The Hand in the Dark

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She closed her eyes, and Miss Heredith turned to leave the room. As she
passed the dressing-table her eyes fell upon a handsome jewel-case. As
if struck by a sudden thought, she turned back to the bedside again.

"Violet," she said.

The girl half opened her eyes, and looked up at the elder woman from
veiled lids. "Yes?" she murmured.

"Your necklace--I had almost forgotten. Mr. Musard goes back to town
early in the morning, and he wishes to take it with him."

"Oh, it will have to wait until the morning. I don't know where the keys
are, and I can't be bothered looking for them now." The girl turned her
face determinedly away, and buried her head in the pillow, like a spoilt
child.

Miss Heredith flushed slightly at the deliberate rudeness of the action,
but did not press the request. She left the room, softly closing the
door behind her. She walked slowly along the wide passage, hung with
bugle tapestry, and paused for a while at a narrow window at the end of
the gallery, looking out on the terrace gardens and soft green landscape
beyond. The interview with her nephew's wife had tried her, and her
reflections were rather bitter. For the twentieth time she asked herself
why her nephew had fallen in love with this unknown girl from London,
who loathed the country. From Miss Heredith's point of view, a girl who
smoked and talked slang lacked all sense of the dignity of the high
position to which she had been called, and was in every way unfitted to
become the mother of the next male Heredith, if, indeed, she consented
to bear an heir at all. It was Miss Heredith's constant regret that Phil
had not married some nice girl of the county, in his own station of
life, instead of a London girl.

Miss Heredith terminated her reflections with a sigh, and turned away
from the window. She was above all things practical, and fully realized
the folly of brooding over the inevitable, but the marriage of her
nephew was a sore point with her. She proceeded in her stately way down
the broad and shallow steps of the old staircase, hung with armour and
trophies and family portraits. At the bottom of the stairs she
encountered a manservant bearing a tray with sherry decanters and
biscuits across the hall.

"Where is Mr. Philip?" she asked.

"I think he is in the billiard room, ma'am," the man replied.

Miss Heredith proceeded with rustling dignity to the billiard room. The
click of billiard balls was audible before she reached it. The door was
open, and inside the room several young men, mostly in khaki, were
watching a game between a dark-haired man of middle age and a young
officer. One or two of the men looked up as Miss Heredith entered, but
the young officer went on stringing his break together with the
mechanical skill of a billiard marker. Miss Heredith mentally
characterized his action as another instance of the modern decay of
manners. In her young days gentlemen always ceased playing when a lady
entered the billiard room. The middle-aged player came forward, cue in
hand, and asked her if she wanted anything.

"I am looking for Phil," she said. "I thought he was here."

"He was, but he has just gone to the library. He said he had some
letters to write before dinner."

"Thank you." Miss Heredith turned away and walked to the library which,
like the billiard room, was on the ground floor. She opened the door,
and stepped into a large room with an interior which belonged to the
middle ages. There was no intrusion of the twentieth-century in the
great gloomy apartment with its faded arabesques and friezes, bronze
candelabras, mediaeval fittings, and heavy time-worn furniture.

The young man who sat writing at an ancient writing-table in the room
was not out of harmony with the ancient setting. His face was of antique
type--long, and narrow, and his long straight dark hair, brushed back
from his brow, was in curious contrast to the close crop of a military
generation of young men. His eyes were dark, and set rather deeply
beneath a narrow high white forehead. He had the Heredith eyebrows and
high-bridged nose; but, apart from those traditional features of his
line, his rather intellectual face and slight frame had little in common
with the portraits of the massive war-like Herediths which hung on the
walls around him. He ceased writing and looked up as his aunt entered.

"I have just been to see Violet," Miss Heredith explained. "She says she
is no better, and will not be able to accompany us to the Weynes'
to-night. I suggested remaining with her, but she would not hear of it.
She says she prefers to be alone. Do you think it is right to leave her?
I should like to have your opinion. You understand her best, of course."

"I think if Violet desires to be alone we cannot do better than study
her wishes," replied Phil. "I know she likes to be left quite to herself
when she has a nervous headache."

"In that case we will go," responded Miss Heredith. "I have decided to
have dinner a quarter of an hour earlier to enable us to leave here at
half-past seven."

"I see," said the young man. "Is Violet having any dinner?"

