The Lost Million Part 23

"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, hoa.r.s.e 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 Charite 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 Yorks.h.i.+re," 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 circ.u.mstance," 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"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 circ.u.mstances, 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 n.o.body could possibly have entered there!"

"n.o.body. 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 cafe 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 circ.u.mstances had occurred to her as to me.

Had I been superst.i.tious 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-G.o.d 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-G.o.d, 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.

"It happened in the house of a friend, and not at home. Therefore I resolved to say nothing. Indeed I had grown to believe that, after all, it must have been mere imagination--until you described what happened to you last night. That has caused me to; think--it has convinced me that what I saw was material and real."

"It's a mystery, Miss Seymour," I said; "one which we must both endeavour to elucidate. Let us say nothing--not even to your father.

We will keep our own counsel and watch."

When we returned to the hotel we found Shaw awaiting us. Asta, being fatigued, retired to her room, and afterwards he and I strolled down to one of those big cafes in the Place Bellecour. A string band was playing a waltz, and hundreds of people were sitting out upon the pavement drinking their _bock_ or _mazagran_.

Darkness had fallen, and with it the air became fresher--welcome indeed after those long hours on the white, dusty road of the Bourgogne. My host, in the ease of straw hat and grey flannel suit, still wore his dark gla.s.ses, and as we sat together at one of the tin tables near the kerb a man and a woman at the adjacent table rose and left, so that we were comparatively alone and in the shadow.

After we had been chatting merrily--for he seemed in the best of spirits and full of admiration of the way in which the French roads were kept-- he removed his spectacles and wiped them.

As he did so he laughed across at me, saying in a low voice--

"It's a nuisance to be compelled to wear these--but I suppose I must exercise caution. One has always to bear the punishment of one's indiscretion."