Venom House

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “Janet, I understand, is something of a philanthropist,” Bony suggested.

  “That is so,” conceded Mr Harston. “Janet is least like any of the Answerths. She is brainy, cultured, likeable. We have three churches in Edison, and she never fails to hear their appeals for financial assistance and personal effort. When old Carlow died, and the farm was bankrupt, Miss Mary insisted on letting it to other people, and Miss Janet rescued the Carlow family and set them up, Edward in the butcher’s shop.

  “Miss Mary is equally generous in her way. She’s hostile to the churches, but generous to the local hospital and the aged. Janet seems to like people knowing about her good works. Mary appears to be indifferent to what people think of her, good, bad or half-way.”

  “When Miss Janet took under her wing Mrs Carlow and her two sons, what was Miss Mary’s attitude?”

  “In this very office she called Janet a hypocritical little bitch. They were here to settle the lease of the farm to new tenants. She also said, very much to my surprise, that Miss Janet’s only interest in the Carlows was Edward. Miss Janet was furious.”

  “H’m!” Bony’s face was masked. “Who does the booking ... household accounts, and such things?”

  “Miss Janet. She’s a clever little thing, you know. After she came home from school she studied accountancy, and when her father died she compiled the Stock and Income Taxation Returns. Which is why I do not know just what their financial position is.”

  “They would not spend money on the causeway, I think you said.”

  “I did. When it was again apparent that the causeway would have to be raised, they said that the Local Council should bear the cost, or that the Government should open the river mouth. The last time work was done it cost a thousand pounds. This time the estimate was treble that amount. I pointed out that it might be wise to build a house to the right of the men’s quarters, a modern house with up-to-date amenities, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Mary said that what the first Answerth had built she would never desert, and Janet produced the hare-brained idea that if the water rose high enough it would itself burst out to sea.

  “Eventually, they employed an elderly man by the name of Winter to build a boat. Although deaf and dumb, the old chap is a good boat-builder, and a reliable handyman. When needed, he rafts wood over to the house and saws it into required lengths.”

  “He has been going to Venom House, how many years?”

  “Oh, a full dozen, might be more.”

  “Visitors, I understand, are not welcome.”

  Mr Harston shrugged.

  “They have never entertained like their father used to. Miss Mary thinks only of work and the stock.” The big man smiled. “I could not imagine Miss Mary in a lounge, or at a meeting of our literary society. Miss Janet occasionally comes to town to spend an evening with one or another, or to attend a charity meeting or church function. But no one is ever invited to Venom House.”

  “Mrs Leeper appears willing to stay there. What do they pay her?”

  “Twice as much as they need to employ a cook-housekeeper.” The agent looked grim. “I imagine that she believes she earns it.”

  “Tells me she is saving to acquire her own mental hospital,” Bony said, casually, and the agent agreed a trifle too readily. “Seems a capable woman.”

  “Very. Just the type to manage the family.”

  “You found her for them?”

  “Yes. Her credentials were excellent. It was I, in fact, who suggested to them that they ought to employ a nurse to help with Mrs Answerth and Morris. They both said Morris was well cared for, but they did realize that Mrs Answerth was growing old.”

  “Is it correct that Jacob left all his money to his daughters and nothing to his wife and son?”

  “That is so. I knew nothing of his intentions until the will was read. I wanted the daughters to settle an annuity on the wife, but Mrs Answerth wouldn’t hear of it. Said she didn’t want any of Jacob’s money. She had a little of her own.”

  “The Misses Answerth have had their wills drawn up, I suppose?”

  “Yes. They sought my advice about that.”

  “Who did they appoint their executor?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “Who inherits the bulk of the money?”

  “I don’t know that either, for sure. I think it is to be held in trust for Morris. I advised it.”

  “That implies a guardian,” Bony murmured. “Who has been appointed?”

  Mr Harston coughed, and rose as though to indicate that the interview was ended. His eyes were uneasy. His face was flushed. When Bony declined the hint, and remained in his chair, the agent said, angrily:

  “You know, Inspector, I think I ought not to continue this particular subject. After all, I am breaking a confidence. The solicitors, perhaps, may have another view. Mark and Mark, of Manton, are the solicitors.”

  Blandly, Bony regarded the agent, and negligently waved him back to his chair. Mr Harston sat. He glared.

  “Solicitors are always difficult,” Bony said. “Their training and practice withers in them the precious gift of imagination. May I accept the point that you have at heart the welfare of this Answerth family?”

  “Of course! Of course! I’ve known them since they were babies.”

  “I am happy to have your assurance, Mr Harston. You see, I have two objectives. One is to establish who murdered Mrs Answerth, and in addition, who attempted to murder Miss Mary Answerth. The other is to prevent another Answerth from being murdered. Therefore, I may claim also to have the welfare of this family at heart. I may expect your willing cooperation in my efforts to prevent another murder?”

  Bereft of words, Mr Harston nodded as though counting.

