Blue Hand

by Edgar Wallace

  Jackson was not ready to take a rebuff, and besides, he had something important to communicate.

  “You weren’t disturbed last night, were you, miss?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” demanded Eunice, looking with a start.

  His keen eye was on her and without any reason she felt guilty.

  “Somebody was having a joke here last night, miss,” he said, “and the governor is as wild as… well, he’s mad!”

  She put down her knife and fork and sat back in her chair.

  “I don’t quite understand you, Jackson,” she said coldly. “What is the joke that somebody was having, and why do you ask me if I was disturbed? Did anything happen in the night?”

  The man nodded.

  “Somebody was in the house,” he said, “and it is a wonder that Mr. Groat didn’t hear it, because he was working in his laboratory. I thought perhaps you might have heard him searching the house afterwards.”

  She shook her head. Had the Blue Hand been detected? she wondered.

  “How do you know that a stranger was in the house?” she asked.

  “Because he left his mark,” said the man grimly. “You know that white door leading to the laboratory, miss?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, when Mr. Groat came out about half-past two this morning he was going to turn out the hall lights when he saw a smudge of paint on the door. He went back and found that it was the mark of a Blue Hand. I’ve been trying to get it off all the morning, but it is greasy and can’t be cleaned.”

  “The mark of a Blue Hand?” she repeated slowly and felt herself change colour. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m blessed if I know,” said Jackson, shaking his head. “The governor doesn’t know either. But there it was as plain as a pike-staff. I thought it was a servant who did it. There is one under notice and she might have been up to her tricks, but it couldn’t have been her. Besides, the servants’ sleeping-rooms are at the back of the house, and the door between the front and the back is kept locked.”

  So the mysterious visitor had not been satisfied with warning her. She had warned Digby Groat as well!

  Eunice had nearly finished breakfast when Digby made his appearance. He was looking tired and haggard, she thought. He never looked his best in the early hours, but this morning he was more unprepossessing than usual. He shot a swift suspicious glance at the girl as he took his place at the table.

  “You have finished, I’m afraid, Miss Weldon,” he said briefly. “Has Jackson told you what happened in the night?”

  “Yes,” said Eunice quietly. “Have you any idea what it means?”

  He shook his head.

  “It means trouble to the person who did it, if I catch him,” he said; then, changing the conversation, he asked how his mother was that morning.

  Eunice invariably called at Mrs. Groat’s room on her way down, and she was able to tell him that his mother was mending rapidly and had passed a very good night.

  “She can’t get well too soon,” he said. “How did you sleep, Miss Weldon?”

  “Very well,” she prevaricated.

  “Have you tried my chocolates?” he smiled.

  She nodded.

  “They are beautiful.”

  “Don’t eat too many at once, they are rather rich,” he said, and made no further reference either to that matter or to the midnight visitor.

  Later in the morning, when she was going about her work, Eunice saw workmen engaged on cleaning the canvas door. Apparently the blue stain could not be eradicated, and after a consultation with Digby the canvas was being painted a dull blue colour.

  She knew that Digby was perturbed more than ordinarily. When she had met him, as she had occasionally that morning, he had worn a furtive, hunted look, and once, when she had gone into his study to bring to his notice an account which she had unearthed, he was muttering to himself.

  That afternoon there was a reception at Lord Waltham’s house in Park Lane, in honour of a colonial premier who was visiting England. Digby Groat found it convenient to cultivate the acquaintance of the aesthetic Lord Waltham, who was one of the great financial five of the City of London. Digby had gone cleverly to work to form a small syndicate for the immediate purchase of the Danton estate. The time had not yet come when he could dispose of this property, but it was fast approaching.

  There were many women in that brilliant assembly who would have been glad to know a man reputedly clever, and certainly the heir to great wealth; but in an inverted sense Digby was a fastidious man. Society which met him and discussed him over their dinner-tables were puzzled by his avoidance of woman’s society. He could have made a brilliant marriage, had he so desired, but apparently the girls of his own set had no attraction for him. There were intimates, men about town, who were less guarded in their language when they spoke across the table after the women had gone, and these told stories of him which did not redound to his credit. Digby in his youth had had many affairs—vulgar, sordid affairs which had left each victim with an aching heart and no redress.

  He had only come to “look in,” he explained. There was heavy work awaiting him at home, and he hinted at the new experiment he was making which would take up the greater part of the evening.

  “How is your mother, Groat?” asked Lord Waltham.

  “Thank you, sir, I think she is better,” replied Digby. He wanted to keep off the subject of his mother.

  “I can’t understand the extraordinary change that has come over her in late years,” said Lord Waltham with a little frown. “She used to be so bright and cheerful, one of the wittiest women I have ever met. And then, of a sudden, all her spirits seemed to go and if you don’t mind my saying so, she seemed to get old.”

  “I noticed that,” said Digby with an air of profound concern, “but women of her age frequently go all to pieces in a week.”

  “I suppose there’s something in that. I always forget you’re a doctor,” smiled Lord Waltham.

