The Exploits of Elaine Part 47

"Sewer gas," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as he slammed the cover down. Then he added to the policeman, "Where do you suppose it comes from?"

"Why," replied the officer, "the St. James Drain--an old sewer--is somewhere about these parts."

Kennedy puckered his face as he gazed at our prisoner. He reached down quickly and lifted something off the man's coat.

"Golden hair," he muttered. "Elaine's!"

A moment later he seized the man and shook him roughly.

"Where is she--tell me?" he demanded.

The man snarled some kind of reply, refusing to say a word about her.

"Tell me," repeated Kennedy.

"Humph!" snorted the prisoner, more close-mouthed than ever.

Kennedy was furious. As he sent the man reeling away from him, he seized the oxygen helmet and began putting it on. There was only one thing to do--to follow the clue of the golden strands of hair.

Down into the pest hole he went, his head protected by the oxygen helmet. As he cautiously took one step after another down a series of iron rungs inside the hole, he found that the water was up to his chest. At the bottom of the perpendicular pit was a narrow low pa.s.sage way, leading off. It was just about big enough to get through, but he managed to grope along it. He came at last to the main drain, an old stone-walled sewer, as murky a place as could well be imagined, filled with the foulest sewer gas. He was hardly able to keep his feet in the swirling, bubbling water that swept past, almost up to his neck.

The minutes pa.s.sed as the policeman and I watched our prisoner in the cellar, by the tube. I looked anxiously at my watch.

"Craig!" I shouted at last, unable to control my fears for him.

No answer. To go down after him seemed out of the question.

By this time, Craig had come to a small open chamber into which the sewer widened. On the wall he found another series of iron rungs up which he climbed. The gas was terrible.

As he neared the top of the ladder, he came to a shelf-like aperture in the sewer chamber, and gazed about. It was horribly dark. He reached out and felt a piece of cloth. Anxiously he pulled on it. Then he reached further into the darkness.

There was Elaine, unconscious, apparently dead.

He shook her, endeavoring to wake her up. But it was no use.

In desperation Craig carried her down the ladder.

With our prisoner, we could only look helplessly around. Again and again I looked at my watch as the minutes lengthened. Suppose the oxygen gave out?

"By George, I'm going down after him," I cried in desperation.

"Don't do it," advised the policeman. "You'll never get out."

One whiff of the horrible gas told me that he was right. I should not have been able to go fifty feet in it. I looked at him in despair. It was impossible.

"Listen," said the policeman, straining his ears.

There was indeed a faint noise from the black depths below us. A rope alongside the rough ladder began to move, as though someone was pulling it taut. We gazed down.

"Craig! Craig!" I called. "Is that you?"

No answer. But the rope still moved. Perhaps the helmet made it impossible for him to hear.

He had struggled back in the swirling current almost exhausted by his helpless burden. Holding Elaine's head above the surface of the water and pulling on the rope to attract my attention, for he could neither hear nor shout, he had taken a turn of the rope about Elaine. I tried pulling on it. There was something heavy on the other end and I kept on pulling.

At last I could make out Kennedy dimly mounting the ladder. The weight was the unconscious body of Elaine which he steadied as he mounted. I tugged harder and he slowly came up.

Together, at last, the policeman and I reached down and pulled them out.

We placed Elaine on the cellar floor, as comfortably as was possible, and the policeman began his first-aid motions for resuscitation.

"No--no," cried Kennedy, "Not here--take her up where the air is fresher."

With his revolver still drawn to overawe the prisoner, the policeman forced him to aid us in carrying her up the rickety flight of cellar steps. Kennedy followed quickly, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the oxygen helmet as he went.

In the deserted living room we deposited our senseless burden, while Kennedy, the helmet off now, bent over her.

"Quick--quick!" he cried to the officer, "An ambulance!"

"But the prisoner," the policeman indicated.

"Hurry--hurry--I'll take care of him," urged Craig, seizing the policeman's pistol and thrusting it into his pocket. "Walter--help me."

He was trying the ordinary methods of resuscitation. Meanwhile the officer had hurried out, seeking the nearest telephone, while we worked madly to bring Elaine back.

Again and again Kennedy bent and outstretched her arms, trying to induce respiration. So busy was I that for the moment I forgot our prisoner.

But Dan had seen his chance. Noiselessly he picked up the old chair in the room and with it raised was approaching Kennedy to knock him out.

Before I knew it myself, Kennedy had heard him. With a half instinctive motion, he drew the revolver from his pocket and, almost before I could see it, had shot the man. Without a word he returned the gun to his pocket and again bent over Elaine, without so much as a look at the crook who sank to the floor, dropping the chair from his nerveless hands.

Already the policeman had got an ambulance which was now tearing along to us.

Frantically Kennedy was working.

A moment he paused and looked at me--hopeless.

Just then, outside, we could hear the ambulance, and a doctor and two attendants hurried up to the door. Without a word the doctor seemed to appreciate the gravity of the case.

He finished his examination and shook his head.

"There is no hope--no hope," he said slowly.

Kennedy merely stared at him. But the rest of us instinctively removed our hats.

Kennedy gazed at Elaine, overcome. Was this the end?

It was not many minutes later that Kennedy had Elaine in the little sitting room off the laboratory, having taken her there in the ambulance, with the doctor and two attendants.