Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

“Yes, sir.”

Bony hung up, a quirk at his mouth. The voice was coldly efficient, not unlike Pavier’s voice. Recalling Crome’s impolite description of Policewoman Lodding, Bony left his office for her domain.

She was not quite as the sergeant had labelled her, and she stood as Bony approached her desk, flanked on one side by a typewriter and on the other by a card-index cabinet. In height she was above average, Bony estimated five feet eleven inches. Instead of uniform she was wearing a navy-blue pleated skirt and a tailored white blouse. Her hair, as black as Bony’s, was dressed severely, which accentuated the sharp lines of the cheek-bones. The complexion was sallow, entirely unadorned. The mouth was not inviting, and the dark brown eyes held nothing akin to big velvety pansies. A female iceberg-aged forty winters.

“I am Inspector Bonaparte. Happy to meet you, Miss Lodding.”

He smiled, with calculated attempt to melt the ice, and almost succeeded. She could not prevent the flash of interest in her eyes, and in that split second he thought he saw a different woman.

“Anything I can do for you, Inspector?”

“Well, yes, there is. Miss Ball told me that you prepared the morning and afternoon teas. That is so?”

Her voice was pleasing, and Bony waited for it.

“Very few young girls can make tea properly, sir. I generally do it.”

“Well, the situation is this, Miss Lodding. I am going to have a party this morning. Three young ladies from whom I am hoping to receive valuable assistance are calling on me. I want them to be perfectly at ease, to have no feeling of being within the clutches of the law.”

“I could see to it, Inspector.” The dark brows lowered a mere fraction. He thought they were hostile to his suggestion. They were not. “I’ll have Miss Ball take in the tea when required. Having been away, I’ve a great deal of work to catch up on. You understand?”

“Quite. And thank you.”

Policewoman Lodding made to sit down, and Bony, feeling a little chilled, left her. He found Senior Detective Abbot with Sergeant Crome and invited them to his office where he showed them the sketches and explained their purpose.

“I assume there’s an official car available?” he asked Crome.

“ ’Fraidnot, sir. One’s being overhauled, the other’s out.”

The sergeant detected the hardening of the blue eyes.

“Hire a car,” Bony ordered crisply. “Go with it to Goldspink’s shop and fetch Mary Isaacs and June Way, the cashier. Be extremely tactful. I have a great liking for both those girls, and I won’t have them being made nervous.”

“Whatd’you think I am?” grumbled Crome.

“A policeman. You look like a policeman and you speak like one. Wholesome young women are not accustomed to being dragged by a policeman to a police station. I’ve already contacted Mrs Robinov, who will give you her blessing. Now, Abbot, you go and get another car and call at Favalora’s Cafe for Miss Lena Martelli. Favalora will not oppose. Behave nicely. Rely on your personality. Bring those three young women to this office, and ask Miss Lodding to have them given morning tea. I’ll see them individually. You, Crome, can be with me. Abbot can entertain them. Clear?”

Crome blinked, grinned. Abbot, a fair-haired man in his early thirties, chuckled. He was liking it. It was time someone stirred up this ‘jug’. Who was to pay for the hired cars didn’t matter just now.

In his own office, Bony rang Metter’s Grocery Store and asked for Mr Mills.

“Morning, Mills! Inspector Bonaparte speaking. Thank you so much for your sketches. They’re splendid. Just what I wanted. You’d do more?… Good! By the way, d’you think you could obtain leave of absence for a couple of hours this morning?”

Mills said he thought he could, the manager being ‘pretty decent’.

“Then come along as soon as you can. Bring a newspaper with you and wait patiently in the public office till I call for you.”

Having instructed the duty constable to see that Mr Mills was made comfortable, Bony fell again to studying the sketches. With clipping scissors he cut each sketch from the several sheets. There was a tiny smile at the corners of his mouth and a glistening of the deep blue eyes. Trying to find one woman in a city of twenty-eight thousand people, a woman no one could remember clearly, no one could positively describe… He couldn’t even be certain that it was a woman who had dropped cyanide into two cups of tea. It could have been a man disguised as a woman.

An aboriginal tracker was told whom to track. A bloodhound was given a piece of the hunted one’s clothes to smell. To him they had given nothing of the poisoner save a few miserably vague details of age and dress. And then had the effrontery to expect results in five minutes. Hurry up, Bony, and catch this poisoner before he cyanides another elderly bachelor. We’ll catch hell if you don’t. And if he failed? Only scorn, only contempt for his mid-race. No longer any recognition of his achievements. For him one failure wiped out all successes: for the full-white, one success wiped out all failures.

“The girls are here, sir,” announced Sergeant Crome.

“I’ll see Mary Isaacs. Have Miss Ball bring her a cup of tea in here.”

Crome vanished. Bony could hear feminine voices next door. There was theclop-clop of high-heeled shoes outside his door, and then he was smiling at Mary Isaacs and welcoming her. He was pleased that she smiled at him and then at Crome, who brought in a chair for himself.

“Your boy friend has done a great job for me, Miss Isaacs, and I have to thank you for persuading him to do it. All this is his work.”

“He was a bit difficult at first, Inspector,” Mary said, and flushed.

“But you managed him, eh? You women!” chuckled Crome, and Bony’s estimation of the sergeant rose two pegs.

“Oh yes. You see, we hope to be married some day. And David’s tremendously keen to get on.”

“Well, he’s gone quite a distance already,” Bony told her. “Now I want you to look at all these pictures and just see if any one of them reminds you of someone, and that customer in particular. Please don’t hurry. I can understand why you are doubtful that if the customer should enter the shop again you wouldn’t recognise her, so don’t force your memory. Look at this coloured picture. It’s a credit to your David.”

The girl accepted the proffered water-colour and instantly exclaimed:

“This looks like Mrs Jonas! Doesn’t it, Mr Crome?”

“Yes, something like her,” Crome admitted, adding to Bony: “Mrs Jonas is one of my neighbours.”

“But it wasn’t Mrs Jonas who was the customer. I should have known if it was,” declared Mary.

“Well, this one?”

The girl studied the second picture and then put it down, saying it didn’t remind her of anyone. The sketches which followed were also discarded, and then one of a woman’s face in profile puzzled her.

“Something like my aunt Lily,” she said. “Not much, though.”

Another sketch was thought to resemble Mrs Robinov before she dressed for the shop. Crome sat beside her, keenly interested and yet saying nothing, giving her mind every chance to function.

Miss Ball came in with the morning tea, and Bony hastily cut off the work. They chatted over their cups, Mary telling them more of David’s plans, of her hopes, and her work at the shop. Then the empty cups were pushed aside, and she was brought back to the task.

Again she looked over all the sketches, and finally she placed the three full-length water colours side by side and gazed at them beneath a puzzled frown. Crome was silent. Bony barely moved. Memory! Was it being stirred to activity?

Mary Isaacs laughed, and, although disappointed, Bony delighted in the music of it.