennedy nor I were exactly sickly.

"Well," asked the doctor, as he closed the door of his office and turned to me. "What seems to be the matter?"

I tried to smile. "I feel as though I had been celebrating not wisely but too well," I replied, trying to cheer up, "but as a matter of fact I have been leading the simple life."

He sounded me and pounded me, looked at my tongue and my eyes, listened to my heart and lungs, though I don't think he treated my symptoms very seriously. In fact, I might have known what he would do. He talked a little while on generalities, diet and exercise then walked over to a cabinet, and emptied out a few pills into a little paper box.

"Take one every hour," he said, handing them to me, and carefully returning the bottle to the cabinet so that I could not see what was on the label. "Cut your cigarettes to three a day, and don't drink coffee. Four dollars, please."

I suppose I ought to have been cured, and in fact I was cured—of going to that doctor. I paid him and went back to the apartment, my head soon in a whirl from a new onset of the fever.

I managed to get back into my bath-robe, and threw myself down on the divan, propped up with pillows. I had taken the pills but they had no more effect than sugar of milk. By this time, I was much more delirious and was crying out.

I saw faces about me, but I did not see the faces which were actually out by our hall door. Wu Fang and Long Sin had waited patiently for their revenge. Now that they thought sufficient time had elapsed, they had stolen stealthily to the apartment door. While Long Sin watched, Wu listened.

"The white devil has it," whispered Wu Fang, as he rejoined his fellow conspirator.

How long I should have remained in this state, and in fact how long I did remain, I don't know. Vaguely, I recall that our acquaintance, Johnson, who had the apartment across the hall, at last heard my cries and came out to his own door. He needed only a moment to listen at ours to know that something was wrong.

"Why, what's the matter, Jameson?" he asked, poking his head in and looking anxiously at me.

I could only rave some reply, and he tried his best to quiet me. "What's the matter, old man?" he repeated. "Tell me. Shall I send for a doctor?"

Somehow or other I knew the state I was in. I knew it was Johnson, yet it all seemed unreal to me. With a great effort I gathered all my scattered wits and managed to shout out, "Telegraph Kennedy— Rockledge."

By this time Johnson himself was thoroughly alarmed. He did not lose a second in dictating a telegram over the telephone.

. . . . . . .

At about the same time, up at Rockledge, Kennedy and Elaine, with her cousin Mary Brown, were starting out for a horseback ride through the hills. They were chatting gaily, but Kennedy was forcing himself to do so.

In fact, they had scarcely gone half a mile when Kennedy, who was riding between the two and fighting off by sheer nerve the illness he felt, suddenly fell over in half a faint on the horse's neck. Elaine and Mary reined up their horses.

"Why, Craig," cried Elaine, startled, "what's the matter?"

The sound of her voice seemed to arouse him. He braced up. "Oh, nothing, I guess," he said with a forced smile. "I'm all right."

It was no use, however. They had to cut short the ride, and Kennedy returned to the house, glad to drop down in an easy chair on the porch, while Elaine hovered about him solicitously. His head buzzed, his skin was hot and dry, his eyes had an unnatural look. Every now and then he would place his hand to his ear as though he felt some pain.

They had already summoned the country doctor, but it took him some time to get out to the house. Suddenly a messenger boy rode up on his bicycle and mounted the porch steps. "Telegram for Mr. Kennedy," he announced, looking about and picking out Craig naturally as the person he wanted.

Kennedy nodded and took the yellow envelope while Elaine signed for it. Listlessly he tore it open. It read:

CRAIG KENNEDY,

c/o Wellington Brown, Rockledge, N. J.

Jameson very ill. Wants you. Better come.

JOHNSON.

The message seemed to rouse Kennedy in spite of his fever. His face showed keen alarm, which he endeavored to conceal from Elaine. But her quick eye had caught the look.

"I must see Walter," he exclaimed, rising rather weakly and going into the house.

How he ever did it is still, I think, a mystery to him, but he managed to pack up and, in spite of the alternating fever and chills, made the journey back to the city.

When at last Craig arrived at our apartment, it must have seemed to him that he found me almost at death's door. I was terribly ill and weak by that time, but had refused to see the doctor again and Johnson had managed to get me into bed.

Ill himself, Kennedy threw himself down for a moment exhausted. "When did this thing come on Walter?" he asked of Johnson.

"Yesterday, I think, at least as nearly as I can find out," replied our friend.

Craig was decidedly worried. "There's only one person in New York to call on," he murmured, pulling himself out of bed and getting into the living-room as best he could.

"Is that you, Godowski?" he asked over the telephone. "Well, doctor, this is Kennedy. Come over to my apartment, quick. I've a case—two cases for you."

Godowski was a world-famous scientist in his line and had specialized in bacteriology, mainly in tropical diseases.

As Kennedy hung up the receiver, he made his way back again to the bedroom, scratching his ear. He noticed that I was doing the same in my delirium.

"Has Walter been scratching his ear?" he asked of Johnson.

Johnson nodded. "That's strange," considered Craig thoughtfully. "I've been doing the same."

He turned back into the living-room and for a moment looked about. Finally his eye happened to fall on the telephone and an idea seemed to occur to him.

He went over to the instrument and unscrewed the receiver. Carefully he looked inside. Then he looked closer. There was something peculiar about it and he picked up a blank sheet of white paper, dusting off the diaphragm on it. There, on the paper, were innumerable little black specks.

Just then, outside, Dr. Godowski's car drew up and he jumped out, swinging his black bag. Not being acquainted with what we were going through, Godowski did not notice the almond-eyed Chinaman who was watching down the street.

"How do you do, doctor," greeted Craig faintly, at the door.

"What seems to be the difficulty?" inquired the doctor eagerly.

"I don't know," returned Craig, "but I have my suspicions. I'm too ill to verify them myself. So I've called on you. Look at Jameson first," he added.

While Godowski was examining me, Craig managed to get out his microscope and was looking through it at the strange black specks on the paper. There, under the lens, he could see the most remarkable, almost microscopic creature, all legs and feelers, a most vicious object.

Weak though he was, he could not help an exclamation of exultation at his discovery, just as Godowski had finished with me.

"Look!" he cried, calling the doctor. "I know what the trouble is, Godowski."

He had started to tell, but the excitement of the journey and the exertion were so great that he could hardly mumble.

"Here—look—on this paper," he cried. "From the telephone—"

He had risen and was handing the paper to the scientist when his weakness overcame him. He fell flat on his face on the floor and dropped the paper, spilling the contents.

Godowski, now thoroughly alarmed, bent over Craig. But the delirium had overcome Kennedy, too.

Unable to make any sense out of Craig's broken wanderings, Godowski lost no time in taking samples of our blood.

Then he hurried away to his laboratory in his car. As he did so, however, Long Sin leaped into a taxicab which was waiting and followed.

