A House on the Rhine

by Frances Faviell

  Joseph was angry that she talked so volubly to a stranger. Hank would not speak at all. He had another of his violently anti-Occupation days. They had been astonished when he accepted the invitation to enter the house.

  As they were coming away another motor-coach drew up, and its load of passengers got out and stood staring over the fences of the gardens and in at the windows.

  “How rude they are,” Moe said. “It’s a shame to behave like that.” She was unabashed when Joseph said that they had been doing exactly the same.

  “He won’t ask them in,” she said triumphantly. “Look, he’s drawing his curtains.” She turned and waved gaily to the Englishman who waved back with a grin.

  Late in the night, when the house was silent after the evening’s sing-song into which Joseph had been persuaded, he got up. He slept alone. Moe was still in the slip room. He went to the window and saw that it was a dark heavy night. He put his raincoat over his nightshirt and pulled on his boots. He moved very quietly in the sleeping house. Taking the new suit from the cupboard he climbed with it in his arms out of the window.

  The dog, accustomed now to the nightly prowlings of the children, gave only a short suppressed growl as he came out. Joseph loosed him and, hushing his delighted whimpers, stole to the gate. He made his way through the silent village street to the river. In a deserted spot on the tow-path under some thick willows he rolled two heavy stones on to the suit, tied it with cord, and attaching another heavy stone to the cord, he dropped the bundle in the deep water. It sank quickly. He stood there for some time watching the little eddies of bubbles where it had sunk.

  The dog stood with his ears cocked, watching too. Suddenly he jumped into the water and began frantically trying to find the bundle.

  “Come out, come out,” urged Joseph, and scolded the dripping creature when it stood again on the path by him. He patted the thin miserable flanks. He felt a melting affinity somehow with this cowed creature whom he knew the boys ill-treated.

  The suit was gone. He felt better. Cleaner in some queer way. It had been a horrible experience wearing it at all. As he passed the bridge he saw with a rising anger the great flares and powerful arc lamps of the night shift as they toiled at the clanking machinery, repairing the bridge. Almost four o’clock and men were working—and for what? For money? So that they could buy new suits, radios, bicycles and cars? So that they could stuff themselves with food and wine? Or were they working for a new bridge? A new bridge to accelerate the economic life of the new country being built all round him? A new country which was to be ten times better and greater than the one which the last disastrous war had shattered?

  Headlines of the newspapers glared before his eyes . . . Great Trade Achievement . . . New export market captured . . . Output beyond all hopes . . . Japanese market ours . . . Huge Brazilian Orders. He thought of the weekly talks in the factory on output. More output, more and more. Hadn’t he had that accursed free day because of his own increased output? And why had he achieved it? He didn’t know. Was his own work for the acceleration of the rebuilding of his country? What was this extraordinary haste, this relentless rushing towards another crisis? It affected them all. They were working, working harder and faster—and for what? Money? Was that it? The country must have money . . . send out the exports to bring in the money. Build, build, build. The hammers were like death-blows in the still night. A large May bug hit him on the forehead. He brushed it frantically away although it was a sign of luck. An owl hooted in the drooping trees. The dog howled suddenly.

  Across the river flashed the moving lights of another night shift working on a great building. They were hammering at the new factory shooting up like Jack’s beanstalk against the dark wide river-bend. The shouts and whistles of the workmen drifted across the water on the still air. And even the river was not quiet now. Trains of barges were already coming down the waterway carrying some of those urgent exports to other countries. The sky was beginning to lighten. Far away the clock of the cathedral boomed out four slow deep strokes.

