by Cave, Hugh
"Sweethearts?" Simms said.
"No, but—"
"All right. It doesn't matter." Simms paced the length of the room and back again. "You're Frank Rand, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"When Lieutenant Hurley was here this morning, early, you told him something about hearing and seeing some queer things going on around here. Hurley says you were drunk and talking foolish. That right?"
"No. I wasn't drunk."
"What'd you tell him?"
"Well, he asked me if I had any idea who might have done it. Then I told him what happened when I went to the Sanderson place, one night about a week ago. It's true; I did go. We were having a party here, and one of the girls got pretty sick. Our phone was out of order, so I went over there to see if—"
"What happened?" Simms scowled.
"Well, when I got there, the dogs started to make a fuss and I got scared. They're ugly brutes, and they've got a bad reputation around here. I didn't dare open the gate and take a chance with them. Then Sanderson came out of the house to see what all the noise was about, and you'd have thought I was just a dirty tramp, the way he yelled at me. Told me to clear out and stay out, or he'd let the dogs loose."
"So you got out," Simms murmured.
"What else could I do? Sanderson's queer anyway. He's a taxidermist, or something. Got a house full of stuffed animals and birds. Well, I didn't have the nerve to face him, so I started back here again, and I could hear those dogs barking for a long time after I left the place. Then I got the idea something was following me, and—"
"And what?"
"Something was following me. It trailed me here and hung around the house all the rest of the night. It wasn't a dog; it was a man. He looked—well, I didn't get a close-up view of him, but he looked like a madman. I told Lieutenant Hurley that, and he laughed at me. But I'm telling you the same."
Simms put a cigarette in his mouth, lit it, and let it droop. He said presently: "How far is this Sanderson place from here, buddy?"
"It's about half a mile."
"And how," Simms demanded quietly, "do I get there?"
The Sanderson domain lay at the end of a narrow dirt road marked PRIVATE, NO TRESPASSING. Simms parked his car a hundred yards from the heavy wooden gate, got out slowly, and paced forward. Shifting his cigarette to one corner of his mouth, he leaned on the gate and stared at the structure beyond.
The house was a large one, looming above a sleek expanse of snow-carpeted lawn. It seemed deserted, but the effect was false. The quiet solemnity of the scene was disturbed almost immediately by the shrill baying of hounds, and Simms scowled blackly as a pair of powerful, dark-brown shapes came loping around the corner of the house towards him. After the dogs came a stoop-shouldered man in overalls. The man stopped, stood motionless, peering intently. Then he advanced again.
Simms studied him as he approached the gate. The fellow was a foreigner, evidently, short of stature but thick-limbed and possessed of abnormal strength. His face was not pleasant to look into. The upper lip was a hare-lip, hooked grotesquely to reveal tobacco-stained teeth. One eye, the left one, was a colorless, glassy protuberance, half covered by a drooping lid. The man was glaring fixedly with his good eye. When he reached the gate, he snarled at the dogs to move aside, and said curtly:
"What you want?"
Simms said casually: "To see Mr. Sanderson." Then he gazed past the fellow's shaggy head to the front door of the house, which had opened. A woman stood on the threshold, staring anxiously. The one-eyed man turned, called out gutturally:
"This man want to see Mr. Sanderson. He want—"
"The name is Simms. State Police," Simms said quietly.
"He come from the police."
The girl stared longer than seemed necessary, then nodded and re-entered the house. Simms looked down at the dogs. They were lean, vicious brutes, standing motionless, regarding him with hungry eyes. When he looked up again, a tall, well-dressed man of middle age was walking toward him.
"You are from the police?"
Simms nodded, studied the man casually. "I'd like a word with you."
"With me? Ah, yes. It is about that unfortunate affair of last night. Certainly, sir. Please come in."
Simms put a hand on the gate, opened it. His attitude of professional indifference was more than a little forced. It was hard to be entirely unemotional in the face of two four-legged devils who, though quiet at the moment, seemed merely waiting for a command to hurl themselves upon him. Moreover, the one-eyed man was frowning unpleasantly, and Sanderson's welcoming smile seemed, in contrast, to lack sincerity.
