The Hand in the Dark

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The first sight that Musard's eye fell upon as he passed through the
doorway was the figure of Miss Heredith, rapidly descending the
staircase. By the hall light he could see that her face was pale and
agitated. She walked swiftly up to her old friend, and laid a trembling
hand on his arm.

"Oh, Vincent, I was just coming for you--something terrible must have
happened!" she began, in a broken, sobbing voice. "I was going upstairs
to my room, when I heard the scream, and then the shot. They must have
come from Violet's room. Will you go up and see, Vincent?"

Musard did not wait for her concluding words. He was already mounting
the staircase, taking two or three of the broad shallow stairs in his
stride. Phil hobbled after him, and Sir Philip and some of the guests
straggled up in their wake.

CHAPTER V

A shaded light in an alcove at the head of the stairs threw a dim light
down the passage which led off the first-floor landing, but Musard felt
for the electric switch and pressed it. The light flooded an empty
corridor, with the door of the room nearest to him gaping into a dark
interior.

Musard stepped inside the open door, struck a match to find the switch,
and walked over and turned on the light. As he did so, Phil and his
father reached the door and followed him into the room, where, less than
two hours before, Miss Heredith had been with Phil's young wife, and
left her to sleep. The room seemed as it had been then; there was no
sign of any intruder. The cut-glass and silver bottles stood on the
small table by the head of the bed; the gold cigarette case was open
alongside them; a novel, flung face downward on the pillows, revealed a
garish cover and the bold lettering of the title--"What Shall it
Profit?"--as though the book had dropped from the hand of some one
overcome by sleep. But the white rays of the electric globe, hanging in
a shade of rose colour directly overhead, fell with sinister
distinctness on the slender figure of the young wife, lying in a huddled
heap on the bed, her fashionable rest gown stained with blood, which
oozed from her breast in a sluggish stream on the satin quilt. A sharp,
pungent odour was mingled with the heavy atmosphere of the room--the
smell of a burning fabric. There was no disorder, no weapon, no
indication of a struggle. Only the motionless, bleeding figure on the
bed revealed to the guests clustering outside the room that somebody had
entered and departed as silently as a tiger.

Musard went swiftly to the bedside and bent over the girl.

"She has been shot," he said, in a tone which was little more than a
whisper.

"She has been murdered!" It was Phil, pressing close behind Musard, who
uttered these words. "Murdered!" he cried, in an unnatural voice, which
was dreadful to hear. He made a few steps in the direction of the bed
with his arms outstretched, then stopped, and, swinging round, faced the
guests who were thronging the corridor outside. "Murdered, I say!" he
repeated. "Where is the murderer?"

He stood for a moment, fixing a wild eye on the group of frightened
faces in the doorway, as though seeking the murderer among them. Then
his face became distorted, and he fell to the ground. His limbs seemed
to grow rigid as he lay; his legs were extended stiffly, the upper part
of his arms were pressed against his breast, but the forearms inclined
forward, with the palms of the hand thrown back, and the fingers wide
apart. Even in his unconsciousness he looked as though he were warding
off the horror of the sight which had stricken him to the ground.

In the presence of domestic calamity human nature betrays its inherent
weakness. At such times the artificial outer covering of civilization
falls away, and the soul stands forth, stark, primitive, forlorn, and
cries aloud. The strain of the tremendous tragedy which had entered his
house, swift-footed and silent, was too much for Sir Philip. He sank on
his knees by the side of his unconscious son, whimpering like a child--a
weak and helpless old man. There was no trace of the dignity of the
Herediths or pride of race in the wrinkled face, now distorted with the
pitiful grin of senility, as Sir Philip crouched over his son, stroking
his face with feeble fingers.

One or two of the women in the passage became hysterical. The young men
looked on awkwardly, with grave faces, not knowing what to do. There was
something very English in their shy aloofness; in their dislike of
intruding in the room unasked.

Musard, looking round from the bedside, glanced briefly at the prostrate
figure of Phil, and then his gleaming eyes travelled to the group at the
doorway. He, at all events, was calm, and master of himself.

"The ladies had better go downstairs," he said, speaking in a subdued
voice, but with decision. "They can do no good here. And will you
two"--he singled out two of the young men with his eye--"carry Phil
downstairs? He has only fainted. Please take Sir Philip away also.
Telephone for Dr. Holmes immediately, and send for Sergeant Lumbe. And
some of you young men search the house thoroughly--at once. No, not this
room. Search the house from top to bottom, and the grounds outside. Be
quick! There is no time to be lost."

