LITMIR.BIZ

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had really happened, as we learned later from Elaine and others, was that when the cross roads was reached, the three crooks in the limousine had stopped long enough to speak to an accomplice stationed there, according to their plan for a getaway. He was a tough looking individual who might have been hoboing it to the city.

      When, a few minutes later, Kennedy and Elaine had approached the fork, their driver had slowed up, as if in doubt which way to go. Craig had stuck his head out of the window, as I had done, and, seeing the crossroads, had told the chauffeur to stop. There stood the hobo.

      “Did a car pass here, just now—a big car?” called Craig.

      The man put his hand to his ear, as if only half comprehending.

      “Which way did the big car go?” repeated Kennedy.

      The hobo approached the taxicab sullenly, as if he had a grudge against cars in general.

      One question after another elicited little that could be construed as intelligence. If Craig had only been able to see, he would have found out that, with his back toward the taxicab driver, the hobo held one hand behind him and made the sign of the Clutching Hand, glancing surreptitiously at the driver to catch the answering sign, while Craig gazed earnestly up the two roads.

      At last Craig gave him up as hopeless. “Well—go ahead—that way,” he indicated, picking the most likely road.

      As the chauffeur was about to start, he stalled his engine.

      “Hurry!” urged Craig, exasperated at the delays.

      The driver got out and tried to crank the engine. Again and again he turned it over, but, somehow, it refused to start. Then he lifted the hood and began to tinker.

      “What’s the matter?” asked Craig, impatiently jumping out and bending over the engine, too.

      The driver shrugged his shoulders. “Must be something wrong with the ignition, I guess,” he replied.

      Kennedy looked the car over hastily. “I can’t see anything wrong,” he frowned.

      “Well, there is,” growled the driver.

      Precious minutes were speeding away, as they argued. Finally with his characteristic energy, Kennedy put the taxicab driver aside.

      “Let me try it,” he said. “Miss Dodge, will you arrange that spark and throttle?”

      Elaine, equal to anything, did so, and Craig bent down and cranked the engine. It started on the first spin.

      “See!” he exclaimed. “There wasn’t anything, after all.”

      He took a step toward the taxicab.

      “Say,” objected the driver, nastily, interposing himself between Craig and the wheel which he seemed disposed to take now, “who’s running this boat, anyhow?”

      Surprised, Kennedy tried to shoulder the fellow out of the way. The driver resisted sullenly.

      “Mr. Kennedy—look out!” cried Elaine.

      Craig turned. But it was too late. The rough looking fellow had wakened to life. Suddenly he stepped up behind Kennedy with a blackjack. As the heavy weight descended, Craig crumpled up on the ground, unconscious.

      With a scream, Elaine turned and started to run. But the chauffeur seized her arm.

      “Say, bo,” he asked of the rough fellow, “what does Clutching Hand want with her? Quick! There’s another cab likely to be along in a moment with that fellow Jameson in it.”

      The rough fellow, with an oath, seized her and dragged her into the taxicab. “Go ahead!” he growled, indicating the road.

      And away they sped, leaving Kennedy unconscious on the side of the road where we found him.

      “What are we to do?” I asked helplessly of Kennedy, when we had at last got him on his feet.

      His head still ringing from the force of the blow of the blackjack, Craig stooped down, then knelt in the dust of the road, then ran ahead a bit where it was somewhat muddy.

      “Which way—which way?” he muttered to himself.

      I thought perhaps the blow had affected him and leaned over to see what he was doing. Instead, he was studying the marks made by the tire of the Clutching Hand cab. Very decidedly, there in the road, the little anti-skid marks on the tread of the tire showed—some worn, some cut—but with each revolution the same marks reappearing unmistakably. More than that, it was an unusual make of tire. Craig was actually studying the finger prints, so to speak, of an automobile!

      More slowly now and carefully, we proceeded, for a mistake meant losing the trail of Elaine. Kennedy absolutely refused to get inside our cab, but clung tightly to a metal rod outside while he stood on the running board—now straining his eyes along the road to catch any faint glimpse of either taxi or limousine, or the dust from them, now gazing intently at the ground following the finger prints of the taxicab that was carrying off Elaine. All pain was forgotten by him now in the intensity of his anxiety for her.

      We came to another crossroads and the driver glanced at Craig. “Stop!” he ordered.

      In another instant he was down in the dirt, examining the road for marks.

      “That way!” he indicated, leaping back to the running board.

      We piled back into the car and proceeded under Kennedy’s direction, as fast as he would permit. So it continued, perhaps for a couple of hours.

      At last Kennedy stopped the cab and slowly directed the driver to veer into an open space that looked peculiarly lonesome. Near it stood a one story brick factory building, closed, but not abandoned.

      As I looked about at the unattractive scene, Kennedy already was down on his knees in the dirt again, studying the tire tracks. They were all confused, showing that the taxicab we were following had evidently backed in and turned several times before going on.

      “Crossed by another set of tire tracks!” he exclaimed excitedly, studying closer. “That must have been the limousine, waiting.”

      Laboriously he was following the course of the cars in the open space, when the one word escaped him, “Footprints!”

      He was up and off in a moment, before we could imagine what he was after. We had got out of the cab, and followed him as, down to the very shore of a sort of cove or bay, he went. There lay a rusty, discarded boiler on the beach, half submerged in the rising tide. At this tank the footprints seemed to go right down the sand and into the waves which were slowly obliterating them. Kennedy gazed out as if to make out a possible boat on the horizon, where the cove widened out.

      “Look!” he cried.

      Farther down the shore, a few feet, I had discovered the same prints, going in the opposite direction, back toward the place from which we had just come. I started to follow them, but soon found myself alone. Kennedy had paused beside the old boiler.

      “What is it?” I asked, retracing my steps.

      He did not answer, but seemed to be listening. We listened also. There certainly was a most peculiar noise inside that tank.

      Was it a muffled scream?

      Kennedy reached down and picked up a rock, hitting the tank a resounding blow. As the echo died down, he listened again.

      Yes, there was a sound—a scream perhaps—a woman’s voice, faint, but unmistakable.

      I looked at his face inquiringly. Without a word I read in it the confirmation of the thought that had flashed into my mind.

      Elaine Dodge was inside!

      First had come the limousine, with its three bandits, to the spot fixed on as a rendezvous. Later had come the taxicab. As it hove into sight, the three well-dressed crooks had drawn revolvers, thinking perhaps the plan for getting rid of Kennedy might possibly have miscarried. But the taxicab driver and the rough-faced

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