THE LEGACY OF THE SCARLET HANDS
We could do nothing for him. The shock of the surprise, for a
moment, held us motionless. But so soon as we realised that the man
was being hacked to death before our eyes, we rushed to his
assistance. It was of no avail. Death had, probably, been
instantaneous, so much mercy the creature showed. A sharp-pointed
blade, more than eighteen inches long, which proceeded from its
stomach, had pierced him through and through. The writhing, gibbering
puppet held him skewered in a dozen places. To have released him we
should have had to tear him into pieces. When I tried to drag him
free, I only succeeded in bringing the whole thing over. Down he came,
with his assailant sticking to him like a limpet. Pinning him on to
the floor, it continued its extraordinary contortions, lacerating its
victim with every movement in a hundred different places. It was
difficult to believe that it was not alive. Perceiving that it was not
to be persuaded by any other means to loosen its embrace, I struck it
on the back, again and again, with a heavy wooden chair.
Presently it was still; its movements ceased; it became again
inanimate. As if its lust for blood was glutted, it rolled over,
lethargically, upon its side, leaving its handiwork exposed--a
horrible spectacle. A grin--as it were a smile, born of repletion--was
on the creature’s face.
Later, the thing was torn to pieces; its anatomy laid bare.
Examination showed that its construction had been diabolically
ingenious. It was simply a light steel frame, shaped to resemble a
human body, to which was attached a number of strong springs, which
were set in motion by clockwork machinery. The whole had been encased
in scarlet leather, so that, when completed, it resembled nothing so
much as an artist’s lay figure. In the leather were innumerable
eyelet-holes. Through each of these holes the point of a blade was
always peeping. So soon as the clockwork was set in motion each of
these blades leaped from its appointed place, and continued leaping,
ceaselessly, to and fro, till the machinery ran down. In the head was
an arrangement somewhat on the lines of a phonograph; it was from this
proceeded the sound resembling a woman’s gentle laughter, which was
not the least eerie part of its horrible performance.
Inquiries seemed to show that the creature had originally been
intended for sacrificial purposes. Lawrence had apparently purchased
it at Allahabad; probably from the workshop of a native who was
suspected of the manufacture of contrivances, whose ingenuity was
almost too conspicuous, which were used in the temples. On certain
days such a puppet would be produced by the priests, with a flourish
of trumpets. One could easily believe that miraculous power would be
claimed for it; it was even likely that, as a proof of the
substantiality of these claims, it would go through its gruesome
performance in the presence of the assembled congregations. Of what
might have been the objects on which it exhibited its powers one did
not care to think. Some queer things still take place in India.
Edwin Lawrence could hardly have been perfectly sane when he purchased
such a plaything. It was not a possession which a perfectly
healthy-minded man would have cared to have had at any price; and
Lawrence must have paid an enormous sum for it, or that wily native
would never have allowed such a curio to leave his hands. It was shown
that the brothers had been in the habit of quarrelling their whole
lives long. Edwin would do something to arouse Philip’s passion,
whereon Philip would attack him with unreasoning violence. The fit of
fury past, and the mischief done, repentance came. In these moods
Philip must have expended thousands of pounds in his attempts to
soothe the feelings of the brother whom he had just been battering.
One of these scenes had taken place just before Edwin’s departure for
India; it was the usual plaster which had enabled him to start upon
his travels. That his brother’s treatment of him rankled, there was
scarcely room for doubt; the purchase of the scarlet puppet was,
probably a firstfruit of his morbid brooding.
At the very last, possibly, the crime had been the result of a
moment’s impulse--as he himself had said. But that it had been
prepared for, as likely to happen some time, was clear. He had
obtained a suit of clothes, which was exactly like those which his
brother was in the habit of wearing. These he secreted in his bedroom.
So soon as his “goddess” had done her work, he stripped what was left
of his brother bare--an awful task it must have been. He arrayed the
body in a suit of his own clothes, oblivious of the fact that they
showed no signs of the cutting and the hacking, and the suit which he
had prepared he himself put on.
Whether or not he saw me--or even if I was actually there to see--is
not clear to this day. But either he did not notice the departure of
his lady visitor, or he was indifferent to what it might portend;
under the circumstances, after the tragedy had actually taken place,
his movements were marked by curious deliberation. The probability is
that the catastrophe finally overturned the brain whose equilibrium
was already tottering. No other hypothesis can adequately explain the
manner in which he retained his self-possession, expecting every
moment that the alarm would be raised, and that he would be caught
red-handed.
Not only did he make himself up to resemble as much as possible his
brother, but, rolling the “goddess” up in a cloth, he bore the
blood-stained puppet out with him into the street. It was that which
Turner had seen him carrying, under the impression that he was himself
the man who was, at that moment, lying on the floor of his room, a
mutilated corpse. As, by sight, Turner knew both men well, the fact
that he mistook one man for the other shows that the imitation must
have been well and carefully done.
