Chapter Seventeen.A Further Problem.I had seen the sign of the Hand against which Melvill Arnold had warned me with final effort before he expired.I could not close my eyes again. Thoroughly awakened, I lay trying to convince myself that it was but a bad dream. Yet so distinct had been that touch, that I still felt the repulsive contact that had thrilled me and left upon me such a lasting impression.In the uncertain light of early morning one’s brain is often full of weird fancies, and as I lay there wondering, a thousand curious unreal conjectures floated through my mind.I was not old, yet in my life I had probably travelled more, and seen more, than most men of my age. Of little love affairs I had had, of course, one or two. None of them had been serious—none, until the present.Yes, I may as well here confess it. I loved Asta Seymour.From the first moment that she had met me in that lonely country road, and I had sat by her side in the car, she had exercised over me a strange and fatal fascination. I found myself beneath the spell of her bewitching beauty.I was drawn towards her by some strange, irresistible, unknown power—drawn to her as the moth is drawn towards the candle.Fascinated alike by the mystery surrounding her foster-father and by her sweet pensive face, I had been constantly in her company. My thoughts were ever of her, to the oblivion of all else in the world. She was all in all to me, and I was now involuntarily her slave, so entangled had I become in the net of her sweet and wondrous charm. Ah yes! I loved her—loved her with all the strength of my being, with all the passion of my soul.But I had not spoken. My secret was as yet my own.Nevertheless, it was in order to be near her that I, like Nicholson, had accepted Shaw’s invitation; in order also to protect her, for, knowing what I did of the man’s peril of arrest, I had been seized by a strange presage of evil that might befall her.I lay awake, listening to the clanging of the old bells of a monastery near by, and thinking it all over. Yes, in those few weeks I had grown to love her, even though she undoubtedly was in possession of some strange if not guilty secret.Yet how could I reveal my heart to her while recollections of poor Guy still, filled her mind? No, I must wait and watch in patience, my heart tortured constantly by the burning fires of unspoken love.Thinking, reflecting, pondering, resolving, I still lay there, when suddenly I became conscious that my friend in the adjoining room was no longer snoring.I heard a curious sound. He gave a quick, loud gasp, as though of alarm, followed by a murmured growl. Was he speaking in his sleep? I listened attentively until my ears caught another sound. He had risen and was moving about his room.I was rather pleased than otherwise, for it relieved the tension, and I breathed more freely. The apparition of that claw-like hand before my face had, I believe, somewhat upset my nerves.“Is that you, Shaw?” I called out, but there was no response.All was quiet. The movement in the adjoining room had ceased.Already I had satisfied myself that nobody could enter my room, both doors being bolted on the inside, but I slipped again out of bed, and, going to the communicating door, rapped upon it, crying—“Shaw! Shaw! Are you asleep?”“Hulloa?” growled a sleepy voice. “Why, what’s up, eh?”“Nothing,” I laughed. “Are you still in bed?”“Of course I am, why? What’s the matter? Anything wrong?”“No, nothing,” I replied. “Only I heard you groaning, that’s all. Talking in your sleep, I expect.”“I—I didn’t know,” he said. “Sorry, Kemball, if I disturbed you.”“All right,” I laughed, and then returned to bed again.I pondered over the fact that while he certainly had been upon, his feet—for I distinctly heard the creaking of the beeswaxed boards—a moment before I called, yet he made pretence of being asleep. The only explanation was that, while asleep, he had got out of bed, a not unusual circumstance with some people, and with that surmise I had to be content.Truly, that night had been fraught with a strange inexplicable terror. Though dawn spread slowly, and from where I lay I could see the first flush of crimson in the sky heralding the sun’s coming, yet I could not rid myself of that phantom hand, those thin skeleton fingers that had touched my cheek and left a chilly impression upon it.I rose and looked into the tiny oval toilet-glass, startled when I saw evidence that my experience was an actual tangible one.Upon my left cheek was a faint red mark, almost like a scratch, where the chilly hand had touched me!Carefully I examined it, but there seemed no abrasion of the skin. By the deadly contact it had been irritated, inflamed—seared, it seemed, by the chill finger of the dreaded Unknown.Moving without a sound, so as not to attract Shaw’s attention, I made a minute survey of the apartment, examining the walls to assure myself of no hidden doorway such as are common in old houses of that description. But there was none. The only modes of ingress were both securely locked and bolted.Soon after six o’clock I dressed and went out. I could remain in that chamber no longer. I wandered through the quaint old village, already agog, for Arnay-le-Duc retires early and is astir with the rising of the sun. Ascending the hill, I had a look at the round frowning towers of the ancient stronghold of the Counts d’Arnay, now, alas! grey, weather-beaten, and ruined. In them a last stand was made by a party of the 79th Regiment of Infantry against the Prussians in 1870, when the latter brought some field-pieces to bear upon the place and completed the ruin which time had long ago begun. Part of the village had afterwards been burned by the enemy, who had already devastated the whole of the smiling countryside of the Côte d’Or, and laid bare the valley of the Yonne with fire and sword.As I stood beneath the battered walls where great ugly holes showed as mute evidence of the destruction wrought by the German guns, a beautiful panorama of sloping wine-lands, of river and rich pastures spread before me, while behind lay the long open road to Lyons, fringed on each side by high poplars planted at regular intervals and running straight as an arrow across the blue distant plain to old-world Mâcon.Over that road we sped two hours later at a speed which would never be allowed in England, and raising a perfect wall of dust behind us. Asta, seated between Shaw and myself, seemed unusually bright and happy, for she laughed merrily, and declared herself delighted with the novelty and change of the journey.“What was the matter with you early this morning, Kemball?” inquired my host presently with a laugh.“You woke me up suddenly, and I believed that you were unwell!”“No,” I said. “On the contrary, I was awake, and I heard you sigh and groan, therefore I believed you were ill.”“You were awake?” he echoed, regarding me sharply through his dark spectacles. “Then—then I must have had the nightmare or something, eh?”“Probably you had,” I said. Then I added, “I didn’t pass a very good-night myself.”“I hate sleeping in strange beds,” Asta declared.“One has to get used to them on a motor-tour,” remarked Shaw, leaning back again, his face set straight before him.I was half inclined to relate my weird experience, yet I felt that if I did Asta might only regard me as a frightened fool.Therefore the subject dropped when next moment, as the road ran over the hillside, we burst forth into admiration of the wide and magnificent panorama with a splendid old château with numberless round-slated turrets, perched upon a huge rock rising from the valley in the foreground—a huge, mediaeval fortress, yet still inhabited. Below clustered the sloping roofs of a small village within the ponderous walls of the château, entrance to which was by two ancient gates, with guard-houses built above them—a place which long ago had been the stronghold of one of the robber-barons of the Yonne.Truly the Lyons road is full of variety and picturesqueness, running, as it does, through those rich vinelands and mountains of the Côte d’Or, before descending to the valley where the broad Saone flows south to join the mighty Rhone.Passing through the beautiful Saussey forest, where the thick trees met in many places overhead, we shot through Ivry village, and, fifty kilometres after leaving Arnay-le-Duc, were compelled to slow down on entering the busy agricultural town of Chalons-sur-Saone. There we came to the river-bank, following it through a number of villages well-known in the wine-country, St. Loup, Beaumont, Tournus, and Fleurville, until at last we found ourselves passing slowly over the uneven cobbles and among the curious high-gabled houses of old-world Mâcon.There, at the Hotel Terminus, we lunched, and afterwards, while Shaw sat smoking, I went forth with Asta to an antiquarian, to whom we were recommended, in order to buy antique crosses.In the musty old shop, down in the older part of the town, kept by a short, bald-headed, but urbane Frenchman, we found several treasures, beautiful old crucifixes of carved ivory and mother-of-pearl which Asta at once purchased in great delight and at moderate prices.I bought an old thumb-ring and a couple of other trifles, and having plenty of time at our disposal we strolled into the old cathedral and had a look round the market-place.Ah! how delightful it was to be her escort; how sweet to have her even for one single hour alone!As we retraced our way to the hotel with halting steps, I resolved to tell her of my weird experience of the previous night.“A curious thing happened to me last night—or rather very early this morning,” I said, turning to her as we walked.She looked quickly into my face and her lips were pressed together. But only for a second.“What was that? Tell me,” she said.“Well. Do you see upon my left cheek a long red mark? It’s going away now, but it was very plain this morning,” I said.“Yes,” she replied. “I noticed it when we started. It hardly shows at all now.”“Well, its cause is quite inexplicable—a mystery,” I said. “I am in no way superstitious, and I am no believer in the supernatural, but in that inn at Arnay-le-Duc there is a Something—something uncanny. I was sound asleep when, just before night gave place to day, a cold hand touched my cheek—a phantom hand that left the mark which you see?”“A hand?” she gasped, staring at me, her lips pale and cheeks suddenly blanched. “Explain it. I—I can’t understand.”“I awoke quickly at the chill death-like contact, and saw the hand a few inches from my face—thin, claw-like, and yet a dark shadowy phantom which disappeared in an instant, even before I, so suddenly awakened, could realise what it actually was. But it was a hand—of that I am absolutely positive.”“Yes,” she said slowly, in a low, hoarse voice, nodding her head and pausing as though reflecting deeply. “Yes, Mr Kemball, you were not mistaken. I—I, too, strangely enough, had a very similar experience about six weeks ago, while staying up at Scarborough with Louise Oliver, an old schoolfellow of mine. I, too, saw the terrible Thing—the Hand!”“You!” I gasped, staring at her. “You have seen it!”In response she nodded, her eyes set straight before her, but no word escaped her white, pent-up lips.
I had seen the sign of the Hand against which Melvill Arnold had warned me with final effort before he expired.
I could not close my eyes again. Thoroughly awakened, I lay trying to convince myself that it was but a bad dream. Yet so distinct had been that touch, that I still felt the repulsive contact that had thrilled me and left upon me such a lasting impression.
In the uncertain light of early morning one’s brain is often full of weird fancies, and as I lay there wondering, a thousand curious unreal conjectures floated through my mind.
I was not old, yet in my life I had probably travelled more, and seen more, than most men of my age. Of little love affairs I had had, of course, one or two. None of them had been serious—none, until the present.
Yes, I may as well here confess it. I loved Asta Seymour.
From the first moment that she had met me in that lonely country road, and I had sat by her side in the car, she had exercised over me a strange and fatal fascination. I found myself beneath the spell of her bewitching beauty.
I was drawn towards her by some strange, irresistible, unknown power—drawn to her as the moth is drawn towards the candle.
Fascinated alike by the mystery surrounding her foster-father and by her sweet pensive face, I had been constantly in her company. My thoughts were ever of her, to the oblivion of all else in the world. She was all in all to me, and I was now involuntarily her slave, so entangled had I become in the net of her sweet and wondrous charm. Ah yes! I loved her—loved her with all the strength of my being, with all the passion of my soul.
But I had not spoken. My secret was as yet my own.
Nevertheless, it was in order to be near her that I, like Nicholson, had accepted Shaw’s invitation; in order also to protect her, for, knowing what I did of the man’s peril of arrest, I had been seized by a strange presage of evil that might befall her.
I lay awake, listening to the clanging of the old bells of a monastery near by, and thinking it all over. Yes, in those few weeks I had grown to love her, even though she undoubtedly was in possession of some strange if not guilty secret.
Yet how could I reveal my heart to her while recollections of poor Guy still, filled her mind? No, I must wait and watch in patience, my heart tortured constantly by the burning fires of unspoken love.
