“These two were on the back veranda. He was smoking a cigar, she was writing on a letter pad. You will recall that Miss Chesterfield is a journalist. She was nervously taut, understandable in a journalist on a probably good story. Good looker, but direct in speech and manner. Ellis was impatient when I asked him to tell me about himself, as though he were a personage to be questioned by no one lower than the Chief Commissioner. A surly brute.”
“Excellent, Simes, excellent,” Bony cried delightedly.
“Mrs Montrose would make a good tragedienne. She’s the type who is happiest when able to give vent to emotionalism—Mrs Blake is different. She would fight the wind instead of bending to it. That’s all, except for the two domestics.
“The cook’s name is Salter. I don’t know her personally. She came from the city. Her husband is with the Forces in Japan. Struck me as being a good type. The maid is a local girl. Name of Ethel Lacy. Parents soundly respectable. She’s a bit of a gadabout, but otherwise O.K. She was engaged by Mrs Blake for the duration of the house party, and it was not for the first time.”
“Good looking, I understand.”
“Very. Knows it, and can take care of herself. I’ve often thought that, rightly handled, she could tell us quite a lot about the Blakes and their guests.”
“We’ll keep her in mind,” Bony said, and added slowly, “It’s a lovely case, one of the most attractive ever to come to me. No gore, no blood-stained knives, no pistols and sawn-off shotguns, and, apparently, no poisons. Man dies and no one can find out what killed him. Was apparently on excellent terms with wife and guests, and also with the domestic staff. By the way, was there any other domestic—chauffeur, gardener, or such?”
“No. A local jobbing man has been employed there for a day now and then. Man by the name of Sid Walsh. Whisky soak, but harmless. You’ll probably meet him soon. Miss Pinkney asked me to tell him she wanted him for the day.”
“Sid Walsh,” repeated Bony. “I haven’t come across his name before.”
“Likely not,” Simes said. “He wasn’t working for the Blakes anywhere near 9th November.”
“H’m! Did you know that Wilcannia-Smythe is staying at the Rialto Hotel?”
“I did not.”
“I have reason to believe that he is. Could you ascertain when he booked in?”
“Yes, of course. I know the manager. Shall I ring now?”
“Please do so.”
Simes was talking to the manager when Bony, having lit another cigarette, leaned back more comfortably in his chair to study the picture of Donna Buang. Only when the telephone rattled down on its stand did he bring his gaze back to the policeman.
“Wilcannia-Smythe booked in at the Rialto Hotel on 2nd January,” Simes reported. “That was the day before yesterday. He told the manager he’d be staying for a week or ten days, and had come to Warburton to gather material for a book.”
“Probably not important to us,” Bony said. “Miss Pinkney mentioned that she happened to see him enter the place yesterday. You know, I wish I could write a novel, or paint a picture. Is your sister at home?”
Astonished, Simes said she was, and Bony then said, “I’d like to talk with her. D’you think she would mind?”
“Not a bit.”
“D’you think she would accept me as her brother-in-law?”
The astonishment in the constable’s eyes waned and there waxed gleams of humour.
“Might,” he conceded. “Will you come inside to the sitting-room?”
“Thank you, Simes, I will. I’m in the mood to gossip, and I see that it’s time for morning tea. Don’t you suggest it, though. Leave that to me.”
Chapter Eight
Mrs Farn’s Reactions
THE large picture was of a forest of giant trees, white and dead and ghostly. In all his travels about Australia Bony had never gazed upon a scene similar to that presented by the brush of Constable Simes. The trunks rose from a floor of low green suckers, rose with the smooth gleam of marble columns for two hundred feet or more, thrusting out and upward white skeleton arms in mute appeal towards a cobalt sky. Ten years previously they had died by fire.
Hearing footsteps at the door, Bony turned to meet a woman who entered the room followed by Constable Simes. She was small, plump, and immaculate in a blue house frock. Her hair was black, as were her eyes, and because her complexion was sallow and she wore no make-up, her eyes were a startlingly dominant feature. Simes introduced her as his sister.
