Arthur Upfield - The New Shoe

“When he woke, he was just as bad as he’d been before. I said if he’d not give himself up, then the only thing to do was for Dick to drive him to Melbourne, anywhere to get away. He wouldn’t hear of it, shouting that by now someone would have told the police about him and the dead man in the Lighthouse. I stayed with him most of that day until Dick came in the evening. Dick quieted him just a little, and when he left I went again with him to the road gate. He asked if I’d told Father about the murder, and I reminded him I’d never kept anything from Father. I begged him to think what we could do for Eldred, and Dick said there was nothing we could do exceptkeep him full of brandy until the craving for cocaine passed off. Dick didn’t sound hopeful, and then he told me that what Eldred was suffering from chiefly was fear. Said Eldred’s way of living had rotted him, and fear was sending him insane.

“As I walked back to the house, I thought of Mary, of all that Mary had suffered. I thought of Father, how wise he had been and how foolish I had been to override his views and advice. I thought of Mr Penwarden, and what he had done to save Father and me and Dick. I thought of allthat, was thinking of it as I went into Eldred’s room.

“He was sitting on the side of the bed, the fingers of one hand clawing the side of his mouth, and his eyes glassy with fear and horror. I must have walked slowly to the door, for he shouted at me never to do that again, that I reminded him of the coming of the hangman.

“I said: ‘You’ll have to sleep, son. You must sleep!’ So I went out to the kitchen and mixed him a sedative and took it to him, and he drank it.

“He became calmer, and finally he lay down and I lay with him and held him in my arms. All night long, I held him excepting once when I got up to put out the light. When he died… there was no struggle, just no more breathing… I got up and went to Father and told him Eldred was dead.”

There was silence. Eli Wessex, who had been so still that it could be thought he was dead, uttered one short sob. The woman’s voice came again, thin, without tone, reminding Bony of the wind among the white-gums surrounding the little dell in the forest.

“All my love for Eldred was wasted. There was nothing left in me to give but pity. In half a glass of brandy, I gave him ten of Father’s tablets.”

Bony’s Greatest Triumph

“AND THEN YOU put Eldred in one of the coffins kept under your bed, and buried him in the forest beyond the road,” Bony said as stating facts.

“In my coffin,” whispered Eli.

“And Owen replaced the casket by having Penwarden make one ostensibly for Mrs Owen.”

“That was so.”

Mrs Wessex glanced at the clock on the mantel, and stood. Saying nothing, she left the room. Old Eli’s head drooped and his lean chin almost rested on his chest. In Bony sprang the urge for physical action that the depression on his mind might be relieved, but he remained quiescent. He was conscious of being trapped. He sought to identify the trap and found it. It was Napoleon Bonaparte, a detective inspector, a tiger-cat that once on the trail never gives up, the personification of Victor Hugo’s implacable trailer of men, Javert. It was the man who had never yet failed to finalize an investigation. That was the trap which closed about Bony, husband and proud father, the man of courage sufficient to conquer all those disabilities imposed by his ancestry, the man whose infinite patience was equalled by limitless sympathy.

Without thought for etiquette, he rolled and lit a cigarette. Sounds were emphasized… the hissing of afirelog, the clock, the movement of Mrs Wessex in another part of the house. Then there occurred that which gave him one of the greatest shocks of his career. Mrs Wessex came in with afternoon tea on a large tray. The one anchor to which she could cling in this time of catastrophe.

He placed a small table for her, and she poured the tea. As she had done that other afternoon when he was there, so did she raise the cup to her husband’slips. Not one of them spoke until the woman had pushed the little table away and again sat between the two men.

“When Dick came that evening,” she said, tonelessly as before, “I told him what I’d done. He went out and I told Alfie to go for Mr Owen. The three of them put Eldred in father’s coffin and carried it out to Mr Owen’s utility. I went with them. Mrs Owen stayed to look after Mary and Father.

“We tried to keep it all from Mary, but it wasn’t any use. She followed me to the truck and we drove across the road and into the forest to the place where the children used to play. That was Dick’s idea. Mary and I stood together while the men dug the grave. They were very careful to bring away all the earth displaced by the coffin and smooth away all traces.

“I never went back. Mary did. I used to watch her, but she was very good. We have tried, Father and I, to forget that time and remember only the years before Eldred went to the war.”

Her voice trailed away, to be captured by the ticking clock, the hissing logs. When Bony began the move to leave his chair, she said:

“I am ready to go with you, Inspector Bonaparte. I’ve packed a change of clothes.”

With a swift rush and a cry like an agonized animal, the woman left her chair and fell upon her knees beside her husband. His hands went up to rest upon her head, the edges of the palms expressing what the locked and helpless fingers could not.

Bony crossed to the wall telephone. He asked Exchange for the Owens’ number. When a woman answered the call, he asked for Tom Owen.

“I am speaking from the Wessex homestead,” he said to Owen. “Would you and Mrs Owen come over immediately? Mr and Mrs Wessex are in desperate need.”

“Leave at once,”came the prompt assent.

They arrived within fifteen minutes, to find Bony waiting on the veranda. The woman was concerned: the man grim.

“They are in the sitting room,” Bony told Mrs Owen. To her husband, he said: “I have something to say before you go in.” He paused, to permit Mrs Owen to leave them, before explaining who he was and giving a swift outline of his investigation. “That, Mr Owen, is the complete tragedy, is it not?”

The man’s grey eyes suddenly narrowed, and he nodded.

“That’s about all of it”

“Now listen carefully. A man was done to death. He was a dope smuggler, among other things. The man who killed him was as bad. The world is well rid of both. The man who was the murderer’s accomplice is also dead. Don’t interrupt… Lake was Eldred’s accomplice. The shadow of that crime has fallen on seven people, one of the seven being you. Another is old Penwarden.

“You know that Penwarden is aware only of part of the whole, that he does not know that Eldred came home, and all that followed. What Penwarden doesn’t know, he must never know, but he must bear the responsibility for the advice he gave Dick Lake.

“Rightly or wrongly, I find I cannot censure Mrs Wessex for what I myself would have done and, rightly or wrongly, I cannot censure you for what you did for them in their extremity. It is for you to guard the secret of the dell in the forest, and to control the minds, and thus the tongues, of those who share the secret with you. It is for me to continue the hunt for the murderer of Thomas Baker to Ballarat and beyond. Clear?”

Tom Owen tried to speak, gave it up, and nodded.

“Go in and comfort them,” Bony said, and went down the veranda steps to pat the waiting Stug and walk slowly to the road.

Ed Penwarden was putting on his coat to go home when Bony entered the workshop, and his anxiety was not lessened when Bony swung shut the door and locked it.