A House on the Rhine

by Frances Faviell

  When the foreigner, feeling the effects of the drug supplied by Alfred and put in his wine by Maria, began to get heavy and dazed, it was easy and natural enough for the waiter serving that table to help Maria get him out of the restaurant garden. The waiter, of course, was Eddie. At the rear, in a dark corner, Hank and Leo took over. The man was lugged out under a willow, hit savagely on the head and robbed of his bulging wallet. By the willows was a kind of natural cave in the rocks forming the terrace garden wall. The body was pushed into this. Later, when the restaurant was completely empty, the body was rolled into the river.

  The problem of whether or not to kill had been discussed at length by the gang and put to the vote. The majority were for killing. After all, they’d bumped off one man weeks ago and nothing had happened; the argument for killing was too strong. The man, on recovery, might remember not only the restaurant but the girl and the waiter. He had visited the place several times before on his business trips and had made Eddie’s acquaintance. This was how Eddie had found out what huge sums of money these business men carried about with them. He had made certain that this one had plenty on him before he had offered to introduce him to a very attractive girl with whom he could spend the evening—and the night if he wished. Maria, on delivering her unconscious charge to the two gang leaders, then disappeared quickly to the ladies’ room where she changed her entire outfit before leaving the restaurant.

  The sum of money in the wallet exceeded all their hopes, and furthermore it was all in their own currency. The various visiting-cards and identity marks and papers were burned with the wallet. One of Hank and Katie’s troubles was where to hide the money. Their hoards were accumulating fast. In the house, where no privacy of any kind existed and no keys either, it was impossible to hide it. They were forced to use the loose board under the summer-house floor. Sometimes when Hank was at work he would sweat when he thought of the children playing in the summer-house. Robert in particular was an inquisitive child. At any moment the hoard might be discovered. He had almost enough for the motor cycle now. If Pa wasn’t such a stickler for insisting on that wretched contribution towards the building of the house every week he’d have had it long ago. He doubted if he’d ever have gone into the gang if Pa hadn’t taken that money off him every week. It was a damned shame. Didn’t he earn the stuff himself? Why should it go towards a house? If he worked late on overtime the old man knew he was earning more and asked for a larger contribution. He did the same with the girls. There was so much work in all the factories that anyone who wanted to earn more could do so. What was the use of working overtime if it all went towards a house? The gang had enabled him to get the money for his longed-for motor cycle in about three months. Had he earned it all it would have taken him three years or more.

  The share-out after each raid took place in the gang’s hideout. There was trouble at once after the first of the new schemes. In the housebreaking raids everyone had received an equal share with the exception of Hank and Leo, who got double as the leaders. Now it seemed that only those actually taking part each time would get a share. This time it meant that Katie, Leila the twins and two others got nothing. Katie made a sullen protest immediately.

  “It’ll be your turn next,” said Leo. “We only need one girl each time. We won’t be able to use you too often—your hair’ll give you away too easily.”

  Katie was furious at this excuse to put her off. In her heart she knew that Leo was tired of her and this increased his attraction for her. Alfred, usually silent and placid, insisted that he be paid his share. He had provided the drug to put in the wine at a considerable risk of discovery and he was not going to be put off. The twins, not wanting to be left out, and becoming rapidly influenced by their fellow members of the gang, gave voice to their indignation but were told bluntly to pipe down by Hank.

  The only one who made no protest was Leila, a blonde, graceful girl whom Eddie favoured at present.

  “I don’t want any of your dough—it stinks,” she said flatly. “I came in on this for housebreaking—I’m used to that—but I didn’t reckon for killing. I’m getting out.”

  Leo’s eyes narrowed. “Unfortunately you can’t,” he said suavely. “You’re in the gang. You’ve taken the oath, you must do your bit, and you’ll be called on very shortly.”

  “You mean that I must do what Maria did?”

  The repugnance in Leila’s voice brought Eddie to his feet. He had been sitting in a corner watching.