  XII

  THE sixth housebreaking expedition brought trouble to the gang. They had completed five successful raids without encountering any difficulties from the inmates of the houses, or the law, and they were growing careless and over-confident. They would laugh and joke every time they passed a policeman. What fools the police were. Why, it was easy hoodwinking them; the idiots were just having circles run round them by a pack of youngsters. On the sixth prowl, the first two to enter the chosen house were surprised by the caretaker. He was an old man but he was no coward, and he put up a fight for his master’s possessions. Hank, who had entered with Alfred, another important member of the gang, lost his head at this unexpected obstacle. When he could not fell the old man with his fists he pulled out his heavy bicycle chain and struck again and again. Even when the defenceless old body had fallen lifeless in a pool of blood Hank went on striking with a ferocious maniacal look on his face. Katie, who had followed closely on the heels of the first two, stood watching him in horrified fascination. She remembered Hank stamping and hitting at some small creature exactly in this wild way when he had been a child.

  Leo, behind her, screamed to him. “Stop it! Stop it! You fool, you’ll kill him, and then we’re for it.”

  The boy Alfred, frantic with fear, dragged Hank’s arms from the body. Hank, panting a little and with a queer brilliant light in his usually dull eyes, calmly replaced his weapon under his belt and ordered the others to make it snappy. The old man had not had a chance to cry out; Hank had struck too quickly. With the exception of the twins, keeping watch at the gate on this their first adventure, the whole gang were now standing looking silently at the caretaker.

  Hank bent down and cold-bloodedly went through the old man’s pockets. He found, as he had hoped, a bunch of keys. “Saves us a lot of time and trouble,” he said. “We needn’t break anything open.”

  Leo was gazing in horror at the body on the floor. He knelt down and listened for breathing. There was none. He felt for a pulse as well as he could with his gloved hand. Then he stood up.

  “You’ve done it,” he snarled. “He’s a deader.”

  “Rubbish,” snapped Hank. “I didn’t hit him hard enough.”

  He looked round at the ring of hostile faces accusing him silently, and began furiously to justify himself.

  “If I hadn’t got at him he’d have reached the telephone, you fools and he’d seen both Alfred’s and my face. We’d thrown back our hoods. Eddie’s slipped up on this—he swore there’d be no one in the house. I had no choice . . . We’re all in this—understand? All of us. Now get going or the evening’s wasted.”

  Leo, quickly pulling himself together, gave some short sharp orders and the house was hastily ransacked. They worked noiselessly in their rubber-soled shoes and gloved hands. Tonight they were even more noiseless—as if they feared that the dead man on the floor might hear. Leo’s face was a greenish white as he stood by the quiet figure. He was thinking of all those months he had already spent in prison. He was not only older now, so that he would be dealt with as an adult, but this was murder. Murder!

  Surely the old buffer must be alive. He bent down again and tried to find some sign of life but there was none in the grey face and wide open mouth. The eyes stared sightlessly at him. Suddenly he felt as if a cold draught had passed over him, although the sweat was pouring down his face. He thought he was going to fall and steadied himself with a hand on the table.

  Hank, coming back at that moment, snapped, “Ready? All right. We’ve got a damned good haul tonight. No wonder they left this old fool to guard it, and look what I’ve found,”—showing a Luger to Leo—“it’ll come in useful for us.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  Hank nodded.

  “Hand it over,” ordered Leo, whose colour was coming back.

  “No, finding’s keeping,” sneered Hank, putting the gun into his belt.

  “Hand it over,” repeated Leo quietly, and th
ere was something in his quiet voice which made the brutal Hank shudder. Slowly he removed the revolver and handed it to Leo.

  “I’m the head of this gang. Understand? You did the killing. You did it alone, but the law of the gang is that we’re all in this together. Now . . . any marks anywhere? All got gloves on? What about the keys? Put them back in his pocket, Hank. Now then, give me a hand, number five, and help me roll him under the table. With this dark red tablecloth and the chairs round the table he won’t be found in a hurry. Good thing the carpet’s red too. It’ll all soak in, probably won’t show at all. Replace the shutters and listen for the all clear after I’ve contacted the twins.”

  They got away without incident and the stuff was loaded on to the barge again.

  “Good load tonight,” commented the man who admired Katie. “Must be some toff who had all this stuff.”

