The House Of Cain

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Thirty seconds later it came. Monty saw the almost invisible burst of vapour and replied with a devastating high-powered bullet, which an observer would have sworn struck the spot whence the vapour issued, and that before the vapour cleared.

  “Did you get him?”

  “I don’t think so,” Monty replied slowly, ejecting the empty shell and pumping a full one from magazine to breach. “The gentleman knows how to take cover. I haven’t seen him yet, but I’ll part his hair when I do.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, kill that camel. Her roar’s get on my nerves.”

  The big man’s rifle again cracked, and the noise ceased suddenly, accentuating the stillness of the day. Of the other animals there was now no sign. A bullet struck and splintered a side-stick of the saddle behind which the bushman lay peering through a crevice and over his rifle-barrel, and this time there was no film of vapour at the foot of the sandal-wood. But Monty discovered it at a point about one hundred yards along the summit of the sand-hill and some fifty yards nearer.

  “Artful! Artful!” he remarked softly. “Going to shift his position after each shot. I must have got mighty close to him at the sandal-wood. It is ten to one now that he’ll move along the ridge a bit for his next shot. Like a lady, I’ll wait for him at that cotton-bush with becoming modesty.”

  “Must be Anchor’s brand of hospitality,” Martin opined.

  “More likely that black-eyed youth on his own.”

  “Probably. He’s mad enough.”

  “I’ll turn his yellow eyebrows into rainbows if I can get on to his smoke quick enough. That’s one advantage about this damned climate. The atmosphere is clear enough to spot him by that. Oh hell!”

  A metallic “plonk” plainly indicated that the enemy had put a bullet through one of the water-drums; and, again too late, Monty saw the vapour of the exploded cartridge hover at the base of the sandal-wood.

  “He’s gone back to his old possie,” he announced. “Or there may be two of them. Deliberately aimed at the water can, because it is all of ten yards beyond our ‘fort.’ He’s using a .44 Winchester, too, in a way which raises my admiration. Practice makes perfect, as he would have found out before this had I been ten years younger.”

  “Doesn’t he show?”

  “Nary a bit of him,” Monty sighed. “Fact of the matter is I’m getting old and slow. Soon be sitting on the veranda wearing slippers and recalling the good old days when ‘men was men and byes was byes, me pimply-faced young shaver––h’rumph!’”

  “He’ll get careless presently.”

  “Maybe. Still, he’s ’cute.”

  That the enemy was “’cute” could not be gainsaid. He possessed every advantage in that maze of sand-hills, which could cover the operations of an army corps from any observer on a flat. The brothers, being on a flat some hundred odd yards in width, could not move from their flimsy fort to reach any kind of cover, but the enemy could circle them entirely with the greatest ease and safety from behind his walls of sand.

  “I think it must be our late visitor,” Martin observed, after another water-drum had been holed, wasting its precious contents.

  “Why?”

  “Because, if dear Brutus had any sense, he would have waited till we were on the move. The camels would have bolted just the same, and one or both of us would have been bucked off and left on the flat without any gear to protect us. Our caller did not sound to me as if he were overstocked with intelligence.”

  “M’yes, that may be so, old lad,” Monty agreed, slipping more of the flat soft-pointed cartridges into the magazine. “Still, we’ll be in Queer Street an the same if he punctures all our water-drums. And he seems to have intelligence enough for that. If only I––ah!”

  The Savage cracked, and for a fleeting instant Monty saw a wide-brimmed hat rise a little above the ridge––almost at right-angles to the sandalwood. If he had not bored his man, at least he had shot his hat off––a good shot indeed, because the blue vapour had appeared almost over his rifle-sights and he had dispatched a bullet before the enemy’s bullet let the water out of the third drum.

  “How now, my brother?”

  “I think I spoiled his hat,” the big man replied, chuckling.

  “But I never hurt the little dear. I couldn’t, you know. My! What glorious practice the chap is giving us! Reminds me of dear old Gallipoli.”