. . . . . . .

In Godowski's laboratory, where he was studying tropical diseases, the bacteriologist set to work at once to confirm his own growing suspicions.

From a monkey which he had there for experimental purposes, he drew off some blood samples. Then, with the aid of his assistant, he took the blood samples he had obtained from us. The monkey's blood, under the microscope, seemed full of rather elongated wriggling germs of a peculiar species. In and out they made their way among the blood corpuscles each like a dart aimed at life itself.

Then he took the samples of our blood. In them were the same germs—carried by that gruesome tick!

"The spirillum!" he muttered. "They are infected with African recurrent fever. The only remedy is atoxyl, administered intravenously, after the manner of Professor Ehrlich's famous '606'."

Godowski had rung the call box hastily for a messenger, when Long Sin, who had managed stealthily to creep up to the doctor's laboratory window, scowled, through at the action—then moved away.

While his assistant gathered the apparatus, the doctor wrote:

MISS ANNE SEPTIX, 301 W.—th St.

Please go at once to the apartment of Craig Kennedy,—Claremont Ave. Surgical case.

GODOWSKI, M. D.

The boy arrived finally and the doctor gave him a generous tip to hurry with the note.

He had not turned the corner, however, when Long Sin appeared. Subtly he played on the boy's cupidity to get him to deliver a note of his own, even offered to deliver the boy's note for him. The flash of a five dollar bill made the rest easy.

As the boy disappeared on a fake errand, Long Sin, with the real note hurried down-town, smiling wickedly.

"They have discovered the fever, Master," he reported in the den.

Wu was beside himself with rage. Before he could speak, however, Long Sin spread out Godowski's message. "But I have this," he added.

It took merely a glance to suggest to Wu a new plan of action. He rose and moved quickly into the back room. "Come," he ordered Weepy Mary. "You must dress up as a nurse—immediately."

Quickly she donned one of the numerous disguises while Wu planned his campaign.

"Here," he directed when she was ready, handing her a little vial. "You must infect every instrument the doctor uses on Kennedy and Jameson,—see?"

She nodded and a moment later was on her way uptown.

. . . . . . .

Meanwhile Godowski himself had arrived at our apartment, much to the relief of our friend Johnson, and was unpacking his instruments.

Quickly he improvised two operating tables, and placed one of us on each. Then, with his assistant, he put on his white robes, mask, gloves and other precautions for asepsis, setting out the apparatus for the intravenous administration of the drug that would kill the spirillum. Godowski was busy with the atoxyl, mixing it in a normal salt solution. He would drop in a few drops of an acid, then a few drops of an alkaline solution, so as to keep the mixture neutral. Finally, he poured the solution into a container, to the bottom of which was attached a long tube. This container he raised high over our heads, clamping the tube.

Then he fastened a tiny needle to the end of the tube, so that it could be inserted in our arms, catching skillfully a vein—a very difficult piece of work in which he excelled. The liquid would then flow by the force of gravity from the container down through the tube, through the hollow needle and into the vein where it would act on the germs of the fever.

They had finished their preparations and were waiting for Miss Septix. "She ought to be here, now," muttered Godowski impatiently, looking at his watch.

Just then a cab drove up outside.

"Perhaps that is she," he exclaimed. "It must be."

A few moments later the door of the apartment opened. His face showed his disappointment. It was a stranger.

"Miss Septix is ill," she introduced, "and sent me to take her place."

The doctor looked about. "Very well, then," he said briskly, seeing his preparations. "Are you ready to go ahead?"

She nodded and threw off her coat that covered her immaculate white uniform.

The specialist plunged whole-heartedly into his work of saving us now. "Hand me that needle, please," he directed the false nurse.

She moved over to the table near-by and took it up, pausing only long enough to dip it secretly into a vial she carried with her.

"Please hurry," repeated the doctor.

She turned from the table and handed it to him. He adjusted it and already held it poised for the thrust which was not to cure but to poison us further.

"Weepy Mary!" cried a frightened voice at our door.

Elaine had been deeply alarmed by the sudden illness of Kennedy and the message from Jameson. No sooner had Kennedy gone, than it flashed over her that Wu Fang had predicted something like this.

"The threat!" she exclaimed, seeking her cousin. "Mary, I must go to the city—right away."

On the next train, then, she had been speeding back to New York, and, arriving at the station, she realized that there was not a moment to lose. She called a cab, drove directly to our apartment, and hurried in, without even ringing the bell.

One glance at the improvised hospital was enough to alarm her. But the sight that had transfixed her was of a woman whose face she remembered only too well, though Kennedy and I had never seen her.

"Please, Miss," began Godowski's assistant, trying to quiet Elaine, while Godowski turned in vexation to his work.

"No, no!" repeated Elaine. "This woman is no nurse. She is a criminal!"

Godowski paused. It was true he did not know the woman. He gazed from Elaine to Weepy Mary in doubt.

The game was up. Weepy Mary dropped a piece of gauze which she had soaked in the solution from the vial which Wu had given her and bolted for the door.

So sudden was her flight that no one was quick enough to stop her. She managed to reach the hall and slam the door. Down she rushed to the street, Godowski's assistant after her.

There, awaiting, was Long Sin's car. She leaped in and was off in a moment. The assistant had just time to dive at the running- board. But his grip was poor and Long Sin easily threw him off.

"You—you fool!" he hissed at Mary, as soon as the danger of pursuit was over and the assistant had gone back into the apartment.

"Oh, sir," she begged, "it was not my fault. Miss Dodge came in— unexpectedly—she recognized me. If I had not fled, they would have caught me—perhaps you, too."

Long Sin was furious. He threatened her and she cowered back. However, there was nothing to be gained by that and he subsided and drove quickly down-town.

The excitement more than ever alarmed Elaine now. "Tell me," she appealed to Dr. Godowski, "what is the matter?"

"In some way," he replied quickly, "they have become infected by the bite of an African tick which carries spirillum fever."

"She got away, in a cab," panted the assistant, returning.

Godowski raised his hands in despair. "I was just about to start," he cried. "Everything is ready. I can't send for another nurse. Every minute counts."

Elaine had thrown off her coat and hat. Her sleeves were up in a moment and before the doctor knew what she was about she was scrubbing her hands in the antiseptic wash.

"Only—show me—what to do," she cried. "I will be the nurse!"

. . . . . . .

Several days later, when we had recovered sufficiently from the diabolical attack that had been made upon us, Kennedy was again at work in the laboratory, while I was writing. We still felt rather weak, but Godowski's skill had pulled us out all right.

Our speaking-tube sounded and I knew that it was Elaine and Aunt Josephine.

"How do you feel?" inquired Elaine anxiously, as she almost ran across the laboratory to Craig.

"Fine!" he exaggerated, brightly.

"Really?" she repeated anxiously.

