Part 11 (2/2)

'Well, that's easily told,' he answered. 'Of course I intend sticking to my share of the bargain. As I warned you, you leave this house to-night, and until I ask you, you'd better not come near it again.'

'And then you can ask as long as you please and you'll find I won't come,' I replied. 'No, no! You needn't be afraid of my troubling you. My home has not been made so sweet to me that I should love it so devotedly. You've been an unnatural father to me all my life, and this is the only logical outcome of it.'

He pointed furiously to the door, and without another word I took the hint and left the room. Then I fumbled my way across the verandah down into the garden, and having reached it, stopped to look back at the house. My father was now standing on the steps watching me. His head was bare, and his grey hair was just stirred by the cool night wind. I held on to a post of the wire fence, and looked at him. Seeing that I did not go away he shook his fist at me, and dared me to come back on peril of my life; a.s.suring me with an oath that he would shoot me like a dog if I ever showed my face in his grounds again. There was something so devilish about the old man's anger, that I was more afraid of him than I should have been of a young man twice his size and strength, so I said no more, but went back on my tracks down the hill, over the ford, and up again to Whispering Pete's. It was as if Pete were deliberately drawing me towards the tragedy that was to prove the undoing of all my life.

Reaching the house, I stumbled up the steps on to the verandah. I had not been gone more than three-quarters of an hour, but it seemed like years. Remembering all that had happened to me in the interval, it came almost like a shock to me to find Pete, the One-eyed Doctor and Jarman still seated at the table, conversing as quietly as when I had left them. The room was half full of smoke, and it was to be easily seen that they had been drinking more than was good for them. I can recall Pete's evil face smiling through the cigar smoke even now.

As my footsteps sounded in the verandah Jarman rose to his feet and, putting his hand on Pete's shoulder, said, in a loud voice, 'In the Queen's name, I arrest you, Peter Dempster, and you, Edward Finnan, on a charge of horse-stealing.' For upwards of a minute there was complete silence in the room. Then Pete turned half round, and, quick as a cat, sprang at Jarman, who had stepped back against the wall. There was a wild struggle that scarcely lasted more than half-a-dozen seconds, then Pete forced his antagonist into a chair, and, while holding him by the throat, picked up a knife from the table, drove it into his breast, plucked it out, and drove it in again. The blood spurted over his hands, and Jarman, feeling his death agony upon him, gave a great cry for help that rang far out into the dark night. Then there was silence again, broken only by a horrible kind of choking noise from the body on the chair, and the hooting of a mopoke in the tree above the house. Try how I would I could not move from the place where I stood, until Pete sprang to his feet and put the knife down on a plate, taking particular care that it should not touch the white linen cloth. The meticulous precision of his action gave me back my power of thinking, and what was more, sobered me like a cold douche. What should I do? What could I do?

But there was no time for anything--I must have moved and made a noise, for suddenly the Doctor, revolver in hand, sprang to the window and threw it open, discovering me.

'You!' he cried, as soon as he became aware of my ident.i.ty. 'My G.o.d! you can thank your stars it's you. Come inside.'

Almost unconsciously I obeyed, and stepped into the room. Pete was at the further end, examining his finger. He looked up at me, licking his thin lips, cat fas.h.i.+on, as he did so.

'd.a.m.n it all, I've cut my finger,' he said, as coolly as if he had done it paring his nails.

'For pity's sake, Pete,' I cried, gazing from him to the poor bleeding body in the chair, 'tell me why you did it?'

'Hold your jaw!' said he, twisting his handkerchief round his cut finger, and looking, as he did so, with eyes that were more like a demon's than a man's. 'But stay, if you want to know why I did it, I'll tell you. I did it because the rope is round all our necks, and if you move only as much as a finger contrary to what I tell you, you'll hang us and yourself into the bargain.'

Here the mysterious, One-eyed Doctor reeled out into the verandah, and next moment I heard him being violently sick over the rails. By the time he returned, Pete had tied up his hand, and was bending over the figure in the chair.

'He's dead,' he said to the Doctor. 'Now, we've got to find out what's best to be done with him. Jim, you're in a tight place, and must help us all you know.'

'For G.o.d's sake explain yourself, Pete!' I cried, in an agony. 'How can I do anything if you don't. Why did you do it?'

'I'll tell you,' he answered, 'and in as few words as possible, for there is no time to waste. This individual is a Sydney detective (here he pointed to the dead man). The horse you rode in the race to-day is none other than Gaybird, the winner of the Victorian Grand National and the Sydney Steeplechase. The Doctor there and I stole him from his box at Randwick, three months ago, and brought him out here by a means we understand. Information was given to the police, and Jarman followed him. He got in tow with me. I recognised him the moment I set eyes on him, and invited him to dinner to-night. When you turned up the second time he must have imagined it was the local trooper whom he had ordered to meet him here, and decided to arrest us. He found out his mistake, and that is the result. Now you know how you stand. You must help us, for one moment's consideration will show you that you are implicated as deeply as we are. If this business is discovered, we shall all swing; if the horse racket is brought home, the three of us will get five years apiece, as sure as we're born: so don't you make any mistake about that!'

'But I am innocent,' I cried. 'I had nothing whatever to do with either the murder or the stealing of the horse.'

'Take that yarn to the police, and see what they will say to you. Look here!'

He crossed to the dead man again and fumbled in his coat pocket. Next moment he produced three blue slips of paper--one of which he opened and laid on the table before me. It was a warrant for my arrest.

'This is your doing, Pete,' I cried. 'Oh, what a fool I was ever to have anything to do with you.'

I fell back against the wall sick and giddy. To this pa.s.s had all my folly brought me. Well might Sheilah have prophesied that my obstinacy would end in disaster.

'My G.o.d, what are we to do?' I cried, in an agony of terror as thought succeeded thought, each blacker and more hopeless than the last. 'If the man expected help from the towns.h.i.+p it may be here any minute. For Heaven's sake let us get that body out of the way before it comes.'

'You begin to talk like a man,' said Pete, rising from the chair in which he had seated himself. 'Let us get to business, and as quickly as possible.'

The Doctor got up from his chair and approached the murdered man.

'The first business must be to get rid of this,' he asked; 'but how?'

'We must bury him somewhere,'said Pete. 'Where do you think would be the best place?'

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