Murder Must Wait

by Arthur Upfield

  It was Bony who first left the room, preceding the doctor and Yoti to the porch, where waited Essen with the constable and Thring.

  “There is a point concerning which there must be no disagreement,” he told them. “Mr Thring, to your knowledge the only persons who have been inside this house since Mrs Rockcliff was last seen alive are we five men?”

  “That’s so, Inspector.”

  “Thank you, Mr Thring.” Mr Thring failed to understand what prompted the smile in and about the friendly blue eyes. “Now please return home. I shall be calling on you soon. Oblige me by ignoring the cement path leading to the gate and by walking on the bordering flower-bed.”

  The strip of cultivated ground between the path and the drought-stricken lawn was four feet wide, and the surface was dry and sandy. Mr Thring obliged, and Bony walked the cement path halfway to the gate, when he turned and called to Dr Nott to walk the flower-bed. Essen was asked to follow the doctor, and only Yoti was annoyed when requested to make his footprints to be studied by a man who never forgot footprints. The rubbernecks at the gate were entranced.

  “Now Sergeant, you and I will re-enter the house, see what is to be seen and what is to be felt. I want no one else inside the house until we have done.”

  They stood in the hall, Yoti having closed the door and released the lock snib. Bony switched on the light.

  “I detest wall-to-wall carpets,” he said. “Harbours all manner of wogs ... and cannot register footprints. Mrs Rockcliff was a wise woman when she selected linoleum, and a good housewife when she polished it, I should think, at least once a week. You might stay here while I look over the scene. Where is the body?”

  Yoti indicated the bedroom and then, like those at the street gate, became an entranced spectator. He watched Bony sidle along the walls to reach the bedroom, noted how he placed his feet as close to the skirting as possible, and as closely to the door-frame when he sidled into the bedroom. The light went on, and he regretted he was unable to watch the man who had never failed to finish an assignment.

  It seemed to Yoti that Bony was in the bedroom a long time, when he was surprised less by the identical manner of his return than by the pair of woman’s shoes he carried.

  “We will have to retain these,” Bony told him, gazing upon the soles and heels. “I disliked the task of removing them.”

  The dark tan at the corners of Bony’s mouth was oddly pale, and, having passed the morgue test in his training days and since being inured to death and violence, Sergeant Yoti felt a spasm of contempt for this man who betrayed fear of death. Bony said:

  “I have to run about like an ant in search of a lead, and I’m not going to ruin my favourite suit.”

  Removing the creaseless coat, he passed it gravely to Sergeant Yoti, who was distinctly disturbed when Bony removed his trousers and proceeded to match the crease of one leg with that of the other. The trousers were carefully placed over the coat resting on the sergeant’s forearm, but Yoti’s attention could not be given to anything save the sky-blue silk underpants and the sock suspenders of the same hue.

  “Open the door, please. I require more light.”

  Hoping that the crowd at the distant gate would be denied this spectacle, and that his staff wouldn’t faint, Yoti obeyed. Again turning, he found Bony on hands and knees, his face close to the floor as though trying to locate a small pin.

  The blue-panted figure backed like a bull-ant before a thrusting twig, then forward again like the bull-ant determined to attack. It was not unlike a voodoo rite, but could have been more realistic were it not for the blue pants and the cream shirt. Quite abruptly, the figure moved with astonishing nimbleness to the front bedroom and disappeared.

  Yoti heard the bedroom blinds snap up. The flies were persistent, the air heavy and dank with the odour of the dead. The little noises outside seemed too fearful to come in, and the sound of the flies within seemed hushed as though they flew with crepe-draped wings. He could feel the presence of Essen and the constable on the porch, and wondered if they smiled at sight of him waiting like a well-trained valet.

  Bony’s reappearance was a relief. He came from the bedroom on all fours across the hall to the lounge. When again he appeared, he halted at the hat stand to make obeisance by bringing his forehead to the linoleum many times.

