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1


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO. DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
OF CANADA, LIMITED
TORONTO


TO
My Mother
who found the mystery of living
a great adventure





CONTENTS
CHAPTER TWELVE
"HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIE?”
142
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DALLAS RUNS AWAY
154
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE GRAY ENVELOPE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BENEATH THE BALCONY
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE SHACK ON ELDER'S HILL
175
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHATTERED CRYSTAL
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE MARKS ON THE KNIFE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BRADE SHOULD WEAR BROWN
202
CHAPTER TWENTY
FROSTY TALKS SOME
211
220
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE DARK COAT
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DEAD HANDS REACHING!
226
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FAITH!
240
viii


DEAD HANDS REACHING





CHAPTER ONE
RETURN
DALLAS was coming back to Willow Valley
after fourteen years!
Returning in the hush of an autumn evening,
when a purple haze lay softly over the hills and one
bright star glittered coldly in the cobalt blueness of
the sky. She sat stiff and straight on the edge of the
dusty plush seat as the train approached the town,
brown eyes stretched wide, face pressed against the
grimy glass.
She was alone in the coach except for a tired-
looking woman up front and the pale-faced man in
the gray hat across the aisle, who had been staring
at her with such insolent interest all afternoon.
Dallas was conscious of him even now as she
leaned against the window ledge and watched Willow
Valley growing closer. Her heart was beating swiftly
and her whole body felt hot and tight.
She decided it was because the coach was stuffy
and also because she had slept poorly the night be-
fore, due to the excitement of this approaching visit
to the town she had run away from so long ago. Then,
with a sudden shiver, she threw aside pretense and
admitted that it was because she was frightened.
Plain, everyday frightened. At the prospect that lay
I


DEAD HANDS REACHING
before her. At the thing she had come to do! Then
she smiled faintly and shook her head.
Afraid? Of what? Whom? Who could hurt her
now? Who could-reach her? She drew a deep
breath, staring about the shadowy coach. The train
lumbered along, swaying and pitching.
She leaned back against the dusty plush of the
seat. She was tired, unstrung. She had been work-
ing too hard. Weeks of steady rehearsing had beaten
her down. She needed a rest.
Resolutely she turned toward the window again,
eyes groping over the darkening landscape. There
was the mill. Still like a ghost in the twilight. Arch
Simmons had killed himself there because he couldn't
pay the money he owed Jurden Keye!
"Oh," Dallas gasped faintly, and drew back from
the window, suddenly sick. She had located the
source of her dread, this thing that had been grow-
ing on her ever since she entered the train back in
the city. She had put it from her as long as she
could but now it had pounced from the gray shadows
of the old mill where Arch Simmons had died, and
gripped her terribly.
Jurden Keye!
After her rebellion, her struggles, her ultimate
victory, she was still afraid of the tall, thin-lipped
man at Willow Wilde. She had never been free from
him. All these years he had held his dusty hands
upon her. The narrow glitter of his eyes had fol-
lowed her. The echoes of his dry voice had gone
with her and at last—he had drawn her back.
She sat very still, fighting a rising hysteria. Why,


RETURN
Jurden Keye wasn't even aware that she was coming.
Her visit would be a tremendous surprise to him.
... Deep in her heart she knew better. He had
dragged her back. Pulled at her with his dusty hands
until she once more stood within his power. ...
She looked up as the light came on, and her glance
encountered that of the man in the gray hat across
the aisle. He was staring at her intently and she
could not read what lay back of his pale slanted eyes.
Why was he smiling? Why looking at her with
that knowing secret triumph ? He couldn't guess how
unstrung she was. Slowly her glance went over
him. He assumed a tremendous importance there in
the rattle and dust of the little train. She felt that
she must know him again—some time soon-be able
to identify him.
He was a tall, very thin man, with an unhealthy
white face that somehow suggested long confinement
in dark, airless places and his ultra-stylish, expensive
clothes could not conceal his cheapness, any more
than his fixed smile could hide the cruelty and mean-
ness of his lips.
Dallas wrenched her eyes away, turned again to
the flashing landscape. Why had she come back to
Willow Valley? Branson, her attorney, could have
handled the whole thing. There were bound to be
unpleasant moments. People in the town wouldn't
have forgotten Dallas Gantry. Every time she turned
her head, she would be remembering.
But she had loved it so, in spite of everything.
The drowsy little town nestling in its leafy valley,
encircled by the low knobs of lazy hills, the old


DEAD HANDS REACHING
town with its winding streets, its pleasant homes,
its shaded ways had drawn her back. That was it.
The town, not Jurden Keye, had led her here. She
had wanted to see it again. Go back, retrace the old
dead trails, meet old ghosts and lay them—all before
she started life anew with Anthony
At thought of him, Dallas' tense face relaxed and
the longing to see him just then amounted almost to
physical pain. He was safety! Security! He repre-
sented freedom from the strange cold fear. She
began thinking very definitely about him. Memory
of him was sanctuary. She recalled his thick, crisp
sun-burned hair, with that one stubborn lock that
would never stay in place. The way his eyes
crinkled when he laughed. Anthony's eyes were blue,
a violent intense blue, and his brows were like sharp
black slashes above them. He had a lean, angular
face, with high cheekbones, burned a ruddy
brown. ...
“Willow Valley!”
The trainman's casual announcement jerked
Dallas from her reverie. She jumped up, dropping
her purse, stumbling over her traveling case, groping
for her coat.
The conductor, whom Dallas remembered from the
old days, but who evidently hadn't recognized her,
grinned in a friendly way and picked up her luggage.
"I'll bring 'em, lady," he said, eyes frankly curi-
ous. He was thinking that he didn't often deliver
such a passenger to Willow Valley.
Dallas thanked him breathlessly and ran down the
aisle. The white-faced man in the gray hat blocked


RETURN
her way. He turned, eyes groping boldly over her
face. Dallas drew back with a recurrence of the
fear that had lessened with a mounting excitement
at being really in Willow Valley again, then the
stranger smiled and touched his hat.
"Pardon me," he said in a husky, unpleasant voice,
and stepped aside.
Dallas hurried past him, eyes glowing with an-
ticipation. The outer door was open and a gust of
wind sucked through the stuffy coach.
"Oh," she cried softly, and stopped, sniffing hun-
grily. It was so very, very long since she had
smelled air like that. Slightly damp, redolent of open
fields where corn was drying in fragrant shocks, like
Indian wigwams, with great yellow pumpkins dot-
ting the brown stubble between; thick with the scent
of woods, heavy with the fragrance of leaf fires.
She put out an unsteady hand and groped her way
into the vestibule. At the top step she paused. In the
early twilight the world before her was swimming in
a delicate blue haze, through which the glow of
lighted windows shone like winking eyes.
Everything was the same. The ugly red station,
the board platform, the lumpy heaps of freight piled
on squeaking trucks. Dry grass grew waist high in
the ditch beside the sagging walk that led to the
town nearly a quarter of a mile away. The road
was rutted and thick with dust, blue-silver in the
twilight. Far beyond the town she saw the hump of
Elder's Hill where sumac and goldenrod grew in
autumn and dogtooth violets in spring. . . .
A sob caught in her throat. Her eyes were sud-
5


DEAD HANDS REACHING
denly dim with tears. She grasped the railing and
descended the steps slowly. About her on the plat-
form was leisurely bustle. Someone was leaving. A
fat woman with a lunch basket on her arm, noisily
herding three small, excited children. Dallas stared
at her curiously. Did she know her? Would the
woman recognize her as Dallas Gantry, who had
married. . . .
Dallas turned quickly. Her cheeks were hot. This
wouldn't do. She must be prepared for recognition.
She had no reason to come sneaking back to the town
she had deliberately left. She was rich now.
Famous. Happy . . .
"Hotel, madam?"
Dallas looked up with a little gasp. That pleasant
courteous voice was so familiar, that pungent odor
of good cigars. A tall man in a long, careless dark
raincoat stood before her. His hat was in his hand
and the fading light touched a great unruly shock of
silvery white hair. Beneath it his face was lean and
copper-hued, heavily marked with slashing lines that
could not mar its queer beauty. He had fine dark
eyes.
Dallas stared at him blankly. Who was he? She
ought to know. She should remember that face.' But
something about it was so different. . . .
He was regarding her with equal interest, bend-
ing slightly forward so she caught again that fresh
pleasant odor of good tobacco that clung to the rough
wool of his coat. They stood there, groping for
recognition while people strolled casually around the
platform, gossiped, wrangkd, laughed, then—
6


RETURN
“Gregg MacFarlane!" Dallas cried.
“Dallas !" MacFarlane said sharply. "Little Dal-
las Gantry!"
She extended her hands. He grasped them in his
that were firm and very strong. “Dallas,” he
repeated, and again: “Dallas !"
Then a woman said from somewhere back of Mac-
Farlane.
"What is this? Who are you talking to,
Gregg "
Dallas whirled, eyes shining. “Oh, Faith!" she
cried. “To think of seeing you and Gregg, the
very first thing— "
Faith MacFarlane stared at her a moment in aston-
ished speechlessness, then her arms were around
Dallas and they were laughing and crying all at
once. Gregg watched them, chuckling softly. Then
Faith stepped back, held Dallas at arm's length.
“My dear,” she said unsteadily, "you're so
beautiful! But the same Dallas—just the same ”
Dallas was finding it very difficult to speak. Gregg
and Faith MacFarlane had always been bright mem-
ories for her when she thought of Willow Valley.
They had come to town the year before she left.
They had been present at her wedding. Gregg,
tight-lipped and a little grim. Faith, lovely Faith
MacFarlane, like a small bright bird. ....
Dallas recalled it all so vividly. The long bleak
parlor at Willow Wilde. The gleaming brass chan-
delier, newly installed, the stiff shiny chairs arranged
like soldiers around the walls. ...
That had been an autumn night, too, and rain


DEAD HANDS REACHING
had slashed against the windows, dead leaves drifted
before the wind, and old mad Margery had pre-
dicted unhappiness for a bride of storm. But the
MacFarlanes had been there and Dallas' cheeks
flushed in the cool dark now, recalling her husband's
eyes on Faith.
"I can't believe it, Dallas Gantry," Faith Mac-
Farlane was saying in that low rich voice of hers.
"It's like—spring—just seeing you again"
"We've missed you a lot, Dallas," Gregg cut in.
"But we've followed your career. We've been so
proud of you."
Dallas' eyes blurred with tears. There had been
few enough to be interested in those first bitter foot-
light years.
"It's wonderful to be back," she told them. "It's
been such a long time—I had—to—come." She
stared at them, wide-eyed. Their charming, friendly
faces stood out clearly in the gray dusk. She was so
fond of them. There would be many pleasant hours
spent in the homelike security of the little inn which
they owned and operated. She told herself all this,
but it did not slow the excited beating of her heart,
or banish that chilling premonition of trouble just
ahead. She realized that they were regarding her
curiously and forced herself to speak casually.
"I've always loved the sleepy old town," she said.
"Of course," Faith agreed, smiling.
Gregg nodded with his grave courtesy. Dallas
drew a deep breath, studying Gregg, wondering
what about him was so very different.
Then Faith said, "Of course, you're stopping with
8


RETURN
us, Dallas, or are you—?" she hesitated, and Dallas
smiled, sensing her confusion.
"Thank you so much, Faith," Dallas' voice was
a bit unsteady, "but you know I have a house here.
I think I should like to remain there during my
stay."
"It will be rather run down, Dallas," Gregg re-
minded her. "You won't be very comfortable, I'm
afraid."
"I suppose not, but I'm going to try."
"To-night?"
"To-night." She nodded definitely. "I just want
to—Gregg."
He smiled. "You'll let us drop you there. I have
the car here. Faith just came with me for the ride."
Dallas shook her head. "I want to walk, Gregg,"
she confided. "All day I've been thinking about—
walking—home—in the twilight." Her voice broke
slightly. "If you'll arrange for someone to bring
my things."
"Of course. And you'll come to see us soon, won't
you, Dallas?"
"In the morning, I expect. It's been wonderful to
meet you both. The old town about the same?"
Faith laughed softly. "Willow Valley doesn't
change, Dallas. A few have died. Some are mar-
ried. There are some new babies, but it doesn't
change."
Dallas nodded, laughing through tears. "No ex-
citement, then?"
"No excitement," Gregg cut in. "Oh, yes, we
have a show troupe here but they're closing to-
9


DEAD HANDS REACHING
night—" He stopped abruptly, glancing away.
"Just a barnstorming bunch," he went on lamely.
"You wouldn't care about them."
"I've put in my time barnstorming," she told him.
"It's all in the game."
"I suppose so." He lifted his hand in an uncon-
sciously gallant gesture. "Good-night, Dallas."
She waved back. "Good-night, dear folks." Then
impulsively, "Here are my checks. You'll see about
the baggage, Gregg?"
"Certainly."
She turned, drawing a deep breath, and came face
to face with the white-faced man who wore the gray
hat. She stopped abruptly, eyes slowly widening.
He was stopping in Willow Valley, too! The train
was already pulling out. Again he stepped from her
path with that knowing secret smile, and Dallas saw
his companion, a small thin-chested man in an ex-
aggerated plaid raincoat, a long peaked cap pulled
down over one eye. He held himself with an un-
deniable swagger, but his narrow sharp face was
furtive, his eyes uneasy.
Dallas started on, then turned impulsively for one
more glance at her friends, and stopped, frowning,
to see the two strangers, heads bent, edging near the
hotel car driven by Gregg MacFarlane. There was
something so dangerous in the look of the two, such
a suggestion of hidden evil, that Dallas hesitated,
fighting an impulse to hurry back and warn the Mac-
Farlanes of some danger, which she could not name,
then she shrugged and went on, marking the feeling
down to unstrung nerves.
10


RETURN
That meeting with Gregg and Faith had done
much to steady her. She had become very friendly
with them in the days before the crash that ended
in her leaving Willow Valley. They were such
quiet, charming people. There was a suggestion of
strength about them, of something conquered and
subdued. She stopped abruptly, glancing over her
shoulder.
"It's his hair," she said softly. "That's what
makes him different. "Gregg's hair is—white."
She frowned, and went on along the sagging board-
walk with the dry grasses rustling against her skirt.
Well, after all, why shouldn't Gregg MacFarlane
have white hair? He must be—she pursed her lips
—he must be near—fifty. But so very, very white,
as if something had blighted it.
She was walking swiftly now, head up, eyes starry.
The old ghosts were being crowded back by the sense
of friendly things about her. It was getting too dark
to see much, but the place smelled—familiar. There
was Widow Huston's house! Dallas had learned to
make currant jelly in the widow's kitchen. She began
humming softly. She wondered if she'd remember
about currant jelly now. Maybe Anthony would like
her to make some when they were married. All men
liked currant jelly. She laughed under her breath,
then paused.
A few cars passed her on the way back to town.
She heard a bunch of boys and girls laughing boister-
ously. Wistfully she looked after them. They would
likely be planning a Hallowe'en dance.
She turned sharply to the right, drawing her coat
A
II


DEAD HANDS REACHING
closer. A chilly breeze had lifted. There were a few
scudding clouds across the sky. The spire of the
Congregational Church stood out starkly, faintly
touched with the gold of a rising moon. It looked
bleak and cold. Behind it was the graveyard. There
were towering pines, low furry cedars and many,
many lacy-fronded willows. The graves were mostly
well tended, but in the old portion there were some
with sagging headstones, stained with moss and
lichen.
Her house was just beyond. Next door to the
burial ground. She hadn't minded in the least. Still
didn't. She had loved to stand by the darkened win-
dow on a winter's night and watch the black shadows
of the pines against the snow. Dallas didn't fear the
dead. She had known many who now rested end-
lessly there beside her house. Patient, gentle women,
bent with toil, mute with many sorrows, yet intensely
kind and human. Big-boned men, with shambling
steps, slow speech, strong convictions. Children
whom one day Dallas had seen skipping by to school
—the next quiet forever. Old, old people whom she
used to talk with as they sat on vine-covered porches,
watching the twilight creep into the valley, exhausted
with life, content to wait patiently for death.
She wondered if she would ever be like that. If
the surging, clamorous joy of life within her would
ever be silenced. If one day, when she had lived too
long, she would welcome death.
She stopped, lifting her head and letting her eyes,
that were oddly somber, wander over the darkening
world around her. Moonlight was growing about
12


RETURN
the church spire. Wind whimpered through the rus-
tling maples. Sere leaves eddied stealthily about her
feet. Somewhere a dog set up a mournful baying.
She shivered and snuggled closer inside her coat. It
was very lonesome here. The light had gone and
the cold moon on the silent church tower looked bleak
and forbidding. There was the hint of winter in the
sobbing wind. The world was dying and all about
her was the dead.
Why had she come back? What mad impulse had
brought her to Willow Valley after fourteen years?
Why hadn't she let the old ghosts rest? There came
upon her again that cold premonition of trouble.
Death! Tragedy! She had a quick longing to race
back for the station, catch a train to the city—and
Anthony—then she remembered there was no train
till the next morning. And by that time the sun
would be shining. The purple haze would rest over
the crimson-tinted hills—there would be old friends
to greet. . . .
She jammed her hands in her pockets and started
on resolutely, unconsciously quickening her steps.
Gregg had said her place was run down. It wouldn't
be comfortable. Well, she had known that but she
wanted to see it. Her eagerness grew until she was
running, high heels tapping lightly on the warped
boards of the walk. There it was, a white blur
through the trees. There was the old picket fence
with the woodbine crawling over it. The bed of
myrtle was just beyond. And the lilac bush where
she had buried Tiger Eyes, her kitten. . . .
She jerked open the gate, ran up the walk, heart
13


DEAD HANDS REACHING
hammering a noisy tattoo against her ribs. In the
shadowy darkness of the porch something stirred.
Dallas stopped with a low gasp. Then a figure came
down the steps, paused at the foot, looking at her. A
woman's voice said:
"Hello, Dallas, sort of surprised to see me, ain't
you? It's Opal, honey, Opal Garth."
Dallas gasped and her stiff body relaxed. "Good
heavens," she said, "how you frightened me. Opal
Garth? Where on earth did you come from?"
Opal came toward her. Dallas caught the white
blur of her face, the heavy odor of cheap perfume
that swept over with such terrific force of memory.
Bleak wind-swept stations where trains were always
late. Frigid hotels. The dusty clatter of cheap dress-
ing-rooms in wretched small-town theaters. Heat
that sucked life and breath. Noise. Clatter. Blare
of bands. Crying children. Sweat of humans. All
the mad, glamorous, horrible background of small-
time trouping—and always that nauseating odor of
Opal's perfume!
Opal said: "I been playin' here. Tarn O'Shannon's
gang. Hot dump, I'll say." She laughed shortly.
"Well, ain't you glad to see me, Dallas, or are you
too upstage to remember old pals?"
There was a hidden venom in the tones. The un-
failing jealousy of the incompetent for the gifted
person who succeeds by sheer hard work and sacrifice.
Dallas replied slowly, ignoring the thrust:
"What do you want, Opal?"
Opal shrugged and buried her hands in the cheap
fur of her sleeves.
14


RETURN
"Why don't you ask me to come in?" she
countered.
Dallas glanced at the blank, dead windows of the
house. "Come in, certainly, if you wish, but it will
be cold and very uncomfortable. I just arrived"
"I know. I was at the station and seen you come.
I knew this was your place. Everyone in town points
it out to you. Where Dallas Gantry lived! The great
and famous Dallas Gantry." The thin, high voice
tightened with passion. "Why was it that you
shoulda' made good out of all that old bunch?" she
demanded indignantly. "You wasn't any smarter
than the rest of us. You ain't any better lookin' than
—I am. I don't see"
Dallas broke in, suddenly very tired of the other's
whining. "If you want to see me about anything in
particular, Opal, get it over with. I've got a lot to
do to-night. To-morrow might be better"
Opal turned swiftly, putting her face close to
Dallas'. "Don't kid yourself, baby," she said harshly.
"I wanta see you to-night. Let's get inside."
Dallas returned her venomous stare coolly, and
without a word stepped past her, drawing a key from
her bag, inserted it in the rusty lock and threw back
the door.
A gust of dead air eddied to the rush of wind,
stirring old dust, ancient smells, all the strange, im-
palpable odors of a house long closed. It caught
Dallas by the throat and held her motionless on the
threshold. How could she go in? How enter the
place where she had been so happy—especially with
the hateful presence of Opal Garth beside her?
is


DEAD HANDS REACHING
Then she threw notions aside, stepped across the
sill, snapping on a small flash. "It's dreadfully cold,"
she said, "but there should be wood in the box. I
left some when I"
Her voice died away into another room. Opal
stood just inside the door, staring around her curi-
ously. There was the bulk of furniture, the shadowy
white of walls. She could hear Dallas fumbling
around in the kitchen. Presently she returned, dumped
an armful of dry sticks on the floor, scratched a
match and lighted a candle. She had opened a rear
door and the fresh cool air sucked hungrily through
the place.
She tore up an old magazine, stacked the wood
above it in the fireplace, lighted it. It burned fiercely,
throwing a warm ruddy glow over the room. Opal
looked it over avidly.
"Huh," she grunted. "So this is where you lived.
Gee, I thought you'd have somethin' swell"
Dallas dusted her hands. "Get it over, Opal," she
snapped. "I'm tired and want to rest. What do you
want?"
Opal stepped over and closed the door, then leaned
against the wall and faced Dallas. "I'm broke," she
stated flatly.
Dallas eyed her coolly. She had never liked this
cheap common girl who was now a cheaper, com-
moner woman. Their association had been one of
necessity. Dallas was naturally kind and it was not
in her consciously to sense her own superiority. She
adapted herself to whatever condition she occupied
at the moment. So she and Opal Garth had roomed
16


RETURN
together in the old days when they had both been in-
significant members of Tom Willoughby's Repertory
Company, touring the South and Middle West.
"How much do you want?" she asked crisply.
Opal scowled at her. She was pretty in a cheap,
showy way, though the freshness of twelve years
ago was entirely gone. In its place was a hard sophis-
tication, a sullen resentment at the fate which had
kept her still in cheap companies, playing small parts.
She displayed the same bad taste in clothes, Dallas
reflected. That imitation leopard coat, now. Those
silly, ungroomed pumps with the red heels. The
cheap froth of grimy lace showing through her coat
front.
"I don't want any of your charity," Opal said
thickly, a dull red burning in her thin cheeks. "I'm
shot all right." She began to tremble and Dallas
looked at her more closely. "We've had a hell of a
season and now that old fool has shut us up"
"What old fool?" Dallas asked with a queer
detachment.
Opal glared at her under heavily mascaraed lashes.
"Keye," she snapped, "Jurden Keye." Then she
smiled and licked her hot dry lips with a thin, red
tongue. "He ain't so bad—to meet," she said. "In
fact"—she glanced away from Dallas' flaming eyes,
then went on sullenly—"he's on the City Council and
he revoked our license. Said we wasn't the right
kind of influence for the town," she laughed shrilly.
"God, that's good," she choked. "Influence! Say,
baby, what I know about him."
Dallas was fumbling in her bag. She was prickling
17


DEAD HANDS REACHING
hot all over and the air of the place was choking her.
That horrible perfume! "Here is some money," she
said. "Take it and go, Opal. I'm sorry for you. I
want to help you but I can't—stand—this—please
go
Opal's short thick fingers clutched at the bills. She
was smiling with her fat, red lips, but her eyes were
haggard. "Yeh," she said softly, "take some money
and get out—wanton! That's what you think about
me, ain't it? Well, listen, kid, I ain't goin' so easy.
You and me used to be pals. I was good enough for
you then, and I'm good enough for you now, if you
have played on Broadway. What if I have got the
low-down on your hubby? What if I do know plenty
about him? That ain't no reason for"
"Opal!" Dallas cried and unconsciously jerked off
her small smart hat as if the pressure were crushing
her. The dull gold of her hair caught the light and
glowed like polished metal where it lay, thick lustrous
waves around her vivid face. "Opal," she repeated
hoarsely, "won't you please leave—me? I can't help
—what—my husband does. He isn't my husband—
really—I haven't seen him—for"
"Why don't you get a divorce?" Opal demanded
suddenly.
Dallas locked tense fingers together. "That's what
I'm here for," she said and immediately regretted
it. Why should she tell this woman her affairs?
Opal grinned. "I thought so," she said. "Y'see, I
met a girl that used to work for you. Gee, it must be
swell havin' a maid!" Her flat blue eyes darkened
angrily. "This girl, she told me about how you was
18


DEAD HANDS REACHING
the force of a solar plexus blow. Not grant her a
divorce! Why, how could he help it? There wouldn't
be any kind of law that would permit him to keep her
tied to such a travesty of marriage.
Opal went on. "He meant it, too, Dallas, so that's
really what I come to see you about. I got a plan."
She sat down, resting skinny elbows on her knees,
glancing up at Dallas from her flat blue eyes. "Meb-
be you won't like it very well," she went on, "but it'll
sure work, honey. I'll come right out and give you
the dirt. Keye's sweet on me." She smiled with a
widening of her fat lips. "He's been—entertainin'
me now and then up at the house. Oh, he's mighty
secretive about it. That's the kind of a daddy he is.
All pure white on the outside but—sheer filth under-
neath." Her face twisted furiously.
Dallas looked at her and nodded slowly. For a
moment there was a trace of kinship between them.
She said: "He is, Opal, you're right about that.
Now what is it you want to suggest?"
"A way for you to get the low-down on him."
"The what?"
"The dope for your divorce. 'Course, Dallas, it
will cost you somethin'. Say a grand, but it ought
to be worth it."
Dallas was staring at the girl in open bewilder-
ment. "What are you getting at?" she asked.
Opal nodded confidentially. "You'd be surprised,"
she said slyly. "I'm goin' up there to-night after the
show, see? He's lettin' us give our last performance
to-night. We had the tickets sold. So I'll be up there
20


RETURN
spendin' the evenin' with him. All nice and comfy,
just the two of us. Well, s'pose you manage to drop
in at a certain time. Bring a witness along. You
must have a friend or two here. Bring someone with
you. Wing my act. It'll be good. You won't have
any trouble gettin' loose then and you can marry your
rich Johnny"
"Oh, my God," Dallas cried in suddenly stricken
tones. "Get away from me. Get out of my sight. I
never want to see you again. Leave me—go"
Her voice had risen until she was half screaming.
She was so completely sickened that she went sud-
denly faint and pressed shaking hands across her
eyes. "Get out!" she cried hoarsely. "Go! At once!
I'll—kill you if you—don't"
A sudden clamor sounded in the rear of the house.
Someone stumbling. A crash. A muffled curse.
Both women whirled, staring at the door, then a
large-footed, shock-haired boy appeared, grinning
fatuously.
"S'cuse me, Mis' Gantry," he said, "I brought
your trunk and things and stumbled gettin' in, but
there they are. Mr. MacFarlane sent me."
"All right," Dallas said. "Thank you. Here's some
money."
The boy pocketed the coin, his small bright eyes
traveling from one face to another with a queer ani-
mal eagerness. "Yes'm," he said again and backed
out, still staring.
Dallas had regained control. She faced Opal
Garth, quietly now.
21


