The House Of Cain Read online

  “Then you aren’t speaking the truth when you say you do not believe I did it?” she accused him, a little fiercely.

  “But I am speaking the truth,” he rejoined. “Fact is, I happened to study your face when you were telling your story to the detective-sergeant. Martin was beside you and didn’t. I don’t think he doubted you, even when he made me tell him about the dust on the veranda.”

  “You talk in riddles, Monty. What have Martin’s doubts and convictions to do with dusty verandas?”

  Monty started and looked hard at her. So she had not been told of the absence of human tracks outside her windows. He said slowly, as gently as he could:

  “You said, didn’t you, that the man escaped out of the French windows to the veranda?” She nodded. “Well, it was a dusty day, you remember, and dust lay thick all along the veranda floor. There were the tracks of a cat there an hour old. But there were no tracks of a man.”

  Her face whitened a little. Partly rising from her chair, her fingers gripping its arms until they showed as white as her face, she said, little louder than a sigh:

  “No tracks!”

  He shook his head.

  “Could he not have got away without leaving tracks?”

  “Not by the window and veranda, Austiline. It’s got me beat.”

  For a moment they remained gazing fixedly each at the other. Suddenly she sank back into her chair, and, falling forward over the table, buried her face in her arms.

  “Then I am indeed lost, lost, lost!”

  Her voice was almost a wail, so utterly abandoned did she become. The big man patted her gently on the shoulder, himself feeling, but not showing, emotion.

  “You buck up, Austiline. I know you’re guiltless; you know, yourself, you’re innocent. There’s a bit of a fog about just now, but we’ll all win through to the sunshine beyond, never fear. Then we will look back at the fog, and know that our tribulations were but dreams.”

  Suddenly he saw himself regarded by tear-drenched eyes. She took his hand and pressed it warmly, like a little child clinging to its father’s hand in a lone dark lane.

  “You’re a big man, Monty. Thank God, for sending me a big man!”

  CHAPTER VI

  BENT NOSE

  IN the Coroner’s court Austiline Thorpe maintained a calm, detached attitude under the fire of questions aimed at her. Dressed in a navy blue tailor-made costume, relieved with white silk only one shade whiter than her cheeks, she faced the ordeal with serenity almost regal.

  Monty, who was called to relate the finding of the woman alone with the dead man, holding her own revolver from which one cartridge had been discharged, thought he never had seen so lovely a woman, nor one so spiritually superior to her surroundings. Not even when the Coroner committed her for trial did she weaken, but passed from the public stare as she had come before it.

  Coroners’ inquests very often overstep their function. The nominal duty of the court is to inquire into the death of a person supposed to have met with an untimely end. The actual procedure of the court is to accuse a person of murder, drag in confirmatory evidence, and then the Coroner usurps the office of a qualified judge to mark that person with the brand of Cain or declare him or her innocent.

  Naturally the public read about the case in the newspapers. The killing of Peterson was made a matter of keen public interest. Immediately the evidence at the inquest was published, the public agreed with the Coroner that Austiline fired the fatal shot and judged her guilty. What a farce––common at any rate in Australia––is a trial when, from evidence given at a Coroner’s court, the Judge and each member of the jury have quite made up their minds long before the trial opens!

  Little interest was taken in the dead man, because little was known. He had arrived in Melbourne from England some six months before his end, and had resided at a boardinghouse at Brighton. Because Austiline refused to disclose the nature of his blackmail, the public refused to believe him a blackguard of the worst type, and acclaimed him as a kind of martyr. Her trial was looked forward to with a sense of gloating over revenge to come.

  During the three days that elapsed before the magisterial proceedings took place, the big man was permitted to visit her daily. At each visit he found her cold, reserved, and resigned. Even his cheerfulness could not revive a spark of hope.

  “They will hang me, Monty, and bury my body in lime,” she said. “I don’t mind dying, if die I must––but my dear old father and mother! they will die, too, of horror and shame.”

