Arthur Upfield: Murder Must Wait

When Essen came with his camera and other gear, Bony left the house in his charge with orders to leave everything exactly as it was. On the porch he asked the constable his name, said he would leave the door ajar in case Essen wanted assistance, and, putting on the grey velour, stepped into thesunglare.

The westering sun was the inescapable god ruling this land of the River Murray. The people never gazed upon it, for it was not to be looked at, being all about them, touching them from the heated ground, from every near-by object, from the cobalt sky. The shadows had no meaning, were merely rifts in the prevailing golden glare.

The few remaining rubbernecks went unnoticed, and not one could have named the colour of his eyes, so masked were they in the presence of the god. They waited for something to happen, and Bony was seated in theThrings ’ front room when the undertaker’s van came and parked outside No 5.

In the front room of No 7, Bony could not avoid dislike of Mrs Thring, who was lean and hawkish and, metaphorically, asking to be murdered by her patient husband. She said it was ten minutes after eight on the Monday evening that Mrs Rockcliff left her house. She was watering her flowers in the gathering dusk and saw Mrs Rockcliff open her front gate and pass to the street. She was not wearing a hat, and she was not carrying her baby. No, she didn’t have a pram for the child. Yes, she went out quite often at night… in fact, it was mostly at night. She couldn’t have been up to any good.

“Aw, steady on!” complained her husband. “No doubt Mrs Rockcliff went to the pictures or a dance or to see friends. Nothing against that.”

“Suppose not, if you don’t take into account that she never had any friends calling on her. Even the Methodist parson gave up calling,” opposed the wife, a disfiguring sneer writhing on her thin lips. “But she did leave the child alone in the house… like a canary in a cage with a cloth round it. I heard it crying once when she was gallivanting about, and when I told her about it she as good as told me to mind my own business.”

“She didn’t actually neglect the child, did she?”

“No, not in other ways,” replied Mrs Thring. “It was clean enough,” she went on with a sniff.

“And you have the impression that Mrs Rockcliff had no friends?”

“That’s what I think. And further, Inspector, I’ve always thought she didn’t have a husband, either.”

“Might have been a widow,” soothed Mr Thring.

“Never told me, if she was. She lived too quiet, if you ask me. Not natural for a young woman like her. She must have spent most of the daylight hours reading. I’ve seen her taking armfuls of books to change at the Municipal Library. D’you think the child was kidnapped, Inspector? Like those others?”

“Too early to decide,” countered Bony.“Mrs Rockcliff could have taken the baby out in the afternoon, and left it with an acquaintance

… perhaps at the hospital. We’ll find out.”

“She didn’t leave it anywhere but in the house,” declared Mrs Thring. “She went out at ten past eight, as I told you. At half past seven she took the baby in from the crib on the front veranda. It was in the house all right when she went out that night.”

Bony stood, saying:

“I am glad we are able to establish that, Mrs Thring. Tell me, did you notice what Mrs Rockcliff was wearing?”

“Yes. She was wearing her blue suit. I’m not positive, mind you, but I think she was carrying her library books.”

“Quite so. Mr Thring, you stood in the hall when Constable Essen entered the bedroom. Can you recall if the bedroom light was on?”

“No, Inspector. Constable Essen switched it on.”

“You then crossed the hall to stand just behind Constable Essen, who stood in the bedroom doorway. Can you recall if the blinds were drawn or not?”

“They were drawn,” Thring replied without hesitation.

“It would appear that Mrs Rockcliff drew the blinds before she left the house that evening,” Bony persisted. “It was then ten minutes past eight and it wasn’t dark enough to warrant switching on the light and lowering the blinds. She didn’t lower the lounge blinds before leaving. When previously she left the baby alone in the house at night, did she draw the blinds?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Mrs Thring.“And the light on, too.”

“H’m! A point having perhaps no importance,” Bony purred.

“I think she left the light on when she went out to give people the idea she was in,” said Mrs Thring. “It looks like that to me. Not putting on the light this last time seems to hint she thought she wouldn’t be away more than half an hour. What time was it she was murdered, do you know?”

Bony warded her probing questions. Thring accompanied him to the front gate, where he apologised for his wife, who, he said, suffered from an ulcer.

The rubbernecks had gone, and a constable strange to Bony sat on a chair before the door of No 5. Bony, once again conscious of the sun-god, passed along the street of these middle-class homes to arrive at another street which would take him to Main Street. Here the houses were larger and the gardens more spacious. The still air imprisoned the odours of tar and of street dust, the scent of roses and the tang of grapes and peaches. Only such as he could have detected the fragrance of the vast untamed land beyond the extremities of the irrigation channels, the fragrance of the real, the eternal Australia where dwell, and will for ever, the spirits of the Ancient Aclhuringa.

He was wondering how he would react did Mr Thring confess to having sliced his wife’s throat with a table knife, when he became conscious of a voice containing nothing of gall and venom.

“Where do you come from?” demanded the voice.

Bony glanced to his left. The voice could have proceeded from the stout woman standing inside a wicket-gate into a thick hedge of lambertiana. She was shapeless in a sun frock, and from her wide shoulders a large straw sun hat was suspended by the ribbon about her neck. Her face was large and round. Her eyes were small and brown. At the corners of her mouth was a humorous quirk.

“Was there something?” asked Bony, who was an admirer of a famous radio comedian.

“Yes. Where do you come from? You’re not a River Murray contact. An oddity, yet true. A rarity, and yet not so rare. I find you most interesting. Where do you come from?”

“Madam, your interest is reciprocated,” Bony said, bowing slightly. “How much money have you in the bank?”

“What?…Er… Oh! I didn’t intend to be rude. Good education, eh! Good job, by your clothes.”

“Your continued interest, Madam, is still reciprocated. What is all this about? Who are you? What are you? How are you?”

The round and weathered face expanded into a smile. The large brown hands expressively gripped the points of the pickets. From behind her in the secluded garden a man said:

“Come here, dear. I wish to show you the pictures of bottle-trees in theKimberleys. The magazine is very good this month.”

“A moment, Henry. I am confronted by a remarkable specimen not possibly belonging to the Murray Valley tribes.” To Bony: “Who am I? I am Mrs Marlo-Jones, Dip. Ed. What am I? A damned nuisance. How am I? Delighted to meet you. Come in and meet Professor Marlo-Jones. Chair of Anthropology, you know. Ex, or now retired.”

The gate was swung wide in invitation. When the invitation was wordlessly declined, the gate was swung shut. Behind this somewhat original woman appeared a giant of a man, a decided personage. Possibly seventy, he stood and acted as a man of forty. The grey eyes were young and full of light. Above the high, tanned forehead the thick hair was more dark than grey.