The House Of Cain

by Arthur W. Upfield

  The doctor replied without hesitation.

  “If I can prove to the medical world that murder is not a crime, but the result of an uncontrollable impulse due to physical defect, the murder laws will be amended. When the law is satisfied to have a murderer placed in the care of competent surgeons, who will perform the operation that will eradicate the impulse to kill, then I can declare myself, claim my reward, and suffer myself to be operated upon. After that, I can return to the world in which I was making name and fortune.”

  “I think I understand you, Moore. But the world is not converted by one or two experiments. To my mind, too, your theory is based on illusion, and your ambition is a dream that will never come true.”

  “It is a dream that can be made to come true,” Moore asserted confidently. He rose to his feet and, with his hands in his trousers pockets, regarded them alternately.

  “The nature of my studies prevents me from indulging the human failing of feelings or nerves,” he drawled. “At the other end of the room there is a hutch containing rabbits. They are for purposes of experimentation with the Dubini germ. You are here for experimentation also, and, therefore, so far as I am concerned, of equal importance, no more, with the rabbits.

  “I am studying Dubini’s germ just now, and have reached a stage which demands all my attention. If you talk, I shall gag you as I have gagged your brother. I am taking several hours’ sleep by and by. About nine o’clock I shall be ready for you. Be advised by me and try to sleep. Calmness in the subject goes far to assure success.”

  Moore went back to his table. Martin shivered. He thought it strange that Moore should be so dispassionate, so utterly callous. He spoke with conviction about his mad theory, but not with so much conviction regarding success. Suddenly a horrible fear of going mad fastened on him, and he groaned.

  As for Monty, he recognized that they were in a very evil plight. Little hope remained to him of escape, but his natural buoyancy refused to admit defeat or succumb to despair. Hours upon hours seemed to pass. He thought of Bubbles, now condemned to grow up among these frankly-confessed takers of human life. He thought of Mary Webster, cool of brain and warm of heart, a woman compact of goodness, sympathy, and feminine charm––a wonderful woman who then must be anxiously awaiting news of him.

  The doctor continued his work on the Dubini germ, his scientific ardour wiping from his mind all thought of the two hapless men he had condemned to a horrible vivisection. So absorbed was he that it was quite evident that he had not libelled himself in claiming to have no interest in his human victims beyond their use as subjects for experiment––no more interest in them than if they had been rabbits.

  He worked with his back to the door, at which Monty suddenly stared. The big man at first doubted his sight, considering that what he saw must be an optical illusion. For the door was slowly, very slowly, being pushed open. The light hung so low over the table that Moore’s head and shoulders shadowed the moving door. But the black ribbon between the door edge and its frame widened imperceptibly.

  The small clock chimed once, but Monty had no ears for the sound. He saw eventually the pale blotch of some one’s face set in that ribbon of black made by the dark room or passage beyond. The door opened a third of its extent, soundlessly, as though the blotch belonged to a spirit from beyond the vale. Now it was half open, and a figure glided into the room. Then slowly and without sound the door was closed behind it. The figure was that of a woman, a lighter shadow than the oaken door.

  For almost a minute she stood motionless, the black pupils of her wide eyes scrutinizing everything in the room. Then slowly, foot by foot, she edged along the wall to that end of the bench nearest her. And, when her face drew out of the shadow, Monty recognized Mabel Hogan.

  The thick carpet, stretching from wall to wall, made possible her movements to be unattended by the slightest sound. So carefully did she steal to the bench that not even a rustle of her dress betrayed her. Real, almost paralysing, terror glared from her staring eyes and drew back the corners of her mouth. One hand was pressed tightly against her heart as though to still the wild beating which must have pounded in her ears like the crashing of some gigantic hammer.

  To Monty a thousand years rolled by before she reached the end of the bench. And there she stopped and shrank back against the paraphernalia, for suddenly Dr. Moore rose from the table. It was only to delve into a side drawer for a sheaf of papers, however, and after he had resumed his seat for some three minutes Mabel Hogan moved again along the bench to the corner where it made a right angle.

