8. The Hidden Voice
"Jameson--wake up!"
The strain of the Dodge case was beginning to tell on me, for it was keeping us at work at all kinds of hours to circumvent the Clutching Hand, by far the cleverest criminal with whom Kennedy had ever had anything to do.
I had slept later than usual that morning and, in a half doze, I heard a voice calling me, strangely like Kennedy's and yet unlike it.
I leaped out of bed, still in my pajamas, and stood for a moment staring about. Then I ran into the living room. I looked about, rubbing my eyes, startled. No one was there.
"Hey--Jameson--wake up!"
It was spooky.
I ran back into Craig's room. He was gone. There was no one in any of our rooms. The surprise had now thoroughly awakened me.
"Where--the deuce--are you?" I demanded.
Suddenly I heard the voice again--no doubt about it, either.
"Here I am--over on the couch!"
I scratched my head, puzzled. There was certainly no one on that couch.
A laugh greeted me. Plainly, though, it came from the couch. I went over to it and, ridiculous as it seemed, began to throw aside the pillows.
There lay nothing but a little oblong oaken box, perhaps eight or ten inches long and three or four inches square at the ends. In the face were two peculiar square holes and from the top projected a black disc, about the size of a watch, fastened on a swinging metal arm. In the face of the disc were several perforated holes.
I picked up the strange looking thing in wonder and from that magic oak box actually came a burst of laughter.
"Come over to the laboratory, right away," pealed forth a merry voice. "I've something to show you."
"Well," I gasped, "what do you know about that?"
Very early that morning Craig had got up, leaving me snoring. Cases never wearied him.
He thrived on excitement.
He had gone over to the laboratory and set to work in a corner over another of those peculiar boxes, exactly like that which he had already left in our rooms.
In the face of each of these boxes, as I have said, were two square holes. The sides of these holes converged inward into the box, in the manner of a four sided pyramid, ending at the apex in a little circle of black, perhaps half an inch across.
Satisfied at last with his work, Craig had stood back from the weird apparatus and shouted my name. He had enjoyed my surprise to the fullest extent, then had asked me to join him.
Half an hour afterward I walked into the laboratory, feeling a little sheepish over the practical joke, but none the less curious to find out all about it.
"What is it?" I asked indicating the apparatus.
"A vocaphone," he replied, still laughing, "the loud speaking telephone, the little box that hears and talks. It talks right out in meeting, too--no transmitter to hold to the mouth, no receiver to hold to the ear. You see, this transmitter is so sensitive that it picks up even a whisper, and the receiver is placed back of those two megaphone-like pyramids."
He was standing at a table, carefully packing up one of the vocaphones and a lot of wire.
"I believe the Clutching Hand has been shadowing the Dodge house," he continued thoughtfully. "As long as we watch the place, too, he will do nothing. But if we should seem, ostentatiously, not to be watching, perhaps he may try something, and we may be able to get a clue to his identity over this vocaphone. See?"
I nodded. "We've got to run him down somehow," I agreed.
"Yes," he said, taking his coat and hat. "I am going to connect up one of these things in Miss Dodge's library and arrange with the telephone company for a clear wire so that we can listen in here, where that fellow will never suspect."
. . . . . . . .
At about the same time that Craig and I sallied forth on this new mission, Elaine was arranging some flowers on a stand near the corner of the Dodge library where the secret panel was in which her father had hidden the papers for the possession of which the Clutching Hand had murdered him. They did not disclose his identity, we knew, but they did give directions to at least one of his hangouts and were therefore very important.
She had moved away from the table, but, as she did so, her dress caught in something in the woodwork. She tried to loosen it and in so doing touched the little metallic spring on which her dress had caught.
Instantly, to her utter surprise, the panel moved. It slid open, disclosing a strong box.
Elaine took it amazed, looked at it a moment, then carried it to a table and started to pry it open.
It was one of those tin dispatch boxes which, as far as I have ever been able to determine, are chiefly valuable for allowing one to place a lot of stuff in a receptacle which is very convenient for a criminal. She had no trouble in opening it.
Inside were some papers, sealed in an envelope and marked "Limpy Red Correspondence."
