The Exploits of Elaine Part 46

As he did so, Elaine hastily turned and took a few steps after him, as if to recall her words, then stopped, and her pride got the better of her.

She walked slowly back to the chair by the table--the chair he had been sitting in--sank down into it and cried.

Kennedy was moping in the laboratory the next day when I came in.

Just what the trouble was, I did not know, but I had decided that it was up to me to try to cheer him up.

"Say, Craig," I began, trying to overcome his fit of blues.

Kennedy, filled with his own thoughts, paid no attention to me. Still, I kept on.

Finally he got up and, before I knew it, he took me by the ear and marched me into the next room.

I saw that what he needed chiefly was to be let alone, and he went back to his chair, dropping down into it and banging his fists on the table.

Under his breath he loosed a small volley of bitter expletives. Then he jumped up.

"By George--I WILL," he muttered.

I poked my head out of the door in time to see him grab up his hat and coat and dash from the room, putting his coat on as he went.

"He's a nut today," I exclaimed to myself.

Though I did not know, yet, of the quarrel, Kennedy had really struggled with himself until he was willing to put his pride in his pocket and had made up his mind to call on Elaine again.

As he entered, he saw that it was really of no use, for only Aunt Josephine was in the library.

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy," she said innocently enough, "I'm so sorry she isn't here. There's been something troubling her and she won't tell me what it is. But she's gone to call on a young woman, a Florence Leigh, I think."

"Florence Leigh!" exclaimed Craig with a start and a frown. "Let me use your telephone."

I had turned my attention in the laboratory to a story I was writing, when I heard the telephone ring. It was Craig. Without a word of apology for his rudeness, which I knew had been purely absent-minded, I heard him saying, "Walter--meet me in half an hour outside that Florence Leigh's house."

He was gone in a minute, giving me scarcely time to call back that I would.

Then, with a hasty apology for his abruptness, he excused himself, leaving Aunt Josephine wondering at his strange actions.

At about the same time that Craig had left the laboratory, at the Dodge house Elaine and Aunt Josephine had been in the hall near the library.

Elaine was in her street dress.

"I'm going out, Auntie," she said with an attempted gaiety. "And," she added, "if anyone should ask for me, I'll be there."

She had showed her a card on which was engraved, the name and address of Florence Leigh.

"All right, dear," answered Aunt Josephine, not quite clear in her mind what subtle change there was in Elaine.

Half an hour later I was waiting near the house in the suburbs to which I had been directed by the strange telephone call the day before. I noticed that it was apparently deserted. The blinds were closed and a "To Let" sign was on the side of the house.

"h.e.l.lo, Walter," cried Craig at last, bustling along. He stopped a moment to look at the house. Then, together, we went up the steps and we rang the bell, gazing about.

"Strange," muttered Craig. "The house looks deserted."

He pointed out the sign and the generally unoccupied look of the place.

Nor was there any answer to our ring. Kennedy paused only a second, in thought.

"Come on, Walter," he said with a sudden decision. "We've got to get in here somehow."

He led the way around the side of the house to a window, and with a powerful grasp, wrenched open the closed shutters. He had just smashed the window viciously with his foot when a policeman appeared.

"Hey, you fellows--what are you doing there?" he shouted.

Craig paused a second, then pulled his card from his pocket.

"Just the man I want," he parried, much to the policeman's surprise, "There's something crooked going on here. Follow us in."

We climbed into the window. There was the same living room we had seen the day before. But it was now bare and deserted. Everything was gone except an old broken chair. Craig and I were frankly amazed at the complete and sudden change and I think the policeman was a little surprised, for he had thought the place occupied.

"Come on," cried Kennedy, beckoning us on.

Quickly he rushed through the house. There was not a thing in it to change the deserted appearance of the first floor. At last it occurred to Craig to grope his way down cellar. There was nothing there, either, except a bin, as innocent of coal as Mother Hubbard's cupboard was of food. For several minutes we hunted about without discovering a thing.

Kennedy had been carefully going over the place and was at the other side of the cellar from ourselves when I saw him stop and gaze at the floor. He was not looking, apparently, so much as listening. I strained my ears, but could make out nothing. Before I could say anything, he raised his hand for silence. Apparently he had heard something.

"Hide," he whispered suddenly to us.

Without another word, though for the life of me I could make nothing out of it, I pulled the policeman into a little angle of the wall nearby, while Craig slipped into a similar angle.

We waited a moment. Nothing happened. Had he been seeing things or hearing things, I wondered?

From our hidden vantage we could now see a square piece in the floor, perhaps five feet in diameter, slowly open up as though on a pivot.

Beneath it we could make out a tube-like hole, perhaps three feet across, with a covered top. It slowly opened.

A weird and sinister figure of a man appeared. Over his head he wore a peculiar helmet with hideous gla.s.s pieces over the eyes, and tubes that connected with a tank which he carried buckled to his back. As he slowly dragged himself out, I could wonder only at the outlandish headgear.

Quickly he closed down the cover of the tube, but not before a vile effluvium seemed to escape, and penetrate even to us in our hiding places. As he moved forward, Kennedy gave a flying leap at him, and we followed with a regular football interference.

It was the work of only a moment for us to subdue and hold him, while Craig ripped off the helmet.

It was Dan the Dude.

"What's that thing?" I puffed, as I helped Craig with the headgear.

"An oxygen helmet," he replied. "There must be air down the tube that cannot be breathed."

He went over to the tube. Carefully he opened the top and gazed down, starting back a second later, with his face puckered up at the noxious odor.