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the University of Wisconsin--Madison
Bell's Indian and Colonial Library
__________________________________
THE WOODEN HAND
THE WOODEN HAND
A DETECTIVE STORY
BY
FERGUS HUME
AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB,"
"THE GUILTY HOUSE," "THE SILVER BULLET,"
"THE LONELY CHURCH," "THE WHITE ROOM,"
ETC. ETC. ETC.
LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
1905
_This Edition is issued for circulation in India and the Colonies
only_.
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. MISERY CASTLE
II. LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM
III. THE NE'ER-DO-WEEL
IV. MYSTERY
V. A STRANGE LOSS
VI. THE WARNING
VII. THE INQUEST
VIII. A NEW LIFE
IX. THE MYSTERIOUS PARCEL
X. MRS. HILL EXPLAINS
XI. ALLEN AS A DETECTIVE
XII. LORD SALTARS
XIII. THE OTHER WOMAN
XIV. SIGNOR ANTONIO
XV. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
XVI. MR. HILL'S STORY
XVII. A FRIEND IN NEED
XVIII. THE FINDING OF BUTSEY
xxx. MRS. MERRY'S VISITORS
XX. AN AMAZING CONFESSION
XXI. THE DIAMONDS
XXII. BUTSEY'S STORY
XXIII. MISS LORRY'S LAST APPEARANCE
XXIV. THE WINDING OF THE SKEIN
THE WOODEN HAND
CHAPTER I
MISERY CASTLE
"Ah well, Miss Eva, I 'spose your pa'ull come home to spile things
as he allays have done. It ain't no wonder, I ses, as you sits
moping by the winder, looking double your age, and you only twenty,
as has no right to look forty, whatever you may say, though I took
my dying alfred-david on its blessed truth."
This slightly incoherent and decidedly pessimistic speech was moaned,
rather than spoken, by a lean-bodied, hard-faced, staring-eyed woman
to a pretty girl, who did not look at the speaker. And small wonder.
Mrs. Merry--inappropriate name--was unattractive to the eye. She was
angular, grey-skinned, grey-eyed, grey-haired, and had thin, drooping
lips almost as grey as the rest of her. In her black stuff gown--she
invariably wore the most funereal dresses--with uneasy hands folded
under a coarse apron, she stood before Eva Strode, uttering
lamentations worthy of Jeremiah at his worst. But such dumpishness was
characteristic of the woman. She delighted in looking on the black
side of things, and the blacker they were, the more she relished them.
Out of wrong-doing, and grief and things awry, she extracted a queer
sort of pleasure, and felt never so happy as when the worst came to
the worst. It seemed unfit that such a walking pageant of woe should
be called Merry.
Eva, already depressed by the voice and sentiment of this
lamentable dame, continued to look at the gaudy hollyhocks, even
while she answered calmly, "I expect my father is the same as he
was when he went to South Africa five years ago. I don't hope to
find him an angel. I am certain he has not changed."
"If you're thinking of black angels," said the lively Merry, "you
can have satisfactions from thinking him Beelzebub, for him he
are."
"Don't call my father names. It does no good, Mrs. Merry."
"Beg pardon, miss, but it do relieve the heart and temper. And I will
call him a leper, if that's a name, seeing as he'll never change his
spots, however persuaded."
"What's the time?"
Mrs. Merry peered into the dial of a clock on the mantelpiece. "You
might call it six, Miss Eva, and a lovely evening it is, though rain
may spile it unexpected. Your pa 'ull be seated at the table in the
next room at eight, let us hope, if nothing do happen to him, and I
do pray on my bended knees, Miss Eva, as he won't growl at the meal,
his habit allays when your poor dear ma--her ladyship was alive. Ah
well," said Mrs. Merry with emphasis, "_she's_ an angel now, and your
pa ain't likely to trouble her again."
"Why, don't you think my father may come home? I mean, why do you
fancy anything may happen to him?"
"Oh, I ain't got no cause, but what you might call the
uncertainties of this vale of tears, Miss Eva. He have to drive
ten mile here from the Westhaven station, and there's tramps
about them lonely roads. Coming from South Africa, your pa 'ull
naturally have diamonds to tempt the poor."
"I don't know what he has got," said Eva rather pettishly. "And
no one, save you and me, know he is returning from Africa."
"No one, Miss Eva?" questioned the woman significantly.
Miss Strode coloured. "I told Mr. Hill."