The group in the doorway melted away. The ladies, pale-faced and
weeping, went downstairs together like a flock of frightened birds, and
the young men, only too glad to obey somebody who showed nerve and
resolution at such a moment, dispersed at once to search the house.

Musard was left in the room alone, but not for long. Miss Heredith
entered from the corridor almost immediately. Tufnell accompanied her to
the door, but stopped there, with staring eyes directed towards the bed.
Miss Heredith's face was drawn, but she had recovered her self-control.
She walked quickly towards Musard, who was still bending over the bed.

"Vincent!" she cried. "In pity's name tell me what dreadful thing has
happened? They have carried Phil downstairs, and they tried to detain
me, but I broke away from them and came straight to you. Is Violet----"

Musard sprang to his feet at the first sound of her voice, and wheeled
round swiftly, as if trying to impose his body between her and the
figure on the bed.

"Go back, Alethea!" he sternly commanded. "Go back, I say! This is no
sight for you, and you can do no good."

He still sought to intercept her as she approached, but she gently put
aside his detaining hand, and, walking to the bedside, looked down.
Then, at that sight, her fingers sought for his with an impulsive
feminine movement, and held them tight.

"Do not be afraid for me," she whispered. "See! I am calm--I may be able
to help. Is she--dead?"

"Dying," said Musard sadly.

"Is it...?" her voice dropped to nothingness, but her frightened eyes,
travelling fearfully into the shadowy corners of the big bedroom,
completed the unspoken sentence.

Musard understood her, and bowed his head silently. Then, turning his
face to the door, he beckoned Tufnell to approach. The old servant
advanced tremblingly into the room, vainly endeavouring to compose his
horror-stricken face into a semblance of the impassive mask of the
well-trained English servant.

"Go downstairs and get me some hot water," said Musard quietly. "Look
sharp--and bring it yourself. I do not want any maidservants here to go
into hysterics."

Tufnell hastened away. Musard resumed his place at the bedside, silently
watching the figure on the bed. There was blood on his hands and
clothes.

"Is there no hope? Can nothing be done to save her?" whispered Miss
Heredith.

"Nothing. The lung is penetrated. She is bleeding to death."

His quick eye noticed a change in the figure on the bed. The face
quivered ever so slightly, and the blue eyes half opened. Then the
stricken girl made an effort as though she wanted to sit up, but a
sudden convulsion seized her, and she fell back on her pillow, with one
little white hand, glittering with rings, flung above her head, as if
she died in the act of invoking the retribution of a God of justice on
the assassin who had blotted out her young life in agony and horror.

"She is dead," said Musard gently. "This is a terrible business, and our
first duty is to try and capture the monster who committed this foul
crime."

They stood there in silence for a moment, looking earnestly at one
another. Outside, somewhere in the woodland, there sounded the haunting
gush of a night-bird's song, shivering through the quietness like a
silver bell. The sweet note finished in a frightened squawk, and was
followed by the cry of an owl. The song had betrayed the singer.

Musard turned away from Miss Heredith, and walked restlessly around the
bedroom, scanning the heavy pieces of furniture and the faded hangings,
and peering into every nook and corner, as if seeking for the murderer's
place of concealment. A roomy old wardrobe near the window attracted his
eye, and he stopped in front of it and flung its doors open. It
contained some articles of the dead girl's apparel--costumes and
frocks--hanging on hooks.

His eye wandered to the window, shrouded in the heavy folds of the
damask curtains. He walked over to it, and drew the curtains aside. The
bottom half of the window was wide open.

Miss Heredith, who was following his movements closely, gave vent to a
faint cry of surprise.

"The window!" she exclaimed.

Musard looked round inquiringly.

"The window--what of it?" he asked.

"It was closed when I came in here before dinner to see Violet."

"You are quite sure of that?"

"Oh, yes! At least, I think so."

"I do not understand you."

"I mean that the atmosphere of the room was heavy and thick, as if the
window had not been opened all day."

"It has been a still, close day."

"But Violet never had a window open if she could help it. She disliked
fresh air. She was always afraid of catching cold."

Musard looked out of the window into the velvet darkness of the night.

"If the window was closed before, the murderer has opened it and escaped
through it," he said.

