LITMIR.BIZ

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how can I ever thank you?”

      She seemed overcome with gratitude and took his hand, pressed it, even kissed it.

      “Just a minute,” he added, carefully extricating his hand. “I’ll be ready in just a minute.”

      Kennedy entered the room where I was listening.

      “What’s it all about, Craig?” I whispered, mystified.

      For a moment he stood thinking, apparently reconsidering what he had just done. Then his second thought seemed to approve it.

      “This is a trap of the Clutching Hand, Walter,” he whispered, adding tensely, “and we’re going to walk right into it.”

      I looked at him in amazement.

      “But, Craig,” I demurred, “that’s foolhardy. Have her trailed— anything—but——”

      He shook his head and with a mere motion of his hand brushed aside my objections as he went to a cabinet across the room.

      From one shelf he took out a small metal box and from another a test tube, placing the test tube in his waistcoat pocket, and the small box in his coatpocket, with excessive care.

      Then he turned and motioned to me to follow him out into the other room. I did so, stuffing my “gatt” into my pocket.

      “Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Jameson,” said Craig, presenting me to the pretty crook.

      The introduction quickly over, we three went out to get Craig’s car which he kept at a nearby garage.

      That forenoon, Perry Bennett was reading up a case. In the outer office Milton Schofield, his office boy, was industriously chewing gum and admiring his feet cocked up on the desk before him.

      The door to the waiting room opened and an attractive woman of perhaps thirty, dressed in extreme mourning, entered with a boy.

      Milton cast a glance of scorn at the “little dude.” He was in reality about fourteen years old but was dressed to look much younger.

      Milton took his feet down in deference to the lady, but snickered openly at the boy. A fight seemed imminent.

      “Did you wish to see Mr. Bennett?” asked the precocious Milton politely on one hand while on the other he made a wry grimace.

      “Yes—here is my card,” replied the woman.

      It was deeply bordered in black. Even Milton was startled at reading it: “Mrs. Taylor Dodge.”

      He looked at the woman in open-mouthed astonishment. Even he knew that Elaine’s mother had been dead for years.

      The woman, however, true to her name in the artistic coterie in which she was leader, had sunk into a chair and was sobbing convulsively, as only “Weepy Mary” could.

      It was so effective that even Milton was visibly moved. He took the card in, excitedly, to Bennett.

      “There’s a woman outside—says she is Mrs. Dodge!” he cried.

      If Milton had had an X-ray eye he could have seen her take a cigarette from her handbag and light it nonchalantly the moment he was gone.

      As for Bennett, Milton, who was watching him closely, thought he was about to discharge him on the spot for bothering him. He took the card, and his face expressed the most extreme surprise, then anger. He thought a moment.

      “Tell that woman to state her business in writing,” he thundered curtly at Milton.

      As the boy turned to go back to the waiting room, Weepy Mary, hearing him coming, hastily shoved the cigarette into her “son’s” hand.

      “Mr. Bennett says for you to write out what it is you want to see him about,” reported Milton, indicating the table before which she was sitting.

      Mary had automatically taken up sobbing, with the release of the cigarette. She looked at the table on which were letter paper, pens and ink.

      “I may write here?” she asked.

      “Surely, ma’am,” replied Milton, still very much overwhelmed by her sorrow.

      Weepy Mary sat there, writing and sobbing.

      In the midst of his sympathy, however, Milton sniffed. There was an unmistakable odor of tobacco smoke about the room. He looked sharply at the “son” and discovered the still smoking cigarette.

      It was too much for Milton’s outraged dignity. Bennett did not allow him that coveted privilege. This upstart could not usurp it.

      He reached over and seized the boy by the arm and swung him around till he faced a sign in the corner on the wall.

      “See?” he demanded.

      The sign read courteously:

      “No Smoking in This Office—Please. “Perry Bennett.”

      “Leggo my arm,” snarled the “son,” putting the offending cigarette defiantly into his mouth.

      Milton coolly and deliberately reached over and, with an exaggerated politeness swiftly and effectively removed it, dropping it on the floor and stamping defiantly on it.

      “Son” raised his fists pugnaciously, for he didn’t care much for the rôle he was playing, anyhow.

      Milton did the same.

      There was every element of a gaudy mix-up, when the outer door of the office suddenly swung open and Elaine Dodge entered.

      Gallantry was Milton’s middle name and he sprang forward to hold the door, and then opened Bennett’s door, as he ushered in Elaine.

      As she passed “Weepy Mary,” who was still writing at the table and crying bitterly, Elaine hesitated and looked at her curiously. Even after Milton had opened Bennett’s door, she could not resist another glance. Instinctively Elaine seemed to scent trouble.

      Bennett was still studying the black-bordered card, when she greeted him.

      “Who is that woman?” she asked, still wondering about the identity of the Niobe outside.

      At first he said nothing. But finally, seeing that she had noticed it, he handed Elaine the card, reluctantly.

      Elaine read it with a gasp. The look of surprise that crossed her face was terrible.

      Before she could say anything, however, Milton had returned with the sheet of paper on which “Weepy Mary” had written and handed it to Bennett.

      Bennett read it with uncontrolled astonishment.

      “What is it?” demanded Elaine.

      He handed it to her and she read:

      “As the lawful wife and widow of Taylor Dodge, I demand my son’s rights and my own.

      “Mrs. Taylor dodge.”

      Elaine gasped at it.

      “She—my father’s wife!” she exclaimed, “What effrontery! What does she mean?”

      Bennett hesitated.

      “Tell me,” Elaine cried, “Is there—can there be anything in it? No—no—there isn’t!”

      Bennett spoke in a low tone. “I have heard a whisper of some scandal or other connected with your father—but—” He paused.

      Elaine was first shocked, then indignant.

      “Why—such a thing is absurd. Show the woman in!”

      “No—please—Miss Dodge. Let me deal with her.”

      By this time Elaine was furious.

      “Yes—I will see her.”

      She pressed the button on Bennett’s desk and Milton responded.

      “Milton, show the—the woman

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