The Hand in the Dark

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"Rusher was beaten in the vegetable classes--in giant vegetable marrows
and cabbages," retorted Sir Philip, with a chuckle. "He hasn't got over
it yet. He suspects the vicar of favouritism in awarding the prizes. The
fact that his daughter won first prize for rabbits with a giant Belgian
did little to console him."

"And we raised quite a respectable sum for the Red Cross by charging
threepence admission to see a stuffed menagerie of Phil's," added Miss
Heredith.

"A stuffed menagerie! What a curious thing," remarked a young lady.

"Not quite a menagerie," said Sir Philip. "Merely the stuffed remains of
some animals Phil used to keep as a youngster. When they died--as they
invariably did--he used to skin them and stuff them. He was quite an
expert taxidermist."

"Tell them about your museum exhibit, Philip," said Miss Heredith, with
quite an animated air.

"We also arranged a little exhibition of--er--old things," continued Sir
Philip diffidently. "Armour, miniatures, some old jewels, and things
like that. That also brought in quite a respectable sum for the Red
Cross."

"From the Heredith collection, I presume?" said Mr. Brimley.

"What wonderful old treasures you must have in this wonderful old house
of yours," gushed the young lady who had spoken before. "I am so
disappointed in not seeing the Heredith pearl necklace. What a pity dear
Mrs. Heredith is ill. She was going to wear the pearls to-night, and now
I shall have to go away without seeing them."

Sir Philip bowed. He did not quite relish the trend of the conversation,
but he was too well-bred to show it.

"You shall see the pearls in the morning," said Miss Heredith
courteously.

"I adore pearls," sighed the guest.

"If you admire pearls, you should see the collection which is being made
for the British Red Cross," remarked Vincent Musard. "I had a private
view the other day. It is a truly magnificent collection."

All eyes were turned on the speaker. The topic interested every lady
present, and they were aware that Musard was one of the foremost living
authorities on jewels. The men had all heard of the famous traveller by
repute, and they wanted to listen to what he had to say. Musard seemed
rather embarrassed to find himself the object of general attention, and
went on with his dinner in silence. But some of the ladies were
determined not to lose the opportunity of learning something from such a
well-known expert on a subject so dear to their hearts, and they plied
him with eager questions.

"It must be a wonderful collection," said a slight and slender girl
named Garton, with blue eyes and red hair. She was a lady journalist
attached to Mr. Brimley's paper. Twenty years ago she would have been
called an advanced woman. She believed in equality for the sexes in all
things, and wrote articles on war immorality, the "social evil" and
kindred topics in a frank unabashed way which caused elderly
old-fashioned newspaper readers much embarrassment. Miss Garton was just
as eager as the more frivolous members of her sex to hear about the Red
Cross pearls, and begged Mr. Musard to give her some details. She would
have to do a "write up" about the necklace when she returned to London,
she said, and any information from Mr. Musard would be so helpful.

"It is not a single necklace," said Musard. "There are about thirty
necklaces. The Red Cross committee have already received nearly 4,000
pearls, and more are coming in every day."

"Four thousand pearls!" "How perfectly lovely!" "How I should love to
see them!" These feminine exclamations sounded from different parts of
the table.

"I suppose the collection is a very fine and varied one?" observed Sir
Philip.

"Undoubtedly. The committee have had the advice of the best experts in
London, who have given much time to grading the pearls for the different
necklaces. In an ordinary way it takes a long while--sometimes years--to
match the pearls for a faultless necklace, but in this case the experts
have had such a variety brought to their hands that their task has been
comparatively easy. But in spite of the skilful manner in which the
necklaces have been graded, it is even now a simple matter for the
trained eye to identify a number of the individual pearls. The largest,
a white pearl of pear shape, weighing 72 grains, would be recognized by
any expert anywhere. There are several other pearls over thirty grains
which the trained eye would recognize with equal ease in any setting.
The few pink and black pearls are all known to collectors, and it is the
same with the clasps. One diamond and ruby clasp is as well-known in
jewel history as the State Crown. The diamonds are in the form of a
Maltese Cross, set in a circle of rubies."

"That must have been the gift of the Duchess of Welburton," remarked Sir
Philip. "She inherited it from her great aunt, Adelina, wife of the
third duke. There was a famous pearl necklace attached to the clasp
once, but it disappeared about ten years ago at a ball given by the
German Ambassador, Prince Litzovny. I remember there was a lot of talk
about it at the time, but the necklace was never recovered. The clasp,
too, has a remarkable history."

