The House Of Cain Page 5

  “You’re Martin’s brother, Monty, aren’t you? Please, please, tell them not to take me away. They have made a mistake. Indeed, they have. I did not kill him––I couldn’t––oh! I hated him, but I did not kill him.”

  At no time in his life had the big man come nearer to losing his self-control and running amuck. Only by an effort did he curb his almost overwhelming desire to smash the policeman, pick up Austiline with almost the ease he would exert in picking up a child, and run––run north by west, run for ever and a day, so long as he got her safely away from these men who would drag so fair a flower into a sewer. He groaned aloud.

  “Masters! go and get a car––a closed car,” the detective—sergeant snapped, in astonishingly altered tones. “You, Mr. Montague Sherwood, stand back. The consequences will be serious if you interfere with me in the execution of my duty. Highatt, get the lady’s hat.”

  “Martin! Martin! do something,” was Austiline’s cry.

  “Madam, pray calm yourself,” urged the doctor, a kindly soul, slipping to her side and placing his hand supportingly under her arm.

  She did not see him. Her great bronze-brown eyes were fixed beseechingly upon the deathly face of her lover, standing with his brother, looking back at her with eyes that were clouded, almost void of expression. His voice was a mere echo; his words an echo to those of the doctor.

  “It will be all right, Austiline. Everything will turn out all right in the end. We will do all we can, old Monty and I.”

  “But, Martin, I didn’t kill him. You of all men know that I really couldn’t do such a thing. They cannot take me from you when I didn’t kill him. You don’t believe I shot him, do you? Do you, Martin? Oh, Martin dear! don’t desert me now, now when I need you, when I want you for my very life.”

  She broke off when Highatt interjected:

  “Your hat, Miss Thorpe.”

  Ignoring the proffered headgear, she held out her arms to the horror-stiffened man, who could now neither move nor speak, and who would have collapsed had not Monty held him to his feet. When she spoke again, her voice was harsh, even metallic. The moisture in her eyes vanished, giving place to a look of unutterable pain, which in turn was replaced by the light which must have shone in the eyes of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc when the English led her to the stake. Her voice was steady and her words liquid clear.

  “I am disappointed, Martin. I have made a mistake. I thought chivalry still existed.”

  Taking her hat, she walked then to the mirror over the mantelpiece, pinned it to her hair, snatched the vanity-bag from the attentive Highatt, and dusted her face with powder. Turning about, her eyes met those of the detective-sergeant in a haughty stare, a stare which banished for a fraction of a second the look of vacuous boredom. She said:

  “Do what you think is your duty. I am ready.”

  She and her sinister escort left the room––left Montague Sherwood supporting on his left arm the senseless body of his brother Martin.

  CHAPTER V

  WITHIN THE NET

  MARTIN SHERWOOD lodged with an old lady and her widowed daughter occupying an old-fashioned house off the St. Kilda Road. They were, or had been, people of some standing, the deceased husband of the old lady having been Chief Commissioner of the Victorian Police, whilst the daughter’s husband had died heroically in France. They belonged, however, to the masses whom the Dreadful War had impoverished, and were glad to be able to augment their diminished income by letting the two best rooms of their villa.

  The editor of the Tribune thought himself fortunate to obtain rooms in so homely a ménage, whilst the ladies considered themselves as fortunate in having Martin Sherwood as tenant. The relationship of these three people had become much warmer than the usual commercial bond between landlady and paying guest: Mrs. Montrose coming to regard the young man quite in the light of a son; while Mary Webster and Martin treated each other in the simple affectionate manner of brother and sister.

  To them all the coming separation occasioned by Martin’s wedding was a matter of personal regret, quite aside from the financial aspect. The old lady was visibly affected, to the real surprise of her daughter. Unable to leave her invalid-chair without assistance, it was her wish that the wedding should take place from her house; but her daughter was against it, fearing that the excitement would be too much for her.

  The ladies were occupying what they called the back-parlour, Mary Webster reading the paper aloud as was her habit after the clearing away of their light dinner, when they heard a car stop outside the garden-gate and the door-bell ring a moment afterwards.

