III

"Whatever it was," said Eustace to Saunders on the following morning, "I

propose that we drop the subject. There's nothing to keep us here for

the next ten days. We'll motor up to the Lakes and get some climbing."

"And see nobody all day, and sit bored to death with each other every

night. Not for me thanks. Why not run up to town? Run's the exact word

in this case, isn't it? We're both in such a blessed funk. Pull yourself

together Eustace, and let's have another look at the hand."

"As you like," said Eustace; "there's the key." They went into the

library and opened the desk. The box was as they had left it on the

previous night.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Eustace.

"I am waiting for you to volunteer to open the lid. However, since you

seem to funk it, allow me. There doesn't seem to be the likelihood of

any rumpus this morning, at all events." He opened the lid and picked

out the hand.

"Cold?" asked Eustace.

"Tepid. A bit below blood-heat by the feel. Soft and supple too. If it's

the embalming, it's a sort of embalming I've never seen before. Is it

your uncle's hand?"

"Oh, yes, it's his all right," said Eustace. "I should know those long

thin fingers anywhere. Put it back in the box, Saunders. Never mind

about the screws. I'll lock the desk, so that there'll be no chance of

its getting out. We'll compromise by motoring up to town for a week. If

we get off soon after lunch we ought to be at Grantham or Stamford by

night."

"Right," said Saunders; "and to-morrow--Oh, well, by to-morrow we shall

have forgotten all about this beastly thing."

If when the morrow came they had not forgotten, it was certainly true

that at the end of the week they were able to tell a very vivid ghost

story at the little supper Eustace gave on Hallow E'en.

"You don't want us to believe that it's true, Mr. Borlsover? How

perfectly awful!"

"I'll take my oath on it, and so would Saunders here; wouldn't you, old

chap?"

"Any number of oaths," said Saunders. "It was a long thin hand, you

know, and it gripped me just like that."

"Don't Mr. Saunders! Don't! How perfectly horrid! Now tell us another

one, do. Only a really creepy one, please!"

* * * * *

"Here's a pretty mess!" said Eustace on the following day as he threw a

letter across the table to Saunders. "It's your affair, though. Mrs.

Merrit, if I understand it, gives a month's notice."

"Oh, that's quite absurd on Mrs. Merrit's part," Saunders replied. "She

doesn't know what she's talking about. Let's see what she says."

"DEAR SIR," he read, "this is to let you know that I must give you a

month's notice as from Tuesday the 13th. For a long time I've felt the

place too big for me, but when Jane Parfit, and Emma Laidlaw go off

with scarcely as much as an 'if you please,' after frightening the wits

out of the other girls, so that they can't turn out a room by themselves

or walk alone down the stairs for fear of treading on half-frozen toads

or hearing it run along the passages at night, all I can say is that

it's no place for me. So I must ask you, Mr. Borlsover, sir, to find a

new housekeeper that has no objection to large and lonely houses, which

some people do say, not that I believe them for a minute, my poor mother

always having been a Wesleyan, are haunted.

"Yours faithfully,

ELIZABETH MERRIT.

"P.S.--I should be obliged if you would give my respects to Mr.

Saunders. I hope that he won't run no risks with his cold."

"Saunders," said Eustace, "you've always had a wonderful way with you in

dealing with servants. You mustn't let poor old Merrit go."

"Of course she shan't go," said Saunders. "She's probably only angling

for a rise in salary. I'll write to her this morning."

"No; there's nothing like a personal interview. We've had enough of

town. We'll go back to-morrow, and you must work your cold for all it's

worth. Don't forget that it's got on to the chest, and will require

weeks of feeding up and nursing."

"All right. I think I can manage Mrs. Merrit."

But Mrs. Merrit was more obstinate than he had thought. She was very

sorry to hear of Mr. Saunders's cold, and how he lay awake all night in

London coughing; very sorry indeed. She'd change his room for him

gladly, and get the south room aired. And wouldn't he have a basin of

hot bread and milk last thing at night? But she was afraid that she

would have to leave at the end of the month.

"Try her with an increase of salary," was the advice of Eustace.

It was no use. Mrs. Merrit was obdurate, though she knew of a Mrs.

Handyside who had been housekeeper to Lord Gargrave, who might be glad

to come at the salary mentioned.

"What's the matter with the servants, Morton?" asked Eustace that

evening when he brought the coffee into the library. "What's all this

about Mrs. Merrit wanting to leave?"

"If you please, sir, I was going to mention it myself. I have a

confession to make, sir. When I found your note asking me to open that

desk and take out the box with the rat, I broke the lock as you told me,

and was glad to do it, because I could hear the animal in the box making

a great noise, and I thought it wanted food. So I took out the box, sir,

and got a cage, and was going to transfer it, when the animal got away."

