Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

The sergeant pounced.

“Near insane?” he exclaimed. “Can anyone be near insane?”

“Oh yes, Crome, yes, of course. Our asylums are full of the partially insane. Some never enter an asylum, not being ill enough and their relatives willing to care for them. Others fall into a distinct category. They suffer from what is called progressive insanity, eventually compelling the authorities to certify and confine. Of all the ills to which mankind is subject, initial insanity is the hardest to detect.

“I’ll go back one step. If through Gromberg’s murder we find that greed, or jealousy, or ambition is the motive, then we look for a sane and clever murderer. If, on the other hand, Gromberg’s murder links in no one respect with those of the others to give us a motive, then we must look for the near-insane person possessed of intense hatred of elderly, slovenly bachelors.”

Crome sighed. Seriously he said:

“Well, I’m just an ordinary ruddy policeman. I can pinch drunks and keep vice in check. Stillman’s another policeman. He can wage war with gunmen and pinch men who cut the wife’s throat because she nags, or is mucking about with another man, or because he wants a clear field to marry another woman. I can deal with those sorts of murders too. When it comes to these near-insane killings, I’m stonkered. Andso’s Stillman and the Super.”

The tacit admission did more for Bony than Crome was ever to know.

“One must be patient and refuse to be sidetracked,” Bony said. “And now I must write my report for the Super. You go home to bed.”

“Can’t. Must wait to see what Abbot brings in.”

Crome left the room and Bony brought his mind to composing his report, knowing that to achieve freedom of action he would have to write in a manner divorced from his verbal bouts with superiors. The task occupied him an hour, and on his way out to return to his hotel he met Crome again.

“Abbot found nothing like poison in Gromberg’s house,” he told Bony. “He did find a set of diaries, and he read back for the last six months and couldn’t find a link with either Parsons or Goldspink. Found a will, too, dated a year ago. The will leaves everything to a nephew in New Zealand. Doesn’t say how much.”

“Thanks! Put a man on routine investigation into Gromberg’s background. I’m going to bed.”

It was not particularly late when Bony turned in, but he slept till nine next morning, then rang for Sloan, asking the steward to be generous and fetch him a breakfast tray. It was eleven when he left the hotel and, without difficulty, found a taxi.

Sunday morning, and Argent Street deserted save for men supporting veranda posts, some of them having coursing dogs in leash and most of them talking sport. The famous street was silent, and the silence was emphasised by noise of the mine machinery which, although reduced, never stops.

The car carried Bony down Argent Street, turned to cross the railway and pass the Trades Hall, where so much of local history has been made, turned again to skirt one of the two railway terminals, and proceeded along what was formerly a low ridge, enabling Bony to see the broken hill and what man had done to it.

Even the brazen sky lookedSundayish, and the spiralling smoke and spurting steam about the mine heads pretended to be taking this day off-or wanting to.

Finally the taxi stopped before a small house set close behind a peeling picket fence. The driver was asked to wait, and Bony passed through where once a gate had been, and mounted two steps to the front door.

In answer to his knock the door was opened by a girl of school age, who said her mother was at home. She left him standing at the open doorway, and he heard her shouting:

“Hi, Mum, a gent wants to see you.”

A woman’s voice: “Blast! Tell him to wait. Iain’t dressed yet. What’s he look like?”

“A-ah, just a man. Got his best clothes on.”

As though this conversation could not possibly have reached the caller, the girl reappeared, to say that her mother wouldn’t be long. Again the deserted Bony stood on the porch, this time for ten minutes, when a figure in a voluminous house-gown of lollipop-pink confronted him.

“Pardon my disarray,” she said genteelly. “Hate being rushed on a Sunday morning. What is it?”

“I’m from the Detective Office, Mrs Wallace. Wally Sloan told me you might be in a position to help us in a certain matter.”

Mrs Wallace was fifty, amazingly blondish, and her hastily applied ‘Morning-Glory’ make-up was somewhat misty.

“Blimey! You don’t say,” she said. “Come in.” Bony was taken to the front parlour, a place of signed photographs, bric-a-brac, cushions, and a velvet lounge suite. “Right about Gromberg, then?”

“You have heard?”

“That old Gromberg died in the Western Mail, sudden-like? What did he die of-Mr-Sergeant-Inspector?”

“Inspector. Mr Gromberg died of cyanide.”

“You don’t say!” Mrs Wallace settled herself comfortably. This was going to be good-not to be hurried. She lifted up her voice and screamed: “El-sie!”

“Yes, Mum!” shouted the girl from somewhere at the rear.

“You made that coffee yet, luv?”

“Yes. You want it now?”

“What’d you think? Bring an extra cup for the gentleman.” To Bony she said placidly: “Getting serious, isn’t it?”

“The poisonings, yes. Sloan told me that you left the lounge at the Western Mail Hotel only a few minutes before Gromberg took up his glass of beer, drank it, and immediately died. The glass had last been filled about twenty minutes past five and he emptied it at twenty minutes to six. You left, as far as Sloan remembers, at five and twenty to six.”

“Yes it was about half past five. Mrs Wallace raised a hand to warn him of the approach of the girl. Self-consciously she carried a silver-plated tray covered with a lace cloth and bearing cups and saucers, sugar, hot milk, and a coffee pot. The mother swept knick-knacks off a small table to make room for the tray, and the girl departed. Mrs Wallace then produced a bottle of brandy, smiled at Bony, poured a liberal portion into one cup, and presented him with the bottle.

“All yours,” she told him. “Went to a ‘do’ last night. Got an awful itchy throat.”

Bony voiced appreciation of the coffee but declined the brandy.

“Where you sat in the lounge you could see everyone and watch everyone entering and leaving, couldn’t you?”

“You bet,” agreed Mrs Wallace. “I likelookin ’ at people.”

“Do you often spend a few minutes there?”

Mrs. Wallace chuckled, and the bosom reminded Bony of the groundwork of Mrs Robinov’s pearls.

“More like a couple of hours, Inspector. I go there mostSatdee afternoons. Only little pleasure I get these days. Used to work in a bar one time, y’know. I like the atmosphere.”

“It’s because you are used to bars and lounges that I am hoping you can give me one or two pointers.” Bony sipped his coffee. “The little girl can certainly brew coffee.”

“Too right, I’m teaching her to be refined. Sing out when you want another cuppa. You wassayin ’?”

“On leaving your table for the front door, you had to pass behind Mr Gromberg, didn’t you?”

“I had to, yes.”

“Did you notice how much beer was then in his glass?”

“I fancy I did. Being a barmaid, I can tell beer at a glance, and you’vesorta brought it to my mind. Gromberg’s glass, I’d say, was a bit over half full. I remember thinking as I walked out that the beer served to Gromberg was a bit off, and I couldn’t get it because my beers had been OK. The beer in Gromberg’s glass was cloudy, and I said tomeself in the street that it was the first time I’d seen cloudy beer at the Western Mail.”