Just then the door opened and Bennett burst in.

As he stood over the body, gazing down at it, repressing the
emotions of a strong man, he turned to Elaine and in a low voice,
exclaimed, "The Clutching Hand did this! I shall consecrate my
life to bring this man to justice!"

He spoke tensely and Elaine, looking up into his face, as if
imploring his help in her hour of need, unable to speak, merely
grasped his hand.

Kennedy, who in the meantime had stood apart from the rest of us,
was examining the telephone carefully.

"A clever crook," I heard him mutter between his teeth. "He must
have worn gloves. Not a finger print--at least here."

. . . . . . . .

Perhaps I can do no better than to reconstruct the crime as
Kennedy later pieced these startling events together.

Long after I had left and even after Bennett left, Dodge continued
working in his library, for he was known as a prodigious worker.

Had he taken the trouble, however, to pause and peer out into the
moonlight that flooded the back of his house, he might have seen
the figures of two stealthy crooks crouching in the half shadows
of one of the cellar windows.