Silently Simms followed the man to the house, ascended the steps, and passed through the doorway into a spacious inner hallway. At the end of the hall a woman was rearranging books on a small table. She looked up sharply, studied him intently for an interval of ten seconds, then looked down again. Simms had a momentary glimpse of attractive features, dark glowing eyes. Then Sanderson said behind him:
"This way, sir, if you please."
Simms entered a room on the right and stood waiting while Sanderson closed the door. The room was a large one, well furnished. Stuffed birds of every description stared with lifelike eyes from behind the glass panels of a square cabinet near the far wall. Sanderson paced forward, indicating a chair. Simms sat down.
"Now, sir. You have come to me about last night's unfortunate occurrence?"
"Nobody," Simms said, "seems to know exactly what did occur last night."
"And you think that perhaps I may be able to—"
"I think you may." Simms leaned forward, uncrossing his legs. "There's been some talk about those dogs of yours, Sanderson."
"But that is nonsense! They are never permitted to run free at night!"
"They weren't loose last night, by any chance?"
"Certainly not!"
Simms shrugged, leaned back again. Apparently Sanderson was telling the truth. The chances were, too, that the Rand boy had done some slight exaggerating in his story of the midnight visit to the taxidermist's domain. Sanderson was a nervous type—even now he was rubbing his hands together and sitting unnaturally stiff in his chair—but he hardly seemed vicious. Past middle age, he had soft gray hair and a pale, womanish complexion, watery blue eyes, a weak-looking body. He might be king of his own personal household, but would certainly attract no special attention elsewhere.
"You keep quite a few of those dogs, don't you?" Simms said.
"I have eleven."
"And all man-eaters, eh?"
"That is ridiculous," Sanderson retorted irritably. "The dogs are my pets. They are quite harmless."
"Those two at the gate didn't look so harmless."
"But I assure you—"
"All right." Simms stood up, shook a cigarette out of its package. "Evidently I'm in the wrong pew. Sorry."
He paced to the door, aware that Sanderson, behind him, was scowling. In the corridor the dark-eyed girl was still bending over the small table, stacking books. She stared unblinkingly, and continued to stare until Sanderson stepped over the threshold. Simms walked to the front door, opened it, nodded to the doctor, and departed, pondering the meaning of the girl's stare.
The two dogs approached him with ominous sluggishness as he advanced toward the gate. The one-eyed man, 1eaning there, spoke a guttural command, and the dogs fell back, growling.
"Thanks," Simms said dryly.
The gate creaked shut behind him. Slowly he strode away from it. A moment later a bend in the road, behind him, hid the Sanderson place from view.
He stopped, stood scowling. For awhile he hesitated, thinking about the one-eyed man, the girl, and Sanderson’s apparent innocence. Then, acting on impulse, he hiked across the road and into the woods, intent on learning more about Sanderson’s secluded household.
Henry Sanderson, at that moment, was pacing silently down the inner corridor of the big house. His womanish face, no longer under the observation of Simm's discerning gaze, had changed character. His
lips were curled in a crooked smile of triumph, his pale blue eyes filled with a glow of anticipation.
At the end of the corridor he stopped, pushed open a side door, and spoke to the dark-eyed girl in the room beyond.
"I shall be very busy for the next half hour, Miss Evans. Very. If the gentleman from the police sees fit to return, you may call me. I shall be in my laboratory."
The girl stared. Still smiling, Sanderson closed the door, paced down a narrow passageway to the kitchen, opened a door in the rear wall. His hand groped for a light-switch. Before him a flight of straight, steep stairs extended downward into a cellar.
He descended slowly, paced with increasing eagerness through the first of the cellar's large rooms. It was elaborately furnished, containing an expensive Ping-Pong table, chairs, a miniature shooting-gallery. The second room was a modern heating plant, with a massive oil furnace looming above a smooth concrete floor. The door leading to the third and last room was locked.
