THE DEAD HAND.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9361, 10 March 1896, Page 2

THE DEAD HAND.

Detective Beothy was in his cosy study, exultant. He paced up and down the room, on the soft Kurdish carpets with which the floor was entirely covered, and he rubbed his hands gleefully as he glanced now and again at a small mahogany hox that stood on his writing table. His high spirits were not tho result of the season of the year, nor of the delightfully bracing sunny weather, which was rare for a December morning. Beothy was insensible to the influences of climate, and being, like Methusaleh, without kith or kin, Christmastide meant much less to him than to most of his fellow citizens of Buda Pesth. His good humour had its source in a magnificent triumph of ingenuity which he had scored the night before, and which was bound to bring his name prominently before the world. It was not, of course, all ingenuity; he owed much to good luck, and not a little to audacity of the kind that bordered upon the illegal; but all that was forgotten now, for there is nothing so successful as success. Beothy had been employed for some time by the plaintiffs and the Government in the caufe I'clebre known as the Bielerstern will case. The wealthy banker, Jacob Bielerstern, had died, leaving his entire property to the ballet girl, Laura Jasmin, with the exception of a paltry £500, which he bequeathed to his married niece. The latter and her mother— Bielerstem's sister—brought an action to have the will set aside on the ground of undue influence, and also of the existence o another and later will, alleged to have been stolen, in which he was said to have bequeathed .£IOOO to the Government towards the erection of a military hospital, and the bulk of bis property to his Bister and her children. . The case had been adjourned again and again to enable the plaintiffs to seek for and produce the lost will, and it was only when they had abandoned all hopes of finding it that Beothy was instructed to give the matter his attention. And now the will itself lay there before him in the mahogany box on his table, along with a number of the late Bielerstem's letters, which were of no particular value to anybody. His first impulse was to report the matter at once, and thus enter without delay into the enjoyment of the first fruits of his triumph. But as his superior, whom he cordially detested, had received another appointment, and would leave the service within twenty-four hours, he decided to wait until the new chief arrived, so that none of the reflected credit of the discovery should fall upon his archenemy. About 9 o'clook the servant entered his room carrying a tray, on which was a dainty little jug of steaming hot coffee, another jug of boiling milk, a silver sugar bowl and three fanoy breads such as are to be found nowhere outside of Buda-Pesth and Vienna. She was •bout to place the tray, as usual, on the writing table, where the mahogany box stood beside the reading lamp and the letter balance, but he motioned her to lay the things on the round table that stood before the sofa. He had just finished bis first cup ol coffee and was pouring cfut the second when the servant re-entered and announced a visitor. " Tall, thin gentleman sir, in a fur coat; he says you do not know him." "All right; show him in." The door opened, and a tall, sallow-faced, elegantly dressed individual of about 48 entered. He was apparently a man of the world, of "distinguished manners," and so forth, but could hardly be called prepossessing. Beothy rose, glanced at him, and in a cheery voice exclaimed, " Any news of the girl yet ? " The visitor seemed dumbfounded by the question, for he had not given his name nor uttered a word as yet. As soon as he recovered hie self-possession a little he asked, in a tone in which wonder and annoyance seemed to struggle for the mastery. "But how do you know that—that I ?" "Oh, come, now, prince, you surely don't mean to imply that detectives in Bussia are less observant than we here in Hungary. It is my business to look around and before mc, and I do it. You've come about the girl governess—Olg*~who has disappeared. Am I right ? " Prince Lidoff admitted that he was. but ho 'was so utterly astounded by the detective's sharpness that he could hardly go on with the conversation. Beothy, of course, did ttot tell him that he had sent his own aseiaiant in the guise of a> chance acquaintance to Lidoff the day before, to find out the particulars of the ease and to suggest that the prince should employ the services of the celebrated detective, and that he heard of his intention to call in person. Beothy always did that. He also had Lidoff's appearance described to him the day before, but the visitor's dress spoke clearly enough in the circumstances.

