Electric bulbs showed the way. The panel clicked behind them and they descended the steps, which ended in a wide and lofty cork-paved passage leading off at right angles. This passage they traversed at a leisurely pace and without sound, ignoring several doors on each side, till eventually they stood before one at the extreme end, on which Moore knocked.
Here, twenty feet underground, were the quarters of the elite of Anchor’s guests. Here the temperature was maintained at about the comfortable level of 70 degrees. The millionaire murderer’s system of ventilation was admirable, while the dryness of climate and soil ensured the absence of damp.
When Moore requested permission for his satellite and himself to enter, Austiline Thorpe was reclining on a Louis XV sofa set at the opposite end of the room near the door leading to her bedroom. She was very pale, a paleness accentuated by her bronze-flecked eyes and deep auburn hair. Agitated she was, undoubtedly, for her breast rose and fell under the stress of powerful emotion. With wide, fascinated eyes she watched the two men stride the length of the room, when, bowing low with a hint of the sardonic, Dr. Moore said softly:
“Good evening, Miss Thorpe! Mr. Anchor has deputed Smith and myself to ensure that his rotten drama is well and truly played.”
Rising suddenly, she looked at him with a face of appeal.
“Oh! Must I go on with it?” she cried, clutching at the straw of his sympathy. “Won’t you help me, Dr. Moore? Won’t you try to persuade Mr. Anchor to let us all go in peace?”
“I am afraid, Miss Thorpe, that Mr. Anchor is not a man to be persuaded from any course he has resolved on,” he said, with a shrug of his narrow shoulders. “Believe me, I urged him to accept your word and send you to the railway immediately we learned of your innocence. I pointed out to him the fact that some one, if not the Sherwoods, would search for you when you did not return to civilization. He would not listen to me, nor would he do so when we knew that the Sherwoods had been given our locality and were coming in this direction. In many ways my friend, Mr. Anchor, is a very fine man, but mulish obstinacy is one of his weaknesses.”
“You know what he expects me to do?”
Nodding, he said:
“I am aware, too, of his infatuation for you, Miss Thorpe. Of that I heartily disapprove. Society may regard me as an outcast, yet at least I am still a gentleman.” “But you could compel Mr. Anchor to let us go, could you not?” she pleaded, her voice breaking. “You could accept our promises not to reveal any secrets. Surely you could not stand calmly by whilst a woman was ruined and an innocent man crushed by a terrible lie?”
Dr. Moore sighed deeply. Doubtless he had verbally disapproved of Anchor’s infatuation and his plans to gratify it. It is possible that his instincts as a gentleman revolted at his friend’s ruthless desires; but the sympathy he displayed that evening was partly spurious, for he was looking forward to use both Monty and his brother as subjects for experiment.
“I can do nothing,” he said in a tone of finality. “This house belongs to Mr. Anchor. It is his money which runs it and provides sanctuary to me and the others. I cannot bite the hand that feeds me. Self-preservation must come first. Therefore, it is impossible for me to side with you openly against my friend.
“Try to understand my position. Circumstances which you can well imagine compel me to conform in everything to Mr. Anchor’s wishes. I am utterly in his power, just as you are. Be advised by me, Miss Thorpe. Summon strength and courage. Be absolutely cruel to your lover, so that there will be no question of him and his brother leaving us without further trouble. If you fail, if you allow either of them to glimpse the actual truth, I and ‘The Cat’ here are instructed to shoot down Montague from behind the wall hangings, when Martin will be placed under my care. You understand the probable result affecting your lover, do you not?”
Her face was deathly pale, her eyes fixed and brilliant with horror.
“I––oh!” she moaned.
Moore was not wholly lost to humanity. A glimmer of genuine pity flashed for a second into his eyes. But the look was hidden byhis tinted spectacles. From a pocket of his white drill jacket he produceda small phial. Offering it to her, he said:
“There remains but one thing to do. This is a means of escape. It is prussic acid, and would mean an almost immediate and quite painless death. It is your only way out. Believe me, I shall not be thanked for giving it you.”
