The Hand of Fear

by Gerald Verner

  They passed through a sleeping village and she caught a glimpse of the stolid figure of a policeman standing near a signpost by four cross-roads. There was safety there if only she could attract his attention.

  It almost seemed as if the men with her read her thoughts, for once again the big hand was suddenly pressed about her mouth and she was held firmly until the danger was over. When the constable was left some considerable distance behind, the hand was removed from her mouth and her guardians relaxed their vigilance.

  She wondered what time it was, and concluded that it couldn’t be very late since the sky was still dark, and at that time of the year dawn broke early.

  The car turned suddenly into a side road, slowed, and came to a halt. ‘Here we are,’ grunted the man on her left, and leaning forward he jerked open the door and got out.

  ‘Go on, we’re here,’ said the other, motioning her to follow, and she descended onto the rutted surface of a lane. The second man followed her, and almost before he had time to close the door the car jerked forward and left them standing by a narrow gate set in the midst of a high and unkempt hedge.

  The man who had alighted first took a key from his pocket, inserted it in a rusty padlock, and after some little trouble, succeeded in turning it. The gate was pushed open and the other man took her arm and led her through. For the first time she was able to see that they both wore masks which covered their faces completely from brow to chin.

  She was led up a winding drive that twisted between great straggling clumps of bushes, and presently she saw the dim outline of a house — a low, squat building that sprawled ungainly against a screen of trees. There were no lights in any of the windows, and she discovered the reason for this when she saw a tattered estate agent’s bill that was pasted on one of the panes. The house was empty.

  The man who had opened the gate had preceded them, and by the time they reached the porch he had unlocked and opened the front door. She was pushed into a musty-smelling, dirty hall, and then the door was closed behind her. The man by her side, however, still retained his grip on her arm, and if any thought of escape had occurred to her, an instant’s reflection would have shown her that it was useless. In the pitch darkness she heard a match scrape, followed by a feeble glimmer of light as it burst into flame. The man who had struck it held it to the wick of a candle which he had taken from his pocket, and when this spluttered to life she was able to take stock of her surroundings.

  As the estate agent’s bill had warned her, the house they were in was uninhabited. The square hall was inches thick in dust, and from the damp walls the paper hung in strips, a melancholy and depressing sight.

  The man with the candle opened a door on the right and led the way into a big room totally devoid of furniture and in a worse state of repair, if possible, than the hall. Crossing to the mantelpiece, he stuck the candle on it, and going over to the window pulled to and fastened a pair of wooden shutters. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Now you’re all snug and comfy.’

  She looked at him in dismay. ‘You’re not — going to leave me here!’ she gasped, and the man beside her chuckled.

  ‘You’re going to stop here for a time,’ he said, releasing her arm, ‘so you’d better make the best of it. There’s a packing-case if you want to sit down.’ He jerked his head towards a dim corner, and she saw that he alluded to an empty crate which she had not noticed before.

  ‘How long are you going to keep me here?’ she demanded, and he chuckled again.

  ‘Not long,’ he answered coolly. ‘Not as long as you’d like, I expect. When you leave here you’ll be taken to a place that’s not nearly so pleasant, I can assure you.’

  ‘Don’t waste time talking,’ said the other man impatiently. ‘Come on.’

  They both went out, the door swung to, and with a sinking heart Lesley heard the key turned in the lock.

  Chapter Eighteen – Where is Lesley?

  Farringdon Street stood in the doorway of Lesley Thane’s bedroom and watched Inspector Hallick as he peered about the apartment with a grave and troubled face. Outside on the landing Williams and his wife hovered uncertainly, their faces expressive of their concern.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault, Mr. Street,’ muttered the perturbed ex-policeman. ‘Honest it wasn’t. How was I to know anyone’d risk coming after the girl by the window in the middle of the night? I never dreamed of such a thing. I wouldn’t ’ave had this happen —’

  ‘Well, it’s happened and that’s all there is to it!’ snapped the reporter curtly. ‘I’m not blaming you, Williams, but she’s gone and we’ve got to find her.’

