The House Of Cain

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “If only I could see!” was Martin’s lament.

  “If you could, we’d take charge of the lot of ’em and march them off to gaol. Now I’m for a snore off. You had better indulge, too. There will be little sleep for either of us for a week or so.”

  Monty was awakened about five o’clock by the roar of a low-flying aeroplane engine, and, slipping to the veranda door, was in time to recognize the doctor’s ’plane speeding southward. At the time he thought that Dr. Moore and “The Cat,” whom he had seen in the rear seat, were out on a practice flight. The ’plane did not return till a little after eight, and it must have been to allow the fliers time to return from their aerodrome that the dinner-gong did not sound until eighty-thirty.

  That night both Anchor and Dr. Moore were late. Monty was engaged in conversation with Mallowing when they came in, the host apologizing profusely, the doctor visibly elated, an unusual smile, suggestive of triumph, lighting his ruddy face. The smile “intrigued” the big man. It continued to do so even after Anchor exploded his bombshell.

  Of this, however, the time-fuse was delayed until the close of the meal. Then Anchor said: “When you put your camels in the horse-paddock upon your arrival, did you hobble them, Mr. Sherwood?”

  “Mr. Mallowing assured me that once the paddock was reserved only for your bulls. He told me this when I asked him why the horse-paddock fence was five-foot-six high, with a barbed wire top. I was assured, too, that the fence all round was good. Accordingly, I did not hobble my camels. Why do you ask?” inquired the big man calmly, but secretly perturbed.

  “Because your camels, with three of my own, have escaped the paddock. Your camels are leading mine straight to that natural waterhole where you were visited by Gilling.”

  Monty wanted badly to swear. Even while he saw his plans for that night destroyed he wondered why Anchor was so much annoyed by what would only mean a delay of perhaps a day or two, at most. With his usual philosophic calm he said:

  “How did they get out?”

  “The last sand-storm shifted a sand-hill on a part of the fence and buried it. The camels walked over the sand-hill. Dr. Moore, who has been out with ‘The Cat’ in search of them, discovered them some twenty-seven miles away, walking in the direction of the waterhole.”

  “The water-hole is sixty miles from here, is it not?”

  “Yes, about sixty.”

  “Humph! As they are making for that surface-water they will camp there for a while. I know they did not relish the bore-water here. Too much soda for their taste. It’s both unfortunate and annoying. You will have to give me permission to fetch them back. Dr. Moore perhaps would fly me to the water-hole.”

  “And when would you arrive back?”

  “Sometime Sunday afternoon, if the doctor and I left early to-morrow morning. It will depend on how far the beasts have got when we overtake them.”

  That was what Dr. Moore had said, and what Anchor knew. It was impossible for the aviator to leave the Home before daybreak the next morning, impossible for him to land in the uncharted bush in the dark. And the police from Innaminka would pay their ominous visit on Sunday. Of that also Anchor was sure. He knew the daily stages the police would make.

  The millionaire rose suddenly and strode to a chiffonier, from a cupboard of which he took a bottle of wine. His back was towards the diners. No one saw him take from his pocket a phial of colourless liquid, withdraw the cork with finger and thumb, place the tip of his little finger against the uncorked mouth, and then run his moistened finger round the inside of two of the four glasses he placed on a salver. The expression of annoyance was still on his face when he returned to the table.

  “Fate has served us a scurvy trick, Mr. Sherwood,” he said with his usual silkiness. “I was looking forward to giving you good news, instead of which the news I gave was anything but good. Because of that I am going to open this Amontillado which was bottled the year of the Battle of Waterloo. Let me fill your glasses before I tell you what my good news was to have been.”

  “I often wish I had been at the Battle of Waterloo,” drawled Monty, watching the golden tide rise in glass after glass. “In those days war must have been good sport, a stand-up affair between man and man. Somehow I always did like to feel a feller when I corpsed him.”

