Arthur Upfield - The Widows of broome

“Who are you?” demanded the lady.

“My name is Nap.”

“Spell it, please.”

“K.. n.. a.. p.. p.”

“Are you a policeman?”

“Er… a kind of policeman. I am a psychiatrist.”

“What’s that?”

“I heal, or try to heal, sick minds.”

The woman frowned. This stranger was distinctly dark. Colour in him somewhere. She was glad she had taken the stand with him that she had done. Then she didn’t feel glad at all when he smiled.

“Bywhom am I addressed, Madam?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Mrs. Sayers. A healer of sick minds, you say.” She almost giggled. “You’ve come to the right place. They’ve all got sick minds around here. Someone killed two defenceless women and they can’t catch him.” She swept towards the house door and there turned to survey the stranger with eyes no longer furious. “What kind of medicine do you give sick minds, Mr. Knapp?”

The stranger bowed slightly, and smiled.

“Hemp,” he murmured. Mrs. Sayers did giggle. They listened to her high-heeled shoes impacting the linoleum within the house, and then Inspector Walters advanced with proffered hand.

“Bit of a tartar when she’s roused,” he explained, “otherwise nice enough. Women! They always beat me. Glad to meet you, Inspector Bonaparte.”

“And I to meet you. Permit me to present my credentials.”

Sub-Inspector Walters read the order from Perth to give Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparteevery assistance in the investigation of the murder of Mrs. Elsie Cotton on the night of April 12th, and the murder of Mrs. Jean Eltham on the night of May 5th. There was more of it, and when done, Walters looked up to observe the stranger in Broome seated at the opposite side of his desk, rolling a cigarette.

“Well, Inspector, all of us here will be glad to co-operate,” he said.

“Thank you.” Bony lit his cigarette. “I like that word, co-operate. True doctors co-operate when theG. P. calls in a specialist for consultation on a difficult case. Regard yourself as the generalpractitioner, and me as the specialist. A specialist I am. I specialise in homicide. I know little of general police procedure or administration. So it’s every man to his profession. By the way, I’d like to be known as Mr. Knapp. All my friends call me Bony. Might I be honoured by including Sergeant Sawtell and yourself among my friends?”

Faint warmth spread over the iron-hard face of the inspector, and Sergeant Sawtell, who had met Bony at the airport, expressed his pleasure.

“We’re both very glad you are here,” Walters said. “We have enough normal work on our hands without the addition of investigating murders which don’t have any possible motive. Been a worrying time. One constable away in the bush after ablackfellow, and the other’s just out of hospital with a knife wound received down in Chinatown. Have you made arrangements about accommodation?”

“No, not yet. I understand there are five hotels here.”

“There are, but perhaps you’d consent to put up here. The wife and I would be glad to have you.”

“That’s kind of you. I would like that. And I’d try not to put Mrs. Walters to great inconvenience.” Bony smiled his thanks in addition to the words. “We could then go into conference at any time suitable to yourself and Sawtell. I know enough about these police-administered districts to understand the thousand and one calls on your time. Yes, that would be an excellent arrangement. I could be a civilian friend staying with you.”

A car engine burst into restrained power, and the inspector raised himself to look beyond the fly-netted veranda front.

“That’s Mrs. Sayers leaving. Ought to get a cup of tea now she’s gone.” He stood up and Bony also rose.“Fine woman but volcanic.”

“A local power?”

“Thelocal power. Owns one of the stores, two of the hotels, six of the luggers, and fifty per cent of the houses in Broome. Her father was a pearl dealer. Her husband was a store owner, shell dealer and lugger owner. She has more money than the King… and spends it faster than Rockefeller did.”

Bony was conducted from the office to a tastefully and sensibly furnished lounge, was left there a moment, and then was being presented to Mrs. Walters. She was slight and dark, and he liked her at first sight.

“So you’re Inspector Bonaparte,” she exclaimed. “Well, I am glad you have come up from Perth. I’ve a sister, you know, in Brisbane… married to Detective-Sergeant Knowles… and we’ve heard much about you from her. I’m so glad my husband suggested you stay with us.”

“It’s really delightful of you both.”

“Not a bit. Why, we’ve been terribly anxious about these murders. People are asking who will be murdered next. It’s been dreadful for everyone. And not a clue… not a single clue pointing to who committed them and why. Seems that he just killed for the pleasure of it. You will have a cup of tea?”

“That is a question I never answer in the negative,” replied Bony, and Walters offered cigarettes.

It was plain that these two people had been suffering strain, for their pleasure at his arrival was unmistakable. Walters was in the unenviable position of being the senior police officer in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, a frontier town where people must associate or mentally perish, a town in which the senior police officer is the most important personage and one whose power of protection against criminals is assumed to be unassailable. The success of a murderer in escaping detection was a slight both to their social and their official standing.

Mrs. Walters brought afternoon tea, and Bony said:

“I must make one small condition to accepting your hospitality, Mrs. Walters. I insist on being treated exactly as any member of your family… and I understand you have two children to look after in addition to your husband. You see, I know what guests mean, the extra housework, the extra washing up. D’youlike washing up, Walters?”

“Damned if I do,” exploded the inspector.

“Damned if I do, either, but when at home I’m damned if I don’t. Hullo!”

In the doorway appeared a schoolboy, his case in one hand, a cap of black-and-white rings in the other. His eyes sparkled with excitement, and when his father asked sharply what he wanted, he answered in the gruff tones of early adolescence.

“Abie’s taking the petrol cure, Dad. He’s down behind the gum tree in the compound.”

The inspector jerked to his feet and made for the door. The “petrol cure” being a new one to Bony, he excused himself with Mrs. Walters and hurried after the inspector and the boy, who led the way through the kitchen and out across the rear veranda. Ahead was a space of some several acres, bordered on one side by stables and out-houses, and on the other by a row of ten or a dozen cells. A hundred yards from the house grew a solitary gum, and as they approached the tree so did the boy and his father walk stealthily. Silently, the three moved round the trunk.

With his back to it and reclining at ease was a booted andovercoated figure, identifiable only by the hands as an aborigine. The head was enveloped by an exceedingly dirty dress shirt from whicharose the smell of petrol.

With swift action the inspector whisked away the shirt. Gripping the man by the coat collar, he stood him up as though he were a straw. The round face was vacant. The dark eyes rolled in their sockets. With his left hand the inspector slapped the black face and shouted:

“Where did you get the petrol, Abie? Come on now… tell!”

“Bin milk-um jeep. Lemmelo.”

“Coo! All right, my lad. I’ll attend to you after you come round.” Walters lowered the almost insensible man to the ground, and his son knelt and made Abie’s head comfortable on the battered felt hat. “He’ll be all right in an hour. Can you beat the blacks for finding out new ways of gettingdrunk! ”