The Hand of Fear

by Gerald Verner

  She screamed again as he advanced towards her, and then he had caught her by the shoulders and the knife was raised to strike. And at that moment there came a rush of feet up the corridor outside and somebody thumped on the door.

  ‘What’s the matter in there?’ cried a voice. ‘Open this door!’

  There was the sound of a body being hurled against the panels and the door shivered and cracked.

  With an exclamation of alarm the night intruder swung round, and dropping his knife, ran for the window. Lesley fell back against the wall breathless, her heart thumping painfully, and then with a crash that sounded like an earthquake the door burst open.

  ‘Miss Thane, are you all right?’ cried an anxious voice from the threshold, and her relief was so great that she nearly fainted.

  It was Farringdon Street!

  ‘Yes, he’s gone,’ she managed to gasp out, and the reporter felt for the switch and pressed it on.

  As the room became flooded with light, she saw that he was fully dressed. ‘What happened?’ he asked rapidly before she could ask the question that hovered on her lips, and he uttered a silent whistle when she told him. ‘Gosh! I was only just in time,’ he said. ‘I was afraid something like this might happen.’

  She looked at him in questioning amazement.

  ‘I booked the room next to yours this afternoon,’ he said, answering the unspoken question, and then going over to the window he looked down. ‘Oh, yes!’ he said softly, and drew in his head. ‘There’s an iron fire-escape to all the rooms. That’s the way the fellow came and went. There’s no sign of him, though. He’s a quick mover, I’ll say that.’

  ‘Did you expect —’ She left the sentence unfinished and he nodded.

  ‘I thought something might happen,’ he replied, ‘and I thought it would be as well if I was on the spot. I didn’t say anything to you in case you would be scared.’

  ‘Well, I’m very glad you were here,’ she said, and suddenly realising the scantiness of her attire, flushed and hurriedly pulled on her dressing gown.

  Farringdon carefully picked up the long-bladed knife with his handkerchief and slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘This may prove interesting,’ he said. ‘Now I think I’ll be going, Miss Thane. I don’t expect you’ll be troubled any more tonight.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m very grateful to you. I don’t know what I should have done if you hadn’t been here.’

  He thought of the weapon in his breast pocket and had no doubt of the result.

  As he went into the corridor he saw the partially dressed and agitated manager coming hastily towards the room. ‘What’s been happening? What’s the trouble?’ he inquired excitedly. ‘People have been complaining of the noise up here. What’s it all about?’

  Farringdon took him gently by the arm. ‘I broke down a door,’ he explained. ‘Somebody tried to get into Miss Thane’s room by the window.’

  The manager eyed him suspiciously. ‘Why are you dressed?’ he demanded. ‘And why should you take it upon yourself to break open the door? If there was any trouble I should have been informed. All this is likely to damage the reputation of the hotel.’

  ‘A murder would have damaged the reputation of the hotel far more!’ snapped Farringdon. ‘And that’s what would have happened if I had waited to wake you up.’

  ‘A murder!’ squeaked the man. ‘I don’t understand —’

  ‘There’s quite a lot you don’t understand,’ broke in the reporter, ‘and I’m not going to explain standing about in the passage. If you’ll come into my room I’ll tell you all about it.’

  He dragged the protesting manager away and in the privacy of his bedroom told him all about it, and told him to such purpose that it was a very chastened man who eventually wished him good night and went back to his disturbed slumbers.

  Before undressing Farringdon took out the dagger and locked it in his suitcase, and he could not repress the slight shudder that passed over him as he pictured what might have happened if his foresight had not led him to take precautions.

  Chapter Four – Clifford Feldon’s Address

  Farringdon Street left the Regent Hotel early on the following morning and arrived in Fleet Street just as Mr. Ebbs was preparing to start the day’s work. The news editor listened with interest to his account of the previous night’s happenings.

  ‘Looks as if there was something in this business of Dexon’s disappearance,’ he remarked. ‘You’d better look after that girl, Street. She ought to leave the hotel where she’s staying and go somewhere safer.’ He rubbed his thin hands together happily and Farringdon looked at him disparagingly.

  ‘I believe you’re sorry that nothing did happen to her!’ he accused.

