Untitled

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 306, 27 December 1928, Page 17

(SHORT STORY.)

THE SCREAM.

(fly NORMAN VENNEE.)

John Bertram stood stock still. He dared not move. The silence of the empty house wrapped round him—sinister threatening. His ears strained to catch any slightest sound breaking that £wful stillness. Sounds "were so important now. The •imple sound of a door opening would mean death to him, death at thg end of « rope.

Hd could hear nothing. Nothing real. But in his mind he could still hear, like a ghostly echo, that dreadful scream. It had gone through him like a knife—a scream of terror, panic, fear, as the -woman he had just murdered had realised what he had come for. That scream was the last sound she made. In the shocked horror of that moment he had realised that he could not draw back. She must not scream again.

She had not screamed again. * « * * The unbroken silence comforted him now. He glanced round the room, making sure that there were no evidences of his presence there. He had touched nothing in the room with his bare hands. He had dropped nothing. He had left no trace. No one had seen him enter by the tack way. If he was lucky, no one need see him depart. He knew the habits of the house. No one was likely to return and find it for for at least two hours. He steeled his nerves and forced himself to go over to it and unwrap the cord from round the throat. He thrust it in his pocket and hurried out, anxious to escape from what lay so still under the •window. As he made his way along the blind wall of the block of buildings at the back, he tried to collect his thoughts. He need never be caught if he could only keep his nerve. He must not close his eyes. He could see it then—horribly, clearly. He welcomed the noise of the traffic at the end of the passage. It helped to distract his mind from the memory of that scream. He wanted lots of noise to blot that out.

Everything seemed quiet. No one seemed to have heard that despairing cry. They must not get him. It would mean the rope ... by the neck ;• . . until he was dead.

He passed a cold, moist finger round inside his collar, which seemed too tight. His lips were dry, and the fresh air struck cold on his forehead. He took off his hat and wiped his face with a eilk handkerchief.

He only feared one man—the ateelyeyed indifferent Jackson— C.I.D. Jackson, who. had helped to put Bertram away once before. Ho got six months that time, and when lie came out Jackson was one of the first people he saw. He had nodded in that cold, nonchalant way of his, his pale blue eyes seeming to see ;&othirig.

Hallo, Bertram; going to run straight ;|Jow, I hope?" Bertram had met the encounter with jneasy coaMeace,

He didn't like Jackson, he never liked | him. He didn't want to meet him now.' He couldn't bear the thought of those pale blue eyes playing over him, as though he were transparent. Steady! Must keep his nerve. Jackson need never know. How could he know? No one could know, since no one had seen.

A sudden anxiety rose up in him. They had been very near the window when it all happened. Could anyone see in at that window? He thought not; but the faint doubt, once raised, refused to be silenced. He forced himself to stop, to return along the blind wall; a glance reassured him. The window was curtained with net. It seemed doubtful that anyone could see through that. How far could an observer see into a room in daylight when the window was covered with net? He did not know. It was little things that gave people away, little things like that. Not knowing how transparent a net curtain might be, for instance. Mustn't hang about here, anyway. He hurried off.

Surely that was Jackson on the other side of the road? He saw him as he came out into the cross road with its comforting noise of traffic. Yes. It was Jackson. Where had he been Those eyes of his —could they see through a net curtain? It would never do to show panic. Jackson was crossing the road towards him.

With a great show of indifference Bertram moved off to the right. His brain was working quickly, trying to throw Jackson off the scent. He could not be sure that Jackson had .seen him. Where could he go? He must hide for a moment or so while Jackson passed him by. A few hundred yards farther on he saw a dentist's sigr. A brilliant idea, that. He pushed open the gate, rang the bell, and was admitted almost instantly. Jackson could not have seen that move, for the street curved just there and he was not near enough to see round the curve.

He was shown into the waiting-room. Heavy rep curtains hung over the windows and, when the maid left him, he stood at the side peering out, watching for Jackson to pass. Once Jackson had passed he could make a swift get-away, reach Liverpool Street, and make for the Continent. He would forget the horror of it in time, forget that awful scream. . . .