Thinking, reflecting, pondering, resolving, I still lay there, when suddenly I became conscious that my friend in the adjoining room was no longer snoring.
I heard a curious sound. He gave a quick, loud gasp, as though of alarm, followed by a murmured growl. Was he speaking in his sleep? I listened attentively until my ears caught another sound. He had risen and was moving about his room.
I was rather pleased than otherwise, for it relieved the tension, and I breathed more freely. The apparition of that claw-like hand before my face had, I believe, somewhat upset my nerves.
“Is that you, Shaw?” I called out, but there was no response.
All was quiet. The movement in the adjoining room had ceased.
Already I had satisfied myself that nobody could enter my room, both doors being bolted on the inside, but I slipped again out of bed, and, going to the communicating door, rapped upon it, crying—
“Shaw! Shaw! Are you asleep?”
“Hulloa?” growled a sleepy voice. “Why, what’s up, eh?”
“Nothing,” I laughed. “Are you still in bed?”
“Of course I am, why? What’s the matter? Anything wrong?”
“No, nothing,” I replied. “Only I heard you groaning, that’s all. Talking in your sleep, I expect.”
“I—I didn’t know,” he said. “Sorry, Kemball, if I disturbed you.”
“All right,” I laughed, and then returned to bed again.
I pondered over the fact that while he certainly had been upon, his feet—for I distinctly heard the creaking of the beeswaxed boards—a moment before I called, yet he made pretence of being asleep. The only explanation was that, while asleep, he had got out of bed, a not unusual circumstance with some people, and with that surmise I had to be content.
Truly, that night had been fraught with a strange inexplicable terror. Though dawn spread slowly, and from where I lay I could see the first flush of crimson in the sky heralding the sun’s coming, yet I could not rid myself of that phantom hand, those thin skeleton fingers that had touched my cheek and left a chilly impression upon it.
I rose and looked into the tiny oval toilet-glass, startled when I saw evidence that my experience was an actual tangible one.
Upon my left cheek was a faint red mark, almost like a scratch, where the chilly hand had touched me!
Carefully I examined it, but there seemed no abrasion of the skin. By the deadly contact it had been irritated, inflamed—seared, it seemed, by the chill finger of the dreaded Unknown.
Moving without a sound, so as not to attract Shaw’s attention, I made a minute survey of the apartment, examining the walls to assure myself of no hidden doorway such as are common in old houses of that description. But there was none. The only modes of ingress were both securely locked and bolted.
Soon after six o’clock I dressed and went out. I could remain in that chamber no longer. I wandered through the quaint old village, already agog, for Arnay-le-Duc retires early and is astir with the rising of the sun. Ascending the hill, I had a look at the round frowning towers of the ancient stronghold of the Counts d’Arnay, now, alas! grey, weather-beaten, and ruined. In them a last stand was made by a party of the 79th Regiment of Infantry against the Prussians in 1870, when the latter brought some field-pieces to bear upon the place and completed the ruin which time had long ago begun. Part of the village had afterwards been burned by the enemy, who had already devastated the whole of the smiling countryside of the Côte d’Or, and laid bare the valley of the Yonne with fire and sword.
As I stood beneath the battered walls where great ugly holes showed as mute evidence of the destruction wrought by the German guns, a beautiful panorama of sloping wine-lands, of river and rich pastures spread before me, while behind lay the long open road to Lyons, fringed on each side by high poplars planted at regular intervals and running straight as an arrow across the blue distant plain to old-world Mâcon.
Over that road we sped two hours later at a speed which would never be allowed in England, and raising a perfect wall of dust behind us. Asta, seated between Shaw and myself, seemed unusually bright and happy, for she laughed merrily, and declared herself delighted with the novelty and change of the journey.
“What was the matter with you early this morning, Kemball?” inquired my host presently with a laugh.
“You woke me up suddenly, and I believed that you were unwell!”
“No,” I said. “On the contrary, I was awake, and I heard you sigh and groan, therefore I believed you were ill.”
“You were awake?” he echoed, regarding me sharply through his dark spectacles. “Then—then I must have had the nightmare or something, eh?”
“Probably you had,” I said. Then I added, “I didn’t pass a very good-night myself.”
“I hate sleeping in strange beds,” Asta declared.
“One has to get used to them on a motor-tour,” remarked Shaw, leaning back again, his face set straight before him.
I was half inclined to relate my weird experience, yet I felt that if I did Asta might only regard me as a frightened fool.
Therefore the subject dropped when next moment, as the road ran over the hillside, we burst forth into admiration of the wide and magnificent panorama with a splendid old château with numberless round-slated turrets, perched upon a huge rock rising from the valley in the foreground—a huge, mediaeval fortress, yet still inhabited. Below clustered the sloping roofs of a small village within the ponderous walls of the château, entrance to which was by two ancient gates, with guard-houses built above them—a place which long ago had been the stronghold of one of the robber-barons of the Yonne.
Truly the Lyons road is full of variety and picturesqueness, running, as it does, through those rich vinelands and mountains of the Côte d’Or, before descending to the valley where the broad Saone flows south to join the mighty Rhone.
Passing through the beautiful Saussey forest, where the thick trees met in many places overhead, we shot through Ivry village, and, fifty kilometres after leaving Arnay-le-Duc, were compelled to slow down on entering the busy agricultural town of Chalons-sur-Saone. There we came to the river-bank, following it through a number of villages well-known in the wine-country, St. Loup, Beaumont, Tournus, and Fleurville, until at last we found ourselves passing slowly over the uneven cobbles and among the curious high-gabled houses of old-world Mâcon.
There, at the Hotel Terminus, we lunched, and afterwards, while Shaw sat smoking, I went forth with Asta to an antiquarian, to whom we were recommended, in order to buy antique crosses.
In the musty old shop, down in the older part of the town, kept by a short, bald-headed, but urbane Frenchman, we found several treasures, beautiful old crucifixes of carved ivory and mother-of-pearl which Asta at once purchased in great delight and at moderate prices.
I bought an old thumb-ring and a couple of other trifles, and having plenty of time at our disposal we strolled into the old cathedral and had a look round the market-place.
Ah! how delightful it was to be her escort; how sweet to have her even for one single hour alone!
As we retraced our way to the hotel with halting steps, I resolved to tell her of my weird experience of the previous night.
“A curious thing happened to me last night—or rather very early this morning,” I said, turning to her as we walked.
She looked quickly into my face and her lips were pressed together. But only for a second.
“What was that? Tell me,” she said.
“Well. Do you see upon my left cheek a long red mark? It’s going away now, but it was very plain this morning,” I said.
“Yes,” she replied. “I noticed it when we started. It hardly shows at all now.”
“Well, its cause is quite inexplicable—a mystery,” I said. “I am in no way superstitious, and I am no believer in the supernatural, but in that inn at Arnay-le-Duc there is a Something—something uncanny. I was sound asleep when, just before night gave place to day, a cold hand touched my cheek—a phantom hand that left the mark which you see?”
“A hand?” she gasped, staring at me, her lips pale and cheeks suddenly blanched. “Explain it. I—I can’t understand.”
“I awoke quickly at the chill death-like contact, and saw the hand a few inches from my face—thin, claw-like, and yet a dark shadowy phantom which disappeared in an instant, even before I, so suddenly awakened, could realise what it actually was. But it was a hand—of that I am absolutely positive.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, in a low, hoarse voice, nodding her head and pausing as though reflecting deeply. “Yes, Mr Kemball, you were not mistaken. I—I, too, strangely enough, had a very similar experience about six weeks ago, while staying up at Scarborough with Louise Oliver, an old schoolfellow of mine. I, too, saw the terrible Thing—the Hand!”
“You!” I gasped, staring at her. “You have seen it!”
In response she nodded, her eyes set straight before her, but no word escaped her white, pent-up lips.
Chapter Eighteen.I Make a Discovery.The Terminus Hotel at Lyons is, as you know, a large, artistically furnished place at the Perrache Station, an hotel with a huge and garish restaurant below, decorated in the style known asart nouveau. It is a busy spot, where rushing travellers are continuously going and coming, and where the excitable Frenchman, fearing to lose his train, is seen at his best.It was there we arrived about six o’clock, and at seven we sat together, a merry trio, at dinner. The cooking was perfect, the wines excellent, and after dinner Shaw mentioned that he had letters to write. Therefore I seized the opportunity to stroll out with Asta, for it was pleasant to walk after so many hours in the car.She was dressed neatly in black coat and skirt, and a small straw hat trimmed with black ribbon—mourning for Guy Nicholson—and as we wandered out our careless footsteps led us across that wide square called the Cours du Midi, and down upon the Quai de la Charité beside the broad, swiftly flowing Rhone, the water of which ran crimson in the brilliant afterglow.A hot, breathless evening, in which half Lyons seemed to be taking an airing along the Quais of that winding river-bank which traverses the handsome city. We had turned our backs upon the high railway bridge which spans the river, and set our faces towards the centre of the city, when I noticed that Asta seemed again very silent and thoughtful.I inquired the reason, when she replied—“I’ve been thinking over your curious experience of last night. I—I’ve been wondering.”“Wondering what?”“I’ve been trying to discern what connection your experience had with my own up in Yorkshire,” she said. “I saw the hand distinctly—a thin, scraggy hand just as you saw it. But I have remained silent because—well, because I could not convince myself that such a thing was actually a reality.”“Describe the whole circumstance,” I urged. “On the occasion when you saw it, was the door of your room locked?”“Most certainly,” was her reply. “Louise, who is married to a solicitor in Scarborough, invited me up to stay a week with her, and I went alone, Dad having gone to London. The house was on the Esplanade, one of the row of big grey houses that face the sea on the South Cliff. The family consisted only of Louise, her husband, three maids, and myself, as visitor. My room was on the second floor, in the front facing the sea, and my experience was almost identical with that of yourself last night. I was awakened just before dawn by feeling a cold touch upon my cheek. And opening my eyes I saw the hand—it seemed to be the horrible hand of Death himself!”“Most extraordinary!” I ejaculated.“Since then, Mr Kemball, I have wondered whether; that touch was not sent as warning of impending evil—sent to forewarn me of the sudden death of the man I loved!”I was silent. The circumstances, so curiously identical, were certainly alarming. Indeed, I could see that the narration of my extraordinary experience had terrified her. She seemed to have become suddenly most solicitous regarding my welfare, for after a slight pause she exclaimed anxiously—“Do, Mr Kemball, take every precaution to secure your own safety. Somehow I—well, I don’t know how it is, but I feel that the hand is seen as warning—a warning against something which threatens—against some evil of which we have no expectation, or—”“It warned you of the terrible blow which so soon afterwards fell upon you,” I interrupted. “And it has warned me—of what?”She shook her head.“How can we tell?” she asked.In a flash the remembrance of that bronze cylinder and the dire misfortune which had befallen every one of its possessors occurred to me. I recollected the ancient hieroglyphics upon the scraps of brown crinkled papyri, and their translation. But surely the apparition of the Hand could have no connection with what had been written long ago, before our Christian era?“Did you actually feel the cold touch of the Hand?” I asked her in eagerness.“Yes. It awakened me, just as it awakened you.”“And there was no one else in the house but the persons you named. I mean you are positive that you were not a victim of any practical joke, Miss Seymour?” I asked.“Quite certain. The door of my room was locked and bolted. It was at the head of the stairs. There were four rooms on that floor, but only mine was occupied.”“The window? If I recollect aright, most of the houses on the Esplanade at Scarborough have balconies,” I remarked.