Jennings admitted us sleepily.
. . . . . . . .
It could not have been long after we left Miss Dodge late in the
afternoon that Susie Martin, who had been quite worried over our
long absence after the attempt to rob her father, dropped in on
Elaine. Wide-eyed, she had listened to Elaine's story of what had
happened.
"And you think this Clutching Hand has never recovered the
incriminating papers that caused him to murder your father?" asked
Susie.
Elaine shook her head. "No. Let me show you the new safe I've
bought. Mr. Kennedy thinks it wonderful."
"I should think you'd be proud of it," admired Susie. "I must tell
father to get one, too."
At that very moment, if they had known it, the Clutching Hand with
his sinister, masked face, was peering at the two girls from the
other side of the portieres.
Susie rose to go and Elaine followed her to the door. No sooner
had she gone than the Clutching Hand came out from behind the
curtains. He gazed about a moment, then moving over to the safe
about which the two girls had been talking, stealthily examined
it.
He must have heard someone coming, for, with a gesture of hate at
the safe itself, as though he personified it, he slipped back of
the curtains again.
Elaine had returned and as she sat down at the desk to go over
some papers which Bennett had left relative to settling up the
estate, the masked intruder stealthily and silently withdrew.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82