  Three times daily he called at the house at St. Kilda for news of his brother. They would not allow him to see the patient, but from Mary Webster he learned that Martin was constantly delirious and continually raved about his fiancée. Dr. Goodhart was worried, and practically lived at the house.

  No additional evidence was given at the Magistrate’s court. In spite of Sir Victor Lawrence’s willingness to go surety for any sum, in spite of the police raising no objection to the prisoner receiving bail, bail was refused.

  “By George!” the little newspaper knight roared at Monty. “I’ll––I’ll break that stipendiary magistrate as you would break a straw. Martin kicked him severely last year over one of his sentences, and now he’s put the boot on in return. I’ll get Moplett to jump on him with both feet in every issue of the Tribune till he’s off the Melbourne map.”

  And from that moment, illogically and without reason, this warm-blooded man, generally so keen a judge of character, joined forces with the bushman as a firm believer in Austiline’s innocence. And the refusal of bail rankled in other minds also, for three days afterwards the magistrate was nicely caught exceeding the speed limit by an unusual number of police witnesses.

  For Monty the days and weeks following the magisterial hearing were filled with foreboding and wearing anxiety. Austiline’s solicitor briefed Sir Henry Winter, Victoria’s premier advocate, who, after reading the brief with a clear mind, for he said that on principle he never read reports of coroners’ inquests, promised that he would do his very best, but––

  The defence he intended to raise was that Austiline was truthful in her statements both to the investigating detective-sergeant and to the Coroner. He intended calling witnesses to prove that Monty had jumped––a standing jump from the windows––the ten-foot wide veranda without stepping on the floor. This the big man had done, but only at the third attempt.

  During those dark days Martin grew steadily worse. Dr. Goodhart almost despaired for his life; would, in fact, have done so had not his natural optimism forbidden it. Monty invariably spent an hour with old Mrs. Montrose, who came to regard him as the emblem and shining example of manly perfection. Delighting in his quaint aphorisms, charmed with his unusual frankness, the old lady awaited his comings with happy anticipation and submitted to his goings with regret. There was no reason to doubt that Mary Webster was similarly affected, if not more so. The invalid was not sure about Mary, but was discreetly silent.

  It wanted but a fortnight to the day fixed for the opening of the trial when Monty first noticed the gaunt man with the crooked nose. Walking along Collins Street to his hotel, the big man was jostled by Bent Nose, as the man afterwards became called. Monty was not the sort of man who could be jostled easily, any more than an Atlantic liner could be jostled easily by a steam-launch. The jostler fell back, muttered an apology, picked up a letter he had dropped, and hurried away.

  Although engaged on an entirely different case at the moment, Detective-Sergeant Oakes observed the incident with keen interest.

  The next afternoon it was with something like a start that Monty discovered Bent Nose sitting next him in a cinema which he patronized when his feet ached from walking the unaccustomed pavements. Having but half-a-crown in his pockets, he gave himself over to the questionable and rare pleasure of having them picked. But Bent Nose behaved irreproachably, much to the bushman’s disappointment.

  Again out of doors after the show, the big man crossed the road to Collins S
treet, intending to proceed to the Café Australia for afternoon tea with a friendly little woman he had met there casually before. He was thinking of her, and wondering what there was about him to make some people think that he and his money were so easily sundered, when, feeling in his pocket for his pipe, he pulled out with it a letter.

  Puzzled, he looked the letter over. It was sealed but unaddressed. How it came to be in his pocket he could not make out. Frowning, for an honest man hates mystery, Monty edged into the doorway of an art-shop, where he broke open the envelope and drew out a single sheet of cheap writing-paper. He read:

  “Martin Sherwood has been a good friend to me. Sir, I am grateful, and will prove it. He should get well when the good news is published. Destroy this without fail and menshun me only to him.

  “BENT NOSE.”

  “You have had bad news, I fear,” remarked a silken voice; and, looking up, Monty met the inquisitive eyes and the bland smile of Detective Oakes.

  “Excuse me one moment,” Monty drawled; and, taking care that the detective could not read the note, he reread it, committing it to memory. Then, with a smile fully as bland as the detective’s, he struck a match and joined his mentor in watching it burn slowly to an ash.

