The Gloved Hand by Burton Egbert Stevenson (manga ebook reader .TXT) 📗

That wish was destined to be gratified, for, three years later, we heard that story, or a part of it, from Silva's lips, as he lay calmly smoking a cigarette, looking in the face of death,—and without flinching. Perhaps, some day, I shall tell that story.

"But, Godfrey," I said, as we turned in at his gate, "all this scheme of lies—the star, the murder, the finger-prints—what was it all about? I can't see through it, even yet."

"There are still a few dark places," he agreed; "but the outlines are pretty clear, aren't they?"

"Not to me—it's all a jumble."

"Suppose we wait till we hear Miss Vaughan's story," he suggested. "After that, I think, we can reconstruct the whole plot. There's one foundation-stone that's missing," he added, thoughtfully. "I wonder if Miss Vaughan uses a blotting-book? It all depends upon that!"

"A blotting-book?" I echoed. "But I don't see...."

He shook himself out of his thoughts with a little laugh.

"Not now, Lester. It's time we were in bed. Look, there's the sun!" and he led the way into the house. "I'll have you called at nine," he added, as he bade me good-night at my door.

Godfrey's powers of recuperation have astonished me more than once, and never more so than when I found him at the breakfast-table, as fresh and rosy as though he had had a full night's sleep. But even I felt better by the time the meal was over. It is wonderful what a cup of coffee can do for a man!

"I 'phoned a message to Swain, as soon as I was up," Godfrey said, "telling him, in your name, that we had the evidence to clear him, and that Miss Vaughan was safe."

"I must go down to him," I said, "and start proceedings to set him free. I'll get Simmonds to go with me before Goldberger, and then before the magistrate. We ought to get an order of release at once."

"You've got something to do before that," Godfrey reminded me. "We're to hear Miss Vaughan's story at ten o'clock. I'm taking it for granted," he added, with a smile, "that I'll be welcome, as well as Hinman."

"That doesn't need saying," I retorted, and ten minutes later, we were on the way to Elmhurst.

There was a man on guard at the library door, but he allowed us to pass when we gave our names, having evidently had his instructions from Simmonds. In answer to Godfrey's question, he said that, so far as he knew, no trace had been found of Silva.

We went on into the room, and found that some one, Simmonds presumably, had closed the safe and swung the section of shelving back into place before it. It was not locked, however, and I opened it and went through its contents carefully, with the faint hope that the money might have been thrust into some other compartment. But I found no trace of it, and was replacing the contents, when a voice at the threshold brought me to my feet.

"Mr. Lester!" it said, and I turned to behold a vision which made me catch my breath—a vision of young womanhood, with smiling lips and radiant eyes—a vision which came quickly toward me, with hands outstretched.

"Miss Vaughan!" I cried, and took the hands and held them.

"Can you forgive me?" she demanded.

"For what?"

"For treating you so badly! Oh, I could see what you thought of me, and I longed to tell you it was only make-believe, but I didn't dare! I could see your grimace of disgust, when I fell on my knees beside the chair yonder...."

"Miss Vaughan," I broke in, "whatever my sentiments may have been—and I was an idiot not to suspect the truth!—they have all changed into enthusiastic admiration. You were wiser and braver than all of us."

A wave of colour swept into her cheeks.

"I might add," I went on, "that I thought white robes becoming, but they were not nearly so becoming as this gown!"

"It is of the last century!" she protested. "But anything is better than that masquerade! And when—when...."

"I think I can get Swain free this afternoon," I answered. "I'm going to try, anyway. Mr. Godfrey 'phoned him the good news the first thing this morning. This is Mr. Godfrey, Miss Vaughan," I added, "and very eager to shake hands with you."

"Very proud, too," said Godfrey, coming forward and suiting the action to the word.

There was a step on the walk outside, and Dr. Hinman appeared at the door.

"Well!" he cried, coming in, his face beaming. "There's no need for me to ask how my patient's doing!"

"I'm afraid you haven't got any patient, any more, doctor," I laughed.

"I'm afraid not," agreed Hinman. "I'll have to go back to my office and wait for another one. But before I go, Miss Vaughan, I want to hear the story. Mr. Lester promised me I should."

Miss Vaughan looked at me.

"We all want to hear it," I said; "how you came to suspect—how you got the glove—everything."

Her face grew sober, and a shadow flitted across it.

"Suppose we sit down," she said, and just then the sentry at the door saluted and Simmonds stepped into the room.

I saw him shake his head in answer to Godfrey's questioning look and knew that Silva had not been found. Then I brought him forward to Miss Vaughan and introduced him.

"Mr. Simmonds," I explained, "has been in charge of this case; and it was he who arranged to watch the house, for fear some harm would befall you...."

"I know," broke in Miss Vaughan, clasping Simmonds's hand warmly. "Annie told me all about it this morning. I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Simmonds."

"Oh, it wasn't me, especially," protested Simmonds, red to the ears. "It was really Godfrey there, and Mr. Lester. They were worried to death."

"We were rather worried," Godfrey admitted; "especially after we saw you at that midnight fireworks party."

"You saw that?" she asked quickly; "but how...."