"All great jewels have," said Musard. "In fact, all noteworthy stones
have dual histories. Their career as cut and polished gems is only the
second part. Infinitely more interesting is the hidden history of each
great jewel, from the discovery of the rough stone to the period when it
reaches the hands of the lapidary, to be polished and cut for a
drawing-room existence. What a record of intrigue and knavery, stabbings
and poisonings, connected with some of the greatest jewels in the
British Crown--the Black Prince's ruby, for example!"

Musard gazed thoughtfully at the great ruby on his own finger as he
ceased speaking. The guests had finished dinner, and Miss Heredith, with
a watchful eye on the big carved clock which swung a sedate pendulum by
the fireplace, beckoned Tufnell to her and directed him to serve coffee
and liqueurs at table.

"What is your favourite stone, Mr. Musard?" said a bright-eyed girl
sitting near him, after coffee had been served.

"Personally I have a weakness for the ruby," replied Musard. "Its
intrinsic value has been greatly discounted in these days of synthetic
stones, but it is still my favourite, largely, I suppose, because a
perfect natural ruby is so difficult to find. I remember once journeying
three thousand miles up the Amazon in search of a ruby reputed to be as
large as a pigeon's egg. But it did not exist--it was a myth."

"What a life yours has been!" said the girl. "How different from the
humdrum existence of us stay-at-homes! How I should like to hear some of
your adventures. They must be thrilling."

"If you want to hear a real thrilling adventure, Miss Finch, you should
get Mr. Musard to tell you how he came by that ruby he is wearing," said
Phil Heredith, joining in the conversation.

The eyes of all the guests were directed to the ring which Musard was
wearing on the little finger of his left hand. The stone in the plain
gold setting was an unusually large one, nearly an inch in length. The
stone had been polished, not cut, and glowed rather than sparkled with a
deep rich red--the true "pigeon's-blood" tint so admired by
connoisseurs.

"Nonsense, Phil"--Musard flushed under his brown skin--"your guests do
not want to hear me talk any more about myself. I've monopolized the
conversation too long already."

"Oh, please do tell us!" exclaimed several of the guests.

"Really, you know, I'd rather not," responded Musard, in some
embarrassment. "It's a long story, for one thing, and it's not
quite--how shall I express it--it's a bit on the horrible side to relate
in the presence of ladies."

"I do not think that need deter you," remarked one of the young officers
drily. "We are all pretty strong-minded nowadays--since the War."

"Oh, we should love to hear it," said the lady journalist, who scented
good "copy." "Shouldn't we?" she added, turning to some of the ladies
near her.

"Yes, indeed!" chorused the other ladies. "Do tell us."

"Go ahead, Musard--you see you can't get out of it," said Phil.

"Perhaps, Phil, as Mr. Musard does not think it a suitable
story--" commenced Miss Heredith tentatively. Her eye was fixed anxiously
on the clock, which was verging on twenty minutes past seven, and she
feared the relation of her old friend's experience might make them late
at the Weynes. But at that moment Tufnell approached his mistress and
caught her eye. A slight shade of annoyance crossed her brow as she
listened to something he communicated in a low voice, and she turned to
her guests.

"I must ask you to excuse me for a few moments," she said.

She rose from her place and left the room. As the door closed behind her
the ladies turned eagerly to Musard.

"Now, please, tell us about the ruby," said several in unison.

The explorer glanced at the eager faces looking towards him.

"Very well, I will tell you the story," he said quietly, but with
visible reluctance.

CHAPTER IV

"It was before the war. Many strange things have happened in the world
before the Boche broke loose with his dream of 'Deutschland ueber Alles.'
I had been to Melville Island trying to match a pearl for the Devonshire
necklace, and I went from the pearl fisheries to New Zealand, led there
by rumours of the discovery of some wonderful black pearls. It was,
however, a wild-goose chase. These rumours generally are. One of the
experts of the New Zealand Fishery Department had been exploring the
Haurakai Gulf, and returned to Auckland with a number of black pearls,
which he had found in an oyster-bed on one of the Barrier Islands. He
thought his fortune was made, though, being a fishery expert, he ought
to have known better. They were black pearls right enough, but they came
from edible oysters, and were valueless as jewels--not worth a shilling
each.

