The Haunted Hand

Illustrations by R. Jack.

AN you get it under?”

“Possibly,” answered the Captain rather curtly. He was curt even to his interlocutor—a privileged person on board—a tall, fair man, with hair that was almost colourless, and manners subtly suggestive of velvet over steel.

They both stepped back a little from the forward hatch. The decks were getting too hot, despite the water that ran towards the scuppers. It was very unfortunate that the “Mahanaddy’s” cargo should have ignited on this particular voyage—when the Persian Mission was on board, and the whole Press agog for their arrival at Plymouth. The Captain was mentally vowing that if he had any influence whatever with the directors, and if the good old ship pulled through this, the “Mahanaddy” should never carry that cursed Egyptian cotton again.

In the meantime they were pounding through the Bay of Biscay in a grey, warm gale of wind, such as dries the skin and sets the nerve to tingle. They were heading straight for Ushant—they were racing with the fire that burnt inside the good ship like some fell disease. And she, as if she had sense and knew her danger, lifted her great black prow to the horizon, and strained forwards through the hissing sea. The spray thrown up by the cut-water dried immediately on her hot sides, leaving the brine on the black paint. Between the planks the pitch exuded, black and glistening like jet. It stuck to the boots of the men and officers, who worked like souls possessed—tired, worn, and dirty.

“And if you don’t get it under?” said the fair man softly—he spoke as if his listener was in pain, needing gentle treatment.

The Captain glanced over the rail to the wild sea, which seemed to gloat over their trouble, and shrugged his shoulders significantly.

“It is awkward,” admitted the other—and he smiled softly.

As has been previously mentioned he was a privileged person. He was the second in command of the Persian Mission, and it was whispered in certain circles that he was second to none in that particular form of diplomacy which was his—namely, the management of Oriental potentates. His chief was below, in his stateroom, penning one of those perfectly-worded literary despatches for which he was famed. It seemed likely that this particular production was destined to be picked up in a bottle by a sardine fisher of the Morbihan—the work of a vanished hand—but that in the estimation of the writer was no reason why it should not be worthy of his reputation. So he sat in the cabin of what seemed to be a doomed ship, and addressed his rounded periods to Her Majesty’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs.

“How are they getting on aft?” said the Captain suddenly.

“Pretty well. The ladies have found it all out, though. They see through our blandishments. They know that it is touch and go.”

The Captain turned aside to give an order to one of the quarter masters, and, when that was executed, there was nothing more to be done. All that human brain could devise, human hands had executed. The hatches were battened and covered deep in soaked canvas. The bulkheads were screwed close—the decks were kept constantly under water. The question now was whether the fire could be smothered or not, and the answer was with Fate.

“I wish,” said the Captain, “that you would go aft and keep up their hearts.”

The fair man laughed.

“How?” he said. “Give them a meal?”

Can't give them any more meals, they have just had lunch.”

“Well,” said the diplomat, “I will order tea—it is a good thing to die on.”

“No—spin them a yarn or something. Distract their attention. It will be settled one way or the other in half-an-hour.”

“All right,” turning on his heel, “I’ll tell them a little story. He lounged aft to where the ladies—there were only five of them—sat in a group, and drew forward a chair and seated himself, crossing one leg over the other, and drawing up reflectively a creaseless black sock. He made no pretence of concealment out of respect for the ladies, seeming to take it for granted that they all (including three young girls) must know that somewhere the sock ends and the leg begins.

“I have,” he said, “been telling the Captain a little story—an improving tale with no moral. They lead a slow and monotonous life, these mariners; I do my best to relieve the dreariness of it.”

“Tell us the story,” said the Great Lady. She guessed that no questions were to be asked.

“It is,” he explained, “a horrible tale! A blood-curdling little narrative which will sound nasty in the daylight.”

The three young girls drew in their chairs, while the men smiled, serenely sure of their own nerves.

“The sort of tale,” continued the narrator, “to haunt you. It haunts me—not the whole of me—only that hand.”

He raised in the air his right arm, and contemplated, reflectively, a frail, brown-fingered hand.

“That hand,” he added with a vague smile, “is haunted. It has a special ghost of its own. I sometimes wake up in the night, and the ghost is there.

“They,” and he slowly curved his fingers, “have hold of it.”

After a little pause, the haunted hand returned to the black sock.