Her face was expressionless until she smiled in accordance with Bony’s smile when he made his little bow. Then it became remarkably alive.
Bony said, lightly, “Once I prevailed upon your brother to forget for the nonce that I am an inspector, we thoroughly enjoyed a chat about people in whom we are interested. I expect he has told you I am staying with Miss Pinkney and Mr Pickwick?”
“Yes, he has,” replied Mrs Farn. “He tells me that you wish to ask me a few questions. I shall be glad to help you, if I can. Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just made it.”
Bony looked at Constable Simes and laughed. Mrs Farn also laughed, and said that her brother had no secrets from her. She went away and Bony turned to the picture, asking. “Where is that scene?”
“In the Cumberland Valley out beyond Marysville,” Simes replied. “When I was there two years ago I took a series of photographs from which I painted the picture.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t paint,” Bony murmured, engrossed by the scene of stark death. “Are there many trees like that?”
“There must be a hundred thousand in the Cumberland Valley alone,” asserted Simes. “Nineteen thirty-eight was a tragic year. A number of people, and at least a million trees, died in the fires. Please don’t forget that my sister’s husband died then.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Tell me about that door. Why was it made to open outward?”
“Well, the place was built with unseasoned timber,” Simes said. “The demand for timber for houses was, and still is, so great that seasoned timber is unprocurable. A door could not be built, and so one of the inside doors was taken and fitted to a frame made by the carpenter. After a week or two the building warped and the door could not be made to open over the thick felt laid on the floor. Because the door is of excellent quality and is intended to be returned to its original frame when a door can be bought for the writing-room, it was decided to reverse it to swing outward. That’s the explanation I received from Mrs Blake.”
“Did Blake always sleep with the window shut?”
“No, very seldom. It is thought that after Blake retired from the house, he sat in his room drinking brandy and dry ginger for some time before going to bed, and that when the first shower came he closed the window.”
“Yes, a reasonable explanation. Ah, here is Mrs Farn with the tea. Mrs Farn, you are very kind. I confess that had your brother not suggested tea I would have done so.”
Mrs Farn said, “My brother is always suggesting tea, and he couldn’t resist the temptation of suggesting it first this morning. Do you take milk and sugar?”
“Milk, thank you. Sugar, no. Not with three growing boys to support, and the eldest at the University having most expensive tastes. I gave up my sugar, but conditions are going to be excessively tough before I give up my cigarettes.’
Simes begged to be excused and took his cup and biscuits to his office, and Bony almost at once got down to his questioning.
“I assume that you know almost as much as your brother about the Blake case,” he said over his cup. “The lack of evidence and the absence of any motive for either suicide or murder creates extraordinary difficulties. To make it even harder for me, there’s the lapse of nearly two months since Mervyn Blake was found dead. However, I must make a beginning, and it seems the only way to do that is to get beneath the surface and dig up bits and pieces of the puzzle in order to prove whether Blake was murdered or not, and, if he was, who murdered him.
�
�I must begin at the beginning, and the beginning is not when Blake died but some time before he died—days, weeks, months before that night he died. Well now, your brother and I were talking about Mervyn Blake’s health. He said that he understood from you that Blake benefited by the change to Yarrabo.”
“I know nothing definite,” Mrs Farn confessed. “I recollect that he was ill for about a week. Now let me think. It was when the first strawberries came in. I was in the fruiterer’s shop buying two punnets of strawberries when Mrs Blake entered. We were at the nodding stage, you know, and I asked her how she was keeping, and she said she was very well, but that Mr Blake was in bed with a bout of his old trouble. She said, too, that he used to suffer terribly from stomach ulcers, but that since coming to Yarrabo he had been ever so much better. You don’t think—”
“Don’t you,” warned Bony. “You must not let the trend of my questions make you think I have any thoughts about the case. I am like a city policeman on his beat at night—testing doors.” Abruptly he laughed, adding, “You see, it’s the only thing I can do. I find Miss Pinkney a very charming woman. You have known her for some time, your brother informs me.”