“Mine had a balcony, it is true, but both windows were securely fastened. I recollected latching them before retiring, as is my habit.”“Then nobody could possibly have entered there!”“Nobody. Yet I have a distinct recollection of having been touched by, and having actually seen, the hand being withdrawn from my pillow. I rushed out of the room and alarmed the house. In a few moments every one came out of their rooms, but when I told my story they laughed at me in ridicule, and Louise took me back to bed, declaring that I must have had a bad dream. But I could sleep there no longer, and returned home next day. I did not tell Dad, because I knew that he would only poke fun at me.”For some moments I did not speak. Surely ours was a strange conversation in that busy modern thoroughfare, amid the café idlers seated out in the roadway, and the lounging groups enjoying the cool air from the river after the heat and burden of the day.Strange it was—very strange—that almost the same inexplicable circumstances had occurred to her as to me.Had I been superstitious I certainly should have been inclined to the belief that the uncanny hand—which was so material that it had left its imprint upon my flesh—was actually some evil foreboding connected with the bronze cylinder—the Thing which the papyri decreed shall not speak until the Day of Awakening. Was not the curse of the Wolf-god placed upon any one who sought knowledge of the contents of that cylinder, which had been placed for security in the tomb of the Great Merenptah, King of Kings? Even contact with the human hand was forbidden under pain of the wrath of the Sun-god, and of Osiris the Eternal.As I walked there I recalled the quaint decipher of those ancient hieroglyphics.Yes, the incident was the most weird and inexplicable that had ever happened to me. The whole problem indeed defied solution.I had not attempted to open the cylinder, nor to seek knowledge of what was contained therein. It still reposed in the safe in the library at Upton End, together with that old newspaper, the threatening letter, and the translation of the papyri.We wandered along the quay, Asta appearing unusually pale and pensive.“I wonder you did not recount your strange experience to your father,” I exclaimed presently.“It happened in the house of a friend, and not at home. Therefore I resolved to say nothing. Indeed I had grown to believe that, after all, it must have been mere imagination—until you described what happened to you last night. That has caused me to; think—it has convinced me that what I saw was material and real.”“It’s a mystery, Miss Seymour,” I said; “one which we must both endeavour to elucidate. Let us say nothing—not even to your father. We will keep our own counsel and watch.”When we returned to the hotel we found Shaw awaiting us. Asta, being fatigued, retired to her room, and afterwards he and I strolled down to one of those big cafés in the Place Bellecour. A string band was playing a waltz, and hundreds of people were sitting out upon the pavement drinking theirbockormazagran.Darkness had fallen, and with it the air became fresher—welcome indeed after those long hours on the white, dusty road of the Bourgogne. My host, in the ease of straw hat and grey flannel suit, still wore his dark glasses, and as we sat together at one of the tin tables near the kerb a man and a woman at the adjacent table rose and left, so that we were comparatively alone and in the shadow.After we had been chatting merrily—for he seemed in the best of spirits and full of admiration of the way in which the French roads were kept—he removed his spectacles and wiped them.As he did so he laughed across at me, saying in a low voice—“It’s a nuisance to be compelled to wear these—but I suppose I must exercise caution. One has always to bear the punishment of one’s indiscretion.”“Why?”He smiled grimly, but remained silent.Even though he had admitted that he was not what he represented himself to be; even though I knew that he was an adventurer, and even though the dead man Arnold had urged me not to trust him implicitly, yet I somehow could not help liking him. He was always so full of quiet humour, and his small eyes twinkled merrily when those quaint remarks and caustic criticisms fell from his lips.“I thought that the danger which existed that evening in Totnes had passed,” I remarked.“Only temporarily, I fear. Thanks to your generous aid, Kemball, I was able to slip through their fingers, as I have done on previous occasions. But I fear that the meshes of the net may one day be woven a trifle too closely. I shouldn’t really care very much if it were not for Asta. You know how devoted I am to her,” he added, leaning his arms upon! the small table and bending towards me as he spoke.“And if any little contretemps did happen to you?” I asked.“Asta would, alas! be left alone,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “Poor girl! I—I fear she would find a great change in her circumstances.”It was upon the tip of my tongue to acknowledges to him how madly I loved her, and of my intention of asking her to be my wife, yet somehow I hesitated, fearing, I think, lest he might scorn such a proposition, for I remembered how, after all, she was his sole companion, and that without her he would be lonely and helpless. She was the one bright spot in his soured life, he had declared to me more than once. Though scarcely yet out of her teens, she directed the large household at Lydford with all the genius and economy of an experienced housewife. Yes! hers had been a strange career—the adopted daughter of a man who was so often compelled to go into hiding in strange guises and in strange places.“Let us hope nothing will happen,” I said cheerfully. “Why should it?”His face broadened into a meaning grin, and he readjusted his hideous round spectacles and lit a fresh cigar.“Really, Mr Shaw,” I said, “your dark forebodings and your strange declarations puzzle me. True, I have endeavoured to serve your interests, and I regard you as a friend, heedless of what I cannot help suspecting. Yet you are never open and frank with me concerning one thing—your friendship with Melvill Arnold.”He started at mention of the name—a fact which caused me to ponder.“I hardly follow you.”“Well,” I said. “Shortly before leaving England I received a visit from a certain Mrs Olliffe—a lady living near Bath. I believe you know her?”“Yes!” he gasped, grasping the edge of the table and half rising from his seat. “Then she has seen you!” he cried. “What did she tell you?”“Several things,” I replied. “She alleges that you were not Arnold’s friend—but his fiercest enemy.”“She has told you that!” he cried bitterly. “And what else has that woman said against me?”“Nothing much.”“Come,” he exclaimed boldly. “Tell me, Kemball, man to man, all that woman has said.”I saw that his manner had changed, his small eyes were flashing with fire, while upon his pale cheeks showed two scarlet patches.Through my brain surged recollections of the woman’s allegations, but, seeing him in such anger, I did not desire to irritate him further, therefore I declared that whatever the lady had said was in no way derogatory to him.“You are not telling me the truth, Kemball,” he declared, looking straight into my eyes. “I know her too well. She has lied to you about me.”“Probably,” was my reply. “I happen by a curious chance to know the character of the lady, and it is hardly such as would inspire me with confidence.”“You know her then!” he exclaimed, staring at me hard.“I know that at one time she passed as Lady Lettice Lancaster, and was sentenced to penal servitude as an adventuress.”“Who told you that? How do you know that?” he asked quickly.“It is surely common knowledge,” was my reply. “Therefore please dismiss from your mind that anything she might say to your detriment would impair our friendship.”“Ah yes!” he cried suddenly, taking my hand and wringing it warmly. “I know, Kemball, that you, being my friend, will refuse to be influenced in any way by evil report. That woman is, as you rightly say, an unscrupulous adventuress. I knew her once—before her conviction—but I have since lost sight of her. Yet, I know she is my enemy, and—well, if it were to her interest she would have no compunction in giving me away to Scotland Yard.”“Then she is your enemy?”“My worst enemy.”“Ah! Then I understand the reason of her allegations,” I said, and a moment later the subject dropped.We returned to the hotel just before midnight, and I ascended in the lift to my room. Shaw shook my hand and turned into his own room.From my window I found that I commanded a wide, view of the great Place Carnot and the adjacent streets, picturesque with their many lights. I had not switched on my light, and was standing gazing below, when, of a sudden, I distinguished Shaw hurrying out of the hotel again and crossing the Place towards the Pont du Midi, the iron bridge on the right which spans the Rhone.He had in a moment changed both hat and coat, I noticed, and therefore his sudden exit, after having led me to believe he was about to turn in, struck me as curious. So, without hesitation, I, too, slipped on another coat, and putting on a golf cap descended in the lift, and was soon speeding away in the direction he had taken.When halfway across the bridge I saw him walking slowly before me, therefore I held back and watched. I followed him across the river, when he suddenly turned to the left along the Quai Claude Bernard, until at the foot of the next bridge, the Guillotière, he turned to the left along the Cours Gambetta until he came to a small square, the Place du Pont.There he suddenly halted beneath a lamp and glanced at his watch. Then he idled across to the corner of one of the half-dozen dark, deserted streets which converged there, as though awaiting some one.For a quarter of an hour he remained there calmly smoking, and quite unsuspicious of my proximity.But his patience was at last rewarded, because from the shadow there emerged a female figure in dark jacket and skirt, to which after a moment’s hesitation he went forward with words of greeting.They met beneath the light of a street lamp, and from where I stood, hidden in a doorway, I was sufficiently close to get a view of her countenance.I held my breath.It was that of the woman who had stood in the dock of the Old Bailey and been convicted of fraud—the woman who now lived in such style at Ridgehill Manor, and who was known in Bath as Mrs Olliffe.For a moment they stood there in the night, their hands clasped, neither uttering a single word.And yet Shaw had only an hour before declared her to be his most bitter and dangerous enemy!
The Terminus Hotel at Lyons is, as you know, a large, artistically furnished place at the Perrache Station, an hotel with a huge and garish restaurant below, decorated in the style known asart nouveau. It is a busy spot, where rushing travellers are continuously going and coming, and where the excitable Frenchman, fearing to lose his train, is seen at his best.
It was there we arrived about six o’clock, and at seven we sat together, a merry trio, at dinner. The cooking was perfect, the wines excellent, and after dinner Shaw mentioned that he had letters to write. Therefore I seized the opportunity to stroll out with Asta, for it was pleasant to walk after so many hours in the car.
She was dressed neatly in black coat and skirt, and a small straw hat trimmed with black ribbon—mourning for Guy Nicholson—and as we wandered out our careless footsteps led us across that wide square called the Cours du Midi, and down upon the Quai de la Charité beside the broad, swiftly flowing Rhone, the water of which ran crimson in the brilliant afterglow.
A hot, breathless evening, in which half Lyons seemed to be taking an airing along the Quais of that winding river-bank which traverses the handsome city. We had turned our backs upon the high railway bridge which spans the river, and set our faces towards the centre of the city, when I noticed that Asta seemed again very silent and thoughtful.
I inquired the reason, when she replied—
“I’ve been thinking over your curious experience of last night. I—I’ve been wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“I’ve been trying to discern what connection your experience had with my own up in Yorkshire,” she said. “I saw the hand distinctly—a thin, scraggy hand just as you saw it. But I have remained silent because—well, because I could not convince myself that such a thing was actually a reality.”
“Describe the whole circumstance,” I urged. “On the occasion when you saw it, was the door of your room locked?”
“Most certainly,” was her reply. “Louise, who is married to a solicitor in Scarborough, invited me up to stay a week with her, and I went alone, Dad having gone to London. The house was on the Esplanade, one of the row of big grey houses that face the sea on the South Cliff. The family consisted only of Louise, her husband, three maids, and myself, as visitor. My room was on the second floor, in the front facing the sea, and my experience was almost identical with that of yourself last night. I was awakened just before dawn by feeling a cold touch upon my cheek. And opening my eyes I saw the hand—it seemed to be the horrible hand of Death himself!”
“Most extraordinary!” I ejaculated.
“Since then, Mr Kemball, I have wondered whether; that touch was not sent as warning of impending evil—sent to forewarn me of the sudden death of the man I loved!”