Jackson did not appear. Perhaps he had turned back, gone the other way. With a sigh of relief Bertram turned away from the window. He picked up an illustrated paper and turned the leaves without seeing anything. A sudden eerie screech set all hjs nerves on edge, but it was only the unoiled gate opening. He heard the bell ring, and a few seconds later the door of the waiting-room opened to admit a new. patient. It was Jackson.

The two men faced one another across the table. Bertram still held the illustrated paper. "Hallo!" said Jackson. "Thought I saw you just now. Fancy finding you here!"

The sounds of life from the street outside seemed to die away. iSU noise ebbed from tin* room, leaving the two men isolated in a tiny pool of flUftftCfr _

"Yes," said Bertram, as he' thought, casually. The sound he produced was a hoarse whisper. He licked his lips with & dry tongue, made again that curious movement of the finger round the inside of his collar, swallowed with difficulty, went slowly, horribly pale.

Jackson toade no other comment. His steady, pale-blue eyes flickered indifferently over Bertram. He was grave, noncommittal, silent, pondering always the human problem. Bertram had always interested him. Jackson knew him for a born crook, hard-boiled, callous, criminal, and wholly evil. But there had been nothing definite against liim for two years. He

supposed he had been to se« that worthless baggage who lived near, home day, thought Jackson, that worthless baggage would give Bertram away.

The silence grew deeper. Jackson wandered to the window, from time to time he glanced at Bertram. The fellow was behaving curiously. He wondered why. Perhaps he had the toothache? People did queer things, and Jolm Bertram, he knew, was a queer fish. Jackson thought for a moment of lighting a cigarette, and then decided against it. His supersensitive mind, aroused always by the unusual, warned him of some queer quality in the silence that had filled the shabby room. It was tense, and that fact alone was enough to raise his curiosity. There was no need for tension to arise from this chance meeting in a dentist's waitingroom. He kept quite still, looking out at the street, but with a corner of his attention fixed on John Bertram.

That gentleman had forgotten the dentist's shabby room. The sight of Jacksou's cool efficiency had frozen his will. He was staring straight before him, helpless in the grip of his own imagination, rc-enacting the scene he had played in so short a time before. He had almost forgotten the shadow by the window, which was Jackson. He saw himself entering Bella's room again, closing the door behind him— locking it. He saw her as she had stood then, some sewing spilled from her lap. He saw again the first fear dawning in her eyes as she read his intention in his.

"It isn't true!" he heard her cry again. "It isn't true! Bill's nothing to me. And even if he were, I couldn't squeak on you. Johnnie, Johnnie, I wouldn't put you away. You know I wouldn't!" And in the bitterness of his hour of torture he could see again the lie in her eyes. He knew that every word was false, that she was going to put him away. Once again he saw the expression in her eyes change to panic, as she realised that he did not believe her, that he would never believe her, that he had come to kill her and shut her mouth for ever. He saw her throw up her hands. . . . At that moment the dead silence of the room was shivered by a piercing scream from the surgery, a scream of someone in mortal agony and fear. Two doors crashed: there were sounds of running feet. In the street a sudden crash, a man on his knees clasping the knees of a tall, steely-eyed man, a shrill whistle, a crowd, and then a man taken off between two policeman who ran up.

In the dentist's house a hell rang. "Next patient, Annie, please," said the dentist.

"There is no next, sir," said Annie. "When that last lady screamed, something seemed to happen in there. There were two of them. Lost their nerve, I suppose. Got panicky. One of them rushed out as though the devil were after him, and the other went after him like a streak of lightning!" "Patients are queer," said the dentist, sadly. "I wish they wouldn't scream. Not the first time I've lost patients that war."

When Jackson had formally charged John Bertram with the murder of Bella Fiiqtpcu to which he had confessed, he " 4 s

turned to the inspector in charge of the station.

"Queer thing, this game," he said. "If I hadn't had a filthy toothache and that woman hadn't screamed in the chair, I'd have missed the. biggest coup of my life! What do vou make of that

"Some people have all the luck!" said the inspector.