  His blue eyes aglow with the joy of battle, Monty felt no inconvenience from the humming flies which persisted in drowning themselves in his eyes. The conditions for rifle-shooting were ideal. There was absolutely no wind. There was no shimmer of hot air just above the ground, and the atmosphere was so clear that objects one hundred yards distant appeared but one hundred feet. He was sublimely unaware even of the fierce sunlight pouring down upon their open fort; and it was only when Martin, like himself on fire with excitement, searched aimlessly for shade, that he remembered the uncomfortable and dreadfully tedious part the blind man was forced to play.

  “Hold on, old stick-in-the-mud,” he said, laying aside the rifle. “I’ll fix the pack-bags on the saddles there, and rig a little shade with the tent.”

  This operation all but cost him his life, for a bullet snatched a shred of material off his shirt at the shoulder, a bullet that came from the opposite direction to the last. But by then the job was practically finished, and, throwing up his arms, Monty very realistically slumped down over the saddle wall, thence slowly to slide off and down behind the cover.

  “What are you doing now?” Martin demanded, knowing by the uninterrupted whine of the bullet that the big man was unharmed. Monty laughed softly.

  “I’m supposed to be wanting a grave,” was his answer. “Our undertaker friend aimed at me, and was very pleased to see me throw up my arms as I threw a seven. Believing me to be a lovely corpse, and knowing you to be a noncombatant, he will probably be game enough to show himself. Then it will be ‘Good-bye, Dolly Grey!’ “

  “Wing him, Monty! Only wing him!” urged Martin.

  “You bet! I’ll give him a lovely pair of wings, which shortly afterwards will be much singed.”

  For nearly an hour the enemy kept up a desultory fire, perforating all the drums, but leaving intact a canvas waterbag hanging in front of a riding-saddle outside the “fort.” Monty decided that the gunman could not see the drab-coloured bag from his distance, and rejoiced.

  Both the besieged were by this time suffering from thirst, made worse possibly by the knowledge that about a gallon of cool water was just beyond their reach till darkness fell and made it reasonably safe to leave the shelter. Bullets “flunked” into the straw-stuffed pack-saddles, others entered the joints between them, and yet others screamed just above their heads.

  Another torturing hour passed before the constantly moving marksman showed himself for the fraction of a second. That was the first sight of him, for which Monty had been waiting with absolute certainty. He knew that it was merely a matter of time when the attacker would persuade himself that he had actually killed the brother who enjoyed his sight.

  Monty had not fired a shot since he was supposed to have been mortally hit. It was a waiting game that he disliked intensely, but it was the only one to play when the greater enemy, thirst, joined forces with the unseen rifleman.

  The man who eventually wins in such circumstances is he who possesses the greatest patience, and patience is a test of a strong character. A weak intellect can rarely be patient, because it cannot for long follow a predetermined course, being beset by doubts and ungoverned imaginings.

  Below his casual surface manner, Monty Sherwood was a thinker and a student of men. Once decided that it was their night visitor who besieged them, he realized that the waiting game was the only one that he could play with any hope of success. At any moment a searching bullet might find one of them through a chink between two saddles, and the longer he replied to the firing the longer would the attacker keep in his impenetrable cover, waiting merely for heat and thirst to madde
n them and drive them into the open to become an easy prey. Both sides, therefore, were playing the waiting game in differing ways. It was low, vicious cunning opposed to cold, calculating cunning.

  It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when the enemy peered over the stem of a fallen needlewood tree lying in a cleft between two ridges. All that Monty could see of him was his rat-like face with the glittering snake-like eyes. Cautiousness still ruled the killer’s brain, but no longer could Monty delay action. Delay meant madness and death for Martin and him if their tongue-blistering thirst was much further prolonged. Already the heat and the awful dryness of his skin caused lights to dance before his eyes.

  The queer lights danced beyond the foresight of his rifle, coming between it and that hateful, peering face. He prayed that the lights would flicker out before the face drew back.

  Then the lights vanished, and he pressed firmly upon the trigger.

