Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

He had proceeded fifty yards, hugging the fences, keeping close to pepper trees, when he knew he was being followed. How? Not by sight. Not by sound. By thescrewsman’s Instinct out of Time by Experience.

He kept on, resisting the urge to run. On reaching the end of the street, he rounded the corner and vaulted a gate and crouched below the top rail. Here were no trees. The starlight was enough to reveal anyone coming round that corner. No one did. There wasn’t a sound save the low rumble of the mine machinery. Instinct must have betrayed him.

Again he vaulted the gate and went on. He should have gone the other way, round that corner, made sure Tuttaway wasn’t lurking there, waiting and watching. Always take Fear by the throat.

Hewas being followed. No mistake-no imagination about it. There was no sound, and nothing moved behind him, but he was being followed.

This street took him to a main road. It was a wide road, and light standards were on either side. It was almost 3 am. For the first time in his career Jimmy regretted he didn’t carry a gun. He was still being trailed. No cop could walk as silently as this shadow. No cop could conceal himself like this lunatic.

Jimmy came to a small shop and slipped into the dark doorway to peer in the direction he had come. Still he saw nothing-and heard nothing save the distant roar of machinery on the broken hill.

This could not go on. Where were his nerves of steel? Might as well get married, if he’d slipped that badly. Farther along the street was yet another light, and he kept on, trying not to hurry, reached the circle of illumination, passed through it to the far darkness, and turned and waited. He saw the follower enter the light. He saw the fellow raise a hand signalling stop.

He should have known it.

What the bloody hell was the use?

He might have guessed it was that damned Bonaparte.

Why Extra Meat?

JIMMY WAS given the only chair in Bony’s bedroom, and Bony sat on the bed and poured beer into tumblers.

“Surely, Jimmy, you are not interested professionally in that house?”

“I was. I’m not.”

Jimmy drank without the usual reference to Luck. He was sour, and Bony countered the mood with gentleness. He waited for an explanation before saying thoughtfully:

“It’s a good night for a burglary. Did you enter?”

“You know damn well I didn’t.”

“I seldom ask questions without reason, Jimmy.”

“You weren’t testing the windows and the front door? You didn’t fox me to the fence and then follow me all the way to that street light?”

“I was not testing doors and windows, and I did not see you until you climbed over the fence. I was then approaching that front fence, and I stood against a pepper tree to permit you to pass. Guilty of following you from the tree. By the way, my pride is hurt. How did you know you were being trailed?”

Jimmy sighed, and Bony again filled his glass.

“You’re no mug attrailin ’,” he said with assurance. “I never heard you, never saw you, not even a smell. My scalp told me I was being dogged. I didn’t like it, ’cosI was thinking things.”

“What things?”

“A glass knife between me shoulders, and the haft being snapped.”

“Let me have the story behind that thought.”

Jimmy omitted nothing, proving ability as a raconteur, and when done, Bony brought another bottle from the wardrobe.

“You are sure it was a woman watching from the upstairs window?”

“Sure about everything. Why didn’t she telephone the cops? She’s got a phone.”

“An interesting point, I agree. What gave you the impression that the man could be Tuttaway?”

“Look at the set-up,” Jimmy almost pleaded. “It’s gone one in the morning. It’s a dark night. A bloke is walking round the joint and stopping to admire every window and the front door, and probably the back door. He could be a working pro, like me, prospecting the joint before timing the job. When he stood for some time in one place, I thought he must be a policeman until I recollected the dame who was watching him from up top.

“Then I argued that it wouldn’t be a pro, for he wouldn’t hang around afterdoin ’ hisprospectin ’, and he had no reason to wait if he wanted to go in. It wouldn’t be a policeman, not even you, waiting about like that. That’s what I thought. I thought that the old girl must have phoned the cops, and close on that chunk of think I decided to scoot, but before I could get going the bloke came straight to the tree I was against.

“I couldn’t be sure he hadn’t screwed me off. The point what stuck in my mind was the old girl couldn’t have phoned the police, and she was waiting in a dark house to watch that bird testing her windows and doors. She might have seen him prowling around before and expected him to have another go. She wasn’texpectin ’ me ’cosmy clients never get the chance.”

“Did he look anything like Tuttaway?” pressed Bony.

“Not that I could swear to. He was taller than you and me, and so is Tuttaway. Still, Tuttaway has never been a you or a me, and this gent moved like a pro. You never saw him?”

“No. He must have left in the opposite direction a few seconds before I arrived. It was probably friend Tuttaway. The haft of the glass dagger was found inside the wicket gate. He’d been there before tonight. How long have you been keeping that house under observation?”

“Off and on for a couple of months.”

The beer failed to lift the gloom from Jimmy’s face, and almost savagely he seized the second bottle and removed the metal cap with his teeth. Bony probed further into the habits of Mrs Dalton and her sister, and learned of their arrangement of separate apartments excepting for meals. He could not assess the value of the item that Muriel Lodding took a dish of diced raw meat upstairs when her sister was ill.

“Several things don’t angle to my mind,” Jimmy said. “Whatd’you reckon they’d want eight pounds of steak for every day?”

“Eight pounds of meat per day for two women?”

“Eight pounds of steak a day is what I said. Extra to porter-house and chops and legs of lamb at week-ends. And since the sister’s been murdered the order’s no different.”

“Dogs?”

“Seen none. Or cats.”

“What of other foods-bread, milk-since you know so much?”

“Ordinary for two women. Yougoin ’ to do nothing about that sneaker? Could be Tuttaway after Mrs Dalton.”

“There’s a man posted there. He accompanied me. However, it’s unlikely that the prowler will return tonight.”

Jimmy grimaced.

“Think I’ll give up working in any state where you happen to be. There’s another angle I don’t get. The front and back is kept tidy enough, and flowers and things them women tried to grow in winter. At the back, though, there’s a bit of ground about four times the size of this room, fenced with wire netting and a little gate in it. They don’t grow nothing inside that fence. The sort of plot used for burying things, far as I can make out.”

“Kitchen refuse,” suggested Bony, and Jimmy negatived this.

“People don’t bury refuse in calico bags. Besides, the Council cart empties the bins in the back lane three times a week.”

Bony rolled a cigarette and said before lighting it:

“You know, Jimmy, you are entertaining.”

“I can be, Inspector. A feller like me can be veryentertainin ’.”

“The butcher’s name?”

“McWay, Main Street South.”

“And the milkman?” pressed Bony, making a note.

“People namedLudkin -out atUmberumaka. The baker is Perry Brothers, South, and, bringing in our old pals, the wood merchant is Frederick Albert Goddard. He delivered wood there two days ago.”