" Bat let us get to business, prince. First of all, then, may I take it that your own interest in this matter is exactly suoh as one might expect, considering the position the girl occupied in your family ? " Well, the fact ii, it is stronger. Olga Militch is a relative of ows—of mine, rather—unacknowledged, of coarse, bat not the less dear on that account. You understand mc?" Beothy nodded, and liidofl continued: " This, of course, is between ourselves. Even my wife is ignorant of this part of the story. She knows that Olga was well educated at my expense, bat she believes her to be the daughter of one of the former serfs of my father, to whom our family owes many obligations. I have initiated you into this secret that you may thoroughly understand my anxiety about the girl. There is no earn of money that I am not read/to sacrifice in order to shield her from harm. If you can help mc in this, believe mc, you will never regret it. A daughter is none the less a daughter because she does not possess the right of her father's name. Prince Lidoff, whose voice had become tearful and trembling, paused, whereupon the deteotive asked him to narrate the circumstances of the girl's disappearance. The prince coughed, and, mastering his feelings with a perceptible effort, said: " Two years »go Olga fell in love with the manager of my estate in Tamboff, a German from Riga named Bittner. As he was said to be very well off, I had no objection to the match at first, bat three months later I discovered that he had defrauded mc of over 15,000 roubles, and I had him privately horsewhipped and dismissed. I preferred this summary treatment to a public prosecution. We told Olga that Bittner was unworthy of her, and that she mast learn to forget him. Apparently she did. Knowing that she is old enough to understand that " "How old is she? ,, asked Beothy. "Twenty-two." "Thanks; continue, please." « Well, I'm almost at the end of my story. Last summer we came abroad for the sake of my wife's health— she suffers from epileptic fits—and Olga accompanied as, mainly to look after the princess, who was anxious to consult the medical celebrities of Vienna and Paris. We spentnearly two months in Chauteretles Eaax, over a, month in Paris; then we went on to Berlin, Vienna, Carlsbad, and Abazzia, and from, there we paid a visit to Bada-Pesth four days ago, on our way home, via Odessa. Just before leaving Russia my wife discovered a letter from Bittner in Olga's room, but as it bore no date we could not be sure that she l»d received it after the fellow's dismissal. But I am positively certain—well, morally certain—that I saw him one day in the Prater in Vienna, walking some distance behind Olga. Here, in Buda-Pesth, too my wife told mc that she noticed a man following her and Olga as they crossed the chain bridge from Peath to this side of the city. Then the next day—it was the day before yesterday,

t at about 7 p.m., Olga left the hotel while we j were at dinner in the restaurant, and she has not been heard of since. She speaks I very little German and not a word of [ Hungarian. That's all I know about the j matter. My only hope is that you will find the data sufficient to vrork upon."

i "Can you fell mo the contents of the i letter from Kittner which the Princess fouml [in your daughter's—l mean in Olga Militch's j —room last summer?" "It was to the ; effect, thai. In: could not live without her, J and would not live without her." " Was it a threat?" "It came to that." "Could j you infer that the girl corresponded clandestinely with the fellow?" •' Xo ; but as she kept the letter—it was an old one—and said nothing about it—if it was of recent date—the impression it made on my mind was unfavourable." "Did you ever hear from Bittner yourself." ' ; I once received a letter bearing a foreign post mark, in which he threatened to be even with mc." " Did he know or suspect thst Miss JNlilitch is your daughter ?"' "I cannot say," "Is it known to many people?" " Known, no ; suspected, yes." "And spoken about?" " I should say so." " Has the girl's luggage —trunk or trunks —been examined since her disappearance?" "No. My wife is afraid of touching them ; but she would willingly allow yon to open the two boxes, and examine them in her presence. Unfortunutely, she is not well just now. Olga's disappearance has given her a rude shock. Bnt she is not in bed, and will, I am sure, feel relieved to see you." " Did you dismiss your cab ? " The Prince looked up at Beothy with an expression of intense surprise. The detective smiled, and said, by way of ex- , planation, "You could not have come on foot, for the streets are covered with mud, and your boots do not show a speck." The Prince looked down at his boots, and up at Beothy'B face, and then, with a smile of admiration, said, " I will go and order a cab, and wait for you downstairs."

The examination of the governese's luggage furnished no clue to the mystery—at least, none that an ordinary mortal could descry ; but latter day detectives, who are by no means ordinary mortals, are capable of discerning a clue in the shape of a the fold of a sheet of note paper—in a mere nothing, in fact. Beothy found a photograph of Bittner, and asked permission to take it. He then in- ! quired whether the prince was quite certain that the original of the portrait was ignorant of Hungarian. " Absolutely certain," said the prince. " Well, if you can put off your home journey for, say a week or ten days," he remarked, as he was leaving the hotel," I think I can promise to have cleared up everything by that time." The prince was profuse in his thanks, and, taking the detective aside, said, " If you would like mc to write you a cheque for your expenses now you have only to name the sum and it will be done in three minutes." " Thanks; for the moment I need nothing. Should it be necessary later on I will let you know. Goodmorning." And as Beothy passed through the antechamber he noticed two pair of goloshes standing near the door, with the prince's initials in brass inside them. One pair was muddy, and the mud seemed not quite dry. " I wonder whether the prince had them on this morning when he came to mc ?" he said to himself; and his heart fell when it occurred to him that the inference he had drawn from the brightly polished boots might have been hasty. For in those days Beothy prided himself on his gift of constructing a whole history from a stray word, a missing button, a tell-tale blush, and a mistake seemed to him worse than a crime. On the following day, shortly after one o'clock in the afternoon, Detective Beothy was in his room, running his eye over some letters and telegrams, his * hat on his head, and a glove on his left hand. He had only just come in, and was on the point of going to the department, where the director was to take official leave of all the employes. The leave taking was fixed for 1.30, and Beothy had yet to don his decorations and orders. In the evening the new director would enter upon his duties, and Beothy intended to report to him his success in the Will Case. Just as he was reading one of the last pile of letters, the servant came in and announced Princess Lidoff. "The deuce take her !" he muttered, very ungallantly, "what can have brought her here at this unseasonable time ? " The well-known fact that he and the outgoing director were at daggers drawn made it absolutely incumbent upon him to be punctual in putting in his appearance at the office. He hesitated a little, and then, turning to the servant said, " Show her in."

