Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

“You say that you bought the material in Harbin,” Bony inserted.

“Yes. I’ve never seen such silk in Australia, Inspector.”

“There never was such material in Australia,” Mrs Wallace said with conviction. “If there’d been I’d have got some.”

Mrs Robinov tenderly folded the wedding frock in the mass of tissue paper and carried it away.

“It would seem, Mrs Wallace, that the woman in the blue silk frock at one time travelled beyond Australia,” Bony said suggestively.

“Don’t follow she did, Inspector. But someone who’s done a bit oftravellin ’ around has certainly brought back that material. All the best comes to the Hill, and that sort of stuff would have come too, if it was imported.”

“And we can say that Mr Mills’s pictured dress is near the reality?”

She and Mrs Lucas agreed that it was.

“Can we say the same of the handbag?”

Mary Isaacs led the chorus of approval.

“Thank you so much, ladies. You have all been extremely helpful. I’ll now run through the items which make up this woman’s description as seen in the hotel lounge. Age somewhere about forty-five. Height five feet ten or eleven inches. Walks without a stoop. Shape of face more square than oval. Eyes grey. Nose straight and slightly thick. Mouth wide and lips straight. And lastly, the hair. Your description of the hair, given to Mr Mills last night, is ‘hennaed’. Will you please explain that word?”

Mrs Lucas, who was thinking she had taken second place to Mrs Wallace, got in first.

“Henna is used to brighten the hair and make it look like red hair. But the woman’s hair wasn’t properly red. Just tinted.”

“Otherwise, dyed to appear what it isn’t?” questioned Bony, and Mrs Wallace giggled.

“Two out of every three women do something like that to their hair,” she said, and looked almost affectionately at Mrs Robinov, who brought in afternoon tea. She called Mrs Robinov ‘luv’ and ‘dearie’ and thoroughly enjoyed herself. And Bony, well pleased, walked with Abbot back to Headquarters.

“Seems that we’ve got something at last,” Abbot said. “We should be able to find that woman now.”

“Should!” echoed Bony. “We shall!”

Honours to Nimmo and Abbot

JIMMY NIMMO sat in a saloon bar and was unhappy. Superficially there was nothing to cause him unhappiness, for he had plenty of money, clothes which satisfied him, and proximity to a plentiful supply of cooling beer. It was the threat of hidden forces and not material things which fretted him.

He ought to be in this pleasant saloon bar reading a paper and enjoying the best cigarettes with long ‘butchers’ of beer. Outside was Argent Street, and if not now, then very soon there would be gimlet-eyed men walking up and down Argent Street who would recognise him, and one of them might be his arch-enemy, Inspector Stillman.

And this at the time when he was becoming increasingly interested in the stone-built two-storeyed house offering so much promise. The third poisoning would be bound to stir up the entire police force and interfere with the routine of the night patrols with which he had made himself familiar.

Jimmy hadn’t to be told the police set-up. He knew that Bonaparte was a Queenslander-seconded to New South Wales to investigate a series of poisoning cases-and he knew also that the Queenslander would not be permitted to undertake in addition the case of Policewoman Lodding. She had been a member of the Police Department, and nothing stirs up a police department more than the killing of one of its own. Therefore, if Crome and his boys failed to ring the bell, the Sydney mob would barge in, pronto.

Following four murders, Broken Hill was no place for a respectable burglar.

Jimmy wanted to leave ‘toot sweet’, and this he dared not do without Bonaparte’s permission. It was just too bad, for there were two strong attractions for him in Broken Hill: one, that two-storeyed house, and the other for whose sake he might even retire from his profession. The major problem was that the lady for whom he yearned expected him to take her to cinemas and other places of amusement and would wonder why he kept to his room by day as well as by night.

It was Tuesday, too, and the policewoman was found late on the Sunday night. The bar clock said fourteen minutes past eleven, and any action was better than being a sitting shot.

Jimmy went out and found a telephone.

“Mornin’, Inspector! How’s things?” he asked Bony.

“Tip-top, Jimmy. And how are you?”

“Pining to associate with the ruddy police. What about a chin-wag?”

“Certainly. Have lunch with me. See you at the Western Mail at one.”

Jimmy returned to the saloon bar and ordered more beer. For the tenth time he read the latest on the Lodding murder. There was something he might use to wangle permission to leave Broken Hill by the Adelaide Express that evening. At five past one he was seated at a table with Inspector Bonaparte.

“Been getting around?” inquired Bony.

“Yes and no. You been busy?”

“Very. Not able to relax like you, you know.”

Jimmy tried to see behind the bland blue eyes, failed, and set to work on the fish. Bony was kind.

“I’ve brought a picture to show you before we leave. Tell me, since being here have you noticed many elderly men with food-stained shirt fronts?”

“One-or two. You meet ’emin pubs sometimes. Any reason?”

“Only that the three poisoned men were like those I’ve described.”

Jimmy declined to look into the blue eyes and feigned interest in the cut from the sirloin.

“Had a letter from an aunt down in Adelaide,” he said. “Pretty sick. Plenty of dough. Wants me to run down and visit her.”

“She will doubtless recover.”

“Then make a new will leaving me out of it-if I don’t kiss her on the sick-bed.”

“What part of her would that be?”

Jimmy scorned Bony’s question, saying:

“Met a man who was elderly, well set-up, fairly well dressed. Food spots on the front of his double-breaster. The paper reminds me of him.”

“Good of you to get away from the sick aunt. Mustard?”

“No, thanks. Leave me to a chunk of think.”

They were eating the sweet when Bony remarked:

“You mentioned a chunk of think, Jimmy.”

“Yes, so I did. You still guarantee I’m not pinched if I walk up and down Argent Street with me chest thrown out like a real big man?”

“There’s no need to question that-or to discuss it. Let’s have that chunk of think in connection with something you’ve read in the newspaper.”

“Well, it pans out like this-and I’m relying on your guarantee.” Jimmy waited for additional assurance and, not receiving it, resignedly continued. “Yesterday and today the papers say that the spooning pair who saw the Lodding wench on Sunday night say they think that the man she was with was tall and smartly dressed. They saw him and Lodding as they passed beneath a street light, but where they were standing was too far from the light to see clothes colours.

“The girl with her Romeo says she recognised Lodding but not the man. He was wearing a felt which shadowed his face. His arm was linked through Lodding’s, and they looked real matey-like. And they say thefella was wearing gloves-dark gloves. That right?”

“All that is correct, Jimmy.”

“About a week ago I was out for a stroll in the cool of the evening,” proceeded Jimmy, and did not add that he was strolling about the locality of the two-storeyed house. “Passing one of those corner eateries, I saw a man I’d met once before: bigfella, well rigged, carrying black gloves. I recognised him by his strut and by his dark grey mo. The first time I saw him he had a goatee to match. I take a good eyeful of anything I meet in the streets and I haven’t seen anyone else sporting gloves in Broken Hill.”