[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."