Arthur Upfield - Venom House

The room was long and lighted by a single huge pane of glass framed with velvet curtains of dove-grey. The walls were of primrose-yellow, the ceiling of palest aqua. The furniture was of modern design in silver ash and silk brocade. Hand-woven blue-grey rugs graced the polished flooring.

Turning from the window, a woman came forward to meet them. She was of medium height and slight of figure.

“Inspector Bonaparte! And Constable Mawson!” she said, with the merest trace of a lisp. “I am Janet Answerth. Please sit down.”

Bony honoured her with his inimitable bow, and no cavalier ever bettered it. Janet Answerth’s grey-green eyes widened, brightened. He said:

“I regret the circumstances compelling me to force myself into your presence, Miss Answerth. It’s generous of you to receive us so early.”

“Oh, we quite understand, Inspector Bonaparte. Do we not, Mary?”

“Damned if I do,” growled her sister. “We could have answered questions in the kitchen… or at the police station.”

“Oh, dear!” murmured Janet, seating herself. Mary wedged herself into a long-armed, low-backed chair, and thrust forward her leather-encased legs. Bony sat with Mawson on a divan, and glanced at a smoker’s stand.

“If you care to smoke, Inspector…” Janet said, and nodded her sanction.

“Thank you. I’ll not keep you longer than necessary. By the way, I think it probable that the coroner will comply with your request made last night. He hopes to reach a decision by midday.”

“We’re most grateful, Inspector,” Janet cried. “It’s all been such a nightmare.”

This was a rare occasion on which Bony felt he could not roll a smoke. Producing his case of “real” cigarettes, he crossed to offer it to Janet. He was conscious of Mary Answerth leaving the room, and he had but just regained his seat when she re-entered carrying a china spittoon. This she placed on the floor, and proceeded to thrust herself down into her chair, and then began cutting chips from a tobacco plug, an old pipe dangling from between her large and square teeth.

“I want to know something of the last hours of your mother’s life,” said Bony, hoping that if Mary Answerth spat her aim would be straight. “The circumstances call for patient enquiry. You know, of course, that Mrs Answerth did not die by drowning.”

“I knew it, but Janet wouldn’t believe me,” muttered Mary, the pipe still between her teeth. “When I saw the mark round her neck, I knew she’d been throttled.”

“How horrible, Inspector,” Janet whispered as though remarking on the picture of a traffic accident. “What reason… who…”

“We must try to uncover the motive,” Bony smoothly cut in. “Miss Janet Answerth…tell me when did you last see Mrs Answerth alive?”

“Oh! I think I told Mr Mawson about that. It was yesterday morning. No, it wasn’t. It was the afternoon of the day before yesterday. In the kitchen. I had reason to go to the kitchen to instruct Mrs Leeper. She’s our housekeeper-cook, you know. Mother was there. Doing something. I don’t remember what.”

“You did not see Mrs Answerth afterwards… at any time during the remainder of the day or evening?”

“No, Inspector.”

“You’re a liar,” interposed Mary, and having lit her pipe she tossed the spent match into the spittoon.

Her sister flushed and grimaced with disgust.

“You always were a liar, Janet,”proceeded Mary.“A natural born liar. You were talking to Mother just after dinner that evening. In the hall. You had just come down with Morris’s dinner-tray, and I heard you tell Mother she wasn’t to visit him as he was poorly.”

“Mary, how can you!” flamed Janet.

“When you last saw Mrs Answerth, she was not upset, or different in her manner?” interposed Bony, regarding the younger sister.

“I don’t know. I didn’t speak to her. I saw nothing about her that was different to what she usually was. She’d been ailing for years, you know. Sometimes she was very depressed about poor Morris. He is… well, he’s always been childish.”

“Your mother… she was able to get about without aid of any kind?”

“Oh, yes. She liked digging the garden and looking after the hens.”

Bony turned to Mary.

“When did you last see Mrs Answerth alive?”

“Round about ten o’clock that night. When she was going to bed.”

“She seemed her normal self?”

“No different.”

“Really, Mary, you mustn’t tell the Inspector such fibs,” cooed Janet, and stubbing out her cigarette, she crossed her slim legs and leaned back with her hands clasped behind her small head. The grey-green eyes were smoky. The sunlight gleamed upon her red-gold hair. The expression on her triangular face was of triumph. “At eleven o’clock that night, I heard you and Mother arguing below my bedroom window. I heard you ask Mother what the hell she was doing out of doors at that time of night. I saw you both come inside and I heard the front door close. So I wasn’t dreaming.”

Mary spat, and Bony was relieved that her aim was true. Holding the mouthpiece of the old pipe away from her face, she permitted a sneer to grow.

“You’re always dreaming this and that,” she said. “If you weren’t always dreaming and mooning about Morris, you’d have let his mother go up and see him that night. You haven’t let her see him for weeks. You wouldn’t let me see him, either, if you knew how to stop me.”

“Really, Mary, you are vulgar and mean,” Janet said quickly.

“Vulgar, eh? You’re telling me. I’ll be bloody vulgar if you insinuate I murdered Mother. I told her to come into the house. She’d been standing under Morris’s window to call good night to him, because you’d refused to let her go to his room to say good night. I sent her up to bed, and I followed her upstairs and heard her shut her door before I closed mine.”

Janet Answerth began to cry. To Mary, Bony said:

“How was your mother dressed… when you brought her into the house?”

“Same as when I found her dead in the water next morning.”

“Howd’you know that, Mary?” sobbed Janet. “There’s never any light in the hall.”

“I’m not saying there was a light in the hall,” snapped Mary. “I’m not blind, and the stars were out. Mother was wearing her usual day clothes, and she was dressed in them same clothes when I found her. And you keep your gob shut when the Inspector is asking me questions. If you don’t, I’ll slap it shut that hard you won’t open it again for a month.”

With astonishing alacrity, Mary Answerth left her chair and advanced towards her sister. Janet’s sobs were cut. She stood. The sunlight falling upon her red-gold hair appeared to create a scarlet dye seeping downwards to stain her face. Her eyes were abruptlylarge, and bright green. Her nostrils were thin and white. She was about to speak… and Mawson was between them.

“Now, now,” he soothed.“No fireworks, please. Sit down and just answer the Inspector’s questions.”

Bony helped himself to one of his own “tailor-mades” and touched its tip with a match. Above the lighted match, he regarded the tableau, his face calm although inwardly he was delighted. The tension waned, and Bony spoke:

“I would like to visit Morris Answerth.”

Mawson was too late to hinder them. They slipped by him to confront Bony, anger replaced by dismay, and in unison exclaimed:

“You can’t see Morris!”

The Fisherman

OLDMANMEMORYproduced from his card index a picture for Bony, and whilst regarding these two women so did he gaze on the picture of a small Australian terrier standing beside a bulldog. Janet stood before him in an attitude of entreaty: Mary stood with lordly and contemptuous indifference.