“I am serious,” Alice said, two edges to her voice.
“I am, too. So much so that I asked Constable Essen to be sure that his wife boiled the cloves.”
“Are you going to drink this alleged antidote?”
“No. I have another much less unpleasant.”
“And that is?”
Alice watched his slim fingers caressing an object clothed with tissue paper. Having removed the paper, Bony disclosed a small jar having a screw top. From a pocket he produced two teaspoons, presenting her with one.
“I have here a half pound of butter,” he told her. “Before arriving at the party, I intend eating half of it. The other portion I am offering to you. The effect of this little meal will be to keep the plonk under a layer of butter and thus prevent the fumes of raw alcohol from reaching the brain and so cause the state called inebriation. I assure you it is most efficacious.”
“I love butter,” Alice said, slightly impatient.
“Then take your share first.”
“Thanks.”
“At this exhibition, Alice, we will meet the elite of Mitford. You are my cousin who is greatly interested in criminal investigation as it provides you with knowledge of abnorma l psychology, about which one day you hope to write a book. In passing, don’t forget the relationship is on my father’s side.”
“All right. I get that.”
“We are being invited because Professor and Mrs Marlo-Jones are deeply interested in me as a particularly rare anthropological specimen. Doubtless they will occupy most of my attention, and it is therefore important that you note and remember scraps of conversation, your reactions to people, and to give your feminine intuition complete freedom.”
She watched him remove the last spoonful of butter from the jar, watched the lid being screwed on and the jar placed, with the spoons, on the floor. She saw him glance at his watch, heard him say it was five-ten, and felt the taxi being braked to a stop.
“Now for it,” she said, on being gallantly assisted to alight.
She noted his smile, and then was being ushered through a low gateway between lambertianas, to be escorted across lawns studied with small rose bushes. Before her stood a spacious old brick house, having bow windows and Venetian blinds. The impression of light and colour gave place to one of chocolate above white linen, the broad face of an aboriginal woman who looked at her with huge liquid black eyes. The face vanished, and in its stead was the picture of people filling a long room, a scene of chaos from which emerged the Viking she had once seen on a cinema screen. Taller than her escort, the Viking stooped to take her hand. And Bony was saying:
“Permit me to present my cousin, Miss McGorr, Professor Marlo-Jones.”
“Welcome, Miss McGorr,” boomed the Viking. “And I am really delighted you brought the Inspector, because he must be a very busy man. Come along in and meet people. Ah, my dear! Here is Inspector Bonaparte with Miss McGorr.”
The woman, dumpy, broad, thick hair greying and brown eyes small and twinkling. The man, huge, vital, old yet ageless. Their interest in Bony was undisguised, paramount, passing her by.
People ... a thousand. Voices ... a million. Mr and Mrs Simpson, Miss McGorr. Dr Nott, Miss McGorr. Mrs Bulford, Miss McGorr. Mr Martin, Miss McGorr. Tinkling glasses filled with sherry, glasses massed on a silver salver presented by a chocolate face with large fathomless black eyes. Dr and Mrs Delph, Miss McGorr. Cheers, Miss McGorr. The smell of plonk. The taste of plonk. Plonk sliding down her throat to fight with the butter, and the butter, she hoped, sitting on top. Mrs Coutts, our local author, you know, Miss McGorr. Mr and Mrs Reynolds, Miss McGorr. Cheers. More plonk. Thank heavens that glass is empty. And the same voice saying over and over again, Inspector Bonaparte, as it said over and over, Miss McGorr.
She wanted to scream at the voice to say Bony and Alice for a change, and the voice went on and blessedly away when she was halted by a hand clasped about her arm, and a soft voice urged her to a chair. Her gaze encountered a large woman who’s eyes were light-blue and ringed with powdered fat, and whose face was heated and streaked with growing fire.
“Frightfully boring, all these names,” the woman said. “Relax, dear, and drink up. The Professor knows a good sherry from a pig’s tail.” There came a deep-down rumbling snigger. “Are you a detective, too?”
