The Hand in the Dark

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"I should like to hear how you arrive at that conclusion." Phil strove
to utter the words calmly, but his trembling lips revealed his inward
agitation.

"His story, as told to me, fits in with facts of which he could have had
no knowledge. He says he found the door of the left wing locked, and we
know it was locked by Tufnell more than an hour before. He states that
after the shot he hid in the woods in front of the house. It was there
Tufnell thought he saw somebody hiding; it was there I found a scrap of
khaki adhering to a bramble at the spot indicated by Nepcote as his
hiding-place. Tufnell admits that he called out in alarm when his eye
fell on the crouching figure. Nepcote says that he saw Tufnell, heard
his cry, and plunged deeper into the bushes for safety. Tufnell returned
along the carriage drive twenty minutes afterwards with Detective Caldew
and Sergeant Lumbe. Nepcote heard the crunch of their feet on the gravel
as they passed. His accuracy in these details which he could not
possibly have known helped me to the conclusion that the whole of his
story was true."

"He had plenty of time to commit the murder, nevertheless," said Phil.

"It is useless for you to try and cling to that theory--now."

There was something in the tone in which these words were uttered which
caused the young man to look swiftly at the detective from beneath
furrowed brows.

"You seem to have constituted yourself the champion of this scoundrel,"
he said, in a changed harsh voice.

Musard glanced from one to the other with troubled eyes. There was a
growing hint of menace in their conversation which his mind, deeply
agitated by the strange disclosures of the evening, could only fear
without fathoming.

"I do not understand you," he said simply, addressing himself to Colwyn.
"If this man Nepcote did not commit the murder, who did? Was it not he
who was in the bedroom when Hazel Rath went there in the dark?"

"No," said Colwyn; "it was not he."

"Who was the man, then, who clutched Hazel Rath, by the throat?"
persisted Musard.

"It was no man," responded Colwyn, in a gloomy voice. "_That_ was the
point which baffled me for hours when I thought the whole truth was
within my grasp. Again and again I sought vainly for the answer, until,
in mental weariness and utter despair, I was tempted to believe that the
powers of evil had combined to shield the perpetrator of this atrocious
murder from justice. Then it came to me--the last horrible revelation in
this hellish plot. It was the hand of the dying woman, spasmodically
clutching at the empty air in her death agonies, which accidentally came
in contact with Hazel Rath's throat, and loosened her brooch."

"Oh, this is too terrible," murmured Musard. His swarthy face showed an
ashen tint. "What do you mean? What are you keeping back? Where does all
this lead to?"

"It leads to the exposure of the trick--the trick of a false report by
which the murderer sought to procure an alibi and revenge."

"What do you mean? What have you found out?" cried Phil, leaping to his
feet and facing Colwyn.

As he uttered the words, a loud shot in the room overhead rang out with
startling distinctness.

"I mean--that," said Colwyn quietly.

Even up to the moment of his experiment he was not quite certain. But in
the one swift glance they exchanged, everything was revealed to each of
them.

Before Musard could frame the question which trembled on his amazed
lips, Phil spoke. His face was very white, and his dark eyes blazing:

"Yes. That is it. You have found me out." His voice, deepened to a
bitter intensity, had a deliberate intonation which was almost solemn.
"What did they do to me? Shall I ever forget my feelings when,
unobserved by them, I caught them in the house one day, whispering and
kissing? I walked straight out into the woods to be alone with my shame.
My brain was on fire. When I recalled his lecherous looks and her wanton
meaning glances I was tempted to destroy myself in misery and despair.
Human nature--ah, God, what a beastly thing it is. I had trusted them
both so utterly--I loved her so deeply. How had they repaid my trust and
love? By deceiving me, under my eyes, in my own home, before my marriage
was three months old.

"That night I dreamt of obscene things. I awoke with their images
hovering by my bedside, looking at me with sneering eyes, mocking me
with lewd gestures. 'Your honour and the honour of the Herediths--Where
is it?' they kept repeating: 'Sold by the wanton you have made your
wife. What is honour to the lust of the flesh? There is nothing so
strong in the world.' But as I watched them the ceiling rolled away, and
in the darkness of the sky a stern and implacable face appeared. And it
said, 'There is one thing stronger than honour, stronger even that the
lust of the flesh, and that is--Death.'

"It was the answer to a question I had been asking myself ever since I
knew. I got up, and sat by the open window, to plan how I should kill
them both. But I wanted the man to feel more than a swift thunderstroke
of mortal agony. I wished to make him suffer as I had suffered, but at
first I could see no way.

