The Widows of Broome

by Arthur W. Upfield

  “You did not send Abie out trailing smuggling suspects?”

  “Ye gods!” groaned Walters. “What’s Sawtell and Clifford for?”

  “Compiling statistics,” Bony blandly replied. “I wonder where that black’s got to this morning.”

  Walters pushed back his chair.

  “Expect Sawtell will know. I’d better open the blasted office.”

  The sergeant arrived as he was unlocking the front-office door. Bony entered the office from the house passage, bringing with him his plaster casts.

  “You know where Abie is this morning?” Walters demanded.

  “No. Not on deck?”

  “Absent without leave. ’Bout time you jerked that gentleman down to ground level.” The inspector snatched up the telephone and asked for the airport office. He was told that the plane from Derby might arrive about eleven and the aircraft from Perth about one ... perhaps. He asked Bony what his plans were.

  “Well, all of us have earned a full night’s sleep, and you two will be wanting bed before bed-time,” he pointed out. “I suggest that on arrival Clifford and the constable from Derby be given the rest of the day off duty, and that they report to me at seven this evening ... in plain clothes. I didn’t tell you, Sawtell, that Mrs. Overton lost a nightgown. That confirms the pattern, and makes the watching of clothes lines a duty of paramount importance. Will the Derby plane bring mail from Darwin?”

  “Should do. Time we had Darwin’s report on Flinn.”

  “Might help. By the way, Sergeant, look at this shoe-print cast. What d’you make of the circular indentation?”

  “Looks like he picked up a wad of chewing gum.”

  “Or a drawing pin,” supplemented Bony, placing the convex head of a brass drawing pin over the raised protuberance on the cast. The pin had been filed off. The head fitted exactly. “This drawing pin was one of the four used to pin the calendar to the kitchen wall.”

  “What cast is that?” Sawtell asked, sharply.

  “The cast taken of the shoe-print made by the man who murdered Mrs. Overton,” replied Bony.

  Sawtell’s eyes were small.

  “I don’t get it,” he admitted, and passed to his desk, from a drawer of which he took the left of the shoe casts he had made under Abie’s direction. The shoe cast he compared with that made by Bony. They were of the same size but of different shape. The heel of Bony’s cast was worn along the inside edge. The shoe from which Sawtell had made his cast was worn much at the back of the heel and there was a distinct hole in the sole.

  “I still don’t get it,” Sawtell said.

  “It’s quite simple, Sergeant. I made a cast of the left foot of the murderer of Mrs. Overton. Your cast is of the left shoe worn by Mr. Dickenson. You say that Abie drew a line with his finger round the print of the man’s tracks he saw on the paths and inside Mrs. Overton’s house?”

  “So he did,” asserted Sawtell. “I was particular about that. Here, along this side of the cast, is the mark he made in the dirt.”

  “Come, Sawtell, I’m not doubting you,” Bony hastily assured the now angry man. “And I’m sure you will not doubt my tracking ability. Abie deliberately pointed out to you false tracks, because old Dickenson was not inside the garden nor was he inside the house. Now, then, let us compare the casts of the naked feet.”

  The comparison was made. The two sets of casts were the same.

  “When you told Abie to point out to you the naked footprints he could not trick you for there was only the one set. If you take these casts to the moist earth about Abie’s wash-basin, you will discover that they fit exactly.”

  Walters butted in:

  “Two added to two make four,” he said. “Abie, you said, had been walking around at night. Was he following the murderer that night, or was the murderer following him?”

  “He was following the murderer,” replied Bony. “If he knew then that the man he was following had murdered Mrs. Overton he may tell us who the murderer is.”

  “’Course he will,” snapped Sawtell. “I’ll locate him pronto.”

  “If you do locate him, he won’t tell you,” Bony quietly stated.

  “Won’t tell! Coo! He’ll tell, all right.”

  “Have you ever been able to make a black-fellow talk when he will not? No, Sawtell, you won’t make him talk. I made the mistake of not keeping my eye on him, but we were all too busy last night. Locate him if you can, but don’t let him suspect that we know of his trickery.”

  “Why not? What’s his little game?” asked Walters.

