He pushed open the door. There lay Elaine, still bound. Quickly he cut the cords and tore the gag from her mouth.
As he did so, his own beard fell off. He was no longer the hermit. Nor was he what I myself had thought him, Arnold.
"Craig!" cried Elaine in eager surprise.
Kennedy said not a word as he grasped her two hands.
"And you were always around us, protecting Walter and me," she half laughed, half cried hysterically. "I knew it—I knew it!"
Kennedy said nothing. His heart was too happy.
"Yes," he said simply, as he gazed deeply into her great eyes, "my work on the case is done."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Romance of Elaine, by Arthur B. Reeve