She entered the room followed by a maidservant from the hotel, who carried a bandbox. " Put it on the floor; there ; now you may go," eaid Princess Lidoff to the girl, who, having deposited the bandbox on the carpet near the door, curtseyed and left the rqom.

" In what can I be of any service to you, princess?" asked Beothy, with as much affability as he could command. It could not have been very much, for the lady looked at him with a curious expression and said nothing. Then all at once she arose, and, trembling all over, exclaimed:—" It is unbearable, horrible, maddening. Oh, M. Beothy, my husband is not at home, and so I've come to you." "I am afraid, princess, Ido not quite follow you. Have you heard anything further about Miss Militch since I had the honour to speak with you yesterday ?" ' • The man—a man—a stranger, they say, brought it—that bandbox with the horrible thing there—with Olga's hat and—and " " May I open the bandbox, Madame V asked Beothy, cutting short her unintelligible phrase. " Yes, yes. But if they've murdered her, I shall never recover the blow."

Beothy, paying no attention to the princess's rambling talk, had already unfastened the lid of the bandbox and taken out, first, a lady's hat, the ribbon of which was stained with blood, and then a female hand, which was rolled up first in wadding and then in soft white paper. " It was a stranger, you say, who brought the bandbox?" inquired Beothy, turning to the princess ; but noticing the deadly pallor of her face, and the convulsing twitching about her lips, he sprang forward, and was just in time to keep her from falling on the floor. She had a nervous attack, or an epileptic fit, and he laid her gently on the ottoman and rang the bell. To the servant, who appeared at once, he gave orders to bring cold water, smelling salts, and other restoratives, and if the lady got worse, to send for the doctor; if she got better, to have her removed to her hotel. Meanwhile, he would have to go to the department. The official leave-taking occupied more time than Detective Beothy had anticpated. The director arrived nearly an hour late' during which Beothy sprang about theroom like a hen on a hot griddle. The speeches, too, were unreasonably long. Beothy, who also made a speech, while his mind was running upon the history of the dead hand, was more than once in danger of talking balderdash or wholly breaking down. All the time he was working out the problem in his mind, and everything that drew his thoughts off the subject irritated and confused him. The moment the tedious ceremony was over he rushed off to the Arpad Hotel to make inquiries about the bringer of the band-box. The answers, which, as they contained a detailed description of the individual/ Beothy considered ,

highly satisfactory, were duly jotted down in his notebook, and the detective rubbed his hands joyfully. The bringer of the band-box was obviously, he concluded, identical with Bittner, the presumed murderer. The beard and one or two other details,, which did not tally with the photograph, were such as might have been altered by the man himself for the purpose of misleading the police. He was tall, the servants said, and could not speak Hungarian. He had handed the bandbox, and said he would wait to see whether there would be any answer, but before the servant returned he left, promising to call again when the prince himself woidd be at home.

Beothy determined to follow up this clue at once and have the man arrested before the prince got wind of the matter ; and he took his measures accordingly. Before leaving the hotel, however, he asked whethor the princess h?.d returned, and was told that she had come back all right and had gone out for a drive. " And the prince V "He is out. He left at noon, saying he would not return before evening." "That's all right," said the detective, and he walked across the street to the telegraph office. On his way home he called on an old friend of his, a doctor, whose opinion he was desirous of obtaining as to the dead hand. For Beothy was very well aware that the horrible memento might be merely a ruse to lead the police to believe that Olga Militch had been murdered, whereas she might be alive and well, possibly a consenting party to the abduction. The doctor, having examined it, said it was the hand of a female who was unaccustomed to hard work —a seamstress, or perhaps an aristocrat. It looked exactly as if it had been prepared for an anatomy class. But that, of course, proved nothing. There were some cuts on the fingers, but the doctor declared that, in his opinion, they had not been inflicted during life. As for the stains on the ribbon, they were undoubtedly blood spots, but he would have to examine them more carefully at home before affirming that the blood was human. "All right, then ; bring mc an answer as soon as ever you can," said Beothy, " I must now call upon our new director, as I have a very important report to make him."

But the detective did not call on his chief that evening. He was not in a fit frame of mind to talk with him or with anybody. He tore his hair and swore like a trooper instead, and conducted himself generally like a madman. He did call on Princess Lidoff, however, as soon as he discovered that Bielerstern's will was no longer in the mahogany box. But the couple had not returned. They have not returned to this daj\ Their "name 3 " duly appeared in the Hue and Cry, but they had disappeared as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed them. Their bill at the hotel amounted to over 800 guldens. What they received for abstracting the will nobody ever learned. Beothy never told a soul that he had had the will in his possession—it would have ruined him for life as a detective to have it known that he had been bo completely befooled by a pair of thieves hired by a ballet girl. Nor was it until a year after his death that his son narrated the story in his memoirs, excusing it by the remark that it occurred during the early " thought reading," "omniscient" period of his father's eventful and successful career.— London Daily Telegraph.