Murder Must Wait Page 7

  “What about the agent who let the house to her ... references?”

  “The boss, named Martin, wasn’t at the office this afternoon, but the clerk told Essen the house was let to Mrs Rockcliff on a year’s lease, and she paid three months rent in advance in lieu of a reference. She took the house on October 12th. Before living there she stayed at the River Hotel, and according to the Lodgers’ Book she arrived at that hotel on October 9th. In a taxi. We dug up the driver of the taxi, and he says she stopped him in Main Street about eleven in the morning and asked him to recommend a hotel. That’s as far back in her history as we’ve gone.”

  “H’m! Eleven in the morning. Does that time coincide with the arrival of a train or plane?”

  “No. The first train gets in at 2.20pm, and the first plane arrives at 9.45am. Seems likely that she came to Mitford by car. Police at Albury up-river and Mildura down-river are going into that angle. Course, she could have come down from a station up north, or from a farm down south. Could have arrived here in a hired car or a friend’s car.”

  The old pipe had gone out, and Yoti applied another match, the while regarding Bony with moody eyes, and suddenly Bony smiled and then watched the Sergeant’s face register annoyance.

  “We should keep in mind salient facts: some material, others abstract,” he said. “Before I came to Mitford four babies were abducted, and the four crimes were thoroughly investigated. About the time I arrived here you discovered a fifth abduction and a murder. Nothing emerged from the first four baby abductions to give us a lead in our investigation of the fifth. We start with nothing relative to those five babies, yet we must combine those five abductions and attack the problems as one.

  “The person or persons who abducted those five children live here in Mitford. They move about as we do. They are, naturally, greatly interested in what we may be doing. Almost certainly they know by now that Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is in charge, and they will be specially interested in me. Without doubt, if one person is responsible for those abductions, he, or she, is extremely versatile. When we go back in criminal investigation, we find that circumstances, coincidence, and what may be termed luck have been vital to the success of the investigators or of the criminal. To date, the baby-thief has had the luck, and the investigators have missed out. So what have we?

  “A person, acting alone or in collaboration with others, believing he, or she, is extremely clever, but, none the less, must be a little anxious to know what D-I Napoleon Bonaparte is doing and is likely to do. As I’ve often said, if a criminal would be still after the commission of his crime, he would more often escape retribution, but, fortunately for law and order, he cannot be still.

  “I’ve no license as yet to say so, Yoti, but I am inclined to think that the murder of Mrs Rockcliff is the first sign that the baby-thief’s luck has ended, and ours has begun. I’ve known men who have robbed a bank, burgled a house, won a confidence trick, men who have pitted their intelligence against scientific investigation, and in doing so proved themselves to be driven by the same sporting urge that drives most of us to back a horse. To these people murder is as alien as it is to you and me. It is the criminal in this class who stole the five babies ... or so I incline to think. What therefore is his present state of mind when a murder charge can be directed against him? He must be all hot and bothered. Assuming that he did murder Mrs Rockcliff, say because she recognised him, what would be the natural effect on his accomplice? Recriminations, fear, treachery, all stem from murder. As I said, murder is a spur giving no rest, no peace, no confidence in anyone or anything.”

  Yoti, who had not once looked directly at the speaker, continued to stare beyond Bony at a picture of his son in swimming togs. Bony said:

  “The effect of murder will affect the minds of those concerned in stealing babies. It must do. Was that your wife calling us?”

  Yoti nodded. He wanted to express some thoughts, and subject others to analysis, but he was looking into Bony’s smiling eyes and hearing the pleasant voice say:

  “Inevitably, the enemy will make a wrong move, and meanwhile let us not disturb our gastric juices. Now you will apologise to your wife for both of us. We were late for dinner yesterday, remember, and I apologised.”

  Yoti grunted opposition, but he made amends and dinner passed off happily. After the meal they crossed to the Sergeant’s office to wait the coming of the Postmaster, but Essen arrived first, saying that Alice McGorr had left his house on what she said was her case.

  “Her case!” murmured Bony, and the large policeman smiled, and vowed those were the words she had used while nursing his small son and his wife was serving dinner.

