The Brown Hand by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Every one knows that Sir Dominick Holden,
the famous Indian surgeon, made me his heir,
and that his death changed me in an hour from
a hard-working and impecunious medical man
to a well-to-do landed proprietor. Many know
also that there were at least five people
between the inheritance and me, and that Sir
Dominick’s selection appeared to be altogether
arbitrary and whimsical. I can assure them,
however, that they are quite mistaken, and
that, although I only knew Sir Dominick in
the closing years of his life, there were
none the less very real reasons why he should
show his goodwill towards me. As a matter
of fact, though I say it myself, no man ever
did more for another than I did for my Indian
uncle. I cannot expect the story to be believed,
but it is so singular that I should feel that
it was a breach of duty if I did not put it
upon record — so here it is, and your belief
or incredulity is your own affair.
Sir Dominick Holden, C.B., K.C.S.I., and I
don’t know what besides, was the most distinguished
Indian surgeon of his day. In the Army originally,
he afterwards settled down into civil practice
in Bombay, and visited as a consultant every
part of India. His name is best remembered
in connection with the Oriental Hospital,
which he founded and supported. The time came,
however, when his iron constitution began
to show signs of the long strain to which
he had subjected it, and his brother practitioners
(who were not, perhaps, entirely disinterested
upon the point) were unanimous in recommending
him to return to England. He held on so long
as he could, but at last he developed nervous
symptoms of a very pronounced character, and
so came back, a broken man, to his native
county of Wiltshire. He bought a considerable
estate with an ancient manor-house upon the
edge of Salisbury Plain, and devoted his old
age to the study of Comparative Pathology,
which had been his learned hobby all his life,
and in which he was a foremost authority.
We of the family were, as may be imagined,
much excited by the news of the return of
this rich and childless uncle to England.
On his part, although by no means exuberant
in his hospitality, he showed some sense of
his duty to his relations, and each of us
in turn had an invitation to visit him. From
the accounts of my cousins it appeared to
be a melancholy business, and it was with
mixed feelings that I at last received my
own summons to appear at Rodenhurst. My wife
was so carefully excluded in the invitation
that my first impulse was to refuse it, but
the interests of the children had to be considered,
and so, with her consent, I set out one October
afternoon upon my visit to Wiltshire, with
little thought of what that visit was to entail.
My uncle’s estate was situated where the
arable land of the plains begins to swell
upwards into the rounded chalk hills which
are characteristic of the county. As I drove
from Dinton Station in the waning light of
that autumn day, I was impressed by the weird
nature of the scenery. The few scattered cottages
of the peasants were so dwarfed by the huge
evidences of prehistoric life, that the present
appeared to be a dream and the past to be
the obtrusive and masterful reality. The road
wound through the valleys, formed by a succession
of grassy hills, and the summit of each was
cut and carved into the most elaborate fortifications,
some circular and some square, but all on
a scale which has defied the winds and the
rains of many centuries. Some call them Roman
and some British, but their true origin and
the reasons for this particular tract of country
being so interlaced with entrenchments have
never been finally made clear. Here and there
on the long, smooth, olive-coloured slopes
there rose small rounded barrows or tumuli.
Beneath them lie the cremated ashes of the
race which cut so deeply into the hills, but
their graves tell us nothing save that a jar
full of dust represents the man who once laboured
under the sun.
It was through this weird country that I approached
my uncle’s residence of Rodenhurst, and
the house was, as I found, in due keeping
with its surroundings. Two broken and weather-stained
pillars, each surmounted by a mutilated heraldic
emblem, flanked the entrance to a neglected
drive. A cold wind whistled through the elms
which lined it, and the air was full of the
drifting leaves. At the far end, under the
gloomy arch of trees, a single yellow lamp
burned steadily. In the dim half-light of
the coming night I saw a long, low building
stretching out two irregular wings, with deep
eaves, a sloping gambrel roof, and walls which
were criss-crossed with timber balks in the
fashion of the Tudors. The cheery light of
a fire flickered in the broad, latticed window
to the left of the low-porched door, and this,
as it proved, marked the study of my uncle,
for it was thither that I was led by his butler
in order to make my host’s acquaintance.
