It was comparatively dark beneath the lilac-trees, for the sun had set and the mountain rose jet-black against the indigo blue of the evening sky. Miss Pinkney tittered. She tiptoed to the fence, against which lay a banana case. Mr Pickwick caught up with them and sprang to the top of the fence. In a thrilling whisper, Miss Pinkney invited Bony to stand on the case and look over the fence.
The branches of the lilac-trees reached out into the Blake’s garden, and the fence was therefore almost invisible to anyone near either Miss Pinkney’s house or that next door. As Miss Pinkney had said that Mrs Blake was away and her cook had gone to the pictures, he wondered at her cautious approach to the fence and her plea to him to be cautious.
Beyond the fence, distant about twenty-five feet and slightly to his right, stood a cream-painted, weatherboard building of about twenty feet by fifteen. The door he could not see, and on that side towards the house there was a large window having a single pane of glass.
The house he could plainly see. It fronted the side road off the highway andits back faced to the east and the mountain. Of the usual bungalow type, it contained, he estimated, ten or twelve rooms. The rear side was protected by a spacious veranda, and on the veranda he could see several lounge chairs and the white net spanning a ping-pong table. A man was sitting low in one of the chairs.
Bony stepped down from the case.
“Quite a nice home,” he said, and said it softly for no reason.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed as softly. “I’ve never been in the writing-room, but I have been into the house. The previous owners were most friendly. Since then I’ve often come here and spied over. They used to play croquet on the lawn-well-known people, many of them. Their names were in the papers. I could watch them playing ping-pong on the veranda, and they never knew I was looking at them.”
Poor Miss Pinkney! Poor, lonely Miss Pinkney. How happy she might have been had theBlakes offered to be neighbourly! Bony pictured her looking into the forbidden garden like a child looking through plate glass at a display of toys.
“Who would be the man sitting on the veranda?” he said.
“A man on the veranda!” she echoed. “Oh! I don’t know. Some relation of the cook’s I suppose. There’s no other domestic now. Let me see.”
Bony offered his hand and she accepted the proffered assistance to mount the banana case. The delighted Bony watched her as she raised her head stealthily to the top of the fence until her eyes were one inch above it. The next instant she was down again with him, her eyes big in the pallor of her dusk-dimmed face.
“That’s Mr Wilcannia-Smythe,” she breathed. “I wonder what he’s doing there. Let’s look again.”
Together they mounted the case upon which there was just room for them to stand. Together their heads rose until their eyes were one inch above the boards.
Chapter Four
Concerning Mr Wilcannia-Smythe
IT was not possible for anyone seated on the house veranda to observe Miss Pinkney and Bony peering over the division fence. The evening being far advanced, the gloom beneath the lilac-trees was too profound for such observation, and consequently Bony was amused by the excessive caution displayed by his fellow spy.
Miss Pinkney became a little more daring. She raised her face high enough to rest her chin upon the hands clasped to the fence.
“What’s he doing there?” she whispered, without moving her head.
“Merely looking at the mountain, I think.”
“I can see that, stupid.”
Before the surprise occasioned by the epithet took full effect on Bony, Miss Pinkney stood straight up and impulsively turned to him.
“Oh, Mr Bonaparte, I’m so sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t mean to say that. Indeed, I didn’t. It must have been my brother in me. I was so intensely absorbed in that man on the veranda.”
“It’s nothing, Miss Pinkney,” he assured her. “Look now! He’s left his chair.”
Miss Pinkney again crouched and gazed towards the house. Wilcannia-Smythe, if indeed it was that well-known author, was moving towards the five wide steps down to the lawn. He came down the steps without revealing evidence of either haste or a desire not to be seen. He sauntered across the lawn towards the writing-room. It was still light enough for the watchers to see him quite clearly, and Bony now recognized Wilcannia-Smythe by the description of him in the summary.
It became quickly obvious that he was making for Mervyn Blake’s writing-room, to reach which he would necessarily pass the watchers within ten or a dozen paces. Gradually the two heads sank behind the division fence, and the watchers were compelled to be content with narrow chinks between the boards.
They were unable to see Wilcannia-Smythe actually enter the small building since the door was on its far side, but as he did not re-appear beyond thebuilding, both decided that he had entered.
“What has he gone in there for?” breathed Miss Pinkney.
“It’s difficult to tell,” Bony answered, actually more interested in Miss Pinkney’s fierce excitement than in the meanderings of Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, which were probably quite legitimate. “I am wondering if the door was locked and he had a key. I believe you said that the only occupant of the house, now that Mrs Blake is away, is the cook.”
“And she’sout, I’m sure, Mr Bonaparte. I heard the picture bus stop at the comer. I know she very often goes both on Wednesdays and Saturdays. D’youthink that person is up to no good?”
“I wouldn’t venture an opinion just yet,” Bony said, and neither spoke again for at least four minutes during which period the last of the light faded out of the sky. Then he said, “I wonder if Mrs Blake has returned home. I can see no light in this side of the house.”
“She can’t be home,” declared Miss Pinkney. “I would have heard her car.”
A speculation was born in Bony’s mind as to how much of the local life was registered by Miss Pinkney’s ears in addition to her eyes.