  The night had brought no cooling zephyrs, and the three men seated at the table desk wore sports shirts and slacks. To his reports Essen was adding impressions and theories, when voices in the outer office preceded the entry of a man about fifty, greying, energetic, a cheerful smile about his lean mouth and a cast in his left eye. The damp silk shirt clung to his back, and from the waistline where shirt was tucked into trousers he produced four bottles of beer. Having vigorously shaken hands with Bony, he said in the unmistakable drawl of the inlander:

  “There’s no hobby as satisfying as beer-drinking, Inspector, and no better place to indulge than Mitford. It’s why I’ve refused promotion to a bigger office. I like a beery climate. Look at Essen. He wasn’t a he-man when he came to Mitford although he did have to shave every day.”

  “I was never much good as a policeman after I met you,” Essen countered, returning from a wall cupboard with four glasses and a bottle opener. “Worst thing I ever did was to join your Bowling Club.”

  “Don’t believe it,” protested the Postmaster. “Mrs Essen’s as keen on the Club as I am, and Yoti. How’s the baby?”

  “Where does he come in?”

  “H’m! Bit of muck on the liver, eh? No matter. Take a gulp of that.” To Bony he said: “Hope you play bowls, Inspector. You must join our show. Make you an honorary member. Good crowd. Got a licence, too. Make more money outer the bar trade than the subs.” He eased himself into a chair, raised his glass and drank with appreciation. “Well, now for this Rockcliff woman. Can’t stop long, as I’ve got the Lodge books to get ready for tomorrow night.”

  The Postmaster refilled his glass and glared at the other three glasses, in which the tide had only begun to ebb.

  “Went back to the office after dinner,” he said. “Place shut up, of course, so I had a free go. Went through the registration books for four months. No registered letter in or out for Mrs Rockcliff. Went through the Money Order section: same result. Finally I made sure my memory wasn’t at fault with the Commonwealth Bank part of the joint, and proved I was correct. No account with the Commonwealth.”

  “That’s generous of you, and positively helpful,” Bony said.

  “That’s okay, Inspector. Always ready to lend the police a hand. You know, diplomacy, and all that. Police can be damned narks. Let me top your glass. Stiffen the crows! Haven’t any of you fellers learned to drink properly? I went a bit further. Telephoned the manager of the State Bank here. No good. No Mrs Rockcliff on his books. He’s a friend of mine. In the same boat.”

  “Bowling Club boat?”

  “Right.”

  “And the Lodge boat?”

  “Right again.” The Postmaster drained his glass, filled it and did the trick once more. “Well, so long, Inspector. Bring him out for a game Sat’day afternoon, Yoti. Plenty of beer floating around, and the green’s in good nick, too.”

  “I shall look forward to a game or two before leaving Mitford,” Bony assured this cheerful man who loved a beery climate.

  “It’s a go, Inspector. So long. Me for the Lodge books. What about proposing the Inspector, Yoti?”

  Essen accompanied the Postmaster to the outer door, returned to pour drinks and light a pipe.

  “Should have the report on those name tags by midday tomorrow,” he said. “Damn funny that woman always
paid her accounts on the 12th of each month.”

  “An interesting point,” agreed Bony. “My assistant put forward the idea that the money came from a local boy friend.”

  “No man ever visited her, according to the Thrings,” Essen argued.

  “She could have visited the man ... at night.”

  “M’yes, that’s true.”

  “Who belongs to your Bowling Club?”

  It was Yoti who replied that the membership was round about eighty and included business people, civil servants, the Stationmaster, the Town Engineer and most of the Councillors.

  “What of the managers of the private banks?”

  Yoti grinned without mirth.

  “They think they’re a cut above our crowd.”

  “The doctors?”

  “With the private bank managers.”

  The telephone shrilled and Essen went out to the duty constable.

  “I’d like to get the point clear, Yoti,” Bony went on. “Do the managers of the private banks, the doctors and others on the social summit have a club or association of their own?”

  “Yes, bowling green, tennis-courts and golf courses all in one. What prompts the point?”