"They must be the Clutching Hand papers!" she exclaimed to herself, hesitating a moment in doubt what to do. The fatal documents seemed almost uncanny. Their very presence frightened her. What should she do?
She seized the telephone and eagerly called Kennedy's number.
"Hello," answered a voice.
"Is that you, Craig?" she asked excitedly.
"No, this is Mr. Jameson."
"Oh, Mr. Jameson, I've discovered the Clutching Hand papers," she began, more and more excited.
"Have you read them?" came back the voice quickly.
"No--shall I?"
"Then don't unseal them," cautioned the voice. "Put them back exactly as you found them and I'll tell Mr. Kennedy the moment I can get hold of him."
"All right," nodded Elaine. "I'll do that. And please get him--as soon as you possibly can."
"I will."
"I'm going out shopping now," she returned, suddenly. "But, tell him I'll be back--right away."
"Very well."
Hanging up the receiver, Elaine dutifully replaced the papers in the box and returned the box to its secret hiding place, pressing the spring and sliding the panel shut.
A few minutes later she left the house in the Dodge car.
. . . . . . . .
Outside our laboratory, leaning up against a railing, Dan the Dude, an emissary of the Clutching Hand, whose dress now greatly belied his underworld "monniker," had been shadowing us, watching to see when we left.
The moment we disappeared, he raised his hand carefully above his head and made the sign of the Clutching Hand. Far down the street, in a closed car, the Clutching Hand himself, his face masked, gave an answering sign.
A moment later he left the car, gazing about stealthily. Not a soul was in sight and he managed to make his way to the door of our laboratory without being observed. Then he opened it with a pass key which he must have obtained in some way by working the janitor or the university officials.
Probably he thought that the papers might be at the laboratory, for he had repeatedly failed to locate them at the Dodge house. At any rate he was busily engaged in ransacking drawers and cabinets in the laboratory, when the telephone suddenly rang. He did not want to answer it, but if it kept on ringing someone outside might come in.
An instant he hesitated. Then, disguising his voice as much as he could to imitate mine, he took off the receiver.
"Hello!" he answered.
His face was a study in all that was dark as he realized that it was Elaine calling. He clenched his crooked hand even more viciously.
"Have you read them?" he asked, curbing his impatience as she unsuspectingly poured forth her story, supposedly to me.
"Then don't unseal them," he hastened to reply. "Put them back. Then there can be no question about them. You can open them before witnesses."
For a moment he paused, then added, "Put them back and tell no one of their discovery. I will tell Mr. Kennedy the moment I can get him."
A smile spread over his sinister face as Elaine confided in him her intention to go shopping.
"A rather expensive expedition for you, young lady," he muttered to himself as he returned the receiver to the hook.
Clutching Hand lost no further time at the laboratory. He had thus, luckily for him, found out what he wanted. The papers were not there after all, but at the Dodge house.
Suppose she should really be gone on only a short shopping trip and should return to find that she had been fooled over the wire? Quickly, he went to the telephone again.
"Hello, Dan," he called when he got his number.
"Miss Dodge is going shopping. I want you and the other Falsers to follow her--delay her all you can. Use your own judgment."
It was what had come to be known in his organization as the "Brotherhood of Falsers."
There, in the back room of a low dive, were Dan the Dude, the emissary who had been loitering about the laboratory, a gunman, Dago Mike, a couple of women, slatterns, one known as Kitty the Hawk, and a boy of eight or ten, whom they called Billy. Before them stood large schooners of beer, while the precocious youngster grumbled over milk.
"All right, Chief," shouted back Dan, their leader as he hung up the telephone after noting carefully the hasty instructions. "We'll do it--trust us."
The others, knowing that a job was to lighten the monotony of existence, gathered about him.
They listened intently as he detailed to them the orders of the Clutching Hand, hastily planning out the campaign like a division commander disposing his forces in battle and assigning each his part.
With alacrity the Brotherhood went their separate ways.
. . . . . . . .
Elaine had not been gone long from the house when Craig and I arrived there. She had followed the telephone instructions of the Clutching Hand and had told no one.
"Too bad," greeted Jennings, "but Miss Elaine has just gone shopping and I don't know when she'll be back."