  After the receipt of Williams’ telephone message he had torn back from Deneswood with Holt and Hallick, and listened in consternation to what the agitated ex-policeman had to tell. It wasn’t much, but it was sufficient to thoroughly alarm them all. Mrs. Williams had obeyed the girl’s instructions of the previous night and not disturbed her with an early morning cup of tea as had been her usual habit. She explained that Lesley Thane had been suffering from a headache and had gone to bed early, and she was not surprised, therefore, when half-past eleven had come and gone and the girl had made no sign that she wished to be disturbed. Mrs. Williams had concluded that she was sleeping.

  ‘I thought she looked a bit pale and worn, poor dear,’ said the buxom woman. ‘And I thought it’d do her good if she had a good rest. When twelve o’clock came and she hadn’t rung I thought I’d just take a peep, and you could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw that she wasn’t in her room. I came straight down to Henry and told him. At first we couldn’t believe that anything had happened to her. We just thought she must have got up and gone out, but it was queer; she hadn’t had no tea nor any breakfast neither, and ’enry decided that he’d better get in touch with you. We tried your flat but you weren’t there, and then he went down to the office. Your boss said you was at Deneswood, and when Henry told him what was the matter he telephoned you at once. We couldn’t do nothing more than we did.’

  In spite of his fear and alarm, Farringdon was forced to admit this. He exonerated both of them from blame, but throughout their subsequent investigations Williams felt it necessary to reiterate at intervals that he ‘couldn’t ’ave done no more than he did.’

  It only needed a brief examination of the room and of the little square garden at the back to show what had happened. The marks of the ladder were plainly visible, and Hallick guessed that the girl had been taken away by means of the window.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ he said despondently, when he had made a close search of the room. ‘All we can do is to circulate Miss Thane’s description and ask for any information concerning her.’

  ‘Do you expect to get any?’ muttered Farringdon.

  Hallick shrugged. ‘There’s nothing else we can do,’ he declared.

  ‘Which means, I suppose,’ said the reporter, ‘that she’ll go the same way as Felix Dexon. And the lawyers will presently receive letters written by her, and signed by her, instructing them to forward sums of money to various addresses. And that’s all we can do, eh?’

  ‘Can you suggest anything?’ said the inspector.

  ‘If I could suggest anything I should have done it,’ he said bitterly. ‘I foresaw this, Hallick, or something very much like it. We both foresaw it, and yet we let them get her from under our noses.’

  ‘I still can’t see why they should have made this move,’ said the inspector, frowning. ‘It’s about the most stupid thing they could do. You don’t suppose the lawyers are going to pay up quietly after the Dexon business, do you? Whatever Miss Thane may write, or whatever instructions she may send. They won’t do it, Street, and the people who have got her must know they won’t. In Felix Dexon’s case it was a different matter. They weren’t at all sure he wasn’t staying away of his own free will, and they had to obey his instructions. There was nothing to prove that he was being kept prisoner or that he was being forced to write those letters. But with Miss Thane it’s obvi
ous.’

  ‘The only thing that’s obvious to me,’ said Farringdon, ‘is that these people have got that girl, and that our job is to get her back before any harm comes to her.’

  ‘That’s easier said than done,’ grunted Hallick practically.

  ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said the reporter, ‘that the police are powerless to do anything in a case like this?’ That a girl can be spirited away and nothing can be done about it?’

  ‘You can depend upon it that we’ll do our best,’ said the inspector. ‘But we can’t work miracles, Street, and you know it. I know how you feel about this,’ he added kindly, as he saw the misery in the other’s face, ‘and you can rest assured that everything that can be done will be done. I’m going back to the Yard, and in less than two hours every police officer in the country will be looking for Lesley Thane.’

  ‘Pray Heaven they find her!’ muttered the reporter. He left Hallick at the door of the house and went down to the offices of the Morning Herald. The usually taciturn Mr. Ebbs was openly jubilant.

