Venom House

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “How do you know carrots snap?”

  “Oh, Mother told me. Mother cried when Mary beat me. It was Mother who told me to do the exercises. She showed me how to. Mother told me that if I kept on with the exercises I’d grow so strong that if I wanted to go over the water and play with the little lambs Mary would not be able to stop me.”

  “Does Janet know your mother told you to do the exercises?”

  “Oh, no, and you mustn’t tell Janet.”

  “But Janet knows you are strong and becoming stronger?”

  “Yes, she knows that. She watches me take my bath twice a week. She can’t trust me to wash my neck properly.”

  “Your mother, of course, comes to see you every day?”

  “She used to come, and then one day Janet told her she was a bad influence over me, and after that she came only now and then, and Janet always came with her.” Morris chuckled, and the leer returned. “But Mother thought of a way to talk to me. She’d come and lie down outside the door, and I’d lie down inside and we’d talk in whispers under the door. Mother hates Mary and Janet, and they hate her. And Janet hates Mary. All of them tell me so, but I never tell what they tell me. You won’t, will you?”

  “Of course, I won’t. By the way, where did you obtain the fishing-line?”

  “Oh! Oh, I don’t know. It just came here with some pieces of string Janet brought when I wanted to mend something. I have great fun with it when I don’t use it for a fishing-line. I got it from the books Mary brought me to read. I can read and do sums. Mother showed me how to read and do sums, you know.”

  “Good!” encouraged Bony. “Tell me about the fun you have.”

  “You would really like to see?” Again the pathetic smile. “I’ll find the books and show you.”

  Morris Answerth crossed to the bookcase, Bony following. There were piles of children’s adventure stories and comics, and Morris chose one pile dealing with the adventures of “Clarry, the Cowboy of Bar-O-One”.

  “Clarry never misses with his lasso,” he explained, flicking open a number to find a picture of the redoubtable Clarry. “When he draws his six-gun, you know, he always shoots the villain. They won’t let me have a six-gun, but I made a lasso, and I’m as good as Clarry. Like to see me?”

  “You won’t lasso me, will you?” Bony protested, and Morris laughingly promised to refrain.

  From an old sandalwood chest Morris Answerth brought forth a long length of electric wiring flex, one end of which was attached to his large magnet. Removing the magnet, he shook the flex loosely over the floor revealing that the other end had been bound into a small loop. Running the now free end through the loop Morris had his lasso.

  Standing away from the mantel, he lassoed the cloisonné vase, and, the woodwork about the vase being discoloured, Bony approached to observe that it was actually caused by the incessant blows of the lasso.

  The tops of the side posts of the throne chair had also lost their veneer and the carved wood was worn by the continuous thrashing they had been given by the lasso before the thrower had become proficient.

  With extraordinary and apparent carelessness, Morris lassoed the chair from every angle, including backward over his head.

  There was a plaster bust of George Washington on top of the bookcase. This he lassoed about the neck and flicked it towards him, catching it that it might not smash on the floor. He set his train in motion on its circular track and lassoed the engine. Did it twice to prove the first cast was not a fluke. And as he worked, his face was lit by enthusiasm as though he were, indeed, the great Clarry himself.

  Bony applauded, one hand behind him grasping the door handle. Morris Answerth recoiled his lasso and came forward. Now he was smiling.

  “You try,” he urged.

  Softly laughing, Bony told him he would have to go.

  “Another time I’d like to very much,” he said. “You will have to teach me. Now I must be going, but I’ll come again. Would you like me to?”

  “Oh, indeed, I would. I’m sorry you have to go. What is your name?” Bony told him, and he smiled happily. “Well, good-bye, Bony. You won’t forget to come and see me again, will you?”

  “No, I will not forget, Morris.”

  The man-boy held out his hand, and Bony accepted it. He expected a crippling grip: he was given a gentle pressure. Morris stepped back. They both smiled. Bony opened the door and backed out ... slowly ... still smiling at the smiling Morris Answerth, who stood leaning against the great table, with the coiled lasso of flex dangling from one great hand.

