The Clue of the Dead Hand - ebook

I. NEW YEAR’S EVE: THE MYSTERY BEGINS

A STRANGE, weird sort of place was Corbie Hall. There was an eeriness about it that was calculated to make one shudder. For years it had been practically a ruin, and tenantless.

Although an old place, it was without any particular history, except a tradition that a favourite of Queen Mary had once lived there, and suddenly disappeared in a mysterious way. He was supposed to have been murdered and buried secretly.

The last tenant was one Robert Crease, a wild roisterer, who had travelled much beyond the seas, scraped money together, purchased the Hall, surrounded himself with a number of boon companions, and turned night into day. Corbie Hall stood just to the north of Blackford Hill, as those who are old enough will remember.

In Rob Crease’s time it was a lonely enough place; but he and his brother roisterers were not affected by the solitude, and many were the curious tales told about their orgies.

However, Rob came to grief one night. He had been into the town for some purpose, and, staggering home in a storm of wind and rain with a greater burden of liquor than he could comfortably carry, he missed his way, pitched headlong into a quarry, and broke his neck.

He left the place to a person whom he described as his nephew. But the heir could not be found, nor could his death be proved. Then litigation had ensued, and there had been fierce wrangles; bitterness was engendered, and bad blood made. The place, however, remained empty and lonely year after year, until, as might have been expected, it got an evil reputation. People said it was haunted. They slimmed it. The wildest possible stories were told about it. It fell into dilapidation. The winter rains and snows soaked through the roof. The window-frames rotted; the grounds became a wilderness of weeds.

At last the heir was found. His name was Raymond Balfour. He was the only son of Crease’s only sister, who had married a ne’er-do-well of a fellow, who came from no one knew where, and where he went to no one cared. He treated his wife shamefully.

Her son was born in Edinburgh, and when he was little more than a baby she fled with him and obtained a situation of some kind in Deeside. She managed to give her boy a decent education, and he was sent to Edinburgh to study law.

He seemed, however, to have inherited some of his father’s bad qualities, and fell into disgrace. His mother dying before he was quite out of his teens, he found himself friendless and without resources.

His mother in marrying had alienated herself from her relatives, what few she had; and when she died no one seemed anxious to own kindredship with Raymond, whose conduct and ‘goings on’ were described as ‘outrageous.’ So the young fellow snapped his lingers at everyone, declared his intention of going out into the world to seek his fortune, and disappeared.

After many years of wandering in all parts of the world, and when in mid-life, he returned to Edinburgh, for the university declared that, of all the cities he had seen, it was the most beautiful, the most picturesque.

He was a stalwart, sunburnt, handsome fellow, though with a somewhat moody expression and a cold, distant, reserved manner. He had heard by mere chance of his inheritance, and, having legally established his claim, took possession of his property.

Although nobody could learn anything at all of his affairs, it was soon made evident that he had plenty of money. He brought, with him from India, or somewhere else, a native servant, who appeared to be devoted to him. This servant was simply known as Chunda.

He was a strange, fragile-looking being, with restless, dreamy eyes, thin, delicate hands, and a hairless, mobile face, that was more like the face of a woman than a man. Yet the strong light of the eyes, and somewhat square chin, spoke of determination and a passionate nature. When he first came he wore his native garb, which was exceedingly picturesque; but in a very short time he donned European clothes, and never walked abroad without a topcoat on, even in what Edinburgh folk considered hot weather.

When it became known that the wanderer had returned, apparently a wealthy man, those who years before had declared his conduct to be ‘outrageous,’ and declined to own him, now showed a disposition to pay the most servile homage.

But he would have none of them. It was his hour of triumph, and he closed his doors against all who came to claim kinship with him.

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