The Lost Million

“It was more than hallucination,” I assured him, recollecting my own experience, yet determined not to assist him towards the elucidation of the mystery. The dead man had evidently made a discovery immediately, before his fatal seizure. I recollected that brief urgent note of Asta’s. Had she, too, made a similar discovery?

Yes. There could be no evasion of the fact. The two cases were in every way identical.

For nearly a quarter of an hour I stood discussing the amazing affair with Redwood. I could see that he was both mystified and suspicious, therefore I extracted from him a pledge of secrecy, and promised to assist him towards a solution of the extraordinary problem. I made no mention to anybody of Asta’s message to me, which I intended should remain a secret.

At my earnest appeal he allowed me to creep on tiptoe into the darkened chamber, wherein still lay unconscious the woman I loved so profoundly – she who was all the world to me.

I bent over the poor white face that presented the waxen transparency of death, and touched the thin, soft hand that lay outside the coverlet. Then, with eyes filled with tears, and half choked by the sob which I was powerless to restrain, I turned away and left the room.

“Will she recover?” I managed to ask the doctor. But he merely raised his thick eyebrows in blank uncertainty.

What devil’s work had been accomplished within that locked room? Ay, what indeed?

Against the man Shaw, who had so cleverly misled her into the honest belief that he adored her, there arose within me a deep and angry hatred. Why was he not there, knowing Asta’s precarious condition? His excuse of enforced attendance at the Petty Sessions was no doubt an ingenious one. Little did he dream that before the occurrence Asta had summoned me, and for that reason I was there at her side.

So strange had been all the circumstances from that moment when the man of mystery – Melvill Arnold – had breathed his last, that I had become utterly bewildered. And this amazing occurrence in the night now staggered me. Only one person had solved the mystery of the shadowy hand, and he, alas I had not lived to reveal what, no doubt, was a terrible truth.

In the corridor I stood discussing my beloved’s condition in low, bated whispers with the fussy country practitioner, a man of the old fox-hunting school – for nearly every one rides to hounds in that grass-country. He had already telephoned for Doctor Petherbridge, in Northampton, to come for consultation, and was now expecting him to come over in his car.

“I have done all I can, Mr Kemball,” he said. “But as we don’t know the cause, the exact remedy is rather difficult to determine. Every symptom is of brain trouble through fright.”

“Exactly the same symptoms as those you observed in Nicholson!” I remarked. Whereat he slowly nodded in the affirmative, and again stroked his rosy, clean-shaven chin.

“Well, doctor,” I said, “I intend to make it my business to investigate the cause of this peculiar phenomenon.”

And I sat down and wrote an urgent telegram to Cardew, who was, I knew, now stationed at Aldershot.

Chapter Twenty Eight

Another Revelation

The dark anxious hours of that dismal autumn morning went slowly by.

Doctor Petherbridge arrived in hot haste from Northampton, and had a long and earnest consultation with Redwood. Both men were greatly puzzled. I met them after a long and eager wait, when they emerged in silence from the sick-room.

“We are doing all we can, Mr Kemball,” declared Petherbridge. “The young lady is, I regret to say, in a most precarious condition – in fact, in a state of collapse.”

I begged him to remain, and he did so. For several hours they were constantly at her bedside, while Mrs Howard, anxious and solicitous for the welfare of her young mistress, expressed surprise that Mr Shaw did not return.

My own suspicion was that he had already fled, yet it proved ungrounded, for at half-past two he arrived in eager haste, in a hired carriage, his car having broken down. Both doctors came forward and explained that the condition of Miss Asta had in no way improved. She was suffering from some obscure malady which they had diagnosed as affecting both heart and brain.

“Poor girl! Poor girl!” he cried, tears welling in his eyes. “Do your best for her, I pray of you both,” he added. “She’s all the world to me. Can’t we summon a specialist?”

“Sir George Mortimer, in Cavendish Square, might see her,” remarked the doctor from Northampton.

“Let’s wire to him at once,” urged Shaw, eagerly. “I accept your diagnosis entirely, yet I would like to have a specialist’s opinion.”

Both medical men acquiesced, and a telegram was dispatched to the great specialist on brain trouble.

