The Haunting Hand, page 12
“And the funny thing about it is that on the surface it sounds reasonable, and it makes you wonder why you hadn’t thought of it yourself.”
“I suppose,” said Gene thoughtfully, “that such a light could be sent into a dark room, through an uncurtained window. But it seems to me that unless you’d lost your wits completely, you’d have known the difference between a small circular dancing light, and the tiny upward flare of a lighted match.”
“Of course I would,” she agreed eagerly. “And as to my hand and arm, really, you know, I’d have to have been utterly mad not to have known the difference between the shadow of an arm and hand, and the real thing crawling over the rug.”
“As a matter of fact, it’s all bunk, that idea of a calcium light and a burning glass being manipulated so as to throw the shadow of your arm on to the floor.” Gene’s literal type of mind was more inclined to eliminate the impossible than to consider the possible.
“All the same, there are moments when I wonder a little if it’s not stupid of me to take such a negative attitude. After all, Gene, mighty strange things happen, and they’re only strange to those who can’t understand. I don’t know—I’m not dead sure—that a light couldn’t be thrown just as he described, and work the same odd tricks. If I were as sure of Stoner himself as I am of my limited knowledge along such lines, I’d be inclined to accept his theory, at least to prove or disprove it, with an open mind.”
“You mean that you think he had a hidden motive for propounding his theory?”
“Yes, and besides, he admitted to having given me his theory, expecting that it would clear up the mystery and cause me to drop further investigation, or words to that effect. Now, what puzzles me is whether he wants me to drop the whole thing because of the publicity, or whether. he’s using that reason as a screen to his real one.”
“Good Lord! You make him out a man of mystery with a subtle brain. That’s far-fetched, dear girl. He’s the most obvious person I know. He probably concocted that ingenious theory with the hope of convincing you and making you drop the whole thing, but I’ll bet a good deal that he’s incapable of anything more intricate or sinister than that.”
“May—be!” Margot puckered her forehead, and her eyes had a far-seeing expression in their gray depths.
“Well, let’s drop that man for five minutes, him and his theories.” Gene sat down with an impatient sigh, and lighted a cigarette with nervous fingers. “I think it’s about time you gave me the benefit of your own theories, Margot. I’d be grateful to you if you’d give me something to think about besides Stoner and his damn nerve coming here and trying to make love to you. Nice picture before me of his kissing you against your will!”
Margot’s sudden laugh brought an angry light to Gene’s somber eyes. She leaned toward him and put her hand over his with a little pressure of her fingers, and a smile that strove to express contrition, and failed.
“Silly old thing! Where’s your logic, even if you’ve mislaid your sense of humor. If he’d kissed me not against my will, then you would have something to groan over. And it’s darn lucky for you, little one, that you make it very clear that you believe it was against my will, for if you didn’t, you know what would happen, don’t you, Gene?”
“I believe you,” he said sullenly, “but if Stoner and I had to meet very often, with you between, something would break sooner or later.”
“Well, don’t worry. I’m through with Stoner, and so are you. Now, as to my theories. I’ve got something first I want you to do for me. If you can spare the time I want you to go personally to police headquarters, and make arrangements for Hart and his crowd to meet here at five o’clock. Hart hasn’t been here himself for some time. He scorns the case. But you argue that brilliant sleuth into coming. Flatter, cajole him. Tell him I want to call his attention to important new evidence. Make positively sure that he’ll be here himself!”
“You’ve actually got something up your sleeve?”
“If my powers of deduction haven’t failed me—yes.”
“All right. I’ll have Hart here if I have to blackjack him and hire a wheelbarrow. And right now, I’m off to look for another job.” He rose and went toward her, holding out his hands.
“Oh, Gene, listen.” She was on her feet beside him. “Have you enough to rub along on for a short time?”
“Sure I have, but I don’t want to give Stoner the satisfaction of thinking I can’t land another job as good as or better than the one he dished me out of, hot off the reel.”
“Oh, bother Stoner or what he thinks. In the first place, Gene, I may need every bit of your time in the next few days, and secondly I’ve got a sort of feeling that you’d better hold off about another job. It’s just one of my queer hunches, but if you don’t mind very much, and if you can rub along for a while, I do wish you would—dear.”
When she said “dear” with precisely that intonation, he would have agreed to commit murder, and he told her so.
Margot spent the intervening hours writing letters and getting mental relaxation in a moving picture house. Nothing, she had found, was quite to be compared with the average movie for complete lulling of all the senses, not to mention the brain.
At a quarter to five Gene came to her room and told her with boyish glee that he had corralled Hart and the others, and brought them to the house in a taxi. They had even stopped at the station house of the district to pick up Quinlan and Boyle. They were all downstairs in her old room, waiting for her.
Eager and impulsive, Margot flew to Gene, threw her arms around his neck and gave him a little hug and a quick kiss on his mouth. No use to hold her, and prolong the kiss. Like a firefly she was off and away, running down the stairs while Gene caught his breath and darted after her.
Hart stood by the mantelpiece, a sarcastic grin and a stiff bow, his greeting to Margot.