  Chapter Seven

  Keeper of the Rat House

  JANET ANSWERTH WAS waiting for him in the hall, and the golden light from the stained-glass window added to the lustre of her hair and tinted her face with gold dust.

  “Morris was all right. Inspector? Not violent?”

  “Your brother was rational. Miss Answerth,” he assured her.

  “I’m so glad. What did he say? Did he say anything about poor Mother?”

  “He interested me with his train, and his fishing-line with a magnetic hook.”

  “Oh, that! He amuses himself for hours dropping things from his window and drawing them up again.” Her gaze was centred steadily at his eyes, and she went on: “He didn’t talk about me, or Mary? You see, he’s very troublesome at times. Nothing we do for him pleases him, when he has a bad turn.”

  “You haven’t told him about Mrs Answerth?”

  “No, Inspector. We thought it best not to, not for a little while.”

  “How long has he been like that?”

  “Oh, for years. We first noticed he was peculiar when he was very young, and then as he grew older he suffered from periods of depression which always ended with an outburst of frightful temper. We have had to be very firm with him.”

  “He was examined by a doctor?”

  “Of course! Old Doctor Mundy used to see him, and finally said he would never really grow up.”

  “I’m sorry. Is Doctor Mundy still living in Edison?”

  Janet shook her head, saying that Dr Mundy had died shortly after her father’s death.

  “Who attends your brother?”

  “We all do ... that is, Mary and I, and his poor mother when she was well.” There was a distinct pause, when Janet added: “Lately, though, we had to dissuade her from being with him too much. I’m afraid Mother wasn’t good for him. She had become very difficult, you know.”

  “His door is invariably bolted?”

  “Yes, ever since somebody forgot to turn the key,” Janet replied. “It’s so easy to do that, isn’t it? We had the bolt fixed because that requires mental effort, you understand. Not just turning a key.... That time the key wasn’t turned, Morris escaped from the house late one night, and next morning we found the boat had vanished. He was eventually found in one of the paddocks, and fortunately he was quiet and returned to his room without any fuss.”

  “Is there a particular reason ... forgive the question ... a reason for him being dressed like a schoolboy?”

  “Of course there is, Inspector. Mentally, Morris has never grown up. You’ve seen that for yourself. We decided that the best way to manage him was to treat him as a child all the time, and so when his second Eton suit wore out, we had another made for him, and so on.” Her eyes brightened with golden tears. “To see him in schoolboy’s uniform is easier for us, too. We’d had such great hopes for little Morris, and it has all been disappointments.”

  “He seems contented with his lot, and this is something achieved for one in his tragic state,” Bony said, sympathetically. “Tell me, how many are there on your domestic staff?”

  “Only the cook. Mrs Leeper. We manage quite well with just Mrs Leeper, and a man who comes over now and then to cut the wood and do the outside work we cannot do.”

  “Then after I’ve had a few words with your cook Constable Mawson and I will keep Blaze waiting no longer.”

  “Very well, Inspector. Mrs Leeper will be in the kitc
hen, I expect. Please come this way.”

  “Perhaps you would permit me to interview her here.”

  “Yes, if you wish. I’ll send her along.”

  “I thank you.” Bony waited till Janet Answerth left them before saying to Mawson: “I will talk to the cook outside.”

  Passing to the porch, he lingered to appreciate the sun-lit expanse of Answerth’s Folly. The light wind touched the surface with its brush of gold, and the great grey trunks of the trees, which sprang to life when the world was young, were pillars supporting the gentian sky. They stood but here and there upon the water which had killed but could not bring them down, and about them swam the ducks and the pelicans and the swans. The distant land lured the eye to regard with fleeting interest the row of station buildings, to pass on up the long grassy slope to the green forest.

  A rustle of starched garments caused him to turn and see a stout and nimble woman regarding him with wide dark eyes. Her hands were slim, and her feet appeared to be too small for her bodily weight. She was wearing a nurse’s white linen cap, and it was the voluminous white apron which had rustled when she moved. She epitomized saintly cleanliness.

