The Hand in the Dark
I listened to their conversation; I heard him promise her to return
secretly to the moat-house on the following night with the necklace. My
heart leapt as I listened. I believed that I had him.
"I stole away quietly without waiting to learn any more, but I stayed up
till far into the night preparing my final plans. My intention was to
shoot her just before dinner, and arrange for the false report to
explode after he had arrived and hidden himself in the old staircase,
waiting for her to go to him. Then, when the report startled everybody
in the dining-room, I intended to be the first to rush upstairs, and
lead the search in the direction of the old staircase. I would have had
him by the throat, before he had time to get away. How would he have
been able to account for his secret presence in the house when her
jewels were in his pocket and her dead body upstairs, close to where he
was hiding?
"I had intended to kill Violet with a small revolver which I had bought
in a second-hand place at London last winter, but Nepcote's carelessness
in leaving his own revolver in the gun-room gave the last finishing
touch to my plan. I could scarcely believe my luck when I found it. It
seemed as though he himself were playing into my hands. I hid it away,
expecting that there would be inquiries, but there were none. He had
forgotten all about it. It was strange, too, that Violet herself helped
by telling my aunt before dinner on the night of her pretended illness
that she did not wish to be disturbed by anybody. That removed a defect
in my arrangements which had caused me much anxious thought. I had
feared that somebody, probably a servant, might enter the room in the
period between the first and second reports. It was a chance I could not
afford to overlook, and I could see no way of guarding against it except
by locking the door, which I did not want to do. I wanted to leave the
door partly open so as to make sure of the second report penetrating to
the dining-room downstairs.
"When my aunt gave me Violet's message in the library shortly before
dinner I knew that the moment had arrived. The altered arrangements for
an earlier dinner cost me a moment's perplexity, but no more. One cannot
hurry one's own guests, and I knew it would be impossible to get dinner
over as quickly as my aunt anticipated. If it were ending too quickly
for my purpose it would be an easy matter to introduce a subject which
would set somebody talking. That, as you know, is what actually
happened.
"After my aunt left me I waited until the last possible moment before
slipping upstairs. The revolver and the pistol were locked away in my
own bedroom in readiness. I got them out. The pistol was completely
prepared except for the cap. I had bound a twelve inch tinder-wick to
the stock in order to allow for a delay of nearly fifty minutes between
the lighting and the report. I knew that Nepcote expected to arrive at
the moat-house by half-past seven at the latest, but I gave him a margin
of a few minutes for unexpected delays. I put the pistol in my pocket,
and wrapping the revolver in a silk muffler to deaden the report, went
swiftly to my wife's room. I closed the door behind me as I entered.
"She was lying on the bed with her eyes closed, and did not hear me
approach. That helped me. Can you understand my feelings. I was about to
destroy something I loved better than life itself, but it was not she
who was lying on the bed. _She_ had died before--died by her own
act--leaving behind her another woman whose life was a living lie, who
was so corrupt and worthless as to be unfit to live. It was _that_ I was
going to destroy. I felt no compunction--no remorse. As I placed the
muzzle of the revolver against her breast, she opened her eyes in
terror, and saw me. I pulled the trigger quickly.... As I did so I heard
the dinner gong sound downstairs.
"The muffled report made less noise than the clapping of a pair of
hands. I knew that faint sound would not be heard downstairs. She never
moved, and I thought she was dead. I bent over the fireplace, shook some
caps out of the butt of the pistol, and placed one on the nipple. Then I
lit a match and started my prepared fuse. It was an easy matter to place
the pistol in position at the top of the grate; the difficulty of
recovering it subsequently was not made manifest to me until after my
illness, although my previous secret examination of the grate had
convinced me that the recoil of the explosion would cause the pistol to
fall to the bottom of the chimney behind the grate. When I had placed
the pistol in position I turned off the electric light, and opened the
window to allow the fumes of the burning wick to escape. Then I hurried
downstairs. I was not in the room three minutes altogether. I saw nobody
on my way down; nearly everybody had gone in to dinner, but I was in
time to sit down with the others.
"I felt quite cold and collected as I sat at the dinner table waiting
for the moment of my vengeance. I felt as though I was under the control
of some force immensely stronger than myself which held me firm with
giant hands while the minutes slowly ebbed away. I am sure there was
nothing unusual in my behaviour. I pretended to eat, and joined in the
conversation around me.
"The report did not come at the moment I anticipated, but I was not
perturbed at the delay. My experiments had taught me the difficulty of
fixing an explosion for an exact period. The time was in general
approximately the same, but there were reasons which caused a slight
difference. The wick always burnt at a uniform rate; the trouble was
with the string. Sometimes it was slow in catching. Sometimes the
pressure of the string partly extinguished the wick and made combustion
slower as it neared the point of contact. Once I tied the string so
tight that the wick went out altogether just before reaching the string.