He was cowering over his fire, for the moist
chill of an English autumn had set him shivering.
His lamp was unlit, and I only saw the red
glow of the embers beating upon a huge, craggy
face, with a Red Indian nose and cheek, and
deep furrows and seams from eye to chin, the
sinister marks of hidden volcanic fires. He
sprang up at my entrance with something of
an old-world courtesy and welcomed me warmly
to Rodenhurst. At the same time I was conscious,
as the lamp was carried in, that it was a
very critical pair of light-blue eyes which
looked out at me from under shaggy eyebrows,
like scouts beneath a bush, and that this
outlandish uncle of mine was carefully reading
off my character with all the ease of a practised
observer and an experienced man of the world.
For my part I looked at him, and looked again,
for I had never seen a man whose appearance
was more fitted to hold one’s attention.
His figure was the framework of a giant, but
he had fallen away his coat dangled straight
down in a shocking fashion from a pair of
broad and bony shoulders. All his limbs were
huge and yet emaciated, and I could not take
my gaze from his knobby wrists, and long,
gnarled hands. But his eyes — those peering
light-blue eyes — they were the most arrestive
of any of his peculiarities. It was not their
colour alone, nor was it the ambush of hair
in which they lurked; but it was the expression
which I read in them. For the appearance and
bearing of the man were masterful, and one
expected a certain corresponding arrogance
in his eyes, but instead of that I read the
look which tells of a spirit cowed and crushed,
the furtive, expectant look of the dog whose
master has taken the whip from the rack. I
formed my own medical diagnosis upon one glance
at those critical and yet appealing eyes.
I believed that he was stricken with some
mortal ailment, that he knew himself to be
exposed to sudden death, and that he lived
in terror of it. Such was my judgment — a
false one, as the event showed; but I mention
it that it may help you to realize the look
which I read in his eyes.
My uncle’s welcome was, as I have said,
a courteous one, and in an hour or so I found
myself seated between him and his wife at
a comfortable dinner, with curious pungent
delicacies upon the table, and a stealthy,
quick-eyed Oriental waiter behind his chair.
The old couple had come round to that tragic
imitation of the dawn of life when husband
and wife, having lost or scattered all those
who were their intimates, find themselves
face to face and alone once more, their work
done, and the end nearing fast. Those who
have reached that stage in sweetness and love,
who can change their winter into a gentle
Indian summer, have come as victors through
the ordeal of life. Lady Holden was a small,
alert woman, with a kindly eye, and her expression
as she glanced at him was a certificate of
character to her husband. And yet, though
I read a mutual love in their glances, I read
also a mutual horror, and recognized in her
face some reflection of that stealthy fear
which I detected in his. Their talk was sometimes
merry and sometimes sad, but there was a forced
note in their merriment and a naturalness
in their sadness which told me that a heavy
heart beat upon either side of me.
We were sitting over our first glass of wine,
and the servants had left the room, when the
conversation took a turn which produced a
remarkable effect upon my host and hostess.
I cannot recall what it was which started
the topic of the supernatural, but it ended
in my showing them that the abnormal in psychical
experiences was a subject to which I had,
like many neurologists, devoted a great deal
of attention. I concluded by narrating my
experiences when, as a member of the Psychical
Research Society, I had formed one of a committee
of three who spent the night in a haunted
house. Our adventures were neither exciting
nor convincing, but, such as it was, the story
appeared to interest my auditors in a remarkable
degree. They listened with an eager silence,
and I caught a look of intelligence between
them which I could not understand. Lady Holden
immediately afterwards rose and left the room.
Sir Dominick pushed the cigar-box over to
me, and we smoked for some little time in
silence. That huge bony hand of his was twitching
as he raised it with his cheroot to his lips,
and I felt that the man’s nerves were vibrating
like fiddle-strings. My instincts told me
that he was on the verge of some intimate
confidence, and I feared to speak lest I should
interrupt it. At last he turned towards me
with a spasmodic gesture like a man who throws
his last scruple to the winds.