  “Ah! Mrs Leeper?”

  “I am Mrs Leeper,” she replied, her voice clear and precise. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes. Kindly accompany me for a few minutes.” Bony stood aside to permit her to go ahead down the porch step, and as they walked on the close-cropped grass, he put his opening question. “Just what is your position in this household, Mrs Leeper?”

  “I am keeper-in-general of the rat house,” was the answer, and he stopped to look at her, his brows lifted. Her button of a nose crinkled with humour, but grim mockery lurked deep in her eyes. “I hope you won’t make my position here more difficult than it is by telling tales.”

  “You have my word, Mrs Leeper, that I never gossip. Tell me, who is the real head of this household?”

  “I am.”

  “Indeed!”

  “They don’t know it, Inspector.”

  “The Misses Answerth are not particularly courteous to each other.”

  “They have forgotten how to be.”

  “Meaning that they are normal when insulting each other?”

  “They’re never normal,” Mrs Leeper replied with emphasis. “And there’s nothing abnormal about that because only one per cent of humanity is normal. These people have their idiosyncrasies, if that’s the word, which are a little out of the ordinary. They have lots of money, but they walk round the house at night without a light. Never collide with anything in the dark. They stick to oil lamps when they could easily have their own electric generating plant. And sometimes they are out of speaks for weeks.”

  “H’m! How long have you been here?”

  “Ten years almost.”

  “D’you like being here?”

  “Certainly not. I dislike the place, and the people. I don’t like darkness and silence, and rooms and passages which are always cold. I like sunshine and fresh air, and plenty of carbolic. I like laughter and joy, not studied politeness with an undercurrent of hatred which seems to have seeped into the very stones of the place. As I just told you, I’m here for a purpose. I’m here to save money to buy a hospital of my own. I’ve been matron of a large mental hospital, but I could never save money.”

  “Then you must be capable of managing these ... Answerths?” “Yes, I can manage them easily enough, but I never let them know it. It’s an art, Inspector, managing the mentally sick.”

  “It must be,” agreed Bony. “They are then, mentally ill?”

  “Yes, but not quite nuts. Don’t mistake my words. The two women are fully capable. Miss Mary runs the station and the men. Miss Janet thinks she runs the house and everyone in it. She paints beautifully, and plays the piano. Keep them apart, and they’re tractable.”

  “And how long do you expect to stay here to have enough to buy a hospital of your own?”

  “Oh! Oh, perhaps two more years. These people pay very well. They have to, you know. There’s no entertainment. I don’t leave this place except once a year for three weeks’ holiday in Brisbane.”

  “Almost a prisoner, eh?”

  “Almost ... due to myself, of course. I needn’t stay. I want money, and the less one spends the more one saves.”

  “There is horse sense in that, Mrs Leeper. When did you last see Mrs Answerth alive?”

  “See her! It was just after nine that night she was drowned. She came to the kitchen as usual for her cocoa and biscuit. The last time I heard her was about eleven when Miss Mary brought her into the house and sent her up to bed. I heard Miss Mary scolding her and then I heard their room doors being closed. Mrs Answerth must have waited and gone out again when she thought everyone was asleep.”

  “D’you know why she went out?”

  “Yes, I think I do.” The wind teased the woman’s white cap and rustled the starched skirts. Her unadorned face shone in the sunlight, as though continuously she scrubbed it with the carbolic soap she appeared to like so much.

  “She was a walking tragedy,” Mrs Leeper continued. “Poor thing! I felt very sorry for her. She had no place here, and all she thought about was her son. Sometimes she would cry because they wouldn’t allow her to visit him, and when she seemed happier recently, I wondered what was behind it and watched her.”

  “When was that?” interjected Bony.

  “About two weeks ago. I found out that she’d steal downstairs in the middle of the night, and go outside and talk to Morris, who came to his bedroom window. She’d stay talking to him for half an hour or more.”

