The Exploits of Elaine Part 32

One shot grazed Craig's hat, but the other struck him in the shoulder and Kennedy reeled.

With a desperate effort he pulled himself together and leaped forward again, closing with the fellow and wrenching the gun from him before he could fire again.

It fell to the floor with a clang.

Just then the man broke away and made a dash for the door leading back into the church itself, with Kennedy after him. At the foot of a flight of stairs, he turned long enough to pick up a chair. As Kennedy came on, he deliberately smashed it over Craig's head.

Kennedy warded off the blow as best he could, then, still undaunted, started up the stairs after the fellow.

Up they went, into the choir loft and then into the belfry itself.

There they came to sheer hand to hand struggle. Kennedy tripped on a loose board and would have fallen backwards, if he had not been able to recover himself just in time. The crook, desperate, leaped for the ladder leading further up into the steeple. Kennedy followed.

Elaine had recovered consciousness almost immediately and, hearing the commotion, stirred and started to rise and look about.

From the church she could hear sounds of the struggle. She paused just long enough to seize the crook's revolver lying on the floor.

She hurried into the church and up into the belfry, thence up the ladder, whence the sounds came.

The crook by this time had gained the outside of the steeple through an opening. Kennedy was in close pursuit.

On the top of the steeple was a great gilded cross, considerably larger than a man. As the crook clambered outside, he scaled the steeple, using a lightning rod and some projecting points to pull himself up, desperately.

Kennedy followed unhesitatingly.

There they were, struggling in deadly combat, clinging to the gilded cross.

The first I knew of it was a horrified gasp from my own crook. I looked up carefully, fearing it was a stall to get me off my guard. There were Kennedy and the other crook, struggling, swaying back and forth, between life and death.

I looked at my man. What should I do? Should I leave him and go to Craig? If I did, might he not pick us both off, from a safe vantage point, by some sharp-shooting skill?

There was nothing I could do.

Kennedy was clinging to a lightning rod on the cross.

It broke.

I gasped as Craig reeled back. But he managed to catch hold of the rod further down and cling to it.

The crook seemed to exult diabolically. Holding with both hands to the cross, he let himself out to his full length and stamped on Kennedy's fingers, trying every way to dislodge him. It was all Kennedy could do to keep his hold.

I cried out in agony at the sight, for he had dislodged one of Craig's hands. The other could not hold on much longer. He was about to fall.

Just then I saw a face at the little window opening out from the ladder to the outside of the steeple--a woman's face, tense with horror.

It was Elaine!

Quickly a hand followed and in it was a revolver.

Just as the crook was about to dislodge Kennedy's other hand, I saw a flash and a puff of smoke and a second later, heard a report--and another--and another.

Horrors!

The crook who had taken refuge seemed to stagger back, wildly, taking a couple of steps in the thin air.

Kennedy regained his hold.

With a sickening thud, the body of the crook landed on the ground around the corner of the church from me.

"Come--you!" I ground out, covering my own crook with the pistol, "and if you attempt a getaway, I'll kill you, too!"

He followed, trembling, unnerved.

We bent over the man. It seemed that every bone in his body must be broken. He groaned, and before I could even attempt anything for him, he was dead.

As Kennedy let himself slowly and painfully down the lightning rod, Elaine seized him and, with all her strength, pulled him in through the window.

He was quite weak now from loss of blood.

"Are you--all right?" she gasped, as they reached the foot of the ladder in the belfry.

Craig looked down at his torn and soiled clothes. Then, in spite of the smarting pain of his wounds, he smiled, "Yes--all right!"

"Thank heaven!" she murmured fervently, trying to staunch the flow of blood.

Craig gazed at her eagerly. The great look of relief in her face seemed to take away all the pain from his own face. In its place came a look of wonder--and hope.

He could not resist.

"This time--it was you--saved me!" he cried, "Elaine!"

Involuntarily his arms sought hers--and he held her a moment, looking deep into her wonderful eyes.

Then their faces came slowly together in their first kiss.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HIDDEN VOICE

"Jameson--wake up!"

The strain of the Dodge case was beginning to tell on me, for it was keeping us at work at all kinds of hours to circ.u.mvent the Clutching Hand, by far the cleverest criminal with whom Kennedy had ever had anything to do.