THE DOORBELL, by David H. Keller

Originally published in Wonder Stories, June 1934.

The two men stood on the suspension bridge that hung over the trackage of the largest steel works in America. They were watching a crane and an electromagnet load scrap iron from the ground to small freight cars. The crane would swing the magnet over the hill of scraps; suddenly, several tons of iron would move up to meet the magnet, and then the crane would carry the magnet and the mass of attracted metal to a position above a car. Then the load of iron would fall off the magnet into the car.

“Rather clever!” exclaimed one of the men. “I see it every day but never fail to think it clever. Man throws a switch and the magnet starts pulling, throws another switch and it stops pulling. Does the work of twenty men and does it better. I own this place and am fairly busy, but almost every day I walk out on this bridge and watch the thing work. Been a big help to me.”

“I wish it would help me,” sighed the other man. “There ought to be a story in it, but I cannot find it. That is the bad part of being an author; you could write lots of things if you just had lots of things to write about.”

“There is a story in it,” replied the steel man softly. “I owe you something and I think I ought to pay you with the story. How about spending the weekend with me up at my shack in Canada?”

The author blushed.

“Sorry. I can’t. No money to pay the carfare; not the right kind of clothes for the kind of shack you live in and the kind of guests you will have. Thanks for the invitation, but no is the answer.”

“Come on,” urged the rich man. “There will be only one other guest but he stays by himself all of the time. Here is the program. You know my office in New York. Be at the front door at three, Friday afternoon. One of my men will be waiting for you in a Rolls-Royce. Tell him who you are and he will bring you to my place. He is a fast driver and makes the trip in six hours. He will leave you at the front door. Push the electric button on the side of the door and my man will admit you. I will wait supper for you and come back to New York with you early Monday morning. You will have an interesting weekend—and I promise you a real story, though whether you will be able to sell it or not, I don’t know. What does a story have to have to sell?”

“Originality—the sound of truth—human interest.”

“Then you will never sell it because no one will believe it, but come anyway. Sorry about your wife, but this is the kind of a weekend party I cannot invite her to.”

“That will be a hard thing to explain to her. Of course, she has heard of you, but she will think it strange, her not being invited to a weekend visit.”

“Don’t explain. Just tell her it is a business trip—that I want you to write a book about me. Tell her that I paid you five hundred in advance. Show her the money. Here it is in hundred dollar bills.”

“I can’t do that,” protested the writer. “I am hard up, but I can’t take the money for nothing.”

“Sure you can. I owe you more than that. Be at the office, Friday at three. I’ll see you at supper.”

* * * *

Jacob Hubler did as he was told. It was not every day that he had five hundred handed to him; it was not every day that he had a chance to weekend with one of the richest men in America; it was not every day that a story was promised him. He had done Henry Cecil a real service. Even Mrs. Hubler admitted that, though she raised her eyebrows when her husband explained that it was to be a stag party for two.

At any rate, the three p.m. appointment was kept. There followed a long, tiresome drive through New York and over into Canada. Hubler lost all sense of direction. The chauffeur was a better driver than conversationalist and most of the time simply grunted. Hubler tired of the grunted answers and stopped asking questions. The last fifteen minutes, they drove through a forest of heavy pine. At last they came to the house.

“There is the door,” announced the chauffeur. “I go back to town.”

There was nothing for Hubler to do but to walk up the pathway and ring the doorbell. There was a light over the front door—otherwise, the house was dark. The night was as black as pitch. It was impossible to tell anything about the house, the size, or the architecture. All that the author could see was the front door. All that he could hear was the constantly diminishing sound of the automobile racing back to some town. All that he could hope for was that Cecil, the steel man, had remembered the invitation.

On the top step, he found the electric push button which served as a doorbell. There was nothing peculiar about it—just a circular piece of polished brass with a small white button in the middle. He looked at it and thought that in some way it was incongruous with the doorway and the house and the dark silent night. A brass door-knocker, a pull bell that would tinkle merrily, some kind of announcer that could be heard by the visitor would have been more friendly, more sympathetic to his lonely mood.

