The Dead Hand
I expected Miss Ottley next afternoon, and Hubbard, as though aware I
wished to be alone, went out soon after three. But she did not come.
Hubbard returned an hour after midnight. He kept me awake by tramping
about his room until far into the small hours. Next morning I found the
library filled with corded boxes and Hubbard's man padlocking the last
of them. "Master's gone to France, and I'm to follow," he announced
with an air of suppressed exultation. "He left this letter for you."
The letter contained these lines: "I know you at length for the
cunning scamp you are. How you must have laughed at me. But I forgive
you. We shall be away a year, at least. As always, everything I have
is yours. Let us find you here on our return. I cannot write more.
My heart is too full. Pinsent, she loves me! D. H." The last three
words were deeply underlined. By the end of that week I had completed
the revision of my book and forwarded the manuscript to Mr. Coen.
Afterwards, I was uncomfortably lonely and unoccupied. I waited in
from three to five every afternoon, but no one came. The rest of the
days I spent wandering about the streets nursing the long sickness
of too much thinking. The end of it was, I disobeyed Miss Ottley and
went one afternoon to call on her. I might as well have saved myself
the trouble. She was "out," likewise her father and Dr. Belleville.
Two days later I called again. Again everyone was out. Then I wrote
a guarded note and sent it with an advance copy of my book, asking
for an expression of her opinion. After much waiting, I received a
long typewritten disquisition challenging on apocryphal authority my
attribution of a stele superscribed by Amen-aken to the fourteenth
dynasty. It was signed by Miss Ottley, but I failed to recognise it as
her composition. One evening, however, having nothing else to do, I
applied to its verbiage the simple rules of a well-known cipher. This
gave me an astonishing result. "Impossible see you without endangering
your life. Constant supervision." But it was worth testing the matter
further. I therefore composed a formal reply to the challenge, showing
my reasons for concluding that Amen-aken had unwarrantably altered for
purposes of his own glorification the historic record of a predecessor.
I used the same cipher and embodied the following message by its aid:
"Shall pass the house before midnight Friday. Throw letter from window
explaining all! I live to serve you." This document I forwarded to Miss
Ottley enclosed in a letter in which I took pains to show that I had
been disappointed by her criticism, and that I was not anxious for the
correspondence to be continued. Then I waited as patiently as possible
for Friday to come round. The hours passed with leaden feet, but they
passed--and midnight found me in the lane walking slowly by the house.
It was wrapped in gloom from roof to basement, but her window was open.
As the clocks began to chime, a white thing flashed out and fluttered
to my feet. It was a kerchief weighted with a golden bracelet. I felt
a paper crinkle in its folds. Hastily concealing it within my coat, I
pressed on and returned by a circuitous route to Bruton Street. Soon
I was poring over my treasure. It was typewritten like the challenge.
It read: "I have been obliged to typewrite this, because I am a close
prisoner and am forbidden the use of pen or pencil. But they make
me work as their stenographer some hours each day--and I was forced
to seize the opportunity so presented. Thank God you understood the
cipher. If you love me give out that you proceed immediately to Egypt.
Then go to Paris and return to London under another name and well
disguised. Take lodgings East; and wait until you see in Personal
Column of _Daily Wire_ directions addressed to 'D. Menchikoff!' Follow
them implicitly! Am in power of fiends. Open opposition perilous. Must
allay suspicion. Otherwise forced immediate marriage B." Here the
missive ended.
I sat down before the fire and thought hard for some minutes. The paper
was crunched up in my hand. Suddenly the door opened. I turned my head
at the sound of the creak, but could see no one. What could have opened
the door? I heard the sound of caught breath, a foot on the door and a
sigh. In a flash I understood. I had been seen by my enemies picking up
the letter in the street, and they had sent their invisible messenger
to win it from me. Quick as thought I thrust the paper in the flames
and sprang afoot. There followed a deep-voiced oath and a rush of air
fanned my face. I struck out with all my strength right and left, half
beside myself with rage and fear. But my blows encountered nothing
tangible, and a second later the door banged shut. I was so unnerved
that I simply walked over and locked it. How can a man fight with an
enemy he cannot see? or even follow him? When my hands stopped shaking
I began to pack up my trunks. I resolved to follow Miss Ottley's
bidding to the letter. To-morrow I would announce my departure for
Egypt and cross the Channel in order to put Belleville off the track.
Meanwhile I ransacked my wardrobe. Presently I received a shock. From
an unremembered corner in a chest I brought out the clothes I had
worn on the day of poor Weldon's death. They were covered with dyed
bloodstains, the blood of my dead friend. I placed them on the table
and eyed them, shuddering. My mind, as if spell-compelled, reviewed
all the details of Weldon's death. I saw him stagger back, back, and
fall beneath the wheels of the onrushing locomotive. I heard his dying
shriek. Once more I struggled desperately, but alas! how vainly with
the dark angel, for his life. Once more, as the end approached, I saw
his glazed eyes open and look into mine. Once more I heard his dying
words--"Give me your hand!"
And but--God in Heaven! How could I ever have forgotten it! Had he not
given me something--something I had put in my pocket half unconsciously
without looking to see what it was--something he had implored me to
"keep safe."