  “A feller in a book once said: ‘A wise man never writes a love-letter; only a fool keeps them’,” he observed coolly.

  “Yet a fool is sometimes a wise man, and occasionally a wise man is a fool, Mr. Sherwood. How is your brother?”

  “Crook––very crook. He has one chance of pulling through.”

  In spite of the betraying twinkle in the big man’s eyes the detective said:

  “I am glad to hear he has even one chance. What is it?”

  “That of your gaining a little horse-sense and looking for the killer of Peterson.”

  The detective-sergeant laughed outright. Monty, joining him, found the sensation queer, for he had not laughed for days.

  “Doing anything?” he asked.

  “Nothing much, Mr. Sherwood. I was just wandering round looking for a man with a bent nose.”

  “So! That should be easy in this crowd,” Monty said without turning a hair. Suddenly he pointed to a passer-by.

  “Here, see that one. His nose is like a triangle. Perhaps that’s him.” Then he laughed again, and Oakes felt not a little admiration for Monty’s coolness.

  For be it stated that, after the jostling incident, Oakes had searched the Rogues’ Gallery, where he found a photograph of Bent Nose, whose real name was William Hill. The accompanying docket gave Hill’s history fully in detail and concisely in official prose. Why did the ex-thief, who then was quite a respectable citizen, earning an honest living as hall-porter of the Tribune Building, take such extreme pains to introduce a letter, evidently a message, into Monty’s pocket when it would have been so much simpler to have spoken to him? Why, when the letter had been discovered––he was convinced it was the same dropped by the ex-crook the preceding day––had Monty been so careful to destroy it? He was sure that the incident was connected in some way with the murder.

  Luck had favoured the detective that day. Coincidence or luck plays a tremendously important part in human affairs, especially in the field of crime and its detection. It was only by the merest chance that the detective-sergeant had seen the big man paying for a seat in a cinema at the box-office at the entrance.

  Unaware of Monty’s aching feet, he was mildly surprised that the bushman of one country could be thrilled by the romantic cowboys of another; but his surprise became less mild when he observed Bent Nose immediately follow the big man inside. For two hours he waited with trained patience for the next act in this drama of real life.

  Reasoning, while thus waiting, that the ex-chief would impart his message orally within the cinema and thereby have played his part, Oakes decided to observe Monty when he reappeared and see how he would play his. It was the kind of game that Oakes liked, and liking it had raised him high in the respect of both his superiors and the criminals. Indeed he regarded his profession as a game, confiding once to a friend that if all criminals became honest he would quickly die of boredom.

  “I am afraid you will never believe that black is black and not white,” he murmured, his precisely folded raincoat over one shoulder, his dainty walking-stick tapping his immaculate shoes topped by white-lined black socks.

  “Maybe not, but I do believe I have a raging thirst,” came the drawled reply. “I was on my way to afternoon tea when you rudely butted in.”

  “May I not accompany you?”

  “You bet! I’m honouring the Café Australia. Let me pilot you through this crowd. You might get lost.”

  A few minutes later they entered the comfortable tea-room with its subdued lights, its thick carpets and its luxurious chairs; whereupon the friendly little woman, who was waiting impatiently for Monty, hurriedly rose and vanished into the ladies’ room, on catching sight of his companion. As a matter of cold fact, the ingeniously introduced note had banished her from his mind, and he was now inwardly chuckling at the thought of the solitary half-crown in his pocket, and the prospect of making the detective pay for the tea…

  Mrs. Montrose enjoyed the joke no less when Monty confided to her his adventurous afternoon. She was immensely pleased to be his confidante, to be let into the secret of Bent Nose and his strange communication. It gave her food for reflection for days during those hours she sat alone in her invalid-chair.

  Mary Webster walked with him to the street gate when he took his leave that evening. The afterglow burned faintly above and blurred the outlines of the taller trees in the Botanic Gardens across the road. The distant roar of the city accentuated the stillness and peace of that warm spring evening.