Alice wanted to explain the relationship with Bony, felt it was her duty to him, and managed only to emit a giggle. A tray of filled glasses was presented, and this time the face above the tray was white, and the eyes were grey. The grey eyes commanded her to place the empty glass on the tray and accept a filled one, and somehow she wasn’t brave enough to refuse.
Voices. Voices close and distant. Voices harsh and voices slurred, voices malicious. People seated along the walls, groups of standing people, a maniac pounding on a piano. Hands, dozens of hands from which rose crystal stems supporting limpid globes of yellow wine.
Voices: “Wretched day, my dear. Quite off my game, you know.” “Yes, he got the contract. He would.” “What do I think of her?” “But, darling, I told you he got the contract.” “Fancy asking that half-caste person here. A what! Detective-Inspector. Good lord! I must meet him.” “Darling, she must be fifty. Couldn’t possibly know how.” “Oh, didn’t you know that? Must be mental, don’t you think?” “Writes all day long, I was told. Never mind the baby or the husband. Wants to be a great authoress.” Laughter. Voices ... discord ... pounding upon the ears.
“Drink up, dear,” urged fat face. “Here comes some more.”
The lubra stood before her and the fat woman, the black face wide in a fixed smile, the black eyes large and probing and without depth. They seemed to say: “What! You don’t like plonk! Silly! They all drink plonk, as much as they can and as fast as they can. It’ll be six o’clock soon.”
Alice emptied her glass and accepted a filled one. It was peculiar that she was feeling no different than on arrival. There was no exhilaration, no urge to talk, just a warmth in the tummy when a warm tummy wasn’t appreciated on a hot day. The fat woman said: “Cheers, dearie!” Alice sipped, twice, and wanted to fling the glass in the fat one’s face.
She could never recall just when it happened, the change which swept away confusion and brought everything to clear perspective. Faces became adjuncts of necks, hands of arms and arms of bodies.
She saw Bony laughing at something said by the Viking, and she thought him the handsomest man present. She saw the local authoress talking earnestly with a young woman who listened with rapt attention, and although she couldn’t hear Mrs Coutts, she knew that her subject was writing novels. She watched Mrs Marlo-Jones among the standing groups, the woman apparently deep in thought and oblivious of her guests.
“Funny little woman,” mused Alice. “Whatever that lion of a man ever saw in her beats understanding.” Mrs Marlo-Jones looked up, but not in time to see Alice watching her. She weaved among the groups, spoke to this person and that, and presently came again to the place where she had been cogitating. That place was just behind Bony, and Alice thought she had returned to continue listening to his conversation with her husband.
It was absurd, of course. For the second time Mrs Marlo-Jones was too late to see Alice watching her, and she stooped swiftly and retrieved something from the floor. The lubra approached again with her tray of glasses, and once more Alice felt impelled to accept yet another sherry.
When the lubra had passed, Mrs Marlo-Jones was over by the mantel upon which were curiously painted bowls; done probably by aborigines. One supported an emu egg, the green surface of which had been carved to reveal the white base of the shell portraying a winding snake. Alice saw Mrs Marlo-Jones drop an object into a bowl, and that object was a button.
The fat woman stood up and mumbled something Alice failed to catch. She made only one false step before reaching the door. Mr Bulford slipped into the vacated chair. He smiled at Alice and said “Cheers,” and Alice drank with him, thankful that Bony’s antidote was workin
g well.
“How d’you like Mitford, Miss McGorr?” asked the banker, and Alice was saying what a nice place it would be in the winter when it wasn’t so hot, when Dr Delph, large, portly and tanned, pulled the chair forward upon her other side and made a threesome. Alice liked his eyes and his clipped grey moustache, and somehow she knew these two men were more than acquaintances.
“I hear you are studying abnormal psychology, Miss McGorr,” said the doctor. “Lucky, aren’t you? Being able to work with a detective-inspector, watch him work, study his methods, and all that. Tell me, is it true that Inspector Bonaparte has never failed in a case assigned to him?”
