H.C. McNeile

The Finger of Fate

Warsaw 2018

Contents

I. THE FINGER OF FATE

II. THE DIAMOND HAIR-SLIDE

III. THE BLACK MONK

IV. THE HIDDEN WITNESS

V. THE TWO-WAY SWITCH

VI. WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOUR?

VII. A HOPELESS CASE

VIII. THE UNDOING OF MRS. CRANSBY

IX. A QUESTION OF MUD

X. THAT BULLET HOLE HAS A HISTORY

XI. THE IDOL'S EYE

XII. A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

XIII. FER DE LANCE

XIV. THE GREEN DEATH

I. THE FINGER OF FATE

THE funny thing about it was that I did not know George Barstow at all well. Had he been an intimate personal friend of mine, the affair might have seemed more natural. But he wasn’t: he was just a club acquaintance with whom I was on ordinary club terms. We met sometimes in the bridge-room: occasionally we had an after-lunch brandy together. And that was all.

He had obviously a good deal of money. Something in the City, but a something that did not demand an extravagant amount of his time. His week-ends were of the Friday to Tuesday variety, and I gathered that he was on the border line of golfers who are eligible to compete in the Amateur Championship.

In appearance he was almost aggressively English. Clean-shaven, and ruddy of face, his natural position was with his legs apart on the hearth-rug and his back to the fire. Probably a whisky-and-soda in his hand, or a tankard of beer. Essentially a man’s man, and yet one who by no means disliked the pleasures of the occasional night-club party. But one realised they must only be occasional.

He was, I suppose, about thirty-seven, though he was one of those men whose age is difficult to tell. He might quite easily have been in the early forties. His appearance was healthy rather than good looking: his physical strength was distinctly above the average. And to finish off this brief outline of the man, he had joined up in the earliest days of the war and finally risen to the command of a battalion.

I recognised him when he was a hundred yards away from the inn. He was coming towards me down the road, his hands in his pockets, his head sunk. But the walk was unmistakeable.

“Great Scott! Barstow!” I said as he came abreast of me, “what brings you here at this time of year?”

“Here” was a little village not far from Innsbruck.

He glanced up with a start, and I was shocked to see the change in his face. He looked positively haggard.

“Hullo! Staunton,” he said moodily. Then he gave a sheepish little laugh. “I suppose it is a bit out of my beaten track.”

“Come and have a spot of this,” I remarked. “I’ve tasted much worse.”

He came across the road and sat down, whilst I studied him covertly. Quite obviously something was wrong–seriously wrong, but in view of the slightness of our acquaintanceship it was up to him to make the first move if he wanted to.

“August and Austria hardly seem a usual combination for you,” I said lightly. “I thought Scotland was your habitual programme.”

“Habitual programmes have a way of being upset,” he answered shortly. “Here’s how.”

He put his glass down on the table, and pulled out his tobacco pouch.

“Personally, I think this is a damnable country,” he exploded suddenly.

“Then,” I said mildly, “is there any essential reason why you should remain?”

He didn’t answer, and I noticed he was staring down the road through narrowed eyes.

“The essential reason,” he said at length, “will shortly pass this inn. No, don’t look round,” he went on, as I turned in my chair. “You will see all there is to be seen in a moment.”

From behind me I heard the jingling of bells, and the noise of some horse- drawn vehicle approaching at a rapid rate. And a few seconds after, an almost mediaevally-magnificent equipage drew up at the door. I use the word “equipage” advisedly, because it was like no English carriage that I have ever seen, and I have no idea as to the correct local name for it.

The coachman was in scarlet: all the horses’ trappings were scarlet also. But after a brief glance at the setting, my eyes fixed themselves on the man contained in it. Seldom, I think, have I seen a more arrogant and unpleasant- looking face. And yet it was the face of an aristocrat. Thin-lipped, nose slightly hooked, he was typical of the class of man who, in days gone by in France, would have ordered his servants to drive over a peasant in his way, rather than be delayed.

He waited without movement till a footman, also; in scarlet, had dashed to the door and opened it. Then he stepped out, and held out his sleeve for an imaginary speck of dust to be removed. And for an; instant the wild thought came to my mind that the man was acting for the films. The whole thing seemed unreal.

The next moment the landlord appeared bent nearly double. And my fascination increased. I’d forgotten Barstow’s words about the essential reason in my intense interest. He advanced slowly towards a table, the landlord backing in front of him, and sat down. At the same time the footman, who had been delving under one of the seats of the carriage, came up to his table and put a leather case in front of him. He opened it, and I gave an involuntary start. Inside were two revolvers.

“Good God!” I muttered and glanced at George Barstow. There was nothing mediaeval about those guns.

But he seemed to be taking no interest in the performance whatever. With his legs stretched in front of him he was puffing calmly at his pipe, apparently utterly indifferent to the whole thing.

But now even stranger doings were to take place. With great solemnity the footman advanced to a tree, and proceeded to fix an ordinary playing card to the trunk with a drawing pin. It was the five of hearts. Then he withdrew.

The man at the table took one of the revolvers from the case, and balanced it for a moment in his hand. Then he raised it and fired four times.

By this time I was beyond surprise. The whole thing was so incredibly bizarre that I could only sit there gaping. If the man had now proceeded to stand on his head, and drink a glass of wine in that position, I should have regarded it as quite in keeping. But apparently the performance was not yet over. Once again did the footman solemnly advance to the tree. He removed the card, and pinned up another–the five of spades. And the man at the table picked up the other revolver. Once again did four shots ring out, and then the marksman, with great deliberation, leaned back in his chair after drawing a handkerchief delicately across his nostrils.