"And he told his pa, and his pa, who have a long tongue, told all
the village, I don't doubt. If ever there was a man as fiddled
away his days in silliness," cried Merry, "it's that pink and
white jelly-fish as you call Hills."
"Hill," corrected Miss Strode; then added colouring: "His son
doesn't take after him."
"No," admitted the other grudgingly, "I will say as Mr. Allen is
a tight lad. His mother gave him her blood and sense and looks;
not that I say he's worthy of you, Miss Eva."
"Mrs. Merry," said Eva quietly, "you let your tongue run on too
freely about my friends."
"Not the father Hills, if I die in saying it. He's no friend of
yours, seeing he's your pa's; and as to Mr. Allen, I never had
a sweetheart as I called friend, when you could call him
something better."
Eva took no notice of this speech, but continued, "You are my
old nurse, Mrs. Merry, and I allow you to talk openly."
"For your good, Miss Eva," put in Merry.
"For my good, I know," said the girl; "but you must not run down
Allen's father or mine."
"As to _his_ father, I say nothing but that he's a drivelling
jelly-fish," said Mrs. Merry, who would not be suppressed; "but your
own pa I know, worse luck, and I don't think much of him as a man,
whatever I say about his being Beelzebub, which he is. Fifty years and
more he is, fine-looking at that, though wickedness is in his aching
bones. Not that I know of their aching," explained Mrs. Merry, "but if
sin would make 'em smart, ache they do. You've been happy with me,
Miss Eva, dear, in spite of a humble roof and your poor ma's death,
four and a half year back. But your pa's come home to make trouble.
Satan let loose is what I call him, and if I could stop his coming by
twisting his wicked neck, I would."
"Mrs. Merry!" Eva rose quickly and flushed. "You forget yourself."
"There," said Mrs. Merry, casting up her eyes; "and I fed her with my
own milk."
Eva, who was tenderly attached to the angular, dismal, chattering
woman, could not withstand this remark. "Dear Nanny," she said,
comforting the wounded heart, "I know you mean well, but my father
_is_ my father after all."
"Worse luck, so he is," sobbed Mrs. Merry, feeling for Eva's hand.
"I wish to think of him as kindly as I can, and----"
"Miracles won't make you do that," interrupted the woman, dropping
her apron from her eyes, and glaring. "Miss Eva, I knew your pa when
he was a bad boy, both him and me being neighbours, as you might
say, though I did live in a cottage and he in a Manor House not two
mile from here. He and that jelly-fish of a Hills were always
together doing mischief, and setting neighbours by the ears, though
I do say as your pa, being masterful, led that jelly-fish away.
Then your pa ran away with Lady Jane Delham, your ma, as is dead,
and treated her shameful. She come here to me, as an old friend,
for friend I was, tho' humble," sobbed Mrs. Merry weeping again,
"and you were born. Then your pa takes you away and I never set
eyes on you and my lady till five years ago when he brought you
here. To settle down and make you happy? No! not he. Away he goes
gallivanting to South Africa where the blacks are, leaving a lady
born and bred and his daughter just a bud, meaning yourself, to
live with a common woman like me!"
"I have been very happy, Nanny, and my mother was happy also, when she
was alive."
"Ah," said Mrs. Merry bitterly, "a queer sort of happiness, to be
that way when your husband goes. I've had a trial myself in Merry,
who's dead, and gone, I hope, where you'll find your pa will join
him. But you'll see, Miss Eva, as your pa will come and stop your
marrying Mr. Allen."
"I think that's very likely," said Eva sadly.
"What," said Mrs. Merry under her breath, and rising, "he's at it
already is he? I thought so."
"I received a letter from him the other day," explained Eva;
"knowing your prejudice against my father, I said nothing."
"Me not to be trusted, I 'spose, Miss Eva?" was the comment.
"Nonsense. I trust you with anything."
"And well you may. I fed you with my heart's blood, and foster
sister you are to my boy Cain, though, Lord knows, he's as bad as his
father was before him--the gipsy whelp that he is. Not on my side,
though," cried Mrs. Merry. "I'm true English, and why I ever took up
with a Romany rascal like Giles Merry, I don't know. But he's dead, I
hope he is, though I never can be sure, me not knowing where's his
grave. Come now," Mrs. Merry gave her face a wipe with the apron,
"I'm talking of my own troubles, when yours is about. That
letter----?"
"It is one in answer to mine. I wrote to Cape Town three months ago
telling my father that I was engaged to Allen Hill. He wrote the other
day--a week ago--from Southampton, saying he would not permit the
marriage to take place, and bade me wait till he came home."
