Fingers of Death

CHAPTER V. FINGERS AND A FACE

HARRY VINCENT had visited Willard Saybrook on one afternoon. On the evening of the next day, he cruised past the Bartram mansion for want of a better plan.

It was nearly midnight when The Shadow’s agent returned to the Elite Hotel. He wrote a brief report of his barren trip, and decided that there was nothing else to do until the morrow. Then, perhaps, it would be wise to study either Hurley Adams or Maurice Pettigrew.

Harry had driven by two houses: one the home of Adams, the other the residence of Pettigrew. Both places had been deserted. Harry had decided that the occupants were out.

In this surmise he had been correct. But had he made a midnight visit to the home of Maurice Pettigrew, he would have seen the glow of newly lighted lamps. For, at midnight, Maurice Pettigrew arrived at his house after visiting some friends in another part of Holmsford.

Maurice Pettigrew was not alone. He came in with a party of persons who had brought him home in their car. At the architect’s suggestion, these people came into the house to indulge in liquid refreshments. Dim lights that glimmered from a room with drawn shades indicated the location of Pettigrew’s study.

This room was Pettigrew’s pride. It was on the second floor of the house, and the visitors admired it as they entered. The room was adorned with many curios. Its walls were lined with artistic bookcases.

Thick draperies hung in the corners. The place was furnished with heavy chairs and couches.

Maurice Pettigrew, an elderly dilettante, let a twisted smile wreathe his dry features as he noted the admiration displayed by his friends. There were half a dozen in the group, and the men as well as the women were highly interested in the furnishings of the large, commodious study.

With a sophisticated grin, Maurice Pettigrew opened an ornate cabinet at the side of the room, and brought forth a bottle and set of glasses. He poured cordials for his visitors, and, as his friends sipped their drinks, the old architect became sourly philosophical.

“We understand life more when we grow old,” he declared. “We appreciate its values; we realize its shortcomings. We are capable of deciding when life is no longer useful. Then, if we are wise, we take steps to complete it.”

“You are not tired of life?” observed one of the visitors.

“I?” Pettigrew’s tone was scornful. “My life is like this glass. Nice to look at — enjoyable when it’s full — worthless when empty — capable of long existence if carefully watched — but ready when the moment comes—”

The old architect let the glass fall from his hand. It struck the slab of a marble-topped table, and shattered to fragments.

REGRETFUL murmurs came from Pettigrew’s friends as they realized that the beautiful crystal object had been so ruthlessly destroyed.

“What is a glass?” queried the architect. “What is a life? Particularly one’s own? I broke the glass because I had that inclination. I would end my life just as willingly — if the desire seized me.”

He smiled at the group; then spoke again, in a light but convincing tone.

“However,” said Pettigrew, “I have no such intention at present. I have not yet reached the stage of senility which my old friend, Josiah Bartram, entered. Death was the best out for him. Pity was that he didn’t encounter it sooner.”

“Bartram was ailing for quite a while before he took to his bed,” some one remarked. “He couldn’t have enjoyed life much, anyway, living as he did, opposed to all the world.”

“He was a friend of yours, was he not?” questioned another person, speaking to Maurice Pettigrew.

The architect’s face was gaining a worried expression. Pettigrew seemed to regret that he had brought up the name of Josiah Bartram. Evidently it brought unpleasant thoughts. However, the architect did his best to cover up his worriment. He smiled sourly as he made reply.

“Bartram was a friend of mine” — Pettigrew was filling another glass for himself — “until he thought he was too self-sufficient. That was his fault. He never paid for anything without wishing that he could have done the work himself.

“I designed buildings for him. He kept notations of my plans, and thus gained knowledge of my style of architecture. When he built that old rambling house, he planned it himself. Same way with other buildings. Even his mausoleum. Look at it” — Pettigrew was snorting his contempt — “and see what a hopeless mixture of architecture it is!

“Bartram had only one good point. He belittled the intelligence of the people in this town. He called them a crowd of gawks. He was right, and the best proof of it was the hullabaloo they raised about that marvelous mausoleum of his. They wanted Josiah Bartram to erect a public edifice of his own planning. What a laugh! I wouldn’t have let him plan my dog kennel!”

Pettigrew’s outburst had given him a temporary elation that gradually began to subside. His visitors had smiled at his remarks. They had finished their drinks, and they were leaving. Pettigrew gulped down his cordial, and accompanied them to the ground floor. After they had left, the architect returned to his study.

A moroseness had come over the man’s countenance. It had been noticed by his departing guests; it was more pronounced now that Pettigrew was alone.

