Bony - 16 - Venom House

by Arthur W. Upfield

  This house lived only in the dark. The light it feared. It was jealous even of the small light at the foot of Mary Answerth’s bed, trying to smother it with its hatred. And succeeding!

  A few seconds passed before Bony was sure that the light in the patient’s room was going out for want of oil.

  Had Mrs Leeper intended the lamp to be short of oil?

  Was Mrs Leeper about to reveal abnormal activity?

  Was Janet responsible?

  Was the expected second attack on Mary’s life about to be attempted?

  The lamp was going out, slowly, inevitably. Motionless, Bony waited. Presently, there was a faint flicker upon the oblong surface of the opposite door, and the shape vanished.

  Bony slid across the hall to stand beside the door of the lounge. His wire became a rapier feeling in the dark for a heart to pierce. Used like a sword to twang upon a skull, he could grapple with the murderer partially stunned and losing blood from a split scalp.

  The seconds ran like endless mice across the hall. The pro­cession was cut by the knife of sound coming from the lounge. The patient’s bed faintly creaked, waited a moment to creak again. Had Morris gained entry through the window? Was he even now finalizing the life of his half-sister?

  Under normal circumstances the breathing of someone just within the lounge would not have been registered by ears trained to hear. The “breather” could have been not more than a yard from Bony’s back, when he slipped to one side of the open doorway. Without sound, the invisible “breather” passed into the hall, and Bony’s nostrils registered the smell of oil of wintergreen used as an ingredient in salves.

  If Mary Answerth needed anything, she had but to tug the bell rope to rouse Mrs Leeper.

  The fact that the sleeping tablets, in which both Dr Lofty and Mrs Leeper had such faith, had had no effect on this patient was of less import at the moment than the fact that Mary Answerth had passed from the lounge into the hall without causing sound enough to be heard by Bony standing within two feet of her.

  A noise did reach Bony from the passage to the kitchen, but this did not completely satisfy him that Mary Answerth was the cause. Down that passage to the right slept Mrs Leeper. Down that passage was the kitchen, and from the kitchen rose the stone stairs to the upper floor where Morris and Janet slept. Bony felt like the man in the haunted house listening to the clock striking the awful hour of midnight. He had whistled for the murderer and the murderer. …

  It could have been caused by a mouse, but wasn’t. The sound was like suds exploding against the ear, and yet with rhythm. It was produced by cloth moving over polished wood. It came from near the front door. Instinct warned him that someone was ap­proaching and he moved away from the lounge door, his back against the wall.

  The perfume of flowers came through the darkness to touch his nostrils, as once it had done in the radiance of the lamp suspended over the golden staircase. As certainly as though he saw her, he knew that Janet Answerth had passed by to enter the lounge. Exultation carried him, filled him with ecstatic expectancy.

  No light was born within the lounge. No sound issued from the room. Bony neared the door frame, leaned sideways that his ear might protrude beyond it. The melodrama and its possibilities forced him to bunch his toes within the canvas shoes.

  Had Mary set out to attack Janet, and had Janet set out to counter-attack? That would mean wits pitted in battle fought out in the dark. And what a battle! Hate fears not the dark, for itself is of the darkness.

  The lust to kill can easily subjugate fear, can proceed to satiation without regard for personal safety. If these two women should realize that each was stalked by the other, the resultant encounter would be of supreme interest to the psychologist. Physical strength to the one, craftiness to the other … the trident and net against the sword and armour.

  If people wishing to be evasive would but keep their mouths open! He heard Janet’s breathing as she approached the door. He drew away. Again he smelled flowers. He waited for the perfume to vanish. It remained. Janet was standing either in the doorway, or, like himself, against the wall. The perfume in her own nostrils would prevent her smelling him. Had he counted seconds, he would have reached fifty-seven when the perfume waned, van­ished. Janet had gone.

