The Hand in the Dark
"You had better behave yourself if you don't want to get into trouble,"
counselled Caldew.
"So you're a rozzer, are you? D--d if I didn't think so soon as I
clapped eyes on you. But you've got nothing against me, so I don't care
a snap of my fingers for you. You'd better hurry up."
Caldew took no further notice of him, but joined Colwyn in examining the
room. They found nothing giving any indication of its last tenant. The
only articles in the room were a bed, a broken chair, and a beam of wood
shoved diagonally against one of the walls, which threatened to fall in
on the first windy night and bury the wretched bed and its occupant.
After a brief search they turned away and went downstairs. The door was
immediately slammed behind them, and the turning of the lock and the
rattling of a chain told them that the place was closed for the night.
Pulling up his coat collar in an effort to shield himself from the
persistence of the rain, Caldew expressed his disappointment at the
failure of the night's expedition in a bitter jibe at his bad luck. At
first he thought he would wait a little longer on the watch, then he
changed his mind as he glanced at the unpromising night, and decided
that it wasn't worth while. He lived in Edgeware Road, so he shook hands
with Colwyn and set out for the Underground at King's Cross.
Colwyn returned to the _Angel_ to look for a taxi-cab. The fog was
lifting, and crowds were emerging from the cinemas and a music-hall with
the fatigued look of people who have paid in vain to be entertained.
Outside the music-hall some taxi-cabs were waiting for the more opulent
patrons of refined vaudeville who had been drawn within by the rare
promise of an intellectual baboon, reputed to have the brains of a
statesman, which shared the honours of "the top of the bill" with two
charming sisters from a West End show. The drivers of the taxi-cabs said
they were engaged, and uncivilly refused to drive the detective to
Ludgate Circus.
A Bermondsey omnibus came plunging through the fog, scattering the filth
of the road on the hurrying pleasure-goers, and stopped at the corner to
add to its grievous load of damp humanity. Those already in the darkened
interior sat stiffly motionless, like corpses in a mortuary wagon, as
the new-comers scrambled in, scattering mud and water over them, feeling
for the overhead straps. Colwyn did not attempt to enter. Even a
Smithfield tram-car would be better than the interior of a 'bus on a wet
night.
An ancient four-wheeler went past, crawling dejectedly homeward. The
driver checked his gaunt horse at the sight of Colwyn standing on the
kerb-stone, and raised an interrogative whip. He added a vocal appeal
for hire based on the incredible assumption that a man must live, which
he proclaimed with a whip elevated to the sodden heavens, calling on a
God, invisible in the fog, to bear witness that he hadn't turned a wheel
that night. The phrasing of the appeal helped Colwyn to recall that it
was the same cabman who had accosted Philip Heredith and himself on the
night they had motored to the moat-house.
He engaged the cab and entered the dark interior. The whip which had
been uplifted in pious aspiration fell in benedictory thanks on the bare
ribs of the horse. The equipage jolted over the _Angel_ crossing into
the squalid precincts of St. John's Street. In a short time the
overpowering smell of slaughtered beasts announced the proximity of
Smithfield. The cab turned down Charterhouse Street towards Farringdon
Market, and a little later pulled up under the archway at Ludgate
Circus.
"I leaves it to you, sir," said the cabman, in a husky whisper. His
expectant palm closed rigidly on the silver coins, and his whip fell on
the lean sides of his horse with a crack like a pistol shot as he
wheeled round, leaving the detective standing in the road.
The fog had almost cleared away, but the unlighted streets were plunged
in deep gloom, through which groups of late wayfarers passed dimly and
melted vaguely, like ghosts in the darkness of eternity. As Colwyn was
about to enter the corridor leading to his chambers, a man brushed past
him in the doorway. There was something about the figure which struck
the detective as familiar, and he walked quickly after him. By the light
of the departing cab he saw his face. It was Nepcote.
CHAPTER XXV
In that swift unexpected recognition Colwyn observed that the man for
whom they had been searching looked pale and worn. He stood quite still
in the doorway, his breath coming and going in quick gasps.
"We have been looking for you, Captain Nepcote," Colwyn said.
"I am aware of that. I have been waiting to see you, but I could get
nobody to answer my ring."
"My man is out. You had better come upstairs to my rooms."
He led the way to the lift at the end of the corridor. When they reached
the rooms Colwyn switched on the electric light. Nepcote dropped wearily
into a chair, and for the first time Colwyn was able to see his face
clearly.
He looked very ill: there could be no doubt of that. His face was
haggard and unshaven, his clothing was soiled, his attitude one of utter
dejection. He crouched in the chair breathing hurriedly, with one hand
pressed to his right side, as though in pain. Occasionally he coughed: a
short, high-pitched cough, which made him wince.
"You had better drink this before you talk," Colwyn said.
He handed him a glass of brandy and water. Nepcote seized it eagerly and
gulped it down.
"I've caught a bad chill," he said in a hoarse unnatural voice. "I
couldn't carry on any longer. That's why I came to see you to-night. But
I'd given up hopes. I was ringing for some time."
"You came to surrender yourself?"
