The haunting hand
“Sure I have, but I don’t want to give Stoner the satisfaction of
thinking I can’t land another job as good as or better than the one he
dished me out of, hot off the reel.”
“Oh, bother Stoner or what he thinks. In the first place, Gene, I may
need every bit of your time in the next few days, and secondly I’ve
got a sort of feeling that you’d better hold off about another job.
It’s just one of my queer hunches, but if you don’t mind very much,
and if you can rub along for a while, I do wish you would--dear.”
When she said “dear” with precisely that intonation, he would have
agreed to commit murder, and he told her so.
Margot spent the intervening hours writing letters and getting mental
relaxation in a moving picture house. Nothing, she had found, was
quite to be compared with the average movie for complete lulling of
all the senses, not to mention the brain.
At a quarter to five Gene came to her room and told her with boyish
glee that he had corralled Hart and the others, and brought them to
the house in a taxi. They had even stopped at the station house of the
district to pick up Quinlan and Boyle. They were all downstairs in her
old room, waiting for her.
Eager and impulsive, Margot flew to Gene, threw her arms around his
neck and gave him a little hug and a quick kiss on his mouth. No use
to hold her, and prolong the kiss. Like a firefly she was off and
away, running down the stairs while Gene caught his breath and darted
after her.
Hart stood by the mantelpiece, a sarcastic grin and a stiff bow, his
greeting to Margot.
“Understand you’ve got something for us that we weren’t bright enough
to find for ourselves, Miss Anstruther.”
“I believe I have, Mr. Hart.” Her smile was as sweet as her low voice.
“But I’m wondering if you’ll take orders or even suggestions from a
mere woman.” Her sarcasm was on a par with his, so could not fail to
reach him.
“You mean you’re going to ask us to do certain things?”
“Well--yes,” she said meditatively, “I rather think I am, if you don’t
mind.”
“Anything in reason.”
“There are places I want you to examine.”
“Places we haven’t already searched?”
“Yes. You’ll have to get a crowbar.”
“We shouldn’t wreck this woman’s house, Miss Anstruther.”
“It won’t be necessary,” she said quietly.
Hart’s scorn became more obvious, but he sent one of his men to borrow
the implement at a nearby hardware shop. Then Margot, who had remained
silent while the man was out getting the crowbar, pointed to the brass
bed.
“Please move that aside and turn back the rug. I don’t think you’ll be
disappointed, Mr. Hart.”
“Trapdoor, eh,” Hart muttered. “That your idea?”
“Go ahead and look,” she said quickly.
Hart made no move toward the bed. He stood looking at Margot with
shrewd, quizzical eyes. Then he said:
“You had a man up here last night, I understand, taking measurements
and giving the place an inspection.”
“Yes.” Margot’s monosyllable was spoken with a friendly inflection.
“Private detective?”
“Oh, dear no!” She could not suppress a smile at thought of Stoner in
the rôle of private detective.
“What’s the joke?” Hart neither looked nor spoke as if he considered
it one.
“No joke at all, Mr. Hart.” She became suddenly very grave. “Merely a
casual visitor who had heard what happened to me and wanted to look
over the ground himself. Just curiosity.”
“My man who was here last night, said that your friend did certain
things and made comments that sounded as if he had some theory about
your ghost. Was it your friend who suggested the trapdoor?”
“No. He did have a theory, but it followed very different lines.”
“Well, give us his theory. I’d like to hear it,” Hart spoke a little
brusquely.
“It’s an entirely personal matter, Mr. Hart, and in my opinion doesn’t
bear on this case at all. At any rate, I’m conceited enough to prefer
my own theory. If nothing comes of it, then we can look into the one
advanced by my caller last night.”
Hart gave her a long, speculative look, then, without another word, he
told two of his men to push back the brass bed.
The men pulled out the rug which covered the drab old carpet that
extended to the wall on both sides. Then they ripped at the carpet
where it was tacked down around the edges. In a few minutes they had
bared the planking. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, yet even
through the dust, dark stains were visible. Clearly defined as well,
was a square outline some two feet each way, near the wall where the
head of the bed had been.
Hart turned abruptly to Margot.
“Have you known about this all along?”
“No, I haven’t. I merely reached the conclusion that some such thing
must be there.” Her steady look at him seemed to say that such a
conclusion was too simple and obvious to have evaded any mind trained
to such analysis.
Hart went down on his knees and began to prod with his fingertips.
“Seems to be stuffed with some kind of wadding. Looks as if it hadn’t
been touched for months.” Hart spoke without looking up. He was intent
on the discovery they had made.
“Suppose you open it,” Margot suggested quietly.
An atmosphere of mystery amounting to horror pervaded the room. Gene
stared from Hart on his knees, to Margot standing erect and watchful.
Quinlan and Boyle frowned fiercely and strove to preserve a stoicism
which made Margot want to laugh, even though she trembled with
excitement. Eager to a point where it was difficult to restrain her
mad desire to find what lay under all that dust and wadding or
whatever it was, nevertheless she felt a cold, shuddering dread of
what they might discover.
Hart rose to his feet and asked for the crowbar. With the help of one
of his men he drove it down into a crack. They heaved and wrenched,
then with so little final effort that it seemed as if mystery and
horror laughed and mocked their struggles with the crowbar, a trapdoor
lifted and fell over on the floor; an indubitable trapdoor it was.
