Blue Hand

by Edgar Wallace

  Digby’s face darkened.

  “Look here, don’t you come here trying to bully me,” he blustered. “I brought you here just to show you my laboratory—”

  “And if you hadn’t brought me in,” interrupted Jim. “I should jolly well have walked in, because I wasn’t satisfied with your explanation. Oh, yes, I know, you’re going to tell me that the dog was only frightened and the yell she heard was when you put that infernal clamp on his neck. Now, I’ll tell you something, Mr. Digby Groat. I’ll give you three minutes to get the clamp off that dog.”

  Digby’s yellow face was puckered with rage.

  “And if I don’t?” he breathed.

  “I’ll put you where the dog is,” said Jim. “And please don’t persuade yourself that I couldn’t do it?”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Take the clamps off that dog,” said Jim.

  Digby looked at him.

  For a moment they gazed at one another and there was a look of malignity in the eyes that dropped before Jim’s. Another minute and the dog was free.

  Jim lifted the shivering little animal in his arms and rubbed its bony head, and Digby watched him glowering, his teeth showing in his rage.

  “I’ll remember this,” he snarled. “By God, you shall rue the day you ever interfered with me!”

  Jim’s steady eyes met the man’s.

  “I have never feared a threat in my life,” he said quietly. “I’m not likely to be scared now. I admit that vivisection is necessary under proper conditions, but men like you who torture harmless animals from a sheer lust of cruelty, are bringing discredit upon the noblest of professions. You hurt in order to satisfy your own curiosity. You have not the slightest intention of using the knowledge you gain for the benefit of suffering humanity. When I came into this laboratory,” he said—he was standing at the door as he spoke—“there were two brutes here. I am leaving the bigger one behind.”

  He slammed the padded door and walked out into the passage, leaving a man whose vanity was hurt beyond forgiveness.

  Then to his surprise Groat heard Jim’s footsteps returning and his visitor came in.

  “Did you close your front door when you went upstairs?”

  Digby’s eyebrows rose. He forgot for the moment the insult that had been offered him.

  “Yes—why?”

  “It is wide open now,” said Jim. “I guess your midnight visitor has gone home.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN the cheerful sunlight of the morning all Eunice’s fear had vanished and she felt heartily ashamed of herself that she had made such a commotion in the night. And yet there was the card. She took it from under her pillow and read it again, with a puzzled frown. Somebody had been in the room, but it was not a somebody whom she could regard as an enemy. Then a thought struck her that made her heart leap. Could it have been Jim? She shook her head. Somehow she was certain it was not Jim, and she flushed at the thought. It was not his hand she had touched. She knew the shape and contour of that. It was warm and firm, almost electric; that which she had touched had been the hand of somebody who was old, of that she was sure.

  She went down to breakfast to find Groat standing before the fire, a debonair, perfectly dressed man, who showed no trace of fatigue, though he had not gone to bed until four o’clock.

  He gave her a cheery greeting.

  “Good morning, Miss Weldon,” he said. “I hope you have recovered from your nightmare.”

  “I gave you a lot of trouble,” she said with a rueful smile. “I am so very sorry.”

  “Nonsense,” he said heartily. “I am only glad that our friend Steele was there to appease you. By the way, Miss Weldon, I owe you an apology. I told you a lie last night.”

  She looked at him open-eyed.

  “Did you, Mr. Groat?” she said, and then with a laugh, “I am sure it wasn’t a very serious one.”

  “It was really. I told you that my little dog had a piece of glass in his paw; the truth was that it wasn’t my dog at all, but a dog that I picked up in the street. I intended making an experiment upon him; you know I am a doctor.”

  She shivered.

  “Oh, that was the noise?” she asked with a wry little face.

  He shook his head.

  “No, he was just scared, he hadn’t been hurt at all—and in truth I didn’t intend hurting him. Your friend, however, persuaded me to let the little beggar go.”

  She drew a long sigh of relief.