"Trouble! trouble," said Mrs. Merry, rocking; "I know the man. Ah, my
dear, don't talk. I'm thinking for your good."
It was hot outside, though the sun was sinking and the cool twilight
shadowed the earth. The hollyhocks, red and blue and white and
yellow, a blaze of colour, were drooping their heads in the warm air,
and the lawn looked brown and burnt for want of rain. Not a breath of
wind moved the dusty sycamore trees which divided the cottage from
the high-road, and the crimson hue of the setting sun steeped
everything in its sinister dye. Perhaps it was this uncanny evening
that made Eva Strode view the home-coming of her father with such
uneasiness, and the hostility and forebodings of Mrs. Merry did not
tend to reassure her. With her hand on that dismal prophetess's
shoulder, she stood silently looking out on the panting world bathed
in the ruddy light. It was as though she saw the future through a
rain of blood.
Misery Castle was the name of the cottage, and Mrs. Merry was
responsible for the dreary appellation. Her life had been hard
and was hard. Her husband had left her, and her son, following in
his father's footsteps, was almost constantly absent in London,
in more than questionable company. Mrs. Merry therefore called
the cottage by as dismal a name as she could think of. Even Eva,
who protested against the name, could not get the steadfastly
dreary woman to change it. "Misery dwells in it, my dear lamb,"
said Mrs. Merry, "and Misery it shall be called. Castle it ain't
from the building of it, but Castle it is, seeing the lot of
sorrow that's in it. Buckingham Palace and the Tower wouldn't
hold more, and more there will be, when that man comes home with
his wicked sneering face, father though he be to you, my poor
young lady."
It was a delightful cottage, with whitewashed walls covered with
creepers, and a thatched roof, grey with wind and weather and the
bleaching of the sun. The rustic porch was brilliant with red
roses, and well-kept garden-beds bloomed with rainbow-hued
flowers seasonable to the August month. To the right this domain
was divided from a wide and gorse-covered common by an ancient
wall of mellow-hued brick, useful for the training of peach-trees:
to the left a low hedge, with unexpected gaps, ran between the
flower-beds and a well-stocked orchard. This last extended some
distance, and ended in a sunken fence, almost buried in nettles and
rank weeds. Beyond stretched several meadows, in which cows
wandered, and further still, appeared fields of wheat, comfortable
farm-houses, clumps and lines of trees, until the whole fertile
expanse terminated at the foot of low hills, so far away that they
looked blue and misty. A smiling corn-land, quite Arcadian in its
peace and beauty.
Along the front of the cottage and under the dusty sycamore trees
ran a high-road which struck straightly across the common, slipped
by Misery Castle, and took its way crookedly through Wargrove
village, whence it emerged to twist and turn for miles towards the
distant hills and still more distant London town. Being the king's
highway it was haunted by tramps, by holiday vans filled with
joyous folk, and by fashionable motor-cars spinning noisily at
illegal speed. But neither motor-cars, nor vans, nor tramps, nor
holidaymakers stopped at Wargrove village, unless for a moment or
two at the one public-house on thirsty days. These went on
ten miles further across the common to Westhaven, a rising
watering-place at the Thames mouth. So it will be seen that the
publicity of the highway afforded Eva a chance of seeing the world
on wheels, and diversified her somewhat dull existence.
And it was dull, until a few months ago. Then Allen Hill came home
from South America, where he had been looking after mines. The
young people met and subsequently fell in love. Three months before
the expected arrival of Mr. Strode they became engaged with the
consent of Allen's parents but without the knowledge of Eva's
father. However, being a dutiful daughter to a man who did not
deserve such a blessing, she wrote and explained herself. The reply
was the letter, mention of which she had made to Mrs. Merry. And Mrs.
Merry prognosticated trouble therefrom.
"I know the man--I know the man," moaned Mrs. Merry, rocking herself,
"he'll marry you to some one else for his ambitions, drat him."
"That he shall never do," flashed out Eva.
"You have plenty of spirit, Miss Eva, but he'll wear you out. He
wore out Lady Jane, your ma, as is now where he will never go.
And was it this that set you moping by the winder, my dear
lamb?"
Eva returned to her former seat. "Not altogether." She
hesitated, and then looked anxiously at her old nurse, who stood
with folded arms frowning and rigid. "You believe in dreams,
Mrs. Merry?"