"Then it came to me in the strangest way--a light, a direction, a guide.
I had been smoking as I sat there thinking--smoking cigarettes which I
lit with a little automatic lighter I always used. I must have laid it
down carelessly, for I was interrupted in my meditations by the sight of
a thin trail of vapour ascending from the window ledge. I had failed to
put the extinguisher on the lighter, and the wick had gone on burning.
As I watched the red spark crawling almost imperceptibly along the
yellow wick, there dawned in my mind the first glimmering of the idea of
a slow match and a delayed report. Bit by bit it took form, and the
means of my revenge was made clear to me. I went back to bed and slept
soundly.

"I was in no hurry to act. There was much to think over, much to do,
before the plan was finally perfected. I carried out experiments in the
gun-room when everybody was in bed, secure in the knowledge that no
report, however loud, could penetrate from those thick walls upstairs.
While I was making ready I watched them both. Not a furtive glance or
caress passed between them which I did not see.

"The night my aunt asked Violet about the necklace I suspected that it
was no longer in her possession. I guessed that by her evasive answers
and telltale face. When she left the room and went upstairs I crept
after her in the shadows and followed her to the door of Nepcote's room.
I listened to their conversation; I heard him promise her to return
secretly to the moat-house on the following night with the necklace. My
heart leapt as I listened. I believed that I had him.

"I stole away quietly without waiting to learn any more, but I stayed up
till far into the night preparing my final plans. My intention was to
shoot her just before dinner, and arrange for the false report to
explode after he had arrived and hidden himself in the old staircase,
waiting for her to go to him. Then, when the report startled everybody
in the dining-room, I intended to be the first to rush upstairs, and
lead the search in the direction of the old staircase. I would have had
him by the throat, before he had time to get away. How would he have
been able to account for his secret presence in the house when her
jewels were in his pocket and her dead body upstairs, close to where he
was hiding?

"I had intended to kill Violet with a small revolver which I had bought
in a second-hand place at London last winter, but Nepcote's carelessness
in leaving his own revolver in the gun-room gave the last finishing
touch to my plan. I could scarcely believe my luck when I found it. It
seemed as though he himself were playing into my hands. I hid it away,
expecting that there would be inquiries, but there were none. He had
forgotten all about it. It was strange, too, that Violet herself helped
by telling my aunt before dinner on the night of her pretended illness
that she did not wish to be disturbed by anybody. That removed a defect
in my arrangements which had caused me much anxious thought. I had
feared that somebody, probably a servant, might enter the room in the
period between the first and second reports. It was a chance I could not
afford to overlook, and I could see no way of guarding against it except
by locking the door, which I did not want to do. I wanted to leave the
door partly open so as to make sure of the second report penetrating to
the dining-room downstairs.

"When my aunt gave me Violet's message in the library shortly before
dinner I knew that the moment had arrived. The altered arrangements for
an earlier dinner cost me a moment's perplexity, but no more. One cannot
hurry one's own guests, and I knew it would be impossible to get dinner
over as quickly as my aunt anticipated. If it were ending too quickly
for my purpose it would be an easy matter to introduce a subject which
would set somebody talking. That, as you know, is what actually
happened.

"After my aunt left me I waited until the last possible moment before
slipping upstairs. The revolver and the pistol were locked away in my
own bedroom in readiness. I got them out. The pistol was completely
prepared except for the cap. I had bound a twelve inch tinder-wick to
the stock in order to allow for a delay of nearly fifty minutes between
the lighting and the report. I knew that Nepcote expected to arrive at
the moat-house by half-past seven at the latest, but I gave him a margin
of a few minutes for unexpected delays. I put the pistol in my pocket,
and wrapping the revolver in a silk muffler to deaden the report, went
swiftly to my wife's room. I closed the door behind me as I entered.

"She was lying on the bed with her eyes closed, and did not hear me
approach. That helped me. Can you understand my feelings. I was about to
destroy something I loved better than life itself, but it was not she
who was lying on the bed. _She_ had died before--died by her own
act--leaving behind her another woman whose life was a living lie, who
was so corrupt and worthless as to be unfit to live. It was _that_ I was
going to destroy. I felt no compunction--no remorse. As I placed the
muzzle of the revolver against her breast, she opened her eyes in
terror, and saw me. I pulled the trigger quickly.... As I did so I heard
the dinner gong sound downstairs.

"The muffled report made less noise than the clapping of a pair of
hands. I knew that faint sound would not be heard downstairs. She never
moved, and I thought she was dead. I bent over the fireplace, shook some
caps out of the butt of the pistol, and placed one on the nipple. Then I
lit a match and started my prepared fuse. It was an easy matter to place
the pistol in position at the top of the grate; the difficulty of
recovering it subsequently was not made manifest to me until after my
illness, although my previous secret examination of the grate had
convinced me that the recoil of the explosion would cause the pistol to
fall to the bottom of the chimney behind the grate. When I had placed
the pistol in position I turned off the electric light, and opened the
window to allow the fumes of the burning wick to escape. Then I hurried
downstairs. I was not in the room three minutes altogether. I saw nobody
on my way down; nearly everybody had gone in to dinner, but I was in
time to sit down with the others.

