Arthur Upfield - An Author Bites the Dust

“Of course. And I hope you will want to soon and often.”

Report on Powder

BEFORE leaving for Yarrabo by the afternoon train, Bony purchased writing materials and, in the G.P.O., wrote a letter to I. R. Watts, asking for the favour of an interview. Since lunching with Nancy Chesterfield, his desire to interview Watts for a check-up on Bagshott’s statements had increased because of his own liking for the man’s books. Bony felt that I. R. Watts would be able to give him an accurate and impartial opinion of the Blake-Smythes.

When he alighted from the train at Yarrabo, he was for the second time accosted by Constable Simes’s little girl, who told him that her father would like him to call at the police station.

“It looks as though it’s not possible for you to go to town without something happening,” Simes said. “A couple of hours ago, old Sid Walsh was found dead in his hut. Died some time during the night, according to Dr Fleetwood. The doctor rang up this morning asking for you, so that that can have nothing to do with Walsh’s death.”

“Where is the body?”

“Still in the old hut. Walsh lived on a half-acre block up the hill behind the church.”

“Did Fleetwood say what he died of?” asked Bony.

“Alcoholic poisoning.”

“Oh! Relatives taken charge?”

“Walsh hadn’t any relations-as far as we know.”

“I’ll go and have a look at him. You come, too.”

“All right! What about the doctor?”

“Ring him. If he’s disengaged, ask him to come along to Walsh’s hut. He and I may as well discuss there the matter he wishes to see me about.”

Simes regarded Bony with thoughtful eyes, and then turned to the telephone on his desk. The doctor said he would join them at Walsh’s hut. The constable and the inspector left the police station and walked up the road.

“You don’t think there’s anything underneath this death, do you?” asked Simes.

“N-no, nothing concrete.”

They walked a hundred yards in silence before Simes again put a question.

“You are not quite sure it’s natural causes, eh?”

“As an ordinary layman, Simes, I should have no opinion,” Bony replied. “Being a layman, and having conversed, and even boozed, with Walsh, I must think that the doctor’s diagnosis is correct. However, through the chances of birth, there is another facet to my mental make-up-or should I say spiritual make-up? That other facet could be called intuition, and intuition causes me to think that Sid Walsh did not die from alcoholic poisoning. Stupid of me, isn’t it?”

Having passed the church they came to an unmade road, overgrown with grass and bracken, and Simes and Bony took the path that curved to and fro along this unmade road. The path was of native earth, and the surface was only now beginning to dust after the rain of two nights before.

As they stepped on to the path Bony paused for a moment, then stepped off it again and proceeded along its grassy edge. Simes copied him, and thus they went on, flanking the church property on their left and a private house and grounds on their right. Well beyond the church they came to a fenced half-acre of land on which was built a small hut. A branch path led to a rickety gate.

The gate was open. Once more Bony paused to examine the bare earth about the gateway before entering and continuing along the path to the hut.

It was a two-roomed structure in fair condition. About it the dead man had planted flowers and shrubs. They passed round to the back and found the open space that served as a back yard, clean and swept. In spite of his love for “guts-shudderers” and “drainers”, Sid Walsh had taken pride in his bachelor quarters.

“He had a dog,” Simes said. “I let a neighbour take it away.”

“A neighbour!”Bony echoed, looking about the landscape.

“Yes. A quarter of a mile away beyond those trees. Did you see any suspicious tracks?”

“How could I?”Bony demanded, brows knit. “Since Walsh came home last evening from a session at the hotel with me, you have tramped up and down that path, the doctor has done so, and at least two other persons have also done so. Still-I don’t know what you Victorian Police would do without me. Do you remember those two sets of tracks left by the men who abducted Wilcannia-Smythe?”

“Yes.”

“One of those men came here last night-and after Walsh got home. The one who is slightly pigeon-toed and has a corn on the fore-part of his foot. I could not see enough of any one of the tracks he left on the path from the highway to the gate to enable me to be sure about him. But his tracks are on the path from the gate to this back door. In fact, you are standing beside a clear specimen imprint of his right boot.”

Simes stiffened before bending to gaze at the ground. After a few seconds, during which his attitude did not change, Bony also stooped and pointed out the track.

“Size sevenboot or shoe,” said the constable. “But-but how the devild’you know he’s got a corn on his right foot, and that the corn is on the front part of it? That’s what gets me. Yes, that’s the track of one of the men who tied up Smythe. Yes, that’s the track all right-now that you’ve pointed it out.” He straightened and said, “It connects the Smythe hold-up with Walsh’s death, doesn’t it?”

“It wouldseem to, Simes,” Bony said reprovingly. “You have not, of course, come across the tracks of the abductors’ car, or either of the men’s tracks anywhere in the township?”

“No! Oh, no.”

“The footpaths are excellent registers of pedestrians. Those two men and the car must have come from beyond the limits of the township, at the very shortest. We might see the car’s tracks again at the junction of the path with the highway. We’ll have a look round here presently. It’s singular that I’ve detected the tracks of only one of those two men.”

“You’re telling me,” Simes agreed. “Here comes the doctor.”

“Crime and criminals provide an absorbing study, Simes. You see, crime works out, broadly, along the same pattern. I am reminded of whatCreon wrote-‘Man’s crimes are his worst enemies, following, like shadows, till they drive his steps into the pit he dug’. The steps part of it interests me more than the shadows. Ah! Afternoon, doctor!”

“Good afternoon, Inspector Bonaparte. Why did you want me here?”

“Merely to get you out into the fresh air,” Bony replied, smilingly. “Actually, of course, because I think it possible that Walsh’s death may be connected with the Blake case. Has the body been moved since it was discovered?”

“Yes,” Simes replied. “Walsh was lying on the floor of the living-room.”

“Let us enter.”

The doctor frowned at Bony, saying, “You don’t suspect foul play, do you?”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s fantastic-if it is foul play.”

They entered, and Simes produced a stick of chalk from his pocket and drew on the bare boards of the floor the outline of a human figure.

“That’s about where helay, doctor, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes. About there,” Fleetwood agreed. “There, you see, is where he was slightly sick. He drank two bottles of whisky.”

“Two bottles, eh? Where?” asked Bony.

“In the bedroom. Let’s go in there.”

The sinister figure on the old bed was covered with a blanket. Beside the window was a small deal table. Upon it stood a hurricane lamp, boxes of matches, several cheap reprints of racing stories, a glass and two whisky bottles, a corkscrew and a bottle opener. One of the bottles was empty. About a noggin of spirit remained in the other.

“Have these bottles been touched by either of you, or by anyone else in your presence?” asked Bony.