He handed me a clipping from the evening edition of the Star and I
quickly ran my eye over the headline:

"THE CLUTCHING HAND" WINS AGAIN

NEW YORK'S MYSTERIOUS MASTER CRIMINAL
PERFECTS ANOTHER COUP

CITY POLICE COMPLETELY BAFFLED

"Here's this murder of Fletcher, the retired banker and trustee of
the University," he explained. "Not a clue--except a warning
letter signed with this mysterious clutching fist. Last week it
was the robbery of the Haxworth jewels and the killing of old
Haxworth. Again that curious sign of the hand. Then there was the
dastardly attempt on Sherburne, the steel magnate. Not a trace of
the assailant except this same clutching fist. So it has gone,
Jameson--the most alarming and most inexplicable series of murders
that has ever happened in this country. And nothing but this
uncanny hand to trace them by."

The editor paused a moment, then exclaimed, "Why, this fellow
seems to take a diabolical--I might almost say pathological--
pleasure in crimes of violence, revenge, avarice and self-
protection. Sometimes it seems as if he delights in the pure
deviltry of the thing. It is weird."

He leaned over and spoke in a low, tense tone. "Strangest of all,
the tip has just come to us that Fletcher, Haxworth, Sherburne and
all the rest of those wealthy men were insured in the Consolidated