The Battling Prophet

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “You learned I was staying with Mr. Luton ... from whom?” enquired Bony.

  “At dinner to-night Mr. Weston mentioned the fact,” replied the girl. “Afterwards, when we had left the house for a walk, Carl suggested that we call, Inspector. There’s been something on his mind, and—well, here we are.”

  “That is so. Here we are,” agreed Dr. Linke, beaming at them, his expressive blue eyes bright and his wide shoulders lifted. “We have talked, my Jessica and I, and we are not—how you say?—easy of mind. Incidents lately have indicated, slightly, a pattern, and patterns are the fire of the smoke. You understand?”

  “Of course. Go on, Doctor.”

  “Forgive me if I seem to proceed cautiously, Inspectore. If I make error, please correct. Your purpose in being here?”

  “I am visiting Mr. Luton for the fishing,” replied Bony. “Mr. Luton and I are old friends who haven’t met for many years. He heard I was in Adelaide, hence the invitation. I applied for leave of absence and obtained ten days.”

  “You are, naturally, a detective?”

  “Yes, but not of the South Australian Police Department. I am a Queenslander.”

  “The pastor also said at dinner that you knew Mr. Wickham. True?”

  “I did know him,” calmly lied Napoleon Bonaparte, and added: “Years ago.”

  Dr. Linke leaned forward as though to emphasise his next remark.

  “Could we agree, Inspectore Bonaparte, that Mr. Luton has put before you his thesis on the hoo-jahs?”

  The pronunciation of ‘hoo-jahs’ brought a smile from his hearers and he caught its infection. That he was extremely earnest in striving to reach a goal was obvious, and Bony eased the road a little for him.

  “Mr. Luton has explained his convictions, based on experience, concerning the effects of alcoholic poisoning. He has also put forward his conviction that Mr. Wickham did not die from alcoholic poisoning. He has proffered sound argument in support of his contentions. I am still keeping an open mind, Doctor.”

  “I thank you, Inspectore,” Dr. Linke said, formally. “The incidents of which I spoke just now, seemingly to form a pattern, lead me to agree with Mr. Luton that Mr. Wickham could have been liquidated.”

  “You agree with me about the hoo-jahs!” exclaimed Mr. Luton, plainly delighted.

  “I am—how d’you say?—being pushed to the belief, Mr. Luton.” He frowned as though finding it difficult to choose words from the limited vocabulary at his command. “I want ... I think...”

  “Let me explain, Carl,” the girl interrupted. “Inspector Bonaparte, Carl, as you must know, is a New Australian. He came to Australia after the war, and he had to serve two years as an agricultural labourer, even though he is quite famous as a meteorologist. You know how it is; with all foreign medical men, scientists, professional men and such.”

  “I know how it is, Miss Lawrence, and how ridiculously stupid is the neglect in our country of their abilities.”

  “Well, Mr. Wickham contrived to have Dr. Linke assigned to his estate, and, once here, there was no intention of wasting Carl’s gifts and knowledge on milking cows and grooming tractors. Last year, Carl was granted full Australian citizenship, and he naturally is a little nervous of attracting official notice by being, shall we say, associated with murder, to put it bluntly.”

  “Yes! Yes, my Jessica. That is how it is. You see, Inspectore Bonaparte?”

  “I see,” replied Bony. “Let me assist in clearing the fog for all of us. I am a foreigner in South Australia, on holiday, and not on official duty. How I spend my leave can be of no legal concern to anyone, provided I don’t break the law. I don’t know if you have in Germany what we call private detectives, and the Americans call private eyes, Doctor, but you may regard me as a temporary private eye.” Bony chuckled. “I have on many occasions been strongly tempted to urge my superiors to journey to the nether regions and myself to carry on as a private eye. I would be fully occupied in winding up unsolved murders.”

  “In other words, Doctor, you can spill it,” chortled Mr. Luton.

  “I thank you, I thank you,” energetically acknowledged Dr. Linke, addressing himself in turn to Mr. Luton, to Miss Lawrence and to Bony. Bony addressed himself to the girl.

  “When those at dinner spoke of me, what was their attitude?”