  “A detective’s job is to suspect everyone until they are proved to be innocent,” Bony went on. “His job is to gather evidence amounting to proof with assertion that a particular individual is guilty. Among many who it is now my job to suspect of strangling Mrs Answerth is ... you.”

  Again the agent was on his feet.

  “Me!” he came close to shouting. “Why me?”

  “Have I not explained? I suspect everyone here in Edison, everyone at Venom House, everyone in this district, and I shall continue doing so until Mrs Answerth’s slayer is named. You could have killed her, Mr Harston. That you cannot deny. So, too, could Constable Mawson, Robin or Henry Foster, one of the station hands, an Answerth, even the guardian appointed by their will. Who is the guardian?”

  Mr Harston waved his hands helplessly. He saw nothing of the dark face: only the enormous blue eyes. The voice was like a gimlet another twist of which would enter his brain.

  “The name of the guardian, Mr Harston?”

  “Mrs Leeper,” whispered Mr Harston.

  Chapter Twenty

  Mrs Carlow’s Friend

  THE SUN WAS a rusty cannon-ball embedded in the western celestial wall. The wind tormented the trade signs above the pavements of Edison, and blew dust into eyes and debris against feet and legs. The air was warm when it ought to have been crisply cool, and it brought to the nostrils of Napoleon Bonaparte the aroma of baked sand-dunes, of burning eucalypt leaves, of the essence of the bush which has no beginning and no end. The wind annoyed businessmen and shoppers: what it brought from the endless plains and the low ironstone hills and rivers that seldom flowed, and then uphill, delighted Bony. It stirred his blood and quickened his imagination.

  The butcher’s shop was clean and about to be closed. The meat had been removed from the marble-floored window and the heavy hooks on bright steel runners. A young man was scraping the huge block, and an elderly woman was counting money in the small, glass-fronted office.

  “Just in time,” said the youth without looking up from his work. “What d’you want?”

  “You.”

  The youth straightened and turned to Bony. He was tall, athletic, good-looking. His eyes were dark, his hair was dark, and both gleamed with robust health. Insolently he stare
d, and Bony nodded towards the shop door.

  “Might as well close it,” he said. “I shall be here some time.”

  “And who the hell are you?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to mention that I am Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte.”

  Mrs Carlow came from the office, removed spectacles from tired grey eyes, and waited at the end of the counter. She said, simply:

  “Yes, Inspector?”

  “I take it that you are Mrs Carlow, and you are Alfred Carlow,” Bony said, easily. “I’m investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of your son, Mrs Carlow, and thought you would prefer not coming to the police station where I have my temporary office. I’ll not keep you long.”

  Mrs Carlow sighed. She was neatly dressed and could have been a school-teacher, such was the compression of her mouth, the steady appraisal, the vertical lines between her brows.

  “I hope you find out who murdered Edward,” she said, and waited.

  “I shall, eventually. Perhaps you would like to complete your office work while I talk to your son for a few minutes.”

  “Thank you. I will.”

  “Now, Mr Carlow, I want to ask you several questions, hoping that your answers will greatly assist me,” Bony said when the woman had re-entered the office. “I understand that on leaving school you began in the butchering trade, and since your brother’s death you have undertaken much of the work he did. That right?”

  “That’s how it is, Inspector,” agreed the youth a trifle more cordially.

  “Like it?”

  “Better than the farm.”

  “You’d come in contact with more people, and that kind of thing.” Bony smiled. “Be near the pictures and the dances, eh!”

  “Yes, there’s more life in Edison.”

  “Of course. Well now, let’s go on. I understand that when your brother was alive he did the buying of carcases, and did the slaughtering when sheep and cattle were bought on the hoof.”

  “That’s right, Inspector. We slaughter our own meat as well as buy it from the wholesalers.”

  “I suppose occasionally you went with your brother when he slaughtered?”

  “I went with him once or twice, not more. He said he could look after that end, and mine was to serve in the shop when he was away.”

  “You began working here some time after your brother started the business, I think?”

  “Year or two.”

  “And then after he was killed, a man was employed to do the slaughtering and you ran the van to fetch the meat to the shop?”

  “That’s right.”

  “At the yard there’s a padlocked shed. Where’s the key kept?”

  Although ready, Bony failed to see any alteration of expression in the dark eyes which had been and remained frankly curious. Without hesitation, Carlow replied that the key was in the office.

  “When were you last inside that shed?”

  Carlow’s hesitation was natural.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Could be a year ago.”

  “You haven’t been inside the shed since your brother died?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? You have been to the yard often to fetch the meat.”

  “Didn’t have no reason to go in. Old Jim Matthews is in charge down there. He tells us on the phone what beasts are in the yard, and we tell him what to kill. Always been a good bloke, and he keeps on the right side of the Health Inspector. Been a butcher by trade before he went farming.”

  Concern and curiosity were now plain in the dark eyes, and Bony told him he would like to talk to his mother. He proceeded with his work of cleaning-up for the day, and Bony was invited to take the spare chair in the office.