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"What you suggest is impossible, of course," she
said curtly. "And I don't want to talk to you any
more. Go at once."
Opal was backing toward the door. She was trem-
bling violently. Her voice was hoarse with fury.
"All right, I'll go," she chattered, "and I'll see you
fry before I offer to help you again. You'll be sorry
for this, Dallas Gantry. Damned sorry. I know a
lot of things you'd like to know and I'll get even with
you if it's the last thing I ever do"
Dallas was close behind her when she went out.
She shut the door on her yammering, turned and
slumped inertly in a dusty chair before the fire. She
buried her head on her crooked arm and her slim
body jerked with the force of angry, shamed sobs
that tore her.
"Beast!" she choked. "Filthy—beast! Oh, I hate
him—I hate him—so"
Then she sat up slowly, staring at the fire which
was already dying down. Before her was the dust
and desolation of her old life, the one she thought
she had forgotten, only to find that it was surging
around her with all its old fury and vehemence.
She stared at the room with stricken eyes. Then
she leaped up, opened doors and windows, letting the
fresh cold air whip through, sweeping before it dust
and memories and the dreadful odor of Opal Garth's
perfume.
She dug candles from a box in the kitchen, lighted
them all over the place. They guttered in the wind,
but she did not mind. She stripped muslin covers
from the chairs. Found a battered broom, ripped up
22


DEAD HANDS REACHING
But he couldn't conquer her, so he had tried to
break her and when she ran away. . . .
Dallas got up, went into her bedroom and began
removing her dress. She heated water over the bed
of coals in the fireplace, creamed and washed her face
and hands, then she set about deciding what she
should wear for this momentous interview. Com-
mon sense told her to wait till morning but a terrible
unrest was on her and she could not be quiet. She
wanted to know that Opal was merely talking when
she said Jurden would not grant the divorce. She
wanted to face the matter and find out where she
stood.
In the middle of her toilet, there came a knock on
the rear door. She jerked on a kimono and ran out.
It was the shock-headed boy again, grinning fool-
ishly. He had overlooked one of her bags. Here it
was. Dallas thanked him and was closing the door
when a notion struck her.
"Wait a moment," she said. "I want you to deliver
a note for me."
She hurried back to the bedroom, took out her
writing case and scribbled a message. The boy fol-
lowed her into the living-room, stood there, gaping
wide-eyed. He had heard of Dallas Gantry, who
was the wife of old Jurden Keye, and had run away
a good many years ago to go on the stage. Dallas
Gantry was a tradition around Willow Valley. Men-
tion of her name could start a neighborhood row any
year. Some called her wanton, worthless, flighty.
Hadn't she left her husband's home? Hadn't she
deserted the wealthiest man in Willow Valley, an
24


RETURN
elder in the Methodist Church, member of the City
Council, the prop and support of all worthy civic
ventures ? That was one side. The other said Dallas
Gantry was a lovely girl without evil in her, and who
could blame her for running off from old Keye, and
he wasn't as white as he was painted, and ...
She came out just then, holding the folds of the
heavy golden satin negligée around her. Her hair
matched the garment and her lovely brown velvet
eyes were very bright. She smiled at the boy, gave
him a dollar and a letter in a thick-looking gray
envelope.
"This goes to Jurden Keye,” she said. “You know
where he lives?"
The boy nodded eagerly. He couldn't keep his
eyes from her. He had never seen a woman just like
this. One thing bothered him greatly. He had once
heard his aunt, old Ma Witherspoon, the town gossip
and shrew, refer to Dallas Gantry as a crimson
woman. Buddy Witherspoon had always remem-
bered that phrase. Now he looked at Dallas Gantry
and she was golden, not crimson.
"Yeah, I know where old man Keye lives,” he
said, jerked his cap on and went out. In less than
half an hour all of Willow Valley knew that Dallas
Gantry had returned and that she had sent a note
to Jurden Keye. Immediately old scores were for-
gotten and the town en masse fell to the discussion
of this new and startling development. It brushed
away all minor subjects. Such, for instance, as what
Gregg MacFarlane would do when he found out that
Jurden Keye had sent Faith, his wife, a gorgeous
25


DEAD HANDS REACHING
bunch of American roses from a florist in the city,
and that he had waylaid her outside the Farmers'
Bank no later than this afternoon and forced her to
walk a way with him. For fifteen years, ever since,
in fact, the MacFarlanes had arrived in Willow
Valley from where, no one rightly knew, the town
had watched with avid interest Jurden Keye's un-
tiring effort to interest Faith MacFarlane.
26


CHAPTER TWO
WHO SCREAMED?
DALLAS approached the house slowly. When
she was a small child, Willow Wilde, home of
Jurden Keye, had been the finest residence in Willow
Valley. She had regarded it with awe and never
dreamed that one day she would be mistress of it, in
name, at least.
It was a large, three-story white house, tall and
rather severe, with narrow porches and many arched
windows. There were green wooden shutters to the
windows and the top story had jutting dormers
that looked like rather wicked, hal f -closed eyes. There
was the tiny railed balcony, halfway between the
second and third stories. Dallas had always loved
that spot with the view it offered on a clear day.
The house stood in the center of an acre and a
half of grounds and there were many tall trees
around it. Maples, elms and the lovely lacy willows
which gave the place its name. The house looked
rather dilapidated, Dallas noticed. Even viewed
under the moon, the paint had cracked and the porch
was sagging slightly.
The grounds had been allowed to go to seed, too.
The winding graveled paths were narrowed down by
the encroachment of tall, unkempt grass. Shrubs had
27


DEAD HANDS REACHING
gone out of bounds and there was a carpet of rustling
dry leaves over the lawn.
She tilted her head and set her lips firmly. The
fear that had gripped her on the journey down, the
sickness and fury that had shaken her after Opal
Garth's visit, had pretty well gone. She had had a
cup of tea, she was rested and refreshed, sure of her-
self and in possession of her normal, jaunty spirits.
The coming interview wouldn't be exactly a delight,
but she would get it over as quickly as possible.
She mounted the steps and pressed the bell. In
the silence of the porch she heard her heart beating
thickly and she had to gulp three great breaths be-
fore the door opened and old Mrs. Maybrick faced
her. Dallas settled her shoulders and confronted her
ancient enemy.
"Good-evening, Maybrick," she said. "I have come
to see Mr. Keye. He's expecting me."
Mrs. Maybrick's short, thick body stiffened. Her
small head shot out and her little cold eyes flared
wide with surprise.
"Come in," she said stolidly, and stepped aside
to allow her former mistress to enter. "He's
in the parlor," she said tonelessly, and closed the
door.
Dallas' eyes flashed over the well-remembered hall
in quick survey, then she looked full at Maybrick.
"Thank you," she said sweetly and stepped across,
opened the door of the great gloomy apartment,
called the "parlor," and went in.
The room was dimly lighted by a shaded lamp on
the table. A fire was smoldering in the grate, fill-
28


WHO SCREAMED?
ing the room with a faint acrid smoke. Dallas
sniffed distastefully, recalling that fireplaces at Wil-
low Wilde had always smoked.
The high, narrow windows were draped in stiff
white lace curtains. There was a huge brass bowl
containing a giant fern. Dallas wondered oddly if it
were the same one she had tended.
She paused, still clinging to the knob, wide eyes
going slowly over the room, then she heard a well-
remembered voice, her husband's, saying:
"There's one way out for you, my dear. I can fix
everything"
A low feminine gasp stopped him. Dallas looked
around the room curiously. There was no one in
sight, then she caught movement in the small alcove
over beyond the fireplace. There was a hurried pro-
test, her husband's quick exclamation, the opening
and closing of a door, then Jurden Keye walked into
the room, hands swinging by his sides in that way
she knew so well.
He came slowly toward the table, eyes narrowed
on Dallas, still standing by the door. He was older,
much older. Hair thin and nearly white. Face harsh
and lined. Lips more like a trap than ever. Shoul-
ders bowed and minus their old uncompromising
squareness; but the secret sly cruelty of his deep-
set eyes was the same, there was the same nervous
jerk to his thick sandy brows, the old, compelling,
dangerous smile on his lips.
Dallas stood very still, staring at him, wondering
at the fear she had felt on the train. Who was
this ugly old man that she should be terrified of
29


DEAD HANDS REACHING
him? Why had she thought his hands had power to
hold her? . . .
"Good-evening, Dallas," Jurden Keye said in his
dry, dusty voice. "This is indeed a pleasure I hadn't
anticipated."
"Didn't you get my note?"
"Yes. Naturally your being in town was a great
surprise." He coughed raspingly, crossed to the win-
dow behind the desk and a little to the right, lifted
the green shade a bit and raised the sash some six
inches, then he came back, stood again facing her.
"Your note said nine o'clock," he stated. "It is now
a quarter past ten. I had given you up."
Dallas gasped, glanced at her wrist, frowned, re-
membering she had smashed her watch crystal
against an iron railing there at the station, given it
to Anthony to be repaired. She had depended on her
traveling clock.
Her cheeks began to burn and her eyes lowered.
That beastly failing of hers about appointments. And
she hadn't dreamed she had put in so much time
going through that old trunk in the attic. And, as
always, Jurden Keye had put her in the wrong. She
felt the same childish fear of him she had experienced
so long ago, that same desire to run and hide, but
instead she lifted her head, looked straight at him
and said:
"I'm sorry about being late. I can wait until to-
morrow. I interrupted you"
He made that motion of brushing something aside.
"It is of no importance," he said, and Dallas, watch-
ing him, shivered. He would speak like that if some
30


WHO SCREAMED?
one's life hung in the balance. That was Jurden
Keye's way of handling human problems. Brush
them aside—smile with his thin lips: "They are of
no importance," he would say.
She came toward him, walking with that strong,
graceful stride of hers, hands locked lightly before
her, eyes narrowed into the dimness. She wore a
careless suit of deep brown that matched her eyes
and clung to her lithe vibrant body like an embrace.
Her hat had been especially designed for her. It
emphasized the line of her cheek, the jut of her
chin, intensified the sweep of her brows, left one
broad wave of dull gold hair to show against her
face. She was lovely and knew it. She was more
than that, a splendid, fully developed woman, who
had known tragedy and conquered it, faced destruc-
tion and been victor. Assured. Confident. Serene.
"You look—well," her husband said thickly, dark
blood surging over his dusty face.
"Thank you. And now, let's get it over. I want
a divorce."
His hand clenched around the chair arm as he
dropped into it. "Won't you sit down?" he inquired.
"Shall I have Maybrick bring you—refreshments?"
"Thank you, no." She accepted a chair, opposite
his, across the long heavy table. She was smiling
and there was a wicked glint in her eyes. Here was
where he used to summon her for his frequent chid-
ings, lecturing her as if she were a child, which she
had been. She waited, sitting very still.
He continued to study her under lowered lids. She
could see how his skin had wrinkled and thickened.
31


DEAD HANDS REACHING
There was a scum of white beard showing beneath it
as if he had not shaved to-day. A vein beat thickly
in his temple.
"A divorce?" he said. "You know how I feel
about such things, Dallas."
She said in a level, even voice. "How you feel,
Jurden, is not of the slightest importance to me. I
married you because I—didn't—know any better.
We were desperately unhappy. There were two alter-
natives facing me. Dumb acceptance of an impos-
sible situation resulting in complete effacement for
me. Rebellion and release. I chose the latter. For
fourteen years we have been separated. Our ways
have grown apart. We have no interest in each other
now. I want my freedom—legally. I am asking you
to give it to me, quietly and—decently. Will you
do it?"
Jurden Keye picked a long-bladed Damascene
knife from a pile of papers on the table before him,
turning it slowly between shaking fingers. His eyes
were blazing with a restrained passion. He spoke
thickly, gaspingly. He said:
"No. I will not give you a divorce!"
Dallas did not stir. A darkness swept before her
eyes for a moment and she thought she was falling
through terrific space, then everything cleared and
she was smiling at him, confidently, rather insolently.
"Don't be a fool," she said crisply. "You—can't
—hold—me. You can be disagreeable and cause me
trouble, but you can't—hold me."
"No?" He tossed the gleaming knife to the table.
"Let us consider, Dallas. You left my roof of your
32


WHO SCREAMED?
own free will. Absented yourself from my home
without due cause. I did everything in my power to
get you to return"
"You—what?"
He nodded. "I can furnish copies of advertise-
ments which I ran in leading newspapers in the per-
sonal columns, asking you to come back, promising
forgiveness for your—madness. My home has at all
times been open to you should you care to return.
I have held myself ready to receive you, place you
in your rightful position. I have, in short, done
everything that a husband could be expected to do."
He spread his hands. "You have ignored my efforts
and now you ask for divorce. I do not believe in
legal separation of husband and wife. I refuse."
He paused, shifted slightly in the chair, the look
of mock sanctity on his face deepened, but behind
his hateful eyes lurked savage triumph. For this he
had waited patiently—for fourteen years! He asked
almost gently: "What can you do? Where is your
case? On what grounds can you gain your freedom
—as you call it?"
Dallas' cheeks were very white. She asked, trying
to keep her voice steady: "Why are you doing this,
Jurden? You don't—want—me"
He laughed, deep in his throat with a greasy chuck-
ling sound. "No," he said, "I don't—want you. You
are very lovely but—you do not interest me. Why
am I doing it, my dear? Simply because I want to
make you unhappy. Cause you all the trouble I can.
Because I know you are in—love with some one
else"—his face twisted—"ready to give to another
33


DEAD HANDS REACHING
man what you never gave to me, because I know you
well enough to guess that if you can't go to him
legally you'll go illegally and I want to ruin your
soul. I want to make you-wanton-do you under-
stand?” His voice rose shrilly, he was leaning for-
ward staring at her with dilated, red-rimmed eyes.
-“I want to know that you are-smirched. That
when you die—there will be hell fire waiting for
you—a fallen woman-a- ".
She leaped up. She was trembling so the cluster
of diamonds at her breast glittered like angry eyes.
Blood pounded savagely in her brain until it hummed
like a giant dynamo.
"You—damned—hypocrite !" she flung at him.
“You-talk about—wantonness! Smirching my
soul!" She stopped because a thickness grew in
her throat and she could scarcely speak. Jurden
Keye was watching her tensely, crouched forward,
hands clenched on the table's edge. His eyes were
stretched wide, so the yellowish white showed around
the faded iris and Dallas, staring at him through the
fog of her sick fury, suddenly realized that he was
afraid !
It came to her like a long draught of heady wine.
He was afraid! Of her! Of the girl he had bullied
and tortured—their positions were reversed. He was
cringing now. She leaned forward swiftly, thrusting
her face across the desk, into his.
"Smirching?" she cried thickly. "Smirching my
soul! When the months I lived with you, you de-
graded me through your association with other-
women. You thought I didn't know. That I was
34


DEAD HANDS REACHING
held her, followed the glance of his distended eyes
and saw her own gloved hand clutching the handle of
the long-bladed Damascene knife!
On the other side of the door, in the cold, draughty
hall of Willow Wilde, Mrs. Maybrick hunched on her
stiffened knees, one eye glued to the narrow opening
of the keyhole. Her thick body was rigid. Her lips
worked soundlessly. Voices reached her muffled
through the heavy door. Her range of vision was
limited, but her senses were keyed high. Abruptly
she surged backward, one hand pressed across her
lips. Her fleshy face went gray, then she heaved for-
ward again, hands fumbling toward the knob, that
turned abruptly as she touched it. The door was
jerked back. Dallas Gantry halted in her headlong
flight, gazed unseeingly at the crouching woman,
then with a choked sob, she crowded past her, jerked
the door to behind her, reached the outer door in a
swift, desperate plunge, opened it and disappeared
into the night. Only then did Maybrick rouse from
her trance, rise to unsteady feet and stumble after
her. She was trembling and her breath came in pant-
ing gasps. She leaned heavily against the outer door,
groping at the dusty lace curtain covering the glass,
pressing her face against the dark oval.
"Comeback," she cried thickly. "Come—back"
Dallas stood for a moment in the shadow of the
porch, breathing deeply of the cold, fresh air. Her
fingers were icy. Her cheeks like fire. The night was
suddenly terror-filled. Gaunt trees bent before a
rising wind. A pallid moon rode high. She stumbled
down the steps, broke into a run, racing through the
36


WHO SCREAMED?
darkness to lean exhausted against the old rusted
iron gate.
Then, over the whispering of the leafless trees, the
myriad small noises of the night, one sound rose with
terrible solidity. A shrill, stabbing cry, high with
terror!
Dallas whirled, crouching back against the gate,
staring at the house, glowing a cold dead white
through the leafless trees.
"What's that?" she whispered of the night and the
wind. "Who—screamed"
37


CHAPTER THREE
DAMASCENE STEEL!
THEN she was racing back for the house, grop-
1 ing up the steps, fumbling at the knob, opening
the door. Firelight confused her. The hall was
filled with gray shadows. Somewhere was a terrible
choked moaning. A man's voice saying something
she could not understand. She reached the door of
the parlor. It was partially open. She stood there,
frowning at the room.
The first person she saw was Gregg MacFarlane,
standing silent and pale by the table. As she stepped
into the room she caught a whiff of that pleasant
tobacco odor that hung to him and was poignantly re-
minded of the moment there at the station when he
had greeted her.
Then she saw old Maybrick on her knees beside
him, fingers twisting in her gray hair, rocking back
and forth, moaning. Jurden Keye was slumped for-
ward across the desk, one arm hanging limply, head
half over the edge, almost as if he had bent down
to examine the contents of the open drawer at his
hand. Blood dripped monotonously to form a bright
red pool on the dusty floor.
Gregg MacFarlane turned, met Dallas' eyes,
38


DAMASCENE STEEL!
flinched slightly. “Keye's dead," he said flatly. "He's
been stabbed "
Dallas was just across the table now. She was star-
ing at the handle of a knife buried to the hilt in her
husband's back. She had one curiously clear thought.
"It is,” she said to herself, "the Damascene knife
which I gave him for his birthday the year I left.
Odd I didn't recognize it- "
Then old Maybrick roused from her wailing,
turned and saw Dallas. Her face twisted, her blood-
shot eyes narrowed. She pointed a thick, shaking
finger.
"She done it,” she screamed. “She-that-woman!
She murdered the master !"
Dallas sat down abruptly. “Oh,” she said softly,
“so that's it. How odd."
Gregg MacFarlane ran unsteady fingers through
his strangely white hair. “Be quiet, Maybrick," he
said curtly. “Go upstairs and stay there until you're
sent for.” He picked up the telephone. “Give me
Tom Gary," he said to the operator.
Dallas extracted a cigarette, lighted it, drew smoke
into her lungs. She saw Maybrick heave to her feet,
clump out of the room, rubbing at her swollen eyes.
Dallas had always wondered at the old housekeeper's
devotion to Jurden Keye. She was very glad when
Maybrick left.
Then she heard MacFarlane's voice, steady, rather
tight: “Jurden Keye, Tom-yes—dead! Stabbed.
No, of course I don't know. You'll notify Doc
Monery? He's coroner-Yes, I'll wait.”
He set the phone down carefully, dusted his hands.
39


DEAD HANDS REACHING
His face looked very white and strained. He
smoothed his hair. "You're all right, Dallas?" he
inquired gently. "You don't want to lie down? You
won't"
She shook her head. "I won't faint, Gregg," she
said. "The death of Jurden Keye isn't such a blow to
me as that. I think the world will be cleaner now
he's gone."
MacFarlane's thin lips tightened. "I quite agree
with you, Dallas, but I suggest that you don't make
that statement public."
She met his glance, frowning slightly. "No?
Well, it isn't very good taste, is it? But otherwise—
Oh," she said with a faint gasp. "I understand. You
think—I—did this?"
MacFarlane shook his head. "Of course I don't,
my dear. But others might. You were the last one
to see him—alive"
"Gregg! That sounds terribly official. I don't un-
derstand"
"Listen, Dallas," he said and came around to stand
before her. "This is bound to be very unpleasant.
I'm so devilishly sorry you were here. Why did you
come?"
She was plucking absently at her gloves. Gregg,
watching her closely, caught the pulsing of a vein in
her long white throat.
She said, without lifting her head: "I came to ask
him to give me a divorce. I want to marry—Anthony
Gordon."
"And he, Jurden, what did he say?"
She met his glance, wide-eyed. "Why, he said—
40


DAMASCENE STEEL!
that is, he refused. He tried to prove to me that I
couldn't get loose from him—that I could never-
marry-Anthony- ”.
“Dallas !” he said blankly. “Oh, Dallas."
She nodded slowly. “That would be motive,
wouldn't it, Gregg ?”
"Yes, Dallas, that would be excellent motive.”
They were silent for a time and each was terribly
conscious of the other. In that little space of quiet-
ness, the isolation of the individual was sharply de-
fined. It came to the man and to the woman how
meager is the real knowledge one may have of
another.
Dallas thought: 'Who is Gregg MacFarlane
really? The proprietor of Willow Inn? Surely, but
who else? Where was he born? Where did he spend
his youth? Where did he live before he came to
Willow Valley? Who is-he-beside Gregg Mac-
Farlane? Of what real significance is a man's name?
He might be Tom Jones or Jim Smith and he would
still have that tragedy in his eyes—that look of some-
thing conquered—that blighted hair-
Then she hunched lower in her seat and set her
lips hard to still the chattering of her teeth. 'How
did he happen to be here?' she asked herself. 'He
wasn't here when I left. Where did he come from,
to be standing there beside Jurden's body?
And Gregg MacFarlane thrust crowding ideas
from his mind. 'Who is Dallas Gantry, really? A
terribly vital, high-strung woman, who fought her
way to liberty, who loves someone called Anthony
Gordon, who came back to ask for legal freedom,
41


DEAD HANDS REACHING
who, when it was refused—' He turned, staring at
the knife in Jurden Keye's back.
"You know that knife, Dallas ?" he asked hoarsely.
"Yes," she replied. "I gave it to him. There was
a party—you and Faith—were here"
He nodded. "Dallas," he said, "I want you to wire
the very best attorney you know of. Get him on the
job and until he comes to advise you, say absolutely
nothing. It may save you a lot of trouble."
She crushed the cigarette out absently. Her eyes,
strained and dark, were on his face. "Of course,
Gregg, I'll do that if you think I should. But how
could anyone actually think—that I murdered"
Gregg MacFarlane sighed. It was not the first
time he had encountered that total inability on the
part of individuals to realize the way the law is going
to look at things. Only too well he knew that per-
sonal conviction as to innocence didn't mean any-
thing. Before he could answer, Dallas said:
"Get the station, Gregg. I'm sending a wire."
She sent the message to Harley Branson, her at-
torney, stating briefly what had happened, asking him
to come down at once. As she set the phone down
her eyes clouded with quick tears. Anthony! Oh,
how she longed to see him. What would she give for
his courage, his wisdom, his comfort. But she
wouldn't involve him in this nasty mess. It was her
own problem. She'd handle it alone. For one flash-
ing moment she sensed what it was going to mean.
Merely as a matter of unpleasant publicity. 'Dallas
Gantry Involved In Murder Of Husband.' She saw
42


DAMASCENE STEEL!
the headlines screaming across the country. 'Star of
"Blue Heaven" Named In Murder Investigation.'
A car stopped before the door with a scream of
brakes.
Tom Gary had been constable of Willow Valley
for fifteen years. He was a big quiet man with large
lumpy hands and deep-set, patient eyes. His hair was
gray and his shoulders bowed. His duties were mostly
nominal. There certainly had never been anything
during his term of office to approach the importance
of the murder of a prominent citizen. He brought
Jimmy Arnold, his nephew, with him. Jimmy was a
bright boy and the business at Willow Wilde was
rather in the nature of a holiday for him.
Tom Gary stood a long time staring at the body of
Jurden Keye. He whistled soundlessly between his
teeth. At last he said:
"Hm, case for the coroner, all right. He'll be
along quick as he gets home off a pneumonia case
over Bently way—hm. Stabbed, huh? Who did this,
Gregg?"
Gregg smiled faintly. "I don't know, Tom. You'll
have to decide that, I guess."
Tom's glance went slowly over the room, rested a
moment on the slightly lifted window behind the
desk and to the right, then he looked at Dallas.
"It's a long time since you been around here,
Dallas," he said. "How'd you happen to come back
to the Valley?"
Dallas shrugged helplessly and looked at Gregg.
He had told her not to talk until her attorney arrived.
43


DEAD HANDS REACHING
Vaguely she realized that it was good advice. But
Dallas was naturally honest and straightforward. It
was not in her to employ subterfuge and she had
known Tom Gary since she could remember. Why
shouldn't she tell him the truth? It would have to be
told sooner or later. All of it.....
She said: "I came back, Tom, because I wanted
Jurden—my husband—to give me a divorce.”
Tom grunted. It had almost passed from the mind
of Willow Valley, that Dallas Gantry, the well-known
theatrical star, was still married to Jurden Keye.
"Well, you got it fixed up all right, I s'pose," Tom
said. “There wouldn't be no sense in Jurden holdin'
onto you."
“No,” Dallas told him, avoiding Gregg's eyes. “He
refused-flatly.”
"Yuh don't say." Tom frowned at the dead man.
“Like him," he muttered under his breath. “Well,
what then? What'd you do?”
Dallas gazed at him from wide, desperate eyes,
opened her lips to speak, hesitated, then: "I-left"
she said faintly. "I-just-left.” She caught her
breath sharply, eyes on the body of the murdered
man. “That's all,” she whispered, “and-and-when
I got outside there by the gate I heard someone
scream–I came back ”.
“Yeah? And what'd you find?”
Dallas motioned with a slim hand. “That,” she
said. "Jurden-dead. Gregg and Maybrick—were
beside him. It was her cry I heard "
"No," Gregg cut in, "she didn't scream! It couldn't
have been Maybrick!"
44


DAMASCENE STEEL!
They both looked at him, startled. Tom's eyes
narrowed slightly. "Where do you fit into this pic-
ture, Gregg?" he asked. "Where'd you come
from?"
Gregg was staring at the floor. A muscle in his left
cheek twitched. He said: "I came up this evening to
borrow a book Jurden told me about, Tom. I knocked
and no one answered so I just opened the door and
came in. There in the hall I heard voices in this
room—" He paused, shifting uneasily.
"What kind of voices, Gregg? Angry? Excited?"
"I—don't know. I didn't listen. I just heard two
people talking. A man and a woman. So I went over
and sat down on the sofa out in the hall. Presently
Mrs. Maybrick came downstairs. She didn't seem to
see me and I started to speak when she tip-toed across
and crouched down before the door, listening. Just
about then Dallas jerked the door open, pushed past
Maybrick, said something to her and went out."
"And what'dyou do?"
Gergg smiled. "It's a curious thing, Tom," he
said slowly. "I just sat there. I don't know why. I
should have spoken, stood up, done something, but I
didn't. I just stayed where I was. Maybrick ran
after Dallas, looking through the curtain in the front
door. I don't know how long it was—before I heard
that cry—in here"
He paused, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Then
we both tumbled in, Maybrick and I," he said. "It
was—like this—: Maybrick began sobbing. Dallas
came back. I called you"
"This window's open," young Jimmy Arnold said
45