He hesitated, and his hesitation was born of the haunting fear that if he pushed the button, he would not hear the bell within; he would not know whether it even did ring within the house or if it rang whether there was anyone there to hear it. He wished that he had a horn to blow and then laughed bitterly realizing that he had never blown one, and even if he knew how and did blow it lustily, how could anyone hear him it there was no one in the house? He realized the neurasthenic quality of his fear, the almost psychopathic tendency of his imagination. Perhaps Cecil had done it all on purpose, to furnish him the thread of a story—a six-hour ride ending on the doorsteps of an empty house, and the nearest dwelling God knows where. There was a story there, and it might be more of a story before he returned to his home in New York. He looked moodily at the doorbell. It was just a plain, ordinary, everyday electric push-button.

The only way he could go on with the adventure was to take a finger and press on it.

And that was the thing that he suddenly dreaded to do.

Yet he had to!

So, cursing himself for an imaginative fool, he pressed the button; he rang the doorbell. Not just for a second did he ring it, but for what seemed at least a minute; or was it five?

Suddenly, the silence was broken by the sobbing shriek of a thing in pain, the terrible howling of a tortured animal. Above the silence of the night, the menacing noise rose carrying with it the terror of deadly agony, only to die away in throaty sobbings as he pulled his finger from the white button.

He found that he was shivering, sweating with the fear of the unknown burning through his soul. He wanted to escape, to run down the dark road, to plunge into the friendly, silent darkness, to do anything if only he could flee from a repetition of those sounds.

And then the door was flung open, and lights suddenly blazed in all the windows of the house. A stately butler bade him enter. Cecil came to meet him—Cecil the steel man, in evening clothes and a friendly smile and a warm greeting.

“You are five minutes late,” he scolded laughingly. “You were due at nine. Have you been waiting all those minutes trying to find the doorbell? Hurry to your room and wash and join me as soon as you can. Supper is ready and I am sure that you are hungry.”

* * * *

Everything seemed different. Hubler wondered if he had been the victim of auditory hallucinosis. Here was light, warmth, good fellowship, and the cheer of a fireplace. Supper was served there instead of in a formal dining-room—a supper of roast duck in front of the fireplace. Henry Cecil made a warm host; the butler was everything a butler should be; there was a quiet charm in the atmosphere of the room. Gradually, Hubler relaxed and, by the time the meal was over, was silently laughing at his former fears. The table was removed, the butler withdrew, and then the author asked the steel millionaire the question that had been bothering him for several days.

“You promised me a story, Mr. Cecil.”

“So I did. In fact, as I remember it, that was your real reason for making the trip.”

“Exactly.”

“Not being an author, I hardly know how to even start a story.”

“You start with a title. Every story has to have a name.”

“I understand that. You can call the story what you wish. If I were going to write it, I would call it ‘The Doorbell’ but no doubt that would sound uninteresting to you.” He spoke softly with a smile.

Hubler looked at him. Doorbell? Suddenly a memory that he had almost thrust back into the subconscious returned. He answered rather sharply.

“That will do for the name of the story. Go on.”

“I will have to begin years ago,” said the steel man. “I came originally from the western part of South Carolina. Perhaps we were related to the Cecils on the eastern shore of Maryland, or the Cecils of Louisiana. I have read their family histories, but I never was able to satisfy myself that my father was of either family. In fact, I never saw my father, for he died when I was little. My mother was Amy Worth from Atlanta, Georgia. She was related to the Fannings and the Stills. They were proud people but poor. After Father died, she tried to support the three of us. You see, I had a brother who was much older than I, but not a man.