  “You’ll do it, and what’s more you’ll do it damn well,” he said roughly.

  “I’m with Katie. I won’t do it. You never told us it meant killing each time,” she said sullenly.

  “So you won’t do it either?” demanded Leo swinging round on Katie. “This is the first we’ve heard of it.”

  “I’m against killing,” she insisted, looking boldly at him.

  Leo hadn’t intended that the girls should know what had happened to the tourist after they left him. Eddie, always too fond of talking, had mentioned quite casually when the gang had met this evening that the strong current in the river could be counted on to carry the body a long distance, and that it would be far away from the restaurant when it was discovered. There had been a little gasp from the girls, with the exception of Maria, who had never had any illusions. She just went on smoking calmly.

  “Put that out,” snapped Leo suddenly. “Haven’t I warned you not to smoke. Listen . . .” There were footsteps approaching the shelter. In absolute silence they held their breath until they had passed.

  The twins had been horrified at hearing of the tourist’s murder but they were too frightened to show it. They knew as yet nothing of the length to which their gang leaders would go, but that they were in Leo’s bad books over the incident with Krista they could not doubt. Leo seemed to sense some hostility in his gang, for he said suddenly, after dismissing peremptorily the protests over the pay-out. “Every member will now take the oath again. Some of you seem to be losing your grip, and thinking you can get out when you like. Well, there’s no getting out—see? Once in always in, and anyone trying to rat on us will get what’s coming to him—or her, see?” He looked meaningly at Leila as he said this.

  The menace and icy threat in his voice was not lost on any of them. One by one at his command they filed past him, repeating the words of the oath and making the curious gesture before their faces until it was Leila’s turn. Her round blank face was unperturbed as she said quietly, “I’m not taking the oath again. I’m getting out, like I said.”

  Eddie seized her roughly by the arm. “Stow it, you bloody little fool, you can’t rat on us now—you know that.”

  But she stood there mutely, refusing to repeat the words.

  “Hank,” said Leo; his voice was regretful. “Take her other arm.”

  Eddie and Hank stood on either side. Her arms were held as if in a vice.

  “Repeat the oath,” insisted Leo quietly.

  Leila was silent. Her face was a closed mask, her lips set. Leo signalled to the two who held her. They twisted her arms until she screamed with pain and sweat ran down her face. The cries rang out on the still air until Leo, fearful that they would be heard, ordered Alfred to put his hand over her mouth or to tie a handkerchief round it.

  Alfred, his round eyes glowing strangely behind the thick rimmed glasses, clapped a hand over the girl’s mouth.

  “How can she repeat the oath with her mouth sealed, you fools,” cried Katie scornfully. Alfred took his hand away but no sound came from Leila’s bruised mouth. The twins could stand no more, they were not yet used to such brutality. They rushed to Leila and tried to free her, hurting her even more by their clumsy efforts.

  “Let her go,” ordered Leo suddenly, “and deal with these two bloody idiots.”

  Leila, released suddenly, fell in a limp heap on the ground. Her face was green-white, her mouth twisted in pain.

  Katie and Maria had watched her torture without a flicker of feeling. Now they went and h
auled her into a corner as if she were a sack of potatoes.

  The twins resisted Eddie and Alfred, fighting violently. They were thick-set and strong and in splendid condition. Leo saw that he was losing control, that the twins were more powerful than their opponents and he called upon Hank to subdue his brothers. Hank refused. He said he drew the line also at this latest stunt of the chief’s. He had always thought it was dangerous to trust girls. He saw, perhaps, the red light ahead in the appalling lengths to which Leo was prepared to go. As to murder he cared not at all whether they killed or coshed and left to die. It was immaterial to him, but he saw the risk they ran in antagonizing these girls if they were unwilling to act as decoys, and without decoys the whole scheme was useless.