DEAD HANDS REACHING
suddenly, and they turned to see him in the alcove,
wide-eyed with excitement. Tom stalked over. Dallas
followed him. The deep embrasure had three long
narrow French windows. The center one swung idly
on its hinges. Jimmy jerked out a flashlight, stepped
to the window, leaned out, raking the ground with
the beam. Suddenly it stopped, focused. Jimmy
squinted into the dark.
"Hey!" he yelled. "Hey, you—" In a long-legged
leap he was through the window, bounding down the
incline after a fleeing figure that darted and ducked
like a startled rabbit, to disappear in the fringe of
trees at the end of the grounds.
Dallas gasped faintly. "It was a man," she cried.
"I saw—his face."
"Yeah?" Tom was through the window after
Jimmy. She heard them crashing around in the
bushes, then their low, excited voices dying away.
Gregg was staring at her curiously. "You recog-
nized that chap?" he asked.
She frowned. "Yes," she said slowly. "I saw him
at the station to-night. He was talking to a man who
came in on the train with me. He's a little fellow in
a big plaid raincoat, with a cap"
"Alden," Gregg said suddenly. "Clay Alden.
Character man with the show troupe that's here. He's
the only one. in town who dresses like that." Then
he looked at her sharply. "This other chap, the one
who came in on the train, what was he like?"
Dallas described him accurately, recalling that
weird conviction she had experienced that soon she
would be called upon to do this very thing. She was
46


DAMASCENE STEEL!
frowning all the time at Gregg MacFarlane, remem-
bering how the stranger and Clay Alden had stared
at him there on the station platform.
Gregg nodded as she finished. "That boy's regis-
tered at the hotel, Dallas," he said. "They rode up
with me. His name's Fredricks, Samuel Fredricks."
"What does he want here?" Dallas asked curiously.
Gregg MacFarlane shook his head. There was a
troubled look in- his eyes. "He didn't give any ex-
planation. Said he'd only be here a day or two.
Might leave in the morning."
Tom Gary climbed through the window, puffing.
"Got away," he said, mopping his face. "Either of
you get who he was?"
Gregg told him of Dallas' recognition of the actor,
Clay Alden.
"Huh!" Tom grunted "We'll pick him up, all
right." He turned again to the window, whistled
shrilly. "Hey, Jimmy," he called. A distant voice
answered him and Jimmy pounded up beneath the
window. Tom spoke to him in a low voice and
Jimmy sang out a cheery: "Sure thing, Tom. I'll get
him," and went off whistling.
Tom Gary came slowly back and stood there glar-
ing down at the body of Jurden Keye.
"I don't reckon it could be," he muttered. "Naw,
I guess I'm just dreamin'." He turned to MacFar-
lane. "Jurden Keye put that show bunch on the
blink," he said. "Revoked their license and got the
mayor to order 'em otta' town. The boss, that Shan-
non fellow, was plenty sore. You don't suppose that
guy bumped him off to get even, do you?"
47


DAMASCENE STEEL!
sort of gasp, someone moving, a door opening and
closing"
"What door?"
"They were in the alcove."
Tom glanced over his shoulder. "Musta* been the
French window," he commented. "All right, go on."
"Why, that's all," Dallas said. "Just what I've
told you. He was talking to a woman there behind
those curtains. He said what I've repeated. I didn't
even hear her voice except for that little gasp she
gave, so I knew it was a woman, then the door or
window opened and closed and he came out"
Tom Gary was paring blunt nails with a huge
knife. He didn't somehow want to look at Dallas
Gantry. He had lived in Willow Valley for forty-
seven years and he had known Jurden Keye as long
as he could remember. It was not the first time he
had heard intimations that the French windows in
the parlor at Willow Wilde were used for other
things than air and sunlight.
"Well," he said slowly, "we'll have to check up a
bit. Mebbe we can find out"
The hall door opened. Mrs. Maybrick came in.
She wore a purple, knitted jacket over her dark dress
and it intensified the swollen redness of her face. Her
eyes were hard and bright as marbles.
"You told me to wait till I was sent for," she said
flatly, "but I guess when the master's been foully
murdered, I got a right to be down here and to tell
what I know." She paused, tear-filled eyes on the
body of Jurden Keye. "A better man never lived,"
49


DAMASCENE STEEL!
"
say terrible things about him but they wasn't true
he was the kindest-grandest man-
“Sure, I know," Tom soothed. “But what I want
to find out- "
"What you want to find out,” Maybrick began
defiantly, then paused, jaws sagging. Her high-
colored face went a mottled, sickly white.
“Look,” she whispered. “Look! There-behind-
you! There in the window—” She stood silent a
moment, then with a gasp she slumped to the floor
unconscious.
. 51


CHAPTER FOUR
BRADE TAKES CHARGE
ALLAS had been thinking curiously that there
must have been some good in Jurden Keye to
hold Maybrick's unqualified allegiance all these years.
The notion was wrenched abruptly from her mind.
She rose slowly, facing the window in the alcove.
Gregg MacFarlane and Tom Gary were beside her,
but she scarcely saw them. Her startled eyes were
focused on the figure that stood there clinging to the
dusty drapes in the archway, head drooping, blood
smearing one side of the face.
Dallas said faintly: "It's Opal. Opal Garth!” and
she thought with sudden clarity, 'It was Opal who
was in the alcove when I came in.' Then immediately
her mind rejected the notion. 'If she had been here
there would have been that terrible perfume-Jur-
den told me Opal Garth was not here. He said she
had not been here. I believe him! It was someone
else!
Tom Gary was leading the half-conscious woman
to a chair. “Get some brandy, there on the sideboard,
Gregg,” he directed, and began sopping at the bruised
cut on Opal's left temple. Mrs. Maybrick had re-
gained consciousness, was sitting up, breathing
noisily, sharp, startled eyes on Opal.
she vallas said side of the
52


DEAD HANDS REACHING
Opal was staring at Tom from wide, hard eyes.
The girl was terribly frightened. Fear relaxed face
muscles so her cheeks sagged and her mouth hung
open. Yet transcending even her panic was the sug-
gestion of some definite purpose that gave her a
grim control.
"Whatyou gettin' at?" she asked hoarsely. "Tryin'
to pin this thing on me? Well, you're barkin' up the
wrong tree." She paused, breathing unevenly.
"Gimme another drink of that stuff," she demanded,
and gulped the brandy thirstily.
She was bare-headed, Dallas noted, and under-
neath the imitation fur coat, she wore a gaudy,
spangled dancing costume. It was of crimson-colored
stuff with an overskirt of fluffy crinoline, drooping
sadly from long wear and the damp night air. There
was a long jagged tear on one side. Opal's face was
scratched. A damp, brown leaf clung in her hair.
The soles of her dancing pumps were stained with
wet. Make-up lay in thick chunks on her face and
her lashes were heavy with mascara.
"Never mind what I'm barkin' at, young lady,"
Tom advised grimly. "It's up to you to say what
you're doin' here to-night and how you got your
head hurt. Better make it snappy or you'll find your-
self in the jail along with that fellow actor of
yours"
Opal glanced at him quickly. Beneath the make-up,
her face paled. "Who you talkin' about?" she asked
sullenly.
"Clay Alden. We found him sneakin' around out
here and I sent my deppity"—Tom unconsciously gx-
54


BRADE TAKES CHARGE
panded over that word—"to bring him in. He's likely
in the jug by now."
"My God," Opal whispered and crouched lower in
the chair, eyes darting frantically over the room.
They were easy to read. Terror, suspicion, frenzy,
the groping for a way out, and always that gleam of
purpose.
"What was he doin' here?" Tom asked.
"I dunno," she admitted. "I guess he was lookin'
for me."
"Yeah? And what were you doin' here?"
She looked at him slyly under heavy lashes. "I
had a date with Mr. Keye," she said.
Dallas turned to the window, cheeks hot with
shame, remembering Opal's hateful proposal. Then
she heard the girl speaking again.
"It was this way, Mr. Policeman. Mr. Keye and
me, we been friends ever since he come to the first
show we give here: 'Troubled Waters,' it was, and I
played the innocent little country girl"
"Yeah, I remember," Tom said dryly. "Go on
now and make it in a hurry."
"You needn't try to rush me," Opal cried angrily.
"I got plenty to tell and I'm gonna take my time
about it." She squared back, placed her skinny, none-
too-clean elbows on the chair arms and glared de-
fiance at Tom. Her attitude said as plainly as words:
'This is a swell break for me. I'll get my pictures in
the paper. I never had a chance like this before.
Watch me make the most of it.'
Tom waited philosophically. He was not a trained
manhunter. He had never worked on big cases. But
55


DEAD HANDS REACHING
he had a hard, practical common sense and he judged
people swiftly and accurately through intuition and
the homely knowledge acquired in close to thirty
years of observation.
"I had a date with him," Opal went on slowly. "I
was to drop in after the show—" She paused, twitch-
ing at the spangles of her skirt.
"Well, you dropped in, I guess," Tom said.
"No," she snapped. "He wrote me not to
come."
"When?"
"About six o'clock, it was, I got the note."
"What'd he say in it—exactly?"
She fumbled in a pocket of her coat, drew out a
crumpled piece of paper, extended it to Tom. It
was heavy white, with a small plain monogram in
blue in one corner. The writing was cramped, tight,
secretive, the wording stilted, old-fashioned. It
said:
"Dear Miss Garth:
"I regret that a pressing matter of business
will prevent my keeping the appointment with
you this evening at the time agreed upon. Please
do not come as I shall be unable to receive you.
I will get in touch with you to-morrow.
"Very truly yours,
"JURDEN KEYE."
Tom Gary grinned as he folded up the missive and
stuck it in his pocket. That formal phraseology didn't
fool him a bit. It was like Jurden Keye to so word
the note that there would be no comeback, but Tom
56


BRADE TAKES CHARGE
was willing to bet that Opal knew exactly what he
meant. Tom looked at Dallas.
"What time did you send your message, Dallas?"
he asked.
"It must have been about seven-thirty," she said,
recalling the unpleasant interview with Opal which
had delayed her.
"Hm, then Jurden couldn't have canceled the date
with this young lady because you were coming," he
said. Then to Opal: "Well, if Keye told you to stay
away, what in time was you doin' snoopin' around
here?"
"I got suspicious," she admitted.
"Of what?"
"I dunno. I just wondered why he told me to stay
away, so after the cabaret scene in the third act
where I do my toe dancin' turn, I beat it up here."
She glanced down at her stage costume. "I didn't
come in the front way, bein' afraid he'd get sore, but
I wanted to see what he was doin' that was so impor-
tant, so I sneaked in across the lawn to the win-
dow—" She looked away and had the grace to blush.
"I've come in that way before," she admitted
sullenly.
No one said anything. Tom Gary leaned easily
against the table, watching her. Gregg MacFarlane
stood back in the shadows and his eyes were on
Dallas, dark with pity. Mrs. Maybrick hunched
down on a stool by the fire which was only a bed of
gray ashes now. She was watching the girl avidly.
Dallas had her back to the group. She was staring
with a curious lack of emotion out over the moon-
57


DEAD HANDS REACHING
white world before her. Subconsciously she heard
all that was said, quivered to every admission Opal
made, but with the active part of her mind she was
re-living the days of her youth here in Willow Val-
ley. Recalling happy autumn tramps over the hills,
jaunts after violets in the spring—Christmas eves
when the snow wrapped the world in white—that
day she promised to marry Jurden Keye. ...
Opal Garth's voice reached her again. "I come
up," Opal went on, "and the window was unlocked,
so I didn't think it would do any harm to take a peek
inside. I heard him talkin' to a woman. They was-
quarrelen' terrible. I listened, thinkin' I'd go every
minute but bein' too interested.”
Tom Gary opened his lips to ask a question, closed
them again, like a steel trap. Sooner or later he'd
have to get the name of the woman who had quar-
reled with Jurden Keye but he wanted to put it off as
long as he could.
"Go on,” he said curtly.
Dallas' eyes lifted to the dark sky where stars
glittered frostily. Somewhere up there was a low,
faint drone. The night mail, she supposed. She and
Anthony had decided on a long plane trip after they
were married....
“Then,” Opal was saying, “I heard Jurden Keye
get to his feet. He said somethin' like: 'Get out of
my house—this minute and the woman laughed
and said somethin' I couldn't catch, then I heard a
sound like someone was strugglin' and he cried real
sharp: 'Put that down—' Then he gasped low and
58


BRADE TAKES CHARGE
terrible—and I heard a chair overturned and the
sound of someone runnin'.”
She was leaning forward, eyes wide and black,
fixed on the fireplace. The room was very quiet. Only
Mrs. Maybrick's panting breath disturbed the silence.
Dallas turned slowly, hands clenched tight in the
folds of the lace curtain. She ought to take some
interest in this thing. ...
“I peeked out,” Opal said huskily. “I had to see
what happened. And so help me God, I seen him,
there, like that and I thought first he was asleep
or-somethin'—and I took a step nearer and seen the
knife in his back—and”—she jerked up, staring at
them, frenzy in her eyes—“I screamed,” she said.
"I yelled plenty."
Gregg MacFarlane was on his feet beside her. “All
right,” he demanded. "What did you do then? Go
on.”
"I ran,” she said. “I went back through that al-
cove, out the window and then ran into a-tree-
it put me out for the count and I don't remember any
more until I woke up and heard someone talkin' and
I came in.”
Gregg was bending over her. His hands were
clenched into hard fists. "It's all a lie,” he said sav-
agely. “You killed him yourself! You ".
"No!" Opal choked. "I didn't. Let me alone
don't touch—me "
Tom Gary pushed Gregg aside. His harsh face
was grim.
"Shut up,” he snapped to the girl. “Who was the
59


DEAD HANDS REACHING
woman in this room? Did you see her face? Recog-
nize her voice?"
Opal dabbed futilely at the drying blood on her
face. Her lips opened, closed gaspingly.
"'It was her,” she said clearly. “Her! Dallas
Gantry! She killed him. I saw her!”
“She's right," Mrs. Maybrick agreed bleakly.
“The girl's right. Dallas Gantry murdered the mas-
ter—I saw it-through the keyhole—I saw her pick
up the knife and stab him—she's the murderer-
she "
A loud pounding came on the front door. Tom
Gary said slowly: "See who it is, Mis' Maybrick,"
then he looked at Opal Garth again. “You been
sayin' plenty, ma'am," he grated. “You're accusin' a
woman of murder! Do you realize that "
"She done it! She done it,” Opal insisted fran-
tically. “I stood there in the alcove and seen
her "
The door opened. A breath of fresh night air
sucked through the room, dispelling momentarily the
thick atmosphere of death, then Dallas exclaimed
sharply, stumbled forward, suddenly sobbing as if
her heart would break.
“Anthony!" she cried. “Oh, Anthony_darling,"
And she was in his arms, head buried on his shoul-
der. He was holding her tight, while his stormy
glance went sweeping over the room.
“That's all right, Dallas," he said very low. “Don't
you cry, little one. I'm fixing things all right. You
listen to me. Everything's going to be settled in short
time. Branson was out of town and his man phoned
60


BRADE TAKES CHARGE
me—I got a plane and came fast—I brought"—he
released Dallas gently, turned to a man who stood
quietly just inside the door—"Dallas," he said, "this
is Captain Courtney Brade from the city detective
bureau. I kidnapped him and brought him along."
Dallas looked at Courtney Brade. She was so
shaken by the unexpected arrival of Anthony Gor-
don that the world was swimming hazily before her
eyes and she had a wretched feeling that she was
going to faint. It had taken the sight of Anthony's
face to make her realize how terrible all this business
was, how unspeakably frightened she had been ever
since she first looked at the body of Jurden Keye.
Now she stepped forward, stopped directly before
Brade.
"How do you do," she said and extended her hand.
Brade enclosed it in his own and Dallas' eyes
flared wide. It was as if an electric current had
flowed through her, from the pressure of that strong,
vital clasp. He smiled.
"How do you do, Dallas Gantry," he said. "Your
'Queen Anne' was the loveliest thing I have ever
seen."
"Oh, thank you," Dallas gasped, eyes suddenly
blinded by tears. "I'm so glad you came. I need
someone to help me—so badly."
Anthony interrupted her by a hand on her arm.
"Dallas, let me introduce Captain Brade to"
Dallas looked up and saw Tom Gary standing al-
most at her elbow. There was a quiet, whimsical
smile on his lips.
"Hello, everybody," he said. "I'm Tom Gary, the
61


DEAD HANDS REACHING
constable here. Seems like I heard Captain Brade's
name mentioned. I sure 'nuff hope so, if he's come
to lend me a hand. I don't mind sayin' I'm in over
my head.”
Brade shook hands with him. Dallas told Tom
that Anthony was the man she was going to marry
and blushed rosily when she said it, then her glance
flashed to the figure of her husband by the table and
she closed her eyes, suddenly faint. For the first
time since she rushed blindly into that room at sound
of a scream, she realized fully what Jurden's death
was going to mean to her. She was free! Free to
marry Anthony! Jurden couldn't stop her now,
couldn't hold her. ...
She paused, staring wide-eyed at the grim dead
form. Couldn't he? Couldn't he still-hold her ?
Still keep the touch of his dusty hands upon her,
blighting her happiness. ...
“Dallas,” Anthony Gordon said with his charming
one-sided smile. "Don't stand there like you're seeing
a ghost. Captain Brade's time is valuable. He only
came because he's the next to the best friend I have
and he admires you immensely. Catch hold of your-
self, sweetheart, and let's get this over.”
Dallas roused as from a trance. The feeling of
horror had been so strong upon her that she seemed
to be coming back from another world. She slipped
her hand in Anthony's arm, pressed it. They walked
slowly toward the center of the room.
Brade was standing beside the body of Jurden
Keye. The light in the room was dim but its re-
flected rays struck his face and Dallas studied him
62


DEAD HANDS REACHING
have answered, holding as it did, the story of Brade's
greatest defeat and mightiest victory. Then she
heard him speaking to Tom Gary:
"You understand," Brade was saying, "that I'm
here in an unofficial capacity, merely at the request of
Gordon, who is a friend of mine. I'll be glad to
assist if I can"
Tom Gary sighed hugely. "Captain Brade," he
said, "official or otherwise, I'm mighty happy to have
you here. I'm goin' to need assistance and plenty
of it."
"All right," Brade said crisply, "let's get to
work"
Suddenly Dallas cried: "Gregg! Where is Gregg
MacFarlane? He's gone"
Brade glanced at her sharply. "Gregg MacFar-
lane?" he asked. "Who is Gregg MacFarlane?"
Dallas was suddenly shivering so she could not
reply. She clung to Anthony's arm. Tom Gary an-
swered Brade's question.
"Gregg MacFarlane runs the Willow Inn. He,
with Mrs. Maybrick here, the housekeeper, discov-
ered Keye's body." His eyes went carefully over the
room, rested on the open French window. "He was
here a minute ago," he muttered.
Opal Garth said hoarsely: "He went out that win-
dow! I saw him! When these others came in, he
ducked."
There was a moment of strained silence. Brade's
glance passed slowly from face to face. Dallas
Gantry? He had admired her work for a long time.
She wouldn't commit murder! Brade smiled very
64


BRADE TAKES CHARGE
slightly. He didn't judge people by their appearance.
He had to know what was inside of them. How
their minds worked.
The girl in the dancing dress? He hadn't heard
her name yet, didn't know where she fitted the picture
but he recognized her type. Cheap, common, vindic-
tive. Scratching like an angry cat when cornered, yet
capable of stubborn adherence to an idea.
Maybrick? Ordinary enough from outward ap-
pearance but with a stolid venom behind her small,
bright eyes. Had she murdered Jurden Keye?
The phone rang. Tom Gary picked it up. "Hello,"
he said, then he sighed faintly. "Oh, hello, Gregg.
Been wonderin' where you disappeared to." He
listened in silence a moment. "All right," he said,
"we'll be lookin' for you." He put the instrument
down.
"Gregg went down to look after his wife," he ex-
plained. "Was afraid she might have heard and
would be worried sick. Heart ain't any too good.
He's comin' right up"
65


“A MAN HAD DIED!”
"Jimmy," Tom began, then stopped. “Captain
Brade,” he said, “this is Jimmy Arnold, my nephew.
He helps me out now and then.”
Brade shook hands with Jimmy. The boy's eyes
were round and reverent as they met the Captain's.
Jimmy had heard of Courtney Brade.
"Where'd you get him, Jimmy?” Brade asked,
nodding at Alden.
"In his room at the Inn, packin' for a flit. He
showed fight and pulled a gun on me so I just
cracked him down and when he comes to, he was
willin' to come along peaceable.”
Brade grinned at Jimmy Arnold. If the man call-
ing himself Clay Alden was who Brade thought he
was, Jimmy had taken his life in his hands when he
casually cracked him down. Brade thought he'd like
to have young Arnold in his department.
He said to Alden: "I'm waiting to hear what
you've got to say. My time's short.”
Alden wet his lips. "I ain't done nothin'," he
whined. “Opal there, she's—my-girl,” he glow-
ered angrily. "I knew she'd been foolin' around with
this Keye bird and I got sore, so when she beat it
after her act to-night, I come along to see what was
what."
"Yeah? And what'd you see?”
"Nothin',” Alden said grouchily. "I was just
hangin' around outside when all of a sudden the win-
dow opened up and someone shot a flash on me and
I beat it. I didn't know about anyone bein' croaked
till this guy," he glowered at Jimmy, “picked me up."
"No?” Brade asked. “Didn't know a thing had
67


A MAN HAD DIED!
funny notions, becoming too impressionable. Just
because that egg calling himself Clay Alden re-
minded him of someone was no sign this dark-faced
white-haired man. . . . „
He extended his hand and a quick, charming
smile touched his lips. "I'm Brade," he said. "Glad
to meet you, Gregg MacFarlane.
"Now," Brade went on, turning back to the table,
"I want to get at the bottom of this thing quickly. A
man has been murdered and we've got to find out
who committed the crime. Constable Gary has
asked me to help him. At present, I know absolutely
nothing about the case aside from the fact that Jur-
den Keye is dead by violence. I want to get the story
in my own way. It isn't very pleasant for any of you
here in this room. Mrs. Maybrick, where can the
folks here wait while I ask some questions?"
She looked at him sullenly. "The library is across
the hall," she admitted. "It's big but there ain't
any fire."
"Well, we can remedy that. All of you," his eyes
went slowly over the group, "with the exception of
Frosty"
"Don't call me that!" Alden grated. "You know
my name, mister."
Brade smiled. "Oh, yes, of course. Mr. Alden,
isn't it? Excuse me. Very well, all of you except
this young lady, you see I don't even know your
names"
"Opal Garth," the girl snapped.
"Thank you. Opal Garth and Mr. Alden, I want
to talk to you first. I sighted what I thought was
■
69


DEAD HANDS REACHING
an excellent spot as I came in. A small room under
the stairs"
"That's the mornin' room," Mrs. Maybrick vol-
unteered. "Opens into the main dinin' room."
"Excellent. Excellent," Brade agreed, "but we
won't need the dining room. Opal Garth and Alden
step into the morning room. The rest of you try the
library. Wait until I call for you. Constable Gary
will keep you company. Let's go."
They went. Brade leaned against the mantel and
watched them. He studied their faces, watched their
walk, the way they carried their shoulders, the move-
ment of their hands. Nervous, yes. That was natu-
ral. Indignant, some of them. Frightened—fur-
tive.
He smiled rather wearily. Up to to-night they had
been normal human beings, going about their own
affairs, involved in their own problems. Then a man
had died, and they immediately became tense, watch-
ful, suspicious, lying to save themselves, to incrimi-
nate others, darting like frantic mice caught in a
trap; baring their teeth at him because he repre-
sented the law that sought to exact an eye for an
eye.
Opal Garth stood before him, hands fumbling at
the sequins on her waist. "All right," she said.
"What you want, mister?"
Brade looked her over carefully. Her thin, worn
face flushed under his scrutiny. "Aw, go on and
gawp," she spit at him. "I know I ain't pretty. I
ain't—anything. But I didn't do the old boy in,
and you can't prove I did."
70


DEAD HANDS REACHING
of his somber eyes. The house was very still. Wind
crept about it like a stealthy prowler. Occasionally,
a voice sounded from the library, to stop abruptly as
though the burden of conversation were too much.
Brade tossed his smoke away, shoved his hands into
his pockets and walked swiftly and silently down the
hall, glanced around him curiously and finally opened
the second door on his left. According to his cal-
culations this should lead to the dining room. It
did.
The room was dark, but he drew out a pocket
flash and shot it around. It was a big cavernous
apartment with high, narrow windows and a long,
meager table down the center. There was a massive
old sideboard against the far wall. A glass dish
held a heap of ruddy apples. They filled the room
with a pleasant fruity odor. Brade closed the door
behind him, stood there, with the flash off, listening.
His eyes caught a narrow band of light under a door
at the far end.
He slithered over, paused, frowning at it. It
should lead into the morning room where Opal and
Alden were waiting his questioning. Waiting,
nervous and tense, wondering what he would ask,
figuring out their replies. He was anxious to see
how his little experiment would work.
He leaned against the wall, ear pressed to the
panels of the door. His wrist watch ticked loudly in
the silence. The odor of the apples was heavy in his
nostrils. Beyond the door someone moved. A chair
creaked. A match was scratched. Tobacco smoke
drifted through the crack. Then Opal said:
72


"A MAN HAD DIED!"
"Aw, fer Pete's sake, gimme a smoke. My nerves
are shriekin'."
The man grunted. Paper rustled faintly. A sec-
ond match gritted. "Gawd!" Opal said huskily.
"That's hetter." Silence, again. Brade's lips were
tight. His eyes were on the panels as though he
would force his vision through them.
"What in hell'd you crash the party for?" the
girl asked suddenly.
Sullen silence, then Alden growled. "Yeah, you
would ask that. What'd you mean hornin' in on
our deal?"
"Your deal? I come because I was checkin' up on
Keye. He invited me to spend the evening with him,
then sends me word not to come. I don't take sec-
ond place for anyone. As for it bein' your deal,
didn't I tip you off to Leo and that stretch"
"Shut up! Where's that damned dick? Thought
he was comin' to quiz us."
The voices stopped. Minutes ticked loudly. Brade
remained immovable. It wasn't written that the two
within the morning room could remain alone for a
length of time without talking. He had lots of
patience.
Alden said suddenly: "Say, kid, what's the low
down? You was here first. What really happened?"
"How do I know?" she demanded and stopped
abruptly.
"No?" he queried, voice nasty. "Did poppa get
fresh or somethin'?"
"You're bein' dumb. Think I can't take care of
myself?"
73