"I put up at the Royal hotel, Auckland, waiting for a ship to take me
back to England. I had arranged to return round the Cape, to look at a
parcel of diamonds which were expected to arrive at Capetown from the
fields in about six weeks' time. The day before I was due to sail, a
rough-looking man named Moynglass, a miner, came to the hotel to see me.
He had heard of me as a mining expert, and he had a business proposition
which he wanted to place before me.

"He told me he and four others had just returned to Auckland after
putting in six weeks among the volcanic beaches of the North Island,
searching--'fossicking,' he called it--for fine gold. These black sand
volcanic beaches are common in parts of New Zealand. The black sand is
derived from the crystals of magnetic iron, and there is frequently a
fair amount of fine gold mingled with them. By the continued action of
the surf the heavier materials, gold, and ironstone sand, are mingled
together between high and low water mark, and what appears as a stratum
of black sand is found on the surface or buried under the ordinary sand.
The gold is usually very fine, and the trouble of sifting and collecting
it is great. A man works for wages, and hard-earned wages at that, who
goes in for this kind of mining. But your true miner is ever an
adventurer and a gambler, and gold thus won is dearer to his heart than
gold which might be earned with less effort and more regularity in the
form of sovereigns. You see, there is always the chance of a big find.

"Moynglass and his party had met with fair success along the beaches,
but they wanted more than that. Moynglass was anxious to trace the fine
gold to its source, and find a fortune. He believed, like most miners,
that this fine gold is carried along the beds of the larger rivers and
distributed by the action of the sea along the different beaches where
it is found. His theory was that if the drift of the gold sands could be
traced to their source, a great quartz reef would be found which would
make the discoverers wealthy men. But he and his mates knew nothing
about geology, and they wanted somebody to go with them who could chart
the course, and lead them to the launching point of the gold.

"I had heard this theory before, and was not impressed by it. I should
probably have turned down Moynglass's proposition if, in the course of
his conversation, he had not produced a sample of ruby quartz from his
pocket and showed it to me. He said he had found it while exploring one
of the rivers of the Urewera country. I examined the quartz attentively.
It was emery rock, and imbedded in the pale green mass were ruby
crystals, and true Oriental rubies at that. I realized the valuable
nature of the discovery, and questioned the man closely as to where he
had obtained the ruby rock, but he became instantly suspicious, and
guarded in his replies. If I joined his party--well and good: he would
show me the spot, and we would share and share alike, but he would tell
me nothing otherwise.

"I decided to go, and the terms were agreed upon. We set out from
Auckland, the five of us, a week later. We went by coastal steamer to a
little port in the Bay of Plenty, and there we plunged into the Urewera
Mountains. My companions thought of nothing but the search for the
source of the golden sands, but I was interested only in the ruby rock.
There lay the fortune, if I could find it. I carried the specimen of
corundum in my waistcoat pocket.

"The river we were ascending to its source was called the Araheoa. It
was a rushing, noisy torrent, winding along a deep and narrow gorge,
which in places almost met overhead. Some patches of olivine and
serpentine encouraged me to think that we should find a heavy belt of
the rock somewhere along the upper part of the valley, but my hopes were
not realized. Day after day passed, and I found no more of it. When my
companions washed the sands of likely stretches of river beach for fine
gold, I examined the waste for corundum crystals, but I found no signs
of them.

"We followed the river until we reached an inaccessible mountain gorge
which seemed to bar our further progress. But, by diverting our course
some miles to the northward, we were able to ascend to the upper reaches
of the river, and, here, to my delight, I found the banks and rapids
studded with great green masses of olivine rocks.

"I was anxious to examine these rocks, which extended up the mountain
side, and my companions agreed with me that it was advisable to leave
the bed of the river for the spur of the mountains where the river
apparently took its rise. We crossed the stream, and commenced a gradual
but oblique ascent of the spur. But after climbing for some hours we
found our further progress stopped by a wide and deep gully, a sinister
place, full of masses of dark green rocks. At the foot of one of the
largest of these rocks we came across a large hole descending almost
perpendicularly into the earth.

"We lit our lamps and descended. After some scrambling we found
ourselves on a landing-place, from which another low passage of an
easier gradient led into a large cave in the solid rock.