“From the little that I have seen of you
it appears to me, Dr. Hardacre,” said he,
“that you are the very man I have wanted
to meet.”
“I am delighted to hear it, sir.”
“Your head seems to be cool and steady.
You will acquit me of any desire to flatter
you, for the circumstances are too serious
to permit of insincerities. You have some
special knowledge upon these subjects, and
you evidently view them from that philosophical
standpoint which robs them of all vulgar terror.
I presume that the sight of an apparition
would not seriously discompose you?”
“I think not, sir.”
“Would even interest you, perhaps?”
“Most intensely.”
“As a psychical observer, you would probably
investigate it in as impersonal a fashion
as an astronomer investigates a wandering
comet?”
“Precisely.”
He gave a heavy sigh.
“Believe me, Dr. Hardacre, there was a time
when I could have spoken as you do now. My
nerve was 306a by-word in India. Even the
Mutiny never shook it for an instant. And
yet you see what I am reduced to — the most
timorous man, perhaps, in all this county
of Wiltshire. Do not speak too bravely upon
this subject, or you may find yourself subjected
to as long-drawn a test as I am — a test
which can only end in the madhouse or the
grave.”
I waited patiently until he should see fit
to go farther in his confidence. His preamble
had, I need not say, filled me with interest
and expectation.
“For some years, Dr. Hardacre,” he continued,
“my life and that of my wife have been made
miserable by a cause which is so grotesque
that it borders upon the ludicrous. And yet
familiarity has never made it more easy to
bear — on the contrary, as time passes my
nerves become more worn and shattered by the
constant attrition. If you have no physical
fears, Dr. Hardacre, I should very much value
your opinion upon this phenomenon which troubles
us so.”
“For what it is worth my opinion is entirely
at your service. May I ask the nature of the
phenomenon?”
“I think that your experiences will have
a higher evidential value if you are not told
in advance what you may expect to encounter.
You are yourself aware of the quibbles of
unconscious cerebration and subjective impressions
with which a scientific sceptic may throw
a doubt upon your statement. It would be as
well to guard against them in advance.”
“What shall I do, then?”
“I will tell you. Would you mind following
me this way?” He led me out of the dining-room
and down a long passage until we came to a
terminal door. Inside there was a large bare
room fitted as a laboratory, with numerous
scientific instruments and bottles. A shelf
ran along one side, upon which there stood
a long line of glass jars containing pathological
and anatomical specimens.
“You see that I still dabble in some of
my old studies,” said Sir Dominick. “These
jars are the remains of what was once a most
excellent collection, but unfortunately I
lost the greater part of them when my house
was burned down in Bombay in ‘92. It was
a most unfortunate affair for me — in more
ways than one. I had examples of many rare
conditions, and my splenic collection was
probably unique. These are the survivors.”
I glanced over them, and saw that they really
were of a very great value and rarity from
a pathological point of view: bloated organs,
gaping cysts, distorted bones, odious parasites
— a singular exhibition of the products
of India.
“There is, as you see, a small settee here,”
said my host. “It was far from our intention
to offer a guest so meagre an accommodation,
but since affairs have taken this turn, it
would be a great kindness upon your part if
you would consent to spend the night in this
apartment. I beg that you will not hesitate
to let me know if the idea should be at all
repugnant to you.”
“On the contrary,” I said, “it is most
acceptable.”
“My own room is the second on the left,
so that if you should feel that you are in
need of company a call would always bring
me to your side.”
“I trust that I shall not be compelled to
disturb you.”
“It is unlikely that I shall be asleep.
I do not sleep much. Do not hesitate to summon
me.”
And so with this agreement we joined Lady
Holden in the drawing-room and talked of lighter
things.
It was no affectation upon my part to say
that the prospect of my night’s adventure
was an agreeable one. I have no pretence to
greater physical courage than my neighbours,
but familiarity with a subject robs it of
those vague and undefined terrors which are
the most appalling to the imaginative mind.
