The Hollow of Her Hand | Page 7

a long time she stood there looking, as motionless as the object on

which she gazed. Behind her were the tense, keen-eyed men, not one of
whom seemed to breathe during the grim minutes that passed. The
wind howled about the corners of the inn, but no one heard it. They
heard the beating of their hearts, even the ticking of their watches, but
not the wail of the wind.
At last her hands, claw-like in their tenseness, went slowly to her
temples. Her head drooped slightly forward, and a great shudder ran
through her body. The coroner started forward, expecting her to
collapse.
"Please go away," she was saying in an absolutely emotionless voice.
"Let me stay here alone for a little while."
That was all. The men relaxed. They looked at each other with a single
question in their eyes. Was it quite safe to leave her alone with her dead?
They hesitated.
She turned on them suddenly, spreading her arms in a wide gesture of
self-absolution. Her sombre eyes swept the group.
"I can do no harm. This man is mine. I want to look at him for the last
time--alone. Will you go?"
"Do you mean, madam, that you intend to--" began the coroner in
alarm.
She clasped her hands. "I mean that I shall take my last look at him
now--and here. Then you may do what you like with him. He is your
dead--not mine. I do not want him. Can you understand? I DO NOT
WANT THIS DEAD THING. But there is something I would say to
him, something that I must say. Something that no one must hear but
the good God who knows how much he has hurt me. I want to say it
close to those grey, horrid ears. Who knows? He may hear me!"
Wondering, the others backed from the room. She watched them until
they closed the door.
Listening, they heard her lower the window. It squealed like a thing in
fear.
Ten minutes passed. The group in the hall conversed in whispers.
"Why did she put the window down?" asked the wife of the inn-keeper,
crossing herself.
Drake shook his head. "I wonder what she is saying to him," he
muttered.
"A wonderful nerve," said Dr. Sheef. "Positively wonderful. I've never

seen anything like it."
"Her own husband, too," said Mrs. Burton. "Why, I--I should have said
she'd go into hysterics. Such a handsome man he was."
"I guess, from what I've heard of this fellow, Wrandall, he's not been an
angel," volunteered the sheriff.
Drake shook his head once more.
"He ain't one now, I'll bet on that," said the man who stood guard. "He's
in hell if ever a man--"
"Sh!" whispered the woman in horror. "God forgive you for uttering
words like that!"
"Every one in the city knows what sort of a man he's been," said Drake.
He comes of a fine family," said the coroner. "One of the best in New
York. I guess he's never been much of a credit to it, however."
"They say he ran after chorus girls," said Mrs. Burton. The men
grinned.
"I've an idea she's had the devil's own time with him," mused the sheriff,
with a jerk of his head in the direction of the door.
"Poor thing," said the inn-keeper's wife.
"Well," said Drake, taking a deep breath, "she won't have to worry any
more about his not coming home nights. I say, this business will create
a fearful sensation, sheriff. The Four Hundred will have a conniption
fit."
"We've got to land that girl, whoever she is," grated the official. "Now
that we know who he is, it shouldn't be hard to pick out the women he's
been trailing with lately. Then we can sift 'em down until the right one
is left. It ought to be easy."
"I'm not so sure of it," said the coroner, shaking his head. "I have a
feeling that she isn't one of the ordinary type. It wouldn't surprise me if
she belongs to--well, you might say, the upper ten. Somebody's wife,
don't you see. That will make it rather difficult, especially as her tracks
have been pretty well covered."
"It beats me, how she got away without leaving a single sign behind
her," acknowledged the sheriff. "She's a wonder, that's all I've got to
say."
At that instant the door opened and Mrs. Wrandall appeared. She
stopped short, confronting the huddled group, dry-eyed but as pallid as
a ghost. Her eyes were wide, apparently unseeing; her colourless lips

were parted in the drawn rigidity that suggested but one thing to the
professional man who looks: the RISIS SARDONICUS of the
strychnae victim. With a low cry, the doctor started forward, fully
convinced that she had swallowed the deadly drug.