The Exploits of Elaine | Page 6

seconds. It came when the
hated snitch--for gangdom hates the informer worse than anything else
dead or alive--had turned a sufficiently dark and deserted corner.
A muffled thud, a stifled groan followed as a heavy section of lead pipe
wrapped in a newspaper descended on the crass skull of Limpy. The
wielder of the improvised but fatal weapon permitted himself the
luxury of an instant's cruel smile--then vanished into the darkness
leaving another complete job for the coroner and the morgue.
It was the vengeance of the Clutching Hand--swift, sure, remorseless.
And yet it had not been a night of complete success for the master
criminal, as anyone might have seen who could have followed his
sinuous route to a place of greater safety.
Unable to wait longer he pulled the papers he had taken from the safe
from his pocket. His chagrin at finding them to be blank paper found
only one expression of foiled fury--that menacing clutching 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