"No. She has just had some tea and toast, and now she is trying to
sleep. She does not wish to be disturbed--she asked me to tell you so."
Miss Heredith glanced at her watch. "Dear me, it is nearly half-past
six! I must go. Tufnell is _so_ dilatory when quickness is requisite."

"Did you remind Violet about the necklace?" asked Phil, as his aunt
turned to leave the library.

"Yes. She said she would send it down in the morning, before Vincent
leaves."

Phil nodded, and returned to his letters. Miss Heredith left the room,
and proceeded along the corridor to the big dining-room. An elderly man
servant, grey and clean-shaven, permitted a faint deferential smile to
appear on his features as she entered.

"Is everything quite right, Tufnell?" she asked.

Tufnell, the staid old butler, who had inherited his place from his
father, bowed gravely, and answered decorously:

"Everything is quite right, ma'am."

Miss Heredith walked slowly round the spacious table, adjusting a knife
here, a fork there, and giving an added touch to the table decorations.
There was not the slightest necessity for her to do so, because the
appointments were as perfect as they could be made by the hands of old
servants who knew their mistress and her ways thoroughly. But it was
Miss Heredith's nightly custom, and Tufnell, standing by the carved
buffet, watched her with an indulgent smile, as he had done every
evening during the last ten years.

While Miss Heredith was thus engaged, the door opened and Sir Philip
Heredith entered the room in company with an old family friend, Vincent
Musard.

CHAPTER III

Sir Philip Heredith was a dignified figure of an English country
gentleman of the old type. He was tall and thin, aristocratic of mien,
with white hair and faded blue eyes. His face was not impressive. At
first sight it seemed merely that of a tired old man, weary of the
paltry exactions of life, and longing for rest; but, at odd moments, one
caught a passing resemblance to a caged eagle in a swift turn of the
falcon profile, or in a sudden flash of the old eyes beneath the
straight Heredith brows. At such times the Heredith face--the warrior
face of a long line of fierce fighters and freebooting ancestors--leaped
alive in the ageing features of the last but one of the race.

His companion was a man of about fifty-five. His face was brown, as
though from hot suns, his close-cropped hair was silver-grey, and he had
the bold, clear-cut features of a man quick to make up his mind and
accustomed to command. His eyes were the strangest feature of his
dominating personality. They were small and black, and appeared almost
lidless, with something in their dark direct gaze like the unwinking
glare of a snake. His apparel was unconventional, even for war-time,
consisting of a worn brown suit with big pockets in the jacket, and a
soft collar, with a carelessly arranged tie. On the little finger of his
left hand he wore a ruby ring of noticeable size and lustre.

Vincent Musard was a remarkable personality. He came of a good county
family, which had settled in Sussex about the same time that the first
Philip Heredith had burnt down the moat-house, but his family tree
extended considerably beyond that period. If the name of Here-Deith was
inscribed in the various versions of the Roll of Battle Abbey to be seen
in the British Museum, the name of Musard was to be found in the French
roll of "Les Compagnons de Guillaume a la Conquete de l'Angleterre en
1066," the one genuine and authentic list, which has received the stamp
of the French Archaeological Society, and is carved in stone and erected
in the Church of Dives on the coast of Normandy. Vincent Musard was the
last survivor of an illustrious line, a bachelor, explorer, man of
science, and connoisseur in jewels. He had been intended for the Church
in his youth, but had quarrelled with it on a question of doctrine.
Since then he had led a roving existence in the four corners of the
earth, exploring, botanizing, shooting big game, and searching for big
diamonds and rubies. He had written books on all sorts of out-of-the-way
subjects, such as "The Flora of Chatham Islands," "Poisonous Spiders
(genus Latrodectua) of Sardinia," "Fossil Reptilia and Moa Remains of
New Zealand," and "Seals of the Antarctic." But his chief and greatest
hobby was precious stones, of which he was a recognized expert.

His father had left him a comfortable fortune, but he had made another
on his own account by his dealings in gems, which he collected in remote
corners of the world and sold with great advantage to London dealers. He
was intimately acquainted with all the known mines and pearl fisheries
of the world, but his success as a dealer in jewels was largely due to
the fact that he searched for them off the beaten track. He had explored
Cooper's Creek for white sapphires, the Northern Territory for opals,
and had once led an expedition into German New Guinea in search of
diamonds, where he had narrowly escaped being eaten by cannibals.

