The House Of Cain

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Bravo! bravo! That’ll do,” laughed Martin. “Don’t overload the picture with detail. In time, I think, you will make a fairly efficient reporter. Let me hear now how you shape as an organizer. How do you propose to proceed?”

  Monty regarded his brother suspiciously, but the tell-tale droop of the corners of the delicate mouth was not then in evidence. So he said:

  “This Anchor feller attracts me, and his house kind of draws me like a magnet. I feel as though I am going to enjoy myself with complete abandon. Certainly we must first visit Monsoor Anchor. After we have examined him, his dogs, his inventions, his aeroplane, his people, and all the rooms in his house, we can decide whether Austiline is with him or not. If she is, and Anchor doesn’t like losing her company, then we shall have to argue the point; and you told me yourself that my methods of argument are original and persuasive. Anyway, I’m tipping that he’ll understand my methods. Should she not be there, then we will cut the whole district into sections and rake each section so fine that we count every grain of sand in doing it.”

  “I cannot help but feeling that Austiline will be at Anchor’s house,” Martin said with conviction.

  “It will save us a lot of raking if she is. Have some more damper? Try some dried apples, then, with some condensed milk?”

  “The flies do not seem to be too bad just now?”

  “No. They are not such a pest now we’re away from the cattle country. Still, I’ll sit beside you and keep ’em off with the dishrag.”

  So they sat together against the pack-saddle, the one managing his spoon expertly, the other keeping the sleepy flies off the condensed milk with a rag. They had travelled throughout the day on account of the weather change which had brought about cool conditions. The moon, the shape of a steer’s horn, hung low in the west, bathed by the ruddy afterglow, and the first of the stars winked through the high-level haze that gave sure warning of wind to come. Having finished the camp “fatigues,” Monty threw more wood on the fire: first, because all men find companionship in a fire even on the hottest of nights; and, secondly, because he wanted the hot ashes for cooking purposes later. Then, after lighting his pipe with a glowing ember, he reseated himself and carried on the interrupted conversation.

  “We might be heading for a lot of unpleasantness, old feller-me-lad,” he said brightly. “It seems to me that the gang which got Austiline out of gaol will become argumentative when we attempt to get her out of their hands. What do you think?”

  “Granted that Mrs. Montrose’s theory is correct, I think it more than probable,” Martin agreed. “But, no matter what the trouble, no matter what the danger, we have got to get her away. You are not to consider me in the slightest, Monty; think only of the best way to make sure of Austiline. I did not think, when I decided to accompany you, that most likely I would be a drag on you and your actions. For that reason I am now sorry I did come. Anyway, now I’m here, you will have to forget my blindness and carry on just as though I could see as well as you do. The further we go north, the more I feel that we are on the verge of discovering something monstrous, something hellish. Still, we must take what comes.”

  “You bet. And give a little more than we get.”

  “Exactly!” Martin agreed, a little grimly. “Before we turn in, you might get me my automatic. I can’t see, but I can hear mighty well, and a sound is as good to me as an object to shoot at.”

  Monty laughed happily. More and more things seemed shaping for his favourite recreation. He scented the coming battle.

  “I’ll layout the armament and clean and oil the cannons,” he said. “To-morrow I must have a little practice. A man soon gets rusty, and when he’s rusty he can’t shoot straight any more’n a rusty gun-barrel. Shall we camp here for a day, or go on to-morrow?”

  “Go on, by all means,” Martin urged quickly.

  “Right! Then I’ll shine up the howitzers now.”

  The big man thought about that little hardness in an otherwise gentle nature whilst he spread the never-used tent over the ground near the firelight. Martin, like many quiet, law-abiding men, could be and sometimes was deadly in purpose and action when circumstances demanded it.

  On the outspread tent Monty first laid his beloved Savage rifle, a weapon of .25 bore which fired a devastating high-powered bullet. Then came a .32 calibre Smith-Wesson revolver, Martin’s ugly automatic, a double-barrelled shotgun with full choke, and a .44 Winchester repeating rifle.

