Title: Blue Hand (1925)
Author: Edgar Wallace
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Language:  English
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Title: Blue Hand (1925)
Author: Edgar Wallace





CHAPTER ONE


Mr. Septimus Salter pressed the bell on his table for the third time and
uttered a soft growl.

He was a stout, elderly man, and with his big red face and white
side-whiskers, looked more like a prosperous farmer than a successful
lawyer. The cut of his clothes was queerly out of date, the high white
collar and the black satin cravat that bulged above a flowered waistcoat
were of the fashion of 1850, in which year Mr. Salter was a little ahead
of his time so far as fashions were concerned. But the years had caught
him up and passed him, and although there was not a more up-to-date
solicitor in London, he remained faithful to the style in which he had
made a reputation as a "buck."

He pressed the bell again, this time impatiently.

"Confound the fellow!" he muttered, and rising to his feet, he stalked
into the little room where his secretary was usually to be found.

He had expected to find the apartment empty, but it was not. A chair had
been drawn sideways up to the big ink-stained table, and kneeling on
this, his elbows on the table, his face between his hands, was a young
man who was absorbed in the perusal of a document, one of the many which
littered the table.

"Steele!" said Mr. Salter sharply, and the reader looked up with a start
and sprang to his feet.

He was taller than the average and broad of shoulder, though he gave an
impression of litheness. His tanned face spoke eloquently of days spent
out of doors, the straight nose, the firm mouth, and the strong chin
were all part of the characteristic "soldier face" moulded by four years
of war into a semblance of hardness.

Now he was a little confused, more like the guilty school-boy than the
V.C. who had tackled eight enemy aeroplanes, and had come back to his
aerodrome with a dozen bullets in his body.

"Really, Steele," said Mr. Salter reproachfully, "you are too bad. I
have rung the bell three times for you."

"I'm awfully sorry, sir," said Jim Steele, and that disarming smile of
his went straight to the old man's heart.

"What are you doing here?" growled Mr. Salter, looking at the papers on
the desk, and then with a "tut" of impatience, "Aren't you tired of
going over the Danton case?"

"No, sir, I'm not," said Steele quietly. "I have a feeling that Lady
Mary Danton can be found, and I think if she is found there will be a
very satisfactory explanation for her disappearance, and one which will
rather disconcert--" He stopped, fearful of committing an indiscretion.

Mr. Salter looked at him keenly and helped himself to a pinch of snuff.

"You don't like Mr. Groat?" he asked, and Jim laughed.

"Well, sir, it's not for me to like him or dislike him," he replied.
"Personally, I've no use for that kind of person. The only excuse a man
of thirty can produce for not having been in the war, is that he was
dead at the time."

"He had a weak heart," suggested Mr. Salter, but without any great
conviction.

"I think he had," said Jim with a little twist of his lips. "We used to
call it a 'poor heart' in the army. It made men go sick on the eve of a
battle, and drove them into dug-outs when they should have been
advancing across the open with their comrades."

Mr. Salter looked down at the papers.

"Put them away, Steele," he said quietly. "You're not going to get any
satisfaction out of the search for a woman who--why, she must have
disappeared when you were a child of five."

"I wish, sir--" began Steele, and hesitated. "Of course, it's really no
business of mine," he smiled, "and I've no right to ask you, but I'd
like to hear more details of that disappearance if you can spare me the
time--and if you feel inclined. I've never had the courage to question
you before. What is the real story of her disappearance?"

Mr. Salter frowned, and then the frown was gradually replaced by a
smile.

"I think, Steele, you're the worst secretary I ever had," he said in
despair. "And if I weren't your godfather and morally bound to help you,
I should write you a polite little note saying your services were not
required after the end of this week."

Jim Steele laughed.

"I have expected that ever since I've been here," he said.

There was a twinkle in the old lawyer's eyes. He was secretly fond of
Jim Steele; fonder than the boy could have imagined. But it was not only
friendship and a sense of duty that held Jim down in his job. The young
man was useful, and, despite his seeming inability to hear bells when he
was wrapped up in his favourite study, most reliable.

"Shut that door," he said gruffly, and when the other had obeyed, "I'm
telling this story to you," and he pointed a warning finger at Jim
Steele, "not because I want to satisfy your curiosity, but because I
hope that I'm going to kill all interest in the Danton mystery as you
call it for evermore! Lady Mary Danton was the only daughter of the Earl
of Plimstock--a title which is now extinct. She married, when she was
quite a young girl, Jonathan Danton, a millionaire shipowner, and the
marriage was not a success. Jonathan was a hard, sour man, and a sick
man, too. You talk about Digby Groat having a bad heart, well, Jonathan
had a real bad one. I think his ill-health was partly responsible for
his harsh treatment of his wife. At any rate, the baby that was born to
them, a girl, did not seem to bring them together--in fact, they grew
farther apart. Danton had to go to America on business. Before he left,
he came to this office and, sitting at that very table, he signed a
will, one of the most extraordinary wills that I have ever had
engrossed. He left the whole of his fortune to his daughter Dorothy, who
was then three or four months old. In the event of her death, he
provided that the money should go to his sister, Mrs. Groat, but not
until twenty years after the date of the child's death. In the meantime
Mrs. Groat was entitled to enjoy the income from the estate."

"Why did he do that?" asked Jim, puzzled.

"I think that is easily understood," said Mr. Salter. Space "He was
providing against the child's death in its infancy, and he foresaw that
the will might be contested by Lady Mary. As it was drawn up--I haven't
explained all the details--it could not be so contested for twenty
years. However, it was not contested," he said quietly. "Whilst Danton
was in America, Lady Mary disappeared, and with her the baby. Nobody
knew where she went to, but the baby and a strange nurse, who for some
reason or other had care of the child, were traced to Margate. Possibly
Lady Mary was there too, though we have no evidence of this. We do know
that the nurse, who was the daughter of a fisherman and could handle a
boat, took the child out on the sea one summer day and was overtaken by
a fog. All the evidence shows that the little boat was run down by a
liner, and its battered wreck was picked up at sea, and a week later the
body of the nurse was recovered. We never knew what became of Lady Mary.
Danton returned a day or two after the tragedy, and the news was broken
to him by Mrs. Groat, his sister. It killed him."

"And Lady Mary was never seen again?"

Salter shook his head.

"So you see, my boy," he rose, and dropped his hand on the other's
shoulder, "even if by a miracle you could find Lady Mary, you could not
in any way affect the position of Mrs. Groat, or her son. There is only
one tiny actress in this drama who could ever have benefited by Jonathan
Danton's will, and she," he lowered his voice until it was little more
than a whisper, "she is beyond recall--beyond recall!"

There was a moment of silence.

"I realize that, sir," said Jim Steele quietly, "only--"

"Only what?"

"I have a queer feeling that there is something wrong about the whole
business, and I believe that if I gave my time to the task I could
unveil this mystery."

Mr. Salter looked at his secretary sharply, but Jim Steele met his eyes
without faltering.

"You ought to be a detective," he said ironically.

"I wish to heaven I was," was the unexpected reply. "I offered my
services to Scotland Yard two years ago when the Thirteen Gangs were
holding up the banks with impunity."

"Oh, you did, did you?" said the lawyer sarcastically as he opened the
door, and then suddenly he turned. "Why did I ring for you?" he asked.
"Oh, I remember! I want you to get out all those Danton leases of the
Cumberland property."

"Is Mrs. Groat selling?" asked Steele.

"She can't sell yet," said the lawyer, "but on the thirtieth of May,
providing a caveat is not entered, she takes control of the Danton
millions."

"Or her son does," said Jim significantly. He had followed his employer
back to the big private office with its tiers of deed boxes, its worn
furniture and threadbare carpet and general air of mustiness.

"A detective, eh?" snorted Mr. Salter as he sat down at his table. "And
what is your equipment for your new profession?"

Jim smiled, but there was an unusual look in his face.

"Faith," he said quietly.

"Faith? What is faith to a detective?" asked the startled Salter.

"'Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things
unseen.'" Jim quoted the passage almost solemnly, and for a long
time Mr. Salter did not speak. Then he took up a slip of paper on which
he had scribbled some notes, and passed it across to Jim.

"See if you can 'detect' these deeds, they are in the strong-room," he
said, but in spite of his jesting words he was impressed.

Jim took up the slip, examined it, and was about to speak when there
came a tap at the door and a clerk slipped into the room.

"Will you see Mr. Digby Groat, sir?" he asked.



CHAPTER TWO


MR. SALTER glanced up with a humorous glint in his eye. "Yes," he said
with a nod, and then to Jim as he was about to make a hurried exit, "you
can wait, Steele. Mr. Groat wrote in his letter that he wanted to see
the deeds, and you may have to conduct him to the strong-room."

Jim Steele said nothing.

Presently the clerk opened the door and a young man walked in.

Jim had seen him before and had liked him less every time he had met
him. The oblong sallow face, with its short black moustache, the sleepy
eyes, and rather large chin and prominent ears, he could have painted,
if he were an artist, with his eyes shut. And yet Digby Groat was
good-looking. Even Jim could not deny that. He was a credit to his
valet. From the top of his pomaded head to his patent shoes he was an
exquisite. His morning coat was of the most fashionable cut and fitted
him perfectly. One could have used the silk hat he carried in his hand
as a mirror, and as he came into the room exuding a delicate aroma of
Quelques Fleurs, Jim's nose curled. He hated men who scented themselves,
however daintily the process was carried out.

Digby Groat looked from the lawyer to Steele with that languid, almost
insolent look in his dark eyes, which the lawyer hated as much as his
secretary.

"Good morning, Salter," he said.

He took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and, dusting a chair, sat
down uninvited, resting his lemon-gloved hands upon a gold-headed ebony
cane.

"You know Mr. Steele, my secretary," said Salter.

The other nodded his glossy head.

"Oh, yes, he's a Victoria Cross person, isn't he?" he asked wearily. "I
suppose you find it very dull here, Steele? A place like this would bore
me to death."

"I suppose it would," said Jim, "but if you'd had four years' excitement
of war, you would welcome this place as a calm haven of rest."

"I suppose so," said the other shortly. He was not too well pleased by
Jim's reference to the fact that he had escaped the trials of war.

"Now, Dr. Groat--" but the other stopped him with a gesture.

"Please don't call me 'doctor,'" he said with a pained expression. "The
fact that I have been through the medical schools and have gained my
degrees in surgery is one which I wish you would forget. I qualified for
my own amusement, and if people get into the habit of thinking of me as
a doctor, I shall be called up all hours of the night by all sorts of
wretched patients."

It was news to Jim that this sallow dandy had graduated in medicines.

"I came to see those Lakeside leases, Salter," Groat went on. "I have
had an offer--I should say, my mother has had an offer--from a syndicate
which is erecting an hotel upon her property. I understand there is some
clause in the lease which prevents building operations of that
character. If so, it was beastly thoughtless of old Danton to acquire
such a property."

"Mr. Danton did nothing either thoughtless or beastly thoughtless," said
Salter quietly, "and if you had mentioned it in your letter, I could
have telephoned you the information and saved your calling. As it is,
Steele will take you to the strong-room, and you can examine the leases
at your leisure."

Groat looked at Jim sceptically.

"Does he know anything about leases?" he asked. "And must I really
descend into your infernal cellar and catch my death of cold? Can't the
leases be brought up for me?"

"If you will go into Mr. Steele's room I dare say he will bring them to
you," said Salter, who did not like his client any more than Jim did.
Moreover, he had a shrewd suspicion that the moment the Groats gained
possession of the Danton fortune, they would find another lawyer to look
after their affairs.

Jim took the keys and returned with an armful of deeds, to discover that
Groat was no longer with his chief.

"I sent him into your room," said Salter. "Take the leases in and
explain them to him. If there's anything you want to know I'll come in."

Jim found the young man in his room. He was examining a book he had
taken from a shelf.

"What does 'dactylology' mean?" he asked, looking round as Jim came in.
"I see you have a book on the subject."

"Finger-prints," said Jim Steele briefly. He hated the calm
proprietorial attitude of the man, and, moreover, Mr. Groat was
examining his own private library.

"Finger-prints, eh?" said Groat, replacing the book. "Are you interested
in finger-prints?"

"A little," said Jim. "Here are the Lakeside leases, Mr. Groat. I made a
sketchy examination of them in the strong-room and there seems to be no
clause preventing the erection of the building you mention."

Groat took the document in his hand and turned it leaf by leaf.

"No," he said at last, and then, putting down the document, "so you're
interested in finger-prints, eh? I didn't know old Salter did a criminal
business."

"He has very little common law practice," said Jim.

"What are these?" asked Groat.

By the side of Jim's desk was a bookshelf filled with thick black
exercise books.

"Those are my private notes," said Jim, and the other looked round with
a sneering smile.

"What the devil have you got to make notes about, I wonder?" he asked,
and before Jim could stop him, he had taken one of the exercise books
down.

"If you don't mind," said Jim firmly, "I would rather you left my
private property alone."

"Sorry, but I thought everything in old Salter's office had to do with
his clients."

"You're not the only client," said Jim. He was not one to lose his
temper, but this insolent man was trying his patience sorely.

"What is it all about?" asked the languid Groat, as he turned one page.

Jim, standing at the other side of the table watching him, saw a touch
of colour come into the man's yellow face. The black eyes hardened and
his languid interest dropped away like a cloak.

