Fingers of Fear

by J. U. Nicolson

  “Muriel Piercy is my wife——”

  “The woman upstairs now?”

  “Yes.”

  “That isn’t the name she uses.”

  “Isn’t it? The fact doesn’t astonish me. But what’s she doing here?”

  “If you really don’t know . . .” Gray began, eyeing me coldly. I read the unspoken accusation in her eyes.

  “No, I don’t know. I haven’t had anything to do with her coming here, whatever the reason is. We’ve been parted for some little time. I didn’t know that she and Ormes were acquainted. I hardly think she knows I’m in the house. But I do know that she’s here to help him demand money of someone——”

  “I thought you wanted to know why she was here.”

  “Oh, I mean, for what reason aside from the one I’ve mentioned.”

  “Her relations with Ormond?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know nothing about it.”

  “Then we’ll drop that subject.”

  “But as to the demanding money . . . yes, it is to be demanded of Agnes. It’s all wrong, I suppose. Maybe, legally, we haven’t any right to do it. And yet the money isn’t rightly Agnes’s, but my brother’s. He . . . he gave it to her when he wasn’t——”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I know all about that.”

  “You do? But now he needs it. He’s threatened with bankruptcy. She won’t give up a penny. She has threatened . . . all of us. So Ormond is going to try a trick. Barbara suggested it to him.” I made a particular note to remember that! “This woman, your wife, you say, is to represent herself as having been married to Ormond before Agnes was. She’s to demand a hundred thousand dollars to keep her mouth shut about it. She’s to swear—we’re all to swear—that there was never a divorce. Whether it will frighten Agnes into paying . . . well, I don’t know.”

  “It won’t,” I said, emphatically. “Couldn’t any of you see that? She’s not the woman to give up money, once she has her grip on it. But this is conspiracy. Can’t you see that, either? If she wants to charge you all with conspiracy to defraud, she can have the entire bunch of you arrested and——”

  “Oh, I suppose so! I know there’s a risk. But what could we do?”

  “As to that,” I said, shrugging, “I can’t answer. I suppose your brother could go bankrupt. Other men have.”

  “Maybe. Better that than rotting five or ten years in state’s prison.”

  Nevertheless, I felt like a prig, saying such things to Gray, who must have known the truth of them as well as I. I had said them, not in reproof of the crime she contemplated, but as chiding her folly in running such a risk. I could not be sure, however, that she understood and believed in my motive; and, as I say, I felt somewhat like a hypocrite and a fool. Besides, I knew that no such effort against Agnes could now ever be made.

  But the news that Barbara, my little Lady in Mauve, had been the inventor of such a trick-—was no less disturbing than astonishing. And yet—a woman who could live with that pipe opening into her chamber—was it so astonishing, after all?

  “Where,” I asked, “does she keep the bonds? Here? Or in a safety vault?”

  “I don’t know. But I think they must be hidden here.”

  “There’s one thing more, Gray. Your sister must be confined.”

  “No!”

  “I tell you, yes! She’s too dangerous to be allowed——”

  “Pooh! She’s wild, of course. Not dangerous.”

  I marveled. How in the world did Gray account for the condition of Mrs. Hobbs’s throat? Did she actually believe, as we had led Doctor Barnes to believe, that a dog had done that mischief?

  “I know what she’s capable of,” said Gray. “Her room is next to mine, on the third floor. Always I’m near enough to lock her in when one of these . . . attacks . . . comes on. Last night, I admit, I overlooked something. But I was very busy. I had agreed to meet you. The storm came up. There were the dogs——”

  “I know all that. But the point is: you may very well overlook something else. I tell you she’s more dangerous than a wild beast.”

  “And I say she’s not!”

  “Come!” I cried. “She hurt your servant last night.”

  “Grayce did?”

  “Of course! My God, Gray, do you really think that——?”

  “But how do you know?” she demanded.

  “I know because I saw her, only a few minutes after she had done it. I saw her, naked as a wolf, with her mouth streaming blood and . . .”

  “Oh!”

  I paused, afraid that Gray might faint before me. She had risen to her feet and her face had gone the color of ashes.

  “That can be hushed up,” I went on, in a more gentle voice, however. “In fact, I don’t think that Barnes or anyone else has the slightest suspicion that it wasn’t a dog. By the way, the doctor will be returning here this evening for the purpose of giving Mrs. Hobbs an injection of vaccine. Rabies, you know. You see, he doesn’t suspect. But suppose Grayce hurts someone else . . . and seriously . . . and even kills somebody?”

  “Grayce?”

  “Of course!”

  “She won’t! But we’ll . . . we’ll have to risk it.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Suppose, then, on your part, that we have her . . . confined, as you put it. Suppose she tells her guards and nurses certain things she can tell them. If you know as much about the secrets of this house as you say you do, well, what is your answer to that?”

  “I see your point, of course. I admit it’s a hard problem. But it must be solved in some way, and at once. Because, Gray, your sister has already . . .”

  I paused, intentionally.

