Arthur Upfield - The Widows of broome

Mrs. Sayers, who had again become grave, looked at Briggs. Briggs, who had forgotten to switch on his chewing, nodded his head slowly and with deliberation.

“Seems all correct at first look,” he conceded. “Goes a bit deeper, I suppose?”

“Yes, there are further details, Briggs. Whatd’youthink about it, Mrs. Sayers?”

“I like it, Mr. Knapp. The more I remember Mabel Overton the better I like it. It’s a perfect plan, and I’m already worked up to get my hands on that strangling beast. I’ll give him what he’s been begging for.”

Bony smiled bleakly.

“Accept my grateful thanks,” he said. “How long have you been closing the storm shutters at night?”

“Ever since the Eltham woman was murdered,” answered Briggs.

“When the shutters are fastened, is it possible to see into the house?”

“Don’t know. Might be at the sides.”

“Can anyone see down through the ventilators along the top of the shutters?”

“No. I’m sure about that.”

“Well, then, after dark tonight, ascertain if it’s possible to see into the house from outside. And at the same time, test the blinds or curtains of the remaining rooms. There’s a job I want you to do now. It’s probable that the murderer will have seen the alarm bell wire passing from the house to your room, and will cut it. Without taking down the wire, do you think you could rearrange the alarm system?”

“So that if he cuts the present wire it won’t makeno difference, yes.”

“I brought wire in case you haven’t any. You were at sea for several years, were you not?”

“For about twelve years.”

“Do you know anything about firing rockets?”

“All there is. Why?”

“That other parcel contains six rockets. They are an important part of our plan. Now you get along with that wiring. Take it underground so that it cannot be cut outside the house. As I said, leave the present wiring crossing the yard. He’s almost certain to cut that, as well as the telephone wires. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sayers, I would like to ramble about your house.”

The Fish Rises

MRS. SAYERS’ house was one of the largest in Broome, having five bedrooms in addition to the usual living-rooms. Like that occupied by the late Mrs. Overton, her house faced the west. The front door gave access to the exceptionally deep veranda, which was wholly protected by storm shutters. A second door gave entry to the house, the dividing passage running straight to the kitchen at the rear.

The room across the passage from the lounge was Mrs. Sayers’ bedroom. It was large, and thefrench windows opened to the veranda. There was a tall-boy in the corner almost opposite the door, and Bony had placed a chair between the tall-boy and the windows so that by gently moving the edge of the curtain he could see anyone standing at the electric meter and light switch. Having focused the lens to cover the room between the bed and door, he had screwed the camera to the tall-boy, and had brought the wiring from the alarm bell in Briggs’ room to a press-button attached to the edge of the chair.

The first night, the shark did not rise to the bait-fish as represented by Mrs. Sayers, who lay on her bed, a satin nightgown over shorts andblousette and the iron collar about her neck. She suffered no inconvenience from Sawtell’s invention and from two a.m. she slept until Briggs woke her with morning tea. Bony was then sleeping in the next bedroom, to which he had retired shortly after daybreak.

The one difficulty to his presence in the house was the domestic. He could have left at dawn for his bed at the police station and returned to the house after dark, but the coming and going even at these hours might be noted by a man who excelled in cautiousness.

It was a few minutes after five in the afternoon when Bony awoke, and it was not till seven twenty-five that Mrs. Sayers called him to a meal she had prepared. He insisted on washing the utensils whilst Mrs. Sayers cleared the table, and then he spent half an hour again going over the drill with her and Briggs, placing emphasis on the importance of the ban of silence imposed between them on the one hand andhimself on the other. By neither word nor gesture were they to betray his presence. The same ban was imposed on Mr. Dickenson, who was living in Briggs’ room.

When Briggs left for the hotel at nine o’clock, Mrs. Sayers, dressed again in shorts, occupied herself with a book in the lounge, and Bony sat on a chair just within the doorway of the room he had occupied all day. The back door was closed and the kitchen light switched off, as was Briggs’ custom when departing. The veranda lights were on and the house door to the veranda was open, it being seldom closed.

Outside, it was quite dark. An easterly wind had sprung up at sunset, and it sibilantly rustled the branches of the twin palm trees and played on the taut telephone wires affixed to the house on the outside of Mrs. Sayers’ bedroom. An excellent fishing night.

By Bony’s luminous wrist-watch it was nine-thirty when there was a ring at the veranda door bell. A moment later, Mrs. Sayers appeared in the passage to answer the summons. Then Bony heard the veranda door being opened and Mrs. Sayers speaking:

“Why, Mr. Willis! How nice of you to call. Do come in.”

The man’s voice Bony did not recognise, nor did he know him when he followed Mrs. Sayers into the lounge.

“I won’t detain you long, Mrs. Sayers,” he said. “I’ve called on behalf of several of our fellow townsmen who have come together to discuss a project which we think would succeed if you will consent to join us.”

It was proposed to erect a building combining under the same roof a library, a museum, and a hall to be used for the exhibition of educational pictures and for lectures by prominent visitors. The money was to be raised by public subscription and controlled by a trustheaded, it was hoped, by the philanthropic Mrs. Sayers.

Mrs. Sayers was offering encouragement to Mr. Willis when Bony felt a sudden alteration of air pressure. Another alteration occurred immediatelyafterwards, and there was no doubt that someone had opened and closed the kitchen door.

Knowing that, to anyone in the kitchen, he would be silhouetted against the indirect veranda lighting, Bony edged his face round the bedroom door-frame and viewed the passage with one eye. It could not be Briggs who had opened the kitchen door, for Briggs would have switched on the kitchen light.

The illumination from the veranda lights dwindled into a void half-way along the passage, and within the void was the entrance to the kitchen. It certainly hadn’t been Briggs who had entered, and Mr. Dickenson had received clear instructions to lie snug until signalled into action by the bell under Briggs’ pillow.

Mrs. Sayers was intimating to her visitor that she would consider his proposition, when Bony saw movement at the end of the passage. At first indefinite, it resolved into the figure of a man. He was coming from the kitchen, but before he could be identified, he stopped before the door of a bedroom which Bony was aware was unfurnished, and went in.

There was no resultant light in the unoccupied room, and Bony could not be sure if the man had closed the door after him. He had made no sound when opening it.

As he had often watched the fin of a swordfish knifing the surface of the turbulent ocean to approach the trolled bait, so did he sit on the chair moved to permit him to watch that dark passage. This time he had seen no swordfish fin, clean of line and direct in progress. This fin was the fin of a shark, the fin of amako shark… the biggest and most ferocious human shark ever to rise to Bony’s trolled bait: and the hair at the nape of his neck became stiff, the point of an icicle moved up and down his spine, and every nerve tingled and whined with tautness like the telephone wires without.