“We lived in a house in the country that at one time had been the home of a rich man. By the side of the front door there was a doorbell. It was the old-fashioned kind, a pull bell. A wire ran from the door to the kitchen, and when the knob was pulled, the bell jingled-jangled in the kitchen. Mother kept it in repair. She said that it was a symbol of former greatness and something for us boys to try to grow up to. She wanted us to become real men. Hardly anyone used the bell because we had few visitors, and mostly they just came around the back way, like neighbors would.

“I guess Father had enemies. He must have had. There was one family of four brothers who claimed they owned our farm, but Mother held that she had a clear title to it. I was away one day hunting, like a little fellow will be, and when I came back toward dusk, I found the front door open. Brother was dead and Mother was almost dead, but she told me what had happened. From the way she was shot, I don’t see how she lived as long as she did, but she had Fanning blood in her and the Fannings die hard. Anyway, I sat down on the floor and put her head on my legs and wiped the blood away from her mouth. Then she told me what had happened. Perhaps this is not interesting you, Mr. Hubler?”

“On the contrary, I find it more than interesting. Go on.”

“All right. Anytime you tire, tell me to stop.

“Mother said that she and Brother were in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. It was such an unusual thing that they felt sure something was going to happen, but they went to the front door and opened it, because they were in their own house and they were not afraid. Mother explained that to me—that they were not afraid. Even when she was dying, she took the time to tell me that she was not afraid because she had the Fanning blood in her. They opened the door and there stood the four brothers. They had come to the front door and rung the doorbell instead of going around to the back door the way the friendly neighbors would have done. They never said a word, just started to shoot, and when they left, they told Mother they were going to come back after dusk and finish with me. I wanted to stay, but Mother made me promise I would go. She said that there was work for me to do but that I had to do it when I grew to be a man and that it was not anything for a little lad to undertake. She died in a while, after she had told me what there was to tell. So I took my rifle and left that part of the country. The neighbors found them and buried them. Years after, I went back and put a stone over their graves. That is the end of the story.”

“Not much of an ending,” Hubler insisted. “It is not the kind of an ending that would interest the average editor. The story could not stop right there. There must be something more.”

“Perhaps,” replied Henry Cecil, “but it is all true so far. And there is the rifle I brought with me from the Carolina mountains. When I bought this land and built this house, I brought it up here and hung it above the fireplace. End the story yourself.”

“I cannot do it. A thousand endings have been written to the story you have told me. You should have taken the rifle and hunted down the four brothers. You should have shot them one at a time. But things like that have all been written before—nothing new to it. Instead, you come north, learn the steel business, become a rich man, have a palace in Canada, and hang the gun above the fireplace. That is interesting, but it is not a story. Why didn’t you use the gun?”

Cecil smiled.

“There would have been no originality in it. A thousand mountain boys would have done that, but as far as I know, I am the only mountain boy who became interested in steel and electricity. I had to be in every way different. You see, I was just a lad when Mother died with her head on my lap, and when I was not looking at her face, I kept looking at the doorbell. She had always said that the doorbell was a symbol; that rich people had doorbells, that the Worths and Fannings and Stills in Georgia always had doorbells and if Brother and I kept that in mind, we would grow up to have lives with doorbells, and servants in the kitchen and everything that went with doorbells. But instead of bringing joy and happiness and prosperity into her life, it had been the signal of death to Brother and her.

“So I have never been able to forget the doorbell.”

“You mean?”

“Something like that. I am trying to explain why the rifle was never used. Now a doorbell would be something different. You can see that for yourself.”

“There certainly is a difference—so much so, that there is no resemblance,” agreed the puzzled author.

“At least, Mother’s ambitions have been satisfied. I have become rich, well known, and somewhat important to the financial life of the nation. In fact, some of the Maryland Cecils have been trying to show that they are related to the Carolina branch. I have a home in the country and a doorbell at the front door. I have servants who can be trusted. My butler is a man of good breeding and high education. Being an ex-convict, in fact an escaped convict, this place is a city of refuge for him, and he appreciates the fact. His wife is the cook. My chauffeur also has certain things to be thankful to me for and in addition knows how to drive and keep his mouth shut.”

