The Red Hand | Page 5

place the stroke at about a quarter to ten, and you know it was perfectly
dark when we went out at 9.30. And that passage was singularly
gloomy and ill-lighted, and the hand was drawn roughly, it is true, but
correctly and without the bungling of strokes and the bad shots that are
inevitable when one tries to draw in the dark or with shut eyes. Just try
to draw such a simple figure as a square without looking at the paper,
and then ask me to conceive that your Italian, with the rope waiting for
his neck, could draw the hand on the wall so firmly and truly, in the
black shadow of that alley. It is absurd. By consequence, then, the hand

was drawn early in the evening, long before any murder was committed;
or else--mark this, Phillipps--it was drawn by some one to whom
darkness and gloom were familiar and habitual; by some one to whom
the common dread of the rope was unknown!
"Again: a curious note was found in Sir Thomas Vivian's pocket.
Envelope and paper were of a common make, and the stamp bore the
West Central postmark. I will come to the nature of the contents later
on, but it is the question of the handwriting that is so remarkable. The
address on the outside was neatly written in a small clear hand, but the
letter itself might have been written by a Persian who had learnt the
English script. It was upright, and the letters were curiously contorted,
with an affectation of dashes and backward curves which really
reminded me of an Oriental manuscript, though it was all perfectly
legible. But--and here comes the poser--on searching the dead man's
waistcoat pockets a small memorandum book was found; it was almost
filled with pencil jottings. These memoranda related chiefly to matters
of a private as distinct from a professional nature; there were
appointments to meet friends, notes of theatrical first-nights, the
address of a good hotel in Tours, and the title of a new novel--nothing
in any way intimate. And the whole of these jottings were written in a
hand nearly identical with the writing of the note found in the dead
man's coat pocket! There was just enough difference between them to
enable the expert to swear that the two were not written by the same
person. I will just read you so much of Lady Vivian's evidence as bears
on this point of the writing; I have the printed slip with me. Here you
see she says: 'I was married to my late husband seven years ago; I never
saw any letter addressed to him in a hand at all resembling that on the
envelope produced, nor have I ever seen writing like that in the letter
before me. I never saw my late husband using the memorandum book,
but I am sure he did write everything in it; I am certain of that because
we stayed last May at the Hotel du Faisan, Rue Royale, Tours, the
address of which is given in the book; I remember his getting the novel
A Sentinel about six weeks ago. Sir Thomas Vivian never liked to miss
the first-nights at the theatres. His usual hand was perfectly different
from that used in the note-book.

"And now, last of all, we come back to the note itself. Here it is in
facsimile. My possession of it is due to the kindness of Inspector
Cleeve, who is pleased to be amused at my amateur inquisitiveness.
Read it, Phillipps; you tell me you are interested in obscure inscriptions;
here is something for you to decipher."
Mr. Phillipps, absorbed in spite of himself in the strange circumstances
Dyson had related, took the piece of paper, and scrutinized it closely.
The handwriting was indeed bizarre in the extreme, and, as Dyson had
noted, not unlike the Persian character in its general effect, but it was
perfectly legible.
"Read it aloud," said Dyson, and Phillipps obeyed.
"'Hand did not point in vain. The meaning of the stars is no longer
obscure. Strangely enough, the black heaven vanished, or was stolen
yesterday, but that does not matter in the least, as I have a celestial
globe. Our old orbit remains unchanged; you have not forgotten the
number of my sign, or will you appoint some other house? I have been
on the other side of the moon, and can bring something to show you.'"
"And what do you make of that?" said Dyson.
"It seems to me mere gibberish," said Phillipps; "you suppose it has a
meaning?"
"Oh, surely; it was posted three days before the murder; it was found in
the murdered man's pocket; it is written in a fantastic hand which the
murdered man himself used for his private memoranda.