THE EXPLOITS OF ELAINE (& Its Sequel The Romance of Elaine). Arthur B. Reeve

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      Chapter II

      The Twilight Sleep

       Table of Contents

      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. Craig hurried to the window. Not a soul was in sight!

      He stooped and picked up the stone. To it was attached a piece of paper. Quickly he unfolded it and read:

      “Craig Kennedy will give up his search for the “Clutching Hand”— or die!”

      Later I recalled that there seemed to be a slight noise downstairs, as if at the cellar window through which the masked man had entered the night before.

      In point of fact, one who had been outside at the time might actually have seen a sinister face at that cellar window, but to us upstairs it was invisible. The face was that of the servant, Michael.

      Without another word Kennedy passed into the drawing room and took his hat and coat. Both Elaine and Bennett followed.

      “I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me—for the present,” Craig apologized.

      Elaine looked at him anxiously.

      “You—you will not let that letter intimidate you?” she pleaded, laying her soft white hand on his arm. “Oh, Mr. Kennedy,” she added, bravely keeping back the tears, “avenge him! All the money in the world would be too little to pay—if only—”

      At the mere mention of money Kennedy’s face seemed to cloud, but only for a moment. He must have felt the confiding pressure of her hand, for as she paused, appealingly, he took her hand in his, bowing slightly over it to look closer into her upturned face.

      “I’ll try,” he said simply.

      Elaine did not withdraw her hand as she continued to look up at him. Craig looked at her, as I had never seen him look at a woman before in all our long acquaintance.

      “Miss Dodge,” he went on, his voice steady as though he were repressing something, “I will never take another case until the ‘Clutching Hand’ is captured.”

      The look of gratitude she gave him would have been a princely reward in itself.

      I did not marvel that all the rest of that day and far into the night Kennedy was at work furiously in his laboratory, studying the notes, the texture of the paper, the character of the ink, everything that might perhaps suggest a new lead. It was all, apparently, however, without result.

      It was some time after these events that Kennedy, reconstructing what had happened, ran across, in a strange way which I need not tire the reader by telling, a Dr. Haynes, head of the Hillside Sanitarium for Women, whose story I shall relate substantially as we received it from his own lips:

      It must have been that same night that a distinguished visitor drove up in a cab to our Hillside Sanitarium, rang the bell and was admitted to my office. I might describe him as a moderately tall, well-built man with a pleasing way about him. Chiefly noticeable, it seems to me, were his mustache and bushy beard, quite medical and foreign.

      I am, by the way, the superintending physician, and that night I was sitting with Dr. Thompson, my assistant, in the office discussing a rather interesting case, when an attendant came in with a card and handed it to me. It read simply, “Dr. Ludwig Reinstrom, Coblenz.”

      “Here’s that Dr. Reinstrom, Thompson, about whom my friend in Germany wrote the other day,” I remarked, nodding to the attendant to admit Dr. Reinstrom.

      I might explain that while I was abroad some time ago, I made a particular study of the “Daemmerschlaf”—otherwise, the “twilight sleep,” at Freiburg where it was developed and at other places in Germany where the subject had attracted great attention. I was much impressed and had imported the treatment to Hillside.

      While we waited I reached into my desk and drew out the letter to which I referred, which ended, I recall:

      “As Dr. Reinstrom is in America, he will probably call on you. I am sure you will be glad to know him.

       “With kindest regards, I am,

      “Fraternally yours,

      “EMIL SCHWARZ, M. D.,

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