I was silent. The circumstances, so curiously identical, were certainly alarming. Indeed, I could see that the narration of my extraordinary experience had terrified her. She seemed to have become suddenly most solicitous regarding my welfare, for after a slight pause she exclaimed anxiously—
“Do, Mr Kemball, take every precaution to secure your own safety. Somehow I—well, I don’t know how it is, but I feel that the hand is seen as warning—a warning against something which threatens—against some evil of which we have no expectation, or—”
“It warned you of the terrible blow which so soon afterwards fell upon you,” I interrupted. “And it has warned me—of what?”
She shook her head.
“How can we tell?” she asked.
In a flash the remembrance of that bronze cylinder and the dire misfortune which had befallen every one of its possessors occurred to me. I recollected the ancient hieroglyphics upon the scraps of brown crinkled papyri, and their translation. But surely the apparition of the Hand could have no connection with what had been written long ago, before our Christian era?
“Did you actually feel the cold touch of the Hand?” I asked her in eagerness.
“Yes. It awakened me, just as it awakened you.”
“And there was no one else in the house but the persons you named. I mean you are positive that you were not a victim of any practical joke, Miss Seymour?” I asked.
“Quite certain. The door of my room was locked and bolted. It was at the head of the stairs. There were four rooms on that floor, but only mine was occupied.”
“The window? If I recollect aright, most of the houses on the Esplanade at Scarborough have balconies,” I remarked.
“Mine had a balcony, it is true, but both windows were securely fastened. I recollected latching them before retiring, as is my habit.”
“Then nobody could possibly have entered there!”
“Nobody. Yet I have a distinct recollection of having been touched by, and having actually seen, the hand being withdrawn from my pillow. I rushed out of the room and alarmed the house. In a few moments every one came out of their rooms, but when I told my story they laughed at me in ridicule, and Louise took me back to bed, declaring that I must have had a bad dream. But I could sleep there no longer, and returned home next day. I did not tell Dad, because I knew that he would only poke fun at me.”
For some moments I did not speak. Surely ours was a strange conversation in that busy modern thoroughfare, amid the café idlers seated out in the roadway, and the lounging groups enjoying the cool air from the river after the heat and burden of the day.
Strange it was—very strange—that almost the same inexplicable circumstances had occurred to her as to me.
Had I been superstitious I certainly should have been inclined to the belief that the uncanny hand—which was so material that it had left its imprint upon my flesh—was actually some evil foreboding connected with the bronze cylinder—the Thing which the papyri decreed shall not speak until the Day of Awakening. Was not the curse of the Wolf-god placed upon any one who sought knowledge of the contents of that cylinder, which had been placed for security in the tomb of the Great Merenptah, King of Kings? Even contact with the human hand was forbidden under pain of the wrath of the Sun-god, and of Osiris the Eternal.
As I walked there I recalled the quaint decipher of those ancient hieroglyphics.
Yes, the incident was the most weird and inexplicable that had ever happened to me. The whole problem indeed defied solution.
I had not attempted to open the cylinder, nor to seek knowledge of what was contained therein. It still reposed in the safe in the library at Upton End, together with that old newspaper, the threatening letter, and the translation of the papyri.
We wandered along the quay, Asta appearing unusually pale and pensive.
“I wonder you did not recount your strange experience to your father,” I exclaimed presently.
“It happened in the house of a friend, and not at home. Therefore I resolved to say nothing. Indeed I had grown to believe that, after all, it must have been mere imagination—until you described what happened to you last night. That has caused me to; think—it has convinced me that what I saw was material and real.”
“It’s a mystery, Miss Seymour,” I said; “one which we must both endeavour to elucidate. Let us say nothing—not even to your father. We will keep our own counsel and watch.”
When we returned to the hotel we found Shaw awaiting us. Asta, being fatigued, retired to her room, and afterwards he and I strolled down to one of those big cafés in the Place Bellecour. A string band was playing a waltz, and hundreds of people were sitting out upon the pavement drinking theirbockormazagran.
Darkness had fallen, and with it the air became fresher—welcome indeed after those long hours on the white, dusty road of the Bourgogne. My host, in the ease of straw hat and grey flannel suit, still wore his dark glasses, and as we sat together at one of the tin tables near the kerb a man and a woman at the adjacent table rose and left, so that we were comparatively alone and in the shadow.
After we had been chatting merrily—for he seemed in the best of spirits and full of admiration of the way in which the French roads were kept—he removed his spectacles and wiped them.
As he did so he laughed across at me, saying in a low voice—
“It’s a nuisance to be compelled to wear these—but I suppose I must exercise caution. One has always to bear the punishment of one’s indiscretion.”
“Why?”
He smiled grimly, but remained silent.
Even though he had admitted that he was not what he represented himself to be; even though I knew that he was an adventurer, and even though the dead man Arnold had urged me not to trust him implicitly, yet I somehow could not help liking him. He was always so full of quiet humour, and his small eyes twinkled merrily when those quaint remarks and caustic criticisms fell from his lips.
“I thought that the danger which existed that evening in Totnes had passed,” I remarked.
“Only temporarily, I fear. Thanks to your generous aid, Kemball, I was able to slip through their fingers, as I have done on previous occasions. But I fear that the meshes of the net may one day be woven a trifle too closely. I shouldn’t really care very much if it were not for Asta. You know how devoted I am to her,” he added, leaning his arms upon! the small table and bending towards me as he spoke.
“And if any little contretemps did happen to you?” I asked.
“Asta would, alas! be left alone,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “Poor girl! I—I fear she would find a great change in her circumstances.”
It was upon the tip of my tongue to acknowledges to him how madly I loved her, and of my intention of asking her to be my wife, yet somehow I hesitated, fearing, I think, lest he might scorn such a proposition, for I remembered how, after all, she was his sole companion, and that without her he would be lonely and helpless. She was the one bright spot in his soured life, he had declared to me more than once. Though scarcely yet out of her teens, she directed the large household at Lydford with all the genius and economy of an experienced housewife. Yes! hers had been a strange career—the adopted daughter of a man who was so often compelled to go into hiding in strange guises and in strange places.
“Let us hope nothing will happen,” I said cheerfully. “Why should it?”
His face broadened into a meaning grin, and he readjusted his hideous round spectacles and lit a fresh cigar.
“Really, Mr Shaw,” I said, “your dark forebodings and your strange declarations puzzle me. True, I have endeavoured to serve your interests, and I regard you as a friend, heedless of what I cannot help suspecting. Yet you are never open and frank with me concerning one thing—your friendship with Melvill Arnold.”
He started at mention of the name—a fact which caused me to ponder.
“I hardly follow you.”
“Well,” I said. “Shortly before leaving England I received a visit from a certain Mrs Olliffe—a lady living near Bath. I believe you know her?”
“Yes!” he gasped, grasping the edge of the table and half rising from his seat. “Then she has seen you!” he cried. “What did she tell you?”
“Several things,” I replied. “She alleges that you were not Arnold’s friend—but his fiercest enemy.”
“She has told you that!” he cried bitterly. “And what else has that woman said against me?”
“Nothing much.”
“Come,” he exclaimed boldly. “Tell me, Kemball, man to man, all that woman has said.”
I saw that his manner had changed, his small eyes were flashing with fire, while upon his pale cheeks showed two scarlet patches.
Through my brain surged recollections of the woman’s allegations, but, seeing him in such anger, I did not desire to irritate him further, therefore I declared that whatever the lady had said was in no way derogatory to him.
“You are not telling me the truth, Kemball,” he declared, looking straight into my eyes. “I know her too well. She has lied to you about me.”
“Probably,” was my reply. “I happen by a curious chance to know the character of the lady, and it is hardly such as would inspire me with confidence.”
“You know her then!” he exclaimed, staring at me hard.
“I know that at one time she passed as Lady Lettice Lancaster, and was sentenced to penal servitude as an adventuress.”
“Who told you that? How do you know that?” he asked quickly.
“It is surely common knowledge,” was my reply. “Therefore please dismiss from your mind that anything she might say to your detriment would impair our friendship.”
“Ah yes!” he cried suddenly, taking my hand and wringing it warmly. “I know, Kemball, that you, being my friend, will refuse to be influenced in any way by evil report. That woman is, as you rightly say, an unscrupulous adventuress. I knew her once—before her conviction—but I have since lost sight of her. Yet, I know she is my enemy, and—well, if it were to her interest she would have no compunction in giving me away to Scotland Yard.”
“Then she is your enemy?”
“My worst enemy.”
“Ah! Then I understand the reason of her allegations,” I said, and a moment later the subject dropped.
We returned to the hotel just before midnight, and I ascended in the lift to my room. Shaw shook my hand and turned into his own room.
From my window I found that I commanded a wide, view of the great Place Carnot and the adjacent streets, picturesque with their many lights. I had not switched on my light, and was standing gazing below, when, of a sudden, I distinguished Shaw hurrying out of the hotel again and crossing the Place towards the Pont du Midi, the iron bridge on the right which spans the Rhone.
He had in a moment changed both hat and coat, I noticed, and therefore his sudden exit, after having led me to believe he was about to turn in, struck me as curious. So, without hesitation, I, too, slipped on another coat, and putting on a golf cap descended in the lift, and was soon speeding away in the direction he had taken.
When halfway across the bridge I saw him walking slowly before me, therefore I held back and watched. I followed him across the river, when he suddenly turned to the left along the Quai Claude Bernard, until at the foot of the next bridge, the Guillotière, he turned to the left along the Cours Gambetta until he came to a small square, the Place du Pont.
There he suddenly halted beneath a lamp and glanced at his watch. Then he idled across to the corner of one of the half-dozen dark, deserted streets which converged there, as though awaiting some one.
For a quarter of an hour he remained there calmly smoking, and quite unsuspicious of my proximity.
But his patience was at last rewarded, because from the shadow there emerged a female figure in dark jacket and skirt, to which after a moment’s hesitation he went forward with words of greeting.
They met beneath the light of a street lamp, and from where I stood, hidden in a doorway, I was sufficiently close to get a view of her countenance.
I held my breath.
It was that of the woman who had stood in the dock of the Old Bailey and been convicted of fraud—the woman who now lived in such style at Ridgehill Manor, and who was known in Bath as Mrs Olliffe.
For a moment they stood there in the night, their hands clasped, neither uttering a single word.
And yet Shaw had only an hour before declared her to be his most bitter and dangerous enemy!
