The Exploits of Elaine | Page 6

hand!
. . . . . . . .
Kennedy had turned from his futile examination for marks on the telephone. There stood the safe, a moderate sized strong box but of a modern type. He tried the door. It was locked. There was not a mark on it. The combination had not been tampered with. Nor had there been any attempt to "soup" the safe.
With a quick motion he felt in his pocket as if looking for gloves. Finding none, he glanced about, and seized a pair of tongs from beside the grate. With them, in order not to confuse any possible finger prints on the bust, he lifted it off. I gave a gasp of surprise.
There, in the top of the safe, yawned a gaping hole through which one could have thrust his arm!
"What is it?" we asked, crowding about him.
"Thermit," he replied laconically.
"Thermit?" I repeated.
"Yes--a compound of iron oxide and powdered aluminum invented by a chemist at Essen, Germany. It gives a temperature of over five thousand degrees. It will eat its way through the strongest steel."
Jennings, his mouth wide open with wonder, advanced to take the bust from Kennedy.
"No--don't touch it," he waved him off, laying the bust on the desk. "I want no one to touch it--don't you see how careful I was to use the tongs that there might be no question about any clue this fellow may have left on the marble?"
As he spoke, Craig was dusting over the surface of the bust with some black powder.
"Look!" exclaimed Craig suddenly.
We bent over. The black powder had in fact brought out strongly some peculiar, more or less regular, black smudges.
"Finger prints!" I cried excitedly.
"Yes," nodded Kennedy, studying them closely. "A clue--perhaps."
"What--those little marks--a clue?" asked a voice behind us.
I turned and saw Elaine, looking over our shoulders, fascinated. It was evidently the first time she had realized that Kennedy was in the room.
"How can you tell anything by that?'" she asked.
"Why, easily," he answered picking up a brass blotting-pad which lay on the desk. "You see, I place my finger on this weight--so. I dust the powder over the mark--so. You could see it even without the powder on this glass. Do you see those lines? There are various types of markings--four general types--and each person's markings are different, even if of the same general type--loop, whorl, arch, or composite."
He continued working as he talked.
"Your thumb marks, for example, Miss Dodge, are different from mine. Mr. Jameson's are different from both of us. And this fellow's finger prints are still different. It is mathematically impossible to find two alike in every respect."
Kennedy was holding the brass blotter near the bust as he talked.
I shall never forget the look of blank amazement on his face as he bent over closer.
"My God!" he exclaimed excitedly, "this fellow is a master criminal! He has actually made stencils or something of the sort on which by some mechanical process he has actually forged the hitherto infallible finger prints!"
I, too, bent over and studied the marks on the bust and those Kennedy had made on the blotter to show Elaine.
THE FINGER PRINTS ON THE BUST WERE KENNEDY'S OWN.
CHAPTER II
THE TWILIGHT SLEEP
Kennedy had thrown himself wholeheartedly into the solution of the mysterious Dodge case.
Far into the night, after the challenge of the forged finger print, he continued at work, endeavoring to extract a clue from the meagre evidence--the bit of cloth and trace of poison already obtained from other cases, and now added the strange succession of events that surrounded the tragedy we had just witnessed.
We dropped around at the Dodge house the next morning. Early though it was, we found Elaine, a trifle paler but more lovely than ever, and Perry Bennett themselves vainly endeavoring to solve the mystery of the Clutching Hand.
They were at Dodge's desk, she in the big desk chair, he standing beside her, looking over some papers.
"There's nothing there," Bennett was saying as we entered.
I could not help feeling that he was gazing down at Elaine a bit more tenderly than mere business warranted.
"Have you--found anything?" queried Elaine anxiously, turning eagerly to Kennedy.
"Nothing--yet," he answered shaking his head, but conveying a quiet idea of confidence in his tone.
Just then Jennings, the butler, entered, bringing the morning papers. Elaine seized the Star and hastily opened it. On the first page was the story I had telephone down very late in the hope of catching a last city edition.
We all bent over and Craig read aloud:
"CLUTCHING HAND" STILL AT LARGE
NEW YORK'S MASTER CRIMINAL REMAINS UNDETECTED--PERPETRATES NEW DARING MURDER AND ROBBERY OF MILLIONAIRE DODGE
He had scarcely finished reading the brief but alarming news story that followed and laid the paper on the desk, when a stone came smashing through the window from the street.
Startled, we all jumped to our feet.