I felt my senses rock at the recollection; and then I went hot all
over with shame, to think of my neglect, my inattention. Until that
moment--despite his dying direction, I had utterly forgotten his sad
trust. And the thing he had given me to keep--where was it now? Where,
indeed, but in the pocket of that coat where I had placed it. Oh! It
was safe enough, no doubt--but that did not absolve me. For weeks I had
been a recreant trustee. I had, I saw it now, I had been a coward. I
felt his death so much that I had resolutely put all thoughts of him
aside, smothered them with work, fearing the misery which they must
bring. And I had been his friend!
I took up the coat and felt in the pocket. Yes, it was there. What
was it? I drew it out before the light and saw nothing! Yet I held
something heavy and hard. Was I going mad? Was my sight diseased or
what? I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Nothing! I strode over to the
gas jet and held the thing between my visual organs and the flame. Ah!
something now! But how describe it? I saw a small light blur; a sort of
shapeless haze off which the rays, the jet of light diffused, recoiled
obliquely. It was not transparent, but neither was it in the true sense
visible. It seemed to defy the light rays, to repulse them rather than
absorb them. When held directly before the flame I could not see the
gas jet through it, and yet itself I could not truly see. It confused
and disarranged my vision as a watery mote does floating on the surface
of an eyeball. Slowly and surely experimenting with the thing, I found
that the farther I withdrew it from the lamp the less sensibly my sense
became aware of its existence. But when I placed it directly against
the lamp the flame became mysteriously obscured. I say mysteriously,
because the thing cast no discoverable shadow, and although solid to
the sense of touch, it was not otherwise apparently opaque. The flame
still burned behind it, and I still saw the flame, yet not through,
but over and around an intermediate blur. In that connection the thing
did not resemble glass. Had the reverse been the case I should have
seen the flame through it directly. As it was, as far as I can make
out, the impression of the flame was conveyed to my retina by rays of
light that did not travel in a straight path. They climbed over and
surrounded the interposed object first, and thus gave me a slightly
distorted image of the flame; and instead of revealing the obstacle
which they had to overcome in transit, all they did was to indicate
vaguely its situation. Thus, above and below the indiscernible point
where their straight and proper course was interfered with I perceived
a misty, indefinable haze. And at the point where the rays seemed to
reassemble and readjust themselves to the resumption of their ordinary
business there was a blur. Perhaps the best way to depict the effect
was to present the hypothesis of a weak flame held up before a stronger
one. This does not exactly describe the phenomenon I witnessed and
investigated, but it approximates as closely as I can manage. The chief
points of difference are, that every flame casts a shadow, and this
thing did not, unless a blur of light be a shadow; and furthermore, a
flame may be seen even confronted with a stronger flame, and this thing
I held was destitute of a perceptible outline. The pity was that I was
then working without a single clue to any comprehension of the thing;
and the greater pity is that though my knowledge became fuller, I am
still ignorant of the action of the properties which made the thing
visually impalpable. I can only guess at them. But I think I guess
correctly when I conjecturally assert that it was surface coated with
some essence which had the power to compel the great majority of the
light rays to travel along its sides and surface and to resume their
original direction afterwards. I do not pretend to understand how this
essence could so interfere with and control the laws of light. But
granting that it could, the explanation is a natural one. And though
scientists may frown at me for advancing a theory which I am unable
to substantiate, I prefer to incur their scorn rather than adopt the
alternative--supernatural agency. I simply decline to believe in the
supernatural. It is my profound conviction that nothing has ever
happened on this planet, however mysterious and inexplicable, which
has not been produced by a purely and perfectly natural cause. And the
longer I live the more certain do I become that, deep and wonderful as
our scientific acquaintance with Nature undoubtedly is, we have not yet
even thoroughly explored the porch of her palace of secrets, her vast
treasure-house of wonders.
But I stray from my subject. It is my present business to relate
events, not to discuss their basic principles.
To resume then, after a great while spent in experimenting with the
thing which poor Weldon had given me, before the light, I was obliged
to confess myself baffled. I then fell back upon my other four senses.
I got out a pair of scales and weighed the thing. It weighed exactly
seven ounces. Then I smelt it. The thing was odourless. I bit it, but
it was tasteless. Yet it yielded to my teeth like stiff rubber or
leather. Next I placed it on a sheet of paper and traced its outlines
with a pencil. That was the first really definite result I got. The
tracing showed a bulbous object four inches wide by five long. It was
shaped something like a pear. Its base contained four indentations with
corresponding rounded protuberances like knuckles. The apex was ragged.
Next I took a knife and with the blade scratched its surface. A moment
later a long streak of dark, dry tissue was revealed. I could see it
plainly. I shook all over with excitement. The mystery seemed to be
clearing up. But even as I took up the knife again I paused, convulsed
with a wild, improbable idea. What if?--but there. I held my breath and
took the thing before the fire to think its problem out. I sat down.
My nerves were all jangled. The fire needed replenishing. It was low
and I was cold. I stooped down and heaped on some coal. Then came a
thought. I put the thing on a shovel and held it over the grate. Heat!
Yes, heat! The greatest of great resolvents. Fool not to have thought
of it before. Fool, indeed! One minute--two--three. There was a shadow
on the shovel. I bent forward. Instantly my nostrils were assailed
with the unforgettable perfume of the tomb of Ptahmes! Ah! the flood
of recollections that came surging at its bidding to my brain! But I
fought them back. I bent right over the fire--and I made out presently,
lying on the shovel, the dim form of a tight-clenched human hand.