The Hand in the Dark

by Arthur J. Rees

Tufnell cast a curious glance at the new-comer. He saw a man of about thirty-five, tall, well-built and dark, with a clean-shaven face and rather intelligent eyes under thick dark brows. He had some difficulty in recognizing Detective Caldew as the village urchin of a score of years before who had touched his cap to the moat-house butler as a great personage, second only in importance to Sir Philip Heredith himself.

Tufnell was not aware that in the former village boy who had become a London detective he was in the presence of a young man of soaring ambition. Caldew had gone to London fifteen years before with the idea of bettering himself. After tramping the streets of the metropolis for some months in a vain quest for work, he had enlisted in the metropolitan police force rather than return to his native village and report himself a failure. At the end of two years' service as a policeman he had been given the choice of transfer to the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. He had gladly accepted the opportunity, and had shown so much aptitude for plain-clothes work that by the end of another two years he had risen to the rank of detective. Caldew thought he was on the rapid road to further promotion, and had married on the strength of that belief. But another ten years had passed since then, and he still occupied a subordinate position, with not much hope of promotion unless luck came his way. And there seemed very little chance of that. Caldew's professional experience had imbued him with the belief that the junior officers of Scotland Yard existed for no other purpose than to shoulder the blame for the mistakes of their official superiors, who divided amongst themselves the plums of promotion, rewards, and newspaper publicity. That, of course, was the recognized thing in all public departments. Caldew found no fault with the system. His great ambition was to obtain some opening which would bring him advancement and his share of the plums.

He believed his opportunity had arrived that night. It had always been his dream to have the chance to unravel single-handed some great crime—a murder for choice—in which he alone should have all the glory and praise and newspaper paragraphs. He determined to make the most of the lucky chance which had fallen into his hands, before anybody else could arrive on the scene. He had confidence in his own abilities, and thought he had all the qualifications necessary to make a great detective. He was, at all events, sufficiently acute to realize that opportunity seldom knocks twice at any man's door.

The three men set out for the moat-house. At the butler's request Sergeant Lumbe went ahead to summon the doctor, who lived on the other side of the village green, and while he was gone Caldew drew the details of the crime from his companion. Lumbe rejoined them at the footbridge which led across the meadows into the Heredith estate, and they proceeded on their way in silence. Sergeant Lumbe's brain—such as it was—was in too much of a whirl to permit him to talk coherently; Tufnell, habitually a taciturn individual, had been rendered more so than usual by the events of the night; and Caldew was plunged into such a reverie of pleasurable expectation, regarding the outcome of his investigations of the moat-house murder, that the stages of his promotion through the grades of detective, sub-superintendent, and superintendent, flashed through his mind as rapidly as telegraph poles flit past a traveller in a railway carriage. The crime which had struck down one human being in the dawn of youth and beauty, turned another into a murderer, and plunged an old English family into horror and misery, afforded Detective Caldew's optimistic temperament such extreme gratification that he could scarcely forbear from whistling aloud. But that is human nature.

They passed through the wood, and crossed the moat bridge. The mist was creeping out of the darkness on both sides of the moat-house, casting a film across the faint light which gleamed from one or two of the heavily shuttered windows. Caldew, pausing midway on the bridge to glance at the mist-spirals stealing up like a troop of ghosts, asked his brother-in-law if the moat was still kept full of water. He received an affirmative reply, and walked on again.

A maidservant answered Tufnell's ring at the front door, and informed him in a whisper that Sir Philip and Miss Heredith were in the drawing-room. Thither they bent their steps, and found Musard awaiting them near the door. He nodded to Sergeant Lumbe, whom he knew, and glanced interrogatively at Caldew. Lumbe announced the latter's identity.

"You had better come in here first," said Musard, opening the door of the drawing-room and revealing the baronet and Miss Heredith sitting within. Brother and sister glanced at the group entering the room.

"This is Detective Caldew, of Scotland Yard," Musard explained to them, indicating the young man. "He is staying with Lumbe, who thought it advisable to bring him."

"Have you told them everything?" Miss Heredith spoke to Tufnell. Her dry lips formed the words rather than uttered them, but the old retainer understood her, and bowed without speaking. "What do you wish to do first, Detective Caldew?" she added, turning to him, and speaking with more composure. She was quick to realize that he would take the lead in the police investigations. A glance at Sergeant Lumbe's flustered face revealed only too clearly that the position in which he found himself was beyond his official capabilities.

Caldew stepped briskly forward. He was in no way embarrassed by his unaccustomed surroundings or by the commanding appearance of the great lady who was addressing him. He was a man who believed in himself, and such men are too much in earnest to be diffident.