III. THE GOLD-CASED NAIL
As I descended to the street the liftman regarded me in a curious and rather significant way. Finally, just as I was about to step out into the hall:
'Excuse me, sir,' he said, having evidently decided that I was a fit person to converse with, 'but are you a friend of Mr. Adderley's?'
'Why do you ask?'
'Well, sir, I hope you will excuse me, but at times I have thought the gentleman was just a little bit queer, like.'
'You mean insane?' I asked sharply.
'Well, sir, I don't know, but he is always asking me if I can see shadows and things in the lift, and sometimes when he conies in late of a night he absolutely gives me the cold shivers, he does.'
I lingered, the box under my arm, reluctant to obtain confidences from a servant, but at the same time keenly interested. Thus encouraged:
'Then there's that lady friend of his who is always coming here,' the man continued. 'She's haunted by shadows, too.' He paused, watching me narrowly.
'There's nothing better in this world than a clean conscience, sir,' he concluded.
Having returned to my room at the hotel, I set down the mysterious parcel, surveying it with much disfavour. That it contained the hand of the Mandarin Quong I could not doubt, the hand which had been amputated by Dr. Matheson. Its appearance in that dramatic fashion confirmed Matheson's idea that the mandarin's injury had been received at the hands of Adderley. What did all this portend, unless that the Mandarin Quong was dead? And if he were dead why was Adderley more afraid of him dead than he had been of him living?
I thought of the haunting shadow, I thought of the night at Katong, and I thought of Dr. Matheson's words when he had told us of his discovery of the Chinaman lying in the road that night outside Singapore.
I felt strangely disinclined to touch the relic, and it was only after some moments' hesitation that I undid the wrappings and raised the lid of the casket. Dusk was very near and I had not yet lighted the lamps; therefore at first I doubted the evidence of my senses. But having lighted up and peered long and anxiously into the sandal-wood lining of the casket I could doubt no longer.
The casket was empty!
It was like a conjuring trick. That the hand had been in the box when I had taken it up from Adderley's table I could have sworn before any jury. When and by whom it had been removed was a puzzle beyond my powers of unravelling. I stepped toward the telephone-and then remembered that Paul Harley was out of London. Vaguely wondering if Adderley had played me a particularly gruesome practical joke, I put the box on a sideboard and again contemplated the telephone doubtfully far a moment. It was in my mind to ring him up. Finally, taking all things into consideration, I determined that I would have nothing further to do with the man's unsavoury and mysterious affairs.
It was in vain, however, that I endeavoured to dismiss the matter from my mind; and throughout the evening, which I spent at a theatre with some American friends, I found myself constantly thinking of Adderley and the ivory casket, of the mandarin of Johore Bahru, and of the mystery of the shrivelled yellow hand.
I had been back in my room about half an hour, I suppose, and it was long past midnight, when I was startled by a ringing of my telephone bell. I took up the receiver, and:
'Knox! Knox!' came a choking cry.
'Yes, who is speaking?'
'It is I, Adderley. For God's sake come round to my place at once!'
His words were scarcely intelligible. Undoubtedly he was in the grip of intense emotion.
'What do you mean? What is the matter?'
'It is here, Knox, it is here! It is knocking on the door! Knocking! Knocking!'
'You have been drinking,' I said sternly. 'Where is your man?'
'The cur has bolted. He bolted the moment he heard that damned knocking. I am all alone; I have no one else to appeal to.' There came a choking sound, then: 'My God, Knox, it is getting in! I can see… the shadow on the blind…'
Convinced that Adderley's secret fears had driven him mad, I nevertheless felt called upon to attend to his urgent call, and without a moment's delay I hurried around to St. James's Street. The liftman was not on duty, the lower hall was in darkness, but I raced up the stairs and found to my astonishment that Adderley's door was wide open.
'Adderley!' I cried. 'Adderley!'
There was no reply, and without further ceremony I entered and searched the chambers. They were empty. Deeply mystified, I was about to go out again when there came a ring at the door- bell. I walked to the door and a policeman was standing upon the landing.
'Good evening, sir,' he said, and then paused, staring at me curiously.
'Good evening, constable,' I replied.
'You are not the gentleman who ran out awhile ago,' he said, a note of suspicion coming into his voice.
I handed him my card and explained what had occurred, then:
'It must have been Mr. Adderley I saw,' muttered the constable.
'You saw-when?'
'Just before you arrived, sir. He came racing out into St. James's Street and dashed off like a madman.'
'In which direction was he going?'
'Toward Pall Mall.'
The neighbourhood was practically deserted at that hour. But from the guard on duty before the palace we obtained our first evidence of Adderley's movements. He had raced by some five minutes before, frantically looking back over his shoulder and behaving like a man flying for his life. No one else had seen him. No one else ever did see him alive. At two o'clock there was no news, but I had informed Scotland Yard and official inquiries had been set afoot.
Nothing further came to light that night, but as all readers of the daily press will remember, Adderley's body was taken out of the pond in St. James's Park on the following day. Death was due to drowning, but his throat was greatly discoloured as though it had been clutched in a fierce grip.
It was I who identified the body, and as many people will know, in spite of the closest inquiries, the mystery of Adderley's death has not been properly cleared up to this day. The identity of the lady who visited him at his chambers was never discovered. She completely disappeared.
The ebony and ivory casket lies on my table at this present moment, visible evidence of an invisible menace from which Adderley had fled around the world.
Doubtless the truth will never be known now. A significant discovery, however, was made some days after the recovery of Adderley's body.
From the bottom of the pond in St. James's Park a patient Scotland Yard official brought
