The Lonely House

CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE OF EVIL.-3

"Now why does it interest me at all?" he asked, very puzzled. "It's quite an ordinary house, built, naturally, of the stone that is plentiful about here. And that high window was undoubtedly designed to give a light out to sea facing up the gulf, where the fishing grounds probably are. Yes, quite an ordinary house, and yet--yet why was that name so carefully scraped off the boat and tarred over so that the scraping should not show? It puzzles me, for of course there was a reason for it somewhere. Yes, it puzzles me."

He was a long while getting off to sleep that night, and with his last waking moments his thoughts were of the black house.

In spite of his determination to forget everything that would remind him of his normal work, his imagination would insist upon running in familiar grooves, and he kept harping upon the probable association of the house with evildoers.

It was not a house of simple fisherfolk, he told himself sleepily. It did not belong to honest men. It was a rendezvous of murderers, it was a place of crime, and it harbored breakers of the law.

He became quite annoyed with his imaginings at last and, making his mind a blank, drew in deep heavy breaths and finally hypnotised himself to sleep.

The next morning however, he found the same thoughts continually recurring to his mind, and, partly to his amusement and partly to his annoyance, the black house became the chief source of interest to him in his enforced hours of solitude and ease.

He would climb up over the far cliff and almost the whole day long, perching himself upon a big rock, watch the house below. All the time he speculated idly, weaving romantic episodes of crime, with the square black house always the storm-centre of his imaginings.

He did this almost continually for four days--four days of scorching and terrific heat, with the sun all the time like one big red blister in the sky, and then suddenly his mind seemed all at once to clear and all his thoughts to crystallise into one strange and startling fact.

It burst upon him like a thunderclap that the house below was actually inhabited and that he himself was being watched from within it all the time.

He realised it all in an instant upon the fourth evening just before dusk, but later, thinking it over, he saw that two things particularly had led him up to this final conclusion and prepared his mind to accept it irresistibly and without hesitation, as a fact.

When going for his water that morning he had noticed the imprint of a boot in the mud by the side of the creek, but without giving any thought to the matter he had taken it naturally for one he had himself made when upon the same errand the previous day. He had, however, observed idly how much larger the impression had grown, but he had attributed that to the action of the water trickling down over the sides.

Then the second thing--subconsciously he had always been curious about the seagulls. They had been so persistent in staying in front of the house as if it were quite customary for them to pick up scraps thrown outside. He knew how tame seagulls were everywhere in Australia and how rarely they were harmed, and it had struck him over and over again that these particular birds were waiting before the house in the expectation of a meal.

Then had come the climax.

Sitting perfectly motionless, as he always did in his musings, he had seen a fox come lurching down over the hill, and the animal, catching sight of the seagulls, had at once started to stalk them. Crouching low upon his stomach and taking cover of every rock and every depression in the ground, he had crept furtively forward. He had reached the back of the black house; he had crossed along the side and had progressed until he had been almost level with the door; then--he had stopped suddenly as if he had been turned to stone, and for five seconds had stood with one paw raised and his head thrust forward exactly as if he were sniffing at the door. Barely five seconds, and then--he was off back like an arrow over the hill.

Like lightning had the meaning of it come to Larose.

The fox had sensed the smell of human beings and in the vicinity of dreaded Man had flown for his very life.

The detective put up his glasses and covered the house. Then he sat perfectly still again. The sun was sinking blood-red into the sea behind him, and he knew his head and shoulders would be silhouetted in sharp outline against the sky.

He held his breath in excitement, but his brain was cold and clear. He must not betray himself; he must not give himself away. If anyone were watching him it must not be known that he had noticed anything.

He wanted time to think, to gather in his thoughts. What did it mean if the house were occupied?

If someone were there, if someone were hiding himself, then he was an evildoer and he had good reason for keeping himself hidden. He had not shown himself because he had seen there was a stranger about and was afraid.

Then quickly the detective's thoughts ran on, and his mind harked back to all the happenings since he had left the city.

Of course, he could understand everything now--the men who had killed the death-adder, the horsemen he had seen upon the roads among the hills, the lights burning in the houses late at night, and the many people he had had to avoid when travelling from the city.

It was all clear now--everything fitted in so well.

Someone was 'wanted' in the State. Some crime had been committed somewhere and everyone had been on the look-out for the perpetrator or perpetrators of the deed. They had been picketing the roads, they had been searching through the thickets round Mount Lofty, they had been beating the bush all around the hills.

And now the very criminals that were being sought for were probably here in hiding in that house below. And there must be two of them, for if they had come by sea, as seemed most likely, one alone could not have pulled up that heavy boat to where it lay. Yes, there were certainly two of them, and for four days and nights he had been the whole time within a few hundred yards of where they were concealed.

And they had seen him too.

There could be no doubt about it--they had seen him like a spy creeping about their place of refuge.

They had watched him through the window, with his binoculars glued hour after hour upon the house that sheltered them. They had heard him prowling round and manipulating, too, with his piece of wire upon their door.

Then what must they have been doing and what indeed must have been their thoughts?

Their faces must have blanched in fear, their hearts must have drummed against their ribs, and many times they must have held their breaths lest he should hear their breathing through the walls.

They must have been agog, too, with doubt as to who he was and what was his mission there. They must have felt like rats caught in a trap.

They must have suffered, too, in body as well as mind, for all the hot days long they had lain sweltering behind the heat of that closed door. No breezes from the sea had reached them, and they must have been almost suffocated for want of air.

Then one of them from dire necessity had had probably to leave the house for water, and at night he had crept like a stricken animal to the creek. All the time then his heart must have been quaking and every moment he must have been expecting the crack of a pistol and the tearing of a bullet through his loins.

The detective puckered his brow in perplexity.

But what after all, if he were mistaken? What if it were all an imagining and the fevered thoughts of a sick man's dream? He was not yet completely recovered from his illness, and might not his mind be still unsteady like his body?

He thought for a long while.

No, no, the evidence was cumulative in every way, and he understood, too, now why he had not been able to pick the lock of that door. It had not been locked at all, but simply bolted on the inside. That was why his piece of wire had not been able to engage anywhere with the catch of the lock. Oh! what a fool he had been!

Yes, things were clear now. Criminals or no criminals, crime or no crime, the house in the falling darkness there, he was sure, harbored humankind, and it was according to all the habits of his life that he should at once take steps to find out what their hiding meant.