An Author Bites the Dust

by Arthur W. Upfield

  Fleetwood turned and regarded Bony who, having replaced the instrument, was rising from the chair. The words “never fail” seemed to echo from the recesses of the room, appeared to be taken up by the clock in its refrain, tick-tick, never-fail, never-fail. The slim, dark man with the brilliant blue eyes smiled at the doctor, and it was obvious that he guessed that the phrase had stuck in the doctor’s mind.

  “A man may commit all the crimes on the calendar, but one, and get away with it provided he is clever enough or the investigator stupid enough,” Bony said gravely. “The exception is murder. Murderers who get away with their crime are fortunate only in that the investigator is stupid. Their escape is never due to their own inherent cleverness. You will understand, therefore, why I never fail to unmask a murderer. I am not stupid.”

  “You are confident that you will unmask the murderer of Mervyn Blake?”

  “I am. I’ll tell you why. When you examine a patient and find a case of pneumonia, you know precisely what course the illness will follow. Murder is a disease. The act is the second symptom, the first being the thought in the mind of the murderer. Broadly speaking, every human being who commits homicide will react in the same way and proceed to act along similar lines. When you deal with a case of pneumonia, you take certain steps to arrest the progress of the disease. When I deal with a case of murder, I await the inevitable developments provided not so much by what I discover about the act of murder but by what the murderer subsequently gives me by his acts. If a murderer would only stop still immediately after committing his crime, I might sometimes fail. If a murderer could expunge from his mind the crime he had committed, I should often fail.”

  “Probably sound philosophy,” conceded Dr Fleetwood.

  “When I say I never fail to finalize a case of homicide please do not think me vain, nor think I am super-intelligent. Now I must go. Thank you, doctor, for your help. You would, I think, be assisting the cause of justice by delaying the sending of the report to the Coroner as long as you can. I shall personally thank Professor Ericson.”

  On his way up the road Bony called at the police station, where he found Simes in his shirt sleeves and engaged with his interminable reports.

  “Hullo!” exclaimed the constable. “Absent without leave last night and this morning. Where’ve you been?”

  “Visiting relatives,” Bony replied, smilingly. “Any news items for me?”

  “Nothing. Have you seen the doctor?”

  “Just left him. D’you know the result of the post mortem?”

  “Yes. What’s in your mind about it? Walsh poisoned to cover up the killing of Blake?”

  “Perhaps.” Bony sank into the vacant chair and rolled a cigarette. “You knew Walsh better than I. Think he was capable of blackmail?”

  Simes took six or seven seconds to decide his answer.

  “I knew Walsh for a number of years. In spite of that money under his floor, I don’t think he would come at blackmail. He was content to live simply, and he earned very good money, sufficient to provide him with plenty of grog.”

  “Nevertheless, Simes, it would seem that Walsh knew who poisoned Blake, and he permitted the murderer to know he knew and what he knew. I am going back to sit under Miss Pinkney’s lilac-trees and read more of that novel by I.R. Watts. I am expecting a call from Superintendent Bolt, and I am also expecting a telegram from the C.I.B., Sydney. Will you be out this afternoon?”

  “No. I’ll wait for the call, and the telegram. Have you been to Sydney?”

  “Yes. Went after Wilcannia-Smythe. He stuck to the story that he didn’t know the men who abducted him. They tied him up for the night so that they, or someone in collusion with them, could go through his luggage and take a notebook and pages of typescript that belonged to Mervyn Blake. Wilcannia-Smythe couldn’t make any objection because he stole the notebook and papers from. Blake’s writing-room.”

  “What the heck was in the note-book to cause all that?”

  “I think it was a story of removing unwanted persons with coffin dust. Wilcannia-Smythe swears he knows nothing of such a story, and I’m inclined to believe him. Still, the case is proceeding nicely, Simes, and at any time now we’ll get together and write our report on it. How are you with that typewriter?”

  “A bit slow, but I can take notes in shorthand.”

  “Excellent!”

  “Think you’ll be able to put one over on Snook?” Simes asked, grinning.

  Bony turned at the door, saying, his eyes bright, “We already have material sufficient for that most pleasurable occupation. Au revoir! Don’t miss the super’s call. You know where to find me.”

  Arrived at Miss Pinkney’s gate, Bony glanced at the sun, estimating the time to be a few minutes past three. The grandfather clock in the hall was striking the hour as he entered, and he looked at his wrist watch and smiled when he found that his estimate was only two minutes out and that the clock was seven minutes slow.

  Hearing his footsteps, Miss Pinkney appeared.

  “Oh! There you are, Mr Bonaparte. The kettle’s nearly boiling. Where would you like to have your afternoon tea? I have to go out to a committee meeting at the Vicarage.”

  “Then don’t bother, Miss Pinkney,” he told her. “I can make the tea all right. I was thinking of having a cold shower and then taking a book to read under the lilac-trees.”

  “Yes, do. It’s beautifully cool there. You have your shower, and I’ll leave the tea-tray on the table I took to the lilac-trees this morning. Dear me! I mustn’t forget the little notes I wrote of what I have to say about the street stall. Yes, you run along. You must be hot and thirsty, you poor man.”