  Digby took his leave and he, too, was chuckling softly to himself as he went down the steps to his waiting car. He wondered what Lord Waltham would say if he had explained the secret of his mother’s banished brightness. It was only by accident that he himself had made the discovery. She was a drug-taker, as assiduous a “dope” as he had ever met in his professional career.

  When he discovered this he had set himself to break down the habit. Not because he loved her, but because he was a scientist addicted to experiments. He had found the source of her supply and gradually had extracted a portion of the narcotic from every pellet until the drug had ceased to have its effect.

  The result from the old woman’s point of view was deplorable. She suddenly seemed to wither, and Digby, whom she had ruled until then with a rod of iron, had to his surprise found himself the master. It was a lesson of which he was not slow to take advantage, every day and night she was watched and the drug was kept from her. With it she was a slave to her habit; without it she was a slave to Digby. He preferred the latter form of bondage.

  Mr. Septimus Salter had not arrived when Jim had reached the office that morning, and he waited, for he had a great deal to say to the old man, whom he had not seen for the better part of the week.

  When he did come, a little gouty and therefore more than a little petulant, he was inclined to pooh-pooh the suggestion that there was anything in the sign of the Blue Hand.

  “Whoever the person is, he or she must have had the stamp by them—you say it looks like a rubber stamp—and used it fortuitously. No, I can’t remember any Blue Hand in the business. If I were you, I should not attach too much importance to this.”

  Although Jim did not share his employer’s opinion he very wisely did not disagree.

  “Now, what is this you wore telling me about a will? You say Mrs. Groat has made a new will, subsequent to the one she executed in this office?”

  Jim assented.

  “And left all her money away from the boy, eh?” said old Mr. Sal
ter thoughtfully. “Curiously enough, I always had an idea that there was no love lost between that pair. To whom do you say the money was left?”

  “To the Marquis of Estremeda.”

  “I know the name,” nodded Mr. Salter. “He is a very rich grandee of Spain and was for some time an attache at the Spanish Embassy. He may or may not have been a friend of the Dantons, I cannot recall. There is certainly no reason why she should leave her money to one who, unless my memory is at fault, owns half a province and has three or four great houses in Spain. Now, here you are up against a real mystery. Now, what is your news?” he asked.

  Jim had a little more to tell him.

  “I am taking the chocolates to an analyst—a friend of mine,” he said, and Mr. Salter smiled.

  “You don’t expect to discover that they are poisoned, do you?” he asked dryly. “You are not living in the days of Caesar Borgia, and with all his poisonous qualities I have never suspected Digby Groat of being a murderer.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Jim, “I am leaving nothing to chance. My own theory is that there is something wrong with those innocent-looking sweetmeats, and the mysterious Blue Hand knew what it was and came to warn the girl.”

  “Rubbish,” growled the old lawyer. “Get along with you. I have wasted too much time on this infernal case.”

  Jim’s first call was at a laboratory in Wigmore Street, and he explained to his friend just enough to excite his curiosity for further details, which, however, Jim was not prepared to give.

  “What do you expect to find?” said the chemist, weighing two chocolates in his palm.

  “I don’t know exactly what I expect,” said Jim. “But I shall be very much surprised if you do not discover something that should not be there.”

  The scientist dropped the chocolates in a big test-tube, poured in a liquid from two bottles and began heating the tube over a Bunsen burner.

  “Call this afternoon at three o’clock and I will give you all the grisly details,” he said.

  It was three o’clock when Jim returned, not expecting, it must be confessed, any startling results from the analysis. He was shown into the chemist’s office, and there on the desk were three test-tubes, standing in a little wooden holder.

  “Sit down, Steele,” said Mendhlesohn. He was, as his name implied, a member of a great Jewish fraternity which has furnished so many brilliant geniuses to the world. “I can’t quite make out this analysis,” he said. “But, as you thought, there are certainly things in the chocolates which should not be there.”

  “Poison?” said Jim, aghast.

  Mendhlesohn shook his head.

  “Technically, yes,” he admitted. “There is poison in almost everything, but I doubt whether the eating of a thousand of these would produce death. I found traces of bromide of potassium and traces of hyacin, and another drug which is distilled from cannabis indica.”

  “That is hashish, isn’t it?”

  Mendhlesohn nodded.

  “When it is smoked it is called hashish; when it is distilled we have another name for it. These three drugs come, of course, into the category of poisons, and in combination, taken in large doses, they would produce unconsciousness and ultimately death, but there is not enough of the drug present in these sweets to bring about that alarming result.”

  “What result would it produce?” asked Jim.

  “That is just what is puzzling me and my friend, Dr. Jakes,” said Mendhlesohn, rubbing his unshaven chin. “Jakes thinks that, administered in small continuous doses, the effect of this drug would be to destroy the will-power, and, what for a better term I would describe in the German fashion, as the resistance-to-evil-power of the human mind. In England, as you probably know, when a nervous and highly excitable man is sentenced to death, it is the practice to place minute doses of bromide in everything he eats and drinks, in order to reduce him to such a low condition of mental resistance that even the thought of an impending doom has no effect upon him.”

  Jim’s face had gone suddenly pale, as the horror of the villainous plot dawned upon him.

  “What effect would this have upon a high-spirited girl, who was, let us say, being made love to by a man she disliked?”

