Arthur Upfield: Murder Must Wait

“Then we manage, and I will tell you what else the linoleum has told me,” Bony said, making no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “I can reasonably assume that the dead woman polished her floors during the daypreceding the night of her death, and as we know who entered this house after Thring called in the police, by eliminating known persons we have the prints of persons unknown.

“I find that two unknown persons have been inside this house after Mrs Rockcliff polished her floors. One was a man. A large man who wears shoes size eight which are worn along the outside edge beneath each toecap. He was drunk or he could be a sailor recently ashore after a long voyage. He entered by the scullery window, visited the lounge and stood against the wall behind the bedroom door, from which position he struck down his victim. He left the house by the scullery window.

“The other person is a woman. She entered by the front door. She stood for some time in the hall, possibly to be assured she was alone in the house. From there she entered the bedroom, where she crawled under the bed. She emerged on the far side, and stood by the cot. Her shoe size is six, wedge type, and she walks slightly forward on her toes as though habitually she wears high-heeled shoes. She left by the front door.”

“With the baby,” Essen supplemented.

“The baby not having left footprints, I am unable to be definite,” Bony flashed. “The man could have taken the infant, forhe, too, stood by the cot. It would seem that these two persons acted independently of each other. The fact that the woman crawled under the bed certainly supports the assumption that they did; that the woman was under the bed when the man entered the bedroom, and when he killed Mrs Rockcliff. Whatd’youknow about the victim?”

“Very little,” replied Yoti. “And that from Dr Nott. She came to Mitford from Melbourne. Down there she was under the care of a Dr Browner of Glen Iris. She rented this house from Mitford Estate Agents.”

“That’s a beginning,” Bony purred. “By the way, what is the number of your staff?”

“Two constables under Essen. Could draw another two from Albury.”

“Could you spare Essen, and do a littleyourself on this case?”

“Certainly.”

“Good. Have the body moved to the morgue, and meanwhile interview the estate agents for what they know of the dead woman. Murder trails quickly become worn, and this is now forty hours old. We don’t want your CID tramping down tracks, frightening possible friendly witnesses, annoying me and irritating you. Therefore I will report this murder to Sydney, and you report to your Divisional Headquarters that I am in charge.” To Essen he said: “Can you get on with the dusting and the pictures?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I’ll wait here for you. And, by the way, when we are alone, favour me by omitting the ‘sir’ and sticking to ‘Bony’. I am Bony to all my friends.”

Yoti chuckled, grimly amused.

“Now I know,” he averred with emphasis. “Now I know why it is you’ve never failed to finish a case.”

“Me too,” agreed Essen, his wide face widening under pressure of subdued enthusiasm.

A Strange Pair

ALONEINthe house, Bony brought a satin-covered cushion from the lounge to kneel on the hall floor and outline with chalk three sets of footprints: one made by a man and two by women.

Then he entered a second bedroom, but this was unfurnished, and he found in a linen cupboard the sheet he required and which he took to the front bedroom.

The golden shaft of sunlight had moved from the dead woman’s hand toberibbon the cream wickerwork of the cot; otherwise nothing was altered. He switched on the light and deliberately studied the body, noting its position and finding nothing helpful excepting confirmation that she had been struck when clear inside the door.

The woman would be about thirty. She had been pretty rather than beautiful, the most attractive feature being the chestnut hair. The eyes were blue. The feet from which he had removed the shoes were shapely and the legs long and well moulded. She was wearing a tailored suit of bluegaberdine. Thirty years only had she lived; robbed of thirty years of life she might have enjoyed. With relief, he spread the sheet over her.

Now it was shut away from his eyes but not from his mind. The position of the wound and the stain on the linoleum proved she had been killed by a blow to the top of her head. He estimated she was five feet ten inches tall, and therefore the slayer must be a tall man. She wore no hat that last night of her life, and this wasn’t remarkable in a town like Mitford in country like the Riverina in February.

The red-stained matted hair persisted in his memory, and he felt that hovering over the room and sprawled about him was an impalpable being with its lips pursed to direct an ice-cold breath upon the nape of his neck, its eyes unwinking like the eyes of the dead.

He gazed upon the infant’s cot, noting the covers turned back, the imprint of the little head upon the pillow. The baby-linen and satin-bound blankets were of good quality and a small chest of drawers was filled with costly baby-clothes. These tiny garments Bony examined with that look of naive astonishment common to all virile males.

A framed picture of the child stood on the dressing-table, and a miniature copy hung above the head of the bed. The puckish face was encircled by a shawl, and the subject, no doubt, would be unrecognisable a few months hence by him or any other policeman. A woman might recognise it. A woman would be able to tell a story from the cot, from the clothes in the chest, the clothes in the wardrobe, and from the things in the kitchen. A woman with experience in babies could perhaps tell a valuable story from the feeding bottle on the little table.

The wall behind the door might tell him a story. He removed the reading lamp attached to the head of the bed, to examine the wall behind the door, and the place immediately above where the murderer had stood to wait for his victim.

Yes, there was a story for him, but he had to bring a chair to stand on to read it. Not quickly did he distinguish the faint smear on the cream calsomine, a smear caused almost certainly by oil, the killer’s hair-oil transmitted to the wall from the back of his head. The height of the mark would give the man’s height in his shoes as over six feet. He could not detect any adhering hairs, but a magnifying glass might locate at least one.

He could hear the noise of a distant car, the shriek of a cockatoo, the shout of a boy. About himwas the Silence and the Thing which kept its icy breath upon his neck. And as he stood on the chair, holding the lamp and peering at the blemish, there came a sound to make him jerk about to face the sheeted corpse. It came again, the impact of a blowfly upon the drawn blind, and somewhat hastily he stepped down from the chair, moved it to open the door, and backed from the room as though from the presence of royalty. It was royalty, too… in the raiment of a winding sheet… to this man of aboriginal maternity, the only king before whom he had to make obeisance.

Again in the hall, he remembered who and what he was and walked briskly to the kitchen to study the feeding bottle on the bench, and regard with puckered eyes the objects on the shelf above the bench and on that above the fuel stove. He spent time peering into cupboards, and left the scullery window to Essen, who would find that the ordinary slip catch had been opened, and eventually closed, with a knife.

There was washing on the line in the rear yard terminated by a high board fence. The yard was cemented, and he could have reached the front of the house by following the cement path. The washing on the line was brittle dry and stained with Murray Valley dust: it, too, might tell a story to an intelligent woman. A woman would have been helpful… say, Marie, his wife who ruled his home at Banyo, out of Brisbane, and his heart no matter where he was.