Sanderson's pale eyes burned with anticipation as he drew a ring of keys from his pocket. He entered silently, switching on a light and closing the door behind him. The light revealed a gleaming black floor, uncarpeted, and dark walls reaching to a low ceiling. The chamber was small, square. A white metal table on wheels, standing in one corner, supplied an atmosphere of grim solemnity, accentuated by a vague odor of chemicals which pervaded the whole room. Cases of gleaming steel instruments added to the chamber's grim suggestiveness.
Quietly Sanderson paced to the far wall, placed one hand against the smooth paneling, and pressed heavily. The panels moved under his fingers, sliding sideways with scarcely a sound. A door-sized aperture appeared in the wall. Iron bars frowned in Sanderson's face.
He leaned forward, again fumbling with keys. The iron door opened inward under pressure. A light-switch clicked under his groping hand. Slowly he stepped over the threshold, entering the small prison-room beyond. Standing motionless again, he looked down at a huddled shape on the floor, said softly:
"It is time for another treatment, my friend."
The shape on the floor did not move. It was a human shape, attired in ragged trousers only. Sanderson touched it with his foot, persuasively.
"I say it is time for another treatment."
The prisoner's eyes opened and focused on Sanderson's face. Sluggishly the man sat up, staring, then shrank back.
"No! No—!"
"But yes," Sanderson corrected. "Come."
A low moaning sound came from the prisoner's throat. He stood up heavily, trembling from head to foot. For a moment he stood swaying, sobbing, then walked to the door like a man condemned to death. Sanderson, smiling cruelly, followed him from the room.
Mechanically the prisoner entered the laboratory, paced to the metal table. Turning, he mumbled again in a thick whisper:
"No! Oh God, no—"
Sanderson's grim smile silenced him. Still sobbing, he stretched himself on the white-topped table, lay motionless, staring with horror-filled eyes at the ceiling above. His mouth hung open, drooling. His face was stark white with fear.
"This time," Sanderson said softly, "we will employ no anesthetic. It will not be necessary."
The prisoner's reply was a liquid moan, only half audible. Leaning over him, Sanderson fumbled a moment with leather thongs. When he straightened again and paced silently across the room, his victim was unable to turn and watch him. The man's arms and legs were securely bound to the table-top.
Sanderson returned, wheeling before him a small, glass-topped cabinet. Assorted instruments gleamed dully behind the cabinet's transparent doors. Small, colorless bottles and vials reflected the glare of the overhead light.
Quietly then, Sanderson leaned over the table and gazed down into the upturned face of his victim. He smiled cruelly. His fingers caressed the man's body, came to rest on the lower portion of the abdomen.
"Now, my friend, if you are ready. . ."
3. Devil Dogs
Mark Simms stared ahead of him to where the Sanderson place loomed grotesque and huge above its snow-carpeted lawn. To his right, twenty yards distant, lay the gate through which he had previously invaded the taxidermist's strange domain; but he had no use for the gate now. His visit, this time, was for a different purpose.
Before him, a close-meshed wire fence blocked further progress. Behind lay the woods through which he had tramped for the past ten minutes. Sanderson's yard was deserted. The one-eyed man was no longer around. Neither were the dogs.
Scowling, Simms inspected the fence and weighed his chances of climbing it without attracting attention. His scowl increased as he considered the viciousness of Sanderson's watch-dogs. He hesitated, then shrugged, put both hands on the barricade, and swung himself up.
Next moment he was standing flat against the rear wall of the house, breathing heavily from his swift run across the yard. Ten paces distant, a light glowed in a narrow window close to the ground. Silently he moved toward it, crouched low, staring.
It was a cellar window. The room beyond was evidently a game-room. An expensive Ping-Pong table stood in the center of the floor. An open doorway revealed part of a furnace-room.
Simms put both hands on the window, grunted with satisfaction when it slid upward under pressure. The floor of the game-room was an eight foot drop below. He peered down, frowning, then stiffened abruptly.
A muffled sound invaded the room beneath him, originating in a distant part of the cellar. The sound was a human voice, screaming shrilly. It ended suddenly, then began again. Agony was the cause of it.
