The House of Death by L.C. Douthwaite

Book Details

An American woman searches for her step-father in the countryside of England while a band of revolutionaries threaten to use breakthroughs in alchemy to destroy the value of gold. These two threads of a story come together at The House of Death.

The House of Death (1930)
Chapter 1. – The Adjuster.
Chapter 2. – Darkness And Mystery.
Chapter 3. – The Terror Of The Fossway.
Chapter 4. – Rescue.
Chapter 5. – A Desperate Chase.
Chapter 6. – Desperate Measures.
Chapter 7. – Knoklitz’s Revenge.
Chapter 8. – The Sapper Leads The Way.
Chapter 9. – The Sinister Chest.
Chapter 10. – Terror Underground.
Chapter 11. – The Fanatic.
Chapter 12. – The Cunning Of Meldrum.

Louis Charles Douthwaite (1878-1948) was born in Hull, England to Robert and Henrietta Douthwaite. About 1901 he moved to Canada. He served in in the Canadian army in World War I. After the war he became a writer. He was first published in 1923.

The House of Death contains 12 illustrations.

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Excerpt: The House of Death

Chapter 1.

The Adjuster.

IT was in the small hours of an early spring morning that, in the course of his beat along Lombard Street, the eye of P.-c. Hodges was arrested by something that lay on the doorstep of the City of London Banking Company.

He bent and picked it up. It was a brown-paper parcel, some eight inches square, heavy for its size, and addressed in undistinguished block letter capitals:

THE PRESIDENT, CITY OF LONDON BANKING COMPANY, LTD., LOMBARD STREET, LONDON.

The discovery put P.-c. Hodges in something of a difficulty. His service in the Force to which he was no particular ornament was not a long one, and the situation found him rather at a loss. He did not know whether to carry the parcel about with him until his tour of duty ended, or to take it directly to the police station.

Neither course was one that particularly appealed to him. In certain extremist circles lately there had been quite a lot of activity—veiled threats in which the banking system of the country had received unfavourable mention. And from its size and weight the parcel might easily be the concrete expression of these threats.

He held it to his ear; listened intently.

No sound came from it; no ticking of clockwork. But that didn’t prove it wasn’t one of those delayed-action affairs that operate by means other than clockwork.

On the whole, perhaps, it would be better to see what Lucas, the station-sergeant, had to say about it. Even if by leaving his beat he wasn’t acting in accordance with regulations, it wouldn’t matter, anyway. He and Lucas understood each other.

Alone at his desk, the station-sergeant, swarthy, blue-chinned, rather un-English, looked up sharply. When he saw who was the intruder his luminous brown eyes took on the curious veiled look that always was apparent in addressing this particular subordinate.

“What’s your trouble?” he asked quietly.

P.-c. Hodges told him; displayed the parcel.

“Drop it in a bucket of water!” instructed Lucas, apparently an enthusiastic subscriber to the doctrine of “safety first.”

Thus, when eventually that amazing parcel came to be opened, the writing of the letter that accompanied it had degenerated to a meaningless smear of ink. And, in all his not uneventful service, never had Sergeant Lucas come into possession of a scrip he was so avid to interpret. So, though careful to repress any sign of his anxiety, was P.-c. Hodges.

“We’d better take it down to the ‘and-writin’ blokes at the Yard, Pedro,” he suggested, and a tiny spark of auger illuminated the luminous brown eyes of Sergeant Peter Lucas.

“How many times have I told you not to call me by that name?” he said unpleasantly, and the policeman shrugged heavy shoulders.

“Just as you say,” he said easily. “It isn’t your name I’m worryin’ about, anyway—it’s that!” And he pointed to what lay glittering on the desk.

“I’ll take it down myself,” Lucas announced, and his subordinate looked at him ironically.

“Splendid!” he said at last. “We’ll go together, shall we?”

As for a fleeting instant the glances of the two men met, the dark eyes of Lucas became more luminous still, and the change was at once a warning and a portent.

“I’m quite capable of going alone,” he said quickly, and the policeman nodded.

“You’re capable of anything,” he said, and paused, “Including not going at all,” he added.

For a long moment the eyes of the two men held; Hodges had not been wrong in his unspoken thought that between his superior and himself was understanding. And it was Lucas who turned away at last —to pick up the communication that had accompanied the parcel.

“We’d best dry this out,” he said laconically, and stretched a string between the backs of two chairs on either side of the fireplace, and over the extempore clothes-line carefully suspended the letter.

In less than half an hour the paper was dry and the writing distinguishable—a queer angular script with the unexpected twirls and egotistical flourishes of the fanatic.

As beneath the green-shaded bulb above his desk the station-sergeant perused the letter, Hodges, watching his superior with the avidity of a cat stalking a bird, saw those already luminous eyes kindle to an excitement that communicated itself to the quivering fingers that held the paper.

“What’s it say, sergeant?” the policeman demanded in a voice that was less professionally interested than peremptory.

The still faintly vibrating fingers folded the paper; began to stuff it into the breastpocket of his uniform jacket. Now, in turn, the policeman’s eyes lighted to steel, and he held out a hand that was white and better cared-for than his occupation warranted.

“Come clean!” he said.

There was warning in his voice, and the sergeant looked dangerous.

“This is official,” he said.

“Not as official as what I’ll write to headquarters—if I don’t see that letter,” Hodges said, his eyes undeviatingly upon Lucas’ face. And because of what his subordinate knew, and, if it paid him, would have no hesitation in revealing, the station-sergeant cursed, but yielded.

“I’ll read it aloud,” Hodges said, taking the paper, and his arms asprawl over the sergeant’s desk, did so.

Somewhere in England. March 28th. To the President of the City of London Banking Company, Ltd., Lombard Street, London.

“This is to advise you that, by making the metal easy of acquirement, I have decided to reconstruct civilisation upon a plan in which gold—the root-cause of all human suffering—is no longer the medium of exchange. And to prove that I am able to carry out my design, I send you a sample, that I myself have manufactured.

“The process, which is both natural and simple, consists only of reducing the base metal under treatment to the two elements that are common to all metallic substances —metallic earth and sulphur—and adding just those other ingredients necessary to build up the composition to the one that is the foundation of all sorrow.

“In case you require proof of my claim, I suggest that you choose some metal article that is individual, unreproduceable, and easily identified. Place it, at twelve noon on the 4th of April next, in the centre of a white outspread sheet on the southern side of Firle Beacon, on the Sussex Downs, and there leave it. Should there be within sight when I collect it any police, or representative of police, within forty-eight hours there will he dispatched to the editor of every principal newspaper in Europe and America a sample of gold similar to the one enclosed herein, together with the formula from which it is manufactured.

“The result of that disclosure I leave to your experience and imagination.

“Should you, however, decide to deal in good faith, within three days I will return to you the articles transformed into purest gold.

“This proof submitted, I propose to allow three calendar months to elapse, during which International finance may be peacefully transformed to a basis that will eliminate the present wholesale exploitation of the weak by the strong. At the expiration of that period I shall publish the formula from which gold may be manufactured.

“The Adjuster.”

Excerpt From: L.C. Douthwaite. “The House of Death.”