The Hand in the Dark
No woman could throw so far and so straight.
This unforeseen obstacle rather disconcerted Caldew at first, but on
looking out of the window again it seemed to him, by the lay of the
house, that the window of Miss Heredith's bedroom was closer to the moat
than the window at which he was standing. As Miss Heredith had
transferred her bedroom to the other wing, he decided to go into the
room and see if he were right. He still clung to his new idea that the
revolver had been thrown into the moat, although his altered view that
it might have been thrown from Miss Heredith's window meant the
abandonment of his other assumption that the disposal of the revolver by
that means accounted for the open window in Mrs. Heredith's bedroom.
Caldew realized as he left the room that the question of the open window
still remained to be solved. What he did not realize was that he was
distorting the facts of the case in order to establish the possibility
of his own theory.
The door of the room which Miss Heredith had occupied was ajar. He
pushed it open and entered. There was within that deserted and desolate
air which a room so quickly takes on when the occupant has vacated it.
The heavier furniture and the bed remained to demonstrate the ugliness
of utility after the accessories and adjuncts of luxury had been carried
away.
The blind was down and the room in partial darkness. Caldew went to the
window, raised the blind, and looked out. The distance to the moat was
appreciably nearer, compared with the window of the room he had just
left, but the distance was still considerable.
As Caldew turned from the window, with the reluctant conviction that he
had been nursing an untenable theory, a last ray of sunshine shot
through the open window, causing the dust he had raised by his entrance
to quiver and gyrate like a host of mad bacilli dancing a jig. The shaft
of light, falling athwart the dismantled toilet-table, brought something
else into view--a tiny fragment of gold chain dangling from the polished
satinwood drawer.
Caldew pulled the drawer open. Inside was a lady's thin gold neck chain,
with a bundle of charms and trinkets attached to the end, which had
evidently been left behind and forgotten. He glanced at the chain
carelessly, and was about to replace it in the drawer, when his eye was
arrested by one of the trinkets. It was a small image, not much over an
inch in length; a squatting heathen god, with crossed arms and a satyr's
face--a wonderful example of savage carving in miniature.
It was not the perfection of the carving or the unusual nature of the
ornament which attracted Caldew's attention, but the material, of which
it was composed, a clear almost transparent stone, with the faintest
possible tinge of green. Holding it in the sunlight, Caldew was able to
detect one or two minute black flecks in the stone. There was no doubt
about it--the image was of the same peculiar material as the trinket he
had seen in the murdered woman's room the previous night.
As he stood there examining the charm, the murmur of voices not far away
fell on his ears. Looking cautiously out of the window, he saw Musard
and Miss Heredith walk round the side of the house to the garden, deep
in earnest conversation. Caldew backed away to an angle where he was not
visible from beneath, and watched them closely. Musard was talking,
occasionally using an impressive gesture, and Miss Heredith was
listening attentively, with a downcast face, and eyes which suggested
recent tears. As she passed underneath the window at which he was
watching, she raised a handkerchief to her face and sobbed aloud. Caldew
wondered to see the proud and reserved mistress of the moat-house show
her grief so freely in the presence of Musard, until he remembered what
his sister had told him of their supposed early love for each other. And
with that thought came another. It must have been Musard, the explorer,
the man who had wandered afar in strange lands in search of precious
stones, who had brought to the moat-house the peculiar stone of which
the missing brooch and the little image had been fashioned.
Acting on the swift impulse to take the image to Miss Heredith and see
how she received it, Caldew slipped the chain into his pocket and
hurried downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase he was stopped by
Tufnell, who had evidently been waiting for him to descend. The usually
imperturbable dignity of the butler was for once ruffled, and he looked
slightly flushed and dishevelled.
"I have been down to the village looking for you," he said, in a
querulous tone. The majesty of the law had not vested Caldew with any
dignity in the old butler's eyes. He saw in him only the village urchin
of a score of years ago, whose mischievous pranks on the Heredith estate
had been a constant source of worry to him.
The detective appreciated the estimation in which the old man held him,
and the fact did not tend to lessen his own irritation.
"What did you want me for?" he curtly asked.
"I did not want you, but the gentlemen in the library do. Superintendent
Merrington thought you had been a long time away, and he sent me down to
the village to look for you. He is anxious to return to London. You will
find him in the library."
The butler's cool assumption that it was Merrington's privilege to
command, and Caldew's duty to obey, nettled the latter considerably. He
felt that Merrington had, in his offensive way, deliberately asserted
his official authority in order to humiliate him in his native place.
Acting on the impulse of anger he replied:
"I have some things to attend to before I can see him. You can tell him
so, if you like."
He walked away towards the hall door, conscious that the butler was
standing stationary by the stairs, watching him. When he got outside, he
turned his steps towards the garden; but brief as had been the interval
since he had seen Musard and Miss Heredith conversing together by the
sundial, it had been sufficient to bring the conversation to a
conclusion. Miss Heredith was no longer to be seen, and Musard was
sauntering along the gravel walk smoking a cigar.
