The Exploits of Elaine Part 58

"No--why?" inquired Elaine anxiously.

"He's a tong man who has been chosen to do away with the Prince. He followed me, and says you have done his work for him. If you will give him ten thousand dollars for expenses, he will attend to hiding the body."

Here at least was a way out.

"But do you think that is all right? Can he do it?" asked Elaine eagerly.

"Do it? Why those tong men can do anything for money. Only one must be careful not to offend them."

Mary was very convincing.

"Yes, I suppose you are right," agreed Elaine, finally. "I had better do as you say. It is the safest way out of the trouble. Yes, I'll do it. I'll stop at the bank now and get the money."

They rose and Mary preceded her, eager to get away from the house. At the door, however, Elaine asked her to wait while she ran back on some pretext. In the library she took off the receiver of the telephone and quickly called a number.

Our telephone rang in the middle of our conversation on blood crystals and Kennedy himself answered it.

It was Elaine asking Craig's advice.

"They have offered to hush the thing up for ten thousand dollars," she said, in a m.u.f.fled voice.

She seemed bent on doing it and no amount of argument from him could stop her. She simply refused to accept the evidence of the blood crystals as better than what her own eyes told her she had seen and done.

"Then wait for half an hour," he answered, without arguing further.

"You can do that without exciting suspicion. Go with her to her hotel and hand her over the money."

"All right--I'll do it," she agreed.

"What is the hotel?"

Craig wrote on a slip of paper what she told him--"Room 509, Hotel La Coste."

"Good--I'm glad you called me. Count on me," he finished as he hung up the receiver.

Hastily he threw on his street coat. "Go into the back room and get me that brace and bit, Walter," he asked.

I did so. When I returned, I saw that he had placed the detectascope and some other stuff in a bag. He shoved in the brace and bit also.

"Come on--hurry!" he urged.

We must have made record time in getting to the Coste. It was an ornate place, where merely to breathe was expensive. We entered and by some excuse Kennedy contrived to get past the vigilant bellhops. We pa.s.sed the telephone switchboard and entered the elevator, getting off at the fifth floor.

With a hasty glance up and down the corridor, to make sure no one was about, Kennedy came to room 509, then pa.s.sed to the next, 511, opening the door with a skeleton key. We entered and Craig locked the door behind us. It was an ordinary hotel room, but well-furnished.

Fortunately it was unoccupied.

Quietly Craig went to the door which led to the next room. It was, of course, locked also. He listened a moment carefully. Not a sound.

Quickly, with an exclamation of satisfaction, he opened that door also and went into 509.

This room was much like that in which we had already been. He opened the hall door.

"Watch here, Walter," he directed, "Let me know at the slightest alarm."

Craig had already taken the brace and bit from the bag and started to bore through the wall into room 511, selecting a spot behind a picture of a Spanish dancer--a spot directly back of her snapping black eyes.

He finished quickly and inserted the detectascope so that the lens fitted as an eye in the picture. The eye piece was in Room 511. Then he started to brush up the pieces of plaster on the floor.

"Craig," I whispered hastily as I heard an elevator door, "someone's coming!"

He hurried to the door and looked. "There they are," he said, as we saw Elaine and Mary rounding the corner of the hall.

Across the hall, although we did not know it at the time, in room 540, already, Long Sin had taken up his station, just to be handy. There he had been with his servant, playing with his two trained white rats.

Long placed them up his capacious sleeves and carefully opened the door to look out. Unfortunately he, was just in time to see the door of 509 open and disclose us.

His subtle glance detected our presence without our knowing it.

Hastily picking up the brace and bit and the rest of the debris, and with a last look at the detectascope, which was hardly noticeable, even if one already knew it was there, we hurried into 511 and shut the door.

Kennedy mounted a chair and applied his eye to the detectascope. Just then Mary and Elaine entered the next room, Mary opening the door with a regular key.

"Won't you step in?" she asked.

Elaine did so and Mary hesitated in the hall. Long Sin had slipped out on noiseless feet and taken refuge behind some curtains. As he saw her alone, he beckoned to Mary.

"There's a stranger in the next room," he whispered. "I don't like him.

Take the money and as quickly as possible get out and go to my apartment."

At the news that there was a suspicious stranger about, Mary showed great alarm. Everything was so rapid, now, that the slightest hesitation meant disaster. Perhaps, by quickness, even a suspicious stranger could be fooled, she reasoned. At any rate, Long Sin was resourceful. She had better trust him.

Mary followed Elaine into the room, where she had seated herself already, and locked the door.

"Have you the money there?" she asked.

"Yes," nodded Elaine, taking out the package of bills which she had got from the bank during the half hour delay.

All this we could see by gazing alternately through the detectascope.

Elaine handed Mary the money. Mary counted it slowly. At last she looked up.

"It's all right," she said. "Now, I'll take this to that tong leader--he's in a room only just across the hall."

She went out.

Kennedy at the detectascope was very excited as this went on. He now jumped off the chair on which he had been standing and rushed to the door to head her off.

To our surprise, in spite of the fact that we could turn the key in the lock, it was impossible to open it!

It was only a moment that Craig paused at the door. The next moment he burst into 509, followed closely by me.