  During the whole of the half-hour he occupied in carefully cleaning and oiling the weapons, Monty Sherwood whistled blithely the immortal tune to which is set the soldiers’ song about a lady of Armentieres. For the big man was intensely happy––happier, if possible, than during those delicious moments when he had held Mary Webster in his arms and felt her lips clinging so lovingly to his own. In many ways Monty had never grown up. The boy’s enthusiasm for adventure, the boy’s passion for firearms, the boy’s insatiable love of excitement had become intensified, if better controlled, in the man. Often had he said: “The only time I really lived was during the hop-overs in Gallipoli and France.”

  He was still whistling when he rose to his feet and approached Martin with the loaded automatic, but between his reclining brother and the fire he stopped short and ceased the hundredth rendering of the famous tune.

  “Say, Martin, old stick-in-the-mud, I’ve got a brain-wave,” he said with comic seriousness.

  “Shall I get you some water?” came the musical voice.

  “You listen here, and don’t chiack about my brain. Remember me telling you how afraid old Bent Nose was that if he divulged the whereabouts of Austiline the under-world would do something rude to him?”

  “And apparently his fear was well founded.”

  “Well, don’t it stand to reason that the people he was mixed up with in the gaol stunt knew he had given me her whereabouts?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Then it follows they may well be aware that we are tracking her now.”

  “Of course.”

  The corners of Martin’s finely moulded mouth drooped slightly, a characteristic which Monty knew meant inward laughter. The big man gave a rueful chuckle. “I thought I had a brain-wave,” he said; “but it seems I’ve missed the ’bus again.”

  “I am afraid you have, Monty,” the blind man replied. “You see, during this trip, you have had everything to think of in connection with it, while I have had nothing to do but think of Austiline and the problem of her disappearance. With lover’s faith I believe that Austiline would have come out of ‘smoke,’ as the under-world terms it, if she had been a free agent. We guess that her very innocence of the murder of Peterson makes her freedom most undesirable to the very people who rescued her. What their reason was for rescuing her from the law we don’t know. They may have been actuated by one of her friends with plenty of money with which to hire them. That, however, I doubt, or she would have been free to come to me. If the people who are holding her in ‘smoke’ are the same who rescued her from gaol, then we may be sure of meeting with violent opposition. Thinking that, I considered it time to have my automatic handy.”

  Martin inhaled from his cigarette, faced towards the big man, and smiled softly. He knew that Monty was regarding him blankly. Exhaling the smoke through his delicate nostrils, he went on:

  “It might be as well to presume, having been directed to this locality by a man who immediately paid the price for giving you the information, that Anchor’s house shelters Austiline, and to proceed with extra caution from now on. The intelligence which directed her escape, and which apparently wants to prevent her return now that her innocence is established, may consider that at all costs we must be prevented from meeting her. It is, I think, improbable that we shall be molested on the way; but more than probable that we shall receive an even less cordial welcome than that given to Mr. Squeezem Harry.

  “But we must not count on not meeting with treachery. Our camels might be stolen away one night while we slept; a
water-hole in our path might be poisoned. Therefore, Monty, it would be advisable to take all possible precautions.”

  “I am with you on all points, old son,” the giant said, cutting chips from his tobacco plug. “Your idea that our camels may be stolen is a sound one. The loss of the camels would be as fatal as poisoned water or a well-aimed bullet. What say, we start keeping watch to-night?”

  “Very well. Let it be four hours on guard and four off––from ten till six, night and night about. You can call me at midnight. I cannot see, but I can hear better than when I saw.”

  “But that plan is only going to give you four hours’ sleep per night,” Monty objected. “What of it? I can sleep before ten o’clock, or even in the saddle.”

  “Righto, capting! And the next?”

  Martin laughed. “No, no, Monty. I’m finished. It’s your turn.”

