“What’d you do to Apples?” White Horse roared. “You murderin’ snake, where’s Apples?”
That gloating laugh waved eerily down the shaft. “You know how wet the snow is on the mountain?” Smedder asked. “Well, take a guess what a stick of dynamite half a mile up the slope will do. Dynamite—when all it takes to start an avalanche is a handful of snow droppin’ offa spruce branch. Get the idea? I rub my tracks out with avalanches! Yeah, avalanche maker—that’s me. There won’t be no sign of this mine left. This shaft-head’ll be buried forty feet deep under slide rock. You’ll have a tomb that nobody won’t get into for a million years. And me—why I’ll just sit in the cabin till the ice goes out of the rivers, then me and the hundred thousand’ll go floatin’ down the Illucaset.”
“What’d you do to Apples?” White Horse thundered again, jamming his words together till they sounded like a single roar, so great was his rage against this human fiend.
“Apples?” the chill voice sounded down. “You’ll find the body of the sawed-off runt near the end of the Rainbow. I don’t know if he’s croaked or not. If you hoof it in there hiya quick you’ll get a chance to look at what’s left of him before my avalanche chokes up the shaft. We’ll be walkin’ the same way, won’t we? Me on top the snow and you under the ground in the mine tunnel. What a hell of a difference a few feet make, huh?”
White Horse used two valuable minutes hurling tongue-sizzling words up the shaft before he became aware that Smedder had gone. Then, with his own words echoing hollowly in his ears, he turned and started running up the Rainbow Drift.
His hobnail shoes clumped loudly in the slack of the roadway. His lamp flame flickered. It conjured up fleeting grotesque shadows which raced across the walls and roof and floor.
With an effort White Horse conquered his blind rage. He wanted to think. Smedder, the rat, had a little head start on him. But that didn’t matter. The scurvy murderer would be toiling up the steep slope on snowshoes. Slow. White Horse’d beat Smedder to the end of the Rainbow. Beat him easily. And maybe he’d get a few minutes with Apples.
White Horse met Apples walking down the roadway near the end of the Rainbow. The big miner’s heart sank as he took in the details of his partner’s condition—the pale face, the blood-matted hair, the shirt, stiff with drying blood. But his spirits soared momentarily as Apples stood firmly clasping his hand, and assuring him that he was all right.
“’S O.K.,” the cocky little man protested. “Looks worse’n it is. But my lights was sure out for awhile.” He grinned, and continued spouting with all his old fire. “He crocked me over the head with a chunk of granite, that’s what he done, White Horse. I told you that snivelin’ snake was a killer. Where is he? We’ll get him now. Where is he?”
In a few words White Horse told what had happened. Apples cut loose with a string of curses hot enough to have melted gold out of quartz.
“It ain’t no use.” White Horse shook his head wearily. “I said all them things before. I’d fight, but there’s nothin’ to fight. How does a fella go about preparin’ to die?”
“Die!” Apples snorted. “You’re crazy, big boy. Somebody’s gonna die, but it ain’t us. Not if I can help it. Hey, gimme that light.” He reached up and snatched the lamp from White Horse’s cap. “Come on,” he shouted. “Foller me.”
The little man went scurrying down the Rainbow Drift, White Horse crashing bewilderedly after. Frantically they clambered up the steep slope of the narrowing cavern. Almost at the end of the lead Apples halted so suddenly that White Horse, plunging along directly behind, collided with him and tramped him down.
“Hey, offa my neck, you damn’ war tank,” Apples yowled.
Scrambling to his feet, Apples hefted a piece of rock and crashed it against a nearby timber. He had set this timber himself the day after Old Dad Summers had been killed. Flush against the rib wall he had set the prop—flush and tight. Roof needed support here, he said.
“You half-pint peanut,” White Horse shouted protest. “You’ll have the top cavin’ in on us!”
“Shut up! Grab a rock! Help me!” Apples hollered. But he didn’t need help. The timber gave away at his next onslaught, smashing against White Horse’s shoulder and knocking him down.