The human brain is capable of only one strong
emotion at a time, and if it be filled with
curiosity or scientific enthusiasm, there
is no room for fear. It is true that I had
my uncle’s assurance that he had himself
originally taken this point of view, but I
reflected that the breakdown of his nervous
system might be due to his forty years in
India as much as to any psychical experiences
which had befallen him. I at least was sound
in nerve and brain, and it was with something
of the pleasurable thrill of anticipation
with which the sportsman takes his position
beside the haunt of his game that I shut the
laboratory door behind me, and partially undressing,
lay down upon the rug-covered settee.
It was not an ideal atmosphere for a bedroom.
The air was heavy with many chemical odours,
that of methylated spirit predominating. Nor
were the decorations of my chamber very sedative.
The odious line of glass jars with their relics
of disease and suffering stretched in front
of my very eyes. There was no blind to the
window, and a three-quarter moon streamed
its white light into the room, tracing a silver
square with filigree lattices upon the opposite
wall. When I had extinguished my candle this
one bright patch in the midst of the general
gloom had certainly an eerie and discomposing
aspect. A rigid and absolute silence reigned
throughout the old house, so that the low
swish of the branches in the garden came softly
and soothingly to my ears. It may have been
the hypnotic lullaby of this gentle susurrus,
or it may have been the result of my tiring
day, but after many dozings and many efforts
to regain my clearness of perception, I fell
at last into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I was awakened by some sound in the room,
and I instantly raised myself upon my elbow
on the couch. Some hours had passed, for the
square patch upon the wall had slid downwards
and sideways until it lay obliquely at the
end of my bed. The rest of the room was in
deep shadow. At first I could see nothing,
presently, as my eyes became accustomed to
the faint light, I was aware, with a thrill
which all my scientific absorption could not
entirely prevent, that something was moving
slowly along the line of the wall. A gentle,
shuffling sound, as of soft slippers, came
to my ears, and I dimly discerned a human
figure walking stealthily from the direction
of the door. As it emerged into the patch
of moonlight I saw very clearly what it was
and how it was employed. It was a man, short
and squat, dressed in some sort of dark-grey
gown, which hung straight from his shoulders
to his feet. The moon shone upon the side
of his face, and I saw that it was chocolate-brown
in colour, with a ball of black hair like
a woman’s at the back of his head. He walked
slowly, and his eyes were cast upwards towards
the line of bottles which contained those
gruesome remnants of humanity. He seemed to
examine each jar with attention, and then
to pass on to the next. When he had come to
the end of the line, immediately opposite
my bed, he stopped, faced me, threw up his
hands with a gesture of despair, and vanished
from my sight.
I have said that he threw up his hands, but
I should have said his arms, for as he assumed
that attitude of despair I observed a singular
peculiarity about his appearance. He had only
one hand! As the sleeves drooped down from
the upflung arms I saw the left plainly, but
the right ended in a knobby and unsightly
stump. In every other way his appearance was
so natural, and I had both seen and heard
him so clearly, that I could easily have believed
that he was an Indian servant of Sir Dominick’s
who had come into my room in search of something.
It was only his sudden disappearance which
suggested anything more sinister to me. As
it was I sprang from my couch, lit a candle,
and examined the whole room carefully. There
were no signs of my visitor, and I was forced
to conclude that there had really been something
outside the normal laws of Nature in his appearance.
I lay awake for the remainder of the night,
but nothing else occurred to disturb me.
I am an early riser, but my uncle was an even
earlier one, for I found him pacing up and
down the lawn at the side of the house. He
ran towards me in his eagerness when he saw
me come out from the door.
“Well, well!” he cried. “Did you see
him?”
“An Indian with one hand?”
“Precisely.”
“Yes, I saw him” — and I told him all
that occurred. When I had finished, he led
the way into his study.
“We have a little time before breakfast,”
said he. “It will suffice to give you an
explanation of this extraordinary affair — so
far as I can explain that which is essentially
inexplicable. In the first place, when I tell
you that for four years I have never passed
one single night, either in Bombay, aboard
ship, or here in England without my sleep
being broken by this fellow, you will understand
why it is that I am a wreck of my former self.
