Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

“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.

A Question of Magic

CLOSEYOUReyes, 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 red-back 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 babiesand 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 havewasn’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 whatis 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.”

Bony found Mrs Yoti in the kitchen and, as he predicted, she was cooking the dinner. The kitchen was hot, and Mrs Yoti was hot, and no woman feels at top when she’s hot in a hot kitchen.

“Oh, there you are! How was the party?” she asked.

“Rather boring,” replied Bony, sitting on a chair at the table littered with pastry-making utensils. “I dislike sherry. Alice calls it plonk. Appropriate, I think. Could you give me a couple of aspirins?”

“Why, of course. Many there?”

“Crowded. TheBulfords, theDelphs, theNotts, theReynoldses, the novel-writing woman, and others. Two maids, one a lubra, served the drinks as fast as wanted, and most guests wanted fast. The Professor collared me for a session. Most interested in me as a specimen. His wife was, too. I lost a trouser button and gained a headache.”

Bony washed down the aspirin with a few sips of water. He stared at the teapot on the mantel over the hot stove, continued to stare that way until certain that Mrs Yoti was aware of the target. He sighed, set down the glass of water, and leaned back.

“You lost a what?” asked Mrs Yoti.

“A trouser button,” he answered, standing up. “Well, I mustn’t detain you. Thanks for the aspirin.” Smiling at her, he glanced again at the teapot, and proceeded to the door.