The Hand of Vengeance — A Short Story
It lay, alone, on the black tablecloth, like an antique weapon on display. It was a hand, a human hand. Severed at the wrist, it held Nigel Falkner’s gaze. The person it had belonged to was dead; the hand was dead. How could it be anything but?
Of course the hand didn’t move or do anything strange. After all, it was just a dismembered limb, with no brain or body attached. It couldn’t be a threat to him in his uncle’s — soon to be his — house.
And yet, Nigel watched it intently. His right hand rested on the hilt of his sword. His left held a goblet of wine.
If he wanted to inherit his uncle’s property, which he very much did, he had to fulfil this last, strange requirement of the will. He had to stay in this room, by himself, from dusk until dawn, on an autumn evening, with the hand. If he did (And why would he not?), the executor of the will was to give everything to him. Because his uncle had been fabulously wealthy, ‘everything’ was a great deal and Nigel wanted all of it.
Looking around the room, he saw the portraits of ancestors glaring accusingly down at him. He smelt the burning candles. A spark shot out of the fireplace and extinguished itself on the hearth. He gulped the black, bitter wine. It burned the back of his throat.
He wished for some sweeter liquid. But it was too late now, for anything. Nobody was allowed to enter the room until dawn. The only key to the door was in his pocket. No human was going to visit him this night.
There were numerous ornaments in the room, among them an ivory elephant from Africa, a jade statue from China, ancient pottery from Japan — his uncle had been a devoted collector of fine art that was extremely beautiful and valuable. Nigel planned to sell everything off immediately. What did he want with art? What did aesthetics mean to a sophisticated man like him?
The wind moaned. Rain lashed the windows. The house groaned from the pressure it was under.
Nigel grinned as he took another slurp of wine. In just a few hours, everything in the room, everything in the house, in fact, everything connected to the huge estate, would be his.
The first improvement made would be to paint the walls of the room he was sitting in — their blood-red colour made him anxious and uncomfortable. A lighter, brighter hue would make all the difference.
No. That wouldn’t be the first improvement. The most important thing was to get rid of the damn hand.
Why had his uncle, Rupert, kept it? Why did he have to sit in a room with it? Rupert said he’d got it from a holy man in India who had magical powers. Magic — Nigel would have none of it.
Leaning closer, he inspected the hand: yellow, chipped fingernails; long, thin digits; a deep scar near the knuckles; callouses on the finger tips. It was a man’s hand, but he couldn’t guess the age.
Then he was struck by a question: Why hadn’t it rotted? It wasn’t dripping with blood, but otherwise it seemed as though it had just been cut off. The wound was so straight and regular it must have been done with a guillotine or a sharp axe. Why wasn’t it shrivelled up or dried out?
The urge to reach out and touch it gripped Nigel. But why? It was a ghastly, grisly object.
Unable to help himself, he stretched out his right hand, extended one finger and gently prodded it.
He jerked backwards. It was hot. But it couldn’t be. It should have been cold. He must have imagined it.
Standing, he stumbled back from the table, keeping his eyes fixed on the hand. It was attractive and appalling at the same time.
With difficulty, he forced himself to focus on something else. The portrait of his uncle caught his attention. The eyes seemed to be staring directly at him and saying, ‘You have done an evil thing. But you will not escape punishment. My murder will be avenged.’
Nigel laughed a hollow laugh. Portraits couldn’t talk. It was just his imagination. The wine must be off, causing him to have delusions — that’s why it tasted so bitter.
His uncle had had to die. The man had lived for fifty years. He was old. His time had come. Nigel needed the money. It had to happen.
Remembering the fatal afternoon, Nigel stared at the fire. The murder hadn’t been planned. He’d asked Rupert for another loan — of course he had no intention of paying it back — but his uncle had refused, saying, ‘Enough is enough.’
They had gone for a walk together, Nigel seething with rage and sweating with desperation. How was he to pay his debts? How was he to live?
‘I’m considering cutting you out of my will completely. You are a wastrel and a blackguard,’ Rupert said.
Fury had seized Nigel. Grabbing Rupert, he flung him towards the edge of the cliff. Sliding over the brink, groping for a handhold, his uncle had begged for help.
At one point, Rupert even managed to grab an exposed tree root and halt his downward movement. Nigel knelt, reached out and prised his relative’s fingers apart.
After smashing on the rocks below, the body had been washed out to sea.
Pretending it had been an accident didn’t trouble Nigel: he was used to lying. No one had doubted him — no one except the solicitor, Baines. He was an elderly man who had known Rupert for forty years. Baines hadn’t outrightly accused Nigel, but he’d been uncooperative, unfriendly and very determined in his questioning about the accident.
Nigel’s eyes returned to the hand. He started. It had moved. He was sure. But that was impossible. It was a dead hand from a dead person. But the thumb had been pointing to the fireplace and now it was directed towards the door. His mind was playing tricks on him.
Looking away, he focused on the wind. It seemed to be whispering words. He could just make out a repeated sentence: ‘Remember, hell is real.’ No. That wasn’t possible. The wind didn’t actually say real words; it was only a figure of speech.
He heard a click behind him. He turned. The thumb and middle finger were pressed together. That wasn’t possible.
The urge to touch it again took hold of him. His eyes were attracted to it like moths to lights, but now he also felt the overwhelming desire to feel it once more.
He rationalised his urge: he wanted to prove it was cold; know that he was imagining it earlier.
Slowly, unable to help himself, he reached out two fingers and placed them on the hand. They remained.
‘Eleven, twelve, thirteen,’ he heard himself say. Why?
Snatching his hand back, he realised he’d been counting a heartbeat. How was that possible? It was dead.
‘It must have been my own pulse,’ he thought. ‘Yes, that was it. In the silence I’d become aware of my own body.’
Mesmerised by the hand like a child staring into a sweet shop window, Nigel sat back down. The fire was taking its last breath before expiring. He needed to put more wood on it but he couldn’t take his eyes off the hand. Anyway, the room was too warm as it was.
The shadows danced as air currents played with the candles. One burnt down to its holder and went out.
There were plenty of spares, a whole box, in fact. He only needed to light one.
But he couldn’t. His eyes were fixed on the repulsive object before him.
His left hand rose, opened and moved towards the gruesome limb. A pause, and then, like a mousetrap springing closed, he snatched up the hand and pulled it close to his face.
The smell of sulphur filled Nigel’s nostrils. He wanted the ghastly object away from his nose but he couldn’t move.
Another candle burned out.
The fire was dead. The room was icy.
And yet Nigel was not cold — he was sweating heavily.
Then there were flames all around him and the overwhelming odour of brimstone.
The thumb and first finger of the hand pinched his nostrils closed. The rest covered his mouth. He couldn’t breathe. He struggled to pull the hand away, but he couldn’t. His light was extinguished, forever.
The doctor who examined the body the next morning was amazed. ‘I’ve never seen such a thing. If I didn’t know the door was locked from the inside and nobody could get it, I’d swear he was murdered. But that’s impossible, so instead he must have suffocated himself.’
Baines nodded, picked the hand up from the table, placed it in a box and took his leave. Rupert had been avenged.
