Arthur Upfield - An Author Bites the Dust

On his way to the Police Station, Bony deliberated on having Wilcannia-Smythe “pulled in” for examination. He could be held onan information, but not for long, and if Mrs Blake did not prosecute, the fellow would have to be freed. As Wilcannia-Smythe could not be made to talk, it would be better to leave him in cold storage a little longer.

The sun was dipping behind a distant mountain, and the evening train for the city had left Yarrabo, when he reached the police station and called in through the open front door of the house. Simes came along the passage, inviting him to enter and saying that his sister must be at the store, and would certainly soon be back. He conducted Bony into the dining-room, offered him an easy chair beside the open window, and told him that as the kettle was boiling he would have a cup of tea ready “in two ups”. He had not recalled the title of the book, and expressed the hope that his sister would do so.

Bony could not but like Constable Simes.

When Simes returned with the tea, Bony asked, “Did you know Captain Pinkney very well?”

“Oh yes. He was a peppery man and, I’ll bet, a nark at sea,” replied Simes. “After he went to bed I used often to run over there and sit with him. Sometimes his language would be so bad that if he had used it on the street I’d have run him in.”

“He used to play ping-pong a great deal, according to Miss Pinkney,” Bony stated.

“Yes, and a heck of a good player, too.”

“I am going to tell you something else of interest. After her brother became an invalid, Miss Pinkney gave their ping-pong table to the vicar. There was then only one ball of the last batch obtained by the captain from a French firm. Miss Pinkney assures me that the ball found by Mr Pickwick was not that last ball, which could not be found when the table was given to the vicar. Further, she said that her brother always marked the balls he bought with a small ink-spot. There was no ink-spot on the ball Mr Pickwick played with, and so we can assume that that ball was not the last one of the captain’s store. Assume it, I say, because, Simes, the ink mark could have been washed off, or sucked or licked off by the cat, in the course of weeks, if not days.”

“Ye-es,” Simes agreed, wonderment in his eyes.

“Miss Pinkney had, at the time Blake died, access to his garden,” Bony went on. “She hated Blake for throwing stones at her Mr Pickwick.”

“I’m not sure of your drift,” Simes said.

“Captain Pinkney sailed his ship into all the little-known ports of the world, according to his sister, who often sailed with him. When he retired he had a collection of all kinds of curios and odds and ends, and after he died, she dispatched most of it to a city auctioneer. One of the items he had collected could have been a set of ping-pong balls containing that sinister powder.”

“But why put the stuff into ping-pong balls, in the first place?”

“To get it past the customs.”

“You don’t think that Miss-”

“I think nothing about it-yet,” Bony said, so seriously that Simes almost believed him. “I have outlined what is a little lesson in deduction. There is the motive. There is access to the scene of the crime. There is the poison-if that powder is a poison-on Miss Pinkney’s premises. And there was the chance to put the powder into Blake’s brandy, and the chance, after he died, to replace the bottle and glass with another bottle and glass.”

“But could Miss Pinkney replace the glass with a similar one?” asked Simes.

“That small point reduces probability to possibility,” Bony conceded smilingly. “Having access to the next-door garden, she could previously have burgled Blake’s writing-room for a glass, and Blake might not have noticed the loss, and would not have cared twopence if he had. Remember, we think that the bottle and glass were changed because the person who changed them thought of fingerprints after the poison had been put into the bottle. It would not have mattered so very much if the bottle containing the powder had contained the prints of Mrs Montrose, Mrs Blake, Ethel Lacy, or any one of the guests. But if Miss Pinkney’s prints had been found on a bottle in Blake’s writing-room-what then?”

“Ah! But it’s impossible! Why, Miss Pinkney would never have done such a thing. No-by heck, Bony, you’d make a man believe anything.”

“Please don’t mention what I’ve said to Mrs Farn,” Bony pleaded. “I could shoot holes through it as big as the Melbourne Cricket Ground. To be a successful investigator, one must be as cautious as a pawnbroker being offered the Crown Jewels as security. I think this is your sister.”

“Hullo!” Mrs Farn exclaimed. “Having a little tea party all on your own?”

“And thoroughly enjoying it,” Bony asserted.

“Say, sis,” cut in Simes, “d’youremember that yarn we read some time ago in which the hero poisoned his wife’s lover with coffin dust?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Do you remember what book it’s in?”

“Yes. It’s on the shelf behind you. That blue one next to the gardening book. See it? The Vengeance of Master Atherton, by I. R. Watts.”

[NOTE-Theauthority for “Coffin Dust” as a poison is taken from Taylor’sPrinciples and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence.]

RIne I. R. Watts

THE following morning, at half past ten, Bony rang Nancy Chesterfield from a public telephone in Flinders Street. It was a hot and sultry day, and inside the box the heat was unbearable.

“Good morning, Nan,” he said, in greeting. “Can you come out for morning tea with me?”

“I could, but I won’t, Bony,” she replied. “It’s far too hot and my office is ever so much cooler.”

“Then could I call on you? It would not be time wasting.”

“By all means. I’ll order a second cup of tea and biscuits,” she said. “Honestly though. I couldn’t possibly get away this morning. I’ve got a big news story to deal with. But if you will come up to me, I can spare you half an hour.”

Five minutes later he was seated beside her desk, and thanking a young lady who had poured tea for them.

When the girl had gone, he said briskly, “I am not going to detain you very long. This is a busy day for me, too,” and she sensed the earnestness beneath the smile he gave her. “I’m getting warm. Metaphorically, of course. In temperature, I have long since passed the ‘getting’ stage. This tea is delicious. What a train journey, to be sure! Cast your mind back to your visit to theBlakes when Dr Dario Chaparral was staying there. Ready?”

Nancy Chesterfield laughed delightedly.

“What a volcano you can be,” she said, mockingly. “D’youknowthat when we lunched the other day, you didn’t tell me what you thought of Janet Blake and Ella Montrose?”

“And forgot to thank you for the introduction you posted to me,” he hastily supplemented. “I thank you now-for being a downright good sportswoman. I found both the ladies very charming. How did you know I called on Mrs Blake?”

“Ella wrote from Melbourne that same night. She said, inter alia, that she could not approve of the company you keep at Yarrabo.”

“She need not be further concerned. The company is deadThey are conducting a post mortem on the body this morning.”

“Oh!” The exclamation came slowly, and the grey eyes contracted.

“Died the night before last. Alcoholic poisoning. Well now, about this Dr Chaparral. Will you go back in mind to that evening, or evenings, when you dined with him at theBlakes ’ table?”

“Very well.”

“You will remember that he told many stories which were so interesting to Ella Montrose that she noted them on slips of paper.”