"What is this?" he asked sharply. "What the hell are you--"

He checked himself with a great effort and laughed, but the laugh was
harsh and artificial.

"You're a wonderful fellow, Steele," he said with a return to his old
air of insouciance. "Fancy bothering your head about things of that
sort."

He put the book back where he had found it, picked up another of the
leases and appeared to be reading it intently, but Jim, watching him,
saw that he was not reading, even though he turned page after page.

"That is all right," he said at last, putting the lease down and taking
up his top-hat. "Some day perhaps you will come and dine with us,
Steele. I've had rather a stunning laboratory built at the back of our
house in Grosvenor Square. Old Salter called me doctor!" He chuckled
quietly as though at a big joke. "Well, if you come along, I will show
you something that will at least justify the title."

The dark brown eyes were fixed steadily upon Jim as he stood in the
doorway, one yellow-gloved hand on the handle.

"And, by the way, Mr. Steele," he drawled, "your studies are leading you
into a danger zone for which even a second Victoria Cross could not
adequately compensate you."

He closed the door carefully behind him, and Jim Steele frowned after
him.

"What the dickens does he mean?" he asked, and then remembered the
exercise book through which Groat had glanced, and which had had so
strange an effect upon him. He took the book down from the shelf and
turning to the first page, read: "Some notes upon the Thirteen Gang."



CHAPTER THREE


THAT afternoon Jim Steele went into Mr. Salter's office. "I'm going to
tea now, sir," he said.

Mr. Salter glanced up at the solemn-faced clock that ticked audibly on
the opposite wall.

"All right," he grumbled; "but you're a very punctual tea-drinker,
Steele. What are you blushing about--is it a girl?"

"No, sir," said Jim rather loudly. "I sometimes meet a lady at tea,
but--"

"Off you go," said the old man gruffly. "And give her my love."

Jim was grinning, but he was very red, too, when he went down the stairs
into Marlborough Street. He hurried his pace because he was a little
late, and breathed a sigh of relief as he turned into the quiet tea-shop
to find that his table was as yet unoccupied.

As his tall, athletic figure strode through the room to the little
recess overlooking Regent Street, which was reserved for privileged
customers, many heads were turned, for Jim Steele was a splendid figure
of British manhood, and the grey laughing eyes had played havoc in many
a tender heart.

But he was one of those men whose very idealism forbade trifling. He had
gone straight from a public school into the tragic theatre of conflict,
and at an age when most young men were dancing attendance upon women,
his soul was being seared by the red-hot irons of war.

He sat down at the table and the beaming waitress came forward to attend
to his needs.

"Your young lady hasn't come yet, sir," she said.

It was the first time she had made such a reference to Eunice Weldon,
and Jim stiffened.

"The young lady who has tea with me is not my 'young lady,'" he said a
little coldly, and seeing that he had hurt the girl, he added with a
gleam of mirth in those irresistible eyes, "she's your young lady,
really."

"I'm sorry," said the waitress, scribbling on her order pad to hide her
confusion. "I suppose you'll have the usual?"

"I'll have the usual," said Jim gravely, and then with a quick glance at
the door he rose to meet the girl who had at that moment entered.

She was slim of build, straight as a plummet line from chin to toe; she
carried herself with a dignity which was so natural that the men who
haunt the pavement to leer and importune, stood on one side to let her
pass, and then, after a glimpse of her face, cursed their own timidity.
For it was a face Madonna-like in its purity. But a blue-eyed,
cherry-lipped Madonna, vital and challenging. A bud of a girl breaking
into the summer bloom of existence. In those sapphire eyes the beacon
fires of life signalled her womanhood; they were at once a plea and a
warning. Yet she carried the banners of childhood no less triumphantly.
The sensitive mouth, the round, girlish chin, the satin white throat and
clean, transparent skin, unmarked, unblemished, these were the gifts of
youth which were carried forward to the account of her charm.

Her eyes met Jim's and she came forward with outstretched hand.

"I'm late," she said gaily. "We had a tiresome duchess at the studio who
wanted to be taken in seventeen different poses--it is always the plain
people who give the most trouble."

She sat down and stripped her gloves, with a smile at the waitress.

"The only chance that plain people have of looking beautiful is to be
photographed beautifully," said Jim.

Eunice Weldon was working at a fashionable photographer's in Regent
Street. Jim's meeting with her had been in the very room in which they
were now sitting. The hangings at the window had accidentally caught
fire, and Jim, in extinguishing them, had burnt his hand. It was Eunice
Weldon who had dressed the injury.

A service rendered by a man to a woman may not lead very much farther to
a better acquaintance. When a woman helps a man it is invariably the
beginning of a friendship. Women are suspicious of the services which
men give, and yet feel responsible for the man they have helped, even to
the slightest extent.

Since then they had met almost daily and taken tea together. Once Jim
had asked her to go to a theatre, an invitation which she had promptly
but kindly declined. Thereafter he had made no further attempt to
improve their acquaintance.

"And how have you got on with your search for the missing lady?" she
asked, as she spread some jam on the thin bread-and-butter which the
waitress had brought.

Jim's nose wrinkled--a characteristic grimace of his.

"Mr. Salter made it clear to me to-day that even if I found the missing
lady it wouldn't greatly improve matters," he said.

"It would be wonderful if the child had been saved after all," she said.
"Have you ever thought of that possibility?"

He nodded.

"There is no hope of that." he said, shaking his head, "but it would be
wonderful, as you say, and more wonderful," he laughed, "if you were the
missing heiress!"

"And there's no hope of that either." she said, shaking her head. "I'm
the daughter of poor but honest parents, as the story-books say."

"Your father was a South African, wasn't he?"

She nodded.

"Poor daddy was a musician, and mother I can hardly remember, but she
must have been a dear."

"Where were you born?" asked Jim.

She did not answer immediately because she was busy with her jam
sandwich.

"In Cape Town--Rondebosch, to be exact," she said after a while. "Why
are you so keen on finding your long-lost lady?"

"Because I am anxious that the most unmitigated cad in-the world should
not succeed to the Danton millions."

She sat bolt upright.

"The Danton millions?" she repeated slowly. "Then who is your
unmitigated cad? You have never yet mentioned the names of these
people."

This was perfectly true. Jim Steele had not even spoken of his search
until a few days before.

"A man named Digby Groat."

She stared at him aghast.

"Why, what's the matter?" he asked in surprise.

"When you said 'Danton' I remembered Mr. Curley--that is our chief
photographer--saying that Mrs. Groat was the sister of Jonathan Danton?"
she said slowly.

"Do you know the Groats?" he asked quickly.

"I don't know them," she said slowly, "at least, not very well, only--"
she hesitated, "I'm going to be Mrs. Groat's secretary."

He stared at her.

"You never told me this," he said, and as she dropped her eyes to her
plate, he realized that he had made a faux pas. "Of course," he said
hurriedly, "there's no reason why you should tell me, but--"

"It only happened to-day," she said. "Mr. Groat has had some photographs
taken--his mother came with him to the studio. She's been several times,
and I scarcely noticed them until to-day, when Mr. Curley called me into
the office and said that Mrs. Groat was in need of a secretary and that
it was a very good position; £5 a week, which is practically all profit,
because I should live in the house."

"When did Mrs. Groat decide that she wanted a secretary?" asked Jim, and
it was her turn to stare.

"I don't know. Why do you ask that?"

"She was at our office a month ago," said Jim, "and Mr. Salter suggested
that she should have a secretary to keep her accounts in order. She said
then she hated the idea of having anybody in the house who was neither a
servant nor a friend of the family."

"Well, she's changed her views now," smiled the girl.

"This means that we shan't meet at tea any more. When are you going?"

"To-morrow," was the discouraging reply.

He went back to his office more than a little dispirited. Something deep
and vital seemed to have gone out of his life.

"You're in love, you fool," he growled to himself.

He opened the big diary which it was his business to keep and slammed
down the covers savagely.

Mr. Salter had gone home. He always went home early, and Jim lit his
pipe and began to enter up the day's transactions from the scribbled
notes which his chief had left on his desk.

He had made the last entry and was making a final search of the desk for
some scrap which be might have overlooked.

Mr. Salter's desk was usually tidy, but he had a habit of concealing
important memoranda, and Jim turned over the law books on the table in a
search for any scribbled memo he might have missed. He found between two
volumes a thin gilt-edged notebook, which he did not remember having
seen before. He opened it to discover that it was a diary for the year
1901. Mr. Salter was in the habit of making notes for his own private
reading, using a queer legal shorthand which no clerk had ever been able
to decipher. The entries in the diary were in these characters.

Jim turned the leaves curiously, wondering how so methodical a man as
the lawyer had left a private diary visible. He knew that in the big
green safe in the lawyer's office were stacks of these books, and
possibly the old man had taken one out to refresh his memory. The
writing was Greek to Jim, so that he felt no compunction in turning the
pages, filled as they were with indecipherable and meaningless scrawls,
punctuated now and again with a word in longhand.

He stopped suddenly, for under the heading "June 4th" was quite a long
entry. It seemed to have been written in subsequently to the original
shorthand entry, for it was in green ink. This almost dated the
inscription. Eighteen months before, an oculist had suggested to Mr.
Salter, who suffered from an unusual form of astigmatism, that green ink
would be easier for him to read, and ever since then he had used no
other.

Jim took in the paragraph before he realized that he was committing an
unpardonable act in reading his employers' private notes.

"One month imprisonment with hard labour. Holloway Prison. Released July
2nd. Madge Benson (this word was underlined), 14, Palmer's Terrace,
Paddington. 74, Highcliffe Gardens, Margate. Long enquiries with boatman
who owned Saucy Belle. No further trace--"

"What on earth does that mean?" muttered Jim. "I must make a note of
that."

He realized now that he was doing something which might be regarded as
dishonourable, but he was so absorbed in the new clues that he overcame
his repugnance.

Obviously, this entry referred to the missing Lady Mary. Who the woman
Madge Benson was, what the reference to Holloway Gaol meant, he would
discover.

He made a copy of the entry in the diary at the back of a card, went
back to his room, locked the door of his desk and went home, to think
out some plan of campaign.

He occupied a small flat in a building overlooking Regent's Park. It is
true that his particular flat overlooked nothing but the backs of other
houses, and a deep cutting through which were laid the lines of the
London, Midland and Scottish Railway--he could have dropped a penny on
the carriages as they passed, so near was the line. But the rent of the
flat was only one-half of that charged for those in a more favourable
position. And his flat was smaller than any. He had a tiny private
income, amounting to two or three pounds a week, and that, with his
salary, enabled him to maintain himself in something like comfort. The
three rooms he occupied were filled with priceless old furniture that he
had saved from the wreckage of his father's home, when that easy-going
man had died, leaving just enough to settle his debts, which were many.

Jim had got out of the lift on the fourth floor and had put the key in
the lock when he heard the door on the opposite side of the landing
open, and turned round.

The elderly woman who came out wore the uniform of a nurse, and she
nodded pleasantly.

"How is your patient, nurse?" asked Jim.

"She's very well, sir, or rather as well as you could expect a bedridden
lady to be," said the woman with a smile. "She's greatly obliged to you
for the books you sent in to her."

"Poor soul," said Jim sympathetically. "It must be terrible not to be
able to go out."

The nurse shook her head.

"I suppose it is," she said, "but Mrs. Fane doesn't seem to mind. You
get used to it after seven years."

A "rat-tat" above made her lift her eyes.

"There's the post," she said. "I thought it had gone. I'd better wait
till he comes down."

The postman at Featherdale Mansions was carried by the lift to the sixth
floor and worked his way to the ground floor. Presently they heard his
heavy feet coming down and he loomed in sight.

"Nothing for you, sir," he said to Jim, glancing at the bundle of
letters in his hand.

"Miss Madge Benson--that's you, nurse, isn't it?"

"That's right," said the woman briskly, and took the letter from his
hand, then with a little nod to Jim she went downstairs.

Madge Benson! The name that had appeared in Salter's diary!



CHAPTER FOUR


"I'm sick to death of hearing your views on the subject, mother," said
Mr. Digby Groat, as he helped himself to a glass of port. "It is
sufficient for you that I want the girl to act as your secretary.
Whether you give her any work to do or not is a matter of indifference
to me. Whatever you do, you must not leave her with the impression that
she is brought here for any other purpose than to write your letters and
deal with your correspondence."

The woman who sat at the other side of the table looked older than she
was. Jane Groat was over sixty, but there were people who thought she
was twenty years more than that. Her yellow face was puckered and lined,
her blue-veined hands, folded now on her lap, were gnarled and ugly.
Only the dark brown eyes held their brightness undimmed. Her figure was
bent and there was about her a curious, cringing, frightened look which
was almost pitiable. She did not look at her son--she seldom looked at
anybody.

"She'll spy, she'll pry," she moaned.

"Shut up about the girl!" he snarled, "and now we've got a minute to
ourselves, I'd like to tell you something, mother."

Her uneasy eyes went left and right, but avoided him. There was a menace
in his tone with which she was all too familiar.

"Look at this."

He had taken from his pocket something that sparkled and glittered in
the light of the table lamp.

"What is it?" she whined without looking.

"It is a diamond bracelet," he said sternly. "And it is the property of
Lady Waltham. We were staying with the Walthams for the week-end. Look
at it!"