"Oh, we had seen the show every night for a week. It was its failure to come off last night which first told us something was wrong."

"Well," said Miss Vaughan, with a deep breath, sitting down again and motioning us to follow her example, "it seems to me that you have a story to tell, too! But I'll tell mine first. Where shall I begin?"

"Begin," I suggested, "at the moment when you first suspected the plot."

"That was when you were telling me of Fred's arrest. When you told me of the handkerchief and then of the finger-prints, I knew that someone was plotting against him. And then, quite suddenly, I thought of something."

"You jumped up," I said, "as though you were shot, and ran to the book-case over there and got down that album of finger-prints, and found that Swain's were missing. That seemed to upset you completely."

"It did; and I will tell you why. My father, for many years, had been a collector of finger-prints. All of his friends were compelled to contribute; and whenever he made a new acquaintance, he got his prints, too, if he could. He believed that one's character was revealed in one's finger-prints, and he studied them very carefully. It was a sort of hobby; but it was, for some reason, distasteful to Señor Silva. He not only refused to allow prints to be made of his fingers, but he pooh-poohed my father's theories, and they used to have some terrific arguments about it. One night, after a particularly hot argument, Señor Silva made the assertion that he could, by hypnotic suggestion, cause his servant Mahbub to reproduce any finger-prints he desired. Mahbub's finger-tips had been manipulated in some way, when he was a child, so that they showed only a series of straight lines."

"Yes," I said, "his prints were taken at the inquest."

"Father said that if Señor Silva could show him proof of that assertion, he would never look at finger-prints again. Señor Silva asked for a week in which to make a study of the prints, in order to impress them upon his memory; at the end of that time, the test was made. It was a most extraordinary one. Señor Silva, father, and I sat at the table yonder, under the light, with the book of prints before us. Mahbub was placed at a little table in the far corner, with his back to us, and Señor Silva proceeded to hypnotise him. It took only a moment, for he could hypnotise Mahbub by pointing his finger at him. He said Mahbub was a splendid subject, because he had hypnotised him hundreds of times, and had him under perfect control. Then he placed an ink-pad on the table in front of him—nothing else. My father wrote his name and the date upon the top sheet of a pad of paper, and Señor Silva placed it before Mahbub. Then he sat down with us, selected a page of prints, and asked us to concentrate our minds upon it. At the end of a few moments, he asked me to bring the pad from before Mahbub. I did so, and we found the prints upon it to be identical with those on the page we had been looking at. My father touched them with his finger and found that they were fresh, as the ink smeared readily. His name was on the corner of the page, where he had written it. There could be no doubt that in some way Mahbub had been able to duplicate the prints.

"Señor Silva repeated the experiment with another set of prints and then with another. I think there were six altogether, and every one of them was successful."

"Was Swain's one of them?" asked Godfrey.

"No; but when Mr. Lester told me that Fred was suspected because of those finger-prints, the thought flashed into my mind that if Señor Silva and Mahbub could imitate those of other people, they could imitate Fred's, too; and when I looked at the album and found that sheet torn out, I was sure that was what had happened."

"And so you decided to stay in the house, to win Señor Silva's confidence by pretending to become a convert, and to search for evidence against him," I said. "That was a brave thing to do, Miss Vaughan."

"Not so brave as you think," she objected, shaking her head. "I did not believe that there would be any real danger, with the three servants in the house. Only at the last did I realise the desperate nature of the man...."

She stopped and shivered slightly.

"Tell us what happened," I said.

"It was on Sunday afternoon," she continued, "that I went to Señor Silva and told him that I had decided to carry out my father's wish, renounce the world, and become a priestess of Siva. I shall never forget the fire in his eyes as he listened—they fairly burned into me."

"Ah!" said Godfrey. "So that was it!"

She looked at him inquiringly.

"Except upon one hypothesis," he explained, "that action on your part would have embarrassed Silva, and he would have tried to dissuade you. He had left him by your father's will this valuable place and a million dollars. If money had been all he sought, that would have satisfied him, and he would have tried to get rid of you. That he did not—that his eyes burned with eagerness when you told him of your decision—proves that he loved you and wanted you also."

A brighter colour swept into Miss Vaughan's cheeks, but she returned his gaze bravely.

"I think that is true," she assented, in a low voice. "It was my suspicion of that which made me hesitate—but finally I decided that there was no reason why I should spare him and let an innocent man suffer for him."

"Especially when you loved the innocent man," I added to myself, but managed to keep the words from my lips.

"As soon as I told him of my decision," Miss Vaughan continued, "he led me to the room where the crystal sphere is, placed me on the divan, sat down opposite me, and began to explain to me the beliefs of his religion. Meditation, it seems, is essential to it, and it was by gazing at the crystal that one could separate one's soul from one's body and so attain pure and profound meditation."

"Was that your first experience of crystal-gazing?" Godfrey asked.

"Yes; both he and my father had often tried to persuade me to join them. They often spent whole nights there. But it seemed to me that the breaking down of father's will was due to it in some way; I grew to have a fear and horror of it, and so I always refused."

"The change in your father was undoubtedly directly traceable to it," Godfrey agreed.