  “I’m so glad,” she said. “I should have felt awful.”

  He laughed softly as he took his place at the table.

  “Steele thought I was going to experiment without chloroform, but that, of course, was absurd. It is difficult to get the unprofessional man to realize what an enormous help to medical science these experiments are. Of course,” he said airily, “they are conducted without the slightest pain to the animal. I should no more think of hurting a little dog than I should think of hurting you.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said warmly.

  Digby Groat was a clever man. He knew that Jim would meet the girl again and would give her his version of the scene in the laboratory. It was necessary, therefore, that he should get his story in first, for this girl whom he had brought to the house for his amusement was more lovely than he had dreamt, and he desired to stand well with her.

  Digby, who was a connoisseur in female beauty, had rather dreaded the morning meal. The beauty of women seldom survives the cruel searchlight which the grey eastern light throws upon their charms. Love had never touched him, though many women had come and gone in his life. Eunice Weldon was a more thrilling adventure, something that would surely brighten a dreary week or two; an interest to stimulate him until another stimulation came into sight.

  She survived the ordeal magnificently, he thought. The tender texture of the skin, untouched by an artificial agent, was flawless; the eyes, bright and vigorous with life, sparkled with health; the hands that lay upon the table, when she was listening to him, were perfectly and beautifully moulded.

  She on her side was neither attracted nor repelled. Digby Groat was just a man. One of the thousands of men who pass and repass in the corridor of life; some seen, some unnoticed, some interesting, some abhorrent. Some stop to speak, some pass hurriedly by and disappear through strange doors never to be seen again. He had “stopped to speak,” but had he vanished from sight through one of those doors of mystery she would have been neither sorry nor glad.

  “My mother never comes to breakfast,” said Digby halfway through the meal. “Do you think you will like your work?”

  “I don’t know what it is yet,” she answered, her eyes twinkling.

  “Mother is rather peculiar,” he said, “and just a little eccentric, but I think you will be sensible enough to get on with her. And the work will not be very heavy at first. I am hoping later that you will be able to assist me in my anthropological classification.”

  “That sounds terribly important,” she said. “What does it mean?”

  “I am making a study of faces and heads,” he said easily, “and to that end I have collected thousands of photographs from all parts of the world. I hope to get a million. It is a science which is very much neglected in this country. It appears to be the exclusive monopoly of the Italians. You have probably heard of Mantaganza and Lombroso?”

  She nodded.

  “They are the great criminal scientists, aren’t they?” she said to his surprise.

  “Oh, I see, you know something about it. Yes, I suppose you would call them criminal scientists.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” she said, looking at him in wonder, “and I should like to help you if your mother can spare me.”

  “Oh, she’ll spare you,” he said.

  Her hand lay on the table invitingly near to his, but he did not move. He was a quick, accurate judge of human nature. He knew that to touch her would be the falsest of moves. If it had been another woman—yes, his hand
would have closed gently over hers, there would have been a giggle of embarrassment, a dropping of eyes, and the rest would have been so easy. But if he had followed that course with her, he knew that evening would find her gone. He could wait, and she was worth waiting for. She was gloriously lovely, he thought. Half the pleasure of life lies in the chase, and the chase is no more than a violent form of anticipation. Some men find their greatest joy in visions that must sooner or later materialize, and Digby Groat was one of these.

  She looked up and saw his burning eyes fixed on her and flushed. With an effort she looked again and he was a normal man.

  Was it an illusion of hers? she wondered.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE first few days of her engagement were very trying to Eunice Weldon.

  Mrs. Groat did not overwork her, indeed Eunice’s complaint was that the old woman refused to give her any work at all.

  On the third day at breakfast she spoke on the matter to Digby Groat.

  “I’m afraid I am not very much use here, Mr. Groat,” she said; “it is a sin to take your money.”

  “Why?” he asked quickly.

  “Your mother prefers to write her own letters,” she said, “and really those don’t seem to be very many!”

