Blue Hand

by Edgar Wallace

  A full description of the size, weight, and colouring of the little waif followed, and against the query “Marks on Body” were the words “Scar on right wrist, doctor thinks the result of a recent burn.”

  Jim drew a long sigh.

  “I cannot tell you gentlemen how grateful I am to you. You have righted a great wrong and have earned the gratitude of the child who is now a woman.”

  “Do you think that this is the young lady?”

  Jim nodded.

  “I am sure,” he said quietly. “The log of Captain Pinnings supplies the missing link of evidence. We may have to ask you to produce this log in court, but I hope that the claim of our client will not be disputed.”

  He walked down Threadneedle Street, treading on air, and the fact that while he had gained for Eunice—her name was Dorothy now, but she would be always Eunice to him—a fortune, he had lost the greatest fortune that could be bestowed upon a man, did not disturb his joy.

  He had made a rough copy of the log, and with this in his hand he drove to Septimus Salter’s office and without a word laid the extracts before him.

  Mr. Salter read, and as he read his eyes lit up.

  “The whole thing is remarkably clear,” he said; “the log proves the identity of Lady Mary’s daughter. Your investigations are practically complete?”

  “Not yet, sir,” smiled Jim. “We have first to displace Jane Groat and her son,” he hesitated, “and we must persuade Miss Danton to leave that house.”

  “In that case,” said the lawyer, rising, “I think an older man’s advice will be more acceptable than yours, my boy, and I’ll go with you.”

  A new servant opened the door, and almost at the sound of the knock, Digby came out of his study, urbane and as perfectly groomed as usual.

  “I want to see Miss Weldon,” said the lawyer, and Digby stiffened at the sight of him. He would have felt more uncomfortable if he had known what was in Salter’s mind.

  Digby was looking at him straightly; his whole attitude, thought Jim, was one of tense anxiety.

  “I am sorry you cannot see Miss Weldon,” he said, speaking slowly. “She left with my mother by an early Continental train and at this moment, I should imagine, is somewhere in the region of Paris.”

  “That is a damned lie!” said Jim Steele calmly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THEY stood confronting one another, two men with murder in their hearts.

  “It is a lie!” repeated Jim. “Miss Weldon is either here or she has been taken to that hell house of yours in Somerset!”

  For the time being Digby Groat was less concerned by Jim’s vehement insult than he was by the presence of the lawyer.

  “So you lend yourself to this blackguardly outrage,” he sneered. “I should have thought a man of your experience would have refused to have been made a dupe of by this fellow. Anyway,” he turned to Jim, “Miss Weldon wants no more to do with you. She has told me about that quarrel, and really, Steele, you have behaved very badly.”

  The man was lying. Jim did not think twice about that. Eunice would never have made a confidant of him.

  “What is your interest in Miss Weldon?” asked Digby, addressing the lawyer.

  “Outside of a human interest, none,” said old Salter, and Jim was staggered.

  “But—” he began.

  “I think we had better go, Steele,” Salter interrupted him with a warning glance.

  They were some distance from the house before Jim spoke.

  “But why didn’t you tell him, Mr. Salter, that Eunice was the heiress of the Danton fortune?”

  Salter looked at him with an odd queer expression in his bright blue eyes.

  “Suppose all you fear has happened,” he said gently. “Suppose this man is the villain that we both believe he is, and the girl is in his power. What would be, the consequence of my telling him that Eunice Weldon was in a position to strip him of every penny he possesses, to turn him out of his house and reduce him to penury?”

  Jim bit his lip.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” he said humbly. “I’m an impetuous fool.”

  “So long as Digby Groat does not know that Eunice threatens his position she is comparatively safe. At any rate, her life is safe. Once we let him learn all that we know, she is doomed.”

  Jim nodded. “Do you think, then, that she is in real danger?” he asked.

  “I am certain that Mr. Digby Groat would not hesitate at murder to serve his ends,” said the lawyer gruffly.

