The Wooden Hand. Hume Fergus
to a ragged, shock-headed, one-eyed boy of about thirteen. "Just you say that again," Mrs. Merry was remarking to this urchin.
The boy spoke in a shrill voice and with a cockney accent. "Cain sez to me, as he'll come over and see you to-morrer!"
"And who are you to come like this?" asked Mrs. Merry.
"I'm Butsey, and now you've as you've heard twice what Cain hes t'saiy, you can swear, without me waiting," and after this insult the urchin bolted without waiting for the box on the ear, with which Mrs. Merry was prepared to favour him. Allen, quick in his judgments, saw that this was a true specimen of a London gamin, and wondered how such a brat had drifted to Wargrove. As a rule the London guttersnipe sticks to town as religiously as does the London sparrow.
"If I had a child like that," gasped Mrs. Merry as the boy darted round the corner of the cottage, "I'd put him in a corner and keep him on bread and water till the sin was drove out of him. Ah, Mr. Allen, that's you. I'm glad you've come to the house of mourning, and well may I call this place Misery Castle, containing a corp as it do. But I said the dream would come true, and true it came. Five knocks at the door, and the corp with three men bearing it. Your pa's inside, looking at the body, and Miss Eva weeping in the doring-room."
Allen brushed past the garrulous woman, but halted on the doorstep, to ask why she had not come to the front door. Mrs. Merry was ready at once with her explanation. "That door don't open till the corp go out," she said, wiping her hands on her apron. "Oh, I know as you may call it superstition whatever you may say, Mr. Allen, but when a corp enter at one door nothing should come between its entering and its going out. If anything do, that thing goes with the corp to the grave," said Mrs. Merry impressively; "police and doctor and your pa and all, I haven't let in by the front, lest any one of them should die. Not as I'd mind that Wasp man going to his long home, drat him with his nasty ways, frightening Miss Eva."
Waiting to hear no more, Hill went through the kitchen and entered the tiny drawing-room. The blinds were down and on the sofa he saw Eva seated, dressed in black. She sprang to her feet when she saw him. "Oh, Allen, I am so glad you have come. Your father said you could not, because of your foot."
"I sprained it, Eva, last night when-"
"Yes. Your father told me all. I wondered why you did not come back, Allen, to relieve my anxiety. Of course you did not go to the Red Deeps?"
"No," said Allen sitting down, her hand within his own, "I never got so far, dearest. So your dream came true?"
"Yes. Truer than you think-truer than you can imagine," said Eva in a tone of awe. "Oh, Allen, I never believed in such things; but that such a strange experience should come to me," – she covered her face and wept, shaken to the core of her soul; Allen soothed her gently, and she laid her head on his breast, glad to have such kind arms around her. "Yes, my father is dead," she went on, "and do you know, Allen, wicked girl that I am, I do not feel so filled with sorrow as I ought to be? In fact" – she hesitated, then burst out, "Allen, I am wicked, but I feel relieved-"
"Relieved, Eva?"
"Yes! had my father come home alive everything would have gone wrong. You and I would have been parted, and-and-oh, I can't say what would have happened. Yet he is my father after all, though he treated my mother so badly, and I knew so little about him. I wish-oh, I wish that I could feel sorry, but I don't-I don't."
"Hush, hush! dearest," said Allen softly, "you knew little of your father, and it's natural under the circumstances you should not feel the loss very keenly. He was almost a stranger to you, and-"
While Allen was thus consoling her, the door opened abruptly and Hill entered rather excited. "Eva," he said quickly, "you never told me that your father's wooden hand had been removed."
"It has not been," said Eva; "it was on when we laid out his body."
"It's gone now, then," said Hill quietly, and looking very pale; "gone."
CHAPTER VI
THE WARNING
On hearing this announcement of the loss, Eva rose and went to the chamber of death. There, under a sheet, lay the body of her father looking far more calm in death, than he had ever looked in life. But the sheet was disarranged on the right side, and lifting this slightly, she saw that what Mr. Hill said was true. The wooden hand had been removed, and now there remained but the stump of the arm. A glance round the room showed her that the window was open, but she remembered opening it herself. The blind was down, but some one might have entered and thieved from the dead. It was an odd loss, and Eva could not think why it should have taken place.
When she returned to the tiny drawing-room, Allen and his father were in deep conversation. They looked up when the girl entered.
"It is quite true," said Eva, sitting down; "the hand is gone."
"Who can have stolen it?" demanded Allen, wrinkling his brow.
"And why should it be stolen?" asked Hill pointedly.
Eva pressed her hands to her aching head. "I don't know," she said wearily. "When Mrs. Merry and I laid out the body at dawn this morning the hand was certainly there, for I noted the white glove all discoloured with the mud of the Red Deeps. We pulled down the blind and opened the window. Some one may have entered."
"But why should some one steal?" said Hill uneasily; "you say the hand was there at dawn?"
"Yes." Eva rose and rang the bell. "We can ask Mrs. Merry."
The old woman speedily entered, and expressed astonishment at the queer loss. "The hand was there at nine," she said positively. "I went to see if everything was well, and lifted the sheet. Ah, dear me, Mr. Strode, as was, put a new white glove on that wooden hand every morning, so that it might look nice and clean. Whatever would he have said, to see the glove all red with clay? I intended," added Mrs. Merry, "to have put on a new glove, and I sent Cain to buy it."
"What?" asked Eva, looking up, "is Cain back?"
"Yes, deary. He came early, as the circus is passing through this place on to the next town, Shanton. Cain thought he'd pick up the caravans on the road, so came to say good-bye."
Eva remembered Cain's odd behaviour, and wondered if he had anything to do with the theft. But the idea was ridiculous. The lad was bad enough, but he certainly would not rob the dead. Moreover-on the face of it-there was no reason he should steal so useless an object as a wooden hand. What with the excitement of the death, and the fulfilment of the dream, not to mention that she felt a natural grief for the death of her father, the poor girl was quite worn out. Mr. Hill saw this, and after questioning Mrs. Merry as to the theft of the glove, he went away.
"I shall see Wasp about this," he said, pausing at the door, "there must be some meaning in the theft. Meanwhile I'll examine the flower-bed outside the window."
Mrs. Merry went with him, but neither could see any sign of foot-marks on the soft mould. The thief-if indeed a thief had entered the house, had jumped the flower-bed, and no marks were discoverable on the hard gravel of the path. "There's that boy," said Mrs. Merry.
"What boy?" asked Hill, starting.
"A little rascal, as calls himself Butsey," said the old woman, folding her hands as usual under her apron. "London street brat I take him to be. He came to say Cain would be here to-morrow."
"But Cain is here to-day," said Mr. Hill perplexed.
"That's what makes me think Butsey might have stolen the wooden hand," argued Mrs. Merry. "Why should he come here else? I didn't tell him, as Cain had already arrived, me being one as knows how to hold my tongue whatever you may say, Mr. Hills" – so Mrs. Merry named her companion. "I would have asked questions, but the boy skipped. I wonder why he stole it?"
"You have no proof that he stole it at all," said Hill smartly; "but I'll tell Wasp what you say. When does the inquest take place?"
"To-morrow, as you might say," snapped Mrs. Merry crossly; "and don't bring that worriting Wasp round here, Mr. Hills. Wasp he is by name and Wasp by nature with his questions. If ever you-"
But Mr. Hill was beyond hearing by this time. He always avoided a chat with Mrs. Merry, as the