The architect poured himself a third drink, and replaced the bottle in its cabinet. Seating himself in a corner chair, Pettigrew placed the filled glass on a table beside him, and stared vacantly across the room.

MINUTES moved by, and Pettigrew’s lips began to move. The man, engrossed in worrying thought, was talking half aloud upon the theme which he had so lightly mentioned while others had been in this room.

“Josiah Bartram” — Pettigrew’s voice was an audible whisper — “Josiah Bartram — dead. He is dead. Dead. I wonder why. I wonder if — if something killed him—”

Pettigrew was voicing the extraordinary thought that had occurred to both Hurley Adams and Willard Saybrook. But of those two, Adams had seen Bartram die, and Saybrook had heard about his death from Grace.

Why did Maurice Pettigrew, who had not seen Josiah Bartram for months before his death, have the same thought? The architect’s trembling lips gave no answer; they merely indicated repressed worry in the brain that seemed unable to control them.

Pettigrew’s hand sought the glass. His lips sipped the cordial, and he set the half-filled tumbler upon the table. Pettigrew’s eyes, staring listlessly at the opposite wall, became fixed as they rested upon a photograph that was framed amid a cluster.

It was a picture of a Holmsford bank — one of the buildings which Pettigrew had planned many years before. Small and now almost antiquated, it had been a great thing then — and even as Pettigrew viewed it, he felt proud of its architectural qualities.

But there was something in the man’s gaze that showed a hidden interest in that photograph. Pettigrew’s lips were moving silently again.

With eyes transfixed in hypnotic stare, Maurice Pettigrew was totally oblivious to closer surroundings. He did not sense the rustle of the heavy velvet curtain that hung in the nearest corner, scarcely more than four feet away.

The room, with its dim lights, was a setting for tragedy, and in the midst of the unbroken silence, a weird manifestation took place. The uncertain motion of the drapery ceased. From its purple folds a dim object slowly emerged.

A human hand was stretching forth toward Maurice Pettigrew!

Most conspicuous were the fingers. Firm, steady, and cautious, they clutched a tiny vial that contained a pale-green liquid. They were threatening fingers, those sharp-nailed digits that Maurice Pettigrew did not see; but their objective was closer to the curtain than was the architect.

The fingers reached their goal — the decorated glass that held Pettigrew’s half-finished cordial. Guided by eyes that must have been peering from the folds of the curtain, the fingers dipped and let the pale-green liquid trickle gently into Pettigrew’s drink.

Then, with the same caution, the hand began to withdraw with the empty vial. It stopped suddenly as Pettigrew’s arm came toward the curtain. The architect, thinking of his cordial, was reaching for the glass.

As Pettigrew found the tumbler, the hand that had emptied the vial remained in view, but motionless. To withdraw, it would have to move the curtain. Its best course was to remain where it now rested.

Pettigrew, glass in hand, was staring at the cordial. The architect’s eyes seemed to note the slight change in color. The inspection ended abruptly. Pettigrew raised the glass to his mouth and drank.

The hand upon the table was moving away. Maurice Pettigrew, licking his lips to test some unexpected flavor, began to frown in a puzzled manner. With an impatient gesture, the architect turned toward the table and set the glass down with a thump!

It was then that he saw the fingers!

STILL clutching the vial, the hand was moving toward the curtain. A sharp cry came from Pettigrew — a hoarse, maddened cry that showed both doubt and understanding. Knocking the empty glass away, Pettigrew made a grab for the hand. The fingers, clear of the table, loosened and let the vial fall to the thick rug.

Half on his feet, Pettigrew plunged across the table and tried to seize the curtain. His voice tried to become a frenzied scream, but failed. It was nothing more than a hoarse gargle.

The architect lost all thought of his objective. He was clawing at his own throat, insane from a burning pain. Dropping back in his chair, he writhed and turned in agony, but his eyes still stared at the curtain where the fingers of death showed white against the somber purple.

As the architect’s eyes grew glassy, the curtain parted, and Maurice Pettigrew saw a man come into view. He found himself staring in both agony and fear at a face which he recognized.

A startled gasp issued from his lips. It changed to choking.

In one brief moment, Maurice Pettigrew had seen the face of an intended murderer. A few seconds later, he saw that face no longer. For Maurice Pettigrew’s eyes saw nothing. The man who stood before the chair was a murderer now.

Maurice Pettigrew was dead. Poison from the vial had joined the cordial in the glass. Fingers of death had done their killing task!

The face behind those fingers was one that Maurice Pettigrew knew; but the architect would never reveal its identity!