  ‘Well, it would have made a grand story,’ said Mr. Ebbs. ‘Niece of vanished millionaire stabbed in hotel room!’

  Farringdon sniffed. ‘You’re inhuman, Ebbs,’ he said. ‘I believe you’d cheerfully see your own mother killed for the sake of a story.’

  Mr. Ebbs treated the remark as a compliment. ‘I’m a newspaper man first and a human being afterwards,’ he answered. ‘You can’t be both and be successful. Still, she’s a nice girl and I wouldn’t like to see anything happen to her, so you’d better get her out that hotel as quickly as possible.’

  ‘I’m thinking the same,’ said Farringdon. ‘I wonder if Williams could take her?’

  ‘Who’s Williams?’ grunted the news editor.

  ‘He used to be a policeman,’ answered Farringdon, ‘but he’s retired now. He’s got a boarding-house in Bloomsbury somewhere, and she’d be safer there than anywhere. I’ll get on the phone.’ He looked up the number in the directory and put the call through.

  ‘I’ll look after her, Mr. Street,’ said Williams when he explained. ‘I’ll bet no one’ll get at her while she’s staying with me, though I wouldn’t mind if they had try. I could do with a good old scrap. It’d be like old times.’

  ‘You might get more than you bar-gained for, Williams, with these people,’ said the reporter. ‘Apparently they fight with cold steel.’

  ‘I’d take a chance on that,’ replied the ex-policeman. ‘You send the young lady along, Mr. Street, and my missus’ll make her comfortable, and I’ll see that she don’t come to no harm.’

  Farringdon arranged that the girl should be round at midday and hung up the receiver. He reported the conversation to Mr. Ebbs, and the news editor grunted. ‘You can spend all your time on this business, Street,’ he said. ‘I believe there’s a big story in it. Go all out for it and we won’t argue the expense sheet.’

  Farringdon grinned and left the office. He had spent the whole of the previous day reading up everything that was known of Felix Dexon, and at the end had been forced to admit that it was very little.

  The millionaire had walked out of the Ritz-Carlton one morning and never returned. Later had come a letter containing money for his bill and instructions to forward his luggage to the cloakroom at Victoria Station to be called for. There had been no word of explanation for his sudden departure, and from that day to the present he had vanished into obscurity.

  Farringdon had searched the London directory for the address of Mr. Clifford Feldon but had failed to find him in that voluminous tome. A call to his friend at Scotland Yard, however, had resulted in a promise to have Mr. Feldon’s whereabouts looked up. The reporter had also, as a forlorn hope, got on to the registration department of the County Hall, but as he had expected, the number of the car that had nearly run him down was unknown.

  Leaving the offices of the Morning Herald, he went back to the Regent to find Lesley Thane at breakfast. To her he outlined the arrangements he had made with Williams, the ex-policeman, and after a great deal of argument she reluctantly consented to fall in with his wishes.

  After he had escorted her to the boarding-house in Bloomsbury he set off for the Ritz-Carlton, and a few seconds after his arrival at that magnificent hotel, where they charge you for walking acr
oss the lounge, he was closeted with the manager.

  Monsieur Rimell shook his glistening head when he heard what Farringdon required. ‘I can give you no other information than I gave the newspaper men at the time,’ he said. ‘Monsieur Dexon just left one morning, that’s all.’

  ‘Did he have many friends while he was staying here?’ inquired Farringdon.

  The manager shrugged his fat shoulders. ‘Oh, yes, many,’ he replied. ‘But I do not remember their names, except one: Monsieur Feldon. He came once, twice, several times.’

  ‘What was this Feldon like?’ asked the reporter, and he received only the vaguest description. It would have fit at least half the men who walked down Piccadilly to their clubs. He tried everything he could think of to get the manager to add to his meagre stock of information, but at the end of an hour had drawn a blank.