For a moment she looked at the frail glass container, without shrinking, without fear. It was the file that would cut the bars of her cage. Her voice was hardly above a whisper.
“If––if I use it, will you swear that you will get the Sherwoods away unharmed?”
There must also have been some chivalry left in Moore, for he replied immediately and candidly:
“That I cannot do,” were his emphatic words. “Indeed, it would be an impossibility when Mr. Anchor discovered the object of his passion to be beyond his reach. The means of escape is for you alone.”
The woman’s glance rose to Moore’s face. Slowly she shook her head, then sank down on the sofa and covered her face with her hands. When she looked up again she was strangely altered. Gone was her pleading femininity, gone like a cast-off cloak. The lank doctor was astounded at the change. She was as unemotional as a statue. Her eyes were hard and bright, and her mouth had lost its gentleness.
“I thank you, doctor, for your offer,” she said, her voice cool and passionless. “I am not cowardly enough to accept it when by my so doing my fiancé and his brother would suffer. Will you please give me your cigarettes and matches?”
Austiline Thorpe had made her decision. To save Martin from Moore’s horrible experiments, to save him from the quarter-caste Malay’s fate, she realized that she must strike him herself, even if her blows broke his heart. The huge Monty, with the smiling boyish face and wistful mouth, she did not think of much during that dreadful moment. It was Martin, only Martin, who filled her mind.
And to help her in her task she called to her aid a mental trick by which, under the name of “A. E. Titchfie1d,” she had made her books famous. From early girlhood, when she wrote her first story, she had acted the characters her brain had created. It was a trick which practice made easy to perform, so that it came to require little mental effort to submerge her personality and take on that of the character she had created. That was the secret of her success. It caused the critics to wonder, to say that her characters were portraits of living people, and to warn the youthful author against the pitfalls of libel.
There came a knock on the passage door. The two men darted to the silk wall hangings, disappearing behind their voluminous folds. With quick fingers Austiline produced and lit a cigarette, lying then at a reclining angle along the sofa. She was Eva Tilling, the wicked vampire in her most famous book, The Heart of John Strong. Eva’s voice was low and vibrant when she called out permission to enter. Eva controlled also the facial muscles, even the expression of the eyes of Austiline Thorpe.
The door was opened and quietly closed. That portion of the room was in semi-darkness, the only light coming from two electric bulbs attached to the ceiling beyond the sofa. She saw two figures advancing slowly towards her, one guiding the other, one a giant of a man, the other appearing a mere boy beside him.
Even as Eva Tilling drew daintily from one of Moore’s cigarettes the heart of Austiline Thorpe almost ceased to beat. For a moment her real personality all but triumphed. She wanted to run to that slowly approaching figure and lay her lips against the up-cast sightless eyes. But an inflexible will kept Eva Tilling in command.
Her attitude, the expression on her face, caused the big man instant anxiety. He felt that here for the first time was his character-reading utterly at fault. Martin’s instinct had been right. He knew her better than did Monty. So, after all, Austiline had classed herself as belonging to Monty’s “Rat Type.” He was shocked. His faith in feminine goodness and loyalty was shaken.
The silence which greeted their approach at first
indicated to the blind man that he was not yet in the presence of his adored. Realization came slowly. The scent of verbena intermingled with that of Virginia tobacco: the former filling his mind with memories of one woman whose presence was betrayed by it; the latter appearing to indicate that she was not alone, for Austiline, he knew, was not given to smoking.
But Monty saw, and held his breath. He saw Eva Tilling expel a cloud of smoke from between carmine lips. He saw a woman dressed in a low-cut green gown reclining on a blue and gold sofa, one hand holding a novel and the other a cigarette, her head thrown back, her face in full light. One silk-stockinged leg lay along the couch, shoeless and uncovered to the knee, the other dangled over the edge and softly tapped the head of the magnificent dragon sprawled over the immense yellow and white Chinese carpet.