As Redwood, seated at the library table, wrote the telegram, his close-set eyes met mine. The glance we exchanged was significant.

“How did you know of this terrible affair, Kemball?” asked Shaw, abruptly, a little time afterwards.

“I came over to invite you both to dine next Wednesday,” I said, of course concealing the secret message I had received from the woman I had grown to love.

In response, he gave a grunt of dissatisfaction, and walked down the hall in hasty impatience. Was his impatience an eagerness to hear of the poor girl’s end?

Surely that could not be, for was he not utterly devoted to her! And yet her seizure and her symptoms were exactly similar to those of poor Guy Nicholson!

The whole day I remained there, watching closely Shaw’s demeanour and his movements.

Once, when he found me alone looking forth from the window of the morning-room, he came up beside me, and, looking at me with those small quick eyes of his, said —

“This is a terrible blow for me, Kemball. I have been quite frank with you, therefore be frank with me. I’ve not been blind. I’ve noticed that you’ve been in love with the poor child, and – well, to tell the truth, I secretly hoped that one day you would propose marriage to her. My own position is, as you know, one of hourly insecurity, and my keenest wish was to see her happily settled before – before the crisis.”

“You guessed the truth,” was my reply. “I do love her – I love her more than I can tell.”

He sighed deeply, a sigh that echoed through the big silent room.

“Well,” he said, “our grief must be mutual, I fear. Petherbridge has just told me that they do not believe she can live another hour.”

Hardly had those words left his mouth when Mrs Howard ushered in a tall, thin, white-haired man, the eminent specialist, Sir George Mortimer.

Without delay he was taken to the poor girl’s room, and then a long period of anxious waiting, while the trio of medical men remained with the door closed.

I suppose it must have been about an hour afterwards when, on passing along the carpeted corridor near Shaw’s room, next that of Asta, I saw that the door was shut, but as I passed I heard him utter that peculiar whistle, yet so very low that it was only just audible. Twice I heard it, and halting, found myself involuntarily copying him. He was whistling so softly that it could scarcely be overheard beyond the walls of his own room.

What was the meaning of that sound? Probably it only escaped his lips when deep in thought. Some men invariably whistle softly or hum tunes while dressing. Yet in any case it was curious that he should do this while Asta lay dying.

All was chaos and disorder in that usually calm, well-ordered household. Just about seven o’clock Redwood came to me and called me to one of the upstairs rooms, where the great specialist awaited me alone.

“I believe that a friend of yours, a Mr Nicholson, died a little time ago in somewhat similar circumstances to the present case,” said Sir George, standing upon the hearthrug with his arms folded. “Now, as far as I can make out, the young lady’s illness is due to brain trouble, brought on perhaps by fright. I have seen several similar cases in my experience – and I have treated them.”

“But Miss Seymour – will she live?” I asked in frantic anxiety.

“Ah! That I cannot foretell,” he replied calmly, in his soft-spoken voice. “I have administered two injections, and I’m glad to tell you that she is infinitely better. Indeed, I expect her very soon to regain consciousness, and we may hope for a turn.”

“Thank God! – thank God!” I cried, with over burdened heart. “She is very dear to me, Sir George,” I added with emotion, “and I thank you deeply for your efforts to save her.”

“I understand – I quite understand, my dear sir,” he said with professional calmness. “Yet, from what my two colleagues have told me, I can’t help thinking that there is – well, a little mystery somewhere, eh?”

“A little mystery?” I echoed. “Ah, Sir George, there is a very great mystery, one which I intend at all hazards to investigate – now that Asta has fallen a victim.”

But as I spoke the door was unceremoniously pushed open, and Shaw, who had put on a dark blue suit, and who looked unusually pale and haggard, entered, and inquired for the latest bulletin of the patient.

“I’m glad to tell you, Mr Shaw, that she will probably recover,” replied the eminent man. “In an hour we trust to have her conscious again, and then she will, I hope, tell us what happened – what she indicated when, in her fright, she made mention of this mysterious hand.”

The hand! I recollected those written words of Melvill Arnold.

“She was delirious, I suppose, poor girl!” Shaw said. “But this is real good news that she is getting better! You are quite sure that she will not be taken from us?”