  On his final reappearance from the rear of the house he was walking like a human being. Saying nothing, he donned his trousers. Perhaps he hoped Yoti would assist with the coat, but the sergeant wouldn’t play. The coat on and the shirtsleeves carefully pulled down, Bony smiled, for Yoti enigmatically, and said:

  “Bring in the constable, Essen I think, who found the body. We’ll discuss the matter in the lounge.”

  They found him standing with his back to the window, engaged in rolling a cigarette.

  “Permit me to transmit the picture I have studied with no little interest,” he said, as though making a difficult request. “Circumstances sometimes favour the investigator, and on this occasion they have. When you, Constable Essen, entered the house by the unlocked front door, with Mr Thring following you, you first went into the lounge, having told Thring to remain in the hall. From the lounge you crossed to the bedroom opposite, pausing for a moment or two in the doorway. There you uttered an exclamation of horror, because Thring joined you there, standing behind you and seeing what you saw. You told Thring to stay in the hall, and he obeyed this time, while you went in, switched on the light, and stood looking down at the body. Then you moved to the baby’s cot, and from the cot back to the door.”

  “You passed along the passage, opening the door to the left, then the next door on the right, and so to the kitchen, where you tried the back door. On returning to the hall, you and Thring went out to the porch. You closed the door, ordered Thring to remain and let no one inside, and you then left to telephone to Sergeant Yoti. Do I err in any detail?”

  “No, you are all correct, sir.”

  “When Sergeant Yoti arrived, he followed you into the house, Thring and the constable being told to remain outside. Sergeant Yoti went at once to the bedroom, and you followed him to the door. As you had done, Sergeant Yoti stood on the threshold for a short period before entering the bedroom on tiptoe. All the time he was in the bedroom he walked on his toes, passing to the body, then to peer into the baby’s cot, then back again to the door. You followed him from the bedroom door across the hall to the front door and went out after him to the porch. Again, do I err in any one detail?”

  “In no detail, sir.”

  “When Doctor Nott reached the house,” went on the soft, cool voice, “you, Sergeant Yoti, brought him in. He entered the bedroom ... I incline to believe he went in first, not you ... and it’s the only point about which I am a little doubtful ... and he crossed at once to the windows and released the blinds. Having examined the body, he drew down the blinds before joining you in the hall. Any error?”

  “No,” replied Yoti.

  Bony chuckled.

  “Were I Dictator I would prohibit the manufacture, sale, and/or use of any type of floor covering other than linoleum. Now, before I take the next step, do I have your co-operation?”

  Receiving their assurance, he pointed out that when agreeing to investigate the disappearances of the babies he demanded no interference from the State CID. This murder, however, might upset the arrangement.

  Yoti said, and Essen was astonished by his candour:

  “We don’t want the city fellers here, sir. We’ve had a stomach-full. Essen’s had experience with the fingerprint section in Sydney, and he’s a pretty good photographer. So we could manage without Sydney.”

  “Then we manage, and I will tell you what else the linoleum has told me,” Bony said, making no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “I can reasonably assume that the dead woman polished her floors during the day preceding the night of her death, and as we know who entered this house after Thring called in the police, by eliminating known persons we have the prints of persons
unknown.

  “I find that two unknown persons have been inside this house after Mrs Rockcliff polished her floors. One was a man. A large man who wears shoes size eight which are worn along the outside edge beneath each toecap. He was drunk or he could be a sailor recently ashore after a long voyage. He entered by the scullery window, visited the lounge and stood against the wall behind the bedroom door, from which position he struck down his victim. He left the house by the scullery window.

  “The other person is a woman. She entered by the front door. She stood for some time in the hall, possibly to be assured she was alone in the house. From there she entered the bedroom, where she crawled under the bed. She emerged on the far side, and stood by the cot. Her shoe size is six, wedge type, and she walks slightly forward on her toes as though habitually she wears high-heeled shoes. She left by the front door.”