"The surface underneath our feet was covered with a dust so fine that it
slipped from beneath us like sand, and rose in thick clouds about us.
The cave was high enough to walk upright in, and seemed to run a great
distance, with many lateral passages and smaller recesses off the
principal chamber. Moynglass entered one of these passages and
disappeared from view. A few moments afterwards we heard him, in a very
excited voice, calling us to follow him.

"We proceeded stooping, in Indian file, down the passage, and found
Moynglass in a smaller cave at the end of it, staring intently at
something which was at first difficult to see in the gloom. Then, by the
light of our lamps, we made out a sapling sticking up between two rocks,
with a withered human hand impaled on it by a rusty sheath knife.

"As I was examining it, one of my companions, who had been exploring the
cave, gave a cry of astonishment which caused me to look round. In a
corner of the cave, revealed by his lamp, lay two skeletons side by
side. The hand of one skeleton was missing, and in the eye of the other
there gleamed a large uncut ruby. We examined the skeletons and searched
the cave, but found nothing to throw any light on the mystery or reveal
any clue of identity. There was not a vestige of food or clothing around
the remains, and not a scrap of writing--only the two crumbling
skeletons, the sapling, the sheath knife, and the ruby.

"What had brought about such a tragedy in the dim recesses of that
prehistoric cave? Who could say? Perhaps the men had been prospecting
together, and one had found the ruby and hidden in the cave, where his
companion had found him and cut off his right hand with some primitive
idea of making his vengeance fit the crime. Then, perhaps, they had been
unable to escape from the cave, and had died together of thirst and
hunger. But what is the use of speculating? The secret must ever remain
hidden in the cave where the skeletons still lie."

Musard stopped abruptly, and sat staring straight in front of him. His
strange eyes had a fixed look, as if gazing into the distance. His brown
hand rested lightly on the white tablecloth, and the great ruby on his
little finger gleamed fitfully in the light.

"You haven't told us all the story yet," said Phil Heredith quietly.

The other looked doubtfully at the ring of intent faces regarding him.
"I left that part untold for a good reason," he admitted. "It is--well,
I thought it a little bit too horrible to relate."

"Oh, do tell us," said the lady journalist enthusiastically. "We are all
dying to hear it. It is such an unusual and exciting story that it would
be cruel to leave us in suspense about the end."

"Very well, then," said Musard, as the other ladies chorused their
approval. "We left the cave, and Moynglass, who considered himself the
leader of the expedition, put the ruby in his pocket. That night we
camped at a wild desolate spot, not far from the edge of a cliff about
two hundred feet high, at the foot of which the bitter sulphurous waters
of the river flowed into a chasm. In the morning we found Moynglass
lying dead in his blanket, with the rusty sheath knife he had brought
away from the cave sticking in his breast. The ruby was gone, and, so,
also, was the eldest member of our party--an elderly dark-faced Irishman
named Doyne, who, the previous day, had angrily disputed Moynglass's
right to carry the ruby.

"We searched for Doyne all that day, but could find no trace of him. The
next day we tracked across a glacier-like expanse littered with large
blocks of sandstone. It was a grim spot. A horrible, stony, treeless
waste which might have been the birthplace of the earth and the scene of
Creation--a tableland between great mountains, full of masses of
rhodonite contorted into grotesque shapes of stone images; a place where
our lightest whispers came shouting back out of the profound stillness
from the huge castellated black rocks bristling on the edge of a
precipice which slit the valley from end to end.

"It was there we found Doyne, staggering along the lip of the gorge. He
had gone mad in the solitude, and was wandering along bareheaded,
tossing his arms in the air as he walked. When I saw him I thought of
Cain trying to escape from the wrath of God after killing Abel. He saw
us as soon as we saw him, and started to run. We set out in pursuit, but
he fled with great speed, leaping from rock to rock like a mountain
goat. He was getting away from us when he slipped and fell into the
chasm with a loud cry. We found a path down the precipice and descended,
and discovered him at the foot, battered to death, with the ruby
clutched in his hand. That ended the expedition. The others insisted on
returning to the coast without delay, and when we arrived there they
gladly sold their shares in the ruby to me."

There was rather a long silence when the explorer had finished his
narration. The long hand of the clock on the mantelpiece was creeping
past the half-hour, but the circle round the dining-room table had been
so enthralled by the story that nobody had noted the passage of time.

