MRS3 The Velvet Hand

by Hulbert Footner

  In England there are two classes of cars on the railways: first and third. Nearly everybody travels third, which is clean and comfortable and corresponds to our ordinary coaches. In order not to be conspicuous we took third-class tickets and travelled with the crowd. On the continent of Europe nearly all the cars nowadays have corridors, but in England, except for a few trains which carry restaurant cars, they stick to the old system of separate compartments; and the ordinary train from Banchester to London was of that sort.

  We were a little early, and Mme Storey secured a corner facing the engine. Instead of taking another corner, I sat next to her so that we could while away the time with a little conversation. Railway journeys after dark are very tiresome. Gradually the other corners were preëmpted. A third-class compartment is supposed to hold ten people, but it is well filled when six or eight get in it. The next to arrive was one of those appallingly respectable British matrons with her hair piled up on top of her head and an absurd hat perched on top of her bun. She glared at us as she sat down. English people always glare at each other in railway carriages, but it doesn't mean anything.

  A few minutes later she was followed by a young man who excited a strong interest in us because of his extreme good looks and his expression of sullen recklessness. Something had gone very wrong with that poor lad; his eyes were desperate. He looked like an animal backed into a corner and prepared to do as much damage as he could before they got him. His clothes, while of good material, looked as if they had been slept in; he had not shaved in several days. He had no baggage. Without a look at the other passengers, he plumped into the seat cater-cornered from us, and jerked his hat over his eyes. Mme Storey whispered to me:

  "It must break a parent's heart when he sees that look in the face of a son."

  A comical old gentleman poked his head in the carriage door and surveyed us suspiciously one by one. Nothing more English could be imagined. He wore a great cape that was continually impeding his movements and a shapeless tweed hat that had slipped over one ear. His face was very red, and his eyes seemed about to pop out of his head behind the thick glasses he wore. He had a bristly white beard that seemed to grow in a dozen different directions at once. In short, a caricature out of Punch. Without any preamble he barked at Mme Storey:

  "Where are you going?"

  "To London," she answered, smiling.

  "And you?" he demanded of me.

  I answered similarly.

  "And you?" to the lady along the seat from me.

  "London," she said with a toss of the head, as much as to say: "It's none of your business."

  He paid no attention to the young man, who appeared to be asleep.

  "Well, that's all right," he grumbled, climbing in. "I am sure to fall asleep, and I don't want to be left alone in the carriage. Always expected to get my throat cut."

  Here was a nice beginning for the journey! I immediately thought of all the stories I had read of unfortunate travellers trapped in a compartment with a madman. It is a favourite subject for shilling shockers. I was thankful there was quite a small crowd of us and all bound for the same destination.

  Our old gentleman carried an old-fashioned Gladstone bag, of the sort that splits open in the middle, and a pot of pansies wrapped in paper, open at the top to show the flowers; the enormous purple pansies that grow in English gardens, delicate and velvety in texture. He put his bag and flower pot in the luggage rack and unwound yards of muffler from his neck, grumbling continually. He was a comical old gentleman but a very disagreeable one; an old curmudgeon, in fact; a tartar at home. In America his wife and children would have trained him better, I thought. He closed the door and made sure that all the windows were tightly closed. He sat down opposite Mme Storey saying in an aggrieved voice:

  "Always makes my head ache to ride backward."

  There was plenty of room for another between me and the British matron, but he wanted a corner seat. There was no reason why Mme Storey should give way to him. She merely smiled sweetly, and he looked in another direction. The British lady snorted audibly. Cheek! she seemed to say, and I heartily agreed with her. The old man subsided in inaudible mumbling. He had the look of one who had been quite a man in his day, but age had not come upon him gracefully.

  The train started, and almost immediately, it seemed to me, drowsiness began to steal on me. I can almost never sleep in a train, but I was very grateful for sleep, and you may be sure I did not fight against it. My mistress, I could see by the look of content that settled on her lovely profile, was in the same state. She settled comfortably into her corner, signifying with a smile that I was to lean against her. For a little while I speculated idly about my travelling companions: that awful British matron—was she human under her starch? Had she deceived her parents in her youth and committed delicious naughtinesses like the rest of us? Very likely. Very likely.... That unhappy young man, whose head was sunk on his chest, and whose face was hidden from me now by his hat brim—was it guilt or grief which oppressed him? Had he done a wrong or had he been wronged? You cannot tell in the young. An injury will often cause a proud and generous spirit to snarl as in hatefulness....

  And the old man, who was also sinking into sleep, broken by starts of suspicious wakefulness, the absurd round hat he wore ever taking a more ridiculous angle—what an old codger! Such a one was Scrooge; such a one always called up the picture of a broken woman on whom his tyranny had fed. Suppose he were firmly opposed and put in his place, might he not turn into a charming old man? But it was probably too late. A little of this play of the fancy, then everything faded out. My last waking impression was of those exquisite purple pansies nodding in the rack over the old man's head.

