Arthur Upfield - Murder Must Wait

“SOTHATcompletes a very strange case,” Bony said when the Professor and his wife, having signed their statements, were released. “Mrs Marlo-Jones is unclassifiable to the layman. As for the Professor, he is out of this world. He did not learn to adventure until six months ago, and I think his most absorbing anthropological study has been his own wife.

“Now having interviewed Dr Nonning, we can understand how those two were so easily dominated by him. Nonning belongs to the class of ruthless scientist who spares neither himself nor others in the furtherance of his work. Delph is Nonning’s antithesis, satisfied withhimself and life in general, happy to ramble around on his cases, wanting only peace at home and relaxation. In vulgar parlance, his wife wore the trousers, and because she wanted their baby to be passed to another woman, he agreed… for peace’ sake… fatal error… the first step taken down the grade. And how like Dr Delph was John Bulford.”

Pensively Bony rolled a cigarette and Yoti felt urged to make the effort himself, so badly was it done by the long dark fingers. The Sergeant was tired. Essen felt his mind so crowded that it would be hard work to arrange all the oddments. Alice looked at Bony with eyes soft with unmaidenly adoration, and she was about to ask a question when he continued speaking.

“Mrs Delph didn’t want the world to know about her baby, and Dr Delph found comfort in the idea behind the legend and agreed to the abduction and Nonning’s experiment. Now observe. The abduction was to be carried out, and the legend staged, by two people the least capable, one would think, of ever becoming successful criminals. The very simplicity of their plan to take the baby off Main Street assured its success. Then the mother’s pretence of grief was good enough to deceive men who talked to her about it: good enough to deceive men, but not good enough to deceive a woman… you, Alice.

“The plan to abduct the Bulford baby was also a gem of simplicity, having, of course, the co-operation of the father. The moral weakness of the father spoiled that case for the abductors. His first statement covering his actions during the period in which the child was taken wasn’t strong enough to withstand my attack, and his second attempt fell down because he forgot that the Library was closed that day for renovations. What really upset Bulford was the murder of MrsRockcliff. He thought, without doubt, that she was murdered by the very people to whom he had passed his own child, despite the denial made to him by Mrs Marlo-Jones. And when he committed suicide Mrs Delph realised that the crisis for her was near.

“The successful abduction of theEckses ’ baby required the degree of luck which no experienced criminal would have accepted in his calculations. That same degree of luck entered the abduction of theCouttses ’ baby, and both these cases provide proof that to achieve success in crime the best course to adopt is to commit the crime in broad daylight, and with as many people as possible in the vicinity. That and the ability to behave normally under abnormal conditions.

“Each child in turn was whisked to the Aboriginal Settlement, where it was cared for in the secret camp under the very noses of the Beamers. When the time came to enact the legend, the aborigines were sent away on walkabout by wily old Chief Wilmot, not because his people were to be kept in ignorance, but because when they were on walkabout Mr Beamer and his wife were able to catch up on the clerical work and so would remain long at their desks.

“We can clearly see Professor Marlo-Jones taking his long walks late at night when it is cool and meditation is a tonic. We see him by merest chance watching the Estate Agent entering a house down the river, a house which the Professor knows is not his home. The light is switched on in the front rooms, and a little later a mysterious woman arrives and is admitted. The Professor stands by and observes them leave separately at two in the morning.

“Thus the spice of adventure which drew both the Professor and his wife to investigate, to use the wife’s words just now, these goings-on. They see Mrs Rockcliff passing their house to and from Main Street. They know when Mrs Rockcliff enters the hospital, and when she leaves with her baby. They know its sex. They have known for a long time Mr Cyril Martin’s domestic background.

“It appears that Martin met Mrs Rockcliff in Adelaide, where she went under the name of Jean Quayle. Further, it appears that Jean Quayle wasn’t easy to snare, and she brought Martin to the point of proposing marriage. When she found she was going to bear his child, she pressed for advancement of the marriage date, and Martin slipped the cable. Or thought he did. He had mentioned his business, but not his place of business, and the Register of Estate Agents told her where he lived.

“Thus she arrived at Mitford and put the screws on a hard bargain. He was to pay her fifty pounds a month in cash and every monthwas to pay into an Adelaide bank a further fifty pounds. He was to find her a house and pay for the furnishings. Because this was so favourable to her, she took steps to erase her former identity, and to keep secret her association with him.

“Martin, however, found paying out a hundred a month most irksome. He knew the night when Mrs Marlo-Jones would steal Mrs Rockcliff’s baby. He knew all the details from Mrs Delph without Mrs Delph realising the significance of the information. He knew that Mrs Marlo-Jones would gain entry to the house by means of a strip of celluloid to force the front-door spring lock.

“He knew even the time Mrs Marlo-Jones was to take the baby, or thought he did, because Mrs Marlo-Jones was delayed an hour. When he entered the house via the scullery window, he expected the child to have been taken. Being the agent for the owner he was familiar with the interior of the house, knew from Mrs Rockcliff where the baby was left, and so went direct to the front bedroom. He was no sooner there than he heard Mrs Rockcliff come in and, so he tells us, had no time to be sure the cot was empty. Thus he rid himself of an incubus by making it appear that the abductors of the baby had murdered the woman who found them stealing her child.

“The deed done, he left at once, not knowing that the child was still in its cot and Mrs Marlo-Jones under the bed. Believing that he had successfully saddled the baby-thieves with murder, he was able to stay still after the deed.

“The Marlo-Joneses were unable to stay still. Horrified by the murder, they had to know what was being done about it. They put Clark to shadowing Alice, and Wilmot thought he kept me under observation. Stealing the rock drawing was the height of foolishness. They hoped I would not associate the theft with the abductions; they thought I would not find out what the drawing meant. They feared that if I saw the drawing I would quickly associate the legend with their activities.

“When Mr Oats supplied me with a sketch of the drawing made from memory, I was relieved of my worst fears of the fate of those infants. The placing of red-back spiders in my bed, I am glad to say, was the act of Marcus Clark and his pals, and not of the Marlo-Joneses. They didn’t fear me nearly as much as did the aborigines, who took independent action.

“That about covers the twin investigations. My chief concern was the fate of the babies, as I have so often asserted, and we must all rejoice to know where they are and that they are being well cared for. Their respective parents will be told where they are to be found.”

“Now, please, tell us the legend,” Alice pleaded.

“The legend!”Bony smiled at her provocatively. “It happened a long, long time ago in the Days of the Alchuringa, when the world was young and waiting for the aborigines to come and take possession of it. In those far-away days the world was peopled by all kinds of monsters, and one day there came wading through the seas a strange beingwho was half-bird half-man. Its name is Altjerra, the Creator of All Things.