"What a ghastly adventure, Mr. Musard!" began one of the ladies, with a
mirthless little laugh. "Did you never discover anything more about the
two dead men in the cave?"

"No," replied Musard. "As I said, there were no papers or any clue to
throw light on their identity. The skeletons must have lain there for
many years, for the bones were crumbling into decay."

"You have never revisited the spot?" asked Sir Philip.

"I was in the Ureweras two years later with a Maori guide, investigating
copper deposits for the New Zealand Government, but I did not go back to
the valley."

"Would it not have been possible to give the poor things--the skeletons,
I mean--Christian burial?" Mrs. Spicer asked timidly.

"It was impossible to dig a grave in the solid rock. Besides, they have
a sepulchre of Nature's which will outlast any human grave," replied
Musard.

"The thing that puzzles me is how the ruby got into the skeleton's eye,"
remarked the lady journalist musingly. "If that was the skeleton of the
man who killed the other for stealing the ruby, who placed the ruby
where you found it? Obviously, he could not have done it himself, for it
must have been put there after death. Who, then, could it have been?"

"I have no idea," said Musard, in a tone which suggested that he did not
care to discuss the subject further.

"May I look at the ring?" Miss Garton asked.

Musard drew it off his finger and handed it to her in silence. The
others wanted to see it, so it was passed from hand to hand round the
table, to the accompaniment of many admiring comments on the size and
beauty of the stone. One of the young officers, with an air of much
interest, asked Musard whether he thought there were other rubies like
it to be found near the spot.

"Hardly in that form," replied Musard. "It is a puzzle to me how the men
who found the ruby managed to get it out of the ruby rock and partially
polish it. They had no tools or instruments of any kind--at least, we
found none in the cave. Undoubtedly there are rubies in that part of the
world. It was near the valley that Moynglass found his sample of
corundum, with a ruby crystal in it. On our way back, at the head of the
valley, I came across a belt of magnesian rocks charged with ores of
copper and iron, and probably containing the matrix of ruby crystals."

"I wonder you wear the thing," said the chubby-faced youth of the Flying
Corps, handing the ring across the table to the explorer.

"Why not?" asked Musard.

"Well, I wouldn't care to wear a ring found in a skeleton's head. I
should expect the old bus to flop to the ground while I was doing a
stunt, if I had a thing like that on my finger. Aren't you frightened of
being haunted by the original owner?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Musard indifferently. "There's a horrible
history attached to most jewels, if it comes to that. I am not
superstitious." He replaced the ring on his finger, and added
thoughtfully: "I suppose many people would regard it in that light--as a
grim sort of relic. Certainly, I shall never forget the valley of rocks
where we found it. It was the strangest place I have ever seen--a 'waste
howling wilderness.' And sometimes I fancy I can still hear the cry
Doyne gave as he slipped or jumped from one of the black rocks into
space. I remember how it came ringing back from the cliffs a hundred
times repeated. It was--"

He broke off suddenly, as a scream pealed through the moat-house--a wild
shrill cry, which, coming from somewhere overhead, seemed to fill the
dining-room with the shuddering, despairing intensity of its appeal. It
was the shriek of a woman in terror.

The ladies at the dinner table regarded one another with frightened eyes
and blanched faces.

"What was that?" several of them whispered together.

"It came from Violet's room! My God, what has happened?" exclaimed Phil.
He sprang to his feet in agitation and pushed back his chair. His face
was white, his mouth drawn, and he fumbled at his throat with a shaking
hand, as though the pressure of his collar impeded his breathing. Musard
rose from the table and walked to where the young man was standing.

"Don't get upset needlessly, Phil," he said soothingly, placing a hand
on his shoulder.

Sir Philip had also risen from his seat, and for the briefest possible
space the three men stood thus, facing each other, as if uncertain how
to act. Then the tense silence of the dining-room was broken by the loud
report of a fire-arm.

"Let me go!" cried Phil shrilly, shaking off Musard's arm. He turned and
limped rapidly towards the door, and as he did so his infirmity of body
was apparent. One of his legs was several inches shorter than the other,
and he wore a high boot.

Musard reached the door before him in a few rapid strides, and Sir
Philip came hurrying after his son. The rest of the male guests
followed, flocking towards the door in a body.

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