The Romance of Elaine | Page 2

got out. There, waiting for them, was "Uncle" Joshua, as Elaine playfully called him, a former gardener of the Dodges, now a plain, honest countryman on whom the city was fast encroaching, a jolly old fellow, unharmed by the world.
Aunt Tabby's was an attractive small house, not many miles from New York, yet not in the general line of suburban travel.
. . . . . . .
Kennedy and I had decided to bring Bennett's papers and documents over to the laboratory to examine them. We were now engaged in going over the great mass of material which he had collected, in the hope of finding some clue to the stolen millions which he must have amassed as a result of his villainy. The table was stacked high.
A knock at the door told us that the expressman had arrived and a moment later he entered, delivering a heavy box. Kennedy signed for it and started to unpack it.
I was hard at work, when I came across a large manila envelope carefully sealed, on which were written the figures "$7,000,000." Too excited even to exclaim, I tore the envelope open and examined the contents.
Inside was another envelope. I opened that. It contained merely a blank piece of paper!
With characteristic skill at covering his tracks, Bennett had also covered his money. Puzzled, I turned the paper over and over, looking at it carefully. It was a large sheet of paper, but it showed nothing.
"Huh!" I snorted to myself, "confound him."
Yet I could not help smiling at my own folly, a minute later, in thinking that the Clutching Hand would leave any information in such an obvious place as an envelope. I threw the paper into a wire basket on the desk and went on sorting the other stuff.
Kennedy had by this time finished unpacking the box, and was examining a bottle which he had taken from it.
"Come here, Walter," he called at length. "Ever see anything like that?"
"I can't say," I confessed, getting up to go to him. "What is it?"
"Bring a piece of paper." he added.
I went back to the desk where I had been working and looked about hastily. My eye fell on the blank sheet of paper which I had taken from Bennett's envelope, and I picked it up from the basket.
"Here's one," I said, handing it to him. "What are you doing?"
Kennedy did not answer directly, but began to treat the paper with the liquid from the bottle. Then he lighted a Bunsen burner and thrust the paper into the flame. The paper did not burn!
"A new system of fire-proofing," laughed Craig, enjoying my astonishment.
He continued to hold the paper in the flame. Still it did not burn.
"See?" he went on, withdrawing it, and starting to explain the properties of the new fire-proofer.
He had scarcely begun, when he stopped in surprise. He had happened to glance at the paper again, bent over to examine it more intently, and was now looking at it in surprise.
I looked also. There, clearly discernible on the paper, was a small part of what looked like an architect's drawing of a fireplace.
Craig looked up at me, nonplussed. "Where did you say you got that?" he asked.
"It was a blank piece of paper among Bennett's effects," I returned, as mystified as he, pointing at the littered desk at which I had been working.
Kennedy said nothing, but thrust the paper back again into the flame. Slowly, the heat of the burner seemed to bring out the complete drawing of the fireplace.
We looked at it, even more mystified. "What is it, do you suppose?" I queried.
"I think," he replied slowly, "that it was drawn with sympathetic ink. The heat of the burner brought it out into sight."
What was it about?
. . . . . . .
Elaine had gone to bed that night at Aunt Tabby's in the room which her old nurse had fixed up especially for her. It was a very attractive little room with dainty chintz curtains and covers and for the first time in many weeks Elaine slept soundly and fearlessly.
Down-stairs, in the living-room, Rusty also was asleep, his nose between his paws.
The living-room was in keeping with everything at Aunt Tabby's, plain, neat, homelike. On one side was a large fireplace that gave to it an air of quaint hospitality.
Suddenly Rusty woke up, his ears pointed at this fireplace. He stood a moment, listening, then, with a bark of alarm he sped swiftly from the living-room, up the stairs at a bound, until he came to Elaine's room.
Elaine felt his cold nose at her hand and stirred, then awoke.
"What is it, Rusty?" she asked, mindful of the former days when Rusty gave warning of the Clutching Hand and his emissaries.
Rusty wagged his tail. Something was wrong.
Elaine followed him down to the living-room. She