Chapter Nineteen.Falling Shadows.I watched Shaw strolling slowly with, the woman through the ill-lit back streets of Lyons, speaking rapidly with her. She, however, appeared to listen in silent obstinacy.He grew angry, yet she seemed to remain obdurate.She was dressed plainly in tweed skirt and blouseà la touriste, and wore a hat with a long veil in the fashion so often adopted by American women visiting Europe.They traversed the working-class district on the eastern side of the Rhone, where from behind the dingy red blinds of the cafés came the sounds of music and laughter, and where many groups of factory hands were idling about enjoying the cool night air. It was a noisy bizarre district, which favoured me, for I could watch the pair unobserved.At the corner of the Place Morand they halted for a few moments, while he emphasised his words by striking his palm with his clenched fist, and she stood listening, her gaze turned towards the ground. Then, together, they crossed the big square to the left and traversed the bridge, passing beneath the deep shadows of the high, handsome Hôtel de Ville.Though at times I was quite near them, yet I could not, of course, catch a single word uttered by either. Only by their actions and gesticulations could I judge, and it appeared plain that she had met him under compulsion, and was refusing to act as he desired.And yet he had only that very evening declared the woman to be his worst and most dangerous enemy!I reflected as I strode slowly on, keeping the two dark figures in sight. Shaw had, after all, never concealed from me the fact that he was wanted by the police for some offence. His sportsmanlike attitude, combined with his deep devotion to Asta, caused me involuntarily to like him. Perhaps it was because I loved her and he was her foster-father, always kind, indulgent, and solicitous for her welfare, that I really held him in esteem, even though he might be an adventurer.Yet why had this woman Olliffe—as she now called herself—declared that Shaw had been Arnold’s bitterest enemy? Surely it had been through my host himself that the woman knew of my existence, and my friendship with the dead man of mystery!But even while I watched them turn the corner by the Hôtel de Ville, and stroll up that broad, deserted thoroughfare—in day so busy with its rows of fine shops, but now quiet and deserted—towards the Place Bellecour, my thoughts reverted to Asta, she who had lost her lover, but whom I had grown to love so truly and so well.Suddenly I turned upon my heel and abandoned pursuit of the pair. What mattered it to me? Their affairs, whatever they might be, were their own. I loved Asta. Indeed, because of my deepening affection for her I had accompanied them upon that tour which had for its object my love’s forgetfulness of the black tragedy which had so suddenly overshadowed her young life.Guy Nicholson had promised to reveal something to me in strictest confidence, but, alas! his lips had been mysteriously closed before he had had opportunity. Closed by whom?I turned down upon the quays and, following the Rhone bank, was soon back at the hotel.I left my hat in my own room and, on entering our private sitting-room found, to my delight, that Asta was still there. She had been reading and had just risen as I entered, for she stood by the pale-green curtains at the window, holding a fold of them in her hand, and looking forth into the starlit night, her slim young figure clearly outlined against their dull soft green, a becoming rose-flush upon her cheeks, her lips slightly parted, and her eyes bewitchingly bright.“I’ve been waiting for Dad, Mr Kemball,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”“Out, I think,” was my reply. “I suppose he’s smoking in one of the cafés. He believed that you had gone to bed, I expect.”And I threw myself lazily into a chair.I thought that her eyes filled with tears as she turned back towards the long open windows and gazed out into the Place below. And I confess that this surprised me.“You are upset!” I said softly, rising and standing at her side. “What’s the matter, Miss Seymour? Tell me, confide in me—your friend.”“I—I hardly know,” she faltered, in a strange hoarse voice. I took her hand, and found it trembling. “But—”“But what?” I asked. Her face was turned away from me towards the night.“Well,” she said, after a long pause, as though reluctant to tell me, “I fear that Dad has gone out to meet some one. When we arrived in this hotel I saw among his letters a handwriting which I recognised.”“The writing of a woman, eh?”She started, turning to me quickly.“How did you know?” she gasped.“Well—I guessed,” I laughed.“You guessed correctly. And I have suspicion that he has gone out to-night to meet her in secret—to—”I waited for her to conclude her sentence, but her lips closed with a snap. The colour had left her cheeks while in her eyes was a strange wild look of fear.“In confidence, Miss Seymour, I may as well tell you that I saw him half-an-hour ago walking with a lady—a person who lives near Bath under the name of Olliffe.”“Then my suspicions are correct!” she cried. “That woman has regained her power over him. My poor Dad! He has fallen into her clutches. Ah, Mr Kemball, if you only knew all!” she added. “If only I dare tell you!”“Why not tell me? Surely I am your friend! You may trust me not to betray any secret,” I said in deep earnestness.“They have met to-night. There is some mischief brewing. She is cruel, evil, unscrupulous.”“I know—and a convicted criminal.”“You know her, then?” she asked quickly, looking into my eyes.“Yes. I am acquainted with Lady Lettice Lancaster, as she was once called, and I know that she was sentenced at the Old Bailey for a series of remarkably ingenious frauds. Is she an associate of your father’s?”“She was once, I believe—before her sentence,” replied the girl. “She exercised over him a strange, incomprehensible fascination, as an evil woman so often can over a man. He acted at her bidding, and—well, I know but little, Mr Kemball, but, alas! what I know is, in itself, too much. I am surprised that Dad, knowing the woman’s character, should dare to again associate himself with her.”“She introduced me to her brother, George King. Do you know him?”“Yes. He sometimes passes as her brother and sometimes as butler or chauffeur. But he is her husband, Henry Earnshaw, sometimes known as Hoare.”“And your father assisted them in their frauds, eh?”“That is my supposition. I have no actual knowledge, for it was several years ago, when I was but a girl,” was her reply.“And you fear that the outcome of the meeting to-night may be another mutual arrangement?”She nodded sadly in the affirmative.“The combination of Dad and these people would, indeed, be a formidable one,” she said. “Ah! if he would only take my advice and end it all! He has sufficient to live upon comfortably. Why does he court disaster in this way? He has always been, so very good to me, ever since I was a tiny child, that I cannot help loving him.”I did not reply. What could I say? I longed to speak frankly to her and take her out of that atmosphere of evil. Yet what could I do? How could I act?“I have a suspicion that poor Mr Arnold was a friend of that woman,” I said a few moments later, as she stood against the table before me.“Yes,” was her reply. “He was her friend and benefactor, I believe. He did all he could for her defence before the judge, but to no avail.”“Somebody betrayed her into the hands of the police?”“Dad told me so once. He believes it to have been her own husband, the man Earnshaw.”I did not speak for a few moments. I was thinking of that strange letter which had threatened vengeance against the mysterious scholar, Mr Arnold. The latter had been accused of what he had not done, yet that very accusation had given me a clue to some very curious circumstances, and had forewarned me as to the true character of the wealthy widow of Ridgehill Manor.“Has your father any ground for declaring the woman’s conviction to be due to Earnshaw?”“Yes, I believe so; but he has never told any one, except myself.”“But if he and Mrs Olliffe become on friendly terms again, he will doubtless reveal what he knows.”“Probably. Then the man Earnshaw will turn against her—and against Dad also. In that lies the great peril for Dad which I apprehend.”I realised how far-seeing she was, how carefully she had weighed all the consequences, and how anxious she was for her father’s safety. On the other hand, however, Shaw was certainly not a man to run any unnecessary risks. From what I had seen of him, he appeared full of craft and cunning, as became one who lived upon his wits.“Tell me what you know concerning Mr Arnold’s association with this woman of a hundred different names,” I urged. “I have a reason for my curiosity.”“I know but little. Once, when I was about fifteen, Dad and I travelled with Mr Arnold from Vienna to Territet, and met her at the Hôtel des Alpes there. She was very affable and nice to me, and she told me what an excellent friend Mr Arnold had been to her. I recollect the incident quite well, for on that day she bought me a little chain bracelet as a present. I have it now.”“Your father quarrelled with Arnold, I believe?”“Yes,” she said. “They had some difference. I never, however, ascertained the real facts. He evidently wished to see me, for he wrote to me making an appointment; and when I went to the hotel for that purpose, I learnt, alas! that he was dead.”“Had he lived, his intention was to meet your father in secret at Totnes in Devonshire. Why in secret, I wonder?”“That same question has been puzzling me for a long time, Mr Kemball,” she said quickly. “I have arrived at the conclusion that he feared lest Mrs Olliffe might know of his arrival in England and set some one to watch his movements. He feared her.”“Then there may have been some reason why the woman desired that they should not meet, eh?”“Apparently so.”I reflected. Mrs Olliffe now knew that I had borne a message to Shaw from the dead man who had destroyed a fortune. Did she fear its results, and was she, for that reason, holding out to Shaw the olive branch of peace?I suggested that to Asta, and she was inclined to agree with me.“We must do what we can to break off your father’s friendship with this woman,” I declared. “It is distinctly dangerous for him.”“Yes, Mr Kemball,” she cried. “I only wish we could! I only wish—”Her sentence was interrupted by a sound which startled both of us. We listened, looking into each other’s serious face without uttering a word. The sound emanated from the next room—Shaw’s bedroom—the door of which was closed.It was that low, peculiar whistle which I had first heard on the morning I had visited Titmarsh after poor Guy’s mysterious death, and had heard on a second occasion when visiting at Lydford.“There’s Dad again?” she cried, in a strained voice. “He evidently doesn’t know we are still up.” The whistle was again repeated—a low, long-drawn, peculiar sound, in a high shrill note.It was not the unconscious whistle of a man thinking, but a sound full of meaning—a distinct call, which even as we listened in silence was repeated a third time.
I watched Shaw strolling slowly with, the woman through the ill-lit back streets of Lyons, speaking rapidly with her. She, however, appeared to listen in silent obstinacy.
He grew angry, yet she seemed to remain obdurate.
She was dressed plainly in tweed skirt and blouseà la touriste, and wore a hat with a long veil in the fashion so often adopted by American women visiting Europe.
They traversed the working-class district on the eastern side of the Rhone, where from behind the dingy red blinds of the cafés came the sounds of music and laughter, and where many groups of factory hands were idling about enjoying the cool night air. It was a noisy bizarre district, which favoured me, for I could watch the pair unobserved.
At the corner of the Place Morand they halted for a few moments, while he emphasised his words by striking his palm with his clenched fist, and she stood listening, her gaze turned towards the ground. Then, together, they crossed the big square to the left and traversed the bridge, passing beneath the deep shadows of the high, handsome Hôtel de Ville.
Though at times I was quite near them, yet I could not, of course, catch a single word uttered by either. Only by their actions and gesticulations could I judge, and it appeared plain that she had met him under compulsion, and was refusing to act as he desired.
And yet he had only that very evening declared the woman to be his worst and most dangerous enemy!
I reflected as I strode slowly on, keeping the two dark figures in sight. Shaw had, after all, never concealed from me the fact that he was wanted by the police for some offence. His sportsmanlike attitude, combined with his deep devotion to Asta, caused me involuntarily to like him. Perhaps it was because I loved her and he was her foster-father, always kind, indulgent, and solicitous for her welfare, that I really held him in esteem, even though he might be an adventurer.
Yet why had this woman Olliffe—as she now called herself—declared that Shaw had been Arnold’s bitterest enemy? Surely it had been through my host himself that the woman knew of my existence, and my friendship with the dead man of mystery!
But even while I watched them turn the corner by the Hôtel de Ville, and stroll up that broad, deserted thoroughfare—in day so busy with its rows of fine shops, but now quiet and deserted—towards the Place Bellecour, my thoughts reverted to Asta, she who had lost her lover, but whom I had grown to love so truly and so well.
Suddenly I turned upon my heel and abandoned pursuit of the pair. What mattered it to me? Their affairs, whatever they might be, were their own. I loved Asta. Indeed, because of my deepening affection for her I had accompanied them upon that tour which had for its object my love’s forgetfulness of the black tragedy which had so suddenly overshadowed her young life.
Guy Nicholson had promised to reveal something to me in strictest confidence, but, alas! his lips had been mysteriously closed before he had had opportunity. Closed by whom?
I turned down upon the quays and, following the Rhone bank, was soon back at the hotel.
I left my hat in my own room and, on entering our private sitting-room found, to my delight, that Asta was still there. She had been reading and had just risen as I entered, for she stood by the pale-green curtains at the window, holding a fold of them in her hand, and looking forth into the starlit night, her slim young figure clearly outlined against their dull soft green, a becoming rose-flush upon her cheeks, her lips slightly parted, and her eyes bewitchingly bright.
“I’ve been waiting for Dad, Mr Kemball,” she said. “Do you know where he is?”