"What in the world are you talking about? I never wrote any such note."

"Excuse me, sir, it was the note I picked up here on the floor on the

day you and Mr. Saunders left. I have it in my pocket now."

It certainly seemed to be in Eustace's handwriting. It was written in

pencil, and began somewhat abruptly.

"Get a hammer, Morton," he read, "or some other tool, and break open the

lock in the old desk in the library. Take out the box that is inside.

You need not do anything else. The lid is already open. Eustace

Borlsover."

"And you opened the desk?"

"Yes, sir; and as I was getting the cage ready the animal hopped out."

"What animal?"

"The animal inside the box, sir."

"What did it look like?"

"Well, sir, I couldn't tell you," said Morton nervously; "my back was

turned, and it was halfway down the room when I looked up."

"What was its color?" asked Saunders; "black?"

"Oh, no, sir, a grayish white. It crept along in a very funny way, sir.

I don't think it had a tail."

"What did you do then?"

"I tried to catch it, but it was no use. So I set the rat-traps and kept

the library shut. Then that girl Emma Laidlaw left the door open when

she was cleaning, and I think it must have escaped."

"And you think it was the animal that's been frightening the maids?"

"Well, no, sir, not quite. They said it was--you'll excuse me, sir--a

hand that they saw. Emma trod on it once at the bottom of the stairs.

She thought then it was a half-frozen toad, only white. And then Parfit

was washing up the dishes in the scullery. She wasn't thinking about

anything in particular. It was close on dusk. She took her hands out of

the water and was drying them absent-minded like on the roller towel,

when she found that she was drying someone else's hand as well, only

colder than hers."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Saunders.

"Exactly, sir; that's what I told her; but we couldn't get her to stop."

"You don't believe all this?" said Eustace, turning suddenly towards the

butler.

"Me, sir? Oh, no, sir! I've not seen anything."

"Nor heard anything?"

"Well, sir, if you must know, the bells do ring at odd times, and

there's nobody there when we go; and when we go round to draw the blinds

of a night, as often as not somebody's been there before us. But as I

says to Mrs. Merrit, a young monkey might do wonderful things, and we

all know that Mr. Borlsover has had some strange animals about the

place."

"Very well, Morton, that will do."

"What do you make of it?" asked Saunders when they were alone. "I mean

of the letter he said you wrote."

"Oh, that's simple enough," said Eustace. "See the paper it's written

on? I stopped using that years ago, but there were a few odd sheets and

envelopes left in the old desk. We never fastened up the lid of the box

before locking it in. The hand got out, found a pencil, wrote this note,

and shoved it through a crack on to the floor where Morton found it.

That's plain as daylight."

"But the hand couldn't write?"

"Couldn't it? You've not seen it do the things I've seen," and he told

Saunders more of what had happened at Eastbourne.

"Well," said Saunders, "in that case we have at least an explanation of

the legacy. It was the hand which wrote unknown to your uncle that

letter to your solicitor, bequeathing itself to you. Your uncle had no

more to do with that request than I. In fact, it would seem that he had

some idea of this automatic writing, and feared it."

"Then if it's not my uncle, what is it?"

"I suppose some people might say that a disembodied spirit had got your

uncle to educate and prepare a little body for it. Now it's got into

that little body and is off on its own."

"Well, what are we to do?"

"We'll keep our eyes open," said Saunders, "and try to catch it. If we

can't do that, we shall have to wait till the bally clockwork runs

down. After all, if it's flesh and blood, it can't live for ever."

For two days nothing happened. Then Saunders saw it sliding down the

banister in the hall. He was taken unawares, and lost a full second

before he started in pursuit, only to find that the thing had escaped

him. Three days later, Eustace, writing alone in the library at night,

saw it sitting on an open book at the other end of the room. The fingers

crept over the page, feeling the print as if it were reading; but before

he had time to get up from his seat, it had taken the alarm and was

pulling itself up the curtains. Eustace watched it grimly as it hung on

to the cornice with three fingers, flicking thumb and forefinger at him

in an expression of scornful derision.

"I know what I'll do," he said. "If I only get it into the open I'll set

the dogs on to it."

He spoke to Saunders of the suggestion.

"It's jolly good idea," he said; "only we won't wait till we find it out

of doors. We'll get the dogs. There are the two terriers and the

under-keeper's Irish mongrel that's on to rats like a flash. Your

spaniel has not got spirit enough for this sort of game." They brought

the dogs into the house, and the keeper's Irish mongrel chewed up the

slippers, and the terriers tripped up Morton as he waited at table; but

all three were welcome. Even false security is better than no security

at all.

