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Mystery of the Four Fingers

<h2 id="id00317" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER VII</h2> <h5 id="id00318">THE WHITE LADY</h5> Gurdon looked hopelessly about him, utterly at a loss for anything to say. The whole thing had been so unexpected, so very opposite to the commonplace ending he had anticipated, that he was too dazed and confused to do anything but smile in an inane and foolish manner. He had rather looked forward to seeing some eccentric individual, some elderly recluse who lived there with a servant or two. And here he was, face to face with the man who, at the present moment, was to him the most interesting in London. "You can take your time," the cripple said. "I am anxious for you to believe that I am not in the least hurry. The point of the problem is this: a well dressed man, evidently a gentleman, is discovered at a late hour in the evening in my cellar. As the gentleman in question is obviously sober, one naturally feels a little curiosity as to what it all means." The speaker spoke quite slowly and clearly, and with a sarcastic emphasis that caused Gurdon to writhe impotently. Every word and gesture on the part of the cripple spoke of a strong mind and a clear intellect in that twisted body. Despite the playful acidity of his words, there was a distinct threat underlying them. It occurred to Gurdon as he stood there that he would much rather have this man for a friend than a foe. "Perhaps you had better take a seat," the cripple said. "There is plenty of time, and I don't mind confessing to you that this little comedy amuses me. Heaven knows, I have little enough amusement in my dreary life; and, therefore, in a measure, you have earned my gratitude. But there is another side to the picture. I have enemies who are utterly unscrupulous. I have to be unscrupulous in my turn, so that when I have the opportunity of laying one of them by the heels, my methods are apt to be thorough. Did you come here alone to-night, or have you an accomplice?" "Assuredly, I came alone," Gurdon replied. "Oh, indeed. You found your way into the garden. To argue out the thing logically, we will take it for granted that you had no intention whatever of paying a visit to my garden when you left home. If such had been your intention, you would not be wearing evening dress, and thin, patent leather shoes. Your visit to the garden was either a resolution taken on the spur of the moment, or was determined upon after a certain discovery. I am glad to hear that you came here entirely by yourself." There was an unmistakable threat in these latter words; and as Gurdon looked up he saw that the cripple was regarding him with an intense malignity. The grey eyes were cold and merciless, the handsome face hard and set, and yet it was not a countenance which one usually associates with the madman or the criminal. Really, it was a very noble face—the face of a philanthropist, a poet, a great statesman, who devotes his money and his talents to the interests of his country. Despite a feeling of danger, Gurdon could not help making a mental note of these things. "Won't you sit down?" the cripple asked again. "I should like to have a little chat with you. Here are whisky and soda, and some cigars, for the excellence of which I can vouch, as I import them myself. Perhaps, also, you share with me a love of flowers?" With a wave of his strong arm, the speaker indicated the wealth of blossoms which arose from all sides of the room. There were flowers everywhere. The luxuriant blooms seemed to overpower and dwarf the handsome furnishings of the room. At the far end, folding doors opened into the conservatory, which was a veritable mass of brilliant colors. The cripple smiled upon his blossoms, as a mother might smile on her child. "These are the only friends who never deceive you," he said. "Flowers and dogs, and, perhaps, little children. I know this, because I have suffered from contact with the world, as, perhaps, you will notice when you regard this poor body of mine. I think you said just now you came here entirely by yourself." "That is a fact," Gurdon replied. He was beginning to feel a little more at his ease now. "Let me hasten to assure you that I came here with no felonious intent at all. I was looking for somebody, and I thought that my friend came here. You will pardon me if I do not explain with any amount of detail, because the thing does not concern myself altogether. And, besides—" Gurdon paused; he could not possibly tell this stranger of the startling events which had led to his present awkward situation. In any case, he would not have been believed. "We need not go into that," the cripple said. "It is all by the way. You came here alone; and, I take it, when you left your home, you had not the slightest intention of coming here. To make my meaning a little more clear, if you disappeared from this moment, and your friends never saw you again, the police would not have the slightest clue to