  Right at the corner she made a noise, her hand bringing into slight collision a Bunsen burner and a metal bowl. Moore suddenly turned his head in that direction. Mabel Hogan stiffened to a woman of stone, her hands pressed to her mouth to smother a threatened scream. A cold sweat broke out on the bushman.

  But, either the electric light by which he was working partially blinded the doctor when he gazed into the semidarkness, or else he was acting the part of a cat; for he again went on with his interrupted study. Thenceforth the big man alternately watched both Moore and the woman. He saw her leave the corner and follow the bench to its farthest end, which was directly beyond his feet. When he again looked for her she had disappeared.

  From his elevated position he could not see Mabel Hogan creeping towards him on her hands and knees, and he was next made aware of her presence by the feel of her fingers against the back of his right hand. Thrilling triumph at the prospect of freedom surged through him at her touch. Unbounded admiration of her bravery in such terrible circumstances filled him with amaze. And then came breathcatching dismay when Dr. Moore got up suddenly from the table and walked over to him. Monty could have groaned.

  Was not the alluring prospect of freedom one of the exquisite tortures of the Inquisition? The big man felt sure now that Moore was acting the cat with Mabel Hogan as mouse, playing the part of the Inquisitor who greets the wretched captive on the threshold of freedom with a sinister smile and a polite invitation to prolong his visit. Moore came close and gazed down at him through his spectacles.

  When Monty glared up in return he saw that not for a fraction of a second did the eyes leave his face and look beyond to where Mabel Hogan must be crouching. By no possible chance could he miss seeing the woman, thought Monty, not knowing that she then was hidden beneath the operating-table. The torturer coolly put a forefinger on the pulse at the base of Monty’s neck, timing it by his illuminated watch, his long head nodding slowly with satisfaction.

  He did not speak. He acted as though Monty was a rabbit. Then he passed beyond the bound man’s head, out of his range of vision, to where he guessed Martin lay. Even then he was not sure that Moore was ignorant of the woman’s presence. He could have yelled with joy, with stupendous relief, when the doctor returned to the table, and, seating himself in the chair, resumed his work.

  Frantically he waved his right hand from the wrist, where it was secured to his legs. The movement caused him intense pain, but he continued in spite of it, with the object of attracting or reassuring the woman. Momentarily expecting to be freed, he became uneasy at first, then alarmed, when Mabel Hogan remained invisible and inactive.

  Mabel Hogan was ill. The intense excitement overtaxed her, caught her breathing, and she was stifling her gasps with a handkerchief. Minutes fled, and Monty’s heart sank with disappointment and despair. He thought she had fainted, and waited with the small hope that Moore would finish his work for that night and leave the room before the woman recovered. For he was positive that when she did come to she would betray her presence by a moan or a deep-drawn sigh.

  And then suddenly the pressure of the cords about his ankles was relieved. His right arm suddenly fell down over the side of the table. It was benumbed, as dead as wood. He knew it hung down towards the floor by the slight feeling of heaviness at his shoulder. He saw white arms hovering over him. The gag was plucked out of his mouth. His other arm was free…

  He was a free m
an, but as helpless as a log. The blood was loth to circulate again through his cramped limbs. A sensation of warmth crept up his arm, and he found that the woman was rubbing it. Pain, agonizing, torturing, began to move down his legs and the other arm, such pain that the sweat broke into beads on his forehead.

  The clock ticked innumerable seconds whilst he fought an overwhelming desire to move his legs and arms. He fought it because of the need to wait until the numbness should disappear and he again had command of his limbs, so that they would respond with wonted alacrity to his will.

  Presently he raised his head. He saw Mabel Hogan crouched on her heels, looking at him with wide, staring, black eyes. After a pause he gently drew up one leg, then the other, and then raised his arms alternately, the while watching the absorbed doctor. Gently he swung himself to a sitting posture. Slowly he slewed sideways so that his feet touched the carpet and he sat on the edge of the table.

  Not for nothing was Monty Sherwood acclaimed the greatest kangaroo hunter in Central Australia. More wonderful even than his soundless movements had been the actions of the woman encumbered by her dress. Monty followed her course in reverse, knowing that by following the bench he would take the widest detour from the central table.