  Watching his twin brothers getting the better of their antagonists he perceived suddenly how strong his own family were in this gang. Leo hadn’t wanted the twins—perhaps for this very reason. But he had been short of members after two had left the district and had been obliged to try them out. Hank himself was as powerful as Leo, and far more feared, but Leo was quicker and better educated. He knew more. Katie was easily the leader of the girls, while the twins, he now realized, when acting in unison were the strongest physically of any.

  He foresaw a day not too far off when the gang would be under his control through his family. They were accustomed to be ruled by him, and if they were the most powerful in the gang it would mean that he ruled it through them. If Hank had been asked whether he liked his chief, Leo, he would have grunted and said that Leo was all right. In his heart he hated Leo. Hated him for his superior education, his lofty assumption that he was always right, hated him most for his easy conquests of women. For Hank, agonizingly shy, and all too conscious of his ugliness and ungainliness, longed more than anything in the world to be attractive to the opposite sex. When he saw the burning looks which women cast on Leo’s slim hard strength, on his gold waving hair, his bronzed glowing skin and the curiously light blue-green eyes, it was as much as he could do to keep his hands off his chief.

  His own mottled dark complexion, black eyes and coarse black hair, and most of all his huge ears—over which he had been teased unmercifully at school—were no more attractive than his thickset body. Hank had no graces, no charm, no weapon at all with which to attract women. His manner was surly, his voice harsh, and his gait the shambling one of a lad whose strength had overtaken him too fast for his mind.

  He did not obey Leo’s order and watched them fighting for a moment. They were getting noisy in their excitement. Leo’s order to stop it were ignored, their tempers were up. It looked like becoming a desperate struggle between the four lads when Hank barked suddenly, “Enough! Leave the twins alone”, and at his word the fighting ceased. The four stood panting and angry separated by Hank. Leo’s eyes met his for just one second. There was something deadly in them. Hank felt uncomfortable at that relentless glare and went over to Leila. He turned her over. She lay inert on the sack where the girls had dragged her.

  He bent down and pulled the tumbled hair from her face. Her eyes were closed and something in the expression of the curved lashes on her cheek reminded him quite sharply of Krista. It unnerved him. Leila was opening her eyes now and gazed terrified at him. He lifted her to her feet, but she could not stand and sank down again against the wall of the shelter.

  “Get her some water,” he snarled. “Go over to the garage and ask Lu for some.” Leo protested immediately. No one was to leave the shelter. One of the girls produced a bottle of red wine and some of this was poured down Leila’s throat. She gasped and choked and then began to cry. When anyone touched her she winced and whimpered with pain.

  “Stretch out your arm”, ordered Leo. The right arm came up, but the left one remained hanging limply.

  Alfred, with some experience of anatomy from his studies, came over and began feeling the arm.

  “Broken”, he pronounced laconically. “Now then, here’s a nice little mess you’ve got us into, Leo. What about this one?”

  “Let it be a lesson to you, damn you,” said Leo, “You see what’s coming to you if you don’t stick to the rules of the gang and obey orders.”

  “You’ve broken her arm, and now she’s ‘out’ for the next job—she’d be some decoy in plaster!” sneered Katie.

  “Then it’ll be you who does the next,” snapped Leo. “Now then, Leila, are you ready to repeat the oath of the gang, or do you want the other arm broken?”

  Leila got to her feet with difficulty. Eddie moved to help her, but she shrank away from him in horror.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, and the revulsion and loathing in her voice reached even his degraded mind.

  “It’s your own fault,” he mumbled. “You know the rules—why don’t you stick to them.”

  “Repeat the oath,” snarled Leo. He had to assert himself because his pride had received a serious blow when four members of his gang had ignored his orders and obeyed Hank’s just now.

  In a low voice and with many halts Leila repeated the vile words; then she broke into bitter sobbing.

  No one paid any attention to her sobs, but they produced an uneasy atmosphere in the gang. The twins, in particular, were already fed up with the brutality of the recent proceedings; it would take little more to cause them to revolt too. Leo sensed this, and calling them peremptorily over to him one by one insisted on their repetition of the oath of obedience and loyalty.

