The House Of Cain

by Arthur W. Upfield

  THE

  HOUSE OF CAIN

  by

  ARTHUR W. UPFIELD

  ETT Imprint

  Sydney

  ETT IMPRINT & www.arthurupfield.com

  PO Box R1906, Royal Exchange NSW 1225 Australia

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.

  First published by Hutchinson & Company 1928

  This eBook edition published by ETT Imprint 2015

  Copyright William Upfield 2015

  ISBN 978-0-9943096-2-4 (eBook)

  Digital edition distributed by

  Port Campbell Press

  www.portcampbellpress.com.au

  eBook Conversion by Winking Billy

  CONTENTS

  I. THE LUCK OF WEDNESDAY

  II. BROTHERS AND PALS

  III. THE SHADOW

  IV. INTO DARKNESS

  V. WITHIN THE NET

  VI. BENT NOSE

  VII. HIDDEN FORCES MOVE

  VIII. CHRISTMAS DAY

  IX. A WORM THAT TURNED

  X. AN INVALID’S DREAM

  XI. A LOVER OF CATS

  XII. THE LAND OF HOPE

  XIII. HE INVISIBLE TERROR

  XIV. A VISITOR

  XV. A WAITING GAME

  XVI. WILLIAM J. ANCHOR AND FRIEND

  XVII. CAIN’S WELCOME

  XVIII. DISTINGUISHED COMPANY

  XIX. THE HOUSE OF CAIN

  XX. MRS. JONAS

  XXI. ANCHOR’S GAME OF CHESS

  XXII. THE OMEN

  XXIII. THE SKELETON AT THE FEAST

  XXIV. THE LIE

  XXV. CIGARETTE SMOKE

  XXVI. MABEL HOGAN

  XXVII. A NEW GUEST

  XXVIII. CONFESSION

  XXIX. DR. MOORE’S AMBITION

  XXX. A PYRAMID OF MATCHES

  XXXI. MONTY’S “PRIVATE BATTLE”

  XXXII. THE LIGHT

  XXXIII. CLOUDS ROLL AWAY

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER I

  THE LUCK OF WEDNESDAY

  EEVERY one in Melbourne is acquainted with the Tribune Building: all the world knows the story of Sir Victor Lawrence, its owner, the man who rose from printer’s devil to Prime Minister, and in between somehow amassed a gigantic fortune in journalism. To-day he is not Prime Minister: he makes Prime Ministers, as a famous Earl of Warwick made kings.

  When the editor-in-chief of Sir Victor’s most important paper, The Daily Tribune, entered his private office on the top floor of the huge building, he found the “power behind the throne” seated with his feet on the roll-top desk, a cigar held firmly between his thin, strong lips, and his hat tilted at a dangerous angle on the back of his round bald head. It was eleven-thirty, and Sir Victor had but just dropped in from a theatre.

  “Ah, Sherwood! take hold of a chair and a cigar,” Sir Victor said in clipped tones. “The ‘Forthcoming Marriages’ column was most interesting this morning––most interesting.” A meaning smile accompanied these words.

  The other, a slight, handsome, but tired-looking man of thirty-nine, drew a chair to the left of the desk, indicating with a motion of a long-fingered white hand that he preferred a cigarette.

  “Is there anything in the Tribune that escapes your eyes, Sir Victor?” he asked quietly.

  Sir Victor lowered his feet, removed the cigar from his mouth, but continued to balance his hat carefully. His smile broadened to a grin––a regular schoolboy grin––when he said:

  “Only the leading article. Why should I waste time in reading the articles of a man who knows my mind better than I do myself?”

  There was an implied compliment in the speech which brought a slight flush of pleasure to the face of the younger man. The Birthday Knight went on:

  “So you have set the day for the seventeenth, eh? A Wednesday! I always think Wednesday the luckiest day of the week. I was married on a Wednesday. I trust that the years will bring you the luck that one Wednesday twenty years ago brought me.”

