Flushed with anger, the stranger carried the hamper to the camp fire, Bony hard on his heels. He dumped the hamper beside the tucker box, and was told to stand on the far side of the fire and remain there.
Alice McGorr placed the baby in Bony’s arms, and proceeded to mix milk. The child yelled its impatience, and the stranger said:
“Who did you say you are?”
“I am the Bridge built by a white man and a black woman to span the gulf dividing two races,” replied Bony, grandiloquently. “To all my friends I am Bony; to you I am Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.”
Thus, when Essen and a constable arrived, trailing a tall cloud of rose-pink dust, they were confronted by a domestic tableau, the paramount figure being ‘The Bridge’ supporting an indignant baby.
“Wish I owned a machine like this,” Bony said when making Alice comfortable in the front seat of the tycoon’s car. He peeped at the baby lying on her lap. “Head better?”
“Much, thanks,” she replied and giggled. “Wish you did own a car like this. Wish you didn’t have a wife.”
Somewhat startled, Bony closed the door and firmly passed to the driver’s side, to slip behind the wheel and start the engine. Far away on the depression rose the dust from Essen’s car in which the constable sat with the white man who said his name was Marsh, and who had mislaid his wife.
“Envy is a corroding sin, Alice,” Bony ventured, when they reached the track to Mitford. “I knew a man who owned a Rolls-Royce, and he wished he were young again and driving a T-model Ford with boon companions and rich red wine. Now tell me how you came to be here.”
“Well, as you ordered, I went to theDelphs ’ house last night. I was a few yards off the front gate when I met the cook, dressed for an outing, and I walked back with her to Main Street while she told me she had been given the night off with a ticket for the pictures, and a box of chocolates as a present from Dr Nonning for looking after Mrs Delph. She told me that Mrs Nonning was running the house and nursing Mrs Delph, and that she was still very ill. Dr Delph had been out on his rounds, driving himself as the chauffeur-gardener had been sacked.”
“That chauffeur-gardener didn’t sleep at the house?”
“No. He’s married, and lives at his own place. Anyway, after leaving the cook, I hurried back to the house. It was then quite dark. Dr Delph’s car was parked on the opposite side of the boulevard, and Dr Nonning’s car was parked outside the front door. On the lawn side of the car was a flowering tree growing there just for me, and I could watch the front door and the hall through the car’s two windows. The hall light was on, but not the outside light.
“Nothing happened until half past nine, when Dr Nonning came out and took from the boot of his car a long flattish case. He put it on the hall table. At twenty to eleven Nonning and Delph came out, and Delph backed Nonning’s car to the street and drove away. Nonning went in again and opened the case on the hall table. He was fiddling with something there when Dicky, his wife, appeared and said something I couldn’t hear. I heard him say not to worry as it was going to be the last, and she’d better stay with Flo.
“At a quarter past eleven Delph came back in Nonning’s car, and right on his tail was another car. Delph drove past the entrance to allow the second car to stop at the front door.
“Beside the driver of this car was a woman, and she was on my side… The driver switched off his lights and got out, and was met by Nonning, who said: ‘Good trip?’ The driver said it had been okay, and Nonning then said: ‘You gave your wife the tablets?’ The driver said he had stopped at ten o’clock to give them. Nonning then came round to my side of the car and opened the door. The hall light was good enough for me to see the woman. She was wearing a light duster coat over, a brown dress, and she had a filmy silk scarf about her head. She didn’t speak, and from the way she was sitting and never moving I thought she must be doped.
“Anyway, Nonning said: ‘Well, Mrs Marsh, and how are you?’ The woman just mumbled. That was all it was, a mumble like she was very sleepy. I saw Nonning take her pulse. Then he turned back to Dr Delph: ‘She’s all right. I’ll give her a shot later on.’ Delph nodded, and they went back round the car to the driver and Nonning said: ‘The wife’s all right, Mr Marsh. Care for a bite and a drink?’ Marsh said he would, and that the long drive from town had knocked him. Then Nonning said: ‘You can relax from now on. Go in Delph’s car, and I’ll drive yours.’
