Arthur Upfield - Batchelors of Broken Hill

“Pray do not trouble, dear Henrietta.”

The stilted manner in which these two talked, especially Tuttaway, verged on the ridiculous. Not for an instant did they cease to watch each other. After Tuttaway left his chair to cross to the cabinet, Mrs Dalton watched his every movement, and, from her attitude, Bony knew Tuttaway watched her.

On returning to his chair, he carried a bottle of beer under an arm, a tumbler in one hand, a bottle-opener between his teeth, and the green dagger in his other hand. He sat down before unloading.

“And then what did you do, Henry?” the woman asked.

“Sought you, of course. Found you had left Sydney for Broken Hill. Had I not been taken up with training that fool of a girl, I would have found you before you left Sydney. I was forced, therefore, to be cautious on coming here. Could not permit Muriel or you to hear I was making inquiries concerning you.

“What a large number of cats you have, dear Henrietta. Cats everywhere. So decorative, too. Mad! There is no doubt of it. I should have had you certified when you burned all my waistcoats. What a thing to do!”

The woman’s mouth writhed. Her voice was low, vibrant, passionate.

“Still the sloppy, slobbering, drooling beast. I would have burned your revolting body with the clothes had I known then what you did to Muriel-making her kiss the filthy tainted things when she taxed you with it. You broke her, didn’t you, Henry? Made yourself the great fear in her heart and mind, so that even my affection couldn’t help her. A hero to the rest of the company, you were a beastly, bloated swine to Muriel.”

The chuckle Tuttaway gave tautened Bony and sent ice up and down Jimmy’s back.

“You should have known I would catch up with her and you. I merely had to meet her one evening when she was walking home. By that time I knew her habits, where she lived, all about you. So we went walking in the gloaming, and I told her how sorry I was, how misunderstood. She forgave me, Henrietta. When I told her how you had always been queer, she-well, she believed it. I have not lost the art of being charming despite the infliction of man’s injustice. Those lies you told her, Henrietta. She remembered them. Then she said we were going the wrong way. She was strong. She always was.”

“And then you killed her?”

“Put her gently to sleep, my Henrietta. She felt nothing.”

Not for a second did his gaze leave her. She was breathing fast, and appeared gripped by terror of approaching death to be seen in his eyes and about his mouth. Drawing the tumbler to him, he took up the bottle and worked the opener with the hand steadying the bottle on the table. The beer frothed from the uncapped bottle, sprayed the cigarettes in the box, drenched Eros with white foam. He managed to fill the glass; the left hand gripped the haft of the green dagger.

He drank, and beer splashed over the clerical vest.

“You loathsome pig, Henry. Stop it! For heaven’s sake stop it!” Mrs Dalton’s voice rose to a shriek. “All my life-all my life I’ve had to look at that beastly habit.”

Came a mere flash of what was due.

“Your pardon, Henrietta. Careless of me…”

Tuttaway set down the half-empty glass, reached into a coat-tail pocket for a handkerchief, looked down at his vest to wipe away the liquid, and tucked a corner of the handkerchief behind the clerical collar. As he poured more beer into the glass, he leered at her.

“Well, my dear sister, I shall have to leave you,” Jade-green glass whirled about his hand like green mist. “I cannot face the thought that you will surely be put away if I do not negative the danger. In those places, you know, they do things to you. I shall be swift and gentle, for you are my sister and we did have fun.”

“You mustn’t be a fool, Henry.”

“Oh no! Indeed, no!”

“Surely you realise you are dead?”

“Am I, dear Henrietta?”

“Of course. You are only a ghost.”

The ghost smiled broadly. The chuckle came from deep within the ghostly belly. The ghost rose to its feet. The woman rose, too, as though her eyes impelled. Tuttaway laughed, snatched up the glass of beer, bowed to his sister. The dagger lay flat along the palm of his right hand.

Mrs Dalton’s face was ashen.

Bony motioned Jimmy to enter the room after him. The pair facing each other over the table might easily have seen them had not each been concentrating on keeping captive the eyes of the other.

“My aim shall be true. This ghostly hand will not fail.” The man’s voice deepened, became sonorous. “We are about to part, and I give you fond farewell. Here’s to the lass who was always loony. Here’s to the saint who murdered her cats between playing the role of this queen and that. Here’s to the idiot, her long life done, the years behind her and all their fun. Here’s-”

“Dear Henry! Have done and drink your toast. And please-please, dear Henry-don’t drool on to your waistcoat or Ishall go mad!”

Tuttaway roared with mirth. Bony watched the hand holding the dagger. Jimmy Nimmo stood just behind him. Mrs Dalton saw neither. She saw only George Henry Tuttaway, and Tuttaway saw only her.

“Madam, your very good health,” he shouted and drank. The hand bore the dagger aloft and back over the shoulder for the throw. Bony jumped, landing upon the table, then crashing full into the Great Scarsby. Mrs Dalton screamed:

“Leave him be! Look at him! He won’t believe he’s dead!”

Tuttaway gasped horribly. He gained his feet. The dagger slid from his hand to the floor. His teeth were bared in a dreadful grin as his body arched backward and his legs gave way. Mrs Dalton began to laugh-softly, gleefully, like a child.

When? How? The bottle had not previously been opened, for the contents had cascaded when inelegantly uncapped. Never once had the woman received the chance to pass her hand over bottle or glass. Tuttaway had watched her every movement, save that one second he had looked down upon his soiled vest. Bony had missed nothing, and yet…

Mrs Dalton’s laughter softened to a throaty purring.

“Get up, Henry, and be killed again. Don’t lie there like a numbskull. You must rise that I may kill you again. It’s the only joy you have given me. So clever, Henry, were you not? Clever! The Great Scarsby! The Great Mass of Rubbish! The great Simpleton! See, Henry? My little syringe fitted with the bulb from a baby’s dummy to give it greater force. Look, Henry! Get up and look. I’ll show you.”

She dashed beer into the glass and filled the syringe, oblivious of Bony and Jimmy, who stood at her side.

“The syringe is filled with liquid cyanide, dear Henry, and held crosswise in the palm of the hand. Can you see it? No. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye: you taught me that. You won’t arise? Well, then, take it lying on your dirty back.”

Both men were watching the woman’s right hand, and both thought they imagined the amber bullet which sped into the open mouth of the dead man.

Bony Reports

SUPERINTENDENT PAVIER entered his office at a quarter to nine, and before he could seat himself at his desk his secretary came in to say that Inspector Stillman wished to see him on a matter of urgency.

Pavier sat down and fingered the unopened morning’s correspondence. His apparent rudeness was but to gain time.

“Er-oh! Yes, Miss Ball. Tell Inspector Stillman to come in.”

“Yes, Stillman, what is it?” he asked distantly when Stillman stood before him.

“I took over from Bonaparte at approximately five-twenty yesterday afternoon,” Stillman said woodenly, as though giving evidence. “I have been unable to locate either Sergeant Crome or Senior Detective Abbot. The staff is also missing. I have searched for the official file on George Henry Tuttaway without success. It is now almost nine o’clock, and the Detective Office is still utterly deserted. It seems an extraordinary state of affairs, sir.”