The Hand in the Dark
"Of course I shall explain to Mrs. Weyne. That is, unless you would like
me to stay and sit with you. I do not like you to be left alone."
"There is not the slightest necessity for that," said Mrs. Heredith
decisively. "Do go. I can ring for Lisette to sit with me if I feel
lonely."
"Perhaps you would like Phil to remain with you?" suggested Miss
Heredith.
"Oh, no! It would be foolish of him to stay away on my account. I want
you all to go and enjoy yourselves, and not to fuss about me. At present
I desire nothing so much as to be left alone."
"Very well, then." Miss Heredith rose at this hint. "Shall I send you up
some dinner?"
"No, thank you. The housekeeper has just sent me some strong tea and dry
toast. If I feel hungry later on I'll ring. But I shall try and sleep
now."
"Then I will leave you. I have ordered dinner a little earlier than
usual."
"What time is it now?" Violet listlessly looked at her jewelled
wrist-watch as she spoke. "A quarter-past six--is that the right time?"
Miss Heredith consulted her own watch, suspended round her neck by a
long thin chain.
"Yes, that is right."
"What time are you having dinner?"
"A quarter to seven."
"What's the idea of having it earlier?" asked the girl, propping herself
up on her pillow with a bare white arm, and looking curiously at Miss
Heredith.
"I have arranged for us to leave for the Weynes' at half-past seven. It
is a long drive."
"I see." The girl nodded indifferently, as though her curiosity on the
subject had subsided as quickly as it had arisen. "Well, I hope you will
all have a good time." She yawned, and let her fair head fall back on
the pillow. "Now I shall try and have a sleep. Please tell Phil not to
disturb me. Tell him I've got one of my worst headaches. You are sure to
be back late, and I don't want to be awakened."
She closed her eyes, and Miss Heredith turned to leave the room. As she
passed the dressing-table her eyes fell upon a handsome jewel-case. As
if struck by a sudden thought, she turned back to the bedside again.
"Violet," she said.
The girl half opened her eyes, and looked up at the elder woman from
veiled lids. "Yes?" she murmured.
"Your necklace--I had almost forgotten. Mr. Musard goes back to town
early in the morning, and he wishes to take it with him."
"Oh, it will have to wait until the morning. I don't know where the keys
are, and I can't be bothered looking for them now." The girl turned her
face determinedly away, and buried her head in the pillow, like a spoilt
child.
Miss Heredith flushed slightly at the deliberate rudeness of the action,
but did not press the request. She left the room, softly closing the
door behind her. She walked slowly along the wide passage, hung with
bugle tapestry, and paused for a while at a narrow window at the end of
the gallery, looking out on the terrace gardens and soft green landscape
beyond. The interview with her nephew's wife had tried her, and her
reflections were rather bitter. For the twentieth time she asked herself
why her nephew had fallen in love with this unknown girl from London,
who loathed the country. From Miss Heredith's point of view, a girl who
smoked and talked slang lacked all sense of the dignity of the high
position to which she had been called, and was in every way unfitted to
become the mother of the next male Heredith, if, indeed, she consented
to bear an heir at all. It was Miss Heredith's constant regret that Phil
had not married some nice girl of the county, in his own station of
life, instead of a London girl.
Miss Heredith terminated her reflections with a sigh, and turned away
from the window. She was above all things practical, and fully realized
the folly of brooding over the inevitable, but the marriage of her
nephew was a sore point with her. She proceeded in her stately way down
the broad and shallow steps of the old staircase, hung with armour and
trophies and family portraits. At the bottom of the stairs she
encountered a manservant bearing a tray with sherry decanters and
biscuits across the hall.
"Where is Mr. Philip?" she asked.
"I think he is in the billiard room, ma'am," the man replied.
Miss Heredith proceeded with rustling dignity to the billiard room. The
click of billiard balls was audible before she reached it. The door was
open, and inside the room several young men, mostly in khaki, were
watching a game between a dark-haired man of middle age and a young
officer. One or two of the men looked up as Miss Heredith entered, but
the young officer went on stringing his break together with the
mechanical skill of a billiard marker. Miss Heredith mentally
characterized his action as another instance of the modern decay of
manners. In her young days gentlemen always ceased playing when a lady
entered the billiard room. The middle-aged player came forward, cue in
hand, and asked her if she wanted anything.
"I am looking for Phil," she said. "I thought he was here."
"He was, but he has just gone to the library. He said he had some
letters to write before dinner."
"Thank you." Miss Heredith turned away and walked to the library which,
like the billiard room, was on the ground floor. She opened the door,
and stepped into a large room with an interior which belonged to the
middle ages. There was no intrusion of the twentieth-century in the
great gloomy apartment with its faded arabesques and friezes, bronze
candelabras, mediaeval fittings, and heavy time-worn furniture.
The young man who sat writing at an ancient writing-table in the room
was not out of harmony with the ancient setting. His face was of antique
type--long, and narrow, and his long straight dark hair, brushed back
from his brow, was in curious contrast to the close crop of a military
generation of young men. His eyes were dark, and set rather deeply
beneath a narrow high white forehead. He had the Heredith eyebrows and
high-bridged nose; but, apart from those traditional features of his
line, his rather intellectual face and slight frame had little in common
with the portraits of the massive war-like Herediths which hung on the
walls around him. He ceased writing and looked up as his aunt entered.
