HANDS UNS EEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 884, 30 January 1930, Page 5

HANDS UNS EEN

A New Grey Phantom Detective Story

By

HERMAN LANDON

Copyright by Street and Smith Corp. Serialized by Ledger Syndicate

CHAPTER XVII. — (Continued). "You mean you won't tell?" "Why should 1? I am the greatest looker out for the main chance there ever was, but there wouldn't be anything in that l’or me. I've no quarrel with the Grey Phantom. Culligore is a square cop, but he and I are ou different sides of the fence. 1 don't like Stanhope; he’s too slick to suit me. All I care about is the welfare and prosperity of little old Harry Bell.” Vanardy gave him a searching glance, trying to plumb the contradictions that made up his strange personality. Bell, looking rather bored, lighted a cigarette. "I can't quite make you out. Bell,” said Vanardy. "Don't try. Put your mind on something else for a change. Try to figure out how iwo men can get into a room with door and windowlocked. and then walk, right out again, leaving the window and door locked behind them, without being seen by the occupant of the room.” THEORIES. A baffled look came into Vanardy'a face. “Our common sense tells us it can't be done.” "That's strange talk, coming from the Grey Phantom, who's done the impossible more times than X can count. Anyhow, it has been done. It's been done twice. You've seen it happen once, and so have I.” Vanardy nodded, and then, his eyes growing smaller, he glanced at, the door. "There's one striking thing about these two performances, Bell. In each instance the appearance of the fellow was preceded by three raps at the door.” Bell gave a disparaging gesture. “He wanted to make‘it appear as spooky as possible.” "And in each instance,” Vanardy went on, pursuing his new train of thought, “the door was opened. The raps sounded twice the night Craig was murdered, and, according to your own story, you opened the door each time. The second time was just a minute or two before the murderer appeared.” ‘Nothing in that. I held the door Open only about half a minute each time. I know nothing got past me.” "And nothing got past me when I held it open tonight, but that isn’t the point. lam not saying that the fellow entered the room while the door was open. lam only pointing out that the rapping occurred in both instances, and was followed by a person on the inside opening the door.

Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” “Not much.” drawled Bell, but he looked less bored. “What does it mean to you?” Vanardy, still peering narrowly at the door, did not answer the question directly. “I wonder if the rapping was done just for dramatic effect. It strikes me it may have been a necessary detail in the fellow's method of entering the room.” CHAPTER XVIII. SOLVING THE RIDDLE Bell opened his eyes a little wider. “I don’t get you. We are both agreed that our man didn't get into the room while the door was open. X swear he didn’t get past me, and you seem just as sure he didn't get past you.” “Oh. I'm sure enough of that. I am just wondering ” Without finishing the thought Vanardy swung away from the table tnd turned toward the corner where his struggle with the intruder had occurred. Mechanically, for a part of his mind was still at work on the hazy idea that had come to him, he recovered his pistol and his glasses and started to arrange his dishevelled toilet. “There’s one thing you left out,” Bell remarked. “The light went out both times.” “So it did. but I don't think that had anything to do with the fellow’s method of entry. After he was already inside the room he put out the light to conceal his movements and hide his identity.” Bell settled tiimself more comfortably in the big chair. “Well, it’s a neat little problem. The Grey Phantom ought to be able to solve it.” Vanardy went to the door, gazed narrowly at the lock and the bolt, and moved his glance slowly up and down the frame. There was a tenseness in his bearing indicating a man trying to run down an elusive idea. Bell watched his movements with a bored expression. “You’re on the wrong tack,” he declared. “However the rascal got in. j it wasn't through the door. I'd swear ' to that. Ever since the night Craig [ was killed I’ve had a hunch that the | point of entry was somewhere along | the opposite wall, not far from where I the body was found.” “Maybe so.” Vanardy ran his hand | down the blue-tinted frame till he I reached the bevelled sill. “After hear- ; ing the raps and looking out in the i hall that night, you closed the door | again. I understand?’ Bell nodded. “The raps came twice, |

