The House Of Cain

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Nevertheless, her non-appearance surprises me.”

  “I have not known Miss Thorpe so long as you have, Mr. Sherwood, but I should not expect to understand her if I had known her all her life. It takes a woman to understand a woman. Last evening I informed her that you had disregarded her request to bother no further about her, and that you would visit us to-day. My gossip appeared to bore her. This morning, when I went to her apartment to tell her of your arrival, she said that, feeling unwell, she would defer meeting you until dinner this evening. Believe me, I understand your anxiety. Follow a woman if you like, but never attempt to lead one.”

  Even Monty was bluffed, and Anchor, elated by his success, diverted them from the dangerous subject by asking:

  “What is your opinion of my great humanitarian scheme?”

  “What do you mean?” inquired the blind man.

  “Why, my Home!––and I used the word in its proper sense––my Home for those bearing the brand of Cain. I see I had better explain it from the beginning.

  “Even when I was debating the future of my first wife I realized that some inconvenience might follow, should the general public become acquainted with the precise method adopted,” went on this extraordinary man, who appeared to regard murder as one of the homely details of existence. “And so, some time before her decease, I transferred considerable sums––in ways known to financiers––to the safekeeping of a gentleman named William John Anchor, of Baltimore. That forethought saved me much trouble when the fool doctor, my later wife’s lover, began to stir up the waters of the past.

  “But, although I successfully created the personality of William J. Anchor, I could not enjoy in his name the measure of business activity which I had done as William J. Hook. Therefore, I realized the necessity of opening some fresh channel for my energies. I was in Paris, whither I had drifted for pleasure, when I found myself gazing at a picture in the Louvre in company with a stranger whom afterwards I came to known as Dr. Moore, and later still as Dr. Walling.

  “Now, we were both takers of life, both wanted by the law which wanted to take our lives. Neither of us cared much about the overrated pleasures of Paris. In each life had occurred a cataclysm which had rooted us up and placed us on unfamiliar soil, and as a consequence of this coincidence we became great friends.

  “It was really the cramped and fettered conditions of my new life which made me feel the want of a home for murderers of both sexes, much as I should imagine the poor of gentle birth are made to feel the want of a genteel refuge of some sort in which to hide and die. Recognizing the want and being able to finance some adequately framed effort to meet it, I suggested the idea to Dr. Moore, who agreed at once to assist me.

  “We searched the world for a suitable locality, and found the world to be a very small place. Of necessity the Home must be at a safe distance from civilization, yet not beyond touch of it. My own country was far too closely settled to provide a suitable site; South America also was too crowded, if not with white folk, then with black. Africa was the same. India was out of the question, whilst the Pacific Islands were too much within the orbit of trade. Here, in this vast semi-desert, within reasonable flying distance of a railway, we found what I wanted. There are not even black people to gossip and invent romantic stories about my Home. For explorers there is no attraction––no gold, no publicity––to induce them to visit this desert region. I know of only two localities in the world less inhabited, and they are the Poles.

  “Finding this house and bore for sale was indeed a Godsend,” went on the drawling voice, its owner lying back with half-closed eyes, his cheroot burned out, his hands clasped behind his head. “To mask my scheme, to make the place habitable, and to maintain a certain amount of seclusion, I gave it out that I was engaged (as indeed I am) upon an important invention, and that I would resent any intrusion.

  “The Home brought into existence, it then became necessary to make it known to those for whom it was intended. Moore and I got into touch with the Australian under-world, and formed an organization in every city to spirit away to this house those unfortunates whose lives were threatened by the law. The expenses in connections with the transfer here of each such case averages two thousand pounds, and in that of Miss Thorpe, with its spectacular features, came as high as six thousand pounds.”

  “But surely you are not a philanthropist to that extent?” Martin interjected, his journalistic soul thrilled to the core by this string of amazing revelations.