DEAD HANDS REACHING
He laughed. “I damned well know you can, baby.
That's why I think mebbe you knifed
"Button up your lip,” she hissed frantically.
"Someone's likely to be listenin'.”
They were silent for a time and Brade could
almost feel their hard, suspicious glances creeping
over the room. But they had to talk. They weren't
the kind to stand silence.
Alden said in a hoarse whisper: “What'd Keye
say the last time you talked to him about-every-
thing ?”
"He said to leave it to him. He'd take care of
things. He knew a way—” She paused, then she
said: "I wonder what he meant, he knew a way."
"We was fools to spill it to him, baby. You and
me and Leo coulda' cleaned up without him. It was
your hunch draggin' your sugar daddy in- "
"I didn't want to cool my Enna Jetticks in stir on
a blackmailin' charge,” she defended herself. "I
figured with a leading citizen behind us, we'd-
be playin' safe. I still think it was a swell hunch."
"Yeah, and what a swell hunch it turned out to
be,” he mocked. “Say,” he said suddenly, "how'd
you get that bloomer on your pan? Poppa crack
you down?”
"I—stumbled-into-a tree.”
"Yeah? Baby fall and cut her little headdy "
"Well, that's what I did—I fell "
“Where?"
“None of your business!”
The voices stopped but the air was heavy with
conflict. Brade could sense it through the door,
74


'A MAN HAD DIED!"
almost see the two of them, facing each other, angry,
frightened—groping. . . .
Alden said very low: "I think you're holdin' out
on me, kid. You got somethin' on your mind"
"No—no—no. Let me alone."
"Don't try for no double cross. We're in this
together. There's still a chance at some sweet pick-
in s.
"I'm through. I won't—play with you."
"No? What you figurin' on—somethin' on your
own?"
"Oh, no," she cried on a high shrill note that
abruptly died. "No," she said again in a voice that
shook. "I ain't got anything, Frosty, I ain't holdin'
out."
Brade wondered how he was so sure she was lying.
Alden said savagely:
"You played hell spillin' my name when I come
in there. Where's what passes for your brains?"
She laughed, low, insolent.
The man cried: "Shut up or I'll spill a few things
to that dick."
"Do it and I'll tell him somethin' too. If he knew
you was Frosty Rivet"
Sound of a blow. A smothered cry. A muffled
curse.
Brade nodded grimly. Frosty Rivet, eh? That
was sweet. A small-time crook, pickpocket, a car-
nival con man, wanted right now for a job up
state. . . .
He straightened, shot on his flash and slipped
quietly from the room. He called Tom Gary out-
75


“A MAN HAD DIED!”
the library with the explanation that Brade wasn't
quite ready to talk to them yet, and two more people
were coming into the morning room—two more who
might unintentionally give to the grim, quiet man
standing there in the dark, further insight into the
death of Jurden Keye.
77


CHAPTER SIX
BRADE LISTENS IN
AMAN said: "Cold, sweetheart?"
Brade's head lifted. He stared hard at the
panels. Faith MacFarlane answered, "A little, dear.
I hope we won't have to wait too long. Why should
this man, this— What is his name?"
"Brade. Captain Courtney Brade. He's from
headquarters in the city. I've heard of him before.
A top-notcher, Faith."
"He looks it. I wonder why Captain Brade wants
to talk to me?"
"Mere formality, I suppose. Better let me go for
your cape."
"No, he might not like it. He won't keep us long."
"Cigarette?"
"Thank you."
A little silence, then she said in a voice that shook
slightly: "You're wonderfully good to me, Gregg."
He laughed low in his throat. "Good to you?" he
echoed softly. "Faith, little sweetheart, if I lived to
be a hundred, if I spent every minute of every
twenty-four hours serving you, loving you, I couldn't
pay you"
"Gregg," she said with tears in her voice. "Gregg!
That you should speak of pay"

78


BRADE LISTENS IN
Brade's cheeks were hot in the dark. There was a
muttered curse in his throat. At times he wished he
were a ditch digger, a garbage collector, a street
sweeper, anything but a policeman. He felt some-
how as if he had crashed, in a drunken swagger, into
a cloister, as if something holy had been desecrated.
Faith said softly: "He's dead, isn't he, Gregg?”
“Yes—he's-dead "
"Do you think he knows—now—who killed
him?”
“Hush, little pigeon; don't talk like that." .
“But I wonder-Gregg."
"I-don't-know-Faith. I hope—not.”
"Why, Gregg?”
Gregg MacFarlane said with restrained fierce-
ness : “Because I honestly believe, Faith, that Jurden
Keye would come back from—beyond—to make his
murderer pay. I don't think the grave could hold
him "
"Then you don't think-he's—really–gone?
Just because he's dead—he isn't really-through-
Oh, Gregg !" Her words ended in a gasp of sheer
terror, then she said: “That's better, Gregg. I love
to feel your arms around me. They've always—
shielded me—they always will, won't they, dear?
You'll never take your arms from around me, will
you, Gregg ?”
"Never, Faith.”
Presently she said: “I wish Captain Brade would
come. It's so quiet in here."
“Yes, but we're not afraid of silence, Faith.
We've lived with it a-long-time.”


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"And been happy, Gregg.”
“Very happy, sweetheart.”
After a while he spoke. He said: "I'm worried
for Dallas, Faith."
"Oh, Gregg! You mean?"
“Jurden refused to grant her a divorce. I think
he was beastly to her to-night-
"But she couldn't do it.”
"Hush, Faith, don't get excited. What we think
Dallas could or couldn't do won't impress Brade.
You understand that?”
"Oh-yes-policemen are terrible, aren't they,
Gregg?”
"Rather terrible, Faith. But some of them, Brade,
for instance, I don't think he enjoys it, really."
“But, Dallas—about her?”
• “Well, you see, that actor girl, that Opal Garth,
she said she saw Dallas kill him-
"Oh, Gregg !" The words were an anguished
cry.
"Hush, or I won't talk to you."
"I'll be quiet. We've got to help Dallas. There
isn't anything I wouldn't do for Dallas Gantry.
What else?"
"Maybrick confirmed the Garth girl's statement.
She said Dallas killed him—that isn't so good. She
had plenty of motive if you want to look at it that
way.”
Silence again, then Faith MacFarlane said in a
low, tight voice: “Gregg, why did you come up here
to-night?”
80


BRADE LISTENS IN
He didn't answer for a long moment, then: "I
came to borrow a book, Faith."
"Gregg," she pleaded, "don't lie—to—me."
"Faith!"
"Tell me why you came?"
"I've told you."
"What time did you get here?"
"I don't know exactly—I think about ten-thirty."
"And he was killed at—ten-forty."
"Was he? I don't remember."
"I wish Brade would come."
"He will. Be patient."
"What shall we tell him?"
"The truth."
"But someone might think that—you"
"That I killed Keye. Yes, they might. They know
I hated him because of the way he's always—
looked at you"
"There'll be gossip."
"The town's buzzing with it now. That shock-
headed Buddy Witherspoon is careening all over
town blatting about the note Dallas sent up
here"
Brade slipped from the room, down the hall,
tapped on the door of the morning room, entered at
Gregg MacFarlane's low summons.
The place was cold and cheerless. Dust lay thickly
over everything. The wall paper looked moldy. The
furniture was massive and depressing. Faith Mac-
Farlane sat on a low stool before the cold fireplace.
She was hunched down, arms encircling her knees.
81


DEAD HANDS REACHING
Gregg stood over her grimly protecting, as though he
had just risen from beside her. They regarded Brade
quietly.
Brade strolled toward them.
“Chilly in here, isn't it?” he asked.
Gregg MacFarlane nodded. Faith smiled at Brade
through her lashes.
“Beastly,” she admitted.
Brade studied her without seeming to do so. The
MacFarlanes were interesting people. Faith was so
tiny. She scarcely reached her husband's shoulder.
Brade had never admired small women. He did not
have that natural, common instinct of protection
toward them which doubtless has its origin in the
feeling of power and superiority which it affords the
male animal. He liked women who could look well
on a level into his eyes. But oddly enough, though
he saw clearly that Faith MacFarlane was not five
feet tall, she did not seem small. She was so strongly
made, so poised, somehow so perfect, that it was
simply impossible to compare her with her surround-
ings.
She rose now, folding her arms for warmth. She
stood like a soldier, straight and steady. From the
soles of her little feet, to the crown of her honey-
golden hair that was like a cloud around her head,
there was a rhythmic co-ordination, a subtle flowing
strength that seemed to make of her something tall
and stately. She had large blue-gray eyes, deeply
shadowed by long curling black lashes. Her mouth
was wide and rather pale. Sensitive, passionate, but
somehow terribly strong. She smiled at him.
82


BRADE LISTENS IN
"We're anxious to help you, Captain Brade," she
said. "What is it you would like to know?"
Brade smiled back at her. "Who killed Jurden
Keye?"
She shivered and for a moment her eyes closed.
Then she put a hand on her husband's arm.
"What can we tell you?" she asked.
"Everything you know about the matter. You,
MacFarlane, you discovered the body?"
"Mrs. Maybrick and I together. I opened the
door. She pushed past me."
"Why were you here?"
"I came to borrow a book." He looked straight
and hard at Brade.
Brade tapped out a cigarette. "Mind if I smoke,
Mrs. MacFarlane?"
"Certainly not. I'll join you—" He extended his
case. As she took the cigarette, her hand touched
his. It was cold and steady as a rock.
"Please talk to me in your own way," Brade
requested. "Just tell me what happened—all
along."
MacFarlane said: "I came up to borrow a book. I
knocked and no one answered. Thinking Maybrick
was busy at the back and Keye in the library I
opened the door and came in. There was no one in
the hall. I was about to tap on the library door when
I heard voices across the way in the parlor. I sat
down and waited"
"Whose voices did you hear?"
"Keye's and Dallas Gantry's," MacFarlane said
savagely. "And I'll tell you the truth because you'll
83


DEAD HANDS REACHING
find it out anyway. Dallas isn't trying to hide the
fact that she and Keye were quarreling."
"I see. About—the divorce?"
MacFarlane glanced at Brade sharply. "Yes.
Keye refused to free her. He was rather—beastly.
As soon as I caught the drift I got up, intending to
leave but just then Maybrick, the housekeeper, came
down the stairs and without noticing me back in the
shadows of the hall, she squatted down outside the
parlor door and listened. She hadn't been there two
minutes when Dallas jerked the door open and sur-
prised her. Dallas was very angry and went out
quickly. Maybrick got up, waddled over to the main
door and stood there peering through the glass after
her. My position was rather uncomfortable. I
didn't know just what to do so I stayed where I was,
hoping Maybrick would leave so I could get out un-
observed."
"She didn't?"
"No. Just then someone screamed there in the
parlor. I don't know just what the two of us did,
but the next thing I remember is opening the door
and feeling Maybrick push past me into the room,
and when I followed I saw Keye—then in a few
minutes Dallas came back. I called Tom Gary and
—you know the rest."
Brade studied his finger tips. The two watching
him could not tell what he thought. He said
presently:
"You have known Jurden Keye a long time, Mac-
Farlane?"
84


BRADE LISTENS IN
"Since I first came to Willow Valley, fifteen years
ago."
"You have been friends?"
MacFarlane's lips tightened. Faith's head lifted.
They stood there defiantly looking at Brade.
"I do not believe," Gregg MacFarlane said slowly,
"that Jurden Keye had one real friend in the entire
world. We have been acquaintances. We were en-
tertained at his home. He visited us. He and I met
in a business way."
"There had never been any unpleasantness be-
tween you?"
Gregg shrugged. "There was unpleasantness be-
tween Keye and every single person in town with
whom he came in contact"
"Nothing special, I mean. You had no reason to
—dislike him?" Brade was leaning easily against
the wall, arms folded, head lowered. His eyes were
like sharp bright instruments, probing, exploring,
dissecting. Gregg MacFarlane tried very hard to
escape that regard, but wherever his glance went,
Brade's was there. The man was like an intangible
force, permeating every corner of the room.
MacFarlane said through tight lips: "I hated
Jurden Keye like hell. He was an evil, slimy, hypo-
critical old devil. I have higher regard for the open-
and-shut criminal, the robber, the murderer"
He stopped, panting. There was dull color in his
face. He was trembling.
Faith was pale as death. She held both steady
hands pressed hard against her heart. A gray pallor
85


DEAD HANDS REACHING
spread gradually over her whiteness. Her eyes went
wide and blank. She stood so terribly still that the
clashing glances of the two men unlocked and went
involuntarily to her.
Gregg cried out in such mortal agony that Brade
straightened with a muttered exclamation, then Faith
MacFarlane took an uncertain step forward and
crashed heavily to the floor. Gregg was beside her,
white to the lips; Brade knelt and laid a steady fin-
ger on her wrists. Across the rigid body the eyes of
the two men met and Brade had all he could do to
hold his glance steady before the savage pain in Mac-
Farlane's.
"You've done this !” MacFarlane cried hoarsely.
"You, with your damned prying—your probing-
you've killed her- "
"Let's get her to the fire. Does she often have
spells like this?"
He slipped an arm under Faith's body, but Mac-
Farlane pushed him roughly away, lifted her gently,
holding her so tight and hard against him.
"It's her heart,” he said thickly. “She's been
through—a lot--"
Brade opened the door. Mrs. Maybrick was pass-
ing down the hall. She stopped and her little hard
eyes widened.
"Another?” she gasped. “Another-dead-to-
night?”
"No," Brade snapped. "Mrs. MacFarlane has
fainted. She's coming out now " He glanced at
the fluttering lids in the still white face. “Lead us
86


BRADE LISTENS IN
to a bedroom where it's warm and quiet. Snap
into it."
"There ain't any warm rooms here, mister," she
said sullenly. "They're quiet enough, though."
"Then show us one and make a fire."
The woman turned and went upstairs. MacFar-
lane followed and Brade came after him. They laid
Faith on a great cold-looking bed at the front of
the house. Like the rest of the place it was huge
and bleak. The bedding felt damp to the touch. She
was conscious now, though still desperately white,
but she smiled at her husband.
"I'm sorry, Gregg," she said so faintly that Brade
hardly heard her. "I'll be all right now. Let me
rest—I'm very—tired—" The small voice broke on
a sob.
Brade turned away. Gregg MacFarlane was on
his knees beside the bed. He looked like a man kneel-
ing before an altar. He held Faith's hands very
gently. His shoulders were shaking. He said over
and over: "Forgive me, Faith—please forgive me.
It was my fault. I should not have said it—I might
have killed you—forgive me"
Then Faith MacFarlane lifted weakly on an el-
bow, leaned forward and touched her husband's face.
Her strong little hand rested on it like a benediction.
Through tears her eyes sought his, clung patheti-
cally.
"Forgive?" she whispered. "Oh—Gregg—"
She fell back. Gregg stood up, pulling a blanket over
her. Mrs. Maybrick had a fire going in the grate.
87


DEAD HANDS REACHING
It threw a ruddy glow over the funereal black furni-
ture. She dusted her hands together and turned to-
ward the door. Brade said curtly:
"Stay with Mrs. MacFarlane, Maybrick. We are
leaving."
MacFarlane turned swiftly. "You're wrong, Cap-
tain Brade," he said. “I am not—leaving—my
wife.”
Brade stepped close to him. “All Mrs. MacFar-
lane needs is rest, quiet, and a stimulant which May-
brick can bring. I need some information from you
which is to help solve murder. How about it?"
MacFarlane's hand clenched, but Faith spoke from
the bed. “Do as Captain Brade wishes, Gregg," she
urged. “Please for my-sake."
He turned to look down at her. Brade watched
from the shadows. There was angry indecision in
MacFarlane's glance. Pleading in Faith's and some-
thing else, a very definite warning.
The two men went out. Brade gave Maybrick her
instructions. She was to fetch some brandy from
below stairs, hot-water bottles, extra blankets, and
she was to stay with Mrs. MacFarlane until she was
relieved. She agreed grouchily.
88


CHAPTER SEVEN
ONE SHOT!
BACK in the morning room MacFarlane faced
Brade again. "Let's get it over," he said.
"What else do you want to know?"
"The real reason for your coming here to-night."
"I've told you."
"No. Your statement was untrue."
Hard and bleak, Brade's eyes. Hot and furious,
MacFarlane's. They faced each other like two wres-
tlers, stripped for battle. About them was the same
tense wariness, the same professional appraisal of the
opponent, the alertness for advantage, the obvious
determination to battle to the death. Faith MacFar-
lane's going had removed the last barrier.
MacFarlane laughed. "Liar, eh? That's me,
Brade?"
"Yes, if you persist in your story about coming up
to borrow a book. Why did you come?"
"To borrow a book."
"All right. Let it ride at that. I don't believe
you, if you're interested in my reaction."
"I'm not"
"That's okay by me, too. How many times, in the
course of fifteen years, do you suppose you've come
into this house by the front door?"
89


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"I'm not a mathematician. Hundreds, I suppose."
"Exactly. I've only entered once, yet if I should
come again, I would ring the bell, not knock. Why
didn't you ring?"
"I don't see what you're getting at."
"You can understand my question. Answer it."
MacFarlane straightened a corner of the rug with
his shoe tip. "No," he said, "I can't answer it, be-
cause I don't know. I just walked up the steps,
crossed the porch and knocked."
"Instead of ringing?"
"Instead of ringing."
Brade smiled. "I'll tell you why you did it, Mac-
Farlane," he said. "Because you didn't want any-
one to answer that door at your summons. You
knew that no one would hear that tap. You wanted
to come in unannounced, which you did. You didn't
want your visit advertised. A man doesn't when he
comes to talk to another man about unwelcome
attentions to his wife."
MacFarlane's lean dark face whitened. His som-
ber eyes flared wide, flashed hate at the detective.
Then he said thickly:
"You're being a damned cad, Brade. You've met
my—wife—talked to her. How can you—drag her
name through the mud like this? Suggest"
Brade shook his head gently. "Mrs. MacFarlane
was not to blame for what Jurden Keye did, Mac-
Farlane. Isn't it true that he'd always—admired
her"
"Admire! That beast! His admiration, as you
call it, would be an insult to any decent woman."
90


ONE SHOT!
"Yes? Pretty bad, wasn't he? All right, and you
quite naturally resented his—admiration for your
wife. I don't blame you. I'd have likely called on
him, too, especially as people were talking about his
forcing her to walk out from town with him yester-
day afternoon"
"Who told you that?"
"Never mind. And as she had just received a
rather expensive gift of roses from a florist in the
city with his card."
"I wouldn't have him sending her—gifts." Mac-
Farlane said hoarsely.
"Quite correct in that, I think. But this story
about a book, it doesn't go down well, not with rela-
tions what they were between you and Jurden Keye.
Better come clean and admit that you came up here
to-night for an understanding with him—that"
MacFarlane turned abruptly to the window, jerked
back the curtain and stood there staring out into the
night. Brade lighted a cigarette and waited. There
was a grim, satisfied smile on his lips. He knew
people. Men and women. MacFarlane, with his
passionate reverent devotion to his wife, his archaic
chivalry, would not take Jurden Keye's attentions to
her easily. Part of what he had told him, Brade had
guessed at. The facts he had gleaned from a swift
conversation with Tom Gary. He inhaled smoke
and waited.
MacFarlane said over his shoulder: "All right,
Brade, you win. I came up to tell Jurden Keye that
if he ever so much as looked at my wife again, I'd
smash his rotten face for him. I didn't even knock.
91


ONE SHOT!
shootin' his flash around lookin' for tracks and he
saw this. What do you make of it?"
There was a gleam of excitement in the constable's
eyes. He glanced past Brade to Gregg MacFarlane,
who had been bending over the note as Brade
held it.
Brade looked at MacFarlane. The man's face
was twitching. It shone with sweat for all the room
was unpleasantly cold.
"Recognize that writing?" Brade asked which-
ever one of the two men could answer.
Tom Gary started to say something, stopped as
MacFarlane cut in. "Yes, it's Jurden Keye's. That's
his monogram there at the top, too."
"Yes? And there was no envelope, Gary, nothing
to indicate who received it?"
The constable shook his head. "Just that, Captain
Brade. It looks like someone dropped it."
"Yes," Brade said slowly. "Someone who came to
keep the appointment, who lost the note as he left."
He frowned thoughtfully. "It might have been the
Garth girl—she said he invited her to come, then
canceled the engagement"
"Dallas?" Gregg MacFarlane asked. "It couldn't
have been addressed to Dallas?"
"How did it get where Arnold found it?" Brade
asked. "You said Dallas left by the front door—
of course she might have come in across the
grounds."
"I think not," MacFarlane said. "She told me
she sent Jurden a note asking to see him. She sent
93


DEAD HANDS REACHING
it by a village boy who sometimes runs errands for
me. Buddy Witherspoon. I know she did because he's
been telling about it all over town—besides I don't
think Jurden Keye knew his wife was in Willow
Valley until he received her message."
Brade ran mentally over the people involved in
this matter. Dallas Gantry. Opal Garth. The man,
Frosty Rivet, who called himself Clay Alden. Gregg
MacFarlane. . . .
None seemed to fit the picture. It didn't sound like
a note Keye would send to a cheap little actress with
whom he was temporarily amusing himself. It
couldn't have been Dallas if what MacFarlane said
was true. He glanced obliquely at MacFarlane, who
was frowning at the note spread out on the table.
He recalled what Opal and Frosty Rivet had said
about a blackmail scheme in which one Leo was
involved and which Opal had shared with Jurden
Keye.
He hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets and con-
tinued to stare at MacFarlane. The man was hand-
some in a queer, exhausted way. He had a fine head.
A lean, forceful jaw. A strong grim mouth. His
eyes were splendid. That queer white hair—what
had seared MacFarlane's hair like that? Almost as
if it had passed through fire. . . .
He wondered why he was staring at MacFarlane
so intently. What there was about the man that
intrigued him. Was it a hint of familiarity? That
had struck him at the moment MacFarlane came in
downstairs, earlier in the evening. He had decided
he imagined it. Had he? He wished MacFarlane's
94


ONE SHOT!
hair was some other color—black, say, or very dark
brown. How would he look then?
MacFarlane lifted his head, met the detective's
intent gaze, colored faintly, straightened. "Do you
mind, Captain Brade," he asked, "if I go to my wife
for a few minutes? I'm worried about her."
Brade said: "Just a moment, MacFarlane, I want
to figure something out." And he continued to study
the man until the silence in the room grew oppres-
sive and Tom Gary stirred uneasily. Wind rustled
round the windows, scattering sere leaves to crackle
against the glass. It whistled down the empty fire-
place chimney, sending out a faint gray dust of dead
ashes to float eerily round the room.
MacFarlane smiled: "Do I help you to concen-
trate, Brade?" he inquired politely. "If so, I'll stand
perfectly still. You've been staring at me for five
minutes."
Brade nodded. "Sorry," he said. "I was—think-
ing." He rumpled his thick hair. "Say you've lived
here fifteen years, MacFarlane?"
"Yes."
"How'd you happen to pick this little place? I get
funny notions about folks," he added in a pleasantly
conversational tone, "you, now, I'd pick you as a city
man."
MacFarlane said evenly: "I have lived in cities,
Captain Brade. Maybe that's the reason Willow
Valley appealed to me. There are advantages, you
know."
"Yes? I wonder." Brade turned the massive sil-
ver ring thoughtfully. "Such as "he asked.
95


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"Quiet. Peace. Friendliness. The beauty of out-
of-doors easily accessible. To be specific, I came here
because of my wife's health. She is very strong
really, but a—bad attack of pneumonia a long time
ago left her with a weak heart. The doctors advised
fresh air and lack of excitement. Willow Valley
seemed to offer both. Anything else?"
Tom Gary, watching uneasily from the shadows
by the door, thought he had never seen two men so
tense and yet so easy-looking. The constable sensed
the conflict between them. He didn't quite get it.
They both smiled frequently. Their voices were low.
Their manner pleasant—yet he wouldn't have been
surprised to see them suddenly leap at each other's
throats. MacFarlane's hands were clenched by his
sides. It was the only outward sign of tension about
him. Brade's left leg was extended slightly as he
leaned against the wall. Where the cloth of his
trouser was jerked tight about it Tom caught the
flexing of a long muscle.
"Anything else?" Brade repeated MacFarlane's
question. "Yes," he said slowly. "There's one other
question. When you've answered that, MacFarlane,
I'll be through with you to-night. You may do what
you like."
MacFarlane bowed. "Thanks," he said, "and the
question?"
Brade's lips opened, but no question came. From
somewhere in the great silent house came the sharp
crack of a shot!
96


CHAPTER EIGHT
WHAT MAYBRICK SAW
J he lunged for the door. Brade was close be-
hind him and the constable followed, but MacFar-
lane was already up the stairs before they reached
the foot.
As Brade streaked up, the hall door behind him
opened and he heard a man's voice saying something
excitedly but he did not pause. He rounded the
newel post into the upper hall of Willow Wilde and
rushed head on into someone standing there, cling-
ing to it.
"Oh,” he said breathlessly, “I'm sorry, Miss Gan-
try. What's happened? There was a shot-
Dallas Gantry turned slowly to look at him.
“Yes,” she said. "Opal's been hurt-shot, I think.
You can see there she is "
"Dallas !” Anthony Gordon called and stumbled
to a pause beside her. He was bare-headed and his
face was flushed as if he had been walking rapidly in
the night air. Dallas put out a hand toward him.
"She's-been-shot, Anthony," she gasped. “You
can see her-there-on-the floor- "
Brade was trained in the valuable art of observa-
tion. His mind was keyed to catch every small detail
97


DEAD HANDS REACHING
of a scene with startling clarity, while he registered
the more salient points. So that when he bent over
the crumpled figure on the floor there in the hall of
Willow Wilde, he knew that Opal Garth was dead,
that she had been shot behind the right ear and lay
face down, arms outflung—pointed toward the stair
well.
He saw all that as he noted that Gregg MacFar-
lane had disappeared into his wife's room which was
three doors down the hall, that Maybrick, the house-
keeper, was standing in the open door of that room,
clinging to it for support, and that Frosty Rivet was
sneaking along the hall away toward the rear stairs.
"Rivet!" Brade snapped.
He leaped up, hand bulging his pocket. Frosty
Rivet stopped with a low whine of fear and rage,
turned, glared at the detective and sulked slowly
back. The man's face was working and his slanted,
red-rimmed eyes were feverish.
"I didn't do it," he chattered. "Let me go. I ain't
done anything."
"Get him, Gary," Brade directed quietly, and as
the big constable collared Rivet, Brade asked slowly:
"How does it happen that you're all up here? I
thought I told you—" He frowned at Gary. "I gave
you the job of keeping them quiet, Gary," he said.
Gary swallowed. "And I did, Captain Brade," he
explained. "Then when Jimmy brought that note in
I thought you ought to see it and I"
Brade nodded. "I see," he snapped. "And the
minute you left they all scattered." His eyes went
98


WHAT MAYBRICK SAW
coldly round the group. "Who knows why Opal
Garth came upstairs?" he demanded.
No one answered. Brade shrugged, jerked the
covering from a couch near the wall and spread it
over the body. His eyes went swiftly round the hall,
searching for a gun. There was none that he could
see.
"Well," he said, glancing at the covered body,
"she can't speak for herself—can any of the rest of
you tell me why you're up here? You, Anthony!
Where have you been?"
"Out for a breath of air," Anthony said clearly.
"I was walking on the path before the house when I
heard the shot."
Brade was studying him curiously. "All right,"
he said, "and you, Dallas Gantry?"
Dallas had removed her little hat and her dull gold
hair lay in thick moist waves around her white face.
Her eyes, like brown pansy leaves, were strained and
bright.
She said: "When I heard that Faith was ill"
"Who told you?"
"Why—why—Maybrick. She came in to get
some liquor from the sideboard. She said Mrs.
MacFarlane had fainted—that she was upstairs—
and when Tom went out I just had to see her—so I
came up"
"All right, then what?"
Dallas lifted tired eyes to look at him. She won-
dered dully why this man with the cloudy eyes, the
firm, sometimes gentle mouth, the gray-stained hair,
99