  CHAPTER XVI

  WILLIAM J. ANCHOR AND FRIEND

  THE big man, rising, laid aside his rifle and at once secured the water-bag from the front of the riding-saddle. Into a pannikin he poured but a little more than a medium wine-glass measure of the precious liquid, which he gave to Martin, managing to speak the one word: “Slowly!”

  Even less did he give himself. Taking one sip, he allowed it to soak into the crevices of his tongue; another loosened the sticky saliva clogging the muscles of tongue and lips; a third and a fourth sip he allowed to trickle down his throat with much more than the appreciation a connoisseur of wine bestows on a famous vintage.

  Another half-hour, and the waiting game as played by the besieged would have had to be abandoned. For some time Monty had been estimating his chances of rushing out of their improvised fort and returning unharmed with the water. The absolute dependence of the blind Martin upon him was the only reason why he did not attempt it. The odds were in favour of his securing the water without injury, yet if a bullet had found him Martin’s plight would have been hopeless.

  His ration of water taken, the big man seated himself in the small tent-made shade and, proceeding to cut tobacco, said quietly:

  “Well, that’s that.”

  “You got him?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you merely wound him?”

  “I gave the blighter wings. There was nothing else for it. He asked for all he got.”

  “There was only the one?” pressed the blind man.

  “Only the madman who visited us the other night. Apparently he returned to engage in a private war. I think I’ll fill the billy before I go after the camels. They’ll have gone miles by this time.”

  “I say, Monty!” called Martin, while the big man gathered sticks for a fire. “Are you sure the enemy is dead and not wounded?”

  “Positive. Why?”

  “Only, if he is wounded, I think you ought to attend him.”

  “Don’t you worry,” the bushman assured him grimly. “All I had to aim at at three-fifty yards was his face above a dead log. The face is still there. A soft-pointed high-powered bullet does extraordinary things, old son.”

  “All right,” Martin said gently, sipping the last of his issue of water. Although he knew Monty’s brutality of speech to be an acquired habit and in direct contrast to his kindly nature, yet it hurt him to hear so shocking a death spoken of in that way. No matter the crime committed, the death of a criminal was as solemn as that of a bishop.

  The big man estimated that there were but three quarts of water, remaining in the bag; a small enough quantity in that heat, when he first had to bring in the camels and then get his brother fifteen miles––the journey itself a matter of five hours at least––to Anchor’s homestead, where there was a certain water supply. The drums were so badly holed by the youth’s accurate shooting that he saved barely sufficient to fill the half-gallon billy he placed over the fire.

  An hour later he set off for the camels, leaving Martin smoking a cigarette in the shade of the “fort,” and carrying with him half a dozen spare nose-lines, as well as several nose-plugs to replace those which might have been torn out when the animals stepped on their lines in their mad rush. When Martin removed his watch-glass he ascertained the time to be a little after four.

  Monty, more as a duty than to assure himself, first examined the dead youth, and then circled the sand-hills till he cut his camels’ tracks, which he followed till he found them placidly chewing their cud in the shade of a clump of belar. They were four miles from camp, and at the end of an hour Martin began to worry at his long absence. For an hour is a long time to be without water in that terrific temperature, probably 114 degrees in the shade.

  Quite soon after the blind man took the time, he first heard the far-off drone of a powerful motor which, increasing rapidly in loudness, betrayed itself as the power unit of an aeroplane. With sensitive ears he followed its course, first flying high overhead and then shutting off its engine to swoop earthward, its pilot, so Martin surmised, having observed the apparently deserted camp.

  When next the engine crackled into its fierce song, it told the blind man that the ’lane was flying low over and about the flat on which he lay.

  Monty and the camels were uppermost in his mind then. Should the bushman be approaching camp with the four remaining beasts, that ’plane would stampede them again. Monty, or a dozen Montys, would be unable to manage them unless he were provided with rope. And Monty had nothing like that with him.

