THE HAND IN THE DARK
BY ARTHUR J. REES
AUTHOR OF "THE SHRIEKING PIT"
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
Copyright, 1920
PRESS OF
THE VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON, N. Y., U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
By REES & WATSON
THE HAND IN THE DARK
CHAPTER I
Seen in the sad glamour of an English twilight, the old moat-house,emerging from the thin mists which veiled the green flats in which itstood, conveyed the impression of a habitation falling into senility,tired with centuries of existence. Houses grow old like the race of men;the process is not less inevitable, though slower; in both, decay ishastened by events as well as by the passage of Time.
The moat-house was not so old as English country-houses go, but it hadaged quickly because of its past. There was a weird and bloody historyattached to the place: an historical record of murders and stabbings andquarrels dating back to Saxon days, when a castle had stood on the spot,and every inch of the flat land had been drenched in the blood of serfsfighting under a Saxon tyrant against a Norman tyrant for the sacredcatchword of Liberty.
The victorious Norman tyrant had killed the Saxon, taken his castle, andtyrannized over the serfs during his little day, until the greatertyrant, Death, had taught him his first—and last—lesson of humility.After his death some fresh usurper had pulled down his stolen castle,and built a moat-house on the site. During the next few hundred yearsthere had been more fighting for restless ambition, invariably connectedwith the making and unmaking of tyrants, until an Eng