Arthur Upfield - Venom House

“H’m! We’ll call it a day, Mawson. You could take me to Venom House in the morning… be there about nine?”

“Certainly. Should leave at eight-thirty.”

“Make it eight o’clock. I shall want to examine the locality where Carlow’s van was parked. Good night!”

At half past eight the following morning, Bony alighted from Mawson’s car and surveyed the large natural clearing amid the jumble of hills where the van had been parked in the scrub. Mawson led the way into the scrub on the side opposite the old logging stage and pointed out the place where the van had been found. It was impossible for anyone in the clearing to have seenit, such was the massing of semi-tropical vegetation.

“What exactly did Inspector Stanley do about the van?” Bony asked.

“Had it dusted for finger-prints,” replied Mawson. “Steering-wheel gave only Carlow’s prints. Examined the sacking and the tarp inside it. Had the vehicle driven over soft ground and photographs taken of the tyreimprints. Tyre tracks gave nothing. It rained somewhat more than two inches that night Carlow was killed.”

All this Bony knew from the Official Summary, and copies of the finger-prints and the tyre-prints were in his suitcase. He was confident that had he been assigned to the Carlow murder investigation he would have discovered much more from this page of The Book of the Bush than Stanley and his assistants had done. And that despite the hindering rain.

Mawson took a track little better than a green-grey tunnel, for the early morning mist percolated thickly into the massing scrub and hid the upper portion of the trees rising from it. Emerging from the far end of the tunnel, they came to a wide slope of cleared land ending at the base of an opaque wall surmounted by the fairly blue sky and tinted light gold by the still invisible sun.

As the car was driven down the slope, to the left appeared the dark shape of many buildings. These buildings became identifiable: a wood shed, a small shearing shed, the men’s quarters, and other out-houses. Within an open-fronted shed stood the station wagon which Mary Answerth had driven and a smart single-seater coupe.

Mawson stopped the car almost on the edge of the Folly and cut the engine. Immediately there came to them the call of ducks and far-away hooting of swans. The silvered water was like glass, and upon the glass stood, here and there, the grey trunks of long-dead trees.

Somewhere near the men’s quarters dogs barked. Along the shallow shore of the Folly came a duck followed by five ducklings. The old lady deviated to avoid the car and, having steered her brood past it, veered again to follow closely the grass-edged shore.

The tinting of gold sank downward to claim the mist to the glassy surface. The air was cool and pleasurably breathed, and it brought the scents of luscious growth, of cattle, of gum-wood burning in a stove. A distant shadow materialized in the mist, became a featureless oblong based on nothing, and both men silently watched as the shadow solidified to a large flat-roofed house. The tips of the taller of the dead trees standing in the Folly were gilded by the sun, and the mist magically thinned to reveal the windows and the great arched porch to the front entrance of the distant house.

“Must be very damp,” commented Bony.

“Stands on a sort of island made by a levee all round it,” Mawson said. “Once there was no water here at all. A river used to pass the house on the far side, but one of the Answerths interfered with its exit to the sea and despite all their efforts the outlet was permanently blocked. Water couldn’t get away and so formed this lake. It’s why it’s called Answerth’s Folly.”

“I would say that the artificial island on which the house stands is one-third of a mile from us. What is your guess?”

“Bit more, I think. From here to there is the causeway, covered by about a foot of water.”

Colour was brushed upon the house. It was built of grey stone and comprised two storeys. Facing them were six windows on the ground floor and seven on the upper floor. All the windows were of a past era, tall and narrow. The house stood upon a green base.

“What does that house remind you of?” inquired Bony, and Mawson was prompt to make answer.

“Buckingham Palace. Very small edition, of course.”

“The green is grass growing on the levee?”

“Must be. I understand that the levee encloses about two acres of land.”

“I’d like to own that house. Unusual. Its history will be interesting. Slip up to the men’s quarters and ask that cook to come here. Meanwhile, I’ll indulge in the wishful spending of a hundred thousand pounds lottery prize.”

“I wouldn’t even get that far,” grumbled Mawson, and departed.

Venom House! Strange name to give a house… behind its back. What had Harston said? The Answerths have a wretched history. They began in evil times and evil has clung to them down through the years. Yes…”

Voices recalled him to the approach of Mawson and another man, and Bony left the car to survey the station cook. He was about the same size as Dr Lofty, but his legs were like twin bows bent to speed an arrow to right and left. He wore white moleskin trousers, a white cotton shirt, and slippers. His age? Anything between fifty and ninety. His eyes were dark and screwed to the size of small marbles, and this mannerism, together with the burned and lined face, was a finger-post to his origin… the sun-burned plains of the Interior.

“The men’s cook, sir,” Mawson said, stiffly. “Name is Albert Blaze.”

“Come and sit down, Blaze, and talk,” Bony invited and himself sat on the running-board of the car.

“Good-dayee, Inspector. I’ll sit and yap any time, but I don’t know much.”

The long tail to the “day” was further proof that Albert Blaze had been bred somewhere near the heart of the continent. There was music in the way he drawled the greeting.

Sisters at Home

“HOWLONGHAVEyou been cooking for the Answerths?” was Bony’s firstquestion. The reply wasn’t delayed.

“I told Inspector Stanley that.”

“Did you? Now tell me.”

Bony’s expression was bland when regarding the little man seated beside him. Despite his age, Blaze hadn’t forgotten how real men sum up each other. Calmly, unhurriedly, he examined Bony’s face feature by feature, and so came to discard his first impression for another more accurate. Here was no bashful half-caste, no slinking half-caste, no simple half-caste. Here was a half-caste never to be found in the vicinity of such places as Darwin, where the riff-raff of both racescongregate. Here was a half-caste who could have come from the Tablelands, the Diamintina, the Murchison.

“I began working here in ’24,” Blaze said, easily but coldly.

“Before then you were, of course, riding the stock routes with cattle. How many years were you on the cattle roads?”

“All my life before I came here. If you want to know why I left the cattle country to work on a place no bigger than a cattle station’s backyard, I won’t be telling you. That happened a long time ago.”

“I’m not prying, Blaze. I was wondering if you and I know the same places. I believe we do, and we will swap yarns later, if you care to. At the moment we’ll concentrate on the death of Mrs Answerth. You have been cooking for the men… how long?”

“Nine years. I was head stockman before that,” answered the ex-cattleman.“Got too old and stiff for the work. I’m near eighty, you know.”

“Don’t believe it.”

“All right… bet-cher. No good, though. Can’t prove it. But I’m eighty this year accordin’ to the bloke what brought me up.”

“All right! You win. You were having breakfast when Miss Mary Answerth called you all to rescue the body of Mrs Answerth, were you not?”