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.