"As I believe that Merry was a scoundrel, and that my boy will
take after him, as he does," said the woman, nodding sadly;
"misery ain't surer nor dreams, nor taxes which allays come
bringing sorrow and summonses with 'em. So you dreamed last
night?"
"Yes. You know I went to bed early. I fell asleep at eight and
woke at nine, trembling."
"Ah!" Mrs. Merry drew nearer--"'twas a baddish dream?"
"A horrible dream--it was, I think, two dreams."
"Tell it to me," said the old woman, her eyes glittering.
Eva struck her closed fist on the sill. "No," she cried
passionately, "it's impossible to tell it. I wish to forget."
"You'll remember it well enough when the truth comes."
"Do you think anything will come of it?"
"It's as sure as sure," said Mrs. Merry.
Eva, less superstitious, laughed uneasily, and tried to turn the
subject. "Allen will be at the gate soon," she said. "I'm walking to
the common with him for an hour."
"Ah well," droned Mrs. Merry, "take your walk, Miss Eva. You won't
have another when _he_ comes home."
"Nurse!" Eva stamped her foot and frowned. "You make my father out to
be a----"
"Whatever I make him out to be, I'll never get near what he is,"
said Mrs. Merry viciously. "I hate him. He ruined my Giles, not as
Giles was much to boast of. Still, I could have talked him into
being a stay-at-home, if your pa--there--there--let him be, say I.
If his cup is full he'll never come home alive."
Eva started and grew deathly pale. "My dream--my dream," she said.
"Ah yes!" Mrs. Merry advanced and clutched the girl's wrist. "You
saw him dead or dying, eh, eh?"
"Don't, nurse; you frighten me," said Miss Strode, releasing her
wrist; then she thought for a moment. "My dream or dreams," said
she after a pause, went something after this fashion. "I thought I
was in the Red Deeps----"
"Five miles from here," muttered Mrs. Merry, hugging herself. "I know
the place--who better? Red clay and a splash of water, however dry."
"Ah, you are thinking of the spring!" said Eva starting; "it was there
I saw--oh no--no," and she closed her eyes to shut out the sight.
"What was it--what was it?" asked Mrs. Merry eagerly; "death?"
"He was lying face downward in the moist red clay beside the spring of
the Red Deeps!"
"Who was lying?"
"I don't know. I seemed to see the place and the figure of a man in
dark clothes lying face downward, with his hands twisted helplessly in
the rank grasses. I heard a laugh too--a cruel laugh, but in my dream
I saw no one else. Only the dead man, face downward," and she stared
at the carpet as though she saw the gruesome sight again.
"How do you know 'twas your father's corpse?" croaked the old woman.
"I didn't think it was--I didn't tell you it was," panted Eva,
flushing and paling with conflicting emotions.
"Ah," interpreted Mrs. Merry, "some one he killed, perhaps."
"How dare you--how dare----? Nurse," she burst out, "I believe it
_was_ my father lying dead there--I saw a white-gloved right hand."
"Your pa, sure enough," said the woman grimly. "His wooden hand, eh?
I know the hand. He struck me with it once. Struck me," she cried,
rising and glaring, "with my own husband standing by. But Giles was
never a man. So your pa was dead, wooden hand and all, in the Red
Deeps? Did you go there to see, this day?"
"No, no," Eva shuddered, "it was only a dream."
"Part of one, you said."
Miss Strode nodded. "After I saw the body and the white glove on the
wooden hand glimmering in the twilight--for twilight it was in my
dream--I seemed to sink into darkness, and to be back in my bed--yes,
in my bed in the room across the passage."
"Ah! you woke then?" said Mrs. Merry, disappointed.
"No, I swear I was not awake. I was in my bed asleep, dreaming, for I
heard footsteps--many footsteps come to the door--to the front door,
then five knocks----"
"Five," said the woman, surprised.
"Five knocks. One hard and four soft. Then a voice came telling me
to take in the body. I woke with a cry, and found it was just after
nine o'clock."
"Well, well," chuckled the old woman, "if Robert Strode is dead----"
"You can't be sure of that," said Eva fiercely, and regretted
telling this dismal woman her dream.
"You saw the gloved hand--the wooden hand?"
"Bah! It is only a dream."
"Dreams come true. I've known 'em to come true," said Mrs. Merry,
rising, "and to-morrow I go to the Red Deeps to see."
"But my father comes home to-night."
"No," said Mrs. Merry, with the mien of a sibyl, "he'll never come
home agin to the house where he broke a woman's heart."
And she went out laughing and muttering of the Red Deeps.