  “It is a fact,” was the blandly spoken reply. “The thirty thousand which this scheme costs me every year is but a tithe of my income, which continues to mount in an embarrassing manner. It is essential to open up fresh avenues of expenditure to absorb the interest accruing from my investments. Such a project as a Murderers’ Home you will agree is at least original. It amuses me to study the various types sent here by my organization: it enables me to replace my lost interest in high finance by a fresh one which requires keen organization, incessant watchfulness, and iron leadership. I am one of those persons who must always be doing something; and you will readily understand that my unfortunate adventures in matrimony have narrowed my field of activity to a very serious extent. Sometimes I am tempted to wonder if it would not have paid me better to have obtained divorces in the ordinary way; but I am one of those who greatly dislike to be outwitted or ‘done’ by anyone.

  “I have plenty to do, I assure you, outside the direction of this establishment. Miss Thorpe’s terrible position in the Melbourne gaol gave my brain pleasurable exercise in working out a solution, and I will outline her rescue by way of giving you a general idea of our methods. Another cigarette, Mr. Sherwood?”

  “Thank you, but with your permission I will smoke one of my own,” Martin returned, producing his case. Observing the brand, Anchor said:

  “Ah! I see you favour ‘Three Circle’ cigarettes, Mr. Sherwood. They are a little too strong, as a cigarette, for my palate, but an excellent smoke nevertheless. Yes, in the first instance the chief of my Melbourne organization wirelessed me in code the facts governing Miss Thorpe’s arrest on the charge of murder. Had she been accused of murder before her arrest was possible, he would have acted without further instructions; but, as Miss Thorpe was behind prison bars, he felt bound to learn my views.

  “Feeling that the life of a brave woman was too much to pay for that of a mean blackmailer, I decided in Miss Thorpe’s favour. I ordered my agent to get her out and dispatch her here at once. Every hour I learned how the plans were maturing. I knew that Hill, alias Bent Nose, a thief turned honest, was the best man to do the inside work, as ten years previously he, with other convicts, had been engaged in structural alterations to the women’s wing. At first I was surprised when Bent Nose refused payment for his very valuable work, but later learned that he owed Miss Thorpe a debt of gratitude.

  “He it was who, after the wardresses on night duty had been dealt with, roused Miss Thorpe and commanded her to dress. The whole scheme was carried on by stop-watches, tested and compared beforehand. Bent Nose was given ten minutes to locate Miss Thorpe’s cell. She was allowed twenty minutes to dress. Bent Nose was given another five minutes to get her to the landing window, the bars of which he had melted asunder with oxy-acetylene whilst she dressed, and thence lower her to the ground. Five seconds were allowed him to follow her. And so perfect was the timing that on the instant that his feet touched the ground the fuse fired the explosive which tore down a portion of the outer wall, and a confederate had his arms round the neck of the sentinel in the watch-tower.

  “Even while portions of brick were in the air Bent Nose and Miss Thorpe left the wall of the building for the breach, even before the thunder of the explosion had died away in echoes the driver of a powerful car at the corner of the street let out the clutch and stepped on the gas. The car slowed down at the hole in the wall precisely as Miss Thorpe and her escort emerged to jump into it.

  “Yes, it was very neatly done, and the pleasure
of the achievement was well worth my six thousand pounds. The car brought Miss Thorpe to a lonely farm near Sunshine, where she was transferred to an aeroplane which flew her to Gawler, north of Adelaide. Coming then under the protection of our South Australian organization, she was motored to Port Augusta, where she caught the train to Marree. At Marree she was met by Dr. Moore, who flew her on the last stage of the journey to safety.

  “It is all those little details, those wheels within wheels, which make this game to me no less interesting than high finance. Its originality attracts me. I can direct it in the seclusion and comfort of this my Home, the aeroplane and the wireless being valuable aids. It banishes boredom, which otherwise would swamp me; it provides me with amusement and scope for the study of human nature, which has been a lifelong hobby.