  They did not speak again until they were in the office in Marlborough Street, and then Jim threw himself down in a chair with a groan and covered his face with his hands.

  “It seems as if we are powerless,” he said bitterly, and then, looking up, “Surely, Mr. Salter, the law is greater than Digby Groat. Are there no processes we can set in motion to pull him down?” It was very seldom old Septimus Salter smoked in his office, but this was an occasion for an extraordinary happening. He took from a cabinet an old meerschaum pipe and polishing it on the sleeve of his broad-cloth coat, slowly filled it, packing down the straggling strands of tobacco which overflowed the pipe, with exasperating calmness.

  “The law, my boy, is greater than Digby Groat, and greater than you or I. Sometimes ignorant people laugh at it, sometimes they sneer at it, generally they curse it. But there it is, the old dilatory machinery, grinding slow and grinding exceedingly small. It is not confined to the issue of search warrants, of arrest and judgments. It has a thousand weapons to strike at the cheat and the villain, and, by God, every one of those weapons shall be employed against Digby Groat!”

  Jim sprang to his feet and gripped the old man’s hand. “And if the law cannot touch him,” he said, “I will make a law of these two hands and strangle the life out of him.”

  Mr. Salter looked at him admiringly, but a little amused. “In which case, my dear Steele,” he said dryly, “the law will take you in her two hands and strangle the life out of you, and it doesn’t seem worth while, when a few little pieces of paper will probably bring about as effective a result as your wilful murder of this damnable scoundrel.”

  Immediately Jim began his inquiries. To his surprise he learnt that the party had actually been driven to Victoria Station. It consisted of Eunice and old Mrs. Groat. Moreover, two tickets for Paris had been taken by Digby and two seats reserved in the Pullman. It was through these Pullman reservations that the names of Eunice and the old woman were easy to trace, as Digby Groat intended they should be.

  Whether they had left by the train, he could not discover.

  He returned to the lawyer and reported progress.

  “The fact that Jane Groat has gone does not prove that our client has also gone,” said the lawyer sensibly.

  “Our client?” said Jim, puzzled.

  “Our client,” repeated Septimus Salter with a smile. “Do not forget that Miss Danton is our client, and until she authorizes me to hand her interests elsewhere—”

  “Mr. Salter,” interrupted Jim, “when was the Danton estate handed over to Bennetts?”

  “This morning,” was the staggering reply, though Mr. Salter did not seem particularly depressed.

  “Good heavens,” gasped Jim, “then the estate is in Digby Groat’s hands?”

  The lawyer nodded.

  “For a while,” he said, “but don’t let that worry you at all. You get along with your search. Have you heard from Lady Mary?”

  “Who, sir?” said Jim, again staggered.

  “Lady Mary Danton,” said the lawyer, enjoying his surprise. “Your mysterious woman in black. Obviously it was Lady Mary. I never had any doubt of it, but when I learnt about the Blue Hand, I was certain. You see, my boy,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “I have been making a few inquiries in a direction which you have neglected.”

  “What does the Blue Hand mean?” asked Jim.

  “Lady Mary will tell you one of these days, and until she does, I do not feel at liberty to take you into my con
fidence. Have you ever been to a dyer’s, Steele?”

  “A dyer’s, sir; yes, I’ve been to a dye-works, if that is what you mean.”

  “Have you ever seen the hands of the women who use indigo?”

  “Do you suggest that when she disappeared she went to a dye-works?” said Jim incredulously.

  “She will tell you,” replied the lawyer, and with that he had to be content.

  The work was now too serious and the strings were too widely distributed to carry on alone. Salter enlisted the services of two ex-officers of the Metropolitan Police who had established a detective agency, and at a conference that afternoon the whole of the story, as far as it was known, was revealed to Jim’s new helpers, ex-Inspector Holder and ex-Sergeant Field.