  “Nonsense,” he said sharply, and seeing that he had startled the girl he went on in a much gentler tone: “You see, my mother is not used to service of any kind. She’s one of those women who prefer to do things for themselves, and she has simply worn herself to a shadow because of this independence of hers. There are hundreds of jobs that she could give you to do! You must make allowance for old women, Miss Weldon. They take a long time to work up confidence in strangers.”

  “I realize that,” she nodded.

  “Poor mother is rather bewildered by her own magnificence,” he smiled, “but I am sure when she gets to know you, you will find your days very fully occupied.”

  He left the morning-room and went straight into his mother’s little parlour, and found her in her dressing-room crouching over a tiny fire. He closed the door carefully and walked across to her and she looked up with a little look of fear in her eyes.

  “Why aren’t you giving this girl work to do?” he asked sharply.

  “There’s nothing for her to do,” she wailed. “My dear, she is such an expense, and I don’t like her.”

  “You’ll give her work to do from to-day,” he said, “and don’t let me tell you again!”

  “She’ll only spy on me,” said Mrs. Groat fretfully, “and I never write letters, you know that. I haven’t written a letter for years until you made me write that note to the lawyer.”

  “You’ll find work for her to do,” repeated Digby Groat. “Do you understand? Get all the accounts that we’ve had for the past two years, and let her sort them out and make a list of them. Give her your bank account. Let her compare the cheques with the counterfoils. Give her anything. Damn you! You don’t want me to tell you every day, do you?”

  “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, Digby,” she said hurriedly. “You’re very hard on me, my boy. I hate this house,” she said with sudden vehemence. “I hate the people in it. I looked into her room this morning and it is like a palace. It must have cost us thousands of pounds to furnish that room, and all for a work-girl—it is sinful!”

  “Never mind about that,” he said. “Find something to occupy her time for the next fortnight.”

  The girl was surprised that morning when Mrs. Groat sent for her.

  “I’ve one or two little tasks for you, miss—I never remember your name.”

  “Eunice,” said the girl, smiling.

  “I don’t like the name of Eunice,” grumbled the old woman. “The last one was Lola! A foreign girl. I was glad when she left. Haven’t you got another name?”

  “Weldon is my other name,” said the girl good-humouredly, “and you can call me ‘Weldon’ or ‘Eunice’ or anything you like, Mrs. Groat.”

  The old woman sniffed.

  She had in front of her a big drawer packed with cheques which had come back from the bank.

  “Go through these,” she said, “and do something with them. I don’t know what.”

  “Perhaps you want me to fasten them to the counterfoils,” said the girl.

  “Yes, yes, that’s it,” said Mrs. Groat. “You don’t want to do it here, do you? Yes, you’d better do it here,” she went on hastily. “I don’t want the servants prying into my accounts.”

  Eunice put the drawer on the table, gathered together the stubs of the cheque books, and with a little bottle of gum began her work, the old woman watching her.

  When, for greater comfort, the girl took off the gold wrist-watch which she wore, a present from her dead father, Mrs. Groat’s greedy eyes focussed upon it and a look of animation came into the dull face.

  It looked like being a long job, but Eunice was a methodical worker, and when the gong in the hall sounded for lunch, she had finished her labours.

  “There, Mrs. Groat,” she said with a smile, “I think that is the lot. All your cheques are here.”

  She put away the drawer and looked round for her watch, but it had disappeared. It was at that moment that Digby Groat opened the door and walked in.

  “Hullo, Miss Weldon,” he said with his engaging smile. “I’ve come back for lunch. Did you hear the gong, mother? You ought to have let Miss Weldon go.”

  But the girl was looking round.

  “Have you lost anything?” asked Digby quickly.

  “My little watch. I put it down a few minutes ago, and it seems to have vanished,” she said.

  “Perhaps it is in the drawer,” stammered the old woman, avoiding her son’s eye.

  Digby looked at her for a moment, then turned to Eunice.