you know. X looked out each time, and each time I locked and bolted the door afterward.” “And then you searched the room?” “That was after the first series of raps, and after Craig had found the note in the chair. Made a good- job of it, too. Would have found a collar button if one had been lying around loose.” “Do you remember how iong a time elapsed between the second series of raps and the appearance of the murderer?” “Hard to tell exactly. A minute, 1 should sa.y; maybe two.” Vanardy reflected, but his expression showed that Ills mind was fumbling in the dark. He spoke slowly, with a slight catch. “To our knowledge the prowler has appeared three times in the room—twice while you and Craig were present, and again tonight while I was here alone. Each time he knocked on the door before he entered, and each time someone opened it and looked out. The first time he merely left the, note in the chair and went out imediately.” “Plow did he go out?” “I don’t know, but he was not in the room when you made the search, so he must have gotten out somehow. He reappeared in a little while—in about half an hour, I should judge from the story you told —and again his entrance was preceded by three laps. On this second appearance he, knocked you unconscious and killed Craig. His third apearance, about two hours ago was substantially like the other two. He rapped three times, and I opened the door, as one naturally would under the circumstances, and a minute or two later I heard a voice at the other side of the room. Don't you see the counection. Bell?” “Hanged if I do! Since we know he didn’t get in that way, what purpose did he have in rapping on the door?” “I hope to answer that questionsoon:” “By the way, Bell,” and there wa.s a faint tremor of excitement in Vanardy’s voice, “have you noticed this?” With great reluctance Bell left the comfortable chair and came to where Vanardy was down on his knees in front of the door. The light was dim there, and he had to use his flashlight to see what the other man was pointing at. What he saw made him snort in disgust. At the bottom of the doorjamb, where it joined the horizontal sill, was a crack about an inch j and a-half long, and barely wide | enough to admit a knife blade of medium size. | “What of it?” asked the detective. I “Nothing hut a piece of careless carj penter work.” “I know it, but it’s rather odd to | find a flaw like this in a house so j carefully constructed as this one is.” I Bell looked at him pityingly. “The tap you got on the bean must have I thrown your thinking machinery out iof gear. Why, not even a spider j could hide in that opening.” | Vanardy rose to his feet and un- | locked and opened the door. “I want I to make a little experiment,” he ex- ! plained. “Just to gratify my curiosity jon a minor point. I want you to lock the door behind me as I step out. When you hear three raps, do exactly as you did the night Craig was murdered.” Bell looked at him commiseratingly, but agreed to do as he requested. When the other stepped out in the hall, he closed and locked the door, waited a few minutes, then opened it again as three sharp raps sounded on the upper panel. He glanced cut i;i the hall, just as he had done on the night of the murder, with Craig standing shivering at his §ide. “Thanks. Bell.” Vanardy appeared suddenly around She outer corner of

the door frame. “My curiosity is satisfied.” Bell gave him a blank look. “You’re easily satisfied, then.” "Perhaps so. I’ll tell you what I did. After knocking on the door, I threw myself full length on the floor, pressing close to the wall. When you opened the door, I moved my hand inside and placed my forefinger over the crack I showed you a moment ago. You didn't see me, for you were looking straight ahead of you into the hall, and it was dark where I lay. Get the idea?” “I get the Idea that you are badly in need of sleep.” Vanardy chuckled good-humouredly. “But we have demonstrated something, Bell. We have shown that a man can lie flat on the floor outside and, when someone opens the door from the inside, work his hand around the jamb ' and touch the little crack at the sill without being seen by the person holding the door open.” “Where does it get you?” “Nowhere, just at. present, But it is interesting to know, just the same, that a pair of unseen hands has been at work in this room. Perhaps our mysterious prowler did the very same thing that I did a moment ago.” “You might ask him next time you see him.” Bell yawned ostentatiously. “I’m sleepy. Want to bunk with me the rest of the night?” “No, thanks, I prefer to stay here.” Bell walked off with a shuffling gait. Vanardy locked the door, and began to pace back and forth across the floor, tie wanted to clarify the scattered impressions that had come to him during the last few hours. Though Bell had made light of his experiment, he could not rid his mind of a hazy suspicion that it had a more or less significant hearing on the mysterious work of the unseen hands. But the thought that was uppermost in his mind had to do with something said by his adversary in the dark. The words, spoken in an abysmal chant, had told Vanardy that his unseen, antagonist was associated with the villainous gang that was responsible for the disappearance of the Hardwicks. They had furnished fresh confirmation of his belief that Helen and her father had been caught in the tangled threads extending from Tuchaw ay Camp. Consequently he felt doubly certain that he was on the right track. In some inscrutable fashion, the sinister machinations of the kidnappers were bound up with the murder of J. Pendleton Craig. The thought came to him on a quickened pulse-beat, that perhaps Helen was not far away. If only— He stopped and looked narrowly down at the floor. He was in the part of the room where his struggle with the intruder had taken place. Something gleamed in the shadows, winking up at. him with a hard, metallic flash. He stooped and picked it up, and a mutter of astonishment felt from his lips. THE CHINESE COIN In the dusk where he stood, the object Vanardy had found on the floor gleamed with a hard, yellow sheen as it lay in his palm. For the third time that night his sense of intuition was outstripping his thoughts, giving vague glimpses of things which his mind could not yet grasp. He had experienced the same kind of sensation when he saw the purplish design above Stanhope's wrist, and again when he found the little rift between the door-jamb and the sill. On both occasions he lia.d felt a vague and yet familiar thrill which experience liad l taught him not to ignore, a vagrant ! premonition, which hinted, at a deeper i significance than appearances indi- j cated. (To be continued tomorrow).