Sherlock Holmes In Montague Street Volume 2 by David Marcum Page A

as it could go.
    We made first for Mr. Hardwick’s, but he, we found, was with my uncle, so we followed him. The arrest of the Fosters had been effected, we learned, not very long after we had left the wood, as they returned by another route to Ranworth. We brought our prisoner into the Colonel’s library, where he and Mr. Hardwick were sitting.
    â€œI’m not quite sure what we can charge him with unless it’s anatomical robbery,” Holmes remarked, “but here’s the criminal.”
    The man only looked down, with a sulkily impenetrable countenance. Holmes spoke to him once or twice, and at last he said, in a strange accent, something that sounded like “ kekin jin-navvy. ”
    â€œ Keck jin? ” [9] asked Holmes, in the loud, clear tone one instinctively adopts in talking to a foreigner, “ Keckeno jinny? ”
    The man understood and shook his head, but not another word would he say or another question answer.
    â€œHe’s a foreign gipsy,” Holmes explained, “just as I thought - a Wallachian, in fact. Theirs is an older and purer dialect than that of the English gypsies, and only some of the root-words are alike. But I think we can make him explain tomorrow that the Fosters at least had nothing to do with, at any rate, cutting off Sneathy’s hand. Here it is, I think.” And he gingerly lifted the folds of sacking from the ghastly object as it lay on the table, and then covered it up again.
    â€œBut what - what does it all mean?” Mr. Hardwick said in bewildered astonishment. “Do you mean this man was an accomplice?”
    â€œNot at all - the case was one of suicide, as I think you’ll agree, when I’ve explained. This man simply found the body hanging and stole the hand.”
    â€œBut what in the world for?”
    â€œFor the Hand of Glory. Eh?” He turned to the gipsy and pointed to the hand on the table: “ Yag-varst , [10] eh?”
    There was a quick gleam of intelligence in the man’s eye, but he said nothing. As for myself I was more than astounded. Could it be possible that the old superstition of the Hand of Glory remained alive in a practical shape at this day?
    â€œYou know the superstition, of course,” Holmes said. “It did exist in this country in the last century, when there were plenty of dead men hanging at cross-roads, and so on. On the Continent, in some places, it has survived later. Among the Wallachian gypsies it has always been a great article of belief, and the superstition is quite active still. The belief is that the right hand of a hanged man, cut off and dried over the smoke of certain wood and herbs, and then provided with wicks at each finger made of the dead man’s hair, becomes, when lighted at each wick (the wicks are greased, of course), a charm, whereby a thief may walk without hindrance where he pleases in a strange house, push open all doors and take what he likes. Nobody can stop him, for everybody the Hand of Glory approaches is made helpless, and can neither move nor speak. You may remember there was some talk of ‘thieves’ candles’ in connection with the horrible series of Whitechapel murders not long ago. That is only one form of the cult of the Hand of Glory.”
    â€œYes,” my uncle said, “I remember reading so. There is a story about it in the Ingoldsby Legends, too, I believe.”
    â€œThere is - it is called ‘The Hand of Glory,’ in fact. You remember the spell, ‘Open lock to the dead man’s knock,’ and so on. But I think you’d better have the constable up and get this man into safe quarters for the night. He should be searched, of course. I expect they will find on him the hair I noticed to have been cut from Sneathy’s head.”
    The village constable arrived with his iron handcuffs in substitution for those of cord which had so sorely vexed the wrists of our prisoner, and marched him away to the