The two men stood before her, a sudden grimness in the face of Monty, eager wistfulness in that of the younger brother. It seemed to Austiline that months and years dragged slowly past in those four or five seconds. Her body ached. Almost she screamed, with the agony of the chained desire to spring up and clasp Martin tightly in an embrace of divine affection, both passionate and maternal. But it was Eva Tilling, the rampant harlot, the virago, that governed her. The stranger, using her voice, laughed.
“So you would intrude on my privacy?” she said, half mockingly. “How dull is the masculine creature, to be sure! Quite unable to resist running your heads against brick walls, are you not? I advised you not to come. Can I do anything for you?”
The blind man blanched at her words, at the tone of her voice, the voice he knew so well, loved so dearly. Voice and words struck him as the crest of an ice-cold wave, chilling him, depriving him of the glow and spring of life. He tried to speak, but was restrained by the pressure of Monty’s fingers on his arm. As though beyond a thick curtain he heard Monty drawl, with unruffled calmness:
“I think you can, Austiline,” emphasizing the last word. “The average man likes butting his head into a brick wall for the fun of seeing the wall collapse. Perhaps you will have no objection to explaining that short, sharp note of yours and, forgive me, this somewhat theatrical reception. Permit me first to adjust a couple of chairs.”
Leaving Martin for a moment, Monty whisked two chairs into position in front of the sofa and gently guided the blind man into one. Then, taking a lapel of Martin’s jacket, he abstracted from an inner pocket the cigarette-case, with deft fingers opened it and from it took two “Three Circle” cigarettes. One he placed against the blind man’s lips, which parted to receive it, when Monty struck a match, saying:
“Light up, old feller-me-lad. We’ll all have a smoke to show there’s no ill feeling.”
To Martin the situation became like a dream. It seemed preposterous that Austiline should be smoking, and unreal that Monty should be so ill-mannered as not first to request permission. He had yet to learn that Monty’s behaviour in society was always entirely guided by circumstances––that in the presence of a gentleman he acted like one, and in the presence of a cad he also was a cad; until the time for action arrived, when he became merely Monty Sherwood.
“Tell us first, are you quite well?” Monty inquired, his face one broad smile, his grey-blue eyes emitting sparks. “Yes, I am quite well, thank you,” she replied mockingly. “How are you?”
“Right on top gear, thanks. By the way, you would enjoy your cigarettes more if you were to inhale the smoke––like this. I see that you are yet a novice. I suppose you have read or heard of Travers’s confession, which absolves you entirely from the murder of Peterson?”
“Oh yes!”
“You have! When?”
“About a week ago,” Austiline replied; but, realizing her slip, she added quickly: “A week, a month, or even a year. It matters little, anyway.”
“I agree. The time doesn’t matter much. Let’s call it a week. Congenial surroundings here, apparently. I suppose you feel you cannot tear yourself away and return with us to civilization?”
“Your supposition is probably correct. Believe me, I can and will return to civilization just when it pleases me to do so. It is possible that I shall remain here for some time. You see, I am going to marry Mr. Anchor.”
“Austiline!”
The name was wrenched from a tortured man, a man struggling in the fetters of nightmare, a man whose very soul was being cut to pieces by the light mockery in her voice and words. The smile vanished from Monty’s features; his mouth hardened and became grim.
Eva Tilling regarded the writhing face of Austiline’s lover and had the temerity to smile. Monty would have spoken; instead, seeing that she aimlessly held the extinguished cigarette butt, he emptied the matches from his box, which he proffered her by way of an ash-tray. He was meditating a further reference to her being a novice at smoking, when she said:
“Well, really, Mr. Sherwood, you could never expect me, or, for that matter, any woman to marry a blind man.”
It was Eva Tilling’s first flash of hostility: the stranger in command up in arms at the bare idea of such an alliance, her true self quivering with each added wound. And around her was the ever-present menace of the hidden murderers filling all that room.