“Now we’re even, you big beef,” Apples laughed shortly, without looking around. “It was an accident, though. Believe it or not.”
White Horse floundered to his feet to find his partner busily at work scraping rock dust from a small round hole in the wall. “What the hell—looks like a drill hole.”
“It ain’t nothin’ else than,” Apples affirmed. “I made this hole and I set the timber to hide it. There’s dynamite in here”—he fished around with his finger and pulled out a short length of fuse—“and she’s all set to blow!”
With no preliminaries, Apples held his cap flame to the end of the fuse. Powder sputtered. “Gangway, you tow-whiskered moose,” he bellowed. “Get out of the road! I’m comin’.” White Horse went, too.
In the safety of the first spur the partners crouched, awaiting the detonation.
“Never did trust Smedder,” Apples explained. “And I told you I was takin’ precautions, didn’t I? Sure I did. Well, this was it. I never thought about that Skagway Scum guidin’ an avalanche down on us, but I did think how easy it would be for him to bust the shaft ladders and lock us down here. So I fixed us up this exit just in case. You know how close to the open-air surface the vein curves at this end? Well, this charge’ll blast us a way out easy.”
“Yeah,” White Horse admitted cautiously, “unless we’re already minin’ under that ridge.”
“I don’t think we are. I’ve figured pretty close. That’s the only chance we take.”
“You’re forgettin’ about Smedder. If he’s already on the ridge, and he dumps his avalanche on us about the time we poke our heads out—”
Boo—oo—m!
The explosion burst on their ears with bludgeoning sound throbs. The floor seemed to heave. There was no wind, but some unseen force seemed to take them in its grip. Their light was plucked out and they were thrown violently to the floor.
Short lived, the dynamite roar. But for seconds after it had died away, a tremendous pressure drummed in their ears. They got to their feet when this soundless drumming ceased. Apples relit the pit lamp.
The light rays were swallowed up in a billowing cloud of smoke and dust and did not penetrate more than arm’s length. Somewhere out in that yellowish fog the partners could hear an occasional loose sliver of rock clatter down from the roof.
Had the dynamite blasted a way out for them? No way to tell. They groped forward into the Rainbow Drift. Here the fog was more agitated.
“Feel cooler to you here?” Apples asked tensely.
The question was answered for them both as a wave of cold air struck their sweat-streaked faces.
Apples whooped.
White Horse grinned guardedly. “All right so far. She’s broke through.” He started forward. “Come on. Sooner we get out of here the better.”
For an instant Apples held back. “Wait’ll this top settles, dimwit. You’re gonna git clipped with a chunk of fall-in’ rock.”
“Smedder’s avalanche’ll smack us down harder,” White Horse flung back grimly.
“You win,” Apples called cheerfully. “Outa my way, big boy.”
Groping, stumbling, twisting, squirming, they worked their way up through a devil’s maze of broken rock and boulders and granulated snow.
Apples was the first to poke his head outside. He gasped as his glance swept the mountain slope below.
He opened his mouth to talk, gasped again. For once the little man was utterly speechless. He motioned jerkily for White Horse to hurry.
“Gawd!” White Horse expressed the sentiments of each.
Below them a seething white wave of packed snow was sweeping down the mountain slope. Already it had gathered momentum and was commencing to sound its dreaded roar. Avalanche roar!
/>
“Look!” White Horse’s voice sounded above the tumult that was shaking the mountain. His fingers dug into Apples’ shoulder. “Look! Off to that side. Smedder! He’s trying to get clear! He’ll make it—he’ll—No—no!” The fingers gripping Apples’ shoulder relaxed. The hand fell away.
As though the gods of the mountain were determined to see justice done, an arm of the avalanche had reared high and fanned out to one side, bearing down upon the hapless Smedder even in the instant when it had seemed he would win to safety.