  I awoke with a start, immediately conscious in some mysterious way that I had slept for several hours—I who never sleep on the train. I knew we were scheduled to make several stops, and I must have slept through them all. How extraordinary! I looked about me. Mme Storey still slept peacefully on one side of me; the British matron on the other. Opposite, the young man sat in the same position with his hat over his eyes; whether he slept or not I could not say. The old man was gone. This surprised me, for I had judged from his questions that he was booked to London; still, he had not said he was going to London.

  I had no time to dwell on the matter, for the train was even then grinding to a stop. The lights of a platform appeared outside the windows, and in each lamp was inserted the name of the station, according to the English customs. Westbourne Park? We were there! I hastily awoke my mistress, and we piled out somehow into the dark, bag and baggage, and stood there in a dazed condition while the train moved on. It was as unreal as a dream.

  However, there was a porter to bring us back to a state of reality, and outside the station a car was waiting for us. It had no distinguishing marks. Half an hour later we were in one of those massive old-fashioned British bedrooms which, in the winter, express the acme of comfort when there is a good fire blazing in the grate—and the acme of discomfort when there is no fire, which there generally isn't. But the Embassy people had taken care of us; there was a fire, and there was supper in our room. We put on comfortable garments and luxuriated in comfort.

  "Funny," said Mme Storey. "I never sleep like that in the train."

  "No more do I," I said.

  "I feel rather queer," she went on, "as if my head wasn't quite big enough to hold all it had."

  "Exactly," said I.

  "Bella, do you suppose we could have been drugged?"

  This was a discomforting thought. We made haste to go through our belongings, but everything, money, letter of credit, jewellery, private papers, everything was intact. Why should we have been drugged, if not for the purpose of robbery? We smiled at our fears.

  "I expect it was just the bad air in the compartment," said Mme Storey.

  We went to bed and thought no more about it.

  II

  Though we had had such a long sleep in the train, we slept all night, and awoke
feeling quite ourselves again. We breakfasted, and afterwards Mme Storey got through to the Embassy on the telephone and reported our arrival. It was agreed that we had better not show ourselves there for the time being, and a very exalted personage signified his intention of waiting on us at our hotel. He came, and spent the balance of the morning with my mistress. What they talked about is not part of this story. Some day, perhaps. It was after he had gone, when we were thinking about lunch, that things began to happen.

  There came a knock at the door of our sitting room, and in response to Mme Storey's summons one of the tiny bell boys entered. He looked scared out of his wits.

  "Please, ma'am——" he began.

  Before he could get any further two men pushed into the room: well-dressed, gentlemanly looking men with grim faces. Such was my first hurried impression.

  Mme Storey arose in astonishment, and her eyes flashed. "Who are you?" she demanded of the first man. "What are you doing here?"

  He was somewhat nonplussed, and well he might be. My mistress seemed to tower in her anger; her beauty became regal. I had never yet seen the man who could stand up to her when her eyes flashed like that; but this one kept his head. Before answering, he curtly nodded the boy out of the room and closed the door. Mme Storey, if possible, became angrier still, but not in the least afraid. I was terrified. The man said, producing a card:

  "Inspector Battram; Scotland Yard."

  Scotland Yard! At those words my heart went down into my boots. At first I suspected some machinations on the part of the clever scoundrel we had come to London to get. He must have tracked us somehow. Of course, whatever ridiculous charge he might have laid against us would quickly fail, but any publicity would wreck our plans, and he knew that. I was demoralized; but my extraordinary mistress smiled, and her anger evaporated like morning mist. She said, with a deprecatory air:

  "I ought to have known you were no mere intruder. Sit down, Inspector. What does Scotland Yard want of me?"

  The man's face was a study. Natural feelings were visibly struggling with official propriety. As a man he could not but be sensible of her beauty and grace; as a policeman he suspected she was trying to put something over on him. He was a handsome, manly looking fellow, well set up and keen. From the army, I guessed. He said stiffly:

  "You and this lady are registered here as Mrs. Amory and Miss Jackson of Liverpool. Please show me some proof of your identity."

  "What sort of proofs?" asked Mme Storey, sparring for time.

  "Visiting cards; letters addressed to yourself; bank books; anything of that sort."

  "But I haven't anything of that sort with me," said Mme Storey with a distressed air.

  He nodded toward the telephone. "Then please call up somebody here in London who can come and identify you."

  "I can't do that either."

  "Hm," said the inspector, rubbing his moustache with an annoyed air. "Well, let that go for the moment. You travelled last night from Banchester to London by the train arriving at Paddington Station at eleven?"

  "Yes," said Mme Storey.

  By this time I began to understand that his visit had nothing to do with our mission in London. I was first relieved, then anxious again, wondering what could be in the wind now.

  "Did anything unusual take place in your compartment?" he asked.

  "Not that I know of," said Mme Storey. "I slept."

  "The whole way?" he asked with a disagreeable smile.

  "The whole way."

  "And this lady?" he asked, turning to me.

  "I also slept."

  "Hm!" he said, exchanging a glance with his companion. "You must permit me to observe that this is very unusual."

  "Very," said Mme Storey blandly. "That's what we said to each other." She warned me with a glance not to mention our thought that we might have been drugged. In his present frame of mind, such a suggestion thrown out by us would have confirmed the man's suspicions.