“It was years ago,” he began, “when I” (with an imperceptible glance towards the Great Lady) “was at the bottom of the tree. I was attaché in a great city. The peace of Europe was hanging by a thread—not only in the newspapers. A secret treaty was in course of completion between England and another Power. A draft of this treaty was sent to my chief. We had it at the Embassy, and it was rather a white elephant to us, because we suspected that its presence in the house was known to the Government of the country to which we were accredited. While it was in the house the chief asked us all to remain at home in the evening, for we all lived under one roof.

“We dined with him every night. He was a bachelor—a dried up little man with a mind like a magnet. He was the very calmest little man I have ever dealt with, just the man for the place; for there was no very stable Government in the country at that time, and he had to keep four or five parties in a good humour.

“After a long dinner on the third evening we played pool, and went on playing very late, long after the servants had gone to bed.

“It was the chief who heard the sound of stealthy keys being thrust into the lock of the front door, which was immediately below his dressing-room, whither he had gone to get change for a five—for a large coin.

“He came back to the billiard-room looking a little calmer than usual.

“‘You chaps,’ he said, putting on his coat, ‘there is someone trying to force the front door. There is a light in the hall. Shall we go down and watch the operations?’

“We, knowing him too well to take this for a joke, laid aside our cues and followed him without waiting to put on our coats.

“We all crept downstairs and stood on the mat in the dim light of the lowered gas. Five of us—listening to the operations of the skilled workman on the other side of the door.

“This, after the manner of the doors of that country, had no bolts, but only a large lock and chain in one piece with the handle.

“After trying several keys, the idea of opening the door by unlocking it was apparently abandoned. Presently the evil-looking point of a centre-bit emerged from the woodwork of the massive panel with a sound like a dog eating biscuits. The chief motioned us to stand aside, for it was only natural to suppose that an eye would be applied to the hole when completed. Owing to the thickness of the woodwork the limit of vision through the aperture could only be small, and by crouching down we easily made ourselves invisible.

“In a marvellously short space of time there was a hole as large as that saucer in the door.

“We five crouched around it, watching it like terriers at a rat-hole.

“Then an idea struck me—a rare occurrence—and I crept back to the hat-stand, where a leather dog-leash hung beside the chiefs top hat.

“He gave a little nod as I drew the thong towards me; for he read thoughts as other men read print.

“I passed the noose end through the steel swivel, and, crawling on my knees to the door, held the loop, thus made, round the hole. I was just in time. The man outside had apparently been delaying in order to turn up his sleeve. He was in no hurry; and we wondered afterwards what had become of the police guard specially told off to watch the British Embassy.

A dirty hand—essentially the hand of toil—came through, inside my slip knot. This was followed by a bare white arm. I felt inclined to laugh, and my two hands, outstretched to hold the dog-leash in place, shook visibly.

“The elbow came through and curved, while the dirty fingers crept over the mechanism of the lock and chain with the intelligence of a perfect knowledge.

“A little further until the muscles of the upper arm were visible—then I drew the noose tight, cutting deep into the sinews. Like cats, four pairs of hands pounced upon the hand and arm, holding it against the woodwork, while the grey fingers worked convulsively. We drew the arm through—right up to the shoulder; and they held it in place while I made fast the stout dog-leash to the two bolts of the knocker which jutted out at the top of the door.

“‘A neat job!’ said the chief, as we stood back and contemplated the twitching white arm. ‘A very neat job. There is no hurry,’ he added, beginning leisurely to unchain the door.

“It happened that I was of an athletic turn of mind in those days, and when I proposed opening the door my colleagues stepped back and ceded to me the place of honour.

“I opened it with a jerk and thrust out my hand—that hand—to where I knew his throat must be.

“My fingers seemed to go right through it. I grasped something that felt like a chain in a tangle of warm, wet seaweed. I had clutched his spine!

“His companions had for their own protection cut the throat of this poor hired expert. They had done it so effectually that the head was only retained by the vertebral column. In his agony he had grasped the bell with his right hand, and his rigid fingers still held to the handle. He was crucified face foremost against the door.”

There was a pause, and the fair man looked round with his grave smile, which was, curiously enough, no longer meaningless and placid, but very wise with the Wisdom of Life, and not of Books.

“And so,” he said, “my hand is haunted. It sometimes wakes up at night grasping a chain in a tangle of warm and dripping seaweed!”

“Ladies,” said the Captain, “after so exciting a story it may scarcely interest you to know it, but the fire has been got under.”