An Author Bites the Dust

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Simes pointed it out as the tree used to secure Wilcannia-Smythe, and then braked his car to a halt.

  “The car that brought him here stopped half a dozen yards farther on,” the constable said. “It was turned round half-way along that stretch of road where gravel was once dug out of the hill-side for the track. Jenks had to turn there, too. As I told you, his camp is half a mile up along the road.”

  “Let us relax,” Bony said, and it was a command.

  This was a page of the Book of the Bush with which he was unfamiliar, and it occurred to him that Constable Simes and Jenks might prove to be better trackers than himself in this class of country. Accustomed to the interior and its limitless plains and mulga belts, its gibber deserts and sandy wastes, here Bony was in an entirely different country and might have been on a different planet.

  Requesting Simes to remain in the car, he alighted and went forward to examine the place where the abductors’ car had stopped and they with their victim had alighted. From this point to the tree high on the slope, human feet had laid ribbons of darker green on the floor of closely-growing bracken, and presently Simes watched Bony zig-zagging to and fro across these ribbons as he mounted the slope. Then, having arrived at the solitary tree, Bony circled it several times, finally leaning with his back against the great trunk.

  So clear was the air, Simes could observe Bony roll a cigarette and then, having lit the weed and pocketed the spent match, move out of sight behind the tree, remaining hidden for almost a minute. On reappearing, he came striding down the slope, the bracken to his waist so that he might have been wading in green dye. On reaching the car, he got in and slammed the door.

  “You were right,” he said. “Both men wore size seven boots or shoes. Neither was a big man and neither was a tall man. The left leg of one man is slightly shorter than his right, and he is not a bushman because he places both heels as one used to walking on hard pavements. The other man is stouter, for his stride is a fraction shorter. He is slightly pigeon-toed and he has a corn on the fore-part of his right foot. Also, the lace of the right shoe or boot was undone.”

  “Gosh!” Simes exclaimed. “Dinkum?”

  “I might have read more clearly had it not been for the bracken,” Bony said. “Your friend Jenks is at least six feet tall, weighs something like sixteen stone, chews tobacco, has grey hair and has done a great deal of riding.”

  “The exact picture,” the astonished Simes admitted.

  “By the way, you had an accident when your right ankle was injured.”

  “No, never. You’re mistaken there.”

  “Am I? You astonish me. Alas, I am growing old and my sight is failing. I hope my brain is not failing, too. Let us return. My dear man, a really gifted aboriginal tracker could have added much to what I’ve been able to read. In comparison, I am a novice. Quite sure you never hurt your right ankle—say when you were a lad?”

  “Yes, quite sure,” Simes answered, now frowning. “Would you recognize those tracks if you came across them tomorrow or next week?”

  “I would know them if I saw them again next year. You see, Simes, no two men walk alike. The Law says ‘by their deeds shall criminals be known’. I say, by their foot-marks shall I know them. Do you think you could obtain some plaster of paris?”

  “I could.”

  “Then you drive back and get it. We’ll make casts of those human tracks and the tracks made by the car tyres. Judges and juries are Doubting Thomases. I’ll wait here.”

  Simes was back within twenty minutes, and then watched Bony make plaster casts, watched him lift them when dry and pencil data upon each.

  “I have quite a collection at home,” Bony said, and then added after one of his little dramatic pauses, “made by the boots and shoes of men who have hanged or gone to prison for many years.”

  On arriving back at Yarrabo, Bony suggested that Simes should drive direct into the open garage behind the police station, and they were about to emerge when Mrs Farn appeared, carrying a watering can.

  “Thank you for that delightful afternoon tea,” Bony said to her. “I find your Victorian summer very humid and minddulling. I have been reading tracks, and then I discovered that your tea stimulated my brain to the extent that I misread only once—according to your brother.”

  Simes chuckled, saying, “Read mine and said I had had an accident once to my ankle.”