"Look!" he said, turning to his microscope.

He took some blood from a test tube in our electric incubator and placed a drop on a slide. It was some of the blood infected by the germs carried by the tick.

"That is how our blood looked—before the new nurse arrived," he smiled, while Elaine looked at it in horror.

Then he pricked his arm and let a drop smear on another slide.

"Now look at that—perfectly normal," he added.

"Oh—I'm so glad," she exclaimed radiantly.

"Normal—thanks to you. You saved us. You were just in time," cried Craig taking both her hands in his.

He was about to kiss her, when she broke away. "Craig," she whispered, blushing and looking hastily at us.

Aunt Josephine and I could only smile at the disgusted glance Craig gave us, as he thrust his hands in his pockets and wished us a thousand miles away at that moment.



CHAPTER V

SHADOWS OF WAR

For a long time Kennedy had, I knew, been at work at odd moments in the laboratory secretly. What it was that he was working on, even I was unable to guess, so closely had he guarded his secret. But that it was something momentous, I was assured.

Long Sin had already been arrested and it was a day or two after the escape of Wu himself who had come just in time to prevent the confession by one of his emissaries of the whereabouts of his secret den. Kennedy had Chase and another detective whom he frequently employed on routine matters at work over the clues developed by his use of the sphygmograph. Elaine, anxious for news, had dropped in on us at the laboratory just as Kennedy was hastily opening his mail.

Craig came to a large letter with an official look, slit open the envelope, and unfolded the letter. "Hurrah!" he cried, jumping up and thrusting the letter before us. "Read that."

Across the top of the paper were embossed in blue the formidable words:

United States Navy Department, Washington, D. C.

The letter was most interesting:

PROFESSOR CRAIG KENNEDY, The University, New York City.

DEAR SIR,

Your telautomatic torpedo model was tested yesterday and I take great pleasure in stating that it was entirely successful. There is no doubt that the United States is safe from attack as long as we retain its secret.

Very sincerely yours,

DANIEL WATERS, Ass't Sec'y.

"Oh, Craig," congratulated Elaine, as she handed back the note. "I'm so glad for your sake. How famous you will be!"

"When are we going to see the wonderful invention, Craig?" I added as I grasped his hand and, in return, he almost broke the bones in mine wringing it.

"As soon as you wish," he replied, moving over to the safe near-by and opening it. "Here's the only other model in existence besides the model I sent to Washington."

He held up before us a cigar-shaped affair of steel, about eight inches long, with a tiny propeller and rudder of a size to correspond. Above was a series of wires, four or five inches in length, which, he explained, were the aerials by which the torpedo was controlled.

"The principle of the thing," he went on proudly, "is that I use wireless waves to actuate relays on the torpedo. The power is in the torpedo; the relay releases it. That is, I send a child with a message; the grown man, through the relay, does the work. So, you see, I can sit miles away in safety and send my little David out anywhere to strike down a huge Goliath."

It was not difficult to catch his enthusiasm over the marvellous invention, though we could not follow him through the mazes of explanation about radio-combinators, telecommutators and the rest of the technicalities. I may say, however, that on his radio- combinator he had a series of keys marked "Forward," "Back," "Start," "Stop," "Rudder Right," "Rudder Left," and so on.

He had scarcely finished his brief description when there came a knock at the door. I answered it. It was Chase and his assistant, whom Kennedy had employed in the affair.

"We've found the place on Pell Street that we think is Wu Fang's," they reported excitedly. "It's in number fourteen, as you thought. We've left an operative disguised as a blind beggar to watch the place."

"Oh, good!" exclaimed Elaine, as Craig and I hurried out after Chase and his man with her. "May I go with you?"

"Really, Elaine," objected Craig, "I don't think it's safe. There's no telling what may happen. In fact, I think Walter and I had better not be seen there even with Chase."

She pouted and pleaded, but Craig was obdurate. Finally she consented to wait for us at home provided we brought her the news at the earliest moment and demonstrated the wonderful torpedo as well. Craig was only too glad to promise and we waved good-bye as her car whisked her off.

Half an hour later we turned into Chinatown from the shadow of the elevated railroad on Chatham Square, doing our best to affect a Bowery slouch.

We had not gone far before we came to the blind beggar. He was sitting by number fourteen with a sign on his breast, grinding industriously at a small barrel organ before him on which rested a tin cup.

We passed him and Kennedy took out a coin from his pocket and dropped it into the cup. As he did so, he thrust his hand into the cup and quickly took out a piece of paper which he palmed.

The blind beggar thanked and blessed us, and we dodged into a doorway where Kennedy opened the paper: "Wu Fang gone out."

"What shall we do?" I asked.

"Go in anyhow," decided Kennedy quickly.

We left the shelter of the doorway and walked boldly up to the door. Deftly Kennedy forced it and we entered.

We had scarcely mounted the stairs to the den of the Serpent, when a servant in a back room, hearing a noise, stuck his head in the door. Kennedy and I made a dash at him and quickly overpowered him, snapping the bracelets on his wrists.

"Watch him, Walter," directed Craig as he made his way into the back room.

. . . . . . .

In the devious plots and schemes of Wu Fang, his nefarious work had brought him into contact not only with criminals of the lowest order but with those high up in financial and diplomatic circles.

Thus it happened that at such a crisis as Kennedy had brought about for him Wu had suddenly been called out of the city and had received an order from a group of powerful foreign agents known secretly as the Intelligence Office to meet an emissary at a certain rocky promontory on the Connecticut shore of Long Island Sound the very day after Kennedy's little affair with him in the laboratory and the day before the letter from Washington arrived.

Though he was mortally afraid of Kennedy's pursuit, there was nothing to do but obey this imperative summons. Quietly he slipped out of town, the more readily when he realized that the summons would take him not far from the millionaire cottage colony where Elaine had her summer home, which, however, she had not yet opened.

There, on the rocky shore, he sat gazing out at the waves, waiting, when suddenly, from around the promontory, came a boat rowed by two stalwart sailors. It carried as passengers two dark- complexioned, dark-haired men, foreigners evidently, though carefully dressed so as to conceal both their identity and nationality.

As the boat came up to a strip of sandy beach among the rocks, the sailors held it while their two passengers jumped out. Then they rowed away as quickly as they had come.

The two mysterious strangers saluted Wu.

"We are under orders from the Intelligence Office," introduced one who seemed to be the leader, "to get this American, Kennedy."

A subtle smile overspread Wu's face. He said nothing but this adventure promised to serve more than one end. "Information has just come to us," the stranger went on, "that Kennedy has invented a new wireless automatic torpedo. Already a letter is on its way informing him that it has been accepted by the Navy."

The other man who had been drawing a cigar-shaped outline on the wet sand looked up. "We must get those models," he put in, adding, "both of them—the one he has and that the government has. Can it be done?"