  “Very well,” the big man said. “I’m going to make up your bunk. It’s eight o’clock. You’ll get four hours before twelve o’clock, and two more after four.”

  “Oh! Kiss me good night, general!” Martin mocked, saluting and lighting yet another cigarette.

  It took the giant nearly half an hour to set out the bed-stretcher with a couple of blankets, and rig above it the box-shaped mosquito net, then help to undress and get his blind brother into the bunk. Martin, on this night, was particular to have his watch beneath his pillow.

  “Now, you mind, Monty! You’ll call me at twelve o’clock sharp,” he pleaded. “I can tell the time by removing the glass and feeling the hands, remember.”

  “All right. I’ll play fair. Good night, old son!”

  “Good night, Monty––and thank you!”

  “Thank me! Oh hell, Martin! A man couldn’t do less. Cut out the rough stuff.”

  Only those who dwell in the wild places of the earth can imagine how helpless is a blind person, especially one to whom blindness is yet new: how dependent he or she is upon sighted assistance. Those in the dark cannot move a step without guidance, for in the open they have no kerbstones to direct them along a well-paved street; nor about a camp are there furnishings and fixtures to feel one’s location by, as in a familiar room.

  Martin Sherwood had survived the first terror of perpetual darkness only to be beset with a fresh terror, one which grew daily from the moment he came to rely solely upon his brother for guidance, for life itself. If anything should happen to Monty while they were in the bush, he himself would be as good as dead, because the problem of finding either his way back to civilization, or to water to sustain him on the way, was beyond solution. He remembered how, in his young days, an outlaw horse had thrown him when miles from his father’s house, and he had suffered a hundred deaths before he was found on the very verge of actual death from thirst.

  But to his credit it must be said that he realized the inevitable coming of the second terror when he made up his mind to accompany his brother in search of the woman he loved. The sole purpose of this journey was, first, to set Austiline free from the bondage which seemed so probable; and, secondly, to relieve his mind as to her personal safety as quickly as possible. Inactivity, suspense, a crescendo of horrible imaginings, would have sent him crazy in spite of the affection and care of Mrs. Montrose and Mary, had he remained in the house with the walled-in garden.

  The big man put in his turn of duty sitting by the fire and indolently watching the little pile of ashes crack as the damper buried in the depths rose under the gentle heat. The unknown factor of the immediate future was the manner of Anchor’s welcome. He realized that the man might be an eccentric inventor, he might be antagonistic to visitors in case they took too much interest in his secrets. In such case they would have to move carefully and use diplomacy in making sure Austiline Thorpe was not there.

  A man’s house is his castle, even in the wilds. One could not force an entry and search. Even the police could not do that without a warrant. What exercised his mind during those quiet hours was how to proceed if Anchor flatly declined to admit them to his house. He knew, of course, that Anchor could not refuse them water; was very doubtful if the man could order them off the bore-drain, should they make camp beside it for any indefinite period.

  Force––or argument, as he called it––he could meet with laughing ease; but quiet refusal would require tact, and, if it actually came to this latter supposition, the big man decided to hand the leadership of the expedition over to his brother.

  Knowing that Martin would be really hurt if he delayed calling him for his watch, the big man awakened him exactly at midnight, and, turning in himself, reminded the blind man that four o’clock was the next change. “I can tell time in the dark just as well as you can, remember,” he said.

  “All right, Monty; I’ll play fair,” was the laughing response.

  The moon was little more than three fingers above the horizon when Monty dropped off to sleep immediately he lay down on his stretcher-bed. Martin, after a search about his pillow, found his cigarettes and matches. It was with great care that, by feeling the exact position of the surrounding netting, he avoided setting fire to the bedding when he struck a match. And when he had smoked the cigarette, and, also with great care, dropped the butt beyond his bed, he lay thinking of the probable climax of this possibly somewhat desperate adventure.