  “I hope, Mrs Carlow, you won’t mind if I am very frank. I may have your fullest co-operation?”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  “You know, Mrs Carlow, there is much in a detective’s life to sadden him. He is continually confronted by tragedy in the hearts of innocent people. The sympathies of the thoughtless and stupid towards the condemned criminal always become vocal at the conclusion of his trial. There is little sympathy extended to those dependent upon the victim of murder save in the hearts of men who track down the slayer. Now tell me about your son. Was he a good son?”

  Slowly the woman nodded before saying:

  “Always. We worked hard on the farm, but my husband drank what we worked for, and after he died Edward took charge of us and worked twenty hours a day to put this business on its feet. He denied Alfred and me nothing.”

  “Was there trouble with the Income Tax Commissioner after your son died?”

  Again, slowly the woman nodded before saying:

  “Edward must have taken money from the till every evening before he gave the takings to me to enter in the books. Not a great deal. We think it was something like five pounds a day. He earned it, anyhow.”

  “You have kept the books from the time the business was opened?”

  “Yes. There was no fault found with the books.”

  “Who prepared the income tax returns?”

  “Edward. He was helped by Miss Answerth, Miss Janet Answerth. Miss Janet has always been the soul of goodness to us ever since my husband died and Miss Mary insisted on turning us out. She rented these premises for us and advanced the money for the fittings. She even lent the money for Edward to buy his first delivery truck. It was an old one, but it was a start. Edward paid back all the money. Then he bought a house for us and furnished it. All the trouble with the Income Tax people has been about the money he paid for it.”

  “How soon after your son was murdered did the Income Tax people pounce on you?”

  “They began on us three weeks ago. They found that the takings after Edward was killed were much higher than before. Someone in Edison must have written to them. It wouldn’t have been the police, would it?”

  “I can tell you that it was not.”

  “I don’t understand it, Inspector,” Mrs Carlow said, desperation in her voice. “My husband turned out no good, but he was always honest as the day. And then something that the Income Tax men said to me about the house and the new furniture and the new van coming out of the business on top of the money repaid to Miss Janet, and all in so short a time, has made me think bad things of poor Edward.”

  “I’m afraid he did engage in business not strictly orthodox,” Bony said, gently. “There’s no doubt that he spent much more than this business could rightly provide. I regret having to back that statement, Mrs Carlow. Stacked in the locked shed at the slaughter yard is wool known to have been stolen from the Answerth station during the shearing. Your other son tells me he did not enter the shed since Edward was murdered, and I’ve proof that no one else did.”

  “But...”

  Mrs Carlow wept, and quietly Bony said:

  “The theft of that wool doesn’t greatly concern my enquiry. I want to know who killed your son. Your son might have been tempted to make money too fast, but he was entitled to his life. His life and who took it is our objective ... yours and mine. Someone associated with your son killed him. It wasn’t accidental. Someone in his life hated him enough to murder him, and you probably know this person along with others who were in his life.”

  “No one to my knowledge could have hated him like that, Inspector.”

  “People who hate strongly enough to murder seldom show it, Mrs Carlow. It is for such as I to burrow and dig and burrow again to unearth him. From something which you think unimportant I may find him, and so please answer my questions frankly, and keep from your mind that I am interested in the damned Income Tax people, or that I am concerned with the theft of wool ... unless the theft leads me to the murderer. Now, tell me. Did your son ever complain of being injured by someone?”

  “No. We all felt injured when Miss Mary turned us out, but there was justice on her side. My husband hadn’t paid the rent for four years, and we were left without a chance to pay it.”

  “Did
your son have friends, or associates, who did not fully meet with your approval?”

  “No. Only those who led him to gamble a little, and drink sometimes.” Mrs Carlow hesitated. “I’m sorry, Inspector, but Edward did get to be living too fast. And he had ambitions, too.”

  “What were they?”

  “Just ordinary ambitions of a young man wanting to get on.”

  “Such as...”

  “Well, he wanted to go on the Shire Council. He put up at the last election and Miss Janet helped him, but he was beaten for all that. He could talk well enough. I taught him to speak properly long before we left the farm.

  “He was always talking of making a lot of money, and selling this business and going back to the land ... buying a real sheep station and being a pastoralist. He often said how he hated doing the slaughtering because he’d never get anywhere while people knew about it, and when I told him that if he gave up the gambling and the drink he could employ a man to do the slaughtering, he said he couldn’t trust anyone else to do it.”

  “Is it true that, earlier on the night he was killed, he told you he was going to Manton to see a girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is this girl?”

  “I don’t know any girl in Manton who interested him.”

  “Was he keen on any local girl?”

  “He could have been. They were all mad about him. He was a handsome boy, Inspector.”

  “I have seen his picture. Alfred is much like him. D’you think there was anything between him and Miss Janet Answerth?”

  “He never told me straight out. I think he had hopes in that direction. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just say what is in your mind, Mrs Carlow.”

  Mrs Carlow fingered a pencil. She looked at it being twirled by her fingers, but she was not seeing it. Bony, who knew when to wait, waited. Suddenly, she was looking at him, and seeing him.