DEAD HANDS REACHING
why Captain Courtney Brade should be so inter-
ested in murder. Why he should be here like a lean
greyhound continually on the scent.
She said slowly: "I didn't know where Faith was.
Which room, I mean. I thought it might be the old
guest room, down there—" She motioned to the far
end of the hall on the other side of the stair well.
"I opened many doors but did not find her. I was in
that room," again the gesture behind her, "the third
from the stairs, when I heard a door slam"
"Where?"
"I don't know, exactly. "Up here some place."
"Hear anything else?"
"Yes. I heard Opal say"
A sharp cry cut her short. It came from the open
door of the room where Faith MacFarlane had
rested. Gregg's voice sounded: "Faith! Faith! Lie
still, be quiet—Faith"
But the agonized cry came again and Faith Mac-
Farlane stumbled into the hall, face as white as that
of the dead woman, one hand pressed against her
breast. She took half a dozen blind, uncertain steps,
stopped, leaned heavily against the wall. Gregg was
just behind her, arms hovering over her. She was sob-
bing brokenly and her eyes were fastened on the
covered body of the dead girl.
"Oh, I heard her," she moaned. "I heard her, but
I couldn't rouse. I must have been in a stupor of
some sort. It was like a nightmare"
"What did she say?" Brade demanded sharply,
to break through her rising hysteria.
Faith looked at him dazedly, shook her head. "I
IOO


WHAT MAYBRICK SAW
heard her pleading with someone—not to kill her-
over and over she was saying: 'Don't shoot me. Oh,
for God's sake don't shoot me I didn't mean it-I
won't tell—' You see, Captain Brade, I heard that
so clearly, but I couldn't move. It was terrible”
She pressed shaking hands across her eyes. Gregg
put an arm around her, drew her close.
"Hush, Faith,” he soothed in a voice that trembled.
“You can tell them later—please_Faith-
But for once Faith pushed her husband's arms
away. “Let me go on," she choked. “I've got to
tell it-get it off my-mind-it's driving me mad.”
Brade caught her fluttering hands, held them
tight and quiet in his, looked down into her suffering
eyes and said very, very gently:
"Easy, Faith MacFarlane, take it easy. Where's
your courage now? That strength you've kept with
you all these years? This is the time to use it.
Steady. Quiet. It will all be better after a while"
His voice was low, monotonous, almost hypnotic.
Under its spell, Faith gradually quieted. The shak-
ing of her body passed. Her lips became steady
again, her eyes clear and strong. She still hung hard
to his hands as though she would absorb his splen-
did vitality for her own need, and slowly she nodded
and then smiled faintly into his eyes.
"Thank you, Captain Brade," she said. "I'm all
right now. I don't usually let go like this.”
"I know. Don't bother to explain. Bring her a
chair, MacFarlane. That's better. Mrs. MacFarlane,
do you want to talk to me now or would you
rather "
IOI


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"Now," she said clearly. "I'll talk now though I
think I've told you all I know. Just that I seemed to
be in a stupor, bound hand and foot, unable to stir
but with my mind terribly clear, and I heard this—
girl—pleading with someone not to kill her. She
wasn't talking very loud, or so it seemed to me, but
her voice penetrated to me distinctly. And still, I was
unable to stir until I heard—the shot—then some-
thing snapped inside me—and I didn't know anything
until Gregg lifted me from the bed—" She shut her
lips hard and Brade saw her eyes flare wide.
"Thank you," he said. "There is nothing else you
can tell?"
"Nothing," she said.
He turned to Dallas. "You were saying—" he
suggested.
Dallas pushed heavy hair from her eyes. "I heard
the door slam and Opal say: 'Don't kill me—I won't
tell—' then there was a shot and she screamed."
"You don't know to whom she was speaking?
You didn't hear another voice?"
"No. Only what I've told you. I was—paralyzed
—for a moment—I couldn't stir out of the
room"
"Not until the shot? That brought you out?"
She nodded. "Yes," she said, and stopped at sound
of a low, grating laugh.
Brade turned quickly. Mrs. Maybrick was stand-
ing flat and square against the wall, hands firmly
planted on thick hips. Gray hair had become dis-
arranged and fallen into her eyes. She said, looking
at Dallas:
102


WHAT MAY BRICK SAW
"Why don't you ask what / saw, Mr. Policeman?
I was up here, you know."
"Yes," Brade said. "You were up here and where
were you? If you had obeyed my instructions, you
would have been with Mrs. MacFarlane, you would
have heard the girl's pleading, you might have been
able to tell me something."
"Oh, I can tell you plenty," Maybrick said dryly,
and she never took her eyes from Dallas Gantry's
face. Watching that heavy red countenance, those
small, venomous eyes, Dallas' lips went gray, she
took an uncertain step backward and Anthony slipped
a protecting arm around her, angry glance on May-
brick's face.
"I can tell you plenty," Maybrick went on, "and
here it is : I left Mrs. MacFarlane sleeping, and went
to get an extra blanket. Down there," she pointed to
the shadowy hall behind her. "There's the linen closet
and there's where I went. I had the door open and I
was inside when I heard someone talking out here in
the hall. I looked to see who it was. It was this girl"
—she pointed at the shrouded figure on the floor—
"and—her." A thick, accusing finger was leveled at
Dallas. "Oh, you needn't look so sick, my lady," she
snapped. "I seen you, all right, and I heard you."
"You heard me talking to Opal?" Dallas gasped.
"Why, I never saw her, I didn't know she was up
here"
Maybrick's dry lips curled. She disregarded the
interruption. "That—woman"—she nodded toward
Dallas—"she was talking to Opal, and all of a sud-
den she jerked a gun and that's when Opal began
103


DEAD HANDS REACHING
beggin' for her not to kill her. I was that overcome
I couldn't move," she said to Brade. "I couldn't be-
lieve my eyes, and Opal turned and started to run
toward me, and that—woman—shot her, then she
ran the other way and into a room—and you all
came."
Anthony Gordon set Dallas aside and reached
Maybrick's side in three long strides. "Every word
of that is a lie, and you know it," he snapped. "Why
should Dallas kill her. Why?"
Maybrick glanced at him through puffy lids. "Be-
cause the girl knew that she had stabbed the master,"
she declared bluntly. "And that she would go on the
stand and tell about it."
Anthony's face whitened. Brade laid a hand on his
shoulder. "Let me handle this, Anthony," he ordered
quietly. "Look after Dallas." He faced the house-
keeper. "Mrs. Maybrick," he said, "please step into
this room," he opened a door on his right. "You
have furnished me valuable testimony and I wish to
get further details—in private."
Maybrick glared at him suspiciously, then with a
triumphant grin she marched into the room. Brade
said to Tom Gary: "Take these people downstairs
and see that they stay in one place this time. I'll join
you soon."
"I say, Brade," Anthony called excitedly, "you
aren't swallowing what that woman says about
Dallas, are you? You aren't going to"
Brade stopped him with an uplifted hand. In the
dim glow of light from the overhead fixture, his
face was grim set and very hard.
104


WHAT MAY BRICK SAW
"Anthony," he replied, "it is my duty to find the
murderer of Opal Garth. This is not a time to let
personal feelings interfere. Please do as Gary
directs."
And he went in, closing the door very definitely
on the stricken faces in the hall, blurring Faith Mac-
Farlane's choked sobbing.
Dallas stood head high, eyes very bright, staring
at the closed door. Anthony laid a hand on her arm.
She pushed it gently away.
"Anthony," she said in a hard, tight voice. "This
Captain Brade of yours evidently thinks I am a mur-
deress. He doesn't know how terribly Maybrick
always hated me, how she'd literally sell her soul to
ruin me"
Brade, on the other side of the door, had one ear
pressed against the panels. At Dallas' words, a
queer little smile twitched his lips, but Maybrick was
over by the window and did not see; when she faced
him, he was very serious.
"Now, Mrs. Maybrick," he began in that charm-
ing way of his which made his listener, even a fat
unlovely old woman like Maybrick, suddenly feel
honored and important, "I want to ask you a few
questions, then I'll permit you to retire. The night
has been trying for you. You must be exhausted."
To his immense surprise, Maybrick stared straight
into his unreadable eyes, and her thick red face
began to quiver like jelly, and down her roughened
cheeks tears rolled in big bright globules, to lose
themselves in the heavy folds of her chin.
"It's been terrible," she choked, "terrible, what it
ios


DEAD HANDS REACHING
has. With that-woman-comin'-that-" She
checked herself on the hateful word she longed to
utter. Something in Brade's face warned her. She
dabbed her eyes, sniffed audibly. “The master's
goin'," she sobbed, "it hit me hard, Captain Brade."
And Brade, studying her through narrowed lids,
could not doubt her sincerity.
"He was a good-master, Maybrick?” he asked
gently.
She nodded. "He was—wonderful, sir. Wonder-
ful! There's them that said he was hard, and maybe
he was. They said he-he wasn't all he should be
but to me he was—” She stopped, grinding heavy
knuckles into her eyes.
"Yes ?” Brade urged. "He was—to you— "
She lifted her head, gazed at him unseeingly for a
moment and in that moment Martha Maybrick came
very near beauty. Something deeply buried within
her glowed to life and the glory of it transfigured her
thick, ugly body, her heavy common face, until she
stood there, suddenly radiant.
"He was—everything to me," she breathed as if
she were speaking in confessional, and Brade mar-
veled anew at the unending miracles of human
nature.
“You had been with him a long time?” he asked.
"Since I was a girl," she said. “You mayn't think
it, sir, but I was uncommon pretty at eighteen when
I came to work at Willow Wilde. I was slim," her
glance shot down over her shapeless body, “I was
young. I had red cheeks and I was white as milk.
My hair was brown and it reached below my
Іоб


WHAT MAY BRICK SAW
waist—" She sighed heavily. "I was uncommon
pretty," she repeated. "And I could 'a' had my
pick of the young 'uns around the countryside but—"
She stopped, frowning at a distant corner, and
Brade watched her, wondering what shattered
dreams she saw, what bright and shadowed days
she was reliving, then she dried her eyes and looked
at him. "Now I'm ready," she stated. "I'll tell you
anything you want to know."
Brade nodded, smiling slightly. He rather thought
she would, especially if what he wanted to know
promised the destruction of Dallas Gantry.
"You were in the linen closet, is that right, when
you heard voices in the hall?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you recognize those voices?"
"I recognized that"
"Just refer to her as Miss Gantry," Brade sug-
gested.
"That ain't what I'd like to call her, but I recog-
nized—Miss Gantry's voice. I wasn't sure about the
other until I looked."
"All right, and how were they standing? Think
carefully now. This is important."
"The Gantry woman was facing me," Maybrick
said flatly, "that's how I got such a good look at
her. The other girl had her back toward me."
"Yes? And then Miss Gantry pulled the gun, and
Opal Garth started to run—which way?"
"Toward me," Maybrick said, the creases deep-
ening in her forehead. "She turned and started to
run toward me."
107


WHAT MAY BRICK SAW
order to send her to the electric chair for a crime
she did not commit?"
Maybrick's face went patchy white. Her lips
sucked in with the force of her strangled breathing.
"I ain't lyin'—" she gasped. "I seen it—I seen her
shoot—that girl—I"
Brade shook his head. "Human observation is
notoriously undependable," he said more to himself
than to her. "I covered the body when I first came
on the scene. You should have looked more care-
fully, Maybrick, used your senses more effectively.
By your own words you have condemned yourself,
proven yourself a vicious liar—" He reached her
side in two long strides, stood there, implacable, over
her cringing, shivering body.
"You had Dallas Gantry face toward you in this
fanciful story so you could swear to her identity.
Your mind worked logically when you had Opal
Garth turn to run from threatened death. It is what
you would have done. What I would have done.
What ninety-nine out of a hundred would have done
—but you made one grave mistake. Opal Garth was
shot as she ran the other way, toward the stairhead
and not toward the linen closet where you claim you
were standing. With a bullet entering the brain
from the rear as it did, she would fall forward, which
she did, and her head is pointed toward the stairs.
Now"—Brade bent lower over the cringing woman
—"what did you see when you stood there in the
linen closet? What is the real story behind the
shooting of Opal Garth?"
109


CHAPTER NINE
THE BRONZE CLUE
BRADE waited until she had disappeared, then
he tapped out a cigarette, set it between his lips
and stopped in the act of striking a match. Some-
where was a low, subdued sobbing! It was muffled
and faint, but through it ran such an undercurrent
of grief that Brade stood there motionless, eyes
fastened on the blank expanse of a tall, narrow door,
communicating with the next room. Swiftly he cal-
culated. That would be the room where Faith Mac-
Farlane had gone to rest. . . .
He stepped close to it, listening. Just that stran-
gled, broken sound of agony. He could almost see
her crouching against the bed, face buried in her
hands, small body shaking with the force of her
grief. A door opened, closed. The crying stopped
abruptly. Gregg MacFarlane said:
"Drink this tea, Faith. It will strengthen you.
I want to take you home, little pigeon. This is too
much for you."
And to Brade's astonishment, Faith answered in
a clear, almost cheerful tone, devoid of tears, "Thank
you so much, Gregg. And I think we'll be allowed
to go home very soon. It's nearly morning, isn't it?"
Brade went downstairs. He walked soundlessly


DEAD HANDS REACHING
past the door behind which MacFarlane and his wife
waited. They wanted to go home? He smiled
grimly. Well, they wouldn't—for a while. In the
lower hall the coroner had arrived. He had come to
Willow Wilde immediately upon reaching home
from a long, hard country trip.
Dr. Monery was a wrinkled little gnome of a man
with sharp bright eyes and very strong, beautiful
hands. He had been physician, counselor, friend to
most of the people in the county since he was a
young man. He had guarded them through sick-
ness, helped them in financial difficulties, attended
their weddings, their funerals, brought their babies
into the world. He looked rather tired, the little
doctor, and there was a crease of anxiety between
his bushy gray brows because of the tragedy that
brought him to Willow Wilde.
After his examination of Keye's body, Brade
requested the knife which he wished to send to his
department in the city for finger printing. Then he
took the doctor upstairs where Opal Garth lay under
her shabby, dusty covering. The doctor shook his
head.
"This is bad, Captain Brade, very bad," he said.
"Jurden Keye was a hard man, he lived two lives,
and in his passing he has taken others down with
him."
Brade nodded somberly, wondering how many
more would be sucked into the maelstrom of death
and destruction into which Jurden Keye had van-
nished. The doctor gently rolled the body of the
murdered woman to one side, the pucker of anxiety
112


THE BRONZE CLUE
between his eyes deepening, then he bent down, lips
pursed in a soundless whistle.
"Look here, Captain," he said softly. "Have you
examined this?"
Brade dropped to a knee beside him. "I didn't
touch things," he said. "Oh, what have we?"
He was staring at a heavy bronze object that had
lain concealed under Opal's body. It glistened dully
in the light and Brade saw that it was one of a pair
of book-ends, the beautifully modeled figure of a
dancer, lithe body bent backward, metal hair a flame
of brightness, slim arms following the curve of the
body.
He rumpled his hair thoughtfully. "Now where
did that come from?" he muttered.
Dr. Monery was squatting down, frowning at the
thing. "She might have picked it up, somewhere—"
he suggested.
Brade glanced at him quickly. "Someone threat-
ened her life," he said. "I have that from the testi-
mony of witnesses. Suppose," he constructed slowly,
"when she first realized her danger, she grabbed this
thing as a weapon of defense, still clung to it when
she ran for her life along this corridor and when
she fell with a bullet in her brain, it dropped here
where her body covered it."
"I think it quite reasonable," Dr. Monery said.
He pulled excitedly at his sharp little goatee. "This
ought to narrow things down for you," he went on.
"Find what room this came from"
"I don't know that it was a room. Dallas Gantry
said she heard a door slam, but the incident which
113


THE BRONZE CLUE
"Around the bend in that far corridor. I've been
to see her once or twice."
Brade left the doctor finishing his examination
and walked quietly down to the housekeeper's door,
tapped and waited. She was a long time opening.
When she saw him, her face hardened. She had on
a thick cotton flannel night dress under a lumpy-
looking bathrobe. Her gray hair was braided in a
thin pigtail down her shoulders.
"What do you want?" she demanded.
"What room did this come from?” Brade ex-
tended the book-end.
She asked defiantly: "What you want to know
for?"
“That,” Brade assured her, “is none of your
business, but I don't mind telling you that it was
found beneath Opal Garth's body. I think she
grabbed it up in an effort to protect herself. Now
-where did it come from?”.
Mrs. Maybrick leaned forward, staring hard at
the book-end. Brade was looking down on the top
of her head, on the quarter-sized spot where the hair
had thinned and the pale pink scalp shone through.
He couldn't see her face, but he did see that little
scrap of skin go a bright red, then she lifted her
head, gazed at him stolidly.
“I don't know,” she said.
Brade set the book-end carefully on a small table
beside the door, shoved his hands into his pockets
and grinned down at her. The grin wasn't exactly
pleasant.
“Mrs. Maybrick,” he said, “you're a woman of
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
reasonable intelligence. You are, I should say, at risk
of mortal offense, right next door to sixty. By your
own statement you came to this house when you
were eighteen. That means you've been here better
than forty years. And yet—" he went on slowly,
"you insult my intellect by standing there and tell-
ing me you don't know from which room in this
house an object is taken. Now let's start all over
again and see if we can't get somewhere. That book-
end belongs in Willow Wilde, I suppose?"
She was glaring at him. Her lips twitched. "Yes,"
she said hoarsely. "It belongs here. It belonged to
that—Gantry woman—the master married. She
would have an—indecent—thing like that around.
I'd have thrown it away but he wouldn't let me"
"I quite understand your antipathy to it," Brade
assured her pleasantly. "But what I'm trying to
find out is where it stood. Which room contained
it. And don't waste any more time pretending you
don't know. You took care of this house. You
dusted and swept and arranged. Where was the
pair of bronze book-ends? Where did it stand?
Which room? Come alive now. Speak snappy."
He longed to twist her thick, stubborn old neck.
She stood there so stolidly defying him. He knew
that she knew where the thing had come from. It
didn't make sense that she couldn't remember. She
knew and she wouldn't tell because it didn't fit into
her pattern of hate and revenge against Dallas
Gantry. Brade reflected luridly on the advantages of
torture.
Mrs. Maybrick raised her eyes and regarded him
116


THE BRONZE CLUE
blandly. There was even the hint of a secret smile
somewhere about her. "I'm terribly sorry, Captain
Brade," she stated, "but I just can't tell you which
room that book-end came from. You see, the house
has been rearranged so much, I tried to keep it fresh
and pleasant, the thing was first one place and
another. I just couldn't say."
Brade seized the book-end and stalked away, leav-
ing her standing there by the door, talking after
him. His cheeks were hot and his eyes blazed. A
fat unpleasant old woman in a small stupid town
far from the whirling city had completely routed
Captain Courtney Brade, headquarters division,
Metropolitan Police.
Maybrick watched his tall, erect form out of sight
around the turn and closed the door of her room,
chuckling to herself.
As Brade stepped into the main corridor from
which the body of Opal Garth had been removed,
he came face to face with a man he had never seen
before. Brade stopped abruptly, head lowered,
frowning at the stranger.
"Hello," he said, "who're you?"
The man had paused uncertainly by the stairhead,
now he stood-nervously turning a soft dark hat in
his hand and regarded Brade with mingled surprise
and timidity. He was a tall man, very thin, and he
wore a long black overcoat of rough-looking mate-
rial, with a collar of Astrakhan which must once
have been fine. Now it was badly worn, there were
bare patches on it, the coat itself was shiny at the
seams. The man's shoes were carefully blackened,
.1
117


DEAD HANDS REACHING
but the covering could not prevent the cracks from
showing. He had a delicate, handsome face, seamed
with many fine lines. His eyes were rather faded
and entirely hopeless. His sensitive mouth smiled
easily. He had fine teeth. His hair was thick and
iron-gray.
He said: "I'm Tomlinson Shannon, better known
as Tam O'Shannon. I'm owner and manager of the
show troupe which has been showing here and I'm
looking for Captain Brade."
"Yes?" Brade was studying Shannon curiously.
Tom Gary had confided to him his theory that the
showman might have murdered Jurden Keye as
reprisal for Keye's activities in closing the stand.
"Well, I'm Brade," the detective said. "How did you
get here and what can I do for you?"
Shannon smiled apologetically. Everything about
him, in fact, was slightly apologetic, as if he
had been hit so hard and so often, kicked and
cuffed so relentlessly, that most of his spirit was
gone.
He said: "I just opened the door downstairs and
came in. I didn't meet anyone but I heard voices
behind one of the doors and I listened. I wanted very
much to get in touch with whoever was conducting
the investigation up here, without attracting atten-
tion. So when I heard your name mentioned as hav-
ing the matter in charge, and also that you were
somewhere above stairs, I just came up. Could I
have a few words in private with you?"
Brade opened a door to his left, snapped on the
light. "Come in here," he invited and stood aside
Il8


THE BRONZE CLUE
for Shannon to enter, then followed, closed the door
and leaned against it. "All right," he said. "What's
on your mind?"
Tarn O'Shannon was standing uneasily in the cen-
ter of the big bleak room. His eyes flitted nervously
from object to object. He moistened his lips, said
in a very low voice:
"Mr. Keye was murdered, wasn't he?"
"Yes. What do you know of it?"
"Oh! Nothing! That is, not actually. I heard
about it. It's all over town and I got to thinking of
something and it was hard to make up my mind, but
I finally decided it was my duty"
"It certainly was," Brade said crisply. "And what
do you know?"
"It may not be of the slightest importance, Cap-
tain Brade," Shannon said slowly, a certain new dig-
nity in his bearing as he found himself in the familiar
position of stage center, "but I understand that one
of my men, a chap from my company, also a girl,
are somehow implicated. Clay Alden, Opal Garth.
Is that correct?"
"Very much so."
Shannon breathed deeply, took a fresh start.
"What I have to tell you, sir, is merely a conversa-
tion which I overheard through the walls of the
theater dressing-room no later than to-night, last
night I guess it would be now. The conversation
took place between Miss Garth and Clay Alden."
"All right. And it was?"
"I won't attempt to repeat it to you verbatim. I
, shall merely give you the gist of it. They had rec-
119


DEAD HANDS REACHING
ognized someone in this town as—being somehow
very important"
"How do you mean that? Important?"
"I don't know exactly. Except that they expected
to get some money from this person."
Brade's eyes narrowed. Blackmail! There had
been something about blackmail in that conversa-
tion between Opal and Frosty which he had arranged
to overhear.
"Did they mention the person's name?"
"Not exactly. I think they referred to him as
Andy"
"All right, go on."
"It seemed to be a question of identity, that is, of
proving the identity, and I gathered that Alden, at
the advice of Miss Garth, had sent for a former
associate of the girls, who for some reason they
thought could furnish the necessary identification."
"Did you get his name?"
"Leo. That is all. They kept talking about Leo.
Leo, it seems, arrived in town to-night. Alden had
met him at the station. Leo apparently had seen the
person in question and unqualifiedly confirmed their
suspicions. So the stage was set."
"For what?"
"The culmination of this blackmail act. I regret,
Captain Brade, to have to use such harsh language,
especially about people in my employ, but I con-
sidered it my duty"
"That's right. Let's go on. What then?"
"I gathered," Shannon said diffidently, "that Opal
Garth had disclosed the facts in this case to Jurden
120


THE BRONZE CLUE
Keye." The old actor glanced away uncomfortably.
"Jurden Keye," he said stiffly, "insisted on the clos-
ing of my show, claiming it had a bad influence on
the community, then in secret he was"
"I know," Brade said grimly. "I know quite a bit
about Jurden Keye. You say Opal had told Keye.
And what was the result of that?"
"Keye, oddly enough, had insisted on handling the
thing himself. Alden was very angry about it, but
Opal thought it wiser that way. Keye had told Opal
that he would take care of the arrangements, nam-
ing the price for their silence and so on and that he
intended doing it to-night. I thought"
Brade nodded briefly. He was remembering that
note picked up in the grounds, the note Jurden Keye
had written to someone. Threatening in tone: "If
you want to avert complete disaster come to see me.
... I mean business and I will do everything I say.
... I can save you if you will listen to me. . . ."
He stared thoughtfully at Tarn O'Shannon, reflect-
ing that if he knew to whom that note was ad-
dressed, he would have the solution to two murders.
"What else?" he asked.
"That's about all, except that the Garth girl and
Alden ended up in a furious quarrel, the subject
being this man Keye's interest in her. Alden used
some very dangerous language, sir."
"Such as?"
"He—he—" Shannon turned his hat nervously.
"He actually threatened to kill Mr. Keye! He said:
'I'll bump that bozo, so help me God, if you don't
stay away from him—' Then Opal tried to quiet him
121


DEAD HANDS REACHING
by telling him that Keye had written her not to come
to the house to-night as they had previously planned,
and Alden finally went away grumbling. Opal left
the opera house after the conclusion of her part in
the show. She was seen slipping out the stage door
still wearing her costume—then Alden disappeared
shortly after—I can only suppose he came here."
"He did," Brade agreed, then he said slowly:
"Opal Garth has been murdered too!"
Shannon's faded eyes opened wide. His face went
a dull gray white. He stood there trembling visibly
for a moment. "My God," he whispered. "Alden—
he did it! I know he did; he—he swore to kill Keye
—he"
Brade said, "We have too many conflicting clues
at present to form any definite conclusion, Mr.
Shannon. I thank you for bringing this information
to my attention and I will have to ask that you stay
on hand for the inquest."
Shannon nodded, turned toward the door. He
was still very white and shaken. Brade watched him
curiously as he crossed the narrow hall, walking with
a conscious, almost mechanical grace, and disap-
peared down the stairs. Men like Tarn O'Shannon
belonged to a class that was fast disappearing; their
place taken by a new type that had its origin in the
necessity for actors developed overnight. Younger,
flashier, smarter men who would never be able to
give to the grandest profession on earth that blind
devotion, that desperate battle against long odds, that
gay, courageous abandon that the old trouper offered
as homage at a shrine he worshiped.
122


CHAPTER TEN
JIMMY OPENS A DRAWER
BRADE closed the door and stood a moment,
thinking. What Shannon had told him con-
firmed his own investigations. Namely, that Opal
Garth, the man calling himself Alden, Frosty Rivet,
one Leo and Jurden Keye, had entered into a com-
bination of destruction against someone in Willow
Valley.
Who? Whom had one of the actors seen and
recognized? Who, that it was of sufficient impor-
tance to import Leo someone-or-other for purpose
of identification? When he knew that. . . .
Swift-running steps approached and Brade turned
to see young Jimmy Arnold pounding down on him
from the other end of the hall. The boy's face was
flushed with excitement and he paused, panting
noisily.
"I been lookin' everywhere for you, sir," he said.
"Y'see, I heard the shot and I came in the house,
but stuck around mostly downstairs just in case any
one should try to make a sneak"
"Good boy, Jimmy," Brade praised. "You know
what's happened up here then?"
"Yes, sir, I got it all from Tom. He's guardin'
that actor chap and the others are in the library, but
that ain't what I want to say"
123


