Edgar Wallace - Blue Hand

“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 you 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 tonight, 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.