First came several calls from people with bills and she put them off most adroitly.

Then we heard a call that caused Kennedy to look at me quickly, stop the machine and start at that point over again.

“That’s what I wanted,” he said as we listened in: 

“Give me 4494 Greenwich.”

“Hello.”

“Hello, Chief.  This is Flirty.  Have you done anything yet in the little matter we talked about?

“Say—­be careful of names—­over the wire.”

“You know—­what I mean.”

“Yes, the trick will be pulled off at three o’clock.

“Good!  Good-bye and thank you!”

“Good-bye.”

Kennedy stopped the machine and I looked at him blankly.

“She called Greenwich 4494 and was told that the trick would be pulled off at three o’clock today,” he ruminated.

“What trick?” I asked.

He shook his head.  “I don’t know.  That is what we must find out.  I hadn’t expected a tip like that.  What I wanted was to find out how to get at the Clutching Hand.”

He paused and considered a minute, then moved to the telephone.

“There’s only one thing to do and that’s to follow out my original scheme,” he said energetically.  “Information, please.”

“Where is Greenwich 4494?” he asked a moment later.

The minutes passed.  “Thank you,” he cried, writing down on a pad an address over on the west side near the river front.  Then turning to me he explained, “Walter, we’ve got him at last!”

Craig rose and put on his hat and coat, thrusting a pair of opera glasses into his pocket, in case we should want to observe the place at a distance.  I followed him excitedly.  The trail was hot.

Kennedy and I came at last to the place on the West Side where the crooked streets curved off.

Instead of keeping on until he came to the place we sought, he turned and quickly slipped behind the shelter of a fence.  There was a broken board in the fence and he bent down, gazing through with the opera glasses.

Across the lot was the new headquarters, a somewhat dilapidated old-fashioned brick house of several generations back.  Through the glass we could see an evil-countenanced crook slinking along.  He mounted the steps and rang the bell, turning as he waited.

From a small aperture in the doorway looked out another face, equally evil.  Under cover, the crook made the sign of the clutching hand twice and was admitted.

“That’s the place, all right,” whispered Kennedy with satisfaction.

He hurried to a telephone booth where he called several numbers.  Then we returned to the laboratory, while Kennedy quickly figured out a plan of action.  I knew Chase was expected there soon.

From the table he picked up the small coil over which I had seen him working, and attached it to the bell and some batteries.  He replaced it on the table, while I watched curiously.