The Hand in the Dark Part 43

"Because I saw him the night before I left London. He told me everything, and gave me the necklace."

"And you let him go again? Are you mad?" Phil was on his feet, shaking with excitement.

"What makes you think I let him go?" retorted Colwyn coldly. "You need not be afraid that your wife's murderer will escape justice. Nepcote is lying ill of pneumonia in a private hospital in London. He can only escape by death. But the manner in which you have received this information suggests to my mind that you have had your own suspicions of Nepcote all along, but have kept them to yourself."

"I cannot conceive that to be any business of yours," replied the young man, with a touch of hauteur.

"It seems to me that it is, in the circ.u.mstances. You came to me seeking my a.s.sistance because you believed in the innocence of Hazel Rath, but-as I am now convinced-you suppressed information which pointed to Captain Nepcote."

"I told you all that I thought necessary."

"You told me that your wife had been shot with Nepcote's revolver. Is that what you mean?"

"Yes. That was sufficient to put you on the track without taking you into my confidence about ... something which affected my honour and the honour of my family." Phil turned very pale as he uttered the last words.

"Perhaps Phil should have told you, but you must make allow-" commenced Musard. But Colwyn silenced him with an imperative glance.

"At the time you came to see me, you believed that Captain Nepcote had murdered your wife?" he said, facing Phil.

"I did."

"Do you mind telling me now on what ground you based that belief?"

"I fail to recognize your right to cross-question me," replied the young man haughtily, "but I will answer your question. It was for the reason that you have supposed. I suspected his relations with my wife. There was his revolver to prove that he had been in her room. I do not know why Hazel Rath carried it away."

"Perhaps I could enlighten you on that point. As you knew so much, it is equally certain that you knew about your wife's missing necklace, though you did not tell me of that, either. But I will not go into that now-I wish to hurry on to my conclusion. I have at least done all that you asked me to do; I have proved Hazel Rath's innocence. But I have proved more than that. Captain Nepcote is also innocent."

"I should like to hear how you arrive at that conclusion." Phil strove to utter the words calmly, but his trembling lips revealed his inward agitation.

"His story, as told to me, fits in with facts of which he could have had no knowledge. He says he found the door of the left wing locked, and we know it was locked by Tufnell more than an hour before. He states that after the shot he hid in the woods in front of the house. It was there Tufnell thought he saw somebody hiding; it was there I found a sc.r.a.p of khaki adhering to a bramble at the spot indicated by Nepcote as his hiding-place. Tufnell admits that he called out in alarm when his eye fell on the crouching figure. Nepcote says that he saw Tufnell, heard his cry, and plunged deeper into the bushes for safety. Tufnell returned along the carriage drive twenty minutes afterwards with Detective Caldew and Sergeant Lumbe. Nepcote heard the crunch of their feet on the gravel as they pa.s.sed. His accuracy in these details which he could not possibly have known helped me to the conclusion that the whole of his story was true."

"He had plenty of time to commit the murder, nevertheless," said Phil.

"It is useless for you to try and cling to that theory-now."

There was something in the tone in which these words were uttered which caused the young man to look swiftly at the detective from beneath furrowed brows.

"You seem to have const.i.tuted yourself the champion of this scoundrel," he said, in a changed harsh voice.

Musard glanced from one to the other with troubled eyes. There was a growing hint of menace in their conversation which his mind, deeply agitated by the strange disclosures of the evening, could only fear without fathoming.

"I do not understand you," he said simply, addressing himself to Colwyn. "If this man Nepcote did not commit the murder, who did? Was it not he who was in the bedroom when Hazel Rath went there in the dark?"

"No," said Colwyn; "it was not he."

"Who was the man, then, who clutched Hazel Rath, by the throat?" persisted Musard.

"It was no man," responded Colwyn, in a gloomy voice. "That was the point which baffled me for hours when I thought the whole truth was within my grasp. Again and again I sought vainly for the answer, until, in mental weariness and utter despair, I was tempted to believe that the powers of evil had combined to shield the perpetrator of this atrocious murder from justice. Then it came to me-the last horrible revelation in this h.e.l.lish plot. It was the hand of the dying woman, spasmodically clutching at the empty air in her death agonies, which accidentally came in contact with Hazel Rath's throat, and loosened her brooch."

"Oh, this is too terrible," murmured Musard. His swarthy face showed an ashen tint. "What do you mean? What are you keeping back? Where does all this lead to?"

"It leads to the exposure of the trick-the trick of a false report by which the murderer sought to procure an alibi and revenge."

"What do you mean? What have you found out?" cried Phil, leaping to his feet and facing Colwyn.