  “Of course, I have to take the rough with the smooth. I have decided that takers of human life are of two classes. Most of us kill upon impulse only, the impulse brought about by circumstances both rare and complex. It is Dr. Moore’s theory, and so far I am in agreement with him, that, under circumstances sufficiently complex and compelling, any human being will attempt to kill––soldiers, for instance. Where he forges ahead and I lag behind is in his advanced theory that there is a portion of the human brain, equally as useless as the appendix, the removal of which would prevent the subject from killing when the complex circumstances which arouse murderous emotion are present. We must get him to expatiate on the subject. It is a favourite one with him, and he makes it interesting.

  “Of course, we get people here like Gilling, whose sanity I doubted from the first, and Lane, who is little removed from the brute. In ‘The Cat’ we have a lurid example of heredity. Dr. Moore’s removal of a part of his brain would not make a sound man of him any more than it would Lane; or, rather I should say, the operation, in my opinion, would not have prevented the temporary lapse. They are killers by instinct and from birth.

  “So you see I am content to exercise my brain with the operation and studies I have outlined, and my friend, Dr. Moore, is content also to carry on his experiments in searching out the causes of cancer. He is keen to experiment on humans, too; but I am loath to allow that after what happened to a half-caste Malay. On two other occasions, however, I was obliged to consent, in order to preserve our domestic harmony.”

  “Experiments on humans!” Martin exclaimed.

  “Yes; to remove that part of the brain which creates the impulse to kill.”

  “Oh! I see. And was he successful?”

  “I think it can be said that he was not,” Anchor murmured, looking dreamily at Monty. “This is not an experimental laboratory, but a home for those poor souls who sinned less than they were sinned against, so that as a community we do not suffer from Moore’s non-success.”

  CHAPTER XX

  MRS. JONAS

  YOU are very frank, Mr. Anchor,” remarked the blind man after a pause. “Why are you so frank?”

  The silver-haired, distinguished looking founder and superintendent of surely the most original “Home” in the world opened his eyes and gazed with well-assumed perplexity at his guests. He sat up in his chair, relighting his cheroot before replying.

  “Really, I have nothing to hide,” he asserted. “Moreover, I think I may be excused from taking a little pride in my efforts on behalf of suffering humanity; precisely the same pride that a Carnegie must take in his libraries or a Rhodes in his scholarships.”

  “Yet, surely, you cannot expect the world to regard your Home or its inmates with like complacency. Surely you understand that were it discovered you all would be hanged, or shot if you resisted arrest?”

  “That elementary consideration has not been overlooked.”

  “Then allow me again to put my recent question. Why are you so frank with us?”

  “Dear, dear! How persistent you are!”

  “I am sorry if I appear too much so,” came Martin’s quiet voice. “We are not here to pry into the secrets of your Home, but to interview Miss Thorpe and induce her, if possible, to return to civilization.”

  “You know, I really do dislike difficult and to my mind needless explanations on these hot afternoons,” Anchor said, and Monty for the first time saw amusement in the slate-coloured eyes. “Still, if you insist––! When recently it was reported to me that a member of my Victorian organization, otherwise Bent Nose, had given you the locality of Miss Thorpe’s temporary refuge, I naturally felt upset; for, you see, I already knew all about you two, and was certain that you, Mr. Montague, would pay me a friendly call.

  “By the way, you may not have heard that Hill paid dearly for his lapse. That, however, was not with my sanction, and when I heard that he had been severely shot I ordered that, should he live, he was not to be molested again. Since then I am given to understand that the man is rapidly recovering.”

  “Why is he not to be molested again?”

  “For the simple reason that, as a healthy man, he would not have informed the authorities for the same reason you recently stated you did not desire to war upon us. But Hill, very near death, might do so in a spirit of revenge. To return to your case. My Melbourne agent was obliged to accompany you to Adelaide before he ascertained which route you intended taking: via Port Augusta and Marree, of via Broken Hill and Turrowangee.

  “We knew when you left Broken Hill, also the date of your departure from Turrowangee. We guessed the probable time you would reach the water-hole at the foot of the giant sand-hill, which was why Gilling arrived there but a few hours after you did. He was to camp there and wait for you.”