  He was openly sarcastic now. "Did you take any note of the other persons who shared your compartment?" he asked.

  "Yes," said Mme Storey. "Those at least who got on before we left Banchester." She proceeded to describe the lady, the young man, and the old man with the pot of pansies.

  "Ah," he said; "and did you notice them when you left the train?"

  "I noticed nothing then," said Mme Storey. "My secretary awoke me violently and hustled me out of the car before I had my eyes well open."

  "And you?" he asked me.

  "The lady was still sitting beside me," I said, "and the young man was opposite her. But the old man had got out."

  "Oh, he had got out, had he?" he said meaningly.

  His innuendoes, which I couldn't in the least comprehend, angered me, but I bit my lip and kept silent.

  His eyes bored into us, first my mistress, then me. "Now," he said with the air of one who was springing a mine under us, "please explain how you came to leave the train at Westbourne Park instead of coming into Paddington, which is much nearer this hotel."

  "I suspected there might be somebody watching for us at Paddington that I did not wish to see," said Mme Storey blandly.

  This was hardly the answer he expected. "I thought you said you knew nobody in London," he said, with his eyebrows running up.

  "But I did not say that. That was the construction you put on my words. I said I would not call on them to come here and identify me."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I am engaged on an affair of business that requires secrecy for the moment."

  "Is Amory your right name?"

  "It is not," said Mme Storey coolly.

  "What is the nature of your business in London?"

  "I must decline to answer that," she said politely.

  "Come, madam!" he said indignantly. "You must know that you cannot trifle with the police. A serious crime has been committed, and I have the power to make you speak."

  "What am I charged with?" she asked.

  "You are not charged with anything. I merely wish to ask you some questions."

  "I shall be delighted to answer any and all of your questions which do not involve my private affairs."

  The handsome inspector was very angry now—and a little helpless. "You cannot have secrets from the police," he said fiercely.

  Mme Storey merely smiled and opened her cigarette case. "Have one?" she said. He stiffly declined, whereupon my mistress lighted up deliberately and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. "What am I suspected of?"

  "I think you know," he said meaningly. "The suggestion that you and your secretary—if this is your secretary—slept throughout the journey is incredible."

  "Well, if you will have it so!" said Mme Storey, shrugging.

  "For the last time I ask you——" he began.

  My mistress interrupted him with a disarming smile. "We must not quarrel," said she; "I'm sure we're all very nice people. We have more in common than you suspect. I have no idea what the crime is that you refer to, but, frankly, do I look as if I had committed it?"

  He dropped the official air and revealed himself as just a nice man. "God forbid!" he said earnestly. "That's what makes your present conduct so hard to understand," he added, grumbling.

  "But my conduct is perfectly natural," said Mme Storey. "I have told you the truth from the first. It is of the greatest importance to keep my presence in London a secret for a day or two. I suggest that you arrest me and my secretary and lock us up for as long as you may see fit—it will be interesting to us to see how you do things over here."

  "Ah, an American!" he put in.

  "You must have guessed that from my speech.... But I ask you not to make any search of my private papers, say, for twenty-four hours. By that time I am confident that, with the famous efficiency of your department, you will have discovered the real criminal and there will be no further occasion to bother with us. It's a sporting offer, isn't it?"

  "An unusual one," he said, smiling.

  "Ah, but I can see that
you are an unusual officer," she said beguilingly. "You and I ought to be friends."

  "Very well," he said, "if you and this lady will accompany me to Scotland Yard, I will seal these rooms and will agree not to disturb the contents for twenty-four hours."

  "Splendid!" said Mme Storey. "Let me get my hat. I'll leave the door open."

  At the door of the hotel the inspector handed us into a taxicab with the greatest gallantry. One would never have supposed that we were being carried off to the hoosegow. Battram was a very attractive man, and I could see that my mistress was fully aware of it. In my mind I compared him with our old friend Inspector Rumsey of the New York police. What a contrast! As far as looks and manner went, fat little Rumsey was nowhere; but I suspected he was none the worse policeman than this other.

  As our cab skirted the edge of Trafalgar Square, newsboys came running along the pavements crying an extra. In London the boys carry large posters advertising the headlines—you can read them a block off, and I read on these posters:

  HORRIBLE MURDER

  ON THE

  G.W.R.

  "Could that be it?" I whispered to Mme Storey.

  She nodded. "Possibly. We travelled on the G.W.R."

  A moment or two later we were held up by the traffic. Mme Storey leaned out and, summoning one of the boys to the window, bought a paper. Inspector Battram made no move to interfere. While she read it, he watched her, grimly stroking his moustache. I knew from his manner that this must be the crime in question. I read the story over her shoulder.

  III

  "Miles Ockley, a shepherd of Moale in the Vale of Sturton, started out at dawn this morning to drive his flock to an upland pasture. In passing under a beech tree close to the lofty viaduct of the G.W.R. a drop of moisture fell upon his hand, though the sky was clear; and in the half light he was shocked to discover that it was blood. Upon looking up he saw a broken human body lodged in the forks of the tree. Obviously it had fallen from a passing train.