"I can get them," answered Wu sinisterly.

And so, while Kennedy was drawing together the net about Wu, that wily criminal had already planned an attack on him in an unexpected quarter.

Down in Washington the very morning that our pursuit of Wu came to a head, the officials of the navy department, both naval and civil, were having the final conference at which they were to accept officially Kennedy's marvellous invention which, it was confidently believed, would ultimately make war impossible.

Seated about a long table in one of the board rooms were not only the officers but the officials of the department whose sanction was necessary for the final step. By a window sat a stenographer who was transcribing, as they were taken, the notes of the momentous meeting.

They had just completed the examination of the torpedo and laid it on the end of the table scarcely an arm's length from the stenographer. As he finished a page of notes he glanced quickly at his watch. It was exactly three o'clock.

Hastily he reached over for the torpedo and with one swift, silent movement tossed it out of the window.

Down below, in a clump of rhododendrons, for several moments had been crouching one of the men who had borne the orders to Wu Fang at the strange meeting on the promontory.

His eyes seemed riveted at the window above him. Suddenly the supreme moment for which this dastardly plot had been timed came. As the torpedo model dropped from the window, he darted forward, caught it, turned, and in an instant he was gone.

. . . . . . .

Wu Fang himself had returned after setting in motion the forces which he found necessary to call to aid the foreign agents in their plots against Kennedy's torpedo.

As Wu approached the door of his den and was about to enter, his eye fell on our outpost, the blind beggar. Instantly his suspicions were aroused. He looked the beggar over with a frown, thought a moment, then turned and instead of entering went up the street.

He made the circuit of the block and now came to an alley on the next street that led back of the building in which he had his den. Still frowning, he gazed about, saw that he was not followed, and entered a doorway.

Up the stairs he made his way until he came to an empty loft. Quickly he went over to the blank wall and began feeling cautiously about as if for a secret spring hidden in the plaster.

"No one in the back room," said Kennedy rejoining me in the den itself with the prisoner. "He's out, all right."

Before Craig was a mirror. As he looked into it, at an angle, he could see a part of the decorations of the wall behind him actually open out. For an instant the evil face of Wu Fang appeared.

Without a word, Craig walked into the back room. As he did so, Wu Fang, knife in hand, stealthily opened the sliding panel its full length and noiselessly entered the room behind me. With knife upraised for instant action he moved closer and closer to me. He had almost reached me and paused to gloat as he poised the knife ready to strike, when I heard a shout from Kennedy, and a scuffle.

Craig had leaped out from behind a screen near the doorway to the back room where he had hidden to lure Wu on. With a powerful grasp, he twisted the knife from Wu's hand and it fell with a clatter on the floor. I was at Wu myself an instant later. He was a powerful fighter, but we managed to snap the handcuffs on him finally, also.

"Walter," panted Kennedy straightening himself out after the fracas, "I'll stay here with the prisoners. Go get the police."

I hurried out and rushed down the street seeking an officer.

Up in the den, Wu Fang, silent, stood with his back to the wall, scowling sullenly. Close beside him hung a sort of bell-cord, just out of reach. Kennedy, revolver in hand, was examining the writing-table to discover whatever evidence he could. Slowly, imperceptibly, inch by inch, Wu moved toward the bell-cord. He was reaching out with his manacled hands to seize it when Kennedy, alert, turned, saw him, and instantly shot. Wu literally crumpled up and dropped to the floor as Craig bounded over to him.

By this time I had found a policeman and he had summoned the wagon from the Elizabeth Street station, a few blocks away. As we drove up before the den, I leaped out and the police followed.

Imagine my surprise at seeing Wu stretched on the floor. Kennedy had tried to staunch the flow of blood from a wound on Wu's shoulder with a handkerchief and now was making a temporary bandage which he bound on him.

"How are you, sergeant?" nodded Kennedy. "Well, I guess you'll admit I made good this time."

The sergeant smiled, recalling a previous occasion when the slippery Wu had squirmed through our fingers.

Kennedy's restless eye fell on the bell-rope which had caused the trouble. Somehow, he seemed to have an irresistible desire to pull that rope. He gazed about the room.

"Walter, you and the sergeant take the prisoners into the next room," he said. "I want to see what this thing really is."

We moved Wu and his servant and stood in the doorway. Craig gave the rope a yank.

Instantly there was an explosion. A concealed shotgun in the wall fired, scattering shot all over the front of Wu's table, just where we had been standing, knocking over and breaking vases, scattering papers and in general wrecking everything before it.

"So, that's it," whistled Craig. "You fellows can come back now. Two of you men I'm going to leave here to watch the place and make other arrests if you can. Come on."

With Kennedy I left the tenement while the sergeant marched the prisoners out, and we drove off with them. Quite a crowd had collected outside by the time we came out. Among them, naturally, were many Chinamen, and we could not see two of them hiding behind the rest on the outskirts, jabbering in low tones together and making hasty plans. As we clanged away down the street they followed more slowly on foot.

Common humanity dictated that we take Wu first of all to a hospital and get him fixed up and to a hospital we went. Kennedy and I entered with our prisoners, closely guarded by the police.

Craig handed Wu over to two young doctors and a nurse. By this time Wu was very weak from loss of blood. Still he had his iron nerve and that was carrying him through. The two young doctors and the nurse had scarcely begun to take off Craig's rude bandage to replace it properly, when a noise outside told us that a weeping and gesticulating delegation of Chinese had arrived.

"Keep 'em back," called one of the doctors to an attendant. The attendant tried to drive them away, but nothing could force them back more than an inch or two as, in broken English, they sought to find out how Wu was. Their importunity proved too much for only one attendant. Still gibbering and gesticulating, the crowd brushed past him as if he had been a mere reed. The attendant raged about until he lost his head. But it was no use. There was nothing for him to do but to follow them in.

Kennedy by this time had finished talking to the doctors and handing Wu over to them. They had taken him into a room in the dispensary. Just then the chattering crowd pushed in, some asking questions, others bewailing the fate of the great Wu Fang. They were so insistent that at last one of the doctors was forced to demand that the police drive them out. They started to push them back.

In the melee, one of their number managed to get away from the rest and reach the doorway to the emergency room. He was, as we found out later, dressed almost precisely like Wu, although he had on a somewhat different cap. In build and size as well as features he was a veritable Dromio.

The other Chinaman drew back behind the screen which hid the doorway to the emergency room and concealed himself.

Meanwhile, Kennedy and I were laughing at the truly ludicrous antics of the astounded Celestials, thunderstruck at the capture of the peerless leader, while the police forced them back.

"Well, good-bye," nodded Craig to the first doctor and nurse who had attended Wu Fang outside.

"Good-bye. We'll fix him up and take good care that he doesn't cheat the law," they said, with a nod to the sergeant.