“Whereabouts are the kitchen and the maids’ room, do you know?” he asked.
“On the far side of the house. The domestics’ bedroom is next to the kitchen.” Controlled by mounting excitement, Miss Pinkney clasped Bony’s arm. “Do you think-oh, what are you thinking? Look! Look at the window.”
The window was presented obliquely to them, but they could see the reflection of an electric torch beyond the glass. Not once in two minutes did the beam fall directly upon the window, and Bony at last decided that Wilcannia-Smythe was not this time an invited guest.
“I’d like to see what he’s doing,” he murmured, and instantly Miss Pinkney voiced agreement with him.
“Would you stay here on guard if I went over to find out?” he asked.
“Of course. I’ll caterwaul like Mr Pickwick if I see any danger. I don’t know where he is. I think he went up into the trees.”
“I’ll go over the fence. You stay right here and don’t move away.”
Again Miss Pinkney impulsively clutched his arm, saying, “Don’t climb the fence. It’s too frail. It might collapse under your weight. I know where there are three loose boards. I’ll show you.”
She was down off the case before he could begin the movement, and she led him along the fence and nearer to the house next door until she halted where sagging boards offered him access to the next garden.
Recalling that he was supposed to be an ordinary citizen, he said dubiously, “I suppose it will be all right. It would be most awkward if someone found me in there. Anyway, I’ll just see what the fellow is doing. You be sure to remain on guard. I’ll not be long.”
Bony stepped through the hole in the fence. Beneath the trees the darkness was complete, and he moved away, not towards the writing-room but towards the large house, keeping well within the darkness provided by the lilac-trees.
Eventually he came to a soft gravel path laid between the fence and the house and bordered by standard roses. This gave place to an open space which he was sure although he could not see, was the dr
iveway from the gate to the front entrance. There was no light in any of the front rooms or the hall. He passed across the front of the house and then could make out the outline of the garage beyond it. Another path led along the far side of the house where the kitchen and the maids’ room were. Still he could see no light, and he became sure that there was no one in the house.
The presence and activities of Mr Wilcannia-Smythe were now of decided interest. He proceeded to investigate.
Stepping on to the lawn he was able to reach the writing-room without making a betraying sound, confident that now not even Miss Pinkney could see him. The door was closed, an exceedingly faint line of light at its foot. He ran his hand softly over the door and found the Yale lock.
Crouching against the wall, he edged round the corner and so came to the window, drawing near to it with caution until he was able, with one eye, to peer round its frame into the room beyond.
Mr Wilcannia-Smythe was seated at a large writing table and reading what appeared to be typescript. For the purpose, he was using a small electric torch, and he was wearing kid gloves.
The window was not fitted with a blind, neither was it guarded by curtains. Bony could make out the shape of a typewriter on a small table immediately below the window. He could see several cases of books black against the cream walls. On the writing table rested a kerosene power lamp.
Presently Wilcannia-Smythe pushed aside the typescript and rose to cross over to one of the bookcases. It was obvious that he was careful not to direct the beam of the torch towards either the ceiling or the window, and, arrived at the bookcase, he moved the beam to read the titles of the books on the several shelves. There were four such cases, open-fronted, and his torch beam crossed the back of every book in the four cases.
What he hoped to find was not among the books, and he began with the drawers at each end of the writing table. Methodically he went through the contents of drawer after drawer until he paused to examine a substantial note-book. This he placed on the typescript and took no further trouble with the contents of the remaining drawers.
Bony thought then that the reason for Wilcannia-Smythe’s clandestine visit was accomplished and that the fellow would leave. Instead, he went back to the bookcases, beginning with that nearest the door and passing from it to the next, where he selected a book and looked between its covers with his back to the window and the torch set at a useful angle on top of the bookcase.
Though Bony’s mind was busy with surmises as to the whys and wherefores of this visit to a dead man’s room when the dead man’s wife was absent from home, and the one domestic away at the local pictures, there was still room in it to wonder how Miss Pinkney was enduring her vigil. Through the silent night came the noise of a laden timber truck and the comparatively musical humming of a car approaching from the direction of the city.
The timber truck passed on its way up the long hill. Its noise was diminishing and that of the car increasing until abruptly the car was braked and its lights temporarily illumined the lilac-tree along Miss Pinkney’s fence, and stopped before Mrs Blake’s front gate.
Somewhere among the lilac-trees a cat began to caterwaul. Bony decided that if the excruciating cacophony was being produced by Miss Pinkney, she was indeed an excellent animal mimic. The car was being driven in through the gate, and almost immediately the lights swung right, were masked by the house, and then were reflected by trees growing behind the garage. The engine was switched off. The cat was working up to a perfectly rendered feline love-song.
Strangely enough, Wilcannia-Smythe evinced no consciousness of the caterwauling or of the arrival of someone at the house in a car. He showed no perturbation and continued with his reading of the volume he had taken from the bookcase.
Bony was compelled to divide his attention between the man inside the writing-room and the person who had arrived. The alleged cat was continuing its uproar, and then was joined by a second cat. The duet made a realistic sound record of hell, but if Wilcannia-Smythe heard it, he took no notice. The book apparently had captivatedall his mind.