  “If he knows who murdered Mrs. Overton, his little game is blackmail. To blackmail, he must contact the murderer. He, therefore, could lead us to the murderer, provided we were sufficiently expert in shadowing him. It will be a task for me. However, I fear much for Abie.”

  “You’re right, Bony. Abie would be a mouse trying to blackmail a cat.” Walters chewed his upper lip. “Well, what next?”

  “Relax till the reinforcements arrive. You two get on with your routine jobs. I’ll look around for Abie.” Bony smiled, and they wondered at his calm demeanour. “When you go out, be sure you haven’t a drawing pin stuck to one of your shoes.”

  Bony left. Walters scratched his chin. Sawtell said:

  “What’s he mean by that crack?”

  “That I am the murderer,” replied Walters “Told me I wore down my shoes same way as the murderer does, that I make the same stride as the murderer does, that I am the murderer’s weight. Nice chap, isn’t he?”

  “Are you the murderer?” asked the sergeant.

  “Are you?” shouted the inspector.

  Sawtell burst into laughter. Walters grinned. The tension vanished.

  Bony visited the stores, at which he purchased drawing pins and gained the information that the government offices, the council office, the State school and the college did not purchase their drawing pins at the stores. The drawing pin attached to the murderer’s shoe was useless as a lead, but as one of many pieces with which to identify the murderer it did have value.

  Any man in Broome being sufficiently astute to wear rubber gloves, and to clean door handles so that the imprint of the rubber would not be recorded, would be wide awake to the ability of the native trackers and would almost certainly use a pair of discarded shoes in which to commit his crimes. It was most improbable that he would wear the shoes save when on murder bent. As this expert on tracks was aware, no two men walk exactly alike, and the tracks of the murderer, seen in Mrs. Overton’s house and on her garden paths, rendered to Bony distinguishing peculiarities which would be registered by the ground from any other shoes he wore.

  But like the drawing pin, footprints could not be regarded as conclusive evidence, but as supporting evidence of the contiguity of the murderer with his victim. Bony had not told Inspector Walters that the murderer placed the same pressure on his toes as upon his heels, whilst the inspector dug his heels into cement, such being the emphasis with which he placed his heels.

  Bony was “hoorayed” by Keith Walters racing home on his bicycle for lunch, and the boy was asked to stop. Keith circled and drew alongside.

  “Have you seen Abie today?” Bony asked.

  “No. What’s he done, Mr. Knapp?”

  “Absent from duty. D’you know of any blacks camped near the town?”

  Keith shook his head, and said the nearest camp was on the Cuvier Creek half a mile down from Dampier’s Hotel.

  “Have you ever visited the blacks’ camp out there?”

  “Rather. They put on a corroboree a couple of months ago. We watched ’em throwing spears and boomerangs and things.”

  “Did you, indeed. That must have been interesting. How did you go?”

  “In cars. All the school couldn’t go, you know, so we cast lots. I was lucky. The masters cast lots, too.”

  “And who were the lucky masters, d’you remember?”

  “Mr. Percival, and old Stinks, and Tubby Wilson. The head arrived after we did. Mrs. Saye
rs brought him, old Briggs driving. She shouted tea for all of us. Her car was loaded with eats.” The boy’s face became awfully serious. “I forgot about Mrs. Overton. Mrs. Sayers brought her, too.”

  “Did you like Mrs. Overton?”

  “Oh, yes. All the fellows liked her. She was a rattlin’ good sort. One of prefects was caught out crying about her being killed like that, but no one chiacked him for it. We all felt like it, you see.”

  “Yes, I suppose you did. Well, you had better get along home for lunch. I’ll not be long after you.”

  At the police station office the Derby constable was presented to Bony. He was dapper in physique but a hundred per cent in mental alertness. Sawtell was taking him home for lunch, and Mrs. Sawtell was putting him up. He would report to Bony at seven.

  The children having left the luncheon table, Bony asked if there had arrived any communication from Darwin concerning Arthur Flinn. Walters said that Darwin knew nothing to Flinn’s discredit and that for several years he had been the buying agent for a large jewellery firm in New York.

  “Don’t get us anywhere with Flinn,” concluded the inspector.