His voice was harsh and grating, and dropping her head she began to weep
painfully.

"I found that in your room," he said, and his suave manner was gone.
"You old thief!" he hissed across the table, "can't you break yourself
of that habit?"

"It looked so pretty," she gulped, her tears trickling down her withered
face. "I can't resist the temptation when I see pretty things."

"I suppose yon know that Lady Waltham's maid has been arrested for
stealing this, and will probably go to prison for six months?"

"I couldn't resist the temptation," she snivelled, and he threw the
bracelet on the table with a growl.

"I'm going to send it back to the woman and tell them it must have been
packed away by mistake in your bag. I'm not doing it to get this girl
out of trouble, but to save myself from a lot of unpleasantness."

"I know why you're bringing this girl into the house," she sobbed; "it
is to spy on me."

His lips curled in a sneer.

"To spy on you!" he said contemptuously, and laughed as he rose. "Now
understand," his voice was harsh again, "you've got to break yourself of
this habit of picking up things that you like. I'm expecting to go into
Parliament at the next election, and I'm not going to have my position
jeopardized by an old fool of a kleptomaniac. If there's something wrong
with your brain," he added significantly, "I've a neat little laboratory
at the back of this house where that might be attended to."

She shrank back in terror, her face grey.

"You--you wouldn't do it--my own son!" she stammered. "I'm all right,
Digby; it's only--"

He smiled, but it was not a pleasant smile to see.

"Probably there is a little compression," he said evenly, "some tiny
malgrowth of bone that is pressing on a particular cell. We could put
that right for you, mother--"

But she had thrown her chair aside and fled from the room before he had
finished. He picked up the jewel, looked at it contemptuously and thrust
it into his pocket. Her curious thieving propensities he had known for a
very long time and had fought to check them, and as he thought,
successfully.

He went to his library, a beautiful apartment, with its silver grate,
its costly rosewood bookshelves and its rare furnishings, and wrote a
letter to Lady Waltham. He wrapped this about the bracelet, and having
packed letter and jewel carefully in a small box, rang the bell. A
middle-aged man with a dark forbidding face answered the summons.

"Deliver this to Lady Waltham at once, Jackson," said Digby. "The old
woman is going out to a concert to-night, by the way, and when she's out
I want you to make a very thorough search of her room."

The man shook his head. "I've already looked carefully, Mr. Groat," he
said, "and I've found nothing."

He was on the point of going when Digby called him back.

"You've told the housekeeper to see to Miss Weldon's room?"

"Yes, sir," was the reply. "She wanted to put her on the top floor
amongst the servants, but I stopped her."

"She must have the best room in the house," said Groat. "See that there
are plenty of flowers in the room and put in the bookcase and the
Chinese table that are in my room."

The man nodded.

"What about the key, sir?" he asked after some hesitation.

"The key?" Digby looked up. "The key of her room?"

The man nodded.

"Do you want the door to lock?" he asked significantly.

Mr. Groat's lips curled in a sneer.

"You're a fool," he said. "Of course, I want the door to lock. Put bolts
on if necessary."

The man looked his surprise. There was evidently between these two
something more than the ordinary relationship which existed between
employer and servant. "Have you ever run across a man named Steele?"
asked Digby, changing the subject.

Jackson shook his head.

"Who is he?" he asked.

"He is a lawyer's clerk. Give him a look up when you've got some time to
spare. No, you'd better not go--ask--ask Bronson. He lives at
Featherdale Mansions."

The man nodded, and Digby went down the steps to the waiting electric
brougham.


Eunice Weldon had packed her small wardrobe and the cab was waiting at
the door. She had no regrets at leaving the stuffy untidy lodging which
had been her home for two years, and her farewell to her dishevelled
landlady, who seemed always to have dressed in a violent hurry, was soon
over. She could not share Jim Steele's dislike of her new employers. She
was too young to regard a new job as anything but the beginning of an
adventure which held all sorts of fascinating possibilities. She sighed
as she realized that the little tea-table talks which had been so
pleasant a feature of her life were now to come to an end, and
yet--surely he would make some effort to see her again?

She would have hours--perhaps half-days to herself, and then she
remembered with dismay that she did not know his address! But he would
know hers. That thought comforted her, for she wanted to see him again.
She wanted to see him more than she had ever dreamt she would. She could
close her eyes, and his handsome face, those true smiling eyes of his,
would look into hers. The swing of his shoulders as he walked, the sound
of his voice as he spoke--every characteristic of his was present in her
mind.

And the thought that she might not see him again!

"I will see him--I will!" she murmured, as the cab stopped before the
imposing portals of No. 409, Grosvenor Square.

She was a little bewildered by the army of servants who came to her
help, and just a little pleased by the deference they showed to her.

"Mrs. Groat will receive you, miss," said a swarthy-looking man, whose
name she afterwards learnt was Jackson.

She was ushered into a small back drawing-room which seemed poorly
furnished to the girl's eye, but to Mrs. Groat was luxury.

The old woman resented the payment of a penny that was spent on
decoration and furniture, and only the fear of her son prevented her
from disputing every account which was put before her for settlement.
The meeting was a disappointment to Eunice. She had not seen Mrs. Groat
except in the studio, where she was beautifully dressed. She saw now a
yellow-faced old woman, shabbily attired, who looked at her with dark
disapproving eyes.

"Oh, so you're the young woman who is going to be my secretary, are
you?" she quavered dismally. "Have they shown you your room?"

"Not yet, Mrs. Groat," said the girl.

"I hope you will be comfortable," said Mrs. Groat in a voice that
suggested that she had no very great hopes for anything of the sort.

"When do I begin my duties?" asked Eunice, conscious of a chill.

"Oh, any time," said the old woman off-handedly.

She peered up at the girl.

"You're pretty," she said grudgingly, and Eunice flushed. Somehow that
compliment sounded like an insult. "I suppose that's why," said Mrs.
Groat absently.

"Why what?" asked the girl gently.

She thought the woman was weak of intellect and had already lost
whatever enthusiasm she had for her new position.

"Nothing," said the old woman, and with a nod dismissed her.

The room into which Eunice was shown left her speechless for a while.

"Are you sure this is mine?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes, miss," said the housekeeper with a sidelong glance at the girl.

"But this is beautiful!" said Eunice.

The room would have been remarkable if it had been in a palace. The
walls were panelled in brocade silk and the furniture was of the most
beautiful quality. A small French bed, carved and gilded elaborately,
invited repose. Silk hangings hung at either side of the head, and
through the French windows she saw a balcony gay with laden
flower-boxes. Under her feet was a carpet of blue velvet pile that
covered the whole of the room. She looked round open-mouthed at the
magnificence of her new home; The dressing-table was an old French model
in the Louis Quinze style, inlaid with gold, and the matching wardrobe
must have been worth a fortune. Near one window was a lovely
writing-table, and a well-filled bookcase would almost be within reach
of her hand when she lay in bed.

"Are you sure this is my room?" she asked again.

"Yes, miss," said the housekeeper, "and this," she opened a door, "is
your bathroom. There is a bath to every room. Mr. Groat had the house
reconstructed when he came into it."

The girl opened one of the French windows and stepped on to the balcony
which ran along to a square and larger balcony built above the porch of
the house. This, she discovered, opened from a landing above the stairs.

She did not see Mrs. Groat again that afternoon, and when she inquired
she discovered that the old lady was lying down with a bad headache. Nor
was she to meet Digby Groat. Her first meal was eaten in solitude.

"Mr. Groat has not come back from the country," explained Jackson, who
waited on her. "Are you comfortable, miss?"

"Quite, thank you," she said.

There was an air about this man which she did not like. It was not that
he failed in respect, or that he was in any way familiar, but there was
something proprietorial in his attitude. It almost seemed as though he
had a financial interest in the place, and she was glad when her meal
was finished. She went straight up to her room a little dis-satisfied
that she had not met her employer. There were many things which she
wanted to ask Mrs. Groat; and particularly did she wish to know what
days she would be free.

Presently she switched out the light, and opening the French windows,
stepped out into the cool, fragrant night. The after-glow of the sun
still lingered in the sky. The square was studded with lights; an almost
incessant stream of motor-car traffic passed under her window, for
Grosvenor Square is the short cut between Oxford Street and Piccadilly.

The stars spangled the clear sky with a million specks of quivering
light. Against the jewelled robe of the northern heavens, the roofs and
steeples and stacks of London had a mystery and wonder which only the
light of day could dispel. And in the majestic solitude of the night,
Eunice's heart seemed to swell until she could scarcely breathe. It was
not the magic of stars that brought the blood flaming to her face; nor
the music of the trees. It was the flash of understanding that one half
of her, one splendid fragment of the pattern on which her life was cut,
was somewhere there in the darkness asleep perhaps--thinking of her, she
prayed. She saw his face with startling distinctness, saw the tender
kindness of his eyes, felt on her moist palm the pressure of those
strong brown fingers....

With a sigh which was half a sob, she closed the window and drew the
silken curtains, shutting out the immortal splendours of nature from her
view.

Five minutes later she was asleep.

How long she slept she did not know. It must have been hours, she
thought. The stream of traffic had ceased and there was no sound from
outside, save the distant hoot of a motor-horn. The room was in
darkness, and yet she was conscious that somebody was there!

She sat up in bed and a cold shiver ran down her spine. Somebody was in
the room! She reached out to turn on the light and could have shrieked,
for she touched a hand, a cold, small hand that was resting on the
bedside table. For a second she was paralysed and then the hand was
suddenly withdrawn. There was a rustle of curtain rings and the
momentary glimpse of a figure against the lesser gloom of the night,
and, shaking in every limb, she leapt from the bed and switched on the
light. The room was empty, but the French window was ajar.

And then she saw on the table by her side, a grey card. Picking it up
with shaking hands she read:

"One who loves you, begs you for your life and honour's sake to leave
this house."

It bore no other signature than a small blue hand. She dropped the card
on the bed and stood staring at it for a while, and then, slipping into
her dressing-gown, she unlocked the door of her room and went out into
the passage. A dim light was burning at the head of the stairs. She was
terror-stricken, hardly knew what she was doing, and she seemed to fly
down the stairs.

She must find somebody, some living human creature, some reality to
which she could take hold. But the house was silent. The hall lamp was
burning, and by its light she saw the old clock and was dimly conscious
that she could hear its solemn ticking. It was three o'clock. There must
be somebody awake in the house. The servants might still be up, she
thought wildly, and ran down a passage to what she thought was the
entrance to the servants' hall. She opened a door and found herself in
another passage illuminated by one light at the farther end, where
further progress was arrested by a white door. She raced along until she
came to the door and tried to open it. There was no handle and it was a
queer door. It was not made of wood, but of padded canvas.

And then as she stood bewildered, there came from behind the padded door
a squeal of agony, so shrill, so full of pain, that her blood seemed to
turn to ice.

Again it shrieked, and turning she fled back the way she had come,
through the hall to the front door. Her trembling fingers fumbled at the
key and presently the lock snapped and the door flew open. She staggered
out on to the broad steps of the house and stopped, for a man was
sitting on the head of those steps.

He turned his face as the door opened, and in the light from the hall he
was revealed. It was Jim Steele!



CHAPTER FIVE


JIM came stumbling to his feet, staring in blank amazement at the
unexpected apparition, and for a moment thus they stood, facing one
another, the girl stricken dumb with fear and surprise.

She thought he was part of a dreadful dream, an image that was conjured
by her imagination and would presently vanish.

"Jim--Mr. Steele!" she gasped.

In a stride he was by her bide, his arm about her shoulders.

"What is wrong?" he asked quickly, and in his anxiety his voice was
almost harsh.

She shuddered and dropped her face on his breast.

"Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful!" she whispered, and he heard the note of
horror in her low voice.

"May I ask what is the meaning of this?" demanded a suave voice, and
with a start the girl turned.

A man was standing in the doorway and for a second she did not recognize
him. Even Jim, who had seen Digby Groat at close quarters, did not know
him in his unusual attire. He was dressed in a long white overall which
reached from his throat to his feet; over his head was a white cap which
fitted him so that not a particle of his hair could be seen. Bands of
white elastic held his cuffs dose to his wrists and both hands were
hidden in brown rubber gloves.

"May I again ask you, Miss Weldon, why you are standing on my doorstep
in the middle of the night, attired in clothes which I do not think are
quite suitable for street wear? Perhaps you will come inside and
explain," he said stepping back. "Grosvenor Square is not quite used to
this form of midnight entertainment."

Still clutching Jim's arm, the girl went slowly back to the passage and
Digby shut the door.

"And Mr. Steele, too," said Digby with ironic surprise, "you're a very
early caller."

Jim said nothing. His attention was wholly devoted to the girl. She was
trembling from head to foot, and he found a chair for her.

"There are a few explanations due," he said coolly, "but I rather think
they are from you, Mr. Groat."

"From me?'" Mr. Groat was genuinely unprepared for that demand.

"So far as my presence is concerned, that can be explained in a minute,"
said Jim. "I was outside the house a few moments ago when the door swung
open and Miss Weldon ran out in a state of abject terror. Perhaps you
will tell me, Mr. Groat, why this lady is reduced to such a condition?"

There was a cold menace in his tone which Digby Groat did not like to
hear.

