"I've found it!" he cried, hurrying into Elaine's room. "It's in this room—a deadly gas—arseniuretted hydrogen."
He tore open the windows and threw them all open. "Have her moved," he cried to Aunt Josephine. "Then have a vacuum cleaner go over every inch of wall, carpet and upholstery."
Standing beside her, he breathlessly explained his discovery. "That wall paper has been loaded down with arsenic, probably Paris green or Schweinfurth green, which is aceto-arsenite of copper. Every minute you are here, you are breathing arseniuretted hydrogen. The Clutching Hand has cleverly contrived to introduce the nascent gas into the room. That acts on the arsenic compounds in the wall paper and hangings and sets free the gas. I thought I knew the smell the moment I got a whiff of it. You are slowly being poisoned by minute quantities of the deadly gas. This Clutching Hand is a diabolical genius. Think of it—poisoned wall paper!"
No one said a word. Kennedy reached down and took the two Clutching Hand messages Elaine had received. "I shall want to study these notes, more, too," he said, holding them up to the wall at the head of the bed as he flashed his pocket lens at them. "You see, Elaine, I may be able to get something from studying the ink, the paper, the handwriting—"
Suddenly both leaped back, with a cry.
Their faces had been several inches apart. Something had whizzed between them and literally impaled the two notes on the wall.
Down the street, on the roof of a carriage house, back of a neighbor's,
might have been seen the uncouth figure of the dilapidated South
American Indian crouching behind a chimney and gazing intently at the
Dodge house.
As Craig had thrown open Elaine's window and turned to Elaine, the figure had crouched closer to his chimney.
Then with an uncanny determination he slowly raised the blow-gun to his lips.
I jumped forward, followed by Dr. Hayward, Aunt Josephine, and Marie. Kennedy had a peculiar look as he pulled out from the wall a blow-gun dart similar in every way to that which had killed Michael.