Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

Bertrand Marcus Clark had a ward tohimself and failed to appreciate the honour. He was surly and replied evasively only to the Superintendent. When again in the hot sunlight, the minister said:

“One of the few I neither like nor trust, Inspector.”

“I can understand your failure to like him,” agreed Bony. “Why do you distrust him?”

“I have no proof, but I think he is at the bottom of many little upsets. For some time I’ve felt undercurrents antagonistic to my work and hopes, and have suspected they emanated from Clark. I try not to be uncharitable, but…”

The Superintendent and his wife walked with them to the car, and invited them to come again.

“Friendly people, weren’t they?” Alice said when on the road back to town. “And those cuddly little babies. Is it true they will turn black in a few days?”

“Yes. I think it will be an improvement.”

“I don’t. I just love them as they are.”

He glanced at her profile, saw by the set of her mouth that she was in her rebellious mood, and again glancing at her he felt pity for this woman to whom a career was merely an opiate, and he was momentarily concerned by what inhibited instincts might do with her.

“They reminded me of newly hatched birds in a nest,” he said, and swiftly and sharply she exclaimed:

“Shut up.”

They came to the green belt of fruit trees and vines, oflucerne plots and lawns about the brightly painted houses, and presently to the lower end of Main Street. Here Alice spokesoftly, and gently touched his hand.

“I’m sorry I was snappy. It was your fault, as usual. You will make me forget you’re an inspector and I’ma nobody.”

“I shall continue to make you forget, Alice. As my wife sometimes admits, I’m the most understanding man in the world.”

For the third time he glanced at her, and now she was looking at him, and her eyes were misty.

The Plonk Party

AMIDTHElower Australian peck order where Alice McGorr had been born and reared, wines are imbibed from the bottle or thick china cups or tumblers. Of course, in the particular section of Australian society to which she was now to be presented, wines are sipped or swilled from fragile crystal. There is no difference in the quality or potency of the liquor.

For people like Bony this sherry-quaffing was unfortunate when, as in this instance, he was forced to drink it in the course of duty. Any other type of wine would have been less obnoxious, because Australia can produce wines the equal of overseas products… all wines excepting sherry, which has a digestive reaction similar to the oil in sardine cans.

As Alice told him when they were being driven to the home of Professor and Mrs Marlo-Jones, she wasn’t a wowser, and was not averse to a drink provided she could choose her drink and say when. Far more than Bony had she seen the ill effects of alcohol from good honest Scotch down the ladder tomethylated spirits and, still lower, battery acid. Alcohol had ruined her father, had blurred his brain and thickened his fingers. He had been extremely successful on rum; the beginning of the end was plonk.

She was still mutinous at having to accompany Bony to this social engagement, and not for the world would she confess that her hostility was due less to having to drink sherry than to lack of social confidence.

Bony, too, possessed a secret which for nothing the world might render would he tell Alice McGorr. Her dress was wrong. The colour scheme was allcolour. The hat was obviously a hat. And there was too much powder on her nose.

Not that his ‘cousin’s’ appearance really disturbed him. Actually he was delighted with her, for no one, noteven the most perspicacious, could possibly imagine Alice McGorr in the trim uniform of a policewoman. And further, his own sartorial elegance was emphasised.

“Have you thought up the antidote to plonk?” she asked, her voice edged.

“Oh yes. Robins will call for us at six, and will rush us first to your lodgings. You will at once take two teaspoons of carbonate of soda in a glass of hot water. When your tummy has disgorged the plonk, you must drink a cup of warm water in which six cloves have been boiled. Then lie and rest for half an hour. If you should find the bed behaving like the prow of a ship in a storm, you must take anobbler of brandy.”

“I am serious,” Alicesaid, 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 abnormal 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 betweenlambertianas, 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.