The Red Hand

The Red Hand by Arthur Machen (1905)

Dyson and Phillipps, discussing prehistoric flints in Dyson's Red Lion Square room, fall into an argument about whether "primitive man" survives hidden within modern London. Dyson insists such survivals lurk in the city's streets; Phillipps, the confident ethnologist, scoffs and demands Dyson "catch a troglodyte." Dyson proposes a night walk to test the claim, and the two head northeast into an increasingly obscure, ill-lit maze of streets. In a dark, deserted passage they stumble upon a murdered man. A policeman and crowd gather; the victim is identified as Sir Thomas Vivian, a respected society doctor. His throat has been cut with a sharp, clean wound, and beside the body lies a small, ancient-looking flint tool—which Phillipps, examining it, declares with astonishment to be a genuine prehistoric flint knife, thousands of years old. Dyson also notices a crude sign chalked on the wall above the body: a clenched hand with the thumb protruding between the fingers, pointing down at the corpse, drawn beside an unfinished mark with a broken piece of chalk lying nearby. Phillipps identifies this as an ancient sign connected to belief in the evil eye. A month later, Phillipps has rationalized the murder as the work of a vengeful Italian who happened to own an ancient flint and used the "mano in fica" gesture as a signature. Dyson demolishes this theory point by point: a new, unused sailor's knife was found under the body (unused, meaning it wasn't the murder weapon); the hand-sign was drawn too skillfully to have been sketched by a fleeing murderer in near-total darkness, suggesting it was drawn earlier, by someone accustomed to darkness; and a strange note found in Vivian's pocket, written in a distinctive invented script, closely matches — but is not identical to — private jottings in Vivian's own memorandum book (confirmed by his widow's testimony). The note itself is cryptic, full of astronomical language: talk of a "black heaven" that vanished or was stolen, a "celestial globe" as a copy of it, an "old orbit," a "number of my sign," and "the other side of the moon." Dyson resolves to find the "black heaven," trawling pawnshops and low pubs. Eventually a drunken woman throws an object that shatters a bottle in a public house; among the debris is a small black stone tablet incised with the same clenched-hand sign, pointing to a field of minutely carved spiral and whorl patterns, cut with mechanical precision. Dyson buys it for half a crown. Phillipps, given the tablet to decipher using his ethnological methods, fails utterly, even after consulting a British Museum expert, and returns it unsettled, calling it "troglodytic and abhorred." Dyson then notices a torn, grimy paper label on the tablet's back bearing fragments of pencil writing — "inroad" and "stony-hearted step—" — which he recognizes as an allusion to De Quincey's phrase for Oxford Street. Dyson stations himself at his window overlooking the British Museum and a pavement chalk-artist, applying what he calls his "theory of improbability": prolonged watching increases the odds of encountering the person he seeks. After days of vigil, he spots a bearded, agitated middle-aged man who reacts with epileptic-like distress at the sight of the pavement drawings, then flees. Dyson tips the chalk-artist and lets the man go, having identified him. The man, Mr. Selby, is brought to a meeting at Phillipps's rooms. He recounts his story: raised in the west of England, obsessed since boyhood with legends of treasure hidden beneath a hill topped by a tumulus bearing the same hand-and-spiral markings. He acquired a similar black tablet as a child's plaything, found by a cottager in a streambed, and spent twenty years failing to decipher its inscription. Poor and living in a garret off Gray's Inn Road, he became close friends with the equally poor Thomas Vivian, sharing his quest and inventing the strange handwriting and an astronomical cipher for secret correspondence; he promised to share any treasure with Vivian. Vivian eventually inherited money, drifted away to pursue medicine, and grew wealthy and prosperous while Selby continued his lonely research, taking nightly walks along Oxford Street ("stony-hearted step-mother"). Selby finally deciphered the tablet, learned the location of a treasure-chamber in the hills of his homeland, and traveled there, going far enough to glimpse gold but stopping to fetch Vivian first, taking away only the flint knife as proof. Returning to London, he found his original tablet stolen (by his drunkard landlady, he assumes) but had the inscription memorized and copied. He wrote to Vivian in their old cipher, reminding him of his promise, and arranged to meet in a Clerkenwell passage. There Vivian, now grand and dismissive of their old friendship, reacted with horror and greed upon seeing the flint knife proving Selby's success; Vivian suddenly attacked Selby with a knife, and Selby killed him in self-defense with the flint blade. Pressed by Dyson about the treasure, Selby admits he returned to the hillside chamber alone and went further in than before, but will say little except that "the keepers are still there" and that what he saw was worse than anything imaginable. He produces a small, obscene gold object he calls "the Pain of the Goat," which horrifies both Dyson and Phillipps. Dyson returns the black tablet to Selby and dismisses him. The story closes with Phillipps stating he believes Selby's account, and Dyson, opening the windows, reflecting that his own blunders in the case were perhaps not so absurd after all.

By Arthur Machen · First published 1905 · Genre: Horror, Mystery, Fantasy · 5 chapters · 11,274 words

First lines

'There can be no doubt whatever,' said Mr. Phillipps, 'that my theory is the true one; these flints are prehistoric fish-hooks.'

'I dare say; but you know that in all probability the things were forged the other day with a door-key.'

What this Textopian page supports

The Red Hand is listed on Textopian as a novel by Arthur Machen, dated 1905 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Good citation fit

Discussion starters

Similar titles

Genres

Tags

'and · 'you · Fantasy · Horror · Supernatural Fiction · Weird Fiction · beneath · black · curious · dark · day · days

Contents

More by Arthur Machen