  Following lunch, Bony borrowed Mrs. Walters’ alarm clock and permitted himself one hour of sleep. Meanwhile, Walters had telephoned Dampier’s Hotel to ascertain if Abie had been seen out there. No one at the hotel had seen Abie, and the lubras working there had not seen him at the camp. Keith received orders to prospect for the tracker on his bike when he left school for the day.

  Awakened by the clock at two, Bony spent an hour doing nothing bar meditate and chain-smoke. He had afternoon tea with Mrs. Walters at three o’clock, and at three-thirty was sauntering into Chinatown. And shortly afterwards he was met by Johnno.

  “Oh, Mr. Knapp! I look for you. I try see you arrive. You arrive, eh?”

  “I have arrived,” agreed Bony, unable to withstand the smiling face of the sunny Javanese.

  “You like go fish, eh?” Johnno went on, shoulders and arms expressing recognition of a wish which must be granted. “I take you see my friend. He has motor-boat. Sometimes motor-boat he go ahead when my friend say go astern, and he go astern when my friend he says go ahead. No matter. We arrive, we put out the lines.” Johnno’s hand and arms illustrated putting out the lines as though they were employed heaving a drunk out of a music-hall. “No fish, no matter. We sleep, we eat, we drink. You come now see my friend?”

  “Yes, Johnno, why not?”

  They walked together along the ill-kept sidewalk fronting the inhabited iron shacks with their leaning veranda posts and rotted floor-boards.

  “You live always in Broome?” Johnno asked.

  “No, Johnno. I must soon leave and go back to work. But I shall always remember you and our drive with Mr. Dickenson to Dampier’s Hotel.”

  “Ah! We go one night before you leave. We have night out, eh?”

  “I will think that over, Johnno,” Bony said, the twinkle in his eyes. “We might make a party of it.”

  Johnno was immensely pleased. He conducted Bony past the store and towards a large shed where the street ended above the slope of the beach. They passed between the shed and a huge stack of empty oil drums, and in this narrow sandy laneway Bony saw the tracks of a man who wore a size-eight shoe and who pressed his feet evenly on the ground. The tracks stopped at the bottom of four steps leading to a loading stage at the wide doors of the shed.

  As they mounted the steps, Bony heard from within the shed a sound like flakes of slate falling upon a marble slab. The smell of ozone was strong, and of tar, and when he entered the shed he saw against the far side a small mountain of pearl shell. At the foot of the mountain squatted two of Johnno’s countrymen. They were sorting the pearl shells into large and shallow floor bins and the light from the opened doors formed bars of pearl as the shell was tossed through the air into one or other of the several bins.

  A man was packing shell into a crate. There was another man, his back to Bony, who was kneeling beside the bin containing the largest-size shell, and Bony watched him select a shell, hold it to catch the light, and then press its cool, silken surface to his cheek.

  Johnno spoke in his own language to the shell packer, and the kneeling man turned, the shell still pressed to his cheek. His dark eyes flared with resentment on seeing Bony and, tossing the shell back upon the heap, he hastily rose to his feet, spoke sharply to the packer and strode from the shed.

  Mr. Arthur Flinn surely loved the touch of pearl ... and silk?

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Dingo Must Drink

  THE man packing the shell was a Chinese in middle age. His fingers were long and tapering, and as each piece was placed in the stout wooden crate the fingers seemed to croon their farewell. To one side was a stack of crates stencilled with initials and the words NEW YORK, and in a corner were long sacks of shell as brought ashore from the luggers.

  “Here my friend,” proudly announced Johnno. “He take us fishing. He has nice motor-boat.”

  “May go out on Saturday,” the packer said without accent. “You’ll be welcome.”

  “I shall be glad to go out if I can manage it. Thank you. What’s your name?”

  “Bill Lung. What’s yours?”

  “Alfred Knapp,” replied Bony. “Merely visiting, you know. Interesting place, Broome. Lot of shell here?”

  “Little to what it was before the war. Only a few luggers working these days.”

  The fingers had not ceased their employment, lifting the shell from the near-by floor bin and expertly placing it in the crate. Now and then a shell would be discarded, being tossed into one or other of the remaining bins.