  Thinking thus, Bony should have been greatly concerned with the prevention of murder, but a child could be expected more readily to leave a Punch and Judy show midway than he to strike matches and light the hall lamp, or flash on his torch. Janet had gone from his side, but where, he could not detect. He was sure she had not gone up the stairs, else she would have collided with someone descending them.

  Like her sister, Janet was good at this game in the dark. The person coming down to the hall had had far less practice of moving about a silent house silently, but was trying hard to learn. The hand upon the banister was sliding along the wood … the act of an amateur.

  A rustling sound came from the direction of the stairfoot, and then to Bony’s nostrils came the first hint of carbolic. The smell grew stronger, waned, and the last he heard of Mrs Leeper was when she misjudged the entrance to the passage leading kitchen-ward.

  Of the three women, Janet was the most adept, having made the fewest mistakes.

  For something like a quarter-hour no sound reached his ears, no smell reached his nostrils. At the end of that period he was unaware of the tension in himself, unaware that the rough U handle of the wire sword was raising a welt on the palm of the hand clenching it, and the bunched toes were locked so long that they were to give pain like the sting of ants. As with the wild man in the chase, physical feeling was suspended.

  Morris! He had forgotten Morris, who without doubt could play this game in the dark so well as to make his sisters appear ridiculous. If Morris joined in this present game, if he were re­leased to join it, and should meet with Mary, well …

  Bony drifted to the front door. With care he removed the key, that no one would unlock it to admit Morris. He floated into the dining-room and refastened the window by which he himself had entered the house. He drifted up the stairs, prepared to meet the perfume of flowers, of oil of wintergreen, of carbolic, meet one of those impalpable substances emanating from the person of a woman. And meeting it, receive a split second to evade physical collision.

  At the top of the stairs he paused with his hand upon the railing of the gallery. Whilst there, he heard as distinctly as the cat hears the mouse behind the wainscot a door being closed in that wing where Mary’s bedroom was situated. He passed on in the opposite direction, came to Janet’s bedroom door, and with his free hand found the door shut.

  He went on. His cat’s whisker entered the shallow recess at the passage angle where, like that other recess at the far end of the opposite passage, brooms were kept. The whisker passed by the recess and so came to meet Morris’s door. He moved left and reached with his other hand for the key on the nail. It found the nail. The key was gone. It flashed downward to touch the bolt, the padlock. The padlock was loose, the key in it. The bolt was drawn. The door was ajar.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The Answerths at Large

  BONY REFASTENED MORRIS’S door and pocketed the key. If Morris hadn’t found his door unbolted, so much the better. Who had unbolted his door was of less import now than the probability that he was a participant in a game which Bony hoped he might finalize before it ended in tragedy.

  The obvious course was to make himself known, light a lamp or two, bring the inmates together and prod them to explain their antics. However, invest the Law with personality and you find … the insane. Prod these people to produce explanation, and where would that lead him, and what would it achieve?

  Precisely nothing and nowhere. These people would offer a very good reason for being outside their rooms in the dead of night. They would say they were awakened by an intruder whom they sought to hold until the police arrived. And the only person illegally engaged in this game in the dark was Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.

/>   As the Chief Commissioner delighted to inform him, he wasn’t a real policeman’s bootlace, and the association of the Colonel’s face, when animated by blood-pressure, with a bootlace in a con­stable’s boot somehow produced miles of red tape wrapped about a volume of “Powers, Duties and Prerogatives of the Police Officer”. Not included among these “Powers, etc” was entering private premises without authority in the form of a warrant. Even he, who thumbed his nose at “Powers, etc.”, wouldn’t get away with this entrance to private premises. It was open defiance of Magna Carta, or the Constitution or Something, at which to thumb one’s nose is unpardonable.

  One event only would excuse him. The event hadn’t happened … yet. If it did not occur, he must leave as he had entered, unseen.

  He failed to hear Janet, or detect her approach until her perfume met his nose. She wasn’t loitering this time, and she evinced no interest in Morris’s door. Only when she rounded the right-angle of the passage did he hear her breathing. It was a trifle fast. She managed her bedroom door very well … for a white woman … betraying herself only by making a sound when turning the key with unsteady pressure.