“I knew her before she came to live here with her brother.”
“There was a tragedy, I understand?”
“Yes. She was engaged to marry a man who was killed by a tree.” Mrs Farn regarded Bony with steady eyes. “He was a fine man, a Norwegian. He had straight dark hair and eyes like yours, and they said he could fell a tree within an inch of the line he chose. The giants of the forest fell to his axe and saw, and one day a giant killed him.”
Bony nodded in sympathy, and she went on, “He was caught by the backlash on his last trip into the mountains. They were to be married and he was to take charge of a mill quite close by. Priscilla was always a happy woman, always delighted by simple things. She wasn’t particularly strong in character, but everyone overlooked that because of her joyousness in living. She was never the same again, after he was killed.”
“Yet she gets along very well by herself.”
“Oh yes. After her brother died she wanted to withdraw herself from the local world, but I stepped in then and prevented it. You see, we have much in common. My husband perished in a forest fire.”
“Indeed!” murmured Bony.
“The forests and the trees take their yearly toll,” Mrs Farn said steadily. “The pity of it is that the men who die in the forests are real men, the salt of the earth. My man was strong and a good tree faller, but Priscilla’s man was the king of the fallers.”
“Now all she has is her cat,” Bony said matter-of-factly.
“Yes, Mr Pickwick is father and mother and husband and brother to her. She became eccentric after her sweetheart was killed, but her eccentricities are without harm.”
“I find them charming,” Bony asserted. “Did you ever visit the Blakes?”
“Oh, no. I think I might have got closer to Mrs Blake,” Mrs Farn paused and pinched her lip. “I received the impression that she was a woman who wanted to be friendly with everyone and yet could not forget her husband’s importance.”
“Was he important—so very important?”
“Well, he wrote books, you know. His name was often in the papers.”
“H’m, yes, I understand that was so, though, living in Queensland, I read nothing about him to fix him in my mind as an important person. I am afraid that I am not au fait with literary people, and it does seem that now I must become familiar with them. I understand that Mervyn Blake was a critic as well as an author, and of late years had been much more a critic than author. Do you read novels?”
“Plenty. And I am very fond of poetry.”
“Ah!” Bony sighed, and yet his eyes twinkled. “I detest poetry produced after Tennyson died,” he confessed. “One of Blake’s guests was a Mr Twyford Arundal. He has been described to me as a puny little twerp. From the reports on the case compiled by the C.I.B. I gain the impression that he managed to keep himself much in the background. I wonder if you happen to know anything of him, saw him when he stayed with the Blakes, heard anything concerning him?”
“He was in love with Mrs Blake,” Mrs Farn said.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, indeed. Priscilla Pinkney used to see them walking in the garden late in the evenings,” Bony’s hostess smiled swiftly. “One of Pris’s little failings is a tremendous curiosity in her neighbours, especially the Blakes and the people staying with them. She’s not a gossip, you know. Never one to make mischief, and I do believe she never told anyone but me what she saw and heard beyond her fence.”
“I am strongly inclined to believe that, too, Mrs Farn,” Bony said earnestly. “I like your Priscilla Pinkney, and through her I am going to get right into the background of that night Mervyn Blake died. There were, you remember, six guests, Blake and his wife, and the cook and the maid. Can you tell me anything of the cook, Mrs Salter?”
“Quite a respectable woman.”
“Yes, I have been informed on that point. I mean can you tell me what your impressions are of her, assuming that you have met her?”
“I haven’t met her,” Mrs Farn said. “I have heard of her.”
“What of the maid, Ethel Lacy?”
“I know her and her parents. Hard-working girl but a little frivolous.” Mrs Farn paused to consider. “Ethel has always worked in neighbouring guest-houses and hotels. She likes to be among people. I fancy she liked working for the Blakes when they had guests. In fact, she told me that she was sorry she had to leave them.”
“Where is she now?”
“Working at the Rialto Hotel.”
“Have you ever been there?”
“To the Rialto? No.”
“Would you give me the honour of having afternoon tea there with me this afternoon?”