  “I agree with you that modern warfare lacks the personal touch,” came Anchor’s voice, accompanied by a dry chuckle. He himself offered the wine. Monty accepted the two glasses nearest him, placing one in Martin’s hand. Moore took the third and Anchor the last glass. Evidently the wine was too precious for ordinary occasions. The others had burgundy within reach. Martin sipped his, and Monty also tasted once, twice.

  “They certainly could make wine in those days,” was Martin’s tribute.

  “The wine-grower’s cunning is equalled by Father Time,” the millionaire drawled. “I am glad you appreciate the result of their collaboration. Let it be a peace-offering for my being unable to comply with Miss Thorpe’s wishes, which in a way affect you. This afternoon she informed me she would not leave her apartments for fear of meeting you. For some reason or other she has conceived a strange antipathy towards you both. When I pointed out to her that for our safety you would be obliged to remain with us indefinitely, she was both surprised and angry.”

  He was watching Monty, and wondering what the big man was smiling at. Continuing, he said softly:

  “You know what women are, and how they twist a man round their dainty fingers. How could a prospective groom ignore his bride’s pleading? And such a bride! I consented to allow you to depart from us after giving your words of honour to keep our secrets.”

  The blind man rose suddenly to his feet. His face was very pale. Monty waited for denunciation; but Martin, throwing up his arms, fell forward over the table with a crash of glass and china.

  The other diners were very quiet, excepting Mabel Hogan, who gasped audibly. The big man was surprised at what he thought to be Martin’s faint. Never had he known his brother to faint. He was about to gather him up in his arms and take him out to the veranda when Anchor’s quiet voice intervened:

  “One moment, Mr. Sherwood.”

  The big man turned his head. He looked straight down the barrel of Anchor’s automatic pistol.

  Then he understood. Martin was drugged or poisoned. It was he who should have drunk the doctored wine. Slowly his grey-blue eyes extended, cold glittering light in their depths. Above the pistol-barrel he saw Anchor’s eyes, the lids narrowed but unwinking, the eyes steady as those of a snake.

  Monty realized that, until the automatic wavered or Anchor blinked, it would be simply suicidal to move his right hand a fraction of an inch towards his gun.

  For seconds the two men remained thus, like marble effigies in a Grecian tableau. Then the electric lights appeared to wane, and for an instant Monty thought they would go out and give him his chance.

  “Just one moment more, Mr. Sherwood,” pleaded Anchor.

  Dim and dimmer became the lights. They flickered. They flared into a brilliant yellow flame and went out. Monty dropped across the table beside Martin.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  DR. MOORE’S AMBITION

  MONTY SHERWOOD was back in London on leave from the Army. He heard Big Ben strike eleven. He was in hospital somewhere, though he could not remember how he got there. The top of his head felt as if it were being pressed in by some mighty force.

  For a while he dozed, then on opening his eyes he thought at first he was gazing at the black vault of heaven, the stars hidden by an unbroken canopy of cloud. His head ached atrociously and he again closed his eyes. Gradually the pressure at the top of his head relaxed, and when next he opened his eyes and wished to rub them he learned that he was bound hand and foot––very securely bound. Came then remembrance.

  So the wine had been drugged, or that portion of it destined for Martin and himself. For the first time in his life he felt, to use the hackneyed but expressive term, “cheap.” He considered tha
t he had been tricked with the ease one tricks an innocent child. It was one of the very few occasions he allowed anger to disturb him, and this anger he vented on the binding cords without in any way loosening them.

  He found himself lying on his back on an uncomfortably hard bench or table. A deeper darkness passed across the ceiling, and, turning his head, he made out the form of Dr. Moore seated at a large table writing beneath the solitary electric bulb that rendered the room less dark.