  “Turn casually towards the house and tell me who occupies which room. Avoid letting anyone see we are interested in the house.”

  “Very well. Take the top floor rooms left of the coloured window. The first one is Miss Janet’s. The next two windows are in the room occupied by Morris. There’s another window to that room round the corner, the window Morris would talk to his mother from. On the other side of the hall, the first room is Miss Mary’s. The next was Mrs Answerth’s room. The next one is empty. There are other rooms up there which haven’t been occupied for a hundred years, by the cobwebs and dust in them. If they gave me all that unused furniture ... all antique ... I’d be able to invest in a hospital as big as the Brisbane Town Hall.”

  “Your room ... is where?”

  “On the ground floor next to the kitchen.”

  “Much experience in mental hospitals?”

  “Sixteen years,” replied the cook.

  “Your opinion of the mental condition of Morris Answerth?”

  “I haven’t an opinion because I’ve never seen him but once. The women look after him. From what they tell me, though, it seems he stopped growing mentally when he was about seven.”

  “Were you not curious about him?”

  “Yes. But I’m not here in my professional capacity. I accept everything as being in order. Mr Harston, the agent, manages their affairs. It was he who obtained the position for me. He told me all about Morris, and said I wasn’t to interfere.”

  “Were you here when he escaped from his room?”

  “Yes.”

  Bony felt the hardening towards his questioning.

  “Tell me what happened on that occasion,” he said, quietly.

  “Well, Miss Mary was eating her breakfast when Miss Janet ran into the dining-room to tell her that Morris wasn’t in his rooms. Miss Mary swore at Miss Janet, and called her a so-and-so fool for not locking the door the night before. They went out to find the boat gone. There used to be a boat tied to a stake this side of the causeway. Miss Mary raved at Miss Janet, and Miss Janet cried and kept saying she had locked Morris’s door.

  “I stood on the porch and watched Miss Mary wading over the causeway. Miss Janet ran about like a dog trying to find its kennel, and I called to her. It was ‘Poor little Morris’, and ‘What can have happened to my little boy?’, until I was fed up and shouted at her to behave. Then Mrs
Answerth appeared on the scene, and when I told her what had happened she flew into a temper and told Janet that Mary must have let him out to get the chance to beat him. Accusations flew about, the old lady screaming that she hoped Morris would snap Miss Mary’s neck like a carrot.

  “Several hours after I pacified them, Miss Janet came down from the roof, where she’d been on the look-out with binoculars, to say that the boat was returning. She told me not to bother any more, and to return to the kitchen. When she thought I was out of the way, she went to the levee and waited. From the dining-room window I saw the boat being rowed round the house by Miss Mary, and Morris sitting in the stern.

  “Miss Mary rowed the boat to the levee at the causeway, and Miss Janet fastened the chain to the stake and said something to Miss Mary or Morris. Then Morris left the boat and Miss Mary held him by the arm and marched him into the house and upstairs.”

  “Where was Mrs Answerth when all this was going on?”

  “I didn’t know till some time later,” replied Mrs Leeper. “According to the old lady, Miss Janet locked her into an upstairs room and that must have been just after Miss Janet saw the boat coming back. Now where was I?

  “I stood in the hall listening, and had to scoot back to the kitchen when Miss Janet came down. She was crying again about ‘poor little Morris’. She stayed in the kitchen, still crying, but louder. I think she did it on purpose to stop me hearing yells coming from Morris’s room. The next day, the old man who comes to saw the wood fixed a bolt to Morris’s door, and there was a padlock to the bolt so that it couldn’t be slipped free until the padlock was removed.”

  “D’you think the yells you heard coming from Morris’s room meant that Morris was being beaten?” asked Bony.

  “Sounded much like it to me,” replied Mrs Leeper, and, regarding her, Bony found in her face nothing of disapproval. Shading her eyes with a hand, the woman gazed over the Folly. Although her hands were small, her forearms were large and firm. About her was still the authority of the hospital matron.