No action was taken against Mr. Isaac Bernstein. Except the dead man’s
words, there was no evidence against him in that particular. But that
the tale told of him by Edwin Lawrence was true, and that he had some
sort of a conscience, after all, was suggested by the fact that a few
days afterwards he disappeared from his London premises and from his
usual haunts. So far as I know, nothing has been seen or heard of him
since. Whether he was afraid that other shady transactions, in which
he had had a hand, would be brought home to him, or whether he was
haunted by memories of the dual tragedy for which he had been, at any
rate in part, responsible, I cannot say. The fact remains, that so far
as the police can learn, large sums of money, which at the time of his
disappearance were due to him, he has never made the slightest attempt
to claim.
As the two brothers were the last of their race, and no one has laid
claim to Philip’s estate, in due course it reverted to the Crown. It
is among the large number of those for which heirs-at-law are still
wanting. Old Morley and his wife had not been in a good service for so
many years for nothing; they would have retired from it long before
had it not been for antiquated notions of fidelity. Their master’s
death found them comfortably off, and in the possession, as it turned
out, of a little property among the Surrey hills. On that property
they are residing to this day. When it first came into their hands the
neighbourhood was wild and rural; others, since, have discovered that
it was beautiful. Building is taking place on every side; quite a town
is springing up. Though this materially adds to the monetary value of
their property, the old couple are a little restless amidst their new
surroundings.
Hume is still unmarried. He becomes less and less engaged in the
active practice of his profession. But he remains an authority on the
obscure diseases of the brain. He has written more than one book upon
this special subject. I have not read them--I am no reader, and such
works would, in any case, be hardly in my way--but I understand that
he seeks to show that we are, all of us, more or less mad, and that he
goes far towards the proof of this thesis. He has not materially
altered his estimate of my mental equipment. Indeed, he once assured
me that he was becoming more and more convinced that men whose
physical and muscular development went beyond a certain limit were,
_ipso facto_, mad; and, _ergo_, I must be insane. However, we are
tolerable friends, and he seems not unwilling to allow that I am as
well out of an asylum as in.
It has been rumoured that Miss Adair intends, shortly, to retire from
the stage; and the whisper is that Hume, who for some time has been
her constant attendant, has something to do with her intention. In
that case, they will make a well-matched pair, for in my opinion they
both have tongues.
Bessie--I think that at this point in these pages I am entitled to
call her Bessie--Bessie never acted again. After that hideous night
brain fever supervened. For weeks she lay between life and death. More
than once the doctors gave her up. Fortunately, doctors are not
omniscient. After all, God was merciful--to me.
Almost her first words, when the darkest hour had given place to the
first glimmerings of dawn, took the shape of a question: “Where is
Tom?” Her scamp of a brother! After all she had suffered for him, he
was foremost in her thoughts.
“I hope that he is on the road to fortune.”
Looking up at me with her big eyes, which had grown bigger, and sunk
farther in her head, she asked me what I meant. I explained. I had
supplied Young Hopeful with the wherewithal which would enable him to
seek for gold in what was then the new El Dorado--the Klondyke region.
He had started on his quest. But he never found what, at least
nominally, he had gone to look for. Some months afterwards I learnt
that he had died; fallen at night into the waters of the Yukon river
and been drowned. My correspondent went on to explain that he was dead
drunk at the time; which explanation I kept from his sister. I did not
wish her to think that his end had been unbecoming to a man.
Bessie and I have been married just long enough to enable me to begin
to realise my happiness. I am ever slow, so I will not say what is the
tale of the years which that statement implies; though the sight of
our youngsters is apt to give away the secret of their father’s
dulness. There was no question between us of courtship. I knew, as I
watched by her bedside, that if she came back to life she was mine;
and that in any case I was hers. And so it was. So soon as she was
strong enough we were married. And we have been lovers ever since. As
I sit, with her hand clasped tightly, watching her children and mine,
I am sometimes disposed to suspect that our courtship is beginning. I
know it will never cease.
The goodness of God has been very great in giving me my wife. By what
seemed accident, but was indeed the act of Providence, I have come to
have for my very own the woman of my dreams. Sleeping and waking she
is mine. So true is it that some men’s good fortune is out of all
proportion to their deserts.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Alterations to the text:
[Chapter XIX] Change “to serve by going to _goal_” to _gaol_, and
delete an unnecessary quotation mark from the last paragraph of this
chapter.
[Chapter XXI] Change “the world was talking of John _Furguson_” to
_Ferguson_.
Minor spelling and hyphenization inconsistencies have been left as is.