For one tense second the murderer was pitilessly outlined against that onrushing wave. The next instant the seething white wall had engulfed him.
Later, when the roar was gone from the mountain, and the partners, heading for their cabin, were picking their way over the treacherous stone fragments, White Horse paused for an instant to look about him. On all sides was an area of fresh desolation stripped bare of snow and trees and boulders. A hell’s jumble of gray slide-rock.
White Horse let his big hand fall on his partner’s shoulder. Apples staggered but bore up. “Half pint,” White Horse rumbled, “them was powerful precautions you took. Your thunder-stick not only blows a way out of the mine for us, but it starts a snow slide that gives Smedder a dose of his own medicine. Appleby Jones—avalanche maker! Little man, will you looka the mess you made outa this mountain!”
THE DOORBELL, by David H. Keller
Originally published in Wonder Stories, June 1934.
The two men stood on the suspension bridge that hung over the trackage of the largest steel works in America. They were watching a crane and an electromagnet load scrap iron from the ground to small freight cars. The crane would swing the magnet over the hill of scraps; suddenly, several tons of iron would move up to meet the magnet, and then the crane would carry the magnet and the mass of attracted metal to a position above a car. Then the load of iron would fall off the magnet into the car.
“Rather clever!” exclaimed one of the men. “I see it every day but never fail to think it clever. Man throws a switch and the magnet starts pulling, throws another switch and it stops pulling. Does the work of twenty men and does it better. I own this place and am fairly busy, but almost every day I walk out on this bridge and watch the thing work. Been a big help to me.”
“I wish it would help me,” sighed the other man. “There ought to be a story in it, but I cannot find it. That is the bad part of being an author; you could write lots of things if you just had lots of things to write about.”
“There is a story in it,” replied the steel man softly. “I owe you something and I think I ought to pay you with the story. How about spending the weekend with me up at my shack in Canada?”
The author blushed.
“Sorry. I can’t. No money to pay the carfare; not the right kind of clothes for the kind of shack you live in and the kind of guests you will have. Thanks for the invitation, but no is the answer.”
“Come on,” urged the rich man. “There will be only one other guest but he stays by himself all of the time. Here is the program. You know my office in New York. Be at the front door at three, Friday afternoon. One of my men will be waiting for you in a Rolls-Royce. Tell him who you are and he will bring you to my place. He is a fast driver and makes the trip in six hours. He will leave you at the front door. Push the electric button on the side of the door and my man will admit you. I will wait supper for you and come back to New York with you early Monday morning. You will have an interesting weekend—and I promise you a real story, though whether you will be able to sell it or not, I don’t know. What does a story have to have to sell?”
“Originality—the sound of truth—human interest.”
“Then you will never sell it because no one will believe it, but come anyway. Sorry about your wife, but this is the kind of a weekend party I cannot invite her to.”
“That will be a hard thing to explain to her. Of course, she has heard of you, but she will think it strange, her not being invited to a weekend visit.”
“Don’t explain. Just tell her it is a business trip—that I want you to write a book about me. Tell her that I paid you five hundred in advance. Show her the money. Here it is in hundred dollar bills.”
“I can’t do that,” protested the writer. “I am hard up, but I can’t take the money for nothing.”
“Sure you can. I owe you more than that. Be at the office, Friday at three. I’ll see you at supper.”
* * * *
Jacob Hubler did as he was told. It was not every day that he had five hundred handed to him; it was not every day that he had a chance to weekend with one of the richest men in America; it was not every day that a story was promised him. He had done Henry Cecil a real service. Even Mrs. Hubler admitted that, though she raised her eyebrows when her husband explained that it was to be a stag party for two.
At any rate, the three p.m. appointment was kept. There followed a long, tiresome drive through New York and over into Canada. Hubler lost all sense of direction. The chauffeur was a better driver than conversationalist and most of the time simply grunted. Hubler tired of the grunted answers and stopped asking questions. The last fifteen minutes, they drove through a forest of heavy pine. At last they came to the house.