  “And so you did,” snapped Mrs Farn. “You were playing football when it happened. It was five years ago when Yarrabo was playing Yarra Junction. You were laid up for a week.”

  “Well, by gosh, so I did!” Simes almost shouted.

  “The effect of your afternoon tea was even better than I was led to think, Mrs Farn,” said the delighted Bony, and left them to call on Dr Fleetwood.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ping-pong Balls

  Dr Fleetwood himself answered Bony’s knock, conducting him this time to his den and inviting him to be seated before a single-paned window overlooking a well-kept garden. The doctor at once concentrated on the subject of the grey powder with which, it was evident, he was deeply concerned.

  “I am regretting that I’m not a toxicologist,” he said. “I got so far as proving that the powder you left with me is animal residue. I thought at first it was chalk, which is compact limestone composed chiefly of the shells of rhizopods. I might be able to tell you more if you gave me details of its history, where you found it and under what circumstances.”

  “Then it is not poisonous?”

  The thin lips were compressed into a faint line. Then, “I placed a little of the powder on a lettuce leaf and gave it to a rabbit. The animal shows no signs of distress or even discomfort. This morning I prepared an alcoholic extract which I injected into another rabbit. That rabbit died within half an hour.”

  Bony’s gaze was removed from the thin, pale face of the speaker to the garden beyond the window. The silence within the room was emphasized by the ticking of a small clock somewhere behind him.

  “How much of the powder did you use in the extract?” he asked.

  “Slightly more than half of the quantity in the envelope.”

  “Of itself, therefore, the powder is non-poisonous?”

  “It has produced no signs of poison in the rabbit that ate it.”

  “Might it be poisonous to human beings?”

  “In the form of alcoholic extract, probably.”

  “Pardon me if I appear unduly persistent,” Bony said. “You are sure that the powder is neither mineral nor vegetable in origin?”

  “I am sure on that point, yes.”

  “Do you think a toxicologist could determine what it is?”

  “I believe he could,” replied the doctor. “Anyway, if you permitted me to send the remainder of the powder to Professor Ericson, of the University, he would inform us. Ericson is a personal friend of mine. He has command of laboratory equipment far beyond the means of the ordinary medical practitioner.”

  “H’m!” Bony pondered. “I would not like to place you in the position of wasting the professor’s time with a common and innocuous substance.”

  “I think it is neither common nor innocuous,” asserted the doctor.

  “Very well, doctor. Please send the remainder of the substance to the Professor. It will be interesting to know what it is, and when we do know I will tell you where I found it. It’s likely that we’ll have a good hearty laugh over it, and then apologize to Professor Ericson for wasting his time.” He rose to his feet, and said, “I’m sorry I cannot take you fully into my confidence about the Blake case. The autopsy revealed a foreign substance in the dead man’s viscera, but the substance is not stated in the report and therefore could not have been considered toxic. If, let us assume, Mervyn Blake had consumed some of that powder just before he died, would the autopsy reveal it as a foreign substance?”

  “I don’t think so. Being animal residue, it would be digested as is meat.” The doctor paused, before adding, “I do not believe
that the foreign substance reported by the toxicologist is the same as the powder you brought to me.”

  “Thank you.” Bony turned to the door and the doctor stepped past him to open it. “I would be glad if you would answer a straight question,” he said. “Do you believe that Mervyn Blake was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “On what do you base your opinion?”

  “Mainly upon the rapid onslaught of his illness, and that in relation to his general health, which was reasonably good for a man of his age and habits—and also on my belief that someone entered the room after he died and left it before day broke the following morning.”

  “Thank you again, doctor.” Bony glanced into the grey eyes of this studious-looking medico, and suddenly smiled. “Inspector Snook has a habit of putting people’s backs up,” he said. “Once he raised the hackles on my neck. I’d be delighted if we made a fool of him. Good-bye! I’ll be glad to have Professor Ericson’s report when it reaches you. Ah! I hear the evening train coming in. I must get along or Miss Pinkney will wonder where I’ve been in Yarrabo.”

