The Pan Book of Horror Stories

HIS BEAUTIFUL HANDS Oscar Cook

I was not grumbling. I had given that up a long while. I was merely contemplating the rain, wondering what a whole dry day should be like. And I came to the conclusion that such a phenomenon was impossible—at least until the forty days of St Swithin were up—that the age of miracles was past. And then, without warning, I shuddered and felt that cold, creepy feeling which premonates a horror spread over me, or rather down me, from my head to my feet.

A presence was drawing near. I realized that immediately, and almost as quickly knew whose that presence must be. It must be Warwick—he being the only living soul capable of awakening such sensibility in me. I turned reluctantly from watching the rain to look at the far end of the club smoking room. Warwick had just entered the door and was approaching.

Before he reached me I had pressed the bell knob in the wall close to my chair. I knew the necessary adjunct to Warwick’s presence was inevitable.

He spread himself over a chair, which he drew close to mine, lighted one of his beastly Philippine cigarettes, blew a mouthful of smoke into my face, and, leaning forward with hands on knees, elbows out at right angles, barked out:

“Well!”

For a moment or so I said nothing. I knew that ambiguous monosyllable, half question, half assertion, and the tone in which it was made. A story was coming—and it would not be a pleasant one. While I was still silent, the waiter arrived.

“Two whiskies and soda,” I ordered.

“Doubles,” supplemented Warwick.

I nodded and, looking him squarely in the eyes, paid him in his own coin.

“Well?” I asked, and waited for him to make the next move.

“A yarn,” he said, succinctly and succulently. “As good as any I’ve heard for many a day.”

He chuckled. I continued to face him squarely.

“A beastly one,” I slowly asserted, “judging from your tone.”

He nodded, and at that moment the waiter returned.

Warwick took his glass and I took mine.

“To ‘His Beautiful Hands’,” he toasted. “They’ve earned me fifty guineas and so saved my bacon for a few days. Would you like the yarn, or——”

I made a gesture, so non-committal as to mean assent; at least, that is how Warwick read it.

“Listen,” he began, looking round to see that we were alone and drawing his chair still closer to mine. “It’s a tale of revenge and passion——”

“With a capital, purple ‘P’,” I interpolated.

Warwick paid no heed. “. . . about as sweetly gruesome and gruesomely diabolic as I know.”

He put out the half-smoked cigarette, took a long pull at his whisky and soda, and began.

“Did you see that piece in the paper today about the sculptor johnny who lost his right arm?”

I nodded.

“Well, it’s that sort of story, only——”

I put out a hand quickly to interrupt him. If I must hear the story, I’d hear it properly with full names and details, not shorn of its ‘curtains’ and suspense.

Warwick took the hint.

“I’m going too fast,” he muttered, “but even now it rather gets me, and . . . well, it’s like this. About two years ago I was in the habit of frequenting a lady barber’s—there was a craze for them then; now there are only one or two left—and one of the assistants was head and shoulders—metaphorically speaking—above the other girls for looks and personality. She never had a spare moment. I was one of her regulars, and there was a fellow, a customer, more than twice her age, always hanging around, whom I grew to hate.”

“And he comes into the story?” I asked.

“He is the story,” Warwick answered forcefully. “He and Paulina and his violin.”

“A musician,” I couldn’t help saying contemptuously, for, rightly or wrongly, instrumentalists are my bêtes noires.

Warwick grunted annoyance at my interruption and continued.

“Well, he was dead nuts on Paulina, and she, to my disgust, played up to him, or so it seemed. He was always bringing her presents, giving her tickets for his concerts, taking her out of evenings, and generally going the whole hog.”

Something in his tone and in the choice and emphasis of his last expression seemed to convey a deeper meaning than just the words.

“You mean . . .?” I asked, and then broke off, for I hate talking lightly of a woman, even an unknown one.

Warwick has no such scruples.

“Exactly,” he replied. “She went to be his ‘keep’, although she stayed on at the shop. But of course this establishment was not set up all at once. It evolved, so to speak, out of what appeared quite natural, though unfortunate circumstances.”

Warwick paused to take another drink.

“And the situation annoyed you?” I asked. “You felt aggrieved, slighted?”

He nodded. “In a way, yes. I’m no saint, and I’m a bachelor, and Paulina was——”

“Was?” I queried quickly.