The passage of time had not tamed the fierce restlessness of his
disposition. Although he was not quite such a rover as of yore, the
discovery of a new diamond field in Brazil, or the news of a new pearl
bed in southern seas, was sufficient to set him packing for another
jaunt half round the world. He was the oldest friend of the Herediths,
and Miss Heredith, in particular, had a high opinion of his qualities.
Musard, on his part, made no secret of the fact that he regarded Miss
Heredith as the best of living women. It had, indeed, been rumoured in
the county a quarter of a century before that Vincent Musard and Alethea
Heredith were "going to make a match of it."

It was, perhaps, well for both that the match was never made. Musard had
departed for one of his tours into the wilds of the world, not to return
to England until five years had elapsed. Their mutual attraction was the
attraction of opposites. There was nothing in common except mutual
esteem between a wild, tempestuous being like Musard, who rushed through
life like a whirlwind, for ever seeking new scenes in primitive parts of
the earth, and the tranquil mistress of the moat-house, who had rarely
been outside her native county, and revolved in the same little circle
year after year, happy in her artless country pursuits and simple
pleasures.

Of late years, Musard had spent most of his brief stays in England with
the Herediths. He had his own home, which was not far from the
moat-house, but he was a companionable man, and preferred the warm
welcome and kindly society of his old friends to the solitary existence
of a bachelor at Brandreth Hall, as his own place was named.

He had recently returned to England after a year's wanderings in the
southern hemisphere, and had arrived at the moat-house on the previous
day, bringing with him a dried alligator's head with gaping jaws, a
collection of rare stuffed birds and snakeskins for Phil, who had a
taste in that direction, and a carved tiki god for Miss Heredith. He had
also brought with him his Chinese servant, two kea parrots, and a mat of
white feathers from the Solomon Islands, which he used on his bed
instead of an eiderdown quilt when the nights were cold. He had left in
his London banker's strong room his latest collection of precious
stones, after forwarding anonymously to Christie's a particularly fine
pearl as a donation towards the British Red Cross necklace.

Musard's present stay at the moat-house was to be a brief one. The
British Government, on learning of his return to his native land, had
asked him to go over to the front to adjust some trouble which had
arisen between the head-men of a Kaffir labour compound. As Musard's
wide knowledge of African tribes rendered him peculiarly fitted for such
a task, he had willingly complied with the request, and was to go to
France on the following day.

Miss Heredith had taken advantage of his brief visit to consult him
about the Heredith pearl necklace--a piece of jewellery which was
perhaps more famous than valuable, as some of the pearls were nearly
three hundred years old. Sir Philip had given it to Violet when she
married Phil. But Violet had locked it away in her jewel-case and never
worn it. She had said, only the night before, that the setting of the
clasp was old-fashioned, and the pearls dull with age. Miss Heredith,
although much hurt, had realized that there was some truth in the
complaint, and she had asked Musard for his advice. Musard had expressed
the opinion that perhaps the pearls were in need of the delicate
operation known as "skinning," and had offered to take the necklace to
London and obtain the opinion of a Hatton Garden expert of his
acquaintance.

Vincent Musard smiled at Miss Heredith in friendly fashion as he entered
the dining-room, and Sir Philip greeted his sister with polite, but
somewhat vague courtesy. Sir Philip's manner to everybody was
distinguished by perfect urbanity, which was so impersonal and unvarying
as to suggest that it was not so much a compliment to those upon whom it
was bestowed as a duty which he felt he owed to himself to perform with
uniform exactitude.

Musard began to talk about the arrangements for his departure the
following day, and asked Tufnell about the trains. On learning that the
first train to London was at eight o'clock, he expressed his intention
of catching it.

"Is it necessary for you to go so early, Vincent?" inquired Miss
Heredith. "Could you not take a later train?"

"I daresay I could. Why do you ask?"

"I was thinking about the necklace. Violet was too unwell to give it to
me to-night, and she may not be awake so early in the morning. I should
like you to take it with you, if it could be managed."

"I can take a later train. It will suit me as well."

"Is Violet unable to go with us to the Weynes' to-night?" said Sir
Philip, glancing at his sister.

