I was still puzzling over the note and was just about to call up Elaine when the speaking tube was blown and to my surprise I found it was Aunt Josephine who had called.

“Where is Mr. Kennedy?” she asked, greatly agitated.

“He has gone away for a few days,” I replied blankly.  “Is there anything I can do?”

She was very excited and hastily related what had happened at the parlor of the medium.

“What was her name?” I asked anxiously.

“Madame Savetsky,” she replied, to my surprise.

Astounded, I picked up Craig’s note from the desk and handed it to her without a word.  She read it with breathless eagerness.

“Come back there with me, please,” she begged, almost frantic with fear now.  “Something terrible may have happened.”

. . . . . . . .

Aunt Josephine had hardly left Savetsky when the trance was resumed and, in a few minutes, there came all sorts of supernatural manifestations.  The table beside Elaine began to turn and articles on it dropped to the floor.  Violent rappings followed in various parts of the room.  Both Elaine and Bennett who sat together in silence were much impressed by the marvellous phenomena—­not being able to see, in the darkness, the concealed wires that made them possible.

Suddenly, from the mysterious shadows of the cabinet, there appeared the spirit of Long Sin, whose death Elaine still believed she had caused when Adventuress Mary had lured her to the apartment.

Elaine was trembling with fear at the apparition.

As before, a strange voice sounded in the depths of the cabinet and again a message was heard, in low, solemn tones.

“I am Keka, and I have with me Long Sin.  His blood cries for vengeance.”

Elaine was overcome with horror at the words.

From the cabinet ran a thick stream of red, like blood, from which she recoiled, shuddering.

Then a dim, ghostly figure, apparently that of Long Sin, appeared.  The face was horribly distorted.  It seemed to breathe the very odor of the grave.

With arms outstretched, the figure glided from the cabinet and approached Elaine.  She shrank back further in fright, too horrified even to scream.

At the same moment, the medium drew a vapor pistol from her dress, and, as the ghost of Long Sin leaped at Elaine, Savetsky darted forward and shot a stream of vapor full in Bennett’s face.

Bennett dropped unconscious, the lights in the darkened room flashed up, and several of the men of the Clutching Hand rushed in.

Quickly the fireplace was turned on its cleverly constructed hinges, revealing the hidden passage.

Before any effective resistance could be made, Elaine and Bennett were hustled through the passage, securely bound, and placed on a divan in a curtained chamber back of the altar of the devil worshippers.