“They all went inside, leaving the woman sitting upright and me under the garden tree. I went over to her, and I said: ‘Are you all right, Mrs Marsh?’ and she only mumbled again as though not wanting to wake up. I opened the door and found she’d been propped with cushions on each side, and try as I did I couldn’t see her face clearly enough to recognise her if I had to. And, to clinch everything, she was just my size and height, and I was wearing a brown dress, too.
“You telling me in your letter that you thought this Nonning business had to do with the baby, and that I had to tail these visitors, backed up the feeling I got that this Mrs Marsh was to be given the baby you’d found. I thought I’d hide in the back of the car, you know, down behind the front seat, and then I thought it was just likely they might change their plans and Dr Delph and the Marsh couple go off in Marsh’s car. That led to deciding to take the woman’s place.
“I heaved her out on to the lawn and under the tree, and I was taking off her coat when suddenly Essen was behind me and asking what went. I told him to lend a hand, and explained what I was doing while he helped me with the coat and scarf, and fixed the cushions. He wanted to dump the woman in the shrubbery, but I didn’t like that because she was so wonky, and so he carried her out to where he had his car parked, and took her to the hospital. I told him if he was quick enough he could get back in time to tail the cars.
“It seemed a long time I waited before the men came out again. Marsh and Delph went down the drive to Delph’s car in the street. Nonning came to my side of Marsh’s car, opened the door and said: ‘Can you hear me, Mrs Marsh?’ Like she’d done, I mumbled. He said: ‘Now we’re off to see Altjerra the Giver. As I’ve so often told you, Altjerra the Giver can make dreams come true, so you are going to sleep in a tree and wake up with your own baby in your arms. And you will be happy then, very happy.’
“With that, he closed the door and got behind the wheel and backed the car out. The other car was waiting and we followed it. We left made roads and followed an ordinary track, and after a little of that we came to a junction. We still followed Delph’s car, and soon after that the lights of the first car went out, excepting the tail light, and Dr Nonning switched off our headlights and drove slowly only by a parking light. How he managed, I don’t know.
“A long time after, I saw the glow of a fire ahead, and when we got opposite this fire Dr Nonning drove off the track to it, and another fire lit up and showed the big tree, and I remembered you and I had been there before.
“When we stopped beside Dr Delph’s car and another one, Dr Nonning got something from the back, pushed up my sleeve and gave me a shot. He didn’t say anything until he’d put the needle back inthe whatever it was on the rear seat, and then began to say soothingly over and over: ‘Mrs Marsh! Mrs Marsh! You are going to see Altjerra the Giver. You are going to see his spirit babies run to that big tree… and wait. Wait, Mrs Marsh, for women like you. Other women have come here, hoping, made happy ever after. Now you have come hoping… Mrs Marsh. You are going to fall asleep inside that tree, and when you wake you will have your very own baby in your arms. You will remember all you see, Mrs Marsh, but you will not remember my voice or what I’ve said. Remember, always remember that the truth is what you see before you fall asleep.’
“And so on over and over again, and the dope working in me so that I felt like I was floating along on air, and wanting withall my mind to stay awake. I still knew I was Alice McGorr and not this Mrs Marsh. I wanted to shout questions at the Voice going on and on about Altjerra the Giver. But I couldn�
��t move, and really I didn’t want to. I wanted you there to find out what it was all about, and somehow I knew that this auto-suggestion job, or whatever Nonning was doing to me, wouldn’t work because I hadn’t been given those tablets Marsh had doped his wife with before they arrived at Mitford.
