The Lost Million

I bought an old thumb-ring and a couple of other trifles, and having plenty of time at our disposal we strolled into the old cathedral and had a look round the market-place.

Ah! how delightful it was to be her escort; how sweet to have her even for one single hour alone!

As we retraced our way to the hotel with halting steps, I resolved to tell her of my weird experience of the previous night.

“A curious thing happened to me last night – or rather very early this morning,” I said, turning to her as we walked.

She looked quickly into my face and her lips were pressed together. But only for a second.

“What was that? Tell me,” she said.

“Well. Do you see upon my left cheek a long red mark? It’s going away now, but it was very plain this morning,” I said.

“Yes,” she replied. “I noticed it when we started. It hardly shows at all now.”

“Well, its cause is quite inexplicable – a mystery,” I said. “I am in no way superstitious, and I am no believer in the supernatural, but in that inn at Arnay-le-Duc there is a Something – something uncanny. I was sound asleep when, just before night gave place to day, a cold hand touched my cheek – a phantom hand that left the mark which you see?”

“A hand?” she gasped, staring at me, her lips pale and cheeks suddenly blanched. “Explain it. I – I can’t understand.”

“I awoke quickly at the chill death-like contact, and saw the hand a few inches from my face – thin, claw-like, and yet a dark shadowy phantom which disappeared in an instant, even before I, so suddenly awakened, could realise what it actually was. But it was a hand – of that I am absolutely positive.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, in a low, hoarse voice, nodding her head and pausing as though reflecting deeply. “Yes, Mr Kemball, you were not mistaken. I – I, too, strangely enough, had a very similar experience about six weeks ago, while staying up at Scarborough with Louise Oliver, an old schoolfellow of mine. I, too, saw the terrible Thing – the Hand!”

“You!” I gasped, staring at her. “You have seen it!”

In response she nodded, her eyes set straight before her, but no word escaped her white, pent-up lips.

Chapter Eighteen

I Make a Discovery

The Terminus Hotel at Lyons is, as you know, a large, artistically furnished place at the Perrache Station, an hotel with a huge and garish restaurant below, decorated in the style known as art nouveau. It is a busy spot, where rushing travellers are continuously going and coming, and where the excitable Frenchman, fearing to lose his train, is seen at his best.

It was there we arrived about six o’clock, and at seven we sat together, a merry trio, at dinner. The cooking was perfect, the wines excellent, and after dinner Shaw mentioned that he had letters to write. Therefore I seized the opportunity to stroll out with Asta, for it was pleasant to walk after so many hours in the car.

She was dressed neatly in black coat and skirt, and a small straw hat trimmed with black ribbon – mourning for Guy Nicholson – and as we wandered out our careless footsteps led us across that wide square called the Cours du Midi, and down upon the Quai de la Charité beside the broad, swiftly flowing Rhone, the water of which ran crimson in the brilliant afterglow.

A hot, breathless evening, in which half Lyons seemed to be taking an airing along the Quais of that winding river-bank which traverses the handsome city. We had turned our backs upon the high railway bridge which spans the river, and set our faces towards the centre of the city, when I noticed that Asta seemed again very silent and thoughtful.

I inquired the reason, when she replied —

“I’ve been thinking over your curious experience of last night. I – I’ve been wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

“I’ve been trying to discern what connection your experience had with my own up in Yorkshire,” she said. “I saw the hand distinctly – a thin, scraggy hand just as you saw it. But I have remained silent because – well, because I could not convince myself that such a thing was actually a reality.”

“Describe the whole circumstance,” I urged. “On the occasion when you saw it, was the door of your room locked?”

“Most certainly,” was her reply. “Louise, who is married to a solicitor in Scarborough, invited me up to stay a week with her, and I went alone, Dad having gone to London. The house was on the Esplanade, one of the row of big grey houses that face the sea on the South Cliff. The family consisted only of Louise, her husband, three maids, and myself, as visitor. My room was on the second floor, in the front facing the sea, and my experience was almost identical with that of yourself last night. I was awakened just before dawn by feeling a cold touch upon my cheek. And opening my eyes I saw the hand – it seemed to be the horrible hand of Death himself!”

“Most extraordinary!” I ejaculated.

“Since then, Mr Kemball, I have wondered whether; that touch was not sent as warning of impending evil – sent to forewarn me of the sudden death of the man I loved!”

I was silent. The circumstances, so curiously identical, were certainly alarming. Indeed, I could see that the narration of my extraordinary experience had terrified her. She seemed to have become suddenly most solicitous regarding my welfare, for after a slight pause she exclaimed anxiously —

“Do, Mr Kemball, take every precaution to secure your own safety. Somehow I – well, I don’t know how it is, but I feel that the hand is seen as warning – a warning against something which threatens – against some evil of which we have no expectation, or – ”

“It warned you of the terrible blow which so soon afterwards fell upon you,” I interrupted. “And it has warned me – of what?”

She shook her head.

“How can we tell?” she asked.

In a flash the remembrance of that bronze cylinder and the dire misfortune which had befallen every one of its possessors occurred to me. I recollected the ancient hieroglyphics upon the scraps of brown crinkled papyri, and their translation. But surely the apparition of the Hand could have no connection with what had been written long ago, before our Christian era?

“Did you actually feel the cold touch of the Hand?” I asked her in eagerness.

“Yes. It awakened me, just as it awakened you.”

“And there was no one else in the house but the persons you named. I mean you are positive that you were not a victim of any practical joke, Miss Seymour?” I asked.

“Quite certain. The door of my room was locked and bolted. It was at the head of the stairs. There were four rooms on that floor, but only mine was occupied.”

“The window? If I recollect aright, most of the houses on the Esplanade at Scarborough have balconies,” I remarked.

“Mine had a balcony, it is true, but both windows were securely fastened. I recollected latching them before retiring, as is my habit.”

“Then nobody could possibly have entered there!”

“Nobody. Yet I have a distinct recollection of having been touched by, and having actually seen, the hand being withdrawn from my pillow. I rushed out of the room and alarmed the house. In a few moments every one came out of their rooms, but when I told my story they laughed at me in ridicule, and Louise took me back to bed, declaring that I must have had a bad dream. But I could sleep there no longer, and returned home next day. I did not tell Dad, because I knew that he would only poke fun at me.”

For some moments I did not speak. Surely ours was a strange conversation in that busy modern thoroughfare, amid the café idlers seated out in the roadway, and the lounging groups enjoying the cool air from the river after the heat and burden of the day.

Strange it was – very strange – that almost the same inexplicable circumstances had occurred to her as to me.

Had I been superstitious I certainly should have been inclined to the belief that the uncanny hand – which was so material that it had left its imprint upon my flesh – was actually some evil foreboding connected with the bronze cylinder – the Thing which the papyri decreed shall not speak until the Day of Awakening. Was not the curse of the Wolf-god placed upon any one who sought knowledge of the contents of that cylinder, which had been placed for security in the tomb of the Great Merenptah, King of Kings? Even contact with the human hand was forbidden under pain of the wrath of the Sun-god, and of Osiris the Eternal.

As I walked there I recalled the quaint decipher of those ancient hieroglyphics.

Yes, the incident was the most weird and inexplicable that had ever happened to me. The whole problem indeed defied solution.

I had not attempted to open the cylinder, nor to seek knowledge of what was contained therein. It still reposed in the safe in the library at Upton End, together with that old newspaper, the threatening letter, and the translation of the papyri.

We wandered along the quay, Asta appearing unusually pale and pensive.

“I wonder you did not recount your strange experience to your father,” I exclaimed presently.