  From the Ritz-Carlton he went to Victoria and interviewed the station-master. That official remembered the luggage belonging to Felix Dexon. Was he ever likely to forget it? For weeks he had been besieged, and so had the porters in charge of the ‘left luggage’ department. It had only been there a few hours and then it had been fetched away in a car. He didn’t know who had fetched it away. He had never seen them. Perhaps the porter who had looked after it could help there, though the station-master was very doubtful. Long training in the service of the railway company had made him very doubtful about everything. Yes, the same porter was still there; in fact he was just going off duty. If Farringdon wanted to catch him he’d have to hurry. The station-master nodded good morning with every evidence of relief, and the reporter went round to the ‘left luggage’ office.

  The porter he wanted to see was just going. Farringdon, after explaining who he was and what he wanted, suggested an adjournment to the buffet, a suggestion that was accepted with alacrity.

  ‘You’ve no idea what a lot of free beer I got out of that luggage,’ said the porter, whose name was Smith, draining the foaming contents of the glass in two gulps, ‘and now I’m getting more.’

  Farringdon took the hint and the glass was refilled.

  ‘I couldn’t rightly tell you what the bloke was like,’ confided Mr. Smith, having made sure of two beers and got halfway through the third. ‘I didn’t see mud of ’is face. ’e wore a big brimmed ’at, though,’ he added helpfully, ‘an’ ’e was tall and stoutish.’

  That was all Mr. Smith could offer in the way of information, and Farringdon left the station concluding that his morning’s work so far had been practically wasted. He had one more call to make, however, and Inspector Hallick stretched a lean hand across his bare desk as the reporter was shown into his office at Scotland Yard.

  ‘Sit down, Street,’ he said. ‘What’s all this about Felix Dexon? You only told me a bit over the phone.’

  Farringdon told him some more, and the lean man rubbed his grizzled hair. ‘Damn queer,’ he grunted. ‘We were always of the opinion there was something fishy at the bottom of his disappearance, but of course we couldn’t move because there was no evidence to show that he hadn’t gone away voluntarily. We made one or two inquiries and then the matter was dropped. The police are pretty chary, as you know, of interfering in people’s private business, and Felix Dexon might very easily have had good reasons for vanishing as he did.’ He hunted among the papers on his desk and produced an oblong slip. ‘I’ve got that address you wanted — Clifford Feldon’s, you know,’ he went on. ‘Here you are. ‘Clifford Feldon, Silverleaves, Deneswood Valley Estate’.’

  Farringdon Street took the paper from his hand and frowned. ‘Isn’t that the place where that fellow was murdered a fortnight ago?’ he asked.

  Hallick nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘A man was killed there. An habitual criminal called Lew Miller. There’s a bit of a mystery about that. He’d only recently been released from prison after serving a seven-year stretch for burglary and being found in possession of firearms. Mr. Blessington, the builder of the estate, saw him the day before, and apparently Miller was looking for a fellow called Sam Gates, but he must have come to the wrong place, for nobody had ever heard the name round Deneswood.’

  Farringdon Street listened, but he only heard a word here and there, for he was wondering. Deneswood Valley was the home of Clifford Feldon, the man who had been a constant visitor at Felix Dexon’s hotel just before his appearance. Was there any connection between this disappearance and the murder of Lew Miller? And if so, did Clifford Feldon know more about both than he ought to?

  Chapter Five – The Man Who Was Drunk

  Farringdon Street came to Deneswood Valley in the dusk of the evening, and he had to admit, as he stopped his disreputable car at the end of the road and took stock of the estate, that he had seldom looked upon a scene of such quiet beauty.

  The place seemed to breathe the very spirit of peace, and yet, amid this pleasant environment, he remembered, one murder had already been committed, and in these sylvan surroundings lived a man who might very well hold the secret of it, and of the disappearance of Felix Dexon.

  The drive gates of the various houses came out onto a broad gravel path that enclosed the central garden on three sides, and Farringdon was just getting out of his car to look round for ‘Silverleaves’, Mr. Clifford Feldon’s residence, when a man came into view round a clump of shrubbery.

  He was a big man, pompous-looking, and walked with a leisurely step as though conscious of his dignity. As he caught sight of Farringdon he eyed him gravely and would have passed if the reporter had not addressed him.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I am looking for the house of Mr. Clifford Feldon. Perhaps you can help me?’

