"
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 hang-outs 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.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164