Arthur Upfield - An Author Bites the Dust

“May I use your telephone?”

“No, I regret I must refuse your request. You see, my superiors thought fit to issue a regulation that our office telephones must not be used for private calls. On the ground of economy, you know. They often have a fit of that kind. What did you say you were doing in Mervyn Blake’s writing-room on the night of 3rd January? Mrs Blake did not arrive home until about ten o’clock, remember. Without meeting her, you slipped over Miss Pinkney’s fence, and then walked down the road to your hotel.”

“All that, Inspector, is an untruth.”

“On leaving Mervyn Blake’s writing-room, Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, you forgot to pick up your handkerchief. Mrs Blake subsequently found it and, the next afternoon on the Rialtoterrace, she gave it back to you-as proof that you entered her husband’s writing-room.”

“The handkerchief Mrs Blake gave me at the Rialto was one I left behind at her house when spending a week with them.”

“That conflicts with Mrs Blake’s story.”

“I am not aware of the story alleged to have been told by Mrs Blake. I say that the handkerchief she gave me at the Rialto was one which I left behind at her house.”

“Miss Pinkney-” Bony craftily began when his victim cut him off.

“Miss Pinkney is a half-witted, gossiping old bitch,” Wilcannia-Smythe stated matter-of-factly, and without emotion. “I’m astonished that you should take the slightest notice of what she has been saying. She’s the most dangerous woman in Australia. TheBlakes were always complaining about her.”

“I was about to say,” Bony murmured, “that Miss Pinkney has a very remarkable cat to whom she has given the name of Mr Pickwick.”

No additional statement was added to that one. Bony regarded Wilcannia-Smythe with guileless eyes, picked up another cigarette, and would have lit it had not a constable entered with two trays. The stenographer took them from him, placed the larger before Bony, and carried the other to his table.

An appetizing odour arose from the covered dish. Bony poured himself a cup of tea. It was then that he lit the cigarette. Wilcannia-Smythe rose once more and walked to the door.

The door was locked, and he turned to say, “I am not conversant with the law, but I do know that you haven’t any right or any justification for keeping me here against my will.”

“Hawkins! Did you lock that door?”

“No, sir.”

“Seewhat’s the matter with the lock. Mr Wilcannia-Smythe! As you say, I cannot detain you here against your will. I can, however, have you arrested and charged with entering and stealing.”

“With entering and stealing!” repeated Wilcannia-Smythe. “Entering where and stealing what?”

“I will leave that to your intelligence,” Bony said and, lifting the cover, helpedhimself to a hot sausage roll. The stenographer, observing the action, left the door wide open and returned to his table where he made a few swift notes and then proceeded with his supper.

Wilcannia-Smythe advanced from the door. Behind him the door closed with a faint click, and he swung round quickly to look at it. Bony lifted his foot from the mechanism beneath the desk, and went on eating his roll, although he was far from being hungry. Wilcannia-Smythe advanced again, to sit down in the chair he had vacated. There were several tiny glass-like beads adhering to his noble forehead. Munching his roll, Bony asked, “Did you ever hear the story about coffin dust?”

Concerning Cabbages

“COFFIN dust!”

In the quiet of the room the words sounded like ivy leaves coldly caressing the door of a vault. Wilcannia-Smythe sat utterly still, his eyes seemingly frozen into immobility. Through bloodless lips he said, “No. I have not heard such a story.”

“Have you read any of I. R. Watts’s novels?”

“You mean I. R. Watts’s romantic tales? No, I have not read them.”

“You should, Mr Wilcannia-Smythe,” Bony said pleasantly. “I commend hisThe Vengeance of Master Atherton. Sound story, well constructed. In that novel the author relates how a man poisoned his wife’s lover with the dust he gathered from a coffin long occupied. You have met Mr Watts?”

“I have not.” Wilcannia-Smythe had returned to animation. As though talking to a child, he implored, “Please tell me what all this about coffin dust and Watts’s alleged novels have to do with me. Are you mad, or am I?”

“We will leave the coffin dust for the present,” Bony said, sipping his tea. “Do you know where I. R. Watts lives?”

“I do not, Inspector. As one who has devoted his life to Australian literature, I would not know anything of any writer producing less.”

“Was it literature that interested you in Mervyn Blake’s writing-room that evening when Mrs Blake was away until a late hour, and her cook had gone to the pictures?”

For a moment the hazel eyes widened, but the mouth became firm. The man was the victim of vanity, and to break a way into the real spirit Bonymust needs use sharp implements.

“The fact, Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, that you are an eminent litterateur who would naturally shrink from reading a Charles Dickens serial story, becomes quite insignificant when placed beside the fact that I am a detective-inspector. You are interested in what is loosely termed by people of your description, literature. I am interested in crime. Kings and statesmen, ministers of religion, tradesmen and barons of commerce, wharf labourers, and, Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, authors, have been known to commit serious crimes. You don’t interest me as an author; you do interest me as a possible criminal.”

“You are an insulting cad,” whispered Mr Wilcannia-Smythe.

“On the night of 3rd January you were on enclosed premises, Mr Wilcannia-Smythe,” went on the calmly inexorable Bony. “Further, you were seen to put in your pocket certain documents that you found in the writing-room of the late Mr Mervyn Blake. When you left the writing-room, you were observed to escape over a near fence into property owned by a Miss Pinkney. And you made your escape after Mrs Blake arrived at her home in her car. I think that the lurid weekly journals, as you call them, will not have the slightest consideration for an author, even so eminent an author as yourself.”

Wilcannia-Smythe did not relax. He remained silent. Bony tried again.

“It is possible, Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, that you have a very good answer to the charge of being on enclosed premises and of having removed documents from the writing-room owned by the late Mr Mervyn Blake. But assuming-and the assumption is possibly not so far-fetched as one might think-assuming that Mr Mervyn Blake was foully murdered, your subsequent actions in his writing-room would have a peculiar significance to a jury.

“I don’t want to detain you, Mr Wilcannia-Smythe, because I am after much bigger game,” Bony went on. “I am inclined to think that your actions were not particularly serious. Actually, I am not greatly concerned in you, but I am concerned by the contents of the documents you removed from the writing-room, and which subsequently were removed from your baggage at the Rialto Hotel.”

The tip of Wilcannia-Smythe’s tongue passed to and fro between his lips. He brought his gaze to rest upon the clear blue eyes now revealed to him by the electric light overhead. He changed the position of his slim body. When he spoke his voice was low and as controlled as formerly.

“I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “When you put forward the assumption that Mervyn Blake was murdered, I think your assumption may be one day proved fact. I’ve always thought that Blake might have been murdered, though I’ve had absolutely nothing on which to base the belief.