"It is hardly possible."

"Why not?" He turned round and faced her.

"The ground falls on that side. The window is nearly twenty feet from
the ground. And--there is the moat to be crossed. There is no bridge on
that side of the house, and this window opens on the garden. Don't you
remember?"

"I remember now."

"I thought you would."

"Still----" Musard broke off abruptly, and walked away from the window.

Near the window stood the dressing-table. The swing oval mirror
reflected its contents--ivory brushes, silver hand mirrors, all the
costly bijoutry of a refined woman's toilet. Among them stood Violet's
silver jewel-case. Musard strode over and examined the case. It was
locked.

"This ought to be put away," he said.

"I was coming up to get it when I heard the scream," whispered his
companion.

"Perhaps you will take charge of it now," he said, placing it in her
hands. As he did so there flashed across his mind the cynical
appropriateness of the old proverb about locking doors after stolen
steeds.

There was a restraint and lack of spontaneity about their conversation
of which both were acutely conscious. The note was forced, as though
from too great an effort to strike the right key. A curious
psychological change had swept over both since they stood together by
the bedside of the dying woman. It had come with the entry of death.
They conversed hurriedly and guardedly, as if they mistrusted each
other. In each of them two entities were now apparent--a surface
consciousness, which talked and acted mechanically, and a secondary
inner consciousness, watchful, and fearful of misinterpretation of the
spoken word. The faculties which make up the human mind are different
and complex, and mysteriously blended. It may be that when tragedy
upsets the frail structure of human life the brute instincts of
watchfulness and self-preservation come uppermost, guarding against
chance suspicion, or the loud word of accusation. Perhaps through
Musard's mind was passing the thought of the strange manner in which the
murder had been committed, and how he, by detaining everybody downstairs
at the dinner table while he told his story had been an instrument in
its accomplishment.

The situation was terminated by the arrival of Tufnell with some hot
water. Almost on his heels came the young men who had been searching the
house. Musard was relieved by their return, though his impassive face
did not reveal his feelings. Miss Heredith left the room with Tufnell,
taking the jewel-case with her. Musard met the young men at the
threshold.

The tall young officer with the sunburnt face, Major Gardner, informed
Musard that they had completed a search of the house from top to bottom,
but had found nothing. They had also searched the grounds, without
result.

"Mrs. Heredith is dead," Musard gravely informed them. "She died while
you have been searching for the miscreant who fired the shot we heard at
the dinner table. Gentlemen, he must be found. It seems hardly possible
that he has succeeded in getting clear away in so short a time."

"We have searched the place from top to bottom," remarked one of the
young men.

"It is a strange, rambling old place, and difficult to explore unless
you know it thoroughly," said Musard.

"We have done the best we could."

"I do not doubt it, but there are many old nooks and corners in which a
man might hide."

"His first thought, after such a dreadful crime, would be to get away as
quickly as possible," said Major Gardner.

"But how did he escape? Certainly not by the staircase, because we
rushed out from the dining-room directly we heard the shot, and we
should have caught him on his way down."

"Is there not a window in the bedroom? Could he not have escaped that
way?"

"The window is nearly twenty feet from the ground."

"An athletic man might jump that distance," remarked Major Gardner
thoughtfully.

"I still think it possible he may be concealed about the premises,"
replied Musard. "There is an old unused staircase at the end of this
passage, which opens on the south side of the moat-house. Did you find
it? It shuts with a door at the top, and might easily have escaped your
notice."

"I opened the door and went down the staircase," said the young flying
officer. "Nobody could have escaped that way. The door at the bottom is
locked, and there is no key."

The scared face of a maidservant at that moment appeared at the head of
the stairs.

"If you please, sir," she said, addressing Musard, "one of the gentlemen
downstairs sent me up to tell you that he has been trying for the last
ten minutes to ring up the police, but he can't get an answer."

"Send the butler to me at once."

The maid disappeared, and in another moment the butler came hurriedly up
the stairs.

"Tufnell," said Musard quickly, "you must go at once to the village and
get Sergeant Lumbe and Dr. Holmes. Hurry off, and be as quick as you
can. And now, gentlemen," he added, turning to the others, "let us go
downstairs. While we are waiting for the police I will help you make
another search of the house and grounds. The murderer may escape while
we stand here talking. We have wasted too much valuable time already."