“I hope not. I have treated similar cases.”

“Ah! then there is nothing abnormal in this?” he cried eagerly.

“I cannot exactly say that, Mr Shaw. When the poor young lady recovers she will be able to tell us what really occurred to cause her mysterious seizure,” Sir George replied gravely.

“Yes,” said Shaw. “I hope she will be able to clear up the mystery. You think in an hour or so she will be conscious again?”

“I sincerely hope so.”

And then both men left the room together. Towards nine o’clock the crafty-faced butler came to inform me that Captain Cardew wished to see me, and, a few seconds later, I grasped hands with Guy Nicholson’s friend.

The dining-room was empty, for, though the table had been laid, nobody had thought of dinner. Contrary to expectations, alas! Asta had not recovered consciousness. Only ten minutes before I had seen Redwood, who admitted that she had taken a slight turn for the worse, and that their anxiety had been considerably increased thereby.

I had then sought Shaw, but could not find him. He had gone over to the garage for a moment, Mrs Howard told me.

As soon as I got Cardew alone, however, I told him as briefly as I could what had occurred.

“Then Miss Seymour’s case and Guy’s are practically identical!” he cried, staring at me.

“Yes. And I want you to stay here with me and investigate,” I said. Then I related how, on the door of her room being burst in, she had, before losing consciousness, made reference to some mysterious hand.

“That’s distinctly curious,” Cardew declared. “I wonder what she could have meant?”

“Ah! that remains to us to discover. Will you assist me?”

“Of course,” cried the Captain enthusiastically. “Only I hope the poor young lady will recover. Surely the doctors ought to be able to diagnose something!”

“They can’t say anything definite. It’s for you and me to furnish proofs.”

“What do you suspect, Kemball?” he asked, looking straight into my face.

“Wait and see,” I replied. “At eleven o’clock, if Asta is not then conscious, we will go and investigate the room in which she was lying when seized.”

We ate some cold meat and drank a glass of claret, for I had touched nothing that day, while he had had a long journey from Aldershot. Then again we sought news of my beloved.

Her precarious condition had not altered, and she remained still unconscious. Afterwards I was told by Mrs Howard that Shaw was in the library, writing. He was greatly upset at the girl’s continued unconsciousness, and had expressed a desire not to be disturbed. As I passed the door I heard him speaking over the telephone to some one. All I heard was the number – the number of the woman Olliffe! I tried to gather what he said, but was unable. He was purposely speaking in a low voice – so as not to be overheard.

When the long old grandfather’s clock in the hall had chimed eleven, I ascended the wide staircase with Cardew, and with an electric torch which I had several hours ago found in the library, we gained the landing.

Redwood brushed past in haste, and in reply to my question gave but little hope of my poor love’s recovery. “Mortimer is about to make a last effort with another injection,” he said. “But I fear, Mr Kemball, that we must now abandon all hope.”

My heart stood still. His words fell upon me as though he had struck me a blow.

“No hope?” I managed to gasp.

“No, none, Mr Kemball,” replied the doctor, and he hurried away to fetch something from the servants’ quarters.

I made no further remark. Mere words failed me. If Asta were lost to me, then it was my duty to avenge her death. Therefore I drew Cardew into the dark bedroom in which the dying girl had witnessed the hideous apparition of the hand, and then, with difficulty – for one hinge was broken – I closed the door.

Afterwards, I switched on the electric light and we made a minute and careful examination of the apartment. But we discovered nothing. Before entering there I noticed that the door of Shaw’s room adjoining was closed, for he was still downstairs writing.

Presently, when we had satisfied ourselves that in the room was nothing suspicious, I pointed out to my friend that if we remained quietly in the darkness, without speaking, no one would suspect us of being there.

“Now,” I added, “I’m going to lie on that bed while you sit in yonder armchair in the corner; you take the torch, and at sign of the slightest movement flash on a light at anything you may see. Don’t hesitate, for – well, perhaps my life may be in danger, like Guy’s. Who knows?”

I had taken from the corner Asta’s small ash walking-stick which she sometimes used when tramping about the country, and with this in my hand I lay down upon the pillow, fully dressed as I was.

Then Cardew, breathless with excitement, switched off the electric light, plunging the room in darkness.

