and filling it with scopolamine from the bottle.

"Just a moment, Miss Dodge," he encouraged as he jabbed the needle
into her arm.

She did not wince.

"Please lie back on the couch," he directed. Then turning to us he
added, "It takes some time for this to work. Our criminal got over
that fact and prevented an outcry by using ethyl chloride first.
Let me reconstruct the scene."

As we watched Elaine going under slowly, Craig talked.

"That night," he said, "warily, the masked criminal of the
Clutching Hand might have been seen down below us in the alley. Up
here, Miss Dodge, worn out by the strain of her father's death,
let us say, was nervously trying to read, to do anything that
would take her mind off the tragedy. Perhaps she fell asleep.

"Just then the Clutching Hand appeared. He came stealthily through
that window which he had opened. A moment he hesitated, seeing
Elaine asleep. Then he tiptoed over to the bed, let us say, and
for a moment looked at her, sleeping.

"A second later he had thrust his hand into his pocket and had
taken out a small glass bulb with a long thin neck. That was ethyl
chloride, a drug which produces a quick anesthesia. But it lasts
only a minute or two. That was enough, As he broke the glass neck
of the bulb--letting the pieces fall on the floor near the bed--he