Arthur Upfield: An Author Bites the Dust

Though Bony’s mind was busy with surmises as to the whys and wherefores of this visit to a dead man’s room when the dead man’s wife was absent from home, and the one domestic away at the local pictures, there was still room in it to wonder how Miss Pinkney was enduring her vigil. Through the silent night came the noise of a laden timber truck and the comparatively musical humming of a car approaching from the direction of the city.

The timber truck passed on its way up the long hill. Its noise was diminishing and that of the car increasing until abruptly the car was braked and its lights temporarily illumined the lilac-tree along Miss Pinkney’s fence, and stopped before Mrs Blake’s front gate.

Somewhere among the lilac-trees a cat began to caterwaul. Bony decided that if the excruciating cacophony was being produced by Miss Pinkney, she was indeed an excellent animal mimic. The car was being driven in through the gate, and almost immediately the lights swung right, were masked by the house, and then were reflected by trees growing behind the garage. The engine was switched off. The cat was working up to a perfectly rendered feline love-song.

Strangely enough, Wilcannia-Smythe evinced no consciousness of the caterwauling or of the arrival of someone at the house in a car. He showed no perturbation and continued with his reading of the volume he had taken from the bookcase.

Bony was compelled to divide his attention between the man inside the writing-room and the person who had arrived. The alleged cat was continuing its uproar, and then was joined by a second cat. The duet made a realistic sound record of hell, but if Wilcannia-Smythe heard it, he took no notice. The book apparently had captivatedall his mind.

A light was lit in one of the rooms off the rear veranda, the white light of a kerosene pressure lamp. The cook had probably returned with a friend, Bony thought, until he recalled that the car had come from the direction of the city and that the cook had gone to the pictures at Warburton, in the opposite direction.

The feline love song continued unabated and with extraordinary verve. A door of the house was opened, and after a period of three seconds was slammed shut. That sound brought Wilcannia-Smythe from out the pages of the book. He came swiftly to the window. He must have seen the light in the house, for now he moved rapidly and with precision.

The wad of typescript he folded and slipped into an inside pocket. The note-book went into the same pocket. The reading glasses were swiftly removed and almost jammed into their case and the case into a side pocket. He went back for the torch and switched it off one second after Bony saw a handkerchief on the desk.

Bony crept to the corner of the building and waited. He was in time to hear the door being opened. Then came the sound of the key being placed into the lock, and the door finally closed gently with the key, preventing the lock making any sound.

Bony drifted noiselessly back along the wall, passing the window, stopping only when he reached the rear corner where he went to ground and turned up the collar of his coat and screwed his eyes so that their whites could not show. In this position, he saw the black form of Wilcannia-Smythe against the sky as it moved away from the writing-room to the lawn.

Wilcannia-Smythe was engulfed by the night and Bony waited a full minute before he proceeded to walk over the lawn towards the house. He was mid-way across it when the cats ceased their imitation of a torture chamber. He was at that side of the house nearest Miss Pinkney’s fence when the car engine broke into its murmur of power and, hurrying forward, he was in time to see it being driven into the garage.

Its lights, reflected by the far wall of the garage, faintly illumined the driveway and the front of the house, and his keen eyes searched the scene for the presence of Wilcannia-Smythe and failed to discover him. Then the car lights were switched off, a door banged, a torch was switched on and he saw the figure of a woman walking to the doors, which she proceeded to close and lock.

There was no cause for doubting that she was Mrs Mervyn Blake. Had Mrs Blake returned unexpected by Mr Wilcannia-Smythe? It seemed obvious that she had.

Aided by her torch, Mrs Blake entered the house by the front door, closing and locking it after her. Cautiously Bony walked on the fine gravel of the driveway to the garage side of the house and proceeded along that side to where the light from the unmasked window laid a brilliant swathe across the path.

Mrs Blake was inside watching the lighted spirit heat a primus stove. She was hatless, but was wearing a light coat. Her description matched that given of Mrs Blake in the police summary. The spirit died, and she pumped the stove, placing on it a tin kettle. Then she left the kitchen and Bony waited.

The night was utterly quiet. He continued to wait, his eyes roving the dark garden and his ear attuned to catch the least sound indicative of the presence of Wilcannia-Smythe. He saw nothing and heard nothing. Presently steam issued from the kettle and shortly afterwards Mrs Blake appeared and made tea. She placed a cup and saucer on a tray, added a jug of milk and a basin of sugar, and departed.

Bony reasoned that if Mr Wilcannia-Smythe was a guest and was inside the house Mrs Blake would have placed two cups and saucers on her tray. A few seconds later she entered the kitchen again, this time to turn out the lamp. Bony decided to return to Miss Pinkney and allay her curiosity with a partial outline of what he had seen.

Without difficulty, he found the hole in the division fence. Once inside Miss Pinkney’s garden, he walked along the fence to the banana case. Miss Pinkney was not there. He called her name, softly, and received no reply.

The rear of the house was in darkness. On going round to the front he was astonished to see no light in any of the rooms or in the hall. He passed up the steps to the veranda, crossed it to the front door, and found it wide open. In the doorway he stood listening. He could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the dining-room, and the faint ticking of a smaller clock distant in the bowels of the dark house.

With matches, he lighted his way to his bedroom where he found his torch. With that to help him, he went from room to room calling Miss Pinkney’s name, not hesitating to enter even the bedroom she occupied. He became most uneasy. Miss Pinkney was nowhere in the house. Mr Pickwick was; Bony met him in the passage.

The Amateur Sleuth

HAVING found out the mechanism of the ship’s lamp and lit it, Bony occupied a chair on the front veranda and rolled a cigarette. Miss Pinkney’s disappearance was extremely odd, for she had promised to remain at the fence until he rejoined her.

When at the expiration of five minutes Miss Pinkney was still absent, he left his chair and took the path to the rear fence. He recalled that she had been wearing a dark-grey suit and light stockings which, he knew, would be easily distinguishable if he came across her body… It was by no means likely, but still…

On reaching the banana case, he proceeded along the fence to the gap through which he had entered the garden next door, and then onward until he came to the corner of Miss Pinkney’s garden that was roughly in alignment with the rear veranda of the Blake’s house. Beyond that corner was a vacant allotment.

The lamp was still alight in the room opening on the rear veranda, and had not the disappearance of Miss Pinkney become a matter of urgency, he would have taken a second walk round the house that evening. He returned to the banana case and as far as the opposite corner without finding any trace of his landlady.

Back again on the front veranda, he was met by Mr Pickwick. The cat wanted to be friendly, and he followed Bony from room to room when the second search was made. The grandfather clock chimed the hour of nine, and he decided that if Miss Pinkney had not returned at ten o’clock, he would call on Constable Simes.