Mrs Farn’s eyes betrayed doubt, but Bony hastened to add, “I should like to see this Ethel Lacy—and another person, a Mr Wilcannia-Smythe. If you accompanied me, I could pretend to be an old friend. I suppose we could hire a car for the afternoon?”
“Ye—es.”
“The proposition does not appeal?”
“Oh, it’s not that,” he was assured. “You see, the suggestion takes my breath away. The Rialto is a fearfully expensive place.” Mrs Farn smiled and then laughed. “Thank you. I shall be delighted to go. I’ve always wanted to.”
“Good! I’ll call for you at—let me see—half past three?”
“Yes, that will do.”
Bony pondered, gazing at his feet
“I did think of asking Miss Pinkney to come along, too, but perhaps—no. Not this time. You might know other people there whom you could point out to me. You see, Mrs Farn, I haven’t as yet been able to get my mental teeth into this case, and I’ve got to start somewhere. I may get the start at the Rialto. I may get the start during a conversation with Miss Lacy, and I rather think that an entree through you would be of assistance. If you could claim me as a relation, now. I am not precisely unpresentable. I could be your brother-in-law on a visit from South Africa.”
Chapter Nine
Beau Bonaparte
THE Rialto Hotel is built on a lower slope of Donna Buang, and from the vantage of its magnificent terrace the visitor may look over the tree-lined river and the Valley of the Yarra to the gum-clothed Baw Baws. At Christmas and at Easter the place is full to capacity with people who prefer pocket wallets to bank accounts in which to slip extra profits, but in the first week in January it is possible to lounge on the terrace over the teacups without being overwhelmed by vulgarity.
Mrs Farn and Bony arrived in Constable Simes’s car and strolled up the white front steps to the spacious terrace fronting the entire building. There were some forty people seated at tables near the low stone balustrade, and, notwithstanding the paucity of visitors this afternoon, the scene was gay with red and white striped sunshades, the colourful frocks of the women and the almost equally colourful ensembles of the
men.
A magnificent major-domo welcomed the arrivals with a bow and broken English, and conducted them to a table, where, unnecessarily, he re-arranged the chairs. They were admiring the remarkable view when a waitress in black, relieved with white apron and cap, reached them with afternoon tea.
The waitress said, “Good afternoon, Mrs Farn.”
Half turning, Bony looked at her. She was an attractive red-head.
“Good afternoon, Ethel,” Mrs Farn said, brightly. “I was hoping you would serve us.”
“I saw you come up and so I put myself forward to serve.”
She took careful note of Mrs Farn’s escort, from his sleek black shoes to his sleek black hair, with the pin-striped grey suit in between. She gazed with calm inquiry into the clear blue eyes, and at the straight nose and the finely-moulded mouth. She was twenty-nine according to the records, and Bony thought it remarkable that she had successfully evaded marriage. He liked her voice.
“This is my brother-in-law from South Africa,” Mrs Farn said, having been coached on the trip from Yarrabo. “I wanted him to see the Rialto and the view. He’s staying at Miss Pinkney’s cottage. Have you been busy over Christmas?”
“Very. We had three hundred and sixteen for Christmas dinner,” replied Ethel Lacy. Her interest in Bony, however, did not wane, and she could not forbear to probe. “You come from South Africa, sir? What part?”
“Johannesburg,” Bony lied. “I am on the Johannesburg Age, and I’ve come to this country to visit my late brother’s wife and to gather material for a series of articles and perhaps a novel or two.”
“Oh, a writer!” Red-head was impressed. It was obvious that she wanted to linger with them, but she had noted the look of disapproval on the face of the major-domo that a member of his staff should be familiar with the patrons. With a rustle of starched clothes, she departed, and Mrs Farn began to pour the tea.
“Did I do it rightly?” she asked.
“Superbly, Mrs Farn,” he told her, smilingly. “I am sure, even thus early, that I am going to fall for her. She will be worth my broken heart, and my wife’s amusement when I tell her. Can you see Mr Wilcannia-Smythe on the terrace?”
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