it’s a dandy little affair, that, Mr. Quest,” she exclaimed. “I had a try with it, a day or so ago. Jim spoke to me from Fifth Avenue.”
“We’ve got it tuned to a shade now,” Quest declared. “Equipped with this simple little device, you can speak to me from anywhere up to ten or a dozen miles. What are you working on this morning, Laura?”
“Same old stunt,” the girl replied. “I have been reading up the records of the savants of New York. From what I can make out about them, it doesn’t seem to me that there’s one amongst the whole bunch likely to have pluck enough to tamper with the Professor’s skeleton.”
Quest frowned a little gloomily. He rose to his feet and moved restlessly about the room.
“Say, girls,” he confessed, “this is the first time in my life I have been in a fix like this. Two cases on hand and nothing doing with either of them. Criminologist, indeed! I guess I’d better go over to England and take a job at Scotland Yard. That’s about what I’m fit for. Whose box is this?”
Quest had paused suddenly in front of an oak sideboard which stood against the wall. Occupying a position upon it of some prominence was a small black box, whose presence there seemed to him unfamiliar. Laura came over to his side and looked at it also in puzzled fashion.
“Never saw it before in my life,” she answered. “Say, kid, is this yours?” she added, turning to Lenora.
Lenora shook her head. She, too, examined it a little wonderingly.
“It wasn’t there a short time ago. I brought a duster and went over the sideboard myself.”
Quest grunted.
“H’m! No one else has been in the room, and it hasn’t been empty for more than ten minutes,” he remarked. “Well, let’s see what’s inside, any way.”
“Just be careful, Mr. Quest,” Laura advised. “I don’t get that box at all.”
Quest pushed it with his forefinger.
“No bomb inside, any way,” he remarked. “Here goes!”
He lifted off the lid. There was nothing in the interior but a sheet of paper folded up. Quest smoothed it out with his hand. They all leaned over and read the following words, written in an obviously disguised hand:
“You have embarked on a new study—anthropology. What characteristic strikes you most forcibly in connection with it? Cunning? The necklace might be where the skeleton is. Why not begin at the beginning?”
The note was unsigned, but in the spot where a signature might have been there was a rough pen drawing of two hands, with fingers extended, talon fashion, menacingly, as though poised to strike at some unseen enemy. Quest, after their first moment of stupefaction, whistled softly.
“The hands!” he muttered.
“What hands?” Lenora asked.
“The hands that gripped Mrs. Rheinholdt by the throat,” he reminded them. “Don’t you remember? Hands without any arms?”
There was another brief, almost stupefied silence. Then Laura broke into speech.
“What I want to know is,” she demanded, “who brought the thing here?”
“A most daring exploit, any way,” Quest declared. “If we could answer your question, Laura, we could solve the whole riddle. We are up against something, and no mistake.”
Lenora shivered a little. The mystery of the thing terrified her, the mystery which only stimulated her two companions.
“The hand which placed that box here,” Quest continued slowly, “is capable of even more wonderful things. We must be cautious. Hello!”
The door had opened. The Professor stood upon the threshold. He carried his soft felt hat in his hand. He bowed to the two young women courteously.
“I trust that I have done right in coming up?” he enquired.
“Quite right, Professor,” Quest assured him. “They know well enough downstairs that I am always at liberty to you. Come in.”
“I am so anxious to learn,” the Professor continued eagerly, “whether there is any news—of my skeleton.”
“Not yet, Professor, I am sorry to say,” Quest replied. “Come in and shut the door.”
The Professor was obviously struggling with his disappointment. He did not, however, at once close the door.
“There is a young lady here,” he said, “who caught me up upon the landing. She, too, I believe, wishes to see you. My manners suffered, I fear, from my eagerness to hear from your own lips if there was anything fresh. I should have allowed her to precede me.”
He threw open the door and stood on one side. A young woman came a little hesitatingly into the room. Her hair was plainly brushed back, and she wore the severe dress of the Salvation Army. Nothing, however, could conceal the fact that she was a remarkably sweet and attractive-looking young person.
“Want to see me, young lady?” Quest asked.
She held out a book.
“My name is Miss Quigg,” she said. “I want to ask you for a subscription to our funds.”
Quest frowned a little.
“I don’t care about this house-to-house visitation,” he remarked.
“It is only once a year that we come,” the girl pleaded, “and we only go to people who we know can afford to help us, and who we believe can appreciate our work. You know so much of the darker side of New York, Mr. Quest. Wherever you go you must find signs of our labours. Even if I put on one side, for a moment, the bare religious question, think how much we do for the good and the welfare of the poor people.”
Quest nodded.
“That’s all right,” he admitted. “You reach the outcasts all right. There’s many a one you save whom you had better leave to die, but here and there, no doubt, you set one of them on their legs again who’s had bad luck. Very well, Miss Quigg. You shall have a donation. I am busy to-day, but call at the same hour to-morrow and my secretary here shall have a cheque ready for you.”
The girl smiled her gratitude.
“You are very kind indeed, Mr. Quest,” she said simply. “I will be here.”
The Professor laid his hand upon her arm as she passed. He had been watching her with curious intentness.
“Young lady,” he observed, “you seem very much in earnest about your work.”
“It is only the people in earnest, sir,” she answered, “who can do any good in the world. My work is worth being in earnest about.”
“Will you forgive an old man’s question?” the Professor continued. “I am one of the men of the world who are in earnest. My life is dedicated to science. Science is at once my religion and my life. It seems to me that you and I have something in common. You, too, move in the unusual ways. Your life is dedicated to doing good amongst the unworthy of your sex. Whether my brain approves of your efforts or not, you compel my admiration—my most respectful admiration. May I, too, be permitted?”
He drew out a pocket-book and passed over towards her a little wad of notes. She took them without a moment’s hesitation. Her eyes, as she thanked him, were filled with gratitude.
“It is so kind of you,” she murmured. “We never have any hesitation in accepting money. May I know your name?”
“It is not necessary,” the Professor answered. “You can enter me,” he added, as he held open the door for her, “as a friend—or would you prefer a pseudonym?”
“A pseudonym, if you please,”