  “Good night, and all the best,” Fleetwood said from his doorstep, and Bony made his way to the front gate and set off up the long road gradient. On rounding the turn, he met Constable Simes.

  “Been waiting for you,” Simes said. “Wilcannia-Smythe has cleared out. I was down at the station when the five forty to the city came in, and there in a window seat was our friend, and on the rack above him several of his suitcases. When I asked him if he was leaving us for good, he said he was, and if I wanted his address in Sydney it could be found in any Who’s Who.”

  “Well, well, well!” Bony exclaimed. “And I’ve been promised a letter of introduction to him. Too bad. Never mind, Simes. We can lay him by the heels should it ever be necessary. Do your best to trace the car in spite of the fact that Wilcannia-Smythe was unable to tell us anything but that it was, to use his own words, a dark-looking sedan. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to the thought that he was abducted to get him out of the way for the night. If I hadn’t the evidence of those tracks I might think he had put over a tale of woe, or got himself tied up in order to gain a little publicity.”

  Simes grinned in his peculiar manner, and asked, “Get along all right with the doctor?”

  Bony nodded. “Very well. I like him. I think he will cure me.” Then came the sudden flashing smile. “Don’t be impatient, Simes. I promise you you shall know everything long before Inspector Snook does.”

  Five minutes later, he was met by Miss Pinkney in the hall of her cottage, a smile of welcome banishing the years from her unadorned face.

  “You poor man!” she exclaimed. “You must be hot and tired after your day in the city. When I heard the train come in, I made a pot of tea and I’ve put it on the table in your room. Dinner will be ready in half an hour, so there’s really no need to hurry.”

  “I thank you,” he said in a manner conveying how touched he was by her kindness. “Oh! I did manage to buy Mr Pickwick a few ping-pong balls.”

  He gave her three celluloid spheres, and she asserted that Mr Pickwick could play with only one, and flushed prettily as though the gift was to herself. While standing by the little table and sipping the tea she had provided, he thought of her, and the tragedy that had blighted her life. The reflected sunset tints from Donna Buang filled the room with colour, dyeing the bed sheets and pillows, and the cloth upon the table, laying upon his dark hands a purple mist.

  “Now the day is ending and night is drawing nigh, with all the glory of the earth enthroned against the sky,” he parodied and then, softly chuckling, he went on, “Not bad, that. I must practise. I may even become a poet.”

  He opened the subject of the ping-pong ball shortly after he sat down to dinner with his hostess.

  “How long ago was it that Mr Pickwick found that ball?” he asked.

  “Oh, he’s had it for months. I forget just when he found it.”

  “Was it before Mr Blake died?”

  “Yes. Oh yes, months before then. Sometimes he lost it and then would come and tell me so. I’d forget about it and, suddenly, he would bring it to lay at my feet to toss for him.”

  “Were the Blakes keen players?”

  “She was. I never once saw Mr Blake playing.”

  “Did Mr Pickwick have his ball when the Spanish gentleman was staying there?” pressed Bony, in an effort to establish about when the cat had found that particular ball.

  Miss Pinkney pleaded for time to think. Presently she said, “It was a long time after he was there. The Spanish gentleman was staying there last summer. Mr Pickwick found the ball—oh, damn it, why can’t I remember? Yes, I do. He found the ball round about Easter time.”

  “He’s had it a long time, hasn’t he? Did you ever hear the Spanish gentleman’s name?”

  “No. They used to call him ‘doctor’.” Miss Pinkney laughed. “He was a funny little man,” she cried. “He would dance up and down when he played, and blow out his cheeks and make faces. But my word, he could play! So could Miss Chesterfield and Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, and several other people they had staying with them.”

  “No one inquired about the ball Mr Pickwick brought home?”

  “Oh no.”