  The little bald-headed man, who looked much like a retired ostler, held out a plump red hand. His small brown eyes glistened with friendly humour.

  “Thank you!” Martin Sherwood said quickly, gripping the plump red hand. “Already, I think, my good fortune has begun.”

  “Then doubtless you first met your future wife on a Wednesday. You did? I am glad to hear it. Still, I must say, your notice doesn’t give us much practical information. Nor, indeed, much time to prepare for the mighty event. To-day is the eleventh, and you are to be married on the seventeenth. You do not say at what church.”

  “My doctor forbade me most strictly to do so. He insists on the affair being kept quiet so as to avoid the worrying details and the excitement of a fashionable crush. My doctor, I fear, is a bit of an alarmist.”

  “He may not be, Sherwood––he may not be,” Sir Victor murmured, studying the pale face and the abnormally large, dark eyes gazing unwinkingly at him. “To be blunt, you are looking rotten. Your trip to Europe will make a new man of you––the sea and your wife will assure that.”

  “I believe a long rest will do me good.”

  “I’m sure of it. I’ve worked you to death, my boy. I’ve been the Old Man to your Sinbad. For a space you leave the Tribune a power in Australia. It will be difficult for Moplett and me to keep it at the level to which you have lifted it. I shall be obliged to read Moplett’s leaders in proof.”

  “I feel you may place thorough confidence in Mr. Moplett. With him in my chair I shall not be missed.”

  “You will be missed by me. I shall have to read his leaders,” groaned Sir Victor, half mockingly. “Your article to-day emphasizing the absurdity of the Victorian Minister’s trip to America to learn how to run railways was, I fear, unduly severe. Granted, our railways are run splendidly; yet we can always learn. We are getting behind the times, Sherwood. The Tribune wants modernizing.”

  “Sir!” gasped the scandalized chief editor.

  Again the schoolboy grin.

  “I mean it!” he said, contradicted by the grin. “When you get to London, you spend a couple of hours in Fleet Street, and see how they run newspapers there.”

  “But the Tribune is recognized as the most advanced paper in the Empire,” Sherwood protested. “Surely you are joking?”

  “I never joke, my boy. If the Minister for Railways wants to learn how to run trains, we want to know how to run a newspaper. The State, or the people who finance the State, pay his first-class expenses for the knowledge. The Tribune shall pay all the expenses of your honeymoon for the knowledge how to run a newspaper.”

  “Sir Victor, this is both most wonderfully generous and––pardon me––wonderfully foolish of you. I doubt sincerely that the Tribune can be improved upon.”

  “We are never too old to improve, Sherwood. You take your six months. Stop worrying. Give that fine brain of yours a rest. Forget that I ever rode on your back; that I shall ride there again immediately you return.” Sir Victor rose to his feet. His round face was beaming when he held out his hand for the second time. In his left he held an envelope.

  “I shall be disappointed if my wife and I are not invited to the wedding. We promise to keep time and place to ourselves, Sherwood. This cheque will go towards your expenses. Put in for the balance when you return. Good night, Sinbad, and Wednesday’s good luck to you!”

  Martin took the proffered envelope and the outstretched hand of the man who was one of his dearest friends.

  “You shall have the invitation, Sir Victor,” he said warmly. “I will carry your simile further
, and add that if I am Sinbad your weight was extraordinarily light. Good night!”

  When Martin Sherwood reached his own office it wanted but one minute to midnight. The issue of the paper for Friday, the twelfth, had been “put to bed,” and the sound of the machines in the basement had become a thunderous roar. A small clock on his desk struck twelve silvery chimes while he donned his greatcoat, for it was early September and the nights were cold.

  For a moment he surveyed his workroom, his eyes wandering over the familiar objects, mute witnesses of the strenuous evolution of his brilliant leaders, and of the tireless energy directed to many other departments of his darling paper. Then, with a sigh, as if he foreboded strange happenings ere, if ever, he should occupy that room again, he passed out into the corridor, closing the door softly behind him.