  He was under the shower when she knocked at the door and called that she had taken the tray to the lilac-trees and that he was not to dawdle or the tea would be cold, and that there was more hot water in the kettle and he was not to worry about dinner as she would be back in an hour. In order to listen to her, he had turned off the shower, and so was able to hear her quick steps fading along the passage and finally across the front veranda.

  Ten minutes later, dressed in open-necked silk shirt and grey flannel slacks, he left the house with The Vengeance of Master Atherton in one hand and cigarette makings in the other.

  It was then half past three, and the call from Superintendent Bolt could be expected at any minute. To know where Watts lived, or to know who I.R. Watts really was, if it were a pen name, would enable him to advance a step farther. And there were grounds to hope that the reply of the Bogota police to his cabled message would enable him to take yet another step. Meanwhile, he could relax and read The Vengeance of Master Atherton for his entertainment.

  What a woman was this Priscilla Pinkney! She had placed the table in the deepest shade of the lilac-trees, and beside it was a cushioned chair. The afternoon tea-tray on the table was extremely inviting. The sight of the banana case against the fence beyond the table recalled to mind that late dusk wherein he had stood with her looking over the fence.

  The chair was placed just right, the light to pour over a shoulder that he might read. Then his toes tingled, and a little current ran up his spine to lodge in his scalp. Without haste, he lowered himself into the chair, and putting the book down on the table beside the tray, he proceeded to make a cigarette, his fingers working blindly, for on the ground about the chair and table were the imprints of boots or shoes size seven, the wearer being pigeon-toed and having a corn on the fore-part of the right foot.

  Miss Pinkney had been wearing a size five shoe with Cuban heels.

  The man who wore the size seven boots or shoes had placed his feet over the tracks made by Miss Pinkney when she brought the tea-tray, placed it on the table, and arranged the chair.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Putting it Over

  The prints on the soft cinder path came from and returned to the hole in Miss Pinkney’s back fence.

  Bony completed the manufacture of his cigarette, applied a match to it with casual deliberat
ion, and then became interested in Mr Pickwick, who was lying full-length along a branch overhead. Having called Mr Pickwick, and been acknowledged by a soft “mirrill”, he rose from his chair and strolled to the fence. He looked through an opening between the palings into the neighbouring garden.

  There was no man to be seen there. On the rear veranda of the house were three women. They were seated at afternoon tea. Mrs Blake was entertaining Ella Montrose and Nancy Chesterfield. Between the house and the fence the sunlight was a glare upon the lawn, and Bony felt sure that were he to raise himself to look over the fence and along it he would not be observed by those on the veranda.

  The man who had visited Miss Pinkney’s garden within the last several minutes could hardly have passed out of Mrs Blake’s garden without being seen by one of the ladies on the veranda, and he might well be crouched just beyond the fence or be concealed on the far side of the writing-room.

  Bony hauled himself up by the tree branch on which Mr Pickwick was lying, and swung himself slightly forward so that he brought his feet to the fence and then could look right along it within the deep shade cast by the trees. There was no one there.

  Only Mr Pickwick had seen the man, and Mr Pickwick was not at all happy about it. When Bony dropped back again to Miss Pinkney’s garden, the cat still declined to come down.

  “Another stupid killer,” murmured Bony. “It’s enough to make the sun go out.”

  Picking up the tray, he started off for the house and was almost at the kitchen entrance when Constable Simes came running round the side garden.

  “The super’s on the phone,” he cried.

  “Ah! Good! I’ll come along at once,” Bony said. “Here, take this jug of milk and the sugar basin. I’ll bring the pot of tea. The tray and cakes will be all right on the step. Come along! And don’t spill that milk or the sugar out of the basin.”

  Two men, a truck driver, and several women were astonished to see Constable Simes and a slim, dark man running down the road and holding to their fronts a teapot, a milk-jug, and a sugar basin. Before Constable Simes realized the incongruity, he was being ordered to take extreme care not to upset the milk-jug and the sugar basin over his office desk, and from them and the teapot he looked up to see Bony slump into his chair and seize the telephone.

  “Yes, Bony here, super. Good! Oh! So that is who I.R. Watts is, eh! No, I am not greatly surprised. Oh, yes! Yes! Ah, but then, you see, one adds a chance word or two to another chance word or two, and it makes sense. Yes, life is moving along nicely. I shall begin my report on the investigation this evening. I may begin it this afternoon. Thanks, super.”

  Having replaced the instrument, Bony rose from the chair and regarded Constable Simes with eyes that positively shone from a face, otherwise devoid of expression.

  “Take the phone, Simes. Ring up Fleetwood. Ask him to come here at once.”

  He stood in the doorway whilst Simes rang the doctor. Beyond the doorway ran the length of the veranda fronting the house and in turn fronted by the little garden of flowers. Simes could see Bony’s fingers slowly clenching and unclenching. The back was straight and the shoulders set square. He could not see the dark face—the lips lifted slightly, the nostrils gently quivering, as though they smelled blood or the scent of the hunted.

  “The doctor says he will come directly he has completed his examination of a patient,” Simes announced.

