Arthur Upfield - The Widows of broome

“Have you been down there?” Bony asked, and the man shook his head.

The body was lying on its back, the face masked by a blue-spotted brown neck-cloth. Abie’s hat was under the head as a pillow, and near the knees was a beer bottle. The position of the corpse was composed, as though Abie had madehimself quite comfortable along the bed of the drain.

Dr. Mitchell stepped down from the culvert and sniffed at the brightly-coloured cloth.

“Petrol, all right,” he said. Picking up the bottle he turned it upside down. It was empty. He sniffed at it, and again said: “Petrol, all right.”

On lifting the cloth, they saw that Abie’s face was composed. Even the jaw had not “dropped”, for the buttoned collar of the military tunic had kept it up after death had taken place.

Dr. Mitchell clambered out of the drain and dusted his knees.

“I’m satisfied, if you are,” he said to Walters.

The inspector glanced at Bony, who imperceptibly nodded.

“Right-oh! We’ll get back,” Walters briskly decided. “You come along to the station, Tom, and we’ll have you make a formal declaration. Can we have the body buried this afternoon, Doctor?”

“Oh, yes.”

Bony refrained from asking for an estimate of the time Abie had been dead, and on Walters’ saying he would send the undertaker out immediately, Bony offered to await his arrival. Walters nodded, and slid in behind the wheel, the others also entering the car. It was driven to the end of the bitumen roadway to turn the vehicle, and as it was driven back past Bony, Walters noted that he was making a cigarette. He wondered, but said nothing.

The car having disappeared, Bony stepped down into the drain and picked up the bottle by inserting his little finger into the mouth. The surface was clean enough, seeming to prove that it had rested in one of the deep pockets of Abie’s overcoat. Bony looked for the cork, and failed to find it. He lifted the cloth from the dead face and thoughtfully studied the position of the eye-lids. He unhooked the collar of the tunic and examined the neck, deciding that Abie had not been strangled. He looked for and found the aborigine’s dilly-bag without which no black-fellow feels decently clothed. It was made of kangaroo hide softened with grease and was suspended from the neck by human hair. It contained four magic healing stones, the beak of a small bird, a letter-stick and a plug of chewing-tobacco.

The pockets of the tunic contained nothing, but the overcoat produced a pair of socks, clean and darned, and more chewing-tobacco.

Bony returned the aborigine’s treasures to the dilly-bag, and the socks and tobacco to the overcoat pocket. He spent more than ten minutes in a fruitless search for the bottle cork, before leaving the drain for the road. Eventually he found the cork.

The picture presented was as follows. Abie, in possession ofa bottle containing petrol, corked and carried in a pocket of the overcoat, had chosen the bed of a storm-water drain in which to indulge his singular passion. He chose the drain because of its privacy and the softness of the bed provided by the thick grass. The preparations for the debauch were simple. He made himself comfortable, and then uncorked the bottle. He had, apparently, poured the entire contents of the bottle on to the cloth, and then had no need torecork the bottle.

The bottle was left by his side, but the cork was neither in the drain nor on one of the banks. It was lying on the far side of the road, where it was impossible for Abie to toss it from his position in the drain. He could have tossed it where Bony found it by standing up, but it was illogical to assume that he had done this, as he would be thinking only of placing the saturated cloth over his face.

Again apparently, the dead man had chosen the drain primarily for its privacy. Then why had he not crawled into the culvert beneath the road? The culvert was large and airy and dust-dry.

Again Bony went down into the drain, this time to examine the ground on which the dead man’s military boots rested. Inside the culvert there was no grass. The dry sand loam was scored by the heels of the boots when Abie had pushed his feet into the culvert… or when they had been pushed in after he died. He could have entered the culvert quite easily, but his dead body could not be pushed in and then carefully arranged with the petrol-soaked cloth over the face… unless it was in a state of rigor mortis.

The position of the cork was decidedly significant. The bottle itself gave conclusive evidence. Having carried it to the police station with a finger into its mouth, Bony tested it for finger-prints. There were the finger-prints of Dr. Mitchell’s left hand, and Bony had noted that the doctor had picked up the bottle with his left hand. There were no other finger-prints… not even those of the dead man.

The evidence was such that normally a post-mortem would be inevitable. Bony was confident that a post-mortem would disclose that Abie had not died from petroleum poisoning. He was sure that the tracker had been a mouse that had attempted to blackmail a cat. A post-mortem would mean an inquest, and an inquest on Abie would certainly reveal to his murderer that the police in Broome were not as stupid as he was doubtless thinking. The result would be caution, and from Bony’s point of view he had been cautious long enough.

Inspector Walters was late for lunch. He arrived after the children had returned to school, explaining to Bony that he had been completing arrangements for the disposal of Abie’s body.

“The doctor gave his certificate?” mildly enquired Bony.

“Oh, yes. Case quite clear. The coroner agrees that an inquest is not necessary. Abie was bound to do it sooner or later.”

“Have you known of a similar case of death through petrol inhalation among the aborigines?”

“No. Plenty of instances of blacks stealing petrol for the purpose of making themselves drunk… if the effect can be classed as drunkenness. The practice was unknown before the war.”

“And the burial will take place this afternoon?”

“Yes. The Reverend Kendrake has agreed to read over him at four. I contacted Black Mark to send word to the blacks’ camp. They’ll all come in somehow or other. There won’t be any corroboree at the cemetery because to them Abie was a proper policeman and must be buried white-feller fashion.”

Bony stood up, smiling whimsically.

“I may attend the funeral. I like funerals. Could you borrow from the postmaster the meteorological reports covering the last three years?”

Walters replied that he would and refrained from pressing for a reason. Bony went to his “office”, and he had barely begun work on his notes when Mrs. Walters came to him with anunposted letter.

“A small Javanese boy brought it to the kitchen door.”

Bony thanked her. The envelope was addressed to Mr. Knapp, Police Station, in a style of handwriting often termed copper-plate. It was so skilfully done that Bony cut the envelope with a knife that he might preserve it. Within was a letter written in the same manner.

“Dear Mr. Knapp,” Bony read. “Circumstances have providedme with information which I am hopeful will erase from your mind my default of yesterday evening. You will find me contrite but unbowed on the public bench outside the post office. Earle Dickenson.”

Three minutes later, Bony was sitting down beside Mr. Dickenson and interrupting the old man’s apology by saying:

“In military, and police, parlance, you were off duty, so there was no harm done. I understand how strong an enemy can be. I removed the Webley from your pocket in case someone else did.”

“Yes, I was off duty. I did intend waiting for you to transmit further orders, but… Abie lasted longer than I expected.”