Hell's Hatches

by Lewis R. Freeman

  CHAPTER XV

  THE FACE

  The Chief of Police's allusion to the picture had started a nebulousidea in my head, but it took it several hours to crystallize. Drivingalone up the hill, my mind gravitated dully to the matter of theidentity of the perpetrator of the unspeakable outrage. I found myselfspeculating as to whether or not the Chief of Police, had he known ofRona's previous attacks upon Allen, would have been as ready as he wasto attribute the guilt to "Squid" Saunders. And would he--had he knownof them--been able to trace any connection between Rona's repeatedattempts to induce Allen to go off to the schooner with her and the factthat the crime had been committed there? And didn't it look just alittle as though Rona's whole strange plan for having a picture paintedwas only a subterfuge to open the way for a carefully plotted revenge?And yet, if she had done all this, she surely must have had--or thoughtshe had--a good reason for doing it. But had not Oakes established aclear alibi for the girl when he met her "away inland" the sameafternoon men had been reported to have been seen on the schooner?Probably, but not certainly. Oakes himself had said that she was "agreat walker" and "very restless."

  It was conceivable that the girl might have doubled back and waylaidAllen on the road. Or perhaps she had met him by appointment. He hadadmitted that he was becoming increasingly subject to her will. But howcould she have induced him to go off to the schooner, and how had theygone? No boat had been sighted along the beach (we had looked for onethrough Butler's glasses on our return to the landing), and none wasreported missing from the harbour. The Chief had inquired on that latterpoint while we were with him at the Station.

  And how had Rona, or anyone else for that matter, been able to get thebetter of such a man as Allen, fully armed and on the alert as I knewhim to have been, and noted for his resourcefulness in emergency? Thattrain of thought reminded me that we had found no arms on Allen when wereleased him. His right coat-pocket was empty, and so was theknife-sheath on his right hip. But his pocketbook, containing aconsiderable amount in notes, had not been taken.... It was all too muchfor my tired brain, which, ready enough to suggest questions, was quiteincapable of grappling with them. When I drove into the home clearing Iwas wondering whether the broken glass I had noticed in the bottom ofthe cockpit was that from the whisky bottle Allen had told me Rona hadthrown at him the morning Bell gave up the fight.

  I was horribly tired, both in mind and body, and hoped that, with aglass or two of absinthe to relax my nerves, I might be able to sleep atleast through the heat of the noonday. Shifting into my pajamas,--aftertelling Suey, my China boy, that I would not want lunch and not todisturb me until I sent for him,--I crawled under the mosquito-net andtried to drop off. But it was no use. No sooner would I begin to dozethan the expiring images of my thoughts would shuffle up and sharpenwith a steel-clicking suddenness into the dread likeness of The Face,with its dilated eyes boring me to the spine.

  At the end of a couple of hours of fevered tossing, I gave it up, threwoff my pajamas, stepped to the low back-window ledge and took a headerinto the cool green pool below. The Face dissolved as the thrill of therefreshing embrace of the water ran through my blood, but only to returnwhen, after donning a fresh suit of drills, I began a restless pacing ofthe floor of the big living-room--my studio. Always it flashed a pace ortwo ahead of me, floating backward as I advanced upon it and swingingwith me at the end of the room. I could not wheel swiftly enough to loseit, and it made no difference whether my eyes were opened or closed. Itried it both ways.

  It was in the course of an experimental lap I was trying with my handsover my eyes that I bumped into the big rectangle of canvas I hadprepared in advance against the day I should be ready to start work on"The Saving of the Black-birder." Ten seconds later I was pawing over mycolours with feverish haste. The idea swimming in my head hadcrystallized. It was, in effect: _Put The Face on canvas and it willcease to haunt and harrow your mind_. That sounded reasonable. CertainlyThe Face couldn't be in two places at once, and if I once got itanchored to the canvas I could cover it up when I wanted to get awayfrom it. It would all depend upon how faithfully I did my work,something told me. If the face on the canvas was a replica of the otherto a hair, to a line, to the fear in the hell-haunted eyes, then thephantom face would enter into it and become subject to my control. Ifnot--then I would never know sleep nor peace while I continued to live.