  It was a very large room, and the shadows exaggerated its dimensions to the vastness of a cavern. The table at which Dr. Moore wrote was situated almost centrally––to Monty’s left and a little to his rear. The operating-table on which Monty lay was set some six feet from the wall on his right. Beyond Moore’s table was the door, whilst from the door to the left-hand corner fronting Monty and along the wall to a point directly opposite his feet ran a broad bench littered with scientific apparatus, the metal and glass of which glinted in the subdued light. He wondered where Martin was, being unable to catch sight of his blind brother who, similarly bound, lay on a second operating-table immediately behind him.

  Dr. Moore laid down his pen and rose, pushing his chair back with his straightening legs in doing so, and after several adjustments studied a slide through a large microscope set at the end of his table. What he examined must have been of unusual interest, for he seized a notebook and wrote in it several times during his observations. When Monty spoke his throat felt lime-kiln dry.

  “We appear to be a happy family, my dear old doctor murderer,” he said.

  “I am glad you think so,” came Moore’s affected voice.

  “You know, dear Brutus, you remind me of the traditional student burning his last candle. Why this economy?”

  Moore reseated himself, took up his pen and said:

  “I will attend to you presently; please do not speak just now.”

  “It’s a habit of mine,” Monty confessed. “Only don’t tell anyone.”

  Moore went on writing at an accelerated pace. Said the big man mockingly:

  “‘And the villain seized her round the waist, and, lifting her high above his head, heaved her over the cliff.’ Have you decided on a title yet, doctor?”

  Without speaking, Moore again applied his eye to the micro scope. Monty went on gaily:

  “‘Standing upon the very edge of the abyss, the villain watched her slowly drown. “Ah! ah!” he cried. “At last your millions are within my grasp…So––so!” he hissed as our brave hero dived from the cliff to the rescue.’”

  To continue the study of Dubini’s disease, or the rare bacillus which causes it, with Monty interrupting in that disgusting fashion, was a sheer impossibility, even to a man who prided himself on his powers of concentration. Dr. Moore viciously slammed down his pen, and, rising abruptly, stalked to the electric switches beside the door and flooded the room with light from an arc-lamp suspended over the operating tables. With a grin of amusement, the big man saw Moore produce two rolls of bandages and pick up a Spanish stiletto from the table on his way to Monty’s side.

  The expression on the doctor’s face was one of speechless rage. For a moment the big man thought he would plunge the dagger into his heart. Instead, Moore literally snarled: “Open your mouth––quick! Or I’ll prise it open with this hatpin.”

  Seeing that resistance would bring unnecessary pain, the big man obeyed, and half a minute later was effectually gagged. And when the doctor stood looking down at him with a faintly exultant smile, Monty closed one eye in an impudent wink.

  “I admit that the situation contains no little humour––to me,” Moore said in his affected drawl. “Perhaps the real humour of it will dawn on you later.”

  Again Dr. Moore smiled, and again Monty winked.

  With an imprecation the doctor turned back to his table, leaving Monty to speculate uneasily as to what was coming. Long before this he had convinced himself of the impossibility of freeing himself from bonds that kept him as stiff as a board. There was no possibility of rescue, little hope of intervention, none whatever of mercy.

  Lying there in the semi-darkness, for Moore had switched off the arc-lamp, he tried to puzzle out the reason for the drugged wine when Anchor had stated that they would be allowed to depart. Mabel Hogan’s confession that she had overheard Anchor inform Moore of that decision was convincing evidence that Anchor had meant to fulfil his promise.

  Had she repeated to him the entire discussion he would have understood precisely how and why the escape of his camels had affected Anchor’s decision; but Mabel Hogan’s first thought was for her child, and her last for herself and her protectors. She foresaw that if Monty learned of the impending police visit it was probable that he would either refuse to leave, or would return when the police had arrived.

  He gave up the problem after a while, and fell to surveying the apartment. The temperature decided him that it was one of the underground rooms. From contemplating his surroundings his mind began to recall the hints he had picked up of Dr. Moore’s experiments. Mabel Hogan had evinced great fear of them; and, after witnessing Moore’s callousness at the death of Earle, Monty realized that the doctor was quite capable of the most diabolical vivisection of humanity. Was he lying on that operating-table for that dreadful purpose?

