The Hand in the Dark | Page 8

her ways thoroughly.
But it was Miss Heredith's nightly custom, and Tufnell, standing by the
carved buffet, watched her with an indulgent smile, as he had done
every evening during the last ten years.
While Miss Heredith was thus engaged, the door opened and Sir Philip
Heredith entered the room in company with an old family friend,
Vincent Musard.
CHAPTER III
Sir Philip Heredith was a dignified figure of an English country
gentleman of the old type. He was tall and thin, aristocratic of mien,
with white hair and faded blue eyes. His face was not impressive. At
first sight it seemed merely that of a tired old man, weary of the paltry
exactions of life, and longing for rest; but, at odd moments, one caught
a passing resemblance to a caged eagle in a swift turn of the falcon
profile, or in a sudden flash of the old eyes beneath the straight
Heredith brows. At such times the Heredith face--the warrior face of a
long line of fierce fighters and freebooting ancestors--leaped alive in
the ageing features of the last but one of the race.
His companion was a man of about fifty-five. His face was brown, as
though from hot suns, his close-cropped hair was silver-grey, and he
had the bold, clear-cut features of a man quick to make up his mind and
accustomed to command. His eyes were the strangest feature of his
dominating personality. They were small and black, and appeared

almost lidless, with something in their dark direct gaze like the
unwinking glare of a snake. His apparel was unconventional, even for
war-time, consisting of a worn brown suit with big pockets in the jacket,
and a soft collar, with a carelessly arranged tie. On the little finger of
his left hand he wore a ruby ring of noticeable size and lustre.
Vincent Musard was a remarkable personality. He came of a good
county family, which had settled in Sussex about the same time that the
first Philip Heredith had burnt down the moat-house, but his family tree
extended considerably beyond that period. If the name of Here-Deith
was inscribed in the various versions of the Roll of Battle Abbey to be
seen in the British Museum, the name of Musard was to be found in the
French roll of "Les Compagnons de Guillaume à la Conquête de
l'Angleterre en 1066," the one genuine and authentic list, which has
received the stamp of the French Archæological Society, and is carved
in stone and erected in the Church of Dives on the coast of Normandy.
Vincent Musard was the last survivor of an illustrious line, a bachelor,
explorer, man of science, and connoisseur in jewels. He had been
intended for the Church in his youth, but had quarrelled with it on a
question of doctrine. Since then he had led a roving existence in the
four corners of the earth, exploring, botanizing, shooting big game, and
searching for big diamonds and rubies. He had written books on all
sorts of out-of-the-way subjects, such as "The Flora of Chatham
Islands," "Poisonous Spiders (genus Latrodectua) of Sardinia," "Fossil
Reptilia and Moa Remains of New Zealand," and "Seals of the
Antarctic." But his chief and greatest hobby was precious stones, of
which he was a recognized expert.
His father had left him a comfortable fortune, but he had made another
on his own account by his dealings in gems, which he collected in
remote corners of the world and sold with great advantage to London
dealers. He was intimately acquainted with all the known mines and
pearl fisheries of the world, but his success as a dealer in jewels was
largely due to the fact that he searched for them off the beaten track. He
had explored Cooper's Creek for white sapphires, the Northern
Territory for opals, and had once led an expedition into German New
Guinea in search of diamonds, where he had narrowly escaped being

eaten by cannibals.
The passage of time had not tamed the fierce restlessness of his
disposition. Although he was not quite such a rover as of yore, the
discovery of a new diamond field in Brazil, or the news of a new pearl
bed in southern seas, was sufficient to set him packing for another jaunt
half round the world. He was the oldest friend of the Herediths, and
Miss Heredith, in particular, had a high opinion of his qualities. Musard,
on his part, made no secret of the fact that he regarded Miss Heredith as
the best of living women. It had, indeed, been rumoured in the county a
quarter of a century before that Vincent Musard and Alethea Heredith
were "going to make a match of it."
It was, perhaps, well for both that the match was never made. Musard
had departed