  “That baby theft from the Olympic Bank was the most difficult to carry through, and was dependent on timing and intimate knowledge of the habits of both parents. How many old-time wall telephones are there in Mitford? I notice you have one here.”

  “We’ve been promised hand sets when they go over to automatic. Why?”

  Essen came in.

  “Bloke named Wyatt, No 17 Ukas Street, reports a badly injured aborigine outside his front gate,” he said. “Abo says he was attacked by three men. I rang the ambulance. They’ll be calling here to pick me up.”

  “All right!” grumbled Yoti. “Find out what that blackfeller’s doing in town after sundown. If he isn’t a hospital case lock him up for the night.”

  Essen went out to wait for the ambulance, and Yoti said:

  “That Bank case?”

  “Probably carried through by people familiar with parents’ habits and knowledge of interior of bank living quarters as well as the banking chamber. Three persons needed. One walked to the lane way leading to the private door. Another rang the manager from a near-by call-box. Manager in his office had to leave his desk, from which he could see his private hall, and stand at the telephone, when his back would be turned. First person opened private door with duplicate key, went upstairs, brought down baby and, leaving by the same door, handed infant to third person waiting on the other side of the board fence. Could have been in the vacant building next to the bank whilst the uproar went on, and stayed there till it was dark.”

  “Very neat,” agreed Yoti. “Didn’t Bulford tell you who rang him that afternoon after his wife went out?”

  “I did not ask him about that,” replied Bony. “It is stated in the Official Summary that Bulford said no one rang him that afternoon after his wife left.”

  “All right, but how did second person know first person was talking to Bulford on the telephone? There’s no call-box in sight of that door.”

  “From outside the door the second person could hear the manager at the parlour telephone.” Bony glanced at his watch. “H’m! Almost eleven. Time Policewoman McGorr reported. Remarkable woman, that.”

  “Brains, or to look at?”

  “She thinks all the infants were stolen because they were neglected. Could be right.”

  “Neglected! How the hell does she make that out?”

  “Neglected while mother drinks gin in a pub. Neglected while mother gallivants about to plonk parties ... plonk being Alice McGorr’s designation of a sherry party. Neglected baby left to cook to rear so that mother can rush off to plonk party. Neglected baby left alone while mother goes out to the library, or to meet a boy friend. Something of a pattern, isn’t there?”

  “Could be,” Yoti conceded.

  “As we progress other patterns will emerge,” Bony continued. “Time itself will provide coincidences joining events, coincidences which, it is said, never occur in real police work.”

  “Don’t agree. I can name a few for a start.”

  “Of course. I was thinking of my biographer’s difficulties with the critics.... Ah, sounds like Alice McGorr.”

  Alice appeared in the doorway, came striding to the desk. She was carrying that straw hat. The frilly collar of her blouse was torn, and when she tossed the hat upon the desk they saw that something tragic had happened to the crown. Something had happened, too, to her brown eyes, and there was a mark on her negligent chin which could be the beginning of a bruise. Bony placed the chair Essen had vacated, and she flopped into it as though her legs were wired.

  “Did you meet with an accident?” Bony asked.

  “An incident, not an accident,” she snorted. “I thought I was being tailed before I reached Betty Morse’s house. When we were walking to the Delphs’ place I was sure. He was still tailing when we left the Delphs, and he was hanging on when I left Betty at her house. So I waited in the dark under a tree. As he went by I grabbed him and marched him to the nearest street light for a look at him. I didn’t like him, and he wouldn’t say what he was after.”

  “Awkward, Alice. Did you break anything?”

  “Had to,” Alice confessed. “He was twice my weight, and he fell hard. I heard him complaining to a man that his arm was broken, he had a crick in his neck, a sort of concussion and a sprained ankle.”

  Chapter Nine

  Bony Visits the Sick

  BEFORE BREAKFAST the next morning Bony made additional notes covering the results of Alice McGorr’s visit to the Delph’s cook. These notes were supplementary rather than additions to the build-up of the background against which five infants had been stolen and a mother of one murdered.