"Yes; her head is too bad."

"It is a pity we have to go without her, as the party is given in her
honour. Of course, we must go."

"Where is her necklace?" asked Musard. "Is it in the safe?"

"No," replied Miss Heredith. "It is in Violet's room, in her
jewel-case."

"Well, as Mrs. Heredith will be alone in the house to-night, I think it
would be wise if you locked it in the safe," said Musard. "There are
many servants in the house."

"I think that is quite unnecessary, Vincent. Our servants are all
trustworthy."

"Quite so, but several of your guests have brought their own
servants--maids and valets."

"Very well. If you think so, Vincent, I will see to it after dinner."

The conversation was terminated by the sound of the dinner-gong. The
guests came down to dinner in ones and twos, and assembled in the
drawing-room before proceeding to the dining-room. The men who were not
in khaki were dressed for dinner. The gathering formed a curious mixture
of modern London and ancient England. The London guests, who were in the
majority, consisted of young officers, some young men from the War
Office and the Foreign Office, a journalist or two, and the ladies Miss
Heredith had entertained at tea on the lawn. These people had been
invited because they were friends of the young couple, and not because
they were anybody particular in the London social or political world,
though one or two of the young men had claims in that direction. Mingled
with this very modern group were half a dozen representatives of old
county families, who had been invited by Miss Heredith.

The party sat down to dinner. There were one or two murmurs of
conventional regret when Miss Heredith explained the reason of Mrs.
Heredith's vacant place, but the majority of the London
guests--particularly the female portion--recognized the illness as a
subterfuge and accepted it with indifference. If Mrs. Heredith was bored
with her guests they, on their part, were tired of their visit. The
house party had not been a success. The London visitors found the fixed
routine of life in a country house monotonous and colourless, and were
looking forward to the termination of their visit. The life they had led
for the past fortnight was not their way of life. They met each morning
for breakfast at nine o'clock--Miss Heredith was a stickler for the
mid-Victorian etiquette of everybody sitting down together at the
breakfast table. After breakfast the men wandered off to their own
devices for killing time: some to play a round of golf, others to go
shooting or fishing, generally not reappearing until dinner-time. After
dinner they played billiards or auction bridge, and the ladies knitted
war socks or sustained themselves till bedtime with copious draughts of
the mild stimulant supplied by their favourite lady novelists. At
half-past ten o'clock Tufnell entered with a tray of glasses, and the
guests partook of a little refreshment. At eleven Miss Heredith bade her
visitors a stately good-night, and they retired to their bedrooms. The
great lady of the moat-house was a firm believer in the axiom that a
woman should be mistress in her own household, and she saw no reason why
her guests should not adopt her way of life while under her roof. She
was a country woman born and bred, believing in the virtues of an early
bed and early rising, and she was not to be put out of her decorous
regular way of living by Londoners who turned night into day with
theatres, late suppers, night clubs, and other pernicious forms of
amusement which Miss Heredith had read about in the London papers.

Dinner at the moat-house was a solemn and ceremonious function. In
accordance with the time-honoured tradition of the family, it was served
at the early hour of seven o'clock in the big dining-room, an ancient
chamber panelled with oak to the ceiling, with a carved buffet, an open
fireplace, Jacobean mantelpiece, and old family portraits on the walls.
There were sconces on the walls, and a crystal chandelier for wax
candles was suspended from the centre of the ceiling above the table.
The chandelier was never lit, as the moat-house was illuminated by
electric light, but it looked very pretty, and was the apple of Miss
Heredith's eye--as the maidservants were aware, to their cost.

The dinner that night was, as usual, very simple, as befitted a
patriotic English household in war-time, but the wines made up for the
lack of elaborate cooking. Sir Philip Heredith and his sister followed
their King's example of abstaining from wine during the duration of war,
but it was not in accordance with Sir Philip's idea of hospitality to
enforce abstinence on their guests, and the men, at all events, sipped
the rare old products of the Heredith cellars with unqualified approval,
enhanced by painful recollections of the thin war claret and sugared
ports of London clubs. Such wine, they felt, was not to be passed by. Of
the young men, Phil Heredith alone drank water, not for the same reason
as his father, but because he had always been a water drinker.

