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.