  “That’s Martin come home in a hurry for something,” the invalid announced in her soft, clear voice. “Did not his six months’ leave begin this morning?”

  “Yes, mother,” agreed the daughter, in a voice the very echo of her mother’s, leaving the room. But, on opening the door, she was not surprised to see a stranger; for she had not forgotten that Martin had his own key.

  He was a huge man, this stranger, a man who appeared to fill the landscape. Mary Webster, by no means a small woman, was obliged to look up at him, and for the fraction of a second their eyes met and searched the depths. He instinctively removed his felt before speaking.

  “Does Mrs. Montrose live here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, of course, you know my brother Martin?”

  “Yes, he lives with us. You must be Mr. Montague Sherwood?”

  Monty nodded. “That is my name,” he said. “I am glad I found you. Are you Mrs. Webster? Yes! My brother has mentioned you often in his letters to me. He has had a great shock and is very ill.”

  “Dear me! Where is he?”

  “Out there in the car. He is quite unconscious. You see, Mrs. Webster, I’ve heard what a lot you and your mother think of him, and––well, to be plain, I don’t like private hospitals. I thought––”

  “Go and carry him in at once.”

  It was a command given by a pretty woman not much over thirty years old; a woman whose eyes were suddenly bright with concern, with compassion. She watched Monty striding to the garden-gate, subconsciously admiring his grace, and quite consciously admiring his strength when he returned with Martin in his arms, exhibiting less exertion than that of a lesser man carrying a sheaf of wheat.

  “Bring him this way,” she ordered, turning and going before him into a cool, spotless bedroom. With deft fingers she laid back the bedclothes and produced a pyjama suit.

  “Put him to bed, Mr. Sherwood. I must go and reassure mother.”

  “What is wrong?” asked Mrs. Montrose sharply, when her daughter rejoined her.

  “It’s Martin, mother. He has been taken ill, and his brother Monty brought him in a car. He is putting Martin to bed.”

  “What’s the matter with him, do you think? Measles, scarlet fever, or what?” the old lady demanded, regarding Martin Sherwood as a delicate boy, as was her wont.

  “I cannot say. He doesn’t look as though in a fever.”

  “Well, well! Send for the tyrant Goodhart. He can’t cure me, but he may Martin. And then make hot plenty of water: he’ll want poultices, linseed poultices, perhaps.”

  “I’ll get Mr. Sherwood to go at once,” Mary decided, and, passing along the short passage, found Monty waiting for her. “Do you know what caused the shock to Martin?” she asked him anxiously.

  “I do,” he replied grimly. “I’ve had a taste of it myself.”

  “Had I not better telephone at once to Miss Thorpe at the Flinders Hotel?”

  “She won’t be in, Mrs. Webster. Miss Thorpe has been arrested.”

  “Arrested!” she gasped.

  “That’s so,” he said, fingering his hat. “Where can I dig up a good doctor?”

  “Dr. Goodhart is our doctor,” she explained. “Martin always goes to him. He lives a little way along the street on this side. You will see his name-plate.”

  Monty left almost at a run. Mary returned to her mother, who regarded her with bright, beady
eyes. “Well, what now?” she demanded, with the imperiousness of chronic invalidism.

  “Mr. Sherwood has gone for the doctor,” the younger woman said, vigorously poking the fire unnecessarily, so that the astounding news of Austiline Thorpe’s arrest would clear from her face.

  “You know more than you say,” came the accusation. “Well, well; possibly you think it is for the best. That must be the tyrant now. Tell him before he goes that I wish to see him.”

  Dr. Goodhart was a second edition of Mr. Masters, small and bird-like. He took life so seriously that he never smiled. He was brusque to the point of rudeness. Yet these two drawbacks to a medical man were amply balanced by a keen brain and profound knowledge of modern medical science.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Webster,” he barked in a deep bass voice which threatened to crack an antique Chinese plate that decorated the hall. “What have they been doing to this wretch?”

  “You had better see him, doctor.”