your whereabouts." Gurdon laughed just a little uneasily; he began to entertain the idea that he was face to face with some dangerous lunatic, some man whose dreadful troubles and misfortunes had turned him against the world. Evidently, it would be the right policy to humor him. "That is quite correct," he said. "Nobody has the least idea where I am; and if the unpleasant contingency you allude to happened to me, I should go down to posterity as one of the victims of the mysterious type of crime that startles London now and again." "I should think," said the stranger, in a thin, dry tone, that caused Gurdon's pulses to beat a little faster—"I should think that your prophecy is in a fair way to turn out correct. I don't ask you why you came here, because you would not tell me if I did. But you must have been spying on the place, or you would not have had the misfortune to tread on a damaged grating, and finish your adventure ignominiously in the cellar. As I told you just now, I have enemies who are absolutely unscrupulous, and who would give much for a chance of murdering me if the thing could be done with impunity. Common sense prompts me to take it for granted that you are in some wry connected with the foes to whom I have alluded." "I assure you, I am not," Gurdon protested. "I am the enemy of no man. I came here to night—" Gurdon stopped in some confusion. How could he possibly tell this man why he had come and what he had in his mind? The thing was awkward—almost to the verge of absurdity. "I quite see the quandary you are in," said the cripple, with a smile. "Now, let me ask you a question. Do you happen to know a man by the name of Mark Fenwick?" The query was so straight and to the point that Gurdon fairly started. More and more did he begin to appreciate the subtlety and cleverness of his companion. It was impossible to fence the interrogation; it had to be answered, one way or the other. "I know the man by sight," he said; "but I beg to assure you that until last night I had never seen him." "That may be," the cripple said drily. "But you know him now, and that satisfies me. Now, listen. You see what I have in my hand. Perhaps you are acquainted with weapons of this kind?" So saying, the speaker wriggled in his chair, and produced from somewhere behind him a small revolver. Despite its silver plated barrel and ivory handle, it was a sinister looking weapon, and capable of deadly mischief in the hands of an expert. Though no judge of such matters, it occurred to Gurdon that his companion handled the revolver as an expert should. "I have been used to this kind of thing from a boy," the cripple said. "I could shoot you where you sit within a hair's breadth of where I wanted to hit you." "Which would be murder," Gurdon said quietly. "Perhaps it would, in the eyes of the law; but there are times when one is tempted to defy the mandates of a wise legislature. For instance, I have told you more than once before that I have enemies, and everything points to the fact that you are the tool and accomplice of some of them. I have about me one or two faithful people, who would do anything I ask. If I shoot you now the report of a weapon like this will hardly be audible beyond the door. You lie there, dead, shot clean through the brain. I ring my bell and tell my servants to clear this mess away. I give them orders to go and bury it quietly somewhere, and they would obey me without the slightest hesitation. Nothing more would be said. I should be as safe from molestation as if the whole thing had happened on a desert island. I hope I have succeeded in making the position clear, because I should be loth to think that a little incident like this should cause inconvenience to one who might after all have been absolutely innocent." The words were spoken quietly, and without the slightest trace of passion. Still, there was no mistaking the malignity and intense fury which underlay the well chosen and well balanced sentences. Gurdon was silent; there was nothing for him to say. He was in a position in which he could not possibly explain; he could only sit there, looking into the barrel of the deadly weapon, and praying for some diversion which might be the means of saving his life. It came presently in a strange and totally unexpected fashion. Upon the tense, nerve-breaking silence, a voice suddenly intruded like a flash of light in a dark place. It was a sweet and girlish voice, singing some simple ballad, with a natural pathos which rendered the song singularly touching and attractive. As the voice came nearer the cripple's expression changed entirely; his hard eyes grew soft, and the handsome features were wreathed in a smile. Then the door opened, and the singer came in. Gurdon looked at her, though she seemed unconscious of his presence altogether. He saw a slight, fair girl, dressed entirely in white, with her long hair streaming over her shoulders. The face was very sad and wistful, the blue eyes clouded with some suggestion of trouble and despair. Gurdon