Simms' eyes narrowed, stared intently. He pulled himself over the windowsill, hung at arms' length, and dropped, landing with a soft thud. The sound came again as he paced past the Ping-Pong table to the doorway of the furnace-room. It was high-pitched, vibrant, packed with terror. Simms' face paled. Cautiously he crossed the threshold, peered cautiously at the huge oil-furnace ahead of him, then saw a door in the far wall. The door was closed. Unpleasant sounds, sinister and grimly suggestive, came from the room beyond.
He advanced slowly. Another sound, the significant opening and closing of a door behind him, stopped him when he was half way across the chamber. He turned, stepped suddenly into the shadow of the furnace, stood motionless. Slow footsteps were audible in the game-room.
The footsteps came closer, hesitantly, as if their owner were fearful of making a noise. A slender figure appeared in the connecting doorway. Simms stiffened involuntarily as he recognized the girl with the dark eyes—the girl who had stared at him rudely, without apparent reason, less than half an hour ago.
She was unaware of his presence. Slowly she advanced across the room and stood rigid beside the closed door in the far wall, listening to the sounds of agony from beyond the barrier. The shrill wails had ceased; all that was left was a low moaning, interspersed with deep sobs and accompanied by indistinguishable words in a mocking, guttural voice.
The girl seemed fascinated by the sinister quality of the voice. She did not turn when Simms stepped from his place of concealment and moved toward her.
He was almost upon her, reaching out to put a hand on her arm, when she spun around. His warning whisper silenced her outcry.
"Easy," he said almost inaudibly. "Take it easy. I just want to talk to you, sister."
Her eyes widened. She took a step backward, stood staring.
"What—what are you doing here?"
"The same thing you are," Simms murmured. "Snooping."
"You're mad! Don't you realize—?”
"I'm realizing plenty. That's why I'm here."
She glanced fearfully at the door, then put trembling fingers on Simms' hand.
Even while listening to the grim sounds from beyond the door, Simms appreciated the warmth and softness of those fingers.
"You shouldn't have come here," the girl whispered. "No one is allowed down here. No one except Oleg."
"Oleg?"
She shuddered. "He's the one-eyed man who met you at t
he gate. The—dogkeeper." She spoke the words as if they bore some hideous significance. Her fingers tightened on Simms' arm. "If Mr. Sanderson finds us here, he'll ki—"
She caught herself, stared suspiciously into Simms' scowling face. "He'll discharge me," she finished stiffly.
Simms said quietly: "He'll kill you, eh? Why not admit it?"
"I didn't mean that."
"You meant it, all right. What's going on here?"
"Nothing. Oh, please go."
"Not until I've seen what's behind that door, sister."
"But—"
She turned abruptly, leaving the protest unfinished. Her sharp intake of breath was distinctly audible in the menacing silence of the chamber. The sounds from beyond the barrier had ceased.
The silence was significant. Simms gripped the girl's arm, said curtly, in a low voice:
"Get out of here. The show's over."
"But if he finds you here—"
"He won't."
The girl hesitated, would have continued her protests. Simms muttered maledictions under his breath and pushed her toward the game-room door. Even then she hesitated, stood staring at him.
"I tell you, if he finds you here—"
"Get upstairs," Simms growled savagely. "If he finds me here, I'll feed him to those damned pets of his. Beat it!"
She obeyed then. He heard the soft whisper of her footsteps as she disappeared. A door opened and closed softly. Alone, Simms gazed fixedly at the grim barrier before him. There was a moment of nerve-racking silence, then a key grated in the lock.
Simms moved backward, retreating even deeper into the shadows of the huge furnace. The door opened while he stared at it. Sanderson came over the threshold.
Sanderson was smiling crookedly. Turning, he relocked the door, tested it, then strode across the room, passing within ten feet of Simms' motionless body. Pacing through the game-room, he looked neither left nor right, nor up. Above him hung the open window through which Simms had entered. He walked beneath it without seeing it. Mechanically he strode to the stairs and ascended.
When he was gone, Simms exhaled slowly and relaxed.
No further sounds came from behind the locked barrier. Simms approached it warily, put one hand on the knob. The cellar was quiet as a vault. The light in the game-room went out as someone upstairs, probably Sanderson, turned the switch.