  The key would be on the inside. It was a pity, Bony decided, otherwise he could have locked her in.

  Without doubt Morris was the expert. With intelligence, he would have been a worthy competitor with Bony to reach per­fection in the art of scouting. He omitted an important point. Had he rolled himself in the mustiness of those abandoned rooms ruled by spiders … after washing his hair with scentless soap … he might have passed Bony undetected. His hair oil was a torch for Bony to see him for five seconds.

  Janet had been in a hurry to reach her room. Was her haste occasioned by the stalking Morris?

  Bony was still unsure of the answer when he smelled Janet. She was standing before Morris’s door, and within reach of his free hand, and tiny sounds told him she was touch-examining the bolt and padlock. She remained there for a full minute, and he felt relief when she departed towards the back stairs.

  He decided to remain pressed within the shallow recess, for he was as well here as anywhere. Unlike those others, he had no immediate objective. His role was a waiting one. He contemplated leaving the house and pounding on the front door, demanding admittance to interview one or the other on the pretext of official necessity. That course might prevent tragedy this night, but it would not advance his investigation or prevent tragedy in the future. Confusion of purpose was due to the unusual behaviour of Mary Answerth.

  Right now she should have been in bed and asleep, her light on guard, and Inspector Bonaparte keeping both eyes on her door. Instead, she was sweeping past him on the smell of wintergreen.

  Some time afterwards, sound erupted to fill every corner of the mansion. It seemed to come from the back of the house, and it began with the beating of two trays against plate glass, dwindling to the rising crescendo of bass drums, and ending by each of a thousand devils tearing a sheet of canvas. Because of the un­expectedness of it all, the shriek of someone being killed would have been a lullaby. Silence squatted again.

  Bony could hear the heart of silence throbbing like a distant tom-tom. The beat changed in tempo, but not in volume. It came from a human throat. Close to him, Morris Answerth was striving to control his laughter. From which point he had come and to which point he departed, Bony was uncertain.

  For some time after that, none of the players came his way and he heard not a sound until a voice said:

  “Got-cher!”

  At last the event … perhaps. Stone walls distort sound. He could not tell whose voice it was or be sure that the second word was “cher”. If the back-stairs’ door was open, the speaker could be in the kitchen. The other point was the hall, and the hall was nearer.

  Moving from the staircase, Bony gained the dining-room door­way, leaned against it and waited. He had been there for perhaps three minutes, when the lounge door was gently closed.

  He assumed that Mary Answerth had retired from the game.

  Feet softly padded along the passage upstairs. They came padding down the stairs. They padded across the hall to the front door. The handle was turned without attempt to stifle the sound. The feet re-crossed the hall, padded up the stairs. There was haste in the sound. It was like a rat realizing it was trapped and frantic­ally seeking escape. Bony heard the padlock to Morris’s door-bolt being handled.

  Bony followed, and at the gallery he paused to listen and could hear nothing. The point of the wire sword prodded the yielding void before his face, seeking obstruction. He advanced along the passage, passed Janet’s room, was halted by the clink of metal. Yet again the perfume of hair oil met his nostrils, and he was aware it was not advancing to him but he to it. He continued to advance till the tip of his cat’s whisker contacted some part of Morris’s body.

  “No! I’m sorry. I want to go in. I …”

  “Stand aside, Morris, and I will open the door.”

  “I’m frightened. I want to go in.”

  Bony was gripped by his left arm, and the pressure was painful. He managed to free the padlock and open the door. “Go in now,” he said, and with a stifled whimper Morris scurried back to his prison.

  There remained at large Janet Answerth and Mrs Leeper.

  Traversing the passage to the back stairs, he floated down the inclined stone tunnel to the heavy door at the bottom. Soundlessly he entered the kitchen, and instantly was assailed by a perfume different from those others. A tiny particle of ice struck between his shoulders. Magically it grew in size, spreading up the back of his neck, spreading outward to cover his scalp.

