“You—­you will not let that letter intimidate you?” she pleaded, laying her soft white hand on his arm.  “Oh, Mr. Kennedy,” she added, bravely keeping back the tears, “avenge him!  All the money in the world would be too little to pay—­if only—­”

At the mere mention of money Kennedy’s face seemed to cloud, but only for a moment.  He must have felt the confiding pressure of her hand, for as she paused, appealingly, he took her hand in his, bowing slightly over it to look closer into her upturned face.

“I’ll try,” he said simply.

Elaine did not withdraw her hand as she continued to look up at him.  Craig looked at her, as I had never seen him look at a woman before in all our long acquaintance.

“Miss Dodge,” he went on, his voice steady as though he were repressing something, “I will never take another case until the ‘Clutching Hand’ is captured.”

The look of gratitude she gave him would have been a princely reward in itself.

I did not marvel that all the rest of that day and far into the night Kennedy was at work furiously in his laboratory, studying the notes, the texture of the paper, the character of the ink, everything that might perhaps suggest a new lead.  It was all, apparently, however, without result.

. . . . . . . .

It was some time after these events that Kennedy, reconstructing what had happened, ran across, in a strange way which I need not tire the reader by telling, a Dr. Haynes, head of the Hillside Sanitarium for Women, whose story I shall relate substantially as we received it from his own lips: 

It must have been that same night that a distinguished visitor drove up in a cab to our Hillside Sanitarium, rang the bell and was admitted to my office.  I might describe him as a moderately tall, well-built man with a pleasing way about him.  Chiefly noticeable, it seems to me, were his mustache and bushy beard, quite medical and foreign.

I am, by the way, the superintending physician, and that night I was sitting with Dr. Thompson, my assistant, in the office discussing a rather interesting case, when an attendant came in with a card and handed it to me.  It read simply, “Dr. Ludwig Reinstrom, Coblenz.”

“Here’s that Dr. Reinstrom, Thompson, about whom my friend in Germany wrote the other day,” I remarked, nodding to the attendant to admit Dr. Reinstrom.

I might explain that while I was abroad some time ago, I made a particular study of the “Daemmerschlaf”—­otherwise, the “twilight sleep,” at Freiburg where it was developed and at other places in Germany where the subject had attracted great attention.  I was much impressed and had imported the treatment to Hillside.

While we waited I reached into my desk and drew out the letter to which I referred, which ended, I recall: 

“As Dr. Reinstrom is in America, he will probably call on you.  I am sure you will be glad to know him.