Edgar Wallace - Blue Hand

“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.