  He thought Bony had not heard him, and he was about to speak again, when Bony turned and came swiftly back to the desk. He drew the visitor’s chair to it and sat down.

  “Get your paper and pencils,” he said. “We’ll begin the report.”

  Simes took to his chair and from a drawer pulled out foolscap and set it on the blotter, picked up a pencil and waited with the pencil poised.

  “Date it today,” Bony said, the sharpness gone out of his voice. “Head it the usual way—to Superintendent Bolt from Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Sir, Reference, death of Mervyn Blake on night of 9th November and other matters. Having on 3rd January, approximately two months after Mervyn Blake died, accepted from you the commission to investigate the circumstances of Blake’s death, I studied your departmental official file and the summary of the case prepared by Inspector Snook. On the following day I conferred with Senior Constable Robert Simes, stationed at Yarrabo, bringing into discussion all—underline “all”—the circumstances under which Mervyn Blake was found on the morning of 10th November.

  “Mervyn Blake was discovered dead on the floor just inside the closed door of his writing-room. The expression on the features of the dead man, the position in which he lay, and the fact that the door was closed, indicated that he was suddenly seized with mortal illness and had attempted to leave the writing-room for help. The state of his fingers, plus the marks of finger-nails on the door, indicated that the last paroxysm prevented him from opening the door.

  “When the body was examined, firstly by Dr Fleetwood and secondly by Constable Simes, it was seen that the rain of the previous night had slanted in through the open doorway and wetted the floor covering about the head and shoulders of the body as well as the dead man’s hair and clothes.

  “It was assumed by Constable Simes and Dr Fleetwood that after Mervyn Blake died someone entered the room, left the door open, remained in the room for probably a minute or two minutes whilst it was raining, and then departed after closing the door. This theory was countered by another put forward by the investigating officer. The opposing theory was that Blake managed to unlatch the door and thrust it open in his last physical effort, and that subsequently the wind blew it shut. Strength was given this opposing theory by, one, the negative report of the analyst, and, two, by the meteorological report stating that the wind velocity that night was twenty miles an hour and gusty.

  “That a weather report of conditions in Melbourne, situated on a plain, should be relied upon to indicate the weather conditions at Yarrabo, forty odd miles distant, and partially surrounded by mountains, seems at variance with the practice of crime investigation. On checking up on the weather conditions at Yarrabo, I found that the wind that night was exceedingly light, and at no time could the wind be described as gusty. Therefore the theory put forward by Constable Simes being supported by fact urged me to prosecute my inquiries and to discard the official theory because unsupported by fact.”

  Bony ceased speaking and lit a cigarette. Simes looked up from his note-taking. His large white teeth were faintly revealed by the hard smile about the mouth.

  Bony said, pleasantly, “Off the record, how do you think Mr Snook is going to react to that?”

  “It tickles my imagination,” replied Simes.

  “Well, let’s proceed. Ready? Having studied the two theories concerning the rain’s slanting in through the open door, and finding that I must adopt the one and discard the other, I proceeded to step forward on the hypothesis that someone entered the writing-room after Blake had died and had withdrawn without giving any alarm or reporting the fact that Blake was dead. The natural question was—why? I found that I could invent several assumptions, if I could delete from mind the analyst’s negative report.

  “Assuming that someone poisoned Mervyn Blake, then someone entered the writing-room after the poison had done its work in order to remove incriminating evidence. It is feasible that someone entered the writing-room to remove the remainder or the residue of the poison, and that that was contained in the bottle of brandy and the glass upon the writing desk.

  “There is in the garage a small cupboard in which was kept battery acid and cleaning materials. No mention is made in the official file of a bottle of brandy and a glass that were in the cupboard at seven thirty on the night of 9th November. The maid, Ethel Lacy, states that at seven thirty that night she saw Blake take a bottle of spirits and a glass from the cupboard, and pour himself a drink. The gardener, S. Walsh, also asserted that Blake kept spirits in that cupboard, and gave him a drink there on several occasions. The gardener was never questio
ned by the investigating officer. The maid was made hostile by the manner of the officer taking her statement, and either because of nervousness or because of resentment, withheld that particular item of information.

  “Having reached that point in my investigation, I had reasonable grounds on which to base the assumption that Mervyn Blake had been poisoned, that the poison had been introduced into his brandy within the writing-room, that after he was dead the murderer entered the writing-room and removed the poisoned bottle and glass and set in their place the bottle and glass taken from the garage. The poisoned bottle and glass removed from the writing-room were buried near the front gate, and subsequently were discovered by the gardener, S. Walsh.

  “In view of the negative report of the analyst, it became essential to discover, one, the poison employed, two, the person who employed the poison, and, three, the motive for the act of poisoning. Being convinced that the data in the official file was incomplete and that the summary of the case was based on erroneous deductions from the available evidence, I found it necessary to proceed cautiously. It was—”

  The report was interrupted by the telephone. Simes answered the call, and announced that the post office had received a long telegram from Sydney addressed to Patience, care of the Police Station.

  “There’s no delivery, and no one about the P.O. who could bring the telegram,” Simes said. “Shall I slip down and get it?”

  “Do. Meanwhile I’ll think up a few more telling phrases.”