  Finally, the aeroplane engine was shut off and a peculiar whistling indicated that it was coming to earth, which it did on a flat beyond the sand-ridge on which lay the dead youth. But for his blindness, Martin would have seen two men, attired in faultless white duck and pith helmets, descend from the cockpit.

  The first to reach the ground was a thin man, of medium height, whose age might have been anything between fifty and sixty years. The small military moustache matched perfectly the fine silvery hair crowning a really magnificent head. The expression of benevolent placidity was discounted heavily by the slaty agate colour of the eyes, which were peculiarly brilliant when, beneath straight brows, they peered up at the body of the dead youth.

  “It is confoundedly hot here on the ground,” he said to his companion.

  “Hot! It’s a damned oven,” his fellow flier agreed, producing and lighting a cigarette. “Now to investigate this affair.”

  The second man was almost ten inches taller than the other, but quite as thin––too thin for his height. His eyes were effectually hidden by the tinted glasses of his spectacles. Clean shaven, his black hair just shading white, he appeared to be under fifty years of age. A rubicund complexion suggested the imbiber of spirits. The peculiarly toned voice placed him on the lower levels of England’s upper classes.

  Together they walked to the body. It lay in the exact position taken when the youth peered over the dead log at the “fort” below. The expanding bullet had removed the rear part of the head. Stooping, the tall man turned the body over, and, calmly surveying the face, still bestial in death, said;

  “It is Gilling all right. The hangman cheated once more, Anchor. Must have been a high-powered bullet that did that. I am sorry to have lost such a promising subject.”

  “Well, your experiments could have made him no worse than he is just now,” remarked Anchor with the ghost of a smile. “Even the Malay was better off after you had done with him and before I attended him.”

  The tall man grunted––it was nothing else. He said, indicating the “fort”:

  “Sherwood must indeed be a good shot. Assuming that they took cover among those saddles, and by their formation it is evident that they did, the distance must be at least four hundred yards.”

  “M’yes. And, as the Sherwoods don’t show, it appears that young Gilling has saved us some trouble. Gilling, you know, was a good shot, too.”

  “I hope he missed the Sherwoods,” his companion said quickly. “I am quite looking forward to their help in some experiments I have in vi
ew.”

  The man addressed as Anchor looked at him sharply.

  “You will wait, Moore, until I give you leave,” he said coolly. “I have a little chess game to play with Miss Thorpe, using these Sherwoods as pawns. If you take away my pawns before the game is finished, I shall be most annoyed. When I announce ‘mate,’ we shall decide what to do with the pawns.”

  The tall man laughed unpleasantly, and was about to speak when he changed his mind, threw away the butt of his cigarette, and picked up the youth’s Winchester rifle. Then, without haste, they descended to the flat, and, strolling to the little mound of saddles and gear, halted just beyond them.

  “Is anyone at home?” called Anchor with sarcastic politeness.

  “Most certainly!” came Martin’s voice, now firm and as hard as ironstone. “You will find the front door open. Be pleased to enter.”

  The airmen glanced significantly at each other. Then, smiling faintly, Anchor moved softly round the “fort,” with his right hand in his jacket pocket. Moore at his heels, he came to where Monty had pushed aside a saddle and, within the enclosure, saw Martin sitting bolt upright with his automatic trained upon him. For a moment the silver-haired man thought the blind man could see him.

  “It is very warm this afternoon,” he said with undiminished politeness.

  “Warm, but bracing,” Martin replied. “Being a windless day, my hearing is quite good. Believe me, only yesterday I shot a galah on a tree-branch, aiming merely by its screech. Even the rustle of your clothes is quite distinct.”

  “These details interest me exceedingly,” Anchor said, but making no slightest movement.

  “I am glad of that,” Martin assured him grimly. “Whom have I the pleasure of addressing?” “William J. Anchor,” was the blandly spoken reply. “I am accompanied by my friend, Dr. James Moore.”

  “Ah! My brother and I were intending to call on you this evening. Unfortunately, we have been delayed by a lunatic taking pot-shots at us. He, my brother tells me, is now dead.”