Arthur Upfield: The New Shoe

Bony strolled back to the hotel, undecided whether to chuckle or to be horrified by the picture of Mrs Owen undergoing the trial of being fitted.

The Glass Jewel

BONY FOUND A tall and weathered man seated at his luncheon table. Mrs Washfold bustled in to introduce them.

“This is Mr Fisher from the Navigation Department,” she said, “Going to work at the Lighthouse. Thought you two might like to sit together. Meet Mr Rawlings, Mr Fisher.”

“Working at the Lighthouse, eh!” exclaimed Bony. “I’d like to go over it.”

“Any time you like,” assented the engineer. “I’mstartin ’ work about two. Walk right in. I’ll leave the door open for you.”

“You takethem steps easy, Mr Rawlings,” interposed the licensee’s wife. “There’sabout a hundred and twenty of ’em, so they say, and when you’re not used to it the climb will make your legs ache that much you won’t get no sleep for nights. A little vegetable soup, now?”

It was easy and quite natural, and every time Mrs Washfold appeared they were talking about coastal lights and of Fisher’s experiences in many of them.

Towards three o’clock, Bony left the private entrance and at once was joined by the hotel dog. Stug, it was called, and when Bony had asked for the meaning, he was advised to reverse the letters. The name, in reverse, was well chosen in view of the animal’s condition. He wanted to be acknowledged and greatly appreciated Bony’s attention.

With the dog who kept with him all the way, its interest in this new friend never obscured by the alluring scents it came across, Bony arrived at the gate in the Lighthouse fence, paused to examine visually the heavy padlock attached to the chain, and passed inside, closing the gate after him and the dog. Within the enclosure stood a forge and bags of fuel, and to one side against the iron fence was a lean-to shed.

The fence, the yard, himself and the dog were, of course, dwarfed by the mighty structure towering to the cloud-flecked sky. On glancing upwards, the overhanging balcony prevented him from sighting the windows of the Light and the red dome surmounting it. It had been painted recently, and Bony wondered how the painters had done their work.

The yard interested him particularly and for one purpose. When above-surface objects such as the forge and the shed might have interested the city detective, it was the ground which automatically claimed this man’s attention.

Since the last of the police investigators had been here, rain had wiped clean the ground within this yard, and since the rain had fallen there was one set of footprints between the fence gate and the Lighthouse door. Obviously they had been left by Fisher.

The Lighthouse door was open, and on entering the building Bony found himself in a narrow chamber flanked by rows of tall steel gas cylinders. Beyond this small chamber was the bottom of the spiral staircase, and on the bottom step sat Fisher.

“Ah, there you are, Fisher,” Bony said, and drew forward an empty case to sit with him. “Don’t move. I’ll smoke a cigarette and we’ll talk before going up. How’s the leg?”

“The leg, Inspector! All right. How did you know I’d damaged my hip a few years ago?”

“Little bird. Right hip, wasn’t it? Caused a limp.”

“Yes, it did. But I don’t limp now.”

“Just a little. Spent most of your time at sea?”

“That’s so. Allus Lighthouse men have been seamen in our time.”

“Well now, let’s get to work. First, you played your part well at lunch. Superintendent Bolt talked to you?”

“Yes, Inspector. Told me not to give you away as a detective.”

“Then forget I am one, and remember that my name is Rawlings… that I’m a sheepman. Are you the man who found the body?”

“Yes. It was crook because I wasn’tthinkin ’ of the naked and the dead. I wasthinkin ’ of sun-valves at the time.” A humourless chuckle rose from the vicinity of the man’s belt. “Bodies in lighthouses aren’tso thick as daisies in a paddock. I walked in here to do a job to one of the spare cylinder connexions, and I found the sun-valve…”

“Wait. We’ll come to that. I understand you have been with your department for nine years. You would know the routine. This Lighthouse is inspected four times annually, is it not?”

“Yes, as near as possible in the first week in February, May, August and November each year. It happens that this is inspection time. In fact, Superintendent Bolt only just told me in time about you being here. I was due the day after tomorrow.”

“Did you inspect the Light in February, the usual routine time?”

“Yes.”

“Then your visit here on March the First was not a routine visit?”

“No, it wasn’t. When I was down here early in February, I couldn’t finish a job, so I fixed it up pro tem, and reported to the office that it might last all right until the next inspection. The office said it should be looked at before then, and that’s why I was sent down three weeks later to fix it properly.”

“Anyone outside your office know you were coming?”

“No.”

“Therefore, anyone familiar with the inspection periods would not anticipate anyone coming here again till early in May? Many local people know the inspection periods?”

“All of ’emwould know.”

“Apparently the police did not know it,” Bony said, and Fisher caught the note of satisfaction. “They understand you came here on a routine inspection.”

“Well, they asked me why I came down, and I told ’emI came on inspection duty. That’s what I am… engineer-inspector of automatic coast lights.”

“Ah, I can see where the slight discrepancy occurred. Don’t worry about the matter, now we have it clear. Let me look at the keys.”

Fisher produced a bunch of keys and selected one which fitted the yard gate padlock, and another which fitted the lock in the Lighthouse door. Both keys could quite easily be duplicated. Without comment, Bony returned them.

“I assume you Navigation men have to know several trades,” he said.

“That’s so, Inspector. Rigging and welding and the like. Have to be used to heights, too. Thed’s seemed to have an idea that a Navigation Department man could have done the murder. They checked up on us all pretty thoroughly.”

“Matter of work,” murmured Bony. “Now show me over. I want you to proceed exactly as you did when you came here in March, beginning from where you opened the door and ending at that place where you found the body. I am not questioning your statement made to the detectives: it will be to my own advantage to follow you on the course you took that morning.”

Fisher stood with Bony.

“When I opened the door,” he said, “the first thing I did was smell for escaping gas, and then I looked at the pressure gauges on the cylinders and saw that the pressure was OK. You see, although I had that special job to complete, the ordinary inspection had to be done even though I’d done it three weeks before. So I ran my eye over the cocks and connexions down here and then I went on up.”

He proceeded to mount the stairway, Bony following. Their shoes rang metallically on the iron steps centred to the spiralling iron handrail. Thirty-one steps brought them to the first landing, occupying a half-circle. It was almost dark, the handrail gleaming like pewter in the faint light thrown up from the bottom and passed down from the distant upper floor.

A further series of thirty-one steps brought them to another landing, and Bony’s thigh muscles were beginning to complain. On reaching the third landing, he was thankful he hadn’t five hundred steps to mount, and after leaving this landing the light rapidly became stronger till they reached the top floor.