Arthur Upfield - An Author Bites the Dust

“H’m! In the garage as well as his writing-room?”

“Too right, he did. Always kept a bottle and a couple glasses in a cupboard inside the garage.” Walsh winked, glanced nervously towards the near-by fence, and went on, “His missususter go crook at ’imfor drinking, especially when there was no one staying there, and he’d have plants all over the place. But he was cunning, though. He never left the garage unlocked while I was working for him.”

“And you have a little luck with the doctor?” remarked Bony.

“Oh yes, the quack’s all right in his way. He tells me I drinks too much, and then when I’m knocking off and I tells him I’m all a-tremble with exhaustion, he takes me into his surgery for what he calls a tonic. It’s tonic all right. The real McKay from Scotland. Gripes! There’s Miss Pinkney looking at me. I’d better get on with my slavery.”

Sid Walsh drifted back to his hoeing, and Bony took upGreystone Park. He found it easier to read than to meditate and the next intrusion came when Mr Pickwick sprang up the back of his cane chair and settled himself comfortably on his right shoulder.

“If you continue to kiss me, you’ll have to get down,” Bony told him, and went on reading.

The shade cast by the lilac-trees lengthened. The flies continued faintly to irritate the reader of novels. The gardener proceeded with his hoeing, and the third intrusion came when Miss Pinkney said, “Well, I never. Dr. Nicola, I presume.”

“You refer to Guy Boothby’s famous character of thirty years ago,” he murmured, and then was on his feet with Mr Pickwick clawing for support and the book in his hands. Miss Pinkney had brought him afternoon tea.

“The same. You are the image of him, and Mr Pickwick is the very identical cat. But please don’t date Dr Nicola-and me.”

Bony put the cat down and took the tray.

“The inference cannot possibly apply to you, Miss Pinkney,” he told her gravely. “Thank you for the tea. I’ll bring in the tray later; I have letters to write.”

“The post closes at five o’clock, remember.”

“I will.”

Miss Pinkney departed and Bony sat down. He heard her call to the gardener, “Walsh! Your afternoon tea is in the kitchen waiting for you. You don’t deserve it because you’ve done very little work so far.”

And then Walsh, “Sorry, Miss Pinkney, but me rheumatism is crook today. Thiskinda weather always plays hell with me joints.” He staggered after her as though one foot were in the grave and the other almost in.

Bony smiled, and Mr Pickwick lapped milk from the saucer.

After another hour withGreystone Park Bony took the tray to the house and there wrote a letter to Superintendent Bolt, saying that he was picking up one or two threads of the Blake case and asking that the Editor of theJohannesburg Age be primed to counter the chance that an inquiry might reach him concerning a member of his staff, to wit Napoleon Bonaparte, now on holiday in Australia.

Having posted the letter and noted that the time was half past four, he walked on down the street with the intention of calling on Constable Simes. Simes was in the narrow front garden of the police station disbudding dahlias and, on seeing Bony approaching, he stepped to his gate, smiled in his broad and open manner, and said, “Having a look round?”

“No, I am hoping to pay a call on Dr. Fleetwood. D’youthink he would be at home now?”

“Yes, almost sure to be.”

“I wish you’d go inside and ring him and tell him that an important friend of yours is about to pay him a visit. Nothing more than that. I’ll go along. His house is just round the bend, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Only house there.” Simes regarded Bony steadily.“Any developments?”

“Nothing, so far. I’ve been reading novels all day. It’s been too hot to engage in my profession. When there are developments, I’ll tell you of them.”

Arrived at Dr Fleetwood’s house, he was conducted by a maid to the doctor’s surgery where he was met by a tall, stoop-shouldered, ascetic-looking man bordering on sixty.

“Slight, dark, blue-eyed-that’s the police description and it fits you,” he said with a mere trace of Scotch accent. “Sit down. What can I do for you? You don’t look ill.”

“Thank you, doctor. I am, in fact, remarkably well,” Bony said, accepting the invitation to be seated. “I have not come to you as a patient but as a police officer engaged upon the recent death of Mervyn Blake.”

When the doctor again spoke, the accent was more pronounced.

“Indeed! Well?”

Bony told him who he was and who and what he was pretending to be, before saying, “Inspector Snook, who had charge of the inquiry, apparently became satisfied that Blake died from natural causes. Superintendent Bolt, Snook’s superior, is not quite so satisfied, and he prevailed upon me to see what I could do to satisfy him completely that Blake died from natural causes-or-or unnatural causes. Er -I have succeeded in gaining Constable Simes’s confidence. I’d like to have yours, doctor.”

The grey eyes were steady.

“Well, go on.”

“Simes has also consented to collaborate with me,” Bony continued. “So has his sister, whose brother-in-law I am supposed to be. Inspector Snook is an efficient and somewhat ruthless policeman. I was associated with him once and he then incurred a little debt I wish to collect. Perhaps you feel the same way?”

“Perhaps I do,” and the thin lips barely moved.

Bony felt he was making no progress. Still he persisted.

“Having read all the data collected by Inspector Snook, I find that I cannot be as satisfied as he that Blake died from natural causes. My opinion is based partly on the circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body, and the evidence that led both Simes and yourself to believe that someone entered the room after Blake died and before he was found the next morning. Now, doctor, I’ll be blunt. I want your collaboration.”

The grey eyes narrowed.

“Very well, inspector, I’ll do what I can to assist you.”

“Thank you,” Bony said, making no effort to conceal the satisfaction he felt. From a pocket he took the crumpled envelope containing the powder from Mr Pickwick’s ping-pong ball. “I have here a substance that mystifies me. I want it examined and identified. I don’t want to send it to the Victorian C.I.B. Would you analyse it?”

“I’ll do my best,” assented Dr Fleetwood. “If I do not succeed, I could send it to the University foranalysis.”

Bony unscrewed the envelope and preferred it to the doctor. Fleetwood looked closely at the contents and then rolled it slightly from side to side. He sniffed at it, wetted the ball of his little finger and thus carried a grain, or flake, to his tongue. Finally he picked up a magnifying glass and used that to look upon the powder.

“Peculiar substance,” he said.“All right! I’ll do my best this evening, or as soon as possible. You have no suspicion of what it is?”

“None. I came upon it by chance, and that it has any bearing on the Blake case appears at the moment to be fantastic. It might be, let us say, chalk from the downs of England, or heather from the Highlands of Scotland. It might even be dust from the western plains of the United States. It might be-no matter. I want to know what it is.”

“Very well. I’ll see what I can do to name it. Where are you staying?”

“I am staying at Miss Pinkney’s cottage.”

Dr Fleetwood smiled for the first time. “I’ll wager that you’ve gained her confidence at least,” he said dryly.

“Yes. I like her very much. In her way she is quite a character.” Bony rose, smiled and added, “Another character I’ve met here is Mr Pickwick. I understand that Miss Pinkney gave Blake a tongue-lashing when he threw a stone at Mr Pickwick, threatened to change the position of his face to his-ah-posterior.”