“He certainly is no conversationalist.”

“No. He does not talk. Then there is the doctor. I just had to have a doctor. I have guests, and when they become sick, it is so much better to have a physician in the house rather than have to send to Montreal. This man is a good fellow; drinks, and cannot return to the States. But he is a wonderful nurse and takes good care of my guests. I hunted for a long time to find a doctor who would answer my purpose. Different doctors, you realize, have different ideas concerning the administration of drugs. Some give powders, others liquids or hypodermics, and now and then you find one who thinks that the only way to administer medicine is in the form of capsules. This man I have is what you might call a ‘capsule doctor.’ He is clever. He has some capsules that dissolve in the stomach and some that do not dissolve till they enter certain parts of the intestines. That’s my family up here. I meet a man and become interested in him and invite him up for the weekend. If he becomes sick, he is well cared for—very well cared for. Well, it is late and you are tired from the drive. Suppose we retire?”

“That suits me,” said Hubler. “And is that all there is to the story?”

“All for tonight, and it’s enough for you to work on as you drift into the land of dreams. Will you go with me? Often before I go to bed, I go out to the front door. It makes me think of Mother and the brother who died so soon in his early manhood. Come.”

It was a command rather than an invitation. Opening the door, Henry Cecil turned a switch and the house darkened—all except the light over the front door. The two men stood on the landing, out in the night air. The darkness was like velvet silence.

“At times we hear a hoot-howl, and now and then a wildcat. You ever hear a wildcat, Hubler? At times they sound like a child crying.”

Hubler shook his head. “I never heard a wildcat,” he answered. “Do you hear them often?”

“Now and then,” whispered Cecil, “Now and then.” And turning, he pressed strong and hard with his right index finger against the doorbell.

Suddenly the stillness was rent with a sobbing, shuddering shriek, a cry that rose in intensity, that carried with it the terror of a soul torn to bits and cast into the flames of hell. Cecil removed his finger, and slowly the yelling died to sobbing and the sobbing to moaning and the moaning to silence.

“That is what a wildcat sounds like,” explained Cecil. “Come. Let us go to bed. Tomorrow is another day.”

He turned the lights on and personally took his guest to his room, and there he left him.

Hubler went to sleep slowly, telling himself that there was a wonderful story here but that the pieces did not fit. It did not make sense. There was too much left out. Once he woke and heard an owl hoot, but that was all.

* * * *

The next morning, the butler served breakfast to him in his room. Hubler tried to question him, but the man was everything a loyal, perfect butler should be. All he would say was that the master was busy and would see him at two for dinner and that he would find very interesting books in the library, or the butler would be glad to bring him some, or if the gentleman cared to play pool, the butler would be pleased to play with him. So Hubler called for a typewriter and spent the morning writing the story in a dozen different ways and tearing it up as fast as he wrote, because he realized that all of the ways were poor ways and far from the truth.

Disgusted with himself, he rang for the butler and spent the rest of the time playing pool. He found the man a very excellent opponent.

* * * *

At two, Cecil came into the billiard room. The butler silently left. Commonplace remarks were exchanged, and then the steel man took him to dinner. A third man awaited them and was introduced as Doctor Murdock. The meal was served with some formality and a lack of conversation. Finally, Cecil asked the doctor, “How is your patient?”

“Rested fairly well today but had two severe attacks last night.”

“Your medicine does not relieve him?”

“No. He is going like the other three.”

“Have you made a diagnosis?”

“No. Nothing seems typical of any condition I am familiar with. I really would like a consultation. My professional pride—”

The rich man interrupted him.