  “With the baby,” Essen supplemented.

  “The baby not having left footprints, I am unable to be definite,” Bony flashed. “The man could have taken the infant, for he, too, stood by the cot. It would seem that these two persons acted independently of each other. The fact that the woman crawled under the bed certainly supports the assumption that they did; that the woman was under the bed when the man entered the bedroom, and when he killed Mrs Rockcliff. What d’you know about the victim?”

  “Very little,” replied Yoti. “And that from Dr Nott. She came to Mitford from Melbourne. Down there she was under the care of a Dr Browner of Glen Iris. She rented this house from Mitford Estate Agents.”

  “That’s a beginning,” Bony purred. “By the way, what is the number of your staff?”

  “Two constables under Essen. Could draw another two from Albury.”

  “Could you spare Essen, and do a little yourself on this case?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Good. Have the body moved to the morgue, and meanwhile interview the estate agents for what they know of the dead woman. Murder trails quickly become worn, and this is now forty hours old. We don’t want your CID tramping down tracks, frightening possible friendly witnesses, annoying me and irritating you. Therefore I will report this murder to Sydney, and you report to your Divisional Headquarters that I am in charge.” To Essen he said: “Can you get on with the dusting and the pictures?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I’ll wait here for you. And, by the way, when we are alone, favour me by omitting the ‘sir’ and sticking to ‘Bony’. I am Bony to all my friends.”

  Yoti chuckled, grimly amused.

  “Now I know,” he averred with emphasis. “Now I know why it is you’ve never failed to finish a case.”

  “Me too,” agreed Essen, his wide face widening under pressure of subdued enthusiasm.

  Chapter Three

  A Strange Pair

  ALONE IN the house, Bony brought a satin-covered cushion from the lounge to kneel on the hall floor and outline with chalk three sets of footprints: one made by a man and two by women.

  Then he entered a second bedroom, but this was unfurnished, and he found in a linen cupboard the sheet he required and which he took to the front bedroom.

  The golden shaft of sunlight had moved from the dead woman’s hand to beribbon the cream wickerwork of the cot; otherwise nothing was altered. He switched on the light and deliberately studied the body, noting its position and finding nothing helpful excepting confirmation that she had been struck when clear inside the door.

  The woman would be about thirty. She had been pretty rather than beautiful, the most attractive feature being the chestnut hair. The eyes were blue. The feet from which he had removed the shoes were shapely and the legs long and well moulded. She was wearing a tailored suit of blue gaberdine. Thirty years only had she lived; robbed of thirty years of life she might have enjoyed. With relief, he spread the sheet over her.

  Now it was shut away from his eyes but not from his mind. The position of the wound and the stain on the linoleum proved she had been killed by a blow to the top of her head. He estimated she was five feet ten inches tall, and therefore the slayer must be a tall man. She wore no hat that last night of her life, and this wasn’t remarkable in a town like Mitford in country like the Riverina in February.

  The red-stained matted hair persisted in his memory, and he felt that hovering over the room and sprawled about him was an impalpable being with its lips pursed to direct an icecold breath upon the nape of his neck, its eyes unwinking like the eyes of the dead.

  He gazed upon the infant’s cot, noting the covers turned back, the imprint of the little head upon the pillow. The babylinen and satin-bound blankets were of good quality and a small chest of drawers was filled with costly baby-clothes. These tiny garments Bony examined with that look of naïve astonishment common to all virile males.

  A framed picture of the child stood on the dressing-table, and a miniature copy hung above the head of the bed. The puckish face was encircled by a shawl, and the subject, no doubt, would be unrecognisable a few months hence by him or any other policeman. A woman might recognise it. A woman would be able to tell a story from the cot, from the clothes in the chest, the clothes in the wardrobe, and from the things in the kitchen. A woman with experience in babies could perhaps tell a valuable story from the feeding bottle on the little table.