"I have just been to see Violet," Miss Heredith explained. "She says she
is no better, and will not be able to accompany us to the Weynes'
to-night. I suggested remaining with her, but she would not hear of it.
She says she prefers to be alone. Do you think it is right to leave her?
I should like to have your opinion. You understand her best, of course."
"I think if Violet desires to be alone we cannot do better than study
her wishes," replied Phil. "I know she likes to be left quite to herself
when she has a nervous headache."
"In that case we will go," responded Miss Heredith. "I have decided to
have dinner a quarter of an hour earlier to enable us to leave here at
half-past seven."
"I see," said the young man. "Is Violet having any dinner?"
"No. She has just had some tea and toast, and now she is trying to
sleep. She does not wish to be disturbed--she asked me to tell you so."
Miss Heredith glanced at her watch. "Dear me, it is nearly half-past
six! I must go. Tufnell is _so_ dilatory when quickness is requisite."
"Did you remind Violet about the necklace?" asked Phil, as his aunt
turned to leave the library.
"Yes. She said she would send it down in the morning, before Vincent
leaves."
Phil nodded, and returned to his letters. Miss Heredith left the room,
and proceeded along the corridor to the big dining-room. An elderly man
servant, grey and clean-shaven, permitted a faint deferential smile to
appear on his features as she entered.
"Is everything quite right, Tufnell?" she asked.
Tufnell, the staid old butler, who had inherited his place from his
father, bowed gravely, and answered decorously:
"Everything is quite right, ma'am."
Miss Heredith walked slowly round the spacious table, adjusting a knife
here, a fork there, and giving an added touch to the table decorations.
There was not the slightest necessity for her to do so, because the
appointments were as perfect as they could be made by the hands of old
servants who knew their mistress and her ways thoroughly. But it was
Miss Heredith's nightly custom, and Tufnell, standing by the carved
buffet, watched her with an indulgent smile, as he had done every
evening during the last ten years.
While Miss Heredith was thus engaged, the door opened and Sir Philip
Heredith entered the room in company with an old family friend, Vincent
Musard.
CHAPTER III
Sir Philip Heredith was a dignified figure of an English country
gentleman of the old type. He was tall and thin, aristocratic of mien,
with white hair and faded blue eyes. His face was not impressive. At
first sight it seemed merely that of a tired old man, weary of the
paltry exactions of life, and longing for rest; but, at odd moments, one
caught a passing resemblance to a caged eagle in a swift turn of the
falcon profile, or in a sudden flash of the old eyes beneath the
straight Heredith brows. At such times the Heredith face--the warrior
face of a long line of fierce fighters and freebooting ancestors--leaped
alive in the ageing features of the last but one of the race.
His companion was a man of about fifty-five. His face was brown, as
though from hot suns, his close-cropped hair was silver-grey, and he had
the bold, clear-cut features of a man quick to make up his mind and
accustomed to command. His eyes were the strangest feature of his
dominating personality. They were small and black, and appeared almost
lidless, with something in their dark direct gaze like the unwinking
glare of a snake. His apparel was unconventional, even for war-time,
consisting of a worn brown suit with big pockets in the jacket, and a
soft collar, with a carelessly arranged tie. On the little finger of his
left hand he wore a ruby ring of noticeable size and lustre.
Vincent Musard was a remarkable personality. He came of a good county
family, which had settled in Sussex about the same time that the first
Philip Heredith had burnt down the moat-house, but his family tree
extended considerably beyond that period. If the name of Here-Deith was
inscribed in the various versions of the Roll of Battle Abbey to be seen
in the British Museum, the name of Musard was to be found in the French
roll of "Les Compagnons de Guillaume a la Conquete de l'Angleterre en
1066," the one genuine and authentic list, which has received the stamp
of the French Archaeological Society, and is carved in stone and erected
in the Church of Dives on the coast of Normandy. Vincent Musard was the
last survivor of an illustrious line, a bachelor, explorer, man of
science, and connoisseur in jewels. He had been intended for the Church
in his youth, but had quarrelled with it on a question of doctrine.
Since then he had led a roving existence in the four corners of the
earth, exploring, botanizing, shooting big game, and searching for big
diamonds and rubies. He had written books on all sorts of out-of-the-way
subjects, such as "The Flora of Chatham Islands," "Poisonous Spiders
(genus Latrodectua) of Sardinia," "Fossil Reptilia and Moa Remains of
New Zealand," and "Seals of the Antarctic." But his chief and greatest
hobby was precious stones, of which he was a recognized expert.
His father had left him a comfortable fortune, but he had made another
on his own account by his dealings in gems, which he collected in remote
corners of the world and sold with great advantage to London dealers. He
was intimately acquainted with all the known mines and pearl fisheries
of the world, but his success as a dealer in jewels was largely due to
the fact that he searched for them off the beaten track. He had explored