"I have not the slightest idea what it is all about," he said. "I have
been working in my laboratory for the last half-hour, and the first
intimation I had that anything was wrong was when I heard the door
open."

The girl had recovered now, and some of the colour had returned to her
face, yet her voice shook as she recited the incidents of the night,
both men listening attentively.

Jim took particular notice of the man's attitude, and he was satisfied
in his mind that Digby Groat was as much in ignorance of the visit to
the girl's room as he himself. When she had finished, groat nodded.

"The terrifying cry you heard from my laboratory," he smiled, "is easily
explained. Nobody was being hurt; at least, if he was being hurt, it was
for his own good. When I came back to my house to-night, I found my
little dog had a piece of glass in its paw, and I was extracting it."

She drew a sigh of relief.

"I'm so sorry I made such a fuss," she said penitently, "but I--I was
frightened."

"You are sure somebody was in your room?" asked Digby.

"Absolutely certain." She had not told him about the card.

"They came through the French window from the balcony?" She nodded. "May
I see your room?"

She hesitated for a moment.

"I will go in first to tidy it," she said. She remembered the card was
on the bed, and she was particularly anxious that it should not be read.

Uninvited Jim Steele followed Digby upstairs into the beautiful room.
The magnificence of the room, its hangings and costly furniture, did not
fail to impress him, but the impression he received was not favourable
to Digby Groat.

"Yes, the window is ajar. You are sure you fastened it?"

The girl nodded.

"Yes. I left both fanlights down to get the air," she pointed above,
"but I fastened these doors. I distinctly remember that."

"But if this person came in from the balcony," said Digby, "how did he
or she get there?"

He opened the French door and stepped out into the night, walking along
the balcony until he came to the square space above the porch. There was
another window here which gave on to the landing at the head of the
stairs. He tried it--it was fastened. Coming back through the girl's
room he discovered that not only was the catch in its socket, but the
key was turned.

"Strange," he muttered.

His first impression had been that it was his mother who, with her
strange whims, had been searching the room for some trumpery trinket
which had taken her fancy. But the old woman was not sufficiently agile
to climb a balcony, nor had she the courage to make a midnight foray.

"My own impression is that you dreamt it. Miss Weldon," he said, with a
smile. "And now I advise you to go to bed and to sleep. I'm sorry that
you've had this unfortunate introduction to my house."

He had made no reference to the providential appearance of Jim Steele,
nor did he speak of this until they had said good night to the girl and
had passed down the stairs into the hall again.

"Rather a coincidence, your being here, Mr. Steele," he said. "What were
you doing? Studying dactylology?"

"Something like that," said Jim coolly.

Mr. Digby Groat searched for a cigarette in his pocket and lit it.

"I should have thought that your work was so arduous that you would not
have time for early morning strolls in Grosvenor Square."

"Would you really?" said Jim, and then suddenly Digby laughed.

"You're a queer devil," he said. "Come along and see my laboratory."

Jim was anxious to see the laboratory, and the invitation saved him from
the necessity of making further reference to the terrifying cry which
Eunice had heard.

They turned down a long passage through the padded door and came to a
large annexe, the walls of which were of white glazed brick. There was
no window, the light in the daytime being admitted through a glass roof.
Now, however, these were covered by blue blinds and the room owed its
illumination to two powerful lights which hung above a small table. It
was not an ordinary table; its legs were of thin iron, terminating in
rubber-tyred castors. The top was of white enamelled iron, with curious
little screw holds occurring at intervals.

It was not the table so much as the occupant which interested Jim.
Fastened down by two iron bands, one of which was about its neck and one
about the lower portion of its body, its four paws fastened by thin
cords, was a dog, a rough-haired terrier who turned its eyes upon Jim
with an expression of pleading so human that Jim could almost feel the
message that the poor little thing was sending.

"Your dog, eh?" said Jim.

Digby looked at him.

"Yes," he said. "Why?"

"Haven't you finished taking the glass out of his paw?"

"Not quite," said the other coolly.

"By the way, you don't keep him very clean," Jim said.

Digby turned.

"What the devil are you hinting at?" he asked.

"I am merely suggesting that this is not your dog, but a poor stray
terrier which you picked up in the street half an hour ago and enticed
into this house."

"Well?"

"I'd save you further trouble by saying that I saw you pick it up."

Digby's eyes narrowed.

"Oh, you did, did you?" he said softly. "So you were spying on me?"

"Not exactly spying on you," said Jim calmly, "but merely satisfying my
idle curiosity."

His hand fell on the dog and he stroked its ears gently.

Digby laughed.

"Well, if you know that, I might as well tell you that I am going to
evacuate the sensory nerve. I've always been curious to--"

Jim looked round.

"Where is your anaesthetic?" he asked gently, and he was most dangerous
when his voice sank to that soft note.

"Anaesthetic? Good Lord," scoffed the other, "you don't suppose I'm
going to waste money on chloroform for a dog, do you?"

His fingers rested near the poor brute's head and the dog, straining
forward, licked the torturer's hand.

"Filthy little beast!" said Digby, picking up a towel.

He took a thick rubber band, slipped it over the dog's mouth and nose.

"Now lick," he laughed; "I think that will stop his yelping. You're a
bit chicken-hearted, aren't you, Mr. Steele? You don't realize that
medical science advances by its experiments on animals."

"I realize the value of vivisection under certain conditions," said Jim
quietly, "but all decent doctors who experiment on animals relieve them
of their pain before they use the knife; and all doctors, whether they
are decent or otherwise, receive a certificate of permission from the
Board of Trade before they begin their experiments. Where is your
certificate?"

Digby's face darkened.

"Look here, don't you come here trying to bully me," he blustered. "I
brought you here just to show you my laboratory--"

"And if you hadn't brought me in," interrupted Jim. "I should jolly well
have walked in, because I wasn't satisfied with your explanation. Oh,
yes, I know, you're going to tell me that the dog was only frightened
and the yell she heard was when you put that infernal clamp on his neck.
Now, I'll tell you something, Mr. Digby Groat. I'll give you three
minutes to get the clamp off that dog."

Digby's yellow face was puckered with rage.

"And if I don't?" he breathed.

"I'll put you where the dog is," said Jim. "And please don't persuade
yourself that I couldn't do it?"

There was a moment's silence.

"Take the clamps off that dog." said Jim.

Digby looked at him.

For a moment they gazed at one another and there was a look of malignity
in the eyes that dropped before Jim's. Another minute and the dog was
free.

Jim lifted the shivering little animal in his arms and rubbed its bony
head, and Digby watched him glowering, his teeth showing in his rage.

"I'll remember this," he snarled. "By God, you shall rue the day you
ever interfered with me!"

Jim's steady eyes met the man's.

"I have never feared a threat in my life," he said quietly. "I'm not
likely to be scared now. I admit that vivisection is necessary under
proper conditions, but men like you who torture harmless animals from a
sheer lust of cruelty, are bringing discredit upon the noblest of
professions. You hurt in order to satisfy your own curiosity. You have
not the slightest intention of using the knowledge you gain for the
benefit of suffering humanity. When I came into this laboratory," he
said--he was standing at the door as he spoke--"there were two brutes
here. I am leaving the bigger one behind."

He slammed the padded door and walked out into the passage, leaving a
man whose vanity was hurt beyond forgiveness.

Then to his surprise Groat heard Jim's footsteps returning and his
visitor came in.

"Did you close your front door when you went upstairs?"

Digby's eyebrows rose. He forgot for the moment the insult that had been
offered him.

"Yes--why?"

"It is wide open now," said Jim. "I guess your midnight visitor has gone
home."



CHAPTER SIX


IN the cheerful sunlight of the morning all Eunice's fear had vanished
and she felt heartily ashamed of herself that she had made such a
commotion in the night. And yet there was the card. She took it from
under her pillow and read it again, with a puzzled frown. Somebody had
been in the room, but it was not a somebody whom she could regard as an
enemy. Then a thought struck her that made her heart leap. Could it have
been Jim? She shook her head. Somehow she was certain it was not Jim,
and she flushed at the thought. It was not his hand she had touched. She
knew the shape and contour of that. It was warm and firm, almost
electric; that which she had touched had been the hand of somebody who
was old, of that she was sure.

She went down to breakfast to find Groat standing before the fire, a
debonair, perfectly dressed man, who showed no trace of fatigue, though
he had not gone to bed until four o'clock.

He gave her a cheery greeting.

"Good morning, Miss Weldon," he said. "I hope you have recovered from
your nightmare."

"I gave you a lot of trouble," she said with a rueful smile. "I am so
very sorry."

"Nonsense," he said heartily. "I am only glad that our friend Steele was
there to appease you. By the way, Miss Weldon, I owe you an apology. I
told you a lie last night."

She looked at him open-eyed.

"Did you, Mr. Groat?" she said, and then with a laugh, "I am sure it
wasn't a very serious one."

"It was really. I told you that my little dog had a piece of glass in
his paw; the truth was that it wasn't my dog at all, but a dog that I
picked up in the street. I intended making an experiment upon him; you
know I am a doctor."

She shivered.

"Oh, that was the noise?" she asked with a wry little face.

He shook his head.

"No, he was just scared, he hadn't been hurt at all--and in truth I
didn't intend hurting him. Your friend, however, persuaded me to let the
little beggar go."

She drew a long sigh of relief.

"I'm so glad," she said. "I should have felt awful."

He laughed softly as he took his place at the table.

"Steele thought I was going to experiment without chloroform, but that,
of course, was absurd. It is difficult to get the unprofessional man to
realize what an enormous help to medical science these experiments are.
Of course," he said airily, "they are conducted without the slightest
pain to the animal. I should no more think of hurting a little dog than
I should think of hurting you."

"I'm sure you wouldn't," she said warmly.

Digby Groat was a clever man. He knew that Jim would meet the girl again
and would give her his version of the scene in the laboratory. It was
necessary, therefore, that he should get his story in first, for this
girl whom he had brought to the house for his amusement was more lovely
than he had dreamt, and he desired to stand well with her.

Digby, who was a connoisseur in female beauty, had rather dreaded the
morning meal. The beauty of women seldom survives the cruel searchlight
which the grey eastern light throws upon their charms. Love had never
touched him, though many women had come and gone in his life. Eunice
Weldon was a more thrilling adventure, something that would surely
brighten a dreary week or two; an interest to stimulate him until
another stimulation came into sight.

She survived the ordeal magnificently, he thought. The tender texture of
the skin, untouched by an artificial agent, was flawless; the eyes,
bright and vigorous with life, sparkled with health; the hands that lay
upon the table, when she was listening to him, were perfectly and
beautifully moulded.

She on her side was neither attracted nor repelled. Digby Groat was just
a man. One of the thousands of men who pass and repass in the corridor
of life; some seen, some unnoticed, some interesting, some abhorrent.
Some stop to speak, some pass hurriedly by and disappear through strange
doors never to be seen again. He had "stopped to speak," but had he
vanished from sight through one of those doors of mystery she would have
been neither sorry nor glad.

"My mother never comes to breakfast," said Digby halfway through the
meal. "Do you think you will like your work?"

"I don't know what it is yet," she answered, her eyes twinkling.

"Mother is rather peculiar," he said, "and just a little eccentric, but
I think you will be sensible enough to get on with her. And the work
will not be very heavy at first. I am hoping later that you will be able
to assist me in my anthropological classification."

"That sounds terribly important." she said. "What does it mean?"

"I am making a study of faces and heads," he said easily, "and to that
end I have collected thousands of photographs from all parts of the
world. I hope to get a million. It is a science which is very much
neglected in this country. It appears to be the exclusive monopoly of
the Italians. You have probably heard of Mantaganza and Lombroso?"

She nodded.

"They are the great criminal scientists, aren't they?" she said to his
surprise.

"Oh, I see, you know something about it. Yes, I suppose you would call
them criminal scientists."

"It sounds fascinating," she said, looking at him in wonder, "and I
should like to help you if your mother can spare me."

"Oh, she'll spare you," he said.

Her hand lay on the table invitingly near to his, but he did not move.
He was a quick, accurate judge of human nature. He knew that to touch
her would be the falsest of moves. If it had been another woman--yes,
his hand would have closed gently over hers, there would have been a
giggle of embarrassment, a dropping of eyes, and the rest would have
been so easy. But if he had followed that course with her, he knew that
evening would find her gone. He could wait, and she was worth waiting
for. She was gloriously lovely, he thought. Half the pleasure of life
lies in the chase, and the chase is no more than a violent form of
anticipation. Some men find their greatest joy in visions that must
sooner or later materialize, and Digby Groat was one of these.

She looked up and saw his burning eyes fixed on her and flushed. With an
effort she looked again and he was a normal man.

Was it an illusion of hers, she wondered?



CHAPTER SEVEN


THE first few days of her engagement were very trying to Eunice Weldon.

Mrs. Groat did not overwork her, indeed Eunice's complaint was that the
old woman refused to give her any work at all.

On the third day at breakfast she spoke on the matter to Digby Groat.

"I'm afraid I am not very much use here, Mr. Groat," she said; "it is a
sin to take your money."

"Why?" he asked quickly.

"Your mother prefers to write her own letters," she said, "and really
those don't seem to be very many!"