“No…no, possibly not,” Martin whispered with effort. “I came quite prepared to release you, Austilene. In fact, for many months I have been steeling myself to do so. But––but, I never expected it. Even now I find it difficult to believe when memories of happier days are so vivid.
There was quiet dignity in the words, an underlying bravery which aroused Monty’s admiration.
“I knew you would accept the situation like that,” Eva Tilling drawled while with lowered eyelids she abstracted another cigarette Then she partly returned it to Moore’s case, and, glancing coyly at the big man, went on: “You should really congratulate me, you know. Mr. Anchor is a polished man of great wealth, and will, I am sure, make me a good husband.”
“A most excellent husband of the popular he-man type,” Monty observed dryly. “Let me see, now; you will be the fourth to die of arsenical poisoning, or will it be the fifth? They tell me that arsenic is superior to morphia in its rejuvenating effects, and not quite so energetic as strychnine.”
“You are pleased to joke,” Eva Tilling said severely, whilst Austiline felt the breath of failure.
“Joke! Of course I am joking. You cannot scold me when you joke yourself.”
“Surely, Austiline, you must be joking,” Martin put in earnestly.
She flashed the blind man a look when the stranger was momentarily off guard. The big man saw the very faintest shadow of a tremble about her lips: he noticed, too, that hardly ever did she look at Martin. Was that because she was ashamed of her despicable conduct, or because she was afraid to? If the latter, of what was she afraid? Her emotions?
“M’yes,” he drawled. “Quit your joking, and name the hour you will be prepared to leave this murderers’ nest.”
“You must be peculiarly lacking in common sense if you fail to understand that I am perfectly serious,” was Eva’s assurance.
She found her eyes caught and held by the giant’s blazing orbs whilst he leaned forward in his chair. For a moment she was fascinated by their penetrative power and sought to escape them, only to find her eyes held by his as by a magnet, and slowly her lids lowered so that she gazed at him mockingly between fine lashes. Deliberately she stretched herself, yawning like a great cat. Her face expressed the acme of boredom. For the second time she took the cigarette from Moore’s silver case, and––found Monty beside her with a lighted match.
“Thank you!” came her mocking voice. “But you have not Mr. Anchor’s grace. Excusable, perhaps, when one remembers that you are but a common bushman––bush whacker is the technical name, is it not?”
“Your mastery of Australian slang is perfect. Contact with low-class murderers, I presume,” was his countercheck. “Pardon my insistence, but are you seriously engaged to marry Bluebeard?”
“Mr. Anchor! Of course
I am serious.”
Again Austiline yawned with studied rudeness.
“You appear to be very tired,” Monty remarked calmly.
That brought her sharply to a sitting posture, her ruddy brown eyes wide and flashing. Now she was openly spiteful.
“Tired! Indeed, I am,” she said shrilly. “You bore me to distraction, you with your gaucherie, and your brother with his pathetic, martyrly airs. Why cannot you see that you bore me to distraction? Why leave it to me to request you to go? Please––oh, please––go!”
“With pleasure,” Monty assured her politely, at once rising, and placing a hand beneath Martin’s arm. “Come, Martin, the lady desires to be alone to dream of her Landru.” Turning to her, he said with no trace of anger: “Good-bye! I promise to send along a set of silver coffin handles to your prospective husband as a wedding present.”
“Stop!”
The command came from the blind man, who, shaking clear of Monty’s guiding hand, swung about, facing the woman he still loved. She was standing now, her face white as chalk, her eyes wide and horror-filled.
“I do not think, Austiline-––you really can have no objection to my still calling you that––that I have done anything to deserve your scorn, or your gibes at my affliction,” Martin said in a strangely steady voice, his face tilted upward, his vacant eyes fixed unwinkingly on the dazzling lights. “Neither has my brother earned your insults. We have come to this desolate place at no little inconvenience and expense, both gladly incurred in what we thought was your service. Even now I don’t regret having loved you, but I do profoundly regret that my brother, whose respect I value, should have come to know that I loved––and love––such a woman as you now show yourself to be. Monty, please take me away.”
The House Of Cain Page 22