“Understand you’ve got something for us that we weren’t bright enough to find for ourselves, Miss Anstruther.”
“I believe I have, Mr. Hart.” Her smile was as sweet as her low voice. “But I’m wondering if you’ll take orders or even suggestions from a mere woman.” Her sarcasm was on a par with his, so could not fail to reach him.
“You mean you’re going to ask us to do certain things?”
“Well—yes,” she said meditatively, “I rather think I am, if you don’t mind.”
“Anything in reason.”
“There are places I want you to examine.”
“Places we haven’t already searched?”
“Yes. You’ll have to get a crowbar.”
“We shouldn’t wreck this woman’s house, Miss Anstruther.”
“It won’t be necessary,” she said quietly.
Hart’s scorn became more obvious, but he sent one of his men to borrow the implement at a nearby hardware shop. Then Margot, who had remained silent while the man was out getting the crowbar, pointed to the brass bed.
“Please move that aside and turn back the rug. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, Mr. Hart.”
“Trapdoor, eh,” Hart muttered. “That your idea?”
“Go ahead and look,” she said quickly.
Hart made no move toward the bed. He stood looking at Margot with shrewd, quizzical eyes. Then he said:
“You had a man up here last night, I understand, taking measurements and giving the place an inspection.”
“Yes.” Margot’s monosyllable was spoken with a friendly inflection.
“Private detective?”
“Oh, dear no!” She could not suppress a smile at thought of Stoner in the role of private detective.
“What’s the joke?” Hart neither looked nor spoke as if he considered it one.
“No joke at all, Mr. Hart.” She became suddenly very grave. “Merely a casual visitor who had heard what happened to me and wanted to look over the ground himself. Just curiosity.”
“My man who was here last night, said that your friend did certain things and made comments that sounded as if he had some theory about your ghost. Was it your friend who suggested the trapdoor?”
“No. He did have a theory, but it followed very different lines.”
“Well, give us his theory. I’d like to hear it,” Hart spoke a little brusquely.
“It’s an entirely personal matter, Mr. Hart, and in my opinion doesn’t bear on this case at all. At any rate, I’m conceited enough to prefer my own theory. If nothing comes of it, then we can look into the one advanced by my caller last night.”
Hart gave her a long, speculative look, then, without another word, he told two of his men to push back the brass bed.
The men pulled out the rug which covered the drab old carpet that extended to the wall on both sides. Then they ripped at the carpet where it was tacked down around the edges. In a few minutes they had bared the planking. A thick layer of dust covered the floor, yet even through the dust, dark stains were visible. Clearly defined as well, was a square outline some two feet each way, near the wall where the head of the bed had been.
Hart turned abruptly to Margot.
“Have you known about this all along?”
“No, I haven’t. I merely reached the conclusion that some such thing must be there.” Her steady look at him seemed to say that such a conclusion was too simple and obvious to have evaded any mind trained to such analysis.
Hart went down on his knees and began to prod with his fingertips.
“Seems to be stuffed with some kind of wadding. Looks as if it hadn’t been touched for months.” Hart spoke without looking up. He was intent on the discovery they had made.
“Suppose you open it,” Margot suggested quietly.
An atmosphere of mystery amounting to horror pervaded the room. Gene stared from Hart on his knees, to Margot standing erect and watchful. Quinlan and Boyle frowned fiercely and strove to preserve a stoicism which made Margot want to laugh, even though she trembled with excitement. Eager to a point where it was difficult to restrain her mad desire to find what lay under all that dust and wadding or whatever it was, nevertheless she felt a cold, shuddering dread of what they might discover.
Hart rose to his feet and asked for the crowbar. With the help of one of his men he drove it down into a crack. They heaved and wrenched, then with so little final effort that it seemed as if mystery and horror laughed and mocked their struggles with the crowbar, a trapdoor lifted and fell over on the floor; an indubitable trapdoor it was.
For once, Hart lost his superior air of composure. He spoke quickly, with excited gasps.
“There’s a big compartment here. Looks as if it’s hollowed from the central stone support of the house.”
Margot was on her knees beside him, and Gene was standing over her.
“Look and see what’s in it,” she commanded.
Hart reached into the hole and drew out a fire ax, such as hangs beside a bucket of water in the hallways of public buildings.
“There’s that,” he muttered, holding the ax up for inspection.
He reached again into the hole, probed eagerly, then gave a sudden cry of surprise and loathing. He drew his hand out with a desperate jerk and dropped a horrifying object on the floor. Margot suppressed a scream, and Boyle didn’t. His cry was almost a wail as if he had seen the Banshee in his own country. Gene bent swiftly and drew Margot to her feet, holding her against him. No one looked at anyone else. There was something else to look at.
On the floor, where Hart had dropped it, was the severed and withered arm of a woman. A desiccated, mummy-like arm. The hand was tightly clenched. On the upper side it was marred from wrist to knuckles by a huge burn resembling a chocolate-colored birthmark.
No one spoke, no one stirred, no one removed his gaze from the object on the floor—a gaze of horror and utter confusion of thought and emotion. Margot shuddered and pressed closer to Gene. Then she whispered to him. The power of reasoning had returned with a flash of insight. The silence of the room was broken by a low, agonized moan.