Gradually, when our eyes became used to it, we could distinguish a faint grey light from the window, but it was not sufficient for me to distinguish my friend, seated as he was in the corner with light and weapon ready.

An hour passed, but nothing happened. We were waiting there, every nerve strained to the utmost tension, but in vain.

At last a sudden suggestion crossed my mind, and leaving Cardew in the room, with his torch ready, I went next door into Shaw’s room, which was still dark, and, having closed the door, imitated that peculiar whistle of his. Three or four times I whistled, surprised that I could imitate him so exactly. Then I waited, listening intently.

I could hear nothing.

So I crept back again to the bed in Asta’s room, for I think Cardew was now becoming impatient. Then, while lying upon the bed, I cautioned him to be very careful.

“Open your light at the slightest sound, remember.”

I held my breath, and could hear my own heart beating in the dead silence. Then after the lapse of a few moments – for we were both listening to the hum of a receding motor-car, and wondering whose it was – I suddenly gave vent to that low, curious whistle.

Once, twice, thrice I repeated it, low and cautious, so that any one passing the door might not be attracted by it.

Then I listened again with bated breath.

A few seconds went by – seconds of intense anxiety.

Then, of a sudden, my quick ears caught a curious ticking sound, and next moment a flood of white light fell upon the bedclothes close to my head.

I sprang up with a shriek, for there – close to me – I saw Something– the terrible claw-like Hand!

Chapter Twenty Nine

Discloses Shaw’s Secret

The Thing was ugly, hairy, and horrible – a huge dark brown tarantula, the size of a man’s palm, which, the instant it was discovered, turned and sped across the bedclothes and disappeared in the darkness.

Cardew had jumped to his feet with a wild, startled ejaculation of horror, having switched on the light, but though we rapidly searched the room high and low, yet nowhere could we find the horrible arachnid. But the secret was out! The revolting hairy thing, which had on that night in Arnay-le-Duc appeared to me like a weird hand, was that huge venomous spider whose bite was as fatal as that of a cobra!

Armed with sticks, Cardew and I groped into every hole and corner of that room, but it had vanished so suddenly that we could not decide in which direction it had gone.

“Well!” gasped my friend, amazed. “By Gad! I never expected that!”

“Neither did I,” was my breathless reply. “But the reason of poor Guy’s death is now vividly apparent. He was bitten by that arachnid, which Shaw, in all probability, purposely left in his young friend’s library, prior to returning home on that fatal night. I think I realise the truth!” I cried. “This particular species of lycosa tarantula is, I have read, found in the primeval forests of Peru, and will only attack human beings when they are motionless or asleep. Its bite is most deadly. It causes stupor, followed by coma or paralysis, and the victim rapidly dies. Yet if the mark of its bite be concealed and unsuspected, as it may easily be in the hair, then the symptoms are identical with those of inflammation of the brain – the disease which from poor Guy is supposed to have died!”

“Then you suspect Shaw of having kept the horrible thing as a pet – eh!” he gasped, staring at me amazed.

“Both as a pet and as an instrument of murder,” I replied. “The thing being nocturnal in its habits would, if introduced into a room, remain carefully hidden all day, and only attack the victim at night while he is sleeping. I had a narrow escape while motoring in France with Shaw,” – and then, in a few words, I described my own experience, and also Asta’s previous sight of what had appeared to both of us as a weird, uncanny hand.

“Then this scoundrel Shaw evidently intended that you should die!” he exclaimed. “By Jove! old chap, you have had a narrow escape!”

“Yes. He must have carried his dangerous pet in secret in a box, I suppose. And must have taken it away with him when he fled from Aix.”

Then, suddenly recollecting that curious whistle of his, I realised how Shaw had used it in order to recall the great spider.

“Put out the light, Cardew,” I said. “Have your torch ready. I have an idea.”

“But – ” he hesitated, in apprehension.

“Have no fear. We want to see the hideous thing again – and to kill it,” I said.

The next second the room was once more in darkness, and after a few moments I began to imitate softly that peculiar whistle that I had learnt from Shaw.

Then we waited in breathless silence, not moving a muscle.