As he uttered the words, a loud shot in the room overhead rang out with startling distinctness.

"I mean-that," said Colwyn quietly.

Even up to the moment of his experiment he was not quite certain. But in the one swift glance they exchanged, everything was revealed to each of them.

Before Musard could frame the question which trembled on his amazed lips, Phil spoke. His face was very white, and his dark eyes blazing:

"Yes. That is it. You have found me out." His voice, deepened to a bitter intensity, had a deliberate intonation which was almost solemn. "What did they do to me? Shall I ever forget my feelings when, un.o.bserved by them, I caught them in the house one day, whispering and kissing? I walked straight out into the woods to be alone with my shame. My brain was on fire. When I recalled his lecherous looks and her wanton meaning glances I was tempted to destroy myself in misery and despair. Human nature-ah, G.o.d, what a beastly thing it is. I had trusted them both so utterly-I loved her so deeply. How had they repaid my trust and love? By deceiving me, under my eyes, in my own home, before my marriage was three months old.

"That night I dreamt of obscene things. I awoke with their images hovering by my bedside, looking at me with sneering eyes, mocking me with lewd gestures. 'Your honour and the honour of the Herediths-Where is it?' they kept repeating: 'Sold by the wanton you have made your wife. What is honour to the l.u.s.t of the flesh? There is nothing so strong in the world.' But as I watched them the ceiling rolled away, and in the darkness of the sky a stern and implacable face appeared. And it said, 'There is one thing stronger than honour, stronger even that the l.u.s.t of the flesh, and that is-Death.'

"It was the answer to a question I had been asking myself ever since I knew. I got up, and sat by the open window, to plan how I should kill them both. But I wanted the man to feel more than a swift thunderstroke of mortal agony. I wished to make him suffer as I had suffered, but at first I could see no way.

"Then it came to me in the strangest way-a light, a direction, a guide. I had been smoking as I sat there thinking-smoking cigarettes which I lit with a little automatic lighter I always used. I must have laid it down carelessly, for I was interrupted in my meditations by the sight of a thin trail of vapour ascending from the window ledge. I had failed to put the extinguisher on the lighter, and the wick had gone on burning. As I watched the red spark crawling almost imperceptibly along the yellow wick, there dawned in my mind the first glimmering of the idea of a slow match and a delayed report. Bit by bit it took form, and the means of my revenge was made clear to me. I went back to bed and slept soundly.

"I was in no hurry to act. There was much to think over, much to do, before the plan was finally perfected. I carried out experiments in the gun-room when everybody was in bed, secure in the knowledge that no report, however loud, could penetrate from those thick walls upstairs. While I was making ready I watched them both. Not a furtive glance or caress pa.s.sed between them which I did not see.

"The night my aunt asked Violet about the necklace I suspected that it was no longer in her possession. I guessed that by her evasive answers and telltale face. When she left the room and went upstairs I crept after her in the shadows and followed her to the door of Nepcote's room. I listened to their conversation; I heard him promise her to return secretly to the moat-house on the following night with the necklace. My heart leapt as I listened. I believed that I had him.

"I stole away quietly without waiting to learn any more, but I stayed up till far into the night preparing my final plans. My intention was to shoot her just before dinner, and arrange for the false report to explode after he had arrived and hidden himself in the old staircase, waiting for her to go to him. Then, when the report startled everybody in the dining-room, I intended to be the first to rush upstairs, and lead the search in the direction of the old staircase. I would have had him by the throat, before he had time to get away. How would he have been able to account for his secret presence in the house when her jewels were in his pocket and her dead body upstairs, close to where he was hiding?

"I had intended to kill Violet with a small revolver which I had bought in a second-hand place at London last winter, but Nepcote's carelessness in leaving his own revolver in the gun-room gave the last finishing touch to my plan. I could scarcely believe my luck when I found it. It seemed as though he himself were playing into my hands. I hid it away, expecting that there would be inquiries, but there were none. He had forgotten all about it. It was strange, too, that Violet herself helped by telling my aunt before dinner on the night of her pretended illness that she did not wish to be disturbed by anybody. That removed a defect in my arrangements which had caused me much anxious thought. I had feared that somebody, probably a servant, might enter the room in the period between the first and second reports. It was a chance I could not afford to overlook, and I could see no way of guarding against it except by locking the door, which I did not want to do. I wanted to leave the door partly open so as to make sure of the second report penetrating to the dining-room downstairs.

"When my aunt gave me Violet's message in the library shortly before dinner I knew that the moment had arrived. The altered arrangements for an earlier dinner cost me a moment's perplexity, but no more. One cannot hurry one's own guests, and I knew it would be impossible to get dinner over as quickly as my aunt antic.i.p.ated. If it were ending too quickly for my purpose it would be an easy matter to introduce a subject which would set somebody talking. That, as you know, is what actually happened.