  ‘Most certainly I can,’ said the other, his placid face breaking into a sedate smile. ‘That is Mr. Feldon’s house.’ He pointed. ‘The second gateway before you come to the turn.’

  Farringdon thanked him. ‘This is a very beautiful locality,’ he said, and the big man positively beamed.

  ‘I am glad you like it,’ he said heartily. ‘You could not have paid me a greater compliment, since I, to a large extent, am responsible for its being.’

  ‘Then you are Mr. Blessington,’ said the reporter, and he looked at the other with renewed interest.

  Mr. Blessington inclined his head. ‘I had no idea that I was so famous,’ he said modestly.

  ‘I remembered reading an account of your activities with regard to the Deneswood estate when that unfortunate tramp was killed here,’ said Farringdon, and Mr. Blessington’s placid face clouded.

  ‘A most unfortunate occurrence,’ he said, shaking his head solemnly. ‘A terrible thing. It brought our little estate into prominence and gave it a lot of unwelcome publicity.’ He looked curiously at the reporter, and then after a short pause: ‘I seem to recognise you, sir. Have we by any chance met before?’

  Farringdon shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. My name is Street, Farringdon Street.’

  Mr. Blessington frowned for a moment in a puzzled way, and then his face cleared. ‘Of course.’ He nodded slowly. ‘I have seen your photograph in the Morning Herald. An admirable paper. That was what made me feel I had met you before. I remember reading your account of the Lambert case.’ He stopped and hesitated. ‘May I ask if you — er — if you are here professionally? In connection, perhaps, with, the murder?’

  ‘You may certainly ask,’ replied Farringdon, ‘and I can assure you with truth that I am not here in connection with the murder.’ He did not add the reason for his visit, though Mr. Blessington was obviously waiting for him to do so.

  ‘That is a great relief to me,’ he remarked with a sigh as Farringdon remained silent. ‘For the moment I thought that horrible business was going to be re-opened. To a sensitive man like myself, Mr. Street, the inquest and cross-examination by the police was exquisite torture.’

  ‘It must have been very unpleasant for you,’ murmured reporter without much sympathy.

  ‘Well, I mustn’t detain you with my gossip,’ said Mr. Blessin
gton, noticing the slight movement the other made towards his car. ‘Perhaps you will come back some day let me show you round.’

  ‘I should be delighted,’ said Farringdon as he climbed into the driving seat, and Mr. Blessington bowed and stood looking after him as he sent the car along the gravel road and disappeared through the drive gates of Mr. Clifford Feldon’s house.

  It was a respectably sized, heavily timbered house of pseudo-Elizabethan architecture, nestling amid thickly clustering trees. The flowerbeds were gay with colour, and closely shaven lawns were as smooth as a billiard table.

  A trim maid in cool grey and white came in answer to Farringdon’s ring and disappeared with the card he handed to her. After an interval she returned. ‘Will you come this way, sir?’ she said, and led him across a wide hall and ushered him into a room on the right. ‘Mr. Feldon will join you in a moment.’ She went away, closing the door behind her, and Farringdon glanced about him.

  In some respects the room was remarkable. It was long, and because of its length seemed narrower than it was, and an enormous window at one end looked out onto the garden. In the centre was a large, carved oak fireplace, obviously of great age, which he concluded had evidently been purchased at some sale and fitted into the house. The walls were panelled in oak, and he noticed at once the most complete absence of books, which was peculiar in room that was obviously used as a study.

  Evidently Mr. Feldon was not a literary man, and made no attempt to deceive the casual caller that he was. The pictures on the walls were mostly etchings, and quite valuable. The furniture was good and modern. Two deep settees, one by the window and one by the fireplace; a large, flat-topped desk; several comfortable easy chairs; and a very beautifully carved cabinet of Eastern design constituted the bulk. Everything was of the best, and Farringdon decided that Mr. Feldon was not lacking in wealth.

  He turned from his contemplation of the garden as the door opened and a man came in. He was thin and gaunt, with a shock of iron-grey hair that no amount of brushing seemed to master. He looked at the reporter from a pair of sunken eyes that were like pieces of black jet set in alabaster, so white vas his face. As he advanced, his gait was unsteady and his hands trembled violently.