  ‘What a story!’ he said, rubbing his thin hands together. ‘What a story! Three murders and a kidnapping! We’ve had nothing like it for years.’

  Farringdon eyed him distastefully. ‘Haven’t you got any feelings?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t you think of anything except scare headlines and sensational columns?’

  The news editor stared at him in unfeigned surprise. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he grunted. ‘This is the first time I’ve known you come over all sentimental.’

  ‘I’m not sentimental, I’m human!’ retorted Farringdon. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that this girl may be in serious trouble, possibly in danger of her life? And all you can do is sit there chortling about it being a good story.’

  ‘What else d’you expect me to do!’ snapped Mr. Ebbs. ‘Ain’t it a good story? You stop talkin’ nonsense, Street, and let me have two columns —’

  ‘Damn your two columns!’ exploded Farringdon, and the news editor jumped.

  ‘You’ve either been drinking or gone crazy!’ he barked. ‘If it was anyone else but you, Street, I’d fire ’em! What’s got hold of you?’

  The reporter pulled himself together. After all, from Mr. Ebbs’s point of view, it was a good story. The news editor of a London daily cannot afford to be sentimental, at least not in working hours. Neither, for that matter, can a reporter, if he wants to hold his job down.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m a little rattled. I — I rather liked Miss Thane, and this business has got me on the raw.’

  Mr. Ebbs snorted. ‘I liked her, too,’ he growled. ‘But because I liked her doesn’t say I’m not going to make a front page story of her disappearance. Get along and turn me in those two columns.’

  Farringdon Street made his way to the reporters’ room with a heavy heart. He had no relish for his job, but it had to be done. Finding a vacant typewriter, he sat down, cleared his mind of all thought of Lesley Thane as a human being, and set to work to pound out a story. He finished it with a sigh of relief, took it in to the news editor, and when Mr. Ebbs had grunted his approval, left the building to keep an appointment with Stanley Holt.

  The young American had had to hurry back to his office, but had arranged to meet Street that afternoon. He found him in the foyer of the hotel they had selected as a meeting-place, full of curiosity to know what discoveries had been made.

  ‘None!’ said Farringdon gloomily as he dropped into a chair beside his companion and helped himself to a cigarette. ‘Hallick has circulated a description to all stations and that’s all. We can’t do anything else at present.’

  ‘The people who’ve got her must be crazy,’ muttered Holt. ‘What good do they think they’re going to do? If they imagine for one moment that the lawyers are going to pay out the same as they did over Felix Dexon, they’ll pretty soon find out their mistake.’

  He was unconsciously echoing Hallick’s opinion, and Farringdon was forced to agree with him. ‘It does seem stupid,’ he admitted. ‘But there you are, they’ve done it. I expected them to make some move. It was unlikely they’d let Dexon’s fortune pass out of their hands without some attempt to retain it, but I never expected anything like this. I thought they’d be a little more subtle.’

  ‘How?’ said Holt.

  The reported shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve been trying to think what sort of move they would make, but I couldn’t think of any that was feasible. Certainly this is the last thing I should have thought they’d do.’

  The first shock of the girl’s disappearance was wearing off, and he was beginning to regard it in a saner light. His sense of values was returning, and he saw that the best way to help Lesley was to look at the matter from a practical point of view. It required an effort, but it was the only way. Once he allowed sentiment to get the upper hand he knew that from the point of view of usefulness he would be as much good as nothing at all. The whole of Scotland Yard’s intricate organization was bent on the discovery of Lesley Thane’s whereabouts, and with this he was forced to be content. If it was humanly possible they would find her, and if they couldn’t it was unlikely that he, without their advantages, could do much.

  ‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ agreed Holt ruefully, when he put this into words. ‘We’ve got absolutely nothing to go on. We don’t know who the people were who abducted her, and we don’t know where they are likely to have taken her, unless to Deneswood Valley.’

