“For that hand, aside from the characteristics that would be sufficient for any expert to know it from all other right hands, has a marking that calls attention when you see it. A scar, running from the end of the ring-finger to the base of that line which palmistry terms ‘life-line.’ A scar which must be so plain that it cannot be unnoticed. So, God forbid, if one of us were the murderer and chanced to draw off his gloves, there would be every chance in the world for you, gentlemen, for me, to identify that hand immediately and ask for the man’s arrest at the next station.”
“Oh!” the young woman gasped.
The two men stared at their gloved hands instinctively.
“And,” the younger man spoke, “that photograph is to appear in the morning papers?”
“We’ll see it when we arrive?” the old gentleman wondered.
“No,” I explained, “the print was given to the press only tonight, and the Paris papers won’t reach us until tomorrow.”
My information appeared to have disturbed the young woman. She spoke after a moment of hesitation, yielding to curiosity:
“I’d like to see it.”
“Nothing easier than that,” I assured her. “I have a print in my briefcase. Here it is.”
She took it.
Her husband looked over her shoulder. The old gentleman, after murmuring: “Will you permit me?” crossed the compartment and sat at her side for a closer glance. All three stared at the print intently. Such attention tensed their faces that I might have believed they were staring at the real hand. But as the light was not too strong, I leaned over to indicate the details.
“See that white streak? Isn’t it clear? That’s the scar, see? And over here—”
“Growing stuffy in here,” the young man said. “Mind if I open the window?”
He slid the pane of glass into its groove in the door panel, and cool air rushed in. The old man wiped his forehead and said: “Oh, how good that feels!”
I was about to go on with my explanation, but at this moment the locomotive shrilled piercingly and a formidable uproar started. I spoke loudly, for the tumult increased and covered my voice: “We are entering the tunnel. I shall resume when we’re out of it—can’t hear anything now—”
The old gentleman sank back on the seat. The young woman kept her eyes on the photograph. The husband leaned against the side of the car, and I saw his lips move, guessed the words: “It’s stuffy.”
And he leaned out of the window, as if to place his face in the rush of air. It seemed to me then that I heard an odd sound, something like a muffled cry or a moan, with another, slighter, indescribable noise, a crunching, squishing sound. My companions must have heard it also, through that thunderous din, for all three lifted their heads questioningly. Then, as it was not repeated, we looked at the print again. For a minute, the train crashed on in the tunnel, then the sounds lessened, the air felt lighter, and the steam which had whirled into our compartment through the open window drifted and dissolved. We were rolling under the open sky again.
But as I was about to resume my explanation, I suddenly noticed that the young man, braced in his corner near the window, one arm hanging outside, had grown dreadfully pale. He swept us, his wife, with an insane stare.
“You feel faint, Monsieur?” I risked.
He lurched, and I scarcely had time to catch him as he fell face forward. It was then that I noticied at the end of his right arm something bloody, broken, shapeless, a mass of flesh and smashed bones dripping blood.
“Oh! The poor fellow!” the old gentleman cried out. “He slipped and struck the wall of the tunnel. His hand’s gone!”
The young wife rose.
Already, ripping the sleeve of the wounded man, I was applying a tourniquet improvised with my handkerchief to stop the spurting blood. He opened his eyes, his bewildered eyes, and his glance swept down his arm to his horrible wound. Then he looked wildly at the motionless girl. She dropped back on the seat, and with chattering teeth she clutched him against her breast without speaking a word.
Suddenly, the old man’s sentence echoed in my ears: His hand is gone. And I looked down at the photograph fallen to the floor of the car. The wounded man followed my eyes with his own. And I remembered that I had said: he will be discovered unless he strikes off his hand at the wrist.
The suspicion, then the certainty, entered my consciousness almost together. But before those pleading eyes in the tortured face, I had neither the will, nor perhaps the wish, to speak. And we waited for daylight without exchanging another word.
As it was still dark when the train reached Vallorbe, the wounded man was not taken off the train until we arrived at Lausanne. I never heard of him again.
But I know that the murderer of Pergolese Street was never found.
Thirty Hours with a Corpse
DAY HAD come at last. The two men looked at each other and although they did not move or speak, each read in the eyes of his companion relief—followed quickly by fear. With the growing light a murmur of voices came up from the newly awakened street. They waited tensely almost as if they expected some unknown accuser to burst open the door, rush in, and seize them.
An interruption such as that, or death, even, at the hands of an infuriated mob would have been welcome, anything that would somehow, some way, break the continuity of horror that had held them for hours speechless and motionless beside the dead body of a woman lying face downward on the floor.
But life was resuming its activities casually enough in the streets, sounds of opening shutters, the shrill cry of a vegetable vendor. It was this last sound that seemed to arouse the younger of the two men, Armand Barthe. Barthe’s eyes held a staring fixity of expression, but his lips trembled now. He hesitated for a moment, looked toward the window, then with a quick, convulsive movement picked up his overcoat and put on his hat.
“Where are you going?” Guiret asked sharply, before he had reached the door.
“Out—out—come with me—”
“You must be crazy. It won’t be long before the concierge will be up to do our rooms. He would find it and the police would be on our tracks before we could get out of Paris—”
“But—but we are lost, we are lost—”
“No!” Guiret denied vigorously, even though he could not, at the moment, see any way to escape the consequences of the crime.
Barthe usually deferred to his roommate on important questions. He appeared to gain a momentary composure, to feel almost reassured. He did not speak because he felt that Guiret had not yet made definite plans. Guiret was thinking, he knew that, and while he waited to hear the results of that thinking, he put his palms over his eyes, pressing them on the eyeballs, but even then he seemed to see the body.
“Armand—” Guiret said, so abruptly that Barthe started violently, as if awakened from sleep.
“What is it?”
“Get your big trunk—it’s empty, isn’t it?”
“Yes—” Barthe replied, but made no move to go.
Guiret got up impatiently, went into Barthe’s bedroom, and came out dragging the high, round-topped trunk after him. The sweat was running from his temples, for the trunk was heavy even though it was empty. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, then unfastened the straps and lifted the cover.
“Yes, it will do,” he said. “Help me—”
“Help you?” Barthe questioned stupidly.
“Yes, yes!” Guiret cried out, suddenly tense, unnerved for a moment through the contagion of his friend’s terror.