Shopping being an uncertain element as far as time was concerned, Kennedy asked if anyone else was at home.
"Mrs. Dodge is in the library reading, sir," replied Jennings, taking it for granted that we would see her.
Aunt Josephine greeted us cordially and Craig set down the vocaphone package he was carrying.
She nodded to Jennings to leave us and he withdrew.
"I'm not going to let anything happen here to Miss Elaine again if I can help it," remarked Craig in a low tone, a moment later, gazing about the library.
"What are you thinking of doing?" asked Aunt Josephine keenly.
"I'm going to put in a vocaphone," he returned unwrapping it.
"What's that?" she asked.
"A loud speaking telephone--connected with my laboratory," he explained, repeating what he had already told me, while she listened almost awestruck at the latest scientific wonder.
He was looking about, trying to figure out just where it could be placed to best advantage, when he approached the suit of armor.
"I see you have brought it back and had it repaired," he remarked to Aunt Josephine.
Suddenly his face lighted up. "Ah--an idea!" he exclaimed. "No one will ever think to look INSIDE that."
It was indeed an inspiration. Kennedy worked quickly now, placing the little box inside the breast plate of the ancient armourer with the top of the instrument projecting right up into the helmet. It was a strange combination--the medieval and the ultra-modern.
"Now, Mrs. Dodge," he said finally, as he had completed installing the thing and hiding the wire under carpets and rugs until it ran out to the connection which he made with the telephone, "don't breathe a word of it--to anyone. We don't know who to trust or suspect."
"I shall not," she answered, by this time thoroughly educated in the value of silence.
Kennedy looked at his watch.
"I've got an engagement with the telephone company, now," he said rather briskly, although I knew that if Elaine had been there the company and everything could have gone hang for the present. "Sorry not to have seen Miss Elaine," he added as we bowed ourselves out, "but I think we've got her protected now."
"I hope so," sighed her aunt.
. . . . . . . .
Elaine's car had stopped finally at a shop on Fifth Avenue. She stepped out and entered, leaving her chauffeur to wait.
As she did so, Dan and Billy sidled along the crowded sidewalk.
"There she is, Billy," pointed out Dan as Elaine disappeared through the swinging doors of the shop. "Now, you wait right here," he instructed stealthily, "and when she comes out--you know what to do. Only, be careful."
Dan the Dude left Billy, and Billy surreptitiously drew from under his coat a dirty half loaf of bread. With a glance about, he dropped it into the gutter close to the entrance to Elaine's car. Then he withdrew a little distance.
When Elaine came out and approached her car, Billy, looking as cold and forlorn as could be, shot forward. Pretending to spy the dirty piece of bread in the gutter, he made a dive for it, just as Elaine was about to step into the car.
Elaine, surprised, drew back. Billy picked up the piece of bread and, with all the actions of having discovered a treasure, began to gnaw at it voraciously.
Shocked at the disgusting sight, she tried to take the bread away from him.
"I know it's dirty, Miss," whimpered Billy, "but it's the first food I've seen for four days."
Instantly Elaine was full of sympathy. She had taken the food away. That would not suffice.
"What's your name, little boy?" she asked.
"Billy," he replied, blubbering.
"Where do you live?"
"With me mother and father--they're sick--nothing to eat--"
He was whimpering an address far over on the East Side.
"Get into the car," Elaine directed.
"Gee--but this is swell," he cried, with no fake, this time.
On they went, through the tenement canyons, dodging children and pushcarts, stopping first at a grocer's, then at a butcher's and a delicatessen. Finally the car stopped where Billy directed. Billy hobbled out, followed by Elaine and her chauffeur, his arms piled high with provisions. She was indeed a lovely Lady Bountiful as a crowd of kids quickly surrounded the car.
In the meantime Dago Mike and Kitty the Hawk had gone to a wretched flat, before which Billy stopped. Kitty sat on the bed, putting dark circles under her eyes with a blackened cork. She was very thin and emaciated, but it was dissipation that had done it.
Dago Mike was correspondingly poorly dressed.
He had paused beside the window to look out. "She's coming," he announced finally.