“Nonning told me to forget his voice, but I didn’t and haven’t. I just waited and a fire grew bright to light up the tree, and then I saw the half-bird man thing carrying the huge sack and going to the tree and dropping things. I saw them run and hide inside the tree, little things no bigger than butterflies. I watched the aboriginal woman go there and lie down, and I wanted to tell Nonning she mustn’t do that, that this was my night to sleep in the tree, and all the while knowing I was Alice McGorr, your offsider… I was lifted and carried from the car. I was walking to the tree but I couldn’t feel the ground under me. Inside the tree it was dark, soft, warm, sleepy darkness, and somewhere I heard Nonning saying: ‘Sleep, Mrs Marsh, sleep.’ ”
Alice fell silent, and Bony made no attempt to disturb the stream of memories. They were passing through the green belt to the town when she said:
“I expected to find, I don’t know what, but it was heaven, Bony. Please tell me what it all means.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Account Rendered
NOTSINCEthe Fruit Pickers’ Riot had the Mitford Police Station been so busy.
Showered, dressed and breakfasted, Bony sat at the Sergeant’s desk with Policewoman Alice McGorr on his right and a shorthand writer over in the corner. Yoti wandered in and out like the office boy fearful of the sack, and First Constable Essen acted as Master of Ceremonies.
Mr Robert Marsh, night-club proprietor and sportsman, was brought in and invited to be seated. He was now less agitated, having received a favourable medical report on his wife and, moreover, had had the opportunity to review his position. Bony said:
“Now, Mr Marsh, be advised and tell me all about it… from the beginning to the moment you expected to find a stolen baby with your wife in the heart of an ancient tree. From information already in my possession, I incline to the belief that you have been actuated less by criminal intent than by your wife’s state of mind. Whatd’youthink about that?”
Mr Marsh agreed with the analysis, and he had already decided to get out from under. His story was clear and to the point, and when the stenographer had typed the statement and it was read to him, he signed almost eagerly.
Marsh having been returned to the lock-up, Dr Nonning was presented by Essen and invited to be seated. Nonning was much more difficult. He continued to be stubborn even after the gist of the statement signed by Marsh was given. It was the reminder that a murder had been committed when the child intended for Mrs Marsh was stolen which loosened his tongue.
The Master of Ceremonies returned him to the lock-up and produced Dr Delph. Dr Delph was given a resume of the statements made by Marsh and Nonning, and he was more amenable to reason. By the time his statement had been typed and signed, Bony was thinking of morning tea.
Again in the yard between the Station and the residence, Bony asked the Sergeant for the envelope he had placed in the dash-box the previous afternoon. Yoti produced it from a pocket of his tunic, and having examined it Bony gave it back, saying:
“Yesterday afternoon I said that this envelope contained the name of the murderer of Mrs Rockcliff, although the evidence against him was inconclusive. Now being able to locate the remaining four babies, I can finalise the murder of Mrs Rockcliff by pointing him out to you for arrest. Essen!”
“Sir!”
“Take two constables and proceed by car to invite Mr Cyril Martin and Mr Cyril Martin, Junior, to call on me. With these two men, stop the car outside this yard entrance. Have them escorted to the side door of the Station, the two men to walk together, a constable either side of them. You will not enter the yard until I signal. Clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Essen called Robins and two constables, and they drove from the yard and up Main Street.
“Now, Yoti, a rake and a broom, please. Quickly.”The Sergeant brought the implements. “As I rake, smooth with the broom. Order your men to keep out those reporters.”
The surface of the yard was of sand compressed by boots and car tyres, and Bony proceeded to rake the ground in a wide swathe from the gateway to the rear door of the Station. As he raked, the Sergeant smoothed with the broom, producing a fine tilth. Both men were heated when the work was done, but Yoti was given no time to idle.
“Plaster of Paris, water and the trowel, please. Hurry.”
So the stage was set for the actors to strut. Bony stood just within the gateway, Yoti and Alice admired the flowers in the tiny garden in front of the residence, the Sergeant having with him a tin of ‘superphosphate’ and a trowel.
Essen drove up. The constables alighted, then two civilians. The elder Martin nodded to Bony; the younger stared moodily. They were marshalled together and, with a constable either side of them, walked into the yard.
Moving across the prepared surface, the party left four distinct sets of shoe-prints, the two civilians of the same height, the same build, the same manner of walking, the same Christian name. And one of them was the murderer of Mrs Rockcliff.