“Yes, I believe so,” admitted Alice, instantly on her guard. She saw Mrs Marlo-Jones leave the room, and that the lubra watched her leave, and she was certain that neither Dr Delph nor Mr Bulford was aware of her interest in the lubra.
“He’s an amazing man,” said the doctor. “Had a few words with him just now. He proves how triumphant the mind can be over matter, how personality can conquer insuperable difficulties.”
“Certainly a charming man,” added Mr Bulford. “I don’t think I’d be happy were he trailing me.”
“I’d be like the man in the Bible: put a millstone round my neck and drown myself in the river,” Alice contributed. A man, tall and gaunt, drifted into Alice’s mind, and when glancing up at him she saw Professor Marlo-Jones by the mantelpiece. He was taking the button from the china bowl. The gaunt man was calling to the white maid to bring her tray, and Alice saw the Professor drop the button back into the bowl. She could not see Bony.
“What d’you think of our Mitford parties, Miss McGorr?” asked the gaunt man, and Alice giggled:
“Lovely, Mr Martin. Sherry and crime go well together. I don’t know which I like best.”
“Must be exciting at times,” observed Dr Delph, voice blurred a trifle, eyes bright and complexion to be described now as rosy.
“It’s exciting at all times,” stated Bony from behind Alice. “I assume you are referring to the mixture of crime and sherry. I have often wondered to what degree crime begets drink and in what degree drink begets crime.”
Alice was feeling fire in her tummy, and she hoped her face wasn’t blazing red. Now and then she thought how amazing it was that she didn’t feel even faintly squiffy, but she was by no means confident. The black maid now was near the mantelshelf, offering drinks to people whose names she couldn’t remember. Mr Bulford said something and she laughed, although not hearing what he said. Only Alice McGorr could watch that lubra without betraying her interest to those around her. The lubra took the button from the bowl and dropped it into the pocket of her white apron.
It was all very hot and noisy when she noticed that people were drifting to the door, and on standing she was gratified that her legs were of use and that the scene remained right side up. She felt slight annoyance when Bony lurched against her slipping an arm through hers and urging her gently doorwards.
They bade their adieus to their hosts in the hall, and when they were walking the path to the gate, again Alice was annoyed that Bony staggered slightly.
“Are you really oiled?” she asked, when they were in the private car owned and driven by Constable Robins.
“Not visually, Alice. How do you feel?”
“Beaut. What’s the idea of pretending?”
“Well, I must have drunk at least half a bottle of sherry, and our host would have been disappointed had he thought his wine was wasted. Did you observe anything unusual?”
“No, can’t say that I did. Did you?”
“Yes, I learned much of interest, but I was uncomfortable soon after arriving. Er ... I lost a trouser button.”
Alice shrieked and Bony shrank.
The story of the adventures of the button was related, and at the end of it Bony was gripping Alice by the arm.
“You observed something of great import,” he said.
Chapter Seventeen
A Question of Magic
CLOSE YOUR eyes, Alice, and try to decide if Mrs Marlo-Jones picked up that button to prevent anyone slipping on it, or if, like a person finding a ten-pound note, she determinedly secured it before it could be claimed.”
“She was standing just behind you and looking at the floor. Then she moved away and spoke to people before coming back to the same place. She picked up the button and, sort of carelessly, drifted over to the mantelshelf, where, after a bit of backing and filling, she dropped it in a bowl.”
“A piece of the puzzle. Let me picture it. The Professor and I were standing all the time. We were talking nonstop. People joined us but no one stayed, because the Professor was deeply interested in our conversation. When two people talk standing like that in a crowded room, they don’t occupy the same place all the time. I remember that button parting company with my trousers ... at the back ... and I remember feeling slightly uncomfortable.
“Mrs Marlo-Jones saw the button on the floor, and did not pick it up at the time, but wandered round before coming back to it. The Professor was facing me, and therefore saw his wife pick up something, watched her drop it into the bowl. He didn’t know it was a button, and he was driven to find out what his wife had dropped into the bowl.