  “Mr. Weston mentioned you were with Mr. Luton, shortly after we sat down,” was the reply. “He seemed cynically amused. Then Dr. Maltby said he had met you, and, further, that he had heard in town you were interested in the death of Mr. Wickham. Without speaking, something passed between him and Mrs. Parsloe, as though both followed the same thought and needed support from the other. It was seen, too, by Mr. Weston, who said: ‘I am reminded, my dear Agatha, that this extraordinary person’s namesake, the Emperor, often advised that when in doubt it is best to do nothing.’”

  “That I do not comply with,” argued Dr. Linke. “When doubt comes, it is best to do something. I have doubted and I have acted. I am here. I will tell you. Mr. Wickham was a very good friend to me, and to my Jessica. He was a fine man. He brought me here. He gave me work I love. Slowly, for you understand I have scientific training, he brought me to see there could be much in his line of research. I came to understand how valuable accurate long-range weather forecasts would be to agriculturists and to the world. And as we worked together, so I came to fear the hostile forces gathering to oppose him and halt his work.”

  “What is your situation now he is dead?” asked Bony.

  “It is this, Inspectore. The day after the ashes were released, Mrs. Parsloe came to my office for, she said, an understanding. She wanted to know where her brother kept his papers, his data on his weather work. I told her it was there in the office safe. She opened the safe, and what she sought was not there. It was nowhere in the office.

  “Then I told her the book must be somewhere. A thick notebook having green covers. I had myself seen it a thousand times. Her brother guarded the book. He would take it from the safe, consult it. Sometimes he would add data and ever return it to the safe before he left the office. So it was not there in the safe, and I went with Mrs. Parsloe to the house and we searched all about for that book and did not find it.”

  “Did no one have access to the safe other than Mr. Wickham?” Bony asked.

  “No other person.”

  “There were two safes, Inspector,” offered the girl. “Mr. Wickham’s private safe, and the general office safe. As Carl has said, Mr. Wickham guarded that green notebook always. He told me it contained his tables and ultimate calculations, the factors controlling solar eruptions and other vital data which eliminated error.”

  “So,” agreed Dr. Linke. “When the green notebook was not discovered, Mrs. Parsloe was angry. She said it must be somewhere and I was to find it. I believe that if my Jessica hadn’t proved it was kept in the private safe, and we had no key, Mrs. Parsloe would have said I had stolen it. Because the next day I was visited by a policeman and another man.”

  “Yes, that was strange, Carl. Tell the Inspector about that,” almost ordered the girl.

  “They came, these two, at a quarter of noon,” continued Dr. Linke. “The policeman was a sergeant of the police from Mount Gambier. The other man was, how you say? a civilian. He said he was of the Commonwealth Investigation Service. He had my dossier from the U.N.O. and from the Australian Immigration Department. He questioned me many times about my life in Germany, my political affiliations, everything. I had told everything before, to officer after officer; there was no more I could tell him. Then he questioned me about my life here at Mount Mario and the work I had been doing for Mr. Wickham. They stayed at the quarters for lunch, and continued the interrogation till five o’clock.

  “When they were gone, Mrs. Parsloe came. She told me she had to report the loss of the green notebook, and as I was her brother’s chief assistant, and a German, she felt she must report me. I ... I was angry. She said she was sorry. She said that the second assistant was to l
eave the next day, she had dismissed Mrs. Loxton, our housekeeper, and that I was to eat at the big house—which I do. For many hours that evening we all searched for that notebook, and the second assistant urged that the pastor and my Jessica search his luggage before he left. He made the pastor search his person, too. The next night the office was broken open and searched by burglars.”

  Dr. Linke almost glared at Bony. Mr. Luton bent forward and poked at a log. Bony’s brows lifted a fraction.

  “After I had examined everything, it was known that the burglars had taken nothing. It took us hours to restore order. They entered by the door and left that way. So they must have had a key to the front door of the office. None of the windows had been forced, d’you understand? And they had opened the safe, too.”

  “The private safe, Doctor?”

  “That is so.”

  “Let us trace the key to that private safe. Do you know how Mrs. Parsloe came to have it?”

