The Mystery of the Four Fingers

by Fred M. White

The cripple laughed aloud; he seemed to be amused at something.

"Really!" he sneered. "Such cheap talk is wasted upon me. Besides, what would you gain by so unnecessary a crime, and how much better off would you be? You know as well as I do, disguise it as you will, that the long arm has reached for you across five thousand miles of sea, and that, when the time comes, you will be stricken down here in London as surely and inevitably as if you had remained in Mexico under the shadow of the mountains. The dreadful secret is known to a few, in its entirety it is even unknown to me. I asked you just now if you had received the first of your messages, and you denied that you knew what I meant. You actually had the effrontery to deny it to me, sitting opposite to you as I am, and looking straight at the dreadful disfigurement of your left hand. For over three centuries the natives of Mexico worked the Four Finger Mine till only two of the tribe who knew its secret remained. Then it was that my father came along. He was a brave man, and an adventurer to his finger tips. Moreover, he was a doctor. His healing art made those rough men his friends, and when their time came, my father was left in possession of the mine. How that mine was guarded and how the spirit of the place took its vengeance upon intruders, you know too well. Ah, I have touched you now."

Fenwick had risen, and was pacing uneasily up and down the room. All the dare-devil spirit seemed to have left the man for a moment; he turned a troubled face on the cripple huddled in his chair. He seemed half inclined to temporise, and then, with a short laugh, he resumed his own seat again.

"You seem to be very sure of your ground," he sneered.

"I am," the cripple went on. "What does it matter what becomes of a melancholy wreck like myself? Doctors tell me that in time I may become my old self again, but in my heart I doubt it, and as sure as I sit here the mere frame-work of a human being, my injuries are due to you. I might have had you shot before now, or I might even have done it myself, but I spared you. It would have been a kindness to cut your life short, but I had another use for you than that. And now, gradually, but surely, the net is closing in around you, though you cannot yet see its meshes, and you are powerless to prevent the inevitable end."

"You seem to have mapped it all out," Fenwick replied. "You seem to have settled it all to your own satisfaction, but you forget that I may have something to say in the matter. When I discovered, as I did quite by accident, that you were in London, I laid my plans for getting you into my hands. It suits me very well, apart from the criminal side of it, to hide myself in your house, but that is not all. I am in a position now to dictate terms, and you have nothing else to do but to listen. I am prepared to spare your life on one condition. Now kindly follow me carefully."

"I am listening," the cripple said, coldly. "If you were not the blind fool you seem to be you would know that there could be no conditions between us; but go on. Let me hear what you have to say."

"I am coming to that. I want you to tell me where I can find Felix Zary."

Suddenly, without the slightest premonition, the cripple burst into a hearty laugh. He rocked backward and forward in a perfect ecstasy of enjoyment; for the moment, at any rate, he might have been on the very best of terms with his companion.

"Oh, that is what you are driving at?" he said. "So you think that if you could get Felix Zary out of the way you would be absolutely safe? Really, it is marvellous how an otherwise clever man could be so blind to the true facts of the case. My good sir, I will give you Zary's address with pleasure."