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"All right, what is it?"
Jimmy heaved a great sigh. "I always thought
I'd like to be a detective, sir," he explained rather
diffidently and Brade noticed that he kept his hands
carefully behind him and that he was actually quiv-
ering with the desire to tell something and at the
same time make as much of it as possible. "I don't
know very much about it," Jimmy went on, "but
I've read some books and—but here's what I want
to tell you. I heard all about everything and what
Maybrick said about Miss Dallas killin' the girl and
then runnin' down to that there room"—he nodded
back along the hall—"and so I just thought I'd
look around some. So I went in and I found—
this!"
He paused dramatically, looking at Brade with
very bright eyes, then very slowly and impressively
he brought a hand from behind him and extended
it, holding a tiny blue-barreled Colt's automatic by
his finger tips!
Brade's lips tightened. He stepped closer, staring
at the weapon, but not touching it. ".25," he mut-
tered, "ugly little brute; do plenty of damage at
close range. You found that in the room where"
"Where Miss Dallas said she was when the shot
was fired," Jimmy explained breathlessly. "It was
hidden too, sir. Clear at the back of a dresser
drawer. I had to hunt a long time for it. Do you
suppose"
Brade wasn't exactly listening to young Arnold's
suppositions. He was remembering Dallas saying
she was in the third room from the stair well when
124


JIMMY OPENS A DRAWER
the shot was fired. Hearing Maybrick's harsh voice
in answer to his question:
"What did she do with the gun?"
"She had it in her hand when she ran"
He took the weapon from Jimmy's careful grip.
"All right, Jimmy," he said crisply, "you made an
important discovery. Best keep quiet about it for the
present. I'll send the thing along to be printed with
the knife. Maybe that will tell us something."
Jimmy drew a deep breath. "Do you think, sir,
that is—would Miss Dallas"
"Jimmy Arnold," Brade said, wrapping the gun
in a linen handkerchief, "if you're interested in
becoming a detective the first thing you must learn
is not to—think!" He smiled at the boy's wide-open
astonished eyes. "By that I mean," Brade explained
carefully, "you must learn not to form definite con-
clusions from fragmentary bits of evidence. In a
crime of this sort, my son, in every crime, unless it
is the work of a homicidal maniac and consequently
unmotivated, unless it is committed by the profes-
sional killer, there is bound to be a clearly defined,
sharply marked motive—clear, that is, once you can
find it.
"You or I may not consider that motive sufficient
warrant for killing. That has nothing to do with the
matter. It was sufficient for the killer at the moment
of commission of the crime. Once you find that
motive your work is half done. Follow it intelli-
gently and it will usually lead you to your criminal,
but you must then build up an edifice of proof suffi-
ciently strong to hold him.
125


JIMMY OPENS A DRAWER
Brade smiled. "Jimmy, my boy," he said very
low, "haven't I already told you not to—think? Now
come along with me. I've got a job for you."
Jimmy followed eagerly. At the head of the
stairs, they met Gregg MacFarlane carrying a tray
with a freshly filled pot of tea.
"How is Mrs. MacFarlane?" Brade asked as he
passed.
MacFarlane shook his head. "Badly upset," he
said. "This is—actually dangerous for her, Captain
Brade. When may we go home?"
Brade looked hard at him. "Try to be patient,"
he advised, "two people have been killed, you know."
Gregg nodded wearily and went on. Brade's
glance followed him absently, then he carefully set
the bronze book-end on the flat surface of the newel
post.
"Jimmy," he said, "I believe that this is the object
which the Garth girl seized from some convenient
spot in an endeavor to save her life. Then she ran,
still holding onto the thing, and when she was shot
she fell on it. If I can find from what room she
carried this, I stand a chance of getting some place.
I have gone over all the rooms up here and I cannot
find the mate. Why?"
He gazed at Jimmy through narrowed lids. "Be-
cause I think the murderer concealed it, when he
realized he couldn't get the other one back. Now, I
want you to go out in the grounds with a flashlight
and search carefully along the front of the house
and see if you can find the thing. I believe the
127


DEAD HANDS REACHING
Tom's gray hair was stained with blood which
tricked sluggishly across his cheek from a nasty cut
over the left ear. At Brade's touch he stirred,
groaned, opened his eyes.
“Get him," he said hoarsely. "He's beat it,
knocked me out-got loose-" Then he struggled
to a sitting position and Brade saw the steel of
handcuffs dangling from his wrist.
"You had Alden cuffed to you ?” he demanded.
Tom nodded. “Yeah, and he wanted to-go-to
the bathroom, I took him there on the way back-
I don't know exactly what happened. He said
something real quick and sharp, pointed. I looked,
and he crowned me plenty. The key was in my vest
pocket, I don't know anything more.”
“What's his chances on a flit?” Brade snapped.
"Any trains out to-night?”
"No." Tom was groaning dully. “Nothin' till ten
in the morning."
“Garages? In the village?”
“All closed. He'd have to break in a garage, steal
a car or- ”
Dr. Monery came slowly downstairs. Brade said:
“Look after the constable, doctor," and raced for
the door.
Calling to Jimmy to cover the east side of the
grounds, Brade took the west. He came back pant-
ing-sweat streaking his face, and without discover-
ing a trace of the fugitive. Jimmy stumbled up just
then to report similar lack of success.
Brade mopped his face, told the boy to go on with
the hunt for the book-end, then he, himself, went in
130


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"Nothing, Terry, only I may send for you."
"Wish to pat you would. I'm tired of"
The remainder of Terry's complainings were lost
in the whir of the wire as the connection was broken.
Brade stood up, rumpling his hair. Andrew Still-
well! The name was vaguely familiar and suggested
tremendous possibilities, but as he told Terry, he
couldn't tie onto one single fact definitely. He put
the matter from his mind and went back to the hall
from the library, whistling soundlessly.
Dr. Monery was just completing a neat white
bandage on the constable's head. Tom looked rather
sick and avoided Brade's glance. Brade paused,
grinning down at him.
"Don't take it too hard, old man," he said with
that consfderation which made his men worship him.
"We'll pick up the little grifter before daylight, then
we'll get something out of him. He'll get a stretch
for assaulting an officer, if nothing else. Leaving
us, Doctor?"
The doctor was placing his hat on his head with
great care. "My work is done for the present, Cap-
tain Brade," he said quietly. "I sincerely hope I
shall not be summoned to Willow Wilde again soon."
He went out, closing the door gently.
132


CHAPTER ELEVEN
"I—KILLED—THEM!"
DALLAS sat on the settle near the cold fire,
Anthony beside her. Brade lighted a smoke,
faced Gary. "Get Frosty's story?" he asked.
"Yeah, but I don't believe it. He claimed that he
thought Opal Garth was in danger because she knew
who bumped Keye and when she sneaked out of the
room, he went after her, but took a route through
the parlor there and up the servants' stairs."
"What'd he see, according to his own story?"
Tom pressed his throbbing head. "He says when
he was halfway up the stairs, he heard voices.
Thought they were women's. He started a sneak
then, goin' slow and easy. Then the voices got
louder. Opal was beggin' with someone not to kill
her. That slowed him up even more, he says. Then
he heard a shot and topped out in time to see Opal
fall and—" Tom paused, blinking owlishly at
Brade.
"The fellow claims that he saw Maybrick, the
housekeeper, streakin' across the hall from some-
where on the other side and duck into the linen
closet, then Miss Dallas appeared from somewhere
and we all got there. Sounds fishy to me. I'd sooner
133


DEAD HANDS REACHING
and been so happy. "She went to my house, was
waiting for me when I arrived"
"What did she want?" Brade asked. "Tell me as
clearly as you can."
Dallas stood motionless, slim shoulders taut. It
was hard to do what he asked, relate that beastly
conversation with Opal Garth, then she came over
and stood before him, looking up into his eyes with
her own that were dark with strain, but level and
strong just the same.
"I'll tell you what she wanted," she said, and went
over again the proposal Opal had made. It took
courage and poise to go through with it. Dallas was
inwardly quivering with shame, her hate and loath-
ing for the dead man and the dead woman who had
the power so to humiliate her.
Brade listened, not taking his eyes from her face.
'Stout fellow, Dallas Gantry,' he applauded in his
mind; 'take it standing. It isn't your fault that
Jurden Keye—was—what he was; that Opal Garth
was—Opal Garth. It isn't making us think any the
less of you, all this dirt. Anthony is loving you
more every moment. Look at his eyes. ..."
"That's all," Dallas finished quietly. "I sent her
away. I didn't see her again until the moment she
staggered in that window."
"Thanks," Brade said curtly. "Have a cigarette?"
He extended his case.
He had what he wanted for the moment. Proof
satisfying him, that Opal Garth, while she hugged
her own hidden schemes, would take time out to ruin
the woman she hated. Just as Maybrick. . . .
136


'I—KILLED—THEM!"
"How about Maybrick?" he inquired casually.
"She doesn't love you either, does she?"
Dallas smiled slightly. "I never realized before,
Captain Brade," she said, "how many enemies I had.
Maybrick has hated me since the hour I came into
this house. There was something almost interesting
about her dislike of me, that is, if I could have
reached a state of detachment sufficient to allow me
to enjoy it. As it was, it only made me miserable.
Why, I think," Dallas said slowly, eyes on the dead
fire, "that Maybrick would have killed me back in
those other days—I remember one time when I
sprained my ankle and the pain put me out for a
time, when I wakened to such agony as I hope never
to encounter again, she was—twisting my foot!
Standing there by the bed, bending those ligaments
and muscles that were so badly wrenched—that's
how much she hated me, to the point where it was
necessary to inflict physical pain."
"Dallas!" Anthony called sharply. "Stop it!
You're torturing yourself." He put an arm around
her, drew her beside him, angry eyes on Brade. "Is
this necessary, Court?" he demanded. "Can't she—
rest—now? It's going to be beastly to-morrow."
"I'm sorry," Brade said quietly. "Murder's—
murder."
"But Dallas didn't do it! Dallas couldn't"
Brade bowed gravely. "We shall hope that proof
is forthcoming to satisfy the law that she did not,"
he said.
Anthony stared at him blankly a moment, while
his mind struggled with the conviction that his
137


DEAD HANDS REACHING
friend, the man with whom he had played poker,
gone duck hunting, attended musical reviews, old
Court, jolly old cuss, actually thought, believed, that
Dallas was a—murderess.
"You're crazy," he said thickly. "I'd like to
smash your face for that! You ought to know"
Dallas interrupted him wearily. "Don't, Anthony.
Captain Brade isn't to blame."
He did not heed her. "You think, I suppose," he
cried passionately, "that because Maybrick said she
"Look here, Anthony," Brade cut in quietly, "let's
talk this over a bit. And I do wish you'd get it out
of your head that I'm a savage-minded devil ram-
paging round, seeking whom I may destroy. I don't
enjoy it. I don't like hunting—people down! I'm
just a human being like yourself. Damn it, man,"
he cried, suddenly angry, "someone's got to guard
you. Someone's got to look after—you—and by
you, I mean the public at large. You're like a bunch
of muddle-headed kids, getting yourselves tangled
up in one mess after another, running your heads
into danger, getting killed and wounded and"
He stopped with a slight shrug. It wasn't often
that Brade allowed himself the luxury of anger. He
said very quietly: "It's this way, Anthony. My job
is crime. Any man, if he's—decent, tries to do his
job as well as he can. Mine's different, in that when
I do it, someone's bound to be hurt.
"But I can't help it. If your mother, your sister,
your best friend—your—Dallas, suppose one of them
had been murdered? Wouldn't you want something
done about it? Wouldn't you be howling for blood?
I38


DEAD HANDS REACHING
Brade was studying her through the crisp black-
ness of his lashes.
"Jurden Keye was dead," he reminded her. "Opal
Garth—no one could interest him—then."
"No, but May brick's hate would go on. I know
her, I tell you. She'd kill—gladly"
"We're getting off the subject," he said. "Why,
exactly did you go upstairs?"
"I've told you. To find Faith MacFarlane, who is
a very dear friend, who, I heard, was ill."
"And you couldn't guess in which room she might
be resting? You had to go groping all over the place
trying to locate her. Here in your own home"
"My home!" she flung at him. "This isn't my
home. It never was my home. I haven't seen it for
fourteen years."
"You went up there because Opal Garth had gone.
You wanted to try and bribe her into silence. You
met her in the hall, when she wouldn't listen you
drew a gun"
"No. I never had a gun."
"You drew a gun, she snatched up a bronze book-
end, tried to strike you with it, then she lost her
nerve before that automatic, turned and ran and you
stopped her with a bullet. You raced back for that
room at the other side of the stairs, threw the book-
end from the window, hid the gun in a drawer"
"My God," Dallas gasped faintly, "you're mad.
Stark mad."
Brade was leaning toward her. His face was a
cold, bleak white. His eyes gleamed like polished
metal. His lips, tense and hard, were parted over
his strong white teeth.
140


CHAPTER TWELVE
"HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIE?"
INHERE are moments that rob individuals of
Brade's accusation of Dallas, on the crest of his
summing up the evidence against, that voice sounded
from the stairhead, the little group in the hall below
were paralyzed, mentally and physically. Even
Brade!
All his instincts were against considering Dallas
Gantry as the murderer of Jurden Keye and Opal
Garth. He didn't want to think that she was. Be-
cause she was a charming, beautiful woman, the
future wife of a very good friend of his, because
down underneath Courtney Brade had an Old-World
chivalry toward women and if his experience and
knowledge had permitted it, he would have liked to
think them all pure and stainless creatures, without
sin and without evil.
That was Brade, the man. Brade, the policeman,
knew perfectly well that a fair face and gentle man-
ners are no guarantee against crime. He knew that
slim white hands could pull a trigger, grasp a knife,
as efficiently, as savagely as any.
Mistaken loyalty, jealousy, hatred, fear of con-
sequence were swaying every individual in the Keye
murder case. The same intangible, devilish ring that

thought. When, on the peak of
142


"HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIET
sug-ounds and baffles the investigator in every mys-
tery. A vicious circle that sooner or later must be
broken to achieve results.
Did he, Courtney Brade, think beautiful Dallas
Gantry guilty of the killing?
That was beside the point. With the evidence in
hand she was the most likely suspect. Brade had
been keenly conscious of the furtive eyes of watchers,
surreptitious closing of doors, pad of guilty foot-
steps at almost every turn. His every move was
watched. The walls had ears.
His baiting of Dallas Gantry was not purposeless
cruelty. He believed that if he could beat through
her defenses, get her at bay, back to the wall, fight-
ing with primitive fury to save her own life, with
all barriers down, some furious sentence, some
heedless gesture of hers, or some nerve-fagged lis-
tener might point the finger or place his feet on the
right path. The ruse had worked. The circle had
cracked.
Faith MacFarlane was coming down the stairs!
She walked stiffly, head high, eyes wide. She was
deathly pale. There was no color anywhere about
her. The soft gray of her dress faded to neutrality,
burned out by the whiteness of herself. She rounded
the stairs, came over and stopped, standing a little
apart from them. She looked straight and hard at
Brade.
"This has gone far enough," she said clearly. "I
killed Jurden Keye! I killed Opal Garth! I am ready
to make full confession as to motive and method,
then I am prepared to take what comes."
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
Gregg MacFarlane stumbled down the stairs.
"Faith!" he cried brokenly. "Oh—Faith, what have
you done?"
She did not heed him. "I did not think, Captain
Brade," Faith went on, "that you would pick Dallas
as a suspect. I thought the crime would remain
unsolved. That no one would suffer. When I killed
Keye I had no notion that I would have to kill
again, that all these developments would arise. As
it is, I cannot stand by and see a woman I sincerely
love and admire, one who has the prospect of a long
happy life before her, suffer for my crime. Do you
wish to ask questions?"
Gradually they were coming to life, that little
frozen group of people there in the cold hall of
Willow Wilde. Tom Gary was leaning forward,
unbelieving eyes on Faith MacFarlane. He was
thinking that such a tiny fluff of a woman could
never have buried that knife in Jurden Keye's heart.
Jimmy Arnold was leaning weakly against the door,
eyes bulging. Anthony stood silent, unable to look
away from the woman who claimed murder. Dallas
had dropped to a chair. Her head was buried in her
hands. She rocked softly to and fro.
Brade was himself again, in full possession of his
faculties, recovered from the shock of the thing.
He put a foot carelessly on the railing in front of
the fireplace, rumpled his hair and said:
"Do you understand, Mrs. MacFarlane, that it is
not necessary for you to talk now? That you are
entitled to advice of counsel before"
"Oh, my God, yes," she cried in a suddenly fran-
144


'HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIET'
tic voice and her fluttering hand pressed hard round
her throat. "Don't—bother with—technicalities,
please, Captain Brade. I have killed. I am guilty.
Do you think I care—about counsel?"
He nodded briefly. "Very well," he said. "Tell
me about it. Why did you kill Jurden Keye?"
Her frozen white face came to life with a sudden
convulsive writhing. "Because he was a—beast!"
she said thickly. "He—had made life miserable for
me—ever since I first saw him. I couldn't escape
him. There was no way but to kill him."
"Why, specifically, did you come here to-night?"
She was silent a moment, and Brade got the feel-
ing that she was mentally collecting herself, arrang-
ing certain facts logically. She said at last: "Jurden
Keye sent me flowers two days ago. That, in itself,
may seem insignificant. It was not, considering what
Jurden Keye was. The implication he managed to
put into his gift was an insult. So yesterday after-
noon, uptown, in front of the bank, I met him. I
tried to tell him what I felt. He grasped my arm
and forced me to walk a ways with him. He said if
I would come to his house to-night and talk with
him a while that perhaps he would agree never to
annoy me again."
She paused, glance groping slowly over the faces
before her, avoiding her husband's, stopping on
Brade's. There was a queer veiled look in the detec-
tive's eyes which she could not fathom.
She went on. "It was a foolish thing to do. I
see that now. But I was so afraid—if matters went
on that—Gregg would do something—rash—so I
145


DEAD HANDS REACHING
came in by the French window as I had agreed. We
were talking there in the alcove, when Dallas entered
the room. He let me out the window~I waited on
the balcony. I heard what he said to Dallas, and I
thought of all the evil this man had caused. Of
how-unspeakably wicked he was—and something
grew hot and searing inside me, told me to kill "
Her voice died away. There was no sound ex-
cept the creeping wind outside, the sob of Gregg
MacFarlane's labored breathing, then Faith went
on:
"And when Dallas left I had come back into the
alcove, was peering through the curtains and I saw
her go, I stepped into the room, confronted Jurden
Keye and told him what I thought of him. I think
he knew I would kill him, for he kept opening and
closing his lips without saying anything, then he
turned and I saw the knife-and-I only remember
my fingers closing round the hilt--and the swing I
gave when I struck him "
She lifted one hand, pushed the soft hair off her
forehead. “That is all, I guess," she said wearily.
“I went home and got into bed. Gregg came and told
me that Keye was dead and that Dallas was accused
of the crime. Then I began to realize what I had
done, that not only Dallas but my_husband-might
be suspected "
"And Opal Garth ?" Brade asked. “What about
her?”
Faith started and her eyes flared wide. "I-don't
know—” she gasped. “I guess I think—she must
have been there—somewhere she came upstairs and
146


"HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIE?”
told me she had seen me commit the crime—and so
I killed her-
"You didn't see the girl when you left by the
French window after stabbing Keye?”
"I don't-know—I don't remember. No—I didn't
see-her-
Gregg MacFarlane placed his hands on his wife's
shoulders and gently but firmly lifted her aside.
“Stay there,” he said without looking at her, then
he stepped before Brade.
“Captain Brade," he said, "I have often read that
murderers return to the scene of their crimes and I
have never believed it. I thought if I killed a man I
would never come back, but I have found that I was
wrong. To-night I stabbed Jurden Keye because of
certain—things—which he said about my wife in
an interview I had with him—then I went out the
French window and got safely away, but I could not
remain away. I came back to the front of the house
and entered the hall "
"It isn't true,” Dallas cried suddenly as if it were
impossible for her to keep silent longer. “You're
mad, Gregg, you couldn't have done it any more
than Faith. You forget that I was in that room,
that I had not been gone more than five minutes
before Opal Garth screamed ”.
Gregg smiled. “I was behind the curtains in the
alcove, Dallas,” he said. “What my wife has told
is, of course, ridiculous and is prompted by her
unstrung nerves and her desire to save you, my
dear. She did not come to this house to-night until
I brought her here after Captain Brade's arrival.
147


DEAD HANDS REACHING
She was home and in bed and I can prove it. I was
the one who came to Willow Wilde and I came to
smash Jurden Keye to bits. We quarreled, of course.
I had stepped into the alcove preparatory to leaving
and he followed me. Dallas came and I went out
the French door, but I did not close it. When she
left I came back in, picked up the knife which was
lying on the table and killed him."
"Did you also shoot Opal Garth?" Brade inquired
politely. "If I remember correctly, you were with
me in the morning room at the time."
Gregg's eyes narrowed. "No," he said. "I did not
kill Opal Garth any more than my wife did. I be-
lieve Maybrick killed her. I saw the housekeeper
bending over her body when I came up the stairs. She
still held the gun. She did not see me and she ran
for the linen closet. I've kept still about it because
I realize we've all been under a terrible strain here
and under those circumstances one has delusions,
sees things crookedly. I thought there might be
some logical explanation for Maybrick's movements.
But I'm convinced I was wrong. My wife said she
killed Opal Garth, but she did not tell a very good
story."
Dallas began laughing. The sound was low, quiet,
almost gentle. She sat there with her hands clenched
tightly in the folds of her skirt, not looking at any
one, and laughed. There was something rather ter-
rible about it and Anthony dropped beside her,
caught her hands, shook her roughly.
"Dallas," he cried. "Dallas! Stop it! Dallas,
what ails you?"
148


'HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIE?"
"It's so—horrible," she choked, still laughing. "I
never knew anything could be so—horrible. May-
brick says / killed Jurden. Opal said / killed him.
Faith says she killed him. And now—Gregg. Oh,
we couldn't all have done it. How many times can
a man be murdered? You ought to know that, Cap-
tain Brade? How many times can a man die"
Brade said sharply: "Take her upstairs, Anthony.
Get Maybrick to put her to bed. Go! At once!"
Anthony lifted Dallas, unresisting, and led her to
the stairs.
Brade said to Tom Gary: "Better get along, con-
stable, and see if any word has come in about Frosty
Rivet. Then get some rest. I'm going to need you
to-morrow. Jimmy—" he frowned at the wide-eyed
boy.
"I'm not a bit tired, Captain Brade," Jimmy said
hopefully. "Couldn't I"
"Yes," Brade decided. "You stay here. Go into
the library and wait until I call you."
When they had all left and there was only Faith
MacFarlane, Gregg and himself, Brade drew up a
chair, tossed wood into the fireplace, thoughtfully
tore a paper to bits and lighted a match. "That will
be better," he said conversationally. "It's getting
cold in here."
Faith MacFarlane was sitting on the divan.
Gregg stood beside her. Brade glanced up at them
obliquely, smiling slightly. "It's awfully decent of
you two," he said, "to try and settle this matter so
early in the game, but I'm sorry you couldn't have
thought up better stories. If you had gone into con-
149


DEAD HANDS REACHING
ference on the subject, decided which one was to be
sacrificed and thus avoided conflict, it would have
been better."
Faith gasped faintly. "I have told you the truth,"
she said slowly.
Brade lighted a cigarette. "What did you hope to
gain by coming to see Keye to-night? You say you
were afraid your husband would do something rash
if Keye's attentions to you continued. How could
the situation have been bettered, if MacFarlane had
learned of your visit?"
Faith shook her head. "I can see I was mad," she
said faintly. "Looking back, it is all clear to me.
But then—then it seemed different, Captain Brade."
"And, knowing that your husband resented Keye's
interest in you, you further risked trouble by con-
senting to visit Keye surreptitiously, entering that
room through the window?"
"Yes, yes, I can see it now, but not then. I
thought"
"This is absurd," Gregg MacFarlane said harshly.
"I killed Keye and I had a good motive. Faith is
merely trying to"
Brade lifted a hand. "We aren't getting any
place," he said. "MacFarlane, take your wife up-
stairs and see that she gets some rest. I'll talk to
you to-morrow."
He waited quietly by the fire until they had gone,
then he crossed over to the library where Jimmy
Arnold waited. Jimmy was round-eyed with inter-
est.
"Gosh, Captain Brade," he gasped, "think of Mis'
MacFarlane doin' all that. Such a little thing"
IS©


'HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIE?"
"This book-end," Brade interrupted. "Bring your
flashlight and show me where it is."
They went out into the windy dawn where light
clouds scudded across a cold gray sky. Willow Wilde
looked grim and bleak in its park of leafless trees,
with its high turrets, its blind windows, its air of
desolation and mystery.
"Here it is, sir," Jimmy said in a hoarse whisper
and shot his flash on a sodden patch of withered
grass. Brade took the flash and knelt down. The
book-end lay just at the edge of a clump of bushes.
Its sharp base was buried a good half inch in the
damp, soft soil. He studied it a moment, then he
stood up and his eyes went in a slow appraisal over
the front of the house.
"That window," he asked, pointing, "that is the
room where you found the gun?"
"Yes, sir. And the room where Miss Dallas"
"Wait a minute, Jimmy. Let me think this over
a bit." Absently he lighted a cigarette without taking
his eyes from the broad expanse of the house. Back
and forth his sharp glance went, measuring, calcu-
lating, judging, then at last he said, without looking
at the boy beside him:
"Almost a direct line—almost direct." He walked
forward a dozen paces, stood frowning up at the
window, glancing back at the piece of bronze. "Al-
most direct," he repeated. "At the same time it
could have come from any one of three or four win-
dows. Jimmy," he said abruptly, "I want you to stick
around out here and watch that thing, see that it is
not touched until I can get a photographer. Up to
it?"
151


"HOW MANY TIMES CAN A MAN DIE?"
Jimmy pulled his left ear till it was very red. "She
didn't do it," he declared explosively. "I knew she
never done it. She's sayin' she done it just to save
Miss Dallas and Mr. MacFarlane says he done it
to save his wife"
"Also," Brade interrupted, still speaking very
slowly, as if he were carefully considering his words,
"Mrs. MacFarlane's story is obviously false on the
face of it. She says that after Dallas left she stood
across the desk and told Keye what she thought of
him, then she grabbed up the knife and stabbed him.
That is false, Jimmy," Brade said, "because Jurden
Keye did not die from the blow of that knife! He
died from a bullet and I think we will find that it
came from that open window behind him—so who-
ever plunged the knife into his heart, buried it in a
body already dead!"
He left Jimmy too overwhelmed to speak, and as
he slowly retraced his steps toward the door he re-
flected grimly that Dallas Gantry had guessed better
than she knew when she said Jurden Keye had been
murdered twice.
153


CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DALLAS RUNS AWAY
THE double killings at Willow Wilde touched a
spark to a powder train and literally set the
community on fire. It was odd, Brade reflected, how
death loosens tongues. Sometimes to mouth ful-
some praise of the departed; again to shrill hate and
slander. And so it was in Willow Valley, as if those
who talked realized the subject of their tirades was
gone beyond the power to retaliate. Brade wondered
rather grimly how quickly the ugly chatter would
change to cringing flattery if gaunt, evil old Jurden
Keye could suddenly come to life and face his
traducers.
But the detective, trained in unpleasantness, kept
silent and let the town talk. Perhaps out of the muck
he would pick up something. Some neglected thread
that, when carefully drawn from the ugly tangle,
would lead the way to the solution of the crime to
which two persons had already confessed.
Brade kept those confessions to himself. Swarms
of newspaper men and women descended on the quiet
little town,engaged the best rooms at the Inn,reveling
in the fact that the proprietor of the hostelry and his
wife were already involved in the mystery. The de-
tective met them, talked to them, made general state-
154


DALLAS RUNS AWAY
ments, sent them away as nearly satisfied as a re-
porter can ever be. The business at Willow Wilde
intrigued the press as it interested the country. There
had been, one enterprising city editor decided, en-
tirely too many urban crimes. People were fed up
on gang fights, murders following hold-ups which
came as the result of the depression. They were also
rather tired of love-nest exposes and the killing
of a night-life queen by any one of her myriad
admirers; accounts accompanied by photos of her
over-furnished boudoir had also ceased to boost
circulation.
What the public wanted, the press decided, was a
nice, wholesome murder in a rural setting, some-
thing with a largish dash of mystery, of course, a
bit of romantic background, one or two good-looking
principals to photograph, a picture of the village
church where the deceased had helped trim the Christ-
mas tree and attended box socials, a hint of scandal,
a bit of naughtiness, that, indeed, was the ideal
recipe just now. And in the murders at Willow
Wilde, they had it with a vengeance, along with the
added lure of a nationally famous actress, one about
whom, up to this time, no hint of luridness had been
attached, and the man she hoped to marry, wealthy,
socially prominent, famous for his speed-boat record,
noted for his racing stables—Anthony Gordon, in
short, than whom there could have been nobody
better.
So the press sharpened its pencils, pinned back its
ears and went to it. Amateur detectives appeared as
if by magic with demands to be allowed to solve the
155


DALLAS RUNS AWAY
It had been a day of unmitigated horror for Dallas.
Even Anthony's presence, his unfailing good humor,
his quiet optimism could not dispel the clouds for
her. Brade had kept them all at Willow Wilde.
Loathing it as she did, Dallas was almost grateful
for its protection, for the shelter of Brade's tight-
lipped personality, the seeming ease with which he
dealt with reporters and the horde of curious that
besieged the place, yammering for a sight of the
inmates.
So she had remained pretty much in her room,
slumped down in a chair before the fire, lost in her
own unhappy thought, tortured by the seemingly un-
solvable mystery around her, filled with a shivering
dread of something lurking in the background to
destroy her. In the hours of that long day of agony,
Dallas had come very much to doubt the possible con-
summation of her happiness. Then, about five
o'clock, she could stand it no longer.
She had started up, jerked on her coat and hat,
scribbled a note to Brade and, watching her chance,
escaped from the house by the side door, slipped
across the dreary sodden grounds and out into the
road. Perhaps, she considered, as she slowed her
steps somewhat, if she had gone to Brade, explained
how she felt and asked permission to take a walk, he
would have permitted it. But she had not dared put
it to the test. She was really very much afraid of
Brade.
As twilight deepened and chances of recognition
lessened, she slowed to a leisurely walk, breathing
157


DEAD HANDS REACHING
deeply of the clear, cold air, heavy with threat of
snow, filled with the indefinable hint of approaching
winter.
Gradually a degree of normalcy returned to her.
The tight lines around her mouth relaxed. A dash of
color warmed her white cheeks. She lifted her head,
let her eyes wander over the familiar scenes and a
dreary pleasure came to her. She was walking along t
the winding road that led toward the old school-
house which, as a child, she had attended. There
were many familiar landmarks for her. Houses of
old friends in which now she would be a stranger.
The bridge, over the small riotous stream, where she
and little Polly Martin used to play at exploring. On
past the house that mad Willoughby Crane had built,
where his mad mother had put in the last years of
her life, carving the woodwork into intricate, beauti-
ful designs. To the small Dallas it had always seemed
a fairy palace set on a hill. A place of romance and
mystery, terribly alluring, yet banded round with a
wall of fear which kept her out. Now she saw it as
a rather small, entirely shabby story and a half dwell-
ing of dingy white with green shutters. The grounds,
which had seemed so magnificent, were just a lumpy
expanse of bare black soil. The trees looked dwarfed,
insignificant. There was a feeble light in the uncur-
tained window and she saw numerous small heads
bent over something on the table. Dreary. Common-
place. Ordinary.
She climbed the slight rise and turned west. At
the end of the street lay open country and the gentle
hump of Elder's Hill which she knew now was just
1
158


DALLAS RUNS AWAY
a mound and not a mountain. Her thoughts, which
had been ranging far afield, returned to the imme-
diate present with a disagreeable jolt. Someone was
following her! She quickened her steps, her heart
making an uncomfortable thumping in her side, then
she decided she was foolish and slowed. Who would
follow her? And why? If it was Brade, who had
discovered her truancy and set out after her, he
would just call to her, tell her she must come
back. . . .
She glanced over her shoulder. A dark figure was
just emerging from the lane of maples before the
old Stearns place. A man, hands shoved in the
pockets of his long raincoat, hat pulled low, head
bowed. But the sight did not reassure her. Some-
how she knew that the man walking behind her was
not a native of Willow Valley. There was to her
sharpened senses a certainty of the city about him.
She drew her coat closer and walked faster. The
unrelenting steps behind quickened.
Dallas, lashed now by a strange terror, hurried on
past the last house on the street and felt the damp
soil of the open road beneath her feet. Too late she
realized that this was a mistake. She should have
crossed the street—gone back along—
"Pardon me, please."
She jerked up at the low, unpleasant voice, turned.
The man had caught up with her. He was breath-
ing unevenly and there were spots of color in his
thin, white cheeks. He had narrow, slanted, light-
colored eyes that regarded her boldly through sandy
lashes. He wore a pale gray hat! It was the man
159


DEAD HANDS REACHING
who had come in on the train with her! The man
for whom the entire country was looking. . . .
"Oh!" Dallas gasped faintly. "What do you
want?"
She was regarding him with wide, fear-filled eyes.
Looking back, she remembered the terror that had
gripped her there in the coach as the train approached
the station. This man had been part of it. He had
somehow managed to permeate her thoughts, insert
his personality into her consciousness. She thought
now, staring at him, tense with a panic she could
scarcely control, that this man with his thin, knowing
smile, his pale, unreadable eyes, held in his hand the
solution of the murders at Willow Wilde!
"What do you want?" she whispered again through
dry lips.
He stepped close to her, slipped a hand round her
arm, held her with a tight, cruel grip, still smiling
at her.
"Just to talk to you," he said. "I've had a lot of
trouble finding you alone. I was up at the place half
an hour ago. I saw you leave. I followed. I merely
want you to walk a little distance with me. I have
something I wish to discuss with you. Believe me,
it is to our mutual benefit."
And Dallas, suddenly powerless in his grasp, felt
herself propelled gently along the wet, lonesome road,
away from the town, from Anthony, from Brade and
the law he represented, out into a void of nameless
terror, from which there seemed no returning.
160


CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE GRAY ENVELOPE
"DRADE was whistling softly beneath his breath.
He was bare-headed and the rising wind of
evening lifted his heavy gray-stained hair. He was
on his knees on the wet ground, hunched down over
the well-defined imprint of a shoe in the soft soil
beneath the window of the parlor at Willow Wilde.
"Give me the flash, Jimmy," he directed his young
assistant.
He began whistling again, while he measured, cal-
culated, studied the track. "A man stood here," he
said at last. "Stood here last night. It rained a bit
just after daylight, you recall, Jimmy. It's been
cloudy all day. The track is very wet."
He lifted his head, frowning at the window which
was open about six inches. Then he stood up and,
carefully avoiding the track, peered into the room.
A grim satisfaction settled around his lips.
"If you were in that chair, Jimmy," he said, "and
I should stand here and fire a bullet"
"Oh, Captain Brade," Jimmy breathed, "you'd kill
me.
"You said it, kid. I sure would. Plenty. If you
were seated before the desk, back to this window, the
bullet would hit you about here." He whirled the
161


DEAD HANDS REACHING
boy round and jabbed a long, strong forefinger at a
spot just under his left shoulder blade. "There's
where it would land, Jimmy, and if it were a small
bullet it would not make much of a hole where it
went in, there wouldn't be a great deal of blood right
there, and you, my son, would pitch forward on your
more or less handsome face across that desk"
"Gosh, Captain Brade," Jimmy said, "you mean
that's the way Mr. Keye was killed, really?"
Brade looked at the boy and nodded soberly. "I
know it, Jimmy," he said. "The bullet got him first.
The knife wound did not bleed. It was dim in that
room, you will remember. Tom Gary did not make
any extensive examination of the body when he
arrived. Keye was dead! There was a knife in his
back. Wasn't that enough? Fact is," Brade ad-
mitted frankly, "I didn't get it myself at first. Of
course, a strong light showed it up, but I kept still
and let the doctor make his own deductions. Now
what we've got to find out"
He frowned, rumpling his hair. "The window
was open," he said, "I recall the draft. I wonder if
Keye opened it himself or if—" He turned back
toward the side door. "Dallas might be able to tell
me," he said. "Let's find her, Jimmy."
He went into the house, which was unspeakably
dreary and chill. The great high-ceilinged rooms
seemed continually filled with a faint gray mist that
was part of the growing night outside and even
more a part of the shadow of death that hung over
the place.
He met Maybrick coming toward him along the
162


THE GRAY ENVELOPE
hall. The housekeeper had grown taciturn and sullen.
She accepted the extra duties thrust upon her by the
augmented household without complaint, merely
brought in a girl to help her, but she marched
through the house in dignified, angry silence, and
there was continually, in her small bright eyes, a
hint of knowledge and triumph that annoyed Brade.
Just now she was smiling and her full face was
deeply flushed. She was going on past him without a
word, but he stopped her.
She stood there, glaring up at him and her heavy
bosom rose and fell spasmodically. Sweat gleamed
on her upper lip. Her thick fingers worked at the
folds of her skirt.
"Where have you been, Mrs. Maybrick?" Brade
demanded. "I wanted you half an hour ago and you
were no place in the house."
She glanced at him sullenly under lowered lids. "I
got a right to attend to my duties, ain't I?" she
countered. "I went to the village for shopping. You
can't keep me prisoner"
"I can slap you in a cell and then we'll see how
much shopping you do," Brade told her sharply,
annoyed that he could not conceal his dislike and
suspicion of this fat, stubborn old woman who really
played such a small part in the scheme of things.
"Where's Miss Gantry?" he asked.
Maybrick's eyes shifted. She wet her lips. "How
would I know?" she mumbled. "I ain't seen her since
morning. Mooning around in her room, I suppose,
or—" she looked at him slyly, grinning.
"Yes, or what?"
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
"Or else she's gone," Maybrick said. "I wouldn't
put it above her to sneak out on you, sir, seein' as
she's already killed two people and"
He turned angrily and ran up the stairs toward
Dallas Gantry's room. Jimmy tagged dutifully at
his heels. Brade tapped, received no answer, tried
again, then opened the door. The room was warm
and held a faint elusive fragrance of sandalwood. A
chair was pushed back before the fire as if someone
had risen suddenly.
Then he saw Dallas' brown dress hooked over a
chair, her slim high-heeled pumps beside it. A closet
door was open. There were two empty coat hangers.
Dallas had had her trunks brought to Willow Wilde.
He paused, frowning at the room and a pucker of
perplexity grew between his eyes. That fat, old
woman hated Dallas. She would suggest that she
had run away. Brade didn't pick Dallas Gantry as
the sort to run away from anything—but just the
same—where was she?
Downstairs, Maybrick stood immobile until the
detective's steps had died away. Then she began
chuckling softly and evilly to herself and, stepping
into a corner of the dim hall, she drew a slim gray
envelope from her pocket, opened it and extracted a
single folded piece of paper. It said:
"Captain Brade:
"Don't think I'm running out on you. I just
can't stand the house any more and I'm afraid
you wouldn't let me go for the walk I simply
must have.
"I'm going down the old Mill road through
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
her life and she doubted if Jurden Keye had remem-
bered her in his will. She faced a dreary prospect of
old age with only her meager savings between her
and actual want. If she could turn an honest penny,
so much the better. She smoothed her apron, put
back a strand of gray hair and defiantly mounted
the stairs.
166


CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BENEATH THE BALCONY
T T took Brade some little time to believe that Dallas
Gantry really was missing. A careful search had
disclosed that she certainly was not in the house.
Anthony glanced over the closet and said that her
mink coat was missing, also the little brown hat with
the orange feather which she usually wore with it
Brade kept calm and decided she had gone out for
a bit of air and would soon return. He told An-
thony not to worry, that Dallas would be back
shortly.
The MacFarlanes were downstairs in the library.
Faith was lying on a divan and Gregg was reading
to her. Brade dropped in on them and temporarily
forgot his search for Dallas Gantry. He stopped
abruptly in the center of the room and for once his
remarkable control was completely shattered. His
eyes opened wide, his lips sagged. He said hoarsely:
"For God's sake, MacFarlane, what's hit you?"
Gregg MacFarlane laid down the book, looked
straight at the detective and smiled. He looked as if
he had slipped down into hell and come back for a
brief respite. Brade thought even his hair was whiter.
His lean, dark face was wounded by searing lines.
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
sky. A fine mist was already falling. It would be
snow in an hour, Brade thought.
He stood there a time, glowering out into the dark-
ness. He was angry and disturbed. His usual cool
mastery of people and events seemed missing in this
case. He told himself disgustedly that that was be-
cause he had allowed the personal element to creep
in. Because he liked Anthony Gordon a lot, because
he sincerely admired Dallas Gantry, was intensely in-
terested in the MacFarlanes, because he thought with
all honesty that Jurden Keye had been an unspeak-
able cad and that Opal Garth. . . .
He turned savagely, ramming his hands into
pockets and went back into the house. This wasn't
any way to solve the mystery. By getting interested
in the principals in the case. Brade knew that to his
bitter satisfaction.
There had been one other time, a great many years
ago, when Courtney Brade had allowed his emotions
to interfere with the performance of his duty—for
a time. In the end he had won out and his allegiance
to the uniform he wore had remained unbroken, but
he had paid a price and would continue to pay as long
as he lived or thought or felt.
He paused in the dim light of the hall at Willow
Wilde and let his somber, tired eyes rest on the
cloudy beauty of the moonstone on his third finger.
That ring was the tangible evidence of his defeat and
his victory. It was never absent from his finger.
There were times when, like this, he felt his very
human emotions involved, that he took time out to
170


BENEATH THE BALCONY
stare at the ring, to remember that night in Italy, on
the shore of moon-white Lake Como, when to snap
the bright steel of handcuffs on a pair of slim, appeal-
ing wrists threatened to call for more strength than
he had. . . .
Dallas Gantry had been gone almost three hours!
One of two things had happened. She had deliber-
ately cut and run or something very serious had hap-
pened to her. Brade picked up the telephone, set it
down at sound of a light step behind him.
He turned to see a plump, red-cheeked girl in a gay
pink gingham dress, which lent a note of unaccus-
tomed brightness to the dim old hall, staring at him.
Her eyes were very wide and bright, and she twisted
one foot uncomfortably.
"All right," Brade said impatiently. "What is it,
my girl? You want to see me?"
She nodded diffidently. "Jimmy, he told me—that
Miss Gantry was gone," the girl said very low.
"Yes, she is. You're the youngster who came in to
help the housekeeper, aren't you? Minnie Lee, isn't
that your name? Do you know anything about Miss
Gantry?"
"I came in to help Mis' Maybrick and my name's
Minnie Lee," the girl answered dutifully and chrono-
logically. "I don't know anything really about Miss
Gantry and if Mis' Maybrick finds out I told you that
she burned the letter"
"What letter?" Brade's voice snapped.
Minnie Lee backed hurriedly. "Why, a letter that
Miss Gantry left for you, sir, there on that table
171


DEAD HANDS REACHING
there. I was coming downstairs and I saw her put the
letter there. She had on her hat and coat and she
went out through the library and"
"Well, where is the letter? How do you know it
was for me?"
"Because I—looked," Minnie Lee confessed
guiltily. "I came right on down and as I went by
I looked and your name was on it. And later I saw
Mis' Maybrick put it in the kitchen stove."
"The devil you did! When was this?"
"About half-past six, I think. She had come in
from her shopping, told me about making biscuits,
then she went upstairs to see about changin' the linen
and when she come back she went right over past me,
fooled with the dampers on the stove a bit, then lifted
the lid and laid the letter on the coals. I was standin'
by the table and I could see right over her shoulder
and I saw your name on the envelope just as plain
as plain"
"All right, Minnie Lee," Brade said grimly.
"That's a good girl. Don't say anything about this
to Mrs. Maybrick. Where is she, by the way?"
The girl shook her head. "She took Mrs. Mac-
Farlane's tea upstairs a while ago. I ain't seen her
since."
Brade took the stairs in half a dozen strides. He
was white-hot mad and there was a dangerous glint
in his eyes. From now on the housekeeper at Willow
Wilde was going to get a taste of real police routine.
She had stalked her sullen way through the tragedy,
confusing the issue by lying and trickery and she had
forged the final link in her chain with the destruction
172


DEAD HANDS REACHING
opening and closing without forming words. Brade
sensed Faith behind him, clinging hard to the ban-
nister. Vaguely he wondered where Anthony and
Gregg MacFarlane were, then Jimmy said in a
broken, choked voice:
"It's her, sir! I stumbled over the body. She's
dead! I found her
Brade leaped the bannister, landed beside the boy,
seized his shaking shoulder. “Who?” he cried
hoarsely. “Who are you talking about? Whose
body?”
Faith gasped faintly. “Dallas !" she sobbed. "It's
-Dallas !”
"No," Jimmy Arnold stuttered, "no-not Dallas!
It's Maybrick! Mis’ Maybrick! She's lyin' out there
under the balcony. She must'a' fell off-she's—
dead ”
And, as Brade followed the boy out the door and
bent over the crushed and broken body of the house-
keeper of Willow Wilde, the one thought that re-
mained clearly in his mind was that with her had
died the knowledge of what Dallas Gantry had
written before she disappeared.
174


CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE SHACK ON ELDER'S HILL
DALLAS leaned back against the stiff, uncom-
fortable chair and closed her eyes. She was
shivering with cold and fear, and the bonds that held
her wrists cut deeply. Her hat was gone but she still
wore her fur coat.
She remained like that for a time, eyes closed, body
tense, mind alert with a terrible clarity. Slowly,
carefully, she went over the events that led up to
her finding herself a prisoner in the old deserted
shack on the shoulder of Elder's Hill.
She had run away from Willow Wilde. From
Anthony and Brade, and the fear of death that hung
over the house. She had only intended to take a swift,
bracing turn and come back and she had left a note
addressed to Captain Brade, in plain sight on the
hall table, where he would find it and know that she
was not running out on him.
Then she had discovered that someone was follow-
ing her and the man in the gray hat had seized her
arm. Dallas moaned and twisted her head frantically
from side to side. That horrible man! His pale face,
his narrow white eyes, his terrible fingers on her arm,
that moment when he had paused and confronted her
175


DEAD HANDS REACHING
there at the entrance to the old lane, when he had
said:
"I know who murdered Jurden Keye and Opal
Garth! I can prove it and save you, get you off clear,
straighten out the whole mess and I will do it if you
will pay me twenty thousand dollars!"
Dallas opened her eyes, stared dully around her.
Why was she here? Did he mean to kill her? Why
hadn't he done it before? Where was he now? She
was alone in the shack, there was a candle guttering
in a rusty tin sconce on the far wall. The place was
unspeakably ugly. There were cracks in the boards
and the whistling wind sucked hungrily at the tiny
flickering flame, even pushing the sconce out from its
hanging, setting it to swinging gently.
The candle did not illuminate the entire room.
The far corner was in thick shadow. She thought
there was a bunk there. She could just make out
the ragged end of what looked like bedding. There
were some empty food cans tossed to the floor. A
battered pan sat on its neat little frame above a can
of solidified alcohol. Someone had been living here,
cooking and sleeping.
Dallas' mind went back to the lane and the words
of Samuel Fredricks. 'Twenty thousand dollars,'
she seemed to hear him say again. 'It's cheap, Miss
Gantry, to get you free from all this mess. I know
you've got it and plenty more. If you haven't Gor-
don will help you and you'll come in for old Keye's
estate'
That was the way it had gone on while he stood
there holding tight to her arms, and her terror grew
176


THE SHACK ON ELDER'S HILL
huddled down with his arms behind him. His feet
were bound with ropes. There was something eerie
about his appearances and vanishings, as if he were
a weird jack-in-the-box, popping out unexpectedly.
His eyes were terribly bright. They glittered like
the eyes of a cornered animal. A rat! Yes, Frosty
Rivet made her think of a rat she had once seen
caught in a trap.
"How do you know," she repeated, "that Jurden
Keye was shot?”
“Never mind," he replied huskily. "I know. But
don't let's talk about that. “How we gonna get
out?”
"I don't know. Where has this man–Leo-
gone?”
The bright, restless eyes avoided her. "I dunno,"
he said. "He's cookin' up somethin'. He brought you
in, dumped you in that there chair and tied you up,
then he went out. I dunno where he went. Won't
be gone long. He left that candle "
The eyes of the two prisoners involuntarily went
to the candle. "Geeze," Frosty husked, "it's gettin'
low, ain't it? Be dark in here pretty soon."
"I'd rather it would be dark than have it blow like
that. It's dangerous suppose it- "
She stopped on a faint gasp. The cheap little tin
container banged merrily against the wall, the rusty
jail which supported it slipped from its ancient moor-
ings and the whole thing clattered to the floor! For
a moment Dallas thought the flame had been ex-
tinguished, then in the sudden darkness a little red
tongue licked hungrily at an oiled bread paper, de-
179


DEAD HANDS REACHING
voured it, flickered, died down, leaped up at a sudden
gust of wind, and laid hold of a piece of greasy-look-
ing cloth against the leg of the table.
"Geeze!" Frosty whispered. "It's climbin'. Can
you put it out"
Dallas was writhing against the ropes that held her
to the chair. "I can't get them loose, can't you—
reach it?"
The man was cursing between set teeth. Sweat
stood on his livid face. His eyes grew brighter as
they watched the creeping flame. He surged against
whatever it was that held him locked to a heavy
wooden stanchion of the shack.
"Tip your chair over," he choked. "Fall on the
floor—mebbe you can—get to it"
Dallas' feet were tied to the lower rungs of the
chair which was a heavy crude thing, handmade of
stout oak. Her arms were drawn backward and
fastened behind the chair back.
For all her desperate struggling, she could not
move the thing. There was no purchase anywhere.
Nothing she could touch, catch hold of. She closed
her eyes a moment, breathing in great gasping
breaths of the air that was already getting hot. She
could hear Frosty Rivet floundering around like—
the tortured rat she had seen in the trap.
She rested there quietly, not thinking of this thing
that had happened to her. Not looking into the im-
mediate future. It all seemed so foolish and futile to
her. She was an individual. A personality. She had
mind and body, touch and smell and sight. Why
180


DEAD HANDS REACHING
She had gone into the old parlor, leaned against
the door, staring at the room, remembering terribly.
There had been no one there, at first, so she had
thought, then that stirring in the alcove, Jurden
Keye's voice saying:
'There's one way out for you, my dear. I can fix
everything'
Fix—everything? Fix what? What could he fix
for anyone? Who was he talking to? Who stood
beside him there in the alcove before the French
windows? There had been no voice but his, or had
there? Had someone said something, gasped a name
—had she, Dallas, caught that tone, buried it in her
subconscious until this moment, when pain and a
terror that had ceased to lash her brought it out?
Was the voice she heard that of. . . .
A lusty hail sounded outside! Something crashed
against the door. It swung in, and with it came a
sweeping breath of wind that sent the flames leaping
ceilingward in a driving sheet. Dallas saw a man
stagger back, caught the black outline of him as he
crouched there, one arm crooked over his face, then
he came on, he fought through, calling her name over
and over:
"Dallas! Dallas! Where are you?"
She had no consciousness of answering but she
must have, for presently she felt hands groping at
the bonds around her ankles, she heard sobbing, pant-
ing breath, then someone seized the back of the heavy
chair, jerked it round and started dragging it back-
ward toward the door.
When the blessed air struck her face, she looked up
182


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SHATTERED CRYSTAL
APTAIN COURTNEY BRADE straightened
held Jimmy Arnold's flashlight in a steady hand and
he was playing it carefully over the front of the
house and the ground around the woman's body.
Then he sent it up, creeping over the turreted win-
dows, the scaling paint, coming to rest, finally, on
the bulging roundness of a small, railed balcony
protruding from the house between the second and
third stories.
"What is that?" he asked Jimmy.
"It's the Look-Out spot," Jimmy said breathlessly.
"You go up a short stairway from the second floor,
and a door opens onto the balcony. You can see all
over the country"
"Poor soul, poor soul," Faith MacFarlane was
murmuring over and over as she bent beside May-
brick's body. "How could it have happened? Why
did she go out there? As long as she has lived at
Willow Wilde . . . that she should fall from the
balcony"
"When she left you," Brade asked, "she was
normal? Nothing out of the ordinary happen to
upset her as far as you knew?"