"Nonsense," he said sharply, and seeing that be had startled the girl he
went on in a much gentler tone: "You see, my mother is not used to
service of any kind. She's one of those women who prefer to do things
for themselves, and she has simply worn herself to a shadow because of
this independence of hers. There are hundreds of jobs that she could
give you to do! You must make allowance for old women, Miss Weldon. They
take a long time to work up confidence in strangers."

"I realize that," she nodded.

"Poor mother is rather bewildered by her own magnificence," he smiled,
"but I am sure when she gets to know you, you will find your days very
fully occupied."

He left the morning-room and went straight into his mother's little
parlour, and found her in her dressing-room crouching over a tiny fire.
He closed the door carefully and walked across to her and she looked up
with a little look of fear in her eyes.

"Why aren't you giving this girl work to do?" he asked sharply.

"There's nothing for her to do," she wailed. "My dear, she is such an
expense, and I don't like her."

"You'll give her work to do from to-day," he said, "and don't let me
tell you again!"

"She'll only spy on me," said Mrs. Groat fretfully, "and I never write
letters, you know that. I haven't written a letter for years until you
made me write that note to the lawyer."

"You'll find work for her to do," repeated Digby Groat. "Do you
understand? Get all the accounts that we've had for the past two years,
and let her sort them out and make a list of them. Give her your bank
account. Let her compare the cheques with the counterfoils. Give her
anything. Damn you! You don't want me to tell you every day, do you?"

"I'll do it, I'll do it, Digby," she said hurriedly. "You're very hard
on me, my boy. I hate this house," she said with sudden vehemence. "I
hate the people in it. I looked into her room this morning and it is
like a palace. It must have cost us thousands of pounds to furnish that
room, and all for a work-girl--it is sinful!"

"Never mind about that," he said. "Find something to occupy her time for
the next fortnight."

The girl was surprised that morning when Mrs. Groat sent for her.

"I've one or two little tasks for you, miss--I never remember your
name."

"Eunice," said the girl, smiling.

"I don't like the name of Eunice," grumbled the old woman. "The last one
was Lola! A foreign girl. I was glad when she left. Haven't you got
another name?"

"Weldon is my other name," said the girl good-humouredly, "and you can
call me 'Weldon' or 'Eunice' or anything you like, Mrs. Groat."

The old woman sniffed.

She had in front of her a big drawer packed with cheques which had come
back from the bank.

"Go through these," she said, "and do something with them. I don't know
what."

"Perhaps you want me to fasten them to the counterfoils," said the girl.

"Yes, yes, that's it," said Mrs. Groat. "You don't want to do it here,
do you? Yes, you'd better do it here," she went on hastily. "I don't
want the servants prying into my accounts."

Eunice put the drawer on the table, gathered together the stubs of the
cheque books, and with a little bottle of gum began her work, the old
woman watching her.

When, for greater comfort, the girl took off the gold wrist-watch which
she wore, a present from her dead father, Mrs. Groat's greedy eyes
focussed upon it and a look of animation came into the dull face.

It looked like being a long job, but Eunice was a methodical worker, and
when the gong in the hall sounded for lunch, she had finished her
labours.

"There, Mrs. Groat," she said with a smile, "I think that is the lot.
All your cheques are here."

She put away the drawer and looked round for her watch, but it had
disappeared. It was at that moment that Digby Groat opened the door and
walked in.

"Hullo, Miss Weldon," he said with his engaging smile. "I've come back
for lunch. Did you hear the gong, mother? You ought to have let Miss
Weldon go."

But the girl was looking round.

"Have you lost anything?" asked Digby quickly.

"My little watch. I put it down a few minutes ago, and it seems to have
vanished," she said.

"Perhaps it is in the drawer," stammered the old woman, avoiding her
son's eye.

Digby looked at her for a moment, then turned to Eunice.

"Will you please ask Jackson to order my car for three o'clock?" he
asked gently.

He waited until the door closed behind the girl and then: "Where is that
watch?" he asked.

"The watch, Digby?" quavered the old woman.

"The watch, curse you!" he said, his face black with rage.

She put her hand into her pocket reluctantly and produced it.

"It was so pretty," she snivelled, and he snatched it from her hand.

A minute later Eunice returned.

"We have found your watch," he said with a smile. "You had dropped it
under the table."

"I thought I'd looked there," she said. "It is not a valuable watch, but
it serves a double purpose."

She was preparing to put it on.

"What other purpose than to tell you the time?" asked Digby.

"It hides a very ugly scar," she said, and extended her wrist. "Look."
She pointed to a round red mark, the size of a sixpence. It looked like
a recent burn.

"That's queer," said Digby, looking, and then he heard a strangled sound
from his mother. Her face was twisted and distorted, her eyes were
glaring at the gilt's wrist.

"Digby, Digby!" Her voice was a thin shriek of sound. "Oh, my God!"

And she fell across the table and before he could reach her, had dropped
to the floor in an inert heap.

Digby stooped over his mother and then turned his head slowly to the
frightened girl.

"It was the scar on your hand that did it," he said slowly. "What does
it mean?"



CHAPTER EIGHT


THE story of the scar and the queer effect it had produced on Mrs. Groat
puzzled Jim almost as much as it had worried the girl. He offered his
wild theory again and she laughed.

"Of course I shall leave," she said, "but I must stay until all Mrs.
Groat's affairs are cleared up. There are heaps of letters and documents
of all kinds which I have to index," she said, "at least Mr. Groat told
me there were. And it seems so unfair to run away whilst the poor old
lady is so ill. As to my being the young lady of fortune, that is
absurd. My parents were South Africans. Jim, you are too romantic to be
a good detective."

He indulged in the luxury of a taxi to carry her back to Grosvenor
Square, and this time went with her to the house, taking his leave at
the door.

Whilst they were talking on the step, the door opened and a man was
shown out by Jackson. He was a short, thick-set man with an enormous
brown beard.

Apparently Jackson did not see the two people on the step, at any rate
he did not look toward them, but said in a loud voice:

"Mr. Groat will not be home until seven o'clock, Mr. Villa."

"Tell him I called," said the bearded man with a booming voice, and
stepped past Jim, apparently oblivious to his existence.

"Who is the gentleman with the whiskers?" asked Jim, but the girl could
give him no information.

Jim was not satisfied with the girl's explanation of her parentage.
There was an old school-friend of his in business in Cape Town, as an
architect, and on his return to his office, Jim sent him a long
reply-paid cablegram. He felt that he was chasing shadows, but at
present there was little else to chase, and he went home to his flat a
little oppressed by the hopelessness of his task.

The next day he had a message from the girl saying that she could not
come out that afternoon, and the day was a blank, the more so because
that afternoon he received a reply to his cable. The reply destroyed any
romantic dreams he might have had as to Eunice Weldon's association with
the Danton millions. The message was explicit. Eunice May Weldon had
been born at Rondebosch; on the l2th June, 1899; her parents were Henry
William Weldon, musician, and Margaret May Weldon. She had been
christened at the Wesleyan Chapel at Rondebosch, and both her parents
were dead.

The final two lines of the cable puzzled him:

"Similar inquiries made about parentage Eunice Weldon six months ago by
Selenger & Co., Brade Street Buildings."

"Selenger & Co.," said Jim thoughtfully. Here was a new mystery. Who
else was making inquiries about the girl? He opened a Telephone
Directory and looked up the name. There were several Selengers, but none
of Brade Street Buildings. He put on his hat, and hailing a taxi, drove
to Brade Street, which was near the Bank, and with some difficulty found
Brade Street Buildings. It was a moderately large block of offices, and
on the indicator at the door he discovered Selenger & Co. occupied No. 6
room on the ground floor.

The office was locked and apparently unoccupied. He sought the
hall-keeper.

"No, sir," said that man, shaking his head. "Selengers' aren't open. As
a matter of fact, nobody's ever there except at night."

"At night," said Jim, "that's an extraordinary time to do business."

The hall-keeper looked at him unfavourably.

"I suppose it is the way they do their business, sir," he said
pointedly.

It was some time before Jim could appease the ruffled guardian, and then
he learnt that Selengers were evidently privileged tenants. A complaint
from Selengers had brought the dismissal of his predecessor, and the
curiosity of a house-keeper as to what Selengers did so late at night
had resulted in that lady being summarily discharged.

"I think they deal with foreign stock," said the porter. "A lot of
cables come here, but I've never seen the gentleman who runs the office.
He comes in by the side door."

Apparently there was another entrance to Selengers' office, an entrance
reached by a small courtyard opening from a side passage. Selengers were
the only tenants who had this double means of egress and exit, and also,
it seemed, they were the only tenants of the building who were allowed
to work all night.

"Even the stockbrokers on the second floor have to shut down at eight
o'clock," explained the porter, "and that's pretty hard on them, because
when the market is booming, there's work that would keep them going
until twelve o'clock. But at eight o'clock, it is 'out you go' with the
company that owns this building. The rents aren't high and there are
very few offices to be had in the city nowadays. They have always been
very strict, even in Mr. Danton's time."

"Mr. Danton's time," said Jim quickly. "Did he own this building? Do you
mean Danton the shipowner millionaire?"

The man nodded.

"Yes, sir," he said, rather pleased with himself that he had created a
sensation. "He sold it, or got rid of it in some way years ago. I happen
to know, because I used to be an office-boy in these very buildings, and
I remember Mr. Danton--he had an office on the first floor, and a
wonderful office it was, too."

"Who occupies it now?"

"A foreign gentleman named Levenski. He's a fellow who's never here,
either."

Jim thought the information so valuable that he went to the length of
calling up Mr. Salter at his home. But Mr. Salter knew nothing whatever
about the Brade Street Buildings, except that it had been a private
speculation of Danton's. It had come into his hands as the result of the
liquidation of the original company, and he had disposed of the property
without consultation with Salter & Salter.

It was another blank wall.



CHAPTER NINE


"I SHALL not be in the office to-day, sir. I have several appointments
which may keep me occupied," said Jim Steele, and Mr. Salter sniffed.

"Business, Steele?" he asked politely.

"Not all of them, sir," said Jim. He had a shrewd idea that Mr. Salter
guessed what that business was.

"Very good," said Salter, putting on his glasses and addressing himself
to the work on his desk.

"There is one thing I wanted to ask, and that is partly why I came,
because I could have explained my absence by telephone."

Mr. Salter put down his pen patiently.

"I cannot understand why this fellow Groat has so many Spanish friends,"
said Jim. "For example, there is a girl he sees a great deal, the
Comtessa Manzana; you have heard of her, sir?"

"I see her name in the papers occasionally," said Mr. Salter.

"And there are several Spaniards he knows. One in particular named
Villa. Groat speaks Spanish fluently, too."

"That is curious," said Mr. Salter, leaning back in his chair. "His
grandfather had a very large number of Spanish friends. I think that
somewhere in the background there may have been some Spanish family
connection. Old man Danton, that is, Jonathan Danton's father, made most
of his money in Spain and in Central America, and was always
entertaining a houseful of grandees. They were a strange family, the
Dantons. They lived in little water-tight compartments, and I believe on
the day of his death Jonathan Danton hadn't spoken more than a dozen
words to his sister for twenty years. They weren't bad friends, if you
understand. It was just the way of the Dantons. There are other families
whom I know who do exactly the same thing. A reticent family, with a
keen sense of honour."

"Didn't Grandfather Danton leave Mrs. Groat any money? She was one of
his two children, wasn't she?"

Septimus Salter nodded.

"He never left her a penny," he said. "She practically lived on the
charity of her brother. I never understood why, but the old man took a
sudden dislike to her. Jonathan was as much in the dark as I am. He used
to discuss it with me and wondered what his sister had done to incur the
old man's enmity. His father never told him--would never even discuss
the sister with him. It was partly due to the old man's niggardly
treatment of Mrs. Groat that Jonathan Danton made his will as he did.

"Probably her marriage with Groat was one of the causes of the old man's
anger. Groat was nothing, a shipping clerk in Danton's Liverpool office.
A man ill at ease in good society, without an 'h' to his name, and
desperately scared of his wife. The only person who was ever nice to him
was poor Lady Mary. His wife hated him for some reason or other.
Curiously enough when he died, too, he left all his money to a distant
cousin--and he left about £5,000. Where he got it from heaven knows. And
now be off, Steele. The moment you come into this office," said Mr.
Salter in despair, "you start me on a string of reminiscences that are
deplorably out of keeping with a lawyer's office."

Jim's first call that morning was at the Home Office. He was anxious to
clear up the mystery of Madge Benson. Neither Scotland Yard nor the
Prisons Commissioners were willing to supply an unofficial investigator
with the information he had sought, and in desperation he had applied to
the Secretary of State's Department. Fortunately he had a "friend at
court" in that building, a middle-aged barrister he had met in France,
and his inquiry, backed by proof that he was not merely satisfying his
personal curiosity, had brought him a note asking him to call.

Mr. Fenningleigh received him in his room with a warmth which showed
that he had not forgotten the fact that on one occasion Jim had saved
him from what might have been a serious injury, if not death, for Jim
had dragged him to cover one night when the British headquarters were
receiving the unwelcome attentions of ten German bombers.

"Sit down, Steele. I can't tell you much," said the official, picking up
a slip of paper from his blotting-pad, "and I'm not sure that I ought to
tell you anything! But this is the information which 'prisons' have
supplied."

Jim took the slip from the barrister's hand and read the three lines.

"'Madge Benson, age 26. Domestic Servant. One month with H.L. for theft.
Sentenced at Marylebone Police Court. June 5th, 1898. Committed to
Holloway. Released July 2nd. 1898.'"