"Yes; I am fed up--absolutely. I was a fool to bolt. I've had a horrible
time, sleeping out of doors and in verminous lodging-houses, with the
police after me at every turn. I stuck it as long as I could, but to-day
I was ill, and when I saw a policeman watching the lodging-house where I
meant to sleep to-night I felt that I had to give in."
"Why have you come to me instead of going to the police?"
"I thought I would get more consideration from you. I know you are
searching for Mrs. Heredith's necklace. Here it is."
He drew from his pocket a small parcel wrapped in dirty tissue paper,
and put it on the table. The untidy folds fell apart, exposing the
missing necklace, but the diamond was missing from the antique clasp.
"The diamond is in that," he said, placing a small cardboard box beside
the pearls. "I wish I had never seen the cursed thing."
"How do you come to have Mrs. Heredith's necklace?"
Nepcote hesitated before replying.
"I was terribly upset by Mrs. Heredith's death," he said at length. "I
knew her before she married Phil Heredith. We were old friends."
The inconsequence of this statement convinced Colwyn that he was seeking
time to frame an evasive answer.
"If that is all you have to say it is useless to prolong this
interview," he coldly remarked.
"I--I am going to tell you where I got the necklace," Nepcote said, with
downcast eyes. "Mrs. Heredith gave it to me."
"Why did Mrs. Heredith give you her necklace?"
"She asked me to raise some money on it for her."
"For what purpose?"
"I cannot say. Pretty women always need money. It may have been for
dress, or bridge, or old debts. She brought me the necklace one day, and
asked me to get some money on it. I suggested that she should apply to
her husband, but she said she needed some extra money, and she did not
wish him to know."
"And you complied with her request?"
"I did, after she had pressed me several times. I am always a fool where
women are concerned. I promised to raise money on the necklace in London
for her. That was the beginning of my troubles. But who could have
foreseen? How was I to know what was going to happen?"
He sat brooding for a space with gloomy eyes, like a man repelled by the
menace of events, then burst out wildly:
"I'm in a horrible position. Who will believe me? My God, what a fool
I've been!"
"You are doing yourself no good by going on like this," Colwyn said.
"You are keeping something back. My advice to you is to be quite frank
with me and tell me everything."
"You must give me a few minutes first to think it over," responded
Nepcote. He cast a doubtful glance at the detective, and relapsed into
another brooding silence.
"Before you say anything more it is my duty to inform you of my own
connection with the case," said Colwyn. "There has been an arrest for
the murder, as no doubt you are aware, but the family are not satisfied
that the right person has been arrested. You are suspected."
"Do they think that I murdered Violet? Oh, I never dreamt of this," he
added, as Colwyn remained silent. "I thought that you and the police
were searching for me because of the necklace. It is even worse than I
thought. I will now tell you all. Perhaps you will then help me, for I
am innocent."
Until that moment he had flung out his protestations with an excited
impetuosity which told of a mind suffering under a grievous burden,
though it was impossible to determine whether that state of feeling
arose from anxiety or conscious guilt. His quietness now was in the
oddest contrast. It was as though he had been sobered by his realization
of the difficulty of convincing an outsider of his innocence of a foul
crime in which he was deeply entangled by an appalling web of
circumstance.
He began by explaining, vaguely enough, his past friendship with the
murdered girl. He had first met her in London two years before. Their
relations, as he depicted them, conveyed a common story of a casual
acquaintance developed in the familiar atmosphere of secluded
restaurants, with dances and theatres later on. His story of this phase
had all the familiar elements which make up the setting of a modern
sophisticated love episode, into which a man and a girl enter with their
eyes open. In the masculine way, Nepcote refrained from saying anything
which could hurt the dead girl's reputation, but it was his reticence
and reservations which completed the story for his listener. He said
that their flirtation ceased when Violet became engaged to Philip
Heredith. On his own showing he then acted sensibly enough in a delicate
situation, and was afterwards reluctant to accept the invitation to the
moat-house. With one of his reticent evasions he slurred over his reason
for changing his mind, but Colwyn guessed that it was due to the
feminine disinclination to bury an old romance. Violet had probably
written and asked him to come.
He conveyed to Colwyn a picture of the state of things existing at the
moat-house when he arrived. It was an unconscious revelation on his part
of a giddy shallow girl hastily marrying a wealthy young man for his
money, quickly bored by the dull decorum of English country life,
sighing for her former existence--for the gay distractions of her
irresponsible London days. It seemed that in this frame of mind she
welcomed Nepcote as a dear link with the past, and sought his society
with a frequency which had its embarrassments. Of course there was
nothing in it--Nepcote was fiercely insistent on that--she was bored,
poor girl, and liked to talk about old times with her old friend, but it
was awkward, devilish awkward, in a country house full of idle people
and curious servants with nothing to do but use their eyes.
She had taken him aside to tell him of her little troubles. Miss
Heredith did not think her good enough for Phil--she was sure she
thought that. They had the vicar and old frumps in to tea, and she had
to listen to their piffle. They all went to bed soon after ten--just
when people were beginning to wake up in London and go out for the