Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

Bony inclined his head in assent, and the Professor asked if he might smoke. His cigarette lit, he settled himself comfortably, cleared his throat from long habit in the lecture room, and only once glanced at the stenographer.

“The germ of the, ah, plot, was born last August when we were spending the evening with Dr and Mrs Delph. Staying with theDelphs were Mrs Delph’s brother, Dr Nonning and his wife.

“The conversation that evening turned on a visit paid by Dr Nonning to our local Museum. He saw the drawing, and asked Mr Oats, the curator, what the picture portrayed, but Mr Oats, only recently having taken over, just happened not to know it. So I related the legend, and Nonning was greatly impressed. Subsequently he was inspired to formulate a plan to help certain of his patients.

“Among his patients were several women of a peculiarly neurotic type. I cannot employ Nonning’s phraseology and, in fact, have little sympathy with these new sciences, but it appears that in women there is a sickness of the mind caused by inability to bear children and aggravated by a hunger for them and by an obsession that they are the object of universal contempt. And Nonning evolved the notion that if such a woman could be made to believe she received a child as the legend describes she would recover her mental, spiritual and physical health.

“You will agree that receiving a child in this, shall we say, spiritual way would give these women psychological balance, deep and complete; far greater than selecting a child from an orphanage as one would choose an appealing object.

“Nonning came again to Mitford in September, when Mrs Delph’s child was born, and he told us that his sister didn’t want the child and that he had a patient who would greatly benefit if a child was introduced to her in accordance with the legend. We then decided to stage the legend, with the assistance of several of the aborigines at the Settlement, and also planned the abduction, as Mrs Delph would not dream of the public ever knowing she didn’t want her baby. We arranged with the aborigines to…”

“Pardon, Professor, but I know all about that arrangement for the aborigines to take over and care for the baby, and to act the part of the Beings in the legend,” Bony interrupted.

“Oh, you do, do you, Inspector?”

“Yes, I saw you both at the show last night. I was in the gods, up in the tree. Tell me, how did you work the abduction?”

“It was quite easy. We bought a pram identically the same as the one bought by theDelphs and, with the co-operation of MrsDelph, we duplicated the child’s clothes and the fly-net. The girl was sent to the frock shop with the pram. We knew she would have to leave it outside when calling for the parcel. Our lubra maid wheeled the second pram beside the other one, paused there for a moment or two, and then walked away with the pram holding the baby. She continued to wheel the pram to the lower end of the boulevard, where an aborigine waited with his truck. A lubra on the truck took over the child, and the pram was ultimately taken to the middle of the river and sunk with heavy stones. There was no hitch.”

“And then you gained possession of the Bulford baby with the co-operation of Mr Bulford,” Bony interposed. “One of you took position behind the fence separating the bank from the disused premises, and another rang the bell and took the child from Mr Bulford, who was waiting to pass it.”

“You are a very clever man,” remarked Mrs Marlo-Jones. “I’m sure Mr Bulford didn’t tell you.”

“That is so,” admitted Bony, to add, being unable to resist: “Mr Bulford committed suicide because he realised I am a very clever man. Mrs Bulford didn’t co-operate, I take it?”

“No, that woman wouldn’t co-operate in anything or with anyone. She couldn’t be trusted,” replied Mrs Marlo-Jones. “But she was glad the baby disappeared; the fool thought everyone was laughing at her, and the way she treated her poor husband was shameful. We were all glad, too. The babies were taken from homes where they were a nuisance, unwanted, and were given to women who were figuratively dying for want of one.”

“And after the Bulford baby was given to Nonning’s selected patient, more babies were wanted and you turned to stealing them?” Bony pressed.

“Yes, we turned to real theft,” continued the Professor, quite cheerfully. “We knew theEckses, husband and wife, and knew the latter often went to the River Hotel. The child didn’t receive proper attention from such a drink-swilling mother, and Dr Nonning was most anxious for another infant for a really desperate patient. It was all very easy. So, too, was the theft of Mrs Coutts’s child. Mrs Coutts was a worse offender against a helpless baby than Mrs Ecks. All she thinks about is dreaming of becoming a great author.”

“And that Mrs Rockcliff was the worst of the lot,” added Mrs Marlo-Jones. “Cyril Martin didn’t know we knew all about her and him. And how she visited him at a cottage he had down the river a bit, leaving the baby alone in the house for hours. That was why we took her baby. We’ve done nothing morally wrong, Inspector. All we did was to transfer unwanted children to people who wanted them and would give them wise attention and affection. Besides, these four women who were given our babies recovered from their illness and are now happy and well. Dr Nonning is delighted with his successes, as well he should be. And the other sick woman will recover, too.”

“What of the mothers who lost their babies: Mrs Coutts, Mrs Ecks, and Mrs Rockcliff, had she lived?”

“Pooh! Inspector!” exclaimed the indignant Mrs Marlo-Jones. “To those women a baby was like an attack of sandy blight… an irritant. That was why we selected their babies for Dr Nonning’s patients.”

“What was the reason you selected male children? Was it because the aborigines declined to, ah, officiate over a female child?”

“Precisely. Female children are quite unimportant.”

“Tell me, what did you do to prevent Mrs Coutts’s baby from crying when you stole it from its cot?”

“Nothing. We knew that Mrs Coutts’s baby seldom cried. But it did. It cried after I had put him in the suitcase and was out in the street. It was very awkward, but fortunately there was a thunderstorm and people were hurrying for shelter.”

“Go back to Mrs Ecks’s baby.”

“I took a bottle. He was ready for it and gave no trouble.”

“Cow’s milk?”

“Oh yes.” Mrs Marlo-Jones smiled. “We agreed it wouldn’t do for us to purchase a preparatory food which might have been traced back to us.”

Bony pondered, and they watched him like children who, having finished their lessons, hope to be released from school. To them, stealing five babies for the purpose which they freely avowed was much less reprehensible than stealing the rock drawing from the Municipal Library, and even this relic was merely ‘borrowed’ and was to be replaced. The problem they presented was unique.

“I am going to permit you to return to your home,” he told them. “You will, of course, not attempt to leave Mitford until a higher authority decides what is to be done. You have no children?”

“No,” replied the Professor, in manner revealing so much.

“H’m! Mrs Marlo-Jones… when under the bed, which Cyril Martin did you see stooping over the body?”

“Why, the father, of course. He’s been carrying on with Mrs Rockcliff since before Christmas. Could have been before then. That was when we found out about him and her.”

Bony glanced at Yoti and Essen, and their slow nods affirmatively answered his unspoken question: ‘I tracked the right one, didn’t I?’

‘What’s The Legend?’