. . . . . . .

In the emergency room, Wu was placed on an operating table and there was bound up properly, though he was terribly weak now.

Back of the screen, however, the other Chinaman was hiding, able to get an occasional glance at what was going on. There happened to be a table near him on which were gauze, cotton and other things. He reached over and took the gauze and quickly made it into a bandage, keeping one eye on the bandaging of Wu. Then he placed the bandage over his own shoulder and arm in the same way that he saw the doctors doing with Wu.

They had finished with Wu and one of the doctors moved over to the doorway to call the sergeant. For the moment the rest had left Wu alone, his eyes apparently half closed through weakness. Each was busy about his own especial task.

From behind the screen which was only a few feet from the operating table, the secreted Chinaman stepped out. Quickly he placed his own hat on Wu and took Wu's, then took Wu's place on the table while Wu slipped behind the screen.

The doctor turned to the supposed Wu. "Come now," he ordered, handing him over to the police. "Here he is at last."

The sergeant started to lead the prisoner out. As he did so, he looked sharply at him. He could scarcely believe his eyes. There was something wrong. All Chinaman might look alike to some people but not to him.

"That's not Wu Fang!" he exclaimed.

Instantly there was the greatest excitement. The doctors were astounded as all rushed into the emergency room again. One of them looked behind the screen. There was an open window.

"That's how he got away," he cried.

Meanwhile, several blocks from the hospital, Wu, still weak but more than ever nerved up, came out of his place of concealment, gazed up and down the street, and, seeing no one following, hurried away from the hospital as fast as his shaky legs would bear him.

. . . . . . .

Confident that at last our arch enemy was safely landed in the hands of the police, Kennedy and I had left the hospital and were hastening to Elaine with the news. We stopped at the laboratory only long enough to get the torpedo from the safe and at a toy store where Craig bought a fine little clockwork battleship.

We found Elaine and Aunt Josephine in the conservatory and quickly Kennedy related how we had captured Wu.

But, like all inventors, his pet was the torpedo and soon we were absorbed in his description of it. As he unwrapped it, Elaine drew back, timidly, from the fearful engine of destruction.

Kennedy smiled. "No, it isn't dangerous," he said reassuringly. "I've removed its charge and put in a percussion cap. Let me show you, on a small scale, how it works," he added, winding up the battleship and placing it in the fountain.

Next he placed the torpedo in the water at the other end of the tank. "Come over here," he said, indicating to us to follow him into the palms.

There he had placed the strange wireless apparatus which controlled the torpedo. He pressed a lever. We peered out through the fronds of the palms. That uncanny little cigar-shaped thing actually started to move over the surface of the water.

"Of course I could make it dive," explained Craig, "but I want you to see it work."

Around the tank it went, turned, cut a figure eight, as Kennedy manipulated the levers. Then it headed straight toward the battleship. It struck. There was a loud report, a spurt of water. One of the skeleton masts fell over. The battleship heeled over, and slowly sank, bow first.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Elaine. "That was very realistic."

We brushed our way out through the thick palms, congratulating Kennedy on the perfect success of his demonstration.

So astonished were we that we did not hear the doorbell ring. Jennings answered it and admitted two men.

"Is Professor Kennedy here?" asked one. "We have been to his apartment and to the laboratory."

"I'll see," said Jennings discretely, taking the card of one of them and leaving them in the drawing-room.

"Two gentlemen to see you, Mr. Kennedy," Jennings interrupted our congratulations, handing Craig a card. "Shall I tell them you are here, sir?"

Craig glanced at the card. "I wonder what that can be?" he said, turning the card toward us.

It was engraved:

W. R. Barnes U. S. Secret Service.

"Yes, I'll see them," he said, then to us, "Please excuse me?"

Elaine, Aunt Josephine and I strolled off in the palms toward the Fifth Avenue side, while Jennings went out toward the back of the house.

"Well, gentlemen," greeted Kennedy as he met the two detectives, "what can I do for you?"

The leader looked about, then leaned over and whispered, "We've just had word, Professor, that your model of the torpedo has been stolen from the Navy Department in Washington."

"Stolen?" repeated Kennedy, staring aghast.

"Yes. We fear that an agent of a foreign government has found a traitor in the department."

Rapidly Kennedy's mind pictured what might be done with the deadly weapon in the hands of an enemy.

"And," added the Secret Service man, "we have reason to believe that this foreign agent is using a Chinaman, Wu Fang."

"But Wu has been arrested," replied Craig. "I arrested him myself. The police have him now."

"Then you don't know of his escape?"

Kennedy could only stare as they told the story.

Suddenly, down the hall, came cries of, "Help! Help!"

. . . . . . .

While Craig was showing us the torpedo, the criminal machinery which Wu had set in motion at orders from the foreign agents was working rapidly.

Outside the Dodge house, a man had shadowed us. He waited until we went in, then slunk in himself by the back way and climbed through an open window into the cellar.

Quietly he made his way up through the cellar until finally he reached the library. Listening carefully he could hear us talking in the conservatory. Stealthily he moved out of the library.

We had left the conservatory when he entered, peering through the palms. On he stole till he came to the fountain. He looked about. There, bobbing up and down, was the model of the torpedo for which he had dared so much. He picked it up and looked at it, gloating.

The crook was about to move back toward the library, hugging the precious model close to himself when he heard Jennings coming. He started back to the conservatory. Jennings entered just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of some one. His suspicions were roused and he followed.

The crook reached the conservatory and opened a glass window leading out into the little garden beside the house. He was about to step out when the sound of voices in the garden arrested him. Elaine, Aunt Josephine and I had gone out and Elaine was showing me a new rose which had just been sent her.

The crook fell back and dropped down behind the palms. Jennings looked about, but saw no one and stood there puzzled. Then the crook, fearing that he might be captured at any moment, looked about to see where he might hide the torpedo. There did not seem to be any place. Quickly he began to dig out the earth in one of the palm pots. He dropped the torpedo, wrapped still in the handkerchief, into the hole and covered it up.

Jennings was clearly puzzled. He had seen some one rush in, but the conservatory was apparently empty. He had just turned to go out when he saw a palm move. There was a face! He made a dive for it and in a moment both he and the crook were rolling over and over.

. . . . . . .

Kennedy and the Secret Service men were talking earnestly when they heard the cry for help and the scuffle. They rushed out and into the conservatory in time to see the crook, who had broken away, knock out Jennings. He sprang to his feet and darted away.

Kennedy's mind was working rapidly. Had the man been after the other model? The detectives went after him. But Craig went for the torpedo. As he looked in the tank, it was gone! He turned and followed the crook.

I was still in the garden with Elaine and Aunt Josephine when I heard sounds of a struggle and a moment later a man emerged through the window of the conservatory followed by two other men. I went for him, but he managed to elude me and dashed for the wall in the back of the garden. The Secret Service men fired at him but he kept on. A moment later Craig came through the window.