  “Made it all off other people’s stupidity. He’s a politician,” snapped Leo. “Deserves to lose it.”

  “True,” agreed the older barge man. “This’ll be our last trip for some months now. We’ll be back next week with your share; then don’t expect us again. We’ve autumn business coming along and that’ll keep us in Holland for some time.”

  When the gang met separately as usual later on in the shelter, Leo called the roll carefully. The twins had seen nothing of the murder of the old man; they had merely been keeping watch at the gate armed with a whistle for emergency. Now they heard of it with terror. Leo made a short statement to the gang. Then he ordered each in turn to swear the oath of loyalty.

  “This is bound to get about; there are so many robberies that they pass, but this is murder. Understand? Murder.” He looked at Hank as he repeated the word. “It just depends on how soon the body is discovered. Now remember—any crime like this, committed in our raids due to obstruction, is a crime shouldered by us all. Now, swear the oath, all of you.”

  When it came to the turn of the twins they hung back.

  “Swear it!” snarled Hank. “You miserable cowards, you worried me enough to come. You worried me sick. Well, now you’ve had a bellyfull and you’re in it with us. Come on, swear the oath or I’ll sling you both in the river and you won’t come up again either.”

  Katie had watched the murder of the old caretaker with a fixed glassy stare. She had been too frightened to protest. Hank’s ruthlessness had opened her eyes to what she had done. It was she who had brought him into this, and now seeing him strike so savagely and with such an appalling lust for killing on his brutal face, she was terrified. She shrank from him in horror and was sitting as far away from him as she could. Leo was cruel but he was careful, not brutal. Leo thought things out and hurt one in another way. For instance tonight when she had clung to him he had said: “That’s a good-looking sister I saw with your father last Friday night on the tow-path. She’s a nice little bit. It’s about time you introduced her to me. That’s the sort I like. The ones who look like angels give me a double kick!”

  She had been sick with jealousy and hatred of Krista and determined that she should never meet Leo. Now, when she moved closer to him in the corner of the shelter, he brushed her away impatiently, telling her to get up and take the oath like the rest of them.

  “And what if I don’t?” she asked sullenly. She was still shaken from what she had witnessed in that house, and being the gang leader’s girl she thought she had the right to exemption from the oath.

  “Swear the oath and make the sign,” said Leo in a dangerously quiet voice: and without further protest she repeated the words required of her. It was as she raised her now ungloved hand to make the sign before her face that she began to recoil in horror. Her hand was red with blood. She had helped to roll the old man under the table. She stopped in the middle of the last vile words of the oath and pitched forward in a dead faint.

  When the commotion was over, and Leila and the twins had revived her with a swig of brandy stolen from the house, they had all been commanded by Leo to take off their black gloves and those whose hands were blood-stained had washed them in river-water fished up in an old tin by Hank.

  They were all silent now. Fear was in them; and Leo suggested breaking up the meeting and getting home. They left separately as always, slipping out one by one, and calling softly if it was all clear for the next to emerge. The last to leave, as always, were Hank, Leo, and Katie. None of them spoke. Leo neither touched nor looked at Katie, who could barely stand up on her feet. Wedged in between the two lads she could not bear her brother’s hands round her body—her gorge rose every time she had a vision of his face as he killed. The twins had gone on ahead on their bicycles. It was dangerous, and made the return doubly so, but they had no choice. Two of the gang were absent owing to illness and the twins had taken their place as look-outs. Eddie had not dared to keep the car lent them by the garage-hand long enough to take the twins home. They had come and must return on their bicycles.

  They reached home before the others, having cut across the fields, and in putting away the cycles woke Robert. He left his bed and came to see what was happening. He was stupefied at seeing the twins out in the early hours of the morning. That Hank and Katie went out sometimes he knew and worried over—but now the twins too. They silenced him roughly with threats, and fear for themselves lent them an untoward brutality. Robert, accustomed to good nature and fun from these two brothers, shrank back.