Kitty hastily jumped into the rickety bed, while Mike took up a crutch that was standing idly in a corner. She coughed resignedly and he limped about, forlorn. They had assumed their parts which were almost to the burlesque of poverty, when the door was pushed open and Billy burst in followed by Elaine and the chauffeur.
"Oh, ma--oh, pa," he cried running forward and kissing his pseudo-parents, as Elaine, overcome with sympathy, directed the chauffeur to lay the things on a shaky table.
"God bless you, lady, for a benevolent angel!" muttered the pair, to which Elaine responded by moving over to the wretched bed and bending down to stroke the forehead of the sick woman.
Billy and Mike exchanged a sly wink.
Just then the door opened again. All were genuinely surprised this time, for a prim, spick and span, middle-aged woman entered.
"I am Miss Statistix, of the organized charities," she announced, looking around sharply.
"I saw your car standing outside, Miss, and the children below told me you were up here. I came up to see whether you were aiding really DESERVING poor."
She laid a marked emphasis on the word, pursing up her lips. There was no mistaking the apprehension that these fine birds of prey had of her, either.
Miss Statistix took a step forward, looking in a very superior manner from Elaine to the packages of food and then at these prize members of the Brotherhood. She snorted contemptuously.
"Why--wh-what's the matter?" asked Elaine, fidgeting uncomfortably, as if she were herself guilty, in the icy atmosphere that now seemed to envelope all things.
"This man is a gunman, that woman is a bad woman, the boy is Billy the Bread-Snatcher," she answered precisely, drawing out a card on which to record something,
"and you, Miss, are a fool!"
"Ya!" snarled the two precious falsers, "get out o' here!"
There was no combating Miss Statistix. She overwhelmed all arguments by the very exactness of her personality.
"YOU get out!" she countered.
Kitty and Mike, accompanied by Billy, sneaked out. Elaine, now very much embarrassed, looked about, wondering at the rapid-fire change. Miss Statistix smiled pityingly.
"Such innocence!" she murmured sadly shaking her head as she lead Elaine to the door.
"Don't you know better than to try to help anybody without INVESTIGATING?"
Elaine departed, speechless, properly squelched, followed by her chauffeur.
. . . . . . . .
Meanwhile, a closed car, such as had stood across from the laboratory, had drawn up not far from the Dodge house. Near it was a man in rather shabby clothes and a visored cap on which were the words in dull gold lettering, "Metropolitan Window Cleaning Co." He carried a bucket and a small extension ladder.
In the darkened recesses of the car was the Clutching Hand himself, masked as usual. He had his watch in his hand and was giving most minute instructions to the window cleaner about something. As the latter turned to go, a sharp observer would have noted that it was Dan the Dude, still further disguised.
A few moments later, Dan appeared at the servants' entrance of the Dodge house and rang the bell. Jennings, who happened to be down there, came to the door.
"Man to clean the windows," saluted the bogus cleaner, touching his hat in a way quietly to call attention to the words on it and drawing from his pocket a faked written order.
"All right," nodded Jennings examining the order and finding it apparently all right.
Dan followed him in, taking the ladder and bucket upstairs, where Aunt Josephine was still reading.
"The man to clean the windows, ma'am," apologized Jennings.
"Oh, very well," she nodded, taking up her book, to go. Then, recalling the frequent injunctions of Kennedy, she paused long enough to speak quietly to Jennings.
"Stay here and watch him," she whispered as she went out.
Jennings nodded, while Dan opened a window and set to work.
. . . . . . . .
Elaine had scarcely started again in her car down the crowded narrow street. From her position she could not possibly have seen Johnnie, another of the Brotherhood, watching her eagerly up the street.
But as her car approached, Johnnie, with great determination, pulled himself together and ran forward across the street. She saw that.
"Oh!" she screamed, her heart almost stopping.
He had fallen directly in front of the wheels of the car, apparently, and although the chauffeur stopped with a jolt, it seemed that the boy had been run over.
They jumped out. There he was, sure enough, under the very wheels. People came running now in all directions and lifted him up, groaning piteously. He seemed literally twisted into a knot which looked as if every bone in his body was broken or dislocated.
Elaine was overcome. For, following their natural instincts the crowd began pushing in with cries of "Lynch the driver!" It would have gone hard with him, too, if she had not interfered.
