Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

“Are you not going to invite me to your sitting-room? Perhaps a little refreshment? I am indeed your sorely tried brother.”

“State your business and go.”

“It demands time, dear Henrietta. One does not gulp good wine. Let us be comfortable, for there is much to discuss, to achieve the grand finale. Unless for the purpose of art, haste of movement and of speech, is unseemly. Therefore-lead on.”

The same mocking voice. The insolent bow. The old stagey artificiality. The woman’s breast rose and fell as though she had held her breathing. Her expression was of resignation as with a slight shrug she turned to the stairs. Her back was to the visitor, her face cold, remote, triumphant.

She went on and up, and Tuttaway followed, leaving the stair door open. Mrs Dalton told him to switch off the hall light and where to find the switch. Bony slipped into the darkened hall. He watched them mounting the stairs. Save for a room light, the upper floor was in darkness. Against this light, first one and then the other was sharply silhouetted. The carpeted landing muted their footsteps, and without sound they passed from Bony’s view. Then he heard their voices in the lighted room but could not distinguish the words.

He went up the stairs, to stand on the landing and within the deep shadows. In the lighted room the two were seated either side of a low hexagonal table bearing a bronze Eros, a silver box of cigarettes, and ash trays. Tuttaway occupied a straight-backed chair. His hands were interlocked and resting on his crossed legs.

Beyond Mrs Dalton was a settee, and on the settee lay an Elizabethan ruff, the gown worn by Marie Antoinette, and a navy-blue handbag having red drawstrings. To Tuttaway’s left was a fireplace, and on the hearth-rug lay five white cats.

“After all these years, dear Henrietta, I am so glad to see you,” boomed the Great Scarsby. “So many gales have howled across the Atlantic since we parted; so much has passed into the silence of time.”

“I am not glad to see you,” Mrs Dalton said tonelessly, and her following statement was made also without emotion. “I’ve disliked many men and hated but one. Such is my loathing and hatred of you that words to express it are not to be found in any language.”

“Hatred is warmer than love, my sweet,” Tuttaway chided. “Hate does endure. Believe me, I know. And waiting stokes the fires of hate. I know that too. I have waited so long.

“Since the moment I returned to the house in London and found you and dear Muriel absent, I have never doubted we would meet again. I was naturally grieved to discover you had deserted me, but heartbroken that Muriel had gone with you. You knew so well my hopes for her, my ambitions. Your plan was laid bare in that awful moment. You feigned illness when we were to embark for America, and you planned that Muriel should run away from me and slink back to London.”

The man appeared about to weep.

“All my affection for you, dear Henrietta, went for nothing, meant nothing to your callous heart. All my love for Muriel was scorned, mocked. That girl had great gifts, and despite her stubbornness I would have made her famous throughout the world. You were jealous. You stood between us. I took Muriel from the gutter to make her great, and you thought to hide her from me. How stupid! Of course you were always mad, and I should not have trusted you.”

“It is you, Henry, who have always been mad.”

“Poor Henrietta,” he drawled, his eyes like small agates. “The mad invariably consider themselves sane and all others mad. It is proof of your madness. When a child you were mad. Remember when you were in pigtails and I found you by the brook quite naked and with half a hundred worms in your hair? Had I not loved you, trusted you, protected you, you would have been certified like poorHetty.”

“I am not insane, Henry. I was born with a gift of humour. It was always you who couldn’t see a joke. See a joke! A calculating sadist is incapable of appreciating a joke. A sadist can only destroy and glory in destroying lovely things. You killed Muriel’s affection for you and in its place put fear. She was grateful to you for bringing her from that filthy tenement, for having her educated, for giving her ambition and dreams-and you killed her gratitude because you couldn’t possibly do else but kill it. She loved me, but you even killed that. And in the end you must kill her body.”

“Dear, dear! How melodramatic we are! Surely you will not accuse your own dear brother of murdering your cats?”

“Knowing you were going to enter this house, and with that foul purpose, I killed them that you should not torture them.”

“With what did you put them to sleep?”

“With a little something obtained from the wood merchant. An obliging man. There’s none left, so you won’t poison me.”

The man chuckled sonorously. He smiled, and without apparently looking at what he did he took a cigarette from the box, balanced it at the edge of the table, tapped the free end, and it fluttered to his lips. A hand went to a waist coat pocket and came away with an ignited match.

“Mad! Of course you’re mad, Henry. You raved even at Muriel. Slapping her face when she was tired. Tying her to a chair when she defied you, and making her watch you put her kitten into the stove and turn on the current, and laughing when she shrieked. You’ve always been mad: breaking little puppies’ legs to see them limp, tying cats together by the tails and putting them on a clothes line to watch them fight to death. You will not torture my cats.”

“I intended, dear Henrietta, to kill you mercifully. I will reconsider that. You knew, of course, it was I when the papers reported the glass dagger?”

“I knew you would come here, knew it the instant you escaped. Muriel wanted to go away, but stayed for my sake. I waited. For you!”

“A glass dagger!” Tuttaway chuckled. He plucked a crimson dagger from his hair and another of jade green from behind an ear. “Remember when I bought these in that singular curio shop in Milan? You wanted me to share them with you and Muriel, and I would not because they were so beautiful lying on white satin within the glass-domed case. But I did promise, remember, to share them one day. To give the blue one to Muriel and the green one to you. Muriel received hers.”

Mrs Dalton did not speak. She smiled.

“And presently you will receive yours.”

“You wouldn’t have the courage to plunge the red dagger into your own body Henry. I know that.”

“The red one! Ah, Henrietta, that is for the girl for whose sake I was martyred. She married and went to England, whither I go a few weeks hence.” The daggers vanished, and Tuttaway stubbed his cigarette and took another from the box. He stretched his legs and glanced about the room, nodded with satisfaction at something Bony could not see.

“I wasn’t so foolish as to bury all my treasures in one hole,” he said. “Much money, a few valuable diamonds, and the daggers I left in a safe-deposit vault, and some of my wardrobe and useful make-up boxes were hidden in a safe and secret place. I wasn’t then decided what to do about you and Muriel.

“A fellow sufferer from man’s inhumanity was to be released, and I arranged with him to purchase clothes for me-these same clothes-and hire a drive-yourself-car and be at a certain place on a certain date. It was quite easy. The car was stopped twice before we reached the city, and on both occasions the police apologised to ‘his reverence’. You see, they looked for a madman, and I’m not mad. I only needed a silly false beard and wig: merely reddened my face and expanded my cheeks with paper wads and used an Irish accent. Do I see beer on the cabinet?”

“I’ll get you a drink, Henry.”