For once, Hart lost his superior air of composure. He spoke quickly,
with excited gasps.
“There’s a big compartment here. Looks as if it’s hollowed from the
central stone support of the house.”
Margot was on her knees beside him, and Gene was standing over her.
“Look and see what’s in it,” she commanded.
Hart reached into the hole and drew out a fire ax, such as hangs
beside a bucket of water in the hallways of public buildings.
“There’s that,” he muttered, holding the ax up for inspection.
He reached again into the hole, probed eagerly, then gave a sudden cry
of surprise and loathing. He drew his hand out with a desperate jerk
and dropped a horrifying object on the floor. Margot suppressed a
scream, and Boyle didn’t. His cry was almost a wail as if he had seen
the Banshee in his own country. Gene bent swiftly and drew Margot to
her feet, holding her against him. No one looked at anyone else. There
was something else to look at.
On the floor, where Hart had dropped it, was the severed and withered
arm of a woman. A desiccated, mummy-like arm. The hand was tightly
clenched. On the upper side it was marred from wrist to knuckles by a
huge burn resembling a chocolate-colored birthmark.
No one spoke, no one stirred, no one removed his gaze from the object
on the floor--a gaze of horror and utter confusion of thought and
emotion. Margot shuddered and pressed closer to Gene. Then she
whispered to him. The power of reasoning had returned with a flash of
insight. The silence of the room was broken by a low, agonized moan.
“God have mercy on us all!” It was Shane Boyle, down on his knees in
an attitude of prayerful supplication. “Sure, it’s the ghost of this
arm we’ve been seein’.”
“The arm it is, I say, of Stella Ball.” Strange that it should have
been the material-minded, slow-witted Quinlan who spoke.
CHAPTER XI.
WHOSE HAND?
For a few seconds no one spoke, either to contradict or agree with
Quinlan. And no one stirred or removed his gaze of stunned surprise
and fascinated loathing from the severed arm, with its hand clenched
and disfigured by so unsightly a scar.
Hart turned a sudden look upon Margot, a look of penetrating
suspicion, that made Gene frown angrily, taking a step forward and
holding firmly to Margot’s arm. Hart’s expression was easy to
interpret, but it was such an unexpected turning of the tables that,
for a second, she could not cope with it.
“May I inquire, Miss Anstruther, if this is a pleasant little
practical joke you’ve staged for our benefit, with the obvious
intention of keeping yourself in the limelight, or if it’s just the
last act in a comedy you began a few nights ago, from the same
motive?”
Margot’s face flamed with an intensity of anger she had not supposed
herself capable of. Gene gave a low exclamation of indignant disgust,
and made a threatening movement nearer to Hart. She drew him back and
whispered to him to let her handle Hart. Her breath came short and
fast, as she struggled for self-control. It was too outrageous of the
detective, but why should she care what he thought or said? The facts,
so far as they had gone, would prove themselves, and she felt
thrillingly competent to handle the situation from this point to
whatever climax might be lurking in mystery. The hot flow of blood
receded from her face, leaving her calm and very cool, physically and
mentally. She returned Hart’s exasperating stare with an expression as
mild as it was compelling.
“Mr. Hart,” she began quietly, “it will probably be impossible, and
certainly it’s quite unnecessary, for me to convince you of anything
which you’ve made up your mind not to believe. To be quite frank, I
honestly do not think that your opinion of me or of my motives will
make any more difference in the conduct of this case, or its ultimate
disposal, than your opinion makes a difference to me personally.”
Gene squeezed her arm in excited admiration for her spirit and her
clever retort. The other men looked down at the floor, or at the
ceiling or out of the window; anywhere but at Hart. He grew a little
paler, and his mouth twisted with an ugly sneer. Then he seemed to
think better of it, or sudden change came to his mood. His level look
into her eyes was less antagonistic, and his manner conveyed more
respect for the girl who stood so quietly regarding him.
“You still claim that every word you told Quinlan and Boyle that first
night, and all you said subsequently to me, was absolutely true?”
“If my word is of any consequence to you, Mr. Hart, yes, I do still
claim just that.”
“And you knew absolutely nothing about this trapdoor or what I found
down in that hole?”
“Absolutely nothing, Mr. Hart.” Her quiet statement was more
convincing than an oath.
“Well,--I’ll be damned!” Hart sounded quite sincere, and more
mystified than Margot had ever hoped to have him admit, even tacitly.
“Gene, please go downstairs and ask Mrs. Bellew to come up here right
away. And prepare her mind about--that--” she glanced toward what lay
on the floor; “so she won’t get hysterical up here.”
Gene knew from the sudden darkening and widening of her eyes, that her
keen brain had swiftly adjusted itself to the facts, had seized upon
whatever was concrete, and was intent upon pursuing her deductions
without loss of time. As he went quickly to the door, she turned again
to Hart.
“Have you any explanation, Mr. Hart?”
Hart shrugged his thin shoulders, and stared down at the gruesome
object.
“Not yet,” he said laconically. Then he added a little sulkily.
“You’ve sprung a bit of mysterious dirty work on me, and you can’t
expect me to hand out an explanation till I’ve followed up the clues.”
“Surely you regard this discovery as part of the investigation, don’t
you? It isn’t a _new_ case.”