He had not finished even that, when a peculiar noise in the laboratory itself disturbed him and he hastily thrust the asbestos platinum shield into his pocket.

Though we had not realized it, our return had been anticipated.

Suddenly, from a closet projected a magazine gun and before we could move, the Clutching Hand himself slowly appeared, behind us.

“Ah!” he exclaimed with mock politeness, “so, you thought you’d fool me, did you?  Well!”

Just then, two other crooks, who had let themselves in by the skeleton key through the basement jumped into the room through that door covering us.

We started to our feet, but in an instant found ourselves both sprawling on the floor.

In the cabinet, beneath the laboratory table, another crook had been hidden and he tackled us with all the skill of an old football player against whom we had no defence.

Four of them were upon us instantly.

. . . . . . . .

At the same time, Thomas, the faithless valet of Bennett, had been dispatched by the Clutching Hand to commandeer his master’s roadster in his absence, and, carrying out the instructions, he had driven up before Elaine’s house at the very moment when she was going out for a walk.

Thomas jumped out of the car and touched his hat deferentially.

“A message from Mr. Bennett, ma’am,” he explained.  “Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bennett have sent me to ask you to come over to the laboratory.”

Unsuspecting, Elaine stepped into the car and drove off.

Instead, however, of turning and pulling up on the laboratory side of the street, Thomas stopped opposite it.  He got out and Elaine, thinking that perhaps it was to save time that he had not turned the car around, followed.

But when the valet, instead of crossing the street, went up to a door of a house and rang the bell, she began to suspect that all was not as it should be.

“What are you going here for, Thomas?” she asked.  “There’s the laboratory—­over there.”

“But, Miss Dodge,” he apologized, “Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bennett are here.  They told me they’d be here.”

The door was opened quickly by a lookout of the Clutching Hand and the valet asked if Craig and Elaine’s lawyer were in.  Of course the lookout replied that they were and, before Elaine knew it, she was jostled into the dark hallway and the door was banged shut.

Resistance was useless now and she was hurried along until another door was opened.

There she saw LeCroix and the other crooks.

And, as the door slammed, she caught sight of the fearsome
Clutching Hand himself.

She drew back, but was too frightened even to scream.

With a harsh, cruel laugh, the super-criminal beckoned to her to follow him and look down through a small trap door.

Unable now to resist, she looked.