“Out, I think,” was my reply. “I suppose he’s smoking in one of the cafés. He believed that you had gone to bed, I expect.”
And I threw myself lazily into a chair.
I thought that her eyes filled with tears as she turned back towards the long open windows and gazed out into the Place below. And I confess that this surprised me.
“You are upset!” I said softly, rising and standing at her side. “What’s the matter, Miss Seymour? Tell me, confide in me—your friend.”
“I—I hardly know,” she faltered, in a strange hoarse voice. I took her hand, and found it trembling. “But—”
“But what?” I asked. Her face was turned away from me towards the night.
“Well,” she said, after a long pause, as though reluctant to tell me, “I fear that Dad has gone out to meet some one. When we arrived in this hotel I saw among his letters a handwriting which I recognised.”
“The writing of a woman, eh?”
She started, turning to me quickly.
“How did you know?” she gasped.
“Well—I guessed,” I laughed.
“You guessed correctly. And I have suspicion that he has gone out to-night to meet her in secret—to—”
I waited for her to conclude her sentence, but her lips closed with a snap. The colour had left her cheeks while in her eyes was a strange wild look of fear.
“In confidence, Miss Seymour, I may as well tell you that I saw him half-an-hour ago walking with a lady—a person who lives near Bath under the name of Olliffe.”
“Then my suspicions are correct!” she cried. “That woman has regained her power over him. My poor Dad! He has fallen into her clutches. Ah, Mr Kemball, if you only knew all!” she added. “If only I dare tell you!”
“Why not tell me? Surely I am your friend! You may trust me not to betray any secret,” I said in deep earnestness.
“They have met to-night. There is some mischief brewing. She is cruel, evil, unscrupulous.”
“I know—and a convicted criminal.”
“You know her, then?” she asked quickly, looking into my eyes.
“Yes. I am acquainted with Lady Lettice Lancaster, as she was once called, and I know that she was sentenced at the Old Bailey for a series of remarkably ingenious frauds. Is she an associate of your father’s?”
“She was once, I believe—before her sentence,” replied the girl. “She exercised over him a strange, incomprehensible fascination, as an evil woman so often can over a man. He acted at her bidding, and—well, I know but little, Mr Kemball, but, alas! what I know is, in itself, too much. I am surprised that Dad, knowing the woman’s character, should dare to again associate himself with her.”
“She introduced me to her brother, George King. Do you know him?”
“Yes. He sometimes passes as her brother and sometimes as butler or chauffeur. But he is her husband, Henry Earnshaw, sometimes known as Hoare.”
“And your father assisted them in their frauds, eh?”
“That is my supposition. I have no actual knowledge, for it was several years ago, when I was but a girl,” was her reply.
“And you fear that the outcome of the meeting to-night may be another mutual arrangement?”
She nodded sadly in the affirmative.
“The combination of Dad and these people would, indeed, be a formidable one,” she said. “Ah! if he would only take my advice and end it all! He has sufficient to live upon comfortably. Why does he court disaster in this way? He has always been, so very good to me, ever since I was a tiny child, that I cannot help loving him.”
I did not reply. What could I say? I longed to speak frankly to her and take her out of that atmosphere of evil. Yet what could I do? How could I act?
“I have a suspicion that poor Mr Arnold was a friend of that woman,” I said a few moments later, as she stood against the table before me.
“Yes,” was her reply. “He was her friend and benefactor, I believe. He did all he could for her defence before the judge, but to no avail.”
“Somebody betrayed her into the hands of the police?”
“Dad told me so once. He believes it to have been her own husband, the man Earnshaw.”
I did not speak for a few moments. I was thinking of that strange letter which had threatened vengeance against the mysterious scholar, Mr Arnold. The latter had been accused of what he had not done, yet that very accusation had given me a clue to some very curious circumstances, and had forewarned me as to the true character of the wealthy widow of Ridgehill Manor.
“Has your father any ground for declaring the woman’s conviction to be due to Earnshaw?”
“Yes, I believe so; but he has never told any one, except myself.”
“But if he and Mrs Olliffe become on friendly terms again, he will doubtless reveal what he knows.”
“Probably. Then the man Earnshaw will turn against her—and against Dad also. In that lies the great peril for Dad which I apprehend.”
I realised how far-seeing she was, how carefully she had weighed all the consequences, and how anxious she was for her father’s safety. On the other hand, however, Shaw was certainly not a man to run any unnecessary risks. From what I had seen of him, he appeared full of craft and cunning, as became one who lived upon his wits.
“Tell me what you know concerning Mr Arnold’s association with this woman of a hundred different names,” I urged. “I have a reason for my curiosity.”
“I know but little. Once, when I was about fifteen, Dad and I travelled with Mr Arnold from Vienna to Territet, and met her at the Hôtel des Alpes there. She was very affable and nice to me, and she told me what an excellent friend Mr Arnold had been to her. I recollect the incident quite well, for on that day she bought me a little chain bracelet as a present. I have it now.”
“Your father quarrelled with Arnold, I believe?”
“Yes,” she said. “They had some difference. I never, however, ascertained the real facts. He evidently wished to see me, for he wrote to me making an appointment; and when I went to the hotel for that purpose, I learnt, alas! that he was dead.”
“Had he lived, his intention was to meet your father in secret at Totnes in Devonshire. Why in secret, I wonder?”
“That same question has been puzzling me for a long time, Mr Kemball,” she said quickly. “I have arrived at the conclusion that he feared lest Mrs Olliffe might know of his arrival in England and set some one to watch his movements. He feared her.”
“Then there may have been some reason why the woman desired that they should not meet, eh?”
“Apparently so.”
I reflected. Mrs Olliffe now knew that I had borne a message to Shaw from the dead man who had destroyed a fortune. Did she fear its results, and was she, for that reason, holding out to Shaw the olive branch of peace?
I suggested that to Asta, and she was inclined to agree with me.
“We must do what we can to break off your father’s friendship with this woman,” I declared. “It is distinctly dangerous for him.”
“Yes, Mr Kemball,” she cried. “I only wish we could! I only wish—”
Her sentence was interrupted by a sound which startled both of us. We listened, looking into each other’s serious face without uttering a word. The sound emanated from the next room—Shaw’s bedroom—the door of which was closed.
It was that low, peculiar whistle which I had first heard on the morning I had visited Titmarsh after poor Guy’s mysterious death, and had heard on a second occasion when visiting at Lydford.
“There’s Dad again?” she cried, in a strained voice. “He evidently doesn’t know we are still up.” The whistle was again repeated—a low, long-drawn, peculiar sound, in a high shrill note.
It was not the unconscious whistle of a man thinking, but a sound full of meaning—a distinct call, which even as we listened in silence was repeated a third time.
Chapter Twenty.The Man with the Crimson Button.Pale and startled, she raised her finger in a gesture of silence, and we both stole noiselessly from the room, closing the door behind us.Upon the thick carpet of the corridor we crept past Shaw’s door, and Asta disappeared into her own chamber, which adjoined, while I went on to mine.I could not get that peculiar whistle out of my ears. It seemed as though it were a signal to somebody; yet though I went back to Shaw’s door and listened there for a full hour, I heard no sound of any movement. The room was in darkness, and he was, no doubt, already asleep.When I turned in, I lay a long time thinking over the reason of Shaw’s friendship with the woman Olliffe. What Asta had told me only seemed to increase the mystery, rather than diminish it.I must have dropped off to sleep about two o’clock, puzzled and fagged out by the long hours on the road, when I was suddenly awakened by hearing a loud, shrill scream.I started up and listened. It was Asta’s voice shrieking in terror.I sprang out into the corridor without a second’s hesitation and rapped upon the door, crying—“What’s the matter. Let me in.”In a few seconds she unbolted the door, and opening it I encountered her in a pale pinkrobe-de-chambre, her luxuriant chestnut hair falling about her shoulders, her large dark brown eyes haggard and startled, her hands clenched, her countenance white to the lips.“What has happened, Miss Seymour?” I asked, glancing quickly around the room.“I—I hardly know,” she gasped in breathless alarm. “Only—only,” she whispered, in a low voice, “I—I’ve seen the hand—the Hand of Death—again!”“Seen it again!” I echoed; but she raised her finger and pointed to her father’s door.“Tell me the circumstances,” I whispered. “There is something very uncanny and unnatural about this which must be investigated. Last night it appeared to me a hundred and twenty miles away, and now you see it to-night. Are you quite sure you saw it.”I asked the latter question because it was still dark, and she had switched on the electric light.“I felt a cold rough contact with my cheek, and waking saw the hand again! I burn a night-light—as you see,” and she pointed across to a child’s night-light in a saucer upon the washstand.“And it vanished as before?”“Instantly. I thought I heard a slight sound afterwards, but I must have been mistaken.”“Yes,” I said, making a quick examination of the room, and looking beneath the bed. “There is certainly nothing here.”I noted that the communicating door between her room and her father’s was still secured by the small brass bolt.“Well,” I declared, “it is utterly inexplicable.” My voice evidently awakened Shaw, for we heard him tap at the door and ask in a deep, drowsy voice—“What’s the matter in there, Asta?”“Oh, nothing at all, Dad,” was the girl’s reply. “Only I fancy there must be a rat in my room—and Mr Kemball is looking for it.”“Didn’t you scream?” he asked wearily.“Yes,” I said, as she unbolted the door, and her father entered. “Miss Seymour’s scream woke me up.”“Did you see the rat?” Shaw asked me.“No,” I laughed, in an endeavour to conceal our fear. “I expect if there is one it has got away down its hole. I’ve searched, but can find nothing.”“Ah!” growled the man awakened from his sleep. “That’s the worst of these confounded Continental hotels. Most of them are overrun with vermin. I’ve often had rats in my room. Well, dear,” he added, turning to Asta, “go to bed again, and leave your electric light on. They won’t come out then.”The girl and I exchanged glances, and after a hearty laugh at the frightened spectacle we all three presented, we again parted, and I returned to my room.What was the meaning of that inexplicable apparition of the hand? Why had the dying man warned me of it?I could quite see Asta’s reluctance to tell her father what she had seen, knowing well how he—plain, matter-of-fact man—would laugh at her and declare that she had been dreaming.But it was no dream. I myself had seen the Thing with my own eyes, while my own cheek only a few hours before had borne witness to its actual existence.I saw how horrified she was at its reappearance, and what a terrible impression it had produced upon her already overwrought nerves. I knew that she would not again retire that night—and indeed, feeling that some unknown evil was present, I slipped on my clothes and spent the remainder of the night in an armchair, reading a French novel.Dawn came at last, and as soon as the sun rose I descended, and went out for a long, invigorating walk beside the Rhone.On my return I met Asta strolling alone under the trees in the Place near the hotel, and referred to the weird incident of the night.“Ah, Mr Kemball, please do not recall it!” she implored. “It is too horrible! I—I can’t make out what it can be—except that it is a sign to us of impending evil.”“A sign to us both,” I said. “But whom are we to fear?”“Perhaps that woman.”“Is she still in Lyons, I wonder?”