  That afternoon Digby Groat, looking impatiently out of the window, saw a bearded man strolling casually along the garden side of the square, a pipe in his mouth, apparently absorbed in the contemplation of nature and the architectural beauty of Grosvenor Square. He did not pay as much attention to the lounger as he might have done, had not his scrutiny been interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Bennett, an angular, sandy-haired Scotsman, who was not particularly enamoured of his new employer.

  “Well, Mr. Bennett, has old Salter handed over all the documents?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Bennett, “every one.”

  “You are sure he has not been up to any trickery?”

  Mr. Bennett regarded him coldly.

  “Mr. Septimus Salter, sir,” he said quietly, “is an eminent lawyer, whose name is respected wherever it is mentioned. Great lawyers do not indulge in trickery.”

  “Well, you needn’t get offended. Good Lord, you don’t suppose he feels friendly towards you, do you?”

  “What he feels to me, sir,” said Mr. Bennett, his strong northern accent betraying his annoyance, “is a matter of complete indifference. It is what I think of him that we are discussing. The leases of the Lakeside Property have been prepared for transfer. You are not losing much time, Mr. Groat.”

  “No,” said Digby, after a moment’s thought. “The fact is, the people in the syndicate which is purchasing this property are very anxious to take possession. What is the earliest you can transfer?”

  “Tomorrow,” was the reply. “I suppose “—he hesitated—“I suppose there is no question of the original heiress of the will—Dorothy Danton, I think her name is—turning up unexpectedly at the last moment?”

  Digby smiled.

  “Dorothy Danton, as you call her, has been food for the fishes these twenty years,” he said. “Don’t you worry your head about her.”

  “Very good,” said Bennett, producing a number of papers from a black leather portfolio. “Your signature will be required on four of these, and the signature of your mother on the fifth.”

  Digby frowned.

  “My mother? I thought it was unnecessary that she should sign anything. I have her Power of Attorney.”

  “Unfortunately the Power of Attorney is not sufficiently comprehensive to allow you to sign away certain royalty rights which descended to her through her father. They are not very valuable,” said the lawyer, “but they give her lien upon Kennett Hall, and in these circumstances, I think you had better not depend upon the Power of Attorney in case there is any dispute. Mr. Salter is a very shrewd man, and when the particulars of this transaction are brought to his notice, I think it is very likely that, feeling his responsibility as Mr. Danton’s late lawyer, he will enter a caveat.”

  “What is a caveat?”

  “Literally,” said Mr. Bennett, “a caveat emptor means ‘let the purchaser beware,’ and if a caveat is entered, your syndicate would not dare take the risk of paying you for the property, even though the caveat had no effect upon the estate which were transferred by virtue of your Power of Attorney.”

  Digby tugged at his little moustache and stared out of the window for a long time.

  “All right, I’ll get her signature.”

  “She is in Paris, I understand.”

  Digby shot a quick glance at him.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “I had to call at Mr. Salter’s office to-day,” he said, “to verify and agree to the list of securities which he handed me, and he mentioned the matter in passing.”

  Digby growled something under his breath.

  “Is it necessary that you should see Salter at all?” he asked with asperity.

  “It is necessary that I should conduct my own business in my own way,” said Mr. Bennett with that acid smile of his.

  Digby shot an angry glance at him and resolved that as soon as the business was completed, he would have little use for this uncompromising Scotsman. He hated the law and he hated lawyers, and he had been under the impression that Messrs. Bennett would be so overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of administering his estate that they would agree to any suggestion he made. He had yet to learn that the complacent lawyer is a figure of fiction, and if he is found at all, it is in the character of the seedy broken-down old solicitor who hangs about Police Courts and who interviews his clients in the bar parlour of the nearest public-house.

  “Very good,” he said, “give me the paper. I will get her to sign it.”

  “Will you go to Paris?”

  “Yes,” said Digby. “I’ll send it across by—er—aeroplane.”