"Here!" cried Elaine, stepping in. "It wasn't his fault. The boy ran across the street right in front of the car. Now--we're just going to rush this boy to the hospital--right away!"
She lifted Johnnie gently into the car herself and they drove off, to a very vigorous blowing of the horn.
A few moments later they pulled up before the ambulance entrance to the hospital.
"Quick!" beckoned Elaine to the attendants, who ran out and carried Johnnie, still a complicated knot of broken bones, inside.
In the reception room were a couple of nurses and a young medical student, when Johnnie was carried in and laid on the bed. The student, more interested in Elaine than the boy, examined him. His face wore a puzzled look and there was every reason to believe that Johnnie was seriously injured.
At that moment the door opened and an elderly, gray-bearded house physician entered.
The others stepped back from the bed respectfully. He advanced and examined Johnnie.
The doctor looked at the boy a moment, then at Elaine.
"I will now effect a miraculous cure by the laying on of hands," he announced, adding quickly, "--and of feet!"
To the utter surprise of all he seized the boy by the coat collar, lifting him up and actually bouncing him on the floor. Then he picked him up, shook him and ran him out of the room, delivering one last kick as he went through the door. By the way Johnnie went, it was quite evident that he was no more injured than the chauffeur. Elaine did not know whether to be angry or to laugh, but finally joined in the general laugh.
"That was Double-Jointed Johnnie," puffed the doctor, as he returned to them, "one of the greatest accident fakers in the city."
Elaine, having had two unfortunate experiences during the day, now decided to go home and the doctor politely escorted her to her car.
. . . . . . . .
From his closed car, the Clutching Hand gazed intently at the Dodge house. He could see Dan on the ladder, now washing the library window, his back toward him.
Dan turned slowly and made the sign of the hand. Turning to his chauffeur, the master criminal spoke a few words in a low tone and the driver hurried off.
A few minutes later the driver might have been seen entering a near-by drug store and going into the telephone booth. Without a moment's hesitation he called up the Dodge house and Marie, Elaine's maid, answered.
"Is Jennings there?" he asked. "Tell him a friend wants to speak to him."
"Wait a minute," she answered. "I'll get him."
Marie went toward the library, leaving the telephone off the hook. Dan was washing the windows, half inside, half outside the house, while Jennings was trying to be very busy, although it was apparent that he was watching Dan closely.
"A friend of yours wants to speak to you over the telephone, Jennings," said Marie, as she came into the library.
The butler responded slowly, with a covert glance at Dan.
No sooner had they gone, however, than Dan climbed all the way into the room, ran to the door and looked after them. Then he ran to the window. Across and down the street, the Clutching Hand was gazing at the house. He had seen Dan disappear and suspected that the time had come.
Sure enough, there was the sign of the hand. He hastily got out of the car and hurried up the street. All this time the chauffeur was keeping Jennings busy over the telephone with some trumped-up story.
As the master criminal came in by the ladder through the open window, Dan was on guard, listening down the hallway. A signal from Dan, and Clutching Hand slid back of the portieres. Jennings was returning.
"I've finished these windows," announced Dan as the butler reappeared. "Now, I'll clean the hall windows."
Jennings followed like a shadow, taking the bucket.
No sooner had they gone than Clutching Hand stealthily came from behind the portieres.
One of the maids was sweeping in the hall as Dan went toward the window, about to wash it.
"I wonder whether I locked these windows?" muttered Jennings, pausing in the hallway.
"I guess I'd better make sure."
He had taken only a step toward the library again, when Dan watchfully caught sight of him. It would never do to have Jennings snooping around there now. Quick action was necessary. Dan knocked over a costly Sevres vase.
"There--clumsy--see what you've done!" berated Jennings, starting to pick up the pieces.
Dan had acted his part well and promptly. In the library, Clutching Hand was busily engaged at that moment beside the secret panel searching for the spring that released it.
He ran his finger along the woodwork, pausing here and there without succeeding.
"Confound it!" he muttered, searching feverishly.
. . . . . . . .