For a moment he made no answer. Then, indifferent churchman though he is, he crossed himself.

“She’s dead,” he said flatly. “Died in childbirth, ten days ago. I went to the funeral—a double one—hers and the child’s. Thank God it died—and they both died,” he added with a sudden fervour, and then slumped back into the chair and relapsed into a silence as inexplicable as his sudden change from ghoulishly journalistic delight.

I waited. This new mood intrigued me, and I sensed a tragedy more real and personal than Warwick had meant to lay bare. It was obvious that he needed a safety valve.

“Sorry for that display,” he said, when presently he pulled himself up in his chair and smiled. “It shan’t occur again, but I loved her, in spite of the fact that five generations ago a coloured strain got introduced to the family. It was that, of course, which . . . but I go too fast.”

I offered him a cigarette.

“A story is easier to follow,” I suggested, “if it begins at the beginning and not half way through. So far, all you’ve really told me is that there’s a musician and Paulina and his violin. And you mentioned one more thing, or rather two. ‘His beautiful hands’. How do they come in?”

Warwick laughed, an ungodly sound.

“They don’t,” he said at length, “they don’t. That’s the cream of the story, the point of the——” He started to laugh again, and pulled up short.

“I’m off colour tonight,” he muttered, “but it’s like this. This Mr A.—we’ll call him that—was a celebrated violinist, and apart from realizing the value of his hands he was inordinately vain of them. They were his passion. But I couldn’t stand them. They weren’t a man’s hands, and they weren’t a woman’s. They were . . . were——”

“Ethereal,” I suggested.

Warwick’s hand suddenly gripped my arm tightly, and his face came close to mine.

“The very word,” he said. “Ethereal. And it was one of Paulina’s jobs to take care of them, tend them, worship them; for that is what he demanded of her—worship of his hands.”

I nodded.

“She was a wonderful manicurist, with a cool, soothing touch that somehow seemed to linger on your fingers long after the treatment was over and urge you back to her, till you were conscious of a semi-physical, semi-spiritual longing. All of us customers experienced that feeling. And the curious thing is that it wasn’t sexual or sensuous but just caressing.”

Warwick paused and looked at me with, for him, a curiously appealing glance, as much as to say: “You do understand, don’t you?”

I nodded. “The touch of the East,” I said gently. “I suppose your Paulina had Javanese blood?”

Warwick smiled his thanks. “You’re right,” he went on. “And it was really on account of that—taint—that the trouble arose. They’re revengeful, the Javanese; they never forget an injury to themselves or to those they love. Though they’re all fire—and Paulina was passionate—they’re capable of slow smouldering, like a station waiting-room fire.”

Again Warwick paused, and I began to think we never should get to the story. I looked at my watch. The time was 6.30 pm. In a quarter of an hour I should have to go and dress—I was dining out. I leant across to him.

“So far,” I said, “you’ve really told me little—hardly enough to make me even a trifle curious. Of course, if you’d rather not . . . I’ll respect your wish . . . on the other hand——”

That was enough. I had touched him on the journalistic raw.

“Wait,” he almost barked at me. “Wait. It’s a short story, but . . . Well, one day, just a year ago, Mr A. came into the establishment with the little finger of his left hand bound up. Of course, Paulina had to be in attendance. I’d just been finished, and stayed on to have a cup of tea. Naturally, I could not help hearing their conversation—mostly about the finger. The nail had become discoloured, and all round the cuticle was puffy and sore. Mr A. could hardly bear to let Paulina touch it, yet he longed for the caress of her massage.

“She suggested a doctor, but he would not hear of that. She and she only must look after his hands. We could all understand that in general, but not in this case, when medical advice was sorely and obviously needed. He was adamant, infatuated beyond belief.

“A week later he was back. The finger was worse, much worse, and the third finger was beginning to become affected!”

“And he was still adamant?” I could not help putting the question, for I was rapidly beginning to put two and two together and making four.

“Yes, and so it went on till all the fingers of both hands were in varying stages of affectedness. It was horrible—I say—bloody. Day after day he would come in with his filthy, bandaged hands; undo his bandages, expose his rotting fingers, and talk about them till we customers and the other girls were utterly sick.”

“You had your remedy,” I interrupted. “Even if the girls hadn’t.”