  It was “Monty” and “Mary” with them by that time; but, if Mary was becoming to look upon the big man as a god, he regarded her merely in a brotherly way, with a little more affection, perhaps, than he had had for any woman. At the gate she laid a cool hand on his arm, saying:

  “I am beginning to be afraid for Martin.”

  “So am I, Mary.”

  “He keeps calling so for Miss Thorpe. It really is heart-rending. Dr. Goodhart says he will pull him through, but I am beginning to doubt it. Oh, Monty! If only they would allow Miss Thorpe to come to him. I feel sure her presence would relieve his fever.”

  “That’s likely enough,” Monty agreed heavily. “But she is fast behind iron bars, Mary, and when I suggested the visit to Inspector Watkins he said he would do his hardest to bring it off. But he failed, and we can only hope. I’ll call again in the morning, Mary. Good-bye!”

  “Good night, Monty!” she said, but only the “shadow” crouched against the brick wall on the further side heard the soft sob when she turned to the house.

  Monty, striding to the tram-stop, did not notice the said “shadow,” nor did he realize that he was closely shadowed all that evening till he reached his hotel about eleven o’clock. It was, perhaps, lucky for him that he was shadowed, and that the “shadow” spent the entire night in company with the night clerk of the hotel, and therefore could prove that Monty returned to his rooms and stayed there until nine o’clock.

  CHAPTER VII

  HIDDEN FORCES MOVE

  AT midday the big man arrived in a motor-car at the house in the walled garden. Mary Webster, expecting him, and hearing the car stop, hurriedly left the house and met him in the garden. She saw beneath his arm a roll of newspapers, in his eyes the dancing light of excitement, on his rugged face a broad grin of delight. In her face he saw traces of tears, and at once became sympathetic.

  “Why, Mary, has anything happened?” he asked with unusual quickness.

  “Yes, Monty; I have both good and bad news for you. Let us sit in the summer-house and exchange our news, for I see you have news, too––good news, by your face.”

  She led him to a little rustic shelter built in the shade of a giant almond tree, and then when they were seated she said softly, a tremble in her voice:
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  “Martin has regained consciousness, Monty, and Dr. Goodhart says he will quickly get better. Martin is sleeping now, such a beautiful, peaceful sleep.”

  “Thank God for that!” the man said fervently. “But what is your bad news?”

  “Oh, Monty! you must prepare yourself for a blow,” she said, her hands clasped over her breast, her blue eyes wide and misty. Unconsciously he squared his shoulders, saying:

  “I’m used to blows, Mary, but I like ’em quick.”

  “When Martin became conscious,” she said slowly, “Dr. Goodhart and the nurse were with him. The first thing he asked for was light. The nurse raised the blind, letting in a flood of sunlight, and again he fretfully asked for light. The fever has left him quite blind, Monty.”

  “Blind!” The big man stared at first uncomprehendingly, and then leaning towards her, added in a whisper: “Did you say ‘blind’, Mary?”

  And then her hands went up to meet her lowered head, and instinctively he patted her heaving shoulder, whilst she cried and he looked vacantly out into the garden. Blind! Martin blind! The thought was terrible, realization a crushing blow, almost as crushing as though Martin had died. Slowly the numbness of his brain wore off, and the soft sobs of the woman beside him soothed him with their compassion. He thought they were for Martin, and suspected love. He didn’t understand that they were more for him, and suspected not love for himself.

  Silently he gave her time to regain composure. How strange, he thought, that ever since he came to Melbourne there had been little else but women’s tears, and one unpleasant shock after another––shocks which left him helpless, to fight against effects––him helpless, who all his life had overcome difficulties and dispelled dangers. He felt as though chain were added to chain to fetter him––he who so loved freedom. When her sobbing ceased he said gently:

  “Does he know that he is blind?”

  “Yes––they got me to break it to him,” she said, still hiding her face. “Oh, Monty! it was awful, but he was very brave and, thank God! very tired. He held my hand, oh! so tightly, till he fell asleep.”