"I felt quite cold and collected as I sat at the dinner table waiting
for the moment of my vengeance. I felt as though I was under the control
of some force immensely stronger than myself which held me firm with
giant hands while the minutes slowly ebbed away. I am sure there was
nothing unusual in my behaviour. I pretended to eat, and joined in the
conversation around me.

"The report did not come at the moment I anticipated, but I was not
perturbed at the delay. My experiments had taught me the difficulty of
fixing an explosion for an exact period. The time was in general
approximately the same, but there were reasons which caused a slight
difference. The wick always burnt at a uniform rate; the trouble was
with the string. Sometimes it was slow in catching. Sometimes the
pressure of the string partly extinguished the wick and made combustion
slower as it neared the point of contact. Once I tied the string so
tight that the wick went out altogether just before reaching the string.
But I had taken measures to overcome these little irregularities, and to
make sure of the string catching readily I had rubbed a little petrol on
it where it crossed the wick.

"But it was the scream before the report which upset my calculations and
almost caused me to collapse. When that terrible cry rang out my false
strength fled from me, leaving me weak and trembling. I think I should
have betrayed myself if the report had not followed so quickly, throwing
everybody into the same state of confusion as myself. I do not know how
I managed to make my limbs carry me upstairs with the others. I did not
know what had happened. My brain refused to act. I was conscious of
nothing except that a great wheel seemed turning inside my head,
tightening all my nerves to such taut agony that I could hardly refrain
from crying aloud.

"What I said or did when I found myself in the bedroom I do not know.
When I saw that everything was as I had arranged my mind began swinging
like a pendulum towards my revenge, and I struggled to lead the search
towards the staircase. But I was unable to move. I was like a man in a
dream, encompassed by invisible obstacles. Then the wheel in my head
suddenly relaxed, I felt the room and its objects slipping from me, and
everything went black.

"You know about my illness. It was not until I was supposed to be
recovering that the power of clear thought came back to me. There were
days when my brain was numb and powerless, like that of one newly
awakened from a terrible nightmare, striving to recall what had
happened. Then one day the veil was drawn, and I remembered everything.
My aunt was in the room, and I questioned her. She brought Musard to me,
and from him I learnt the truth.

"Intuitively I realized what had happened. Hazel Rath had gone to the
room for some unknown reason, had seen my wife lying there, and
screamed. Then, hardly conscious of what she was doing, she picked up
the revolver I had left lying by the bedside, and ran out of the room in
fright. I was even able to divine a reason for her silence under the
accusation of murder. She felt that nobody would believe her story,
especially after the history of her mother's past was brought to light.

"As I turned over what they had told me and realized that my own secret
was safe, I thought I saw the way to accomplish my revenge and save
Hazel Rath. Up till then the revolver had not been identified as
Nepcote's. It seemed to me that the mere disclosure of that fact was
sufficient to direct attention to Nepcote and bring to light his
movements on that night. But the detective who came to see me about the
revolver was too foolish and obstinate to grasp the importance of my
information. It was then I decided to go to you. It was daring, perhaps,
but it seemed safe enough to me. I was determined to entangle Nepcote,
and to free Hazel Rath.

"I told you no more than I had told to the other detective. I had
powerful motives for reticence. If I had told you more you would have
seen that I had an ulterior reason for directing attention to Nepcote. I
had not the least fear that you would discover my secret, but the
knowledge, if imparted to you, would have weakened the impression I
wanted to convey by suggesting to your mind that I was actuated by
hatred of Nepcote. Besides, I did not wish any living being to know of
my shame. I believed that I could accomplish my revenge without its ever
being known. I thought Nepcote would prefer to perish as the victim of
circumstances rather than incur public opprobrium by a defence which he
knew would never be believed. The actual facts against him were too
strong. He could neither extenuate nor deny them. He could not explain
his lying telegrams, his secret return, his presence in the moat-house,
his possession of the necklace, the revolver in the bedroom where the
body was. Therefore, it was only necessary to give you a starting point,
because discovery was inevitable where so much was hidden. I saw to it
that the loss of the necklace was discovered after your arrival. That
was all you needed to know.

"I do not know what oversight of mine put you on the track of the truth.
There was one, but I do not see how that could have helped you. It was
not until the following afternoon in the gun-room, when Musard drew your
attention to the pistol-case, that I remembered that the pistol I had
used was still at the back of the fireplace upstairs, where apparently
it had lain undiscovered during my illness. I had taken the precaution
of concealing the key of the case, but I decided to restore the pistol
that night after you left. It was more difficult to recover than I
anticipated, owing to the depth of the space behind the grate. I had to
push back the bedstead and use the tongs before I could reach it. I
believe it would have lain there undiscovered for years. There was
nothing else that I can recall, except that when I restored the pistol I
saw I had left the end of one of my experimental tinder-lighter wicks
lying in the case.