Under the influence of the good wine the guests brightened up
considerably as the meal proceeded. Sir Philip, in his old-fashioned
way, raised his glass of aerated water to one and another of the young
men. He was an ideal host, and his unfailing polished courtesy hid the
fact that he was looking forward to the break up of the party with a
relief akin to that felt by the majority of his guests. Conversation had
been confined to monosyllables at first, but became quite flourishing
and animated as the dinner went on. Miss Heredith smiled and looked
pleased. As a hostess, she liked to see her guests happy and
comfortable, even if she did not like her guests.

The conversation was mainly about the war: the Allies' plans and hopes
and fears. Several of the young men from London gave their views with
great authority, criticising campaigns and condemning generals. Phil
Heredith listened to this group without speaking. Two country gentlemen
in the vicinity also listened in silence. They were amazed to hear such
famous military names, whom they had been led by their favourite
newspapers to regard as the hope of the country's salvation, criticised
so unmercifully by youngsters.

"And do you think the war will soon be over, Mr. Brimley?" said a
feminine voice, rather loudly, during a lull in the conversation. The
speaker was a near neighbour and friend of Miss Heredith's, Mrs. Spicer,
who was not a member of the house party, but had been invited to dinner
that night and was going to the Weynes' afterwards. She was stout and
fresh-faced, and looked thoroughly good-natured and kind-hearted.

She addressed her question to a tall young man with prematurely grey
hair, prominent eyes, and a crooked nose. His name was Brimley, and he
was well-known in London journalism. His portrait occasionally appeared
in the picture papers as "one of the young lions of Fleet Street," but
his enemies preferred to describe him as one of Lord Butterworth's
jackals--Lord Butterworth being the millionaire proprietor of an
influential group of newspapers which, during the war, had stood for
"the last drop of blood and the last shilling" rallying cry. As one of
the foremost of this group of patriots, Mr. Brimley had let his ink flow
so freely in the Allies' cause that it was whispered amongst those "in
the know" that he was certain for a knighthood, or at least an Empire
Order, in the next list of honours.

Mr. Brimley looked at the speaker haughtily, and made an inaudible
reply. Although he was a lion of Fleet Street, he did not relish being
called upon to roar in the wilds of Sussex.

"Won't the poor German people be delighted when our troops march across
the Rhine to deliver them from militarism," continued the old lady
innocently.

There was a subdued titter from the younger girls at this, and a young
officer sitting near the bottom of the table laughed aloud, then flushed
suddenly at his breach of manners.

"Have I said something foolish?" asked the old lady placidly. "Please
tell me if I have--I don't mind."

"Not at all," said another young officer, with a beardless sunburnt
face. "Personally, I quite agree with you. The Germans ought to be jolly
well pleased to be saved from their beastly selves."

"What a number of land girls you have in this part of the world, Miss
Heredith," remarked the young officer who had laughed, as though anxious
to turn the conversation. "I saw several while I was out shooting
to-day, and very charming they looked. I had no idea that sunburn was so
becoming to a girl's complexion. I saw one girl who had been riding a
horse through the woods, and she looked like what's-her-name--Diana. She
had bits of green stuff sticking all over her, and cobwebs in her hair."

"That reminds me of a good story," exclaimed a chubby-faced youth in the
uniform of the Flying Corps. "You'll appreciate it, Denison. Old Graham,
of the Commissariat, was out golfing the other day, and he turned up at
the club all covered with cobwebs. Captain Harding, of our lot, who was
just back in Blighty from eighteen months over there, said to him,
'Hullo, Graham, I see you've been down at the War Office.' Ha, ha!"

The other young men in khaki joined in the laugh, but a tall gaunt man
with an authoritative glance, the Denison referred to, looked rather
angry. Miss Heredith, with a hostess's watchful tact for the
suspectibilities of her guests, started to talk about a show for
allotment holders which had been held in the moat-house grounds a few
weeks before. It seemed that most of the villagers were allotment
holders, and the show had been held to stimulate their patriotic war
efforts to increase the national food supply. The village had entered
into it with great spirit, and some wonderful specimens of fruit,
vegetables, poultry and rabbits had been exhibited.

"The best part of it was that Rusher, my own gardener, was beaten badly
in every class," put in Sir Philip, with a smile.

"Not in every class," corrected Miss Heredith. "The peaches and
nectarines from the walled garden were awarded first prize."

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