Arthur Upfield - The Widows of broome

Sawtell left, and Inspector Walters bent over the dog.

“Finished, I think,” he said, savagely.

“I’m afraid so,” agreed Bony. “The doctor will put it to sleep, I expect. Must have been done last night sometime… about eighteen or twenty hours ago. Probably the dog barked when the killer climbed in through the window, and he picked it up and smashed it on the floor. The animal can’t weigh more than five pounds.”

They sat down, Bony to roll a cigarette and Walters to light a pipe.

“This is hell,” remarked the inspector. “Whenis it going to end, I wonder. More work, more worry, more interference from Perth. The newspapers all over Australia will be screaming for results. The entire C.I.B. will be sent up here.”

“In the morning, Walters, you have Richard Blake, otherwise Ronald Locke, arrested.”

“Ah!” There was grim satisfaction behind that “ah!”

“I know now that Locke did not murder Mrs. Overton,” Bony went on. “However, I don’t intend that the entire C.I.B. or any section of it shall be sent up here to Broome. This is not the place, and such is the psychology behind these murders that team work on a large scale would be a definite hindrance. We three, yourself and Sawtell and me, with Clifford to assist, form an efficient team.

“Our immediate objective must be to lull the murderer into thinking he has again got away with it. We will arrest Locke on the charge of breach of his parole. There is no need to put him into court here. Clifford, or another of your constables from outside, can take him down to Perth by air, and he can be held there for several weeks before being sent back to his State. Meanwhile, I’ll advise the C.I.B. to hold Locke, and set out my reasons.

“We will not state to the local Press representative, or anyone else, the legal charge preferred against Locke, but we will say that Locke is the Ronald Locke who strangled a girl back in 1940. The people here in Broome and throughout Australia will jump to the same conclusion about Locke that you and Sawtell did. They will condemn Locke for the murder of these three women… everyone save the murderer. Result: the Broome people will not panic, we shall not be overwhelmed with abuse, and Locke will receive no more than his just deserts. I shall have an extension of time in which to finalise this case, and our murderer will be so elated that he won’t be able to wait for another month and will strike again before the next moon rules the midnight sky. And when he does strike again, I shall be waiting for him.”

Inspector Walters regarded Bony beneath glowering brows.

“If you’re not waiting for him, I shall be finished,” he said softly and deliberately.

“And I…” Bony looked steadily at Walters. “And I will be more than that. I shall have failed for the first time in my career, and for the last time. My career will be ended, for my pride will have been destroyed. If I fail in this case, the pride which drove me on and up to the summits of manyEverests of achievement will vanish, and all the influences so powerfully and continuously exerted on me by my maternal ancestors will inevitably draw me back to the bush, to become as so many others like me, a nomad, a pariah.”

For a short space, they sat in silence broken only by the laboured breathing of the dog. Inspector Walters, Police Administrator of one tenth of the continent of Australia, hadneed to be no mean psychologist. He understood exactly where this remarkable man stood, the courage he had from youth to defeat all those terrific obstacles, and the pit always before his feet. He regretted having spoken of his own career. If the murderer successfully struck again, Henry Walters could say farewell to promotion, might even be relegated to a less important post. That would be little, indeed, to what this strangely-named half-caste would receive for failure to locate the man who killed the widows of Broome.

“Sorry I spoke like that,” he said gruffly. “It’s a good move, letting everyone think we have arrested Locke for these murders. You’re the boss. Use us up. Sawtell and I willbe liking it.”

The Early Bird

IN the eastern sky three horizontal bars of high-level haze were tinted and polished like the great oyster shell brought to Broome, and the Morning Star audaciously tried to bedazzle the ancient and emaciated moon. When the cloud bars were stained gold by the dawning, Bony arrived at the end of the laneway passing the rear of Mrs. Overton’s house, and sat down to await the day.

The night fought valiantly with the day, with the inevitable result, and, the battle decided, Bony arose, took up his tin of bait and fish-lines and, instead of following the laneway, climbed through the fence and went looking for mushrooms. Inside the grass paddock opposite Mrs. Overton’s back gate, he came to a wide ribbon of blown sand on which, as he had hoped, were the footprints of the man wearing a size-eight shoe with a circular object adhering to the left sole, and the print of the man without foot-covering.

Beneath the fish-lines, Bony produced a bottle of water, plaster ofparis, a fruit tin and a small trowel, and within six minutes had taken a cast of each man’s footprints. With these concealed beneath the fishing gear, he proceeded parallel with the lane until he reached its far intersection, intending to skirt the building block and so reach Mrs. Overton’s house by the front gate.

He was on his way, well pleased with the “mushrooms” he had gathered and confident that he had not been observed. He had climbed through the fence at the far end of the paddock when he met Mr. Dickenson.

“You are out early this morning,” stated the old man. Mr. Dickenson glanced at Bony’s tin and advised fishing from a point about a hundred yards down the creek from an old lugger. Bony gravely thanked him, and asked why he was out so early.

“I can manage with about four hours of sleep,” explained Mr. Dickenson, adding: “when I’m in normal health and my heart is not troubling me. After seeing our friend retiring to bed last night, I felt that I had had a busy day and deserved relaxation. I felt the need of more of the relaxation this morning, but I recalled our little agreement. Flinn won’t appear until around ten o’clock.”

“What time last night did you cease to keep watch on Flinn?”

“What time? When the Seahorse closed at eleven. Flinn was then on the front veranda. He was tight.”

“Pardon my pertinacity. How did you manage to observe Flinn retiring to bed?”

“I went round to the rear yard and I saw him in his room undressing.”

“Thank you. Can you tell me to what degree he was intoxicated?”

“About as drunk as you were that night we returned from Dampier’s Hotel.”

The smile born on Bony’s face was killed by reproof.

“Then Flinn couldn’t have been tight. I wasn’t.”

“Flinn was tight. I watched him drinking whisky all the evening. That was an achievement of which I am not a little proud this morning. Flinn was quite able to undress himself. If you require a precise estimate of his condition, then he was twice as tight as you were.”

“I was not tight. Inspector Walters will bear me out. Have you heard of the latest murder?”

“No. Who was the victim?”

“A Mrs. Overton.”

“Indeed! A nice woman. Strangled?”

Bony nodded and Mr. Dickenson sadly shook his head. They might have been discussing juvenile delinquency. The old man asked if anyone had been arrested for this latest crime, and Bony told him that Clifford had left for Dampier’s Hotel to bring in Richard Blake for questioning.

“That young fellow might be the guilty party,” Mr. Dickenson conceded, thoughtfully gazing at Bony’s fishing gear. “Is it known when Mrs. Overton was murdered?”