His programme is always the same. He appears
by my bedside, shakes me roughly by the shoulder,
passes from my room into the laboratory, walks
slowly along the line of my bottles, and then
vanishes. For more than a thousand times he
has gone through the same routine.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants his hand.”
“His hand?”
“Yes, it came about in this way. I was summoned
to Peshawur for a consultation some ten years
ago, and while there I was asked to look at
the hand of a native who was passing through
with an Afghan caravan. The fellow came from
some mountain tribe living away at the back
of beyond somewhere on the other side of Kaffiristan.
He talked a bastard Pushtoo, and it was all
I could do to understand him. He was suffering
from a soft sarcomatous swelling of one of
the metacarpal joints, and I made him realize
that it was only by losing his hand that he
could hope to save his life. After much persuasion
he consented to the operation, and he asked
me, when it was over, what fee I demanded.
The poor fellow was almost a beggar, so that
the idea of a fee was absurd, but I answered
in jest that my fee should be his hand, and
that I proposed to add it to my pathological
collection.
“To my surprise he demurred very much to
the suggestion, and he explained that according
to his religion it was an all-important matter
that the body should be reunited after death,
and so make a perfect dwelling for the spirit.
The belief is, of course, an old one, and
the mummies of the Egyptians arose from an
analogous superstition. I answered him that
his hand was already off, and asked him how
he intended to preserve it. He replied that
he would pickle it in salt and carry it about
with him. I suggested that it might be safer
in my keeping than in his, and that I had
better means than salt for preserving it.
On realizing that I really intended to carefully
keep it, his opposition vanished instantly.
‘But remember, sahib,’ said he, ‘I shall
want it back when I am dead.’ I laughed
at the remark, and so the matter ended. I
returned to my practice, and he no doubt in
the course of time was able to continue his
journey to Afghanistan.
“Well, as I told you last night, I had a
bad fire 313in my house at Bombay. Half of
it was burned down, and, among other things,
my pathological collection was largely destroyed.
What you see are the poor remains of it. The
hand of the hillman went with the rest, but
I gave the matter no particular thought at
the time. That was six years ago.
“Four years ago — two years after the
fire — I was awakened one night by a furious
tugging at my sleeve. I sat up under the impression
that my favourite mastiff was trying to arouse
me. Instead of this, I saw my Indian patient
of long ago, dressed in the long grey gown
which was the badge of his people. He was
holding up his stump and looking reproachfully
at me. He then went over to my bottles, which
at that time I kept in my room, and he examined
them carefully, after which he gave a gesture
of anger and vanished. I realized that he
had just died, and that he had come to claim
my promise that I should keep his limb in
safety for him.
“Well, there you have it all, Dr. Hardacre.
Every night at the same hour for four years
this performance has been repeated. It is
a simple thing in itself, but it has worn
me out like water dropping on a stone. It
has brought a vile insomnia with it, for I
cannot sleep now for the expectation of his
coming. It has poisoned my old age and that
of my wife, who has been the sharer in this
great trouble. But there is the breakfast
gong, and she will be waiting impatiently
to know how it fared with you last night.
We are both much indebted to you for your
gallantry, for it takes something from the
weight of our misfortune when we share it,
even for a single night, with a friend, and
it reassures us as to our sanity, which we
are sometimes driven to question.”
This was the curious narrative which Sir Dominick
confided to me — a story which to many would
have appeared to be a grotesque impossibility,
but which, after my experience of the night
before, and my previous knowledge of such
things, I was prepared to accept as an absolute
fact. I thought deeply over the matter, and
brought the whole range of my reading and
experience to bear upon it. After breakfast,
I surprised my host and hostess by announcing
that I was returning to London by the next
train.
“My dear doctor,” cried Sir Dominick in
great distress, “you make me feel that I
have been guilty of a gross breach of hospitality
in intruding this unfortunate matter upon
you. I should have borne my own burden.”