  Soundlessly as a stalking tiger-cat he reached the bench angle, his gaze centred always on Moore, ready to spring forward should he inadvertently make a sound or arouse the doctor’s suspicions. He was without a revolver. If he had to spring, he must do so before Moore could bring out a weapon and fire.

  Towards the door he moved step by step. He reached that end of the bench. Six seconds later he was at the door and directly behind the scientist.

  Now he smiled. It was a smile both of childish delight and terrible grimness. No matter what happened now, Moore was at his mercy. He decreased the distance between them. He drew to within a foot of the doctor’s bent back whilst he wrote. He could have flung out his great hands and gripped his absorbed, unsuspecting enemy. He saw over a sloping shoulder the tiny clock, a small, gold-mounted gem of unique beauty and value.

  The clock chimed twice. Moore sighed as though well satisfied with his work for that night. He laid down the pen and leaned back in his swivel chair.

  Monty brought his lips close to Dr. Moore’s right ear and blew into it.

  CHAPTER XXX

  A PYRAMID OF MATCHES

  THE effect of that blast of air in the doctor’s ear was not precisely what the giant expected: which was that Moore would spring to his feet, face about, and begin fighting for his life.

  Actually Moore froze into a marble block. The shock of the unknown presence behind him paralysed his nerves, making him as helpless as was the benumbed Monty a little time before. Almost his heart stopped beating for ten or fifteen deathlike seconds. Then the blood rushed to his head with revivifying warmth. Slowly he rose to his feet, his hands pressed on the table for support. Slowly he turned whilst rising, Monty drawing to the left: so that, when finally the two men faced each other, the light cast neither into shadow.

  The colour drained away from the doctor’s face. He hardly breathed. With one hand still gripping the table-edge, he glared at the broad, grim countenance of the man he had believed to be securely bound to an operating-table. Fear, numbing and terrible––fear that pricked at the roots of his thin, grey-black hair––fear which played about the corners of his mouth and violently oscillated the nerves beneath his cheekbones, gave Monty a moment of compunction. Yet, while the thin lips drew up disclosing the clenched teeth, the lid of Monty’s right eye slowly fell in a ponderous but terribly significant wink.

  The eyes of each bored deeply into those of the other. The strain became terrific. As a snake’s head drawing back an inch at a time to strike, so the doctor’s right hand moved to his jacket pocket. And when it touched the cloth the big man’s left fist struck him full on the throat.

  The blow sounded as ordinary as a wet bag hit by a stick. In effect it was not nearly so spectacular as it would have been had the huge iron-hard fist smashed against the point of the long, lean jaw. It was not delivered with any spectacular purpose.

  It lifted the doctor off his feet and sent him sprawling on his back over the table, there to lie with hands clutching at nothing, while his lungs fought for air. Monty, seeking and finding the automatic pistol, was nauseated at sight of the ruffian’s blackened face. Gradually Moore’s motions ceased and he lay inert, grotesque as a huge spider, his head lolling over the further edge of the table, his feet dangling from the near edge.

  Movement behind him caused the big man to turn in a flash. It was Mabel Hogan, both hands pressed fiercely to her breast, her face hueless as snow, her lips purple blue, her eyes wide, extraordinarily large and bright. Terror lay in their dark depths.

  “I––I’m so ill…my heart…oh, my heart!”

  She swayed forward and Monty caught her in his arms. For a moment her head rested on his shoulder and her loosened black hair swept his face. When she lifted her head her eyes searched his with strained appeal, and from her blue lips issued a whisper:

  “My baby! I am dying! Love my baby for me! You promised!”

  Monty smiled reassuringly, his wonderful magnetic smile. He saw her answering look of confidence. Tender joy settled upon her drawn features. He felt her shudder, saw the light in her eyes fade, go out. And so it was that a woman wronged by man, execrated by the society which had cynically declined to protect her, sacrificed her life that her baby might live uncontaminated by her crime. The fearful strain of the last half-hour had been too much for her weakened heart.