  Hank, watching them and seeing the twins’ reluctance when their turn came, stood menacingly over them.

  “Want some of the medicine Leila’s had?” He thrust his great head under their faces, “Get on with it before I make you . . .”

  The time was not yet ripe for his plans and he could not in any case afford to overlook any signs of insubordination from his own family. Leo, after a few curt pregnant words, dismissed them all. The words contained a warning that anyone betraying the smallest item of the affairs of the gang would be dealt with in the threat set out in the oath which they had just taken. None of them, when they had so lightly joined the gang and learned the code, had really believed that those words would be actually applied. The threat mentioned the full penalty for treachery—death.

  None of them now, having seen Leo’s ruthlessness over the tourist and over Leila, could doubt that he would carry out the threat, no matter which member of the gang was guilty. They filed out silently into the wet warm night after making sure that they were unobserved. None of them wanted to hang about or to discuss anything this evening. Death had suddenly become a startlingly personal possibility.

  XVIII

  WHEN Father Lange spoke to Joseph about Katie and Hank having been out on the motor cycle in the early hours of the morning, Joseph listened resentfully. He was only too well aware of the villagers’ attitude. He merely grunted and said that nowadays the young did just as they liked and would take no questioning about their doings.

  Father Lange was angry. “It’s your duty to find out what they’re doing. I hear it’s not just occasionally but regularly that they prowl about when they should be in bed. What kind of a father is it who allows this?”

  “It’s no use blaming me,” shouted Joseph. “I’m no longer the master in my own home.”

  “And whose fault is that?” asked the priest gently. “If you were to forgive your wife and put your house in order you’d soon have control of your family again.”

  Joseph shook his head wearily. “It’s too late,” he said, “I’m tired. There’s nothing left in me—I’m like a worn-out shoe. I gave all my strength in those long years away from them . . . away from all humanity and decency . . . now there’s only the shell left. I did my duty to my country. There’s nothing left for my family.”

  “I’m a much older man than you, Joseph,” said the priest sternly; “come, man, pull yourself together. I know you’re tired,—aren’t we all? But they’re your children, your own flesh and blood.”

  “Are they?” asked Joseph dispiritedly. “Someti
mes I wonder.”

  He was on his way to work and left Father Lange abruptly. The priest stood staring after him thoughtfully. He liked Joseph, liked him perhaps better than many of his regular, self-satisfied parishioners. The man’s puzzled misery, his bewildered inability to adjust himself to circumstances, his reluctance to take decisions, moved him. It might look like weakness to some, but the priest knew better. The man was going through some kind of terrific mental upheaval. He had purposely refrained from reproving him again for his absence from Mass. He saw that at present it would be useless. He did not want to alienate Joseph further, but he had felt it his duty to speak about the adolescents. Their life lay ahead, and whether he wanted to or not Joseph would have to bear the responsibility for them. If Joseph would not do something about them, then he would reluctantly have to do it himself.

  The steadily mounting resentment in the village was becoming dangerous. Everyone was saying, for instance, that the girl Katie was pregnant again, and that the mother was shamelessly continuing her affair with the young man; not in her own home, but only a stone’s throw down the lane.

  He was worried about the twins, too. They were such great jolly lads, with their straw-coloured hair and black eyes, but since they had been under Hank’s influence he had seen little of them. Anna was steadier now. She had taken a knock over that child who had died. It hadn’t been easy for her. He liked the way she had taken Moe’s place and brought the little ones to church on Sundays. Krista was unhappy. There was this wretched business of the American. He saw Joseph’s point of view—but at the same time the girl was far too good for any of the local lads. Because he had perceived her innate purity despite her surroundings, he had pleaded for her to stay on longer at school—after all, her real age was not known—until he had been able to get her into the perfume factory.