Warwick looked at me pityingly. “That’s just what we hadn’t got.” He spoke in a most matter-of-fact way. “Something held us, drew us. Of course, the proprietress was doing a roaring trade, but we didn’t care. We sensed something; what, we did not know, but we meant to be in at the death.”

“And Paulina?”

“Was her usual sweet self, controlled, gentle, amusing, sympathetic, efficient. Without a flinch, at least an outward blench, she attended to the ghastly sights; passed from Mr A., to whom she was all kindness, to other customers. So matters went on till one day, just after Mr A. had gone out, one of the girls was crossing the room and slipped on something on the floor. It rolled under her feet. She thought it was a pencil, and stooped to pick it up. Then an awful scream rang through the room and she fell down in a faint. We rushed to her; by her side, where it had fallen from her grasp, was the middle, rotting finger of a man’s hand.”

“Severed?” I gasped, gripped at last.

Warwick shook his head. For a moment or so he could not speak.

“No,” he managed at last. “No. It had just rotted off—and the stink as one touched it was enough to . . . to——” He put his hand to his nose and shivered all over.

By a freak of the weather the rain had ceased, and the evening light flooded through the smoking-room window. It brought us back towards normal.

Warwick shook himself.

“Do you want the rest?” he asked.

“I’ve just time,” I said, looking at my watch.

Warwick drained his glass.

“We picked up the girl and carried her out, leaving for the moment only Paulina in the room. I was the first to return. As I entered, she quickly put her hands behind her back, but she had not been quick enough, for I distinctly saw that she was holding the rotting finger.

“I went up to her and put a hand on her shoulder, horror-struck though I was.

“ ‘Paulina,’ I cried. ‘Tell me truly . . . in spite of . . . of . . . you love him?’

“Her immediate answer was to laugh hysterically. Then she held out her hand on which lay the filthy, rotting finger.

“ ‘Could you love that?’ she asked.

“I couldn’t answer, but my whole face expressed volumes.

“ ‘Then why insult me?’ she spoke very bitterly. “That’s what I think of him . . . and all men . . . fit for the scrapheap,’ and as she spoke she carelessly flung the horror into the wastepaper basket. It fell with hardly any thud, but the fall sent up a cloud of stenchful vapour. Paulina seemed not to notice it. ‘I only wish . . .’ she began, then stopped as the others came back.

“That was the beginning of the end. Paulina gave notice—the proprietress would not dissuade her—and consequently Mr A. gave up coming. The last time he came he showed us both hands, devoid of fingers and thumbs . . . and all the time he raved of Paulina.”

“And you—kept up with her, married her—the dead child was yours?” I put the question very gently.

Warwick spread out his hands.

“You’d think so,” he said, a trifle grimly. “And it should be so, according to the best novels, but you’d be wrong. No. I lost sight of her, too, till just before the end she sent for me and told me all.”

“In confidence?”

He shook his head.

“Not necessarily, but I must get it off my chest, and I’d like you to know. Can’t you guess?”

I did not try, and he went on.

“Mr A. was her father. Eighteen years before he had seduced and left her mother. There’s no need to say more. This was Paulina’s revenge. She’d nursed it for years—remember her Javanese strain.”

“You mean . . .?” I gasped, in spite of myself.

“Exactly. She used a native poison . . . a secret from her ancestors on that side—now dead with her. She planned the whole thing. And to help her attract him and others—myself included—she doped our tea and coffee with a filthy, horrible concoction brewed from—no, I can’t even mention that to you.”

The rain was falling again. Gloom once more pervaded the room. My thoughts jumped to the funeral.

“And the baby?” I asked.

“Was Mr A.’s too,” Warwick answered with a return to his ghoulishly journalistic appreciation of a dramatic point. “Paulina didn’t get up early enough, as the saying is, quite to get top-side of him. Just before she’d decided to apply the poison trick through his nails, he’d got her drunk one night and . . . well, you can guess the rest. That settled the matter of her living with him. Talk of poetic justice. . . . Ye gods! I’ve never heard of such a case. Him with rotting fingers, dying by inches—there’s no cure—the poison’s in his blood. Paulina, as good as a murderess, dying in childbed—and her baby still-born—born with no fingers—nor toes—hardly hands and feet—just red, puffy lumps of flesh, not even webbed.”

He pulled out a cigarette case, lighted a cigarette, and put the case back.

“I’ll have another whisky and soda—double,” he said, “and then I’ll toddle along to the dogs. . . .”