  “Will you please ask Jackson to order my car for three o’clock?” he asked gently.

  He waited until the door closed behind the girl and then: “Where is that watch?” he asked.

  “The watch, Digby?” quavered the old woman.

  “The watch, curse you!” he said, his face black with rage.

  She put her hand into her pocket reluctantly and produced it.

  “It was so pretty,” she snivelled, and he snatched it from her hand.

  A minute later Eunice returned.

  “We have found your watch,” he said with a smile. “You had dropped it under the table.”

  “I thought I’d looked there,” she said. “It is not a valuable watch, but it serves a double purpose.”

  She was preparing to put it on.

  “What other purpose than to tell you the time?” asked Digby.

  “It hides a very ugly scar,” she said, and extended her wrist. “Look.” She pointed to a round red mark, the size of a sixpence. It looked like a recent burn.

  “That’s queer,” said Digby, looking, and then he heard a strangled sound from his mother. Her face was twisted and distorted, her eyes were glaring at the girl’s wrist.

  “Digby, Digby!” Her voice was a thin shriek of sound. “Oh, my God!”

  And she fell across the table and before he could reach her, had dropped to the floor in an inert heap.

  Digby stooped over his mother and then turned his head slowly to the frightened girl.

  “It was the scar on your hand that did it,” he said slowly. “What does it mean?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE story of the scar and the queer effect it had produced on Mrs. Groat puzzled Jim almost as much as it had worried the girl. He offered his wild theory again and she laughed.

  “Of course I shall leave,” she said, “but I must stay until all Mrs. Groat’s affairs are cleared up. There are heaps of letters and documents of all kinds which I have to index,” she said, “at least Mr. Groat told me there were. And it seems so unfair to run away whilst the poor old lady is so ill. As to my being the young lady of fortune, that is absurd. My parents were South Africans. Jim, you are too romantic to be a good detective.”

  He indulg
ed in the luxury of a taxi to carry her back to Grosvenor Square, and this time went with her to the house, taking his leave at the door.

  Whilst they were talking on the step, the door opened and a man was shown out by Jackson. He was a short, thick-set man with an enormous brown beard.

  Apparently Jackson did not see the two people on the step, at any rate he did not look toward them, but said in a loud voice:

  “Mr. Groat will not be home until seven o’clock, Mr. Villa.”

  “Tell him I called,” said the bearded man with a booming voice, and stepped past Jim, apparently oblivious to his existence.

  “Who is the gentleman with the whiskers?” asked Jim, but the girl could give him no information.

  Jim was not satisfied with the girl’s explanation of her parentage. There was an old school-friend of his in business in Cape Town, as an architect, and on his return to his office, Jim sent him a long reply-paid cablegram. He felt that he was chasing shadows, but at present there was little else to chase, and he went home to his flat a little oppressed by the hopelessness of his task.

  The next day he had a message from the girl saying that she could not come out that afternoon, and the day was a blank, the more so because that afternoon he received a reply to his cable. The reply destroyed any romantic dreams he might have had as to Eunice Weldon’s association with the Danton millions. The message was explicit. Eunice May Weldon had been born at Rondebosch; on the l2th June, 1899; her parents were Henry William Weldon, musician, and Margaret May Weldon. She had been christened at the Wesleyan Chapel at Rondebosch, and both her parents were dead.

  The final two lines of the cable puzzled him:

  “Similar inquiries made about parentage Eunice Weldon six months ago by Selenger & Co., Brade Street Buildings.”

  “Selenger & Co.,” said Jim thoughtfully. Here was a new mystery. Who else was making inquiries about the girl? He opened a Telephone Directory and looked up the name. There were several Selengers, but none of Brade Street Buildings. He put on his hat, and hailing a taxi, drove to Brade Street, which was near the Bank, and with some difficulty found Brade Street Buildings. It was a moderately large block of offices, and on the indicator at the door he discovered Selenger & Co. occupied No. 6 room on the ground floor.