“How?” demanded the other.

“Trying to get into the Dodge house.  Elaine did it.”

Slim was, quite evidently, badly wounded and was bleeding profusely.  A glance at him was enough for the studious-looking chap.  He went to a secret panel and, pressing it down, took out what was apparently a house telephone.

In another part of this mysterious house was the secret room of the Clutching Hand himself where he hid his identity from even his most trusted followers.  It was a small room, lined with books on every conceivable branch of science that might aid him and containing innumerable little odds and ends of paraphernalia that might help in his nefarious criminal career.

His telephone rang and he took down the receiver.

“Pitts Slim’s been wounded—­badly—­Chief,” was all he waited to hear.

With scarcely a word, he hung up the receiver, then opened a table drawer and took out his masking handkerchief.  Next he went to a nearby bookcase, pressed another secret spring, and a panel opened.  He passed through, the handkerchief adjusted.

Across, in the larger, outside study, another panel opened and the Clutching Hand, all crouched up, transformed, appeared.  Without a word he advanced to the couch on which the wounded crook lay and examined him.

“How did it happen?” he asked at length.

“Miss Dodge shot him,” answered the others, “with an automatic.”

“That Craig Kennedy must have given it to her!” he exclaimed with suppressed fury.

For a moment the Clutching Hand stopped to consider.  Then he seized the regular telephone.

“Dr. Morton?” he asked as he got the number he called.

Late as it was the doctor, who was a well-known surgeon in that part of the country, answered, apparently from an extension of his telephone near his bed.

The call was urgent and apparently from a family which he did not feel that he could neglect.

“Yes, I’ll be there—­in a few moments,” he yawned, hanging up the receiver and getting out of bed.

Dr. Morton was a middle-aged man, one of those medical men in whose judgment one instinctively relies.  From the brief description of the “hemorrhage” which the Clutching Hand had cleverly made over the wire, he knew that a life was at stake.  Quickly he dressed and went out to his garage, back of the house to get his little runabout.

It was only a matter of minutes before the doctor was speeding over the now deserted suburban roads, apparently on his errand of mercy.

At the address that had been given him, he drew up to the side of the road, got out and ran up the steps to the door.  A ring at the bell brought a sleepy man to the door, in his trousers and nightshirt.

“How’s the patient?” asked Dr. Morton, eagerly.

“Patient?” repeated the man, rubbing his eyes.  “There’s no one sick here.”

“Then what did you telephone for?” asked the doctor peevishly,