  Having breakfasted, he rang Essen to pass the order to Alice that she was not to report to him until after lunch, when they would interview Mrs Coutts concerning the abduction of her baby, and at nine o’clock he set out for the Public Hospital to chat with the man who had tailed Alice the previous evening.

  Permitting himself to hope that the shadowing of Betty Morse and Alice was evidence of the first move made by his opponents, Bony sauntered along Main Street as the shops were being opened, and then took the cross-street to reach the river boulevard and the hospital. A hot north wind was threatening to raise the dust, and to bring the indefinable scent of the Inland which was to become so significant. The river gums already were spraying their perfume of eucalyptus.

  Following an interview with the Matron, a wardsman conducted him to a single bed ward.

  There was nothing clear-cut about the patient, a veritable League of Nations having subscribed to his pedigree. Bony dissected him in a flash of time: two parts Australian aborigine, three parts Malay, one part Chinese, three parts European, and one part Brazilian gorilla.

  The name on the hospital chart above the head of the bed was Bertrand Marcus Clark, which might have annoyed that pioneer Australian author.

  The bed was a heavy iron one, and a pair of handcuffs anchored the patient’s left foot. Otherwise he was as comfortable as medical science could make him, despite the right foot being in plaster, the left arm in splints, and the top of the cranium being bandaged. Small dark eyes regarded the visitor balefully, and Bony kept out of reach of the uninjured right arm.

  “How are you this morning?” Bony gravely asked.

  “What’s it to do with you?”

  “I ... er represent the police,” Bony said soothingly. “It would seem that you erred in your assessment of the situation in which you ultimately found yourself last night. Foot-cuffed to the bed, too.”

  “I didn’t do no ’arm,” vowed Bertrand Marcus Clark, adding a rider, however. “Only being in town after sundown. Met an old bloke I knew years ago. Camped down the river a bit, he was, and I went with him for a bit of a yabber. He had a bottle of gin, and that sort of mucked up the time.

&nb
sp; “When I got going from the Settlement, it was dark, but not dark enough to go straight through the town. I ’ad to keep to quiet streets, not wanting to be grabbed by the police. Then all of a sudden three blokes jumped me. I clouted one flat and booted another in the stomach, but the last one got me arm over a shoulder and snapped the bone. Then I got slogged in the ankle, and me head bashed in.”

  “What a fight, Bertrand. What happened then?”

  “Passed out, of course. I comes to and there’s a bloke bending over me what lives in the nearest house. The ambulance comes, and Constable Essen gets rough ’cos I’m in town after dark. When I won’t tell no lies about it, he gets properly nasty, and I remembers I still got one good fist left.”

  “Quite a beano, Bertrand,” sympathised Bony. “Still, you’ll receive only six months. One for resisting arrest, one for bad language, another for being in town after sunset, and three for following two young women with intent to molest. We could, in fact, work it up for three years.”

  “I’m telling you’s the truth. Don’t I look like the flamin’ truth?”

  “You look terrible to me,” admitted Bony. “Did I not know the truth, I would believe the number of your assailants was thirty, not three. The picture you present this morning must read: Aboriginal thug, intending to molest defenceless white girl, inadvertently mistook his mark, as intended victim is expert in the art of judo and the Australian Science of Boots-and-All-In. Too bad ... for you, Bertrand.”

  The patient was able to turn his face to the wall, and kept it there.

  “Further, Bertrand, you are a liar, as was proved later last night when Constable Essen found no friend camped downriver at the place you said you visited him and enjoyed his hospitality. Gin you said it was which delayed you. I’m glad you chose gin, Bertrand. Never indulge in plonk. Leave plonk to the elite of the allegedly superior race.”

  The patient continued to gaze at the blank wall.

  “For you the prospect is indeed gloomy,” Bony went on. “And yet, in your grave extremity, you have a friend. None other than Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte ... otherwise me. Come clean and tell me why you tailed that innocent young woman, and I will persuade her to withdraw the charges against you of assault, battery, doing grievous bodily harm, and making a hell of a bad mistake. Then you would have only to spend one week in the jug for being in town between sunset and sunrise.”