“It would indeed,” the Professor remarked, “be an interesting circumstance—an interesting psychological circumstance, if I might put it that way—if Craig, the arch-criminal, the man who has seemed to us so utterly devoid of all human feeling, should really have toiled in this manner to set free his captor.”
“Interesting or not,” Quest observed, “I’d like to know whether it was Craig or not. I understand there were about a dozen unrecognisable bodies found.”
The nurse, who had left the room for a few minutes, returned with a small package in her hand, which she handed to French. He looked at it in a puzzled manner.
“What can that be?” he muttered, turning it over. “Addressed to me all right, but there isn’t a soul knows I’m here except you people. Will you open it, Miss Laura?”
She took it from him and untied the strings. A little breathless cry escaped from her lips as she tore open the paper. A small black box was disclosed. She opened the lid with trembling fingers and drew out a scrap of paper. They all leaned over and read together:—
“You have all lost again. Why not give it up? You can never win.
“The Hands.”
Lenora was perhaps the calmest. She simply nodded with the melancholy air of satisfaction of one who finds her preconceived ideas confirmed.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed softly. “I knew it at the depot. Craig’s time has not come yet. He may be somewhere near us, even now.”
She glanced uneasily around the ward. Quest, who had been examining the post-mark on the package, threw the papers down.
“The post-mark’s all blurred out,” he remarked. “There’s no doubt about it, that fellow Craig has the devil’s own luck, but we’ll get him—we’ll get him yet. I’ll just take a stroll up to police head-quarters and make a few inquiries. You might come with me, Lenora, and Laura can get busy with her amateur nursing.”