  Across the flat on the opposite sand-hill the four bells, slung round four sinuous and graceful necks, told him that the camels were finished feeding and that they were resting and sleeping. A camel-bell tells a tale to those who can understand. A good bell can be heard for several miles on a night as quiet as this was; and the listener, from long familiarity with its varied sound, is informed if the animal, to whose neck it is attached, is galloping, cantering, walking, feeding, or sleeping. A sharp clatter, a pause, another clatter, an ordinary tinkle, indicate without possible error that a camel has laid itself down.

  Monty had heard that peculiar tune, and had informed his brother that the camels were resting. The occasional tinkle of one bell told Martin that its carrier was biting at some parasite lodged on its skin; another tinkle informed him that a camel had stretched out its long neck over the ground and was sleeping or preparing to doze. Other than the bells there was not a sound. The silence pressed in upon the blind watcher as something tangible, a substance to be felt. The silence of the grave could not be more profound.

  When, later, Martin opened the face of his watch, he found the time to be a quarter after two. It was not long after that that the terror came upon him which was, because of his blindness, far worse than any nightmare.

  It started with a sound like the far-away escape of steam, a sound so unfamiliar that Martin paused in the very act of applying a match to the box. The sudden clatter of three of the bells told him that three of the camels at least had been awakened by that sound and, like himself, were listening intently.

  The following silence was as unbroken as that which preceded the peculiar sound. The very stillness of the bells took to itself an atmosphere sinister and threatening. Very slowly Martin sat up with the automatic in his hand, the safety-catch drawn back and his forefinger barely touching its trigger. On his ear-drums the silence was intensely oppressive, even as utter darkness is oppressive to the eyes of a seeing man.

  For what seemed to him an eternity he waited as still as an image of Buddha, his nerves as taut as violin strings. He was undecided whether he did or did not hear a soft, very soft, sound, like the regular falling of leaves from a fig tree. Having heard the leaves fall from the trees in Mrs. Montrose’s garden, he was inclined to think his imagination was over-excited. And then, quite suddenly, he heard soft and regular breathing. Someone was close, very close, to him. A chilly sensation ran up his back and splayed out over his scalp. For he could not define the exact place whence the sound proceeded. In spite or possibly because of the utter silence of the night, that menacing sound seemed to surround him, to fill the world.

  To shoot would be foolish without any sense of the direction in whi
ch to shoot. Behind him, of course, he dared not fire, because in that direction lay his sleeping brother. The bells remained silent. He could almost swear that six pairs of black eyes were watching a drama being enacted by the muddy water-hole––a drama which, contained himself and something which was regarding him from beyond the flimsy net. If he could only see, if only sight were granted to him for a fraction of time! But darkness, as of a dungeon in the bowels of the earth, rendered him helpless.

  Again that sinister sound of falling leaves, that sound of death and decay. The breathing ceased for a while and then returned, whilst the leaves continued their regular fall.

  Something knocked against his bed at the foot, yet the sound was so fleeting that he had no time to point his weapon. The breathing became louder, now almost a panting sob. The bed rocked beneath a blow, the netting was ripped asunder and a waft of cool air fanned his face. He knew now where the terror was. It was close up on his left side. But, before he could swing round his weapon, the silence was split by a rifle shot as a black sky is rent by lightning.

  CHAPTER XIV

  A VISITOR

  "DON’T move, Martin, old son,” Monty Sherwood called, immediately after having fired. “Everything is jake, but just wait while I light this lamp.”

  The effect of the rather musical drawl was to release the blind man from his nightmare chains; for, like the age-long nightmare which is found to have lasted in reality but a fraction of a second, the space of time between the report and the sound of Monty’s voice was to Martin a measure of many hours. The sudden mental relief caused his previous excitement to subside into a peace which by contrast was lethargy.

  “Jumping nannygoats! what’s this?” he heard his brother exclaim close beside him. Monty, by aid of a hurricane lamp, was looking down at the inert body of a huge dog that had been killed with a bullet from the rifle still in his great hand. “It’s a dog, Martin.”