Arthur Upfield - The New Shoe

“Yes, sir. More than once I had to visit the Wessex farm about the son. Before the war that was. Eldred just missed being charged twice in the period 1936-39. He made the old people sick worrying about him. Same old set up, sir. Doting mother and weak father.”

“And Richard Lake, recently found dead at the foot of Split Point?”

“Bit of a lad, but nothing bad to him. Pity he ended like that. Did well in the Army, I understand.”

“What of Lake’s partner?”

“Moss Way! Nothing against him. Steady sort of a chap.”

“And Fred Ayling?”

“Slightly erratic. Know nothing to his disadvantage, sir.”

“H’m! Most helpful that you know all these people. Smoke if you want to whilst I explain what I want done. Bear in mind the date that Fisher found the body in the wall locker. On February 27th, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, Dick Lake came here and parked Eli Wessex’s car to wait for a man coming off the 2.20 train from Melbourne.

“Lake was wearing his best suit, which is important. The friend did not arrive by that train. It is thought that he did not arrive until the next day, and that Lake camped in the car throughout the night of February 27th-28th. It is thought the friend accompanied Lake to Split Point. The friend could have been accompanied by a friend… another important point.

“As you are known to every publican in Geelong, I want Lake tracked after he arrived at this place. Doubtless he would eat at the cafe he used when coming here with Moss Way to deliver and call for goods. Doubtless he had his favourite hotels between here and the exit from Geelong. I want to know where Lake left Geelong, and whether he was accompanied by one or two men. And, if possible, the description of them. You can take this car. I will wait hereabouts for you.”

“Very well, sir.”

The detective drove away, and Bony bought a morning paper and sought a quiet cafe for tea and sandwiches. When at noon the Geelong detective had not returned, he telephoned Bolt.

“Still falling down on the old job?” he asked pleasantly.

“You will never know until you do,” growled the vast man from his comfortable office. “What goes, Bony?”

Bony explained that he had called on the Geelong police for the services of a detective, saying:

“When that plainclothes man reports to his superior officer, they are going to be interested and might interfere more than I want. You order them to leave my work to me.”

“Yes, sir,” snarled Bolt. “What the hell are you doing in Geelong?”

“Tracking a dead man,” serenely replied Bony. “But I still want Waghorn… hat, boots and all. I know you promised him to me, Super, but I am somewhat impatient.”

“Must be ill or something… to be impatient, Bony. All right, blast you! I’ll fix it with the officer down there. Don’t you go getting into trouble, now. Your Chief’s been talking over trunk-line with my Chief. Wants to know why the hell you’re taking such a long time to wind up a simple little murder case. Says that a real policeman would havefinalized the job weeks ago.”

“As well for you… and the law… that I’m not a real policeman,” snapped Bony, and cut the connexion.

The Geelong detective didn’t turn up until after three o’clock.

“Found a clear trail at the Belmont Hotel, sir,” he reported. “The men, Lake and Way, are well known there both to the licensee and his barman. As you know, it’s the last hotel out of Geelong on the road to Split Point.

“The barman remembers that Lake called there one afternoon at about the time of the Lighthouse murder, and he remembers because it was the first and only time he saw Lake wearing a good suit. The exact date he can’t fix, but he says it was raining hard and steady that afternoon. It was the afternoon of February 28th, because it didn’t rain on February 27th, or on March 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

“The barman couldn’t remember if Lake was accompanied, meaning that he was alone when he entered the bar. However, in the bar were three men who knew Lake, and the barman was able to give me their names and addresses.

“I interviewed the three men. They remembered drinking with Lake that afternoon. They are agreed that he entered the bar alone and also that he bought a bottle of brandy which he put into a pocket of his overcoat. They are also agreed that Lake did not take more than four small glasses of beer, which to them was strange as they had never known him to drink small beers.

“One of the three could tell more than the others. They wanted Lake to stay drinking with them, but he said he’d have to keep sober as he had a girl friend out in the car. One man followed him outside the bar, continuing to urge him to have a last drink for the road. He says that inside the car, in the back seat, were two people. One of them he thinks was a man, and the other could have been a woman. He can’t be sure, as the side-curtain window was yellow and dirty. He watched Lake drive off along the road to Anglesea and Split Point.”

Bony said nothing for a full minute, and then thanked the detective for a good job of work.

He had hoped for a sprat and had been given a whale.

Ed Penwarden’s Mistake

THREE MEN HADleft the Belmont Hotel for Split Point, for Bony could not accept the view that one of Dick Lake’s passengers was a woman. Lake was dead. His companions had been careful to avoid recognition by remaining in the back seat of the car, and of those two, Eldred Wessex was surely one. The other was dead, were he Thomas Baker.

The clue of the red-gum shaving found in the Lighthouse had produced a result, although a scent rather than a fingerprint. Elimination had reduced the possible agents of conveyance from the carpenter’s workshop to the Lighthouse to one of three men: the murderer, the murderer’s accomplice, the victim. Now the victim could be discarded, and there remained the two agents named, viz: Dick Lake and Eldred Wessex.

Either one or both had been inside Penwarden’s workshop immediately before the nude body was entombed in the Lighthouse wall. And old Penwarden knew it.

How to tackle the coffin maker? With the sharp scalpel of the expert investigator, or with the soft and soothing blah of the diplomat? Bony chose the alternative.

The day was sunny and warm for the month of May, and after lunch he strolled with Stug down the curve of the highway, and so to the building where laboured the master craftsman.

“Hullo, Mr Rawlings, sir!” greeted the old man. “Come on in and sit you down and gas.”A throaty chuckle.“My old woman’s allus on to me forgassin ’. Says I do nothing else the live-long day. Gas, gas, gas, and sheworkin ’ her fingers to the bone. Youever seen your wife’sfingerbones?”

“They are too well padded,” replied Bony, occupying his favourite end of the bench. “Any further word about the bloodwood logs?”

“Not yet. The railways take their time these days. Could be a full week, even two, aforethem logs arrive in Geelong.” The work-hardened fingers combed back the long, white hair, and the blue eyes beamed. “Tell you what, Mr Rawlings. I’ll make and polish a shelf for your sitting room. Scarlet she’ll be, with the shine to her like my daffodil-yellow one. You come in for a cup of tea with me and the old woman afore you leave Split Point… just to look at that bit of flotsam.”

“Thank you. I’d like to.”

“Your holiday got much more to go?”

“Perhaps another week.”

The old man took up a rule and measured a rough length of scantling. He jotted figures on the slate, pondered on them, and having pencilled a mark on the wood and sawn along it, he straightened and regarded Bony with eyes narrowed by the broad smile.