  The strange odour was registered by instinct rather than by the senses which recognized the perfume of flowers. During seconds, Bony was stripped of the veneer laid upon the white man by education, training, experience. During those seconds he was elemental, completely subjugated by fear of the dreaded Kurdaitcha: the Thing Who walked the earth and left no tracks because It soaked Its feet in the blood of men and to the blood glued the feathers of eagles: the Thing having something like the face of a man, the teeth of a dingo, and the nose of a mopoke: the Thing from which there is no escape for the aborigine It catches away from his camp at night.

  The sweat dripped from Bony’s face.

  Then prevailed the pride of Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, who prospected for the body and with his wire whisker found it on the hearth hard against the stove.

  The night beyond the window failed to provide the merest glimmer to illumine the scene. Slowly Bony’s knees bent to permit his erect body to sink while his eyes continued to probe and his ears to strive with the silence. His right hand touched cloth, dis­covered the outlines of a female body. The fingers found the face and explored the features. His arm slid under the body, and the wire sword was discarded that the left hand could hold the woman’s head. That Janet Answerth’s neck was broken could not be doubted.

  Mrs Leeper was the last at large … unless Mary Answerth had once again left her room.

  With unabated stealth and cautiousness, Bony left the kitchen. At the closed lounge door he listened with an ear to the key-hole. He heard nothing. Within was no light. Entering, he listened. Slowly he crossed to the bed.

  Bending over the foot of the bed, at last he caught the sound of soft but regular breathing, and as now the event had happened to release him from questions concerning his presence inside Venom House, he switched on his torch, aiming the beam at the floor.

  The woman on the bed didn’t stir. The reflection of the light revealed the outline of her massive form. The position of her arms caused the light beam to slant upward to the ceiling, when the reflection became stronger. Mary Answerth was lying on her back. Either she was asleep or unconscious. Each wrist was lashed to a bedpost, and the divergent range of bedclothes ended at each of the foot posts. Her feet were likewise bound.

  Pocketing the torch, and aided by his wire whisker, Bony went hunting for Mrs Leeper. Again in the hall, he could hear nothing o
f her. She was not in Janet’s studio or sitting-room. She was not in the kitchen, nor in her own sitting-room. He came upon her in Janet’s bedroom, and from the doorway directed his light to encircle her.

  She was on her knees before a chest of drawers. About her was a great litter of clothes and oddments. She spun round to face the shattering light beam, and always politely formal in dramatic situations, Bony enquired:

  “For what, Mrs Leeper, are you searching?”

  Astonishingly agile, she sprang to her feet. Her white face expressed incredible relief, but her voice was shrill with hysteria.

  “Inspector Bonaparte! They’ve hidden all the matches, and I can’t find what they’ve done with them.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Morris Won’t Tell

  BONY TOUCHED A lighted match to the wick of the lamp on the bed­side table. Replacing the glass, he stepped away.

  “I can’t say how glad I am you’re here,” Mrs Leeper said, obviously recovering from the shock produced by his advent.

  “Indeed! Why?”

  “There’s been fine goings-on in this house tonight. They hid all the matches, and foxed me in the dark while I hunted high and low for one to make a light with. And Mary …”

  “We will discuss it in the hall, Mrs Leeper. Take the lamp and lead the way.”

  Her gaze held to the wire cat’s whisker, rose to meet his steady eyes. He looked very tall, and extremely sinister, and she almost snatched the lamp and hurried from the room. Arrived at the hall, he said:

  “Light the large lamp, please.”

  She brought a tall stool to stand upon, and he turned the handle of the old-fashioned wall telephone and raised the Edison Exchange. She heard him ask the operator to call Constable Mawson, and he waited while she lit the suspended lamp and re­turned the stool to its place under the stairs. Then he motioned her to sit down, and she heard him ask Mawson to come at once and bring Dr Lofty with him. That done, he sat opposite her.