I Set Out for the East
It was the hand of a mummy. It had been half snapped, half torn from
the forearm, just above the wrist. Thus the edges of the stock were
ragged and the tendons were drawn out and torn; the bone, however, had
fractured clearly, just as glass breaks, leaving a hard, smooth edge.
But the hand was not an ordinary mummy's hand. The bones were covered
with mummified flesh truly, but, although dry, it was neither stiff
nor brittle. On the contrary, it possessed the tough consistency of
leather and was resilient and kneadable like rubber. The phalanges,
when pulled straight, returned to their ordinary and original position,
like springs, immediately the pressure was removed. The colour of the
skin was a very dark chocolate. It was marvellously preserved. The very
pores were still discernible, and the veins and arteries beneath the
epidermis, which had been converted by age into fine black cords, could
be traced with ease. Now, whose hand was it? From what mummy torn? And
how had Weldon become possessed of it? I gave up the attempt to solve
the first two problems as soon as I had mentally propounded them. The
third, however, answered itself. I knew Weldon too thoroughly to admit
a doubt that he would ever have carried about with him such a ghastly
trophy. Like most healthy young Englishmen, he had a horror of such
things. Well, then he must have snatched the hand, then invisible,
from the grasp of someone--in the very moment in which he had been
falling to his death. But no one had been near him. That is, no one
visible to us or him. But since the hand had been practically invisible
until I had subjected it to the influence of heat, was it not just
as likely that it might have been--nay, must have been--carried by
an invisible person? But that invisible person must have been very
near Weldon. He must have been close enough to have saved Weldon had
he chosen. Why had he not chosen? Why, indeed, unless he had wished
Weldon to die? And if he had wished Weldon to die, would it not have
been easy for him--because invisible--to help Weldon to die? Easy!
Good heavens, how easy! How appallingly easy! And then I remembered
how astonished I had been to see Weldon stagger back, step after step,
to the platform's edge--three steps at least. I understood it now--and
his startled outcry. He had been assailed by an invisible adversary.
He had been forced back. He had been hurled over the platform--and as
he fell he had clutched out wildly and seized the mummy's hand. He had
been foully murdered; and we had watched his murder, comprehending
nothing. My flesh began to creep as the light of understanding broke
in upon my brain. For I realised in the same instant that Weldon's
murderer was, in all probability, the man who had had most occasion
to desire his death--Belleville--my enemy and the enemy, although
the lover, of the woman I loved; the wretch in whose power she was
at that moment. He had warned Miss Ottley that unless she broke off
her engagement with Weldon her fiancé would die within the week. He
had died--murdered in cold blood--on the evening of the seventh day.
Belleville had been most terribly faithful to his awful promise. To
the very letter he had kept his dreadful vow. And now--Miss Ottley
was his prisoner in her own father's house; and, no doubt, Sir Robert
Ottley, sick, enfeebled in body and intellect, was Belleville's puppet
instrument to the furtherance of his atrocious purposes. What chance
had I--fighting a man so utterly unscrupulous, so strong-willed and
remorseless, and endowed with a power so tremendous and far-reaching
as the possession of a chemical agent capable of rendering himself
imperceptible to mortal sight whenever it should please him to make
use of it? How could I or anybody bring such a man to justice? Why,
even if I should foil his scheme for my undoing, and were it possible,
as well, to get the better of him to the extent of satisfying myself
beyond doubt as to his guilt, what court on earth would believe the
evidence I could bring forward? A tissue of absurdities; a network
of hypotheses and chimeras! I should be laughed at as a madman, a
foolish visionary; and he would go scot free with undamaged reputation,
free to work his evil will upon an unconscious and defenceless world.
Belleville's advantage over me was so manifestly overwhelming that I
confess the prospect of entering into a trial of strength and cunning
with him daunted me. And yet, if I did not, Weldon's death would surely
go unavenged, and Miss Ottley's fate would be sealed. She would be
forced into a marriage--somehow or other--with a man she loathed--the
murderer of her dead lover. I felt so sure of this that towards morning
I resumed my packing. I did not go to bed at all. After breakfast I
went out and called at half a dozen newspaper offices. I saw as many
journalists, who all promised to paragraph my departure for the East.
I then wrote a letter to the Society stating, guardedly, my intention
of again visiting the Nile; and I caught the afternoon train to Dover.
That night I slept at Calais. On the following day I went to Paris and
put myself in the hands of a hairdresser and costumier, who carried on
a peculiar business at Montmartre under the secret surveillance and
government of the police. For a respectable consideration he effected a
complete metamorphosis in my appearance. He speckled my black eyebrows
with silver. He shaved off my moustache and beard and dyed my skin a
jejeune saffron, my hair a bilious iron-brown. He forbade me to wear
a starched collar. He taught me how to walk like an elderly man; and,
finally, he provided me with a suit of clothes that fitted fairly
well, but which could not be said to possess any other virtue. But
the fellow was well worthy of his hire. When he had finished with me
I could not recognise myself. The mirror showed me a gaunt piece of
human wreckage. I was to the life a decayed gentleman; an unobtrusively
rakish, elderly degenerate. I was remarkable in nothing except height,
and even that singularity departed as I learned to stoop. In such guise
I returned to London by way of Boulogne and Folkestone, and I took
up residence immediately in a tenement-house in Soho, to which I had
been recommended by my friend, the costumier. It was a curious place.
It was populated by Frenchmen, Italians, and a sprinkling of Swiss,
and a number of Russian political refugees. I found them a decent lot
of law-abiding miserables. The majority were derelicts of fortune,
who lived like parasites on the toil of some few hardworking, foolish
artisans among them. And yet, despite their deplorable estate, they
always had a cheerful word and a smile to spare for a stranger. They
were a picturesque, interesting people, and I should have liked to
study them under other circumstances. But placed as I was, I conceived
it best to keep my room as much as possible, and I only went abroad to
buy a paper and to eat and drink. On the fourth morning the expected
summons came to hand. It was the first advertisement in the column.
"D. Menchikoff. Fearless. Doorfront. Twelve. Unfailing. Noiseless.
Open. Mizpah." And this I interpreted to mean, "Fearlessly approach
the front door at midnight this evening! You will find it open. Enter
without noise! God be with you till we meet!"