But I had taken measures to overcome these little irregularities, and to
make sure of the string catching readily I had rubbed a little petrol on
it where it crossed the wick.
"But it was the scream before the report which upset my calculations and
almost caused me to collapse. When that terrible cry rang out my false
strength fled from me, leaving me weak and trembling. I think I should
have betrayed myself if the report had not followed so quickly, throwing
everybody into the same state of confusion as myself. I do not know how
I managed to make my limbs carry me upstairs with the others. I did not
know what had happened. My brain refused to act. I was conscious of
nothing except that a great wheel seemed turning inside my head,
tightening all my nerves to such taut agony that I could hardly refrain
from crying aloud.
"What I said or did when I found myself in the bedroom I do not know.
When I saw that everything was as I had arranged my mind began swinging
like a pendulum towards my revenge, and I struggled to lead the search
towards the staircase. But I was unable to move. I was like a man in a
dream, encompassed by invisible obstacles. Then the wheel in my head
suddenly relaxed, I felt the room and its objects slipping from me, and
everything went black.
"You know about my illness. It was not until I was supposed to be
recovering that the power of clear thought came back to me. There were
days when my brain was numb and powerless, like that of one newly
awakened from a terrible nightmare, striving to recall what had
happened. Then one day the veil was drawn, and I remembered everything.
My aunt was in the room, and I questioned her. She brought Musard to me,
and from him I learnt the truth.
"Intuitively I realized what had happened. Hazel Rath had gone to the
room for some unknown reason, had seen my wife lying there, and
screamed. Then, hardly conscious of what she was doing, she picked up
the revolver I had left lying by the bedside, and ran out of the room in
fright. I was even able to divine a reason for her silence under the
accusation of murder. She felt that nobody would believe her story,
especially after the history of her mother's past was brought to light.
"As I turned over what they had told me and realized that my own secret
was safe, I thought I saw the way to accomplish my revenge and save
Hazel Rath. Up till then the revolver had not been identified as
Nepcote's. It seemed to me that the mere disclosure of that fact was
sufficient to direct attention to Nepcote and bring to light his
movements on that night. But the detective who came to see me about the
revolver was too foolish and obstinate to grasp the importance of my
information. It was then I decided to go to you. It was daring, perhaps,
but it seemed safe enough to me. I was determined to entangle Nepcote,
and to free Hazel Rath.
"I told you no more than I had told to the other detective. I had
powerful motives for reticence. If I had told you more you would have
seen that I had an ulterior reason for directing attention to Nepcote. I
had not the least fear that you would discover my secret, but the
knowledge, if imparted to you, would have weakened the impression I
wanted to convey by suggesting to your mind that I was actuated by
hatred of Nepcote. Besides, I did not wish any living being to know of
my shame. I believed that I could accomplish my revenge without its ever
being known. I thought Nepcote would prefer to perish as the victim of
circumstances rather than incur public opprobrium by a defence which he
knew would never be believed. The actual facts against him were too
strong. He could neither extenuate nor deny them. He could not explain
his lying telegrams, his secret return, his presence in the moat-house,
his possession of the necklace, the revolver in the bedroom where the
body was. Therefore, it was only necessary to give you a starting point,
because discovery was inevitable where so much was hidden. I saw to it
that the loss of the necklace was discovered after your arrival. That
was all you needed to know.
"I do not know what oversight of mine put you on the track of the truth.
There was one, but I do not see how that could have helped you. It was
not until the following afternoon in the gun-room, when Musard drew your
attention to the pistol-case, that I remembered that the pistol I had
used was still at the back of the fireplace upstairs, where apparently
it had lain undiscovered during my illness. I had taken the precaution
of concealing the key of the case, but I decided to restore the pistol
that night after you left. It was more difficult to recover than I
anticipated, owing to the depth of the space behind the grate. I had to
push back the bedstead and use the tongs before I could reach it. I
believe it would have lain there undiscovered for years. There was
nothing else that I can recall, except that when I restored the pistol I
saw I had left the end of one of my experimental tinder-lighter wicks
lying in the case.
"But I do not wish to know how you found out, now that Nepcote has
escaped. I have nothing left to live for. The doctor thinks I am
recovering, but I knew that it was only the hope of revenge which kept
me going. Now that is gone I have not long to live. I rejoice that it is
so. But whatever had happened, I would have saved that poor girl, Hazel
Rath.... I ask you to believe that ... Violet...."
He ceased, and with a weary gesture, let his head fall on his
outstretched arms, as though the strength which bore him up while he
told his tale deserted him when he had made manifest the truth.
His two listeners sat for some minutes in silence, each engrossed in his
own thoughts. Musard stared gloomily at Phil with unseeing eyes. He was
as one who had passed through unimagined horrors in a space not to be
measured by time, to emerge with a fatigued sense of the black malignity