  “See him! Of course I’ll see him. That’s what I left a good dinner for. Lead on, Mrs. Macduff.”

  Twenty minutes later, he was addressing Mrs. Webster and Monty in Martin’s small study across the passage.

  “Mental shock. Collapse. I fear brain-fever,” he barked. “He’ll have to receive very careful attention. I advise a private hospital.”

  “He is going to stay here,” Mary Webster said firmly. “You can send a nurse, and I’ll do all I can to assist her.” Monty looked at her gratefully. The doctor replied briefly but comprehensively:

  “Well, it will be a long and trying job. I’ll send a nurse from the Home. Might have to send a second later. You are taking on more than you can manage, but it’s no use arguing with a woman. When you find the job getting beyond you, let me know at once.”

  “How long do you think he’ll be like that?” Monty asked.

  “No telling. Perhaps for weeks. He’s been working too hard. Too much mental work is worse than too little physical work. He’s a bundle of nerves. Called me a fool. No news that––but I’m still walking about. I’m going to finish my well-earned dinner now. Compliments to Mrs. Montrose. Back in an hour.”

  “Very well, doctor. What can I do in the meantime?”

  Looking up at her, he grunted. His voice, perhaps, was a little less harsh when he replied:

  “Nothing, my dear,” and, laying one finger on her arm, added: “You’re a good woman, Mary Webster.”

  Thus it came about that, when Monty returned to his hotel late that night, he left Martin Sherwood in the hands of three very capable people.

  Early the next morning, the big man was visited in his bedroom by a constable who handed him a summons to attend the coroner’s inquest the following day at ten o’clock. Several hours later found him seeking permission from the prison authorities to interview Austiline Thorpe––permission readily granted when he made himself known. The detective-sergeant, who had charge of the case, happened to be in the office.

  “Good morning, Mr. Sherwood,” he said in what to Monty was becoming a hateful voice.

  “Good day-ee!” Monty drawled, slowly examining the immaculate form from highly-polished boots upward. When he met the other man’s eyes he feigned a start of surprise, saying:

  “I think I have met you before. Ah! yes, I remember. You have not yet been reduced to a constable, I see.”

  “No. Why should I be?”

  “For being such an old emu as to arrest Miss Thorpe. I wonder no longer that there is such a lot of crime going on in Melbourne.”

  The detective-sergeant winced, yet his voice was still silken when he replied suggestively:

  “It’s surprising, though, the number of people I’ve had hanged.”

  “I don’t doubt it. You’d have an infant hanged for killing a navvy with a blacksmith’s hammer,” the big man returned swiftly, at which the detective-sergeant laughed good-naturedly, thereby raising himself quite a number of steps in Monty’s estimation.

  “How is your brother to-day?” inquired the inspector to whom Monty had made application for the interview.

  “He’s just the same, I saw him an hour ago. He is still unconscious.”

  “It is a very unfortunate affair,” the inspector remarked.

  “He was to be married next Wednesday, too.”

  “It is not too late if only you would switch the detective-sergeant here on to the real murderer of the blackmailer,” Monty said hopefully.

  The two officials observed him keenly. The inspector leaned forward over the table at which he sat, speaking earnestly:

  “Mr. Sherwood, listen to me. Mr. Oakes, here, is considered one of the foremost detectives in the Commonwealth. I have been in the Police Force nearly forty years, and those years have given me a wide experience of crime, the evidence of crime, and the production of evidence of crime before a judge and jury. I don’t think Miss Thorpe stands the ghost of a chance of acquittal. What makes you think she is innocent?”

  “Her face.”

  “A beautiful one, no doubt, but beautiful faces seldom influence judges and juries,” the inspector went on. “I think I may say that not one member of the Victorian Police Force does not heartily sympathize with your brother. Everyone of us owes him a debt; for, through the paper he edits, he obtained reforms and better conditions for the Force than our associations would have got in twenty years. On that account, when he recovers consciousness, please tell him what I have said, and assure him that what can be done for Miss Thorpe’s comfort up to the very end of her trial will be done. I cannot console him further. I wish I could say I believed in her innocence.”

