Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

He must do something about this inactivity. To be an artisticscrewsman you have to practise constantly, just as a concert artist must practise, and why not now?

Even as a lover Jimmy had no time for the moon. It interrupted business, was uncontrollable, an ally for the cops. Next week it would rule the night. He reached the two-storeyed house at midnight.

There she was, the House of his Dreams, large, spacious, solid. Standing at the little wicket gate, Jimmy could barely see the outline of the slate roof against the sky to one side of the solitary pine tree. His ground-work had been completed: habits of the occupants, type of locks and window fasteners. He could go in with no more trouble than entering Goldspink’s shop.

He needn’t take anything-much. Just go in for practice, to feel the thrill of deep stillness, to feel again that power of movement in a small world asleep. Before he decided, his feet had taken him into the garden via the wicket gate.

First to merge himself with theti -tree bush. The wind sighed among the branches of the pine, and the sighing became a softly played tune when he stood beneath the tree with his back to its trunk. But a few yards distant was the front of the house. There were two windows either side of the spacious porch, and five windows to the upper floor. The front was in darkness.

To the right of the house stood a wooden garage containing no car and used chiefly for firewood. Between house and garage a wide path led to the rear entrance and the kitchen. The old dame must be at the back, as it wasn’t yet a quarter after midnight, but he would have to make sure.

There was no light in the kitchen or other rear room, and Jimmy went back to the pine tree, perplexed and alert.

Two women lived here, and the rhythm of their lives did not appear to vary greatly. They used a room next the kitchen as a dining-room, but one occupied the top-floor front and the other the ground floor. About ten every evening one or other would go to the kitchen and prepare supper, which would be eaten in the dining-room, and then the younger woman would return to her part of the house and put out her light round about eleven, and the other would go to her upstairs room and keep her lights on until two.

Since the younger woman had been killed with a glass dagger, the other had continued the routine. Tonight, almost two hours before the routine time, the upstairs lights were out.

Bad. You had to know where every occupant of a house was before you went in. It had been Jimmy’s intention to prospect the ground-floor rooms, and now he could not be sure if Mrs Dalton was asleep or on vacation. Either asleep or awake on the top floor, Mrs Dalton would have been no worry, but not to know her exact location was to make an entry unethical.

Peculiar, how it had all turned out. Before the female cop had been done in, Jimmy the Screwsman had stood under this tree on a dozen or more nights and had wandered round to the back to see the women in the kitchen or dining-room. They appeared to get along very well, but they certainly occupied separate quarters, as though each had her own flat. Occasionally they had gone out together, but were never later than midnight in returning home. They had had no visitors, and nobody remotely like Tuttaway had called-not when Jimmy had been around.

On two of his visits Mrs Dalton had been sick and he had watched the younger woman leave the kitchen with a dish piled high with diced raw meat. On those occasions the lights on both floors had burned all night.

It seemed obvious that the female cop had said nothing about meeting with Tuttaway. Not so much of the female about her either. Supposed to be a man hater. Since when! Walking at night with a man, and such a bloke as G. H. Tuttaway.

Time slipped. Jimmy’s watch, luminous only when he raised it to within an inch or so of his eyes, said it was twenty-four past one. He was suddenly conscious that his legs ached from standing so long against the tree trunk, and then he was aware of movement having nothing to do with the pine tree.

It was between the garage and the house, coming towards him along the house wall like a black beetle on a black curtain. Must have come in through the back gate off the rear lane. Not a bad route to come by, although the laneway was littered with garbage cans.

The man passed round the house corner and stopped at the first window. Jimmy could not make out what he was up to. Or when he passed on to the second window and stopped there.

Movement at the sill of the upstairs window above the porch. It looked like a bird perched up there, about the size of a crow or a magpie, but it didn’t move like a bird.

The man left the window and went up to the two wide steps to the porch door, and Jimmy lost him. The object on the sill moved, became larger, resolved into the shape of a human head. It could only be Mrs Dalton, and she was leaning well forward, trying to see the man at the front door, and frustrated by the narrow porch roof.

A cop testing doors and windows! Very unlikely, here in Broken Hill, and beyond Argent Street. Another professional! Could be. The windows were easy. The front door was out. Besides a Yale lock, there was an inside door-chain.

The man left the porch, and the head above the upper sill became small and then still as the woman drew back a little. The man went on to the next window, remained there, went on again to the next. It seemed to Jimmy he stayed by that window for a long time, and he was beginning to wonder why, when he decided the man was standing with his back to the window and waiting for something to happen or someone to join him.

Well, you can be lucky. If Jimmy had gone in he might have been bailed up in a flood of light and persuaded by a pistol to remain whilst Mrs Dalton telephoned the cops. And he could have done little about it.

Must be a cop standing there with his back to the window. No real pro would behave like that. No… Tuttaway! The chill of glass slid up Jimmy’s back and remained between his shoulders. Tuttaway! He had bumped off one sister and was thinking of bumping off the other. And the other knew and was watching him, watching him from a dark window in a dark house.

The telephone! Why hadn’t she telephoned the police? Perhaps she had, and the cops were even then on their way. No place for Jimmy Nimmo.

Wait! Think, you lovesick fool! The cops might already be on the job, already surrounding the grounds, moving inward to surround the house itself. The man at the window was waiting for the chance to get away.

He was taking it now. Coming directly to the pine tree, perhaps to hide among the branches, perhaps to trek to the nearestti -tree bush. There was no sense in waiting for a man who might have another glass knife with the blade nicely filed ready to be snapped off when the deed was done.

Jimmy slid round the trunk and, keeping it between the man and himself, retreated to the nearest bush. Better to back into Sergeant Crome and do a stretch than meet a murderous maniac. From the bush he slid silently to the next one, breathlessly to reach the low fence.

No cops-as yet. But the man was certainly coming his way. Beyond the road and the low houses and trees on its far side, the sky was pale with the reflected arc lamps on the mines. He’d be a clear silhouette if he climbed the fence. Jimmy lay flat at the base of the fence and hoped he wouldn’t be used as a step.

The unknown went out through the open front gate. Still no cops. Jimmy couldn’t pause, and he couldn’t hurry, for the man stood at the kerb of the pavement as though waiting for a tram or something. He could just be seen against the outer glow of the nearest street light.

Then he vanished and Jimmy waited to hear footsteps coming his way, gave him ten seconds, and slid over the low fence and walked rapidly in the other direction. Ahead of him was another street light, on the other side of the road, and it was the only one. Jimmy did not dally.