  No artist can ever have approached a task under empire of the flamingintensity I threw into this one. I was painting to save my reason,perhaps my life. That is not a figure of speech. I mean it quiteliterally, for I am convinced to this day that I stumbled upon the onlypath that would have led me clear of complete mental and physicalcollapse.

  There was a rather remarkable coincidence in connection with the way Istarted to work. Nothing told me that those first nervous slashes of mybrush signalized the beginning of a picture the fame of which wasdestined to reach the outposts of the civilized world before the yearwas out. All thought of "The Black-birder" was erased from my mind. Ihad no idea of a picture in my head. I was not even beginning to workupon a figure. I was only conscious that I was going to put all I hadinto the task of reproducing--recreating, if that were possible--withcoloured pigments a phantom of my brain--a face--The Face.

  I had no thought, I say, of beginning a picture. I sketched nothing in,not even the outline of the haunting shadow I was going to try tocapture. A very few minutes after I began squeezing out colours onto mypalette I was smearing them upon a patch of the big six-feet-by-tenexpanse of woven cotton in front of me. The coincidence I have mentionedbecame apparent some weeks later, when I discovered that, of all thesixty square feet of canvas before me, the something less than onesquare foot upon which I concentrated my paint and energies for the nextthirty hours chanced to be in exactly the place it _had_ to be for theresult of my effort to assume its proper place in a somewhat intricatecomposition. I will tell of that in due course.

  Save for the strain of the terrible tension under which I worked, thetask to which I had set myself proved absolutely the simplest I everattempted. It seemed that I could not go wrong. It was not like paintinga face from memory, nor yet like painting one from a model. It was morelike colouring a photograph, for the image, terrible as life, was rightthere on the canvas at the end of my arm. At first, as I tried tovisualize it at shorter range than the five or six feet at which it hadbeen floating, it was a bit hazy; but presently my intense concentrationof mind had its reward. The dreadful phantom drew nearer, increased indetail, and finally sharpened into clear focus at the tip of my brush.After that I became just a meticulously faithful retoucher, working in atrance.

  It was toward the middle of the afternoon when Suey came in to ask if Iwas going to be home for dinner. He was becoming used to my queer ways,and, when I failed to take any notice of his reiterated query, came overand touched me on the shoulder. I "came out" with a start, but gatheredmy wits quickly. I told Suey that I should probably be working steadilyfor the next day or two and would want nothing to eat until I wasfinished. If he would bring me a bowl of cracked ice every hour and seethat no one was allowed in to bother me, it would be all I should wantof him. He replied with a laconic "Can do," and backed out toward thekitchen as though I had asked for curry-and-rice for dinner, or orderedsomething else equally rational and matter-of-fact.

  I settled back into my spell of tranced concentration with scarcely aneffort, working swiftly and surely, with never a pause. The "drawing"was all done for me, and even in the matter of colours there was nohesitation. Exactly the proper shade or tint drew my brush like amagnet; and always it was applied with telling effect.

  The sunset shadows of the western hills were driving their black wedgesacross the satiny sheen of the light-flickering levels of the wavingsugar-cane when I became aware that a sound I had been conscious of forsome time had suddenly changed and intensified. If my mind had tried tocatalogue the clear notes that had been floating in t
hrough the northwindow, it was probably to credit them to a certain bell-bird friend ofmine who was in the habit of ringing his vesper chimes from a leafychapel in the big bottle tree toward the end of the afternoon. But therewas nothing bird-like in the quick staccato of eager yelps that had beenresponsible for bringing me, with ears and interest a-cock, out of mytrance. "Dogs closing in for a kill," I muttered to myself, realizingthat it had been the distant baying of hounds on a hot scent that I hadconfused with the more imminent chiming of my Austral bell-ringingneighbour. The sounds came from a long way off--probably from somewherein the dense bush beyond the farther borders of the cane fields. It wasa northerly hauling of the wind that brought them down to me so clearly.The air had been charged and electric all day, and the breaking up ofthe trade wind indicated that a hurricane was mustering its forcessomewhere up among the Islands. I had not looked at the barometer on theveranda, but knew that it must be registering a considerable fall.

