Blue Hand

R. 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 The cut of his clothes was queerly out of date, the high white collar and the black satin cravat that bulged above a flowered waistcoat were of the fashion of 1850, in which year Mr.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.

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 For a second she was paralysed and then the hand was suddenly withdrawn.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.

They turned down a long passage through the padded door and came to a large annex, 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’ll 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?”

To the north were the white lights of the railway sidings and workshops; to the west, the faint glow in the sky marked the position of a town. Jim pulled his useless pistol from his pocket and stepped on to the roadway, crouching down, so that when he did rise, he seemed to the astonished Bronson to have sprung out of the ground. Something cold and hard was pushed under the spy’s nose.

“If you make a sound, you son of a thief!” said Jim, “I’ll blow your face off! Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” muttered the man, shivering with fright.

Jim’s left hand gripped his collar. The automatic pistol under his nose was all too obvious, and Felix Bronson, a fearful man for whom the air alone had no terror, was cowed and beaten.

“Where is the bus?” asked Jim in a whisper.

“In the field behind the house,” the man answered in the same tone. “What are you going to do? Who are you? How did you get past⁠—”

“Don’t ask so many questions,” said Jim; “lead the way⁠—not that way,” as the man turned to pass the house.

“I shall have to climb the fence if I don’t go that way,” said Bronson sullenly.

“Then climb it,” said Jim, “it will do you good, you lazy devil!”

They walked across the field, and presently Jim saw a graceful outline against the dark sky.

“Now take off your clothes,” he said peremptorily.

“What do you mean?” demanded the startled Bronson. “I can’t undress here!”