Arthur Upfield - The Widows of broome

The party stood under the two long lines. The young man who had served in the bar that night Bony and old Dickenson had visited this place emerged from the hotel and walked across the yard to enter one of the single bedrooms. He did not openly evince curiosity, but he missed nothing.

“The maids working here at the time Mrs. Cotton was murdered, are they still employed by you?”

“One is,” replied Black Mark, continuing to bristle. He added, with a strange diffidence in view of his mood: “Her name’s Irene. She’s a half-caste.”

“I’d like to talk to her. Bring her here and then leave us.”

The licensee rolled away to the kitchen.“ ‘An -out-and-out sinner,’ ” quoted Bony, and completed it with: “ ‘Out-and-out sinners don’t strangle women in the dark.’ ”

“He’s got psoriasis,” Sawtell said.

“But, according to police report, he proved a watertight alibi for the night Mrs. Eltham was killed.”

“Many murderers have put up a watertight alibi,” growled Walters.

“And Black Mark has got the pub licence,” argued the sergeant.

The black-bearded man appeared, followed by the girl Bony had seen being teased by a small boy at the water tap. She looked frightened. She was a slim girl about twenty, and had her nose not been so broad she would have been good-looking. Bony stepped forward to meet her, and his smile banished her nervousness.

“I want to talk to you, Irene,” he said. The others drifted away through the wicket gate. Bony proceeded to the far end of the grass strip to the bank of the creek, and the girl followed. “You and I, Irene, are people apart. We understand each other, and we can speak of things to each other without being considered foolish. What we talk about, no one will know. O.K. with you?”

“Yes, O.K. with me,” she assented, her voice soft and her accent pure. Curiosity mastered her. “Whatpart of Australiad’you come from?”

“From Brisbane, Irene. I happened to be over here on holiday, and when I heard about Mrs. Cotton I thought perhaps I might be able to help Inspector Walters. Did you like Mrs. Cotton?”

The large, doe-like eyes filled with tears.

“Mrs. Cotton was…”

“All right, Irene. I thought she was a good woman, and that’s why I want to find out who killed her. Did the police question you much?”

The girl wiped her eyes with the small handkerchief she slipped from the pocket of her white apron.

“Sergeant Sawtell asked a lot of questions,” she replied. “About when Mrs. Cotton went to bed thatnight, and what we were all doing.”

“Well then, of what we are going to talk you will say nothing to anyone. Do you remember Mrs. Cotton losing a nightgown off the line?”

“Oh, yes! It was one of her best ones.”

“Can you tell me which line it was peggedto, and about where?”

“In the middle of that one next to the kitchen.”

“How much other washing was on the line that night?”

“Not very much. You see, it was a Saturday.”

“Oh! A Saturday?”

“You see… What’s your name?”

“My wife calls me Bony. You can call me Bony, too.”

Irene smiled, and then she was good to look at.

“All right, Bone-ee. Yousee, the lubras from the camp up the creek come to wash twice a week. They wash on Mondays the sheets from the guests’ rooms and the staff’s, and the other things from the dining-room and the kitchen. Then they come again on Saturdays just to wash for Mrs. Cotton and Mr. Mark.”

“Then Mrs. Cotton’s washing was the only woman’s washing on the line that day?”

Irene nodded, and Bony gave her the cigarette he made and lighted it for her.

“Thank you, IreneYou’ve no idea who might have stolen Mrs. Cotton’s nightgown, have you?”

“Oh, no! I would have told her if I had.”

“Yes, of course you would. Why was the washing hung out so late?”

The girl burst into low laughter, and Bony beamed. She said:

“Old Mary Ann had a baby Friday night, and she wouldn’t let one of the other lubras take her place, saying she’d washed for Mrs. Cotton especially for ten years, and she wasn’t going to miss out that Saturday. She wasn’t feeling so good in the morning after the baby was born, but she got here about three in the afternoon, she and a young lubra called Juliet. There was no drying wind, you see, and when night came the clothes were still wet.”

“Yes, of course they would be. Had that ever happened before… in the winter months?”

“I don’t remember so.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Bony swiftly followed up, expertly preventing the girl’s mind from wandering from the subject in hand: “Who stripped Mrs. Cotton’s bed and tidied her room after her body was taken away?”

Irene said that she “fixed” the bedroom and stripped the bed. Yes, she had then swept the floor. No, she noticed nothing wrong with the room or the bed. No, Mrs. Cotton wasn’t in a bad temper that night, or drunk, or anything like that. Mrs. Cotton never got drunk, and she was a kind mistress to everyone who worked for her. When she heard about Mary Ann’s baby she told Mary Ann to go back to camp at once, but Mary Ann began to cry and said she was all right, and that Juliet would be sure to spoil Mrs. Cotton’s best undies.

“Well, then, having fixed the bedroom, did you look into the wardrobe for anything to be washed?”

“No,” replied Irene. “All I did was to put two dresses into the wardrobe.”

“Didn’t you notice when you fixed the room that there wasn’t any of Mrs. Cotton’s silk underwear about?”

“Oh, yes, I noticed that.”

“Did you tell Sergeant Sawtell about it?”

“Oh no! Sergeant Sawtell took it all away; Mrs. Cotton’s nightie, and her day undies.”

“How do you know about the undies… that the sergeant took the undies away?”persisted Bony.

“I don’t know. He took the nightie and he would have taken the undies,” was the naive reply.

“Yes, I suppose he would do that,” admitted Bony. “You never saw a bundle of old rags in Mrs. Cotton’s wardrobe, did you?”

“Old rags!” laughed Irene. “Mrs. Cotton wouldn’t have any old rags in her room. Soon as anything got raggedy, off it went to the blacks’ camp.”

Bony jumped to his feet and the girl rose with him.

“Well, Irene, thank you very much. Now remember, don’t say anything about what we’ve been talking. All that’s a little secret with you and me. What size stockings do you wear?”

She mentioned a size five shoe, and that she liked nylons, but they were too dear for her. Bony assured her that if he could obtain them, nylon stockings she should have. Then he said:

“By the way, before I go. On the Saturday the nightgown was stolen there were a lot of people out here from the town. D’you remember anyone particularly who came in here from the main yard?”

“No. Oh, no. No one would dare come in here,” Irene replied.

“Then do you remember seeing anyone leaning over the fence, and taking notice of what was inside?”

The girl began to shake her head. Then, beneath the light-brown skin, the blush could be seen. She nodded, and after hesitation, said:

“Yes, there was that Mr. Flinn. When I went out last thing before dark to see how the clothes were drying, he was leaning on the back fence. He called to me, and I wouldn’t go.”

“Oh! You don’t like Mr. Flinn?”

“I hate him. He’s been after me for a long time. Mr. Mark said he’d knock his bloody head off if he comes after me again.”

“Dear, dear!” murmured Bony. “What language! Well, Irene, I must be going. I’ll not forget about the stockings. Shoe size five. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye… Bone-ee!”