Kennedy, having made the arrangements with the telephone company by which he had a clear wire from the Dodge house to his laboratory, had rejoined me there and was putting on the finishing touches to his installation of the vocaphone.
Every now and then he would switch it on, and we would listen in as he demonstrated the wonderful little instrument to me. He had heard the window cleaner and Jennings, but thought nothing of it at the time.
Once, however, Craig paused and I saw him listening more intently than usual.
"They've gone out," he muttered, "but surely there is someone in the Dodge library."
I listened; too. The thing was so sensitive that even a whisper could be magnified and I certainly did hear something.
Kennedy frowned. What was that scratching noise? Could it be Jennings? Perhaps it was Rusty.
Just then we could distinguish a sound as though someone had moved about.
"No--that's not Jennings," cried Craig. "He went out."
He looked at me a moment. The same stealthy noise was repeated.
"It's the Clutching Hand!" he exclaimed excitedly.
. . . . . . . .
A moment later, Dan hurried into the Dodge library.
"For heaven's sake, Chief, hurry!" he whispered hoarsely. "The falsers must have fallen down. The girl herself is coming!"
Dan himself had no time to waste. He retreated into the hallway just as Jennings was opening the door for Elaine.
Marie took her wraps and left her, while Elaine handed her numerous packages to Jennings. Dan watched every motion.
"Put them away, Jennings," she said softly.
Jennings had obeyed and gone upstairs. Elaine moved toward the library. Dan took a quiet step or two behind her, in the same direction.
In the library, Clutching Hand was now frantically searching for the spring. He heard Elaine coming and dodged behind the curtains again just as she entered.
With a hasty look about, she saw no one. Then she went quickly to the panel, found the spring, and pressed it. So many queer things had happened to her since she went out that she had begun to worry over the safety of the papers.
The panel opened. They were there, all right. She opened the box and took them out, hesitating to break the seal before Kennedy arrived.
Stealthy and tiger-like the Clutching Hand crept up behind her. As he did so, Dan gazed in through the portieres from the hall.
With a spring, Clutching Hand leaped at Elaine, snatching at the papers. Elaine clung to them tenaciously in spite of the surprise, and they struggled for them, Clutching Hand holding one hand over her mouth to prevent her screaming. Instantly Dan was there, aiding his chief.
"Choke her! Strangle her! Don't let her scream!" he ground out.
They fought viciously. Would they succeed? It was two desperate, unscrupulous men against one frail girl.
Suddenly, from the man in armor in the corner, as if by a miracle came a deep, loud voice.
"Help! Help! Murder! Police! They are strangling me!"
The effect was terrific.
Clutching Hand and Dan, hardened in crime as they were, fell back, dazed, overcome for the moment at the startling effect.
They looked about. Not a soul.
Then to their utter consternation, from the vizor of the helmet again came the deep, vibrating warning.
"Help! Murder! Police!"
. . . . . . . .
Kennedy and I had been listening over the vocaphone, for the moment nonplussed at the fellow's daring.
Then we heard from the uncanny instrument, "For Heaven's sake, Chief, hurry! The falsers have fallen down. The girl herself is coming!"
What it meant we did not know. But Craig was almost beside himself, as he ordered me to try to get the police by telephone, if there was any way to block them. Only instant action would count, however. What to do?
He could hear the master criminal plainly fumbling, now.
"Yes, that's the Clutching Hand," he repeated.
"Wait," I cautioned, "someone else is coming!"
By a sort of instinct he seemed to recognize the sounds.
"Elaine!" he exclaimed, paling.
Instantly followed, in less time than I can tell it, the sounds of a suppressed scuffle.
"He has seized her--gagged her," I cried in an agony of suspense.
We could now hear everything that was going on in the library. Craig was wildly excited.
As for me, I was speechless. Here was the vocaphone we had installed. It had warned us.
But what could we do?
I looked blankly at Kennedy. He was equal to the emergency.
He calmly turned a switch.
Then, at the top of his lungs, he shouted, "Help! Help! Police! They are strangling me!"
I looked at him in amazement. What did he think he could do-- blocks away?
"It works both ways," he muttered. "Help! Murder! Police!"
We could hear the astounded cursing of the two men. Also, down the hall, now, we could hear footsteps approaching in answe