"Did any of you take the torpedo?" he asked.

"No," replied Elaine, "we left it just as you had it."

Kennedy seemed wild with anxiety. "Then both models have been stolen!" he cried, dashing after the Secret Service men with me close behind.

The crook by this time had reached the top of the wall. Just as he was about to let himself down safely on the other side, a shot struck him. He pitched over and we ran forward.

But he had just enough of a start. In spite of the shock and the wound he managed to pick himself up and with the help of a confederate hobbled into a waiting car, which sped away just as we came over the wall.

We dropped to the ground just as another car approached. Craig commandeered it from its astonished driver, the Secret Service men and I piled in and we were off in a few seconds in hot pursuit.

. . . . . . .

Down at the terminal where trains came in from Washington, Wu, much better now, was waiting.

He had pulled a long coat over his Chinese clothes and wore a slouch hat. As he looked at the incoming passengers he spied the man he was waiting for, the young crook who had been waiting in the shrubbery outside the Navy Building when the torpedo model was thrown out.

The man had the model carefully wrapped up, under his arm. As his eye travelled over the crowd he recognized Wu but did not betray it. He walked by and, as he passed, hastily handed Wu the package containing the model. Wu slipped it under his coat. Then each went his way, in opposite directions.

. . . . . . .

It was a close race between the car bearing the two crooks and that which Kennedy had impressed into service, but we kept on up through the city and out across the country, into Connecticut.

Time and again they almost got away until it became a question of following tire tracks. Once we came to a cross-road and Kennedy stopped and leaped out. Deeply planted in the mud, he could see the tracks of the car ahead leading out by the left road. Close beside the tire tracks were the footprints of two men going up the right hand road toward the Sound.

"You follow the car and the driver," decided Craig, hastily indicating the road by which it had gone. "I'll follow the footprints."

The Secret Service men jumped back into the car and Kennedy and I went along the shore road following the two crooks.

Already the wounded crook, supported by his pal, had made his way down to the water and had come to a long wharf. There, near the land-end, they had a secret hiding-place into which they went. The other crook drew forth a smoke signal and began to prepare it.

Kennedy and I were able, now, to move faster than they. As we came in sight of the wharf, Kennedy paused.

"There they are, two of them," he indicated.

I could just make them out in their hiding-place. The fellow who had stolen the torpedo was by this time so weak from loss of blood that he could hardly hold his head up, while the other hurried to fix-the smoke signal. He happened to glance up, and saw us.

"Come, Red, brace up," he muttered. "They're on our trail."

The wounded man was almost too weak to answer. "I—I can't," he gasped weakly, "You—go." Then, with a great effort, remembering the mission on which he had been sent, he whispered hoarsely, "I hid the second torpedo model in the Dodge house in the bottom of— " He tried hard to finish, but he was too weak. He fell back, dead.

His pal had waited as long as he dared to learn the secret. He jumped up and ran out just as we burst into the hiding-place.

Kennedy dropped down by the dead man and searched him, while I dashed after the other fellow. But I was not so well acquainted with the lay of the land as he and, before I knew it, he had darted into another of his numerous hiding-places. I hunted about, but I had lost the track.

When I returned, I found Kennedy writing a hasty note.

"I couldn't follow him, Craig," I confessed.

"Too bad," frowned Craig evidently greatly worried by what had happened, as he folded the note. "Walter," he added seriously, "I want you to go find the fellow." He handed me the note. "And if anything separates us to-day—give this note to Elaine."

I did not pay much attention to the tone he assumed, but often afterward I pondered over it and the serious and troubled look on his face. I was too chagrined at losing my man to think much of it then. I took the note and hurried out again after him.

Meanwhile, as nearly as I can now make out, Kennedy searched the dead man again. There was certainly no clue to his identity on him, nor had he the torpedo model. Craig looked about. Suddenly, he fell flat on his stomach.

There was Wu Fang himself, coming to the wharf, carrying the model of the torpedo which had been stolen in Washington and brought up to him by his emissary.

Kennedy, crouching down and taking advantage of every object that sheltered him, crawled cautiously into an angle. Unsuspecting, Wu came to the land-end of the wharf.

There he saw his lieutenant, dead—and the smoke signal still beside him, unlighted. He bent over in amazement and examined the man.

From his hiding-place Kennedy crept stealthily. He had scarcely got within reach of Wu when the alert Chinaman seemed to sense his presence. He rose quickly and swung around.

The two arch enemies gazed at each other a moment silently. Each knew it was the final, fatal encounter.

Slowly Wu drew a long knife and leaped at Kennedy who grappled with him. They struggled mercilessly.

In the struggle, Craig managed to tear the torpedo out of Wu's hands, just as they rolled over. It fell on a rock. Instantly an explosion tore a hole in the sand, scattering the gravel all about.

Relentlessly the combat raged. Out on the wharf itself they went, right up to the edge.

Then both went over into the water, locked in each other's vice- like grip.

Even in the water, they struggled, frantically.

. . . . . . .

My search for the escaped crook was unsuccessful.

Somehow, however, it led me across country to a road. As I approached, I heard a car and looked up. There were the Secret Service men. I called them and stepped out of the bushes. They stopped and jumped out of the car and I ran to them.

"Come back with me," I urged. "We found two of them. One is dead. Craig sent me to trace the other. I've lost the trail. Perhaps you can find it for me."

We crashed through the brush quickly. Suddenly I heard something that caused me to start. It sounded like an explosion.

"There's the place—over there," I pointed, pausing and indicating the direction of the wharf whence had come the explosion.

What was it? We did not stop a moment, but hurried in that direction.

We reached the shore where we saw marks of the explosion and of a fight. Out on the pier I ran breathlessly. I rushed to the very edge and gazed over, then climbed down the slippery piling and peered into the black water beneath.

A few bubbles seemed to ooze up from below. Was that all?

No, as I gazed down I saw that some dark object was there. Slowly Wu Fang's body floated to the surface and lay there, rocked by the waves. Deep in his breast stuck his own knife with its handle of the Sign of the Serpent!

I reached down and seized him, as I peered about for Kennedy.

There was nothing more there.

"Craig!" I called desperately, "Craig!"

There was no answer. The silence, the echo of the lapping water under the wharf was appalling, mocking.

I managed to call the Secret Service men and they got Wu Fang's body up on the wharf.

But I could not leave the spot.

Where was Craig? There was not a sign of him. I could not realize it, even when the men brought grappling irons and began to search the black water.

It was all a hideous dream. I saw and heard, in a daze.

. . . . . . .

It was not until late that night that I returned to the Dodge house.

I had delayed my return as long as I could, but I knew that I must see Elaine some time.