  “Yes? What?”

  “Killed someone.”

  Gray’s eyes blazed at me. They were, for a moment, like veritable yellow flames. But by a tremendous effort she fought for and regained control of herself. I went round the table toward her. What I had further to say to her must be said in a tone which should not be heard beyond that room.

  “It’s true. I found her myself. In the garage. She’s quite dead. Agnes!”

  I put out a hand to support her, but she drew back, avoiding my touch. I turned and walked toward a window, to give her time to recover from this blow. Several minutes must have elapsed before she called me.

  “Mr. Seaverns!”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s . . . it’s too bad that you went out there. I’m sorry about it. I had meant to . . . to remove the . . . body before . . . before anyone found it. I . . . I didn’t have time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I mean that . . . I see I must tell you. It wasn’t Grayce who killed Agnes.”

  “Then who——”

  “No, it wasn’t my sister, Mr. Seaverns. Nor was it . . . anyone else. I’ll give myself up. I did it!”

  Our eyes met. She stood there, gripping the back of the chair beside her, so that the knuckles of her hands showed white against the flesh surrounding them. I forced a smile.

  “All right, Gray,” I said. “I’ve already told you I’m not going to give away the secrets of Ormesby. We’ll leave it at that, rather than argue now, when there’s no time. But you must forgive me, my dear, when I say that I know you’re lying!”

  And then, without the slightest warning sign to me, she did faint.

  XI

  Never previously having seen a woman faint, I knew nothing of what to do for Gray, save to lay her on her back on the floor. Then I dashed into the kitchen, whence I summoned Hobbs to my aid. In a few minutes he brought her to and she was sitting in a chair, pale and with tumbled hair, but managing a wry smile at me in deprecation of the mid-Victorian weakness to which she had submitted. Her mother would not have bee
n ashamed of such a failing, and her grandmother would have flopped to earth upon far less provocation than Gray had been given. I think, however, that her grandmother’s mother would have been even more ashamed than Gray. But I digress.

  Hobbs, the efficient one, poured her a drink of whiskey, which she took and swallowed without flinching. She was modern enough for that. Soon some color had flowed back into her cheeks.

  “You may go now,” she told the servant. “I’ll be all right, thank you.”

  Left alone with her, I went close and laid a hand upon her arm.

  “The thing you have always fought most bitterly against,” I said, “is having any inkling of the family’s weakness come to public attention.”

  “Yes,” she replied, nodding, “it is. It’s an obsession upon us, I suppose.”

  “Knowing that, I’ve no intention of betraying what I know. I haven’t seen anything in the garage. I don’t suspect anyone. If a way can be found of disposing of the body out there . . . Do you follow me?”

  “Have you told Ormond?”

  “No.”

  “He must be told at once.”

  “Very well. I’ll tell him. I think you ought to go, if you’re strong enough, up to your aunt’s room. I left your sister there and . . .”

  “Grayce there? Yes, I’ll go up at once.”

  “Get her to go to bed and sleep, if you can. There’s work to be done here today of which she ought not to have any knowledge, not only because it may disturb her but because we don’t want her in position to tell.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you feel now?”

  “Better. I’m quite all right.”

  “There’s one more thing I want to tell you. It’s about myself. I didn’t know that Muriel was coming here, but if I had, I . . . it wouldn’t have made any difference. If you had joined me in the library last evening, I’d have made love to you. You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “The reason is, one reason is, Muriel isn’t really my wife, any longer. We recently were divorced.”

  “Ah!”

  “I think that informs you of everything you need to know about me at present. We’d better start.”

  She answered by rising and leading the way upstairs. Both of us paused outside her brother’s door, but no sound of voices reached us. Gray glanced upward.

  “She’s gone to my room, I told her to use it.”

  Our fingers touched for a moment. Then, with a little smile for me, she turned away. I rapped on Ormond’s door.

  “Come!” he ordered, gruffly, not troubling to open the door for me.

  I pushed it wide. He stood before the mirror of his dressing table, brushing his light hair. I had always thought him to be somewhat vain of his personal appearance, though why this should have been so I have no notion. I have remarked it, however, in a good many homely men, and Ormond Ormes was far from being handsome. He saw me in the mirror and turned sharply. I could glean nothing from his face, which did not alter in expression, the expression of a man who is definitely annoyed and holds anger down with difficulty; but his nervous gestures betrayed a doubt of his own strength and position.

  “You came home sooner than I expected you,” I said, inanely enough, but lacking more appropriate words in which to make a beginning.

  “Yes.”

  He had merely nodded into the mirror, not giving me any further explanation of his sudden return, considering, of course, that I was in no wise concerned with more of his affairs than the writing of a useless history. But I held the cards. I knew that I could at any moment startle him out of his pose of the superior fellow, powerful and at ease, and master here where I was servant. Yet I remembered his aunt’s having told me of the insanity which had begun to have its way with him. I had to make him accept me as an equal, while myself remembering that he was a sick man.