“Tut, tut! You have nothing to worry about. You are doing as well as any other doctor could do. Let me make the situation clear to you, Mr. Hubler. I have had four guests lately, one at a time. They came here at my invitation to enjoy my hospitality and fatten their purses on my bounty. Each became mysteriously sick, a stupor which may have been caused by too much drinking. I had them moved to our little hospital room and Doctor Murdock took charge of them. The following symptoms were the same, occasional pains of a terrifying nature at irregular intervals accompanied by a progressive anemia. Three of them died, and the doctor states that the last one is going rapidly. He is a good physician, and I have the greatest confidence in him. There is no occasion for him to worry. Everything is perfectly regular and each man has had a legal death certificate and a simple but satisfactory burial. Of course, it is to be regretted. It may make other guests, like yourself, feel ill at ease, but I do not think that there will be any more cases. Are you still giving the capsules, doctor?”

“Yes. It is a favorite prescription of mine and one that should do good in cholera.”

“I had your prescription filled by the best druggist in New York City.”

“I know. You said that before. Now an autopsy might help with a diagnosis?”

“No, Doctor Murdock. A thousand times no. It is bad enough to have my guests suffer without cutting them to pieces after they are dead. Diagnose all you want on them while they are alive, but after death, I beg you to respect their cold, pallid forms. But come, let us finish the meal. I want to show Mr. Hubler my place.”

* * * *

For several hours, the two men rode slowly on horseback through the woods. Hubler expressed his continual astonishment at the large number of birds and animals and their apparent tameness.

“It is nothing to wonder at,” explained his host. “I do not hunt myself and I let no one else hunt on my property. As a result, even the deer have become tame. It seems cruel to kill just for the sake of killing. Of course, they kill each other. The birds eat insects and the weasels eat the birds and now and then one of the big wildcats catches a rabbit or a very young fawn, but that is just the natural course of events. I used to hunt when I was a boy, but after Mother died in my arms, I have never been able to pull a trigger.”

Through the dying day, they rode, and at last, almost in the darkness, came back to the house. An Irishman was waiting for them on a third horse. It seemed that he was to take the horses back to the stable, some miles from the house.

Once inside, Cecil grew rather proud and expansive. He took delight in showing Hubler through the different rooms, the library, the picture gallery, and a small but complete laboratory for electrical experimentation. At last, he came to a little room. It was empty except for a large mass of wire and iron in the center of the room, reaching from the floor to the ceiling.

“That,” said Cecil, “is something that I am especially proud of. It is an electromagnet, probably as large and powerful a magnet as there is in the world. If it could touch iron, it would probably be able to lift at least four tons at a load. It can attract iron particles at a distance of twenty feet. In fact, I had to have this part of the house built without iron nails; otherwise, it would have pulled the floor apart. It is very simple in construction and most of the time is inert, dead. But if a button is pressed at a distant part of the house and the electric current turned on, it becomes instantly alive and functions perfectly. It is very similar to the electromagnet I have at the mills, but this one is even more powerful. I thought that you would like to see it. It might help you with the story, the story you came up here to write. Have you started it yet?”

“Yes—a dozen times this morning, but I tell you frankly that I cannot write it. It does not make sense; none of it. I feel that there is a story there but it does not click.”

“Perhaps it will later on. Suppose we go down to see our patient. The hospital room is directly below. We will take off our shoes and put on carpet slippers. Nails in the shoes, you know, and all that sort of thing. Take off your belt, too—the buckle is steel. When you are near a magnet like this, you have to be careful. Come along.”

Down the hall they came to the butler. Cecil called him.

“What time have you?”

“Eight thirty-five, sir.”

“I have the same. At exactly nine, will you go out and ring the doorbell? Remember. Exactly at nine.”

“I will, sir.”

“A very faithful man,” commented Cecil. “Always obeys orders.”

“Before we go to the hospital, I should tell you about the furnishings. Since it is directly under the electromagnet, we can have no iron or steel there. The sickbed is of wood throughout but very comfortable. Time is told by a series of hourglasses. The instruments and hypodermics are of hardened gold. The doctor wears slippers at my request. He thinks that I am crazy, but as I shelter him, he puts up with what he considers my eccentricities. Should the electromagnet start working while we are there, for example at nine, when the doorbell is pushed, you need have no fear for your personal safety. The last thing in the world I desire is to see you harmed in any way. Come on.”