As I entered even Jennings must have seen that something was wrong. Elaine, who was sitting in the library with Aunt Josephine, rose as she saw me.

"Did you get them?" she asked eagerly.

I could not speak. She seemed to read the tragic look on my haggard face and stopped.

"Why," she gasped, clutching at the desk, "what is the matter?"

As gently as I could, I told her of the chase, of leaving Craig, of the explosion, of the marks of the struggle and of the finding of Wu Fang.

As I finished, I thought she would faint.

"And you—you went over everything about the wharf?"

"Everything. The men even dragged for the—"

I checked myself over the fateful word.

Elaine looked at me wildly. I thought that she would lose her reason. She did not cry. The shock was too great for that.

Suddenly I remembered the note. "Before I left him—the last time," I blurted out, "he wrote a note—to you."

I pulled the crumpled paper from my pocket and Elaine almost tore it from me—the last word from him—and read:

DEAREST:

I may not return until the case is settled and I have found the stolen torpedo. Matters involving millions of lives and billions of dollars hang on the plot back of it. No matter what happens, have no fear. Trust me.

Lovingly, CRAIG.

She finished reading the note and slowly laid it down. Then she picked it up and read it again. Slowly she turned to me.

I think I have never seen so sublime a look of faith on any one's face before. If I had not seen and heard what I had, it might have shaken my own convictions.

"He told me to trust him and to have no fear," she said simply, gripping herself mentally and physically by main force, then with an air of defiance she looked at me. "I do not believe that he is dead!"

I tried to comfort her. I wanted to do so. But I could do nothing but shake my head sadly. My own heart was full to overflowing. An intimacy such as had been ours could not be broken except with a shock that tore my soul. I knew that the poor girl had not seen what I had seen. Yet I could not find it in my heart to contradict her.

She saw my look, read my mind.

"No," she cried, still defiant, "no—a thousand times, no! I tell you—he is not dead!"



CHAPTER VI

THE LOST TORPEDO

From the rocks of a promontory that jutted out not far from the wharf where Wu Fang's body was found and Kennedy had disappeared, opened up a beautiful panorama of a bay on one side and the Sound on the other.

It was a deserted bit of coast. But any one who had been standing near the promontory the next day might have seen a thin line as if the water, sparkling in the sunlight, had been cut by a huge knife. Gradually a thin steel rod seemed to rise from the water itself, still moving ahead, though slowly now as it pushed its way above the surface. After it came a round cylinder of steel, studded with bolts. It was the hatch of a submarine and the rod was the periscope.

As the submarine lay there at rest, the waves almost breaking over it, the hatch slowly opened and a hand appeared groping for a hold. Then appeared a face with a tangle of curly black hair and keen forceful eyes. After it the body of a man rose out of the hatch, a tall, slender, striking person. He reached down into the hold of the boat and drew forth a life preserver.

"All right," he called down in an accent slightly foreign, as he buckled on the belt. "I shall communicate with you as soon as I have something to report."

Then he deliberately plunged overboard and struck out for the shore. Hand over hand, he churned his way through the water toward the beach until at last his feet touched bottom and he waded out, shaking the water from himself like a huge animal.

The coming of the stranger had not been entirely unheralded. Along the shore road by which Kennedy and I had followed the crooks whom we thought had the torpedo, on that last chase, was waiting now a powerful limousine with its motor purring. A chauffeur was sitting at the wheel and inside, at the door, sat a man peering out along the road to the beach. Suddenly the man in the machine signalled to the driver.

"He comes," he cried eagerly. "Drive down the road, closer, and meet him."

The chauffeur shot his car ahead. As the swimmer strode shivering up the roadway, the car approached him. The assistant swung open the door and ran forward with a thick, warm coat and hat.

Neither the master nor the servant spoke as they met, but the man wrapped the coat about him, hurried into the car, the driver turned and quickly they sped toward the city.

Secret though the entrance of the stranger had been planned, however, it was not unobserved.

Along the beach, on a boulder, gazing thoughtfully out to sea and smoking an old briar pipe sat a bent fisherman clad in an oilskin coat and hat and heavy, ungainly boots. About his neck was a long woolen muffler which concealed the lower part of his face quite as effectually as his scraggly, grizzled whiskers.

Suddenly, he seemed to discover something that interested him, slowly rose, then turned and almost ran up the shore. Quickly he dropped behind a large rock and waited, peering out.

As the limousine bearing the stranger, on whom the fisherman had kept his eyes riveted, turned and drove away, the old salt rose from behind his rock, gazed after the car as if to fix every line of it in his memory and then he, too, quickly disappeared up the road.

The stranger's car had scarcely disappeared when the fisherman turned from the shore road into a clump of stunted trees and made his way to a hut. Not far away stood a small, unpretentious closed car, also with a driver.

"I shall be ready in a minute," the fisherman nodded almost running into the hut, as the driver moved his car up closer to the door.

The larger motor had disappeared far down the bend of the road when the fisherman reappeared. In an almost incredible time he had changed his oilskins and muffler for a dark coat and silk hat. He was no longer a fisherman, but a rather fussy-looking old gentleman, bewhiskered still, with eyes looking out keenly from a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.

"Follow that car—at any cost," he ordered simply as he let himself into the little motor, and the driver shot ahead down a bit of side road and out into the main shore road again, urging the car forward to overtake the one ahead.

Such was the entrance of the stranger—Marcius Del Mar—into America.

. . . . . . .

How I managed to pass the time during the first days after the strange disappearance of Kennedy, I don't know. It was all like a dream—the apartment empty, the laboratory empty, my own work on the Star uninteresting, Elaine broken-hearted, life itself a burden.

Hoping against hope the next day I decided to drop around at the Dodge house. As I entered the library unannounced, I saw that Elaine, with a faith for which I envied her, was sitting at a table, her back toward the door. She was gazing sadly at a photograph. Though I could not see it, I needed not to be told whose it was.

She did not hear me come in, so engrossed was she in her thoughts. Nor did she notice me at first as I stood just behind her. Finally I put my hand on her shoulder as if I had been an elder brother.

She looked up into my face. "Have you heard from him yet?" she asked anxiously.

I could only shake my head sadly. She sighed. Involuntarily she rose and together we moved toward the garden, the last place we had seen him about the house.

We had been pacing up and down the garden talking earnestly only a short time when a man made his way in from the Fifth Avenue gate.

"Is this Miss Dodge?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied eagerly.

Neither Elaine nor I knew him at the time, though I think she thought he might be the bearer of some message from Craig. As a matter of fact he was the emissary to whom the stenographer had thrown the torpedo model from the Navy Building in Washington.

His visit was only a part of a deep-laid scheme. Only a few minutes before, three crooks—among them our visitor—had stopped just below the house on a side street. To him the others had given final instructions and a note, and he had gone on, leaving the two standing there.