“It is, indeed, that matter which is taking
me to London,” I answered; “but you are
mistaken, I assure you, if you think that
my experience of last night was an unpleasant
one to me. On the contrary, I am about to
ask your permission to return in the evening
and spend one more night in your laboratory.
I am very eager to see this visitor once again.”
My uncle was exceedingly anxious to know what
I was about to do, but my fears of raising
false hopes prevented me from telling him.
I was back in my own consulting-room a little
after luncheon, and was confirming my memory
of a passage in a recent book upon occultism
which had arrested my attention when I read
it.
“In the case of earth-bound spirits,”
said my authority, “some one dominant idea
obsessing them at the hour of death is sufficient
to hold them to this material world. They
are the amphibia of this life and of the next,
capable of passing from one to the other as
the turtle passes from land to water. The
causes which may bind a soul so strongly to
a life which its body has abandoned are any
violent emotion. Avarice, revenge, anxiety,
love, and pity have all been known to have
this effect. As a rule it springs from some
unfulfilled wish, and when the wish has been
fulfilled the material bond relaxes. There
are many cases upon record which show the
singular persistence of these visitors, and
also their disappearance when their wishes
have been fulfilled, or in some cases when
a reasonable compromise has been effected.”
“A reasonable compromise effected” — those
were the words which I had brooded over all
the morning, and which I now verified in the
original. No actual atonement could be made
here — but a reasonable compromise! I made
my way as fast as a train could take me to
the Shadwell Seamen’s Hospital, where my
old friend Jack Hewett was house-surgeon.
Without explaining the situation I made him
understand exactly what it was that I wanted.
“A brown man’s hand!” said he, in amazement.
“What in the world do you want that for?”
“Never mind. I’ll tell you some day. I
know that your wards are full of Indians.”
“I should think so. But a hand — ” He
thought a little and then struck a bell.
“Travers,” said he to a student-dresser,
“what became of the hands of the Lascar
which we took off yesterday? I mean the fellow
from the East India Dock who got caught in
the steam winch.”
“They are in the post-mortem room, sir.”
“Just pack one of them in antiseptics and
give it to Dr. Hardacre.”
And so I found myself back at Rodenhurst before
dinner with this curious outcome of my day
in town. I still said nothing to Sir Dominick,
but I slept that night in the laboratory,
and I placed the Lascar’s hand in one of
the glass jars at the end of my couch.
So interested was I in the result of my experiment
that sleep was out of the question. I sat
with a shaded lamp beside me and waited patiently
for my visitor. This time I saw him clearly
from the first. He appeared beside the door,
nebulous for an instant, and then hardening
into as distinct an outline as any living
man. The slippers beneath his grey gown were
red and heelless, which accounted for the
low, shuffling sound which he made as he walked.
As on the previous night he passed slowly
along the line of bottles until he paused
before that which contained the hand. He reached
up to it, his whole figure quivering with
expectation, took it down, examined it eagerly,
and then, with a face which was convulsed
with fury and disappointment, he hurled it
down on the floor. There was a crash which
resounded through the house, and when I looked
up the mutilated Indian had disappeared. A
moment later my door flew open and Sir Dominick
rushed in.
“You are not hurt?” he cried.
“No — but deeply disappointed.”
He looked in astonishment at the splinters
of glass, and the brown hand lying upon the
floor.
“Good God!” he cried. “What is this?”
I told him my idea and its wretched sequel.
He listened intently, but shook his head.
“It was well thought of,” said he, “but
I fear that there is no such easy end to my
sufferings. But one thing I now insist upon.
It is that you shall never again upon any
pretext occupy this room. My fears that something
might have happened to you — when I heard
that crash — have been the most acute of
all the agonies which I have undergone. I
will not expose myself to a repetition of
it.”
He allowed me, however, to spend the remainder
of that night where I was, and I lay there
worrying over the problem and lamenting my
own failure. With the first light of morning
there was the Lascar’s hand still lying
upon the floor to remind me of my fiasco.
I lay looking at it — and as I lay suddenly
an idea flew like a bullet through my head
and brought me quivering with excitement out
of my couch. I raised the grim relic from
where it had fallen. Yes, it was indeed so.