  Johnno explained that Bill Lung was a real Australian, having been born in Broome, and having all his life worked in a packing shed. Bill Lung’s expression remained bland throughout until Johnno mentioned an Australian wife and eight children. Then the large face expanded roundly into a happy smile.

  The Javanese was a born exhibitor. Having exhibited Bill Lung, and doing his best with Bony, he exhibited the contents of the shed, explaining the various grades into which the men at the heap of shell sorted it. The bin marked Extra Heavy was Johnno’s show piece. Before this bin had knelt Arthur Flinn, and now Bony knelt and picked up specimen shells measuring from six to seven inches across and gleaming with an opalescent lustre shading to pale gold along the edges. As Flinn had done, Bony pressed a plate of pearl to his cheek and, feeling its cool silky caress, fancied he could hear the sighing wind making love to the tropic seas. Bill Lung’s fingers momentarily stopped work, and into the narrow eyes crept a furtive smile of sympathetic understanding.

  Johnno sprang up and regarded his wristlet watch with dramatic dismay.

  “I go,” he exclaimed. “I have to arrive and take lady to toptown store. I see you sometime, eh? P’haps Saturday. You tell Bill anytime you go fishing. We have good time. Now I go to arrive.”

  He hurried away, and the Chinese selected a shell and presented it to Bony.

  “Take it home, and when trouble comes to you, look at it and touch it and let it tell you its secrets.”

  “What do these shells tell you, Bill Lung?”

  “Of things which are beyond dreams.”

  “Things which send some men mad.”

  “There’s always the weaklings, Mr. Knapp ... men who smoke too much, or eat too much, or dream too much. My illustrious father used to say that to play with a snake is foolishness, and to run from it is cowardice. It is wisdom to kill the snake and wear its skin as your girdle.”

  “Your father was a wise man,” Bony said. “Well, I’ll get along. If you have room for me in your boat, I’ll try to make the trip. And thank you. Tell me, before I go, which would you choose, a pearl or a diamond?”

  “I’d choose the pearl.”

  “Why?”

  “For what it tells me through my fingers. A pearl is alive: a diamond is dead and can’t speak. My father used to say: ‘Select for a bride the woman who prefers pearls to
diamonds. The woman who loves pearls will bear you many children.’”

  Bony smiled down at the packer:

  “I bet your bride preferred pearls,” he said. “Mine did.”

  Leaving the shed, he sauntered along the coast road, passing the Seahorse Hotel, and, when a hundred yards beyond it, he left the road and climbed the coast sand-dunes. On the summit he sat gazing out over Roebuc Bay with its fringe of green mangroves. The tide was high, and the near Indian Ocean was placid and delphinium-blue. The long white jetty seemed to be straining to reach the pavement of gold laid down by the westering sun.

  A lugger was anchored at the mouth of the creek and the high voices of the men aboard her reached Bony, bringing a nostalgia for the open sea and the great game-fish inhabiting it. Far out another lugger was headed for the bay, a stubby black pencil on a silver-grey slate.

  That Chinese shell packer was not an oddity in Australia. Bony had met many like him, men born in Australia of Chinese parents and educated in Australian schools. They spoke English fluently and the language of their parents indifferently, and they invariably appended with great success the old civilisation to the new. Bill Lung was an epicure of the senses rather than a sensualist.

  That he loved the feel of pearl shell was unashamedly revealed by those crooning fingers. Bony wondered what had been in the mind of the Chinese as he watched Flinn handle and caress the shells of pearl. Mr. Arthur Flinn was certainly a large piece of the material being gathered by Bony. With but little more in his possession, Bony would see his picture of the murderer.

  Without standing, he turned himself about and was presented with a picture of the town. The first impression was an extensive jumble of iron roofs laid flat on a floor of tree foliage. Then the eye discerned the wide roadways crisscrossing the area within the curve of Dampier Creek. Beyond the creek to the southward the land was grey-green and featureless as far as the distant fringe of paper-bark scrub. Beyond the town to the north-east lay the open spaces of the airport with its buildings and radio mast, and toward the ocean the white-painted mission buildings and the college, occupying the highest point of Broome.