"Theft?" said Jim thoughtfully. "I suppose there is no way of learning
the nature of the theft?"

Mr. Fenningleigh shook his head.

"I should advise you to interview the gaoler at Marylebone. These
fellows have extraordinary memories for faces, and besides, there is
certain to be a record of the conviction at the court. You had better
ask Salter to apply; they will give permission to a lawyer."

But this was the very thing Jim did not want to do.



CHAPTER TEN


EUNICE WELDON was rapidly settling down in her new surroundings. The
illness of her employer, so far from depriving her of occupation, gave
her more work than she had ever expected. It was true, as Digby Groat
had said, that there were plenty of small jobs to fill up her time. At
his suggestion she went over the little account books in which Mrs.
Groat kept the record of her household expenses, and was astounded to
find how parsimonious the old lady had been.

One afternoon when she was tidying the old bureau, she stopped in her
work to admire the solid workmanship which the old furniture builders
put into their handicraft.

The bureau was one of those old-fashioned affairs, which are half desk
and half bookcase, the writing-case being enclosed by glass doors
covered on the inside with green silk curtains.

It was the thickness of the two side-pieces enclosing the actual desk,
which, unlike the writing-flap of the ordinary secretaire, was
immovable, that arrested her attention. She was rubbing her hand
admiringly along the polished mahogany surface when she felt a strip of
wood give way under the pressure of her finger-tips. To her surprise a
little flap about an inch wide and about six inches long had fallen down
and hung on its in visible hinges, leaving a black cavity. A secret
drawer in a secretaire is not an extraordinary discovery, but she
wondered whether she ought to explore the recess which her accidental
touch had revealed. She put in her fingers and drew out a folded paper.
There was nothing else in the drawer, if drawer it could be called.

Ought she to read it, she wondered? If it had been so carefully put
away, Mrs. Groat would not wish it to be seen by a third person.
Nevertheless, it was her duty to discover what the document was, and she
opened it.

To the top a piece of paper was attached on which a few words wire
written in Mrs. Groat's hand:

"This is the will referred to in the instructions contained in the
sealed envelope which Mr. Salter has in his possession."

The word "Salter" had been struck out and the name of the firm of
solicitors, which had supplanted the old man had been substituted.

The will was executed on one of those forms, which can be purchased at
any law stationer's. But apart from the preamble it was short:

"I give to my son, Digby Francis Groat, the sum of 20,000 pounds and my
house and furniture at 409, Grosvenor Square. The remainder of my estate
I give to Ramonez--Marquis of Estremeda, of Calle Receletos, Madrid."

It was witnessed by two names, unknown to the girl, and as they had
described themselves as domestic servants it was probable that they had
long since left her employment, for Mrs. Groat did not keep a servant
very long.

What should she do with it? She determined to ask Digby.

Later, when going through the drawers on her desk she discovered a small
miniature and was startled by the dark beauty of the subject. It was a
head and shoulders of a girl wearing her hair in a way, which was
fashionable in the late seventies. The face was bold, but beautiful, the
dark eyes seemed to glow with life. The face of a girl who had her way,
thought Eunice, as she noted the firm round chin. She wondered who it
was and showed it to Digby Groat at lunch.

"Oh, that is a picture of my mother," he said carelessly.

"Your mother," said Eunice in astonishment, and he chuckled.

"You'd never think she was never like that; but she was, I believe, a
very beautiful girl."--his face darkened--"just a little too beautiful,"
he said, without explaining what he meant.

Suddenly, he snatched the miniature from and looked on the back.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, and a sudden pallor had come to his face.
"Mother sometimes writes things on the back of pictures, and I was
rather--" he was going to say "scared "--"and I was rather
embarrassed."

He was almost incoherent, an unusual circumstance, for Digby Groat was
the most self-possessed of men.

He changed the subject by introducing an inquiry which he had meant to
make some time before.

"Miss Weldon, can you explain that scar on your wrist?" he asked.

She shook her head laughingly.

"I'm almost sorry I showed it to you," she said. "It is ugly, isn't it?"

"Do you know how it happened?"

"I don't know," she said, "mother never told me. It looks rather like a
burn."

He examined the little red place attentively.

"Of course," she went on, "it is absurd to think that the sight of my
birthmark was the cause of your mother's stroke."

"I suppose it is," he nodded, "but it was a remarkable coincidence."

He had endeavoured to find from the old woman the reason of her sudden
collapse, but without success. For three days she had laid in her bed
speechless and motionless and apparently had neither heard nor seen him
when he had made his brief visits to the sick room.

She was recovering now, however, and he intended, at the first
opportunity, demanding a full explanation.

"Did you find anything else?" he asked suspiciously. He was never quite
sure what new folly his mother might commit. Her passion for other
people's property might have come to light.

Should she tell him? He saw the doubt and trouble in her face and
repeated his question.

"I found your mother's will," she said.

He had finished his lunch, had pushed back his chair and was smoking
peacefully. The cigar dropped from his hand and she saw his face go
black.

"Her will?" he said. "Are you sure? Her will is at the lawyer's. It was
made two years ago."

"This will was made a few months ago," said Eunice, troubled. "I do hope
I haven't betrayed any secret of hers."

"Let me see this precious document," said Digby, starting up.

His voice was brusque, almost to rudeness. She wondered what had brought
about this sudden change. They walked back to the old woman's shabby
room and the girl produced a document from the drawer.

He read it through carefully.

"The old fool," he muttered. "The cussed drivelling old fool! Have you
read this?" he asked sharply.

"I read a little of it," admitted the girl, shocked by the man's brutal
reference to his mother.

He examined the paper again and all the time he was muttering something
under his breath.

"Where did you find this?" he asked harshly.

"I found it by accident," explained Eunice. "There is a little drawer
here "--she pointed to the seemingly solid side of the bureau in which
gaped an oblong cavity.

"I see," said Digby Groat slowly as he folded the paper. "Now, Miss
Weldon, perhaps you will tell me how much of this document you have
read? "--he tapped the will on his palm.

She did not know exactly what to say. She was Mrs. Groat's servant and
she felt it was disloyal even to discuss her private affairs with Digby.

"I read beyond your legacy," she admitted, "I did not read it
carefully."

"And you saw that my mother had left me £20,000?" said Digby Groat,
"and the remainder to--somebody else."

She nodded.

"Do you know who that somebody else was?"

"Yes," she said. "To the Marquis of Estremeda."

His face had changed from sallow to red, from red to a dirty grey, and
his voice as he spoke shook with the rage he could not altogether
suppress.

"Do you know how much money my mother will be worth?" he asked.

"No, Mr. Groat," said the girl quietly, "and I don't think you ought to
tell me. It is none of my business."

"She will be worth a million and a quarter," he said between his teeth,
"and she's left me £20,000 and this damned house!"

He swung round and was making for the door, and the girl, who guessed
his intentions, went after him and caught his arm.

"Mr. Groat," she said seriously, "you must not go to your mother. You
really must not!"

Her intervention sobered him and he walked slowly back to the fireplace,
took a match from his pocket, lit it, and before the astonished eyes of
the girl applied it to one corner of the document. He watched it until
it was black ash and then put his foot upon the debris.

"So much for that!" he said, and turning caught the amazed look in the
face of Eunice. "You think I've behaved disgracefully, I suppose," he
smiled, his old debonair self. "The truth is, I am saving my mother's
memory from the imputation of madness. There is no Marquis of Estremeda,
as far as I know. It is one of the illusions which my mother has, that a
Spanish nobleman once befriended her. That is the dark secret of our
family, Miss Weldon," he laughed, but she knew that he was lying.



CHAPTER ELEVEN


The door of Digby Groat's study was ajar, and he caught a glimpse of
Eunice as she came in and made her way up to her room. She had occupied
a considerable amount of his thoughts that afternoon, and he had cursed
himself that he had been betrayed into revealing the ugly side of his
nature before one whom he wished to impress. But there was another
matter troubling him. In his folly he had destroyed a legal document in
the presence of a witness and had put himself into her power. Suppose
his mother died, he thought, and the question of a will arose? Suppose
Estremeda got hold of her, her testimony in the courts of law might
destroy the value of his mother's earlier will and bring him into the
dock at the Old Bailey.

It was an axiom of his that great criminals are destroyed by small
causes. The spendthrift who dissipates hundreds of thousands of pounds,
finds himself made bankrupt by a paltry hundred pounds, and the clever
organizer of the Thirteen who had covered his traces so perfectly that
the shrewdest police in the world had not been able to associate him
with their many crimes, might easily be brought to book through a piece
of stupidity which was dictated by rage and offended vanity. He was now
more than ever determined that Eunice Weldon should come within his
influence, so that her power for mischief should be broken before she
knew how crushingly it might be employed.

It was not an unpleasant task he set himself, for Eunice exercised a
growing fascination over him. Her beauty and her singular intelligence
were sufficient lures, but to a man of his temperament the knowledge
that she added to these gifts a purity of mind and soul gave her an
added value. That she was in the habit of meeting the man he hated, he
knew. His faithful Jackson had trailed the girl twice, and on each
occasion had returned with the same report. Eunice Weldon was meeting
Steele in the park. And the possibility that Jim loved her was the
greatest incentive of all to his vile plan.

He could strike at Jim through the girl, could befoul the soul that Jim
Steele loved best in the world. That would be a noble revenge, he
thought, as he sat, pen in hand, and heard her light footsteps pass up
the stairs. But he must be patient and the game must be played
cautiously. He must gain her confidence. That was essential, and the
best way of securing this end, was to make no reference to these
meetings, to give her the fullest opportunity for seeing Jim Steele and
to avoid studiously any suggestion that he himself had an interest in
her.

He had not sought an interview with his mother. She had been sleeping
all the afternoon, the nurse had told him, and he felt that he could be
patient here also. At night, when he saw the girl at dinner, he made a
reference to the scene she had witnessed in the old woman's
sitting-room.

"You'll think I'm an awful cad, Miss Weldon," he said frankly, "but
mother has a trick of making me more angry than any other person I have
met. You look upon me as a very unfilial son?" he smiled.

"We do things we're ashamed of sometimes when we are angry," said
Eunice, willing to find an excuse for the outburst. She would have
gladly avoided the topic altogether, for her conscience was pricking her
and she felt guilty when she remembered that she had spoken to Jim on
the subject. Digby Groat was to make her a little more uncomfortable by
his next remark.

"It is unnecessary for me to tell you, Miss Weldon," he said, with his
smile, "that all which happens within these four walls is confidential.
I need not express any fear that you will ever speak to an outsider
about our affairs."

He had only to look at the crimson face, at the downcast eyes and the
girl's fingers playing nervously with the silver, to realize that she
had already spoken of the will, and again he cursed himself for his
untimely exhibition of temper.

He passed on, to the girl's great relief, to another subject. He was
having certain alterations made in his laboratory and was enthusiastic
about a new electrical appliance which he had installed.

"Would you like to see my little den, Miss Weldon?" he asked.

"I should very much," said the girl.

She was, she knew, being despicably insincere. She did not want to see
the laboratory. To her, since Jim had described the poor little dog who
had been stretched upon the table, it was a place of horror. But she was
willing to agree to anything that would take Digby Groat from the topic
of the will, and the thought of her own breach of faith.

There was nothing very dreadful in the laboratory, she discovered. It
was so white and clean and neat that her womanly instinct for
orderliness could admire the well-arranged little room, with its shelves
packed with bottles, its delicate glass retorts and its strange and
mysterious instruments.

He did not open the locked doors that hid one cupboard which stood at
one end of the laboratory, so she knew nothing of the grisly relics of
his investigations. She was now glad she had seen the place, but was
nevertheless as pleased to return to the drawing-room.

Digby went out at nine o'clock and she was left alone to read and to
amuse herself as best she could. She called at Mrs. Groat's room on her
way up and learnt from the nurse that the old lady was rapidly
recovering.

"She will be quite normal to-morrow or the next day," said the nurse.

Here was another relief. Mrs. Groat's illness had depressed the girl. It
was so terrible to see one who had been as beautiful as the miniature
proved her to have been, struck down and rendered a helpless mass,
incapable of thought or movement.

Her room, which had impressed her by its beauty the day she had arrived,
had now been enhanced by the deft touches which only a woman's fingers
can give. She had read some of the books which Digby Groat had selected
for her entertainment, and some she had dipped into only to reject.

She spent the evening with The Virginian, and here Digby had introduced
her to one of the most delightful creations of fiction. The Virginian
was rather like Jim, she thought--but then all the heroes of all the
books she read were rather like Jim.

Searching in her bag for her handkerchief her fingers closed on the
little card which had been left on her table the night of her
introduction to the Grosvenor Square household. She took it out and read
it for the twentieth time, puzzling over the identity of the sender and
the object he had in view.

What was the meaning of that little card, she wondered? And what was the
story which lay behind it?

She put down her book and, rising, switched on the lamp over her
writing-table, examining the card curiously. She had not altered her
first impression that the hand had been made by a rubber stamp. It was
really a beautiful little reproduction of an open palm and every line
was distinct. Who was her mysterious friend--or was he a friend? She
shook her head. It could not be Jim, and yet--it worried her even to
think of Jim in this connection. Whoever it was, she thought with a
little smile, they had been wrong. She had not left the house and
nothing had happened to her, and she felt a sense of pride and comfort
in the thought that the mysterious messenger could know nothing of Jim,
her guardian angel.