CHAPTER VI

The butler left the moat-house at a brisk pace which became almost a run
after he crossed the moat bridge. His way across the park lay along the
carriage drive, bordered by an avenue of tall trees, between an
ornamental lake and some thick game covers, and then through the outer
fields to the village.

It was a soft and mellow September night, with a violet sky overhead
sprinkled with silver. But a touch of autumn decay was in the air, which
was heavy and still, and a white mist was rising in thick, sluggish
clouds from the green, stagnant surface of the lake. The wood was veiled
in blackness, in which the trunks of the trees were just visible,
standing in straight, regular rows, like soldiers at attention.

Tufnell hurried along this lonely spot, casting timid glances around
him. He was not a nervous man at ordinary times, but like many country
people, he had a vein of superstition running through his phlegmatic
temperament, and the events of the night had swept away his calmness.
The croaking of the frogs and the whispering of the trees filled him
with uneasiness, and he kept glancing backwards and forwards from the
lake to the wood, as though he feared the murderer might suddenly appear
from the misty surface of the one or the dim recesses of the other.

He had almost reached the confines of the wood when he was startled by a
loud whirr, which he recognized as the flight of a covey of partridges
from a cover close at hand. What had startled them? Glancing fearfully
around him he saw, or thought he saw, the crouching figure of a man in
one of the bypaths of the wood, partly hidden by the thick branches
which stretched across the path a short distance from the drive.

Tufnell's first impulse was to take to his heels, but he was saved from
this ignominious act by the timely recollection that he was an
Englishman, whose glorious privilege it is to be born without fear. So
he stood still, and in a voice which had something of a quaver in it,
called out:

"Who is there?"

In the wood a bird gave a single call like the note of a flute, the wind
murmured in the tall avenue of trees, a frog splashed in the still
waters of the lake, but there was no sound of human life. Glancing
cautiously into the wood, the butler could no longer see anything
crouching in the path. The man--if it had been a man--had vanished.

"It may have been my fancy," muttered the butler, speaking aloud as
though to reassure himself by hearing his own voice.

He walked quickly onward, and was relieved when he had left the wood
behind him, and could see the faint lights of the village twinkling
beyond the fields. Crossing a footbridge which spanned a narrow stream
at the bottom of the meadows, Tufnell climbed over a stile, and walked
along the road on the other side until he reached a cottage standing
some distance back from the road at the summit of a gentle slope.
Tufnell ascended the slope and knocked loudly at the cottage door.

After the lapse of a few moments the door was opened by a woman with a
candle in her hand--a stout countrywoman of forty, with a curved nose,
prominent teeth, and hair screwed up in a tight knob at the back of her
head. Her small grey eyes, scanning the visitor at the door, showed both
surprise and deference. The butler of the moat-house was not in the
habit of mixing with the villagers, and by them he was accounted
something of a personage. He not only shone with the reflected glory of
the big house, but was respected on his own merit as a "snug" man, who
had saved money, and had a little property of his own.

"Is your husband at home, Mrs. Lumbe?" he asked, in response to her mute
glance of inquiry. He spoke condescendingly, like a man who recognized
the social gulf between them, but believed in being polite to the lower
orders.

"Yes, he is in, Mr. Tufnell. Will you come inside?"

The butler rubbed his boots carefully on the doormat, and followed the
woman down a narrow passage to a small sitting-room at the end of it,
where a man was sitting, reading a newspaper and smoking a pipe.

"Robert," said the woman, "here is Mr. Tufnell to see you."

The man looked up from his newspaper in some surprise, and got up to
greet his visitor. He was not in uniform, and his rough, ungainly figure
and round red face revealed the countryman, but from the crown of his
close-cropped bullet head to his thick-soled boots he looked like a
rural policeman. There was an awkward pose about him as he stood up--a
clumsy effort to maintain the semblance of an official dignity. The
questioning look his ferret eyes cast at the butler through the haze of
tobacco smoke which filled the room indicated his impression that the
visit was not merely a neighbourly call. Tufnell did not leave him in
doubt on the point.

"You are wanted at the moat-house at once, Sergeant Lumbe," he said
gravely. "A terrible crime has been committed. Mrs. Heredith has been
murdered."

"Murdered!" ejaculated the sergeant, looking vacantly across the table
at his wife, who had given vent to a cry of horror. "Murdered!" he
repeated, as though seeking to assure himself of the truth of the
butler's statement by a repetition of the word.

