Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

“Your information appears remarkably detailed, Jimmy.”

“I’ve beenpayin ’ acoupla school kids to give what I couldn’t get in daylight.”

“Indeed! I’d like to meet them. They might tell even more. Yes, we’ll give them an ice-cream tea at Favalora’s Cafe. Try to have them there at four tomorrow afternoon. Anything else?”

“You’ve got the entire brain box. Can I go home to bed sometime?”

“Right now, Jimmy. See you tomorrow at four.”

Bony let Jimmy out by the front door, slept for three hours, and was up at six. He prospected for the kitchen, found the yardman there, who, having lit the stoves, was drinking tea with a liberal dash of the dog that had bitten him the previous evening. It was much too soon for polite conversation, and, refreshed by tea and biscuits, Bony reached Headquarters at seven. Crome was in his office.

“Nothing doing,” Crome said. “Saw nothing; heard nothing.”

“Not even a light switched on?”

“Not a glimmer.” I went in as far as the pine tree and sat there till first sign of break o’ day. You nab that prowler who came over the fence?”

“No. He turned out to be a dear friend of mine. We arrived a little too late. My friend had been watching a man testing the house windows and doors. We could assume it was Tuttaway paying another visit to Mrs Dalton’s house.”

“I said so.”

“It would seem so,” Bony corrected. “Now you go off to bed. Tonight might yield much. When will Abbot report?”

“At eight. Anything I can do?” Crome asked hopefully.

“Nothing-till after you have slept. You’ll be out of your bed again tonight. Hit the pillow while you may.”

Sergeant Crome departed in irritable mood. He was not liking several matters, among which was Bony’s evasiveness. The kids had found the haft of the dagger, and a blooming black tracker happened by sheer luck on the kids. He had sat half the night against the tree, and a blinkingscrewsman had been there before him and reported to Bony a mouthful, of which Bony said next to nothing. Bonaparte was always in front. And now he was ordered to bed and Bonaparte would work out another move and be farther ahead than ever.

Senior Detective Abbot came on duty, to find Bony waiting for him.

“Come and help me dig into Staff Records,” Bony invited. “The clerk in charge will not be here yet?”

“No, sir.”

“I am interested in Muriel Lodding,” Bony said when they stood before a card index.

Abbot extracted the requisite card. It gave the date Lodding had joined the staff, the date of one promotion, the date she had been discharged dead. Bony sought for additional particulars, and Abbot produced a loose-leaf ledger and turned up the sheet devoted to Policewoman Lodding.

Abbot was told to go, and Bony studied the details of Lodding’s service. She had invariably taken her leave when due, and on a number of occasions she had worked on Sunday and had Monday off. There was no reference to sick leave until the previous year, and the dates under this heading Bony rapidly noted.

Again in his office, he set out in tabulated form the notes he had made, and at once found that coincidence could not be claimed for the juxtaposition of dates. He went into Crome’s office and studied the calendar nailed to the wall, then asked Switch to inform him when Superintendent Pavier arrived.

Pavier was going through the morning mail when Bony walked in.

“Won’t keep you long, Super,” he said, and was invited to be seated. “Reference your late secretary. I find that these last few months she had been granted sick leave. Can you tell me if she appeared to be ill at those times?”

“Jittery nerves, I believe,” replied Pavier, a question in his eyes. “Told me she was worried about headaches, and she thought they might be a kind of migraine.”

“D’youknow if she consulted a doctor?”

“I don’t know about that, Bonaparte. In Records if she did. Or ought to be.”

“There’s no reference to a doctor in Records. I find, too, that on an average of about once in two months she worked on Sunday and took the day off the following Monday. Why?”

“She didn’t ask to work on Sunday that she might have the Monday,” Pavier said. “It occasionally happens that there is an accumulation of reports for Sydney which must be got off, and Lodding always consented to work on a Sunday when I asked her. She was a smart woman, and I am only now beginning to appreciate how much I relied on her. What’s on your mind about her sick leave?”

“Take a glance at these notes.”

Bony placed them before the Superintendent.

1. Lodding on sick leave October 22 to 26.

(Goldspink murdered October 28.)

2. Lodding on sick Leave December 19 to 21.

(Parsons murdered December 23.)

3. Lodding on sick leave February 16 to 23.

(Gromberg murdered February 25.)

Pavier looked hard at Bony, the frown drawing vertical lines between his eyes. The fingers of his left hand tap-tapped on the desk, and for seconds he was silent.

“Very odd, Bonaparte,” he said. “In each case, on the second day after Lodding returned from sick leave a man was poisoned.”

“There is a period of two months between the first and second murders, and two months between the second and third murders,” Bony pointed out. “It’s why I asked you about the Sunday work. Probably no significance, as she worked on Sundays at your request. She could not have arranged the work to bring about your request, I suppose?”

Pavier was emphatic that Lodding had not done so, and Bony evaded his probing questions and returned to his own office.

Bony is Sacked

BONY SAT in Favalora’s Cafe waiting for Jimmy Nimmo and his scouts.

Slightly more than two months ago, at the same hour, old Alfred Parsons had come here for a cup of tea and sandwiches. Much of his life was behind him, but he was enjoying his retirement and treading on no one’s feet. Here he had read his magazine, had finished his tea, rose to his feet to go, and was confronted by Death.

We must all die. As the Book says: ‘There is a time to die’.

There was Hans Gromberg, set in his ways and habits, secure in life, and feeling good with his tummy full of beer, and he had risen to his feet to face Death. It had been likewise with old Samuel Goldspink, a kindly man to whom business was the chief interest. There is certainly a time to die, but when those three men were claimed by Death, it wasn’t their time to die.

At the scene of the second and third poisoning a woman had been present who carried the same handbag on both occasions. Other women remembered her, two with clarity for features and dress, and one of these reported having seen a baby’s dummy in the handbag. When the suggestion had been put forward that this person might be a man impersonating a woman, both Mrs Lucas and Mrs Wallace discounted it. Their observation and judgment could be relied on-and yet!

The first of the murders had been committed after Tuttaway had escaped. Tuttaway was insane. He had stabbed to death a woman reputed to be satisfied with her job and her home life. But Lodding and Tuttaway had known each other in England, and they were seen together in Broken Hill. A Woman carrying the remembered handbag was seen to enter an hotel, and within minutes the hotel was searched for her in vain. Tuttaway, the magician, could have walked into the hotel as a woman, and, within seconds, walked out as another woman. Tuttaway had killed with a knife, not with cyanide-that is, as Tuttaway.

The murder of Muriel Lodding had insinuated itself into the investigation of the three poisoning cases. It appeared, at first, to have no possible connection with the killing of the three elderly bachelors, and because of this Bony had not seen Muriel Lodding’s home until the previous evening. Tuttaway, being a bachelor and a careless eater, was linked with the cyanide victims. Logically, therefore, he was a possible victim and not the poisoner.