“Probably. About seven o’clock this morning Dad sent an express message to somebody. He called a waiter, and I heard him give the letter, with instructions that it was to be sent at once.”I said nothing, but half an hour later, by the judicious application of half a louis to the floor waiter, I ascertained that the note had been sent to a Madame Trelawnay, at the Hôtel du Globe, in the Place Bellecour.Trelawnay was, I recollected, one of the names used by the pseudo Lady Lettice Lancaster. Therefore, after mycafé au laitI excused myself, stepped over to the hotel, and there ascertained that Madame, who had been there for two days, had received the note, packed hurriedly, and an hour later had left the Perrache Station by the Paris express.On returning I told Asta this, and at eleven o’clock we were again on the white dusty highway—that beautiful road through deep valleys and over blue mountains, the Route d’Italie, which runs from Lyons, through quiet old Chambéry, to Modane and the Alpine frontier. In Chambéry, however, we turned to the left, and ere long found ourselves in that scrupulously clean and picturesque summer resort of the wealthy, Aix-les-Bains.Shaw, who was in the best of spirits, had laughed heartily over Asta’s adventure with the rat, and as we arrived at our destination he turned to me, expressing a hope that we all three would enjoy “a real good time.”I had been in Aix several years before, and knew the life—the bains, the casino, the Villa des Fleurs, the fêtes and the boating on the Lac du Bourget, that never-ending round of gaiety amid which the wealthy idler may pass the days of warm sunshine.And certainly the three weeks we spent at the old-fashioned Europe—in preference to a newer and more garish hotel—were most delightful. I found myself ever at Asta’s side, and noted that her beauty was everywhere remarked. She was always smartly but neatly dressed—for Shaw was apparently most generous in the matter of gowns, some of which had come from a well-known dressmaker in the Place Vendôme.I wondered sometimes, as we sat together in the bigsalle à mangeror idled together under the trees in the pretty garden, whether she still thought of poor Guy Nicholson—or whether she was really pleased when alone with me. One fact was quite plain—that the visit had wrought a beneficial change in her. Her large dark eyes were again full of life and sparkle, and her lips smiled deliciously, showing how she enjoyed the brightness and gaiety of life.Shaw had met accidentally at the Grand Cercle a Frenchman he knew named Count d’Auray, who had a château on the edge of the Lake, and one day he went over to visit him, leaving us to have luncheon together alone.As we sat on the verandah of the hotel to take our coffee afterwards, I glanced at her. Never had I seen her looking so charming. She was entirely in cream serge, relieved with the slightest touches of pale blue, with a large white hat, long white gloves, and white shoes,—the personification of summer itself. Ah, yes! she was exquisite, I told myself. Yet how strange that she should be the adopted daughter of a man who, though actually a Justice of the Peace, was nevertheless an undesirable.Time after time had I tried to induce her to reveal to me the reason why Shaw went in such terror of arrest. But she would not betray his secret. For that I admired her—for was she not devoted to him? Did she not owe everything to his kindness and his generosity? Like many another man, I suppose he had been fooled or tricked by a woman, and had, in consequence, to lead a celibate life. In order to bring brightness and youth into his otherwise dull home, he had adopted little Asta as his daughter.We had been speaking of a forthcoming fête on the following day when, of a sudden, she turned in her chair towards me, and with a calm, serious look upon her face said—“Do you know, Mr Kemball, I am greatly worried?”“Over what?” I asked quickly.“Well, this morning, when I was walking back from the milliner’s, I saw Earnshaw—that woman’s husband. Fortunately, he did not see me. But she is, I suspect, here in Aix-les-Bains.”“Why should you fear even if she is?” I asked.“I—well, I really do not know,” she faltered.“Only—to tell you in confidence—I believe some evil work is in progress—some base conspiracy.”“What causes you to suspect that? You do not believe that your father is implicated in it?”“How can I tell?” she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I am filled with fear always—knowing in what peril he continually exists.”“I know,” I said. “Why he does not act more judiciously I cannot think. At home, at Lydford, he is surely unsuspected, and in security.”“I am always telling him so, but, alas! he will not listen.”“You said that he is now under the influence of that woman.”“I fear so,” was her low reply, as she sighed despairingly.We rose and strolled out together to the car which was waiting to take us for a run over the hills and among the mountains by the Pont de la Caille to Geneva, seventy kilometres distant. The afternoon was glorious, and as we sat side by side we chatted and laughed merrily, both of us forgetting all our apprehensions and our cares.Ah, yes! those days were truly idyllic days, for I loved her devotedly, and each hour I passed in her society the bond became stronger and more firmly forged.But could she reciprocate my affection? Ay, that was the great and crucial question I had asked myself—yea, a thousand times. I dared not yet reveal to her the secret of my heart, for even still she thought and spoke of that honest, upright fellow whose untimely end was so enshrouded in mystery.We dined at Geneva, in the hugesalle à mangerof the Beau Rivage, which overlooked the beautiful lake, tranquil and golden in the sunset, with Mont Blanc, towering and snow-capped, showing opposite against the clear evening sky. We strolled for half an hour on the terrace, where the English tourists were taking their coffee after dinner, and then, in the fading twilight, Harris drove us back again to Aix, where we arrived about ten o’clock, after a day long to be remembered.Asta held my hand for a moment in the hall, raising her splendid eyes to mine, and then wishing me good-night, mounted in the lift to her room. Afterwards I went along to thefumoirto find Shaw, but could not discover him. Later, however, the hall-porter said he had complained of feeling unwell, and had gone to his room.I threw myself into a cane chair in the hall, and lit a cigar, for it was yet early. I suppose I must have remained there perhaps half an hour, when a waiter brought me a note. Tearing it open, I found in it a scribbled message, in pencil, from Asta.“There is danger, as I suspected,” she wrote. “Be careful. Do not approach us, and know nothing. Destroy this.—Asta.”I crushed the letter in my pocket and dismissed the servant. What could it mean?Not more than a quarter of an hour later, as I still sat smoking and pondering, a tall, dark-bearded, pale-faced, rather elegant-looking Frenchman, wearing the crimson button of the Legion d’Honneur in his coat, entered the hall from the street, and glancing round quickly, advanced to the bureau.A moment later he came towards me and, halting, bowed and exclaimed in good English—“Pardon, m’sieur, but I have the honour to speak with Monsieur Kemball. Is that not so?”“That is my name,” I replied.“I have something of importance to communicate to Monsieur,” he said, very politely, holding his grey felt hat in his hand and glancing quickly around. “May I speak with you privately?”“Certainly,” I replied; and recollecting a small salon off the hall on the left, led the way thither, and switched on the light.Then, when he had carefully closed the door and we were alone, he said with a pleasant smile—“I had perhaps better at once introduce myself to Monsieur. I am Victor Tramu, inspector of the first division of thebrigade mobileof Paris, and I have called at the risk of inconveniencing you to put a few questions concerning two associates of yours living in this hotel—namely, Monsieur Harvey Shaw and Mademoiselle Asta Seymour.”“Associates!” I echoed resentfully. “They are my friends!”The police-officer smiled as he caressed his silky brown beard—a habit of his.“Excellent. Then certainly you will be able to give me the information I require.”“Of what?”“Of their recent movements, and more especially of their place of residence.”I was silent, recollecting Asta’s injunctions to know nothing; but the man stood regarding me with calm, searching, impudent glance.“By what right, pray, do you subject me to this cross-examination?” I demanded in French, full of resentment, as I stood in the centre of the room facing him.“Ah! so Monsieur is disinclined to betray his friends, eh?” laughed Tramu, whom I afterwards found out to be one of the most famous detectives in France. “You arriveden automobilefrom Lyons together, and previously from Versailles,” he remarked. “In Lyons your friend Shaw met other of his associates, and again here—yesterday at the Villa Reyssac. You see, I know a good deal of what has transpired and what is just now in progress. Indeed, I travelled from Paris for that purpose.”“Well, it surely does not concern me!” I exclaimed.“Pardon. I must differ from Monsieur,” he said, bowing slightly, his hands behind his back. “I desire to know something concerning these persons—of where they live.”“You had better ask them yourself,” I replied. “It is scarcely likely that I shall give information to the police concerning my friends,” I added, in defiance.“Bien! Then shall I be frank with you, m’sieur? The fact is that we have suspicions, very grave ones, but we are not absolutely certain of their identity.”“Then why trouble me?”“Because you can so easily establish it beyond a doubt.”“Well, Monsieur Tramu, I flatly refuse to satisfy your curiosity, or assist you against my friends,” I replied, and turned abruptly upon my heel to leave the room.“Then it is to be regretted. In that case, Monsieur Kemball, you must please consider yourself under arrest as an accomplice and associate of the two individuals in question,” he said, very coolly but determinedly; and as he uttered the words two men, police-officers in plain clothes, who had evidently been listening without, opened the door unceremoniously and entered the apartment.The situation was both startling and unexpected. I was now faced with a most difficult problem. I was under arrest; my silence had cost me my liberty!Asta and her stepfather must also have both already fallen into the hands of the police, for were they not upstairs? Truly thecouphad been very swiftly and cleverly effected, as it seemed were allcoupsmade by the renowned Tramu, the trusted lieutenant of Monsieur Hamard of the Sûreté in Paris.The misfortune so long dreaded by Asta had, alas! fallen.What must the result be? Ay, what indeed! What could be the charge against them?
Pale and startled, she raised her finger in a gesture of silence, and we both stole noiselessly from the room, closing the door behind us.
Upon the thick carpet of the corridor we crept past Shaw’s door, and Asta disappeared into her own chamber, which adjoined, while I went on to mine.
I could not get that peculiar whistle out of my ears. It seemed as though it were a signal to somebody; yet though I went back to Shaw’s door and listened there for a full hour, I heard no sound of any movement. The room was in darkness, and he was, no doubt, already asleep.
When I turned in, I lay a long time thinking over the reason of Shaw’s friendship with the woman Olliffe. What Asta had told me only seemed to increase the mystery, rather than diminish it.
I must have dropped off to sleep about two o’clock, puzzled and fagged out by the long hours on the road, when I was suddenly awakened by hearing a loud, shrill scream.
I started up and listened. It was Asta’s voice shrieking in terror.
I sprang out into the corridor without a second’s hesitation and rapped upon the door, crying—
“What’s the matter. Let me in.”
In a few seconds she unbolted the door, and opening it I encountered her in a pale pinkrobe-de-chambre, her luxuriant chestnut hair falling about her shoulders, her large dark brown eyes haggard and startled, her hands clenched, her countenance white to the lips.
“What has happened, Miss Seymour?” I asked, glancing quickly around the room.
“I—I hardly know,” she gasped in breathless alarm. “Only—only,” she whispered, in a low voice, “I—I’ve seen the hand—the Hand of Death—again!”
“Seen it again!” I echoed; but she raised her finger and pointed to her father’s door.
“Tell me the circumstances,” I whispered. “There is something very uncanny and unnatural about this which must be investigated. Last night it appeared to me a hundred and twenty miles away, and now you see it to-night. Are you quite sure you saw it.”
I asked the latter question because it was still dark, and she had switched on the electric light.
“I felt a cold rough contact with my cheek, and waking saw the hand again! I burn a night-light—as you see,” and she pointed across to a child’s night-light in a saucer upon the washstand.
“And it vanished as before?”
“Instantly. I thought I heard a slight sound afterwards, but I must have been mistaken.”
“Yes,” I said, making a quick examination of the room, and looking beneath the bed. “There is certainly nothing here.”
I noted that the communicating door between her room and her father’s was still secured by the small brass bolt.
“Well,” I declared, “it is utterly inexplicable.” My voice evidently awakened Shaw, for we heard him tap at the door and ask in a deep, drowsy voice—
“What’s the matter in there, Asta?”