They entered the room. Sharp shadows were thrown by a burning candle in a glass holder. Doctor Murdock met them with a whisper.

“He has had a quiet day, Mr. Cecil. The sleep has been one of exhaustion but there has been no recurrence of the colic.”

“Have you used any of the sedative?”

“Yes. He has had his capsules every hour.”

“Good. That is all that can be done for him. Doctor Murdock is a great believer in capsules, Mr. Hubler. He is not a pharmacist, so I have the capsules filled for him in New York. What time have you, doctor?”

“According to the hour-glasses, it should soon be nine.”

“We will wait till then. We left our watches upstairs. Will you tell us when it is nearly nine?”

They sat down and waited. The doctor went over, looked at the hour-glasses steadily pouring their golden sands.

“Only a few seconds now. The hourglass is nearly empty,” he soon said.

The sleeping patient started to move restlessly. Hubler watched him. The author was trying to think, to coordinate his thinking so that it would make sense. Suddenly, the man sat up in bed shrieking and pulling at his abdomen. His cry was a mixture of curses and hopeless despair. It so completely filled Hubler’s soul that he instinctively covered his ears with his hands to try to shut out the horror of it. For he recognized it; it was what he had heard the night he pressed the doorbell, and once heard, was not to be soon forgotten. Doctor Murdock bent over the man trying to calm him. Cecil looked on with detached interest. Suddenly, the noise ceased as the man dropped backward.

“He’s dead!” cried Doctor Murdock.

“No wonder,” sighed Cecil. “No one can stand pain like that forever. He is better dead. You know how to proceed, doctor. Come with me, Mr. Hubler. It may be that a glass of brandy will help you. This was not a pleasant sight.”

They were back in the living room in front of the fireplace. Hubler had taken his three fingers of liquor, shivered and felt better.

“And now for the story,” sighed the steel man. “I realize that you must get this story settled in your mind or you will not sleep tonight, and tomorrow you will leave early for the big city. I will go with you and we will have an early start, so you had better have your rest. You have seen the electromagnet. I will tell you that the four men who have died in our little hospital room were the four brothers who murdered my mother and brother. And as there was a doorbell in our home in Carolina, it seemed best to have a doorbell here. Of course, I had to have a doorbell. Every house, especially a house of wealth, has a doorbell, and you remember that my mother thought it was a very important symbol. Of course, it is important for you to learn that the doorbell was connected with the electromagnet. When it was pressed, the magnet started to work. Now the first brother who came was drunk; he just would not stop drinking, so we placed him in the hospital and I had the second one come on, and he pressed the doorbell a number of times. You see, I was giving him a lot of money and he wanted to please me, and then he became sick and took his brother’s place. Then the third brother came, and did the same thing. Finally the last brother, who was the man you saw die tonight, came. Of course, when he became sick, there was no one to press the button but the butler and myself and so I asked you to come up so you could have a hand in it. And now, since the last of the four brothers has died from this strange disease, I will not use the electromagnet any more but will connect the push button with a sweetly sounding bell which will welcome my guests with the true sound of hospitality. Now you can write the story about the doorbell.”

“I cannot do it!” protested Hubler. “You know I cannot do it. There is still something left out. What had the magnet to do with it? Doctor Murdock took care of all these men, and he did not die. He evidently did not even have a bit of pain. You are leaving something out. What is it? I have to know. It is not fair to tell me so much and still tell me so little.”

“Perhaps you are right,” whispered the steel man. “But even after I tell you, you won’t be able to sell the story, because no one will believe you. It was the capsules that did the work.”

“But you told me that Doctor Murdock wrote the prescriptions and that they were prepared by the best drug house in New York!”

“That is true. But I forgot to tell you something. After I got the capsules, I opened them and put in each one a small fishhook. Murdock gave a good many capsules to each of his patients. Now write the story.”