“God have mercy on us all!” It was Shane Boyle, down on his knees in an attitude of prayerful supplication. “Sure, it’s the GHOST of this arm we’ve been seein’.”
“The arm it is, I say, of Stella Ball.” Strange that it should have been the material-minded, slow-witted Quinlan who spoke.
CHAPTER XI
WHOSE HAND?
For a few seconds no one spoke, either to contradict or agree with Quinlan. And no one stirred or removed his gaze of stunned surprise and fascinated loathing from the severed arm, with its hand clenched and disfigured by so unsightly a scar.
Hart turned a sudden look upon Margot, a look of penetrating suspicion, that made Gene frown angrily, taking a step forward and holding firmly to Margot’s arm. Hart’s expression was easy to interpret, but it was such an unexpected turning of the tables that, for a second, she could not cope with it.
“May I inquire, Miss Anstruther, if this is a pleasant little practical joke you’ve staged for our benefit, with the obvious intention of keeping yourself in the limelight, or if it’s just the last act in a comedy you began a few nights ago, from the same motive?”
Margot’s face flamed with an intensity of anger she had not supposed herself capable of. Gene gave a low exclamation of indignant disgust, and made a threatening movement nearer to Hart. She drew him back and whispered to him to let her handle Hart. Her breath came short and fast, as she struggled for self-control. It was too outrageous of the detective, but why should she care what he thought or said? The facts, so far as they had gone, would prove themselves, and she felt thrillingly competent to handle the situation from this point to whatever climax might be lurking in mystery. The hot flow of blood receded from her face, leaving her calm and very cool, physically and mentally. She returned Hart’s exasperating stare with an expression as mild as it was compelling.
“Mr. Hart,” she began quietly, “it will probably be impossible, and certainly it’s quite unnecessary, for me to convince you of anything which you’ve made up your mind not to believe. To be quite frank, I honestly do not think that your opinion of me or of my motives will make any more difference in the conduct of this case, or its ultimate disposal, than your opinion makes a difference to me personally.”
Gene squeezed her arm in excited admiration for her spirit and her clever retort. The other men looked down at the floor, or at the ceiling or out of the window; anywhere but at Hart. He grew a little paler, and his mouth twisted with an ugly sneer. Then he seemed to think better of it, or sudden change came to his mood. His level look into her eyes was less antagonistic, and his manner conveyed more respect for the girl who stood so quietly regarding him.
“You still claim that every word you told Quinlan and Boyle that first night, and all you said subsequently to me, was absolutely true?”
“If my word is of any consequence to you, Mr. Hart, yes, I do still claim just that.”
“And you knew absolutely nothing about this trapdoor or what I found down in that hole?”
“Absolutely nothing, Mr. Hart.” Her quiet statement was more convincing than an oath.
“Well,—I’ll be damned!” Hart sounded quite sincere, and more mystified than Margot had ever hoped to have him admit, even tacitly.
“Gene, please go downstairs and ask Mrs. Bellew to come up here right away. And prepare her mind about—that—” she glanced toward what lay on the floor; “so she won’t get hysterical up here.”
Gene knew from the sudden darkening and widening of her eyes, that her keen brain had swiftly adjusted itself to the facts, had seized upon whatever was concrete, and was intent upon pursuing her deductions without loss of time. As he went quickly to the door, she turned again to Hart.
“Have you any explanation, Mr. Hart?”
Hart shrugged his thin shoulders, and stared down at the gruesome object.
“Not yet,” he said laconically. Then he added a little sulkily. “You’ve sprung a bit of mysterious dirty work on me, and you can’t expect me to hand out an explanation till I’ve followed up the clues.”
“Surely you regard this discovery as part of the investigation, don’t you? It isn’t a new case.”
“It’s the first proof I’ve had that there’s anything you could call a case,” he said doggedly.
“Well, at least you’ll agree with me that sane persons in a strictly material world, couldn’t possibly conduct this case on the basis of its having any element of the supernatural.”
Little did Hart suspect that Margot was actually, at that moment, fighting the temptation to let precisely that element creep into her emotions if not into her reflections. To speak so scornfully to Hart of things supernatural, was the best way, she felt, to harden her own mental attitude.
“I’ve never said or thought that any such foolishness should be taken seriously for a minute.” Hart was certainly sanely balanced.
A low murmur from Shane Boyle focussed attention on him. He was crossing himself, his expression between ecstasy and despair. Margot exchanged a smile with Hart, then she said:
“You agree with Quinlan, don’t you, Mr. Hart, that that horrible arm down there belonged to the girl Stella Ball?”
“Good God! What next. I’d like to know!”
“It seems clear enough to me,” she pursued slowly. “In fact, that dead and mutilated thing is as eloquent as if it were a live thing talking to me.”
“So far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t mean a thing, except that a woman had her arm cut off.”
“How long ago, could you form any idea?”
Hart stooped and scrutinized the grim relic. He studied the interior of the recess in the flooring, as well as he could without putting his head down into it. He stood up finally and spoke with respect for Margot’s mystery, for the first time since he had come on the case.