  The chemist shrugged his shoulders.

  “I suppose that eventually her dislike would develop into apathy and indifference. She would not completely forgo her resistance to his attentions, but at the same time that resistance would be more readily overcome. There are only two types of mind,” he went on, “the ‘dominant’ and the ‘recessive.’ We call the ‘dominant’ that which is the more powerful, and the ‘recessive’ that which is the less powerful. In this world it is possible for a little weak man to dominate a big and vigorous man, by what you would call the sheer force of his personality. The effect of this drug would ultimately be to turn a powerful mind into a weak mind. I hope I am not being too scientific,” he smiled.

  “I can follow you very well.” said Jim quietly. “Now tell me this, Mendhlesohn, would it be possible to get a conviction against the person who supplied these sweets?”

  Mendhlesohn shook his head.

  “As I told you, the doses are in such minute quantities that it is quite possible they may have got in by accident. I have only been able to find what we chemists call a ‘trace’ so far, but probably the doses would be increased from week to week. If in three weeks’ time you bring me chocolates or other food that has been tampered with, I shall be able to give you a very exact analysis.”

  “Were all the chocolates I brought similarly treated?”

  Mendhlesohn nodded.

  “If they have been doped,” he went on, “the doping has been very cleverly done. There is no discoloration of the interior, and the drug must have been introduced by what we call saturation, which only a very skilful chemist or a doctor trained in chemistry would attempt.”

  Jim said nothing. Digby Groat was both a skilled chemist and a doctor trained in chemistry.

  On leaving the laboratory he went for his favourite walk in Hyde Park. He wanted to be alone and think this matter out. He must act with the greatest caution, he thought. To warn the girl on such slender foundation was not expedient. He must wait until, the dose had been increased, though that meant that she was to act as a bait for Digby Groat’s destruction, and he writhed at the thought. But she must not know; he was determined as to this.

  That night he had arranged a pleasant little dinner, and he was looking forward eagerly to a meeting with one whose future absorbed his whole attention and thoughts. Even the search for Lady Mary Danton had receded into the background, and might have vanished altogether as a matter of interest were it not for the fact that Digby Groat and his affairs were so inextricably mixed up with the mystery. Whilst Eunice Weldon was an inmate of the Groats’ house, the Danton mystery would never be completely out of his thoughts.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JIM had never seen the girl in evening clothes, and he was smitten dumb by her ethereal beauty. She wore a simple dress of cream charmeuse, innocent of colour, except for the touch of gold at her waist. She looked taller to Jim’s eyes, and the sweet dignity of her face was a benison which warmed and comforted his heart.

  “Well,” she asked as the cab was proceeding towards Piccadilly. “Am I presentable?”

  “You’re wonderful!” breathed Jim.

  He sat stiffly in the cab, scarcely daring to move lest the substance of this beautiful dream be touched by his irreverent hands. Her loveliness was unearthly and he, too, could adore, though from a different standpoint, the glorious promise of her womanhood, the delicious contours of her Madonna-like face. She was to him the spirit and embodiment of all that womanhood means. She was the truth of the dreams that men dream, the divine substance of shadowy figures that haunt their thoughts and dreams.

  “Phew!” he said, “you almost frighten me, Eunice.”

  He heard her silvery laugh in the darkness.

  “You’re very silly, Jim,” she said, sli
pping her arm into his.

  Nevertheless, she experienced a thrill of triumph and happiness that she had impressed him so.

  “I have millions of questions to ask you,” she said after they had been ushered to a corner of the big dining-room of the Ritz-Carlton. “Did you get my letter? And did you think I was mad to send you those chocolates? Of course, it was terribly unfair to Mr. Groat, but really, Jim, you’re turning me into a suspicious old lady!”

  He laughed gently.

  “I loved your letter,” he said simply. “And as for the chocolates—” he hesitated.

  “Well?”

  “I should tell him that you enjoyed them thoroughly,” he smiled.

  “I have,” said the girl ruefully. “I hate telling lies, even that kind of lie.”

  “And the next box you receive,” Jim went on, “you must send me three or four of its contents.”

  She was alarmed now, looking at him, her red lips parted, her eyebrows crescents of inquiry.

  “Was there anything wrong with them?” she asked.

  He was in a dilemma. He could not tell her the result of the analysis, and at the same time he could not allow her to run any farther into needless danger. He had to invent something on the spur of the moment and his excuse was lame and unconvincing.

  Listening, she recognized their halting nature, but was sensible enough not to insist upon rigid explanations, and, moreover, she wanted to discuss the hand and its startling appearance in the middle of the night.

  “It sounds almost melodramatic,” said Jim, but his voice was grave, “and I find a great difficulty in reconciling the happening to the realities of life. Of one thing I’m sure,” he went on, “and it is that this strange woman, if woman it be, has a reason for her acts. The mark of the hand is deliberately designed. That it is blue has a meaning, too, a meaning which apparently is not clear to Digby Groat. And now let us talk about ourselves,” he smiled, and his hand rested for a moment over hers.

  She did not attempt to withdraw her own until the waiter came in sight, and then she drew it away so gently as to suggest reluctance.