Bony followed the four lines of prints, slightly crouching. Then swiftly he drew an arrow indicating a print made by the right-hand Martin, and Yoti immediately filled the print with sloppy plaster. Another arrow indicated a second chosen print made by the right-hand Martin, and then Bony signalled to Essen to join him, at the same moment calling:
“Constables! Just a moment!”
The party halted, each man in his tracks. To the right-hand Martin, Bony said:
“I charge you with the murder of Mrs Pearl Rockcliff on the night of February 7th. Take him, Essen.”
“Come on, Mr Martin, Senior,” Essen said, with immense satisfaction.
For an hour before lunch the Sergeant’s office was the scene of much activity following the arrival of a large car manned by police who brought in Chief Wilmot, his son and the lubra, the old watch-mender, and Mr Beamer who came to see fair play. Instead of sullen silence, they surrendered to Bony’s quiet assurance that after confession they would be returned to the Settlement. Mr Beamer, anxious for them, witnessed the statements they made, and at the State’s expense they were returned to the Settlement.
At two o’clock Professor and Mrs Marlo-Jones were presented to Bony in the Sergeant’s office. They were a strange pair: the man regal and dynamic, the woman nondescript and yet vital. There was fire in her small brown eyes, and the wide mouth was truculent.
“Now,” she exclaimed, “now we may be able to make sense of all this extraordinary police behaviour. Please explain, Inspector… if you are an Inspector.”
“Don’t be so vitriolic, dear,” boomed the Professor. “Inspector Bonaparte is but doing his duty, and you will remember that I advised against taking the rock drawing.”
“I know,” agreed the woman. “Still…”
“We intend to restore the drawing, Inspector,” asserted the Professor. “Merely a stupid prank, that’s all.” He chuckled. “We are quite ready to accept punishment for borrowing our neighbour’s goods, you see.”
“But why, Professor?”Bony mildly asked. “You told me when I was your guest that you couldn’t decipher the meaning intended by the aboriginal artist. Or did you steal it because you didn’t want me to see it, because you knew that if I saw it I might know the legend portrayed by the artist?”
“Oh no, it wasn’t that,” said Mrs Marlo-Jones.
“And then I would know the inspiration behind your plan to steal babies?”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs Marlo-Jones.
“Ah!” breathed Professor Marlo-Jones.
“I am glad you accept the idea,” murmured Bony. “I suggest that you tell me all about it, from the beginning and including the murder of Mrs Rockcliff that night that you, Mrs Marlo-Jones, entered her house and stole
her baby.”
“Me?” snorted Mrs Marlo-Jones. “I didn’t murder the woman.”
“You were under the bed.”
“Under the bed! Henry, you’re a traitor. You told this man what I told you.”
“I did not, dear,” boomed the Professor. “How did you find out that my wife was under the bed, Inspector?”
“As a famous fictional detective used to say: ‘Elementary, my dear Professor.’When your wife crept under Mrs Rockcliff’s bed she was wearing gloves, the identical gloves she is now wearing. One of the glove fingers has been mended. You see the darn, both of you? On the floor about and under the bed the imprint of that mended glove was left on the linoleum. It was also left on the Library window, proving that Mrs Marlo-Jones was engaged in the theft of the rock drawing. You see how difficult it is to make real crime pay.”
“I didn’t murder the woman,” Mrs Marlo-Jones loudly insisted.
“Tell me, who did?”
“Yes, dear, do tell,” urged the Professor. “I’d hate to see you hanged for it.”
Mrs Marlo-Jones shrugged despairingly, as a queen deserted by all her courtiers.
“I was under the bed, as you said, Inspector. I had to get under it because I didn’t know anyone was inside the house until I heard him knock something over. He came into the bedroom, in the dark, and then I heard the front door being opened. I knew it was Mrs Rockcliff by her shoes on the floor covering in the hall, and I couldn’t understand why she’d come back so early. She came into the bedroom and switched on the light, and then I heard the blow and saw her body fall to the floor. And then I saw the man stoop over her, and I knew him. I saw his face distinctly.”
“You knew where Mrs Rockcliff had gone that evening?”
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