  At the main entrance to the Building an ill-formed, crooked-featured man, in the dark uniform of a hall-porter, opened the swing-doors to let him pass. Martin mechanically nodded his thanks and went through to the pavement, where at the curb was waiting his single-seater run-about. The porter reached it first, however, and opened the door.

  Again Martin nodded, but this time, looking into the man’s eyes, he was struck by the joyous light within their jade-green depths, revealed by the arc-lamp close by.

  “Why, Hill! how is it I find you on duty at this hour of the night?” he asked in surprise.

  “I come back ’arf-hour ago, sir. Kinda felt I couldn’t sleep till I told yous the news.”

  “News! News is my job, Hill. What is it?”

  “It’s a boy, sir. Arrived this afternoon, ’e did.”

  Martin stared at the hall-porter with a puzzled frown.

  “I’m a-trying to tell yous, Mr. Sherwood, sir, that I bin made a father to-day,” Hill explained, his voice trembling with emotion, his whole attitude that of a man who, having imparted tremendous news, is dashed by the flat reception of it.

  Martin smiled with sudden understanding––a smile that lit up his haggard face and brightened his dull, tired eyes. Its spontaneity, its sympathy, made Hill hardly coherent. Without giving Sherwood time to speak, he rushed into a flood of words.

  “When I think o’ what I was, sir, a thief and worse, a gaolbird, a man wivout even the respect of ’is feller-thieves––when I remember the time I was like a lorst dorg, and now orl this love and joy wot you and Miss Thorpe brought into me life, I feel I orter go down and kiss yer boots.” Then, without a pause and striking off at a tangent, he added: “’E’s got blue eyes like ’is mover––strike me dead if ’e ain’t!”

  “Well––well––well,” Martin said, in his quick way, whilst climbing into his car, “I’m very glad, Hill. Really I am. I feel sure Miss Thorpe will be the same. She will want to visit your wife to-morrow, I know.”

  Hill, whose world was bathed in wonderful colours and filled with indescribable music, saw a thin, white hand held out to him. He hesitated, then rubbed his right hand vigorously on his trousers, and, snatching at the proffered hand, shook it with sudden abandon.

  “Good luck, Hill! I told you honesty was the best policy, didn’t I?” he heard his idol murmur when the car slid off from the curb.

  Martin drove slowly along Collins Street and turned into Elizabeth Street. Even at so late an hour the pavements were dense with promenaders and people hurrying from cinemas and restaurants to tram and train. Making a second turn into Flinders Street, he pulled up outside the Flinders Hotel.

  Passing through the vestibule, he nodded absently to the clerk on night duty at the office, and then, following a ground-floor corridor, paused outside a door at which he rang the electric bell. Almost at once the door was opened by a uniformed maid, who with a smile of recognition stepped aside to admit him.

  “Miss Thorpe in, Bessie?”

  “Yes, sir. She is expecting you.”

  That had been his question and this her answer every midnight during the past six months, excepting Saturdays and days preceding holidays. The question and answer had become almost a ritual. The girl’s taking his hat and coat had become almost automatic.

  Martin, stepping across the small hall, opened the door of the drawing-room of the suite and passed within, closing the door softly behind him. For perhaps ten seconds he remained a statue; his eyes alone on fire with life, searching with never-flagging interest each feature of the woman standing before the fire.

  There are pretty women, there are handsome women, but Austiline Thorpe was a woman splendid. In repose her face was remarkable for its sculpturesque beauty; now, in meeting the gaze of Martin Sherwood, it was flushed to a breath-catching loveliness. Few are the mortal men fortunate enough to see such a face with such a look upon it for them alone.

  Her deep green evening dress contoured a perfect form. But that and the gleam of her white arms held out to him in welcome were but dimly seen by Martin, absorbed in the glory of her eyes, the colour of bronze, flecked with red. Always thus did she hold him spellbound at the door, homage unconsciously given, a tribute to her perfection.