  “Can you tell me why Miss Thorpe requested us to return?” was Martin’s next question.

  “Really I do not know, unless it was that she thought as I did.”

  “Does she know of Travers’s confession, which exonerates her from the crime of murder?” Monty asked bluntly.

  “Certainly. The newspaper report of it was sent us immediately.”

  “What, then, is her object in remaining here?” the big man persisted, watching with admiration Anchor’s deep inhalation of the none-too-mild cheroot.

  “Ask me something easier,” William J. drawled softly. “I suspect she is writing a novel of the bush, and intends leaving us when she has obtained sufficient local colour. That may not be the reason, however. A woman is an enigma which no man can solve.”

  “She is not prevented from leaving the house, then?”

  “Well, her departure would certainly place us in very grave danger,” Anchor murmured.

  “If so, our departure also will place you in grave danger?”

  “I am afraid that is so.”

  “I think I begin to understand your frankness,” Martin put in.

  “I am glad to hear it. I am glad to know you appreciate the difficulties in which Miss Thorpe’s affair and your interest in it have involved us. You see, I could not well treat you with our usual hostility to strangers, knowing that you would never be satisfied until you had found Miss Thorpe. When you had narrowed the field of your activities this house would have had your exclusive attention. Pardon my mentioning the fact; but, although I hate doing so, I must remind you that I did not wish nor did I invite you to come here from Melbourne. However, since your stay with us must be indefinitely prolonged, I hope it will prove as enjoyable to you as certainly it will be to us. Frankness is a virtue for people living under one roof.”

  “In other words, you have deliberately made us more dangerous to you?”

  “And intend keeping us here?” Monty inquired mildly.

  “Much as we all regret it, gentlemen, that is, I think, the situation,” was the bland reply, containing not even the hint of a threat.

  The big man smiled broadly. Circumstances were developing the sort of complexity he liked. Here was the kind of adversary whom he never yet had met––astute, calm, confident, ruthless––a foeman indeed worthy of his steel. He realized that the coming upheaval would be a contest demanding the keenest brainwork, as well as
iron-hard fists and quick shooting. Well, so be it! Martin could supply the brains and he the rest.

  He beamed upon Mr. William J. Anchor, his eyes twinkling and his strong, even teeth revealed by parted lips. The ex-rubber king got the impression that the bushman’s intelligence had not yet grasped the full import of the situation as outlined by him. Monty’s antecedents, sent him by the leader of his Melbourne organization, gave him no reason to doubt the strength of character of the genial man; therefore, the smile could not be engendered by sympathy with him and his fellow criminals.

  “I am delighted that you accept the position in such a friendly spirit,” their host drawled. “Make this house your own. There are plenty of books in the library if you like reading; and Dr. Moore, I think, will be most pleased to have you accompany him on some of his flights.”

  Still Monty smiled with genuine amusement. When he spoke, which was not until he had seen a fleeting flash of uneasiness in the agate eyes, his voice was very low.

  “Personally I don’t like novels, and crashing in aeroplanes does not appeal to me,” he said. “But, if you’ve no objection, I will spend a few days trapping crows. When released from traps, you know, they make excellent target practice for revolver shooting.”

  In spite of the sinister meaning underlying Monty’s last words, William J. Anchor broke into a hearty chuckle. Rising to his feet, he held out his thin, well-shaped hand, saying:

  “For at least one reason I am glad you came.”

  The big man, on his feet, took the proffered hand, refraining with difficulty from giving it a Squeezem Harry grip.

  “You’re no less glad than I am for every reason,” he said with sudden seriousness. “I believe I am going to enjoy myself even better than I did at the Great War.”

  “Well, well, we can do with a little stirring up; but allow me first, I pray you, a few days of peace. I have an experiment to complete, and would simply hate to leave it––ah––unfinished. I suggest a siesta now, but before we part for a little while allow me to warn you that my hounds are vicious brutes. They cannot come within the surrounding fence, but if you pass without do not hold me responsible. You know, I hate to cage birds and chain dogs. I am such a lover of freedom myself.”