She heard a step in the passage and somebody knocked at her door. It was
Digby Groat. He had evidently just come in.

"I saw your light," he said, "so I thought I would give you something I
have brought back from the Ambassadors' Club."

The "something" was a big square box tied with lavender ribbon.

"For me?" she said in surprise.

"They were distributing them to the guests," he said, "and I thought you
might have a taste for sweeties. They are the best chocolates in
England."

She laughed and thanked nun. He made no further attempt to continue the
conversation, but, with a nod, went to his room. She heard the door open
and close, and five minutes later it opened again and his soft footsteps
faded away.

He was going to his laboratory, she thought, and wondered, with a
shiver, what was the experiment he was attempting that night.

She had placed the box on the table and had forgotten about it until she
was preparing for bed, then she untied the pretty ribbons and displayed
the contents.

"They're delicious," she murmured, and took one up in her fingers.

Thump!

She turned quickly and dropped the chocolate from her fingers.

Something had hit against her window, it sounded like a fist. She ran to
the silken curtains which covered the glass doors from view and
hesitated nervously for a moment; then with a little catch of breath she
thought that possibly some boys had thrown a ball.

She pulled back the curtains violently and for a moment saw nothing. The
balcony was clear and she unfastened the latch and stepped out. There
was nobody in sight. She looked on the floor of the balcony for the
object which had been thrown but could find nothing.

She went slowly back to her room and was closing the door when she saw
and gasped. For on one of the panes was the life-size print of the Blue
Hand!

Again that mysterious warning!



CHAPTER TWELVE


EUNICE gazed at the hand spell-bound, but she was now more curious than
alarmed. Opening the window again she felt gingerly at the impression.
It was wet, and her finger-tip was stained a deep greasy blue, which
wiped off readily on her handkerchief. Again she stepped out on to the
balcony, and following it along, came to the door leading to the head of
the stairs. She tried it. It was locked. Leaning over the parapet she
surveyed the square. She saw a man and a woman walking along and talking
together and the sound of their laughter came up to her. At the corner
of the square she saw passing under a street-lamp a helmeted policeman
who must, she calculated, have been actually in front of the house when
the imprint was made.

She was about to withdraw to her room when, looking down over the
portico, she saw the figure of a woman descending the steps of the
house. Who was she? Eunice knew all the servants by now and was certain
this woman was a stranger. She might, of course, be one of Digby Groat's
friends or a friend of the nurse, but her subsequent movements were so
unusual that Eunice was sure that this was the mysterious stranger who
had left her mark on the window. So it was a woman, after all, thought
Eunice in amazement, as she watched her cross the square to where a big
limousine was waiting.

Without giving any instructions to the chauffeur the woman in black
stepped into the car, which immediately moved off.

Eunice came back to the room and sat down in a chair to try to
straighten her tangled mind. That hand was intended as a warning, she
was sure of that. And now it was clear which way the visitor had come.
She must have entered the house by the front door and have got on to the
balcony through the door on the landing, locking it after her when she
made her escape.

Looking in the glass, Eunice saw that her face was pale, but inwardly
she felt more thrilled than frightened, and she had also a sense of
protection, for instinctively she knew that the woman of the was a
friend. Should she go downstairs and tell Digby Groat? She shook her
head at the thought. No, she would reserve this little mystery for Jim
to unravel. With a duster, which she kept in one of the cupboards, she
wiped the blue impression from the window and then sat down on the edge
of her bed to puzzle out the intricate and baffling problem.

Why had the woman chosen this method of warning her? Why not employ the
mundane method of sending her a letter? Twice she had taken a risk to
impress Eunice with the sense of danger, when the same warning might
have been conveyed to her through the agency of the postman.

Eunice frowned at this thought, but then she began to realize that, had
an anonymous letter arrived, she would have torn it up and thrown it
into her waste-paper basket. These midnight visitations were intended to
impress upon the girl the urgency of the visitor's fear for her.

It was not by any means certain that the woman who had left the house
was the mysterious visitor. Eunice had never troubled to inquire into
Digby Groat's character, nor did she know any of his friends. The lady
in black might well have been an acquaintance of his, and to tell Digby
of the warning and all that she had seen could easily create a very
embarrassing situation for all concerned.

She went to bed, but it was a long time before sleep came to her. She
dozed and woke and dozed again and at last decided to get up. She pulled
aside the curtains to let in the morning light. The early traffic was
rumbling through the street, and the clear fragrance of the unsullied
air came coldly as she stood and shivered by the open window. She was
hungry, as hungry as a healthy girl can be in that keen atmosphere, and
she bethought herself of the box of chocolates which Digby had brought
to her. She had taken one from its paper wrapping and it was between her
teeth when she remembered with a start that the warning had come at the
very moment she was about to eat a chocolate! She put it down again
thoughtfully, and went back to bed to pass the time which must elapse
before the servants were about and any kind of food procurable.

Jim Steele was about to leave his little flat in Featherdale Mansions
that morning when he was met at the door by a district messenger
carrying a large parcel and a bulky letter. He at once recognized the
handwriting of Eunice and carried the parcel into his study. The letter
was written hurriedly and was full of apologies. As briefly as possible
Eunice had related the events of the night.

"I cannot imagine that the chocolates had anything to do with it, but
somehow you are communicating your prejudice against Digby Groat to me.
I have no reason whatever to suspect him of any bad design toward me,
and in sending these I am merely doing as you told me, to communicate
everything unusual. Aren't I an obedient girl! And, please, Jim, will
you take me out to dinner to-night. It is 'my night out,' and I'd love
to have a leisurely meal with you, and I'm simply dying to talk about
the Blue Hand! Isn't it gorgeously mysterious! What I shall try to catch
up some of my arrears of sleep this afternoon so that I shall be fresh
and brilliant." (She had written "and beautiful" in mockery but had
scratched it out.)

Jim Steele whistled. Hitherto he had regarded the Blue Hand as a
convenient and accidental method which the unknown had chosen for his
or her signature. Now, however, it obtained a new significance. The Blue
Hand had been chosen deliberately and for some reason which must be
known to one of the parties concerned. To Digby Groat? Jim shook his
head. Somehow he knew for certain that the Blue Hand would be as much of
a mystery to Digby Groat as it was to the girl and himself. He had no
particular reason for thinking this. It was one of those immediate
instincts which carry their own conviction. But who else was concerned?
He determined to ask his partner that morning if the Blue Hand suggested
anything to him.

In the meantime there were the chocolates. He examined the box
carefully. The sweetmeats were beautifully arranged and the box bore the
label of a well-known West End confectioner. He took out three or four
of the chocolates, placed them carefully in an envelope, and put the
envelope in his pocket. Then he set forth for the city. As he closed his
own door his eye went to the door on the opposite side of the landing,
where dwelt Mrs. Fane and the mysterious Madge Benson. The door was ajar
and he thought he heard the woman's voice on the ground floor below
talking to the porter of the flats.

His foot was extended to descend the first of the stairs when from the
flat came a sharp scream and a voice: "Madge, Madge, help!"

Without a second's hesitation he pushed open the door and ran down the
passage. There were closed doors on either side, but the last on the
right was open and a thin cloud of smoke was pouring forth. He rushed
in, just as the woman, who was lying on the bed, was rising on her elbow
as though she were about to get up, and tearing down the blazing
curtains at one of the windows, stamped out the fire. It was all over in
a few seconds and he had extinguished the last spark of fire from the
blackened lace before he looked round at the occupant of the bed, who
was staring at him wide-eyed.

She was a woman of between forty and forty-five, he judged, with a face
whose delicate moulding instantly impressed him. He thought he had seen
her before, but knew that he must have been mistaken. The big eyes, grey
and luminous, the dark brown hair in which a streak of grey had
appeared, the beautiful hands that lay on the coverlet, all of these he
took in at one glance.

"I'm very greatly obliged to you, Mr. Steele," said the lady in a voice
that was little above a whisper. "That is the second accident we have
had. A spark from one of the engines must have blown in through the open
window."

Just beneath her was the cutting of the London, Midland and Scottish
Railway, and Jim, who had watched the heavily laden trains toiling
slowly and painfully up the steep incline, had often wondered if there
was any danger from the showers of sparks which the engines so
frequently threw up.

"I must apologize for my rather rough intrusion," he said with his sweet
smile. "I heard your screams. You are Mrs. Fane, aren't you?"

She nodded, and there was admiration in the eyes that surveyed his
well-knit figure.

"I won't start a conversation with you under these embarrassing
circumstances," said Jim with a laugh, "but I'd like to say how sorry I
am that you are so ill, Mrs. Fane. Could I send you some more books?"

"Thank you," she whispered. "You have done almost enough."

He heard the door close as the servant, unconscious that anything was
wrong, came in, and heard her startled exclamation as she smelt the
smoke. Coming out into the passage he met Madge Benson's astonished
face.

A few words explained his presence and the woman hustled him to the door
a little unceremoniously.

"Mrs. Fane is not allowed to see visitors, sir," she said. "She gets so
excited."

"What is the matter with her?" asked Jim, rather amused at the
unmistakable ejection.

"Paralysis in both legs," said Madge Benson, and Jim uttered an
exclamation of pity.

"Don't think I'm not grateful to you, Mr. Steele," said the woman
earnestly; "when I saw that smoke coming out into the passage my heart
nearly stopped beating. That is the second accident we have had."

She was so anxious for him to be off that he made no attempt to continue
talking.

So that was Mrs. Fane, thought Jim, as he strode along to his office. A
singularly beautiful woman. The pity of it! She was still young and in
the bloom of health save for this terrible affliction.

Jim had a big heart for suffering humanity, and especially for women and
children on whom the burden of sickness fell. He was half-way to the
office when he remembered that Mrs. Fane had recognized him and called
him by name! How could she have known him--she who had never left her
sick-room?



CHAPTER THIRTEEN


"Mr Groat will not be down to breakfast. He was working very late,
miss."

Eunice nodded. She preferred the conversation of Digby Groat to the
veiled familiarity of his shrewd-faced servant. It would be difficult
for her to define in what way Jackson offended her. Outwardly he was
respect itself, and she could not recall any term or word he had
employed to which she could reasonably take offence. It was the
assurance of the man, his proprietorial attitude, which irritated her.
He reminded her of a boarding-house at which she had once stayed, where
the proprietor acted as butler and endeavoured, without success, to
combine the deference of the servant with the authority of the master.

"You were out very early this morning, miss," said Jackson with his sly
smile as he changed her plates.

"Is there any objection to my going out before breakfast?" asked Eunice,
her anger rising.

"None at all, miss," said the man blandly. "I hope I haven't offended
you, only I happened to see you coming back."

She had been out to send the parcel and the letter to Jim, the nearest
district messenger office being less than a quarter of a mile from
Grosvenor Square. She opened her lips to speak and closed them again
tightly. There was no reason in the world why she should excuse herself
to the servant.

Jackson was not ready to take a rebuff, and besides, he had something
important to communicate.

"You weren't disturbed last night, were you, miss?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" demanded Eunice, looking with a start.

His keen eye was on her and without any reason she felt guilty.

"Somebody was having a joke here last night, miss," he said, "and the
governor is as wild as... well, he's mad!"

She put down her knife and fork and sat back in her chair.

"I don't quite understand you, Jackson," she said coldly. "What is the
joke that somebody was having, and why do you ask me if I was disturbed?
Did anything happen in the night?"

The man nodded.

"Somebody was in the house," he said, "and it is a wonder that Mr. Groat
didn't hear it, because he was working in his laboratory. I thought
perhaps you might have heard him searching the house afterwards."

She shook her head. Had the Blue Hand been detected, she wondered?

"How do you know that a stranger was in the house?" she asked.

"Because he left his mark," said the man grimly. "You know that white
door leading to the laboratory, miss?"

She nodded.

"Well, when Mr. Groat came out about half-past two this morning he was
going to turn out the hall lights when he saw a smudge of paint on the
door. He went back and found that it was the mark of a Blue Hand. I've
been trying to get it off all the morning, but it is greasy and can't be
cleaned."

"The mark of a Blue Hand?" she repeated slowly and felt herself change
colour. "What does that mean?"

"I'm blessed if I know," said Jackson, shaking his head. "The governor
doesn't know either But there it was as plain as a pike-staff. I thought
it was a servant who did it. There is one under notice and she might
have been up to her tricks, but it couldn't have been her. Besides, the
servants' sleeping-rooms are at the back of the house, and the door
between the front and the back is kept locked."

So the mysterious visitor had not been satisfied with warning her. She
had warned Digby Groat as well!

Eunice had nearly finished breakfast when Digby made his appearance. He
was looking tired and haggard, she thought. He never looked his best in
the early hours, but this morning he was more unprepossessing than
usual. He shot a swift suspicious glance at the girl as he took his
place at the table.

"You have finished, I'm afraid, miss Weldon," he said briefly. "Has
Jackson told you what happened in the night?"

"Yes," said Eunice quietly. "Have you any idea what it means?"

He shook his head.

"It means trouble to the person who did it, if I catch him." he said;
then, changing the conversation, he asked how his mother was that
morning.