Maybrick. He
184


DEAD HANDS REACHING
light grew in his eyes. He glanced up at the balcony,
at the body of the dead woman and in his mind there
grew a reconstruction of the scene that might have
taken place there on the balcony in the still of the
chilly autumn evening.
Maybrick standing there with someone. Talking.
Arguing. Deaf to entreaties. Quarreling finally.
Nerves strained to the breaking point, guiding sud-
denly tense clawing fingers to grapple with the
woman, to clutch at her thick body, to push her
nearer and nearer the edge, bend her back over the
railing, her cries lost in the soughing wind and the
choking grasp that strong fingers held on her throat.
Then, as she felt herself bent farther and farther,
felt her feet slipping from the floor of the balcony,
her own hands out-curled, claw-like, searching madly
for support, for something that would save her from
certain death on the wet, slippery red clay below,
clutching at her assailant's arms, slipping down, fas-
tening at last on a wrist, hooking into the stout
leather of a strap, holding, tightening, breaking it
at last as she plunged over, taking with her the shat-
tered proof of her murderer's identity.
Brade stood up. "Bring something to cover the
body, Jimmy," he said quietly, though his lips were
white. "Then phone Dr. Monery. I'll be busy in the
morning room for a while."
He went quickly toward the house, carrying the
watch in his hand. In the hall he met Anthony Gor-
don. He looked pale and worried.
"I say, Court," he began, "can't we do some-
thing?"
186


THE MARKS ON THE KNIFE
Wyche set his thin lips and glared at Brade. His
soft gray hat was gone, his expensive suit was rum-
pled by the rough handling he had received. There
was a long bloody scratch across his cheek where a
branch had torn it.
Tom Gary spoke suddenly. "There's been trouble
out on Elder's Hill, Brade. That's what I was
comin' to tell you. The old hunting shack out there
took fire. Dallas Gantry and that man called Alden
were prisoners in it."
Brade whirled. "Dallas!" he snapped. "Frosty
Rivet! Get them out?"
Tom nodded. "Mr. MacFarlane did. Don't know
how he happened to be there. Some of the folks
livin' near the edge of town saw the blaze and by the
time they got there, Gregg had the two out. They're
all pretty bad off."
"Where are they now?"
"Dr. Monery's bringin' 'em up in his car," Tom
said. "He's patched them up a bit. They ought to
be here any time."
As the little group stepped into the hall, the phone
rang. Brade said: "Take Wyche into the library,
Tom. I'll join you in a minute." He picked up the
phone. "Hello," he said, "Captain Brade speaking."
A smoothly professional voice said: "Hold the
wire, please. Long distance calling."
Brade grunted. This call might be important.
Then he heard Terry Shan's voice: "Hello, Court,
ready for an earful?"
"You said it, kid. Spill the works." Brade's fin-
gers tightened on the receiver. There was a tremen-
191


DEAD HANDS REACHING
was rumpled and disheveled. There was a long black
streak across her cheek. Her left arm had been
bared to the shoulder and was heavily swathed in
surgical dressings, showing beneath her coat. Her
face was stark with pain.
She came up the steps and stopped before Brade.
"I didn't mean to run out on you," she said in a flat
mechanical voice. "I left a note. You got it, of
course?"
Brade looked hard into her eyes, shook his head.
"Your note was destroyed, Dallas," he told her, "or
we might have come to your aid. Go in now and I
suggest that you go at once to your room and lie
down. I'll come and talk to you later."
She went past him without a word, mounted the
stairs and disappeared. Then Brade saw Dr. Monery
supporting a shivering wreck of a man and even the
hardened officer involuntarily looked away.
Frosty Rivet had been badly burned. His head
was wrapped in bandages and his arms protruded
stiffly in their multitudinous swathings. Only his
eyes shone with a terrible brightness and he moaned
and mumbled dully.
Dr. Monery said to Brade: "This man must be
put to bed at once, Captain. I would have left him
at the hotel but I understand he is an important
witness and there were not adequate facilities to
guard him."
"That's right, Doctor," said Brade. "I'll take
care of him." He turned to Tom Gary, who had
stepped into the hall. "Tom, take Frosty upstairs
somewhere, put him to bed and"—Brade added
194


THE MARKS ON THE KNIFE
slowly—“watch your step. We're going to need
him."
Tom Gary nodded grimly as he seized one of
Frosty's bandaged arms not too gently and propelled
him up the stairs, then Brade turned and saw Gregg
MacFarlane. His eyes went over him slowly, ap-
praisingly; he smiled slightly.
· "Bad hurt, MacFarlane?” he asked.
MacFarlane managed to smile back with white
pain-twisted lips.
"Not too bad, Captain,” he said gamely, then he
drew his hands from behind him and Brade's eyes
went hard and cold. Gregg MacFarlane's hands had
not been bandaged! “I was anxious to get back
here,” he explained quietly. “The doctor can take
care of them here."
Brade stepped closer, bent down, looking hard at
the terrible things that had once been human hands.
He remembered that Gregg MacFarlane had pos-
sessed remarkably fine hands. Long and strong, with
sensitive, sentient fingers, powerful, slow moving,
beautiful things.
He said rather uncertainly: "How did it happen?
Tell me while the doctor fixes you up, will you?”
"Of course.” MacFarlane followed Brade into the
hall. The doctor went back to the car for his equip-
ment. MacFarlane said rather low : "Faith! I hope
she doesn't see-until—they're fixed.”
"She's in her room, MacFarlane. Let's go in
here."
He opened the door into the parlor where Jurden
Keye had been killed. The room had quite naturally
195


DEAD HANDS REACHING
been shunned by the inmates of Willow Wilde. Now
it was bleak and cold and there was a heavy dead
air about it that chilled the marrow. Brade kindled
a fire while Dr. Monery spread out his bandages and
ointments and went calmly about his work. Gregg
MacFarlane sat motionless, like a man of stone,
staring at his hands.
"Bad, aren't they?" he asked at last, as if he were
commenting on the roads.
The doctor grunted, looked away, suddenly very
busy with gauze. Brade came and stood beside the
table. He did not look at MacFarlane, he looked
at MacFarlane's hands.
"When you're through, Doctor," he said, "there's
another case for you across the hall. Man with a
hole through his chest, I think."
The doctor looked up with a quick widening of
his patient, kindly eyes, shook his head and clipped
surgical tape into long strips.
"There," he said at last, "that will do for the
moment. Feel better, Gregg?"
Gregg nodded. "Better," he said tonelessly.
Thanks, Doc."
The doctor went to look after Leo Wyche. Brade
lighted a cigarette, sat on the edge of the table.
Gregg dropped weakly back in his chair. Brade
studied him a moment, then he lighted a second
smoke and placed it between the injured man's lips.
"Sorry I can't make it a cigar," he said. "You'd
prefer that, I take it."
The other smiled. "This will do nicely," he said.
Brade continued, "What caused that fire up there,
196


DEAD HANDS REACHING
"I see. And how did you do it? What clue led
you to that lonely spot on Elder's Hill so soon. I
might have hunted half the night."
Gregg MacFarlane was leaning back in the chair,
with eyes closed. The light touched his ravaged face,
his pain-whitened lips. Brade got the feeling just
then that MacFarlane was past caring what hap-
pened. That in his life there had been so much
tragedy, so many bitter jolts, that nothing much mat-
tered. Brade and the law behind him could hammer
as much as they wished. Gregg MacFarlane would
take the buffeting, keep his feet as long as he could
and when he finally went down, it wouldn't matter
to him. There was a curious air of detachment about
him, and Brade felt it. It was as if he questioned a
man already dead.
MacFarlane said: "I don't know how I found her,
Brade. Isn't it sufficient that—I—did?"
"Possibly. Did she tell you where she was going?"
"No. I didn't talk to her there in the grounds."
"Yet when the report reached you that she was
missing, you went directly to her. There must have
been something."
"I heard Mrs. Maybrick talking to Leo Wyche."
"Eh? What's that?"
"Yes. There under the lilac hedge. I came on
them unexpectedly. Listened in. He told her he was
occupying that shack on the hill. He wanted to get
in touch with Dallas."
"What else did he tell her?" Brade's voice was so
soft it sounded like a purr.
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
in Keye's heart, well, the prints on it are those of a
man who has been wanted by the police for a long
time. A chap named Stillwell. Andy Stillwell! Ever
hear of him?"
MacFarlane was staring at the rug. There was a
pucker of perplexity between his brows. "That's
odd," he said. "How should his prints be found on
the knife? You mean—that—this—Stillwell stabbed
Keye?"
"Looks like it. Ever hear of him?"
"Seems like I have," MacFarlane said, "but it's a
bit hazy in my mind. What's he wanted for?"
"I can't remember either," Brade admitted.
"Something rather important, I should say. Thought
maybe you could give me a tip. You used to live out
West, didn't you? Well, this chap hails from Oregon.
I'd hoped you remembered the case."
"Sorry," MacFarlane said seriously, "it eludes
me. I almost get it, but it isn't there."
"That's just the way it is with me," Brade con-
fided, then he added, "You know, MacFarlane, it's
unfortunate that you were out of the house to-day
when I printed everybody, isn't it? I was in a rush,
so I shot the sheets off without getting your finger
prints. It's going to be a time now before anything
can be done about it. Too bad, isn't it?"
Gregg MacFarlane looked straight at the detec-
tive from his haggard, suffering eyes and laughed.
Softly, triumphantly. "Isn't it?" he agreed and
walked quickly from the room.
Somewhere a door clicked shut very, very softly.
Brade whirled, eyes busy. There was no one in the
200


CHAPTER NINETEEN
BRADE SHOULD WEAR BROWN
T) RADE stood beside the bed staring thoughtfully
*-* down at Leo Wyche. The man was badly hurt.
Tom Gary's bullet had come dangerously near the
lung. Dr. Monery had said Wyche was not to be
questioned. There was a chance that he would re-
cover. An even better one that he would die. Brade
had heard this verdict and nodded shortly.
"All right, Doctor," he said, "and just in case he's
going to pass out, I'm talking to him now. Under-
stand? Now!" And at the little doctor's sudden
flaring of professional protection, the detective had
said:
"Leo Wyche is a criminal. A killer. An ex-con-
vict. A thoroughly bad egg. If he recovers and gets
off from complications in this business, he will
immediately take up his life of crime again. There's
nothing good about him. He's a parasite. A menace
to society. All right. There stand, in the shadow of
serious suspicion of murder in this house to-night,
several people who are Wyche's exact opposite. Con-
structive, rather than destructive. Wyche knows
something about this mess. It's my duty to try to
get what he knows. If I endanger his life in doing
it, well—" He shrugged. "I've got to save the
innocent if I can. How about it?"
202


DEAD HANDS REACHING
tive eyes. "I got dope you'd like to have, though,"
he went on, then laughed with a horrible twitching
of his white lips. "I'll see you in hell before I spill,"
he added, and turned his head away.
"Thanks, Leo. The same to you." Brade leaned
against the wall. "It's quite natural that you'd
accuse Frosty of Keye's murder. Of course, that
won't get you any place, my lad. I've got the record
of that print I found under the window through
which Keye was shot and I can prove that you"
"Say, looka here," Leo said thickly. "If you'll
send one of your low-brow dicks to general delivery
in the city and ask for a package addressed to Louie
Brown, you'll find that it contains a gat. You'll find
that the bullet which killed Keye came from that
gun and you'll find little Frosty's name engraved on
the stock. Now see where that gets you."
Brade's eyes were very bright. "Oh, yes?" he
said softly. "Well, toodle-oo, Leo, and thanks a
lot."
He went quickly downstairs, called headquarters
and gave the necessary instructions about collecting
the package addressed to Louie Brown at general
delivery. Then he went to Dallas Gantry's room.
Anthony was with her and he rose quickly when
Brade entered, standing there, head high, eyes de-
fiant.
"Mind leaving us a moment, Anthony?" Brade
said pleasantly. "I want to talk to Dallas if she
feels up to it."
Anthony glanced at Dallas. She was stretched
out on a lounge near the fire. She nodded slightly.
204


BRADE SHOULD WEAR BROWN
He went out without a word. Brade waited until the
door had closed, then he drew up a chair, rested his
elbows on his knees and grinned at Dallas.
"Hard life, isn't it?" he inquired.
She choked a sob. "It's terrible, Captain Brade—
terrible. What are we—what shall we do—this can't
go on."
"Never you mind, my girl," he said grimly. "It's
going to end one of these hours. How're you feel-
ing?"
She just shook her head, looking at him with
bright feverish eyes, dimmed by tears. "All right,"
he agreed. "Don't go into it. What did Leo Wyche
want with you?"
She closed her eyes a moment and he saw her
white face twitch, then she said: "He told me he
knew who had killed Jurden Keye and Opal Garth,
and that he could prove it. He offered to fix the
whole thing up so I wouldn't be implicated if I
would pay him twenty thousand dollars."
"Oh—I—see," Brade said softly. "That was his
game, eh? And what proof did he give you, if any?"
"None. I didn't give him a chance. I was so—
terrified—I thought I knew that he had somehow
done it and I started screaming and tried to run and
he struck me and when I regained consciousness I
was in that shack and that man—you call Frosty—
was captive there too."
She stopped, breathing unevenly. |Brade watched
her somberly. It was all very complicated.
Suppose he proved that Frosty Rivet or Leo
Wyche killed Jurden Keye? Killed him with a bul-
205


BRADE SHOULD WEAR BROWN
from him. "Nothing," she said through white lips.
“Nothing."
“What's on your mind? Better tell me. It will be
easier all round.”
"No, no," she cried, suddenly frantic. "I won't
tell you, I can't-it's nothing, I'm tired. Go and let
me rest. I can't stand this "
"I know. Murder's never pleasant. The murderer
has to be punished— "
She sobbed brokenly. “There ought to be a dif-
ference. Some people deserve-murder."
“Why?”
“Because of what—they are of the pain they
cause others. Because everything about them is
stained and ugly and evil.”
"And you mean they should be murdered as
punishment? Deprived of life because they are
evil ?"
“Yes, that's what I mean.”
"You think, to lose one's life, that is the greatest
punishment, Dallas? There is nothing so bad as be-
ing-dead?"
She stared at him wide-eyed. His face was close
to hers and she could see the lines in it, the twitch-
ing of his strong mouth, the cloudiness of his eyes,
and suddenly the cloudiness was swept away as a
fresh breeze dispells sea fog, and she looked into
the heart of the man, gazed in terror at his loneli-
ness, his tragedy. She began crying soundlessly,
tears overflowing her eyes and running down her
cheeks. Crying as she had seldom cried before, be-
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
cause suddenly all of life seemed so sad and she
realized fully what he meant, and then his voice
reached her, gentle, kindly, comforting.
He said: "Don't cry, Dallas. Please don't, my
dear. I hope you will never learn that there are
worse things than—being—dead! That there is
a loneliness greater than that of the grave, a
grief"
"Oh!" she cried. "Oh! that you should say that—
you, a policeman. I never thought a policeman—
would be like—you—I never thought they"
"They were human?" he finished for her, and
there was such wholesome natural mirth in his voice
that she looked abruptly and saw to her amazement
that he was laughing.
"You never thought them human, did you, Dal-
las?" he repeated, still with that suggestion of whole-
some laughter in his voice. "Well, I don't blame you,
my girl. But you know policemen actually enjoy
the things other people do. I knew one who liked
to fish, and there's another who's quite demented
over the radio and I've even known them to be inter-
ested in the color of their ties and"
Dallas cried suddenly: "Oh, Captain Brade, how
can you? Talk about hunting and—radio—and!—
ties—now! Radios don't seem very important, and
—ties"
"There are some very terrible ones," he assured
her gravely. "My pal wears 'em green. He's Irish.
Would you guess it? Now I think this one is nice—"
He leaned forward, extending the fold of silk. It's
208


DEAD HANDS REACHING
There came a sharp knocking on the door, and
Jimmy Arnold stuck his head in. “Message for you,
Captain Brade, just arrived by special messenger
from the city. Marked very important."
Brade was on his feet, glaring across at Jimmy.
He wanted to wring his neck. Then he looked down
and saw that Dallas Gantry had crumpled forward
against the cushions of the lounge. Her eyes were
closed. She had fainted!
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
with a cold, hard stare. "I'm not bribing you to
talk," he said flatly. "I'm not holding out any
reward, understand that. You killed Keye, I can
prove it, and you'll pay for it, but if you can help
me out on a few points I won't be forgetting and
I'll do anything I can to make it easier for you."
Frosty crouched lower in the bed and closed his
eyes. He was shivering with pain and fear. His
sick mind reeled from the quiet deadliness of the
detective's words. He was desperate, cornered, fran-
tic to save his puny meager life. . . .
"What do you want to know?" he gasped.
"What you saw when you stood outside that
window?"
Frosty's lips shut hard. He made one last defiant
stand and capitulated.
"I seen Jurden Keye—in there—talkin' to some
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"What time was this?"
"A little after ten-thirty, I think. I left the theater
about ten-twenty, soon's I found out that Opal had
beat it."
"You trailed her here?"
"Yeah. Didn't see her. But I knew she'd come."
The injured man's face jerked spasmodically. "I
knew she was playin' round with that old devil," he
choked. "I thought a lotta Opal, Brade," he added
almost timidly. "I been a lousy bum mosta my life,
I guess, and I ain't ever had anything very decent
to hang onto. I thought—Opal—" He groaned and
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DEAD HANDS REACHING
promised to help me. He said if we beat it for town,
we'd be sure to be collared and that he had been
trampin' over the hills and found a place where we
could hide out till things quieted down and he could
hook up with"
Again Frosty's lips closed stubbornly. He would
talk freely of his own share in the killings of Willow
Wilde but he wouldn't disclose what it was the band
of them had been planning. Brade didn't urge him.
Frosty continued:
"I was fool enough to fall for his line and when
he got me out there, he smacked me down, tied me
up and told me he was gonna sell me out to Dallas
Gantry for twenty grand." The white face con-
vulsed with helpless rage. "He was gonna turn me
over as the guy that done the croakin' and he tied
me up and took my gun and"
Brade knew the rest, but he let Frosty tell about
Dallas' coming, about the fire and the subsequent
rescue by Gregg MacFarlane, then he said:
"Thanks, Frosty, you've helped a lot. I'll remem-
ber it."
He went out, closing the door softly. Another
night had descended on Willow Wilde, bringing with
it a storm that was swiftly gaining force and
strength. Wind whooped around the tall turreted
house. Rain slashed the windows. Tall trees bent
before the fury. There in the hall it was dim and
quiet. Behind closed doors were unhappiness, anx-
iety, agony and guilt!
Brade nodded grimly.
He had solved the mystery of the first of Jurden
2l8


FROSTY TALKS SOME
Keye's murders. He had died from a bullet from
Frosty Rivet's silenced gun, victim to his own un-
cleanness, his hypocrisy, his ruthlessness. Frosty
had, in the moment he pressed that trigger, assumed
a new dignity, a certain fineness, as he avenged in
the only way he knew what he considered the
despoilment of all he held dear.
But who had plunged the knife into a dead man's
heart? What mixture of fury and despair had pre-
vented the eyes of the second killer from discover-
ing that Jurden Keye was already dead, who was it
in a rough overcoat, strongly scented with tobacco,
who had run into Frosty Rivet there in the dark-
ened, wind-swept grounds at Willow Wilde? Brade
didn't know—for sure.
219


DEAD HANDS REACHING
cigar case and leaned toward him. "I certainly will,
sir, if I can," she answered, "but whatever would I
know about it?"
"You can never tell," Brade said thoughtfully.
"By the way, Mr. MacFarlane wanted me to bring
a coat back with me. He described a thick dark
overcoat, I believe"
"Yes, sir," she said. "The one he always wears
in cold weather. He went off without it the other
night and he said he couldn't think what had become
of it." She went swiftly up the stairs, talking over
her shoulder, and Brade stepped to the radiator,
holding out chilled fingers. He stared at the floor
and whistled soundlessly until the old lady returned,
carrying over her arm a coat, such as he had de-
scribed. "This is the one he wants, I guess," Mrs.
Mumford said, extending the garment.
"Thank you," Brade said, tossing it over his arm.
"By the way, what time did Mr. MacFarlane return
for his wife that night? Do you remember?"
"Yes," she said slowly. "I certainly do. I was
sittin' here crochetin'. And that took control," she
added gravely, "'cause I'd already heard of what
had happened and I'd gone up to tell Mrs. MacFar-
lane, but she was that sound asleep—"
"You couldn't waken her?" Brade finished, when
she hesitated, frowning.
"That's it," she said. "I knocked a dozen times
when I thought, well, let her rest, she'll know soon
enough."
Brade stayed about twenty minutes talking to
Mrs. Mumford, then he thanked her and left. He
224


DEAD HANDS REACHING!
The constable's eyes were bright and sunken. There
were red fever stains on his weathered cheeks. He
looked sick. Brade eyed him thoughtfully.
"Head bothering you, Tom?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Better have the Doc look you over first chance
you get," Brade advised.
"Maybe so," answered Tom, shivering. "Right
now I'm headed down to stoke the furnace."
He went on downstairs. Brade mounted slowly,
walked down the hall, pausing outside Dallas' room.
He could hear her low voice, Anthony's deep and
troubled.
He knocked softly. Anthony opened the door.
"May I come in?" Brade inquired.
Anthony stepped aside. Brade strolled over to the
fire, holding out his hands. Dallas gave him one
swift, frightened look and turned her head away.
Anthony stood behind the couch on which she lay,
glowering at Brade. Brade smiled.
"I'm not exactly welcome, I see," he said.
Dallas did not reply. Anthony said savagely:
"You've made a hell of a mess of this thing,
Court."
Brade laughed, though he did not look exactly
happy. "That phrase has a curiously familiar ring,
Anthony," he stated. "Seems like I've heard the
Commissioner employ the same words." Then he
sobered and his eyes passed slowly from one flushed,
frightened face to the other.
"I'm sorry, Anthony," he said. "I know you
brought me down here for one purpose and one
1
227


DEAD HANDS REACHING
only. To free Dallas from implication in the mur-
der of Jurden Keye."
"Of course I did," Anthony rapped. "What else?"
"Well," Brade said thoughtfully, "there is that
thing called justice, you know. My job was, in
reality, not to free a woman you loved, but to find
the real murderer. I've tried to make you under-
stand that. Apparently I've failed."
Anthony didn't say anything. He continued to
stand there tensely, watching Brade. Brade said, not
heeding him:
"Dallas, our conversation was interrupted a while
ago. Shall we finish it? To whom did you loan
Anthony's watch when you removed it from your
own wrist?"
Dallas shivered and her fingers bit into the cover-
ing of the couch. Anthony bent forward slightly, as
if he thought Brade might strike her, then Dallas
turned her head, looked full at Brade and said:
"I'm sorry, Captain Brade. I cannot answer that
question."
"I see," Brade commented. "All right. I don't
really need the information. Just like to tie up loose
ends. Well," he waved carelessly, "adios. See you
later." He went out jauntily, conscious of hot, hos-
tile eyes that followed him.
"Damn him!" Anthony muttered. "He hasn't any
—feeling."
Dallas smiled faintly. "You're wrong there,
Anthony," she said softly and shook her head.
"Very, very wrong."
"Huh!" Anthony snorted. "Women always fall
228


DEAD HANDS REACHING
have—kept secret. So I got a meat saw from the
kitchen, watched my chance, went out on the bal-
cony and hacked the railing nearly through. I in-
tended to ask you to come out there and talk to me,
then to push you against it—but it was not written
that way." Her voice had grown even quieter. One
hand fluttered toward her heart.
“Gregg had gone to the doctor for some morphia
tablets when you came to the room," she went on.
“So I told you he had gone to the balcony and I
thought-perhaps— "
Brade shivered in spite of himself, remembering
that terrible moment when he had leaned against the
railing.
"I hoped," she went on, "that in the darkness and
storm you—might—still—” She shrugged faintly.
"When you didn't,” she continued, "when I heard
your voice there in the door, I knew I had failed.
Gregg's gun was in the pocket of his coat over the
chair-so I shorted the lights and shot at you
-I could see you-outlined against the snowy
night- "
She stopped just there, sinking fingers in her hair,
rocking gently to and fro. Dallas was standing,
white-lipped, staring at her. She made a slight
movement forward, but Brade warned her back.
“Gregg took the bullet meant for me,” Brade said.
“You killed the man you—loved "
She looked up at him and smiled. “Loved ?" she
repeated. “Don't bother to speak of_love. You
wouldn't understand. No one knew but—Gregg-
and I-murdered to save him. What did I care for
234


DEAD HANDS REACHING!
life—other than his?" She made a curiously expres-
sive gesture. "When Frosty Rivet thought he rec-
ognized Gregg, when he and Opal Garth brought
that man, Wyche, down to Willow Valley to iden-
tify him, when Jurden Keye stopped me before the
bank yesterday afternoon and told me what he knew
and held their knowledge over me, why, what could
I do?" She gazed at the detective questioningly.
"I killed him!" she went on monotonously. "I was
in the alcove when Dallas came in. He put me out-
side, but I returned, leaving the French door ajar.
I heard them talking. When she left, I came out.
He was sitting there at the desk with his head down,
hunting for something in the drawer, I guess. It
was dim in the room, but I saw that—knife—I
picked it up and buried it in his heart"
"You wore gloves?" Brade asked.
She nodded. "Yes. Then I ran—Opal had slipped
in through the window. She was hiding in the
alcove when I came out. I didn't see her. She
stepped into the room, saw Jurden and screamed.
I heard that cry and knew that the thing was dis-
covered, though I didn't know by whom. Opal told
me about it—afterwards. She ran from the room
and struck her head against a tree"
"Then," Brade broke in, "everything that she told
me was a lie. All about what she overheard between
Dallas and Keye?"
"Yes," Faith agreed. "All of it. She wanted to
hurt Dallas and at the same time she thought she
could blackmail me"
Brade asked suddenly. "Mrs. MacFarlane, why
235


DEAD HANDS REACHING!
long minute, not looking at Brade, then when he
lifted his head his faded eyes were dim with tears.
"Her heart," he said thickly. “It has been bad-a
long time. I'm-almost glad.”
And Brade, bending over the lifeless body of Faith
MacFarlane, was glad too.
239


DEAD HANDS REACHING
The detective stopped. After all, it was no use
dilating on what Jurden Keye had tried to do, before
the woman who had been his wife.
He said: “We found Stillwell's prints on the knife
in Jurden Keye's body and that was hard to figure
for a time. Looking back now, knowing that Faith
MacFarlane wore gloves, I can only assume that
MacFarlane, when he came in that room involuntarily
grasped the hilt to draw the knife out, then realized
that Keye was dead and let it stay." He frowned at
the fire.
"For twenty-two years," he went on somberly,
“Gregg MacFarlane had lived in the shadow of death.
Gregg and his wife, Faith. Her real name wasn't
Faith,” he added gently. "I wonder why-he called
her—that?”
The little group was silent. Snow sifted softly
against the pane. The fire burned cheerily in the
grate. Why had the small, golden-haired wife of
Andrew Stillwell come to be known as Faith? There
wasn't one in the room but was able to see the con-
nection, and Dallas cried suddenly:
“Oh, poor Gregg, I don't wonder his hair was
white."
Brade nodded gravely. "He killed the man who
tried to blackmail his wife,” he said slowly. "It was
a sensational trial and he would not give his reason
for the crime. That would have defeated the end for
which he had killed, but it might have cleared him.
He kept silent and took the death sentence unflinch-
ingly. They loved each other," he ended simply and
in those four words, unwittingly he voiced the
242


FAITH
legend that was graven onto the double headstone
that came to stand guard over the graves in the quiet,
tree-shaded graveyard in sleepy Willow Valley.
It was not for Brade to decide as to the right or
wrong of the motive that had prompted Faith Mac-
Farlane to murder. No court in the land was called
upon to pronounce judgment on the results of her
devotion to her husband. Three persons had died vio-
lently that Gregg MacFarlane might have a chance
at life. It is written on authority that may not be
questioned:
'Thou shalt not kill!'
And man has evolved a system of judgment and
punishment for those who transgress that law. Brade
was one of its many exponents. He saw his job and
did it. Brade, the policeman, condemned Faith Mac-
Farlane in the light of the law he represented.
To Courtney Brade, the man, was given the ability
to understand much that is hidden from eyes less
used to sorrow.
243