"Yes. She was shot in her bedroom a little while ago while the other
guests were at dinner. You must come at once."

Sergeant Lumbe laid his pipe on the table with a trembling hand. He was
overwhelmed by the magnitude of the catastrophe, and hardly knew what to
do. His previous experience of crime was confined to an occasional
arrest of the village drunkard, who invariably went with him
confidingly. His eye wandered to a bookcase in the corner of the room,
as if he would have liked to consult a "Police Code" which was
prominently displayed on one of the shelves. Apparently he realized the
indignity of such a course in the presence of a member of the public, so
he turned to Tufnell and said:

"I'll go with you, but I must first put on my tunic."

"Be as quick as you can," said the butler, taking a chair.

Sergeant Lumbe went into an inner room, where his wife followed him.
Tufnell heard them whispering as they moved about. Then Sergeant Lumbe
hastily emerged buttoning his tunic. There was an eager look on his
face.

"The wife has been saying that we ought to take her brother along," he
said. "He belongs to Scotland Yard. He's spending his holidays with us."

"Where is he?" asked Tufnell, impressed by the magic of the name of
Scotland Yard.

"He's just stepped over to the _Fox and Knot_ to have a game of
billiards, finding it a bit lonesome here, after London. Do you think we
might send for him and take him with us?"

"I think it would be a very good idea," said Tufnell. "But can he be got
at once?" he added, with a glance at the little clock on the
mantelpiece. "The sooner we return the better."

"The wife can bring him while I am changing my boots. Hurry down to the
_Fox_, Maggie, and tell Tom he's wanted at once."

"Don't tell him what it's for until you get him outside," hastily
counselled the butler as the policeman's wife was departing on her
errand. "Sir Philip won't like it if he hears that what happened
to-night was discussed in the _Fox_ tap-room."

The little clock on the mantelpiece had barely ticked off five
additional minutes when Mrs. Lumbe returned in a breathless state,
accompanied by a young man with billiard chalk on his coat and hands.

"This is my brother, Detective Caldew," said Mrs. Lumbe, between pants,
to the butler. "I told him about the murder, and we hurried back as fast
as we could."

"It's a horrible crime, and we must lose no time while there is still a
chance of catching the murderer," said the young man, regaining his
breath more easily than his stout sister. He brushed the billiard chalk
off his clothes as he spoke. "Let us go at once."

Tufnell cast a curious glance at the new-comer. He saw a man of about
thirty-five, tall, well-built and dark, with a clean-shaven face and
rather intelligent eyes under thick dark brows. He had some difficulty
in recognizing Detective Caldew as the village urchin of a score of
years before who had touched his cap to the moat-house butler as a great
personage, second only in importance to Sir Philip Heredith himself.

Tufnell was not aware that in the former village boy who had become a
London detective he was in the presence of a young man of soaring
ambition. Caldew had gone to London fifteen years before with the idea
of bettering himself. After tramping the streets of the metropolis for
some months in a vain quest for work, he had enlisted in the
metropolitan police force rather than return to his native village and
report himself a failure. At the end of two years' service as a
policeman he had been given the choice of transfer to the Criminal
Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. He had gladly accepted the
opportunity, and had shown so much aptitude for plain-clothes work that
by the end of another two years he had risen to the rank of detective.
Caldew thought he was on the rapid road to further promotion, and had
married on the strength of that belief. But another ten years had passed
since then, and he still occupied a subordinate position, with not much
hope of promotion unless luck came his way. And there seemed very little
chance of that. Caldew's professional experience had imbued him with the
belief that the junior officers of Scotland Yard existed for no other
purpose than to shoulder the blame for the mistakes of their official
superiors, who divided amongst themselves the plums of promotion,
rewards, and newspaper publicity. That, of course, was the recognized
thing in all public departments. Caldew found no fault with the system.
His great ambition was to obtain some opening which would bring him
advancement and his share of the plums.

He believed his opportunity had arrived that night. It had always been
his dream to have the chance to unravel single-handed some great
crime--a murder for choice--in which he alone should have all the glory
and praise and newspaper paragraphs. He determined to make the most of
the lucky chance which had fallen into his hands, before anybody else
could arrive on the scene. He had confidence in his own abilities, and
thought he had all the qualifications necessary to make a great
detective. He was, at all events, sufficiently acute to realize that
opportunity seldom knocks twice at any man's door.

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