Eunice invariably called at Mrs. Groat's room on her way down, and she
was able to tell him that his mother was mending rapidly and had passed
a very good night.

"She can't get well too soon," he said. "How did you sleep, Miss
Weldon?"

"Very well," she prevaricated.

"Have you tried my chocolates?" he smiled.

She nodded.

"They are beautiful."

"Don't eat too many at once, they are rather rich," he said, and made no
further reference either to that matter or to the midnight visitor.

Later in the morning, when she was going about her work, Eunice saw
workmen engaged on cleaning the canvas door. Apparently the blue stain
could not be eradicated, and after a consultation with Digby the canvas
was being painted a dull blue colour.

She knew that Digby was perturbed more than ordinarily. When she had met
him, as she had occasionally that morning, he had worn a furtive, hunted
look, and once, when she had gone into his study to bring to his notice
an account which she had unearthed, he was muttering to himself.

That afternoon there was a reception at Lord Waltham's house in Park
Lane, in honour of a colonial premier who was visiting England. Digby
Groat found it convenient to cultivate the acquaintance of the aesthetic
Lord Waltham, who was one of the great financial five of the City of
London. Digby had gone cleverly to work to form a small syndicate for
the immediate purchase of the Danton estate. The time had not yet come
when he could dispose of this property, but it was fast approaching.

There were many women in that brilliant assembly who would have been
glad to know a man reputedly clever, and certainly the heir to great
wealth; but in an inverted sense Digby was a fastidious man. Society
which met him and discussed him over their dinner-tables were puzzled by
his avoidance of woman's society. He could have made a brilliant
marriage, had he so desired, but apparently the girls of his own set had
no attraction for him. There were intimates, men about town, who were
less guarded in their language when they spoke across the table after
the women had gone, and these told stories of him which did not redound
to his credit. Digby in his youth had had many affairs--vulgar, sordid
affairs which had left each victim with an aching heart and no redress.

He had only come to "look in," he explained. There was heavy work
awaiting him at home, and he hinted at the new experiment he was making
which would take up the greater part of the evening.

"How is your mother, Groat?" asked Lord Waltham.

"Thank you, sir, I think she is better," replied Digby. He wanted to
keep off the subject of his mother.

"I can't understand the extraordinary change that has come over her in
late years," said Lord Waltham with a little frown. "She used to be so
bright and cheerful, one of the wittiest women I have ever met. And
then, of a sudden, all her spirits seemed to go and if you don't mind
my saying so, she seemed to get old."

"I noticed that," said Digby with an air of profound concern, "but women
of her age frequently go all to pieces in a week."

"I suppose there's something in that. I always forget you're a doctor,"
smiled Lord Waltham.

Digby took his leave and he, too, was chuckling softly to himself as he
went down the steps to his waiting car. He wondered what Lord Waltham
would say if he had explained the secret of his mother's banished
brightness. It was only by accident that he himself had made the
discovery. She was a drug-taker, as assiduous a "dope" as he had ever
met in his professional career.

When he discovered this he had set himself to break down the habit. Not
because he loved her, but because he was a scientist addicted to
experiments. He had found the source of her supply and gradually had
extracted a portion of the narcotic from every pellet until the drug had
ceased to have its effect.

The result from the old woman's point of view was deplorable. She
suddenly seemed to wither, and Digby, whom she had ruled until then with
a rod of iron, had to his surprise found himself the master. It was a
lesson of which he was not slow to take advantage, every day and night
she was watched and the drug was kept from her. With it she was a slave
to her habit; without it she was a slave to Digby. He preferred the
latter form of bondage.


Mr. Septimus Salter had not arrived when Jim had reached the office that
morning, and he waited, for he had a great deal to say to the old man,
whom he had not seen for the better part of the week.

When he did come, a little gouty and therefore more than a little
petulant, he was inclined to pooh-pooh the suggestion that there was
anything in the sign of the Blue Hand.

"Whoever the poison is, he or she must have had the stamp by them--you
say it looks like a rubber stamp--and used it fortuitously. No, I can't
remember any Blue Hand in the business. If I were you I should not
attach too much importance to this."

Although Jim did not share his employer's opinion he very wisely did not
disagree.

"Now, what is this you wore telling me about a will? You say Mrs. Groat
has made a new will, subsequent to the one she executed in this office?"

Jim assented.

"And left all her money away from the boy, eh?" said old Mr. Salter
thoughtfully. "Curiously enough, I always had an idea that there was no
love lost between that pair. To whom do you say the money was left?"

"To the Marquis of Estremeda."

"I know the name," nodded Mr. Salter. "He is a very rich grandee of
Spain and was for some time an attache at the Spanish Embassy. He may or
may not have been a friend of the Dantons, I cannot recall. There is
certainly no reason why she should leave her money to one who, unless my
memory is at fault, owns half a province and has three or four great
houses in Spain. Now, here you are up against a real mystery. Now, what
is your news?" he asked.

Jim had a little more to tell him.

"I am taking the chocolates to an analyst--a friend of mine," he said,
and Mr. Salter smiled.

"You don't expect to discover that they are poisoned, do you?" he asked
dryly. "You are not living in the days of Caesar Borgia, and with all
his poisonous qualities I have never suspected Digby Groat of being a
murderer."

"Nevertheless," said Jim, "I am leaving nothing to chance. My own theory
is that there is something wrong with those innocent-looking sweetmeats,
and the mysterious Blue Hand knew what it was and came to warn the
girl."

"Rubbish," growled the old lawyer. "Get along with you. I have wasted
too much time on this infernal case."

Jim's first call was at a laboratory in Wigmore Street, and he explained
to his friend just enough to excite his curiosity for further details,
which, however, Jim was not prepared to give.

"What do you expect to find?" said the chemist, weighing two chocolates
in his palm.

"I don't know exactly what I expect," said Jim. "But I shall be very
much surprised if you do not discover something that should not be
there."

The scientist dropped the chocolates in a big test-tube, poured in a
liquid from two bottles and began heating the tube over a Bunsen burner.

"Call this afternoon at three o'clock and I will give you all the grisly
details," he said.

It was three o'clock when Jim returned, not expecting, it must be
confessed, any startling results from the analysis. He was shown into
the chemist's office, and there on the desk were three test-tubes,
standing in a little wooden holder.

"Sit down, Steele," said Mendhlesohn. He was, as his name implied, a
member of a great Jewish fraternity which has furnished so many
brilliant geniuses to the world. "I can't quite make out this analysis,"
he said. "But, as you thought, there are certainly things in the
chocolates which should not be there."

"Poison?" said Jim, aghast.

Mendhlesohn shook his head.

"Technically, yes," he admitted. "There is poison in almost everything,
but I doubt whether the eating of a thousand of these would produce
death. I found traces of bromide of potassium and traces of hyacin, and
another drug which is distilled from cannabis indica."

"That is hashish, isn't it?"

Mendhlesohn nodded.

"When it is smoked it is called hashish; when it is distilled we have
another name for it. These three drugs come, of course, into the
category of poisons, and in combination, taken in large doses, they
would produce unconsciousness and ultimately death, but there is not
enough of the drug present in these sweets to bring about that alarming
result."

"What result would it produce?" asked Jim.

"That is just what is puzzling me and my friend, Dr. Jakes," said
Mendhlesohn, rubbing his unshaven chin. "Jakes thinks that, administered
in small continuous doses, the effect of this drug would be to destroy
the will-power, and, what for a better term I would describe in the
German fashion, as the resistance-to-evil-power of the human mind. In
England, as you probably know, when a nervous and highly excitable man
is sentenced to death, it is the practice to place minute doses of
bromide in everything he eats and drinks, in order to reduce him to such
a low condition of mental resistance that even the thought of an
impending doom has no effect upon him."

Jim's face had gone suddenly pale, as the horror of the villainous plot
dawned upon him.

"What effect would this have upon a high-spirited girl, who was, let us
say, being made love to by a man she disliked?"

The chemist shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose that eventually her dislike would develop into apathy and
indifference. She would not completely forgo her resistance to his
attentions, but at the same time that resistance would be more readily
overcome. There are only two types of mind," he went on, "the 'dominant'
and the 'recessive.' We call the 'dominant' that which is the more
powerful, and the 'recessive' that which is the less powerful. In this
world it is possible for a little weak man to dominate a big and
vigorous man, by what you would call the sheer force of his personality.
The effect of this drug would ultimately be to turn a powerful mind into
a weak mind. I hope I am not being too scientific," he smiled.

"I can follow you very well." said Jim quietly. "Now tell me this,
Mendhlesohn, would it be possible to get a conviction against the person
who supplied these sweets?"

Mendhlesohn shook his head.

"As I told you, the doses are in such minute quantities that it is quite
possible they may have got in by accident. I have only been able to find
what we chemists call a 'trace' so far, but probably the doses would be
increased from week to week. If in three weeks' time you bring me
chocolates or other food that has been tampered with, I shall be able to
give you a very exact analysis."

"Were all the chocolates I brought similarly treated?"

Mendhlesohn nodded.

"If they have been doped," he went on, "the doping has been very
cleverly done. There is no discoloration of the interior, and the drug
must have been introduced by what we call saturation, which only a very
skilful chemist or a doctor trained in chemistry would attempt."

Jim said nothing. Digby Groat was both a skilled chemist and a doctor
trained in chemistry.

On leaving the laboratory he went for his favourite walk in Hyde Park.
He wanted to be alone and think this matter out. He must act with the
greatest caution, he thought. To warn the girl on such slender
foundation was not expedient. He must wait until, the dose had been
increased, though that meant that she was to act as a bait for Digby
Groat's destruction, and he writhed at the thought. But she must not
know; he was determined as to this.

That night he had arranged a pleasant little dinner, and he was looking
forward eagerly to a meeting with one whose future absorbed his whole
attention and thoughts. Even the search for Lady Mary Danton had receded
into the background, and might have vanished altogether as a matter of
interest were it not for the fact that Digby Groat and his affairs were
so inextricably mixed up with the mystery. Whilst Eunice Weldon was an
inmate of the Groats' house, the Danton mystery would never be
completely out of his thoughts.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN


JIM had never seen the girl in evening clothes, and he was smitten dumb
by her ethereal beauty. She wore a simple dress of cream charmeuse,
innocent of colour, except for the touch of gold at her waist. She
looked taller to Jim's eyes, and the sweet dignity of her face was a
benison which warmed and comforted his heart.

"Well," she asked as the cab was proceeding towards Piccadilly. "Am I
presentable?"

"You're wonderful!" breathed Jim.

He sat stiffly in the cab, scarcely daring to move lest the substance of
this beautiful dream be touched by his irreverent hands. Her loveliness
was unearthly and he, too, could adore, though from a different
standpoint, the glorious promise of her womanhood, the delicious
contours of her Madonna-like face. She was to him the spirit and
embodiment of all that womanhood means. She was the truth of the dreams
that men dream, the divine substance of shadowy figures that haunt their
thoughts and dreams.

"Phew!" he said, "you almost frighten me, Eunice."

He heard her silvery laugh in the darkness.

"You're very silly, Jim," she said, slipping her arm into his.

Nevertheless, she experienced a thrill of triumph and happiness that she
had impressed him so.

"I have millions of questions to ask you," she said after they had been
ushered to a corner of the big dining-room of the Ritz-Carlton. "Did you
get my letter? And did you think I was mad to send you those chocolates?
Of course, it was terribly unfair to Mr. Groat, but really, Jim, you're
turning me into a suspicious old lady!"

He laughed gently.

"I loved your letter," he said simply. "And as for the chocolates--" he
hesitated.

"Well?"

"I should tell him that you enjoyed them thoroughly," he smiled.

"I have," said the girl ruefully. "I hate telling lies, even that kind
of lie."

"And the next box you receive," Jim went on, "you must send me three or
four of its contents."

She was alarmed now, looking at him, her red lips parted, her eyebrows
crescents of inquiry.

"Was there anything wrong with them?" she asked.

He was in a dilemma. He could not tell her the result of the analysis,
and at the same time he could not allow her to run any farther into
needless danger. He had to invent something on the spur of the moment
and his excuse was lame and unconvincing.

Listening, she recognized their halting nature, but was sensible enough
not to insist upon rigid explanations, and, moreover, she wanted to
discuss the hand and its startling appearance in the middle of the
night.

"It sounds almost melodramatic," said Jim, but his voice was grave, "and
I find a great difficulty in reconciling the happening to the realities
of life. Of one thing I'm sure," he went on, "and it is that this
strange woman, if woman it be, has a reason for her acts. The mark of
the hand is deliberately designed. That it is blue has a meaning, too, a
meaning which apparently is not clear to Digby Groat. And now let us
talk about ourselves," he smiled, and his hand rested for a moment over
hers.

She did not attempt to withdraw her own until the waiter came in sight,
and then she drew it away so gently as to suggest reluctance.

"I'm going to stay another month with the Groats," she informed him, "and
then if Mrs. Groat doesn't find some real work for me to do I'm going
back to the photographers'--if they'll have me."

"I know somebody who wants you more than the photographer," he said
quietly, "somebody whose heart just aches whenever you pass out of his
sight."

She felt her own heart beating thunderously, and the hand that he held
under the cover of the table trembled.

"Who is that--somebody?" she asked faintly.

"Somebody who will not ask you to marry him until he can offer you an
assured position," said Jim. "Somebody who loves the very gro