  “I have made absolutely no progress toward writing that history for you,” I said, lighting a cigarette and tossing the match, in familiar fashion, into the fireplace.

  “Well, why haven’t you?”

  “Why? I wonder whether you really want to know. Have you heard of what’s happened here?”

  “Eh? No. No, I haven’t. Except . . . if you mean . . . I’ve heard that Alice Hobbs is ill.”

  “In a way, yes. The cause of her illness is my principal reason for neglecting your precious history . . . to give you an answer to your question.”

  “How do you mean?”

  There was a tenseness under his exterior of forced calm that showed itself plainly. I saw that he was wondering how much I knew of affairs at Ormesby. I guessed that he shared the family’s pride in keeping up appearances, what Gray had called their obsession. Yet he himself had risked having that pride brought down and the secrets of Ormesby made public property, and he had done that by bringing me into his house. Only a man blind, deaf and dumb could have failed to learn there the secrets he wanted to keep hidden. Moreover, he had brought me here upon a fool’s errand, long after the reason for doing the writing of his history had gone out of existence. I thought that no more was needed to convince me of his failing mentality. Yet with all that, because I had seen him trying to kiss the woman who had once lain in my arms, and because I suspected that there had been kisses interchanged between the two, I hated him, standing there. Not five minutes since, I had let Gray Ormes see that in my eyes which, as I told her, I would have put into words had she met me in the library the previous evening, and I nursed no feeling of tenderness, at that moment, for Muriel. Yet I hated Ormond Ormes. Explain that on any better basis than the innate hoggishness of man, if you can.

  “You haven’t seen your wife, have you?” I asked, enjoying his uneasiness.

  “No. No, I haven’t. But come, Seaverns! What have you got in mind? What’s it all about? Let’s have it!”

  “Have what?” I mocked. I do not excuse myself, but merely report the thing as it happened. “Suppose you begin by telling me a few things.”

  “Well, what do you want to know? Pardon me, but I’ve very little time to——”

  “Oh, there’s time enough. I want to know why you brought me here.”

  “Why, damn it! I——”

  “You can save a good bit of time by chucking all the reasons you’ve already given me. I want the real one. More than that, I mean to have it, whether from you or from someone else. I know already how to get it. Can you guess how that is?”

  “Just what do you mean?”

  I was fast losing control of my calm. Jealousy was riding me hard. I had asked him the reason for my presence at Ormesby, but that, of course, was not the thing I really wanted to learn. I already had learned that. Underneath I was somewhat fatuously trying to pry into the secret of his relations with Muriel. I wanted to have him tell me what I should have hated to learn from him; or I wanted to hear from him a denial of what I suspected, he not yet knowing that she had been my wife.

  “I mean this: Grayce was abroad last night. Naked and unashamed and raving. You know what that means?”

  He nodded, slowly, his face going pale and his jaw sagging, while his frightened eyes stared hard into my own.

  “Grayce attacked Alice Hobbs, of course. I know all about her illness. I take it that you know I know that much. Grayce did more than that, however.”

  He came close to me, grasped my wrist and clung to it.

  “What? In God’s name, what do you mean?”

  I turned my head for an instant, glancing involuntarily toward Agnes’s open doorway. He appeared to divine something of my thoughts.

  “Do you know where my wife is?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” I replied, turning again toward him and looking hard at him through narrowed lids, “I know.”

  “Then . . . where
is she?”

  “First, who is the woman who came here with you?”

  “What business is that of yours? A friend. We came here on business. It’s not what you think.”

  “I know something of what the business is. It isn’t that which puzzles me.”

  “Oh, you do?” he sneered. “You know a lot—don’t you?”

  “A hell of a lot more than you suppose, Ormes. You’d better be frank with me. I know everything that’s hidden here, from the affairs of your father’s attack on his wife and sister and your murder of him to——”

  “Damn you!” he shrieked. “Close your face! It’s a lie!”

  His face was contorted with fury. The cold rage within me stood and calculated how much farther it could push him without pushing him into delirium. It told me that the borderline had almost been reached.

  “Come!” I said, in a more gentle tone and with a less threatening manner. “I am not going to publish anything. If you must know it, I’m far too fond of Gray for that.”

  “Oh, so you did fall for her?”

  “Not in the way you suppose, my friend. It’s natural, however, that you would be thinking something of that nature. You’re the kind of fellow to . . . But I’ve got to know about this new woman, Ormes. It vitally concerns . . . everything. I know why you brought her here. I’m fully aware of what she’s to tell Agnes and the way you and Gray and Barbara are going to back her up. Oh, yes! But unless I know who she is, where you met her, and how long you’ve known her, and whether she’s your mistress—until and unless I know all that I won’t tell you where your wife is, and I’m the only person here who knows her whereabouts.”

  “Well! I don’t know how you’ve learned all this. I’m sure Gray hasn’t told you.”

  “Gray and I are very good friends, however.”

  “But she hasn’t told you?”

  “No.”

  “You must be either a professional detective or a fine amateur spy.”