  “Austiline!”

  “Martin!”

  Slowly they drew together. Caressing white arms rose about his neck, whilst her curving lips throbbed to the pressure of his own and white blue-veined eyelids momentarily veiled the splendour of her eyes. Then quite suddenly they were raised again, and for one exquisite second the soul behind them swept aside all physical barriers and leapt forth to meet his.

  “Man! you are very tired,” she whispered. “Those horrible machines are killing you.”

  A smile of infinite tenderness stole over his features.

  “The killing is suspended for six months.”

  “Your leave at last? Come, sit here, and tell me about it after your coffee.”

  She might have been a sympathetic nurse, and he almost an invalid. The subtle gentleness with which she guided him to a great arm-chair––the only masculine piece of furniture in the room––there to arrange sufficient feminine cushions for his comfort, was really an art inspired by a wonderful love.

  Sitting close opposite him, she drew beside her a silent waiter on which was a silver coffee apparatus. At his side she placed a cup of fragrant coffee and a small plate of sandwiches.

  “Not another word till you have drunk at least half your coffee,” was her command.

  Again he smiled, this time at her mock firmness.

  “Sir Victor––” he began.

  “Half your coffee–– please,” she entreated.

  For fully a minute they regarded each other, the barriers of their souls withdrawn. Not for a fraction of one second did their eyes waver, not even when he took occasional sips from the cup.

  Then, at long last, her eyelids fluttered and she drew a deep sigh. When again she regarded him the innermost barrier of the thousand guarding her soul was up again.

  “Better?” she asked, taking the cup and refilling it.

  “I was tired,” he admitted. “Your coffee is wonderful.”

  “Then you may tell me now––about Sir Victor.”

  “It is only half an hour since I left him, both glad to give me leave, and sorry to have me absent,” he explained with his habitual rapidity. “He remarked that he had always considered Wednesday a lucky day. I told him you and I met on a Wednesday. He read this morning that we were to be married on Wednesday, the seventeenth.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “Yes!” Martin agreed. “He is a dear old chap, Sir Victor. He expressed but one regret at losing me for six months.”

  “And that?”

  Sherwood laughed softly, watching her select a cigarette, put it to her mouth, light it in three small puffs and then insert it daintily between his lips. This was a nightly act of return homage she never omitted to perform.

  “He said that he never bothered to read my leaders because they only expressed his own thoughts. While I am away, he says he will have to read Moplett’s leaders in proof before publication. He gave me the impression that l
eaders bored him.”

  “That was not quite so nice of him,” she said with brightened eyes. “Surely he must know how brilliant are your leaders, that every day he has something of you, that wonderful something which is the only thing you cannot give me?”

  “On the contrary I felt flattered,” responded Martin with a smile. “Really, it is a splendid compliment when the active owner of a newspaper relies so implicitly on his editor, who, he says, expresses his views better than he could himself.”

  “Ah! I think I see. Sir Victor, I apologize. What next?”

  “After saying that he never read my leaders, he referred to my leader in to-day’s issue chastising the Victorian Government’s waste of public money in sending a minister abroad to study railways when our own are run so well. He disagreed with me.”

  “What! After his ‘splendid compliment’?”

  “He said that travelling abroad for experience was a good thing for our railways. I am to visit Fleet Street when in London and learn how to run a newspaper.”

  “Martin!”

  “Yes; and the Tribune is to pay our expenses in the same way as the people pay the expenses of a minister due for a holiday.”

  “I don’t think I quite understand.”

  Sherwood smiled again.

  “It was Sir Victor’s way of giving us a wedding present. Here it is, in this envelope.” Leaning forward, he chuckled and said, while she opened the envelope he gave her:

  “Evidently, Austiline, you did not read my leader in to-day’s issue any more than did Sir Victor. My leader for to-morrow’s deals with the tram versus bus question.”