  The lawyer gathered up the papers and thrust them back into the wallet.

  “Then I will see you at twelve o’clock tomorrow at the office of the Northern Land Syndicate.”

  Digby nodded.

  “Oh, by the way, Bennett”—he called the lawyer back—“I wish you to put this house in the market. I shall be spending a great deal of my time abroad and I have no use for this costly property. I want a quick sale, by the way.”

  “A quick sale is a bad sale for the seller,” quoth the lawyer, “but I’ll do what I can for you, Mr. Groat. Do you want to dispose of the furniture?”

  Digby nodded.

  “And you have another house in the country?”

  “That is not for sale,” said Digby shortly.

  When the lawyer had gone he went up to his room and changed, taking his time over his toilet.

  “Now,” he said as he drew on his gloves with a quiet smile, “I have to induce Eunice to be a good girl!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  DIGBY GROAT made an unexpected journey to the west. A good general, even in the hour of his victory, prepares the way for retreat, and the possibility of Kennett Hall had long appealed to Digby as a likely refuge in a case of emergency.

  Kennett Hall was one of the properties which his mother had inherited and which, owing to his failure to secure her signature, had not been prepared for transfer to the land syndicate. It had been the home of the Danton family for 140 years. A rambling, neglected house, standing in a big and gloomy park, it had been untenanted almost as long as Digby could remember.

  He had sent his car down in the early morning, but he himself had gone by train. He disliked long motor journeys, and though he intended coming back by road, he preferred the quietude and smooth progress of the morning railway journey.

  The car, covered with dust, was waiting for him at the railway station, and the few officials who constituted the station staff watched him go out of the gate without evidence of enthusiasm.

  “That’s Groat who owns Kennett Hall, isn’t it?” said the porter to the aged station-master.

  “That’s him,” was the reply. “It was a bad day for this country when that property came into old Jane Groat’s hands. A bad woman, that, if ever there was one.”

  Unconscious of the criticisms of his mother, Digby was bowling up the hill road leading to the gates of Kennett Hall. The gates themselves were magnificent specimens of seventeenth-century ironwork, but the lodges on either side were those ugly stuccoed huts with which the mid-Victorian architect “embellished” the estates of the great. They had not been occupied for twenty years, and bore the appearance of t
heir neglect. The little gardens which once had flowered so cheerfully before the speckless windows, were overrun by weeds, and the gravel drive, seen through the gates, was almost indistinguishable from the grassland on either side.

  The caretaker came running down the drive to unlock the gates. He was an ill-favoured man of fifty with a perpetual scowl, which even the presence of his master could not wholly eradicate.

  “Has anybody been here, Masters?” asked Digby.

  “No, sir,” said the man, “except the flying gentleman. He came this morning. What a wonderful thing flying is, sir! The way he came down in the Home Park was wonderful to see.”

  “Get on the step with the driver,” said Digby curtly, who was not interested in his servitor’s views of flying.

  The car drove through a long avenue of elms and turned to breast a treeless slope that led up to the lower terrace. All the beauty and loveliness of Somerset in which it stood could not save Kennett Hall from the reproach of dreariness. Its parapets were crumbled by the wind and rain of long-forgotten seasons, and its face was scarred and stained with thirty winters’ rains. Its black and dusty windows seemed to leer upon the fresh clean beauty of the world, as though in pride of its sheer ugliness.

  For twenty years no painter’s brush had touched the drab and ugly woodwork and the weeds grew high where roses used to bloom. Three great white seats of marble, that were placed against the crumbling terrace balustrade, were green with drippings from the neglected trees; the terrace floor was broken and the rags and tatters of dead seasons spread their mouldering litter of leaves and twigs and moss upon the marble walk where stately dames had trodden in those brave days when Kennett Hall was a name to inspire awe.

  Digby was not depressed by his view of the property. He had seen it before, and at one time had thought of pulling it down and, erecting a modern building for his own comfort.