  The crack of a single shot drifted down the wind as the yelping reachedits climax. Then all was quiet in the distance, with only an occasionalcackling guffaw of a "laughing jackass" ripping across the silence thatbrooded nearer at hand. I didn't know what there was to hunt in thatparticular neck of Queensland, but thought it might be kangaroos ordingoes. It wasn't of enough interest to waste time in speculating uponit, just then in any event.

  Daylight had given way to twilight, and twilight to moonlight, before Istopped work again, this time to respond to an insistent ringing of thetelephone bell. Oakes' deep voice came excitedly over the wire. "Ithought you would be interested to know that Rawdon's dogs tracked down'Squid' Saunders this afternoon," it said. "He has just been brought in.Bullet through his shoulder, but not a serious wound. The report wentaround that he had confessed to the attack on Hartley Allen, and thetown went wild. Only the Chief's nerve prevented a lynching, and theremay be trouble yet. Never saw the people so excited." In response to myinquiry about Allen, Oakes said that he had been drugged to sleep earlyin the afternoon, and that there was no use trying to forecast what turnthings would take until he came out.

  "That clears Rona, at any rate," was my thought as I drained a glass oficed absinthe and picked up my brush again. I found it just a shadeharder materializing The Face than it had been at first, but managed itat the end of a minute or two of close concentration. Save for anoccasional pause for a sip of absinthe, I worked steadily on through thenight.

  * * * * *

  To make clear what transpired the following day, it will be well to setdown at this point a few things which I only learned in a conversationwith the Chief of Police after the last act of the drama was played to afinish and the curtain rung down. Contrary to the understanding of Dr.Oakes, and all the rest of the people of Townsville with the exceptionof the Chief of Police and a couple of his assistants, "Squid" Saundershad _not_ confessed. From what he _had_ said in the presence of all hiscaptors, however, it was easy to see how the story had originated. Headmitted quite freely to Rawdon, after the latter had called off hisdogs and was lending a hand to plug up the puncture in "Squid's"shoulder, that his one purpose in returning had been to settle hisaccount with "Slant" Allen. He also said that he would rather be strungup straightaway than to be sent back to West Australia and begin, atsixty, serving out a twenty-odd-year sentence.

  That was about all Saunders said at the time of his capture, but later,after expressing himself to the Chief of Police to similar effect, hewent a little further. He averred frankly that curiosity had always beenone of his most pronounced characteristics, and, while he entertainedonly the kindliest feelings for whoever it was that had been responsiblefor tying up "Slant" Allen and leaving him alone to meditate upon hispast, he couldn't help wondering about the identity of a man able topull off such a cleverly thought-out and executed piece of business.Might he not suggest to the Chief that the latter try to find sometrifle that this bright-minded and quick-handed cove had left behind onthe schooner, and see if those sharp-nosed--yes, and sharp-teethed--dogsof his couldn't be put on the owner's trail. They appeared a very likelylot of hounds, especially that big black-and-tan brute with a chewedear, who had broken away from the ruck and fastened his teeth in the"Squid's" calf.

  This all struck the straightforward, open-minded Chief as entirelyreasonable. It was only fair to Saunders, too, and since saving him fromthe mob that afternoon the Chief had come to take a sort of proprietaryinterest in his prisoner. Going off to the schooner in the morning hefound a small fragment of red rag in the cockpit, which, though it wasgreasy and dirty, did not show signs of exposure to the weather, andmust, therefore, have been left comparatively recently. It was asix-by-eight-inch piece of flowered red calico, of the kind used by thenatives of all parts of the South Seas for waist-cloths. Even if hewasn't able to locate the particular _sulu_ from which it was torn, theChief reckoned that it would give the dogs something to go by.