Again and again I whistled, but we could hear no movement. The huge spider was, we felt assured, somewhere in the room, but where we could not discover.

“Switch on the light,” I cried at last, and in a second the place became illuminated again, when, to our surprise, halfway down the pink-and-white cretonne curtains at the head of the bed the ugly arachnid, with its long claws, stood revealed and startled at the sudden turning on of the light.

He had crept slowly down from the small canopy above the bed, seeking the place where I had lain.

In an instant he turned to ascend the curtain again, but we were too quick for him, for with two or three sharp cuts with our sticks we brought him down, and he was quickly stretched dead upon the floor.

I went forth boldly to search for Shaw, but could not find him. His room was in disorder, for he had apparently seized some things, packed hurriedly and left.

The car we heard leaving the house while we were in Asta’s bedroom had evidently been his!

He had escaped at the very moment when we had discovered the ingenious means by which he had committed his crimes.

We called the three doctors and showed them the huge dead spider. Then, in a moment, all three agreed that Guy Nicholson had succumbed to its bite, and examination of poor unconscious Asta’s hair showed plainly where she, too, had been bitten just above the right ear. The trio of medical men stood utterly astounded. No time, however, was lost by Sir George in applying various antidotes and restoratives, and by dawn he came to me with the joyful news that she had taken a turn for the better.

Our knowledge of the real cause of the ailment had only been gained in the very nick of time.

Further examination of the walls of Asta’s room resulted in the amazing discovery that the door of a cupboard in the wall beside the fireplace was warped and when closed left a space of an inch open at the bottom. The cupboard was lined inside with wood panelling, and in one panel at the back a tiny trapdoor about four inches square had been cut, so that it could be removed from within the corresponding cupboard which was in Shaw’s room adjoining.

Investigation showed that the cupboard in question was the one secured by those two patent locks, and on breaking it open we found that in it Shaw had kept the venomous spider, for both water and food were there, as well as a thick india-rubber glove which he no doubt used when he wished to handle his hideous pet, and a small wire cage in which it could be carried.

In order to release it into Asta’s room he had only to move the small piece of cut panel in the back of its place of imprisonment, and, glad to escape, the thing would pass through, as no doubt it had done on the night when my well-beloved had been attacked.

To recall it, Shaw had only to whistle. The spider knew the call.

After the attack upon Asta the scoundrel had evidently lost the reptile in the confusion, and disliking the light it had found refuge on the small cretonne canopy fixed against the ceiling, over the head of the bed.

Knowledge that its bite had not proved fatal, as in Nicholson’s case, and that Asta might recover and describe what she had seen, together with the fact that he had been unable to induce his pet to return to him, had terrified him, and he had escaped.

Quickly I telephoned to the police in Northampton, and very soon two officers came out on bicycles, and to them we made a statement. Then, an hour later, a hue-and-cry was flashed across the wires for the assassin’s arrest.

Slowly – very slowly – Asta recovered consciousness, but I was not allowed to see her, nor was she allowed, indeed, to speak.

Yet the knowledge that my beloved would again be given back to life was, in itself, all-sufficient for me.

I had at least solved two points in that amazing mystery of avarice and cunning. I had discovered the cruel ingenious manner in which Guy Nicholson had been killed because of the knowledge he had accidentally gained, and I had also established the fact that Shaw intended that poor Asta should succumb.

But what was the motive of this double crime? That point was, in itself, the most puzzling point of all.

Chapter Thirty

The Third of November

Through the whole of the following day I remained at the Hall, but as may be imagined the consternation was great when it became known to the servants, and through them to the countryside, that Mr Harvey Shaw, the eminently respectable county magistrate, was being searched for by the police.

Curious how quickly popularity disappears at the first breath of scandal. The very persons who had been loudest in Shaw’s praises were now the first to hint at dark things and declare that they had all along suspected him of leading a double life.

Sir George remained, but the two local practitioners went forth to do their daily rounds. Asta had greatly improved, and though ordered not to refer to the tragic events of the past few hours, I was allowed to see her for five minutes about seven o’clock.

Wan and very pale, she was in a blue silk dressing-jacket, propped up with pillows. As I entered, she put out her small white hand and a single trembling word, my name, escaped her lips.