  “No, Inspectore. I have thought. It must have been on the body when it was brought from Mr. Luton’s house. When she came to the office that day, Mrs. Parsloe used the key, and she locked the safe again and took the key away.”

  “You told her of the burglary?”

  “But naturally.”

  “What did the police do ... say?”

  “Do ... say ... nothing. Mrs. Parsloe would not send the report to the police.”

  “They decided that the publicity would be unwelcome,” said Miss Lawrence. “The family, I mean. They held conference. As the burglars hadn’t stolen anything, they agreed to do nothing about it.”

  “Curious,” murmured Bony. “What have you been doing, Doctor, since Mr. Wickham died?”

  “Seeking to work through to his achieved objective by the examination and study of the data, what we have. Mrs. Parsloe had told me she does not want me to leave Mount Mario.” Dr. Linke braced his powerful shoulders. “I will not go, Inspectore. There is something ... what you say? ... funny going on. It began weeks ago. On July P. When two men came to call on Mr. Wickham.

  “They came in a fine car. From my desk I could see the car drive to the front door of the big house. I saw one man go to the front door and ring, and the maid came and pointed to the office. The man entered again into the car and they drove to the office door.

  “The men came in and asked for Mr. Wickham. The second assistant asked the man his purpose and the man said he wished to speak private business with Mr. Wickham. The second assistant went to Mr. Wickham, and returned to inform the man Mr. Wickham would see him, if he stated his business. The man told the assistant he had a mission to place before Mr. Wickham, and the assistant enquired his name. The man said ‘Smith’.

  “You see, by then I had summed this man. His name was not Smith. It was not even Smidt or Smudburg. He wore Australian clothes, but he had been going to an alien barber, possibly a New Australian whose name few Australians could speak. I didn’t address him. You understand why? We unfortunates of the world have learned caution. The second assistant escorted him to Mr. Wickham’s office at the far end of the building, and then reported to me: ‘Speaks English all right, but doesn’t look it.’ And although he spoke correct English, it was too correct, and his haircut was a ... revelation.”

  “How long was he with Mr. Wickham?” Bony asked.

  “About one hour.” Dr. Linke applied a match to his pipe with studied deliberation. “Ten days after that, on July NP, Mr. Wickham had a strange call from the Commonwealth Bank. He wasn’t in the office when it came. He went to the bank in Cowdry that night at ten o’clock.”

  They watched the expression of pleasure grow on the brown face and light the deep blue eyes of Inspector Bonaparte as he said:

  “You know, Dr. Linke, I find your conversation decidedly captivating.”

  Chapter Eight

  Temptation Under Foot

  “WHAT I have told you, Inspectore, is a bare citation of events, and purposely not stated in chronological order, meaning to gain your attention, and, I hope, understanding,” continued Dr. Linke, speaking slowly and as though repeating a previously composed address. “Permit me to go to the beginning.

  “You understand my life here in Australia has been good. I have no complaint. I am, what you say, a free man in the mind. I can work hard at what I want to perform, and I have not to say: ‘Heil Hitler,’ or ‘Bravo, Mr. Menzies,’ at noon each day. Mr. Wickham, always he treated me with respect, and when we did not agree, he did not say: ‘You get out! I sack you.’

  “Our life was very good. I respect Mr. Wickham. His mind was free of orthodoxy and he proved what he knew. And then he would ask: ‘What is proof?’ For what often in the past have proved to be true, had proved to be a lie in the present.

  “He asked that I work along certain lines of investigation, so to leave him free to continue along other lines. He asked for my results. He was entitled to them. He was paying my salary, and he was being a very good friend. It was not for me to demand of him the results he was getting. And of his own work he told me very little.

  “So, then, all of us were very happy to be with Mr. Wickham. We were sad to see him worried, and many times he was worried. Sometimes he would tell us. Sometimes he would—what you say?—bottle it up. Many visitors came for him. Some were meteorologists. And the newspaper correspondents. And the members of the board for Primary Producers. But the first visitors I suspected were bad persons were the two who came to the office on July three.

  “The man who talked to Mr. Wickham, with the office door closed was—how shall I say?—perfume ... o-oder ... oderous....”

