Arthur Upfield - Battling Prophet

“The table. In the same place then as now?”

“Yes.”

“Was there a chair or a stand at the head of the stretcher?”

“Low packing case I’d covered with a cloth. It had a jug of water on it and a glass. And Ben’s watch and a wallet. Of course, there was his pipe and tobacco pouch and matches.”

“The front and back doors were locked when you retired?”

“Yes. But that window was up. Ben couldn’t abide a room without a window open.”

“When you sent Knocker Harris for the doctor that morning, it would be shortly after eight o’clock, I take it?”

“Would have been, because I came in here with the dose exactly on time. I’d be talking with Knocker within five minutes of eight.”

“He walked to Cowdry for the doctor?”

Mr. Luton nodded, and Bony asked why Cowdry, when Dr. Maltby lived at Mount Mario, and that eight o’clock in the morning would hardly find the doctor at his surgery in the town. The point brought a glint of approval into the hazel eyes, and Mr. Luton replied:

“When I got to Knocker’s camp he’d just come back from looking at a set-line below the bridge, and when there he’d seen the doctor’s car headed for town. Being that early in the morning, he half expected to meet Maltby coming back.”

“At four in the morning, when you went to Wickham with the dose, was the light on?”

“Yes. Both of us slept with the lights on. Y’see we couldn’t stand waking up in the dark, and find we couldn’t sort of glimpse the things we knew were stalking from behind.”

“And the light was onwhen, you went to him at half-past six… when you heard him laughing?”

“Yes.”

“Did he speak when you went to him with the dose at four?”

“Said it had been a hell of a time between drinks. Give me a ‘thank-you’ and then was willing to lie down, and closed his eyes.”

“He appeared to be quite normal… in view of the, ah, circumstances?”

“Yes, nothing wrong at all.”

“The dose. Did he take it with or without water?”

“Neat. We never ruined good grog.”

“Why the jug of water on the packing case by the bed?”

“When you’resufferin ’ during a cure, a drink of water about an hour after a dose often gives the dose a renewed kick,” grimly replied Mr. Luton. “I noticed the next morning when I was cleaning up ready for the quack that Ben had half-emptied the jug.”

“You left the jug and the glass on the case, or had you removed them when the doctor came?”

“The jug, yes. The glass I took to the sink and cleaned it properly, knowing that Maltby would be bound to sniff at it, and took it back to the case and poured a little water in it. You see, when the quack came, all the empties were in the river, and the remainders put back in the cellar.”

“Oh! Not a real cellar?”

“ ’Course. Under the floor. I dug her out and carted the mullock down to the bottom of the garden. The cellar’s sort of secret.”

“Answer this carefully, Mr. Luton. Had you gone to your friend, say at three o’clock in the morning, and suggested a drink, would he have accepted it?”

“Perhaps yes: perhaps no. I’d never tested the point. Having agreed on the cure, we never suggested to each other a drink between drinks.”

“Yet you said that when he was laughing later, and you went in with tea, after he stopped laughing, you took the bottle as well, thinking he might be in such bad shape as to need a drink most specially.”

“If I had told him then that he’d have to take a snort, Ben would have drunk it, knowing I’d not say so if I wasn’t worried about him.”

“Then, Mr. Luton,” Bony pressed, “had you taken a drink to him at three o’clock, he would have accepted it.”

Mr. Luton flushed slightly, whether from annoyance or embarrassment Bony could not decide.

“I think he would,” he admitted. “You see, in the old days I was always the boss, and when I came down here to live because he wanted me to, he let me be the boss again. What I said regarding the grog always went with him.”

“Did he drink when at home?”

“A glass of beer sometimes. Cocktail before dinner. Port after dinner. The Parsloe woman said it was the social thing. If it was social to drink coffee out of an old boot, they would have had to drink from old boots.”

“Precisely, Mr. Luton. One more question I want answered with care. After you gave Wickham the dose at four o’clock, could he have obtained more gin without you knowing it? Assuming that you slept soundly. Or another kind of spirit, from what you had above floor, or even from the cellar?”

“Yes. I sleep in a room off the far side of the living-room. Ben could have gone into the living-room and had a swiftie from the stock in the cupboard by the stove. He didn’t. I knew how many full bottles there were. They were all there when I looked. The tide in the opened bottle hadn’t gone down since I’d lowered it at four. He could have gone down to the cellar and helped himself, but he didn’t, because nothing had been opened. And I didn’t sleep soundly. No one does when having the hoo-jahs.”

“Thank you for your patience, Mr. Luton.” Bony stood. “Let us make a call on Mr. Harris.”

Mr. Luton was obviously astonished, but he stood without commenting and went for a muffler and hat. Bony followed him to the clearing and along the path he could but faintlysee, which wound under the great gums and avoided dense clumps of brush.

Ultimately the path passed from thick timber to a small clearing bordered by the river to one side. From the middle of the clearing issued music, and, with startling impact, a dog barked ferociously. An oblong of light confronted them, and framed within stood Knocker Harris and the dog, the smallest Australian terrier Bony had ever seen.

Then Knocker Harris was inviting them into his mansion, and the dog was sniffing at Bony’s heels and trying to grab a trouser cuff.

The kerosene pressure lamp blazed white light against the walls, walls built of odd lengths of milled timber, strips of thick bark, sheets of corrugated iron. The roof was of iron nailed to light logs with fencing wire. The table was of planks wired to cross logs, which in turn rested in the fork of the four legs planted in the hard earth. On the open fireplace a fire burned, and to one side stood a chair which had been fashioned from the stump and roots of a tree storm-blown clear off the ground. Two stools of similar fashioning completed the furniture, save for nine beer cases nailed together to serve as a pantry and dresser.

“How’s things?” mildly enquired Knocker Harris.“Didn’t expect you. Have a squat. Drink of tea?”

Without waiting for acceptance or otherwise, he filled a billy from a petrol-tin bucket. Mr. Luton gravely said it was a nice night, and expressed the hope that Knocker Harris wasn’t being put to too much trouble. Bony gazed at a blank in one wall and guessed the darkness beyond to hide a gentleman’s bedroom. The place, undoubtedly, was built with river jetsam and junk. Save for the sheets of iron, the wireless on the ‘dresser’ and the lamp were the only visible objects not fashioned with axe and saw.

“How’s the fish biting?” politely asked Mr. Luton, who knew very well how they were biting.

“Bit lazy since the last tide,” replied Knocker Harris.“How theydoin ’ down your way?”

“About the same.”

So they talked while Bony sat on a comfortable tree-root stool and rolled a cigarette, both merely waiting for the reason of this late visit.

“I suppose you are not often bothered with visitors,” he said, having applied a match to an alleged cigarette.

“No, not much, Inspector,” replied the host. “They come generally for bait-fish in the summer. I nets bait-fish for visitors, like. Never takes money. They make me a present of bread, or a cut of meat, or a bit of tobacco and what not, and I’m so grateful I make them a present of bait-fish.”