"But I do not wish to know how you found out, now that Nepcote has
escaped. I have nothing left to live for. The doctor thinks I am
recovering, but I knew that it was only the hope of revenge which kept
me going. Now that is gone I have not long to live. I rejoice that it is
so. But whatever had happened, I would have saved that poor girl, Hazel
Rath.... I ask you to believe that ... Violet...."

He ceased, and with a weary gesture, let his head fall on his
outstretched arms, as though the strength which bore him up while he
told his tale deserted him when he had made manifest the truth.

His two listeners sat for some minutes in silence, each engrossed in his
own thoughts. Musard stared gloomily at Phil with unseeing eyes. He was
as one who had passed through unimagined horrors in a space not to be
measured by time, to emerge with a fatigued sense of the black malignity
of unknown gods who create the passions of humanity for their own brutal
sport. His moving lips betrayed a consciousness loosened from its
moorings, tossed in a turbulent sea of disaster. Then they formed the
whispered words:

"The house was founded in horror and it ends in horror. So the old
tradition comes true."

The next moment he turned his eyes on Colwyn with a look askance, as
though he saw in him the instrument of this misery.

"Why did Hazel Rath keep silence?" he asked.

"Women have made greater sacrifices for love," Colwyn gently replied.
"Hazel Rath loved him, and kept silence to shield him. She would not
have spoken at all if suspicion had not fastened on Nepcote, and even
when she did speak she kept something back. We may now learn later what
actually passed between Hazel and Mrs. Heredith in the bedroom that
night. My own opinion is that, while Hazel was bending over her, the
dying woman whispered the name of her murderer."

"What are you going to do now?" Musard abruptly demanded, in sudden
change of mood, speaking as though there were nobody present but their
two selves.

"There is only one thing to do."

"Do you mean to let the world know the truth--to give him up to
justice?"

"What other course is there open for me to pursue?" said Colwyn sadly.

"I cannot see what earthly purpose will be gained by making this
horrible story public. Consider, I beg of you, all the circumstances
before you inflict this dreadful sorrow and scandal on an honoured
family."

"It is because I have to consider all the circumstances that I have no
option."

"Is there no other way?" persisted Musard. "He is mad. He must have been
possessed. You heard his story; his hallucinations were those of an
insane person. He had some justification. He would never have committed
this terrible deed of his own free will."

Colwyn did not reply. It was useless to point out that there is no such
thing as free will in human affairs, and that if Philip Heredith had
been impelled to his crime by the evil force of passions which were
stronger than the restraining power of human reason, he must pay the
full price demanded by humanity for the only safeguard of its supremacy.

There was the sound of an opening door and footsteps outside, and a
voice called:

"Phil! Vincent! Where are you?"

"They have returned!" Musard excitedly exclaimed. "What are they to be
told?"

"I cannot say," replied Colwyn, casting a sombre glance at Phil's
drooping and motionless figure.

There was something new in his posture--a stark stillness which arrested
his eye. He stepped quickly to his side and bent over him.

"He is dead," he said.

"Dead? My God! Impossible!"

"It is quite true. It is better so."

"Vincent!" Miss Heredith's voice sounded not far away.

"She is coming here. Quick, what am I to say to her?"

"I cannot tell you," responded Colwyn, with another glance at the still
form. "It was he who called me in to solve this mystery, and I have done
what he asked. I will leave you to tell her what you will, but I cannot
keep silence afterwards where the liberty of innocent people is
involved. Justice is as impersonal as Truth herself."

"Vincent!" This time the voice sounded just outside the door.

"I must stop her--she must not come in here," said Musard, starting up.

But he was too late. The door opened, and Miss Heredith stood in the
doorway.

Her startled eyes took in the agitated face of Musard, and then
travelled to the drooping attitude of the figure at the table. She went
quickly past the two men, and bent over her nephew. As she did so, she
sobbed aloud. All the pity and pathos of a woman, all the misery and
mystery of a broken heart, welled forth in her faint mournful cry.

"This will kill her," said Musard savagely.

But Colwyn felt that it would not be so. As he turned from the room,
leaving the living and the dead together, he knew that when the first
bitterness of the shock was over, and she was faced again with the
consciousness of duty, she would call on her abiding faith to help her
to wear, without flinching, the heavy grey garment of life.

THE END

By REES & WATSON

THE MYSTERY OF THE DOWNS

THE HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY

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