“Why all that manoeuvring over a button? Why should Professor Marlo-Jones be so interested in an object picked up from the floor by his wife? Then the lubra takes up the tale, you watch. Did she see Mrs Marlo-Jones pick up the button, take it to the bowl and drop it there, or did Mrs Marlo-Jones tell her what she had found on the floor and what she had done with it? Silly questions, perhaps, but I’d like the answers.”
“I don’t get it,” Alice confessed. “Why are the answers wanted?”
“Last night someone entered my room, deposited five redback spiders in my bed and stole all my cigarette-ends from the ashtray. The spiders were meant to put me in hospital for some considerable time, if not into a coffin. The theft of the cigarette-ends was for the same purpose as the theft of the button from the bowl. Button and ends came from me, are a part of me, are necessary objects required for the practice of pointing the bone.
“On one assignment I did have the bone pointed at me, and it was far from pleasant. Why point the bone now? You fell foul of Marcus Clark, or he fell foul of you, and subsequently I approached him in hospital ... as a friend. Why point the bone at me for what you so thoughtlessly did to him? It doesn’t add up. Unless, of course, I am dangerous to those who stole the babies, or to those behind the killing of Mrs Rockcliff, or to those who stole the babies and did the murder. I must be dangerous to that lubra and whoever stole my cigarette-ends. Which points to aborigines being mixed up in the baby-thefts and possibly the murder. Good! We have arrived.”
“Where?” asked Alice, thankful that they were nearing Essen’s home and carbonate of soda.
“The criminals are on the move; they cannot stay still.”
“And does the theft of that slab of rock come into it, too?”
“I think it does.”
“And this button business is a form of magic?”
“Something of that kind, Alice.”
“Something of the kind! It must be either magic or it isn’t.”
“Magic is dependent on a point of view. When a wild aborigine first hears a radio, he calls it magic. That which is not understood is called magic, an easy word saving us the bother of using our brains to understand how it is done.”
“I think I am going to have a headache,” Alice declared.
“Well, here we are within a few yards of Mrs Essen and the cloves. And the soda. You have done fine, and I am pleased. Later this evening, if you are well enough, come round to the Station for a further talk on the ... er ... plonk party.”
“All right, and thanks a lot for the antidote, Bony. It is one hell of a good lurk, I must say. And the sort of headache I was going to have wasn’t the sort you thought I was going to have and won’t have.”
“Quite so, Alice. Now I think I am going
to have a headache.”
“See you after,” she cried, leaving the car, and as Robins made the turn she waved to him.
In the Station office, Sergeant Yoti looked him over, saying:
“What! No lurch?”
“I never lurch.”
“No dull, pounding headache?”
“No headache ... yet. Your tracker and his people came here to Darling River, he says, about five years ago. I’d like you to enquire of the Menindee police if it is known why they left, and what is their record.”
“I did so twelve months ago when we took young Wilmot on as tracker. Report then was clean.”
“Then you need not bother to seek another.”
“You seem a bit hostile.”
“I have arrived at the point in this investigation where it’s advisable to stir up an ants’ nest and watch what happens. But for the moment a cup of strong tea is essential, and I am going to make love to your wife.”
“Do. Don’t mind me. I’m only the husband.”
Yoti smiled. Bony came back from the door to give the crumb for which the Sergeant’s eyes implored.
“All my cases are at first like a brick wall presenting an unyielding front. I have to push here and prod somewhere else to find a weakness in the brickwork.” Again came Bony’s flashing smile. “More often than not it is inadvisable to make a direct attack, but to undermine the foundations, as it might be inadvisable for me to ask your wife point-blank for a cup of tea when she is cooking the dinner.”
“I don’t know,” Yoti admitted. “You may be right. The thing is, this investigation looks like giving. Is that what you are really saying?”
“It is, Sergeant. ’Bye for now.”
Murder Must Wait Page 13