  A clock on Moore’s table chimed twelve. The silvery notes recalled the dream of Big Ben striking eleven. He wondered if it were noon or midnight. Moore went on industriously with his writing and microscopic observation, which entailed the handling of many slides. Some time later he heard a sigh and the voice of Martin:

  “Where am I? Why am I tied down? Monty!”

  The giant tried hard to thrust out the gag, but only succeeded in making a gurgling sound, alarming his brother still further.

  “Monty! Are you there, Monty?” No reply coming, he called again: “Hullo! Is anyone there?”

  Moore put down a glass tube and came over to the blind man.

  “I am here,” he murmured dryly.

  “Ah! Is that you, Moore? Will you please explain this peculiar treatment?”

  “Now that you have recovered from dining unwisely and too well, I will define the situation with all Mr. Anchor’s candour,” assented the doctor, drawing up a chair so that he faced both the bound men.

  “I would have you both understand,” he went on, “that I have been in favour of allowing Miss Thorpe to return south ever since we learned of Travers’s confession. Her word to divulge nothing about us would have sufficed to secure our safety. However, Mr. Anchor took a fancy to Miss Thorpe and held other views. He was right when he said he had agreed to allow you to go to-morrow, or rather to-day, for midnight has passed; but, being now unable, as your camels have strayed, he was compelled to alter his decision because on Sunday, to-morrow, we are to have a police visit.

  “You will appreciate that from our point of view it was not advisable to have you running about to-morrow, so that Mr. Anchor showed a glimmer of his former acumen and consented to my taking charge of you.”

  “Well, you are not going to keep us tied down till the police have left, are you?” inquired Martin.

  “The police will in no way affect your future. Your future is now my sole concern. Mr. Anchor tells me he has described to you an experiment I once performed on a cat-killing gorilla. In spite of his scepticism, that experiment was entirely successful.

  “It proved my theory that a portion of the skull with a slight inward curvature is responsible for a human being committing murder; because, when that part of the brute’s skull was raised, it no longer killed cats, but regarded them with friendly tolerance. So that we arrive at the conclusion that murder is not a reasoned and deliberate crime, but an impulsive or reflex action due to a congenital defect of the human brain.

  “This is but one of several such subjects which I study as opportunity serves. In this case my aim is to discover by simple examination those persons suffering from the defect causing the murder impulse, and by an equally
simple operation to remove it, thus freeing them from the very possibility of committing a murder on impulse.

  “I admit the experiment failed in the case of a quarter-caste Malay, who, having offended the morality of this place, was put into my hands. The operation I performed on him produced an effect the very opposite of what was intended; but he had escaped my custody prematurely, and the failure probably was due to some accidental cause.”

  “Whilst you slept, I took occasion to examine your heads, concluding that you both are free from that inward curvature of the skull which under the force of great excitation produces the homicidal madness. You are free from the secondary personality immortalized under the name of Mr. Hyde.”

  “We are to be congratulated,” Martin murmured sarcastically.

  “You are, believe me,” replied Moore. “It is my intention, however, to implant that secondary personality within you. It is my intention, by operation, to form the inward curvature in that particular part of your skulls; to observe, I hope, the homicidal tendency so pronounced that there can be no mistake; and, all being well, to operate again to remove the defect and restore you to your natural mental equilibrium.

  “Should I succeed, you will have the pleasure of knowing that, through your experience, which will be broadcast throughout the world, murder will become almost extinct. On the other hand, should I fail, I am reluctantly obliged to conclude that you will at best be homicidal maniacs. I will, however, promise faithfully to kill you both in the event of failure.”

  “I must say, Moore, that though your conceptions are quite brilliant in a way, you are an inhuman beast,” Martin said quietly. “Even though your experiments are successful, how will you benefit by them?”