  “In Australia we’d say he stank,” rumbled Mr. Luton and Dr. Linke smiled his gratitude.

  “That’s it. The man stank. He betrayed his ... his...”

  “Stink,” assisted Mr. Luton.

  “Carl means that the man’s appearance, his face, hair, eyes, everything gave him away,” Jessica Lawrence contributed.

  “Ah! Yes, it gave him away. To me it gave him away,” went on the doctor. “He was from those persons who have become termites. He stink, no, stank, of those who are without a name because they have so many names they have forgotten their born name. And he had a shoulder pistol. The car driver also had one. The car driver never spoke but once, when he came in to lunch, and then he foolishly tried to make us think he was an Irishman.

  “Two, three days after they had gone, Mr. Wickham said something to me that might relate to those men. He said: ‘Linke, d’you think wars are started when the season is thought to be propitious for the aggressor?’ I told him that I thought it not a coincidence that the two World Wars began after the European harvest had been gathered. Then he said: ‘If a Hitler knew for fact that all over Europe 1960 would be a famine year, followed by another famine year, would he stock his granaries in the years ’RU and ’RV and start his war in ’SM?’ Then he asked: ‘Can you imagine the value of long-range accurate weather forecasting to a would-be world conqueror?’ I replied that History tells much about victories and defeats caused by unpredictable weather conditions. He asked, not because he did not know. He wanted my agreement. So we agreed that accurate long-range weather forecasting would be a tremendous weapon.

  “I remember Mr. Wickham looking at me a long time and thinking, so that his eyes were seeing strange and terrible pictures. After much time, he said to me: ‘It is comforting, Linke, to know we are not living near the Iron Curtain.’

  “He would say no more, Inspectore, and he did not ever talk direct about the visit of two Eastern Europeans. Then, on July NP was that telephone call. I recognised the caller’s voice. It was the manager at the Commonwealth Bank in Cowdry. I hide my money in that bank. He has helped me. He arranged for me to be a member of the Tennis Club. So I know his voice. He asked to speak with Mr. Wickham. It was ten minutes after eleven o’clock in the morning. So it was that Mr. Wickham was away with the estate manager. I said if I could give Mr. Wickham a message, and the caller said no, no, he would ring again. Then
, as is polite, I enquired his name, and the caller was so silent.

  “Mr. Wickham did not return until a minute before dinner. I saw him enter the house, saw Jackson, the driver, put the car in the garage. We had arranged some important work together that evening, and I waited until he came to the office to inform him of the call from Cowdry. He did not come to the office until after nine o’clock, and then to inform me we would work together another time as he had the engagement. Yesterday I spoke with Jackson, the chauffeur.”

  Dr. Linke paused in what was a narrative to light his pipe, and possibly to highlight the climax. “What next occurred was that the manager rang once more when he knew Mr. Wickham would be at dinner, and he rang the House. My Jessica remembers Mr. Wickham was called to the telephone from dinner that night. He was two hours after dinner in his study, and then must have instructed Jackson to take him to Cowdry. He told Jackson not to speak of this journey, and Jackson spoke to me only because Mr. Wickham died. The car stopped at the private entrance to the Commonwealth Bank. It was then ten o’clock, and Mr. Wickham was with the manager for nearly one hour. When Mr. Wickham came from the bankman’s private door, two men came with him. The two men spoke a little moment with Mr. Wickham, and then walked away. Mr. Wickham entered the car, and Jackson brought him home.”

  Dr. Linke having ceased talking, Jessica Lawrence rose to her feet, saying:

  “I’m going to the kitchen, Mr. Luton, to make tea and sandwiches. I can’t see any relationship between the visit of those foreign men and the visit of Mr. Wickham to the Commonwealth Bank.”

  “He didn’t bank with the Commonwealth, Sunset,” stated Mr. Luton. “I know that for a fact. And why go there at ten at night? If the manager wanted him to play cribbage or something, he wouldn’t have been so mysterious on the phone.”

  “The only relationship I can see is that both occurrences are extremely odd. Now, where is the sandwich filling, Mr. Luton?”

  “Better show you,” replied the old man, and together they left for the kitchen.