The hand was the left hand of the Lascar.
By the first train I was on my way to town,
and hurried at once to the Seamen’s Hospital.
I remembered that both hands of the Lascar
had been amputated, but I was terrified lest
the precious organ which I was in search of
might have been already consumed in the crematory.
My suspense was soon ended. It had still been
preserved in the post-mortem room. And so
I returned to Rodenhurst in the evening with
my mission accomplished and the material for
a fresh experiment.
But Sir Dominick Holden would not hear of
my occupying the laboratory again. To all
my entreaties he turned a deaf ear. It offended
his sense of hospitality, and he could no
longer permit it. I left the hand, therefore,
as I had done its fellow the night before,
and I occupied a comfortable bedroom in another
portion of the house, some distance from the
scene of my adventures.
But in spite of that my sleep was not destined
to be uninterrupted. In the dead of night
my host burst into my room, a lamp in his
hand. His huge gaunt figure was enveloped
in a loose dressing-gown, and his whole appearance
might certainly have seemed more formidable
to a weak-nerved man than that of the Indian
of the night before. But it was not his entrance
so much as his expression which amazed me.
He had turned suddenly younger by twenty years
at the least. His eyes were shining, his features
radiant, and he waved one hand in triumph
over his head. I sat up astounded, staring
sleepily at this extraordinary visitor. But
his words soon drove the sleep from my eyes.
“We have done it! We have succeeded!”
he shouted. “My dear Hardacre, how can I
ever in this world repay you?”
“You don’t mean to say that it is all
right?”
“Indeed I do. I was sure that you would
not mind being awakened to hear such blessed
news.”
“Mind! I should think not indeed. But is
it really certain?”
“I have no doubt whatever upon the point.
I owe you such a debt, my dear nephew, as
I have never owed a man before, and never
expected to. What can I possibly do for you
that is commensurate? Providence must have
sent you to my rescue. You have saved both
my reason and my life, for another six months
of this must have seen me either in a cell
or a coffin. And my wife — it was wearing
her out before my eyes. Never could I have
believed that any human being could have lifted
this burden off me.” He seized my hand and
wrung it in his bony grip.
“It was only an experiment — a forlorn
hope — but I am delighted from my heart
that it has succeeded. But how do you know
that it is all right? Have you seen something?”
He seated himself at the foot of my bed.
“I have seen enough,” said he. “It satisfies
me that I shall be troubled no more. What
has passed is easily told. You know that at
a certain hour this creature always comes
to me. To-night he arrived at the usual time,
and aroused me with even more violence than
is his custom. I can only surmise that his
disappointment of last night increased the
bitterness of his anger against me. He looked
angrily at me, and then went on his usual
round. But in a few minutes I saw him, for
the first time since this persecution began,
return to my chamber. He was smiling. I saw
the gleam of his white teeth through the dim
light. He stood facing me at the end of my
bed, and three times he made the low Eastern
salaam which is their solemn leave-taking.
And the third time that he bowed he raised
his arms over his head, and I saw his two
hands outstretched in the air. So he vanished,
and, as I believe, for ever.”
So that is the curious experience which won
me the affection and the gratitude of my celebrated
uncle, the famous Indian surgeon. His anticipations
were realized, and never again was he disturbed
by the visits of the restless hillman in search
of his lost member. Sir Dominick and Lady
Holden spent a very happy old age, unclouded,
so far as I know, by any trouble, and they
finally died during the great influenza epidemic
within a few weeks of each other. In his lifetime
he always turned to me for advice in everything
which concerned that English life of which
he knew so little; and I aided him also in
the purchase and development of his estates.
It was no great surprise to me, therefore,
that I found myself eventually promoted over
the heads of five exasperated cousins, and
changed in a single day from a hard-working
country doctor into the head of an important
Wiltshire family. I at least have reason to
bless the memory of the man with the brown
hand, and the day when I was fortunate enough
to relieve Rodenhurst of his unwelcome presence.
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