He accepted from the almost kneeling landlord a glass of wine: then he extended a languid hand for the two targets which the footman was holding out, and examined them with an air of bored indifference. Apparently the result of the inspection was favourable: he threw the two cards on the table and continued his wine.

Now I cannot say at what moment exactly a strong desire on my part to laugh was replaced by a curious pricking sensation at the back of my scalp. But it was the way George Barstow was behaving more than the theatrical display of the other man that caused the change. From first to last he had never moved, and it wasn’t natural. No man can sit calmly in a chair while someone looses off eight shots behind his back. Unless, that is to say, it was an ordinary proceeding, which had lost its interest through constant repetition. Even then, surely, he would have made some remark about it: told me what to expect. But he hadn’t: from the moment the man had stepped out of his carriage he had remained sunk in silence.

A movement from the other table made me look up. The stranger had finished his wine, and was standing up preparatory to going. He made a little gesture with his hand; the footman picked up the two cards. And then to my utter amazement he came over and threw them on the table between us, in a gratuitously offensive way.

“What the devil!” I began angrily, but I spoke to empty air. The man was already clambering up to his seat at the back of the carriage. And it wasn’t until the jingle of the bells had died away in the distance that I turned to Barstow.

“What on earth is the meaning of that pantomime,” I demanded. “Does he often do it?”

George Barstow removed his pipe, and knocked it out on his heel.

“To-day is the sixth time,” he said quietly. “But what’s the great idea?” I cried.

“Not very great,” he answered. “In fact, perfectly simple. His wife and I are in love with one another and he has found out.”

“Good God!” I said blankly.

And then for the first time I looked closely at the two cards. The four outside pips had been shot out of each: only the centre one remained.

And once again I muttered: “Good God!” Farce had departed: what looked very like grim tragedy had replaced it. With George Barstow of all people. If one had searched the length and breadth of Europe it would have been impossible to find a human being less likely to find himself in such a position. Mechanically I lit a cigarette: something would have to be done. The trouble was what? But one thing was perfectly clear. A state of affairs which caused a performance such as I had just witnessed could not continue. The next move in the game would probably be to substitute Barstow for the playing card. And no one could be under any delusion as to the gentleman’s ability to shoot.

“Look here, Staunton,” said Barstow suddenly. “I’d like your advice. Not that there’s the slightest chance of my taking it,” he added with a faint smile, “because I know perfectly well what it’s going to be. It will be exactly the same advice as I should give myself to another man in my position. Still–if it won’t bore you...”

“Fire right ahead,” I answered. “And let’s have another flagon of this stuff.”

“It started in Paris three months ago,” he began. “A luncheon party at Delmonico’s. There were eight of us, and I found myself sitting next the Baroness von Talrein. Our friend of this morning is the Baron. Well, you’ll probably see the Baroness before you’ve done–so I won’t waste time in trying to describe her. Anyway I couldn’t. I can give a man a mental description of a golf hole, but not of a woman. I’ll merely say that as far as I am concerned, she is the only woman in the world.

“She is half English, half French. Speaks both languages like a native. And to cut the cackle, I was a goner from the first moment I set eyes on her. I don’t pretend to be a moralist: I’m not. I’ve been what I called in love with other men’s wives before, but I’d always survived the experience without much difficulty. This was something totally and utterly different.”

He paused for a moment and stared over the fields.

“Totally and utterly different,” he repeated. “But, except for one thing, it would have ended as other affairs of that sort have ended in the past and will in the future.”

He pulled thoughtfully at his pipe.

“One doesn’t mention such things as a general rule,” he went on, “but the circumstances in this case are a little unusual. You’re a fellow countryman: we know one another and so on. And as I say, but for this other thing you would not have been treated to the performance this morning. I found out she was in love with me. Doesn’t matter how: it was motoring back latish one night from Versailles. Well that fact put a totally different complexion on the matter.”

“Interrupting you for one moment,” I said, “had you met the Baron when you found this out?”

“No–not then. He arrived about three days later. She was stopping with friends in the Bois de Boulogne. And during those three days we were never out of one another’s pockets. Foolish, I suppose–but there you are. We’re dealing with what is, not what might have been.

“Then that specimen arrived, that you’ve seen to-day. And Eloise insisted that we must be terribly careful. She was frightened to death of the man–it had been one of those damnable arranged marriages. And I suppose I was in the condition where care was impossible. I mean affairs of that sort are given away by an intercepted glance, or something equally trivial. Or perhaps it was that the woman in whose flat Eloise was staying gave us away: I never trusted her an inch. Anyway the Baron had not been in Paris two days before he came round to see me at the Majestic.

“He was ushered into my sitting-room just before lunch, and I knew at once that he had found out. He stood by the door staring at me, and going through his usual elaborate ritual with his lace handkerchief. And at last he spoke.

“In my country, Mr. Barstow,’ he said, ‘it is the custom for a husband to choose his wife’s friends. From now on you are not included in that category.’

“‘And in my country, Baron,’ I answered, ‘we recognise no such archaic rules. When the Baroness confirms your statement I shall at once comply. In the meantime...’

“‘Yes,’ he said softly, in the meantime.’

“‘Lunch is preferable to your company.’

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