  The big man could not see very clearly while laying her gently on the operating-table to which he had been bound. All his fine, generous nature went out to the outcast who had paid, he sincerely hoped, the final price. He closed the eyes and covered the now beautifully serene face with a handkerchief.

  It was then he acted quickly. Darting to the door, he opened it and stared into the darkness beyond. The electric lamp behind him revealed another room. Closing the door, he locked it. He pressed down the switches, and at once the room was ablaze with light. In two leaps he was beside Martin, cutting the binding cords.

  Martin was almost insane with the excitement caused by strange noises and the hiss of Mabel Hogan’s last words. Monty, expecting countless questions, commanded him to move his arm, while he himself set to work to put into circulation the blood of Martin’s legs. The blind man groaned, and with swift effortless energy Monty lifted him down to the floor, then darted to the table bearing the body of Dr. Moore.

  The bushman ripped off the doctor’s collar and tore open the fine silken shirt. Feeling for his heart, he discovered it to be beating still, but feebly. Beneath Moore he slid his great arms, and, carrying him to the operating-table vacated by his brother, stretched him thereon, bound him with the remains of the cut cords and several straps, and gagged him with his own gag.

  Once again he went to the door, listened for a full minute, opened it wide and stepped into the next room. The increased light in the laboratory dimly revealed a bedroom and a second door beyond. Reaching that, he again listened. He saw in a rack an electric torch, which he pocketed. Then soundlessly he opened the door a few inches and saw the unlit cork-paved underground passage beyond. Drawing back, he locked the door with the key that was in the lock.

  “How’s things?” he drawled, when he returned quietly to Martin, now sitting up.

  “My arms are better, but my legs hurt like the devil,” the blind man gasped. “But tell me––for heaven’s sake, tell me––what has happened.”

  Monty cut chips of tobacco for a smoke, whilst he told of Mabel Hogan’s heroic action and sacrifice.

  “I am convinced, old son, that but for her it would have been U.P. with us,” he said. “We owe our lives to that girl. I could have sworn that Moore was wise to her intentions, and I had a sickening time for half an hour or so. She was superb. I’m no end knocked that she’s thrown a seven. I’d have given her a real good
start, and to hell with the law, which cheerfully hangs women, but hasn’t the equity to protect ’em. Anyway, Bubbles is my adopted son. I’m going to be terrible proud of Bubbles.”

  “Give me a hand, Monty; I’m feeling better.” Then, when he was on his feet searching for his cigarette-case, Martin added: “We’re still in a dickens of a hole, aren’t we?”

  “M’yes. But it’s the Better ’Ole,” growled the big man. “We have all the advantages but numbers. I’ve got your gun, which Moore pinched. The element of surprise is with us, and I have a kind of knack of fancy shooting.

  “It seems to me, my bonny old digger, that we’re about to enter the shoot first, shoot straight, and keep on shooting stage. We’re hemmed in by the most original crowd of ruffians off the picture stage. None of ’em will show us any powerful affection, and I’m thinking that love and kindness will be wasted on ’em. It’s shoot first and shoot good. Now––”

  When Monty’s voice trailed into silence, the blind man thought that the next act was to be played then.

  “I got a brain-wave!” exclaimed Monty. “I’ll not expose it to criticism just yet. You stay just where you are; you’ll be quite all right. Now, don’t argue––Spink’s sausages are the best. I’ll not be gone two minutes.”

  The problem of Martin’s immediate disposal was solved. That had been a very tough problem, where to place Martin in safety whilst he, Monty, went into battle. Leaving the laboratory, he crossed Moore’s bedroom, and, unlocking the corridor door, listened for a while before stepping out, closing and locking the door after him. His swiftly moving light assured him that the passage was empty; it showed him, too, Austiline’s door at the farther end. With no more noise than a feather he reached it, and, turning the handle, found the door to be unlocked.

  Passing within, he closed that door and locked it. The brilliant circle of light from the torch moved steadily about that luxurious apartment, resting finally on a second door which Monty guessed led into Austiline’s bedroom. On this door he tapped gently.