“When it is in the mail it will be safe for me to return here and give you the antidote. I’ll give you paper and pen…”
“Oh, and one other thing—although I do not absolutely insist on it. Please help spread the word about my undetectable poison, will you? One never knows, Mr. Sangstrom. The life you save, if you have any enemies, just might be your own.”
Hound of Hell
THE SEED of murder was planted in the mind of Wiley Hughes the first time he saw the old man open the safe.
There was money in the safe. Stacks of it.
The old man took three bills from one orderly pile and handed them to Wiley. They were twenties.
“Sixty dollars even, Mr. Hughes,” he said. “And that’s the ninth payment.” He took the receipt Wiley gave him, closed the safe, and twisted the dial.
It was a small, antique-looking safe. A man could open it with a cold chisel and a good crowbar, if he didn’t have to worry about how much noise he made.
The old man walked with Wiley out of the house and down to the iron fence. After he’d closed the gate behind Wiley, he went over to the tree and untied the dog again.
Wiley looked back over his shoulder at the gate, and at the sign upon it: “Beware of the Dog.”
There was a padlock on the gate too, and a bell button set in the gatepost. If you wanted to see old man Erskine you had to push that button and wait until he’d come out of the house and tied up the dog and then unlocked the gate to let you in.
Not that the padlocked gate meant anything. An able-bodied man could get over the fence easily enough. But once in the yard he’d be torn to pieces by that hound of hell Erskine kept for a watchdog.
A vicious brute, that dog.
A lean, underfed hound with slavering jaws and eyes that looked death at you as you walked by. He didn’t run to the fence and bark. Nor even growl.
Just stood there, turning his head to follow you, with his yellowish teeth bared in a snarl that was the more sinister in that it was silent.
A black dog, with yellow, hate-filled eyes, and a quiet viciousness beyond ordinary canine ferocity. A killer dog.
Yes, it was a hound of hell, all right.
And a beast of nightmare, too. Wiley dreamed about it that night. And the next.
There was something he wanted very badly in those dreams. Or somewhere he wanted to go. And his way was barred by a monstrous black hound, with slavering jowls and eyes that looked death at you. Except for size, it was old man Erskine’s watchdog. The seed of murder grew.
Wiley Hughes lived, as it happened, only a block from the old man’s house. Every time he went past it on his way to or from work he thought about it. It would be so easy. The dog? He could poison the dog. There were some things he wanted to find out, without asking about them. Patiently, at the office, he cultivated the acquaintance of the collector who had dealt with the old man before he had been transferred to another route. He went out drinking with the man several times before the subject of the old man crept into the conversation — and then, after they’d discussed many other debtors. “Old Erskine? The guy’s a miser, that’s all. He pays for that stock on time because he can’t bear to part with a big chunk of money all at once. Ever see all the money he keeps in—?”
Wiley steered the conversation into safer channels. He didn’t want to have discussed how much money the old man kept in the house.
He asked, “Ever see a more vicious dog than that hellhound of his?”
The other collector shook his head. “And neither did anybody else. That mutt hates even the old man. Can’t blame him for that, though; the old geezer half starves him to keep him fierce.”
“The hell,” said Wiley. “How come he doesn’t jump Erskine then?”
“Trained not to, that’s all. Nor Erskine’s son — he visits there once in a while. Nor the man who delivers groceries.
But anybody else he’d tear to pieces.”
And then Wiley Hughes dropped the subject like a hot coal and began to talk about the widow who was always behind in her payments and who always cried if they threatened to foreclose.
The dog tolerated two people besides the old man. And that meant that if he could get past the dog without harming it, or it harming him, suspicion would be directed toward those two people.
It was a big if, but then the fact that the dog was underfed made it possible. If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, why not the way to a dog’s heart?
It was worth trying.
He went about it very carefully. He bought the meat at a butcher shop on the other side of town. He took every precaution that night, when he left his own house heading into the alley, that no one would see him.
Keeping to the middle of the alley, he walked past old man Erskine’s fence, and kept walking. The dog was there, just inside the fence, and it kept pace with him, soundlessly.
He threw a piece of meat over the fence and kept walking.
To the corner and back again. He walked just a little closer to the fence and threw another piece of meat over. This time he saw the dog leave the fence and run for the meat.
He returned home, unseen, and feeling that things were working out his way. The dog was hungry; it would eat meat he threw to it. Pretty soon it would be taking food from his hand, through the fence.
He made his plans carefully, and omitted no factor. The few tools he would need were purchased in such a way that they could not be traced to him. And wiped off fingerprints; they would be left at the scene of the burglary. He studied the habits of the neighborhood and knew that everyone in the block was asleep by one o’clock, except for two night workers who didn’t return from work until four-thirty.
There was the patrolman to consider. A few sleepless nights at a darkened window gave him the information that the patrolman passed at one and again at four.
The hour between two and three, then, was the safest.
And the dog. His progress in making friends with the dog had been easier and more rapid than he had anticipated. It took food from his hand, through the bars of the alley fence.
It let him reach through the bars and pet it. He’d been afraid of losing a finger or two the first time he’d tried that.
But the fear had been baseless.
The dog had been as starved for affection as it had been starved for food.
Hound of hell, hell! He grinned to himself at the extravagance of the descriptive phrase he had once used.
Then came the night when he dared climb over the fence.
The dog met him with little whimpers of delight. He’d been sure it would, but he’d taken every precaution possible. Heavy leather leggings under his trousers. A scarf wrapped many times around his throat. And meat to offer, more tempting than his own. There was nothing to it, after that.
Friday, then, was to be the night. Everything was ready.
So ready that between eight o’clock in the evening and two in the morning, there was nothing for him to do. So he set and muffled his alarm, and slept.
Nothing to the burglary at all. Or the murder.
Down the alley, taking extra precautions this time that no one saw him. There was enough moonlight for him to read, and to grin at, the “Beware of the Dog” sign on the back gate.