did not need a second glance to assure him that he was in the presence of one who was mentally afflicted. She came forward and took her place by the side of the cripple. "They told me that you are busy," she said, "Just as if it mattered whether you were busy or not, when I wanted to see you." "You must go away now, Beth," the cripple said, in his softest and most tender manner. "Don't you see that I am talking with this gentleman?" The girl turned eagerly to Gurdon; she crossed the room with a swift, elastic step, and laid her two hands on him. "I know what you have come for," she said, eagerly. "You have come to tell me all about Charles. You have found him at last; you are going to bring him back to me. They told me he was dead, that he had perished in the mine; but I knew better than that. I know that Charles will come back to me again." "What mine?" Gurdon asked. "Why, the Four Finger Mine, of course," was the totally unexpected reply. "They said that Charles had lost his life in the Four Finger Mine. It was in a kind of dream that I saw his body lying there, murdered. But I shall wake from the dream presently, and he will come back to me, come back in the evening, as he always used to when the sun was setting beyond the pines." There was something so utterly sad and hopeless in this that Gurdon averted his eyes from the girl's face. He glanced in the direction of the door; then it required all his self control to repress a cry, for in the comparative gloom of the passage beyond, he could just make out the figure of Vera, who stood there with her finger on her lip as if imposing silence. He could see that in her hand she held something that looked like a chisel. A moment later she flitted away once more, leaving Gurdon to puzzle his brain as to what it all meant. "I am sorry for all this," the cripple said. "You have entirely by accident come face to face with a phase in my life which is sacred and inviolate. Really, if I had no other reason for reducing you to silence, this would be a sufficiently powerful inducement. My dear Beth, I really must ask you—" Whatever the cripple might have intended to say, the speech was never finished; for, at that moment, the electric lights vanished suddenly, plunging the whole house into absolute darkness. A moment later, footsteps came hurrying along in the hall, and a voice was heard to say that the fuse from the meter had gone, and it would be impossible to turn on the light again until the officials had been called in to repair the damage. At the same moment, Gurdon rose to his feet and crept quietly in the direction of the door. Here, at any rate, was a chance of escape, for that his life was in dire peril he had felt for some little time. He had hardly reached the doorway when he felt a slim hand touch his, and he was guided from the room into the passage beyond. He could give a pretty fair idea as to the owner of the slim fingers that trembled in his own, but he made no remark; he allowed himself to be led on till his feet stumbled against the stairs. "This way," a voice whispered. "Say nothing, and make no protest. You will be quite safe from further harm." Gurdon did exactly as he was told. He found himself presently at the top of a staircase, and a little later on in a room, the door of which was closed very quietly by his guide. "I think I can guess who I have to thank for this," Gurdon murmured. "But why did you not take me to the front door, or the back entrance leading to the garden? It was lucky for me that the lights failed at the critical moment—a piece of nominal good fortune, such as usually only happens in a story. But I should feel a great deal safer if I were on the other side of the front door." "That is quite impossible," Vera said, for it was she who had come to Gurdon's rescue. "Both doors are locked, and all the rooms on the ground floor are furnished with shutters. As to the light going out, I am responsible for it. I learned all about the electric light when I lived in a mining camp in Mexico. I had only to remove one of the lamps and apply my chisel to the two poles, and thereby put out every fuse in the house. That is why the light failed, for it occurred to me that in the confusion that followed the darkness, I should be in a position to save you. But you little realise how near you have been to death to-night. And, why, oh, why did you follow me in this way? It was very wrong of you." "It was Venner's idea," Gurdon said. "He had a strange fear that you were going into some danger. He asked me to follow you, and I did so. As to the manner of my getting here—" "I know all about that," Vera said hurriedly. "I have been listening to your conversation. I dare say you are curious to know something more about this strange household; but, for the present, you will be far better employed in getting away from it. I shall not be easy in my mind till you are once more in the street." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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