  Rawdon's "nigger-chasers" were of a foxhound-bloodhound cross that theold ex-bushranger had bred especially for the purpose of chivvying downrunaway blacks from the sugar plantations. The swart sextette displayeda very encouraging interest in the greasy rag the Chief brought them tosniff; so much so, indeed, that they were far from drained of enthusiasmat the end of a bootless day's nosing up and down the coast for tracksthat gave back the same ingratiating aroma. It looked quite good enoughto warrant going on with the game the following morning, Rawdonpronounced, as he started back on foot for his kennels on the southwestoutskirts of town. (The old chap had some kind of a theory about itsbeing destructive to a hound's keeness to tote him around on wheels:also, he had stumbled upon many trails where he least expected them,even in the town.)

  Rawdon was striding a couple of blocks ahead of his two helpers when,crossing the town end of the main westerly highway to the hills, the doghe was holding in leash--the big black-and-tan with the chewed ear, byfar his keenest-nosed hound--broke away and set off up the side of theroad in full cry. As there was no hope of trying to overtake him onfoot, Rawdon waited for the other dogs to come up and catch the scent,cautioning his men to hold them well in leash and not to hurry until herejoined them. Then he ran back a quarter of a mile to the PoliceStation to summon the Chief and get a horse.

  This was about seven o'clock in the evening of Wednesday, the day afterwe had found Hartley Allen bound to the wheel of the _Cora Andrews_.

  * * * * *

  At the moment the big black-and-tan hound tore his leash out of Rawdon'shand and started to burn up the footpath beside the westerly hill road,I had been streaking a small patch of canvas with coloured pigments forsomething like thirty hours in a desperate endeavour to drive a phantomout of my brain. I was near to the end of my labours and--I could senseit already--close to victory. I had made a hard fight for it and Ideserved to win. Using absinthe sparingly--as a fuel and a food ratherthan as a stimulant--and drawing upon my nerves for everything the drugwould not provide, I had kept going steadily and was finishing strong.

  There had been but one interruption since the night before. Early in theforenoon Captain "Choppy" Tancred had called up to say that he hadbrought his new command to anchor in the harbour the previous evening,and that, as he had a good twenty-four hours' loading to do, he hopedthat we could find time to foregather for a bit of a yarn in the courseof the day. Would I come down and have lunch with him at the hotel, orwould he drive up to me? He would rather prefer the former, as thebarometer was down and he ought to remain where he could get off to hisship in a hurry if it came on to blow. I made the best excuse mywandering wits could frame, and hung up. The old boy's voluble protestswere still clicking in the receiver as I returned it to its hook.

  I had a hard time materializing my "model" again after that break, andit was fifteen or twenty minutes before I was sure enough of it toresume work. For a while, in the back of my brain, there was a flutterof apprehension that old "Choppy" would take it into his head to come upanyhow,
and I was desperately afraid that I might not be able to"connect" again after another interruption--that I would fail to focusThe Face at the one moment of all when I most needed it. There wouldhave been comfort in that thought twenty-four hours earlier, but by nowa desire to finish the portrait for its own sake seemed to have enteredinto me.

  But my fears were groundless. "Choppy" was properly rebuffed, and had nointention of poking in where he "wasna weelcom'." (He told me so himselflater.) There was no further interruption, save the negligible one ofSuey and the cracked ice, sharp on every hour. As the sunset faded andthe twilight flooded the valley with luminous purple mist, I wasfinished--or nearly finished. The Face was all but complete on thecanvas now, and all but erased from my brain. It had taken an intenseeffort of concentration to hold it while I put the last touch on thatwrithen lip, as it curled back in a snarl from the bared teeth. But Idid it. And now--just a stroke in that whorl of iris to accentuate theabnormal dilation, to fix the horror in that ghastly stare! Slowly theimage sharpened in my brain. Again the fear-haunted eyes held my own.Now! I was just darting my delicately poised brush forward when thesound of voices from the veranda arrested the colour-daubed tip a hairshort of the blurring eye its touch would have made a hopeless smudge."Maskey--no can do!" came in Suey's brusque _pidgin_; and then,following a sudden scuffle and the sharp click of the latch, a familiarchirrup floated to my ears. "Let me in, Whit-nee! Hur-ree, ple-ese,Whit-nee!" was what it said.