Had they seen him at the window, and broken off their conference in
consequence? It looked as if this were so. Miss Heredith must have
entered the house by another door, because if she had gone in by the
front door he must have encountered her. Caldew would have retraced his
steps if Musard had not looked up, and, seeing the detective, waited for
him to approach.
Caldew walked towards him, wondering whether Miss Heredith had missed
her chain of charms, and had gone upstairs to find it. In that case, he
reflected grimly, the position of the previous night was reversed, and
this time it was she who was forestalled. It was an ironical situation,
truly, but he was to some extent the master of it.
Musard nodded to the detective and proffered his cigarcase. Caldew
accepted a cigar and admired the case, which was made of crocodile skin,
worked and dressed in a manner altogether new to him. He had never seen
anything like it in London tobacconists' shops, and he said so.
"Native manufacture," replied Musard, selecting a fresh cigar. "My
Chinese boy shot the crocodile which provided it. It's a rare thing for
a Chinese to be a good shot with a modern English rifle, but my boy
would carry off anything at Bisley. He never misses. It was lucky for me
that he didn't that time, because the brute came along to bag me while I
was swimming in a river. Suey, hearing me call, ran out from the tent
with my rifle, and shot him from the bank. He got him through the
eye--the eye and the throat are the only two vulnerable spots in a
crocodile. A bullet will rebound off the head as off a rock."
"Where did this happen?" asked Caldew, in an interested tone. His own
knowledge of crocodiles was confined to the fact that he had once seen a
small one in a tank at the Zoological Gardens.
"In Zambesi. There are plenty of them there in the rivers and mango
swamps. Some hunters stake a dog overnight by the river bank, and the
animal gives them warning of the approach of the reptiles by howling
with terror. It is rather cruel--to the dog."
"Undoubtedly," said Caldew.
"How are you getting on with your investigations in this case?"
continued Musard, abruptly changing the conversation.
Caldew was instantly wary, and stiffened into an attitude of official
reserve, wondering why Musard should seek to question him about the
murder.
"I am an old friend of the Herediths," continued Musard, as though
divining the other's thoughts. "This murder is a very terrible thing for
them. I am afraid it may mean Sir Philip's death-blow. He is old and
feeble, and the shock, and his son's illness, have had a very bad effect
on him. I should have gone to France to-day for the War Office, but I
arranged for somebody to go in my place in order to remain with the
family in their hour of trial. Have you found out anything which leads
you to suppose you are on the track of the murdered?"
"I am afraid I cannot tell you anything about the investigations,"
replied the detective cautiously. "I am not in charge of the case, you
know."
"I understand," rejoined the other, with a nod. "Perhaps I should not
have asked you. My anxiety must be my excuse."
He uttered this apology so courteously and pleasantly that Caldew felt
momentarily ashamed of his own rigidly official attitude. But his
instincts of caution quickly reasserted themselves, and he told himself
that in this sinister case it was his business to be on his guard and
talk to nobody.
The situation was terminated by the reappearance of Miss Heredith from a
door at the side of the house. The detective was a little surprised to
see her again, for he had conceived the idea that she had gone indoors
to avoid meeting him. She went eagerly to Musard without noticing him.
"Oh, Vincent!" she exclaimed, and the look of relief on her face was
unmistakable. "Sir Ralph Horton is just leaving. He says that Phil has
passed the crisis, and there is no need for him to stay any longer. Phil
still needs great care and attention, but Sir Ralph says it will be
quite safe to leave him in Dr. Holmes's hands. There is no fear for his
brain, thank God."
"This is good news," said Musard. "Have you told Sir Philip?"
"Not yet. I thought it better to defer it until after dinner. I want you
to tell him then."
Miss Heredith turned as though to re-enter the house, but Caldew, who
had been hovering a few paces away within earshot of this dialogue,
approached her with the gold chain in his hand.
"Excuse me, Miss Heredith," he said. "One of the maids told me that you
no longer occupied the room upstairs in the left wing, so I took the
liberty of going in there to see if it was possible for the murderer to
have escaped by clambering from the window of one room to another, and
while I was there I found this chain. It was hanging out of a drawer of
the toilet-table near the window, and as it had obviously been forgotten
I thought I had better restore it to you."
He held it out to her as he finished speaking, keenly watching her face
for some sign of confusion or trepidation. But Miss Heredith received
the chain calmly, and thanked him for returning it. Caldew was
disappointed at the failure of his test, but he essayed a further shot.
"I noticed a very peculiar little image among the charms on the chain,"
he said hesitatingly. "I have never seen anything like it before, and I
couldn't help wondering where it came from."
It was a clumsy trap, and he realized it, but he was too anxious to
achieve his end by more subtle methods. There was nothing in Miss
Heredith's calm countenance to suggest that she was alarmed or uneasy at
his curiosity. She turned to Musard.