  Monty found Austiline Thorpe not in a prison-cell but seated at a writing-table in a plainly-furnished but comfortable room. Rising to meet him, she smiled wanly and held out her hand.

  “This is a queer place for two people to make acquaintance in, is it not, Mr. Sherwood?” she said, her low, sweet voice reminding him, strangely enough, of a nursing sister of an English hospital in which he had had occasion to stay during the war.

  “We’re living in queer times,” he replied gently. “Say, I wish you would cut out the ‘mister.’ You’ve no idea how titles of honour annoy me.”

  “Very well! Then I shall expect you not to annoy me in that way either. Won’t you sit down…Monty?”

  “That’s better,” the big man returned, with an irresistible smile. “I’ve come first of all to apologize for not killing that detective-sergeant when you turned to me for help. But it wouldn’t have helped any to have made a fuss.”

  “I can see that now,” she agreed readily. “I feel so ashamed at having thought anyone could have prevented my arrest. I suppose Martin hasn’t forgiven me yet for speaking so hatefully as I did?”

  “Fact is, I don’t think Martin heard you,” Monty said slowly. “He is very ill.”

  “Ill! Monty––how ill?”

  At once she was alarmed: fear, anxiety, concern, flashing into her compelling eyes. She leaned a little towards him, her lips parted, her breath caught, to await his answer.

  “The doctor who saw him when I took him home fears brain-fever,” he told her, realizing it were kinder to tell her the truth quickly. “He is being well looked after by a nurse and Mrs. Webster.”

  “Brain-fever!” she echoed. “Oh, Monty! Is he so ill?”

  He nodded, his powerful face troubled.

  “When you left your apartment yesterday in company with the detective-sergeant, I found that I was holding Martin up on his feet after, most likely, he had lost consciousness for some moments. He is still unconscious, but the doctor hopes when he comes to that he will be all right.”

  “Oh! I knew, I felt, that our happiness was too splendid to last,” she cried brokenly. “Poor Martin! If only we had never met, he would have been spared this.”

  “Martin always was a good fellow,” Monty declared earnestly, adding, with intent: “He’s a damned better feller for having loved you.”

  The little swear-word had the
effect the shrewd Monty desired. It banished emotion that threatened to overwhelm her; and, though he did not know it, gave her a tranquil sense of his protectorship, as of a masculine stronghold to which she could cling.

  “Monty,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, “I am glad to have met you. You gave me just the medicine I needed.” He smiled broadly at that, saying:

  “A feller in a book once said that women and horses were much alike temperamentally. I understand horses. I suppose, Austiline, you’ll permit me to barge in on your defence?”

  “Quite what do you mean?”

  “Well, I mean as regards employing the best legal brains to show these fools that they’ve got the wrong man––I mean woman.”

  “You don’t believe, then, that I shot that man?”

  “Me! Course not.”

  “Thank you, Monty,” she said softly. “I’m not nearly so much afraid now.”

  “No need to feel afraid whatever,” he told her. “A fool and his prisoner is soon parted, you know. Have you engaged an attorney yet?”

  “Yes; I sent for my solicitor this morning. Then Sir Victor Lawrence, Martin’s chief, visited me about ten. He tried hard not to let me see it, but he believes I did shoot Peterson. In fact, he said, in a roundabout way, that every blackmailer should be shot on sight, and the killers absolved by Act of Parliament.”

  “Must have had some experience of them,” Monty said with a broad smile. “I’d like to see a feller blackmail me. His mother would think he had turned into a parrot when I’d done with him. I saw Sir Victor when he visited Martin. Fine old chap! Says he’s going to change the constitution to get you off. If faith in himself and string-pulling can do anything, the constitution will be changed all right.”

  “Still, he believes me guilty of murder.”

  “He called it justifiable homicide.”

  “He believes me guilty,” she insisted.

  “Well, somehow, when I come to think about it, I cannot wonder at a lot of people believing that,” he said slowly. “You see, the dust on that veranda does not bear out your story, for one thing.”