“Oh, nothing at all, Dad,” was the girl’s reply. “Only I fancy there must be a rat in my room—and Mr Kemball is looking for it.”
“Didn’t you scream?” he asked wearily.
“Yes,” I said, as she unbolted the door, and her father entered. “Miss Seymour’s scream woke me up.”
“Did you see the rat?” Shaw asked me.
“No,” I laughed, in an endeavour to conceal our fear. “I expect if there is one it has got away down its hole. I’ve searched, but can find nothing.”
“Ah!” growled the man awakened from his sleep. “That’s the worst of these confounded Continental hotels. Most of them are overrun with vermin. I’ve often had rats in my room. Well, dear,” he added, turning to Asta, “go to bed again, and leave your electric light on. They won’t come out then.”
The girl and I exchanged glances, and after a hearty laugh at the frightened spectacle we all three presented, we again parted, and I returned to my room.
What was the meaning of that inexplicable apparition of the hand? Why had the dying man warned me of it?
I could quite see Asta’s reluctance to tell her father what she had seen, knowing well how he—plain, matter-of-fact man—would laugh at her and declare that she had been dreaming.
But it was no dream. I myself had seen the Thing with my own eyes, while my own cheek only a few hours before had borne witness to its actual existence.
I saw how horrified she was at its reappearance, and what a terrible impression it had produced upon her already overwrought nerves. I knew that she would not again retire that night—and indeed, feeling that some unknown evil was present, I slipped on my clothes and spent the remainder of the night in an armchair, reading a French novel.
Dawn came at last, and as soon as the sun rose I descended, and went out for a long, invigorating walk beside the Rhone.
On my return I met Asta strolling alone under the trees in the Place near the hotel, and referred to the weird incident of the night.
“Ah, Mr Kemball, please do not recall it!” she implored. “It is too horrible! I—I can’t make out what it can be—except that it is a sign to us of impending evil.”
“A sign to us both,” I said. “But whom are we to fear?”
“Perhaps that woman.”
“Is she still in Lyons, I wonder?”
“Probably. About seven o’clock this morning Dad sent an express message to somebody. He called a waiter, and I heard him give the letter, with instructions that it was to be sent at once.”
I said nothing, but half an hour later, by the judicious application of half a louis to the floor waiter, I ascertained that the note had been sent to a Madame Trelawnay, at the Hôtel du Globe, in the Place Bellecour.
Trelawnay was, I recollected, one of the names used by the pseudo Lady Lettice Lancaster. Therefore, after mycafé au laitI excused myself, stepped over to the hotel, and there ascertained that Madame, who had been there for two days, had received the note, packed hurriedly, and an hour later had left the Perrache Station by the Paris express.
On returning I told Asta this, and at eleven o’clock we were again on the white dusty highway—that beautiful road through deep valleys and over blue mountains, the Route d’Italie, which runs from Lyons, through quiet old Chambéry, to Modane and the Alpine frontier. In Chambéry, however, we turned to the left, and ere long found ourselves in that scrupulously clean and picturesque summer resort of the wealthy, Aix-les-Bains.
Shaw, who was in the best of spirits, had laughed heartily over Asta’s adventure with the rat, and as we arrived at our destination he turned to me, expressing a hope that we all three would enjoy “a real good time.”
I had been in Aix several years before, and knew the life—the bains, the casino, the Villa des Fleurs, the fêtes and the boating on the Lac du Bourget, that never-ending round of gaiety amid which the wealthy idler may pass the days of warm sunshine.
And certainly the three weeks we spent at the old-fashioned Europe—in preference to a newer and more garish hotel—were most delightful. I found myself ever at Asta’s side, and noted that her beauty was everywhere remarked. She was always smartly but neatly dressed—for Shaw was apparently most generous in the matter of gowns, some of which had come from a well-known dressmaker in the Place Vendôme.
I wondered sometimes, as we sat together in the bigsalle à mangeror idled together under the trees in the pretty garden, whether she still thought of poor Guy Nicholson—or whether she was really pleased when alone with me. One fact was quite plain—that the visit had wrought a beneficial change in her. Her large dark eyes were again full of life and sparkle, and her lips smiled deliciously, showing how she enjoyed the brightness and gaiety of life.
Shaw had met accidentally at the Grand Cercle a Frenchman he knew named Count d’Auray, who had a château on the edge of the Lake, and one day he went over to visit him, leaving us to have luncheon together alone.
As we sat on the verandah of the hotel to take our coffee afterwards, I glanced at her. Never had I seen her looking so charming. She was entirely in cream serge, relieved with the slightest touches of pale blue, with a large white hat, long white gloves, and white shoes,—the personification of summer itself. Ah, yes! she was exquisite, I told myself. Yet how strange that she should be the adopted daughter of a man who, though actually a Justice of the Peace, was nevertheless an undesirable.
Time after time had I tried to induce her to reveal to me the reason why Shaw went in such terror of arrest. But she would not betray his secret. For that I admired her—for was she not devoted to him? Did she not owe everything to his kindness and his generosity? Like many another man, I suppose he had been fooled or tricked by a woman, and had, in consequence, to lead a celibate life. In order to bring brightness and youth into his otherwise dull home, he had adopted little Asta as his daughter.
We had been speaking of a forthcoming fête on the following day when, of a sudden, she turned in her chair towards me, and with a calm, serious look upon her face said—
“Do you know, Mr Kemball, I am greatly worried?”
“Over what?” I asked quickly.
“Well, this morning, when I was walking back from the milliner’s, I saw Earnshaw—that woman’s husband. Fortunately, he did not see me. But she is, I suspect, here in Aix-les-Bains.”
“Why should you fear even if she is?” I asked.
“I—well, I really do not know,” she faltered.
“Only—to tell you in confidence—I believe some evil work is in progress—some base conspiracy.”
“What causes you to suspect that? You do not believe that your father is implicated in it?”
“How can I tell?” she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I am filled with fear always—knowing in what peril he continually exists.”
“I know,” I said. “Why he does not act more judiciously I cannot think. At home, at Lydford, he is surely unsuspected, and in security.”
“I am always telling him so, but, alas! he will not listen.”
“You said that he is now under the influence of that woman.”
“I fear so,” was her low reply, as she sighed despairingly.
We rose and strolled out together to the car which was waiting to take us for a run over the hills and among the mountains by the Pont de la Caille to Geneva, seventy kilometres distant. The afternoon was glorious, and as we sat side by side we chatted and laughed merrily, both of us forgetting all our apprehensions and our cares.
Ah, yes! those days were truly idyllic days, for I loved her devotedly, and each hour I passed in her society the bond became stronger and more firmly forged.
But could she reciprocate my affection? Ay, that was the great and crucial question I had asked myself—yea, a thousand times. I dared not yet reveal to her the secret of my heart, for even still she thought and spoke of that honest, upright fellow whose untimely end was so enshrouded in mystery.
We dined at Geneva, in the hugesalle à mangerof the Beau Rivage, which overlooked the beautiful lake, tranquil and golden in the sunset, with Mont Blanc, towering and snow-capped, showing opposite against the clear evening sky. We strolled for half an hour on the terrace, where the English tourists were taking their coffee after dinner, and then, in the fading twilight, Harris drove us back again to Aix, where we arrived about ten o’clock, after a day long to be remembered.
Asta held my hand for a moment in the hall, raising her splendid eyes to mine, and then wishing me good-night, mounted in the lift to her room. Afterwards I went along to thefumoirto find Shaw, but could not discover him. Later, however, the hall-porter said he had complained of feeling unwell, and had gone to his room.
I threw myself into a cane chair in the hall, and lit a cigar, for it was yet early. I suppose I must have remained there perhaps half an hour, when a waiter brought me a note. Tearing it open, I found in it a scribbled message, in pencil, from Asta.
“There is danger, as I suspected,” she wrote. “Be careful. Do not approach us, and know nothing. Destroy this.—Asta.”
I crushed the letter in my pocket and dismissed the servant. What could it mean?
Not more than a quarter of an hour later, as I still sat smoking and pondering, a tall, dark-bearded, pale-faced, rather elegant-looking Frenchman, wearing the crimson button of the Legion d’Honneur in his coat, entered the hall from the street, and glancing round quickly, advanced to the bureau.
A moment later he came towards me and, halting, bowed and exclaimed in good English—
“Pardon, m’sieur, but I have the honour to speak with Monsieur Kemball. Is that not so?”
“That is my name,” I replied.
“I have something of importance to communicate to Monsieur,” he said, very politely, holding his grey felt hat in his hand and glancing quickly around. “May I speak with you privately?”
“Certainly,” I replied; and recollecting a small salon off the hall on the left, led the way thither, and switched on the light.
Then, when he had carefully closed the door and we were alone, he said with a pleasant smile—
“I had perhaps better at once introduce myself to Monsieur. I am Victor Tramu, inspector of the first division of thebrigade mobileof Paris, and I have called at the risk of inconveniencing you to put a few questions concerning two associates of yours living in this hotel—namely, Monsieur Harvey Shaw and Mademoiselle Asta Seymour.”
“Associates!” I echoed resentfully. “They are my friends!”
The police-officer smiled as he caressed his silky brown beard—a habit of his.
“Excellent. Then certainly you will be able to give me the information I require.”
“Of what?”
“Of their recent movements, and more especially of their place of residence.”
I was silent, recollecting Asta’s injunctions to know nothing; but the man stood regarding me with calm, searching, impudent glance.
“By what right, pray, do you subject me to this cross-examination?” I demanded in French, full of resentment, as I stood in the centre of the room facing him.
“Ah! so Monsieur is disinclined to betray his friends, eh?” laughed Tramu, whom I afterwards found out to be one of the most famous detectives in France. “You arriveden automobilefrom Lyons together, and previously from Versailles,” he remarked. “In Lyons your friend Shaw met other of his associates, and again here—yesterday at the Villa Reyssac. You see, I know a good deal of what has transpired and what is just now in progress. Indeed, I travelled from Paris for that purpose.”
“Well, it surely does not concern me!” I exclaimed.
“Pardon. I must differ from Monsieur,” he said, bowing slightly, his hands behind his back. “I desire to know something concerning these persons—of where they live.”
“You had better ask them yourself,” I replied. “It is scarcely likely that I shall give information to the police concerning my friends,” I added, in defiance.
“Bien! Then shall I be frank with you, m’sieur? The fact is that we have suspicions, very grave ones, but we are not absolutely certain of their identity.”
“Then why trouble me?”
“Because you can so easily establish it beyond a doubt.”
“Well, Monsieur Tramu, I flatly refuse to satisfy your curiosity, or assist you against my friends,” I replied, and turned abruptly upon my heel to leave the room.
“Then it is to be regretted. In that case, Monsieur Kemball, you must please consider yourself under arrest as an accomplice and associate of the two individuals in question,” he said, very coolly but determinedly; and as he uttered the words two men, police-officers in plain clothes, who had evidently been listening without, opened the door unceremoniously and entered the apartment.
The situation was both startling and unexpected. I was now faced with a most difficult problem. I was under arrest; my silence had cost me my liberty!
Asta and her stepfather must also have both already fallen into the hands of the police, for were they not upstairs? Truly thecouphad been very swiftly and cleverly effected, as it seemed were allcoupsmade by the renowned Tramu, the trusted lieutenant of Monsieur Hamard of the Sûreté in Paris.
The misfortune so long dreaded by Asta had, alas! fallen.
What must the result be? Ay, what indeed! What could be the charge against them?