  “You didn’t happen to see anyone making determined efforts to find it, I suppose?”

  “Of course not, Mr Bonaparte,” she replied, colour mounting into her face. “If anyone had hunted for it, I should have returned it. They often lost one, I think, and never bothered to look carefully for it.”

  “Hardly worth the trouble. They are not expensive and appear to be plentiful.”

  “But they weren’t plentiful last year, and for years before last year,” asserted Miss Pinkney. “I know, because I tried to buy ping-pong balls for our young men’s club at the church. You see, when my brother developed thrombosis, I gave our table to the vicar. Poor man, ping-pong was my brother’s favourite form of exercise. I used to play with him quite a lot, especially after he retired.” Miss Pinkney laughed again, and the swift change from sadness to gaiety was startling. “He would get so angry if he mis-hit a ball that he would pick it up and smash it against a wall or something, and rant and rave about getting old. You would have liked him, Mr Bonaparte. So downright in his opinions. So able at expressing himself.”

  “H’m! Such an illness must have been a great trial for him.”

  “Oh yes, it was, poor man. It was a trial for me, too.”

  “When did he retire from the sea?”

  “In 1938. He went down in 1941 to thrombosis—and a broken heart. He wanted to go back to sea, and no one would give him a command. Some men are like that, you know. They won’t grow old gracefully. A war or something happens, and they think they can go to it as though they were twenty. I believe in being one’s age, don’t you?”

  “Up to a point, yes,” Bony admitted. “Your brother must have missed his ping-pong.”

  “Oh yes, he did. He ranted and raved at me for giving the table away, but I told him he couldn’t play and I couldn’t play by myself. And he said he wouldn’t have let thrombosis stop him, and all that kind of nonsense. Anyway, we had come down to our last ball, and there was no hope of getting new ones. Then, when I gave the table to the vicar, I couldn’t find that last ball, though I hunted high and low for it.”

  “It wasn’t the ball found by Mr Pickwick?”

  “No. He didn’t find that one. I got rid of the table early in ’42, and my brother died late that year. Besides,” Miss Pinkney added triumphantly, “all the balls we had were marked. My brother marked the balls with an ink-spot immediately he received them. He always bought them from Lavrette Frères, in Marseilles. He said they were the only balls that could stand up to his play. Do offer me a cigarette.” Bony presented his own case, in which he kept cigarettes for very special occasions.

  “Try one of these,” he urged, his eyes twinkling. “They are supplied to me by my pet black marketeer. I unders
tand that he obtains them from Parliament House. Naturally they are very good.”

  “What lovely fat ones!” Miss Pinkney cooed, and Bony held a match in service. He continued to press his questions, having no particular object in mind.

  “It didn’t occur to me that the strength of ping-pong balls varied so much,” he said. “Where did the Blakes purchase their balls, I wonder, when it was so hard to procure them in Australia?”

  “I don’t know, Mr Bonaparte. I think the Spanish gentleman brought some with him. I know he brought his own bats because I saw and heard him speaking about them. Such a funny little man. My! This is a lovely cigarette.”

  They went on to talk of the unwarranted shortage of tobacco, and to laugh good-humouredly at the naive excuses put over by statesmen who seem to think their victims have no intelligence. Miss Pinkney became a vocal butterfly flying from one flower-subject to another, and for an hour Bony listened and enjoyed it.

  On rising from the table, he begged to be excused to write letters. In his cool and quiet bedroom, he took from his suitcase the crushed ping-pong ball and held it close to the table lamp. There was no ink-spot on it, no evidence to his sharp eyes that there had ever been one. There was neither maker’s name nor mark.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Checkmated

  During the night it rained heavily, and when Bony left the house to saunter in Miss Pinkney’s garden after breakfast, he was welcomed by a revivified world. The wind coming from the south was cool and tempering to the sun. The birds were active and happy. And D.I. Napoleon Bonaparte was thoroughly enjoying his holiday.