"I have a note for you," he said, bowing and handing an envelope to Elaine, which she tore open and read.

WASHINGTON, D. C.

MISS ELAINE DODGE, Fifth Avenue, New York.

MY DEAR MISS DODGE,

The bearer, Mr. Bailey, of the Secret Service, would like to question you regarding the disappearance of Mr. Kennedy and the model of his torpedo.

MORGAN BERTRAND, U. S. Secret Service.

Even as we were talking the other two crooks had already moved up and had made their way around back of the stone wall that cut off the Dodge garden back of the house. There they stood, whispering eagerly and gazing furtively over the wall as their man talked to Elaine.

After a moment I stepped aside, while Elaine read the note, and as he asked her a few questions, I could not help feeling that the affair had a very suspicious look. The more I thought of it, the less I liked it. Finally I could stand it no longer.

"I beg your pardon," I excused myself to the alleged Mr. Bailey, "but may I speak to Miss Dodge alone just a minute?"

He bowed, rather ungraciously I thought, and Elaine followed me aside while I told her my fears.

"I don't like the looks of it myself," she agreed. "Yes, I'll be very careful what I say."

While we were talking I could see out of the corner of my eye that the fellow was looking at us askance and frowning. But if I had had an X-ray eye, I might have seen his two companions on the other side of the wall, peering over as they had been before and showing every evidence of annoyance at my interference.

The man resumed his questioning of Elaine regarding the torpedo and she replied guardedly, as in fact she could not do otherwise.

Suddenly we heard shouts on the other side of the wall, as though some one were attacking some one else.

There seemed to be several of them, for a man quickly flung himself over the wall and ran to us.

"They're after us," he shouted to Bailey.

Instantly our visitor drew a gun and followed the newcomer as he ran to get out of the garden in the opposite direction.

Just then a tall, well-dressed, striking man came over the wall, accompanied by another dressed as a policeman, and rushed toward us.

. . . . . . .

The car bearing the mysterious stranger, Del Mar, kept on until it reached New York, then made its way through the city until it came to the Hotel La Coste.

Del Mar jumped out of the car, his wet clothes covered completely by the long coat. He registered and rode up in the elevator to rooms which had already been engaged for him. In his suite a valet was already unpacking some trunks and laying out clothes when Del Mar and his assistant entered.

With an exclamation of satisfaction at his unostentatious entry into the city, Del Mar threw off his heavy coat. The valet hastened to assist him in removing the clothes still wet and wrinkled from his plunge into the sea.

Scarcely had Del Mar changed his clothes than he received two visitors. Strangely enough they were men dressed in the uniform of policemen.

"First of all we must convince them of our honesty," he said looking fixedly at the two men. "Orders have been given to the men employed by Wu Fang to be about in half an hour. We must pretend to arrest them on sight. You understand?"

"Yes, sir," they nodded.

"Very well, come on," Del Mar ordered taking up his hat and preceding them from the room.

Outside the La Coste, Del Mar and his two policemen entered the car which had driven Del Mar from the sea coast and were quickly whisked away, up-town, until they came near the Dodge house.

Del Mar leaped from the car followed by his two policemen. "There they are, already," he whispered, pointing up the avenue.

All three hastened up the avenue now where, beside a wall, they could see two men looking through intently as though very angry at something going on inside.

"Arrest them!" shouted Del Mar as his own men ran forward.

The fight was short and sharp, with every evidence of being genuine. One of the men managed to break away and jump the garden wall, with Del Mar and one of the policemen after him, while the other only reached the wall to be dragged down by the other policeman.

Elaine and I had been, as I have said, talking with the man named Bailey who posed as a Secret Service man, when the rumpus began. As the man came over the fence, warning Bailey, it was evident that neither of them had time to escape. With his club the policeman struck the newcomer of the two flat while the tall, athletic gentleman leaped upon Bailey and before we knew it had him disarmed. In a most clean-cut and professional way he snapped the bracelets on the man.

Elaine was astounded at the kaleidoscopic turn of affairs, too astounded even to make an outcry. As for me, it was all so sudden that I had no chance to take part in it. Besides I should not have known quite on which side to fight. So I did nothing.

But as it was over so quickly, I took a step forward to our latest arrival.

"Beg pardon, old man," I began, "but don't you think this is just a little raw? What's it all about?"

The newest comer eyed me for a moment, then with quiet dignity drew from his pocket and handed me his card which read simply:

M. Del Mar, Private Investigator.

As I looked up, I saw Del Mar's other policeman bringing in another manacled man.

"These are crooks—foreign agents," replied Del Mar pointing to the prisoners. "The government has employed me to run them down."

"What of this?" asked Elaine holding up the note from Bertrand.

"A fake, a forgery," reiterated Del Mar, looking at it a moment critically. Then to the men uniformed as police he ordered, "You can take them to jail. They're the fellows, all right."

As the prisoners were led off, Del Mar turned to Elaine. "Would you mind answering a few questions about these men?"

"Why—no," she hesitated. "But I think we'd better go into the house, after such a thing as this. It makes me feel nervous."

With Del Mar I followed Elaine in through the conservatory.

. . . . . . .

Del Mar had scarcely registered at the La Coste when the smaller car which had been waiting at the fisherman's hut drew up before the hotel entrance. From it alighted the fussy old gentleman who bore such a remarkable resemblance to the fisherman, hastily paid his driver and entered the hotel.

He went directly to the desk and with well-manicured finger, scarcely reminiscent of a fisherman, began tracing the names down the list until he stopped before one which read:

Marcius Del Mar and valet. Washington, D. C. Room 520.

With a quick glance about, he made a note of it, and turned away, leaving the La Coste to take up quarters of his own in the Prince Henry down the street.

Not until Del Mar had left with his two policemen did the fussy old gentleman reappear in the La Coste. Then he rode up to Del Mar's room and rapped at the door.

"Is Mr. Del Mar in?" he inquired of the valet.

"No, sir," replied that functionary.

The little old man appeared to consider, standing a moment dandling his silk hat. Absent-mindedly he dropped it. As the valet stooped to pick it up, the old gentleman exhibited an agility and strength scarcely to be expected of his years. He seized the valet, while with one foot he kicked the door shut.

Before the surprised servant knew what was going on, his assailant had whipped from his pocket a handkerchief in which was concealed a thin tube of anesthetic. Then leaving the valet prone in a corner with the handkerchief over his face, he proceeded to make a systematic search of the rooms, opening all drawers, trunks and bags.

He turned pretty nearly everything upside down, then started on the desk. Suddenly he paused. There was a paper. He read it, then with an air of extreme elation shoved it into his pocket.

As he was going out he stopped beside the valet, removed the handkerchief from his face and bound him with a cord from the portieres. Then, still immaculate in spite of his encounter, he descended in the elevator, reentered a waiting car and drove off.