“Elaine!” he exclaimed, paling.

Instantly followed, in less time than I can tell it, the sounds of a suppressed scuffle.

“He has seized her—­gagged her,” I cried in an agony of suspense.

We could now hear everything that was going on in the library.  Craig was wildly excited.  As for me, I was speechless.  Here was the vocaphone we had installed.  It had warned us.  But what could we do?

I looked blankly at Kennedy.  He was equal to the emergency.

He calmly turned a switch.

Then, at the top of his lungs, he shouted, “Help!  Help!  Police! 
They are strangling me!”

I looked at him in amazement.  What did he think he could do—­ blocks away?

“It works both ways,” he muttered.  “Help!  Murder!  Police!”

We could hear the astounded cursing of the two men.  Also, down the hall, now, we could hear footsteps approaching in answer to his call for help—­Aunt Josephine, Jennings, Marie, and others, all shouting out that there were cries in the library.

“The deuce!  What is it?” muttered a gruff voice.

“The man in armor!” hissed Clutching Hand.

“Here they come, too, Chief!”

There was a parting scuffle.

“There—­take that!”

A loud metallic ringing came from the vocaphone.

Then, silence!

What had happened

. . . . . . . .

In the library, recovered from their first shock of surprise, Dan cried out to the Clutching Hand, “The deuce.  What is it?”

Then, looking about, Clutching Hand quickly took in the situation.

“The man in armor!” he pointed out.

Dan was almost dead with fright at the weird thing.

“Here they come, too, Chief,” he gasped, as, down the hall he could hear the family shouting out that someone was in the library.

With a parting thrust, Clutching Hand sent Elaine reeling.

She held on to only a corner of the papers.  He had the greater part of them.  They were torn and destroyed, anyway.

Finally, with all the venomousness of which he was capable, Clutching Hand rushed at the armor suit, drew back his gloved fist, and let it shoot out squarely in a vicious solar plexus blow.

“There—­take that!” he roared.

The suit rattled, furiously.  Out of it spilled the vocaphone with a bang on the floor.

An instant later those in the hall rushed in.  But the Clutching Hand and Dan were gone out of the window, the criminal carrying the greater part of the precious papers.

Some ran to Elaine, others to the window.  The ladder had been kicked away and the criminals were gone.  Leaping into the waiting car, they had been whisked away.

“Hello!  Hello!  Hello!” called a voice, apparently from nowhere.

“What is that?” cried Elaine, still blankly wondering.