  “Get back to bed,” threatened Hans; “and forget you’ve seen us. If you open your mouth to anyone—anyone, mind you—we’ll shut it for you for good.”

  Robert stole back to the room he shared with Franz Joseph and Krista. She was awake and asked him fearfully where he had been, but the child, whose teeth were chattering in spite of the warm night, replied that he had only been to the lavatory. Krista tucked him up in the truckle bed he shared with Franz Joseph.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “Tell me, Robert. What’s the matter, darling? Tell me.”

  “Nothing, nothing,” he insisted, turning resolutely over to the wall.

  Krista went back to her bed but she couldn’t sleep. She was waiting for the sound of the motor cycle which she knew would come soon now, for she had heard it earlier in the night and Katie had left Peppi with her again. She pressed his little head on to her shoulder. What was it they did in the night? Why didn’t they ask Moe for a key? Were they afraid of Joseph, who would never have allowed it and who liked all his family to be in bed early?

  She tossed and turned, listening for the sound of the machine which heralded the return of the night prowlers. She knew that Robert wasn’t asleep either and that he was listening as keenly as she was. Presently it came faintly, and then shortly afterwards the sounds of Hank and Katie returning very cautiously.

  Katie and Anna’s room was next to hers and later in the dawn when she had fallen asleep she was again awoken. This time the sound which woke her was of sobbing. It came through the wall, and Krista knew that it was Katie. She got up quietly and tiptoed to the closed door, then opened it gently and entered.

  “Katie?” she whispered, “Katie, what is it? Are you ill?” But the only answer from the tumbled head buried in the pillow was a muttered “Go away, Krista, leave me alone—” and there was in the whisper such a fierce insistence that she crept back to her room without another word.

  Katie was careless by nature—as careless as her mother, but neither as generous nor as clean. Those black woollen gloves saturated with the blood of the old caretaker were left by her on the window-sill of the room she shared with Anna. Anna, good-natured, and, if it did not involve too much trouble, kind, was washing some woollen things, and seeing the gloves lying there, swept them up, to find them damp and sticky. She rolled them up with some garments of the children’s before she sorted the things out for the washtub.

  When she picked them up again she saw that the children’s white vests had red stains on them—stains suspiciously like blood. Separating the gloves from the other garments she examined them carefully, t
hen placed them in a basin of cold water. The water was immediately stained red—the red of blood—and as she moved the gloves about with a wooden spoon it became deeper in colour.

  Anna went to find Katie. She was disturbed. She looked first at her sister’s hands, but there were no cuts or wounds on them. “Katie,” she said abruptly, “your gloves are covered in blood. What on earth have you been doing with them?”

  To her astonishment Katie turned a burning red and panic showed in her eyes.

  “Where did you get them, you meddlesome creature?” she screamed furiously. “Prying into my affairs—give me the gloves . . .”

  She followed Anna to the bathroom where she saw the basin of red water and the gloves soaking in it. Her face went pale. Anna thought she was going to faint. She knew Katie’s inability to see blood without this nausea.

  “You wore them two nights ago when you came back so late, or rather so early. Oh, yes, I’m not always asleep. What on earth were you doing?” Then as Katie did not answer, but stood staring at the reddish water, a headline in the local paper swam before Anna’s eyes. “Murder of caretaker during owner’s absence. Burglary causes caretaker’s death”. The evening papers had been full of the finding of the old man’s body. His daughter had arrived early in the morning and could obtain no answer to her bell. She had noticed the cut shutter slats and had fetched the police.

  Why should this particular paragraph jump to her mind exactly now? Anna didn’t know why, except that when she had pointed it out to Krista last evening and had remarked jokingly that Katie and Hank had been out that very night, she had been astonished at the sudden pallor of Krista, who had said agitatedly, “Anna, we must find out what they do and where they go. They are going more and more often, and Katie always has plenty of money now—she never used to have a penny of her own. Last time the twins went too—Robert saw them come back. He wouldn’t tell me at first because they threatened him until he was terrified.”