  Farringdon shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t take her there,’ he declared. ‘They know the place is being watched.’

  He had tea with Holt and they talked about the affair from all angles until nearly six o’clock, when the young American had to leave him to keep a business appointment. Farringdon made his way down to Scotland Yard and found Hallick in his cheerless office. The inspector shook his head when he asked if there was any news.

  ‘Nothing definite,’ he replied. ‘A car was seen just before one o’clock at the corner of the road in which Williams’ house is situated. It was a big saloon Buick, and reports have come in of a similar car having been seen going in the direction of Leatherhead. The time fits in. The car was seen in Bloomsbury a little before one, and it passed a constable on the Epsom road just before two. We haven’t got the number, unfortunately, but descriptions of the machine have been sent out, and I’m waiting now for any news of it.’

  News came through as he finished speaking. A big saloon Buick had been seen at a quarter past two on the outskirts of Shere, heading towards Godalming.

  ‘That’s our car,’ said Hallick. ‘Maybe we’ll be able to trace it further.’

  ‘Anything fresh from Deneswood?’ asked the reporter.

  The inspector shook his head. ‘No, nothing,’ he answered. ‘I’ve got my men on the watch, and if anything happens I shall hear of it. I’m pretty sure in my own mind that the man the gardener saw was Earnshaw, but I can’t prove it.’

  ‘Why should he want to attack Blessington?’ asked Farringdon.

  Hallick shrugged. ‘Why should anyone want to attack Blessington?’ he said a little irritably. ‘I don’t mind telling you, Street, that this business is getting me down. It’s all so disjointed and unnecessary. And this affair of Miss Thane’s makes it worse. I’ve been thinking it over, and it’s the maddest thing I’ve come up against. There’s nothing sane about it. You can’t imagine any sensible criminal believing for a moment that he is going to get anything out of kidnapping the girl.’

  ‘Perhaps the person behind this business isn’t sane,’ suggested Farringdon, but Hallick discountenanced the suggestion instantly.

  ‘He’s sane enough,’ he said. ‘He’s sane enough to cover his tracks completely, and he was sane enough in the way he dealt with Felix Dexon. No, there’s something behind this kidnapping that I don’t understand. We believe that it was done so that these people could retain a hold on Dexon’s money, but I’m under the impression that it was done for some other purpose.’
>
  ‘What other purpose?’ demanded Farringdon.

  Hallick pulled out a cigarette and lighted it. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, blowing out a cloud of smoke. ‘It’s just a hunch I’ve got. I believe that we’re intended to think that Miss Thane has been taken for the same reason that Dexon was taken. But I’m sure that’s not the idea behind it at all. There’s something infinitely more subtle than that.’

  ‘So subtle that we can’t imagine what it is,’ grunted the reporter.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed the inspector.

  ‘H’m! Well, you may be right,’ said Farringdon. ‘I wish to goodness we knew where she was!’

  ‘You don’t wish it any more than I do,’ said Hallick fervently. ‘But if it’s any consolation, I don’t believe she’s in any danger.’

  Farringdon was not so sure of this. He left the Yard a few minutes later and restlessly wandered the streets until sheer fatigue forced him to seek his flat. He had exacted a promise from Hallick to ring him up if anything happened, and at half-past eleven the telephone bell rang. He lifted the receiver hopefully, but it wasn’t the inspector’s voice that came over the wire. It was Stanley Holt calling to know if he had any news.

  Farringdon told him about the car and promised to notify him if anything definite came through. He was dog tired, and after switching the telephone through to his bedroom, wearily sought his bed. In spite of his anxiety regarding Lesley, his head had barely touched the pillow when he fell asleep.

  It seemed to him that he had hardly closed his eyes when the shrill summons of the bell near his bed-head startled him to wakefulness. It was Williams’s voice that greeted him as he put the receiver to his ear.

  ‘Hello! Is that Mr. Street?’ called the ex-policeman. ‘Miss Thane’s come back, sir!’

  Chapter Nineteen – The Return