Edgar Wallace - Blue Hand

She saw something bright and glittering in his hand and terror took possession of her.

“Don’t touch me,” she gasped. “I swear I will not tell,” but he had gripped her arm.

“If you make a sound,” his face was thrust into hers, “you’ll regret it to the last day of your life.”

She felt a sudden pricking sensation in her arm and tried to pull it away, but her arm was held as by a vice.

“There. It wasn’t very painful, was it?”

She heard him utter a curse, and when he turned his face was red with rage.

“They’ve smashed in the gates,” he said sharply.

She was walking toward him, her hand on the little puncture the needle had made, and her face was curiously calm.

“Are you going now?” she asked simply.

“We are going in a few minutes,” said Digby, emphasizing the “we.”

But even this she did not resent. She had fallen into a curious placid condition of mind which was characterized by the difficulty, amounting to an impossibility, of remembering what happened the previous minute. All she could do was to sit down on the edge of a chair, nursing her arm. She knew it hurt her, and yet she was conscious of no hurt. It was a curious impersonal sensation she had. To her, Digby Groat had no significance. He was a somebody whom she neither liked nor disliked. It was all very strange and pleasant.

“Put your hat on,” he said, and she obeyed. She never dreamt of disobeying.

He led her to the basement and through a door which communicated with a garage. It was not the garage where he kept his own car—Jim had often been puzzled to explain why Digby kept his car so far from the house. The only car visible was a covered van, such as the average tradesman uses to deliver his goods.

“Get in,” said Digby, and Eunice obeyed with a strange smile.

She was under the influence of that admixture of morphine and hyacin, which destroyed all memory and will.

“Sit on the floor,” he ordered, and laced the canvas flap at the back. He reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out a cotton coat which had once been white, but was now disfigured with paint and grease, buttoning it up to the throat. A cap he took from the same source and pulled it over his head, so that the peak well covered his eyes.

Then he opened the gates of a garage. He was in a mews, and with the exception of a woman who was talking to a milkman, the only two persons in sight, none saw the van emerge.

There was not the slightest suspicion of hurry on his part. He descended from his seat to close the gates and lock them, lit a pipe and, clambering up, set the little van going in the direction of the Bayswater Road.

He stopped only at the petrol station to take aboard a fair supply of spirit, and then he went on, still at a leisurely pace, passing through the outlying suburbs, until he came to the long road leading from Staines to Ascot. Here he stopped and got down.

Taking the little flat case from his pocket, and recharging the glass cylinder, he opened the canvas flap at the back and looked in.

Eunice was sitting with her back braced against the side of the van, her head nodding sleepily. She looked up with a puzzled expression.

“It won’t hurt you,” said Digby. Again the needle went into her arm, and the piston was thrust home.

She screwed up her face a little at the pain and again fondled her arm.

“That hurt,” she said simply.

Just outside Ascot a touring car was held up by two policemen and Digby slowed from necessity, for the car had left him no room to pass.

“We are looking for a man and a girl,” said one of the policemen to the occupants of the car. “All right, sir, go on.”

Digby nodded in a friendly way to the policeman.

“Is it all right, sergeant?”

“Off you go,” said the sergeant, not troubling to look inside a van on which was painted the name of a reputable firm of London furnishers.

Digby breathed quickly. He must not risk another encounter. There would be a second barrier at the cross roads, where he intended turning. He must go back to London, he thought, the police would not stop a London-bound car. He turned into a secondary road and reached the main Bath road passing another barrier, where, as he had expected, the police did not challenge him, though they were holding up a string of vehicles going in the other direction. There were half a dozen places to which he could take her, but the safest was a garage he had hired at the back of a block of buildings in Paddington. The garage had been useful to the Thirteen, but had not been utilized for the greater part of a year, though he had sent Jackson frequently to superintend the cleaning.

He gained the west of London as the rain began to fall. Everything was in his favour. The mews in which the garage was situated was deserted and he had opened the gates and backed in the car before the occupants of the next garage were curious enough to come out to see who it was.

Digby had one fad and it had served him well before. It was to be invaluable now. Years before, he had insisted that every house and every room, if it were only a store-room, should have a lock of such a character that it should open to his master key.

He half led, half lifted the girl from the car, and she sighed wearily, for she was stiff and tired.

“This way,” he said, and pushed her before him up the dark stairs, keeping her on the landing whilst he lit the gas.

Though it had not been dusted for the best part of a month, the room overlooking the mews was neat and comfortably furnished. He pulled down the heavy blind before he lit the gas here, felt her pulse and looked into her eyes.

“You’ll do, I think,” he said with a smile. “You must wait here until I come back. I am going to get some food.”

“Yes,” she answered.

He was gone twenty minutes, and on his return he saw that she had taken off her coat and had washed her hands and face. She was listlessly drying her hands when he came up the stairs. There was something pathetically childlike in her attitude, and a man who was less of a brute than Digby Groat would have succumbed to the appeal of her helplessness.

But there was no hint of pity in the thoughtful eyes that surveyed her. He was wondering whether it would be safe to give her another dose. In order to secure a quick effect he had administered more than was safe already. There might be a collapse, or a failure of heart, which would be as fatal to him as to her. He decided to wait until the effects had almost worn off.

“Eat,” he said, and she sat at the table obediently.

He had brought in cold meat, a loaf of bread, butter and cheese. He supplemented this feast with two glasses of water which he drew in the little scullery.

Suddenly she put down her knife and fork.

“I feel very tired,” she said.

So much the better, thought Digby. She would sleep now.

The back room was a bedroom. He watched her whilst she unfastened her shoes and loosened the belt of her skirt before she lay down. With a sigh, she turned over and was fast asleep before he could walk to the other side of the bed to see her face.

Digby Groat smoked for a long time over his simple meal. The girl was wholly in his power, but she could wait. A much more vital matter absorbed his attention. He himself had reached the possibility which he had long foreseen and provided against. It was not a pleasant situation, he thought, and found relief for his mind by concentrating his thoughts upon the lovely ranch in Brazil, on which, with average luck, he would spend the remainder of his days.

Presently he got up, produced from a drawer a set of shaving materials wrapped in a towel, and heating some water at the little gas-stove in the kitchen, he proceeded to divest himself of his moustache.