The haunting hand

Stricken with terror, Margot watched a small, thin hand, then a forearm reach from under her bed. THE HAUNTING HAND By W. ADOLPHE ROBERTS Frontispiece by GEORGE W. GAGE NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY [COPYRIGHT] Copyright, 1926 By The Macaulay Company [DEDICATION] DEDICATED TO FLORENCE M. OSBORNE. CONTENTS I. Movie Men and Mannequins II. The Grisly Hand and the Flame III. A Creature Without a Body IV. Mounting Mystery V. Weird Suspicions VI. The Midnight Prowler VII. Spooks and the Press VIII. The Claws of Jealousy IX. Hidden Motives X. A Witness from the Dead XI. Whose Hand? XII. Stella’s Story XIII. Will-o’-the-Wisp XIV. Love’s Alarm XV. Stoner’s Share XVI. A King’s Ransom in Radium XVII. “Better Than Brotherly!” THE HAUNTING HAND MOVIE MEN AND MANNEQUINS Mid October, with its tang, and the blazoned glory of its skies and sun and tawny trees! Margot Anstruther thanked a kind fate that she could live these brilliant, exhilarating days out of doors. Had she been confined to office or classroom, her restless spirit would have carried her body with it, in reckless escape. Long Island—where the Superfilm Company studio spread over the landscape—although not precisely the Maine woods or sea, or the open spaces of her own wide-flung West, at least spelled trees and grass and fresh air. Margot stood on the diminutive roof-garden of her New York home, watching the moon rise over the house-tops. It was eight o’clock and her guests would soon arrive. She hoped that Gene Valery would come before the others. It was pleasant to be loved so ardently by Gene, but she surmised that it would be pleasanter if she could love as ardently in return. At any rate, his friendship was invaluable. He was the only one with whom she could share her mental gymnastics, the aspect of her mind which others would regard as rather too serious for human nature’s daily food. She had Gene to thank for her tiny roof-garden. It was one of those quaint affairs, a covering built over the yard, to be found in many an old New York house. Gene had rigged up a trellis and had brought potted palms and a South American hammock. For to-night he had hung Japanese lanterns. Margot had already lighted them. That small, mock garden took the curse, so to speak, off her lodging-house quarters,