“There is the door,” announced the chauffeur. “I go back to town.”
There was nothing for Hubler to do but to walk up the pathway and ring the doorbell. There was a light over the front door—otherwise, the house was dark. The night was as black as pitch. It was impossible to tell anything about the house, the size, or the architecture. All that the author could see was the front door. All that he could hear was the constantly diminishing sound of the automobile racing back to some town. All that he could hope for was that Cecil, the steel man, had remembered the invitation.
On the top step, he found the electric push button which served as a doorbell. There was nothing peculiar about it—just a circular piece of polished brass with a small white button in the middle. He looked at it and thought that in some way it was incongruous with the doorway and the house and the dark silent night. A brass door-knocker, a pull bell that would tinkle merrily, some kind of announcer that could be heard by the visitor would have been more friendly, more sympathetic to his lonely mood.
He hesitated, and his hesitation was born of the haunting fear that if he pushed the button, he would not hear the bell within; he would not know whether it even did ring within the house or if it rang whether there was anyone there to hear it. He wished that he had a horn to blow and then laughed bitterly realizing that he had never blown one, and even if he knew how and did blow it lustily, how could anyone hear him it there was no one in the house? He realized the neurasthenic quality of his fear, the almost psychopathic tendency of his imagination. Perhaps Cecil had done it all on purpose, to furnish him the thread of a story—a six-hour ride ending on the doorsteps of an empty house, and the nearest dwelling God knows where. There was a story there, and it might be more of a story before he returned to his home in New York. He looked moodily at the doorbell. It was just a plain, ordinary, everyday electric push-button.
The only way he could go on with the adventure was to take a finger and press on it.
And that was the thing that he suddenly dreaded to do.
Yet he had to!
So, cursing himself for an imaginative fool, he pressed the button; he rang the doorbell. Not just for a second did he ring it, but for what seemed at least a minute; or was it five?
Suddenly, the silence was broken by the sobbing shriek of a thing in pain, the terrible howling of a tortured animal. Above the silence of the night, the menacing noise rose carrying with it the terror of deadly agony, only to die away in throaty sobbings as he pulled his finger from the white button.
He found that he was shivering, sweating with the fear of the unknown burning through his soul. He wanted to escape, to run down the dark road, to plunge into the friendly, silent darkness, to do anything if only he could flee fro
m a repetition of those sounds.
And then the door was flung open, and lights suddenly blazed in all the windows of the house. A stately butler bade him enter. Cecil came to meet him—Cecil the steel man, in evening clothes and a friendly smile and a warm greeting.
“You are five minutes late,” he scolded laughingly. “You were due at nine. Have you been waiting all those minutes trying to find the doorbell? Hurry to your room and wash and join me as soon as you can. Supper is ready and I am sure that you are hungry.”
* * * *
Everything seemed different. Hubler wondered if he had been the victim of auditory hallucinosis. Here was light, warmth, good fellowship, and the cheer of a fireplace. Supper was served there instead of in a formal dining-room—a supper of roast duck in front of the fireplace. Henry Cecil made a warm host; the butler was everything a butler should be; there was a quiet charm in the atmosphere of the room. Gradually, Hubler relaxed and, by the time the meal was over, was silently laughing at his former fears. The table was removed, the butler withdrew, and then the author asked the steel millionaire the question that had been bothering him for several days.
“You promised me a story, Mr. Cecil.”
“So I did. In fact, as I remember it, that was your real reason for making the trip.”
“Exactly.”
“Not being an author, I hardly know how to even start a story.”
“You start with a title. Every story has to have a name.”
“I understand that. You can call the story what you wish. If I were going to write it, I would call it ‘The Doorbell’ but no doubt that would sound uninteresting to you.” He spoke softly with a smile.
Hubler looked at him. Doorbell? Suddenly a memory that he had almost thrust back into the subconscious returned. He answered rather sharply.
The Murder Megapack Page 19