"After my aunt left me I waited until the last possible moment before slipping upstairs. The revolver and the pistol were locked away in my own bedroom in readiness. I got them out. The pistol was completely prepared except for the cap. I had bound a twelve inch tinder-wick to the stock in order to allow for a delay of nearly fifty minutes between the lighting and the report. I knew that Nepcote expected to arrive at the moat-house by half-past seven at the latest, but I gave him a margin of a few minutes for unexpected delays. I put the pistol in my pocket, and wrapping the revolver in a silk m.u.f.fler to deaden the report, went swiftly to my wife's room. I closed the door behind me as I entered.

"She was lying on the bed with her eyes closed, and did not hear me approach. That helped me. Can you understand my feelings. I was about to destroy something I loved better than life itself, but it was not she who was lying on the bed. She had died before-died by her own act-leaving behind her another woman whose life was a living lie, who was so corrupt and worthless as to be unfit to live. It was that I was going to destroy. I felt no compunction-no remorse. As I placed the muzzle of the revolver against her breast, she opened her eyes in terror, and saw me. I pulled the trigger quickly.... As I did so I heard the dinner gong sound downstairs.

"The m.u.f.fled report made less noise than the clapping of a pair of hands. I knew that faint sound would not be heard downstairs. She never moved, and I thought she was dead. I bent over the fireplace, shook some caps out of the b.u.t.t of the pistol, and placed one on the nipple. Then I lit a match and started my prepared fuse. It was an easy matter to place the pistol in position at the top of the grate; the difficulty of recovering it subsequently was not made manifest to me until after my illness, although my previous secret examination of the grate had convinced me that the recoil of the explosion would cause the pistol to fall to the bottom of the chimney behind the grate. When I had placed the pistol in position I turned off the electric light, and opened the window to allow the fumes of the burning wick to escape. Then I hurried downstairs. I was not in the room three minutes altogether. I saw n.o.body on my way down; nearly everybody had gone in to dinner, but I was in time to sit down with the others.

"I felt quite cold and collected as I sat at the dinner table waiting for the moment of my vengeance. I felt as though I was under the control of some force immensely stronger than myself which held me firm with giant hands while the minutes slowly ebbed away. I am sure there was nothing unusual in my behaviour. I pretended to eat, and joined in the conversation around me.

"The report did not come at the moment I antic.i.p.ated, but I was not perturbed at the delay. My experiments had taught me the difficulty of fixing an explosion for an exact period. The time was in general approximately the same, but there were reasons which caused a slight difference. The wick always burnt at a uniform rate; the trouble was with the string. Sometimes it was slow in catching. Sometimes the pressure of the string partly extinguished the wick and made combustion slower as it neared the point of contact. Once I tied the string so tight that the wick went out altogether just before reaching the string. But I had taken measures to overcome these little irregularities, and to make sure of the string catching readily I had rubbed a little petrol on it where it crossed the wick.

"But it was the scream before the report which upset my calculations and almost caused me to collapse. When that terrible cry rang out my false strength fled from me, leaving me weak and trembling. I think I should have betrayed myself if the report had not followed so quickly, throwing everybody into the same state of confusion as myself. I do not know how I managed to make my limbs carry me upstairs with the others. I did not know what had happened. My brain refused to act. I was conscious of nothing except that a great wheel seemed turning inside my head, tightening all my nerves to such taut agony that I could hardly refrain from crying aloud.

"What I said or did when I found myself in the bedroom I do not know. When I saw that everything was as I had arranged my mind began swinging like a pendulum towards my revenge, and I struggled to lead the search towards the staircase. But I was unable to move. I was like a man in a dream, encompa.s.sed by invisible obstacles. Then the wheel in my head suddenly relaxed, I felt the room and its objects slipping from me, and everything went black.

"You know about my illness. It was not until I was supposed to be recovering that the power of clear thought came back to me. There were days when my brain was numb and powerless, like that of one newly awakened from a terrible nightmare, striving to recall what had happened. Then one day the veil was drawn, and I remembered everything. My aunt was in the room, and I questioned her. She brought Musard to me, and from him I learnt the truth.

"Intuitively I realized what had happened. Hazel Rath had gone to the room for some unknown reason, had seen my wife lying there, and screamed. Then, hardly conscious of what she was doing, she picked up the revolver I had left lying by the bedside, and ran out of the room in fright. I was even able to divine a reason for her silence under the accusation of murder. She felt that n.o.body would believe her story, especially after the history of her mother's past was brought to light.