Arthur Upfield - The Widows of broome

When Bony bade his adieu at the front door, the communicating bell in Briggs’ room had been tested and found efficient, the house had been secured, and every room had been investigated by Briggs… just in case Mr. Hyde had sneaked in whilst he had been out and Mrs. Sayers had been entertaining Bony. Briggs had gone to his room, locking the kitchen door and taking the key with him as usual. He had agreed not to prowl outside the house, not to drink the usual quantity of gin and to sleep with the bell under his pillow. Mrs. Sayers promised Bony to lock her room door on retiring.

He heard her lock the front door and instead of setting out to the police station, Bony sat all night under one of the palms.

The Casual Enquirer

BONY was shaving when he heard Mrs. Walters calling him, and on emerging from his room, showered and refreshed by three hours’ sleep, she complained that the tracker had not come for breakfast.

“I’ll see where he is,” he volunteered. It was nine o’clock and the morning sunshine was hot. The sky lacked colour although it was cloudless, and the small flies were instantly a bother when he stepped down into the compound.

Abie was not at his camp in the loose-box. His blankets were there, tossed into a heap, and the straps with which he fastened his swag were there, too, but the military overcoat and the boots and the wide-brimmed felt hat were absent. Recalling that he had not seen Abie since the previous morning, Bony returned to the kitchen, where Mrs. Walters was placing bacon and eggs and toast before her husband.

“When did you last see Abie?” he asked the inspector.

“Abie! Don’t remember. Why?”

“Abie didn’t come for his breakfast when I called him,” replied Mrs. Walters. “He came for his dinner last night.”

“Out with the mare, I suppose,” Walters said, evincing little interest.

“Not like a black-fellow to be away at meal time,” she pointed out, and Bony added:

“He’s not in his camp or anywhere in the compound. I wonder what he’s up to. By the way, those drawing-pins fastening that calendar to the wall interest me. Where did you obtain them?”

“From office stock. All office requirements are sent up from Perth. Where’s the interest?”

“I’ll reveal it after breakfast. Anything of note happen last night?”

“Nothing. The women went off to bed at eleven, leaving the front door open. Talk! They talked for a couple of hours before going to bed, and for nearly two hours I could hear them talking to each other from their rooms. What did you do?”

“Sat under one of Mrs. Sayers’ palm trees and communed with the stars. Earlier, she told me that Mrs. Overton had had a nightgown stolen.”

“Crumbs!”

“It’s the one item of fair news in this depression,” Bony claimed. “Our man is running true to his pattern. If only I could see him in the picture I’m trying to paint. I’d take a chance then and act on a search warrant. If those three garments were found in his possession, we would have enough evidence for an arrest.”

“In such case, would you advise the arrest?”

“No. We would have enough evidence to arrest for clothes-line thefts but not for murder. These days you have almost to make a moving picture of the actual murder to have hope of getting a conviction. Our next step is to watch for clothes left out all night, and continue to guard those three widows. A picture record! Quite an idea.”

“Did you contact your assistant this morning?” Walters enquired, and Bony could not quite decide whether there was a sneer in the voice.

“I did. All was quiet on his front. I sent him home to sleep. He’s been very helpful. Have you been in the habit of sending Abie out on night duty for any purpose?”

The inspector was astonished.

“You did not send Abie out trailing smuggling suspects?”

“Ye gods!” groaned Walters. “What’sSawtell and Clifford for?”

“Compiling statistics,” Bony blandly replied. “I wonder where that black’s got to this morning.”

Walters pushed back his chair.

“Expect Sawtell will know. I’d better open the blasted office.”

The sergeant arrived as he was unlocking the front-office door. Bony entered the office from the house passage, bringing with him his plaster casts.

“You know where Abie is this morning?” Walters demanded.

“No. Not on deck?”

“Absent without leave. ’Bout time you jerked that gentleman down to ground level.” The inspector snatched up the telephone and asked for the airport office. He was told that the plane from Derby might arrive about eleven and the aircraft from Perth about one… perhaps. He asked Bony what his plans were.

“Well, all of us have earned a full night’s sleep, and you two will bewanting bed before bed-time,” he pointed out. “I suggest that on arrival Clifford and the constable from Derby be given the rest of the day off duty, and that they report to me at seven this evening… in plain clothes. I didn’t tell you, Sawtell, that Mrs. Overton lost a nightgown. That confirms the pattern, and makes the watching of clothes lines a duty of paramount importance. Will the Derby plane bring mail from Darwin?”

“Should do. Time we had Darwin’s report on Flinn.”

“Might help. By the way, Sergeant, look at this shoe-print cast. Whatd’you make of the circular indentation?”

“Looks like he picked up a wad of chewing gum.”

“Or a drawing pin,” supplemented Bony, placing the convex head of a brass drawing pin over the raised protuberance on the cast. The pin had been filed off. The head fitted exactly. “This drawing pin was one of the four used to pin the calendar to the kitchen wall.”

“What cast is that?” Sawtell asked, sharply.

“The cast taken of the shoe-print made by the man who murdered Mrs. Overton,” replied Bony.

Sawtell’s eyes were small.

“I don’t get it,” he admitted, and passed to his desk, from a drawer of which he took the left of the shoe casts he had made under Abie’s direction. The shoe cast he compared with that made by Bony. They were of the same size but of different shape. The heel of Bony’s cast was worn along the inside edge. The shoe from which Sawtell had made his cast was worn much at the back of the heel and there was a distinct hole in the sole.

“I still don’t get it,” Sawtell said.

“It’s quite simple, Sergeant. I made a cast of the left foot of the murderer of Mrs. Overton. Your cast is of the left shoe worn by Mr. Dickenson. You say that Abie drew a line with his finger round the print of the man’s tracks he saw on the paths and inside Mrs. Overton’s house?”

“So he did,” asserted Sawtell. “I was particular about that. Here, along this side of the cast, is the mark he made in the dirt.”

“Come, Sawtell, I’m not doubting you,” Bony hastily assured the now angry man. “And I’m sure you will not doubt my tracking ability. Abie deliberately pointed out to you false tracks, because old Dickenson was not inside the garden nor was he inside the house. Now, then, let us compare the casts of the naked feet.”

The comparison was made. The two sets of casts were the same.

“When you told Abie to point out to you the naked footprints he could not trick you for there was only the one set. If you take these casts to the moist earth about Abie’s wash-basin, you will discover that they fit exactly.”

Walters butted in:

“Two added to two make four,” he said. “Abie, you said, had been walking around at night. Was he following the murderer that night, or was the murderer following him?”

“He was following the murderer,” replied Bony. “If he knew then that the man he was following had murdered Mrs. Overton he may tell us who the murderer is.”