Edgar Wallace - Blue Hand

“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.