  The wall behind the door might tell him a story. He removed the reading lamp attached to the head of the bed, to examine the wall behind the door, and the place immediately above where the murderer had stood to wait for his victim.

  Yes, there was a story for him, but he had to bring a chair to stand on to read it. Not quickly did he distinguish the faint smear on the cream calsomine, a smear caused almost certainly by oil, the killer’s hair-oil transmitted to the wall from the back of his head. The height of the mark would give the man’s height in his shoes as over six feet. He could not detect any adhering hairs, but a magnifying glass might locate at least one.

  He could hear the noise of a distant car, the shriek of a cockatoo, the shout of a boy. About him was the Silence and the Thing which kept its icy breath upon his neck. And as he stood on the chair, holding the lamp and peering at the blemish, there came a sound to make him jerk about to face the sheeted corpse. It came again, the impact of a blowfly upon the drawn blind, and somewhat hastily he stepped down from the chair, moved it to open the door, and backed from the room as though from the presence of royalty. It was royalty, too ... in the raiment of a winding sheet ... to this man of aboriginal maternity, the only king before whom he had to make obeisance.

  Again in the hall, he remembered who and what he was and walked briskly to the kitchen to study the feeding bottle on the bench, and regard with puckered eyes the objects on the shelf above the bench and on that above the fuel stove. He spent time peering into cupboards, and left the scullery window to Essen, who would find that the ordinary slip catch had been opened, and eventually closed, with a knife.

  There was washing on the line in the rear yard terminated by a high board fence. The yard was cemented, and he could have reached the front of the house by following the cement path. The washing on the line was brittle dry and stained with Murray Valley dust: it, too, might tell a story to an intelligent woman. A woman would have been helpful ... say, Marie, his wife who ruled his home at Banyo, out of Brisbane, and his heart no matter where he was.

  When Essen came with his camera and other gear, Bony left the house in his charge with orders to leave everything exactly as it was. On the porch he asked the constable his name, said he would leave the door ajar in case Essen wanted assistance, and, putting on the grey velour, stepped into the sunglare.

  The westering sun was the inescapable god ruling this land of the River Murray. The people never gazed upon it, for it was not to be looked at, being all about them, touching them from the heated ground, from every near-by object, from the cobalt sky. The shadows had no meaning, were merely rifts in the prevailing golden glare.

  The few remaining rubbernecks went unnoticed,
and not one could have named the colour of his eyes, so masked were they in the presence of the god. They waited for something to happen, and Bony was seated in the Thrings’ front room when the undertaker’s van came and parked outside No 5.

  In the front room of No 7, Bony could not avoid dislike of Mrs Thring, who was lean and hawkish and, metaphorically, asking to be murdered by her patient husband. She said it was ten minutes after eight on the Monday evening that Mrs Rockcliff left her house. She was watering her flowers in the gathering dusk and saw Mrs Rockcliff open her front gate and pass to the street. She was not wearing a hat, and she was not carrying her baby. No, she didn’t have a pram for the child. Yes, she went out quite often at night ... in fact, it was mostly at night. She couldn’t have been up to any good.

  “Aw, steady on!” complained her husband. “No doubt Mrs Rockcliff went to the pictures or a dance or to see friends. Nothing against that.”

  “Suppose not, if you don’t take into account that she never had any friends calling on her. Even the Methodist parson gave up calling,” opposed the wife, a disfiguring sneer writhing on her thin lips. “But she did leave the child alone in the house ... like a canary in a cage with a cloth round it. I heard it crying once when she was gallivanting about, and when I told her about it she as good as told me to mind my own business.”

  “She didn’t actually neglect the child, did she?”

  “No, not in other ways,” replied Mrs Thring. “It was clean enough,” she went on with a sniff.

  “And you have the impression that Mrs Rockcliff had no friends?”

  “That’s what I think. And further, Inspector, I’ve always thought she didn’t have a husband, either.”