The Romance of Elaine | Page 4

afternoon following the day of our strange discovery of the
fireplace done in sympathetic ink on the apparently blank sheet of
paper in Bennett's effects, when the speaking-tube sounded and I
answered it.
"Why--it's Elaine," I exclaimed.
Kennedy's face showed the keenest pleasure at the unexpected visit.

"Tell her to come right up," he said quickly.
I opened the door for her.
"Why--Elaine--I'm awfully glad to see you," he greeted, "but I thought
you were rusticating."
"I was, but, Craig, it seems to me that wherever I go, something
happens," she returned. "You know, Aunt Tabby said there were haunts.
I thought it was an old woman's fear--but last night I heard the strangest
noises out there, and I thought I saw a face at the window--a face in a
helmet. And when Joshua went out, this is what he found on the ground
under my window."
She handed Kennedy a box, a peculiar affair which she touched
gingerly and only with signs of the greatest aversion.
Kennedy opened it. There, in the bottom of the box, was a little ivory
devil-god. He looked at it curiously a moment.
"Let me see," he ruminated, still regarding the sign. "The house you
bought for Aunt Tabby, once belonged to Bennett, didn't it?"
Elaine nodded her head. "Yes, but I don't see what that can have to do
with it," she agreed, adding with a shudder, "Bennett is dead."
Kennedy had taken a piece of paper from the desk where he had put it
away carefully. "Have you ever seen anything that looks like this?" he
asked, handing her the paper.
Elaine looked at the plan carefully, as Kennedy and I scanned her face.
She glanced up, her expression showing plainly the wonder she felt.
"Why, yes," she answered. "That looks like Aunt Tabby's fireplace in
the living-room."
Kennedy said nothing for a moment. Then he seized his hat and coat.
"If you don't mind," he said, "we'll go back there with you."

"Mind?" she repeated. "Just what I had hoped you would do."
. . . . . . .
Wu Fang, the Chinese master mind, had arrived in New York.
Beside Wu, the inscrutable, Long Sin, astute though he was, was a
mere pigmy--his slave, his advance agent, as it were, a tentacle sent out
to discover the most promising outlet for the nefarious talents of his
master.
New York did not know of the arrival of Wu Fang, the mysterious-- yet.
But down in the secret recesses of Chinatown, in the ways that are
devious and dark, the oriental crooks knew--and trembled.
Thus it happened that Long Sin was not permitted to enjoy even the
foretaste of Bennett's spoils which he had forced from him after his
weird transformation into his real self, the Clutching Hand, when the
Chinaman had given him the poisoned draught that had put him into his
long sleep.
He had obtained the paper showing where the treasure amassed by the
Clutching Hand was hidden, but Wu Fang, his master, had come.
Wu had immediately established himself in the most sumptuous of
apartments, hidden behind the squalid exterior of the ordinary tenement
building in Chinatown.
The night following his arrival, Wu Fang was reclining on a divan,
when his servant announced that Long Sin was at the door.
As Long Sin entered, it was evident that, cunning and shrewd though
he was himself, Wu was indeed his master. He approached in fear and
awe, cringing low.
"Have you brought the map with you?" asked Wu.
Long Sin bowed low again, and drew from under his coat the paper
which he had obtained from Bennett. For a moment the two, master and

slave in guile, bent over, closely studying it.
At one point in the map Long Sin's bony finger paused over a note
which Bennett had made:
BEWARE POISONED GAS UPON OPENING COMPARTMENT.
"And you think you can trace it out?" asked Wu.
"Without a doubt," bowed Long Sin.
He went over to a bag near-by, which he had already sent up by another
servant, and opened it. Inside was an oxygen helmet. He replaced it,
after showing it to Wu.
"With the aid of the science of the white devil, we shall overcome the
science of the white devil," purred Long Sin subtly.
Outside, Wu had already ordered a car to wait, and together the two
drove off rapidly. Into the country, they sped, until at last they came to
a lonely turn in a lonely road, somewhat removed from the section that
was rapidly being built up as population reached out from the city, but
on a single-tracked trolley line.
Long Sin alighted and disappeared with a parting word of instruction
from Wu who remained in the car. The Chinaman carried with him the
heavy bag