A light was lit in one of the rooms off the rear veranda, the white light of a kerosene pressure lamp. The cook had probably returned with a friend, Bony thought, until he recalled that the car had come from the direction of the city and that the cook had gone to the pictures at Warburton, in the opposite direction.
The feline love song continued unabated and with extraordinary verve. A door of the house was opened, and after a period of three seconds was slammed shut. That sound brought Wilcannia-Smythe from out the pages of the book. He came swiftly to the window. He must have seen the light in the house, for now he moved rapidly and with precision.
The wad of typescript he folded and slipped into an inside pocket. The note-book went into the same pocket. The reading glasses were swiftly removed and almost jammed into their case and the case into a side pocket. He went back for the torch and switched it off one second after Bony saw a handkerchief on the desk.
Bony crept to the corner of the building and waited. He was in time to hear the door being opened. Then came the sound of the key being placed into the lock, and the door finally closed gently with the key, preventing the lock making any sound.
Bony drifted noiselessly back along the wall, passing the window, stopping only when he reached the rear corner where he went to ground and turned up the collar of his coat and screwed his eyes so that their whites could not show. In this position, he saw the black form of Wilcannia-Smythe against the sky as it moved away from the writing-room to the lawn.
Wilcannia-Smythe was engulfed by the night and Bony waited a full minute before he proceeded to walk over the lawn towards the house. He was mid-way across it when the cats ceased their imitation of a torture chamber. He was at that side of the house nearest Miss Pinkney’s fence when the car engine broke into its murmur of power and, hurrying forward, he was in time to see it being driven into the garage.
Its lights, reflected by the far wall of the garage, faintly illumined the driveway and the front of the house, and his keen eyes searched the scene for the presence of Wilcannia-Smythe and failed to discover him. Then the car lights were switched off, a door banged, a torch was switched on and he saw the figure of a woman walking to the doors, which she proceeded to close and lock.
There was no cause for doubting that she was Mrs Mervyn Blake. Had Mrs Blake returned unexpected by Mr Wilcannia-Smythe? It seemed obvious that she had.
Aided by her torch, Mrs Blake entered the house by the front door, closing and locking it after her. Cautiously Bony walked on the fine gravel of the driveway to the garage side of the house and proceeded along that side to where the light from the unmasked window laid a brilliant swathe across the path.
Mrs Blake was inside watching the lighted spirit heat a primus stove. She was hatless, but was wearing a light coat. Her description matched that given of Mrs Blake in the police summary. The spirit died, and she pumped the stove, placing on it a tin kettle. Then she left the kitchen and Bony waited.
The night was utterly quiet. He continued to wait, his eyes roving the dark garden and his ear attuned to catch the least sound indicative of the presence of Wilcannia-Smythe. He saw nothing and heard nothing. Presently steam issued from the kettle and shortly afterwards Mrs Blake appeared and made tea. She placed a cup and saucer on a tray, added a jug of milk and a basin of sugar, and departed.
Bony reasoned that if Mr Wilcannia-Smythe was a guest and was inside the house Mrs Blake would have placed two cups and saucers on her tray. A few seconds later she entered the kitchen again, this time to turn out the lamp. Bony decided to return to Miss Pinkney and allay her curiosity with a partial outline of what he had seen.
Without difficulty, he found the hole in the division fence. Once inside Miss Pinkney’s garden, he walked along the fence to the banana case. Miss Pinkney was not there. He called her name, softly, and received no reply.
The rear of the house was in darkness. On going round to the f
ront he was astonished to see no light in any of the rooms or in the hall. He passed up the steps to the veranda, crossed it to the front door, and found it wide open. In the doorway he stood listening. He could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the dining-room, and the faint ticking of a smaller clock distant in the bowels of the dark house.
With matches, he lighted his way to his bedroom where he found his torch. With that to help him, he went from room to room calling Miss Pinkney’s name, not hesitating to enter even the bedroom she occupied. He became most uneasy. Miss Pinkney was nowhere in the house. Mr Pickwick was; Bony met him in the passage.
Chapter Five
The Amateur Sleuth
HAVING found out the mechanism of the ship’s lamp and lit it, Bony occupied a chair on the front veranda and rolled a cigarette. Miss Pinkney’s disappearance was extremely odd, for she had promised to remain at the fence until he rejoined her.
When at the expiration of five minutes Miss Pinkney was still absent, he left his chair and took the path to the rear fence. He recalled that she had been wearing a dark-grey suit and light stockings which, he knew, would be easily distinguishable if he came across her body… It was by no means likely, but still…
On reaching the banana case, he proceeded along the fence to the gap through which he had entered the garden next door, and then onward until he came to the corner of Miss Pinkney’s garden that was roughly in alignment with the rear veranda of the Blake’s house. Beyond that corner was a vacant allotment.
The lamp was still alight in the room opening on the rear veranda, and had not the disappearance of Miss Pinkney become a matter of urgency, he would have taken a second walk round the house that evening. He returned to the banana case and as far as the opposite corner without finding any trace of his landlady.
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