For a fortnight nothing happened. Then the hand was caught, not by the

dogs, but by Mrs. Merrit's gray parrot. The bird was in the habit of

periodically removing the pins that kept its seed and water tins in

place, and of escaping through the holes in the side of the cage. When

once at liberty Peter would show no inclination to return, and would

often be about the house for days. Now, after six consecutive weeks of

captivity, Peter had again discovered a new means of unloosing his bolts

and was at large, exploring the tapestried forests of the curtains and

singing songs in praise of liberty from cornice and picture rail.

"It's no use your trying to catch him," said Eustace to Mrs. Merrit, as

she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk with a step-ladder.

"You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs.

Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when

he fancies he's hungry. You're far too softhearted."

"Well, sir, I see he's right out of reach now on that picture rail, so

if you wouldn't mind closing the door, sir, when you leave the room,

I'll bring his cage in to-night and put some meat inside it. He's that

fond of meat, though it does make him pull out his feathers to suck the

quills. They _do_ say that if you cook--"

"Never mind, Mrs. Merrit," said Eustace, who was busy writing. "That

will do; I'll keep an eye on the bird."

There was silence in the room, unbroken but for the continuous whisper

of his pen.

"Scratch poor Peter," said the bird. "Scratch poor old Peter!"

"Be quiet, you beastly bird!"

"Poor old Peter! Scratch poor Peter, do."

"I'm more likely to wring your neck if I get hold of you." He looked up

at the picture rail, and there was the hand holding on to a hook with

three fingers, and slowly scratching the head of the parrot with the

fourth. Eustace ran to the bell and pressed it hard; then across to the

window, which he closed with a bang. Frightened by the noise the parrot

shook its wings preparatory to flight, and as it did so the fingers of

the hand got hold of it by the throat. There was a shrill scream from

Peter as he fluttered across the room, wheeling round in circles that

ever descended, borne down under the weight that clung to him. The bird

dropped at last quite suddenly, and Eustace saw fingers and feathers

rolled into an inextricable mass on the floor. The struggle abruptly

ceased as finger and thumb squeezed the neck; the bird's eyes rolled up

to show the whites, and there was a faint, half-choked gurgle. But

before the fingers had time to loose their hold, Eustace had them in his

own.

"Send Mr. Saunders here at once," he said to the maid who came in answer

to the bell. "Tell him I want him immediately."

Then he went with the hand to the fire. There was a ragged gash across

the back where the bird's beak had torn it, but no blood oozed from the

wound. He noticed with disgust that the nails had grown long and

discolored.

"I'll burn the beastly thing," he said. But he could not burn it. He

tried to throw it into the flames, but his own hands, as if restrained

by some old primitive feeling, would not let him. And so Saunders found

him pale and irresolute, with the hand still clasped tightly in his

fingers.

"I've got it at last," he said in a tone of triumph.

"Good; let's have a look at it."

"Not when it's loose. Get me some nails and a hammer and a board of some

sort."

"Can you hold it all right?"

"Yes, the thing's quite limp; tired out with throttling poor old Peter,

I should say."

"And now," said Saunders when he returned with the things, "what are we

going to do?"

"Drive a nail through it first, so that it can't get away; then we can

take our time over examining it."

"Do it yourself," said Saunders. "I don't mind helping you with

guinea-pigs occasionally when there's something to be learned; partly

because I don't fear a guinea-pig's revenge. This thing's different."

"All right, you miserable skunk. I won't forget the way you've stood by

me."

He took up a nail, and before Saunders had realised what he was doing

had driven it through the hand, deep into the board.

"Oh, my aunt," he giggled hysterically, "look at it now," for the hand

was writhing in agonized contortions, squirming and wriggling upon the

nail like a worm upon the hook.

"Well," said Saunders, "you've done it now. I'll leave you to examine

it."

"Don't go, in heaven's name. Cover it up, man, cover it up! Shove a

cloth over it! Here!" and he pulled off the antimacassar from the back

of a chair and wrapped the board in it. "Now get the keys from my pocket

and open the safe. Chuck the other things out. Oh, Lord, it's getting

itself into frightful knots! and open it quick!" He threw the thing in

and banged the door.

"We'll keep it there till it dies," he said. "May I burn in hell if I

ever open the door of that safe again."

* * * * *

Mrs. Merrit departed at the end of the month. Her successor certainly

was more successful in the management of the servants. Early in her rule

she declared that she would stand no nonsense, and gossip soon withered

and died. Eustace Borlsover went back to his old way of life. Old habits

crept over and covered his new experience. He was, if anything, less

morose, and showed a greater inclination to take his natural part in

country society.

"I shouldn't be surprised if he marries one of these days," said

Saunders. "Well, I'm in no hurry for such an event. I know Eustace far

too well for the future Mrs. Borlsover to like me. It will be the same

old story again: a long friendship slowly made--marriage--and a long

friendship quickly forgotten."