Maxwell Grant
Hands in the Dark
CHAPTER I
The strange characters of the cryptic message were a blood red hue. They were vivid and mysterious beneath the oval light of the desk lamp.
“A dead man’s message!”
Reynold Barker looked about him as he spoke. The silence of his gloomy surroundings worried him. His fingers trembled. The paper crinkled. Even that slight sound was startling.
The dark-paneled walls of the room were oppressive to Reynold Barker. He felt that he was in their grip; that he could never leave them. He was in Theodore Galvin’s study — the spot that had been his goal for seven days. He had found the paper in the secret drawer of the desk — the exact place where Galvin had told him it would be. But the silence of this sullen chamber was maddening. It brought back recollections of those dying eyes — Galvin’s eyes.
Barker steadied his nerves with mighty effort. He tried to laugh. It was excitement, he told himself. Shakiness following those long airplane hops from South America. He stared at the paper. His lips forced a smile as he comprehended its meaning.
A sudden gurgle came from Barker’s throat. Hands from the dark had gripped his throat! He dropped the paper and sought to break the throttling hold. He could not. His own hands were feeble. The clutching fingers tightened — choking, choking, choking! Reynold Barker’s brain was whirling. His eyes were bulging, but unseeing. He heard a roaring in his ears — louder than the thrum of an airplane motor. Then came blackness, sickening blackness, more terrible than the shadowy darkness of that sinister room! Again, the strangling hands were tightening…
CHAPTER II
BOB GALVIN looked around the room and smiled. He remembered the place from his boyhood — this quaint old room, with its dark, oak-paneled walls.
He still felt a slight trace of the awe that had gripped him here, for this had been his uncle’s room — the uncle whom Bob remembered as a stern, gray, grim-faced man.
“Does it remind you of old times, sir?”
The question came from Hodgson, the old servant. Hodgson had been Theodore Galvin’s attendant for many years. To Bob, he seemed like a part of this old room.
“Yes,” replied Bob, “it does. So do you, Hodgson. You’re just the same as you were — why, it must be nearly twenty years ago!”
The servant nodded.
“Close to that since you left here, sir. I’m not the same as I was then, sir. I can’t see the way I did once. My eyes” — he shook his head sadly — “are very poor, sir. It seems like I feel my way about the house, Mr. Bob. I know the place so well—”
But Bob Galvin wasn’t listening. Instead, he stiffened as his eyes, turning toward the heavy casement window, fixed themselves for a moment on a strange form outside.
It was a face, shrouded in the shadows. The lower part of the face was hidden in blackness, but the piercing eyes seemed to be studying Bob’s own features. Bob only had a chance to see the face an instant — then it was gone.
The old butler sensed that something was wrong. He turned toward Bob.
“What — what was it, sir,” he stammered. “Did you feel suddenly — suddenly ill?”
“No — a face! Out the window! Peering in at me! Did you see it, too, Hodgson?”
Then, Bob realized that Hodgson had indeed spoken the truth when he said he was nearly blind. The old man’s stonelike, groping expression told that. Hodgson shook his head.
“No, sir. It might have been something caught in those branches that sway against the window. There’s a single tree in the garden out there.”
Bob pushed back his chair and crossed the room to the window. He unfastened the latch and opened the casement. Only the branches of the lone tree swayed mournfully against the casement in the night wind. Nothing more.
Bob bolted the casement again, and shook his head, his lips compressed.
“Strange — strange,” he muttered. “I could have sworn some one was out there, spying on me.”
Then he turned again to Hodgson. “Did my uncle have any — enemies, Hodgson? Men who wanted his ruin — his life, perhaps?”
“No, sir. Not that I know of, sir.”
“Well — have you noticed anything peculiar about the old place, Hodgson? Is — is Miss Betty all right?”
The old man moistened his lips and hesitated. Then he spoke.
“EVERYTHING is just as it used to be, sir. When Mr. Galvin went away, he closed the house. I went out to the country house with Miss Betty. We were there when we learned that your uncle had died.
“I came in and opened the place, sir, when I knew that you were coming home. Miss Betty is still in the country. She said she would wait until you arrived.”
“I am going to phone her shortly.”
“She will be glad to hear from you, sir. She has been waiting there several days now.
“I am glad that I came in alone, sir. I wouldn’t have wanted her to see what I found — in this room!”
“What was that?” Bob’s interest was evident.
“A dead man, sir! He was lying right where you are standing — by the desk.”
“A dead man! Then there was something! Who was he?”
“The police have not learned his name, sir,” Hodgson continued. “Perkins, the chauffeur, was with me when I stumbled on the body. The detectives were sure the man was a thief.”
“What killed him? Was he shot?”
“He was strangled, sir. He must have been dead for two or three days when we discovered him.
“We couldn’t tell how he came in — all the doors were locked, and the shutters were closed and barred. The detectives think he must have had a key that opened the little side door.
“They are sure he came here with another man — both of them probably thieves—”
“Ah, I understand,” interrupted Bob. “One killed the other and escaped. What could they have been after, Hodgson?”
“I can’t imagine, sir,” the servant said. “There was nothing here of value. We could find nothing missing, sir.
“The detectives think that one man had a grudge against the other. That he brought him here to kill him—”
Bob’s face gleamed with understanding.
“I see their idea!” he exclaimed. “The murderer told his pal this was a place worth cracking. Then, when they got in here, he strangled him. No noise — plenty of time to get away—”
“That’s just it, sir,” replied Hodgson, admiringly. “That’s just what the inspector said. There was quite a piece in the paper about it, sir; but it was while you were still on the boat, coming home—”
THE dull ring of the doorbell came as an interruption. With slow, faltering steps, Hodgson left the room to answer.
Bob Galvin watched the old servant as he passed into the gloomy hall. Hodgson seemed truly to be feeling his way through this old, somber house.
Two minutes passed. The servant returned and almost tottered into the room.
“Mr. Mallory is here, sir,” he said.
Bob advanced to greet Hiram Mallory. Mallory had been one of his uncle’s oldest friends. Bob recognized him immediately — a quiet, kindly-faced old gentleman who still bore himself with youthful vigor.
“Most regrettable, your uncle’s death,” said Mallory, when he and Bob were seated at the flat-topped desk. “It was a great mistake for him to travel so far away in his state of health. Asuncion, Paraguay, still has its yellow fever at times — and it brought your uncle’s death, Robert.”
“Whatever did he go for?” asked Bob.
“He was depressed, Robert. His real estate business here in New York was a large one, and successful, but recent unwise investments have lost him a great deal of money. I fear there is little or nothing left of the estate.”